Children—Tim Harkins
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Good morning. Welcome to the children's meeting.
Does anybody have a song that they'd like to start with? We uh, on the back of the hymn sheet we have.
Children's hymns and choruses that we can choose from this morning. Do you have one this morning? What number?
#44.
News of salvation We carried 30.
30.
Tell me again.
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
Umm.
I don't know. I haven't heard. I haven't seen anything.
And I am sure that he's asking him for me.
And I don't know.
How patience and so reignation are.
Nsnoise.
OK, who else? Raise your hand.
Which one number three?
#3.
There was still some room up here in the 2nd row. Come on up.
So we'd love to have everybody like to come up close to the front.
#3.
38 #38.
All right, good.
00:10:19
Very nice that him has to do with what's on my heart today. You had your hand up. Did you have a song?
#8 #8 thank you.
Let's close our eyes and look to the Lord for His help this morning.
Our God and Father with this opportunity to be here to have thy word open before us and we just thank you for each one of these young ones that we see here this morning. We thank you for their bright, happy faces and their sweet voices as they sing songs of thy beloved son. And we just pray for their souls. We pray that as they grow up and uh.
That they would recognize their need of a personal relationship, our Lord Jesus Christ.
That they would come to know him as their Savior while they're young. We ask for thy help this morning as they are verses and as we open thy word and and speak about it or just pray that.
I see it would have liberty to work and just commit the time today. Ask for thy blessing and the Lord Jesus name we pray, Amen.
So.
The verse this morning is in Proverbs chapter 27 and verse one says I I'm not going to have the ability to ask everyone to say their verse this morning, but we'll give a few of the opportunity to to say the reverse and umm, have a, a volunteer here. It looks like that.
00:15:14
We got it.
I think it might be on. Go ahead.
Good job. Anybody else?
Who's going to help tomorrow because I know it's not Wednesday evening report, probably 27 morning.
I have another one down here.
Very good, Very good too.
Very good.
Go to an example tomorrow and I will start with her days in any way, but I will be still in anyone. Thank you.
Nice to see so many ready volunteers.
Very good.
Proverbs.
Very good. Thank you. Anybody on this side?
Very good.
Very good.
There we go.
It will not take long to be another dinner on a Day in the world from Thursday in the World.
Thank you. Very good.
Well, I think that maybe thank you very much for offering, but I don't know that we have time to have everyone set. Thanks for learning it. And it's really important that every single one of you guys have committed this verse to your heart.
Is this uh?
Is this a verse that brings a smile to your face when you think about it?
It's a solemn verse, isn't it? The very solemn verse. It's a warning.
That God gives us in his Word.
So we can't take tomorrow for granted? I have no idea. But tomorrow we'll bring forth Return to James chapter 4. There's some more verses there that go along with this verse.
James chapter 4 and verse 13.
It says, Go to now you that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue their year, and buy and sell and get gained, or as you know not what shall be on tomorrow, but what is your life. It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanished it away, But that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we will live and do this or that.
So these verses remind us again that we have no promise.
Of tomorrow.
And that the Lord holds our very breath in his hand.
You know, recently there have been many examples of this verse.
And, uh, about a month ago, in the country of Nepal, there was an earthquake that struck and in moments.
Entire sections of cities were reduced to dust, and 8000 or more people are in eternity instantly. That's solemn.
About a week ago down in Texas.
There's a river called the Blanco River down there and, uh, there's, it's a very populated area, a lot of homes, especially vacation homes that are along the river there. And, uh, they had a thunderstorm, a significant one, and it started to rain and that general area very, very hard.
00:20:09
And I can't remember the exact numbers of how much rain was coming down, but that river swelled at a rate of 223 cubic feet per second. Uncle Steve Hall would have to quantify that. I don't. I can't even comprehend what that is. But it rose 26 feet in one hour.
And a lot of the people that lived along that river, their homes were washed away in that river. And when they went to bed that night, they had no idea, no idea that that rainstorm was going to be that significant. The last time that river had gotten a flood was in 19 twe. Well, not the last time I had a flood, but the last time I got really bad was in 1926 when it went up to 32 feet above its above its flood stage.
This time it got to 44 feet very, very quickly. And so people were not ready. They they had no idea that they were going to wake up in the middle of the night and there was gonna be water in their house. And the next thing they knew, their house would be floating down the river.
And so Scripture gives us a solemn warning, that we do not have any assurance of tomorrow, both not thyself of tomorrow, For thou knowest not but a day may bring forth.
So what that means is we need to have an insurance of eternity. We don't necessarily have any.
Way to predict tomorrow. You know, there was a man, umm, I read last week he predicted that there was gonna be an earthquake and, and, uh, California this last Friday.
It never happened thankfully, but there are a lot of people that think that they can predict what's going to happen the next day or maybe they they think that this will happen or that will happen. The scripture says both. Not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
And so.
There's another verse that says, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And that's what the Lord has given us. He has given us the opportunity right now.
To have our eternity secure in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Umm. And John, uh, I'm sorry, in the first epistle of John, chapter 5.
In verse 12.
It says, He that hath a son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. And so though we can't boast of tomorrow.
We can know with assurance that our eternity is secure if we know.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that is an imperative if we cannot if we cannot know for sure what is going to happen tomorrow.
We need to know where we're going to go for eternity. You know, I work in the fire service. I come into contact with people every day.
That have they, for the first time in their entire life, they are suddenly faced with a thought like the the thought occurs to them for the very first time that they may not see you tomorrow. The very solemn thing to see somebody and it's amazing to me.
That there are so many people that have no realization of the fact that they could be an eternity at any time. We have a tendency to think that we're impervious to death. We have a we have the thought that nothing can happen to me. The things that happen bad that we hear about in the news, they're happening to other people and therefore we're OK. But the reality is every single one of us.
Have a heart that can stop.
And we need to recognize the fact that our breath is held in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to know Him as our Savior. So when I talk about these things, it doesn't necessarily it's a solemn message, isn't it? But what I really had on my heart this morning.
00:25:02
But first of all, every single person here needs to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. You need to have the assurance of eternity since we cannot boast of tomorrow. And as I sit here and look at each one of these faces of these children in the in the front row here.
Fills my heart to see so many, and yet I hope that every single one of you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior so you know where you're going to go if the Lord calls you from this scene. But with all that said.
I don't want the message this morning to be so much. Maybe a negative side of things is to be afraid. I don't want you to be afraid. Does the Lord Jesus want us to be afraid? I'm going to ask you that question. Does anybody here think that the Lord Jesus wants us to be afraid?
Does anybody remember what the first verse of John, chapter 14, the chapter that we took up in the reading that this conference? Does anybody remember what that very first verse says and who said it?
Anybody remember?
That's Sir. Hang on just a second.
Mm-hmm.
Very good.
Thank you. Yeah. And there's another verse just a little bit later in the chapter that says the same thing again. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
The Lord doesn't want us to go around worried about tomorrow and what can happen.
He loves us enough to tell us.
And another verse that says passing all your care upon him, for he careth for you. He wants us to rest in the fact that he loves us.
And we can be assured that he's watching over us and every single thing that we do.
You know I'm gonna tell a story.
Umm, and it's, it's a story that umm.
I wouldn't normally, I don't like to tell stories about myself, OK, But this story I enjoy telling because it it gives the example of what we're talking about the of the Lord's care over us.
About 13 years ago.
I was at work and I was.
Umm, on a medic unit with another man and, uh, at the fire department and we got a call for a structure fire and my partner and I responded to the, to the address and there was smoke. We could see smoke as we were driving there. We could see smoke coming up above the tree. So we knew that there was an actual fire and we were the first ones to get there.
But on the medic unit, we don't carry hose or, or water or anything. We just carry the equipment that we have to, to be able to go in to the fire. And, uh, so we got there and we got all our equipment on and another engine arrived that had all the hose in the water and, umm, we were ready to go. And so we were assigned to go in and, and attack the fire and the fire as, as we were looking at the house, umm, the fire was in the back.
Kitchen, which was in the very back corner of the house, OK, we could see fire coming out of a window over there. And, uh, so we knew that that was the general area of the house that we were going to need to go. And, uh, so we went to the front door with our hose and, umm, opened the door and there was smoke all the way to the floor and there's this brown nasty smoke that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
But we knew the general area that the fire was. And so I took the nozzle and went into the smoke and went to the right and followed the wall down to the right, knowing that if I followed that wall, then I could hit another wall and move down. And eventually I'd find a doorway that would lead me into that back area of the house. And again, you can't see anything. And it was hot in there. And I crawled down and my partner was at the at the door feeding hose through the door.
And I called and crawled and crawled down, found the, the next wall and moved down that wall. And as I went down that wall, I expected to find a, an opening in that wall that would allow me to go through into the next room. And I, as I felt down the wall, I kept having my hose get tangled up in chairs and couches and things like that. And umm, so I'd stop and pull some more hose and, and keep working my way down. And I couldn't find the opening and not walk and couldn't find the doorway that I needed to find to get back into that back corner of the house.
00:30:18
And, uh, being young and inexperienced and, uh, having a sense of urgency about us, we didn't pay as close of attention to the conditions as we should have and.
Thankfully, as I was in there working my way around, there was other people, other fire engines and things showing up out in the front of the building and, uh, they noticed that the smoke started to change.
And the conditions and, umm, the smoke started to push out the door much more forcefully. And, uh, the color changed in the smoke. I couldn't see any of that where I was. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It was hot in there and I knew that, but it wasn't overwhelmingly hot. And I was so focused on trying to find that back area that I wasn't paying as much of attention as I should have to what was going on around me.
The, the people outside noticed and they said get out, you need to get out. And that's not what I wanted to hear because I was so focused on trying to get back to that area that was on fire that I wasn't really happy about being told to turn around and, and come back out of the building because I wanted to accomplish the job. I wanted to extinguish the fire. So I turned around and started coming back out calling, pulling my hose along with me and, uh.
They kept tangling up on those couches and stuff again and, uh, I kept having to move the furniture out of the way to, to bring the hose because we're trained, we never leave our equipment in the building because it would be destroyed. And uh, so.
As I'm working my way back out, my partner at the door is starting to get frantic and he's yelling in the door. Tim, get out now. And umm, so I'm, I said I'm working on it. I'm trying to pull my hose back and it's catching on all the chairs. And as I was crawling down the wall, umm, it had what's called wainscoting on the wall. It's like, uh, paneling that's made out of, uh, highly varnished wood.
And, umm.
As I was calling, there was a a big plate glass living room window right there and that window broke out and, uh.
Through the little bit of light that came through that window, I noticed that the that the paneling on the wall was starting to smoke.
That's really bad. It's a really bad sign. And so I kind of accelerated a little bit down that wall, and as I turn the corner to crawl out the door, there was this sound and the entire inside of the house ignited the entire thing.
And the flames shot out the front door, over the top of my head, and out through the porch and up on the other side just as I crawled out the front door.
Had I been 10 seconds later or less, I would have been incinerated as it ignited.
It's an unsurvivable condition called a flashover, and I told that story doesn't speak very well with me, but it speaks of my savior looking out.
And I want to read a few verses about that.
The first one is in Deuteronomy chapter 30.
I'm sorry, Deuteronomy chapter one.
And verse 30.
Deuteronomy chapter one and verse 30 it says the Lord your God which goeth before you.
He shall fight for you.
Verse 31 And in the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bear thee, as a man doth bear his son, and all the way that ye went, until you came unto this place.
00:35:14
You know the Lord cares about us very deeply.
And.
He, more than we know, watches over us.
And provides for our safety.
I tell that story because it's one of those stories that I will remember for the rest of my life of the Lord's loving care of me.
And I'm sure everyone in this room, especially the older ones, have stories that they could tell of the Lord's tender loving care of them.
And so though we have this verse that gives us a solemn warning that says, boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what the day may bring forth, we can also, if we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we can know that he's watching over us and he's burying us as a man to bear his Son.
He's carrying us on this way, and as we're in this wilderness, we have the blessing of seeing how the Lord carries us through these times.
You know, umm, in Romans chapter 8 there's another verse there.
Romans 8, verse 28 it says, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose. And down to verse 31 Says, What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with them also freely give us all things?
So that's the message that I wanted to make sure that we presented this morning was the fact that there's no reason for us to be afraid of tomorrow and the Lord doesn't want us to be afraid of tomorrow. He said in John 14 twice, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. And in second Timothy chapter one, the apostle Paul tells Timothy when they returned to it. So I don't misquote it.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
He says in verse seven, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind, and so the message that.
We have this morning is that you would recognize the love of God for you, and you would rest in that love, and you would have a peace that passeth all understanding, knowing that though you cannot boast of tomorrow, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you can rest in assurance of eternity and recognize that in His love He will carry you on the way.
Let's just commend ourselves.
Our God and Father, we thank thee for.
A word we thank Thee for the the solemn mourning that we have in the verse this morning, and we just trust that there would be none in this room.
That have not yet come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. They just pray that they would be exercised as to the warning that thou has given, and that they would turn to Thee before it's too late. They thank Thee too. For the message of love, we thank Thee.
That Thou hast carried us through this way, recognizing our dependence upon Thee and our our need of of thy tender loving care. We just pray that each one of these little ones would come into the knowledge of Thy love and have the peace that's associated with recognizing that it's our carrying them.
Every step of their way. And so we just, uh, commit the rest of the day to thee and thank you for that goodness to us, our God and Father and the Lord Jesus name we pray, Amen.