The salvation of babies who die (Part 3)

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John MacArthur, Jr.*

Now, that’s prose, I know, but it’s true, isn’t it? It’s right, isn’t it? To tell parents when children die, they do live happily ever after? I think the Word of God will affirm the salvation of little ones who die.

A place to begin: Psalm 139. What I’m going to do tonight is just give you a little bit of a look at Psalm 139 and then I’m going to talk a little theology with you and I’m going to be as precise as I can because this demands precision. Then, next Sunday night, I’m going to support the theology with the text of various Scriptures. So, this will be a two-part look at this issue.

Psalm 139 does provide for us a good starting place. I want you to look at verse 17. This is a place to launch our look and then we’re going to go backwards in this first part of Psalm 139. “How precious also are thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them.” The Psalmist David has captured some precious thoughts here, precious divine truths that mean so much to him and that’s why he calls them precious. They are treasured truths. They are gems to hold onto. And what are they? Let’s go back and find out.

The first precious truth that the Psalmist grips is that God knows everything about him, even before he could talk! Look at verse 1: “Oh Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me; Thou dost know when I sit down, when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from afar; Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down; and art acquainted intimately with all my ways.” You know everything about me, everything about me! You know me. You know when I sit down, when I rise up. In other words, you know every detail of every moment of every day. You know what I think, you know my path, you know my sleeping--you know everything intimately about all my ways and you have known it even before there is a word in my tongue! Before I could ever speak, you knew everything about me! I was known to you in every element of my life. “Behold, O Lord, you know it all.” God knows everything about me, even before I can talk.

The second precious truth is that God is actively involved in my life. Verse 5, “You have enclosed me behind and before; you have laid your hand on me.” In other words, you’ve got me backed up on both sides and covered on top. You’re active in my life. I’m in the middle and you’ve got me surrounded. Verse 6, he says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it’s too high; I can’t attain it.” You know everything about me before I can speak. You have my life completely in your hands. You’ve pressured me from both sides. You’ve kept me contained. I can’t get out the top because you’re there. It’s a precious truth, isn’t it? From the very start, you’re actively involved in controlling my life.

The third precious thought is that God will never lose sight of, or knowledge, of me. There’s no way I can ever be lost to you. “Where can I go from your Spirit?” verse 7, “Where can I flee from your presence? If I go ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there thy hand will lead me, thy right hand will lay hold of me.” I can’t go anywhere outside of your knowledge! I can’t go anywhere outside of your vision! I will never be lost to you.

The fourth precious truth is that God will never be limited in that knowledge, no matter how dark it gets. This is sort of metaphoric language in a sense. It’s never going to be so dark--you say, well, I can see you in the light, but things might get so dark that God loses his view--no, he says in verse 11 and 12, “‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,’ I might say, ‘and the light around me will be night.’” In other words, I’m going to fall into some circumstance--I’m going to fall into some problem, some dilemma, some condition, and it’s going to be so dark, the Lord isn’t going to be able to find me. And then, verse 12, he says, “Even the darkness is not dark to Thee; the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee.”

Now, the point of this is these are incredibly precious thoughts of the Psalmist and what they tell us is that God knows every single detail about his life from beginning to end, starting before he could ever say a word. How is it that God has this personal, intimate knowledge? Answer: because God is--and here’s the fifth precious thought--God is his personal Creator, verse 13: “For Thou didst form my inward parts…Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb.” You put together the male chromosomes and the female chromosomes; you wove my DNA! You made me, personally.
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*[All rights reserved - John MacArthur Jr.]
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