While interviewing for our book, The DISAPPEARING: Future Events That Will Rock the World, one of the questions Pete Garcia and myself are often asked about is chapter 6, “Children and the Rapture.”
My first response always begins with something like: “This is my pet subject. It’s a passionate matter with me.” I can’t seem to help but answer that way. It just comes out of my mind and mouth automatically.
I’ve been told it’s because of my ol’ grandpa heart for children. Well, maybe that’s a part of the reason, but it is less-important than the priority part. I’ve assessed over the years that my passion about this comes primarily from my studied understanding of the character of our great God. This stems from the truth that God will never punish the innocent with eternity apart from Himself. All of His creation called man is born into sin, thus all are not innocent, but guilty. (“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”)
All are lost who are not in Christ. God provides a pathway to redemption—a way to be saved from guilt—to become innocent. His name is Jesus Christ, God’s only Begotten Son. All who are within Christ’s salvation shelter, through His shed blood on Calvary, are declared innocent in God’s holy eyes.
This is what Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, we just celebrated is all about. Christ died, was buried, and took up His life again as part of the salvation process, so that all who believe in Him according to Romans 10:9–10 will be saved—that is, saved from the punishment of eternal death that is separation forever from God the Father and Heaven.
Jesus said:
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man (or woman) comes to the father, but by me. (John 14: 6)
So to be in Christ is at the very heart of God’s great character. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. All who have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation are innocent in God the Father’s holy eyes.
No one can “repent” and “believe” in God’s plan for salvation if they are incapable of doing so because they have never had the ability to repent and believe. Such are therefore “in Christ” until they have the ability to understand that Jesus died for them and is the only way to be saved (declared innocent).
This is biblically true whether a person is born with a cognitive disability and grows up still unable to understand, or whether one is a child who hasn’t yet reached the time of being able to understand the need to be saved from sin. In these cases, these are all “in Christ,” meaning they will go to God the Father upon death–or at the moment of Rapture.
As we discuss in our book and during interviews, children, before reaching the “age of accountability,” as it is termed, are considered “safe” within God’ salvation program. Salvation is an individual matter, not a corporate one. God does not have grandchildren, as it is said. He has only children—i.e., we can’t be saved as a result of our parents being saved. Salvation is a one-on-one redemptive process with Jesus Christ and belief in what He did on the cross at Calvary.
All children will go to Jesus when He calls to believers of the Church Age (Age of Grace) based upon this truth. Even children in the womb at the moment of conception will go to be with Jesus when He makes that glorious call to believers.
I firmly believe that God will make a profound statement as to when life begins—that is, at the moment of conception.
All of this I have laid down to attempt to make the point I tried to frame with this commentary’s title.
God’s love for children, considering them as innocents before the age of accountability, is a profound providential concept I believe we can’t fully fathom. Jesus said that it would be better for a millstone to be placed around the necks of those who would harm children and prevent them from learning of God’s love for them, and for the perpetrators to be then cast into the sea, than to endure what they will face in the form of His holy punishment for such offenders. Such is an indeed terrifying prospect, coming from the mouth of God Himself!
When thinking on the Tribulation to come–the final seven years of human history leading to Christ’s Second Advent, I think it is pertinent to consider how those who have offended in this manner leading up to that horrific time have dealt with the innocents that are the children before they reach the age of accountability.
We in this nation are faced daily with reports of children as young as three years old being subjected to some of the most evil, adult-engendered, salacious maliciousness imaginable. Teaching them about sexual matters and even enacting legal prohibitions against parents being allowed to stop the activity is a societal and cultural cancer of the deadliest sort. Children in kindergarten through the elementary school years are taught that they can be whatever gender they want to be. That God decided their gender is unimportant. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even enter the equation for sexuality in any way.
Activity as egregious as any found in the account of Lot’s day in Sodom has infected our own time on this fallen planet. Less than 1 percent of the American population dictates what the entire nation must follow–the satanic pathway into perdition of anti-God behavior.
The following excerpt further informs:
Culture warrior and researcher Chris F. Rufo of the Manhattan Institute has posted a series of videos in which CEO Karey Burke, who admits that she has “two queer children,” supports having those kinds of characters in more Disney films and projects, demanding that at least 50 percent of all movie characters are gay, transgender or racial minorities.
“SCOOP: Disney corporate president Karey Burke says, ‘as the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child,’ she supports having ‘many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories’ and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities,” he wrote in one Twitter post…
Also, Disney execs are getting rid of all references to gender, in an obvious woke pander to 0.0001 of the population.
“SCOOP: Disney diversity and inclusion manager Vivian Ware says the company has eliminated all mentions of ‘ladies,’ ‘gentlemen,’ ‘boys,’ and ‘girls’ in its theme parks in order to create ‘that magical moment’ for children who do not identify with traditional gender roles,” Rufo noted in another tweet containing a second video clip. (“Disney takes WOKE to the extreme as CEO demands 50% of all movie characters must be gay, trans, lesbians or racial minorities,” by JB Hayes, Thursday, April 14, 2022, The Daily Wire)
This is only the proverbial tip of the hellish mountain of wickedness deserving of God’s coming wrath. I could have, of course, found much more condemning news items we have had come across our news outlets of late.
The evidence for conviction and sentencing judgment in that most terrifying courtroom of the prophetic future is building–compounding day by day. More than 60 million babies murdered while in their mother’s wombs will doubtless heat eternity’s lake of fire furnaces to white hot. Sadly, tragically, many who offend the little ones in such ways as Jesus condemned will face their offenses at the Great White Throne.
However, even this horrendous sin can be forgiven by God, through His Son Jesus Christ. Here is how.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
Thank you so much for making this clear to people. My son is 22 years old and has Down syndrome and is non-verbal severely autistic. I know that he remains an innocent and whether by death or rapture has a one way ticket back to Heaven where he was originally created. I look forward to being with him there and being able to have conversations with him that are not possible here. I am grateful for our merciful God. Thank you for the wonderful work you do, Mr. James.
Good thoughts Terry.But what exactly is the age of accountability for children? Are you referring to the Jewish cultural understanding of 12 when boys in particular have their bar mitzvah?
I believe everyone already has his or her name in God’s Book of Life at the moment of conception.
To get it removed, one has to have opportunity to hear and be able to comprehend he Bible’s message as to the means of salvation (i.e. a personal admission that one is a sinner and the acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice of himself as the only means to atone for it) and to then willingly reject that message.
I think it is just that simple.
I don’t see it as simple. It is not from a human perspective. My children are in their 50’s now and two are not believers; neither are their children. I constantly reflect on my failure to produce Godly off spring and have no answe. However , where there is life there is hope I pray constantly for the salvation of our entire family and I look especially to the revival which I know is coming, to do what only God can do.
God is not as legalistic as we may see Him to be and I have an Advocate in Heaven who cares. Finally it is up to Him
Truth. Amen. Blessings.