(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. So we're there in Colossians 3. We'll be back a little bit later in the sermon. In fact, we'll be in Colossians a couple times this morning. So if you want to keep a bookmark there, feel free to do so, but you can go back to Mark chapter 10 as we continue on through the series. We've been preaching through Mark, and we're just going to look at verses 13 through 16. Of course, last week we looked at the teachings on divorce and remarriage that Jesus preached, and then we're going to pick it up here in verse 13 where it says, and they brought young children to him that they should touch them, excuse me, that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them, suffer the 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, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms and put his hands upon them and blessed them. So basically here in the story we have Jesus going about his ministry, and there's a group of people that are bringing young children to him so that Jesus would bless these children, and of course there's some people there that are displeased by this, and maybe that might kind of strike us as odd at first to think that there's people that would want to hinder young children from being close to the Lord, but that is in fact the case. They're saying, hey, you know, this is, we're too busy here, Jesus is too important, he hasn't got time for the little people, quite literally, right? And Jesus, when he sees this, it says, you know, he's displeased by this, he sees this attitude that these people have about these children, and you know it upsets him, and he actually rebukes them, and then he gives, I believe, this little bit of a parable, I don't know how literally we want to take this morning in verse 15 where he says, 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 and put his hands upon them and blessed them. So the first thing I want to point out here is this idea of suffering the little children, and really that's the focus of the sermon tonight, or this morning rather, is to suffer the little children, and how we can apply that here in our church and in our own lives. Now that word suffer isn't really something we use today, at least not in the context in which it's being used here in the scripture. Often when we talked about suffering today, we're talking about us going through some kind of pain or anguish, us having to deal with something unpleasurable, we're suffering through something. Like many of you this morning might be feeling like you're going to suffer through this sermon. That's a little bit of a joke, but anyway if you want to go over to Ephesians chapter number four, again keep something marked chapter 10, go over to Ephesians chapter number four, the way the Bible is using the word suffer here is in the sense of putting up with something, enduring something. So you can kind of see how that even has a crossover, the way we kind of use it today. We endure, we put up with, we suffer through things that we have to go through. The Bible is saying here, Jesus is saying to suffer the little children. So he's understanding at least that when little children, as much of a blessing as they are, there are some things that are less desirable, but it just kind of comes with the territory of having children. We all love the sweet precious moments when they're saying cute things or doing nice things or the help that they become as they get older. We love all the great things about kids, but they're humans like the rest of us. There's good and bad that comes with that and there is a price to pay for having children in our lives and in our churches and Jesus here is admonishing us to suffer them, to put up with whatever it is we have to put up with. That's kind of how that Bible word suffer is being used there. A couple other examples just to define suffering. So we're thinking about it in the right terms. Exodus 22 verse 18, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. You're not going to put up with the witch. You're not going to allow her to cast her spells and make her brew or whatever it is that witches do. You're not going to suffer her to live. Another famous one that might come to mind is Psalm 16 verse 10, for thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. So you can see how that word suffer is being used, right? He would not allow his holy one. He would not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. He's not going to allow, he's not going to put up with allowing the literal body of Christ to have corrupted when he was dead. But look here in Ephesians chapter four. Again, suffering or long suffering is another term. Maybe when it says long suffering, it's like being even more suffering than you normally would. It's something we are admonished to do as Christians. We are to be long suffering. And not just with children. We're supposed to be long suffering with everyone, with others, within our churches, people in our workplace, people that we run into, just our neighbors, our families, everyone. We should be a very long suffering people. He says in Ephesians four verse one, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. So he's saying, hey, you have been given a calling as a Christian. There is a calling on your life. There is a way you are to conduct yourself. There is a way that you ought to behave. There is something that you are called to, a vocation, right? A vocation is like a job, okay? He's saying because you are a child of God, because you are somebody who's been born again, that there's actually something that is your responsibility to do. That's what a vocation is, right? Our jobs aren't just things that we do because we feel like it. Those are things that we do because that's our responsibility. There's things that we have to do, right? That's our vocation. And he's saying here that we have a vocation wherewith we are called. There is a responsibility that is laid upon us, and it is our duty to walk worthy of that vocation. And the great thing about the Bible is that it doesn't just leave that up to interpretation. It tells us very specifically what that vocation is, how it is that we are to be worthy of that responsibility that we are called to walk in. Notice verse two, with all lowliness and meekness, right? There should be an absence of pride in our lives. Pride is something that will blind us to our own faults. It'll blind us to our own shortcomings. That's a whole sermon right there, right? With all lowliness and meekness, right? With long suffering. That's necessary if you're going to be a long suffering person. If you're going to put up with other people, if you're going to put up with the shortcomings and the faults and the flaws that other people have and the sins and the offenses that they bring, you're going to have to swallow your pride. You're going to have to be a lowly and meek person to allow transgressions to pass, right? Because that's what it means to be long suffering. It means to put up with whatever, right? So there's a lot of different things we could apply that to. Long suffering with other people, okay? The problem here in Mark, chapter 10, is they're not being long suffering with children, okay? Long suffering, notice also the next word there, forbearing one another in love, right? Forbearing. And a forbearing is just meaning, you know, being patient, being restrained, okay? The long suffering is just like, hey, you're just going to have to suffer through some things. You're just going to have to put off your pride, swallow your pride, take it on the chin sometimes. Just take things as they come and you're just going to have to be long suffering. You're just going to have to put up with some things, right? And that requires lowliness. It requires meekness. But not only you have to put up with things, you're also going to have to be, you're going to have to forbear, right? Because look, if we're going to be long suffering with people, meaning we're going to have to put up with some things, that means we're going to have to exercise forbearance, meaning we're not going to retaliate, okay? Forbearing one another in love. And that's obviously the motivation for all of this. If we love one another, you know, we will do these things. We will be long suffering with those that we love. We will be forbearing with those that we love. And again, he says they're endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. I mean, that's the ultimate goal. Why should we do all these things? Because our vocation, our job, the responsibility that we're to walk worthy of is to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, right? You have to have unity in a local church. You have to have everyone on the same page. And that means a lot of times having to be forbearing and having to be long suffering so that you can accomplish the greater good, okay? You get a bunch of sinners together in a room. People are going to rub each other the wrong way. Things are going to go, you know, it's just not always going to work out. There's going to be problems, okay? That's why we have to exercise. It's our vocation. It's what we're called to do. This is what we must do. This is how we walk worthy. We must be lowly. We must be meek. We must be long suffering. We must be forbearing. Those are, that's the job description of the Christian life. These are the, you know, your responsibilities and duties if we list them out in the Christian life. That's the vocation wherewith we are called, okay? And why? Because we want to keep the unity so that we can accomplish the work that God has given us to do. If you would, go back to Colossians 3 where we were reading this morning. Colossians chapter number 3. Colossians chapter number 3. Of course, Ephesians and Colossians, you know, they cover a lot of the exact same topics. You know, they've been called parallel passages because essentially they're just talking about the same things a lot of times in the same way. Look at verse 12. It says, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, right? So again, this idea of not lashing out, being a merciful person, okay? Kindness, notice again, humbleness of mind, meekness, so these same things are being used again. These are the prerequisites to being long suffering, okay? If you're going to be somebody who suffers other people, you're going to have to be somebody that is lowly and meek. You're going to have to be somebody that has humbleness of mind, okay? And has meekness. These come before long suffering, okay? Forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. You know, if we've offended, if we're upset about something, you know, we ought to forgive. And that forgiveness should come pretty quickly. You know, that's what it means to be forbearing. If we're going to be patient, if we're going to be restrained, if we're going to put up with things, you know, we're going to have to be a forgiving people. And it should come as easily and as readily as Christ forgave us. You know, if we're having a hard time forgiving people in our lives, we ought to just sit down and think about how much Christ has forgiven us. You know, if we have a bitterness in our hearts or anger or resentment, if we're upset with people and we just can't let things go, you know, it might be good for us to just sit down and just think about what Christ did for us and what He forgave us. I mean, I hope other people have done this. You know, this is a good practice. Sometimes, you know, if you're having a hard time or, you know, you're angry, upset or whatever it is, you know, you're not right with God in some way, you know, a good practice that I've tried is just sit and think about the cross. You know, this is something I did the other night. I remember just waking up in the middle of the night, you know, kind of upset about some things, thinking about things, going over things in my mind, things that have been taking place in my personal life, you know, and I just said, God, I just want to think about the cross. I just started thinking about the blood and try to put myself there, put myself there at the foot of that cross, put myself there and try to hear the sound of those nails being driven, try to, you know, see that blood pouring down. You know what? And a lot of your problems will just melt away when you realize that Christ did that for you. When Christ, you know, suffered that, forbear, you know, went through all that forbearing for our sake to forgive us. You know, a lot of our petty squabbles, a lot of our problems just kind of melt away at the foot of the cross. And that's what he says, forbearing one another, right? Verse 13, be patient, be restrained and forgiving one another. Why? As Christ forgave you. That's the manner we ought to do it. So, you know, you can see how being forbearing, how being long suffering is a major, you know, attribute that we are supposed to have in our Christian lives. He said in Ephesians, this is the vocation wherewith you are called and that you're to walk worthy of that. Your job, your duties are detailed, right? They are spelled out and part of those duties are being long suffering, being merciful, being patient, being kind, having lowliness and meekness. These are what we're called to do. We have to put these things in practice in our lives. And look, if we're suffering, if we're having a hard time, you know, doing these things, you know, it might be a lack of the spirit because, you know, this is part of the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, you know, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. You know, these are things that should be coming out of us without us having to, you know, drum it up in our lives. We shouldn't find ourselves going to church going, I'm going to go there, I'm going to be forbearing, I'm going to go there, I'm going to be forbearing, I'm going to be long suffering. It shouldn't be like that. We should have enough lowliness and meekness and kindness and gentleness to know that when we get there, you know, it's just going to come out of us, that we're going to be gentle, forbearing and long suffering people, okay? And it's important in a church, especially in a church like this, and I'll make an application to the text that we're in this morning, because of the fact that we are a family integrated church. You know, we have, we keep the children with us in the church. Okay? And, you know, this is not a common practice. You know, the common practice in most churches and in Baptist churches is to separate the families, right? Again, I'm not necessarily against people that do this, it's just not how we're doing things here, okay? I don't want to say that this is some major flaw that you can't attend a church that practices this. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying this is how we do things here, okay? This is how we practice what we do here. This is what we choose to do, to keep the family in together in the church, to have the children under the preaching the Word of God. And there's a lot of reasons for that, and I don't really want to make that the thrust of the sermon this morning, but just very quickly, you know, the Bible tells us that in the last days, perilous times shall come, okay? And that there's going to be people that, you know, would take advantage of unstable souls such as children, okay? We're living in a time where, you know, there's predators, there's perverts, there's pedophiles, just roaming our streets, living in our neighborhoods, and, you know, churches are soft targets, okay? Because these people understand, as I just preached this morning, that we as Christians are people that are to give people second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chances, because we are to be so long-suffering and forgiving and kind and forbearing, you know, that kind of makes us a soft target for perverts. They say, oh, you know, they'll go in there and they'll just, and quite frankly, you know, a lot of people, you know, a lot of churches out there do forgive these people. And I'll just say this right here, they have no, they'll have no part in this church. They're not allowed here, okay? And again, I'm trying not, you know, I don't like just throwing things out there, okay? But the Bible says that if you go after what is called strange flesh, meaning flesh that is not, you have unnatural affections, okay? And lusting after the same gender, and there's only two of them, by the way, and lusting after young children is strange flesh, okay? And the only people that do that are reprobates, okay? People who have been given over to a reprobate mind that God has given up on, okay? Romans 1, read it if you're struggling with that this morning. That's why we don't allow them in here, okay? But even if you say, well, isn't that precaution enough? No, that's part of the reason why we like to keep the children together and not send them off in some separate room in some other part of the building. You know, that's one reason you say, well, you know, you're being a little, you know, paranoid or whatever. Well, you know, it only takes a second, folks. It only takes a moment behind a closed door. It only takes, you know, for something to happen, and then, you know, it's done, and the consequences come, be what they may. But also, you know, we want to teach our children to go to, you know, when they get older, to, you know, desire a certain type of church, okay? And a lot of times, and I'm not saying this is the case all the time, and I'm not saying there isn't some good things that come out of churches that have children's ministries, okay? This is a junior church preacher of seven years. This is a bus captain, former bus captain talking, okay? I'm not pulling this out of the air. I know what I'm talking about when I say this. A lot of times in these type of church, the churches that practice this, these, you know, this separation of the family, they kind of in a sense have two different churches in their church. They have big boy church, which is where you're sitting this morning, right? Where you, we come and we just, we sing the songs, you know, and they're serious songs, they're moving songs, they're thoughtful songs, and they cause us to think about the deep things of God, they cause us to think about our own walk with God, and we get up and we have the preaching out of the King James Bible, okay? And we preach the whole council the Word of God. But then they'll have a lot of times, and a lot of churches will have that too, a lot of these churches, but then they'll have another church where it's just, you know, all these silly songs, but they're Bible-based, right? Somewhere in outer space God has prepared a place for those that love him and obey. You know, and right there there's some doctrinal problems right there, right? Oh, you got to obey to go to heaven? Obey the gospel, right? What does that mean, okay? And that's just one of many silly songs, right? I'm trying to think of some of the ones we sang, right? I'm in right, out right, up right, down right, happy all the time. Is that what you guys want to do tonight, this morning? Is that the church you want, where I'll get up and if you sing loud enough, I'll throw some candy at you? Then we can do it backwards, right? I'm out right, in right, down right, up right, happy all the time, right? And you say, that's silly, but that's what's going on in these, a lot of times with these junior churches. And then it's, you know, 15 minutes, five minutes of, you know, just the recycled, you know, flannel graphs, the pre-made, you know, curriculum where they're just going to talk about Noah. They're just going to talk about, you know, creation. They're just going to talk about, you know, just the generic stories that you could get just by sitting in here, okay? And the problem is, is that when you're giving kids like that a taste for that kind of church, right? And a lot of times it's a woman that's getting up and doing the teaching, right? And the Bible says that women are, you know, Paul said, I suffer not a woman to teach, but to be in silence, right? That is what the Bible says, that women are not to use authority over the man, okay? But a lot of times that's what's going on in these junior churches. You have women teaching the children, so you're giving them at an early age a taste for a certain kind of church. Now let me ask you something. Are there churches out there today that just sing a bunch of happy, silly songs? Are there a bunch of churches today where they have women getting up and leading the service? Are there a lot of churches out there that are just going to be a lot of happy, fun, good times? Yep. And when we start training our children in some other church within our church to desire that, they're going to come out here at 13, 14, 15, 18, whatever age they decide. They're going to come out here and they're going to hear, they're going to see my face and they're going to hear this dry, boring, plain preaching, right? And I try to make it entertaining as I can without turning it into a complete comedy routine, you know? But they're going to hear, they're going to get in big boy church and say, well, this isn't what I'm used to. I don't like this. And you know what the church is going to go find? The one they were brought up in. And they abound today, okay? So this is why we, you know, keep the children with us in the church. This is why we suffer the little children, okay? To bring them, you know, here, to hear the preaching, the word of God from a man of God, you know, and absent of all the thrills and silliness. Alright, there might be a little bit of silliness now and then. I don't know, did I have you go to Matthew 19? Matthew 19, this is a parallel passage of where we are. You don't have to necessarily turn there. It's basically saying the same thing. But again, we see here again, and you know, it's interesting sometimes when you have certain passages that are brought up in all three of the synoptic gospels, you know, Mark, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. A lot of times they don't always cover all the same topics, but a lot of times, you know, they do. And when they do, it seems to me like God's putting an emphasis on it. And this is one of those passages. This is one of those passages that are emphasized threefold in the New Testament, that God brings us up three times. So you read through Matthew, you get it. You read through Mark, you get it. You know, you read through Luke, you get it, okay? Three times he's hitting you back to back. He's like, by the time you get through Luke, you're like, alright, I got it, alright? But there's a reason, okay? This is important to God. This is important that we suffer the little children, meaning that we put up with them, that we forebear what comes along with having children in the service, okay? And, you know, they can be a distraction at times. And children should be trained how to sit and listen in church, okay? That doesn't, and that, and by the way, church is not the place to do that, okay? Home is the place to train your children to sit in church, okay? If you want your, you know, that, when we were bringing, started going to a family-integrated church and we only had a, you know, I think we just had Karen and then we had Linda shortly after that, you know, in the coming years, you know, we would try to, we had to figure out, like, well, how do you get children to sit still and listen in church? And the advice that was given to us is you train them at home. I mean, hopefully you're having some kind of a Bible time. You know, your kids are getting some kind of instruction, be it from mom or dad at some point, you know, in their day where you're actually teaching the Word of God to your children, that's a great time, you know, to make them sit still for 15 minutes. And yes, I said make them, okay? Not bribe them, not reward them, not, I said make them, meaning if they don't learn how to sit still there, you know, there's going to be consequences. You're going to apply the rod of instruction to the seat of learning. Talk about spanking, okay? You know, that's a great way to train your children. That's the Bible way, okay? And if you'll do that at home, what you'll find is that when you bring them to church, they'll start sitting still, okay? But here's the thing. In a church like this, not everyone's going to be on top of it like they should. Not everybody's going to do that. And even those kids that are being brought up and trained and instructed in those things, you know, they're going to still have issues from time to time. You know, moms are going to have to take them out. You're going to have babies making noise. You know, there's been times where we've had infants and toddlers and our mother-baby room back there. Obviously we provide a nursery for moms and young children to take them out of the service when they're fussing or to be fed or changed or things like that. You know, we provide that. But even then, you know, there's going to be times where, you know, the sound gets to us like we're going to hear it. You know, where we're going to hear children fussing in the nurseries. We're going to hear children in the service acting up a little bit and parents have to correct them. You know, you just have to forbear. You just have to suffer those little children because it's important to have the kids in the service, you know, the main service, okay? For reasons I just outlined, okay? Not to mention the fact it's a drain on a church's resources to even start those kind of ministries. You know, you got to get laborers. You got to get materials. You got to, you know, budget for all that. You know, that's kind of a minor point. But, you know, it's important for us to have the kids here. Jesus said, suffer the little children. Bring them unto me. You know, we should, you know, we're here in church this morning. We're gathered together and God is present with us for the preaching of the word of God. You know, we're, hopefully you believe that. We're coming into the presence of God this morning and worshiping in his house. We're in the house of the Lord. Why wouldn't we want the kids here with us? Well, you know, they're noisy. They're distracted. Look, this is something a lot of pastors will say. Well, you know, we just can't have the kids because they're too much of a distraction. They're too much of a, you know, a distraction to other people or even to the preacher himself. You know, the kids lash out, then the pastor loses his train of thought. Well, you know, that's just a skill you got to develop. As a preacher, you got to be someone who can preach through distraction because I'm telling you, when you preach, there's all kinds of distractions going on all the time. People are getting up and moving around and doing things and getting drinks and doing this and doing that. It happens every service, repeatedly. It's going on right now. Right? But that's, you know, it's like, oh, should I just stop and wait? You know, it's like, well, the people are going to do what they're going to do. It's like, I don't want to feel, people to feel like, you know, they can't do what they got to do until I'm done speaking. Right? My parents got to change a diaper, take a kid out, you know, for whatever reason. Well, we can't move or we'll distract the preacher. You know, that's a, that's a flaw in the preacher. You know, and I try not to be overly critical, or at least I should be better about it, but being over critical of preachers from the pulpit because what I've noticed is when I do that is that people have a lot easier time being critical of me. So, you know, but it is a criticism nonetheless that, you know, if you as a preacher can't handle distraction, you need to work on that. You know, one way I did this was when I was going to preaching class, you know, all those years ago up in tent B to prepare, you know, I had to write a five to 10 minute sermon to preach once a week. When we were doing the preaching class, I would deliberately sit down in my kitchen. I would come home from work and my wife a few times was like, don't, don't let the kid, she'd try to hush the kids. I said, no, don't let them, just let them be. Just, I want to learn how to do this with distraction. I want to learn how to write sermons and, you know, praise God that I did because even to this day, despite the fact that I have a home office, I have five kids now in a house where the sounds reverberate, right? You like those high ceilings? Think again, okay? You know, that's for retirees or something, I don't know, right? Where whatever's going on in the house and as meek and mild managers, you might think my children are, they're kids at home too, okay, where, you know, everyone kind of lets down their hair and I don't want to come out of my office every five minutes. Yeah, shut up. Don't you know how important it is that I'm doing? All I do is be dead quiet for the next hour and a half to three hours. That would not be a fun childhood. And, you know, to me, it's just turned into background noise. It's like that air conditioner running, you know, kids screaming, hollering, yelling, you know, the sound of if you know what it is, you know what it is, right? That kind of stuff going on to me, it's just like, it's a bird chirping on a tree. It's just like, it's just background noise. It's a dog barking, you know, in the neighborhood. It's just like, okay, well, you know, that's something I had to just get used to. You know, I had to be long suffering in order to do that. I had to, I had to forbear, you know, and get over myself, right? But that's a lot of times why a lot of pastors today, they don't want kids in the service because, you know, it's just, they got to preach inside of a vacuum where nobody can move a muscle, right? If you would go to back to Colossians chapter number three, Colossians chapter number three. You know, we are proponents, I believe, I will say this, I believe it is biblical to keep children in the service. You know, if people want to say, well, you know, are you saying it's unbiblical to keep it, to have a separate ministry? You know, I'm not going to be so bold as to say yes, but to me, when I'm reading the scripture, you often see children brought to the services in the Old Testament. And let's not forget the fact that the epistles, which are to be read in all of the churches, are dressed as children directly. To me, that's like the greatest supporting evidence for our position. You know, I take this position because I believe it's biblical, and I believe it's important. And Jesus said, hey, suffer the little children. And when we, you know, want to just separate the kids and just stuff the kids in a corner closet somewhere or just put them in some stuffy room where they just leave us alone for the next 45 minutes to an hour, you know, I believe that could be displeasing to the Lord. Because isn't that what we see taking place here in Mark chapter 10? Jesus is basically conducting a church service, right? He's preaching, he's doing his ministry, he's working, and then you have, you know, people trying to bring children, and they're like, oh, we're too important, you know, we just can't have these kids with us. And it says, when the Lord saw it, he was displeased, and he actually rebuked them and said, suffer the little children and bring them unto me. So I believe, you know, that is the biblical principle that we should follow. And I believe God takes note of it. I don't believe, you know, we should just treat it as optional. Well, you know, that's kind of what we do. And again, if other churches want to practice this and do that, that's fine. I'm not mad at them, I'm not upset with them. I'm not, you know, that's not a reason to separate over something. It's just that that's not how we're going to do things here, because we're trying to do things the way we believe God wants them done. Okay. Colossians chapter three, look at verse 18. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. So what I'm pointing out here is that we have several different groups of people being addressed in the epistle to the Colossians, right? Paul's writing this to that church, and this is to be read to that church. They would have gotten together, said, hey, we got a letter from Paul, let's all get together, and we're going to read this out loud, and we're going to talk about it. And we're still doing that to this day. And again, he's addressing wives, husbands, and when he gets to verse 20, he doesn't say, had someone run in the back and tell the kids? You know, would somebody just step out of the service at some point and make sure that the children are dressed as well, and tell them to obey their parents in all things? Don't forget to tell them. You tell the kids that I told them. That's not what Paul said. Paul said, children. Like, for example, if I said, hey, children, hey, kids, kids, right? Look, I got kids looking at me now, right? Because I'm addressing children, right? That's what Paul's doing. Hey, children, obey your parents. Now, if I were a parent, I would want my kid in that service. If I was some person living in Colossi at that time, I was a Colossian, and I had kids, I would have wrote back to Paul and said, man, thanks for writing that. Thanks for putting that in there. And I'd say, I want my kid in the service. You know, I make it a practice of, you know, you preach the whole counsel of the word of God, you're going to cover everything. And you're going to apply everything you can in every one. You're going to cover every situation that there is, including children. And I love that, you know, in the New Testament, like, really the one command for children repeatedly, and I believe it's talking about young children, is to obey their parents in all things. For this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Hey, you kids want to please God in your lives? Children, all you kids, whether you're looking at me or not, I know you can hear me. You want to be well pleasing unto God? You want to make God happy? You want God's blessing in your life as a child? Obey your parents. Every parent, you know, should be saying amen right now. You know, you should be obeying your parents, and, you know, God wants you to do that. God commands it of you. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. That's Ephesians 6. Twice in the epistles, twice in the epistles, you know, Paul directly addresses children in letters that are to be read to churches. That tells me that's, that was the practice, okay, to have kids in the service. Go to 2 Chronicles 20. I'll give you a minute. 2 Chronicles 20. You know, it's interesting, too, that in Luke 18, another parallel passage of where we are this morning in Mark 10, you get a little more detail. It wasn't just young children. It says, and they brought him also unto, excuse, unto him also infants, right? Babies that can't even crawl. They're infants. That he would touch them, but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked him. They're trying to bring little babies, and they're like, he can't be bothered with babies. What do you think? He has a politician? But Jesus called them and said, suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God. Okay. Now, when he says such is the kingdom of God, you know, you have to ask yourself, is he saying that there's infants in heaven? There's young children in heaven, okay? Now, I personally, you know, and I don't have any clear scripture on this, I don't believe that's the case, right? Because you might say, well, in what instance, why would there be a baby in heaven? Well, we know they're not making babies in heaven, because in heaven they are neither, they are neither, they're not given in marriage, okay? That relationship does not exist in heaven, okay? Despite what the Mormon church will tell you, ladies, you know, heaven, don't worry, heaven is not perpetual childbirth for all of eternity. As the Mormon church teaches, you know, they say heaven for you ladies is to just go to heaven and just have babies forever. You know, the Bible said, you know, said that in, that women were going to suffer through childbirth, that it was, you know, something they were going to have to endure, that he would multiply their sorrow in childbirth. It's not a pleasant experience. Obviously, there's joy that a man has brought into the world, but that's not heaven, okay? Anyone who's been anywhere near that knows that's the case. So, these infants in heaven, he's not talking about people having babies in heaven, right? Now, he could be alluding to, you know, the fact that when a child, in the instance of like a miscarriage or a stillbirth, or even when young children die in a state of innocence, before they are, you know, conscious of the law and their own sin, that they go to heaven immediately, right? The Bible teaches this, okay? It's what's called often the age of accountability. You say, when is that? You know, the Bible doesn't put a number on it, because people are different, okay? And there's different, you know, kids, you know, remain innocent for some time, I believe. Up to, you know, certain kids may be a little bit longer than others, maybe some other, shorter than others, but there is a certain point in which, you know, they realize they're a sinner and that they need to get saved. But up to that point, you know, those children would die in a state of innocence, okay? So, this could be referring to stillbirths, miscarriages, that kind of a thing. But, you know, that kind of, you know, that begs the question then, so if someone has a child die, do they go to heaven in that state and then grow up there, or do they remain in that state? You know what I mean? Like, people ask this question. I personally do not believe that is the case, okay? If you remember in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, when David commits that sin with Bathsheba, right? And part of his punishment is that the child would die. Like, the child got sick, David prayed and fasted for the child, even though God had said he would die. And when the child died, you know, David perceived that the child had died, and when he finally learned the truth from his servants that the child indeed had died, you remember the story? He got up, he washed his face, he put on clothes, and he ate, right? And they were kind of like, whoa, what are you doing? You were mourning while he was sick, but now he's dead. Like, shouldn't you be mourning even more? But remember, David said, but now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. So it doesn't make any sense to continue with doing this. He's in heaven, right? Because that's where David was going, okay? David was a saved man. And he's saying, I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. So that's a great teaching that, you know, when children die, young children, innocent children, even those that are in the womb, an untimely birth, as the Bible puts it, they go to heaven. I absolutely believe that, okay? That's it. But the thing is, I don't believe that there are infants in heaven, okay? As much as being a, as nice as being a baby might be, I don't know, I can't remember how nice it was, but I see other babies and I think, that must be nice, you know, just to have, be carried about, you know, just have your, just be, have meals just brought to you, right? To have people just cleaning you, all right? You don't even have to walk, right? Sounds kind of nice. Just saying, right? I'm sure that's like, if we were conscious of that, we'd be like, this is not nice. Like, I want to walk, you know? I want to eat steak, you know? I want teeth, you know? We want, we would, that wouldn't be heaven, okay? So to me, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Or people have said, well, maybe we get to heaven and then the parents get to watch them grow up there. So there's just a bunch of babies crawling around in heaven, you know, until the parents get there. I don't know, right? But people wonder about this stuff. I think if you go there, they're just kind of, they're just adults, you know? That's my opinion, though. I can't back that up. But let's look at 2 Chronicles, chapter number 20. Of course, in the story, you have Moab, verse 1, and the children of Ammon, they're coming up against Jehoshaphat, who was king of Judah, successor to Asa, and, you know, he's trying to, you know, it says in verse 3, Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So you have, you know, these nations, Moab and Ammon, coming up against Jerusalem, against Judah, rather, to fight them. And Asa hears about it and he proclaims a fast, right? Because he's a God-fearing man. He says, let's seek the help of God in this situation. And it says in verse 4, and Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord. Even about all the cities came they to seek the Lord. So they get everyone together. The whole nation's coming together. A revival, right? In verse 5, and Jehoshaphat stood the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court, and said, O Lord God of my fathers, are thou not in heaven? So he prays this prayer in the house of God with all the nation there, right? They get this bad news that someone's coming against them, they're going to have to go to war. But rather than just immediately taking up arms and conscripting people, you know, he says, let's have a prayer meeting. Let's get everyone together down at God's house and let's seek God and see if he'll deliver us from our enemies. And he says in verse 12, O our God will not judge them, for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us. Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon me. He's like, we're helpless. We need your help. Okay? And all Judah stood before the Lord, and notice, with their little ones. Now, why does the Bible take the time to point that out? I mean, if I were to tell you, hey, everyone in church was present, wouldn't you just kind of assume the kids were there? I mean, we would here because that's what we're used to, right? But God here makes this point. It says, not only was all of Judah there before the Lord, but they were there with their little ones, their wives, and their children, their infants, their young children, their wives. It wasn't just the men getting together. And it wasn't just the men and women getting together. It was the families, it was the men, the women, the little ones, and the children. The Bible takes the time to give us that detail, to show us that when God's people get together in God's house, we should all be there. We should all be present in the house of the Lord. You know, this is, I believe, a good principle for being a family integrated church. Besides the reasons that I listed, which I think are warranted, you know, protecting our children, giving them the taste of the right kind of a church as a young child. Also, because the Bible just, that's the biblical example. You see God's people get together, the kids are there. And what I'm saying this morning, the point I'm trying to make this morning is that if we're going to model ourselves, which we do, after that kind of a church, you are going to have to suffer the children. You're going to have to forbear children. You're going to have to put up with the things that kids do. You know, you're going to have to put up with maybe excessive crumbs. Someone's going to have to go back there and sanitize that mother-baby room. Someone's going to have to pull the couch cushions off and sweep all the raisins out. Right? Someone's going to have to wipe down all the dirty finger marks. You know, I remember one time, this was in Tempe, someone came to me and said, man, I went into the bathroom and this kid was standing on the sink. And first of all, I'm thinking, why are they in there without their parent? You know, that's not a very good practice. Almost as dumb as putting your kid in the back of a motorcycle, like I saw this morning, on the way to church. A woman on a crotch rocket, forgive the crude language, with her like, what, six, seven, five? Five, at least the child had a helmet on, had skin, you know, arms exposed, you know, legs exposed. I'm just thinking, what if, what if something, I don't care how good a rider you are, it's everybody else you got to worry about. What if something happened to that kid and she got road rash? Look, you wipe out on a bike, you're not just going to, whoa, and you know, and have mama kiss it and walk away. You're going to go to a doctor and they're going to scrape gravel out of your flesh. I've known people that have gone through this. Or you're going to, because if you don't, you're going to get an infection and lose a limb or die. So all you kids are thinking, oh, this is going to be so cool to ride a motorcycle. Well, you might have to get something scraped out of you or have something amputated if you don't die, okay? This woman's putting a five-year-old on the back, her own kid. I'm thinking, how would you live with yourself as a parent if something happened? Even if it was somebody else's fault. Man, I put my kid in, and just, it's crazy, right? I got that off my chest. That was bothering me all the way over here. What was I saying? No one was paying attention. Huh? The child. Oh, the kid in the sink, yeah. Yeah, so I'm like, well, first of all, why is the parent there, right? Then that's how I got off on careless parents. So yeah, the kid is staying in the sink, and I just looked at her, because this is the time I was deacon, I'm just like, suffer the children. This comes with the territory. Everyone likes the good, but you got to put up with the ugly too. You want kids in the service, you're going to have to put up with cleaning out the back of the chairs, getting all the tissues and the toys and the candy wrappers out of them. We're family integrated, and we praise God for that. I love having kids in the service. I love having kids in our church. I love, and we're a church that preaches what the Bible says. Be fruitful and multiply. We're not one of these churches saying you don't have 1.8 children. We preach that contraception and birth control, the Bible says it's a sin. God's literally killed people in the Bible for that, right? When Onan spilled it on the ground, God killed him. Okay? And over and over, the mandate from God himself, from Genesis onward, is be fruitful and multiply. Be fruitful and multiply. Have 1.8 children. And a lot of times that's not enough for people, so how about I hit you in the pocketbook? What's going to happen to Social Security? All of us that are counting on Social Security, but we're only having 1.7 children or less. It's like, that ain't going to work. Go look at Japan. Go look at China, these other countries that have had these one child mandates. The elderly don't have anyone to take care of them. They're out on their own because they have one child that wants nothing to do with them or they die or whatever. It'll affect society in a major way. I'm not counting on Social Security. Our nation is declining. If we keep going the way we are, our population is going to go down because we've been teaching all this feminism and birth control and all this other garbage and all this other nonsense, and teaching people that children are just burdens, something to be put off later in life. After you have all your fun and do whatever, you can go ahead and have your 1.8 children. Well, there's consequences for that. We preach what the Bible says. We don't adhere to these world philosophies. We preach to have those children, which means we're going to have those kids in the church, so that means we as adults are going to have to suffer the children. We're going to have to be forbearing, which shouldn't be a problem for us because that's what we're called to do as Christians. We're supposed to be forbearing with adults. We're supposed to be forbearing with one another. We're supposed to be long suffering with one another, even down to the children. He said, of such are the kingdom of heaven. What's he mean by that? Except you become as a little child and be converted, you shall in no wise enter in the kingdom of heaven. I want to close on that thought there. If you go back to Mark chapter 10, verse 13, because he does give, I believe he uses this opportunity to teach a parable about salvation. I don't think he's teaching his literal infants and children in heaven. I don't think that's what he was getting at. The thing that he's teaching here is that if you're going to go to heaven, you have to become as a child. You know, in what way be a child? I'm not saying you're going to have to like, literally become a child. This is a parable. Meaning this, that you have to be helpless. You go to heaven, you're not going to go on your own merit. You're not going to go on your own strength. You will not earn your way to heaven. The Bible says all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags before him. The Bible says there's none good, no not one. There is not a just man upon the earth and sinneth not. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. The Bible says we're saved by grace through faith and not of ourselves, that it is the gift of God, not of works. That by his mercy he saved us and not by our own righteousness. That's how we go to heaven. And in order to do that, in order to understand that, you have to be willing to admit that you are completely helpless before holy God. That there's nothing you can do to merit heaven. You have to trust completely on somebody bigger and stronger than yourself. His name's Jesus. You have to trust that Jesus did everything for you. Just as a child has to trust their parents for everything. My kids couldn't find their way home this morning. Believe me, I've tried. Sometimes I'll ask my kids. My kids will say hey I know where we are right now, my older ones. I'll say if I dropped you off right now could you get home? Could you walk home from here? I think so. It's like well that does inspire confidence. You know but that's, I mean think about that's literally how helpless children are. If we keep, quit feeding them, you know, I don't know what they do. They'd be knocking on the neighbor's door. Right? They depend on us for everything, don't they? And that's right. That's good. That's the way it's supposed to be. And you know that's how we have to be if we want to go to heaven. We have to trust God completely. And just say it's not about how good a person I am or how much good I've done or how bad, how much bad I haven't done. We have to trust completely in what Christ did for us and nothing else. Like a child trusts its parent. You know my kids don't get to stay in my home because you know they're contributing something to the house. And I get they do contribute things. Right? They contribute, well I can't think of anything but it's there. Right? Love, joy, all the sweet things that come with having kids. Right? Memories. You know they're an investment. They're going to pay off later. Okay? But they're not, I don't get to stay in my house because I'm like well what are you bringing in? You know? There's no paychecks coming in. They're a burden. They're costing me money. You know they're a responsibility. It's not like you know they're we're all getting together to sit down with the family budget you know and my kids might you know my five-year-old's like well I earned 38 cents this week. Here you go dad. Put that towards the AC bill. You know that that's what it sounds ridiculous doesn't it? That'd be silly. But you know that's exactly what it's like when an adult says to God well I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person. Well what makes you a good person? Well I never killed anybody. I never committed adultery. I've never raped anyone. I don't steal or lie. Which is you know saying you've never lied is a lie in itself. We're all liars. Everyone's told a lie. Some of us more than others. Some of us have told some whoppers. Okay. But we're all guilty. Right? But we're gonna stand before God and say well I'm a good person. That's like my five-year-old walking up and saying dad I got a dollar. Put that towards the mortgage. Why do you stay in the house? Because I contributed a dollar towards the mortgage this year. You know the tooth fairy visited. We don't we don't promote that but you know we do give money for teeth. I don't know why. I pay for them when they fall out. I pay for them again when they grow back in. It's just I love paying for teeth that aren't mine I guess. But that you know dad you know I lost a tooth. Mom gave me a quarter. You know maybe because then we'll let him pull it out faster so they're not walking around going look. Don't you love your kids? Do your kids do that? Hey dad check it out. It's like ah. Just kidding. Just kidding. Right. Give you a quarter if you let me get that thing out of there right now. Right. Oh dad I got a quarter for my tooth. You know I'm part of the household now. Right. I got something to say about how things are done around here. It sounds it's silly. But that's what people do all the time with God. Well I go to church. I was baptized. You know whatever they have all these things that they say and it's like a child trying to contribute something to a household. Jesus said except you become his children. Do we read it? Look at verse 15 again. Verily right truthfully I say unto you whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child he shall not enter therein. A little child like a like a kid like just someone who's completely helpless has nothing to contribute plays no part in it is just there. That's it. That's how you get to heaven when you just trust completely in Jesus and what he did for you. I mean what are we going to add to the cross? Because you say this to people oh yeah believe in Jesus and they'll say yeah you got to believe in Jesus and anything that comes after that is heresy. And repent of my sins. And be baptized. And go to church. And live a good life. You're like a kid. I got a dollar. You know meanwhile you know rent the monthly expenses are you know there's a comma involved. You go I got a dollar. The wages of sin is like astronomical. And we've got our filthy righteousness. Yeah but I got something to contribute to the wages of my sin. Let me just add to the precious blood of Christ in some way. And you know why people do that? Pride. It's pride. I mean walk up to any grown man and say hey start behaving like a child. Their pride won't let them do it. Usually. You know adults don't you know go around trying to act like children. I mean I know there's exceptions today. Some people never grow up. Right? But generally speaking we like to stand on our own two feet and do you know pull ourselves up and you know be responsible and independent and that's part of being an adult. And it's probably you know that mentality you can't take that to salvation. Well I'm going to contribute something to my salvation. No you're not. I mean what else could Jesus possibly mean here? Except you become as a little child. You know what are you going to literally try to shrink yourself? You're going to age backwards? Ain't going to work. And he's saying look if you don't do this you're not going to enter heaven. Except you become as a little child he shall not enter therein. Heaven is off limits to anyone who will not become as a little child who will not humble themselves at the foot of the cross and trust only in Jesus. Because the instant we're trying to add anything to the blood of Christ that's our pride getting involved. That's works. Repenting of your sins works. Baptism works. Church attendance good life works works works. The Bible is so explicit repeatedly that you know we're not saved by our works. We're saved by the grace of God only. So we need to become as children spiritually if we want to be saved but you know beyond that you know we got to grow up kind of ironically if you think about it and be long suffering and be gentle and be meek and be kind and and suffer the little children suffer one another and forbear in the Christian life. That's something we're called to do. You know being long suffering being a suffering person is something we're all called to do. It's called it's required in salvation to become as a little child right. That's the picture to become like a little child. We are to be long suffering of children. You know even I believe it's quite literal here right. He's saying like suffer these little children because and he rebukes them and then he brings them to him and he puts his hands on and blesses them right. So be long suffering of the kids in our church. I think we're good about this here. I think we're you know and we have good kids you know we have good well-behaved children in this church you know and even if there's you know families that are joining a church maybe they don't they don't have all their ducks in the row when it comes to their children. You know what be long suffering be gentle be meek before bearing with those people give them time give them space okay and and help them you know they'll get there okay just in the meantime we have to understand that you know that's what comes along with being a family integrated church having children in this service as I believe we ought to do. You have to suffer the children.