for that. God bless you this morning. In the book of Judges, I want to read a couple of verses to you out of chapter number 16. The Lord will help me this morning, and I'll be as brief as He'll let me be. I'm going to preach to you that He's put in our heart this morning. The men wouldn't let me do anything last week. I did this on the radio. You might get it done a portion of the day. I don't know. I'm not used to coming to church on a Sunday and having to sit down. But I enjoyed today. I enjoyed listening to the boys preach. They've done a good job. And if all's alright again this morning, we'll do what we can to be obedient to the Lord. You found that place in the Bible, the 16th chapter of the book of Judges. Familiar story in the Bible. We'll read a couple of verses here and maybe read a couple of others as we go through the message this morning. Verse number 19. And I said, and she made him to sweep upon her knees, and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head. She began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. He awoke out of his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times before and shake myself. And he wished not that the Lord was departed from him. That's all I want to read to you this morning from the text. The Bible says, in the book of 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 6 and 7, Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober, for they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. The Bible has a lot to say about falling asleep. Many warnings about Christians going to sleep or falling asleep. In the book of Ephesians it says, Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead. Now a person that is sleeping is not dead, but they appear dead. I've made this statement many times about being faint in your mind. That's a warning to Christians, not to be faint in your mind, because that's where the battle is. If you're saved this morning, the devil can't get your heart. The Lord's already got your heart. But what the devil can give is your head. He can get your mind. That's why I rejoice about heaven so much and the new body because when we get there we're going to get a saved mind to go with our saved heart. And I thank God for that. I rejoice in that and I look forward to that. The battle's in the head for the Christian. It's a statement that's been made many times. It's almost a cliche, but they say You can't help what goes in your head, but you can help what you keep on. And a person that's asleep cannot fight. A person that's asleep can't hear very well. If we're Christians, we're to be awake according to the scripture and be sober so that we might hear the voice of God or that we might see the direction of the Holy Ghost in our lives. I'm not talking about Crawling in the bed, getting under the covers, and passing out. That's not the kind of sleep we're talking about this morning. But people of God can appear to be awake and yet be asleep all the time. They fall asleep on me all the time. Brother Jerry, I've been preaching 29 years. Been a bunch of sleepy folks, sleepyheads, y'all. My youngest son's a sleepyhead, always has been. And it'll take a crane and a bulldozer sometimes to get that kid awake and get him out of bed in the mornings. He's getting better at that now that he's got a job. He's got to get up in order to get a payday. A lot of times it takes motivation to wake us up. Amen. It's a sad state of affairs that we're as asleep as what we are in this day and age. I'm not as surprised as some people. For the Bible tells us it's gonna be like this in the last days. Gonna be a lot of folks asleep in the last days. Saxon fell asleep in dangerous times. And Christians today have fallen asleep in dangerous times. Now it's not good to go to sleep at any time as a child of God, but these are especially dangerous times. Dark times in which we live. We could go through the timeline of our present history. You don't have to go back very far to see how the things have changed drastically, morally speaking, in our country. Just apart from the battle alone, without even quoting scriptures, just the decency of mankind has gone away. Simple discretion is no longer characteristic or a trait. of someone's characteristics anymore. Simple discretion. People just knowing when to talk and when not to talk. When to listen, when to speak. When to move, when not to move. People don't have that discretion anymore. And just simple morals and respect. You know, I look back in our history as Americans, those founding fathers we refer to many times. I'm positive all those men were not saved. But they had an amount of fear towards religion and towards God that they had respect to those that were saved. They had respect to the people of God and to the church of God. They listened to the man of God. They found direction in the scripture. You know this, many years ago, I can remember it being this way, but you can talk to an unchurched person somebody that wasn't raised in church and you could tell them that the Bible said something and they would look at you and say, well, if the Bible says it, then it must be right. But we live in a world today of God haters and Bible haters. We've raised a generation that is anti-God. Amen. There's been a war launched against the Word of God, and when I talk of the Bible, I'm not talking about all those other versions. I'm talking about the KJV. If you don't happen to those this morning, what I read to you don't sound the same. It don't read the same, and in most cases, don't mean the same. Amen. We need a revival of the Word of God in America. Amen. Vanessa was a king at one time in the history of Israel, and the Bible said he did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Many of those kings were bad kings. There were no bad ones and there were good ones. Brother Greg, when you read about the history of Israel, they had many kings that led the people of God astray. of my friend, and I'm not talking about this human weakness. I'm talking about leading them to the point of the worship of idols, to human sacrifice. I mean men that have drifted so far away from the things of God, they didn't even acknowledge God in their thoughts. We have presidents in our recent history that are godless. Preacher, don't get off on politics. I'm already on it. And I've been on it for a long time. John the Baptist was on it. Amen. He'd been hard pressed to get John the Baptist not to preach about politics. Amen. He said, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. That's not what Jesus said. And render unto God that which is God's. Jesus preached about politics. Amen. And we used to live in a country where you could trust politicians to do what they said they'd do. Now you know they're lying when their mouth is open. Amen. And I'm not being critical. I'm not saying that all of them's lost and headed to hell. But what I'm saying, my friend, is generally speaking, as a whole, this evening, if you've got your trust, as Michael said earlier, in a political party, and if you're looking to the White House, No wonder you're discouraged and defeated and wondering aimlessly through this life. I'm not looking at the White House to deliver us. I'm not looking at military strength and power that overwhelmed some of the country and bring home victory again. What we need in America is a revival of the word of God. I'm not talking about at the White House. I'm talking about over at our house. Amen. before America is ever affected by the power of God. The people of God must be awakened by their sleep and out of their slumber this morning and be sober-minded and vigilant, the Bible said, because our adversary, the devil, hath broken the vow as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He's launched his attack on the Word of God. He's launched his attack on the people of God. A friend, it's high time, Romans 13 and 11, I say it's high time that we awake out of our sleep. Amen. I believe good preaching wakes people up. What do you think? Amen. I believe good prayerful preaching, holy ghost preaching, amen, hellfire preaching will wake people up. I believe that's why we need to be a church every Sunday. So the preacher of the Word of God can jostle you around, shake you while you're under the covers, amen, and wake you up out of your sleep and keep you moving forward, pressing on toward the high calling and the mark of the Lord Jesus Christ. A friend today, however many times as I preach this morning, however losing, But the Bible said, Woe, me and Slope, and the enemy came in and sowed tares among the wheat-treeing. The devil's not my friend coming in under sheets. That's the boogeyman this morning, but he's coming in right under our nose, sitting on the front row of our churches. How many times he's standing in the pool pit of churches across this country, and who's wicked us into believing all this liberalism and laid back churchism is getting the job done for him. We're missing the mark this morning. Amen. Praise the Lord. I remember coming to church when it was just about every Sunday. Somebody was going to get loose in the Spirit of God. Somebody was going to get out. They used to call it getting out of bounds. Amen. We need to get outside of our boundaries. This morning when church becomes uncomfortable again for the world and for sinners. My church services and my preaching don't affect them. And your worship don't affect them. And our prayer don't affect them. My friend, we've gone to sleep on the Lord this morning. Amen. Oh yes, we need a revival in our lives. We need a good shaking in our spiritual land this morning. We've gone to sleep. The Bible said that Samson laid his head in the lap of Goliath. Let me state this this morning. Every time you think of Samson, you also think about Goliath. Amen. Every time you think about Jonah, you always think about the way. That's right. Amen. That's exactly right. And I don't want that to be the definition of my final days. If you go on and read the book of Judges, you'll find the end of Samson's life. And he died in shame. He died in distress. How he fell asleep in the lap of Sam's friend. How Satan rocked him to sleep. And you'll notice in the verses how Delilah kept pressing him and urging him. And kept coming back one time. I didn't lie to her. I didn't tell her one story after another. But it didn't slow her down. She just kept pressing and kept pressing until she finally got what she wanted out of Stetson. And that's exactly how the devil, how it will work on our lives. Amen, we can't win that battle. While we're asleep, we can't hear. Amen, we can't see. Oh yes, I'm conscious to all that's going on around us. And spiritually, we didn't sleep too long. Amen. I'm not discounting sleep. There's a time for it. Amen. For the physical man. I'm not discounting that folk need their rest. I get that. I understand that. But there's no place to slow down and quit when it comes to spiritual matters and spiritual things. The Bible don't tell us to take and walked in our testimony and our witness, the Bible said there, therefore remaineth a rest for the people of God. It don't tell us we find it here, but it remaineth for the people of God. It's coming one day, Brother Jerry. But while we're here, our hand need to be on the plow, one in the work and one on the weapon, and pressing on toward the mark of the high calling of God. My friend, this morning there's no place to lay down and go to bed on God. Amen. Help us, Lord, to wake up this morning. We need to be awakened to the reality that we live in. People say there's good in every man. I had a man tell me one time, he said, I look for the good in everybody. I said, you're going to be looking a long time. The Bible says there's none good, no, not one. Amen. The Bible says man in his best state is altogether vanity. Whenever the church world finally figures out that we cannot do this without the help of the Lord, we'll be in good shape. But folks that's trying to have a church without God, trying to sing without God, preach without God, trying to teach without God, worship without God, have come to me and say, you need one of them praise teams down at the church. I will make something abundantly clear this morning. Praise does not equal worship. Worship produces praise, but praise don't produce worship. Amen. Worship is an attitude of the heart. Amen. It's an adoration toward God. Amen. It's a commitment to God. It's an attitude. There's a lot of folks that think they're holy because they quit something. They quit wearing shorts, or they quit watching TV, or they quit smoking cigarettes, or chewing a packet. That don't make you holy. A drunk can quit drinking, but he's still lost until he is born again. Amen. Quitting stuff don't make you holy. It's attitude. Your heart. Holiness is an attitude. It's not a denomination. I don't care what's on the side. Amen. I like holiness. God is holy. Most fathers don't care much for it. I like a little church about two hours on Sunday morning. That's about all them squeeze out of them, because that's about all they can stand. Amen. That's about all they can stand. Take Richard, you're rude. I'm not trying to be rude this morning. I've had people say, you get too loud. That makes me nervous. It ain't me being loud that makes you nervous. It ain't me sweating and hollering that makes sinners nervous. It's the message of God that proves your heart, how that troubles your soul. It's the truth that awakens us this morning. It's the Word of God that'll wake up America, that'll wake up the White House. And man, it don't make any difference to me who you voted for. And Joseph Biden against Donald Trump, George Bush, the whole crew, can't get born again. And live for God and live right, Saint Richard. You ain't gone way too far. We haven't gone far enough. We didn't stand on what's right. And I believe safe people will bear the fruit of a Christian life. Regardless of their occupation. Amen. Praise the Lord. They told me when I got hired home in the school system that I was going to have to tame myself about all that Jesus talk. Because I was a preacher, they knew I was a preacher. You have to be careful when they say how you do it and how you go about it. Hey man, I'm not going to be a small one that likes to live in Sparta. That's a pig I looked for a job and I failed that one. I'm not that way. I'm not trying to get fired this morning. But I'll tell you one thing, half over, after middle school one day, thank God for a principal that's got enough gone about it. Hey man, I come to find a man of God who thinks he gets sideways. There's one of those sixth grade boys got under conviction in the classroom. Amen, that's wonderful. And the principal hunted me up. He said, come with me. He said, there's a boy over here in trouble. He believes he's lost and needs to get saved. He said, let's go have a prayer meeting with this young boy. And we carried him in the principal's office, and we got down there around his desk, and we went to seeking the Lord. Amen. I prayed on that little cloud of fire. And he come up out of the floor and he said, I believe I got what I need. Amen. That's the best saying I've ever had back then. If he dies in a minute and can't even write his name, he's got the best saying that God can offer. He's got the best saying you can have in this world. Bless your heart, this poor man. I know that God is on his way to glory. He has to know that he was a great professor. Amen. That's right. Thank God I worked for a man who had no chance to know that. He's a victim of the church that saw us. I praise the Lord for it. He's a blessing to work for. Amen. It ain't every day you find people who work for a lot like that. Thank God for it. He's a blessing in my life. Still is a blessing. in my life, thank God for that. They said, you can't run the school that way anymore. I beg your pardon. It can't be run that way. They said, what about all the other religions? The Bible says don't even pay attention to them. That's right. The Bible says don't even name the name of their gods. They'll tell you to respect their religion, that you got to be inclusive to their gods and their religion. The Bible said don't pay attention to them. I'm not down there trying to love them or criticize them or throw them under the bus. Hey man, I'm not going to go on about what God told me to do. You know what Elijah done in the first 350 prophets of Baal? He prayed just like he always prayed. He preached like he always preached. He walked like he always walked. And the same God that had delivered him before answered by fire and consumed the altar and converted 850 pagan prophets It's a fire to power up this place from another world. I believe it's starting to convert sinners and bringing them over to the persuasion. Amen. Their prophets got persuaded that day. Praise the Lord. It wasn't his sprits and style that persuaded them. It wasn't his hollering and tempting and all that that persuaded them. You know what persuaded those 850 prophets of Baal? It was the fire that fell from heaven. That got me. Amen. We need some fire. What do you think? I think we need a little stirring down here. It ain't enough. Praise the Lord. Amen. I talk to pastors, and this is about the way it goes. I talk to pastors all the time. They're calling me, and I'm calling me. How's it going over at the church, preacher? And this is what they'll say. Well, as good as can be expected. That's one thing I hear. Well, pretty good, preacher, considering the way things are. That's another statement I get. I get that all the time. And you know what's happened? We've just about, Mr. Dean, we've just about got satisfied with that. Amen. With that answer. Amen. I remember telling a preacher one time, he said, well, I don't go to church. He said, but I had myself a good time. And I told him, I said, well, it's about time to go to the bridge and have a good time. You might as well go play there, go play sets, have a good time. That might be as good as it ever gets. Amen. And that's a beautiful shame that we're talking like that, that we've just settled for mediocre, around the house of God, just average things, average shirts. Average everything. When the Bible said that He has a name that's above everything named. And then the Bible said He's able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think. Why in the world would we settle for average? I don't get it. Amen. And I thought we had a pretty good day here Sunday. Hey man, we got seven days to go, I'm not ready for nothing. What do you think? Hey man, about one good thing a year is about all you might say anymore. Hey man, well, y'all look at me like I fell off the boss rocks. I still love you, but I know what I'm telling you is right. They'd gone to sleep and laughed at the lie this morning. She rocked them to sleep. You know, Peter, when they came and arrested Jesus to carry Him to that bogus and mock trial, the Bible said that Peter followed Him far off. Now, the other disciples scattered and ran. The Bible said they scattered. But Peter followed Him far off. Now we can criticize Peter, forget that distance between him and the Lord, but I imagine this morning they would have done that, or even worse, it would have been the same scenario, the same time. When men fear for their life, you know, you don't want to rock people to sleep. Spiritually, fear. We'll let that settle for a minute. Fear. I'm not talking about the boogeyman jumping out from behind the dark window. That's not the kind of fear I'm talking about. I'm not talking about them spooky Halloween movies with them jump scares. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of fear that causes us to lose focus of our faith in the Lord, and now we're more concerned about what's going on around us than we are our faith in what the Lord's able to do for us. You know what happens when we fear? We lose faith. Fear replaces faith. What do you think's been going on around this country for the past two years? The fear mongers has come out of the woodwork. Amen. They've got everybody running scared. Stay with me. Amen. I'm not trying to lose you here this morning, but I'm telling you, and I'm going to say it again, I do understand people having to take care of themselves. I take vitamins myself. I use common sense. I don't go around licking door knobs. I don't try to get sick. I understand that. But our government and the media has underlined your intelligence as though you don't even know how to take care of yourself. Amen. Amen. That's right. Amen. You know what the student nurse told me? I don't know if Ms. Jean would agree with this or not, but this is what she told me. She said one of the worst things that ever happened to our children in America was hand sanitizer. That's what she said. She said, damn, they can't run to it. She said, from one desk to the next desk, there's a pump of hand sanitizer and a pump of medicine in her hands all the time. She said, hey, I'm a personal little bug that comes through school. Every one of them gets sick because they don't have an immune system. That's right. Used to eat dirt when we were kids. We lived in the creek. That's right. Amen. We got skinned up and bruised up. Amen. We'd come in with bloody kneecaps and bloody elbows. And nobody called 9-1-1. And mama didn't have a first aid kit. That's right. Amen. I'd fall off the porch or fall down and bust my head after the film. You know what the girls folks would say back then? They'd look down at you and say, you won't do that anymore. But nowadays, they wrap them up in bubble wrap and run them to the hospital if they get scratched on them. I've coached football for years, and you'd be amazed at how many effeminate boys is trying to play football. That's right. I don't know the difference in the ball hanging out of their body, getting scratched or bruised. I told them one day, I said, there's a difference between hurt and being injured. Sure. Amen. And the strange thing to me is, well, Jerry, nobody had to tell me that when I was a kid because I knew that. But you got to tell that today. We raged the 60th generation. Amen. We've raised a generation where women are trying to act like men, and little boys are trying to act like girls. Oh, yes. Richard, you're against all that transgender stuff. I'm against everything the Bible's against. And if you're saying you are too, you're a game out of the gun. Amen. Yes, I said it. And I'll say it next time I preach. I'm against it. I always have been against it. God's against it. I'm for everything he's for, and I'm against everything he's against. Amen. If the Bible's for it, I'm for it. If God's against it, I'm against it, and you ought to be too. Amen. And I ain't making no moves about it, no excuses about it. Amen. I thank God for what's right, and I preach against what's wrong. Praise the Lord. We need to be awakened. We need a preacher to tell us what's right again. I know preachers have known I served in Blount County for over 20 years. I've been down there pastoring and preaching in churches in Blount County. And when I went down there, that's about the biggest bunch of raw bone redneck preachers I've ever run across in my life. As mean as a junkyard dog, they preached against everything. They stood on everything. This is just 20 years ago. And in 20 years time, some of the same men that I hired and put way up on the pedestal, now they'll preach all day and not preach against anything. That's right. Amen. You know what's happened to them? They got their head over the loudest loud and she's rubbing them to sleep. She's rubbing them to sleep. Amen. Brother Ben Mitchell told me a story one time. He's dead and gone. One of my favorite preachers of all time. Ain't him different. I'm the last book of the Bible. My interpretation of that was different, but I like the way he preached. I like his delivery. I like the way he stood against sin. Hey man, he told this story one time. Hey man, he told it to be the truth. Hey man, he said that he was a pastor of a church and he had 10 deacons that he'd go to sleep on while he was preaching. He said they were older men, he said they'd get spilled and they'd get sent down in there. He said I got to wondering about my preaching. He said if my preaching ain't right, you know, maybe I'm the one who ought to go to sleep. But he told them young dickens, he said, why don't you sit behind them two men, so they both sit side to side on the same pew. Why don't you sit behind them two men? He said, if they fall asleep, why don't you reach up there and thump them in the back of the head? He said, he did that one Sunday night, he seen one of them nodding off, and he thumped him back in the head, and he said, that man didn't budge. Didn't he move? Amen. Brother Billy came to church that Sunday with a silver spoon. He said, I want you to quit thumping them. He said, this time, he said, they fall asleep. He said, I want you to tap them on the head with a spoon. He said, I said, when I'm nodding off, he said, I hit him. He said, I just kind of tapped him because I didn't want to hurt him. He said, but the man didn't even move. He said, that young big one started getting upset about himself. He thought, bless God, I'm about to wake him up. He said, that man rubbed the back of his head, turned around, looked at him, nothing he could tell him that spoon. He looked at him and said, hit me again, I can still hear you. That's about where people are today. They come to church because it's something that they do. It's on the schedule, and you know why they're going to church? Because they just stopped off there to go do what they really wanted to do. That's right. And if a lot of them didn't feel obligation, they'd probably not even come at all. Amen. And a lot of folks come, so I won't call them. Try to find out where you are. But God didn't call people to run up church parties. A lot of people got the wrong interpretation of what a pastor is. and he has not been hired by the church to run search parties. I absolutely refuse, and you know, these folks here from an older generation, a lot older than I am, and I feel like this was the old-timers mindset, and I'm gonna adopt it myself. I absolutely refuse, as a pastor, to run up down these highways trying to get people to be faithful to something they never had faith in to start with. Amen. I'm not against inviting people to church, As a matter of fact, you ought to be doing that. Amen. Every one of y'all ought to be doing that. Say, Preacher, I ain't got anything to do up church. Yes, you do. Everybody you see is a prospect invited to church. Sure. A lot of people think we've hired a preacher to do that. Everybody in here knows somebody that I don't know. And you can invite them to church. Amen. And you do not hire any pastor to run up and down the highway to try to drag people down here. As a matter of fact, if anybody comes as a visitor, it's going to be y'all getting them in here. Amen. I believe preacher Orr had an important hand, but I believe it's the church, the mother church, that goes down here and gets in for bail and goes to work for God and brings him in. What do you think? Amen. Praise the Lord. I don't know if the brother next to you was not here this morning. He might remember. Amen. Some of y'all, Gene, you used to do Bible study, didn't you? How many kids we used to have back in the early 80s, like 70s? Did we have like 200, 150, 200 kids? I wasn't there when I was 87, but in the 60s and the 70s, early 70s, we'd have 200, 300 kids. How about that? In the old church. This is then how many when we were here from San Antonio. That's right. Yeah, like that many. Our son used to be over 50. Yeah, that's right, 250. You know, I don't believe for a moment that Raymond Copeland got all them people. You know who went and got their people? Y'all did. Y'all did that. Amen. It was a church that was awake. I know He went out and knocked on doors. I know He talked to people. But I'm telling you what makes a church attractive, it's not a brand name preacher, but it's a church that's on fire for God. A church that's in love with the Bible and in love with people and in love with Jesus. If we're in love with Him, I love people. I love sinners. I love them too. Amen. I believe the church was planting seeds. I believe they were going after it. The church was awakened. They were sober and vigilant. I want to be that, don't you? I want to continue on in that tradition. And I'm about to wind this down. Samson was a great man of God. I won't conclude with this. He had power with God. But the Bible said when His hair was cut, and he told her, if you cut my hair, then I'll lose my power. I'll lose my strength. I'm not gonna go into all the details of that, but that's the gist of it. He wouldn't have deliberately allowed her to do that, but it happened while he was sleeping. I don't believe he would allow that to happen in his wake, but while he was asleep, The devil snuck in there and cut his hair. And when he lost his hair, he lost his strength. When he lost his strength, he lost his power. When he lost his power, he lost his influence. It's a different dispensation. At this time, the Spirit of God was on people, not in them, but on them. They were praying, Lord, let not thy spirit flee from me. There was a fear under the Old Testament dispensation of the Spirit of God leaving me. King Saul, when I was sent, the Spirit of God left him. God took his hand off of him. Now the Spirit of God envels us. That if Samson can lose the power of God and the influence of God in his life, so can we. Amen. He was a great and powerful man, but just because he was, don't mean he will always be. He died in shame and in disgrace. The Bible said in the last verses of Satan's story of his life that his family had to come and find him and all that mess and all that rub. They had to pull his carcass out from under all that. What a great, mighty hero he was, but he died in shame. Solomon, the wisest of all men, Great man of God. Great master builder. God used him. He gave him the blueprint for the temple. God used him for the construction. Great man of God. But he died off his rocker. He's the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes. If you read that entire book, it'll make your head spin. It's almost the words of a crazy man. He said, I see the sun go up and I see it go down. He said, that's true. It's the rareness of the mind. He said, it's almost like the world's turning round and round and round, and there's no purpose in life. There's no purpose and no rhyme and no meaning. He said, a man like myself accumulates wealth. He works all his life. He lays down and dies, and another man gets what he worked for. You know what some of them are saying? They don't see any meaning to life at all. He said, all is vanity. It's almost the words of a crazy man. He sold himself out to women, he sold himself out to treasures and fame and fortune. But he did say something very wise at the very end of the police gas fees, and I believe he died knowing the truth. And he said, the whole Indian man is this, to fear God and keep his commandments. In other words, I believe the son got life before he died in the book of Ecclesiastes. He said, you can have wealth, you can have fortune, you can have fame. He said, you can be on bottom, you can be on top. And he said, all is vanity. Everything in between, all is vanity. That's what he said. A lot of people are striving today to get on top. People will step over you to get on top. They'll destroy you to get in front of you. Amen. They're living and dying by the dollar. The love of money, Brother Ed, is still the root of all evil. We talked about that this morning. People killing each other over money. You know what Solomon said? The richest and the wisest of all men, he said, it's all vanity. The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commands. And if a man can do that this morning, I believe he'll die happy in the Lord. I believe he'll die with peace in his heart. I believe he'll die with some joy in his life. Amen. Amen. I thank God this morning I've got a reason to live, don't you? Amen. I'm glad that God gives a life that is a life worth living. Suicide rates through the roof. Brother Ed was telling me this morning of a 10-year-old girl that killed herself. It reminded me of a man that I worked with. I'm going to tell you how important it is for us to be sober and diligent. This man called me. I worked with him. I thought that job went to another, but he and I got close over the past couple of years, and we've become friends. But I left that job and took another job. And he called me one day, and he said, Richard, I'm down. I'm down. His wife had just died of cancer. He said, I tell you, I don't feel He said, I just don't have any reason to live. He said, I feel like I'm losing my mind. I talked to him. I prayed with him on the phone. And I asked him that day, I said, have you ever been saved? He said, I think I have. He said, I think I'm alright. And I said, you need to know. I said, promise me before you lay your head down tonight, that you'll pray and you'll seek God. And I said, if he's not convinced of you, ask him to convince you. Ask him to trouble you. I said, pray, I said, believe this world, pray that God will do something in your life. I said, I want to hear you tell me, oh, the Father in person, that you know you've been saved. And we talked that day, Sister Betty, and when I hung up, he was weeping and crying. His wife had just died. He had her cremated. He took the board and had her buried. He was weeping and crying. And they told me, I got a phone call. Somebody I don't know, Brother Douglas Putman, I worked with him and this man for several years, Brother Douglas Putman, and he called me. And he said, Justin, I've got some sad news. I said, what's going on, Douglas? He said, Mike, I took his life last night in the recliner. He said, I dug in his mouth. He said, it ended his life. I want you to understand something. I hear this morning praying, if you keep sleeping, you keep bibble-catting around in the world and playing games with the devil, he'll rob your reason to live. He'll rob your reason to go on. He'll steal your joy. He'll steal your peace this morning. And no wonder people's going crazy and losing their mind. They're trying to live without God, and they're going to wake up in hell one day if they don't wake up. Amen. That's pretty close, that really troubled me. That really got in there for me about that man. I tell you, we don't know who we're talking with. Brother Cook used to say this. He'd say, I'd shake hands all the time, people would be smiling back at me. He said, but just to make that smile, you don't know what kind of war or battle you're fighting in your life and in your hearts. You don't know. You don't know. The Lord loves you this morning. He'll give you a reason to live, give you a reason to press on. Don't go sleeping to Lilah's wife this morning. The devil will rob you a reason to live. You know what Samson said? He said, when they plucked his eyes out, cut his hair off, they tied him to two pillars. And they tied him up, and he asked a young man to help him pull out the pillars. And he took his own life, and the life of many others. And in his death, the Bible said he had destroyed and killed more men in his death than he did in his entire life. As he took that building down, and that structure down. But I'm gonna tell you, he died in shambles, he died in a mess. He dies wrecked and ruined. I want you to understand something this morning. I want you to live right, and I want you to die right. Amen. I believe in the Savior and what we say, and I hope you're wrong. But I know Christians that have left this world. I believe they were saved, but they left in a mess. The Bible tells us to be awake, lest that day come upon you unawares. He's talking to Christians there. I love you this morning, I won't tell you anything when I'm out. And I believe what I preached to you throughout this morning, we need to wake up. We're sleeping in dangerous times, don't you think? We all come back just to hear you coming out and being cool too, while they're coming to the music.