Children—Stephen Rule
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Why don't we start with a song to get seated on?
One of your children up front have a song you like to sing while the adults come and sit down.
We got one for us, Allen.
15 OK #15 We'll start with that.
Uh, uh, they were crying, sweetie. Yeah, I never get the room.
Granny crap.
Room.
Come away from me.
OK, let's sing some more songs and you can pick from any of the ones that are in here. I might shorten it down just a little so that others get a chance. That's not because the song you pick isn't a good one. So who else has one you'd like to sing?
OK.
Number two. Number two, we'll sing. We have a favorite verse in there, so we make sure we don't skip it. I don't want to think about two of the verses. You have a favorite? No. OK, we'll sing the 1St and the 2nd verses.
00:05:42
Another one.
Who else has one you'd like to see?
Should I call on somebody?
I don't wanna embarrass you.
Do you have one you wanna sing?
OK. You have one you want to see? Yes, missed it. OK. Thank you, Adam.
46, Thank you. Let's say 46.
Hi.
Hi. Hi.
Baby.
I'm asking all that you've gone falling behind.
Wonderful. How about a couple more?
OK on how?
47 Thank you.
I'll sing 47, maybe a little time for a short one after that.
10000100.
It's umm, OK.
One more, at least for now.
Someone wants a last song.
Oh 44 OK, thank you #44.
Where are Gypsy boy lay dying alone at the club.
00:10:09
Here nobody ever has fallen with me.
I will not change that again.
Las Vegas, NV.
I I am.
Sorry.
It down when I am.
Ready to jump, swell over, to breathe before I go.
Hello, how can I assist you?
I'd like to talk about the verse in a little bit, but if you memorize the verse during the week, I'd like to give you a chance to say it. So who has a verse that you're willing to say even though there's other people watching, maybe a couple more than usual? How many are willing to say the verse for us this morning? OK, thank you. You'd say it for everyone.
OK that's fine, double check. The Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows him then that name 17. Good. That's the one I learned this week too. I'll refresh my memory on how about another person?
The Lord has got a stronghold in the day of trouble when he knoweth them that trust in Him. Name one second good, How about another one? Anyone else want to say it? The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in Him. Name 1/7 Thank you.
Anyone else?
There's no obligation, there's no requirement, but you can if you'd like.
All right, two more. We'll start with you. The word is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows and he knoweth them that trusted him. They have won seven.
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in Him and one's own anyone else.
OK, some of you might know it and choose not to say it. That's OK.
I wanna talk about part of this verse with you, but you're going to need to help me out. You ready? You didn't have to help me out with the verse, but you will help me have to help me out a little bit with the rest of the Sunday school. There's a part of this. There's three parts to this verse I'd like to talk about, and we'll probably run out of time.
Somebody I know and love tells me there's always too much, so I'll try to keep it to the most important part first. So we're going to keep down to castles and strongholds and fortresses.
How many of you have ever built a castle, a stronghold, or a fortress or a Fort really? Wow, that's all. Let me see that. Does that really all? I don't believe that because I recognize some hands. I know I built a Fort or a castle or stronghold. And in fact, by the time we're done, I think you're going to find that everybody here has built some kind of a Ford or a castle or stronghold or a fortress or something. I'll give you one example first. When I was maybe.
00:15:22
Seven or eight years old. Anybody here that's seven or eight years old? About 9:00 because I might have done it. OK, we got 19, uh, 654. I had one of these when I was probably 4 to 9. OK, well, my bedroom was upstairs in the house and you go up the stairs and then you turn, you come up to the top of the stairs and then you turn again to the right and you enter my bedroom and my parents room and my sister's room are further down the hall. So I was the first one on the top of the stairs.
And I had some windows that looked out onto the street. So when I went to bed at night for several years, I built myself a fortress.
Guess what it was made out of?
I got in bed over on the side by the wall, right in the corner, and there's a window over here and here's the corner and I laid over in the corner by the wall, and then I built myself a fortress. Guess what I made it out of?
How about as bad as that? It was pillows. I sacks some pillows there and maybe if there was an extra blanket or something I stacked up between myself and the windows. I didn't worry about the door for some reason.
How many think that's a pretty good fortress?
Oh, wow, thank you, thank you. Umm, I don't think it was a very good. Do you think that would have kept a thief out that wanted to crawl in the window? That's one of the things that went through my head. What if somebody came crawling through the window in the middle of the night? Well, I've got a wall between me and them now.
And I had a soldier for my wall. I put it over by the wall. I had a little stuffed rabbit about that big. And I put my stuffed rabbit over by that fortress wall.
How many of you think that was a really good defense?
Wow, you do. Thank you. No, you don't. Umm, nobody thinks that was a very good defense. That was pretty lousy, but in my mind that was helpful in being able to go to sleep. Well, you know what? I think that there's probably at least a little bit and everyone in this room that they built a castle or a fortress.
And I'm going to give you an example now before I give you an example so you don't get offended. All of these things are OK. It's using them as a fortress that's the problem. I think that there's some people here that probably arrived with a whole suitcase worth of vitamins.
And that might be OK. That's OK. Now, don't feel bad, all right? It's only if it's the fortress that it's a problem.
And some people maybe when they get home, they have a refrigerator full of vegetables and fruits, and that's their fortress. Somebody else has a bank account and they've got some money. And it doesn't have to be a lot of money. Maybe it's just a just the right amount of money. I don't know what just the right amount of money is, but that's their fortress. We can all have. How many of you have a fortress like that, something that you count on? In fact, let me give you another one.
I suspect there's at least a few people here that walked in with their Bible cases and they thought hum.
Where am I going to sit? And they didn't look at the 1St row or the 2nd row or the 3rd row. They wanted to have a nice wall of people in front of them because they didn't want anybody looking at them. Now everybody's looking at them. Turn around to see who's in the back row. See, they're not very good fortresses. We build ourselves fortresses to protect ourselves from the things we're scared of. Now what was the verse?
The Lord.
Is good the Lord is good say the rest of it a stronghold in the day travel and he know them that trust in him stronghold in the day of trouble. That's the fortress we're talking about. So I'm going to help you out. This is in the book of Nam and the book of Nam was written to the people are written about the people of Nineveh, a big city. So I'm going to give you an idea of a fortress and I need somebody, some of you guys to help me out who can push me off the steps over there.
You do that.
Jonathan, OK, You come on up, push me off the steps. I'll help you out. You stand up on that step there and I'm going to keep my feet together. I'll stay right at the back here. And that makes a little easier. You push on my chest and you see if you can push me off. I'll try not to. Hey, thank you. Thank you, Jonathan.
00:20:06
OK, so he pushed me off the steps. I wasn't strong enough, at least standing like that. I wasn't. I really was trying to sink in with my toes and keep from getting pushed over. Now Jonathan, since you helped me out with that, I need you to put something else over.
I want you to push on this pillar right here and push it over there.
You can't do it. You're not even gonna try. No. All right. Thank you. He won't even try. I wanna show you how big some people say the walls of Nineveh were because that was a stronghold. I think even if you don't like my pillows as a wall, you would think this was a stronghold. You would think this was a good fortress. I think so. We're gonna you're gonna help me out, and I need one volunteer first. The rest of you are gonna have to get out of your seat in a minute. All right. Thank you. Anna, you come up and I want to start you out right by this pillar, right at this crack. And I'm gonna have you walk.
And I'll tell you when to stop. You'll walk to the far side of justice, the outside wall of Nineveh, at least according to some historians. All right, walk about as far as the wall of your room.
How many think the wall of your room makes a good, good wall? Go into your room, close the door, lock it if you can. Is that a good fortress? Some of us go to hide in our rooms, all right? And that's a good fortress because nobody can see us. And it's at the wall of her room. Now walk about as far as the width of your dining room. You don't have to get it right, just about right.
OK, so from where I am to where Anna is, that's about how wide our dining room. Does that make a good thick wall? How many of you have a wall at your house that's that thick? How many of you have walls to your house that are thinner than that? That means everybody. So you gotta raise your hand. All right? You're gonna raise your hand for the first one. You have to for the second one. And I'm going to keep walking to the edge of the thickness of the wall of Nineveh. Keep going, Keep going, keep going. Keep going, keep going. This is not at the edge of the wall in any of them yet. A little bit further. Little bit further and keep going. Yep. You're not there yet. You move to your left a little bit. So you line up with that doorway because you're going to need 2.
All right, move just a little bit further. A little bit further. A little bit further. OK, just up. That's that's about right. That's good enough. That sounds thick. They say the wall of Nineveh was.
Is that a thick wall? You want to come back up and push that wall over? Jonathan? No. Huge thick wall. Now I want to show you how tall it was. All of you have to come up. The adults are left out. Those of you in the front row, you have to come up. We're going to have Anna. Anna, you're going to have to keep walking until you get to the top of the wall in Nineveh. I can't have you go up this high. There's no building in Mayfield big enough.
OK, you watch Anna and I'll tell you when she gets to the top of the wall of Nineveh. OK, keep going and I'll tell you when you get there. Keep walking. Walking, walking, walking, walking. Walk. Go, Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.
There you are. That's good. Stop right there. Anna's now at the top of the wall of Nineveh. Do you think she's at the highest point in Nineveh yet? Nope. Nineveh had towers on their walls. So we're gonna send Anna down to the top of the one of the towers on the wall of Nineveh. Now, you keep walking in a.
Keep going. I'll tell you when you get to the top of the tower wall, you watch Anna imagine she's getting to the top of the wall.
That you have to keep going off the dock. Going to that yellow tape. Yep. You're you're loud. I'll let you go. I'll talk to Mr. McClure later. You keep going. Keep going.
Good. Keep going. You're not there yet.
Thinks he's there yet, Adam? No, no, not far enough.
Alright, that's good. Yep, you're there. You're at the the hallway, right?
OK.
Now we're gonna talk to Anna. She's on the top of the tower, and then she's at the far hallway. By the way, for those of you who can't see her, most of you, Oh, maybe not quite far enough yet. Uh, Adam, can you call her back?
No, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. Call her from here. I just wanna see from the bottom of the wall if you can even talk to her.
Oh, she moved.
Oh, she's coming back. OK, great. Come all the way back, Anna. Thank you. All right, now you can take your seat.
I'm going to ask you a question. Montana gets back. But does that sound like a nice tall tower? Sound pretty strong. I think that's a pretty nice tall tower. How would you like, how many of you would like to climb all the way up a ladder to get to the top of that tower when the people up top don't want you there and you're trying to attack that castle? How would you like to climb up a ladder all the way toward where Anna was at the far hallway? Would you like to do that? The people on top maybe have boiling water or they add arrows or they had rocks and they're dropping them on your head. Does that sound nice?
00:25:34
No.
Lifting the water.
Oh, yeah, that, that, that boy fire at the top of that tower. I'd lift the ladder. I'd push that ladder off, too. I no, I wouldn't want it to lean against my wall. But that sounds like a pretty strong tower, doesn't it? You know how many of those some people say they had at Nineveh?
Jonah went through that city, right? And he walked through Nineveh and in that city that some people say they had.
45 good guess. That'd be a lot, wouldn't it? No, it's more than 45. Two more guesses.
Yep.
75 Another good guess. Those would be a That would be a lot of huge towers, wouldn't they? One more.
55 all of those are pretty good guesses. Some people at least, I don't know the real number, I don't suppose anybody does but the Lord. But there, the historian said there are 1500 of those towers on the wall.
Is that a stronghold? That's a huge stronghold. And a whole bunch of enemies of Nineveh came up against that stronghold and they surrounded it. There were Chaldeans and there were Medes and there were Babylonians and there were Sumerians, and there were others that I can't remember. And they were all the enemies of Assyria. And they surrounded that wall and they couldn't get in. And one year passed and two years passed and I couldn't get in.
Is that a strong law?
Some people here, maybe they've got a really strong wall. Is it too strong for the Lord?
No, let me read you the next verse. I suspect you didn't memorize this one in Sunday school ever. Even if you're 93 here today, I suspect you've never seen the next verse on the Sunday school paper to memorize. So turn if you can, if you know where to find it. Jonah, Micah, Nayam in your Bible. Jonah, the prophet that spoke to Nineveh and Micah, and then the story of Nineveh in the book of Naam.
In the next verse says.
This sentence.
He knoweth them that trust in him. The next words say Fox.
But name one verse 8. But with an overrunning flood, he will make an utter end of the place thereof. Fought with an overrunning flood, he will make another end of the place thereof. You know what?
Nineveh is on a river.
You know the name of that river? It's in the Bible. Nineveh. You know the name of the river. Not sure. Should we get an adult, somebody a little older, tell me the name of the river that Nineveh faces. Nineveh goes right up to the shore of the river, and there's a modern city in Iraq that comes right up to the opposite shore, that same river.
No, not that one.
Nineveh comes right up. We'll take somebody that's 20 or older and they'll help me out.
Nineveh is right on Mr. Sector, the Tigris River. It's right on the Tigris River, and that's in modern day Iraq. And there's a city right there today, Mosul, and it's right on the opposite bank from where Nineveh was. And that river got the third year of the siege, became an overrunning flood and it made a breach in the wall. It was so powerful of water, it broke a section of the wall. And the enemy went in and the king of Nineveh burnt himself to death in his palace.
And that was the end of Nineveh. And you know what?
That was 2600 years ago. Has none of it been rebuilt? To my knowledge it's never been rebuilt. Mosul's on the opposite bank and they've rebuilt a gate at big fancy gates. They rebuilt the gate, so that was it. Is that a good stronghold? You want to guess how long it lasted?
00:30:15
One from when it was built. The Bible tells when it was built. One more G Go ahead and guess.
Two years. You wanna guess when it was built to when it was destroyed? Three years, 1400 years. It's not a long time. Yeah. And you know, if we're just people and we think we've got a pretty good stronghold and maybe it's lasted our whole lifetime and we've got a little bit of faith in it.
Is it too strong for God to tear down?
When the year came, the destroying in about 120 years before Jonah came through and Jonah preached to the people in Nineveh and he talked to them.
And they repented, but they went back to their old ways, and when it was time to destroy, God destroyed Nineveh.
The minute he needed to.
I want to warn you, if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, maybe you've lived for five years.
You heard last night about personally trusting in the Lord Jesus as your Savior, and you understood it.
But.
You didn't.
And maybe there's somebody in the room that's 10 years old or 12 or 20 or 40.
Maybe God has waited 40 years for you, or 50.
But Nineveh was around for 1400 years. It had a huge wall with lots of towers and the day it came when it God said with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place and when his time came Nineveh was wiped out.
They think the people around there learn their lesson.
One of the groups that came to destroy it were the Babylonians. You've heard of the Babylonians, right? The Babylonians came to destroy that place, and they came and destroyed that place, and then they went and they learned the lesson, didn't they?
They built a bigger wall.
Their wall is even taller and their wall was even wider. You think that's good enough?
God prophesied the destruction of Babylon and has it been rebuilt?
No, Babylon was destroyed and it hasn't been rebuilt. The only stronghold is the one in this verse it says in our verse it says the Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble. So who do you trust in in the day of trouble? One more verse from this chapter at the beginning it says in verse three, the Lord is slow to anger.
And great in power, and will not at all acquit the Wiccan. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm. So when God's time of judgment comes, there's nothing that can stop it.
Want you to help me.
I've got three things here. First part you can help me with is.
Putting these in the order they are in the verse. So for those of you in the back, this one is a castle, a little castle with a drawbridge. This one is the classic stylized heart, and this one's somebody's head with a few gears in it. All right, so I'm going to give each of you the three of them, and I want you to put them in the order they are in the verse.
And then we're going to find a verse for each part of this. I'll give all of you in the front, the rest of you.
You have to do it in your head. Which comes first, the castle of the heart or the head with the gears? OK, give each three. I want you to put them in order in the order they are in the verse. Most of you memorize it. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him.
Yeah, put them in and that's might be kinda hard. So you can double check with your brother or sister or somebody next to you if you think you might need a little extra help.
See if you can put them in order. The Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. I'll give a verse for each.
00:35:02
OK.
Just give you a brief moment of time and double check your answer with the person next to you. That's not cheating in this school. It's good to help somebody next to you. So you can ask the person next to you and see if they, uh, agree with you, if you think you've got them in the right order. And I see at least one that I agree with the order on. And I think there's a couple, I think there's several that I agree with the order on. OK.
Who wants to help me out? You put up the first one, you hold up the first one.
Now you think those first in the verse and you tell me why? OK.
OK, he held up the heart and he says the Lord is good. I agree. How about the next one?
What would you put next? Yeah, you've got it. Just about everybody's got your fortress there next. I agree. A stronghold in the day of trouble. And that's the one we spent most of our time talking about. And the last one says, yeah, OK, I see lots of them with the head. I didn't know. How do you illustrate Noah? Sam, how do you illustrate? Know somebody? So I, I took the head, but, umm, that one, that was a little harder. OK, I want to illustrate the last one. We'll read a verse and we'll illustrate the first one in read a verse.
How many of you know?
My middle name. Raise your hand if you know my middle name.
OK, I got 123456.
That's all 789 Good. Ten. Wow. 10 of you, 11 maybe. OK, about 11 of you know my middle name.
You know a lot about a person when you know their middle name.
Maybe not so much, but when you really know somebody, you know, can I hear the things about them? You know their first name and their middle name and their last name and a whole lot more. And I'm gonna read to a verse that tells you what God knows about you. In a minute. I'll tell you about somebody, because this is the way we are. I wanna encourage you to not only let God know you, but to, you know God. So in earlier this year, Paul and I were at a Bible conference in Ecuador.
And there was a boy there and I was trying to learn his name and it was easy to learn his first name. His first name was Sebastian.
And it was easy to learn his second name. His second name was Alejandro. But I couldn't get his last name right. I kept pronouncing it wrong. So I had to have him spell it for me so I could hear it. If I can see it, I can hear it and make the right sound. But if I just hear it, sometimes I just can't get it right. And he was getting all frustrated, no.
That was wrong. So I learned his name. His name was Sebastian Alejandro Cortez Patty. Excuse me now I'm getting his last name wrong. Umm, Sebastian Alejandro Cortez Patino. The last name is the one I kept messing up before I kept putting AD in there and I almost, I did do it again. Sebastian Alejandro Cortez Patino. That's about all I know about him. I know what he looks like and I know a little bit about what he's like, but I know his name. And when I was done, this is what I want you to remember.
When I was done and I practiced on it for a few minutes and I had to ask him three or four times and he finally you got it right. And I said what's my name?
He didn't have any idea at all. And you know what? Sometimes we're that way with God. Sometimes we want to make sure that God knows us and he knows what our problems are and he knows where we're having difficulties and we're all done and we know that he knows us. We say fine.
And we don't know a whole lot about God. I wanna encourage you to take your Bible this today and this week and to learn what He has for you to learn about him. But let's read one verse about Him knowing you, Psalm 139.
So I'm 139 and we'll read just a couple verses maybe.
Read verses 15 through 17.
My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, And in thy book all my members were written.
Which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them. Isn't that nice?
How many of your parents have a picture of you before you were born?
00:40:08
Maybe you don't know how many of you have seen a picture of yourself before you were born. You have you have a few people night, you have an ultrasound and they take a picture. Is that picture as detailed and colorful and nice?
As the one your parents maybe took on their phone in the last week.
Now what's the picture of you before you were born look like?
Swirly and black and white and Gray and the doctor or the baby, the nurse or somebody who knows how to read those, They .0 there's and you say, and you're not really sure if that's what it is or not, but they've seen a lot of them and they probably know. And then they point to little hands and feet and you can recognize those and they go ahead. It's, it's a kind of a funny picture, isn't it? But this is a picture of what you were like that God saw and knew before you were born.
In fact, before the world was created, he knew everything about you.
How many of you have a parent who never misunderstands you? They always, they always get it right?
I gotta get my hand down too. Sorry. Not a single one. But we do have God. The Father knows everything. He knoweth them, the trust in Him, not only who they are, but everything about them. God knows you perfectly, and it's a wonderful thing. Sometimes we have misunderstandings with other people, even ones that love us. But God never misunderstands us, and it's a wonderful privilege to come and not misunderstand Him.
It's good to know him too. One more verse. This goes with the first part. The Lord is good. There's so many verses in the Bible that would show that. We'll turn to one first. John chapter 4.
John, Chapter 4.
And verse 10.
If you have your Bible, turn to 1St John 4 verse 10. This goes with the heart part of the verse.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now in one minute, I want you to understand just a tiny bit of the love behind that propitiation.
That means God satisfied. So I want to illustrate it for you real quickly. Suppose that.
Umm, can I borrow you, Adam and Ellen? Can I borrow your names? You don't have to come up. Is it OK if I use your names in this example? All right, suppose Adam, Alan Adams will say Adam's doing a job for his mom, Adam's doing a job for his mom. And Allen comes along and he looks it over and he says, I don't think you did that part right. You need to redo that part. That wouldn't happen, would it? We'll just pretend. So Alan asked. It says, Adam, you didn't do that part right?
And maybe you don't agree on it for a little bit. Who gets to decide whether it's done right or not?
Your mom now if your mom comes along and she looks it over and says no, I think Adam, you've done a really good job there. That's that satisfies me.
Do you think you'd keep arguing?
No, it's settled because your mom says that's good enough.
And you know what? When the Lord Jesus Christ did a work to put away sin, he did a work. And it's nice if Alan's satisfied that it was good enough, but what really matters is that his mom satisfied that it's good enough. And you know what? When your Lord Jesus did a work on the cross, it's nice if we're satisfied, we should be.
But what really matters is that God is satisfied with what the Lord Jesus did, and that's part of the love that's in the verse we just read.