Part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is at the end, beginning in verse number 14, it says,
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of,
knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
Now, the title of the sermon is this, From a Child.
From a child.
Now, it's interesting, the first part of the chapter lists all the things that we can see in our day,
when he says in verse number 1,
I don't think anyone would dispute the fact that we're living in the last days today.
We don't know exactly how close we are to the end, but we're definitely toward the end,
and we know that we live in a time of covetousness, boasting, pride, blasphemy,
and all these different things that are listed.
But God is explaining how we can basically avoid these things,
and basically how we can continue in the things that we've learned.
And the key here with Timothy was that from a child, he had learned the holy scriptures,
which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus,
which is the only real salvation that there is.
From a child.
Now look at Mark chapter 9.
Go to Mark chapter 9, second book in the New Testament.
Mark chapter number 9, and the Bible reads in Mark chapter 9, beginning in verse 14.
We're going to look at another story, and we're going to kind of tie these two in.
But in Mark chapter 9, the Bible reads in verse 14,
And the scribes questioning with them, and straightway all the people, when they beheld him,
were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him.
And he asked the scribes, What questioned you with them?
And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son,
which hath a dumb spirit.
And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, and he fometh, and gnasheth with his teeth,
and pineth away, and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not.
He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me.
And they brought him unto him, and when he saw him, straightway the spirit teared him,
and he fell on the ground, and wallowed, foaming.
And he asked his father, and here's the key right here,
How long is it ago, since this came unto him, and he said of a child?
So, see the contrast here? In 1 Timothy 3,
we see Timothy, who from a child knew the holy scriptures.
From a child knew the scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith,
which is in Christ Jesus.
And by the way, that's the only thing that's able to make you wise unto salvation.
Today we have a movement of getting people saved without verses, without the Bible, without using God's word.
Hey, God's word is the power of God unto salvation.
The Bible says faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Timothy knew the scriptures from a child. He knew the doctrines of the Bible from a child.
This young man, on the other hand, as a little child, was demon-possessed.
I mean, think about the story. Jesus comes upon this kid.
He's foaming at the mouth. He's tearing himself.
If you look at other places, it talks about how he would cast himself into the fire in the next verse, in verse 22.
He would cast himself in the water. He's suicidal. He's trying to kill himself.
He's demon-possessed, and Jesus, of course, casts out this unclean spirit.
But from a child, he'd been demon-possessed. Even as a little child, he'd been influenced by Satan.
Now, this is something that I've seen in my life, you know, and it's funny how people today,
I've literally heard people say, well, you know, no one's ever demon-possessed anymore.
What? When did that ever change? You know, when did the devil stop attacking?
When did the devil and his demons and devils, you know, devil is the more biblical word, obviously,
when did the devils of this world stop possessing people and stop doing it?
I don't see that in scripture, you know, but people try to act like, oh, this is non-existent.
Let me tell you something. When you've got a bunch of kids today that are pumped full of drugs,
that are blasting their mind with a bunch of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson,
let me tell you something. There are children today that are demon-possessed.
You know, when they're playing with Ouija boards that they buy at Walmart, made by Milton Bradley in the board game section,
and they're playing with the Ouija board and their book at school that they're given to read is Harry Potter
and other witchcraft-type books by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien,
when that's the kind of reading material today, when you look at the music today, when you look at the drugs today,
let me tell you something. There are children today that are demon-possessed.
The school's filled with them. It's true. Don't tell me this doesn't exist.
I have seen people in my life who I'm convinced are demon-possessed.
And I don't want you to say, well, that doesn't happen anymore. No, it does happen.
I've seen it. I mean, I've seen people just snap and foam at the mouth and strip off their clothes and do strange things
and have to be restrained. And a lot of people that are just determined as having a psychological problem,
it's really just that they're demon-possessed.
It's really just that they need to get the wicked music out of their life.
They need to get the satanic music and they need to get the drugs out of their life
and they need to get the witchcraft and false religion out of their life and the Ouija boards and Harry Potter.
People think it's harmless, but my friend, it is not harmless when you're playing with the occult and witchcraft and Satanism.
You're inviting all kinds of spirits and devils into your life.
And here this child was that was committing suicide or trying to because of the fact that he was possessed of the devil.
Look at 2 Kings 2. 2 Kings 2, Old Testament, about halfway through your Old Testament. Look at 2 Kings 2.
It says in verse 23 of 2 Kings 2,
And he went up from thence unto Bethel, and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city,
and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head.
Now this is Elisha. And by the way, before I get on this, while we're talking about the occult and witchcraft,
this Twilight series is straight out of hell.
You know, and I'm sick of churches that won't preach on what needs to be preached today.
They want to just preach a little relevant, feel-good, encouraging message.
Let me tell you something. This Twilight, where you got some vampire, some pale, emaciated-looking, undead freak
that's having a love affair with a teenage girl. It's wicked. It's disgusting. It's witchcraft. It's sorcery.
It's everything that's ungodly. I don't care if it's popular. I don't care if the world loves it.
It's bad. I mean, it's wrong. I don't know what else to say.
But back to what I'm saying here. Elisha here, the man of God, this great preacher who had a double portion
of the spirit that Elijah had, did twice as many miracles, preached twice as many prophecies that God fulfilled.
This man is coming out of the city, and this great group of roving band of children.
Now I don't really understand why a hundred and some children are however many,
because it says that there were forty-two that were torn by these bears,
but that doesn't mean that was the total group, because it says forty and two of them.
So this great band of roving kids or teens or whatever they were,
comes up and begins to mock and make fun of Elisha the prophet.
And it says in verse number twenty-four,
He turned back and looked on them and cursed them in the name of the Lord.
And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tare forty and two children apart.
Now I've always heard this preached that they killed them.
I don't know if they necessarily died. I'm sure some of them probably died.
Or maybe all forty-two died. I don't know.
But I know that they got tore up by these bears.
I mean they got slashed up and tore up.
God's judgment came upon them and says in verse twenty-five,
And he went from thence to Mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.
Whatever it was, these little children were bad kids.
I mean they were brats. They were evil to the point where the man of God actually cursed them in the name of the Lord.
And then God sent these wild animals to attack these children because they were so evil, they were so wicked.
And today the age at which children are being introduced to that which is evil gets younger and younger.
And it used to be there was a certain innocence at elementary school. Not anymore.
It used to be at junior high there was still a degree of innocence, even in high school.
But today it is just inundated with Satanism, with witchcraft, with evil.
They're taught from a young age. I remember when I was eleven years old, I was in sixth grade, and I sat in the science class.
And the science teacher got up in my science class and he said,
I don't care whether you're a Christian. He said, I don't care what religion you are.
He said, evolution is a fact, and if you don't believe in it, you're an idiot.
He said, I understand you're a Christian. He said, I understand you believe in the Bible.
He's saying this to the whole class. He's preaching like a half hour sermon on this.
But he said, saying that evolution is not true is like saying that the earth is flat.
It's like saying that the sky is green. He said, don't be an idiot. Don't be stupid.
I mean, that's the kind of brainwashing that goes on. I heard it myself. I said, listen to it.
You know, kids are being taught. There's no God. They're being taught. You're an animal.
You're homo sapien. I'm not homo sapien. I'm a man made in the image of God, and I have dominion over every animal that's on this planet.
I am the Lord of every animal. That's what dominion means. It comes with the Latin word, dominus.
It means between me and my dog, I'm the Lord in that house. I'm the master, and the dog is a dog.
I will tell it what to do. It's not going to tell me what to do.
You know, but today we treat animals like human beings, and we think that we as human beings are just animals.
And so we live by the motto, if it feels good, do it. And today we have children being indoctrinated with this.
It's not good enough first grade, you know, age six. They have to borrow a term from the Nazis, kindergarten.
Did you ever notice that that's a German word? You know, and they want to get them in there when they're five.
And then K4, and then K3, and get these kids in the government's indoctrination institution to teach them that there's no God.
To teach them to worship and serve the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen.
They teach them to be a servant of the earth, a servant of the ecosystem, a servant of the environment.
No, the environment is our servant. And they're taught everything that's ungodly and wicked.
They're given reading material like Harry Potter, like C.S. Lewis, all these different things, The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, whatever.
That's ungodly material, Lord of the Rings, other satanic type stuff.
And then you wonder why they grow up and you knock on the door when they're at ASU over at Devil State University whose mascot is the devil.
I mean, that's what I love about living in Tempe. I love the fact that my children are growing up in a city where they look at the state university and there's a picture of the devil with horns and a tail and a pitchfork on the side of the mountain.
Because it's the Arizona Sun Devils. Because it's really easy for me to teach my children. That's the devil's school. And they don't think I'm crazy when I say that.
Now maybe if I was living in California and it was like the Angels Stadium or something and I want kids, you know, that's not really a college team.
But whatever, kids, it's of the devil. It looks all good and everything. I just show them, see that picture of Satan?
Do you want to go to school there? No. It's really easy to teach.
But Timothy, on the other hand, from a child, had known the Holy Scriptures. So that's the negative side.
Let's get to the positive side. What are we going to do to make sure that our children grow up like a young Timothy?
That they would grow up and from a child know that which is right and not from a child be filled with Satan like this other kid was in Mark Chapter 9.
He used the same wording. In 2 Timothy 3 it was from a child. In Mark 9 it was of a child.
Look if you would at Deuteronomy Chapter 6 is the first place we're going to start. The fifth book of the Old Testament.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 6. While you're turning there I'll read you something from 2 Peter 2, 14.
Having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin beguiling unstable souls and heart they have exercised with covetous practices, cursed children.
And again, these are people that are the most wicked people on earth that are described in 2 Peter 2 and in Jude.
I'm talking about people that are just completely reprobate concerning the faith, completely gone off the deep end, completely wicked and ungodly and turned over to a reprobate mind.
And they're called cursed children. Many of them it starts with them as a child. There are children today that are 11 and 12 years old that are sodomites.
They will literally molest their fellow student. I've known about it with people that I knew personally. And that's the wicked society that we're living in.
It's getting to the point where even children are cursed. Even children are filled with the devil.
Look if you would at Deuteronomy 6. Let's get on the positive side. What's the answer?
Deuteronomy 6, 4 says, This hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Tell that to the Mormons.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.
And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.
Now thine of course is the singular word. Your in the Bible is plural. That's why we have the thes and thes. Those are singular. The you and your is plural.
Let me tell you something. You're never going to raise your children right for God unless you love the Lord thy God with all your heart, personally.
Unless you have God's word in your heart, how are you going to pass anything on to your children?
You better take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine continuing that for undoing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.
You must take heed unto yourself. Love God yourself. Have God's word in your heart before you can ever think that you're going to communicate it to your children.
He says, And thou shalt teach them diligently, verse 7, unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the lake and when thou liest down and when thou risest up.
He said, When you get up in the morning, you're talking about the Bible. Throughout the day, when you sit down to eat, when you're walking by the way, when you go to bed at night, you're speaking God's word.
Not just all the time, sports. And thou shalt talk about sports when thou wakest up and when thou goest to bed at night.
And you'll talk about the movies and the TV. We need to get back to talking to our children about the Bible. I don't care if they're one, two, three, four, five.
You've got to start them at a young age. And I have young children. My children, my oldest is getting close to being nine. I have a seven year old, a five year old, a three year old, a one year old.
They hear the Bible daily. They hear it talked about. They hear it read to them in daily Bible reading. We talk about it with them. We explain it to them.
I would literally rather put my five year old son, John, I would put him up against most pastors in America for his soundness of his Bible doctrine.
It's true. I mean, I would ask Solomon what a passage means before I asked a lot of Bible theologians in America today. I mean, these kids know the Bible. It's not just my kids.
You know, just kids who are in a church where they're getting real Bible doctrine. But that's not enough because it doesn't say that Moses is going to do it.
Because this was called the church in the wilderness by Stephen in Acts chapter seven. But it wasn't. Well, Moses will teach you. Don't worry about it. Moses will do it.
You know, just bring him to the tabernacle, hear Moses. No, he said, look, you personally, mom and dad, you better love God. You better memorize these words.
You better speak them to your children. You better talk about this all day long. Because hey, Moses doesn't live in your house. And Pastor Anderson doesn't live in your house.
And no Bible preacher lives with you. Only you live with your children. And it's your job to give them the day in and day out teaching and preaching that they need.
Because today we live in a day where you think that children are going to go to one summer camp for a week and their whole life is going to be turned around and they're going to live for God.
Look, I grew up going to those kind of summer camps. And you'd go and you'd hear a bunch of great preaching and you'd get all fired up. But you know what? It would wear off when you get home.
I mean, at the time it was great. You were pumped. You were excited. You were reading your Bible. You were memorizing verses on the bus ride on the way home.
You were memorizing. You were deciding how you were going to win souls and you were going to go back to your school and give people the gospel.
But you know what? When you got home, a few days went by and you're back to Comedy Central, MTV. You're back to the movies. You're back to everything else, rock and roll.
You forgot all about it because Christianity is not a one-time thing. It's a daily thing.
It's every day taking up the cross and following Jesus. Daily denying self. That's what Christianity is.
To be a great Christian, it's not one service you came to and you came down the aisle crying.
Now obviously you only get saved one time, but it's not because you came down the aisle crying. It's because you believe on Jesus Christ.
I believed on Jesus Christ in my own home as a six-year-old boy on my knees by the bedside with my mother.
I believed the record that God gave of His Son. I believed that Jesus Christ was the only way to heaven.
I put all my faith in Him only as my Savior. I didn't turn away from a life of sin at age six.
I didn't decide I was going to turn over a new leaf and start going to church and living for God and be baptized.
No, I just believed on Jesus Christ that He was the Savior. That's it. That's all anybody gets saved.
Through faith. Salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus, was the first verse that we read today about knowing the Scriptures from a child.
But you see, salvation is a one-time thing, but it's not one service. I could not tell you any service in my life that just changed my life. No.
You know what changed my life? It was reading the Bible every day. It was coming to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.
And I learned line upon line, precept upon precept, slowly I purged wrong things out of my life. Slowly I grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Day after day, people don't just change overnight. They come to people who join this church, we baptize them.
You know, when would Christ baptize them? It's not just an on-off switch. They just never do anything. It's a slow process of growth.
They're like a spiritual baby. They grow up. They take steps. They start soul wedding. They start to read. They start to pray. They start to do these different things.
It's not just something where you can just have your kids go to some camp or even just going to church once a week.
You've got to take the responsibility as the parent to diligently teach God's Word to your children and to be speaking about it all the time.
To be talking about it all the time. Look if you would at, let's go to Psalm 71. Right in the dead center of your Bible. If you let your Bible fall open in the middle, you'll be in Psalms.
While you're turning there, I'll read another scripture. Proverbs 22, 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
You see, there's a certain training that goes into that young child that will stick with them for the rest of their life.
You know what's always surprised me in this world is how little people seem to change. You know what I mean?
People will be a certain way and you'll see them change dramatically but then they end up going back to what they originally were it seems like.
People come full circle in life and the longer you live and the more people you observe, you'll see that that's true.
That people don't change as much as you think they change. People are intrinsically who they became as a little child is usually where it comes from.
Why am I a fundamentalist? You know, when I was just a tiny little child, my parents were taking us to some really fundamental, strict, King James type church.
And then basically, we went to a bunch of liberal churches. But it's funny, when I became an adult, what did I revert back to?
What I was taught as a little child. You know, from a child I knew the Holy Scriptures. From the child I had the King James Bible in my hand.
From the child I listened to preaching that was preaching on sin and it wasn't just a sugar-coated, soft-soaked type of message.
And so, if you train up a child in the way he should go, when he's old, he will not depart from it.
The Bible says in Psalm 71 verse 18,
Now also, when I am old and grey-headed, O God, forsake me not until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation and Thy power to everyone that is to come.
Boy, I wish that we would just have a movement in America of old, grey-headed men that would stand up and bring back the fundamentalism and the Baptist teachings and the biblical, hard preaching of old.
But the sad thing is, most of the time, whenever I see a preacher with grey hair, the first thing that comes to my mind is just liberal.
Liberal! Isn't that disgusting? I mean, it's backwards. You'd think if you saw the old grey-headed man, you'd think, oh man, this guy's not going to put up with any compromise.
This guy's been around. This guy's not going to have a rock and roll fest in his church. This guy's going to keep it real. This guy's going to be preaching it straight down the line.
But the sad thing is, whenever I go to some service somewhere or some conference somewhere and the guy gets up to preach and I see that he's an old man, I just think, you know, he's probably going to be liberal. He's probably going to be watered down.
Because that's the day we're living in today, where the old grey-headed men are not guiding the way. They're not teaching the way.
I mean, I would love it if Faithful Word Baptist Church were pastored by an old grey-headed man instead of a young man in his late 20s, you know, standing up here preaching that we need to be old-fashioned.
Because the grey-headed man down the street and down every street in America has watered down and will not preach the Bible as it needs to be. He's afraid, even just like the books and shows that I mentioned earlier, he's afraid to even touch on them. He won't even touch it.
It's sad. We need some old men to decide. You know, I hope when I'm old, I don't be like King Solomon, where Solomon in his early days was a great leader.
And then when he was old, he just started backing off. He started compromising and allowing all this false religion into his own home because of all the strange wives that had turned away his heart from following wholeheartedly the Lord.
But I hope that when I'm old and grey-headed, I will say, you know what, I'm going to show this to the next generation. I need to teach this to the next generation. But you know, that starts right now with my children, with my young children, teaching it to them.
And also preaching it to your children that are hearing the sound of my voice. Look at Psalm 78, just a few pages to the right in your Bible.
Psalm 78, verse 4. We will not hide them. And I'm not criticizing old people, it's just true. I mean, you just see the old preacher, you just assume he's going to be liberal.
Not that there's anything wrong with old preachers. I think it's better to have an old preacher. I'd rather listen to an old preacher if he's preaching the right stuff, but the sad thing is, 99% aren't.
And so I just assume he's going to be some watered-down liberal whatever. But anyway, it says in Psalm 78, verse 4, we will not hide them from their children.
Showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord. Now stop right there. We need to teach the younger generation the praises of the Lord.
The music. And obviously that could be referring to just verbal praise as well. But you know what? The music that we're teaching our children, is it the praises of the Lord?
Or are we bringing them up with all the world's music? Are we teaching them all the bands that we like because we listened to them as a teenager or went to the concerts and rocked out?
Are we teaching the praises of the Lord to our children? Do they hear us humming around the house, blessed assurance Jesus is mine, on Christ the solid rock I stand.
I'm pressing on the upward wave, new heights I'm gaining every day, still praying as I'm onward bound, plant my feet on higher ground.
Are we teaching them at the cross? Are we teaching them the songs that are lifting up Jesus Christ, that are doctrinally sound, that are praising God?
Or do we just hum and sing the tune of some sitcom intro?
We need to teach our children the praises of God. We need to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to ourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual songs.
Singing and making melody in our hearts of the Lord. Teaching our children the praises.
My son Solomon has great musical talent. I know other children who have great musical talent. My niece Jessica has great musical talent.
I mean just the ability that's unbelievable. Ability that I've never had that I never will have.
But some of these children have great musical ability but I wonder why, I wonder if maybe the fact that Solomon has musical ability and can sit down at the piano and play hymns and play other instruments.
I wonder if it's because when he was a little child and we only had one child, so they don't really play with each other as much because there's only one.
So it's just you have to entertain them all the time. I remember when he was just a little baby, he would just sit there and I would literally, I'm not exaggerating, my wife can tell you this is true.
I would literally take out the hymnal and sing to him for like two hours on end. I would just turn the page and I'd just go to the next page and just sing to him.
And boy he got the praise of God in his heart. From a baby, from a child he had the right music. From a child these are the songs that he learned.
And that's why I think it's so important and this may bother some people that we have the children in the service, thank God.
To get the right preaching, from a child. To get the right music, from a child. To know what church is, from a child.
Not to just go to some other class, somewhere in outer space, God has prepared a place. To come to church and get the hymns.
And then you wonder why these kids grow up and they go to some holy roller church. They grew up being preached to by a woman. Now they go hear Joyce Meyer.
They grew up singing somewhere in outer space. For those who trust him and obey, I thought it was just for those who trust him.
I didn't know you had to obey God to be saved. If so, we're all in trouble because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.
To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
That's what I thought salvation is. I didn't know that you had to trust and obey to be saved.
Now there's no other way to be happy with Jesus, the song goes, but you know what? When it comes to being saved, it's just trust. It's just faith. It's just belief.
And so these children are pulled out of services and they're getting a soft message, maybe a flannel grab, maybe a woman preacher.
Songs that are all crazy and zany and don't really teach any real doctrine. And they say, oh these kids are too young for these songs.
It's still not true. You underestimate the mind of a child. The two year old, the three year old, the four year old is absorbing everything.
The one year old is absorbing the music. They're absorbing the preaching. They're absorbing God's word. I mean, they are being taught for life.
Let's finish this passage. He says, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, Psalm 74, and his strength and his wonderful works that he had done.
For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children,
that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children.
Now, somewhere, people in the nation of Israel dropped the ball. Because today, the nation of Israel doesn't worship God at all.
I mean, they are 99.9% anti-Christ. Period. I mean, they believe in some other messiah that's coming.
And oh, he's coming alright. He's called the anti-Christ. Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ.
He's anti-Christ that denied the father and the son. And so, they're not worshiping Jesus Christ. They're looking for the anti-Christ.
Why are the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David and the prophets and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, why are their children looking for the anti-Christ?
Because somewhere along the line, someone forgot to teach these words to their children.
Somewhere, those children forgot to teach it to their children.
Somewhere, parents got busy, they got sidetracked, or they just got too into hobbies and fun and sports and games and entertainment and TV.
And they didn't take the time to teach their own children. Wouldn't it be the same if I stood up here three times a week and preached God's word?
But then when I'm at home, I didn't teach my children. I didn't talk to them about the Bible. We didn't sing the hymns at the house.
And my children grew up and went a different way. Wouldn't that be terrible? I mean, to sit there and,
Oh, Pastor Anderson, you got so many people saved and you taught so many people soul winning, but I didn't teach my own children soul winning?
That would be a shame. I thank God that my children have been soul winning.
I thank God that when they're very small, they already knew the Gospel. And you know why they knew the Gospel?
Because they heard me preach it at the door with them. They heard my wife preach it at the door.
Because my children have been soul winning hundreds of times. And therefore they heard.
I mean, they literally, we didn't have to teach them, memorize Romans 3.23. Memorize John 3.16.
They can quote John 3.16 because they've stood beside me at the door and my wife at the door as we preached salvation.
They've seen people get saved. I was just out soul winning with my son Solomon on Monday night up in North Tempe by the university campus.
Man, that is a rough area to go soul winning. People do not want to listen up there.
I mean, people were hardly giving us the time of day. We talked to this one guy and this guy was like, his life verse.
He needs to get this tattooed on his arm, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
I mean, this guy just thought that he knew everything. He was this intellectual and he says,
Oh, everything I believe is just logic and rationality. But what he was saying was totally irrational.
What he was saying was ridiculous. I mean, it was a joke. But you know, I was glad that my son got to be there for that.
Because my son looked at what I preached to this guy from God's word and he listened to what this guy's responses were.
And son, what did you think about that encounter?
He was a weirdo.
He was a weirdo. The guy was pretty smart, huh Solomon?
No.
You know, my son is looking at that saying, this guy's an idiot.
You know?
And people try to say, Oh, your children are sheltered. You know, our children aren't sheltered.
We get them out there on the mean streets of Tempe and we run into every kind of religion.
We run into every kind of sin. You know, you say, Oh, your children, they haven't seen anything.
They've seen drugs. They've seen alcohol. They've seen cigarettes. They've seen wickedness.
They've seen the college. They've seen the college intelligence or lack thereof.
But they see it in its real life context. They see it as the truth that it really is.
They saw this guy for the fool that what he really was.
The fool who said in his heart, there is no God.
As opposed to seeing it on TV, glamorized, cleaned up, made to look appealing and exciting by the Madison Avenue and Hollywood artists of this world.
Who basically can make anything look good.
They can take the worst filth and dress it up and make it look good for you.
That's all TV is.
And so it's important that you take your children out soullening.
Get them in a good fire breathing Baptist church.
Take them out soullening with you. Read the Bible to them every day.
And by the way, if you have trouble getting your little children to be good in church.
And you know, I had trouble with this in the early days too.
Because of the fact that before I started this church I had my children in a nursery.
And so then it's like, you know, because they had a force to do in a lot of churches.
But basically, then to just take them all of a sudden from that to just stick them in church, it's like a shock to them.
You know, like when a child grows up from a baby being in the main service, they're more used to it.
You know, because they've just grown up that way from the beginning and they know that they're supposed to be quiet.
And no kid's ever going to be perfect. You know, we're supposed to suffer the little children, the Bible says.
But one thing that we did in the early days when we were trying to teach our children that is we would just have a Bible reading time at home.
And that was a good training session to help the children know to mind in church.
We would just set them down, line them up, and have the wooden cooking spoon there.
You know, I know we weren't cooking, but we had the wooden cooking spoon there.
And we'd set them down, line them up, and read them the Bible.
And demand that they sit still and listen.
And when they acted up, they received a spanking.
And then they learned, and that was a good training to teach them to sit still.
You know, my children aren't in school all day.
So if my children were in school, they'd all be put on drugs for ADD and ADHD.
That's another sermon. And I'm against it.
But anyway, the bottom line is that that's where they learned how to sit still in church.
And obviously it takes work.
But, you know, reading the Bible to your children daily, it's critical, it's crucial.
Do it! Do it! You need to read the Bible anyway.
So read it out loud to them for a little while.
And you say, oh, they won't do it.
You make them do it.
Do you ask your children whether they want to brush their teeth too?
Now, son, would you mind brushing your teeth? I mean, you don't have to.
You know, do you ask your children, would you like to eat vegetables tonight?
Or would you rather just have a hot dog for every meal?
If you ask my children, they would have hot dogs, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Maybe a meal of candy thrown in.
Or, you know, maybe they'd throw in some pancakes with syrup on them.
They're not going to sit down and just serve themselves peas.
They're not just going to decide, man, I would love some peas right now.
Man, I would love spinach.
Do you think you could make me like a fruit salad?
That's not what they would think of.
But yet you force your children to eat right.
And yet this is the food that they really need right here.
Give us this day our daily bread.
God suffered the children of Israel to hunger, he said, and he fed them with manna,
that he might make them to know that man did not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God that the man lived.
This, Job said, I've received the words of thy mouth more than thy necessary food.
He said, I'll skip a meal, but I'm not going to skip my Bible reading.
And so we need to read the Bible to our children.
We need to sing the hymns and praises of God to our children.
You say, I don't have a hymnal. See all these green hymnals?
Just look this way, look that way, and just take one home with you.
Because look, I'm serious, because look, God's house is never supposed to be a house of merchandise.
We sell nothing. Never sold anything.
We've never sold anything. We've never sold anything.
We've never sold anything. We don't sell it. It's free.
And I encourage every student, let's do a raise of hands.
Who already has one of these green hymnals in your possession at home?
Look, you're not alone. Just take one.
And if your hand didn't go up, grab one and take it with you. Take it home with you.
Because this is what you needed to have throughout your life.
This should be your music right here.
And we live in a society where it's all about listening to music, watching sports.
Here's an idea, go play sports and sing songs.
Don't just listen to music, sing the praise. God wants to hear you sing.
God created you, God gave you the voice that you have, and God commands us to sing praises to the Lord.
But He never commands us to listen to music.
He tells us to sing, lift up our voices, let everything in that breath praise the Lord.
Hundreds of times in the book of Psalms, He commands us to sing these words.
What you ought to do is rip out your stereo in your car, and this will fit in the exact spot where it used to be.
Seriously. Pull this out at a red light.
I don't want to get in trouble for people crashing or something if they're tired of reading.
But pull this out and hand it to your passenger.
And they can be your song leader.
Seriously.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have your stereo to listen to things like God's Word read on tape by Alexander Scurvy,
like King James Bible being read, or whoever you have reading it.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have things like preaching and good things to listen to, educational things that are righteous.
But you know what? This ought to be some of this part of your life.
God's music, the hymns, singing God's kind of praises, reading the Bible, preaching, and so forth.
I'll just read you a couple more verses.
Turn to Exodus chapter 2.
I'm almost done. I just want to finish with one last point here.
Exodus chapter 2, while you're turning there, I'll read you a few other verses.
Psalm 102 18.
This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.
And by the way, every child is created.
It wasn't just that God created Adam and Eve. No.
God creates every child.
And here's a real shock for you. He doesn't create it the moment it's born.
Think about a dumb egg.
No, he created it when it's just in the womb, when it's just the seed and the egg coming together,
and it comes to life, and it gets to multiply and to grow.
God created that child. He creates every child, according to Psalm 102 verse 18.
But he said they should be taught God's word.
They should sing the praises of God.
Joel 1 3 says, tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children and their children another generation.
You can affect three to four generations by teaching your children God's word.
But look at Exodus chapter 2. This is a really interesting story.
This is about Moses as a baby. It says,
And there went a man at the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son.
And when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
So this lady is living in Egypt, and of course, in chapter 1, it was explained how they would throw the children in the river.
You know, they would kill babies.
Now, that would never happen today.
You know, nobody would ever kill babies today in America, right, because we live in such a godly...
Oh yeah, whoops, I forgot. They do it 3,000 times a day.
But they're killing all these babies in Exodus chapter 2, and this woman's a godly, righteous woman,
so she hides her child because she doesn't want it to be killed.
So it says in verse 3,
When she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein,
and she laid it in the flags by the river's break.
And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done to him.
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the riverside,
and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
And when she had opened it, she saw the child. This is Pharaoh's sister.
And behold, the babe wept, and she had compassion on him, and said, I'm sorry, Pharaoh's daughter,
and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children.
Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women,
that she may nurse the child for thee?
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
And the maid went and called the child's mother.
And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away and nurse it for me,
and I will give thee thy wages.
And the woman took the child and nursed it, and the child grew.
And she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son,
and she called his name Moses, and she said, Because I drew them out of the water.
Now turn to Hebrews chapter 11.
Hebrews chapter 11, toward the very end of the New Testament, Hebrews 11.
So here's Moses' mother, Jacobed, takes the baby, puts it in an ark of bulrus, who's three months old,
couldn't hide it anymore, she doesn't want them to kill her child,
so she puts it in the Nile River, in an ark of bulrushes.
He's floating down the river, his sister Miriam is following along,
just making sure that he's okay, making sure that everything goes well.
Well, he just happens to drift into the place where Pharaoh's daughter and all of her servants
are bathing in the river, and basically they see this ark and they hear the crying,
they go over, they open it up, and Pharaoh's daughter just immediately,
when she looks at this child, just has compassion on it, she loves it,
she thinks, oh, this poor little crying baby, and she wanted to have it as her own son.
But the problem is, because she had not been pregnant and delivered the child,
she could not nurse the child, and she wasn't going to use infominal, isominal, and all that.
So she basically just decided, you know, what am I going to do to feed the child?
Well, of course, Moses' sister was there conveniently to say,
hey, would you like me to go get a Hebrew woman, one of the slaves,
to come and nurse the child for you?
And she says, yeah, good idea.
So she gets Moses' mother, brings her over, and this is what Pharaoh's daughter says,
just take it away, you know, take it away and nurse it and then bring it back to me,
and it'll be my son.
So basically Moses goes back to his own house,
and he's being raised by his parents, okay, while he's being nursed.
Now, let me just give you a clue on something.
You know, you don't nurse children until they're ten years old, you know, or even five years old, you know.
Two years old, they're done, by the time they're two, okay.
By the time they're two, you know, when they're talking to you,
and when they're ripping the steak off the table and shoving it in their mouth, you know,
you're probably done breastfeeding at that point, okay.
So, you know, there's no, this is only like maybe he's one or two years old
when he's done being nursed and breastfed.
So then that's when she has to give Moses to Pharaoh's daughter to be his son.
Look at Hebrews 11, verse 23, it says this,
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents,
because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.
Now notice that phrase, they were not afraid of the king's commandment.
You know, they basically, they violated the law by hiding this child, they weren't scared to do it.
It says in verse 24, by faith, because they knew they were doing the right thing, you know, preserving their child's life.
By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Now look, in Acts chapter 7, it says that Moses was brought up in all the learning of the Egyptians,
he was a mighty man in Egypt, he was a powerful man, I mean he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He had money, power, and the finest education.
He sat in classroom after classroom, he sat in the college class, he learned everything that Egypt had to teach.
But when he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,
as seeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, because he had many treasures in Egypt.
For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, look at the next phrase, not fearing the wrath of the king.
Where did we get that from?
His parents had faith and did not fear the king.
When he grew up, he had faith and did not fear the wrath of the king.
For he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood,
thus he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land was the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.
Why did he have faith?
Where did he get all this faith?
Where did he get the faith to refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter?
Because he said he did it by faith, and faith come up by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Faith in what? Faith in God's word.
Faith in the word of God. Faith that was taught to him by his parents.
Just like Timothy, who from a child had known the Holy Scriptures,
which were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
Just as Timothy, who had the unfeigned faith that was in him,
which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice,
and Paul said I am persuaded that of thee also.
He said God had not given us the spirit of fear, Timothy.
You learned this from Grandma. You learned it from your mother.
God had not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a same mind.
Can you think of a more powerful man than Moses?
Can you think of a man with more faith, with more power, with more great preaching?
I mean this was a great man, and he got it when he was an infant.
Because he didn't get it from Pharaoh's daughter.
He got it in those early formative years of just ages one and two even,
where he was sung to by his mother.
You know that his mother was singing him the Psalms from the Old Testament.
And obviously you say, whoa, the book of Psalms hadn't been written.
Well, you know what? Enoch was preaching the book of Jude before the flood even happened.
Let me just explain it to you real quick.
The Bible was not yet written when Moses was on this earth, because guess what?
The oldest book in the Bible, yes it is older than the book of Job,
is the book of Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy,
which Moses wrote after they got out of Egypt,
because before that holy men of God just spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
I mean before the Bible was in written form, you still had these songs.
You still had the Word of God. You still had preaching.
You still had God's Word that was in their heart, and memorized, and taught,
and it was revealed by revelation of God in those days to prophets and men of God
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
It was a different time, but those songs, whatever they were, God's Word,
the teachings of God's Word, the songs of the Lord and praises of God
were taught to that little boy when he was one and two years old,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
It was taught to him when he was one and two years old.
He didn't know the exact age, but when he was old, when he grew up,
that's what he reverted back to.
Well, we need to take our job of parenting seriously.
We need to take it seriously and say, you know what?
I am going to spend whatever time I have with my son or daughter
investing in their life, not investing in my bank account all the time.
You know, just, oh man, I got to make money. I got to do it.
I got to save up the college funds. I can send them to Devil State University
where they can be indoctrinated. No.
What you ought to be doing is spending your time,
and you ought to be spending it teaching them God's Word
and being with them. And you know what?
You may be a great Christian because that's what you have to be.
You have to be a great Christian if you're going to raise children that are great Christians
because everything brings forth after its own time.
First of all, you've got to love the Lord with your heart.
You've got to have these words in your heart.
But you know what? Even if you are a great Christian,
you better spend enough time with your children to where that rubs off on them.
Now where they're spending a tiny bit of time with you
and a ton of time with everybody who's wicked and ungodly.
And you know, maybe that's your situation.
Today there are a lot of situations where people are divorced and split up
and maybe you're not with your child all the time.
All the more reason why, when you are with your child,
you invest in that child's life.
And you know what? I'm gone a lot. I work hard trying to pay the bills.
And you know what? But when I'm home, I need to make a time
and not just rely totally on my wife to do it.
But mom and dad should be training up these children.
And I need to take the time when I'm home to talk to them about God's Word,
to take them soul-winning, to teach them the Bible.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the gift of children, dear God.
And I pray that you would please just help us to be wise
and beget children that do not grow up to be fools and ungodly
because of our neglect.
But Father, help us to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Help us to diligently teach God's Word to our children.
Help us to learn it ourselves.
And then help us to diligently teach to our children.
So we don't end up with a child that's demon-possessed,
where it's said, of a child, he's been like this.
Of a child, he's filled with Satan and the devil.
But rather that our children, one day it would be said of them,
boy, from a child, they've known the Holy Scriptures.
Father, we love you, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.