Counseling Children — Mark 9-10

0:00 Good morning. I'd like to tell you a story this morning. I have a friend of mine. He went to New York City to do Open Air Evangelism in 1962. So this is twelve...

0:14 How many years ago is that? Yes. Wow. It's a long time. So he graduated from Bible College and went to New York City to do open air evangelism.

0:29 And in 1962, he went to Brooklyn. As a good open air evangelist would note, they would know this and they would do this. They would... If they have a good open air spot, they would make mental note of that, maybe even mark it on a map and say, I'm going back to this spot. It was effective.

0:50 It was an effective spot. So in '19... And he did a kids' meeting. He did a children's meeting in 1962. He did the puzzle.

0:58 He did the sketch board. He had all the kids on the mat. I don't know if he did any gospel illusions or magic for them. I'm not sure all the particulars, but what you do is you talk to the children on the mat. You make sure you talk to the children on the mat, not to the peripheral people.

1:17 If the kids on the mat get it, everybody will get it. So that's what he did and he was very effective and praise God. So twenty years later, now thirty years from now ago, twenty years later, 1982, he goes back there to that same spot and he does a kids meeting. Same thing, same MO, same modus operandi. And he does the whole thing.

1:44 There was people, a lot of times, especially in New York, you'll have people standing there and they'll be like standing on the peripheral going, Oh yeah, hey, you know, we're cool. And gang, we've had gang members and this kind of stuff just standing there watching it and becoming little kids again. They want to ask questions. They want to do all this kind of... It's great.

2:05 It's really a wonderful thing even in the roughest neighborhoods. So this my friend does the meeting and afterwards he's packing it up and this young man comes up with this girl on his arm and he comes over to him nicely dressed, nicely, you know, carries himself nicely. And he came up to him and he says, I just wanted to introduce myself to you. He said, You were here in 1962. I was one of these children.

2:35 I trusted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. And at that meeting, which you did, and now I'm studying for the ministry and this is my fiancee introduced and we're getting married and going into the ministry. Thought you'd like to know that. I thought, that's a great story. That is a great story.

2:59 The reason I tell you that story is because a lot of times, we want to reach we're talking about this morning, we're going to be talking about children, talking about how to reach them. These notes are geared for open air evangelism, but they are geared also for Awana. They're geared for any anybody, any kid breathing ministry. That's what they're geared for. And this is exactly what we're going to do.

3:27 I would like to talk to you this morning a little bit on notes that you do not have. So if you'd like to flip those notes, that's why I didn't have them copied on the other side. But I want to talk to you about why should we reach children. First of all, I want to talk about, very briefly, why should we reach children? It's like the story of D.

3:50 L. Moody. D. L. Moody came home one day after a little crusade action that he did.

3:57 And he said to his wife, Emma, she said to him, how many got saved? He said, two and a half. She said, oh, two adults, one child. He said, no, two children, one adult. And it's really an interesting perspective.

4:14 We think that children sometimes, and I'm going to be very blunt about this, sometimes we think children are stupid. We do. We think children are stupid and cannot be reached. Where the real problem is we're stupid and we don't know how to reach them. We don't know how to get talk to them.

4:36 And this is an important factor. So why should we reach children? And we have a biblical mandate for that. The Lord Jesus received children. And we see this in Mark chapter nine thirty five through 37.

4:49 We're going to go rather quickly on this. And then also, he protected children. The Lord Jesus protected them. If you look at Matthew... Or excuse me, Mark chapter nine verse 42, and whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that the millstone would be hung about his neck and he'd be cast into the sea.

5:13 You get a mental picture of that, a millstone? Those things are heavy. They have a hole and it's like... Looks like a donut. Usually is a square thing, hole.

5:24 And you take that big grinding stone, which would grind grain almost into powder. You take that, put it around, tie it around somebody's neck and throw them into the sea if you mess with one of these kids that believe on him. The Lord takes this very seriously. It takes this very seriously. And then the Lord Jesus...

6:02 3.75. That is cool. You're the second youngest guy, a guy that's ever trusted Christ, the youngest. Three. I knew a guy who trusted Christ at three.

6:13 That's fantastic. My dad got saved at the age of 59. And isn't it incredible? You came the same way? It came the same way.

6:27 My dad had to be like a 3.75 year old child. It comes as a faith with a little child. And what do little children, in fact, don't like to use the word little. Children believe things. Sometimes we adults say, oh, you're gullible.

6:49 No, they're trusting. We're liars. You know, they trust. They come the same way. So when my dad got saved at the age of 59, he did it the same way you did it three and three quarters.

7:04 Same. And that's important for us to understand. Children are not stupid. They're not like subhuman. They're not.

7:14 They're very smart. We just need to know how to communicate. And this is what the Lord Jesus... He says it's really, it's really being a child is the greatest age of faith. It is.

7:27 It's the greatest age to reach people and they are people. They're the greatest example of faith. Mark chapter 10 verses 13 through 16 tells us, they brought a little... They brought young children to him that they should touch them, that he should touch them and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said to them, permit or suffer the little children to come...

7:56 Permit the little children to come to me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of God. Really I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he will not enter into it. Doesn't matter how old you are. You must believe this. Then he took them up in his arms and his hands, put his arms around them and blessed them.

8:21 So it's, you know, he uses a child, he uses children as illustration of faith, of an example of faith. And then, you know, let's look at the rationale. Let's look at the rationale. I need to use my notes for this. On this rationale, I'm gonna do a cool PowerPoint.

8:45 I don't even know how to turn this on. Oh, there we go. Okay. This is this is incredible. I mean, is this the coolest?

8:54 Okay. World's greatest mission field. Incredible. World's greatest mission field. And some of you, they're sleeping in your house right now.

9:06 Not this very moment, but they're here. But they're sleeping. And some are sleeping right now in this room. Sorry. Sorry about that.

9:16 I have a great effect on people. Okay. 86% of people who trust Christ as their personal savior are saved before the age of 15 years. Eighty six percent. And then I'm quoting somebody.

9:38 I'm actually quoting somebody on this. Isn't I can make this stuff up? Oh yes, ninety percent. Yes, yes. What's your statistics on that?

9:47 Just trust me, you know. No, actually eighty six percent are saved before the age of 15. I wasn't. I was saved at the age of 18. I was I was in the next realm.

10:00 Only ten percent are saved between the ages of 15 to 30. How many trusted Christ before fifteen years or fifteen years? Wow. Praise God. How about between fifteen and thirty or sixteen and thirty?

10:17 That was me. Anybody afterwards? Okay. Your percentage is this, four percent. And that's from Lionel Hunt, Handbook of Christian...

10:31 Children's Evangelism. Four percent. That's you if you trusted Christ after. Praise God for that. I mean, I praise God that you've done that, that you've done...

10:42 But notice notice the greatest the greatest mission field on this. 86%. It's just amazing. It's a tender mission field for sure. It's the greatest it's the greatest time of opportunity for salvation.

11:12 We had a like a Victorian house and we had this front porch and she said, he's on the roof. I'll never forget running so fast, almost killing somebody, including myself, running through the house, trying to get to my sister's room and I just been looking out the window and he was gone. She said, you just missed him. I did that with JC with Barney once. Anyway, last year.

11:43 Anyway, it was... But it's the... You know, I I didn't think of looking where the sleigh marks of the hoof and the ranger. I didn't think of like, oh, man. Because I believed in Santa Claus.

11:56 I thought Santa Claus was real. Thought Batman was real. I did. I thought Batman was real. I wanted one of those clocks in my room so I didn't have to go down the stairs.

12:07 I could just slide down and... Anyway, who cares about that? It's a great it's a great great opportunity, a tender mission field. They're open. They're sincere.

12:19 And the old adage is true. Today, we model clay. Tomorrow, we hammer concrete. I have to tell you something. Our education system, we're putting our kids...

12:29 If we don't homeschool, we're putting our kids through an education system that is anti supernatural. They're teaching anti supernaturalism. You think that that's not happening to your children or going through a secular school? You can think again. That's exactly what's happening.

12:47 And we're teaching them and we're hammering them, you know, I'm talking in a general way, we're hammering them into concrete. I talked to a kid one time at Redondo Beach Pier. His name was George. He had a UCLA jacket, small little imprint there, UCLA. And he said, I had trusted Christ when I was young.

13:10 I said, I don't believe it now. I don't believe that. I said, George, tell me about it. He said, well, and he told me how he trusted Christ as his personal savior. I said, well, praise God for that.

13:21 I said, does it bother you? And he goes, yeah, it bothers me. Yeah, it bothers me. I said, you realize what UCLA, you go to UCLA, George? He goes, yep.

13:31 I said, do you realize what UCLA is subtly doing to you? Anti supernatural bias, you know, Tri C has it, Tri C West, Tri C Metro, it doesn't matter. They have an anti supernatural bias in our university system and in our junior college system and in even our high schools and even in the little kids system, the elementary. It's true. It really is true.

13:59 And we have to really understand that that's, you know, we have an incredible opportunity, an incredible opportunity and it's a productive mission field. Get get the statistics. Listen to this. Listen to these names. Some of these names you'll you'll know.

14:18 Matthew Henry. You ever hear of him? Got saved at 10. Isaac Watts, nine. Amy Carmichael, the great missionary, fifty five years on the field, nine years of age.

14:38 Jonathan Edwards, seven. Jim Elliott, ever hear of him? Yeah, six. Don Morris, 3.5. Three and three 0.25.

14:54 Henrietta Mears, you ever hear of her? Billy Graham was influenced by Henrietta Mears. She has written a lot on Sunday School. You might wanna get her book there. She's tremendous.

15:06 She's wrote a whole book on how to teach Sunday School, etcetera. Henrietta Mears, five. Ruth Bell Graham, five. Corey Tenboom, five. Isn't that wonderful?

15:24 Just absolutely wonderful. I mean, this is the thing that we really want to do. So let's talk about let's talk about reaching children. Now understand these notes when it says open air, effective open air meaning. An open air meaning to me can happen outside, can happen indoors with an Awana situation, can happen in your own house.

15:46 I had the privilege of leading my son to Christ. I had to employ all this when I talked to my son about Jesus. And I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. It was just I had to I had to not get so emotional with it.

16:03 I almost became like Spock and I had to just like he wasn't my son because I wanted him to trust Christ so badly. I wanted I've been praying the moment he was born. I was praying before that he would trust Christ and marry the right girl. God is doing it. God is so great.

16:22 But primarily trusting Christ. So I had to... I employed this very thing. So what you have to do is here's a couple of things. You've got the notes already written out.

16:32 So if you want to add more to it, you do that. But the first thing we have to do is prepare our hearts for this. Prepare our hearts and we have to be humble. The only thing you've got on those kids is age. That's it.

16:49 I was 37 when JC was born. I'll never forget when he he when Barb delivered and he was coming out and they had to cut they wanted me to cut the cord, said forget it. I'm I'm not that... I cut the cord, you know, almost throwing up, you know? And I'm going, I...

17:06 I'm not... I don't care about the cord. You cut the cord. But I remember looking at him and we looked at the, you know, ten ten fingers, 10 toes, you know, all that kind of stuff. Praise God.

17:17 He's a healthy kid and all that sudden, really was like, I'll never forget how I felt. I thought to myself, he is fully a full human being with hopes. He doesn't have the hopes, but with with the the all the mechanics, everything that he has with feelings, with everything. He's a complete human being. And I need to respect him.

17:55 If you look at your notes and park your peepers on those, be humble. We must remember that we're there to serve the children. We're there to serve the children. And that is an important factor. We, in God's eyes, we are all God's children regardless of our age.

18:15 So Don, I'm not gonna ask you how old you are, but I'm a child of God. I'm 60. Amen, bro. Okay. And also, we need to be sensitive to the needs.

18:30 We need to be sensitive to their needs. In many cases, children, especially on the street, especially on the street, have an incredibly negative environment. That would be true here too. That would be true here. If divorce is 50%, maybe even more than that, Most kids think if they're in a divorce situation that they are causing mommy and daddy to split up, that they're the reason for the problem.

19:03 That's... They're thinking that. I've done something that they're doing this. And so it becomes a real heartache and a real problem. And the negative surroundings that they have, we need to have that compassion.

19:18 We need to show the tenderness of spirit. We need to actually love these children. They're not a hindrance. They're a blessing. Even sometimes when we look at children that come off the street or come out, you know, they're not a part of our chapel family type of thing.

19:39 And sometimes they come to us and and they're a little rough around the edges. The love of God will sand those edges. It'll be tremendous. And sometimes we think, what a pain that kid is. No.

20:01 Maybe they're crying out for incredible love. They want to be loved. Maybe they're looking for that love. And and so we need to have tenderness of spirit. I want to ask you a question.

20:14 I I was watching my mom. She was gave a lecture to a private school in Los Angeles. My mom was a principal. And it was really interesting because she asked these teachers who were looking like they didn't really want to be there. But my mom did a good job.

20:34 I was way in the back, and I'm watching how they're reacting to her. She asked this question as an educator to teachers of this very prestigious, it was called Pilgrim School or something in Los Angeles, very prestigious school. My mom was the lecturer for them. And she said, I want to ask you this question. Do you know what your kids are watching?

20:58 She's talking to teachers now, what they watch on TV. Have you gotten up in the morning to watch to see what they watch on TV? Do you know, now this isn't a secular situation, this isn't an educational situation. And I'm I'm making mental notes on this because I'm thinking to myself, if that's true from an educator's point of view, how much truer it is from the Christian's point of view in terms of communicating the gospel to people. If that would be true of them, how much more true of it should be of us understanding how they think?

21:43 We first moved to our current location and started to work on our barn to get it ready for Pepsi. We still had Pepsi going on and we had it in our basement. We had two students that year. One was from Calgary area, actually Winnipeg, and the other one was from Prince Edward Island, both Canadians. One was a drywaller, the other guy was a microbiologist, graduated from PEI University.

22:14 One was really smart, one was not that smart. I mean, he was smart, but he wasn't... And I mean by that is he didn't have a lot of Christian education. The one, the drywaller. He had just recently trusted Christ.

22:29 The other guy was raised in a Christian home, knew the word, etcetera. Really good. The guy that really knew the word was really interesting. He'd come, JC was 10, he would come to class from their thing in Richmond, which is close by, from their house, and he would bring Nerf darts with Nerf guns. And when they came, every time we had class, we had a war before class on the 1st Floor of our house.

23:02 Isn't that right, Bart? They're diving over our furniture. Furniture is falling over. Darts are flying. I went upstairs just to ignore it because...

23:13 And then as I'm going upstairs, darts are flying right past, little rubber darts. You know, they're having a war. They're going crazy. I mean, they're just running around JC and Whiteowitch and and Martin Crozier. He...

23:26 Just shooting each other up, you know, and then then we gotta go to class. Right? Just two and we're sitting in there. So we're down one day in class. And I don't know how we got on to this subject, but Martin starts to weep.

23:41 Now you understand Martin. He's six'three, two fifty, was the... Played in the junior nationals in Canada, was the goalie for Prince Edward Island hockey team. This guy, he could do splits, but he is a massive human being. This guy, unbelievable.

23:58 Martin Kroeser, you know, just an incredible guy, you know, athletically. He's sitting there weeping. And I look at I look at Kevin Wydewicz and I said, what's wrong? What's wrong? And he said, I'm a 12 year old in a man's body.

24:21 And I started getting a little weepy eyed and we're we're we're just talking about it. And I said, tell me about what you're thinking. How are you feeling about this? He says, I think always like a kid. I think like a kid.

24:34 I just wish I would grow up. And I looked at him and I said to him, never ever lose that. Don't ever lose that wonderment. Don't ever do that. Because when my son saw Martin Crosier and Kevin coming, especially Martin, he lit up like a firefly.

25:08 And if we say, well, I don't know how to do that. You can work it. You can work this. You can do this. But what you do is you think how they think.

25:18 Not that you're anything, you know, you're going down be, you know, do goofy stuff and immature stuff. No. But you can relate. You can talk to them. You can look at them and identify with them And that is really a tremendous to do.

25:36 And you know, by all, but also being an adult. But it's a tremendous thing to do and to have in your life. We need to be sensitive. They're going through deep waters. I wouldn't want to be 12 years old again ever.

25:51 I wouldn't want to be 17 again. The pressures these guys face today are unbelievable. Bald. But the thing about it is the pressures that you face, the pressures that that's, you know, the young folks are facing today are unreal. I mean, they're beyond what we faced.

26:17 Don, they're way beyond what we ever faced when we were growing up. I mean, you know, you've got so many world views coming at them. You've got so much pornography coming at them. You've got them right on your cell phone. You've I mean, it's just...

26:30 You can call it up like that. You can have instant communications. You've got cable. You've got... We had three channels and we barely got those.

26:38 If we got the tinfoil right in the black and white, howdy duty was the big deal, you know. And we went outside and played and refrigerator boxes and sticks were weapons and I mean all this kind of stuff. Not today, man. They're going They got the Xbox. They got, you know, Combat four.

26:59 They've got Call of Duty. They got... And it's so realistic. It's unbelievable. You can fly jet planes without leaving your living room.

27:07 It's just incredible, the pressures that they face. We need to be tender about them. We need to demonstrate that tenderness, have compassion on them and let it flow through us. Let that flow through us. Asking God, I like what somebody once prayed.

27:27 He prayed this, I never forgot. He said, O river of God, flow through me that you might set others free. And that's what we want. I want the river of God to flow through me that He might set others free. We sing it in our hymn book, Channels Only, Blessed Master.

27:46 Right? I want to be a channel of God's love. I want to let them to see that and to demonstrate that, that incredible love. I'm not so sophisticated. I'm not that smart.

27:57 I'm not that, oh, aren't I mature? I'm just 60. That's it. But I don't want to ever lose. I don't ever, I don't know if I had it, but I don't ever want to lose identification with children.

28:12 I don't. And the day that I do that, it's hopefully I'm with the Lord. And then when I'm with the Lord, I'll be His child and I don't think I'll ever lose it. This is what I want. This is what we need to want.

28:26 You know, it's interesting. I have a friend of mine. She worked in a daycare center and she was a helper of the teacher. There was one child in the class, if you please, that was in the daycare center, every day urinated in his pants. Every day.

28:53 The teacher just couldn't take it and would reprimand him and yell at him. Every day this child would come in and urinate in his pants. Can't you go to the and then just dress him down, get upset. She and my friend would clean the child up and minister. One day, this teacher was sick and so my friend had to take the class and the kid urinated in his pants.

29:22 She took the child, put him on his lap, on her lap, changed the child, loved him, hugged him, didn't reprimand him, didn't do anything like that, won that kid for life, Won the affection of that child for her for life. Imagine that. We need to be tender. That kid was going through an incredible family dispute that was unbelievable and the teacher did not know it. And so this kid would come and as an emotional release just couldn't hold hold it and was broken.

30:05 The child was broken at a tender age of four and five. Just broken children. Anyway, we need to be very, very, very tender towards them. Also, we need to be prepared for hard work because if you who are not involved in here, you ought to come and watch Owana. You ought to see how hard it is.

30:56 And you run the games in here. Praise God for that. What a tremendous ministry that has been in terms of people getting saved and also growing in Christ. But prepare for hard work. Leading people leading people to Christ is not easy.

31:12 I have a book on my shelf in my office. It says, Soul Winning Made Easy. I don't like the title because it's not easy. It's misnomered. It's not easy at all.

31:28 It's a lot of hard work, not only for adults but also for children. It's a lot of... But I tell you what, it's a blast. It's a lot of fun. Approaching children, we have here, especially in the open air environment, but here's what you have to do.

31:42 You have to build rapport. Build rapport. What is rapport? It's a harmony, accord or affinity. You wanna be aggressive but don't let it show outwardly.

31:54 Don't let it show outwardly. You gotta be aggressive but you gotta keep two things in balance, our authority as an adult and our identification with them at the young at heart. We're young at heart. That's what we want to do. We want to...

32:08 We're an authority on this. Communicate with them, not at them. Let me ask you a question. How do you think you can do that? What do you think, Don?

32:49 Exactly right. Right. That's beautiful. That's exactly what you should do. Ask questions.

32:55 Don't talk baby talk to them either. You boo boo. Are you have you have know? Hey, shut up. You know?

33:07 You know, they they... A six year old... We've had this in the open air, especially in in New York area, Newark, New Jersey. A six year old Brunda's three year old brother, he's the man of the house. He probably doesn't even know who his father is.

33:24 And he's sitting there like this in the kids meeting. We're doing I'm in right, out, right, up, right, down, right, happy all the time. I'm in right, out right, up right. The whole team does it together, right? So the kids will do it too.

33:38 These two kids are like this. This is in Weekewake Park, New York, in New Jersey near Newark. I know with these kids, we had to sweep glass away to put the mat down. These kids are sitting there like this. They're the toughest two kids you ever saw in your life, a three year old and a six year old.

33:59 He's probably been abused. He's probably been beaten up. He's probably scared out of his mind. And he's sitting on this mat and refuses to sing. So I'm sitting there going, I'm in right, alright.

34:11 And I look at him and he's just looking at me with this scowl on his face. And so I'm going, come on. I'm like, you know, a little the head nod, you know. If I was a horse, I'd be going, you know. Why the long face, right?

34:25 Anyway, I'm doing I'm doing this. Come on and come on. All of a sudden, his arms start coming out and he starts doing it. He starts singing. All of a sudden, he's a kid again.

34:37 At the age of six, these kids don't, they don't have a chance to have a childhood. They go straight from being born to being adults. And you talk to them not like they're little children. You talk to them and you never mention the word little. They're just human beings.

34:59 They're men and women. I call them men and women when I deal with children. Men and women, Even though they're six, seven, eight years of age, they're men and women. Isn't that true? And so that's how you deal with them and you talk to them and you ask questions.

35:13 You ask them questions. Get their information. They're gonna tell you what they think. They will tell you what they think. Now we've got a whole bunch of information here for you.

35:26 We've got that. And you want to maintain a casual and friendly attitude while remaining authority, the authority in the meeting. You wanna do that when you're talking to this child. And when you talk to a child, what you wanna do is have the child face you and have the the any action that's happening like LeBron James and you know, those guys playing basketball in in the back background, have them have the child face you. Why why do you think?

36:17 Do not take this child, I don't care, I don't care if you know him well. Do not take this child into one of these rooms alone and shut the door so that you can talk without a lot of noise. Why? All they gotta do is accuse you and it's over for you. You better get yourself a good lawyer.

36:44 You better get yourself a good lawyer because they're going to... All they have to do is accuse you. They don't even have to be... They can lie like crazy. Kids have a sin nature.

36:54 They can lie like crazy. And then all they do is just, here's what it is, and it's over for you. You know what the state will do? They'll come in and shut that Awana program down. They'll shut you down.

37:06 They'll put you in prison. They'll put you in jail, You'll be going before a magistrate and then your name is mud. It's over. And it'll take you years. Talk about identity theft?

37:20 Took me years to get my identity back. Well, it's gonna take you years to get your reputation back. Wise as serpents and harmless as a dove. And that is so important for us. And then notice when we talk about counseling a children, a child one on one, You want to get this...

37:39 You want to isolate the child. You want to talk to them one on one because... And you don't want to be distracted. But I... If you're having an I wanna program in this room, I want to talk to this child here having the child facing me this way with all the activities in the background.

37:55 They're back to their their back to the activities, so they're not distracted. But I'm right here so everybody can see it. Okeydoke. Or I've got, if I'm going into a room, I'm going to take a lady with me if I'm a male and I'm going to take a male with me if I'm a lady and do it and talk to the child. So it's two.

38:16 In fact, that should be the way it should be men with women. So I had a situation in which it was at Grace. A woman came up to me and wanted to talk to me. She said, can I talk to you privately? And I said, yes, but I would love to talk to you privately, but I am married and I'm going to bring Barb with me.

38:38 Is that okay? She goes, oh, of course. And that's what we did. I'm not going to go with a woman by my lonesome and talk to her about spiritual matters. I'm not doing it.

38:53 Wise as serpents and harmless as a dove. These rings are important. So get the child alone and, well, have the child face you. Extreme care in touching and holding. This would be really true in the open air.

39:10 I'm not so sure how true it is here, but be very careful with that. And especially in the open air environment, you're transferring a lot of love to this child who might not have a lot of love And you become very affectionate with this child. That can be misinterpreted. That can be really misinterpreted and you have to be very careful about it. And then you notice and see here, you have counseling with one to a small group.

39:39 Sometimes you, I don't know if you've had the situation here in Owana where you have your class, the truth and training class where you've got to counsel more than two, five. And then you have the next one is a large group. And then what you do is you review the basics with them. You might want to weed them out, ask them questions. You're essentially doing another meeting with them in terms of counseling them and leading them to Christ.

40:09 Understand, is nothing unless these kids are being confronted with the gospel. It's not a social thing. I'm speaking as an elder of our assembly. We have Awana. We want to see these people come to Christ.

40:27 This would be true of a daily vacation Bible school situation. We want to lead these children to Christ. I don't know if you know Sam Charion at all, but Sam Charion is a good friend and I had the privilege of doing a daily vacation Bible school. And when Sam's son gave his testimony to get baptized as a young adult, he was getting baptized. He said, he said he had counted that he got trusted Christ as his personal savior during one of those DVBSs.

41:00 I just thought that was the great... That's so fantastic. That is fantastic. People can get saved. By the way, these children can get saved.

41:11 Three Three quarters, can they get saved? Yes. Can they pass from death unto life? Yes. And it is permanent.

41:19 It's not pre evangelism. It can happen. These people can trust Christ at a young age and praise God for that. Praise God for that. Just like D.

41:32 L. Moody told his wife, 2.5. All the years of potential service before then, instead of a wreck, you know, getting saved at the age of 50... My dad got saved at the age of 59. He's with the Lord now.

41:48 So less than thirty years of knowing Christ. How long... It's been a long time. You've been... You're 68...

41:55 64 a sixty four and a half years. Praise God. And what a family he has. Right? Dan the man and and your other sons and I mean tremendous and and your daughter and then just just what a tremendous family.

42:11 And I think of the reader, I mean, what a tremendous thing this is to lead lead your own children to Christ. The Woodhams? I mean, you've got all these people here. You know what I'm talking about. What a tremendous thing this is.

42:41 I was talking to Carl. I looked at your website. Website's exceptional. It's an exceptional website. We've got a website for Calvary too.

42:52 And we've had people come to our assembly who said, I came to your assembly because we looked you up on the website. Wow. That's fantastic. I mean, that's great. Okay.

43:06 And we, you know, preach the Word and everything. So then you've got the plans of salvation. What do you teach? We teach the same thing we talked about last month. Same same doctrine.

43:19 Doctrine doesn't change. Our ability to communicate that doctrine is the important thing. Our ability to communicate. You can't use $57 words. You can't do it with these children.

43:37 You've got to break it down and that's... Listen, write this down. Okay? Would you jot this down if you can? If you can lead a child to Christ, you can lead anybody to Christ.

43:49 That's the quote. Quote of the day. If you can lead a child to Christ, you can lead anybody to Christ. It's simple. And that's what you have to be.

44:00 You don't talk about the hypostatic union of Christ to a child. You don't talk about the length of the toenails of Daniel's image and the eschatological ramifications thereof with a child. Maybe if the child's a genius or something and has incredible vocabulary, but you have to break down words. You have to understand kids. You have to understand what their vocabulary...

44:23 And by the way, I think that the kids' vocabulary, maybe it's not true in Westlake, but it certainly is true in Michigan and it's true in New York, kids' vocabulary is downing it. In other words, they have... Their vocabulary is lowering. So you have to be very careful in terms of how you communicate, what you say. You need to be born again, kids.

44:44 Trust Christ. Be born again. What does that mean? Like I said last time I was here, I asked a whole bunch of kids in Chicago at a church, what does it mean to be born again? They raised their hand.

44:55 I said, yeah, what is it? To be reincarnated. So you have to scale a language barrier with people and especially true in children, with children. So you've got these salvations, you know, you've got the gospel hand, the wordless book. It's not...

45:13 By the way, the wordless book is fantastic. It's out of sight. It's really good. Greg Steigelman used that to adults. Made his own wordless book.

45:24 My friend who works with us, Greg Steigelman, it's really funny because he did his own... I don't know. He just likes doing it. And so he goes into a Pizza Hut. There's nobody in the Pizza Hut except the girl made the pizza, sold them it, made it, brought it out to him.

45:39 He sits down and she sits nobody in this whole place. She sits right next to him, making him feel uncomfortable. So Greg, he's an old elderly guy and he's going, how are you doing? What's your what's your name? You know, he breaks, he opens up a conversation with this young lady and she goes, well, I'm a student.

45:59 And he goes, oh yeah? Where do you go to school? And he told us, she told him the school. And what are you studying? Greg says.

46:05 He says, I'm studying journalism. And Greg goes, I just finished my biography. She goes, you did? Yes. I just finished my autobiography.

46:16 This is Greg, man. He's like a genius. And he really is. I just take notes when he starts talking about evangelism. And I I look at...

46:25 He says, yeah, I just finished my autobiography. He she goes, wow. You wrote it? He goes, yeah. You wanna see it?

46:32 And he pulls out this thing that, you know, this cheesy looking cardboard with staples on it, you know? And he goes and he went right through the wordless book, right with her. And as he's doing this, somebody came in, she goes, makes him pizza. He sits, this place is not nobody there sits right next to Greg and right next to her. And so he talks to them using the wordless book.

46:57 It's outstanding. Outstanding. So... And notice what this we have here. Look at your notes there.

47:03 It says the wordless book, dark is sin. It's not never black. Never, never, never, never, uh-uh, And white, it's not white, it's light. That's righteousness. Those are very important things things to remember.

47:19 Other plans you might have is, and I've got these for you, I brought a whole bag of them. This is the best literature I could ever recommend. May I ask you a question? And if you want one, this is the best time of the year. It's the best, most wonderful time of the year.

47:41 I've walked through you'll get rid of these in a heartbeat. You'll go, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Here's a present for you.

47:48 Oh, thanks. Thank you very much. Can't do that in July. But in Christmas time, they're, oh, yeah. Thank you.

47:55 Oh, yeah. I'm an atheist. I like to kill people, but thanks. You know? You know, they they'll take it.

48:03 They will take it and look at it. It really... They really will. Rare is the time and I've had them, but rare is the time where someone... I don't want it.

48:10 Get out of my face. You know? Okay. I'm out of your face. I'm out of your face.

48:16 And then you want to ask review questions. Notice e there. Also, one other thing, you got those review questions. What do you understand? And this is what Don has been saying, has told us, ask them questions.

48:29 You're not... I'm I'm not interested in having them pray the prayer. I want them to trust Christ. I want them to understand what they've done and they can. If we're clear on it, asking them what they've done.

48:45 What have you done? Where is, I asked a child one time. I said, where is Jesus right now? What am I thinking? I'm thinking is in my heart.

48:54 That's the that's the I want him to say that. He said, he's at the right hand of the father right now. I said, were you reading Charles Ryrie or something? You're reading systematic theology, the right hand? I said, yeah, okay, that's good.

49:07 That's good but where is he writing? Oh, he goes, I'm in my life. I've had children say, if I say to you, receive Jesus into your heart, what do I mean when I say that? And ask them the question. They say, well, you mean to say that you want Him in your life.

49:23 I said, do I mean the muscle? They go, no, you don't mean the muscle. Cool. They're understanding. And this is where we want to go with them.

49:33 We want them to do it. Where will you go when you die? Go to heaven. Now a lot of these, will He ever leave you? They've had mom leave.

49:42 They've had dad leave. They've had a lot of people leave. They've met either by death or by divorce or something. Where will He ever leave you? And they said to me, no.

49:54 No. This is after you go through Hebrews. I will never leave thee nor ever forsake thee. And sometimes you have to get very personal with children. You say children.

50:06 It's interesting to me when you talk to children, and I'll end with this one. You've got the notes. They're they're complete. I did a camp at Camp Hope. I did team.

50:19 It was a team camp at Camp Hope. And I was teaching on first Peter and there were two brothers there. And you just don't know what these kids are going through. You just don't know. And they were sitting there and I talked to one, he looked disturbed, he looked upset.

50:43 He's the guy, see his parents were divorced. The mother wanted nothing to do with those the boys or the father. Walked out, left them. The father felt so badly about this and he had a hard time trying to raise these two boys, these rambunctious boys. A Christian.

51:04 He killed himself. He shot himself, leaving. And these two boys, one of them, found his dad. And he was sitting there in my meeting. So I went up to him afterwards and just put my arm around him and just talked to him, just to help him.

51:28 I cannot imagine it. I got a great imagination. I don't want to imagine it. The abject pain that that young man was going through. And he wept, which was good, which was very good.

51:49 He wept and they thought they were the problem. Why his dad took his own life. He might be 18 on the outside and chronologically, but he's 10 years old. He's looking for reality and stability and he's looking for that, Let's give it to them. By God's grace, understanding who we are in Christ and giving them Jesus.

52:25 Reaching children. This is one of the most important things we could ever do. I praise God for this assembly. I praise God for that you have a wanna and you think about reaching children. I praise God that you have that camp and support that camp.

52:37 It's an incredible thing and other camps like it. What an opportunity. I praise God that Debbie goes and talks to those children. You know, this is this is really the guts of it. Father, we just ask you that you would help us to be evangelists and sharing the good news with anybody that's breathing, but especially this group of younger folks.

53:22 Bless us, we pray, in Jesus name. Amen.