What God Thinks of Young People

Now there's one thing I'd like to say, I'm actually going to talk, when I talk about young people, I'm going to talk about children, OK? And for those of you a bit older, get your seatbelts on because we're just basically grown up children, at least I am. And I find a lot of, when I sit down with children and ask them their struggles in their heart, and then I speak with adults and they're actually willing to admit what they're struggling with, often it's just the things that they struggle with as a child that's got a bit worse. Now, children can be cute. My little Ruth, I know many of you know my little Ruth, she's the one that you can't miss. And she does the weirdest things all the time. She's almost as bad as I was when I was a little child. And for instance, she sat in the back of the car once, and she was sitting in the back of the car, and my wife was in the car, and she started screaming. And she said, help, help, help, help, help, help! And she had a finger in her ear. And I thought, she's hurt her hand, there's something got her, there might be a snake, I don't know what it is. I came to the back there and she was fine, and my wife said, I said, what's wrong? And Jerusalem said, she had a finger in her ear. And she was screaming for help, and I took the finger out, and she said, Thank you, Mommy. Now, little Ruth, I'm going to do one more story, because there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, as you would have if you were a child, I'm sure. But little Ruth, she came up to my wife once, and she asked, Mommy, what are you looking for? And my wife said to her, I'm looking for my hair thingy. And Ruth looked at her and she said, this was a few years back when she was even smaller, she said, Mommy, she said, your hair thingy will be my hair thingy. And she said, your people will be my people. She said, your God will be my God. Children can be beautiful. Before we read that verse, I'd like to, two verses, I'd like to ask four questions about children, which we're going to answer today, hopefully. The one is, can Satan get hold of you, touch you, at a young age, as a little child? The second is, can you deserve hell at a young age? And as it came out, I'm just going to say, little babies don't go to hell, so you don't think I'm going that direction. But can you deserve hell at a young age? Can you be saved at a young age? And can you be used of God at a young age? So can Satan touch you, get hold of you at a young age? Can you deserve hell at a young age? Can you be saved at a young age? And can you be used of God at a young age? And let's look at those today. Firstly, can Satan touch you at a young age? Can Satan touch you at a young age? Now, I remember in South Africa, and this is the extreme obviously, sometimes you'll get little children that have epileptic fits and then people think that they have a demon but they've just got epilepsy. But you'll meet some little children and there's a lot of forefather worship there, witchcraft is legal in South Africa. Before our sports matches they'll get witch doctors in to bless the teams, they'll open parliament with witch doctors, they'll get witch doctors for parliamentarians to help them win their court cases, and often the witch doctor's power is not that powerful and they lose. But we have a lot of demon worship and the same things you do in Satanism, they do in the tribes. What you do with the witch doctors, they will shed blood and give their children over to the spirits. So you'll meet a lot of children that there's something terrifyingly wrong and people will come to you, and I'm not a charismat, I don't like to look for demons behind trees, I'm not one of those, one of the things you have to realize in the Bible is that Adam blamed Eve but Eve blamed who, Satan for what she did. There's a lot of churches that do that, they say I committed adultery but it was the demon on my shoulder. And that's not true, you committed adultery. But in South Africa, I remember, and this happens at a different time, there was a little child, a parent that came to us with this child and the eyes were so glossy and it just sat there, a little six year old, eyes just, you couldn't see anything as if it was on total drugs, it wasn't there at all and it just, it was like this. And the parent said that a demon came upon it and basically it became like this. So we prayed, that's what you do, you know the disciples prayed and things happened, so we prayed and we looked at this child and nothing happened. And so I said, okay, we're going to have to fast, because that's what Jesus said, this comes not forth but by prayer and fasting, and so we prayed and we fasted for a few days and then the child was prayed for and in one moment that child went from a glossy eyed zombie to a little child again, and it was precious. But the question is, a little six year old, how did a demon get into it, and what right has a demon to a six year old, from a Biblical perspective, surely Satan doesn't have the right to little children. You know, in India, there were times in the past where, and I'm sure they too, but they used to give over their children to temple worship and what they used to do, they'd take little five mimosa, Amy Carmichael used to save children from temple worship, but they actually took a video of the little children as their parents gave them over to become child prostitutes, and gave them over to the spirits, and you would see little children, just like little Glenn, just like the little children that are outside here, and the little child is excited, it's a child that would climb a tree, five, six years old, and then the parents gave that child over to the spirit, and in one moment, one moment, that little child's innocent face, no child is innocent by the way, but innocent relatively speaking, became evil and ugly, in one moment, as those parents gave it over to the spirit. Let's open up, you have opened up your Bible, it's Mark chapter 9, we read in verse 20 and 21, he has this child, a man, and Jesus asked a question, when the disciples could not throw the demon out of this person, and he said, they brought him unto him, and when they saw him straight away, the spirit tear him, and he fell on the ground, and wallowing, and wallowed foaming, and then in verse 21 he says, and he asked his father, Jesus speaking, how long is it ago since this came unto him? The father said, he said, of a child. See in the Bible, you have examples of parents who know that a demon entered a little child, he grew up with that demon. Now I remember going to a neighboring country, South Africa, and we were traveling around, we were preaching, it's a desert country by the way, except for the north, and you sometimes travel four hours between towns, little towns, their biggest town has got about 80,000 people, it's not the biggest country, and we came in this desert country to this one town, like I said, the capital of the city, and there we were preaching at this one school to hundreds of little kids, and there were two things that struck me at that school, and the one was that the president's grandchild was there, and the future president's grandchild was there that I was preaching to, you often preach to little princesses in Africa because the kings have many wives, and the many wives have many children, and the many children have many wives, and so their grandchildren are all princes and princesses, and so you'll go to normal schools, and you'll preach to them, and there'll be the little princess that comes. Very sweet. But yeah, you have the president's grandchildren there, and this one grandchild, he was the most depressed kid in that school, he was literally just sitting like a little cabbage, looking at the ground the whole time. You see, even though he had the president as his grandfather, his father and mother had thrown him up, and he was brought up by other relatives, and he was down about that as a little seven-year-old boy, and I remember saying to them, can I take this child apart, and I took this president's grandchild apart, and I spoke to him in a little room, and I realized this child does not want a president as a grandfather, this child longs for a father and a mother. Not only that, the second thing that struck me, this is a genius goal, a whole lot of little kids, seven, eight, nine years old, came together and they were weeping, they weren't weeping like little babies, the tears were flowing down their faces, they talked about the demons that would attack them at the night time, and I wept as I thought, because this is not just one occurrence, this is in so many different places, what right has Satan got to little children like this? But it's the reality of the world. Sometimes I think about that verse in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 14, the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. You see, there's a protection and not a perfect protection, trust me, there's a war on over your souls, and over little children's souls, but there is something of a protection of godly parents, and godly parents can throw that away by what they allow in their houses, I'm not talking about things by the way, Titus clearly says we don't give power to demons by things, but by the things we allow into our child's life that have a message, that can hurt our children, and the people, and the music, and the entertainment we allow into our children's lives, and what we do to our children. Yes there's a protection, but it's not a perfect protection, especially in the physical realm, you know I was preaching in Dundee, and I'm not going to go into all the stories, because there were demons attacking the person in the bed next to me, and again I don't like demons, I don't have a demonic ministry in case you wonder, and I won't go into all the different things that would happen with the dogs that would be scared of the demons, and I would literally ask the dog to come to where the demon would appear, that no one wanted to go, and the dog would run away terrified. But remember in this church that I preached at there in this town, at that church there was a little child in Sunday school, and the child went missing, and they could not find it, the church, and the police, and the community searched for that child for three days, and eventually they found the Sunday school child, or what was left of him, little eight year old or so, his body ripped apart, the witch doctors that got hold of him, and he'd been at Sunday school, and there was a godly man that preached there, he would wake up at four o'clock in the morning to seek the Lord, to pray for hours, he lived in a mud house, and he was truly saved, and yet in his Sunday school a child, Satan, got hold of through his evil tool, to make witch doctors. You know how many people have sat in front of me and they say when they go to certain witch doctors, the witch doctor will say to me, they said, give me your child, so you can carry on stealing. That's what we read in the Bible. It was child sacrifice. You know, in real life, and I try to be Amish without a beard sometimes as far as non-resistance goes, but in real life, if you look at the history of the Geneva Convention, they made some rules, they tried to make a few rules, that you don't shoot children when you have warfare, you try to not hurt civilians as best you can when you bomb places, and so there's at least some little rules that some countries, they try to keep to, and they try to be held accountable to as far as these things, but let me tell you something, when it comes to Satan, he has pure hatred, he does not care at all about anything about you. All he cares to, from the beginning, is to destroy you, and he will touch children whenever he gets a chance. There's no Geneva Convention for him. Here's the question, can Satan get hold of you from a young age? Yes, with demonism, that's true, but I can tell you something else, from a young age, you can get involved with friends that will teach you to lie to your parents, and that you'll get bitter about certain things, not just because you're a friend, but because of other things. You'll have a life in the dark. I remember very much when I went to school, boy, those kids knew a lot at seven years old. I didn't know a swear word until the age of ten. I went to school when they had Bibles on their desks and they used to spank us, now that was good. It was good to respect older people, but even in those days when they spanked us and they taught us to respect older people, the sin that seven year old people knew, and they wanted to teach it to us, it was a game. To Satan it was destruction, but to them it was fun. We do things beyond the teacher's back, and we do things beyond your parents' back, and we do things beyond your pastor's back, and we teach you why it's right, and why they're legalistic and they're stupid. There's one preacher in America, and I could give a hundred examples of this, but I'm not going to harp on this one point in this sermon because that's not the point, but this one preacher came to this house and there was a granny and she was so proud of her grandchild, and he was visiting. She said, this grandchild, you know what he does? He listens to hymns all the time in his room, and he reads his Bible all the time. It's just amazing. He's this perfect little saint of a grandchild. The preacher said, that's wonderful. He said, can I just stay in his room for a little while, and she went out. She was just, oh my grandchild. He went there and he went to where the record player was with the hymns in, and he found where the sound came out of the earphones, and he found a wire that went around the back and under the bed and went to another place with another record player that had the rock music. He found the other magazines under the bed. Let me tell you something. You can fool man, but you cannot fool God. You can fool me. Many people have fooled me. You can fool your parents. You can fool your pastor, but you can't fool God. But the problem with this is it can start when you're a little child. I know somebody recently, he broke one of my friend's hearts when he said, you know when I started lying to my parents, and I've done it ever since, and they're so stupid. I was a little boy. I was a little boy. You can become bitter at a young age. I've seen young people, and the strangest things make them bitter. This one guy, I was actually there when a missionary walked past, and he was a little boy, and he used to read seven chapters of the Bible every day, and this missionary walked past, and he said, you're going to go bald one day, and he walked on, and I saw a young man, and I'm not saying that he had any excuse to do this. You don't blame God for what other people did to you, but he became bitter. He threw away that Bible, and later on I heard him say, I wish all men would go to hell, and that's where it started. Some people come, there's so many little children nowadays in the time we live in, become bitter when their parents fight. I've seen young people, young teenagers, young children, they hate themselves. They hate themselves because of their parents. My parents are fighting. It's my fault. I hate myself. Tears roll down their faces. I've met so many young people who walked up to me and said, Roy, I don't want to marry one day, because I'm just going to be like my parents, and they're not joking. They're fearful in their thousands. Little children can have wrong friends. Proverbs 13 verse 20, he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Now foolishness is not not knowing how to make a rocket. Foolishness is many things, if you read Proverbs. Let me encourage you. Find a good friend. Part of seeking God before you're even saved is finding a good friend. John Wesley, before he was saved, had some good friends that helped him get saved later. You don't have to wait until you're saved to get good friends. Get people who love the Lord. Now, David and Jonathan, people misuse this verse in 2 Samuel 1 verse 26 where he says, Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of a woman. He was talking about before he died, obviously. But here was a man who loved another man because that man loved God and had faith in God. Find someone like that to be your friend. A humble man who submits to authority, will not be stupid like a Jehovah's Witness and never ask questions, but submits, and a man who loves God and wants to seek God and wants to be used by God and will make mistakes, but we're going to do it together for God. Moody and Torrey was like this. You can go through history and find so many. In the Bible in 2 Samuel 13 verse 3, we find that Amnon had a friend. His name was Jonadab. You know who Jonadab was? He was Amnon's cousin. David's brother Shamir had a few sons. And he made a choice. If you want to hear a good sermon, Brother Lee, I don't know if you can point it to you, his son Ezra, he's a missionary in South America, has a wonderful sermon on Amnon had a friend. I think he preached at the Maranatha a few years back, maybe last year or the year before. Anyway, what a lot of people don't realize is that Amnon's friend had a brother. You see in the Bible you'll find words like hi and I, H-A-E-I, and hi was next to Bethel and I was next to Bethel. There's one letter difference and it's actually the same place. You find the same with David's brother. One of them was Shamir with an H and one was Shamir without an H, but it's the same person. And he had children and one of them was Jonadab who encouraged Amnon to commit adultery, to rape basically, his sister. And the other brother, Shamir's other son, was one of David's mighty men. He had a choice who could be his friend and he chose the wrong one. You have a choice who is your friend. Let me tell you something, the guy who plays the guitar, the guy who's good at sport, the guy who can teach you how to do things behind your parents' back, the guy who's cool and helps you through hard times, that doesn't matter. Even if the guy's boring, get a guy who loves God. Not just in church, but a guy who loves God behind your parents' back, because that's a true friend. You know, it's not a coincidence that straight after Jesus talked against divorce in the New Testament, and there are cases with divorce, we obviously know where the husband just leaves for another woman or the woman leaves for another man. We can't always blame both parties, but it's no coincidence that Jesus spoke against it before, just before he said the words in Matthew 19 verse 14, suffer little children to come unto me. Suffer little children to come unto me. You know how many times I've seen people who at least were trying to follow God, three or four brothers, and then their parents divorced and they went off into the world. Some of them became Satanists. It's better that you had a millstone around your neck and you're thrown in the sea than that you were a stumbling block to one of these little ones that believe in me, Jesus Christ said. You know, I've been to schools in South Africa where there's a group of people, youngsters in the junior school, seven, eight, nine years old, and they'll be weeping. Literally the tears will be rolling down their faces and dripping on the ground for over ten minutes at a time. And they're not wailing like a baby, like I said, they're just dripping on the ground. And I ask them, what's wrong? And they'll talk about their parents who divorced. This one little child came to me once and said, Roy, pray that my daddy will come back to me as the little tears dripped on the ground. Seven years old. And in high school, I'll preach at the junior school, and then I'll go to the high school, and you can see how they grow up. It starts with a broken heart, and in the high school it's a hardened heart against God. They laugh at me when I preach the gospel. When the junior school, they cry. I remember at my own school before I was saved, I remember there were so many macho men, big strong muscular gym guys who did sport and played rugby. You know, that's the thing without the helmets. And generally they were men, so men don't cry and stuff like that. But I remember once this one guy was sitting in a car and he walked past me and he looked at me. I'll never forget it. And he looked at his friend, all these strong guys with good looks, and he says, is your parents divorced? And he had tears in his eyes. Seventeen years old. I said, yes. He said, is your parents divorced? I said, yes. And he cried. He was like, why is everybody doing this? And he walked off. I saw one guy, he was on drugs, and he still played sport. I don't know how he got the two together, but anyway. He was a high flying rugby player. But I remember being there with the first aid as well. I did several sports myself, but I remember with first aid when I was on the field helping the guys who got a little bit of blood and stuff. I remember this one guy was there, known for years, and he was horrible to people, and he was on drugs. But when his dad for once was on the side of the field. His dad was there, and I just remember every time he kicked the ball, he was 17, 18 years old, but he was like a little baby. He was like, Daddy, did you see that? Daddy, did you see that? I couldn't believe that his daddy was there. In Polokwane, South Africa, there was a little child. His granny told me the story. She said, my son, he was a good guy to my daughter. My son-in-law was a good guy to my daughter. He had a good job, and then he turned to drink, and he left my daughter. My little grandchild, about six years old, came into the house and said to me, Granny, I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in God anymore. The granny says, why don't you believe in God anymore? He said, because, Granny, I went into my room, and I went on my knees, and I cried out to God and said, God, bring Daddy back, and Daddy didn't come back, so I don't believe in God anymore. There is hope, of course. It's not all mud and mire. In South Africa, I remember once I was at one church, and the pastor said to me, next door is a guy. When we try to tell him about Jesus, he laughs at us. When we try to tell him about hell, he laughs at us. His mother gets brought home. It's a white little child, just happens to be Caucasian, in Africa. Her mother is brought home drunk almost every day. Her body is just laid down on the floor there. He hates God, and he hates Christianity. So I went over next door, and I saw this little child on his own, no supervision, playing in the grass. I said, hi. He said, do you want to play chess? That's the thing, I lose it a lot when I play that guy there. He said yes, and I come in the house, and I think we had to do it on the computer because we couldn't find a chess board. We sat there and played, and I opened up my Bible to Revelation chapter 20, and I showed him while we were playing chess that there's a great white throne coming, and a person is going to sit on that, that's Jesus Christ, the one that if we run away from him as Savior down here, we're going to run towards him. We are running towards him as God, as judge, and we're going to meet him one day. It won't matter what troubles we've been through. It won't matter if our parents are drunk. It won't matter if other people have been horrible to us. It won't matter if we've got a nice car, a nice job, a beautiful girlfriend, or if our girlfriend left us. The only thing that will matter on that day is my name in that book, because if it's not in that book, I'm going to the flames of fire for eternity. You know what is so wonderful about God through that simple little chess game is there was a boy who refused to listen to anything about God, who hated the gospel message or anything to do with it. He laughed at hell, this little boy, and the next thing he was going to every single message of that church. He came to listen to me preach for about four or five days. It took one chess game. Hearts that are broken, waken by kindness. Funny cross he said, wasn't it? Hearts that are broken will vibrate once more. Isn't God good? Satan is so terrible. It's depressive. But how much greater is God? If Satan can do that, imagine what God can do. You have to think that way or else it's a hopeless world. Second question. Can you deserve hell at a young age? Now I've said at the beginning that little babies do not go to hell. We find this in scripture. Some people like to go to Jonah 4 verse 11 and say that God said there's six thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand. But I think it's way more clear when you go to David's two children. Because here you have King David, he's committed adultery. There's a baby that came out of it and he cries and cries and cries until the child dies. And suddenly when the child dies and he hears about it, he stops crying. And this little baby's dead and they wonder why are you stopping to cry? And David says these words, he's dead. Wherefore shall I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him but he shall not return to me. And so when this child died, he stopped crying because he realized this child is in heaven. When my wife had a miscarriage years back, that little child is in heaven. Don't you ever think of abortion? Every little child. The one good thing we can get out of abortion is there's millions of little children that are in heaven today. That's no excuse for abortion but it's the one good thing we can look at and be encouraged by. We're going to meet a million, million, million, quite a few million babies up there. Anyway, slightly grown up. So, when David had a little baby die, the little baby said I'm going to go to that baby one day. But when Absalom died, he didn't not cry after his death. In fact, he wept and wept and wept. And he said, Absalom, Absalom, my son, Absalom, to God I died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son. Why did he cry after his death? Because he realized this rebellious person is right now burning in the flames of hell for eternity. And he wished that he died in his place. But little babies do not go to hell. The question comes, though, we don't know exactly at which age, but there comes an age of accountability in which God will judge us for the fact that we go against our conscience if we never had a Bible. And even with our Bible, it becomes more important that we sin against God, that which we know is wrong, and even that which we don't know is wrong. So, at what age can this happen? Well, we read in the Bible, 2 Kings 21 verse 1, that there was a guy called Manasseh. Remember, Manasseh was one of the 12 tribes, or actually was a sub-tribe, a half-tribe. But Manasseh was 12 years old when it began to rain. We don't read anything good of him. In fact, we just read a little later that he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord after the abominations of the heathen. We'll come back to him a little later. That was 12 years old. Now, that's just pre-teen. But we read in 2 Chronicles 36 verse 9 of another king, and his name was Jehoiachin, and he was eight years old when he began to rain, and he rained three months and ten days in Jerusalem, not 50 years, and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He has an eight-year-old child that only rains three months, and he's evil. You can be eight, and you can be evil. Trust me, I've met some. Some of them hid it so nice in church at eight years old. I like to tell little children, when we have little children's meetings, you know, Dale Moody was amazing because he preached to adults in their thousands, but he also preached to little children. He started off with a children's ministry before he had an adult ministry. I think that's why he was such a good preacher to adults because he understood how little children thought. In Romans 6 verse 23, it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What I like to say to little children is, imagine you went to Wal-Mart in South Africa, pick and pay, or Macro, or something like that, and you got to be the person who put the stuff in the bags. After a week of work, what would you get? You'd get something for what you've done. What would you get for what you've done? You'd get a little money, hey? Well, when you do bad stuff, you also get something. It's called wages for what you've done. That's what wages is. You get something for what you've done. So, can little children get something for what they've done? 2 Kings 2 verse 23, we read of Elisha. People say I shouldn't tell the story to kids, but I do. There's a little big picture that I like to show them, and it's this big she-bear because these little children did something very bad. They took on a man of God, and they mocked him. Probably they heard from their parents that you should mock the man of God. I don't know. These little children, the Bible says, mocked Elisha and said, go up that bald head, a few times. Elisha, he cursed them, and the she-bears came out and they ripped those children apart. They got something for what they'd done at a young age. Just because they were children didn't mean that they didn't deserve to be punished. Sounds cruel? The truth is the truth. It comes to the Ten Commandments, and I show the little children the Ten Commandments. Listen, you might not have done those ones. I'm not going to explain exactly what that commandment is there for you little kiddies. There's some very bad mommies and daddies. But when it comes down to a few of them, even you as a little child, you've disobeyed your parents. I've been amazed at some groups of children. I say, have you ever disobeyed your parents? The whole group says, no, never. You know what the problem is? I've been at their houses. I've seen them. Never, ever. Well, there's another one. It's called lying. You have lied in your life. The Bible says in the end times there will be perilous times. 2 Timothy 3 verse 2. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boastless, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents. A little child at some stage can start deserving hell. An eight-year-old can be evil in the sight of the Lord. I've met people in churches in America, and they said, oh, I hate it when a person says that anything under the age of 13 can go to hell. My children, they're so innocent. Revelation 20, I mentioned earlier. You see, you get something for what you've done. And if those little children compare themselves, not to Hitler, but the worst kid at their school, they're going to think that they deserve heaven, or that they were born a Christian because their parents say so, or something. Those little children need to realize that there's a consequence of your actions. You were born a sinner, yes, but you're going to hell for what you've done. You need Jesus. Little children need to understand that. I remember one child, and nowadays when you speak about spankings, you get into big trouble. But I remember one child, and this child would not keep quiet when I was speaking to a little group of children for about five days in a row. Every day at the same time I got this group of children together, and this one child would not sit still. This one child was everywhere, worse than Ruth ten hundred times, and nobody else could listen to the messages. And eventually I said to this child, I'm not going to tell you which country I did this in, I'm not going to tell you how long back, because I might get a court case, but I'll tell you this, I don't do it anymore. Anyway, so this child came, and I said to this child, this little eight-year-old, oh my, would you like to pray? The child said yes. I said that's great, you know what you can do? Kneel to pray. Oh this is good. The child kneeled down. Then I made the child act out two squirrels. We call it Orkney and Orkney is Orkney. Anyway, the one squirrel does not prepare for the winter, and I made sure that this child was that squirrel. And the other squirrel puts away nuts for the winter, and the very sad thing is when the winter comes, the one squirrel dies. I'm not joking, this child thought it a weep. Little tears, not wearing, just a tear dripping on the ground, because I died. So I sat it down and explained the gospel to it, and we did say a prayer at that stage. And that little child, in one moment was a new person, and the next day it was sitting still, and that's how it was. Now Ruth, that doesn't help, but I'll tell you what, happened to this child. Now this child said, you've got to meet my mother. So I walked down the street one day, and I came to this little hut, and I went in the house, and the mother had black, I don't know why people do this, some Christians do this, but black paste on the fingernails, like black, and it was like strange looking eyes and everything. And the little child was there with this glowing face, and said, this is the guy I was telling you about, I love him, he's so wonderful. You know why children do not understand consequence? It's because they don't get earthly consequence. It's so much harder for them to understand that there's going to be eternal consequence when you die. And they did a statistic years back in South Africa, they did a survey, and they actually asked people from born again houses that believe the gospel, that believe you have to be born again, what are the things that you do to your children? Do you teach them the Bible? Do you pray? Do you do all these things? And they found that where the most born, children that really seemed to, their lives seemed to change, was where not they had the most Bible reading, believe it or not, but where they used the five fold ministry. You see, then suddenly when you talk about Revelation 20, and you say there was a great white throne, and him that sat on it from his face to earth, and heaven fled away, and there was found a place for them, and you go on with that, and you see that the book saw open, and another book was opened, which was the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works, and suddenly that child realized, when I, at that stage, was bad to my mommy, or I lied, it's written in a book. And it's not like, I just say, sorry, don't hurt me, and oh, nothing happens. There's consequences, and I need Jesus. And we've got to realize that too. You know what's so sad to me is that there's so many people out there who honestly believe, they want to believe, you know, too much honey can become bitter. And so you so want your child to be saved, that even though your child is not saved, he's saved. And you do that to your friends too. But there's no one John fruit, there's no two Corinthians chapter three fruit, there's no, the fruit that we read in Revelation, I mean, sorry, not Revelation, in Romans, of what a child of God is, and the fruit that must be there. One mother, this one mother, she was sitting in front of me, weeping away, she talked about her son who was a drunkard, and he'd been a drunkard for many years, and they prayed for him to get saved, and he was driving high speed down the road, and he hit this cow, and the cow came over the windshield, and flattened through the top of the car, and his head was off, and blood was everywhere, and he was dead. She said, you know, Roy, I'm so glad that he's in heaven today. I don't know if anybody has got a cruel heart, but that's one of the hardest things, to sit in front of somebody and have to explain to them what the gospel is, because by showing them that they're on their way to hell, you're showing them that your child is in hell. But sometimes to be kind to the person in front of you, you have to be cruel to the deceased. And the most cruel thing you can ever do, like I mentioned in the sermon, is you can kiss someone in hell. You can tell someone who's sick that they're fine, and they don't need medicine. There's another man, and this happens so often, and he has a young 7 year old, not many 7 year olds get saved, we'll come back to that later, but he has a young 7 year old, did a little prayer, Jesus Christ, please come into my life, at the age of 7, and afterwards, he went into parties, and drinking, and swearing, and sleeping around, and he said right through his life, people would come to him and say, you need to be saved, and he said, nope, I was saved when I was 7. Mothers do that to their children too. And he said, when he got saved, he became a wonderful preacher, the drunkards got saved, and he went to Bible college with me, he's a great guy, we phone each other, and he asked me questions, and I asked him questions at times, and I just remember this guy, he got saved, and he said, the thing that kept me back for 20 years was that false foundation. Even in my drunkenness, I clung to it, and I would not think that I needed to seek God. You know how many people sit without drunkenness, but they cling to that, and there's no fruit. And it makes them not seek God, and not feel like they have to seek God, because I said a prayer. Can you be saved at a young age? Well, I love that song of Charles Wesley, gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon this little child, suffer my simplicity, and there's something that I might come to thee. I can't remember the exact words, but it's beautiful. Some of the revivalists understood that little children can come to God. But if you know some revivalists from 50 years back, some of the greatest preachers, the drunkards would get saved, they'd pray through the nights, they'd read their Bible, they'd seek the Lord in many ways, and then they'd preach and God would come. Many of them unfortunately believed that little children couldn't get saved, and you'd hear this in their sermons, and you'd meet the people who became missionaries who got saved through their ministry, but somehow they had a blockage, and they didn't have perfect theology in other areas, and they treated little children. Many people in many nations of this world would say little children can't get saved, up until the age of 12 or something. It's impossible, and therefore we shouldn't put resources into that, children's ministry is a waste, and it's pretty stupid anybody does anything like that. It's very sad that godly men did that. But Mark 10 verse 15 says these words, verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. Matthew 19 verse 14 says, But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Ecclesiastes 11 verse 9, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in all the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of your heart. It's a bit sarcastic, in the sight of thine eyes, but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Ecclesiastes 12 verse 1 says, Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Now I'd just like to quickly give some pointers. Some pointers. One of my grandfather, who died of cancer a few years back, taught me when I was, and this didn't save me by the way, but it just helped me a little bit. Many people have this problem, when you start out, you're like five years old, and you hear about hell, and you hear about salvation, you realize I've got to get saved, I don't know what that is, so every single night, at family, please Lord save me, thank you very much. Please Lord come into my heart, Jesus come into my heart, and the next day he said, please Jesus come into my heart, and the next day he said, Jesus please come into my heart. And then my grandfather sat me down once, and he said, because this was me by the way, you know you don't do it every night. So then I didn't get saved at that stage, but I realized it's actually supposed to happen, and then you carry on. So I prayed, and nothing happened, and then I prayed again later, and nothing happened, and there was a reason for that. You see, it's not, this is the second point, it's not just to escape hell. It's very important that we understand, and we preach hell, because that's why a sin, but we have to also realize there's a reason we go into hell, and that's our sin, the fact that we've gone our own way, that we've done our own thing, that we don't love God. And the Holy Spirit has to come and start to awaken us to the fact, has to shake us up to the fact that we need Jesus. But I many times prayed, and never got saved, and said, and the reason I prayed, even with tears in my eyes, for Jesus to come into my life, to believe in Jesus, because I was afraid of hell, but I was not sorry about my sin, I didn't want a relationship with God, all I wanted to was escape hell, and I never got saved. My one friend was like that, he was on drugs for so many years, and he heard this movie about hell, and oh, he was in tears, and he went, oh, I just don't want to, Jesus, please come into my life, and he got saved, and the next day he was back on drugs. Many years later, he looked back as God came to him on his 21st birthday, and the myth of the drunkenness, and the Holy Spirit convicted him, and he was in that drunken party, and he didn't want any of it anymore, and he ran to his sister, who was a wonderful Christian, and he said, I want to have what you have, and he knelt down, and he prayed, and Jesus saved him, and he had a relationship with God, and he became a missionary, and he worked with me for over a year. He said, you know what was the problem back then? The only thing I wanted was not to go to hell. I didn't want Jesus, truly. I said I wanted Jesus, but I wanted Jesus so I didn't go to hell. I didn't want Jesus for Jesus. I didn't want a relationship with God. There's hundreds of thousands on their way to hell, who sit in churches, and they're not saved, and there's no fruit. And often it started as a child. Another point, that Jesus, not prayer, saves you. So many little children come and say, I don't know how to get saved, because I'm not going to say the right words. And you know, Satan likes to play with the minds of adults, and he plays with the minds of children, and so they think, well, did I say the exact right words? You know, there were people who came to Jesus in the Bible, and this one lady, she didn't even say any words. She just went, came to Jesus' feet, and Jesus heard her sin. So many are forgiven her, because she knew that she was a sinner. She was sorry about it, and she knew the one who a sinner's need could meet, Jesus Christ. It's not your prayer that saves you, though. You can say a prayer when you're saved. There has to be a moment when you look to Jesus, and He saves you. And then the last point is, it's not, it's not the end of the sermon, by the way, in case you're getting encouraged. It's not feelings that save. You heard this morning, you know, I love Spurgeon. The old revivalists understood this. Deal Moody had whole sections on faith versus feelings. So did Samuel Logan Brangle. Spurgeon was great. He would say, if you're on the ark, and you're in this big storm, your feelings can go up and down, but guess what? The reason you're saved is the ark. Jesus Christ is the reason you're saved. If you go to a house, and you say, and you've got the papers all set up to buy a house, some of you, how many of you have bought a house before? Not me. You're bad guys. Okay. So anyway, you come to this house, and there's some paperwork, I don't know how it works in America, perhaps you have paperwork, and you've got to sign that form with the lawyers or with some agent or something, and then eventually it's, that means you own the house, and the money goes in their account. Imagine you were there, and you were about to sign it, and you went, and the agent asks you, why are you crying? Because I don't think I'm going to get the house. Why don't you think you're going to get the house? Because I don't have an amazing feeling of faith that tells me that that paper is true. How many of you would think that's a bit of weird? Do you know how many weird people there are that do that to God? God says in his word, come unto me. God says in his word, and now we come to God, and we say, I can't be, I don't have faith, because I don't have a feeling. If you want a feeling, you're looking at yourself, not Jesus. Same with the chocolate. The dad comes, and he has the dad, and he says, he has a chocolate, Roy, keep Daniel. And I'm there, and I'm a little boy, and I say, and I go to my room. My dad comes in there. He says, Roy, why are you crying? Because I don't think you're going to give me that chocolate, daddy. Daddy says, well, why don't you think I'm going to give you the chocolate? Because I don't have an amazing feeling, Keith Daniel, and it's going through my ears, and my nose, and my toes, and it tells me you're going to give me the chocolate. How stupid. Now, my son, my dad, fully believed in the five fold ministry, so I don't know exactly what happened next, but he might just say, Roy, you know I'm going to give it to you, because I said I would. And I don't lie, because of the man behind the message. Not because of your feelings that go up and down. So many people fall at this point. And we can go on with pointers, but I'm going to carry on with the sermon. Yeah, in 1 Samuel 3 verse 7, we read that Samuel did not yet know the Lord. That's amazing. For a little child, he's grown up in a temple, that's like you guys growing up in a church, and he did not yet know God. And he heard the voice of God, and he got saved. And that's very precious. But yeah, I'd like to look quickly at Manasseh. We're talking about salvation of people. And Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err. Now this is so important for you to understand, because this relates to people sitting here. Why? His father was Hezekiah. Hezekiah was one of the two guys since David who were called the godliest guy ever as kings of Judah. No man before, no man after, ever sought the Lord like Hezekiah the Bible says. And the same is said of Josiah, and that's because it was written somewhere in the middle, before someone knew Josiah would come. But in his old age he did some sin, and after that, a prideful thing is he had a child. Now he was the son of a very ungodly man. Isn't that amazing? You can be the child of an ungodly man, and you can seek God. It's not a curse that cannot be broken by Jesus. You don't have to be like your dad. I'm not saying you don't want to be, but you don't have to be. But now here's a godly guy, Hezekiah, and he's a guy who trusts God, and God does miracles when massive armies come before Jerusalem through a guy called Sennacherib of Assyria. And God does these mighty things, and not only does God do these mighty miracles in answer to prayer, but he also is a guy who cleaned the ship. He repaired the doors of the temple. He cleaned out the temple. He reinstated the daily sacrifice. He did his Passover again. He invited the Israelites over, and two of the tribes, a lot of them came, and the rest didn't, mostly. And his own Judah came as one heart to this Passover. He's a guy who really served God, and he knew God, and he has a little child in his old age, and he dies, and his child is 12 years old, and he reigns for 55 years, I think if I'm right, and he does evil. A godly man who has an ungodly son. Now I'm not going to go into the difference. There's a very interesting difference between Absalom and Manasseh. I don't have time to show you the difference today. You can seek that hidden treasure in the Bible if you want to yourself, but I'll say this. Manasseh was taken away. We read in 2 Chronicles 33 verse 9 that God was angry with him. Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, to do worse than the heathen. He was the worst king that Judah ever had. And the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not hearken. So God comes and he says, even if you've done evil, I want you to repent. But he didn't realize God speaking because he was a prophet. And prophets are weird, according to a hardened heart. Therefore God, we read in verse 11, brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon. And in Babylon, Manasseh humbled himself. He prayed to God and he entreated God and God brought him back to Jerusalem miraculously. This doesn't just happen. And then we read these amazing words. I want you to remember this for the rest of your life if you've got a memory. Brought him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was God. Why is that important? Because you can grow of your father where he says there were drunkards that were saved. You can hear from your father the meetings that God came down and spoke to people and people's lives were changed. You can hear of the miracles that your father talks of and see and hear the fact that back in the day, even though everything's clean now in the temple and the church looks up shape, that back in the day he had to make right with God. And you cannot believe in that God because you've never met him yourself. Your father and mother might have met God. Older people that you know might have met God, but you've never met God. And so even you've got this godly father, you don't believe in his God and you go into your life and you don't care about the prophets and you don't care about the sermons and God messes up your life for a good cause. He gets you far away and you're in captivity and then you pray and you humble yourself and you entreat yourself to God and God brings you back. It's a miracle. And then suddenly you realize when God does something for you, this God is real. And that's what's lacking for so many second generation Christians. They've got their parents who know God, some of them, or they've got an uncle or aunt or a pastor or some Christian that they know that knows God and knows the power of God and loves God with all their heart, but they've never experienced it themselves. There comes a day when of them experience it and for the first time in their life they realize this is the Lord. It wasn't just my dad speaking, it wasn't just that preacher preaching, but the power of God is built in my life and it's lacking in so many young people's lives. The power of God. I love my mother's salvation. I love my mother's salvation because it's such a simple salvation. She was six or seven years old when she got saved. I'm not saying that you can't get saved at the age of seven. I got falsely, I went into my first false foundation at the age of seven. My mother got saved right about the age of six and she truly was saved and the fruit was there. Many people get saved when they're young. Just because many have false foundations doesn't mean you can't be truly saved. My mother though was not just afraid of hell, but she didn't have this strange, you know, like I'm going to be an evil person one day who kills people. She listened to the Christmas story. She realized that the little child has been born, it was Christmas time, and she realized this little child has been born and it's born to die. And she sat there as a seven year old and in her simplicity, she started to think, now if God gave his son to die, God gave everything. What am I doing? I'm not exactly living for God. I'm not totally against him, but I'm not living for him. And compared to what he's done, that is terrifying. And so she wept before God and she realized I'm a sinner because I'm living my own life under myself. Charles Spurgeon said it so clearly, he said you don't have to kill somebody to be godless, all you have to do is live without God. She realized that and she didn't just want to miss hell, she wanted a relationship with God. And in simplicity, with no feelings or anything, she came to God and God changed her life. You don't have to pray three hours to get saved, by the way. It might take three hours before the moment happens, but you don't have to. It can be simple. So now my question quickly to you all people before the last question. Did you once as a youngster have a love for God? And I'm not talking theology now, I'm thinking of Solomon. Because 1 Kings 3 verse 3, Solomon, we read this verse, Solomon loved the Lord. This is a person who loved God. But in 11 verse 9 we read that the Lord was angry with Solomon, 1 Kings 11 verse 9, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel which appeared unto him twice. Two people in the Bible God spoke to three times. One was Samuel that we know of, obviously a lot of times more than that, but twice God spoke to Solomon and then God spoke to him again in his old age, because you have turned from me. Your heart that once loved me does not love me anymore. And that's why even though it's in his old age that Solomon turned from the Lord, then God spoke to him, so possibly he wrote Ecclesiastes after that. That's my thought. Looking back at a life that he messed up, but now he wanted to make right. That's why I personally believe that in the end, in his old, old age, he turned back to God. That's my personal thought. My last question is, but before we get there, I want to tell you something on a piece of paper. It's a surprise. When I was younger, I remember this little child coming to a children's meeting, and this little child, two little children, oh they were rude. Have you ever met a rude child? I mean rude. And they just sat there and looked at me and they said to me, we're not interested in any of the questions, we don't take part in any of the activities, we're just here because we have to be here and we don't like you. For five days they were like that. A few months later, I came to a place and I held one little children's meeting, got these little children together many years back. I didn't realize those two children were there. And I made them act out the story of Noah's Ark. And I made them make the door of Noah's Ark and the little children came, and of them came in the Ark, Noah and his wife and so on, but then the door was shut. Simple story. You know, Jesus spoke to fishermen about fish and to farmers about farmers. You don't have to make it complicated. This one girl came up to me, tears were rolling down her face. She said, remember back there where I was in those meetings and I despised you basically? And I was rude to you? I'm sorry, because I'm not in that Ark. And the other day she prayed. Her life seemed to change radically. I remember some missionaries standing up, this one girl who became a missionary. She stood up and she said, you know, sometimes we feel it's just a testimony before a message. And there were all these preachers preaching and they didn't ask me to preach. Good for them. I said, you just give a little five minute testimony. And I stood up and I gave my five minute testimony and I sat down. I remember at that camp there was a little child that went and wept and sought the Lord. But I met missionaries, people who went to the mission field who said, and I never knew this until they stood up and testified in front of a huge crowd and they said that Roy was giving his testimony in front of a big convention. And I realized that if he struggled like that, well that's me. He was born in a Christian home, I was born in a Christian home. He read his Bible, I read my Bible, but the Bible was not alive to him, the Bible was not alive to me. I didn't have fruit, he didn't have fruit. But there came a day when God worked in his life and saved him. Perhaps God can do that to me. And she went and she saw God and met with God and she became a missionary. This one mother phoned me once in a traditional church where they don't preach the new birth. She said, I just want to tell you something. She said, a minister came to our church and he asked, who do you know that you saved? There was over a thousand people in the traditional church, a bit like the Amish, Dutch people. He asked, who do you know that you saved? And she said, one little child put up his hand and he stood up and he said, many years back there was this guy called Roy who came there and he sat me down at night time when he stayed in my house and he read me the Bible and he told me about Jesus. And I met Jesus. And I read my Bible ever since. Every day, every morning, every evening. Because I love Jesus. And that mother said, that's the only person who stood up in that church. You know, I've got Alzheimer's, I'm absolutely certain, because I couldn't remember speaking in the Lord's house. There's a lot of people who come up to me and say, you know, I got saved there, I got saved there. I'm like, I'm not telling them. I'm like, what's your name? That's just how it is and that's good. I remember one place I went to and I was preaching in this big traditional church too and a whole lot of people came that never heard me before, they didn't believe in being born again and the person that I was preaching with, I didn't know at that stage, was involved in pornography and horrible rock music, including Christian rock. It's a nice combination. And we preached and it was so dead and nothing was happening and there was irritations, well that doesn't take much with me, but irritations between me and this guy who was in pornography and I just thought, there's nothing happening, nobody responds, nobody cares. But God cared because God cares for the little children. There was a little child in there that I didn't realize, he came out of conviction, went home, said to his daddy, daddy in tears, I don't know where I'm going if I die. Not only that, I want to know this Jesus that the preacher talked about and she wept and she met with God. And years later, I met this lady and she walked up to me, actually I saw her in a crowd first and she was just bubbling over with Jesus and I said, I don't remember her being like that. She walked up to me and she said, I want to tell you, remember those meetings there that you held in that town? I never got to tell you because she left so fast. But I met with God there as a little child. I'm going to be a missionary and a fire for God. God loves little children. God loves little children. Can you be used of God at a young age? This is the last question. John, are we reading John of the feeding of the five thousand? He has a little boy, comes with the five barley loaves and the two fishes. I heard a song in a charity church and the song went, take these few fish and loaves of bread, it's all that I can do. But most of all I'd take my life and make me a miracle too. This world's so full of hungry men, I've little left to give. Could it be I might feed a few by the simple life I live? I never forgot that. Can God use a little child? My friend Glenn in South America, he was in a town called Bethel in South Africa. And in this town in Bethel, South Africa, I met the minister and there was a little child that got saved as he gathered these children together, got radically saved. But his father had not been in church for twenty years. And that little child was thrown in a fire for God, went home to his father who was basically a drunkard and said to his father, I beg you to come to church. And that father looked at that little seven year old and went to church for the first time in twenty years and got radically saved and became a wonderful family man. I've seen that from little children quite a few times. Sometimes they go home and their father beats them up though. But children can be used to God. Maybe you know the story in the old days, we've got the new atheists today. There were these waves of atheists for the last two hundred years and sometimes there'd be a movement where people would actually pay to hear atheists preach. And then it stopped for a while about forty years back and it became again prominent in the days we live in today. But in the 1800s some of the atheists used to get crowds together. Many times Christians would come to hear a prominent atheist speak and Christian background people. And once this atheist stood up with a large crowd and this atheist said things against Jesus Christ, the one who died for you and me. You know one of those adults dared stand up. But there was a little child that loved Jesus and this little child walked to the front. The little child got up on that stage and the little child or that atheist was ranting against the Jesus that died for you and me. That little child saying, stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the cross. And they all started to sing with him and that atheist left the stage. A little child did that. Do you stand up for Jesus in your workplace when your friends are wanting to watch a movie at the movie house or at home in front of the television? Do you stand up when people are wanting you to gossip? The Moravian children on the ship God used to inspire Wesley, because they weren't afraid when the storm came, little children. And Wesley looked at that and he was amazed and that was part of the route that God took him to eventually get saved by Jesus Christ. I mentioned to you before of the little child that when the father came and said, when the soldiers came and said, you're going to die, we're going to skin your little child alive if you don't deny Jesus. Then he said, Father, I will be ashamed of you if you deny Jesus. And both of them got killed. Jesus was a little child in the temple and God used him. And when he was a little baby, God used him. My mother is saved because of the story of baby Jesus and many others are saved through the story of baby Jesus who was born to die. That little child in the Bible, the little girl who told Naaman about a prophet in Israel that could heal her master, because of that little child who was a slave who God used, many people have been saved. I know druggies who have been saved because of that story. I've told that story to druggies and they've been saved. And their lives have been totally changed. A little child is the reason we have that story. So I end off. God chose children to fulfill prophecy. In Matthew 21 verse 15 you can open up a Bible there, it's the end of the sermon. We're just going to quickly look at little children and how God used them. Matthew 21 verse 15. Remember when Jesus said, suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, it was in one section we see that the disciples didn't want the little children to come to him. Christians often think children are not important, unfortunately. But Matthew 21 verse 15, and like I said we're ending off with this, we find that Jesus is coming to the temple. And when he comes to the temple the masses cry out, Hosanna to Jesus Christ our son of David. But, in the temple, afterwards, the little children cried, in Matthew 21 verse 15, the children were crying in the temple saying, Hosanna to the son of David, and they were sore displeased. And Jesus quoted Psalm chapter 8 and he said, have you not read, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise. Psalm 8 actually says, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hath thou ordained strength because of thine enemies that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. But what's so beautiful is yeah, Jesus says little children are going to fulfill the prophecy that proves that I am the one he's talking about. Hebrews also quotes from Psalm chapter 8. Little children God chose to confound big adults who thought they were wise. Isn't God amazing? God can use children. There's another prophecy, Matthew 23 verse 39, if I say unto you, you shall not see me henceforth till you shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Jesus had just heard the words, blessed is he that shall come in the name of the Lord, or Hosanna in the highest. And he said, even though he heard that earlier, he said, you're not going to see me from now on until you hear that again. And there's a prophecy in Ezekiel 44 verse 1, 2 and 3 and other verses where it talks of a gate that will be closed because the Prince of Glory, that's Jesus Christ, will go through there and he's the one who's going to open up that door one day in the future. It's going to be closed until he comes. Now if you go to Israel today, and I have finished my sermon, you'll find there's one gate that's closed. It's this gate. And the last ones to say Hosanna in the highest before, the last time Jesus walked through that gate in Jerusalem was, or a gate in Jerusalem was Jesus, it was the little children. We wait a few thousand years before it's going to happen again. Those words. So, let's pray. Thank you very much. Father, I want to thank you again for the sermon that you gave to Gabriel and all those verses that he quoted. And I just ask you to inspire the young people and the old people and the middle-aged people and everybody to seek Jesus, even when they don't have a feeling to seek, to seek anyway. I pray that you would, in this busy life where it's so easy, it's so easy to, that verse to be true of our lives, God was not in all their thoughts, that you would be in our thoughts. And we think of who you are, everything about who you are, and we want to study it in the Bible and find out how it can be part of our lives. Every aspect of who you are, more and more can become part of our lives through Jesus Christ. That we would study that word and take time with your word, and that we wouldn't, as the devil comes to discourage us because we can't learn scriptures like other people, or because people do things that can make us bitter, or because we feel tired at times or sick. We will realize that you understand, but that you still want us to seek you. Father, I pray concerning children, from my heart, every young person sitting here, there are people sitting here who probably have not seen the power of God. They've heard it from their parents, they've heard it from the pastor, they've perhaps heard it from other people. Perhaps they have parents who are divorced and they're bitter about it. There's older people and younger people who have led them astray. They've got friends that are not good for them, and they've made choices that are not good. But ultimately, they need to meet God with God themselves, and they need to seek and follow God themselves. Father, I ask you to remind them of these four facts, that Satan can get hold of them at a very young age, and that they're in danger because there's an awful enemy who hates them and wants them for hell for eternity, and wants to ruin their lives, and wants to keep them from knowing and being used of God. But Father, also let them realize, and I pray for every single person here, that they will realize there's consequences for sin, even at a young age. You can be eight years old and God can call you evil. You can be a little child and sea bears can rip you out as the wages of your sin, and that they desperately, like every adult out there, need Jesus Christ. Because you can deserve hell at a young age, though little babies go to heaven. And Father, if there's anybody sitting here unsaved, I ask that you'll take them like you've taken so many through the years through a little testimony many times, and you meet people and they're saved because Jesus saved them, not the message, but the Jesus they heard of in the message. Father, work in their lives and make their bed hot, and don't let them go until they find thee. Satan can work in their life at a young age. They can deserve hell at a young age. They can die and go to hell for eternity at a young age, but oh, they can be saved at a young age. Jesus Christ said, suffer little children to come unto me, and I pray for every single person here, Lord, that they'll realize they have to become like little children to be part of the kingdom of God. And then in simplicity, not looking for an amazing feeling, not having to pray every day, not just because they don't want to go to hell, but because they want a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. They come to Jesus. They seek God through Jesus. Father, work in people's lives to realize that can be me too if they don't know Jesus, if they don't have a relationship with God, if they've just got a false foundation. God, take away that false foundation and let them come to God with nothing but their sin. And lastly, Lord, for the old and the young and the middle-aged, let them realize they don't have to be like Ville-Marie or me or Gabriel or anybody out there. They can be themselves and lay themselves on the altar and be used of God. They can bring their few fish and loaves of bread and say, God, this is what I've got. My squeaky voice, I can't sing. My memory, I struggle to memorize scriptures. But God, I want to bring my few loaves and fish and bread, and I want to be used of God. God, I know and I've seen, and you're true. You love little children. You love youth. You love teenagers. You love 20-year-olds. You love 30-year-olds. You love people, old people, who come to you and want to be used of God. And you want to use them, whether it's in life or in death. And so God, I ask that you'll put into young people here not to react to the church at Wells and the church at Arlington and the fact that there are certain preachers and big organizations that have sinned in the past, but that they'll be proactive to the Bible and excited about the Word of God and responding to the Word of God and wanting to be used of God. In these last days, we've got so little time to be used of God. And I pray this all, dear Father, that you'll change lives through Jesus Christ, and I ask you that you'll do this in Jesus' name. Amen.