Hell must be spoken and taught
Children are not too young to die, and therefore they are not too young to think about what will happen to them when they die. They need to hear about the Father's house with its many mansions and the place that Jesus is preparing there for all who love Him and put their trust in Him for salvation. But our children also need to hear about the wages of sin, the state of eternal death and eternal separation from the love of God that is called hell. We need to explain to them that God's perfect justice requires that sin "committed against the most high majesty of God be punished with everlasting punishment of body and soul" ( Heidelberg Catechism , Lord's Day 4, Q. 11). I am not saying that we should talk about hell every day. Rather, we should look for opportune moments. When we find them, we should speak about hell in simple but sober terms. When Andrew Bonar once told his friend Robert Murray M'Cheyne that he had preached about hell, M'Cheyne re