SUNDAY SCHOOL!
DFO1047
12/5/77
1. I THINK SUNDAY SCHOOL IS THE BEST PART ABOUT CHURCH & about the only place where you really hear the Truth & the Gospel & see pretty pictures of the Bible stories--it's about the only place in most churches where you even hear the Bible very much! So I really think Sunday School in a way is good for kids.
2. They've always got good music in Sunday School, that's lots of fun too, & lots of other kids. So I wouldn't be afraid to send my kids to Sunday School if there was one nearby & handy that really believes in the Truth!--Especially if you go with them & make sure they're getting the right teaching.
3. They can enjoy the fellowship of other Christian children & learn the music of Christians of generations, some of which is good, some not so good, & you can teach them to differentiate between the two.--Just be sure you don't let them know who you are or they probably won't let you in the front door! But it's possible! I took my kids to church off & on for a few years just to give them a sample & let them know what it was like so they could take it or leave it.
4. I THINK THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL IS THE GREATEST MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH AT HOME, aside from their ministry abroad, & believe it or not, their ministry abroad in most countries where the people are simple childlike natives is very much like the ministry of the Sunday School. They use pictures & slides & flannelgraphs out in the villages to depict the stories they're telling as the natives gather around just like little children & are as thrilled about it as us little kids used to be!
5. I know a lot of kids got saved both at Sunday School & Vacation Bible School & some of our own kids who are now with us in the Family have testified that they first found the Lord in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School! Although their own parents never darkened the door of a church, they themselves got interested & went to Sunday School, or somebody invited them or took them to Sunday School or to Vacation Bible School & they got saved!
6. So I think that is probably the best ministry of the churches! They're not reaching the lost hardly anywhere else & most of them have no other program for reaching the unsaved. Sunday night was supposed to be the Evangelistic Service & you were supposed to bring out your sinful neighbours to be evangelised, but very few people ever did or could because their sinful neighbours weren't interested in anything so dead as church & getting preached the same old thing every time!
7. Churches actually didn't have much appeal to anybody that had any life to them, & the church has such narrow-minded ideas about so many things they quit practically everything in life that they enjoyed, or were supposed to quit it, in order to become a Christian & go to church! The kind of churches we used to go to & the kind that preached the Gospel & really believed the Bible were usually very narrow-minded about everything, not only just sex but even about going to the movies!--That was a sin, & of course smoking & card-playing & dancing were very wicked! They just about took all the joy out of life!
8. I THINK CARD-PLAYING & CHESS-PLAYING TOO, BY THE WAY, IS A HELL OF A WASTE OF TIME, including checkers or any other kind of stupid little games! I don't see how any of you have time for that kind of trash, & it becomes almost addicting! It's demonic! I think card-playing & chess-playing have a demonic fascination, & any of you folks who are wasting time on that kind of stuff ought to get your head down in a bucket of cold water to wake you up!
9. Who in the Hell has time for that waste? That to me is the biggest time-waster!--Hours & hours spent accomplishing absolutely nothing!
10. You'd spend your time much better even reading the newspaper, you learn more, or news magazines or books or anything is more profitable than playing chess, checkers & cards, it's such a waste of time! Even to go out & play a good game of tennis or go swimming or get some bodily exercise is a little bit profitable. It profits nothing spiritually but at least it profits you physically!
11. But to waste your time on something that's uneducational & unprofitable & unedifying & unrelaxing as chess & checkers & card-playing & stupid stuff like that which doesn't even give you any exercise, that's utterly ridiculous!--Neither educates nor exercises nor edifies nor anything!--Just a game of wits to try to see how smart you are to overpower the other fellow, who's the smartest to think the farthest ahead to outsmart each other! It's another game of aggression, another game of competition which creates a bad spirit!
12. BUT ANYWAY, I THINK SUNDAY SCHOOL IS GREAT & IT DOES A GOOD JOB, a good ministry, if it's a Bible-believing church that preaches the Gospel & real salvation! Of course you're apt to get into a lot of other false doctrines at the same time along with it, which you've got to watch out for, but the Baptists & the Pentecostals are pretty good folks usually. There are a few Presbyterians who are fundamental, & there are a few, very few Methodists, they're absolutely almost the most modernistic, unbelieving church there is today! But there are a few others.
13. It depends on the individual church & the individual pastor just how much Bible & how much Truth they preach & how much salvation they're for. But one thing I know is that our Family certainly preaches salvation & strong evangelism! That's one thing that the churches didn't preach much, & that was personal evangelism. Their idea of personal evangelism was to get out & invite everybody to church or Sunday School or Vacation Bible School!
14. So I think Sunday School's a good thing, & if you have a nearby Sunday School maybe you'll be a real witness there & your kids will be a blessing to their kids, really set them on fire about witnessing & litnessing & getting out on the street & winning souls! Of course I found out most of the churches I went to & tried to wake up & set on fire didn't like the message & sometimes they wouldn't even listen & threw me out! But at least you may have a little time before that happens to reach the hungry!
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