This evening, you can turn back
if you like to the scripture that Brother William read in the book of Mark. I have a question this evening. How many rules do y'all have
at your house? How many rules are there? You
know, children have a lot of rules, don't you? Yep. From the time you get up, if
you're a little child, it starts with, don't you get out of bed
until such and such a time. That's a rule with most little
kids in their home. When the kids get a little bigger,
it's get out of that bed now. You're going to be late for school. From the time you get up until
you go to bed. For the little ones, when you go to bed, it's
your bedtime. Get in that bed and don't get
up. That's a rule in most houses. When you get a little bigger,
it's turn out the lights now or you'll fall asleep in school
tomorrow. And everything in between. Eat your dinner. Brush your teeth.
Pick up your clothes. Make your bed. Pick up those
toys. Turn off the lights. Do your
homework. Answer me when I call you. Look
at me when I'm talking to you. We got all these rules, don't
we? I wish you could see the children right now. They understand what we're saying.
Now, what happens if we break the rules? There's always a thing
called consequences. And consequences are not good
things. Consequences are what happen
when you break the rules. If we break a rule, something
bad happens. If we're a rule breaker, don't
expect good things. If we disobey, something bad
is gonna happen. The rules I gave examples of,
You know, usually the bad thing that happens is that we get a
lecture. That means we get a talking to
if we break one of those rules. But then there are the more serious
rules which result in a whole lot worse consequences. Really
bad things happen when we break these rules. We best not break
the rule that says don't talk back to your parents. We're going
to get a spanking. We're going to get grounded or
maybe both. And heaven help us if we hit
somebody. Whether we hit them with a just push them hard or
hit them or if we hit them with the tongue. You know what hitting
with the tongue is that's calling somebody a bad name. I'll never
forget the first time the first time that happened with one of
my children. You know what they said? They
looked at somebody and said, you bozo. And you would have
thought they called him the worst thing in the world because to
them, they were striking out. And when we do those kind of
things, we can expect a bad consequences. We know it. And yet we still
do it, don't we? We still do it. We do it anyway. Why is that? We're going to answer
that question in just a minute, but let me ask you another one
first. How many rules are there in the
Bible? You ever think about that? Where did this thing of having
rules and breaking them all begin? The answer to that's in the Bible
too. Do we realize that who made the very first rule? God did. God made the first rule. Many,
if not all, many, if not most folks, They think there's only
10 rules in the Bible. Do you know there's hundreds
if not thousands of rules in the Bible? I opened my Bible
to the book of Deuteronomy on one page, half a page actually. These are the rules I found.
Not ever to wear linen and woolen garments together. Not to ever
sow two different kinds of seed in a vineyard. Not to plow with
an oxen and a donkey together. You can put two oxen or two donkeys,
but never an oxen and a donkey. Do you know that's a rule in
the Bible? It's a commandment. On the same page was this one.
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man.
Neither a man put on a woman's garments. For all that do so
are an abomination unto the Lord. I don't think I'd ever read that
rule. That's pretty serious, isn't it? There's so many rules. Why are there so many rules?
Well, when you make one rule, you know what happens? Somebody's
going to break it. And when they do, now you got
to have more rules. And let me illustrate that to you. We start
with one rule. You're told, keep your room straight. A lot of houses got that rule.
But how good are we at it? Pretty soon we're not doing it
the way we're supposed to. So now we gotta have new rules
which say, I mean by keeping your room straight, you make
up your bed and don't leave your clothes laying around. Well,
we can't or won't do that. So we gotta now have more rules
which says, hang up the clean clothes and put the dirty ones
in the hamper. Do you see how this just keeps going? Because
we won't keep the rules, it means there's no end to the rules.
Turn with me now to Matthew 22. Matthew 22. This is an account that is recorded in
the Bible. No man or woman has ever been
able to keep the thousands of rules in the Bible. So God told
Moses, make 10 rules, just give them 10. And how did that go? Nobody's been able to keep the
thousands of rules or even the 10 rules. So this clever religious
lawyer came to our Lord and look what happened, what's recorded
here, what he asked the Lord to do in Matthew 22, verse 34.
When the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees
to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which
was a lawyer, asked the Lord Jesus Christ a question, tempting
him and saying this, Master, which is the great commandment
in the law? You see, he didn't want thousands
of rules. He didn't want 10 rules. He just wanted one. And he thought
he tricked the Lord this way. Look what our Lord answered him
in verse 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment,
and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. So our Lord reduced it down to
just two, two rules. And do you know what? We can't
even keep the two. What's wrong with us? What's wrong with us
that we can't keep the rules? Why do we want to break them
all the time? The answer to that question is found in the Bible.
If you'll turn to Genesis, I'll show you the answer. Genesis
chapter 2. We all know that in the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth, and then He made Adam. And He put Adam in the Garden
of Eden, this beautiful, perfect garden. There were so many trees
in that garden. There was pear trees and apple
trees and orange trees and all these beautiful trees. And the
fruit was magnificent. There was so much to eat and
so many choices. But God made how many rules?
One. He made one rule. Look at it
here in Genesis 2 verse 15. And the Lord God took the man
and put him into the garden of Eden to dress him to keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the
garden, you can eat all you want. It's free. You can have all you
want. But, and here comes the rule of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, here's the consequence of breaking the
rule. Thou shall surely die. There was only one tree. Only
one rule, don't eat that tree, don't eat that fruit. But Adam
did. And Adam, when he disobeyed God,
he became what's called a rule breaker, a sinner. And all his
children, every one of us, we're all the descendants of Adam.
Every one of us is born just like Adam. And you know what
we want to do? We want to break the rules. Every time we want
to do it. The problem is not that there's
too many rules. The problem is we don't want
any rules. Do you ever hear kids say today now, you're not the
boss of me. We don't want a boss. We want to do what we want to
do. We want our way as opposed to God's way. We're not able
or even very interested in keeping the thousands of rules in the
Bible or even just the 10 or the two. We're just like Adam. Give us just one rule and I'll
break it. So what are we going to do? In order to be saved from
our sin, something has to be done about that. The price has
got to be paid to come into God's presence. We must be made perfect,
which means never to have broken even one rule. We must have kept
every rule perfectly without exception. And yet we don't want
to, much less we can't. We need God to do something for
us that we can't do for ourselves. And do you know what? That's
exactly what is called the good news of the gospel. That's what
the truth is. When you hear Pastor Gabe say,
I'm gonna preach the gospel to you, you know what he's gonna
do? He's gonna give you some good news. He's gonna tell you the good
news of the Bible. Turn now to Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10. A long time ago, God the Father
chose some people to be his children. His children, you children know
your parents love you. And God the Father loves Jesus
Christ, his son, and the Father loves all he chose to be his
children. You children know your parents
love you and want you to be perfect, to keep all the rules. That's
what they'd like you to do. Wouldn't it be nice if you could
just keep all the rules? There wouldn't be any problem with
there with mom and dad ever. If you could just keep the rules. They'll love you even though
you don't or you can't. Keep all the rules perfectly.
It'll be all right. Why? Because they know and understand
that they haven't kept God's rules. They haven't done it.
Perfectly all the time either But they realize you can't be
allowed to do whatever you want, which is to break the rules That'll
end in a terrible punishment What happened to Adam when he
broke the rule what happened? You know what God did he said
Adam get out of the garden get out God told him he said the
day you eat that you'll surely die and Adam the minute he ate
it he died spiritually and he would die in time physically
and So God the Father sent God the
Son. He sent Jesus Christ, his Son,
to this earth as a child. Do we realize that the Lord Jesus
Christ, y'all know little Henry downstairs, that little infant?
Do we realize Jesus Christ once was just like that little infant?
God made him a man, a man-child. And he grew up to be a child
the size of some of you, and then he got to be the size of
some of you, and then he got to be a grown man. He lived 33
1/2 years. Do you know what he did in those
33 1/2 years? He kept all the rules. You say,
no way. I'm telling you, way. He did. He kept every one of them perfect. Not one time was there ever a,
don't do this. He didn't do it. Never once did
he do it if he wasn't supposed to. You know those thousands
of rules? Not one time did he put on a woman's garment. Not
one time did he ever put on linen with wool. Not one time. He never sowed a garden with
two kinds of seed in the same place. He never did any of those
things. Anytime, in all those rules that
says don't, he didn't. And every time in there it says,
do this, honor your mother and father. Do you know he did that
perfectly? He never sassed his mom or dad one time. Not once
did he ever break any of the rules. That's something, isn't it? He
never broke one rule one time. He kept the two rules, he kept
the 10 rules, he kept the thousands of rules perfectly. He never
broke one. Now look here at Mark 10, verse
13. Brother William read this and
It says that they brought young children to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I want to make clear in the book of Luke, this account is
in Matthew and in Luke, but in the book of Luke, it says they
brought infants. Say, which is it? Well, I think
both. They brought little ones like Henry and they brought little
ones, y'all's age. And he brought, they came to
him one y'all's age. Okay. That's what it means in
verse 13. And they brought young children
to him that he should touch them. And his disciples rebuked those
that brought them. They told him, wait, stop, get
away. Don't come near him. They rebuked
him. They said, don't you do this.
Don't bring that child up here. But in verse 14, when Jesus saw
it, he was much displeased and said of them, suffer the little
children to come to me. and forbid them not, for if such
is the kingdom of God. What he's saying there is such
is the kingdom of God. We must come into the kingdom
of God as little children, just as naive and just as innocent
as they are. And look at verse 15. Verily
I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God
as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them
up in his arms and put his hands upon them And bless them. What did the disciples rebuke
these parents? Why did they do this? Why did
they rebuke them when they brought these infants and little children?
They may have been. These may have been poor people.
And not very clean. There may have been an infant
that had a dirty diaper. I don't know what they were thinking,
but whatever it was when these parents came, they said, no,
no, get back, get back. The disciples may have thought
they were too young. Dear Lord, they may have thought
they were too unimportant. There may have been some important
religious people there, some rich people, who knows what it
is. But here's the thing I want us to see. Whatever the reason
we read, it displeased the Lord. Now, listen here. It not only displeased the son
of God, it displeased him much. All you children know the difference
between when your parents are displeased. Oh, don't do that. Don't not don't do that. And
when your parents are much displeased. Y'all know the difference in
that? Do we see the Lord Jesus Christ was much displeased when
they tried to prevent these children from coming to him? Does every
child in here know the difference? You do, don't you? Between when
your folks are upset and when they're really upset. And this
is a serious word of warning to us all. God help us that we
should ever get ourselves between Christ and one of his children
in any way. That we forbid or hinder his
children from coming to him. God help us to all encourage
and aid one another in bringing little children, our children
and others' children, into his arms. He said he touched them. Who are we to prevent the Lord
Jesus Christ from touching the child that he might put his hands
on them and bless them? There's no greater calling, no
higher purpose under heaven than to bring our children and to
help and aid others to bring little children to the feet of
the Lord Jesus Christ. to where the gospel is taught
and preached. Age is not relevant to God's children. I knew a man
who was in his 70s, who had been religious all his life. Boy,
was he a Calvinist. He knew the scriptures, and he
knew things, and he was, for years he'd attended gospel churches. But in his 70s, I believe he
finally heard the gospel. And you know what he became?
He became the sweetest little old man you ever saw. He became
like a child. He was happy all the time now,
and he was such a pleasant person. What happened? God made him a
little child, welcomed him as a little child. And that's how
we must come. And it would have been easy for
the pastor to have told this fellow, you know, you're just
too ornery. Don't come in here. I'd be doing what the disciples
were doing, which was get away. Get away. Age is not relevant. Notice our
Lord's command. He said, suffer, suffer. I'll tell you what any woman
who's ever had a child knows something about suffering physically
that no man's ever going to know anything about. But on the other
hand, men who are fathers know a good bit about suffering too. Brother Henry used to say, if
you have children, sooner or later, they're going to break
your heart. They just will. They just will. Somehow, someway,
they're going to break some rule that displeases you, even displeases
you much. They'll do it. But it is best
we suffer a little now in dealing with them, that they suffer not
eternally. I understand it's a suffering
labor of love to get them up, to dress them, to feed them,
to load them in the car, to get their Bibles, to teach them to
listen and on and on and on. It's some suffering. I'm sorry.
It's just what parents should do. We're commanded to do. Because suffer here means this,
it doesn't mean suffering in the sense of twisting your arm
or something. What it means is to yield up.
We, as parents, yield up our wants and make them subservient
to the needs of the children. It means to send forth, send
them to hear the word. It means to let them go. It's
a lot less effort and suffering to let them sleep in. I understand
that. But we must suffer. Nobody likes going in and forcing
the kids to get out of bed and force them to get ready and making
rules about you gotta do this and you gotta do that and you
gotta do the others. Well, suffer through it. That's what this
is saying. Yield them up. Would we rather
they be ours and like us or that they be his and someday like
him? As parents, God helped us to
surrender our way to his way. Joshua says, for me and my house,
we're going to serve the Lord. In all the years the Lord Jesus
Christ lived, he never broke one rule. He kept the one rule. He kept the two rules. He kept
the ten rules. He kept the thousands of rules.
He was perfect. On the other hand, You kids hear
us talking about Calvary? That's a place. That's a mountain.
And it's where the Lord Jesus Christ had to go to. And before
he went, do you know what they did to him? I'm not going to
ask you to raise your hands because I know the answer. Is there anybody
in this room who never had a spanking? I don't care what age you are.
Do you remember some? I remember my dad had this double
tongue belt. Man. Could he lay it to you? And that was what we always deserved
it. We got what we had coming. We begged for it. Because we broke the rules, we
got that. You know what? The Lord Jesus Christ let those
soldiers give him the worst spanking, the worst whipping any human
being ever got. And I know some of you think
you've had a bad, a bad whipping, bad spanking. The Lord Jesus
Christ took lashes and lashes and lashes. And then he drove,
went up Calvary. And do you know what? He let
him nail his hands and his feet to a tree until he died. Why did he do that? Why did that
have to happen? I already told you, he never
broke one rule. So why did he have to have that
happen to him? Why did he get a spanking? He didn't break any
rules. You know why he did it? So his people, God's children,
he took all of our spankings. Realize that? He took all the
punishment we had coming for all the rules we ever broke.
He didn't deserve it because he never broke a rule. But he
took our place. He did for us what we couldn't
do. He suffered so his children could be one day taken up into
the arms of God. He put his hands on the tree
so that when he arose and we arrived, he could take us up
in his arms as little children and bless us with eternal life.
Such is the kingdom of God. Turn to one more scripture, we're
almost done. Turn to Matthew 3. I asked earlier if everyone here
knew the difference between when your parents were displeased
and when they were much displeased. Much displeased. Do we also know
the difference between when your parents are pleased? when they're
pleased with you. And they say, well, you did pretty
good on that. I know you tried hard. Do we
know the difference between that? And when they say, when they're
much pleased, and they go, that was great. You did great. Wow, you hit a home run. That was great. We know the difference
in that, don't we? Look here in Matthew 3, verse
13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. Do y'all know one of
the rules in the Bible is that God's people are baptized. They're
baptized. So the Lord Jesus Christ knew
in order to follow and fulfill all the rules, he had to be baptized.
And he came to John to do that for him. But John forbade him,
just like those disciples said, keep the little children away.
I can understand why John was like, who am I to baptize the
Lord Jesus Christ? John forbade him, saying, I have
need to be baptized of thee, and thou comest thou to me. And
look what Jesus answered, said unto him, suffer it to be so
now, for thus it becometh us. You see that? It becometh us,
us. If he was doing this just for
him, he would have said, thus it becometh me. Why did he say
us? You know why? He was doing it
for all of us, all of his people he was doing this for. It becometh
us, he said, to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. Do we see
that? And it says then, and Jesus,
when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water,
and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit
of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him, and lo,
a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am
pleased. Is that what it says there? Look
at it again, did he say, I'm pleased. You tried hard. You
did the best you could. Is that what he said? No, look
what he said. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. Son, you did great. We understand what the Lord Jesus
Christ did was great, great. It couldn't be done any better.
It was absolutely perfect in every way. He did everything
that needed to be done for each and every one of us and for all
of us. He put away our sin and he gave us a righteousness. If
we're in him, we also will hear from the Father. I'm well pleased. Why? Because my son Jesus Christ
suffered it to be so. All right.