The Holy Spirit and Worship — Hattie Hammond

Worship as the Highest Service to God

On a subject that all heaven loves. Up there, they're not doing anything else but worshipping Jesus. They're not making one single request. They love him enough to know that he has everything under control and he's doing everything just exactly right.

So all they need to do is just love and worship and adore. We talked about the Holy Spirit and prayer. That's petitioning God. The Holy Spirit and praise. We can't really adore without the help of the Holy Spirit.

The dear Holy Spirit, I talked this morning about him baptizing the whole man. And we don't have the real New Testament baptism of the Spirit until the whole person is baptized, immersed, submerged in God.

And we live in the Spirit. That's what it means to live in the Spirit. Live in there. Live in there. In communion, in union, in oneness, in fellowship with him. And when he baptizes the whole person, he baptizes our emotional nature.

That's why Pentecostalers are different. Real Pentecostalers who have the real thing, who know how to really word in truth. Say it with me. God is Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in truth.

We can't do that apart from the precious Holy Spirit. But he baptizes our emotional natures when he baptizes us in the Spirit. And that's what makes us different from other people. We don't just sing 24 and 32 and 75.

Sometimes those notes go down when we want to go up. And sometimes they go up when we want to go down. And other times we want to leave them all together and just take off in the Spirit and worship and adore like true Pentecostalers are supposed to.

Really worship. Really worship. The Father seeketh such to worship him. The Father seeketh such to worship him. The difference between praise and worship. When we praise the Lord, we usually praise him for something.

In our testimony meetings, I praise the Lord for saving me. And then we take off in telling how he saved us. Praise the Lord for baptizing me. And then we tell about this wonderful experience of being baptized in the Holy Ghost.

I praise the Lord for healing me. And then we tell how we got healed and from what we were healed and so on. And praise is usually hooked on to for something. And then we're taken up with the for. And leave the praises and talk about what he saved us from.

And I praise him for what he's doing. The psalmist... Oh, thank you, David, for giving us this 150th psalm. It blessed us tonight, didn't it? Thank you, David. Yes. The Psalms is really the praise hymn book.

David was a great outdoor man, as you know. And as you read the Psalms, David is constantly praising. He praises God for everything. That's the way to live. That's the way to live. Look at this psalm and read the psalms.

He praised the Lord for the sun. He praised him for the moon. He praised him for the stars. He praised him for the fruitful trees. He praises him even for the fog. He praised the Lord for the brooks, the streams.

He's constantly praising the Lord out there in the fields with his heart that perhaps he made himself. Because it tells us, Josephus tells us how he made these musical instruments on which to praise the Lord.

And that's what we praise God for. And he praises where it belongs, praising the Lord, but always conscious of the Lord, of the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, we say. Praise the Lord. But worship is different than praise.

When you worship the Lord, we don't worship the Lord for, we just worship the Lord for himself. Worship the Lord, we say. Worship, I worship you, Jesus. I worship you, Father. Oh God, I worship you. And worship just, oh thank God for this baptism of the Holy Spirit that brings the praise.

The Holy Spirit, that worship, the worship. You won't hear this kind of worship with any other people. Only those who have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And their emotional nature has been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

And out of their love life flows this worship to the Lord Jesus Christ. You won't worship him unless you love him. Unless you love him. You won't love him unless, the more you know him, the more you love him.

And the more you love him, the more you want to give yourself to really and truly worship the Lord. Worship is a beautiful thing. Do you know worship, now write this in your notebook. Worship is the highest order of service I can give to God.

The very highest order of service I can give to God. It's above every other kind of works. Everything that we could do for him to really worship God is the highest order of service we can give God. Because real worship comes off of the sacrifice that's on the altar of our hearts.

Worship, Sacrifice, and the Altar of the Heart

Scripture, worship is always associated with an altar. The very first time worship is mentioned in the scriptures is when God called Abraham to bring your son, your only son, your beloved son. Bring him up to a mountain that I will show to you and there build an altar and sacrifice this son to me.

And in obedience to that call, we read in 22nd chapter of Genesis, Abraham takes the lad out until God showed him the right mountain. And then he spoke to the two that were with him and he said, you stay here, I and the lad will go yonder and worship.

Do you know that lad was 30 years old? Talk about obeying your parents. Isaac was 30 years old when he goes with his father out there. And here is the first mention of worship in the scriptures when the very best that Abraham had, the choice that he had, the son through whom God had said would come eventually the promised Messiah, offer him to me.

God gives us gifts, marvelous gifts, and then ask us to give them back to him. Put them on the altar, bring them back to me. They are only safe when they are in God's hands. They are only safe when they are on the altar.

You and I are only safe when we are on the altar. The next time we read of worship or the next incident and time of worship that I would like to call your attention to is in 2 Chronicles. In the 29th chapter of 2 Chronicles, 27th verse, Hezekiah was commanded to cleanse the temple.

Ahaz before him was a wicked old king that gave the golden vessels of the temple to heathen kings to win their fellowship and approval and allowed the temple to become filthy, dismiss the priest, close the doors, put out the light, stop the sacrifice.

And when Hezekiah came to rouse that temple, eight days to clean the filth out of the interior of the temple and eight days to clean the outer court. And then he brought back the sacrifices, the offerings, the offerings, the sacrifices, rebuilt the altars.

And listen to this 27th verse. Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also. God opened that and the song of the Lord began.

The burnt offering was brought and placed upon the altar. What is a burnt offering? That animal, that oxen was taken and those priests opened up and examined every part of his interior, every organ, every spice, his shoes, his muscles, his joints.

Every part of that animal had to be thoroughly examined and it had to be without spot or blemish of any kind whatsoever. And then placed upon the altar and offered to God. And when it was thoroughly committed and offered to God, when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also.

Oh, my precious brothers and sisters, oh, my heart I'd like to say to you, honestly I'd like to keep you for a week. In Christ's name, make that commitment of putting your life in the presence of God for a complete examination of every inward part.

Let him examine your motives, examine your motives, examine your desires, your inner life and being, God, and let him deal with every inward thing that is not a hundred percent according to his precious will.

Don't have any secret sin in your life. Live in sin and worship in the Spirit. You can't live in sin and preach under the anointing of the Spirit. You can't have secret sin in your life and have any fruitfulness from your life or your ministry whatsoever.

Open your heart, open your desires, open all of your being and let God search out and deal with everything that he wants to deal with. Some desire hidden there for things not in the will of God for you, not in the will of God for you.

Have them rather of worship and fellowship with himself and he wants to use you in a higher manner. He's calling you desires in your heart for things, things, things, not in the will of God for you. Anything that he's talking to you about, anything he's dealing with you about, all my precious brothers, don't allow things, things, titles, salaries, salaries, position, offices, offices.

In this increase in that, a bigger car, a bigger home, more luxuries, finer clothing and eat at your heart and your spirit. It's really for some time. Young ministers will come. Maybe they're just really in the prime of their life and a church is offered to them.

Well, I'd like to know first thing is what my salary is going to be. And not long ago, this young, almost young wanted to know what will the church do for my retirement. Well, he wasn't old enough hardly to drive a car and he wanted to know what will you do for my retirement.

Retirement. Oh, I've been in this thing for 60 years. Retirement is a naughty word I don't want to talk about. These things, it says position, titles, salaries, looks on the inside, what does he see? What does he see?

Wholehearted Commitment to Christ

And he wants you, he desires you. This is the last night service we're going to have. The last night altar service we're going to have. Oh, I wish I could come and get a hold of every one of you. I want to thank you for the way you've responded to the altar call and come.

But don't leave this institute without making a hundred percent commitment to Jesus Christ for all that is in His will for you. Please make that commitment, that hundred percent commitment of your whole life and being to Jesus for His sacred holy will for you, for your wife.

I want to speak to your wife who wishes secretly that her husband wasn't a preacher. If that naughty thing is in your heart, for God's sake rule it out and get behind that man one hundred percent. And all our precious sisters said, I will.

Make that hundred percent commitment of your life to Jesus Christ. The life, He wants your life. He wants your will. He wants that will of yours wholly committed, wholly surrendered to Him. What does commitment mean?

I asked Him one day, I said, Jesus, you tell me, you give me a definition for commitment. And He began to talk to me. Every Friday night you, well, I don't carry out that garbage can. One of the dear brothers at home was so kind to me, stops by my house every Friday night and carries out the garbage can for me.

You send that garbage can out there and it sits out there on the curb. You never go out there to take anything out of it or take anything back. You never long or desire for anything that's in that garbage can.

But you take it out there and commit it. And let the garbage man come and get it and take it away. And it goes somewhere, who cares where. And completely to Jesus Christ that you never go to that altar and take anything off of that altar.

And the word of God says, when the burnt offering was on the altar, when the burnt sacrifice began, the song of the Lord began. Oh, the song of the Lord, that song is different than what is... Oh, there's so much singing today.

I hate really, I hate really to pass judgment on so much that takes place in our Pentecostal assembly of God's circles. I don't do it to be judgmental. Honest, I don't. But I just want to help you. ...to be young to me.

Young coming from the South. ...giving them direction. That's not being judgmental, is it? Please say no. No. ...worship. What is it? What is it? Just as fast as you can. They sing so fast, I can't keep up.

...that it's wrong. Everybody's got to have a microphone. ...you out of the place. ...they're talking about our youth camps. I stopped into one this summer. I love the young people. They know that. Wherever I go, they're my friends.

Genuine Worship Versus Performance

I stopped in to see what they were doing in this youth camp. And when I came to the door of the auditorium, a woman met me and she said, You are Sister Hammond? I said, Yes, I am. She said, You won't want to go inside those doors.

You won't want to go in there till the song service is over. No? Well, what are they doing? What are they doing? I said, Yes, I want to go in there. I want to see what they're doing. I want to hear what they're doing.

And it wasn't... You couldn't call it anything else but a rock concert. And the sound board was longer than this desk. Oh, much longer than this desk. And there sat that long-haired guy with a band around his head.

Just a regular rock band guy sitting there. I don't see many long-haired heads around here. You don't like that either. ...anything. Say that again. That's all you could call it. And they had all the lights turned off but lights up on the platform.

And they were the... What do you call it? Psychedelic? Is that the word? Is that right? Huh? All these things flashing, going in all directions. Pentecostal assembly of God. Young people in youth camp.

And this is what they're doing? This is what they're doing? I went in and got my arms around the little guy. I said, Honey, would you like me to pray with you? Yes. He said, Please pray with me. What do you want me to pray about?

He said, I don't want to be bad. I took that little guy to Jesus. I'd like to take in the whole crowd of them in my arms and said, Honey, get out of this stuff as fast as you can. And all of this hand clapping that's supposed to be worship.

There are times when you can't keep your hands. You want to give him every part of you and all there is of you. There's times to clap your hands. But dear me, somebody, I have been in meetings where they call on somebody to pray.

And after prayer, they clap their hands. I've been in meetings where there was tongues and interpretation. And after interpretation, they just clapped and clapped and clapped. That is supposed to be God.

And this dancing, to dance before the Lord. David danced before the Lord. I always say to them, Yes, he did, Honey. And if you will bring the ark of God back to the temple, we'll let you dance from one end of the district to the other.

That was a one-time thing. A one-time thing. And I don't blame David for dancing. The ark of God, which is the presence of God coming back, this is what all you people want. And whichever one of you prays through for revival to bring the ark of God back into southern New England district, you can dance as much as you want to.

Dancing in the Spirit and the Supernatural

Not against dancing. I have danced in the Spirit. I want to tell you about it. I was holding a meeting in this city. And I went up one night. Of course, I always got church on time. But this night I got there early and came in the door and I had my coat over my arm and my Bible was on top of my coat and I had my pocketbook in the other hand.

And I came through the door and I had to get down to the front of the church, a church not quite this size but almost as big as this. And I came in. Something happened to my eyes. I looked down that aisle and it was full of clouds.

Oh, I said, I've got to get down there to the front of the church. Look at all these clouds. The only way to get down there is to walk on them, I suppose. And I stepped on one cloud and there was another one.

I stepped on that one and there was another one. And I stepped on that one and there was another one. And they all was a different height, it seemed like. And the first thing, I was on this cloud and this cloud and this, just walking on clouds.

And I said, Jesus with me. And I knew I was dancing in the Spirit. I never danced in my life. I didn't know how to dance. They didn't bring in a madam to teach me. I was dancing in the Spirit. And I danced the whole length of that aisle and the Holy Spirit just kept me going.

And I went over there and came back walking on these clouds. I could see them. I could see them. And after a while, a woman, there was only about five people in the church. It wasn't time for the meetings to start.

This was before anything got started. And this woman came up to me and she said, Lady, Lady, I am Madam So-and-So from the dance studio downtown. As beautiful as this step. She said, What is this? What do you call this?

I said, Honey, I don't know. If it has a name, I don't know. But I said, That was the Holy Ghost. And I was dancing in the Spirit. And she said, The Holy Ghost? You're dancing in the Spirit? Blessing also.

Just like you danced. But I want to know you're God. And Madam So-and-So gave her heart to Jesus even before the meetings started and was really born again. When God does something, He has purpose. He has purpose in what He does.

And the way to reach Madam So-and-So in dance studio, Professor, was to give her a dance that she didn't know anything about. And oh, you know, anything with us, can't he? If we just let him do what he wants to do.

Would you say, Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Yes. But we want the real thing. We want the real thing. The real thing. I remember when they started to jazz the hymns.

I was the Bible teacher in a camp meeting. And some of the folks that were giving the spatial music started jazzing the hymns. And I sat on the platform and wept openly. I felt in my spirit the tide was turning in a direction that the Holy Spirit didn't want to go.

I've been in this thing, you know, from back there when we used to have such beautiful worship. Born of the Spirit. The whole congregation caught up in such beautiful worship in the Spirit. Oh. And we went through a period of jazzing the hymns and then we got the beat.

Now we got this rock thing on our hands. God wants to give us the real thing. Reality. But I suffered so. I've suffered so in the churches. I've suffered in our church. I've suffered in our song services.

I've suffered with song leaders. One Sunday morning I went into the church and I like to suggest the hymns. If I'm going to preach, I know what I'm going to talk about and I like to have hymns that will prepare the atmosphere for what I feel to say to the people.

So I asked this young man, Do you have a beautiful hymn of worship that we can sing this morning? Yes, ma 'am. He says, Now all the hymns are chosen. They're all set up. I know what we're going to sing.

It's all taken care of. And I said, But do you have a hymn of worship? Yes, I have. And I said, Would you mind telling me what you're going to sing? What is the first hymn we're going to sing? This beautiful thing of worship.

Well, it's, Hold the fork for I am coming. That's what we're going to sing. Oh, you call that worship? And I suffered and suffered and suffered until I became physically ill. And I mean just that, physically ill.

And I had to go home. And I was home for what I'm telling you happened over a period of weeks. But under that sitting under that, I love in the meeting and flow in the spirit and in worship and a part of what's happening.

Under that strain, my, one of my kidneys convulsed, convulsed. And I went over on the floor. And I was home with this thing for, this was a couple of weeks. What I'm about to tell you. One day, Jesus said, You may have communion today.

I wasn't sure if he was going to take me home or if he was talking to me about the sacrament. But in a little while, the pastor at home came in the door with two of the sisters from the church. And the Lord said, You may have communion.

And then I knew it was the sacrament. So mother brought us some grape juice and some crackers. The pastor sat at my, beside me and beside the bed. The Lord told me to ask him the meaning of this bread and wine.

I didn't want to do it because he had just opened the meaning of the bread and wine to me in such a wonderful way. And I didn't want that disturbed. But I also know unless you obey the Lord, nothing happens.

So I said, Pastor, I'd like to ask you something. He said, We'll have this bread first. And we took the bread. Then I said, I want to ask you something. What is the meaning of this bread and this wine?

And I said those words. My head went back on the pillow and I left them. And I was in heaven for two and a half hours with Jesus. Jesus met me, took me in, and with his precious hand just moved back a veil.

Heavenly Worship and the Blood and Cross of Christ

And there were all the choirs of heaven that Revelation tells us about. Revelation says there are 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 thousands of thousands of angels. And there they were. And I know now what that 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 means.

In heaven there are 10 ,000 choirs. And each choir has 10 ,000 angels. And then thousands of thousands. And as far as I could see to the north, there was angels, angels, just tears and tears and tears of angels before me, tears and tears, as far as I could see.

Nothing but angels. They are here, eight tears, every direction. Here were these angels, all of them worshipping Jesus. All 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 saying the same thing at the same time. What was their song?

Holy is He that is. Holy is He that was. Holy is He that evermore shall be. Oh my dear, their faces turned towards Him. Worship was coming out of their faces. Worship was coming out of their bodies. Worship was coming like through their pores.

Everything about them just in adoration, worshipping and adoring Jesus thing at the same time. It was so marvelous. And I recognized some of those angels. Some of those angels were the angels that sang at His birth.

Not that I knew them, but the Spirit let me know. The angels that ministered to Him in His temptation. Some of those angels came to Jesus. He hates Him. Do you know Jesus is everything He wanted to be?

He wanted a kingdom. He wanted worship. He wanted adoration. And a third of the angels of heaven went with Him. And these angels were there through that battle when they stood with Jesus and poured their worship to Him so they could come and help Him when He was meeting that satanic force again in the garden of Gethsemane.

They were the angels that came down to strengthen Him and help Him through that satanic attack and their worshiping. Oh, how they love Him. Oh, they know who He is. They know who He is. They worship and adore and worship and adore.

Oh, it was so wonderful. So wonderful. And after two hours and a half in His presence when I opened my eyes the pastor and those two ladies were sitting there with my precious mother and we hadn't had the wine, the grape juice yet.

And the pastor looked at his watch and he says, Well, I guess it's been about 15 minutes since we had the bread. Now we'll have the wine. And he looked at his clock and he said, Saints, did I say it was 15 minutes?

It's been two and one half hours we've been here in His presence. And to be there and hear that worship and come back here and hear our songs with no cross, nothing about the blood and instead of blessing the Lord, people are blessing themselves.

They're blessing themselves instead of blessing the Lord. All this emotionalism. Honey, when you really worship God you're not body conscious. You're not wiggling this way and this way. Conscious. Emotionalism.

You're not people conscious. You're not body conscious. You're not time conscious. You're not things conscious. You're conscious only of Jesus. Something goes out of you when you really worship Jesus and something comes back down all over you.

We minister to Him and He ministers to us. I want to tell you, pastors, I have seen more people saved in an atmosphere of worship than any other atmosphere. It has been my privilege to be in real, genuine revivals praying down, born of the Holy Ghost.

When you didn't know whether there was going to be preaching or not, I've come in the door and gone to the pulpit and started preaching. Some nights there was all singing and worship. Some night I went to the pulpit and gave an altar call.

The whole service was an altar call when you led the Spirit and moved with God. I've seen more people baptized in the Holy Ghost in an atmosphere of worship than any other atmosphere. I've seen more the supernatural healings in an atmosphere of worship than any other atmosphere.

Healing in an Atmosphere of Worship

In closing, I want to tell you of one healing in such an atmosphere. It happened in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. That's a Welch, a Welch settlement where those Welch people, harmony means so much to them and they love to worship God.

I've ministered in Wales and just loved it. And here in Wilkes-Barre, God was giving us a real Holy Ghost revival. We were just going in there lost in God and worshiping Him while God was saving people, while God was baptizing.

There was no effort. There was no labor. Nobody was trying to put over anything. God was at work. And this was a Sunday morning service. And all of a sudden the door opened and they carried into the meeting on a chair a woman from the neighborhood.

She was a member of the church but something, an accident happened that morning and this woman had swallowed hot Clorox and it had burned the tissues out of her throat and nostrils. And the family put her on a chair and rushed her to the church.

And here we were worshiping God and they carried this woman down the aisle and they brought her right up to me and said, Sister Hammond, pray for her. She's dying. She swallowed hot Clorox. Pray for this woman.

Pray for her. And the precious Holy Spirit just laid His hand on my chest and kind of pushed me back and said to me, Not now. Not now. But here they were pulling on me. I went over to the edge and they were pulling on my dress.

Pray. Pray for her. She's dying. Pray for her. And I said, Honey, just, just wait a minute. Not right now. You say not now when somebody's dying? No. I said, let congregation, let's sing holy, holy, holy.

There's something wrong in a church that can't sing holy, holy, holy. That's one of the songs of heaven. So I said to the song leader, let's sing holy, holy, holy. So we sang the first verse in this poor soul.

And I said, and we sang it through. The Holy Spirit was still saying, Not now. Not now. I said, let's sing the second verse. So we sang the second verse of holy, holy, holy. There was a visiting lady minister sitting in the back of the church.

When we finished the second verse, she began to sing in the Spirit. She said, oh, how she sang. It was in the Spirit. That woman can't sing like that. I know her. But oh, she was reaching notes way up there, clear as crystal, singing in the Spirit.

I said, oh, this is, this is beautiful. This is God. And the next thing I heard, somebody was answering her. You know what antiphonal singing is, don't you? And she was singing and somebody was answering her.

And she was singing again and somebody was answering her. The presence of God, you know, God was so present. I had my eyes closed and I asked Him for permission to open my eyes to see who was answering that woman that was singing.

I said, Jesus, can I open my eyes? Who is this singing? Honey, when I open my eyes, and the woman that carried in on that chair this summer in a camp meeting, she said, Sir Hammond, do you remember me?

I said, oh, how could I forget? Yeah. He did it. He did it. He did it. I, that's where you see the supernatural. Yes, when He's worshipped and adored. The Holy Ghost and praise. The Holy Ghost and worship.

Contending for Genuine Worship and the Cross

Contend for reality in your church. Will you? Will you? Will you? Worship Him. In the early days, the Holy Spirit used to say to us, I heard message in tongues, interpretation over and over again. Make much of the blood.

Make much of the cross. Of Christ. God, take us to the cross where the old flesh can be crucified. We don't care what our neighbors are doing, what other people are doing. We want God. Would you say that with me?

We want God. Is it honest, do you? Honestly, do you? Honestly, do you? God bless you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, oh, I've kept you long. No. No. Oh, I love you. I love you.

I love the response in your spirit. I love your openness. I thank you for receiving the truth. Did you get something these days? Did you get something? Do you feel you're going home changed? You're going home different?

Can we have one more altar service in which you put that sacrifice on the altar? And I promise you the song of the Lord. God bless him. God bless you, my brother. The altar's open. God bless you. Will you softly play?

I can hear the Savior calling. Take thy cross and follow me. Play it softly. The sacrifice on the altar. That commitment. Make that 100 commitment. Body, soul, spirit. Our motives, our desires. Hear the cry of your people.

God, hear the cry of your people. God, hear these pastors. God, come to these pastors. Come to these wives. God, in the spirit. We want to worship in the spirit. We want to pray in the spirit. Search it out, oh God.

Search it out. Just cleanse us. Fill us, oh God. Fill it with your soul. Fill it with your soul. Show it to your Lord. Show it to your Lord. Show it to your Lord.