I. Revelations 12: 11
A. One of three weapons for us to overcome the enemy
1. Blood of the Lamb
2. Word of OUR TESTIMONY
3. Not loving OUR lives unto death
B. A testimony is the equivalent of evidence – to affirm, support, prove
1. a means for us to rise above influences of our past
2. also to rise above our fears
3. provide hope because of what we know God can do
4. remind us what God has done and is capable of doing
5. along with not loving our lives to the death, testimony put to death the past (2 Cor 5: 17)
6. remind us that we are coming out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9)
7. MOST IMPORTANT: to declare the Goodness of God
C. Testimony is not to promote us, what we did, who we are, our ministry.
D. Testimony need not be spectacular, need not be long, need not be historically detailed
E. 1 John 1: 1 in regards to our GOD – what we heard; what we saw; what we understood/comprehended; what we physically experienced

II. Testimony can be worship
A. Psalms 105
1. verse 1 …make known His deeds among the peoples
2. verse 2 …talk about His wondrous works
3. verse 5 …remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and judgement of His mouth
B. Psalms 66: 16
1. come hear (those who fear God) — this is to believers
2. I will declare what He as done for my soul
3. testimony to encourage fellow believers who fear our God
C. Psalms 40: 1-3, 5
1. verses 1-3 …is a testimony by David: David cried out to God, knowing God would hear, so David waited: God got David out of the pit and onto solid ground and ordered David’s steps; caused David to sing a new song, a declaration of what God has done lately, to praise God
2. verse 3 …David’s intent of giving this testimony is so many will see it and fear and trust in the Lord
3. verse 5 …God’s wonderful works and thoughst to us are too many to recount every one.

III.. Even Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon thought it would be good to declare the signs and wonders (including Nebuchadnezzar receiving much deserved chastening from God) the Most High God worked in Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4: 2)
A. This entire chapter tells the prophetic dream of Nebuchadnezzar; its interpretation by Daniel of judgement on Nebuchadnezzar; and the fullfillment of this prophetic dream that resulted in Nebuchadnezzar recognizing the Most High God.
B. Nebuchadnezzar chose to give this testimony; one that did NOT promote him but humbled him to recognize and praise our God

IV. Woman at the well – John 4: 27 —
A. Woman’s encounter with Jesus moved her from religious and habitual behavior to realizing who Jesus is
B. She goes tell the men that Jesus knew what she was and did
C. She invites the men to come see this Jesus, could He be the Christ? (verse 29)
D. Many believed because of her testimony (verse 39)

V. Evidence for believers and unbelievers 1 John 1: 1-3
A. verse 1 …about the Word of Life (Jesus) what we heard, saw, comprehended/understood, and experienced in the flesh
B. verse 2 …declare the eternal life
C. verse 3 …we declare to you
1. to bring you in fellowship with us
2. our fellowship is with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ
3. in other words, the word of our testimony is to bring you into communion with our God with whom we are in communion

VI. Word of our testimony
A. for warfare to set us and others free
B. for warfare while weary
C. for warfare through worship
D. for warfare for evangelism
E. for warfare be in communion of our Father God

VII. Something Beautiful by Bill and Gloria Gaither
A.Something beautiful, something good…alll my confusion, He understood.
All I had to offer Him was brokeness and strife,
But He made something beautiful of my life.
B. If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And hope for life’s best were the hopes
That I harbor down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So I wrapped it all in the rags of life
And laid it at the cross.

I. Psalms 105: 1-5
A. These are imperative sentences
1. Commands, demands, directive
2. Unless identifed, the commands are directed at the reader/hearer – that be us
3. As we shall see, each of these are givings ways to worship and praise our GOD
B. Psalms = Praise
1. Lyrical and melodic
2. Expressions of emotions; actions of body
3. Hebrew ‘mizmor’ means with pluck of string is translated psalms
C. Beneficial commands
1. When you don’t feel like praising
2. When your environment is difficult
3. When alone and distracted
4. When emotioally or mentally distracted
5. When you want to focus on God and His presence
D. A way we can give our Father the glory for His wisdom, power, goodness, and faithfulness,

II. Dissecting the commands – since these are commands, perhaps we should look more closely at each with the intent to understand so that we can obey the command
A. OH – many ways to speak this word with feeling and emotion.
1. Speak it aloud as you would state it with the statement ‘Give thanks to the LORD’
2. Sometimes to worship, you merely need to remember how you stated the ‘Oh’
3 Give Him thanks for where you are at this moment
B. Call
1. upon His Name
2. What Name for God comes to your mind at this moment.
3. Speak out that name, calling Him by that name, trying to understand what that name means to you right now
C. Make Known to others
1. Recall something God has done and tell someone.
2. What a neat way to praise someone when you tell others what that someone has done, especially for your benefit.
D. Sing
1. to Him….not for us…not the song we want to hear but one we want Him to hear
2. Sing psalms (praises)
E. Talk
1. to other, though this works well to talk to ourselves.
2. Implication here is that this is vocal, aloud, not merely think about it
3. Talk not about what you want or what is wrong, but talk about things He has done that makes you wonder…like how he turned back the shadow on sundial for Hezekiah or met a need you didn’t even realize you had.
F. Glory – exult, feel and show jubilation
1. Get your body involved with a leap, a skip, a whoop with arm raised
2. This is in response to you knowing His identity revealed in His name
3. Imagine the lame begger healed by Jesus as he leaped giving praise to God
G. Those of you who seek the LORD, Let your hearts rejoice
1. Often we don’t realize that we must let our hearts rejoice
2. Understand we don’t let our hearts rejoice because of fear, unforgiveness in our heart, jealousy, lust and many other wickedness of heart
3. If we are seekers of the LORD, we need to learn to Let our Hearts Rejoice
H. And speaking of seekers, we need to Seek
1. Picture a young child who suddenly desires a parent.
a. Child’s heart (emotion, desire) is for parent
b. Child’s mind is focused on single task, find parent
c. Child’s body is put into motion to move to find parent
d. Child uses eyes and hears to search for parent
e. Generally, Child will try to return to last place that the Child remembers being with parent
2. To seek, we need to
a. know whom it is we seek
b. desire and focus
c. put our flesh in motion
d. use our senses to aid us
e. recall last place we were aware of God (prayer, worship, Scripture, fellowship)
3. Seek the Lord and His strength (Eph 3: 16)
4. Seek His face
a. Here face represents both His presence and His attentiveness
b. Like a child that cups your face to be sure you are looking at her
c. Evermore, implies a continued action, rather than a one time event.
I. Remember
1. This is a deliberate choice – decide to remember and then do it
2. Three things to remember
a. His Marvelous Works which He has done – for you directly or indirectly; many things recorded in the bible are marvelous indeed. You can tie this back to making it know among people (verse 1)
b. His Wonders – try to remember the things about Him or His actions that make you wonder. Talk about them aloud (even if only to yourself) verse 2
c.Judgement of His mouth – while we often think of judgements as being against us, He has much more judgements in our favor. He counts our faith in Him unto righteousness; He gives rest to those who labor and come to Him; He gives peace and abundant life. Don’t you remember?

III. Doing these commands places our worship and praise on our Father, our LORD, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Healer, our Righteousness, our Peace, our Strength, our Hope and Comfort…

IV We do this because we are the offspring of Abraham, we are the manipulative sinner whose debts were paid by Jesus before we knew Him, we are the chosen (verse 5)

V. Having done all these steps, how now would you say OH?

Am I an Offense to God?

I. Offense, in a biblical sense, is a stumbling block, an hinderance, interference, opposition, in the way.
A. Speaking in terms of believers getting in the way of God
B. Can be seen as an adversary or opposition to God’s will
C. Not talking about the heathen or unbeliever or enemy of God

II. Solomon became an offense
A. What do we think about when we think about King Solomon?
1. David’s son and choice for his throne;
2. God visited twice, and first time offered Solomon anything
3. Solomon asked and received wisdom from God
4. Author of a psalms; most of Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Song of Solomon
5. Built first Temple
6. Blessed and anointed by God
B. In Deut 17, God instructs Israel on requirements for their kings
1. Not to multiply the number of horses nor go to Egypt for horses
2. Not to multiply number of wives
3. Keep and read daily the word of God
C. Solomon failed to keep all 3 (1 King 10: 28 – 11: 10)
D. 1 Kings 11: married foreign wives from people God told Israelites to avoid; loved those wives; they turned his heart from the Lord to foreign gods
E. Got in way of God keeping the nation Israel as a single country
F. Opposed God by building temples for foreign gods
G. Contributed to shortcomings of his son, Rehoboam as king.

III. Interesting that Solomon wrote several verses of wisdom that address the very problem of being an offense to God
A. God made man righteous (upright, virtuous) but man sought out schemes, devious paths (Eccl 7: 28)
B. There is a way that seems right to a man, but it leads to death (Prov 14: 12)
C. The way of a fool is right in the fool’s eyes (Prov 12: 15)
D. Out of the heart comes the issues of life (Prov 4: 23) and with diligence, keep your heart

IV. In Matt 16, we find Peter being an offense to God
A. We learn in verses 16-19, that Peter has a revelation from the Father, receives praise from Jesus, and is blessed by Jesus.
B. Yet, when Jesus reveals God’s plan for His suffering, death, and resurrection, Peter rebukes Jesus (verses 21-22)
C. Jesus ‘s response (verses 23-28)
1. Get behind me satan (one who opposes, obstructs, interferes)
2. Not mindful of God; mindful of the things of man
3. fail to deny self (verse 24)
4. desire is to save your life/lifestyle (verse 25)

V. Many times, the words ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ are used in scriptures to refer to the inner self, the emotions or the rationale of man, i.e. soul
A. Soul (or mind of carnal man) is emnity (hostile opposition) with God (Rom 8:6-7; James 4:4)
B. Cares of the world choke the Word of God in our hearts, preventing it from being fruitful (Matt 13: 22)
C. Out of heart comes what defiles us (Mark 7: 20-23)
D. Out of our hearts springs issues of life (Prov 4: 23)
E. Our soulish response to the blessings, anointings, revelations, intimacy of God often serves to oppose or be an offense to God.

VI. So we could be an offense to God, even when (or especially after) we have had a revelation or blessing or anointing from God, if we fail to be diligent keeping our heart/mind (soul)
A. Take heed to yourself, less your heart be weighed down …cares of this life (Luke 21: 34)
B. Prov 4: 23 keep your heart with all diligence
C. Renew your mind (Rom 12: 2)
D. Set your mind on things above (Col 3: 2)
1. Be anxious for nothing (Phil 4: 6)
2. through prayer, supplications, thanksgiving commune with God
3. focus on the true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, (Phil 4: 8)
4. meditate on that part that has virute, is praiseworthy
E. understand the will of God (Eph 5: 17)