Why Are Little Children Highlighted by Christ?

Happy Sabbath! Great to see you. Seems like it's been a long time, like Mr. Spears said. We had a great feast in Hawaii. Mr. Andretti, by the way, said that when I said it was good to see him back, he said it was a long swim, because we came, of course, from Hawaii. And I told him I appreciated that he was able to take care of the sharks, because I was right behind him.

So it was a nice swim. But we had a wonderful feast over in Hawaii. Actually, no, let me take that back. It was terrible. Just a lot of suffering. So you don't want to go to Hawaii. So we want to be careful. We don't have everybody going to Hawaii. But I've got to be careful not to pump it up too much. Six days old. What an incredible thing. One of the things I thought when I saw that little bundle of appetites, how is the mother standing after six days?

That is amazing. You're a strong young lady. But the youngest baby I've ever blessed, I think, was a few hours old. And that happened in Mapoco, Zambia. I had one of the ladies there come to me and say, I want you to see something. And they said one of the ladies here in the in the village has just had a baby. And anyway, the pastor there wanted me to pray over the baby.

So I did the blessing of little children there for the first time. It was like you say, it was just a matter of hours old. You know, brethren, that can be no more joyous day than the time when our children are born. You know, I realize that not everybody has maybe had their own children, that we've all participated in a newborn coming into the family. But not only do the proud parents rejoice when it happens, but friends and family join in too.

Everybody gets happy about a child being brought into the world. You know, I think that's the way God intended it to be. He wants us to be happy about our families beginning to grow. And you know, right now we're anticipating another grandchild, by the way.

We have five grand or four grandsons right now. I've got to be careful. And Jonah and I now are looking toward another grandchild from Stephen and Melanie. I think it's going to be in February, sometime in March. So, and we haven't heard whether it's another boy or not. I told him at the feast, don't be surprised if it's another boy. But if it's a girl, she'll be a princess, of course. You know, she will not be able to go out of the house without a shotgun escort.

So it would be probably better if it was a boy, actually. Because so it'll have a life, you know. Otherwise, the granddaughter would be in, you know, shut up until she was 35. Wouldn't be able to get married. But, you know, having children and grand, grandchildren are even more fun. The reason being is you can, they go home afterwards, you know. And it's not, you don't have them all the time. But it's so much fun having grandchildren. Let's go over to Psalm 127. Psalm 127.

And notice what God says over here about family. Because family's very important to God. You know, recently, Mr. Melon Rose wrote a note. And he spoke about how that it's all about family.

He wrote this letter to the church. I don't know if all of you got that. I think we did send it out to everybody. But he said it's all about family. And he and the Cubics, Mr. and this is Cubic, they share grandchildren through Mike, Cubic, and Mr. Rose's daughter. And recently, they had twins. Now, we understand a little bit about twins, by the way. But Melon Rose and Victor Cubic went to the feast by themselves, I presume. I don't know if their wives were able to go.

I don't think that Melon's wife was able to go. But, you know, they took the granddaughters up to, I think, the width of the gels, if I'm not mistaken, and had a good time with them. But recently, they had twin boys. Mike and his wife, Mike Cubic and his wife, had twin boys.

Again, their grandchildren of the Cubics and the and the Rhodes. But you could tell from the letter from Melvin Rhodes. He's the chairman of the Council of Elders. He was just elated, you know, with the birth of those two grandsons. And I'm sure they're going to have a lot of fun with them as time goes on. Well, I'm going to have to turn to a scripture here, because usually, when I speak, my other hand works, and it turns to the scripture. This time it didn't. It just laid there. You know, you have to understand about my recovery. My left hand does not do what I tell it to do.

It's an unruly hand. In fact, I'm having to do with this right hand. I feel like hitting my left hand, because it won't get up and help. But slowly, my left hand is beginning to be able to do things. This past week, by the way, I don't know why, but I started, I said, I think I'm going to produce the prophetic times this week. I started on Monday on it, and I sat down at the typewriter, and lo and behold, my left hand started typing.

Now, you have to understand, with the stroke I've had, my left hand, in the past, I couldn't even put it on the keyboard.

Unable totally to put it on the keyboard. I would put it on the keyboard, and it would, every time, that I mean, I honestly, you'd have to see it, but it would not stay there. I could say it was, it's unruly and disobedient, but I'm bringing it under subjection, I guess. But anyway, that's why I was able to produce the prophetic times this week. But my, slowly I'm being able now to type. Well, let's go to Psalm 127. We'll talk about children, not my hand. But Psalm 127, and let's notice in verse 3, it says, Behold, children are a heritage from the eternal.

There are heritage. Like Mr. Rhodes said in his letter, it's all about family.

It's our heritage. And it goes on to say, the fruit of the womb is a reward. It's a reward in this life. Unfortunately, these days, a lot of times people don't treat children as a reward, do they? What do we have? About 40 or 50 million abortions every year in this country?

Or around the world? I can't remember that statistic, whether it's a worldwide statistic. Probably not. Probably the United States. There's so many. But there are so many children that are aborted. I think in Russia, the average woman used to be statistically, the average woman had eight abortions in her life. Isn't that incredible? It's an incredible statistic. But going on, so we see it's a heritage of God to have children. And it says, like arrows in the hand of a warrior. You know, he used to be a man if he had a big family. Man, he had a ready-made labor force, didn't he? I mean, if you were a farmer and you had a lot of children, oh boy, you could take care of a farm. And you know, so you can see, as it says here, it's like arrows in the hand of a warrior. So are the children of one's youth.

Interesting, as it says, youth here. I guess, fellows, some of you who have grandkids now, we're starting to pass the age of youth. Although I didn't get to go to the senior dinner this year because you had to be 65. And I'm not quite there. I'm really happy, Mr. Buchanan raised it to 65. Last year we had it at 60. So I feel better about that, actually. But going on. And it says, happy is the man who has a quiver full. You've got a quiver full of these arrows. In other words, happy is the man whose station wagon or his van is full of children. Yeah, you got them hanging out the windows. That's how many you got. And it says, they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. And so it's a wonderful thing to have children. I'm glad we had ourselves three children. I wish we had had 10 children. My wife doesn't like that idea, but that would have been wonderful. Wonderful to have that many. Of course, we probably couldn't have afforded them. But, you know, having children is a wonderful thing. A heritage and a great blessing and a reward from God. And He wants us all to share in that, whether we have children or not. It's wonderful, isn't it, to see little children in the church grow up and begin to change and begin to develop. It's wonderful to see a little tyke six days old, you know, growing up to be 18 and becoming more mature. You know, it's been wonderful for us to have a son, maybe, you might say, a little later in our lives. Jonathan was a Johnny-come-lately, by the way. That's why we call him Jonathan. No, we named him that for a reason, but not because he was a Johnny-come-lately. But he was eight years after Stephen was born. But it's been great to have a son in those years. You know, otherwise, we wouldn't have anybody to mow the lawn. You know, we wouldn't have anybody to take out the trash. We wouldn't have anybody, particularly, to help with the computer when it gets broken down. So you need to think about that young people as you begin to have children. And I'm just kidding about that, Jonathan. Not about the computer, though.

But learning to recognize children when they're hungry and when they're uncomfortable. Of course, they let you know about it. It's an experience to learn those things. Seeing a child beginning to notice their hand. You know, when a small child begins to notice their hand, when they start seeing a piece of fuzz, if you've ever seen a little child, look at a piece of fuzz. You know, they'll look at it closely. They'll go cross-eyed, looking at that piece of fuzz. And to me, it's so funny. I remember one time, and I'll tell this on Jonathan, I remember there was another elder and I. This was up in Boise. You may remember this, Joan, but we were a restaurant. Jonathan, I don't know how old he was. But he was so tired, we had had a holy day, and that we were there for lunchtime. And it was so fun watching him fall asleep. You know, he was eating, and he'd be eating. You know, chewing. And he was just nodding. But it was so fun just to watch that, sometimes sobbing in the oatmeal, you know. But no, I'm just kidding about that. It wasn't that bad. Not much food on your face then, son. We've got pictures if you'd like to see it. But learning to see these things is, I mean, seeing these things as a learning experience. When they begin to notice shapes and colors, you know, things begin to really stand out to them. Watching them become mobile by first rolling over, then crawling. You know, watching them develop that way. I can't imagine not seeing your children go through that. Finally, standing up and walking. And, you know, walking, even when they look like they're bowlegged. You know, how they walk with the diapers kind of sticking out. And the legs are bowed. They look like cowboys who just got off of a horse, you know. Hearing them form their first words. I remember all of our boys, by the way, I believe, by the way, in torture therapy. When it comes to teaching children how to speak. I remember I used to tickle our kids until they would say big words, like hippopotamus. You know, I would tickle them until they said the word hiccupot. Hippopotamus. I would tickle them. And, you know, it works. It really works. I should write that up in the book and send it to California school systems. Surely they would accept it. But, you know, they all learn very early to say, you know, dad and mom. Always dad first and mom later. But we had a contest in our family. You know, I better move along because this is just the introduction. Why does God want us to have all these experiences? The reason is, brethren, is God is a parent. God is a parent many times over. Just think about it. God is a parent and he asked some scientists say that there have been 50 billion people who have lived upon the face of the earth. God has 50 billion children. And, you know what? He knows every one of them. It's like Mr. D'Andrea was talking about how God knows, you know, the hairs on our heads. Well, if he knows that, he knows every one of us, doesn't he? He knows every star in the sky. He knows everything. And he is an attentive parent. And he joys in our progress, brethren, as we grow and develop spiritually. It says that children are our heritage. It's God's heritage. Our children belong to God just as they do to us. And, Sancino says that the rabbis declared a child to have free parents, God in addition to his father and mother. And God, brethren, has given us the opportunity to share in the rearing of his children for this purpose. He wants us to find out what it's like to be a parent. Let's go to Matthew 18. Matthew 18.

You know, here we use this Scripture very often with the blessing of little children. But let's go over here and look at it from the standpoint of the spiritual content of it. But in Matthew 18 and verse 1, it says, At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

You know, so they were arguing about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. This is what people normally do in the world today. Right now we got a presidential election, don't we? And we got two candidates who are saying to us, who is the greatest to be the president? Isn't that right? I mean, that's what they're doing.

And as I said before, you know, to a few, we were talking about the elections.

You know, I'm afraid it doesn't matter who gets elected to be president. The bus is heading down the cliff. And, you know, depending upon who we elect, I guess you just, what basically we're going to be determining with this election is how fast you want the bus to go down the cliff. Because it's going down. And I'm afraid there's nothing to be done that could stop it. Short of this entire nation turning to God completely, repenting of its sins, and deciding it was going to begin to change the way it is as a nation, as a people.

But the disciples were arguing about that. Who's the greatest is? I mean, notice in verse 2, And then Jesus called the little child to him, and said him in the midst of them, And said, Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted, that word converted means changed. Unless you change and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

And whosoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me.

So it's fair to say the disciples were falling short of the kingdom of God here. In some ways, what were those ways? Well, Jesus Christ used the child to show them the way.

And they were learned from that child, or they would not be destined for the kingdom of God. And the same is true, brethren, for us.

Unless we learn from children, the lessons that must be learned, we are not destined for the kingdom of God.

So we need small children. And Christ expects us then to mine the gold from those children in order to be in the kingdom. Now, why did Christ highlight small children's infants to his disciples?

Well, brethren, if we value the words of God, then we are going to want to know why.

Now, what do we need to do to find the answer to this? Well, number one, we need the power of observation, don't we? We need to be able to observe.

Number two, we need to be able to meditate on it. We need to think about it, what Jesus is saying here.

And number three, we need small children. And we got them. We have them within the church today. You know, the first thing that you observe about children is the first thing that all of us need to get the message about when we're called. And that the first thing the infant needs to do is eat. Right?

And because they cannot get by without eating.

And they cannot grow without eating. And so that's why for us, brethren, being at services, being at Bible studies, studying God's Word, eating all the time.

You know, we used to complain about our boys being at the refrigerator all the time. You know, the light in the refrigerator sometimes would go out, by the way, because the door was open so much. So you have to replace it. Now, how many of you have ever had to replace a light in the refrigerator? A few of you have. Only those of you who have children have to do that. Right.

It's because they are always eating. And that's good! Because you have to eat to grow.

And we have to eat, brethren, to grow spiritually speaking. So let's learn that valuable lesson. That first valuable lesson, brethren, that we must eat and we must grow. And Christ says, if you do not eat of my body and drink my blood, He says you cannot have life in you. You cannot have eternal life. So we must eat.

We have to eat as God's people. So that's the major big thing that you observe about little children. What are some of the other things that we observe about children?

You know, infants, small children, are totally dependent on their parents.

A small child left without someone to attend to their needs simply could not live in this world. You know, unless somebody else took care of them and watched after them. But, you know, scientists have shown that a child left without even affection or love will die. A small infant will die without the affection.

And I think I pointed that out to you in a sermon in the past. But it's important to have the love and affection of mother and father and others. Now, obviously, a child isn't aware of this great dependence. And, you know, brother, just like you and me, when we are called into the church, when we receive God's Spirit, we don't know how dependent we are on God.

I have to be honest with you, brother. When I was first baptized, I didn't realize how dependent I was on God. I didn't understand.

But as time goes on, you do learn that. But we must see that. You know, King David came to see through meditation as a young man this great lesson of how dependent he was upon God.

You can learn a lot when you're watching over smelly sheep.

Out in the middle of nowhere, looking up in the sky, he pondered the stars, and he wondered about the greatness of God. And then it dawned on him. He asked the question himself, God, what are we that you even care about us?

And, brother, do we really understand what we are? What we are? You know, I'm not just trying to work on you psychologically here. I'm telling you the truth. Brother, we are nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You know, they say the Earth is on a spiral arm at the outside of the Milky Way galaxy.

Now, I'm not sure where we are in the galaxy, in the universe. But I don't think we're at the center of it. I think we're a long way from the center of the universe. Now, think about that.

You think about, then you wouldn't have to be far away from this solar system before the Earth would not even be visible at all.

In other words, brethren, it wouldn't take very long before this Earth would be nothing but a grain of sand hanging in the sky.

And if the Earth is a grain of sand hanging in the sky, what about you and me? We're like, as I've told God many, many times in my prayers, God, we're like microbes down here. We're even less than that! A microbe's too big!

You know, we're like microbes. We're nothing. But David comprehended that, and he realized that God cared about it. Let's go over to James 3. And yet, we as physical human beings, we are so self-assured. We think we don't need anyone. The other day, I was walking. And by the way, I tried to walk about an hour a day, and up to recently, I've walked in my backyard. Got a little path there, back and forth, back and forth. And that's how I got my exercise so far. Hopefully, I can get confident and start walking in the neighborhood again, as I was before. But over in James 3, let me not talk so much. And like you say, my left hand's not working here. So I've got to engage my brain, actually, to turn the pages.

But anyway, how did I get off on that?

I don't even know.

So anyway, let's go to James 3. James 3. Down in verse 13.

Oh, that's not where I want to go. Where did I... Oh, chapter 4. I'm sorry.

Chapter 4. Down in verse 13.

Here, notice what James writes. He says, Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.

For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. I remember why I was talking about the walking in the backyard now. It's because I was saying the song, you know, not very loud, by the way. The words go like this. When I was young, I never needed anyone.

I think it's a Beatles song. When I was young, I never needed anyone.

And forget what the other words are. I think I had them more figured out then than I do now. But anyway, I realize, though, as I was singing that song, but now I realize that's not true. I need everyone. I need everyone. Everyone that God has put in my life. And especially I need God. I need God. And we all need God. And we are nothing but a vapor. We're not much. Before God. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. You know, again, we are dependent upon God.

There was Paul, a member was on Mars Hill, and he talked about the unknown God, and he said he wanted to tell them about the unknown God.

He said it was through that unknown God that we live and move and have our being.

He was, of course, a poet of his day, if you look at what it says over there. But we can feel pretty cocky as human beings, but our lives hang by the slenderness of threats.

And we are four minutes from death at any time. Four minutes! Four minutes. You don't breathe at the four minutes, you're dead.

And you know, for me, I died for a week.

It's good to be back, by the way. I was dead for a week as far as I was concerned. My wife said I was talking during that whole week. Probably a carryover from the ministry, you know, just to keep talking.

But I know what it's like to hang from a slender threat.

You know, when I had the bypass surgery, I said to my wife, it's a win-win.

If I die, I won't care.

And if I have the operation, I get better. It's a win-win. You know, I look at death a little differently now.

Obviously, I wouldn't want to leave my family. I wouldn't want to leave my friends. I wouldn't want to leave my brethren. But, you know, if it's over, it's over. And if God pulls the plug on us, and I don't want to be so cold as that because He doesn't do that. I'm sure that God is very careful and loving in all He does for us. But if God decides that our time is up, there's nothing any of us can do about it, because we depend totally upon Him, and we're in good hands with God.

You know, Job realized these things.

You know, I don't want to compare what I went through to Job.

But after it was all over, he saw God differently.

That's the message you read about in the book of Job.

And Job was much smaller in his own eyes than God was. God was much greater. I don't want to go over there and read all that he said. But if you want to read Job 37 and verses 5 through 23, you find out what Job discovered about God, how great God is.

And you know, one of the things I can relate to in my life is that.

How great God is, and how merciful He is, and how glorious He is, and how much we need Him. So, brethren, we need to see what our children depend on, and that is how much they need their parents. We need to see how much we need God, and how dependent we are on God.

So another thing that we need to see, though, brethren, and you see this in little children, and to me it is the purest thing to see this, is that a child has no hypocrisy. You know, it's not about little children. They've got no hypocrisy.

They have no shame. They have no shame at all.

Until they get older, they start learning about shame, don't they? But they have no hypocrisy.

We found the worst thing that you could do is to tell a child a secret.

You know, especially when there are three, and four, and five.

Someone once said that there's a telegraph, there's a telephone, and there's a telewoman. I don't know if you heard that, but Joe and I learned there was a telechild, and it gets relayed then.

You know, a child simply cannot and will not keep a secret. They're just an open book to everyone.

And, you know, a child has nothing to hide, like the old saying, what you see is what you get. You know, we should be more of an open book as God's people, like children are.

What you see is what you get.

You know, some people, they wonder, they look at you and me, and they say, what's going on in your mind?

And, you know, I don't know if you're ever asked that. Usually, I just tell people, what's going on in my mind is what you see me say and do on the outside. That's what's going on.

Again, not always. I'm not perfect. You're not either. But what's going on in the side of a mind of a child is being demonstrated to us every single day. You know, it just really is, because what you see is what you get.

Now, I'm not saying that everything should be shared with everyone, and we do have to teach children that there are some things that are private in families that need to be kept private.

But we don't have anything to hide. We are human beings, and we should be honest and sincere as God's people. All of us have been, though, hypocritical at times. I mean, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand if you've been hypocritical, because if you don't raise your hand, you're being hypocritical.

Because we've all been hypocritical. Let's go over to Galatians 2 and notice a time when the apostle was hypocritical. It won't take long to read the verse, but in chapter 2 and verse 11, let's notice here. And now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed.

For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

And it says the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. And so, you know, here Paul had to withstand Peter to his face about this. Now, it was a serious thing that he was being hypocritical about. And, brethren, we should not be of a hypocritical nature. Peter was wrong, though, here. I'm sure he changed with regard to this. Well, brethren, will we change if we see we're being hypocritical?

You know, Paul told Titus, under the pure, all things are pure, but under them that are defiled and unbelieving, it's nothing pure.

You know, whenever you talk to people very often in the world, you know, about things, certain things, they wonder what your motive is. They always wonder what your motive is. You know, when you come back and say, I don't have any motive for saying what I say, my intentions are pure. You know, hopefully that's true with us. That we don't have motives. You know, we don't have reasons for our own benefit that we're saying something a certain way or doing something a certain way. God's people, brethren, should be pure from within and they should be pure from without as well. In other words, what you see is what you get. We should have a singleness of mind. You know, it says in the book of James that a double-minded man is not to be trusted. He's unstable in all of his ways. So we need to be of one mind, one mind. But, brethren, how about us? Do we have one mind? Are we in the church to be in the kingdom of God?

Or do we have other reasons for being in the church? Well, we found out in 95 there were a lot of people that were in the church for the wrong reasons. They were in the church because it was a popularity club. It was like a social club for them. And when the social club didn't have the people in there that they had before, they left. They left. Well, brethren, God wants us to be people that are in the church for the right reasons. And that right reason, brethren, is to be in the kingdom. In all that we do in our lives, that we want to be in the kingdom.

Now, I'll tell you what. When you get to the point where you don't know if you're going to live or not, the kingdom becomes much more important than you could even imagine. I don't want to get into saying much more than that because it gets very emotional today. I've got a lot to say to you about that. I get emotional if I start talking about certain things, and I don't want to do that because you don't want this sermon to turn into a crying fest. You know, I'd have to ask Mr. Wharram to come up here, or Mr. Spears to come up and finish the sermon. But, you know, we should be people that are true and blue from the heart's core.

Sometimes people can be a certain way. I remember we used to say, and you can see this in different places. We used to have this in Spokesman's Club. What you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. You know, Adolph Hitler, for instance, wants to talk to you about love. You're probably not going to listen, are you? Or Edie Ami wants to come and lecture us about Christianity. We probably wouldn't be listening to him, or someone like that, or the Shaw of Iran, or anyone like that. So, a small child doesn't have hypocrisy, and we should not have hypocrisy. You know, a small child, too, is not filled with vanity. Look at a little child, a small child, brethren. They just don't have any vanity about them. Children are so pure and so innocent.

They're not embarrassed when they do something, when they try something. They're not embarrassed by it. And they act excited and they're enthused about something. They show you. They show you they're excited. They got the hands clapping and a big smile. They will smile with those toothless grins. I love to see a child smile with a toothless grin. Jump up and down with joy.

When I see no teeth in the front of a child, I think, boy, he or she is growing, growing older. You know, it won't be long. There'll be teenagers.

Of course, I see it in an old person. I think you didn't take care of your teeth. But hopefully all of us will have our teeth when we get older.

Let's see. Unfortunately, a child matures, or we say they mature, and they begin to stifle the kind of enthusiasm that they've had because of what they're taught. And vanity begins to creep in. They begin to be more self-conscious and concerned about what others will think about them. And to agree that's not inappropriate, we do need to be concerned about our example, depending upon how mature we are, because as we mature, we should become more sober. That should be a part of it. But also, brethren, we shouldn't be afraid to demonstrate if we're happy. You know, what's wrong with being happy? What's wrong with that? We shouldn't be afraid to cry if need be, unless you need to get through a sermon. But, you know, the world, what the world does to us is it calluses us. It makes us hard. It hardens us in inappropriate ways. And unfortunately, sometimes people who have had a hard life, they think that their kids should have a hard life. You know, why aren't you out there enjoying yourself? You ought to be in here working, like I did when I was a kid. You know, I used to walk five miles to school, and it was uphill both ways. You know, used to wear post-acts on our feet in the wintertime.

Now, by the way, my dad and mom really did wear post-acts when they were, you know, small, but they told us about that. I'm glad we didn't have to. We were able to wear shoes when I went to school. The only thing I remember about our shoes is oftentimes the soul would come off, and you know how you try to stick them back? And he never could. And if you're walking down the hallway, flip-flop, flip-flop, you know, all the way down. I remember having to do that a lot with shoes, but at least we had shoes. And we had feet, you know, in those days. But God gave us, of course, the blessing of feet and all of that. Of course, I'm being facetious. But let's see. But we get calloused, and the world begins to impact us. You know, Jesus, when He sent His disciples out, you know what He said to them? He said, I send you out as sheep in the midst of what? Wolves. You're sheep. You're lambs. And Christ is saying, I want you to go out there amongst those wolves, and I still want you to be a lamb. I want you to still be a lamb, but I want you to be as wise as a serpent. You be as wise as a serpent and as tame as a dove. You be this way. You be wise, but don't become like them. Don't be like them. You know, God wants His people to be like children, sweet and adorable and lovable people. A people who are gentle and peace-loving. A people who refuse to thank the worst in an evil, perverse world like we live in today. We must be the most harmless people upon the face of the earth as God's people. You know, the world has nothing to fear from us at all. You and me, the church, nothing to fear from God's people all through the ages. But, young, one day, brethren, those of us who are called now are going to be the movers and shakers in the world tomorrow. And you know what? The world won't have anything to fear from us then, either. But a lot to look forward to at that time. You know, the mark of Satan's influence is negativism. For Satan is the accuser of the brethren. That's what he does all the time. Accuse, accuse, accuse. Negative, negative, negative. And we need to counter, brethren, that negative attitude in this world with being positive as God's people. Think the best about everything.

And, brethren, find it hard sometimes to believe, particularly among God's people, something that's negative about God's people. In other words, you have to have a lot of evidence before you begin to believe negative things about God's people. And we need to be that way as God's people. Negativism warps our minds. It warps our minds, brethren. So defend the doors of your mind and maintain a sense of innocence and expressiveness. I'm not going to turn to Philippians 4 verses 6 through 8, but you can later. It shows how we need to be learning to be positive about all things. Another thing about an infant or a small child is they are absolutely teachable and trusting. They're teachable and trusting. We have had the opportunity to spend some time with our grandchildren. Sean and Mary came up and brought their three sons.

Isaac and Phineas and Seth. And we spent the whole feast with Joseph, Stephen, and Melanie's little boy. He's two years old. I was struck by something that our son, our oldest son, conveyed to his grandparents. Not to us, by the way. Isaac, by the way, is five years old.

He's five years old. Phineas and Seth are twins, and they're three years old.

And the one thing a tough boy likes to do, by the way, is to push buttons. I mean, if there was a button that said atomic bomb, we'd have to hold his hand back because he'd want to push that button just to see what would happen. But, you know, the tough boys are about as we would expect them to be. And they get on elevators, and when you've got three little boys wanting to push the elevator up, you know what happens? You get three little boys all over crying because they want to do it. They want to push the button. Where our oldest grandson, Isaac, decides he's going to be the diplomat.

When everybody's crying, and he tells Phineas, he says, look, you can push the elevator button to go up, and Seth, you can push the elevator button to go down. And he said, I will push to close the door. But now he's smart because he gets to push the button every time. But what was so funny, though, is he organized it, and all the crying stopped.

And Sean was very amazed. And last week we were able to go down and visit with Joan's mother and father. Their father's in 1985, but he was telling us this story. He says, I can't believe the whole thing. Isaac did that. So he was very proud of his great grandson. That Isaac organized the whole thing for them. Another time is they came up and spent some time with us, drove up this, I forget when it was, when they came up. But months have really passed me by, brother. I mean, I don't know when people did things. Was it summer or winter? Or when was it? Because it had been eight months since I've been among living people. But anyway, it was a time when Sean and Mary, they brought Isaac, Phineas, and Seth up to the house. And we were spending time with them. And they loved anything with water. By the way, we have a fountain in the very back, and we have a fountain in the courtyard. And the two little boys, you know, Phineas and Seth, like to throw things in the fountain. Everything into the fountain. Well, Phineas, he had been up, I think, talking to his mother. And he was running downstairs. He was naked. At the time, he was two years old. And if you've seen Seth and Phineas, you know, they've got big eyes. His eyes are really big. And as he comes and he says, I did big trouble.

And anyway, we didn't know what the big trouble was. But I mean, I just about laughed my head off when I saw that. I did big trouble. And anyway, apparently Mary had just punished him because he threw my clock in the fountain. A wooden clock. He wanted to see if it floated.

But we didn't find that out until afterwards, after the wooden clock had dried out. And unbelievably, it still works. But he learned real fast that he did big trouble.

At the feast in Hawaii, we were coming back from somewhere. I forget where it was. And I guess you and you and Stephen and Melanie and Joseph had gone somewhere. Joseph is two years old. He's a grandson. I think we're coming back from an activity or something. But Joseph declared on the way back, he said, I'm fascinated. And Joseph said, what? He said, I'm fascinated. And she came in and she said, where in the world have you learned that word? Fascinated. He's two years old.

I guess the brain sort of rubbed off a little bit here. No, don't. But, you know, he was fascinated. Two years old. I know when I was two, I wasn't fascinated.

I didn't even know what fascinated was. But it was shocking to hear him say, I'm fascinated. We had such a good time with little Joseph, you know, all during the feast. Played hide and seek. Joan and I would play hide and seek with him. And, of course, we would hide in plain sight.

Grandmother or nanny, as she's called. We call her mother, nanny, Jenny. We'll call her nanny, Joni. But, Joan hid under a blanket and had to giggle for Joseph the finder. So, anyway. And I hid, I forget where I hid, I hid behind posts. You know, you could only see my nose sticking out. Then I was able to do that because now I'm so skinny, if I turn sideways, I stick out my tongue and I look like a zipper. So, it's... But small children are fascinated, aren't they? They have a love affair with life. Every day is a welcome adventure to them. Every claw, every stick, every rock, every tiny creature is deserving of their attention. Every meal is a learning experience. You ever seen a little baby eat spaghetti?

That is entertainment. Right there. Forget about TV. You don't need TV. You don't need entertainment. Everywhere they go is their classroom. All we have to do is answer the questions when they come up with them. Why is the sky blue? Why does the light bulb work? Why, dad? Why this? Why that?

We can observe children, by the way, that they're teachable and they're trusting.

If child is so trusting, they'll jump in the arms of their father and mother when they're small. Are we willing to jump into the arms of our father and heaven and to trust him? Are we willing to step out on faith and believe God? What God says? What causes us to begin to doubt God and begin to not have a trust? I've sat in people's homes and I've read them the scriptures about child rearing. You know what they've said to me?

That doesn't work. That doesn't work. Well, brethren, I'm here to tell you whatever God says works. We've used it. It's good material. It is good material. It works. And if, brethren, it doesn't work for us, maybe we have not applied it correctly the way that we should. You know, God doesn't... He's not going to make you do it, but you have to do it out of love and you have to do it in a way that is based in a positive way.

I think we begin to doubt God when we have trials. You know, I have... I am... My age is 61 years old. My brother had a bypass when he was 59 years old, by the way. And I look at... I'm here. I'm 61. I had a bypass surgery. Why is it that I'm having to have this done? Because, I mean, I haven't eaten pork. I haven't eaten these things. You know, all of this stuff that people eat, you know, today, shellfish and shrimp and, you know, different things that people eat that one should not eat. I'm not saying you should eat it, but I remember at the beginning, I went through that period when I said, God, why? Why am I having to go through this? Because, believe it or not, when I came out of the hospital, I was walking two and a half, three miles. One time, I walked five miles. And then I was told after that, hey, you need to have a bypass surgery. So I said, well, maybe I shouldn't be walking five miles or two and a half miles. So I wondered why God? And quite frankly, I think Satan tried to get me to doubt God.

But I do not doubt God. You know, our family just simply has a weakness with that. And, you know, even if we obey God's laws, it doesn't mean we won't have that problem. It doesn't mean that. So be aware of that, brethren. Just because you keep the laws of clean and clean meats doesn't mean you won't have heart problems. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that.

Our family, unfortunately, has had the curse of heart problems for a long, long time. I know friends, by the way, went through the same thing. I know one man whose father died when he was in his fifties. He also, my friend, had to have bypass surgery. And he wondered about that. Why did he have to do that? Because he didn't eat pork. He didn't eat all this stuff. Well, brethren, you know, God wants us to eat properly. And it will put us in better stead, quite frankly, because my recuperation has been much faster than other people's. Might have been. But, you know, we should not doubt God. We should still trust God. We should have trusted Him and continue to let Him be teaching us. Sometimes when we pray and we don't get intervention, we begin to doubt God. We maybe wonder if He's there. But, brethren, He's always there. He does not give us the answer that we want. But God knows, brethren, He knows exactly what we need. And He alone knows what we need. The first thing I thought about, brethren, when this happened to me is I said, I looked at what Paul said when he said, don't think it's strange when a fiery trial happens to you. And I realized, brethren, what God means by a fiery trial.

He's not just talking about a little discomfort here, but I mean a fiery trial, a smoking trial in your life. But, brethren, it doesn't cause me to doubt God one Iota. I believe God. I trust God. I love God with all of my heart and soul and mind.

You remember Job had his problem, his wife. What did she say to him? Why don't you just curse God and die? You know, and Job said, what? We don't receive good and bad from the Lord. In other words, in our lives we have bad things that happen. No, we're not immune to all that happening to us in our lives. But, at least, brethren, in our lives, at least in our lives, we know why. We know why. And, brethren, I wouldn't trade what happened to me for a million dollars. I wouldn't want to go through it again. And I pray I never do. And I pray you never have to go through what I went through. And you don't know the whole story. I assure you, you do not know the whole story and what I went through.

But I don't want you to go through what I went through. But I wouldn't pray what I went through for anything. Because it's gone now. It's passed. Doesn't hurt anymore. So, brethren, we need to be teachable and trusting in God.

Are you willing, brethren, to do again, jump in the arms of God? Or have you experienced trials and are now afraid to put yourself in the loving hands of God? Can we trust God in everything? Okay. Do you believe in your spiritual daddy? He will never let you down, brethren. He will never let you down. He will be with you throughout your life, no matter what you go through. He will be there with you, brethren, on your deathbed. And you'll be glad he is there.

Sometimes we lose that trusting attitude because we think we've given too much.

Or we like the man with one talent who goes and buries it because he feared he might lose it.

Well, brethren, if you have that attitude, you will lose everything. You will lose everything. But if you trust in God, you will gain everything. You will gain everything. It's going to Luke 18. Luke 18. Luke chapter 18 and down in verse 28. I'm glad they brought a stool up here behind me. Thankfully, I haven't needed it today. I thought I would. I didn't know if I could stand for this time. But I'm leaning against the lectern here. So that helps a little bit. Luke 18 verse 28. Peter says here, Luke 18 verse 28, then Peter said, See, we've left all and followed you. We've given up so much, Peter says.

So he said to them, Assuredly I say to you, there is no one, no one, that includes you and me, brethren, who has left house or parents or brothers or wives or children for the sake of the kingdom of God. And that's about us, isn't it? Who shall not receive many times more in this present time and in the age to come, eternal life. God's going to keep his word, brethren. If we can trust him and continue to let him teach us, we've got a lot to learn.

So these are things, four things, in addition to the fact that we need to eat and grow as God's people, five if you include that, that we need, brethren. We need to see it. Come down, brethren, from the high horse of adulthood and let these attitudes be in each one of you, in each one of us. Unless we become changed and become as little children, we will by no means enter the kingdom of God. Because Jesus Christ says in Matthew 18, verse 4, in conclusion, he says, whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child. So we need to again head down, brethren, on their level to begin to see what it is that is so important here. But if we can see it, whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.