The fundamental center of all human history is the issue of worship. In the faithful worship of the true God, we contend with the worship of all idols.
Idolatrous societies structure everything around their idolatrous assumptions, and their constant ploy is to try to get true worshippers of God to share in those assumptions somehow, so that our worship of the triune God can be “located” in a safe place, and be consequently neutralized.
But we reject this. We do not fight in the material world with their tactics. Our weapons are not carnal. Neither do we run away from the material world, seeking some ethereal, Gnostic heaven. We contend for the earth by ascending into the heavenly realms in order to worship Jesus Christ. We pray, every week, for God to do His will on earth as it is done in heaven. We are about to glorify Jesus Christ in heaven, which is the will of God. We are therefore asking God to glorify the name of Jesus Christ in our communities as it has been done in heaven. This too is the will of God.
The way you sing in heaven now is the way it will be on earth. The amen you bring now will at some point be gloriously echoed here.
The idols can bring no countermeasures against this. What can they do? Bring a zoning complaint into the heavenly courts? Take away some stamped pieces of paper?
The only thing they can attempt (that has succeeded with too many believers) is distract us away from what we are doing in this worship. The only thing they can do is to distract us from the one thing they can’t do anything about. The machinery of civil government grinds away slowly, doing this and then that, sometimes in our favor and sometimes not. But every seven days, we have our appeal heard by the God of heaven, who dwells in heaven, and does as He pleases.
So remember that worship is our battering ram. Worship is our glory. Worship is unanswerable. Worship transforms us into more complete bearers of the image of Christ, which brings additional light into a very dark world. And worship is worship when offered in evangelical faith.
The only thing that challenges false worship is true worship. The only thing that false worship cannot answer is true worship. Come, then, let us worship the Lord of battles.