Let me tell you, this morning about three o'clock, Karen Raffield's husband, Keith Raffield, had a heart attack. They took him to the hospital, Santa Rosa. When he was there and he died on the table, they got him coming back, took him to Sacred Heart Hospital. They did emergency stint into his heart this morning. I just left him at the hospital.  Hey, that's what your mercy did for me, second chance. I wish you would tell somebody, mercy gave me a second chance, me a second chance. But mercy gave me a second chance. Mercy gave me a second chance. Leave that God wants to do something in your life today. Would you reach over and take somebody by the hand by faith and would you pray, God touch my friend today, no matter what they may be facing, what's going on in their mercy, be multiplied to your people. Jesus, for those that are needing healing in the hospital, Lord, they may be in the nursing home, they may be watching at home this morning or in this building or somewhere around the world. I pray that your spirit would now manifest the mercy to where people are hurting and we give you glory this morning, God, because you're never gonna leave us. You're never gonna forsake us. Your power is real in this building this morning. We give you glory, honor and praise. Everybody believes it. Give the Lord a great handclap of praise. It's a blessing to have you join us from where your waxes in Guatemala. Jesus, and we're glad you joined us today. That was a little bit weak. Let me see if I can get some help from some people. You Mardi Gras people, let me tell you something. You've got something to be excited about.  Come on, somebody. How many of you are glad to be in the house of the Lord this morning? We're so glad to have you join us. If you are a first-time guest, we want you to know that you are our special guest here today. If you're a first-time guest here in the auditorium as you're leaving out of the building on the left-hand side is Guest Central. We want you to stop by there and take home a very special love gift that we have for you. I believe it will be a blessing to you and we want you to make sure that you know you're welcome right here at PACE. So many people that are transferring into this area, we met some wonderful people this past week in service on Wednesday night and brand new to the area moving from Orlando. I ask them, who in the world moves from Orlando, right? People that want to get out of 4 million people, right? Amen. So we're welcome you and we welcome all of you for joining us here this morning.  Ladies and gentlemen, I just named a few places. India, Pakistan, Uganda, Nigeria, our wonderful friends in Kenya that are watching from the orphanage there this morning. Would you let all of the folks that are watching online around the world let them know how, give them a great big God bless you. Let them know they're welcome in here. This is their church too. Amen. I want you to just know that we are blessed to have you join us here this morning. I want you to get ready to be a giver into the kingdom of God. Usher's are getting ready to receive this offering and tithe and I want you to know that God has been blessing this house to be a blessing. In a few weeks from now, we're going to hear the report from the deep jungles of the Amazon of what you helped to do just a few weeks ago in building a church in the Amazon jungles of Peru. For $35,000, you've helped to be able to build a building where people will come. No, not to walk on the concrete walking in. They have to go up about four feet to stay away from the floodwaters and the anacondas. Now, I didn't want to say if you were sitting next to a snake this morning, but I'm just going to tell you in the Amazon jungle, while they're worshiping anacondas are flowing underneath their feet. How many of you know that that's worse than the squirrel getting loose in the first self righteous church? For all of you that know that we're Pentecostal, we don't handle snakes until noon, so you're good. So just hold on. That made some of your friends nervous. You just invited here. Amen. We are thrilled to be able to be a part of what's going on and because you give, that's what's taking place. God blesses in places outside of ourselves, people that we will never see perhaps on this earth until we get to heaven. And so I just want to encourage you this morning to be that faithful giver and may God bless you for the privilege that you have to give your regular tithe and offering, going for the work of the kingdom that's taking place around here all the time. And we appreciate your very faithful giving. So do that this morning and let the Lord bless your life. Father, in the name of Jesus, we thank you for the privilege we have to give into the kingdom of God. We recognize, Lord, that you are the first giver and you're the best. You give us life and life more abundantly and we give you glory for it today. Pray that you would now bless this offering, this tithe, and multiply it to exceed the need. May it be a blessing to our special guests this morning and to those that are giving today, multiply your blessings back to them, we pray. In Jesus' mighty name, and everybody believes it, shout a great big amen. Now while you're there and you're getting ready to give, waiting on the ushers to come up the aisle, reach up underneath your seat and find out if you are this week's blessed winner of a brand new Bible. Look at there, already this morning, would you thank God? There it is. We're giving away Bibles. You should be that excited to get a Bible. If you don't have a Bible, I wanna encourage you to sit in the right seat next time. We're giving Bibles away every weekend throughout this entire year. I'm not talking about ones on your iPhone, I'm talking about the real deal. I'm talking about that that you hold in your hand, got pages and you've actually got to find where the book is in the Bible to read. Amen, I lost some of you there. How many of you brought your Bibles? Let me see your Bibles.  Holding up your iPad and mess, that's it. Let me just tell you something. If an EMP device with some Chinese balloon or something explodes over the United States of America and you can't open up your iPhone ever again, ever again. Come on, let's just have a moment. Ever again. There goes your schedule, all your contacts, all your friends, your friends. You didn't even know they were your friends, but there they were, gone. Those of us who know how to operate this will still be living, surviving, and living for God, knowing how to operate the word of God. Is there anybody glad about that today? You better get your real deal, Bibles, all I can say. I'm excited this morning for this entire day, it's gonna be a great day. We want you to make sure you make plans to be back with us tonight. Doors will open at five o'clock. There is no entry fee or tickets, anything like that.  We want you to make plans to be here. We will receive a love offering for them. The concert and the ministry starts at six o'clock. You won't wanna miss it. Invite your friends to come at five o'clock this afternoon. Don't forget that. Let me back up a little bit and say, as soon as this service is concluded, how many of you are getting baptized this morning? Let me see your hand. Amen, all around this room. We're so glad, we're excited for you, praise God. Hopefully you've already got your t-shirt. I have decided t-shirt. As soon as the service is concluded here, we need you to make your way out to the gymnasium. Go through that hallway and in through the other doors there'll be ushers and people ready to help you get where you need to be. And we need all of you to get out there as quickly as possible. We've got 30, as I understand some 33 people that are being baptized today to the glory of God.   We will play it on the big screen so you can see everyone that's been baptized and enjoy in the blessings of the Lord and their open witness of living for Jesus Christ through water baptism. And we want you to make sure that you make plans to be here for that. Next Sunday also will be the last class for starting point. We don't want you to miss that. We'll start one up again on March the 5th for all of you that wanna become members or you are a part of Pace Assembly in any way. We want you to make sure that you're ready for that. Also next Sunday, you'll wanna make sure that you're here on time. I'm always amazed at people that show up at like 1130. You'd be shocked to know that some folks show up at almost noon. And I just want you to know we start at 10. Amen, that means you get here early. Come on somebody. Next week, we're changing our format a little bit. We've already talked to the staff and the ushers and we want you to make sure you're here. Next week, we will be receiving the offering through the buckets in the back of the auditorium plus you're giving online just like you did today. That's gonna be taking place like normal but we're changing the format a little bit next week. So you'll wanna be here on time next week as we begin the service. Because I have an anticipation. Around our nation right now, there are pockets of revivals that are popping up all over the place. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Now, I don't wanna get in the middle of all of this but I'm just gonna help you to understand what I see. First of all, you don't judge something by on its surface or on its cover. You judge things by the fruit that it bears. That's the Bible. You'll wanna read that to find that out. So for all the people that are naysaying and judging and saying I don't know if this is it or that you keep your hands off of it. Here's what the Bible says. Glamal who was the teacher of the apostle Paul when they arrested Peter and John and didn't know what to do with them, he told and this was not someone who was serving the Lord. Glamal said, if this is of the Lord, it's gonna stand and you can't do anything about it. If it's not of the Lord, it will go down and you won't have to worry about it. What I'm saying is you don't get a revival organically spontaneously popping up on a college campus anywhere. When you see that happening and four other campus of buildings being opened up and people standing in the yard to worship and give their life to Jesus Christ. My friend, something's happening. Call it revival, call it spiritual renewal, whatever it is, we need more of it. How many of you know what I'm talking about? How many of you know we need that right here at Pace? Come on, somebody. We need God to move. When we've got three suicides at Pace High School in the past three weeks, we need a move of God. When Fentanyl has its epicenter in Pace, Florida, we need a move of God. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a time to back up. This is a time to press forward. This is a time to say, Lord, as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. Come on now. Is there anybody taking that this morning? Is anybody gonna take me up on that offer? It's time to serve the Lord. It's time to give Him the glory. It's time to turn our hearts back to God. And so I want you to pray that way and come expecting next weekend. We're changing the format to make sure that God has plenty of room to do what God wants to do. Can you shout Amen for that? So I want you to make sure you're on time. Look at somebody next week. Tell them right now, tap them on the shoulder. Said next week you'd be on time. Tell them I'm gonna call you at three o'clock in the morning and make sure you got your makeup on. Come on somebody. Here's what I want you to do this morning. There's a wonderful family. You've known them as the Crab family for years. They're friends of Pace assembly. We've had them a number of times as their whole family and now each one is ministering in their own way. As a matter of fact, I'll just go ahead and tell you right now that the Crab family will be here in their entirety at Pace Family Fest in November of this year. You'll not want to miss it. But this morning, we are very, very blessed to be able to have, they called and said, we just want to come be in service with you. I said, you can't come be in service without coming and saying. So I want you to welcome to this platform as they come minister to you for a few moments before I preach. Would you welcome Kelly Crab and the bowling sisters? Come on, let them know it. Tell them their love this morning. To run to in his name is Jesus. You can hide in the name this morning. So I give God of anything if he has, take five seconds. It's all right. I'll quickly tell you that I'm Kelly. I'm one of the Crabby ones. I'm one of the Crabby sisters. I've been here many times. So I feel very at home and I feel like you probably, a lot of you know that I'm Jason's sister and Adam and Aaron and Tara's sister. And thankful to be here this morning. But what you may not know is that these are my three daughters that you just heard sing and I'm so very proud of them. Hope is 23. Caitlin, who just sang is 19 and Gracie is 16. So I could not be a more proud mother. On piano, doing a fabulous job as a long time friend. I told, I tell him this every day. He's, he's adopted in. He's just family now. He's a Crabb whether he wants to be or not. So would you make Blaine Johnson welcome this morning from Birmingham, Alabama? Running our sound, driving our bus is John Jeffrey. Can you make John welcome this morning? I'll say very quickly that it's been a two years of life being turned upside down for us. I won't go into a lot of detail because God knows all about it, but I want to testify of the faithfulness of God this morning, of the goodness of God. I was reflecting yesterday about how when you go through something tragic, I went for a very, very abrupt out of nowhere divorce in 2021 and our lives got turned upside down. And it felt like times as though the darkness would never ever lift. It's been a valley, but God is good. It's been a learning curve and it's been a lessons learned, but God is faithful.  But I was thinking yesterday as I was talking about it a little bit and I was able to write a book last year about how faithful God had been through this journey, this unexpected journey. And there are so many blessings along with the way, but after the initial news came that I knew my life would never be the same, I'll never forget just about 24, maybe 48 hours later standing in my living room, just numb from the pain in shock, have you ever been in shock? Just numb. And Blaine had called, we had made the decision to keep singing. That was the craziest decision I ever made. I don't even, we didn't even have five songs between us. But somehow I believed that if God called me that the devil didn't get to sit me down and shut me up, no matter what had happened. And Blaine was in my living room playing the sweetest melody. And my girls were just trying to learn songs. And I'm gonna just pivot for five seconds here and say I give God the glory because these girls have seen enough that they could be anywhere this morning. And the fact that they have not missed one singing and they have kept proclaiming the word of God is nothing I've done right. It is God's grace and God's mercy. It's what mercy did for me. So I am thankful this morning and I give God all the praise that they are here this morning. And they've not given me an ounce of trouble. Tell me that ain't God. I know it's God and good girls. And I'm thankful for it. But as I was standing in the living room, Blaine started, I'm numb from pain. It feels like a cloud, a dark black cloud is just hanging over our home. Felt like death. If you've ever been somewhere where death has just happened it felt like the spirit of death was in our home. And Blaine began to play and the girls began to sing. And I recall it in the book of how in that moment about 48 hours after the hardest news of my life, through all the darkness, there was a flicker of light that came in my home in all the ick that I felt. And it occurred to me that the presence of God is always greater than any darkness that we will ever face. It was a turning point. It was a little bit of life. It was a little bit of light. And I realized it's going to be hard and it's going to be rough and it's not gonna be pretty. But God's presence is already here. And if the presence of God comes in any situation whether it be a hospital room, whether it be a funeral home, whether it be a courtroom, any time the presence of God shows up, my friends, there is hope and there is light and you're gonna make it through whatever you have to go through. So we don't have to go to Facebook and we don't have to call people. The only thing we need this morning for whatever you need, whether it's a physical healing, an emotional healing, whatever need you brought into the house of God, here's my answer for you. It's the presence of God. The answer is found in the presence of God. He is the King of glory. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. So I want my girls to come and sing for you. The song that started to restore my hope and let me know that life was gonna go on. Come on, get up on your feet and let this wonderful family know how much you appreciate and love them today. Come on, show them some love in this building today, amen? Blessed be God, blessed be God.  Praise God. I'd like for you to remain standing and turning your Bibles to first kings. You don't get fresh wine from uncrushed grapes. You can admire the grapes. You can applaud the grapes, but until they're crushed, you don't get what they were purposed to be. It wasn't long after Kelly and these girls were walking through their trial that they came here to this church. And they sang and they were still broken.  If I remember correctly, not trying to embarrass her. It was a very, very tough night for hope. She actually, you didn't know it, but actually left the platform weeping that night. What you've just heard is fresh oil and fresh wine after the crushing. There's a new anointing that is upon these girls and Kelly that they did not have before. Would we have chosen it? No. But if we've got to walk through it, then Lord at least let something come out of it that was better than what it was before. And I'm just telling you in my humble opinion, I've heard them sing, and I've heard the girls sing time and again, but I'm just gonna tell you this one, there's a new anointing that's flowing in their ministry. How many of you gonna pray for them that God would just keep them doing? We're talking about 17, 20, well I forget the oldest hope is 23 years old. They could be doing anything. What's going on on our college campuses and in these girls' lives right here is nothing short of a heart's cry for a generation that needs to see the presence of God. Come on somebody. How many of you will agree to pray for them as they're on the road? Amen, I know that you will and I know that that's the heart of Pace Assembly and we're so thankful that they have stopped by this morning to share that gift. I couldn't preach this morning without it, I promise you.  Three of you.  To First Kings chapter number 16 in verse number 30. Get a little thump on this in the back, I'll let y'all figure that out. I've been preaching a series of messages on the altar. Today is another part of that series that I believe God has foreordained. I had the thoughts in my mind about this series but God has taken this series and put his touch on it. And I believe that today's message is prophetic for this nation and for this church. So we're gonna look today in Elijah's altar. Some of you may know the story, some of you may not. I'm gonna only overview a little bit and take a few of the verses. I want you to read with me and look with me in the book of First Kings 16, verse 30. If you're ready for the word, say a good amen. Verse 30 in Ahab, the son of Umri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. That's quite a legacy, isn't it? He came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethabel, king of the Zidonians and went and served Baal and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal, Ahab did. In the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria and Ahab made a grove. And Ahab, this is his legacy. And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. What a statement. You better not name your children Ahab's all I can say. Chapter 17, an Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead said unto Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these three years, these years, but according to my words, it would be three and a half. And I'm skipping through this chapter, but there's three events that takes place during this drought that Elijah is learning from and being led to by the order of the Lord. It is the voice of the Lord that is telling him to go from place to place. And if you ever needed to hear the clear voice of the Lord, you need to hear him now. But the Bible says that God told him to go down to the brook charath, that he would take care of him there by feeding him out of a dirty bird's mouth and drink water from the brook that had not dried up. He went into hiding because he told the president, I mean the king, that there was gonna be three and a half years of drought. And the church didn't believe it was judgment, so they kept right on doing what they wanted to do. I'm gonna preach now. Came to pass after a while, verse seven, that the brook dried up. What do we do now, God? Well, he said go down to, go to Zarephath, and I've already picked out a widow woman there. And when you get there, tell her to bake you a cake first in the middle of a drought.  Elijah did that, he went down and said, I heard your story. She told the story, I'm paraphrasing this for you.   You wanna make some church folks mad, tell them bring the offering to the pastor first. But she believed God and the prophet of God. Thank you for those no amen. I said she believed the word of the Lord from the prophet of God. And she baked a little cake and gave it to Elijah and Elijah said, now that was good. That was good cornbread, I appreciate that.  Please don't tell me in the middle of a recession, depression, or whatever you wanna call it that God won't take care of his people. You gotta believe it to be so. He stays with her a couple of years and all of a sudden, the boy that was going to eat the meal and die, all of a sudden a couple of years later dies. Now you would think at that moment in our normal logical reasoning, wait a minute, we just went through all of this.  He said, I wanna show you something else that I'm the God of the living, I can resurrect. Bible says that Elijah took the boy up on the roof, laid himself down on top of the boy with great compassion, prayed the prayer and the boy was alive. He handed him back to the mother and all was well. Those three great events during this prophesied drought taught Elijah some lessons and if you're here Wednesday night, we'll talk about that. But when we open up the page in chapter 18, we find that after three and a half years, Elijah comes back to Ahab to let him know that I'm gonna send rain on the earth but we're gonna have a showdown and the showdown is gonna be up on top of Mount Carmel. He goes to Mount Carmel, verse number 18, when Ahab is talking with him, he said, Elijah's coming, Obadiah said, and Elijah shows up, Ahab says, are you the one that's been troubling Israel?    Don't wear your Christian t-shirts and malls or we'll kick you out. And Elijah said, I'm just reading the book here, and Elijah said in chapter, verse number 18, he said, I'm not the one troubling Israel, it's you and your father's house. Why? Because you forsaken the commandments of God and now you're following Baal. He said, so let's all go up to Mount Carmel and have a showdown. And I want all the people of God to show up there too. There he is with the people of God and the 450 prophets of Baal and there's 400 prophets of Jezebel's, Astoroth that don't even show up. And Elijah says to the people of God that are supposed to be serving the Lord, how long, verse 21, how long haught ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, this is the prophetic word of the Lord for the nation of America and everybody listening and the church. If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal then follow him and the people answered him not a word. Verse 29, it came to pass that they prophesied, the prophets of Baal did to the time of the offering in the evening sacrifice that there was neither a voice from Baal nor an answer nor any regard. They got nothing. Elijah said to all the people come near to me and all the people came near to him. Verse 30, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And what does he do? Verse 36, it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, here's his prayer. Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel. Let it be known today on the 19th day of February in our year of our Lord 2023 that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, oh Lord, hear me that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou has turned their hearts back again. And all I wanna say is yes, and then the fire fell. I want you to lift your hands towards heaven right now and let's ask God to speak and do what he wants to do. Father in heaven, we thank you for the anointing of God that is already abundant Lord Jesus and moving inside of this place by the order of your praise. And of your worship and I pray right now mighty God that your spirit would take charge of every word that I would speak and that you Lord would move upon this congregation and those that are watching today and that lives will be changed by the power of God. We give you the glory, the honor and the praise in Jesus mighty name and everybody believes it shall a great big amen. You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Have you ever felt or met someone who likes to keep their options open?  I ain't getting no words, but I know good and well there is. Someone who has a hard time committing the things. Dating relationships, I wanna keep my options open just in case somebody prettier comes by. Just sit there, I'm coming for you. I'm gonna keep my options open on my job. I'm not gonna get all the way in on my job just in case a better one comes along. We don't wanna seek the purpose of God and the plan and the will of God. We just wanna do it like the world does and roll the dice, keeping our options open. I'm not gonna involve my finances. Let me go straight there. I'm not gonna, I don't wanna give all my ties just in case, keep my options open. In case God isn't a God of his word. I wanna keep my options open in my education. I'm gonna explore different horizons. I wanna make sure and ladies and gentlemen, keeping your options open necessarily is not such a bad thing. It's good to have options, but options can be a real problem when you're wanting to nail down what is the real will of God for my life. I know people that wanna keep their weekend options open. I don't wanna go to church. I wanna keep my options open just in case something better comes along. I mean, there might be a concert in town. Might be a Mardi Gras that I need to hang out at. You better punch the neighbor and wake up or I'm coming right back there. I don't keep my options open. How many times have I heard this pastor? The reason why I don't come to church, now I watch you online. The other problem with this AI technology is, is that I can tell how long you clicked in and how long you watched. I wish you would say amen right there. I wanna keep my options open. How many times have I heard this? It's my only day to sleep in. That's my day. Oh, you don't know that if the Lord didn't exhale breath into your lungs, you wouldn't have got up this morning. Ask Keith Raffield laying in the hospital over there. Options are good, but options can cause confusion rather than bringing a sense of security to us. Too many options can actually replace the security with feelings of anxiety and fear. If you don't know what I'm talking about, offer your children more than one kind of ice cream. Forget your children, offer you more than one kind of ice cream. Why do you think they made Napoleon ice cream? That's for all of you confused option people. Have you ever known anybody who was very passionate and very sincere about their beliefs but they were sincerely wrong? I've known them. Dogmatic in their beliefs, but you know and I know and God's word said, don't marry that person because if they're a heathen you'll be unequally yoked together but they went ahead and did it anyway.  And they went ahead and married him anyway because this is the word that came back to me. Pastor, don't worry about me, I'm gonna get him sane. You don't know they drug you right out of the house of God because the Bible says that if you start putting that before God, it's gonna drag you right out of the house. There's a few things that I want you to see as an overview of this message here this morning. First of all is that all religions and all gods are not the same. I want you to know not all gods are equal. Second thing you need to know is that sincerity and passion is not a sign of spirituality. You can be very passionate about something but that doesn't mean that you're spiritual or that you're serving and worshiping the right God. Third thing you need to know is this, is that faith can always be misplaced if you're not careful and know where to place it. Your faith, I've got faith in this. I heard people say the other day to the fine people that are suffering in East Palestine, Pennsylvania, trust us, we're the government. Well, I say this with all due respect to all of our leaders. The only one I trust is God Almighty. Come on somebody, you've lied to me before. I'll trust the one who always speaks the truth. I know I'm in the right place. I feel like I'm rubbing the cat hair backwards so I'm in good shape right here. The fourth thing you need to know about this overview of this story is that the faith you live by better be good enough for you to die by.  The Bible says, and this is a summation of our life right here in the connection with the prophet of God that we look to Elijah as being this wonderful and great man of God. And he was, but the book of James tells us very clear that Elijah was a man with a nature or subject to like passions just like us. In other words, he was a prophet and you respect the office and what he said from God was true, but he dealt with the same things that you and I do. Depression and fear and anxiety and people not liking him. And he entered into this time period where he steps out of total obscurity and we don't know anything about really the background of Elijah the prophet. He steps before the king one day and tells the king from this day forward, there's gonna be three and a half years of drought. I'll see you in three and a half years. An Ahab, the Bible said, did more to provoke God as the king of Israel in a split nation, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom divided. The 12 tribes that were supposed to be together are now divided and he prophesized to Ahab, the Ahab, the king who provokes God so much that he leads Israel, the nation of Israel into absolute idol worship and taking on the leadership also of his idol worshiping queen, Jezebel. For all of you that have heard the name of Jezebel before you need to know Jezebel does not mean long earrings and a lot of makeup. The spirit of Jezebel comes back in the last days and her spirit is working very much today. It is a controlling spirit. She had control of king Ahab to the degree that he did whatever she wanted to do and when he married her, she brought in all of the gods of Baal because that's what she knew and introduced them into Israel that Israel knew they weren't supposed to be having that kind of worship of Baal. They were to worship the one true living God. I wanna make this statement to you today and to everyone who may be watching, when national leaders turn the hearts of the people away from the one true God of the Bible, judgment is sure to come. Israel knew what God said and I wanna say so does America. The Bible says that God gave the commandments to Moses in Exodus 20 and three, you shall have no other gods before me and you will not make any graven image of another God and worship that. The Bible says in Leviticus 26, if you walk in my statutes Israel and keep my commandments and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season.  So we find ourself in First Kings chapter 17 where this drought that God told Elijah to proclaim was so severe that the woman and her son were about to eat the last meal and die. Friends, this is the kind of problem that is out of your control. As I'm speaking here today, we are looking on the horizon and every prognosticator of the economy is saying that recession is coming. Some will say, well, there's no big deal. Others will say it's no big deal, but we're gonna have a slight fall and others are saying it's gonna be a hard fall. And in the middle of all of that, our wonderful leaders are printing money like it is a Xerox copy machine and expecting you and me to pay for it. But more than that, ladies and gentlemen, more than your money, more than your houses and more than your cars, it is the fact that a nation in America and around the world have turned their backs towards the one true living God and God is calling this country back to God and he's starting inside of let the judgment begin inside of the house of God. Let it start with me. And so it is that no rain came and the drought led to famine. The rain always represents in the scripture the power, the presence and the blessings of God. So no rain, no power, no rain, no presence, no rain, no blessings of God. Now why would Elijah pronounce no rain? Here's the reason, because King Ahab had done so much evil in the sight of God that he is the number one in his category of kings that provoke God to get mad. Friends, when your life and lifestyle is at a such a degree that you provoke God to stop the rain and the blessings of the Lord in your house, you better turn around and find an altar very, very quickly. He's sin and the Bible gives us some insight into that sin, it wasn't just sin in the corner. The Bible said that he was in the face of God with his sin, that he turned around and married Jezebel and allowed all of those gods, the worship of Baal. And let me say to you this God of Baal is not just one God, but he is a multiplicity of gods. Baal is the overarching name of the agricultural God or the fertilizing God or the God of crops, the God of rain, the God of sun, moon and star, all of this because they wanted multiple gods. Why is that? Because Israel was not content to have just one God. They were afraid that one God was not sufficient to take care of the agriculture and the rain and the moon and the sun all at the same time. So they made images, the Bible said Ahab did and Jezebel, in fact they started worshiping Baal inside of the house of God. Then they went down the road and built a temple to Baal and Jezebel was thrilled and made all the people of Israel worship Baal. What did he do? He pushed Jehovah God into a corner and ignored him much like people are doing today. I want you to know Baal worshipers are in the house of God today. They built a temple to Baal and Jezebel the queen was thrilled about it. If you're a Baal worshiper, listen, how do I know if I'm a Baal worshiper? When you start determining for yourself what is right and what is wrong. When you pass laws in the halls of government saying that this is right and this is wrong and this is okay and this is not okay, ladies and gentlemen, you have turned your heart towards Baal. The sins of idol worship pushed God into action and what does God do? He withdraws the rain, the source of power, presence and blessings of God and the prophet of God stands up and speaks and says there'll be no rain for three and a half years. Two things that you need to observe about Ahab and his father because the previous generation taught Ahab how to do this. First of all, they abandoned God. They turned away from God. They disregarded. They acted as if God's word was irrelevant and as a result of that, Jezebel killed all the prophets of God. Now, if you think that that's regulated to the Old Testament, I wanna tell you there was a young man walking in the Mall of America just a few weeks ago with a Jesus T-shirt on and security came and said, if you don't get out of here and change your T-shirt, then we're gonna have to haul you out of here. During COVID, a man stood in Canada and was preaching inside of his own church to his own people and the government came in and tracked him down, arrested him, put him in handcuffs and hauled him to jail. It has only been within the past few weeks that that man has been exonerated. That pastor has been exonerated from all of the charges. Ladies and gentlemen, Jezebel's spirit is wanting to silence the church, silence the pastors, silence the singers, but in the name of Jesus, I hear a wind blowing and I hear the sound of abundance of rain. Have I got anybody at pace who can hear a sound from another world? They abandoned God. They turned their back on him. Following Baal was the other portion that was the worst that they could do because it wasn't just that they abandoned God and put him on the side, but they actually followed after Baal in his ways, the Bible says. In other words, they embraced the very opposite and contrary to God. They followed Baal. This is almost a theological sense of following. They worshiped him and adhered to his values, to his ways of doing. In fact, Baal was a not hearing, not seeing, not vocal God at all. It was a God of their own making. Baal was a regional God of fertility and rain and asteroth alongside had images and they would put trees around their altars to be able to worship in the presence of what would be smelling good and would be hidden to the people. I want you to know today's people pretend to be neutral about God. People wanna, oh, I'm an atheist. Let me tell you something. Throw you in a fox hole in the middle of Afghanistan and you'll not be an atheist any longer.  Were you a member of Pace Assembly?  And if you've abandoned and followed in a different direction, you'll only be able to say, I'm not serving you, Lord. And he'll say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, I never knew you. Now what I'm preaching right now would not be offered up in most churches across America and around the world. But I came to let you know there is one God to serve and him only, shall we serve. You better make up for yourself where your house is gonna land. So here comes Elijah to come against this spiritual neutrality. That's where we are today. People are not even excited about sitting. I'm just here. I'm just going through the routine. Some of you are sitting in this building today just going through religious routine. You're just checking the box. I went to church. But my question is, is church inside of you? Is God inside of you? You can know by the altars that you worship. Some folks are not here today because they're worshiping at their altar. I think I'll preach right here. They build their altar and they're worshiping at their altar. You may not call it bail, but there's plenty of other names that it's identified by. First Kings chapter 18 verse 21 lets us know the requirement of God. There's a reason why. They've turned their back on God. What's the requirement? Elijah came to all the people and said, why are you halting? Why are you limping and wavering between two opinions? Make a decision. Is bail God or is Jehovah God the true and living God? I want you to know what God's prophetically doing right now upon college campuses and in churches where God is allowed to move. God is calling fickle people to make a decision and a choice because time is running out. How do you know that? Because that Laodicean church is a representation of it. The Bible says in the book of Revelation chapter three that the Laodicean church was a picture of the last day church.  You're lukewarm.  Ladies and gentlemen, as the pastor of this house, I'm calling you to stir up the gift of God that is within you because there's a generation that's dying because of fentanyl and we've got to have enough power and fire to be able to cast that devil out and see a revival come back to our house. So what does he do? Bible says that he calls the people up to Mount Carmel and the altar of God that had been thrown down by Jezebel and the false prophets is up at the highest level, the top of Mount Carmel.  This is a picture I took in 2018. There it is. I'm standing on the top of Mount Carmel and I'm looking out, what am I looking at? The lower portions where the trees are is the valley where Elijah threw off the prophets of Baal and killed them and slaughtered them. I want you to know something. You can't make a friend with a Baal worshiper in your own heart. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Whenever that old spirit of Baal that's gonna choose another God, you got to slay that thing or he'll keep coming back up in another direction. The other thing I want you to take a look at is that highway and that vast valley that's out there. This is a prophetic message because that's not just any valley. That is the valley of Megeto when in just a few days from now there's gonna be a battle called Armageddon that's gonna be held right there in that valley. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the reason why this message is prophetic because God is calling his church, not the world. Ladies and gentlemen, the world is gonna do worldly things, sinners are gonna sin. What God is looking for is if my people which are called by my name will humble themselves in prayer. Do you know what? I'm finding out this that if God's looking for somebody who's looking for him he'll bypass all the churches and go straight to an Ashbury University and start calling students back to God. I'm just gonna tell you, I don't wanna be left out of the pouring out. How about you? I want me and my house and my church to be right smack dab in the middle of the anointing of God where people are healed, saved and delivered and we're not making excuses for it. Say amen somebody. Elijah calls the people up to Mount Carmel with all the prophets of Baal and Astrooth and he makes the statement, how long will you waiver between these opinions? How long will you try to serve Baal and serve God at the same time? And here's what the people said. Can you imagine, ladies and gentlemen, after three and a half years of drought and famine, you know good and well that the prophet Elijah prophesied this and it is the judgment of God. Why?  Did you hear what I said? That is the loving mercy of God is to allow things to take place to turn our hearts back to God. I don't understand that, Pastor. I don't always understand it, but I know this. When I see God doing something in our land and Lord have mercy, God forbid that a preacher or a prophet or an evangelist call some act of God, an actual act of God for judgment on the nation to make sure that we're turning our hearts back to God. Ladies and gentlemen, let's go back to what Ruth Bells or Ruth Graham said. She said, if God bypasses judgment upon America, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.  I want you to know as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. Have I got any takers in the cheat seats this morning? He calls them up to the top of Mount Carmel and there they are. And he tells them, he said, listen, we can't serve the syncretism that you're involved in. Syncretism, what is it? Syncretism is the combining of two or more religions to worship. What is the danger of that? Syncretism says this, if we believe in everything, then we're committed to nothing. If we believe everything is God, where are we headed? We're headed in a place where if you don't worship the tree and the climate, let me call it what is, that is bale worship, ladies and gentlemen. If you can't see it with your eyes, I'm flat footed telling you right here, according to the book of Romans, there would come a day in the last days when people would turn their hearts towards the creation more than the creator and they would worship the creation more than the creator. We didn't come in this house right here. It's not some multifaceted bale worshiping temple. This one is dedicated solely and completely to the worship of the one true living God. Behold, oh Israel, our God is one. Syncretism has taken over in the church today where our philosophies and our ideas are as high as God's word. And we believe that somehow everything can be counseled out. Come on now, what's going on? We currently compete, what is this syncretism? It is competing efforts in our hearts to compete over allegiance to either Jesus or bale. Your allegiance to Jesus in terms of, or bale in terms of time. I don't have time to come to church. Oh, you'll have time. One day you're gonna have plenty of time. I don't have, I don't wanna get so committed in this thing. Oh, you'll find out what commitment's all about. The question is, how can I identify whether or not my heart is towards bale or towards God? What takes up your time? What takes up your finances? What takes up your thoughts? What's the all-consuming thing of your commitment? This is what Elijah was saying. This is a prophetic message. How long will you haunt between two opinions? Idol worship was a persisting problem with the Israelites. They weren't even supposed to mention the name of a false God. They were supposed to marry only within their own, but instead they started marrying outside of their faith and it brought in other idols and problems. What was the particular appeal of bale and asteroth? Here's what it is. Israel saw other nations with their own kings and their own gods and they said, we're not content with just one. We want all the gods that they have too, which led to their idolatry, bale worship. Bale worship at its very core is the spirit of unbelief. It is to put something between in the questioning of your mind. Is God true or is bale true? Ladies and gentlemen, it's a new coat of chocolate on the same old line. In the Garden of Eden, the Bible says that the serpent came to Eve and said to Eve, hath God said, hath God said that he would heal you, hath God said that he would meet your needs, hath God said it's all about questioning and we build altars and what did they do to bale and asteroth? Well, they would plant groves and trees around the altar to make sure that people couldn't see what they were doing over in the shadows because it is so repulsive what the worship to bale and asteroth was. Let me give you a little portion of it. Molek was in the middle of this entire process of false gods and what would Israel do? Israel got so deceived in their heart towards bale worship that they came to Molek who was a God who held out his arms like this. You can look it up for yourself and they would heat up in the belly of that idol till that idol got red hot.  Pastor, that'll never happen today. Ladies and gentlemen, it's happening even as I speak and we're a nation that has turned our back on God in such a degree that we've caught up in the midst of worshiping at bale's idols and bale's altar and we've made sure God just in case, just in case, just in case we might have the God who sees what's going on be over here and looking into our lives while we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing. I'm calling you back to the one true God. Ladies and gentlemen, why haught ye between two opinions? Why do you want this world when God has been so good? The idols of the heart, one writer said, is a counterfeit God, is anything so sin, listen, a counterfeit God is anything that is so central and essential to your life, that should you lose it, your life would hardly feel worth living. If anything happens more fundamentally, this writer said, then God to your happiness, meaning in life and identification, then it is an idol. If you lost it, you'll lose your life. Have you seen the reaction people have when they lose their iPhone? So Apple figured out, we better help these people who are so forgetful that don't remember where they put their phone, some kind of little something that can beep to let them know. So you've got a tracking watch that's watching you wherever you go, where's my phone? I don't know where my phone is at. Oh Lord, where's the phone?  If you're still dialing on a rotary phone, you are not in this century. Come on somebody, how many of you remember the days when it first came out that it was as big as a box calling and you had to haul it around? Then it went to a bag. We had a bag phone.  A battery, now it's very much, now we can implant it inside of our hands and into the thoughts of our mind according to the new AI and in it now, it's telling us what to do, how to do, where to act, where to eat. You can't even talk about a new car. The next thing you know, it's gonna pop up on your Facebook and say, here's 1,000 new cars for you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have too long bought into the altar of Baal where we're beginning to be controlled and we don't even know that it's becoming idle in the name of Jesus. He said, tear down the groves and let the evil be exposed in this hour so that we can return back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Have you got time? So the Bible says in chapter 18, here comes Elijah. After three and a half years, been in hiding. He walks up and he sees Obadiah, one of the prophets of God who's serving in the courts of King Ahab. He had hidden a hundred prophets of God in the cave and had been feeding them water and bread, taking care of them. Here comes Elijah. Now Elijah's name means Yahweh is God. Everybody shout Elijah. Look at your name or say Elijah. Tell him this, Elijah is here. Some of you wouldn't do it if I gave you $20. That's all right, you won't have to worry about it. Before Messiah comes, Elijah will arrive. I'm talking about in the future, ladies and gentlemen. He walks up on Obadiah, Obadiah said, hello, is that you Elijah? Yep, it's me. Go tell King, I love this line. Go tell King Ahab, Elijah is here. I pray to God that every person who calls, paces, assembly, their church, and are a true red-hot believer will walk on your job and not be intimidated by the enemy and say, you know what? Elijah is here, hallelujah. Elijah has shown up in the midst of an evil. Here comes Obadiah. Obadiah says, well, what do you want me to tell him? He said, you go tell him Elijah's here. Well, if I tell him Elijah's here, I might lose my job. You gotta read the book.  Am I talking to this church or am I talking to the... If I tell them I'm a believer, if I witness on my job, they might cancel me.   And ladies and gentlemen, if everything else is coming out of the closet, you better step out of there too and declare Elijah is here. Throw your hand up and say Elijah's here. My God, if Elijah showed up in most of our churches, people would call him, mock him and tear him down.  It brought the rain. Fire came from heaven. Hey, I want you to know Elijah is here. The Bible says he approaches King Ahab. He said, what about it? Are you the troubler of Israel? Are you the one who's causing all this trouble?   You better not offer your opinion on Facebook. I think I'm preaching in a foreign country here today, but that's all right. When it's over with my heartburn will be over. Are you the one who troubles Israel? Elijah said, I'm not the one. You and your daddy are the ones.  You knew that you were supposed to be serving the one true God. Why did Israel so embrace the altar of Baal and all that was encompassing that? They weren't satisfied with the one true God. Listen to me. God said, behold, oh Israel, our God is one. And we think one, but he is God one all by himself. What did Israel want? They said, we want the gods of Baal because we don't believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the one God is able to take care of multi areas like that. We don't believe, this is where we are today. We're going to worship of the altar of sports. We're going to worship of the altar of money. We're going to worship of the altar of entertainment. And I know you can't say amen right now because you're already ready to get there. Even though there's no sports going on, you're going to find something with a Baal, something with a bad. You're going to find something that's going to occupy your heart. But I just want to let you know in the middle of the night when everything's going crazy, what God do you call upon when your baby's laying in the hospital, when your husband has a heart attack, when you don't know what to do, I'll tell you I'm trusting in the one true living God. Behold, oh Israel, our God is one. In other words, he said, our God is enough. He is El Shaddai, the God who is able to supply all. He is the all sufficient God. Say amen somebody. I'm coming down to a close. If you don't fix the drought, you can't fix the famine. If you stay in a dry place so long, if you stay in a dry place so long, if you're not careful, it will start to convince you it's not worth what it takes to get out. You might want to say amen right there because here's what I know. The statistics among young teenage girls committing suicide because of depression is going straight through the roof right now in the United States of America. We are the largest consumers of anti-depression drugs across the world. Ladies and gentlemen, something's wrong. We're trusting in bail and we're not trusting in the one true living God. I say get them babies up early in the morning, slap the oil on their head and pray the holy goes down and the devil can't touch them. When they get home at nighttime, get them around that table, put the iPhones out and the TV out and say God baptize our house again. Shout yes somebody. Three and a half years of drought. Three and a half years of prophesied drought. If that happened today, I'm always amazed. Prophets have got titles and they're all the time prophesying something.  Come on somebody. Run to the altar, somebody's up there and said, your telephone number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't know your own telephone number, I said, if you don't know your own telephone number, you're already in bad shape and the prophet can't get you out. We've seen the shenanigans and the scams. We've been left cold and lonely and lifeless because we've worshiped that stuff that we thought was gonna fill our lives. But Elijah put his feet down and looked at the people and said, I wanna let you know today's the day when everybody that's gonna serve the true and living God is gonna step forward and everybody that's not is gonna keep on serving bail. Three and a half years. Well, you don't have to go far to find out what's going on. They said, we need the rain. He said, it's not gonna rain till I say so. I wish we had some prophets like that today. Three and a half years. Well, go over to 2nd Chronicles 7 and 13. We like to quote 2nd Chronicles 7, 14. Are y'all still with me this morning? We like to quote 2nd Chronicles 7, 14. If my people, which are called by my name, will hum themselves and pray and seek my face turned from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven? I will forgive their sin and heal their land. We get all excited about that, but jump back the one verse. God said in verse 13, if I cause a famine or a drought or another pestilence to come upon you, COVID, if I elect pastor, I don't believe God.  He said, if I send these things, then he says, then if my people, what you're called by my name? He said, when I hear from you, I'll send the rain. Pastor, I need some rain. Okay, good. That brings me to the mountain. Bail's prophets, y'all build your own altar. Elijah said, build your own altar and do your thing. And when you get done, we're gonna see if bail is truly, truly the God to worship or is God. Watch this. I won't take long. Elijah sits back. All right, boys, y'all go ahead. They killed a bullet, put it up on the altar.  Not the God who answers by water or by material things or a new car, a new house or supply of money. He said, the God who answers by fire, that's the God we're gonna serve. Y'all do your thing. And here's what they did. The Bible said they started early in the morning. Hey bail, hey bail, hear us bail. You know what they heard? The Bible said that bail didn't even regard them. You know why?  You wanna know the difference between God bail and God Jehovah?  He can't see ya. He can't respond to ya. But I've got a God who answers and his voice is like the voice of many waters. Hallelujah.  That's what he said, read the book. They danced around. Now, some of you, one of the number one things happening in teenagers' lives, a phenomenon that most parents don't even know why it's coming on them is cutting, cutting themselves. Where did that come from? Right here on the top of Mount Carmel. The Bible said the prophets of bail cut themselves with knives and made themselves bleed for the cause of their God. You didn't hear what I said. You'll wake up out there. I said that this bail God required them to cut themselves and drain their blood for his sake. That's the difference between God and that bail God is that this one shed his own precious blood and his own body was cut for our sake. I wish I had some help in here. I think I wanna preach to myself a little bit now. I think I wanna testify about a God who is not one of many, but he is the one true living God. I send the conviction in the house and turn our hearts back to God because what we need is some rain makers in the house. I said, what we need is some rain makers in the house. We don't need just everybody drinking the water.  Be seated, I'm almost done. And the Bible says that they danced around all day long but when it got to the afternoon sacrifice, which is a type and shadow of Jesus Christ as the afternoon sacrifice. He said, stop what you're doing. It's obvious your God can't hear you at all. So the next time you get in a sickness, the next time you get in a drought, the next time you don't have money, the next time you need an answer to prayer, call your football coach, baseball coach, and ask him to offer up a sacrifice because you've been worshiping at the diamond for a long time and you're wondering why your God can't hear you.  That's why that old pig skin has never helped anybody but the guy who carried it across the line and I've watched him have millions and go down in flames. I came to tell you, our God is better than all the other gods. Shout, yes, somebody. He said, sit down boys and watch this. He said, come near me Israel. Watch this. Boy, if you're not offended up to this point, get ready. The Bible says that Elijah started gathering rocks and he didn't just gather one or two. The Bible said he gathered 12 stones, one for every tribe of Israel. Hear me, the nation was divided. 10 nations in the northern kingdom where they were, two in the south, the nation was divided. The nation was divided and Baal's prophets are standing there watching him as the pastor built the altar himself. He didn't ask the people to do it. He built it himself and the Bible said his entire motivation, God is for the people to return their hearts back to you. The Bible said that he laid that bullet on the altar but he said that ain't good enough. We're gonna make sure that you know that this is not the God of Baal. He said, bring me some barrels. Put water in them, oh my Lord. Let me remind you, we're in a three and a half year drought right here and the prophet of God, Elijah says, bring me some water. I feel like preaching. I feel like telling some of you in this place, if you're gonna have friends and acquaintances and racial relationships and people that are gonna agree, you better get around somebody who in the middle of a drought knows how to find water. You better get around somebody who knows how to find the water, who's not afraid to sacrifice the water. The one thing we need, don't pour that water on the altar. We need that water, oh no. I won't show you what a real sacrifice looks like. He poured barrel after barrel after barrel, 12 barrels and it filled up the trench. That altar was filled with the sacrifice and Abraham says this, or Elijah says this. He says, God, I want you to just hear me. See, repentance comes before revival. If the Ashbury revival is genuine and I believe that God is moving, then somewhere before those students started coming alive, somebody repented inside of that chapel and said, God, we're sorry, we've turned our hearts back against you. Here's your offended part. He got 12 stones, one for every tribe of Israel, even though the nation was divided. You know what he was saying? We're supposed to be unified, not divided.  We are all one, hallelujah.  We're all going back unified. That's what's gonna bring a revival when the people of God get together. And so the Bible says, the Bible said that when they poured water all over that altar, Elijah said, now God, hear me, oh Lord, that the people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou has turned their hearts to you, back to you. And the Bible says that he stood there and prayed that simple prayer in the presence of Bale's altar and Bale's prophets. When you go on your job over there at Bale Department Store, when you go on your job at Bale Company with Bale Inc., wherever that it is, you make sure you're carrying the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the one who answers my fight. And the book said, when he got through praying, give me a little something right here. That's what you need. You need a little of that. That's what kept Job alive. It was a hedge all around it. Y'all sit there, I'll preach to myself. See when you don't know what to do, I gotta get all up in here and begin to let my girls sing about a God that I can reach the war because it's in the sacrifice of your praise that God is gonna send the fire. And the Bible said, and then the fire, and suddenly the God who answered my fire, get up on your feet this morning.  Sproff, it's getting scary. But all of a sudden, the people of God looked up and said, hey, think that was all they said. I think they said something like this. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no voice towards heaven and say like this. There's no God like Jehovah. Service today, cause I am not a preacher to give you just information. I am a response preacher. And I'm gonna give you this one call. And material things and sports and everything else has come in between you and God. You choose. You choose. If he's God, serve him. But if God is God, let us serve him. I just saw the fire come down from heaven.  I just saw the fire come down from heaven and all the people saw it too. Beyond the shot of any doubt that day. Did you hear me? They would never be the same. People here today that need to bring and lay them on the altar of God. Pastor, I don't have any idols, but I'm just gonna tell you, if this God thing doesn't work out, I still gotta have a job. I told one guy who got saved to a manager at Budweiser. I said, man, you need to start looking for another job? He said, well, I can't do that. Ladies and gentlemen, I wanna ask you, when you got saved, did all things pass away and did all things become brand? I mean, you say, Pastor, I'm gonna let God search my heart and make sure there's no idols in my heart. Let me see your hand.  Come fill this altar right now. Say, say, say, there's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God like Jehovah. There's no God. This gotta get to this altar before that pride takes over your heart. That's the reason why we're gonna all go before God to repent. Here's the one reason. Here's the one reason I'm calling you to this altar. I wish others would come, but it's up to you. Urge you say, Pastor, we want revival. I don't know what it's gonna look like. I don't know what it's gonna sound like, but if it's God, let me see your hand. I can't tell from your faces. If it's not already happening at your house, and mine. Be the first one with your mouth open and repenting before God. Lord, cause there's some stuff that's got in my heart that's keeping me from being red hot and on fire for you like I was when I first got saved. And that goes for all of you and all of you and all of you back there. Cause what we need is anointing yoke-breaking singing that brings fire, not a crowd. Leaders of the Ashbury revival, they've been getting offers from celebrity preachers and celebrity singers in the Christian world who wanted to come up and offer their services. You know what they told them, everyone? We appreciate your offer. If you wanna come, we want you to sit in the back of the auditorium and not make any appearance because we don't want nothing or nobody touching the move of God at this university.  Don't let my talent crisis there, Lord. This, before we leave here, I want you to reach over to somebody.  Cause see, if you got the fire, church, a brown church, we're gonna be one church together, loving one another.


I am Professor Keshav Valesi from Valtran Institute of Technology, Solapur. In today's session, we will discuss about 2D homogenous coordinate transformations, particularly some examples we will try to solve. Coming to the learning outcomes, at the end of this session, viewers are expected to solve the problems on geometric transformations, particularly using the concept of 2D homogenous coordinate transformations and again in that regarding commonly used transformations of translations scaling and rotation. Let us revise few basics from earlier video regarding 2D homogenous coordinate transformations. In translation as you all know, we represent the mathematical relationship as a p dash is equal to p into t for point to be transformed, wherein p dash happens to be new translated point, p is original point and t is the translation matrix. This is the relationship for a point wherein x dash y dash indicates coordinates of new transformed coordinate, wherein this one is the augmented part of the algorithm for homogenous coordinate transformations. So this is p dash is equal to this is p into this 3 by 3 matrix represents translation matrix in homogenous coordinate transformations, wherein 3 by 3 matrix is required for actually 2D working, wherein this third row and third column they indicate the augmented part for the requirement towards algorithm of representation in homogenous coordinate system. Coming to scaling, we know the relation p dash and new point is equal to p original point into s, s will be the scaling matrix. So scaling matrix in this case happens to be diagonally s x and s y, wherein s x and s y are scaling factors along s and y and this third row and third column is the augmented part, wherein this is p dash, this is p. In a rotation p dash is equal to p into r, wherein again r the rotation matrix is given in 3 by 3 for 2D transformations in this particular form, wherein there is a normal 2 by 2 part required in rotation, whereas this third row and third column are the augmented part towards homogenous coordinate system. At this point I expect the viewers to imagine some objects and try to apply these concepts of 2D homogenous coordinate transformations. Let us now solve some simple problem. The text of the problem reads, wherein we are given 2 points passing through coordinates 1, 1 and 2, 4 and we are required to translate a line passing through these 2 points, we are required to translate through 2 units along x direction and 3 units along y direction and this is using homogenous coordinate transformation. This is a given problem and we will see how we can go about this in homogenous coordinate transformation system. We know earlier we have discussed further point, now let us talk about the line. We are given a line here, so line is a 2 by 2 matrix as you all know normally we represent. So, L dash will be the translated a new line, L is the original line and T is the translation matrix. So, with this relationship this could be the way otherwise we could have normally represented the matrices for a given line 2 by 2 passing through these 2 points, whereas this is the translation matrix with the 2 and the 3 as the translational distances along x and y as given and we have to find out L dash new line. We will see here how we can do it with homogenous coordinate system. L dash is equal to L into T we know and in homogenous coordinate system we can represent the same equation in this style wherein L dash will be replaced here with x 1, y 1 and 1 as well as x 2, y 2 and 1. So, these x 1, y 1 and x 2, y 2 are actually the 2 by 2 part of 2 points through which the line is passing and this 1 the third column 1, 1 these 2 elements are the part of augmentation required towards homogenous coordinate system representation for a line. So, this is for the new coordinates is equal to L dash, this is L dash is equal to L, L will be represented in this particular form wherein 1, 1, 2, 4 these are the coordinates of original point this is 1, 1 this is 2, 4 this is the original line. So, this original line here is represented as 1, 1, 2, 4 and third column is the augmented part taking values of 1 and 1 in third column. So, this is L into T the translation matrix here will be diagonal elements 1, 1, 1 and here we will have T x is equal to 2, T y is equal to 3. So, this T x is equal to 2 is the translation distance along x axis whereas, T y is equal to 3 is translation distance along y direction. So, this is the actual representation in homogenous coordinate transformation system in that pattern with new algorithm and the result of this is put up here 3, 4, 1, 4, 7, 1 wherein dropping this augmented part third column we get 3, 4 and 4, 7 as the x 1, y 1 is 3, 4 x 2, y 2 is 4, 7. So, it is indicated here new positions of these two points are given here 3, 4 and 4. So, this is the translated line with homogenous coordinate transformation. Coming to scaling here again we have the same problem, a line is given which passes through 2 points 1, 1, 2, 4 and the scaling factors given here are 2 along x as well as along y and we have to do this using homogenous coordinate transformations point to mention here is this scaling factor may be different, but here what we are given is it is a same along both the axis that is 2. So, the relation we have is L dash the new scaled line is equal to L into S as usual L dash is the line after scaling L is the original line and S is the scaling matrix normally otherwise we would have indicated L the line in 2 by 2 style as this 1, 1, 2, 4 2 by 2 matrix and the scaling matrix could have been like this style 2, 0, 0, 2 S x and S y is equal to 2 scaling factors, but here we have to do it with homogenous coordinate system. So, L dash new line is equal to L into S if we put up in homogenous coordinate form we get this as we have discussed earlier this is your L dash this part is L indicating 1, 1 and 2, 4 as 2 given points through which the line is passing and this is augmented part as usual and this is 3 by 3 our scaling matrix where in diagonally this 2 is S x representing scaling factor along x axis this is T y or S y here scaling factor along y axis and this is S y. This is augmented part representing 0, 0 and 1 values in third column and third rows the resultant of this comes out to be 2, 2, 1 and 4, 8, 1 where in 2, 2, 4, 8 this is the part of 2 coordinates that is 2, 2 here and 4, 8 here. So, this is the scaled line with this as the augmentation coming to rotation again we have the same example line passing through 2 points 1, 1 and 2, 4 and angle given is theta is equal to plus 30. We have L dash is equal to L into R the normal notation form we indicate as usual here and this R is equal to cos theta and this value this particular matrix is rotation matrix in case of 2 D transformation otherwise without homogeneous coordinate transformation. But here we are using homogeneous coordinate transformation system with that L dash comes out in this form as usual L again as usual we have put up as in earlier cases and this newly the R rotation matrix in augmented style for homogeneous coordinate transformation comes out with this basic 2 by 2 transformation matrix and augmented with this third one and third column and the result of this for theta is equal to 30 if we put and solve we get x 1, y 1 and x 2, y 2 as these values with this as the augmented part. So, these 2 points are indicated here. So, this is first point x 1, y 1 and this one is x 2, y 2 thus we get the rotated line here. So, these are the transformations using 2 D homogeneous coordinate systems. These are the 2 books as usual we have written rather we have referred Grover and Ibrahim Zaid we have taken all these things from these 2 books. Thank you.


And now to other parts of Africa, former South African president Jacob Zuma has been confirmed to be in jail at the Escort Correctional Center. The embattled former president was brought to the fairly new correctional facility to start his 15 month sentence in the early hours of first day. Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola told journalists that he had sent Zuma. The Escort Correctional Center is located in Quasalunetal Province, about 200 kilometers from his rural home in Nkandla. The facility which opened about two years ago consists of two units and has a capacity to accommodate 512 inmates. It also has a hospital section, trail and center, maintenance workshop, logistics and other support structures. I have seen him. He is in very good spirit and he has taken his breakfast, he is taking his medication and he is, as I've said, we spoke and I also told him that I'm going to tell the nation that he is here in this facility and he said it's important that this country must know. So he is in very good spirit. If we wanted the former president to stay in a hotel and in a highly privileged area, we would have taken him to the hotel in Karadine there in the south coast or we would have taken him to one of our beautiful guest houses, Brutneking in the western Cape where you can even see the sea. But the Policies and the Correctional Services Act is clear. He must be incarcerated where is declared a correctional facility in terms of incarceration.


All right All right, what's up guys? I'm gonna do this one really quick because I'm hitting my busy season I'm gonna start teaching at Harvard West Lake this summer in a few days And so I got to knock this one out fast So today I just want to show off my veto to Voigtlander veto to I love this camera It is a beautiful small folding camera that shoots 35 millimeter film So what happens you press that button the lens folds right out So this kind of went out of favor and they stopped making cameras like this But there was a wide range of cameras made like this including in medium format six by six I think six by seven and I think even six by nine was made. So what do I love about this camera? So first of all, I love the process of shooting with different cameras and that's the main reason I love this guy I'll get to the image quality later, but it's so different than anything. I'm used to so first of all It's a viewfinder. It's basically a hole in the camera and that's how you have to kind of frame your image Second this is a it has scale focusing.  I hope you guys can see that if not. I'm not editing it out too bad But you focus that you set your distance You set your aperture and shutter speed, of course, there's no light meter. So you're gonna use sunny 16 or an external light meter I use sunny 16. I'm never it's never off. I haven't developed the color yet though Which you need to be a bit more precise when developing or shooting and developing really So I can't say how good I am for sure at guessing but so far I've never been wrong shooting sunny 16, especially black and white So here's the quirk about this camera like one of the biggest quirks other than what I mentioned is that the mechanism for cocking the shutter and actually releasing it is Or whining your film excuse me is different. So you wind your film up here with this knob, right?  I mean it's not about this camera for this video, but the roley 35 right you can You actually have to cock the shutter in order to put the lens back into the camera, but The thing is I don't like that the lens is exposed, right? The cool thing about this camera is that because the lens is completely protected You can cock the shutter have everything ready to go and then just close it So everything set you press these two tabs right here close Close it up and it's ready to shoot as soon as you want to open it up and here's the interesting thing Because of it sort of clamshell styling It actually is more comfortable to slide into my pocket than say the roley 35 Which is a beautiful camera, but it's square design It just doesn't slide in as well And I actually think it's really hard to tell here But it might actually be wider than this guy is just by a hair And it's been more comfortable to throw this into my pocket. Just so if you guys want to see a size comparison Yeah, the Voigtlanders pretty big compared to the 35, but I mean Here we have a comparison to a Pentax 6.7. So this guy is a small camera So I'm gonna do a full review on this I also shoot it in an up future episode of some photography show future video will be a full review of this camera And I'll let you guys know what I think I'll show you guys a lot of shots from it The thing I'll say right away is that the lens has a lot of character and I really liked the look of the images I guess that's pretty much all I have to say for now I guess a lot of people that are watching this are gonna want to know do I think you should get this camera and If it's gonna be your go-to or your only 35 millimeter camera, don't get it. I'll be honest with you You don't want a camera with so many quirks unless I mean maybe you do But if you want it as like you're a very competent shooter that's gonna make your life easy This isn't gonna make your life easy. It will make your life more interesting think of it that way But as someone who likes to collect different cameras shoot different cameras. I highly recommend this camera. All right guys If you're new to this channel, I am a professional photographer and Photography instructor of about 10 years and what I love film and I'm sharing my passion for that and I want to You know, I want to get in touch with my community. So I'm making these videos. I'll see you guys on the next one