For awhile now, I have had a desire to talk about young children, or believing children, and what the Bible has to say about that. But for some reason, I kept putting it off because, you know, we have children here, but we know that a lot of times, like when I would hear a message that was related to things that were not too pertinent to me, you know, it kind of would make you drift away sometimes.
But, actually, this is very important. It is really important. It is extremely important that we take the time to see what the Bible says about our children, because, well, we know that the day is fast approaching, the time of the end of this world. And, you know, it is going to impact young ones, as well as the adults, as well as every other person. And I think that in this world today, with all the gadgets and all the things that are available, it is not only the world that is being distracted, but many children in believing families are being distracted by games, movies, all kinds of electronic gadgets, iPods, you name it, you name it, it is available today, computers, and there is a huge distraction.
This is related to what God was saying in the parable of the sower, where you sow the seed. Now we keep throwing seed out, and some of these children are in homes where they are listening to the Bible on the radio, they are listening to the Gospel on the radio, they may even be in a faithful group or have faithful parents and their parents are bringing the Bible to them.
So the seed is being sown, and there is nothing wrong with the seed. It is perfect, it is pure, and it has the power to bring to life. But we are sowing seed, and then, a lot of times parents are allowing these same children that are under the hearing of the Gospel these other things, these electronic things that are very distracting…movies, but, you know, it is just G-rated…it starts with G, then you go to PG…or these kinds of things, and it is snatching away the seed.
So it is taking away the seed, and it is not good ground. All kinds of rocks and thorns and thistles are there from the world. The world has infiltrated the hearts of these children through the allowance, in many cases, of the parents. And I am guilty. I am guilty, and I have a feeling that so are some others.
And so, you know, it is very important that we look at what the Bible says about believing children, and also a teenage believer. A teenage believer—those are the years of rebellion. Those are the years when kids are going their own way a lot of times.
Well, let us just read some verses, beginning in Genesis 37:2. It says:
These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old…
He was seventeen. He was a teenager.
We have to go over to chapter 39 to really see the character of Joseph. We know that his brothers threw him into a pit and that he was sold as a slave into Egypt, into Potiphar’s house. But here in Genesis 39, after being in Potiphar’s house, we do not know exactly how old he was. He was seventeen when he was taken there, and he had a good reputation in the house. He found grace in the sight of Potiphar, and Potiphar gave him a lot of responsibility.
Then look at Genesis 39:7:
And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.
Now there is a temptation, the same temptation that we have today. Nothing has really changed, in that sense, that is why Ecclesiastes says “there is no new thing under the sun.”
We wonder about that because we have all of these new technological gadgets, but it is the same sins that are beneath everything in the world, just like in the days of Joseph. You have the sin of lying and the sin of stealing and the sin of lust and killing and anger and so forth, and it is the same thing. It is nothing new. You can sin in different ways, or the outworking of sin is different, but it is the same sin. It is lust.
And here is a seventeen-year old, the last age reference that God gave us. He is definitely a very young man at this point. Maybe he is eighteen, nineteen, or twenty. I do not know. And his master’s wife says, “Lie with me.” Nobody is in the house. Nobody is in the house. He is all alone. Him. Her. And God.
And look, in Genesis 39:8-9:
But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand; there is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?
He is not thirty; he is not forty here. He is not a grown man. He is a teenager, in all likelihood. He is a very young man who has principles that God gave him, because they do not come naturally. They do not come into the hearts of many human beings. He has principles and a moral character and an integrity that was infused into him, because God saved him and gave him a new heart and a new Spirit that desired to do the will of God and delighted in God’s Word.
He would have been strange; he would have been out of the ordinary amongst the other teenagers of his day, just like anyone who has those same principles today would definitely be an oddball amongst the teenagers of the world. And yet, he is a child of God. He is a true believer, and he refuses. Later, he “fled, and got him out.” He ran away. He ran out of that house. God tested him; God tried him; and as a result of this, he is thrown into prison.
But despite the consequences, despite that it is his master’s wife and that he is a slave and she wants something that many men, young men, would have eagerly gone after, he says, “No. I cannot sin against God and do this particular sin.” But nobody was around. Nobody would have known. Well, but God, and Joseph had the understanding that God was, of course, aware of all that was going on.
Well, let us also look in 1 Samuel 2, and this is for the younger children. In 1 Samuel 2, we read of the prophet Samuel who began his ministry at a very early age. We do not know how old he was. At least, I cannot see it. But it says in 1 Samuel 2:11:
And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto JEHOVAH before Eli the priest.
And then in 1 Samuel 2:18:
But Samuel ministered before JEHOVAH, being a child, girded with a linen ephod.
And 1 Samuel 2:26:
And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with JEHOVAH, and also with men.
From a very young child, he was serving the Lord, doing the Lord’s ministry, and he did it all of his life. He did this all of his life. He was saved at a young age, like John the Baptist was saved in the womb when he leaped for joy and served God all of his life.
Poor, poor children. Is it not terrible! They did not get a chance to enjoy the world! Is that not awful? Oh, do we really feel that way about our children who are in a Gospel home, who are blessed beyond measure because they are hearing the Word of God, because they are hearing the Gospel? Do we pity them that they cannot run around like the children of the world and do all of the things that those children are doing in the world?
You know, that is a big, big deceitful way of thinking for parents. And yet, we are prone to deceit. We are prone to fall into traps, where we get into wrong ways of thinking and we allow things, because we feel sorry for our children, “Oh, that is terrible! That is terrible!”
Was Samuel really hindered? Was he an abused child because he was in the temple of the Lord, because he was serving God all of his days? Or was he supremely blessed? And John the Baptist? Were they not really, truthfully, honestly, supremely blessed children, that they could serve God? And, you know, they, of course, missed out on a lot of the pleasures of sin and the accompanying misery that comes with sin.
Well, let us also take a look in Samuel at 1 Samuel 17:32. It says there:
And David said to Saul, Let no man’s heart fail because of him…
This is the account of Goliath, when Goliath was coming before Israel and said, “Give me a man, that we may fight together,” and he “presented himself forty days.” He was setting himself up as an enemy of Israel, an enemy of God, and all of the Israelites who were soldiers feared this giant. And yet, David said to Saul in 1 Samuel 17:32-33:
Let no man’s heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.
You see, David is a young boy, and we know it. Look at verse 42. I do not know if he was fifteen or sixteen or seventeen, or whatever he was, but look at 1 Samuel 17:42:
And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance.
What a picture that would have been! What was Goliath, nine feet plus? And full of armor, a spear, a sword. And here, the only one, the only one—and, of course, God gave him the strength—but the only one who had the guts to trust in God and to come forth and to face the giant was a teenager in all likelihood. A teenager! A young boy! A youth! And here is this “man of war from his youth” who just disdains him. This is incredible! This is so ridiculous. And Goliath says, “I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air.”
But, of course, we know what happens. God used a young boy to bring down a giant. David brought him down, he cut off his head, and he is the one, this youth, who walked up to King Saul with the giant’s head in his hand.
I know that there are pictures, spiritual pictures, of the Gospel and of the Lord Jesus Christ involved here, and that Goliath and the Philistines represent the enemies of the Gospel and Satan himself. But it also, historically, truly happened. Here was a young boy who just simply believed God, trusted in God, had faith in God, and God used him to win a great victory.
Of course, there are no battles like that going on today. Or are there? Every time we go out to hand out tracts, it is similar. It is not the same, but it is a spiritual battle. We go out with Greg and his sons sometimes and you see this little boy, this little boy, like Nehemiah or Jacob or Isaiah, and he has a tract in his hand and here comes this big person walking down the street, and they receive the tract at the hand of this little guy.
Well, there is an assault against the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of darkness, and God could be pleased, no, not to use the tracts, the hundreds of thousands of tracts that a big adult person handed out, but maybe that one tract that this little one handed to that mean-looking man walking down the streets of Philadelphia, maybe God is going to use that one tract to break that person’s heart and to bring him to his knees.
Is that not how God works? He does not use the mighty. He does not use the wise. He uses “the foolish things of the world” and the things that are despised, just like Goliath disdained the youth. God works that way, and I hope, I hope that there are some children who are thinking as we are talking, “What can I do, like Samuel, to serve the Lord, to minister? What can I do to just serve God in whatever way God would have me to serve Him?”
Let us continue on. Let us go to 2 Kings 5, beginning in verse 1. This is the story of Naaman, the Syrian, who had leprosy. 2 Kings 5:1-4:
Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him JEHOVAH had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid…
That is like the feminine of a Hebrew word that is translated “babe,” “boy,” “child,” or “lad.” So, again, I do not know how old she was, but she was a young girl. She was “a little maid”:
…and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.
So she was used of God also, a girl, a young girl, to witness the truth of the Gospel, to share the Word of God with those around her. And we do know that as a result of this, Naaman went to Israel and was healed of his leprosy, so she contributed. As God used her, she contributed, really, to the salvation of Naaman, as we see that he wanted to serve God and not the Syrian gods anymore.
Well, there are all kinds of examples in the Bible. Look at Daniel, and this will be the last one that I go to, in Daniel 1. Actually, some of the most faithful people in the Bible, the most faithful, were children, at least when they began. They became old. But Joseph, Daniel, Samuel, they were children and they were faithful children.
In Daniel 1:3:
And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king’s seed, and of the princes;
We know that they were going to feed them Babylonian dishes and Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego purposed not to eat these foods. Daniel 1:8-9:
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.
This is just another demonstration of faith by young people, faith by teenagers, faith. And it is such a pleasure to read about.
You know, I have to say that what I am saying about teenage believers or young believers, I am saying this because the Bible says it, because I do not have any understanding of it in my life personally. I was not a child believer. I was not a teenage believer at all.
You know, normally, I do not like to talk about myself, because I have heard many messages from people who seem to really like to talk about themselves, and then that kind of takes up all of the time and you do not have time to hear what God says in His Word. And so, I really make an effort to not use personal stories or to say things about myself, because God should be the focus. But, in this case, I am hoping that it does tie in, in a sense, as a negative example, compared to what we are reading here in the Bible about these children.
Let us go to one more place. Let us go to 2 Chronicles 34. This is speaking about Josiah in verse 1. 2 Chronicles 34:1:
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.
So he would be 39 when he died, which is 3 x 13. And this is very significant, because it relates to 13,000 years of history, which we know fell in 1988.
Also concerning Josiah, in 2 Chronicles 34:8:
Now in the eighteenth year of his reign…
How old would he be, if he began to rein when he was eight and it is the eighteenth year of his reign? Children? 8 + 18 = 26. He was twenty-six, and how do you break down twenty-six? How do you divide twenty-six? 2 x 13.
So he died at 39, 3 x 13, and God makes a point in verse 8, if we were to read it all, that in the “eighteenth year of his reign,” when he was twenty-six, which is 2 x 13, they discovered the Book of the Law in the temple.
How they lost the Bible, I do not know. I do not know. It does not tell us. But they lost the book of Moses. They lost the Scriptures, and they discovered them in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.
Again, that is pointing to our day, because we are finding the Bible. We just discovered the Bible, because God had “closed up and sealed” His Scriptures “till the time of the end,” and it is after 13,000 years of history. After that first 2300-year period, God opens up the Scriptures, and it is like we re just learning everything anew, just like they were discovering the Word of God.
Well, anyway, Josiah has a lot to do, spiritually, with our present day. And here, he is eight years old when he begins his association, as far as we know, with the Kingdom of God, as king. And it says in 2 Chronicles 34:2:
And he did that which was right in the sight of JEHOVAH, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.
The Bible tells us, when it uses this kind of language, it is talking about God’s commandments, straight ahead. If you go astray to the right, if you go astray to the left, then you are going away from the commandments of God. But he:
…walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.
Then 2 Chronicles 34:3:
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father…
How old was he? If he was eight when he began to reign and in the eighth year of his reign he began to seek after God, how old was he? Sixteen. Another teenager who also happens to be the greatest king, probably (it sure looks like it), who ever reigned over Israel or Judah. And maybe we will look at that a little bit.
But, you see, when he was eight, he was under the hearing of the Gospel and he was blessed, or he was, at least, associated with the Gospel. And then when he was sixteen, he began to believe God.
(No questions were asked pertaining to this study.)