Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: She was recently named Teacher of the Year by Better Basics, and I just think it is a wonderful acknowledgment. Next to her is Cicely Walker. Stand up, Cicely. Cicely continues to be recognized as one of the outstanding young women in America, working directly in the chaplaincy program. She is a graduate and alumna of Samford University and has received all kinds of accolades and recognition. I just think the church ought to also join in the recognition.

This morning, certainly we want to give a shout-out to all those faithful listeners and all of those people who tune in each week to our television ministry and to the radio and so many other ways in which the word of God is spread abroad. So we're going to go there now. Let's pray together and then we'll open the word and hear what the Lord says to us.

Father, we are thankful and grateful for another week's journey. As we grow older, we just understand that we cannot take any days for granted. Every day You give is another blessing. We pray that You would help us to utilize these moments more and more for Your glory. Thank You for the privilege of worship this day. The songs, the scripture, the prayers, all have prompted us and desired even deeper moments in our own life to want to see Your name glorified, honored, and praised.

As we come to this moment of sharing together the glories from the truth that You have placed in Your word, we pray that You would open our eyes that we may see, our ears that we may hear, our hearts that we may feel. May the truth that we will glean today lead us into a deeper, closer walk with You. Bless now the words that are in our mouth and the meditations that are on our heart, that it may be acceptable in Your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

I wasn't able to print out the message for our team this morning, and I don't usually know the way, but I’m coming your way. Luke's Gospel, Chapter 7. We want to look at verses 18 through 23 for the morning message. The same passage is recorded in the other gospels, but I have been looking at different ways in which the gospel writers wanted to bring truth.

"And the disciples of John showed him of all these things. And John, calling unto him two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, 'Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?' When the men were come unto him, they said, 'John Baptist has sent us unto thee, saying, 'Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?'' And in the same hour He cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits. And unto many of them that were blind He gave sight."

"Then Jesus answering said unto them, 'Go your way and tell John what things you have seen and heard. How that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised. To the poor, the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.'" This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

I want to raise a question this morning. Why do believers doubt? Why do believers doubt? The Bible has sought to make it clear, and the New Testament in particular, through the scriptural evidences, that Jesus is the Son of God. It is a historical fact recorded by all four of the gospel writers. The Old Testament talks about somebody is coming. All the way from the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve first sinned, God made it clear that the seed of a woman is going to come.

He's going to end the rule and reign of Satan. "You'll bruise His heel, but He's going to bash your head," the seed of a woman. The Bible talks about it. When Moses was on the scene, Moses said there's going to be another prophet that's going to come who's going to be greater than me. They were talking about the coming of the Messiah. So, when Matthew opens his gospel, he tells us that through forty-two generations, he lays it out in genealogy, that Jesus had come.

When Luke begins his gospel, he helps us to understand that angels spoke to Mary and told her she was going to be pregnant, and no human father was going to be involved. That same angel was sent to convince Joseph to go ahead and marry the girl because what she was carrying was of the Holy Ghost. Throughout all of the scripture evidence, when John writes his gospel, he has Elizabeth meeting with Mary. John's gospel said the baby leaped in her womb because he recognized that he was in the presence of deity of almighty God.

Even when Jesus showed up, there were two old people in the temple, Anna and Simeon, who said, "Now I can go home in peace because I've seen the Lord's Christ." Angels told the shepherd boys, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord." So the word has been real clear about who Jesus is. Even when Jesus grew up and became a man and was baptized, heaven opened and God said, "This is My beloved son in whom I'm well pleased."

Even at the end of His life, the men that were crucifying Him, the Roman centurion smote his breast and said, "Surely this is the Son of God." Testimony is everywhere. The Jews were a little upset with Jesus because they said to him one day in John's gospel, Chapter 10, "How long are You going to make us wait? Tell us plainly, are You the Christ?" Jesus said, "Yeah, you said it." Pilate asked Him, "Are You a king?" He said, "Yeah, I'm a king, but My kingdom is not of this world." Everywhere, the word of God affirms who Jesus is.

The man in our text today, John the Baptist, affirms who Jesus is. As a matter of fact, John and Jesus were cousins. Six months apart they were probably born because Elizabeth was already six months pregnant when Mary got word that she was pregnant. Part of the proof was the angel told her, "You go visit your cousin Elizabeth, who can identify with your situation because she's already six months in."

When John introduced Jesus, he knew who He was. He called Him and said, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." It wasn't that John did not know who Jesus was. But John, later now, is in prison. This is several years later, several months, and he's been locked up. John was not a modern-day preacher. He was one of those in-your-face preachers. He didn't hold his tongue. He didn't ease the gospel in. He's the kind of fellow we need today. He would have curbed Trumpism.

John was born during the time when Herod was the king. There were several Herods, but Herod Antipas was the king of the Galilee-Perea portion, just a small portion of the kingdom. This Herod had many brothers because Herod the Great had many children. Some of those children were by different wives, so they were half-brothers in a sense. One of these particular brothers, Herod Antipas, the one in the text, went to visit his brother, Herod Philip.

Herod Philip had a beautiful little wife, and Herod Antipas liked her and seduced her. His own brother's wife, who actually was his niece and was the niece of both of them. We're talking about Hollywood stuff; this is it. Not only did he seduce her, but he convinced her to divorce the man she was married to. When she divorced him, then this Herod married her and brought her into his palace.

When John the Baptist knew about it, John went outside the palace. He went outside the white house, and he stood on the lawn and he called him out. I mean, he called him out. He said, "What you're doing is wrong. It's illegal, it's ungodly, and God ain't going to bless you." Herod got mad. You ought to understand why he would have gotten mad. He took John sixty miles out into the desert and put him in the dungeon of a prison there and intended to leave him.

You know how John's life ended. John's life ended up with him being beheaded because there was a birthday party. The girl, Herodias' daughter, danced seductively for Herod. He asked her, "What do you want? I'll give you anything up to half of my kingdom." Her mama influenced her and said, "Well, you tell him you want the head of John the Baptist." So the birthday party was interrupted with John the Baptist's head on a charger.

The point is that John, before he was beheaded, is spending time now in prison. In prison, he summons two of his disciples or two of his followers. He invites them to take the sixty-mile journey out into the desert to the prison where he is. He says to them, "I want you to find Jesus. I want you to go to Him, and I want you to ask Him, 'Are You the one? Are You the coming one? Are You the promised one, or do we look for somebody else?'"

What am I saying? I'm saying here is John the Baptist, a strong, godly believer, but he's experiencing a period of time of doubt. May I help you understand that whenever the issue of doubt comes up, it does not come up in the life of non-believers. Doubt is a particular phenomenon that Christians or believers are subject to. Sometimes we wonder, sometimes we all wonder, "What is doubt?" It is to believe something but then not fully believe it.

There was a man in Mark's gospel who had a son that was demon-possessed. The devil had been taking advantage of this young boy for a long time. I mean, he made him foam and wallow and slobber. Sometimes he would throw him in the fire. Sometimes he would give him grand mal seizures and all kinds of abuse and mistreatment of this man's child. It just tore the man's heart up. Finally, the man took his son to Jesus.

He said to Jesus, "Listen, if You can, heal my son." Now listen at him. "If You can." Jesus said, "If you can believe, I can heal your son." Then the man says to Jesus, expressing the dilemma here, he says, "I believe, but help my unbelief." Listen at him now, because that's us. "I believe, but help my unbelief." In other words, "I've got a little faith to believe that it's possible, but there still exists in me enough of this circumstance called doubt to make me not sure whether or not it's going to happen."

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm in your corner this morning because I know that's where we live. "I believe, but help my unbelief." How many are there today? There's something that you're believing God for, but because it has not yet happened, you're saying, "Help my unbelief." Now, I'm believing God. I am. I'm standing right here believing God. But the issue of Christian doubt comes to mind and it calls me to say, "Help my unbelief." If you haven't been there, if you're not there, don't die tonight because you sure will get there.

It's only for believers. The value here is if you know where to go with your doubt, you can have your doubt erased and your doubt can be turned into full-bloom faith. The man who had the son at least took the boy to Jesus and he found out that Jesus could heal, and Jesus healed the man's son. Now look at John. John is in prison and he's been in prison for several months now. He summons these followers of his and he asks them to take another sixty-mile walk.

They had to walk sixty miles down there because there were no subways, no planes, no trains, and no cars. Everything was done Chevrolet; you shoved the left one and laid the right one. In other words, you walked. They walked sixty miles into the desert, they got John's message, and then they had to go sixty more miles back up into Galilee where Jesus was and find where He was and go up to Him and confront Him with the words of John.

What I want you to understand is what causes, what makes believers doubt. The first thing I want to tell you is personal tragedy. Personal tragedy will make you doubt when something happens. Look at John, especially when you know that you have been faithful. John is feeling some kind of way, as young people would say. He knows that he has been a man of God. He knows that he has been out in the wilderness preaching.

As a matter of fact, when Jesus came on the scene, John declared, "He must increase, I must decrease." "My time on the stage is minimized; He's going to be the one that's going to take over." He introduces Him, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." He says on another occasion, "The latchet of whose shoes I'm not even worthy to unloose." John has been faithful. Now he's locked up in a musty, dark dungeon in a prison and literally forgotten about.

He's thinking to himself now, "Is this the reward of faith? Is this what I get as a reward for the faithful discharge of my duty?" Now listen, you can look at me if you want to, but you better know that I'm telling the truth: you can be ever so holy and ever so right and ever so righteous, but let something happen. When something happens that's unforeseeable, that's unfortunate, you will begin to doubt because you will question God. "What is wrong? Is this how faithful, God-honoring people are supposed to be treated?"

Man, you can't tell me it won't mess with you. It'll mess with you. Here's a woman who lost a child. Here's someone else looking at all those folk who overnight just were given a pink slip. They built careers and spent years doing what they needed to do, and now they hardly know where the next meal is going to come from. You can't tell me that personal tragedy won't mess with you. You could be jogging and lifting weights and in the best shape of your life, and then you go to the doctor.

He tells you everything's all right but... And then he tells you, "I see a little something here. I see a little spot. We're going to have to increase the medication or we're going to have to change and put you on this routine." Wait a minute. You start going, "Wait, wait, wait a minute, Lord. Hold on." Come on here, and don't be sleeping here. Personal tragedy will cause you to doubt. You've been praying that God was going to heal your daddy, or your mama, or your aunt, or whoever it was.

Rather than God healing them, He calls them home. You shake your fist at God. "God, wait a minute. This is not the way it's supposed to be. You had the power to do something about this and You allowed us to experience this difficulty." You tell me, I don't care how many songs you've sung, but the tune would change. You'd be saying, "Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free?" You'd say, "There's a cross for everyone, but this one ain't for me." You'll change the tune, baby. You'll change the words.

I'm telling you, why do you think people who spend years and years in church and give their lives to faithful Christian activity, then something happens and they find themselves on the sidelines of life, no longer coming into the sanctuary to enjoy the fellowship with the brothers and sisters? It's called doubt, and doubt is real. Now, there was a centurion in this same gospel who had asked Jesus, "I've got a servant, and I want You to come home and heal my servant."

As Jesus was on His way to the house, the man sent a group of folk out there and said, "Tell the Lord don't come into my house. I'm not even worthy. Tell Him just to speak the word. If He just speaks the word, I know my servant will be all right because I'm a man that has soldiers under me. I can say to one, 'You come here,' and he's going to come, or 'You go there,' and he's going to go." Jesus marvels. He said, "I haven't seen this kind of faith, not in Israel."

The servants who had come to the Master, when they got back to the house, found that the servant was already healed. What was the difference in that centurion and John the Baptist? This man had an unwavering faith and belief in the word of God. John, being a staunch believer, is in a moment of doubt. Well, sometimes it's culture. The centurion would not have been caught up in the Jewish belief system, so his faith is pure. It's not contaminated with things of the Jewish culture.

I'm coming somewhere. I want to tell you there's a second reason that people doubt. Personal tragedy is number one, but popular influence is another. The difference between those two men is this other man, this centurion, was not under popular influence. John the Baptist knew the Jewish scripture. He knew what the word of God had promised. He had grown up with Zechariah, who was a priest. He had heard many sermons about who the Messiah was and what the Messiah would do.

Because he had been influenced by popular opinion, his views were shaped by what other people thought the Messiah would do when He came. Because the Messiah was not doing those things, it messed him up. Sometimes you think you know what the Lord's going to do, and other people are telling you what the Lord is supposed to do for you in your situation. My brother used to talk about jailhouse lawyers. Jailhouse lawyers can beat everybody else's case but their own.

Other folk can, it's amazing to me how other people can solve your problem, but they can't solve their own. They can always tell you, "What I would do if I was you." But you're not me, so you cannot tell me how to handle my situation. Sometimes that popular influence can lead other people into deeper doubt. John knew that when the Messiah was to come, He was supposed to do certain things. He was supposed to eliminate the enemy. He was supposed to wipe out the Romans.

He was supposed to eliminate poverty. He was supposed to turn plowshares into pruning hooks. The lamb and the child were to lie down. He knew what the word said. The report that he did get from his disciples was, "Man, Jesus ain't doing none of those things. It doesn't look to me like He's trying to get rid of any of the Romans. As a matter of fact, He's around here healing folk and things are getting better, people are getting better." So what the word said, He isn't doing.

John in prison, he can't get CNN. He can't get Fox News. He can't get his hands on the latest Chronicle. He can't even see outside; he's in the dungeon. He only relies on the popular information of those who were influenced by it. That can mess you up. I've often warned my son, "Be careful, man, about what everybody else says." What everybody else wants me to do, everywhere everybody else wants me to go, that's not necessarily what God wants.

We all have got to understand, yes, it's good to have friends, it's good to have buddies, and it's good to have other people who have opinions, but you've got to know when to draw the line. What I like about John the Baptist here, you've got to understand that he's not a weak Christian. Jesus preaches his own eulogy and Jesus said, "Among women, John was the greatest man to ever live." This is not a snub. This is somebody who had known the will and ways of God, had been converted and baptized in it and brought up in it. He understood it.

Because of his situation, the only information that he was given was from popular influence. That popular influence now has its place on him. But I like it because John said, "I tell you what you do. You go to Jesus." See, that's what you do with your doubts. You take it to the Lord in prayer. How many know when you doubt and you take it to the Lord? The external thing might not change, but something changes on the inside. Something changes about how you feel about it.

I remember coming away from the doctor the first time when he told me, "I see this spot on your colon, and we're going to have to put you in the hospital." After going in the hospital, they said, "Well, it's still there, so we're going to have to do surgery. It's going to be a major surgery, going to take at least five hours." I went home saying to myself, "No, whatever this is, I'm just going to take it to glory with me." That was my initial response.

But then I got home, and I went into my secret closet. I got down on my knees, and I began to talk it over with the Lord. What the Lord was able to do on the inside was say, "You go ahead, boy, and let them folk do what they are doing. I use them too to help you. I know what's going on. Nothing sneaks past Me. It may have snuck up on you, but it didn't sneak up on Me. I am still God."

I walked away from that prayer moment saying, "All right, get him on the phone. Tell him I'll be back." Are you understanding? You've just got to know where to go. Nothing makes us immune; our Christian faith does not make us immune from doubt. Trouble will come, situations will occur, difficulties might mount, and things may come from nowhere, but God is still on the throne. We've got to know that when God is on the throne, He can make everything all right.

It's not always popular culture, but there's a third reason that believers doubt. Not only is it because of personal tragedy, that's enough, and popular culture, but thirdly, not having enough information. God doesn't tell you everything. There are some things He reserves just for Himself. I'm glad He doesn't tell me everything. If He told me some things, I wouldn't be able to handle it.

So when John gets word of what's going on in the ministry of Jesus, he sends for those two disciples and he tells them, "You go find Jesus. When you get to Him, you tell Him, 'Are You the one, or is there somebody else we ought to be focusing our attention on?'" The text says that Jesus just went instantly into a healing frenzy. He was always healing, but look at the text carefully because I don't want you to miss this. He immediately started running the gamut of healing.

Theologians believe that this incident took place right near the village of Nain because He had just stopped a funeral procession and He had just healed a widow's son, raised him from the dead. So He was still in the area of Nain when the disciples of John caught up with Him. They brought Him the stinging question from John, "Are You the one, or do we look for someone else?" The Bible said Jesus began to heal all manner of sickness and disease.

Blind people, there were more healings of blindness in the ministry of Jesus than anything else. It was a very common situation. But then He gave people limbs back. The lame began to walk. He put His finger in people's ears and the dumb began to talk. He put His finger on people's tongues and the deaf could hear. All kinds of stuff began to happen. Then He raised up a couple more. You've got to understand that in the Old Testament, there were only three or four mighty miracles. There were only three resurrections in the entire Old Testament.

There was only one healing of leprosy. Most of the other things were quiet for hundreds of years. But here on this particular single day, Jesus began to do multitudes of miracles. Then He said, "Now, you go back and tell John that the lame walk, the dumb talk, the blind see, and the dead are raised. You go back and give him information that he's missing. Y'all have been fooling him. You've got the man thinking that maybe I am not the Christ because some of the things that he may have expected to see had not yet been reported."

"But I'm dropping all of these miracles right here, right now, so that he can have enough information to understand who I am." Sometimes, baby, we doubt because we just don't have enough information. If God would open up tomorrow right now and show you what's going to happen, you'd have the information you need to let you know that it's going to be all right. If God would fast forward the surgery and show you on the other side of the surgery, you'd be all right.

If God would open up the bank account and show you your financial condition on the other side of where you are right now, you would feel better about it. Our problem of doubt comes because we don't have enough information. We don't have enough scripture, we don't have enough faith, or we don't have enough of something. Jesus always understood that there was a problem for the disciples. We talk about Thomas being the doubter. Thomas wasn't the only one doubting.

Peter doubted. Matthew doubted, Mark doubted, Luke doubted. All of them doubted. You doubt, I doubt. But doubt can also be healthy because it can lead to your faith being strengthened. Whenever Jesus got the disciples out of trouble, He would ask them, "Why did you doubt?" He would call them sometimes, "Oh ye of little faith," because He understood that they didn't have enough information to get them to where they needed to go.

I remember one time when I was a principal of a school and I visited a teacher's class, third grade, because they were doing math. They were learning to borrow and carry. I'm from the old school; that's how we learned math. With new math today, they don't use those terms. But I would write my one and carry my one; you had to put it on the board that way. I had an old-school teacher and she used to like for the kids to go to the board with the yardstick and explain the steps to the problem.

This little boy had gone to the board and he had worked the problem right, but he wasn't explaining it right. Every time she would say, "Wrong," he'd look at the board... "Wait a minute." She'd say, "Do it again." He started to go through his steps, "I write, and I do, and I do, and I do," and she said, "Wrong." He went through it about four times and he could not figure out what was wrong. She went to the board and she pointed to that one he had to carry. That little boy, right in the middle of that class, said, "Oh, shoot!"

I lost it. But it was just a matter of him not having the information. Once the information he needed was pointed out to him, his whole countenance and everything about him changed. Don't you feel that way? Haven't you been in situations where you didn't know how it was going to come out or what the situation was, and then God snatched back the curtain and voila, there it is? Or God revealed Himself in a new way and there was the information that you needed?

Before you know it, you found yourself on shout row. You found yourself having church and nobody was around. There was no organ, there was no piano, and there was no congregation, but you found yourself saying, "Thank You, Jesus." Anybody ever told the Lord, "Thank You," when He revealed something that had been hidden? Won't He do it? Yeah, He will. Yes, He will. That's why the old song says, "If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out." You have to take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there.

Lest I hold you too long, not only personal tragedy will cause believers to doubt, and popular influences will cause you to miss what the word really is saying. Some of the scriptures and some of the things that people said were the word of God, I found out really weren't the word of God. Not having enough information will also cause you to doubt. But I'll tell you the last thing that will cause you to doubt is having a false expectation of what God can and will do.

Sometimes you can convince yourself that you know what the Lord will do. You talk to yourself, and then Satan has gotten into your ear and has beaten you up and told you, "That's too much, that's too big, God ain't going to do that, God can't do that. Who do you think you are?" Anybody ever had Satan work on you like that? I mean, he will work on you. What he is trying to do is to lower your expectation.

See, one of the reasons Satan is so afraid, he's not afraid of you by yourself, but he's afraid of you in your prayer life. He knows that if you go to God in prayer, God is going to strengthen your resolve, God is going to bless, and God's going to do what He needs to do. That's why he tries to keep you out of church. You ever notice that when some personal tragedy comes, people fall into isolation? That's the time when you need to be running to the house, the time when you need to be running around folk.

Satan tells you, "Oh, them folk don't care about you. You get over here by yourself." When you get over here by yourself, then he can work on you without any support. In the process of lowering John's expectation, he was able to get to this godly man. But once these disciples came back with the report that the lame walk, the dumb talk, the blind see, and the dead are raised, John's expectation reascended. He began to understand that this was the Christ.

What he was missing were the two twin towers of Jesus' first coming and His second coming. His first coming, He was to be the suffering servant. The second time, He was to be the reigning king. Because he had gotten those confused and misunderstood, his expectation of who the Christ was was lowered. But now, being gently reminded that He is doing exactly what the promise was for the Messiah, his faith then takes off.

When the boys went back again and they got in the crowd to follow around Jesus, they hung in that place. To show you that John's faith was strengthened and it did not drop again, when his head was cut off, the first person that they went to was Jesus. They knew that John fully trusted Jesus. John's faith in Jesus had been renewed and restored. They knew that John and Jesus were on the same page.

Now the question today is not so much about John. It's about you. It's about what kind of expectation do you have? Do you believe that the Lord is still able to heal? Do you believe that the Lord is still able to open doors? Do you believe that the Lord can still make a way out of nowhere? Do you believe the Lord still can save a wretch like me? Do you believe the Lord can still dry tears from weeping eyes and He can still mend a broken heart? Do you believe that God can do anything but fail?

My soul is a witness. He woke me up this morning. He started me on my way. He put clapping in my hands. He dried the tears from my eyes. He put unexpected resources in unexpected places because God is still able to do all and then some. I don't know how it makes you feel, but I'm still here because of God. Listen, I was in the room, baby, in Houston, Texas, in intensive care.

I overheard a conversation that said, "We're not sure that he's going to make it and he's going to go back to Birmingham." But I'm here! I'm still here because God raised my expectation and let me know that He still has the power to do anything. Still here! Had heartaches, but I'm still here. Trouble, still here. Disappointments, but I'm still here. Had doubts and fears, but I am still here. Anybody grateful that you're still here? Anybody want to tell the Lord thank You? Anybody want to tell Him, "Praise Your holy name"?

Yeah, just got to be careful. Gone through personal tragedies, and you'll go through them too. You'll go through times when the popular opinions of others will cause you to lower your belief and your faith, but you just have to work past that. There may be times when you don't have enough information to know that God is already working it out. He doesn't always tell you when He's going behind your back and going behind somebody else's back and in the process of putting all hands together to make it happen just for you.

There are times when your expectations can be lowered, but God can reresurrect it. Look at what He did for the disciples. Man, on Easter, they were all disappointed. They were all hiding out. They were all afraid, thinking it was all over. Then Jesus came walking through the wall. Calling, "Peace be unto you. Get ready, get your head up from there. I'm not done with you." Man, God is not through with you yet.

Can I tell somebody who's going through a dark period of doubt, God is not through with you yet? He'll turn your doubt into faith. He'll give you a stronger testimony. He'll let you know that you are still here, and because you're here, it means God is not through with you. You have another chance. You have another day and another opportunity to tell somebody. Come on, we're going to open the doors of the church and give somebody a chance.

Somebody who's been in doubt, this can be your moment of faith. Come on, doors of the church are open. Somebody needs to walk out and trust Jesus. This can be a new day for you; this can be a new time for your life. God loves you.

They said I wouldn't make it. See, people say that; that's what popular culture says. They said I wouldn't be here today. That's even what sometimes doctors might say. But that doesn't make it so. Oh, they said I'd never amount to anything. There have been people who put the mouth on you and say you won't be nothing. But look at you. I'm glad to say that I'm on my way and I'm growing more and more and more each day.

You see, there were many that started out with me. Oh, but now they've gone astray. But I'm still, I'm still holding on. That's the question: "I'm still holding on." That's your question. Still holding on. Yes, I'm still, I'm still holding on to God's hand. See, that's what faith does. When I was young, I gave God my hand. Yes, I did. I told Him, "Oh Lord, would You please lead the way?"

Though my road has been rough, sometimes the going has been mighty tough. Still, I ain't gone nowhere. I'm going to stay right here. I'm right here to stay. Though sometimes I've been talked about, God knows I've been criticized. I've had to wipe so many tears from my eye. But I still, I'm still holding on. Yes, I'm still, I'm still holding on. Yes, I'm still, I'm still holding on to God's hand.

Is there anybody here who is still holding? I still, I am still holding on, holding on, holding on. I'm still in God's holy hand. Oh, I'm still, I'm still holding on, holding on. You see, I'm bound for the promised land and I will never let go of His hand. I will never let go of His hand. I will never, I will never let go. Of His hand, I will never, I will never let go of His hand.

I just believe someone is still in this building that wants to give their hand to God. Now look, you can't be shy. You can't be waiting around for some other day. This is the day the Lord has made. This is the time to be running. This is the moment to just come on. Just come on. I know you're in here. I'm still holding on, holding on. Just come on; the doors are open. We've got time. I'm still bound for the promised land. We've got time.

I'm still, I'm still holding on, holding on. I'm bound for the promised land and I will never let go of His hand. I will never, I will never let go of His hand. It's not so much that we won't let go of His hand; He won't let go of our hand. Our hand has Vaseline on it and it'll slip, but the Lord has vice grips on us. Amen. So grateful to God for the worship experience. Stand on your feet.