The Power of Praise and Worship

The premise of this book is very simple: Praise and worship brings us healing and deliverance. Yet, as simple as this concept is, most believers have never grasped the profound impact of the reality of this truth. They know intuitively in their minds that it’s true, yet they’ve never applied the truth to their lives. They’ve not fully believed it in their hearts.  Until a few years ago, I, too, did not fully comprehend this simple concept. But, after years of overseas ministry and character shaping experiences, all of which culminated with an overwhelming personal tragedy, God revealed to me the power of this simple truth. Praise and worship brings us healing and deliverance.

You do not need to wait for years, as I did, to begin to understand and experience the power of this concept. The power of praise and worship is available to you and all believers now! Today you can begin to experience healing and deliverance in every area of your life as you follow and apply the principles I am going to share with you.
This book is the result of two years of intense, exhaustive study in God’s Word. And every principle has been applied and proven true in personal experience.

Thousands of people around the world can testify positively that praise and worship brings us healing and deliverance. There are thousands who are living examples of the miracle-working power of God that is released through praise and worship.Yet, there are multiplied thousands more who have failed to fully realize God’s power and how to access His healing and deliverance in their lives.  Even those who were born and raised in Bible-believing churches have missed out on God’s power. I know this is true because I was a preacher’s kid! Let me share a small part of my story to illustrate how God led me into the powerful revelation of this message.

Resisting God’s Call

I grew up in Canada.  My father was a minister with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (Assemblies of God).  He was a pioneer pastor, establishing new churches in the difficult areas of northern Saskatchewan.  My father played the guitar, and my mother played the accordion, and together spread the gospel. From the age of 2 ½ years, I was always independent.

As a child, I often would dream of heading off for “the wide-open spaces.”  At age 9, I had my own paper route, earning all my own spending money, buying my own clothes, and so on.  By age 16, I was working in a grocery store and earning as much money as my father was in the ministry; I was able to buy my own car.I was very independent and self-sufficient.  I didn’t want to have to rely on anyone for my survival. And, seeing the hardships my mom and dad had to endure, I did not want anything to do with the ministry.  I wanted to go my own way in life. But God had a different plan.

When I was 13, we went to Vancouver Island for a camp meeting. One night in the service, I was very moved by the message.Later, after everyone else had gone back to their cabins, I sat alone in the meeting room, in the darkness, praying. Dwight McClaughlin, the speaker, awoke in the middle of the night remembering that he’d left his Bible on the platform. He got up and came back to retrieve it. When he came into the room, he called out, “Is anybody there?” I replied simply, “Yes.” He walked over to me in the darkness, laid hands on my shoulders, and began to pray for me.

Soon, as the Spirit of God began to move upon him, he began to prophesy over me.  “Young man,” he said, “I see you standing before hundreds of thousands of people as you preach the gospel all around the world.” I began to tremble and shake all over. An anointing came upon my life then, even though I was too young to really understand it.  The next night, Rev. McClaughlin called me forward and explained to the audience what had happened. From that time on, I felt like a marked man inside. I was called, but I didn’t want to go.

After graduating from high school, I entered university to study law. My intention was to become a lawyer and go into politics. I had no desire for the ministry. One Sunday afternoon, some university friends and I got drunk. We got it into our heads to go to my father’s church and disrupt the service. There was a guest minister that evening. We sat in the back pew, talking out loud, laughing, and creating a disturbance. But no one paid any attention to us. The ushers ignored us, and so did the speaker.About half-way through the service, a spirit of conviction came upon me and I became instantly sober. God spoke in my heart, and said, “This is the night. I want you.” I knew what it meant. And I knew I could not resist God any longer. I went forward and committed my life to the Lord. This was in 1960. Three days later, I left law school and entered Bible college.

It took three years to graduate from Bible college. I was working in a hardware store and was desperately seeking God’s direction. One Sunday after the church service, I went into the prayer room and a spirit of intercession came upon me. One of the assistant pastors prayed with me. We were there for four hours before I felt a release.

I had been praying in my prayer language, and the pastor told me what I had been praying. I had been praying the words of Isaiah 6:5, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” My victory and release came as I had prayed in the Spirit verse 8, “…Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I; send me.” I knew I was to go, but I didn’t know where.

As I left the church and stepped outside into the cold November air, God spoke in my heart. He said, “You’re going to travel with Dennis Bjorgan.” Dennis and I had grown up together in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. We had been very close friends. His family was very musical, and I knew he wanted to travel in ministry. But I didn’t know where he was. I hadn’t heard from Dennis for over a year.

The next morning, I received a letter from Dennis that had taken a month to reach me. He stated that he felt God wanted us to travel together! That’s all I needed. I bought a bass guitar and amplifier, and Dennis taught me to play.  We traveled throughout Canada and the northern United States singing and preaching God’s Word.

Always having had a heart for foreign missions, in 1965 we felt impressed to go to Africa. So, we raised some money, and took a freighter from Montreal to Cape Town. We spent 28 days on the ocean. We were only 21 years old with virtually no money. Yet we spent the year in Africa, and saw thousands accept Christ.

Called to Learn

The next year, 1966, Dennis married, and we stopped our music ministry. I took the pastorate of a small church in a small Canadian town near my father’s church. My congregation was 25 people, and I was with them for about two years.

It was during this time that Oral Roberts brought his crusade to Edmonton, and I went to hear him. It was September 1967, and I was very impressed with Bro. Roberts. Following the service one night, I passed a literature table and picked up a brochure on a new school called Oral Roberts University. As soon as I picked it up, I knew I was to go there.

Again, I began to resist the Lord. I didn’t want to go back to school. I felt I had enough education, and I was ready to get started in my world ministry. I fought it for three months, but finally yielded.

One day I was working with a friend, Ed Stahl, on his ranch. We were putting up a new fence line, and I told him that I had decided to go to ORU. He stopped, dropped the fence post he was holding, and just stared at me. He told me to get in his truck. We drove out to the center of his ranch, and he stopped and pointed to a place near a hill. He said, “Three months ago an angel of the Lord appeared to me right over there. He told me you would be going to ORU, and when you made up your mind, I was to see that all your needs were taken care of.” We sat in the truck and cried.

Marriage and International Ministry

Three months later, I was at ORU. I was awestruck with the campus. But, after a few weeks I became frustrated not being able to preach. I stayed awake one night praying, telling the Lord how much I wanted to do something.

The next morning, I was asked to become involved in Oral Robert’s meetings, and six weeks after I’d started at ORU, I was leading the song service for Oral Roberts in his West Palm Beach crusade. Working with Roberts began to stretch my thinking and enlarge my vision.

The next spring, I was sent to Europe with a World Action Team. It was on this tour that I met my wife, Jan D’Arpa. Our first close encounter came on a sightseeing trip in London and our first date was on a mission to Israel. She was a student at ORU from Tampa, and 2½ weeks after we first dated, I knew I would marry her.

Before we were married, I explained to Jan about my call and my eventual worldwide ministry. I asked her if she could really deal with such a life, knowing I’d be away much of the time. For two weeks, she prayed about it, and then told me that she was fully supportive of my ministry. We were married in Tampa on January 21,1969.

The following month, in February, we formed Living Sound at ORU. We intended this to be a weekend music ministry. The co-founder of the ministry was my friend, Larry Dalton, who is blessed with a great musical gift. At our very first concert, in a charismatic Baptist church in Kansas City, I received a word from the Lord that Living Sound would go to Africa.I was shocked but knew this was the Lord’s will. Each member had to decide for themselves if they would go, and only one decided against it. We raised the funds we needed and applied for visas.

Little did I know what kind of an ordeal we were in for. Our visas were at first rejected. We had to change our plans and go to Rhodesia instead of South Africa. In Rhodesia, we were turned away at the airport for no apparent reason. We spent three frustrating weeks in Mozambique trying to get into Rhodesia, and finally were “deported” to New York. We were totally discouraged and confused, and all our money was gone.

Our friends, the Cardone’s in Philadelphia arranged for us to stay at a Teen Challenge center as we tried to rethink our dilemma. There, we received a special word of encouragement, and were told that our visas were clear for South Africa.An airline company extended us round trip passage for our entire group, and we finally made it into South Africa. We ministered there for a year, and, during one of our services, the Lord called me into the Soviet Bloc. Living Sound had entered into the beginning of international evangelism that would ultimately affect entire countries.

Growth and Problems

Over the next several years, the ministry grew, and so did my family. We had three children between 1970 and 1980- Misty, Scot, and Rebecca. During this time, Jan never complained about the pressures of the ministry, and never argued with me over my decisions. She was a tremendous mother.
Living Sound ministered throughout Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Orient. Soon, we grew to two groups, then three, then four groups singing all over the world. We went into Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary and finally the U.S.S.R.

As the organization grew, so did the pressures. Our finances were always marginal. Running the operation from the road was difficult, so we established a small central office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1981, we began to experience severe stress within the organization.

By early 1982, because of a business recession, our giving receipts had dropped more than fifty percent. Having no practical business experience or training, I felt fully the pressures. I knew I was responsible for the organization’s needs. I felt like I was walking in a fog as I fought to resolve the problems.

During this time, I always was the last one to take salary. For three months, I drew no income. One day, I came home from a series of meetings, and found Jan crying in the kitchen because we had no food. I tried to comfort and reassure her, telling her that God would provide and then I left for a meeting at our office. When I returned, my daughter Misty was dancing and laughing in the house. I asked Jan what was going on and she handed me an envelope with ten one-hundred-dollar bills in it.

Our son’s baseball coach had driven up to our gate, handed the envelope to Scotty and told him to give it to his mom. We didn’t even know the man personally, and there was no way he could have known our situation. I called the man and thanked him, and we all praised God for providing.
In spite of this, I still felt tremendous guilt over what was happening in my family and the organization. I was thirty-nine years old and felt I should be doing a better job providing for my family and in running the ministry. That summer, I called in three Christian businessmen in Tulsa who were friends. I explained my problems and gave them full authority to examine the ministry and recommend changes so that we could survive. I agreed to follow their advice.

What they came back with was hard to take. I had to let go over half of our Living Sound staff, as well as radically alter my own management style. There was nothing more painful than having to tell friends that they were no longer working for me. These measures really tore up the ministry. It looked as if we were virtually falling apart. We had mortgaged everything we could to the maximum just to keep afloat. My close friend decided to leave for another ministry. It was a very difficult time for me personally. I actually began to wonder if I was coming to the end of my ministry.

Tragedy and Crisis

That fall, September 1982, I had to go to London for a series of board meetings with the trustees of our European corporation. Just before leaving from Kennedy airport, I called Jan to tell her good-bye. I hadn’t seen her for a few days as I had been in services in North Carolina.

I arrived in London on Tuesday morning and we were in meetings all day. David Weir had come with me from Tulsa. By that evening I was exhausted, and went to bed around 9:30. At 11:00 p.m., David shook me awake. “What’s the matter?” I asked groggily. I wasn’t prepared for what he was about to tell me.

“Terry,” he began, “I have some terrible news. We just got a call from Tulsa. Jan has been killed in a car accident.”

For ten minutes, I just sat there in bed stunned, not moving. Then, I said that it was all a dream, and I would go back to sleep, when I woke up, it would be OK. But it was no dream. My wife was dead. Thirty minutes later I was on the phone, telling my children that their mommy was gone.

I felt tremendous guilt for not being there with them. And for not having been there for Jan, even though I could have done nothing for her. That night I grieved, I cried, I questioned God. The next day, flying home, I prayed and cried, and told God over a hundred times that I was through with the ministry. There was no way I could go on alone.

Jan died on September 28, 1982. Two days later, October 1, we had her funeral. My pastor. Billy Joe Daughterly, spoke, as did Oral Roberts, and Kenneth Hagin, Jr. prayed. People from all over the world had flown in. During the service, the Spirit of God came upon me and I began to prophesy about my ministry. The Spirit indicated through me that I was not done, that the vision was still alive in my heart. But that’s not the way I felt. Personally, I was in spiritual collapse. I was numb.

Following the funeral, I couldn’t pray. I became angry and bitter toward the Lord. I blamed Him for letting Jan die. After all I had done and endured for the gospel, I thought this was terribly unfair to me. Later, I realized I was angry at the wrong person. God did not cause my wife’s death.
But still, at the time, I was confused and hurt. About three weeks after the funeral, Oral Roberts called and asked me to come to his office. He had just lost a son in Tulsa, and we sat, talking about our pain.

After about two hours. Oral stood up, pointed his finger at me, and said, “Terry, I’m going to tell you something that could save your life if you do what I say.” I knew he was referring to my spiritual life and was eager to hear anything helpful. “Go home, get down on your knees, and start to pray in the spirit. You have got to begin to praise the Lord.”

I was flabbergasted. How could I do that? I hurt. I was numb. I felt nothing. “I can’t,” I protested. But Oral was insistent, “You have to, Terry. You have to.”

 

The Necessity of Praise and Worship

The next morning, my alarm went off before daybreak. I knelt by my bed and tried to enter into praise. It was one of the most excruciating spiritual experiences of my life. The inner pain seemed unbearable. I said the word “Hallelujah.” It sounded hollow. It echoed in the room. I said, “I praise you Lord.” My thoughts began to taunt me.It was the Devil who answered me. “Terry Law you are a hypocrite. How can you praise God after He killed your wife?” The Devil was sowing lies in my mind. “You don’t really mean those words,” he said. “You’re lying!”
It is difficult to describe in words what I felt. I actually believed the enemy. How could I praise the Lord when I felt this bitterness and anger inside? I was so tempted to give up. Time passed slowly. Fifteen minutes seemed like a lifetime.

Gradually, I came to a moment of truth. I knew I had to make a decision. The words of Psalm 34:1 came to me. “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Spiritually, I was looking into a dark abyss of despair and self-pity. I felt that I had good reason to feel sorry for myself. Hadn’t I risked my life for God time and again on mission fields all over the world. It just wasn’t fair.

The words came again, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” The devil answered, “you might as well give up- there’s no hope. God has failed you.”

Then I decided. I said out loud, “Lord, I will bless you at all times. Lord, I will bless you at all times.” Something happened way down inside my spirit. I had taken the last step toward God. But the Devil does not give up easily. He taunted me again. “When you praise God that way, you’re lying. You don’t mean those words. How can you?” I said it louder, “Lord, I bless you at all times.”

The battle was on. I waited for some kind of emotional release, some kind of inner help from God, but it didn’t come. I was acting on sheer willpower alone. I was praising the Lord in obedience to His Word without assistance from my feelings. I praised for thirty minutes … then an hour… then an hour and a half… then two hours. I still felt nothing.

Sometime between two and two and a half hours, I felt a pressure building up inside. It was like water building up behind a dam. I kept praising. It felt like the dam would explode. Then it did. With a mighty rush, I began to cry with hot stinging tears. My shoulders began to heave. It was like a cramp in my stomach had suddenly released. I raised my hands.

How many hours I was on my knees, I don’t remember.The spirit of prophecy came on me and I began to prophesy my own healing. I felt the Holy Spirit take the oil of healing and pour it over my fractured, torn emotions. I was being healed. Obedience in praise and worship had brought healing to my inner man.

Since that time, I’ve shared this message of hope with others, and repeatedly, they too have experienced the same healing and deliverance. You see it was through the power of praise and worship that I found healing and deliverance in all areas of my life—emotional, spiritual, physical, psychological.

This concept has reshaped my entire ministry. It has revolutionized my life. And if you’ll apply the principles as I share them with you, you too will experience spiritual renewal. What Oral Roberts told me; I’m now saying to you.

If you will begin to praise and worship God as He wants you to, healing and deliverance is yours right now! This book will show you how to open your life to God so that you can see His miracle-working power released in your situation today!