Since Adam’s fall, many children have never reached adulthood. Historically, infant mortality has been as high 50%. Even today, 25% of all conceptions end in miscarriage. There are also many families that are given handicapped children that will never reach a mental understanding of the gospel.
Abortion has taken countless lives. Since Roe v. Wade, just over of 62 million babies have been aborted in the United States. Worldwide abortions total over 1.6 billion since 1980 (see: http://www.numberofabortions.com ). To put these numbers in perspective, consider that all the American fatalities in war from the Revolutionary War until today total 1.1 million. Sixty times more Americans have been murdered in the womb than have been killed in war.
What happens to all these precious souls? God’s Word gives us the answer.
- Adults Are Morally Accountable to God.
The Bible teaches the accountability and responsibility of all mankind to believe in God because of three things. First, the witness of God is inside of every person. Being made in the image of God, what can be known of God is “manifest in them.” Second, the witness of God is evident in his creation. Creation is clear evidence for a Creator. The evidence of God is clearly seen by the things that are made. Third, the law of God is written on men’s hearts. Even those without the written Word of God “are a law unto themselves” all people have some understanding of right and wrong. Even without Scripture we understand that there is higher standard than what we have been living up to. Mankind understands the concept of sin and their need for a Saviour. Therefore, mankind is “without excuse” when they reject and rebel against God, His Son, and the plan of salvation.
Romans 1:19-20, Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Romans 2:14-15, For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)
Revelation 20:13, And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
- There Is a Time Before Moral Accountability.
The Apostle Paul was raised very Jewish, he was under the law, a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, and circumcised the eighth day according to the law (Ph. 3:5). However, He said, “I was alive without the law once,” and where “there is no law there is no transgression.” Paul spoke of his time as an innocent child before his understanding of the law.
Ro 4:15, Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Ro 7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
Adult Israel disobeyed God and refused to possess the land of Canaan. They perished in the wilderness because of their disobedience to God’s Word. The only ones to enter the promise land were Joshua and Caleb who had “another spirit,” and also innocent children who “had no knowledge between good and evil.” God did not hold the children in Israel morally responsible for the law that they were too young to understand.
Deuteronomy 1:39-40, Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn you, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.
In the book of Isaiah, the prophet proclaimed judgment on the kings of Israel. Isaiah said that judgement would come before the Christ child “shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.”
Isaiah 7:14-16, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
The people of Nineveh were very wicked before the Lord. Jonah was to “cry against that wicked city.” (Jonah 1:2). In Jonah chapter four, God explains to his rebellious prophet why he was having mercy on Nineveh, “Shouldn’t I have mercy on 120,000 innocent children?” (who can’t discern between their right hand and their left?) and also innocent cattle?” God was not holding children or cattle morally responsible for the wickedness of the city.
Jonah 4:11, And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
- A Child That Dies Goes to Heaven.
Solomon and Job consider an “untimely birth” (not non-existence) preferable to a life of suffering.
Ecclesiastes 6:3, If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
Job 3:11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
Job 3:13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
Job 3:16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
John Newton (1725-1807), the slave trader who became a gospel minister and wrote perhaps the most famous hymn of all time “Amazing Grace,” was certain of this truth. He wrote the following to close friends of his whose young child had died:
“I hope you are both well reconciled to the death of your child. I cannot be sorry for the death of infants. How many storms do they escape! Nor can I doubt, in my private judgment, that they are included in the election of grace.”
Remember God looks at death different than we do: He looks at it from an eternal perspective.
Psalms 116:15, Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
Ecclesiastes 7:1, A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
Jeroboam was one of the all-time wicked men of Scripture. Nineteen times it is repeated, “Jeroboam the son of Nebat which did cause Israel to sin.” However, God saw something good in Jeroboam’s child and took him home to heaven. God also made sure the child was given a proper burial; whereas the rest of the family was reserved for dogs and birds to eat. It is important to remember a child is affected by the actions of his or her parents but never judged for the sins of their parents (Ezekiel 18:20). God in his mercy took Jeroboam’s child home to heaven early and he escaped a wicked household.
1Kings 14:11-13, Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat: for the LORD hath spoken it. Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.
Unlike Jeroboam, there have been very godly people who have lost their children in death. It should be of some comfort to know that God in sovereign wisdom called the child home to heaven. God does have a reason and a purpose for every child he calls to Himself in heaven.
- Parents Can Go to a Child That Is in Heaven.
David fasted and wept for his sickly infant son, but after the child’s death he ceased mourning. “I shall go to him!” David comforted himself in the fact that there was going to be a family reunion in Heaven. David said in Psalms 23, “and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!”
2 Samuel 12:22-23, And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
David was comforted after the death of his infant son. By contrast David was devastated when rebellious Absalom was killed. The difference in behaviour can be contributed to the final destination of David’s rebellious adult son Absalom. David wept at the knowledge that he would never see Absalom again.
2 Samuel 18:33, And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
- Your Children Are Always Considered by God to Be Your Children.
Job 1:1-2, There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
Job 42:10, And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Job 42:13, He had also seven sons and three daughters.
Job and his wife had a ten-casket funeral. Job lost all of his earthly possessions in chapter one, but far worse he and his wife had to say goodbye to all of their children in death. At the end of the book of Job in chapter forty-two, God gave him double all the possessions and livestock that he lost in chapter one. However, he was given the exact same number of children, seven boys and three girls. Did God not keep his promise to give Job double everything he possessed previously? No, God did keep his promise. Children are far different from livestock! The ten children Job lost in death were still Job’s children. Job did have twice the children that he had before! Someone could ask Job, “How many children do you have?” He could say, “I have twenty, ten in heaven, and ten here on earth.”
God is not the God of the dead but of the living. There are many precious children who left this world early and are living in heaven. We will see every one of them some day!
Matthew 22:32, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.