Children—John Kaiser
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They're waiting for that clock up there.
I'm gonna go by mine. Good morning.
That didn't sound very convincing. Good morning.
That's better. It actually is a good morning, you know that? How many, how many this morning when you woke up you felt like getting up? Hold up your hand. If you felt like getting up this morning, you know, that's good. There's a lot of mornings I wake up, I don't feel like getting up at night. This morning I went to bed early last night and this morning I actually felt like getting up. And that's a good thing too. And then you looked out the window this morning and how many felt like going outside this morning?
Different story.
It's raining, but you know, I like to some sometimes when I have Sunday schools like this, I like to start.
With a hymn that I remember from my childhood. It's not on the hymn sheet and it's not in the hymn book we normally use. And some of you may have never heard it before, but I'm gonna start singing it, and I'm gonna expect those who remember it to sing it with me.
But before I sing it, I want you to think about why it's a good morning. You know, I was thinking about this morning. I was looking out out the window and thought, well, it is a good morning.
Because I think about the rich man that says he died and he lifted up his eyes.
In hell, Was that a good morning?
No, that was not a good morning for him.
There's nobody here.
That lifted up your eyes in hell this morning. We're here in a day of God's goodness and grace.
Heavenly sunshine. Heavenly sunshine.
Heavenly Sunshine.
Our weather beyond Jesus is mine, blessed Lord Jesus.
You know, I think of another morning.
There was a man one morning.
Maybe he didn't sleep very well.
But he woke up, he got up anyway, and that was the day he was doomed to die.
And they let him out to crucify him.
Beside the Lord Jesus.
And he said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom.
And Jesus said today you'll be with me in paradise.
And all of a sudden, that man's day was changed.
It was a bad morning, but it was a good evening for him.
It's wonderful to know the Lord Jesus.
So let's sing off the back of the song sheet.
It says right at the top children's hymns and choruses. Let's sing a few of these.
And and we'll proceed with some other things. They went here on the front row. Have a choice, yes.
#40.
All right #40.
Jesus also loves me, This I know, for the Bible tells me.
So little one to give me more. They are being fine.
Let's stop for a second. Some people here aren't saying yet this morning. I don't know if they're awake yet or not. So on. The next time we sing the chorus, everybody here who's over 50 drops out. OK, The next time we sing the chorus, Jesus loves me. Everybody here who is over 50, I hope you don't mind my making this little distinction. We'll do. Everybody over 50 drops out and we'll hear the younger folk sing. Alright, doesn't it? Nice to hear you're younger and you're under 50.
All right, verse 4.
Jesus loved me, loved me now when I married me, well watch me where I see some plus me.
Neither are people this thing this morning who were singing that I couldn't hear.
But the Lord Jesus could hear them. Remember that even if even if the speaker in the up front can't hear you, the Lord Jesus can. And he's listening. All right, I have another choice from the back seat back, the back of this hymn sheet. Anybody else here have a choice? Yes. What number?
That 1 #46 #46.
Glad TIDINGSIBRING glad tidings. This word tidings that big word tidings just means news, Glad news or good news. I bring that Jesus has come to save me.
#46.
Now that kind of goes with a verse that we sung earlier.
So I enjoy and and this we sung #40 and verse three says Jesus loves me though I'm bad. Does anybody here who's ever been bad? Hold up your hand, please.
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Yeah.
Sometimes we don't wanna hear hold our hand very high.
But the fact is the older, the older we get, the higher we feel like holding it. We know Jesus loves me though I'm bad. And then this, this hymn we sang, it says and he wants all the girls and he calls and he calls all the girls and he wants all the boys to, to trust in him and have all their sins now washed away. Wonderful to have all our sins washed away.
You say, how does that happen? Well, the Bible tells us the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleans us from all sin.
And we have to take God's word for it because it's God's work. He, he, he figured it all out. He provided the Savior, the Lord Jesus, and he takes care of the sins that we can't take care of. Now we have time for one more.
Any more choices on the front row?
You already already chose one. Anyone else?
I'll give a choice to someone else where no choices on the front row.
Anybody else have a choice? This is your chance.
41 all right.
You know this was.
I had a son, his name was Joseph.
And he went to be with the Lord Jesus when he was six years old.
And this was his favorite hymn.
#41.
Let's pray.
Now.
There was.
A memory verse in the Sunday School paper last week. I wondered if anybody here knows what that memory verse was. Anybody in the front row know what that verse was?
Do you know what is it?
Very good. Can anybody else repeat that verse? Anybody on the front row? Do you know that verse?
Go ahead.
You want me to help you? I get my Bible because my memory is not that good.
I'm glad that I'm glad that we agree what the verse was. That's always a comfort to me.
Umm Psalm 86, verse 7.
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Now do you want to say the verse all right in the day?
Very good. Anybody else? Go ahead.
Very good. Anybody else?
Behind me. Oh, you say the verse. Let's go in the day.
Very good.
Very good. Anybody else OK?
All right, very good. Anybody else? I got bad eyesight. So if I need if I need to see something, people are welcome to help me. Anybody else want to say the verse? OK, I'm going to give you 1 little inducement here.
I brought along some ribbons and anybody who says the verse this morning gets to come up to this table afterward and pick up Choose a ribbon.
Anybody else wanna try?
Anybody else wanna run a rabbit?
All right, we're gonna talk about this verse now. It says Psalm 86, verse seven. In the day of my trouble, I will call.
Upon.
Thee call upon thee. Who's the the person here.
Who is it? God. Yeah. Just think of that calling God now I've got here in my pocket.
Something that I don't own. I had to borrow this. I'm a free man, but I've got a cell phone here.
Can I call God on a cell phone?
So, well, you know, if I spoke into the cell phone, you think God would hear me. Yeah, he did. God hears everything. But this is not how you call upon God. You don't need a cell phone for that. Isn't that nice?
You pray, absolutely. That's what we're talking about. Praying very important, it says here.
In the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee. I will pray. Yeah, anyone who here ever has trouble. You ever have trouble?
Boy, some people have awfully good lives here.
You know, if you have an ex, if you haven't experienced trouble or recognize trouble, you will given any time in this, in this world, because we as we heard the meeting yesterday, man's born into trouble as the sparks fly upward and we have days of trouble. We have good days. We have days where things seem to go OK and then days when we're distressed, we have trouble. Says on the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee. Now what is the use?
Of praying to God.
What?
To wash away your sins with his blood. That's a good reason to call upon God. But let me ask you another Let's think about this.
Why do we talk to God? Why do we call upon God? Why do we pray? It's because he.
He saved us. There's more to it than that.
So that he can help us. You're getting close.
I see people with these all the time and they they pick it up and they start punching here and they say hello and what happens?
Sometimes. Anyway, what happens?
Someone calls them. OK, well, that's true. But what when they call somebody else? What is this? Somebody else do? Yes. What's that answer? You know, it's very frustrating when and that happens to me quite frequently, I pick up a telephone, not usually a cell phone. I don't like cell phones. I I have trouble with them. They're too smart for me anyway. But I can I can manage an ordinary phone, but I sometimes I miss dial or I get a busy signal. It's frustrating when I call somebody, I want their attention and they don't answer.
You know, it's wonderful that God always answers. God always answers.
And that's why it says here in the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee, and thou wilt answer me, this person who wrote this, by the way, if you look in your Bible.
00:20:09
Umm, let's turn back to Psalm 86 here, verse 7.
It says Here in the day of my trouble I will call upon thee, for thou will answer me. Anybody looking at your Bible, can you do you know who said these words? Right at the top of the Psalm it says, Who wrote this Psalm?
Who was it? David. Yeah. We know him as David the Giant killer, or King David. David the shepherd boy. David wrote this Psalm. He had a relationship with the Lord.
And so he, he can say in the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee, and thou will answer me. It was two way now. I had thought about earlier about.
Asking somebody what are cell phones for?
Calling.
Is that all? What else?
Playing games.
You know when people invite, When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, I don't think he ever had the thought of playing games with the telephone.
By the way, I don't know you if you're even aware that in background 1876, it's hard to believe the cell phone, the the telephones have been around that long. Over 100 and almost 150 years telephones have been around. In 1856, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone and he wasn't thinking about playing games. What was the telephone originally for?
And something else.
No, no, Alexander Graham Bell didn't wasn't thinking about texting. What else?
Leaving messages.
Well, sort of. We're still getting not getting the other side here.
Asking for help no, what what's there's there's you know the the these phones here they they're not so distinct as the old phones but the regular telephone if you remember what a regular telephone looked like sometimes they illustrate it this way because you.
Talk into this part and what you listen. Telephones were for talking, speaking and listening.
Which is more important, talking or hearing?
Which is who? Who? What's more important, talking or hearing?
Hearing. I am so glad to hear that. You know, I've actually asked adults, some adult, I can name some names of people I've asked over the years. What's more unto important hearing or speaking? And I've had at least two people tell me, well, they're equally important, no.
Umm, how many ears have you got? 2?
And how many miles have you got? One. Yeah, God gave us two ears because hearing is more important than talking.
We need to remember that.
Hearing is more important than talking. Matter of fact, I'm gonna give you a verse that I think is very significant on this subject. I think I'm done with this. Thank you, David.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 18.
Proverbs, chapter 18.
And verse.
Two.
This is a verse about.
And what we're talking about this morning is a subject called.
Communication. That's a big word, but communication just means talking, listening and talking. It's communication is 2 way. It's something like another word we use.
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Something like this other word?
What's this top word on the board here? What is it?
Conversation. But you know, I've, I've been in places where where there was conversation, there was more conversation than communication.
I'll give you an example. This morning I went down to the breakfast room when my little granddaughter was joining in the conversation.
She was in the conversation, but she wasn't communicating too much. We knew she was alive and apparently happy. That's nice. But I I've been in conversations where people are actually speaking the same language and they weren't communicating.
Because neither one was listening to the other person. There's a difference between conversation and communication. And so often we go to God and we tell him what we want, but we're not listening to what He wants.
So that's not communication, that's just conversation. And conversation is good, but communication is much better. Now I'm gonna read this verse and and Proverbs 18.
Proverbs 18 verse two says a fool has no delight in understanding.
But that his heart may discover itself. Now, if you consult another translation, I think it will be helpful to know that this last part of the verse means reveal himself.
A fool has no delight in understanding but that his heart may reveal itself.
Here's a person who just wants to talk. He's not interested in listening. He just wants to.
Express himself and God says that's a fool. You know, this world is full of fools.
You know there, there are a lot of these people that are so-called artists, they want to express themselves. They don't communicate anything worthwhile, but they want to express themselves, says here. A fool has no delight in understanding. Let me ask you a question. If I don't listen, am I gonna understand? No.
You're right. How old are you? That's a great lesson to know when you're four years old.
We don't understand if we don't listen, and we need to listen more than we talk. But what we have in this verse here is a person who is not interested in listening. He just wants to talk. And you see a person who talks more than they listen. What is God saying? That person is a fool.
That hits most of us pretty hard.
It's important to listen.
Now.
I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna start telling a story and see who can tell me who I'm talking about. There was a boy once who lived in a temple, and God spoke to him. Who was he? Yes. No.
Good guess, but it was just a guess.
I don't see the hand, but who is it call out, Samuel. Thank you. I'm glad to hear from way back there, Samuel. Now think about Samuel.
Who was the first person that Samuel ever heard you suppose?
Who do you think for the first person Samuel ever heard? Nope.
Sorry, you had a lot of good answers this morning, but that wasn't one of them.
Who was the first person you ever heard? Probably.
Parents. Which one?
Both. Well, I'll bet you heard your mother before you heard anybody else. Because.
Bible tells, or excuse me, not Bible. The science tells us that babies, before they're born, can hear their mother's voice. And Samuel heard his mother, and I'm sure he heard his parents. And after he hurt his parents, who else did he listen to?
Yes, God. But who is somebody between his parents and God even?
The priest Eli members Samuel lived in the temple. I should probably have asked over here, would have got the answer. Samuel lived in the temple with the priest Eli, and we know that Eli spoke to him.
What I'm getting at is.
God speaks to us, sometimes through other people.
You know, I wasn't able to read my Bible until I was about six years old, but my parents told me about the Lord Jesus. God spoke to my heart through my parents, and God spoke to me through other people, and God speaks through his word. God speaks a lot of different ways. We need to learn to listen. God speaks through circumstances. He speaks through our feelings. He sometimes speaks through dreams. He speaks through events. Romans chapter one tells us that he speaks through creation.
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And our big job down here is to learn to listen to what God says. And so when when you have.
Conversation. That's a good start, but communication is better. And there's something even better than communication.
Glad I brought 2 markers.
Alright, I'm, I'm sorry you young people are sitting so far back. What's the third word I wrote up there? Yes.
Communion.
Conversation is good. I heard my granddaughter doing that, but she hasn't got to the point of communication yet. But you know, something even better than communication is communion. When we hear, we speak and we hear and we agree, that's community communion. And God wants us all to come into communion.
Now I'm going to tell you about another person, another person in the Bible. God says God spoke to him.
And he ran. God said go east.
And preach to Nineveh. And this man ran, went, decided to go West. Who was that man?
Jonah, very good, very good. Jonah, it says the word of the Lord came to Jonah and Jonah didn't want to hear it. And it says he went out from the presence of the Lord. Look it up in Jonah chapter one, it says the word of the Lord came to Jonah and he ran from it. He went up from the presence of the Lord. I wonder, you know, we, we have Bibles and we're hearing a Bible conference where we talk about the word of the Lord and we sometimes forget how significant it is.
When God speaks, it says when Jonah turned his back on the word of the Lord, he went out from the presence of the Lord.
Because God's Word and His presence go together.
Maybe you've been sleeping here at this conference.
Maybe you've been indifferent.
What? God's Word and God's presence go together, And we've all been in God's presence because of His Word. God is very jealous of His Word. His Word and His presence go together. And so it says of Jonah that when he turned his back on God's Word, didn't want to obey.
He went out from the presence of the Lord. But there's more to the story than that. You know God.
He didn't forget Jonah. Jonah wanted to forget what God said.
And that's in the first chapter, but in the third chapter, Jonah chapter, uh, excuse me, the 2nd chapter, Oh, I better, better turn to Jonah, make sure I get my chapters straight.
Yes.
The beginning of the first chapter The beginning of the first chapter says the word of the Lord came to Jonah.
And Jonah turned his back, but in the beginning of the second chapter it says then Jonah prayed.
But a lot happened between those two times.
Jonah didn't want to hear the Lord, and So what did Jonah do? Who can tell me what Jonah did?
He went West, right? He went West and he got on a he got on a ship that was going a different direction altogether. And he went down the bottom of the ship and he ended up in the bottom of the ship in the middle of a storm. And the soldiers, excuse me, the sailors threw him overboard and he went into the ocean. And then a fish swallowed him and says then Jonah prayed.
You say?
00:35:02
You could never hide from God. You're right right down there in the belly of the fish. God saw Jonah and Jonah started to talk to God for you. They say, why did Jonah wait so long? I mean, he went in, he went into the boat, he went into the bottom of the boat, he went into the sea, he went into the fish. And it wasn't until he'd been there three days, it says, then says then Jonah prayed.
You think if you were in the stomach of a fish for three days, you'd wait three days before you prayed? I hope not.
I would hope not, but you know, that's the way we are in our hearts. Sometimes we're just so stubborn like Jonah was, that we don't pray when we should. Maybe we feel like praying, but you say no, no, no, I'm just, you say no, I'm not going to do it. Because you see, when we pray, we acknowledge that God is God and that we are not God. We're not in charge.
We are dependent.
We are helpless really. And finally Jonah realized he was helpless. He's in the fish here for three days and he couldn't see any future down there. But you know, he knew about God. He had confidence in God. And you know, the wonderful thing is that the the psalmist that we referred to earlier, David and Jonah, you can, by the way, if you look in in the Bible, you'll find Jonah mentioned in another book of the Bible.
Because Jonah had had previously a relationship with God, he was an established prophet. He.
Jonah, he knew there was a God and that he could pray to God and God would answer. And so it says. Then Jonah prayed. What happened after Jonah prayed? Yes.
The fish spat him out. Yes, I don't blame the fish at all. I wouldn't want any Jonah in me.
But.
God was over the whole thing, and God engineered, He arranged the whole thing because he wanted Jonah. He, God had a purpose for Jonah. Yet God had a purpose for these people, Nineveh, but he also had a purpose for Jonah. Jonah needed to learn.
Obedience and submission, those are the big lessons in life. And you know, no, there's no such thing as communion without obedience and submission. So we have three things up in this board here.
Conversation, communion, com communication and communion. And I'm gonna put one more word up there, but before I do, I wanna tell you, I wanna suggest a little something. We have about 5 minutes left here.
You know Jonah was on a boat.
Umm, anybody else here ever ever been on a boat before?
Yeah, would you like to go on a boat again? OK, now I'm gonna take 5 minutes real quickly here, ask you about a boat.
Now some of you here.
Have seen this illustration.
We're gonna talk about a boat.
You have a chance to go on a boat, on a cruise, on a ride, on a boat. And uh, I, I did that once. I remember the first time I ever remember being in a boat. And maybe it wasn't the first time, but the one is very memorable. I'll tell you why. My grandfather who lived not too far from here in Iowa, he had a mill pond on his farm. He had a windmill and he had a mill pond. And I was down by that pond one day and I saw a boat there.
And the boat was just sitting there on the edge of the pond.
And I thought, well, I'd be neat to get in there and take a little ride just across the pond. So I got I I got into the boat and pushed off from shore and the boat immediately started filling with water.
The boat was totally rotten, but nobody had ever warned me and I did nothing about rotten boats in those days. But I know one thing quick I soon as I saw the water start rising, that boat, as soon as I got it, I I didn't really push off from shore. As soon as I stepped into the boat, the boat started to go down.
And I immediately scrambled out of the boat. I knew that wasn't a trustworthy boat. So is it important to have a boat you can trust? Yeah. Suppose I said, well, you're gonna go first. A, a, a ride in a boat. And we don't know anything about the builder and whether he's had any experience building a boat before. And this captain, this boat, we don't know if he's ever.
00:40:13
Captained the boat before and uh, we don't know if he knows where he's going and we don't know anything about the crew that might be helping him. Though as far as we know they have no experience with boats.
Is that the kind of boat you wanna go on?
What do you think here?
How many Washington would want to go on that kind of boat? Normally speaking, I don't see a lot of hands. All right, we'll try another boat.
Here's boat B.
And we know, we know for a fact that the man, the people who built, the person who designed the boat and the people who built the boat, very experienced. They've done lots of boats before. They've been very successful, very experienced crew, very experienced captain. Oh, and one thing I forgot to say, Bode, far as we know, the captain doesn't even know where he's going.
Vote B. They they have a definite destination which would rather be on boat B.
Yeah, normally speaking. Oh, come on, These people aren't very enthused about cruises here this morning.
Alright, so.
Which, which of these, which of these boats appears more popular, Boat A or boat BB, Right. All right. Now some of you seen this illustration and you've been good sports and played along with it and you're going to be gratified.
To know the name of boat, Boat B.
What about Bode? It didn't sound very good.
The Titanic, you know, some of the young, young people don't remember the Titanic. Matter of fact, there's nobody here remembers the Titanic, but you know of hearing about it.
The Titanic was a boat that sunk on its first big voyage in 1912.
For the famous ship, a beautiful ship, people still talk about it because it was it was the best that man could do at the time.
And it sunk with a lot of famous rich people on it in its first big voyage.
And God told some man to build an ark, says the Lord said to Noah. Build an ark, a boat.
And Noah obeyed the Lord, and that made all the difference. What I'm saying is.
Boys and girls.
Men and women, brothers and sisters, we've got the word of God.
And it makes all the difference in the cruise of life if you trust in yourself, in your wisdom, in your knowledge and your experience. Experience is a great thing, but you trust that you're gonna end up like the Titanic. You can trust the Word of God. God told no what to do, and he did it. And was Noah's voyage successful?
Yes, it was.
Because Noah listened.
To what God said.
Let's listen.