Word of Salvation – Vol.12 No.44 – October 1966
Jesus Blesses The Children
Sermon by Rev. J. Piening on Mark 10:13-16
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 23:12 -26; Mark 10:1-16
Psalter Hymnal: No. 236:1,2,6; 383; 48:1,2,7; 405:1,2; 467
Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
What a fine sight to see so many children in church! Time and again we are struck by the fact that we, as Reformed churches count so many young children and young people. Imagine the number that could attend, if you had a Christian Day-school in your town now! We are greatly blessed.
Such a wealth of children brings about a big responsibility also, of course, for the Church and for the parents. They are God’s children! They have rights and privileges. They are members of the Church. And therefore there is no finer sight than seeing the children in Church, where they belong, sitting next to Father and Mother. You may ask if we make them feel at home in church. Whether perhaps we ignore them too much. Are the services such and the sermons such that partly at least these can be understood by the children?
Boys and girls, the sermon is for everyone here. For you, too! And if I should always talk in difficult language and about very difficult subjects, then I forget perhaps that you also are members of the congregation. You, too, may know that the Lord Jesus Christ in every service lays His hands on you and blesses you. For He does just that! That would be a very good reason to ask Dad and Mum to take you along to church more often, would it not?
The sermon today is about: Jesus and the Children.
- In the part of the chapter before verse 13, where our text starts, we are told that Jesus is dealing with learned Pharisees about the huge problem of marriage and divorce. The Pharisees put up tricky questions in order to embarrass the Lord. Moral life had come to such a low ebb that it became very easy to break up a marriage. History repeats itself. Today, we are told that in the U.S. one in every four marriages ends in official divorce. It was bad in those days, too. For almost any unimportant reason the husband could give the wife a bill of divorcement. One of the more liberal rabbis gave as his view that if Mother burnt the dinner, that was a fair enough reason to send her away! Thus the weaker partner was left without support or protection. And all this in the name of religion. One would appeal to the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24. As if Moses wanted divorce to be free and easy.. Moses, of course, wanted the very opposite. He wished to honour marriage and therefore he only suffered divorce, he regulated it, he kept it in check.
Christ rebuked this playing with the Bible to suit unholy and selfish ends. He expounds the will of God. Jesus maintains that marriage cannot be broken: What God has put together, let not man put asunder. And so also, as in every commandment, God protects the highest values of human life. In God’s law you see Him in His love and mercy toward His covenant people.
How fitting that now we read of the children! They are even weaker than the woman. They were more neglected than the wife. When Father and Mother sin and separate the children suffer most. And see how Jesus protects them, how He draws them to His heart!
We should get the situation:
A large circle of people around the Saviour, learned and venerable clergy in a discussion about marriage and divorce. Then it happens! Children are brought to Jesus! Or, at least the parents are trying to do so. You hear the voices of begging mothers and of bitter, biting disciples. Disruption, confusion! What has the Great Prophet to do with children?
Nevertheless,” they” brought them. They: that means fathers and mothers; the verb tells us that they were not mothers only. Children, infants, kiddies up to about 12 are brought to Jesus! That shows you how sensible these parents are, how they love their children too, these poor people from across the Jordan! They love their children that much that they bring them to the Lord Jesus, that He may touch them. And bless them.
Now see what happens…! You may picture in your mind little ones stretching out their hands to the Lord and also the Lord spreading out His arms over the children, blessing them. And the Fathers and Mothers are watching… Blessed parents, who may see that happen! The children come to Him!
As soon as the baby arrives, the parents begin to sacrifice. They work and watch and care. They will do anything to make sure that their children get somewhere. Get where? How weak and listless and careless many are to ensure that the children really get somewhere: that they come to Jesus, to Him first of all…!
None of that childish nonsense, the disciples say. Go away! Go home! Don’t disturb the theologians!
They mean well probably. They may be worried about the Master’s health. He is so busy. Everyone wants to see Him. Perhaps they felt somewhat a sense of importance. They were the officials, you know.
Fact is that their attitude is wrong altogether. And they are going to be instructed about the wonder of the Covenant, they have to learn that God is a God of parents and their seed.
Jesus was very angry at them, there are no two ways about it. We read: He was moved with indignation. And you may be sure that He shouted it out over the noise of the disciples and the parents: Let the children come to Me! Don’t stop them! Such tender love the Saviour has, that He shouts and becomes angry… when the children are left out.
Let them come! Don’t hinder them! For not only the children are deprived of their rights, also Christ is misunderstood in His saving work and deprived of His glory. He did not come to save some stray individual adults on the basis of some testimony. He came to reconcile man unto God and God unto man. To redeem a world. God so loved the world, remember? He gathered to Himself a people, He saves throughout the generations. When children are left out, the Gospel itself is in danger. God established a glorious Covenant with Abraham and his seed. And therefore that severe rebuke: Let them come! For they belong to the Covenant. I wish to bless them! For they are Mine.
Woe the fathers and mothers who ignore these words. Let them come: Bring them into God’s house early to receive the sign and seal of God’s grace in the Covenant; teach them to pray when they are very small; read them the stories from the Bible; lead them to Jesus; give them a Christian education, especially when they are young; take them to Church; send them to catechism class and help them in their work. There are added blessings now in the Cadet and Calvinette movement and our senior youth- clubs…! And so you parents (aided by your minister and elder and school-teacher and youth leader) may lead your most precious gifts to Jesus. He will touch them and bless them!
Make that your daily prayer. Praying also for your problem teenagers means, that however difficult and unwilling they may seem, you can yet bring them to the Lord.
Let the children come!
And don’t hinder them. That, in Jesus’ opinion, ought to be said, too. It is a warning, a serious warning to parents who want their children to ‘get somewhere’, but who at the same time refuse to educate them in the fear of the Lord. Parents who are not worthy of the name…!
It is a warning, a serious warning also to decent parents, who might read and pray at the meal table and go to church. They may yet hinder their children to come to the Lord…!
You hinder them… you make it almost impossible for them to flee to Jesus – if your own life shows that religion is only a hobby, that it is harmless and ineffective, that it is only a part-time business, that it is unimportant and useless.
You hinder them, if you do the things which in the Bible are clearly forbidden. You hinder them, if you cannot be bothered to do the things that are clearly commanded. O, brothers and sisters, what is the matter with us? We are hindering our children, if they do not see and they have very good eyesight- that Jesus is all we have and all we want, that we belong to Him, that He is our Lord and Master and that that is our only comfort, not only in death, but also in life. What a sight we present often. We are unfaithful and disobedient. We are selfish and jealous. We are materialistic and pleasure-loving…. what do the children see of us?
If you always walk out of church as if it were a social gathering, just saying, ‘Glad it’s all over for today, and did you notice the funny hat of Mrs. So-and-so?’ without ever telling the children that we are the richest people on earth having such a God and Saviour, without ever telling them that Jesus blessed you personally…. you hinder them.
If you always complain that the church costs so much and say that they better not come to you about money for a Christian school or for the Back to God Hour or Mission… whereas you spend considerable amounts on things that are luxuries by any standard, then you give an example of inconsistency, if not dishonesty. And you hinder the children who look to you for positive guidance.
But, boys and girls, we are preaching to the grown-ups again, aren’t we? Well, notice that Jesus says to the parents: Let the children come to Me. You see, they may walk up to Him themselves. You may do that: Go to Jesus, on your knees, giving Him your love and your heart. You never come too early. You are never too young. For didn’t you notice that the Lord already touches and blesses babies? To the teenagers it must be said also: You go, for you may not hinder yourself either. No one has yet been saved by hiding behind the allegedly poor example of parents. No one has yet been lost who fled to Christ, hiding behind Him.
When Jesus invites and demands He also makes a promise. “Of” such is the Kingdom of God.” Little ones of believing parents are members of the Church. There you have the line of the Covenant again that runs through the whole Bible. Of such is the Kingdom. Your children are princes and princesses in the truest sense of the word. With the Belgic Confession we believe and, confess “that Jesus Christ hath instituted the sacrament of Baptism…by which we are received into the Church of God and separated from all other people… that we may wholly belong to Him, whose ensign and banner we bear.”
We are to trust in that promise, brothers and sisters: the Kingdom is theirs. Let this sink in! If we would take God at His Word, if we would take the words of Jesus in all their riches, then we would have less opposition to treat them as children of the Kingdom, as you said you would, less bickering about educating them as children of the Kingdom, as you said and promised you would. And the God of the Covenant, He stands ready to bless. He is faithful and altogether true to His Word. Instruct your child in the way that he should go and he will not depart from it. And thus to parents and their seed, shall God’s salvation come! Yes, there is a future for the people of God, a glorious future for believing parents and their children! For all those who in childlike faith receive the Kingdom of God.
That brings us to the last point. ‘No children!’ said the disciples. What, says the Lord, I tell you, it is just the other way round: “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
It is as if Jesus is not angry anymore, but He seems to smile. The wise grown ups should go to school, to be taught by the child. That’s the world upside down! Of course, normally you do the teaching, instructing the children in the deep things of God and of His Word by word of mouth and example. But in one thing you learn: the child receives easier, children easier accept teaching, they are more willing to listen and obey, they are more open and ready; a child will trust implicitly, a child knows what it is to look up to Father in respect and humility….!
If we, adults, are to be blessed by the Lord, stronger: if we are to enter into the Kingdom, we must receive the Kingdom as a child.
That’s hard, isn’t it? For we live in a scientific and highly sophisticated age. Education is largely ‘neutral’ or decidedly antagonistic to the Christian faith. To countless numbers there seems to be more sense in what the Scientist says and does, than in what the Saviour says and does. The progress of science and of the sciences-so-called, the humanistic philosophies that are being propagated left, right and centre, the war threat in South East Asia, all these things can make us despair.. so that we rather not have any more children, or at least find it extremely embarrassing to take this word of Jesus very seriously. Receive the Kingdom as a child? That might be possible for little ones who still take this ‘Sunday school stuff’ and for old ladies who never had much of an education anyway and live in the past…!
Many – are you one of them? – are still prepared to accept the teaching of Christ and of the Church with some reservations, acknowledging that for the morals of the nation and for a better citizenship they have some value. But when it comes to the heart of the Bible: a God Who is personal and sovereign, Who created and is in absolute control of this vast universe; a God in Whom mercy and justice are one, who condemns man because of his sin and provides His Own Son to save from condemnation those who look up to this Lamb of God in faith, this is getting too much for many.
Christ says that you cannot be saved when you receive the Kingdom with reservations – you are to receive it as a child. You don’t have to be childish about, nor do you have to be a ‘sissy’, but it is of the essence of saving faith that you are childlike, that you look to the Hill of Calvary where the Saviour bled and that then behind and beyond the Cross you look up to a heavenly Father Who truly cares, so that you have nothing to worry about.
Are you a child? Do you have a childlike faith in Jesus, in God and in His Word? Or are you a hardened and doubting adult, who would like to be a child of the Lord again, if that were possible? Do you realise that you have hindered your children to go to Jesus, and that you hinder them every day, all because you lack such childlike faith yourself?
It is not impossible to receive the Kingdom as a child! It is not impossible. For the Holy Spirit of Christ has been given to the Church and to the believer. He applies Jesus’ work to our heart; the Spirit makes it real and relevant in your life, whatever the circumstances may be. The Spirit pushes you to your knees, so that you become very small… so that from your knees you learn again to look up to the Father via Calvary’s cross. The life-giving Spirit makes the old young again. The Spirit melts hearts every day, He makes children out of adults, out of scientists and philosophers, out of housewives and labourers, out of teenagers and students, out of clever business men and hefty criminals…..!
Would it be impossible in your case? No! The Psalmist sings, “Bless the Lord O my soul…. For the Lord renews thy youth like the eagles.’
God’s Word abides.
Jesus, who laid His hands on the children and blessed them, is the same yesterday, today and forever. God’s arm is not shortened. He stands ready to forgive again. You will not be saved if you do not receive the Kingdom as a child. But you may increasingly rejoice in the fact that you are saved, when you look to the Saviour in faith. Ask Him today to make you young again, so that you may live to be a blessing to your own children and to others, to the glory of God the Father.
Yes, live as children of God. For that is what you are.
Amen.