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Selected Verses:
Psalm 50:23. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.
Hebrews 11:6. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
I Peter 1:3-4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.
Opening:
Were you ever lost in the woods, and you couldn’t find the way, and then somebody pointed out to you the way to get out of the woods? Well, God did that for me and He did it for you when He said, “This is the way.” And what is the way? Why, “Whosoever glorifieth Me: whosoever offereth praise.” It’s an offering, a very wonderful offering: offering praise.
God might say, “Well, you’ve got to offer something else,” like some folks do. They say, “If you’ll… if you’ll bring me twenty dollars, I’ll pray for you.” Heavens! No, (…) God doesn’t want you to come and beg Him to heal you. He’s begging you to let Him heal you! Did you know that? Oh, He comes with blazing eyes, like Abraham Lincoln when he saw slavery at its worst. He went through the southern states, and he saw one poor slave being whipped bloody. He said, “If I ever get a chance to hit that thing, I’ll hit it hard.” And that’s what Jesus Christ said: “If I ever get a chance to hit that work of the devil, I’ll hit it hard.” And He did hit it hard when He said, “It is finished.” It was finished! And those outstretched arms of Jesus are the invitation to all that are oppressed of the devil to come to Him, to drink His blood, to partake of the victory of Calvary.
You cannot add anything to it, but you can accept it. And the only way you can accept it is by faith, and that’s where we often fail. “Without faith…” We bring to God all kinds of offerings, all kinds of things, and God doesn’t want it.
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Selected Quotes:
He has “begotten us unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” And what is that inheritance? Why, it’s the Holy Ghost. It’s the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. And if you give Him a chance, He’ll come and fill this body of yours—praise God!—not with a barrel full of vitamins and aspirin tablets, but with resurrection life, and resurrection power, thank God! Oh, what a wonderful Savior! And Jesus Christ said, “This is the way: when you accept it without trying to pay for it.” “Whosoever offereth praise…” And that’s what makes praise so effective, and so absolutely essential.
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Unbelief is the devil’s court jester. Unbelief puts the devil on the throne. That’s what he’s always looking for. That’s how he dragged all of humanity down into the pit of destruction, when he said, “Do you think God said that? … You haven’t been to school. You ought to learn Greek and Hebrew, and then you’d understand the Bible. You can’t just take the Bible the way it’s written.” Did you ever hear anybody say that to you? They come around with these newfangled interpretations. Listen, I can’t stomach the stuff.
Give me the old King James Version, the old Martin Luther translation; they’re given by the Holy Ghost. Why do people always want something newfangled? Because, “Well, did God mean that?...” God meant it, thank God! And if He didn’t mean what He said, why didn’t He say what He meant? He did say both. He said what He meant, thank God! “Who hath believed our report?”
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Out of this Bible you can receive faith—living faith, conquering faith, thank God! You will become “a living epistle of Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.” Children, we need the Bible. We need these simple words of Jesus Christ. We need these unsearchable treasures, these “exceeding great and precious promises” by which God Almighty offers Himself to me.
Why does He say, “I stand at the door and knock”? Why, because we lock Him out. That’s what we do. We’re “rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.”
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Listen, this is the way God says: It’s all finished; it’s finished. You’ll never get anything from God any other way but by receiving the finished work of Christ on Calvary. And if you don’t get it right away, do like Abraham. His faith waxed strong because he looked at the promise. And he considered Him who had promised. And he said, “My God is able to raise the dead, and call the things that be not as though they were. And He promised, and that finishes, that settles it. God promised it, thank God!” And as you stand on that word and begin to praise God, God is honored.
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Oh, beloved: praise! Praise would be stupid, but when it’s praising God for His gracious mercy, and His love… The Bible says that the Gentiles should praise God for His mercy and that’s why I do thank God for a meeting like this where we are allowed to praise the Lord, where we have the privilege of entering in. And only God knows how many chains were broken this night in those that really entered into praise. If you didn’t, you didn’t get your victory. But if you did, God did something for you. And we need these victories. We need the Spirit of God strengthening us within, because tomorrow you’re going to have another trial, going to have another test. And then you’ll be prepared to meet it with a smile.
Illustrations:
A personal story of healing. “I remember how I looked to Jesus, and the Holy Ghost rose within me and just laughed, and gone was my trouble: thirty years ago, and it’s never returned.” (from 12:32)
The healing of an incurable illness. “Here was the child in bed screaming, and here was the mother screaming. What did I do? I began to laugh. The Holy Ghost did that. I went up to mother. I said, ‘Listen, man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. Do you know what God says? “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”’ …When we came [back], I found that whole house bathed in the glory of God.” (from 13:31)
The deliverance and filling of a demoniac. “When I went close to the child, the devil screamed at me. I got the creeps, really. I backed out, and I said, ‘Jesus, this is a case for You.’ I knelt down with my face toward the wall. I said, ‘Jesus, what are You going to do?’ He began to sing. She was screaming, the devil was screaming, and I was singing. And I was singing, ‘Jesus, oh how sweet the name, Jesus, every day the same.’ I sang it twice and the devil was gone. The devil was gone—I think a whole legion was gone because that atmosphere was clear.” (from 15:14)
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