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Living Hope Fellowship Church .... Sermons From the Pastor

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

I’M GONNA SING

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I’M GONNA SING

Preface

(obedience, faith, singing)

God may tell you to do the ridiculous, but His command is not impossible, because it is not you on your own. God tells us to just obey Him, stand still, and He will do it. When God’s people go and do the thing - when and how He tells them to do it - He will deliver. Nothing is impossible to that people.

They sang a hymn at the Last Supper. Was that a good time to be singing? Jesus was going to go to Calvary, and He was going to suffer horrendously. Jesus knew what was going to happen. What did He do about it? HE SANG!

Why shouldn’t I sing? God is my father. Jesus is my elder brother. Angels minister to me now. The devil is under my feet. God has given me good and precious promises. It doesn’t matter if I can’t sing well. He said to make a joyful noise to God!

I’M GONNA SING

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

God is looking for integrity in His body of believers. He is looking for people who will pray, believe God, and go on for God. No matter what Job went through, he retained his integrity. The most important thing we can do is obey God. Obeying the Lord is paramount!

The Word of God is TRUTH. It is the anchor to our soul and the foundation for what we believe. Without it nothing would exist or remain in existence. Hebrews 1:3 says, “. . . and upholding all things by the word of his power. . . .”

You can be right according to the Word, but be out of sync with God’s timing. The Bible says there is a time to speak, and there is a time to be silent. You need to know God’s timing. If you speak according to the Word you do right IF it is in God’s timing. If you are silent according to the Word you do right IF it is in God’s timing.

Our God is a spontaneous God. We can’t get into methodology. If God has us do something and we get great victory, we can’t decide to just keep doing that thing! You will find when marriages start to go really dull and cold, it is because they have lost spontaneity. The outward appearance of spontaneous can appear as impulsive, but that is the worldly way.

God has called you to be instant in season and out of season (see 2 Timothy 4:2). You need to be ready to go and to move with God whether it is convenient or not, whether you feel like it or not, and whether anybody else is doing it or not. That is being spontaneous. You are ready to go right then. When the Lord speaks to you, you go.

God can get impulsive people under the control of the Holy Ghost and make them a spontaneous people. He can generally use them more quickly than people who question Him, dissect it, and split doctrinal hairs over it. When they decide to move, the opportunity is long past or has been given to somebody else.

King Jehoshaphat was spontaneous as the Spirit of the Lord directed him. It was not regular methodology, but something that the Lord had him to do, and it can be applied today.

2 Chronicles 20:1-4 says, “It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazontamar, which is Engedi. And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.”

2 Chronicles 20:15-17 says, “And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's. To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the LORD will be with you.”

2 Chronicles 20:20-21 says, “And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the LORD, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever.

2 Chronicles 20:22-24 says, “And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.”

2 Chronicles 20:25-26 says, “And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah; for there they blessed the LORD: therefore the name of the same place was called, The valley of Berachah, unto this day.”

2 Chronicles 20:27-28 says, “Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the LORD had made them to rejoice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of the LORD.”

2 Chronicles 20:29-30 says, “And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that the LORD fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round about.”

Jehoshaphat appointed singers to go out before the army, and they were to say, “Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever.” Jehoshaphat was a godly king over Judah. He put away the idols of Baal, and he put sodomites out of the land. He cleansed the house of the Lord and strengthened himself in God. Therefore the Lord was with him. He was likened to David in devotion, love, and obedience to God

One day news came to him that an army was forming to destroy Judah and Israel and to take over Jerusalem. Jehoshaphat knew there was no way he could defeat this army. Several kingdoms came together, and they figured if they came collectively and ganged up on them, they could whip them.

Maybe one devil can’t whip you, but if enough of them get together, they think they can cave you in. In his fear Jehoshaphat did not leave the Lord as is common practice. He turned to a greater fear, the fear of the Lord. He proclaimed a fast among all the people, no matter how politically correct it was, or how many would accept or reject it. I can imagine the howlings in the news media if our president proclaimed a fast for this nation - one meal, let alone a period of days. Who does he think he is? Oh yeah, I will acknowledge it, but I will hide in my house, and I will eat like I please.

That fast was the backbone of the miracle that they received. It was obedience unto God as they sought the Lord. You need to read the whole chapter. The people were fasting and praying and the Spirit of the Lord came upon a Levite in the congregation. He stood up and prophesied. He said they needed to believe God, and He would fight the battle for them.

God didn’t do away with us fighting, but this was a case where the people had to be spontaneous to the Spirit of God when He spoke to them. At the Red Sea, God told Moses to stretch forth his rod and the sea parted. At the battle of Jericho they marched around without saying a word for days. The last day they marched around seven times and then they shouted, and the wall fell. The Lord had them do strange things.

The disciples asked the Lord how they were going to feed the multitude. Jesus had them all sit down, and then He blessed the food. Matthew 14:19 says, “And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.” God does things like that sometimes to see if we are going to be spontaneous and act on the ridiculous.

We think we can build a house, but Psalm 127:1 says, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it. . . .” When you do something on your own, you are on your own! You say God gave you liberty to do something, but be sure God is with you, or it won’t work.

God may have you to do the ridiculous by His command. It may seem foolish or impossible to you, but His command is not impossible, because it is not you on your own. God tells us to just obey Him, stand still, and He will do it. Hallelujah.

Some people say God tells them to do things. Yes, but God still has to be the one to do it. Get in the position of obedience to the Lord, and God can use you. Be spontaneous and able to act on a moment’s notice. God can speak to you, and He will start out with something small to see how you will do.

Luke 16:10 says, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” If you are faithful in the least, God will give you something mighty to do. He may tell you to go over and lay hands on someone and deliver them. He may tell you to cast the devil out of somebody. He may tell you to go over to a dead person, because He wants to raise them up right then. That is what he did with Jesus, and that is what He wants to do with you and me.

Our tests and our training is in obedience at home and in the small things. That still small voice will deal with you. He may tell you to pass the salt. If you can’t listen to that, you won’t hear Him when He tells you to raise the dead.

There are times when God says, “NO.” Sometimes He says, “No, not now.” Have you ever told your children that, and they just don’t get it? They wonder if something is wrong with their hearing! What part of NO do we not understand? It is not a complex word.

When Nehemiah was rebuilding the temple, Sanballat, who was full of the devil, and others came against him. They were from the land of Ono. That was the name of it. I believe Ono is worse than No. Someone can tell you NO, but others may say, OH, NO, and that is stronger.

Some people live in ONO. If God tells them to do something, they will say, Oh, no. That can’t be God, because I don’t want to do that. God will only tell me something that I want to do. Many times God will tell you to do something that you don’t want to do, on purpose. We think we are just really serving Him, and God shakes His head. He says, “Will you do this?” and we say, What? You talking to me? Oh, NO. It is either amen or oh, no!

Jehoshaphat was told something in prophecy from the Lord in front of thousands of witnesses that day. The Lord showed him what to do, so Jehoshaphat consulted with the singers, and they went out before the army.

Can you see this happening with our army? Our soldiers use the highest technology available, but just imagine that in front of them marches a little bunch of Pentecostal holy rollers shouting, Hallelujah! They don’t even need to load their weapons that day, because God destroys the enemy, including the terrorists. What came against Jehoshaphat was nothing less than a terrorist onslaught. Psalm 91:5 tells us, “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;”

The nations that came against Jehoshaphat boasted how they had already rolled over several other nations. They asked what God would deliver Israel! They said the gods of the other nations couldn’t stop them and Israel’s God couldn’t either. They were wrong.

God wants a people who will believe Him and obey Him when He speaks. When they go and do the thing - when and how He tells them to do it - He will deliver. Nothing is impossible to that people.

Can’t you just see the singers in the front and the soldiers in the back marching? Not everybody has the nerve to sing in the face of the devil. Can you imagine someone poking another in the rib and saying, I heard the prophecy, but he was only a Levite, and he could have been wrong. If he is wrong, we are going to have widows in our homes today. There are always those people in the ranks.

The devil was coming against them, and Jerusalem and Israel were about to get destroyed. Jehoshaphat was scared, but he went to God. Since God said He was going to take care of it, Jehoshaphat was just going to sing, and praise the Lord, and thank God. His prayers had been heard, and God was fixing to do something. There is a time when the praying is over and the believing is done, and God says it is finished. We need to get a hold of this. You need to start praising the Lord for the answer.

I can imagine the enemy advancing with raised eyebrows! They come down the side of the mountain and set the battle in array in the valley. Then Jehoshaphat’s people started singing. The enemy might have looked at one another and said, What is this mess? They have lost their minds! We have scared them stupid. That’s it. This ought to be a piece of cake! However, they did not realize what they were running into. When God’s people begin to shout and praise the Lord, the Spirit of God moves.

Sometimes there is a handful who will shout and praise the Lord no matter what. When others are cursing and swearing and backsliding, I’m going to sing. When someone tells me to just curse God and die, I am going to sing, and praise the Lord, for His mercy endureth forever!

Some say, My finances are shot, my kids are unsaved, and they are meaner than a hurt gorilla. I am having all kinds of problems. I hate myself some days. I can’t pray like I ought to. I don’t look like I ought to. I messed up. My witness stinks, even to me. Oh, God, set me free from my troubles in the name of Jesus. . . . God says, Why don’t you sing, and they say, WHAT….?

That is one thing you can do right. Anybody can praise the Lord. God wants us to believe Him no matter what. You are a child of the King. God says He will have a people who were no people before. Now they are going to be sons and daughters of Almighty God. If they praise Him, He will inhabit their praises, and He will be their God, and they shall be His people.

A singer is made to sing and to praise. What happened when Moses parted the Red sea, and they got on the other side? They began to sing! That was after the fact, but it works on either side of the trouble. Psalm 55:17 says, “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.”

Sometimes, all that is left is that you just sing. Paul and Silas were beaten because they did right, not because they did wrong. They stood the test and stood their ground. They said Jesus is Lord, and they were healing the sick, and casting out devils. It made the religious leaders mad, and they threw them in prison after they beat them. They put them fast in the stocks in the lowest prison. Stocks are pieces of wood, and they stick your feet and hands between them, and clamp them down and put a lock on it.

There they were sitting side by side on that old hard, splintery, bloody bench. The blood was running out of their backs, and the other prisoners knew they had a real beating. Can’t you just see them looking at each other and one asking, What are you going to do, and the other one saying, I am going to sing! The Bible says the prisoners heard them singing. Acts 16:25 says, “And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” A lot of people think that was no time to sing!

God will bless and anoint you if you will praise Him. The sweetest praises God ever heard is when you praise Him when there is no reason to praise Him, other than the fact that He is God. It is not because you are feeling good or that everything is going all right. Quite the contrary, everything may be going wrong. Things are down, but you say, Oh, God, I don’t know what else to do. I’ve prayed the prayer and stood the test for years. I don’t know what else to do. I think I am just going to sing. I believe the angels of God will join in with you.

In Acts, Chapter 16, Paul and Silas were singing and glorifying God in those stocks. God sent the angels and He shook those prison walls. He shook the gates and the stocks. They popped open and every prisoner in that place was free. John 8:36 says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

It is not the melody or the song. You may not sound worth two hoots in a garbage can. It is the abandon of your heart when you are not afraid what the neighbor thinks. You don’t care what the devil says. He can be two microns from your earlobe telling you that you are a fool, but you still praise the Lord and serve the Lord in joyfulness and gladness of heart. The devil will flee from you!

That is one of the most powerful ways you can submit yourself to God and resist the devil. You don’t have to know scripture to sing. Just do it.

Jehoshaphat’s singers began to praise the Lord and the angels came. 2 Chronicles 20:22 tells us, “And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments. . . .” against them and they were smitten!

God set ambushments and they killed one another. First the Ammonites and the Moabites ganged up on the Mount Seir people and killed them. It went on and on and in a few hours’ time, the Ammonites and the Moabites turned against each other. The Bible says they were all completely annihilated. Verse 23 says, “. . . every one helped to destroy another.” Verse 24 says NONE ESCAPED! The enemy was caught in his own snare. The devil caused them to devour themselves!

Proverbs 13:22 says, “. . . the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.” There will be times when God will release some things so His work can get done. Will we be spontaneous with God and obey Him?

It took one big song service and a few hours to bring the victory, and it took three days to gather the spoil! They didn’t have all that spoil before the trouble started. They wouldn’t have had it if they hadn’t gone through this. They had to follow through a series of obedience to God.

The enemy came against them. They had a lot of goods that Jehoshaphat and his people could use, because they were lacking in certain areas. After this he built garrisons and fenced cities. He got the money and the equipment from that battle. We want to get saved and not have ANY trouble. You will never have any increase if you don’t have any trouble. I am not talking about financially always. I am talking about spiritually.

You can’t grow without resistance. If you open up a hatching chick’s egg shell for him, he cannot walk, and he will die. There has to be growth, and that requires suffering at times. It requires determination, and all of it requires faith. That is what pleases God.

God says though you haven’t seen Him, yet you have believed in Him. You are more blessed than the apostles who saw Him, if you will believe. Some have preached that only the apostles could do what Jesus did, and those days have passed away. That is the devil’s doctrine; it is not of God.

If people can praise the Lord today, they can cast out devils today, and heal the sick today. They can know what the Word says, and they can be spontaneous with God, and move with God just like Jesus did.

They sang a hymn at the Last Supper. Was that a good time to be singing? Jesus was going to go to Calvary, and one of them was going to betray him. He was going to suffer horrendously. They were going to strip him naked and beat him like an animal. They were going to spit on him and jerk his beard out. Jesus knew what was going to happen. What did He do about it? HE SANG!

God shook that prison where Paul and Silas were, from the prayer and the singing. If you don’t know what else to pray, pray in the Spirit. If you have prayed in the Spirit for some time, you need to sing!

You can hear the sound of the enemy and feel the ground shaking at his coming. You didn’t know it was going to be this big, and you pray, God save me! God help me! He says that it is time to sing! Oh Lord! Either you live in Amen land or ONO land!

I am not going to hell, and that is not denial; that is a fact. How do I know? Jesus said if I would listen to Him and obey Him, and be born again and receive of His Spirit, I would make paradise my home! I’ve done that and heaven is my home.

Why shouldn’t I sing? God is my father. Why shouldn’t I sing? Jesus is my elder brother. Why shouldn’t I sing? Angels minister to me now. Why shouldn’t I sing? The devil is under my feet! Why shouldn’t I sing? God has promised me good and precious promises whereby I might be partaker of the divine nature. Why shouldn’t I sing? God is on my side, and if God be for me, who can be against me? I THINK I AM GOING TO SING! HALLELUJAH!

It doesn’t matter if you can’t sing well. He said to make a melody in your heart and to make a joyful noise to God.

Jehoshaphat and the people returned to the city with all their spoils. They had had a supernatural experience with God. They returned with great joy. God did this afterward. They didn’t start singing with joy. They started singing with fear and trepidation, but they sang because God said to sing. The Lord their God made them to be joyous.

I have had to obey the Lord to keep in His will. I didn’t like some things, but afterward the Lord God of heaven makes you joyous! It was ridiculous, but then the joy came. Sorrow may endure for a night, and it may take all night, but Psalm 30:5 says, “. . . in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Some have trouble because they haven’t listened to the Lord. God has given the remedy, but they think God is wrong. We have to obey God. Are you going to sing? What does your song sound like? I hope it is not: “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen!” or “Nobody loves me. I am going to eat some worms.”

Did you know Moses made up songs as he went along? He was a song writer. Out of his heart he just began to praise the Lord, and he sang it to the Lord. Miriam picked up a tambourine and began to dance all over the Red Sea shore. Over in Revelation it says the redeemed multitude of the Lord began to sing the song of Moses. God recorded it and copyrighted it!

You may not feel good, but now is the time to sing. God is still God even if you aren’t having a good day. God did not fall off of the throne because something in your life is not going right.

The devil says God can’t help you, but the devil is a liar. We need to learn how to sing, and I am not talking about your ability, but your timing and your spontaneity with God, which you will find in direct proportion to your obedience. Then he will give you something to sing about.

We rejoice and praise God for His presence. In the midst of our troubles and difficulties which have not yet been solved, and are way overdue in our opinion, there is yet something that we can do. Perhaps we need to sing praises to God who shall answer. We are not trying to butter Him up. We are praising the Lord because He is on the throne, no matter where we are, where our nation is, or where our church is.

As we praise God, every door will be kicked open, every prisoner set free, and joy will be upon the house of the children of God, and the joy of the Lord is our strength. When people ask me what I am going to do about some things, I am going to tell them that I am going to sing! You may not feel like singing, or you may not be able to sing, but you can make a joyful noise to the Lord!

Psalm 100:1 says, “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.” Verse 2 says, “Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.” Verse 3 says, “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” Verse 4 says, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” Verse 5 says, “For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”

I think I’m gonna SING!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL 62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail

livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord. Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.