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

Alright, we're here in Joel chapter 1, and in Joel chapter 1 we have one of the first minor prophets in the Bible, and when you look at the minor prophets, I think everyone would agree that the minor prophets are some of the most confusing parts to the Bible. A lot of verses you look at, you're just like, man, I don't know what it's talking about at all. And one of the reasons why the minor prophets can be confusing is because oftentimes what it's going to do is talk about an event that is taking place at that time it's being written, or something that just took place, or something that's about to take place, but then it's going to jump forward and give you kind of end times prophecy sort of things, or even not necessarily just end times prophecy, but future events that are going to take place. So it kind of jumps back and forth in time frame. And I know when I started reading the Bible that, you know, when I'd read through the minor prophets, I'd kind of read it out of duty, and it was hard to really focus on it because I almost felt like I couldn't really understand it at all. But honestly, even on the surface, there's a lot of great information, even in the minor prophets. And one great rule of thumb when we're reading the Bible is that if there's a part of the Bible you don't understand, don't just stop there and just throw in the towel, but just keep reading, because you're going to understand some of it. And if you read the book of Joel, you're going to understand some of it, and the parts you don't understand in the future you might understand that. You know, obviously this is some of the deeper things in the Bible, but honestly, we're going to see a very practical sermon just from the first few verses of the book of Joel in verses two and three. And the name of this sermon is A Strategy to Reach Future Generations. A strategy to reach future generations. We're going to see this morning that in verses two and three of Joel chapter one is a very in-depth strategy on how we can reach future generations. You say, what do you mean by reaching future generations? I'm primarily talking about the kids and the younger people in this room that they would grow up and end up loving the Lord. I mean, if you look at the majority of Baptist churches, what ends up happening to the children that are in those churches? And they grow up and they don't love the Lord. Very rarely do kids that grow up in IFB churches end up growing up and also loving the Lord. You can look at any of the famous preachers that are out there from the past, and by and large, their kids grew up and they did not love the Lord. That's the truth. And we don't want to see that happen, because you work so hard to be a part of a church like this and have great preaching. A lot of us have moved here to be a part of this church. The last thing you would want is for your kids to grow up when you put in so much effort and forsake God. And yes, they might end up being saved, but they don't really care about living for the Lord. I don't want to see that happen to my son. Now, obviously, my son is very young, but I'll be honest with you. When I look at places like this in the Bible, it really interests me, because we're taking this by faith. You could even look at our pastor, and his kids aren't that old. But we know that if you follow the principles of the Bible, the Bible is always true. Some things we have to take by faith, and we're going to see this morning that if we follow what's here in the Bible, our kids will grow up and they will love the Lord. That's what we're going to see. But we've got to choose to put in the effort. So I want you to see here in Joel chapter 1, we're going to look at four points. And I want you to start here in verse number 2, where the Bible reads, Hear this, ye old men, and give ear all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? The first point that I want you to see is this. Everybody needs to hear the Word of God. Notice how it says, all ye inhabitants of the land. Now Joel is preaching the Word of God, and the example for us in a church is that when the sermons are being preached, everybody needs to hear the message. Every single person. Now that might sound extremely basic, but we're going to see here in a few minutes how the way a lot of churches pattern themselves, not everybody in that church hears the Word of God when it's being preached. They have a lot of children's ministries and various things like that. But what the Bible says is, all ye inhabitants of the land. Every single person in this room, in the mother-baby rooms, in the father-baby rooms, everyone in this building, everyone part of this church, we all need to hear this sermon, including the person preaching. We all need to hear the message of the Word of God for every single church service. Now before it says, all ye inhabitants of the land, notice how it says, ye old men. Now you might say, well is this a contradiction? Is he talking about the old men or all the inhabitants? He's very clear he's talking about all the inhabitants, so the question comes up, why does he say old men? Why does he focus on them first? Well there's two things about this. First he says old, okay? Here's the reason why he says old. Notice what it says in verse number two at the end. Have this been in your days or even in the days of your father's? He's saying you that are out there, have you ever seen anything like this take place in your entire lifetime? Now let's face it, if somebody is like seven, eight, nine years old, they haven't seen that much take place, right? When he says, have you ever seen anything like this take place, nobody's seen this take place, but people that are younger, they haven't seen that much take place. For example, when I was a kid we had a couple big blizzards that took place in 1993 and 1996. I know in California you might not know what a blizzard is, it's when you have a lot of snow, it's that white thing that falls from the sky, but if you grow up back east during cold temperatures you end up having snow during the winter time. We had a couple massive blizzards, and in 1993 and 1996 we had literally four feet of snow. It was insane how much snow we had. We literally missed school for a lot, it was great as a kid. We were out of school for a whole month. We were out of school for a while, and the blizzard I could look at in my life in 1993 when I was eight or nine years old, and I could say, man, I've never seen anything like this take place, but see in 1978 was the storm of the century. If you were alive during 1978 you could say, well, I've seen that take place, but see what Joel says here is nobody's seen this take place. He's like, had this been in your days or even in the days of your fathers? So when he's talking to people, even people that are 80, 90 years old, he says, you have never seen anything like this take place, or even in your father's days. Nobody has ever seen anything like this take place. That's the reason why he starts off by signaling old, but then he says men. So why does he refer to men? There's two different ways that you could look at this. One way you could look at this and say, well, men is referring to mankind. It's just referring to everyone in general. That might be the case. I don't personally believe that, and the reason why I don't believe that is it's telling you in the context here to tell your children and raise your children correctly. And who's supposed to set the tone for the family? The husband's supposed to set the tone as the head of the household and make sure that his kids learn the word of God and his wife learns the word of God. Now unfortunately, when you look throughout the world, by and large, women are a little bit more spiritual than men. That's the truth. And you're going to see in churches across the country and across the world that there's ladies that go to church and their husbands don't go to church. And in those situations, obviously the woman needs to take the lead there to teach their kids and make sure they learn the word of God. But God's ideal plan is the whole family to live for the Lord, and the husband should set the tone for the family. But it doesn't negate the fact, even though it says old men, that he still said all ye inhabitants of the land. He might highlight old men first, but he wants everybody to hear this message. Now turn to Matthew 19. And so when the preaching of the word of God is being done in church, everybody needs to hear the sermon. You say, well, I'm a single guy and it's a sermon about how to be a good mother. It says all ye inhabitants of the land. Everybody needs to hear the sermon regardless of what the sermon is. We all need to hear the word of God. We'll learn something. We'll be edified about something. The word of God is infinitely deep. We're going to learn something, and God says all ye inhabitants of the land. Now this sounds very basic, but you go across the country, you look at the average IFB church, and guess what? Not all inhabitants of that church hear the sermons. They don't. They have children's ministries. They have a junior church that takes place during the actual preaching service. Now I'm not going to go to a rabbit trail and talk to you about the dangers in that. We know that. There's a reason why we have mother-baby rooms and father-baby rooms. There's a reason why we have security cameras and stuff, because a bad person would love to be in that situation. But the context here, he says everybody needs to hear the word of God. Now if you have a junior church and all the kids were out of this room and they're hearing a sermon from somebody, they're not hearing the same sermon that everybody else is. But God says all ye inhabitants of the land. And I'll tell you what, if you've ever worked in children's ministries and on the bus routes in junior church, the person that preaches at junior church preaches a lame sermon. A lame sermon you'd expect to hear at a non-denominational church. They don't get behind the pulpit and preach about the dangers in alcohol and fornication. No they preach just this generic sermon and they give the kids a lot of candy so they won't act up. That's not an exaggeration at all. It's a joke. And there's reasons why they have to do that. But what does the Bible say? Because you could talk to those IFB pastors and they're going to tell you, well we need to care about the kids. We need all these children's ministries. And look, we have homeschooling programs. We have ministries. But we still follow what the Bible says and don't go against the Bible. Notice what it says in Matthew 19 verses 13 and 14. It says in Matthew 19 verse 13 and 14, Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me. For of such is the kingdom of heaven. See the disciples said, well just rebuke these kids. These kids need to stay aside. They shouldn't be here where we are. But Jesus says, Suffer little children. He's saying, allow them to come. They get to hear the preaching. They get to be around Jesus as well. It's the same thing in churches. When the preaching of the word of God is being done, we should suffer the little children. They should be able to be here in the service with us and get to hear the same preaching that we get to hear. It's common sense that if these kids are hearing these generic sermons that you would expect to hear at Joel Osteen's church, they hear a generic sermon and they're singing all these kind of goofy, fun songs rather than the old-fashioned hymns. What do you think that they're going to look for in a church when they grow up? I mean, it's common sense. I mean, this is a biblical thing, but just think about common sense. If those kids are used to that when they grow up, they're going to look for a non-denominational church. And what do you see with most IFP churches around the country? The people are getting older. You're not having any youth at those churches. And as a result, they get more water down to try to reach those young kids. And it's just because they're not following what the Bible says. You see, the Bible says, all ye inhabitants of the land. I've literally been in an IFP church before where the pastor went to Matthew 19 and he used this to prove why we need children's ministries. He said, well, Jesus cared about kids, so we need to care about kids as well. It's like, I agree we need to care about kids, and that's why we should suffer the little children and let them hear the same preaching that we hear. We all need to hear the preaching of the Word of God. I mean, I don't remember a part in the Bible where it said, well, this section is for people between these ages, and only let the kids read this small little section over here. Do you remember that in the Bible? Because I thought this Bible was for everybody. I thought every book of the Bible, every chapter, every line, I thought it was all mine, it was all yours, it was all of ours, that we're supposed to read the whole Word of God. I thought it said, read there in all the days of thy life, and meditate on every word. Isn't that what the Bible says? It says every word of God, and yet in these churches, they're not doing that. They're making sure the kids are not really hearing the preaching of the Word of God. They follow this tradition that's not in the Bible. They don't suffer the little children, and what ends up happening? Those kids are going to grow up, and they are not going to be reached. They might get saved, but you know what? They're not going to love the Lord. And honestly, you look at those churches, oftentimes those kids don't even get saved because they hear a generic gospel presentation. Look, the method doesn't work. They've tried it. It does not work. There's a reason why we don't have children's ministries here, but we can look at the Book of Joel. In the Minor Prophets, and Joel's advice was, all inhabitants of the land hear the sermon. I mean, it's pretty clear. Now turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3, and so we see why we don't have a children's ministry because the Bible says all inhabitants of the land need to hear the sermon, so everybody needs to be here. And so in the mother-baby rooms and the father-baby rooms, we have the TVs there so everybody can hear the Word of God, even if they're in those rooms. But we have to realize that if we're going to suffer the little children, realize that times are going to be a little bit rowdy. There's a reason why we have those rooms. Now the Bible says all inhabitants of the land are supposed to hear the preaching of the Word of God. But here's the thing. If in those mother-baby rooms and father-baby rooms, people are not paying attention, and they're on their cell phone and texting and talking during the sermon, it kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it? Which means we need to make sure that in those rooms, as well as in here, we're paying attention. And look, it's very easy to make it look like you're paying attention and not pay attention. I mean, you don't even have to be on your cell phone. You could just be thinking about how you want to go to Golden Crown in an hour. And I'm not going to know that. I mean, I'm sure there's people right now that say, yeah, I'm just showing up out of duty because Pastor Mendez would find out I wasn't here when he was gone. You could do that if you wanted to, and that's your choice. But you know what? The Bible says all inhabitants of the land need to hear the sermon. I don't care who you are in this room. You need this preaching. I need this preaching. We need the preaching that God lays on Pastor's heart when he preaches a sermon. We need to pay attention, whether it's here, in the mother-baby rooms, the father-baby rooms, anywhere. And I understand the tendency that when you hear a sermon that you feel like you've heard before, like if Pastor were to preach a sermon on salvation, the tendency in our minds is just to think, man, I've heard this before. I understand salvation. Why can't he talk about something else? But we need to be reminded of the same things over and over again. There's a lot of repetition in the Bible. We need to hear the same things over and over again. It's not good enough to hear one sermon against fornication, and then Pastor's like, well, I preached the sermon back in 2012, so I can give you the copy of the CD if you want, but I'm not going to preach on it for another 30 years. It's not good enough. We need to be reminded of the same things over and over again. Now, we see that all inhabitants of the land are supposed to hear the sermon. But there's something kind of interesting here in this passage. Remember what he's saying here. He says, tell your children, and your children, their children, and their children, and another generation. Now, if you were to stop and look at this crowd today, there are people of all ages here, right? There's people that are 50 and above. There's people that are in their 40s, their 30s, their 20s, their teens. There's people that are the age of 10 to 12, less than 10, babies, newborns, people that are less than one year old, male and female of all ages in this room, right? Now remember that the message he said is, tell your children. Now, who is Joel talking to? Everybody. Does everybody have children? Not everybody has children, right? Because there's people of all ages. There's people that are less than 10, people that do not have kids. And then he says, tell your children and their children. Does everyone have grandchildren? I mean, in this room, does everybody have grandchildren? No. Then he says, their children and another generation, does everybody have great grandchildren? No. And so this message Joel is preaching, he says, I want every single person to hear this, even if it does not directly apply to them. He says, all inhabitants of the land, you need to tell your children. You say, well, I don't have any children yet. You still need to hear it, because one day you might have children. And he says, everybody's supposed to hear the sermon. And you know what that does? It destroys this stupid doctrine called dispensationalism, because you know what dispensationalism teaches is that, well, there's certain parts of the Bible that don't apply to me, don't apply to you. It's only for this generation or this group of people. But wait a minute. This message does not apply to everyone Joel's talking to. Not everybody has children, and he still says, I want all inhabitants of the land to hear this. He says in 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. He says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. All scripture. You see, this dispensationalism teaching, it teaches that certain parts of the Bible are not for us. The books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, they don't apply to us. Because that was thousands of years ago, according to dispensationalists. It doesn't apply to us at all. Only certain parts of the Bible apply to us. So I guess when there's warnings against drinking alcohol in the Book of Proverbs, that doesn't apply to us anymore. You know, because we're in the New Testament, so just forget about what it says in the Book of Proverbs. I mean, do you realize how stupid this doctrine is when you think about it? The Book of Philemon was written to Philemon, Ephia, Archippus, and the church in his house. Are you saying that nobody else in the entire world was supposed to read the Book of Philemon? Because it only directly applied to that one church. What about the Book of Timothy? The Book of Timothy was written to Timothy. Does that mean that nobody else is supposed to read that book? Because it was written for Timothy. It applies to Timothy, so we're not supposed to read it. What some dispensationalists will say is, well, only if you're supposed to be a preacher should you read the Book of Timothy, because it's a preacher's book. The Bible says everybody's supposed to hear it, whether it directly applies to them or not. It says, all ye inhabitants of the land. Every single word in this Bible we need to read, we need to learn from. Obviously there's books in the Bible and passages that are more pertinent to certain groups of people. Obviously Proverbs 31 about being a godly wife is going to be most profitable to wives, to learn how to be a godly wife, but that does not change the fact that I need to hear that, you need to hear that, whatever age, everybody needs to hear the same thing. But it's not just the dispensationalists who like to say only part of the Bible's for us. There's these hyper-grace teachers out there, and I'm not talking about Calvinism when I'm talking about hyper-grace. I'm talking about guys like Joseph Prince. Who here knows who Joseph Prince is? He's a very famous false prophet. He calls himself a prince and he looks like a princess. That's the truth. He looks like a woman. It's like, why don't you get a haircut before you get behind the pulpit and preach? Of course, he doesn't have a pulpit. He just walks around on stage. But this hyper-grace teacher, he says, well, none of the Old Testament applies to us because we're under grace. We're not under the law. So anything in the law doesn't apply to us at all. So when it says, love thy neighbor as thyself, which comes from the book of Leviticus, I guess that's not really for us, according to him. But they'll say only parts of the Bible apply. Only the Pauline epistles apply. That is what he would say, that only certain parts of the Bible apply to us. I thought the New Testament said, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. That's not in the Old Testament. That's in the New Testament. God says, be holy, for I am holy. God expects us to be holy, and this entire book applies to us. Whether or not it directly applies to us or not, we still need to hear the same preaching of the word of God. Every book in this Bible we need to read. Every single book. All of us in this room need to be in a pattern of reading this book every day and not skipping certain parts, but reading the entire Bible. Turn back to Joel chapter one. This guy Joseph Prince, or Joseph Princess, when you hear him talk, give his little talk that he likes to do, he'll talk about how you should never feel guilty for your sin at all. No matter what sin you commit. He says the reason why people commit sins is because they're being made to feel guilty, so it causes them to be in this pattern where they keep sinning. So basically, you get an abortion. Well, don't feel guilty about that. You get drunk last night, don't feel guilty about that. I mean, no matter what you do, don't feel guilty. He says you never have to ask for forgiveness ever. You should never ask for forgiveness to God. That's what he teaches. Now, isn't that ridiculous? And you say, why does the world love preaching like that? Because the world loves false preachers, because he's one of them. And he'll get up here and act like he believes like us, because he'll say, well, you don't have to repent of your sins. He doesn't think you should follow the law at all. But the Bible speaks about people like him in the book of Jude that would turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, and go around and say, well, just go out and sin, and don't worry about it. Don't feel bad about it ever. No, you know, if we don't have the hard preaching, we will all get into sin. We need the hard preaching to fix our lives. Everyone in this room, including myself, we need to hear hard preaching from the Word of God. I mean, cry aloud was not just in the Old Testament. That's in the New Testament as well. When you see Jesus speak, he speaks pretty hard to some people. We need to hear the preaching of the Word of God. So the first thing we saw in Joel chapter 1 is just simply everybody needs to hear the preaching of the Word of God in church, every single person. But I want you also to notice that the next thing is that we ought to highlight certain things when it comes to preaching. Whether it's preaching behind the pulpit or teaching our kids at home, we need to highlight certain things. The first thing is it needs to be something that is applicable. We need to preach on applicable things. See, Joel is preaching a very applicable sermon. They are dealing with a massive famine in their land, and he's telling them how they need to deal with it as people. They need to understand this. And so he's preaching something very applicable to their lives. Now, turn to Isaiah 58, verse 1. I just kind of quoted from there, Isaiah 58. And in Isaiah chapter 58, verse 1, you can ask Brother Vladi. Last week, I was sitting beside him, and the pastor said to turn to Isaiah 58, verse 1, and I was like, oh, no, he's going to use the exact same point that... because I had already written this sermon that I was going to use today. I was like, man, he's going to say the exact same thing. But you know what? We need to hear the same things over and over again. Because we focus oftentimes on Isaiah 58, verse 1, where it says, cry aloud, which is true. We need to preach hard and spare not, don't hold anything back. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression in the house of Jacob, their sins. See, we've got to preach on things that are applicable to the people that we're preaching to. He says, their transgression and their sins. You preach on what people need to hear. Honestly, that's a good tip for anyone who wants to preach sometimes and preach at the preaching nights. Preach something that's going to help the people you're preaching to. Don't preach something to look cool and to get a lot of views on YouTube or whatever. Preach something that's going to help who you're preaching to. That is what we're supposed to do as preachers, even if it's the same thing that's been heard. Look, we need to preach stuff that's going to help the people we're preaching to. You look at today's world, and in today's world, we have different issues than they had 30 years ago in America. And I believe that we ought to mainly listen to preachers that preach during this time period, because they are preaching on the issues of the day. For example, you're not going to hear old preachers preach that much on the sodomites. You know why? Because there weren't that many sodomites in America at the time. See, people will go to the Bible and say, wow, why doesn't the Bible talk that much? Because obviously the Bible condemns the sodomites in the Old Testament and the New Testament, but people will say, why doesn't it talk about it that much? Well, because they didn't have as many sodomites as they do in today's world. See, in today's world, we got tons, and so guess what? You need to preach it. Why? It's a specific, applicable thing for today's world. The LGBT agenda is huge. Look, you know, the dangers of social media, that is something we deal with during this time period. That's not really a sermon you're probably going to hear 30, 40, 50 years ago because it's something they didn't really deal with that much. I mean, obviously now with the Facebook and text messaging and all the different internet apps and things that we have, look, there's a lot of dangers with social media, or the dangers of the internet, you know. Before Al Gore invented the internet, like 20-some years ago or whenever, you know, it wasn't really an issue. But now in today's world, everybody has a computer. Everybody's on the internet all the time, whether it's on their cell phone or sitting down at a laptop. So there's a lot of dangers in the internet that they didn't have before. There are a lot of issues pertinent in today's world in this country that we need to preach on. We need to preach things that are applicable. Now turn to Joshua 24. And so we need to cry aloud about the issues that are applicable. Spare not, don't hold anything back on the issues that are applicable. And so issues that are applicable we need to preach on. And there might even be issues that are specific to, in the Bible, there's specific issues to certain churches that they deal with. Obviously the church of Galatia, they had a problem with salvation that they needed to cover. The church of Corinth, they had sin in the church. So there's applicable certain things that you preach. And so whether it's preaching behind the pulpit or also teaching your kids at home, you teach them things that are applicable and helpful. And also preach on significant things as well. So applicable and significant. Those are the things we highlight. Joshua 24, notice that verse number 29. And it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-sarah, which is in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaiash. And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel. Notice they served all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua. See, if you were to look at a time period in the Bible where people were really living for God, I would say it was during the time period with Joshua. They served God. Why did they serve God? What does it say? Which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel. You see, they passed down the message of what God had done for them. We need to highlight and preach on significant things. And you know what? When it comes to the works of the Lord, one great work we have is obviously soul winning. That is a great work that we can partake in. We work out there, we labor, and the Bible says the Lord working with us. These are the works of the Lord out soul winning. He's helping us out there. And we should have our kids out there soul winning with us. They see the great works. They see people getting saved. What is more exciting than that? There's nothing more exciting. I remember, even after I got saved, and I just kind of wondered what's my purpose in life. And once I started soul winning, I was like, man, this is why I'm here. It all makes sense now. This is our purpose is to get people saved. And you know what? We ought to have stories that we can pass down to our kids. We ought to take them soul winning. We ought to have some stories we can pass down to our kids. I remember when I was a kid, and my dad would always talk about sports because that's what I liked, and that's what he had really partaken in. He had played sports. And I would just hear the stories about my dad, my granddad. And as a kid, I just sat there listening to every single word. I was excited about it. I was interested about it. My dad would just tell stories for hours, and I was just listening to him about it. You know, wouldn't it God we would have stories about soul winning that we could pass down, and get our kids excited about something that really matters, something that's life-changing, and tell them stories about the great works that they've seen, the people you've gotten saved, the great works that have been done as a part of this church, and the soul winning that's taken place. We ought to have works that the Lord takes to soul winning. We need to be a soul winner, and we need to have stories to pass down, which means we need to be out there preaching the gospel. And I'll tell you what, kids at a young age, they're going to get excited about what their parents are excited about. And if the parents are excited about soul winning, and really love it, it's going to pass down to the kids. You know, we ought to have stories about soul winning, but also just significant events that take place. When you look at our church, what is the most significant event with this church? It's been the Orlando protest. I think most of us would agree with that, right? That's a pretty significant thing that you can pass down. If you were there, or you listened to preaching online, that's something we ought to pass down. We can talk about how our pastor stood behind the pulpit and was bold. I mean, he literally came on that Sunday morning and preached one of the greatest sermons. One of the greatest sermons I've ever heard. And during that sermon, I was outside. I wasn't actually hearing the sermon. I only kind of heard it through a speaker, so I can only vaguely heard it. I remember everyone's like, man, that's the greatest sermon ever. And it was truly an awesome sermon that God used. What a great event that you can pass down and say that you were there. And you saw the enemies of God versus the people of God in sacramentum. That's what it was. It was the people that hate the Lord versus the people that love the Lord. That is a significant event that we can pass down to our kids and tell them about it. And if that happened in today's world, it's going to happen in 10 years. It's going to happen in 20 years. It's only going to get worse. Kids need to hear this story so they can know when they deal with it. Hey, I'm going to stand firm because my dad, my mom was there. And they stood up against the enemies of God and they were not afraid. They weren't afraid about losing their job. They weren't afraid and didn't quit the church. No, they were there because they loved the Lord. They had a pastor that stood up and preached hard and they stood behind the pastor. That's something I want to pass down to my kids. I am going to pass that down to my son. I'm going to tell them about that event. That's one of the big events that's ever taken place with this church, something we can pass down. Even significant events in the news. We ought to pass these things down to our kids. Now, I don't have a TV and I don't sit around watching the news and I don't recommend you doing it, but obviously we hear about various news stories from time to time. And it's important that we take those events that are taking place. Because in here, Joel is talking about an event that's taking place during that time period. When events take place in our world, we ought to take the time to teach our kids what does the Bible say about this? How should we look at this? There's a lot of issues out there and I believe the Bible has the answers for these issues. Whether it's in the news or whatever it is, we ought to take the time to look at those events and teach our kids. Or even just when it comes to these people that are outside, these homeless people that are wasting their lives. Look, there's this guy on I-80 in Norwood who pretends to be blind. This kind of older guy, who knows who I'm talking about? He has a cane and sunglasses. This guy is not blind. I've seen him walking around town. He pretends to be blind. How wicked is that? To sit there and pretend that you're blind to get a lot of money when you can fully see. You can see him walking around all the time. He's not blind, but he'll go up there with sunglasses and a cane. You say, why are you preaching against him? Because he's a bad person. Why would you go up there and lie about who you are and steal money from people that are working hard? And you say, is that something we should pass down? Yeah, you know, we ought to tell our kids about that. So our kids won't end up being lazy like that lazy jerk that's a liar up there on I-80 in Norwood that you can see sometimes. Pretending to be blind. It's like, are you kidding me? Turn to, look at Joshua 24, verse 15. And so the first thing we see is that every single person needs to hear the Word of God. The second thing is that we need to highlight certain things, both applicable and significant events. But the third thing that we learned from the Book of Joel, because remember, Joel said he's preaching them the message and then he says, tell your children. What does that teach us? It teaches us that the preaching of the Word of God is great. Everybody needs to hear it. But then what do we need to do as parents? We go home and teach our kids what we learned in church. That's what the Bible's teaching us. Tell your children. Joel preaches the sermon, everybody hears it, and then he says, tell your children. It's not good enough just to have the preaching in church. We need to go home and teach our kids. Joshua 24, verse 15. And if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That's the sort of attitude we need to have. He says, my house is going to serve God. Now, I don't know about everybody else, but we are going to serve God. That's the attitude he had. And look, in church, everybody's hearing the Word of God, but that does not mean that everyone has that attitude. I'm going to go home and make sure my house serves the Lord. That's the truth. You can look at the Baptist churches, and it ought to worry us a little bit if we're not doing a good job making sure we're teaching and training our families. But you look at the IFB churches, and you look at the kids that come out of those churches, and by and large, they do not serve God. That is the truth. I've been to many IFB churches, and when you watch those kids, they grow up and they forsake the Lord. That's the truth. The church that I was here at three or four years ago before I moved here, you look at all those kids that were in their teens. There's a bunch of teens at that time period. They grew up. They all left the church. They don't care about God. They don't go soul winning. They didn't really love God. They heard the preaching of the Word of God, but their parents didn't make sure that they went home and taught and trained their kids. You could be hearing the greatest... You hear great sermons at this church. Pastor Jimenez preaches sermons. These are life-changing sermons if you apply them. They really are. He spends a lot of time to make sure he understands the passages. He delivers a sermon that if we would apply this to our life, it would change our lives. But simply hearing at a church is not enough. We have to actually take that message home and tell your children, and your children, their children, and their children, and another generation. We all ought to have this attitude, man. I want my family to serve God, and I want to look down the line when I'm older and see that my grandchildren love the Lord and just pass this down from generation to generation. We work so hard to deliver sermons. We work so hard to bring people to a church like this. It means nothing if you're here and you're going all this time soul winning and your kids grow up and they don't love the Lord. What a shame that would be. And like I said, I'm taking this by faith as well. My son could grow up one day and not love the Lord. But I promise you that if my son grows up and doesn't love the Lord, that the reason why is because of me. Because if we follow what the Bible says, your children are going to grow up. They're going to love the Lord. That's what we see in the Bible. But we need to have this attitude. My house is going to serve God. And so whatever it takes, whether it takes less sleep, whether it takes spending a lot of time, whatever it takes, I'm going to go home and teach and train my family. Not everybody during Joshua's Day did that. I promise you. But he had this attitude, I'm going to serve the Lord. And they did a good job during that time here. They passed it down from generation to generation because they heard the work of the Lord. Turn to Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6. And so as I said at the beginning of the sermon, even in a book like Joel that's kind of a deeper thing. There's a lot of confusing parts. There's a lot of great surface information that we can see, just really practical information. And it gives us a really nice, detailed plan of how we can reach our future generations, our kids, our grandchildren. And it says in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Now shall I love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Man, the preaching the word of God is awesome. These words shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently onto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walks by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. It says teach them diligently. The implication is it's not going to be easy. It's going to take effort. It's going to take time. But if we do this, our kids are going to grow up and love the Lord. That's what we see in the Bible. And it says teach them diligently onto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, which means we come home from work and we're exhausted. We want to just sit there and be lazy and just go on YouTube or see the latest thing in our movement that's taking place or whatever. And we need to teach our children the word of God. That's what the Bible says. When you're sitting in your house, when thou walkest by the way, wherever you're walking, you see certain things you need to teach your kids the word of God. When thou walks by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, which means throughout the day we need to be in a habit of teaching our kids the word of God. That's what we see. It says here in verse number eight, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates. The implication there is that the word of God is all around you, on the posts of thy house and on thy gates. We need the word of God around us. We need to teach our kids at all times. I don't think it's wrong for people to take a vacation. I think that's fine. But you should never take a vacation from God. And even when you're on vacation, you need to take the time to teach your kids the word of God, because it says at all times. There is no vacation from God. We should always be serving God. Now turn to Acts chapter 17. Now I'm not saying that this is easy to do. This is going to take work. It says at all times. One thing that's great about the word of God, though, is it's really not complicated to find out what we need to do. It's not easy to do oftentimes, but it's very easy to understand what we need to do. It's pretty simple. You hear the word of God. You pay attention during church. You pass that down to your family. That's a pretty simple message. It's not necessarily easy to do, but at least we know what we need to do. And I like that, because you know what? If I fail in life, it's my fault. I want to know what I need to do. It's very clear in the Bible what we need to do. In Acts 17, verse 11, notice what it says. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so. The Bible says that the Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They heard the word of God, and what did they do? They searched to make sure that those things were so. That's what we need to do when we hear sermons behind this pulpit. Don't just take for granted everything you hear is correct. Make sure you yourself, you see what the Bible says, and see if it's right. And if you hear the sermon, and you say, you know what, I checked it out, that's right, I agree with everything that was said, then you take that message and you pass it on to your kids. Now, thankfully we're at a church where the vast majority of the things you hear are correct. We're hearing the word of God preached very clearly. Honestly, you can go to a lot of churches out there where a lot of what you hear is just not correct. IFB churches where a lot of the things preached behind the pulpit are just completely wrong. And I'll tell you what I did at churches like that, especially being newly married, if I heard something and I didn't agree with what the pastor said, where he was just wrong about what it says in the Bible, I told my wife, you know, actually this is what it says. Now, I wasn't rude towards him, I didn't hate the pastor, but I know that the Bible says you're out to search the Bible and see whether those things are so. You got to make sure that what you're hearing is correct. Because look, I'm just a human. Pastor Mendez is just a human. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody's perfect. As much as we try to be right about things, we're going to make mistakes. We're going to make mistakes sometimes. We need to make sure all of us, when we hear a sermon, we go home and make sure these things are so. And if you find out these things are so, what do you do? You pass it on to your family. This is the message that we need to hear for everyone. You hear the word of God, and if it's right, you pass it on to your family. You know, there's a lot of things I've heard before that I didn't really necessarily agree with when I first heard them. I remember that, you know, when I first started listening to Pastor Anderson and he preached against the LGBT movement, I loved his preaching, I was learning a lot, but I was just like, why does he hate them so much? I was like, man, he's way overboard. And I can almost guarantee that everybody in this room probably has the same perspective when they first hear the sermon. You say, why? Because we've been brainwashed by the world. That's the reason why. I mean, if you just saw Genesis 19, just read Genesis 19 and Judges 19, and were never around this, you wouldn't get brainwashed by the world. But we're brainwashed, whether it's the TV, whether it's the people we see all the time, we become desensitized, and we need the word of God to unbrainwash us. We need to get brainwashed by the word of God and believe what the Bible says. There's certain things you might hear that you might not agree with at first. I remember the first time that I heard that you cannot get saved from modern versions of the Bible. I didn't agree when I first heard that. I heard the sermon preached, and I considered myself King James only, but I thought it was too extreme. But then I noticed what the Bible says, and we have a whole documentary about that, if you're interested in that topic, about New World Order Bible versions. But I saw what the Bible says being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. And so when we hear the word of God being preached, even if you don't agree, keep that saying in your heart and find out if it's so or not. That's what we're supposed to do. Turn to Genesis chapter 19. And so far the points we've learned today is that every single person needs to hear the word of God. Very basic point. Second thing, we need to preach and teach on things that are both applicable and significant. We highlight certain things. Number three, we see that it's not good enough just to hear the preaching of the word of God. We also have to go home and teach these things. And number four, who's supposed to teach? Both the men and the women. Pretty basic points, but the last thing we're going to see is both men and women need to teach their kids. Because he said, all you inhabitants of the land hear this message. Then he says, teach your children. So that's going to include both men and women. All inhabitants hear the sermon. Everybody in this room hears the sermon, and then you pass it down to your kids. So let's first look at the men. Let's look at Genesis chapter 19. Look at verse 28. And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain and beheld. And lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. And Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountain and his two daughters with him, for he feared to dwell in Zoar and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. Now was that true, that there was not a man in the entire earth? That's not true. You say, why do they think that there was no man left in the entire earth? Well, either Lot didn't teach them what he was told, or he didn't do a very good job presenting that information. Because they think that there's no man left in the entire earth. Lot should have been the one teaching his kids. He heard the message from God. He should have passed that down to his family. Obviously, we can look at the life of Lot and realize he didn't have that pattern to teach his family. Because his family didn't love the Lord. He did not do a good job teaching his family. And they think they're the only men left in the earth. There's plenty of people left. It was just Sodom and Gomorrah that was destroyed because it was so wicked. But they didn't fully understand this because Lot did not do a very good job about teaching his kids. Turn to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians 6. And so as men, when we hear the preaching of the word of God, we must make sure we accurately pass it down to our family. We hear the preaching, and then we pass it on to them and tell them exactly what the Bible says. We need to make sure we're very clear about what the Bible says. We need to make sure that our kids and our wives and our families understand what the preaching is teaching. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4, it says, any fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I think this is a very encouraging verse as a father. Because when I first realized I was going to be a father and my son was about to be born, it's kind of intimidating. You're just thinking, man, I've heard lots of sermons on being a parent and stuff like that. But obviously, there's a lot of new things I'm going to learn. I've asked plenty of men at this church about various things, about raising kids. And it's like, there's a lot of things you don't know. I was planning to wait until I gave my son his first real spanking until we were in the Philippines. But my son's pretty smart. And he was testing my buttons the other day. He just knew what I was saying. I told him no. And he smiles at me. And he goes for that light socket anyway. And I was like, you know what? I've given you warnings. And he got his first real spanking. After I spanked him, I was like, OK, now what do I do? Why? Because I'm a first time father. So obviously, it's kind of intimidating when you're a first time parent. There's a lot of new things that you're learning. But I remember this verse when our son was about to be born. And it was very encouraging to me. Because I was like, you know what? If I can provide nurture and admonition, I'm going to do a good job as a father. That's what it boils down to, nurture and admonition. Obviously, there's a million things we should do as parents. And we're all going to make mistakes. But if I can provide these two things, nurture and admonition, you know what? Then I'll have done a good job. And so the first thing we have to realize that with nurture and admonition, when we're teaching our kids the Word of God, which is what this sermon is about, we're helping provide nurture. We're spending time with them. We ought to get our kids to love the Word of God. We ought to have times where we're spending time teaching our kids the Word of God. But also with admonition, when our kids make mistakes, we need to show them what the Bible says about them. Provide admonition and show them what the Bible says, why they got spanked, why what they did was wrong. Now, I'll be honest with you. My opinion is, the biggest reason why I'm here today, and I want to be a missionary, is for the fact that my parents spent a lot of time with me as a kid. That's my opinion, the biggest reason. Now, I didn't get saved when I was young. I got saved when I was 18 years old. But my parents did a wonderful job raising me. My mom homeschooled me, and they spent a lot of time. And I'll tell you what, when you look at the IFB, one of the big reasons why they failed is because a lot of those parents, they forsook their kids for the ministry. That's why those kids grow up, and they resent their parents. They provoke their children to wrath, as the Bible says you will do if you do not provide nurture and admonition. It says, provoke not your children to wrath. The implication is that if you don't provide both nurture and admonition, you will provoke your children to wrath. And honestly, you know what? There's a lot of kids that were preacher's kids in the IFB, and they hate their parents because their parents never had time for them ever. They spend all their time counseling all the time, but they never spend any time with their kids. And what ends up happening? Those kids grow up, and they hate their parents, the pastor of that church. They end up hating their father because their father never had any time for them. We're here, and obviously we live busy lives. We hear the word of God. We must take time to spend time with our kids. When I was growing up, my dad didn't talk to me about the Bible, but what I enjoyed doing was playing sports. And every single Saturday morning, whether there was snow on the ground, it didn't matter, my dad went out there at six in the morning, seven in the morning, to play sports with me. Now I wasn't tired, but obviously I didn't realize what it meant to work a full-time job. I'm sure my dad was tired a lot of Saturdays, but he still came out, and he spent time with me. And as parents in this room, we need to make sure we're spending time with our kids, that we're not just so obsessed with everything else, but not spending any time with our kids, just setting aside time to spend time with our sons and our daughters. That's what we see. And obviously a large part of this is going to be the word of God. We're teaching them the word of God. We're showing them what that says, but also just with the things they enjoy. Just take time to spend time with them. I personally believe the biggest reason why I'm here is because of that. Because you know what? I didn't grow up in an IFB church, but I ended up becoming an IFB because of that, I believe. I think that was the biggest thing that made me an IFB. Once I got saved, everything else was obvious, but the reason why I believe I'm here is my parents spent time with me. And there was lots of people that grew up in IFB churches in Bridgeport, but I don't know of any of them that are really serving the Lord now. Probably most of them aren't at all. So we need to make sure we're spending nurture and admonition that says, as fathers. Now turn to Proverbs 31. So as dads, it is our responsibility to teach our kids the word of God, to spend time with them, provide nurture and admonition, the Bible says. It is our job to do that. Now unfortunately, there are a lot of situations where there are women that, you know what, their husbands are not doing that. And in that situation, the women need to take the mantle and say, I'm going to do the best job I can to be a good mom and to teach my kids the word of God. It says in Proverbs 31, starting in verse 1, The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him. So his mom is teaching him, What my son, and what the son of my womb, and what the son of my vows. Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. So what is she teaching her son? She's basically saying, don't get involved in fornication, or something like that in verse number 3. Give not thy strength unto women. And then she's preaching, teaching him against drinking alcohol. Now a lot of people are confused on these verses I read when it talks about alcohol, because people try to use these verses to justify drinking. They say, well, you know, if you're ready to perish, if you have a heavy heart, then you need to drink. I've heard people go to Proverbs 31 to try to justify drinking. You know what is teaching in Proverbs 31? She's teaching him, don't be a homeless bum like these people outside that are drinking their lives away. They're miserable because they're drinking. They have heavy hearts because they're drinking. It's not advocating alcohol. It's preaching against it. She's basically saying, you know what, you're better than these losers out here. That's what she's teaching them. And the same thing we preach today. You know what, you're better than these losers out here that are just giving themselves over to alcohol and destroying their lives. Let him drink. Let him be a loser. Let him be a homeless bum. That is what she's teaching her son. She's not saying, well, there's certain people that get to be losers. Certain people get to drink alcohol. No, she's saying that's stupid. It's retarded alcohol. Any amount of alcohol, it's a sin. We as God's people, we should not be partakers of alcohol whatsoever. And that's what she's telling her son. But she's teaching her son the Word of God. And even if you do have a husband that teaches your kids the Word of God, as the moms, you still need to take the time and teach your kids the Word of God as well, both for men and women. And what that teaches us is that we all need to learn the Word of God. If we're going to pass down the Word of God to our kids, we better make sure we understand it. That's something that all of us need to understand. Turn back to Joel chapter one. And in Joel chapter one, look at verse number three where the Bible reads, Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. One thing we need to realize is that if we're passing down the Word of God, we need to present it in a way to our kids so they understand it, and they can pass it down themselves. Because this is supposed to go from generation to generation to generation. We need to make sure that they don't just know what the answers are, but they know how to pass down that information. They understand why they believe it. It'd be like, for example, if I were solving a math problem on this board. Now, you might be able to memorize the steps of how to do it. It doesn't mean that you understand why that is, if that makes sense. Anyway, honestly, there's a lot of people, they believe in a post-Trip Rapture. They know the verse in Matthew 24, but they don't necessarily really know why they believe certain things that they believe. You can hear a lot of preaching, and if you don't take the time to study for yourself, you'll generally know what you're supposed to believe. You don't necessarily know why you're supposed to believe it, or what's the reason, what are the verses that can prove that. So when we're teaching our kids, one thing we need to do is not just tell them, hey, alcohol is a sin, but show them in the Bible why it's a sin. And honestly, when you look at the old IFB, you want to think about the things they're famous for. One thing they're famous for is no verses whatsoever. That's the truth. You can look at any of those preachers from the past, and they never use any Bible verses. I mean, they'll use like one or two. You'll literally hear, and I'm sure it's like that with a lot of churches now today as well, where they'll basically read one verse, and they'll just talk for like 50 minutes, and they will not explain anything else. They don't use any verses. And a lot of what they say is true, but they never back it up. And we need to back up the Word of God and show people why we believe what we believe. You know, I remember the first time I was in college. I was either 19 or 20 years old, and it was one of the first sermons I ever heard from an IFB preacher. And I remember the name of the sermon was Many Skirts in Light of the Bible. Now, I was a college student who was newly saved. When I heard that sermon, and no Bible verses were really used to support what they believed, I thought he had flipped his lid. I was like, man, I think he's way overboard on this topic. Why? Because I was being desensitized by the college atmosphere I was around, where everybody's running around, you know, half-naked, as the Bible would show that they are naked because they're exposing parts of their body. So I didn't believe it at the time, but if he had actually used Bible verses, I could have kept that saying in my heart and meditated and learned it. So we're passing down the Word of God, because our children are supposed to teach their children. We need to not just show them, hey, we're post-trib, but show them the verses why, why we believe it, and the reason why it's so important. We need to pass down the Word of God, so it's imprinted on their minds to pass it down to their kids as well. So in conclusion, we looked at four basic points. Number one is just that everybody needs to hear the Word of God, and we highlight certain things. We preach on applicable and significant things. We preach or teach on those things. We need to make sure that both men and women are teaching their kids, and when we hear sermons in the pulpit, we make sure that we pass that down to our kids. I don't know about you, but you know what? The last thing I would want is for my son to grow up and just not really love the Lord. And obviously, if you're at a church like this, and you're here for three times a week, and you're here out soul-winning every single week, obviously you want to live for the Lord. But you know, the truth is that if you do not take the time outside of church to spend time with your kids and teach your kids the Word of God, from experience at IFB churches, there's a good chance your kids are going to grow up and not really love the Lord. I don't think any one of us want that to happen. Obviously, it takes a lot of work to spend time with them and teach them the Word of God. But you know, the last thing you would want is to find out one day that your kids don't want to serve God, and it's too late. We need to make sure we take the time to teach our kids the Word of God. Let's close in a word of prayer. And dear Heavenly Father, thanks for allowing us to be in your house this morning, and ask you to help us to apply this.