This is an excerpt from Dr. Ron’s book Kingdom Advancement.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. (Psalm 24:8)
The verb that opens verse seven is imperative. Lift up—it is a command. The subject of that command is the gates themselves. The one issuing the command is not petitioning God to open the gates. They are commanding the gates to open. Understanding that distinction will change the way you engage your assignment.
One mode of prayer is appropriate for petitioning God—humble, dependent, asking for His intervention. A different mode is the prophetic declaration, the legal command, the enforcement of what the King has already authorized—directed not toward God but toward the spiritual structures in your territory. Psalm 24:7 is the second mode.
Knowing when to switch from petition to command
is one of the essential skills of effective Kingdom advancement.
The gates are addressed because they carry spiritual intelligence. They are commanded because they are under authority—the authority of the King of Glory who is advancing, and the authority of the believer who carries His credentials. When you command in the name of the King of Glory, the gates must respond.
When the command goes out to lift up the gates, the guardians of those gates respond with a challenge: Who is this King of Glory? This demands a declaration. And the declaration that comes back is not primarily for the gates’ benefit—it is for yours.
You will not advance further than your revelation of the King. The boldness of your commands, the confidence of your declarations, your willingness to engage ancient doors and sustain opposition—all of it is proportional to your lived, experiential answer to the question the gates are asking. Not the theology you can articulate. The God you actually relate to day to day.
A diminished view of God produces diminished authority. A God who is vaguely sovereign, marginally present, and uncertain about outcomes produces believers who petition timidly and advance hesitantly. A full revelation of the King of Glory—strong, mighty, victorious in every battle—produces the confidence that walked Paul into Athens, put Nehemiah on the wall, and stood Elijah alone on Carmel.
The Hebrew gibbor is a word reserved for the greatest human warriors—for champions of extraordinary strength. It is applied to God as the ultimate standard: He is the One by whose strength all other strength is measured. No force, no principality, no ancient structure in the heavenly realm is the peer of El Gibbor. They are not in the same category.
When you advance in the name of this King, you are not a human envoy hoping divine reinforcements will arrive. You are the representative of the standard of strength itself. The forces you encounter in Kingdom advancement are subordinate created beings who have been permitted, through legal access granted by covenant and iniquity, to occupy territory that belongs to your King. Their presence is not a sign of His defeat. It is an invitation for your advance.
The second title adds a critical dimension: this is not theoretical power. This is demonstrated, historical, covenant power with a track record spanning all of recorded history. He defeated the Egyptian army without a single Israelite soldier lifting a weapon. He brought down Jericho with seven days of worship and a shout. He gave a teenager with a sling a victory over a champion who had paralyzed an army. He raised His Son from the dead after the enemy’s most carefully orchestrated assault.
You are not taking the King of Glory into untested situations. You are following Him into territory He has already assessed, already addressed in the Courts of Heaven, and already prepared for the advance. The path may look new to you. It is not new to Him.
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. (2 Corinthians 2:14)
Elijah stood alone against 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah—the full weight of counterfeit spiritual authority operating in Israel. By any human calculation, the odds were 850 to 1. But Elijah was not calculating by human metrics. He advanced from the revelation of El Gibbor.
When the prophets of Baal had been crying out all morning without response, Elijah did not approach the contest with anxiety. He mocked them. Perhaps your god is busy, or traveling, or sleeping. This is not arrogance—it is the relaxed confidence of a man who knows the difference between the King of Glory and a spiritual entity that has claimed territory it has no legitimate right to hold. Fire fell. The gate of Israel’s spiritual reformation was opened. The rain came after three and a half years of drought. When one person advances from a clear revelation of the King of Glory, atmospheric conditions can change.
Paul and Silas were arrested, publicly beaten without trial, and thrown into an inner prison with their feet in stocks. At midnight they prayed and sang hymns to God. That detail is not incidental—it is the theological key. Midnight prayer and worship in a Roman prison is not the behavior of men who have lost their revelation of the King of Glory. It is the behavior of men who know prison walls are less of an obstacle to the King of Glory than the walls of Jericho were.
An earthquake came. Prison doors opened. Chains fell. The jailer and his household came to faith. The next morning, Paul required the magistrates to come personally to release him—establishing a legal precedent that would protect the infant Philippian church. The King of Glory is mighty in battle—and the victories are not just personal. They are territorial.
A diminished view of God is a form of idolatry. When we construct a picture of God smaller, more uncertain, or less engaged than the God of Scripture—and relate to that picture as though it were the actual God—we worship a god of our own construction. The idol of a distant God produces believers who do not expect His direct intervention. The idol of a defeated God produces believers who cannot advance with genuine confidence.
The antidote is not more theological information. It is encounter—the face-seeking of chapter four. Mary sat at the feet of Jesus until the revelation of who He is had so permeated her that she carried prophetic understanding none of the disciples possessed. That is what transforms the functional view of God—not reading more about the King of Glory but sitting in His presence long enough that His actual nature displaces the diminished version that disappointment and bad theology have constructed.
[This activation is a meditation and declaration exercise focused on expanding your revelation of the King of Glory.]
Take thirty minutes with no other agenda than this one question: Who is this King of Glory? Not as a theological exercise—as a personal encounter.
Speak each of the following names aloud, pausing between each one to let the Spirit bring whatever revelation He chooses: El Elyon—God Most High; El Gibbor—God the Mighty Champion; Ancient of Days; I AM. Speak them slowly. Ask the Spirit:
“Show me what this name means for my advance.”
After working through the names, ask:
“Father, where have I been relating to a diminished version of You? Where has my functional view of God been smaller than the King of Glory?”
Wait quietly and write down what surfaces.
Speak this repentance:
“Father, I repent of relating to [the specific diminished view]. I renounce the idol I have constructed and replace it with the truth of who You actually are. You are the King of Glory—strong, mighty, victorious, present, engaged. I advance in the fullness of that revelation.”
Finish by building your personal testimony of the King’s victories. Write down three to five moments in your own life when the King of Glory was mighty in battle. Read them aloud as declarations:
“You were mighty in battle in [specific situation]. You are the same King today. I advance on the basis of Your track record.”
“The King I serve is the LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.”
“I will not relate to a diminished God. I advance in the full revelation of who He is.”
“Every counterfeit spiritual force in my territory must bow to the name of the King of Glory.”
“My crown carries the weight of Heaven because it belongs to the One who has never lost a battle.”
“I advance with the confidence of one who knows whose name I carry and whose territory I am advancing into.”
