Let's go ahead and stand and open our Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 2. I'll get into a little bit about these guys in just a second. I'm going to read one verse, 1 Samuel chapter 2, and I think God does things on purpose many times and we don't even realize it. I was listening to the words of the song that they were singing, all had to do with prayer, and the title of my message is called Hannah's Prayer. And I want to tell you something, we can learn a lot from a young lady in the Bible named Hannah. She's only mentioned 11 times in the Bible, 9 times in the first chapter, and 2 times in this chapter by name. But she says in verse 1, it says this, And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord, my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. I have a young man from our church that's here. I'm going to ask him to pray for us. Nick Lackey is from our church. Could you pray for this message, please? that you've given to us, Lord. We just pray now that you'll bless this message, Lord. Pray that each and every one of us will learn something more from it, Lord, that we'll take and use in our daily life, Lord. Just help each and every one of us to be prayer warriors, and help everyone of us to pray for people each and every day, Lord. We just praise you for each and everything that you've done, what you're going to do, and what you're Amen. My wife wanted to be here, but she's not feeling well. She had to stay back, and she wanted me to thank these men that come here every week. We're about an hour and 20 minutes away. Is that correct? Maybe an hour for some of you, but it's about an hour and 20 for me. And college students that we have here are Brandon Harris that goes to our church, Mark Gripentrog. Try spelling that. Paul Franklin goes to our church. Logan Fields and Andrew Bowden. Then we have Shane Kohlmeyer used to go to our church, but he graduated from our church and now he goes someplace else. But, you know, if I were to ask a question for these guys, what they need, the biggest class they need, and I heard testimony down there, is they need a driving class. Out of six of the guys that go to our church, four of them have been involved in somewhat accidents. One of them was eating French fries or chicken, bent down and came back up, was on the wrong side of the road. I have another young man that was driving through a parking lot, hit one of those big yellow poles that have a light on them. So I'd really appreciate some defensive driving or something. Those guys have been a blessing to us. They have been servants. I wrote a list yesterday of some of the things they do in our church every Sunday. Two of them teach a Sunday school class. They help in our singles ministry. They help with our teen ministry, with our activities that we do. Two of them work in our master's club. Two of them run one of our children's church. Four of them are in our choir. One of them does special music. They always help with cleaning and maintenance. Two of them work in our RU ministry. All of them work in visitation. One of them just preached in a service for us and one of them led the songs service that day. Three of them work with our teen track club. They all work in our nursing home, and they help with our church banquets and do many different things on a weekly basis. So I want to tell you, we have a church run about 170, 180, but without those five men, I don't know what we would do. And they are part of our church, and they eat a lot. Nick Lackey is from our church, and I do want to say this. I did have a letter from your father, but I'm going to let Brother Spencer have it, and he's going to read it in your class from your sibling. So, very interesting letter. We have a member on our staff that's from Ambassador. Ms. Julie McVeigh is on our staff. She does a great job, a great teacher. Our church wanted to thank and wanted to tell Brother Spencer that they love him. He was our intern pastor before I got there. And this last week, we had the privilege of having one of your graduates. Pastor Greg Locke was with us for three days. And after you preach after him, you feel like you're in slow motion. And he did such a great job. I'll tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Walter Wayne Wagner. I don't know why my parents named me that. But the other day, probably about four or five years ago, I was writing it down, and I noticed that the Ws, every first letter's a W, every second letter's an A, every fifth letter's an E, and if it has a sixth letter, it's an R. And to make matters worse, I didn't go by Walter growing up. I went by Wally. Now, I want to tell you something. That's not a very powerful name. So, I've switched my name, went back to Walter, and I've enjoyed my life. I'm 41 years old. I got saved in 1991, and I graduated from Bible College in 1992. And I understand the first-year senior. I did that a couple times, but I've been in the ministry since 1992. I was a youth pastor for six years in Illinois, and then I was out in California for two and a half years as a youth pastor. I love teenagers. I love young people, and I especially love college-age students. Then I started a church in Kentucky for three years, and now I've been at Southview for three years, and this is where I want to end up at. The Lord just brought me there, and we have a great church. And I'm so thankful for everything that Ambassador has done for our church. You don't realize what it means to him. Our people spoil these guys. I mean, they're always taking care of them. And then we had Matt and Bowdoin before this that was there. And I'm just so thankful for what you guys do here. It is a great asset to our church. Reading this passage, it says, and Hannah prayed. You know, I think probably one of the biggest things we don't do very much anymore is pray. It says, and she prayed, my heart rejoices in the Lord. We're going to read this whole passage in just a second. But mine horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies because I rejoice in thy salvation. You know, how did Hannah get to that point in her life? Hmm. She got to that point because she did not quit. To be frank honest with you, I didn't want to preach this message. I've never preached this message before. It's the first time I've preached it. But I'm tired of seeing people quit. And I'm tired of seeing people quit or change direction because something happened that was wrong. I don't know how many people and I can't even mention the college I graduated for does not even stand for anything that I stand for. It's changed since I've left. And all the people that I went to school with, Brother Spencer knows my situation with this, and all the people that I went to school with, many of them got offended by somebody did something to them and now all of a sudden they're contemporary. Where on earth did they get that? I want to say this to you, they never had it in them. And this is not a message that I like to preach, and I don't want you to think I'm negative. I find humor in everything. I've got to watch it. If I saw someone fall down, I'd probably start laughing and find something humorous about it. That's my personality. You can ask these guys that I work with, that work with me. I've got to watch that. But you know what, I look at our church, Brother Spencer, and they needed someone that was upbeat and someone that saw humor in things and needed to be uplifted. And I want to tell you something, I love being around our church. Usually after our church, our people stay in our church for about 45 minutes to an hour after the church service is over, talking. That's what I love about our church. But you know, you go back to Hannah, and I think about this, she didn't quit. What are you going to go through in the ministry? I love the ministry. It's what God called me to be in. But what will stop you from doing God's will? Some of you are going to be missionaries in here. It's not going to be easy. I mean, he wants you to go and get dart shot at you. Praise the Lord. I think last time I was here, they had someone talking about Africa where they... I was here last Monday and they were talking about African people dying on the thing and then he tried to get people to come to him. I don't understand that. But, you know, you're going to go and it's not going to always be easy wherever you go. What's it going to take to stop you? Hannah, in this situation, prayed. And I looked at this and I thought, you know, what will be your attitude and struggles when you have adversities in your life? Because mark it down, if you don't know this, you are going to have adversities in any ministry you go to. You're going to have struggles. You're going to have trials. It amazes me that some people that serve the Lord, I know of at least four or five pastors that have had babies, their wives have had babies, and their babies have had serious medical problems. And you sit back and say, why God did you do this? I mean, here they're serving you and you've got people that are carnal that have healthy kids. You know why you go through struggles? God wants to make you what you need to be. And so often we forget that. How strong is your backbone? I know a lot of people in the ministry should never go to the chiropractor because they don't have a backbone. I'm telling that right now. And you say, you've got a bone to... Yeah, I do, because I'm telling you right now, if we don't change something in America... We used to be the norm. Conservative. King James. But now we're no longer the norm. My generation, most of them are loopy. You have no idea what they're coming from. I have professors that went into my college and told me that you need to stand for something, and they stand for nothing now. We've got to get back to the part of understanding we have to have a backbone. I remember college chapels, a lot of times in college chapels people try to come up with new things. I remember one college chapel speaker that we had that said that there was actually 11 commandments. I was like, are you trying to come up with new things? No, I want to give you something very old and I want you to understand it. I'm not going to try to give you something new. If I were to tell you one thing, I would love what the Apostle Paul says. If you could put something on my gravestone, I wish my kids could write these three things. I wish they could write, I have, and put a three above it. And what I mean by that, in the back of my Bible I have, I have cubed, if you're in math. Because Paul wrote something, and he wrote it in 1 Timothy, he said, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, and I have kept the faith. That's what I want little Megan to understand, and little Meredith to understand. That their daddy fought a good fight. We're so, well, everything's going to be fine. It's not going to be fine. You're going to go in the ministry, you're going to have some hardships. But you better understand that God's putting them there for a reason. Let's look at some situations in the Bible. What about Noah? How many of you have ever tried to build a boat like that with no power tools? I'd have a hard time building this pulpit. I have no idea how to do that. That's why God put men in my church that can know how to do that. But you know what we do? We get so wrapped up in our lives that we fail to realize that God's trying to teach us through every situation. I'm going to give you three things that Hannah had, and we're going to go through these, and then I'm going to talk to you, and I'm going to put it on a practical basis. Number one, Hannah had a problem. I want you to look at chapter one, and I have heard so many different ways of pronouncing Hannah's problem, panina, panina. I want to call her Penny. It'd be easier. But if you look at verse 2, it says, and it's talking about Elkanah had two wives, and the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other was Penina. It says that Penina had children, but Hannah had no children. She had a problem. But that wasn't the only problem she had, because this lady was her adversity. If you think Joel Osteen is correct, you've got another thing coming. I'd love for you to sit in my shoes or sit in some of these pastor's shoes that you see problems. And you know, the thing with a pastor is you see, for some reason, God gives you an inclination of seeing where people are going. And sometimes they go that direction. And you know, if they go that direction, it will destroy them. But they still go down that direction. And that's a problem to me because I don't want to see people hurt. And they always have good inclinations in their mind. Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be okay. No, it's going to burn you. Sin will always burn you. And you will have problems. Here her problem was this. She had a lady that was in the same house of her that was having children and she wanted to have children. It says in verse number 3, And this man went up out of the city yearly to worship in a sacrifice to the Lord of the host of Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophniah and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And when the time was come, and when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters portions. But then I like this. But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion. For he loved Hannah, but the Lord had shut up her womb." Now you've got to mark that down because why did she not have children? Because God didn't want her to have children at this point. But when things are always not where you want them, sometimes the devil will send people your way to get you down. And here she comes. And I love this because it doesn't mention her name. And her adversary also provoked her sore for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. Now, she's even using the application. You see what God's done for you? God's not done anything for you, Hannah. God's not done anything for you, Hannah. Look where you're at. You're the most loved, but you have nothing. Hannah had a problem. But you know what I like about Hannah? Although she had adversities, she had an attitude, and it was a good one. God will use your problems to make you what you need to be. In verse 7 it says, And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her. I can't imagine it. It's not just one time. It says year to year. I don't know how long this happened. But year to year this lady would say, listen, you don't have any children. Look what I've got. Hannah had a problem. But Hannah had something that you need. Hannah had passion. She had a problem. She had passion. I want you to look at verse 7b at the very end. It says, Therefore she wept and did not eat. You know, I think sometimes we fail to realize that when you have a problem, if you really have passion about it, God will answer your problems and answer your prayer requests. But you've got to show Him that you're serious. And here, I don't know, how many of you have ever fasted? I'm going to tell you something, it's hard to fast. Do you fast on a regular basis? I fast a lot of times for my daughters. My daughters are 14 and 11. One of them will be 12 in just a little bit, in a couple of weeks. But you know, I pray for their husbands right now. And I pray for their husbands when they were born. Because I know that they could be in a bad home life right now. They could be abused right now. And I want them to understand, and I pray and I fast about it. Because I want my kids to know, I want my kids to have the best they can. I want them to have someone that's pure when they go to the altar. We've got to get back to understanding. We've got to have some passion in our life. When's the last time you fasted about something and God saw that you were serious? You don't think Hannah was serious at this? Here she wept and she started fasting. She had something else in this. She had fervor. Look at verse number 10. We'll read through it. It says, Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou, and why eatest thou not? And why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon the seat by the post of the temple of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. She had fervor. She said, listen, I don't care what anybody else says. God can answer my prayers. She prays all the way through this. She had a problem. She had a passion. She was faithful. Look at verse number 11. And she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if Thou wilt indeed look on the afflictions of Thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget Thine handmaid, but wilt give unto Thine handmaid a man-child, Then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head." Then she says, and it came to pass as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now I want to tell you something. When was the last time you had fervor and you had this, you fasted and you were faithful so much that you didn't care what anybody else thought? My wife and my girls, of course, they wear skirts all the time. And we go to places where... There'll be a guy walking down the... We'll go, let's say, Disney World. And there's a guy walking down, and he's got a mohawk all painted all different colors. And he's walking by, he's got everything pierced that you could think of. And he's got these wild psychedelic shoes and shirt, and he's walking down. And my wife with my other two girls are walking down, and they're wearing skirts, and people are staring at us. And I know what they're thinking. They must be Mennonite. Or they must... You know, they're just looking at me thinking, these people are weird. No, what we've done is we've taken a biblical standard, we've applied it in our life, and we're not going to change for it. But you've got this guy with the mohawk, and they're not even looking at him. You know why? Because he's a norm. We go to the wall. On my first teen activity ever, We had kids, we went to a mall, we got kicked out of the mall because we were having a scavenger hunt in a mall in Illinois. And I remember the security guards, Barney wannabes, they come running up to us, and, what are you doing here? You can't do this here. And I'm thinking, there's guys over here that are smoking pot right in front of you and you're not saying anything to them? And we can't have a scavenger hunt? I had 70 kids, have you ever tried to find 70 kids in a mall? They waited just long enough for us to spread out, and I had to go find 70 kids in a large mall. I want to tell you something. We are not the norm. When people make fun of you, go on no matter what. Do not quit. Also, you need to be a good soldier. My father-in-law is Army Green Beret. Special forces special intelligence airborne master jumper If I got a fight I'd want him on my side the first time I went out with my wife he was not there second time I went out with her. I went out to his house, and he was not there, and I said mr. Stewart. I said um how you doing and He said, I'm doing fine. I said, where were you at last time? He said, and I kid you, you know about the story. He said, I could tell you, but I have to rip your head off and stick it in a vault. And I did exactly what you did. I started laughing. He was not laughing. So I kind of just sat back and I thought, I'm not going to cross this man. You know, if I got in a fight, I'd want him on my side. Because he's got fight to him. He's faithful. Hannah had this situation. You watch this. And Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord, I am a woman. Actually, let's go to 14. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee. She was so saturated with what she wanted to do. And she was praying to God. And she went to the church to pray. And this man walks up to her and says, You've got to quit this drinking stuff. Don't do this in here. And then she says, and Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul for the Lord. She had so much fervor in her that she didn't care what anybody thought. And you better get to that point because there's going to be a lot of people going to be against you. It's not getting any better. We've got presidential people that are not even saluting our flag anymore. I can't even believe that. My dad was in the military. I was a military brat. I was born in the Air Force base. You know, my dad taught me reverence to the flag. I never was in the military, but he tried to push me into it. But you know what he always told me? When that pledge comes up, when that song comes up, you stop what you're doing. Because a lot of people have died for that. I'm telling you, we live in a different world. It says, and Eli answers, said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. And watch what happens to her. Here the man of God says this to her, and this is what she says, And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in the sight. So the woman went her way and did eat. Now watch this. And her countenance was no more sad. She believed what the man said. She prayed. She had problems. She had passion. But with those problems and those passions, something came up. When it was all said and done, she went back to what she always knew. She prayed. I want you to look in chapter 2, Hannah's prayer. Hannah is an interesting person. She prays during her problems, while they're going on, and then when it's all over, she prays after her problem has been solved. You know what we do a lot of times in our life? We just assume that things happen and God didn't have a part of it. I didn't assume that when they were singing that song about prayer that God was just bringing this in. You know what? We need to pray. We need to pray more and we need to be thankful for what God's done for us. Hannah's prayer, I want you to look at this. She was, number one, serious about her God. And I want to say this, the world has really magnified Jabez's prayer, and it's a great prayer. But you want me to tell you why the world has magnified Jabez's prayer? Because it's positive. I mean, think about it. Here's his prayer. O that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thy hand might be with me. And that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him that which he requested. That's a great prayer, but it's all positive. And you know what? Let me tell you something. A lot of people in this world want something good to happen to them today. But you know what? Hannah's prayer was not like this. Hannah's prayer was much more deeper than Jabez's prayer, and you won't ever hear anybody write about her prayer. Look at her prayer in chapter 2. I'm going to read all the way through this, and I want to point out some things to you, and we'll be done. It says, And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoices in the Lord. Mine horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. And I like what she has, she ends verse 2, it says, There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God. I want to tell you something, when you get out in the ministry and you have a problem, go back to the rock and hold on to it. He'll take care of you. He will take care of you. At the times when you don't think things will not happen, you're thinking, what in the world could happen more? Grab on to that rock and hold on, because that's what Hannah did. And Hannah says, listen, my God is a rock. And I love that passage of Scripture where some men build their house on the sand. Thank God I don't build my house on the sand. My God has always been and always will be there for me. I've just got to go to Him. And Hannah's going back to Him and says this. It says, Talk no more so exceedingly proudly. Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. I love verse 4. The bows of the mighty men are broken. and they that stumbled are girded with strength." You think that your opposition is so strong they can't do anything, but God can go down there and break the mighty men, and He can uplift the weakened people. You know, we've got to get back to understanding this. It says in verse 5, they that have full have hired out themselves for bread, and they that are hungry, cease, so that the barren hath born seven. Here she's telling them that she's going to have children. She says seven, but she only has six. I think she uses seven because it's God's number, and she's saying this is all in God's hands. She's already had Samuel and given him over to the priest. She's going to have five more. And she says, listen, I'm going to have seven. And then it says this, it says, and she that hath many children is wax feeble. Did you notice what Hannah did? She did not point out who the girl was that was her problem. It says she, and it's referring back to her adversary. And you know what? When you read this, you could study this. When it says this, it says it is wax feeble. It means one of two things. Number one, she can't have any children anymore. Or number two, there's been sicknesses and deaths in that family. But she wasn't bragging about, oh, look what my enemy did. We're studying, and how I got into Hannah's prayer, we're studying life of David in our church. And I preached a message two weeks ago about the order of David. You get in the ministry, I'm going to tell you something, someone's going to throw a spear at you. You know what I liked about David? He didn't even know what to do when the spear was thrown at him. I remember as a youth pastor, there's always those teens that want, we played this game called bombardment or prisoner's base or dodgeball type game. There's always these teenagers that want to hit you as hard as they can in the head. And they hide behind players, and you don't see them. And then all of a sudden, they're three feet from you, throwing as hard as they possibly can at your head. And sometimes they hit it. And I'll be frank and honest with you. When someone hits me with a ball, I want to take something heavier and hit them with it. I want to take that ball, and I want to hit them. And I'll search after them. And after I throw it, that's when I usually say, oh, I'm sorry. I had one girl get mad at me in a game, and I'm very competitive. You can ask these guys. I'm very competitive. If I play checkers, I want to win. I wouldn't say I wouldn't cheat, but I'd want to win, amen? I don't never play games to lose. My daughters were on a t-ball game, and they didn't keep score. I kept score. They'd get done and say, oh, it was a good game. Yeah, we won 21 to 20, amen? Oh, you're not supposed to do that. I want to win. I'm on the winning side now. I remember one girl got mad at me. I got her out in the game. And she literally took a chair, a metal chair, and threw it at me, point blank range. While it was in the air, she apologized. I ducked and it stuck in the wall. The next time I put her on my team. I mean, we get mad at people when people do things, and we've got to get back to the point of realizing that God doesn't want you to do anything. Doesn't God say, turn the other cheek? But you know what we do? We take things into our own. And thank God Hannah didn't do that. She didn't go back and try to slam this lady. This lady has been through some storms anyway. She says she's feeble. And God, You've given me one child and I've given it over to You like the vow that I made. And You're going to give me five more, six more. It says in verse number 6, The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich. He bringeth low and lifteth up. He raises up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory. Now look at this next part. If you underline anything in your Bible, for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's. And He has set the world upon them. If God set the planets in motion, He can control your life. Then I love the next verse. It's probably my favorite verse in this whole prayer. He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail. And I'll get back to that in just a second. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces. And now she's going to prophetically say what's going to happen. It says, Out of heaven shall he thunder upon them. The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed. See, Hannah's prayer, she was serious about her God, but she was also satisfied with her God. I love Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they go before Nebuchadnezzar and they say, listen, you can throw me in that fire, I'm not going to bow down. Whether we live or whether we die, we will not bow down. That's a great prayer. In this story, she was serious about her God. She was satisfied with her God. I don't know much about Hannah, but I can tell you this, she was a prayer warrior. Because that's all she did in two chapters, and that's the only time she's mentioned. I look at this verse in verse 9, and we'll be done. I want you to follow along. It says, He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness. There's just something about knowing that if you do what's right, contrary to what the world says and most Christian bookstores in America, there's going to be problems in your life. But through those problems, God is still there. He is still God. And no matter, we might not ever understand things on this earth, but God knows everything. And Hannah, through all these situations, through her problems, her adversities, she had a good attitude. She didn't have the child that she wanted. But then she vowed to God that she would take care of that child and she would give him over to the child. And you want me to tell you something you want to know about David? You know what affected David's life? Samuel did. And Samuel affected David's life because Hannah was the right kind of woman. So you have this woman that gives her child over. And I want to tell you something. I've got two children. I would not give those over for anything. Don't think that that was something easy for her to do. She had prayed and prayed and prayed. And she gave it over. Now, I'll give it over to the Lord. But I wouldn't give... At this point, she gives it over to the priest and says, you take care of him. And you know what was amazing to me is she let Eli take care of him. And look at Eli's sons. Would you want that influence on you? Later on, you find Samuel's sons were not too great either. But then you have all these things that she gives it over to. She has a good attitude. Then she prays, Lord, thanks God for everything he is, and he's a rock for her. And although all these situations, she says, listen, you're going to give me seven. The feeble has had her spot. And then it goes on, it says, you can do all these things. Then he says he will keep the feet of his saints. Let me talk to you about problems real quick. I am not a doom and gloom pastor, but in the past four years, I'm going to tell you some problems that we've went through. I want to get personal with this so you understand it. You think the ministry is all fun, and it is fun. I love the ministry. I love working with teenagers. Some of the most incredible times I've had is in the ministry. I have had more fun since I've become a Christian than I've had ever before I was a Christian. I don't laugh about the same things, but I find humor in things, and I love being alive. I love spending time with my family. I love my wife. I love my church. I love being around my church members. I love being around the school that we have. But in the last four years, here's some things that have happened in my life. I've had an assistant pastor's wife have an affair with a deacon's son in my church. Split the church wide open. And of course, it was never their fault. Two years ago, say what you want about me, but I'm a mama's boy. Two years ago, my mother battled with cancer for three years and she finally passed away. I remember the night I was there, my daughter and I got to spend the last night with her. She had went the health way. She did not go into chemotherapy and all this other stuff. The last night, my daughter and I were there, and we were holding her hand, and she had gotten to the point where she didn't eat any white flour, white sugar, anything that was bleached. She went three years not doing any of that. She died when she was 74 years old. She's a very godly woman. I remember the last night, I was sitting there, and we were singing songs and reading the Bible to her. I remember she grabbed my hand, and she was incoherent to anything, but she grabbed my hand and she rubbed my fingers. And I knew what that meant. To you, it would mean nothing. To me, it meant she was getting ready to pass away. And here's what she meant by that. She had told me a week before that, if something, I want to look good in the casket. And for three years, she had not put fingernail polish on. And she rubbed my finger, and that was her way of telling me that she wanted me to paint her fingernails. I remember Megan and I holding our hands up, and they were scrunched up. We held them out, and we painted them. And I remember, I told her, I said, you just got to wait until they dry. And I looked at her, and she said that, and you could tell she was struggling. She couldn't say anything. She was struggling to keep them out. And then I said, OK, Mom, they're dry. And I saw her put her hands back where they felt comfortable. I remember going to her funeral and seeing over 300, 400 people go to her funeral. I saw people get saved at her funeral. There's not a day that goes by that I don't want to call her. My wife's former pastor molested her as a child. And all this came out in the last couple of years. My wife's brother was molested by the same pastor. This all came out. I had a youth pastor. I had an affair with a 15-year-old girl in my school. Presbyterian principle when I got to the church. Right, Brother Spencer? What were they thinking? I think that was under his administration. But I had a pastor try to sue me. Oh, you should have seen the letter I wrote back to him. I have 25 students. The same group of people pulled 25 people out of our school to try to sandbag us in August and knock us out. Try to start their own school. Oh, I'd love to see that school. But I want to tell you something. Those 25 kids were the worst kids we ever had. And I'm thankful they left. We have a spiritual school now. When they did that, we were $90,000 in the hole. I saw God in a miraculous way turning all that money back in. We have the normal things, the toilet, septic tank, and all those things mess up, paint. One week in the summer, I made the mistake of saying, our air conditioner, no, not our air conditioner, something went wrong. One of our printers went wrong, one of our main printers, and I made a mistake at church and I said, what else could go wrong? Well, the following week, we had an air conditioner unit go down. We had about almost all of our computers in our computer lab went down. We had a van go down and two buses go down. I got up from the pulpit and I said, what else? And before I could get it out, they said, no, don't say that. I want to tell you something. You have problems. You have people that you spent a lot of time with in the ministry. And they'll turn on you. One of the teenagers I worked the most with, his name was Josh Montrose in Illinois. And I moved to another church. And I found out about three months after I left, he had went up to the top of a bridge and jumped off and committed suicide. You're going to have hurt. Are you ready for it? What I'm asking you is, you have about 250 students in here. Don't quit. But I can also tell you, that was my problems, my passion, my prayer. Last year we needed two teachers. Actually, three teachers. We didn't know where we were going to get them. Two teachers just started coming to our church with degrees and what we needed them to be in. We had a Spanish teacher that dropped out on us and tried to sandbag us again with that same crowd. Got down to two hours. before, and all of a sudden a man called and said, I'm a Spanish teacher. Do you have an opening? Oh, yes, we have an opening. We had three great teachers come in this year. We had someone give us a clavinova, a $5,000 instrument. Just recently, we had $10,000 worth of chairs given to us. $10,000 worth of books, a bag of books. What else do I have? We had $4,000 worth of desk given to us. You want to tell you how God is in control? The dump calls us. And we are in Statesville and Mooresville is a city down below us. The dump calls us and says, we've got desk here that Mooresville, the city of Mooresville, the school department are throwing away. There's nothing wrong with them. I think that's interesting because they didn't throw them away in the Mooresville landfill because they knew they would get caught. I don't know anybody at the dump. They call us up and say, we've got about 150 desks. Would you like to have them? I talked to my assistant pastor, Brother Paddock, my principal, and he said, I've been praying for desks. I just didn't know the dump was going to answer our prayers. The $90,000 all came in. We have one little debt, and it'll be paid off next week. We went from 120, when Brother Spencer was there, we were around about 170, 180 in three years. We'd have kept everybody. We'd have been around about 250. But you know what? God sometimes weeds people out. And at the times, you don't understand it, but it's good. We have about 110 on Sunday night and 110 on Wednesday night. But I want to tell you something, God is good. And I look at this, and I look at verse 9, He will keep the feet of His saints. And the wicked shall be silent in darkness. And if you get anything from me, you get this. The last part of that verse says, For by strength shall no man prevail. It's nothing that I have done. I just sit back and watch God do wonderful things. People will say many things about you. What will they say about you when you get out of school? Have tough skin. Understand that. Some of your closest people that will follow you will be the ones that will hurt you. But that does not change the fact that God is in control. And He is God. Hannah, you know what her name means? Grace. What an appropriate name. A meaningful name for her name. What will your name mean now? What will it mean later? I was just talking to Andrew and Bowdoin on the way over here, and it's a small world. He was telling me one person that was one of the most influential people in his life. He said his name. I said, what? And I explained what he looked like. He said, yeah, that's him. He said he was a roommate of mine in college. That was before I was saved. I was scared to death of what He was going to tell about me. You know what? If you were to ask Him what I was then and what I am now, they're two different stories. I don't need you to quit. God doesn't need you to quit. There's going to be adversities. There's going to be problems. Have passion in what you believe. And pray a lot. And God will get you through everything that you're going to go through. God is good all the time. With every head bowed and every eye closed. Lord, I think of these college students in here. Many from different states. Lord, I've been in the ministry for 15 years and I've seen people come and go. And I thank you for the stand that this college has. But Lord, let them realize when they get out and they get in these ministries, people are counting on them to finish the course that's in front of them. And with that said, Satan is counting on trying to discourage them, maybe with health problems, financial problems, situation problems. Lord, let us understand that you are bigger than any problem that we have. We must have passion for you. We must be fervent with what we do. We must be faithful. We must even take it to the point where we fast and we're very serious about what we're doing. Let us always remember when we go through a storm and we see that you're in it. But we must go back to you and thank you for what you've done. And thank you for what you've made us. Be with these college students. Don't let them quit. This world is counting on them. This country is counting on them. My kids are counting on them. Lord, be with this invitation that people will just nail it down to the altar and say, I am not going to quit. I am not going to quit. Thank you for Hannah, the lady full of grace and a prayer warrior. Lord, be with this invitation in Jesus' name. With heads bowed and eyes closed, if you could stand for me.