I don't know what's earlier than that. Anyway, thank you, brother. Amen. Well, Church, thank you for the invite and pastor for the invitation to be here. And it is our blessing to be here. Thank you. We're thankful. It's our 27th year of holding this meeting, it feels like. No, not really. But I guess you all probably figured that out. And since we were here last, we've been fairly busy. We've had a couple long trips this spring, and we were in Maine for a little over a week, and then we had a long trip out to Oklahoma. We just arrived back a couple of weeks ago, and then we were over in the city of Brotherly Shove last weekend in Philadelphia. and they're there in a four day meeting. And so it's good to be up in the country, not have to drive 15 hours or 20 hours in one case. And it's good to just drive four hours and be a part of the services. We thank the Lord for that. When you're on the road, you know, 20, 21 hours, a couple of days in a row, we were, we were, well, we had 12 hour days, a couple of days in a row, going out and coming back. And, you know, yesterday just felt like a drop in the bucket. Our children didn't even complain. They can do it with their eyes closed. I almost drove back and forth this week, but then I realized I need to have some sense about it. So, but yeah, four hours you can do sleeping. I have actually, but anyway, uh, we're thankful to be here and I want to just, you know, it is Sunday school. I'd like to teach and instruct a little bit. And I want to look at this matter of, of salvation and look at it today. Let's go to Psalm 142. And I'm going to remove my jacket. I'm not making a political statement, so I'm not making any kind of religious statement. I just don't want to get too overheated today. And I'm supposed to be swimming tonight, so I don't want to get hot in the morning services. It'll be back here. It's OK. We'll be swimming back here. but some one 42 and we took a salvation and several weeks ago I was in Pennsylvania down close to us. And, uh, I made the statement, I was talking about salvation, you know, salvation can be a verb, uh, you know, or the salvation of our souls is a time when God will save the soul. He's going to deliver the soul. But then he talks about, you know, our salvation is nearer. And what is he speaking of? You know, he's talking about a person there. It's a noun. And most folks equate salvation with the verb. It's an act, it's something they've done, something they've maybe participated in. And what I've learned when you define it always as a verb is what you find is that people will cling to what they've done. It's not a person, place, or thing anymore. All of a sudden it's an action that they've accomplished. And then you can put any title or any stipulation upon what salvation is when you make it solely an action. It's the throes of what you've done. It's the action of something you've done. You know, we use the term, and of course I use it as well, we say, I got saved. You know, well, you realize you can equate anything to that. Once you make it solely based on the action, you can equate anything to I got saved. What does that mean? Well, you went through penance, you went through the rosary, you know, you were baptized, You know, you did all the things you're supposed to do. You went down to the altar, you repeated the prayer, you went through the motions, you did everything that was required of you. I got saved and it's an action. But ultimately what it boils down to, and we know this and understand this here, I'm just going to reiterate this before we preach a little bit in Sunday school. When you see the person of salvation and your action must accompany the person. And it's a noun. Why is it a noun? It's a person, place, or thing. Is it not grammar and English teachers? And I don't believe salvation is a place. I don't believe it's a thing. You know, so often folks attribute it to a thing. It's not a thing, it's a person. And your salvation in the verb tense must line up with the noun tense, which is Jesus Christ. The person of salvation was preaching in Southern Pennsylvania. A man came to me. He said, I have never heard anybody say that salvation is a noun. And this man's my age. And in all these years of being raised in church, he never heard anybody say salvation. Is this the same man a couple of years ago that came to me? He said, I was never taught to look for Jesus Christ in the Psalms. And I told him, I said, well, I wasn't either. I just happened to see him. I wasn't taught that. And I wasn't instructed in that. And so, you know, when you see that the person of salvation and with the church hour here coming in a little bit here, I'm going to deal with that person of salvation. But I want to look at that person in the light of the Psalms again, Psalm 142. And I know there's only kind of an expectation on me these days to deal with the Psalms, but I don't always. Trust me, I've been able to preach in Ezekiel once as well. And people say, you know, do you ever preach in the New Testament? And I say, yeah, all the time. I just use the Old Testament a lot to point to it. Amen and amen on that. And if you see him in the old, you have no trouble seeing him in the new. The problem is a lot of people only see him in the new because they don't see him by faith. They see him by the works of righteousness, which they've done. In Psalm 142, in the Masculine of David, a prayer when he was in the cave. And it's interesting. You look at those five places specifically, David's in great distress. And he prophesies of Jesus Christ. We see Psalm 18 when God finally delivers him from all his trouble. First Samuel 22 equates with Psalm 18. We see David prophesying of the deliverance of Jesus Christ from all his trouble. And when he's in the cave, we see David's prophecy. It seems like doom and gloom. And you know, if you're an allegorical preacher, if you're, you look at this simply as a type or maybe just a picture, uh, you know, you, there's things you would not see that I'm going to point out in this today. But he said, I cried under the Lord with my voice. And people can say, well, that's certainly David there. He's in the cave. He cries into the Lord with his voice. He's with my voice into the Lord that I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him. I showed before him my trouble. And then, you know, begin to see some more things in this psalm that really have helped us. And by the way, I guess maybe, I don't know when it was, probably last year sometime, I think it was in the fall. My pastor, Brother Black, no it wasn't the fall, we were too busy, probably in the spring. Pastor Black, my pastor, asked me to preach a weekend at the church. And he asked me specifically, he said, would you go through some of the things you've been teaching concerning the psalms and things like that. And so I used Psalm 142 and just went verse by verse through it for three services. And one of the things we saw, he said, well, my spirit was overwhelmed within me. Now, when was his spirit overwhelmed within him? Now, that could be you or I. Our spirit can be overwhelmed. Could it be David? Sure, his spirit could have easily been overwhelmed. My spirit gets overwhelmed often. The person that I am, I'm easily overwhelmed in my spirit because I do try to be sensitive to a lot of things, most of all the spirit of God, but also to the needs of people. And there's times I just feel overwhelmed. But when the spirit of Jesus Christ is overwhelmed, he cries, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then Psalm 22, why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring. So again, the picture comes into place here of Jesus Christ, when he says, thou knewest my path in the way, wherein I have walked, I walked, have they privately laid a snare for me. And then he said this, I looked on my right hand and beheld, But there is no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. And here's the cry of so many despondent people today. No man cared for my soul. A dear friend of ours, a preacher who's been with the Lord now this summer will be four years, and one of the men that helped me in ministry. I never sat directly under him as a pastor, but he was on the road preaching. Our paths would cross. Got to spend much time with him. And I remember the great message he preached years ago when he said, no man cared for my soul. And he ended up writing a tract based on that message, but it's no man cared for my soul. And then you open it up and it says, but Jesus cares. Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you. He thought about how the father cares. The Holy ghost cares. The church cares. The true church. These apostate churches don't care. The true church cares. The saints of God care. The Word of God cares. People say, no man cared for my soul. But to your eyes, the reality is it is messianic, it is prophetic. Because there was no man on earth that cared for the soul of Jesus Christ, why his disciples forsook him and fled. It's why the crowd around him fled. They left him destitute, despondent, alone, dying, bleeding. I realized, yes, Mary, his mother came, Mary Magdalene came, John came, stood afar off. But he died alone. He looked to his right hand, there's a thief. He looked to his left hand, there's a thief. He said that no man would know me, refuge fail me, no man cared for my soul. And then the second time we see, I cried unto thee, O Lord. I said, thou are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Again, we see a cry, attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, I may praise thy name. The righteous shall compass me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. 1 Samuel 22, four and five deals with that. I read verse 31 and there also deals with that. The Lord hath dealt bountifully with me. What you see is you see the despondency. You see the absolute abhorrence of self, dying alone. You know, but I'm not even going to preach this as Messianic today. If you do see it that way, I hope you do. But if you don't, I'm not going to preach it even as Messianic today, but I want to do want to preach it, but I want to preach on the cry, the cry of the desolate, the cry of the afflicted. When you get to the place that no man cared for my soul, it's pretty despondent place to be. One of the reasons we talk about this and deal with this, I know I've said it in this very pulpit, The despondency is at an all-time high amongst people today. There's probably not a family in here that's not been touched by suicide. There's probably not a home in here that's not been touched by suicide. I have a dear preacher friend of mine, a dear precious man, the very first of the year. The Christmas despondency and the post-Christmas depression. His son, an Iraqi war veteran, a veteran of the Haiti rebellion. The United States Marine put his head under his pillow and shot himself. Sorrowful, weeping, tears, talked about it in this very place. There's a lot of folks that feel despondent, feel like nobody cares, feel like nobody is concerned about them. But I want you to see when a man gets despondent, and I believe it's Jesus Christ, when a man just hits the absolute rock bottom, And you picture Christ dying alone. No man cares for him. They've all fled him. They've all forsook him. Even his father has turned his back to him, turned his face from him rather. And under the cover of darkness, God himself comes down, pours out his wrath upon his son. And that's when he cries, there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. What was his refuge is the shadow of those wings, the mercy seat. It was there that they failed him. No man cared for my soul. Let's look at the cry of the afflicted and let's go to Psalm chapter three, if you would. Look at verse two, Psalm three. Many there be would say of my soul, there is no help for him in God, Selah. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. And notice this, I cried unto the Lord with my voice. It's audible. And he heard me out of his holy hill. Where does he get to that place when they say there's no help for him? You know, the desperation of feeling helpless. You know, what does a helpless person do? They cry. They cry with an intent, they cry out of a want, they cry out of suffering, they cry out of need. How do you cry? You cry audibly, fiercely, loudly. That lost person, said it here before, that lost person, they cry aloud, lift up their voice. They want somebody to find them. Refuge failed them. Men have failed them. There's no help in sight. So what do they do? They cry. What does he do? He cried into the Lord with his voice. Let's go back to Psalm 66. I'm going to jump around the Psalms just a little bit here and then go to one place in particular. We'll camp there. Psalm 66 and verse 17. He said, I cried unto him with my mouth and he was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And there's the reason by the way, a lot of people just give up crying. They will not purge the iniquity from their heart. The separation between them and God, God will not hear the cry because of that iniquity. But then we see the next verse. He said, but verily God hath heard me. He attended to the voice of my prayer. When you cry, does God hear? More so than that, does he attend to the voice of your prayer? We're gonna talk in the church hour, Lord willing, a little bit about consolation. I looked hard at consolation. I've always just been told for so long it was just a form of consoling someone. I realized there's so much more to it. There's an end to consolation. You see, in Scripture, there's an absolute comfort that comes with consolation. Do you realize when we pray and cry aloud, he said, he shall hear my voice. The psalmist said, even in the morning and at noon, when I pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice. Jeremiah 33, he said, call upon me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things whereof thou knowest not. When you cry, who hears? Do you cry out of worthlessness? Do you cry out of desperation? Do you cry out of lack of self-worth? Or do you cry because the misery is so great upon you, you're looking for some kind of a relief? But who do you cry to? How do you know that he attends to your cry? Can I say, when he attends to our cry, he lets us know he's attending. Attendant is someone that's taking care of that need. They're attentive to the needs of that person. When God gives attendance to our cry, He's going to give us what we need in that cry. He's going to comfort us. He's going to succor us. He's going to lift us up. If we cry and don't regard iniquity in our heart. Iniquity, I know Preacher Asquith across town there, I hate to refer to myself as his replacement. It sounds like an NFL team on strike, but Pastor asks, speaks of iniquity being lawlessness. And I don't contend with that. I've always said on this wise of iniquity, I always say it's, it's when that person tries to conceive a way to skirt the law of God and you see that law and you just, I've watched iniquitous people try to find ways to skirt around that law and get around that law because of the lawlessness of their hearts. And sin is great upon them and misery is great upon them. Woe is great upon them. And they cry and there's none to hear. They cry and there's none to answer. They've regarded the iniquity in their heart. The Lord will not hear when they cry. The desperation, the desperate man, a desperate woman, children that are desperate. I've seen children truly in the misery of life. I've seen where they had nothing, locked in apartments all day long. You realize there are people, even in the state of Pennsylvania, there are thousands of children that never go to school. Their parents are off the grid, if you will. Most of them urban dwellers. And they just disappear in the city with their children. The truant officers can't find them. And many of them aren't even registered in school. And they never learned to read, never learned to write, never learned to socialize. Crime is rampant in their life. despondent children, hopeless children. Eventually they get so hard because they cry and there's none to hear. There's none to answer. And they get so hardened against people and hardened against God and hardened against society. They become hateful, become vengeful, miserable. It happens to people, even small rural communities like Shingle House. The children are just so wounded and hurt by sin and by the people around them. And again, they cry and there's none to answer. They lay in the night hours and they weep and there's none to answer. Refuge has failed them. Men have failed them. On every hand, there's failure. But there's one if they would cry to, he'd hear. There's one if they would cry that cry could come into his ear. The prayer of the innocent, the prayer of children, My God, deliver me. My God, get me out of this mess. And by the way, I've known many over the years I've met in church that were in that predicament, they cried, and God heard them, and God did deliver them. We're down in, down south here not too long ago, and I met a man, just a kind of man, His wife is very kind to my wife and I just, just the kind of people you want as neighbors, the kind of people you want as friends. He shared with me a little bit how God had intervened in his life. He was religious to the point of he was a, he was a, I'll be trying to be careful, but it was, he was a stockpiler, food, ammunition, anti-government, anti-race, anti everybody, but white people. And he was waiting for the big war to come, the big race war and stockpiled AKs and ammo and food. And, you know, he and his brother would go target shoot and practice. And he had, he never told me, I would have never had any idea, but he just said I was a hateful man. And then God sent a preacher into their little town. God sent a King James Bible preacher into their little town. Under the preaching of the word of God, some year and a half I was sitting under preaching. Struggling back and forth in and out had some type of a profession. He came to his pastor one day This is what he simply said. He said pastor. I have faith The time I met him some eight months after he said he had faith I saw a man that had faith I Saw a man sitting there with peace in his heart the joy of the Lord in his heart He simply said to me. So I've never had a relationship with my father. I He said, I've never had a relationship with my family. He said, my mother still lives up in one of the ports up in New York. I forget which one. Not far from here. An hour and a half north of here. Lockport. And he said, I need to go see her. I need to go see my family. He said, I know how they are. He said, I know. He told me, he said, my family's wicked. They hate everybody. They hate me. I used to hate them. He said, but God has told me to go back and talk to my family. The same people that hurt me. The same people that tried to destroy me. He said, God's told me to go back and rectify things with them. And he said, it's going to be hard for me. And I said, well, what are you doing the first week of July? He goes, well, we're thinking about maybe going up in June or July. I said, well, why don't you go see your mom that first week of July sometime? He said, why is that? I said, well, we're having youth week that week. It'd be good for you to come. And he said, you know what? We might do that. I said, good. You do that. And put the pressure on him, by the way. Amen. You know why? He's going to need strengthen when he gets done. You get around your wicked family and your godless cussing, drinking, doping, you know, crack addicted families in and out of prison hates God. You're gonna need some comfort. You're gonna need some consolation. You're gonna need some strength. But he told me this. He said, even as a boy and all the hatred and the misery of his life, he said, he always would pray. He said, always call out to God. And he said, I didn't even know who I was calling out to. I just knew there was something out there. And he said, he said, I had a rough life. I said, yeah, I know you did buddy. I can see it. He said, but I never lost faith that there was someone that could help me. I said, man, I know church people don't have that much faith. A lot of people, in the name of Christ, don't have that much faith. Boy, they're self-made. They can figure it all out themselves. They don't need God. They don't need anybody to intervene. They got all this figured out. They don't call on God because they don't need God. Self-made people, they can generate their own income, generate their own health. They can do all these things. They got everything under control. And I watch as calamity strikes, and God just washes that foundation away, and everything collapses in on them. And I watch them flounder. They still won't call on God. Had a man sit and tell me to my face, their brother and I were visiting several years back and he told me to my face. He said, I beat cancer. But then two weeks he was dead. You didn't beat cancer. Listen, don't be offended by this. People say, I'm fighting this. I'm fighting this. I'm fighting this. You better learn how to pray. That battle's not yours. That battle's not yours. You know, it's like saying, well, I'm fighting to restore my marriage. Well, that's probably what got you kicked out of your marriage. Fighting. If God can't build the house, you're labor in vain. I'm fighting for my children. You know, why don't you just let God handle it? Amen. A matter of faith, a matter of believing God. or folks so wrapped up in their own devices and their own plans and their own ideals. I know people that have great plans for business. Whether they had business models and the finances and money and everything they could do and I've watched businesses crumble. I've watched people that had no clue how to start a business and all of a sudden their business is up and flourishing. And I've heard them just say this, I don't know what in the world or how it happened, I just know God stepped in, amen. You can make all the plans in this world but you better have God intervene. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger barns. Is that the fool? Ah, that fool. This night, that soul shall be required of thee. What shall a prophet manage to gain the whole world, but lose his soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? You should ask that question on the street corner. You just had about 30 seconds to talk to people in the streets, not ask them. What have you given exchange for your soul? What did you trade for your soul? Wealth, notoriety, health, job, lust. What'd you change for your soul? This guy at the dark park, watched his old teenage girls working in the dark park. Men around there that you didn't mess with, they'd kill you in a heartbeat. We'd be down there feeding, preaching, giving them food, trying to give them clothing if they needed it. Used to have some little girls preaching across those tents in the homeless camp. What did you give in exchange for your soul? What did you trade for your soul? You know what I found out the answer was with most of them, rebellion against their parents. Rebellion. Their lives were destroyed because they rebelled. Yes. There's more opportunity out there, said the prodigal. Give me what's mine. I'm going to go out and I'm going to find the good in life. I'm going to find a better life than what I have. I'm going to find something different than what I have. And they go out there in this world and the world eats them alive and destroys them. And all of a sudden they're in the bitterness and addictions and destruction of life. And they have no idea where they went wrong. But if you curse your father and mother, he said, let them die the death. If you set light by your father and mother, you're cursed of God. He said, honor thy father and thy mother first command with promise. They asked these folks, sir, you're 105. How do you have such a long life? One guy says, well, I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I always ate healthy. Another one says, I drank whiskey every day. Smoked till I was 94. Another one, they say, well, did you eat healthy? No, I ate bacon. And by the way, bacon's healthy. Just say amen on that. Somebody shout the victory on that. Amen. The stress of not eating bacon is what's killing people. Amen. That's right. About to get glory in here. Amen. It's not pork chops that's killing you. Amen. It's sin. You just go ahead and say amen on that. Sin is a destroyer of the heart. Sin is a destroyer of the life. He said, well, my doctor said I can't eat any more pork. Amen. You know, I had a doctor told me a couple of years ago, I need to lose weight. She couldn't even sit on the stool. Just throwing that out there. She said, I don't want to, she's, I know this sounds odd coming from me. And I thought after she said, I said, it sure does. Amen. It's like a preacher out there living in sin telling you ought not sin. Amen. Just about, just about as silly and hypocritical. They say, how do you have a long life? Well, you know, my grandma's she's 102. She's had a long life. You know, in 10 years, she'll be the oldest woman in the world. She makes it that long. She keeps telling my aunt, I think this is it. I think this is it. She has a cold now. And you know, she's up cooking breakfast, has to go lay down after she doesn't feel good. So, you know, she's like, this is it. My grandma eats donuts, she eats bacon, pork chops, red meat. How do you live that long a life? Obey your parents. That days may be long upon the earth. Word of God told you that. The only way pork's going to kill you is if your mom and dad told you not to eat too much of it and you disobeyed. Amen. That's a good doctrinal statement. You may just put that in a Hallmark card. I should probably get royalties off that. Amen. Happy birthday. Eat more pork. Everybody's worried about all these things, but godliness. They're worried about all these things except for what God wants for their life. Worry about all these things in life that have really no meaning eternally. You know, most people are chasing one thing. It's the dollar. You know, and listen, the love of money is the root of all evil. You find evil in this world, you find the love of money. They fund protesters to go protest the death penalty. They fund the prisons to perform the death penalty. They fund the anti-death penalty people. They fund the pro-death penalty people. It's just like abortion. It's just money. I go by the, in Hagerstown, we used to preach outside the reproductive clinic. Well, that sounds healthy, doesn't it? where they go in there and kill babies. A dear friend of mine was arrested numerous times on that sidewalk back in the eighties. And a young lady came out one day after having her baby killed and she's walking down the sidewalk and she's letting blood out of her body. And he knelt down the sidewalk and began to yell, look at the blood, look at the blood, look at the blood, the blood cries from the ground. And a police officer came and knocked him off his feet, threw him face down, handcuffed him and threw him in a van. He told that police officer in court to his face. He says, so that blood was crying from the ground. Now that blood's on your hands. Right. Which sounds so good. Reproductive clinic, the love of money. And before you judge that, you better find out how much you love money. Cause if they're sitting in your life, concerning the air of covetousness and making money and how much you have and what you have, you're in trouble. He says some have erred from the faith. Why? They suppose that gain was godliness. It's so quiet in here. I'm one of them in a charismatic church. I get the same effect if I preach in there. They say, Oh, well, look how, look how we've prospered. God did this to us. You know, if God made you prosper financially, it's probably for your destruction. It could be a judgment from God. I'm talking about what the Bible says. They've erred. They've erred. They've erred. It's an error. It's a folly to them. Just like the fool. If I have more, I'll be happy. If you're not happy in the place you're in, I've preached this now for 25 years. If you're not happy where you're at, there's nothing in your circumstances is going to make you happy. You say, well, if I had a better marriage, Well, you'd have to probably, probably have to change to get a better marriage, because your marriage is what you make out of it. Amen. When I'm miserable in my marriage, it's me. You just say amen. I know my wife's sitting there. You say amen. When she's miserable, complaining in her marriage, it's her. You're miserable in your job, it's you. You don't know my boss. I don't have to know my boss. I know you. People say, well, if I just had more of this, I'd be happy. If you're not happy where you are, you're not going to be happy when your circumstances change. I've watched people move, trying to chase that eternal dream of happiness. I've watched them move, change locations. They're still miserable. You guys, if you're miserable in upstate Pennsylvania, you'll be miserable in Bermuda. Just throwing that out there. You think you're taxed here, go there. I had a chance to be in Grand Cayman some dozen plus years ago, and my buddy was with me, and I said, hey, let's go to Dunkin' Donuts. He said, well, they got us a good donut. I think they imported it from the United States. It sure tasted like it. Hey, man, about a year ago. I got me a donut, and he got me some Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I said, hey, how's your coffee? He said, expensive. I said, yeah, how much was it? He paid. He goes, it's $12 for a donut and a cup of coffee. They go, oh, I just live in the dream in Grand Cayman. Yeah, you are. You're paying for the dream. Oh, if I just had a different church, you'd still be miserable. If we had a different pastor, you'd still be miserable. I've had people over the years come up to me and say, you know, you know, people just, they don't have a lick of sense with that kind of stuff. And if it's you just take for what it is, but you know, they would love for you to be our pastor. I go, no, if you're that discontented, I don't want to be your pastor. They say, well, you know, we think we'd love to have you come be our, I've had in front of their pastor, our pastor doesn't preach like that. And I'm going, if I was here for a year, you'd be long gone lady. One Sunday, you can handle it for one Sunday, but you can't handle it for a week straight, let alone a month or a year. Everything looks better. Everything's so rosy in your dreams. The Bible calls it evil imaginations. Oh, there it is. But if I just had a different wife, if I just had a different husband, if I just had different parents, You'd still be miserable. My grandfather said one time, I was probably 14, 15 years old, rebel, hated God. I used this for years, but my grandfather said to my mom, he said, you know, Tim used to be such a happy boy. You know, and then he said, you know, but when he called my dad, my name, so when Ken left, just watched him, he's just not happy anymore. And boy, I clung to that for years. When my dad left, everything changed. You know, I was just a couple of years ago, God reckoned that with me and said, no, it's because you began to love sin. Right. If I had obeyed God, my dad leaving would have had a terrible effect on me, but I still could have lived for God. I still could have loved God. The bitterness of my soul welled up within me. My bitterness took over. My bitterness sprung up. Why? I was miserable in my sin. And I waxed worse and worse in a life of sin. So I got so miserable and just so despondent, just become hateful, just bitter with everybody, hateful towards people. And that great God of heaven took an invested interest in my soul and revealed his son to me through the word of God. And I finally found out the reason I wasn't happy. I just didn't have Jesus. When I cried, no one heard. When I pled, no one listened. But God heard. Amen. They say of young people, you know, they lash out. They do something outlandish, you know. And there's two, well, if they're younger, they say, well, it's just a cry for help. You know, a lot of times it really is. But there's no one to help them. When it's a teenager, they say, well, they're just going through their teen years. Well, it's still the same wickedness, same rebellion. I know teenagers just as sweet as could be. I know teenagers never went through a phase of rebellion. I know teenagers gotten saved by the good grace of God. Never lived that life of a rebel. But you realize we have a generation that walks around with all this bitterness and hatred in their hearts. They will not reconcile it with God because they don't want to reconcile it with God. All these years they cry and there's no one to care for their soul. So they just dismiss that. And in the bitterness of their life, they destroy others. The bitterness of their tongue, they destroy others. I told a young man recently, he's making money, he's married, he's starting a family. I told him recently, I said, you know, there's two things you need to do. One, I said, save as much money as you can now. And I said, give as much money as you can. He said, well, don't those two things contradict each other? And I said, no. Nope. You save as much as you can, you give as much as you can. I said, there's a day coming, you're going to need that money. Bible said give and it shall be given unto you good measure press down shaking together and running over shall man give into your bosom As you give while you can You do what you can while you can and I told him this I said you'll never want I Said you'll never want I've been to that place where I've been broke ministry. I've been in debt in ministry. Don't let that bother you. Go call Dave Ramsey. Apologize for me not buying his CDs. It's amazing. People give you Dave Ramsey's CDs and they go, he'll help you save money. I go, how much do you pay for them? Anyway, don't get upset with me because I said that. Okay. He never gave him away, did he? You can say amen on that. If you don't know who Dave Ramsey is, that's okay. Don't look him up. They say, well, you know, you got to save this much and do this much. And you know what you never find out. You never find giving. You never find cheerful giving in there. You never find going broke and given all that you have trying to be a help to somebody else, because you know, there's a great God in heaven that can give it to you back again. And I've been down at the bottom and been broke in debt in ministry. I never got better with God. I knew God could take care of my need. I knew God would take care of us. I made a mistake of murmuring when we were out west. Some things kind of fell through, some promises didn't come through. And I murmured, and I murmured to my wife. I had to go back and apologize. And I told her, I said, you know, because I murmured, I said, God's going to make me give this away anyway. He's not going to let me get away with that. Not after all these years. So just to spite me, and you say, spite you? Well, judgment. The Lord just poured it in on us. I mean, just poured it in on us. I had murmured against God. He said I had some empty promises, some lies, that's what empty promises are. Some things that didn't happen, things I was told. And I just, here I am this mature grownup Christian, supposedly, and I'm hurting against God. The great God has taken care of me. The great God has never forsaken me. This great God has never left me. This great God has always provided all of my need. And I shamefully opened my mouth and spoke. I said, Lord, you poured in, I'll pour it out. lest I ever speak against him again. You see, when I was in my lowest day, I could cry. God would hear. When I was at my most empty, I could cry. It was a God that heard. A God that inclined his ear to me and listened. A God that heard my cry. When I came at my darkest hour in life, it was a great God in heaven that opened his ear to my cry and heard my cry and answered that cry with goodness and with mercy and with tenderness. I've watched families go through great tragedy. My wife and I have a pastor friend and I've watched him bury two wives. His third wife has a valve that could fail tomorrow. Watch him bury his son. I watched him file for bankruptcy. He was driving a truck, where the wheel chocks were, the wrench spun on him, hit him in the jaw, busted up the side of his face, shattered his jaw, just tore up the whole side of his face. He couldn't work for eight, nine months, had to file bankruptcy, lost his truck. I watched a man, he suffered. I've watched him go through other surgeries. He had a major colon surgery, had a leaking colon, almost died. I watched us go through the struggles of life, the trials of life. COVID almost killed him. Matter of fact, the second wife's funeral, I went down to praise it. A couple of the boys from Black Creek drove me down. They were down in Chambersburg. They drove me down to the funeral. He had COVID while he's hugging my neck, weeping on my neck. He's coughing COVID on me. That didn't bother me one bit. Amen and amen to that. Amen. I just hugged his neck and loved on him. Amen. I never heard that man murmuring all those years. I never heard him one time speak against God. Never heard him one time complain. Never heard him one time. He used to have migraine headaches to the point that he couldn't even see. He'd black out with his eyes. He'd be in the pulpit with his eyes closed doing the closing announcements. I never heard him complain. Surgery after surgery, wife after wife, death after death, tragedy after tragedy. His whole church is dead. Since I've been going there 17 years, I've watched one after the other. Another lady just died. He's down about four people in his church. They just died one after the other, one after the other. Sorrow beyond sorrow. That man just never opened his mouth, never complained, never murmured. But I've heard him pray. I've heard him cry. I've heard him ask the Lord for mercy. I've heard him ask the Lord to comfort him. I've heard him ask the Lord to give him relief, but I've never heard him complain. I called him the other day. First thing he said, glory to God. Brother Tim is so good to hear from you. The Lord's good, isn't he? So yes, he is. One of his statements he makes in his church all the time. He'll make it 30 times in one announcement. He'll say he's worthy of our praise. Oh, he's worthy of all of our praise. He's worthy of all of our praise. You feel like God's not there. You feel like God's left you. God's despondent. God doesn't care. He's a cast in all your care upon him. We carry through you. I realized messianic, but he said this poor man cried. The Lord heard him. If the Lord doesn't hear your cry, something's wrong. There's something wrong. He saved him out of all his troubles. Do you realize if you just get past yourself and realize you have a need, God can meet that need. You get past your own ideology and just acknowledge the fact, Lord God, I need help. He's willing to help. He's willing to meet that need. But as long as you're successful, as long as everything's going good, you don't need God. As long as you're healthy, you don't need, you don't need, who needs God when they're healthy? Who needs God when you're financially stable? He's just an afterthought, is he not? You need to say amen. You know I'm telling the truth. He said, well, everything's going good for now. Go ask some of these older folks around here. Did you have good health when you were young? Oh yeah. How about now? And they'll go, oh no. Go ask some of these folks that are poor. I said, oh no, we struggled. God took care of us. God met the need. How's your prayer life? How's that relationship? You'll find out how much you need God this week. If you come, if you don't, he says, you don't care. It's being honest with you. I need God. I was desperate for God yesterday. God helped us. Yes, sir, he did. Woke up this morning desperate for his presence. God help me. How desperate are you? Father, thank you for the Sunday school time. Pray we take it to heart for the glory of God in Jesus name. Amen. Now, as we go into this time,