Title of my sermon tonight is
why church nurseries are unscriptural and wrong.
And so that's why I have a baby on my hip right here.
This is my daughter, Chloe.
And across America today,
preachers are unwilling to have children
and babies in the service
because they basically want to preach in a vacuum.
Everything has to be silent.
Everything has to be perfect, no distractions.
So I'm going to show that not only can I preach
with babies and children in the service,
I'll preach this sermon holding a baby.
You know, just to show that it's these guys
who need to adjust so that people can have
their children in church with them
so that their children can be safe and free from predators.
They're the ones who need to get on the program
of, you know, adjusting their preaching
to be able to, you know, handle a little bit
of a distraction, right?
So let's look at what the Bible says.
Let's start out in Matthew chapter 19, verse 13.
The Bible reads in verse 13 of Matthew 19.
Then were there brought unto him little children
that he should put his hands on them and pray.
And the disciples rebuked them.
But Jesus said, suffer little children
and forbid them not to come unto me.
For of such is the kingdom of heaven.
And he laid his hands on them and departed thence.
Okay, look if you would at Mark chapter number 10.
Mark chapter number 10.
While you're turning to Mark 10,
I'll read for you from Luke 18.
And they brought unto him also infants.
Did you hear that?
They brought unto him infants.
So we're not just talking about children,
but actually babies.
An infant is defined as one who cannot yet walk.
It says they brought on him also infants
that he would touch them.
But when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.
But Jesus called them unto him and said,
suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not.
For of such is the kingdom of God.
Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child
shall in no wise enter therein.
Mark 10, 13, they brought young children to him
that he should touch them.
And his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
So notice in all three passages,
we see that the disciples,
they don't want the little children and the infants coming.
They obviously saw it as a nuisance or a distraction.
And Jesus rebuked them and said,
whoa, suffer the little children to come unto me.
Let these infants come unto me.
Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
And he put his hands on them, he prayed for them,
he blessed them and so forth.
Look down at your Bible there.
It says, verily I say unto you, verse 15,
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
And he took them up in his arms,
put his hands upon them and blessed them.
Now let's go back to the Old Testament
to Deuteronomy chapter 31.
The bottom line is that the nursery system
where people drop off their baby with strangers,
or even if it's with people that they know
or think that they know, it's not a scriptural system.
Throughout the Bible, whether we're in the Old Testament
or the New Testament, the children and babies
are in the church, they're in the congregation,
they're gathered together with all of God's people.
They're not segregated off somewhere
in some communist daycare being taken care of by others.
They stay with their parents.
And we can see that in both Old and New Testaments.
Let's start out in Deuteronomy chapter number 31.
We'll see the congregation with Moses.
Now the Bible calls this in the New Testament
the church in the wilderness.
Congregation is the Old Testament word
for the New Testament word church.
It says in Deuteronomy chapter 31, verse 11,
when all Israel has come to appear before the Lord thy God
in the place which he shall choose,
thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Gather the people together, men and women and children
and thy stranger that is within thy gates
that they may hear and that they may learn
and fear the Lord your God and observe to do
all the words of this law and that their children
which have not known anything.
We're talking about a little child
that doesn't know anything, hasn't learned anything,
just a blank sheet of paper,
just a little sponge ready to learn.
It says that their children which have not known anything,
I lost my place, what verse am I in?
13, that their children which have not known anything
may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God
as long as you live in the land
whether you go over Jordan to possess it.
I don't know about you.
I want my children to hear the word of God preached
and I want them to learn to fear the Lord my God
as long as I live in the land where I go over to possess it.
Look, I care more about my children
than about the rest of the members of this church.
I care more about my wife
than about the rest of the members of this church.
You know, my own personal family
are the most important people to me on this earth.
Outside of the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
those are the most important people in my life
and I know you feel the same way about your wife.
You feel the same way about your children
and we need to care about our children enough to say,
well, you know, we...
and not to think, oh, let's just get rid of them,
they're a nuisance, they're a pain, stick them in another room
so we can just kind of sit back and relax and enjoy.
No, no, no, to me, the children are an important part of the service.
They're not just a necessary evil
but rather they're here, they're learning,
they're profiting from the service.
Now, little children are picking up a lot more than you think.
Some people have an attitude of, well, what could a baby or a toddler
possibly be getting out of the service?
But keep in mind, these church nurseries,
usually they go up to age three at least.
Often they go up through age four.
There are many churches across America
where children don't even get into the main service
until they're 12 years old.
It's out there.
I mean, you're gonna tell me that a two-year-old
and a three-year-old are not understanding the preaching?
I mean, that's ridiculous.
They learn all kinds of stuff.
And constantly, my two-year-old and your two-year-old and three-year-olds,
don't they constantly quote things from the sermons
or things that they heard in church?
Even when they're just the tiniest little kids, they'll pull things out.
Or how about this?
My son, Boaz, he's two years old,
he's always singing songs from church all around the house.
He's a two-year-old.
He's walking around singing praises to God.
They're quoting the sermons.
They talk about stories that were brought out in the sermon.
They're learning more than you think.
But even when they're just a little baby this age,
even if they don't understand the subject matter of the sermon,
they're still learning what church sounds like,
what church looks like, what church feels like.
I guarantee you, when they grow up
and they walk into some limp-wristed church
and some queer little sissy contemporary music,
they're gonna be like, whoa, this isn't church.
See, we're getting them used to the hymns.
We're getting them used to hard preaching.
We're getting them used to being around godly men and women.
And they're learning.
They're picking up more than you think.
Let's flip over to the book of Ezra, chapter 10.
Ezra, chapter number 10.
See, children aren't a nuisance.
Children are who we're here to preach to.
Children are the most important people in the church.
And you know, I thank God that in our church, out
of 300 people in our church, probably 150 of them
are children.
Why?
Because that's the next generation.
That's why.
And many independent Baptist churches across America
are dying because the church is filled
with nothing but old people.
You've been to those churches, right?
It's just, it's nothing but the elderly.
And look, I love older people.
I praise God for the handful of older people
who go to our church.
But honestly, when you have nothing but old people,
something's wrong.
You should have a mixture.
You should have older people, younger people, children,
families, toddlers.
Otherwise, you have no future.
You have no future.
This is the future.
Babies, toddlers, children are the future.
And so we want them here.
And we want them learning from day one.
We want them even in the womb learning.
Is my mic still intact here?
All right.
Ezra chapter 10, verse 1, now when Ezra had prayed
and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself
down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out
of Israel a very great congregation of men and women
and children for the people wept very sore.
So here we have a congregation in the days of Ezra
that includes men, women, and children.
Now go to Nehemiah chapter 8.
Nehemiah chapter 8 is the only scripture
I've ever had anybody show me to try
to justify the nursery from a biblical standpoint.
It's frankly not biblical.
There's nothing in the Bible that explains
to take the children out and have children's workers that
are outside the service taking care of the kids
or to have a separate children's church with a dumbed down
message instead of having the little kids even in big boy
church with everybody else.
So I've challenged pastors, I've challenged
people who believe in this, show me the nursery in the Bible.
And look, this isn't just something that's a preference
for these people.
If these people wanted to offer a nursery
and make it optional, that wouldn't really
be a big deal because you know what, that's
their problem if they want to stick
their kid in that nursery.
The churches that I grew up in and the churches
that many of you have gone to in the past, the nursery
was compulsory.
The nursery was enforced.
You must put your child in the nursery according to that.
Now here's the thing.
There's a baby screaming right now.
In order to make this model work, if babies scream and cry,
sometimes they need to be taken out of the service.
I mean like all the way outside.
Or at least to a mother baby room.
Or maybe even if they can't be contained in there,
then they need to be taken all the way outside just
to be calmed down and then brought back in.
Obviously, that's going to help make it work.
But the thing about it is that these churches, they'll
force you.
They'll come up to you and say, hey, we have a nursery.
Or they won't even let you into the building
if you have a baby in your arm.
Now I used to go to First Baptist Church of Hammond
because I was in Hiles Anderson College at one time.
And when I was there, we had this issue
because they had ushers guarding the door
and no babies getting in.
So we would smuggle our toddler in.
Even though he was too young, we'd sneak him in.
He's under the overcoat.
It was like a stealth mission trying to get
our toddler into the service.
But then my wife had a newborn baby.
And we thought to ourselves, there's no way.
It was John, my third born.
There's no way we're going to be able to get John
into this service.
But there was no way in hell that we
were going to turn him over to a bunch of strangers
at First Baptist Church of Hammond.
Not happening.
Right, Chloe?
I mean, there were kids that literally died in that nursery.
I mean, look, it's a huge church.
You don't know everybody at all.
There's no way we're just going to turn our kids over
to the nursery workers.
Not going to happen.
So they had this room where they put like crazy people.
It was sort of like our mother baby room in the sense
there was a room with a big window.
And they would put people in there from these nursing homes
and people who had literal mental issues
and other people who were handicapped in physical ways
or disabled.
Sorry.
I don't know what the politically correct term
is this week.
But anyway, we basically, we went and got a doctor's note.
Because he had a little rash or something.
Every baby has a rash.
But we played it up.
Where we went and got a doctor to sign off,
like this baby can't go in the nursery
because he's got this condition.
So we got the doctor's note.
And then we got a special little pass that
would allow us to go into that.
Do you remember what that room was called or what?
I don't know what it was called, but it
was like a little overflow room that was for people
who have a physical problem.
So we had to get some special ID card just
to kind of beat the system in order
to not have to stick our kid in that nursery
and still be able to go to church there.
But back when I went to church at Regency Baptist Church
in Orangevale, California, which is the church I went to for five
years, when my wife and I went there and we had babies,
this is something that we dealt with because they enforced
the nursery policy.
And one of the bad things about it
was that we were constantly getting sick because they
put all these babies together.
They're all swapping germs.
And we're just constantly getting sick,
constantly getting sick.
And this is what they would tell us.
They would say, oh, this is just a phase
that you have to go through when you have little babies where
you're sick a lot.
Because we're all getting sick all the time.
We're missing work.
I mean, not we because my wife didn't have a job, obviously.
But I'm missing work, and we're getting sick, we're suffering.
And we're complaining about the sanitation in the nursery
and being forced to put our kids in the nursery
because I'm using up every holiday and every sick day
just from getting sick from the nursery and everything.
Hey, this is just a phase you go through.
Well, you know what's funny about that?
Is that 16 years later, I'm still in that phase.
See, these people, they're so used to a birth control
mentality that they just think it's just this little phase.
You have one or two kids, you grin and bear it,
you get through it.
Hey, this is my life.
This isn't a phase.
We've been in that phase nonstop for 15, 16 years.
And so all across America, people
are being persecuted and bullied and forced
to drop their kid off with strangers.
And it's ridiculous.
And it's never going to happen at our church.
Now, people say, like, well, that works for a small church,
but it's not going to work for a big church.
But yet our church has gotten up to 300 people
on a Sunday morning, and our church has a much higher
percentage of babies than your average church.
I mean, in the bulletin, how many women
are pregnant right now on this list?
Somebody do the counting.
Yeah, we have 12 ladies that are pregnant right now.
So that's 12 more babies that are on their way.
Sometimes we've got as many as 18 ladies
pregnant in the one time.
We have well over 100 babies and toddlers and little children
in our church.
Look, if we can do it here and make it happen here,
you could do it at any size.
You could do it at any church.
You don't have to be some tiny living room family integrated
church to make it work.
No, we're making it work here with hundreds of people.
And we're going to continue to make it work.
And why?
Because it's a priority.
Now, can it sometimes be inconvenient?
Of course.
Can it sometimes be annoying?
Of course.
And obviously, you know what?
People should get their kids under control.
And we also need sermons about people
disciplining their children and teaching them
how to be good in church.
And also, people do need to take them out
when they scream or act up.
We don't want to distract or disturb the people around us.
Obviously, we want to be respectful of others.
But we're not going to go to a length of just saying,
let's just get them all out, exclude them all,
put them with strangers.
Nehemiah chapter 8.
The reason I turn here is because whenever I've challenged
a preacher or a fellow believer on this subject
to show me scripture of the nursery,
this is what they all pull out every single time.
And this is what my pastor back in Sacramento pulled out.
Nehemiah.
Let's read it together.
Nehemiah 8, 1.
And all the people gathered themselves together
as one man into the street that was before the Watergate.
And they spake unto Ezra the scribe
to bring the book of the law of Moses
which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
And Ezra the priest brought the law
before the congregation, both of men and women,
and all that could hear with understanding
upon the first day of the seventh month.
And he read therein before the street
that was before the Watergate from the morning until midday,
before the men and the women, and those
that could understand.
And the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book
of the law.
So here's what they say.
They say, well, right here, when they gathered the church
together, of course, this is Old Testament passage in Nehemiah.
When they gathered the church together,
it's only those who could hear with understanding.
So any child, this is what they'll say,
any child that was too young to understand
was not in that group.
That's what they'll say, because it
was only those who could hear with understanding.
Well, here's the problem with that.
Number one, let's pretend for a minute that that were true.
Where did God tell them to do that?
This doesn't say, well, God told them to do it that way.
This is just what they did.
This same guy, Ezra, also told a bunch of people
to divorce their wives in Ezra chapter 10,
and that wasn't right either.
Look, Ezra and Nehemiah are historical books.
These are not the prophets.
These are not books that say, thus saith the Lord.
These are historical books, 1st, 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah.
But number two, that's not what this is teaching.
If you actually get the context of the Book of Nehemiah,
the Book of Nehemiah multiple times
talks about how there were people
who couldn't understand their language, the Jews' language.
A lot of the mixed multitude and people
who are dwelling at Jerusalem did not
speak the Jews' language.
And so when it talks about those that
were able to hear with understanding,
it's talking about people who understood the language,
if you actually get the context.
But let me just prove to you, beyond any shadow of a doubt,
that this is not teaching a nursery, OK?
I need more volunteers.
I need somebody who has a baby to come up here and help me.
Somebody bring a baby up here.
Bring a baby.
Wendy, are you coming up here to do this?
All right.
So here.
Oh, you want Dominique?
Hand it to Dominique.
Dominique's always my victim.
I mean, illustration.
OK.
All right, so here's Dominique with a baby, right?
OK.
Now let's get a couple of people up here without a baby.
Just a couple of people walk up here just to help me out.
Don't be shy.
Come on up here.
Just a few other volunteers.
OK.
So let's just have these guys represent.
These are the children of Israel, OK?
And I realize this is only three guys, but I'm saying.
This represents the multitude of the children of Israel.
So let's just pretend that each person represents 1,000 people
or whatever, OK?
Well, let's say that over here, this
is where we're going to have this event where
I'm going to read the word of God to all the people that
can hear with understanding, right?
Does everybody understand?
And then over here, we're going to have the nursery, where
we're going to put all the ones who are too young to understand
according to their logic, right?
OK.
OK, so you guys go over there.
You guys that can hear with understanding,
you're going to be a part of the service.
OK.
Sorry, she's too young.
She can't be part.
Put her over there.
Put her over there, OK?
Go ahead and put her over there.
You can't stay with her, though, because remember,
I'm preaching to all the people that
can hear with understanding.
OK?
So nobody can stay with her.
Look, does this look like it's going to work?
Go ahead and pick her up.
I'm not that cruel.
See, here's the thing.
I actually believe what this scripture says.
And if you actually believe what Nehemiah 8 says,
it says that he preached to all the people, men and women
and everyone that could hear with understanding.
So here's my question.
If there was another location where
the ones that are too young to understand were,
who's watching them?
Because if their mothers are watching them,
or if other men or women are watching them,
that means that they're not over here.
But the Bible said that they were all over here.
Come on.
Come here, Dominique.
OK.
So if he's over here with his baby, let me ask this.
Is the Bible telling the truth now
that everybody who could hear with understanding was there?
OK.
But if he goes over there and he's watching the baby over
there, is everybody who can hear with understanding there?
Because Dominique's not there.
You mean to tell me that they just left hundreds or even
thousands of babies and toddlers at home with zero supervision?
Look, that's what the Bible says here.
It's nonsense to interpret it that way.
Go ahead and sit down, everybody, thanks.
I mean, let's look at it again.
And all the people gathered themselves together as one man.
That's why we used one man to illustrate lots of people.
Under the street that was before the Watergate,
and they spake unto Ezra the scribe
to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had
commanded to Israel.
And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation,
both of men and women, and all that
could hear with understanding upon the first day
of the seventh month.
And he read therein before the street that
was before the Watergate, from the morning until midday,
before the men and the women, and those
that could understand.
And the ears of all the people were attentive
under the book of the law.
So this doesn't hold water once you analyze it,
that this is teaching a nursery.
What it's actually teaching is that people
who didn't speak the language well enough to understand,
they weren't there.
That makes sense.
Go, if you would, to Joel chapter 2.
Joel chapter number 2.
Is this for me or her?
Joel chapter number 2 is in the Minor Prophets,
right after the great big books of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
and Ezekiel.
You get into the Minor Prophets, Hosea, then Joel.
Look at Joel chapter 2, verse 16.
It says, gather the people, sanctify the congregation,
assemble the elders, gather the children.
Well, you know, children, that's older kids.
That's four and up.
Oh, really?
And those that suck the breasts.
So when they gather the congregation,
he said, gather men, women, children, and suckling,
and infant, and those that suck the breath.
That's part of the congregation.
And what do they got?
Nehemiah 8, right?
Where they're misunderstanding it,
they didn't get the context.
Go to Isaiah 28, Isaiah 28.
And the Bible says in Isaiah 28,
after we go to Isaiah 28, we're gonna go to Ephesians 6.
You wanna get your finger in both places.
I've only got one hand to turn pages tonight.
But in Isaiah chapter 28, verse number nine, it says,
whom shall he teach knowledge?
And whom shall he make to understand doctrine?
Them that are weaned from the milk
and drawn from the breasts.
For precept must be upon precept,
precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line,
here a little and there a little.
See, you learn the Word of God little by little,
and it starts when you're a baby.
It starts out when you're just an infant and a suckling,
and you learn little by little.
What he's explaining here is that the previous generation
was so screwed up, even the prophets, even the priests
are all teaching lies.
He's saying, we need a whole new generation.
We need to start with babies
who are just drawn off the breast
and teach them doctrine line upon line,
precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.
Let's go to the New Testament, go to Ephesians 6.
Ephesians chapter number six.
Ephesians chapter six.
And then we're also going to look at Colossians 3.
Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3.
Ephesians 6 and Colossians number three.
Now first let me point this out.
At the end of the book of the Thessalonians it says,
I charge you by the Lord that this epistle
be read unto all the holy brethren.
I charge you by the Lord that this epistle
be read unto all the holy brethren.
He also talks about how he wanted the Colossians
and the Thessalonians and those of Laodicea
to read each other's epistles.
Obviously when he wrote the epistle of the Colossians,
he doesn't want it to just be read by the Colossians.
He said, read that in the years
of this other church as well.
So he said that the church of Laodicea should read
the epistle from Colossians and vice versa.
So obviously these scriptures are to be read
to the churches aloud.
I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read.
Epistle is the letter that Paul wrote.
I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read
unto all the holy brethren.
In fact, at the front of your King James Bible
it says on the cover page,
appointed to be read in churches.
In fact, 1 Timothy says,
till I come give attendance to reading,
to exhortation and to doctrine.
So we are to read the Bible out loud in church
and it's supposed to be read before all the holy brethren.
But notice what it says in Ephesians chapter number six,
verse one, who's he talking to here?
Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
Well, how could he address the children
if they're not even there?
You know, obviously this letter
is supposed to be read to everybody.
That's why it says wives submit to your husbands,
husbands love your wife, servants be obedient to them
that are your masters according to the flesh.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
He's even got something special for the children
even in the letter that he writes to the church.
Why? Because they're there, because they're in church,
because they're hearing the scripture itself.
Colossians chapter three has the same thing.
Colossians chapter three,
where he addresses different groups.
Verse 18 is to the wives, verse 19 is to the husbands.
Verse 20, children, obey your parents in all things
for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger,
lest they be discouraged.
So this scripture is intended to teach children.
Now, another major issue for why I'm against the nursery,
it's not just because it's unbiblical
that there's no scripture that teaches it.
It's not just because it actually is contrary to scripture
because scripture teaches
that in the Old Testament congregations,
the children were there, the babies were there,
the sucklings were there, everybody was there.
It's not just because Jesus was not irritated by children.
He wanted them to come.
Hey, guess what?
When he fed the 5,000, it was men, women,
and children that were there listening to the preaching.
So there's no, it's not scriptural.
It's contrary to scripture.
Number, and then number two,
it's also an opportunity for the children
to learn important things and important doctrines,
especially as they get to be one, two, three, and four,
they're getting important teaching.
But not only that, being in church with the parents
is safe for the children
because the nursery and children's church
is a dangerous place to stick your children,
especially in 2017.
This has never been more true than it is right now.
Why?
Because there is so much iniquity abounding today.
There's so much wickedness and sin.
And there are so many perverts today
that are just roaming our land
and they're trying to infiltrate the churches.
That's a major agenda is get in churches.
The sodomites today have announced
that they want to get into churches.
Why do you think they want to get married?
It's not because they want to be monogamous
or mono Andrus or whatever you'd call that abomination.
It's because of the fact that they want to be normalized.
They want to be accepted and they want to come into churches.
I mean, what in the world would a sodomite have to do
in a Bible believing church, except to just be there,
to defile and to be there to pervert the innocent
and the Bible talks about those who creep in unawares.
We talked about the workers of iniquity this morning
and the Bible talks about how they set a trap
and lay a snare and they lie in wait to destroy lives.
And they love to destroy the innocent.
It says in second Peter chapter two
about these wicked people who creep in
that they beguile unstable souls.
It also mentions the term cursed children.
These people creep in today, you know,
and I'm not going to rehash what I already have preached
about this Bob Gray senior promoting this, you know,
born that way ministries and all that,
that born that way after all book,
it flat out says repeatedly that these former sodomites
or men who struggle with lusting after other men
or supposedly born eunuchs, which is stupid.
And I'm sorry for repeating that ridiculous doctrine again,
but it says that they make great children's workers
repeatedly in the book over and over and over again.
It just keeps saying in the book, like,
oh, he's a great BBS worker.
Oh, these eunuchs fake,
that's their code word for a sodomite
because they don't know what a eunuch is.
They don't know what a eunuch really is.
Oh, they make great children's workers.
It's all over their website.
It's all through that book.
And then Bob Gray senior had the audacity to say,
oh, I read the second book or no, I'm sorry.
He said a couple of days ago,
I read the book a second time and I love it.
And it's true.
And it's right.
This pro-fag garbage.
Okay, look, that just goes to show you
even the independent fundamental Baptists
are embracing this queer doctrine
that literally just flat out says,
make them a children's worker.
It even says, have these two eunuch dudes
live with each other, just platonic,
but they can show physical affection,
but not too much and not too openly.
And they make great children's workers.
So it's all in the book.
Don't you call me a liar.
I'll show it to you in the book.
I've got the book.
I've got that piece of trash.
I'll put on a pair of latex gloves
and I'll pull out that book,
cause I don't know what kind of virus
or what kind of dirty, whatever residue is on there.
I'll show you it in the book yourself.
You don't believe me.
I already made a YouTube video where I showed all that,
where I just turn the pages in the book
and show it right out of the book.
Cause nobody will believe you.
I wouldn't believe it either if I didn't see it.
It's so crazy.
How can anybody believe it?
But look now more than ever,
don't put your kid in the nursery.
Don't put your kid in children's church.
Keep them with you.
Keep them supervised, watch them.
And by the way, just cause you come to faith board
Baptist church and say, amen, here's an idea.
Watch your kid after the service.
Watch your kid in the neighborhood.
Don't just say, yeah, amen, brother Anderson.
And then your kid just runs wild
throughout the neighborhood runs wild.
You know, we need to supervise our children.
Obviously when they get older,
especially the boys need some more freedom,
but I'm talking about little kids.
I mean, you need to watch them.
You got to supervise them.
You got to take care of them now more than ever.
And this is what just,
this just gets me real fired up.
When I hear this dumb argument, it just, it blows me away.
Here's the argument.
We do background checks at our church.
I mean, it's just like,
we do background checks.
Okay.
Well, did you know that the average pedophile
molests 260 victims in his lifetime?
Now, if they're getting arrested every time they do it,
or most of the time they do it,
or even a 10th of the time they do it,
they wouldn't get to 260 victims.
You know how they get to 260 victims?
Cause they molest scores of victims before getting caught.
Usually when you hear about these pedophiles getting caught,
it's like 20 years later.
It's like, oh, 20 years ago, he molested this person.
And then they came out and then 12 other victims came out.
Isn't there always just a whole line of victims
that come out.
Oh, once she came forward, 10 other people came forward.
And it's 15 years ago, 17 years ago.
How in the world can the average pedophile
molest 260 victims unless they're getting away with it
all the time?
So you know what the background check tells you?
Nothing.
It just tells you they haven't been caught yet.
It doesn't guarantee it.
Everybody does it for the first time.
Think about that.
Every murderer kills their first person.
Every thief steals something for the first time.
Every drunk took their first drink, right?
And every pedophile molested a kid for the first time.
Oh, but the background check was clean.
Yeah, that's because eight years later
they're gonna get caught.
And then once it's too late,
once lives have been destroyed,
once irreparable damage is done to babies and children,
then it's like, oh, turns out this guy was a pervert.
And you know what, if you've been in church
as long as I have, you could tell all the stories
about the people who were at the fundamental
Baptist churches who turn out to be perverts.
They turn out to be pedophiles.
Why?
Because the Bible promised us that there would be
wicked people who would creep in unawares.
Judas Iscariots, false teachers, false prophets,
perverts, infiltrators.
They're going to be, he didn't say they might be among you.
He said they shall be among you.
These are spots in your feast of charity
when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear.
And let me tell you something.
My children are too important to me
to roll the dice on that.
And just take that gamble.
Say, well, just pray for God to protect them.
You know, okay, well, why don't we just go
let them play ball in the street
and just pray for God to protect them?
Right?
Let's just send them out on a snowy day with no jacket
and just pray for God to keep them warm.
That's nonsense.
God told us to keep our children
and to take care of our children.
And he gave us our children,
not so that we could just cast them off
because we're too lazy to deal with them.
Yeah, obviously it's easier to sit in church without it.
You know what, it's easier to preach a sermon
without holding a baby.
Of course it's easier to just sit back
and listen to the sermon, but you know what?
It's a small price to pay to have a little bit of crying,
of the mic getting pulled off a little bit,
you know, babies acting up every once in a while
and, you know, disturbances or whatever.
They're having to deal with them or step out
or miss five minutes of the sermon.
It's a small price to pay to keep your child
innocent and pure and from getting defiled.
Small price to pay.
And then they say, oh, but the sermon's just so important.
You know, they have to hear that sermon.
They can't miss that sermon.
If they miss five minutes of the sermon, you know,
that could affect their soul.
You know, I'd rather that my kid or me
or everybody in this whole building
miss the entire sermon than for my kid to get molested.
I'd rather miss a month of sermons.
I'd rather that you miss a month of sermons
than for my kid to get defiled in one of these nurseries
or children's churches.
That does irreparable damage.
Those are scars for life.
It's not worth it.
It's not biblical.
Don't do it.
It's not worth it.
And look, if you ever end up at a church,
because I know some people are visiting here
or other people, they might get a job transfer
or move someday and go to a church
that has this nursery policy.
You know what?
Don't do it.
Don't put your kid in the nursery.
Now, we need people to stand their ground, though.
You know, I go, look, I visit other churches with my family
and they always approach us like five times.
You know, we have a nursery.
We have a nursery, each other.
I just tell them, no thanks, no thanks.
But you know what?
I wouldn't just, I wouldn't just,
if my church told me,
well, you guys just need to go somewhere else.
You just need to leave then.
Okay, drag me out.
Or why don't you find a scriptural reason
for voting me out?
People need to stand up.
And obviously, we need to be kind and respectful
and not rebuke an elder, but treat him as a father.
But you know what?
When a pastor is telling you that you can't come to church
because you have kids,
unless you turn them over to strangers,
he has no right to do that.
And look, I do believe that a pastor has certain authority.
I do believe that he's called the ruler
in the house of God, but you know what?
That is not an unlimited authority.
And that is not the authority to tell people
that they can't come to the church
if they have a baby or a child,
because they're actually reproducing like a normal person.
Right?
They're persecuted for coming to church with their kid.
It's wicked is what it is.
Stand out there or sit here under my footstool
because you've got a big family
or because you've got a baby
or because you've got a toddler.
It's ridiculous.
I think she's a little bored by the sermon,
but she's learning, folks.
She's learning more than you think.
No, I got this, honey.
Oh, she wants her pacifier?
All right, well, let's...
What's the matter?
You like it when I hold you.
Is this just too radical of a sermon for you?
I'm preaching about you.
I'm trying to keep you from getting defiled here.
You're gonna take your plug or what?
All right, there we go.
All right, see?
Oh, now I've just completely lost my train of thought.
I can't even preach now.
Now people's spiritual lives have been ruined
by this terrible distraction.
It's like sometimes these churches,
it's almost like their idea is to like put you
into some kind of a trance or something.
And then when the piano begins to play,
everybody's saying, would you come?
And then everybody's gonna come down.
It's like you're gonna break the spell or something
if a baby cries or somebody coughs or something.
And you know what?
My sermons, you could cut off the beginning or the end
and you'll still get something out of it.
You'll still learn something, amen?
You can walk out for 10 minutes and come back
and you'll still learn something.
You'll still get some.
You'll still get some Bible preaching.
You'll still get some Bible teaching.
It's not worth it to turn your kids over
just to avoid a fight or just to avoid controversy.
I'll fight that battle.
I fought it when I was in that position.
Thank God I started a church.
And so I can do what I want and I can do it biblical
and have the kids with me.
But I struggled that struggle for the first several years
of marriage and childbearing and it's hard.
And I feel bad for people that are being persecuted
in their own church by megalomaniacal pastors
who wanna dictate to people that they have to stick their kid
with a bunch of strangers and possible perverts.
And you know what?
If you think even in a church like ours,
there have been wicked people that have crept in
that we've thrown out of the church.
Okay, let alone these churches that preach soft.
I mean, if you preach softly,
you're gonna get even more weirdos.
At least we preach a lot of them out the door
with the hard preaching, thank God.
And so today, if we study the Bible,
we see that Old Testament with Moses,
the children are there, the babies are there.
Ezra and Nehemiah, the babies are there.
New Testament, children are addressed,
suffer the children, the infants are invited.
And we see that number one, it's biblical.
Number two, they're learning.
And number three, they're safest with mom and dad.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the chance
to be in a church, Lord, that respects the family
and that keeps children with their parents,
with their brothers and sisters, Lord,
where everybody can learn the word of God together.
And thank you that that's not a fight
that we have to fight every week.
But Lord, I just pray for those who are struggling
with this across America, Lord.
I pray that you'd open the eyes of these misguided pastors
to the dangers of their children's programs
and their nurseries and all this garbage.
And I pray that you would also just soften their heart
to the scriptures and to the pleas of their people
that are just trying to live a normal life
and have children and keep them safe and healthy
and away from danger, Lord.
I just pray that Baptist churches across America
would get more biblical on this matter, Lord.
And I pray that those who come to our church here, Lord,
would work to train their children
and discipline their children
so that we can be a good example of this, Lord,
and that we wouldn't just be an advertisement
for the church nursery by having kids running amok, Lord.
Please just bless our church, Lord.
Continue to bless and continue to bless us all
with many more children, Lord, as you see fit.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.