Genesis 1; Malachi 2; Mark 10; Matthew 18
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral 24th October 2021
We have thought about what it is to be a human being, and explored the meaning of marriage. Today we will ask what God’s Word tells us about children. I’ll start with a story.
Doug was an engineer. He and his wife attended church quite regularly, though they were a bit on the margins. Doug had his doubts about whether God was real or not. There was a work morning going on at the church. About 10am Doug came through the courtyard gate. I wondered if he was drunk; he wasn’t walking straight and appeared to be in a daze. I went over to him. “Doug, are you OK,” I said. “It’s true,” he said—like his mind was somewhere else. “What’s true, Doug?” I said. “It’s true, there is a God,” he said. “I’ve just watched Jane have our baby.”
I don’t know how anyone can witness the gradual formation of a babe in the womb, and then the birth process, and not be absolutely certain that such a thing could never happen without an all-wise creator. Babies seem to me to be the opposite of what evolution demands (survival of the fittest). They are totally unable to survive for years without a mother’s care. They seem designed to be helpless. Such is the miracle of life! If ever one is conscious of being part of something God is doing, it is here.
I was in the birthing room at the hospital when our firstborn emerged. He didn’t cry, just an angry squawk. I expected I would know him—we were flesh and blood—but suddenly there was a little stranger in the room. What was this little creature? I would need to get to know him; would we even be friends?
God told the human man-woman pair to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”. This is given to us as our first responsibility. Our second is to manage it. That begs the question, how? Some people think the best thing would be to reduce the population and leave the world alone. That is not God’s will, though it makes us wonder, how full is full, and also whether everyone is supposed to be part of a couple and procreate. To this last question we have already answered no. But to manage the world in a way that pleases God more than multiplication will be needed; we will also need to make sure our offspring are up to it.
Listen to what the prophet Malachi says to Israel:
And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring! So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.
God seeks godly offspring! That is a no-brainer. If humans are to rule the world for God, it follows that they must know him, want to please him, and know how. But that is not the world we know. Israel was meant to model what it is like to be God’s people under God’s blessing; even they failed in their God-given mandate. A big part of the problem was their faithlessness in marriage. So, this is not a new thing. A man falls in love. He pledges his love to his woman, and promises to be with her for better or worse until death parts them—“to the end of time.” They have children and things get tough. She starts to lose her beautiful smooth skin, and he goes after a dolly-bird who gets his juices going. The covenant he made with “the wife of his youth” is forgotten. In many parts of the world, and at most times in history it has been women who have suffered, left without support to bring up the children on her own. In our own culture women have been empowered and are now sometimes as guilty as the men for walking out; but still it seems to me, they suffer most, but in both situations children are the main losers. You can forget about godly children, if their only model is conflict and unfaithfulness. God puts easy divorce on a level with murder. So, let’s be clear that the first requirement for raising children who know God and will deal with the world in a God-pleasing way is the faithfulness and love of parents, and that is becoming rare.
Let me speak to those of you for whom marriage is recent or still in the future. When you are “in love” it is easy, but under the stressfulness of life it is hard to maintain. When love is fresh it is natural to want to please each other.
“What would you like to do today?”
“I’m easy, what would you like to do?”
“No, I asked first; what would you like to do?”
And so it goes on. But it doesn’t stay like that. The time comes when it is a struggle.
“Why do we have to always do what you want; why can’t we do what I want?”
“We don’t always do what I want.”
Now we must learn a new unselfish kind of love. And children will benefit hugely from experiencing it in action, and learning it themselves.
We are made in God’s image and commanded to marry and produce offspring who will be able to rule the world for God. What does this mean for the way we raise them, and particularly for education? The philosophy behind a lot of education today is that children are naturally creative and good, and will flourish best if they are allowed to be themselves, express themselves and be free. This is particularly noticeable in the human and social disciplines. Those in the scientific and mechanical disciplines know it’s a lot of rot. Encourage people to express themselves there and we would have bridges collapsing all around us.
So how should we educate? If we are physical beings made in the image of God, and destined for world management, we need to learn to make the most of our bodies: physical education, sport, health. Minds need to be developed: mathematics, language, logic. We need to understand how the world works: physics and chemistry. We need to understand society: history, social studies, culture, politics, law. Culture is important: music, drawing, painting, dancing. All this is entailed in being God’s image in the world. And, of course, we need to know God, the true God who has revealed himself: so Scriptural knowledge, the teachings of the Christian Faith, learning to pray—all these things are vital, if we are to raise children who will play their part for God.
In Moses’ instruction for ancient Israel the chief concern was to teach children the God-given teaching that was part of their special covenant. It went without saying that sons and daughters would learn the life-skills of their parents, and so learn to deal with the world around them: how to derive food from the land, how to process it, getting on in family and community, and a hundred other things. But if parents failed to impart the story of their nation’s adventure with God, Israel would soon become a people like every other people. How was that done? By story-telling, instruction, and answering questions. Listen to Genesis 18 just before God destroyed the cities of the plain:
The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
The story of the destruction of Sodom was to become a lesson in righteousness and judgement for Abraham’s children. Today it is unknown or ignored. And listen to what Moses says in Deuteronomy 6:
When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’
Christians were pioneers of education for all, and part of their motive was that everyone needed to be able to read the Bible for themselves so they could know God. Then we entrusted the state with the education of our children. Scripture was part of this, but now it has been quietly swept away. The teaching of mathematics and science and languages may well be best done by the state, but in an age where educationists are doing their best to remove everything Christian from the culture, and create a “brave new world”, we need to be discerning. Parents are responsible to God for what they do with their children, and it will be the results that tell. For Christians, how will educate our children is now a huge question.
I want to fast forward to Jesus. Until we take his teaching into account our views will not be Christian. In Mark 10 mothers are bringing their little children to Jesus, wanting him to bless them. The first time I administered Communion—dressed up in my “robes of righteousness”, working my way along the communion rail giving out the bread and saying the words—I was attacked at the church door by an irate mother: “I brought my childen to Communion and you didn’t bless them.” No one had taught me about blessing children—no one had taught me about mothers! Anyway, mothers were bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed. To Jesus’ helpers it was a distraction. They were flat out with their mission to announce the kingdom of God, and this for them was politics. Children were a nuisance. They told the mothers to get lost.
They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
Jesus wants children in his kingdom. That means he wants them to come to him—to be brought to him. Just as he called on adults to come to him to be saved, so he reaches out to the little children and welcomes them. Can we bring our children to Jesus now? We may not have him in the flesh, but we do have him in his word. Jesus comes to us clothed in his word, said John Calvin. As we read them the Scriptures and tell them the stories, and as we pray with them, we are bringing them to Jesus. And is that not what he tells us to do?
It’s not just parents who can do this. My first girlfriend became a Christian through having breakfast at her friend’s home. They always read the Bible and prayed at breakfast. She sat with them and listened, and this is how she came to know God.
What does it mean that Jesus blessed the children? Surely Jesus’ blessing means something; if the king blesses you, you are being welcomed into his kingdom. Humans beings, including children, are destined not only to manage the world, but to build God’s kingdom, the new world, and that is awesome. So, parents, grandparents, friends—whenever you get the chance, bring the children to Jesus. The church can help, the school may help, but the major task falls on you. As the children grow you will be able to help them sort the good from the bad in what they learn in the street and in the classroom.
In Matthew 18 Jesus says:
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
As our children grow they become exposed to the world, and the world is not always a good place. As a fifteen-year-old I was itching for adventure, and decided to set out on my own and hitchhike to Sydney. I must have worn my mother into the ground before she let me go. Children get to an age, when you have to let them do their thing. You can try to imprison them, but risk destroying your relationship with them, if you are too controlling. At some stage you need to impress on them that they are at an age where they must make up their own minds; you can only advise. You need to advise them. After that you can only put them in God’s hands and pray—and go on loving, and waiting, like the father of the prodigal son. I guess she prayed. She had not long become a Christian. She also warned me about men who liked sex with young boys. Such a thought had never entered my head. I thought she was crazy. Aren’t all mothers crazy? I made it to Sydney and booked into a hostel, and sure enough the chap I shared a room with tried to seduce me. I was terrified. When he left the room, I threw my stuff into the suitcase and fled all the way home—with a new respect for my mother! We now know there are many such people. They are attracted sexually to children and adolescents, and of course, groups of children are like honey. Boarding schools, orphanages, children’s and youth groups, sporting clubs, and yes, even churches, we have learned, were places which attracted paedophiles. Though I once saw statistics that had been compiled by the Victorian police, and you will be interested to know that churches were near the bottom of the danger-list of places where children were abused. Top of the list was the home, where a trusted family member would sometimes use their position of trust to “groom” a child.
So, we have learned to be vigilant. We must be vigilant for our children wherever they are. We need to instruct them about dangers. There was a paedophile at one church I knew. I only learned of it many years later from one of the people who had been a child at the time. A group of the children together confronted him; he fled and never returned. They didn’t tell their parents.
I don’t think Jesus speaks as severely about anything as drawing a child into sin. Better to have a huge millstone tied around your neck and be thrown into the depths of the ocean. We need to guard ourselves. We may have a genuine affection for children; we need to know the boundaries. If ever we feel temptation in this direction, we should think of Jesus’ words; this could cost us our life! We are to be protectors not abusers. Our churches are to be places of safety. This does not mean we put up signs saying “People who are attracted to children keep out”; we are here to save the lost. But we must be vigilant, we must talk about right living, and we must talk with our children.
We have touched on only a few matters. God means us—not all of us, but as many as wish—to marry and have children. The children are to manage the world. They need to be prepared for that. A stable family is the first requirement. Of course, in our broken world this is often not possible; we are never out of reach of God’s grace, nor are our children. Education also matters. Education in the things of God is indispensable. Parents carry the main responsibility, but others can help. We must protect our children and guide them while we are able. Christian children belong to the kingdom of God and are destined to rule the universe.