The Little Child

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 24, 1904

“THE wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” Isa. 11:6.

Here is a picture of life in the new earth. The Spirit of God unites the elements that are now most discordant, so that they dwell together there as brethren. Ferocity and cunning disappear, and love and sympathy take their place.

The central figure of the new creation is the little child. He is the type of a redeemed humanity, the leader of the world to come. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

The condition of entrance is also the secret of achievement there, and the measure of success. “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” He shall lead by virtue of his childhood. It is upon the shoulder of the Child who is born unto us that the government is laid. Isa. 9:6.

If a man would learn, he must become a child. No others can enter God’s school. “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Matt. 11:25. “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.” Isa. 28:9.

In their self-sufficiency and ignorance, men grow away from God’s plan for them. As the years come and go, instead of deepening in them the trustful love and earnest simplicity of little children, they banish these from the life. Cold, calculating selfishness takes their place, an unlovely, grasping spirit is developed, and every effort is made to glorify self. But the effect is to impoverish the life, to dwarf the noble powers of the mind, to take away the capacity for learning and leading.

God calls for a reform. The hearts of the fathers are to be turned to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers. Mal. 4:5, 6. We must cease to grow away from the little ones, of whom the Saviour said that they were to teach us of the kingdom of heaven. They ought not to learn anything of us that will rob them of their purity and innocence. As we seek to guide their little feet in right paths, we ourselves are to renew our youth in association with them, and learn deeper lessons of childlike trust in God. If God should grow away from us as we have grown away from our children, he would have been out of all touch with us many generations ago. He delights in the little ones, and he bids us learn of them his ways.

The world is poor to-day, and the work of the gospel halts, because there is so little of the childlike spirit in the church. To be converted is to become as a little child, and to continue in that spirit. At the end of the pilgrimage, when the gates of heaven are opened wide for the ransomed throng, the welcome is not for those who were once as little children, but for those who remain such.

If the early church had not lost the spirit of little children, there would have been no development of the papacy. The very beginning of this was the growth of self, the attempt to draw away disciples after human leaders who desired the pre-eminence. Now, when the fruit of this spirit of self-exaltation is with us, and has permeated the professed followers of Christ, so that the church is filled with the strife for position, the only way to fight the evil is to be converted and become as little children.

When the Lord contrasts his way with the way of Babylon, he declares that his people never cease to be his little children. “Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: and even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” Isa. 46:3, 4.

God wants his children, young and old, to walk hand in hand, one in spirit, alike tender hearted and unworldly. “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.”—Present Truth.