You can't beat the Lord. I tell you, you just can't beat being a Christian. People have tried everything in the universe and you can't beat it. You might be trying something else right now. You just might as well get in on this. It's the best thing. It's the best way to live. It's the best way to live. Not just, now it's certainly the best way to die, but it's the best way to live. Amen. It's not just about dying. It's about this life. First Kings chapter one. We'll read a verse or two here and we'll keep our Bibles open and look through these verses and I'll say the things that others have said about thanks. It's been wonderful to be here. The spirit of the meeting has stirred my heart. I'm sure Brother Bo can tell you the same. Some of these guys that travel a little bit, we're honored to go anywhere we're asked. Just about anywhere we're willing to go and try and be a blessing. And when you're going, that's your heart. You want to be a blessing. These singers will probably tell you the same thing. In some places you go and it's laborious. It just is. For whatever reason, it's laborious, but you're still determined, Lord, help me be a blessing while I'm here. Maybe they're going through heaviness, and you really want to be a blessing. But when it's really sweet is when you go to be a blessing, and it's not laborious, and you're getting blessings while you're there being a blessing. And so that's the way this meeting is. It has been every time that I've been able to come, and not just this meeting, but just this church in general. And so church, I appreciate the good spirit, appreciate the preacher and his friendship. And thank the Lord for you and thank the Lord for you letting me be here. And I do appreciate the good room. And I was gonna say something about the basket. I didn't know about the lottery tickets. And so I was gonna say, we try to give pretty good baskets. My wife does them and she does them up pretty good, but it's just not as fancy. Y'all's baskets are so, all the, like the chocolate in our baskets is Reese's. You know, like American chocolate, Hershey's. Y'all's chocolate is fancy. I just saw one, I'm not even supposed to eat chocolate, but I thought, I don't even know what that is, I gotta try that. And when I tried that, I thought, well now I've opened it, don't reseal, I gotta eat that whole thing. And I did, praise the Lord. And so, that fancy chocolate is going home in my basket, or I don't have a basket, my suitcase, praise the Lord. If I have to leave clothes, I will, because I'm taking that chocolate with me. 1 Kings 1, verse 1. I've got several verses we're going to look at, but we're just going to read one verse, because after Brother Bo reads his scripture, I thought, I'm not reading hardly any verses tonight. Somebody say amen right there. The expressiveness with which he reads his verses. So I'm just going to read one and read it basically monotone just like this. All right, look at it in the Bible here. Now, King David was old and stricken in years, and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for all you do. Thank you for the good spirit where my heart is so stirred. About every time they sing that song, Lord, you just move in my heart as to your faithfulness and how wonderful and good and faithful you have been in my life. And Lord, the times over and over that I have been unfaithful, and you still come through as faithful time and again, and I praise you for it. Thank you, Lord, again for this church and this place, this meeting. All the singing tonight has been a blessing, and Father, thank you for the preaching and that, Lord, you'll just stop what you're doing when we need you. What a blessing. How many times, Lord, I've cried out and you have stopped. And Lord, that verse, that one text, it says that he calleth for thee. Oh, what a great truth that you care and that you want us. And so Lord, I pray that you'd help me now and do it again tonight. We'll praise you for it in Jesus name and all God's people said. I'm just kind of going to preach my way down through these verses tonight and get to the thought right near the end, a little challenge for us. And so if you would just stay with me, I don't think I'll be very long and hopefully it'll be a blessing to you. I want you to notice, first of all, the condition, the condition of David. We read verse one, it said David was old. Seemed like the microphone, there it goes, it came back. Are we okay back there, fellas? Did it quit or did I just hear that wrong? Did it quit? They did quit. Okay, good. Because sometimes I have a lot of stuff that goes on up here that is not supposed to go on up here. Brother Wesley, the other day our sound system started ringing. Like it was ringing and I gave Brother Marvin, I said, it's ringing there. He's like, yeah, I'm working on it. Well, then it was just ringing in my head after that. Like it wasn't ringing anymore, but it started ringing. Now it's ringing in my head. And the whole time I'm like, are you ever going to fix that? Finally, I said to Brother Matt, I said, do you hear that ringing? He said, no, I don't hear any ringing. And I thought, oh, OK, well, that's just in here. OK, so sometimes that happens. So I want to make sure that wasn't just in there, that it was out here, too. So let me know if it stops, and we'll just go to this one. Are we OK? Yeah. Are you comfortable right now while I'm talking to you in front of all these people? At the table today, Brother Bo's wife was talking like I thought maybe she ran the sound. She was explaining all stuff about their sound. I said, is your wife the sound manager at church? He goes, no, no, no. I said, good, you can't yell at your wife. But you got to yell to sound man every now and then, praise the Lord. All right, chapter 2, verse 1. Chapter 1, verse 1, said David was old and stricken in years. Chapter 2, verse 1, now the days of David drew nigh that he should die. And so the condition of David here is that the great reign of King David is about to come to an end. He is old. He is frail. Literally, the heat has left his body and he is nearing the end. As a result of that, I want you to see, secondly, the decision of Adonijah. We're back in chapter 1 again. And so verse 5 of chapter 1 says, Then Adonijah the son of Hagath exalted himself, saying, I will be king. And he prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. And his father, which was David, had not displeased him at any time, and saying, Why hast thou not done so? And he also was a very goodly man. That's talking about physically his size. He was a big man, big and strong. And his mother bare him after Absalom. And he conferred with Joab the son of Zerubbabel. Is that ringing just happening in my head, or is that happening out here? Just give me this one. I'd be fine. Not really. It won't really be fine, but I thought, where's Brother Fleur? He's right over there. You know, I was thinking about how great you handled all that stuff right at the first of the service. You want that one? You want to hold that? Test. There we go. Would you like to throw it, sir? At the first of the service when he was talking about how the screens weren't working and all this, you just were smiling. And I thought, look at that. He is so calm and under control. So full of charity. Yeah. Is that what was going on on the inside or was that just for us, brother? Go ahead and confess it. Get it right. Amen. All right. Are you okay? Because this one seems to be doing fine. Is he okay? We'll see about after church, right? That's right. Okay. God bless you, brother. It's good to see you. I don't know if you'll be here the next time I come. Maybe I'm not even supposed to preach. You want me to just sing again? I don't know what's happening here. I'm out of control. Verse 7. Sometimes, Brother Wesley, I call my wife. I say, you ain't going to believe what I said tonight. And she'll say, let me guess, you told a little joke, tried to be funny? I said, yep. And they started laughing? I said, yep. She said, you lost control? I said, yep. So I got to be careful. Y'all are laughing, and I could lose control, and this would be a horrible ending to a great night. He conferred, verse 7, if you can hear me, with Joab, the son of Zeriah, and with the Bithar, the priest, and they following Adonijah helped him. Look at verse 11. Wherefore Nathan spake unto Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah, the son of Hagath, doth reign? Notice that he doth reign. And David, our Lord, knoweth it not. Verse 18, now they're talking to David. And now behold, Adonijah reigneth. And now, my lord the king, thou knowest it not. He hath slain oxen, and fat cattle, and sheep, and abundance, hath called all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab the captain of the host. But Solomon thy servant hath he not called. And so the decision of Adonijah is this. In a moment of self-promotion, in an act of self-promotion, the Bible says exalted himself. He has assumed the position of king. Now it looks like that David saw some of that stuff when it first started. Some of his activity, maybe some of the courting of men and things like that. David saw it and it says that he didn't rebuke him, he didn't call him down, he didn't do anything about it. But it also then seems to say that David did not know how far it had gone. David did not have an understanding. They said plainly, you know, thou knowest it not. David, you've gotten older, you've gotten sick, you don't go out much and what you don't know is some of that stuff you saw that you didn't stop has escalated and now Adonijah is reigning as the next king. Now I want you to think about this just a little bit. If you were a citizen of the country and you knew that David was getting up in years and perhaps he had not made any announcements or whatever about who was to be the next king, and then you see this playing out. Adonijah is having, if you will, like a parade, a coronation for himself. And if you were to see that, you would stop and think, well, wait just a minute, this makes sense. Maybe he's going to be the next one because I would give you this. First of all, Adonijah has the marks of royalty. In other words, he is known to everybody as one of the king's sons. I know a lot of times the oldest son was often the heir, but in this case Solomon was not the oldest and he indeed was the heir that God had chosen. And so you wouldn't always know which one. So if Adonijah comes along with this big parade, and boy he's got it all laid out right, and you hear that they're making the announcement that He reigns, you might begin to think, well, it makes sense. He's one of David's sons. He has the marks of royalty. I want you to see that He also had the might of royalty. See what I mean? Well, the Bible said that He had chariots and horsemen and footmen running before Him. And so it looks like he's got some military presence is what he's got, which by the way, a king would have. And so you'd say, well, he's got the marks of royalty. He's one of David's sons. He appears to have the might of royalty. He's got some military, got some men, got horsemen and all these other things. And then he has the men of royalty. I want you to look at this in verse 7. He's got military men with him. The Bible said that Joab was helping him. Now, all of the land would have known Joab. Joab was the captain of the host for David's mighty men. And Joab had won many battles. Joab was very well known. And so, if you're out there trying to figure out if this is for real, and you saw the big procession of men and horsemen and church and all of that, and then you realize, well, he is David's son, and look at all these people, and then you saw Joab, somebody would say, hey, hey, hey, look, there's Joab. I mean, that's the captain of the host, and he is with him. And then not only that he had a military man, but he had ministry men. The Bible says that Abiathar the priest was helping him. And so again, if you're just seeing this play out, you are beginning to probably believe that this is the real thing and that he's probably going to be the king. He's got Abiathar the priest helping him. He's got Joab. He's got all these men running before him. And then I want you to know that he had the money of royalty. I mean, if somebody claims to be the king and they can't put on a big party, then you're probably not going to believe that they're the king. But the Bible said that he had slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance. So he is throwing a royal sized coronation and everybody is looking at this thing and saying, man, he must be the one who is going to take the throne now that David has grown old. the decision of Adonijah to make himself the king. I want you to see thirdly the intervention of Nathan. In verse 11, Nathan the prophet, the Bible says, Therefore Nathan spake unto Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah the son of Hagath doth reign? And David our Lord knoweth it not. In verse 12, he says, Now therefore come, let me, I pray thee, give thee counsel that thou mayest save thine own life and the life of thy son Solomon. Nathan knew that God had chosen Solomon and Nathan knows how these things go enough to say this is a big deal and if he gets the authority of the throne that he will probably take the life of Solomon who would be his chief danger of taking it back. And he said, he'll kill you and then he'll kill your son if you don't listen to the advice. So Nathan gets involved and begins to talk to Bathsheba and the two of them together make the decision to tell King David what has happened. Now here's what that does. That sets in motion the actual coronation of Solomon as the true king of Israel. Now what if you again were the people? You've just seen this deal playing out with Adonijah and all these men running before him and all these people and then there's Joab and there's Abiathar. And he is taking authority as if he's the king. And he's got all of these cattle and oxen. He's had these big sacrifices and this big feast. All of this is going on. And you probably thought, well it looks like he must be the next king. And now all of a sudden another one starts taking place. And when this one begins, you look, and Solomon has... Guess what Solomon has? He has the marks of royalty. He's a son of David. And you would say, well, okay, maybe he's going to be the king. He's one of David's sons, certainly. And he has the might of royalty. And by the way, he not only has the marks of royalty, but we also know that God had chosen Solomon. And listen, the throne of Israel is God's. Amen. And he can put who he wants to on it. And he had already decided it would be Solomon. And so he has the marks of royalty. He has the might of royalty. In verse 38 it says that the Cherethites and the Pelethites went down with Solomon. Now the best I can tell, these were David's personal elite bodyguards. So they would have worn certain outfits that only that group wore, most likely. And they would have been readily recognized as David the king's elite force. So now the first guy's got some men running out before him and he's got some chariots and he's got, you know, that. But this crowd right here, Solomon's crowd, has got the Charithites and the Pelthites. It's got David's elite guard, so that might make you go, now whoa, wait just a minute. Now this may have King David's approval, because look at those guys. And then not only the might of royalty, but then the men of royalty. Just like Adonijah had military men, Joab, ministry men of Bithar. I want you to see that Solomon had military men. Benaiah, it says, was with him. Some of you might remember that name from 2 Samuel 23, David's mighty men chapter there. And it says, Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, son of a valiant man of Kabziel, who had done many mighty acts. He slew two lion-like men of Moab. He went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in a time of snow. He slew an Egyptian, a goodly man. An Egyptian had a spear in his hand, and he went down to him with a staff, plucked the spear. So he was a very famous, mighty man. And beyond that, in 2 Samuel 8, 18, it appears that he is the leader of that elite bodyguard of Cherethites and Pelethites. So he is a very well-known military man, just like Joab would have been. So if you're watching this, you're saying, OK, now wait a minute. Solomon's got the marks of royalty, just like Adonijah. He's got some men. He's got the elite bodyguard. And now he's got a military man in particular, just as high level as Joab. And how about ministry men? Well, Adonijah had Abiathar the priest, but Solomon's got Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet. So you'd say, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. He's got the spiritual guys, too. Maybe he's supposed to be the king. They both had all of these things in common. And then the last thing I said was the money of royalty, and certainly Solomon had that. The Bible said here in this text that he was riding on the king's mule. Now mules were actually in those days symbols of prosperity. In 2 Samuel 13, 29, it tells that all the princes rode on mules. And this would have been a mule specifically, again, that had you know, decorations and was adorned with much fanciness so that everybody would know it's the king's mule. I think about in the story of Esther when he said, what do you want to do to the man the king wants to, you know, recognize? And he said, put him on my mule and parade him through the street, right? And so this mule would have been recognized as this is David's particular beast. And so when you're watching this play out and you see the Cherethites and the Pelethites and then you see Banei and then you see Nathan the prophet and you see all that and then you see that Solomon is riding on David's mule. You are now probably starting to lean towards Solomon as maybe he's the real one. But I think certainly you can see all that they had in common, these two guys. Adonijah, Solomon. What's the conclusion of each? Well, look at verse 39 with me if you would. Both now have really had a coronation. One naming himself to be the king. The other, of course, the Lord wants to be the king. Look at verse 39. Zadok the priest took a horn of oil out of the tabernacle and anointed Solomon and they blew the trumpet. And all the people said, God save King Solomon. And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them. And Adonijah and all the guests, I really, just to be honest with you, kind of the carnal, smart aleck part of me really enjoys the next two verses. Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it as they had made an end of eating. So Adonijah's crew's having a big feast, celebrating that they've taken the thrones, what's going on. And it said, And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, Wherefore is this noise of the city being an uproar? Joab's smart. He's been around. He says, Boys, what was that? And then it says, While he spake, verse 42, Behold, Jonathan, the son of Bithar, the priest, came, and Adonijah said unto him, Come in, for thou art a valiant man, and bring us good tidings. And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, Verily our lord, King David, hath made Solomon king. Now you know who he's talking to right here. He's talking to Adonijah and all of those that followed him in this big party. They just heard a sound so loud it rent the earth. And when Joab asked what it was, this young man says, well, it's because King David has made Solomon king. In verse 44, the king has sent with him Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherithites, and the Pelopites. And they have caused him to ride upon the king's mule. And Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon. And they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that you have heard. Look at verse 46. And also Solomon sitteth on the throne. So he's taking his a little further than Adonijah got to go. He's sitting on the throne. Look at verse 47. You know what he did? He's weak. Remember? He's frail. But the people have now come to where he is, and he just bows himself. He uses all of his strength in verse 48. And also, Thus said the king, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which hath given one to sit on my throne this day, mine eyes even seeing it. So now they don't have to take anybody's word for it. David himself has said to everybody, Solomon's the one God has put on the throne. Look at verse 49. And all the guests, now you young people, this is a picture of the world right here. And all the guests that were with Adonijah were afraid and rose up and went every man his way. You know what they did? Thanks for the meal, see you buddy, we're out of here. Hey, Adonijah, he's our man, he's our man. And then word comes that they've made Solomon the king and David was in on it, everybody was in on it, and they're like, Adonijah, we're out of here, see you later. And they abandoned him. That's the way the world will do you, by the way. Verse 50, Adonijah feared because of Solomon and rose and went and caught hold on the horns of the altar. And it was told Solomon, saying, Behold, Adonijah feareth King Solomon. For lo, he hath caught hold on the horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon swear unto me today that he will not slay a servant with a sword. And Solomon said, If he will show himself a worthy man, there shall not an hair of him fall to the earth. But if wickedness shall be found in him, he shall die. The conclusion of each is very simply this, that Solomon was welcomed with rejoicing, and he experienced a 40 year reign for the most part of blessing and peace. I know that he didn't end well, but that was really because of his own mistakes, not because of God. God blessed his reign. Solomon was welcomed with rejoicing, Adonijah was met with resistance, and he ends up living in fear, begging for his life. Now you remember all those things that I said they had in common, but it's a very different ending. You say, well preacher, what's last of all the application for us? I want you to listen, just really one thought. That although Solomon and Adonijah had many things in common in this account, they both had pedigree. They both were sons of the king. They both had the presentation down. They knew how to put on a coronation. Adonijah's would have been very believable if you would have seen it with the horsemen and the chariots and then, you know, those military men and the priests and all. It would have been a very good deal. It would have been easily believable. And Solomon certainly was just as good. And they both not only had pedigree and presentation, they both had the support of key people. But there was one very important thing that Adonijah lacked that made all the difference. Well, you look at verse 34. David is speaking here and he says, let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, what's that next word? Anoint, everybody say anoint. Anoint him there. Look at verse 39. And Zadok the priest took a horn of oil out of the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. Now listen, Solomon's father and King Saul before him had both been anointed as king. And with each of them, the anointing was accompanied by the Spirit of the Lord. They were anointed, and the capital S Spirit of the Lord came upon them. In 1 Samuel 10 verse 1, Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon Saul's head, and kissed him and said, is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? Verse 9 and 10 says, it was so that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart, and all those signs came to pass that day. And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God came upon him. When Saul was anointed to be the king, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and began to help him. 1 Samuel 16 verse 11. Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? He said, There remaineth yet the youngest. Behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and with all of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of old and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. Adonijah had a lot of things going for him. Solomon had all the same things going for him. One ends begging for his life. One ends with the blessings of God. And the difference was this, that Adonijah was trying to do it without the anointing. Adonijah was trying to do it without the help and the leadership of the Spirit of the Lord. Even though he was the son of the king, he still needed anointing. Even though he had wealth, even though he had influence, even though he had support of key people, even though he had military might, he still needed the anointing. Listen, even though he may have had many physical gifts, I pointed out where it said he was a goodly man, and he probably stood above everybody else, kind of like Saul when it said he was head and shoulders above the rest. He was a big and strong, and he would have made a good choice from the eye. But listen, even though he had some of those physical blessings, he still needed the anointing in his life. Now listen, even though it was obvious he was a gifted leader, You can't do what all he did and get the following he got from the people he got it without being a gifted leader, a gifted communicator, a gifted team builder, a gifted motivator. And by the way, if you have those things, all of those things can certainly help in the work of the Lord. But you may have a heavy dose of every one of them and you still need the anointing. And what I'm afraid of tonight is that many of God's children are trying to do the same thing in our lives. As we have the pedigree, some of you have been saved, been in church your whole life. Some of you are children of preachers and there's nothing against all, I'm for all that. Obviously my kids are preacher's kids and you got the pedigree. And some of us not only have the pedigree, but some of us, we have the position. Maybe you have a position in your church, you're perhaps on staff, or maybe you're a Sunday school teacher, or maybe you sing a lot of the specials, or whatever the case may be, you may have pedigree position. Listen, and many of us have mastered the presentation. We know how to act in church. We know when to smile, when to say amen, when to raise our hand. And I don't think you've got to be knocked off the pew by the Spirit just to raise your hand and say amen. I think it's alright. You hear a song you've heard a hundred times and that particular part blesses you every time. You don't got to be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit to lift your hand and say amen. I understand that. But what I'm telling you is that sometimes, sometimes we're doing all of that and it is just presentation. And we have the presentation down, but the question is do we have the power And I'm afraid we often get to the place, if we're not careful, that we depend on all that other stuff. And listen, and to the average person on the sidelines, it might even make them think. Well, maybe, yeah, boy, look at that. Praise God, what a blessing. But what we must have is the anointing. I'm talking about we should not want to live our lives without, I'm talking about the supernatural help of the Lord, the supernatural leadership of the Lord, the supernatural blessing of the Lord. That's what I'm talking about now when I'm speaking about the anointing on your life. Because if you're saved, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. You have His promised presence. But you can possess Him in your soul and not be living anointed. to where it's an active working out in your life where He is actively helping and actively leading and actively blessing because the truth of the matter is to live with that anointing we must be doing God's things, God's way for God's glory. Adonijah was in an act of self-exaltation. You cannot be doing things for self-exaltation and expect the anointing to be on it. God's not going to anoint somebody else to get glory that ought to come to Him. We must have the anointing. He exalted Himself. We cannot be living our lives to please ourselves and expect to have the anointing. Listen, whatever position you have, you need the anointing. This is not just for the so-called spiritual things. You say, oh yeah, bless God, our preacher better have the anointing. Yes, he better. But I'm going to tell you something, we've got a lot of Christians, they're trying to be a godly spouse without the anointing. Oh, that don't work. You can be a pretty good spouse, but you're not going to be the spouse you could be or that probably you should be if you're just doing it in your own power and in your own wisdom and for your own selfish gains. No, listen. You know what you ought to say? God, help me be the best husband I can be. God, help me be the best wife I can be. I need your anointing. If I'm going to know how to do it, I need you to lead me. We need the anointing. Many are trying to be godly parents without the anointing. Many young people want to have the life of Solomon. Boy, they want Solomon. I know he didn't finish well, but they want that blessed part, buddy. They want God to bless everything they touch, and they want to have the wisdom, they want to have the wealth, and all of those other things. And listen, I understand that you can do everything right and have the anointing and not have all of that. We're not health and wealth and prosperity gospel preachers. We understand that. But I'm going to tell you something. I guarantee you this. You don't live with the anointing living a wicked, fleshly, self-fulfilled life. You don't get to have a life of blessing and victory and peace with God if you're just living to please your old, selfish, rebellious, carnal desires. Saul, at one point, had the anointing. I understand it's different in the Old Testament. And thank God the Holy Spirit will never leave you if you've been saved. But we know Saul had the anointing and then lost the anointing because of disobedience. You can't lose your salvation, but I'm going to tell you something, that active working of God in your life, the active leadership of God in your life, you hearing the voice of God and knowing what, listen, that can be hindered in a saved person's life. And no matter what we do, we need the supernatural help of the Lord. Jesus said in John 15 verse 5, and I don't know who you want to come to the piano, but let's go ahead and have them come. John chapter 15 verse 5, you know what Jesus said? Without me, ye can do nothing. Yeah, but I've been a wife for 30 years. You know what you need? You need the Lord to help you be a good wife. Well, I've been a Sunday school teacher for 40 years. You know what you need? The anointing. And you know what, if we're not careful, those things we have done so many times. And to be honest with you, I taught school for many years. I was a math teacher. And it got to the place that I didn't have to do a ton of preparation. I could just open that algebra book and see what chapter we're at that day. And I could sometimes walk away from the book and go to the board and start just teaching that chapter. I'd taught it so many years. I knew the steps. I could just do it. But listen, that's the way we get in these spiritual things. And I wasn't even supposed to be teaching that math class like that. No, no, I'm supposed to be trying to be anointed doing that. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Even good things I'm doing, and I'm not doing them trusting the Lord to help me, can become a sin to me. We need the anointing. You say, but I've been doing this for years, what I'm doing. I mean, I know, and that's part of the danger. We can get to the place. Now listen, the gifts of these young ladies and the gifts of this other family are unbelievable. Those boys right there, listen, they could sing half asleep better than every one of us. Right? Just wake them up. Hey, start singing. Verse two, call the song. He just popped right up and started singing. Perfect pitch. But that ain't enough. Brother Wesley's gifts of playing, that's not enough. No, not for what we're doing. The preaching that we do and some of us have been preaching a long time and you can start playing sister if you would. We can make an outline. We can throw, we can put certain illustrations, and I'm not trying, I'm just being real with you, certain jokes in certain places, certain illustrations that are heart, tugging on the heart strings, and we can present it. And look, thank the Lord that you can get better at what you do for God. We ought to want to get better. We ought to want to be the best we can be, whatever we do, we ought to do it with all of our might. But listen to me, I don't want to get to the place that I'm just depending on the fact that I've done it a hundred times. I want to say, God, God, nothing good's going to happen in that place tonight. If you don't help me. There was a Chinese Christian who said, they said he came to America and visited a bunch of churches. He went to all these different churches and before he left, his friend said, hey, what do you think about the churches in America? And listen to what he said. He said, I'm amazed at how much you're able to accomplish without the Holy Ghost. You say, he shouldn't have said that. Well, maybe he shouldn't have. But he might have been right. He might have seen us, Brother Fuller last night talked about how that we get so routine. And I'm not against that decently in an order, I understand it. But at all times we should be trying to be sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit and willing to throw our plan away. And listen, you know, we've got this song playing and this song playing and man, the Lord might stir the preacher's heart and he may say, you know what, let's just do it. He did it the other night. He said, Jacob, you come and sing it instead of whatever they had planned. You know what we're trying to do when we do that? We're not trying to put on a show. We're trying to be sensitive to the Lord so that he knows we want him to be in charge. that just because we've been having church for 30 or 40 years or whatever and this is a good church and knows how to have church, we don't want to just do it like we know how to do it. And boy, I've had him show me sometime, haven't you? I've had him, I've been sitting in services before, I hate to even tell y'all this. I've been sitting in services before where certain things are happening and it's getting good, it's almost to blow up. You know what I'm talking about? And you start thinking because you're always in charge, if you're not careful, we're always in charge. Then you start thinking, even in a church where you're not in charge, boy I hope they'll do this right here. If they'll sing this song right here, it'll go over the top. I mean, if they'll just do... And then sometimes they do something else and if you're not careful, you think, oh man, I wish they would have... I'll tell you what I've had the Holy Spirit say to me before. Something like this, so you know how to do it. So you know how to make it get on. And boy, I have to stop and say, Lord I don't know nothing. I'm sorry. And I want the anointing in my life. You know what I need for that little boy and girl that's living? Listen, raising them is going to be so different than raising my daughter and son that was born into my house. It already is so different because of just three and four years of what they lived in, Brother Bo. They've got things up in here. My kids never had anything close to that. And guess what? I can't just do it the way I did Cooper and Carson. You know what I need? I need God to tell me. I need Him to tell me. I was gonna spank him one day at school, brother Fleur. He's been very bad at school a lot. And we just told the teacher, you call us and we'll come and we'll just spank him. We'll get him under control best we can. And he had been spanked a couple different times in the previous weeks and they called me and I was at the church office and Becca wasn't there yet. So I had to leave the church office to go over there. And to be honest with you, I was mad. I thought, and I was looking, I didn't have anything. I didn't have a paddle or nothing. And some of you'll think this is crazy, but in the old days, sometimes you'd use a belt. And I thought, I'm gonna take my belt off and I'm gonna spank him with my belt. When I walked in to see him, I had it already in my hand. I got him in my office and I'm sitting there talking to him. He's staring at that belt. Now remember, he lived with a drug dealer and a drug addict for a while. An idiot of a man. And he's staring at that belt. I see him just staring at that belt. And I said, I was trying to talk to him about doing right and being good and all that. And then I saw him and I said, son, have you ever been whipped with a belt before? Then I said, who did it? And he called his sister, because that wasn't his dad, it's his sister's biological dad. He said, Willow's daddy, which was the drug addict. And when he said that, I threw that belt down. I said, well I ain't going to use it. I didn't for a second want him to associate me with the way that guy had tried to raise him. You said, well, I'll tell you what I would have done. Well, I'll tell you what I believe. Because here's what happened in that meeting. I still spanked him. But before it was over, I was weeping. Before I ever wept, I said, son, I love you, and I care about you. And man, God broke my heart in that meeting. Before long, I'm holding him, and he's crying, and I'm crying. And I still spanked him. But I'm going to tell you, God helped us in that meeting that day. And what I fully believe, what I fully believe is that the belt was my plan. And the belt would have done damage. And that God intervened, thank the Lord, because I pray. And I say, God, I need wisdom on how to raise these new ones. I need wisdom, Lord. And I believe that day that God helped me. And He gave me the anointing, the leadership, the guidance. I don't know how to do it, but God does. Aren't you glad God knows? But we need it in all areas. When's the last time you said, Oh God, I want the anointing as a dad, as a whatever, leading the youth choir. Brother Fleur, you come. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. Some have already been, I know. Maybe there's some more of us that ought to come and talk to God a little bit about the anointing. We don't want to just do things in our own power, in our own wisdom, in our own ability. We need God. But listen, we just heard him sing. He's faithful. He is faithful. He will lead us. He will guide us. He will help us. Preacher.