If you have spent any time at all observing God’s people, you will soon discover that many of them have a tendency to completely unravel when they are going through tough times. And one of the main reasons for this is that what a person has developed themselves in as part of their everyday lifestyle patterns, will inevitably be the determining factor of what they will begin doing and saying during the most challenging seasons of their lives. My point is, that because many Christians refuse to live the Bible habitually, they lack the necessary disciplines to get them through the midnight hours of adversity that we all have faced in our lives.
I have always been impressed with what Paul and Silas did after they were severely beaten, and then cast into the dungeon of a prison and placed in stocks. Because their response in the midnight hour of a brutal experience is our example of what we are to be doing when we face such occasions.
“23 And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: 24 Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. 25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” Acts 16:23-25 KJV
What are you doing in the midnight hour of your life? Are you praying and praising God?
When Paul and Silas began to pray and sing praises to God, their deliverance came.
“And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.” Acts 16:26 KJV
This is the type of atmosphere that the Spirit of God moves in.
In fact, you will find a pattern in the Bible of praise bringing defeat and confusion to the devil and his kingdom. The reason for this is that God inhabits the praises of His people (see Psalm 22:3). And the devil is no match for the manifested presence of God.
“1 I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High. 3 When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.” Psalm 9:1-3 KJV
When we begin to sing and to praise the Lord, He inhabits our praises and the devil flees in terror. In fact, every single thing the enemy is trying to do against you comes to nothing, if you will consistently give praise and thanksgiving to the Lord.
Again, what are you doing in the midnight hours of your life? Are you murmuring or complaining or shaking in fear? This is what many people do. And doing these negative things only traps them in the circumstances they so desperately want released from.
Your enemy’s defeat is settled when you praise the Lord until the very atmosphere you are in is saturated with the presence, anointing and power of Almighty God!
“He who brings an offering of praise and thanksgiving honors and glorifies Me; and he who orders his way aright [who prepares the way that I may show him], to him I will demonstrate the salvation of God.” Psalm 50:23 AMP
God will rescue you from everything that is coming against your life when you put on the garment of praise and honor and glorify Him. The enemy is defeated by our praise life. On the other hand, he is empowered by words of lack, sickness, defeat and fear.
Offering praise to God continually, which obviously includes those midnight hours of our lives when nothing seems to be working, is one of the most neglected keys to victory in the life of believers. And the reason for this is because God always manifests Himself in response to our praise and worship.
Anyone can succumb to discouragement and fear, but a believer who puts on the garment of praise, even in the midnight hours of their life, is a believer the enemy cannot defeat.