The Little Life You Have!

Richard Hollerman

You may or may not have a child. Further, you may have two or three children. Further yet, it may be that God has given you 10 or 12 children! However many children, do you have any idea the value or worth of those children? We don’t refer to the financial worth for perhaps 200 or 300 years ago children were an assent for they could contribute to the household income. But today, generally children are not an asset but a liability in many respects.

So we are not referring to the financial worth of children but the spiritual worth of our sons and daughters. Do you know what you have in your keeping? Now we know that today there are many varieties of situations in families. Sad though it be, some parents only want one or two children and they stop there. Other families consist of children who are the offspring of one parent and not the other. And other families yet are what they have deemed “blended” families, with one or more children coming from various parents. Obviously, many of these are adulterous unions—which complicates matters even worse.

But setting aside all of the available aberrations, we still ask the question, “Do you realize the value of your children?” You may look at your son (s) or daughter (s) and think of their skills regarding one sport or another. Or you may think of the vacation that you plan to have with these children as you visit the beach or mountains or “Aunt Lorrie” or “Uncle Bill.” But we are still referring to something much more profound than this. Maybe you are reminded of the good grades you expect from your children in the public school. Or you may be thinking of the friends that your son or daughter have. But is this really the extent of your interest?

What about your children a hundred, a thousand, or a million years from now? Does this concern you at all? Actually, the spiritual welfare of your children is vastly more important than anything else you can imagine! As you may know, most children will not grow up to be with God after death! Rather, they will be cast off—eternally. This should concern us greatly, don’t you agree?

What do I mean by this? There are now about seven billion people on earth and two or three billion of these are children. You may differ in your view, but we do believe that very young children will go to be with God if they should die. You may point out that not many children do die in their infancy as in the past. This is true. But this infancy will soon be past and that two-year-old will be a twelve- or fifteen-year-old child. How do you view your children who are in their teens?

There are many false doctrines relating to these children—as you know. We hope that most of you who are reading this article are not part of a world religion who wrongly believes that children will be blessed eternally if they should die. Hinduism and Buddhism and many other religions think that their children are not in need of salvation. Islam also perverts the condition of children. But consider those who are in the “Christian” fold. Think of Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, and the like. As you probably know, they are not active in presenting the gospel to their children so that they may be saved from sin, death, and hell. In fact, many of them either forbid their children to think about salvation or adamantly say that their children do not need salvation. Thus, these professing “Christians” actively “shut off the kingdom of heaven from people” (Matthew 23:13; cf. Luke 11:52). If you are a parent, does this describe you? Do you really want to keep your children from the kingdom of God?

You may be thinking of the several hundred million of “Christian” families who do want their children to come to Christ to be saved (through genuine repentance, sincere faith, and true baptism). Of course, for entirely different reasons, these dear children are now lost and probably will be in the future—unless something happens to draw them to the Lord. We ask you to read the various articles on this website that deal with salvation for at least some of them pertain to children and their forgiveness and salvation.

We now must come back to the beginning of our discussion. Do you really love your children and do you want to see them saved from sin. (Of course, the logical issue might also be whether the parents are even saved from sin or are they merely good, religious people!) The serious matter that we have for you has to do with the salvation of your children! Are you going the way of other Americans (or people from other world religions)? Are you merely concerned about the school grades that they get, or the sports that they play, or the clothes that they wear, or the friends that they have, or their family demeanor? Or are you interested in the more serious (and eternal) issue of their salvation?

You see, they may be the model children that you wanted (although most children, sadly, are not the “model” children that we could want), but “model” children do go to hell. We hope that you know this. Thus, we need to be utterly concerned about the spiritual welfare of these children of yours. How would you feel if you actually entered the Kingdom of God but your children were lost for all eternity? Actually, probably if your children are lost, you will be also! Thus you and I should e very, very concerned about the spiritual condition of our sons and daughters.

What shall we say? We definitely need to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4)! Don’t be concerned about all of the other matters that we have mentioned. Sadly, most of them lead away from God rather than to God. The government surely won’t have their spiritual interest in mind. The secular school system won’t be concerned. Neither will the sports, the entertainment, and the musical parts of life won’t be concerned about the eternal. Even the parents won’t either. Most religious leaders will turn them to the ways of Satan rather than God, so don’t rely on their interest either. How can you train them? Turn them to the Lord and train them in righteousness. Remove them from the wickedness of worldliness and turn them to the ways of the Lord (cf. 2 Peter 2:20-22; Romans 12:1-2).

Friend, now is the time to train your children in the ways of God and keep them from the ways of the evil one! They will be a comfort to you eternally and not the tragedy that most families have! Do it now, while your children are still young and pliable! May God bless you in these serious and eternal matters!