I guess it's on, huh? Good evening, everybody. I'm just glad that I could come by. I'm staying over in Gardendale with our son's place. He's out of town, so we're kind of sneaking around the house. You know, just enjoying our trip out there. We came out to La Porte, Texas. First, we went to Alvarado, Texas. A preacher friend of mine asked me to come preach, and I went over there. He had originally invited me for a camp meeting, but we didn't make it. I had an accident at home. And due to that, I didn't make his meeting. He had me scheduled, and then I called and told him I couldn't make it. And he understood, so he told me, don't worry about it. And then come to find out, we were coming again. So he said, can you just stop by and preach for me all day Sunday? So I did that last Sunday. And then we went over to La Porte, Texas, where they had a camp meeting, and we were there all week and enjoyed the preaching, enjoyed the fellowship. And our son was there, and then he left, and he flew home Friday. And then Friday morning, they packed up, and then they left for Ohio. So he's up in Ohio until Sunday evening, he'll be back. In the meantime, we're caught down here, going to a different church on Sunday, and it's a church that I've known for a long time, but I have not visited them recently, so they asked me if I could come, and I told them I would, so that it worked out for us, but I'm glad to be here. Tonight, I called your pastor, told him I was in the area. He told me, always call him if I'm in the area. He don't want me sneaking by, you know, or something like that. So I told him I would. And my wife reminded me. And we've been feeling a little bit under the weather. When we hit La Porte, Texas, we left home, it was 20 degrees. in Southwest America. A lot of people say, where do you live? I used to say I used to live in Arizona, and they used to say, oh, it's just hot there all the time. I said, not where we live. I mean, this year in New Mexico, where we live, we had, back in February, we had a whole week of 15 below. Most of you don't know what that is. And our water line froze. And I was very fortunate to have led these boys to the Lord, John and Levi Bigwater. They're big time contractors now, they're doing the work out here in South Carolina somewhere. But they had a little bit of time, they came over and they replaced my whole water line. Now you gotta understand, our water line is four foot barry. And none of this below the surface of the grass type of stuff. That won't work. Back home, the water has to be pretty deep. But even then, it froze. In the morning, I walked out, and I saw bubbling water right there in the middle of my parking lot. And I thought, what the world? I walked over there, and the water was coming out. And then behind the house, I was doing the same thing. And I thought, my soul, I have a frozen water line. So I called them and they came over and they gave me an estimate of how much it's going to be for material. I ran to Farmington for material. It's all commercial material, you know. It ain't none of this get a valve from Home Depot type of thing. You got to go all the way to water supply. I used to do that for years before I became a full-time pastor and preacher. I used to do a lot of utilities, site utilities. putting the manholes and all that stuff, and did a lot of that. So I'm pretty experienced in that stuff. So I just told them, this is what we need. I brought it back. And then I kind of walked them through it. And they managed to mess up the trencher. And the boat on it broke. And then I told them, just leave it. And then we used my tractor to dig the rest of it. And then we pretty much got the water line in one day. Got the water back on, and praise the Lord for that. But those kind of things just kind of adds to a lot of stuff that's going on in the ministry now. We're at work number eight. I think I mentioned that last time. This is 2019. They told us that we couldn't start a church. I told them, watch us. I told them, I said, last time I read in the Bible, it was the Lord that died for the church. and he's the one that built the church and the government and all that had nothing to do with it. And COVID just don't discourage it, it encourages people to get in church. And so we did that and I had people park in the parking lot and had a little four by eight platform and I stood on that and preached every day. And then we had offering, you know, when the guys took a big Tupperware, you know, and started passing it around and took up offerings. And before we knew it, we had a building build up. We had a temporary building. And then after that, we filled that up, and it seats about 30 people. And we had standing room only for the last five Sundays. I said, we need to do something else. So we went and got another building, added to it. And then while we were doing that, we prayed God to give us a building. And by that time, we had already purchased the land, the property. My brother, excuse me, my daddy's youngest brother owned property right next to us, 12 acres. He offered it for sale to his siblings, and none of those Navajos got that kind of money. He wanted 25 grand for it. So we went to camp meeting, and the last camp meeting that I hosted, and I told Brother Chandler, you all know Jim Chandler, I asked him one night, I said, brother, why don't you get up there and see if you can raise some money? He said, OK, so he came up here and he raised $17,000. Why not? I would not be able to stand here and tell you that. That's how much money Navajos have. But somehow God did that and gave him that money. And then we still lack $7,000 to make it $24,000. So the next 30 days, I challenged my people. I took $1,000, my own money, I put it in a basket in envelopes with increments from $1 to $100. And I put it in a basket. Now I put my Bible up to Matthew, and I preach on the talents. And how these people double their money, you know? And I said, now the principles apply to you today. Every one of you is going to pick up an envelope. And for the next 30 days, you're going to multiply it seven times. And to show you in good faith how much I'm leading this out, I said, I'll take the first envelope. I took the first one. I opened it. Here was $100. I had to do 7,000, so $700. And that was, you know, but just by faith, everybody did that. And we ended up, look, our goal was 7,000. We end up with 8,000. And we ended up buying the land. My uncle just about fell over when he said, where does an apple get that much money? And I told him, I said, we have a great God who's able. And nothing's impossible with our God. So we got that land. And then, of course, God started rolling the ball. And we had a church from Florida, a real good friend of mine named Mike Ellis, pastor. I mean, he's pastored by Jim McGehee. And Brother McGee, he gave $35,000 to build the shell and everything that's needed to put the building dry. So they brought this bunch of stuff. They brought two big trailers just full of metal siding. And Mike had a guy that gave 41 feet bar joists. You know what bar joists are. And he wanted to make this wall higher and that one higher, lower, and then put it at an angle. It sounded pretty good and pretty simple, but I didn't want my church to look like a chicken house. I wanted a pitch on it. So I told him, can I redesign that barge horse? And he said, if you can. So I did. I drew it back up, and I made trusses out of them. And then I put supports in between them. And then when they prefabbed it in Florida, they shipped it out on the trailer and it came and we put it together and what do you know? The thing fit perfect. And don't you like it when God does this and everything? The walls went up and then we put that stuff up and then we skinned the whole thing. And then everybody that drove by would stop by and call it Noah's Ark. It was 42 by 84 feet, big building, and just set right on top of the hill out in the middle of nowhere. And Brother Chandler just kind of got emotional. He said, man, I can't believe this building's sitting here. And I can look down that, and it looked like about 10 miles down that way. And about eight miles down the way, boy, this covers everything. And we're at 7,000 feet elevation, so you can see that building from a long ways. And so people started coming around, and then we ended up having dedication on the year the 22nd, October. We had over 200 people, 210 people came to our anniversary service. All day we just had preaching, eating, more preaching, more eating. Navajos love to eat, so we just did that all day long. A lot of people got used to it, and then they just started coming. Some of these folks that have been there, they've been praying that God give a church. There's a couple of churches there, but none of them really preaching anything. And a lot of them were just real soft. And they knew me because I'm on the radio, you know, and thank God for the radio. Your pastor had a lot to do with that radio. They asked me, what are we going to call it? I called it KGB 1611 radio station. That's what we called it. And Gary pretty much runs it now. But every once in a while, we get a glitch. But most of them people lived to it. And I guess it's me, and Brother Terrence, and Brother Wesley, and Brother Coley, and some of these men are preaching on there. And he's been trying to get more Navajos to participate and preach, but it's hard to get Navajos to preach in Navajo. I'm one of the few guys that can speak it and write it and I can talk it real fluently. And as a matter of fact, the last service I did before I came out here, Brother Jerry Begay. I guess he's probably the longest pastor on the reservation so far. He pastored the first church I started, and he just retired last year. And Brother Begay came to church that Wednesday night, unannounced, just came, walked in with his wife. And that night I was preaching, and I preached in Navajo. Because some of my people don't understand English, so I was preaching in Navajo. And afterwards, that's what he said. He said, that's probably the most eloquent Navajo I've ever heard in a long time. He said, Brother Calvin, you still have it. And he said, I want you to know that I appreciate preaching in Navajo. And so I preached quite a bit in Navajo. And then I got some people, like the young generation, you know, some of them don't know their language, so we've got to go to English. And you guys got to call time out right there and just hold up a minute. Let me appreciate these folks here and appreciate them in the English language and then come back. And sometimes the service takes longer for that, but it's all good. I mean, most of the songs we sing, I sing it that way. I sing a Navajo hymn book, English hymn book. I sing English on one side, and then the other face is Navajo. So we go back and forth. We'll sing one, two, three, four. And then we go to another song. We do that quite a bit. So we have bilingual servers, I guess is what you call it. And it seems to work. And all the other churches are doing that too, you know. But some of those, Preachers and preacher boys don't know how to speak Navajo, so it's kind of butchered, you know, but it's okay. At least they're learning a little bit, you know. Terrence was saying that, he said, I think they're talking pigeon Navajo. He made fun of them, you know. But Terrence does a good job in Navajo singing. I don't know if he's done that before here. But ask him the next time you come, ask him to sing something in Navajo. He does a good job. He did a good job at Brother Zorn's church. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so he does a real good job of that. He's learned a lot of those songs. When he was a kid, you know, he grew up in it. He grew up in both languages. It's not so hard. But anyway. The church is doing great. Got a young man, was under Brother Wesley for two years in Oklahoma, Durango, Oklahoma. He's a Navajo, but he liked Brother Wesley a lot. And so when he got hired by a trucking company out of Oklahoma, he had no choice but to move to Oklahoma. When he did, he went to Brother Wesley's church and stayed there under him for two years. And then he ended up marrying one of our preacher's daughter back in Arizona. And that preacher's daughter, Leonida is her name, but we just called her Leo. Leo has been with me ever since she was this little girl. And she's now my piano player, and her husband's my song leader. And then when I'm gone, Brother Leslie, he preaches for me, and not too bad of a preacher too, so thank the Lord for that. I think God's gonna use him, you know, just working with him gradually, hoping that God will turn him out to be a good preacher. And I got hopes for him. I just pray every day for him that God will contend to use him. So they're looking for a home now right around where we live. There's some property that's for sale. And they got an offer the other day for $10,000 for a property. They got to put a home or something on there. But they're excited. They want to get back and close to the church they can. And him and his wife, especially his wife, that's just a jewel. I mean, she loves church. Nothing that she's ever done in her life except church. She was a little girl when her daddy got saved. And then that's all she's ever known. And I'll tell you, those are the kind you want. Amen. My son is that way. He was saved when I think I got saved. And when I got saved, he got saved the same day. And he's been saved as long as I've been saved. And I'm going on four to one years. And my son is just right alongside me. And that's all he's ever known is church. He was doing a youth thing where some kids came and they were having drug problems. And he kind of made a joke about it. He said, I have a drug problem too. And they said, my dad drug me to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. So I have a drug problem, too. Anyway, he calls himself a church brat. He said, that's all I've ever known is being church brat. So not too bad when you've got a young man like that that can preach the house of fire. What a blessing that is, you know. Be able to look at that and say, God has at least done something, you know, on the reservation. When I first got saved, I used to hear these white missionaries say, Navajos don't know how to give. They don't know how to worship. They're just a bunch of heathens trying to act like Christians, and they don't know nothing. And rather than get offended and get mad, I said, we'll do something about that. I said, by the grace of God, I'm going to do that. I said, at 12 years old, I went to a church, and there was a man standing right here, a big, heavyset preacher standing right here. And he's always jolly. He's always happy. But that one day, he was crying. And he was standing right there, and his arms were just shaking, and he was weeping. And I wanted to know what he was saying, so I moved up from the back row up to here. And this is what he said. He said, God, I've been coming here many years. And these Navajo Indian kids, that's really, you know, they're just precious. But you know, God, if you would just allow me to go ahead and just keep teaching them so that one day, one of them, you can raise up to be a missionary to your own people. And I thought, I wonder what a missionary is, you know? That's what I thought. Then when I got saved, two years after I was saved, a missionary came, and he was preaching on that, and he said, God, touch your heart about trying to win your own people. Now would be a good time to do that. And that day, when I was sitting right there, God spoke to my heart, and I got up and came down here, and I told the preacher, I said, tonight, I want to give my life over to the Lord and let the Lord use me. I remember that the reason that I did that was because it took me back to that day when that man was weeping. And tonight, Mr. Rady is up in heaven. He's probably rejoicing, shouting it out, saying, God touched that boy there in my time when I was a Sunday school preacher, and that boy grew up to be a missionary. And when my pastor was dying of cancer, that's what he said, last words out of his mouth was, Brother Calvin, two things. Number one, don't let nobody talk you out of the King James Bible. Number two, he said, if God called you to your own people, you make sure you fulfill that. And don't ever get away from that, you know. He said, don't ever lose that burden you have for your people. And my wife and I, we were asked by one of our ladies in the church, Ms. Leanne, to write down all the names of people that we could remember. that we wanted the Lord in the last 39 years. And my wife and I, we were at 3,000 when we couldn't think of any other words. That's a lot of people. That's including preachers that have been called. There's 15 preachers that were called on the reservation. And there's so many of these preachers that, you know, it's just a blessing, you know, to be able to teach them the Word of God. And we get back to the reservation, we'll be doing some more that, you know, teaching the Word of God. I got Brother Gary's putting me on the radio for teaching Hebrews in Navajo. And that's going to be a challenge. First of all, you got the Hebrew people talking Hebrew. Then you got Navajo trying to copy the Hebrew so he can talk in English. That's kind of crazy, but you know, that's the way it goes sometimes. And I'm the only one, I'm not bragging, but I'm the only one on the Reds that can teach the book of Hebrews the way it's supposed to be taught. I was taught by Dr. Ruckman. And you know, a lot of people out on the reservation are scared to death, the preachers are scared to death of the book of Hebrews. They say, it's teaching that you're going to lose your salvation. I said, not in our lifetime. I said, I was talking to somebody else. You better understand what that book is written about, you know? So then they told me, why don't you go ahead and teach it? And I taught it up in Shiprock, Navajo Baptist Temple. And those people were shocked. And the only thing that I got out of that was the pastor's wife, Ms. Rachel, she came over, she said, Brother Calvin, she said, I have never in my life, and her husband's the pastor, in my life have I ever heard anybody teach the book of Hebrews like that. It was so forward, it was so clear. I finally settled after many years of being the pastor's wife that I can find that this thing is a blessing to me. So I'm not gonna be afraid to teach to my kids no more. And I thought, well, praise the Lord. And her husband just hung his head down thinking, you know. She just went and, you know, embarrassed him right in front of me, you know. I thought, my soul, you know. But you know, sometimes you can't help but speak the truth. The timing might not be good, but you know what? There's no greater time to teach the Word of God than right now. All across America, you know. So anyway, I appreciate your support. I appreciate the help you all have been to us. Every money you send, it's great help. I talked to a lady the other day, about a month ago, I think it was. And she said, Brother Calvin, you finally reached my home. And she said, I wonder if somebody gave a little bit more money so you can come reach my home. And I thought, there's a lot of truth in that. Somebody gave extra money, and I was able to fill up a little bit more gas and make it to their place. You know, the first church we started, we had 50-mile people come to church, 50 miles away. Then Plagueto was over 60 and 70 miles. Before we started Winslow Church, when Terrence went over there and started Winslow Church, before that, we had people coming from Winslow. That's 120 miles. They would come early in the morning, Sunday, and come to our church and stay all day at Tlaqueto. And one lady said, Brother Calvin, I know today's your last day. You're turning this work over to Brother Gary. So we're having a farewell dinner for you. So we're just going to bring some gifts and stuff like that, is what they said. And one lady at that meeting got up. They were giving their testimony at the end, after we ate. And she said, Brother Calvin, I want to say something. I said, go ahead. And she said, it's been 18 years since I came here. Probably a little over that, maybe 19 years almost. But she said, I came here. And she said, you know, the church that we went to, they used to have revival meetings. They used to have Bible conference. They used to have all these different meetings. But she said, here, you guys never had those meetings. She said, and all we had was camp meetings. But I remember, every camp meeting, somebody got ordained. And she said, and here we are, 18 years, she said, and all I can remember is a continuous revival in this church. She said, Sunday morning, we would come in, church didn't start until 10, we would come in at nine o'clock Sunday morning with my kids, and he said, the altars would be full of people praying. She said, I had never seen that in the church. You know why Placato Calvary Baptist Church was probably one of the greatest churches, independent Baptist on the reservation? It's because of the prayer of the people. Because of the commitment that they made. And you know, it's so hard to get there. Seven miles off rocky dirt road. And when you get there, a lot of people bring their lunch and they don't want to leave all day. They just stay there in the morning, and then in the afternoon I have church service, and then in the evening I have church service. I got three services a day on Sunday. And they always look at me and say, preacher, are you tired? And I said, no. He said, OK, why don't you preach to us again? So we go and preach some more. And boy, we just have a good time, you know? And there was revival going on in that church. I never really thought about it until she said that. She said, I compared it with other churches. And every time I turn around, some Baptist church is having a revival meeting. And he said, it's over when the last day it happens. And then everybody goes back to their own thing, you know. You know revival is something people don't like because number one, it exposes your cold heart. Amen. Number two, it exposes your callousness. And then your carnality. It exposes a lot of things. That's why people don't like revival. And and then they can't wait to go back to their own thing afterwards. That's why they don't like it But you know at our church, we never had no special meeting. We just had a continuous revival God raised up preachers and we just went in one direction started a church and Came back and then we ordained another one went in different direction and just started churches. That's why I'm at church number eight now and that took us pretty much 41 years and just to do that, you know, and we thank the Lord for that. We thank the Lord that the Lord is able to do that. And even though we're not very educated, I think a lot of our people are not very educated, but they're very sensitive to the Spirit of God moving in the midst. And they know, I told my pastor years ago, he told me, and I told the preachers that, you know, I said, when God moves, you move. When God ain't moving, don't you dare move. I tell him that, you know, and that's what I learned from my pastor. And he's taught me a lot, you know. And by the way, y'all pray for Brother Charlie Andrews, my former pastor. He's in the hospital in Birmingham. He's having a liquid pumped out of his heart, and he's got another heart procedure to go under. He came out back when I had that kidney cancer, and they had to remove my kidney on my right side. And he flew all the way out to Arizona to be with me. And he walked into my room right before the doctor put me under. And he said, Brother Kelp, don't you die on me. You're supposed to bury me. And Navajo was supposed to carry my casket. So I lived through that and everything. And now I'm hoping that before we leave out, Next Monday or Tuesday that we get to see him, the doctor will let us see him. I sure like to see him because he's one of those men that's not only a mentor, he's a hero. He's the one that came out to the reservation. I don't know, I don't think there's any Indian blood in him, but he's the only man I knew that fell in love with the Navajo people. And his heart was out there. He's visited us 68 times, the time that he came out, so many times. And a lot of time, he just came out just to be a part of what we were doing. This is what it's like to be around God's people, you know? And that was a blessing. And now that he's turned that work over and his health is not doing so well, I'd appreciate you praying for him because he's a dear friend. And I'd like to see him continue. And it was hard for me when Dr. Rutten passed away. I preached for him 2009, 2012, 2015. And then he told me 2015, at the end of the meeting on Monday, we're eating. He said, you'll be back 2018. We'll do it again 2018. Every three years, he had me come. And then when he said that, then he passed away in 2017. So we didn't have it. But I miss him. He was a good friend. He always reserved that seat for me right next to him. Whenever we ate, he always told other men, you all sit down there. This is for the reserve. And he said, I want that Indian to sit by me, because I'm going to pick his brain, and we're going to talk. So he was really into extraterrestrial stuff. And he said, what do the Indians know about that stuff? And I tell them stuff that I don't even tell my people. And I told him, I said, this is how it is. And he said, yeah, I know. I know. I know. He said it. But anyway. One of these days we'll get to see each other again, and it'll be a great time, but all that was good while it lasted, you know, and I appreciate him for it, amen. Well, enough said, I'm gonna take my Bible. If you join me, Luke, excuse me, Jude, verse three. Jude, verse three, and then I want you to turn back to 2 Timothy, chapter four. Read a couple verses there. In Jude chapter 1, of course there's only one chapter. If you look in verse 3, I want to read something there. It says this, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was delivered unto the saints. Now the Apostle Paul here in 2 Timothy chapter number 4 says the same thing. He says there, and I'll begin there, verse number 6, where I am now ready to be offered in the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me that day and not to me only but unto all them also that love his appearing. You know I'm reminded over there in the book of 1st Samuel where David when he was a young boy He wasn't even old enough to fight in the battle, and he was busy taking care of his father's sheep. And his daddy said, we'll leave the sheep with the servers. I want you to take lunch to your brothers in the battle. And David was very obedient, and he didn't beat around the bush. He took off, and he went down to see the battle. And when he got there, you know, David's showing up. And you know what he sees? He sees the army in the trenches. And David kind of was shocked. What in the world are they doing hiding in the trenches? The battle is out there, not in here, you know. And it kind of got him off guard, you know. And, you know, I was thinking about that, you know, when I was in high school. I was playing football. I got kicked out of my regular high school at 10th grade. And then I went and transferred to a different school in Arizona. And I went and applied for football, just went out to see how good I would be. I went out and I made the team. And then the coach really liked me because I was a real hard-hitting player. And I could knock your head off, you know? And so the coach was very impressed with me. So he take me different places to change me for positions. And he said, what if you carry the ball? Well, you think you can carry the ball and people not knock you out and start doing that? And then in Arizona, we came to talk at the town. They said, don't let him turn that corner. Once he turned that corner, he's gone. And so they always guarded me for that. But what they didn't know was I was also the defensive lineman. And when I did defensive lineman, you know, the coach used to tell me, you give it all you got. Give it all you got. If you're about to give up, give it some more. That's what he would say. And then I would think, man, how the world you do that? And I look at him, and he was a Benson and Hedges smoking cigarette guy. And I thought, a guy smoking like that, how in the world would he know how to do this? But what I didn't know was, You know that he was real close friends with Bear Bryant from down here in Tuscaloosa at that time. And matter of fact, during our sports banquet, he invited him and Bear Bryant was our key speaker at the football thing. And I didn't know who Bear Bryant was. Years later, they told me who he was. He's a famous football coach out of Alabama. And I said, roll tide. But that was way after that. But football games are something that is just worth doing because, folks, it's a contact sport. It makes you realize just how important you are a part of the team. And that's what I did for a while. And the coach made me captain. And then he would always tell the team on Friday night or Friday afternoon at pepper rally that, you know, you better listen to your captain. And he knows what to do, you know. And a lot of times I just stand there thinking, I don't know what to do. But he always had a lot of confidence in me and my confidence build up, and then I realized that it's like a fight It's something that you just dedicate yourself to do that you're going to finish it and Paul said that he said you know I finished my course And the Bible says that we're all saved to get in the battle. And David was disappointed that day when none of the soldiers, even his oldest brother, he said, you're just a shepherd boy, you snotty nose boy. What are you doing over here in the battle? And David's probably saying, what battle? I see nobody fighting. Everybody's in the trench. Folks, this is not the battle here. The battle's out there. This is the trench here. Amen. Every once in a while you got to get in the trench, but you need to learn to get out of it and fight the battle and face the enemy. I want to preach to you a little bit about this thing. Things worth fighting for. Things worth fighting for. And the Bible says, you know, like I said, we're saved to get involved in the battle. I'm talking about standing for something. I'm talking about fighting a good fight. You know, a lot of God's people, they're no longer in the fight. They're no longer in the battle. And that's the trouble with a lot of people. Over there in the book of 1 Corinthians, I got this verse written down here in 1 Corinthians. If you'll look with me in chapter 9, most of you know what verse I'm going to, if you know your Bible. 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Look with me there in verse 26. The Bible says in verse 9, 26, it says this. If I therefore so run, not as uncertainty so fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. There's no good to hold anything. You know, being a castaway is just putting on a shelf and just to be looked at. And a lot of Christians are that way. They're just kind of polished. They look real nice. I mean, they're dressed the part, they walk the part, but there's no fight in them. Paul was concerned about the things that he fought for. And we need to be concerned about those same things. First of all, I want to say we need to fight for truth. Truth's been trampled all across this country. And the reason why a lot of people don't like Trump is because he spoke a lot of truth. And he might not be saved, he might not be living right in God's eyes, but that man, God can use a Nebuchadnezzar, he can use a Trump. And God used him to kind of wake up America, because America was so wrong in a lot of things. Like my people, the Navajo, notoriously are known to be Democrats. And a lot of them, they swear and they vote, just Democrat, every time. You can't sway them. And when Trump won, man, you should have heard Oh, man, all the complaints from all the way from the top officials all the way down to the common man. And people just complain, and they just say, we're not going to make it. We're not going to. And then I was thinking, well, you had a president that didn't do nothing. You made it. Now you've got somebody that's doing something. At least you get ahead. That's the way I look at it. But you know, a lot of people don't believe in a fight. As a boy, I used to fight for everything. I'm the seventh of seven brothers, and my dad only could afford five saddles. And then he'd say, like he'd say in the morning, he'd say, I want two of you to go with the sheep, and then grandpa wants two of you to go after the cattle. And he said, those of you going after the cattle, you need a saddle. And so my dad would say, son, you go after the cattle, you're the best rider. And then I'd run to the barn and get a saddle and a fight is on. I mean, we got into a fight over a saddle just because we didn't have enough to go around. And I'll tell you what, I'll come out bleeding sometime, but I'll win. And I say, you ain't going to take my saddle, not today. If you ever ride a horse bareback, you're going to live, at the end of the day, you're going to regret it. I mean, that part of you in the back, on the bottom, it's gonna get raw, it's gonna get blistered, and you're not gonna be able to sit down. It's gonna hurt. And I've been down that road, so I know. So I ain't gonna sleep when Dad says, time to saddle up, man. I'm gone, get the saddle. I don't care who had to push, who had to fight to do it, I'm gonna go get a saddle. And that's what we used to do. And that's the way I grew up. I grew up fighting my brothers over everything. And then when I went into military, that's all I ever did was man the M60 on the Huey helicopter and just shoot the enemy. I didn't know who it was, but I just shoot anything that moved. I had a fighting spirit. And then the football, I had a fighting spirit. See, that's what we need today. We need that kind of fight in our church. Not fight each other, but have a fighting spirit for the right things. In this case, a fight for truth. Look in your Bible there in Psalm 145 real quick. Psalm 145. Let me read you a verse there. Psalm 145. And look at verse number 18. Psalm 145, verse 18. The Bible says here in verse number 18, It says this, let me see here, yeah, I'll find my place. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. So you want the Lord to be in your court and the Lord to be in your corner, you best just get right with truth. Amen, we need to learn how to fight. One of the most important things in our life is truth. I mean, the number one battle today, I believe, is truth. Bible says that you know truth is something that never changes the word is truth sanctifying through that truth The Bible tells us about how that word of God is from everlasting And it'll never change that truth never changes, but you know that's the battle that's going on today our society Our own government, our country. You know, we no longer want what this Bible says. Our country was established according to what this Bible says, the King James Bible. Our court system was set up according to the AB 1611. And you know, nobody protested it. Everybody followed it. And then before any court was set up, this country went by this Bible and what it said. But no longer the case today. We have a battle now. Nobody likes to hear about the Bible anymore. Nobody wants to interpret the Bible, take a stand against the Bible. That's the most popular thing today. We have a battle. And I just want to ask you tonight, are you in the battle? Are you fighting the good fight? Truth has been perverted today and it's done against this Bible. Ephesians 5, 11, I wrote this down, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. You know why people don't like preaching today? When this man of God gets up, any man of God gets up and hears preaching, you know why we don't like it? Because reproof is in it. Nobody likes to get reproved. You ain't right, bless God. Remember my pastor used to say that. I know some of you Indians, you used to drink, you don't drink no more. Bunch of you don't, you used to smoke and dope, don't do that no more. But I know one thing about you, you all watch that stinking TV, and it's taking a lot of your time, and you don't know how to fight the good fight, man. I'm telling you, that's old-fashioned preaching. But we don't like to hear that no more. We get offended, we say, I don't know why he had to go and talk about the TV, you know. Tell you, it's everywhere. Even back home it's like that. Navajos complain about the white man's way. And I tell them, I said, take that TV back to him then. You don't want the white man's way, that's his TV. Go take it back. You complain about white man's way, take his car back. and go run you down a pony and start riding that again, amen? See how much you like that. And then they'll change their mind and say, that's not what I'm talking about. I say, I know. I know where we was at when God found us, you know, with the King James Bible and a bunch of missionaries came out there. Tonight, hey, I'm glad God brought a Bible to this country. I'm glad people like me got saved because if I didn't get saved and He didn't reach me with the Bible, I could have been eating you tonight. Amen! Bible says, you know, you not have fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. I'll tell you what, the Bible says reprove them. Well, I can stand negative preaching anytime. I like negative preaching. I live in such a positive world that every once in a while I need something negative. Amen. I need something that don't rub me the right way. Amen, it just kind of fluffers my feathers, kind of messes me up. We need that, we need that kind of fight for the truth. Can you stand with your pastor to preach the truth? Let this church be heard in this community as a church that stands for truth, that corrects error, that reproves anything contrary to truth. I hope so. Number two, we need to fight for the faith. Amen. The faith, that's the whole body of truth that's delivered unto you and me. Jude said that, contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. Everything you believe, everything you've been taught, everything you know to be true, that's what you contend for. Contend is a word that means fight. Amen. America don't like to fight no more. One of the greatest boxers we just lost last week, George Foreman. When George Foreman hit you, if your lights didn't go out, you knew who he hit you. I mean, that man, I could just feel the punches when I watched him. But such a humble man, wasn't he? And we lost a good contender. But then how many of us? or contending spiritually for the Lord's cause. Can the Lord count on us to contend for the faith? Amen. You know, my little granddaughter, she's graduating this May, Torrance. I named her, you know. When Terrence wanted to know what he could call his daughter, I said, make it close to your name, like Tara. And so he named her Tara. And then he said, Dad, I'm out of names. What am I going to call it? Then I remembered one time I went to California. And I went by town. And it was called Torrance, California. So then I came home. And I said, I know what she can name the other daughter. He said, what? And I said, Torrance. So he named her Torrance. But she got all kinds of different names. We called her Suby. I called her by something else, too. She never called the restroom, restroom. And she always called it by different names. Everybody at home called the restroom by that name she made. It's crazy how kids have influence. But Torres was a real good kid. And when she was small, she would get involved in stuff that she was not supposed to. But a lot of times, when we did things together, she would always jump up and want to contend for whatever she believed in. And I said, you're just a small punk. Don't have to say anything. Just hush. You're just a girl. Kids are to be seen, not heard. And she don't care. She just comes out. It gets even worse. But she knew how to fight for stuff like that. But you know, I just want to say that truth has fallen in the streets according to Isaiah. And we need to fight for our faith. You know, we got a Navajo station now, and they're preaching truth in the Navajo language. And my wife said this, she said, a lot of Navajos that claim not to know English do not have an excuse now. They'll stand before God one day and say, well, I never heard. They can't say that because it's all over the reservation. And you can get it if you want it. And there's a lot of people that have called in and said, you know, I heard this message. And who was that preaching? What was that message about, you know? And you know, back about 200 years ago, I forget who that fellow was, but there's a fellow back there said that. He said, all it takes for evil to triumph is when good men sit and do nothing. And America's been guilty of that. You know, a lot of people didn't agree with our government, the way it was operating, but everybody just kept their mouth shut. And police came to our church and said, we can't have church service. I said, who says who? So the last time I checked my Bible, it said, Lord, I found the church. Not you, butchers. Not you. You have wits there. It wasn't nothing to do with you. I said, you guys didn't care. And what made it so bad was there was a bunch of what they called ministerial association on the reservation. They went to crying. because during COVID, the government gave out money to all organizations for the reason of COVID, you know, shutting down everything. They gave money to a lot of people. And then we heard that there was a church that was having a meeting and everybody needed to go. So another preacher, a Bible church preacher, invited me, so I went with him. And he told me, he said, Brother Calvin, I won't take you, but you have to promise me you're not gonna say nothing. I said, I won't, I won't, I'll just behave myself, I'm your guest anyway, so we went there, and he fell for it, you know. We got there, and they had all these lady preachers, and you know, there's no such animal. You know, women have the ability to preach, but they don't have the anointing. I mean, the authority either. Anyway, they had all these people in church. There was a church full of people. And every one of them got up and were given about 10 to 20 minutes to say whatever they wanted. Every one of them was saying this, well, the Navajo, Medicine Man Association. They got $30,000 that the government gave them. The United States government gave out the money to allocate to the Navajo to give to these people. They gave them $30,000. And then they turned around and gave a bunch to what they call the peyote religion, Native American church. And they got a bunch of money. And our complaint today is, how come we didn't get anything? We church, we're local Bible-believing church, we didn't get nothing. And that's our complaint. We're gonna take this petition, take it back to Winter Rock, and let them know that we want our money too. And everybody said that, including Baptist preachers. And I said, they're all quiet, and I took just about as much as I can. I had to back out of my word. I told the brother, I said, I'm gonna say something. So I raised my hand, they said, come on up here, and I got up here. And I read that verse there, where it says, upon this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Then I asked the preacher, who said that? And they said, Jesus. Okay, so Jesus is the head of the church, right? When's the last time you guys heard that, Mr. Vice President, President of Navajo Nation was the head of the church? When's the last time that that book told you to go to the government for help? I said, we're an entity. We're an entity of God, and we have no business asking for outside help. Now, medicine man people, they don't have true religion, so they need help. The peyote people, they're a cult, so they need help. But when would the church ever need help? We got God, and God's enough. So shame on you. Y'all need to pack it in and go home and cancel this meeting. And boy, I'm telling you, a lot of them would look at me like, where's this guy come from? And I got everybody mad at me. Even the preacher that took me, he wouldn't talk to me halfway home. And he said, man, I told you not to say nothing. He got everybody mad at us. I said, you know what? I'd rather see them mad. than to mess up, because this is our fight. It ain't their fight. It's our fight. And the Lord gave us that. And He said, the Lord says, you stop when I tell you to stop. You quit when I tell you to quit. It's up to Him, not us. I said, we're His servants. And I said, how many of you people in here are starving right now? They were saying that, you know, some were saying, oh, my electricity got off, got turned off, and our water got shut down, and members are not coming no more, so everything just shut down at the church. And you know, I got up and I said, those of you that complain about no water, no electricity, come here, let me hug you. I said, you're acting like a bunch of babies. I said, we got a great God, what's wrong with us? And there was one white missionary that came over, and he said, Brother Calvin, I could have not said it any bolder than you did. I was sitting back there thinking, I wonder if any of these preachers will get up enough to say, enough nerve to say something right. And he said, you sure did. I said, why didn't you, Mr. Bolin? He said, I was just waiting the last minute. If somebody said anything in five minutes, I was going to say something. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. See? That man said that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men just to sit and do nothing. Folks, that's why God called this man here. That's why this church was planted. That's why missionaries are sent out, to fight evil. To stand for right. And let's not forget that. That's our marching orders today. That we're to go there, and that's why the church was started. That's why, you know, the preachers preach the truth. And that's why you're here. To fight against anything that's contrary to this book and to this church. I'm telling you, it may not be popular, but man, it's time to stand. And let your Name be counted. Paul said, I fought a good fight, I've kept the faith. I finished my course, he said, I've kept the faith. You know, when I get discouraged, and I do get discouraged, one of my most discouraging times is, it's this bittersweet moment, when I'm done with the church, and I have to say goodbye to those members, and they've gotten so used to me pastoring them, and now a new pastor steps in, and the bitter moment is, man, I gotta say goodbye to these people. The sweet moment is I go start another one somewhere fresh with new people. That's good. But you know, sometimes you get into a discouragement. I'm reminded Paul lived most of his life with discouragement. I mean, he went out to do good and they arrested him. And he ends up in a Philippian jail with nobody but Silas. Can you imagine them sitting there and Silas is looking at Paul? He's looking at him, and he's thinking, this man here is always trouble. And I got in trouble just sticking around him. I didn't do nothing, and here I am. I'm in jail because of him. But you know something? More than that took place. Bible says, Paul said, let's just sing. Folks, they could have been sobbing, but they sang. They would have been pouting, but they praised the Lord. Let me tell you something, they were bleeding, but they were still blessing. Now that's the spirit of a fighter. Don't major on those things that are not important, but just try to point to the Lord and say, this is all about Him. I mean, after Jesus went to the cross and took everything for you, including the beating, what kind of a Christian would I be? Just to stop and say, well, I gave it my best shot and I'm not gonna go on. I don't want my grandkids. I got two great grandkids now. And you know what? I don't want them to grow up hearing that Papa quit, that Papa just stepped out. Because of health problems. I've had heart attacks. I've had kidney disease. I've had bad surgery. I have an ankle that's got a metal plate in it. I'm just messed up. But you know what? There's no quit. I'm still at it. I just fell off a trailer, hit the back of my head, and it didn't break my fall. I fell back, hit my head, and I don't remember falling. I was knocked out. Next thing I remember, I woke up at the emergency room, and two of those paramedics were ministering over me, wake him up, see if he'll get up. And when I finally woke up, I said, where am I? And he said, you're in ER. And the ER nurse said, doctor diagnosed you. He said, you're going to stay overnight. You got bleeding in your brain. And you know what, when I woke up next morning, I had double vision. It wasn't this way, it was this way. My brother was two Johnnies, one on top of another. And I told the people at church, I said, the top of you looks better than the bottom of me. I made jokes about it, even though I was discouraged and I was down. Quitting was the first thing from my mind. I thought about, he's my shepherd. How can I not be following his plan for my life when he gave it his all? He's my savior. How can I not be found faithful when he returns? Someone said, a big shot is just a little shot who keeps on shooting. I'm that little shot. I just keep shooting. Amen. Till they tell me it's over, I run out of ammo. So let's just keep preaching. Let's just keep praying. Let's just keep praising the Lord. Let's just stay on the fighting line. Paul said, I press toward the mark. Let's just keep pressing. Amen. Let's serve Jesus together today, every day. Church, it's in our lot to do this. The world out there don't know anything about what we've got. But what we got is worth fighting for. I trust that you'll take that to heart and say, man, I want to fight. I'm going to fight a good fight. Let's bow our heads tonight. This is my thought for tonight.