What About the Children - Part 1

On 9 December. There is no great or how bright the loss of Joan who have experienced this wonderful little one is in heaven will put your heart that I am Turning Point of his company assurances that children who proselyte right into the series on heaven's seismicity.

What about the children.

Thank you so much for joining us today weren't heading into the last few teaching sessions on the subject of reviewing the mysteries of heaven and today Minnetonka one of the questions that comes up whenever the subject is broached that is what happens to children when they died before they understand the gospel.

What about the children I've had some very, very sad experiences dealing with parents in the loss of little ones and the may never go away. They stay in your mind for a long time but what a wonderful thing it is to have truth from the word of God to encourage parents at such a moment so if you know somebody or maybe you've experienced this. Stay tuned as we answer the question, what about the children.

My first assignment after I graduated from seminary was in a rather large Baptist Church in Haddon Heights, New Jersey where I want to serve as the youth pastor and the question of director I was working with a man I greatly admired who was dynamic preacher and love the word of God and for some reason from the very beginning. He began to trust me with a lot of responsibility that I didn't think I was ready to accept. I was fresh out of seminary in my first assignment as a youth pastor and the senior pastor decided to take a few days of vacation and I was left in charge now. That may sound like that's a good thing. But if you had known me and known the size of that church that was a pretty scary thing for them to do.

I have no idea before the week was over I would handle one of the hardest situations I have ever dealt with Irene, the pastor Sec. called me and told me that one of our young couples was in great need and asked me to go over to their house couple have discovered that little one in her crib and she had stopped reading crib death, which was much more common than than it is today had taken this little girl away from her parents and I was sent to comfort them and bring them encouragement from God's word but I told him that day is what I want to tell you a lot of added to my understanding of the issue from that time until this but the core answer is exactly the same as the answer I gave them. I have the added confidence of many years of study and I believe more strongly in my answer now than I did then. I cannot think of anything more agonizing than the death of a child.

Someone said that the child is like.

The sentence is finished, but even more agonizing than the death of a child is the question about that child's eternal destination. As we explore the answer to this question. I want to unpack for you, for reasons for believing that little children who die go straight to heaven. First of all I would like for you to think with me for a moment about the character of God himself.

The Bible is filled with information about the character of God that he is given the name father ought to tell us something that many things we can summarize about the character of God drive us to the conclusion that children who die before they can understand the gospel do indeed go to the father's arms in heaven. Let me just examine a few verses with you. Psalm 8615 but you are Lord our God, full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy and truth. Psalm 135 in verse nine, the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all of his works. These are just two of thousands of verses which tell us that the God we serve is a good God is good all that would certainly include infants. God is fair and God would never judge anyone unfairly, some might argue that if we believe this that would excuse adults who have not heard the gospel, but such reasoning is flawed because both Romans and Psalms teach us that no one is without a witness that God's creation is a witness to his existence, and all men are held responsible for that witness, but babies are different. They cannot understand the witness of God. They cannot understand his witness in creation and so the grace and mercy of God, intercedes on their behalf. When the children of Israel were denied entrance into the promised land because of the unbelievable people.

Remember that when they wouldn't believe that God can help them go into the land of the spies came back and said we can't do this.

Interestingly enough, when the people that generation were not allowed to go into the land because of their unbelief. The children were exempted from that penalty.

Deuteronomy 139 says it this way. Moreover, little ones and your children who you say will be victims today have no knowledge of good and evil. They shall go in there I will give it, and they shall possess it. In other words, the whole generation was going to be penalized for their unbelief. But here's an illustration for God did not. Children responsible for the unbelief of the adults.

In fact there's a bit of irony in this passage if you will. The spies came back and said that giants in the land would destroy their little children and God came back and said no no little children are the only ones are going to the promised land. Do you remember the story of Jonah. When Jonah was asked by Almighty God to go and preach to Nineveh and Jonah did not want to go because he hated the Ninevites they were cruel and abusive people in one of the reasons God gave to Jonah for having Penny on Nineveh was the huge number of children that lived in the city. Jonah 411 says it this way should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between the right hand, and their left-hand and much livestock.

In other words God was saving the city of Nineveh, primarily because there were so many children there and he would not punish the city as wicked as it was because the children there kept him from doing it. The careful study of God's word by anyone who has an open mind reveals a heavenly father who deals justly with us all in his justice he provides for children who are not old enough to comprehend the gospel. In fact, in the book of Ezekiel we are told that Almighty God considers all children as his Ezekiel 1620 says. Moreover, you took your sons and your daughters whom you are to me. God says your brother's children. To me these are my children. God is not going to do unrighteously with his own children character God provides a special grace for those who cannot believe on a number of occasions. God refers to these little ones as innocence.

Jeremiah 234, also on your skirts is found the blood of the lives of the poor, innocence. Jeremiah 19 for this place with the blood of the innocents now listen carefully. Although children are sinful creatures, just like all of us. They are not responsible in the same way as those who sins are ripple and premeditated and God refers to them in that sense, as innocence. That's the name he gives them their innocence. So we see this matter of the character of God certainly lays the foundation for the realization that children who do not understand the gospel and never understood the witness of God. These children are provided for in the grace and mercy of our Lord. Let's take another look at this.

The second reason I believe that children go to heaven when they die they are not old enough to understand the gospel has to do with the condition for salvation is the one requirement for a person to be saved to put it another way, what must a man do to be lost all threats of hell in the Bible are reserved for those who have sinned knowingly and willingly.

Galatians chapter 519 through 21 speaks of those who end up in the hell, and it gives along grocery list available things that they do to deny the holiness of God. Revelation 21 eight has a similar list, but much shorter but the cowardly, and the unbelieving in the abominable and the murderers and the sexually immoral, and the sorcerers and the idolaters and all liars shall have their place in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death doesn't mean little ones ever committed the sin can't go to heaven, but it means those who continue to live this way and deny the grace of God.

These people cannot go to heaven. You cannot go to heaven in your sin. That's what Revelation is saying.

Ezekiel 1820 says. At the same way only individualizes it and it says the soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father nor the father bear the guilt of the son.

The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. One writer expressed with this right little children have no record of unbelief or even works and therefore there is no basis for the deserving and eternity apart from God.

They are graciously and sovereignly saved by God as part of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Isaiah the prophet speaks about such a. No innocence in the life of the child in this prophecy is actually speaking about the Lord.

Isaiah 716 says before the child know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by broker kings before child knows to choose between evil and good. That's a period of time in a child's life. A time when I don't understand the difference between good and evil.

And when they cannot yet comprehend what the gospel is all about.

During that period of time according to what I understand from the Bible. These children are protected under the blood of the Lord commanded. I knew years ago, wrote a great deal about theologies of Robert Lightner but Lightner was a friend of our families and he read a little bit safe in the arms of Jesus about the subject in that book he says that of sin is only charged against those who reject the payment that God the son has made and that God the father has accepted those who cannot believe all normal to God. Those who can believe but do not think that that is why they cannot go to heaven that can never be paid by themselves to refuse Christ payment is to see one's eternal destiny but to be unable to receive it is to be covered by the payment already made and accepted by God in the Bible, infants, little children, and others who cannot believe our neighbor told to believe are expected to do so, they are not classified as wicked, they are not classified as rejections of God's grace is always adults who are addressed in those terms, either directly or indirectly regarding these matters. So first of all, the character of God teaches us that little children go to heaven. Secondly, the condition for salvation which is to reject the gospel teaches us that if a child is not rejecting the gospel, but certainly God has provided for him in grace my thirdly I want you to look with me at the compassion of the Savior.

When you study the life of the Lord Jesus, discover at once that he had an incredible love for children, demonstrated that love on so many different occasions. Here are some passages in the Gospels that express the compassion of Jesus Christ the Savior for children want you to notice and want to emphasize this as I read them. How many times in these passages read the word or the phrase children or little children, not children only but little children Matthew 1913 and 14. Then little children were brought to him that he might put his hands on them and pray that the disciples would them. But Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Mark 1013 and 14 and they brought little children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them but when Jesus saw he was greatly displeased and said to them, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them for of such is the kingdom of God.

Luke 1815 through 16. Then they also brought infants to him that he might touch them. Notice the word is changed from little children. In this text. Now the word is a different word for children and it means infants little babies when they also brought infants to him that he might touch them.

And when the disciples saw they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him and said, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them for of such is the kingdom of God.

Are you getting the picture for the love that Jesus has for children at that time the disciples came to Jesus saying then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Then Jesus called a little child to him and set him in the midst of them and said assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives a little child like this in my name receives me. I want you to notice this next phrase. Even so, it is not the will of your father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Now if I didn't have anything else in all the Bible but that one phrase I be okay.

It is not the will of your father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish, there you have's strong evidence a strong, unambiguous statement of the Savior. He is not willing that one of these little ones should perish, but that was all I had on my hope on that alone. Lord Jesus has compassion for children and infants and is not willing that even one of them should perish. Perhaps this is a good place for me to answer the question concerning the unborn babies that are never born because of miscarriages or abortions.

I remember how important that was to Don and I because before we had our four children. We lost a little baby in a miscarriage that might see you know not really important to people who never been through it, but if you've ever been through that you know that is a very very very sad situation. We had not had any children. We been praying for children. It look like God and answer the prayer and then five months into the pregnancy.

We lost the baby, and we laid on the bed and cried.

I don't need to apologize for that. What happens to those little ones we've talked about that that we have a child in heaven that we've never met, and that one day according to the Scripture going to see baby and within the no Child it's not true to say we only have four children. We have five. One of those already in heaven, I believe, is to all who accept the authority of God's word that a child is a person from the moment of conception, since that is true, since that is true, then all these unborn one for what reasons they have been unborn will be taken by the father to heaven. These principles apply to those who in days past, perhaps in weakness or in fear or in unbelief allowed abortion. There is no one I know who is more sensitive to this issue than a woman who has had an abortion want to say to all of you gals if that's happened to you. God has forgiven you. That is not the unpardonable sin. God has forgiven you. And he's even gone beyond that he is so gracious to you that one day that little one that was aborted. You will hold in your arms. These principles also apply to those who, while they are mature physically have never matured mentally or emotionally. They may be in the body of a mature person but their mind has been impaired to such an extent that they have a mind of a child as far as heaven is concerned they are children and they would be taken to heaven when they die one off the road. I cannot imagine the same Savior who blessed little babies inside of such is the kingdom of heaven secretly intending to deny them that mercy. So I am absolutely certain from these first three points the character of God. The condition of salvation and the compassion of the Savior that little babies who died before they are old enough to understand the gospel go to heaven but that is not the most powerful reason there is an incident in the life of David that is fundamental to the question we are answering today 12 chapter of second Samuel records the events that happened in the life of David immediately after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan know I have to not assume that everybody knows the Old Testament, so let me just tell you briefly the story David committed adultery with Bathsheba. You all know that you know that in the process. He also had Bathsheba's husband, Uriah the Hittite killed and for a whole year.

David hit this in his heart.

Nobody knew it but him and one day Almighty God came to Nathan his profit and he said Nathan I have an assignment for you are now to go and confront David. I've often thought how awful it would've been to be Nathan, you want me to go confront the king yes so Nathan goes and he confronts David concerning his adultery and the murder of Uriah and among other things. Nathan told David that the child that he and Bathsheba have brought into the world would be taken away in death.

I want you to pick up with me your reading of this text in second Samuel chapter 12 and verse 14. However, because of this deed you have given great occasion to be enemies of the Lord, to blaspheme the child who is born to you shall surely die. Then Nathan departed to his house and the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife brought to David and it became ill. David therefore pleaded with God for the child and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground so the elders of his house arose and went to him to raise him up from the ground, but he would not nor did he eat food with them. Then on the seventh day it came to pass that the child died and the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said. Indeed, while the child was alive. We spoke to him and he would not heed our voice. How can we tell him that the child is dead he may do some harm when David saw that his servants were whispering, he perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said to his servants is the child then and they said he is dead, so they would arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes and went into the house of the Lord and worshiped.

And he went to his own house and when he requested they set before him, and he ate. Then his servants said to him, what is this that you have done. David fasted and wept for the child while he was alive when the child died, Rosen you ate food and David said, listen to this.

While the child was alive, I fasted and wept for. I said who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live, but now he is dead. Why should I fast can I bring him back again. I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me what was David's confidence in that moment that he would see that child again will have more application of this tomorrow. This very sensitive subject and yet one that is so important to so many people. Thank you for letting us share these truths with you today. Friends, this is the month of July and usually during this month. Every year we encourage you to send a letter to Turning Point. This is letter month. I haven't done a very good job telling you about that but I know you've read about it in some of our social media and you know this is letter month so the still time for you to sit down and write a little note to Turning Point of God is done something special in your life. Through this ministry would love to hear about it. Maybe there's someone you know who's been touched by the teaching. Or maybe they become a Christian. Listening to Turning Point all of the stories are out there. We don't get to hear them all the time. Maybe you can tell us one of those stories, it will be a blessing to all of us who work here in this ministry during letter month, more than ever before. During this coronavirus Turning Point has met a need in the hearts of people.

Many, many people have not been able to go to church though.

They've had online ministries from their own assemblies. Many of them some of them have not sold the teaching of the Word of God every day here on this program has met a need in the lives of people like we've never seen before and were so grateful that God put us here for such a time and that we were ready to do it and that so many of you have stood with us during this time to make it possible for us to continue doing the work of teaching the word of God across this nation and around the world and the Lord bless you richly for your investment. Thank you from all of us being a part of the team during this pandemic will be back again tomorrow with the second half of this message.

What about the children. Until then, this is David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening. More information on the Jeremiah series of revealing the mysteries of heaven.

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