Do  You Offend Children?

Entering a Pharmacy one day my attention was drawn to a young boy standing before the magazine rack. He was thumbing through one of the magazines which contained vulgar pictures of naked women and as he turned the pages it was evident he was enjoying what he saw.

I called the owner of the store over, whom I knew well and who was an active member of a large church in the city. We observed the young boy as his mind was being corrupted by the filthy literature he displayed on his magazine rack and which the boy was devouring with intense interest. He began to make excuses for the presence of such literature on the rack, saying he had to show the complete line of magazines or not get any at all from his supplier. My reply to him was, then don't handle magazines , for the profit you make on them is not worth risking the displeasure of God against corrupting the minds of our youth. I reminded him of the Words of our Lord when He was here on earth when He said - "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone be hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).

There are many offences being committed against children in our present day. According to our papers, crimes against children are on the increase. Crimes such as: parent neglect, lack of Bible teaching, sex abuse, unmerciful whippings, floggings, corrupting the youthful minds with hellish literature, vile and offensive TV programs, movies and many other ways.

The Bible abounds with expressions of God's love for the young and woe be to the person (parent or otherwise) who contributes in any harmful way against the well-being of God's little children whom He claims as His heritage (Psalm 127:3). Let not that person guilty of contributing to the delinquency of any minor think he shall escape the divine wrath of a Holy God. It would be better, said our Lord, that a millstone be hanged about his neck and cast into the depths of the sea, than to offend one of these little ones. In other words, the Lord Jesus is saying it would be better that a person be deprived of living by being drowned in the depth of the sea than to live to stumble or offend a child and suffer God's eternal judgment against such a crime.