Open up your Bibles this morning with me to Ephesians, chapter 5. How about we just point our hands toward her? She's going to win Miss America. Amen. Father, in Jesus' name, we pray for Kristen right now to win. Father, we ask that You pave the way ahead for her, for Father, what a testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. We give You praise, in Jesus' name. Amen. When does that air? October 14th. Okay.

All right, Ephesians, chapter 5. I want you to look with me at verse 17.

"Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

"Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

"Speaking to yourselves [or literally speaking among yourselves] is psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

"Giving thanks always...." Say those three words with me: GIVING THANKS ALWAYS. How often? Always. "For all things unto God even the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In that passage of scripture, we started last week. How many of you were here last week? Let me see your hands. We were here for grubby Sunday. Okay. That means the rest of you missed a great blessing. We had a great time last week. What a great awesome service we had, and we had a good time after. We not only had a great natural picnic, we had a great spiritual picnic here and so again, thank you guys for coming.

But again we started a series last week out of this particular passage on praise and worship, and today I want to talk to you about a lifestyle of praise or a life of praise, for God's desire is that we praise Him always as that verse says in verse 17, or verse 20, "Giving thanks always for all things unto God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Giving thanks to God for all things doesn't mean that we realize that everything comes from God. There's things that come from the devil, but yet in every situation we have a reason to praise God. You know, let people come into church this morning and say, "Yeah, but it's so dreary outside. It's raining outside." Have you watched the news lately to see what's going on around Oklahoma? There is drought everywhere. There is hot weather. There is drought that's been up to two years in the making all around us. You go north of us to Nebraska and there's nothing growing up there. The crops are dead, there's so much drought. You go west of us and there's fires in Colorado. You go south of us to Texas and there's drought in Texas. All the way over to both coasts, there is drought going on. And so you have a reason to shout and rejoice, because God's put a pocket right around us and He sent rain. Glory to God! Hallelujah! So don't get depressed.

You ever notice this? Some people get depressed over everything? You ever noticed that? I mean, none of you surely, but you know, everybody, you know somebody that sees the worst in everything. They complain all week long and yet the Word of God says we're to give thanks always.

Let me ask you this. If you actually believed that all of your tomorrows were taken care of by God, how would that change you? It would make you different, wouldn't it? You could actually walk in every day rejoicing, knowing that everything is going to work out. Well, folks, that's absolutely the truth, so why do you gripe? Why do you complain? Why do you wait till you get to church on Sunday to praise God and gripe Monday through Saturday? Why is that? I don't understand that. Why when you walk through the door say, "Well, I guess it's time to praise God." Walk out the door and say,"Well, now it's time to gripe." Some people can find something to gripe about all the time. Well, enough griping!

Turn over with me to Colossians. A couple of books over to the book of Colossians. Look with me at chapter 3. Colossians, chapter 3, and look with me at verse 12. Colossians 3:12 - "Put on therefore...." Notice this. It is a decision.

"Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a
quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so do you.

"And above all these things put on charity [this is agape, divine love], which is
the bond of perfectness [or the bond of maturity].

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which you are also
called in one body; and be also thankful.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and
admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord.

"And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God even the Father by him."

These two parallel books have two parallel passages that we just read. Ephesians and Colossians are both parallel books. In fact, they're often called sister books because so much of the same thing is recorded in both, yet there's a small emphasis difference. Where Ephesians talks about being filled with the Spirit, Colossians talks about being filled with the Word. And those two put together causes an abundance in you, an outflow in you of the Holy Spirit in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

The reason why you gripe throughout the week is because you're not filled with the Word of God. The reason why you gripe through the week is because you're not filled with the Holy Spirit.

I used to think that optimists were born and pessimists were born, because oftentimes I would see in children, some had a better attitude than others. But folks, that is absolutely not true. I believe that people who are optimistic see the best in everything are developed, they're not born. This verse is saying you have a choice. Choose to forgive, choose to walk in love, and choose to be filled with the Word of God, and choose to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that from your very being will flow forth psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Stop for just a moment. Let your eyes get glazed over for just a moment and wander off with me and think about somebody. Think of a couple or think of a couple of friends you might have and one sees the worst in everything and one sees the best in everything. Oftentimes maybe you think of a married couple. The husband might see the best in everything and the wife gripes about everything, or turn it around. Perhaps it's the wife that sees the best in everything, always sees God in everything, and the husband doesn't. But again, when you think about that, you might think about that couple, but think for just a moment. Probably if you'll think hard enough, the one who sees the best in everything is the closest to God, prays the most, fills themselves with the Word of God, comes to Bible studies, comes to prayer groups, comes to church more often, applies the Word of God in their life and the other one does not. It simply comes down to it, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If the heart is filled with God's Word and if your heart is filled with the Holy Spirit, you cannot help but gush out psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Amen? Amen? Thank you. All right. Want to make sure you're not asleep. All right.

Now, last week we talked about some things that have changed and things that have not changed from the Old Testament. We talked about some things that have changed. Thank God we're not under the law of Moses. We're not under those sacrifices. We're not under that Old Testament priesthood. Thank God you don't have to bring rams and heifers to church. Thank God I don't have to slay them. Thank God we don't have to burn them here in the church. Thank God those days are over, for Jesus has fulfilled every sacrifice and every law. Amen? Thank God for that, so those things have changed, yet there are some things that have not changed.

Salvation hasn't changed. It's always been by faith in Jesus Christ, whether they called Him Jehovah or whether we call Him Jesus Christ, faith in Him saves us.

Next of all, healing has never changed. In fact, most of the scriptures we stand on for divine healing are out of the Old Testament that declares, "Himself took our infirmities, bore our sicknesses, with His stripes we were healed." So healing has not changed, nor the way we appropriate healing. The walk of faith has never changed. The walk of faith has always been by walking out the promises of God. In fact, Hebrews, chapter 11, describes for us the walk of faith by describing the Old Testament heroes one after another. So there's some things that have not changed.

But when it comes to praise and worship, many do not understand praise and worship because so little is described in the New Testament about worshiping and praising God. That's because praise and worship has not changed from the Old Testament. That's why in these verses of Scripture, when it says that we are to sing among each other and communicate one among another, it starts out with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. It simply meant the Old Testament laid down the foundation for praise and worship. Yes, there has been some additions in the New. Thank God we're filled with the Holy Spirit, because psalms and hymns are listed there, but today we're going to talk about spiritual songs. The Holy Spirit can lead us and guide us into brand new songs, but again we still go for psalms and hymns.

Let's talk about that for just a moment. This is where we ended last week. We talked about psalms and hymns. Psalms is the Greek word psalmas. It actually is the word for the Old Testament title of psalms, and the word means songs from the Word of God accompanied with music. This is what we have in church.

I don't know where some denominations get the idea that you can't have music in church. The word "psalms" means Word of God sung, accompanied by instruments. So whether those instruments are stringed instruments or electric instruments or whatever type they are, instruments are designed to be played by people to glorify God. Amen?
And therefore that must be talked about when we come together, when there's musicians available.

But the word "hymns" is the word humnos, and the word "hymns" simply means the same scripture sung but a cappella, without music, for there's times when we don't have a musical instrument available. There's times when my car, I just let her rip, you know. I don't sound as good as Christian, but I just let it rip. I make a joyful noise unto God. I'm sure you do too. I'm sure there's times, I like the shower. There's that resonance in the shower that you hit that certain note and it sounds better than normal.

But anyway, you don't have to have instruments at times. There's times when people get together and say, "Let's just sing." Jesus and His disciples sung a hymn together. That's because there was no music available. We found out last week that's what Paul and Silas sang. It said they sang praises. The Greek word was actually"hymns," because there was no musicians. I can't imagine them hanging against the wall saying, "Give me a C." There was no musicians around. They just sang and let their voice sing, and I imagine too that as they sang, the Bible says all of the jail, all those in the cells heard them as they praised and magnified God at midnight. In the worst time without musicians available, they turned to each other and they opened up their mouth and they glorified God from the Word of God. They sang hymns to God. Amen.

So there's psalms and hymns, but this morning I want to talk about that third one. It's called "spiritual songs." Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. The Greek word for"spiritual" is the word pneumatikos. It's the same word we find over in First Corinthians, chapter 12, and verse 1 where it says, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren...." It's a reference to the power that comes from your own spirit, whe ther it be the gifts of the Spirit that flow into your life or whether it be spiritual songs, we know that directly it comes from the Holy Spirit but it comes from our inward man deep down from the inside of us. In other words, psalms and hymns come from here. We know the Word of God. We have it memorized. We put it to music, but how many of you know, there's also times when the Holy Spirit can give you a song for the moment? Amen.

Now, the word "spiritual songs," the word "songs" is the Greek word ode, and it's where we get the word for "odes." And this word simply means odes that come from the moment, right out of your spirit. It could be a reference to singing in tongues, for we know that this is scriptural. First Corinthians, chapter 14, Paul declared, "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding," meaning, "I will pray in tongues and I will pray in my own known language."

But then he went on to say also, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding." We can sing in our own known tongue, but we can also sing in other tongues, whether it be together as a congregation or whether it be individually.

But then again he talks about spiritual songs here. It can also mean that God can give you a song in the moment. There's been times when God has brought me out of problems. The Word of God declares in psalms that there are psalms of deliverance, and it gives us psalms of deliverance.

I'm here to let you know when I've come through difficult times, there's been times God's given me a song for the moment. I found myself singing it, and I often thought it was real good, so I went back a few weeks later and looked at it and realized, it was just for the moment. It was just for the moment.

I'm sure some of you probably, you know, there's times, I got a song one time and wrote it down one time. I was doing a series and I was just so blessed and I got a song and I remember writing the words out and trying my best to try to memorize the music to it, and about two or three months later after the series was over, I went back and looked at it and thought, Nobody would want to sing that song. It was good for the moment.

I'm here to let you know, God can give you songs for the moment, but I'm here to also let you know that the Holy Spirit has never quit writing songs of praise and worship.

Folks, please, don't ever get stuck in the 1940s. Don't ever get stuck in the 1950s. Don't ever get stuck in the charismatic movement of the 60s and 70s. There's some great songs that came out back there, but the Holy Spirit is ever new, ever writing new music for why? There's still spiritual songs being written today, and folks, I have an idea that when we get to heaven we're going to find out we only scratched the surface of the billions and billions of songs that the Holy Spirit wants to give and we'll sing them throughout eternity. I believe that heaven will ever be new, with ever new songs.

So again the songs we've been learning here for the past numbers of years are songs that keep coming up. Yes, we blend songs we sang before. We blend hymns in with those, but we also want to be able to flow with the move of the Holy Spirit in the day we're living in. And I personally believe there's a revival again of praise of worship happening right now around the world.

Folks, there are young people around the world writing brand-new songs of praise and worship unto God. That intimacy with God, and folks, you can just sense the power of the Holy Spirit all over those songs. I don't want to be left back somewhere. I want to be able to flow with the Spirit of God. Don't you? Don't you? Amen. And all the old folks said, AMEN. Okay. Just want to make sure you're with us this morning. All right. See, if you said Amen, you admitted you're old, so don't say Amen. Okay?

So again we have spiritual songs. Spiritual songs, so it's singing in the spirit or songs given by the Holy Spirit for the moment, or it's new songs which can be sung by congregations worldwide. As today we have such mass media, ways of getting songs out, that songs can be written, and in a matter of months they can compass the whole world. What a great day we live in for the Holy Spirit to be writing new songs and giving it through people that again we must be open to the Holy Spirit.

All I'm saying this morning to you is this. Be open to the Holy Spirit. Be open to the Holy Spirit. I believe there's times to stand on God's Word, but I also believe there's times to sing God's Word. I believe there's times when the Holy Spirit can give you a word for the moment. I believe there's times the Holy Spirit can sing to you a word for the moment. I believe you can confess your way out of problems. I believe you can sing your way out of problems. It's still the powerful Word of God. It's still the Holy Spirit that wants to work through you, and in this verse of Scripture, he declares it's psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Say, SPIRITUAL SONGS.

Well, I want you to notice something else. Go back with me to a verse of scripture there in Colossians. I want you to look with me again at chapter 3. Look with me at verse 16. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs...."

You know, I think for so long we have just categorized all music in the church as praise and worship, when there are so many other types of songs we sing that we don't even recognize. What I did was in this passage of scripture, I began to look up this term"teaching and admonishing one another," and boy, did I find a drought of information.

I went to certain commentaries and they had nothing to say about this. They'd talk about the psalms and the hymns and the spiritual songs, but they wouldn't touch teaching and admonishing one another. So that doesn't seem to make sense. It seems like if we teach and admonish one another, it has to be from the Word of God by a preacher. It has to be from the Word of God by a teacher. But this verse says that the Holy Spirit wants to teach us by music, so I began to think about that and I began to look again for some commentaries and I found precious little on it.

So I began to dig a little deeper and I found a few little notes and all of a sudden things began to open up to me and I want to tell you some things that the Spirit of God began to show me in the past couple of days about this passage of Scripture.

First of all, let's talk about the types of music we sing. First of all, songs can be sung to God or songs can be sung to each other. That's what this passage is telling us. Notice it says, songs can be sung to God. We had it in two passages. Ephesians 5:19 says,"Making melody in your heart to the Lord." So we find out we can make melody in our heart to the Lord.

Here in Colossians 3:16 it says, "Singing with grace to the Lord." So we sing to the Lord, but in both passages of Scripture it also says we can sing to one another. Ephesians 5:19 says, "Speaking among yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." And Colossians 3:16 talks about singing and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. That began to open up a whole new realm, but actually I began to think about it. So many of the songs we sing are not really praise and worship. They're songs of admonition and they're songs of teaching.

Now, this morning I'm going to lay it all out for you and explain it to you, because I don't want to, you know, just do something over your head, but I want to break this passage down and show for you that the Word of God is broken down basically into five different types of songs. Five different types of songs. So if you want to take notes on this, this morning, please do so.

First of all, there are songs of praise and secondly there are songs of worship. Can anybody this morning tell me, what is the simple difference, as simple as possible, between praise and worship? Anyone? That's it. Praise is for what God has done. Worship is for who He is. Now, we can get much more complicated with that and we can lay down subpoints under that, but to make it as simple as possible, praise is addressed to God for all He has done, for His works, His deeds, His mighty acts to us. It's songs of thanksgiving, but worship comes to God for who He is.

In fact, the Bible tells us, our praise and worship services should begin with praise. "I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart. I will enter his courts with praise." See, the gates is where you first came in. As the congregation came in to the place where God was to be worshiped and the Word was to be taught, they would enter in to the gates and then they would walk in to the courts. So we're to enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise, but folks, we are to head from there into the holy place where it's just us and God. In other words, all the possessions are out there and by the time you get to the holy place, it's just you and God.

How many of you know that God wants to have intimate fellowship with us? We should desire to want to have intimate fellowship with Him, and that's what worship is. So we have songs of praise and we have songs of worship.

This being Father's Day, I'm sure that perhaps many of your children came up to you and, you know, hugged you and wished you happy Father's Day and gave you cards and perhaps in there they put down thank you's for all the things you've done for them. But as a father, I know it's important that there come a time when those kids grow up and they more value you for who you are than what you did for them. There comes a time when "Thank you, Dad, for the bicycle," and "Thank you, Dad, for the clothes and all that," comes to an end and they just value you for who you are.

Don't you know there must be the same heartbeat in God, that He desires that one day we move past the point of "Thank You for my car," and "Thank You for my healing," and "Thank You for my salvation." Although these things are wonderful, and thank God for eternal life, but folks, don't you know that God is desiring to have friendship with us?

Folks, the highest thing we can have with God is not sons and daughters but friends of God. The Word of God declares of Abraham that he was called a "friend of God," and I can't think of anything higher than to have God as our friend, and friends don't value each other for what you can buy them, because you cannot buy friendship.

I have a certain pastor friend who tried for the longest time to buy my friendship. I couldn't figure out why every time I saw him he was buying me things, and finally figured out and he admitted it. He just wanted to buy my friendship, wanted me to be a friend. I said, "Look, if you're a friend, you don't have to buy me anything." You know, actually, instead of buying to be friends, you should buy because you are friends. And with the Lord, God doesn't, you know, God doesn't try to buy our friendship. God wants us to love Him, move to a point where we can just simply say, "Lord, I love You for who You are, and if You never did another thing for me, I'd love You. I love You because You're my heavenly Father." That's the type of love that God is looking for.

So first of all, we have songs of praise and songs of praise are sang to God.
Worship is sang to God. So songs of praise are songs to God for His acts and His deeds.

Let me give you some psalms on that. Psalm 8, "O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. When I consider the stars, the moon that you have ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?" Psalm 8 is a psalm of praise, because David is thanking God for the creation around him. He's thanking God for the stars, the moon, all that around him, and he's also thanking God for creating his life on this earth. That is a psalm of praise.

The next psalm after that, Psalm 9 says, "I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart." And in that psalm he lists the benefits that God has given to him day after day.

I think if some of the psalms we sing around here are songs we sing around here that are praise. "For all that You have done, I will thank You. For all that You're going to do." There's a song directed to God for all that He has done for us and we realize if He has done everything for us, He's going to do everything for us. How many of you are glad for what God has done? The Bible says, "Forget not all of his benefits." Why? If you don't forget the past benefits, then you'll have faith for the benefits tomorrow. How do I know He's going to supply my need tomorrow? Because He supplied my need every day that I've been born again for my entire life. He's never let me down, so He won't let me down tomorrow. That's why we forget not all of His benefits.

Hebrews 10 tells us, "Call to remembrance the former days when you fought such a battle." It gives you faith for the future when you look back and see what God has done. But folks, that comes down to praise. We thank Him for what He has done and we rejoice for what He's about to do.

But also, God desires that we worship Him. That's why we move into worship and in worship we come to God for who He is, no longer just what He has done. And here we have some, I'll list them for you. So again we have worship. In Psalm 3, "Thou O Lord, art a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head." We're simply worshiping God because He ever is around us, ever compasses us. This is not a psalm of praise, because there's nothing in there listed of the benefits that God has purchased us or the things He has done for us. It's just simply declaring that God is our shield, our glory, the lifter of our head.

We sing songs like that, "Face to Face with You." What a wonderful song of worship, and how many of you know that God desires we come to a place we're face to face with Him.

But folks, here's the most important part. You should desire to come to a place where you are face to face with God. A relationship with God to where you are in His presence and this again comes by entering His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. We also sing a song, "As I Come Into Your Presence," past the gates of praise. We're simply saying, "Our destination is to come into that holy place where we are face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The one we sang this morning, "This Is the Air I Breathe, This is My Daily Bread." Folks, that's more than a song of praise. That's adoration and worship to God, that He is the very life that we possess, that everything that we are we owe to Him, not just everything we have, but everything we are. He is the breath that we have. He is the daily bread that we have.

But the third type of song is really prayer, and the psalms are filled with songs of prayer. Isn't this interesting? David sang some of his prayers. Now, I would invite you to go home and try this, but try it. Go home sometime and in your prayers, make it a song unto God, for David did. There were many psalms which were prayers to God. To God this was a petition in song. Instead of just petitioning Him with our voice, we petition Him with our song. Instead of just verbalizing it and saying it, we actually sing it and David did this.

A number of psalms are actually prayers. Psalm 25:1 - "Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee." In that verse of scripture, he is simply making his psalms a prayer to God and again, many of them are accompanied with musicians, many of the m are accompanied by those around him, as David prays and worshiped the Lord, but again made it a prayer unto God. We have songs like that. "The Spirit of the Living God, Fall Fresh on Me." What a wonderful prayer as we petition God and petition the Holy Spirit to fall on us and to fall on our service as we then petition God for His great blessings and His great benefits.

"Glorify Your Name." How often do we sing that? "Father, We Love You.""Holy Spirit, We Love You." "Jesus, We Love You," but again it's a psalm. It's a song of prayer unto God, and in it we petition Him to glorify His name, not only in our congregation but to glorify His name in all of the earth.

The fourth type that's listed in this particular passage of scripture and the fifth are really psalms or songs that are quite unique, and although we have them we don't often stop to think about them. The fourth one is psalms of teachings or songs of teaching. Notice in this passage of scripture, "Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."

Now again, I'm getting a little technical with you this morning, but I want you to see something, because when I get to the end, I'm going to pull it all together for you. First of all again, this fourth type is psalms of teaching, and this is instruction to each other, or we can instruct ourselves. Again, this is songs of instruction to each other, or songs that we can instruct ourselves.

Psalm 48, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised." I ask you a question. Who was David singing that to? See, we don't often stop to think about it. Who was David singing that to? The congregation. He wasn't singing it to God. You wouldn't address God and say, "Great is the Lord." You would say, "Great are You, Lord." He said, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised." In a song he was instructing people about the greatness of the Lord and in teaching them about praise and worship.

In Proverbs 18 and verse 10 - "The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and they are glad, they are saved." In that particular one, we again have that that was written by David or Solomon to the people, again instruction to the people. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower." He's not singing that to the Lord. He's singing that to the congregation so they can learn that the name of the Lord is a strong tower.

You say, "Do we sing any songs like that?" The answer is yes. "I Walk By Faith,
Each Step By Faith, To Live By Faith, I Put My Trust in Him." We have a song where
we are instructing each other on the walk of faith.

God has designed that songs can teach us about the walk of faith, the walk of faith.

Another that we sing, an older song, is "Trust and Obey, for There's No Other Way, To Be Happy in Jesus, But to Trust and Obey." Think about that. Who are you singing to? You're singing it to those around you to put their trust and obedience in God. So folks, look what he's saying. We can sing in psalms, we can sing in hymns, and we can sing in spiritual songs and at the same time teach and admonish one another. Teach and admonish one another.

Let's take songs of admonition. That's the fifth type, the last type. Songs of admonition. This is encouragement to us and to others around us. What is a song of admonition? Teaching and admonishing one another. How many of you know that oftentimes we know a lot of the Word of God. We're just not doing it. Folks, it's not in the hearing that you're blessed. It's in the doing of it, and listen, I can tell you. Many people come into my office to be counseled and the moment I start to tell them scripture, they can finish it before I ever get it out of my mouth. They know the Word of God. Folks, the problem is not the knowledge. The problem is the doing of it.

Most people who come into my office that attend this church, that come in for counsel, I can tell you this. They know enough of the Word of God to choke a horse. They're just not doing anything with it. They're waiting for some big boom to come out of heaven, some angel to come down and go, "Prang," and you know, wave a magic wand over their head and get them to change. Or they're waiting on Pastor Bob to pull something out of his drawer, you know, and wave it over their heads, say the name of Jesus, and their problems go away.

Folks, those type of folks need to be admonished to step out on what they know. How many of you know, there's enough power in one promise to change your whole life around? But folks, it's not the hearing. It's the doing of it. That's songs of admonition. Songs of admonition encourage us to step out on what we know and to get it accomplished.

"Bless the Lord, O My Soul, and All That Is Within Me, Bless His Holy Name." Psalm 103. David encouraged himself to bless the Lord and to step out on the promises of God. David also made a statement one time. "When no one is around to encourage me, I will encourage myself." And one of the best ways to encourage yourself is to start singing songs. You know the Word of God. You just need something to prompt you and get you out there that you'll step out on the promises of God and see them come to pass. You need songs of admonition. "Bless the Lord, O My Soul, and All That Is Within Me."

Psalm 100 says, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands." They need to praise the Lord. They just weren't doing it, and David had psalms of admonition and instruction for people to rise up and begin to praise the Lord all ye lands. "All ye lands" is a reference to Gentile nations, and he simply is saying, "God is no respecter of persons. What He's done for the Jewish nation, what He has done through the Word of God for them, He will do for you, but it's time to stand up, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands."

We sing songs like that. "Praise the Name of Jesus." "He's My Rock, He's My Fortress, in Him Will I Trust." So again, we are admonishing one another to praise the Lord. Praise the name of Jesus.

There's times I will stand up here and admonish you to praise the Lord. There's times when Orlondo will stand up here and admonish you to praise the Lord, but folks, there's times in your own life you need to admonish yourself to praise the Lord. You need to admonish your friends to praise the Lord. Singing among yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, teaching and admonishing one another.

So again, the verse of scripture tells us, and then finally, the last one. Again,"Praise the name of Jesus, He's my rock, He's my fortress." There's one I remember from a number of years ago that we used to sing in church and that's "Let's Just Praise the Lord. Let's just lift our hands toward heaven and praise the Lord." Do you know what we're doing? Encouraging one another to do what we knew we should do in the first place. Let's just praise the Lord. I like that. Let's just praise the Lord, simply showing how quick deliverance can come and how simple deliverance can come. How complicated we make life when deliverance is so simple. Let's just praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!

How many of you know you should praise the Lord? How many of you know sometimes you need encouragement to do it? All right. And whether you're encouraged by those around you or whether you encourage yourself, how important that it is.

Listen to that again. I'm going to list those five types of songs there are:
1. Praise.
2. Worship.
3. Prayer.
4. Teaching.
5. Admonition.

Five of them. But you know what? We are so used that all of those things simply come from the Word of God. We have forgotten as this verse has said that the Holy Spirit can bring them to us by songs, from our heart. The Holy Spirit can raise up supernaturally out of our heart psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to where these things can be accomplished in our life.

Folks, I'm simply here to tell you this morning, you are also a musical creation, that God has made you to be musical. Around us in the universe everything operates, but we have music in the universe, music in nature, and God has put music into the Body of Christ and that music should ever be new. But yet it accomplishes the same thing. It accomplishes praise, worship, prayer, teaching, and admonition.

And finally, let me just give you a few points on why are we to praise God. With all this, why does God want us to praise Him?

First of all, it edifies and encourages us when we are discouraged.

Next of all, it teaches us the Word of God.

Thirdly, it instructs us in evil situations. (I'm going fast because I just looked at the clock and went, "Oh, my gosh.")

Number five, it gives us spiritual strength.

Number six, it brings victory in our battles.

Number seven, it brings confusion to Satan and the demons. I love that part. Praise and worship brings confusion to Satan and the demons.

And finally the last thing, this is what we're going to take up next week, praise and worship pleases God.

How many of you know the object of the Christian life is to please God? Without, let me ask you a question. Without what it's impossible to please Him? Faith. But if praise and worship pleases Him, then praise and worship must be a demonstration of faith. God wants us to praise Him, for folks, I can't think of a better expression of faith than to bless God and praise Him before the victory ever comes. That while we're still in the middle of all of our mess, we start to praise the Lord. Lift up our hands and worship Him.

I'm here to tell you this morning, you can leave from here different today. I'm not telling you your circumstances are different. You'll be different, and if you're different, your circumstances will change. In other words, let you change the circumstances. Don't let the circumstances change you. In the midst of it, worship God. In the midst of it, praise Him and begin to please God and watch the enemies be confused and God bring victory into your life. Amen?

I want everybody to stand and let's offer praise to God this morning. Just lift up your hands and begin to praise Him. Father, we thank You today and offer praise and worship unto You. Father, we lift up our hands and thank You for all that You have done for us. Oh, we praise You, glorify Your name today, in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus.

The psalmist said that the Lord put songs in our mouth after He brought us through. Folks, I'm here to tell you, start singing now and you'll be singing through the deliverance. Now is the time to start, not when deliverance comes. Now is the time to start. As you focus your attention on the Lord, as you focus your eyes on the Lord this morning, God will put songs of deliverance into your hearts. Amen. Hallelujah!
Bob Yandian

© 2001 by Bob Yandian Ministries. Reproduction of written text in whole or part
without written permission is prohibited. All Rights Reserved.

© 2000 by Bob Yandian Ministries. Reproduction of written text in whole or part without
written permission is prohibited. All Rights Reserved.