Children—Michael Hapanowicz
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Looks like it's 9:15, so we can get started with a Sunday school today. Do any of you children have a song that you want to sing from this book or any of the others? Yes. William. That's right, It's William, isn't it? OK.
#5 OK, so we are going to sing #5 just the first verse and the refrain. If someone could start that for me.
Well, yesterday we had a very nice gospel meeting.
And there was a choice that was talked about. Does anyone remember? Does anyone remember that meeting?
Yeah, got a few. And he remembers that meaning, all right.
Very good yes. And so he's Jewel remembers that meeting he spoke about if you make a choice to have Jesus as your savior, that would be a happy day. And that's what this song is talking about too. So I think it would be really nice of yesterday was a happy day for someone. All right, so who has a song they would like to sing yes Jewel 14.
14.
All right, 14 And once again we are going to sing just the first verse and the refrain.
There was another gospel meeting that was two nights ago, and he mentioned that it was important to make much of the blood. So I think that's very nice, Jewel that you gave this out. Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? All right, so you have a number #2 OK #2 is the last one that any child gets to give out. So I'm sorry I saw some other hands go up before, but.
I.
We'll sing some more at the end if there's time, but I don't make any promises. OK, so #2 just the first verse.
All right, now I want to give out a song and it's not in the sheet and I don't think it's even in the hymn book that we sing from on Sunday school morning. But I hope there's enough people here who know the song.
That we'll be able to carry on. And it's called God in Heaven above. People here know that song.
Any hands go up if you know that song? Oh no, because I'm definitely not going to sing a solo.
00:05:09
OK, Alex, so good. So I wanted to sing. It goes, the song goes. Like who did make the birds that fly?
The flowers that bloom, the fish that swim who sent his son to die, God in heaven above. OK, so it sounds like maybe it's ringing some bells now. So we're going to sing just who did make the flowers that bloom, the birds that fly and who did send his son to die? So I think each one of those has like a verse to it. OK, so.
Alex, can you start that for us?
All right, all right, so I'm going to read for you the verse.
That is the verse that I'm kind of expecting that some children will have memorized.
And I should have put a marker here so I didn't have to spend so much time flipping to it. It's an Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
And it's the first verse, I think that all that was in your Sunday school paper was just part of it. So this is Ecclesiastes 12, verse one. It says, remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. All right. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
All right, sounds familiar to some people. All right, so here's what we're going to do. If you say the verse, you can walk over to the table when you're done and you can get two pieces of candy. So either from the blue bag, which has chocolate, or from the orange bag that has some Skittles and Starbursts. Does that sound like a fair deal to you guys?
Fair deal. OK, so you memorize the verse, you speak into the microphone, then you get 2 pieces of candy. OK, so who wants to say it first?
All right.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Ecclesiastes, 12/1.
Annie.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Ecclesiastics, 12/1.
Remember now my Creator in the days of the youth. Ecclesiastes, 12/1.
Remember now thy Creator, in the days of thy youth, Jesus. 12 One good job.
Remember now. Remember now by Creator, by Creator in the days of thy youth, in the days of the youth. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, 12/1.
Remember now, like Creator in the days that youth Ecclesiastes 12/1. Thank you. Do you want to say it?
Remember now that I created the days of thy youth. Ecclesiastes, 12/1.
Do you want to try Easton?
What is it? Remember now. Remember now in the days of my use and 12/1? Yeah, good job.
Do you want to say it?
Never thou cry Creator in the days of thy youth. Ecclesiastes 12/1 All right, very good.
Do you want to try? Yeah, OK. Remember I created 12/1. Very nice. Alright, William.
The data that you want. Thank you, Jayden. Jayden, right.
Remember thou thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, in which thus us say I have no pleasure in them. Ecclesiastes 12/1. Very good. Jayden, I'm glad you memorized bulb verse that makes me feel better about my Sunday school. I created in the days I used when the evil days come up, nor the usual night when that's outside. I have no pleasure in them, thank you, Elijah.
00:10:07
Remember now. Remember now by creator by creator.
In the days of thy year. Ecclesiastes 12112. Five right.
Remember now. Remember not now.
My Creator. My Creator in the days and days of my youth. My youth. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12112 One right. Thank you.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
Ecclesiastes 12/1. Yeah, good job.
Robert.
Remember now my Creator in the day just I used Ecclesiastes 12/1.
Remember now, remember now by Creator the kid in the days of thy youth, and the days are youth. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12112 one. Thank you.
Right. Do you want to say it? Remember now that I created in the days that I use Ecclesiastes 12/1?
You want to say remember now?
Very good. All right. That was a nice job by all of you. So remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth. So we sang about who made the birds that fly.
No one knows. What about the flowers that broom? Oh guys, nice answer. What about the flowers that bloom? Who made the flowers that bloom?
Yeah, who made you and I?
Yeah, very good. God made you and I. Do you know what that means? That means that you have a responsibility to God. You have a a duty to God. And God doesn't want you to wait until you're old and retired, sitting on a rocking chair at Cracker Barrel to think about him. He wants you to think about him.
Right now, right now, while you're still young now.
Someone told me one time, they said Michael.
You do a good job of explaining in a simple way concepts that are impossible for children to understand, no matter how simply they are put.
I don't think that was a compliment.
And today is going to be no exception because I want to speak to you about this whole chapter, Ecclesiastes, chapter 12. And it it is Ecclesiastes. So it's going to be kind of hard. But you know what? I've prayed that the message that is given today would be like a seed that is planted in the soil of your heart.
That will one day bear fruit.
And there's something that you can do to help make that happen. Any ideas what I might be thinking about? What do you think that you could do?
Be good. Be good. Yeah. What? What's what does goodness look like when you're sitting on the front row of a Sunday school?
Any ideas? Let's let's give someone else another try, yes?
Listening and paying attention. That is the perfect answer. That is the exact answer I was looking for. You can pay attention. Can you guys do that for me? Can you do that for me? OK, all right, so I'm going to read Ecclesiastes chapter 12. And this is what it says. It says remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure.
Azure in them, while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain. In the day. When the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few. And those that look out of the window be darkened. And the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low. And he shall rise up at the voice of a bird.
And the daughters of music shall be brought low, when they shall be afraid of that which is high, And fears shall be in the way. And the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail.
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Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourner goes about the streets, Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it vanity of vanities. All is vanities, saith the preacher.
Moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yeah, he gave good heed.
And sought out and sent in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words.
And that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as the nails fastened by the Master of assemblies, which are given from 1 Shepherd. And further by these my Son, be admonished. And of making of many books there is no end, and of much study is weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God.
And keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. OK, so that is Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
You could summarize the first half of this chapter by saying that Solomon gives 3 reasons why you should remember your Creator in the days of your youth.
Are you guys paying attention?
All right, so here are the three reasons.
The first reason that you should remember your Creator in the days of your youth is that life is hard.
Second reason is that your body will fall apart, and the third reason is that death is the destiny of all men now.
Yesterday, Mr. Allen said that his wife poked him.
And told him.
Don't be depressing.
But I don't have a wife so no one told me that.
So we're going to go through these verses, OK?
The evil days come nigh, thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Do you know that every year there is a company that goes out and they ask thousands of people?
Do you think that the future will be better than the past?
What do you think is the answer to that?
While Solomon has an answer to that and Solomon says.
I've looked at the future and things are not pretty, he says. The evil days are drawing nigh. He also speaks here of.
The be not darkened nor the clouds return after the rain. Do you know what the rain is in this chapter that he's talking about? He's talking about.
Hard times in your life. Now I have a story to illustrate what is happening in this verse.
And it might not be the best story to illustrate it, but it happened recently, so it's kind of fresh in my memory. I have a nephew and we were eating a very, very nice meal, and he had on his plate some cheesy potatoes. And he took those cheesy potatoes and he put them in his mouth. Do you know what his reaction was?
Yeah, he did not like those cheesy potatoes. He thought they were disgusting. He thought they were so bad that he was not going to swallow them. This was a hard trial. This was some rain in his life. And you know what? He would rather sit there with the potatoes in his mouth.
And miss the rest of the meal and the rest of the fun rather than swallow those potatoes.
Because life is hard when you're 7 years old. Well, you know what? Eventually the situation was resolved, The potatoes were gone. And you know what?
He popped up out of his chair and he went and he ran. He played with his brothers and you. 5 minutes after that was over, you would never know that he had to go through that hard, hard trial of eating those terrible cheesy potatoes.
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And you know, that's what it's like in life when you're young and rain comes.
What's after the rain? The sun comes out and the sun dries up all the rain. And so if you were to look around, you wouldn't be see any evidence that rain had just been there.
What's he say happens when you get older?
Do you remember?
There's less rain. That's not what he says. That is a good guess. I'm I will give you bonus points for that, but this is what he says. He says when you get older after the rain is gone.
There's just clouds.
The sun doesn't come out. The sun doesn't dry up, all the rain. And if you look, you can still see the evidence that it just rained. That's what it's like when you get older. You know what the trials of yesterday weigh on me today. That's what happens when you get older. And so Solomon says for this reason.
Life is hard. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth.
We're way behind time. OK, so the next thing is he talks about your body and he talks about the body as if it's a house. So he's kind of speaking in riddles here. Does anyone know what a Riddle is?
You have a Riddle.
That's very good. Yes, Samson has riddles in his story too, doesn't he? Hear, Easton, I'm quite impressed. You've got a Riddle. Well, here, for those of you who don't know what a Riddle is, let me tell you what. I'll give you an example of a Riddle.
What is black and white and red all over?
Yes, you've heard that Riddle before. It's a newspaper. OK, so he speaks in here. I'll just read a couple of these so you can get a sense, he says.
In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease, because they are few, and those that look out of the window be darkened. So he's speaking in riddles.
And he's talking about a body.
So Nelly joked. Did some very nice artwork for you guys.
And it's here, so I'm going to give you a Riddle, and it's going to be something about the body. And I want you to guess what part of the body I'm talking about. And it's going to be one of the things.
On this board so everyone understands how this is working. All right, so here's my Riddle. Use me to sing.
And I sound sweet. Use meat a curse.
And I sound bitter.
Mouth. Does everyone think that's the answer to the Riddle? Yeah, that's basically the answer to the Riddle. What the exact answer is, is voice.
Is the voice. But do you know what happens to the voice when it gets older?
Starts to wear out.
And so, he says, the daughters of music are low.
You Can't Sing as loud as you used to, and your voice gets scratchy. All right, so that's the first Riddle. You guys did a good job of guessing it.
The next one.
I in the body's window to the world. Through me you can see.
Eyes. Is this it? Is that what everyone thinks is the answer to the Riddle? Yeah. Now what happens when you get old?
It gets harder to see, Yeah, you know what Solomon says? He says the windows are darkened and so it's harder to see now.
This one is here, courtesy of Mr. Roach. He has such a nice way with words. He says I can hold things, but I'm not a bag. I'm used to write things down, but I'm not a pen.
00:25:02
I have digits but I'm not a cell phone and I have nails but I'm not a hook.
What am I?
A hand. Is that the right answer? What happens to the hands when you get old?
Yes, they get wrinkly and they start to do what's this?
Yeah, they shake. That's what happens to the hands when you get older. So you guys start to see the picture that Solomon is painting here. I want you to imagine in your mind. So if you're a boy, I want you to imagine an old man. If you're a girl, I want you to imagine an old woman. OK, So you guys, you're starting to imagine this right now. Now you look at them.
And as you look at them, they smile.
A wide, big grin. So wide.
So big S grinny that you can see all of their gums.
And as you look into their mouth, you start to count their teeth.
123.
That's it. It's not enough to chew anything with, so those teeth just sit there doing nothing, waiting to decay. And that's why this old man or this old woman.
Is slurping their oatmeal with a straw.
Now.
One day.
That will be you.
You might say, Michael, I don't even have my 12 year old molars yet, but.
Solomon is making a very important point here.
I wanted to illustrate it this way. There's a story I've read a poem and I couldn't find the poem again, but it goes something like this.
A little boy goes to his father and he says, Daddy, can you help me with my homework?
And the father says, not now son, I'm busy.
So the boy finishes his homework and later he comes up to his dad and he says, dad, can you go outside with me and play? And his dad says, not now son, I'm busy.
Later that night, the boy is going to bed and his mom is tucking him in. And the little boy turns to his mom and he says, mom, where's daddy? And she says, I'm sorry son, he's busy.
Years go by and the little boy grows up.
And the father, he gets old and he retires and the father goes to the son and he says, hey son, I thought it would be nice to do something together. Do you want me to help build a deck? And the son says.
Not now, Father. I'm busy.
Later the dad goes to his son and he says, hey, we're going to have a BBQ, have some people over, nice Saturday night, play some games. Do you want to come over?
And the sun says sorry Dad, not now, I'm busy.
What happened?
By the time that that father made time for his son.
It was too late.
And that's what Solomon is saying here now, if you wait to think about God until you're older.
You will run out of time and it will be too late.
That's a very important lesson. Now the third thing is he says here. So that's our second sober reason to remember your Creator in the days of your youth. The third one is he says here.
The silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return.
Unto God who gave it. This is the third reason why it's important to remember your Creator in the days of your youth. And do you know what it is?
It's because one day if the Lord doesn't come, all of us will die. Now, these lights here, they're kind of fixed to the ceiling with a couple cords. But I think if you go into the dining room, there's those big chandeliers there and they're just attached to the ceiling by a single cord that. Does that seem right? Is that kind of how you guys see the chandeliers in the dining room?
00:30:22
You know they're attached by more than one cord.
They are.
You're pretty sure?
Looks like I'm being nasayed and Mrs. Roach is backing you up.
Well, let's just pretend, okay, that the chandeliers in the dining room are attached to the ceiling with a single cord. What happens if you go and you snip the cord?
It falls and then what?
Yeah, smash. All that glass will go shattering.
Because it's really a very fragile thing, and that's how life is.
He speaks here of this silver cord loose or the golden bull broken, you know, 11 little snip and the life can shatter.
So that's that's the third reason. And you know what he says here? Let me put it this way.
If you don't have God.
What is the only relief that you can hope for from rain in this life?
If you don't have God, what is the only relief you can hope for from a body that's falling apart?
What is it?
Help it now. The only relief you can hope for if you don't have God is death.
Yeah, that would be if you had God. This is without God. The only hope you would have for relief from pain is death.
And that's why he says in verse 8, Vanity of vanities sayeth the preacher, all is vanity. You know what the word vanity means?
Means like meaningless.
That's what he's saying. Meaningless, Meaningless. Everything is meaningless.
You come to the end of your life and it's the best you can hope for is just to die. That's meaningless. And so that's what the preacher says. Now, do you think we should end the meeting here?
No, that would be terrible. If that was the end of the Sunday school I'd go crawl in 1/4 and cry my tears into a cup of tea.
But you know what?
Solomon here is talking about, he uses the expression under the sun. See what that means? He's saying, I'm just using this world as a reference and he could look at the world around him and.
And he could see that there was a creator.
But his thoughts of God never got any higher than that.
And he was writing under the inspiration of God.
But he was writing about the truth with the perspective of someone who is placed inside of a cardboard box.
You can't see very much, can you, when you're inside of a cardboard box, can you?
Well, God has given us.
A bigger view of the truth.
He gave it to a man called Paul.
And so Paul writes about this subject, and he doesn't write about it from inside of a cardboard box.
He writes about this subject on top of a mountain. Can you see very far on a mountain? What do you think, Molly? On a mountain, can you see very far? Yeah. You can see down into the valley. You can see all kinds of land. That's that's the way to view the truth. You know where he talks about this?
Where does he talk about this? What am I thinking? Where does he talk about the body and what happens after death? Where might Paul talk about that?
Hmm, these are you kids been paying attention during the reading meetings.
Yeah, maybe.
All right, where's he talk about it? Second Corinthians chapter 5. So let's read a few verses from there. Second Corinthians chapter 5 And this is what he says. For we know that if our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God on house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
00:35:10
For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven, if so, that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan, being burdened not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life. OK, so do you remember when we were in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and we talked about?
Some riddles, right? Do you guys remember this?
And we said that when Solomon was talking about the body, he spoke of it as if it was what? Does anyone remember what?
Yeah, a Riddle, but he was what? What makes a Riddle a Riddle? It's because you're not talking about it in a plain way. What did question? Maybe I'll just give you guys the answers because we're like no time left. Okay? The answer is he talked about it as if it was a house. So remember he spoke about the eyes as if they're windows, things like that he talks about.
The ears as being doors to the street. OK, so.
So Solomon he talks about.
This your body as if it's a house.
What does Paul do here?
What does Paul do here? Well, he talks about the body as if it's a house too.
And what he says is there's a body that we have now, and he describes that body, and then he says there's a body that we're going to get from God. It's not a different body, but it's a new body.
And so there were 3 words I want you to remember about how he describes the body that we have now.
3 words.
Earth.
Tent.
Temporary, you guys think you got them, so let's say the mall together, all right.
Earth.
Tent temporary.
OK, then he describes the body that we're going to have, and you know how he describes it? He describes it with three words and they are heaven here. Well, I'll give them to you first and then you guys can repeat after me. OK, Heaven.
Building Eternal.
All right, so you guys got those, let's say them together. Heaven.
Building Eternal.
So what's it mean? Earth and heaven? You know, the bodies that we have now, they are at home in this world now. This world has been marred by sin, but they're at home here. What about in heaven? If you went to heaven in the body that you have now, what would happen?
Oh, let me tell you about a man named John.
John loved the Lord Jesus. You could say that he sat on his lap. That's how comfortable he was being with the Lord Jesus. Do you know what happened to John when he went to heaven?
He saw Jesus.
Did he go sit on his lap?
No, he fell down afraid.
You know why? Because his body was not at home in heaven.
God doesn't want you though, to be uncomfortable in heaven if you're, if you've made that choice that we talked about before and you've trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Savior, he wants you to have a body that feels right at home in heaven. And so he's going to give you a new body that's just at home in heaven. Now the next thing we talked about was tent and building. So what is this?
What is this?
That's a building, yeah. So which one do you think?
Is stronger the building? Which one is more expensive?
Which one will last longer?
Building, yeah. So that's kind of how he's describing. The body that we have now is just like a tent. The body that we will get, it's like a it's going to be like a building, you know?
Mr. Rule shared this thought with me. I thought it was so nice in the Old Testament.
God dwelled with his people that kind of means, like he lived with them and he lived for a while in.
00:40:07
A10.
We call it the Tabernacle, but the Tabernacle is just another word for a tent. God lived in a tent and then later they moved the ark and the presence of God.
To the temple.
And God lived in the temple.
What is on the outside? Not necessarily this picture, but what is on the outside.
Of the Tabernacle.
So William, do you think we should phone a friend?
Should we get some help answering this question? What about Mr. Rusink? Do you think Bernie could tell us what was on the outside of the Tabernacle?
Yeah, you think so?
What was on the outside of the Tabernacle?
I'm looking for is badger skins. That's the that's right, isn't it Badger skins? We're on the outside of the Tabernacle. I looked up that word badger. They said it could be. Oh, I couldn't even remember the word they used. But essentially it's a manatee they think is what it might be. Do you think that that badger skins or that that manatee? Does anybody know what a manatee is?
All right, so you think if you took the the skin of a manatee?
And you covered it on something but that looked very pretty.
No, it's not really there to look pretty, is it? What's it there for? What do you think, Willie?
To keep the water off. Very good. What's on the outside of the temple?
Stone, but there was some gold there. Does gold look pretty?
So here's how we could put it this way.
Both the Tabernacle.
And the building had the presence and glory of God.
But the tent hid the glory of God.
The temple displayed the glory of God, and that's what it's like in the bodies that we have now. The bodies that we have now, they hide the glory of God. And you know what is the only way for the glory of God to shine out of the tents that we have now?
For there to be rips in it. He talks about that in another place, but what about the temple?
Temple displays the glory of God. Now the next thing is.
Temporary and eternal. We already talked about the bodies we have now being temporary, right? We said they get old. We said you're going to die. Life is fragile.
Bodies that you have now, they aren't going to last, but the body that's going to give you that God is going to give you. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, that body is eternal.
And you know what?
Isn't it nice?
That God who has given us eternal life.
Is also going to give us a body that is eternal as well because both of those go together. You need an eternal body to be the home for an eternal life and anything else.
Just doesn't fit right. So we're out of time to talk about that side of things. But I do just want to say this.
We don't have time to speak about the body as clothing, but Paul says we aren't hoping for death.
Remember how I said back when we were in Ecclesiastes, if you don't have God, the best that you can hope for is death to relieve your pain.
That's not true for a Christian, he says. We aren't hoping to take off the bodies that we have now.
We are hoping to put on the bodies that God will give us.
Isn't that amazing? That's a much nicer place to end the meeting, isn't it, than back in Ecclesiastes 12, right?