I left my reading glasses at home, and I let Brother Allen read my scriptures, but I wrote my notes out real big so I'd see them. Since I got old, I got the six B's. I got the baldness, the blindness, the bell tones, the bridges, the bulges, and the bunions. Amen? Got them all. Alright, you read Psalm 51 there. Psalm 51, have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Urge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure, and design, build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar." Alright, thank you brother. Alright, here in Psalms chapter 51. I want to preach tonight with the help of God on the subject of David's revival. How did David get in the mess that he's in here in Psalms 51? Here's a man after God's own heart. He is the King of Israel. But yet David is laying out upon the earth praying. His baby is about to die. He's trying to get right with the Lord. How did King David get in the mess that he's in right here in Psalms 51? We all know the story of how David lingered at home one time. when all the rest of the armies and Joel were out there on the battlefield fighting a battle. And David lingered at home, and the Bible said he went out walking on his patio on his roof one day, and while he was out there, he saw a woman in the distance taking a bath by the name of Bathsheba. And the Bible said she was very beautiful to look upon. She was not just beautiful to look upon. The Bible says she was very beautiful to look upon. And when David saw her, he should have turned around and went back in the house, but he stood there too long. His look turned into lust. He stood there until his passions began to burn. He lusted after that woman. And lust, when it is conceived, brings forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, brings forth death, destruction, misery, and heartache. And David lingered, he lusted, and then he lunged. He went back into his castle and he sent some of his servants over there and he brought that woman into his castle and into his chamber and he laid with her and committed the sin of adultery. She went back to her house and a few days she woke up with morning sickness. And she sent word to King David, I am expecting a child and it is yours. She had a husband by the name of Uriah out there on the battlefield. David got scared. He wondered what he was going to do. I do believe if David would have got on his knees right then and said, Lord, I'm sorry. I believe he would have repented and confessed and got right with God, things would have been a whole lot better. But he tried to cover his sin, and the Bible said that if we cover our sin, we shall not prosper. David sent for Uriah. to come in to his castle off the battlefield. And when Uriah got there, David said, how's the battle going out there? I hear it's going real good. And we're prospering out there. Uriah, you're a good soldier. I want you to go down to your house, and I want you to stay there with your wife a few days, just kind of take it easy, and then you go back to the battlefield. But Uriah's a loyal man. He went outside the door there, and he slept right outside the door with the servants and would not go home to his wife. David called for him the next morning and said, why wouldn't you go home? He said, I'm not going to do like you're doing. He said, Joab, my captains out there and the rest of the soldiers and the Ark of the Covenant, I turned a battlefield. And he said, I'm not going to go home and lay with my wife while they're out there shedding their blood and fighting the army or fighting the war. He said, I'm not going to do that. And so David said, alright. He said, you stay one more night and tomorrow you can go home. And so that night, David brought him in for supper. David got him to drink some intoxicating wine, knowing if he got drunk, he might lose that loyalty, what a lot of people do. But it didn't work. I want to tell you, when Uriah left that night, he fell at the door again and slept with the servants. Well, the next day, David wondered, what am I going to do? So he sat down and wrote a letter to Joab the captain out there on the battlefield. And it said something like, you get your ride to Hittite, close to the wall where they're shooting arrows at where the violent men are at, and then you back off and let them stay there and get killed. And he folded up that letter and sealed it and gave it to Uriah. And Uriah carried his own death certificate out there and gave it to Joab. And Joab read that letter. And Joab, the captain of the army, knew exactly where to put Uriah. And he got him real close to the wall where they were shooting arrows at, where the ballot men are. And he backed the rest of his soldiers up and he let Uriah and some of the rest of the men get killed. And Joab sent word to David that Uriah the Hittite was now dead. And so David sent for Bathsheba to come in and be his wife then. He thought everything was alright. But I'll tell you something, there's a God in heaven, my friend, that's watching everything we do. And He spoke to a man, old Nathan the prophet, and said, I want you to go down there, and I want you to knock on David's door and give him that little riddle, that little parable about the lamb and so forth. And when David's anger got kindled, he said, that rich man that took that poor man's lamb, he said, he shall die and restore fourfold to that family right there. And Nathan the prophet looked at him and said, Thou art the man. Thou art the man. And he told him what he'd done. He said, God knows what you've done. And David began to repent and ask for forgiveness. And God did forgive him. But I'll tell you something, Nathan said to him, he said, You will pay fourfold. And that child that you have got by Sheba, it shall surely die. Oh David, that's when he went on the earth there and began to pray and ask God for forgiveness. But there are some things that happen to David. And my friend, listen, if it can happen to David, it can happen to me. It can happen to you. The Bible said, he that thinketh he standeth better take heed lest he fall. I want to tell you, there's a part of us that is not saved tonight. We must remember that. We are not perfect. We still have that old sinful nature. And it's like an old hungry lion that's been locked up in a cage and starved to death. And somebody throws in a fresh piece of meat, it'll tear it to pieces. And we cannot trust our old sinful nature. And if it can happen to David, it can happen to anybody. I've seen some good men fall. And you have too. Old David lost his purity. He began to pray, Lord, wash me and cleanse me with hyssop. I want to tell you, he got dirty. His soul, his spirit, I tell you, it got defiled. You do remember that story over in Jeremiah, chapter number 13, when God told Jeremiah the prophet, take that girdle and put it on, wear it a few days, and then take it down to the Euphrates River and said, I want you to take it down there and bury it under a rock. And then he returned to Jerusalem or to Judah. And after many days, God spoke to him again and said, I want you to go back down there to the Euphrates River, and I want you to get that girdle out. And Jeremiah went back after many days, and he pulled that rock up. And down in the earth there, he pulled that old girdle out. And the Bible said the elements of this world had taken effect upon that girdle, and it was good for nothing. It was rotten. And the Bible said we're the salt of the earth, and if the salt's lost its saviors, then it's good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men. I tell you, we are to make an impact in the community. I tell you, we're to have influence and we're to have the power of God in our life. And we're to live clean lives, neighbor. And when we lose that purity, my friend, I tell you, we're going to get dirty before God. And a lot of people with unconfessed sin in their life live in a guilty distance away from the cross tonight. Oh, he prayed, Oh, forgive me. One of my best friends, my best friends, pastored a good church there in Lenoir, or Valdez. He lived there in Lenoir and me and him, we're about the same age. He had a good church. His wife worked at one of the banks. They just built a brand new house. A brand new home there in one of the developments. And I went down there with him and saw that beautiful house. Had two beautiful young little girls. And that church he pastored, boy, they loved him. They took care of him financially. They would give him anything he wanted. And he had a charisma. He had personality. And he was a young, good-looking fellow. And he had everything just going for him. But he got his eyes on some other women there in the church. And he began to mess around with some of those women. And he got out in the church. And boy, after a while, you know what happened? That home split up. They didn't get that beautiful house. They didn't even get to move in it. My friend, it was already built. They were just about ready to move in it. They did not move in it. They lost that home. He lost the home that he was living in. He lost his wife. Those two little girls grew up, become drug addicts out on the street with this man one week and this man the next week. And boy, when I see them, I see how sin has scarred their life. And I see how sin has taken its toll upon those two beautiful little old girls. You know what happened? I tell you, he lost his purity. And because of that, his little girls grew up dirty. Out there on the street, my friend, his wife married somebody else, and he lost everything he had. He lost his car. He'd been in and out of jail. His teeth had rotted and fell out. He didn't have enough money to buy a hamburger at times. And I bought him food. And when I look at him, my heart is broke because I see what happened to that young man. I want to tell you, David not only lost his purity, but he lost his power with God. And brother, I want to tell you something, it seems like a lot of churches and a lot of preachers are losing that punch. If you take a cocoa and take it home and shake it, if you open it up, it'll spew everywhere. But if you open up that Coca-Cola and leave it set for several days, you go back and try to drink it, it's got no flavor to it. It's dead! It's dead! We don't like Coca-Colas that are dead. That's exactly what happens in our life, in our church a lot of times. I tell you, we lose our flavor. I want to tell you, salt, my friend, must have that Savior, or we aren't good for nothing. Salt is to create a thirst. You go home and ask your wife to pop you some popcorn? It won't be long until you're saying, get me a glass of tea or a sun drop or something. You eat some country ham, after a while you'll be drinking a whole lot of water. That salt creates a thirst. Hey, when the Lord Jesus Christ was standing at the well that day, in John's Gospel, chapter number 4, talking to that woman who'd been married five times, was shacking up with a man who was not her husband, he got to talking about some other water besides that that was in the well, and she got real thirsty, prayed to God, and she said, Would you give me a drink of that water that I thirst not? And I said, Oh, Senator, look at you and I said, I don't know what you got, but I'd sure like to have a drink of it. Amen? I tell you something else salt does, it stops corruption. And while you men in here kill hogs, no doubt the day's gone by. You take those hams, boy, you put them in that salt box. You can hang that ham up, boy, and it keeps a long time out there in an old smokehouse. Boy, I'm going to tell you something, if we were to have enough prayer God on us, boy, we could shut down, I'll tell you, the beer stores and the liquor stores and the abortion clinics. I tell you, we shouldn't have to march down the street and march and write letters. If we were to have enough prayer God, boy, we could pray places like that out of business. I've known it to happen before. Right there in Murray, North Carolina, where this man used to go and visit at Castles Church. And he got messed up years later, but he had a church that had power on it. Right there in the parking lot was a beer store. Right in their parking lot almost. They began to pray for the Lord to shut that place down. And guess what? One day that man called that pastor and said, I've got it for sale. Do you want it? And he said, yes. You know what they did? They got that beer out there and turned it into a Bible book store. And it's up there right today. Amen. Where to stop corruption? I'll tell you something else salt does. It gives flavor. Boy, you ladies in there cooking, a lot of times you're cooking beans and things, and I've seen a lot of times my wife will take that spoon and she'll taste it just a little bit. She'll take that salt and put a little more salt on it. Boy, you get those good garden tomatoes and cucumbers out there on the table, I tell you, put some salt on it. It gives it some flavor. And I tell you, when our services, when our life, I tell you, don't have that flavor like it should have. I tell you, we'll just take a little salt and throw in there. I believe every member ought to have a handful of salt when you come to church. And things don't taste good at church, just throw it in there, praise God, and give it a little bit of flavor, ain't it? Boy, salt, we're to be the salt of the earth. I'll tell you something else it'll do. It'll melt ice. Boy, when things get real cold and icy, Boy, I'll tell you what, get that salt and it'll melt that old ice. It irritates you getting salt in a wound. Now boy, it burns. I want to tell you something, we ought to irritate the world out there. We shouldn't be cocky and try to be show-offs and try to intimidate people. I'm not talking about that. But if you just live like you're supposed to live, I tell you what, it will irritate people. I come through Statesville, North Carolina. When I lived back there in the seventies, before I got saved, I had a 1964 Chevrolet that I'd bought. I went down through Statesville one day with all the windows rolled down. A red light caught me and on the courthouse lawn was a preacher with loudspeakers. That man I got was preaching. You know what? The Holy Ghost got a hold of me that day and I got irritated. I said, why don't he get off of that lawn and get in the church somewhere and get off the street here. I just got bothered, boy. But I tell you, that's exactly what Saul ought to do to them old sinners. It ought to irritate them. If you live right, it will get on other people's nerves. Brother, I want to tell you something. Watch how you're living. Me and my wife were in an apartment after we got saved. Got in church. Got married. We were in this little apartment. One morning, we woke up. It was in the wintertime. And I noticed it was real cold in the house. and couldn't figure out what was wrong. I went to turn the furnace on and it didn't come on. I looked out the window and a heavy snow had fell that night. It had fell and no doubt fell on some power lines. I got back in the bed and I laid there and I got colder and colder and colder. I said, well the furnace won't come on. I said, I know what I'll do. I'll jump up and I'll turn the electric stove on and get the house heated up. I started to get up, my wife said, it runs off electricity too. I said, you're right. I laid there, and so help me, Lord bear me, it takes me a while to catch on. I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar. I said, that clothes dryer downstairs, it gets hot, my heat comes up. I said, I'll go down there and turn that clothes dryer on. She said, honey, it runs off electricity too. I said, well, I tell you what, I got a Chevrolet sittin' down there and it don't run off electricity, it runs off of gas and we're gonna get in there and go to McDonald's and get warm and get some breakfast in there. But I thought, there it is, that furnace. That dryer, that stove, we've got all that stuff. But without the electricity, it was good for nothing. Now my friend, that piano over there is a nice, nice, beautiful instrument. But it ain't worth a flip, my friend, without that lady on there hitting them keys. Now I want to tell you, my friend, Jesus is what makes us live. And Jesus is what makes us what we are, my friend. And without Him, we're absolutely nothing. And we're powerless. And we're hopeless. And we need God's power in our lives. Boy, we need that punch, that unction. Somebody asked an old black preacher one time, he said, what is unction? He said, I don't know what it is, but I know it's when I ain't got it. Amen? Boy, I want to tell you something, we need that power in our life for Christian duty. We need that power in our life for Christian service, for Christian living. I want to tell you something, it's not me that liveth, but it's Christ that liveth in me. You know why I did not get drunk before I come down here today? Because I had the power of the Lord in my life saving me from going out there and doing that stuff again. You know why I didn't steal something today? Because I had the power of the Lord in my life helping me to overcome the sin in this world. And my friend, if we don't have God's power in our life, you're liable to say anything. You're liable to do just like David did right here. It's God's power that helps us to live this Christian life. And the Bible says, Sin shall not have dominion over you. Greater is He that's in you than he that's in the world. And when we lose that power of God in our life, we're liable to do anything. I've got news for you, my friend. We don't have to be failures. Hey, we don't have to be has-beens and used-to-be's. My friend, we don't have to go out there and smoke dope and drink liquor and cuss and things like that. I tell you, we can live a victorious life in the Lord Jesus Christ. He can give us victory tonight, my friend. But it's going to take God's power, I tell you, to get the job done. Young boys and young girls, you don't have to go out there and mess your life up. You don't have to do it. You can live for the Lord, and I know some of you are, and I hope all of you are. But I want to tell you something, you can live for God. Joseph lived for God down in Egypt. He didn't have a lot of fellowship like we got. He didn't have a Baptist church to go to. He locked up down there in Potiphar's house, and that woman trying to seduce him. But he had the power of God in his life, and because of that, he said, I will not do this sin against my master and against my God. I'll tell you, Daniel was in Babylon. It was a wicked place. He had Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the fellowship. That's all he had as far as we know. But they didn't live in a Bible belt. They didn't have a King James Bible. They didn't have a preacher getting up on the Lord's day and preaching to them like we do. But you know, they live for God. They're victorious down there. Daniel was able to say no. Daniel was able to live for God. My friend, if he can live for God in Babylon, surely we can live for God in Talisman and Lenore and Wilkes-Barre, because we've got a whole lot more going for us today than they did. Amen. My friend, we can live for God. We need God's power for conviction. I want to tell you, when them sinners walk in that door back there, in my church, we shouldn't have to sing 50 stanzas of Just As I Am without one plea. I tell you, there won't be enough power of God when they walk in there, my friend. They're in a conviction just as soon as they walk through that door. I have known people that come through the back door or the front door, and before they can get sent down, all the way down to the altar, getting saved because there's so much power in the house of the Lord. Amen. Boy, he lost his power with God. Not only that, my friend, he lost his joy. The Bible says in our verse number 12, he said, Lord, restore to me the joy of Thy salvation. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation. The Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength. The psalmist said, will Thou not revive us again that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? I said, boy, when people come to church, as Brother Allen was talking about that little boy going down the street, passing one church, going to the next one, He was looking for somebody that was happy, that had a smile on their face. It's the most miserable people I've ever seen in such Baptist churches. Oh, my friend, I want to tell you something. When people come to church, they always look over there and say, man, they're happy. They are happy. I want to tell you something. Salvation, I tell you, ought to make you happy. It ought to put a smile on your face and skip in your stout, my friend. I tell you, we've got something to rejoice about and shout about. Hey, we're not going to hell. We're going to heaven. We're going to get a brand new body one of these days. We've got a home in heaven. We've got a whole lot going for us tonight. We've got a whole lot to shout about tonight. I know David had lost his joy. Sin will rob you of your joy. That's why Achan could not give God glory, because he had sin in his tent. Oh, my friend, joy, joy, unspeakable and full of glory. I know you've heard the story. You've probably heard it time and time again about the old fellow who went down to the doctor. He'd got saved a few days before that, and he went down to the doctor. The doctor told him, he said, sir, you've got sugar in your blood. Man, he took a shouting spell and jumped all over the room. The doctor looked at him and said, what's wrong with you? He said, sir, you've got sugar. Boy, he jumped up and started shouting again, praise the Lord. He said, sir, what in the world are you shouting about? What's wrong with you? You've got sugar. He said, doc, I got saved just a few days ago at an old-fashioned revival meeting. He said, boy, it was sweet. And said, those people come around and told me it's going to get sweeter and sweeter and sweeter, but they didn't tell me it was going to turn into sugar. Amen. Amen. All through the Bible, we find where David danced before the Lord. He danced before the Lord. Boy, he's the one that wrote most of the Psalms in the Bible. And all through those Psalms, he talked about praising God. Shout hallelujah. Amen. Give Him praise unto the Lord. I want to tell you something, my friend. The only people that have a right to be rejoicing today is God's people. This thing is about over, my friend. And I tell you, if we have hope in this life, we are of all men most miserable. But my hope, my friend, is not in this world. I tell you, it's over there somewhere where Jesus is at. And He's coming back one day. We have a blessed hope also. We have a hope that we may not see death. We might be the people that leave out of here in the rapture, and we may miss the graveyard. We just might miss the graveyard. I don't know about you, but I don't want to die, but I might. But I sure would like to go in a rapture. I've been to all the funerals and all the graveyards I want to go to. But boy, he lost his joy. Very quickly he lost his fellowship. Verse number 8. Well, he said, make me to hear joy and gladness. David could not hear now. He could not hear the Lord now. He did not lose his sonship, but he lost his fellowship. The psalmist said, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Psalms 59 verse 1 and 2 said, The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your sins have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear. And sin robs us of our fellowship with God. When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, God come calling for him in the cool of the day. And Adam couldn't fellowship with him anymore because he had sin in his life. Sin will separate us from the fellowship of God. I want to tell you something else. He lost his children. That little baby that he and Bathsheba had. I don't know how old it was. It couldn't be too old. But the Lord said, I'm going to take that little baby. Now, I'm not saying every little child that dies is because of chastisement. I'm not saying that. Don't get me wrong. But sometimes that could be the case. I heard a preacher out of this county. He's already went to be with the Lord. He told it in my church while he was preaching one day that the Lord took a little baby from him because he would not surrender to preach the Word of God. Sometimes the Lord knows how to get our attention. There's that little baby. David's out there praying, Lord, don't take that little child. God, don't take that little baby from me, please. Lord, I'm sorry. He's fasting. For seven days, think about it, no food. He's weeping. He's crying. Lord, please don't. I want to tell you something. You reap what you sow. That crop is going to come up. He lost that little child. And then, my friend, later on, now you read the Bible, he had a son by the name of Amnon. He had a daughter by the name of Tamar. They were half-brother and half-sister. Amnon fell in love with his half-sister and began to lust after her. You know the story of how he planned to be sick and how David sent his daughter down there to take care of Amnon. But while she was down there, he took advantage of her. And he attacked her and molested his own sister. Incest. David got worried about it. He was very angry. But oh, David! You do remember when Nathan made you that visit down at your house, what was going to happen? Just think about it, my friend. If you had a daughter and son that would do something like that, how shameful it would be! How it would break your heart! Well, Absalom found out about it. Tamar was his full sister. Absalom got angry too. Absalom got malice in his heart. He said, I'll get even with him. I'll pay him back for what he did to my sister. And you know how time went by. He planned another party. He got Amnon and some of the other sons of David to come and join him with the party. And some of his co-conspirators and friends, he said, when he gets drunk, he said, you drive a dagger through his heart. And that's exactly what happened when Amnon got drunk. One of Absalom's friends drove a dagger through Amnon's heart and killed him. Word got back, Amnon's dead. There David is again. Oh Lord! Oh Lord! My baby! My daughter's been raped! My old brother! And here, Amnon's dead now. My old son done it! My other son killed his old brother! Later on, we know the story of how Absalom got killed. Absalom was a rebel, but David loved him with all of his heart. Absalom was hanging up there in an oak tree by the hair of his head after trying to do battle with David's men. Joab did not like Absalom. When Joab got up there where Absalom was and saw him hanging there by the hair of his head, he took darts and threw them through his heart and killed him, took him down, put him in a big pit, and put stones upon him. Word comes to David again, now Absalom's dead. You read chapter number 18. David's out on the porch and he's crying, oh God, oh Absalom, oh my son. He's, oh my son. Oh Absalom, I would have died for you. Oh my son. He's out there just crying. And he's, oh Lord, what have I done? My friend, I'm not saying you may have did what David did. We may not have committed adultery and murdered a man like David did. What a horrible sin! But the Bible said it's the little foxes that destroy the fiends. Boy, it could be bitterness. Boy, it could be malice. It could be wrath, a grudge, things like that. Hurt feelings. Well, those things, my friend, will destroy the joy of God in your life and they will rob us of God's power. He said, Lord, I can't win any transgressors to You until You restore the joy of the Lord in my heart and the power I used to have with You. I said, if it could happen to David, it could happen to any of us. It could happen to any of us. I said a while ago, I know that some of you people know some men that have fell. I want to tell you something, I don't look down my nose at them. I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for them. I'm not condoning what they did. It does upset me at times. But at the same time, we must remember that it could happen to us. And we're to pray for those men. When I see them in a restaurant, I don't snob them. I'll go sit down with them and I'll talk with them. Hey, they're my brother. I feel sorry for them. They've been wounded. They've messed up. They'll tell you sometime, look, I messed up and I'm sorry. The last thing I want to do is push them on down further than they are and try to hurt them. Man, I want to try and say, look, if the Lord forgive you, I forgive you. Let's sit on the pew and shout together, Amen. I realize it'll take a long time for them to get their influence back. In Psalms 38, you can read this. I do believe David died of venereal disease. If you'll read Psalms 38. He talked about the wounds that he had. How his flesh stunk. His flesh was rotten. And he talked about this loathsome disease that is in my body. He said, my sin is ever before me. And he talked about his foolishness. Because of my foolishness, And what I can discern there, I believe, is he died of a venereal disease. And my friend, we've got to be real careful. Let me give you this. What is revival? It's a renewed strength. Boy, it's a restoration. It's a spiritual renewal. It's a stir in 2 Timothy 1, verse 16, when Paul said to Timothy, stir that guilt up. It's a time when people's lives are changed. It's a great awakening. Back in the late 60's at the New Hope Baptist Church, there was a man who pastored there by the name of Jim Price. One Christmas night, he called D. Vaughn Dyson to come preach a revival for him. Some of those members in that church went to Jim Price and said, we can't have revival starting on Christmas night. I said, don't you know people are celebrating Christmas and what are you doing? He said, all I know is God told me to get de-bondicing. To come to New Hope Baptist Church and start on a Christmas night. I was not saved at that time, but I pastored New Hope Baptist Church for ten years. From 1981 to 1991, I talked to a whole lot of people that went to that meeting. James Lockheed went to that meeting. Steve Dagenhart. A lot of young people, a group of young people out of D. Vaughan's church, this lady here, Steve's sister, might have went. They had a real revival. Steve Dagenhart told me, he said, it was the real thing. He said, I think it's the first time I ever shouted. Needn't quit shouting yet. Amen. It went on for eight long weeks. I heard story after story after story of what went on in that revival meeting. It could have went on longer, but they had a trip planned to go to Israel, the Holy Land. And they closed it down, and Jim Price will tell you, he said, we missed God. He said, we left that revival meeting where God was and went over to the Holy Land where He was and said, we missed Him. But it was a real, true revival meeting. And a revival is where our lives get changed. Our lives get changed. And folks, I said the other night, we all get cold at times. You don't have to go out and do what David did. People can sit on the pew of the Baptist church and get cold and kind of bashlet on the Lord and lose that shout, lose that power. But aren't you glad God can revive us? Aren't you glad God loves us? You know what? David did have a revival. God forgave David. And boy, I want to tell you something, old David got right with the Lord and gave it back. Folks, I want to tell you something, if you're here tonight, and I'm not saying you did what David did, again, sometimes we just get cold. We just get cold. We quit praying for our loved ones. We quit praying for sinners. We get in the choir and sing, but it just ain't coming out of our heart. I want to ask you tonight, do you need to come for any reason or other? Maybe you just got some people you need to pray for. Say, Lord, I've lost my burden, and I want that burden back for Him. I get like that about a lot of people sometimes. I just quit praying. Then, boy, the Holy Ghost will ring my bell and say, You need to pray for Him. Amen. Let's bow our heads for just a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I want to thank You for liberty to preach tonight. And Lord, this is kind of like a pre-maintenance message. I'm not saying anybody is guilty. Lord, we need it. We need to be warned what could happen in the future if we're not careful. A lot of those good men, those good godly men, Lord, we've seen fall to the wayside. They didn't plan on becoming a castaway. They didn't plan on becoming a backslider. It wasn't in their plans to bring shame and reproach upon the name of the Lord. It just wasn't in their heart. But Lord, if we're not careful, we will mess up. You help us to keep our eyes on the Lord, to be sober, be vigilant. And Lord, bless this church. Thank you for the good spirit. Lord, I thank you for the kindness of these people. Lord, that good choir singing a while ago, just good worship, good worship music. Lord, I pray you'll bless the remainder of this meeting. Bless Brother Allen. Bless these young people, Father. And I pray your will be done, every heart and mind. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.