======================================================================== (CLIP) HEART SONG OF PRAISE TO JESUS by Brian Long ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the power of praising and exalting the name of Jesus, even in the face of persecution and adversity. It shares the inspiring testimony of Dmitry, a Russian pastor who endured 17 years of imprisonment, torture, and persecution for his faith, yet continued to offer a sacrifice of praise to Jesus every morning without fail. Despite the attempts to silence him, Dmitry's unwavering devotion to Christ led to a powerful revival in the prison, demonstrating the transformative impact of steadfast faith and praise. Duration: 4:25 Topics: "Power of Praise", "Faith in Adversity" Scripture References: Psalm 34:1, Psalm 22:3, Hebrews 13:15, Acts 16:25, 1 Thessalonians 5:18 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the power of praising and exalting the name of Jesus, even in the face of persecution and adversity. It shares the inspiring testimony of Dmitry, a Russian pastor who endured 17 years of imprisonment, torture, and persecution for his faith, yet continued to offer a sacrifice of praise to Jesus every morning without fail. Despite the attempts to silence him, Dmitry's unwavering devotion to Christ led to a powerful revival in the prison, demonstrating the transformative impact of steadfast faith and praise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let the name of Jesus be known in the land, be exalted, be praised, where it's being blasphemed today, being praised and exalted and glorified. God inhabits the praises of his people and David said, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Why at all times? Because at all times God is worthy of praise. In every circumstance, he is worthy of praise. I'll leave you with a real testimony to the glory of God. His name is Dmitry. He was a Russian pastor. He was actually a factory worker that started a house church in his own home and the Lord grew that church to about a hundred and fifty people. Well, under communism, it drew the attention of the government and they came to shut him down. And all he had to do was sign a document saying he would stop preaching the gospel. All he had to do was renounce Christ, but he wouldn't do it. And they arrested Dmitry and they took him away from his family, his wife and his children. They took him a thousand miles away and they put him in a prison with about 1,500 hardened prisoners, criminals. And this man was in this prison for 17 years. For 17 years, they beat him. They tortured him. They persecuted him. For 17 years, though, every single morning at daybreak, without fail, Dmitry stood up next to his bed and outside his prison door there and lifted his hands to heaven and sang the same heart song of praise to Jesus every single morning at daybreak. They would beat him. The other prison inmates would bang their cups on the bars trying to drown out his song. They threw human waste at him. They cursed him. They mocked him. The guards would go in at times and try to beat it out of him. They couldn't beat it out of him. They gave him every opportunity to recant. He would not. Every morning, without fail, arms lifted, hands raised, singing the same heart song of praise to Jesus every morning at daybreak. And finally, at the end of 17 years, when they saw they're not going to change this man, they said, you're going to be executed. We've had enough of this. You see that out that window, that execution block? That's where you're going to be hung in the morning. In the morning, they come to take him out of his cell. Again, they beat him after he stood and sang the same song of praise to Jesus, offering up the sacrifice of praise every morning. And as they drag him down the hallway to his execution, suddenly something happens. Nearly every prison inmate in that prison stepped forward to his cell door, lifted up their hands, and in one accord, with one voice, sang the very same heart song of praise to Jesus that they had learned from Demetri. Imagine this sound of praise, 1,500 inmates singing the same song to the Lord. The guards drop Demetri. Stunned, they look at him and they say, who are you? Demetri stands up and says, I'm a son of the living God, and Jesus Christ is his name. Revival hit that prison. They released Demetri, and not very long after that, his own son becomes a chaplain of that prison. Revival? Revival in a prison through one man that they couldn't beat first love out of. They couldn't beat it out of him. They couldn't drown it out of him. And when you've seen him, the king, they won't beat it out of you either. They won't drown it out of you. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/GRdHbGHlQ_g.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/brian-long/sermon-clip-heart-song-of-praise-to-jesus/ ========================================================================