Children—John Kaiser
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I'm not technologically oriented, sorry.
When I was a boy, there was a particular song that I used to listen to every Sunday morning, every Lord's Day morning, almost every Lord's Day morning for a number of years, and I associate it with the Lord's Day.
That's a nice way to start. So I'm going to start singing it and then you can.
Join in heavenly sunshine.
Jesus is my blessed Lord.
Blessed Lord Jesus.
Thy face I'll see, you know, my memories getting a little rusty and I'm not sure I did it right all the way through.
So maybe somebody later on can refresh my memory, but this you know this morning.
Every one of us.
Is under the sunshine of God's love. The Bible tells us that God is love and He loves every person. He loves every person in this room, whether you feel it or not.
Now let me ask you a question. I want a child to answer this.
Do your parents love you while you're sleeping?
I see a head knot here, of course. Do you feel it then? Are you aware of their love when you're asleep?
Oh, that's remarkable.
I think most of us are not pretty well unaware when we're asleep, but the the love of God is a constant.
And that's why we're here this morning, because God loves us.
If God didn't love us, we wouldn't be here.
This is a provision. The Sunday school this morning is a provision of God's love. All right, now let's sing some songs from the hymn sheet. And most of the children's songs are on the Backpage, but I'll tell you if someone wants to raise their hand and make a suggestion, we'll consider anything. All right, what number?
Now #10 the.
That's #41 in this hymn sheet. OK, thank you.
Well, let's see if it. Let's see if #41 sounds like #10 to you #41.
Is.
Oh Jesus, around the throne of God in heaven, Yes, that's.
Good.
Around the throne.
Glory, glory, glory, glory.
To God.
How about another choice?
#46.
All right.
Glad.
And.
Give us all.
Day. Now in the first line of this hymn, there's a big word.
TIDINGS. What does that word spell?
Tidings. I heard someone say that what does tidings mean?
Good news. OK, I'm, you know, I don't mind people calling out because I don't see very well. And if you raised your hand, I know that if the boys and girls in the front row raise their hand, I can probably see it most times. But so I don't mind you calling out in this particular case. I really appreciate it. Good news.
Good news, and it's always good news, good tidings I bring Good news. I bring that Jesus has come to save me.
You know I have known the Lord Jesus as my Savior for about 70 years.
And I'm so glad I came to him when I was a small child.
And we hope that every child here this morning will trust the Lord Jesus.
That Jesus has come to save me and he calls, and he calls all the girls, all the girls, and he wants all the boys.
Too.
I've heard some people say well.
I don't want to invite this person to my party or I don't want this person to come to my house or I don't want to play with this person.
Do you know God loves?
Everybody never doubt that.
Never doubt it, everything depends on the character of God.
Everything depends on what God is. We tend to look at things in life according to how we are, how we act, how we feel, but everything depends ultimately on God.
The Bible begins with these words in the beginning.
God, that's where everything starts. Everything depends.
On him and then upon how we respond to him.
So he wants all the boys to to trust in Him and have all their sins now washed away. All right, got time for another one or two songs.
00:10:06
OK, OK. What number?
#5.
Garden. Excuse me?
Oh, happy day. All right, That's when we often sing in the Sunday school.
Oh, happy day.
And continues as far as my sins away.
Transactions done. I am blind.
It drives me out and I followed. All life should come back.
My sins away. You know, whenever we sing this song in a Sunday school, I like to talk about this chorus here because I told you that I received the Lord Jesus as my Savior when I was very young.
About 70 years ago.
But I remember sitting in Sunday school and seeing this chorus, and I was a little bit older, maybe eight or nine, and it says he taught me how to watch and pray and live rejoicing every day.
Are you always happy? You know, there's no nobody here that's I don't think there's anybody here that is actually happy all the time.
Though we can live rejoicing every day. But you notice it says here he taught me how to watch and pray and live rejoicing every day.
The Lord Jesus, when he saves us, we are saved immediately. But then there's things we have to learn, and teaching takes time.
00:15:09
And so some of you are in school and you're looking forward to spending 12 years in school, maybe more. That seemed like a long time.
Because it takes time to learn things. Now suppose you went to school and didn't listen to the teacher.
How would that work?
If you go to school and don't listen to the teacher.
Who can tell me?
Would you learn well? No. I see somebody shaking her head. No, he wouldn't learn well.
So you need to spend time listening to the Lord Jesus. He taught me how to watch and pray. If you want to be taught by the Lord Jesus, spend time in His word. Spend time with Him. It takes time to learn.
All right, we have time for one more short one.
I haven't heard from a boy. Oh yeah, recently. So other boy there, yes.
Is there a boy that has a choice?
Yes, Sir.
What number?
26.
26.
All right.
All right, we'll sing the first verse and the chorus of #26.
There is life.
Life.
Until they're given and it's saying on to the bill to watch them.
This moment for thee. Just think about that.
You're sitting in your seat.
If you wanted a cookie right now, you think you'd get it right now.
Not likely.
But if you want salvation right now, you can have it right now.
There is life in a look at the crucified one. There is life at this moment for thee. Now let me ask you, are you saved this morning? Are you sure you're saved? Are you sure you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you sure you're going to heaven?
You need to be sure. God wants you to be sure. Now let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this time here this morning. We acknowledge our need of your help.
As we consider your word, consider a message from yourself to our hearts.
Father, we ask, and we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who came to die for us.
And who lives for us now? We ask your blessing in Jesus name, Amen.
All right.
Next item on the agenda.
How many of you seen this before?
In this there was a memory verse. This is the paper that was probably handed out in your Sunday school, some of you anyway, last week, and there was a memory verse in it. How many memorized the memory verse?
Good. Would you like to start by saying it?
Very good.
Once you go down the row here, anybody next one you want to say it?
To give.
OK, very good.
00:20:09
OK, very good.
Very good. By the way, if you're wondering why I'm standing so close so that you can the mic can pick up your voice.
I know the past that I think George and say it says no.
Very good.
OK.
Good.
Go ahead.
Thoughts of peace.
Very good.
You want to try? No. OK. OK. Anybody else? How about this side here?
No, I don't want to miss anybody. I remember when I was young and learned a verse and didn't get a chance to say it. I was disappointed because learning a verse takes some work. So if I'm if I'm missing somebody, somebody let me know.
I don't want to miss anybody.
All right, now this is a wonderful verse. It's a long verse. I commend you who learned it. This is a longer verse than usual, and I don't recall ever in my life seeing this in the Sunday school paper before this particular verse, but it's a wonderful verse. It says this is God saying, I know the thoughts that I think toward you. Now if we want to know God's thoughts.
How do we know God's thoughts?
You know, God is great and he's in heaven and we have these, we think we have thoughts.
How do we get God's thoughts in our minds?
How do we know God's thoughts?
How can we know God's thoughts?
Somebody can answer that?
I'll give you a hint.
Yes.
By reading the Bible and some of you maybe can't read very well, you can listen these this very verse is what some of God's thoughts God says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you. Do you know why God said that Because we like to think our own thoughts and we often think wrong thoughts about God because we think based on how we feel.
And our experience, and maybe God isn't in a lot of our experience.
Maybe we haven't recognized God in our experience and so we tend to think.
Wrong.
We tend to think wrong. I remember many times I have been going down a road and I realized.
I was wrong, I thought I was right and things just didn't look right as I went and I started to stop and get directions and look at a map and get my thoughts changed. God says I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace. You know, peace is a wonderful thing.
We like to have peaceful homes and peaceful lives. Do you ever think about having peace with God?
Let me ask you a question.
Would you like to go to meet God this morning?
Would you like to go? If you have peace with God, why not?
What did you want to say?
Oh good.
I'll tell you something very often I tell the Lord, Lord, if you want to Take Me Home today, I'm ready. I want to go. I have peace with God. I know that. You know, if there's no peace with God, there's no, there's no place in heaven. You can't go to heaven if there's no peace with God. But I have peace with God. The Bible says we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
00:25:27
So it says here, God says, I know the thoughts, I think toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you.
An expected end.
Now I want to talk about ends this morning.
That's what I really want to talk about.
An expected end, something that we expect is something we anticipate. We look forward to.
And you know, I remember one time I was riding my bicycle.
This was on a Sunday afternoon and I was still on my Sunday go to meet and close. I went out after lunch and got on my bicycle and took a bicycle ride and.
While I was riding I hit a bump and my front wheel fell off and that was the end of my bike ride. Was that an expected end?
No, I wasn't expecting that at all. And I went right over the handlebars and probably did a somersault on the road and messed up my pants. And of course I had to carry the two pieces of bicycle home.
A few blocks. That was not an expected end. That was the end of that bike ride. That was not an expected end, but I want to talk about.
An expected end, and this involves something that's in this book here, so.
We're going to talk about.
Who can tell me what this says?
OK, we got one person here. It's not bashful, all right?
Your future. You know, all of us have a future.
We all have a future, you know, every time we take a breath, we're stepping into the future. We all have a future. Everyone of us has a future now. It may not be as long as we expect it to be. It may not be what we expect it to be. Like I said, I took that bike ride and I thought I had a future of a nice.
Ride I wasn't expecting my front wheel to come off my bicycle, but we all have a future. We all have time in front of us. So I'm talking about our future now.
Your future. There's things in your future we don't know, and we don't know everything in your future, but we're going to talk about some of the things that may be in your future.
So let's turn the page here.
What's that say?
Yes, let's have fun.
People say what is that got to do with Sunday school? Have fun. Well I want to read you a verse in Zechariah chapter 8.
Zechariah chapter 8.
That's Zechariah is right near the end of the Old Testament.
And it's very interesting here it says.
And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof. Now, is playing fun? Yeah. Well, I when I made, when I made these pages in this book, I didn't. I could have written down playing, but I wanted something everybody could read. So I stayed with short words. But you know, God is interested in children playing. It's in the Bible.
God has plans for that.
Now, I'm not saying that he has plans for us to play all the time. The Bible tells us, the apostle Paul wrote, when I became a man, I put away childish things. But playing, having fun as a child is legitimate. And we, I know some of you been I've been seeing you running around here and you've been having fun and that's with God's blessing.
Some people think God but doesn't want people to have fun.
00:30:01
No, he wants children to have fun. He wants us to enjoy the things he's provided. That is something that may be in your future yet what's the next thing?
Oh yes, right now we're out of school, but how many here are looking forward to going back to school? I don't say you want to, but you expect to, right? And you go to school to learn and everybody is expected to get an education. So learning well should be part would would be a natural part.
Of your future.
Oh, and why do we go to school to learn how to do things to live well? What do you suppose this means to? Who can tell me what this means to live well? Yes.
What's that?
Earn well. I'm sorry. Earn well. I'm skipping ahead. Earn well. How do you earn something?
Yeah, you do do a job, right? Yeah, we earn by doing a job. We learn and then we earn.
And people like like to have good jobs. How many here, if the Lord leaves you here, would like to have a good job someday?
Yeah.
A lot of people look forward to having a good job. All right, so you earn well. What's the next thing?
Very well now there's probably most of you children aren't thinking about that quite yet. And yet you're here because your parents married.
Marriage is a normal part of life, and a lot of young people here are thinking about that. Mary. Well, you marry somebody and of course, first, you know, the old saying, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes.
A baby carriage? Sure.
That's how children get here, you know? Now the next thing is live well. I skipped ahead. We want to have a happy life. People talk about about getting a good education, having fun, getting a good education, getting a good job, getting a good life mate, and then having a good life. Live well. This is normal expectation in this world.
All right.
And people talk about living well and, you know, having a comfortable life. And then they talk about retirement. What does this say?
Rest Well, yeah. And people talk about retiring at their end of their life. This is what people think about when they think about the future.
And then what's next?
The end.
Everyone of us, our normal life here will have an end.
And you know, there's a verse in the Bible in Deuteronomy chapter 32 or 33, it says, oh, that man would consider their latter end. You know, we think about our immediate ends. We want to finish school and finish this and finish that and.
We forget that there's a latter end.
There's an end to life. We all, we deal with ends all the time. You know what this is? That's the end of my nose. I have an end to my finger. I have an end to my height. I'm only 5 feet. I all used to be 5 feet 8 anyway that that's the measure of that end. So we deal with ends in this life limits.
God wants us to consider the end because He.
Has plans. Now let me ask you a question.
We talk about the future and we talk about your future life. If you live a normal life, how many years? This may be a question for somebody a little bit older. If you live a normal life, how many years would you expect to live?
Wow, you're optimistic. 80 or 100? I, I, you know, I appreciate the idea.
I'm 73 and I I I expect I may live a few more years, but normally they 70 is kind of been the benchmark for living a lot of people, a lot of countries where they aren't so healthy, the lifespan is a lot shorter, maybe 50 years on the average.
00:35:17
But we'll say 70 years. So they say 70 years or 80 years give you the benefit of the doubt there. 80 years is your future. Is that the end?
No, there's a future. Beyond that, which future is bigger?
This life or the life? The next life? Which is bigger?
Very good. The next life is bigger. How much bigger?
Forever the next life is forever. It's so much bigger and so that now let me ask you another question, which one is more important than.
If the next life is bigger, shouldn't it be more important to us than this life we have on this earth? You know, as a matter of fact, this Earth is going to end someday.
This building, nice building, it's only a few years old. It's going to end someday. Everything in this life has an end, but that's not the ultimate end or the latter end that God talks about. And so we have a life that we live now.
And then we need to prepare for the life to come, the, the life that lasts forever. You know, I want to talk talk about that a little bit. So let's go back through here and reanalyze things a bit.
Your future.
What's who remembers what the next page might say?
What's that? Have fun. Let's see.
What my, my, my point is, some people don't live to have fun. A lot of boys and girls don't live very long. They don't have time to have fun. Some of them have very sad lives. And of course, the things that we talked about after that, learning well and earning well and marrying well and living well, they never experienced that. A lot of people don't have that kind of a future.
So we need to consider the fact that we don't know about all these things that might happen, but we do know about things that will happen.
Think about how short your life could be.
It could end today. Who knows how our lives down here might end today? There's two ways our lives down here might end today. Who can tell me?
You could die. And how's it? What's the other? How do we get there?
The Lord coming. Yeah. Two ways our lives could end today. Something cataclysmic might happen. I don't know. Can't imagine what. Maybe a terrible earthquake or something. I've not not heard that this place is this area is prone to earthquakes, but who knows?
I could die today, or the Lord Jesus might come. And you know, if the Lord Jesus came today, I wonder if he'd leave anybody behind in this room.
Are you ready to meet the Lord Jesus? Are you ready for the Lord Jesus to come? The end could come.
Today.
But we want to think about this verse, God says.
I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and.
And.
So let's talk about God's plans.
All right, God says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, Seth the Lord. Now we know what God says, because we have God's word.
And we are thankful that we have God's Word.
So what does God say?
Maybe I should ask somebody else to turn the pages. You've answered a lot of questions this morning. Going to turn the next page.
00:40:05
Now what does it say?
Ah, thoughts of peace and not of evil. You know we don't always think good thoughts. God always thinks good thoughts, thoughts of peace and not of evil. He wants to bless us. I want you. I want us all to understand that because God is love, He wants.
Good for us, and matter of fact, not only does he merely want it got, our good and God's glory are tied together.
Our good, our well-being, and God's glory are linked together. God has thoughts of peace toward us. Thoughts of peace.
Not of evil. God doesn't want evil. Not evil does exist, and the Bible tells us that judgment is God's strange work. Let me ask you a question. Do you think your parents like to discipline or punish you?
They don't. I had seven children. I can testify. No, I didn't want, didn't, didn't enjoy spanking my children. But I did it because they needed it.
I've got one here that's thanked me for it.
And other others likewise. OK thoughts of not of evil.
To give God is a giving God.
God is a giving God who can tell me something that God gave?
Very good, his son. I'm glad people in the back are listening to OK. God gave his son the greatest gift of all. Who can quote the verse that tells us?
I hate to pick on the same people, although yes please.
Very good John 316. Wonderful verse to learn. God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And so God gives.
An expected end. It gives us something to look forward to. He guarantees it.
But you know, not only do save people have an expected end, but unsaved people, people who are lost in their sins, have an expected end to not that they're necessarily expecting it, but God has predicted it. But let's talk about what God has for believers. Let's look at the next page here.
What do you think that is to remind us of?
Yes, here's the gold page, the expected end for believers. Now the question is, is that an expected end for you? You know, there's a song that we sing. Oh, my time is up already. I'm sorry. There's a song we sing sometimes. I am so glad that Jesus loves me. And there was a man who was visiting a little girl one time.
And she was dying. And she said to him, thank you for teaching me that song.
Because today the doctor says I'm going to see Jesus.
Now.
We're almost done here.
The expected end for believers is wonderful. Who will read this for me? You're a good reader, go ahead.
Yeah, things are so wonderful, we can't imagine them.
But each of us is faced with the same choice. Are we going to be where God can fully express His love?
You notice there's another page here. This is the expected end for unbelievers.
And what do you think this is a picture of?
All right, we don't know what that's like either, but it's is this someplace you'd like to go?
00:45:05
Oh, no. OK.
All right, you know I had a lot more to talk about. I should explain to you how this little book works so you won't feel I did something nasty here. But this book has has two sides and.
Turn it over and there's the pages we looked at originally.
All right, our time is up. Let's thank the Lord for this time here.
Our God and Father, we thank you so much for the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of the end that's before us so much better than what we know now.
And we pray that each one here might expect.
What you desire them to expect, what you desire to give. And we ask your blessing for the remainder of the day in Jesus name, Amen.