Nephews, that's a rough surgery. That's the one Mike really wants. I just say, Pete made my day. He come back from practicing the choir. I said, what are you singing? He said, and he gave me the number of the page, but he couldn't tell me what the song. I said, I love that. I love that. Now you got Demetria. That was good, I appreciate it. All right, Psalms, get back into this Psalm, it's 142. It's right next to where I read. This is again is a prayer of David. 142 verse one, I cried unto the Lord with my voice. With my voice on the Lord did I make supplication. He was really pleading. I poured out my complaint before him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then now newest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they primly laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand and beheld there was no man that would know me. Refuge, shelter, refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. No man cared for my soul. They didn't care whether I went to hell or not. They didn't care whether I escaped this or not. Nobody cared about me. That'd be a rough, that'd be a tough feeling to have, wouldn't it? Nobody, nobody cared for my soul. I have no doubt there's scores of people that you and I even know that kind of feel that way. I said I'm going to try my best to preach at this guy and try to, I'd say, try to portray the what's in a lot of people that's in me as we go through this age. Things have changed, and we've allowed some changes in our society and in our worship, and we allowed the, I'd say, COVID and a number of other things. Apathy set in, indifference, just unconcern kind of set in to the churches. but it set into me too. When I could see it, I got thinking about it the other night, and I don't even think I wrote the message that hit me, but I was almost screaming at how true it is that we're not good Samaritans. I'm not. And we fail so many times to even consider the needs of others, what people are going through, or the trials they're having, or the darkness of their soul, and the misery of their life, not knowing where they'll spend eternity. I never even thought about it until after Barbara passed away, and I began to learn One of the major things going on in this world, and that is loneliness. And you never think about what other people go through in loneliness. You got no idea what, just what they go through. I know there's times I'd pay somebody if they'd talk to me. Just listen. Just listen. You go through it all the time through your life, and you got somebody that something's going on in your mind, something in your experience, and you got somebody you talk to, but you want to live in a house that there's nobody to talk to. Apparently, David kind of felt that way. Nobody cared for my soul. He said that he just couldn't find any kind of safety. He says, no man would know me. No man would understand me. Nobody would really realize what I'm going through. He said they just didn't care. They didn't show any interest. No man cared for my soul. We're living in the age and time the Bible says is apostasy. And we see so much of it going on. Church is failing. I don't really understand how that happens all the time, that people don't care if they lose their church. I often pray for the, and I'm not trying to blag on myself, I'm gonna condemn myself if I can to get done with this message. But you don't know what it's like to be like this and not have a church family or a place you can go and worship with people, sing with them, hug them, talk to them about your burdens, your concern. I read too much and I follow a lot of the news about persecution of Christians across this world. You read where they come in, a lot of times the Muslims come into Christian churches burn their churches, take their daughters, kill the man, kill the preacher. Most of all, they kill the preacher. And then you've got a woman that she's got nobody, nobody. She don't have her daughters. She don't have her husband. She don't have her church. No man cared. It's in this state of mediocrity and indifference and carelessness and cold-heartedness, and certainly I allowed myself to become at times indifferent. You see, people are not as concerned. You preach a lot of times, and it doesn't seem like it moves or answers the questions of their mind or their state that they're in, their spiritual state. You wonder, why don't it bother them? I mean, what I'm pouring my heart out or what another preacher's pouring his heart out, trying to warn and advise and counsel what's going on. And so the apathy in the church, too, is, it just gives a preacher a, what's the use? Why should I burn the candle? Why should I pray for hours? Why should I care? I mean, if they don't care, why should I care? Just let them go. I mean, you can't hardly get any kind of support, can't get them to move to the altar. You wonder, what is it going to take or will it just be end like this? You see, you see the, What the Bible tells you is going to happen in the last days. And what people are going to generally be like, if you looked and, boy, Paul had some dark sayings about what's going to happen in the last days. And he talked about chapter 4, he says, now the spirits speak expressively in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith. Does that bother you? Do you see people just walk out of church and quit? Does that trouble your heart? You got no idea what it does to a preacher. He loves his congregation. If he don't, he ought to quit. And he prays for him all the time. I can name him. I can look across. I can tell where you're going to sit. I know that much about him. I can tell you where you're going to sit. And I know a lot about your life. I know some of you before you ever got born again. I still know most of you before you was even physically born. And you see them go back out into life, quit church, depart from the faith, don't believe like they used to, just live any old way. Well, what did I do wrong? What happened to them? Did I do it? What happened to the church? We get easily offended. Where we're supposed to, as we grow spiritually, Paul said, Paul told the church at Corinth, he said, I marvel that you're so easily offended. He's like, I can't believe you people get offended so easy. Why? It's just something that's gonna happen. You're different, we're different, and have different views. A lot of times, you don't know the whole truth of a story and stuff. You hear parts from here and there, and it ends up being bitterness. And Paul said, well, he said, they'll depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. That's going to be in the last days. Well, preacher, I better not. There's certainly a lot of that going around in our day, preaching. that is a far cry from what the truth is. And here's what I'm trying to say about me or self. You see, people that take in that stuff when they can't see any difference between what is truth, what is just entertainment, what is just, you know, getting together and having fun in church, And they're drifting away. They're allowing sinful things going on in church. You say, what's the use? People don't care anymore about holiness. They don't care about godliness. You can preach anything. If you make them laugh and make them have a good time, they're happy with you. Brother Harbert said one man told him, he says, just preach Jesus for 15 minutes, take your check and go on. That was another preacher told him that in a meeting. Why people, you would believe, I don't know how many of you have listened to some of those in the YouTube that I've mentioned. People are turning to witchcraft, all kinds of spirit worship. If you studied it, you wouldn't believe what a lot of people believe now and what they trusted in and what they're looking to. What I'm saying is you begin to look around and say, well, and you lose the incentive, the desire to help people. You say, I mean, if they're going to choose that life, they're going to choose to believe this, they're going to choose to believe just anything. How can I help them? Let them go. Let them live the way they want to live. That's the spirit I get at times, and other preachers do. That's why they quit. There's preachers all over this country. I think I gave you the number last year of preachers that quit last year. But my problem is, and I'm just using me, that causes members to quit. I mean, there ought to be something in us that ties a bind to us. You sing the song, must be the tie that binds. And so there ought to be or such a relationship in church that according to the Bible, when one weeps, the other weeps. When the other's happy and rejoicing, you're happy and rejoicing. You get so knit together that you really do love one another. You know, when the Bible teaches us that if we don't do that, we don't have much going for us spiritually, says it in 1 John. If we don't love the brethren, if we don't love them, we really don't have really the right relationship with God. I say to you that our faith is weak. If I ask for honesty, including my hand, how many really pray without doubting? I mean, what are you saying, preacher? Well, I'm saying I'm in this thing, too. It's been affecting me, and I pray and pray, and I have a lot of prayers answered, but I'm saying to you that I've felt the sting big time. When I've seen my wife pass away, and I was like, why didn't I pray more? Why didn't I have faith to really believe? I mean, I've seen miracles before. I've seen miracles in this church, numbers of them, numbers of miracles in this church. Say, is my faith weak? Am I getting to where I don't even believe what I pray? Have we got to the state in our lives where We just go through a ritual and prayer instead of really having faith and believing God will and can. You got to believe he can. You got to believe he is the I am. You got to believe he will. I've walking probably, actually the neighbor's property would go through right about here where I'm standing. This would be the church property from here back here, about where I'm standing, would belong to the neighbor. And I'd walk down through his property, begging God for this property. I'd ask him one time, I says, I'd really like to get about two and a half More acres off of you would kind of get me away from some problems with the water and blah, blah, blah. You know what his first answer was? Move your buildings. I kept on walking, walking, praying. Church caught a fire. When a church caught a fire, it got a fire in his heart, he sympathy for us. To top it off, the mailman would quit putting mail in my box and put his mail or my mail in his box. So he'd come up. He'd say, preacher, I got some of your mail. He said, I'm sorry about that fire. About six months later, I figured, well, I'm going to try him. Now, he's softened up on me. He's kind of softened up on me. I'm going to try him. So I said, I asked him. I said, I think he called him Shelly, something like that. And I said, would you sell me about two and a half acres? He said, I'm going to California in two weeks. He said, you'll have to get it all done on a sale in two weeks, if you want a minute. Two weeks to get it. to get him to run the boundaries of it, surveyed, and get the lawyers' papers. His part was in some kind of special account in Richmond. And almost to the day, we finished and got all the papers done and got the money and raised the money, and we got it ready. And he took off to California, and we got the property. Where's our faith today? Would you say you have the same faith you used to have when you got down and your boy was just, you just knew God was going to answer you? You just knew that. I mean, it's like the psalmist. You couldn't take a no. You knew he was going to do it. I say we allow our faith to get weak. I say, why pray? He's not answering like he used to. You think it's God's fault? No, it's our fault, my fault, my fault. Jesus said to pray without doubting. And I'll be honest with you, I just, I don't see how that we could, we could pray without doubting something. But I know we can, and I know we should. But you know yourself, we doubt. We lose faith. The verse in Hebrews 2 speaks of how great a salvation we have. It says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation. I can see. Brother Dennis will tell you. We'd come and we'd meet together, and we were going to pray a while. And we'd start praying, and we'd tell them, we'll leave it up to some of you. You want to leave? You can leave, but we're going to pray a while. And Brother Dennis and I, and I don't know, maybe a couple more would pray. right up through 11, 12, 1 o'clock. And God really was meeting with us. I really believe it made a difference in the church, made a difference in our lives. And slowly over time, we started letting up on our prayer life. You know, especially when things get going good and everything, why pray? I mean, things are fine. There's ever a time that we need to pray one for another, carry a burden for one another. Have you got a list or names of people that you get down on the floor on your knees and cry out to God for them? You carry a real burden. It's something that just drives you to your knees and to keep praying and keep praying. until God answers. What's the use? Who cares? Who's concerned? Who's gonna pray for a long time? Who's gonna carry a burden anymore? Could you honestly say that you have a list or you got burden for certain people and you're really bombarding heaven? You're trying to drive through to heaven and get a hold of God for these people? I can't say I do it all the time. I know I don't. And I know people I cry my eyes out over. And you get so well, you don't see any change in their life. You don't see them making any movements to God. And the old devil gets on your back. You ever get on your back, just tell you, no use. They're not going to pray. They're not going to give up their sin. Just forget it. Forget it. Why worry yourself? Why sweat and pray and cry and seek God? They're not going to change. They're not going to change. I've seen the worst change. I've seen the worst change. I think our faith is weak. I think our love life, our love for the souls of people, our love for God, our love for his word, Our love for the souls of man must be that he's got us pegged. He said that in the latter days our hearts will wax cold. Cold-hearted people don't carry a burden. They, we get to where we're, just go through life without any real concern, what's going to happen, what's going to affect our lives, what's going to happen to other people. You know, if we – the Bible talks about – I think I've said where there's no vision, the people perish. They just The word perish most of the time means hell. No vision. Would you say, preacher, I really believe in hell? You see, Jesus had a way of just bearing in on you a point about hell. What hell is going to be like? He gave you an example on the rich man in hell. Cry it out. Send me a dip of water on my tongue. I'm in torment. Would you say that most people really believe that hell's that bad, or would you say they really don't really don't believe in hell. Would you say that we kind of play toys and games with our mind and what we believe, and we kind of convince ourselves it can't be that bad? He wouldn't do that to us. He'd never do that to me. It isn't really like that. Do you think people speak to their own mind that way and just kind of push the torture of hell off of them? I'm saying to you, there's not many. I know that I've let up, but what I used to, really praying long. The Lord wanted me to fast the other day. I was resistant. I didn't want to fast. And he wouldn't let up. I said, yes, sir. I'll fast. I didn't want to, but I said I will. If you want me to fast, I'll fast. I felt so rotten that I even resisted, or even for a moment, would rather have some food than have a relationship with God in prayer to where I could just sense God moving in my life, just like I read here about David when he's speaking to God. Hear my prayer. When you know that he's talking to you and dealing with you and correcting you and supporting you and helping you and convicting you, I said, I was glad. I was glad that he bore down on me. I really was. I was glad. Who's going to carry a burden? Who's going to really mean business with God's sake? I'll not give up till you bless me. I'll not stop until I hear from you. In platoon praying, you pray and pray and pray and pray until heaven answers. The old songbook here talks about how you bust a hole through heaven. Have you prayed through today? Well, it used to be common. It used to be most folks understood what that meant. It used to be you'd see people weep over other people. I've watched people bring somebody to church and just stand and cry during the invitation and pray and see maybe the person they brought, see them come down the aisle. Used to be we'd really cared, we really cared about the souls of mankind. We wanted to see them saved, wanted to see their children saved before they get out and sin, get in wickedness, destroy their lives. Who, Jesus said, who? will go for me. Who will go for me? The old prophet said, hear my Lord, send me. That ought to be in our hearts. It ought to be something we've get back to something we are willing to spend time and use our life up for him. Jimmer noticed the people. that spread lies are real, really zealous in what they do. They'll run circles around us and go to door, door, door, door, after door, I mean, whatever, with their doctrines of devils, handing out stuff. I mean, go and go and go. You can curse them, whatever you want to do. I'm not going to say it. I'd curse them. Whatever you want to do, and they'll sneak coming back. It don't take much for us nowadays to just lose heart in it, lose strength, courage, willing to be, willing to, as Jeff preached to me, willing to suffer for Christ. Ain't nobody likes to get told off and cussed. Nobody likes that. But their soul is more important than that. And our obedience to God is more important than that. And nothing will bless your heart more in this world than to see somebody you prayed for come to the Lord Jesus Christ in true salvation. I say, We've lost our courage. We've lost our strength. We've lost our willingness to go. I'll say I have, in a lot of ways. Just listen to my mind convince me that there was no use. They're not going to listen. They're not going to change. Aren't you glad somebody prayed for you? Glad somebody cared. Spent time on their knees. Puddled the tears around the chair. They carried a burden for you. I remember praying with Brother Williamson. My soul. Old Brother Williamson would pray. I mean, he'd pray and pray, and it would just move you to hear him pray. I've been in a lot of prayer rooms. I was in a prayer room underneath a stairway, and it was dark, and there was about four or five men down there just praying and praying. It was late in the night, I don't know what time it was. All of them just praying and pouring their heart out and crying to God. All of a sudden, it got deathly quiet. They all stopped praying. And you could hear them, you could hear them weeping their face on the floor, weeping. It's like God blew in and answered their prayer. I'm saying we, our faith is weak. Our concern is little. Our hope is about faded and concerning the salvation of others. May God stir us up again. May he quicken us. There's a song about the old Pentecostal fire was in the books. I think it's in that book. I think they sang the other night, send the rain, send the power. And that's where we got our problem is. We don't have the power of God with us like it used to be. And it's not his fault. It's our fault. It's my fault. If we really believed that he wanted a revival in our hearts more than we do, he wants to save sinners more than we want. He wants to help us to reach people. When we back down, my soul, how we do need an awakening, a strengthening, a devotion to God, a commitment to our life, I'm going to go. I'm going to try to reach somebody. I'm going to try to deal with somebody and see if I can get him to come. I believe in coming to church. I believe the Bible says that people are saved by preaching. I believe that's the Bible. I believe that kind of hammers that word into their minds and hearts and the Spirit of God can move on them and drive that word in through preaching. And I like to see them come to church and get Holy Ghost conviction upon them. See him come down the aisle wanting God. Help us. Help us, Lord, to get over our laziness, our excuses, our weakness, and return to being bold for the Lord, standing in the power of his might, being a testimony of the grace of God. Shall we stand? Probably, if we really don't get really a true belief in God's Word about the condition of the lost, they can't help themselves. They can't. They don't know the way. Bible says in Jeremiah, it's not in man to know the way. They don't know the way. I'll say to myself, think to myself, well, they know, they've heard. They don't know the way. They don't realize who they are, what they are, where they're going. It's a rough word, strong word, sad word, lost. That's their condition, lost. And as David said, nobody cared. Nobody cared. I looked on the right hand, let refuge fail me. No man cared for my soul. There's people, you and I, me, would be surprised that they're searching, what's life all about? Why am I here? Where am I going? And they can't answer it. But if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you know the answer. You know the answer. Father, in Jesus name, would you work on us? Would you help us to overcome all these excuses? All the things we have in our life, Lord, I have them and I hate them. And I'm asking in Jesus name for victory over all of them. Whether it be the fear of the face of man, whether it be a doubting, whether it be a cold heart, whatever it is, I pray in Jesus name, you'd help us. to get a fresh love for the souls, lost souls of mankind. I'm gonna ask Clare to play us an invitation special. And play Is It All on the Altar. And if the Lord speaks to you that you've been cold, you've been indifferent, You've been calloused, uncaring. Permanently pray. God dealt with you. God convicted you, not carried a burden for others. God helps. You can only be blessed and have peace and sweet rest when you're all is on the altar of life. I'll let her pray it through one more time. If God's dealt with your heart, would say that you care, that you really care what's going on in the lives of people. Father in Jesus name, may this be a beginning of an awakening to our spiritual state, the truth of what kind of a Christian we really are. And I pray, Lord, it would cause us to examine ourselves and deal with our lives that we'd really shine better. We'd be more concerned. And we try to reach somebody every chance we could get. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. You are dismissed.