Reason praise is so blessed is because it's
indispensable.
You can't get along without it.
If you do, your loss will be an
eternal loss.
And the reason people don't understand it is
because the natural man cannot receive the things
of the Spirit of God.
And when you live in the flesh, I
mean in the natural, the natural, I know
that the natural man has 1,000 billion
brain cells, but they're all sick.
I mean they're dead, the Bible says.
You've got to be quick and then made
a new creature.
I was so happy the other day to
hear a saint testify whom I was permitted
to lead to the Lord, or at least
she got saved in one of our meetings.
She was a woman, German woman, who was
mad with God and man.
She had been treated so badly that she
didn't care about anything.
She was just mad.
And when we put up our tent in
her vicinity, she came just out of curiosity.
And so she sat down and listened to
the testimonies impressed her more than anything else.
And after listening to the testimonies of people
who were saved, she said, well, there must
be something to it.
I'm going to try it.
So she came to the altar one night
and she said, Jesus, if this is really
real, if you are real, you must come
to me.
And he did, of course.
He came into her heart and she stayed
a long time.
I like lengthy altar services.
I like altar services where you make God
know that you mean business.
And I tell you, God means business.
And he tells us that men ought always
to pray and not to faint, and that
includes women too.
You shouldn't give up.
God will certainly come.
Everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh
findeth.
And if you don't find right away, then
keep knocking and the door will open.
Well, she did.
And when she went home that night, she
was so changed.
She took herself by the ear.
She went to the mirror.
Magic mirror on the wall.
Who is this woman after all?
Why, she said, in her broke mind, that
ain't me.
Who is that woman?
She's smiling.
She hadn't smiled in 20 years, and now
she smiles.
She was bright.
Well, last night or last time I saw
her, she testified with a glowing voice.
This happened about 30 years ago.
She said, you know, Jesus made a new
creature out of me.
She couldn't understand it, but she couldn't understand
how it was possible that God could come
into her poor life and take an old
heart like that and renew her and give
her a right spirit.
And she was praising the Lord.
And so God Almighty will come to people
that open their hearts to him.
And the natural man cannot receive the things
of the Spirit of God.
And I have to laugh sometimes at the
things God does.
He does strange things.
Because people come in here, not so much
in here, but Seneca Avenue.
So impressed with their dignity.
So deeply impressed with their imagined education.
The Bible says, knowledge puffs up, but love
edifies.
But the Bible says that the wisdom of
this world is foolishness with God, and none
of the princes of this world understood, but
unto us.
God hath revealed them by his Spirit.
And tonight coming through the park, I like
to walk through the park because it gives
me a chance to talk to God and
to praise the Lord.
And when I see these wonderful trees that
the Lord set on fire again, how beautiful
is fall.
Of course, I like summer, but fall is
nice too when the weather's nice and the
sun shines.
And I was praising the Lord.
I was saying, Jesus, I praise you.
I praise you.
And then I stopped.
And then I said, well, Jesus, do you
care if I praise you?
Does it mean anything if I praise you?
And then he sweetly showed me why it
mattered to him that I praised him.
Why it gives him a chance that my
heart gives him a chance to praise God
in me and through me.
It gives Jesus Christ a chance to fill
this body of mine with light and with
glory and with the power of his resurrection.
That's what praise does.
It's a spiritual operation.
It's God doing something that the natural man
can't do or doesn't want to do.
Wherever you go today, you're bothered with cigarette
smoke.
I like to go into the park and
sit at the bench sometimes and breathe this
fresh air and sure some foggy comes along
and pests the air and poisons it with
cigarette smoke.
I wish they'd lock them all up.
Why?
It's a disgrace.
It's a shame to do that.
Of course, I know some men can't help
it.
They're addicted to it and Jesus will deliver
them.
And then the next worst thing is these
transistor radios.
Just to make a noise.
They don't play anything decent just to make
a noise.
Well, they've discovered something.
They discovered a mystery.
They just turned an knob and some noise
comes through.
And the noisier it is, why the better
they like it.
And they bother everybody on the bus and
everybody on the street with that thing.
But I made a discovery.
I tell you, I made a discovery when
I lift my heart in thanksgiving to God,
Jesus Christ, since he broadcasts from heaven glory
and grace.
And that's what praise does for me.
That's why he says, whosoever offereth praise turns
on this radio.
That you can read between the lines.
This is the way God says.
There's the open door into the sanctuary, into
the presence of almighty God.
And oh, now I'm beginning to see and
to understand the mystery of praise.
These fellows that make noise with their transistor
radio, they don't know what it is.
They don't know the mystery.
They just know how to make noise.
Well, anybody can do that.
But it's a good thing to discover this
wonderful receiving set, which is your heart, which
was created by God for that very purpose
that Jesus Christ might use those lips of
yours to praise the father by.
These lips that have been talking naughty things.
No wonder you're naughty.
No wonder your stomach aches.
No wonder your kidneys are sick.
But when you praise God and Jesus Christ
gets hold of you, there's contact with heaven.
God inhabits the praises of who?
Of you.
And you found that out.
Did you praise him tonight?
Oh, when you praise God in the Holy
Ghost, there's the current moving on the line.
You can feel that current moving on the
line and you can sense that wonderful unction
increasingly coming down.
And do you know why?
Because God purchased you with a great price.
He bought your body to be that receiving
instrument to show forth the praises of him
who has called you out of darkness into
his marvelous light.
And when I was unsaved or didn't know
the Lord, I was full of darkness.
These dark, depressive thoughts and criticizing and fault
finding and hating and unforgiving, all these things
lodged within me.
And yet I look very decent and very
religious, but inside was darkness.
But I tell you, since Jesus came in
and he came in when I praised him,
when I raised my hands and opened my
mouth and began praising the Lord.
And since that time, my whole body has
been full of light, the light of his
presence.
Oh, if I could tell you what praise
does, maybe I could wake up somebody in
this meeting to really do it.
When we had our meetings in Wuppertal, we
put up our tent and a group of
preachers came from one of the greatest revivalists
in Germany.
They were adopted by him and they were
ordained by him to be his ministers.
And they came to our tent night after
night.
And they had all kinds of questions.
They said, what is it when we come
into this tent?
We feel God, we feel heavenly.
And when we step out of it, then
we're dark again.
And they said, one of them confessed, he
says, you know, we're just a bunch of
hypocrites.
We're preachers, but we live in the flesh.
And when we get to meeting, when we
get to the door, then we take that
old face off and fool the people.
He confessed that.
But he said, what is it when I
get out of this tent?
Darkness comes upon me.
Then I told him if they would just
come and get saved and get right with
God and praise the Lord.
Why?
The reason we praise God is because Jesus
is here and he manifests his presence and
he baptizes us anew every night in the
Holy Ghost and power and praise opens all
the doors and all the windows of your
being.
Praise the Lord.
And so one of them said, well, tonight
he said to himself, when they all lift
their hands, I'm going to raise my hands.
I'm going to see what will happen.
So he did.
And a wonderful thing happened.
He put up his hands and the glory
of God came down.
You know that today is a very wonderful
preacher in the power of the Holy Ghost.
Really, he really got saved and he really
got filled with the Holy Ghost, but he
had to go God's way.
And in Germany where we minister, most people
don't know anything about those things because the
preachers, oh, I don't know what's the matter
with them.
They go around casting out devils and they're
full of it themselves.
Some of them, I know them personally.
You don't get rid of the devil that
way.
You get rid of the devil by letting
Jesus Christ come in and possess you.
Hallelujah.
You open the door and let him come
in.
Praise God.
Why the enemies got to go.
That's the way God says, that's the way.
And if you find another way, you're just
fooling yourself.
We had friends in Switzerland when I was
a little boy, there was a family and
they had three or four sons, fine gentlemen.
They were strong men.
They're really strong men, but they're all, all
these men were afraid of cats, especially black
cats.
And once a year when they have election,
they don't go to polls and sign a
slip like we do.
But every man has a weapon.
My father had a sword and every man
has to come with a weapon, either a
tomahawk or a sword or a gun.
And these boys had swords.
And so when they, when they have their
election, then they put up the sword for
yes.
So I guess they had a little bit
more than election.
They must've had a little bit Swiss beer.
I don't know.
Anyway, one of them came home at dusk
and he came into his room and he
threw his stovepipe hat on the bed.
And then he had a little nap.
And then when he came again into that
bedroom to go to bed, he was a
black cat on his horrors.
His hair stood on end.
He said, Get on you cat!
The cat wouldn't move.
He commanded him three or four times.
Get down!
He wouldn't.
So he took his sword and he threw
it.
And there it was, his stovepipe hat.
And that's what happens to these preachers that
cast out devils.
They cast out nobody.
You gotta go God's way.
Praise God.
And if you go God's way, you'll first
of all, begin to give him the glory.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
And when you begin to praise God, forgetting
yourself, forgetting your past, forget the things that
are behind.
Say Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
Praise Him.
I tell you, the enemy is defeated.
What marvelous victories God gives today to people
when they praise the Lord.
Sister Schultz knows the missionary in China who
was taken with black smallpox.
All the other missionaries went and were vaccinated.
I suppose that was the thing for them
to do.
According to your faith, be it unto you.
But this woman said, I've had Jesus for
my physician all my life.
I'm not going to stoop to that thing.
And now those black things came out all
over her body and the fever was raging
through her veins.
But she wouldn't give in.
The other missionary said, serve your rank.
She wouldn't give in.
She walked up and down and praised the
Lord with a loud voice.
And when the others ran away so they
wouldn't catch it, she said, Oh God, please
send somebody to help me praise the Lord.
Strange, wasn't that strange?
But somebody came along and helped her.
And I don't know how long they praised
the Lord, but it wasn't very long when
her sickness was gone.
Blown away.
Praise brought victory.
I told that story in California.
And after the meeting, a woman came to
me.
She said, I was the missionary that helped
to praise the Lord.
So here was proof.
But we have many such experiences.
And the best thing is this, that you
ought to get your experience.
And when you get an experience, you'll find
out that God himself inhabits the praises of
his people and nothing else.
There's no substitute for the praises of God's
people because the Holy Ghost answers to your
praise.
He comes.
And after a while it is Christ within.
He says, in the midst of the church
will I sing praises unto thee.
And if there's anything sweeter than a meeting
like this, we're all joined in heavenly harmony,
praising the Lord.