And men, look at verse number 14 where the Bible read, but Jesus said,
Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
And the title of my sermon this morning is, Suffer Little Children, Suffer Little Children.
Now, in Matthew chapter 19, we have a lot of different subjects being covered, but it's interesting.
There's an interesting break in the story where some children are coming to the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the disciples feel like they should not bother Jesus Christ.
They should not come and talk to Jesus Christ, and they don't want to allow the children to come,
and what in their mind is bother the Lord Jesus Christ.
But notice what his response is. The response is, Suffer Little Children, Suffer Little Children.
Now, what does it mean to suffer something?
Well, flip back to chapter 17 for a second, and just look at verse number 17.
I'll give you another mention here of the word suffer.
But in the dictionary, the word suffer means experience, or be subjected to something bad or unpleasant.
So, suffering is not necessarily something that you want to do. It's not something you necessarily even enjoy.
It could even be negative to some degree, but you're going to go through it anyways.
Some synonyms would be tolerate, endure, put up with, or allow.
It says in Matthew 17, look at verse 17, then Jesus answered and said,
O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
Bring him hither to me.
So, the disciples couldn't cast out a devil, couldn't cast out a demon.
The Lord Jesus Christ is upset with them.
The Lord Jesus Christ is discontented with them.
And he ends up making this proclamation of how long shall I suffer you, tolerate you.
He's frustrated, it's annoying, it's kind of a burden.
And the reality is, little children are a burden.
Okay, let's just talk about the facts, okay?
Little children are a burden, little children can be difficult, little children can be a nuisance.
Now, that does not mean that you can't enjoy that time as well.
That doesn't mean you don't love your children.
But at the same time, we have to understand that children are work.
Children are difficult.
Children take a lot of effort and energy.
And Jesus Christ himself took time in his ministry to minister to the little children,
to minister and suffer the little children.
He did not want the little children to be cast away or to put away.
He wanted them to come unto him, he laid his hands on them, and he ministered unto them.
And if we want to be like Jesus Christ, if we want to be following his example,
then we also need to suffer little children.
Now, go if you go to Matthew chapter 14, Matthew chapter number 14.
Another way we could look at the word suffer is the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13,
charity suffereth long.
Now, again, charity is synonymous with the word love.
It's a similar word, it's a true love, it's a pure love
that comes out of someone that cares about others.
And suffering long is because you don't enjoy it,
it's something you have to tolerate,
it's something you have to put up with.
And it's saying true love is going to suffer for a very long time.
And so if we want to have true charity in our heart,
we need to suffer with children and for a very long time.
Now, if you ever visit our church,
you realize that we're a family-integrated church very quickly,
because there's children all over the building,
there's children in this room with us.
And a lot of people would criticize our church
or churches like ours that are family-integrated and say,
well, where's the Sunday school program?
Where's all the classrooms for all the children?
How do you expect children to learn the Bible
if you don't bring it down on their level?
Where's the picture books?
Where's the goldfish?
Where's everybody juking and jiving and the fun music?
And where's Barney the dinosaur?
Look, I've been to independent fundamental Baptist churches
where they had all the men dress up like superheroes and animals.
They have these costumes on,
and then all the kids would come in and they would scream and yell,
and be like, whee!
They'd sing all the little songs, and they'd have all this fun,
and they'd give them a snack, and they'd give them all this food.
And you'd say, well, where's your program, Pastor Gillies?
You just not love children?
Well, here's the thing, I do love children,
but the thing we have to understand is Sunday school,
while it sounds awesome and it sounds cool,
I can't find it in my Bible.
And you say, what is Sunday school?
It's really, it's just extra that's not really found in the scriptures,
because ultimately I believe the children
should be with their parents in church.
Now, I'm going to prove this in the Bible without a shadow of a doubt,
but there is no example anywhere in the Bible
where you take someone's children away from their parents
and then you educate them.
That sounds scary when you think about it, right?
I mean, imagine we come up to you and say,
hey, I want to take your children in this room over here without you,
and I'm going to teach them some stuff, okay?
You'd be like, whoa, Pastor Shelley, no thank you, I don't want to do that.
But that's literally what other churches do, right?
You walk in, they say, here's where you take your kids.
Here, come sign your kids up and we'll give them a bracelet
or we'll give you this pager or whatever, and you can drop them off.
You know, we'll chip them or something.
No, I'm just kidding.
I don't know the new technologies these days,
but they take the kids, they put them in some other room with people.
You have no idea who they are.
And look, I've done it.
Who's left their kids with someone that you've never even met before?
I mean, I've done it.
I've gone to other churches and you just drop them off.
You have no idea who's in that room.
Now, look, I worked in that room before in the past,
and I'll tell you who's in that room.
You don't want to know the people that don't go to church,
people that smoke marijuana in their break while they're watching your kids,
people that are caught up in all kinds of wicked sin and evil
and all kinds of look, I went to a Christian church.
The people that I'm working with, they're like, hey,
you want to smoke pot in between services?
I'm like, no,
like, do you go to church?
No, I don't go to church here.
I just work here because I get paid
and they just get paid like a slave wage to come and watch your kids.
And look, I'm not saying that this is every church program.
Some of them try a little bit harder than that one.
But I am saying a lot of people, they take their kids
and they drop them off with who knows what.
And frankly speaking, if you want to talk about the biggest,
basically just in and out ministry positions in this world today, youth ministers.
I mean, the church I grew up in, there was never youth minister.
It lasted more than two years or three years.
I mean, they're always constantly in and out scandals,
all kinds of problems, issues getting fired left and right.
Yet this is what the majority of Christianity does today, don't they?
They take their kids to church and they don't sit with them in the service.
They take them to the youth pastor.
They take them to the Sunday school teacher.
They take them to all these other people who, frankly speaking,
haven't probably read the Bible cover to cover one time.
Who, frankly speaking, didn't even prepare a lesson.
They're just going to put on Rob Bell for your kids to watch
some agnostic get up there and lie to you about how God's not even real
and the Bible's not even.
Look, I went to a youth program and they they show us a video of Rob Bell
and he gets up there and tells us how hell doesn't exist
and how, you know, everybody's going to heaven.
And, you know, you can't believe all these stories that you hear in the Bible.
I'm like, why would I go to church to hear about hell's not even real?
And look, you think that I'm exaggerating?
I'm sure it's worse.
I'm sure it's getting worse and there's worse places you could take your kids.
And, you know, even if you went to a Baptist church,
they could be learning all kinds of false doctrine.
You should know what your children are hearing.
You should know what your children are learning.
So that way, if they heard something bad, you can say, hey, that wasn't right.
Hey, let me show you what the Bible says here.
You can protect and guard your children from what they're hearing
and what they're listening to.
And constantly throughout the scriptures,
we never see children separated from their family.
Rather, we see them with their family.
Look at Matthew 14, verse 21. The Bible says.
And when they had eaten were about 5000 men,
notice this beside women and children, now what happened?
A great multitude came to hear Jesus Christ preaching.
And it says, hey, there wasn't just men here.
Guess who else was here? Women and children.
So notice where the children were when the preaching was happening by Jesus Christ.
They were with their family.
They were with their parents.
And obviously, this is kind of a picture of how people would travel far for church.
You know, a lot of people travel far for our church.
You come with the whole family and you show up and you sit through a long sermon
and then you don't have anything to eat.
And then there's miracles and then you get more preaching. Right.
But that's how it was back in the day.
They would travel a long way and they would hear these great sermons
by the Lord Jesus Christ.
But they're not separating the families here.
Jesus isn't like, all right, Judas, go take the kids off
onto the other side of the mountain and you preach to them.
Yet, isn't that what a lot of churches do today?
They ask Judas to go watch the you know, volunteers to watch the kids Judas.
That's the one who loves to hear because he's not interested in Jesus preaching.
Why would I want to come to church and not hear the preaching?
I'm interested in the preaching.
You know who's not interested in the preaching?
The reprobate, the evil infiltrator that's coming in.
So you know what he wants to do? I would love to minister.
Hey, why don't you put me in a position of authority and leadership
and I'll watch the kids. I'll watch the in-house.
Like that is not scriptural.
Go to Matthew 15, look at verse 38.
Let's see another example here.
Says and they did eat were 4000 men noticed beside women and children.
So after they came to the church service,
they were like, oh, these kids are a nuisance.
Let's get let's kick them off to the side.
No, they're still with them, aren't they?
So every time we hear Jesus Christ preaching, who's there?
Men, women and children.
So notice what they were doing. They were suffering the little children.
Go to first John chapter number five, first John chapter number five.
If they can understand Jesus Christ, preaching,
preaching parables to the congregation, you know, to the whole group
or to the whole multitude,
why can't they come to church and hear the word of God
being expounded upon plainly?
And, you know, you have to understand what Jesus Christ
would preach to the multitudes.
He wasn't even preaching clear on purpose.
He was preaching in parables, in stories, in dark sayings.
And the multitudes would wonder.
They didn't understand these things.
Yet it was suitable for children to hear, then why would it not be suitable now
when we actually expound upon those same stories and parables
that Jesus Christ taught us?
Says in first John chapter five, I'm sorry.
First on chapter two is what I meant to say.
First, John chapter two. Look at verse number 12.
I just love going to chapter five so much, so I just, you know,
I just rattle it off.
Chapter two, look at verse 12.
I write into you little children because your sins are forgiven you
for his name's sake.
So notice the epistle of first John.
He specifically addresses little children instructions for the little children.
He says in verse 13, I write a new fathers
because you have known him that is from the beginning.
I write in young men because you've overcome the wicked one.
I write into you little children because you have known the father.
I've written a new fathers because you have known him
that is from the beginning.
I've written a young man because you're strong and the word of God
abideth in you and you've overcome the wicked one.
Love, not the world.
Neither the things that are in the world.
If any man loved the world, the love of the father is not in him.
The things of this world are not of God.
So therefore, we have to come to church to gain the love of God.
And you know what is of the world? Public school.
So why would I model my church at their public school
and then have the kids come and learn how to love public school?
I want them to love church where they have a man of God
standing behind a pulpit and preaching God's word.
That's what I want them to love.
And I want them to get the love of God, the father,
not your wife getting up and teaching the Sunday school lesson,
not your wife getting up and teaching my children.
You know, I want teaching my children, my wife.
You know, I want teaching your children, your wife, not all the way around.
I don't want to just set up all these Sunday school classes
and Sunday school rooms where it's filled with women and Judas Iscariots,
because that's the type of men that like to work in that environment.
It's a bunch of Judas type Iscariots.
Now, obviously, other children like teaching children,
and that's why I got involved in that ministry when I was younger,
because I love helping out.
I wanted to get involved in the ministry and a lot of good people.
They do start in those type of ministries.
They start in a Sunday school or whatever, but eventually they want to get into
preaching the word of God to the people of God, because that's the big show.
I mean, that's what we're here to do.
That's what church is really focused on is the pillar and ground of the truth.
And we need to get some instruction to all three of these groups,
not just one, not just to the fathers, to the young men,
not just to the young men, to the little children.
And we need to suffer the little children.
And notice the instructions he gave to them
that they would know that their sins are forgiven them.
I say, why? Why would he give such an instruction?
Well, do you commit your biggest sins when you're five, six, seven
or 15, 16, 17 or 25, 26, 27?
I'll be honest, I was not the biggest sinner when I was five, OK?
Now I did sin, OK?
But I actually feared my parents a lot when I was younger.
I was terrified to lie to them.
And, you know, I'm sure I did lie some.
But as you become a teenager, you kind of get hardened.
And man, lying just becomes like, you know, why is this easy?
I mean, you pretty much don't even tell the truth.
Most teenagers, it's like a sport to them.
They don't even want to tell the truth.
They're not interested in their parents.
They think they're better than everybody.
And it takes people a long time to grow up and grow out of that.
But at the end of the day, it's good to impart on the young children.
Hey, you're already saved.
Hey, your sins are already forgiven you.
Hey, whenever you go out in this world and you get tempted, guess what?
You're going to fall and you're going to struggle
and you're going to make bad decisions.
But guess what? God's already got your sins covered.
And that's an important reason
or important fact to know, because when you don't believe in once saved,
always saved, when you don't understand how God's already forgiven your sins,
it can discourage you from serving him when you screw up.
You can get stumble.
You can stumble out of church.
You can you can decide, you know what?
I'm not going to make it.
I mean, why is it that those that teach work salvation, the Catholic Church
people are leaving in droves today?
Why is it that churches that teach you can lose your salvation?
People just get burned out and they quit because they feel like
they can't measure up.
So they just give up eventually once they screw up enough times,
once they see the hypocrisy of it all.
But when you teach your children, hey, we're all sinners here.
We're still going to make mistakes.
We're still going to have problems.
People are going to get backslidden.
But you know what?
God still loves you and God still wants you to come back in the fold.
And just like I will always love you, God, the father will always love you.
And so you need to run back to his arms every time you make a mistake.
Every time you have a problem and you need to teach and train your children.
Hey, when you screw up, come tell me.
Hey, when you have a problem, come let me know.
Not so I can just punish you, but also so I can help you.
So I can encourage you, so I can strengthen you,
so I can help you alongside all these problems.
Look, your parents have gone through the gamut themselves.
They were a teenager. They were a young child.
They have problems.
They know what it's like.
And the best person to tell when you do something wrong,
when you make a mistake, children, is your parents.
You need to communicate with your parents and know that they love you
and need to communicate with your parent in heaven.
God, the father, when you screw up, he wants to hear from you.
He wants you to confess and to forsake your sins.
He wants us to go unto him.
And with a penitent heart, ask out and reach out for that grace
and that mercy that he has towards us.
Now, go if you would to second John for a second.
So we've already seen a few examples.
Let's get some more, because I want to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I'm not for Sunday school.
Now, here's the thing.
If a church has in this school, I'm not going to necessarily attack that church.
If I showed up at that church, I wouldn't be like,
y'all are so wicked and evil and whatever.
Look, I think a lot of people that are doing this have good intentions
in their heart.
They just love children.
They want to teach them.
They want to train them.
But their zeal is misplaced.
I believe that zeal should be placed in a different direction
and that you should keep children with their families.
Now, it says in second John, chapter one, verse one,
the elder and the elect lady notice this
and her children, whom I love in the truth and not I only,
but also all they that have known the truth.
So notice when he addresses certain people, he does.
He didn't ignore the children.
He included the children.
He said, Hey, I'm addressing this to you and your children.
It's important that what your children walk in truth.
Look at verse four.
I great rejoice greatly that I found my children walking in truth
as we have received a commandment from the father.
So notice what makes John really happy
that little children are walking in truth
according to the commandment of God, the father.
Now, let me ask you this question.
How is it going to be possible for your children
to walk in truth according to the commandments of God, the father?
You have to teach them.
They have to have heard them.
They have to have been instructed in those commandments,
and then they have the ability to actually walk in those commandments.
And then notice what rejoices John greatly is the fact that they're doing those things.
And so we need to teach and train our children these commandments.
And I don't remember what he said.
Hey, make sure to put it to change this into a picture book
so they can understand.
Hey, I want to address a letter to look.
Children are very smart.
I think at age five, I mean, they can understand virtually everything
at a very basic level.
I mean, about age five, six.
I mean, children, they kind of have all the concepts of the world
on a very basic level.
And then from then on, it's just adding more understanding
to those layers of how the world works and different things.
I mean, my son is only six year old, is very astute.
He understands a lot of different things.
You know, I can ask him virtually any questions related to the gospel,
and he can give me a very clear answer.
He can understand a lot of different concepts.
And yeah, maybe at age four, it's pretty rough.
OK, maybe at age three. No.
OK, obviously it takes a little bit of time.
But, you know, at five, six, they already have a pretty strong
understanding of a lot of the Bible.
And you know where he got a lot of understanding
when he was two, three, four and five to singing the songs,
understanding the concepts, gaining all this information,
you know, and teaching my children how to read.
It didn't just start overnight.
It takes a long time and it's a process.
And I want to talk about that a little bit later in a second.
But look at verse 13, the same chapter we're in.
OK, notice what he says.
The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.
So notice, even in the writing of this epistle,
he says, hey, there's some other kids that wanted to make sure
in this epistle that I wrote unto you
that they acknowledge that they're greeting you as well.
Hey, the kids recognizing other kids,
recognizing other children, encouraging them, admonishing them.
Look, your little children can provoke other little children
to serve God, to do things that are godly and righteous.
Look, yeah, they may be small in stature.
They might not have as much wisdom as you know what?
They can have the same faith as an adult.
And in fact, many children have greater faith in adults, don't they?
For of such as the kingdom of heaven is what Jesus Christ said
when the little children came unto him.
And you know what?
There's plenty of little children that have more faith
than the majority of Christians today, and they don't doubt the scriptures
and they put faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and they love him
the same as I do.
They love the there's no difference.
OK, little children are great and we should not look down upon little children.
We should realize their value and importance today, and we should keep them
in this room so they can learn the same instruction.
They can gain the same understanding.
Go to Colossians chapter number four, Colossians chapter number four.
Now, admittedly, the more you know the Bible,
the more you're going to get out of the preaching.
So that applies to children as well.
The little they know about the Bible, the less they're going to get out.
But they can still get things out of the sermon, out of the preaching.
And as a preacher, we should do our best to instruct all ages, all audiences.
We should not ignore a certain demographic or a certain audience type
just because they have less learning.
No, our preaching should be able to resonate with young child,
with a young boy, with a young girl, with the adolescent,
with the youth, with those that are in college, those that are young
and not married, those that are married, those that have little children,
those that have grown children, those that have no children,
those that have great grandchildren.
I mean, the preaching should reach the whole room.
And you say that's a tall task.
It is. But here's what I know.
When you preach the Bible, everyone's affected.
I don't have to worry about it.
If I preach my opinion, it'll probably affect people
that are very like minded than me,
people that are like programmers or men or married or have children.
Like if I just preach my opinion, it's going to probably come from my sphere
of viewpoint and influence, whereas if I'm preaching the word of God,
it can get in there and prick every single person's heart.
Now, I had you go to Colossians.
Look at chapter four, verse number 16.
So we're kind of wrapping up this chapter.
But look what it says.
And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read
also in the church of the Laodiceans
and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.
Now, we have to understand about these epistles
is when they would get an epistle to the church,
they would read it for everybody.
And not just one chapter, the whole the whole book.
I mean, they're going to read the entire epistle to everyone.
So you think that we read a lot of scripture?
I mean, they're reading the entire epistle, you know.
Some of these epistles are long.
Imagine the first Corinthians epistle.
That would have been a rough one.
You know, it was like you're calling people out while you're reading it.
You're kind of like you're kind of prereading while you're saying stuff.
You're like, oh, that guy with the fornication.
You're like you're like looking at somebody,
the guy with fornication with his mother's wife.
You're kind of like, uh, yeah.
He said, read this out loud.
Are you sure?
You know, I mean, they're just reading
and think about how hardcore that would be if I just got up
and I started calling people sins out in front of here
and then preaching against people.
But notice if this was to be read into the entire church, OK,
we can gain some information then,
because if it's supposed to be read to everybody,
then the people that he addresses in the letter
should be in the audience, shouldn't they? Right.
Look at chapter number three, then and look at verse 20.
Children, obey your parents
in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
So notice who's supposed to hear this children, because why?
They're supposed to be in the church service, hearing the preaching
of God's word.
And notice the apostle Paul addresses the children in the room.
Therefore, I'm not going to take the children
and put them in some other room.
Hey, guess what? You got a letter from Paul.
You know, I drew you a picture about it, OK?
It's me with it's me with a paddle and you
obeying. All right.
No, he's like, here's the instruction.
Children, obey your parents and the Lord.
They say, well, they should obey them.
Well, obviously they understood the instruction.
It's just foolishness is bound on the heart of a child. All right.
Now, go to Ephesians Chapter six.
Let me give you another verse here.
You say, oh, Sunday school.
Well, I can just keep opening the Bible
and showing you why children should be in the church service.
Show me one verse on Sunday school.
Show me one verse that says take kids away from their parents.
Show me one verse that says we need some other person
to come and teach your children.
I can't find that in the scripture.
And in fact, it goes against all logic and all reasoning, first of all.
And second of all, everything I see is admonishing children
to be with their parents.
Ephesians Chapter six, verse one.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise
that it may be well with thee and now may as live long on the earth.
So notice again another epistle, which is what to be read.
So the Ephesians Church notice he's instructing the children.
Now, go to Deuteronomy Chapter six.
I'm going to give you three points this morning quickly.
First point to suffer little children is we need to teach them.
We need to teach them.
Now, admittedly, if we took all of the youth out of this room,
it would make the service easier.
Right. It would be nicer and be quieter.
You wouldn't have as many riots.
People get to sit down and relax.
It's more comfortable, more fun.
You can hear that pin drop, which, frankly speaking,
think about how many children we have in this room.
It's not that loud.
I mean, if you brought this many children in from, you know,
the neighborhoods, I mean, it'd be a quiet roar.
OK, I mean, it'd be like, wow, they'd be tearing things up.
They'd be screaming, how long is it?
You know, they're just run amok.
OK, so you have to realize your children are doing very well in the service.
OK, and they do very well.
I would say ninety nine point ninety nine percent of the time.
And so what I don't want to do is rip them out of the service
when they're doing great.
Usually parrots are freaking out internally about their kids behavior.
Nobody else cares that much.
OK, obviously, if they're screaming or something, that's kind of annoying.
But we need to suffer the little children
because I don't want to take them out of the room.
I want them to hear the teaching.
I want them to hear the preaching.
That's our job.
Deuteronomy Chapter six, look at verse number four.
Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,
and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul and all thy might.
And these words that command thee this day shall be in thine heart.
And thou shalt teach them diligently
unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house
and when thou walkest by the way
and when thou lies down and when thou rises up.
Now shall bind them for a sign upon thine hand.
And they shall be as frontless between thine eyes.
And thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates.
Now you would look at this passage and say, OK, well, Pastor Shelley,
it's saying we as a collective, we as a group of people,
we need to teach our children so we'll get the best teachers
and we'll get the best ladies and the best people.
And we'll set up these little groups and we'll call it a school
and we'll bring everybody together and we'll be really efficient about it.
You're not reading the passage correctly
because the passage says that you have to take personal responsibility
for the teaching of these children.
Let's pay attention to some words here.
Verse number seven and thou shalt teach them diligently.
Notice this under thy children, not to other people's children, to thy children.
Let's get even more specific and shout talk to them when thou sittest in thine house.
OK, I'm not going to go to your house necessarily.
OK, you're not coming to my house necessarily.
You're going to teach your children and your house notice.
And when thou walkest, by the way, and when thou liest down,
you're certainly not going to sleep over. OK.
And notice that when thou rise up, look, he's trying to make it clear.
This is you about your family and your house.
When you all go to bed, when you all wake up in the morning,
this is your daily routine.
This is not, hey, let's just make sure that we set up a commune
and we all live together in some hut.
And then when, you know, when we all lay down and we always that's a cult.
OK, we're talking about a New Testament local church here.
And you have personal responsibility to teach your children the word of God.
And look, teaching people takes effort.
It takes diligence is what the Bible says.
What is diligence, careful and persistent work or effort?
And let me say this.
Teaching children takes careful and persistent work or effort.
It takes a lot of effort.
You know what? Learning anything actually takes a lot of effort.
It's a pretty old adage or it's a pretty common thing
that most people will repeat, but it supposedly takes about 10,000 hours
to become expert or to become very skilled
in a particular job or function or duty.
So if you want to be a very good worker, whether that be a plumber,
whether it be an electrician, a computer programmer, a framer, a truck driver.
I don't care what job it is that you have,
having lots and lots of time it takes to become expert in it.
You just don't become expert in things overnight.
You don't just go and walk down and sit down at the piano and just,
you know, now a savant.
OK, but we're talking about normal people.
You can't just walk up and just do things automatically.
It takes time. And even that savant,
even if you just sit down and start playing music right away,
if he spends 10,000 hours playing at the savant,
he's going to the level of increase he'll have is going to be exponential, too.
So the amount of time you put in something, it takes a lot to learn something.
And you know what? Your children are no different.
It takes them a lot of time to learn things, how to communicate,
how to not lie, OK, how to do things right.
How about even learning a language?
You know, I looked up this in the past, just trying to learn a language.
But the United States Foreign Service Institute
indicates that it takes four hundred and eighty hours
to reach basic fluency in a group one language.
So if you're an American and you speak English, they've rated
how long it would take for you to learn certain languages,
other languages, foreign languages.
Now, a group one language would be French, German,
Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili.
And those languages are very similar to English in the sense
they're Latin based in the sense
they have the same type of alphabet, typically a lot of the same characters,
letters, spellings, even borrowed words.
If you think about English, we borrow German words, we borrow French words.
We borrow Spanish words.
Spanish borrows a lot of English world.
There's a lot of crossover there.
So learning that foreign language would be a lot simpler than learning other languages.
They say it would take four hundred and eighty hours to reach basic fluency.
That means if you spend an entire hour every day,
it would take over a year to learn basic fluency.
That's a lot of effort.
That's a lot of diligence.
It would take to learn a foreign language of other languages
that are harder, seven hundred and twenty hours.
Now they have group two, three and four.
So the second group is Bulgarian, Burmese, Greek, Hindi, Persian, Urdu.
Now, I actually looked at Hindi.
If that's a group two, I'm terrified about group four.
I mean, Hindi has like 50 plus characters in their alphabet,
and they all look like weird snakes that have been like decomposed
or, you know, basically just taken apart.
And I'm like, I don't know what it's just like a squiggly
and then the two eyes and then, you know, the legs that got took from
or whatever. No, it's good.
Well, it's like these weird things.
I'm like, how can you even tell what this is?
I'm used to just 26 characters, but other languages, they would be difficult.
If you put me in a room and said, hey, Pastor Shelley, learn Hindi.
I'd be like, oh, man.
Yet we can't have that.
We can't we can't underestimate what we're doing to our children.
We're asking them to learn stuff, OK?
Teaching your children things that are difficult.
It's going to take time. It's going to take effort.
It's going to take diligence.
You'd have to sit down and hold my hand and teach me, you know,
the weird Hindi. I can't even say anything in Hindi.
It's so weird. OK, sit there.
Let's go to Spanish.
Like, oh, la, oh, la, you're like, oh, la, you know,
because you don't understand how to pronounce the H or hello.
No, oh, la, oh, la.
You know, it takes a while to learn something new.
So we have to realize if it takes me a long time to learn a foreign language.
How about your kids to learn how to speak, how to write, how to read
all these different things?
And look, teaching a child how to read is frustrating.
It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy.
I mean, since Clayton was very little, you know, I can't remember
the exact age, probably two or three started learning the alphabet. Right.
And then from the alphabet, you start learning words.
You start learning sounds.
Then you start trying to do phonics.
And man, sometimes, you know, you'll sit down with your kid
and you'll teach them something.
And it takes 15 minutes for them to learn like one word.
And then you test it like 30 minutes later.
They've already forgot again.
You're just like, what?
You're like, is it all in vain?
I mean, it just took so much effort.
Look, it's just reality.
It takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy.
And because it takes a lot of effort and energy, people won't do it.
People are not willing to suffer little children.
You know what?
God commanded us to diligently teach our children.
We should not give up on our children.
We should teach them.
We should love them.
And notice the Bible is giving us a great way of how to do this.
It says you should take every moment of your life
as an opportunity to teach your children.
Notice what he said, when you sit, when you walk.
Are you doing anything other than sitting or walking, maybe lying down,
rising up?
I mean, can you imagine any other posture you're going to be in?
I mean, you're either sitting, lying down, walking or rising up.
I mean, he's just like whatever position you find yourself in.
This is the right time to teach your children.
And look, what we should do is you just have this attitude.
You need constant teaching, constant training, constant love.
And so I'm willing at every moment to sit down and teach you something
and willing to instruct you and give you time and effort and energy.
And let me say this,
you cannot incorporate too much Bible in your daily life.
When I read that verse, I don't feel like I do enough.
And I mean, I feel like we do a lot.
I mean, compared to most people, especially which, again,
is not the good comparison.
The good comparison is the Bible.
And when we compare ourselves to the Bible, it's like, wow,
I'm supposed to be talking about it every second.
I'm supposed to be writing it on the walls.
I mean, we're just constantly Bible in and out.
And, you know, previous generations,
you know, they would teach their children how to read
by reading the Bible.
You know, they teach their children how to spell by the Bible.
OK, we see people got away from the Bible.
I'm just kidding how to write from the Bible.
And, you know, whenever you're just using that kind of curriculum, it affects you.
Whenever I have to do spelling and you know what,
I'm learning the words of the Bible.
Hey, whenever I do memorization techniques and I'm learning
God's Ten Commandments, you know what?
It's like a double dip.
It's a double win, isn't it?
Because, you know, when you get these other books,
there's they're learning some material.
You know, Jill ran up the hill and Jack went down the beanstalk.
And it's like, what?
What prophet does that have outside of the literary learning?
Not that much.
But why not double dip with the Bible?
You know, teach your kids how to read the Bible.
Teach your kids how to spell words out of the Bible.
Teach your kids, you know, how to memorize scriptures from the Bible.
This is the best place to do learning and instruction.
And we need to invest in our children.
Go to Proverbs 22, Proverbs 22, Matthew 25.
The Bible says, And the king shall answer and say unto them,
verily I say unto you,
and as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these,
my brethren, you have done it unto me.
We have to realize when we do something to a child,
we're doing it to Jesus Christ.
And obviously, if Jesus Christ came over to you and asked you a favor,
you would drop everything and do it for him, wouldn't you?
All of us would.
I mean, imagine Jesus Christ walks up to you.
Hey, can you buy me lunch?
You're like, sure.
Hey, you want to go be so you want to be my soul wanting partner?
Well, I'm not going to go so any day.
Would you say that to Jesus?
You're like, eh, I wanted to go with Brother Ryan, you know,
I want to go with someone else.
Or did you be like, yes, sweet.
You know, Jesus is like, hey, you play an instrument.
Hey, why don't you play, you know, the instrument for the church?
You know, I pursued with my blood.
You're like, OK, I'm going to get my I'm going to dust off that trumpet,
you know, even if I've got a broken arm,
I'm going to get up there and play it, you know?
Yeah, I mean, if Jesus is asking you to do stuff, you're all you're all for it.
You know what he said?
Hey, if you do one of the least of these, my brother,
when a little child asks you for something,
you should be like, hey, it's like Jesus asking you for something.
I should give them the same effort, attention.
I should love them the same, shouldn't I?
I shouldn't look down upon children and say, get away from me.
You know, you're annoying. Get out of here.
You're snotty.
They're all snotty and gross and liars and what they all have problems.
OK, but we should suffer the little children.
We should love them.
Jesus Christ didn't turn them away.
And you think those little children were perfect walking around outside.
I bet they were dirty because I know kids know what they like to do.
Roll around in the dirt.
OK, you know, they like they love to get dirty.
They have no personal sense of hygiene or anything like that.
And Jesus Christ put his hands on them.
Jesus Christ loved them.
He did good under them.
We need to take time to love children.
Proverbs 22, verse six, the Bible says, train up a child
the way you should go.
And when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Now, it's a very popular verse.
We all know this verse very well.
But I thought of it differently when I was kind of meditating on this verse,
because think about this phrase when he is old, when he is old.
So you know what that does not say when he is young.
Notice it doesn't say that he's going to do good when he's young, does it?
It says when he's old.
You know what that means?
It means he's going to screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up,
screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up, screw up,
then be old and then finally get it.
Yes. Some people think, oh, if I'm training him, he's not going to screw up.
No, he's going to screw up until he's old and then he's not going to screw up.
But notice it doesn't just happen overnight, does it?
It says train up the child.
And if he was already perfect, why would you need to train them?
I mean, do you have to
you have to go through training at your job or is that just at the beginning?
And then once you figure out your job, you get it.
Imagine your boss likes to be like, hey, you need to be trained again.
Would that be a positive thing or a negative thing?
You'd say, oh, what's wrong? What's the problem?
Notice you're supposed to train up the child.
You're supposed to constantly teach them and instruct them.
And you know what?
They need instructing all the way out the door. All right.
That's when they're done training.
You know, in my opinion, in fact, a lot of times they still need other training.
They need to get correspondence coming in and ask the parents for more training.
Because guess what?
Life is hard and we need constant training to be given unto our children.
And you know, it's going to constantly help them look at verse 15.
Foolishness is bound to the heart of a child,
but the rod of correction shall drive it far from them.
So you know why they need that training until they're old?
Because that foolishness is bound in their heart.
It has to be driven away from them.
And if it's not driven away from them, you know what?
They're going to be wicked people.
You can take that to the bank.
Wicked people did not get any correction.
In fact, they hate correction.
And we need to teach our children how to be constantly corrected.
Children should learn to love correction.
And you know what?
We all need continual correction because those who don't want correction,
you know what they don't want to do?
Come to a church and hear the Bible being preached.
You know, people that don't want correction,
they don't want to learn from their boss at work.
They don't want to learn from society or read books or try to educate themselves.
We need to realize our need for continual correction.
And beg for it.
You know what I want all the time is correction.
I'm not afraid of correction.
I love correction because it helps me become better.
If I don't ever get any more correction, I can't get any better.
I love constant correction.
That's why I love reading the Bible and reading God's word.
Because when I read the Bible, I don't sit here and think,
oh, man, I got it together.
I think, wow, I'm far off.
Wow, I need a lot more correction.
I need to fix a lot of things.
I need to compare myself to Jesus Christ and to the apostle Paul
and to faithful ministers of the gospel and say, look at their example.
I need to follow that example and get better.
You know, we don't want to be a generation that outlaws correction.
I mean, they say they don't want police anymore.
You know, police are called correctional officers.
They're trying to correct you when you make mistakes,
when you're doing things that are wrong.
They want to ban them.
Imagine and look, they don't want to ban them.
They want to ban all correction.
And you know what they really hate is they hate the church,
even though we're not even correcting them directly.
Just the fact that someone's correcting anyone, they can't stand that.
They don't like that.
They don't like the fact that you get up and you lift up your voice
like a trumpet and you show the sins of the world and the sins of the people.
They get all hurt in their their wicked heart.
They get offended by God's word
and they don't like correction because they were never corrected as a child.
Yeah. Our children need to be constantly corrected.
And you know what is more infuriating than anything?
Someone that can't take correction.
I can't stand it.
We should raise a generation that loves correction
and can take correction today.
Go to First Peter, Chapter two, First Peter, chapter number two.
My first point this morning about how we're supposed to suffer
little children is we need to teach them.
And really, the best thing about the Bible
or God's word is it always has carnal application,
but it also has spiritual application.
So we're talking about the importance of suffering little children,
and we're talking about in a very physical sense.
That's what I've been meaning the whole point of this sermon, basically.
But let's make a spiritual application
because, you know, little children could be in reference
to just a child that's five, six, seven, eight years old.
It could also be to someone that's new in Christ.
Can also be referenced as a little child.
And look what it says in First Peter, chapter two, verse two.
The Bible says, as newborn babes desire,
the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.
So in First Peter, chapter number two, he says that when a person gets saved,
it's like they're a baby now, which makes sense
because what's the analogy of salvation being born again? Right.
Now you become a child of God.
And when you're born, you become a babe.
And that baby needs to start growing and developing.
Notice what they like to do.
They like to gain as much of the Bible as possible.
And as they gain that Bible, then they can gain wisdom, instruction.
They can start learning.
They become little children spiritually.
And look, people that are newly saved are like little children.
And they need constant teaching and training from God's word
just as much as a little child would. OK.
But let me say this.
You have to suffer the little children a little bit.
Meaning what people that are just learning the Bible
just learning Christianity have not experienced these things.
They're going to have problems.
They're going to have things that you have to deal with issues that you have.
Go to Hebrews, chapter number five.
What kind of issues would a baby Christian have or a little child
Christian have their carnal? Right.
They're only really concerned with themselves.
They're ignorant, right?
They're ignorant of the scriptures, they're ignorant of God's word.
They haven't maybe seen everything modeled for them just yet.
They're foolish sometimes, even not just ignorant.
They just make bad decisions.
You watch people, they get saved.
They start coming to church.
They start learning the doctrine for one, two, three, four years.
But then they'll still make really stupid decisions.
You're just like, what are you doing?
Why? Because they're still kind of a little child.
Your little five year old, six year old, seven year old.
If you just put them out in the world by himself, he would make some weird decisions.
OK, it's the same with Christianity.
People that don't know much Bible and are still a little child spiritually,
they're going to make some bad decisions.
They need constant guiding.
Also, they're highly sensitive, highly sensitive children are highly sensitive.
You can hurt a child's feelings like that.
You can change their state of emotion like that.
And you know what you can do?
The little babes in Christ, little children in the church.
You can hurt their feelings so quickly.
I mean, they can get up in the middle of sermon.
They can just quit church right away.
Why? Because they're just so sensitive.
They're highly sensitive.
But notice we have to suffer little children.
We have to teach them and train them and come down to their level.
Condescend to men of low estate.
And obviously our preaching can't just be only to the babes
and only to the little children.
We have to factor them in, don't we?
And I notice that sometimes, you know, our church,
especially from the other preachers,
they don't always think about this concept
because whenever they're preaching the Bible,
they'll get to a subject that's a little bit sensitive.
And instead of handling it with a little bit of caution,
they just throw caution to the wind and they just start ripping face.
And look, I'm all for ripping face.
But sometimes you need to build up to that
that talking point that you have there.
You know, somebody will get up and they'll just they'll rip on fags
and how people dress and effeminate queers and just women preachers.
They'll just rip on everything and anything.
OK. And one sermon and they didn't give any caveats.
It's just like, I mean, they're just, you know, taking things to the,
you know, taking everybody to the woodshed and just bending them over
and just beating them to poke.
Look, the highly sensitive newborn babe Christians, they can't handle that.
They would freak out.
They get really, you know, wow, I can't really say that.
So obviously it's best if when you're covering a very highly sensitive subject
that you can kind of build up to that subject,
you can explain it thoroughly, you can make sure it's manifest.
And look, so be it.
If it's a hard truth, then they have to hear it.
They need to hear it.
But at the end of the day, I don't want to just sit here
and kick every dog that I possibly can in this sermon.
I just want to sit here and just be like, hey, here's another thing
I know is going to offend you, you know,
and this pink shirt wearing freak that came in here with his long hair.
You know, I bet you don't even you haven't read the Bible.
I bet you don't soul winning.
You fag loving queer bait, you know.
And it's just like, that's hard preaching.
That's not hard preaching. That's just being a jerk. OK.
And so we have to grow up and we have to learn, look,
children can't handle the same pressures a man can.
Can they? I mean, can your child lift as much weight as you can?
Can your little child endure with as many things as you?
I mean, if you had to drive all night,
do they stay up to or do they fall asleep in the backseat? Right.
I mean, so at the end of the day,
you have to realize you can take things more than other people.
Well, if you can take things more spiritually than others,
don't look down upon little children.
Suffer the little children.
Say, oh, man, I wish Pastor Shelley would just get in there
and just start ripping face immediately.
You know, let the sermon build a little bit.
You know, learn some of the basic truths again.
Let those things be explained.
Let people learn.
Let people grow.
And then, you know, wait for the icing on the cake. OK.
But he was chapter five, verse 11, of whom we have many things to say
and hard to be other talking about Jesus Christ in your dual hearing.
For when the time you ought to be teachers, you have need.
The one teach you again, which be the first principles
of the Oracles of God and are become as such as have need of milk
and not a strong meat.
Now he's rebuking them and telling them
you guys have been learning the Bible for so long now.
You ought to be a teacher by now.
And at the end of the day, we need to teach the little children.
So not just me, you guys.
Hey, I can't teach everybody soul winning in this church.
Hey, we want to have everybody be a good teacher of soul.
We want everybody in here to teach.
I can't teach all your children at home.
You have to teach your children at home.
And so it's important to empower the congregation
to empower other people and for you to learn the material
so you can teach others also so you can teach your coworker at work.
So you can teach your family members and your friends
and those that you go out in the neighborhoods and preach to.
And again, whenever you go out, realize who you're talking to.
Are you talking to spiritual Arnold Schwarzenegger
when you go out of these four walls?
I am so spiritual.
Or are you talking to little babies, little toddlers,
people that are super sensitive, super carnal?
They're super ignorant.
They're super foolish.
But you know what you need to do?
You need to suffer the little children out there and love on them
and not be like, oh, I bet your church has a bunch of fag,
queer pastors and you know, you have a woman pastor.
You're so wicked and evil.
You know, if I do that, they're going to be like,
I can't believe you called my pastor evil
because inside they're a little baby.
They can't handle that yet.
So you should try to love them and say, hey, you know,
our church does soul winning.
You want to come soul winning?
Hey, our church, you know, we use the King James Bible.
Can I show you why we use a King James Bible?
You know, your Bible's wicked as hell.
It blasphemes Jesus.
You know, you should burn it.
Let's burn it right now.
It's my grandmother's Bible, and I don't know why you would say that.
She is a special president that he gave to me.
You know, they're going to be sentimental about those things.
Why? Because they're carnal, aren't they?
They're sentimental about a new living translation.
They're sentimental about the Book of Mormon.
It's like someone that's a spiritual giant.
They're going to be like, burn it, you know.
But my grandma gave that to me.
Look, their little child suffer the little children.
OK, we need to learn that these people are little children
and we need to love them and guide them and not look down upon them
and not forbid them.
Because you know what?
If we don't bring in children, our church is going to become
like every other church where it's just old people.
Not just physically, even spiritually.
I don't want to have a church where we're only, you know, so mature.
We're just all so great.
But we need to bring in new blood.
We need to bring in some new births.
We bring in some of the little children.
We need to bring in people from all walks of life, age wise and spiritually.
You have you went to Job, Chapter 39, Job, Chapter 39.
The Bible says, Go therefore and teach all nations
baptized in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.
So notice we're supposed to go out and supposed to teach the world
the Bible, teach the world the gospel.
And let me tell you this.
There is so many Christians today
and their education level of the Bible is like babe level one.
And so we should not sit here and criticize,
you know, you know, other churches.
I mean, let me let me wear this differently.
Some people, they go to a church like ours
or they go to maybe one of our satellite churches.
And they're so discontented because they're like, I want to learn so much more.
And I'm thinking like, you know, more than 99.99999999%
of most other Christians on this planet.
You've been so blessed with all this knowledge.
And look, if you're so knowledgeable that you're not learning at church,
why don't you start going out and teaching people then?
Why don't you go all these other nations that know nothing?
I mean, there's nations where the babe level is like everyone.
Go to Jamaica, go to the Bahamas.
They don't know the doctrine.
They don't know the word of God.
Most of them aren't even saved.
And then those that are saved, they don't even know the doctrine.
They don't know the word of God.
They need to be taught their spiritual babies today.
And you know what?
Our church is the thunder forth, the word of God and teach all nations.
And you know what?
We can sit here in our ivory tower and we could just try to learn
every single verse and every single line to the point of just,
you know, ridiculousness.
Or we could take the things we already know and go and start teaching other people.
There's an opportunity cost every single decision.
And you know what? We want to be ascending church.
We don't want to become the Calvinist.
We'll become so smart that we think that we didn't even believe in Jesus anymore.
I imagine they get so smart, they didn't even believe in Jesus.
All of a sudden, you're just like, what in the world?
Like God gave us the faith and we're so smart.
Yeah, let's talk about theological discourses and we shouldn't even yell.
I'm sorry.
Let's talk in a more sophisticated voice and let's let's turn in our thesaurus.
And we're going to we're going to study two verses this morning,
two whole verses. We're going to get through them.
We're going to execute every single word.
And as we go to our next thesaurus, who cares about your stupid, deeper life philosophy?
You know what? We're supposed to go out and preach to the common person
anyways, to plain people, to babes, OK, to little children.
We're supposed to go out and get people saved and preach the gospel.
And you know what? If you're so smart, why don't you start teaching other people then?
And, you know, you go to a church to what?
Serve other people. All right.
And you can serve a lot of different people if you get plugged into the right church.
But it's our goal to teach others.
We should learn how to teach others.
Another flip side is if you want to be a teacher, you have to learn, though.
You can't teach something you don't know.
That's why people that don't know the Bible, when they get up to preach,
you know what they don't preach the Bible.
And you know what tells me someone's a bad person when they don't preach the Bible.
When I start thinking there's a bad person or a bad pastor or somebody,
I start just listening to sermons and I don't even listen to them.
You know what I do? I just click around.
I just say, all right, 10 minutes in.
OK, 20 minutes in, 30 minutes in another sermon, 10 minutes in 20 minutes in.
And you know what? I never accidentally stumble on them teaching the Bible.
Bad person. I'm just saying, why?
Because if you're not preaching the Bible, you know what?
It's because you don't know the Bible.
You know what they get up and preach their life.
You want to you want to know what most old IFB preachers do,
they get up and they tell you about their haircut during the week
and they tell you about all the experiences they had throughout the week
and all the people they ran into and the Catholic priest
that they gave a tract to.
And let's pray for the Catholic priest to get saved.
I gave him a tract.
It's like, where's that in the Bible?
Where what are you even talking about?
A Catholic priest?
You're talking about how you gave him.
I was just standing there and God just told me to talk to this Catholic priest
to give him a track and hope that he'll get he'll get saved.
Why would you get up and say that?
Why would you preach that?
Because you have nothing else to say because you didn't read any of the Bible
because you don't know what the Bible says.
So you get up and just preach your opinion.
Look, you can tell a lot about a person when they never preach the scriptures.
You know, I ask new people to get up and preach.
And you know what they usually do?
They preach about their life experiences.
From biblical principles, because they don't, again, know the Bible.
We should be a church that knows the Bible.
When you get up, you should be preaching the Bible stories from the Bible.
Portions of scripture from the Bible.
The clear statements from the Bible.
And yeah, we interweave our lives.
We interweave application.
And that's what makes a sermon great.
But at the end of the day, we don't want to err on the other side
or we see the Calvinist who just stays so in so much in the Bible
that it's nauseating.
It's frustrating.
They're like, you have to understand the Jewish context of understanding.
It's like, no, we want to make modern day application, but we need both.
OK, and if you want to be a preacher of God's word,
if you want to be a teacher of God's word, learn the Bible.
This is the number one thing you need to do when you stand up
in the pulpit, know what the Bible says about your topic.
You know, when I get up to preach, I'll just admit something to you, OK?
Most of my application I haven't thought about really that much.
I just know what the Bible says.
And then, you know, it's easy making application.
It's easy to make application.
When you know what the Bible says, you know, it's hard to do
make application that fits with the Bible when you don't know
what the Bible says.
And a lot of people do this.
They start making all these weird applications
and you start thinking like, well, there's a clear verse against that.
And that's not biblical.
You know, they'll get up
and they'll start teaching things that just aren't in the scriptures.
And they make all kinds of mistakes.
You want to make a lot of mistakes?
Preach your opinion.
You want to influence people's lives.
Preach the Bible, preach the word of God.
So number one, teach the little children.
Now, for sake of time, I'm not going to get through the rest of these notes,
but I want to just to preach the two points.
The second thing that we need to do is several little shows.
We need to protect them.
Job chapter 39, look at verse 13.
Gave us thou the goodly wings and the peacocks.
Or wings and feathers and the ostrich,
which leave their eggs in the earth and warm with them in dust
and forget it that the foot may crush them
or that the wild beasts may break them.
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers.
Her labor is in vain without fear, because God deprived her of wisdom.
Neither had the imparted her understanding.
My second point, and now we suffer those shows we need to protect them.
We must protect them. But let me say this as a burden.
It's a burden to teach.
It's a burden to protect.
Both of those are extreme burdens.
But notice this bird.
It doesn't even love its own children.
The ostrich, it doesn't even care about them.
It just leaves the eggs in the earth.
It just leaves them with someone else and they can be crushed.
They can be destroyed. They can be killed.
And look, so many people today, this is what they do.
They just leave their kids at the public pool system all day.
They just leave their kids with the daycare.
They just leave their kids with the babysitter,
not caring that some wild beast may devour them.
And let me tell you this.
There is a bunch of wild beasts in the public school today.
There's a bunch of wild beasts at the daycare.
There's a bunch of wild beasts called babysitters today.
And you know what?
When you just leave your kids in these dangerous areas,
wild beasts will come and prey on your children.
Right.
And so you say, oh, you say that I should actually stick around
and watch them. That's boring.
Yeah, it's called a burden.
You got to protect them.
It takes effort. It takes diligence.
You know what?
I'd rather do that than let the wolf watch them.
Then let the beast watch them.
The brute beasts that want to beguile unstable souls.
And you know what?
Just physically, this isn't just physical.
This is spiritual to my friend.
You want to protect the little children.
You have to protect them from the brute beasts.
And there are brute beasts.
There are wild beasts out there.
And, you know, when you take over a church
of a bunch of little children,
sometimes they don't realize the wild beasts.
They like it. They want to pet it.
Oh, look at my little wild beast.
He's so cute and he's so funny.
He's got a flat earth map.
He's so harmless.
My cute little beast.
He's going around talking trash on everybody.
He's so silly.
It's like he's like you're like sticking your head in his mouth,
just like, oh, he's not going to bite me, you know.
And then he's just going to sink his teeth
and when you're not looking.
And look, if you don't you want your children to be hurt and harm,
you have to pick that wolf up and you have to drag him outside
and you have to put a bullet in his head.
And they're like, I called him Junior and you shot him in the head.
It's like, yeah, he's a wolf.
He's a dog.
He's going to come and hurt you.
He's going to harm you.
Little kids don't understand.
Have you seen Old Yeller?
Everyone cries.
Okay, they're like, he was so cute and I named him.
He was foaming at the mouth.
He was going to rip you in shreds.
But little kids, they don't understand that.
They want to go play with him.
Let's go play with Old Yeller.
Let's go in the cage, Mommy.
I don't care about the foaming at the mouth.
That's no problem.
Yet someone that has a little bit more spiritual maturity says,
you know what, that's dangerous.
Don't go in there with that.
We need to drag him out and put a bullet in his head and we'll get you a goldfish or something.
Okay, we'll go get you a puppy.
All right, we'll go and find some new puppies.
Puppies make everybody happy, right?
You go find your new puppy, but Old Yeller, we got to put him down.
FYI.
And look, it's a burden today.
No one likes to do that.
Do you think the parrots like killing Old Yeller?
It's not fun.
It's frustrating.
It's annoying.
They invested time and they fed Old Yeller, you know, they fed Old Yeller and they took care of him.
They had to cage him and they had to put the bullet in his head and they had to bury it, you know, and they have to tell him about it.
It's like Old Yeller.
It's not really a better place.
But you know, he went to the other farm, you know, called hell.
All right.
Go be with Ephesians chapter 6.
That was point two quickly.
All right, maybe like the quick points better.
Point one, we have to teach little children.
Point two, we have to protect the little children and then point three.
It's really a culmination, but we have to love them.
And you can't have the love without the first two.
If you love them, you'll teach them.
If you love them, you'll protect them.
If you don't do either of those, you do not love them.
If you love me, keep my commandments is what Jesus said.
But look at Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4.
It says, any fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
We need to love our children today by spending time with them, by protecting them.
And also spiritually, we need to teach people that are newly saved.
We need to help them grow in the Lord, learning the Bible, getting sin out of their life.
And you need to allow your pastor and those that are over you spiritually to protect you.
The Bible says, Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they that watch for your souls as they must give an account.
Look, I have to give an account.
So therefore, I care about what happens to you.
And if I just let old Yeller come in here and give everybody rabies, you know what?
I'm the one to blame, not you.
If your kids harm themselves, you know whose fault it is?
Your fault.
The government's not going to be like, oh, kids be kids.
No, they're going to get mad at you.
That's why they have CPS.
And look, I'm not for CPS.
But isn't that the guys?
If you're hurting your kids, if you're not taking care of them, if you're not teaching them, you're not protecting them, then we'll protect them for you, right?
Well, I don't want that to be said of me.
I want to be doing my own part.
I want to make sure that I'm nourishing them.
I'm the one protecting them.
And look, what does it mean to love someone?
It means to choose to do good under them when they don't deserve it.
And let me say this, loving your kids is hard work.
They don't always deserve it.
Sometimes they're brats.
Sometimes you cook them a good meal and you serve it to them hot and fresh.
I don't want that.
I want mac and cheese.
I want grilled cheese, you know.
Then you make the mac and cheese.
I don't want the mac and cheese.
I want fruit.
I want candy.
I want ice cream, you know.
You come to church and it's like,
hey, we're going to learn about loving children.
I want reverberate doctrine.
I want Romans 1, you know.
Hey, we got a Bible study on judges, you know.
It's like, I want the book of John.
John, I like John.
John's my favorite book.
When we get into John, you know, it's like you can't please them.
And then the next time you show up, you're like, hey, we're doing John.
I'm done with John.
I want, you know, Genesis.
Genesis is my book now.
It's like you can't appease them.
You can't satisfy them.
Okay, but at the end of the day, you still have to love them.
You still have to love the children.
You still have to do good.
And you know what?
When your kids act like brats, you have to discipline and that's how you love them.
You say, well, you're getting judges anyways.
You know what?
First Chronicles.
Ask again.
No, I'm just kidding.
Whatever they, whatever they, they need, but look, I'm not doing that because I hate them.
You do it because you love them.
You got to love your children today.
We need to love them.
Go if you went to Matthew 23.
I have a few more verses this morning, but first Corinthians 13, it talks about charity.
It says, did not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not our own.
I want to raise a generation of men today that do not seek their own.
They seek for their children.
They lay up for their children.
They love their children.
The Apostle Paul said,
I seek not yours, but you, for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
So the Apostle Paul said, the parents should lay down for the children.
The parents should raise up money, should raise up goods, should do all the hard work for the children, not vice versa.
I'm not having kids to serve me.
I'm serving my children.
Yet some people, they want to vicarious and live through their children.
They want their children to be the ones to lay up for them.
We should have the exact opposite attitude.
All of our decisions should be for our children, not for our own selfish ambitions.
Not what can I do?
What can I accomplish in my life?
My goal is what can my kids accomplish?
What can they do?
You know, as a pastor of this church, it should not be how can I accomplish all what I want?
It should be how can I empower my congregation to serve the Lord to the best of their ability?
Even if I have to lay down my life, even if I have to spend myself completely and burn whatever ambitions I had or goals I had,
you know what, as long as I can get other people to serve God, that's the real goal.
Helping others.
Oh, maybe like, I don't know, Jesus Christ.
You think Jesus Christ could have done pretty good soul winning for 50 years?
Think he could have done a lot of missionary journeys?
Think he could have healed a lot of people?
But what did he do?
He laid down his life so Paul could do it.
He laid down his life so the apostles could do it.
He laid down his life so we could do it.
He laid down his life so that we could have church.
He didn't say, hey, let's just see how much glory I can get.
He can get it all.
He's already got it.
Okay.
He could have just come to this earth and been like, serve me.
And we all been like, yep.
All right.
Sure.
Yes.
Yes, sir.
I mean, or just be thrown in hell.
I mean, that's your other option, right?
But what do you do?
He gave his life.
He ministered unto us so that we could do what?
We could be empowered to serve him and notice.
It's not so we can fulfill our own salvation.
Visions so that you can serve others to notice if I
set the example of saying, you know what?
I should lay down my ambitions so I can empower you
to fulfill yours.
You say, well, then guess what?
I want to do.
I want to help lay down my ambitions to serve others and
then it just keeps spiraling out and we keep helping empower
other people to minister and to love God to serve God
to preach the gospel.
You know how it happens by you suffering the little
children.
We all start somewhere.
You got to take a little children.
You got to suffer through them.
You got to teach and to train them and to grow them
up and teach them the word of God and help them become
spiritual mature Giants so they can also go out
and do the same thing.
But what are the false prophets do?
Matthew 23, look at verse 2 saying the Scribes of the
Pharisees sit in Moses seat all there for whatsoever.
They bid you observe that observant do but do not
you after their works for they say and do not for
they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born
and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves
will not move them with one of their fingers.
You know pastors should be there to bear the burdens
of the people not to find people to bear his burdens.
You know, it makes me frustrated makes me sick when
I see pastors get up there and they talk about how
they need the whole congregation and make sure
that he's fulfilling his job.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
You know get up there.
He can't even get him pick up a pencil.
He can't even take out the trash.
He can't even do it.
He can't be bothered to minister at all when his
Savior Jesus Christ got on his knees and wash the
disciples feet, but you can't take out the trash
but you can't be bothered by anything.
You know what?
A pastor is a minister a pastor is supposed to lay down
his life a pastor is supposed to bear the burdens
of the people we see Moses when the opposite direction.
He was willing to bear the burdens of a million people
and then it was like you can't do that.
You need to hire some people.
You need to get some help here, right?
But at the end of the day, it wasn't that he was
hiring people to make him just such a great person.
I need more people to fan me and give me grapes.
No, he's doing it so that other people can be ministered
to and look if you want to be in a position of authority
if you want to be in a position of leadership or ministry
you had not look at it.
What can I get out of it?
How can I get people to lessen my burden?
No, you need to be able to take on other people's
burdens.
And let me say this.
I'm not going to put someone in ministry that can't
even handle the birds they have in their life.
How are you going to take on other people's burdens?
Some people have this idea.
Well, if I just begin to pass in my life would
get easier.
It's like not doing it correctly.
Yeah, if you become Joel Osteen, it might be easier.
You might get other you might be the Absalom get 50
men to run before you.
You know what?
David's life doesn't get easier.
He goes out and has to minister to other people and
love other people.
And you know what?
It's probably God probably put all the people in his
life that had to had rough lives just so he wouldn't
feel how all this self-pity, you know, like all
the people that were discontented and in debt.
They came up under David and they're like, you know,
my life sucks too.
And I'm having all these problems and I lost my wife
or whatever.
And he's just like, man, you got a rough white.
So then he can realize, hey, other people have
worse than me.
So he's just not on this self-pity parade of just
like, oh, woe is me.
I can't hang out with Jonathan.
You know, my father-in-law wants to kill me.
It's like, look, in-laws are born for division.
My friend leaving cleave, right?
Go to John 21, John 21.
This last verse of your turn.
What are we talking about?
Suffer little children.
We want to do this physically and spiritually and
a pastor that loves you will feed you and protect
you. A pastor that loves you will feed you.
Think about one of the greatest books of the Bible
or the greatest chapters, Psalm 23.
And you know how you when you feel comfortable when
you're being fed and protected and that's all
that Psalms 23 is about.
He's leading you to green pastures.
He has that rod with you.
You walk through the valley of shadow of death.
You'll fear no evil.
Hey, when you're being fed and protected, it's good.
You say, hey, you want your wife to be happy with
you? Feed her and protect her.
She's good.
Whenever one of those starts getting threatened, problems,
problems.
You want to make sure you have a happy wife.
Just make sure she's protected and she's fed.
You know what?
They can't handle insecurity.
And obviously this coronavirus puts a lot of stress
on men, but you know what?
You need to say it's going to be fine.
You're going to get the food and you're going to
get the protection.
No problems.
You'll help your wife.
Hey, you want to come to a church where you're
afraid what you're going to get fed.
You're afraid if you can get NIV this morning,
you're afraid if you're going to get the flat
earth, you're afraid.
You don't even know what what evangelist is going
to show up and preach you repent of your sins.
That's I don't want to go to church like that.
I want to go to church when I say, you know what?
I'm hungry and I'm ready to eat.
I don't want to show up to McDonald's and wonder
if they're going to make my order right because
they always screw everyone screws up in the
fast food industry.
I always have something wrong in my order every
single time.
I hate it.
I hate fast food.
They all suck.
Okay, it's like fast food spirituality.
All right, you show up and you don't know what
heresy you're going to get that morning.
It's like I just want to show up at church
and not hear heresy this morning, right?
And I want to show up at church not worry
what spiritual predators in the room that's
about to devour me.
I'm worried about the the Judas Iscariot in the
room that's always going to constantly harm me
and hurt me and all the people that have
creeped in look you want to go to a church
where you know, hey the past is going to
feed us and if something creeps up, he's
going to beat it to death with his rod.
He's going to bring that rod out called
the word of God and he's going to slay
that wolf.
Look at John 21 verse 15.
And when they die in Jesus say it's the
Simon Peter Simon son of Jonas love us
thou me more than these he say that I'm
Lord.
Yay, Lord now know is that I love you
say that I'm feed my lambs say it to him
again the second time Simon son of Jonas
loves down me.
He say it on him.
Yay, Lord now knows that I love thee.
He say that I'm feed my sheep.
He say that I'm the third time Simon
son of Jonas love is down me Peter
was greed because he had said unto him
the third time love is not me and he
said unto him Lord now know us all
things now know us that I love
Jesus said unto him feed my sheep notice
a correlation of what the teaching
we need to teach the little children.
We need to suffer them and to give
even more example because I already
gave you a lot verse 15 says feed my
lambs.
You know what a lamb is?
It's a sheep that's younger than
one year old.
So notice he says hey feed the babies
and feed the sheep.
You need to be both together and we
need to suffer the little children
this morning.
We ought not cast them away.
We need to feed the lambs of God
today.
Not just the sheep of God today
whether that be physically or spiritually.
We need to teach them.
We need to protect them and we
need to love them.
Let's go to prayer.
Thank you father so much for your
word.
Thank you for this great example.
He gave us thank you for accepting
little children because we all have
to be taught and trained and learn
and I pray that you would just
help us to have the right heart
and right attitude towards children
that we love them that we'd appreciate
them.
We see the value that they have
the fact that the next generation
I pray that you would just strengthen
us and encourage us to grow in
maturity so that we can teach
the little children not just physically
but also those spiritually that
we could all grow up that we
can be mature Christians to give
you more honor more glory and
they could use this church greatly
to teach all nations and Jesus name
we pray.
Amen.