SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/18/2012 12:39:16 PM
Adult
Shall Be as Children (Mark 10:13-16): “13 And they were bringing children to Him so that
He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw
this, He was indignant and said to them, "Permit the children to come to
Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 “Truly
I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not
enter it at all." 16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them,
laying His hands on them.”
In this second SD on the tenth
chapter of the gospel of Mark we will look at children and why it is important
for adults to be like children. I want
to remind you of what was said in the last SD pertaining to how all of the
Spiritual Diaries will flow throughout this tenth chapter of Mark by quoting a
section that Dr. Wiersbe wrote at the very end of his introductory commentary: “He (Jesus) could have preached long sermons;
but instead, He gave us these five important lessons that can be expressed in
five succinct, paradoxical statements.”
“A paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself and yet
expresses a valid truth or principle.”
We move from the section on divorce
to look at a short section on children and how the Lord viewed children. This is not the first time that the Lord
spoke of children or the first time that His disciples tried to stop the children
for coming to see Jesus. In the church
that I attend, and the one that I use to attend we had “baby dedication”
services in which parents would bring their new babies to the front of the
sanctuary and the pastor would pray for the parents that they may receive grace
from the Lord in order to raise their children in a way that the Bible shows
that they should be raised and also asks the congregation to pray for these
parents in the same way. This section
that we find here has some similarities in that it was the parents who brought
their children to Jesus so that He would bless them.
I stated that the first section in
this 10th chapter of Mark discussed divorce, but it also spoke of
marriage and now we move to children in this section which is usually what
happens after a young couple is married. It is sad to see that in many homes
today children are looked upon as a burden, and even killed under the “law” of
abortion as we have surpassed 53 million abortions in this country since
1972. In the days when Jesus walked the
earth the Jews looked at children as a blessing, which is the right way to look
at children. “1 A Song of Ascents, of
Solomon: Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. 2 It is vain
for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep. 3 Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of
the womb is a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the
children of one’s youth. 5 How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate (Psalm
127).”
“1 A Song of Ascents: How blessed is
everyone who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways. 2 When you shall eat of the
fruit of your hands, You will be happy and it will be well with you. 3 Your wife shall be like a fruitful
vine Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table.
4 Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD. 5 The LORD
bless you from Zion, And may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days
of your life. 6 Indeed, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon
Israel (Psalm 128).” These two psalms
are “Songs of Ascent” that the pilgrims would sing as they climbed the hill to
get to Jerusalem during the different feasts that they attended.
The answer to why His disciples did
not want Jesus to see the children could be that they were trying to look out
for Him, to conserve His strength for more “important” things, but they should
not have done this for Jesus had already taught them teachings on this subject
in Mark 9:36 and following.
I want to give you the meaning of
the word that Jesus used to show His displeasure, a word that the NASB
translates as indignant: “1) to be
indignant, moved with indignation, be very displeased, vexed {#Mt 21:15 26:8 Mr
10:14 14:4 Mt 20:24 Mr 10:41 Lu 13:14}.”
Jesus then goes on to state that the
children were better kingdom examples than were the adults. Many times we tell our children to behave
like adults, but Jesus is telling the adults to behave like children. There is a reason for this as we expect, for
Jesus never stated anything that is not true so we have to ask ourselves in
what ways are children a pattern for us to follow? I suppose that many have seen or participated
in watching a mother care for a small baby.
Why does she do this, well for one thing the baby is dependent upon the
mother and hopefully many mothers do this out of their love and dedication to
their baby. When our son was born he had
to have a number of surgeries which meant many trips to the doctors and
hospitals. It was in the hospital that
my wife and I saw a young baby sitting in a baby bed with a very wet dipper,
but she was not fussing at all, just sitting there. This never happened in our house for when the
dipper was wet it was changed at once or our children would let us know about
it. In those days we used clothed
dippers which were only good for one wetting and then they had to be
changed. My point is that a baby is
dependent upon the parents to care for them unless the parent chooses not to do
this and then trouble will follow. I
wonder how this little girl turned out as she would be somewhere around 33
years old now.
Dr. Wiersbe states “A child enjoys
much but can explain very little.
Children live by faith. By faith
they accept their lot, trusting others to care for them and see them through.”
We have to enter God’s kingdom in
the same way, like little children who are helpless, unable to save ourselves
and we must be totally dependent upon the grace and mercy of our Heavenly
Father. As believers we enjoy God’s
kingdom by faith because we believe that our Heavenly Father loves us, and when
we have problems we run to our Father like children run to their parents in
times when they are hurt. These are
great examples that believers are to follow, examples that little children show
us.
Jesus did not baptize these
children, as according to John 4:1-2 Jesus baptized no one, so we cannot say
that water baptism will save anyone.
I wish to make another point that
seems to fit well in this section and that is what happens to little babies who
die before they know right from wrong, which is learned at different ages, and
sometimes never learned at all depending on the child. I mentioned our son and his life threatening
condition and believe me I wanted to find out the answer to what would happen
to him if he died as a baby. Our pastor
at that time told me that he believed that the Bible teaches that Jesus died
for sin and also for sins. By dying for
sin Jesus died for our sin nature and by dying for sins He died for all of the
sins that we have committed so when a baby dies they are covered by the blood
of Jesus who died for their sin nature.
John MacArthur wrote a book entitled “Safe in the Arms of God” in which
he explains all about this.
9/18/2012
1:28:47 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment