Children—Tim Ruga
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Now I don't see many children sitting up here so.
Come on. Evening, William, come on up. Anyone else too? If you don't come up here, I'm going to be really lonely, so.
You can bring your parents too if they won't let you come alone.
Anyone else?
Good through a few here.
Now I'm not scary.
As a matter of fact, I'm scared, so I'm glad you're all up here with me. So let's start with a hymn and I think we'll just sing a few off of the back of this hymn sheet here. Does everybody have one? We'll sing. We'll start with number 42 and.
I don't want to just sing this hymn, but now it's early in the morning. I know we just got up and maybe we're a little slow still. I was just talking with someone who said he's having trouble waking up and probably like a lot of us here. So let's get going with some gusto here and sing this hymn really well. So try to keep up. I'm going to start it.
A little child of seven.
OK, let's sing the next one. So we'll also try to sing that one quickly.
A little energy, one door and all.
The.
OK, well, that's good. Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we just thank Thee for this morning. Thank You that so many of us can be here on a bright sunny day because we think that this was the day when our Lord rose from the dead. And we thank You that we can be here and open Thy word on that very same day of the week. We pray that Thou would use this time for blessing and the children here would be encouraged that we would all learn something from Thy Word, and those of us who are older too, that we would each one of us be encouraged on.
In our faith.
And above all, Lord Jesus, that we learn more of Thee and be drawn closer to Thee. We just pray for the gospel to even here in the Sunday School, as we think that some of the younger ones here may not yet know Thee. We just pray for Thy help now and ask it. Lord Jesus and Thy alone precious and worthy name, Amen.
OK now the next part we might get back to singing but I want to see if anyone knows the verse.
Now, if you're like me, this was the scary part that I never liked.
So you don't have to say it, but if somebody who learned the verse brave enough to stand up and say it.
Looks like all no?
You know, usually there was somebody who would stand to say it.
OK. Oh, Brad, you're going to volunteer. I'm going to like that. All right, go ahead.
Very good. Now how many other people learned that verse?
People don't learn verses anymore. OK? I didn't leave North America that long ago. People used to. I was. One person learned it. Other people aren't learning the verse well.
I guess I hope you learned some other verse and that's why you didn't raise your hand and I'm not going to put you on the spot, but this is a lovely verse. Isaiah 6524.
Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Now I want to talk a little bit about this first, and before we close the Sunday School today, I want to read you a story.
That has to do with this verse. But first of all, I want to ask a question. Let me see. I need a victim.
00:05:09
Everybody's looking away, all right?
This isn't hard, don't worry about it. Do you have a friend here? Any friends at all you do up here in the front row somewhere?
Where?
OK, good. OK, no problem. I'm not going to be scary here, but I'm just curious. I want to ask you another question. Let's suppose you had a question and you wanted to ask her your question. OK, I don't know what the question is, but you think of a question in your head and you want to ask her. And now you're going to go over here and you're going to get ready to ask her this question, right? You can stay there. It's OK.
And you come to her and you say, I'm just going to ask you a question. And before you get a chance to ask this question, she tells you the answer.
What would you think about that?
That's pretty amazing, right? Would you expect her to tell you the answer before you even ask the question?
Now, anybody else? We wouldn't expect that, would we? None of us. OK, now she answers the question. Before you ask, he says something's wrong. Here. She could read my thoughts. This, this isn't what she's supposed to be doing.
But you know the verse says exactly that. Before they call, I will answer.
Now who's the one who can do that?
OK. Go ahead, Ethan.
No. OK, another Who can do that? Who can answer a question? OK, William. God, yeah, the Lord can do that.
And that tells us right away who we're talking about in this verse, doesn't it? We're not just talking about your friend. I mean, that'd be quite a thing. But if she did that, you know, something isn't quite right there. Or maybe she was able to think by somehow you were looking. But God can answer any question that we asked before we even ask it. You can answer it. And so we are talking about God in this verse.
Now I'm not even going to ask how many read the Sunday school paper.
But I hope you did. And if you didn't, there was a really nice story in here. It was a story about a car that was stolen. And there was a lady who came out. She had this beautiful little yellow car. And she went out and looked and it wasn't there. And it was on a morning just like this. My Lord, stay morning. And so she went out and said, oh, what am I going to do now? My car is gone. Well, I'll have to report this to my insurance agent.
You know, you have to do that when something goes wrong. If you have an accident or if it's stolen, you've got to tell your insurance agent right away. So she went to do that and then she said, no, no, I won't do that because maybe he is going to come to a place like this and he's going to worship the Lord and I don't want him thinking about my car. Oh, she was a nice Christian lady, wasn't she? In fact, she went to some place like this and she and then worshiped the Lord and then afterwards when she went back home.
She called up the insurance agent and said my car is gone and she called the police too and they said, oh, don't worry about it.
There was a photographer along the tracks and he found there he was taking some pictures and he saw this brake car put in a place where they didn't want anyone to see it. So we figured it was stolen. We already have the car down at the police station.
And so they had it already there even before she asked. And not only that, he said when we find a car like this, we have to take it and we've got to clean the car. We've got to change the oil and make it very nice. And so we're going to give your car back, but it's going to be very clean and very nice and tip top condition. And while you don't have your car, we're going to give you another car while we're cleaning yours.
That's really nice, isn't it?
Wouldn't you like to have your car stolen?
That's really good. That's what was in the paper. If you don't read these Sunday school papers, it's not a bad idea. There's some really good stories in here, OK Isn't just something that comes out every week and you put somewhere. So that was the story, and I hope you can see how that story went with this first before.
00:10:06
They ask, he says. I will answer, and while they get speaking, I will hear it.
And so we want to think about this verse for a few minutes this morning, and if we have time at the end, we'll sing a few more hymns.
But first of all, let's go and look in the Bible. So some of you have some Bibles.
We want to look in the Bible and see what this verse is talking about.
All right, so Isaiah 65.
There's only 66 chapters in Isaiah.
And so just go to the end if you can find Isaiah, and go back one chapter and you'll be right there.
And verse 24.
Is the verse that we had. Now we're going to come to verse 24, but usually it's good. When you go in the Bible, you want to get to the beginning of the story. Oftentimes it's a chapter, not always, but in this case, we want to go to the beginning of the chapter and just see what it's talking about.
And there it says in verse one, Isaiah 65, verse one, I am sought of them that asked not for me. I am found of them that sought me not.
Verse two, I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people that walketh in a way that was not good after their own thoughts. And now if we skip down to verse 12, it says this. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter. Because when I called, you did not answer. When I speak you did not hear.
Now there's many more words in this chapter, but I want to just stop there and talk about just those.
First of all, I'm going to tell you that these verses are speaking about Israel, and you're going to have to bear with me for just a minute and listen to what I'm saying, OK? There's a nation in the world called Israel, and God called them out of all the other nations of the earth, of the earth, and He made them his own special people.
And he put them in a very special place of blessing. And this chapter is telling us what happened. The Lord was speaking to them and they didn't listen. And so in the end, the Lord said that he was going to number them to the sword and they were going to be in big trouble. Now that has happened. Isaiah was written many, many years ago. And then after that, sometime later, the Lord Jesus came to the earth. And then the Lord Jesus died on the cross, right?
We all know that story. And then he went back up into heaven. And now, 2000 years later, here we are today, sitting in a room all together talking about these verses.
And Israel.
Is what we read about here. These things have happened, now we're going to skip right down.
To verse 17, and I'm going to just read a few verses only here, but verses 17 to the end all go together and it says in verse 17 for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered.
Nor come into mind. And so the Lord says, and it's going to come a day in the future, I'm going to do something new. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth and all that. This that we see today is not going to anymore come into people's minds, OK? So keep that in your mind.
And then if we go down to verse 24 and it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. And while they are yes speaking, I will hear.
Verse 25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the Bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains, saith the Lord.
Does anyone know what these verses are talking about?
Now this is a hard question for young people.
But I'm going to tell you it's a coming period of time when the Lord Jesus is going to reign on this earth. We call it the Millennium because it means 1000 years. And the Lord Jesus will reign and he is going to take Israel and he's going to bring them into blessing, just like we read about here. And you're going to have a wolf and a lion together, or I'm sorry, it was a wolf and a lamb together here. And they're not going to hurt. They're not going to destroy. Everything's going to be wonderful. That's what the chapter's talking about.
00:15:07
Now.
What does that have to do to us with us today, OK.
We aren't Israel. We're all here. There might be somebody from Israel here, but we're not Israel.
And we're not in the past when they did that. We're not in the future when the Lord is going to bless them. We're sitting here right now. What does this have to do with us?
I just told you this is a whole chapter that has to do with Israel, but here we had it as a memory verse for us today.
Well, I'm going to try to explain that part. And if you didn't understand what I was just saying in the last five minutes, don't worry about it. I hope you will someday. Don't worry, It's OK. What I want to say now is what I want you to listen to. OK. At the first part of this chapter, the first verse we read was.
It said there that.
I am sought of them that asked not for me.
I am found of those that sought me not.
That sounds like Old English, and it is.
The Lord is saying there were people who weren't even looking for me, and now I'm found of those people. That's what this has to do with us today.
Sometime when you're reading, you're going to come to the book of Romans and you'll come to the 10th chapter and you'll read there almost these same verses because it's quoted from here and it shows that now, today.
These verses are talking about us because.
Israel was God's people and they did not accept Him. It says in John chapter one that the Lord Jesus, when he came to the earth, he came to his own people and his own received him not. Does anyone know the rest of that verse? Maybe somebody learned it?
No. OK, even if you do, it's scary to say it isn't.
It says as many has received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.
And so the Lord Jesus, he came to Israel and they said we don't want him.
And so instead it says now the grace of God goes out to everyone, as many as received him to them, gave he the power to become the children of God. And so here we are. We're not Jews. There's a whole room full of people. And we are people from what we call Gentiles, all different kinds of people. And the Lord Jesus came to save us.
And so whoever calls on his name today, that's also in Romans chapter 10. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And we're here because of that.
Now.
That's where we fit into this chapter. What does that 24th verse have to do with us?
Can anybody think of how?
Before they call, I will answer. That might even begin to apply to us.
OK, I'm going to give a hint.
Everybody in this room has a very great need above all else.
And that is to be saved. Is that right? We all agree. Yeah. OK now.
When you call out to the Lord, when does he answer you?
Can anybody tell me when does the Lord answer you? You helped me before.
Yeah, if you ask them right, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Yes, He'll answer you right then, right?
But you know, when we read the Word of God, we find out there's even something more wonderful.
And that is that he really answered long before Now. Who's got a Bible up here? You do. Can you read OK?
OK, I want you to turn to Romans chapter 5.
Oh, I'll keep going past Acts. That's good.
Oh, a little too far. You're very close.
Romans 5 Now anybody else have a Bible? You turn to Romans 2, the young ones, But just one more book and you'll be right there.
00:20:02
OK, one more Romans 5.
And verse eight, can you read that verse for us?
God command us.
But God commanded his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
OK.
That's a verse that tells us about before they were asked. I will answer. You know, it says while we're still sinners, Christ died for us. Know the Lord Jesus paid for all of my sins long before I was born. He knew everything I was going to do. He knew what you were going to do. He knew what everybody in this room was going to do. He knew just what kind of people we were going to be and he knew that was bad and.
He went 2000 years.
Before I was born and died on a cross, before I ever called, he answered.
OK, now who else found Romans 51 of you? OK, can you read?
Let's see, make sure I have the right one. Romans 5 and verse.
OK, you're on the right page. Good first 10.
For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Very good. OK, This is that. We were enemies when we were still enemies. We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. God knew all about what kind of people we were going to be, and knowing all of that, He put his Son on the cross.
Now I want to ask a very serious question, and I don't want you to answer me just the same question that was asked last night. Have you yourself trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Each one. And it doesn't matter what the person next to you did. Doesn't matter what they think, only matters you, what you think, and what you've done before God.
And you know he wants you to call on him, He wants you to ask, and he has already provided that answer.
The Lord Jesus 2000 years ago, as we said.
He was on the cross and he thought about you then as he let those men.
Put nails into his hands and he let them hang him there even though he had the power to come down. He knew about every single one of us in this room, and he loved us so much that he wanted to stay there until he paid for all the sins.
Have you trusted him?
You know he didn't come down until he said the words. It is finished. And the Lord Jesus, when he said it is finished, He said those words because there was nothing left. Every sin had been paid for, everything was done, and then he bowed his head and he died.
And then they came and they put a spear at his side, and he shed his blood. We've been talking about that in these meetings. And that blood cleanses every sin. They're all gone. The Lord Jesus completely answered 2000 years ago. But what have you done?
Remember, we just read about Israel and what they did.
And the Lord tried to speak to them, but they wouldn't listen to him. I want to just look at a few more verses in Proverbs chapter one.
So if we go just to Proverbs chapter one, I'll read these verses.
Proverbs one and verse 24 says because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand.
And no man regarded.
But ye have said it not all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity.
And so on. In verse 28 it says then so they call upon me, but I will not answer.
They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me now. This is what it says in the word of God.
And the Lord Jesus answered a long time ago, but now today he's actually calling you. We're talking a lot about calling this morning. We're talking about us calling on the name of the Lord. That's what it says in Romans 10, verse 13. And that's what we have to do. If you haven't done it, you need to do it this morning.
00:25:11
Whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord shall be saved. But here we find something a little bit different.
We find that the Lord has called. The Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth 2000 years ago. That's true. But today he's still here and He's calling.
He's calling every single one. He's calling you and you and you and you.
Everyone. He called me, He did. He called me. He's not calling me today in that way because I answered the call. And I think some of you here have answered the call too. I hope so, but have you? The Lord Jesus is calling everyone who hasn't yet answered to come right now today.
You know, I do have a story to tell you in a minute. There's another side to this verse.
But I have nothing more important to say than this, because if you enjoy good stories and you enjoy the conference and all the children and everything else that's going on here, but you miss this one thing, you've missed it all, OK? This is more important than every other thing. And if you miss this, you've missed everything. All the rest of it is worthless compared to this. So you need to listen to this. Jesus Christ is calling you.
And he wants you to answer.
Have you answered him today? Have you said, Lord Jesus, I accept you to be my personal Lord and Savior. I trust in you. I believe in the work that you did for me on Calvary's cross. Have you done that?
If so, then you are saved just like it says in Romans 1013. But here in Proverbs one it says I have called and you refused.
Now, This is why we preach the gospel at these conferences, and we preach the gospel every Lord's Day, and we like to come to the Sunday school and preach the gospel again. You say we had a gospel last night and here I am preaching it again. Well, I've lived long enough to know many, many children who are sitting.
In these chairs, just like this.
And they smiled, they said the verse, and they even shook their heads up and down sometimes and said yes I believe. And then off they went.
Today, if you find them, don't even know. Is this one even a believer? They don't live their life like a believer. I can't tell. Or maybe they're just out and out against God. They say I want nothing to do with that. How could that happen?
What happens like this? It happens by sitting in a meeting like this and the Lord Jesus calls you and you don't answer him. And so we're talking about a verse that we all kind of like the thought of this before they call, I will answer, Oh, that's wonderful. I like it if the Lord answers my the things that I asked him for. But what about you? He has called you. Have you answered him? And then he says here, if they don't answer.
What does this say in verse 28 then? Shall they call upon me? But I will not answer. And so that day is coming, that many, many people are going to come and they're going to call on the Lord. It tells us in Matthew Chapter 7, Many are going to come to me in that day. And you know what they're going to say? They're going to say, Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in Thy name and cast out demons? They could say we've done all these things.
And you know, he's going to turn around. He's going to say I will profess to them.
I never knew you depart from me you that work inequity.
I never knew you. They're going to call, and it's possible some people in this room today are going to yet call on the Lord and He will not answer. And so we want to tell that part of the story that the Lord is calling today.
You have an opportunity today. He will answer. He's already answered a long time ago, but there may come a time when they'll no longer be opportunity.
Now let me go to the story that I brought.
Because there's, oh, I guess I have it here.
There's a whole other side to this.
We find that in the future day when the Lord Jesus comes and He sets up this wonderful place on earth that before they call, I will answer and while they're yet speaking, I will hear the Lord is going to be so close to them and just speaking back and forth. Well, you know that part is true today as well. If you've called on the name of the Lord, if He is your Savior, then you can have a living day by day.
00:30:28
Relationship with Jesus Christ. It's the life of faith. You know, the Christian life doesn't only begin with faith. It continues in faith and it tells us four times in the Bible that just shall live by faith. And so we go day by day living by faith with the Lord. And when we do that, many times we find out what happened in the Sunday school paper story that before they call, I will answer. The Lord is answering us in wonderful ways that we didn't even think about.
And that is what my story is here today. I just found a story that I enjoyed so much. It is from Africa and not from the part of Africa where we're living. My family and I, we live in southern Africa, and not S, but southern in Malawi. But this is from another place there. And there was a missionary lady who had a most remarkable thing happened to her. And I want you to hear this story. It's called a little girl's prayer.
And this lady who was a doctor, this is what she said.
One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward, but in spite of all we could do, she died, leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying 2 year old daughter. This happens a lot in Africa. So you have this little tiny baby that's not going to have an easy time living and a little girl and no mom anymore. And so that's what they had here. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive as we had no incubator.
We had no electricity to run an incubator, OK, That keeps the baby nice and warm, OK. And we had no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly. OK, do we all know what the equator is? Right around the middle of the Earth? And when you get close to the equator, it usually gets pretty warm. And as we get further and further away up here, we're down South too, and it gets pretty cold. And so these ones were on the equator, but still at night it was gets very cold.
And so they said.
They were afraid that this baby was going to die, so one student midwife went for a box that we had for such babies and the cotton wool the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to soak up the fire and fill a hot water bottle.
OK, now maybe nobody here knows what a hot water bottle is. The older people do. Some of us actually probably still use them. I have to admit I have. But anyway.
I used to use these a long time ago. It was a rubber bottle that you would unscrew a little thing at the top and take it off and then you pour nice hot water in there and then screw the the cap back on. And then you would use this and you could stay nice and warm for hours with it because water doesn't cool down very quickly.
And so these hot water bottles used to be very useful even here, but they're still useful in a place like there Africa and so.
They went to fill up this hot water bottle and this one came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle it had burst rubber perishes easily in tropical climates.
And it was their last hot water bottle.
Now they didn't know what to do. And so now they're here trying to figure out how are we going to take care of this baby. And she said, OK, put the baby as near you to the fire as you can. And you yourself, she, the doctor told this intern, she said you stay between the baby and the fire and block any drafts that may not between the baby and the fire, but between the baby and the door where all the drafts are coming in. All the cold air was coming from the door. So she was to block the cold air and keep the baby nice and warm.
And try to get through that night. And that's what they did. So the job of this girl was to keep the baby warm.
Now the following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chills. I also told them of the two year old sister crying because her mother had died.
00:35:13
During prayer time, 110 year old girl Ruth prayed with the usual blunt conciseness of our African children. Now listen to this prayer.
Please God, she prayed, send us a water bottle. It will be no good tomorrow God, as the baby will be dead, so please send it this afternoon.
OK. Do you pray like that?
Honest boy. OK, I'm going to be honest too. I don't either.
I should, I think, but I don't often pray like that. But a lot of young ones often will pray like this.
So she went on.
Well, the doctor said, I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer. And she added to that prayer, she said. And while you are about it.
Would you please send a Dolly for the girl so she will know you really love her? OK, she didn't stop there. I mean God didn't do anything so might as well keep going, right?
Right, so.
Has often with children's prayers I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say Amen?
I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh yes, I know that he can do everything the Bible says. So, OK, there's where we all can get into trouble. Any true believer, we know this. God can do anything. But I don't think he's going to this time. And that's why when we pray, we need faith. OK, so.
She was thinking about what happened. She's saying there's limits to what God can do in this, aren't there? The only way for God to answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time and I had never, ever experienced a parcel or received a parcel from home.
Anyway, if anyone did send me a parcel, who would put in it a hot water bottle? I live on the equator.
OK, so there's no reason for a hot water bottle to go to Africa. It's the way people think.
So here's what happened. Halfway through the afternoon while I was teaching in the nurses training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time I reached home the car had gone but there and the veranda was a large 22 LB parcel. I felt tears pricking in my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone, so I went for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string carefully on doing each knot.
We folded the paper, taken care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some 30 or 40 pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored knitted jerseys. I sparkled as I gave them out. And then there were knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored. Then came a box of mixed raisins.
And some other fruits, Well, that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend.
Then as I put my hand in again, I felt the could it really be? What was it?
I gasped. I grasped it and pulled it out. Yes, a brand new rubber hot water bottle, she said. I cried.
This lady just cried.
I had not asked God to send it. I had not truly believed that He could.
Ruth that was the little girl who prayed. She was in the front row of the children and she rushed forward and she cried out and said if God has sent the bottle, then he must have sent the Dolly too.
And so she went way down to the bottom of the box and Rome is in there. And she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed Dolly. Her eyes shone.
OK.
She never doubted looking up at me, She asked, Can I go over with you, mommy, and give this Dolly to that little girl so that she'll know that Jesus really loves her?
OK, now I'm telling you children.
If you doubt my word. If you doubt this story.
00:40:02
God answers prayer and He answers it before we ask. I can tell you stories. I'm not going to do it. They're in my own life. But you can go around this room and you can ask other people's stories. You can ask Mr. Tony, you can ask Mr. Lovacek here. They will tell you stories about how God did this in their lives. And they're not the only ones. You can go all the way around this room. If you live long enough in the life of faith, this in one way or another is going to happen to you. This verse means all of what it says is not just salvation.
It's talking about how the Lord.
Wants to walk with us day by day in the life of faith.
But will you trust Him to do it? And I'm going to tell you there's only one way, and that is by staying as you are right now, a little child. It's very hard when you get like me, when you get older. It's very hard to take God up in simplicity like a little child. But simply take what that verse says before they call. I will answer.
When you get older, you will come in to experiences of life, you will come into all kinds of things and all kinds of reasons why that verse doesn't mean what it says.
Believe me.
I've done it.
But that verse means what it says.
Yes, it's written about Israel on the coming day, and it has a special meaning and a special application to them, but it means what it says to us today. Talking to believers now you've trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't stop your life of faith just because you believed on Him for the forgiveness of your sins. Keep walking with Him day by day, trusting Him for everything. If you have a need like this, ask Him for it. This lady was stunned.
She said that.
There had to have been somebody in that Sunday school that sent that box that put that in there, not even knowing why. There's no reason why they would put that hot water bottle in there. And then the same with the child. But that was five months earlier that that box was sent to that place and it came in answer to that little girl's prayer that very afternoon. Now, will you believe God like that?
OK, it's easy after you hear a story like that, it's easy to say, Oh yes, I'll believe. I'll go on, I'll go from this point and believe. But it gets hard and things come up and suddenly we don't want to believe anymore. We want to turn back and take the safer out, which is just not trusting God. Sometimes it seems safer in our hearts, but the Lord wants us to come to Him in simple faith and trust Him and ask Him for those things day by day.
And I also want to say if you yet have entrusted him as your Savior, that is number one. All the rest of this has no meaning until you've done that. And so you must start there. While our time is gone, let's just close with prayer.
Our God and our Father, we thank you so much for the Lord Jesus Christ who came into this world and loved each and every one of us in this room.
So much that he would give his life, that he would give everything that he had.
In spite of the fact that we were still sinners.
And when we were born and came, became old enough to know would be enemies, in spite of all of that, His love was so great that he gave all so that he might redeem us to thee. And we thank thee, our God, that Thou has called us now in the time of our lives, that here today Thou are still calling, still working in hearts. And we pray by Thy Spirit that that would work in the heart of each one of these children here, and each one of the ones who are older to any who is still lost and in their sins, that they would come.
To know that wonderful savior.
And two, we pray for those of us who know him that we would not forget that childlike faith, but go on day by day.
Walking with the Lord and just simply seeking to trust Him for everything in our lives. We ask for help with that Father, because we're weak and we often simply don't ask, and we don't receive because we ask not. We know these things. And so we ask for Thy help and we commit this time to Thee.
And the remainder of this day, to the meetings to follow, we thank Thee again for this time. We can be together and pray that it would all be for Thy glory and Thy honor. And we ask it in the precious and worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.