1. Free As Sons
   
2. Does "Go Ye" Mean "Go Me?"
   
3. Are We Really Born Again?
   
4. The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel
   
5. Silence Says Something
   
6. Body Language
   
7. Repentance Before Faith
   
8. I Wonder
   
9. Can I Know?
   
10. Ultimate Logical Conclusions
    
11. Errors in Peter's Sermon
    
12. Did Timothy Need Admonition?
    
13. Jesus' Youth Sermon For Adults
    
14. Why Didn't Paul Reform?
    
15. Christmas
    
16. Let The Unmarried Marry
    
17. A Dialect of Division
    
18. Our Traditions
    
19. Adding Our Safeguards
    
20. According To The Pattern
    
21. A Creed In The Deed
    
22. Samuel Did Not Know The Lord!
    
23. Response From Our Readers
    
24. Cries Of A Troubled Church
    
25. Sharing Without Fellowship
    
26. I Joined A Church
    
27. Open Membership
    
28. Another Last Will And Testament
    
29. Sad Thoughts About Church Growth
    
30. My Four Retirement Homes
    
31. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

JESUS' YOUTH SERMON FOR ADULTS

Through the years, as I searched for material for special lessons for youth, I was perplexed to find that Jesus never addressed any youth group or gave special lessons to children. Evidently, he left the teaching of the children to the God­ordained teachers their parents who were in charge of God's youth program.

Jesus did teach adults some very vital things about children and about their relationship with them. In Matthew 18:1-14 we can read Jesus' youth sermon for adults. Some of the points of this lesson were not impressed upon me until more recent times.

The disciples asked Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Calling a child to stand before them as an object lesson, he declared, "Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." That response is strikingly similar to what Jesus told Nicodemus. A little child is scared to be out on his own, is insecure in handling responsibility, and is lacking in feelings of self-sufficiency. You must remember, Jesus is saying, the time before you began to be so assured of yourself. You must start over, being born again, as it were, regaining that same spirit of dependence instead of an attitude of dominance. Those who are acutely aware of their dependence upon both God and fellowman are not striving for distinctions of rulership and greatness any more than a child is seeking to rule the world.

"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me." Serving the humblest is serving Jesus himself. With this assurance to motivate us, how can we overlook one needy child in this world who needs our ministering? How insulting against Jesus child desertion must be! How can any man who has left his unclaimed offspring, conceived in lust, to roam the streets of some foreign city as an outcast, starving waif claim God's acceptance when he has rejected Jesus in the person of his own child? While failing to provide for his own, he or any other man, is worse than an infidel.

Those little ones were old enough to believe and to be led into sin, or at least, it is anticipated that they would be. Woe to the person who would lead one child to sin! Especially, in this time of flouted sexual promiscuity, it must be re­emphasized that parenthood carries the gravest of responsibilities. Your children would be better without you, Jesus is implying, than for you to practice or condone evil before them, leading them astray. If you were drowned in the sea, perhaps some godly person would take your children and rear them like you should be doing.

"Woe to the man by whom the temptation comes!" There seems to be a conspiracy against the children of this generation to lead them into abandoned living. The pornographers, drug dealers, liquor advertisers, entertainers, musicians, script writers, and actors seem eager enough to deliver our children to Satan for money and notoriety. In so doing, they are selling their own souls into hell by committing crimes against both the children and humanity. They should prefer maiming of their bodies to the punishment awaiting them. Voluntary amputation of a hand or foot cannot repay for misdirecting a child, but cutting off that greedy, lustful, hedonistic, materialistic, and godless nature which may become the stumbling­block can prevent one from misleading a child.

Don't consider children lightly. God doesn't. His angels are assigned to each child. Since angels are messengers, we can be sure that each case of neglect or abuse of a child is declared to God in whose presence they stand. And because they are ministers serving the welfare of those over whom they watch, for a person to cause a child to sin is to work against the very angels of heaven.

How early in life is the assignment of angels made? If the little ones have the ministering of angels, are those angels watching over the little ones yet in the womb? "See that you do not despise (consider lightly) one of these little ones!" Jesus warns. The abortionist looks down on the child with contempt, regarding it as worthless or distasteful, but the Son of man came to save it!

Finally, in this text, Jesus related a parable about a sheep that was lost from the other ninety­nine. Surely, I had known it before, but, with stunning impact, I observed more recently that this parable is different from the parable of the lost sheep recorded in Luke 15.

Who is that straying sheep? It is a child! It is the little one whom parents or other adults have despised. Angelic interest continues even though human adults may be neglectful. We participate in the greatest ministry conceivable when we join with God, Jesus, and the angels toward the saving of one and all of earth's children.

Jesus' youth sermon for adults is awesome. No person can knock on heaven's gate hopeful of entering who is not giving due consideration to children. Neglect and sinful examples of the past may be beyond remedy or repair, but we can begin where we are today with a renewed commitment and find the grace that both forgives the past and enables for the present.