A booklet bearing the title Prayer Changes Things was written by Dr. S. D. Gordon. It has made a deep impression on multitudes of Christians. In many homes these words may be found as a motto. We are all aware that prayer, believing prayer, does change things. We know also that many times the enemy has not been moved one inch from his stronghold, although we have persisted in prayer for days, months, often years.
Such was my own experience when passing through a time of great pressure. Prayer did not change things. Then I came into the possession of a wonderful secret: after we have prayed and believed, praise changes things. We discovered that two wings were necessary to mount the soul Godward: prayer and praise. Prayer asks. Praise obtains the answer.
I fancy that some who read these lines may say, “I, too, have prayed and prayed, but I do not feel like praising God. Praise when my heart is bleeding and torn? Praise when the pressure is greatest? Praise when walking through the valley of the shadow? No! Tell me rather to weep. How can I praise God at such a time?’
In Psalm 107:22, we find these words: “Sacrifice . . . the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” What is a sacrifice? It is an offering to God. A “sacrifice of thanksgiving” is to praise God when you do not feel like it–when you are depressed and despondent, when your life is covered over with thick clouds and midnight darkness. This is acceptable to God, a “sweet smelling savor” to our Lord and King. While we are admonished to “pray without ceasing,” are we not also commanded to “rejoice evermore?”
When shall I praise God? When I feel happy, and when everything is moving along smoothly? When there is no trial crossing my pathway? It would be no sacrifice to praise God at such a time as this.
The book of Jonah contains a very precious truth, which throws a great deal of light upon this subject. No one could have been in a place where the outlook was darker: Jonah was at the bottom of the sea with the weeds wrapped about his head. What a desperate situation! Humanly speaking, every ray of hope was gone, and he said, “My soul fainted within me.” But listen! In his trouble he also said, “I will look again toward thy holy temple.” He did the best thing when he took his eyes off the discouraging surroundings, put them in the rightful place, and began to pray. He then went a step further, and determined to praise, saying, “I will sacrifice with the voice of thanksgiving.” What a place for a praise meeting! And what a song! “Salvation (deliverance) is of the Lord!” As he sang and praised, the great whale began to rise toward the surface of the water, and move toward the shore, and Jonah soon found himself upon the dry land.
Praise has a wonderful lifting power! We need not be anxious about the outcome of things if only we begin to praise. WhenJonah’s soul fainted within him, he deliberately looked right away from his impossible surroundings and uttered these wonderful words: “They that observe Iying vanities forsake their own mercy.” Let us note this lesson: when Jonah was hemmed in on every side, everything that he could see which suggested disaster he called a “lying vanity.” If he had not taken his eye off these “lying vanities” he would have forsaken the mercy that God offered him. We never get faith by looking at ourselves, our surroundings, or our difficulties.
We read in 1 Samuel of Saul being tormented by an evil spirit. David was sent for, and the record says, “When David played upon his harp the evil spirit left Saul and he was well.” Isn’t this a splendid way of getting rid of the enemy when he attacks us with mental depression?
“The weakest saint may Satan rout
Who meets him with a praiseful shout!”
Martin Luther once wrote: “When I cannot pray, I always sing.”
In 2 Chronicles, there is a thrilling narrative concerning a battle won through praise. Jehoshaphat was told that a great multitude was coming against him from beyond the sea. He fully realized the difficulty of the situation, and went to the Lord with his trouble. His was a humble prayer: “We have no might against this great company . . . neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee.” Not upon the greatness of the difficulty, but upon Him. It was a crucial test, but the Lord did not leave Jehoshaphat in doubt as to His will. He made it known through one of the young men, who spoke these words of the Lord: “The battle is not yours but God’s . . . ye shall not need to fight . . . fear not, nor be dismayed.”
Fear is a deadly enemy. Let us remember, when we are tempted to tremble, that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).
And then, Jehoshophat appointed singers who should go forth before the army singing, “Praise the Lord; for His mercy endureth forever.” This they did without one visible sign of the promised salvation of the Lord. Right in the very face of battle against an army mighty in number, they sang “Praise the Lord!” The inspired record says: “When they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir . . . and they were smitten.” Two of the allied opposing armies began to fight the third, and when they had demolished them they turned upon each other until the valley was filled with dead bodies and “none escaped.” They had more than victory after this, for we read: “Jehoshaphat and his people . . . were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.” So you see they were much richer at the end of the trial than at the beginning. They had added good which they had never dreamed of possessing and “the way of the wicked was turned upside down.”
There are two songs in Jehoshaphat’s great battle: the song of praise before; the song of deliverance afterwards. We, also, should have two songs: a song in the valley of Berachah (blessing), praising God for the fulfillment of all that He has promised; but it is more precious to have the song of praise before–praising Him without sight or feeling. Shall we not have both?
The marvelous experience which Paul and Silas had while in prison is another example of the result of praise at midnight. They were bound in an inner prison, their feet fast in the stocks. There was no earthly way of escape for them, and it looked as if they would lose their lives the next day. But there is always a Divine way out of a difficulty! No matter how great the difficulty may seem, we have the sure promise made by the unfailing Promiser: “But God . . . will, with the temptation (testing) also make a way of escape” (1 Cor. 10:13). The God of the impossible can make ways where there are no ways. Do we hear Paul and Silas complaining of the hardness of the way? Are they grumbling, weeping, wondering why the Lord has allowed them to get into this peculiar predicament? We do praise God that no sound of murmuring came through those prison walls. In that uncomfortable position, their backs bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the thongs, they praised God, offering unto Him the “sacrifice of thanksgiving.”
As they sang, the miracle was wrought! The foundation began to tremble, the building rocked and swayed, the doors burst open and they were free! “Everyone’s bands were loosed.”
Beloved, is it a midnight time in your life? Are you in a dungeon? Your feet held fast in the stocks? Have you given up in hopeless despair, thinking that escape is impossible? Begin, right now, to praise God! “Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving, glorifieth Me, and prepareth a way that I may show him the salvation of God” (Ps. 50:23, margin, RV). God’s Word is true! When you begin to praise, He will send the earthquake and set you free!
Habakkuk knew something of this wonderful secret of victory. He, too, sang a song of praise in his darkest hour. Catch the echo. “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Hab. 3:17-18).
We read in the book of Joshua how the walls of Jericho fell flat after they were compassed about seven days. God had declared that He had given them the city. Faith reckoned this to be true, so they began their march around the walls using as their only weapon that which indicated triumph–a ram’s horn! Unbelief might have prayed this kind of a prayer: “O Lord, make the walls totter just a little, or loosen a few stones so that we may have a sign that Thou art going to answer our prayer, and then we will praise Thee.” Prudence might have said: “It is not safe to shout until the victory is actually won, lest the Lord be dishonored, and we be greatly humiliated.” But they acted on the authority of God’s Word, and shouted the shout of faith before there was a sign of encouragement. The Lord accomplished the rest. It is after we make a full commitment that “He will bring it to pass.”
How many walls of difficulty would fall flat if we simply marched around them with shouts of praise! As we compass “walls” with praise, the Lord has promised to “compass us about with songs of deliverance.”
“Thou waitest for deliverance
O soul, thou waitest long!
Believe that now deliverance
Doth wait for thee in song!
“Sigh not until deliverance
Thy fettered soul doth free
With songs of glad deliuerance
God now doth compass thee.”
A missionary in dark China was living a defeated life. Everything about him seemed to be touched with sadness. Although he prayed many months for victory over depression and discouragement, no answer came. His life remained quite the same. He determined to leave his post and go to an interior station where he could be quiet and spend long hours in prayer till victory was assured. Upon reaching the place, he was entertained in the home of a fellow missionary. On the wall of his bedroom hung this motto: “Try Thanksgiving.”
The two words gripped his heart, and he thought within himself, “Have I been praying all these months, and not been praising?” He stopped and began to praise God and was greatly uplifted. Instead of hiding away to agonize in prayer, he returned immediately to his waiting converts to tell them that praise changes things. Wonderful blessing attended his simple testimony and the bands that had bound others were loosed through praise.
I wish to add my own humble testimony to that of my fellow-missionary. It was a dark, dark night in my life when the words “Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion” (Ps. 65:1) were impressed upon my mind. I had been waiting in prayer for months. The months were now stretching on into years–piled up, as it were, before God.
Could not I now wait in praise before I saw the answer? God was waiting for me to take this final step in faith, and when I began to praise Him for the answer, began to “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him,” He began to answer in a manner that was “exceeding abundantly above all” that I could ask or think. The possession of the secret of victory has transformed my life and filled it with unutterable gladness.
The story is told of Sir Michael Costa, that he was holding a rehearsal one night with his vast array of musicians and hundreds of voices. The mighty chorus rang out with thunder of organ, sounding of horns, and clashing of cymbals. Far back in the orchestra one who played the piccolo said to himself: “In all this din, it doesn’t matter what I do.” Suddenly, all was still! The great conductor had stopped, flung up his hands. Someone had failed to take his part! The sweet note of the piccolo had been missed.
Is your “praise note” missing from the heavenly choir? Are you waiting, waiting, yearning, for God to answer your prayer? He is waiting to answer. Try thanksgiving!