Welcome morning. If you care
to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 19. Continue
our study in the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 19. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, we bow before your
throne this morning with hearts full of thanksgiving. How can
we even begin to thank you with human language for all of your
mercy, your grace, your love, your pity, your calling, saving,
keeping power to your people? The showers of blessing that
you so abundantly showered upon us. Father, we're thankful. We
beg your forgiveness for ever being ungrateful after all of
your goodness to us. Father, we're especially thankful
for our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all blessings flow. We freely claim only his obedience
as our only righteousness, nothing that we've added to it. How we
thank you for his precious blood that washes us and cleanses us
from all of our sin. Father, we're so thankful. And
we pray that his name would be magnified this morning, that
you would enable us by your spirit, through the preaching of your
word, to see the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ to believe
Him, rest in Him, have our hearts calmed and comforted at one more
time hearing of Christ our Savior. What we pray for ourselves, we
pray for our children's classes and your people who are meeting
all around this world this morning. Father, we pray that you'd bless
your word. We pray that you would, Father,
be with those who are sick and hurting and need you especially.
There's so many right now. Father, be with them. We're thankful
that there are no hard cases with thee to know that thou art
able. We pray for the grace and the faith to rest in thy will
and thy good providence. All these things we ask in that
name, which is above every name, the name of Christ, our savior.
Amen. Now my title, the lesson this
morning is God saves little children and I'll show you where I get
this. We'll come back and make a few comments after we read
our text beginning in verse 13 of Matthew chapter 19. Then were
there brought unto him little children that he should put his
hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them.
And Jesus said, suffer little children and forbid them not
to come unto me for of such as the kingdom of heaven. And he
laid his hands on them and departed thence. And from that text, I
got this title, God saved little children. Now, obviously, you
know, I'm not gonna be teaching that God loves and saves all
little children. We know that that's not true
from scripture. The Lord said he hated Esau while Esau was
a small child, didn't he? Well, he was still a child in
his mother's womb. God said, Esau, have I hated? What the
Lord is teaching us here is this, that if you and I would enter
the kingdom of heaven, we must be made as little children spiritually. Now not childish in a brat like
a small child could be. It's not good for us to be childish,
but we should, the believers should grow to maturity, spiritual
maturity. We should grow in faith and knowledge
and not remain as children in that sense. But believers do
have some traits that are found in little children. And God has
to give us these things. He's got to give us a nature
like that. He's got to teach us these things. But everybody
that God's age has made as a little child spiritually in several
ways. I'll give you a few of them. And the first one is this. This is something that's been
on my mind. A believer is made like the smallest, the very smallest
of children, an unborn child. Now I firmly believe that babies
who die go to be with the Lord. I firmly believe that many people
I read this week, many old, uh, great preachers of the past,
they, they believe this, uh, that the reason that there'll
be more people in heaven than in hell are all the babies who
died in infancy will be in heaven. I mean, if you think about it,
most adults reject the gospel of Christ on Most adults reject
Christ. They reject the gospel of salvation
by grace. Scripture tells us that any given
time in human history, there's only a remnant of believers,
just a remnant. So how can there be more people
in heaven than hell if it's just a small remnant at any given
time? Well, it's babies, babies who
died in infancy. For most of human history, more
babies died than lived. The writers I have read this
week said that this could be what the Lord means of such as
the kingdom of heaven. So many babies will populate
the kingdom of heaven. And I know we all love babies.
I mean, we just, you know, we love babies. After the service
this morning, it won't be hard to tell where Lynn is because
that's where all there's going to be a bunch of adults all gathered
around. We all love babies. But this
belief that we have, that babies who die go to be with the Lord,
it's not just because we love babies, not because they're so
cute. I believe this based upon the word of God. Let me show
you a couple of scriptures. Look first at 2 Samuel chapter
12. This is after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and she
became pregnant and Lord told David, the baby's going to die. The Lord's not going to bless
this. The baby's going to die. And David wept and fasted and,
and, and it was on his face before the Lord asking the Lord to spare
the child's life. And you know the story that the
child died. And soon as that child died, David got up, he
changed his clothes, he showered, he went to the house of the Lord
and worshiped. He asked for something to eat. He'd been fasting all,
you know, all this time before. And his servants just wondered,
After the baby died, why is David now eating? Why is he now going
to the house of the Lord? Well, look what he says here
in verse 22 of 2 Samuel 12. And he said, while the child
was yet alive, I fasted and wept. For I said, who can tell whether
God will be gracious to me that the child may live? But now he's
dead. Wherefore shall I fast? Can I
bring him back again? No, I can't bring him back again.
Look what David says here. I shall go to him, but he shall
not return unto me." Now this is David under inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. He said, that baby is not going
to come to me. But I'm going to go where he is. David, the
man after God's own heart, is going to go be with the Lord.
He's telling us that baby was with the Lord. Now look at Jonah,
chapter 4. Jonah is right between Obadiah
and Micah. This is after Jonah had had gone
in and preached to that, gave the message the Lord gave him
to the city Nineveh. And Jonah knew if he went and
preached, he said, the Lord's merciful. The Lord's going to
spare this city. And he's just grumping and grouching. He didn't
want the Lord to spare that city. He's just grumping that the Lord
spared that city. Now look here at Jonah 4, verse
11. This is what God said to him. Jonah's pouting because
the Lord spared that city. And the Lord said, should I not
spare Nineveh, that great city? Wherein are more than six score
thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand
and their left hand, and also much cattle? God told Jonah,
Jonah, it's right for me to spare that city. There's more than
120,000 people there that can't tell their right hand from their
left hand. Now who's that? It's babies. It's babies. Maybe
people with mental impairments or something. Mostly he's talking
about babies. God says, right. I spare that
city for those babies' sake. And you know, it's just like
the character of our God to be merciful, to be merciful to those
babies. And he told him that that's his
character. It's right that I do that. Now, I tell you that I
do firmly believe that infants who die go be with the Lord,
but I don't believe that because a baby is sinless and that baby
is so cute that they just don't deserve to go to hell. That's
not true at all. Not at all. The very reason babies
die is babies are sinners. They're conceived in sin. They
receive a sin nature. When they're conceived, they're
made sinners in Adam. That's why babies, the very reason
that they die. So, you know, if they go to hell,
it's because they're sinners. But I believe that babies who
die go to heaven, first of all, because God the Father chose
them. It's not because they don't deserve to go to hell. It's because
the Father chose them. God talks about babies in the
womb. He said, Jacob have I loved. You know when he said that? When
Jacob was in the womb. God told Jeremiah, before I formed
thee in the belly, I knew you, I knew you. And before you came
out of the womb, I'd already sanctified you to be a prophet
unto the nations. God said that before Jeremiah
was even conceived in the womb. So any baby who dies and goes
to glory does so because the father loved them, elected them,
chose them. Second, any baby who dies and
goes to heaven, they have to go to glory only because Christ
died for them. He shed his blood to put the
sin of that child away. Now I grant you, I've talked
about this with folks before, I will grant you that we cannot
say with 100% certainty all babies who die go to heaven. It does
seem like that's what the scripture teaches, doesn't it? It seems
like that's what the scripture It matches the character of God
that we read all through scripture. But the Bible just doesn't, you
can't find a verse that says straight out, babies who die
go to heaven. So in that way, you can't say with 100% certainty. But you know what? That is the
wisdom and the mercy of God that we don't know with 100% certainty. It's the wisdom and the mercy
of God. If scripture said point blank,
all babies who die go to heaven. You know what people would do?
A baby be born, they'd kill it. They'd kill it in the name of
religion. And maybe that would be bad. I mean, I don't know,
but that's what they do. If this baby lives, it may not
ever know the Lord. It may never go to heaven. If
I kill it now, it'll go be with the Lord. So they'll kill it.
That wouldn't be good for society, would it? And God in his wisdom
stopped that. But God in his wisdom and his
mercy also gave us a good reason for hope, didn't he? We can all
hope with David. Well, that baby can't come to
me, but I can go there. God and his mercy and his wisdom
stopped all that, and at the same time gave us hope, gave
us hope. And he confined our hope to this,
God's mercy and grace. That's God's wisdom. That's God's
goodness. Now, I'll grant you, People could
disagree on that. I don't know why they want to
exactly, but people could disagree on that and that'd be fine, but
they cannot rightly, they cannot rightly disagree with the picture
that the Lord's given us here. A baby who dies or maybe is stillborn
or you think of all the aborted babies, all the babies that were
offered to idols over the course of the thousands of years, any
baby who dies and go goes to heaven. If they go to heaven,
We have to agree on this. They can only be saved by God's
grace and not their works. You can't disagree with that,
can you? You can't disagree with that.
And that's the main picture that our Lord's teaching us here.
Nobody would ever dream that a baby in the womb could do some
work to please God and earn salvation, could they? They don't have the
faculty to do that. Nobody could ever say that a
newborn infant would be able to make a decision for Jesus
and accept Jesus into their heart and that's how they're saved.
They couldn't do some good work in order to be saved. They don't
have the faculties to do it. They don't have even the control
of their body hardly to do anything. It's utterly impossible that
a baby, an embryo or a baby could be saved by works. It's impossible.
The only way that baby could be saved is by God's grace. It's
the only way. but the same thing's true of
you and me. If you and I would enter into
the kingdom of heaven, we're gonna have to become just like
that helpless little baby. You and I have to be saved by
grace, not our works. Now, everybody here in this room
is a full-grown adult, you have faculties, you can do things,
but not before God. Only physically, not before God.
We don't have any more ability spiritually than an embryo. to
earn salvation before God. No more ability whatsoever. We
can't do anything good enough to earn salvation any more than
that embryo can. So if you and I would be saved,
we must be saved completely by God's grace, without our works. Now that's humbling to the flesh,
isn't it? It's humbling to hear you can't do anything more than
a newborn baby or an embryo can do. You can't do anything more.
But it's so. It's so, and God's people know
that. We know the only way I can be
saved is by grace. Before God saves anyone, that's
what he makes them say. I can't do anything to save myself. I can't do anything to make myself
more savable. I'm totally dependent on God's grace to save me. That's
how we have to become completely helpless and dependent as a baby
in that way, spiritually. All right. Number two, Small
children are humble. If we would enter the kingdom
of heaven, we've got to be humbled. And you know, humility, that's
being Christ-like. Humility. Here, you think of
this, the scene here in our text, all these people were coming
to the Lord. And you know what's in the back
of the disciple's mind, still at this point, was still in the
back of their mind, is Lord's going to set up an earthly kingdom
and we need all these people. We need this big crowd. We need
the strength in numbers. If we're going to set up this
kingdom and people are coming, bringing their small children
to the Lord, they want, they want the Lord to, to, to touch
their child. Maybe they're sick or he'll land
on for whatever reason they want the Lord to bless them. Whatever
reason they're bringing these small children to the Lord. And
the disciples think, we don't have no time for these infants,
these little kids, you know. We've got to be built in this
kingdom. And the Lord humbly stopped everything. He took those children and put
them on his knee. And the Lord was kind. He was
humble to them. He touched them. He prayed for
them. And that made little children comfortable to come to the Lord. That humility, you know who else
that made comfortable? Sinners, publicans, and harlots. They're comfortable coming to
the Lord because of his humility. Now, the Lord's the Lord of glory. He truly humbled himself to take
on human flesh. He humbled himself to take these
children to his knees. You and I got no reason to be
proud. Yet we are. And the Lord's got to humble
us. So we learn, I don't have anything
to be proud of. Actually, this is what we've
got to learn. We've got to learn this lesson over and over and
over again. The Lord teaches his people this. Not only do
I not have anything to be proud of, actually everything about
me, I should be ashamed of. I should be ashamed of. And when
the Lord humbles us like that, and Lord puts us in the dust,
Then and only then. See, we've got to be humble because
only then will we really rely on Christ to be all of our salvation. Only when we're humbled. If you
and I are going to go to glory, it can't be anything about us.
It's all got to be what Christ did for us and in us. And if
we're going to boast about anything, it's not going to be about us,
is it? It's all going to be about the
cross of Christ. the success of his sacrifice for his people.
And only people who are humbled will be able to truly do that. Then thirdly, children are dependent. If you and I would enter the
kingdom of heaven, we got to be made dependent. You know,
small children just know this. They can't do anything for themselves. And these children that were
brought to the Lord, the way that Matthew writes here, it
seems like they're very small children. Maybe they were so
sick they couldn't come to the Lord on their own. Their parents
had to bring them. It could have been they are so
small they couldn't come. Maybe they were babes in arms
or very small toddlers or something. They couldn't come to the Lord
unless the parents brought them to him. And the point of all
that is this. You and I can't do anything by
ourselves. We can't even believe on Christ.
We can't. We can't hear the gospel, we
can't listen for two seconds before our mind starts wandering.
Unless Lord arrests our attention, sends his spirit upon, we can't
do anything. That's the way small children
are. They know they can't do, they're small. I mean, it's just
obvious to see the difference between me and this adult. It's
just, it's one of the funniest things. We talk about this in
our family. Several years ago, Gavin was
just a little guy. And he came up to our son Doug
and he looked up at him and he said, you're a giant. Gavin had no problem understanding
I'm small and he's big. There's no denying it. He wasn't
ashamed of it. We're so dead spiritually. We got this thing backwards.
We think we're big and God's little. Oh, poor little Jesus. We're getting ready to come up
on this time of season. You know, everybody talks about this little
Jesus, you know. We should be looking up at God.
You're a giant. I'm a speck of dust. Would you
be merciful to me? Would you do something for me?
I can't do anything for myself. Would you touch me? Would you
pray for me? Would you heal me? If we're going
to enter the kingdom of heaven now, we've got to be made dependent.
It cannot be by our merits. It's got to be by the merit of
Christ. It can't be by our works. It's got to be by the work of
Christ. We're completely dependent on Christ to do everything for
us. And I'm not ashamed of it. I'm
not ashamed. I'm a beggar before him. I'm completely dependent on him.
Those are the people who enter the kingdom of heaven. Fourthly,
small children are teachable. If you and I would enter the
kingdom of heaven, We're going to have to be made teachable.
And that is a characteristic that's becoming more and more
and more rare in our day. People are teachable. Everybody
already knows everything. But a small child, small child,
they know they don't know anything. And they want to learn. They're
teachable. Small children are just fascinated
by the world around them. They're fascinated to learn about
things in the world around them. Babies are fascinated several
times a day to discover, I got fingers and toes. They're just
fascinated by that. You know, they say, oh, that
looks great. I'm going to put that in my mouth. Somebody's got to teach them,
no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that. And they eventually
learn, don't they? But somebody's got to teach them.
Somebody's got to teach them. Children need to be taught. It's something I'm afraid my
generation has not passed on to the next one, this thing about
teaching children. teaching them, not just your
ABCs and history and these kinds of math and these kind of things,
teaching them how to act, teach them how to conduct yourself.
We've got to be taught. And if you and I would enter
the kingdom of heaven, we've got to come down off our high
horse and quit thinking we know everything and be teachable,
be teachable. And you know the thing about
a believer, being teachable, We're taught the same lesson
over and over and over again. And it's a blessing every time.
It's a blessing every time. And if we would become teachable,
this is what God's going to teach us. This is what God the Holy
Spirit will teach us. If he ever makes us teachable, he's going
to teach us Christ. He's going to teach us who he
is, teach us to know enough about him that
will trust him, that will fall down at his feet begging for
mercy, that I've got complete and utter confidence casting
my entire soul on him and him alone. If the Holy Spirit ever
teaches us, he's going to teach us Christ and believers learn
that lesson over and over and over again and they never get
tired of it. They never get tired of it. Wednesday
night I preached in Lexington and a man made this comment after
the The message. He said, I come here, particularly
on a Wednesday night. I've been out in the world. I've
been working and just in the whirlwind of this world. You can't help but start to think
like it and act like it and be like it. He said, I see things
that trouble me. I come here to have my heart
comforted. And he said, you know what comforts
my heart? The same thing I've been hearing
for 30 years, Christ is all. We need to learn that lesson
over and over and over again. And if we'll ever become teachable,
that's what God teaches. All right, fifthly, small children
are obedient. Now I grant you, we gotta kind
of teach them, but generally speaking, small children are
obedient. And if you and I would enter into the kingdom of heaven,
we better become obedient. God's going to have to make us
obedient. And I tell you what this obedience
is not. First of all, it's not that suddenly we're born again.
We have the ability to start keeping the law, to start obeying
the law. That's not what this obedience is. The obedience,
the scripture talks about is the obedience to quit, to quit
trying to establish your own righteousness by your own works
and submit yourself to the righteousness of Christ. Look at Romans chapter
10. The obedience that scripture
talks about is to quit trying to help God out, saving us, and
depend on him without any of our works helping him out. And
Paul said this is his problem with his religious brethren.
Romans 10 verse 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record, they have zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. See, they haven't been taught.
They're not teachable. It's not according to knowledge because
they haven't been taught anything. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
they've not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. And that's where God's going
to have to bring us. If we're going to enter the kingdom of
heaven, we've got to be obedient. We've got to submit. We have
to surrender, submit and obey God and quit trying to establish
our own righteousness and rest in Christ. That's the obedience
he's talking about. And then sixthly, small children
don't have ambition. It's kind of a sad thing to see
children as they grow start learning ambition, learning ambition. But if you and I would enter
the kingdom of heaven, I'll tell you what, we got to lose our ambition. We've got to lose it. We've got
to lose the ambition, trying to gain any credit, any glory
in this matter of salvation. We've got to lose the ambition
to quit trying to gain position for ourselves, even among our
brethren, even amongst a congregation. We've got to lose that ambition.
but there's an ambition we got to gain too. We've got to lose
the ambition of the positioning and glory of this flesh, but
there's an ambition that God's got to give us too. The ambition
of a believer is the glory of Christ. The glory of Christ. Our greatest ambition, the greatest
ambition of a believer should be this. I want to be completely
reliant on Christ. I want to be completely relying
on Christ and I want to quit trusting my works. I want to
quit that. My greatest ambition is to truly
see myself as less than the least of all the saints. I wish I could
see myself that way. And to esteem others better than
myself. That's a good ambition, isn't it? Our greatest ambition
is simplicity. Just to be found in Christ. Not
having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ. I tell you who the strongest
and most mature believer is. It's the one who's the most childlike. The one who's the most childlike
in need of Christ. The one who's the most childlike
in dependence on Christ. The one who's the most childlike
in complete trust in Christ. That's my ambition. I've got
a few minutes. I've used this illustration before.
Maybe some of you haven't heard it. Or maybe I'm getting old
enough I can start repeating myself. But I remember our daughter
Holly was three years old probably. And Janet was gone somewhere.
Holly and I were there in the house alone. And we lived in
this house that two walls were just like all windows. And they
weren't good windows. I mean, a car would go by the
road. These windows would rattle. And buddy, there came up a storm. I mean a storm. It knocked the
cable out. It knocked the power out. The
wind was blowing. Those windows were rattling.
The thunder, oh, lightning. And Holly's just three. She didn't
really pay much attention to it at first. And then she got
scared. She came up to me. She told me, Dad, I'm scared.
And I said, honey, it's all right. And you know what she said? Oh,
OK. And she went over and sat down
and started playing with her blocks. And that storm was raging. And I started to think, maybe
we ought to take cover somewhere, you know? Holly didn't hear it. She completely trusted her daddy,
told her it's all right. Her daddy, she didn't know that
then. She learned later, her daddy
really couldn't make it all all right. She still trusted him. You know, I have a heavenly father
who's told us it's all right. I'm in control of this thing.
Yeah, you're in a storm. It's all right. I'll speak peace. Yes, your sin separates you from
God. It's all right. I'll take care
of it. I'll cross the divide. I'll put your sin away, and I'll
bring you back to God. And there are going to be some
dark, tough days, but when this thing's over, I'm going to bring
you to myself. There I am. There you may be
also. Our father said that. Who's going
to make it happen? I want to be the most mature
believer who just believes Him and says, okay, and rests in
Him, don't you? All right, well, may the Lord
be pleased to do it for us.