Transcript
All right, we’re reading in Matthew, chapter 18, and I’ll read verses 1 and 2.
“At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, ‘Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them and,” as verse 3 says, “and said. . .”
Now the disciples come to the Lord Jesus Christ with an interesting question. They say, “Who’s the greatest person in the kingdom of heaven?”
I assume that they’ve been exclusive of You, the King, so what they’re probably talking about is, “Who’s the greatest person other than the Messiah or the Christ?” Or, to put it more personally, they’re probably trying to decide which of them is the most important in the kingdom.
And since I had the object lessons in the Vacation Bible School, I’m impressed by the fact that Jesus chose to do the teaching of this chapter with an object lesson. The object lesson was a child.
And He takes this child, and He sets him in the midst of His disciples, and He proceeds to teach His lesson.
Now, we’re going to read down through from verse 3 through verse 14, and I want to suggest to you that the presentation that Jesus makes here on the subject of children can be divided into three units. We’ll probably stop with each unit to talk about what that unit contains.
First of all, there’s an introductory unit that is found in verses 3 to 5 that sets out some very fundamental principles that bounce off of this object lesson of the child. Then in verses 6 through 9, it seems to me that Jesus is expressing His concern for little children who are believers in Him.
And then in verses 10 through 14 Jesus is expressing His concern for all little children, whether believers in Him or not.
All right, let’s take it from that standpoint. We’ll read the first unit, the kind of introduction to this lesson.
Here is this little child standing right in front of the disciples, and He says,
Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And,
Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.
All right, His first statement has to do with entrance into the kingdom of heaven. And He says you have to become like little children to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
What does that mean? Well, of course, we know that the way into the kingdom of God, the way into the kingdom of heaven, is through simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through believing in Him for eternal life.
And one of the things that you observe by working with children—we certainly observed it at the Vacation Bible School—is they come. And when you tell them that there’s nothing they can do to earn their way to heaven, that Jesus paid their way to heaven, all that they need to do is believe, you know that’s clear stuff to them.
You don’t get very many objections to that if you can quote scriptures. Now if you had an audience of adults, “What if? Do you also have to. . .?” etc., etc.
And so obviously, as I trust this church realizes, in order to be saved we have to take the simple attitude of a child and just simply trust the promise that the Lord Jesus Christ makes to us.
One of my favorites, and one that we use here in the Vacation Bible School, is John 6:47:
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
It’s hard to say it much more simply than that. And Jesus is saying, “You can trust Me for eternal life.”
Now what He tells His disciples first of all is that childlikeness—in this case, simple belief, like a child—is the condition for entering the kingdom of heaven.
But now notice, “Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
This is the second issue. The first issue is the simplicity of childlike faith that is required to get in. But to be great in the kingdom of heaven, you have to humble yourself as a little child.
Do you know what the biggest problem in Christian churches is today? It isn’t immorality. It isn’t lying and cheating, although all of these things go on in churches, of course.
The biggest problem in Christian churches today is pride.
So what happens? “Somebody in my church looked at me kind of nasty this week, and I spoke to them, and what did they do? They cut me to pieces, and I resent it. I don’t have to put up with that.”
What’s been hurt? Their pride, their pride.
And fundamental to virtually every Christian virtue is humility. And one of the things that all of us have to ask ourselves is, when people cross us, what is it that we really object to? Is it the fact that I have been crossed? Is it the fact that I have been criticized?
Is it the fact that my dignity in the church has been lowered, and I’m not recognized as the person I ought to be recognized as? Or do we say, “I wonder if this person, if I can help this person? I wonder if there’s a problem they have that is the source of this?”
See what I’m saying? Righteousness in the kingdom of heaven depends on childlike humility.
You know, one of the things you find out about children is they do lie, and they do cheat. And they do a lot of things that you don’t approve of, but you know it’s really hard to find a little kid that’s proud in the adult sense of that word, that thinks they’re great stuff.
I know you’ll find a few exceptions to everything. But by and large, pride is something that comes into the window in our adult life, where we now want respect. We want. . . .
Speaking as a pastor, therefore, who’s been in the pastorate for many years, I can assure you that pride is one of the great problems in the Christian church. And nobody will ever be great in the kingdom of Heaven who allows pride to diminish their effectiveness significantly for God.
I suppose we’ll never ever bury all of our pride. I have told the story before about Mr. English Fleming who was in his 90s, and I heard him holding forth one day, and he was a very, very godly man.
And I heard him say, “I would not rest my hope of heaven on the very best moment of my life.” And as a young man, I said that, “You know, if anybody has ever had a good moment—you know, just a moment—this guy had a good moment.”
And then he went on to say that even in his finest spiritual moments he could feel the movement of spiritual pride. You know, like the farmer who went into the barn to humble himself, and when he came out the first thought that crossed his mind was, “I don’t think anybody has ever humbled themselves as much as I have.”
Pride is a very difficult enemy to defeat. Let’s not kid ourselves. All of us are vulnerable to it, and it disrupts our relationships with each other, it disrupts our relationships with God.
And it is essential, if we are aiming for greatness in the kingdom, to work on humility, and to be humble like a little child.
And then He says, “Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”
This is surprising. We had, I think, on our best night out here, we had 27 kids, which is not a large group compared to some of the Vacation Bible schools we’ve had in the past.
But you know something? We received all 27 of them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, did we not, welcomed them here? I think everybody who participated did that.
Did we realize that as we were doing that we were receiving Jesus 27 times into our meeting? “Whoever receives one of these little ones, one of these little children, is receiving Me. I am closely associated with the little child,” is what Jesus is saying. “So if you treat him well, I consider that you’re treating Me well.”
Now in verses 6 through 9 He’s going to talk to us about protecting the child who believes in Him.
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin. . .” Now this is the translation of the New King James Version. Probably all of us have it.
The old King James translated this with the word “offend.” But that’s not real good either because “offend” means, you know, to hurt my feelings or something now in modern language.
And perhaps it—this is not the normal word for “sin” in the language. This is a word—I don’t give you many Greek words—but this one is worth giving you—escandalidzo. We get our word “scandal” from it, and you scandalized somebody—the word comes from that.
And so it might be better to, since the idea of a trap seems to be involved in this, it might be better to translate this verse, “Whoever trips this little kid up spiritually is what we’re apparently talking about.
But whoever trips up one of these little ones who believe in Me, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
That’s a pretty stern statement, but it’s a warning that people who cause significant spiritual difficulties to Christian children will be subject to God with retributive judgment and severe enough that He says really what’s coming on them is not as bad as having a millstone put around your neck and being dropped into the ocean.
So this is an expression of our Lord’s deep concern for believing children. And we know that there are children who go back into homes, for example, where neither parent is a believer, and they move in all sorts of environments where they’re exposed to all sorts of evil things.
And the Lord is aware of all these dangers that they face, and He takes His concern for Christian believing children very seriously. And He pays back those who do not share that concern with Him and who tripped up the child.
Now in verses 7 to 9, it seems to me that Jesus adds a little bit of a footnote here.
“Woe to the world because of offenses!” This is the same word, scandalizations, we could say, or “tripping-ups,” if there were such a word. That’s not a very good English word.
“For scandalizations, or tripping-ups, must come, but woe to that man by whom the tripping-up comes! And if your hand or foot trips you up, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire.
If your eye trips you up, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell.”
And now, you understand in the ancient books, they didn’t have what we have today in terms of footnotes. And if you’ve all read books with footnotes, as with the little number “one”—and you look down the bottom of the page, you look at the back of the chapter.
And I think myself that 7 to 9 are a kind of a little digression—a little footnote that Jesus is adding. “Woe to the world because of offenses.”
When we’re talking about offenses or we’re talking about tripping up believing children, we’re talking about things the world does primarily—not that Christians couldn’t do it, but we’re talking about something that comes more often than not from unsaved people.
So He says, “Woe to the world because of these offenses.” It’s necessary for them to come, God has His purposes in allowing them, but woe to the individual who trips up a believing child.
And then He warns the people like this that they can trip themselves up. He says, “If your hand or foot trips you up, cut off the hand or foot. If your eye trips you up, pluck the eye out, because it’s better to go to heaven—go into the kingdom of God—maimed than to go into the eternal fire with two hands, two feet, two eyes.”
Now obviously the Lord Jesus is using what we call metaphor—a figure of speech—and I don’t think He really meant that human beings should cut off their hands or their feet or pluck out their eyes literally.
But I think what He’s talking about is this: that when we deal with unsaved people, even though there are no conditions to getting saved beyond believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, lots and lots of unsaved people are kept from getting saved because of sinful practices which are in their lives.
Oh, there is something they are doing, or there’s someplace they like to go, or there’s something they’ve got their eye on. And they—you know, people will actually say to you, “You know, I know I need to get right with God, but I’m not ready now. I’m still sowing my wild oats. I still want to live my life. You know, maybe when I get older I’ll straighten out.”
And so there’s a sense in which what they’re doing, the hand is tripping them up; or where they’re going, their foot is tripping them up; or what they’ve got their focus on is tripping them up.
And Jesus is saying, “Don’t let that happen. Take ruthless action.”
What would obviously be involved? If a person were to say to me, “Zane, I would like to get saved, but I don’t want to give up my drinking,” I could say to him, “You don’t have to give up your drinking to get saved,” and that would be perfectly true.
But then he might say to me, “I don’t think I can get saved if I don’t give up my drinking,” or, “I just don’t believe I could accept salvation and still plan to drink.”
So he’s mixed up there, but people actually can tell you things like that. And then you can say to them, “You know, it would be better not to ever drink another drop of liquor than go to hell.”
Or somebody’ll say, “You know, I’ve got a thing with pornography. I like pornography.” So it would be better not to have any eyesight.
So if there are things that are stopping you from coming to God, from trusting God, then push them aside. I think that’s the point that Jesus is making here in this.
And remember, whenever Jesus talked to groups of people, there were usually unsaved people there. And even if He had only 12 disciples there, who was there unsaved? Judas. There was a place for the gospel there.
So what I think Jesus is doing in this section is saying, “First of all, I’m concerned for the believing child, and I am warning anybody who trips up the believing child that their punishment will be severe. And that is especially a warning to the world.
And I also want to add to the world the warning that they can trip up themselves. Their hand, their foot, their eye, they could keep themselves out of the kingdom.”
Now He returns to the subject of children in verses 10 through 14.
“Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones.” Notice that at this point He does not say, “One of these little ones who believe in Me.” “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones,” with no qualification.
“For I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.”
This is a kind of a surprising statement and one that I am convinced we don’t think of very often. And then Jesus is telling us here that every little child has an angel that represents them in the presence of God.
Now the picture there’s drawn here is like a throne room or a courtroom scene. The royal sovereign is up there, and some people can’t get in except once a week. Some people can’t get in except on special types of business.
But other people have access to the great king at any time that they want to. That’s the way oriental courts work. So we’re thinking of God, the King of the universe, and Jesus is saying, “The angels who represent little children get in to God anytime they want.”
Can you think of any more profound expression of God’s concern and love for children than that—that the angels who represent them have continuous access to Him on their behalf?
But there’s also another reason. “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” As deeply concerned as God is with children, it is also true that children are lost, they’re lost.
And in coming into this world, Jesus had in mind the children, along with everybody else. So there are two reasons here for Jesus saying, “Look, here’s a little child,” not specifying a believer or not, but just a little child.
“Don’t despise this little child. Don’t look down your nose at this little child. His angel gets in to God anytime he wants to, and I came to die for this child.” The Son of Man came to save.
“What do you think?” (verse 12) “If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.
Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
Now here the image changes a little bit, but we’re essentially talking about the same truth. Now children are seen as the Lord’s flock of sheep.
You’ve all seen those pictures, have you not, of Jesus with a shepherd’s crook in His hand and little kids around Him? That’s a good, insightful picture, because what this is suggesting to us is that the children of the world are the special concern of the Shepherd.
They’re like His flock. “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the children of the world.”
And it’s a beautiful thought about Jesus, and He is concerned because, see, that’s their angels there. Jesus is concerned because He died, He came into the world to die and save them. But He’s also concerned with their well-being in the same way a shepherd is.
Now we all know what happens to little children. . . . We also believe, do we not—I’m assuming that we do—even though we don’t have much direct revelation on this, that if a child dies unsaved before the age of accountability, that they’re safe somehow.
We don’t know what God plans for them, and we don’t want to get into that here. But we all know what happens to children as they grow up.
The kids that we had in here for the Vacation Bible School, I mean it would be hard to find kids more open to God, don’t you agree? You know, maybe you had a few rowdies. But if you got the rowdies who came, they could listen, too.
If the story’s interesting enough, they can listen to it. And it’s amazing that we’ve had this experience from the beginning of our church history, that kids, you know, once you’ve got their attention with spiritual things.
But as they grow older and get older, the world out there starts calling them, right? They kind of drift away. And the danger is that they will get caught so far into sin that they’ll never get back to God.
And so here the image is that here’s this flock of little sheep, and one little sheep sort of wanders away from the flock, and the shepherd goes looking for it, and that he’s happier over it than the ones that didn’t go astray because he did this sheep and its. . . .
“. . .it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
I would assume that what is indicated here is that in going after them, He goes after them with the message of the gospel, brings them back to Himself and to God through their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.