 Great. Good morning. Good morning. I hope you all are doing well. It's the third hour. It's the last hour. So it's a good thing. Let's just begin with prayer. Father, we thank You. We honor You. We worship You. We adore You, Lord. Lord, how good are You? How merciful, how faithful are You, Lord? Jesus, thank You that Your Word says that You will never leave us nor forsake us. Thank You that Your presence is here with us. Lord, we hold on to the promise where You say two or three are gathered. You are there in the midst and we believe You are here in our midst. We adore You, we worship You. Everything we do is for You and everything we do is about You, Lord. The teaching and the learning is just to know You more, God. And so we stand in awe of who You are in Your presence. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Okay. Great. Good morning once again. I hope you all are doing very well. Let's do a quick recap. It seems like we finished the class yesterday, but it was day before yesterday, isn't it? Okay. Day before yesterday. All right. So the postures of praise is what we learned, seven Hebrew words for praise. Let's do a quick recap. Is that okay? Okay. What's the first Hebrew word for praise? Yadda. Okay. And what does that mean? No. Yeah, you did the opposite. You went down. No, it's going up. So Yadda is to praise him with, with what? Extended hands. Okay. Say hands stretched out. Everybody do this. Come on. Okay. Don't do this, bro. Do this. Right. Yeah. With extended hands. So that is Yadda, isn't it? With extended hands with arms stretched out. The second one was the second Hebrew word for praise is Todah. Right. It's, it comes from the same root word as Yadda, but with the more intentional. Right. That means I'm thanking him, you know, for all the blessings that I have not yet received. Okay. I am praying about the breakthrough. So I will thank you. I will worship you with extended hands. And the third Hebrew word, halal, halal. Right. So it's the root word. We get the word. Hallelujah. Right. Hallelujah. Yah is Yahweh or Jehovah. So halal means praise Yahweh or Jehovah. That's what it is. Okay. When you put both the words together. Okay. It means to shine, to boast, to make a show, to rejoice, to be clamorously foolish, to celebrate. So we can summarize that word with celebration. Right. Halal means to celebrate. Right. And here's my second favorite word, which is the fourth one. Okay. Very good. Okay. A little bit of coffee is helping. Right. Right. Shabbat. Yeah. Sorry. All those online must have been very close in your years. Okay. Tehila. Right. Tehila is going, it means sing breakout in a spontaneous song or let your heart be a book of praise, a library of praise. Okay. No. One of the best investments that I have made is in this book called a thousand praises. Have you heard of the book? Thousand praises. Okay. So yeah. You know it. So you can go to any Christian bookstore like OM books or ELS. That was funny. This book costs 10 rupees. Okay. It has thousand praises. So if you can find a Christian bookstore, spend 10 rupees, must be 15 rupees or 20 rupees now, but get that book. Okay. So as you meditate on that book, your heart is filled with God's praises. Okay. And the sixth Hebrew word for praises. Sixth Hebrew word for praises. Yeah. There's no phlegm in that. It's Barak. Yeah. Kneel down. So it's very important that you understand the difference between Barak and the Hebrew word for worship, which is what's the Hebrew word for worship? Come on guys. It's not that hard to remember. Shaha. Right. Say Shaha. Right. That's the Hebrew word for worship. Isn't it? Yes or no? Okay. All right. People online, just give us one minute. Okay. I'm going to close the camera and mute the mic. All right. One minute. Sorry, those online. We had intimate moments of conversation. Okay. Okay. So the sixth Hebrew word for praise is Barak and the last one was Zamar. Okay. So Zamar is the only Hebrew word where he talks about playing an instrument, a musical instrument. Yeah. Is that right? Okay. All right. Let's move on to chapter three. So we'll begin talking about the foundations of praise. Right. So praise again in the notes, it says praise in the dictionary means to commend, to applaud, to express approval or admiration of or to extoll in words or in a song to magnify, to glorify. Okay. One of the things we learned in the previous sessions is we all praise. Right. It's very easy. Like if we appreciate in other words, right, if someone does a good job, they like, hey, good job. You sang well. You know, we shake their hands. We appreciate them. And we somehow, if you have a dog, we say, hey, good job dog, you know, throw something, it brings back the ball is like, oh, right. So that's commend or you are approving or showing off your admiration. So that's what basically what a what praise is. Do you appreciate someone? What is it? What do you say for appreciation in Hindi? Appreciation, appreciate. Sorry. Sabash. Tariff. Tariff. That's also another word. Okay. So it's praise or appreciate. Okay. So I like Sabash also. Okay. Right. So we all do that in every day, almost every day, you know, you meet you, if you like something that someone has done, and you have benefited from it, especially you say, Sabash, good job. Right. But that's what praise is all about. But then the notes, we go on to say that we praise God either one directly or indirectly. Okay. So what do we do? We praise God two ways. One is directly or directly or indirectly. Okay. So what does that mean? I'm directly praising God. What is it? So Vishnu, Vishnu, right? Your name is Vishnu, right? Okay. So I'm, you know, I want to praise him or appreciate him. I want to directly do that. So I walk up to him and says, like, good job. I love your hairstyle, bro. Nice haircut. Right. So what am I doing? I'm directly talking to him. Yes or no? So in other words, when I directly praise God, I'm telling him, Lord, I praise you. You are awesome. You are magnificent. You are holy. I praise you. You are El Shaddai. I praise you. You are Adonai. I praise you. You are my Jehovah Jireh. I praise you. You are my shelter. You are my shield. I praise you. You are my fortress. I praise you. You are my redeemer. I praise you. You are my morning star. I praise you. Right. What am I doing? I'm directly telling him who he is and I'm praising him. Isn't it? And now I can also indirectly praise. What's your name, bro? Joseph. Awesome name. So now, hey, Joseph, have you seen Vishnu's haircut? It's awesome. Yeah, you're saying. So what am I doing? I'm talking to Joseph about Vishnu, but I'm telling that something good about him. Yes or no? And that's what happens when we testify. Right. You know, most of our churches, we have a time for testimony. Isn't it? We come up here or we send an email saying, I was praying for a breakthrough. I was praying for a job. I was praying, you know, this college will open for admissions. I got my seat. I want to thank God. You know, so what is happening there? By sharing a testimony, I am indirectly thanking and praising God. Are you with me? So it's very simple. There's just two ways in how we praise God is one, we directly tell him who he is. And then when we speak with one another, you know, when we say, it's like, you know what? Last week, I was praying for this. God came through. I had no money in the bank. Someone gave me, you know, an offering. God is so good. Right. So we are indirectly praising him. And so this is a little early for me to share, but I'll share it anyways. But we all need to know that praise, everybody, can we say praise? Say praise. Right. What's the word for atmosphere in Hindi or any language? Atmosphere. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So like earth as an atmosphere, isn't it? Now, if you go outside of atmosphere, you will die kind of, right? Because there's no oxygen and whatnot, right? Praise is the atmosphere of heaven. Okay. Praise is the atmosphere of heaven. We'll go more deep into that. That's why I said, you know, it's a little early for me to share in this class because Psalm 22 verse three, it says, God dwells in the middle of the praise in the midst of the praise. Right. He's in the middle of the praise. That means he is surrounded with praise. Okay. Praise is God's address. You want to know where to find God, find a bunch of people who are praising him? That's where you'll find because again, Psalm 22, but we'll get there. Okay. So let's dive a little bit more deeper. But this chapter is called the foundations of praise. So let's try and understand the foundations. Okay. A little bit. So the word raise seems to appear for the first time in the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 29 verse 35. Okay. Can we all go on our Bibles to Genesis chapter 29 foundations? Genesis 29 verse 35 on what I want to do is we read from verse 31. Genesis 29 was 31 onwards, but just to give a context of what is happening, we all know the story of Jacob. Yes. Rachel and Laia. Jacob's uncle, his name is Laban, L-A-B-A and Laban, whatever. So he tricks Jacob. He cheats Jacob saying Jacob loved Rachel, but then he gets him married to Laia. Right. So Jacob doesn't realize that, but Jacob loved Rachel. He did not love Laia. Okay. So that is a context, isn't it? So right now in this chapter, Genesis chapter 29, we see that Jacob is married to both Laia and Rachel. Okay. He's married to both of them. But the Bible says that Laia was not loved by Jacob. Okay. She was not loved by Jacob. Now it's, anybody married here in the class? No, right? Okay. Hopefully eventually someone will. Okay. Oh, there you go. All right. Sorry, bro. But not being loved by your spouse, that means it doesn't matter who it is, right? If I'm not loved by my wife or if my wife is not loved by me, it's a very hard place to be in. It's very difficult, right? You want your wife to love you or you want your husband to love you, isn't it? That is the purpose. One of the purpose and meanings of marriage is to be loved, isn't it? But to be in a marriage, not knowing that the other person does not love you is a very difficult place to be in. Right? It's a very difficult, it's not a nice feeling, as we say. Okay. But so Laia is in a place like that. She knows that she is not loved. Are you with me? Okay. So from that in mind, let's look at this verse 31. Genesis 29 verse 31, it says, when the Lord saw that Laia was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. So verse 32, so Laia conceived and bore a son and she called, look at this, she called, she is naming the son. Okay. So she called him Ruben for she said the Lord has surely looked on my afflictions. Now therefore my husband will love me. So the meaning of the name Ruben is see, see, look. Are you with me? Right? So Laia bears a first son. She names him Ruben because, you know, and then he goes on to say, because the Lord has looked or seen my affliction. In other words, what she's also trying to say is, Hey Jacob, look, I have borne you a son. Will you love me now? That's what she's trying to say. Are you with me? Right? So, but then nothing happens. Jacob's mind doesn't change. He seems to still love Rachel. Then let's go to verse 33. Then she conceived again second time and bore a son and said, because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, he has therefore given me his son, the son also. And she called, she called his name Simeon. Yeah. Where is it? She called his name Simeon. Now the word, the meaning of the name Simeon is heard. Are you with me? Right? So again, what Laia is saying is, Jacob, will you not hear my cry? Look, I have borne you another son. Will you not hear me? First, she begins by saying, Jacob, see, why are you not seeing? You know, I have borne you a son. Will you not love me now? Second son Simeon, will you not hear my cry and love me? Okay. That's the second son. Let's move on. Verse 33. Sorry, verse 34. She conceived again and bore a son the third time and said, now this time my husband will become attached to me because I have borne him three sons. Therefore, his name is called Levi. Now the meaning of the name Levi is attached. Okay. We've become friends again. It's a relationship is mended. It's restored. I'm attached with you. So what she's saying again is, Jacob, I've borne you three sons. Will you not get attached to me now? At least now will you not love me? Now, I know it takes a nine months or 10 months to give birth to a child. Right. So three sons, let's say even say three years or four years have gone by. Right. Three and a half, four years have gone by. For four years or so, Leah is not being loved by her husband. It's a very hard place to be. I don't know. I can't say, you know, if you know how it feels because not most of you are married. But it's a very difficult place to not be loved, isn't it? Everyone wants to be loved. Everyone on this planet wants to be approved. Right. I want my parents to love me. Right. I want my friends to love me and whatnot. But her husband is not in love with her. And so she's naming her children according to the desires of her heart. Ruben, Jacob, see, I've borne your son. Love me now. Will you not love me now? Simeon, will you not hear my cry, Jacob? God has heard my cry. Will you not love me now? Levi, attached. Will you not get attached to me now, Jacob? No. So she's crying and crying and crying, but nothing happens. Now we come to verse 35, to the actual verse that we wanted to look. Verse 35 says, And she conceived again and bore a son and said, Now I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing. That's the origin of the word praise or the foundations of praise is Leah tried everything in her strength. Okay. She tried everything in her strength. She was obsessed. Obsessed. We need to know the meaning, Hindi meaning for obsession, obsessed. Obsessed means you're only thinking about one thing day and night. What does that mean? Anybody? You are only thinking about one thing day and night, day and night, day and night. What is that? A Hindi word for obsession? Anyone? Or any of the language? What's that? Lat. Junoon. Junoon. Is that right? Junoon. Okay. So that means you're obsessed with that thought, isn't it? You're only thinking about it day and night and day and night. But that's what happened with Leah is that she was obsessed with gaining or winning her husband's love, isn't it? Her only objective in life or purpose it seemed in life was, I somehow have to make Jacob love me. Somehow I have to make Jacob love me. That was her thought. She thought by bearing children, she can win Jacob's love, but nothing happened. So Leah realized that and said, she's saying, okay, I tried everything I can, I give up, I will change, shift my focus. That's what she's saying. My focus has been on Jacob's love, but now I will shift my focus on God. I will praise him. Are you with me? Right? So praise is in so many different words. It's very simple. It's simply fixing our eyes on God, who he is, what he has done. Okay. Now, why did we go through all of this? We don't know in detail. The rest of the Genesis story doesn't tell a lot about Jacob's and Leah's relationship, but here's one thing. Let's go to Genesis 35. Genesis chapter 35. Genesis 35. I'll read from verse 16 to 19. Genesis chapter 35 verse 16 to 19. Yeah, everybody's there. Genesis chapter 35 verse 16 to 19. Okay. It says, then they journeyed from Bethel and when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrata, that's Bethlehem, Rachel labored in childbirth and she had hard labor. Now it came to pass when she was in hard labor that the midwife said to her, do not fear, you will have this son also. Verse 18. And so it was and her soul was departing for she died for that she called his name Benoni, but his father called him Benjamin. Verse 19. So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrata. That is Bethlehem. She was buried on the way to Bethlehem. Okay. You can underline that verse. Now let's go to another scripture. Genesis 49. Genesis 49. Let's look at verse 31. Genesis 49 verse 31. Are you there? 49, 31. Okay. There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife. And there I buried Leah. Okay. Some of you are so confused right now, like Pastor Roshan, I thought you're talking about praise and worship. Why are we talking about Rachel, where she was buried? Why are you talking about Leah, where she was buried? Here's the thing. So we looked at Genesis 35, right? Genesis 30. Sorry, 29. We saw that Leah changed her focus from winning Jacob's love to saying, from now I'm going to praise God. Yes? Now from there on, it doesn't really tell the relationship between Jacob and Leah, you know, if he eventually loved her or not. But here it says in Genesis 35, it says, Rachel, although she was loved by Jacob, when she passed away, she was buried on the way, like somewhere to Bethlehem. But Leah was buried with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah. Now the Jews, right? The Jewish people, they will not just let anyone bury in your family space. They took their, what we call it as pedigree, very seriously. It was a great honor to be buried with the family. Honor. It was an immense honor for an individual to be buried with the family. And so you see that somewhere along the way, because Leah shifted her focus from winning Jacob's love to shifting her focus to God, the thing is, when we choose to praise God, right? God chooses to honor you in a way that no man can. Even in your depth, he will honor you. Are you with me? So that is one of the initial foundations of praise to understanding the power and the beauty of praise. Are you all with me? Right? And so that's why praise is so important. And I said that the praise is the heavens atmosphere. And it's in the next chapter, we learn about its power, but God has surrounded himself with praise, right? In Revelation, right? We see that the 24 elders and the angels, the seraphims above the throne and the cherubim in Ezekiel 1. And then in Isaiah 6, he's surrounded with praise. They cried out to one another, holy, holy, holy day and night, night and day, without stopping. Are you with me? Now, so we have so many reasons to praise God, right? As the song says, 10,000 reasons. Have you heard that song? Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, right? We have so many reasons. Like in your notes, if you have, it says, you know, you'll see a list. So we praise him for his attributes. Psalm 92 verse 1, it says, it is good to praise the Lord, make music to your name. Praise is a good thing, right? Psalm 147 verse 1 tells us that praise is beautiful and agreeable. We praise him for his mighty acts, Psalm 150 verse 2. So we praise him for n number of things, right? We praise him because he is good. We praise him because he is faithful. We praise him because he gives us our food. He protects us, right? He takes care of us and whatnot. Yes? Yes or no? But heaven has only one reason to praise him. You and I have thousands and thousands of reasons to praise him, but heaven has only one reason to praise him. It is that he is worthy, right? He is worthy in Hindi Yogyar. Let's go to Revelation. Let's go to the book of Revelation. You okay? All good? Okay, I'm just going to read a couple of scriptures for us. Actually, let's read the whole chapter. Sorry, Revelation chapter four. Okay, follow along with me. Okay, I want another Hindi word for this Hindi word called imagine. Can someone help me with that? Alpana, okay? All right, I believe you. Right, so here's what I want us to do is I want us to imagine as we read this scripture, okay? Imagine comes from the word image, a picture, okay? So because you've seen a particular image, you imagine. Yes or no? How many of you have seen a horror movie? Have you seen a horror movie? Yeah? Okay, so and how many of you have gotten scared later after, you know, if the room is dark and whatnot, you step into it? Why people get scared is they start imagining what they've seen, isn't it? So they've seen these images of the horror movie, like, you know, whatever, none with upside down cross. All those, right? All of that images are stuck in your head. And when you enter into a dark room or whatever, you start those images and you with those images, you start imagining. Yes or no? Right? And so you get the word imagine from the word image and it's from the same word, you get the word magic image, magic, Magi, okay? Magi came from the Far East, Matthew 2, right? So it's the same root word, you get the word image, Magi, magic, imagination, right? It's all from the same word. And so an imagination is one of the most powerful gifts God has given us. And so this book is filled with images of who God is. Are you with me? This book is filled with images of who God is. And he lets us imagine. Are you with me? So now as we read this chapter, there are a lot of images of his throne room. And so imagine with me, okay? Verse 2 of chapter 4, it says, Revelation chapter 4, verse 2 onwards, it says, immediately I was in the Spirit and behold a throne set in heaven and one sat on the throne. And he who sat there was like a Jasper and a sardius stone in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald. Now if you haven't started imagining, you should have, okay? So there sat like a Jasper and sardius stone, like a beautiful blue stone in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne. Throne is Singhasen, Singhasen, Singhasen, correct? Yeah. Now just again, imagine God's throne and around his throne is like this beautiful rainbow that encircles like an emerald. Around the throne were 24 thrones. And on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting, clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. Before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal. And in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures. Full of eyes in front and in back, that means inside and out. Four living creatures. Okay, the first living creature was like a lion. The second living creature like a calf. The third living creature had a face like a man. And the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Okay, let's pause there for a second. I hope you're imagining. But when you start reading about their angels, the super angels, they're not this cute things, you know, with some bow and arrow, shooting, you know, they are scary. They look very scary, isn't it? Eyes inside and out. Oh Lord, you can't imagine how scary they must look. And then with four living creatures, with four different faces. Now, one was a face of a lion, ox, eagle and man, isn't it? And they were crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy. Now, okay, let's imagine together. Okay, imagine and think with me. Imagine a lion made in heaven, not our Indian lion, not lion here on earth, but a lion up there in the heavens, in his very presence. Imagine a lion roaring holy, holy, holy. Imagine. That's just one example. And that is the kind of praise our God is surrounded with. He is awesome, our God, right? He is holy. There is no one like our God, right? He is magnificent. He is absolutely magnificent. There is no one like our God, or there is no one who is as holy as he is. And that's just one creature. Now, there's ox, there's eagle, but I found the lion. Imagine the lion roaring and all of heaven can hear the roar of the lion crying out, Holy. And then four living creatures coming together. It was magnificent. And then goes on to verse 11 in the same chapter, towards the very bottom. It says, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor, power, for You created all things. And by Your will, they exist and were created. So, see that they have only one song and they have only one reason to praise him is that he is holy. Are you with me? I just want to leave with this one verse, Psalm 22. Let's go to Psalm 22. I really wish we had different languages for this verse. It's really awesome. Okay. So, Psalm 22. I want us to look at verse three, but I'll read verse one and verse two as well. It says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning? Oh, my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear. And in the night season, and I'm not silent. Verse three. But you are holy and thrown in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you, they trusted you and you delivered them. They cried to you and you were delivered and you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not ashamed. Now, between verse one and two and between verse four and five is verse three. Right? So, verse one and two, it seems like David is crying out, Why are you not hearing my prayer? And then verse four and five, he says, You delivered and rescued my fathers. And middle of those two, you know, four verses is verse three. He says, Yet you are enthroned on the praises of Israel. Different translation says you are in the midst. That means you are in the center, you are in the middle. Right? Tamil, Tamil, I think it says, Tuddin Matthil. That means you are right in the middle of praise. You are enthroned. Okay? Everybody say enthroned. Right? So, the throne, right? The room where the throne was was called as the throne room. Are you with me? Throne room. So, it is in the throne room. You know, if there was a throne here, right, you will find all the ministers of the king, you know, all the political leaders and everyone, right? So, it is in the throne room where you will have an audience with the king. You can come before the king and place your request. King will make all the political decisions what needs to be done in the country, what shouldn't be done in the country. So, everything happens in the throne room. Are you with me? Right? In the old ancient language, the throne room was called as the room of the face. That means the presence of God was in that room. So, now in that verse, Psalm 22 verse 3, Psalm 22 verse 3 says, he is enthroned on the praises of his people. That means when you and I, okay, when you and I begin to praise him in this room, this room becomes his throne room. He establishes his throne in this room. Are you with me? What we just read about in Revelation 4 and 5 happens, it comes down in this room. That's why Jesus teaches us to pray like, your kingdom come. And so, when we praise his kingdom is here. Kingdom is two different words, king and domain, dominion. So, when the king comes, he comes with his dominion as well. Are you with me? I hope you've understood something today. To make an understatement, praise is powerful. I want us to understand that, right? The devil knows he understands the power of our praise. It only seems like we don't know the power of our praise. So, let's fix our eyes on God. We shift our focus like Leah did, okay, and understand the power of praise. All right, we'll continue in the next class next week about the foundations of praise. We'll stop here for today. All right. Great. Thanks for joining in, guys. Online, God bless you. Take care. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, God bless you.