Pastor Rick Jackson
I suppose,
until recently, I never thought about what Spurgeon believed about babies in
Heaven. I assumed, correctly, that he believed like I do, that babies that die
here are safe in Heaven because that is what the Bible teaches. Ah, but
Spurgeon, being a Bible preacher not only believed that, but he preached it
too!
I. THE
REALITY OF BABIES IN HEAVEN
1. “It Is well”
[2 Kings 4:17-26]
…you may
rest assured that it is well with the child, well in a higher and a better
sense than it is well with yourselves; well without limitation, well without
exception, well infinitely, “ well “ eternally.” -C.H.S.
2. “I shall
go to him” [2 Samuel 12:19-23]
Now, where
did David expect to go to? Why, to heaven surely? Then his child must have been
there, for he said, “I shall go to him.” I do not hear him say the same of
Absalom. He did not stand over his corpse, and say, “I shall go to him;” he had
no hope for that rebellious son. Over this child it was not— “O my son! would
to God I had died for thee!” No, he could let this babe go with perfect
confidence, for he said, “I shall go to him.” “I know,” he might have said,
“that He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and
sure, and when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no
evil, for he is with me; I shall go to my child, and in heaven we shall be
re-united with each other.” -C.H.S.
3. “thou
hast slain my children” [Ezekiel 16:20-21]
Moreover
thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and
these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a
small matter, That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause
them to pass through the fire for them?
And there is
a passage in Ezekiel, for where we have but little, we must pick up even the
crumbs, and do as our Master did—gather up the fragments that nothing be
lost—there is a passage in Ezekiel, sixteenth chapter, twenty-first verse,
where God is censuring his people for having given up their little infants to
Moloch, having caused them to pass through the fire, and he says of these
little ones, “Thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause
them to pass through the fire;” so, then, they were God's children ;
those little ones who died in the red-hot arms of Moloch while babes, God calls
“ my children.” We may, therefore, believe concerning all those who have fallen
asleep in these early days of life, that Jesus said of them, “These are my
children,” and that he now to-day, while he leads his sheep unto living
fountains of water, does not forget still to carry out his own injunction,
“Feel my lambs.” Yea, to-day even he carrieth “the lambs in his bosom,” and
even before the eternal throne he is not ashamed to say, “Behold I and the
children whom thou hast given me.” -C.H.S.
II. THE
REASONS FOR BELIEVING BABIES GO TO HEAVEN
1. The
Goodness of the Nature of God [Psalms 52:1, Romans 2:4]
-the
goodness of God endureth continually.
- Or
despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering;
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
First, we
ground our conviction very much upon the goodness of the nature of God.
We say that the opposite doctrine that some infants perish and are lost, is
altogether repugnant to the idea which we have of Him whose name is love. If we
had a God whose name was Moloch, if God were an arbitrary tyrant, without
benevolence or grace, we could suppose some infants being cast into hell; but
our God, who heareth the young ravens when they cry, certainly will find no
delight in the shrieks and cries of infants cast away from his presence. We
read of him that he is so tender, that he careth for oxen, that he would not
have the mouth of the ox muzzled, that treadeth out the corn. Nay, he careth
for the bird upon the nest, and would not have the mother bird killed while
sitting upon its nest with its little ones. He made ordinances and commands
even for irrational creatures. He finds food for the most loathsome animal, nor
does he neglect the worm any more than the angel, and shall we believe with
such universal goodness as this, that he would cast away the infant soul? I say
it would be clean contrary to all that we have ever read or ever believed of
Him, that our faith would stagger before a revelation which should display a
fact so singularly exceptional to the tenor of his other deeds. We have learned
humbly to submit our judgments to his will, and we dare not criticise or accuse
the Lord of All ; we believe him to be just, let him do as he may, and
therefore, whatever he might reveal we would accept ; but he never has, and I
think he never will require of us so desperate a stretch of faith as to see
goodness in the eternal misery of an infant cast into hell. -C.H.S.
2. The Great
Multitude Which No Man Could Number [Revelation 7:9-10]
After this I
beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations,
and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud
voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the
Lamb.
Once again,
one of the strongest inferential arguments is to be found in the fact that
Scripture positively states that the number of saved souls at the last will be
very great. In the Revelation we read of a number that no man can number.
The Psalmist speaks of them as numerous as dew drops from the womb of the
morning. Many passages give to Abraham, as the father of the faithful, a seed
as many as the stars of heaven, or as the sand on the sea shore. Christ is to
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; surely it is not a little that
will satisfy him. The virtue of the precious redemption involves a great host
who were redeemed. All Scripture seems to teach that heaven will not be a
narrow world, that its population will not be like a handful gleaned out of a
vintage, but that Christ shall be glorified by ten thousand times ten thousand,
whom he hath redeemed with his blood. Now where are they to come from? How
small a part of the map could be called Christian! Look at it. Out of that part
which could be called Christian, how small a portion of them would bear the
name of believer! How few could be said to have even a nominal attachment to
the Church of Christ? Out of this, how many are hypocrites, and know not the
truth! I do not see it possible, unless indeed the millennium age should soon
come, and then far exceed a thousand years; I do not see how it is possible
that so vast a number should enter heaven, unless it be on the supposition that
infant souls constitute the great majority. It is a sweet belief to my own mind
that there will be more saved than lost, for in all things Christ is to have
the pre-eminence, and why not in this? It was the thought of a great divine that
perhaps at the last the number of the lost would not bear a greater proportion
to the number of the saved, than do the number of criminals in gaols to those
who are abroad in a properly-conducted state. I hope it may be found to be so.
At any rate, it is not my business to be asking, “Lord, are there few that
shall be saved?” The gate is strait, but the Lord knows how to bring thousands
through it without making it any wider, and we ought not to seek to shut any
out by seeking to make it narrower. Oh! I do know that Christ will have the
victory, and that as he is followed by streaming hosts, the black prince of
hell will never be able to count so many followers in his dreary train as
Christ in his resplendent triumph. And if so, we must have the children saved;
yea, brethren, if not so, we must have them, because we feel anyhow they must
be numbered with the blessed, and dwell with Christ hereafter. -C.H.S.
3. In Adam –
in Christ [1 Corinthians 15:22]
For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Some ground
the idea of the eternal blessedness of the infant upon its innocence. We do no
such thing; we believe that the infant fell in the first Adam, “for in Adam all
died.” All Adam's posterity, whether infant or adult, were represented by
him—he stood for them all, and when he fell, he fell for them all. There was no
exception made at all in the covenant of works made with Adam as to infants
dying; and inasmuch as they were included in Adam, though they have not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, they have original guilt. They
are “born in sin and shapen in iniquity; in sin do their mothers conceive them
so saith David of himself, and (by inference) of the whole human race. If they
be saved, we believe it is not because of any natural innocence. They enter
heaven by the very same way that we do; they are received in the name of
Christ. -C.H.S.
III.
BABIES HERE NOT BABIES THERE
1. What We Are
Here We Shall Not Be There [1 Corinthians 15:35-54]
2. We Shall
Be Like Jesus [1 John 3:2]
Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we
know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as
he is.
3. We Shall
Be More Knowledgeable [1 Corinthians 13:12]
For now we
see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but
then shall I know even as also I am known.
“wherein are
more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern” [Jonah 4:11]
You remember
when Jonah — petulant, quick-tempered Jonah—would have Nineveh perish, God gave
it as the reason why Nineveh should not be destroyed, that there were in it
more than six score thousand [120,000] infants, — persons, he said, who knew
not their right hand from their left. If he spared Nineveh that their mortal
life might be spared, think you that their immortal souls shall be needlessly
cast away? I only put it to your own reason. It is not a case where we need
much argument. Would your God cast away an infant? If yours could, I am happy
to say he is not the God that I adore. – C.H.S.
And when he
had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they
cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not
judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? [Rev. 6:9-10]
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