This morning I plan to do something
that I do from time to time here, and that is preach a message specifically with the children
and young people in mind. And whenever I do that, I promise
them I'll make it shorter than it normally is in the hope that
they can listen for that long. But I've also noticed whenever
I do that, the adults seem to appreciate those messages maybe
more than the longer ones. Whether that's because it's shorter,
I don't know. But I was telling Eric before
the service started, I said, I put down six songs instead
of four this week because I'm going to preach a shorter message,
and I don't want the folks to get used to getting out early.
So, you know, I'm supposed to turn
this on. There we go. Is it working? Yeah. But you young people, and I never
know how many of them are going to show up on on any given Sunday. But when I say young people,
I'm including anybody up to about 22. The older you get, the older
the concept of young people gets. I told someone not long ago,
I refer to Eric, he's a young man in our church, and you are
from my perspective. But he's over 22. But I chose 22 because it kind of
gives the reason that I am especially interested in preaching to young
people from time to time, young people in this church. Because 22 is about the time
a young person leaves home. If they go to high school and
then get a four-year degree, that's going to take till they're
about 22. And even if they don't go on to college, it might be
they hang around the house. But usually by 22, they're looking
to get out on their own. And what
sometimes happens is this. Once they leave the home, they also leave the church. And
I'm not saying that in condemnation of them. I'm just saying that makes it
especially urgent to me as I see the children of this congregation
growing up And I know what a short time it takes to get to 22. I
want to make sure they know. I want to make sure they understand
the vital things. I've entitled this message, Vital
Truth for Children of All Ages. I was blessed with parents, particularly
my mother. who thought it was of utmost
importance that children be taught the truth of things from the
very beginning. And I can barely remember a time
when I was not going to church and when my mother was not teaching
me at home about the vital things I want to speak of this morning. Some of my theology has changed
since I was a child, but not the things I'm going to speak
about this morning. It says in verse 28, and you
young people, I hope you'll pay attention, if you've got a Bible
and can read, follow along. Maybe even if you have a piece
of paper and something to write with, write down any verses I
might mention, and look at them again when you get home. But we're in Hebrews chapter
nine, beginning in verse 27. Now I'll read, and I know that
some of you have newer translation or newer version of the NIV,
some of the words are a little different, but not enough to
make any difference in what it means. Just as man is destined
to die once and after that to face judgment, so Christ was
sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people He will
appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation
to those who are waiting for Him. Now I mentioned age 22. To young people that seems pretty
far down, there are children. You're 22, you're on your own. One of the older young people
in our group is Oliver, who runs our sound system every other
week, trading off with his sister. But as I was thinking, 22. And
then I got to thinking. In 2002, we built a house. We still call it the new house. And to Bonnie and me, it feels
like a new house. It seems we moved in not very
long ago. But we moved in very near the
time that Oliver's parents got married. They were married in
September of that year. We moved in sometime in October. And it was four or five years
later, I believe, before Oliver was born. And it seems to me that that
was yesterday. And probably you younger people
have heard old people say that. I heard old people say that.
Yeah, yeah, yesterday, old guy. Well, here I am. And almost the entire 22 years
that I counted for young people has already passed since I moved
into our new house. You young people will be all
grown up, ready to go out into the world
and make your mark. Some of you will become parents.
Some of you will be in business. Some of you will get jobs, whatever.
But you'll be out of your mom and dad's house. And before that happens, I feel
a responsibility as your pastor in your childhood that you don't
leave here without knowing the most important things that you'll
ever learn. Now, I can't make you believe
them, but there's nothing in these important things that you
can't understand. Pretty much if you can understand
words, you can understand what I'm going to tell you today. In the verse we read, it teaches us that All of us,
you included, will die. You know what dying is? Many of you may have experienced
the death of a grandparent or something like that, someone
in your family who died. Maybe your parents took you.
to what they call a visitation or the funeral. And you went
there and someone who you had seen alive just a few days before
maybe, but now they're in a box called a coffin or a casket. And they're dead. And you could stand there and
say things to them. You could say, I'm sure going
to miss you, Grandpa. But they couldn't hear you. And they didn't
say anything back. I'm really sorry that you died.
They don't know that you said it. They're gone. And they're not coming back. Now that's the hard truth about
death. Maybe you've had a pet die and it made you very sad because
you knew as much as you loved that pet, it's never coming back. They're dead. Now we don't like to think about
the fact that someday we will be in the same condition. Someday when people come to the
funeral home for visitation or the funeral, it's going to be
one of us in that box. And people are going to walk
past that box and look at us. Some will do so, really they're
there just to support the people who are grieved. But there'll
be some who come by And they may be crying. They may be very
sad that you're gone. And their hearts may be filled
with an ache that no one can put away. But none of that's gonna change
the fact. You'll be gone. I remember sitting in church eight, maybe nine years old,
I can't remember. And you know, when I was just
a young fella, I was a lot like you here. And my mind was wandering. And probably I was about to fall
asleep, because I'll be honest with you, I did that in church
quite a bit. I would always get me a seat
near the end of the pew, and if I could turn a little bit
sideways, and I could scootch down, and like a recliner, it'd
kind of hold me in place, and I could nod off. And you know
how it is, just in that time period when you're a little bit
awake, but about to fall asleep, right then, it hit me. Someday, you're going to die. Now, that was nearly 60 years
ago. I still remember that moment. Now, I'm not trying to scare
you. I don't want you to go home terrified
that at any moment you might die. We're not talking about
being scared. We're talking about being what
the Bible calls sober-minded. In other words, we're looking
at things like they really are, instead of like we wish they
were. And the fact is, someday, every
one of us here, including you, will die. You may think it's going to be
a long time before I die. Well, I'm not anywhere near 22.
I got more years of being young, according to you. Then there's
a lot more years after that before I'll die. In the summer between my fifth
grade and sixth grade, sometime in August, within a month of
starting the school year, I got the news. A girl I had gone to
school with in the fourth and fifth grade Sweet girl. Always smiles. Her name was Barbara
Hogsett. Riding her bicycle. Got hit. She was dead. And I remember
how much that affected me. To think that someone my age,
and what would I have been at that time? Eleven, I think. Someone my age. And I continued on through school.
We didn't have middle school and high school. We had junior
high school and high school. And junior high, ninth grade,
Easter weekend, I won't call him my friend. We didn't get
along that well, but he was my schoolmate. In my ninth grade
class, decided for fun, he and some of his friends would go
out. It was kind of late at night. Knock on people's doors and run.
And they did that to one woman whose husband was at work. And
he was sick and tired of hooligans. She called him at work. He came
home. And he had what they call a zip gun. And all he wanted
to do was scare them. And they came up to knock on the door
of his house. And he stepped out from behind
a bush with that zip gun in his hand. And they ran away. And David bumped into him, and
the gun went off. I lived in a safe community.
There wasn't nothing like the stuff you read on the news, you
know, of big cities where murder happens. 14 years old, lying dead on somebody's
driveway. The other one of my schoolmates,
out of cancer. And graduation night, sometime
in June of 1973, I'm sitting there waiting for him to call
my name so I can go up and get my diploma. Three or four seats
down from me was a fellow. I didn't know him well. There
were 350 people in my graduating class. I didn't know them all.
Knew of him. Turns out he's a pretty good
kid. And he was sitting there going
to get his diploma. And his parents were so pleased
with him, they had bought him a brand new car. It was waiting
for him outside the Memorial Fieldhouse where our graduation
ceremonies were. Big surprise for him. He got
his diploma, got his picture taken, went outside and got his
new car. Started driving it around, and
less than three hours later, a drunk driver hit him, and he
was dead. Why do I tell you these stories? So that you'll realize,
even though you'll probably live for what we would call a long
time, there's no guarantee of it. But even if you do, Even if you live to be a very
old person, it won't change the fact that someday you will die. Last year, about this time, the oldest two people in this
congregation passed away, just two days from each other, Fred
Vlostein and Bill Kudlum. Fred was 91. That's even pretty
far away from somebody like me. I think of that. Yeah, if I was
going to die at 91, I got a lot of time left. Bill was 98. And
you know what? I'll bet that sometime, when
they were children, teenagers just like you, some preacher
stood up and told them that someday they would die. And I'll bet
it went through their mind, yeah, but not for a long time. And
they were right. It wasn't for a long time. But they still died. We read in the Bible of a man
who lived 969 years. That's almost 10 times as much
as Bill Cudham lived. 969 years. And you know what the
Bible says about him? Methuselah lived 969 years and
he died. How old you are when you die
doesn't change the fact that you die, does it? But that's not the worst part
of it. What does it say here? Just as
a man is destined to die once, and after that, to face judgment. That's the bad part of death.
I'm not saying that there's no other parts of it that are bad,
but that's the worst part of it. Yes, when we die, we're separated
from the people we love, They look at us as being separated
from them. We can't communicate with each
other anymore. We can't show our love anymore.
We can't enjoy one another's company anymore. But there's
something worse than that. And this is why people fear death. It's not death itself they fear.
It's what comes after. Because God has written it on
our hearts. We understand this without anyone
telling us. You say, then why are you telling
us? Because we try to ignore it. That's why. We know that we're going to die. And after we die, we're going
to face God and be judged. We know that. But we do everything
we can to put that out of mind, and part of my job is to make
sure it sticks in your mind. Face judgment. You know what
judgment is. We could liken it to when you
go to school and you take a test. What's the judgment? Well, you
hand your paper in, the teacher looks over, and If they do it like they did when
I was a kid, they got a red pencil. And every answer you get wrong,
they put a red X by it. We, the teacher once in a while
on short tests, would let us grade our neighbor's test. We
all had red pencils. And there was a fellow in my
class in the fourth grade, Kevin Shelton, and I can say A thousand
miles from where that happened, I doubt he lives out here. But
Kevin was, I don't know what the appropriate name is for it
now, but he wasn't very smart. Really nice guy, but a little
bit like one of those bobblehead dolls. I liked getting his paper,
because I could use that red pencil a lot. My teacher goes through and marks
what you got wrong. Now, if you get an A, B, C, D,
or F, I suppose those are the letters they're still using to
make grades these days. And when your teacher judges your performance
on that test, if you miss one or two, maybe you'll still get
an A. Don't get an A+, but you still get an A. You miss a couple
more, then you get a B. Miss a couple more, you get down
into my territory. You get a C. Just get by. You do less than they expect
you to do. They'll still call it passing.
They won't hold you back. But you miss enough, you get
a D. And then if you miss some more, you get an F. You fail. So you were taking the test,
and after you took the test, then came the judgment on what
you'd done as the teacher grades your paper. When it comes to God, you're
taking the test right now. You've been taking the test ever
since your parents first made you. You're taking it now. And for the rest of your life,
you're gonna be taking a test. And when you die, God's gonna
grade you. And here's the thing, he doesn't
have A, B, C, D, and F. He has perfect and fail. Perfect. Now the test is about
what you've heard us call sin. God has told us how we ought
to act. And He has every right to tell
us how we ought to act. He made us. He's our Creator. And so He's allowed to make the
rules. Your parents have kind of the same idea in their house.
They made you. Not in the same sense God did,
but they made you. And because they're your parents,
particularly while you're in their house, They believe they
have the right to tell you how to behave, and if you don't behave
the way they want you to, what do they do? Some kind of discipline
comes along. God created us, and he has every
right to tell us how to live in his creation. And when we are done with this
life in His creation, and we stand before Him, He is allowed
to grade us, to judge us according to how we've acted. And the only thing that gets
us a good grade, and the reward of a good grade, is absolute
perfection. You say, well, I'm a pretty good
kid. Pretty good doesn't get it. Now, we can accept that. Parents tolerate pretty good
out of their kids. They don't have to be perfect
to be happy in the house. I've seen some homes where it
seemed like the parents expected perfection out of them. It's
a miserable place to live. But God. He doesn't simply demand
that you do the best you can. He demands that you do the best
he can. You say, well, I haven't sinned.
Let me ask you this. Do you ever disobey your parents? Say, no, I always do what my
parents tell me. Well, let me ask you this then. When your
parents told you to act a certain way, Did you ever get angry because
that's not the way you wanted to act? It'd be good that even when you're
angry, you do what your parents say, but you know what? When
it comes to God, it says He doesn't judge by the outward appearance. He judges the heart. And even
though you may do what your parents say, He's looking in your heart,
and He sees that you're angry about it, you don't want it,
And you think your parents are narrow-minded and too strict
because of it. Fail. Are you ever mean to any of your
classmates? You ever been so angry with what
somebody did that you hated them? The Lord Jesus Christ has said
to hate someone is to murder them in your heart. You see, here's the point I'm
making. You're going to die someday,
and you're going to stand before God to be judged, and you've
already failed. I've already failed. Your parents,
they've already failed. Everybody here this morning,
a big F on their life in the sight of God. And God doesn't hand back the
paper and say, do better next time. He doesn't say, I know
you tried. Fail. When it comes to God, failure
brings punishment. I cannot describe to you what
that punishment is like. I don't believe the Bible gives
us literal descriptions of it. It gives us some symbolic descriptions
of it, associates it with things so horrible we can barely imagine
it. But I do know of several things
that are involved in that judgment or in that punishment. There
is no love from God in that punishment. You may hear a lot of people
go out and say, God loves everybody. He doesn't. And those who come under his
judgment and fail do not experience the love of God. Not only are
they not loved, they can't love. Whatever that punishment from
God is, it leaves us in a state of anger. The Bible calls it
gnashing of teeth. The kind of thing when you grit
your teeth because you're so angry at somebody. Forever in
a state of anger and hatred. Forever. Have you ever done something
so bad that it made you feel bad about yourself? Imagine feeling
that way and much, much worse forever. However, if that's all I had
to tell you, I wouldn't tell you. Because there'd be no use
in it. Every one of us is going to die. Every one of us is going to face
God. And the only way to get God to treat us well is to be
perfect. And none of us are that. If that's
true, I mean, if that's the whole story right there, we may as
well just forget it, right? Because nothing can be done about
it. But I want to tell you something
else. There's more. There's nothing we can do about
that. That doesn't mean that there's nothing God can do about
it. What's the next verse say? Verse 28, so Christ was sacrificed
once to take away the sins of many people. You see, you and I can't be perfect,
but Jesus Christ was and is perfect. He is God in the form of a human. Now, we can't understand how
that could be. We just accepted his truth. But the important
thing to understand here, he was human. And the Bible says
that he was born under the law that God requires everyone to
keep. And yet, none of us have kept
it. But he was born under that law. He kept it on the outside, always
doing the right thing. He always kept it on the inside,
because he loved doing those things. He never mean to anybody. He always obeyed his earthly
parents, and certainly always obeyed his heavenly father, for
God was his father. Everything that people do wrong,
He did right. And you know what? God judged
Him while He's still on earth. Yes, God tested Him, and then
God gave Him a grade. And you know what the grade was?
It says, He spoke from heaven twice, these words. This is my
beloved Son, and with Him I am well pleased. A plus. But that's not the end of that
story. It says here he was sacrificed and that means he died. He was
sacrificed once. Now the sacrifice in the Bible
is when an innocent thing dies in the place of a sinful thing. Jesus Christ was innocent, never
sinned. And what the scriptures tell
us is that God charged him with all the sins that all of his
people had ever done. That is, he blamed Christ, blamed
Jesus Christ for all the sins that all his people did. And
then he punished Jesus Christ for those sins. Now you may have heard about
the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I'm not going to take a lot of
time to describe it. It's horrible. But while that horrible death
was going on, they actually nailed him to a cross and left him to
hang there until he died. that isn't that's just the beginnings
of his punishment for it says he poured out his soul unto death
and that God made his soul an offering for sin you know you're
gonna die someday but when we die this body dies but there's
something of us that keeps on going some call it soul some
call it spirit but it keeps on going the Lord Jesus didn't just
suffer in his body his soul was made a sacrifice. And men can't
do that. Only God can. God punished Jesus Christ for
all the sins. He did to Jesus Christ what he
would have done to all of his people if Jesus Christ had not
died for them. And here's the thing. When he
died, He was such a good person, and his death fully satisfied
all of God's anger. After he died, all those sins
were gone. Gone from God's sight, and that's
the important one. You say, okay, that's all a good
story. What's that mean to me? Well, there's a promise that
goes with it. You've heard me talk about God's
people. God chose the people he would save. He sent the Lord
Jesus Christ to die for them, and he will send his Holy Spirit
to give them spiritual life so that they can understand the
things I'm trying to explain to you this morning. And they
will believe the gospel and be saved. But we don't know who
those people are. So God has given us promises,
and anybody can take advantage of the promises if they want
to. But the promises say something
like this. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved. Saved from what? God's punishment
and the sin that caused it. Jesus himself said, come to me
and I will give you rest. And what does he mean by that?
Well, we kind of try to work hard in order to please God,
but no matter how hard we work, it's not good enough. And so he says, come to me, and
you can rest, because I already did all the work. Now, you're kind of young, and
you say to yourself, well, I'm a young person, and this is really
for people when they grow up. Bible says in Christ Jesus, there's
neither young nor old. Now, in the church I grew up
in, they kept trying to get us young people to, quote, ask Jesus
in our hearts. You know, quote, get saved. I'm
not going to do that to you. I'm not going to try to manipulate
you. You know what the word manipulate means? I'm not going to try to
trick you into doing something. But I am going to tell you this.
If you can understand someday you will die and after you die
you will face the judgment of God and that the judgment of God
is going to bring you punishment. If you can understand that Jesus
Christ died for sin and that the promise says if
you trust him You will be saved. If you can understand those words,
there's nothing about your age that would keep you from asking
God to save you for Christ's sake. And I say for Christ's
sake because of what Christ did. Now, you might not do it, you
might not want to do it, you might not even think you need
to. But that's not because you're
too young. It's because you are exactly
what the Bible says you are, a sinner. And sinners will not
believe God and trust Him. Rebels won't. However, if the
things I've said today have made you realize, yes, I am a sinner. I am. I may be just a kid. I may be only seven years old
or eight or nine, but I'm a sinner. My mommy and daddy may love me
and think I'm the best thing there is in the world, but if
I die or when I die, God will judge me. And if he finds me as I am right
now, I am forever lost. Can you understand that? Do you
believe that? And do you believe that Jesus Christ bore sins in
His body on the cross and by His death sin is put away? And you have all the knowledge
that you need to call on His name for His salvation if you
want it. Now don't just go out and pray
some prayer because I said to, because I'm not telling you to
pray a prayer. I'm just telling you about how things are. But
if you want God's salvation, if you truly want it, If you
truly think you need God's salvation and you want it, ask for it. The Lord Jesus said, all that
the Father has given to me will come to me, and he that comes
to me I will in no wise cast out. You say, well, I don't know if
the Father's given me to Jesus. That's not your business. That's
the Father's business. Leave that to Him. Here's your
business. The one that comes to me, I will
not reject. And if you feel you need Him
to save you from your sins, if you want Him to save you from
your sins, ask him, because I can tell you of an absolute truth.
No one who has asked him has ever been told no. And that's the truth. And I hope
that it'll sink into your heart. And I hope before you're 22 years
old, And you're outside my reach to tell you once more of these
truths. I pray God will make these things
important to you. And he will work in you to act
on it and call upon his name and find his salvation. Well,
the Lord be thanked for his salvation.