Psalm 71. It's a very interesting psalm, and it can be divided really into three segments, past, present, and future. Just like our lives, our past is before we got saved, our present is what are we doing now, and our future is are we looking for the Lord's coming? Let me ask you a question tonight. How many of you are really anxious for the Lord to come? Raise your hand. Now, when the Lord comes, do you realize we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things that he hath done in his body according to that which he hath done, whether it's good or bad, 2 Corinthians 5, 9 and 10. So when the Lord comes, I've got to stand before the Lord, and I've got to give an account for everything that I have done in my life, whether it's good Now, there are many in Friends, you know, that say, well, you know, you sin, you can't go to Heaven. Well, how bad do you have to be before you can't go to Heaven? Because there are those who are gonna be in Heaven that have to give an account for the bad things they've done. That's you and me. Amen? And so I'm looking forward to the Lord coming. And now, when I think about standing in the judgment seat of Christ, to me, it's like going to the dentist. If I have an appointment on Thursday at the dentist, I think about Friday. Because by Friday, it's all over with. And you know, because he drilleth thy mouth with good things. And when I think about going to be with the Lord, I can't wait for the millennial reign. Because the judgment seat of Christ is going to be over. And I'm glad that none of you are going to be there watching me. And I'm not going to be there watching you. We're all going to be there. But I believe I'm going to stand before the Lord Me. Alone. And there'd be a lot of tears. There'd be a lot of sorrow. There'd be a lot of memories of people that perhaps we had an opportunity to witness to and we didn't. Maybe there'd be some things that we need to say, Lord, I shouldn't have said that to her or to him. I should have taught that Sunday School class. but I thought I had more important things to do. I should have been a witness at school, but I was afraid they'd make fun of me. There are a lot of things that all of us will wish we could do. I told this dear brother, we were sitting there tonight, and I said, there are three things we're going to find out we're going to be surprised about in heaven. Number one, some that we expected to be there, who said they were saved, aren't there. Then there are those that we didn't know that we're saved. We're saved and they are there. And then thirdly is the fact that we're there. Amen. Just to think of all that God has done for us. And the writer here of Psalm 71, as he looks over in the first 12 or 13 verses and he talks about his past, David, I believe, is the writer of this psalm, and he says, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in thy righteousness and cause me to escape. Incline thy ear unto me and save me. Be thou my strong habitation whereunto I may continually resort. Thou hast given commandment to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress. Otherwise, he knew who God was in his life. Then he goes on, he said, deliver me, O God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and the cruel man, for thou art my hope. So not only is he rocking my fortress, he says, thou art my hope, O Lord, thou art my trust from my, what's the next word? Front rows on both sides, from my youth. He said, thou art my trust from my youth. Here's a young man who, Someone had put in his heart about the things of God. And he knew he could trust in him. He knew that he was his rock and he was his fortress. He was his strength. He was his courage. He was the one that he could trust in. Verse six says, by thee have I been holding up from the womb. Thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels. My praise shall be continually of thee. That sort of shoots the abortion thing. life he says God from the very moment of my birth I was yours and his mother taught him then he says in verse 7 now fellas this is the verse that you can take think about he says I am as a wonder unto many but thou art strong not you he's the one who's strong amen Then he says in verse eight, let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honor all the day long. Front row, both sides. I love it that you're here. But you know, no matter where you go to school, no matter where you work, you have one obligation as a Christian, and that is to let your mouth be filled with praise, to let those around you know that you know Jesus Christ as Savior. I was saved going into my junior year in high school. And the way I got saved is that girl that I saw at a birthday party, and I rolled my eyes at her, and she rolled them right back. And I had somebody that, you know, you guys know how you do it. Do you think she likes me? You ask her, and he asks him, and all these various things, you know. Well, I did the same thing. And so, eventually, I called her. And she had just turned 14, and I was 16. Now, back in our day, I'm talking about Pastor Starr's and mine, you know. And back in our day, I mean, you know, when you were 14, 15 years old, as a girl, you dated. When you turned 13, you were fair game. Dears need to be shot. So I gave her a call, and I asked her if she'd go out on a date with me. And so she asked her mom, and then she said, to church or to Youth for Christ? That's where we date. Well, I grew up in a Methodist church. Never one time did I ever hear the word salvation, ever hear about anybody getting, I didn't know what the term even meant. But I wanted to date this girl, so I went to church with her at the Canton Baptist Temple, Canton, Ohio. And on Saturday night, we went to Youth for Christ. And several months later, I got saved. Now, I'll tell you all how I got saved, but I'll just tell you, you'll like it. These kids will like it. She was a cute girl. We were going to have a retreat. And I heard that her old boyfriend was going to the retreat. And she was going to the retreat. Guess what I decided? I'm going to the retreat. You got to protect your investment, fellas. And so came that Friday night. I went to the retreat. He went to the retreat. But she wasn't able to be at the retreat. Oh, man. That just took all the fight out of it. But that Friday night, the man who spoke, his name was Jack Daniels. I know some of you know what Jack Daniels is. It's the whiskey made in Tennessee, Jack Daniels. I didn't know who he was. But this man named Jack Daniels preached. And at the end of it, they had a fire. And each one would take, and they would lay a stick on that fire, and as they did so, they gave their testimony about when they accepted Jesus as their Savior. And the more they gave a testimony, he's coming around to me, and I couldn't do that. And they stopped. And then he gave an invitation, and I went forward. They sent me back to the back, and there was a row of chairs back there. They said, go back there, and someone will be there to lead you to the Lord, show you out of the scriptures how you can be saved, how you can know you're going to heaven. I went back, and a young man was there, and he led me to Jesus. And it was her old boyfriend. Isn't that great? See, God's God of grace. God can do things just to show us that He's God. And she's the one I married. We were married five years. And when she was taken home to be with the Lord on September or October 13th, 1968. We had a little 16 month old boy. So he and I bashed it for a couple of years. That 16 month old boy was 50 today. Loves the Lord and serves the Lord and teaches a young adult Bible class. Very, very faithful in God's house. And praise the Lord for that. And here's this, and that's my past. And that's exactly what the writer of this psalm is saying. He said, God, my desire was to praise you from my youth. You have taught me from my youth. That's his past. And then he goes on down and he says in verse 12, he says, oh God, be not far from me, oh my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my souls. By the way, God will take care of your enemies. We just need to take care of God's business. And he says, let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my heart, but I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day long, for I know not the numbers thereof. Fellas, she was just 24 when she died. One fellow that she had dated at one time was in a car accident. He was 18 when he died. There's not a person here tonight that has the promise of tomorrow. Not a one of us can say, well, I'll do it tomorrow because tomorrow may not come. And David here says, I know not the numbers thereof. Now look what he has a desire to do when he realizes, I know not the number thereof. Verse 16, I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. You know, that's a strong verse for this narcissistic society in which we live today. because we're so interested in telling everybody about us, putting 10,544 pictures of us on the Facebook. I heard one guy say, it's really not Facebook, it's Lonely Book. Because here's a guy walking around taking pictures of himself. Why doesn't somebody else take? They don't want to, because he doesn't have any friends. All of his friends are on Facebook. And if she throws a phone in the lake, friendship's gone. I mean, you know, somebody put my picture on Facebook and it broke their phone. I mean, there was a short circuit. But the society in which we live today, everything is about us. Everything is look at me, see what I've done. We've had the joy of having a past president who was Facebook. But people are that way today. David says here, he says, I don't know how long I'm gonna live, I'm gonna go in the strength of the Lord. He said, even of thine only. Verse 17, he says, oh God, now he's talking about now. He says, oh God, thou has taught me from my youth, and from that time, he says, from hitherto, I have declared thy wondrous works. And you could put that David's life as a young person really in a nutshell. He said, God, this is who I was. And yet I've trusted in you in spite of all of my enemies, by all those ups and downs. And I say, in spite of the shimmy, I who threw dirt on him. But he says, God, the heart, my hope. Now he says, I'm getting older. Look what he says in verse 18. He says, now also when I am old and bald-headed, I mean, gray-headed, he says, oh God, now listen, oh God, forsake me not. Why? He had a purpose for having that closeness of God, which he knew that he needed. Like the old preacher said one time, he said, I don't know what the power of God is, but I sure know what it ain't. And sometimes we walk our Christian life without any real desire to have the power of God upon our lives. And I know what it is, but I also know what it ain't. And here he says, now also when I'm old and gray-headed, oh God, forsake me not. Why? Listen, until I have showed thy strength unto this generation and thy power to everyone that is to come. Look over at Psalm 78. Psalm 78. And here's somewhat the same thing. He says in verse 3, he says in Psalm 78, we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. I need a little fellow right here. Can you come up here a minute? I'd ask one of these older guys, but they're not smart enough. Now, let's say this is my son. Good looking guy. Looks like his dad. Amen. We're out walking one day. And as we're walking, we come over and we find this rock. We're sitting on this rock. Come on over here. Sit here on my lap, bud. Ouch! Oh, you hurt my leg. Now, listen closely. He said, my desire is to tell this generation what God has done in my life. So we're out walking one day back in that Bible time. And we come to this place and we see these rocks all piled up. So I pull him up here on my lap and turn around and put your leg over here. Get your hand out of your pocket. You got money in there? I'm not going to rob you, okay? You're not worth two cents anyhow. Now, we're sitting here and we look at this pile of rocks. And he says to me, Daddy, what are these rocks piled here for? And I say, I'm glad you said, ask me son. There was a time when we were in Egyptian bondage, 400 years in bondage. Moses went before Pharaoh, a big contest and all these plagues, and finally the last plague, the last plague, the first of every family, first one of every family died if they did not put the blood on the doorpost. And he said, get out. We began to leave when we got to the Red Sea. How are we gonna get across the Red Sea? And the priest put their foot in the water, Moses touched it with a rod, and the sea parted, and we went across on dry ground. Well, the whole boy were free, and we just got across, and all of a sudden, we heard the noise behind us. And we looked, and here came Pharaoh and all of his army, and he was coming to destroy us. We thought, God, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna save us? And they all, they got down in that water in the middle of the Red Sea, and when all the army was there, God closed it in. And God took care of them. And we were so excited when we were on the other side and we saw what God did. And we knew that God we serve is almighty God. And Moses told us to come and to gather some rocks and each tribe put rocks there and made this huge pile of rocks. And that pile of rocks there is to remind us of what God did for us. Now let's go forward another 20 or 30 years. Now here's, I'm him now. I'm better looking, but I'm him. And now he's got his son. And they go out for a walk. And he goes by that same rock. And he puts his little boy, it'd be like my grandson, on his lap. And he'd say, Daddy, What do those stones mean? And he says, here's what my dad told me. And here's the story. If I had not told him, then he has nothing to tell the next generation. And that's exactly what he says. You read Psalm 78, he says that this generation might tell the next generation that they might tell the next generation that the generation to come, four generations, might know who God is. We live in America, still the greatest nation in the world, still the freest nation in the world. And we have the freedom to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And there are churches, fundamental independent Baptist churches today who do not believe in hell. I read an article two weeks ago put out by a magazine called Grace and Focus. Don't get it. They had several articles on hell. And one, the editor of the magazine, he wrote about he believed in hell and so forth. And he said this at the last paragraph or sentence, he said, I believe in hell, but I believe it will be tolerable. I was shocked. But that's where the world is today. You don't hear messages on hell. You don't believe that hell is really hell. But hell is hell. And boys and girls and men and women and teenagers who do not hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, they're going to die and they're going to go to hell and it's going to be our fault. Because Ezekiel says for every soul that dies and goes to hell, their blood's going to be required at someone's hand. And my goal, and I know Brother Starr well enough, that his goal is to finish well. and to do everything we can to tell people about Jesus. We're doing everything we can in our ministry to take young people for them to see the needs and then respond to those needs. It doesn't do good just to come and sit. I was preaching, not preaching, but in a church down in South Carolina about two years ago of a young couple who came to Camp ME1, Camp ME2, Camp ME3. Now they're in Japan. And a fella came up to me and he said, Brother Baldwin, I haven't seen you for almost 50 years. Their church was the first one that took us on in 1966 when I went to Canada. And he said, you said something at that missions conference I have never forgotten. I thought, I did? And he said, here's what you said. You said, God didn't save us to sit down and sit. He saved us to get up and get. Now, isn't that dumb? But he said, that has reminded me over and over and over again, not just to come and sit, to be busy about the work of the Lord. Thank you, son. And our responsibility is to see these young people, see this young man, See every boy and girl sitting in this auditorium. Not only have a chance to hear Jesus, but our responsibility is to let them see Christ in us. And as they see Jesus in us, that's exactly what he said. He said, oh God, allow me to live long enough that they might see the power of God in me, that they might tell the next generation. And Psalm 78 says this. He says that they might, verse 7, or verse 6, he says, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which shall be born, who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. And our responsibility is to be excited about the things of the Lord. Amen? Love that chatter. But take it outside the church. Let people see Jesus in you. I love young people. I'm getting to the place now. I need the T-shirt. Where did they go? I must find them. I'm their leader. I'm 75, but I haven't stopped yet. Why? Because there's still a job to do. And when I have to be wheeled in a wheelchair, I think it's about to be time to stop. But God has been so good to me. Why shouldn't I serve him? If you're here tonight and God's been speaking to your heart over the past month or maybe several years of something you know you need to do for him, then why not just do it? Amen. Just do it. When I knew that God called me into missions a year after I was saved, I can remember taking my girlfriend, who eventually became my wife, taking her home. And her mother was mad at me. And she said, you went forward to be a missionary. She was a teacher in the Sunday school at the church. And I said, yeah. She said, well, you can serve the Lord here. You don't have to go somewhere around the world. And her daughter was killed in the mission field. She died a couple of years ago at 95, bitter. All these years would never have anything to do with her grandson or me. And she told people that I went to the mission field and had her daughter killed. Bitterness. Bitterness. But when she went home to be with the Lord, I promised the Lord that night. I remember my son and I stayed at my deacon, one of my deacons and his wife's home. And I can remember getting out of bed about 2.30 in the morning. And I promised God I would never become bitter. But God in this time would show me why these things happen. And you know what? God has. God has. And it's amazing that God uses any of us. But that's God. And he wants to use every, all these, he wants to use you. Don't live a wasted life. And you know, God has given you, when you got saved, God has given you every gift that you need to serve him the very moment you got saved. And to hold those to yourself is very selfish because God gives us gifts so that we might help the body of Christ grow and that we ourselves might win others to Christ. I was the first in my family saved. The first one I led to the Lord was my older brother. Now his middle son is my pastor. There's five of us boys and a sister and mom and dad. My mom got saved when I was pastoring my last church in Canada and she and dad came up to business and she got saved on that Sunday morning. And I had a baptismal service and they stayed that night and I baptized my mom. I led one of my younger brothers to the Lord when he was in the service, going to make a career out of the Navy. And I sent him a letter and gave him the plan of salvation and begged him to ask Jesus into his heart. And now he's been in France for 37 years as a missionary. And I have one brother, one brother that's not saved. And God allowed me to go by his house twice In the last year and a half, he lives up above Albany, New York. He's always been off, off as far as salvation. I mean, he's heard me preach, so forth, but he just puts his hand up. But the last time I visited him, I stayed over at his motel a couple of nights. And before I left, he put his arms around me and gave me a hug. And he says, I love you, Jerry. Now, I don't know about you, but that meant a lot to me. Because if they don't love us, they'll never love our Bible. And if they don't love our Bible, they'll never love our Lord. We need to stress out. I love young people because I see in young people so much potential. And our responsibility as moms and dads is to pray that God will take them and use them, to be an encouragement to their lives. When they fall, pick them up. When they cry, wipe their tears. When they need to be rebuked, do it rightly. Because there is a potential of tomorrow. And I'm not talking just the front row. There's a lot of young people back through here. Then there's a lot of us old young people, amen? We're old in body, but young in heart. And there's no time. You know, 65 is not in the Bible as a retirement age. Caleb was 80, but he took a mountain first, amen? And that's just the way God works. And David says in our hearts, let's let God use us so that we might show the young people and the next generation the power of God. Because if we show them, then they'll turn around and say, this is what my daddy did. This is what my daddy told me about. This is how my daddy prayed. This is how my mom and dad were faithful in God's house. And I know that the God they serve is God. Thank you for joining us by way of the internet today. We're so glad that you were able to be with us and we pray that the service was a blessing to your heart. Even though the sermon is over, our service is not over. At the end of our service, we give an opportunity for people to respond and come to an altar and pray over what God dealt with them about. Sometimes people come to call upon Christ and to be saved. Others come to make a decision for Christ regarding their Christian lives. Others come to call out to the Lord about special needs situations in their lives. Maybe God has dealt with you today about some specific area of your life. I invite you to make an altar right there in your home, a quiet time before the Lord where you pray to Him and respond to Him about what He has spoken to you about. If you made a decision for the Lord today we would be glad to hear about that decision and or answer any questions you have today about the message that was preached. You can contact us by way of email at info at mountziononline.org or by way of phone at 717-927-9227. Again, we thank you for joining us today and we look forward to you joining us again for our live stream weekly on Sundays at 1045 a.m. and on Sunday evenings at 645 p.m. If we can meet a need in your life, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you and God bless you. the walls of Zion.