Children—Jonathan Boulard
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Good morning, everybody.
Now there's four of you up on the front row here, so I'll be talking to you especially, but everyone else can listen in and I trust there will be something for each one here. I I have the disadvantage that my hymn sheet that I have currently.
Is the revised 1, so it's going to be missing versus depending on what songs were given out so.
Hopefully we'll be able to get this straightened out. Now let's just start by asking the Lord for his help, okay? Because I need the Lords help.
Our loving God and our Father, please help us this morning.
Please help each one to be able to understand what is presented.
We desire the salvation and the blessing of each soul. Here this morning we ask Thy help, our Father and our God. We confess our weakness, and yet we depend on my strength.
So we ask with confidence, in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
OK, there's only 40 on the front row, so chances are really good that you'll get to give out a song at this conference.
So, did any of you have one that you'd like to give out?
If we don't get one forthcoming from the front row, we may have to go a little further back, but you guys get what's called the 1St right of refusal.
#11 OK, I always liked when when the person taking Sunday school didn't say we could only we only had to sing them from the back because I liked a lot of these other songs and I thought I'd like to sing this one and.
I didn't always get to so #11 We'll sing #11.
Will your anchor.
Age.
In the streets of fear, when the great and the green bears here.
While a surgeon is great and no one will slow.
Shall be angry.
00:05:19
Thank you. It's one of my favorite gospel songs. I really like that one. Thank you for giving that out.
You have one? Yes. OK #25 #25 thank you.
Another one of my favorites. Life at best is very like the following.
Fast and in the face of my decides.
Yeah.
Time. Time is flying swiftly by.
Jesus.
By peace.
Time.
Oh my God.
And your priceless soul belongs.
In time.
Time.
To be in time.
And send you all your hands in your hands.
Million time.
The worry voices make the Lord your heart be choices.
In time.
Come from darkness into the light, from the way I see you cry.
Coming start forever tonight.
So we're just saying make the Lord your happy choice. And that is the case when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, it's a happy choice. And then when we walk for him each day, it's a happy thing.
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Do any of you on the front row know the best way to be miserable? How can you be just really unhappy? Do you know how you can do that? There's a really easy way to be unhappy. It works every time you have any idea what it is.
No, it it works really good. So if you ever want to be unhappy.
Try to make yourself happy.
Just try and make yourself happy and it works every time. You'll be miserable.
But if you live your life, please the Lord Jesus, if you make him your happy choice, then you can be happy. That's a little secret. It'll save you a lot of unhappiness in life.
But just because I know that doesn't mean that I don't make the same mistakes.
Anyone else have a song they'd like to sing here?
You got another one? Well, give your two placards on either side a chance 29.
A ruler once came to Jesus finally to ask him no way of salvation and light the saga made. And certain words you like playing in my steeple.
Again.
He was teeth over the fear.
He.
'S only.
I.
See.
Oh.
Blast now, like everlasting it would obtain. You must be born again.
You know, still go.
Back when I was your size, give or take a couple of years #5 in the in the Song book used to be my favorite. And I always used to love when we got to go to a conference if this song was sung because there was 3 verses in this one, there's only two in the Little Little children's songbook. So that always made me happy when we got to do that. So another one of my favorites.
Does the final remaining member in the front row have one they'd like to see?
Which 131913131? I was going to say I don't think we go that high 31.
I will.
Save all my meeting.
Tomorrow.
She suffered.
Blood makers to decide me praying.
00:15:03
Say.
My reason?
When it is long being hurt just me?
How long I draw?
Cease, seal my heart.
Make it nice.
I will tell.
One story.
Oh my God.
Just me.
On the cross.
My God.
I'm taking.
My little friend, I'm afraid it's my.
OK, well, we'll see if there's any time at the end, and maybe you can have the privilege of giving two out at a conference that's pretty, pretty seldom achieved. Let's ask the Lord's help again.
Our loving God, my Father, please help to convey the the message on my heart.
Our Father please help these dear ones on the front row and each 1-2 to receive.
Receive the the Word from Thy word to let it find a lodging in their hearts. We ask for help, to ask for clear thoughts.
Just ask that thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ would be well spoken of. Our Father and our God, we ask thy help. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
Now.
I hope.
Each of you here.
On the front row and each one in all the other rows are reading your Bibles. Because even when you start at a very young age, you may not understand what you're reading, but it's a lot like a seed being dropped into the ground and planted. So what happens when you drop a seed into the ground if you if you go back the next morning?
And you look. Will anything look different? What do you think?
Well, that'll happen with time, but usually not one day later. You may go back a week later, maybe there will be a sprout. You go back another week later. And if it's been getting getting water and and sun and heat, it'll it'll keep growing and time will pass and time will pass, but it takes a long time. If you want it to grow, grow corn or grow.
00:20:14
Even grow an apple tree or something like that, it takes a long time.
And so you may just just run, you're young. If you start reading your Bible, it'll be like a little seed planted. And so the story that I'm going to share with you today was I, I remember when I was your age, there was something that really bothered me about this story. And it bothered me and bothered me and bothered me. And that was like a little seed that had been planted. Why is that? Why is that? Why? Why did that happen in that story? And it bothered me and bothered me until it was probably four years ago at this conference.
We were taking up in, I think it was First Timothy and the portion was being read and it was just like.
That's why the right middle of the reading meeting and I was just so excited and it was wonderful. And so it, it, it took all that time for that plant to grow. That was great. And that, that just, that just made me so thankful to have that. So the story we're going to read is in Mark Chapter 5.
And it's a story each one of you has heard quite a few times. But I, I love this story. And I, I remember when our brother John Kemp used to, he had Sunday school quite, quite a bit when I was a child and in Hammer Bay too. And so sometimes he'd have chains and things like that and rattled them around. I'm sorry I didn't bring a nice big length of chain, but you can imagine chain shaking and, and our, our brother John Kemp sharing this story, he does, he does a far better job at keeping people's attention. He's very, very good.
Sharing these stories, but you'll have to have to put up with me today, Mark, Chapter 5 and we'll read a few verses and we'll just we'll comment as we go and I'll have some questions. And if you guys get stumped, I'll ask some of the rest of the audience to maybe help. OK, so there will be lots of questions. So hopefully everyone will be listening.
And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the gatherings. So how do you, how do you go to the other side of a sea?
How do you do that? By sailing? Yep, sailing. What? A car, a boat. You have to take a boat. So they here at the beginning of the story, they got into a boat. They were going across the sea. There was a Sea of Galilee. Someone may be able to correct me if I'm wrong, but they went all the way across there. I think it's Sea of Galilee is 5 miles wide, 8 miles long, something like that. So it's a bit of a trip.
And take take a couple hours. So they went all the way across.
And verse two it says when he was come out of the ship so they they got to shore, they would have pulled the boat up on shore a little bit. So if you don't, your boat floats away and then really hard to get back home.
I've tried that before. I get to a job site and my boat's not tied up very well and maybe it drifts a little bit down the shoreline and.
Well, it's hard to go anywhere without a boat. You're on the on an island.
So they came out of the ship, and immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.
Out of the tubes, you know what tombs are.
What are they?
Back then, the tombs were probably.
A cave, things that there was like a bed or something inside where you would put a dead man in and cover him up with blankets. And then you might cover them up with blankets or you might just put something across the the face of it because you didn't you didn't want animals getting in.
But what do you think it would smell like?
You ever thought about that? You think that's?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, have.
Any of you guys ever had to pick up after raccoons or anything like that when they spread garbage all over the place or bears or something like that? Or have you ever seen an animal get hit at the side of the road and you see flies flying all around and if you're ever anywhere close, you don't want to be close? So this man was living among the tombs. Does that sound like a fun place to live?
Do you think you'd want to live there?
No. Would you? I wouldn't. Why do you think he was living there?
Do you think he woke up one day? That would be a great idea to go live in a graveyard.
And as this story goes by, we're going to look at a couple of different things.
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Maybe no one wanted him.
And I you can see why as you read this story, But our brother Eric James shared yesterday three things about Satan.
What were they, Cordis?
Defeat a liar in murders. Excellent. OK.
Did you get that? A thief, a liar, a murderer, Not a very nice master, not a very nice person to work for. So this man was under the control of Satan. So Satan said here there's a graveyard to live in. That doesn't sound very nice. That's where this man had been driven to live, a man with an unclean spirit.
Who had his dwelling among the tombs?
And no man could bind him. No, not with chains. What does it mean to bind someone? Do you have any idea what it means to bind what is? Yeah.
Have you ever been tied up? Yeah. Was it fun? And it might be fun for the 1St 30 seconds, but it gets, it's pretty old. There is a man in in Mexico and maybe some of you boys and girls and some of the older ones were praying for this man. And he was kidnapped one day just a month or a little over a month ago. His name was Antonia. He was kidnapped and they bound him. And so they, they tied his hands and his feet together.
That's not a very nice thing to do, but this man was so fierce and so mean, he could break any of those things.
No man could bind him. Know it not with chains. You know what? That's a lot like what Satan will do to each one of us.
If we serve Satan, maybe we'll say, you know what? I love my parents. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to do something that would be mean to them.
But if if we're pleasing ourselves and if we're following Satan.
Well, it won't be long before we hurt our parents and hurt others, even those that are kind to us. There is a young man that.
I, I met when I was in Mexico, his name was Dario Nerd Dario. He lives in Reynosa. He was, I think he was 16 or sorry, thirteen years old when I met him and he was sitting in a meeting like this, like you guys are a little bit older than you, but he had been, he had been under the sound of the word of God.
And this man?
Got up from that meeting and went around his his day-to-day. Came back the the next week and was under the sound of the word again. This continued on for a number of years.
And this man started making decisions. This, this young man started making decisions. And each one of us here in this room, we make decisions.
Are we going to?
Walk to please the Lord Jesus, the 1St and most important. Are we going to ask him to wash our sins away or are we going to go on in our sins? Are we going to believe someone who's a liar, a chief, a liar, a thief and a murderer or are you going to believe someone that that died for us?
So what? What's our decision going to be? But if if you go on and you you follow the pathway that Satan opens up all, it looks like so much fun, but he lies. He doesn't tell you the truth. So this man went on day by day, time passed.
And at one point, we're not exactly sure when, but he got in contact with the drug cartels that are in Mexico there. And so before long, he became addicted to drugs.
And drugs for those people that take them, they may seem oh so wonderful and all they, oh, these are amazing.
But suddenly you want more, and they come with a price, and then you want more and more and more, and they do things to you. And that's how Satan always works.
He says, ah, take this, this is wonderful.
But he wants to ruin us. And so this, this young boy, this young man, he, he took these and, and kept taking them and it's ruined his mind and it's ruining his life. He's 19 years old.
And there is, there is a time a month and a bit ago he had to be tied up in his own home because he was just, he couldn't be loose. He was breaking things. He was trying to hurt people. He, he got up one day and he went out into the street and there's nice car sitting there. He smashed in the windows of that car and he walked down the street a little bit. There was windows in the, in the buildings around his house. He was breaking those windows too.
00:30:06
He was ruining and just breaking things.
And so he had to be tied up his, the police were called and we can't do anything. This man is crazy. That's what Satan is doing to that man. He's ruining him. And so my wife and I, we pray for this man, Dario. And I trust the different ones in this room who can remember this story. They'll we'll pray for, we'll all pray for Dario. He's his life is being ruined by Satan. So you're sitting here in this chair.
In Hammer Bay, it's October the 13th, 2019. I don't think you'd ever think of doing that.
But if you make decisions day by day, and we'll keep reading about this man, but if you keep making decisions and I don't want to do what the Lord Jesus wants me to do, I don't think I'll accept the Lord Jesus yet. Satan leads us along a path and it's to ruin. And so this man, they, they couldn't stop him from doing those things that were wrong for that. And that's what Satan does.
Verse four Because that he had often he had been often bound with fetters and chains.
So change would be what would connect the shackles, but they tried all different things.
The chains have been plucked asunder by him, and the fetter is broken in pieces. Neither could any man tame him.
So he couldn't, he couldn't be controlled. That's, that's pretty sad. That's really sad.
So each one of us in this room.
That's the pathway that Satan is trying to lead you down. You may even be a Christian. You may have even asked the Lord Jesus to save you from your sins. But if you go after the things that Satan has to offer, you'll hurt and you'll you'll hurt other people and you'll ruin your own, you're ruin your own life. That's such a sad thing. Do you think this person was happy?
No, no, he wasn't happy, but he couldn't do anything about it. It's like he was he was bound in chains of sin. He couldn't get out and sin is like that. And if, if we have time, I have a little illustration maybe that I can, I can show.
Show you of what it would be like, but we'll continue on with the story. So verse five, always night and day. He was in the mountains and in the tombs crying. What does it mean to cry?
What's that?
Actually, I don't know.
Any ideas?
Yeah, perhaps here it means more shouting, but he was, he was sad. He would have been crying. Does that sound like something fun? Do you do you think this is a man you'd you'd really like to be like?
Boy, that sounds fun, no?
No, I don't think anyone of us want to want to be like this man. But that's what Satan wants you to be like. He wants to make you miserable.
And that's that's who Satan is. He ruins and he destroys and he hates you.
So he was in the mountains crying and cutting himself with stones. What? What's that?
Like my stuff?
Yeah, have you ever done that accidentally? Maybe gone tearing down the driveway and shorts and make your knees all.
All messed up. Was that fun? You got up and you decided to do it again? No. Do you think this man said, ah, this is wonderful, This is so much fun. You think that's what he was saying? No.
That would hurt doing that, But that's what Satan does. He wants to ruin. He wants to destroy.
The Lord Jesus could say, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly, but Satan is a destroyer. He was making this man miserable and more miserable.
But something changed. So the Lord Jesus, he had gotten in the boat, he went across the other side and he met this man. Now each one of us, we have the advantage. We've already read this story. We know what this story says, but it's it's still good to think of it.
So this man cried and cried out with a loud voice. So he shouted with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the Most High God, I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. Do you know what it means to be tormented?
I think any of us who have, well, it cuts both ways. Older or younger siblings know a little bit what it's like to be tormented.
What do you what do you think it means to be tormented?
What do you think? And you can't get out and you're squishing. I can't breathe. I I had three older sisters and they like to pick on me. They, they, they had a distinct advantage over me.
00:35:06
To be to be made miserable. This man didn't want to be made miserable. Does that make any sense? Like it makes sense that you don't want to be made miserable, but what was already happening to this man?
What was Satan doing to him?
He was tormenting him.
That doesn't make any sense. This man, I gather, was trying to convince himself that he was happy.
Living in the tombs, crying all alone, cutting himself.
And he asked someone who loved him not to torment him. The Lord Jesus didn't want to torment him. But that's what Satan does. He's a liar, and he tries to convince us.
That the Lord Jesus doesn't love us. That he doesn't want the very best for us.
And so that can happen really easily in our lives. So maybe, maybe.
We see something in the Bible that tells us what we're supposed to do.
Say that doesn't look like much fun. Satan says it'll make you miserable.
But that's not how it works. So Satan had tricked this poor man.
Now for the part of the story that really bothered me when I was little and I asked my dad and I asked other people why is that? And I never really got the answer. So we until that that moment when I jump just jumped off my chair in the middle of a reading meeting a couple of years ago. So this this man Legion.
The, the, the Lord told the the demons to go out of this man. And so where did the demons go? We're we're familiar with this story. Where did they go?
Yeah, into the pigs. And then what happened?
What happened to the water? Yeah. And then what happened to the piece? Yeah.
What happened to the demons, do you know?
Did the demons die too? Did the devils die too? You think so? No, they didn't. They didn't. It's a demon is a spirit.
And a spirit doesn't die.
Why?
Why did they do that?
Pigs are Pigs are one of the smartest animals. You can teach a pig more tricks than you can teach a dog.
Not that I recommend having a pet pig, but they're very smart animals. But why did those pigs do that? Because the demons made them. Yeah, but why did they do that? Why did the demons make them do that? I mean, the demons could have left the pigs and gone somewhere else. But the Lord didn't say you have to stay in the pigs. He just said, OK, He, he allowed those demons to go into the, into the, into the herd of herd of pigs as they asked.
But why?
What do you think?
You have any idea?
The verse that that made me jump off and.
It speaks of God, who is the Savior of all men, For the thought of that verse is the preserver of all men, chiefly of they that believe what that verse is saying. Satan wants to destroy you, wants to destroy me. Each one of us here, he wants to destroy us.
And God says no, I'm not going to let him. And so he preserves man.
And so you've perhaps heard of nuclear bombs and hydrogen bombs and things like that. I remember.
What grade was I in? I might have been in grade 6 and we were learning about those things and.
To ask the teacher so.
Are those are those things still around today? Yeah.
Oh no, so you mean just someone pushing a button? They could blow the whole world up pretty much. But it's God that keeps Satan back from his purpose of destroying man. But this story, and it's a it's a picture it it took place, but God was showing us how mean.
And how?
Just awful Satan is. And so as soon as these demons were were set at liberty, they ruined every single one of those pigs. Every single one of them drowned.
And it's only.
The goodness of God that that allows us to live day by day and that keeps Satan from ruining this whole world.
And so if we turn away from the Lord Jesus, each one of us, we know. We know the verses of the Bible. We know enough to be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. We know these verses. But if we turn away.
00:40:15
From the Lord Jesus and turn to what Satan offers us. He's going to try to do the same thing to us and to our lives that he did to those pigs.
One of Satan's names, and you read of it in the Book of Revelation, is Apollyon. That means destroyer. He destroys the Lord Jesus gives and gives and gives. Satan takes and takes and takes and destroys and ruins.
And so we see that the Lord set this man at liberty. He wasn't being tormented any anymore. He was, he was closed seated in his right mind at the Lord Jesus feet, and he wanted to follow the Lord Jesus. Do you think this man was happier after the Lord Jesus had cast those demons out than before? What do you think? Yeah, he was much happier. Satan tried to try to tell this man that the Lord wanted to torment him and make him miserable.
That was a lie, and if you give your life to the Lord Jesus, if you ask him to wash your sins away, and you desire to walk to please Him.
You'll be happier than you could have ever been with anything that Satan would offer.
And so we see these people, they hadn't had to do with Jesus yet, but the ones in the surrounding countryside, they.
They didn't know the Lord Jesus, they didn't know how much he loved them, but they knew that their pigs were gone and they didn't want anything to do with the Lord Jesus. They didn't realize that it was Satan, the work of Satan to ruin all their livelihood. And so they would continue on in the ways of Satan and in their sadness. But the Lord Jesus, he got into that boat, went back to the other side. So do you realize he made, roughly speaking, that five mile trip?
He talked, I believe it was to two men. We only read of one here who would go to Matthew's Gospel. We would read there was two. We read about the most notable one right now.
Talk to two men, turned around, went all the way back 5 miles, went back to where he'd be.
The Lord Jesus loved that man and he wanted to set him free. And I remember my daddy telling me when I was just little.
And it impressed me at the time. But he said, did you know? What if you were the only Sinner?
In this whole world, the Lord Jesus still would have come and died for you.
Just think about that a little bit. The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's how much he loves us.
And that's so different from what we read about Satan and that that man that Satan was ruining. So I hope, I pray that each one of us in this room, we would see Satan for who he is a destroyer. He's a thief, he's a liar, he's a murderer. But the Lord Jesus, oh, he came to give life and to give life more abundantly. He loves us. And if you walk to please the Lord Jesus in your life, in your life. I say this to each one of us here.
If you walk to to please the Lord Jesus in your life.
It's the very best path. It's the happiest path. The Lord Jesus, he was called the man of sorrows, but he was the happiest man that ever lived on this earth. And if you live to please the Lord Jesus, he'll give you some of that joy and you'll have you'll have that that joy and peace on earth. You'll have it for all eternity. Now the object lesson. We can maybe fool around with it a little bit after we after we close it'll take a couple of minutes, but.
It'll it'll give you a little bit of an idea what it needs to be found so we can hang out after everyone goes and there's a couple announcements.
You have one more song you wanted to sing, or did you forget which one it was?
Okay.
#34 #44.
Into.
Close out the day news of salvation. We can't reset me. Nobody ever has told it to me.
Salvation story. Reaping glory.
Nobody ever has told me before.
There is somebody.
00:45:01
A little boy sang unto me the good times of joy.
We are not there.
Nobody.
The story has told.
Me salvation story.
Children are men. Nobody ever has told me before.
The last words of his breath, just as he answered God.
This song.
So.
19 70 Four Salvation story reading.
All.
Can say.
Children of men, Nobody ever has told me before.
Let's pray.
Our loving God and our Father, please help us, each one here in this room.
We desire each one to be saved, to have the assurance of salvation.
And yet we know that thy heart is not satisfied only with that for man, not his desire to bless him. So we desire that each one in this room would taste and see that the Lord is good.
Help us to walk to please the Lord Jesus. Thank particularly of those who are younger. Think of the children in the front row here. Help each one.
To live for the Lord Jesus, we ask Thy help and commit these things to Thee, our Father and our God, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.