Last week (18/7/14) a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down by yet unknown persons by a missile over the Ukraine.  298 people, the full complement of the plane’s passengers and crew are dead.  Among the dead from W.A. are three children and their grandfather.  The photos of these three children have been staring at me on the front page of Saturday’s West Australian.  This made me wonder (and pray) about what God is trying to say to us in this tragedy.  I believe that God is speaking in this and other recent events about our nation’s children.

In the news recently some other tragedies relating to children have been prominent.  Another Western Australian couple were in the news because of their children.  Three of their children were killed in a car crash a year ago and days ago their youngest child was lost in a forest while they holidayed in Copenhagen.  A third story about a young child has been revisited in the last week.  A drunk driver ran her car into a house in the northern suburbs of Perth last year, killing a toddler.  This case was in the news again last week because the punishment for this crime seems inadequate.

What is God saying to our nation and our state through all these incidents involving children?  I believe that this is to do with the way in which children have become an idol for us.  It is not that these particular parents are especially idolatrous (see Luke 13:1-5) but these tragedies are a warning of further judgement to come on this nation if we continue to go in the direction that we are.

To understand this some perspective on how God sees children will be helpful.  Children are a blessing from God (Psalm 127:3; 128 entire Psalm; Prov 17:6).  Like all blessings the gift of children is to be acknowledged with thanksgiving to the giver, that is the Father of lights, who is the giver of all good gifts (James 1:17; Col 3:17; 1 Thess 5:18; Rev 7:12 etc.).  Yet it is clear that Australians in general fail to acknowledge the goodness of God and fail to give thanks to him (Rom 1:21).[1]  Children are not acknowledged as gifts from God.

Although children are given to couples as a gift from God they are not given as a possession to be held onto.  Children are given in marriage because God desires godly offspring (Mal 2:15).  The children of the people of Israel are God’s children (Ezek 16:20-21; 23:36-39).  Israel was not to offer children to anyone but Yahweh.  Anyone who offered their child to an idol was to be put to death (Lev 18:21; 20:1-5).  As a society Australians do not regard their children as something which should be given back to God.  Rather, the way in which Australian children are over-indulged, over-protected, and over-sexualised, points to the fact that Australian children are offered to the idols of this nation and are themselves an idol of their parents.

The result of this idolatry is a judgment which involves our nation’s children.  A number of OT passages explain that loss of children is a part of God’s judgement against the nation.

“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted” (Lev 26:21-22).

“Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.  Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird- no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!  Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them!” (Hos 9:10-12).

Like Israel, who walked contrary to their God and consecrated themselves to idols instead of to Yahweh, Australia is a nation committed to idolatry in many forms.  One of the consequences of that idolatry is that God will bereave the nation of children.  These recent examples in the media of bereavement of children are just that.  They warn of a greater judgement on this nation if we do not turn our hearts away from idols and to the living God.

Is this judgement merely something which speaks against the godless nation in which we live or must the church pay heed?  A parallel between an OT prophecy and the book of Revelation suggests that we must take action as the church of God.  Isaiah prophesied this to Babylon:

“Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children“:  These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments” (Isa 47:8-9).

This passage is echoed in passage in Revelation written about “Babylon the Great”:

“As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’  For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her” (Rev 18:7-8).

The parallels are evident.  “lovers of pleasure” parallels “lived in luxury”.  The similar declaration that “I will never see …” is found in both.  Although loss of children is not mentioned in the Revelation passage the nature of the parallels would imply that it is part of the judgement on Babylon.  The important thing which pertains to the church in Australia today is the warning to the church which comes just before this declaration of judgement.  “Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues’” (Rev 18:4).  The saints are warned to come out of the idolatrous (Rev 17:2) city of Babylon.  The people of God are those who worship the true God who sits on the throne and the Lamb.  Therefore the people of God must not enter into the idolatry which characterises Babylon and Australia.

How then should the church respond to this warning sign of a nation bereaved of its children?  Three biblical stories seem appropriate in answer to that question.  The first is of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1-2.  Hannah understood that children are a precious gift which is given by God.  Her response to this gift was to dedicate her child back to the giver.  In her case it involved a physical giving up of her first child.  It may not be necessary to physically give up our children, but we must at minimum adopt the attitude that these children do not belong to us as a private possession, but they are people entrusted to our care that we might bring them up in the instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4) so that they may be the holy offspring (Mal 2:15) whom God desires.

The second story is one in which the children were brought to Jesus.  “Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”” (Matt 19:13-14).  Our children must be brought to Jesus.  This does not simply apply to the children of Christians, but it must begin there.  Given the reality that few Christians in Australia are regular Bible readers and few read the Bible to their children, we must make a decision to bring our children to Jesus by bringing Jesus to our children so that they might know him.  In the wider culture children are almost completely ignorant of who Jesus is.  Discipling the nation must begin with a concerted effort to pray for our nation’s children and to push for instruction of children about Jesus.

Lastly, in Gen 22 we find the story of Abraham being told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering.  Abraham did what God told him even though Isaac was the promised son, though whom Abraham would become the father of many nations and a blessing to every family of the earth.  Abraham trusted that God would somehow bring his son back from the dead (Heb 11:17-19).  At the last minute Abraham was given a reprieve and told not to kill Isaac.  If the children of this nation are idols to their parents, and they are, then it is time that those idols were offered up on the altar to God (metaphorically) so that God can (figuratively) raise them from the dead as a people dedicated to himself.  This applies to many Christian parents, just as it does to most non-Christian parents in Australia.

Having said this rather sombre word about judgement this needs to be understood in light of the cross on which the Son of God bore the judgement which is due to us.  God takes no joy in judging the world (Ezek 18:23; 33:11).  For this reason he sent his own Son into the world that we might live and not die.  The cost to the Father of this salvation for humanity was the death of his own Son.  For this reason God knows the intense pain of losing a child.  In the midst of these events in which people have lost children, the pain and grief are shared by the God who “did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Rom 8:32).