The Worship Warrior: Ascending In Worship, Descending in War

PRAISE FOR

THE WORSHIP WARRIOR

The Lord is downloading information, strategy, commands and provision to His people at an unprecedented rate. The Worship Warrior is a rich, poetic visual—a blueprint—of how to accomplish your destiny by making God more real than any person or circumstance so that His will be done upon earth.

Jaime Lyn Bauer

Actress and Intercessor

I respect Chuck Pierce for his passion to be on the cutting edge of what God is revealing to His Church. In The Worship Warrior, Chuck gives us a blueprint for worship that will cast the net for the harvest of the nations.

Mike Bickle

President and Director of International House of Prayer in Kansas City

I’m convinced the message of The Worship Warrior is the number one message God wants the Church to hear in this age of both extraordinary challenge and incredible opportunity. History’s greatest harvest is soon to happen, and worship will be at the heart of it.

Dr. Dick Eastman

International President of Every Home for Christ

The church struggles today to understand the vital link between worship and spiritual warfare. Some Christians want to focus all their attention on fighting demons, while others actually propose that we totally ignore our spiritual enemies and worship all the time to see victory. A balance is needed, and I believe Chuck Pierce and John Dickson have tapped into the heart of God on this strategic issue.

J. Lee Grady

Author, Journalist and Contributing Editor for Charisma Magazine

The life of King David has always impressed me. He was Israel’s most loved king and greatest warrior. However, what is most remembered is that David had a heart after God’s own heart. In other words, David was a worshiper. In The Worship Warrior, Chuck Pierce and John Dickson give us fresh insight into this marvelous relationship of worship and warfare. For the days ahead, we must learn how to ascend first in worship, receiving strength, wisdom and courage, and then descend into the battle to push back the gates of hell and establish His Kingdom.

Dutch Sheets

Founder of Dutch Sheets Ministries and Author of Intercessory Prayer

There’s nothing more dangerous, when facing a frontal assault, than to be found living a civilian lifestyle. The spiritual alertness and focus to which this book calls us is absolutely critical in this hour. The Worship Warrior will help establish you before the throne, from which vantage you will watch God avenge you of your enemies.

Bob Sorge

Author of Secrets of the Secret Place

In The Worship Warrior, the voice of King David is released to this generation through the clear prophetic teaching of Chuck Pierce and John Dickson. In this hour where spiritual battle is increasingly manifested in the natural realm, the people of God must be equipped to become steadfast, unmovable, persevering worshipers who know how to move into corporate prayer that prevails. May the Lord use this book to release David’s heart as a corporate David rises up in this chosen generation.

Robert Stearns

Founder and Executive Director of Eagles’ Wings

You hold in your hands a weapon of warfare to be wielded only by the worshipful. Chuck Pierce has uniquely combined sound scriptural teaching on worship and spiritual warfare with personal experience and the outflow of his own personal anointing as a worshipful singer and songwriter. This book will change your life—as you become a worshipful warrior!

Tommy Tenney

Author of The God Chasers

© 2002, 2010 Chuck D. Pierce and John Dickson

Published by Chosen Books

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

chosenbooks.com

Chosen Books is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Chosen edition published 2014

ISBN 978-1-4412-6860-0

Previously published by Regal Books

Ebook edition originally created 2011

Ebook corrections 10.13.2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other versions used are:

AMP—Scripture taken from THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE, Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright © 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

KJV—King James Version. Authorized King James Version.

NASB—Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

NIV—Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

NRSV—The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contents

Foreword by Dutch Sheets

Introduction: Ascend and See His Garden Filled with Glory!

1. What Does Worship Have to Do with War?

2. A New Thing

3. Going Where God Is

4. Let Us Go So that We May Worship!

5. Jesus Ascended

6. Portals of Glory

7. The Faith to Ascend

8. The Host of Heaven, Judah and the Lion

9. The Sound of Heaven

10. Clothed for War

11. Out of the Winepress and into the Harvest

Endnotes

Index

Foreword

My friend Charles Doolittle and about 20 intercessors gathered not long ago in a Studio City, California, home. Let us enter the Throne Room and receive our marching orders, Charles prayed. Let us worship God and enter into the battle. Another member of the group added, There is a fresh sound of God. Let us hear that sound!

Worship and warfare? Enter the Throne Room? A sound of God? A casual observer might have thought Charles and his fellow intercessors had uttered malapropisms. But nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the members of this group of believers, who regularly intercede for the entertainment industry in Hollywood, are worship warriors.

I too have often experienced the reality of these power twins of the Spirit. In 2000, Will Ford, Lou Engle, myself and 30 or so other intercessors carried a 200-year-old, formerly slave-owned kettle across northeast America, using it as a catalyst for intercessory worship and warfare. To us it symbolized the prayer bowls in heaven (see Rev. 8:3-5), as we filled it with prayer and praise for revival in America.

I have stood with a U.S. senator in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, mixing prayer and praise in order to break the strongholds of darkness and release the government of God over America. The exalting of the Lord in worship, mixed with the overcoming force of intercession, was thrilling to experience.

What happened in that Studio City home, on the Kettle Tour and in the U.S. Capitol is beginning to occur across the nation and around the world as we enter a pivotal time of intense spiritual warfare. Yes, intercession thrives, but prayer warriors are beginning to understand the role of worship in their warfare.

Chuck Pierce and John Dickson have written this book to introduce you to this major shift in worship that is happening in the Body of Christ today. Some of the words and concepts may not be familiar, but stick with Pierce and Dickson. You will see that this call for us to become strategic worship warriors is biblical and imperative. We must integrate it into the fabric of the Church if we want to see God’s destiny fulfilled in our individual and corporate lives.

I will leave the details for Chuck and John to explain; instead, I will use the remaining space in this foreword to give you a word of encouragement and a call to passionate worship.

There is a fresh sound of God in this day. It is filled with glory and releases passion. Our everyday lives give us ample opportunities to develop it. We do not need to be at church or in a prayer meeting. We can be soccer moms en route to practice, lawyers in between briefs or plumbers reaching for a wrench. Wherever we are and whatever we do, we can worship. We were made to honor and glorify God our creator, and we are destined to war. Do not be deterred by adverse circumstances or by mundane situations. Rather, be filled with the good things of the Lord. We are in love with Jesus, and we are extravagant, unquenchable, uncommon, unstoppable, determined and passionate worshipers.

In worship, we need to have the passion of a Charles Wesley. Matt Redman tells the story:

The year is 1744. Hymn writer Charles Wesley is in Leads, England, holding a prayer meeting in an upstairs room. Suddenly there is a creak in the floorboards, followed by a massive crack, and the whole floor collapses. All 100 people crash right through the ceiling into the room below. The place is in chaos—some are screaming, some are crying, some just sit in shock. But as the dust settles, Wesley, wounded and lying in a heap, cries out, Fear not! The Lord is with us; our lives are all safe. And then he breaks out into the doxology: Praise God, from whom all blessings flow—perhaps a bizarre choice of songs considering what has just happened! But here’s the point: While everyone else was still licking their wounds, the heart of this unstoppable worshipper was responding with unshakable praise.¹

This is the type of worshiper who will become an effective warrior.

Dutch Sheets

Founder, Dutch Sheets Ministries

Author, Intercessory Prayer

INTRODUCTION

Ascend and See His Garden

Filled with Glory!

We were made to worship God and commune with Him. In the beginning, our Creator planted a Garden on the earth in which we could worship. We were then given that Garden and delegated to rule over it. We were called to work and watch after the portion we had been given. To cultivate the Garden, we had to work. To work, we had to worship. Work and worship were one! We were asked to watch after the place He had given us. To watch over the Garden, we had to hear from the Planter of the Garden. To hear, we had to commune with Him. To commune, we had to worship Him! So worship ruled the Garden.

God’s glory filled the Garden. We worshiped and worked. Out of worship, we were to walk in a glory atmosphere—God’s glory—while we worked! Daily, we were to worship, walk, hear and work some more! We were to commune, replant and increase the boundaries we had been given. We were to worship and increase until the glory that we were experiencing pressed our boundaries to new limits. We began with one sphere of authority; but God intended mankind to worship until that sphere increased. As mankind increased and multiplied, God’s glory on the earth would increase. Through worship and work, glory was to cover the earth. The whole earth was to become the Garden of Glory.

As we worshiped, the Planter of the Garden would continually release blessings and favor! From this favor, we would plant; and just as He had created, we would also create. We were to remain simple through uncluttered communion with Him. We were to listen daily to the Planter, and our hearts would remain filled with joy. We would rejoice while we worked. As we worshiped, we had access to all the seeds of the Garden. Within the seeds was life for all mankind, for generations to come.

So we were called to worship, and from this worship and intimate contact with the Planter we would learn the warfare around one tree. We were instructed to know the Planter’s voice, to commune with Him, to obey the Planter of the Garden and remain faithful to Him. He would instruct us daily about the multiplication of the Garden. He would teach us His voice through communion and cause us to delight in His glory. He gave us full access to the Garden—the exception was only one tree! We were forbidden to touch or use the seeds from that tree to increase our planting.

There was a lot of discussion over that one tree. The Garden was buzzing with speculation. But the Planter had said not to touch it, and His voice was final, because the Garden was His.

Even though He had determined the boundaries, that fact did not stop infatuation with this one tree. There was conflict. Conflict is war. The war enticed our desire. Our desire shifted and competed with our communion. Because of the discussions, we began to question the Planter’s boundaries over this one tree.

We did not fully understand the warfare over this tree! The communication of the Garden began to get cluttered with other voices. Instead of walking in the glory realm and staying focused over the Planter’s desire, our own desire was now beginning to awaken toward something that was forbidden. The atmosphere of the Garden was changing, which invited enticement to conflict.

We were never intended to enter this warfare realm, but because we were listening to other voices, we were starting to get confused! Woman was listening and being enticed, while Man stood behind her with a silent voice. Instead of Man saying what the Planter had said, he, too, listened carefully to the voice of one of the animals, the Serpent.

Serpent appealed to a lower nature and awakened and fueled a desire to have what had been forbidden. Instead of walking away and communing with and worshiping the Planter, we talked with the Stalker Serpent in the Garden. He accused the Planter of withholding seeds from us. We agreed, and we tasted, and we saw into a realm that we were not meant to see into.

Our communion shifted. Conflict entered the atmosphere. Conflict set in motion events of shame! Instead of coming boldly before the Planter to worship, we hid. We fell, and we satisfied a lower desire within us! The satisfaction tasted sweet for just a moment until we realized that the relationship we had with the Planter was not the same. He sought us, but we wanted to find a way to keep from discussing the event of the tasting. There seemed to be conflict within and without.

From that day, warfare intensified. War invaded our atmosphere. Since that time, wars and rumors of wars have invaded the earth. But God, the Planter, had a plan for us to worship again! He had a plan for us to regain our place of communion. He had a plan to seek, find, save and form covenant with us again.

War is conflict that is initiated through lust and desire. War creates contention. One person who usurps boundaries he was not given to cultivate and watch over can allow the Serpent to rule. Do not allow your desires to cross over into a wrong boundary. Align your desires! Protect your desires and keep them fully in communion with God’s plan. A misplaced desire to control a portion that was meant for someone else can only be subdued through worship and communion.

The Planter of the Garden never removed His plan of worship. However, He would have to sacrifice His greatest love, the Inheritor of the Garden, His only Son, for worship to be sustained and His glory to come and remain in this Garden called earth.

Worship is sacrifice. He so loved the earth that He would send His only begotten Son back to His Garden to redeem the worship that had been lost. His Son would war and destroy the works of the one who stalked Man in the Garden!

That war has intensified through the ages. The Serpent has been increasing His power through manipulating desires and lusts in man for 42 generations. However, the Planter’s plan was to raise an army of worshipers through the sacrifice of His Son. His Son would submit to be hung on the tree rather than desire the tree. This sacrifice of worship would open a way for man to go boldly where man had never gone before. This sacrifice would multiply. What the Serpent succeeded in doing in the Garden would backfire against him. He had attempted to entice one man, but the One Man would form again into an army and increase and multiply as the Planter had intended the Garden to multiply. From God’s sacrifice of worship, an army of worshipers who once again desired communion with Him would arise in every bloodline that had originated from the original man.

This army would have a determination to represent the Only Son, Messiah, Yeshua, and triumph over this Serpent who had become the enemy of the Planter’s plan. This army would learn to ascend into the Planter’s glory room. They could gain full access through adhering to the life of the Only Son and embracing His Spirit in the earth. Their belief, or faith, in the Son would cause His Spirit to make them buoyant. They could ascend before the Planter, become one with His will and descend to get their feet on the Serpent’s head. This would keep the Serpent from speaking again.

Yes, the war would increase. But through worship, this army would increase at a greater exponential rate! The Son had a desire that every people group in the earth would experience the joy of a covenant House of Communion. His desire to fill the earth with His glory would be accomplished. The whole earth would become His Garden. All the land of the earth would have an ascending army that could access the Planter. These warring worshipers would not stop until the earth was the Garden and the glory of His Garden Room, heaven, would invade the atmosphere of the earth again!

This book is about those worshiping warriors (I call them Triumphant Ones), and how they ascend in worship and descend in war until all of creation is filled with the Planter’s glory. These warriors are filled with light and sound! Sound and light are one in His Garden Room where His throne exists! Once we enter His throne room, sound and light permeate us, and we bring its power of change back to the earth.

We have access to this room where the Planter is King of the Garden! By becoming buoyant through His Spirit filling us down here in the earth, we may ascend as we worship the Son He gave us. By receiving His Son, the King will adopt and nourish us to make us a partaker of His inheritance, earth. We then may enter, listen and go forth clothed as His Son, who came to destroy the works of the enemy. We are equipped by the King with weapons to do the same as His Son did, and even more! These weapons will allow us to enforce the breaking of the headship of the Serpent who has brought darkness to many areas in earth.

God’s act of worship in giving His Son has already broken the Serpent’s head. However, we must ascend by faith, through grace, listen for the Planter and Ruler of earth’s plan, then GO TO WAR to secure His Garden again! Our communion with God, the Planter of the Garden, will fill us with light that will break the power of the darkness in earth. The Serpent’s voice has breathed this power of darkness into earth’s atmosphere. Many individuals are held captive by this power because they have inhaled the atmosphere controlled by the Serpent. We will bring the glory of God into that atmosphere, overcome Satan’s headship and set free the captives that have been held in his foul environment.

Light overpowers darkness, truth alone prevails hurt

Death has no power when the enemy assails.

Through the eyes of the spirit the battle rages on

Engaged in relentless war we intercede, stand firm and strong.

Equipped for end-time battle clad in armor of the flesh

No holes or tares are seen, woven mighty metal mesh.

Arms gripped together . . . vice-locked, no space

Like a giant wall of iron we move as one to take our place.

Immovable, undefeatable, an army bold and strong

Worshiping warriors engaged in battle raise the victorious war song.

Hear the gatekeepers give a shout, vigilant watchmen on the wall

Protecting holy ground as the trumpet sounds the call.

Arise ye men of Zion, ye Samurai of the King

Lift high His royal banner for we win and victory rings.

BEV SMITH, "THE BATTLE"

1

What Does Worship Have

to Do with War?

I come to the Garden alone

While the dew is still on the roses

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own;

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,

Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,

And the melody that He gave to me

Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the Garden with Him

Though the night around me be falling,

But He bids me go; through the voice of woe

His voice to me is calling.

In 1914, C. Austin Miles wrote this famous hymn In the Garden.¹ This song became synonymous with what many of us thought the Garden in Genesis 1–2 was depicted to be. For many of us, the words, I come to the Garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses . . . and He walks with me and he talks with me . . . and he tells me I am his own helped conceptualize the Garden. That Garden, which was planted by God after the seven days of creation, seemed to be filled with flowers and waterfalls. This song, in all of its beauty, has now become the sound released at many funerals. In the Introduction, I wrote how the Planter of the Garden longed for us to walk with Him, talk with Him, watch after the Garden and multiply all the resources of the Garden. The only way we could accomplish this, the purpose of Man in the Garden, was through worship. Once the serpent spoke to us, and we listened, death entered the Garden.

Now, not only do we have to learn the beauty and respect for the Garden, but also the war therein that would attempt to stop us from experiencing communion with the Creator of us and the Garden. Notice something: the Garden and death now seem to go hand in hand! Death is an enemy that each of us must war against to the very end. Death has a sting but is unable to overcome God’s children. Because death entered into the place God created for Man to prosper, worship and war are now companions in our Garden. As you read through the pages ahead, you will see how to ascend in worship and then descend in war in the Garden you have been assigned to watch over today!

Worship and War:

Uncommon Companions!

When we hear the word worship, many of us think of singing three or four hymns in a Sunday morning church service. Some of us picture quiet times or Bible studies. A few of us visualize prayer.

The word warrior, on the other hand, easily evokes images of a person in the heat of combat. Perhaps we imagine Russell Crowe in the movie Gladiator or envision Army troops on the front lines in Afghanistan. Maybe we think of a person who battles in the loosely defined wars against social nemeses such as poverty, prejudice and injustice. Perhaps, as believers, we recall C. Peter Wagner’s call to become strategic prayer warriors.

While the words worship and war are familiar, they nonetheless produce extreme and opposing emotions—seldom do we see the two work in tandem. As servants of God, we know that we are to worship Him. We also know that we fight in a spiritual battle. But a close look at the Bible reveals much about God’s plan for worship in war.

So, exactly how do these two fit together?

The Worship Wars

Every war has a cause. Napoleon marched in quest of territory—he wanted France to rule Europe. Lenin and Stalin dominated Eastern Europe with hopes of spreading their communist dogma—they wanted to transform what people thought and how they lived. The United States attacked Iraq in Desert Storm to protect oil interests and support allies in the region—we wanted to liberate Kuwait.

These were physical wars played out on earth, but a greater war is also afoot. The battle is in the spiritual dimension, yet fought both on earth and in the heavenlies. In the natural, we cannot see or participate in this conflict of good versus evil. But God, even though He could win on His own, has chosen us as His warriors.

Lucifer’s Plot

Worship is at the center of this great spiritual war. It has always been waged over worship, fought with worship and will be won through worship.

Let me explain. Lucifer (also known as the devil or Satan) picked a fight with God. The Bible does not make clear exactly when this happened, but it certainly occurred before Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and, tempted by the promise to be like God, introduced sin to the world.

We know from Ezekiel 28:12-19 that in that time cherubs, or angels, of which Lucifer was one, had access to the holy mountain or throne room of heaven—where God is seated. Some theologians think that Lucifer actually led the angels as they worshiped the Creator. If this is true, Lucifer, whose heart was lifted up because of [his] beauty (v. 17), apparently decided that he no longer wanted to be a worshiper; instead, he wanted to be worshiped. His wisdom was corrupted because of his brightness. Full of pride, he was cast down, and he convinced many angels to join him in rebellion against God.

Thus, the worship wars were on.

Worship and the Warrior

We usually render worship in adoration toward God and associate it with good, uplifting, even ecstatic feelings. Worship is often focused upward and can embody the qualities of holiness, reverence and awe. We see ourselves as givers, and God as the recipient.

Warring, on the other hand, involves taking a stand, overcoming a threat, invading territory or conquering an enemy. In war, we often view ourselves as defenders against a dangerous force or sustainers of righteousness and truth. This is true in spiritual as well as in physical conflicts.

In the typical scenario worship has not been part of the battle plan; it has come only in the form of thanksgiving after a victory. In the physical, or earthly realm, we tend to worship the human heroes of battle and add God as an afterthought. In spiritual conquests, the Almighty gets all of the praise, but we still see warfare and worship as two separate acts.

God is calling us to bridge worship and warfare. When we read the Bible we find that God instructs us to ascend into the Throne Room in heaven, be clothed in His authority and descend in war. There is a sound of heaven that enables us to recognize, embrace and advance