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You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You Good evening and welcome to Verity Baptist Church Can I please have everyone find their seats and grab their song books and turn to page number 405? Tonight we're missing the banner of the cross page 405 Find your seats grab your song books turn to page number 405 and let's sing that out on the first There's a royal banner given for display to the soldiers of the King As an ensign bear we lift it up today while as ransom Marching on Everything Page 405 on the second though the foe may rage and gather as the flood Let the standard be displayed And beneath its folds as soldiers of the Lord for the truth be not displayed Marching on Marching on For Christ found everything but lost and to ground him king Toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross Over land and sea wherever man may dwell make the glorious tidings known Of the crimson banner now the story tell while the Lord shall claim his own Marching on Marching on For Christ found everything but lost And to ground him king Toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross Let's sing it out on the last When the glory dawns is drawing very near it is tasting day by day Then before our king the close shall disappear and the cross the world shall sway Marching on Marching on For Christ found everything but lost And to ground him king Toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross Great singing let's open up with a word of prayer Father god, thank you so much for this church lord. Thank you for these people coming out here on a wednesday evening I pray that I sing going to glorify you lord I pray that you bless the service and appreciate and come in your holy and precious name. I pray amen All right, turn your song books to be age number 228 Me singing I love to tell the story Page 228 Let's sing it out on the first I love to tell the story of unseen things above Of jesus and his glory Of jesus and his love I love to tell the story of unseen things above I love to tell the story because I know it's true. It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story, will be my theme in glory. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Page 228 on the second. Let's sing it out. I love to tell the story, more wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams. I love to tell the story, it did so much for me. And that is just the reason I tell it out to thee. I love to tell the story, will be my theme in glory. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story, this pleasant to repeat. What seems each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story, for some have never heard. The message of salvation from God's own holy word. I love to tell the story, will be my theme in glory. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. Let's sing it out on the last, but why don't we sing it like we actually love to tell the story instead of being tired. Amen? Alright, on the last. I love to tell the story, for those who know it best. Seems hungering and thirsting, to hear it like the rest. And when in scenes of glory, I sing a new, new song. It will be the old, old story that I have loved so long. I love to tell the story, will be my theme in glory. To tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the old story of Jesus and his love. and you'll see a layout of our church building. It'll show you where the mother baby rooms are, where the daddy room is, and it'll show you where the restrooms are. So please make sure to use those as needed. If you need to be baptized, of course, let us know on your communication card. We'd love to follow up with you and talk to you about that. If you look at the announcements and upcoming events, we have our Journey with Jesus series that we're going through, a verse by verse study through the Gospel of Luke. We'll continue that tonight. And then on Monday we had our Harvest Party, and we had a great turnout. I don't know what the number was, but it seemed like a really good crowd. And we had 18 chilies for the chili cook-off, so that was great. And everybody had a good time, a lot of games and different things going on. Of course Brother Darrell won the first place chili, and that is the third time he's won in 12 years. Brother Darrell's been with us since the house, so he's been with us for all 12 years. He's won three times. So I think we're gonna do a forced retirement on Brother Darrell. He's gonna have to be retired now. We'll have to hang his jersey or something, I don't know, his crock-pot, and we'll have to put it away. And then of course Miss Jackie won second place, and it was good. I think the best part of the Harvest Party was the ladies basketball game, and that was very entertaining. One thing I noticed watching the guys play and watching the ladies play is that when the ladies play there's a lot less whining. So maybe the guys can learn from that, but the ladies did a very, very good job. Striving Together new members class is this Sunday, November 6 at 12 30 p.m. pretty much just right after the morning service. It'll be in our fellowship hall. Lunch will be provided. We are having it catered, so if you have not yet signed up and you'd like to come to our new members class, you can do that on your communication card. And the new members class is simply for anybody that's new to our church. Even if you're not sure that you want to be a member, but you'd like to just learn more about our church, and we'd like to get to know you as well, we'd love you to come and make plans to be with us for the new members class. It's this Sunday, November 6. You can sign up on your communication card. We'll have lunch for you. It'll be a time for my, it's a time for my wife and I to be able to just sit down with the newer people in the church, and be able to talk to you, get to know you. And then we do have a class we go through where we let you know just the most important things we need you to know about our church, and give you an opportunity to ask questions as well. So if you're newer to our church, if you've not gotten to new members class, we'd love for you to sign up and be a part of that. Then we want to let you know about the Next Generation Youth Rally. This isn't coming up till 2023, March 7th through 8th of 2023, but we want you to be aware that this is the mini youth conference we're having for teens ages 13 to 19 years old. So parents are not required to attend, but parents and younger siblings are welcome to attend. Of course the activities and all that will be for the teens only. Teens 16 years old and under must be accompanied by an adult. If they're 17 and up they can come by themselves. You can register on our website, veritybabs.com, or you can register on our communication card. We mainly just need to know your t-shirt size, because there's gonna be teams that will be competing, and we want to make sure that we have a t-shirt for all of the teens that are coming. So make sure you sign up for the Next Generation Youth Rally. And then of course choir practice is starting this Sunday for the adults at 5 p.m. They'll be meeting here in the auditorium. They'll be practicing for Christmas, and also children's choir will begin in the playroom at 5 15 p.m. this Sunday. They're also practicing for Christmas. Homeschool group, they've got a PE class coming up November 10th. Upcoming cleaning crew, you can check for your name there. We appreciate your faithfulness. Other things there for you to look at, please don't forget to turn your cell phones off or place them on silent during the service. They're not a distraction to anybody. If you look at the back of the bulletin, birthdays and anniversaries for this week. We had a James Villa's birthday was on October 30th. My daughter had a birthday on October 31st with Ann Jimenez. Feridone Vaziri had a birthday also on October 31st. Miss Ariel Chavoyan has a birthday tomorrow on November 3rd. Gideon Gibbs also has a birthday tomorrow November 3rd. And Miss Angel Vincent has a birthday this week on November 5th. Praise Report, Money Matters, all those things are there for you to look at. And I think that's it for all of the announcements. So let's go ahead and take our song books and we'll go to page number 343 page number 343. And we're gonna sing revive us again as we prepare to receive the offering 343 revive us again. And let's go ahead and sing it out on the first. We praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy love. For Jesus is now gone above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. 343, sing it out, on the second. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again, O glory. Amen. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our nights. Thank you for allowing us to gather together on a Wednesday night. Lord, we pray that you'd bless the offering, the gift, and the giver. Lord, we pray that you would meet with us as we take time to pray for our church family. And then, of course, as we open time and study your word together. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. And this would be, of course, younger children, younger than even toddlers. And the Bible says that He would touch them. So these parents were bringing their little babies to Jesus. They wanted Jesus to touch them and, of course, give them a blessing, pray over them. But when His disciples saw it, they rebuked them. So these parents are bringing their babies to Jesus, and the disciples, they're saying, Don't waste His time. He doesn't have time for babies. He doesn't have time for this. So the disciples saw it. They rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto Him and said, and, of course, there's a very famous statement from Jesus, Suffer little children to come unto Me. And the word suffer is an older word that's used differently in our King James Bible than how we would use it today. The word suffer means to allow. So when Jesus said suffer little children, what He was telling His disciples is allow little children to come unto Me and forbid them not. He says, For of such is the kingdom of God. And we've been talking about the kingdom of God as we've been going through this series. And, of course, the kingdom of God oftentimes could mean loosely different things that all relate to the same thing, salvation or the work of God, soul winning. But it could also be a reference to heaven. And here Jesus is saying, For of such is the kingdom of God, saying that the little children, that the kingdom of God, heaven, is of little children. And then He explains that in verse 17. He says, Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. I want to just quickly explain to you just by way of introduction the text and the context in which Luke gives this to us. And then we're going to kind of shift gears and deal with some other things tonight. But if you remember, if you go back to Luke chapter 18 and verse 9, if you remember on Sunday night we dealt with this famous parable that Jesus gave of the Pharisee and the publican. I just want you to understand that the reason that Luke is giving us these stories back to back is because the story of these little children being brought to Jesus, these infants, the disciples rebuking them and then Jesus saying, Suffer little children to come unto Me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God. And then Jesus says, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. That's within the context of the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. Just real quickly, look at verse 9. The Bible says, And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. I preach a whole sermon out of this on Sunday night. I'm not going to do that again, but I just want to read it to you so you can get the context. Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed, thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And then Jesus says in verse 14, I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other. And of course we learned on Sunday night that in this parable there's a lesson about salvation and a lesson regarding pride. And we talked about the fact that this man was trusting in his righteousness. The Pharisee was trusting in his righteousness. He was a very proud, full man. He was saying, I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. He was very proud of all the things that he was not. He says, I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers. And even as this publican. And we learned that you're not going to get into heaven by what you are or by what you are not. Because no matter how good you are, no one is good enough. We all come short of the glory of God. And Jesus taught that the reason that the publican went home justified is because of his humility. Notice again verse 14, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For every one that exalted themselves shall be abased, and he that humbled himself shall be exalted. And in that context we get this very well-known story about the infants and the children coming to Jesus. And Jesus says, of such as the kingdom of God. And the lesson is this, that we must come to Jesus. The Bible says, in fact Jesus just said it there in verse 17, Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. You see, it's easy to get children saved because children are already used to being dependent on others for everything. Little children do not have generally this pride complex where they say, you know, they think I don't need anybody. I can do it on my own. Children, they have no problem asking for everything they need. You know, and asking their parents, you know, and if anything we have to teach them to stop asking so much, right? Because they have no problem with the idea and the understanding that they are helpless and they are hopeless and they need someone to care for them. And it is that attitude in which we must accept salvation. Salvation is not, oh I can do it on my own. I can earn it by myself. No salvation. We must come to Jesus like a child in the sense that we must be ready to receive a gift. And of course, you know, children love to receive gifts. And no child, if you offer a child a gift, no child is going to say, oh you shouldn't have done that. No, I don't want to take that. Children, you offer them anything like, yes. You know, score, right? That's what they want. And Jesus says, look, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. So he gives us this parable of how pride will keep some people from getting saved. And then we get this beautiful story of Jesus with these children. And Jesus is talking about the fact that of such is the kingdom of God because we must receive the gospel as a child. Not in a childish way but with the humility of a child being willing to understand that we are helpless and we need help and being willing to receive the gift that is fully paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's the context of this passage and, you know, we could be done there and we're not going to. But what I want to do tonight, because this is a beautiful story here and it shows you just how much Jesus loves the little children. You know, we sing that song, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. And this is highlighted here where the disciples are moving away the children. They don't want the children to be there with Jesus. But Jesus says, no, no, suffer little children to come unto me. He says, forbid them not for such is the kingdom of God. And we see the heart of our Savior loving children and wanting to prioritize children and spend time with them and to care for them. And what I want to do tonight is I want to preach a sermon on the subject of biblical practices regarding children. And for those of you that are tired of the verse by verse study through the Gospel of Luke, you can chop up tonight's sermon as a topical sermon, all right? Because all I'm going to do is I'm going to use this text we're in in Luke as a springboard and we're not going to go verse by verse through a chapter or anything like that. We'll get back to that on Sunday morning and on Sunday night. But tonight I want to just give you a topical sermon on the subject of children and specifically biblical practices regarding children. And go with me, if you would, to the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 1. So if you've been thinking, I should like a topical sermon, here's a topical sermon for you, all right? Jeremiah chapter 1. And I'm going to give you some things regarding our belief about children and biblical practices for children. Like I said, we're just going to use the passage in Luke as a springboard and go into this topical type sermon. But when I think about children and biblical doctrines and biblical principles regarding children, there are some very specific things that we believe here at Verity Baptist Church about what the Bible teaches about children and the importance of children and the care of children and the protection of children. And I think it's important for us to be reminded of these things, especially with younger families and younger couples this last year. I don't know what the number is, but I think I did like seven weddings in eight months or something like that. We've got all sorts of young couples having babies and praise the Lord for that. And it's important to be reminded of these things. And if you're here tonight and you say, well, I've already had my children or whatever, then just sit back and relax. This is a guilt-free sermon for you, all right? But maybe you're a grandparent and you can use this information to help your adult children. And of course, we can always be ministering to others. But I want to talk about some specific things regarding the biblical practice that the Bible teaches us regarding children. And let me just say this. There's going to be a crash course. I'm going to give you a lot of information. I realize just up front, I realize this is kind of information overload. I shouldn't have done it, and I teach people not to do this, but it is what it is. We're here. So I'm just going to give you this information. I have preached entire sermons. I'm going to give you four points tonight, and I have preached entire sermons out of each one of these points. So I'm just going to go through it as quickly as we can and give you this information. But as Bible-believing Christians, we need to understand that it is our job to protect children. It is our job to care for children, to protect children. Jesus loves children. He said, suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God. And in that way, we need to understand that there are some very specific things we need to understand that God commands of us and demands of us regarding children. So if you're taking notes tonight, maybe you can write some of these things down. And I realize maybe if you're newer here tonight, I apologize. I'm going to give you a lot of information. And we've got other sermons and documentaries and things that can help you with some of these things as well. But let's kind of dig into these things. Here's number one. We're talking about biblical practices regarding children. We should, as Bible-believing Christians, have a biblical practice against the use of birth control. In Jeremiah chapter one, thank you for the one amen. Jeremiah chapter one, by the way, I don't need your amens. I'm going to preach what I want. But, you know, some of you guys can get permission from your wife and amen every once in a while. That'd be good too. They've already beat you in basketball. You might as well say amen. Jeremiah one and verse five, notice what Jeremiah the prophet says. He says, before, this is what God said through the prophet Jeremiah. Before I formed thee, in the belly I knew thee. And before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. The Bible is very clear about the fact that life begins at conception. Now today, there are those who want to teach that life does not begin at conception. They'll teach that life begins at some other state in the development of the child. And usually those people will make those arguments because they want to justify things like abortion. They want to justify the idea of taking a child's life after conception, after fertilization. And obviously, I'm not even preaching about abortion tonight. I mean, that should go without saying that killing a baby in the womb is murder. But the reason for that is because life begins at conception. And here we have one example where God told Jeremiah, he says, before I formed thee. So he says, before your body was formed, before your body was fashioned, before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. We see that God had a plan and God had a purpose for Jeremiah before he was even formed in the belly. So this is just one example of how the Bible teaches that life and the value of life begins at conception. And it's not that there's conception and then it becomes a life seven days later or 14 days later or three months later or nine months later, some people even want to argue. No, the moment that there's conception, it is a human life. Go to Isaiah. You're there in Jeremiah. Go back one book to Isaiah chapter 7 if you would. Isaiah chapter 7. Let me just give you a real quick proof. And I preached these things in the past. You should be familiar with this if you're part of our church. But it's good for us to be reminded of these things. Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14. Here we have a very famous verse about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, Now I'm showing this to you and I want you to stay there in Isaiah because this verse is quoted in the New Testament. This is of course a prophecy of the Virgin Mary, the birth of Christ. Behold, a virgin shall conceive. Now I want you to notice that Isaiah 7.14, the Bible says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive. When this same verse is quoted in Matthew 1.23, you don't have to turn there unless you want to or you can just jot that verse down as a cross reference. In Matthew 1.23, here's how it's quoted. You look at it there in Isaiah 7.14, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. In Matthew 1.23 it begins here. Behold, a virgin shall. In Isaiah 7.14 it says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive. In Matthew 1.23 it says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child. Now you say, why are you highlighting that? I'm highlighting that for you. It's because the Bible serves as its own dictionary. And when you find passages that are parallel passages or that are quoting each other and they quote each other slightly differently, it's because God has given you synonyms and you can see the definition of words. And I want you to notice that when Isaiah said, Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew language, when that was written down in Greek in Matthew 1.23, it was written down as a virgin shall be with child. You say, why is that? Here's why. Because the word conceive means to be with child. You say, why is that? Because life begins at conception. The moment that a child is conceived, and to use medical terms, the moment that there is the fertilization of an egg, that is a child. It is a human being. Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and ordained thee a prophet unto the nation. So life begins at conception according to the Bible. Now you might be asking yourself, okay, then why are you talking about birth control, the biblical practice against the use of birth control in regards to children? Here's why. Because birth control ends life after conception. You say, why should we as Christians, and I realize that what I'm preaching right now is not popular, but I don't care, because I'm not here trying to win a popularity contest. I'm here to preach the word of God to you, and the Bible teaches that life begins at conception, and what you need to be aware of is that birth control and hormonal birth control pills end life after conception. Let me just prove this to you, and every time I preach on this subject, I always like to pull out the same article because it's an article from WebMD, and sometimes, you know, as a Baptist preacher, people will get mad at me and say, you know, you're just some sort of a Neanderthal, and you're just, you know, racist or whatever. It's like, I'm brown, okay? And, you know, you're this, and you're that, and but I'll read to you from WebMD because last I checked, WebMD was not some fundamentalist Christian forum, okay? It's just a website that doctors look at and say it's a legitimate website, and here's what WebMD says. Here's an article from WebMD. You can look it up if you'd like. It's called How Does Hormonal Contraceptives Work, and if you do look it up, I'll read it for you. I just want you to be aware that there are some words that they use that I'm just not willing to use behind the pulpit, so I'll change some words, but you should be able to understand it. Here's what they say. A woman becomes pregnant when an egg released from her ovary, and that is the organ that holds her eggs, and it is fertilized by a man's seed. The fertilized egg attaches to the inside of a woman's womb or uterus, where it receives nourishment and develops, and they say it develops into a baby. I don't believe that. I believe it's a baby the moment it's fertilized because that's what the Bible says, but they say, but it develops. Hormones in the woman's body control the release of the egg from the ovary, and, of course, this is called ovulation, and prepare the body to accept the fertilized egg. Hormonal contraceptives like the pill, the patch, the ring, all contain a small amount of man-made estrogen and progestin hormones. These hormones work to inhibit the body's natural cyclical hormones to prevent pregnancy. So here's what the article says. Pregnancy is prevented by a combination of factors, and there's three factors which are the way that the pill and that the hormonal contraceptives keep someone from getting pregnant. I'm going to read this for you. I'm going to explain this to you. Now, I want you to understand something, okay? When you look at the packages for these birth control pills, they testify that they are 99.9% effective, and they are 99.9% effective, and I want you to have that number in your mind, all right? Because according to WebMD and according to just, if you have birth control pills, which I hope you don't, but if you do, you can look at the back of the package and you can get this information right off, right from the horse's mouth. But pregnancy is prevented by a combination of factors, all right? Number one, the hormonal contraceptive usually stops the body from ovulating. What does that mean? It keeps the body from releasing an egg. Obviously, if a woman's body will go through a monthly cycle in which it will release an egg, and if that egg is fertilized, then you have life, you have conception, you have a pregnancy. The way that the hormonal contraceptives will keep someone, a woman, from getting pregnant is that it'll keep the body from ovulating or from releasing the egg. So obviously, if no egg is released, no egg is available to be fertilized, then you won't get pregnant. And here's the thing. When that happens, just to be very honest with you, no life has been ended, life was never even started because no egg was ever fertilized and life begins at conception. Here's what you need to understand. The hormonal contraceptive usually stops the body from ovulating. This works 40 to 95% of the time. 40 to 95% of the time, this is the method by which hormonal contraceptives will keep a woman from getting pregnant. Now, when they tell you this works 40 to 95% of the time, and they tell you that hormonal contraceptives are 99.9% effective, all right, you don't have to be a mathematician to realize that there is a window there that between 60 to 5% of the time, the egg is being released and potentially being fertilized. So there are other things that these hormones do to keep someone, quote, unquote, from getting pregnant. The first step is to just stop the body from ovulating, from releasing the egg. This happens 40 to 95% of the time. The second step is the hormonal contraceptive also changes the cervical mucus to make it difficult for the seat of a man to go through the cervix and find an egg. So these hormones, because the egg, once it's fertilized, within seven days it has to attach, or after seven days, it has to attach to the uterus of the woman. Of course, it attaches through an umbilical cord, it receives nourishments, and it grows and develops for the nine months. What these hormonal contraceptives will also do is that they'll change the mucus, the cervical mucus, in order to make it difficult for the seat of a man to basically find the egg of the woman and in order to keep from there being conception and being fertilization. And in that case, there's no life, again, because life begins at conception. If you can keep the egg from being fertilized, there's no life. I will say this, that you're damaging your body, and this is why oftentimes women that have been on birth control and then get off of birth control, they like to get pregnant, and it doesn't happen, and it doesn't happen because, you know, you've been damaging your body for however many years you've been doing this, and it's going to take time for your body to recover. And, you know, the Bible says that you reap what you sow, and that's just a reality of life. So hormonal contraceptives also change the cervical mucus to make it difficult for the changing of the lining of the seat of a man to go through the cervix to find an egg. So it makes it difficult for the seat of a man to find the egg to keep from fertilization. But there's a third step. Hormonal contraceptives can also prevent, they say prevent pregnancy, I don't call it that, by changing the lining of the womb so it's unlikely the fertilized egg will be implanted. So here's what they're saying. Step one is we just want to keep the egg from releasing. But that only happens 40 to 95% of the time. So 60 to 5% of the time, an egg is released. Okay, then what do we do? Well, then they say that they change the cervical mucus in order to make it difficult for the seat of the man to come in contact with the egg so there'll be no fertilization. But when that fails and there is still conception and there is still life, then the hormonal contraceptives will also prevent the fertilized egg from implanting by changing the lining of the womb so that it cannot implant. And you need to realize that once the egg is fertilized, that's conception. According to the Bible, that's a human life. And to not allow the conceived life to implant into the uterus means that it would just not receive the nourishment it needs and it would starve to death. That is what we would refer to as a silent abortion. And I'm here to tell you something, it's murder. We are told that birth control pills are 99.9% effective. If an egg can be released and fertilized 50 to 60% of the time and implantation is being prevented close to 100% of the time, then that means that a silent abortion is taking place 5 to 60% of the time that a woman is on a birth control pill. So I always think it's funny, and I use the term loosely because I don't think it's funny, but I always think it's funny how Christians get all bent out of shape about abortions and we should be bent out of shape out of abortions. But you know, sometimes I wonder if God is just up in heaven frustrated with all these Christians saying, we gotta end abortion, we gotta end abortion, when the average Christian woman is having all sorts of silent abortions in her own womb and not even realize it, not even know it because the average pastor is afraid to stand up and preach and explain to you what I just explained to you. So what did you explain? Here, life begins at conception and there is a chance that birth control pills will allow conception and end the life of a fertilized egg, which is a human being, after it's already been fertilized. There's a chance 5 to 60% of the time. So for that reason, we should take the attitude of the Lord Jesus Christ and realize that children are important and children are precious and you shouldn't do anything that may end the life of a child. Life begins at conception, birth control ends life after conception. And by the way, all the arguments that I gave you for life beginning conception also are the arguments for not having an abortion. And look, if you're here tonight, you've had an abortion or you're on birth control pills, I'm not mad at you, I'm not trying to shame you, but I do want you to know what you're doing so that you can be aware of what you're doing to your potentially, you know, these unborn children. You get to heaven one day and realize that you had all these unborn children that you had silent abortions because you did not take the time to research what you were putting into your body. So one biblical practice regarding children is that we should be against the use of birth control. You're there in Isaiah, go to Isaiah 35. And like I said, I could preach a whole sermon and I have preached entire sermons on that one subject. I don't have time to go into all the details. I just want to give you enough to just piss you off so that hopefully you'll go home and research it and realize, oh wow, that guy's right. Isaiah 35, look at verse 3. The Bible says strengthen, the word strengthen means to make stronger, strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm, the word confirm means to establish the feeble knees. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 14, you don't have to turn there, I'll just read this for you. Paul said, now we exhort you brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. As Bible-believing Christians, we have a duty to strengthen the weak hands, to confirm the feeble knees, to support the weak. We have a duty to care and to protect and to support the weak. And there is nothing weaker in this world, there's nothing more humble in this world than a little baby. And for that reason, I just want to use this verse, and again, I could go to lots of verses, I'm not going to take the time to do it tonight because I've already got eight pages worth of stuff I want to get through. But here's the second biblical practice regarding children that we believe, because these are things that are different from our church than probably 99% of churches out there. I mean, most churches are never going to preach this behind the pulpit and the pastor probably doesn't even know it. But one thing that we believe at this church, we're against the use of birth control. Obviously, if you use birth control, that's between you and God, and we're not going to ask you that. But as a position, as a biblical position, we're against the use of birth control. Why? Because it ends life after conception. Here's another position that we take, a biblical practice regarding children, and it is this, we are against the vaccination of children. We're against vaccinations altogether. You say, why would you be against vaccines? And look, again, I preach entire sermons against vaccines, and YouTube kept taking them down and taking them down, of course. Now I'm not allowed to be on YouTube, so I guess I can just preach whatever I want. But, you know, I'm not going to preach a whole sermon on vaccines tonight. I've done that, and we can get those to you if you'd like. Let me just give you some thoughts on vaccines. Number one, they're unclean. They contained weakened live viruses, inactive or dead viruses, partial viruses, partial bacteria, and dead animal parts. The Bible says that we should not be putting stuff like that into our body. Number two, they're unethical, because many of the most common vaccines out there were developed using aborted baby tissue. And if you believe that abortion is murder, then you should not be okay with using a product that is used, the parts of an aborted child, to be developed. But the third reason, and this is one I want to just kind of talk about for a little bit, is that vaccines are uncertain. Vaccines, if no other reason, if you're like, I don't care about the biblical mandate for cleanliness, because God literally tells you, God tells you don't touch things that are dead. Do you understand that? I mean, God was teaching a hygiene way before society and science caught up to it. Back in the ancient world, God is telling the children of Israel that they need to wash their hands under running water. That's something that society did not learn until like 200 years ago. And thousands of years ago, God was telling people, wash your hands under running water, okay? He's telling them, don't eat certain things. One thing that God said is don't touch something that's dead. Now, if you don't think that God wants you to touch things that are dead, I mean, don't you tell your children that when you're out hiking or something and there's a dead bird, don't touch that. But then we're okay with taking those dead animals, putting them into some sort of a tube and injecting them into our bloodstream. And we call that medicine. No, that's unclean. And it's unethical. If you believe in abortions and you believe that we should not abort children, then you should believe that we should not develop products based off aborted children. But if you don't care about those things, then maybe you'll care about this. They're uncertain. Vaccines cause injuries and death to children. Our job is to strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Now, here's the thing about vaccines, is that in general, it's not like they're, I mean, let me just put it this way. They're hurting everybody. But when we're talking about vaccine injuries, you know, it's not 100% of kids that get vaccinated and then they just have autism. It's not 100% of kids that get vaccinated and then develop some terrible disease. But it's a lot of them. And what you're doing when you're allowing your children to get vaccinated is you're just literally playing Russian roulette with your children's health. Where you're just like, let's take the chance and see if it, you know what, the Lord has given my wife and I six children, I love all my children. I don't want to do anything that may potentially hurt any of them. I'm not willing to take that chance. I'm not going to put a gun up to their head and say, well, let's see what happens. And I'm not going to put a shot of a vaccine into their bloodstream and just see what happens. Now, the truth of the matter is this. Vaccines injure children. They injure people. Let me just read to you an article about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. You say, what in the world is the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program? The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury petitions. Now, please understand this. Laws have been passed in this country making it impossible for you and I to sue companies that produce vaccines. That should be alarming to you. There have been laws, and because of that, the government created a program in order to be able to pay out people who were injured by vaccines while keeping them from taking these companies to court. So let me just read this for you. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury petitions. It was created in the 1980s after lawsuits against vaccine companies and health care providers threatened to cause vaccine shortages and reduce U.S. vaccination rates, which, let me just be clear, they say, not me, I'm just reading what they say, which could have caused a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases. Here's the reality. The love of money is the root of all evil, and there is just a complex of companies and government officials that are just making money and becoming millionaires off of these forced vaccinations. So they don't want anything to stop that or hinder that. So they just have to quiet all these people and say, we're not going to allow you to sue them, but if you are injured, then we'll just create this National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. And look, you don't have to take my word for it. You can study this out on your own. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as a federal no-fault system to compensate persons or families of persons who are injured by covered childhood vaccines. And look, if you look into this, you will find that this program has literally paid out billions of dollars to families whose children have died or suffered adverse reactions from vaccines. It pays out millions of dollars every year. But we're told, no, vaccines are safe. Just vaccinate all your children, get vaccinated, take them all, and then if something bad happens to you, you're not allowed to sue them. And look, again, you don't have to take my word for it. But maybe you should research these things, and you'll find, I mean, if you just do some research, you will find just documentation after documentation. I mean, babies who the day before they were vaccinated were laughing, making eye contact. I mean, literally you can watch videos of children just looking at the camera, smiling, laughing, they get vaccinated, the next day they just shut down, unresponsive. I mean, children get vaccinated and immediately start having seizures and are paralyzed, teenage girls just falling over, dying. And you say, well, it's not all of them, okay, but are you willing to take the chance that it might be yours? Are you willing to take the chance that it might be your child that gets hurt? And look, I can talk a lot about vaccines. Obviously, it's kind of a hot issue with coronavirus and all that. I'm not going to take the time to go into that, all of that. But let me just say this. As Bible-believing Christians, we have, and we have a position at this church against vaccinating our children. It's wrong. You shouldn't do it. It's not something that you shouldn't be putting these things into your children's bodies. Now, let me just real quickly, and I realize this is kind of a little bit of a different sermon. If you really wanted an expository verse by verse where we just go through the chapter and pull out the verses from the chapter, I do a lot of that, okay? Just come back on Sunday morning, we'll do that. Come back on Sunday night, we'll do that. I've been doing that for like a year out of Luke. So let me just get this stuff off my chest. But let me just talk about something and something that I really haven't talked much about from the pulpit. And the reason for it is because when we started Verity Baptist Church, you know, my wife and I started this church, and when we started this church, we had two little boys. And now we have six children. And a lot of the things that I'm teaching you right now, we have been able to create a culture in our church and have in our church as a result of us just having children and, of course, my wife being pregnant and having children. And we've kind of set the example and we've done those things and praise God for it. At this point, you know, our youngest child is three or four, four years old. So it's been a while since my wife has been pregnant. You know, we don't know if we're done. That's up to God. But because we haven't really had a baby, for my wife to kind of set the example, I'm learning that I may just need to speak about some of these things. So let me talk to you just real quickly about home births. Because my wife and I have six children, and five out of our six children have been born at home. And I would say that probably, I mean, I don't know, I didn't take the time to count it, but I would say that probably most of the ladies in this church have home births. It's not all of them, of course, but I would say the majority of the ladies in this church have home births. Let me just say this about home births. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that having birth at a hospital is a sin or it's wrong. That's between you and God, and you've got to make that decision. And there's all sorts of factors that play into that. So this is not me telling you, you have to have a home birth, the Bible says so, or whatever. What I am going to tell you is that we've chosen to have home births, and many of the ladies in this church and families in this church have chosen to have home births. And there's lots of reasons for that and lots of things I could say about that. And maybe one of these days I will preach an entire sermon about hospital births versus home births. But let me just quickly bring up just two thoughts for you to consider regarding having your children at a hospital. And we buy into this idea where just the culture and the government just tells us things, and we just go with it like it's gospel. And today you tell people we're not having our child in a hospital and people act like you're crazy. Like, what? You know what Jesus said? Jesus said, they that are whole need not a position, but they that are sick. You know what Jesus said? Hey, if you're sick, go see a doctor. Let me help you out with something. A woman who's pregnant is not sick. I know she has, you know, morning sickness, but there's nothing unnatural about that. It's not a disease. So, you know, and today people say like, oh, you know, let me explain something to you. People having birth, having their babies at the hospital is a relatively new thing. For thousands of years in human history, women were having babies at home with midwives. So I just always think it's silly when people act like, I can't believe you have babies at home. I was like, man, you know, all of humanity would look at you and say, you're having your baby in the hospital? Now, if there's a problem, then yes, we understand. But, you know, so just don't look. Just realize that everything the world tells you is wrong. The sooner you realize that everything the world tells you is wrong, just unplug yourself from the world and look at everything with fresh eyes. And you always just ask yourself, you know, what does the Bible say? You know, when I started looking into this issue, and my wife and I started looking into this issue, I asked myself, what does the Bible say? You know what I found all throughout the Bible? Midwives, midwives, midwives, midwives giving birth to babies. But all of that aside, let me just give you a couple of thoughts. I'm not against you if you're having births in the hospital. I'm for you. We're not judging you. I'm not looking down on you. But I do want you to consider a couple of things. One, hospitals will fight you on this vaccine issue. I mean, my wife and I know individuals who were shamed and threatened into vaccinating their children. We know individuals who the couple went into the birth, you know, they wrote their birth plan. They made it clear, no vaccines. We don't want vaccines. We don't want. And the hospital staff just vaccinated their children anyway. You know, you say, and you say, what did they do? They're like, oops, well, we didn't know. You know, because obviously when you're in a hospital, guess what? You're on their turf. They're in control. I mean, we literally know people that they were like set on it. They knew what the Bible said. They said, no, we're not going to do it. And they took the baby and vaccinated it anyway. We know of individuals who've been threatened and had threatened to have CPS called on them. We know individuals who've had CPS called on them by the hospital because they did not want to vaccinate their children. So just realize something. When you have your children in a hospital, you're going into a hostile situation there. Just be aware of that. Not only that, let me just say this. And look, I realize, you know, some of you have been telling me you're tired of Luke, so I'm giving you something new. All right. I don't like this either. Well, maybe you just don't like anything. Maybe you're the problem. Here's another thing to consider regarding hospitals is hospitals will push C-sections. Now, let me just read an article for you from the World Health Organization. Now, I want to make that clear because the World Health Organization is not, they're not good guys. This isn't the sword of the Lord. Okay. These aren't independent Baptists. The World Health Organization are the people that are trying to get you all vaccinated. All right. This is an article that they wrote on June 16th, 2021. So it's a pretty recent article entitled Rising Caesarean Rates Suggests Increasing Numbers of Medically Unnecessary Potentially Harmful Procedures. Here's what they said. According to new research from the World Health Organization, C-section use continues to rise globally, now accounting for more than one in five or 21 percent of all child births. And by the way, in the U.S. in 2020, it was 31.8 percent, almost one-third. The number is set to continue increasing over the coming decade with nearly a third, 29 percent of all births likely to take place, this is globally, by cesarean section by 2030, the research finds. While cesarean sections can be an essential and life-saving surgery, it can put women and babies at unnecessary risks of short and long-term health problems if performed when there is no medical need. Here's a quote. Cesarean sections are absolutely critical to save lives in situations where natural deliveries would not pose risk. Or, excuse me, would pose risk, said Dr. Ian Askew, Director of WHO's Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health. But not all the cesarean sections carried out at the moment, he goes on to say, are needed for medical reasons. Unnecessary surgical procedures can be harmful both for a woman and her baby. The article goes on to say that in some places, cesarean sections now outnumber natural deliveries. Worldwide cesarean section rates have risen from around seven percent in the 1990s to 21 percent today and are projected to continue increasing over this current decade. If this then continues by 2030, the highest rates are likely to be in eastern Asia, 63 percent, Latin America and the Caribbean, 54 percent, western Asia, 50 percent, northern Africa, 48 percent, southern Europe, 47 percent, and Australia and New Zealand, 45 percent, the research suggests. Now here's the question I have for you. And look, I believe, please don't misunderstand me, I believe that there are times when c-sections are needed. Absolutely. I'm not against that, so don't try to paint me into that. I'm not a Jehovah's Witness here telling you there's never a need for a doctor. I just believe what Jesus said, they that are sick need not a physician. If there's a problem, a complication, an issue, then that's why God has given us the ability to do these things. So I absolutely believe that there are times when c-sections are needed. But I'm here to tell you something, they're not needed one out of five times. One out of three women giving birth do not need to have a c-section. You say, well why then are so many women having c-sections? Let me let you in on a little secret, I've already told you about it. The love of money is the root of all evil. You know why these doctors are just performing so many c-sections, so many c-sections, so many c-sections? Here's why, because they get paid more and it's more convenient. See, to have a natural birth means you'll have to come in on a Saturday or in the middle of the night, because natural births happen whenever. But you can schedule a c-section for 9 a.m. Monday morning and make sure you don't miss your golf, you know, tournament that weekend. So it's convenient and they make money. And let me just let you in on a little secret. These doctors did not become doctors because they love you. They did not become doctors because they care for your health. If they care for your health, they wouldn't be vaccinating you. Say, why did they become doctors? Because they love money, that's why. That's why they became doctors. And the reason that they have these c-sections, and again, are there times when they're needed? Absolutely, but are they needed one-third of the time? Are they needed 20% of the time? The answer is no. And I'm just here to tell you something. When you go into these hospitals, you just better, you know, there's a doctor just, you know, sharpening his eyes, just, you know, just seeing dollar bills, because they get paid every time they perform a c-section. So I just think it's funny, because people have literally, and if you've done this, I'm not against you, people have literally asked me, you know, like, pass your medicine, aren't you afraid to have your children at home? And I just always think to myself, aren't you afraid to have your children in a hospital? I mean, I'd be afraid to have my kids in a hospital where some nurse is going to take them away to weigh them and then they come back with autism because they vaccinated. Oh, we didn't realize this. Yeah, it was here, it turns out. And again, I'm not mad at you. I'm not telling you to sin. There are times to do that. But what I am telling you is this. Children are precious. And we should not just make decisions based off children, just, well, this is what, you know, this is what society told me to do. Society is an idiot. The world's crazy. And you need to take the time to consider the children that God has given you and protect those children. Go to Isaiah 28, Isaiah 28. So we're talking about biblical practices. And look, it's really important, I feel like it's really important for me to, I've been preaching a lot about families and things like that, because we have so many young couples, you know, and here's the thing. If you don't like it, then you should have made me do eight weddings in nine months or whatever, you know. You pissed me off with all your stinking weddings and now you're going to get all my wedding sermons. Biblical practice regarding children, we should have a biblical practice against the use of birth control. And look, this was, this, you can research this. There are essays written by Theodore Roosevelt, while being the President of the United States of America, writing editorials to put in the newspaper about this new trend of birth control and how wicked it is. Like, this is, I know this will, for some of you it's like, I've never heard this before, but there was a time when every Bible-believing Christian believed that birth control was of the devil. And vaccinating your children is not something that Christians should be on board with. Number three, let me give you another one. A biblical practice regarding children is a biblical practice against separate children's ministries. We, of course, are a family-integrated church. I announce that every week. I'm not going to take a lot of time on that. Let me just give you a couple of verses. Isaiah 28, 9, whom shall he teach knowledge? This is what Isaiah the prophet, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is saying. He says, who shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? You know, who is the preacher going to get up and teach knowledge to and help them understand doctrine? You and I would say, the adults. But notice what he says, them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. He says, look, a nursing baby is the one who we're going to teach knowledge and make to understand doctrine. You say, who are the most important people in this room right now? The little children. You're looking at me all sideways right now. But you know, little children being taught these things, hopefully, Lord willing, they're just going to grow up and be like, yeah, why would I vaccinate my children? Why would I use birth control? I want to teach these kids from the beginning. Go to Joel chapter 2. You're there in Isaiah, Pastor Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel. Joel chapter 2. Our church is a family integrated church. What does that mean? That means we do not have any separate children's ministries. No Sunday school classes, no children's church, nothing where we separate children from their parents. When our church was young and when it first started, 12 years ago, my wife and I started this church in our living room, and people thought that we were family integrated because we didn't have the facilities, we didn't have the volunteers. But as the church grew and we got bigger buildings and more people, they're like, That's why we started the children's church. It's like, I told you, never. We're family integrated. That is the pattern found in scripture. Let me give you a couple of examples. Joel 2.15, blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast. Joel 2.18, notice the last part of verse 15, excuse me, verse 15, call a solemn assembly. What is that? A solemn assembly. It's a congregation. It's like a church service. Notice what he says, verse 16, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble. Notice what he says, he said, I want you to gather the congregation. That's a church. The word church means congregation or assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, and then he says, here's what I want you to gather. Assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breast, let the bridegroom go forth out of his chamber and the bride out of her closet. He said gather the older people, gather the younger people. He says even gather those that are sucking the breast. Even gather the infants. Notice he doesn't say put them in a nursery. He doesn't say put the kids in a children's church somewhere. He doesn't say separate them and put them somewhere else. Go to Deuteronomy 31. You say, why are you family integrated? Three quick reasons. Number one, it's the pattern of scripture. What I often tell people when they fight me on this family integrated thing is show me a Sunday school class in the Bible. Just one. Show me a nursery, a children's church, a Sunday school. You show me one verse, we'll do it. But there's no verse. And by the way, we have like 90 children in this church. They're all super well behaved. I mean obviously children are children. They're all going to be bad at some point. But I mean they sit through church services. You say, well you don't do enough for the children. I feel like we do too much for the children. Were you just here on Monday for the Harvest Party? I mean we just took like 100 kids to, you know, this, what was it, a gold mine. And you say you took 100 kids? Yeah, well we took them and their parents. Because we're not going to separate children from their parents. Deuteronomy 31, 9, And Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto the elders of Israel. Deuteronomy 31, 10, And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of the seven years, in the solemnity of the years of release, in the feast of the tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. So here's God telling Moses, The law that I've given you, I want you to gather everybody, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Verse 12, Gather the people together, men and women and children and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe to do all the words of this law. No, he said, Gather the people. Who? The men. Okay. The women. Okay. And the children. No, no, no. We have them in a separate room somewhere. No, no. He said, I want them there. Gather the men and the women and the children and thy stranger that is within thy gates. He said, Why would we gather them all up? That they may hear and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe to do all the words of this law. So look, this is the pattern of Scripture you're not going to find. You're not going to find a Sunday school class or a children's church in the Bible. So don't come at me with that argument you're going to lose. You want to come up with a different argument, that's fine. But you can't make a biblical argument for children's ministries because I just showed you a couple examples. I can show you like 12 examples of the congregation being gathered together and they're bringing everybody. Now that's not even the main reason why we're family integrated. The main reason we're family integrated is not just because it's patterned after Scripture, although that's good enough. If you're a Bible-believing church, that should be good enough. But the main reason that we're family integrated is because it protects children. Because you know what you hear of all these churches that have all these ministries where they're taking kids off somewhere with some adult that nobody even knows is you hear all these horror stories of children being molested, of children being abused. Look, I'm just here to tell you something. We are never, we are never, we are never over my dead body will anyone in this church ever try to take your children away from you into some separate room somewhere where you don't know what's going on. That's never going to happen. We're a family integrated church. Children and infants are always welcome in the church service. In fact, we're so the opposite, we're constantly trying to remind you parents, hey, make sure you're by your children. Say, where are your kids? They're playing in the football. Then you better get yourself to the fellowship hall. You say, but this is a very Baptist church. Look, this is a very Baptist church. But I'm here to tell you something. God gave you those children to protect. And let me just let you in on a little secret. And look, as far as I know, everybody in our church is good and whatever. The doors are open to the public. People come into this church all the time and we don't know them. I'm not saying they're bad people. Please don't get this attitude. Everybody's bad. But here's the truth. My attitude in life is this. I suspect no one and I trust no one. You say, that's a bad attitude. No, that's the right attitude. The right attitude is I'm never the guy who's just like, you know, someone drove in in a Miati, so they must be a fag or something. I suspect no one. People walk in, sometimes people are a little effeminate. Look, we live in a world where a bunch of guys are just a bunch of effeminates. Because it's what Hollywood, these little tight pants, it's just what Hollywood has produced. So they come here, sometimes we need to teach them, cut your hair, put some pants on that fit you, start walking like a man. Look at me in the eye when you shake my hand. And look, I'm not the person that just goes around suspecting people. I try to just suspect no one. But let me tell you something. At the same time, I trust no one. Is there anyone you would—obviously my sons are teenagers now, they're adults, they know jiu-jitsu. Obviously they can go be with other people or whatever. But when our children are little children and when our children are little, we just don't let them go with whoever. Let me just make some things clear. Because again, as my children get older, what I'm learning is that the things that my wife and I used to teach by example, now we're not able to teach by example because we don't have little children like a lot of you have. And then you end up asking—it never dawns on you to maybe ask your pastor or your pastor's wife for advice. You want to ask all the worldly Christians. It's always amazing to be like, you're going to ask that person? That person barely comes to church, isn't a soul winner. And that's the person you're going to let your kids hanging around? So let me just make some things clear. Don't let your children go to the bathroom by themselves. I mean, if they're 15, let them go to the bathroom by themselves. If they're four and five and six, go with them or send your 15-year-old with them. Don't just let them be running around here by themselves. It's your job to protect them. Let me tell you something. Pastor Jimenez is against sleepovers. I don't want to hear, oh, all the kids in the church got together and had a sleepover. That was not something—nobody ran that by me. I'm against it. You sleep in your own house. I gave you a house. You sleep there. You say, well, they need fellowship. Are you kidding me? We've got way too much fellowship around here. Sometimes we have to turn the lights off and tell people, you don't have to go, but you can't stay here. They need fellowship. You're insane. You come Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, soul-winning, and all the activities, and you'll get all the fellowship you need. You don't need to be sleeping over anybody's house. Biblical practices regarding children, we do not have any separate children's ministries. You watch your kids. It's your job to watch them. It's not our job to watch—now look, we're going to do the best we can to watch them. I don't know if I should say this out loud. Brother Nate's going to get upset at me. He leads our safety team. I don't know if you've noticed, but we've got cameras everywhere, and people are watching the cameras. We've got a safety team that is suspicious of everyone because that's what we've assigned them to do. We're going to do our best to watch your kids too, but let me tell you something that you're responsible for. So biblical practice regarding children, one, against the use of birth control. Two, against vaccinating your children. Three, against separate children's ministries. Just real quickly, let me get through the last one. Against public and private schools. Against public and private schools. You say, are you against school and education? We're totally for education, which is why we're against the school system, and we believe in homeschooling your children. Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 6. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Deuteronomy 6, 7. And thou, this is God speaking, and thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children. Notice what he said. When are you going to teach them diligently? And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children for forty-five minutes on Sunday morning at a Sunday school. Is that what it says? No. Thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children. Notice what he says. And shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. He said, I want you to teach your children when you're sitting around at home, when you're out and about, when you're getting ready to go to bed, and when you're getting up for the day. You say, that sounds like all day. Exactly. There's not a forty-hour period in that week where you're dropping off your children to some strangers. Now look, again, let me just be clear. Obviously there are people in our church that send their children to public school and private school. Some of them are neo-Christians and they just don't know this is all new to them. They're not second-class citizens. We're not mad at them. We're going to help them grow and maybe help them learn some of these things. There are people in our church, there are ladies in our church that want to homeschool their children and are not able to or allowed to by their husband. And I'm not throwing stones at them. I know of an individual that isn't able to homeschool her children, so she just goes and volunteers at the school all day. And you know, if my wife woke up tomorrow and found herself in a situation where our children had to be in school, that's exactly what she would do if she couldn't homeschool or whatever. So I'm not sitting here throwing stones. Please understand that. If you find yourself in a situation where you're a single mother and it's all you can do, look, I'm not mad at you and we want to help you, we want to come alongside you and partner with you and love you and help you raise those children for God. But if you're here and you have the ability to homeschool and you choose not to, there's something wrong with you. Because you need to protect your children. And let me just quickly give you some thoughts. Number one, homeschooling can provide a better education for your children than the public school can. I always think it's funny when people are like, are you sure they're getting the proper education? Like, have you been to a public school? I mean, you're joking, right? This is not a serious question you're asking me. Homeschooled children receive a better education. This is proven statistically. I had stuff I was going to read to you. I mean, everybody knows that. Kids that are literally graduating from these public schools can't read the diplomas they're receiving. So if you don't believe me, just research it. And look, does that mean that every homeschool family is educating their children properly? No, there's lots of lazy homeschool families out there. I get that. But I will say this, homeschooling can provide a much better education for your children. But that's not even the main reason we homeschool. The main reason we homeschool is because homeschooling will protect your children. Will provide a better protection for your children. Let me just read a couple of articles for you. In 2011, the National Center of Biotechnology reported that 75% of high school students reported having used addictive substance, including tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs. Seventy-five percent. Forty-six percent reported current use of addictive substance, and one in three substance-using students met the medical criteria for addiction. Look, let me tell you something. The public school and the university is nothing but a bunch of whore and whoremongers and drug use and alcohol. That's all that's going on down there. I'm not saying that there's not one or two kids out there that are doing right and living right, but that is a rare exception. According to the Monitoring the Future database, 24% of high school seniors self-reported the following for the past year of substance use. Twenty-four percent are binge drinkers. They drank five or more drinks in a row at least once in the last two weeks. Seventeen percent are current tobacco cigarette smokers. Eight percent misused prescription opioids. Six point five percent are daily or near daily marijuana users. One in five high school girls binge drink, defined as four or more drinks over a three hour period. Almost half, according to the CDC, 47.4% of high school students have had sexual relations. Twenty-two percent of sexually active high school students reported having used alcohol or other drugs in that process. And people will say to me, like, oh, well, what about sending them to some fancy private school? Let me tell you something about fancy private schools. Fancy private schools is where rich parents send all their stinking brats after they get kicked out of the public school. Because let me let you in on a little secret. Rich people are cheap. So they're not putting their kids in private school because they want to. They're putting their kids in private school because they have to. So don't tell me about private school. Private school is worse than the public school. You say, why do you homeschool your children? Because I love them, that's why. Because I want to protect them. Because I want to keep them from getting shot up. My wife just this afternoon was telling me about some articles I think she was reading about this guy getting sentenced. It's all over the news. It's one of these kids that shot up a bunch of people. Look, I'm just telling you, every time you drop off your kids in some government organization, you're playing Russian roulette. With their physical health, their spiritual health, their mental health. I mean, kids are just like going crazy in these places. The amount of bullying that happens, the status, and you have to have this brand and that. All that silliness happens in these schools. Go back to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. We'll end where we started. Some of you are like, I should write a topical sermon. Okay. Maybe we can go back to Luke. All right. Talk about some biblical practices regarding children. Biblical practice against the use of birth control. Biblical practice against vaccinating your children. Biblical practice against separate children's ministries. Biblical practice against public and private schools. The Bible says, Luke 18, 16, But Jesus called them and said unto him, and said unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein. Children are special. And they need us to love them. They need us to protect them. Let me just make a few statements to some of the younger couples in our church. And look, you young couples, I don't hate you. I'm still mad at you for all the weddings. But I'm going to say this because I love you. And there's something I've learned about this younger generation coming up. And look, it doesn't apply to all of you, but it applies to almost all of you. And what I've learned is that my generation and the generation right before me had this idea that they needed to tell their children two things. That their children were special and that their children were smart. And we've got this generation of kids growing up and they were told their entire lives, You're special and you're smart. You're special and you're smart. And that's not really a big deal, you know, because Barney used to say that to us too. But we didn't believe it. But the kids that were raised by Barney started telling it to their kids and then their kids actually believed it. And look, please understand something. You are special in the sense that you are made in the image of God. In the sense that you are a life, a human being that has value. But please understand something. You are not any more special than any other human being. I hate to break it to you. Look, I'm telling you this because I love you. You are special but you're not more special. And you are smart in the sense that God gave you a brain, an intellect, an ability to learn and read. And you can learn and ask questions. You are smart in that sense. But you are not smart in the sense that you just know what to do. Some 18 year old who just had a baby or 20 year old who just had a baby doesn't just know what to do. I hate to break it to you. I know your mom and dad can tell you you're smart but they lied to you. What they should have told you is ask questions, read stuff and then you'll be smart. Go through some experience or find people that have gone through experience and then you'll be smart. What they should have told you is you're special in the sense that God loves you and He gave His son to die on the cross for you and there's value to your life. But you're not any more special than anybody else. You say, I can't believe you're saying that. Look, what I've learned in ministry is that my job is to tell you everything your parents failed to teach you. Let me just let you in on a little secret. The culture we live in, because of social media and phones and all this garbage, I believe that human beings are slowly losing, Americans are slowly losing their ability to read. When my wife and I were newly married and new parents, and I'm saying my wife and I but honestly my wife, we were just curious about everything. I mean, I remember one time my wife was at church and this older lady in the church, she was having a conversation. My wife was part of the conversation but she wasn't talking to my wife, she was just there. This older lady in the church just said in passing how IUDs, which is birth control, can cause miscarriages. This lady was just expressing the fact that she'd become aware of the fact that IUDs can cause miscarriages and that blew my wife's mind. She's like, whoa, I never... So she just went home and studied it. She researched it and got books and then she told me about it and we started researching and learning about it. That's how we came to the place as 19, 20-year-old kids and realized we're never going to use birth control. We heard about people having home births and we were curious, why were they doing that? And we learned about it. When my wife was pregnant, especially with our first child, every child, but just the whole nine months, she was just devouring books. I remember I was in the Air Force, we were in Texas, we were living on base. We didn't own a computer, we didn't have internet, we didn't have anything. I was in training but every weekend on my day off we would go to the base library and she would come out with a stack of books like this and she just spent nine months just reading, reading, learning. Just a few weeks ago there was a lady in our church, a younger mother, but not so young, but I overheard her telling other ladies in the church how she was impressed with my wife because when she had her first baby, her baby ended up having this really obscure rash that she'd never seen and she couldn't figure it out. She was asking her mom and she sent one picture to my wife and my wife just immediately responded like, oh, that's X, Y, Z. She's like, you need to do these things or whatever. She was really impressed, like how did she know that? But she knew that because she just had read so much and learned so much. But it's funny to me because today I feel like people are having babies and they're just like, they're too busy on YouTube and Facebook to research anything and learn anything that could help your children. You know, so look, I'm not mad at you but I do want to help you with something. Value your children. I feel like some children are literally at a disadvantage because they just have lazy parents and they're just at a disadvantage with their health, with their upbringing. Look, learn research. You don't have to take my word for it, but do some research. Before you put something in your body, before you put something in your baby's body, before you make some decision, you're going to drop off your child somewhere for 40 hours, why don't you research and read and pray and maybe ask somebody who's a little older and further along than you, who's had some experience, and don't just make this assumption that I know everything because I'm special because my mama said so. And look, you don't have to believe me. And let me just say this, and I'm done. I'll beat up on you young couples later. Don't make decisions solely based on money. When you say, well, I'm only going to make this public school because I can't afford to home school, then you're no better than the pharmaceutical drug pushers and the doctors that are pushing C-sections for the love of money. I mean, my wife and I paid out-of-pocket thousands of dollars to have our children born at home while I was in the Air Force, while there was a medical-based hospital down the street that would have given us a birth for free, quote, unquote. For free, I just had to give it my life for four years. You say, why do you do that? Because we don't make decisions solely based on money. Whenever you make decisions solely based on money, I'm just here to tell you something, you're going to make the wrong decision. So look, if you don't want to have a home birth, don't have a home birth. But if you're saying, I'd like to have a home birth, but I can't afford it, then we're going to make the wrong decision. Because whenever you make a decision solely based on money, that's the wrong decision. Now, should money be factored in? Absolutely. But we should not make decisions solely based off money. How many times have you heard me say that? The love of money is the root of all evil. When your brand-new parents care about your children, learn about their health, learn about these little children that Jesus says, Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall no wise enter their end. Children are special. They should be treated as such. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your word. What I realized is a longer sermon and a lot of information, but I pray that you'd help us to have a culture in our church that values children. I realize that people have vaccinated their kids and I'm not beating them up. If they've already done it, we're not trying to kick them when they're down. You can ask God to forgive them and move on with their lives. Maybe they can't have home births for whatever reason, legitimate reasons. Maybe they want to homeschool and they're not allowed to, and I get that. I'm not talking about that. Lord, I pray that you would help us as fathers and as mothers to not just be arrogant people who will not refuse to listen to anybody. Help us to be humble enough to realize that maybe we don't have it all put together. Maybe we don't know everything. Maybe a 20-year-old or a 22-year-old or a 24-year-old just doesn't know everything, and we should learn from people that have gone ahead of us, and we should read, and we should value the life of the children that you're giving us. Help us make decisions to raise these children for the glory of your kingdom. And Lord, I thank you for the six children that you've blessed my wife and I with. And Lord, I pray for my children that you'd keep them healthy and that you'd help them to grow up to love you and to serve you. I pray for all the children in this church, Lord, that you would bless them. I pray that you would help them to grow up to love you and serve you and be people that will further the work of God on this earth. In the matchless name of Christ, we pray. Amen. We're going to have the Moses come up and lead us in a final song. Please turn your song books to page number 188. Page number 188. We're going to be singing, The Love of God. Page 188. Let's sing that out on the verse. The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest house. The guilty bear bowed down with care. God gave his son to win. His erring child he reconciled and pardoned from his sin. The love of God, out rich and pure, hell measureless and strong, It shall forevermore endure the saints' and angels' song. 188 on the second, when hoary time shall pass away in earthly thrones. In bound twelve, when men who year refuse to pray on rocks and hills and mountains and all, God's love so sure shall still endure, home leisureless and strong, redeeming grace to Adam's race, the saints' and angels' song. The love of God, out rich and pure, hell measureless and strong, It shall forevermore endure the saints' and angels' song. On the last, could we with me, the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made, Were every sock on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade? To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, Or could the scroll contain the hope love stretched from sky to sky? O love of God, out rich and pure, hell measureless and strong, It shall forevermore endure the saints' and angels' song. Great singing. Can I please have Brother RJ close some more to prayer? Amen. .