Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen. I’m broadcasting today from Menominee Falls, Wisconsin, and today we’re going to start a series.

Occasionally we’ll do a series. This one is going to be a message by evangelist Harold Vaughn. evangelist Vaughn came to Baptist College of Ministry to preach the opening services in January here of 2020.

There was a message he preached on the protocols of prayer. I’ll let him introduce it here in just a moment, and you’ll also hear the very first point, his very first protocol. At the very end of the message, he is going to challenge you to do something, and I hope that you will just take a few moments and do what he is encouraging you to do that is a protocol for prayer.

Here’s now the message by Brother Vaughn. I want to talk to you about the protocols for prayer. We’ve just put together a book called Approaching God’s Throne, Biblical Protocols for Prayer.

We have found 18 scriptural black and white directives on how we’re to approach the Lord in prayer. Now every environment you enter requires a protocol. Every environment you enter will require a protocol.

There’s a protocol to greet the Queen of England. There used to be a protocol to address the President of the United States. There’s a protocol in the courtroom.

When you enter the courtroom, you say, your honor. That’s the way you address the judge. It’s a protocol.

Soldiers employ a protocol when saluting their commanding officers. So if dignity is required to greet dignitaries, it’s no surprise that there’s a protocol or a proper way to address God himself. So we’re going to be talking about approaching God’s throne.

How do you enter the presence of God? So I want to say that there is an accepted code of behavior, that there is a mode of operation, there are proprieties, there is a procedure, a protocol, because every environment requires a protocol. So what is the protocol for prayer?

What are the protocols? What are the God-given prescribed methods and manners in which we’re to address the Lord? So Psalm 100 has three of these protocols.

So I invite your attention to Psalm 100 this evening. Here are three biblical protocols in one psalm. Psalm 100, if you’d find that in your Bible, stand to your feet and we’ll read this psalm out loud together.

Psalm 100, let’s read together, please, as a group. Make a joyful noise. his name.

For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations. You can be seated. Let’s talk about five of these protocols tonight, beginning in Psalm 100.

Notice it says there in verse 4 that we’re to enter into his gates with? Say that word out loud. Enter into his gates with?

It’s the gratitude protocol. How are we to approach the Lord? We’re to enter into is gates.

The gates are the doors or the threshold into the very presence of God and we’re to come before him with thanksgiving and with gratitude. Your initial approach to God should always be with gratitude. Somebody said I’ve been given so much I don’t have time to ponder what I’ve been denied.

It’s the gratitude protocol. Approaching God with thanksgiving. Now you can take things for granted or you can take things with gratitude, but you cannot take them both ways.

And when you enter the presence of God, you’re to come into his doors, enter into his doors with what? With thanksgiving. Don’t get so busy adding up your problems that you forget to count your blessings.

I like what the psalmist said. He said, I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. God thanks.

When God gives you something, thank Him. When God forgives you for something, thank Him. You know tonight, if you would just consider your present position in light of your former condition, you’d have a spell.

You would be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving to God by simply considering your present position in light of your former condition. Now, not only thank God for forgiving you the sins that you have committed and confessed. You should thank God for the sins that you didn’t commit.

You might have done bad, but you could have done a whole lot worse than what you did. I’m just here to tell you tonight, dear friend, that what you have done is insignificant in comparison to what you might have done. How many are thankful for the restraining hand of God in your life.

How many are so thankful for the preservation and the prevention and the denial of opportunity? Isn’t that wonderful? I’m just here to tell you, we ought to thank God.

Now, when I was in high school, we had a fellow come to our church and he was counseling me. He was talking to me and he said, Harold, I would like for you to go on a, I would like you to go on a quarantine of Thanksgiving three days without asking God for anything. Well, I was confused.

I He said, well, you’re saying you don’t want me to pray for three days? He said, oh, no, I want you to pray. He said, I just don’t want you to ask God for anything.

I just want you to thank God for everything. Well, most of my praying was asking. Most Christians cannot relate to God on any other basis other than asking.

One man wrote a great book called Prayer, Asking, and Receiving. But I’m here to tell you there’s more to prayer than asking. And sometimes you ought to come to God not to get something.

You ought to just come to God to give him the glory that’s due into his name. So I said, well, I’ll give this a try. So that forced me to think about what I was saying, which was an improvement.

Most of us have a routine prayer. It becomes vain, a vain repetition prayer. And the quicker we lose it, the better off we’re going to be.

So I begin to thank God for blessings. I begin to enumerate blessings. And then I begin to thank God for difficulties.

The Bible says in everything, give thanks. You don’t give thanks to God because everything is good. You give thanks to God because he’s good.

So I began to thank God for my blessings. Then I began to thank God for my problems. And then I began to thank God for even temptation.

I mean, that was a switch. I in everything give thanks, giving thanks always for all things. I began to view problems as opportunities to trust God.

And I discovered that if you’ll thank God for blessings and problems, you’ll never run out of material to talk to God about. I’m just here to tell you, it’s the gratitude protocol. Now, Thanksgiving is always in season.

Thanksgiving is always in season. And dear one tonight, sometimes when you get to a point where you can’t pray, I mean, you’re so baffled, so perplexed, so wounded, so empty, so depleted that you can’t. Has anybody ever got to a place in your life where you had prayed out and there was really nothing that you didn’t even know what to say?

Has anybody ever been in a situation like that? All right, those that lifted their hands are not the super saints. The rest of you are super saints.

But for the rest of us tonight, we’ve been there. And if you’ve not been there, you’ll get there. And I found out something, Brother Flanders.

I found out that when you get so overwhelmed and so depleted and your resilience is shot and so perplexed and so overcome with different things, I found out what you can do. You can employ the gratitude protocol. I live out in the country.

Hey, there’s a benefit to living out in the country. Many benefits to living out in the country. You can get away with stuff you can’t get away with in the city.

And one of the things you can do in the country, if you live like me, from our house down to our office, is a gravel driveway. And I found out how to handle this. You can always employ the gratitude protocol.

When you don’t know how to pray, you can pray like this. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. How many days have I walked down that driveway not knowing what to say, not knowing what to think, not knowing how to pray?

Thank you, Jesus. Try that for 10 minutes. You’re gonna feel a whole lot better after about 10 minutes of that kind of gratitude protocol.

I’m telling you, it’s always in season. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving. William Romaine said that gratitude to God makes even a temporal blessing a taste of heaven.

Neil Strait said, he who forgets the language of gratitude can never be on speaking terms with happiness. Have you noticed that thankful people are happy people? Have you ever noticed that ungrateful people are not happy people?

Look at some of your politicians for crying out loud. They’re not happy people, I’m just telling you. And look at the society where people are grateful.

Brother, I’m just telling you there’s something that comes that ministers to their spirit. It’s the gratitude protocol. So we’re to approach the Lord, enter into his gates with?

We’re going to practice the gratitude protocol tonight. So I want you to get with one partner, guys with guys, girls with girls, ladies with ladies, men with men. And let’s have about 90 seconds worth of thanksgiving.

Not asking God for anything, only thanking God. It’s the gratitude protocol. Stand to your feet, find somebody, and just pray for about two minutes, just the gratitude protocol.

Well, I hope you took a moment there and spent some time thanking God for the many things He’s done for you. Yes, friends, thankfulness to God is a key to entering into His presence. I hope you’ll join us next week as we continue this series on the protocols of prayer.

And remember in the time being, total surrender to the will of God and a total dependence on His strength and limit. you