Presenting the Gospel to Children III | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Teddy James, content producer for Media Grazie with Dr. John Snyder, pastor of Christ Church New Albany and host of the Behold Your God study series. We have been doing a series, John, really on your dissertation on Puritans and their influence on the Great Awakening, Evangelical revival, but we've taken a little break from that because we spent several episodes dealing with the doctrines of regeneration, those beautiful realities, and we felt it really appropriate and even necessary to kind of take a step back from our current series to say, how do we present these realities, these doctrines to children?

We spent two weeks looking at some help from Mick Shane, and this week we're looking at some help from Edward Payson in a sermon titled, How Little Children Are Prevented from Coming to.

Christ. Now, who is Edward Payson? Edward Payson is a helpful guide, 19th century pastor in Portland, Maine. So, so particularly given to prayer that they called him Praying Payson. He was a very simple pastor, although he was highly educated, graduated from Harvard, and when he was in Harvard, the joke was that he, after conversion, he got very serious about his studies, and the joke was that he had read every book in the Harvard Library.

But if you read his sermons in the three-volume set that's available still, the sermons are notably free of quoting all the other great writers. It's not that he didn't read them, but he gave himself so particularly to Scripture that his sermons are very simple, obviously the product of meditating on a passage and thinking about it, and his illustrations are simple.

So, really helpful. One thing I want to note about Payson before we look at his sermon is that he also was pastoring during the time of the rise of Charles Finney, and Finney's views that parents could guarantee the salvation of their children if parents would lead the children to sincerely pray a sinner's prayer.

And that really, in American history, that's kind of the first time we find something like that, and Payson was against that. So, when we read Payson and go through his sermon today, he's going to really hit us hard with some things about the parents' responsibilities.

But it's not because Payson believes that parents can save or damn their children by their behavior. It's because Payson wants to emphasize our responsibilities here. Payson understood that God had to work through a parent for our best.

Efforts, really, to bear fruit. Yeah, and the passage that he's using in this sermon is from Mark 10 14. Now, before I get into it, let me just say this. We're going to post the entire sermon of this at Mediagratia .org, so you can go in.

Today, there's going to be a link underneath this podcast, underneath this video, however you're accessing this content, and you'll be able to read the full content. So, don't just listen about the sermon, but go and actually read the sermon.

It is very, very helpful. So, Mark 10 14,.

So, the setting there is pretty clear. We have parents who either are believers in Christ themselves in the early days of his ministry, or at least they are, you know, captivated by this extraordinary preacher, and this miracle worker, this great prophet.

So, they bring their children to him, but the disciples for some reason feel that this is inappropriate, whether they feel that Jesus is too busy to deal with children, or that the children are too young to really benefit from his time.

They discourage the parents from bringing the kids to him, and Christ, knowing this is going on, stops and rebukes the disciples.

For this behavior. Yeah, and we should take particular note that of the times where the humble Christ is grieved, is, as the Scriptures say, indignant, and in this passage, he's not grieved with his enemies, with the Pharisees, with the religious elite, but with his friends, with his disciples.

And what was their crime? It was that they were discouraging these little children from coming to him.

If you think about how many times the disciples reveal a lack of understanding, or more offensively, pride, you think about how many times the disciples are just not where they ought to be. In light of what he's just taught them, it seems like he lays truths out in front of them, and the next account in the Gospels is them going directly against the truth that he just taught them.

It is amazing to us how often Christ does not immediately stop everything and rebuke them. He doesn't rebuke them every time he sees, you know, immaturity. A lot of times, he saves an issue for later in their ministry, where he sits them down and explains things to them.

But here, in this situation, discouraging the young people from coming to Christ, he stops everything, and there's this open rebuke. So, I think, like you said, it ought to really jump out that Christ really deals with this immediately, and doesn't let it be put off, you know, for a.

Later date. Yeah, and you know, one last note before we really get into the content of the sermon here. Christ is the same yesterday, and he is the same today, and just as he was grieved when the disciples prevented the children from coming to him, those who prevent children from coming to Christ today still grieve him.

Particularly, as servants of a king, we want to be very aware of what displeases our Lord, of what grieves him, and not only that, but we love the souls of our children, and so we want to pay particularly close attention to this episode, the following episodes, so that we can see the principles that Christ himself lays out in drawing children to him.

Who Is Guilty of Preventing Children from Coming to Christ?

So, Payson.

Starts the sermon with this question, who are the guilty ones? Who are guilty of preventing or discouraging children from coming to Christ as much as lies within our ability? And for our podcast, we're going to really give the heavier application to parents, but this could include anyone, you know, whether it's an extra neighbor, or a schoolteacher, you know, grandparent, church member.

So, who would be guilty today of preventing children from coming to Christ? And he says that can be done directly, but it can also be done indirectly, and that's where he kind of gives most of his focus.

So, the first way he mentions is this, those who will not themselves come to Christ, yet they publicly profess that they're Christians, and the children watch them, and they begin to imitate their behavior.

They begin to imitate the way that they talk about Christ, the way they think about Christ. And so, Payson makes a big deal here. The children are designed by God to come into this world basically ignorant and helpless, and they learn what an adult is, not by being set down, you know, I mean, no parent sits a child down and says, okay, you've reached a certain age, so it's now it's time for adulting classes, you know.

We do teach our children at times, and you know, we send them to school, or we homeschool them, whatever, but really the child long before that has learned what an adult is, and what adults value or don't value by our example, and example carries such a, you know, an extraordinary weight with them, particularly with children in their young years.

So, he asks, what do they see in your local church? Are they seeing people speak of Christ? Are they seeing people, you know, enamored with Christ, talking about Him with reverence, speaking of His perfections as, you know, as infinite excellence?

Are they talking about the love of Christ and how it impacts them? If so, Payson says, it is very likely that to a large measure they.

Will embrace these same views. Yeah, but consider the opposite, he says, but sadly how different is the experience of so many children who grow up with a majority around them completely neglecting Christ, they disobey Christ, they turn the name of God into a profanity, into a curse, and what they see is the road of conformity to the world, not just as not bad, but even as desirable.

What do they learn from all this? Well, they learn that the things of Christ are simply not important, that they don't matter, that their condition, they see all these people who profess to be believers, and I've heard this from so many people, well, I'm just as much a Christian as this guy, or I'm just as much a Christian as this person that I looked up to and respected and really thought was a Christian who had really no interest in Christ.

The Overwhelming Influence of Parents

Yeah, and he warns.

People who might say, well, look, I'm not, my example doesn't impact anyone. You know, maybe you have a fairly isolated life, or maybe you don't have kids yourself, and you think, well, you know, that doesn't apply to me, but Payson reminds us that every individual influences someone, but when we come to the issue of parenting, everything he says comes with tenfold force.

A parent's influence on a child, he says, is almost omnipotent, all-powerful, and he says, well, at least it seems to take an omnipotent work of God to rescue a child from the bad influence of a parent who doesn't love the Lord, and so he says this.

He says, to a child, the words of the parent are considered absolute truth. Their example is law. Their opinions are perfect wisdom, and so it's a great crime either to use that influence for bad or to neglect that influence and what we might have done with it if we'd have been careful with it, and then he gives this quote, and I think it's a, really, it's a dreadful thing to consider.

He says this, a chain in the hand of a demon would not be more effective in dragging a young soul into ruin than the example of an irreligious parent.

How terrifying is that? That is really a strong statement, and, but I think, John, we have to be really careful that we don't misapply what you just said.

Distinguishing True Guilt from False Guilt in Parenting

Yeah, there are some ways that that certainly could be misapplied, and particularly, we want to say to the Christian parent, it is the Christian parent whose conscience is tender. It's the Christian, the true Christian, not just a church member, who really yearns to be effective in this area, and who will, in a sense, take those words of Payson and maybe just kind of sink under a weight of despair.

So there's a couple of directions I think we should give right here. First, we need to be careful to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate guilt, or true or false guilt. If a Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, then they're a follower of the one who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

As Christians, we are not free to give an ear to the enemy's false accusations. We belong to a king of truth, and so we're not, we can say to the enemy, yeah, you know, I mean, when I look at my life, I would agree with you that there's nothing encouraging there at all, but that's not reality, and I'm not allowed to listen to a liar, because I belong to the king of truth.

So when you read things about parenting, or you hear a sermon, or you look at your kids, and then you look in the mirror, and you want to just kind of despair, the first thing you have to ask yourself is, is this an honest assessment of my parenting?

Okay, no parent is perfect, so we're not talking about perfection, but am I leading my children away from Christ because I'm imperfect? Am I careless? You know, in what ways? So you want to get, you know, to ask the Lord, God, will you help me to have an honest assessment of how I'm doing as a parent?

I don't want to listen to the enemy. They'll always, the enemy will always put a warped lens in front of your eyes that will cause despair. Second, where there is legitimate guilt, how do you handle that?

Do you run away from God in shame and say, I'm sorry, God, I meant to be a better parent. I'm not as good as I'd hoped to be, and you just, like Adam and Eve, you go and hide in the trees? The believer has another option.

The believer can run toward the God that we might have grieved, and we meet him in a mercy seat. Do you remember in the book of Hebrews we're told to draw near to God to a throne of mercy and grace, all right?

Mercy for the shortcomings as a parent. Grace, that is strength to give me what I need to do His will today. So I run toward the King that I might have offended by the way I've parented, and to say to Him, it's true, I have not been careful.

It's true, I have in many ways probably pointed my child away from the value of Christ, but I come to you to find mercy for that, and God, give me the strength I need today to take a different course.

Direct Ways Parents Lead Children Away from Christ

So we've talked about some indirect ways that we can lead children away from Christ, and Payson moves now to focusing on some direct ways, and these are parents who teach their kids selfish practices, parents who openly mock Christianity and the Bible's validity.

So these are not those who profess to be believers. They're liars or gossip thieves. What Payson is saying is that we can lead our children away from Christ by not just neglecting, but also by our what we do, and so kids are going to imitate our language, but they're also going to imitate that selfishness, the pride, the impurity, and so when your life is sinking, and I found this so helpful, when your life is sinking into an abyss, it creates a whirlpool that sucks in everyone who is in your sphere of influence.

That's particularly true of children.

Neglecting the Means God Has Put in Your Hands

Yeah, so not only can you influence them by pursuing wicked things, but he says a third thing. He says you can prevent as much as lies within your power, children from coming to Christ, by neglecting the means that God has put in your hands for seeking Him.

Neglecting the means that God has put in our hands for directing our children to seek Him, and so here he talks about what you value. What you value is that children learn what we think is valuable by what we spend our time pursuing.

How you pursue something shows your child how much you value it. How you act if you can't get it shows your child what you think of a thing. How you act if you do get it shows your child how you value a thing.

So Payson just asked the parent, do you use the means that God puts in your hands, you know, the influence you have on your children, do you use that to stir them to pursue things that aren't as valuable as Christ, like the applause of the world, what people think of you.

Is that what the kids learn is valuable? Wealth, or even he says, you know, education to really excel in academics, and he says, he gives, you know, one example he says is, you know, how many times could a parent with just a little effort of parental authority have guided a child to seek the Lord?

And he says this, he says, my friends, if you took half the pains or displayed half the concerns to educate your children for God that you do for the world, you would most probably see them walking in truth and avoid the guilt which you now contract of preventing their coming to Christ.

And so he says, imagine a scene where a church has a special Bible study or a catechism class or something for children, and with just a little exertion of parental authority you could have made your child go, and they would have sat there under the truth, but instead you just, you're so lackadaisical about the things of the Lord that you don't exert that authority, you don't use those opportunities God gives you, and so your children are not exposed to the truth.

One of the ways I think that we see this occurring so frequently is, particularly in our culture, is that religion often is seen as a thing that a mom is really serious about, that a woman is serious about, but not necessarily a dad.

So dad takes the kids to church, you know, kids complain, I don't want to go, you know, mom looks at dad, dad says to the kids, get in the car, we're going to church, it's the right thing to do. But during the week, you know, a dad that pours himself over the Bible at night, a kid, you know, walking into his parents room and seeing his dad reading his Bible, just because he wants to get to know the Lord, a dad talking about Christ and the value of Christ, a dad being changed by the beauty and the worth of Christ and the words of Christ and adjusting his life to the authority of Christ, that often is missing, and it's just mom that's super, super religious, and dad supports mom.

And that really screams out, especially to the to the boys in the family, that religion is a thing for girls. If you go beyond church, that's kind of the girl stuff. And for me growing up, my mom, very serious Christian, but I also remember around, you know, age five or six, walking into my dad's room at night, and I don't know where my mom was, but my dad was sitting on his bed, and he was just reading through his Bible.

And other times I'd walk into his room, he was knelt beside his bed with an open Bible, and his Bible, which wasn't that old, was all torn up and written in because he had just gone from cover to cover, and it really made an impact on me.

I thought seeking God in the Word is a thing a man does.

Parents Must Value Christ More Than Education and Worldly Success

Yeah, absolutely. So there's some examples here that Payson gives that are particularly helpful. He says to look at the the way that we view our kids' education. So think of it like this. Think of a parent who, when it comes to school, they make their child get up every morning and go to school.

They don't take any excuses. So a kid may say, oh my belly hurts, or oh my head hurts, or you know, all of these these silly things that kids say to get out of going to school. And the parent says, no, you're going, plain and simple.

You check their work. You check their homework. You check their classwork. You keep up with their grades. You see how they're doing. If you see a problem, you call the teacher. Hey, what's going on? How can I help?

What can I do at home to kind of submit these lessons and reinforce these lessons? And we do this day after day, year after year, for 12, maybe 13 years, and maybe even going further and into college to see how we can help to make sure that our kids are prepared and are well educated.

But do we do the same thing when it comes to knowing Christ? Do we give the same interest or the same input or engagement or emphasis on knowing the realities of God as we do as knowing the realities of math?

Why Christ Is Displeased When Children Are Kept from Him

Yeah. The next big.

Section in Payson's sermon is, why is Christ so displeased with people who indirectly or directly, by their example or their words, prevent children from coming to Christ? I want to give just three quick pictures here for the sake of time.

First, he says, these people display an attitude which is diametrically opposed to Christ's attitude, and we like that. If someone really dislikes something we like, we generally find it hard to be pleased with them.

And if they love the stuff that we love, they value the stuff we value, we find it easy to be pleased with them. You know, we enjoy being around them. Christ delights to save souls, and if your life is such that leads people away from Him, then He is opposed to that.

Second picture he gives is, Christ is displeased with those who oppose His will and His plans. And we think about it, if someone, by their life or their influence, is undermining something we're trying to accomplish, let's say we have a plan and we're trying to accomplish, you know, we want to do this certain thing, and we're working really hard at it over an extended period of time, and if there's someone at work or if there's someone in the family, in the home, that keeps going against what we're trying to accomplish and we've carefully planned for, then it really offends us.

And Christ is grieved when His great plan of redemption, of saving sinners, when He sees that we live carelessly or wickedly in such a way that would undermine, according to all that we can do, His plan to save.

The third thing he mentions is that Christ is angry at those who prevent children from coming to Him because they are robbing Him of His reward. If someone were to, by something they've done, were to make it so that like we didn't get our paycheck, so you're at work, you know, you've worked hard and maybe you're part of a group that's working on a project and somebody, Joe in the group, doesn't do what he's supposed to do, and the boss is angry and he says, look, you know, you're not going to get the bonus that you were supposed to get because you guys didn't get it done.

And everybody in the group did their part except Joe. Everyone would look at Joe and be so angry with Joe. You know, you caused us to lose what we'd been working toward. Christ deserves the love and the trust and the allegiance of our children and we must not carelessly or through wickedness, we must not point them away from Him and rob Him of that reward.

The Watchman’s Responsibility and the Urgency of Repentance

So that brings us to the end of the sermon where Payson really drives his point home. And really in such a way that is so strong that it's shocking. He reminds them of the passage in Ezekiel where God says, I have put watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem and if I warn the people, if I threaten the people that if they continue to go on this way that they'll be destroyed, and the watchmen don't warn the people and don't say to them, God has warned us, you know, if they don't pass on the warning, then when I judge my people, their blood will also in part be on the watchman's hands.

But if I tell, you know, if God says if I threaten the people that if you continue down this path you'll be destroyed and the watchmen turn and pass that message on and the people repent, well that's wonderful.

But what if they don't repent? God says the watchman will be innocent of that blood. And Payson applies that to a parent. The Lord has given us so many opportunities with our children to point them to Him.

He's given us the power of example. He's given us all these years where we can lead them to other people that might help them. And if we are careless with this and our children run from Christ and choose self-destruction, ultimately that guilt is upon them.

But we have a share in that. But if by the grace of God we have pointed our children to Christ, not perfectly but truly, and we've warned them and we've prayed for them and we've lived in a way to lend weight to our words and they still go against Christ, then our hands are clean.

So Payson ends the whole sermon with this quote. He says, if you love your own soul and the souls of your children, if you don't want to sink under the weight of their blood and hear them curse you forever as the authors of their ruin, be persuaded without delay to come to Christ and do all you can to bring them with you, to bind yourselves and them to Christ in an everlasting covenant.

Who were the Puritans? Is the reputation deserved? And is there anything they had.

That you and I might need? Are you interested in knowing the Bible? Are you interested in knowing Christ? Do you want someone to attend to the care of your soul? Then you're gonna want to get to know the Puritans.

To learn more about Puritan All of Life to the Glory of God, visit Mediagratia .org or click the link in the description below. So as we wrap this up, we do want to remind particularly parents of children who we do feel that pressure and we feel the weight of the reality of the responsibility that God has given us, but there is a sufficiency and a willingness and a desire in Christ.

Christ's desire is to bring sinners to Himself and He does use imperfect parents as examples to do just that.

Yeah, certainly. And as we said before, there is mercy in Christ even for the sin of our failures as parents. And there is grace in Christ, the Spirit of God within us, giving us both the desire and the ability to do His will, especially with regard to our children.

Yeah, and again, please don't just listen about this sermon, but we do encourage you to go and read this sermon. Again, we'll post that at Mediagratia .org. As we tend to do, we want to end this week on a prayer, and this week's is by Louis Bailey.

With you, O Lord, there is mercy and plenteous redemption. I beseech you, O Lord, not only to wash away my sins with the blood of your Immaculate Lamb, but also to purge my heart by your Holy Spirit from the dross of my natural corruptions, that I may feel your Spirit more and more killing my sin, so that I may serve you, the everlasting God in righteousness and holiness this day.

Amen.