May God be with us and bless
us now as we turn to his word and consider it together. And
we'll turn to the chapter we read in the Gospel according
to Luke and chapter 18. And we'll read together verse
16. Luke chapter 18 and reading verse
16. But Jesus called them unto him. and said, suffer little children
to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom
of God. Suffer little children to come
unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God. Well, this text clearly, obviously,
firstly speaks to children. And I want the children here,
particularly, to listen to begin with and think about what Jesus
is saying here. You might think, some of you,
maybe all of you, think sometimes that religion and coming to chapel,
coming to church, is something only for adults, something that
the grown-ups go to, something for them and not for you. Or
maybe you think, well, I'll wait till I'm a bit older, I'll wait
till I've grown up a bit, till I think about Jesus. Before I think anything about
the Bible, I won't really bother listening to what's said, because
it's for adults. Maybe you think, there's nothing
for me here, there's nothing that applies to me at all. Well,
I hope sincerely that that's not the case. I hope that you
do listen, that you do understand partly what is said and especially
I hope those who come to the Sunday School that you realise
that there we desire that you may understand and you may realise
that the things that we talk about are applicable, have a
meaning for you. The Bible has many examples of
God coming and speaking and hearing children. There are many examples
of children in the Bible. One example you could probably
tell me of is the boy called Samuel in the Old Testament. Now Samuel lived in the temple. Samuel was taken there by his
parents and he worked for the priest who was called Eli, as
you probably know. And there came a night when God
spoke to Samuel. and he spoke his name, he called
him by his name, he said Samuel, that was his name, he called
him by his name and Samuel didn't quite understand what was happening,
he didn't understand who was talking, he thought perhaps it
was Eli talking to him, you'll probably remember and he went
to him a few times, he said you called me and Eli said no I didn't,
go and lie down again and eventually Eli realised that it was God
who was speaking to Samuel. Now And Samuel said, speak for
thy servant heareth. And God spoke to him. God told
him something very important that would happen to Eli's sons. Now Samuel, when God spoke to
him that night, it's thought was about 12 years old. About
12. He had been living there for
some time. He knew Eli very well. And God
came to Samuel, 12 years old, he spoke to him and he heard
his prayer. Do you notice God calls his name
Samuel and when Samuel said speak for thy servant here is God heard
that prayer. So back in the Old Testament
with Samuel we have an example of God speaking to and listening
to a child, someone about 12 years old. Another example we
have is Jairus' daughter. In the New Testament we read
about this man called Jairus, ruler of the synagogue. He had
a daughter and she was sick. She was very ill and he came
to ask that Jesus would come and heal her, would come and
make her better. Well, we know how old this girl
was. She was actually the same as
Samuel. We're told that she was 12 years
old. And this man came to Jesus and
he asked Jesus that he would come and heal his daughter. Now what do you think Jesus said?
No, I'm not interested in children. I'm not interested in coming
to your girl. Doesn't interest me. I want to talk to the adults.
I want to talk to the people who understand everything. No.
Jesus did the opposite to that. He straight away got up and went. That he might go and heal this
girl, Jairus' daughter, this 12 year old girl. So he went. But then as he went
and there was an interruption, a lady came and spoke to him
and touched him, we won't go into that, but a bit later on
these messengers come and they say, well don't worry anymore,
don't bother anymore, because the daughter, the 12 year old
girl is dead. She has died. But what did Jesus
do? He say, oh well I won't bother
anymore then. Jesus still goes to Jairus' house. he still goes to find this twelve-year-old
girl and he goes and heals her. He goes and raises her back to
life again and he cares so much for this girl that he then commands
at the end when she's been risen to life to give her some food,
give her something to eat so that she may be strengthened
again. Jesus, you see, cared for children. This 12-year-old girl, he went
and healed her. Well, here in the chapter that
we read, we read, you probably noticed, about children. These
children were brought to Jesus, probably by their parents, we're
not too sure, But they were young children. There may have even
been some of them very young children, almost babies. We read
that they brought unto him also infants. An infant is someone
that's quite small. We're not too sure, of course,
how many there were or what age they were, but they were certainly
little children who were brought to Jesus. And you see, his disciples,
the people with him, thought that Jesus won't be interested
in these children. He won't be interested in these
people who have brought the children and tried to push them away and
told them off for bringing these children to Jesus, tried to make
them go away. You see, Jesus knew what was
happening. He knew that they had come and
he called them. He called them. He actually took
the initiative, saw what was happening. He stopped the disciples
and he called that these children might come to him. We read in another gospel that
he took them up into his arms and he touched them and he blessed
them. Jesus literally took these children
into his arms, sat them on his knee, and touched them and blessed
them and spoke to them. This Jesus called them to come
to him and he blessed them. You see, there's many examples
then in the Bible of Jesus receiving and hearing and blessing children
and you see it's true still today It's still true today that Jesus
receives and blesses children. There's something for you here.
There's something for you to listen to. It's not to ignore
and to just think it's for when you're older. Now, you may say,
well, that's very well. There's something for me here,
you say, and Jesus comes to children. You say, but I don't understand
very much. I don't understand all that the
Bible says. I don't even understand all what
the words mean. I don't understand everything
that's said. So I don't really bother listening.
Well, maybe not. Probably not. I don't think anyone
here would say that they understand everything. But you probably
don't understand much. But you know the essentials,
the really important parts, are not difficult. The really essential
foundation, important parts of the gospel are not difficult
to understand. A child can understand those
truths. You think of prayer. What is
prayer? You may think sometimes, well,
what is someone doing when they're praying? You think, has that
got any application for children? Well, of course it has. We can
all pray. Children can all pray. Prayer is essentially talking
to God. It's talking to God, like you
might talk to someone else, to your parents. It's talking to
God. And we can talk to God wherever
we are, or whatever we're doing, and we can tell him about anything,
and he sees and knows where we are when we're talking to him.
and we can talk to him like we might talk to our mum and dad
or to our friends and tell him everything and tell him our problems
and tell him what we need you can bring your troubles to him
if you've got something on your mind that you're worried about
or you've got something that you're scared might happen you
can tell him you can pray like anyone can you can tell him when
you've done something wrong When you realize that you've sinned,
you've broken one of his commandments, you can tell him about that.
We can all pray. You can ask for forgiveness.
You can ask that he will come and forgive you. That he will
help you to understand the things about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We can all pray. That's not something just for
other people. Wherever you are, in any difficulty, you can pray
to God and He's always near to listen. He's always there to
listen. It's not the time that God can't
hear you or a time that He's not listening. He is always there
to listen to us. And you know, you might be surprised
sometimes when you have an answer to your prayer. And something
might happen and you think, I'd forgotten about that, but I prayed
about that. And I didn't really think it
would happen. I didn't really expect an answer. And yet, it
has. And God has answered me. And
God has helped me. And God has given me what I've
needed. Or He has helped me in that difficulty. Or He's taken away that thing
I was scared about. And God has heard you. And you
might be surprised about that. You didn't hardly expect it and
yet God has reminded you that he is real. He's a real God. He's really there and he's really
heard you and therefore maybe he'll hear you again. Maybe he'll
help you again. You know that. Can you think
of a time when you've actually, yes, God has answered my prayer. In this example, it's a confirmation
to you children that He hears children and their prayers to
Him. So you can understand what prayer
is and what that means. You can understand, I'm sure,
that you're a sinner. That you're a sinner. You can understand and acknowledge
that you do wrong things sometimes. That you do wrong things. You
know, if you take something, this morning the Slum School
was talking about stealing things, wasn't I? If you take something,
you might say, well, I've taken something from my mum and dad
and that was wrong, now they won't be happy. But you know,
if you take something, you're also upsetting God. Because He's
told you that you should not steal. We read it, didn't we? One of the commandments, do not
steal. He's told you not to do that, so you've upset God as
well. by stealing. If you lie to someone,
tell an untruth, or pretend you've done something, or you've not
done something when you have, you might have upset someone
by lying, but you've really upset God as well, because he says
we shouldn't bear false witness, we shouldn't lie, and you've
upset God by doing that. He tells you how we should be
living, What we should do and what we shouldn't do and when
we don't do that, we've done the opposite, we've sinned, that's
what sin is. And God is upset, God is angry
with that sin, like our parents would be if we do something wrong.
You can understand what we're talking about when we talk about
being a sinner. You know what that is, don't
you? You have to acknowledge that yes, you've done something
wrong as well. and lastly for the children I
hope you're managing to stay with me this morning but lastly
you can understand what salvation is what salvation is that is
that God forgives us so that he's not angry with us anymore
and so he's not angry because we've done wrong things he saves
us you think if you go to someone's house and you break something. I don't know, maybe you break
a toy or you break something that's there and you make your
friend very angry. It was their favourite toy and
you've broken it. And what are you going to do?
Well, you can't go and buy something. Maybe you can't afford to buy
another toy for him. You don't know what to do and
he's very cross with you. Very angry that you've broken
his toy. You can't go and buy him another
one. But then if someone else came and they said, well, I'll
buy another one, I'll buy another toy and you can go and take it
back to your friend and you can give them a new one. Wouldn't
you be really thankful that that person has given you some money
or gone and got this toy so that you can go and give a new one
back to your angry friend? They have paid the price. They've paid money so that you
don't have to and you can give it back. They've paid the debt
for you. Well, that's really a little
picture of what salvation is, of what Jesus has done for his
people. He has paid that price. He has
bought back what we can't buy ourselves. He has paid the price
for the wrong things that we have done. so that we can be
forgiven, so that our friends, God, will be not angry with us
anymore for the things that we've done wrong. Jesus went to the
cross and died so that we can be forgiven. That's what salvation
is. So you see, you might think that
lots of things are above your head and as children you can't
understand anything. Well, the Lord tells us, suffer
the little children, let the little children come to me. And you can understand the real
important things that we talk about here. You can understand
that you can pray. You can understand that you are
a sinner and you've done wrong things. And you can understand
that Jesus saves sinners and forgives us. We pray that you
all may know that for yourselves. So Jesus encourages you children
here, all of you here, let or suffer little children to come
unto me. We all need, all of us, from
the youngest one here to the oldest one, we all need Jesus
to forgive us and it's wonderful that he hears and receives children
as well as adults and that we can pray and that we can know
him, that all of us can be made a real Christian by his grace. He said he called them, suffer
the little children to come unto me and forbid them not. But there's also, of course,
instruction here for all of us, isn't there? not just the literal
children that were here this morning. There's a lesson here
for everyone because the Bible applies to us all and
the text that we might think of for adults isn't necessarily
not for children and vice versa. This text we might think is just
about children doesn't mean it's not for adults. What's the encouragement
here for adults? Well, firstly, There's an encouragement
for us to encourage the children. To encourage the children. These people brought their infants
to Jesus. They brought probably in their
arms or they brought them along to Jesus. They wanted the children
to go to Jesus and they wanted him to receive them. and they
brought them and they were discouraged by the disciples. The disciples
rebuked them. The disciples wanted them to
turn around and take the children away. They were discouraged by
the people around and maybe sometimes we desire to bring the children
to the Lord, bring our own children to the Lord in prayer and in
instructing them and teaching them about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We desire to bring our children but we feel discouraged And we
look around us and we see all the many other voices in the
world which are hounding them and tempting them and distracting
them. And when we see the power of the devil who we fear can
get the grip of the hearts of our children and we feel discouraged
and wonder if it's worth carrying on or whether it's worth praying
for our children, whether it's worth continuing to attempt to
instruct our children about the things of God. We brought them. unto him. And they were discouraged
by the disciples. But what's wonderful is, as it
were, they heard this call from Jesus. I believe as they were
almost feeling the sinking heart and hearing the discouragements,
the rebukes from the disciples, perhaps as they were starting
to turn around, they heard the voice of Jesus calling to them,
calling out, saying, suffer the little children to come. Let
them come. Encourage them to come unto me. So he encourages us, carry on
bringing your children to the Lord. Carry on bearing them before
him in prayer. Carry on committing them, their
lives, their souls, their difficulties, all about them to the Lord in
prayer. And continue, perhaps when they're
young, and unable to take themselves, as it were, to the Lord in prayer.
Or perhaps when they're young and they're unwilling to take
themselves to the Lord in prayer and they're rebellious and not
wanting anything to do with religion and wanting to run away from
the Bible and from attending services. Yet still, though they
might not take themselves, the encouragement is take them. Still
take them. Still present them before the
Lord, still pray for them, pray that by his grace he would come,
that he would touch their hearts like he touched and blessed these
children. Because all of us realize that's
what's really needed, isn't it? We can pray, we can instruct.
We can lead and guide, but what's really needed is for the Lord
to reach in with his sovereign, gracious hand and touch their
hearts. Plead on, pray on, that the Lord
would do that. The Lord calls out, suffer the
little children to come. Pray on. Think, we read as well,
didn't we, of this blind man in Jericho, blind Bartimaeus,
we read in another Gospel. And he was discouraged. He cried
out, Son of David, have mercy on me. And they told him to be
quiet and to hold his peace. And he continues to cry out.
He's persistent in his prayer. And then the time comes, similar
to these people. The Lord stood still. He stood
and commanded him to be brought unto him. Again, we have the
encouragement to continue in prayer, because the moment came
when Bartimaeus, though he couldn't see, he hears that voice. He
commanded him to be brought. Like they heard the voice of
Jesus calling out, so he hears that voice and he's encouraged
to come to the Lord. Here's the encouragement to pray
on. Here's the encouragement never
to give up. Suffer, little children, to come
unto me. Bring them unto the Lord. We're told in the Proverbs, aren't
we? Train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is
old, he will not depart from it. What a promise, what an encouragement. May we be helped to continue
to pray on, to instruct on, to encourage our children, train
them up in the way, direct them in the way they should go, direct
them ultimately in the way of life to the Lord Jesus Christ,
that they might not depart by God's grace from that way. So there's the encouragement
for us to encourage our children, but also there is of course encouragement
for us to come like little children. all of us to come, though we
may feel like a little child, though we may be older in years,
we may say, actually, I feel like a child in the things of
God. I feel like I really don't know very much and I understand
even less I can't grasp much of what the
Bible's teaching. I can't see what the application
is for me. When I read it or when I hear
it, it never seems to really come to me or mean much to me.
It doesn't seem to address my problems or my issues. I feel
weak. I don't feel strong in the things
of God. If I'm asked a question by someone
else, I really don't know what to say. If I'm challenged, I
don't have the answers. I feel like I'm, as it were,
blown over just by the question and I start to doubt everything
myself. And I feel unworthy anyway to know these things myself.
I know I'm a sinner. I know I don't deserve anything
from God and I need God to enlighten me, I need God to instruct me,
I need God to help me to understand and I'm just not worthy of that
instruction. I'm not worthy to hear his voice.
I'm like a child. Suffer the little children to
come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
of God. Jesus doesn't say, well yes,
you do need to work a bit harder, you do need to improve your knowledge,
you really need to be much stronger, much mature in your faith, you
really do need to have much more depth, you need to have much
more strength to stand, you need to have much more knowledge so
that you can answer those difficult questions. He doesn't say, Well,
you do need to have a lot more experience. You really do need
to go on a long way before you could ever come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He actually really says the opposite. Because he says
that of such is the kingdom of God. That actually his people,
his church is made up of people who do feel to be like little
children. For such is the kingdom of God.
Everyone around you, everyone in his church feels like a child,
feels their weakness, feels their inability in serving their Lord,
feels their lack of knowledge and their lack of understanding.
Such is the kingdom of God. If you feel like that this morning,
The Lord doesn't rebuke you and send you away like the disciples
do. He does the opposite. He calls out. He calls out across
the crowd. He calls out to you as you feel
discouraged and as you're turning your back and going to go home.
He shouts out. He calls out. No, suffer the
little children to come unto me and forbid them not. For such is the kingdom of God. This is how he does receive his
people. when they come as a little child. Not a bold, proud, self-confident,
self-righteous one, but a child acknowledging what they are and
acknowledging what they don't have. So here's encouragement
for those who feel like little children and think that you were
cast out of the church that you are cast out of the Lord's goodness
and that you are beyond it, suffer the little children to come unto
me and forbid them not. But of course as much as there
is encouragement here for children, literal children and feeling
children as it were, there's also instruction here of how
we should desire to approach the Lord as little children. The Lord says, Verily I say unto
you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child shall in no wise enter therein. Here is instruction
on how to approach, how to come to the Lord. How must we come? The Lord says again in Matthew's
Gospel, verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
God. We can become self-confident,
I believe, as we go on in our faith. we can think that we are
gaining in our knowledge and in our understanding and in strength. And of course we are exhorted
to grow, we are exhorted to study and there must be a progression,
there must be a growing in grace, there must be, as the Lord directs
us into his truth, a growth in our faith. as something we should
always desire. We mustn't be content to sit
back and just, as it were, feel that we have nothing. We must
seek to progress. But be that as it may, here is
instruction on how the attitude of our heart must always be,
that such is the Kingdom of God, to approach Him as a child. And what does that mean? Well,
as we go on, as we pray on, as we walk on in our life, we should
seek for grace to walk in an attitude of total dependence. Total dependence upon the Lord. A child, especially a small child,
is utterly dependent on his children, on his parents, sorry. Utterly
dependent on his parents. They give him or her what they
need. They look after them. They keep them safe. They comfort
them. They're dependent on their parents. And if they're old enough, they
come to a point that they realise that they'll run to their parents
when they're in trouble. They realise they're dependent
in some ways on their parents. Well, the Lord's people should
always seek, as a little child, to walk in dependence upon the
Lord. Realising that we are, as it
were, vulnerable in the world. We're vulnerable against temptation
and against the sins that are around us. We're vulnerable even
against our own hearts and what is within us in the old nature.
We should seek to appreciate and understand time and again
our weakness and that we cannot stand in our own strength and
yet we are utterly dependent upon the Lord. That's a good
place. It's a good place to be and the Lord will work in your
lives. He will work to bring us there
time and time again, and when we start to become self-confident,
when we start to think that the Lord, well, He must be pleased
with us now, He must be impressed with how well we're doing, He
will bring something into your life, whether naturally or into
your heart, into your spiritual experience, He'll bring something
to remind you you're dependent on Him, and on Him alone. bring you back to a place of
weakness. We don't like that, we don't
enjoy that and we wonder why is God doing it to us, because
who will he receive? The little children, the dependent
ones, total dependents. But also, we should come and
seek to be fully trusting, realising that we are dependent but also
trusting. Again, a child trusts his parents,
trusts them to look after, trusts them to feed them and care for
them and keep them safe. They trust them and they go to
them. Well, so the Lord's people's
desire to walk, trusting the Lord, as a son would run to his
father, or daughter, run to his father. So, trust the Lord in
that way, to run to the Lord, to ask Him for wisdom, to ask
Him for help, guidance, blessing and comfort. To come trusting
the Lord and looking to Him alone, where there is nowhere else to
go and there is no one else to help us. as a little child trusting
the Lord, but also he seeks to come openly, with no guile. A smaller child They come, as it
were, you know them, they're open. They don't hide things,
they're not subtle. They're not trying to pretend
to be something else. They come openly to their parents. And their parents, if they know
them very well, as I'm sure they must do, they understand what
they mean. They know their character. They
know what they like and dislike. They know what they mean, even
if they're too young to talk. They come openly. They come,
they show by their very demeanour the things that they want, the
things that they need. Open before their parents. Well, we as little
children should seek to come to the Lord, as it were, openly.
Not pretending to be something that we're not. Not pretending
that the Lord doesn't notice what we've done. Not pretending
that, well, the Lord will see just the outside and won't know
what's in our minds and in our hearts. I will seek for grace
to come openly before the Lord, to acknowledge what we are, to
acknowledge what we've done. We might declare our dependence
on him. How often are we like the Pharisee
that we read about? And actually, when we pray to
the Lord, we feel that we want to tell him how good we are.
and how well we're standing, and how strong we feel, because
we think that's how the Lord wants us to be. And that will
impress Him. And that will bring us into favour
again. And we want to list the things before the Lord. Lord,
I'm so thankful I've not done this. I'm so thankful that you've
given me strength to do this. I'm so thankful that I have grace
to walk like this. Don't get me wrong, we must be
thankful, of course. But that's what we're doing,
we're trying to just impress the Lord in what we've done.
But yet we're hiding the problems, we're hiding the sins, we're
hiding the disobedience. Come openly, the little children,
to come unto me and come sincerely. Sincerely meaning what we say.
Not as a hypocrite like the Pharisees. Not pretending, but sincerely. unto the Lord. Suffer the little
children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for if such
is the kingdom of God." Well, may we all know this childlike
spirit as we approach the Lord, as we serve the Lord, as we pray,
as we worship. May we have that childlike spirit
to come as we are, to come in dependence, to come trusting,
to come sincerely and pray and seek the Lord, because what an
encouragement we have here. What an encouragement. The words
of Jesus himself, he called them and said, suffer the little children
to come. Not mocking God with proud hearts,
not mocking him with hypocritical nature, but praying for a soft
and a tender and a teachable and a humble spirit. Well, so there's a lesson for
us all here. It's a lesson for the children. There's an encouragement
for you. That though you may be literally
a child, the Lord Jesus Christ called out and desired that those
children would be brought up into his arms and that he will
bless them. And I believe that same desire
is the same today, that he does not cast out children, he does
not shut his ear to your prayer. And if you come and ask him for
help, more importantly, if you come and ask him for his blessing
in saving and forgiving you for your sins, then you will know
the same blessing that these children knew, being brought
up near to Him, to understand something of who He is and what
He's done in brought into His arms and knowing His blessing
for the children. You can know Him too. But there's
also, of course, encouragement and instruction for all of us.
Encouragement to bring our children encouragement to come as we feel
to be like children and instruction that we might pray to be as a
little child. Jesus called them unto him and
said, suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them
not for such is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is of
those who are weak in themselves. and strong in the Lord. Amen.