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ABC Prayer Crusade

Science of Worship

Glenn Coon

3 - Dear Me -- Dear You

Dear Lord, just make me a nail upon the wall, fastened securely in its place.

Then from this thing so common and so small, Hang a bright picture of thy face, That men may pause and look upon the loveliness depicted there.

Then passing on their weary ways, each radiant face may bear, Stamped so that time can nary face the image of thy glory and thy grace.

Lord let not 1 soul think of me, only let me be a nail upon the wall, holding thy picture in its place.

Our topic at this hour is the seal of God.

For 1 John 4, 8 says, He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.

As a young man, as an evangelist, I often presented in my evangelistic series of meetings the seal of God.

I often quoted Isaiah, the eighth chapter in the sixteenth verse, where it says, bind up the law, bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.

And I tried to make clear to the people that a seal is a legal instrument, which it is.

And the legal instrument gives the name of the authority and it names his official capacity and the territory over which he has this authority.

And I made clear that the only 1 of the 10 Commandments that has this is the Fourth Commandment, and it's right in the center of God's love law.

But I think that many times as I presented it, I failed to make clear that since God is love, His law is love, therefore His seal is a love seal.

It's not just a, you must do this or else.

He said, if you love me, keep my commandments.

God rejects any form of obedience that's not based on voluntary love.

Anybody that goes through any form of obedience, unless it's inspired by love, it's rejected by the Lord because God is love, His law is love, His Sabbath is love, and he cannot accept anything but loving obedience, spontaneous loving obedience.

Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30, it says we are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption.

The Holy Spirit has a gift, the Holy Spirit has a fruit.

But the outstanding fruit of the Spirit is love.

The outstanding gift of the Spirit is love.

When the Apostle Paul presented in 1 Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14, the gifts of the Spirit, you'll remember that he placed the 13th chapter right in the middle of the 12th and the 14th.

Of course, they weren't then divided into chapters.

But the 13th chapter of the gift story of Paul says, in effect, if you have all the other gifts and you don't have love, you're nothing.

So the prime gift of the Holy Spirit is love.

The prime fruit of the Holy Spirit is love.

The 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians tells us what love is.

Think of it, endureth all things, hopeth all things, believeth all things.

The love that the Holy Spirit seals us in is the most unselfish attribute that the human heart can possibly receive.

What would happen to homes if husbands were unselfish, if wives were unselfish, if they're teaching their children not a brute obedience but a love obedience.

My friends, it's amazing what could happen to the marriage and the home throughout our country and other places in this world.

The Holy Spirit stamps the seal on the human heart.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and so on.

So you see friends, since no man can obey God except as he loves God, what a tragedy it is for any professed Christian to try to get someone to obey God on the basis of belittling him.

I remember at the same time I was telling you how I, in the last session, I was telling how people were rejoicing because I was riding that beast all over the rostrum.

My partner spoke 1 night on Love in the absolute.

And I've never heard such a sermon on love in the absolute in my life.

Brother, it was the most high-pressuring thing I ever heard.

When he got through, he said to me, what did you think of that?

A Man was talking to me several several hundreds of miles from here.

He told him an experience and he was boasting He said I was in a in a at a dance party 1 night and My wife was with me and he said I of course neither of us were Christians he said in the Holy Spirit came into my heart, and about 12 o'clock midnight, I said, Lord, I give my life to you.

And then I remembered that my wife was not a Christian.

So he said, I hastened over quickly to where she was.

And he said, I said to her, honey, I have just given my heart to the Lord.

I will give you 40 minutes to give your heart to the Lord, or I'm going to divorce you.

He said, at the end of 40 minutes, the woman had not surrendered her heart to the Lord, so I divorced her.

Now it's true that this is an exaggerated example, but my friends, all forms of mental pressure, of belittling, of trying to shame people into obedience, of forcing instruction on them, it is all 1 of the mark of the beast principles.

The opposite of it is the seal of God, the seal of the living God.

When my wife and I went to the West Indies, sometime after we were married, I came to the conclusion that by God's grace, I wanted men and women to be sealed with the love of Jesus Christ.

This simple love that responds to his love, this simple faith that receives his love.

We had a day of fasting and prayer before the first series of evangelistic meetings.

And I said, now, Lord, you know, I must explain to people why thousands upon thousands of people keep Sunday.

Good, earnest, faithful, lovely, winsome Christians are Sunday keepers.

When the Bible never tells us that the first day is sacred, I must.

I must share your word and I must also explain to them how it came about.

I must explain to them the mark of the beast.

I must explain to them the change, who assumed to change God's law so that men would keep the first day instead of the day God commanded.

But I said, dear Lord, I don't want to do it with this coon in me coming out, as though I were better than anybody else, or as though Sabbath keepers were better than sun-keeping Christians.

And as I pled with God, and I reached out in agony, asking the Lord to guide me, the Lord came to my rescue.

I remember the first time that I presented who changed the Sabbath, from the Bible Sabbath to Sunday.

The Lord just flooded me with his loving spirit.

I said, people, there are thousands upon thousands of good, earnest, faithful, winsome Christians who are keeping the first day of the week.

They thought they were keeping it out of response to Christ's resurrection.

But as they look through the Bible, they don't find anything in the Bible that indicates that that is how we celebrate his resurrection.

4 - Mysterious Illness Healed

Dear Lord, make me a nail upon the wall, fasten securely in its place.

Then from this thing so common and so small, hang a bright picture of thy face.

At this hour, we want to share with you what the worship of Jesus Christ in a practical way really does to the human heart.

You know, it's 1 thing to enter upon a theory of worship.

It's another thing to understand the practicality of making Jesus Christ the center of our worship, the center of our affections, the center of our love.

There's healing in his wings, the Bible says.

It says he sent his word and healed them, Psalm 107.20.

And that 107th Psalm repeats again and again words like this, Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works to the children of men.

My friends, we don't worship Jesus Christ merely because he's bigger than we are.

We worship him because we love him, amen?

Our hearts go out because of his goodness, his wonderful works to the children of man.

He has long suffering abundant in goodness and truth.

I like to repeat again and again, It's not just because he's bigger than we are.

Several years ago, we're holding a series of meetings out in the Middle West.

And a man who I'd never met before came up and handed me a book, and he introduced himself.

And he said, I'd like to give you this book because it fits the very type of message that you're sharing with people.

And the book was entitled, Prayer Can Change Your Life.

How in the world did the Lord impress this man to bring me a book on the very topic that I'm sharing across America and other lands.

I'd like to look and see to what extent the author of this book believes that prayer can change one's life.

As I began to read it, it made some real promises.

It made very clear that prayer, when it's properly entered into, can really change a person's life.

And I became so obsessed with this thought that I decided that I just wouldn't swallow it wholesale.

I would compare it with God's Word from first to last and with the writings of my favorite author who's taught me more about prayer than all other authors combined.

So I took the Bible and I took the writings of my favorite author and I checked and double-checked all the way through this book.

I imagine I had a stack of quotations from the Bible and from my own teacher, a great huge stack of quotations.

And I found when I got through the book that these statements in that book, this can change your life, prayer can change your life, were almost entirely biblical from first to last.

There were just a few minor mistakes But all the rest was biblical and it went on and it showed how that 3 groups of individuals Had worked on a program with their problems.

1 group decided that they didn't know any answers to prayer.

They didn't know how to solve their problems.

In fact, many of them didn't even profess Christianity at all, but they said, we do have problems, but we have no idea how to solve our problems.

Another group of 15 said, we have a lot of problems, and the only way we know about what the problems can be solved is psychiatry.

The third group said we have been taught to pray from the time we're children and we believe that if we will really go into orbit around prayer this will solve our problems.

They decided that they would take 9 months on this experiment.

During this experimental period of time, those who believed in psychiatry would go to a psychiatrist once or twice a week.

Those who believed in prayer agreed that they would pray every day for the 9 months from 1 to 2 hours, for they believed with all their heart, they explained it and they gave voice to it again and again.

They believed this would solve their problems, so they agreed to this.

The third group who said they had no idea how their problems could be solved, but they said, we're from Missouri.

So he put them into a little group therapy class, if you please, for the 9 months, and they met, I think, twice a week.

At the end of this period of time of 9 months, the people who had prayed for 1 to 2 hours every day and every day and every day, what kind of success do you suppose they had?

If you have read it, don't guess because you wouldn't be guessing.

What would you guess that people who prayed from 1 to 2 hours a day, every day for 9 months, what would you guess as to the success of their efforts?

There have been a very few who've said, I believe 100%.

The result at the end of the 9 months wasn't 100%, it wasn't 90, it wasn't 80, it was goose egg.

The reason that the success was 0, no success whatsoever, was this.

During that period of prayer, for the 9 months, as they prayed, they went in orbit around problems instead of solutions.

He would pray something like this, Dear Lord, you know I have a temper.

And I've had this temper for quite a while, Lord.

But dear Lord, you know, my father had a temper too.

And my mother, you know, Lord, she belonged to that nationality that is very tempestuous.

I have had a temper, my mother had a temper, my father had a temper, dear Lord.

And my grandfather had a temper my grandmother had a temper my great.

Temper temper temper temper temper and 2nd Corinthians 318 was fulfilled in their cases 2nd Corinthians 318 says by beholding We're changed in the same image The more this man talked to God in prayer about his temper, the more tempestuous he was.

He was mean to his wife the first day, but about the third day he kicked the cat beside.

And about the seventh day he whacked the dog.

And you can imagine what he was by the end of 9 months.

7 - Suicidal Storm -- Super Serenity

Our Heavenly Father, we come to you through the merits of Jesus.

And because of the wonderful love and example of our Lord, we ask just to make me a nail on the wall, fastened securely in its place.

Then from this thing so common and so very small, please hang a bright picture of thy face.

Our topic at this hour, friends, is 1 of the most important of all topics that could ever be presented to a group of fellow Christians.

It is so important that there are 826 texts of Scripture that command it or enjoin it or teach it.

If the Bible makes a command, gives a command once, a clear-cut, simple command once, we're to obey it, aren't we?

We shouldn't wait for the Lord to repeat it twice, right?

If it's a simple, clear-cut, plain command once, We should follow it.

But when he makes a command or he teaches us in 800 and more scriptures, It must follow that it's extremely, extremely important.

The individual whose experience I want to share with you most prayerfully is that of a friend of ours whom we have known for nearly 50 years.

Back in college days, I knew this young lady as a young lady.

I remember that I was leading music 1 night in a religious service at the college at which she was in attendance and I was happy and rejoicing and leading the people in joy.

And she was sitting there looking at me philosophically.

A philosopher is 1 who has a love of wisdom.

And she saw no love for this kind of a joyous Christianity.

She wanted wisdom, but she couldn't see any wisdom to being happy.

She saw the wisdom of opening the books with a good scowl, learning facts.

But 1 of the greatest facts of the Christian life she had never learned to incorporate in her life.

That is the special, special law of communication called joy or rejoicing or praising the Lord or giving thanks for our blessings based on 826 texts of Scripture.

There must be something very special that is promised to his children if we will learn joy, rejoicing, praising, thanking God from the very depths of our being.

I kept on in my rejoicing philosophy, a part of the time.

When the sun shone brightly on my Christian experience, I was rejoicing.

People thought I was a very happy individual, and I was for the most part.

And in those crises times of my life, I found that I failed.

I didn't realize that Jesus, who died on Calvary, has promised not to permit anything to come to me greater than I'm able to bear.

He has said that tribulation, if I make the right response to it, creates patience, James chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, Romans 5, verses 3 to 5.

I had read where Paul said, we glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.

And hope maketh not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart.

I'd never placed this love of God that is shed abroad in the heart as having anything to do with rejoicing in trouble, but God puts them together.

And the Lord places faith and joy together.

And God places humility and joy together.

The Lord says in Romans 15, 13, through his inspired apostle, there's joy and peace in believing.

If I will believe that God, who gave his son to die for me, will permit no experience to come into my pathway, except that which is calculated, to refine what little gold is there, and to remove all the drosses there, and to prepare me to be with the blessed throughout eternity where there'll be no word of murmur, not a whisper of discontent throughout the ages of eternity.

And in this school of life, I want to learn the lessons so that I can graduate and go back to glory land with the saints of God throughout eternity, Saved by the power of Jesus Christ.

So many times in my experience, I failed under the awful weight of temptation and disappointments.

I failed to be that happy, bubbling over, rejoicing Christian that I was at other times.

And my friends had made a tremendous impact on my experience Lord, how is it that even as a minister?

I've rejoiced Why I've rejoiced thousands of times and then when that terrible crisis our strikes I?

Fail to realize that the Christ who died on Calvary for me, had there not been another, so do I have accepted him.

He will never permit any temptation to come to me until first he filters it.

And he said, there's no temptation that'll take you, but such is as common to man.

God is faithful, Kuhn, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you're able, but he will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

And there were times I'd completely forget this.

And I also found myself forgetting many times the text of scripture, Nehemiah 8, 10, which really is an equation.

It says joy plus the Lord equals strength.

This was told to the children of God in Old Testament times, when because of their great sorrow for their sin, they were giving themselves over to complete sorrow.

And even when they made a new start, they went home under cloud, or were about to go home under cloud, having made a new start in Christ.

And Nehemiah said, don't go home sorrowfully.

Every sin you've ever committed, he's put behind his back, down in the depths of the sea.

Don't now go home sorrowfully, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

But as the years came and went, I began to realize, dear Lord, a vital part of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to know that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, Romans 8, 28.

And when I know that my Lord and Master is in charge of my life, then I can say there's joy and peace in believing.

When I realize that the Lord says, I'll save your children, though everything seems to be against it, circumstances seem to forbid that they'll ever change.

I have said in Isaiah 49, 25, I will save your children.

When I realize that, there's joy and peace in believing.

I can look up in the face of God and say, Lord, God is not a man that he should lie, Neither the Son of Man that he should repent.

Hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?

Jesus said in Matthew 24, 35, Heaven and earth shall pass away.

He has said in John 16, 24, if you ask, you will receive, and your joy will be full.

It's based on a trusting attitude, that God is bigger than the devil, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is more powerful than all the forces of darkness, that when the forces of darkness conspire together and consolidate to destroy me, then the Lord has said in Isaiah 54, 17, no weapon that's formed against you will prosper.

No weapon that's formed against you will prosper.

Every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment, you will condemn.

This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and your righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

Oh, how many hundreds of times I believe I've claimed that promise.

Lord, you're more powerful than the devil.

I don't have to tell about the wonderful power of Satan.

I have the right to rejoice in your promises.

I have a right to trust and snuggle up in confidence that you will never permit any temptation to come to me except as it will do me good and will create patience.

In an awful experience of my own on a nerve exhaustion where my medical doctor said I'd be laid up for 6 months.

I started this joy program a Medical doctor in my church had enjoined this program on my relatives He said make a list of 10 things and another 10 things and another 10 things for which you're grateful and then vocalize it.

8 - Beth’s Mate Returns

Dear Lord, make me just a nail upon the wall, fastened securely in its place.

And we thank you for hearing us in Jesus name, Amen.

Friends we're discussing the philosophy, the philosophy of worship, the philosophy of worshiping the wonderful God whom we adore and how our relationship to the Lord changes our relationship to those closest to us.

The experience that I wish to share with you at this time has to do with Beth and with her husband whose name we're going to call Dirk.

Because as she shared with us the experience, I just about made up my mind that he was about as near to dirt as he could be.

Series

Science of Worship

8 - Beth’s Mate Returns

Transcript

Parent Series

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