~ Children In Heaven ~ 2 Cor 1:3-4

[chazanna11]

I don't believe that the children of the unsaved will go in the Rapture. This would mean that all children under the age of accountability (whatever that age is) would be gone. God knows people before they are even born and He knows whether or not they are going to be saved, even before they are born. Is that correct? Doesn't the Bible say that God even knows the number of hairs on our head and knows when a sparrow falls? In this case, He does know us intimately, even before we are born. We are told that God knows us in the womb. But do you think I have a wrong description of who God is? I'm not sure. I always saw God as all-knowing. We read prophecy in our Bible and we believe it because God knows the beginning from the end.

[kgreen20]

If all children below the age of accountability are included in the Rapture, what about intellectually disabled adults, who are totally incapable of understanding the gospel?

The same principle applies to them. Because of their mental retardation, they always have the innocence of a child, so they never reach the age of accountability.

[Ancient Julez]

Something that came to mind while reading this, as we mention the age of accountablity, traditionaly I think most put that age at the age the jewish tradition celebrates at 13...BUT even just in my own life time I can see how different 13 was when I was 13 and how different it is now...they are way more mature at 13 on many levels now, and most of them we can agree are drenched in immorality, the music the movies, the sexual content the violence...while they are still young in some ways the innocence is yanked away much ealier, so does that mean that todays generation and those of tomorrow are younger at that moment of accountablity?

Also a thought I had, that really does go in keeping with those children of non believers not being apart of the rapture, I was watching a show that was about a wiccian woman who started a church in her home town, and has two young kids, the daughter was 7...anyway they showed the daughter knealing and holding rocks and praying to who knows whom and lighting insense & candles...and believeing as her parents do...is this child accountable?
she certainly has been introduced to christainity, she said as much herself, infact her brother who was only a smidge older said his best buddy is a christain!!(so the other child says) so shes been exposed to the message of Christ, but still remains in witch craft, as a wiccain...why would this child be raptured?
that hardly seems just if you think about it....she's 7 and a witch, but hey shes under 13 so shes a shoe in....??

I think scripture gives us clues about the issue, but as humans we want to 'see' things less wrathful...
But doesn't scripture also teach us that it is good for us to teach our children to fear The Lord? His wrath?
We can't allow oursleves to be lulled into a false sense of security from the feel good churches that only teach God as love...
God is Love but He is also Just and Rightous and the unclean unjust have no place with Him...(which is why we need Christ, cuz none of us can do it on our own...)

If no sin is greater than another, and sin is sin, than worshipping satan via wiccian witchcraft is a sin..right there with murder and keeping company with theives..and I would think the age wouldn't make a difference
If your 7 , 17, 37 or 97 if your worshipping the enemy of God , why would He remove you from the wrath to come??? I mean isn't it this kind of person the wrath is for??


Pagal I think you made some really good points of refecence in scripture!!

One other thing I guess could be seen as a question, I have a 10 yr old and an 8 yr old who have both asked Christ into their hearts...I believe with all my heart they are genuine, but at this tender age (because I work 24/7 protecting that innocence) I know they don't have the ablity to understand this decsion on an adult level...yet to have the faith of a child is more pure than what we as adults think we understand...So do my kids have to ask Jesus into there hearts again when they are older or was the one time all that was needed?
I believe my children will be caught up with us...I believe they are more excited about it than me sometimes...because for them its simple God is in
heaven and its perfect there...so why wouldn't we want to go there??
But I have noticed as they have gotten a little older, they want to make sure they will have there play stations in heaven....


btw I have had many dreams about the rapture, and they actually go against what I believe while I am awake, in my dreams adult believers are left and ONLY the children are raptured!!!
(I guess its the mother in me, just making sure my babies are safe)

[robertison]

Jesus is my Hero! But KGreen is gaining some hero standing in my book. I ignorantly posted on the other site before turning the page to see that KGreen had come up with the right idea. I ranted about the post that mentioned babies born seconds after the rapture when in reality there will be no babies born for nearly 40 weeks following the rapture. When I turned the page and saw the thread, followed it to here, I was amazed that all of my arguments had already been made.

Pagal asks for scripture, how about Romans 5:9 that none of us will face the wrath of God but in fact are saved from the wrath of God because of the blood of Jesus. You cannot show us scripture to prove that the children of Sodom were destroyed by God. You can show us scripture that innocent children died at the plague of the passover, you can show us that hcildren died as a result of the taking of the promise land. However, what was the fate of these children and what was the extent of their suffering? We don't know, so we have to trust God that He knows what He is doing.

That is in fact what we do with children in the rapture. We trust that God knows what He is doing. Some people will not believe without the book and verse and I respect that but I would remind you that sometimes you have to use a little common sense and believe by faith.

[Ancient Julez]

Jesus is my Hero! But KGreen is gaining some hero standing in my book. I ignorantly posted on the other site before turning the page to see that KGreen had come up with the right idea. I ranted about the post that mentioned babies born seconds after the rapture when in reality there will be no babies born for nearly 40 weeks following the rapture. When I turned the page and saw the thread, followed it to here, I was amazed that all of my arguments had already been made.

Pagal asks for scripture, how about Romans 5:9 that none of us will face the wrath of God but in fact are saved from the wrath of God because of the blood of Jesus. You cannot show us scripture to prove that the children of Sodom were destroyed by God. You can show us scripture that innocent children died at the plague of the passover, you can show us that hcildren died as a result of the taking of the promise land. However, what was the fate of these children and what was the extent of their suffering? We don't know, so we have to trust God that He knows what He is doing.

That is in fact what we do with children in the rapture. We trust that God knows what He is doing. Some people will not believe without the book and verse and I respect that but I would remind you that sometimes you have to use a little common sense and believe by faith.

so what do you think about the example I gave about the 7 yr old girl who is a practicing witch? should she be raptured just because shes a child?
I have heard of 3rd graders taking guns to school and shooting other kids..is murder less of a crime if its done by a child? what about that little boy who was all over the news about a decade ago who stalked another little boy who was only 3 at the time I believe, and he lured him into the woods behind the baseball feild and crushed his tiny skull with a huge rock...the boy was only 9 at the time, dateline or one of those shows did a follow up story about a yr ago , the kid is still in juvie jail, older and explained how he planned out what he was going to do...it was planned...a 9 yr old plotted out the murder of a tiny toddler...should that boy be raptured?
We do have to trust God has the bigger picture in mind, and we probably won't understand it fully till we understand it all, but that doesn't mean we should assume God only judges adults...and I know this goes against most everyone in thinking, but children are no more innocent than adults, we have ALL been born into our sinful nature thanks to adam and eve...a child is thee very definition of narssicsim...while we don't look at it like that, a child believes the world revoves around them....and no one else matters...we have to be taught to not be selfish and naughty, we have to be told what is right and wrong...we are not automaticaly innocent because we are young...
I have heard it said from time to time that some child have just been mean or evil from birth....we can't say that all children will be raptured, because we just honestly don't know...
Before I get bashed for saying this, please understand I am a mother with 3 amazing children, and I speak from experience...God is thee ultimate parent, and we can only hope to love half as much as He loved first...

[CountryBumpkin]

I ranted about the post that mentioned babies born seconds after the rapture when in reality there will be no babies born for nearly 40 weeks following the rapture.

Could you give me the scriptural verse for this, please.

[kgreen20]

40 weeks, huh? How many months does that translate into? I think we can safely assume that it'll be at least 9 months before another baby is born, following our departure, as every unborn child will be Raptured right out of his mother's womb and more will have to be conceived before more can be born. (What a way to enter Heaven! =))

[Bernardd]

40 weeks is considered full term for a baby...not 9 months.

[kgreen20]

I see. Thanks for the info!

[robertison]

I wasn't laying down any new doctrine about 40 weeks, that is just full term (9 Months)

[robertison]

Sometimes when I read message boards, I read things that really get me in an uproar. And often before I have time to think the overflow of my heart has typed. Why should people who know Jesus like my friend Pagal and I fight about whose children will go to be with Jesus at the rapture and whose children will be left during the coming tribulation. While we debate the issue, thousands of children are being neglected, left in hot cars, tied up in dirty rooms, etc. Last night in fact we ministered to about 45 children of addicts and inmates. It really didn't occur to me that God would pour out His wrath on these little ones just because their parents had chosen to sin, much like I have.

Some children repeat behavior that they have witnessed through their parents. Is this a sign that they are evil? Does this mean that they are able to choose to avoid sin and receive God's gift of grace even though they are toddlers?

My little boy lies. His favorite name for those he talks to is pooty head. We have tried to correct this problem but it doesn't seem to work. He shouldn't lie, no matter how old he is.

Another child beats a toddler over the head with a baseball bat. Clearly, something that he should not do and very harmful to the other child as well. Is this any less wrong than the other?

Where is God in all this? What verse tells me the fate of a child who calls everyone pooty head? What verse describes the judgment God has in store for a five year old who kills another child by pushing him off a roof?

However, I can know some things about the nature of God. Those scriptures tell me who God is and what He is like. I'll trust in those until I find the ones about the kids with bats, because very little makes sense outside the nature of God anyway.

So, go ahead and debate which kids get raptured and which kids don't and in the mean time I will be working with those Pagal says will face the tribulation because if I give as little as a cold drink of water to the least of these, I shall not lose my reward.

[CountryBumpkin]

I wasn't laying down any new doctrine about 40 weeks, that is just full term (9 Months)

You stated it as a fact, but it is only your opinion. The fact is too many want to not see the just nature of God. As Pagal says the Bible shows us how God operates at certain times. I remember when I first read about Elisha being teased by youths, I was a little dismayed:
2Ki 2:23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!"
2Ki 2:24 So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

There are times when we cannot understand but I rest in the knowledge that He is God, He will have mercy on whoever He chooses and He will make His power known also as He chooses. It causes me to be so very thankful that I belong to Him.

[KnightErrant]

Yes, they will. God will restore to them what their parents and abortion practitioners cruelly stole from them when He gives them new resurrection bodies. He'll do that when the trumpet blows.

As for what form they'll be resurrected in--I just don't know! Wish I did.

If they are restored as children, there will no shortage of adults who will want to "adopt" them. My wife and I would take a few, assuming that after we neither marry nor are given in marriage we can still do such things together...

[KnightErrant]

You stated it as a fact, but it is only your opinion. The fact is too many want to not see the just nature of God. As Pagal says the Bible shows us how God operates at certain times. I remember when I first read about Elisha being teased by youths, I was a little dismayed:
2Ki 2:23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!"
2Ki 2:24 So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

There are times when we cannot understand but I rest in the knowledge that He is God, He will have mercy on whoever He chooses and He will make His power known also as He chooses. It causes me to be so very thankful that I belong to Him.

In this case the term translated youths can include anyone from 13 to 40. They were all Bar Mitzvah and responsible for their actions. Cursing a prophet of God is the same as cursing God.

[Ancient Julez]

I once heard a pastor speak on the subject of what he thought heaven was going to be like, and when he talked about the perfect bodies we are to recieve, he felt that all peoples will be the same age, around 33, the same age Jesus was when He died...
I have also heard arguements for both sides that we will know each other in the same relationships we have here, and that we will know one another but not in the sense we do now, in other words we'll all be related, but it won't be mom daughter father son type, but all brothers and sisters...I obviously can't say I know, kuz none of us do, but maybe the relationships on earth during Christ's 1000 yr reign will still hold human form, and be what they are now, and those who were raptured and who died in the ages before, who will be in heaven, will have heavenly roles...??

[KnightErrant]

I once heard a pastor speak on the subject of what he thought heaven was going to be like, and when he talked about the perfect bodies we are to recieve, he felt that all peoples will be the same age, around 33, the same age Jesus was when He died...
I have also heard arguements for both sides that we will know each other in the same relationships we have here, and that we will know one another but not in the sense we do now, in other words we'll all be related, but it won't be mom daughter father son type, but all brothers and sisters...I obviously can't say I know, kuz none of us do, but maybe the relationships on earth during Christ's 1000 yr reign will still hold human form, and be what they are now, and those who were raptured and who died in the ages before, who will be in heaven, will have heavenly roles...??

It's always seemed to me that age will be irrelevant in our new bodies, once everthing is glorified to a state of perfection beyound anything we have ever seen or imagines. Since our bodies now reach their peak in the late 20's, I can't see God giving us something past prime.....wrinkles in Heaven? Doesn't feel right somehow.

I believe that the emotional and spiritual bonds and relationships will endure past the physical, so earthly relationships that had those qualities will continue. Just my opinion, but if all creation is to be raised, not just us, then all good things will endure.

[Ancient Julez]

It's always seemed to me that age will be irrelevant in our new bodies, once everthing is glorified to a state of perfection beyound anything we have ever seen or imagines. Since our bodies now reach their peak in the late 20's, I can't see God giving us something past prime.....wrinkles in Heaven? Doesn't feel right somehow.

I believe that the emotional and spiritual bonds and relationships will endure past the physical, so earthly relationships that had those qualities will continue. Just my opinion, but if all creation is to be raised, not just us, then all good things will endure.

I knida agree with ya on the age thing...this pastors explanation for it was because he looked to Jesus as the example of Perfect, and that He didn't start His public minsitry until just the right time, and He spent 3 yrs doing it until His death...and it was something to the effect that Jesus was perfect, at that age(not that I am saying age matters, but maybe it did play a role in it) so if we recieve perfect bodies, possibly Jesus was setting the example...and that everyone will be the same age as Jesus...no babies or old people, no wrinkles or grey hair...although I have heard about white hair!!!
who knows....
But it will be amazing when we find out!!!

[metroames]

I wonder a lot what role children (those raptured or who have died before the age of accountability) will play during the millenium and in eternity future. I have two small children under 3 and as fast as things are moving prophetically, they may never reach the age of accountability and have the chance to personally accept Christ as Savior.

For a while I felt like I wanted the Lord to wait to come back until after my boys accepted Christ because there are rewards (bema seat) and blessings that I didn't want them to miss out on if we get raptured before they got to that point. I've come to a great peace about it recently and know that God has a plan for them whether we are rapture out of here sooner than later. I've also come to the realization that I really don't want my children to lose their innocence in this fast deteriorating world.

But I still wonder about the children after the rapture. They won't actually have a choice and I have a hard time seeing them given adult glorified bodies and understanding. Then it dawned on me....maybe they will stay children forever! What would heaven be like without children? Jesus obviously has a special heart for children. I just wonder if this is part of His plan and the innocents will be always be children....obviously without the sin nature. What do ya think?

Amy

[Heartstorm]

Good question !! I have spent alot of time wondering about babies and children, I had a baby that died at birth and I have always wondered about babies in heaven and children. The only thing I decided is that the Lord has this all figured out and one day we will see them. I don't think they stay babies, I think we are all given new bodies that are ageless and it is just accepted. I do know that the Lord told me I WILL see my child and it will be a joyous reunion. I now spend alot of time worrying and praying for my 13 year old !! We are entering the stormy sea of teens and I worry about her. I pray for her ALOT. But one day I had this image of her and I our arms wrapped around each other zooming up, we were both looking up, From our heads to past our knees we were changed, bathed in a goldish color, our little
feet were still solid and fleshy. It was WONDERFULL and we were not worried but very very matter of fact and peacefull. So I have no clue where that image comes from but it brought me much peace and joy so I hang on to it!!The only thing I found odd was we still had shoes on, couldn't tell about the rest of our bodies .....anyway it brought me to the matt, face down.

[Lynn]

A book by John MacArthur, "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" would be good for you to read, Heartstorm. It will comfort your heart.

I don't understand all of God's plan regarding the rapture and children.
It seems though that in the OT, the children of the pagan nations were wiped out right along with the adults; however, the children of the ones who were faithful to God were blessed and spared with their parents. This being a pattern that is observable in Scripture, it might lead one to think that children below the age of accountability and still dependent on adults for their care would be 'taken' or left behind, depending on their parents' standing before God, but I really don't know this for sure. The Bible doesn't spell it out clearly, except that Jesus did want the little children to come unto Him, for of such is the kingdom of God. We do know that God will do the RIGHT thing, because He loves the little ones even more than we do, and our sense of fairness, etc., is limited, but He is sovereign and all WISE, and in Him is no darkness. He can be completely trusted, and I'm so thankful.