Sermon Archives (August 25, 2000):

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People

Would you please rise for the reading of God’s Word.  Open your Bible’s to Psalms 63, as we speak on the theme, “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People.”

How many have you ever had a bad day?  I mean a really bad day.   You woke up and the bird singing outside you bedroom window was a buzzard.   That kind of day.   You called your office, and the new secretary wanted to know who you were.  That kind of day.  You got up.  You got dressed.  You drove to work, and probably got a ticket for driving a little two fast.  You got there feeling like a wounded matador.   You felt worse off then when you went to work that morning.   Has that ever happened to you?

For those of you who work in an office, and you get caught sleeping at your computer, I want to give you three responses that will save your job: The first response is, the blood bank said this would happen.   This was a power nap.  It was featured at the last leadership conference you sent me to.   And the third and I think the best response is, in Jesus name we pray.  Amen.

A minister is not to do this, but I heard him tell the story.   Years ago, a minister’s father owned a produce company and he wanted to go to Hawaii for a convention, but he was afraid to leave the company for one week because tens of thousands of dollars would be out on the parking ramp, so people could rip him off.  So the minister said to his father that he would watch the store.   The problem was that the Produce Company opened at 2 o’clock in the morning.   The minister watched the produce from two in the morning until 8 o’clock, until another relative could get there and relieve him.   Then, the minister went on to church and work till 6 or 6:30.   By Thursday, which was the minister’s marriage counseling day, the minister was dragging.  He was running on fumes.

On that particular Thursday, a women was coming for marriage counseling.   She was on the merge of divorce and she had a very soft voice.   The woman sat down, and {say softly] “she was talking so softly.  Her voice was getting further and further away.”   And the next thing the minister heard was, “SNORE … SNORE …. SNOOD”.   It was the minister.   And the last conscious thing the minister heard her say was, “I am going to divorce my husband because when I talk he never listens to me when I’m talking.”   That’s a bad day.

But there are days that are darker than dark.   There are days that are darker than a thousand midnights.   There are days when your doctor tells you it is Cancer, and suddenly life pivots in a second.   There are days when your spouse says; “I want a divorce.”   There are days when your business goes bankrupt and all your dreams filter through your fingers like hot sand.   There are days when your dearest friend betrays you.   There are days when you face death unexpectedly.   Tragedy strikes you like lightening out of a blue sky.   And what do you do then?   What do you do when bad things happen to good people?

In Psalms 63, David was having a bad day.  He had been driven from his throne by Absolone, who had become a traitor, and by his nephew Amessa, and by his friend Ahipafell, who had become a vicious traitor.   David had fled Jerusalem, and was at this writing heading for the Judean wilderness.   The Judean wilderness is a bitter and barren wasteland.  Nothing lives.

As David walks across the northern edge of the wilderness of the Judean wilderness, called the Dead Sea, it is a depressing place.  It is hotter than the chambers of Hell itself.   King David is away from the magnificent palace.  He is away from his family.   He is away from the comforts of wealth and power, and what did he want most of all when he was there?   Let us stand now and read Psalms 63:

(Psalms 63:1-4)  “O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;  To see your power and your glory, so as I have seen you in the sanctuary.   Because your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you.  Thus will I bless you while I live: I will lift up my hands in your name.”

Father, let us experience in this church today what David wrote of in Psalms 63, and then let us leave here and practice it in our lives.   We ask this in the name above all names, Jesus Christ.   And all God’s people said, “Amen.”  You may be seated.

What did David miss most?   What David missed most was the house of God.  Not his palace, not his royal throne, not his family or his friends, not the comforts of wealth and power.   But what he missed most was God’s house and the alter in it.

In verse 1 he said, “early will I seek you” speaking of the house of prayer.  In verse 2 he said, “I long to see the place of power.”   In verse 3 he said, “my lips shall praise you”, in the place of praise.   So in these three places, we have a place of praise, a place of prayer, and a place of power.  

If you were to be driven into exile, and you were in a dry and barren dessert, what would you want most?  In the darkest day you have ever lived, what is that you would want?  To be at home?  The comfort of your air conditioned house?   Your color television set, or your remove control?   I understand now that the remote is now the symbol of power, who has the remote control.   That’s why at our bedroom, both wife and I each have a remote for the same TV.   She flips the channels one way, and then I flip them another way.   I’m telling you, it can be war in that bedroom till one of us falls asleep.   Would you miss the remote, or would you miss the house of God more than all of these?

In the darkest days of your life, what would you want most?   David said, (Psalms 122:1)  “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’”.   Say that with me, let’s do this together, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’”   Why because in the house of the Lord there is refuge from the storms of life.   If you find not that refuge, then it is not the house of the Lord.  In the house of the Lord, the lost are saved.   In the house of the lord, the bondage of sin is broken.   In the house of the Lord, sins that are crimson can be washed whiter than snow.   The lost are saved.  Burdens are lifted, and the sobs of sorrow are turned to shouts of joy.  In the house of the Lord, lives are baptized with the oil of God’s Holy Spirit.   In the house of the Lord, sick bodies are healed.   In the house of the Lord, the lamb leap for joy, the blind see, and deaf hear.   In the house of the Lord, demon spirits are bound and cast out.  In the house of the Lord, the garments of praise replace the spirit of heaviness and depression.  In the house of the Lord, the presence of joy invades the believer.   There is peace that surpasses all understanding.   In the house of Lord, there is grace and glory.   There is hope for the hopeless.  In the house of Lord, Jesus Christ is the head and that’s where we want to be.     (Give him Glory)

David says in Psalms 63, “O God, you are my God.”   Like any Hebrew phrase this has two meanings.   It first states that my God is real.  David uses the word “Elohim”, meaning “he is all mighty.”   Understand that the God we serve is not a doubting Grandfather sitting benignly in the heavens, hoping that you will give him some attention once in a while.   The God that we serve is not a cosmic bell hop, relating for your religious response at Thursday night services.   The God that we serve is all mighty, all knowing, all powerful, and He, not you,  is in charge of this earth.  He is God, and there is not another like him.  

Then the second time David writes the word God in this verse he uses the Hebrew word “Elohim” plural;  meaning Gods as in the Trinity.   For there is the trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.   God who was guarding the sheep under the stars over earth was saying, “How can men doubt the reality of God.”   For he writes in (Psalms 19:1)  “The heavens declare the glory.”

What does that mean, “The heavens declare the glory “?   It means that the sun, the moon, and the stars are celestial evangelists, that every day preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to every man who can look up, and even to a blind man.   The sun races across hour heavens every day, proclaiming I have been put here by a power greater than Cape Canaveral.   I, the sun, have been put here by a power greater than science.  I am of the creation of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  

For he is shepherd of the stars, and he calls them by name.   When I pray, he answers by fire.   When I am lonely, he sticks closer than a brother.  When I am sick, he heals my body.   He is still the healing Jesus.  He is still the Great Physician.  He is still the Balm of Gilead.   When I am under attack, he is my high tower.  He is my shelter in the time of the storm.   He is my refuge, and my redeemer.   He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.   He gives me the best of things in the worst of times, because my God is real.   Halleluiah.

The second meaning is, I serve no other Gods.  We don’t serve the God of the Ammonites, the Hittites, the Gebucites, or any other of the “ites” that Israel had trouble with.  He was saying, my God is Jehovah God.  When you go through a dark day, to whom do you turn?   Some turn to liquor or alcohol, others to pills.   Let me recommend that the next time you go through a dark time, turn to Gos PILL.   It will help a lot more than any other pill on your shelf.   David was saying, I serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.   I serve the God that parted the seas for Moses.   I serve a God of Miracles.   I serve the God that appeared in the flames, in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrew children.   Let me make this clear.   When you get into the fire, God does not send some one.   Rather, he shows up himself.   I serve the God that muzzled the lions for Daniel.  I serve the Lord who sits upon the circle of the earth, and he weights the mountains and the valleys in the balance.   David said, that the God that I serve is a giant killer.  He is a way maker, he is the creator of heaven and earth.   He is the Lord of Glory.  He is the Light of the World.  He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.  He is the Lamb of God, and he is worthy of our highest praise.   Halleluiah.

So I ask again, what God do you serve in your darkest day?   When you’ve been betrayed.   It happens here.   Even here at the Dream Center.   When your heart is broken, when you are surrounded by tragedy.   When you place the one dearest to you into the earth, to whom do you turn, and where do you go?  AND WHERE DO YOU GO?   David said, there is only one answer.  I go to the rock of my salvation.   I go to the fortress.  I go to my high tower.  I go to the shield and the buckler.   I go to him that can give you a song in the night.  I go to the one who Peter said, ( in 1 Peter 1:8) is  “joy unspeakable and full of glory”.   David says, I go to the one who gives you (in Philippians 4:7) “peace that surpasses all understanding.”   I go to the Lord who can give you streams in the dessert,  who can the turn the darkest night into the brightest day.   I turn to Jesus Christ, who is the author and the finisher of my faith.   He is the answer.  Halleluiah to the Lamb.

And David then says in Psalms 63, “early will I seek you.”   Say that with me, “Early will I seek you.”  What does that mean?  Again, a Hebrew phrase has at least two meanings.   The first meaning is early in the morning.   And there are early morning prayer services here at the Dream Center at 7:30 AM during the week.  For some, that early in the morning may well be an abomination in your life.   The second meaning of this phrase “Early” means “the first thing in the morning.”   So if you wake up at eleven, the first thing you do is talk to Him;  not turn on the soap opera, but talk to him.   First things first, is to put God first. 

David was saying, communion with God is more desirable than comfort in a royal bedchamber.  Ask yourself, how much time do you spend in prayer each day.   Be assured the prayer less Christian is a week Christian, who will never live in victory.   Husbands and wives that don’t pray together, on their way too big trouble, because Jesus Christ is one who has the answers for you.   Christians today seem to be controlled by a comfort syndrome.  Churches are built for absolute comfort.   We run five miles from the home and back and call it exercise, and America feels good about it.   But if some go to Church and can’t park their car in the lobby, they have been offended, persecuted.   The Church is no longer sensitive to my needs.   We move to padded pews, deep pile carpets, air conditioning, a stereo sound system.  We have stained glass windows.   We have pipe organs.  

But where in all this is the power of Pentecost that was there in the upper room?  Where is that?  A room of stone.  A room without air conditioning.  A room without an organ.   If an American pastor were to ask his congregation to come to the House of God and spend ten days and nights in fasting and prayer, they would want to call the nearest insane asylum, and fire that fanatic.  (Mockingly)  We need someone with a little spiritual balance.   That’s what they would say, and some of you would be saying that.  

CHURCH!  Jesus Christ did not come to this earth and die on the cross for your comfort.   Instead, Jesus said, (Mark 10:21) “Take up the cross, and follow me.”   Consider our burdens as opposed to early Christians who in the New Testament followed Christ.  Everybody got killed.   There is no crown, without a cross;  no gain without a loss.  There is no victory without a fight.   There can be no dawn without a night.  Realize that you may be called to make a sacrifice in your life.   The Bible says, (in Ephesians 6:11,13) “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may “ fight the good fight of faith.    So as to stand in the evil day,  and this is that evil day.

There are burdens to carry, giants to whip.   There are plows to put are hands to.   Let us quit wining about our comfort.   We are at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil.   Let us show up, suit up because in Jesus name the victory is ours.

David says, “my soul thirsts for you”.   Say that with me, “my soul thirsts for you”   Only living things thirst.  If you have no thirst for God, you are spiritually dead;  twice dead, plucked up by the roots.  You have no life.   You have no fruit.   You have no passion.  You have no purpose, being a religious corpse.  You are singing about a heaven you will never see.  You have master the form, but are not a force.  You have master the ritual, but without righteousness.   You have hype but without holiness, and there is a difference.

A young man hunger for God.   He wanted more power from God.   He went to his Pastor as asked how.   The Pastor took him down to the river, and the young man followed obediently thinking the Pastor was about to baptize him.   And when he got the young man out in the river and the water up to his chest, the Pastor grabbed the young man’s head and held it under water until he was about to drown.   The young man violently swung the Pastor away.   When his head broke the water, and he gasped for air, the Pastor looked at him and said, “When you were under water, what did you want more than anything in the world.”   He said, “Air.”   The Pastor replied, “When you want Jesus as much as you wanted air, you’ll have more power from God.”

So I ask you, in your darkest day what do you want?  What do your prayer’s seek?   Only Jesus can satisfy your soul.   A bird is satisfied with last year’s birds nest.   A cow is satisfied to chew its cud.   A dog will chew on last years bone, but the only thing that will satisfy you is the presence of the living God.   Alternately we may try and fill our soul with alcohol, cocaine, or sexual fantasies but these will only break your heart, leaving you more broken in your life.  If you’re looking for something that will really fill the emptiness, that something is Jesus Christ the son of God.   He is the answer.  Halleluiah.

After the 120 were in the upper room for 10 days in his presence, the book of (Acts 2:15), “For these are not drunk as you suppose.”   They came out of that room with Holy Ghost power.   Power to heal the sick.  Power to cast out demon spirits.   Together let us pray to God, do it again and let it start here at the Dream Center in this chapel.

The world has many amusements, but no lasting pleasure.   Pleasure is God’s invention.  Satan can fabricate thrills, but only God can give pleasure.   Satan and his crowd do not have a single genuine lasting pleasure.   (Psalms 16:11 says) “You will show me the path of life.  In Your presence is fullness of joy;  At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”   The point is, only Jesus can satisfy you.   Some of you killing yourself physically.   You’re destroying yourselves emotionally and financially.   You’re destroying everything you are trying to build, pursuing something that is an illusion.    You will only have peace, love and joy when you surrender to Jesus Christ, the son of God.   Only he can satisfy you.

Then David says,  “my flesh longs for you.”   He uses two words in this phrase, “my soul” and “my flesh”.   The meaning is, my whole being longs for God.   The soul is the place where you intellectually make your decisions, but the flesh is that part of you that is controlled by the five senses.  Touch, taste, smell, hearing, and feeling.   So I am asking you, are you a spiritual Christian driven by the Holly Spirit and the Word of God or are you a carnal Christian?   Meaning you are absolutely consumed by the flesh?   If what you do is for you only, you are very flesh.   You are “self” driven.   Your God is what you see when you shave, or put on makeup in the morning.   The soul is where you make your decisions.  The flesh is touch, taste, smell, hearing, and feeling.  

How can you tell if you are spiritually or carnally controlled?  Ask yourself, what controls you?  Do you have a compulsion for comfort or when Christ asks you to sacrifice of your time and talent do you, is your response “I’m tired”?   Would you rather here Amazing Grace or rock music?   What do you like to taste?  Do you like the taste of God which is rich and pure, or do you poison your brain with network soap operas?   Some might say, “I just don’t feel led.”   There is not a verse in the Bible that tells you that what your feelings are is what you do.

You’re controlled by the word of God.  You’re controlled by the Holy Spirit.  You are a disciple of Christ.  Disciple is a word that has within it the word “discipline”.   It means you do what you are suppose to do when you are suppose to do it as long as you are suppose to do it to get your job done whether you feel like it or not.   Some might say, “Well I really don’t feel that I want to go to the Dream Center today.”   That’s really not the question.  

If next week a tornado strikes, you say, “It’s God’s day, and I’m going to house of God.”   If the heat goes above a hundred, there are those who say, “Inclement weather.  Too hot.  Lock the door, and turn on the television.   Church is not going to happen today.”   Don’t kid yourself.  God is in the house.  Either you are a disciple of Christ, or you are not.

(Verse 2) David says of the Church,  “To see your power and your glory, …as I have seen you in the sanctuary.”   The greatest need in the world is the Church to see the power of the Gospel preached under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  (1 Corinthians 4:20)  “For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”   The Lords pray tells us in (Matthew  6:13)  “For yours is the kingdom, and THE POWER, and the glory.”   The book of Acts says (chapter 1, verse 8) that  “you shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”.   Christ said, (in Luke 10:19),  “I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

Where is Jesus now?   The Bible says in (Matthew 26:64),  “you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power.”, that is on the right hand of God.   How is he coming back to earth?    The Bible says, (Matthew 24:30) “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”  How is he going to rule when he sits on his throne in New Jerusalem?   The Bible say (in Revelation  19:15),  “he shall rule them with a rod of iron.”   That means he is going to have power.   Jesus is not going to ask the Supreme Court whether his Ten Commandments can be hung in public school buildings.   By the power of his word, he will speak it and it will become law.  These will no longer be matters upon which the legalistic arguments and twisting of the American Civil Liberties Union will be relevant.   We will not have to ask the Supreme Court if it is alright to pray, because as it is written (Romans 14:11)  "As I live, says the LORD, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God."  What will they confess?  That Jesus is LORD!   Say it with me, “Jesus is LORD!”   Say it again, “Jesus is LORD!”   There is power in that name.   I tell you this with the authority of all mighty God, that as we spoke those words every demon in Los Angeles county just started running for Tiawana.   Why.  To get away from us.

There is power in His Gospel.   It will make you glad, and it will make you sad.  But it won’t bore you.   There is power in his Blood, which will free you from your burden of sin.   There is power in the blood.  Would there be those who would allow evil to win, there is power in the blood to defeat it.   There is power to wash you whiter than snow.   There is power to guide you.   There is power to provide.  There is power to defend you.   There is power to deliver you.   There is power to defeat your enemies.   Thank God for the power of the blood, the Word, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for there is power in this blood.  (Give it up for Jesus.)

What have the limp wrested Pollyanna’s of America’s pulpits done with the power of the blood,  “If you ever repent, to some extent, you can be saved, to some degree.  Maybe!”   BLEE.

The Gospel says, (Romans 6:23)  “For the wages of sin is death.”  Liars, even in the pulpit, are being called extraverts with big imaginations.   Homosexuals are being ordained into the Gospel ministry, under the auspices of a secondary life style.   The Church has become saturated with idolatry.   The Gods of self, and pleasure, and secular humanism have for many replaced the preaching of the cross.   Why is Satanism the fastest growing religion in America.   Why?   Because a generation of American’s have become sick and tired  - notice sick always comes with tired.  One is never merely sick now a days, but rather one is sick and tired – of religious form.   America is looking for supernatural power.   For those of you who have been disillusioned by a limp wrested preachers, and a limp wrested Gospel, let me recommend to you Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.   You will find in there a Jesus of power.   You can lay your hands on sick, and they shall recover.   You can lay hands on your demonized son, and he will be delivered of crack and cocaine.   You can say in the authority and Word of Jesus Christ, and He will deliver, because He is a God of Power.

David then says (in verse 3), “Because your loving-kindness is better than life.”   Say that with me, “Because your loving-kindness is better than life.”   Have you ever heard a person who is doing something they really enjoy say, “This is the life.”   How many of you have ever heard someone say that, or how many of you have ever said that?   A fisherman is out fishing, and he catches the biggest fish of his life, so he proclaims, “This is the life.”   A golfer hits a hole in one, and maybe, a miracle of miracles, this is the life.   An opera lover listens to Poveratie and says, “This is the life.”   A Larker's fan watching Shaq feed Kobby an aerial slam dunk and says,  “This is the life.  Wow.”   But David said that life is dear, but God’s presence, his love, and his anointing is “better than life.”   Not “this is the life”, but “better than life.”

Now think about that.  Remove His light, and we walk in shadow of death.   Remove His love, and life becomes as bitter as Gaul.  Remove His hope, and life becomes an absolute depression.   Think of this.  God has shared life with the lowest creatures in the biological chain.  Creatures that you can watch under a microscope have life.   But his loving kindness is reserved only for righteous, and that’s something to shout about.  Halleluiah to the lamb of God.

Then David says, “my lips shall praise you.”   David is in the dessert.  If you’ve ever been in a real dessert, you know it takes something to praise God there.   It is bitter.  It is barren.   What is his response,  “my lips shall praise you.”   The point is, praise is not dependant upon your feelings.   Praise is not dependant upon your emotions or your circumstances.   Praise is an act of your will.   Say this with me, praise is an act of your will.   Are you in the dessert of your days.   Have you been lied about?  Has someone attacked your character?  Praise God.   Are you going through the darkest day in your life?  Then, praise God.   If you are surrounded by enemies, then praise God?   Are you wiry?  Are you tired?  Are you broken hearted?   Then praise God.   Paul and Siles were in jail.  They were beaten.  They were bloody?   They were surrounded by rats, disease, enemies of them and the Church, and their response was that they sang praises to God in the midnight hour.   And they walked out of that place, with keys in one hand and converts in the other hand because they praised God by an act of their will.   In their darkest day, they decided to shine not whine.   In their darkest day, they decided to be the victor, not the victim.   In their darkest day, they decided to let God arise and let His enemies be scattered.   They decided they would not be dominated by their feelings.   They decided instead that they would be dominated by their discipline to the Word of God.

Who should praise the Lord?   The Bible says in (Psalms 156:6) “Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.”   Say that with me, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.”   That means, if you are alive, you should praise God.   Which may explain, why some don’t.   (Don’t worry.  When you’re driving home, you’ll get it.)

A pastor was officiating at a funeral.  He said, “I have been the Pastor of this corpse for 35 years.”   Does anyone not praise the Lord?   Yes.  The Bible says (in Psalms 115:17), “The dead praise not the LORD.”  That means the spiritually dead.   Jesus said, (in John 10:10)  “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”   And that’s why some sit in services like this (soar faced – straight).   It’s not that there more intellectual than any of us, or more dignified.   Some regrettably don’t know the difference between dignity and RIGAMORTOUS.    The problem is that they are as dead as stump spiritually.   If Jesus is in you, you will praise the Lord.   If Jesus is not in you, you will fix yourself like a wooden Indian no more capable of praising the Lord than a cow can jump over the moon.

How does the Bible say to praise the Lord.   The Bible says (in Psalms 111:1)  “I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.”   This means do it with gusto, or don’t do it.   Is this then something that one can do at home?  No!  It is to be done in the assembly and in the congregation.   One can go to a Laker’s game, and you can stand and scream till you get laryngitis and you’re thrilled because someone put a circle of hot hair through a circle of iron.   What difference does it make, when a man walks the isle, and his life has been changed.   He has walked out of the bowels of Hell into the Kingdom of God.  His marriage has been healed.  His son has been delivered from Cocaine.   That’s something to praise God for.

Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, and the light of the world has carried his blood soaked to the slopes of Calvary.   He has defeated the powers and principalities of the powers of darkness.  He has stripped Satan of all of his power.   He has given to all of us, all of that power.   He has made all of us sons and daughters in the Kingdom of God.   God has adopted us as his very own.   That’s something to shout about.

David says, “Thus will I bless you while I live: I will lift up my hands in your name.”

You ever notice that some church’s do not have their members raise hands to the Lord.  MILK TOAST VOICE:  “We just don’t do that.”   Well, you’re doing it wrong if you don’t.   If one preaches the Bible, then one should practice the Bible.   It says right here in black and white “I will lift up my hands in your name.”   Some worship God at half-mast.  (Raise hands waist high)   Of course for a Lazy Lutheran, half-mast means somebody died.   Uplifted hands in any language means, I surrender.   It means I have surrendered to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of my faith.  You take my life and use it Lord.   That’s what it means.

“I will lift up my hands.”  I study people.  I can take your hand and tell you a lot about you.   A hand extended in friendship tells you something about the condition of your heart.   Hands that are lily white  … your either a banker or card shark.  Not a whole lot of difference really.   Then there is tanned hands … a farmer or a beach bum.   Callous hands … the hands of a worker.   Stained hands … a mechanic.   If you got stains right here then you are a smoker.   If you grab somebody by the hand and it feels like a dead fish by the tail, I’d like to rip it off at the shoulder.

David said everybody’s hands should praise the Lord.   (In Psalm 60:4) “I will lift up my hands in your name.”   Say that with me, “I will lift up my hands in your name.”   (Psalms 134:2)  “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD.”  (1 Timothy 2:8) “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, [That means in every denomination. That means all over planet earth.  That means especially in the house of God.] lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.”   That’s the word of God. 

Praise is a form of sacrifice.  (Hebrews 13:15) says, “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God [continuously] , that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”  For with such sacrifice, God is well pleased.   That means the sacrifice costs you something.   It costs you your ego maybe.  It may cost you your sense of doctrinal pride maybe.   Many people say,  “Well what will people think?”   You should not care what people think.   Rather be concerned what God almighty thinks.

What this means is the Old Testament system of sacrifice is over.   When Jesus said on Calvary “it is over” and “it is finished”, that means the Old Testament sacrifices of the turtle dove, the rams, the bulls, and the goats as an atonement for sin are over.  Jesus Christ died at the cross, and now he does not want a dead goat.  Instead, he wants a living Halleluiah.   He does not want a dead bird.   He wants a living “Praise the Lord.”   He does not want a dead bull.   He wants a praise in church filled with the power of the book of Acts.

I close with this verse, not because I am done, but because I am out of time.  Praise is a weapon of spiritual warfare.  Say that with me.  Praise is a weapon of spiritual warfare.  (Psalms 8:2) “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings have you ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy.” The enemy here are unseen supernatural power.  “That you may silence the enemies and the avenger.”  The enemy and the avenger is Satan.   Let me give you a running translation of that verse.   “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings…”   That means the born again believers in Christ.   “You have ordained strength because of your enemies.”   The unseen powers and principalities in the heavens “that you” through the praise of the righteous “may silence the enemy and the avenger.”  That’s Satan.  When you begin to praise God, all the powers and principalities over Los Angeles back up, and Satan himself backs up, because he can not combat the praises of the redeemed and the righteous.  Praise is God’s address.   He says when you start praising him, He inhabit your praises.   That means, He lives there.