So I'll just go to Botswana two days early and just hang out up there, go soul winning
up there a couple days early.
But hopefully, and I don't think I'm going to get banned, chances are I think that they're
just going through a lot of the motions just to kind of placate these homos.
In South Africa?
No.
No, there's not.
He asked are there a lot of Christians in South Africa defending me and the answer is
no.
This is what made me so upset about it is that it would be one thing if some militant
sodomites are just on a campaign to stop the gospel because they hate the Lord.
But the sad thing is that every restaurant that we've planned on meeting at, every hotel
where we planned on using the banquet room to do the sermon, which is three hotels that
we had totally booked and it was ready to go, canceled on us.
As soon as the sodomites contacted them, they canceled us and not only did they cancel
us, within 24 hours they were falling all over themselves to release public statements
about how pro-homo they are.
Just oh we love the LGBT and this is what they said that I preach a perversion of Christianity
by being against homosexuality.
I've perverted the Bible to teach that.
I mean it's unbelievable.
Talk about a day where light is called darkness and darkness is called light, sweet for bitter
and bitter for sweet, good for evil and evil for good.
So the sad thing is that nobody virtually is standing up and defending me over there
because of course there are tons of people in South Africa who agree with me.
But it's like the silent majority and they're all scared is what it is.
They're all hiding.
They don't want to come out openly because you'd think that some restaurant would come
forward and say, hey, he's welcome here.
Or some banquet room would say, hey, we'll host you.
But no, they're all scared.
They're all hiding with their tail between their legs.
And you know what?
It's the same way in the United States.
I mean just most Christians are just gutless.
They're just spineless.
They don't want to stand and be counted.
If anything is unpopular, they just don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole and it's
even worse over there.
It's really disappointing just the lameness of Christianity in South Africa.
I mean it's really just a joke.
Now there are of course some that have not bowed the knee to bail that are trying to
help us the best they can.
But it's very few.
I mean mainly it's just the freaks and weirdos that are just rallying.
And they're dedicated.
They're serious.
They're willing to give it everything they got as the Christians are lackadaisical about
serving the Lord.
It's really sad.
But just to be really clear, we're not having any of these type of troubles in Botswana
whatsoever.
Nor will we.
And this radio host in South Africa, he's sort of huffing and puffing about, oh we're
going to do the same thing in Botswana.
No you're not.
Because Botswana is not South Africa.
South Africa is this liberal, commie place.
Botswana has a totally different set of values.
In fact, homosexuality is technically illegal in Botswana.
So I mean we're not in danger of being banned from it, for being against it, all right.
I mean I read something where the speaker of their body of Congress was said in like
2011 how they should all be executed or something.
He publicly stated that.
So it's a little different in Botswana than in South Africa.
So again, the Botswana ministry is not in any kind of jeopardy whatsoever.
And here's the thing, even if I'm banned from South Africa, it's not going to matter.
I'm just going to go to Botswana a couple days early.
I'm still going to do soul winning there.
And the soul winning marathon will happen in Johannesburg.
So no one should ever believe any rumors that it's being canceled.
It will not be canceled.
It cannot be canceled.
Because they can't ban us all.
If they ban one person, guess what?
Faithful Word Baptist Church is not one person.
The gospel is not one person.
These soul winning marathons are not one person.
So you ban one person, it's meaningless.
Because we have plenty of other leaders that can step up to the plate, Brother Garrett
Kirschway himself and many others that can step up to the plate and lead this event.
The show will go on.
And you know, I like what Brother Stuckey said.
He said, you know, the devil may just be trying to kind of restrict our soul winning movement
to the U.S.
He would love to see it contained, but it's going worldwide.
You know, we're going to take this thing everywhere and ignite the soul winning zeal everywhere
that we can.
And speaking of Brother Stuckey, he's actually going to be coming and preaching here while
I'm gone.
So two weeks from today, September 18th, Brother Matthew Stuckey is going to preach both the
morning and evening.
So who knows Brother Matthew Stuckey from back in the day?
A few people, some of you have met him at Verity.
But he's going to come preach here two weeks from today while I'm gone.
So that'll be a blessing to you, I'm sure.
And so I hope that helps everybody understand the situation.
So be praying that God's will would be done as far as this soul winning marathon in South
Africa.
And obviously pray for safety and everything just because there's so many haters of God
that are just threatening to beat, rape, kill me and do all kinds of other horrible things
to me.
Obviously, they say the same thing here every day.
It's just over there, it's a little more of the law of the jungle.
So you got to be a little more careful.
So just be praying for us and you know, I would love to see a great victory in Johannesburg.
But you know what, if not, if not, we'll shake the dust off our feet and go to Botswana.
You know, and say, hey, if you, hey, Johannesburg, if you've judged yourself unworthy of the
kingdom of God, lo, we go into Botswana.
You know, we go into the Gentiles.
So anyway, just be praying for us and we should know by tomorrow, you know, which way the
wind's going to blow on that.
Okay, sorry for that little rabbit trail.
But on the back, we'll quickly crank through the rest of the announcements.
There's a baby shower in honor of Marie Martinez and Joanna Lee and Marissa Lone and this is
going to be next Sunday, September 11th from 2.30 to 5 right here at the church building.
Please bring a dish to share for the potluck lunch if you can.
Children are welcome to attend the shower if they remain sitting at the tables in the
fellowship area.
Now the reason this is brought up is because a lot of times at these baby showers, children
are just sort of running wild and just trashing the place while their parents, you know, enjoy
or while their mothers rather enjoy the shower.
You know, if you're going to bring children to this event, just make sure that they stay
seated at the table with you, keep them under control so that they don't create a big disturbance
for everybody else.
So just don't let it become a free-for-all.
Make them sit at the table with you, alright?
And then we've got the congrats to the two babies that were born.
We've been having so many birth announcements.
Praise the Lord for all the new young lives that are being brought into this world.
Baby Michael or David Michael rather and Job Elijah and so be sure to congratulate those
families when you see them.
And that is about it for announcements.
Let's quickly introduce our first-time visitors or if it was your first time this morning,
go ahead and stand up if it's your first time here.
We just want to quickly get your name and where you're from.
Just your name, where you're from.
Yes?
James Berry from Lima, Peru.
Alright, great to have you.
All the way from Peru.
Introduce?
Don Obama from Port Leo, Virginia.
Alright, great to have you guys.
God bless you.
Yes sir, in the back.
Steven Kenny from New Jersey.
Alright, great to have you from New Jersey.
Helena Granowski from Gilbert.
Alright, thank you so much for coming.
Yes?
Tim, just moved here from Los Angeles.
Alright, God bless you.
Good to have you.
Anybody else here for the first time?
Alright, be sure to get to know all of our first-time visitors after the service.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Song number 373, So Send I You.
Song number 373.
Did I miss?
The Soul Winning.
Oh yeah, thank you.
The Soul Winning.
Man, this is like the marathon announcements.
Alright, let's just quickly go through the Soul Winning numbers.
Going back to Thursday, which was the first, right?
Any Soul Winning from Thursday the first?
North Phoenix?
Anything for North Phoenix?
I think we had some outside of the group, I didn't get a count.
Okay.
Anything for Thursday?
North Phoenix.
Going once, going twice.
Alright, how about Friday?
Group with seven.
One more outside of that, alright.
Anything else for Friday?
How about Saturday?
Eight for the team.
Different team, alright.
Alright, one more over here for Friday, or Saturday, rather?
Okay, what else for Saturday?
Anything else for Saturday?
Alright, and then how about today?
Let's start with Brother Scott's group.
Fifteen for the main group.
Alright, Gilbert team, three for Gilbert.
And then, any other outside of that?
Five more over here.
Any other groups?
Two more over here.
Anything else?
Alright, very good.
Three hundred and seventy-three, let's sing it out on that first verse.
So send I you, song number three hundred and seventy-three.
So send I you, to labor unrewarded.
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown.
To bear rebuke, to suffer short and scuffing.
So send I you, to toil for me alone.
So send I you, to bind the bruised and broken.
Or wandering souls, to work, to weep, to wake.
To bear the burden of a world of weary.
So send I you, to suffer for my sake.
So send I you, to loneliness and longing.
With heart a home, ring for the loved and known.
Forsaking home, and kindred friend and near one.
So send I you, to know my love alone.
So send I you, to leave your life's ambition.
To die to dear, desired self will resign.
To labor long, and love where men revile you.
So send I you, to lose your life and mine.
So send I you, to hearts made hard by hatred.
To eyes made blind, because they will not see.
To spend the wit, be blood to spend and spare not.
So send I you, to taste of Calvary.
As the Father has sent me, so send I you.
All right, at this time, we will quickly pass the offering plate.
And as the plate goes around, let's turn our Bibles
to Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
Right in the middle of the Bible, you find the book of Psalms.
Right after Psalms is Proverbs.
After that is Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes chapter number 12, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
You can follow along silently with Brother Dominique
as he reads Ecclesiastes chapter 12, beginning in verse number 1.
Ecclesiastes chapter 12, the Bible reads.
Rerenow thy creator in the days without you,
while the evil days come nigh, nor the years draw nigh,
when thou shalt say, I have no pleasures in me,
while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars,
be not dark, nor the clouds that turn after the rain.
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,
and the strong men shall bow themselves,
and the grinders cease because they are few,
and those that look out of the windows be dark,
and the doors shall be shut in the streets,
when the sound of the grinding is low,
and he shall rise up at the voice of the birds,
and all the daughters of music shall be brought low,
also when they shall be afraid of that which is high,
and fear shall be in the waves,
and the almond tree shall flourish,
and the grasshopper shall be a burden,
and desire shall fail, because men go to his long home,
and the mourners go about the streets,
or ever the silver cord be loose,
or the golden bowl be broken,
or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,
or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit shall return to the God who gave.
Vanity abandons, says the preacher, all is vanity,
and moreover, because the preacher was wise,
he still taught the people not,
yet he gave good heed, and sought out,
and said in order many proverbs.
The preacher sought to find out acceptable words,
and that which was written was upright in the words of truth.
The words of the wise are as gold,
and as nails fasted by the masters of assemblies,
which are given from one shepherd,
and furthered by these, my son, be it much,
of making many books there is no end,
and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God, and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of men,
for God shall bring every work into justice,
with every secret thing, whether it be good,
or whether it be evil.
Brother Jesse, could you pray for me?
Dear God, thank you for all this.
Your praise, Lord, for the very glory,
and the soul that fell upon the sheep,
and the bread that she would edify us,
by the preaching of your word of the seed,
it will fulfill, pass her answer into the spirit,
and keep it bold and take her into the world tonight.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.
Now, if you would, back up to chapter 11, verse number 9,
and the title of my sermon tonight is,
In the Days of Thy Youth.
In the days of thy youth, at the beginning of chapter 12,
it said, Remember now thy creator,
in the days of thy youth.
Now, go back to chapter 11, verse 9.
The Bible says, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth,
and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth,
and walk in the ways of thine heart,
and in the sight of thine eyes.
But know thou, that for all these things,
God will bring thee into judgment.
Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart,
and put away evil from thy flesh,
for childhood and youth are vanity.
So what he's saying there in verse number 9
is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, saying,
Go ahead, rejoice in your youth.
Go ahead, have a good time.
Live it up. Party.
Sow your wild oats.
Do whatever you want.
But just remember that God's going to punish you
for living that kind of a life.
God's going to bring it into judgment.
And he says, childhood and youth are vanity.
Now, vanity means it's worthless.
It's empty. It's void.
There's nothing there.
It might seem like there's something of substance there,
but it's an empty promise.
It's vacuous. It's vain.
It's worthless.
You see, enjoying a youth filled with sin and debauchery
isn't something that you're going to be glad that you did later and say,
Well, you know what?
Yeah, there were some negative consequences,
but boy, did I have a good time.
That's not how you're going to feel, he says,
when God brings it into judgment.
It leaves an emptiness there.
It might seem like it satisfies, but it doesn't.
Put away evil from your flesh,
because childhood and youth are vanity.
So here's the good advice in chapter 12, verse 1.
Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth.
God is telling us to seek the Lord at a young age.
Why?
Because a lot of people, when they're young,
they're foolish, they waste their time, they waste their life.
Then when they get older and start having kids,
all of a sudden they wise up and say,
Okay, now it's time to seek the Lord.
Now it's time to get back in church.
God's saying if you're smart,
you'll decide to get serious about the things of God
in your youth when you're a child, when you're a young man,
when you're a young lady.
See, the Bible says in verse 1,
Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth,
while the evil days come not,
nor the years draw nigh,
when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
What he's talking about is old age,
when you get to a point where you don't enjoy life as much
just because you're old.
It says in verse number 2,
While the sun or the light or the moon or the stars
be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain.
What he's saying there is that when you get older,
your eyesight becomes dim.
The sun becomes dimmer.
The moon and the stars become more dim
as your eyesight deteriorates.
It says in verse 3,
In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble,
and the strong men shall bow themselves,
and the grinders cease because they are few,
and those that look out of the windows be darkened.
See, this is a metaphor.
When he says the grinders cease,
he's talking about your teeth.
The grinders cease because they're few,
because you start losing your molars.
They start falling out.
He says the keepers of the house tremble.
Have you noticed how when people get older,
sometimes they begin to tremble?
Have you ever seen someone lift weights for the first time?
Somebody who's never lifted weights in their life,
and you set them up on a bench press,
and, you know, there's very little weight on the bar,
but what do they do when they lift?
They tremble, right?
And they're kind of like,
and you're like, do you even lift, bro?
You know, it's just like, you know.
Well, that's weakness, and the Bible's saying
when we get old, our muscles are going to get weaker.
The keepers of the house are going to tremble.
The strong men are going to bow themselves, right?
Older people begin to stoop over and hunch over with age,
and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
again, referring to the eyesight.
Verse number four,
and the doors shall be shut in the streets
when the sound of the grinding is low,
meaning that the hearing begins to deteriorate,
and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird.
Why?
Because when people get older, they don't sleep as soundly.
They don't, I mean, when you're young,
you go to bed, and you open your eyes,
and it's the next morning,
and seemingly no time has passed, right?
You just go, that's how I sleep.
I mean, you go to bed, it's like boing.
All right, it's the next day.
Whereas old people are getting up throughout the night,
and they sleep much more fitfully,
lighter sleep, and they rise at the voice of a bird.
I mean, they're up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.
with the chirping of the first bird.
3.
3 a.m., all right, yeah.
Got a witness up here.
So, 3 in the morning, they're up and at them,
and all the daughters of music shall be brought low,
and when they shall be afraid of that which is high.
You know, you don't see a lot of older people
riding roller coasters and bungee jumping
and doing that kind of stuff.
Obviously, their bodies become more frail,
but also, as you get older, you get more fearful.
When you're young, you're just jumping off of cliffs
into the water, and just woo!
As you get older, you're like, wait a minute,
this is not safe.
The older you get, you start to get a greater fear of heights
as you get older.
Fear shall be in the way, it says in verse 5,
and the almond tree shall flourish,
and the grasshopper shall be a burden,
and desire shall fail.
You know, you don't have the same lust and desires
and passions when you're 80 that you had when you're 18, right?
He says that desire shall fail, or fail means be lacking,
because man goeth to his long home,
and the mourners go about the streets,
or ever the silver cord be loosed,
or the golden bowl be broken,
or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,
or the wheel broken at the cistern,
then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
So this is just a poetic description of getting old,
and God is saying seek the Lord while you're young,
while you still have the ability to have great strength
and enjoy life and have desire.
You know, put all that energy and put all that effort
into the things of God.
Instead of just wasting your life on drunkenness
and rioting and debauchery, seek the Creator.
Remember the Creator in the days of your youth.
Why? Because childhood and youth are vanity.
Why? Because everything that this world has to offer
in the way of the pleasures of sin for a season
are all vanity.
They're a waste of time.
And if you spend your teens and twenties
seeking after the pleasures of this world,
someday you're going to look back on that as just a wasted decade,
just a waste of your life, just wasted time.
And you're going to wish that you would have done something
with your life during those years.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13-11,
when I was a child, I spake as a child.
I understood as a child. I thought as a child.
But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
That's the same type of language as when God says,
you know, put away the evil from your flesh,
because childhood and youth are vanity.
We need to seek the Lord in our youth.
And I hope every child and every teenager is listening to me this evening,
because now is the time for you to start seeking after the Lord.
Not later, not when you get older.
And don't think to yourself, wow, I'm just a kid.
I'm just a little boy. I'm just a little girl.
I'll have plenty of time for that later.
No time is too early to start seeking the Lord.
And over and over again, the Bible teaches this concept of seeking the Lord.
Okay, go to Psalm 119, if you would.
Psalm 119.
Seeking the Lord is a concept that comes up over and over again in the Bible.
And let me just explain to you what that word means.
To seek, it means to look for something, right?
Seeking is not a word that we really use today in 2016 in our everyday speech.
But to seek something means you're looking for something.
So when the Bible says, seek the Lord, what's he saying?
Look for him. Try to find him, right?
You know, people talk about finding Jesus or finding God.
Well, here's the thing. He's right here in the Word of God.
The Bible here has all things that we need that pertain to godliness.
We have the mind of Christ right here.
We have the Word of God.
And we need to seek God, meaning that we need to figure out who he is.
We need to get to know him.
We need to learn about him.
We need to commune with him and figure out what he wants from us in our life.
And you need to start seeking him even when you're a child, even a little kid.
You should start looking to find God in this book and to find Jesus in this book as a child.
Look what the Bible says in Psalm 119, starting in verse number 1.
The Bible says, blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord.
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, watch this, and that seek him with the whole heart.
God is saying that you'll be blessed if you seek after God with all your heart,
where that is what consumes you. That is what drives you.
That is the most important pursuit in your life, is I want to seek God.
I want to know God. I mean, I want to know the Creator.
Remember the Creator in the days of your youth.
Seek him. Find him.
The Bible says, seek and ye shall find.
Now jump down a few verses to the next section of Psalm 119, verse 9.
It says, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
A young man, by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
With my whole heart have I sought thee.
O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Look at verse 16, I will delight myself in thy statutes.
I will not forget thy word.
See, seeking the Lord is done through his word.
It's through his commandments. It's through the Bible.
And it's never too early to start seeking the Lord.
The Bible says, they that seek me early shall find me.
Seek the Lord while he may be found, the Bible says.
So the younger you are when you start seeking after God, the better.
Let me give you a whole bunch of other scriptures on this.
You don't have to turn to these.
But Deuteronomy 4 29 says, but if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God,
thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
First Chronicles 16 10, glory ye in his holy name.
Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.
Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face continually.
Second Chronicles 12 14, talking about a king,
it says he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.
Chapter 14 verse 4, he commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers
and to do the law and the commandment.
Second Chronicles 15 12, and they entered into a covenant
to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul.
Psalm 34 10, the young lions do lack and suffer hunger,
but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.
Psalm 69 32, the humble shall see this and be glad,
and your heart shall live that seek God.
Psalm 105 verse 3, glory ye in his holy name.
Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.
Verse 4, seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face evermore.
Proverbs 28 verse 5, evil men understand not judgment,
but they that seek the Lord understand all things.
Acts 17 27, that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him
and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.
He's nigh unto us. He's right at hand. He's as close as this book on the bookshelf.
You can pull this book off the shelf and open the King James Bible and know God
and seek and find the God of this universe, the creator of the whole world.
He's not far, but if you don't look for him, you're not going to find him.
You can't just feel after him in the dark. No, he's right here.
And if you seek him early, you'll find him. That's just a small sampling.
I can't even read you all the verses on seeking God, seeking the Lord.
And what does it mean again to seek? To look for, to search for.
Not that it's hard to find him, but you have to put forth that effort of saying I want to know God.
And even the Apostle Paul said that the greatest pursuit of his life was that he might know him
and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
The Apostle Paul said that everything else that he could achieve in life was considered dung.
It was considered excrement compared to knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing God, knowing the creator.
We need to seek God in our youth.
Every child needs to decide that they're not just going to come to church because their parents have brought them to church
and they're not just going to read the Bible because they have to read the Bible.
Because you know, when you're forced to learn things, you don't really learn them.
I mean, how many people have gone to Spanish class and gone through Spanish 1 and Spanish 2
and they don't speak a lick of Spanish?
I mean, in California, where I grew up, it was a requirement to graduate from high school two years of Spanish.
Everybody in California did two years, but does that mean everybody in California knows Spanish?
I mean, my dad my whole life quoted this one sentence to me over and over again, something about a Puerto Rico.
I don't remember anything else about it.
He had some sentence about a pig and he'd just be like, this is all I know in Spanish, and he'd quote some sentence.
And you know the average person in California or Arizona probably just knows hola, gracias, you know,
taco, burrito, enchilada, tostada, you know, and that's about it.
Tortilla, tortilla, not tortilla, you know.
But the bottom line is that just because you went to Spanish class doesn't mean you know Spanish.
Why? I'll tell you why, because you didn't want to learn Spanish, that's why.
You know what you wanted to do? You wanted to pass that quiz.
You want to pass that test, and as soon as you pass that quiz or pass that test,
your brain said this is information that I don't care about and threw it in the trash.
And you don't remember any of it. Why? Because you didn't want to.
You learn what you want to learn. If you don't want to learn, you won't learn.
Now if you decide I want to learn Spanish, you'll learn Spanish, whether you're in school or not.
Whether you're being forced or not, it doesn't matter. If you decide that you want to, you will learn it.
You know, I wasn't that serious about learning Spanish. I went through three years of high school Spanish,
and I didn't know that much Spanish. By the time I moved here and started the church at age 24,
my Spanish was very bad, very rusty. I didn't hardly speak Spanish at all.
I definitely couldn't give someone the gospel in Spanish.
But right away I noticed that a lot of the people around here didn't speak English,
and I wanted to be able to talk to them, so I decided I want to learn Spanish.
And then I taught myself Spanish over the course of a couple of years through desire.
A man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. Proverbs 18 verse 1.
Learning begins with a desire to learn.
And if you don't have a desire to learn, you can sit through high school and sit through college
and have all kinds of instruction coming at you, and it all just goes whoosh, like this.
And that's why there's so many things we don't remember from high school, that we don't remember from college.
But the things that we taught ourselves because we were interested in them, those are the things we'll always remember.
Because you learn what you want to learn. And let me tell you something.
You need to love the Lord and desire to learn about God. Desire to learn the Bible.
And if you want to know the truth, not just because your parents are taking you to church,
or because you're just going through the motions, but if you say,
I want to know why I'm here on this earth. I want to know why God has put me here and I'm alive in 2016.
It can't be that I'm here to just eat and drink and be merry and sleep and get up and do it again.
No, there's got to be a reason why I'm here. And I want to seek after God and figure out what God wants me to do with my life.
You say, well, that's a pretty heavy thought for a five-year-old. No, it isn't.
Every five-year-old in this room ought to be thinking those exact thoughts.
I don't care if you're three years old. I don't care if you're four years old.
You can start having wisdom and seeking after God even at that young age.
Even as a little child, you can begin to seek after God. It's true.
Even as a little child. It's never too early. Now, I'll say this about myself.
And look, I'm not going to lift up myself because honestly, you know, I'm a sinful guy. I'm an average guy.
I'm just a Joe Christian guy. I'm not any kind of a, you know, super Christian or anything like that.
I'm not trying to say that. But God has used me to achieve certain things for the Lord.
You know, starting this church, winning people to Christ. In spite of my faults and flaws, I've been used by God.
And I've actually been able to accomplish more for God than I ever would have imagined that I could have.
Glory to God. You know, he gets all the glory.
Not because I'm smart or talented or skilled, but rather because I sought the Lord as a little child. That's why.
I believe I'm here right now preaching to you right now at 35 years old.
It's not because I woke up in my early 30s and started deciding to serve God that I'm up here preaching right now.
At age 35. With nine kids. Having started a church that started several other churches.
You know, and preaching to literally millions of people through the internet and so forth.
It didn't happen because I partied and drank and did drugs throughout my 20s and then decided to start serving God when I was 30.
No. It happened because I sought the Lord as a small little child.
And we need to encourage our children to seek the Lord at that young age.
And every time, I want you children to listen to me. You need to seek the Lord now.
Young boys, young girls, seek him now.
I can remember, and look, I did a lot of stupid things in my life and I was a worldly teenager and everything else.
But you know what? I can remember, and honestly, sometimes it's better if you can start seeking the Lord before you're a teenager.
Because your brain kind of shuts off for several years when you're a teenager.
And look, there's a physical reason. There's a scientific, physiological explanation.
Because of the fact that your body, you know, when you hit puberty and everything,
obviously you're going through all these hormonal changes and everything, and it messes with your mind.
That's why, you know, women go crazy from time to time because of these same type of issues, right?
You know, I mean, I'm not saying any of your wives or anything, but I'm just saying, you know, why?
Because, you know, and obviously we have to be patient with our wives and our sisters and mothers because of the fact that, you know,
they're dealing with a hormonal cocktail that we don't have to deal with.
As men, we're a little more even-keeled.
But here's the thing, as a teenager though, both boys and girls are going through changes and everything,
and they kind of become an idiot there for a while. And I was an idiot when I was a teenager.
You know, no offense teenagers, but it's a rough time.
So if you're smart, you'll start seeking the Lord before your brain shuts off for the teenage years,
and already start to develop some Christian character.
Because look, if you don't have it when you're 13, 14, 15, it's going to be harder to get it started at that time.
Why don't you seek him when you're 8, 9, 10, 11? You know what I mean?
Now look, if you're 13, 14, 15, well, you know, better late than never, jump in there and do it.
And look, I'm telling you, when I was a kid, thank God, my parents brought me to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night,
and we were in some King James only, soul winning type churches, and I heard hard preaching,
and my parents and my grandparents influenced me toward the things of God,
and I can remember as a small child seeking the Lord, I can remember being on my knees alone,
not because anybody was watching, not to impress anybody, not at church, not in Sunday school,
but just with the door shut, in my room, as a tiny little child, on my knees, praying to the Lord, seeking God.
On my knees, reading my Bible, in my room, as a little kid, seeking the Lord,
I'm talking about when I was 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, seeking God, wanting to know God, wanting to do something for God,
wanting to listen to the Sunday school lesson, wanting to listen to the preacher, wanting to learn,
and even though, you know, I was, you know, not really, I didn't really know how to serve God,
because I lacked knowledge, I had a desire, and I did seek the word of God.
I didn't know how to win people to Christ, but I have wanted to win people to Christ ever since I was 6 years old, at least,
because I was 6 years old when I got saved, and I still remember getting saved,
I remember, you know, my mom kneeling with me by the bedside, and showing me down the Romans road,
and showing me John chapter 5 verse 24, and praying and receiving Christ as my savior,
and I remember just desiring to get that message out to everybody I could.
I remember I used to literally, as a kid, like 6, 7 years old, I would just put gospel tracts that I would get from church,
I would just stick them on people's cars, stick them on people's houses and stuff, just because I didn't know what else to do.
I just thought, we gotta do something.
And, you know, I remember there was one kid that we were able to win to the Lord when I was real young, around 6 years old,
but I didn't really do it, it was mainly my brother that did it, because he was 6 years older than me,
so he did most of the talking, and I was just kind of along for the ride, but I felt like I wanted to quote some scriptures too,
because I was hoping to get like a half a soul saved, because I was like, I want to get to heaven and have won somebody to Christ.
So I wanted to get a little bit of a partial commission on this, you know, with the Lord.
So I remember talking to this kid, and the kid's name, I still remember his name, his name was Garrett.
And it was a little kid, lived right across the street from me, and his name was Garrett,
and my brother and I sort of worked together and went through the plan of salvation with this kid, and went him to Christ.
And you know what, for the next 10 years, you know how many people I won to the Lord? Zero. Zero.
Because I just didn't know how to go soul winning, the churches that we went to thereafter were kind of weak on soul winning,
nobody was training me, nobody was teaching me, and I can remember when I was 10, 11, 12, 13, trying to get people saved,
like I would show people from the Bible a little bit, or just kind of explain it in my own words,
but I didn't really know what I was doing, so I never succeeded.
I failed many times, where I would try to give the Gospel to my friends, and they didn't get saved.
Well, I remember when I was a teenager, and I'm not exaggerating, and look, again, I'm not trying to lift myself up,
because if you knew me when I was 13, 14, 15, you know, I mean, I was not spending most of my time on the things of God.
There were days, I'm just being honest with you, there were days when I woke up and played video games the whole day.
The whole day. And look, we're not talking about the really complicated games of today,
we're talking NES, 8-bit, I mean, we're talking Contra, we're talking, you know, Metroid, you know, Castlevania,
Final Fantasy, you know, Super Mario Brothers 2, I'm trying to think of the other games that I played all the time.
You know, I mean, we're talking really basic games.
And I mean, I'm talking getting up in the morning, and besides just going to the bathroom,
and even while I was in the bathroom, I'm just thinking about my next strategy when I get back.
Okay? And I'm talking just grab some food, and I'm eating food, playing video games.
I mean, there were days, I mean, I can't even count how many times I sat in front of the TV for just hour after hour.
I mean, I wasted a lot of time as a kid.
I mean, I can remember one day, as a teenager, I sat and watched the entire Star Wars trilogy, the whole thing, in one sitting.
Okay, you're like, man, you are a nerd.
I wasn't as nerdy as I sound, alright?
But I had like, I had a half gallon of raspberry sherbet, and I cranked through a half gallon of raspberry sherbet,
and a can of green beans, and a can of spinach, straight out of the can, just with a fork.
And I watched the entire Star Wars trilogy, in one sitting.
Alright, so I'm not trying to say, oh man, my whole life I was just seeking God, I was just spiritual.
You know, obviously I did a lot of dumb teenager stuff, I wasted a lot of time.
Okay, but here's the thing.
My heart, though, knew that there's something more to life, and that I wanted to seek after God,
and that I wanted to do something better for God with my life.
And so, I remember every day I would read my Bible, but I had no discipline.
I was lazy, you know, as kids often are.
So every day, I remember I'd heard preachers that would say, read the Bible until you get something out of it.
Well, I knew I wanted to get back to the movies, and the video games, and the music, and the swimming,
and the bike rides, and the playing with friends.
So I thought, you know, if I'm going to read the Bible until I get something out of it,
I'm going to go to a part of the Bible where I'm going to get something out of it pretty fast.
So the only Bible that I pretty much read growing up, I would read the red letters.
I'd go to the four gospels and read the words of Christ, because, you know, his teaching was really dense.
And then I would read Proverbs, 1st, 2nd Timothy, and Titus.
So that was like 90-some percent of my Bible reading was just the red letters, 1st, 2nd Timothy, and Titus,
and the book of Proverbs.
Because then I'd just read three or four verses, and be like, I got something out of it.
Back to the games, or back to whatever.
But I can say, so I'm not trying to glorify my childhood, but I will say this.
And I, I promise you this is true.
When I was a teenager, even during those worldly, stupid times,
I prayed every night when I went to bed, before I, you know, and I tried to confess my sins of the day,
and confess everything I could think of, and pray to the Lord.
Listen to me, every night for years, I prayed that I would be able to win one person to Christ before I died.
I prayed that every, and it wasn't a vain repetition, I meant it from my heart.
I would go to bed, and every night as part of my prayer, I would pray,
Lord, would you allow me to win one person to the Lord in my entire life?
I prayed that every night.
And it seems silly maybe to you that go out soul winning every week, and you're getting people saved all the time.
But when you're in a church where barely anybody's getting saved, and you don't really know a lot about soul winning,
and you've had zero success, that's a goal of just winning one person.
So I prayed that every night, every night, pray that prayer, pray that prayer.
And the first time I won somebody Lord, I was 17 years old.
So it took many years, and then finally I got into a soul winning church that taught me,
and took me out, and showed me how to knock doors, and then I started getting people saved.
And you know, I probably had one person saved for every time I prayed that prayer.
You know what I mean, if you did the math.
Because God answers prayer, amen, it just sometimes it takes a long time.
But God brought me, but why did God bring me to Regency Baptist Church when I was 17 years old,
where I could learn how to go soul winning?
I'll tell you why, because I was seeking Him.
Even if I didn't know what I was doing, even if I was immature, even if I was lazy,
even if I wasted a lot of time on dumb things,
I was seeking the Lord, I at least loved the Lord, and I actually cared to know Him better.
And once I got in the right church, and once I got the right leadership of a pastor in my life
that I could look up to and learn from, then I started getting the junk out of my life,
and started getting serious.
Then I started reading the Bible one, two hours a day, and memorizing scripture,
and just getting really serious, and winning people the Lord, and stuff like that.
You know, because you need the right church to do that.
You need the right role models, and leaders, and mentors.
You know, and look, are there some people who go soul winning on their own?
Yeah, I'm sure they're out there, but you know what, for most of us, that's not how it worked.
I mean, for me, I had to have a church that would go with me, and show me, and train me,
and then it wasn't until years later that I went soul winning by myself.
That was more when I was like 20 or 21, but I started soul winning when I was 17.
With other people holding your hand, and guiding you, and teaching you.
That's what most people need.
How should they preach, except they be sent?
And so, I say that just to say this, I believe that the reason why God has blessed me above measure
is simply because I sought the Lord in my youth.
Because I did read the Bible every day, and pray, and even though I made other mistakes, I cared.
I loved the Lord.
Let me ask you young person, let me ask you young 7 year old, 8 year old, 10 year old,
10 year old, do you ever stop and think about seeking the Lord for yourself?
Do you ever, when nobody's around, pull out the Bible and read it?
Not because it's your assigned Bible reading by your parents, which your parents should be assigning you Bible reading, of course.
I'm glad that I had my parents, and school, and church telling me to read my Bible.
But you know what, do you ever just pull out the Bible and read it because you want to know what it says?
Because you want to meet God, because you want to know what the Lord requires?
You should ask yourself that question, young person.
That's very important.
But how do we seek the Lord in our youth?
Let me give some examples.
You know what I think is great is that at our church now we have a lot of teenagers going soul winning, and I think that's great.
Teenage soul winning.
I remember the church I went to in Sacramento had teenage soul winning.
Now unfortunately I didn't get into it until I was 17 years old.
Because the churches I went to before that didn't have it.
But thank God for teenage soul winning.
Kids getting out and soul winning when they're 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
Obviously they need to be in groups and supervised and stuff like that.
But I thank God that my sons, Solomon, Isaac, John, and many of your sons and daughters are participating in soul winning.
And even if they're too young to be doing the talking, and when I say participating in soul winning,
I'm saying we have a lot of teenagers in our church, they're not just silent partners.
I mean they do the talking.
I mean they win people to the Lord.
They get adults saved.
And teenagers and children saved.
And by the way, they have a more open door with kids than we do.
Because kids talking to kids makes a lot more sense sometimes than an adult talking to a kid.
And so God can use them mightily as soul winning teenagers.
But even when they're too young to be a soul winning teenager,
you should think about taking your small child out soul winning with you as a silent partner.
What's wrong with taking your child out when they're 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old as a silent partner
and letting them go soul winning with you and it can be a good bonding time between you and your children,
quality time, and they're being trained and they're getting the gospel nailed down
and they're learning about soul winning.
And you know what? Kids love soul winning.
You know what? I don't have to force my kids to go soul winning.
They beg us to go soul winning.
I mean, it's my turn. It's my turn.
You know, because they like the adventures of soul winning.
You know, sometimes weird things happen or you run into strange people, strange decorations.
They love it.
When somebody yells at you and slams the door, when you're an adult, it could be frustrating, but kids love it.
They just love any kind of action, positive or negative. It doesn't matter.
You know, kids like to go soul winning.
I don't know about your kids, but I mean, most kids, I mean, they desire to get out there and do it.
And they enjoy coming along for the ride, even just as a silent partner.
That's a great way for you young people to seek the Lord in the days of your youth.
And those of you that are teenagers and you're doing a lot as a silent partner,
why don't you decide to take the step to start talking at some of the doors?
Especially to other kids and teenagers.
Why don't you, 12 year old, 13, 14, 15 year old, decide that you want to win someone to Christ?
Why don't you start praying that prayer every night that I prayed?
That God would allow you to win one to the Lord.
Now let me ask you this question.
And I don't want to embarrass anyone or point anyone out, but let me ask you this.
Who here is under 18 years old and you've won, you've been able to win somebody to the Lord out soul winning?
Doing the talking.
Look at all the hands, under 18.
Praise the Lord for that.
That's exciting.
A generation that's seeking the Creator in their youth.
And look, none of those hands that went up were ever forced to do the talking that I know of.
I mean, usually they were stepping forward and saying, hey, I'm sick of standing idly by.
I want to get the next door.
I want to do the talking.
Seeking the Lord in our youth.
Now, we live in a day where things are backward.
Sort of like I talked about in the announcement, things are a little bit backward today.
And one of the things that's backward about our society is that our society wants children to grow up too fast when it comes to carnal things.
But then when it comes to responsibility, they want to slow down their growth.
I mean, we live in a day today where it's a big political issue about whether or not children can still be on their parents' health care when they're 26 years old.
That's like a big political debate.
What are these 26-year-olds going to do when they have to get off their parents' health insurance?
I don't know.
I guess they might have to leave mom and dad's basement and go get a job.
I'm talking to you, Hikikomori.
But anyway, the point is that there's an infantilizing of teenagers and even young adults in the sense that they want to push back any responsibility.
That's why the average age of people getting married in my parents' generation was 20.
When my parents got married, my dad was 20 and my mom was 19 and that was considered normal.
That was the average back then.
You got married when you were around 20.
Now they get married when they're about 30.
But here's the thing.
They're not waiting to have intercourse until they're 30 people.
They're trying to carnalize our children younger and younger.
I mean, they're trying to bring in the sex education into the elementary school, into the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth grade,
and fill their mind with all these carnal things and all the movies and all the TV and all the music and everything is pushing them toward that relationship and especially a physical relationship.
And then they're telling them, oh, don't get married until you're 30.
Stay on mom and dad's wing until you're 26, 27, 30, 35 years old.
Don't rush that.
They want them, instead of graduating high school and going out and getting a job, they want them all to go to college where college becomes 13th grade.
It's not even college.
It's 13th grade.
It's 14th grade.
Look, they're 13th graders and they go through this period of no responsibility.
They don't want to even work their way through school.
They want to get a government loan.
So they can sit on their butts and go to school and they think going to school is a full-time job.
It's not.
It's not a full-time job.
Look, yeah, when you're a kid, all you do is go to school and then you come home and you raid the cupboards for snacks and you whip out the, and I'm not saying you should, I'm saying this is what people do.
It's what I did.
I'm not condoning it.
My kids don't, excuse me, my kids don't do it.
But, you know, you get home, you raid the cupboard, you whip out the NES, you sit on your butt, you have dinner, you watch movies, you go to bed, you know, and you just, why?
Because you're immature?
Because you're young?
Because you're stupid?
Because you're wasting your time?
But then the sad thing is you have 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds, they go to college and live that same lifestyle.
They don't want to get a job.
They just want to go to school and be on campus, oh, so they can focus on their studies.
No, they're not.
They're focusing on beer pong and fornication.
That's what's being focused on.
They're partying.
They're getting drunk.
They're hooking up and having casual, sinful fornication encounters.
That's what's going on.
And we live in a society that has made money the god of our nation, and sports is the god of the nation, right?
And so they're not seeking the creator, but they go to college and it's all about just making money.
Well, let's hold off getting married, let's hold off having kids, let's hold off on any responsibility, and let's just focus on sitting our butts in a classroom so we can make more money.
So that we can excel at making money without having to do any real labor for it.
We can get the most cush, easy, government style job possible.
And so, you know, we need to understand that the exact opposite needs to be true as Christians.
We need to be pushing back the carnality later and bringing the responsibility sooner and earlier.
I mean, look, thank God that in Arizona you're allowed to get a job when you're 14 years old.
Great.
Now, look, I'm not saying you should send your daughters out to work.
That's a foolish thing to do in my opinion.
My daughters will never be sent off to work, especially not when they're 14, 15, 16 years old.
Might as well just kiss them goodbye.
Why?
Because the Bible teaches that the woman is the weaker vessel, and she's supposed to be handed over from the father's authority to the husband, and she's supposed to have a male figure in her life at all times.
And the Bible even says that if a woman's husband dies, she should go back and live with her dad.
You know, why?
Because women need an authority figure in their life.
Now, are there exceptions to that?
Sure.
But let me ask you a question.
Do you think it's a coincidence, and maybe I'm stepping on some toes with this, but do you think it's a coincidence that whether we're at Faithful Word Baptist Church or whether we're at Verity Baptist Church or whether we're at other independent fundamental Baptist churches across America,
isn't it interesting how there's a ton of young single guys in the church, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, that are serving the Lord, and almost no single young ladies, 18, 19, 20, 21, that are serving the Lord in the churches?
Have you noticed that?
Now, I don't know how it is right now in our church, but I know in the past, I remember a time when there were like 12 or 13 dudes like that, and there was like, there's no single girls.
What's going on?
Who here is a dude that's 18 to 25, a single guy?
Put up your hand.
You're 18 to 25, and you're single.
All right?
Okay.
Ladies, 18 to 25, single.
Put up your hand.
Ladies, men, hands down.
David?
All right.
Pay attention.
Single girl, 18 to 25, put up your hand.
If you're a single girl and you're 18 to 25, one hand up.
Sorry to embarrass you.
There's a lot of guys that want to see you after the service.
Just kidding.
But anyway, the point is, guys, are you paying attention?
So here's the deal.
Here's the deal.
Did you just notice that there are 10 times as many, and you think that's a coincidence?
And you know what?
I thank God that you're here, because you know what?
You're an exception.
Because most girls your age have no interest in the things of God, and that's why they're not here.
They're not seeking the Lord at all.
She's here seeking the Lord.
Where are all the rest of the young girls her age seeking the Lord?
And if we went to Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, you know, they have a couple hundred people in the church,
and I guarantee you it's a similar result over there.
Why?
Because we have this culture that takes girls and just sends them out.
Oh, you're an adult now.
And when they're 18, they go to the world almost 100% of the time.
But you know what you'll find in churches like ours?
You'll find a ton of young ladies that want to serve the Lord after they had their first kid.
I mean, what do you know?
Please, let's restrict the amens to adults, please.
Okay.
The point is, we have today, and look, seek the Lord in your youth,
but obviously we need to keep the house of God in order a certain amount,
and no amens from women or children in God's house.
But anyway, that's my rule.
Amen?
But here's the thing.
We have today a bunch of women who seek the Lord after they have their first kid,
because then all of a sudden they start thinking,
oh, wow, I need to take care of it, or after they get married, or after they're 30 years old.
They're the 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old girls that want to serve the Lord.
They don't exist hardly at all.
Why?
Because they're going out and ruining their lives.
That's why.
And so if you're smart parents, you'll realize, hmm, my daughter's probably not going to be the exception to that rule,
and so therefore I need to keep my daughter under my wing and under my authority
and under my rules until I pass her off to her husband.
That's where that tradition even comes from, for the father to walk her down the aisle and pass her off.
Now it's just a formality.
It should be a reality.
And so we need today to have some parents that will make sure that their daughters serve the Lord and seek the Lord.
And so that's why I'm not sending my daughters out to go get a job and become independent women
so they can screw up their lives like everyone else is doing at that age and gender, except the rare exceptions.
But I'll tell you this, I want my sons to go out when they're 14, 15, 16, 17 and start working
and learning how to work and learning how to be independent.
You say that's a double standard.
Yeah, it is a double standard.
Newsflash, there's a difference between men and women.
I know you don't understand that in our backward perverted society, but men and women aren't the same.
Hello, is anybody home?
Do we need a biology lesson?
But the differences aren't just skin deep, my friend.
The differences are in the mind and in the heart as well.
And so we need to understand and recognize the difference between male and female.
And listen to me, I want my sons to learn to start taking responsibility and working
because when they turn 18, a switch isn't just going to go in their head and all of a sudden they're just going to become a great worker.
The Bible says even a child is known by his doings whether his work be pure and whether it be right.
And so we need to seek the Lord in our youth.
We need to encourage our children to seek the Lord in our youth.
And listen, we need to push back the carnality, okay, and we need to bring forward the responsibility in the lives of our children.
We need to expect more from our children.
Now obviously we don't expect our children to be perfect because, you know, we're not following Michael Pearl's warped child rearing plan.
But at the same time, some people are just way too lenient with their kids and they let their kids act, however, instead of expecting them to take some responsibility and to start showing some maturity.
Listen, childhood and youth are vanity.
And when you're 12, 13, 14, 15, whether you're a boy or a girl, you need to start maturing and showing some maturity and start helping out around the house and start taking life seriously and doing something to prepare for the rest of your life.
Get serious about it.
But instead, what we have today, we have a bunch of nine-year-olds talking about their boyfriend and girlfriend, but nobody wants to take out the trash.
Nobody wants to do any work or anything.
You know, they want to get married when they're 30, and they want to have a girlfriend when they're 9.
Now listen to me.
And look, I've heard a lot of it even in this church.
I hear 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-year-olds.
Even amongst my own children, I've heard them talking about, oh, this boy, this girl.
And you know, when I hear my kids talking about that, I tell them no.
I tell them you're never allowed to talk about that when you're not even to puberty yet, for crying out loud.
I mean, what in the world do you need to have a girlfriend when you're 10 years old?
Or who has a crush on who, or who likes who, or whatever.
Look, you don't need to be talking about that.
I remember I took my son, we took my son to Front Sight. Remember that?
How long ago was that, a couple years ago or so?
Yeah, we went up to Front Sight, which is a gun training thing.
So we're up in Nevada, and we're training in firearms.
It's like an 8-hour-a-day intensive firearm training.
So we're getting some training, and I brought my sons, Solomon and Isaac.
How old were you, Solomon? Do you remember?
Yeah, you do, son. Why don't you tell the truth?
How old was he?
He was 12. All right, thanks, Isaac.
So Isaac must have been 10, 11, or whatever.
So he's 12 years old, and we put them in the kids' class.
So they got to learn a little bit about gun safety,
they got to go through some obstacle courses,
and they got to fire an Uzi and fire some other guns and everything.
You know, I mean, just normal 12-year-old stuff.
Fire an Uzi, learn some basic guns.
So this is up in Nevada, and there's a girl in his class
that basically thought he was cute or whatever.
So, you know, she's telling her friend that, hey, go tell him he's cute.
You know, hey, Solomon just confronts the girl.
He just walks up to her, and he's like, I'm 12, you're 12,
and we're way too young to be thinking about this right now.
Because it was all done through the friend, but he just went to the source,
and he just confronted her and told her that,
and after that, she just kind of stayed away from him after that,
after he confronted her with that.
But you know what, that ought to be the attitude.
And he was 12, especially when they're 11, 10, 9, good night.
Do not let your children involve themselves romantically when they're a child.
It's ridiculous.
Okay, and you say, well, that's normal.
Yeah, of course it's normal for kids to want to act like adults,
but it doesn't mean that you let them.
I mean, it's normal for a kid to want to drive a car when they're 7'2",
and you just put them behind the wheel.
You tell them no, no, you can't do that.
And look, there's no reason to let them have a serious boyfriend
or a serious girlfriend until they're 16 years old, in my opinion,
because that's when they're starting to actually think about getting married
and stuff like that.
Because if they're going to get married when they're 18,
obviously they want to start entering into some relationships,
building up to that.
And I'm not saying they're going to just marry the first person when they're 18,
but if they're going to get married when they're 18, 19, 20, 21,
you know, yeah, okay, 16 is pretty reasonable.
And look, it's okay, obviously when they're 13, 14, 15,
they're going to start having strong feelings in those areas,
and they're starting to develop some relationships.
Great, but it needs to progress slowly.
You know, when they're 13, 14, 15, it needs to progress slowly
because it has to get them all the way to 18.
You know, at a minimum.
So you don't want the relationship to progress too quickly.
So they're not just going to be constantly, you know,
constantly doing stuff.
They have to, you know, slow that down a little bit
in order to just, you know, build up to it, a natural buildup.
And then the serious dating begins when they get older,
but look, when they're not even 13, it should not even be mentioned.
You guys are supposed to still consider the girls all to be ridden with cooties
from head to toe at that age.
But the world wants them to, they want to sensualize our children
and carnalize them at a super young age,
and then they tell them, oh, don't get married till you're 30.
Oh, great, that's a great combination, great idea.
I mean, I had my, one of my good friends when I was in high school,
his parents put in their will that if he got married
before he was 25 years old, he would lose his entire inheritance.
What kind of nonsense is that?
You know, I got married when I was 19.
It was the best decision I ever made in my life.
My best friend Roger Jimenez got married when he was 18,
serving the Lord faithfully, pastoring a church.
Why? Because childhood and youth are vanity.
Why? Because the beer pong years are vanity.
Fornication is vanity.
Just skip it. Skip it and get serious about life
and do something with your life that matters.
And I'm not saying you marry the first guy or the first girl that comes along,
but there's no reason to just wait for the sake of waiting.
And yeah, you say, well, a lot of 18-year-olds aren't mature enough.
Well, why don't they get mature then and quit being a fool?
Well, maybe the problem isn't that they're 18.
The problem is that they're immature because you're not expecting them to grow up
and expecting them to take responsibility in their teenage years
and actually form some good habits in their teenage years.
You see, the habits that are formed early in life
are the habits that you'll have for the rest of your life in many cases.
And those habits are tough to break.
You know, I formed bad habits when I was a teenager of laziness.
And I remember in my early married years, I struggled with laziness.
And that's part of why I went to Hiles Anderson College,
because Hiles Anderson College had the reputation for being the most slave-driving college
that just worked you really hard and deprived you of sleep.
That's why I went there, because I knew that was my biggest weakness,
was laziness from all those video game-filled and movie-filled days on the couch.
And so I went to Hiles Anderson, and man, I learned that one thing I learned there was how to work hard.
And I worked and worked day and night at that place, and I've been working ever since.
You know, they taught me that character.
That was the one thing that I took from there.
Most of everything else I discarded.
But that was the one good thing I learned, was how to work.
Because it's hard to break habits.
You know, that's why you as a child should start building the habits of working hard,
reading your Bible, praying, going to church, going soul-winning,
and just realize that just childhood and youth, the Bible says, are vanity.
And we need to grow up and serve the Lord and take life seriously and seek the Lord at a young age.
As far as parents, we need to make sure and train our children to seek the Lord even when they're kids.
Okay, now you say, when does this begin?
It begins from day one that they're born.
You see, I believe that the most influential time in a child's life is when they're 0, 1, 2 years old.
This is the most important time in their life.
And you say, what are you talking about? It's just a baby.
Okay, but that's when Moses was with his mom.
Two years.
And Moses grew up and served the Lord even though he was brainwashed by the Egyptians from age two or three onward.
He was with godly parents for the first two years of his life and grew up to be a great mighty man of God.
That means from day one you bring your kids to church.
You say, well, they don't even understand anything.
Oh yes, they do.
They understand way more than you think.
Those babies, these toddlers, they're soaking it all in.
They're learning way more than you think.
Because it's not just through the words that are being spoken.
They're understanding the concept of coming to church, sitting still, listening to the music, listening to the preaching, hearing Bible verses.
And when they're one, two, three, I mean they've already grown up with it.
It's already second nature to them.
Get your kids in church from day one and make your kids behave in church the best you can.
Don't let your kids run wild at church.
The Bible says we should know how to behave ourselves in the house of God.
Bring them to church and expect them to sit still.
You say, how do I train my child to sit still?
By reading the Bible to them at home every day and expecting them to sit still while you read the Bible to them.
And obviously a newborn or a real young toddler isn't going to do that.
But look, if your kid is five, six, seven years old and can't sit still in church, you're not training them properly at home.
You know, you need to expect more from them at home.
You need to discipline them at home.
You need to read them the Bible on a daily basis.
Every day at our house there's a Bible time and then there's an additional story time of just a non-biblical storybook every day.
And they have to line up on the couch and sit still for Bible time and story time.
Okay?
That trains them to have the maturity to come to church and sit down and shut up and listen to the preaching.
That's why we don't have a children's church going on across the parking lot where we dress in bright colors and sing,
Somewhere in outer space God has prepared us.
That's why we bring them to Big Kid Church from day one.
Because they're learning.
They're growing.
This is the preaching they need.
Not some watered down, dumbed down message.
They need this message.
And then they grow up and go to a serious church.
You know what's funny?
Some of the fundamental Baptist churches, they sing all the old hymns and have hard, leather-lung Bible preaching.
And then they send all the kids across the parking lot to basically a worship service with all this wild music,
a woman preacher, short lesson, cookies, and Kool-Aid.
And then they wonder why those kids grow up and they don't go to a church like this.
The kids grow up and they go to a church with a woman pastor, Kool-Aid, cookies, and wild music.
Why?
Because that's what they did when they were zero, one, two, three, four.
That's what they revert back to.
By having your kids in this kind of a church, you're teaching them to grow up and go to this kind of a church.
Big Boy Church.
Not Little Baby in Christ Church.
Not McDonald's Playland Baptist Church with Pastor Ronald McDonald.
You know, it's a serious church.
It's not a joke.
And they're learning that the pastor gets up and yells and stomps and spits.
That's what they're learning.
And if that's all they learn, that'll keep them out of the Joyce Meyer crusade.
That'll keep them out of Joel Osteen's church.
You know, that'll keep them on the right path toward finding a good church.
And so we need to understand the importance of our children raising them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,
training up a child in the way he should go so that when he's old, he'll not depart from it,
making sure that our children are given every opportunity to seek the Lord and that they're being encouraged to go soul winning,
encouraged to read their Bibles, encouraged to pray, encouraged to be in church.
But listen kids, half the message is directly at the kids.
You need to seek the Lord.
You need to decide right now that you want to serve God for yourself.
I don't care if your parents are half in and half out.
Why don't you decide to be all the way in?
And if your parents are all the way in, you get all the way in and you do greater works.
Because most of your parents probably didn't start out at the age that you're starting.
And unto whom much is given of him shall much be required.
Remember now the Creator in the days of your youth.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for the word of God that it makes it so easy to seek and find you, Lord,
because everything we need is right here in this book, Lord, if we would only pull it off the shelf,
if we could only just turn off the video game long enough to read a few pages, Lord,
if we could only just seek you with our lives.
And, Lord, I pray that every five year old, six year old, seven year old, eight year old
would remember this sermon for the rest of their life that they need to seek you.
And that they need to start now seeking you.
And that they need to go to their wedding day as a virgin.
And that they need to be one who goes from their parents to their spouse
and does not pass, go and collect $200 in between by spending their time at Satan U or Devil State University.
But that they would go from their parents to their spouse and to serve you every step of the way, Lord.
And not to get caught up in the fashion of this world where they fornicate into their 30s.
Lord, help every single child here to grow up and serve you and to love you with their soul and might and strength.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Song number 271, Lord, I'm Coming Home.
Sing it out for the first.
I've warned you far away from home.
Well, I'm coming home.
That's the sin to know alone.
Lord, I'm coming home.
Coming home, coming home.
Evermore, coming home.
Open wide, let all come home.
Lord, I'm coming home.
I've wasted many precious years.
Now I'm coming home.
I knew every man with bitter tears.
Lord, I'm coming home.
Coming home, coming home.
Evermore, coming home.
Open wide, let all come home.
Lord, I'm coming home.
I've tired of saying it's too late.
Now I'm coming home.
I'll trust that I believe I will.
Lord, I'm coming home.
Coming home, coming home.
Evermore, coming home.
Open wide, let all come home.
Lord, I'm coming home.
My soul is here, my heart is strong.
Now I'm coming home.
For the strength we hold, my home is strong.
Lord, I'm coming home.
I'm coming home, coming home.
Evermore, coming home.
Open wide, let all come home.
Lord, I'm coming home.
Amen.
Let's do this.