I'm glad to get to be here. Most of y'all probably already know this, but Brother Homer was preaching the night that my dad got saved. And that changed our entire life, and I'll talk about it here in a little bit. So it's an honor and a privilege to get to be here this morning. And I do also want to say this, getting to travel around and go to different churches, It's not very often that you hear testimonies where people just stand up and they say, I'm glad I'm saved. And let me just say that's my favorite kind of testimony. And if you're glad you're saved, say amen this morning. And thank God that the Lord loved us this morning. And I want to show you just a thought real quick, and I won't be long, but Psalms chapter 73, and look with me in verse number 24. It says, Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart felleth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For lo, they that are far from Thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from Thee. Notice verse 28, this first little phrase, But it is good for me to draw near to God. But it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all Thy works." Now look with me at just one verse in Hebrews 10 and verse 22. I want to show you what it says at the beginning of this verse as well. It says, "...let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure blood." I want you to read those first four verses again. It says, draw near. Let's pray to the Lord. I love you, God. I thank you, Lord, God, for the opportunity to preach this morning. God, I pray you'd help us. Lord, I pray, God, that you'd give us power. Lord, that you'd touch us, give us strength. Lord, give us liberty. God, I pray you'd breathe on us. Lord, God, that you'd help us for just a little while. Lord, we love you and we thank you. And in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen and amen. You may be seated. Thank you. You can go back to Psalm 73 this morning, but We find here in Psalm 73, if you have a study Bible, it might even be in any Bible, but if you look at the top of the chapter where it says Psalm 73, it ought to say right under that, a Psalm of Asaph. And Asaph was a man, I got to study and found, that Asaph was one of the three Levites who served as the chief musician and worship leader in the sanctuary during the reign of King David. You'll find even if you look across the page at Psalm 75, right under Psalm 75, it says, to the chief musician. And that's what Asaph was. Asaph was the best singer. I believe he probably sang about like you did this morning. And Macy leaned over and said that that's one of the best singers she's heard. And she told me to listen in. It was phenomenal this morning. But Asaph was the chief musician. He was one of the three worship leaders, if you would. I found as I was studying that in the book of Psalms, Asaph wrote plenty of Psalms in the book of Psalms. We find that 12 Psalms are directly credited to him. We find it's from Psalms 50 down to Psalms 50 years, then Psalms 73 down through 83. We find that all of those that this man Asaph writes, And we find that here this morning, that as Asaph is writing Psalm 73, we find the position of where Asaph is at. We find what's going on in Asaph's mind. We find, look at me in verse number 3, I believe. Look at me in Psalm 73. It says, For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain, violence covereth them as a garment. that the subject that is being dealt with here in Psalm 73 is an age-old question that many of us have probably asked ourselves before this morning. That is, why do the righteous suffer while the ungodly seem to have everything put together? Why is it that the godly people seem to go through the problems, and the godly people seem to face the trials while it seems like the lost world, and it seems like the sinners of today have got everything they want, and it seems like their lives are all put together. Why is it that the Christians suffer while the lost folks seem to live in joy and live in pleasure and everything's fine with them? That's what Asaph is dealing with here at this point in time in Psalm 73. And we find that Asaph has gotten his eyes set over on the wicked. And he starts to ask himself, why am I serving the Lord when I could just go and live in the world and have everything that I want? Asaph begins to look over at the world and he begins to wonder why they seem to prosper. Wonders why they get filled up with pride. Wonders why their families all put together. Wonders why They never have the diseases, and they never go through the sickness, and they never go through cancer. Why is it, as Asaph says, why is it that the ungodly, and the Philistines, the Amalekites, the Assyrians, why is it that it seems like they've got everything that they want? while here I am as a child of God, living in the sanctuary of God, serving the Lord, and it seems like I'm faced with so many different trials. Seems like everything's going wrong in my life. That's where Asaph's at. And if we'd just be honest this morning, you can nod your head or say amen this morning if you agree with me. I would dare to say that many of us have been in the exact same spot that Asaph was in this morning. I mean, if we'd just be honest and quit playing church and just break away from the formalities and break away from the the rut that we get in where we come to church and we just come in every Sunday morning and we do the same thing and we leave and we come in Sunday night and we do the same thing and we leave. If we'd just be honest for a minute this morning, many of us have sat in a prayer closet and we've said, God, why is it that everything's going right at their house but everything's falling apart down at mine? I mean, if we'd just be honest for a minute, there's plenty of times that we look down and say, why is it that the lost man at work, he gets the promotion but here I am praying. And here I am serving God and it seems like nothing seems to go my way. And if we just be honest this morning, many of us have been directly and exactly where Asaph is. Wondering why it is that the lost people have got it all put together while the saved people seem to struggle this morning. We find that Asaph is struggling with this in the entire psalm. He's battling this thought. And Asaph gets to come to a point where he gets so caught up in staring at the wicked, he begins to even think, is what I'm doing for the Lord even worth it anymore? He begins to think, is really going to church three times a week, praying, reading my Bible, is it really even worth the price that I'm having to pay? Asaph begins to get in that mindset wondering, is it even worth serving God anymore? We find that Asaph begins to battle with this back and forth. And we find that he'd become jealous, the Bible says there in verse number 3, that he was envious at the foolish. But then we find that Asaph, by the end of the psalm, finally begins to get the answer to the question he's asking, is it worth it anymore? I want you to notice what he says in verse number 28. Asaph, this whole chapter, he's been staring at the wicked. This whole chapter, he's been looking at the lost folk. This whole chapter, he's been envious and jealous of what the devil has been doing in the world. But we find that he comes to the realization that he doesn't need anything that the world's got this morning. Because of verse number 28. Look at what it says. But it is good for me to draw near to God. Asaph finally gets to a point where he's done looking over at the lost world. And he's done looking over at the lost crown. He's done looking over at what the devil's doing in the world today. And Asaph finally begins to shift his focus away from what's going on down here. And he begins to lift up his eyes up to the Lord. And that's where Asaph begins to pen the words, It is good for me to draw near. To God, you say, what is Asaph saying this morning? Asaph is saying that it is better for me to pray than to ever know what it's like to be drunk, ever know what it's like to be high this morning. Asaph is saying that it's better for me to be in the house of God than to have everything that I want in the world. Asaph's saying it's better for me to have a Bible in my lap than it is for me to have the boat and the truck and to have the good promotion. Asaph says it is good. for me to draw near to God this morning. Asaph came to the realization that the lost world's got nothing in comparison to what we've got this morning. The wicked crowd, you can watch the news and it looks like they've got everything they want. It looks like they're having the time of their life. They've got nothing compared to what I've had in a prayer room on a Sunday morning this morning. They've got nothing compared to what we've got at little old country Baptist churches all up and down this hall or all over West Virginia, all over the nation. They ain't got nothing compared to the mercy and the grace of Christ this morning. And if we'd just be honest, and we'd break away from staring at the world for just a little while, and we'd break away from looking at the news channel for a little while, we'd be able to look up for just a minute, and we'd say, it is good for me to draw near to God. Because if we'd just be honest, many of us get in the same spot that Asaph was. We get to looking over at everybody else in the schoolhouse, everybody else at our work, everybody else, and we sit there and look, and think, man, they get to sleep in on Sunday mornings. Why don't I get to do that? Maybe next Sunday, I'll just skip Sunday school and sleep in. Maybe next Sunday I just won't come to Sunday night service, and I'll get to go to dinner with my family and get to hang out with everybody else. And if you aren't careful, you'll get in the spot where Asaph's at. And sometimes many of us will even go farther, and we'll sell out the Lord, and we'll start living like the lost crowd. But I'd say it'd be alright this morning if on a Sunday morning, many of us would just let it get down in our hearts those words, that Asaph wrote where he says, it is good for me to draw near to God. Can I say this morning, that as a child of God, that the day you got saved, God the Father wants fellowship out of you and I. He wants to walk close with us. If you go all the way back to Genesis chapter number 1, what was it that God created man for? He created man for fellowship this morning. That's why when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, it grieved God so bad because He could no longer walk hand in hand around the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and we lost that fellowship. But this morning, the day that you got saved, you had a high priest, and his name is Jesus Christ, and today you and I are able to have fellowship with the Lord. You say, what does that mean? That means you and I are able to draw near to the Lord this morning. Can I just say this? If there's one thing that the churches of today and the preachers of today, including myself, have sacrificed and we've left somewhere back, A couple years ago, it's the word prayer this morning, and it's the word Bible reading. Can I say we have lost our fellowship with the Lord. Isn't it sad that we've got believers that will go day after day after day and week after week after week without having prayed for an hour, without having read the Bible at all during the day, I see tonight that we've lost our fellowship and we've lost drawing near to the Lord. And then we want to look around and say, I wonder why the world's as bad as it is today. I wonder why nobody's coming to church. It's probably because the children of God have quit drawing nigh to the Lord this morning. Can I say that it'd be alright at Elizabeth Baptist Church here this morning at 1134 if some of us would just purpose it in our heart that this morning I will draw near to the Lord this morning. I think it'd be alright if some of us would quit coming just to hear a nice sermon from a preacher and to hear the good music and we'd come to draw near to the Lord this morning. We need to draw near to God. Can I say that this morning? It's time to quit talking about how bad we need to pray. It's time to simply just pray. One of my heroes back years ago, he's dead and gone now, but I love to read after him, listen to him preach, but his name was Percy Ray. And he was down in Mississippi, a big prayer warrior, but his favorite phrase was, Shall we pray? Can I say this morning, I want to modify that, change it a little bit. Shall we draw near this morning? Shall we draw near? Hebrews said, let us draw near. Let us draw near. But you know what the problem is in the rest of that verse? It said, with a true heart, having our conscience sprinkled and purified this morning. The reason why most of us, and I'm preaching to myself, not just to you, the reason why many of us don't want to draw near to God, the reason why many of us can't pray, the reason why many of us don't get anything we read out of our Bible, it's because we don't have a true heart. and we don't want to be pure. We'd rather live like the wicked Monday through Saturday and then come in Sunday and expect God to hear every prayer we pray this morning. Can I just simply say once again with ASAP, I've done said it 15 times and I'll say it again, it's good for us to draw near this morning. It's good for us to draw near. Can I say this this morning? I agree with the psalmist, it's good to draw near. Every one of us this morning have the ability to draw near to the Lord. If you're saved this morning, you've got the ability and the power to be able to draw near to the Lord. It's just a matter of fact of whether you want to or not this morning. I want to preach on this thought for just a few minutes. It is good to draw near. It's good to draw near. So why should we draw near? Why should we go forward and get closer with the Lord? I want to show you three different ways that I know this morning it's good for me to draw near. Here are three ways that Asaph found that as I was reading through, I found that they're the same for me as they were for him all these years ago. And I want to show you three ways why I know for a fact it's good for every one of us to draw near to the Lord this morning. I'm going to give these to you quick. First, I want you to notice it's good to draw near because I know Him. Because I know Him. Look at me in verse 25. Asaph says, Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. Go down to verse number 28. He says, It is good for me to draw near to whom? Draw near to God. I put my trust in the Lord God, and that I may declare all Thy works. Go back up to verse 25. I want to show you something real quick. We find that Asaph's eyes have been on the world. But once he comes to this realization that the Lord's all he needs, notice what he says. He says, there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. See, Asaph had to come to a point where he realized that he was looking at the wicked folks so much that he lost sight of how good the Lord had really been to him. He had been staring over at the lost crowd and staring over at the world for so long that he had lost sight of all the blessings that God had already given him. And we find that when Asaph finally sobers up his mind and he begins to pray, one of the first phrases he writes as the psalm shifts and the attitude of the psalm changes, one of the first verses he writes, is, Lord, who do I have in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. Asaph had come to the realization that there is nothing in this world that matters at all except the Lord. There's nothing at all. Can I say this morning, thank God for family, but the Lord is far better than family this morning. Thank God for money, but the Lord is definitely far better. He's way better than any silver, any gold. He's the King of kings, Lord of lords. He's far better this morning. And where we get in the rut is we get in such a carnal mindset, we start looking at the world, and we think, I love what I've got down here. Could heaven even really be any better than this? Can I say if there was never a street of gold, if there never was a mansion, if there never was a crystal sea, if there never was a loved one over there, it would still be worth it because He's there this morning. Because of Him. That's why Asaph says, Lord, I don't even have anybody in heaven that's better than Thee. I don't even have anybody on this earth that is better than Thee this morning. We find that Asaph had come to the realization that the Lord was better than anything that the lost crowd had. I say it's easy. Yes, the lost crowd, they've got the money, they've got the fun, they've got everything else, but their ultimate destination this morning is hell. And can I say this morning that I would rather live in a grass hut on the back side of Africa. I'm really praying that that's not what God does. God knows I'm just saying that to preach this morning. But I really don't, I heard they don't even have McDonald's over there and I live on Big Macs. But can I say this morning that if I lived in a little old place with a dirt floor, didn't have no money, didn't have any clothes, didn't have nothing, It would still be better than what the lost crowd has because I know that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is down inside of my heart. Can I say this morning, I don't know if you're with me, I feel like some of you may be asleep this morning, but can I just say that when I got saved as a seven-year-old boy, I did not understand, brother, everything that I was getting. I did not understand how great salvation really was. But it's been 13 years now and I still don't understand. everything that God did inside of me, but can I look back and say that it is better to be saved this morning than to be anything else this morning. Can I say it is better to have the Lord on the inside of your heart than to have any money in your wallet, and to have a nice home, and to have a nice car? I'd say tonight that God is ten times better than anything that the devil's got. I'd say if I know that it's good for me to draw near, it's simply because I know who he is this morning. It's good for me to draw near simply because I know who he is this morning. I was reading psychiatrists say that when they interview people, men, women, everybody, that the common statistic is what they call the 80-20 rule. And I started reading about what the 80-20 rule is. They say that people are 80% happy with their life. 80% happy with what happens in their life, what they've got, their family, their home, their cars, all that stuff. They're 80% happy with their life. They say that that 20% are the 20% of things they wish they could change about their life this morning. They have 80% of stuff that they love, but there's 20% of things that they wish they could fix, they wish they could change, they wish that they had. And psychiatrists say that people will get so focused on the 20% that they forget about the 80% that they've already got. that when they try and help marriages that are about to fall apart and they try and help families that are blown to pieces, they said that people will come in and they'll be so focused on the little thing that they forget about all the great blessings that they've got in their lives this morning. Say they'll get so focused on the 20% that eventually they will sell out the 80%, give up the 80% so they can have the 20% because they think it's going to make them happy. Can I say that is exactly how Christians are this morning. God will give us 80% of the prayers we pray. I believe God's answered every prayer just about I've ever prayed that was in His will this morning. But God will give us blessing after blessing, and He'll be great to us over and over again. And His goodness never ends. His mercy and His goodness follow us all the days of our life. He gives us grace every day. He gives us breath in our lungs every single morning, every morning. He's good to us, and yet we get so focused on the 20% that the world's got that we forget about the 80% of blessings that God's given us this morning. Can I say that if you aren't careful, you'll get where Asaph said, and you'll get so focused on the 20% that you'll look down the road 10 years from now, and you've got the 20%, but the 80% of the family that you had that was in church, and the kids that you had that loved the Lord, and the good home that God had given you, and the pastor that loved you, you'll have lost all of it. But you'll have the 20%, but the 80% will be gone this morning. I say it's time for some Christians to quit focusing on the 20. Let's look back in our life and remember the times that God's blessed us and thank God for the 80% that He's given us. Because if you aren't careful, you'll sell out for what the world's got and you'll lose everything that God's already given you. I was reading a story not too long ago from back in the 1800s of a man named Ali Hafez. I believe he was over in India. I think it was 1815, somewhere in there. They said this man, Ali, was one of the richest men that had ever lived in India at the time. And still today, if you translate all the money and the inflation and all that stuff, he's still today one of the richest men that had ever lived. Said he had this big old nice home, had this beautiful horse barn, had all these horses, all these cows, had everything. Said he had a nice family, had a beautiful wife. Everything in his life was made. Said he had it all. They said that around that time, back in the early 1800s, is when everybody started getting crazy about finding diamonds. That's when the whole diamond mining thing had really hit the scene, and that's what everybody wanted. If you didn't have diamonds, you didn't have anything. They said that all the Al-Faiths started to hang out with somebody that was a diamond miner that went and mined these diamonds and tried to find them, and said that he got so focused on the diamonds that that man had, that he became obsessed in his mind with them. He said that Ali Afeb would take weeks on end to go, and he would sail all over the country, all over the world, and he'd try and give his life to trying to find these diamonds. He'd spend weeks at a time in caves, mining, trying to find these diamonds. He'd come home, and his family would be saying, Daddy, when are you going to stay for a little while? Ali, when are you going to stick around? He'd say, well, I'm heading out the next day to go and find these diamonds. He said that he was gone all the time. He said before he knew it, he came home one day and his wife and his kids had up and left him because he was never there. He said he went and lost his family. All he still had the money, still had his home, still had everything that he wanted. So he said that, well, it's not too bad to lose my family. And he kept going every week to search for these diamonds. He said he became so obsessed with it that he was slowly running out of money. He had to start selling the stuff that he had to get these diamonds. Still hadn't even found any. He said he came back one day and he sold all his cows and sold all his horse and sold his barn, sold everything that he had just about except for his house. And he went out and took all that money and he spent that money and went to go search for those diamonds and still didn't find nothing. He said he came back for the last time and he met a man and he sold his house and sold his property. He had all these acres, beautiful land, sold everything that he had. He said that he took off and he actually came over to America for a little bit and then was overseas in Europe and different places. He said that he had given his entire life, given everything he had to try and find these diamonds. He didn't find nothing. He said that eventually all his money had ran out and all he ever had used to be one of the richest men that had ever lived. You want to know how he died this morning? He didn't die in some great casket. He didn't die getting put in some nice graveyard. He didn't die with his family and his loved ones surrounding his grave. You don't want to know where he found him dead. They found him, he had died of starvation on a bench on the side of the road. It said that Ali Afed had sold out everything to get those diamonds, never found anything, gave up everything in his life because he was so focused on the one thing that he didn't have. I was reading the history and the story. I found that just about five years after Ali Afed died, the man that bought the property off of that man, off of Ali, said that he was out one day and he was watering those horses that used to be Ali's. And he said he was giving them water in that brook that used to be Ali's. Said that as he looked down as that horse was beginning to drink, he saw something shining in the bottom of the riverbed. Said he reached down, began to dig stuff out, found one of the largest diamonds at the time that had ever been recorded to be found. You think that's crazy? Wait till I tell you the rest. Said that they started to dig because of how big that diamond was. And Ali Hafed's house was directly on top of what is known as the Diamond Mine of Golconda. Still to this day, it's the top five biggest diamond mine that's ever been found. And Ali al-Faith was living right on top of the one thing that he wanted. But he got so focused on what he didn't have that he lost everything. Lost his family, lost his home, lost his land, even lost his life, died of starvation, all because he'd become so obsessed with the one thing that he didn't have. He had lost sight of everything that he'd already been given. And if he just would have stuck around for a little while, he would have found that everything he needed and everything he wanted was directly under where he was at if he just would have been content with what he already had. Can I say this morning, that is exactly where Christians are at living in this day. We get so focused, God's given us a home. God's given you a family. God's given you everything that you want. God has blessed us beyond measure. God's been good to us. I mean, if there's anybody that agrees with me, say amen this morning, that God has blessed you this morning. God's been good to you. God's been good to me. Every one of us deserve hell. Every one of us ought to be burning in a lake of fire right now, where there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But God saw it fit out of mercy, out of grace, and out of the love of Christ to save our soul. Can I say this morning, God has blessed us this morning. And if we aren't careful, we get so focused. on the one thing that the devil's waving in front of our face, that we will sell out everything we've got, and we'll lose our family for a job, we'll lose our home for a bottle, we'll lose our family and our kids for a needle, and we'll sell out everything that we've got just to have the one thing that the devil's got for us. I say this morning, It'd be all right for some children of God to just be content with where God has placed you at. Can I ask you this morning, when's the last time, daddy, that you got up and walked the halls of your home and you said, God, thank you for the kids you've given me. God, thank you for the wife you've blessed me with. When's the last time, mama, you got up and you held those babies in your arm and you said, God, for what you've given me, but instead we go to the prayer room and we say, God, give me this. God, give me that. When's the last time we bowed at the foot of the cross and we said, God, I thank you for the 80 that I've already got this morning. When's the last time we went and prayed and we didn't ask for nothing and we prayed for an hour? Can I say this morning, it's probably been a long time for even me. Getting the rut of going down and the first thing we say, God, thank You for what You've given me. Lord, I pray You'd help me here. God, help so-and-so. God, would You give me this? God, would You help me there? Can I say that's not what prayer is supposed to be this morning. We're supposed to make our request in, but first and foremost, prayers so that we can talk to the Lord, have that fellowship with Him. You want to know what we ought to do when we talk to the Lord? We ought to worship Him. That's why God created us for fellowship and worship this morning. There is over 127 declarative statements of praise in that Bible. I believe 90 of them are in the book of Psalms this morning. Over and over it says, praise ye the Lord this morning. When's the last time you got down? You didn't beg God for something, but you said, God, thank you for the blessings that you've already given me. Can I say it's good for me to draw near simply because I know Him? And I know He's far better. He is far better. The Bible says in Hebrews 7, verse 28, I believe is what it says. It says, By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. Jesus sure is better this morning. Can I say it's good for me to draw near because I know Him? But secondly, it's good for me to draw near because I know not only Him, but I know my heart this morning. Because I know my heart. Look at me in verse 26. It says, my flesh and my heart, what? Faileth. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. It says, my flesh and my heart faileth. Now notice the next part. Our heart is going to fail if we do it on our own. What does he say in the middle line of that verse? God is the strength of my heart. We find here that Asaph says that his flesh and his heart are going to fail if he doesn't have his own strength, but that God is the portion of his cup. You see, Asaph had understood that if he's not close with God, he doesn't have a chance to make it in this world. Asaph had understood that if he goes out and does like the lost crowd does, he can do that, but his flesh and his heart are going to fail him. He doesn't have any strength in his own flesh, but God is the strength of his heart this morning. I say that in this day and age, we've been raised and taught, especially nowadays, it's even worse, but we've been told just to follow our heart. Do whatever makes you happy. Do whatever you feel is right. I think everybody, most of y'all have probably been in church most of all your life, but can I say that the Bible already tells us what the heart really is. In Jeremiah 27.9, the heart is deceitful above all things. Desperately wicked, who can know it? Can I say this this morning? You and I cannot rely on our flesh. We cannot rely on our own strength. There's not a one of us that can make it in this world on our own. There's not a one of us that can battle cancer. There's not a one of us that can battle depression and anxiety and the problems of life on our own, because our flesh and our heart fails this morning. But God is the strength of our heart. What Asaph's saying, Asaph's saying that if he's not close with God, he's an easy target for the devil to destroy. The Bible says that the devil is as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. The word devour means to utterly consume. And that's what the devil wants to do to every one of us this morning. I don't care if you've been saved for 60 years. The devil wants to destroy your life. The devil wants to consume you and devour you and ruin your life. He wants to rape your family. He wants to destroy your children, your grandchildren. He wants to ruin everything that God has given you. That's what the devil wants to do this morning. But can I say that the devil doesn't have much power over someone that every day is living as close to Christ as they can. The devil can defeat any of us. Listen, I've seen the greatest men. My pastor growing up fell, and today he's out of the ministry. My hero, my favorite preacher still to this day, he fell. So I believe any of us can fall. For me, from the pulpit to the back of the pew, every one of us have got the ability to fall this morning. We cannot get too arrogant to think that we're doing everything right and that there's just no way the devil can seep in and destroy us and destroy our lives. The devil always can get away this morning. But it's a lot harder for the devil to devour you when you're as close to Christ as you can be. I remember when I was growing up, I used to love, some kids watched sports, some kids watched action movies. I was one of the weird kids. I loved to watch the National Geographic, Planet Earth, all that stuff. until I was about nine or 10 years old and I started watching sports. But I remember when I was a kid, I'd always watch, and my favorite ones were the Africa ones. The rainforest ones, the North American ones, those were boring, but the Africa ones were cool because they had the big old lions on there. And I was watching it just the other day, my little brother had turned it on, I was watching him. I was reading an article about it as well, but the lion, when it goes to attack a group of antelope or gazelle or whatever it is that they're attacking, they don't go and grab the one that's in the middle of the pack. The lion doesn't run in, brethren, and jump right in the middle of the pack and grab the neck of the one that's in the middle running. That's not what they do. That wouldn't be very smart. They wouldn't get anything. But what the lion does is the lion will walk around the back of the pack and the back of the flock as they're running. And every now and then, one will begin to stray away from the pack and will begin to get a little bit behind. At the moment that he just gets far enough away from that pack, that lion will jump out, grab a hold of that antelope or gazelle or whatever it may be, and he'll kill it, he'll devour it, he'll eat it. And that little antelope will lose its life all because of the fact that it wasn't as close to who it should have been close to this morning. The reason that it'll die, the reason that it'll be devoured, the reason it'll be destroyed is because it wasn't close enough to everybody else, to where everybody else was this morning. That's exactly how the roaring lion, the devil, works and operates in our lives this morning. That's exactly what the devil wants to do. If you really think that the devil is going to come into the Elizabeth Baptist Church and try and hunt down, though he attacks all of us. I understand that, don't get me wrong. He oppresses everybody. He wants to see everybody fail. But you want to know who's more likely to fall this morning? It's probably not the one that's getting up every day and spending an hour in the book every morning. Probably not the person that's getting up every night before they go to bed and spending an hour in a prayer closet and it's at Sunday school and Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. You want to know who the devil's really going to be able to devour? It's the one that just floats in and out every now and then. They're here one week, and they might be here the next. It's the one that might go to church on Sunday morning. If they do, they definitely won't be back on Sunday night. It's the one that's not in the Bible. They couldn't tell you the front of it from the back of it. It's the one that doesn't know how to pray. It's the one that does not live and draw near to the Lord this morning. Can I say that if there's any reason I know that it's good for me to draw near to the Lord, it's simply because I don't want to become an easy target for the devil this morning. I dare to say that Brother Homer Hensley has worked too long here at Elizabeth Baptist Church and he's invested too much in the people that are sitting in the pews this morning. For you just to turn around and let the devil devour you, I'd say it's time for some of us to say it's good for me to draw near simply because I don't want to let the devil destroy, wreck, and ruin my home this morning. I say I've watched people. I've been a pastor's kid for eight years. I was a youth pastor for just about four years. I have watched teenagers, I've watched parents, watched marriages, watched all kinds of stuff come in. And like I said, I'm just 20 years old. I don't hardly know nothing. But if there's one thing I have seen, I've watched as people come in the back door of the church and they'll get on fire at the beginning of when they start coming. And eventually they begin to trickle behind a little bit. And I've watched as all of a sudden the man that used to be full of fire and loved reading his Bible and loved praying, All of a sudden now he quit coming to men's prayer. All of a sudden now the family starts laying out of Sunday school and starts missing Wednesday nights here and there. And I've watched those same people. I'm talking about right now. I can tell you the person. Macy can agree with me. I'm telling 100% the truth. I've watched people that were servant and they begin to drift out in their services. And today, the man's in prison. Today the man has been in jail for six or seven months. I've seen people that come in and as they begin to slowly drift out, the devil walks by their house and they don't even have any strength in their heart because God is the strength of our heart. They don't have any strength to defend themselves against the attack of the devil and the devil destroys them this morning. Can I say a few words? An old man, Brother Leonard Ravenhill, wrote many different books. They're good books. You ought to read them. Leonard Ravenhill said one thing. He wrote a poem. He said, the Christian who's not praying is straying this morning. If you aren't praying, you aren't in the Word, you aren't reading the Word of God, you aren't faithful to the house of God, you cannot expect to make it when the devil sends the fiery darts and the wiles of the devil towards your home. You'll probably fall this morning. But that's why Asaph says it's good for us to draw near. It's good for us to draw near because that gives us the power and the strength to wear in, to withstand. The Bible says in the book of Corinthians, I believe, it says that there is no temptation that comes to you that's not as such to come and may I mean that we're all tempted about the same this morning. But he says that there is nothing that the devil's got where we are not able to handle it this morning. All of us have got the ability to overcome when the devil comes by. All that matters is how close are you to this book, how close are you to Him this morning. I'd say it's good for us to draw near. Lashley and I'm done. It's good to draw near because I know Him. It's good to draw near because I know my heart. But Lashley, I want you to get this. The whole reason I preached this this morning is for this right here. It's good for me to draw near because I know who it's going to harm if I don't. I know who it'll harm if I don't this morning. Look with me in verse number 15. This is where the psalm changes. Asaph, verses 1-14, say Asaph has been talking about the wicked. This is where everything changes this morning. This is where everything shifts and everything gets different. It's when he notices this right here, verse 15. If I say, I will speak thus, saying, if I say, I'll get out of church and I'll quit living for the Lord, behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end. Surely Thou didst set them in slippery places. Thou castest them down into destruction. How were they brought into desolation, as in a moment they are utterly consumed with tears as a dream when one awaketh. So, O Lord, when Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image." And notice what he says in verse 21. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins." He got convicted over the thoughts that he'd been thinking about the lost world. But go back up to verse 15 and look at the last half of the verse. It says, I should offend against the generation of thy children. Sis, if you want to come play just soft and slow. so so