Revelation 21:23-27 “The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. (24) And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it. (25) Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). (26) And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it. (27) But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.”
In this section we want to discuss what will happen to the children on the earth when the church is caught away. It is important to note that when the church is removed from the earth that all children will be removed at the same time. So why is that? There are a number of reasons why God will do this. The main reason is because the Day of Salvation ends when the rapture takes place; and so if God were to leave those children behind they would be unjustly condemned to eternal punishment. God is not unjust and will therefore not allow that generation of children to be separated from Him in spiritual death, for Jesus taught us it is not the will of God that any children should perish (Matthew 18:14). It is important to note that God will not remove the children because they are part of the church however, because they aren’t. God will remove them because all children are born of God, and as long as they remain children (i.e. under the age of thirteen) they belong to Him. So how will God remove the children from the earth? Because all children who die go to be with the Lord in heaven, they will simply die. So how do we know that? Because of the uniqueness of this event we do not have a biblical precedent that we can look at for an example. The closest precedent we have would be the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. On both of those occasions God destroyed the children along with the adults; the difference being that after being destroyed, the adults descended into hell to suffer torment while the children ascended into heaven to be with the Lord. On this occasion however, the children will ascend into heaven while the adults will remain behind on the earth to experience God’s wrath. Once the children have been removed, God will close the wombs of that generation and no more children will be born into the earth until after the Lord’s millennial reign. When the church returns with the Lord Jesus at the outset of the Lord’s millennial reign the children will remain in heaven; for they will only be raised from the dead at the end of the Lord’s millennial reign (Revelation 20:4-6). So if all children that die go to be with the Lord in heaven and yet they are not part of the church, what status do they enjoy in heaven? Children that die obviously do not remain children, for their spirits continue to grow and develop in heaven as they would have on the earth. The passage of scripture quoted above is a description of the New Jerusalem which will be located on God’s new earth. This passage reveals to us that there will be saved nations that will dwell on God’s new earth. Those nations will be made up of all the children who have died from the time of Adam until the end of the age, for their names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. The population of mankind that has been born into the earth since the time of Adam is well over one hundred billion people. Of that number, roughly twenty billion have been children who have died and have since gone to be with the Lord in heaven. It is that population of twenty billion people that will make up the nations of those who are saved. Although in the age to come those nations will be allowed access to the New Jerusalem, nevertheless they will not dwell there, for only the church will reside in the New Jerusalem.
Luke 21:25-26 "And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; (26) men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
We have mentioned earlier that because of the relatively small size of the church, that the event of the rapture itself will have little to no impact on the earth. An event of all children in the earth suddenly dying however will have a major impact on the earth. And so, this event coupled with rumours of the saints having mysteriously disappeared, will cause great consternation as men begin to realise that God’s judgement is about to fall. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Lord Jesus tells us that men’s hearts will begin to fail from the fear and expectation of those things which are coming on the earth.
Michael E.B. Maher
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