In this sermon, the speaker discusses the power of praise and the importance of thanking and praising God. He uses the example of Jonah, who was in the belly of a fish and prayed for a long time without any change. However, when Jonah started thanking God, the fish couldn't hold him any longer. The speaker emphasizes that praising God is a sacrifice and acknowledges His greatness and role as the mighty creator. He also highlights the importance of worshiping God in spirit and truth, as Jesus taught, and the balance between worship and service in our relationship with God.

I mean they knew how to praise the Lord. Well we were there just having a wonderful time, the four of us praising the Lord together. And there was a ring at the door and a lady who was a member of the church. I went down there, there she was, and she, leading a man on her hand, she said, this is my husband, he's just come out of prison, he has a demon, will you pray for him? Well in those days I stayed a long way away from demons, I mean I didn't know what to do with them and I was very embarrassed. I had no idea what to do, well I said, come up we're praying, that's all I could think. So we just went on praying and we were really, you know, we were making a noise. And this man came up to me, silent, carefully, and he said, I don't like this, too much noise, I'm going. And God inspired my answer, I said, listen, it's the devil that doesn't like the noise because we're praising Jesus and he hates that. Now I said, you've got two options, if you go now, the devil will go with you. If you stay, the devil will go without you. And he said, I'll stay. And about ten minutes later he just came up to me and said, it's gone, he said, I'd rather leave my throat. I never forget that because it's such a demonstration of how praise embarrasses the devil much more than he can embarrass us. So if you're tempted to be depressed or moody or unhappy, put on the garment of praise in place of the spirit of heaviness. I know it works, because it worked for me. In Psalm 33.1 the psalmist says, praise is beautiful for the upright. It's a beautiful garment of your spirit. And then in Jeremiah 33.11 we have another aspect of praise or thanksgiving, and both words are used, which is important. It's speaking about the restoration of God's people and it speaks about what will be heard in the streets of Jerusalem. There's a beautiful modern Hebrew song based on these words. But it says, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who will say, praise the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his mercy endures forever. Notice two of the three reasons are there. And of those who will bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord. And I think other versions say the sacrifice of thanksgiving. It's important to understand praise is a sacrifice. It costs you something. It's not always easy. And the time that's most important to praise the Lord is when you least feel like it. Do not let your feelings dictate to you. It's the Word of God that tells you what to do, even if it goes absolutely contrary to your feelings. Hebrews 13 brings this out. Hebrews the 13th chapter, verses 15 and 16. Therefore by him, that is Jesus, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. How much should we praise God? How often? It says, continually, never stop. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. So praise, or thanksgiving, is a sacrifice. And it's most acceptable to God when it costs us most. When everything in the situation seems to be against us. That's the time to praise God the most. In faith, it's a sacrifice. And then Psalm 8, verse 2. Praise is a spiritual weapon. This is one of my favorite scriptures. I don't know how often I get here. Somehow, it's difficult for me to preach long without getting to Psalm 8, verse 2. Out of the mouths of babes and infants, you, that is the Lord, have ordained strength, because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. So God has enemies, that's important to know that. And he has one particular enemy, he's called the enemy and the avenger. Who's that? Satan. And he says, there is a way to silence Satan. I was preaching in Lausanne, in Switzerland, with a French interpreter some years ago. I got to this verse, I understand French, and I listened to my interpreter, and in French it says, God imposes silence on the devil. And I've never forgotten that, God imposes silence. He says, shut up. When? When we praise God. You see, our praise silences the devil. Why do we need to silence the devil? What is he doing all the time, night and day? He's accusing us. You say to God, well why don't you silence the devil? God says, because I've given you the weapon with which to do it. Now in Psalm 8, 2 it says, you've ordained strength. But again, the New Testament is the commentary on the old. Turn to Matthew 21, 16. We have to read verse 15. This is in the last week of the ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did. And the children crying out in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. They were indignant and said to him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, now he's quoting Psalm 8, verse 2. Yes, have you never read, out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise. So when the Psalmist said, you have ordained strength. Jesus said, you have perfected praise. What does that tell us? The ordained strength of God's people is perfect praise. And it doesn't matter how weak we are. The weapon is irresistible. So the Psalmist chooses the example of the weakest, babes and nursing infants. And says, even they, when they praise God, impose silence on the enemy. To me it is a wonderful, exciting joy to know that we can silence the devil. Then again, the seventh in this list of scriptural facts. Praise prepares the way for God's supernatural intervention. Let's look first of all in Psalm 50. Are you noticing how many times we're turning to the Psalms in this theme of praise? Psalm 50, the closing verse, that's verse 23. God is speaking and he says, whoever offers praise, glorifies me. And to him who orders his conduct aright, I will show the salvation of God. But you'll notice in my version, the word aright is in italics. It's put in by the translators. There is another legitimate way to translate that. To him who offers praise, he prepares a way that I may show him the salvation of God. He prepares a way for the manifestation of salvation to come in his situation. Now there's some beautiful examples of that. For instance, in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, a vast army came marching against him from the southeast. And he knew that he did not have the personnel or the resources to meet that army. But he proclaimed a fast. He called all of God's people Judah together. And as they were fasting and praying, the Lord spoke prophetically through a Levite and told them what to do. He said, you just have to go down to a certain place. You don't have to fight in this battle. The Lord will fight for you. And Jehoshaphat said, believe in the Lord God and his prophets and you will prosper. So next day they set out. And this is what happened. Now we're reading from verse 21 of 2 Chronicles chapter 20. And when Jehoshaphat had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord. And who should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army. And were saying, praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever. You notice the same reason comes up again. Now listen. Well when they began to sing and to praise the Lord, set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah and they were defeated. And if you read the rest of the story, they didn't have to fight. They didn't have to use one single military weapon. The weapon of praise obtained for them total victory. And their enemies turned against each other and killed one another. And when they came to the battlefield all their enemies were dead. All they had to do was take the spoil. What a tremendous picture of the power of praise. And then let's look at poor Jonah for a moment. Right in the middle of his problems. He's here, you know the story, he's in the belly of the fish and he's praying. And he prays quite a long while. Jonah chapter 2 and he says verse 2, out of the belly of Sheol I cried, you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, etc. And he goes on praying for seven verses. And nothing happens. The eighth verse he starts to thank God. And the fish couldn't hold him any longer, you see. Just read that last verse. Verse 9, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. Now that really was a sacrifice. When you're in the belly of a fish, to start thanking God takes some determination. But it was worth it, it paid off, you see. I will pay what I have vowed, salvation is of the Lord. And then it says, so the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry ground. When did the Lord speak to the fish? When he began to praise and thank the Lord. And then a beautiful example in the book of Acts, in the ministry of Paul and Silas. Paul had gone into the ministry of deliverance. He'd cast out a demon out of a fortune-telling woman. And the whole city was turned into an uproar. And Paul and Silas were badly beaten and ended up in the maximum security jail. They were at midnight. A brother of mine, who's a close friend of mine, says they might have talked to each other this way. Silas could have said to Paul, now why did you do, start to do deliverance? Everything was going all right until you started casting out demons. But that isn't what they did. Let's read what they did. Acts 16, verse 25. That at midnight, the darkest hour, Paul and Silas in the maximum security jail, were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. They'd never had people like that in that jail before. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loose. What released the earthquake? I mean it was a supernatural earthquake that undid people's chains. It wasn't just an ordinary earthquake. What precipitated that earthquake? Praise. That's right. So the one who offers praise prepares a way for God to show him his salvation. Now let me briefly, with a little list, without going into all the references are given in your outline. First of all, when to praise God? And the answer is every day, forever and ever, at all times and continually. It leaves no doubt. Now, how to praise God? With the whole heart, with understanding, with lifted hands, with joyful mouth and mouth and lips, lifting the hands as an evening sacrifice, with the dance, with the timbrel and dance. And scripture references are given. Who is to praise God? And Psalm 148 gives a list of 29 different kinds of people who are to praise God. And then if you're still in doubt, Psalm 150 says everything that has breath. That leaves out nothing. But there's just one class of people who do not praise the Lord. Who's that? The dead. So, you know your problem, don't you? If you're not praising the Lord, you've got your own diagnosis. You're not physically dead, but you are spiritually dead. By worship we acknowledge God's holiness. I personally believe that worship is the highest activity of which any human being is capable. Praise and thanksgiving are primarily utterances. They come out of our mouths. We speak them, or we sing them, or we may even shout them. But worship is not primarily an utterance. And this is very important, because I found that very few people realize this. But so far as I know, every word that's used in the original language of the Bible, either in the Hebrew of the Old Testament or in the Greek of the New, for worship, describes an attitude of the body. Worship is not really an utterance, it is an attitude. Of course not just an attitude of the physical body, but an attitude of the whole inner being. There are certain specific attitudes, which in the Bible are characteristic of worship. First of all, bowing down the head. When Moses came from his interview with God at the burning bush, back to his people in Egypt, with the news that God was going to deliver them. And brought this message to the elders, it says, they all bowed their heads. They worshipped. That was their first response. It wasn't an utterance, it was an attitude. And then often, it's not just the head, but the upper part of the body. And then accompanying that many times is the stretching out of the hands. Palms upwards. It's an interesting fact that the Hebrew word for thank you, tudah, is directly related to the Hebrew word for the hand. So that, and Hebrew is a very, what would I say, physical language. It doesn't really indulge in abstracts. It indulges in concretes. So, thank you is stretching out the hand. And when we stretch out our hands to God, we're saying thank you. I believe we're also stretching out our hands upward to receive anything that he wants to impart to us. And then, kneeling down is a very distinctive attitude of worship. And I appreciate the liturgical churches which have retained this practice of kneeling down. Having been brought up in the Anglican Church, I used to know all the times when it was appropriate to kneel. And I want to say that I believe kneeling is a very important part of our worship. I think some Charismatics and some Pentecostals are missing out on that. I've been in some meetings where God has brought the meeting to a climax. And I've suggested that the whole congregation kneel. And we've had some of our most powerful visitations of the Holy Spirit. When we're all, before God, in a kneeling attitude. Of course, I realize it can be simply a religious formality which has lost most of its meaning. But don't let that deprive you of the blessing of kneeling before God. And then, worship is also, and I think this is probably the main word. It means falling prostrate on your face before God. I always smile because I hear lots of people singing that hymn that says, let angels prostrate fall, you know. And most of the people that sing that would never dream of falling prostrate themselves. It's good enough for angels, but don't ask us dignified human beings to fall on our faces. But there are not many of the great men in the Bible that you can find that didn't, at some time or another, end up with their faces to the ground before God. And this is perhaps the ultimate act of worship. Generally speaking, when Ruth and I are going to travel on some preaching assignment, we seek to prepare ourselves beforehand. And I won't say we always do this, but usually at some point, we will end up prostrate on our faces on the floor before God. A kind of acknowledging, God we are totally dependent upon you. We have nothing to give, we have no strength, we have no righteousness, we have no wisdom, unless it comes from you. I love those words of John Bunyan. They've always stayed with me. He that is down, need fear no fall. He that is low, no pride. He that is humble ever shall have God to be his guide. And when you've got to the floor, you can't go any lower. You don't need to fear falling after that. It's a safe position to be flat on your face before God. I'd like to turn to an example of heavenly worship, which I believe gives us some really important principles, which is found in the prophet Isaiah, the sixth chapter, the first three verses. And in this scene here, Isaiah has a vision of the Lord in his glory in heaven. This has always been a very meaningful chapter to me, because the first time I ever went to a Pentecostal meeting, and I didn't know it was a Pentecostal meeting, in fact I didn't know there were such people as Pentecostals. But the first time I went, the message was preached on this particular scene. At that time I was a soldier in the British Army, and I was living just like soldiers live in the British Army, without going into the details. And we won't read it yet tonight, but when Isaiah saw the Lord in his glory, he said, woe is me, for I'm undone. For I'm a man of unclean lips, dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And when I heard those words, unconverted as I was, a man of unclean lips, dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips, I said, no one has ever described you more accurately than that. And from then on, the preacher had my attention, even though I really didn't understand what he was talking about. Anyhow, let's read the first three verses. In the year that King Uzziah died, I, Isaiah, saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim, or seraphs. Now the word seraph is directly related to the words of fire. So seraphs are fiery creatures, whatever else they are. And then they described, each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. I've always believed that those three holies were for the three persons of the Godhead. Holy is the Father, holy is the Son, and holy is the Spirit. But if you picture that scene for a moment in your imagination, I think it gives you a wonderful concept of the relationship between worship and praise. Praise is an utterance. So they were praising the Lord and declaring his holiness. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. But that wasn't the first thing that Isaiah saw. The first thing he saw was worship. Those seraphs had six wings. With the first two they covered their face. The second two they covered their feet. What's that? That's an attitude. What is it? It's worship. Worship is the face covered in reverence before God. It is the body covered in reverence before God. Then they had two remaining wings. And with those they flew. If you take flying as service, and covering the face and the feet as worship, then you find the proportion is four wings for worship, two wings for service. I believe that's a correct proportion. I believe that in our ministry to the Lord, we should give twice as much time and emphasis to worship as we do to service. Furthermore, I believe that service should proceed out of worship. I don't believe that we should ever become involved in God's service without having first related to God in worship. I believe there would be a complete difference in our service if it always proceeded out of worship. On the other hand, merely to worship without service is hypocrisy. Let's look at the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 10. When Satan had tempted him to fall down before Satan and worship him. And Jesus answered with a quotation from Deuteronomy. Then Jesus said to Satan, that's Matthew 4, 10. Away with you, Satan. For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. You notice the order again. First worship, then service. But, worship should always be followed by service. And it's important to see this. There was a time when there was very little worship in most of the churches. People would have a Sunday morning service and they'd call it a worship service. But in actual fact, there was usually no worship. It was praise. It was proclamation. But there was no direct worship. Now in the last two decades probably, or a little more, worship has begun to come back to the church. And in some ways it's fashionable to worship now. And you'll be in some congregations where they will, as it were, make a specialty of worship. And they can become rather proud of how good their worship is. But if people simply take worship as a form of spiritual self-indulgence, without it being translated into service, then it's hypocrisy. People that just have a wonderful Sunday morning worship service and go home and live for themselves the rest of the week, they haven't heard the words of Jesus. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, but him only thou shalt serve. These two should never be separated. Service should never be separated from worship. And worship should never be separated from service. Now, there's a beautiful passage in Psalm 95, which I believe beautifully depicts the progress into worship. The first two verses depict loud, jubilant praise. A lot louder than some churches will permit. It says, Oh come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Shouting means shouting. It doesn't mean singing loud, it means shouting. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. Notice again the two stages of access, thanksgiving and praise. Remember what we said earlier, there's no other way into the presence of God. Then the next two verses, or three verses, give us the reason why we should praise and thank God. The Bible is very logical. It doesn't just ask us to thank and praise God. But it tells us why. You remember in Psalm 100, there were three reasons. The Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting. His truth endures to all generations. Those are three unchanging reasons to praise God. And here, in verses three, four and five, we have the following reasons. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. And you remember that I said by praise, we acknowledge God's greatness. So here the word greatness is used twice. The Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. And we acknowledge His greatness by loud, jubilant, excited praise. And then we see Him as the mighty creator. In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it. And His hands formed the dry land. So we come to Him, thanking Him, praising Him for the marvels of His creation. But that's only the access. In verse six, we come to worship. So praise and thanksgiving are really the access, the way of approach into worship. And you'll notice immediately we come to worship, it's an attitude. Verse six, O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker. Now we've passed from utterance to attitude. We began with praise and thanksgiving, but that wasn't the goal. And where Christians just stop with praise and thanksgiving, they've really missed the goal which God has, which is worship. Which is not an utterance, but an attitude. O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker. Why? Verse seven, for He is our God. How do we, above all other ways, acknowledge Him as God? By doing what? By worshiping. Because worship belongs only to God. So when we worship Him, by that very act, we are acknowledging that He is our God. And we are the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand. So it's appropriate for us, as God's people, to worship Him. That acknowledges the relationship between us as God's people and God as our creator and our redeemer. Now it's a strange thing. If you look in your Bible, if you have one open before you, the verse doesn't end there. It seems there's a strange division because the first part of the next sentence is included in the end of verse seven. You see that? It says, today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts and so on. Why is that particular little section, today if you will hear His voice, why is that in the section of worship? A wonderful secret. Because it's when we worship that we really hear God's voice. And when we worship, we've come to the end of talking. We've done all the shouting and the praising and that's all right. But that's not the end. The end, in a sense, is a position of reverence before God which we don't have much to say. We're quiet. We're still. Somebody said, charismatics are so afraid of silence. And I think there's a truth in that. But there comes a time of silence. And who knows how long that silence might be. You would be willing to give God ten minutes, do you think? Most churches would think that was totally out of order to have ten minutes of silence. I'm not saying it has to be ten minutes. I think God determines how long it has to be. But, in that attitude, we are open to hear the voice of God. Ruth and I regularly take time, almost every day, to praise and to worship God. Ruth is our worship leader because I don't have much of a voice. And many, many times when we come into that attitude of worship and our spirits are quiet before God, He speaks to us. We have had so much direction, warning, encouragement, direct from God. Now I'm very cautious about prophetic utterances. I don't necessarily believe them. But generally speaking, if a prophetic utterance comes in an atmosphere of worship and it fits in with the atmosphere, I am usually ready to believe that is God speaking to His people. But if we never come into that place of worship, really we never give God an opportunity to speak to us. So just notice that progression. Loud, jubilant, excited praise. That brings us into the presence of God. We praise Him for the reasons given here. But when we come into His presence, then it changes. It's no longer utterance, it's attitude. The attitude that's appropriate in the presence of Almighty God. And in that attitude, we are open to hear His voice. Now let's turn to the words of Jesus about worship in the New Testament. John chapter 4. These are familiar words to Bible readers. John the fourth chapter. Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Without going into the background, He says, But the hour is coming. And now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship Him. That's a remarkable statement, isn't it? Almighty God is seeking for those who will worship Him. But we have to worship Him according to His term, in spirit and in truth. And then, Jesus goes on in the next verse, God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. So in worship, I believe, it's our spirit that relates directly to God as spirit. See, according to the Bible, man consists of three elements. Spirit, soul, and body. I think our soul is very active in praise and thanksgiving. But when it comes to worship, then it's our spirit in direct communion with God's spirit. And we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Without the Holy Spirit, we really cannot worship Him. I think those of you who've had an experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit, well, bear me out. It changes the way you worship. You have a new dimension. Now, that doesn't make us perfect or superior to other people, but it does release something in us that makes us capable of appreciating what worship ought to be. But it also says in truth. And truth, I believe, requires sincerity. And I really believe it's extremely important that we learn to be sincere in our worship. Just to illustrate this, I want to take a little picture from the book of Leviticus. Leviticus is the Old Testament book about priestly ordinances and sacrifices. What's the Leviticus of the New Testament? Which book? Hebrews, that's right. Now, in connection with the sacrifices, the Lord gives directions as to what may be offered in sacrifice and what may not be offered. In verses 1 and 2, he demands that a certain aromatic gum called frankincense shall be always offered on every sacrifice. Let's look at it. When anyone offers a grain offering to the Lord, his offering shall be a fine flour and he shall pour oil on it, which is a type of the Holy Spirit and frankincense and put frankincense on it. He shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests, one of whom shall take from it his handful of fine flour and oil with all the frankincense and the priest shall burn it as a memorial on the altar, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord. Now, there were various things in the sacrifice. There was flour, there was oil. Only a portion of those were burned, but all the frankincense was burned. Frankincense, in the Old Testament, is a type of worship and our offerings given to God also serve the ministers of God, the priesthood. But there's one part of our offering that never goes to anybody but God. That's the frankincense, the worship. How important it is to remember, we do not offer worship to any human being at any time, but only to the Lord. Now, frankincense is a kind of aromatic gum that comes from a tree and when it's burned, it gives forth a beautiful fragrance. It has no real beauty in itself, but it has this beautiful fragrance and that's what God wants. That's what our worship becomes to God, a beautiful aromatic fragrance that rises up in His nostrils. On the other hand, there's one thing that must not be put on the offerings of God. If you look in verse 11 of the same chapter, No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, nor shall you burn, for you shall burn no leaven, nor any honey in offering to the Lord made by fire. Now honey, before it's in the fire, is sweet and tasty. But when it's burned, it becomes a black sticky mess. And what the Lord is saying is, don't you offer to me any worship that won't stand the fire. Offer to me frankincense, because the more the fire, the sweeter it becomes. But don't offer to me worship, that when you're tested and tried, becomes a black sticky mess. Think of that. Ask yourself, am I putting honey on my prayers? Or are they with frankincense? Am I telling God sweet things that I won't live out? Or am I offering, praying to Him in spirit and in truth? One final very vivid picture of worship is in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 16 and 17. Now this is a very frank passage. Like the Bible is a frank book. And Paul says, Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot or a prostitute is one body with her? For the two, God says, shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Now we've got to be frank and see the contrast. The first example is physical, sexual, immoral union. But right together with that, parallel to that, Paul speaks about the one who is joined to the Lord in the spirit. In other words, there's two kinds of union. There's physical union and there's union in the spirit. What is worship? That's what it is. It's the only way our spirits can unite directly with God. And out of that union there comes procreation. Worship is what makes us spiritually productive. You see that? So when you think about worship, think about your spirit becoming united with God in one spirit. For further teaching on this theme, we recommend the cassettes entitled Worship, number 034, Praise, number 033, and Thanksgiving, number 032. For further information and a complete list of cassettes and books, contact Derrick Prince Ministries, Box 19501, Charlotte, North Carolina, 28219, Telephone 704-357-3556.