Children—Stephen Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Just a tiny bit early, maybe we'll sing a song, and if there's anyone else that's heading up to the front row, you can come up while we're singing that first song. Who has one you'd like to sing?
OK, which one you can say?
Do you know the song?
Yeah, OK, Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me is on the back and it's #40 #40 we'll sing the whole thing.
Let's see where I I.
Love me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yeah, she's not lost me. The Bible help me so.
RBL.
Wonderful. OK, you get the next one, let's say it nice and loud and clear for us #63 Thank you. OK, do you remember what one that one is? Or maybe somebody else can help me because this SIM sheet doesn't go that far. But I think you're thinking of a song. Do you know how it is?
News for little children.
Somebody knows it and can start it. We can try. Or at least the first verse.
News on.
00:05:26
If time for several more, who else has one you'd like to sing? All right #44?
OK, great.
Nobody ever has told me before.
1199 good morning.
Again.
Loving again.
Salvation. Sorry, reaping around.
Till I can stay on the children of a man nobody.
Ever has told me before.
OK, we have time for one or two more. Who else has one you'd like to sing? OK.
#2.
OK. Thank you.
And so that we get one more after this one, how about we sing the first and last verses of #2?
Oh my God. Oh, it was done.
00:10:32
OK, that was number 4. We'll sing the first and last persons of that one too.
If you've memorized and you'd like to say it, OK, we'll have time for hopefully everybody.
Did you learn the one on the Sunday school paper?
Yeah, OK, that's found in the book of John chapter 10 verse nine. I am the door by me if any man let enter, and ye shall be safe and go in and out and by pastor.
John, tonight, perfect. Thank you.
Anyone else OK?
Thank you. I like that part. That's good. You want to say that I am the door by me. If anyone entering, he shall be safe. John 10, Nine. OK. Thank you. Alright. Oops. Sorry. I have the door.
He shall be saved. Thank you. Good.
Alright.
I am the door if any man enter.
By any man it.
Buy me enter and he shall be saved. John 10/9. Thank you. OK.
By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. John 10/9. Thank you. Anyone else. OK, bye.
In the door by me If any man enter and he SH he'll be saved. John 10/9 I am the door by me if any manager and he shall be saved. John 10/9 Thank you. Anyone else would like to You might know it and be shy. That's OK. I'm the door I'm the door by me.
That if any man enter, enter in, they shall be saved. Johnson OK. Anyone else you understand?
I am the door.
By me, three days. If any man enter in, he shall be saved. He shall be saved. Thank you. All right. Maybe one more.
OK.
Shall we? I am the law I mentioned and she shall be safe. 29 Thank you. Good. All right. Don't want to leave anybody out that would like to.
Alright.
This morning I would like to make sure you walk away with one simple thing, and I want you to remember it. I think all of you have heard the gospel before, and I hope you hear it again this morning. There's a wonderful gospel last night and the night before, and you've heard from your parents, I believe. But I want you to remember one simple thing, and I want to illustrate it first. But I'm going to need.
00:15:06
Six of you.
Who are willing to do a tug of war and hopefully be a little better. If you could take your shoes off. But if you don't, if your shoes are hard to get off, that's OK. OK, I have 12345 and I need one more volunteer. OK, Laurel U 6, come on up. And you can divide up on whatever teams you think you want to be on. Three on one side, 3 on the other. But I'm going to warn you, I've got a big surprise for you when we get going here.
So take your shoes off if you can. If they're hard to get off, that's OK. I don't want to make it so that you, yours are easy. Good. OK, you get them off that. That'll make it a little slicker when we're on carpet.
So make for a better tug of war. And what do you want to be boys and girls here? Is that OK? OK, you three girls over there. But before we start, I'm going to give you your big surprise, OK? You girls going over there. You guys over here.
Alright, you hang on there and we'll we'll make this part the middle, so if you can pull the other team past these shoes here, you're the winner. But I'll tell you when to get started. Who thinks they're going to win? All right, got a lot of confidence on both sides here, but I thought I had a big surprise for you first. You boys are ready and your girls are ready. I have an assistant that's going to help one team.
Would you come on up here, Teddy? Thank you.
I want you on the side with the girls here, Teddy.
Yeah, OK.
Now don't give the boys rope burns, but when I say go, I want you to pull nice and firmly. Everybody ready? Set, go.
Oh boy.
OK, alright, we've got the first team member pulled across. You guys wanna try again? You think you have a chance if you try a little harder? You wanna lift weights for a couple minutes and then try again?
No.
Is there anything you guys could do to get ready a little better so you'll beat that team?
Do you think of anything? No, no. Can you think of anything?
Do you wanna pull harder by yourself against them? See if that works.
OK, you put your wrists really strong, you pull harder. We'll try one more time.
Ready. Set. Go.
Oh my. OK, alright. Thank you very much.
You can pick up your shoes there.
Now what I want you to remember isn't didn't they look silly up there sliding along the floor, or ha, we won. What I want you to remember is this one simple thing.
Of the six of you that came up.
Children from the front, did it matter how strong you were?
Didn't matter how strong you were. Do you think you were stronger than the girls? Well, you're not sure. Do you think you were stronger than the girls?
MMM who knows, Maybe, maybe not. Do you girls think you won because you were stronger than the boys?
No. Why did you win?
OK, go ahead.
He helped us. He helped us, OK, because that big guy, his name is Teddy. He was on your team. I want you to remember this one thing. If you remember nothing else this morning, it doesn't matter how strong you are, It doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter how many verses you've learned. What matters to God is.
If you're with the Lord Jesus.
Are against him if you're with the Lord Jesus or against him that determines who was going to win and our tug of war, right?
The team with Teddy was going to win. The team without. Doesn't matter how hard you tried, you weren't going to win, were you?
What matters is with if you're with the Lord Jesus or you're against Him, if you come through the door that you learned about or not. I want to illustrate why it's important. Yesterday we heard something in an address and I'm going to read a verse I already had written down to read to you that's very similar to what was said yesterday. It's in Luke Chapter 9.
00:20:13
And verse 35.
If you have your Bible, you can look it up.
And maybe one of you could read the last part of that verse for me.
I have a voluntary He'll read the last part of that verse for me.
Or I could do it for you.
All right, I'll read it. The last part of Luke Chapter 9 verse 35 says God speaking from heaven.
This is my beloved son here him. You know the Lord Jesus. I don't think we heard these exact words yesterday, but the Lord Jesus loves his Son so much that he wants to help fill heaven with people that are exactly morally like him. So are you just like the Lord Jesus?
Do you know the answer to that question?
Lilly, I'm sorry. Oops.
Go ahead. No, no, uh oh. You know, we're going to talk about something kind of important, but I want to illustrate so that we all know what we're like, what God wants us to look like, if we're like the Lord Jesus. Let's read just a couple verses here quickly, the first ones in Romans chapter 13.
And we're going to spend quite a bit of our time seeing if we look like.
The Lord Jesus or not.
We're going to read Romans 13, verse 9.
For this thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness or lie, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no I'll to his neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And let's look to.
One other verse in James.
Chapter 2.
James Chapter 2.
And verse 10.
James chapter 2 and verse 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. So I want you to help me figure out whether or not you think the person I'm going to describe is like the Lord Jesus or not. We heard a lot about the Lord Jesus when he was a young person.
A boy or a girl? You are a girl or a boy around your age.
Now let me tell you about a. I'm going to see if you can tell me whether this is sin or not.
And some of you maybe have heard the story before, but I suspect none of you children have. So here we go. Is it a sin in the Bible? Is there a verse in the Bible that says it's a sin to eat raisins?
What do you think? No. OK, there were some things about Nazarites and all, but I don't think you're going to find anything in the New Testament that says it's a sin to eat raisins. Now I'm going to tell you a story, and when I'm done, you tell me if it's a sin to eat raisins. You ready?
There was a little boy about the age of a lot of you here. Well, no, not a lot of you here, but maybe some of you. He was maybe three or four years old, maybe three, OK. And he was, he was in a meeting room.
And it had a we walked in over here and then there were some steps down to the basement and then there were some steps up to the meeting room. And he was in the meeting room and he loved to eat raisins.
OK, how many of you like to eat raisins? I know there's some people here that don't like them at all, but maybe you've got your favorite snacks. So you think about your favorite snack when I tell you the story. But this boy loved to eat raisins. And his mom would bring those little boxes of raisins. How many of you have eaten one little box of raisins before? They're good, right? And she would have a bunch of them in their little bags. She brought some eating and he would eat through one box and then he'd ask for more.
And maybe his mom would give him more and he'd eat through that box and she'd say, no, that's enough. And he would argue with her. So one day his mom thought, you know, I've got a solution to this problem. I'm going to solve this. I'm going to bring one box of raisins. And when the box is gone, I'll tell my boy, there aren't any more for you. Have any of your parents done that?
00:25:12
That's it. That's all. No more. We're done. OK.
So she brought one box of raisins to the next meeting and the little boy grabbed that box of raisins and he ate the mall real quick. And she told them ahead of time, there's only one box, don't ask for more. He ate that whole box of raisins and he said, I'm always in.
What do you think? His mom said.
No, there aren't any more. And do you think he said? Oh OK mom, that's fine, I forgot.
What do you think you said?
What do you think he said? She said no, and she gave his name. There aren't any more.
What do you think? The boy said. You have any idea? Yeah, I think you do. What did he say?
You're right, he said. MO Weisin.
And his mom took him down into the basement of the meeting room, and she gave him a spanking.
And she brought him back up and set him in his chair.
And he was crying, but when he could talk, he said.
Malaysian.
So his mom took him down to the basement and she spanked him again.
And she brought him up, and she set him in his chair.
And he had a hard time talking, but as soon as he could talk, what do you think? He said. I'm always.
How many times do you think they went downstairs?
Well, I'm not going to ask how you came up with that number.
They went downstairs seven times. That's how I remember the story, right, Mom?
As as I remember the story, because I don't remember the actual events, I went down. That was me. That was that little boy.
And we went downstairs and I got spanked. I guess we went down seven times, so I got spanked 7 times. And the last time we came back up and sat down in the chair. What do you think? I said.
No.
I learned that that wasn't a good way to go because that didn't bring raisins. But you know, I want to read you a verse because I'm illustrating a very important principle here, and I'm going to read you the verse for it. It's in first John, so you can see this is in the Bible.
Verse chapter 3.
And verse 4.
And I'll read the last part and explain it just a little bit. It says first John 3 verse four. The end says the law for sin is the transgression of the law.
Or lawlessness.
Sinning is the biggest way of describing it. Is sin is doing what I want to do.
And not worrying about what my mom or dad or teacher or most importantly God wants. Sin is doing what I want without worrying about what my mom or dad or what God wants.
How many of you have gotten?
I will spanking or other punishment from your parents.
I just told you I did, right? So you don't have to be ashamed to say you did, but many of you, probably all of you have. How many spankings did the Lord Jesus deserve as a boy? The Bible doesn't tell us what happened during those years, so I'm not going to say whether he ever got one or not, but I can tell you this for sure.
How many did the Lord Jesus deserve?
None. Now remember the Lord Jesus wants people in heaven that are like him, and the Lord Jesus never deserved 1 spanking. And you just all told me, well how many of you? Well you just said you've gotten them. How many of you deserved what you got at least one of the times.
I deserve what I got. I just read a verse that shows what was wrong. Now I'm going to ask you for another one. You help me out with this.
00:30:02
Is it a sin to breathe?
Oh, how many of you would say it's a sin to breathe?
Mr. Boulard saying no, I couldn't send the brief, how would we get here this morning if we couldn't breathe? I'm going to read you a verse in the Bible that shows how it can be a sin to breathe.
You ready now? I need to tell you another story first. OK now.
I know a boy who was a bit older than the one I just described. He was a bit older, and he liked to annoy his sister, especially his younger sister. Oh, he liked to annoy her. He liked to get a good reaction out of her. How many of you know a brother or sister that likes to annoy their brothers and sisters? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Let me ask you, because that's what we're thinking about. Did the Lord Jesus ever he had brothers and sisters?
The Bible tells us about them. Did the Lord Jesus ever annoy his brothers and sisters? You're right.
He never did, but this little boy did, and he did it by breathing.
So one day at the table, he knew, I think. I don't remember exactly, but I think he'd been annoying his sister throughout the day and he had her in a perfect state, just about ready to go over the edge.
Have any of you ever? Oh no, not you. Has anyone ever been annoyed by your brother or sister?
Or maybe you did it yourself and you kind of watched them in there about ready to snap.
And so at the dinner table, this boy was a little older than most of you. I think he was maybe 13 or so. And at the dinner table, he went like this. He was sitting on one end of the table down here, and his sister was over there, and the parents were at the far end where they couldn't hear quite as well. I made it easier. So this little brother, our older brother, now, he went and he went like this.
Just loud enough for his sister to hear.
And not loud enough for dad and mom at the end of the table to hear.
What do you think his sister did?
What? What's that?
Blew out the years, yeah. Or blew out yeah. She got mad. Said stop it.
Oh, the boy he was.
What?
Do you want me to stop breathing?
Such innocence. Now let me read you the verse that shows that that was a sin.
I'll show you the verse. It's we already read it, but let's read it again. It says back in Romans 13, maybe you didn't know this verse was talking about how to breathe to irritate your sister, but let's read it again and it says.
Verse Romans chapter 13, verse 10.
Love worketh no I'll to his neighbor.
Love worketh no I'll to his neighbor.
Do you think somebody that annoys their brother or sister is working I'll to their neighbor, even if working I'll to their neighbor sounds like strange words. I think you can guess right exactly what that means. Do you think going like this, and if your brother or sister somebody poked you like that, would you like that? No, and you can poke somebody all kinds of ways. You can poke them by breathing.
Right, but it was on purpose, and this first shows that breathing like that was sin.
Now, did the Lord Jesus ever annoy his brothers and sisters? You already told me, but tell me again.
Do you think that boy belongs in heaven?
Yeah, not acting like Daddy doesn't. Can you imagine heaven with boys and girls like that in it? That would be awful. It wouldn't be heaven. There wouldn't be people there like the Lord Jesus.
You know that same boy is here at this conference.
And I heard him talking to Mr. John Kemp on Friday night. Mr. John Kemp didn't know this was coming. But you know, there was another part of the verse cover there. And I want to read to you a temptation and it's in John. I'm sorry. Let's go back with you. Still open the Romans there. It was right there. It said, I have to flip back to Romans 13. It says thou shalt not bear false witness.
00:35:20
Mr. John Kemp.
Asked that person. I heard it clearly. Asked him. Do you still distribute?
Such and such gospel messages in a certain way.
And he heard his answer.
But I better tell you something else before I finish the story.
You know who that little boy was who was breathing? That was me.
And you know who that person talking to Mr. John Kemp was?
That was me too, and you know, he said. I thought to myself, uh oh, I know what's coming next.
Because he's going to ask me how I go about doing it.
And I want him to think I'm doing it in a really good way instead of justice. Sort of so so way. I hope he doesn't ask me.
And you know, the next question up was, so do you.
But, you know, I was ready, and I told him the truth. I wanted to say it in a way that I wasn't going to lie to him, but I wanted to say it in a way that would make me sound better than I was. What's that called? What's the Bible called that?
What's it called? It's in the book of Proverbs lots of times. What's it called when we don't directly say something that's just not true, but it really is meant to make the other person think something that's not true?
It is a lie, a special kind. You know it is sin. That's a good word for it. The Bible does call it that. There's another word I was thinking of. A lie and sin are both true.
A white lie. Some people call them a white lie because it sounds like it's not quite so bad. I was thinking of the word deceit. It's deceit. Now I want to ask you another question. I didn't deceive Mr. John Kemp. I told him the truth.
But in my heart, there went this little thought ahead of time. If he asked me that question, can I word this?
No, I better word it right. Did the Lord Jesus ever think like that?
Are you sure?
No, he never thought like that. He never even went through his head.
In him is no sin now.
Who in this room can say you never even thought about sinning? Raise your hand nice and high if you never even thought about sinning.
Wow.
That means there's nobody in this room that's acted their whole life just like the Lord Jesus.
Now raise your hand if you've at least once in your life thought about doing something that was wrong.
Oh wow.
Oh wow, that's a lot.
Everybody in this room is the center.
There's not a single person in this room that's lived their whole life just like the Lord Jesus, but God wants people in heaven that are like Him.
He doesn't want people that aren't like him.
I want you to think about that.
You can get away with excuses with your mom or dad.
You I wrote down a whole list of them and I shortened it to four and I'm going to give you one. I thought we might run out of time, so I left it for the later on and I'm going. You give me one excuse that you might work with your mom or dad.
When you've done something wrong and you want to get out of the consequences of it.
What's 1 excuse that might work?
Accuse someone else. That works great.
Sometimes with mom or dad, that works great and that was on my list.
Because you know what? The Bible talks about that one. Did you know the Bible talks about that one?
Also away from the very beginning, way back in the Garden of Eden, when God came and he said to Adam, where are you? And Adam came to him? What did he say to God about his sin?
It was easy. So I was worse than that. But you're right. He did that part. But he also said the woman that thou gave us, me, she gave me. He blamed two people in one sentence, starting with God, isn't that awful? But you just said we do the same thing with our parents.
00:40:01
Right. How many have blamed your brother or sister or the neighbor boy? If you're an only child at least once, that includes you adults.
Husband, wife, children, the whole bit.
The woman now gave us nothing to me. She gave me an eye to eat. Uh oh. You know, there's another excuse I was thinking of. I'll give you one more. I've only been in the law office once. My brother-in-law worked there and I was there visiting. But one thing I remember when you walked in the door back then. Anyway, I'm sure it's all electronic now. There were these big fat volumes and they started at the top when you walked in the front door, the entire wall.
Floor to ceiling was these ****. There was this bookshelf, and one after another there was a big fat book.
And I looked at the spines on them, and at least the ones I looked at, I didn't go through everyone in the bookshelf, but the ones I glanced through on.
They were all the laws of Illinois.
OK, so when you walk in and you say, oh but mom or dad?
I may have annoyed my brother or sister, but I didn't murder her and I didn't cover her doll and and you go down a whole list of things you didn't do.
Does your mom say oh OK.
That's fine. Then look at that old wall of things and you didn't do anything but one little thing.
That last little volume there. So you're OK? Is that what Mom says? I hope not.
I hope not, and God doesn't either. God doesn't say it either. We read the verse at the beginning. You offend in one point. You're guilty of all. Now I want to finish with the good news. This is the part that I thought you would already know, but I want to review it with you. Let's read one pair of verses in Ephesians chapter 2. Because remember, back at the beginning while I'm turning, what matter wasn't how strong you are, how good you were, how whether you were better and worked harder.
And pulled straighter or anything. What mattered at the beginning was whose side were you on The team with? Teddy was going to win every single time. It didn't really matter, did it? Whether one team worked harder and pushed harder and sweated and hung under the rope better, That didn't matter. That wasn't important. What was important was what team they were on. And I want to read these verses, Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8:00 and 9:00.
Four by grace.
Are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves? It is the gift.
Of God, not of works. Lest any man should boast, I'm going to give you something.
Very small something, nothing of great value, but I want you to use this in a minute. So for all of you in the front, maybe in the view of the time, would one of you give me a hand? Would you pass this out to everybody around here for me? And would you pass one of these to everybody in this section? I think they're enough and I'll take care of this one. And there's a one pencil each.
There's one for you and one for you, and one for you and one for you.
And for you and you and you.
OK, I'll give one to you a little. Almost everybody's got one now.
Now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
There are now two groups of people in this room.
And only two groups of people according to this criteria.
There are the half colored pencils and the don't have colored pencils people. They are the haves and the have nots. That's it. Raise your colored pencil if you have one.
Lift it up if you've got one there probably some in the other rows that have colored pencils too. But here I have as well. But you're hiding, you know, maybe there's some have. The Lord Jesus is in this room and that are hiding, but we're holding up our pencils. These are the half pencils and the rest of you are the have nots. There's only two groups in the room, those that have and those that don't. And I want you to think about this very carefully here. We're out of time. We're going to pray in a moment. I'm going to give you.
Little piece of paper and you do not have to fill it out, but I want you to look at it and think about how you would fill it out. And on it it says my faith is in Jesus Christ as my savior. And it has two boxes. One says yes and one says no. You're right. And if you were to take that pencil and you would put an X where it said yes or where it said no, which.
00:45:15
Have to be for you. It's one or the other.
Raise your hand if you don't have a colored pencil.
You've got one there. OK, boy, there's a lot of people sitting in those back rows and they don't have one. They're have nots.
If the thing said I have a colored pencil, which box would they put their X in?
They would have to say no.
But that question doesn't matter, does it? It's just an illustration. The question that matters is the one that's on here, the way God sees it. See, I'm not asking you to put an X in there. I want you to just sit there with that pencil in your hand and ask yourself, if I were going to put an X here, where would I put that X? Can I say the Lord Jesus Christ is my savior?
I know a boy once and.
He wanted to be picked up.
He wanted his dad to pick him up and he was two years old and he wanted dad to pick him up. So he came to his dad and he said one word, not even a word in the English language. It's not in Spanish, it's not in Hindi, it's not in Telugu. You can't find it in most dictionaries. He said one word.
He said he put his own hands up and he said puppy.
Do you think his dad said I'm sorry? When you can say this just right, come back and I'll lift you up and put you on my shoulders.
Anything else what his dad said sitting his dad had a hard time understanding what up he meant No, and it's not the words you use when you talk to the Lord Jesus that matter, but you do need to know I'm a Sinner. Lord Jesus save me from my sins and if you can say that to him, he's not going to get confused. He says him that cometh to me. I will in no wise cast out.
Whatever words you use, can you put a yes in that box?
If so, you've trusted the Lord Jesus. If it's real, you've trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
And you're going to be made just like him, and you're going to be just like him.
Forever.