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

Now, as I mentioned this morning, if you weren't here this morning, I preached on biblical separation in light of having a biblical family life. And that, just a real brief summary, you know, family life, it's a blessing to have children, not a curse, so if you have a lot of children, you have a big family, that's great, that's good, we should be happy with whatever God's blessed us with, if he's only given you one child, two children, or whatever he's done, we recognize God's the one that opens and closes the womb, we believe that it is ultimately the responsibility of the parents to instruct their children, and that's why I endorse and support homeschooling, and even within our church, there's gonna be a lot of events that we'll be having in just future months, just to help support people who are doing homeschooling, to have some extracurricular activities and some other things going on, other resources for the church, to kind of help and to provide some assistance with the homeschooling, and then also, we believe in biblical disciplining of our children, which is spanking, which is what the Bible prescribes for discipline for children, so we went over all that this morning, what I'm preaching on tonight is somewhat related to that, because one of the other things, in case you haven't noticed or didn't know, that Stronghold Baptist Church is a family-integrated church, family-integrated, what that means is that we keep the families together, we keep everybody together in church, I mean, just by virtue of being a church, a church literally means a congregation, we believe that the church should all be congregated together in one place, so we don't have multiple churches, I mean, right now it's pretty easy to say that because we just have one room that we're renting out, so we don't have a bunch of partitions and things to send kids off to, but I'll tell you what, we're never, as long as I'm pastor of this church, we're never gonna have that, we're never gonna have children's church, we're never gonna have other church things, other things going on where we split people up and you're gonna go off into this room and you're gonna go off into that room and we're gonna be here and we're not doing it, we're not splitting the church, this is church, we are a family-integrated church, now, there are a few things that go along with that, obviously, we're keeping everybody together in the same space, we're sharing the same space, we know that kids are kids, kids aren't always going to be sitting perfectly, we saw that this morning from my awesome, I've got a two-year-old, I know a one-year-old, now, I expect an older kid, they better be sitting there right now, they know better, but there's gonna be younger kids and you know what, sometimes there's gonna be people coming in that are unchurched, right, maybe their kids have never had to sit through a church service before and they're gonna be antsy and they're gonna be rough, you know, we need to just be able to deal with that and I'm gonna prove to you from scripture why it's biblical to have a family-integrated church, to have everybody together in one place and why we do it, this isn't just some preference, this isn't just because I'm pro-family, it's because I think it's the right thing to do and this is the way that all of our doctrine should be within this church, is that there's actually scriptural reasons and evidence for the reason why we do everything, even the church service that we hold, now, not everything is detailed to the point of, you know, how many songs we need to sing, whatever, but we know that in a church setting that we should be singing praises unto the Lord, we know that we're gonna be hearing from God's word, you know, there's certain aspects that go along with congregating together and having a church service that ought to be there and it all should be coming from the Bible, we shouldn't just be throwing in, just changing things, make it all our own way and changing the way that the Bible defines it, this is the way, this is our source, this is what we're going to for all purposes, for everything that we believe, all matters of faith and practice, not just what we believe, how we practice it, so we're practicing church, we're actually holding a church service right now and we believe that everyone should be together, there's multiple reasons for that, but number one, look at Mark 10, verse number 13, this isn't necessarily church, okay, I'll say that right off the bat from the context, this isn't just, you know, they're having church, but what's going on here is that Jesus is teaching, Jesus is wandering around and teaching and there are, I believe, there are churches that are assembling to hear, there's congregations assembling to hear Jesus teach and to hear him preach, now he's going around healing, he's doing a lot of things, okay, but the statement that he makes here in Mark chapter 10 is applicable and I think goes a long way above and beyond just this one particular setting that he's in with his disciples, look at verse number 13, the Bible says, and they brought young children to him that he should touch them, now why do they want to be touched? They either want to be healed or they just want them to be blessed, right, so some people have their children there and they're trying to bring their children to Jesus because they want Jesus to lay hands on their child and the disciples reviewed those that brought them, so they're saying, what are you doing here, what are you doing bringing those kids here, don't bring, you know, Jesus doesn't want to be bothered with your kids, now obviously we don't know exactly what they're saying, but they're being removed for bringing the children unto Jesus, verse number 14, but when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, so that bothered Jesus Christ, he noticed what was going on and it bothered him and he was upset, he's like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, he says unto them, suffer the little children, suffer means allow, allow this to happen, suffer, allow 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 should he shall not enter therein, and he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. Jesus cares about the little children, they're precious in his sight, not just a song, right, because it's actually true, it's biblical truth, Jesus loves the children, he wants them to be blessed, he wants them to learn just as much as anybody else. Children are just as important as the adults when it comes to receiving the word of the Lord, and he's saying, you know what, even for you to be saved, you have to receive my word like a little child, you have to become like a little child, just completely trust and depend on Jesus Christ as your Savior, the same way that a child just has to completely depend on their parents and take care of them and support them. That is what the kingdom needs, so he's saying something, allow the little children to come unto me. There is going to be some suffering, we do need to allow the little children to be in service. Now, obviously there's going to be some times where parents are going to need to excuse themselves temporarily with a child that is just being unruly in church service, because there is a balance that we have, right? We don't want a church service to just turn into a circus where no one can even pay attention, no one can concentrate, no one can hear what's being said because of just too much noise going on. But there's also a level of, you know, kids are going to make some noise here and there, and we need to be able to just deal with that, suffer that, allow that so that everybody can get the teaching. But when there's a time, you know, a child, it's happened, it happened this morning, my son had to be brought out of the room and dealt with, broken, and that's going to happen from time to time. And that's just part of the way that a family integrated church ought to operate, is that if someone is making too much of a disturbance, take them out, deal with it, bring them back in, and the service is going to keep on going. Turn to Matthew chapter 14. We're going to see an example here in Matthew chapter 14. It's actually the miracle of the beating of the 5,000. So again, it's a setting where Jesus is teaching to a multitude of people. People showed up to hear Jesus Christ preach. You could say, you know, Pastor Burns, you're not Jesus Christ. Yeah, I know I'm not Jesus Christ, but you know what we do when we're in church? I read from the words of Jesus Christ. I read from the word of God. You're hearing from Jesus, even if it's not, you know, me, it's not necessarily my thoughts or opinions, but it's what this book says. You're hearing Jesus Christ. So we suffer little children to come unto me, to come unto Jesus, you know, we're using his words to have the children hear. Because let's face it, what's the alternative usually today in churches? They'll have a children's church. And what goes on in children's church? Are they really hearing the word? Not at all. No, I can't speak for every single church out there, but I've been in children's church. I grew up in church. It was a Presbyterian church, but it was still just the ways of all the worldly churches. You sing some fun songs, right? And when I say fun, it just means they're a little bit more worldly than the regular old hymns. And you got someone, you know, just doing a lot more clapping or dancing or whatever to keep, because they think that we just need to keep kids' attention and we need to dumb things down so low that we're really not giving them much of anything. And what they might come away with, typically in children's church, they'll hear a couple of stories, they'll hear about Jonah and the whale, they'll hear about Noah and the love, and they'll focus on all the animals, and they'll focus on these other parts of the story that really isn't any of the teaching of what the Bible is trying to teach you with these stories anyway. But I'm going to teach you that when Jonah got swallowed by the whales because he was in disobedience to God and he wasn't preaching the word like he was supposed to, and it really wasn't cool or fun at all being inside that whale's belly. And it actually was symbolic of that. I don't think they're teaching that in children's church. Now if they were, I'd at least be able to say, hey, they're getting some good doctrine there, but then it's like, why would you only be teaching that to the children? You'd teach that to everybody. Because that's good doctrine. That's good teaching. No. If church is being rung the way it ought to be, and that all of God's word is being preached anyways, the kids are going to hear those stories in church. They don't need a separate place to go to to hear those stories. And as parents, we went over that this morning, you're responsible for educating and teaching your kids anyways and leading them, you know, you tell them the story, you teach them all that stuff. But church, they should be able to get extra doctrine. It's not just a daycare. These days it seems like churches aren't gearing church for adults to just have a daycare then for their kids. Just drop your kids off over here. They can run around. They can play. They can act like a fool and you can go and save the church. That's not the way things are done in the Bible. That's not the way things are going to be done here. They're not going to be getting good doctrine, so there's one reason how to put them in there. But we see examples in scripture with Jesus Christ himself preaching and teaching and children are present. They're there with everybody else. In this story here in Matthew 14, we're going to start reading in verse number 14. Jesus feeds the multitude, the Bible says, and Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and he yielded sick. And when it was evening, his disciples came to him saying, this is a desert place. The time is now past. Send the multitudes away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves middles. But Jesus said unto them, they need not depart, give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, we have here but five loaves and two fishes. And he said, bring them together to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven, he blessed and prayed and gave the loaves to his disciples and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat and were filled and they took up with the fragments that remained, both baskets, what we say. What are you talking about? Yeah, we all know the story. We've been to 5,000. I've read this a million times. Well, look at verse number 21. It says, and they that had eaten were about 5,000 men beside women and children. So who was congregated together when Jesus Christ was teaching and preaching? It was men. Oh, yeah. And women and children were there too. They were all there. They're all in one place. They're all congregated together to hear the teaching of Jesus Christ. Turn to Nehemiah chapter number eight. Nehemiah chapter number eight. Because this is actually a passage that someone might want to turn to to tell you that there is a biblical example for separating children. But just as we don't believe that the Bible has contradictions, and just as I was on the And I had a lady try to quote Matthew 7 to me about, Lord, Lord, you know, and he said, Depart from me. I never knew you. I told her, you know, that's the point that Pentecostals want to try to make of explaining how you can lose your salvation. And I said, that's actually highlighted in my Bible, to teach eternal security. Because that's what that passage teaches. So I love using the verses that someone wants to try to teach some false doctrine with, and actually turning it around on them, because that's not what it's saying at all. Just giving them the actual understanding, the actual meaning of the verse. Just like Matthew 7, he says, Depart from me. I never knew you. He said, I used to know you. He said, I never knew you. And it says that they were trusting in their work to be saved. But anyway, that's outside the scope of what we're preaching on today. Nehemiah chapter 8, we're going to start reading in verse number 1, the Bible says, And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water game. And they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel. Of course, in the context, the children of Israel have been in captivity, and are finally going back and reestablishing Jerusalem. And they've been humbled. And the people now, they're finally humbled. And they're ready. They're saying, no, this time we're going to get it right. We're going to serve the Lord. And they're coming together with one heart and one attitude. So they're all coming out together, it says, as one man. And they want to hear from God. Now they're ready to say, you know what? Let's hear the law of the Lord. Give it to us. We want to receive this. Give us this teaching. So they all come out as one man in the street before the water game, spake unto Ezra, verse number two, and Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both the men and women, and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the water game, from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive unto the look of the law. So someone might turn to this and be like, see, you're only supposed to have those that could understand. It says men and women and those that have understood. What they'll try to tell you is that, yeah, men and women and then older kids that could just understand what they said. But the younger kids, you need to put in the nursery. Because the other churches that they won't have the children's church, they'll keep the children together, sort of, but then they still just have the nursery and will drop the little ones off, drop them off. They don't understand anything. Well, if we read this carefully, we'll read it closely. Now, like I said, from morning until midday is just a long period of time. It says that he read, where is it? And all, both men and women, it says in verse 1, that all the people were gathered together, and it was basically all the people that could hear with understanding. So, if they're separating out the little babies, who's watching over them? Wouldn't that be people who have understanding that's going to be separated from the group? I thought all the people that could hear with understanding were men, right? It doesn't make any sense. Or are you just ditching the kids off and be like, okay, well, everyone with understanding is going to be listening, Lord, and we're just going to drop the babies off here and they can just do whatever they want, like the ostrich this morning, right? We're just going to drop them off and no one's going to look after them. So, of course that's not what's going on. And what it's talking about here, these people were gathered together to hear and to learn, and it's anyone that had understanding. And I believe that it's not just talking about children, because obviously I believe there are children there, too, but people who can understand the language to anyone that could understand. So, these people were all brought together, the men, the women, and those that I understand, and they were attentive under the book of the law. And even if this is just referring to kids being able to understand, it doesn't mean that the others weren't present. This means that they're teaching to and they're ready to hear God's law and God's commandments. This isn't segregating out the children. Turn if you would then to Ephesians chapter 4. You're going to be hard pressed to find any... This is the only example I was able to think of where anyone could turn to any verses to try to say that you should be segregating children out of the church. And that's just Old Testament example, but we have other examples of Jesus teaching and other people teaching of what the children being present. And I didn't go to all of them either, I just turned to a couple of famous passages. But in Ephesians chapter 4, one of my favorite places to turn to just to show people, especially out-sowing, when someone gets saved, to show them the importance of the church. Because a lot of people have the attitude that church doesn't really matter, we have church at home, not that big of a deal. And obviously we go, out-sowing, you're stressing the importance of being saved. Because that is important, that is the most important thing. But after someone gets saved, we do need to be able to stress, hey, now that you're saved, this is actually a really important thing to do, come to church. Come get, decide to come learn, and come to become a church. And I will use this passage when I'm trying to get this point across. Ephesians 4, verse number 11, found that he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So, he's given these roles or these positions for the perfecting of the saints. Positions of pastors, positions of teachers, positions that you're going to find in church being laid out in general, right? And the point is to perfect the saints, to do the work of the ministry, to bring everyone together in the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. The doctrines would be taught that we should all be coming together to hear this, and God has given people in those positions in order to do that. And then verse 14 says that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning crappiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth and love, may grow up into him and all things, which is the head, even Christ. It uses the analogy of children being tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. Why? Because children in general just aren't settled in a lot of things. They need the extra attention and the teaching, but so spiritually, the primary application is saying, you know, you need to be going to church, you need to be hearing from these pastors, these teachers, to get yourself heard in the faith so that people who are actually trying to deceive you with their doctrines of devils and their cunningly devised fables, they're not going to be able to do that because you're coming, you're hearing, you're getting grounded, you're getting settled, you're in a unity of faith, you're going to be a lot stronger, you're going to grow, and you're not going to be a child anymore in your understanding of scripture. That's the analogy of being youth. Well, if it works for spiritually speaking about being no more child, what about physical children? You don't want your actual children being tossed to and about or being deceived by the cunning craftiness and the slight of hand of other people. And the reason why I'm saying that is because if you're here in church and your children are being separated off somewhere else, you don't know what they're being taught. If they're here with you in service, you can hear everything that's being taught and if a correction needs to be made and if you say, you know what, my family doesn't believe this, I don't agree with what the pastor says, then you can set your kids straight right then and there. You can bring them home and say, you know what, we respect the pastor, we love him, but we don't believe this and this is why. And you can teach your children that. Or you're going to church somewhere and things are going okay for a while and you find out you know what, this guy's a steak, this guy's a devil. You know everything your children have been exposed to and you can help deal with that. But if you've been sending them off somewhere, you have no idea what anyone's saying to you. Even if you go to a good church and you're sending your kids off somewhere, even if the pastor believes a certain way, you don't know what the other person is that's teaching those children in that classroom, you don't know what's going on there. You have no idea. And that is a world of influence to have on a child. Children are impressionable when they're young. We already saw if you teach and train a child when they're young and when they grow up they should not depart from it, then the teaching and the training they receive as children will stay with them for the rest of their life. And do you want to delegate that power, that authority to someone that you don't even know or someone that you just met or whatever, just some other person? I don't. And that's one of the, we won't ever have that option here. There's going to be a lot of people that would probably rather drop their kids off. You know, as we grow, as we get people saved, as people are coming into the church and they're new to everything, maybe they've had experience and they enjoy dropping their kids off and it was nice for them to sit through service and not have to deal with children, you know, getting up or misbehaving or whatever, they're not going to have the option of having some infiltrators sneak in and be able to do that. We're going to get to that. That's my last point, is that we're, you know, a whole, you know, one of the main reasons for not having this is just for the safety of the children. But we also need to give the kids more credit than often they perceive as far as their understanding does go. I was, I was even, you know, and I'm someone who's already coming at this from the standpoint of I believe children should be in the church, I believe children can learn, they can pick up things when they're sitting in church service. But it has astonished me, I don't know how many times with just my own children, when we go home after church or weeks later or months later, some of the things that they'll bring up that they learn in church. Things that I didn't specifically sit down and teach them myself, but just other things that have been taught in church. I've had my own daughters just, just ask me a question or just say something. And it's funny because obviously as a parent, I'm looking more at my children in general when I'm up here preaching, I'm looking at the crowd, and there'll be times I can look at them and it just seems like they're not paying attention at all. They're okay, they're young, perhaps. If you have children, what a, you know, I'm still going to be teaching on my own anyways because if they're not paying attention in church, they're still going to get in home. But I can see that and then it's like after church they say something like, you were listening? And it is great, like they have these great thoughts and they have a great understanding of what's being taught in general. And normally, I might even be tempted to think that like, eh, they don't get it, they won't get it, but they do and oftentimes they will and they pick up a lot. They pick up a real lot from a church service. Now there are going to be some things that go over their head and that's fine. There's going to be things that's going to go over a new believer's head too and that's fine. But there's going to be plenty of stuff that they can hear from God's Word because God's Word is powerful. And let's face it, as much as people want to complain about the King James Bible and that archaic language and everything else, my five-year-old doesn't have a hard time understanding the King James Bible overall. Do they understand every word in the Bible? No, they don't. Of course not. They're children. They need to learn some of the bigger words. They need to learn some of the vocabulary. But you know what? They understand Genesis 1 just fine. They understand a lot of the Bible just fine. We read through it and they get plenty of teaching, plenty to learn from. We need to give them the benefit of the doubt. Kids are smart. They also need to be exposed to real church. When the kids growing up, if all they ever know is children's church and fun and games and rock music or whatever it is to try to keep their attention, what's going to happen when they grow up? When they get to the age where there's no more children's church. Well, not church. It's going to seem really boring. That's why a lot of kids, once they get to the age where their parents will let them go by themselves, they just won't even go to church. That's the way it was for me. I can speak from experience. I didn't really want to go. I went to church when I was forced to go to church when I had to. And I would go into the kids' church and that was okay. It's not like I really liked it, but it was way better than being up in the other church, the adult church. But then when they grow up, they've been taught and trained a certain way that this is church. This is why the mega churches are exploding because the kids that were put in children's church, they're looking for all the excitement and the music and everything else. And that's what these churches offer them. Just these worldly churches. So they come into church like this. Oh, we got to sing these old hymns and we're singing acapella. There's not even any instruments. Like, oh man, this is boring. This is weird. But if they're brought up in it, it's not going to be there. If they're brought up, they're going to understand what it's like to hear hard preaching. They're not going to get offended at the first time they hear someone preaching in sin. They also are going to learn how to behave themselves in the house of God. You say, well, they can't do it right now. That's fine. We're going to suffer the little children. But the goal is going to be a teaching and training process to get them to learn how to sit still during a church service, to learn how they ought to behave themselves in church so that they don't just turn into these young adults that have no idea how to act in church. It's all a benefit. There's so many good reasons to have the children with us in the church service. And as I mentioned earlier, I have this point, I kind of hit this point out of order. But turn if you would to Jude, turn if you would to the book of Jude. As a parent, you are responsible for what they're taught. You're responsible for teaching them and for filtering whatever it is that they hear. Not just in church, I believe anywhere. That's why, you know, I don't believe kids who just have unfettered access to, like, the Internet or to all kinds of things, just these devices where they get access to whatever. I know a family where their daughter had this access to the Internet and they thought that everything was just fine and that they could trust her because she was a young lady. And turns out she was getting her head screwed up and turned around by a bunch of atheists. And really got to and had a really damaging impact on her life. I'm not going to go any more detailed on that, but. You know, as parents, we need to be making sure we're doing a good job of knowing what it is that's going into our kids. When they're here with you in church, you know, you know, and the reason why it's of utmost importance is because especially in church, most people might think, no, this would be it would be great. It would be great to have a church where you can just say. I'm I'm completely at home here. I feel comfortable all the way to the extent that. Everyone in here is just great. We all love God and nobody's faking it and everybody's genuine and everyone's sincere. Everyone loves the Lord. That would be a nice feeling to be able to just kind of open up, to just be able to believe that about every single person, just regardless, no matter what. But we see way too many warnings in scripture that bad people are going to come and try to infiltrate. Now, I believe we haven't able to hear tonight. No, I don't believe that. I don't think at this moment we do. But I know they're going to come. And the other thing I do is I also am not going to. Risk my child's life. That what I think about everybody is actually 100 percent correct. That I haven't been deceived by somebody portrayed to be a good guy and talking the talk and wearing the sheep's garment. Someone may have pulled the wool over my eyes. I mean, people have done it before. Garrett first weighs one of them. He's someone I've known personally for a very long time. If it weren't Baptist Church, I've been stolen. Never expected to hear the heresy. I'm glad I have my own rules. Well, not a lot of my children, but not that he has to watch my children. I think that it's like. I never suspected. I never guessed. I would have thought here's someone that loves the Lord. Here's someone I fully support. Here's someone who's coming for each of my children. I like the guy a lot. I was deceived. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I was deceived. But I'm not surprised, really, either. I was a little bit surprised at the time, just because I was tricked. But it really doesn't shock me that much. Anybody at this point, it really is not going to shock me that much, because we are warned about this over and over and over again. And I will preach a sermon soon about there's the whole reprimand doctrine and these people that come in. But I'm going to touch on it tonight, just out of Jude. The apostle Paul warned about these Jews. I warned you night and day with tears. You know, we need to watch out for these people. And the reason why the warning is so strong in the Bible, why it is in there so abundantly, is because as a normal person, as someone who's not some wicked reprimand who's out to hurt and destroy, it's so foreign to you to think that anybody can be like that. It's hard to even think that there are people out there like that. We have to be reminded of it, because you look at a child and you don't ever think of doing anything filthy or perverted with that child. Because it's a child. Because it's revolting. It's disgusting. That would never even cross your mind, not even one time, because you're normal. But the sick, twisted reprobate? These people exist. They're out there. We know about them. We see them on the news. And they can put on the show to make you think that they're not like that at all. And they thrive on churches. They love to get into churches. The reason why is because there is such a high trust in churches. Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying, because I love everyone here. I would help out anyone here in a heartbeat. If you need anything, I'll help you. I'll be there for you. But when I talk about trust, I will not leave my children with you. And it's not because I don't care about you or I don't love you. It's not even because I just think that you're going to do something to my child. The problem is I just don't know. And I'm not willing to take that risk with anybody when it comes to my kids. Not going to do it. And I've been warned over and over again that people could come in and gain your trust and gain your confidence and turn out to be a really bad person. So what I will do is I'll allow other people maybe to handle my money or handle other things that I really, at the end of the day, don't really care that much about. I'll trust to you my car. I'll trust you whatever it is that if I were to lose it. If I were to be wrong about somebody at the end of the day. Okay, it's a material because I do something like that, but not my child. And these people will come into churches, they'll sneak in because they know there's a high trust grade and they'll be there for a little while and they'll be like, oh, hey, you ever want to go out to a movie or do I ever want to go out and do something? I'll watch your table. Now, I'm not saying everybody that offers that is a bad person, right? Because there are plenty of people that will offer to do that. I've had people offer that. I mean, friends, family, whatever, but they'll try to make it as normal as possible, but their intent is a really wicked one. And they come into the church because people want to already have that feeling. They'll think, hey, how could someone that's so wicked actually come to church? A wicked person would never come to church. They wouldn't want to be in church. That's a thought process, but they come because they want to gain that trust. And that's why we need to watch out for them and that's why there's not going to be, as much as is possible that I can do, I'm not going to allow for any places within the church building structure. I'm not talking about the congregation, but just the place that we're actually meeting at that have these places and secret private places for people to go and where something bad can happen. Because I'm responsible for what's going on in the church. And I don't want to have anything like that going on ever. I don't want anyone, I love your kids, and it would kill me for someone to be defiled if I watched. So as a result of that, as we're looking at new places, just so you know, any offices or things, because I would like to have an office and a place where we're going to be congregating together to do some of the business stuff for the church. We're also going to have a mother-baby type of a room where mothers can bring their children, especially the infants, to either go in to nurse or when they are acting up and they start screaming. It's where you can still be part of service, but there's a noise barrier going on between you and the rest of the congregation to kind of keep the disturbance to a minimum. But those rooms are going to have windows. That's not going to be a place to go and run and hide and people can go and do whatever. No one's going to see them. So I'm going to be out in the open. I think it's just a wise way to do things. And I think as we read through Jude, you'll see the reason for the caution in this passage alone, let alone every other passage that has to do with these wicked people that will creep in. Look at verse number four. Actually, we'll just start reading verse number three. It says, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. So he says, you know, I'm telling you, you need to earnestly contend for the faith. And then he says, why? First of all, for there are certain men who crept in unawares, who were before, behold, ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the holy Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. So he's saying there are people that crept in without you even realizing. Unawares. You need to contend for the faith. You need to be strong on this doctrine. You need to be firm on this stuff. Why? Because there's people that are creeping in that don't believe it. There's people that creep in that you don't even know about and they're bringing, they're turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and they're denying Jesus Christ. They've crept in unawares. And this whole passage now, the rest of the passage is going to describe all about these people. You can read the rest of the passage on your own. It's going to get a couple of highlights. Verse number seven follows, even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, which means their weirs, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise, also these filthy dreamers and the subject again are these men that crept in unawares. These filthy dreamers defiled the flesh, despise dominion and speak evil of dignity. So these people that we're warning about, these people come in and they creep in unawares. Not only did they have Jesus Christ, of course, but they are likewise like Sodom and Gomorrah, like the Sodomites. They're filthy dreamers. They're going after strange flesh. They are perverts. They're perverted and they're going to do perverted things and they're looking for people to pervert. Jump down to verse number 12. Because again, read this in context later at home. Read the whole passage and you'll see that this is still the same subject that we're talking about. These talk about these people, these wicked people. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. You might think some wicked reprobate is going to be afraid to be in a church like this because we're preaching so hard against sin and we know the reprobates are out there. They will feast with us without fear. Why? Because they're psychos. They don't have conscience. They put out an act. They might make you think that they feel sorry. Have you ever heard of alligator tears? Don't be deceived by these people, but they will, it says these are spots in your feasts of charity. So you're doing a good work. You're having fellowship. You're having a feast and they're sitting right next to you without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth. Without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roof. There is no hope of salvation for their reprobate. Again, I'll cover that in another sermon another day. Verse number 13, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shade, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And then jump down to verse number 19, again, all talking about the same type of person. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit. They like to separate themselves. They don't want to do things out in the open. They're infiltrating. They're trying to get in under the radar. They're perverts. They're trying to recruit. So what they're going to do is they're going to try to separate themselves. They attack the people who are not founded and they're not grounded. They're not stable. The Bible says beguiling unstable souls. I believe that one's in 2 Peter chapter 2, but it talks about them beguiling or tricking, deceiving the unstable souls. So they'll go after the people who maybe aren't very founded in the faith and they'll go after children because they're unstable also. They go in to recruit these people and to make them pervert it to you. We need to watch out for that and we're going to be very vigilant about that. I think one of the best ways to prevent any bad things from happening to our kids or to anybody in church is to have a family integrated church. Let's have everyone together. Let's do everything out in the open. We shouldn't be afraid of the light or scrutiny. Bring it on. As soon as I have internet access, we'll be streaming live what's going on here. The things that we believe, we're not putting it behind a closed door and being hush-hush about it. We're not like the watch tower. We actually, you know, watch the whole world. We're going to shout from the rooftops the things that we've seen and heard, the things that we get from God's Word. We want it to be published abroad loud and clear. So in our building, we're not going to have hiding places. We'll be out in the open. The teaching, the preaching, I'm not hiding it. It's broadcast for the world and our finances. You ever want to know how we spend our money? I've got it all. I don't even count the money. I personally have other people doing it. Why? Because I'm not in it to steal anything and we're trying to make everything with checks and balances so that everything's above the Lord, everything is out in the open. You want to see what we do? There's nothing hidden. We've got nothing to hide. We're here to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're going to do so to the best of our ability. We are going to try everything that we can based on what we find in Scripture. And one of the things that I find in Scripture is that we ought to have everybody together in church. Kids need to learn. Adults need to learn. We all need to learn. But we're going to have everyone together. We're going to suffer the little children. And that's the bottom line. Lord, thank you so much for the instruction that we've received from you. Dear Lord, I know that when we're about children, we want to see our children grow and be able to do even more great works and more exploits and be able to serve you even more than we have been able to. Dear Lord, I pray that you would please help us to teach and to train them and that they would be able to receive from the teaching and the serpents and the church, dear Lord, that they would be able to take them and to learn from a young age to grow up and do that much more and to not make as many mistakes as some of us older people have made in our lives because we didn't hear all this preaching. We didn't get all this truth until a little bit later on in life. Lord, I pray that you would please just help me as a pastor of this church to teach and to watch over the flock and I pray that you would please just help everybody here to just grow more, to no longer be children tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine and that we would be founded, grounded, and settled in our beliefs. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.