“And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:2-6).
One thing that stands out in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, He loved little children. He loved talking to them, touching them, and blessing them. There is something about the innocence of a small child that touched our Lord’s heart. Why the special connection with all the parables about little children, about becoming as little children, and why did our Lord have a tenderness for a small child, say under five years old? Further down in the same chapter, Jesus reveals the special place a small child has to the Father and to the Son.
“Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10).
These children belong to God; tended to by angels who see the face of God continually. They are entrusted, to their parents as guardians of their well-being and their instruction in righteousness. Children are special in God’s eyes, as they are innocent. They have not learned the difference between what is evil and what is good. If you receive a child you are accepting Christ, because that child belongs to Him (Matthew 18:5). If that child through whatever distress would suddenly leave this earth, he or she would immediately go right back to the Father who gave him or her life.
There was an instance in Mark chapter 10, where Jesus rebuked the disciples as they were hindering the children from coming to Him. This sorely displeased our Lord, because of the special place He had for them in His heart:
“But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Matthew 10:13-14).
When a person accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior, He becomes as a little child. Children do not question what they are told. They perceive that what is being said is truth. When the Holy Spirit pricks your conscience and your heart is heavy with the burden of sin that covers your life and weighs you down, you accept what is being told as being truth, even though you may not totally understand it. But as a little child, you believe by faith. An adult becomes as a little child in heart and mind in all its innocence and believes what the Holy Spirit is drawing them to faith as a little child:
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
We believe God. He said it, so what the bible says and what I’m feeling in my spirit is truth. We don’t question it, much like a little child. The intellectual, rational thinker will try to dissect it, to analyze, or use the scientific method on the concept and defeat the calling of the Holy Spirit by their inability to reconcile the infinite with their finite mind.
So in thinking about children, being a child, or becoming innocent as a child, why are children so special in God’s eyes?
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3-5).
In ancient times, and not so long in the recent past, children were the heritage of the parents and given by God. They stood up for their parents in the gate, which was a synonym for the town square. When people try to abuse an elderly person, who will stand up for them? The children stand up for their parents, or they should. Not too long ago, a man that had many sons, he was thought of as rich—because many sons meant the family would prosper because of so many strong hands.
“Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood: That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:
That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people whose God is the LORD (Psalm 144:11-15).
TO OUR MODERN, “SOPHISTICATED” WORLD
Let’s fast forward to our modern day era. There was a time that children were the crowning glory of the father, and the delight of their mother. Large families were common and the worth of their offspring were worth more than gold or silver. It was their heritage, their life, and their glory.
I have spoken of the abuse of children in past sermons, from ancient times till our day, and one thing is for certain. That certain judgment comes to the society that destroys their heritage, the fruit of their womb, and the glory that has faded to an inconvenience.
Lamentations chapter 4 applies aptly to our day:
“The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people (mothers) is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her” (Lamentations 4:4-6).
God will judge the mother who sacrifices her living or unborn children in the name of convenience. Woe be to that mother who does not repent of this so great an evil in sack cloth and ashes.
Even Muslims Understand This Much
Although, in my opinion, Muslims have many children for the wrong reason, they understand that a people cannot thrive without many children. They realize that without children, they will not conquer the world. In Europe, they silently, methodically have as many babies as the mother can produce. Why has Europe been overrun with the Muslim population? Simple fact is that they are having many more children than their counterparts. Europe realizes this and in Germany with the German population in decline, they offer any female that will have a child and born German, $12,000 to have a child. They understand the practices that have limited their population in favor the Muslim community will be to their demise and the destruction of their way of life and their government. Why is our “free” civilization in dire peril? Because we have allowed our enemies who hate us to procreate to our being overrun with their pagan ways through their offspring, their children.
A WHOLE GENERATION
And what can we say about the United States? Since Roe v. Wade we have destroyed a whole generation of taxpayers. It is estimated that we have killed, through abortion and the ghastly partial birth abortion, roughly 40-50 MILLION babies. We cry of our economic woes. We cry of insolvency of Social Security and Medicare. Where would America be today if these 50 MILLION babies were working citizens paying taxes? Where would the economy be, if these innocent children had been given a chance at life? What would our economic situation be if we, as a nation had honored God’s commands of this single commandment: “Thou shalt not kill”?
No politician or leader will even discuss what we have done to get ourselves in such a mess economically when we have championed abortions of convenience and financed abortion clinics with taxpayer dollars. We have passed our children through the fire, much the way the ancients sacrificed their children to their pagan gods, except the god we sacrifice to is: ourselves.
I’m reminded of a story, a most grisly story of a “lady” who was in her third trimester of her pregnancy and visited an abortion clinic to end her little one’s life. Do you understand the implications of this? Have you ever seen the documentary “THE SILENT SCREAM?” On the website concerning this documentary, we find this introduction:
In 1984, the man who two decades earlier had co-founded the leading pro-abortion group (NARAL), released the startling documentary, The Silent Scream. In this video, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who once ran the nation’s largest abortion clinic and claims he was personally responsible for 75,000 abortions, provides a clinical and dispassionate abortion presentation. The reason he did this was to show, for the first time what abortion looks like through ultrasound technology. For it was through this technological development that Dr. Nathanson came to understand the evils of abortion and to repudiate his former support for it.”
If you wish and can stomach the images that are shown of a pre-term abortion, then visit this website:
If after seeing this documentary about a pre-term baby being torn apart for the convenience of the mother and someone cannot gasp in horror and become determined to eradicate this abomination in our culture, then nothing will touch their mind or their heart. And what of this woman who aborted her 7-month old “fetus” (I use that term loosely, as this was a near term human being able to live outside the womb). She had this innocent life extinguished because she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to go skiing that winter! Instead of aborting our children, we should be, loving them. On the flip side of this ghastly reality, I have to share this YouTube presentation titled, Don’t Kill Me, Hug Me. God has given each of us, who have children, a gift. Cherish them and fight for others to live. Go here now and share this with others.
The scientific community likes to call this human being a fetus, so that it won’t seem like it is such a big deal and the horror that it really is. Folks, this is a living human being that qualifies for a place in humanity with only the need for oxygen to inflate it’s lungs and breath air. But that does not diminish the baby whose heart is beating at a few weeks of conception. Or the “fetus” that tries to escape the pain of an abortionist butcher knife. If they could make a sound, all of them would most certainly…SCREAM!
JUDGEMENT DESERVED ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
How long will God allow this abomination to continue? Read your Bible when it comes to sin committed against children. Read about passing the children through the fires of Molech when they had sexual acts with children before burning them in their pagan god’s fire on its altar. (See past articles on my website.) Read what the end result was to any civilization that mistreats its heritage—the children. As God warned Israel that displaced the Canaanites before them for the same practices, God’s patience for sin and especially abuse and murder to the innocent amongst them will be sorely judged.
“And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.
And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate” (Jeremiah 7:31-34).
God is saying that He will destroy that nation. He will enact judgment on a people who directly or indirectly causes these sins to continue. He will destroy their posterity and bring them to ruin. Have we not done as these ancient people did? Has not this nation enacted laws against the direct command of a Holy God?
Do you see what the penalty was for not obeying God? Do you see that God hates sin, but He despises the act of killing the innocent, the unborn? He hates idolatry connected to this act of abortion. We have ended the lives of these potential members of God’s family and the human race in the name of free choice and self-concern. The law of the land permits this atrocity! If that is not idolatry, what is? What kind of morality, what religion, permits men to enact such heinous laws? People have become blinded. They focus on their own pleasure failing to see murder is involved (let alone the idolatry of worshiping at our own altar, the self.) Is the above Scripture a depiction of the USA in the near future?
Reader, if there is still time and God has not already judged us then we need to stand up for righteousness. We must stand up for the unborn. We must protect the children. Jesus emphasized this as being the same as receiving Him, receiving innocent children in His Name. I encourage everyone who loves God, who loves children, to take a stand for the unborn NOW. Promote any leader, councilmen, or government figure promising and actually delivers a pro-life platform. Let us turn away from sin, as a nation, before God rains down judgment about this nation’s head!
Statistically, in the United States the most dangerous place for anyone to be is in the mother’s womb! The unborn baby is a living human being who dies a painful death when aborted. By the seventh week of gestation, the fetus has measurable brain waves (see a legal criterion to determine whether a person is alive or dead) and a beating heart pumping blood to all parts of its little body. God—not the state, not the individual, not the parent—is the Lord of life. Hear the cry of the children and stand up for their life or face the judgment of Almighty God.
This is Pastor Mike Taylor, wishing God’s love in your life. If you have any need for prayer, guidance with the Words of God through to Christian living, or just need a friendly ear to listen, drop me a line to: realteam1999@sbcglobal.net. Or visit me online at www.churchofgod-usa.org, God bless you, till we meet at Jesus’ feet.