Children—Tim Ruga
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Good morning.
Nice to see some of the children up front.
Be nice to see more. Any other little ones come on up?
Good, let's start this morning by singing #42 on the back of our hymn sheets so you don't even have to open it right in the Backpage #42 And if you can't find it, it's OK, I think you know it.
A little child is 7 or even 3 or 4.
A little child of seven, or even 3 or 4.
They enter into heaven through Christ.
Heart disease.
I'm surprised.
At the fall of the Greens signing in the rest of the day and I'm we're not, we're not, we're not overhead, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
Now let's ask the Lord for his help right at the beginning of this meeting. We'll pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that we can be together, beginning of the Lord's Day. And two, speak about the Lord Jesus to the little ones that are here. And we thank you that those of us who are older can think about him too. We pray that I would bless this time and that the Lord Jesus.
Would receive honor and glory as a result of it. We pray for each one of the little ones who are here. We pray that thou had reached their hearts and that each one of them would make that decision for him. And so we asked this in his name and for His glory. Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Now, we'll probably sing a little bit more in a minute, but I want you to listen to.
2 verses.
And tell me what the difference is between them, I'll quote them.
OK Matthew 18 and verse 11.
Says for the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
OK, now here's the next one, Luke 19 and verse 10.
Where the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Now, who of the young ones here heard the difference between those two verses?
OK.
Yes.
So to speak, what's the difference?
Good. The one verse that said the Son of Man has come to say that which is lost and the other says to seek and to save. And I'm just mentioning that right at the beginning of the meeting because you know something, 24 hours ago there was a little boy out West Vancouver, WA or Vancouver, BC.
Who?
Was healthy.
And, well, just like little ones who are here, And his parents were happy with him. And you know, it's not that way right now. He's still alive from what we heard, but he's not expected to live. We heard about him yesterday. This little boy fell into water and he drowned. And although he's still alive yet, he's probably going to pass away in a short time now.
I've mentioned that because it's very sad.
This little boy is no longer able to be like you and I. This little boy is now just about to die, in all likelihood. And you know, his grandparents were with us here yesterday and they laughed and they flew. And his grandma, who was here with us is now out there with the parents, that little boy, and they're expecting that.
This boy will be gone. So they're grieving. They're very sad. But you know that verse, the first one we read in Matthew 18 says the first one that we spoke about says that the Son of Man has come to save that which is lost. And that boy was young. I believe that if he dies, he will be with the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus loved him, came to save him, but.
00:05:11
With you children, it's different.
The other verse is the reason why we're here today, because the Lord Jesus didn't just come to save the lost ones. He had to come to seek some of those ones, and he came to seek you. And I think some of you know the Lord Jesus, but I don't know about all of you. And so today, as we have this Sunday school, we're going to speak about him because that's the most important thing.
More important than anything else that you know.
The Lord Jesus yourself.
So we're going to speak about him, but first of all, does anybody know the verse?
I think some still learn the memory verse.
Anybody here know it?
It's a conference and maybe no need to say it, but at least somebody does. OK, good. Where is it found?
Very good. Can you say it?
Jeremiah 3134 I will forgive their inequity, and I will remember their sin no more Share my 31 I won't forget there and put it in and I will.
OK, go ahead.
Very nice. OK, you wanna say it too?
Very nice. Is anybody else? Hey, Daniel.
Very nice. OK, Is there anyone else who wants to say it? OK.
Very good so far. Perfect. You want to say it?
OK.
OK.
OK, is there any query?
And we'll remember this then.
No more.
OK, how old are you?
She's 2:00 and you're going to show me on your fingers, right? OK, very good.
So here we have, two years old.
I think the same age as that little boy.
But right around that age, maybe three or four as we sang in the ham, you can understand something about the Lord Jesus.
And so that's why we speak about him. You know, this verse in Jeremiah speaking to a people from a long time ago, and the Lord is saying something wonderful to them. He's saying I will.
Forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now I don't know if you remember, but last night in the gospel, her brother.
Gave another verse to us and it was from Isaiah 59. I just want to go back and look at that verse.
Isaiah 59 and verse two it says, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. Now it's speaking about these same two things, inequities.
OK, iniquities are those really bad things that we do, And sins are everything, everything that's wrong.
And he says here in this verse that our brother quoted to us last night, that our iniquities have separated between us and our God.
And their sins have hit his face. Now here we have the verse telling us that the cause of sins and iniquities were separated from God. But in our memory verse we said we found that He will forgive.
How can we put these two things together?
One says because of sin we're separated from God. The other says that God will forgive.
00:10:00
Do you know how we can put that together?
First of all, do you know that you're a Sinner?
Center.
Yeah, me too. We're all sinners. And sometimes we like to say, well, we're all sinners and we take refuge in that.
But.
The thing is, are you a Sinner?
Have you ever asked that question? Am IA Sinner myself before God? I know everybody is a Sinner, but am I a Sinner?
And of course that answer is yes. And this is the whole point that we need to come even when we're young and understand that we're sinners before God.
And so when we know that and we know from the Word of God as we have in our memory verse that this forgiveness, the question is how? And we're going to talk about that today. But I just want to go to one verse in Acts chapter 10. And then after that, I want to talk about a story from the Word of God and then a story that happened in Africa. And I want to try to bring out some of these things. So Acts chapter 10.
Acts Chapter.
10 In verse 43 it says to him, Give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive permission of sins, and that big word remission means forgiveness.
The verse is saying that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ receives the forgiveness of their sins, and so that's how we get from one verse to the other that our sins have separated us from God.
Yeah, God is willing to forgive, but we have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to receive the forgiveness of our sins. And I'm just saying that simply at the beginning of this Sunday school, just to make sure the gospel is clear and we all understand it. And we're going to go on now and we're going to speak about some other things. We have just about half an hour. And so I want to go to a store in the Old Testament, and you've probably heard it before.
It's found in First Kings chapter 18.
And for the sake of time, we probably won't read much of this.
But this is the story about.
Elijah and the prophets of Baal. And there are many, many things we could talk about from this story, but I want to speak about two simple things #1.
We need to make a decision.
And we need to make a decision very soon for the Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't enough to hear about these things that we're talking about and just walk away and say I will do this later. No, we need to hear it. And we need to make a decision to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ right now. And it's very important. So that's the first point I want to make. And the next point I wanna make is that trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is done when we hear the word of God and we simply believe what God has said.
We're going to find as we go through this story that a great miracle was done.
And miracles don't save people. And so I want to tell you a story about that as well.
First of all, here in First Kings.
Chapter 18 we have this story where it begins around verse 19 and I'm going to tell the story. But here we had a a time in Israel when God had people who were disobedient.
Now some of them had faith, but of the ones that we read about in this chapter, very, very few had faith. And there are three different groups of people in this chapter. One, there was a man named Elijah and he was a prophet of the Lord.
He served the Lord, He knew the Lord, He had faith.
And the second one was there was umm, there were these men, 450 of them, who had no faith at all. They were wicked men and they served a false God named Vale.
OK, you know, there are people today in this world who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, They don't know our God, but they know other gods and they serve those gods. They worship them. Right now, today people worship other gods, and all of those gods are false gods. And the people who worship those gods, they are all going to end up.
00:15:15
In a lost eternity, that means hell.
Forever. But it's not only them who are going to end up in hell. Everyone who doesn't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will end up in hell. And that's why we're here today.
It's very important that you young ones hear the gospel and everyone who is here that we hear the gospel and that we understand what God is saying to us. There's nothing more important for us as men and women and children on earth and hear what God says and believe him because the only alternative is.
That God must punish sin, and that will happen in hell forever. And so these wicked men, they were prophets of this idol called Baal, and God's people had turned away from the Lord, and they were serving this idol called bail.
And these men were helping them do it. And so Elijah speaks to the people and I want you to hear what he says. In verse 21. It says Elijah came to all the people and said, how long do you halt between two opinions?
In other words, they were, they couldn't decide. He says if the Lord is God, follow him. If fail, then follow him.
You know what the people said?
They didn't say anything because they didn't know what to do.
OK, I'm going to tell you something that happened about a week ago. Maybe you've seen this too. I was driving down the road.
And we're heading to meeting, actually. And that's where you're going on the road. We saw there in front of us a squirrel. Have you ever seen this happen?
Well, the squirrel was right in the middle of the road and it wasn't a good idea. He was looking at us.
And the squirrel, first he went this way, and then the squirrel went this way, and then he went this way. And then I don't know what he did. Everybody in advance said, oh.
And then we turned around to see and confirm what we already knew.
I know I don't know what decision that squirrel made, if he even made a decision.
But this much I know.
If you made a decision, he didn't make it in time.
Mr. Squirrel was dead.
Now you know nobody likes it when an animal dies.
None of us like that. We felt bad for this girl. But you know, when he was dead, he was just sad. It was over. There was nothing left. There was no more suffering for that squirrel. But it's not true for you.
It isn't true for us.
If you understand what I'm saying, if you understand that you're a Sinner, you're not like that squirrel. Doesn't matter what they tell you in school, you're not like that squirrel.
It says in Hebrews 9 verse 27 it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment.
And so that's why these things are so important and God's people here.
They weren't real in their hearts and so they were listening to what Elijah said and he said, don't stop and don't wait. Don't be like that squirrel saying, which way should I go? You need to make up your mind and you need to make up your mind to follow the Lord. That's what we're saying here today.
You're young.
And even if you're not young here, you need to make up your mind, and you need to make up your mind to follow the Lord.
And if you don't, there's coming a time When it's over, there's no longer a chance to make up your mind.
And so the people didn't say anything. You know why they didn't say anything?
Because they knew in their head, yes, it's right we should follow the Lord, but their hearts wanted something else.
There was something else that attracted them.
Nsnoise.
And Satan is working even now at your age to take your heart away and attract you with something else. And he will tell you there's time later on when you can go and you can follow the Lord. But that's not true. You need to make up your mind today. So let's go back to our story.
00:20:09
First Kings 18 and we find that.
Elijah told those men.
He said here's what we're going to do. We're going to set up an altar to your God and we'll put up one to the Lord. It was actually there and all broken down because it hadn't been used.
And we're going to call first on your God.
For him to come and send fire from heaven to offer his sacrifice.
And so they agreed to that. And those men, 450 of them, they prepared the sacrifice and they started, you know, just maybe about this time of day, I don't know, in the morning and for hours, they called on this veil. Hear us.
All the way up until noon.
And when it got to be noontime, Elijah said, oh, nothing's happening here. Maybe your God's asleep, or maybe he's gone away on a journey.
And so they started to cry out even louder and louder. They even began to cut themselves with knives and it was terrible. And this went on right through the whole afternoon until it got to be evening time.
And nothing happened. And so Elijah.
He then had his chance to call on the Lord.
And before he did, I think you know the story. What did he do? He got water, right? Yeah, he got water. He got lots of water. And he poured it out on the wood and on the sacrifice and on the rocks of the altar and around the altar. And he poured this water everywhere so that there would be no question that this is going to be a miracle from the Lord.
And then he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord sent fire from heaven. That fire came down, and it burned up that sacrifice. It burned up the wood, It burned up the water.
It burned up the rock. Everything. It was destroyed.
Todd answered and he did such a mighty miracle there that day. But this is the part I want you to hear. Listen to what we have next.
First Kings 18.
And verse 39 says when all the people saw it.
They fell on their faces and they said.
The Lord. He is the God. The Lord he is the God.
They acknowledge who is the God.
These people saw something great. Now what do you think they did?
They said, yeah, this is the right one. It's not bail, it's the Lord.
Did they believe on him?
I'll ask another way.
If you saw a great miracle.
I suppose you saw a great miracle happen, would you believe, on the Lord?
OK, you don't have to answer me, but I'm going to tell you that my answer would normally be yeah, I think I would, but the Bible says no.
God doesn't work that way. He does miracles and he uses them for his purpose.
But believing is not by miracles, it's by the word of God.
And that's why we preach the word of God.
These people said, yes, this is the right one, the Lord is God. But you know what happens if you keep on reading? You find that those people did not turn to the Lord. They just went back and worshipped other gods again. Their hearts were not changed. They never made that decision.
They remain like that squirrel and there came a time when there was no longer a chance for them to make a a decision. Their life was over and that can happen to us.
Now I want to tell you something that happened in Africa.
You know, there was a time.
When I went to a place in the far South of Malawi and there was a whole group of people there who called themselves Christians, quite a large group, and they asked us to come there and to teach the word of God. And we were glad to do that. So we went down there to teach the word of God. And when we came to that place we found all these people gathered together and they started to speak to us, they said.
00:25:14
You know, it's very bad here. We haven't had rain for a long time. If you go back and read First Kings 18, you find there's some similarities.
But they said there hasn't, it hasn't rained here for a long time and our crops are dying and we don't know what to do.
So I said, well, you think it's not going to rain? They said, no, the way the weather is, it's not going to rain for a long time.
I said, well, what have you done about it? I asked him.
Now, what do you think Christians should do if they are in trouble?
What?
What do you think?
Yeah, same answer. Are you gonna say prank? Yeah. It should be the first thing, right? That comes to our mind. If we're in trouble, we know who to go to, don't we? And we should tell the Lord about our trouble and ask him. So I asked them. I said, well, did you pray about this?
Hear what they said they said no we didn't. I said, well I would think that's the first thing we should do is pray and ask the Lord.
I said Oh yes, that might be a good idea.
And so we went, and we got together and we started to pray, and we all prayed, and we asked the Lord to send rain.
And we prayed that whole morning.
And we asked everybody who was there, prayed and asked the Lord.
And then we went and we had some lunch in the afternoon. We started to have some of the teachings. And now let me tell you what happened. As we started to teach, we had to take our Bibles because, you know, they don't have a roof like this. They have a roof that it just has grass on it and it's mainly meant to keep the sun off. But we had our Bibles and we had to have our Bibles like this and lean right over them because if we didn't have our Bibles underneath of us, they would get wet.
You know why?
Because it was raining and it was raining hard.
And those people were listening. They were impressed. Wow. We just prayed and a miracle happened. And it was a miracle too. And they knew there wasn't going to be rain for a long time, according to the weather. They know their weather.
But we were getting soaked.
And so we had those meetings and lots of rain, and then we left and we came back the next day. And the next day it was so wet we could hardly get to that place. All the ground was mud everywhere. And the people just couldn't believe it. Wow.
Such power God has.
But I want to tell you the next part of this story.
A little bit later we found out something about these people.
We found out that none of them were Christians. We didn't know it. Not a single one of them was a Christian. They told us they were.
But we found out that none of them had trusted in Christ. Well, it's no wonder you said, well, we should pray, right? And this didn't occur to them because that wasn't what they were. Christians pray, we asked the Lord. And sometimes it may not occur to someone to pray. The greatest needs you have right now is your sins if you haven't accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. And maybe you've never thought to pray.
You don't know how bad that is. You don't know what danger you're in, but you're dangerous. Awfully great.
You could die and then go off into a lost eternity in hell.
And yet all you need to do is pray and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and ask Him to be your Savior.
And all of the trouble is over.
Well, there's a happy ending to this story, at least for some of those people. You know, years later, after going there for many times and preaching the gospel in that place, there were some brothers who went there and preached the gospel.
One of them is here today, not me and those people.
Some of them heard it.
And they listened to the gospel.
And they got saved.
At least two of them that I know of are saved.
00:30:03
And so a great miracle happened. They turned to the Lord. The others, as far as I know, right to this day, they're still lost. They've never accepted the Lord Jesus. They saw the power of God. You know what the other people were doing in the village at that time? They were actually going out and offering sacrifices to their ancestors. Many people were doing that and it wasn't working.
It was very clear. Here was these false ways that man had, and here was the true God. And we went to the true God and we asked him, and he made a miracle happen that day. That was absolutely clear, but it didn't change any heart.
And you know.
God is not going to speak to you through a miracle.
But He is going to speak to you through His Word. And some of you children, you've already heard the Word. But I want to go and see this again. Let's turn to John chapter 12, if you have a Bible.
In John chapter 12.
At the end of the chapter.
Near the end of the chapter it says in verse 37 speaking about the Lord Jesus. Here it says, but though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believe not on him.
We're here right at the very end of the life of the Lord Jesus on earth, before he went to the cross.
And he had proved every way that he could that he was the Son of God and had all power, and he had done so many miracles. And these men and these women saw them.
But if this is what it says at the end of all that.
Even though he had done so many miracles, yet they believed not on him.
And so that is not the way men and women believe. You know, if you were to turn to Luke chapter 16, you read there about a story of a man.
There's a poor man named Lazarus, and then there was a rich man in that story. I think most of you have heard this before, and you remember they both died. And it says about that rich man in hell, he lifted up his eyes and he was in torment, right?
And he was saying, oh, this place is awful.
And the one thing that he really didn't want to happen is he didn't want his brothers to come here. He says, OK, so here I am. Now I know what this is like.
But I don't want my brothers to come here. And so he asked Lazarus, the other one who died, who was the poor man who went to heaven. He asked that Lazarus could be allowed to go back and speak to his brothers and war and his brothers.
So that they wouldn't come to that place. And do you know what he was told?
He was told this. He says no, they have Moses and they have the prophets.
Let them hear them.
In other words, they have the word of God. Let them hear the word of God.
If they will not hear them, they will not be persuaded, even though 1 rose from the dead.
Even if there was a great miracle like that, they won't believe.
OK, now that's the story the Lord Jesus told, and then he went and proved it. Because if you read in John Chapter 11, the Lord Jesus actually took another man named Lazarus and raised him from the dead.
And he?
Showed everybody who was there in Jerusalem look, this is the power. I am the one who can raise some to death. Do you think those people believed?
No, they didn't believe. In fact, you read a little bit later in John Chapter 11, you find out that those people went about to kill Lazarus.
And then they went to kill the Lord Jesus.
That's because they had no love in their heart for him. There was no faith. They didn't believe what God had said through that one.
00:35:00
Imagine that. Imagine somebody thinking, well, I'm going to kill Lazarus, who had just been brought back from the dead. What a foolish effort, where I'm going to kill this one? Who raises people from the dead? Who's the power over death? Imagine people thinking they're going to kill someone who's got power over death.
Foolish. But this is what people do. And you say I'm not that foolish.
And probably you're not. Young ones here tend not to be as foolish as older ones.
But you have the chance right now, before you become that foolish, to listen to what the Lord says and believe the gospel. Have you done that? Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
If you haven't and you go away from this Sunday school today, then you too are that foolish. You're playing around with your life. I want you to hear something else that the Lord said. John, Chapter 5.
John chapter 5 verse.
24 and 25 We'll read those two. Verse 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent Me hath everlasting life.
And shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Have you heard the word of God today? And will you believe Him? Look at verse 25.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.
You know who the dead are.
The dead is everyone who has entrusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. Yet one time I was dead.
That's what the verse is talking about. Dead and trespasses and sins.
And he says those that hear the voice of the Son of God will live. And this morning we are speaking the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke those words and he meant them and he went to the cross and he gave up his life at the cross because of your sins. That's the rest of the gospel. This is how our memory verse is true that God could forgive.
Our sins and our iniquities, and remember them no more, because the Lord Jesus Christ paid the penalty of those sins for all those who believe on Him.
And so this morning, if you will hear the voice of the Son of God, you will live.
And Sunday school is just about to end. And before this meeting ends, if you haven't prayed to the Lord Jesus and asked Him to save you from your sins and trusted in His work on the cross, you can do it right now. And you need to do it right now. Don't keep waiting between two opinions. Well, I'll do it later, but right now I have time for myself, no?
You need to make that decision right now, this morning. Don't even let an hour go by.
And the Lord Jesus will be your Savior too. Now let's just sing another hymn. If anybody has a hymn from the the Backpage.
Will take and not 45 because that's not in all of our hymn books.
OK.
46 good. OK that's thing #46.
Glad TIDIN.
IA.
N.
Because I I I don't know if you need to give me anything.
And he saw that he saw.
Him and he didn't want that to be a couple of times I have to do it.
OK. Anyone else?
OK.
00:40:02
On the back.
#40.
Look at it. 41 OK, very good #41 around the throne of God in heaven. Well, many children sing, and this is true, and a thought that just delights so many of our hearts. But what we want is that every one of the children and older ones will be there singing around that throne, and very soon when the Lord comes and takes us home. 41.
Around the throne of.
The.
Grandmother and I didn't play anything, but I didn't get anything, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
OK, good. We have time for one more.
43 OK.
One door and.
A big star? I believe so. I'm seeing 110 and it's 100.
Oh my God, I don't think it's time I'll give you.
Which side are you on?
I put you on the spot. Very good. Well, I trust we're all on the inside.
Let's just commit this time to the Lord God and our Father, we.
This would pray that the word that was spoken here would find its way into the hearts and minds of each one. We thank You so much. It's how has spoken to us and that we know Thy word. We know words of life. We know the Savior and His salvation, that mighty work that was done at Calvary's cross. We thank Thee so much that Thou has forgiven us our sins and that we are now.
Thy children by faith.
We rejoice in that and we just desire that it should be so in the heart and the lives of each one who are here. And so we commit this time to the end. We continue to pray for the ambos and their family as they go through this very difficult time. We pray that I would be with them and help them and encourage them every step of the way. And so we just would pray these things and ask them with Thanksgiving in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.