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

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This is what this means. This is how this applies to your life. So they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading. This is what we're doing. Okay, now jump up to verse number one. Let's see who's present during this time of reading the scripture and giving the understanding and everything else that's going on. Look at verse number one. So all these people show up saying, hey, teach us out of the word of God. Let's get the Bible out. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation. Congregation is a church. That's what that word means. Both of men and women. So we have men and women here. It's not just the men. It says both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month. Now, some churches will look at that and say, see, it's only the people that have understanding that are standing before them, so we're going to separate those that don't have understanding. Well, let's read the next verse. Now, again, it makes reference to the men, to the women, those that can understand, and the ears of all the people who are attending the book of the law. If you have all the men and women present, where are the people watching over the little ones? They've got to be somewhere. Is it not important for them to hear out of the word of God? And think about it. Someone has to be with the little ones that don't have understanding, especially. You don't just drop them all off and be like, all right, good luck, I'm going to be here from morning till midday. Because that's how long they were there. Do you think that these children, these nurslings, are just, okay, well, there you go, we're just going to leave you over there, and all the men and women are going to go over here and listen to the word of God get preached. No. So, yes, everybody with hearing and understanding was listening, but it doesn't mean there wasn't also present those that couldn't understand, because those that did have the understanding needed to hear also. So we have a family integrated church so that all the men and women can hear the word of God preached and be there for the service that goes from morning till a little afternoon, apparently, today. And we're at midday, so we'll be done in a second. But this is one of the reasons why we have everyone together. It's important. Like I said, we don't want to have huge distractions like my daughter is starting to cause right now. But I think we could all still learn and, you know, it's fine. You don't need to give all the dirty looks. Now, look, if you've got a child that's just causing, screaming her head off, please take them out, right, for the better of everyone else, but then come back in when they're settled down. Because it usually doesn't take that long to settle a child down and get back in, right? So that's very simple. Now, children's activities. I want to point this out. I'm going to stop it here. I might do a second one tonight. I'm not sure. I have another sermon I want to preach, but children's activities, because this is another question I get all the time, well, what do you have for the kids? What do you have for the kids? Do we have children's activities here? Yes, we do. But we have more church-wide activities than children's activities, because we believe that it is the parents' duty and obligation for the safety and instruction of their own children. So we don't want to take your children from you to do whatever with, and you drop them off. I actually believe it's more important that parents can learn the value of not dropping your children off for other people to care for as much as possible. And one of the main reasons for that, especially in the day that we live in today, the world is getting darker. People are getting more and more wicked every day. There are more and more predators out there. There are more and more people that are wanting to do harm to your children. It's not the same as it was even not that long ago in our society. There is much more concern over people out there who do bad things to children. And you will find, I don't know how many times, it seems like almost every time that the person causing the harm is someone who is able to gain some level of trust through whatever means, whether it be through school, whether it be through a church, whether it be because they're a family member, whatever. Where they've gained this access to your children, and they end up defiling them, and that is a wound that may not be able to heal for a child. It can be the most devastating thing to ruin their life. It's not worth the risk. It's not worth the, oh, how nice would it be to drop off my children for a while, and what better place than a church. Now look, I'm not a predator, but I'm also not looking to take over your kids for any amount of time. I want you to do that. I want you to understand the importance of that, because while they may be safe with me, I don't want anyone getting in the habit of just going, oh, okay, yeah, they're safer here, because then you could say, well, what about some other church member? I mean, it's church, right? Don't we all love God here? Yes? I think so. What if one of the disciples, Jesus' disciples, had children, let's say Peter, hey, Judas, I'm going to leave my kids with you. I've got to go do something. Can you watch my kids for me? Now, when Jesus said at the dinner that someone was going to betray him, was everyone like, Judas, this guy's a devil, man. I had him pegged from the beginning. This guy's no good. Nobody thought that. You know what that means? His disguise was really good. And no parent would knowingly give their children into the hands of a predator. I mean, no one would do that, right? The reason why they gain the access, and the reason why it even happens is because they think that they're okay, they think that they're good. And the mind of a predator is going to want to find easy prey, and they're going to want to find access to children where people are going to be very trusting, which is why they choose locations like churches to do that. So we suffer, and you know what? Here's the thing. A background check is not always going to find a pervert or a predator. It's only going to find people who have been caught at some point. That does not guarantee that you're going to be putting your hands in someone who's not a predator at all. There are people who get away with this stuff for decades before getting caught. And look, this is a common thing. Churches will try to convince you, no, no, no, we do background checks. Look, the predator doesn't care. Many of them get really good at wearing their mask, and talking the talk, and saying the right things, and being very, very charismatic, or able to win you over, and like, oh, he's so nice. You know who someone that was viewed as being extremely nice and people just, he got along with a lot of people, made a lot of friends? John Wayne Gacy. I mean, hey, he was a clown. He performed at kids' birthdays parties, right? He was this friendly guy. He got in with politics. A lot of people liked him, and his neighbors thought he was great. And if you know who that is, you know what he did. You know what he did to kids. And you know how many people he did that to before he got caught. Those are the type of people that love to get the access when they can. We will never allow that access in this church. So why do we do things that we do, and why do we have a family integrated church? That's one of the reasons. Because we love all the kids, and we want to keep them safe. And the safest place for the kids is with their parents. Safest place. Without a doubt. So do we have kids' activities? Not really. We have family activities. We have activities in general. Now we have home school field trips, but there's always parents there. Guess what? The home school field trips is not a place for you to drop your kids off. They're not going to be allowed for you to drop the kids off. Now, people can bring family members, nieces, whatever. We have people who might bring someone with them to an event like that. That's not what I'm talking about. But I'm not saying, if you have children here, and you just say, well, I have to go off and work here, have my child, no. Not the way it works. Not going to do it like that. But on top of that, and this is my last point, I don't know if I had you turn to Matthew 21 or not, but all the activities we do here are free, though. We want people to participate. We want people to come and attend. We do care about the kids. We care about their education. We are not a church that's just going to have these programs where your kids are going to go to. But we do have programs or activities where your kids are going to come to. Like, they don't just get dropped off, but they're going to come, if you want to. And we're going to provide everything for you. Because anything we do through the church is not going to be sold unto you. And there's a biblical reason for that. Because the time that we could see Jesus getting the most angry is the time when he flipped tables over and drove people out with a whip. That's when Jesus got the most angry in the Bible. In addition to the time when he said that if anyone does anything to these little ones that believe in me, it's better that he had a millstone cast about his neck and thrown into the sea. Okay, so he cares about the kids, but that was just his words. His actions, though, flipping over the tables. What was that in response to? People buying and selling in the house of God. Matthew 21, verse number 12, the Bible says, And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple. Jesus didn't want the transaction. This isn't just people who were charging too much money. If it was people charging too much money, why would he cast out the people who are buying? Because they wouldn't be wrong. If it was just, well, the people who were doing the selling, they're the ones that were bad. They're the criminals. They're the ones that he was mad at. Then why did he cast out those that sold and bought? The Bible gives us the answer why it's them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers and knows that they're charging all this interest and everything else. Whether they were or not, that's not the reason that the Bible gives us, because it never says they were doing any of that. And the seats of them that sold doves and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. And in another place, it says, You're not to make my father's house a house of merchandise. Merchandise is buying and selling. Jesus got angry, flipped over tables when people are buying and selling in the house of God. We're not selling you anything. We want you to participate. Now, the amount of activities we do is dependent on how much we can support as a church. That's it. If we can't support it, we don't do it. If we can support it, we'll do it. We're not gonna hold anything over your head. We're not gonna say, Oh, well, you could only come if you pay this price and pay, you know, it's gonna cost you this much. Nope. We're not trying to sell anyone anything. And we want to have access for everybody that comes to church and not start having these activities that only rich people can afford and not poor people. Because not everyone can afford to do everything. But we want all the kids to be able to participate, all the families to be able to participate, all the people to be able to participate. We don't want to be charging anyone anything. We don't charge for the song books. We don't charge for the Bibles. We don't charge for the DVDs. We don't charge for anything. We give stuff away for free. So we may not have all the activities that someone's looking for, but you know what, you don't have, we're not gonna, we're not gonna be looking at you and making merchandise out of you either. There's a lot more that I wanted to cover, but I've kept you way too long. Maybe we'll finish the rest tonight. Let's bow our eyes and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word, for all the teaching, dear Lord. I pray that you would please bless our church. Please, please help us to do the right thing as we strive to look and see what is according to your word and be able to make the application in our own lives, dear Lord, and be able to make a good decision based on what your word says because we care about it and we strive to exalt your word above maybe our own thoughts or opinions on things, but just to seek to satisfy you and to have your favor upon us, dear Lord. We love you. I pray that you would please help us in our endeavor to reach the lost. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're gonna sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, would you please lead us? All right, church, if you could open up your hymnals. Song number 176. Song 176, Jesus Loves the Little Children. With this hymn, we're gonna sing it three times over. We'll start it off with Jesus Loves the Little Children. The second time we sing it, we'll say Jesus died for all the children. The third time, Jesus rose for all the children. Song 176. The first. Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus died for all the children of the world. Jesus rose for all the children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus rose for all the children of the world. Amen. Church, great singing. Thank you so much for coming, you guys.