Children—D. Jacobsen
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My heart.
Breaks on that land.
When she's on, wash my sins away.
He taught me.
Everyone.
In every day.
Happy life.
Find out that every day is a happy day after we take.
The Lord Jesus as our Savior every day can be a happy day.
You know that? Yeah, I think you do know that.
OK, let's see #14.
How have you been to Jesus for the cleansing heart? Are you watching the world?
Crossing in it raining by Are you watching the part of my life?
I rewind.
Are you watching everybody?
Right.
Are you watching the part of the world I just want?
When the bride.
'S only ready for the matter, right? Everyone in the mind of the land.
I.
Love.
You.
One of the things I want to talk about this morning is paths and roads and I noticed.
In verse two of our song it says are you walking daily?
By the day the Savior's side.
00:05:04
You know, in this room there I lookout and there are lots of faces and for every face there's a road. Do you ever think about that every life?
Takes a different Rd.
And every Rd. takes different turns.
We want to be sure as we grow up.
That the Lord Jesus were walking with the understanding and the knowledge that the Lord Jesus is with us on the road.
His love follows us every place we go, and his care follows us too.
Let's have one more song. Oh well, I'm sorry, 25.
That's seeing the.
1St 2 verses shall we? Is that OK? All right?
Like the best and very.
God and I feel like.
In time. In time.
There is flowers soon became.
I wanted to play.
Big time.
While my spirit, did you come there good, I'm on your own.
Everything no longer. Where did we find off again?
After just to make being in time.
Stand up here with me and see what I see from up here.
Anybody brave enough?
Huh.
What do you see when you stand up here, huh?
Lots of people, huh?
Hundreds of people, thank you very much. Now maybe you can tell me.
What attracted all those people to this place?
What do you think?
That's a good answer because they wanted to hear more about the Lord.
And I thought maybe somebody might say the Lord, but I asked the question, what attracted all those people to this place?
You know, I think it is. Need some help with that question boys.
I think it was love.
Love attracted us here.
Nothing else would do.
The Lord Jesus and God created us.
With hearts that could appreciate his love and could never be satisfied with anything else.
Nothing else. And yet our hearts are very slow.
To really realize how much God loves us and how much really we are attracted by His love, you know, the Lord Jesus does a lot of nice things for us.
But it shouldn't be those nice things that he does for us that attract us here. It should be his love.
00:10:05
And you know, love fills this place because the Father, the love of the Father, is here, the love of the Son.
And then we love it says because he first loved us, we love each other. We lookout here and and these are the people that love us and these are the people that we love.
And so if we don't learn anything else this morning, let's learn that that it is love that's the center. You know, when the shepherd calls the sheep.
Why is it that the sheep all gather round and we were coming through Nevada and we saw a place and the shepherd was in the middle and there were, you know, maybe 1000 sheep all around the shepherd. What attracts them to the shepherd, all in a circle like that, do you think?
What do you think? We have a verse for that?
My sheep.
Here what?
My voice.
My see, Pierre. My voice.
That's what attracts the sheep, that's what it's attracted us to. This place is the voice of the shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. And how come the sheep gather around the shepherd and not just anybody else?
Because they've learned.
That the Shepherd loves them and he takes care of them and he's always with them. He never leaves them.
By themselves.
Isn't that nice to know? And so that's what attracted us here this morning. The love of the Lord Jesus would attract every one of us to this place to enjoy more of His love. Now let's ask His blessing before we turn to the verse.
Our God, did somebody learn the verse this morning?
Good girl, Did you learn a verse this morning? Do you know where the verse is found?
Good Psalms 34, eight. And why don't we read that all together?
And then we'll see if somebody wants to stand up and say it.
Psalms 34, eight.
Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusted in him.
Would you like to stand up and say it?
You're a brave girl.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else want to try? Would you like to try?
Blessed is man, blessed.
Trust.
Good. Thank you very much. Anybody else?
Am I missing somebody?
Would you like to say the verse for me? No, thanks. All right.
OK, here's 2 girls. Would you like to say the verse?
Good. Thank you.
I think you can see that the little.
Good. Thank you very much.
Oh, taste and see.
You know.
In my family, we like Mexican food.
So we're going to try out a new Mexican restaurant. We go and we order what's called a combination plate because there you can get some beans and some salsa and a chili relleno and a taquito and an enchilada, just about anything you want on this combination plate. And what do you think we do when we when it's served up and it's sitting in front of us? What do you think we do?
Yeah, we split it up and everybody.
Whether everybody puts their fork out and what do they do with it?
00:15:00
They taste it first. We taste it, don't we? We say, boy, those are good beans. Those are better than usual. And oh, that chili Reno that has good flavor, you see. And then after we've tasted the six or seven things that are on the plate, what do we do with that? What do we want to do? Then after we've decided they're all good, what do we do?
We be thankful. Yeah, that's right. And we are good for you.
And what do we do while we're being thankful?
We eat it all up, don't we? We found out it's all good and so we can eat it all and enjoy the whole plate.
And everybody finishes up.
Their plate and you know.
As parents, you know, we taste things and we want our kids to enjoy the same things that we enjoy. But you know, taste is personal. I have a boy in my family and and he just liked hamburgers.
And it's very hard to get him to taste anything that I enjoy outside of hamburgers.
And your parents want you to taste good things, so you know it's all good. And that's why they brought you here this morning, to taste and see one more little example of how good the Lord is to give us good things from His word and good friends and our cousins and our brethren happy times together.
How many people aren't having a happy time?
How many people are having a good happy time? I see lots of happy times going on, especially at lunchtime over there by the pond. Have you noticed that?
Yeah, lots of happy times. The Lord is good, isn't he? And our parents bring us to where the Lord is to give us just a little taste. So as we go through our life, we find out it's all good. Everything about the Lord Jesus is good. It's good to taste, It's good to eat, It's good to make our own.
So it's but it's personal that mom can't.
Taste the Lord for you can they? You've got to taste for yourself. You've got to. You've got to learn for yourself how good the Lord Jesus is. And how do we do that? How do we learn about the Lord Jesus?
We come to conference, and what do we do? We read the Bible, don't we? And we pray. And then we learn about the Lord Jesus when we learned that it's all good.
And it says one more word in this verse and we'll go on to something else. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him, you know, A man that trusts in the Lord is never disappointed. Did you know that?
And what does that word blessed mean? One of you girls tell me what blessed means.
Anybody know what blessed means? It's real simple. It means happy. That's all it means is happy. Everybody wants to be happy, don't they? We all want to be happy. This is the secret to being happy all of our lives, no matter what Rd. we take, if we take the Lord Jesus with us.
And we're counting on his love.
Will be happy.
Now, how many of us like to hear your stories?
Well, I have a few stories to tell. Three stories. They're all true stories. And you know, we were thinking about all the different roads that people take, and there are stories about roads.
And the love of God.
I mean, we can learn something from those stories you think? You know when we're over there by the pond, I see this little trail going off behind the the pond. I haven't been on it and you boys been over there.
Anybody curious about what goes on behind off that trail? I've seen some boys and girls over there. I see some heads going up and down.
It you see a trail like that and I want to go and see what's on that trail. That's that's what I Ever since I was a boy, I always wanted to know what was over the next hedge and and the next guy's backyard and and all those little paths around the house, I had to know where they all LED. And you know, I never got rid of that desire. I don't.
I think it's such a bad thing, really, but it can be exciting. Those little paths can have all kinds of little secret places to hide and interesting things to reveal and.
00:20:10
You know when we're driving up here and we we're driving through Nevada and and we're out in the middle of nowhere and I'm looking off and I see this, this road and it goes across the valley and it goes up a hill and it wraps around and it disappears and I'm looking at that.
But sitting next to me is my wife. And you know, she was born and raised on a farm where there was lots of dirt roads. And I don't think dirt roads excite her very well. And I'll look over at her and what do you think she's doing? You think she's going like this?
Or is she going like this?
She's always going like this. She's never said yes in 24 years of marriage.
She's gone. But.
Everybody knew she didn't want to go.
So one day I was working pretty hard, but I got off early at 3:00 and we had an appointment at 7:30 that night. And we live in a very interesting area, lots of dirt roads and lots of places to explore. So I got my son in the car and we went up to the mountains on the way to our appointment.
And we're driving along and guess what we saw?
Dirt road, and it was one of those roads that goes down in a valley.
And then it started up the hillside and it was a big mountain. The mountain is 6800 feet high. And then it disappeared.
And we looked at our watches.
And I looked at that road and I looked over at my son. What do you think he was doing? Do you think he was doing this?
Now he was doing that.
So we didn't have a problem between the two of us. We got off on that road and we started and we were started at the desert, very dry and barren and we wound our way up as far as the road you could see and pretty soon we disappeared around the corner. Nobody could see us and our cell phone stopped working and we were out of touch and we were all by ourselves. But you know as we kept going we weren't thinking about that. The landscape was changing and there was some nice big trees and some meadows and.
The view was beautiful and we just kept going and we come around in another corner and we think, OK, we'll go two more switchbacks and then we'll turn around and go back and so we'd go two more switchbacks and we'd get up there.
And then I'd look over at my son. What do you think he was saying?
Right. He was going like this. So then we'd say, OK, we'll do two more switch backs and but it kept getting more interesting. We came to some streams and some woods and so then we stopped and I looked over at my boy and what do you think he was doing?
So we kept going, and all of a sudden I looked at my watch.
Oh, no. We had gone 15 minutes too far and we could not possibly get back to our appointment at 7:30. And usually I call home when we're getting off the road and I let somebody that loves us know where we are because we could be any place and if we got lost or we had an accident, no one would know where we were. But I had forgotten to call.
So we were going to be late.
You know what we are late for?
The appointment. It was a prayer meeting.
We missed out on a prayer meeting. You know, I don't like to miss out on a prayer meeting. You know why?
We are at prayer meeting.
Or right in the presence of the Lord.
With those that we love all there right in the presence of God and and he is listening to us for good.
Very important as we get older not to miss the prayer meeting. Very important.
It's so reassuring to be there and know.
That the Father.
Is listening to us.
But there was we missed out on the prayer meeting, and also there was something we didn't really think about until we got home. And on the way home, my my cell phone battery stopped working.
00:25:09
And I'm a person. I tell my customers I'm the easiest person in the world to get.
All you have to do is call me and I answer.
And I always answer my cell phone, but it went dead and I couldn't get it charged. And it was 10:00 that night by the time we had finally wound our way down the hill and back to the house. And guess what we found when we got home?
We have three sisters and one wife and they were very upset.
We thought they didn't love us anymore.
But they did. It took a couple of days for them to realize it, but.
We were totally out of touch. There was number phones. No, no way to tell. My wife got out of the prayer meeting halfway and was frantically calling and trying to get me to answer. And no answer for a long time.
One more story. I'm going to tell them myself. And then we're going to, we're going to turn to the Bible. And you can think about this. There's a story about a boy.
In the Bible, and I think he lived next to one of these roads.
And as a boy, he looked at that road and he wondered where that road went.
And let's think about what that story might be. Maybe somebody, when I'm done with my next story, can tell me.
What story that is? I'm thinking about that boy, he got his eye on that road and he, as he grew up, he just kept wondering what was down that road.
But one more story about roads, because there's lessons in these roads. Another story, Just after I got my driver's license, we borrowed my buddies dad's van and we went out to the desert.
And it was hot. We camped overnight and then in the morning we weren't satisfied with being in the desert, but we went further out into the desert.
And we thought we were ready. We had some water with us and we had some shovels and we had some boards.
And we got way out in the middle of the desert, and guess what we saw?
A road going through the sand dunes up over and it was just too much to resist.
And we knew it was in sandy area, but it looked like it was packed down. Lots of vehicles had been over this road.
And had found their way over that hill.
And so we could see it was a little soft, but then as the road went up the hill, it looked harder and harder packing. So we got on the highway and it was just perfect because the highway dead ended right at that road. And so we got the car up to 70 miles an hour and we went jetting off of the Asphalt Rd. out into the sand. And we were just tooling along and I had my foot down the accelerator and the van was going faster and faster and faster. And all of a sudden I realized it wasn't going at all.
And it was. We got out and the medal of the.
Car was right on the sand. We had just gone right down into it. Oh, you know, we weren't in a hurry to do anything. So we got out our shovels and our boards and we started working. It's about 10:00 in the morning and we were determined there was a highway about a mile away, but we were determined we were going to get out on our own.
That's something we need to learn, children.
We're trusting in the Lord, we find out.
That we can't get out of things we cause a lot of problems for ourselves that we can't get out of on our own. I'm thinking of that verse in Psalms 50.
It says.
Call upon me in the day of trouble.
I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. That is a promise. You know, we forget, you know, sometimes. Once when I was a young purple upon me in the day of trouble. It doesn't matter. We didn't call on him yesterday. But when we're in trouble, he wants us to call on him. He loves us. He's just waiting to hear our voice. And you know, we should have gone for help. But we were pretty sure of ourselves and we worked. And all of a sudden I realized it was getting dark. We had worked all day in the sun trying to get that truck out of the sand.
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And we hadn't made but a few feet progress. It was like powder.
And so then we decided, uh oh, we hadn't seen any cars on that highway for a while. We'd better get going.
Because at night we were out in the middle of nowhere, cars might not even stop for us. So we we hiked all the way to the road and had to climb a fence. We got up on the road and there was no cars for as soon as we see a headlight coming and we got out on the road and we waved and the car went around us and pretty soon here comes another another car and we waved and this one pulled over and the car was all dark inside and the window went down and this gruff voice says, what are you boys doing out here?
And he started asking us all kinds of questions and we were kind of scared. He didn't sound very friendly. And then he turned on the Dome light and there was a 45 Colt pistol right on his seat when not in a holster. And it was ready to fire because he had used it before. But you know what? He was our rescuer. He was the boss of the Border Patrol, and he got on the phone.
On his walkie-talkie and he said we got some boys stuck and he named the place and apparently it was a pretty popular place to get stuck and everybody knew where it was and all of a sudden guess what happened? We were out in the middle of nor there was nobody around.
Thirty sets of headlights came out of the hills and surrounded our they had been there all day long. We just never had seen them. We hadn't called for help. If we had called for help at 10:00 in the morning, they were there then, too.
But we just didn't call. But when we call, guess what? They just came and they had special cords and we were out of there in no time flat, just like that. And that's what the Lord Jesus.
Can do for us. If we call on him when we get into trouble, he'll answer. He has those chords of love that can pull us out.
And keep us.
So.
This boy, this story in the Bible. Anybody have an idea about this story in the Bible?
It's a very important story.
Boy, and we have a name for him.
But as I'm thinking about it, I don't think he was ever called that name.
What we call him.
Yeah.
The prodigal son.
You heard the story of the prodigal son.
We don't have time to read it, but you know that boy he was growing up.
And he was in the father's house.
And he looked around in the father's house, and you know what he saw?
What do you think he saw when he looked around his father's house?
Good things, The Bible calls them goods. He saw a nice couch and he's had a nice bed and he had good food cooked every day. And he had a horse in the back, maybe, and some good things to do, and that's what he saw. He looked around. He said, boy, this is a pretty nice place to live.
And then outside of his house, there was that road. And as he grew up, he thought, you know, I've heard stories about what's on that road and and I wanted.
Follow that road.
See what's on down the road.
And you know what else? He thought? You know, if I could get some money out of my dad.
I wouldn't miss the nice furniture and the horse, because I could buy a horse and I could stop in a hotel and I could get myself a nice bed and I could stop at a restaurant and I could get good food and I'd be just fine. I can take by with money out there, just exactly what I've got here at my father's house.
Why not? He said. And so he started off. He got, he said, to his father. Father, give me goods.
And he took money from his father and he put it on his horse and away he went. And he went over the first rise and he disappeared. And I think he went so far and he stopped. And then he saw another Rd. He thought, wow, that road looks neat. And so he took that road and and he stopped again. And then he saw another road and and you know, I don't think he really intended.
00:35:21
To end up where he did. But you know what it says about where he ended up? He ended up in a.
Our country.
You know.
I've been coming to Walla Walla Conference for a lot of years, maybe 40-5 years, and I used to sit on the seats here at Sunday school and I had friends that I was with. But you know, some of those boys, I look back.
And I think they didn't know that the reason we were here was because the Lord Jesus loved us.
I think maybe.
They forgot.
Not what?
Attracted us to this place was the love of the Lord Jesus.
And so they took those roads. And you know, I've taken some of those roads myself and I've had to come back and maybe you'll take some of those roads, but we have to remember.
That the Lord Jesus loves us.
And he's the only one that can make us happy. That was what our verse was about, wasn't it?
And so he got to a far country, and pretty soon he ran out of money.
He didn't just budget it out, It says he wasted it. He spent way more than he should have until he was just out of money. And then he got hungry.
But you know, there was one Rd. that he hadn't paid attention to as he went away from his father's house. What road do you think that was? Anybody have an idea what that road was? One Rd. he didn't pay attention to that he hadn't noticed.
That's exactly right. The road to the Lord Jesus house. He hadn't noticed that there was a road back, that no matter where he went, he drew a line and right back down that road was the way back to the Father's house.
And it wasn't until he got real hungry and he thought, oh, at my father's house, there's goods there, there's goods there.
What did he find when he got to the father's house? There was something that he hadn't been missing out on all those years that he lived there.
What was it?
He had food, right? And when he got back to the father's house, the father fed him, didn't he? And he gave him those goods. But there was something else. The sun was missing out. And it's the theme of our Sunday School. What do you think it is?
Love. Exactly. He never realized until he got back that the father loved him the same as when he left. And you know, we call him the the Prodigal son.
And you know, I have a friend and he's got some sons and one of them is a prodigal son.
And you know, I never met those boys, but when he talks about his sons and I know the stories of their lives and.
But I don't really know them, so I don't associate the name exactly with the right person all the time. And and he talks about his boys and you know what, I can't tell when he's talking which one is the prodigal because he never says, you know, Joe Sam and the prodigal.
The prodigal has a name. He doesn't call him the prodigal. He calls him Joe, Sam and John or Joe, John and Sam and Sam, John and Joe and I get them mixed up because I don't know really which one is the prodigal until I think about it. That's a wonderful thing, isn't it? That in a father's heart, the prodigal still has a name and he still has love.
When he gets home, isn't that nice to know? And so let's remember we're on the road and we're all on a road. Everybody that leaves this meeting today is going to be start another step on their road. Two things.
On the road, let's learn to trust and the love of the Lord Jesus and as we get down that road.
00:40:06
Let's also remember, no matter what happens.
Love is what attracts us back.
To the place where we can enjoy the Father's love again and all those good things that he is happy to give us.
Let's see why. Why does the ocean, shall we? And maybe we know that other verse, the byways are fair. We can sing that too. How about that?
White, white as the ocean, high as the heavens of.
Deep and day as my saviors love.
I also unworthy.
Still am a child of his care for his word teaches me that his love reaches me.
Everywhere.
Wider than the ocean.
High as the heavens above.
Above that deep and sea.
In my favor.
I also wonder worthy.
Tell them, my child, of his hair, for his word teaches me that his son reaches me.
Everywhere.