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Transcript 010C — The Fate of Children at the Lord's Return
CALLER: Would you explain Matthew 24:13? And another one is Matthew 24:19, and I Thessalonians 16. Is He saying that those in Christ go when He first comes? I'm concerned because I have little ones that don't know anything yet. Will the Lord take them also?
HC: Actually, when Christ comes at the end of time, as we read in I Thessalonians 4, this is the way it will be. There will be one great resurrection of everyone who is in the grave. We read this in John 5:28-29: "The hour cometh when everyone who is in the grave will hear His voice and come forth, some to the resurrection of judgment and some to the resurrection of everlasting life."
At that time the born again believers who have died and who have experienced the resurrection, they have been, previous to this, living in Heaven with the Lord Jesus in their souls. When they left the body at death, they went into Heaven to live and reign with Christ. Now they have come with Christ in their souls, and their bodies will be caught up in the air and be reunited with their souls, so they will be with Christ in the air.
Secondly, the believers who are still living on the earth at that time and who have not died as yet will instantaneously experience the resurrection of their bodies. That is, they will be given their resurrected, glorified bodies, and they also will be caught up in the air to be with Christ. This is what is sometimes called the Rapture. And this will leave all of the unsaved on this earth who have not received Christ, whether they had died previously or whether they are still living at this time. They will all stand here for judgment. At that time of course it's way too late to accept the Gospel. If anyone is unsaved at that time, he is going to hell for sure.
CALLER: What about the children, though? Those who have not reached the age of accountability?
HC: You see, we don't read anywhere in the Bible about the age of accountability. There is no place in the Bible that speaks about the age of accountability, just no place at all. The fact is, in Psalm 58 we read this in verse 3 (we may not like this, but it is God's Word – Psalm 58:3): "The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the death adder that stops its ear."
In other words, God is saying that from the very time a baby is born the natural desires of a baby are against God. He is already guilty before God He is infected by sin and stands under God's judgment. And only if that baby is saved can he go to be with the Lord Jesus Christ.
CALLER: What about children that have gone to church all their life, that have always lived in a Christian family?
HC: Well, God promises that if we are Christian parents, then "I will be a God to you and your children." And this brings our children, if we are a Christian parent, in a very preferred position. If, let's say, Judgment Day came and we had some small children or babies in our home, and we're born again believers, we could believe with all our heart that they will go to Heaven right along with us.
CALLER: But only those in Christ. They wouldn't be in Christ then.
HC: Yes. You see, the work of salvation is Christ's work. Now look at John the Baptist. When was he filled with the Holy Spirit? From his mother's womb. He was saved already as a newborn baby.
CALLER: But I remember reading that the angel of the Lord came to his father and told him that John was to be a prophet, that he had something to do to prepare the way for Christ.
HC: Yes, but he still was a human being. And if John the Baptist could be saved as a newborn baby, so could your baby be saved as a newborn baby, if that's God's will. The fact is, in homes where both parents are saved, and they have claimed God's promise to be a God to them and their children, a percentage of their children will grow up, and they can never say when they were saved. They can only know that as they become more and more aware of what Christ has done and what the Bible says, they have an earnest desire to serve Him. They know that they are saved. And this is because they were saved as infants. The work of salvation is God's work, and the response of repentance and turning to the Lord is the evidence that God has worked a work of grace within our hearts.
CALLER: But it says somewhere that if you confess with your mouth that you believe in the Lord, then you will be saved.
HC: Well, you're quoting from Romans 7, where it is the evidence of salvation. You see, there it says in verse 9: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Now this is not saying that you're saved because you confess, but that's the evidence of the fact that you are saved. It's the same as the verse you asked about in Matthew 24:13: "Those who endure to the end will be saved."
Now you read that and it looks like we're saved by our good works, by enduring to the end, by tenaciously and stubbornly holding forth. As a Christian, if we can only hang on until the end, then we will be saved. But the fact is, the reason why we're enduring to the end is that we are saved, because God has already done a work of grace within our hearts. Only those will endure to the end, and the salvation that it speaks of there is the completion of our salvation, the fact that we still need a resurrected body. Only the born again believers will endure to the end. As things get very difficult, those who are not saved will fall away.
CALLER: I was just reading, too, in Matthew 24:19, where it says, "Woe to those that are pregnant . . . "
HC: All right, now that's another question. And it relates, of course. Now God has put within the heart of natural man a tremendous love for little children, and I can see why God did this. In this way it helps to guarantee that these children will be reared, and they'll come to manhood and womanhood, so that the human race could go on to its prescribed end. But what will happen is that at Judgment Day these unsaved parents, who couldn't care less about Christ, are going to see the greatest number of their children also under God's judgment. And there may be a few exceptions, God in His sovereign grace can make exceptions, but the general rule is that the children of the wicked will be cut off, as we read in Psalm 37. And this is going to bring horrible trauma to them. This is going to multiply their trauma as they themselves face the judgment throne, and they'll be wishing that they had never had any children.
This is spoken of in similar language in Luke 23, where Jesus is on His way to the cross, and the women are weeping after Him. And then Jesus said to them, "Daughters, behold the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never gave suck." You see, that's almost identical language to Matthew 24:19. And then He gives a timetable when this will happen. "Then they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us." Now that's the language of Judgment Day. That's language taken from Revelation 6, where it speaks about the day of Christ's wrath, the wrath of the Lamb, when the unsaved will be calling to the mountains to hide them and the rocks to crush them. God gives us a little bit of an insight (and every time I read this, I shudder, but this is the language that God has given us), so that we can see this kind of trauma opening up.
In Deuteronomy 28 He gives us a word picture of hell and Judgment Day. And He's speaking to Israel of old, and He's using very literal language, but really He's pointing up His wrath and what it consists of. And notice verse 32 of Deuteronomy 28: "Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all the day." See the weeping there, and the trauma? "And it shall not be in the power of your hand to prevent it. A nation which you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall only be oppressed and crushed continually, so that you shall be driven mad by the sight which your eyes shall see." And that's God's language, to indicate the awfulness of God's wrath.
Yes, these are only nonbelievers, of course. The saved ones, well, if a saved one saw his child, let's say we are a saved parent today, and amongst our children we have one or two who are not saved. And let's suppose that this is the situation at Judgment Day. Yes, that will bring trauma to the born again believer, to know that his child is not going to Heaven. But Jesus also says, "I will dry all of your tears." We read in Revelation 21: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." And we read in Isaiah 55 that the former things will not come to remembrance. So even though that may be the last trauma for the believer, that will be completely removed from his memory.
CALLER: It seems to say in Matthew 24 that we will go through some tribulation.
HC: Well, actually, the Bible teaches that the Christian's lot in life is that of tribulation – "In the world you will have tribulation" – because we are strangers and pilgrims here, and because wickedness will multiply during the years before Christ's return, and Satan will be given the prerogative to be way more wicked, and unsaved men will be more wicked, as the world is prepared for Judgment Day. And the Gospel will be increasingly silenced. That will magnify the tribulation and affliction of the believers. And so the Bible speaks of this as being a time of great tribulation, such as the world has never known.
Now while this is going for the believer, God will also be bringing His last warning judgments upon the unsaved. And of course Christians are always present when warning judgments come. Every war is a warning judgment, and Christians suffer there, too. So this will add to the tribulation of the believers. But it will be especially grievous for the unbelievers, because there's no hope for them. They will not respond to the Gospel.
CALLER: It bothers me when I read this, and I begin to worry that my child is not going to go to Heaven.
HC: If you are born again, you pray for the salvation of your child and be obedient to the command of Ephesians 6: "Train up a child in the way that he should go."
CALLER: I talk to her about Jesus, and she'll say, "Thank you, Jesus" even now and she's only fifteen months old, you know. I want her to know, because it just seems like it's going to be any day.
HC: Yes. Well, you just keep praying for her salvation and trust God. God promises, "I will be a God to you and to your children." God says that His love continues to a thousand generations of them that love Him and keep His commandments. Those are wonderful promises, aren't they? And just rest in those promises.