Search Me o Lord

Thank you. Thank you, Hun. God bless you. Thank you again, Organ, for giving us a beautiful week to remember. I'd like to turn your attention to the word of the Lord. And if you would, would you stand? Take your Bibles and open it to the book of Psalms. Chapter 139 verse 23. David said, "Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Lead me in the way everlasting. I want you to pray tonight. I feel that perhaps the message that I feel on my heart, I did not know when I was going to preach this message. I did not know where it would fall, what night. I just simply felt in my heart before long before coming here that this burden of my soul that God was going to call on this for one night of this camp. And I appreciate so much the beauty of the other thoughts and things that that the Lord has seemingly revealed to us and opened our minds to expand that we could comprehend through the word that has been preached day and night in these camps or in this camp. But I feel tonight that probably if I can if I can if I can have the anointing of God to help deliver my soul and if you will plug in tonight and feel with me, I believe that we will leave here and this night will benefit us. I trust that you will feel as strongly about it as I do. I do not I do not give honor to my articulation of words. That's not it. But there is a thought that the Lord dropped in my heart that to me has been beautiful. And I want to be able to get it across to you to where you can think it's beautiful. And if you'll feel with me, I believe all of us tonight will be blessed. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Would you lift your hands and pray for the man of God tonight? Pray for his feeble lips. Pray for our ears to be anointed. Pray that our hearts could be melted together in his beautiful presence. Father, we love you tonight. We love you tonight. We love you tonight. We love you tonight.

We love you tonight. Anoint our feeble lips, Lord. Melt our hearts together in the presence of the Lord. Anoint the ears of your people. We love you so much. Praise God. Praise God. And everybody say a resounding hallelujah. Hallelujah. God bless you. You may be seated. Of course, you recognize the writings. You quickly recognize the author of the words that we read in our scripture text. You know it to be the man that we refer to as the psalmist David. I spoke to you the other night about my love for different characters, different men who we study after in the word of the Lord. I spoke of a deep love for Simon Peter. I spoke of a deep love for the Apostle Paul. And all of these these men that we have a fact some of them we have messages. I I like to preach character messages. And uh, of course, one of my favorite, one of my very favorite characters in the word of the Lord is Psalmist David. Now, I love all of them and their own rights. And there are different things that we can identify with at different times and at different points in our lives. Different characters that we identify with mean more to us at that particular time. And there's something about David's continuing attitude. Would you say that with me? There's something about David's continuing attitude that touches my heart. And for for some some way somehow there are things about him that I must I must attain to. Now, are we going to give the babies time to quit crying or either time for mom to take them out? One And everybody say amen. We have had such such beautiful beautiful attentiveness in all of these services. And I realize that under very warm circumstances like we're in right now, these children are not getting as much out of what's being said as some of the rest of us are. they probably don't appreciate it near as much. But just because they don't, you know, that don't that don't stop the rest of us for wanting to hear. And we just have to God love the moms and the dads who are so beautifully attending. Thank you so much. If your if your little darling goes to bothering the word now when I get cranked up, honey, they can tear the roof off. It don't matter. But until until I get going, I do have to have some undivided attention. Really, my my little my little old peanut brain, it it's under stress at the very best. Amen. Everybody say hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. There's something about David and his attitude. There's something about David in his in his relationship to his God. There's something about David's continuing attitude and relationship to his God.

That I've got to find the secret to Oh, yeah. For I live among a people. I live in a human family that can be persuaded of one particular set of ideals at one point in their lives. And then sadly but strangely or strangely and sadly time has a way of deteriorating of changing of stealing of coloring. Time has a way of changing values. Time has a way of Well, I think probably tonight if I had time to paint word pictures, I could go back and paint the picture of the old home place where my mother was just a girl. The many happenings that was there, the beauty of that home that the sharecropper, the only owner owner of the property built for my granddad and his family. They were the f first folks that lived there. Of course, it was just lumber that he had torn down, other other buildings and barns and things and built, but it was a new dwelling and they were sharecroppers and he took care of them and that's where they lived. If I were to paint the word picture tonight and carry you back on a mental journey to that place tonight, that that used to be beautiful, that that used to be home, that that used to be where laughter rang, where you gathered around the table and feasted, and where at Christmas time, everybody was everybody was happy. The ecstasy of the moments. And if I were to take you back there now and you were to see the deterioration of that place, how that now it no longer houses a family, the laughter, the love. It's just a place where cattle feed is stored, just hay. The boards are rotted down. The porch is almost fallen to the ground. The boards are rotted through the porch. You have to pick your way as you walk. The old shutters, the the roof itself there. There's there's still the the haunting. There's enough of of of of what's left to haunt you and the memories of the past. And I was carried around when I visited there with my mother. It's called the old Harris Finley place. My mother carried me there and we pushed our way through the old the old cattle gap, the old gate and the briars that had had grown up to where it was it was almost locked shut with briars and and we tore away all of that. She carried me through she carried me to to the fireplace, the front porch. She even carried me out back to the old to the old stable, the the stalls there where the animals were fed. and she showed me that hallowed spot that still to this day no grass grows there. That's where my grandmother prayed, fought her battles. That's where she won her victories. That's where she prayed a boy that was a Japanese prisoner for 39 months during World War II. For one year, they only had word that he was missing in action. And um they assumed that he was dead. Everybody accepted the fact that he was dead except my grandmother. But there on that lonely spot in that cow stall where she prayed, God let her feel an assurance one day and she told God, "I want I want to see him just like he is." When she got back to the house, sitting there with my grandpa, she heard a knock at the door or a rattle at the door. She turned and there he stood. There he stood so thin and so frail with his beard way down here about to his about to his waistline. And she turned back around to grandpa and said, "Paul, there's Zach." And when they both turned back around to look, he was no longer there. When she finally prayed him back out of that prison camp, he only skirted the brink of death many, many times, but her prayers brought him through. When she finally got him home, she asked him the question one day, "Son, did you lose weight while you were over there?" and he didn't tell her, but he told some of the other family privately that he got way below 100 lbs.

She said, "Did you have a razor? Were you able to keep your beard shaved?" He said, "No, mom." She said, "How long did your beard get?" And he said, "Oh, it got down about to my waist." God had showed her a picture of him. You see, when I went back to that old place and when I saw that spot where today still no grass grows, when I saw mother carried me around the other side of the house, the south side of the house, and and there this the old iron rim that was nailed up on the side of the house where she and her twin brother when they were just a lot younger, they played basketball. to know to know the love of that family, to know the the warmth, and then to know in its in its young stages, in its young state, that home played such an intricate part. And now to go back, I'm telling you, it almost I I I can't hardly stand it. I guess I'm just nostalgic or something. I don't know. I I'm so sentimental about things. I can hardly stand to see it. Time to me was so cruel to do something so devastating to something so beautiful. You get the picture. Time has a way of destroying some beautiful values, some beautiful truths. It's not that the values and the truths change. It's just that something happens to a concept. Something happens to an idea. Something happens to the way we hold things. something happens to way through the way we love things. So, David had had some kind of a some kind of an ability to hang in there. He really did. He had some kind of ability to to to when things got weren't just like he wanted them to be or when he faced enemy or when he faced battles or when he faced turmoil or strife somehow he had I guess what we would call in this hour some stickability. He really did. And of course, I can look back at at at the at the writings at the things about the psalmist David in his in his younger days, and I really believe I really believe that that I I I don't know. I might not be a I might not be a great philosopher when it comes to this, but I think I know a little about David, why God loved him when he was so young. I believe I believe that I can figure out some of the things about David in that humble beginning that God loved about him. And I think perhaps David in his in his concepts David David had an exceptional ability to appreciate a cause. He had an exceptional ability to be sensitive to the presence of God. He had an exceptional ability to be sensitive and keen and there was there was just things he did not count things lightly. And of course, God loves a musician. He really does because God is the one that gives the song. And anybody that's sensitive enough to pick up the song that God gives, whether it be through a through a voice or through a musical instrument. I think God loved David's musical ability. I think he loved his poetic ability. I think there's a lot of things. I think God loved his innocence. I believe he loved his purity. I believe he loved his unassuming way. I really do. There's a lot of things about David that I feel like God loved. And of course, I'm just I'm just surmising. I'm just kind of taking an amalgamation of different things throughout the word of God that God's word teaches us that he loves about people. And I may not have it all just exactly right why God loved David, but I do know that the book said that he was a man after God's own heart. I do know that. Now, the intricate details about what caused God to fall in love with him. So, I'm going to have to I'm going to have to kind of figure on that because it didn't give me a 1 2 3 4 5 a list of things. This is why he So, I've got to I've got to try to get a hold of some of David's attitudes and some of his concepts that caused God to love him so much from the very beginning.

The little shepherd boy. The little shepherd boy whose heart playing forced God from his glory to sit in his audience on the Judeian heels. the little shepherd boy whose head demanded the prophets oil of anointing to be the future king over Israel. And that little shepherd boy's heart who literally drew God's heart into captivity. I can understand, David, how your music, how your innocence, and how the purity of your heart captivated the attention of God the way it did. But David, I live in a world of change. I live in a in a fastpaced society. I live among people who can love values today and turn on them tomorrow. I live among people who can preach one thing today and then turn and preach something else tomorrow. What I'm trying to get figured out, David, I can understand how you started out, David, but what I'm trying to do is determine tonight how you stayed, David. Through the years, how did you keep life's everyday rub from forming calluses on your own soul? How did you keep the struggles and the failures of the moment from dimming your view of beyond tomorrow? How did you keep the disappointment, your disappointment in the failures of others that you worked with and worked around? How did you keep that from wearing holes in your own faith? In other words, how did you stay David? It's one thing to start out, but it's another thing to continue. It's one thing to begin something, but it's another to finish something. It's one thing to start when the gun fires and began the race, but it's another thing to cross the finish line. How did you stay, David? From the point of humble beginnings when in your youthful purity and innocence to your old age when you laid your armor down, you had a lot of enemies. You had a lot of you had a lot of forces to try to keep you from being the man you started out to be. You had a lot of you had a lot of pressure to try to destroy whatever that was that God first loved about you. You started out pure. You started out innocent. You started out. You started out so fantastic, so clean that God loved you. You captivated his heart. You literally was after God's own heart. But you had

so many things to come to try to destroy that in you. You had so many misunderstandings. You had so many misgivings. You had so many battles. You had so many skirmishes. You had so much that proved or tried to ensure the fact that you'd never cross the finish line the day that you started out to be. What I'm trying to do is to figure out how I can copy you and stay in my hour. what God first fell in love with. We marvel at your handling the bear. We marvel at the way you took the lion when it was threatening the safety of the little lambs that you were placed in charge of. We stand in amazement as we see you take the bottom jaw and the top jaw of these beasts and God gives you strength and you literally tear them in two and shake. We're amazed at that. But what we're concerned about tonight is how did you rise above the peer pressure of your brothers? We can never thank you enough for taking that little sling, picking up five smooth stones, and being willing to fight the giant that your brothers and the king himself were f trembling in fear of. We appreciate all of that and we thank God that you had the courage and the love of a cause that you were able to stand up and do that. But what gets us is how when your brothers made fun of you, how did you rise above their peer pressure? How did you overcome the faithlessness of your people and of your leader? How did you rise in your faith beyond their faith? How did you cope with the jealousy of the man for whom you had just won the victory? How did you cope with his jealousy wanting to destroy your life while knowing he sought yours and having ample opportunity to take his? How did you discipline yourself to such character so as not to touch God's anointed? How did you do it? How did you do it? You started out David, but how did you stay David? saints of God preaching to you tonight. And I hope you'll stay with me. And I hope the Holy Ghost will help you tonight to see what I'm trying to drive home to us. You hear me? Tonight I preach a message like this simply because that book says, "It's not he that starteth out, but the the the the the prize is given to that one that goes all the way. We have to preach messages like this because that book makes statements to this effect. That one that puts his hand to the plow and then turns to look back disqualifies himself and he's not fit for the kingdom of God.

And you know as well as I know the storm winds are blowing tonight. You know as well as I know the winds of compromise are blowing tonight. You know as well as I know that the devil would like to put this truth on a showcase with everything else so that people could choose a way that's a lot less demanding than what God's holiness is. But I'm a preaching to you tonight that some way somehow we who have been exposed to the truth, we who have seen his suffering, we who have had a revelation of the oneness of Christ and his authority and his place and position. We have got to somehow remain put in our convictions, in our walk, in our rapport, in our relationship. We've got to stay David. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Are you getting a picture tonight of what I'm trying to say? Somebody that's getting a picture of it and you're believing it and that's kind of the way you're feeling about it. I want you to throw up your right hand and shout hallelujah right now, would you? Glory to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I want you to know tonight there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of easier routes. There's a lot of roads of least resistance that we could take if we were so a mind to. There's a lot of things happen that we could get bitterness in our crawl. There's a lot of things happen that we could let fiery darts penetrate into our heart and cause us to be eaten up with resentment. There's a lot of things are happening if we had let it. But somehow I started out and God has got to help me to make it all the way. Hallelujah. I cannot change now. I cannot fail now. I cannot let nothing take me off into a side tangent. I've got to stay what God wants me to be. Now I come back once again with something that if it's crosses your philosophy or crosses your theory, you just I kind I guess I'm kind of like I I'm referring to what Paul did when he said now This is Paul's gospel. Now, this is Merl Ewing's gospel. Okay. Is that all right? But it dawned on me some time ago that I think we might be we might be victims of a of an attitude or a concept that might not be just exactly the way it is. I hope you don't mind me taking my time tonight. You just you just go ahead and and bear with me and rejoice with me. Have you ever have you ever heard it preached about that scripture striving for perfection? Huh? You ever heard it testified? We're striving for perfection. Huh? Now, I think that is tremendous. And I think that is exactly what we ought to do. But I think in our mental concept,

we're headed down the wrong end of the spectrum to reach it. Now, I know some of you nervous as you can be. I'm coming out with some kind of a new fang dangle doctrine. I'm honest with you. I think that somehow in our minds, hear me now, we have got it figured out that if I can, if I can attend enough church services, if I can hear enough sermons, if I can sit through enough camp meetings and if I can read that Bible through enough times and if I can pray enough hours that someday I will cross that magical point and I will just enter into that realm of perfection. Tighten your seat belt. You see me walking softly, don't you? I want that to sink in. I I want you to hear what I'm saying tonight. We have got this mental concept. Sometimes we are not a whole lot better than some of the denominationalism that we come out of. Oh, I know what I'm saying is hurting some of you, but don't don't don't don't worry about it. I heard some some oldtime denominational people not long back. I say not long back. I guess if I was to really calculate, it's probably been a good while, but but nevertheless, I heard them anyhow. And you know what they were doing? They were sitting there and I'm telling you as far as their involvement in the church, they were as mossed over. I'm telling you honey, they were mossed over. Green had done covered them. But you know what they were doing? They were sitting there in their own, you know, I I guess probably hardly ever did darken the door of a church. You know, finally, I guess you just grow in grace. I told you the other night then about that old boy, that old boy up around home, he told me, he said, "When I first got the Holy Ghost," he said, "I couldn't hardly do nothing." He said, "I do least thing." He said, "It just condemned me." He said, "But I've grown in grace an awful lot." He said, "I can steal a hog now and it don't hardly bother me at all. Honey, I don't call that growing in grace. All right. The same concept now. They were sitting here bragging about. Boy, you don't know who I've heard in my time. I've heard some preachers in my time. And they told me I have heard personally Dr. Billy Graham. Oh, I even heard Dr. Robert G. Lee preach Payday Sunday. Oh, you are in the higher echelons. You just don't understand who you talking to. Don't tell me nothing, you little old upstart. Ain't dry behind your ears trying to tell me something about religion. I done forgot more than you'll ever know. And that's what I was afraid of.

That's just what I was thinking. You done forgot it. You'd be surprised to know how many oldtimers we got sitting around Pentecost. Now look, I'm not knocking the old-timers, honey. I'm just knocking them that's backslid. You little old upstart. Don't you come in here and telling me what I got to do. I've heard you, man. You don't know who I've heard preach. And I'm not knocking. I'm talking about some of our Pentecostal people take pride in who they've heard preach. I heard oh brother AD Ursan before he died. I heard him preach. I heard brother Witherspoon. I heard brother SL Wise preach. You ain't gonna tell me. Now look. You see, hearing these people, that's wonderful and good. That's wonderful. But you can't trust your salvation just that you have heard them preach. Jesus said the premium is not on hearing the word, but he said, "Are you a doer of the word that you heard? It's one thing to hear, but it's another thing to do. The premium is not on how many times you read through this book. It's how many times that book has gotten in here. The premium is not on how many revivals you have been in, but how many revivals God in you. see where the premium is. So we rest in our laurels. We have read it book through so many times. We prayed so many hours. We have visited so many camp meetings. We have been through so many revivals. That's wonderful and good. And we have a hallucination or some kind of an imaginary point that when I have heard enough, when I have seen enough, when I have read enough, or when I have heard enough preachers, one day I'll just simply walk across the line into that state of perfection. When I wonder really where is perfection? Is it in what we have accomplished as far as our works are concerned? Or is it what we have accomplished as far as our attitudes are concerned? I think probably we're looking for perfection on the wrong end of the pro of the spectrum when what we really should be doing. If I were to ask you tonight, what was your in your own assessment, what was your most perfected moment in your life? When do you think at what moment do you feel you were the most perfect? I think every one of us without exception would go back to that night when we heard the gospel and our heart believed it. We walked to an altar, draped

ourself in repentance across that altar, cried out for forgiveness of sins. God heard us. God forgave us and God washed us through baptism with his own blood and he filled us with his spirit. And we talked in tongues as the spirit gave the utterance. And we're striving for perfection by accomplishments of works when we really should be striving to maintain whatever that attitude was in our humble beginning that God first fell in love with. Somewhere, somewhere, God saw a little old dirty, blonde, freckle-faced, barefooted boy. And he heard my cries of repentance. He saw my tears of sincerity. And I tell you from that night, God fell in love with that little old boy. He did. God saved my soul. And God has walked with me through these years. But what I'm striving to do tonight, I know I have read his word. I know I have been in revival. I know I've done some praying. I know I've heard some preaching. I know all of that. But I find that my attitude and my spirit is still tendency to be affected by the evil around me. I have a tendency to have my face to have holes worn in it by the disappointment in others that I face. I know that the everyday drudgery when I'm just having to plot alone, it has a tendency of wearing through to where I just really I just don't know whether I can go on or not. You see, my spirit and my attitude is affected by all of that. And what I've got to do is somehow find that place where God first fell in love with me. I've got to find that altar where he first fell in love with me. And if I can get back to that point, where he first loved me, it don't matter how old love gets. Love never shows its age. It don't matter how love how long love has stayed around. Love never becomes weak nor weary in welloing. When every other reason has long since faded away, love hangs in there. Love keeps blood. Love keeps going. When every other reason for me to stay true has vanished away, love says, "Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Love never fails. Love is as strong as death is. Everything else can quit and fall by and faint and stop. But love keeps her going. Love hangs in there. You can live for God for a lot of reasons, but you'll never be as successful as you will be if you ever fall in love with Jesus Christ.

Love just hangs in there. Love, flesh may get feeble. Flesh may not be able to do what it used to do, but love is still there. Love never grows old. Oh, brother Audros Fusilair, that's the church that brother trice took many years ago when he came to the Lake Charles area. Oh, brother Audros Fuselier was a was an old French he was French descent, old Frenchman. And he was a pioneer in the Pentecostal realm in Louisiana and in that part of the world. He was he was quite a preacher and quite a Pentecostalist, quite a revivalist in his day. When he got old, I guess perhaps his his physical frame, he somebody told him one day said, "Brother Fuselair, I remember the day that if we' had a service like we had tonight, I remember you'd have been jumping this high off of the floor." Oh, brother Fusilair looked back at him and his French broke. He said, "Brother, I'm still jumping that high off the floor in my soul. I just can't get my feet that high off the floor now. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I'm telling you tonight, it don't matter how high you can get your feet off the floor. Just so you still got it down here, it's still going to be a hopping and a fluttering and a flouncing. Hallelujah. The Holy Ghost. There was an old preacher sat on the platform with a lot of younger men when he himself, some of his contemporaries, if they were still even going, they sat on the platform during a service like a not on a deal pickle. They never had any kind of an expression that they even knew what was going on. Huh. I'm I'm not against us getting old. I'm getting that way myself. But honey, what I am against is for us to get this attitude that we've done had our day. We can graduate into an area and to an arena where we are not affected anymore by what's going on. Y'all go ahead and dance if that's what you need. Go ahead. If you need all of this all of this shouting and all of this hollering and and all this business, well, y'all go ahead. But just don't worry me with none of it. I've got news for you. If you still got it in here, you might not be able to get that foot that high off that floor, but there's going to be a smile on that face. Somebody asked that old preacher. They said, "What we want to know is your contemporaries, if they're even still around. They sit around like knocks on a deal pickle. But you you always have that fresh vivacious look. You're always excited about what's going on. You're always right into it and you're you're you're enthusiastic still about it all. How did it happen? How have you remained a freshness about it all? You know what his answer was? He said, "I I I guess the secret to it." He said, "I just never have lost the wonder of it all.