“Eternity: What Awaits After Death”
Sermon
# 7
“What About the Children?”
For the last six weeks we have been exploring
the subject of “Eternity: What Awaits After Death.” It is one thing to
talk about the death of adults but what about the children. Surely one of the most
heartbreaking events a person can experience is the death of a child. And when this
happens we are faced with the question, “What
about the children who die before they are old enough to make a decision for themselves?
And what of those who are mentally disabled and therefore incapable of making such a
decision. What happens to them?”
This message is for all
those who have lost a baby and for all those of you who will be called upon to minister to
someone who has lost a baby. If someone were to ask you, “Is My Baby In Heaven?” how would you respond?
If you haven’t faced that question yet, no doubt you will. As believers we are
tempted to simply answer, “They are in Heaven!” But do we have or could
we give any Scriptural justification for such a belief.
John MacArthur in his book
“Safe In Arms of Jesus” discusses the responses given to a couple that
had lost a baby. The response should make our skin crawl and we should cringe at the
callousness of some of responses. First, he
points out that very few of their friends and neighbors ever mentioned the birth of the
baby to the couple. Which is bad in itself, most people need
reassurance that their child mattered in the lives of others. They want to talk about
their child they just don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Saying the child’s
name does not bring anything to their minds that they have not thought of! This is the
part of their life. If they cry, don’t be uncomfortable, hurt with them.
The wife of one couple that
came to visit to the young mother said, “It
was for the best, dear. It’s best you forget this ever happened. We don’t need
to talk about it again.” Another woman said to her, “It’s too bad you let the baby get so cold.”
The young mother said up to that point she had not even considered that her baby’s
death might some-how be her fault. Do the things we say, make those who are suffering,
suffer more?
But the young mother said
that the worst thing that was said to her was not something said to her but something that
she overheard being say to her husband, “God
must not have wanted your wife to have a
daughter.” My what a callous and cold-hearted thing to say
“This
young couple’s family, friends and church family ought to have comforted them with
answers from the Bible rather than questions about why God allowed the child to die and
whether they were in some way to blame.” [John
MacArthur. “Safe In the Arms of God: Truth From Heaven About The Death Of A Child.
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003) pp. 9-10]
Let
me give a little advice to those who are called to minister to the grieving, weigh your words carefully. Some
of the things that I want to say apply to those who are grieving the loss of a child or
those who are grieving the loss of some other loved one. Just because things are true, does not mean
they need to be said. Some times in trying to say something spiritually helpful
we are just insensitive.
Some attempt to offer comforting
words like, “God has a plan” or “God will really use your testimony,” or
“It must have been Gods will.” Like hearing that will make them want to stop
grieving now. Yes, it is Gods will, but that doesn’t make it pretty, or fun. Jesus
death was horrific, it was terrifying, it was unimaginably painful, it was not ok. It was
not wonderful; it was wondrous. Nothing takes that pain from the cross. The resurrection
was a separate action and very much a wonderful event, an event that gives us hope of a
future in heaven with Christ.
Since this is a tragedy that
our family has just experienced with the death of little Aubrey our first grandchild I
asked my daughter Nikki to read what I had written and to give me her input, which she
graciously did. She wrote of this experience when she said, “Aubrey’s
death was horrible, nothing changes that. Anything good that comes from this will be a
separate miracle, a grace of God. Any comfort I can give another grieving mother, or any
encouragement I can be, is a miracle apart from her death, it does not lessen it in any
way, shape, or form. I needed to be reminded of that.
It resounded with my heart. I will never look back on this and say it was
good. I will never be able to say that I would have chosen this way, I will never agree
with this part of the plan. But maybe
someday, I will be able to see the separate miracles, the graces along the way that are
good. I will grieve, and I will go through the pain, not around it. I will not pretend
like it didn’t hurt. I will endure the pain and let God do this thing in me, whatever
this thing is. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll come through this time looking a little
bit more like Jesus.”
There are no central Bible
passages that clearly address this sensitive issue, but there are a number of passages
that can help us come to an understanding what I believe is the message of God’s
Word. This morning I want to share with you three resounding principles that I believe
will answer the question, “Is My Baby In Heaven?”
First, The Concern
of the Father
It is no accident that God
is referred to in the Bible as our “Heavenly Father.” The heart of our father
God is repeatedly revealed by Scripture
Notice about the heart of
our father
· God
Designs Every Human Life.
Any discussion of “What About the Children”
has to begin with the all important statement that the Bible says that life begins at the
moment of conception. Every life conceived is a person. The Bible is very clear on this
point. Any death that occurs after the moment of conception is the death of a person.
And persons have eternal souls. They are not
anonymous masses of tissue, they are not
simply fetus’ they are babies. That life begins at conception is attested to
by the fact that God knows us even from the womb in Jeremiah 1:5 we are told,
“Before I formed you in the
belly I knew you: and before you were born I sanctified you....”
The Psalmist tells us that God has designed the
unborn (Psalm 139:13-16) “You made all the delicate,
inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. (14) Thank you for
making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – and how well I know
it. (15) You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together
in the dark of the womb. (16) You saw me before I was ever born. Every day of my life was
recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day passed.”
(NLT)
God
not only Designs Every Human Life,
· God Values Every Human Life
Every baby is marvelous fashioned in the image
of the creator. Even the fact that some babies never enjoy life outside the womb does not
erase that their life is sacred. Because every human bears the image of God, every
human life from the point of conception is sacred. The Bible says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness:...So God made man in his own in image, in the image of God created he him, male
and female created he them.” (Gen 1:26-27)
God
sets forth HUMAN LIFE on a plane above all other life. It is Unique, Distinctive and
Valuable. Of Humans alone does he say that they “bear his
image.” Every tiny life bears the image of God and is sacred in his sight.
In
the book of Genesis when God created man it says that he “breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (2:7).
Every human being has a living soul, a soul that has the capacity to spend eternity with
God.
God Values Every Human Life …
· God Distinguishes Between Children And
Adults.
There are many biblical examples that God does
not hold children responsible for the sins of their parents. One such example is that God
allowed the Israelite children of parents who had willful sinned against God in the
wilderness to enter into the Promised Land and did not hold them accountable, responsible
or punishable for their parents sin of rebellion. In
Deuteronomy 1:39 we read, Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil,
they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.”
Any discussion of the fate of children who die
as infants ultimately comes to the issue “the
age of accountability.” Although the concept of “the age of accountability” has been
around since very early in the history of the Christian Church the term never occurs in
Scripture. But the term itself alludes to the age at which a child becomes responsible
for their relationship with God? I
need to make this clear, There is no one age at which every person suddenly becomes
accountable for knowing that they are a sinner. Only God really knows the time
when a child becomes accountable.
In Jonah 4:11 God differentiates between
those “who could not discern between their right hand and
their left…” Those who could not tell their right hand and their left
were the small children and those who were mentally disabled and therefore incapable of
making such a judgment.
We all understand that there is a period of
time before which children are incapable of understanding the difference between God and
evil and especially cannot understand that they are sinners who need to be saved. What
then happens to that one who is not yet old enough or though housed in mature bodies,
whose minds are impaired in such a way that they cannot grasp their need for salvation?
John MacArthur states it
well when he says, “How can we believe that God weeps over
the lost and pleads with willful sinners to be reconciled to Him if He catapults millions
upon millions of innocent babies into Hell before they even reach a state of moral
culpability – before they have the ability to make any moral distinction between good
and evil.” [John
MacArthur. “Safe In the Arms of God: Truth From Heaven About The Death Of A Child.
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003) p. 79]
How then are these children saved…. They
are saved the same way you are…. By Grace…but in this case extended to
those who cannot express faith.
We have not only the character of the Father but
…
Secondly,
The Compassion of Jesus
While on earth, Jesus desired the company of
children. In Mark 10:13-16 Jesus says, “Then they bought little children to Him, that He might touch them:
but that disciples rebuked those who brought them. (14) But when Jesus saw it, He was
greatly displeased and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me and do not
forbid them; for such is the kingdom of God. (15) Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not
receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”
According to verse
fourteen it was Jesus who took the little children up in his arms and said, “Let the little children come to Me and do not forbid them; for
such is the kingdom of God.” Infants who have died are in Heaven. In the arms
of our dear Savior they are secure and safe and blessed.
We are sure that little ones go to be with
Jesus because we believe that little ones who are not yet old enough to understand sin and
the need for a savior go to be with the Lord when they die.
When it come to children and
their place in Heaven Matthew 18:14 sums up the feeling of Jesus, “Even so it not the will of the Father who is in Heaven that one of
these little ones should perish.”
Not
only the Compassion of Jesus but …
Third,
The Confidence of David
Most everyone here is
familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba. David, then the king of Israel had an
affair with a married woman, named Bathsheba. David attempted to hide their relation-ship,
even going so far as to have Bathsheba’s husband put into a position where he was
killed, effectively murdering him. David then took Bathsheba as his own wife. The prophet
Nathan appeared to David and told him that his new born son would die. Indeed, he became
ill and David fasted and wept, to the extent that his servants were afraid to tell the
King that his son had died for fear of what he might do. But when he learned his son had
died, he astonished his servants.
According to 2 Samuel
12:20 “So David arose from the ground, washed and
anointed himself, and changed his clothes: and he went into the house of the Lord and
worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him
and he ate.” David’s behavior literally stunned his servants, who asked
him why he was behaving as he was? David’s reply has comforted countless grieving
parents down through the centuries when he said, (12:23) “Now
that 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.” Because David believed that one day he would be
reunited with his son, he could relinquish him into God’s care.
Some argue that David is just saying that one
day he would join his son in the grave. But that is ridiculous, how could that
comfort the heart of this grieving father. No, David believed with every fiber of his
being that his son was with the Lord and because he belonged to the Lord they would be
reunited and spend all of eternity together. David knew that the little baby was saved. He
said, “I will go to him someday.”
David knew that when death came to him, he would be reunited with his son.
His confidence in this fact is strongly
contrasted by how David reacted when a second son, Absalom was killed. When learned his
infant son died David stopped mourning and he learned his adult son had died he started
mourning! What was the difference? It was not just that David started mourning when
he was informed of Absalom’s death; it was that he was inconsolable. David mourned
with unrelieved grief for Absalom because he believed that he would not see this wicked
and rebellious adult son again. He knew that his infant son was in Heaven and he knew that
this son had died in his sin without repentance.
J. Vernon McGee says
concerning children in heaven. “I believe with all my heart
that God will raise the little ones such that the mother's arms who have ached for them
will have the opportunity of holding them. The father's hand which never held the little
hand will be given the privilege. I believe that little ones will grow up in heaven in the
care of their earthly parents if they are saved."
[www.backtothebible.org/interact/faq/child.htm]
There may be a very good
reason that God did not just straight out tell us that all children who die in infancy go
to Heaven. As Randy Alcorn points out, “If children do go to
Heaven when they die, why doesn’t God tell us that directly? It may be that He
anticipates the twisted logic and rationalization it might foster in us. It might take
from us the sense of urgency to see our children come to faith in Christ. It might cause
us to be less concerned about the sacred God-given task of extending physical and
financial help to the underprivileged and getting the gospel to children around the world.”
[Randy Alcorn Heaven.
(Carol Stream, Illinois :Tyndale, 2004) p. 342]
Conclusion
Have you grieved the loss of a child? If so then, I believe there is sufficient reason to take heart. Your child is in Heaven today, awaiting your arrival. The more difficult question is “Will You Be In Heaven With Your Baby? Your child was to young to make a decision, but you are not. The parents who have children awaiting them in Heaven do not automatically go to Heaven when they die. If you see your child again and enjoy a heavenly reunion, you must be born again.