That's all. Appreciate you so much tonight. Thank God for this great atmosphere that we've had the privilege to be in tonight. Go bow for prayer. Our Father is now come before the throne of the grace of God. I want to thank you for this tabernacle and these grounds. I appreciate Lord Nazarene Folklet letting Brother John, Brother Phillip use this place. Maybe you would tend to their heart and bless them just to give this place to the men of God. I would be thrilled and find it an answer to prayer. I wanna thank you for the men of God that one of the men of God can't come because of his health. Thank you for the men of God that'll be here this week, for the men of God that'll be preaching. And I feel so small today to be here tonight. I thank you for my Bible. I feel very lonely without it. I thank you for meeting with us the way that you have all day yesterday. And I pray that you would help us now. Put the all of God upon us tonight Unctionize us, Lord. Help us to have the unction and the power to bring the message that you would have us to bring. We will be thankful. I appreciate the leaders of this camp, the great church. How good you've been to bless the people of God over here at Mount Carmel. Bless them and help them with getting their building fixed. I thank you for that. And we ask these favors, Lord, because we want you to hover about us. Help us now. Thank you for all the singers that'll be singing. I pray your blessings upon them as they've come to labor here to help us. Thank you for the great songs of our faith. We appreciate what you're doing. Just do it. In Jesus' name, amen. You can turn if you'd like to with me tonight to a passage of scripture that just became sort of enlightening to my heart. Turn with us in this Psalm please, Psalm 55. Psalm 55. The last song that Brother Matthew sang, someday. Our trials here will soon be gone. It won't be long. I miss a lot of the great men of God that have been in my life and all the great men of God that trained me are all gone. And the men of God that I run with, most of them are gone. I'm thankful for the men of God that he's left with us. I want to read these five verses tonight in your hearing. If you'd like to stand with us in reverence to your King James Bible, we'll do that. Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and hear me. I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise, because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pain within me, and the terrors of death are falling upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horror hath overwhelmed me. You may be seated. I wanna talk to you a little bit tonight about the life of David. I wanna preach to you for a little bit about Psalm 55, and look at David's upper years. First of all, I want to notice, if you would, you bear with me for a few moments, I wanna set the platform for the preaching. And notice his youthful life. God told Samuel over in 1 Samuel 16 and one, he said, I have provided me a king. Somewhere God had provided him a king. David in his youthful life had been caring for his father Jesse's sheep. Out of the eight boys, he was the only shepherd in the flock. Somehow or another, we don't always know exactly how men get in touch with God, but my mouth, the persuasion that the Lord came and visited him while he was directing the path of these sheep and taking care of them And while this is happening, the Lord is instilling himself into the life of David. The Lord's, you know the story of Israel, they wanted a king before it was time. And God provided them with the privilege of having a king when they should not have had a king, sometimes. God will allow you to have something in your life that is not good for you. In order to train you and develop you and bring you through life. But he was keeping his father's sheep. And while keeping his father's sheep, I'm learning that what God did was God talked to David. There's no way for him to provide a king. No way for him. See, when the Lord dealt with Samuel about David, he didn't call his name. He didn't let him know anything about who was the son in Jesse's family. So the Lord had been talking to David I don't know what all he told David, but in the Psalms, as I read these Psalms, I find that God is talking through David. So let me say this to you, if God don't talk to you, he cannot talk through you. He was allowing David to know about himself. Psalm 23 is a classic psalm. He was raised, this lad was, he was raised as a shepherd, protecting the sheep for another. Every shepherd protects the sheep for another. They're none of ours. While in this position, as his youth went on, he fought lions, bears, protecting those sheep. Saul, though he is king now, his brothers, all of his brothers, they were all soldiers. Military men, strong. Israel had a soldier. for a king. God wanted Israel to have a shepherd. Let me say this to you, Saul could never be but a soldier. And let me say this to you, David could never be but a shepherd. fought his first battle with Goliath. These is his young days. But he fought him as a shepherd. He met his opponent with a staff in his hand. According to the word of God, he chose five smooth stones and put them into his shepherd's bag. He went to war with the people of God's enemy. He made great headway in his youth. Now I want you to notice his manhood. He started out very good. And as a king, I don't want to cover too much ground, but let me just say this. David, when he was anointed by Samuel, went back to his father's sheep to care for them. And the reason was that he knew he was a shepherd. And let me say this to you. When the women began to chant in the streets and to praise David for what he had done, It seems to bring years to a head in David's life. If you aren't real careful, he became complacent and at ease. And the Bible tells us that he failed the Lord. This one occasion of failure is not the only occasion that David committed blunders and failures in his life. I would exhaust to say to you that he did many blunders and many mistakes in the work of the Lord. God will forgive you when you do wrong. I remember when Nathan came, he's a prophet of God. He said, David, I've got a little story to tell you. I want you to sit down and let's talk about it. He said, two men in a city, one of them was rich and one poor. The rich man had herds. The rich man had flocks. You see, the Lord knows how to talk to us. If he'd pulled any other illustration from anywhere else, David couldn't have understood it. But he understands this message. The Bible said that the poor man said he had One little heir lamb. But this man, this poor man, he loved that lamb. He cared for that lamb. He nursed that lamb. He took care of that lamb. That lamb meant so much to him. The scripture said it was like that lamb was his daughter. Very, very close was his heart to that little lamb. But then the rich man had a traveler come through. Came to the rich man's house and instead of going to his flock, he spared his own flock and he took this poor man's one little lamb. He dressed it for the traveler. After they have consented to do what they wanted to do, And David hears this story and he being a shepherd, his anger got hard in his heart. And then the Bible said, the verdict was, David said, this man shall surely die and restore the land fourfold. By the way, you'll have to pay for what you do. Even if God forgives you, you will have to pay for what you do. And Nathan said, thou art a man, David. You have displeased the Lord. According to 2 Samuel 11 and 27. I said those things to you to get to where I am in Psalm 55. As the years go by, I know something about it. Years begin to pile up in your life. One thing I do know, the failures and blunders are all still there, and he's acquired a lot of enemies because of it. While he was waiting on Saul to step aside, Saul tried to take his life with the javelin. It drove him to prayer. These five verses are verses filled with horror. He's mourning because of the fearfulness and trembling that has come and occurred in his life. As you grow older, you look back over your life and you see, you'd love for it to have been a beautiful, beautiful testimony, but oh, some of it's not good. He cried in his petition. He cried for protection and he cried. This chapter is filled with his desire to have peace with God. There are eight, I believe there were eight different Psalms that point to his return. Great trials come in all of our lives. I'm at the place now where I try to fit myself where David is. And I ask myself, what will you do with your trial? Can I ask you what do you intend to do about your trial? Many of you are here tonight and you're suffering You are going through hurt and pain that nobody next to you know about. And you're trying to bear it yourself. You're trying to carry it along. Let me say this to you. God is interested in your failures. God is interested in you having a good life. Many of you know what it's like to, some of you know, I hope it's not many, know about divorce and the hardship that you go through and the children go through these hard times. It's awful the suffering that people have gone through in this country because of what's happening It looks like to me nobody's satisfied with anything. They fuss and argue about anything. One thing leads to another. Troubles and sorrow. We're at the place now where even it looks like that the people of America are proud of those that are killing their own seed. taking the life of their own little babies. I just don't understand it. Some parents, I don't know of the, I'm talking about many preachers that have talked to me because their children have gone astray. I remember years ago that You'd put your heart and your life into the school children and they, many of them when they get out of the school, they graduate from the school, Lord have mercy. They would just turn away from God and walk away from the Lord and he's been so good to them. Why would you do that? I pray daily for families whom they've lost their precious children. Oh, what a great need it is. I thought about the Psalmist making this statement in verse number eight, he said, I will hasten my escape. That's exactly, not to resist like the eagle, but to, to fly away, to escape, to get away from the windy storm and the tempest that's facing our lives. I thought about David making this statement in verse number six. He said, when I look at my situation and I see where I am, he said, all that, all that, all that I had wings, like a dove, only wishes to escape. The only thing you feel like you have left when you're broken so badly and hurt is that you flee and run away. I thought about the children that have lost their parents. We've got homes here where Children have to spend their time in these great homes, and I'm thankful for them because they don't have parents. I have a wayward granddaughter. She breaks my heart every day I live. Pray, God, whatever you have to do, bring her to you. Let me have some peace. And I see my grandchildren saved and right with God, just like my children. Some of my closest friends died with this old cancer. A lot of it is a curse that's come upon our country. But we've got many, many of our precious people that have left this world, this matter of cancer. I know Stenet Blue, And I know the kind of man he was, and I know that God didn't take him because of something he had done. But his body was filled with cancer. Went to see him before he passed away. And when I walked in, he didn't even talk, he just put his head straight forward and closed his eyes. Sure was discouraging to him, but he wasn't afraid of death. One of the greatest messages I've ever heard, I heard him preach the last time he preached at Concord. Heart failure. This thing they call COVID, it's taken many of our loved ones out. of our life. I can't believe that this thing has really happened. But all of this, all of this has happened. Many of us have had this thing, but we've got better. But many, many, many of them are gone. And many of us may be yet to be gone. And I hate to think about that, but heaven's a great place to go. Some of them died, but they died without God. I remember Dr. Crumpton years ago, I don't know how many of you might've been there for hearing Dr. Crumpton preach this message. Years ago. He preached on heartaches on the road to heaven. I'm talking about things that happen within our life that we don't know what to do. Hey, one of the worst things that's happened to our country is men that can preach the Word of God, got the power of God on their life. Walk off from the pulpit that God's given them. There ain't no trashy Roman nowhere worth leaving that pulpit. Ain't no way that you could ever describe to me anything that could be better than what God has put in my heart. It's in the Word of God. I live sometimes on the great blessing of how God used me when I was young. And I just keep stepping up again. I love it when they say, come on back again one more time. We've got to be in this thing. Years ago, one of the great men of God, messed up in his life. He got all discouraged about nothing going on with the church anymore, nothing. And he went off and got drunk. And I talked to him and I said, I said, brother, now you and I are friends. I said, I don't understand you doing what you did. And he made this statement to me. He said, well, I want to help a lot of my folks if they go out and get drunk. I said, no, you're not thinking right. We don't all need to get drunk. We all need to get right with God. Men, great men of God with the anointing of God upon their life. For a few moments of pleasure, like David who made his failures. And one thing or another has taken us away from God. Oh my. And I wanna say this to you. This country, America, I'm born here and raised here. I got upset when they tore that southern flag down in South Carolina. I am who I am. I don't like nobody messing with who I am. I wanna tell you, it disturbs me when it seems like that everybody, including the government, is doing everything they can to pull us down, keep us from worshiping God. Pagan gods are at the border coming into our country. Other gods, we've got enough of other gods in our country. that somehow or another tricked this country and messed up our voting process. But I'm praying that God will bring us back to where we'll have proper voting as well. Mixed languages, changes that have come and occupied us in this great land of America. I still believe she's the greatest country in the world. Many of you have your own problems. And I want to tell you, the person next door to you don't know what you're going through. but I'll tell you one you can talk to, and it'll straighten things out. You can find you a place down here on some altar somewhere, and you can confront the Lord with your problem in your life, and you can tell the Lord, oh, oh, that I have wings like a dove. Fly away. The psalmist knew that term. And he said that I would wander, in the next verse, wander far, like a sheep that they try to protect to keep them in the fold. He said, I'd wander far. And the reason is because they wanted rest. You can have everything that anyone else has if you just give your life to Jesus. If you're here today lost, heed, let the Lord speak to your heart, let him come into your heart, let him change you, mold you and make you. And then if you're saved, and you know that you're saved and you're going through a great storm, one day, the last song we sang, someday it'll all be over. One of these days we'll move on to another country. I wanna ask you if God is dealing with you tonight about some particular thing. You don't have to tell nobody what it's all about. Just come take your place in an altar of prayer and ask God to help you. Nowhere have I ever lived that I've seen as much heartbreak. Some of our precious people lost their, my wife just lost her mother, and her daddy 10 years before. The Lord has blessed us with what he wants to do for us, but when you're losing your own people, you'll need the help of the Lord to get you through it. So God help you to respond to the Lord and get help from the Lord as the Lord speaks to your heart. Father in heaven, I thank you for the message. I ask you that you would help Brother John bless this old-fashioned count meeting. Touch the hearts of the people, help us to be obedient, Lord. Answer our prayer, we're calling upon you. And we're asking you, Lord, to help us. And I beg you that you do that. I do pray tonight for my granddaughter. I pray that, Lord, you'd bless her never to have to go back to jail again. Oh, God, do a work in her life! Change her! Then I pray, for these precious men of God across our country that have children that have walked away from God. Please help them, Lord. We'll thank you for what you do. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.