I still remember the first time that I
ever stood in front of a microphone.
And it was a scary moment because I
wasn't used to it.
I was at church in South Africa, I
was a little boy and we had to
say something in the front.
And I got such a fright when I
spoke and my voice came out that I
jumped back.
And then I had to pull up courage
to go forward again and to speak to
the people.
It's wonderful to be here, thank you for
the privilege.
And it's always wonderful to preach, especially when
you've got a message on your heart.
And I'd just like to say before I
pray, that you must please pray for these
meetings, above all else.
I was in different towns in South Africa
and it was wonderful to see how the
Lord worked.
But I think one of the places which
was of the greatest blessing was where a
lady was crying, tears flowing down her face
before her, praying to God for God to
work.
And how God moved in that town.
Before we start, we're going to read from
Psalm 107, verse 8.
Psalm is a big book.
Okay, verse 8.
And it goes, O that men would praise
the Lord for His goodness and for His
merciful works to the children of men.
O that men.
O that men would praise the Lord for
His goodness and for His wonderful works to
the children of men.
And you know, the psalmist was so important
in this verse that he repeated it again
in verse 15, verse 21 and verse 31.
Four times, O that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful
works to the children of men.
As if he was looking around at the
people of God and there was a lack
of praise.
And he cried out, O that men would
praise the Lord.
You know, Dale Moody, I'm sure you all
know about him.
He said somewhere, in one of his books
or something, that there's more written about praise
in the Bible than prayer.
There's more written in the Bible about praise
than prayer.
And of course, if you look at Habakkuk
3, you'll see that it starts with the
words, a prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, and
the same prayer ends with, In other words,
praise or singing is prayer.
If it isn't prayer, then it's not true
praise.
If you're just sitting in the church and
you're singing for the sake of everybody singing
around you, then you're praying and praising in
vain.
With that thought, let us go over to
pray.
Father, thank you that we can be here
today.
Thank you for thy precious and wonderful word.
And thank you that you created this whole
world by the word of God.
And that one day the world is kept
in store unto destruction by the same word.
And in between those two times, the creation
and thy coming again, is a chance for
us, Lord, to be changed by the word
of God.
Father, help us today to be receptive to
thy word.
I ask for thy presence above all things.
We come into the holiness by the blood
of Jesus Christ, and that alone.
And thank you that you are here, Lord.
You are faithful.
He is faithful that promised.
In Jesus Christ's name.
Amen.
If we could turn in our Bibles to
1 Chronicles 9, verses 33 to 34.
One of the most lovely little sections in
Scripture.
It says here, And these are the sinners,
chief of the fathers of the Levites.
The remaining in the chambers were three, for
they were employed in that work day and
night.
These chief fathers of the Levites were chief
throughout their generations.
These dwelt at Jerusalem.
And here we see, originally they were put
in an appointment by David.
And these singers that were put there, there
was many of them.
And they were free, they didn't have to
do any other work.
And the most amazing words here, is that
they were the chief of the fathers of
the Levites.
They weren't the lowly people, they were the
chief of the fathers of the Levites.
We read again in 2 Chronicles 5, verses
13 to 14.
We could turn there.
2 Chronicles 5, verses 13 to 14.
And here we read about the singers again.
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters
and singers were as one, to make one
sound, to be heard in praising and thanking
the Lord.
And when they lifted up their voice with
the trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music,
and praised the Lord, saying, for His good,
for His mercy endureth forever.
Excuse me.
That then, that then the house was filled
with a cloud, even the house of the
Lord.
So that the priest could not stand to
minister by reason of the cloud.
For the glory of the Lord had filled
the house of God.
And isn't that a wonderful thought?
The glory of the Lord had filled the
house of God.
And here, in the Old Testament, is one
of the most important chapters in the Bible,
was when King Solomon had finished building his
wonderful temple that God had ordained that he
should build.
And as at the point when the singers
and the trumpeters were as one, in singing
and praising God, at that point it said,
then, then the glory of the Lord filled
the temple.
And I don't know if you've noticed in
the New Testament, Luke chapter 24 verse 53
says, just after Jesus, or before He had,
or after He had ascended up to heaven
from the disciples, that it says in chapter
24 verse 53 of Luke, the disciples were
continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.
They were continually in the temple, praising and
blessing God, and shortly after that the Holy
Spirit came down and filled those temples, the
disciples.
And it's one of the most interesting things
in the Bible.
I hope the Bible excites you.
It's one of the most interesting things in
the Bible to think that in the Old
Testament, when they started to praise together as
one, that then the glory of God came
down and filled the temple of Solomon.
And in the New Testament, when they praised
and prayed in Jerusalem, the glory of God
came down and filled the disciples.
Isaiah 64 verse 5 is one of the
most staggering portions of Scripture to me.
It's one of the most wonderful portions of
Scripture.
I often claim it before the Lord.
It says, Thou meetest, He's speaking to God,
Thou meetest Him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness,
those that remember Thee in Thy ways.
Notice it doesn't say only, Thou meetest Him
that worketh righteousness, or Him that rejoiceth, but
both together, Him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness,
those that remember Thee in Thy ways.
You know, I remember we've got a wonderful
principal, the only problem is he's not English,
of our Bible college.
And he's a wonderful, wonderful man.
I call him Uncle.
And one day, he told us of how
he had gone to the Plata land, that's
the country of South Africa.
And there he had met what we call
an Afrikaner, a very, I can't remember the
English word, simple Afrikaner there.
And he was a farmer, and he was,
and that Sunday, I think he stayed in
his house, that Sunday this farmer preached.
And it was just so wonderful, he said,
to see the power of God come down
in that meeting, as God worked in those
people's lives.
And he wondered, this person had never been
through Bible college, and this person had never
been to theological seminar, whatever you call it,
what is the secret of this man's power
with God?
And he thought that he had it, when
he saw every morning, in that house, for
about three hours, no one was allowed to
disturb him, not the telephone, not anything, he
spent time alone with God.
And he took out his old concertina, I
don't know what they call it in America,
for three hours he just praised God.
And obviously he spent time with the Word
of God, and prayed other times, but three
hours of his day was just there spent
to praise God.
Thou meetest him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness,
those that remember thee in thy ways.
You know, Luther, he used to have a
problem.
He struggled to come into the presence of
God, in his quiet times.
And my dad was saying on the phone
the other day to me, my dad and
I have lovely conversations of the Lord over
the phone, because we don't see each other
many times.
And he talked of Luther, and he said,
when Luther always used to struggle in his
quiet times, to get through to the presence
of God, until the day when he realized
in the Scripture that God cried out that
we must give thanks, and that we must
praise Him.
And he used to spend the first few
minutes of the day, and when he went
into his quiet time, just praising and thanking
God, and he came into the presence of
God.
And John Wesley realized this from Luther, and
of course Luther used to sing the Psalms
and so on.
But John Wesley had his brother to give
him wonderful hymns and himself, and a few
others.
And John Wesley used to do the same,
in his quiet time, his many hours of
meditation with the Lord.
I have a friend in South Africa.
I'm sure you've all got friends, you know
what that means.
And this person has got my name, he's
Roy Porrow.
A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man.
A lovely old man, with a squeaky voice.
And he loves the Lord.
And I remember once outside a church there
in South Africa, he came up to me,
and he said, Roy, I've listened to a
minister.
And he said, this minister said that he'd
done a study, a study of the great
intercessors.
And he was surprised to find out, that
most of the great intercessors, or that the
great intercessors, that not one became a great
prayer, before he learned to pray.
Not one of them became a great prayer,
before he learned to pray.
I don't know if you've heard of my
grandpa.
He's a wonderful man as well.
He's 77 years old, and him and I
have got one thing in common.
We both can't sing.
And he loves to sing, and I love
to sing.
And that's a problem for everybody around us.
And I once said, we're the only people
who can sing two different songs, with two
different tunes, and both sing it false, and
not worry about each other, and be in
the same room.
But anyway, as I said, my grandpa loves
to sing.
And another thing I know of my grandpa,
is he's often gone through many hard fires,
many hard times.
He's often been on the point, I just
am amazed at him many times, as he's
on the point of losing everything that he'd
worked for years, and years, and years, and
years to build up as a farmer.
And then I see him there in the
room, and it's Christmas Day, you could say.
It's almost at the point of losing everything,
as far as we're here.
And there he is with his smiley face,
and he's speaking to this person about his
soul.
He's talking about Jesus.
And in between that, he's praising.
You know, there's a person called Robert in
South Africa.
He came out on a meeting for salvation,
but I doubt, I think he, I really
think he backslid, or he wasn't saved at
that point.
And I remember once, I asked for the
name.
Now what is the name of that, it's
like a van without the back.
A pickup truck.
That's right, America.
We call it a Bucky in South Africa.
And we were going for about 300 kilometres
or so, less than that.
My grandfather was going to drive the one
car, and there was someone else going to
drive the pickup truck.
And Robert was coming with.
And I remember Robert saying, he said, I
don't want to sit in the front with
that old uncle.
He said, because he sings all the way.
And I didn't want to tell him I
sing with him.
But I did sit in front of my
grandfather.
And you know what I love about my
grandfather?
All his false singing, like me, and so
many other things.
How God blesses him in his ministry.
He lives on top of his tractor looking
for the next sermon.
And I remember once, we went up in
this valley, up in the Khamtus Valley in
South Africa.
And we came to a church there.
And out of that church came a man,
and he said, I'm the man who built
the church.
Obviously he was speaking another language.
I guess the man would care for both.
And then he came on the next one,
and he said, I'm an elder.
And the other said, I'm a deacon.
And he went on, and they went on
like this, about five of them.
And I remember sitting there, and my grandfather
brought the sermon from the heart of God.
And all that church council, and the man
who built the church in his seventies, came
out for salvation that day.
And how God has used my grandfather.
And I really believe God blesses a person
who praises and works righteousness.
I don't know if you know Psalm 67,
verse 5 to 6.
I forgot the verse somewhere.
67, verse 5 to 6.
It says, let the people praise thee, O
God, let all the people praise thee.
Then shall the earth yield her increase, and
God, even our own God, shall bless us.
Then shall the people yield her increase, and
God, even our own God, shall bless us.
Do you believe that?
I believe that.
I've seen it in my grandfather's life.
The man who praises God through the hard
times.
But you know, that's not the reason why
we should praise.
That's not the reason why we should praise.
If I was asked a reason why I
praise, then I would say, I'd look to
Psalm 18, verse 3.
It says basically, let us praise the Lord
who is worthy of praise.
Who is worthy to be praised.
And you ask the question, how worthy is
God to be praised?
How worthy?
I'd just say this worthy.
If you think of the nails through his
hands, or the crown of thorns on his
head.
If you think that he who knew no
sin became sin for us.
If you think of all that he suffered
on that cross just for us, then you
can say with me, he is worthy of
praise.
There's a song, I hope you all know
it.
It's an old little chorus and it says,
they say he is wonderful.
They say he is wonderful.
The sun, the moon, the stars that shine
all say he is wonderful.
And then I ask the question, but do
you say he is wonderful?
Do you say he is wonderful?
Along with the sun and the moon and
stars, do you say he is wonderful?
It's a question.
Now it's easy to praise, it's easy to
praise God when you've just won a million
dollars.
I don't say you should win a million
dollars.
But it's easy to praise God when times
are going well.
The world expects it of you.
But what about the hard times?
Now Hebrews 13 verse 15 says we must
offer the sacrifice of praise.
The sacrifice of praise.
And I was at church in Western Cape
in South Africa and I remember going and
then I've got a problem, I've got a
blocked nose.
It's forever blocked.
And I can't smile very much.
But I was in this church and they
were singing their hearts out.
You could hear them just singing and singing
those wonderful loud old stuff.
And it was enjoyable.
But when I came out of that church,
I think the name of the missionary was
Vian and Hannes, the two of them.
And one of them turned to me or
turned to Hannes and said, you know those
people stank of drink.
Those people stank of drink.
And it's so sad.
And they were saying it's easy to praise
when you're going through good times.
It's easy to sing.
But what about the hard times?
Now the devil loves to hurt your faith.
I can tell you that.
The devil loves to hurt your faith and
to stop you praising God.
I was once in a place called Hannes
Bayen in South Africa where one of my
friend's family is.
And then we've got a thatched roof.
I hope you call it here in South
America the same.
A thatched roof, big house near a big
dam with a poofy slide.
It was a wonderful place for a young
man to be.
But there was one problem.
I'm slightly tall.
And the doorway in that place, especially for
an absent-minded person, was very low.
And I'm half ashamed to say that I
didn't only hit my head once.
I hit my head again and again and
again.
And I suppose each time I told myself
I wouldn't hit my head again.
And then it happened.
And I think at the end of the
weekend I hit my head about seven times.
And here comes the devil and he says,
with all respect, he says, Roy, there's obviously
something wrong with your spiritual life.
Look, the Lord could have easily stopped you
hitting your head.
He's allowing it because there's something that you've
got to put right.
And there the devil attacks your faith and
he takes away your song.
I know a person there in Pretoria.
It's the capital of South Africa.
And she's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful woman.
An old woman in her 80s.
But I love having tea with her.
I've got about, probably about ten old people
in South Africa near their 80s.
One 91.
I sit at his feet and I just
love to listen to a person who was
used in revival in the old days.
But this, I call her Tani, Auntie.
She was in Pretoria and I went to
visit her son and I found out that
she was staying next door and I went
to visit her.
And she told me a story.
She hadn't always gone through wonderful times.
In fact, she'd been through more fires than
most people on earth.
33 years before, this is when I went
to her.
It's a bit longer now.
She lost her son in a motorcycle accident.
And ten days later, ten days later, she
lost her husband of a heart attack.
I don't know when, but a time afterwards
she lost her grandchild.
The grandchild's husband.
Their child.
In a taxi accident.
The fire popped.
And in that same accident, one of her
other grandchildren had to go into a wheelchair.
But luckily only for four years.
She herself, I don't know, she's one of
those extremely unlucky persons.
She fell six stories in an elevator.
You can imagine.
I've seen her there.
She's crouched over.
She isn't allowed to make her own food.
She's got this apparatus which she walks step
for step.
And to top it all, in 2004, she
just happened to be in the way of
a mechanical door.
She couldn't get through in time and it
hurt her very much when it crushed her.
And that same year, she had heart failure.
She suddenly couldn't move or something like that
and they took her to the doctor.
And the doctor said to her, you've had
heart failure.
And then she said a very strange thing
which most of us would call a bit
stupid.
She said, praise the Lord, I've had heart
failure.
And then the doctor looked at her and
said, but you've got sugar diabetes.
I'm sorry to tell you.
She said, praise the Lord, I've got sugar
diabetes.
And you know, she said to the doctor,
you know, I'm a woman in my 80s.
It could have been much worse.
It could have been cancer or something.
You know, whenever I walk through that door,
it's just a wonderful thing.
You just hear these words.
As your feet go in through that door,
this is how I've experienced it.
Praise the Lord.
Every third sentence is just those words.
Praise the Lord.
Now let me ask you a little question.
When do you stop praising?
What little things stop you praising God?
You know, it's wonderful.
You have the testimonies of people who come
to her for help.
She can't go to people, but people come
to her.
Three o'clock in the morning, suicide case,
phones her.
Other people come to her.
Wonderful how they meet with God.
Many of them.
But you see, they know she's real.
She doesn't only praise God through the good
times.
She praises God through the bad times.
And I'm sure you've all read of, in
church history, how many, not all, of the
martyrs, not all of them, but many of
them, as the fire was creeping up their
bodies, how they sang in praise to God.
And it's a wonderful testimony.
Many people say you've got dying grace.
And of course, if we fail a lot
now, it doesn't matter, because God will give
us dying grace.
And I agree with them in one sense,
that there's a grace we're going to get
when we die, which we don't have now.
But I would like to ask this question
from my heart.
If you can't praise, discipline yourself to seek
God, to praise God, when the little things
go wrong, now, how do you expect to
praise God when the big things go wrong?
If you cannot seek God, to praise God
when the little things go wrong, how can
you expect to praise God when the big
things go wrong?
And before I go on, I've just got
a thought.
It's a bit off from my sermon, but
I remember my dad.
Now, my dad has been a big encouragement
to me through the years.
It's very hard to be down when he
finds you for various reasons.
But one of the things he always says
to us as children, to me as a
missionary, he says, Roy, you're going to experience
different things on the mission field.
Sometimes you're going to get small crowds.
Sometimes you're going to get big crowds.
Sometimes there's going to be mighty millions of
God and sometimes there's going to be less.
And then he came to these words, basically.
He said, Roy, God's looking at you.
God's looking at you.
And he wanted to see if the few
people, when you've got the little crowd, whether
they aren't as important to you as the
big crowd.
And will you praise God through that and
spend as much time in prayer for the
few people as you would for the lots
of people.
And I always remember that.
And I remember the very first, I've had
many, many, many series of meetings in the
four years, or, sorry, few years I've been
as a missionary.
But I remember the first one.
It was a bit of a, you could
call almost a disappointment.
I came to this town.
We did a lot of work, an extreme
amount of work.
And we came to the meeting there and
we expected to have this wonderful revival as
God had worked in other places.
But this was our first series of meetings.
And I stood up there and there was
only one person in the meeting.
And it was the piano player.
And unfortunately, we didn't preach that meeting.
We did sing a few hymns.
But at the end of that series, it
grew to about 13 people.
And a few of them had been saved,
not through me, through my co-worker, that
first series.
And I remember at the end of that
series, I just suddenly, I think I remembered
what my father said.
And I thought, I'm going to praise God.
I'm going to praise God.
And I praised God.
It wasn't easy.
But I remember that Monday, it was two
days later after that series had finished, I
got a phone call from a very old
man.
And he phoned me and he said, Roy,
we've organized a meeting.
And he'd organized for churches to come together.
And he basically packed almost that hall full.
And I came there and I preached from
my heart.
And people met with God there who'd been
prayed for for years.
Oh, thou meet a sinner that rejoiceth and
worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy
ways.
But you may say, I don't always feel
like praising.
I don't always feel like praising.
Let me answer you.
I don't praise in my feelings.
I praise in the Lord.
Paul said, rejoice in the Lord always.
And again I say rejoice.
Not rejoice in your feelings.
Nowhere in the Bible does it talk of
faith and feelings and praising and feelings.
The Bible reading and praising and prayer are
all the same in one way.
If you discipline yourself, Bible reading, praising and
prayer, if you truly say it and you
discipline yourself to spend more and more time
with praising, praying and reading your Bible, then
eventually the more you'll want to do it.
There's an old saying, weeds soon choke the
unused path.
Weeds soon choke the unused path.
And I'd like to ask a question to
each one of you today.
And that's this.
Is the path of praise full of weeds
in your life?
Is the path of praise, I'm not talking
about church when you sing with everybody else,
but is the path of praise full of
weeds in your life?
If so, then I would, apart from one
thing I'd say at the end of the
sermon, I would trample those weeds.
I would praise God, offer the sacrifice of
praise that there's not one weed left.
That there's not one weed left.
Of course it's hard at the beginning when
you're going through a path full of weeds,
an overgrown path.
As little boys, like the monkeys barefoot between
the thorns, we used to run up the
mountains in Africa.
And then many years later we came to
the same place and it was so hard
to get through because the paths were gone.
They were overgrown.
And at first it might be hard, but
trample them down.
Paul didn't say only rejoice in the Lord
always and again I say rejoice.
He said, he reiterated himself in 1 Thessalonians
5 verse 16.
He said rejoice evermore.
Rejoice evermore.
I love Amazing Grace, the last section there
of Amazing Grace which is, when I'd, how
does it go?
When I'd been there 10,000 years back
shining as the sun, with no less days
to sing God's praise than when we'd first
begun.
I hope that's what you're looking forward to
in heaven because that's what I'm looking forward
to.
Worthy is the Lamb.
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.
God wants people to offer the sacrifice of
praise.
God wants people to offer the sacrifice of
praise.
Jeremiah 17 verse 10 says, I the Lord
searched the heart, I tried the reins, even
to give every man according to his ways
and according to the fruit of his doing.
1 Samuel 13 verse 14 says, the Lord
sought a man after his own heart.
And then in Acts 12, Acts 12 verse
22, it says these words, sorry
13 verse 22, I found David, the son
of Jesse, a man after mine own heart
which shall fulfill all my will.
And you know what I love about David
is he was such a, the person that
God found was a play of heart.
He so loved singing praises.
He so loved singing praises that he eventually
became known as the sweet psalmist of Israel.
The sweet psalmist of Israel.
And he went through many struggles in his
life.
Inward struggles as a Christian, or as a
man of God.
But if you read in the Psalms, he
always at the end offered the sacrifice of
praise.
Always at the end of his Psalms offered
the sacrifice of praise.
But after David, after David had fallen into
sin, he came back to God in Psalm
51, that famous chapter, and he said very
interesting words.
Psalm 51, I'm trying to find the word,
Psalm 51, verse 12 to 13.
He said, Restore unto me the joy of
thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free
spirit.
Those wonderful words.
Then, then, will I teach transgresses thy ways,
and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Then will I teach transgresses thy ways, and
sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Psalm 40, verse 3.
I can't quite remember, but the Lord has
put a new song in my heart.
Even praise unto the Lord.
Many shall see it, and shall fear, and
shall trust in the Lord.
Many shall see it, and shall fear, and
shall trust in the Lord.
Now I want to ask you a question.
Do you believe that?
You know, I'm not saying if you walk
down the street and you praise past everybody's
house so that they close their ears, that
you're going to get revival, that a million
people are coming to God.
But I wonder how many people have not
accepted Christ, because they've never met someone who
prays God through the hard times.
Many shall see it, and shall fear, and
shall trust in the Lord.
You know, I was once at a convention
in South Africa, and it was wonderful.
We were having a lovely time there.
I think my father was preaching at some
of the meetings.
In between, I was in charge of some
of the youth activities, probably throwing water balloons
at each other or something.
Can't remember.
But I remember there was this boy, and
he smoked, and he swore, and he drank,
sometimes on the campsite.
It was against the rules, obviously, but we
caught him sometimes.
And he came up to me, and he
was so close with me once, that he
swore in my face.
He swore in my face.
Zark.
And it was a great blessing to me
at the end of that convention.
Zark came up to me at the door.
He'd missed one of the meetings.
And as I came out of the door,
he came up to me and said, Roy,
I want to see you in the room.
And I went there to the room, and
he said to me, he sat down there
on the one bed, and he said, Roy,
there's a great joy in the world.
There is a joy in the world.
But the joy that I see in you,
Roy, the joy that I see in you,
that's a greater joy.
And I want that joy.
And you know, he knelt down there on
the ground.
And I've never seen a man, rarely seen
a man so changed in one moment, as
he stood up, and he had God's joy
in his life.
He was saved.
If any man be in Christ, he's a
new creature.
Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new.
And of course, faith doesn't have anything to
do with feelings.
But there was this man.
He went out, and he went to testify
about how Jesus changed his life.
He never touched, drank again, or smoked, or
swore that I knew.
I phoned him one year after he had
met with God.
He testified that he never ever touched, drank
again.
He went to school a week after that,
a large school there in the Western Cape
of South Africa.
And he organized meetings.
He wanted to become a preacher.
A little bit too much zealous before, wisdom,
or too little wisdom with zealousness.
But it was wonderful that God so changed
the person.
Do you believe that verse?
Many shall see it, and shall fear, and
shall trust in the Lord.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace.
Now David wrote in Psalm 23, I remember
once in college, I was going through a
struggle because I wasn't where I should be
with the Lord.
I wasn't where I should be with the
Lord.
And it's terrifying being in a situation where
you know you're not where you should be
with the Lord, but the more you try
to make yourself right, the less right you
are.
I don't know if you've ever felt like
that.
You've tried to fix it yourself.
And then I remember sitting there, it was
in front of a lecture hall.
I can't remember who the lecturer was, what
he lectured about, nothing.
I just know my Bible was opened, suddenly
opened as I was thinking of these things.
And I burst into tears as I saw
that verse in Psalm 23.
He restoreth my soul.
And then shortly afterwards, my cup runneth over.
My cup runneth over.
And he did.
I didn't have to do anything.
He'd already done it at Calvary.
Even for a Christian who needed to be
right.
So I'd like to ask that question again.
Is the path of joy, of praise, sorry,
in your life full of weeds?
Is it?
Well then I've got one advice for you.
Go home, and when you're home, well, when
you can, pray to God.
Ask Him to restore yourself.
And then, not worrying about your feelings, discipline
yourself to offer the sacrifice of prayer.
Religion isn't about rules, but what a wonderful
thing it would be is to go for
a walk.
Pray for half an hour going out, and
pray for half an hour coming in.
If you discipline yourself to do that, not
worrying about your feelings, God will bless you
in a wonderful way.
Praise Him, then pray.
Let us pray.
Father, thank you that we've got tongues, that
we might praise you.
Thank you that we are, that of us
are thy children.
Thank you for dying on the cross for
us.
And Lord, as I stand here unworthy, I
just ask that the Christians in this hall,
that you give them the grace to praise
thee more and more.
To praise thee through the hard times, God.
That those who need their soul to be
restored, that you would restore it through the
blood of Jesus Christ, and through the working
of the Holy Spirit.
And that you would work in their lives
to make it a life of praise, and
pray, a life of Christlikeness.
In Jesus Christ's name, I ask all this.
Amen.