What Saith the Scripture?
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On Offering Praise to God
by Charles Grandison Finney
President of Oberlin College
from "The
Oberlin Evangelist" Publication of Oberlin College
Lecture IX
December 17, 1856
Public Domain Text
Reformatted by Katie Stewart
.
Text.--Psa. 50:23: "Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth Me."
Praise is commendation. To praise one, is to commend him.
The text affirms that he who offers praise glorifies God. Let us enquire --
I. What is implied in offering acceptable praise to God?
II. What is it, we next enquire, to glorify God?
I. What is implied in offering acceptable praise to God?
II. What is it, we next enquire, to glorify God?
For proof of this, we readily appeal to the irresistible convictions of every such being. When you have received a favor, do you not feel that you do wrong if you refuse to acknowledge it? Could you think yourself commendable if you refused to honor your parents, supposing them to be good? When you have abused your loving and kind father or mother, can you escape self-reproach? Do you not both know and feel that you have neglected a plain duty, and done them a great wrong? The fact is, that praise in such a case is intrinsically demanded. As regards God, you know that He deserves to be praised. If you neglect it, you do Him great injustice. You know He is worthy of it, and you cannot refuse without the conviction that you withhold it from Him most wickedly.
Now, who does not see that, if this took place between a son and his father, this very silence would be a terrible stab? Who could bear it? When Christians take this course towards God, must it not tend naturally to injure His interests among men? If you, young men, were never to speak well of your father, would you not greatly detract from his influence? If you wished to sustain and establish his influence, could you hope to do it withholding all due commendation? Suppose you should never speak well of him; could you hope, in this way, to honor him?
The offering of praise to God is important for its bearing,
(1.) Upon God;
(2.) Upon ourselves;
(3.) Upon others.
We have seen that it is and ought to be most grateful to His feelings. We judge so, in part from our own feelings under similar circumstances. Scarcely anything is more grateful to our feelings than to be commended where we deserve it. If a student has done well, it does him good to commend him for it. I have seen the tears gather in the eye of those who come before the congregation to receive their diploma when allusion is made to their good behavior, and to their faithful discharge of their duties as students. On the other hand, the utter withholding of all commendation would be sad. You would feel the lack of justice in it.
In the application of this point to God, men are prone to overlook the fact that God's susceptibilities are infinite, and that, consequently, He must feel far more acutely than any other being can. All is right in His character. If He were insensible to praise, it would be a great defect in Him. We could not approve His character if He were regardless of the esteem in which His creatures hold Him. For, this would be equivalent to being regardless of their happiness.
Hence, the praises of heaven are not only useful to those who offer them, but are grateful to Him to whom they are offered. They aid Him in carrying out His purposes of love, because they lead His creatures to a better appreciation of His character and works. If it be useful to an earthly monarch to have his subjects speak well of him, how much more so to God!
Make the case our own. How would you increase my usefulness? Suppose you were to do as a friend of mine did many years ago, when I was young in the ministry. I had begun to preach in a place; the Spirit of the Lord came among us with power; but the adversary, true to his usual instincts, began to circulate all sorts of false and foul stories about me and my former labors. This friend came in just at that moment, and denounced those false stories, told them what he knew of me, and showed them that these rumors were malicious slanders, gotten up to injure especially the work of God. These efforts of my friend were greatly blessed.
God's influence in the universe depends greatly on the praise offered to Him by His people, and by all who know Him. This praise is the more effective for good because where sin goes, there goes unbelief, and a want of confidence in God. The praises of His people bear a direct testimony against this wicked withdrawal of confidence from God. Then, let us never overlook the fact that God's influence is augmented by our testimony to His goodness.
The spirit of praise in us is essential to our fitness for heaven. Without it, there could be no sympathy between our spirit and theirs. I have sometimes thought that old professors would object to heaven -- there is so much enthusiasm there!
Another striking illustration of the same truth we read in the closing verses of 2 Chron. 5 -- a passage which details the services performed at the solemn dedication of the temple. Of this the historian says -- "It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good; for His mercy endureth forever; that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God."
No doubt your own observation, and I hope also, your experience has given you instances in which praise has seemed to bring down great blessings upon the people. When the spirit of praise bursts forth, then the Lord Himself breaks forth in His glorious mercy.
I could not but remark in the revival at Rochester, last winter, that the spirit of praise seemed to be exceedingly sincere and earnest. It was so prominent that it arrested the attention of the wicked, and they said -- "How strange this is! How little have we ever thought of God's goodness before!" It convicted them of the sin of ingratitude, and of their own sins in this respect. When they heard Christians bursting forth in heart-felt utterances of praise, adoring God for all His mercy to themselves, it contrasted so widely with their own state of mind, they could not help seeing their own dreadful guilt against God. They saw themselves unfit for heaven. They knew then that the spirit of heaven was not in them, and that they must be converted to God ere they could hope to see heaven. The very countenance of Christians beaming with the joy of praise, struck home to many this conviction. Such a glow of heavenly praise, said they, on their very faces, gave us a new idea of heaven. That, said they, must be the spirit of heaven; we have it not; but we must have it! I recollect the case of one lady in R. converted in a striking manner, after her friends had been long time praying for her. Her countenance was so resplendent that none could see her without an impression that this is the halo of heaven, beaming on her face. It was truly wonderful! This brought a new conviction on the minds of sinners. Never before had they such an impression of the value of praise and of Christian joy, as related to the conviction and conversion of sinners. When they saw the contrast between one under conviction, and the same person when converted, it made them feel that they, too, must find Christ.
But when they see only a legal religion, full of mourning and sadness, they are repelled. When they see the spirit of praise bursting all its banks like Jordan in harvest, and overflowing all the soul, they instinctively say -- "That is good! That is worth having!" This gives them the sunny side of religion. Not that religion itself has any other than sunny sides; but the way thither through conviction, and the return to it after backslidings, may be very unlike a sunny side. These sometimes become a great stumbling block to wicked men.
Hence, praise is one of the highest means of influence over the wicked. Sometimes we fail to do good by prayer, and accomplish nothing till we turn our souls to praise.
REMARKS.
1. Sinners, remaining such, cannot praise God. Neither can legalists, nor back-sliders,
nor those who are in spiritual bondage.
2. Many ministers present only the shady side of religion. Indeed, they have not
been on the sunny side themselves, and therefore know too little about it to preach
of it to any purpose. The same is true of many professors of religion. Their whole
experience is that of conviction and complaint. They never seem to break forth in
the spirit of praise and thanksgiving. Consequently they never draw sinners to Christ.
3. Some entire churches are in this very state. O, how grievously do they misrepresent
God and religion! Of course they do but very little good. They have not the true
spirit of God's children. Without the spirit of praise, how can they hope to glorify
God?
4. No one glorifies God in his life who does not praise God. Indeed, our lives dishonor
God unless we praise Him.
5. We see why there is so much more prayer in the church than praise. We dwell more
on what we lack than on what we have. This is a great evil among us, that we should
forget what we have received, and thus dishonor and displease God. Another reason
for so little praise in our times, is that people fear it will look like boasting
to stand up and testify for God and His goodness. The case of a man, whom I saw recently
in a revival, is in point here. He had been away from the place on business, and
failed to appreciate the spirit that pervaded the people there. When he came back
he would often whisper to me -- "There seems to be a spirit of boasting here."
But, curiously, after he had been there awhile, he too, caught the spirit of praise,
and would pour forth his praises with loud voice and gushing tears. But after being
absent awhile and returning, his first impressions were as before; and only when
the spirit of praise filled his own soul did he appreciate the feelings of the brethren
in their praise of Almighty God.
6. Another reason is, we overlook the importance and use of praise. Prayer we understand
better. Less is thought and felt of the duty of praise.
Praise is one of the great instruments by which God answers our prayers. When we
have prayed for souls, and then the spirit of praise comes upon us, and our souls
break forth in thanksgiving, lo, then our God comes! I think now of the case of a
father who had long prayed for his children. At last, the spirit of praise came upon
him with great power, and then God answered his prayers in the conversion of his
children.
Why should not we have more meetings for praise? I have often thought that our meetings
on Thanksgiving day should suggest the wisdom of having more meetings of the same
sort, in which each one should have opportunity to express his own personal grounds
for thanksgiving and praise, and call on his brethren to join him in thanksgiving.
On such occasions, how often have we said -- Did not our hearts burn within us while
we heard one and another recount the mercies of the Lord toward himself, and saw
him pour out the testimony of a full heart in grateful tears? Why do we not continue
these meetings, and have stated seasons for praise as well as prayer -- praise-meetings,
no less than prayer meetings. If we were to have a meeting for praise and recount
the acts of Divine goodness towards us and ours, surely it would bless us more than
anything else. Let those who can praise bear witness to the goodness of their God!
O, let it be understood by all and never forgotten, that we are most ungrateful to
God when we restrain praise. Shall we go on begging and begging, and never thank
God for what we have? Can it be a less sin to restrain praise than to restrain prayer?
7. The absence of praise denotes a lack of faith. The filial, trustful spirit bears
a deep sympathy with praise. And where the filial spirit is not, praise is uncongenial.
I have often been struck with this, that those who have only a spirit of agony and
no praise, are not wont to prevail greatly in prayer.
Those who cannot sympathize with praise are not saved; they have not the spirit of
heaven. You who are in sin -- what could you do in heaven? You who have no heart
for praise, what would you do in heaven? You could have no sympathy with its employments,
or its joy, and you would have no heart to stay in such society and amid such sympathies!
None can be there but such as love to glorify God, and God is to be glorified pre-eminently
by praise.
GLOSSARY
of easily misunderstood terms as defined by Mr. Finney himself.
Compiled by Katie Stewart
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