make him welcome, my friend, brother, associate pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Carthage, Tennessee, Brother Jim Britton. Well, praise the Lord. I do not want to abuse the time. I know it's late in the day. We've had a good time already in the Lord. You know, if we didn't, uh, We didn't go any further. We've been blessed already. But I heard an old preacher say one time, he said, good music will make you feel good. And it does. Good preaching or preaching in general will make you live good. And we need both. I heard a preacher preach one time and he said one of the best ways to get yourself out of the The doldrums and out of the dumps is to just get some good music on that uplifts the Lord and encourages your spirit and it'll help you. It's what David did. He encouraged himself in the Lord and things so it's been good today but I want to be mindful of the time if you would. Take your Bibles. We're going to look at three passages to start out. We're going to be in Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah. And I want to say this before we stand. I want to say this. I commend Brother Tom for staying by the stuff. and staying in the work. And I'm of the same mind, Brother Tom, I want to finish well. There's a song out there about finishing well. Paul fought the fight, he finished his course, and I want to do that too by the grace of God. And if any man's a Christian, whether he's in full-time ministry or part-time, whatever his vocation is for the Lord, he ought to want to finish well. and I commend brother Tom, the Bible talks about giving tribute to whom tribute and giving honor to whom honor is due and I commend you brother Tom for 20 years of service and like he said and still be going at it. And that's a blessing. 20 years, you're just scratching the surface, really. Just getting going. And I'm excited to think about what I'll hear about if the Lord tarries, what I can hear about in 10, 20, 30 years to come of what's going on here at this church. It'd be a blessing. So if you would, let's all stand, please. Take your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter number 32. What I wanna do is use three verses here to build a case for just a moment. And then we're going to... I'm going to preach the Bible to you a little bit now, and I'm also going to preach a song to you just a little bit. In Deuteronomy chapter number 32, Deuteronomy chapter number 32, verse number 13, Deuteronomy 32, verse 13, this is talking about Jacob and Israel. And it says here, "...he made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields. And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." So you notice that he made him to ride on the high places. Let's look at Psalm 18. We'll turn over to Psalm Number 18, and in Psalm 18, verse number 33, Psalm 18, 33, He maketh my feet like hind's feet. He setteth me upon the high places. And then also in Isaiah 58, Isaiah 58, that's the last place we'll look as far as getting started here. Isaiah number 58. Isaiah chapter 58 verse number 14. Isaiah 58 verse number 14, the Bible says, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, and for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Amen. I want to talk to you this morning about higher ground. Going to higher ground. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, for your goodness. God, it's been good. So good, Lord. You've stirred my heart, Lord, with the music and the singing. Lord, the fellowship, it's been great, God. God, now as we look at the Word of God, would you help us to uplift the Lord Jesus Christ? God, would you help us to draw attention to Him? God, would you help us to Lord, think on things above, Lord, to mind heavenly things, God. Lord, I thank you for the Sunday school hour. I thank you for the teaching of the Word of God. Lord, it's just good to be in church today, God. Thank you for the blessings you've bestowed on this church, Brother Tom, and his ministry. God, I pray you'd give him and his wife many, many more years of fruitful service here. Lord, that there would be fruit that would remain for generations to come if you tarry. God, help us now in this hour. And Lord, we love you and we lift you up, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you. Be seated. So I want to talk to you a few minutes here about going to higher ground. Going to higher ground. There's an old hymn, and it's called Higher Ground. And that hymn, you know, as you look through a hymn book, you'll see sections of the hymn book that talk about Christian warfare. You'll see sections of the hymn book that talk about challenge and encouragement and different things, you know, a heading. And on the song Higher Ground, at the top of that thing, it talks about aspiration. Aspiration. I'm telling you, this morning, Christians need to aspire to go to higher ground. I don't like status quo Christianity. God doesn't like status quo Christianity. You know, the Laodicean church is lukewarm. We find ourselves at times just going through the motions sometimes, and the Holy Ghost not really being able to move sometimes in our services, and because sometimes we're just lukewarm. We're not going to that next level as we ought to. You know what happens? We get satisfied with what we have. We get satisfied. We really do. The Lord said over in the Old Testament, He said, Woe to them that are at ease in Zion. And I'll be honest with you, I'm just like anybody else. You know, the bills are called up, the cars are running, nobody's sick, everything's okay. Sometimes you just let your guard down and you pull your paddle up out of the water and you just ride along. And you just kind of go along with this life. And I don't think we ought to do that. I think we ought to try to go to higher ground. I know that when, listen, that the water's, it's pretty flat around here, but I'd say there's some places it can flood, and if the water comes in, I guarantee you one thing, you're not gonna sit there in the water. You're gonna go to higher ground. You're gonna try to get out of that thing. So as we look at Christianity today, we could definitely say, I could say at my house, I want to go to higher ground. Listen, listen, I'm not, don't, let's get the Sunday morning spirit thing, don't worry about being Sunday morning, let's just have church, okay? Let's just have church. You know what, you know what would make you wanna go to higher ground? That right there. That'll make you wanna go to higher ground. I got four of them. That makes me wanna go to higher ground. You know what would make you go to higher ground? Her. Higher ground. You say, what is that? That's just practicality. You ought to want to go to higher ground as a Christian. And as a man, I want to go to higher ground. You know what I want to be? I want to be a better employee. I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better father. Whatever God gives me to do every day, I ought to want to aspire to do better and go to higher ground every day. I ought to. So the Lord hopefully can help us this morning as we look at the old song, Higher Ground. In Philippians chapter 3, most of you know this verse. The Bible says in Philippians 3 verse 14, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now, what is that? Well, the first verse of that song on higher ground says, I'm pressing on the upward way new heights I'm gaining every day. That's what that song says. I heard a preacher say one time, he said, you know, there's probably more line goes on in a Baptist church during the song service than at any other time of the week. Because we sing the songs, but it doesn't come out here, does it? Think about that. Sweet hour of prayer. You haven't prayed all week. Or if you did, it's, God bless this food and forgive me of all my sins in Jesus' name. That's us. That's reality sometimes. He says here, hey, I want to go to higher ground. He said, I'm pressing on the upward way. New heights I'm gaining every day. You know what? Pressing on the upward way, that is going to involve some effort. And I'm telling you what, in America, this country, listen, we're getting lazier than lazy as far as being able to get up and move forward with something. Technology's ruining us. I'm thankful for technology. I use technology. It's a wonderful thing. But there's a lot of things in our world now that are just making us lazy. And listen, we ought to have some goals to go to higher ground and press forward and go forward. Paul said, I press toward the mark. This song says, I'm pressing on the upward way. Not the lateral way or the downward way. I'm pressing on the upward way. I want to press on the upward way. Press on. Don't be defeated. Take some effort. Do it. It's going to take some effort. New heights I'm gaining every day. New heights I'm gaining every day. Where are you at? I'm just being honest with you. Where are you at in your Christianity? Now, sometimes on Sunday morning, you know, they preach a salvation message. I'm going to tell you, you've done been told. You've already been told. If you're lost in here today, it's the Lord Jesus Christ that's going to save you. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that's going to save you. And I'm not preaching a salvation message, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you, if you're going to try to get to heaven by any other way, you're going to end up in hell. You say, well, I'm going to try to get things worked out and then I'll come to Jesus. You'll never do it. You say, well, I'm going to get cleaned up and I'll get baptized and I'll join the church and I'll help some old lady with her groceries. I'll do X, Y, and Z and I'll just see how things weigh out. You will end up in hell. So we'll just get that out of the way. You want to get saved and you want to go to heaven. You want to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did for you. You get your hands off of it and let him do it. You repent of your sin and you trust Jesus Christ. So there's the gospel message, now back to our regular scheduled programming. Now I'm speaking your language, right? You know, you're in trouble when the preacher gets in the pulpit and says, take your Bibles to 2 Corinthians channel five. People can identify with you, you know. Pressing on the upward way, new heights I'm gaining every day. Then the second line of that song, still praying on as I'm onward bound. You know what it's gonna take, it's gonna take prayer. Somebody is gonna have to intercede in prayer. And I like what Brother Tom said about asking somebody to pray. You know, it's just something about, I hate to say this because it sounds anti-man, but there's something about a woman that can get ahold of God. You always hear that grandma or that Lois or Eunice or somebody that, you know, somebody somewhere that's back there under the radar, somewhere behind the scenes that can get ahold of God. I thank God for people like that. I tell you what, I've got a wife that prays every day. In her Christianity, she's going to put me to shame at the judgment seat of Christ. I believe it. Because she is more faithful to do what God has told her to do on a daily basis, in and out, with our girls and our house and everything that she keeps going. She's way more faithful than I am. Let's be honest with you. But I tell you what, somebody's going to have to pray. Somebody's going to have to pray longer than 10 minutes. Still praying as I'm onward bound. That is praying and onward bound. That is movement. That is going. That is moving and going. As I'm onward bound, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. Listen, if you're going to get to higher ground, the Lord can plant your feet on higher ground. You may try to get to higher ground on your own effort sometimes, and you may fall. But listen, if you want to get to higher ground and stay there, the Lord can get you there, and He can keep you there. And you know what the blessing is? You can get to that higher ground, and you know what you want to do after that? You won't even higher ground. Because the water, the wicked water of this world is rising. And it's not going to abate. It's going to keep coming up. So you know what you're going to have to do? You're going to go to higher ground. You're going to have to go to higher ground. You're going to have to go to higher ground. You're just going to have to do it. Or you can stand down here, and it's just going to keep coming up on you. I want to go to higher ground. You know what you ought to do? I don't know who's a member of this church. I don't know who's visitors. Everybody here could be a member of this church or half of them be visitors. I don't know. I know a lot of you have come to help celebrate with Brother Tom. But listen, listen, you need to go to higher ground. You need to go to higher ground. And you know what that involves? That involves just practical everyday Christianity. of reading your Bible, and praying, and going to church, and trying to be a witness, and talking to your wife the right way. You know, that's higher. Listen, some of you need to go to higher ground just right there. Well, amen. You know what I see in Baptist churches, and I've seen it at my church? One of them spouses will come in carrying their Bible. Oh, good to see you, brother. Praise the Lord. Got all the trick coin phrases, all those things, got it all down. And then you hear him out in the parking lot trying to get the kids and get the wife and get everybody lined up and get out of there. And it sounds like hell on wheels. Some of you need to learn how to talk to your spouse. That'd be some higher ground. That'd be a little something to scale today. I'm talking about going to higher ground with Christianity. And this church can go for higher ground. You say, hey, here's a little place of celebration, 20 years with Pastor Tom. And you know what? That is great. I praise the Lord for it. I really do. But what about next year? Let's go to higher ground. Let's go to higher ground. So he says in 2nd Timothy, the Bible says, 2nd Timothy 1, 7, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear. Listen, if you've got a spirit of fear, God does not give you the spirit of fear. Not this kind of fear. He says, God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power. The spirit of power. I want that spirit. I want a spirit of power, a spirit of love, a spirit of a sound mind. I notice more and more these days, people's minds are not sound. People are just mentally unstable. And I mean that the right way. They're just, I mean, whether it's road rage or people on the internet or people you talk to on your daily life or whatever you're doing, people are just, they're strung out. They're not of a sound mind anymore. What is that? People just need to get to higher ground. I'm talking about Christians. I'm talking about Christians that have a spirit of all these things, of fear and all these bad things. We need a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. He says here, second verse, my heart has no desire to stay where doubts arise and fears dismay. where doubts arise and fears dismay. That is gonna happen. Welcome to life. Christianity is not some free boat ride that you just don't... Well, you get... Listen, some of you think, well, if I get saved, everything will be perfect. No. No, it won't. You'll be saved and you'll be perfect one of these days, but in the meantime, there's a life to live. Read about the life of the Apostle Paul. He didn't have a perfect life. Greatest Christian that ever lived, probably. He didn't have a perfect life at all. Now some of these new people on TV will tell you how to have a wonderful life. If you'll send them X amount of dollars or just hit your account every month, set that up. He says here, my heart has no desire where doubts and fears arise and doubts arise and fears dismay. Listen, to go to higher ground, you can't be doubting and fearing. Now, I understand there's a mentality that people get this day and time that everybody's against me. And I understand everybody's a victim now. And listen, if you're a Christian, the world does not like you. We understand that. But listen, you've got to take that thing and put it on the breastplate of righteousness. And you've got to say, you know what? I'm going to higher ground. My heart has no desire to stay where doubts arise and fears dismay. I'm not going to stay there. I don't want to stay there. I've got friends that are just hooked on negativity. And you know what? I don't hang around those friends. I don't like to, you know, I'll visit with them. I'll be nice. Good to see you, brother. Amen. That's a blessing. And I'm looking for a way to get away. I don't want to stay around those people. I don't want to be around them. I want to be somewhere where it's positive and things are happening for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what? I get down every now and then. We all do. But you can't live there. You will die there. You will die spiritually there. And you know what you need to do? Go to higher ground. Go to higher ground this morning. He said over in 1 John chapter 2, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. Paul talks about using the world, but not abusing the world. I know there's a careful balance, and I'm not necessarily going to preach on all that, but there's a careful balance in there, but I honestly, I don't love this world. Now, I love this world as in the earth. I love nature. I'm from the Appalachian Mountains in southwest Virginia. That's where I'm from. I'd just as soon sit outside in the woods than I would anywhere. You can have the sandy beaches and all that stuff. I don't like that. I don't like water and waves and beaches and all that stuff. Give me the mountains. That's why I was born and raised. But I love the world in that respect. But the world system, you realize Satan is the God of this world. According to the Bible, the world system that is in motion right now, God ultimately is in control and He's watching and He knows what's going on. But Satan, according to 2 Corinthians, is the God of this world. And that's why the world is so messed up. This world is messed up. And I'll just go ahead and say it. Have you ever seen Washington, D.C. so messed up as it is right now? You know what some of you will do? You'll live there. You'll live on Fox News trying to figure out what kind of day you're going to have every day. It's like the one fellow said, you know what you better do? You just might as well just turn it off. Because you know what you'll do? You'll have a bad spirit. and you'll be ill and your wife will just, well, he's been watching the news all morning. They don't know whether they're gonna impeach Trump or what they're gonna do. You know what? Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. I heard a preacher say this one time. He said, those two parties running this thing, he said, they're both gonna run you off a cliff. He said, it's just one party's doing about 90 miles an hour and the other one's doing about 40 miles an hour, but they're both heading for the same cliff. Well, hallelujah. That helped you right there, didn't you? This world, listen, and we have a responsibility to pray for our leaders. Don't you get me wrong. You criticize this one, you criticize that one, do you pray for them? You pray for them or just make jokes and laugh about them? Y'all pray for your president. He needs prayer. I don't care if it was Bill Clinton. He needed prayer. Isn't it good to be saved? You say, I couldn't pray for him. Well, maybe if more people had prayed for him, he wouldn't have gotten the mess he got into. See, I've done moved plum out of the Bible, haven't I? I'm in trouble now. I'm in your living room. You know what that is? That's real Christianity. That'll pray for your mayor and pray for your sheriff, even though you didn't vote for him. God, give him the wisdom not to, and give him the wisdom to. That's real Christianity. That's higher ground, rather than sitting at home getting mad and posting on Facebook and sharing memes and disliking things. Third verse of this song says, I want to live above the world. Now listen to me, I'm going to move quick here. Listen, I want to live above the world, though Satan's darts at me are hurled. First John says, love not the world, neither the things in the world. And then this song, which this song is not Bible, but the writer of this song was in the book, you know, okay. I'm safe, I believe here. He says, I wanna live above the world. Do you know what? I wanna live above the world. And I don't think I'm better than the world. My savior is. But I don't wanna ever have some holier than thou Christianity. I tell them I go into prison, we go into prison on Friday mornings, and I hadn't been in a while because I've been traveling, but we've got the largest capacity prison in the state of Tennessee. We go in there on Friday mornings. There's 2,600 inmates in there, and they're all in their uniforms, the state pajamas, we call them, and they kind of laugh at that. But listen, I tell them, I said, don't let the shirt and tie fool you. I was in the same boat some of you were in. I needed a savior. And I needed saving just as much as anybody else. If you're lost, you need saving. And I don't want to ever give the impression that I'm better than the world. But I want to live above the world. I want to hold myself up as a Christian. I want to hold myself up. And the church, listen, the church is the bride of Christ. Glorious bride it's going to be. Spotless without blemish it's going to be. And you know what the church ought to do? The church ought to see this world and say, no, I want to go to higher ground. I want to live above the world. Not with a haughty spirit. Not with arrogance. Not with some kind of spiritual that's untoward piety or something like that. Listen, you ought to want to live better than this world. You say in which way? Every way. The way you dress. The way you talk. In all manner of conversation, Paul said. What's conversation? Your lifestyle. You ought to want to live above the world. I want to live above the world. He says here, those Satan's darts at me are hurled. You know what Satan's going to do? He's going to hurl darts. The fiery darts of the wicked. That wicked over there is a capital W. The fiery darts of the wicked. You know what the devil does? He's just throwing darts. And if you're trying to do something for the Lord, you know full well that the devil does not like it. And listen, you say, well, he hasn't thrown anything at me here lately. Listen, the devil is working on it. He might be working on a 20-year plan for you. You ever think about that? He might be working on a 10-year plan to get you sidetracked, to get you out of Christianity. Not out of Christianity as in lost, but out as in ineffective. I don't want to be ineffective. I want to be effective for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says here, those Satan's darts at me are hurled. Christianity, you're gonna face obstacles, you're gonna face opposition, and you know, you're gonna have to decide. That's one of the things, I was sittin' over here, and I was so glad they asked me to come up here and play, because I'm sittin' over there, you don't know what's runnin' through your head before you get up here. I'm thinkin', do I say this, do I say that? Do I say this, do I say that? And I told him I was glad they asked me to come play, so I quit sittin' there thinkin' about that. The Bible says sometimes you answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. The other time it says, answer a fool, lest he be wise. Answer not a fool, lest thou be like unto him. There's a time to say something and there's a time not to say something. And you're going to face fiery darts and obstacles and things, and you know what you need? You need wisdom to go through that thing. and figure this thing out. Christianity, it's not a game, it's a serious business. Higher ground, we ought to want higher ground. Now the last verse and the last place we'll look, if you could turn over to Micah, that's right toward the end of the Old Testament, Micah chapter four, one of the minor prophets, Micah chapter four, verse number one, it says, but in the last days it'll come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains And it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For the law shall go forth to Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. That's going to happen one of these days. That's going to happen with it. We that this whole thing is going to you realize now because we were so zoomed in on everyday life and I understand that it's where we live. We got to function in this life. But if you'll zoom out and think you know what one of these days this thing this whole thing is going to fold up. It's going to be over with. God's going to redo everything. We're going to have some judgments. I'm just trying to run through some prophecy here real quick. We're going to have some judgments. God's going to fold the whole thing up. And we're going to go off and we're going to ride off into the sunset like the old movies. We're going to go out into eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's going to happen one of these days. And he says here in Micah chapter 4 that these people are going to go there and he talks about the mountain of the Lord. That made me think of something. I go out at night sometimes. I take my girls. We go out what we call a lantern walk. And you say, you give them a lantern? I do. A flaming lantern. I light it on fire. It's full of oil. And I give a 7-year-old today, an 11-year-old, and a 12-year-old, and a 14-year-old. I give them all flaming lanterns. And I say, let's go walking. So we take off with our lanterns, and we walk, and we walk down the country roads back home, and we get out in the middle of nowhere, and I show them the Milky Way, and I said, girls, I said, you wanna know where God is? And I show them the North Star. Now you say, nah, you got Bible on that? Well, I don't know. Everybody okay? So sides of the North, that's exactly right. And I turn them around there and I show them the Big Dipper and I show them how to sight off that Big Dipper and look at the Little Dipper at the end of the handle, the North Star. And I said, see right up there? I said, that's where God's at. I said, God's here, but He said, I said, Heaven's up there. I said, they've got these telescopes and they run around and they send images. And I thank the Lord for that stuff. Beautiful to see those things, but God ain't gonna let them see out there yet. It ain't time. Somewhere way, way out there, that's where He's at. One of these days He's going to come and He's going to set it up. And Washington, they don't want nobody to impeach Him. When He sets up His kingdom, He'll take over without firing a shot. The Lord Jesus Christ ruled with a rod of iron. I mean, He's just going to sit down and He's just going to take over. And He won't even have to say, Boo! He's just going to sit down and do it. Boy, I look forward to that. But it says here about the mountain of the Lord, in the last verse of this song, says this, I want to scale the utmost height. The utmost height. What is the utmost height? It's the highest height. It's the utmost. My utmost for His highest? You know what that is? That's the top of the mountain. I want to go there for the Lord. And you know what? Sometimes what we want to do now, we'll want to get our house in order. You know, somebody says something about the television or the internet and you want to come home with a chainsaw and a sledgehammer and you won't start tearing up the whole house because you're going to get the whole family right with God, you know. Sometimes you just need to cool your jets, right? Because it's not something you can just fix overnight or fix in 20 minutes. Some men like to do that. They won't fix everything, you know, Sunday night and then Tuesday they're back in the same shape again, you know. Amen. But what'll happen here, he wants to scale the utmost height. And you know what it is? Scaling. If you're gonna scale the utmost height, I have not seen anybody that came on this platform today go from here to there without here and here. You follow me? I didn't see one person go from here to there. They took one step at a time. They might have had to stop and rest along the way. You know what I've noticed? I've noticed when I do that, I can feel certain things that I didn't used to feel. Because you get a little older, you know. Brother Tom said he remembered 15. I remember 15. 25 and 35 and 45. You remember those things, but you know what it takes? It's one step at a time to scale the utmost height. One step at a time. I want to scale the utmost height and catch a gleam of glory bright. You know what? Because if you can get up, if you can get up, if you can get above this world, if you can get above all the problems, if you can just maybe scale the utmost height, if you can just maybe just, you know, it's going to take a while, but if you can get up to the utmost height, you might catch a gleam of glory bright. Just to get a glimpse of Him. You know, sometimes in a church service, we'll get a glimpse of Him. Sometimes we catch a gleam just a gleam of glory bright my girls They see those stars and especially in the wintertime when a cold front is coming through all that those winds and all that stuff way up high Causes those stars to twinkle and things and I think about stuff like that. I Want to scale the utmost height and catch a gleam of glory bright. I For faith, what is faith? Faith is the writer's faith. For faith has found, faith has caught the joyful sound, the song of saints on higher ground. That's what that song says. I'm sorry, I skipped ahead. But still I pray till heaven I've found. He says, I want to scale the utmost height, catch a gleam of glory bright, but still I'll pray till heaven I've found. You know what it's going to do? It's going to take consistency and faithfulness just to get to that level. And you know what? It may take your whole life to get there. Being saved is being saved, but the Christian life should be onward, forward, upward, Daily? You're not going to win all the battles, but the Lord's going to win the big one. He won the big one at Calvary for you. But as we go through this life, listen, higher ground should be your goal as a Christian. You ought to want to go to higher ground. I want to go to higher ground. For the sake of my Savior, my family, my wife, my church, my friends, I want to go to higher ground. You know what? I want to be a better Christian. I want it to be said of me that he was a better Christian. He was a good Christian back there in 2019, but I think he's an even better Christian today and being whatever time in the future that would be. That's higher ground. And Christians ought to strive for higher ground. So the chorus of the song says this, Lord, lift me up. Some of you know the song. Lord, lift me up. and let me stand. You know, Lord, lift me up. I can't do it on my own. Lord, lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven's table land. A higher plane than I have found. You are at a plane now, but you ought to want another plane. A higher plane I have found. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. That's the message this morning. Higher ground. You ought to want higher ground. If you're lost this morning, the higher ground for you is to get saved and to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and to quit putting it off and quit trying to work it out on your own. But to trust Jesus Christ, that's your first step to higher ground. You try to get to higher ground without him, you're going to slide to the bottom. The bottom. Amen. Brother Tom, you come.