In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal story about losing a ball and finding it again, which serves as a metaphor for having an attitude of praise in life. The speaker emphasizes the importance of praising God in all circumstances and using those opportunities to share the message of the Lord with others. The sermon then transitions to discussing the passage in Exodus 15, where Moses and the children of Israel sing a song of praise to the Lord after being set free from bondage. The speaker highlights the significance of praising God when we experience freedom and encourages listeners to always have an attitude of praise.

...continue on our study of Moses, and one of the things that I've been learning in the last year especially is to just be so sensitive to what God wants. I've spent so much of my life being sensitive to what I wanted, which is a very miserable way to be sensitive to what He wanted. And even last weekend, last Sunday, I shared five times, and each time when I got up to share, I just kept waiting for more of what He wanted me to say, how long do I want to speak, and what His... specifically, I can't even say that word, He wanted me to share, especially in some school classes, and sharing with the admissions committee, and then Monday I met with the men of the church. And this was open to what God wanted, and it was really me to do that. Not do what I wanted, but do what He wanted. And this message today is what the Lord wants, not what I wanted. I wanted to get on going and put some good stuff on ahead, and the Lord said, whoa, fella, I want you to get into the 15th chapter. And I said, oh Lord, there's not a lot in there, is there? And He says, look again. And He gave me some stuff out of here that I think we need, especially in our time. You know, it's amazing how many of us have been going through some tough times. Lois isn't here this morning, but Lois is leaving, and Lois was packing, and she had her house hit, and tore up the north side of it, and it was filled up with hail, and stuck with a lot of damage, and just to lose her husband, and then be moving out, and then have that happen to her house, has been a real traumatic thing. And then the burn is leaving, and Bonnie and the Blacks have just been up in the air, trying to find a job, don't know whether they're staying or leaving. So there's a lot of things that some of us have been having other areas of trials. The Lord just said to me, why don't you preach the message that's in here? And so I just went to Him and here's what He gave me today. I titled it, Time Out. Time Out to Pray. I think what we forget, maybe, is that the time out of life has really given us the refreshment we need. You know, vacation's good, and we always come back to recuperate from vacation. We do. You always go because you need a vacation, you need to get a rest, and then you get back. You're tired when you're left, but you're glad to get back. Especially if you've traveled 3,000 miles with joy in your front seat, and it wasn't the joy of the Lord. It was a little joy of poor Bill. He didn't like to ride in the back of the car. Boy, by the time we got home, we still had to get out of the front seat. But it was fun. We had a good time, and the kids really enjoyed it. We really enjoyed seeing what God could do. We prayed when we left. Our first day was so neat. We just prayed, Lord, you lead us to stop where you want us to stop. You just do each step of the way. We prayed God would do things to give us chances to share and open up new opportunities, and we just had a good rep like that. We prayed our way each way, and I had some interesting things happen too, but I won't get into it now because I've got a message for you. Time out for praise. This is our Desert Survival Series, and this will be probably one of the most essential things to remember in surviving when I'm fishing in Iowa. I'm just amazed at myself. I didn't see these things before, but the Lord has a way of opening things up at the right time. Let's follow up with a little prayer. Father, now you do that which you want to do. Lord, I'm just trying to be dead to self, dead to sin, and just alive to do what you want. Lord, you opened up the extra opportunities in Michigan. I knew they were there, and I really didn't want to go. I didn't want to be traveling extra time, but when we land that before you, you're opening it up, and we'll take care of it. You know, I've said it a year. I think, Father, that you're trying to teach us just to let you be the Lord of our life. We've spent so much time doing what we want to do, and we get upset and aggravated and bitter and things don't go our way. But we'll learn as you teach us. Now you open up this passage for me in Jesus' name. Amen. I shared with you before, I think, about the little woodcutter. I was listening to a message. This guy was up in Canada with Bill McCloud, and this was a true story. The guy went out there, and he chopped wood, and when nobody was looking, he would get a file and file off the top of his stump because when they come along, the other guys, he didn't want them to come along and say, Hey, look, you're a beaver. You know, he had it all chopped up. And the thing was, they would look down through the trees sometimes from the top of the hill, and they'd see him down there looking around, filing away, so it looked like he made a smooth cut. But the thing was, he wasn't getting any trees cut. And a lot of times we're like that. We just get behind. Like another fellow that was number one in the woodchopping in the lumberjacks up there where they chopped up the axes. And he's number one. And the second day, he moved to number two position. Third day, he moved to number three position and hung down to where he was at the bottom. Or hiding it from the top to the bottom. But he found out he wasn't taking time-outs to sharpen his axe. He wanted to get right to it. Now, we all need these breaks, these time-outs. You know, in sports, we need our time-outs. Basketball, you can't get stuff done without a time-out. Football, soccer, whatever, even our cars need time-outs. You know, our bodies need the time-outs. Well, the time-out for the Christian is what? Praise. And the Lord's been teaching me just to have an attitude of praise. Well, the time-out is to sport praises to the believer. And it's not that I take time-outs and go over here and praise the Lord. It's that I praise the Lord all the time. And that is my time-out. That is my resting in the Lord. That's the relaxing. It's just been such a peaceful life to watch the Lord. We had one trial then in Texas. And I just praised the Lord. It was one of those dumb things. But I hopped out of the car at a rest stop, out in the middle of nowhere, going from nowhere to out of nowhere. And out in west Texas. Really, we were coming from Dallas, heading down to Midland. But we stopped at a rest stop, and I hopped out. Where's my billfold? Oh, I couldn't find my billfold. And, yeah, so I got back, and I looked in the car real quick. I couldn't find it. And I thought, oh, no, I must have lost it in the motel. My pants had come off. I figured they probably dropped down in my pocket and got kicked out of the bed or something. And there we were out in the middle of Texas. And so I just praised the Lord and committed it to Him. I find the phone and call back and see if they found it. And he basically said, did you check the front seat a little bit? Well, she knows how I check things. So I went back and checked all over. And I found it pushed way back up under the seat. It came out, and so we found it. And the thing was, it was a test of attitude. You know, praise the Lord. Okay, we lost the billfold, you know. And so we found it. And that's what life is like when we just have the attitude of praise. Life without our timeouts is hard. Life without praise is hard. And this is the passage that we have here. Now, here's the setting. They've just come through the Red Sea. They've just come out of tremendous pressure. And now they're going to go into tremendous pressures. Life is just pressure. But God is leading them. And now what He does, He stops. They stop, and Moses gives this song. It's a song of praise in Exodus 15. I would like to read it off to you, but we're just going to pick out certain parts of it. But the Lord wanted them to praise Him after He delivered them. And He wanted them to keep praising Him. But the things that we learn from this, I think, will be very practical. Do you know what happens when we cease to praise the Lord? You know what? The Bible says, and I was looking over Psalms 107 at some things, and I got over to Psalms 106, and I found out there's some more things connected to this. Psalms 106 is giving the record of this deliverance. In Psalms 106, it tells how He saved them for His name's sake by His mighty power. He rebuked the Red Sea, and He came on down. It says in verse 12, Then they believed His words, and they sang His praise. That's Exodus 15. And the very next thing is, they soon forgot His words. And they waited not for His counsel. The Lord has taught me basically from this passage, when I'm not praising Him all the time, I forget Him. And there was a neat passage over in Philippians, but I'm not going to go get it. But it says in everything. In everything is a good thing. And as soon as I stop it in everything, even for the flat tires, Lord, even for this and that and that, everything. Because when I do it in everything, I acknowledge Him. And that's why this psalm was given. They would acknowledge Him. It says they soon forgot Him. Then in verse 21, it says they forgot God. They forgot God, their Savior. If someone saved you, literally pulled you out of a burning house, pulled you out of a wrecked car, pulled you out of some treacherous situation, would you forget them? I don't think I'll ever forget the people that pulled me out of the water when I was drowning. Mom and Dad talked over that situation. My sister and I almost drowned in just one lake. But I remember going up and down and drowning. And I remember my mom saw me. Mom saw me over there and told these people that were nearby. And they turned around and grabbed me. I don't forget them. How can we forget God? And that's what happens when we don't praise Him. We forget Him. And when we praise, we remember. When we praise, we remember. You go through Deuteronomy chapter 4, Deuteronomy chapter 6, God was telling them, You remember me. You remember me. He warns them. Now, I want to just go through quickly about five things, five keys to praise in this 15th chapter of Exodus. And I was really anxious to get into some things. Really, Ezra was going to go through several tests. I can't remember how many there were. I think there were seven major tests. And I wanted to get into that. But the Lord really got to show me some things here. When do we praise the Lord? Look at verse 1. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord. I think we praise the Lord when you're set free. One of the reasons maybe you don't praise the Lord all the time, and maybe I don't, is because we're not really free. We're in some kind of a bondage. We're a bondage to a fear. Man, we've been having some bad weather out here. That's a good time to go on vacation, I guess. I understand Abe Fenner was down there in the worst storm, never knew anything hit. At least down in the basement. But can you praise him when your crops get wiped out? When your car gets a big branch knocked over? A man who's had a branch fall in their house, but it didn't tear it up. And what about the tornado that came through? You know, take everything away. Can you walk out and say, Well, praise the Lord. I'm still alive, my family's okay. We praise him when we're free. And so there they were, they were up on the other side of the bench, and they're singing this song, and they're praising the Lord. I think we praise him when we're free. Praise is the song of the heart that is free. And so one of the things we can look for in others that say they're Christians, is we can look for that song. Are they free? You look in their eyes and see if they're really free. You see if they're bound by some kind of fear. But do you have a testimony of the Lord saving you? And then do you have the testimony of the song in your heart? Are you free? If you're in bondage, there's three things that won't be in your life, won't be in life. There won't be any song, there won't be any joy, and there won't be any praise. It won't be there. And I've found that the most relaxing thing, the most relaxing life, is just to let God do whatever he wants to do. And it's not always easy because we forget that he will lead and guide. When we went over to Carlsbad Caverns, we were nearby there. We got there about just a few minutes after the gates, the door closed to go into the cave, so we couldn't get into it. That meant we had to go get an extra flex day, so we got a tent, got a site, put up our tent, and we got ate up by these little bitty creatures that night. Well, praise the Lord for all these little bites. They were like mosquito bites because you didn't itch very much, but you were just covered with them. Your face looked like a plague when you walked into some place. People would say, just a minute. Well, praise the Lord for these things. They soon went away. But you can get upset. One of these guys was playing. This one guy really wasn't speaking with you. You really got to hear his story. He'd been seeing a lot of it, and there's some kind of little insect around there biting people. But, oh, I know what he said. She went into the store, and he's asking about that, and he says, oh, yeah. And then when she went to leave, he says, oh, by the way, bats are really attracted to those bites. And she, oh. We were about to go into a cave with a quarter million bats. He really had some fun with it. But just praise the Lord, whatever happens. Now, why do we praise? There's three things here I found. Three reasons why we praise the Lord. The first one, they sang the song of Moses and the children of Israel, this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, and here's why, for he hath triumphed gloriously. You know, if God did it at the cross for you, and shed his blood, and died on the cross, and set you free, why should we have anything else to worry about? And there's a scripture in Romans that tells us that if he loves us enough to die for us on the cross, how much more will he care for us later on? And you look at the scriptures, Jesus said, don't be anxious about anything, and Matthew 6, he says, keep seeking first the kingdom of God, and all these other things as we take care of you, food, clothing, shelter. Why do we get upset? I believe mostly because we cease praising him. We get used to praising him, oh well, praise the Lord, you know, I didn't really need that in a way, you know, just praise the Lord. Now here's something else, not only do we praise him because he's triumphed, but we praise him because he satisfies. Over in Psalms 107, boy I got a lot of stuff out of Psalms 107. I got to going into that psalm, that was right after 106, and I got to looking over there, because I had four things highlighted. These four verses say exactly the same thing, verse 8, verse 15, verse 21, and verse 31. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Four times it says that, and each four things is in a different setting. One of them is the first one, he goes right after that, for he satisfies the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. He satisfies, I praise him because he satisfies. The world doesn't satisfy, but he does. You know, we were down in Midland, Texas last week, this time, last Sunday, we were down there, and that church service was, lots of people out there, United Church, it had 4,000 people coming to church, it had 2,000 or better, and their sons were alone. You can't imagine, I was telling them earlier, you can put four of our sanctuaries, four of our buildings, in their sanctuary alone. Their building covered two blocks. Two blocks. Which men are they lost, and it's like, it's huge. But it's interesting, as they took us around, and drove, and showed us some of the homes, in that area, castles, you know, how they said, some of these people, have been living such shallow lives, they've been living, of all of this wealth, and all of a sudden, they've been lost, everything, they couldn't have their home, their car, or nothing. And it just showed, how abandoned, how life is just a vapor. All of a sudden, everything you think is important, it's gone. And they didn't have anything. They had to give all their cars back, and everything, because the oil, this went down, the oil, this just went out. And then, you know, and I wrote this down, the bottom of my page here, in this note, when I was thinking about that, for this verse, of he satisfies him, we praise him, because he satisfies, he satisfies all the time, those who trust him, all the time. He satisfies all the time, those who trust him, all the time. Now, here's something else. We praise him, because he broke our bands of sin. Psalms 107, and another thing, 14. He brought them out of darkness, into the shadow of death, and broke their bands asunder. Oh, that men would praise the Lord, for his goodness, for his wonderful works, to the turn of the minute, for he had broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron, and sundered. I believe, that when you have been set free, and I have been set free, that the natural thing, is just to praise the Lord, and you're free. If you're free from sin, the bonds of sin, loneliness, a complex of some kind, inferiority complex, or depression, discouragement, or fear, or whatever, you'll have praise. But if you don't have praise, then there's something that's binding you. There's something that's binding you. And I'll share this, because I have spent so many years in total bondage, didn't realize it. But it's really tremendous to be free. Here's something else, that praise will do. Not only will praise win the praise, why do you praise, but what will praise do? I found this in Psalms also. Praise will make you do things for the Lord. In Exodus 15-2, remember, Moses is singing this song, and the next verse, he says, he triumphs in verse 1, gloriously the horse and his rider have been thrown in the sea in reference to Satan. Also, you can find that in Revelation. Verse 2 says, the Lord is my strength and song. He has become my salvation. He is my God. I will prepare Him a habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt Him. I've never noticed this before, but Moses said, I want to prepare Him a place to live, with me. And I believe that when we're set free, we want God to just be in our life and do in our life whatever He wants. If someone did save you, you'd want that. And so he says, I will prepare Him a habitation. Now how does that apply to the Christians today? We can't prepare Him a place to live like they did. They went out in the desert and made a tent out of badger skins and other types of material. And they hauled that thing all around the desert. And whenever they stopped, they put up the tent and God would dwell there in that tent. Where does He dwell today? In this tent, in this body. And this is why the Bible says, do you know, because when Abraham writes out letters, he puts this one verse amongst some other verses on there. He puts 1 Peter 1.16 which says, Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. If praise is in my life, I will want to do something for Him. And one of the things I can do is just keep myself clean, my body clean, my mind clean, so the Spirit of God can work through me. Because we're a clean house. 1 Corinthians 6.19.20 says what? Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which dwells within you? He says, Don't you know that? Your temple is the body of the Holy Spirit. You're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit. It's with God. When I'm praising Him, I will want Him to live and dwell within me. So we praise Him because He broke our bands of sin and then we come to find out that praying will want Him to do something. Praise carries us, causes us to love Him, to sacrifice for Him. Can I share a little extra thing with you? In Psalms 107, I ran across something that's strange. It's called the sacrifice of thanksgiving which is similar to the sacrifice of praise. Psalms 107, Old Admit, in verse 21, Old Admit, we'll praise the Lord for His goodness to sub down to 22 and let them sacrifice the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Do you know what the sacrifice of thanksgiving is? I'm not sure what I think it is. I think the sacrifice of thanksgiving is when you want to cry and you praise Him instead. When you want to cry and you praise instead, that's the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Now let me give you another description. In Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas, God had told them to go over to Macedonia. They got over there and they got to preaching and they got into trouble. They got thrown into jail. They were beaten with stripes. They were humiliated. They had their clothes taken off. They were beaten. And after they were beaten, they were treated like criminals. He was a Roman citizen in a town in Roman Providence. But they took him and they threw him in the prison. It says he slammed him into the prison. They threw the stocks on their feet, put the chains on them and there they were bleeding down in this dungeon area in the innermost prison. Bleeding and beat up, humiliated. And what are they doing? Praising the Lord. Now if that was you and I, what would we be doing? Where do I get out of here? I'm going to find a good lawyer. Paul could have done that, you know that. He was a citizen. Not only was he a citizen, where he came from, he would have been one of the dignitaries because of his training and education. But there they are down there just praising the Lord. And what did they do? They ended up tearing the prison apart. God tore the prison apart to get them out and the jailer got saved and we've got this good demonstration to teach us how to praise the Lord. When you want to cry and you praise His death, that's a sacrifice, that's Thanksgiving. Well, where do you praise? Psalms 107, 31, 32. Just picking up a couple more things. You praise Him, it says let us exalt Him also in the congregation of the people everywhere. You want to, you say, have you ever wanted to witness to somebody that you didn't have anybody to witness to? We just get into some place where there's some people and then just let out a big, Praise the Lord! Then you'll have a crowd gathered around you. You know, what's this man doing? You know, people will look and you've got their attention and then tell them about the Lord. You know, let me get out of there before you do it. But, if you would just praise the Lord and have the attitude of praise to give you these opportunities to share. And I had a opportunity with this old grouchy proposal to share the Lord in Russia. I had to go get my driver's license and I got in there and he thought he, I couldn't do it really quick and he wanted to get going home early or whatever. But, I got in there and, but he says, you know, first thing, he says, I don't think you have time to take it. And he didn't know, man, if I don't take it now, I won't get it for three weeks and it's going to be due. You know, the second walk of my birthday is up. And so, he's trying to put the pressure on me, you know, to get it done. So I sat down and I got it done. The whole thing took me about ten minutes. He had ten minutes to spare. And, he was taking this one. I studied it and I probably passed it. How many seconds do you follow behind a car? It's two in case you don't study the test. Anyway, this guy said this to me. I'm going to do something with him. So I went out the door, got a track out, come back in. Here! Let me give you something to read. It's a little thing about Jesus. Put the pressure on him. And I went back out. You know, just whatever. If you're going to get into some bias and pressure, we don't have to live under pressure. The unsaved have got to live under pressure. And that guy's probably got some pressure now. Keep praying for that patrol and the state trooper, you know. We're going to save that guy. Trying to put the pressure on that creeper. You put the pressure on him and save him. When we get to eternity, we're going to find out all these tracks. Everywhere you go, don't you leave your tracks? All over the country, we leave tracks everywhere, you know. Leave your tracks. We're going to find this person that saved that track. Or maybe he didn't get saved, or maybe somebody else found it when he didn't get saved. You know, we're going this person and we're going to find and we're going to find this person and we're to find this person and we're going to find this person and we're going to find and we're to find this person and we're going to find this person and we're going to find this person and we're going to find this person and we're going to find and we're this person and we're to find this person and we're this person going to find this person and we're going to find this person and we're this person and we're to find and we of ranching and farming, and every time he shared how, I think for five years in a row, he didn't have any crops. And of course you know how the cattle is. No money on the crops, no money on the cattle. And he finally, I think the sixth year, he gave it back to an aunt or something and said, well you can have it back. She put it, she had some old guy come in and he'd run around a little bit and race and put some seed down, and a bad little bumper crop. He says, I want it back. He got it back the next year and nothing. And they began to say, well God, are you trying to say something to us? They loved it. They had, they had inherited their ranch, they had their ranch there. They were both, his wife and him were ranchers, but they couldn't make it. They owed money all over the place, but he had a little hobby of finding oil for other people. And he could find oil for other people. He was a geophysicist, which means he'd go out and put the instruments down and set off the depth charges and then read the charts and he could find the oil. And it worked out to where God says, I want you out of this business of ranching and I want to use you over in this business. But whatever I want you to have, I'm going to give it to you. And the reason they had to do that was because he kept trying to invest money in these wells and whichever ones he would put money in would never produce any oil. And thus he could find oil for other people, you know, and get paid a little salary or something for doing that because he wouldn't get the percentage. And so he said, okay. The Lord told him that they would find oil, but he would give them what they wanted to have. The day, the very day that they said, okay Lord, we're walking out of the ranching business and we're going into the oil business, he told somebody that was doing this stuff, he said, go sell everything. Sell the cattle, sell everything. All the cattle were sold. That very day a guy walked up and said, we're going to give you 1% of this well that you just found the oil. He said, nobody does that in Texas. Nobody just walks up and gives you a percentage of their oil well. He said, the very day he did that, God said, we're going to give you what we want you to have. Those are very neat people that come, people we live with, and it's just beautiful to hear their testimony. And they just praise the Lord. And their home is, we got there, they invited, they said, we invited a few people over for barbecue. Man, they had the preacher and one of the associates, I think there were six pastors in that church or six associates or something, but they had a whole gob of people for us to meet. And one of the associates that comes over there a lot says, they're like this all the time. Man, people are here all the time. They just love the Lord, love people and do for the Lord, just praise the Lord. Who praises Him? Those that are set free. The dead praise not the Lord if you're not saved, you're not going to praise the Lord. Well, I don't think we can survive in this old desert without praise. Our problems are too big. The pressures are tough. I can't, sometimes I've shared with you some of the things that we have to pressure, but I really can't share all of them because you might feel sorry for me or you might feel like I'm asking for something. But it's really neat when you can go through something and it doesn't wrinkle your spirit. A lot of times we get out of shape, but it's really neat when you can go through a trial and it doesn't wrinkle your spirit. That shows that we are really practicing what we're preaching. Life is hard without praise. It's hard. Praise makes it terrible. Life is hard without Jesus. And having Jesus in our heart and life is okay, but to go and live without praise makes it hard. I saw a bumper sticker, it's the most astounding bumper sticker I've ever seen in my life. I was coming back from somewhere down in my hometown, and on the back of this navy blue car was this bumper sticker that said this, bumper sticker, bumper sticker, and it said life is hard without Jesus. And I thought about that for a couple of weeks trying to figure out what does that say? Life is hard, then you die. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked that. That is a powerful salvation sticker. Life is hard then you die. But life is bearable with Jesus when we praise him. So chapter 15, you're going to have to read it for yourself because I didn't get into it. You're just going to take off, get out of this desert. I want you to learn this song. Because if you don't sing this song, you're going to die in this desert. Praise, this is the song of the heart that sets you free. And it's not just where we're praising the Lord, but it's the attitude. The attitude. We don't have to go around like a fool all the time. There's times we praise the Lord verbally, and I do it quite a bit. But it's an attitude, and that's what benefits us on a mystical scale. Remember that little poem I read about a little bird of mine? Shut from the fills of air, and she was put in prison because she was a Christian, wouldn't deny it. A little bird of mine shut from the fills of air, and in my cage I sit and sing to him who placed me there. Well pleased a prisoner to be, because my God, it pleases thee. Nothing have I else to do, I sing the whole day long, and he whom most I love to please doth listen to my song. He caught and bound my wandering wing, but still he bends to hear me sing. Thou hast an ear to hear, a heart to love and bless, and though my notes were ever so rude, thou wouldst not hear the last, because thou know'st, as they fall, that sayings we love inspires them all. My cage confines me round. Abroad I cannot fly, but though my wing is closely bound, my heart's at liberty. My prison walls cannot control the flight, the freedom of the soul. Oh, it's good to soar these vaults and bars above to him whose purpose I adore, whose providence I love, and in thy mighty will to find the joy, the freedom of the mind. Praise is the song of the heart that set free this prison. Lord, thank you for this. Thank you that you gave it to us. I didn't give it up somewhere, I didn't get it out of this book, but you gave it to this country. You teach us forever to believe that you are true sovereign. Nothing such as our lives is what we're like. Many times we kick and scuff and punch and grumble and complain against somebody else, maybe even against the preacher for doing something in a way we don't think he should, or a neighbor for doing something we don't think they should, or a relative. But in reality you have maybe allowed that thing to happen just that way, to draw out of our soul that bitter thing that we deceive, ourselves, and that we would learn to disguise ourselves and let you do whatever you want to do in our life. Thank you, Father, for giving us this message in Jesus' name. Amen.