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.
Who's got a number you'd like to start with? All right, Daniel.
I'll give you a chance to sit nice and loud.
44.
#44.
Somebody could start these. That'd be a real help to me and everybody else, I think.
Ending week on the last word of his pride, just as he enters the valley on time.
Constant it's under so happens that he and I am sure that he sent him for me. Tell it on him, tell it on him.
Salvation story. Repeat more and go.
Till none can pay off the children of men.
Nobody ever has told me before. Good. Who else has one you'd like to sing? OK, Say it nice and loud for everybody. 45. Thank you. All right.
Good. Somebody else, we'll think as many as we can in these first few minutes. OK, go ahead, 41. Thank you.
Glory. Glory because.
Shining from the spotless white, each one will be alright. Well, they give up my lasting life and joy that never painting boring glory.
I bring them to thy foil upon thy heavens of fright and unfair. We're all in peace and joy and love are form of children. They're singing glory.
00:05:18
Glory, glory.
Glory being to come on.
Good, another one.
OK, number one thing #1.
Good. You can choose anyone on here you'd like. So I'm glad that we could sing that one. That'll fit in a little bit with what we'll talk about later. So we have time for maybe two more now and we'll see at the end of the meeting. All right.
22 Thank you.
Then we'll continue.
00:10:26
Umm, very good. Umm and me ready rend your mind and you're running. You're in your mind and be riding for the bridegroom's night. Good. One last one for now and I'm not too likely. We'll get to more later.
43 Thank you.
#43 will be our last one.
Good. Let's talk to the Lord Jesus. Ask for his help. Ask that we'll all be able to hear what he has to say today.
I'd like to talk about the verse that's in the Sunday School paper this morning, and I'll give you a chance to quote that one or another one you may have learned in just a moment.
Let me say that verse first.
Come unto me. Does anyone know it so well you'd be able to say it for everybody first? Or would it help if I said it first? You wanna say it? OK, you can say it first. Then come on to me. I'll eat that labor. And I have you waiting. And I won't give you a rest. Matthew 1128. Good. Thank you. Who else would like to? OK, let me just go around the row. Anyone that like to say that or another one you've learned. Come on to me. I'll eat that labor and our heavyweight and And I'll give you a rest. Matthew 1128.
Thank you. Who else?
Coming to come into me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you a rest. Matthew 1128 OK, come on to me, I'll eat that labor and our heavy laden and I will give you rest. Matthew 1128. Come on to me I'll eat that Lady and our heavy laden and I will give you rest. Matthew 1128. Very good. MMM, I don't know what it starts with.
Come on to me. Come on to me.
The Labour.
There have been maiden.
And I will give you rest, and I will give you rest.
11, 11/20.
Late and I will give you rest. Matthew 1128. Good. Thank you. All right.
Come on to me, all these are labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. Matthew 1128.
Come on to me, I'll leave that labour in our heavy laden and I will give you rest. Matthew 1128. Good. Thank you. Anybody else over here I missed wants to say it, OK.
Come unto me only that labor, and our heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 1128.
All right, now we're going to talk about that first, and if you have your Bible and we've got time towards the end, we'll talk about another verse just past it. I think I could quote it, but I'm safe as reading. So if you have your Bible, it doesn't hurt to turn and look at it.
And I'll read to you Matthew 11/28/29 and 30.
Matthew 1128 you all quoted Come unto me.
All ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart. And ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Let's enjoy those verses together. But before we get to those last couple that I think are wonderful and enjoyable, want to talk about that first one, which is also wonderful, but it's got a serious part to it and I need a volunteer to help me out. It has to be somebody.
About middle sized would work best I think. OK if you want to come up you can be my helper.
And I've got some things here that I'll need to make use of, and all the rest of you are going to have to help us.
00:15:08
And we've got a bunch of stuff in that bag. You can probably guess what it is.
You carry that for me. You don't have to lift it up quite yet. You think you could put this on your back? Nothing in it. It's empty. So look bad. I'm pretty carryable. All right. Wanna put that on a little backpack? Just slide it on over your shoulder there. Right on the other side. Perfect. Thank you. Is that heavy? No. And you know, you think you could run all the way up? Which floor were you on for your room 6? You think you could run all the way up to the 6th floor without on your back? No problem. Easily. Good.
Thank you. I won't make you do it, but you know, sometimes we have done something that doesn't seem too bad. It doesn't weigh very heavy on it. How many of you have ever told a real quick lie and nobody noticed and your mom and dad weren't there and you forgot about it a minute or two later?
I must admit my hands up, not just to kind of encourage you on how to raise a hand, my hands up because I've done that. It's wrong. To God, it's a big thing, but to us it seems pretty small. And that's what I'd like to illustrate with this backpack. We're talking about some burdens in here, but maybe you did something else and a friend noticed it. This is a rock, and it's not too heavy. I don't think this will hurt your back at all. You can tell me if this gets a little too heavy for you.
We'll put that in there. Do you even notice the weight of that one? Can you feel it? No, not at all.
She's strong. It won't hurt her at all, will it? And sometimes that's what we feel. Maybe we're maybe our mom and dad sometimes. I know I'm certainly guilty of it. Sometimes in my house, something gets said and it's not very respectful, but it's not outright defiant. And it kind of slides on by. Or maybe somebody gets asked. You get asked at home to do something by your mom or dad, and you always do it the first time they ask, right? You, you and your mom or dad calling from the other room and call your name and they say come.
Give me a hand in the kitchen. And you always come running right away. You're playing with your friends, you're playing with your toys. You hear your mom or dad call. Come and oh, that's mom or dad. I want to do what they have to say. And you come running, right? How many of you always do that?
How many of you sometimes do that?
How many of you think hard can remember once when you did that? All right, Hopefully all of you. But when you think about, oh, you know, just some other little thing and and this is the way it seems to us. They're all big things to God. I want to illustrate the other part the way it seems to us. I remember something in our.
Memory. Something I remember happening with the child that in that house, that child wasn't allowed to drink a lot of pop.
How many of you like maybe sometimes it's good to have and it's kind of a sugary drink maybe. Oh, but this house, they weren't allowed to have it very often. It was pretty rare treat, but there was some in the pantry in this house and the child in that house discovered it in the pantry. You know, it's kind of dark in most pantries. So many of the pantry at your house, it's kind of dark.
Well, some of you do. Lots of you do. And how many of you have a mom or dad that spends a lot of time in there?
Well, I think maybe they run in and out, but hopefully they don't spend a lot of time in the pantry. Maybe they're in and out of it a lot. So this person, according to the story, discovered that there was some pop in there and it was a big, big bottle and it was full.
And after the first time, or maybe the second or the third time they discovered it, it wasn't quite so full anymore. It was a little bit.
What do you think was happening?
You have a guess.
What was happening?
Whoever it was was drinking some of that pop and nobody noticed.
Do you think that kind of do you think they were aware of it?
I think they were kind of aware of it. Can you feel that now?
How many of you would be aware that sneaking something that your mom or dad doesn't like is not a good thing? In fact, it's what God calls. What's God called that?
God calls him soon and you're kind of got it at the back of your mind. How many of you have done something and it was kind of at the back of your mind and you were open. Nobody would ever notice. Only children, apparently. Most, no, all of us have done that. It's just not obvious where. I'm asking anybody here because I think everybody has done something like that and you know it's wrong, but nobody noticed. Is that true?
00:20:22
No. Are you noticing now though?
The weight on your back, you feel that a little bit.
Well.
Once we've seen, then nobody caught us and we sinned again and nobody caught us. You know what? It gets a little easier the next time. And in this case, there was something else done that was.
Everybody would have recognized it to be a big deal.
You see that if you're looking forward to carrying that for me, you think you can want to try, you tell me if it's too heavy and I'll take it out.
But I guess that's the idea. This person did something. Oh.
It was pretty bad and this time they got caught. This time they got caught. Is that heavy?
Kind of I'll try to make this next part go quick because there's more in the bag, you know? OK, this time they got caught and it was kind of heavy. Are you ready for me to take that off your back?
Yeah, OK. I'll take it off your back.
But I'll add a little bit more to the story here. This person got caught. Thank you very much. I'll put it on my back and somebody else will have to help me out here in a minute. Thank you. Oh, you want to carry it? All right, we'll let you carry it. Thank you very much. That one got kind of heavy. I'm glad that that got heavy quickly, you know, for some people. Can you squeeze? There we go. Alright. That's not so bad, huh? Which floor were you on? 60? Good. So this person, they did something even worse. Didn't have anything to do with Pop.
Mom and Dad didn't know anything about that pop, but that's how it started.
Little things that mom and dad didn't notice, nobody knew, nobody caught on. It was kind of strange. That thing had a leak and there wasn't any sticky stuff on the floor. But maybe, maybe it did get used. Maybe we just forgot we never used the stuff. Maybe when we had some guests that got used, they thought, and so it kept on shrinking, but other things came up and then they got caught about this other big thing. And you know, what do you think they were already?
To admit to their parents what they've done.
Feelings. They were all ready, no?
What did that person probably do? Not that you would know anything about it, but can you help me guess what that person might have done? He lied. Now, that person lied about it not just once, but a bunch of times. And you know what? That kind of weighed on the contest. You ready for one of these? You think so? All right. I know it'll fit in there without it being on the back. I'm not sure.
OK. Is that nice and comfortable?
Ready to run up to the 6th floor for me? Come back and report how it feels. You're starting to feel the weight of that on your back.
You want to take it off.
You don't care. Yeah, but you're leaning forward to help balance the weight. So I will help you balance it by taking it off. Let me take that weight off. Thank you.
Thank you. You know what, I hope something this morning. If any of you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, even the littlest thing that seems like a little Pebble and you can't even hardly feel it. Did you feel this backpack when I put it on your back just fairly, Not really. It's really pretty light. That's the nice thing about it. But that's what we think about sin. But I want you to remember that the Lord Jesus thinks about sin as a very serious thing, something that he says come unto who?
Come on to me and I will give you.
Rest. Does it feel better to have that backpack off? Yeah, it feels better, doesn't it? That's a little bit heavy. We don't always like to admit it, but it's a little bit heavy. I wanna tell you a story that I hope will illustrate this pretty well. I wasn't going to tell you this story. It wasn't in my mind. But when Mr. Jim Island was speaking last night, I thought, you know what? Maybe we should spend a little bit more time on this first verse. Come unto me and I.
We'll give you rest.
00:25:01
You ready? How many of you know what a mine is?
How many of you know what a mine is?
Can you tell me real quick for the few that don't know, can you tell us what a mine is?
Unexplained that No. Anybody else want to explain it? All right, you explain to us what I'm mine is a mine is a place where they get stuff like coal and other minerals and, umm, valuable stones out of the ground. OK, great. Thank you. This was one of those that was a coal mine in Illinois and it was 200 feet under the ground. There was a great big vein of coal, a great big area where they can mine coal. And 300 more feet down there was another even bigger one.
And this happened 101 years ago this month. 101 years ago sounds like a long time, but there's mines today. And, you know, a lot of bad things can happen in those mines. So there were 200. Anybody know how 200 feet is a long way, right? How many of you were on the 11Th floor? Everybody here on the 11Th floor?
Anybody ran all the way up the stairs to the 11Th floor? Oh good.
I thought maybe some people would walk but not run 11 floors, I don't know exactly. In this hotel, I think of a floor, it's about 10 feet. This first floor, if you notice when you did the stairs, it's a little taller.
You can look at the ceiling. It's a little taller, but we'll say each one. Can you imagine going all the way up 12 floors in this hotel, right? How many more floors would we need to go up to be the height of that first part of the mine?
Eight more Good. Can you imagine going up 20 floors? I'll skip a lot of this, all the details in the story so we can get to other parts, but I want you to think about this. Can you imagine being 20 floors under, 20 floors down?
Would you like to go that far down into a hole in the ground? I don't like squeeze in spaces. Anybody else here that doesn't like squeeze in spaces? I don't like them. I don't like to look around and be hardly able to move. But this was 20 floors down into the ground. And you know what? They had big wood Timbers over to keep the roof from caving in, and they had lots of electric lights and so on, but they weren't working. So they had some kerosene lamps down there temporarily.
They had lots of nice engines, train engines at the top. Up upstairs they had automobiles and so on. But they down inside the mine, they had some mules. You know what a mule is, right? We'll pretend they're sort of like a horse. So they had a mules and they fed them hay and one of those carts of hay got parked right underneath a kerosene lamp and it was dripping, dripping, drip, drip. You know what, kerosene is kind of like gas. Do you think it's a good thing to have gas dripping on hay in the middle of a little shaft of coal?
Not a good idea.
And it caught fire. And then the beams that supported the walls of that coal mine, they caught fire.
And it was no big deal because they would get the fire out pretty quickly. And some mine workers were on their way out of the mine and they just went up and they walked by and, oh, hopefully somebody puts that out soon. And others went by. But before long, that whole part of the mine was on fire.
How would you like to be down in the mine that day?
All those beams were hissing and cracking and there was a pop as some of the beams gave way and some of the coal in the roof fell in and there were miners. Now, do you think they wanted to get out of the mine that day?
They sure did. Is anybody here complained about having to walk up to your room? Anyone in the front rows kind of complain your mom or dad wanted to walk up and OK, got a few. All right, There was a stairway all the way up to the top, and it was made out of wood.
And that stairway went up 200 feet. Do you think there were any miners that complained about running up those stairs?
With the fire behind them in the mine, No, not a single one complained. You know, Mr. Jim talked to us last night and he was talking about a lot of things along the lines of salvation and fleeing from the wrath to come. They were running out of that mine. But somebody upstairs, they were really smart, they thought. They thought, oh, we'll get the smoke out of the mine to help people. So they turn on a great big fan and it sucked all the smoke up out of the mine. You know what came up with the smoke?
All the flames came right up and burned out that stairway. It was gone.
And there were hundreds of people trapped down below there in the mine. So there were 13 men.
And those 13 men said, we're not going to leave our fellow miners trapped in that mine. We're going to go get them. And so they did. They climbed on something they called a cage. How many of you, instead of the stairs, used an elevator?
00:30:06
Well, lots more hands on that one.
All right, lots of people use that elevator, and this one had bars in it, so they called it a cage, but it was an elevator and there was somebody up at the top with a lever, and he raised and lowered it. And those people went down into the mine, and already some of the mine, they went down the first time. There are a bunch of people ready to get on. They wanted to get out of there. And so they got on to that cage and they started to go up to the top and they came out to the top. They're gasping for breath, but they were safe, those 13 people.
They went down a second time into the mine.
This time it was harder. This time they started to go. And it was like here, how many of you, probably some of you heard a hallway back in here, Every once in a while a squeaky cart goes squeak, squeak, squeak down the hallway there. And there were lots of hallways like that. So they would come down the elevator and then they would go into a hallway and they would call out if there was anybody there. And there might be somebody in one of the side passages in the mine where they were mining coal and they were calling out.
Something that Peter said.
They were calling it out. Does anybody remember what Peter said when he got into trouble?
Did he say help?
I mean it was a time when he did, but all I remember was him saying Lord.
Go ahead, say it nice and loud. Save me. They were calling out, save me if they could. And they could be heard and these people would rush to them and they picked them up and they put them on their backs and they get them to the cage. And the flames kept getting closer and closer and they went down a third time and a fourth time. And by the 5th time, you know what happened? Some of the wives people gathered. Smoke was billowing up out of that mine into the sky and people were gathering around from the whole little town, the whole town. And all they did was mine or help people that were miners.
There's nothing else in the town of Cherry, IL And they went there and they said their wives came along and they grabbed some of those rescuers and they said don't go into that mine. They could see the smoke billowing out. The people that were coming out were now coming out burned alive, but burned.
And they were holding onto the leg or holding onto the arm of their husband and they said don't go into that mine. And they broke 33 and they went in a fifth time and they came out again.
Do they think that God everybody.
They didn't. So they went down a sixth time. Remember I told you there were two levels to that mine. One was 500 feet down. They couldn't leave their friends 500 feet down. So they went into the mine again and they went down, down, down. But there was a law in Illinois, there's still, I don't know. I don't know if there still is or not. There was a law in Illinois that you could not, if you're down in a mine, the person operating that elevator, that cage, he could not bring up the people up from down below unless there was a signal from down below.
Some signal and the person that went down, the boss, his name was Alex Norberg and he said don't bring it up unless you hear two rings and then bring it up quickly. If you hear three rings on your bell, bring it up slowly. And then he had other signals for letting it down further and they let it down into the mine 1/6 time.
That sixth time it went down into the mine. There was all kinds of jangling. And the person operating the elevator, he didn't know that they wanted to go down. Did they want it to go up? Did they want it to go up slowly? He didn't know what to do. What would you do?
I don't know what I would do, but as I thought about that and I thought about all those flames in the mine and the signal coming out of it, I thought of this first, and I want to read it to you. It's in the same chapter of Matthew. I'm sorry, same book of Matthew. If you'll turn over to Matthew, I thought of another flaming pit, and I thought of another signal coming from that pit, and I want to read it to you. You don't have to turn to it, but it's in Matthew chapter 27.
Now verse 45. Now from the 6th hour.
There was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour and about the 9th hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Did he say Get Me Out of here?
00:35:00
No, he didn't. Did he say pull me up out of this pit? No, he didn't. What was going on at that time? I think, you know, the Lord Jesus was suffering for sin from a holy God. You know, when I borrowed these rocks earlier, I did borrow them. I planned to return them. They're from the landscaping down by the lake over there. And when I borrowed them, I went and found the hotel employee and asked them if it was OK to borrow them for a while. There were two of them there.
You know what? They answered. They're both looking at me. They didn't look at each other. They both got a big grin on their face, and they both did something at the same time. Both of them. They both went like this.
What do you think they were telling me?
We didn't see it. And you know what? That's what people like to do when there's something that, yeah, well, we'll just pretend it didn't happen.
Is that what God did about sin? God didn't do that with sin. God took my sin and he put it on the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you say that about yourself?
Eventually people convinced this cageery was called the elevator operator to pull those men up, and I'll spare you the details, but one of them was just barely alive.
You know what He said at 4 words, at 4 words to say when he came up out of that pit, He said the flames got us and he died. He died right then and there. They had to lean forward and they could just barely hear him whispering, just barely hear him whisper the flames got us. I want to read to you 2 words that the Lord Jesus said when he came up out of that pit. First of all, right here in our chapter, it says he cried again with a loud voice.
Notice that and then turn to John John's Gospel.
Chapter 19.
Well, 3 words, I'm sorry.
3 words in English anyway.
Verse 30.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said it is.
Finished.
And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. He said it is finished. That means he took care of the judgment, totally took care of it. And I thought of the story. I thought of those words that one man had to whisper. The flames got us.
But the Lord Jesus could have shouted, I got the flames. He consumed the judgment that was against your sin. You know, you can go to Cherry, Illinois. We did one year ago on November 13th, the 100th anniversary of the event. And we stood in a graveyard and there's 265 little white crosses representing the 265 miners that lost their lives in that mine. 13 of them are for the rescuers that were brought up and taken to that cemetery.
Tiberi, do you know I thought about it in this verse. Come unto me, all ye that labor. There were 265 people that couldn't be saved in that mine. There are none that don't and can't be saved today. He says, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and I will give you rest. Let me show you one other thing I said. I didn't plan to tell that story yesterday, but I think maybe it was more important to talk about that part.
I wanna talk about what 5-6 minutes left. Something for those of you who know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
And at that other part of the verse, or that other part of the passage, we read.
I need 2 volunteers that are about the same height.
OK, I'll take you and somebody about your eye. OK, we'll take the two of you. I've hidden in this room. Which one of these looks like the thing that would give you rest? This or?
Whoops, get out of here fit. Which one looks more restful? Yeah, I agree. If you're gonna take a nap, I'd much rather have the blanket than the board.
But we're going to illustrate how you get rest from something like a board. All right. Does that look the best I could do? And real quickly on a yolk. Sorry, I'm not a Craftsman. Didn't have a whole lot of time to do it either. Thank you. Would you put one hand on the board? I'm concerned after a little test that I'm not strangling anybody. Be nice. Put one hand on the board you want to hand. OK, You guys have got one minute. I've hidden in this room 3 Super Bowls and three balloons. You can have anything you can find. I'll give you more later. I'll be fair. So go ahead.
You got one minute to find any Super Bowls or balloons you can find.
OK, there is a bag under there. You're gonna find a whole lot more than three.
00:40:07
We'll see about sharing later.
OK, you found the bag. Why don't you leave the bag there and you've got another 40 seconds to find any that are hidden around the room. I didn't think of that as hidden, but it's it qualifies.
N.
Well, they're hidden in the room. I won't tell you where you got 20 more seconds.
10 more seconds.
All right, three more seconds on you. Come on, I'm back to the front.
Is that comfortable?
Pardon.
If you move it off off your head, I try to tie it really loose there for you. Thank you, you guys did a very good job.
Is it easy to move in that thing?
Not really. Not super easy. At one point over here, one person was trying to go one way, one was trying to go the other. That was a little uncomfortable, wasn't it? And the rest of the time, you guys did a very good job of working together. I'm going to show you something else and put it on here.
And after some discussion, my son volunteered to help me out with the other part. All right, so you put that on, lift you up. OK, You hang on to it with your hand There. That's your job. All right, now I'm gonna find the rest of them. Oh, there's one right in here. And, uh, I think there's one over here.
There's one. OK, there's one. There's a nice balloon right over here. Thank you. We'll get the balloon and umm.
We'll come right around over to here.
And I think right under the edge here, there's another one.
There's a balloon right here on the edge. Well, I can't feel it at the moment. And we'll get one more. There it is.
And.
There's another one right here and I think that'll do. Thank you. Set it out. Take it off your head first. All right? Oops, That's all right.
With a little bit of imagination on that second part, you can see the second part of the verse or the second, the next verse. The Lord Jesus says I'll have to flip back to it to get it accurately here as we finish and Matthew Chapter 11.
And verse 29.
I'll reemphasize something in verse 28. Verse 28, it says come.
And I will give.
There are 265 tombstones in that cemetery. But the Lord Jesus, it says if he came right back up out of that pit, kept right on going to heaven, and he can call from heaven to you. And he says I will give right now because he lives. But the next part says take my yoke and learn.
Now.
I don't think we're going to summarize the 1St 11 Chapters of Matthew's Gospel here at the end of his Sunday School for all of you children. But let's give just this one little piece the Lord. How many of you have ever been rejected by somebody else or felt rejected? At least they didn't want to play with you.
All right, whatever it is, the Lord Jesus had been rejected. Do you sometimes feel kind of sad about that? Sometimes there's all kinds of stresses and difficulties. But you know what he always did?
He always obeyed God his Father. He always obeyed God his Father.
Always. And you know what? That was a very Restful thing. How much work did Paul do when we were looking for the?
Super Boss.
I hung on to the board right, so you have to run around. How much directing did he do? How much did he tell me where to go? I actually noticed a couple things and pointed them out, didn't he?
But who was going around deciding where we were going to go?
I did right? Who knew where everything was? I did, except I forgot the bag under the table.
00:45:01
But I did know when we were going around to pick things up where everything was hidden. And you know what if you just simply. And that's why it takes learning because how simple it is.
It takes a lot of learning, but when you learn to just do what the Lord Jesus wants you to do, then it's restful. The yoke is a lot more Restful than the blank.