“When a kid goes wrong, which factor is responsible, his heredity or his environment?” The answer is: “It’s a toss-up”. The Bible says exactly that! We are sinners both by heredity and environment; both by nature and by nurture; both by instinct and by practice”.
The picture that’s being painted from a lot of Christian movies in recent times concerning the rapture can be as confusing from a careful study of the Scripture. This is in relation to the fate of children on the subject of rapture. Would infants be raptured automatically? At what age is a child qualified to make heaven, or go to hell? In some of these films children were portrayed to have been raptured. Only few were exceptional, yet the question that bugged a careful observer of some of the verses found in relation to Christ’s second coming and the events likely to herald that time or day leaves a lot of unanswered raised brows.
How about the comparison to the days of Noah? Only eight people eventually entered the ark. Eight! The question is: were there not children among the people in Noah’s time? It is also possible that many of the women were in different stages or trimesters of pregnancies, and some were in the process of giving birth (that is, in labour) and so on…. Let your mind be as detailed as can be and you’ll get the picture clearly. Yet, they didn’t make it into the ark. Therefore, they PERISHED in the flood in as well. Is God this wicked or should this be seen as wickedness at all? J. Boyd Nicholson, in his book, ‘The Watered Garden’, made some interesting statements concerning the one hundred and twenty (120) years it took an ‘amateur’ Noah, who, in obedience to God’s instructions, built the ark. Now the question is whether God would have sent the flood in the first place if the whole world of that time had hearkened unto Noah. I believe, as Nicholson puts it, that ‘the ark wasn’t built to save the people IN the flood. It was build to save the world from the flood, if they would repent in time. It is not the sailing of the ark that is emphasized in scripture, but the “preparing” of it. Every plank was a sermon, every hammer blow a warning, and as the structure grew, so did the responsibility of the viewers’.
I sincerely chose to believe that every one of us owe a great deal to our offspring. I’d pondered on Noah’s sons’ wives being with pregnancies or even children at the time. I won’t be wrong to say that such children will have been saved as well, unless they chose not to follow ‘dadda’ or ‘mama’.
Sometimes ago I walked into my study group at our Church’s breaking of bread and the question was being asked on when a child is intelligent enough to give her or his life to Christ? My thoughts went wild. I simply asked the question on when a child is qualified to go to hell. The answer is the same. As long as we dwell in this nature called flesh, then we are bound to receive its wages. David says, ‘…in sin doth my mother conceive me…’, and Scripture is very clear on the wages of sin: DEATH! It doesn’t matter how old we are. After all, what wrong or sin has a new baby, or the yet unborn, committed?
So, invariably, am I saying that children too will go to hell? Look at this Scripture with me. “Just like in the days of Noah….” The comparison is obvious, isn’t it? That’s why the Bible is emphatic on the role parents play as leaders in their respective homes. If any of the women in Noah’s time had ventured near the ark to ask Noah if she can join him with her children, assuming she was with some, I believe the answer will have been a resounding YES. But none heeded the warnings given over the years – 120! Can you imagine the length of time that was? The point is: where are you leading your children to? Many of us provide them with the benefits of our privileged world – the little luxury we can afford – but never helped them to face the hard but realistic issues of life; either because these are realities we have well chosen to ignore (to our own peril) or we are not as bothered. Unfortunately, they then get to the age that we cannot reach them anymore except to dance to their tunes. By then, they are adults in their own right.
Nicholson further posited that “the ark was not built by Noah to save the population, but “to the saving of his house,” after the world rejected his preaching (Heb.11:7)”. Yes, God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, but which would you think is preferable: isn’t it obedience, which is better than sacrifice? It is better to know for certainty than to live in the island of unproven assumption. The result is always fatal.
So, eventually, the question is not as much on whether children will go to hell but that we need to ask ourselves where we are leading them to? According to C. Everett Koop, M.D., “Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation”. And Scripture definitely agreed with that, as recorded in Proverbs 22:6. Invariably, your arguments may be termed pointless if YOU ARE NOT RAISING SOLDIERS AND USEFUL HANDS IN THE VINEYARD OF THE MASTER!
“Train up a child in the way he should go…”, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.”
