As Pastor Brian began a new mini-series on the Christian Family, he dealt with two implications of Ephesians 6:1:
1) The Apostle Paul Assumed That Children Would Be Present With Their Families In Church
2) The Apostle Paul Assumed That Children Could Be Saved.
Therefore, we need to beware of believing children don’t need to be saved, of not evangelizing children, and using unBiblical decisionistic methods to evangelize our children.
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The Duty Of Children
Ephesians 6:1-3
The Duke of Windsor once quipped, “The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.”
Pastor Ligon Duncan told a story in one of his sermons about a 14 year old girl and her mother. The mother called Pastor Duncan to tell him that her daughter was giving her fits about coming to church. The father was not involved, but the mother was very concerned because the girl was going to a church that the mother did not approve of. The mom said to Pastor Duncan, “What do I do?” He said, “Now, let me just ask a question. Let’s see. She’s 14. She’s not driving. Right? Now how is she getting to this church?” “Well, I mean, I’m taking her.” “OK. Well, here’s an idea about how you could get her to not go to that church: DON’T TAKE HER THERE!” And the mom’s response was, “I can do that?” The biblical answer is, “Yes, of course you can do that!” You’re the parent and the biblical order, especially in Christian homes, is not, “Parents, obey your children,” but rather, “Children, obey your parents.”
One of the worst expressions of human depravity in our day and age is the widespread disobedience and disrespect of children toward their parents. It is absolutely rampant today. You can’t watch television very long before you see it displayed before your eyes. You can’t watch cartoons without seeing the mother or father of the cartoon character displayed as a bumbling idiot, while the children are the ones with all the wisdom for each situation. If that isn’t enough, all you have to do is take a trip to the local Mall, and if you keep your ears and eyes open you will see disrespect, defiance, and even hatred of children toward their parents when the parents say “No” to their child.
One authority on the subject has written, “In the U.S. At least 8 million serious assaults are made each year by children on their parents. In recent years, a number of children have been convicted of murdering or hiring the killing of their parents, usually for no greater reason than resentment of parental control or discipline.”
Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:1-2, “ But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” The sin of disobedience to parents is listed as one of the hallmarks of the evil of those living in the lat days.
Then again, in Romans 1:18-32, the apostle Paul describes the downward spiral of human depravity. He says that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You see, they are suppressing the truth of God’s very existence. God has made His existence evident to every person, but many people suppress it. They stuff it down. They deny it, because they do not want to consider the fact that they are accountable to their Creator. Then three times, in verse 24, 26 and 28 the text says “God gave them over…” Rather than restrain mankind from expressing their depravity, God gave them over to exercise their depravity. And notice how that depravity is seen in verses 28-32, “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
Now, notice several things from that passage. First, disobedience to parents is listed smack dab in the middle of a number of other sins, including murder, and haters of God. Second, the Bible teaches that those people who practice such sins are worthy of death.
Now, where would Paul get the idea that children who practice disobeying their parents are worthy of death? Exodus 21:15 says, “He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says, “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, `This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.´ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.”
Children, just because we no longer kill children who disobey their parents, does not lessen the seriousness of this sin. If you are in the habit of disobeying your parents, you need to know that this is great wickedness and makes you very guilty in the sight of God.
Now, this morning we are going to begin a mini-series on the duties of children and parents in a Christian home. We will begin where Paul does – the duties of children. Then, we will follow up with the duties of parents, especially fathers.
We are going to begin by looking at two indirect implications that arise from verse 1.
1. Paul Assumed That Children Would Worship With Their Parents
Notice verse 1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” All we need is the very first word – “children.” The word “children” is in the vocative case. That means that Paul is speaking directly to them. Paul spoke directly to the wives in 5:22-24. Then he switched gears and spoke directly to husbands in 5:25-33. Now, he has again switched audiences, and is speaking directly to the children. When the Ephesian church gathered together and this letter was read, Paul assumed that the children would be present and would hear it read along with the rest of the church. It is obvious that in the early churches that Paul planted, the children worshiped together with all of the rest of the church.
Did you know that this has been how God’s people have gathered together to worship for centuries – until about 150 years ago? When the children of Israel gathered together, the children gathered with their parents.
In Joshua 8, Joshua called the people of Israel together to worship the Lord because of the military victory He had given them at Ai. Notice verse 34-35, “Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.” If Joshua read all the law, that would include most of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. That would have been a long worship service! And notice who was present in verse 35, “There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who where living among them.” The “little ones” were present. The Hebrew word is the word we would use of toddlers. Today, we think our kids can’t sit through a worship service for a couple of hours. Nonsense!
In 2 Chronicles 20, King Jehoshaphat gathers the people together to pray and fast because three enemy armies are coming up against them. Notice verse 13, “All Judah was standing before the Lord, with their infants, their wives and their children.” These children were there, not for skits or a puppet show. They were there for prayer and fasting.
In other words, the children in the early church were not separated off with other children their own age, while their parents were hearing the word of God preached. There were no “children’s churches” in existence in the first century. There was no Sunday School in existence. There was no Awana program. There was no age segregated classes in the church. The entire church worshiped together.
I believe there is great wisdom in this, for several reasons.
First, because the Bible clearly teaches us that preaching is the divinely ordained means of conversion. Notice 1 Corinthians 1:21, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” How does God ordinarily save those who believe? Through the preached message. I know that God sometimes saves people in other ways, but His ordinary means of conversion is the preaching of the Word. Why then, would we want to shuffle our kids off to another room where they won’t hear the Word preached authoritatively at all? Yes, it is true that they will learn Bible truths and stories, but there is something different about the Word preached.
Second, children learn as much by what they see as by what they hear. What do children see, when the whole family worships together? They see Mom and Dad singing to the Lord. They see them praying. They see them sharing Scripture and testimonies. They see them listening to the preaching of God’s Word and taking notes. In short, they see Mom and Dad taking their Christian faith seriously. And this provides a positive example for their little ones.
Some object that children don’t understand what is going on so it is meaningless to bring include them in the worship service. I do agree that when a child is very young, perhaps up to age 4 or 5, it is probably best to have a place they can be taken care of so that they are not distracting others in the meeting. However, at about the age of 5 or so, I believe that most children can be trained to participate in a worship service, and they will benefit from it. Now, it is true that small children are not going to understand everything that is preached. However, I don’t think that the adults understand everything that is preached either! When you first got interested in baseball, you didn’t understand everything either. You learned little by little, the rules of the game. The first time you heard a sportscaster talking about ground rule doubles, and base on balls, and that there were two on and two out with a 3 and 2 count, so the runners will be going, you didn’t get mad and say, “Forget it! Just forget it! I’m not going to watch baseball any more because I don’t understand all these things!” No, you realized that you would gradually learn more and more about the game the longer you watched and listened. The same is true when it comes to church. At first, our little children understand very little. But they will gradually learn more and more and the things preached will become more and more relevant to their lives the more they attend the services.
Another objection people often make to bringing the children into a worship service is that their children can’t sit still and quiet for a lengthy period of time. I agree – they can’t (right now). And the reason they can’t is because we haven’t trained them to and don’t expect them to. The training grounds for corporate worship is the time they spend in family worship at home. Dads, do you regularly gather the family together for family worship? That is the place to train your children to be respectful and well-behaved, as Dad reads from the Bible, and prayer is offered, and perhaps a song is sung. If we take the training of our children seriously, they can be taught to behave themselves in a worship service without distracting everyone around them.
Folks, we have had classes for the young children up until the age of 6. Your goal as a Mom or Dad should be to train your children so that if they are 7 years old or older, they can begin to sit with you in worship. We understand that this is a process, and that it may take some time, but that is the goal that we should be shooting for.
2. Paul Assumed That Children Could Be Saved
Now, why do I say that? For several reasons.
First, because of who Paul addressed this letter to. Ephesians 1:2 says he wrote “to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Paul was writing to Christians. This is not an evangelistic letter. It is a letter to the saints.
Second, because of the immediate context in which we find Ephesians 6:1-3. In Ephesians 5:18, Paul tells the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit. Then, he tells them what that will look like. They will speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their heart to the lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Then, from Ephesians 5:22 – 6:9, Paul fleshes out how different kinds of people are to subject themselves to one another. First he instructs wives how they are to subject themselves to their own husbands in 5:22-24. Then, he instructs children how they are to subject themselves to their parents in 6:1-3. Finally, he teaches slaves how they are to subject themselves to their masters in 6:5-8. Thus, when Paul writes and says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” he is writing to children that are saved and filled with the Spirit. How does a Spirit-filled child live out his faith? By obeying his parents.
A third reason I believe Paul was writing to saved children comes in Ephesians 6:1. It is the little phrase “in the Lord.” Children, obey your parents “in the Lord”. Now, what does he mean by that? He doesn’t mean that they are to obey their parents who are in the Lord, but can disobey their parents if they are not in the Lord. Rather, he means the same thing that the wives and the slaves were told. In 5:22 Paul wrote, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” In 6:5 Paul wrote, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ.” So, when Paul wrote that children must obey their parents in the Lord, he meant that they were to obey them as they would obey the Lord. They were to obey their parents because they belong to the Lord; because of their relationship to the Lord.
This tells us something very, very important. Children can be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. This leads us to some very important implications.
- We Must Beware of Believing Children Don’t Need to be Saved. There is a myth running rampant in Christian circles that children are saved until they reach some mysterious age of accountability. Now, no one is quite sure what that age is. Some say 12, others say 10 or 7 or 5 or 3. The problem is that the Bible is silent about this age of accountability. What the Bible does teach very clearly is that from the moment of conception, a person is a sinner. He has inherited guilt of Adam’s sin, and the corruption of Adam’s nature. They are born children of wrath. Psalm 58:3 says, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; these who speak lies go astray from birth.” Psalm 51:5 says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” All men come into this world spiritually dead, cut off from God, helpless and hopeless, apart from divine grace. Our good friend, Howard McIlwraith, once received a card congratulating him on the birth of his little angel. Howard turned to us and smirked, “It should have read, ‘Congratulations on the birth of your little sinner!” And you know what – Howard was absolutely right. Babies are not born angels. They are born sinners. And they demonstrate that fact as soon as they are born. They are utterly self-consumed and self-centered. They don’t care if you are dog tired, or busy with other things. When they are hungry or need to be changed, they will scream and cry until you take care of their needs. When they get old enough to talk, one of their first words is “mine!” Another one is “No!” Almost as soon as they can speak, they begin to tell lies. Now, tell me, how in the world did they learn how to do that? Did you teach them to lie? On the contrary, you did your best to always model truthfulness, and you surrounded them with other people who were honest and true. Then, how did they know to lie? It was in their nature to do so!
The Minnesota Crime Commission wrote these words,
Our children are not innocent, and they are not neutral. They have sinful, depraved hearts, which cause them to sin against God.
- We Must Beware Of Not Evangelizing Children. In some Christian circles, this is very prominent. Children are not evangelized, because it is considered a waste of time, until they are at least 16-18 years old.
- We Must Beware Of Using Unbiblical Decisionistic Methods to Evangelize Children. This, by FAR, is our error in the Evangelical Church today! We press children to make their “decision” for Christ, and will stoop to use almost any means. I have heard of ministers coaxing the children to answer an altar call by putting candy bars on the chairs in the front of the auditorium. Often parents will ask their children, “Billy, would you like to go to heaven? That’s where Mommy and Daddy are going when they die? Would you like to come to heaven with Mommy and Daddy and Jesus? You don’t want to go to hell do you?” Little Billy nods his head gravely. The Mommy or Daddy parrot what they have heard so often, “OK, Billy, just repeat after me. Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I believe Christ died for my sins. I accept you into my heart as my personal Savior now and will never doubt whether I am your child ever again. Amen.” At that point, the child is encouraged to confess that they are a Christian, have become a child of God and are headed for heaven, and should never doubt it again. And through this unbiblical decisionistic method of evangelism, we have deceived millions of children into believing they are saved, when they are no more saved than the man in the moon! 99 out of 100 of these children will go on to demonstrate that they have no love for God or His Word, or prayer, or righteousness, or the salvation of souls. That’s why, as soon as the child is able to make his own decisions, he leaves the church, and any semblance of spiritual life, and goes off into a life of sin. If he were converted as a child, he would love righteousness and hate sin. His headlong pursuit of sin proves he was never converted to begin with.
- Children, You Must Be Converted or Damned. By “converted”, I mean that you must experience God’s saving work changing your heart. God must show you that your heart is evil, that you are a sinner, and are under God’s judgment. Until that happens, you will never be saved. Once you realize you are a sinner, you must turn away from all sin in your life, and turn to Jesus Christ, trusting Him to save you. You understand that He died as a punishment for sin. You understand that He rose from the dead, demonstrating that God the Father accepted His punishment for sin. Jesus said, “unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Children, you must be born again. Don’t think that just because you have a Mom and a Dad who are Christians, that means you are going to heaven. It means no such thing. You must become a Christian yourself. You must believe on Jesus Christ and follow Him yourself. So, how old do you have to be to become a Christian? You need to be old enough to understand that you are a sinner. You need to be old enough to understand that Jesus died for your sins, and rose from the dead. You need to be old enough to commit your life to following Him. In the final analysis, God saves sinners. Mommy and Daddy can’t save you. The Pastor can’t save you. And you can’t even save you. God has to save you. And when He does, your heart will change, your life will change. You will love Him, and want to please Him with all your heart.
May God do that work in some child’s heart this morning! Let’s pray.
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