Now your kid is going to need help with this concept of a good God doing nasty things. Here’s where you need to step up with some education about Divine motivations. God loves all people and He wants everyone to come to Him. But God doesn’t force salvation on anyone—He gives them the option of defying Him and ending up in Hell. Now is not the time to pussyfoot around the topic of Hell with your kids. We aren’t doing them any favors by presenting God as some smiling pushover who takes everyone we love to Heaven just because we love them. God is the King—if we don’t obey Him, there are serious consequences. When we intentionally hide this truth from our kids, we end up in big trouble with God.

God has arranged things so that you have enormous credibility with your kids from the moment they are born. You’re supposed to be using their trusting nature to expose them to essential truths about God: who He is, how much He loves them, and what He requires of them in order for them to obtain His salvation. We need to be careful not to put obstacles between our kids and God by teaching them a bunch of lies. When you know there’s a 99.99% chance that Aunt Martha went to Hell, but you tell your kids that she’s turned into some angel who is looking down on them from Heaven, you are BOLDFACED LYING and you are getting yourself in big trouble with God. No, it’s really not okay to make a mockery out of salvation and act like God’s wrath is non-existent. It’s really not okay to teach your kid that eternity is some “choose your own ending” affair. Hell is real. God’s wrath is real. God’s disgust with rebellion is going to be in front of our faces like never before during the end times, and you need to prepare your child to recognize what is going on. God is GOOD, but God has BOUNDARIES. He doesn’t let people mock Him forever.

Now clearly we need to be sensitive in the way that we present tough truths to our kids. We don’t go on at length about Aunt Martha roasting in eternal torment. But instead of making empty promises, we say, “IF she submitted to Jesus, then she’s certainly in Heaven. But unfortunately, we don’t know for sure that she made that choice. Obedience is a very serious issue to God. He says that once we die in this world, it’s too late to change our attitudes towards Him. If we haven’t gotten right with Him, we are going to end up in Hell.” We don’t encourage our kids to view the dead as their supernatural guardians. This kind of idolatry infuriates our jealous Creators. Instead, your kids need to know that God loves them a billion times more than any humans ever could, and the fact that HE is always with them is more than enough. Once loved ones die, they are GONE, and there is no way to communicate with them. Should God choose to kill YOU off before your kids during the end times, you want to have done what you could to steer your kids away from spending the rest of their lives praying to you for protection and talking to some photograph of your face. Such a focus won’t take them anywhere good. They need to see God as the One who is always with them, and He is the One they need to be talking to when they are alone and afraid.