Having and raising children
Introduction
A. In the first century, the church had many families.
1. 1 Corinthians 16:15-16 Family of Stephanas
2. Cornelius, Acts 10; Romans 16:5, 10, 11 several others
B. Churches die without families. The churches in the United States churches composed of gray hair.
1. For lack of fruit: few children, few baptisms
2. It is common for those who do not believe in large families to not believe in, or at least to not practice, personal evangelism.
I. Not wanting to bear fruit for the glory of God is selfish, profane, and maybe a little rebellious.
A. Psalm 1:1-3 The life of a righteous man bears fruit.
1. Matthew 21:19; Luke 13:6-9 Leaves without fruit. Farmer will not tolerate fruitless trees.
2. John 15:2-8 In the true vine, we must bear fruit, or the Father will remove the branch.
B. Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, fill the earth.
1. Matthew 23:38 The judgment of Jerusalem: "Behold your house is left desolate (deserted)."
2. Thus the prophets of the Old Testament: Isaiah 1:7 “desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.” Jeremiah 2:12-13 “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils…” Jeremiah 6:8 “lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.” Jeremiah 9:11; 10:22; 33:10; 44:6; 10:25; 12:11; 19:8; 32:43... Daniel 9:17, 27 (Matthew 24:15 abomination of desolation)
3. Isaiah 56:3 “let not eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree… v5 I will give in my house … a name better than sons and daughters…;” Dry tree, implies inability to have children.
4. Blessings for Israel: Deuteronomy 28:4, If they obey the voice of the Lord, their wives and their cattle would be blessed in the sense of “increase” of children: Many children, v. 4, 11, 14. Abundant prosperity was connected with the fruitful womb. Idolatry would cause them to have smaller families, and smaller herds of livestock, v18. Idolatry would increase madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, 28. Idolatry would increase adultery, v. 30, loss of children, v32, slavery and hunger, v47... and v. 62 "will be few in number."
C. When we have few children, it is eventually the death of inheritance. No child of the parents will inherit the fruits of their labor.
1. Some do not marry. Or they get married late. They're not very interested in having a family.
--years of waiting will be lost years and unborn children.
2. Some married will have no children or very few.
3. Public Education now occupies both our young men and women until they are 25 to 30 years of age. Then they must find and settle into their career, achieve success. That is the priority. Without marriage and fatherhood, maturity is delayed until later. They will have few children because they are not encouraged and trained to have a large family, but rather to become more prosperous.
C. Ephesians 6:1-4 These verses presuppose the desire and ambition to have children and raise them well.
II. Marriage is for family. (But it is difficult and expensive, even dangerous)
A. Matthew 19:3-6 “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female.”
1. They will be joined, become one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man separate ... ever!
2. Why? Because the union produces children, family: it is sacred procreation.
3. Purpose is not first for pleasure or companionship, "love" between the two. It is not for the fulfillment of one personally... But to have "fruit," to have family for life: to take care of them and to raise them well. Leaving an inheritance of children to serve God.
B. Genesis 2:18 It is not good to be alone implies it is not good not to have children!
C. Psalm 127 Building the House
1. God “gives to his beloved sleep.” (Ecclesiastes 5:12 sleep of the laborer is sweet)
2. “Behold children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” V3
III. It is work, to have and to raise children. It's not easy, it's hard, expensive.
A. Marriage is for designed for the mature, adults, the strong, the ones who accept and understand sacrifice.
B. Proverbs 31:10, 15-22 The virtuous woman is strong and honorable.
1. Pregnancy is very expensive: doctors, exams, hospital. Dangerous, risk, labor pain.
2. Children get sick. Clothes are expensive. They must be washed. They are noisy, they break things, they stain the furniture, the carpet. You have to teach them to use the bathroom (easier to train a dog). They embarrass you in public. They provoke you. They test the bonds of your marriage.
C. Discipline
1. Proverbs 22:15, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rid of discipline drives it far from him.”
2. Proverbs 19:18; 17:25; 23:13-14, “If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.”
D. Instruction, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, A lot of teaching. Constantly. Not just “quality” teaching, but a great quantity of teaching. It takes a lot of time.
1. Public schools are full of unbelief.
2. The teachers come out of humanistic indoctrination, that they receive in the Universities, full of the philosophies of pagans, humanists, socialists, feminists... They are liberal in morality and cast doubt on the inspiration of the Bible.
3. When parents spend only two or three hours a day before collapsing at night, watching TV, playing, etc. How can we avoid losing our children to the doctrines of their teachers? We apparently have a blind faith in the team of teachers who are raising our children and forming them into their own image, according to their own faith.
IV. It is now said that the big family is a curse to mankind. We're going to starve to death and have wars over food because of “the population bomb.”
A. This is "anti-natalism," but It is sold as family planning.
1. The “population bomb” was a lie of the socialists and communists from over a century ago.
2. Now China and Japan do not have enough children to support the elderly in their old age.
3. Our birth rate in the United States is less than what is necessary to sustain the population without the immigrants. The are robbing the young from other nations to sustain our economy.
4. "Pills" not only remove fertility, but they also injure young women with blood clots in the legs and lungs that can move to the heart. Many women have died of breast and ovarian cancer as a direct result of such drugs. Add to that, they also suffer the effects of fornication such as venereal diseases and the inability to be content in a single relationship for life. The inability to trust a spouse.
5. Abortion after 1973 has killed 53 million children. At the global level, more girls are aborted than boys. There is a shortage of women in China Now.
B. There is a general belief that some children should not be born for the well-being of the living: the careers of women, or perhaps so as not to take money away from the education of the first children born.
1. When the woman is pregnant with the third child, it is time to call the pastor to strangle the next child, so that the other children can attend college and become rich and atheist.
2. In college, they mock the ignorant mothers who are so “foolish” as to have large families. They say, “Don’t they know where babies come from?”
C. What value do children have?
1. To our modern materialistic culture, they are "complex capital goods or merchandise"
2. Our generation regards children as an investment that parents make with the anticipation of reward.
3. You have two options: A) Large family of "low quality" children because we will not be able to send them to the best schools. B) Small family of "high quality" children because we can buy better clothes, better technology, better schools, better medicine.
4. Instead of investing in children, we can pile up more retirement savings, better vacations, or a more enjoyable career.
5. Psalm 127 Inheritance of God.
Conclusion: God wants us to get married and have a good family.