Derek Prince - Worship Is Not An Utterance But An Attitude
This excerpt is from: Thanksgiving, Praise and Worship
Now, there's a beautiful passage in Psalm 95, which I believe beautifully depicts the progress into worship. Psalm 95, the first two verses depict loud, jubilant praise. A lot louder than some churches will permit. It says: 'O come let us sing to the LORD, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.' Shouting means shouting. It doesn't mean singing loud, it means shouting. 'Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.'
Notice again the two stages of access: thanksgiving and praise. Remember what we said earlier, there's no other way into the presence of God. Then, the next three verses give us the reason why we should praise and thank God. The Bible is very logical. It doesn't just ask us to thank and praise God, but it tells us why. You remember in Psalm 100, there were three reasons. 'The LORD is good. His mercy is everlasting. His truth endures to all generations.' Those are three unchanging reasons to praise God. And here in verses 3-5, we have the following reasons: 'For the LORD is the great God, and the great King above all gods.'
You remember that I said by praise, we acknowledge God's greatness. So here, the word 'greatness' is used twice. The Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. And, we acknowledge His greatness by loud, jubilant, excited praise. And then we see Him as the mighty Creator, 'In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.' So we come to Him thanking him, praising Him for the marvels of His creation. But that's only the access. In verse 6, we come to worship.
So praise and thanksgiving are really the access, the way of approach, into worship. And you'll notice immediately we come to worship, it's an attitude. Verse 6: 'O come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD our maker.' We've passed from utterance to attitude. We began with praise and thanksgiving, but that wasn't the goal. Where Christians just stop with praise and thanksgiving, they've really missed... the goal which God has, which is worship. Which is not an utterance but an attitude. 'O come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD our maker.' Why? Verse 7: 'For He is our God.' How do we, above all other ways, acknowledge Him as God? By doing what? By worshiping, because worship belongs only to God.
So when we worship Him, by that very act we are acknowledging that He is our God. 'And we are the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand.' So it's appropriate for us, as God's people, to worship Him. That acknowledges the relationship between us as God's people... and God as our Creator and our Redeemer. Now it's a strange thing, if you look in your Bible, if you have one open before you, the verse doesn't end there. It seems there's a strange division because... the first part of the next sentence is included in the end of verse 7. See that? It says: 'Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts...' and so on.
Why is that particular little section, 'Today, if you will hear His voice...' why is that in the section of worship? A wonderful secret, because it's when we worship that we really hear God's voice. And when we worship, we've come to the end of talking. We've done all the shouting and the praising, and that's all right, but that's not the end. The end, in a sense, is a position of reverence before God in which we don't have much to say. We're quiet, we're still. Somebody said Charismatics are so afraid of silence, and I think there's a truth to that. But there comes a time of silence. Who knows how long that silence might be? Would we be willing to give God 10 minutes, do you think? Most churches would think that was totally out of order, to have 10 minutes of silence. I'm not saying it has to be 10 minutes. I think God determines how long it has to be. But, in that attitude, we are open to hear the voice of God.
Ruth and I regularly take time, almost every day, to praise and to worship God. Ruth is our worship leader because I don't have much of a voice. Many, many times when we come into that attitude of worship... and our spirits are quiet before God, He speaks to us. We have had so much direction, warning, encouragement, direct from God. I am very cautious about prophetic utterances. I don't necessarily believe them. But generally speaking, if a prophetic utterance comes in an atmosphere of worship, and it fits in with the atmosphere, I am usually ready to believe that is God speaking to His people. But if we never come into that place of worship, really, we never... give God an opportunity to speak to us.
So just notice that progression: 'loud, jubilant, excited praise.' That brings us into the presence of God. We praise Him for the reasons given here. But when we've come into His presence, then it changes. It's no longer utterance, it's attitude. The attitude that's appropriate in the presence of Almighty God. And in that attitude, we are open to hear His voice.