The people who cried for the blood of Christ were very short-sighted. They may have been wide-awake business men and far-sighted herdsmen, but they were blind when it came to being able to determine the best in life and also of seeing the results of sin. They cried for the blood of Christ, saying, “Let His blood be on us and on our children.” In other words, “This man is nothing so why should we fear and fail to kill Him. There is nothing that He can do to us. It is a matter of little consequence.”
     A great multitude of people have the same brazen attitude when it comes to the choice between sin and righteousness—between Christ and Barabbas. They seem to say that they are able to bear the consequences of sin. Why should they be afraid of the wages of sin? Why, we and our children can easily bear the consequences. This surely is an attitude born of ignorance and failure to realize that sin really has its wages. We see from this statement that not only the one who sins but also others who are dear to him will have to suffer as a result of his sin.
     Does not history bear witness of God’s an-swer to this challenge? Many of those very people, and their children later, died by the sword, fire, famine, and disease. Some were sold into slavery for less than the price of the Christ. Others died upon crosses. Their request was granted—we only have to see the history of those who ill treated and rejected the Christ to know that. And today nations and individuals rise or fall to the degree that they ignore or follow Christ and His teachings.
     Did you ever see a drunkard whose children had to go in want as a result? Did you ever see the disgrace that sin brings to a man and his family? Have you ever seen parents who wrecked their bodies and minds in loose living to such an extent that their children suffered? Have you seen the materialistic parents who failed to give their children any idea of the higher things of the spirit and left them only a selfish material conception of life? They overcome it sometimes, but oh! how hard it makes the path for them.
     If some of the loose living, careless, materialistic parents of today have no regard for themselves, they should respect their children’s welfare. Remember, you can lighten the load for them or you continue in sin and say, “Let us and our children suffer for it”—and they surely will. If you do have that attitude, then don’t make the complaint to God that the burden is too much to bear—because you, and others like you, put every ounce of that burden on your own shoulders. Then, too, never complain if your children merely eke out their selfish existence on the level of the beast. Let us realize that when we sin we are asking for a horrible thing to come to pass—suffering for ourselves and for our children. (20th Century Christian, October 1939).