That's okay. Thanks. I know that took an effort. That's for sure. I really do appreciate you inviting me again to be here. It's really fun. And for letting charity come too. That's nice. I told her I didn't know whether I could persuade you to allow that or not. It worked out really well, but we've had a great time. I want to read Psalm 127. This is familiar to us again, but listen, listen to what God says. Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless Yahweh guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is his reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. And that's the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us another day and again reminding us that you are the same yesterday and today and forever and therefore that everything that we need we know will be provided this day. We praise and thank you for the relief that brings and for the comfort that sheds abroad in our hearts and we ask that you will help us to rejoice now. throughout this day, uphold us and protect us, and enable us in this day to grow into conformity to Jesus our Lord and Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. Well, I wanted to change in this last talk to focus on children. And the reason I want to do that is because we hate children. And I don't mean that you hate children, at least I hope you don't hate children. But the fact is, we, corporately, we as a culture, hate children. No matter how much rhetoric and blather goes on, that everything's done for the children's sake. Everyone wants us to be taxed through the ears so that the children can have the latest in technology in their classrooms. Because you know that first graders can't live without iPads. That's just the way it is now. Education depends upon Well, in spite of all this sentimentalism around us about children, we really, the truth is, and all the concern about children's rights and all that, the truth is we hate children and we have hated children for a long time. And I'm not, as I said, I don't think, I can't say that our church or your church actually hates children. I think we have a good attitude toward children. But Christians also, throughout the church, have been affected by this mentality that's pervasive in our culture, so that we pick up attitudes, subtle things that show that we don't have the proper attitude toward children that we ought to have. We find ourselves, you know, the same perspectives start leeching into our thinking and our attitudes as a present in the world around us. So we don't hate children in the same degree, but I fear it's still true in some measure. And here's why. We hate children because we see nothing wrong with killing those that are inconvenient or untimely or disruptive. Now because of our technology and because of all the things that we can learn ahead of time, we can We know whether our children are going to have physical defects. We know what sex they're going to be. And we know, at least some people think they can tell how smart they're going to be and all of that. And we're killing children if they don't meet our criteria. I mean, this is not a threat to the mother. It's not a problem. It's just that we see that that's not what we wanted. We wanted a girl, and this is a guy, or we wanted a boy, and we have a girl. And literally, people are doing what in China has been going on a long time, that's selection by gender. Physical defects are the cause of a great many abortions. So we have abortion and continued, in spite of all our efforts, it continues at record rates, 126,000 per day, 5,250 per hour, 88 per minute. I was talking to everybody in Monroe, and I said, that means that if we took the population of Monroe, and Ruston, and Alexandria, three cities in our area, that's what's being wiped out every day. And that's a lot of children, and that's a lot of hatred. And yet we still hear Christians excusing, approving, and even supporting the murder of the unborn. And the consequences of this are now being seen, and we're going to feel them much more heavily in the next 20 years, 25 years, 50 years. The guilt of murder, which you always have, you know, even really, really hardened criminals feel bad about killing people sometimes. And so you're going to have this tremendous guilt among men and women for killing their children. The loneliness, of course, that's going to be the result of all that. and the economic implications of all this, for a culture that guarantees income for its population, what does that mean? Well, all of those things are going to come home, and they're going to come home with great power to us, and we need, as the Church, to be ready for that. I'm saying, prepare yourself for these kinds of things, because this is where much of the growth of the kingdom is going to come through people who are guilt-ridden to the hilt because they've killed one or more people, and really the fruit of their own womb, which is the worst of all, and they're going to be very, very crippled, and we've got to be able to stand there and be able to help rebuild them by the Spirit's power. So, abortion is obviously a sign we hate children, but we also hate children because we refuse to have them. And some people would say, oh, come on now, that's a ridiculous kind of charge. We have this huge population explosion. It's about time we quit having them. We need to limit population. And again, I've even heard Christians say these kinds of things. But the truth is, if you still believe that there's a population explosion, you haven't been keeping up. a shocking and very serious underpopulation problem growing over the past 30 years. The birth rate worldwide has not been at replacement levels during that entire time, and it's getting worse, not better. In fact, some analysts say that it's already too late for Europe. Europe is finished. They're not having enough babies. What they are having is immigrants, and so Europe is becoming you know, Saudi Arabia, North, basically. But Europe is over. They cannot recover at this point because their birth rate has been down under replacement level for so long. And the implications of this is terrifying the heads of Europe right now, the policies that they're doing. The top 100 countries in birth rates per 1,000 are all, every one of them, from Africa, Central and South America, and the Middle East. None of them from the Christian countries of the West. None of them. The Christian countries of the West are the worst. And the only reason that the birth rates in Europe are what they are is because of the immigrants from the Middle East and from Africa and other places who have come in with a different attitude toward children and are having babies. But it is not the natives. It's so alarming that nearly every country in Europe, and I believe I'm right to say every country, but I'm not sure, every government in Europe is giving monetary incentives to people to have children. And they have these huge billboards out. Have babies. Get a baby. What a wonderful thing to have a baby. Everybody's going, what? I mean, for 50 years we've been told, kill babies, kill babies, kill babies, and now you want, you're willing to give me $300 a month for having a baby? For three years? 800, I said three, $800 a month for three years. Per child. The U.S. birth rate is still higher than Europe, but it's at an all-time low and getting lower. One-third of the births recorded in our country are from unwed mothers. So what you're having here, you have a number of children. The birth rate is so low, though, that they're going into normal families. Then it's really going to be a negative in a way, because so many are coming from unwed mothers and those children are ending up either in adoption homes or on the street. Many of them are just on the street. They don't have a place to be. Overpopulation isn't happening here or anywhere else in the world. And really, in one sense, that's never been a problem. But if you ask the average man on the street if overpopulation is a problem, nearly every one of them would say yes. The fact is that for us, overpopulation has never been a concern. It should never be a concern for Christian people. Our slogan is, the more the merrier. That's a Christian slogan. Because it's true. Many of the things that you view as necessary and many of the conveniences that make life easier and the luxuries that we have, the common luxuries, are available to us because we have a larger population. Depopulation is the great disaster for any culture. And the leaders of Europe have begun asking some very, very scary questions because there are no babies. If you don't have babies, and this is really pathetic, because what they've done, these towns in Europe are building playgrounds, and they're rusting. Nobody is there. So you have these towns all over Germany, and they all have this beautiful playground, and there are no children to play in it. They built them to think, well, if people walk by playgrounds, they'll think, wow, I need to have a baby that they can swing on. No! People hate children. You've taught them to hate children. So they have all these beautiful playgrounds and they're all rusty. In Italy, playgrounds everywhere, no children. The towns are silent. Bunch of old people walking around and young marrieds who are thinking about where they're going to go get the latest latte, you know, with their scone or whatever. And now the heads of Europe are sitting back and saying, what are we going to do? Because in a few years, we're not going to have any workers. And I mean by that, young men to work. Because you need young men. You don't just need people. You need young men. Because most of the important work is done by young guys, not old guys. Old guys are not good policemen. It's hard to run people down. And you see with the weaponry that usually a European policeman has, you've got to be fast. You can't stand there and go... I hope we'll continue to be able to do that, but the fact is that you've got to run in Europe and you can't do that. Firemen, you've got to have young guys do that. Construction, production, industry, and they don't have them. They're having to now recruit people from the Far East, from China, from everywhere, to come in and work. Because they don't have enough French to do this. You don't have enough Frenchmen. You don't have enough Germans. And they're saying, who's going to be available to care for us and provide for us when we get old? Who will provide? Not only for the support of the elderly, but Who's going to provide new ideas and initiative for exploring new avenues of cultural advance? Who's going to, and technology, who's going to grow the food? You've got to have young people to do that. What are the repercussions for a society that's guaranteed income to all who retire from the workforce and get that income by taxing the working class, working people? What happens when there are not enough children to pay for the retirees? When in truth you would have to tax the children 85%, the workers 85%, just to pay for the elderly. Guarantees that you've already put in place. Those who promoted feminism and abortion in the 60s will begin to receive the same mercy they've shown to those dead children. because they killed them, because they were inconvenient. We're sharing a terrible judgment now, and it's really one of the worst that God can send. Unbelief is present-oriented and suicidal as a result. And nowhere is this more clear in the refusal to have children. Without children, the society reverts to primitivism and soon will die out altogether. Cruelty increases. You know, you won't You won't maybe, I know that there are people who abuse children, but commonly, even the hardest heart is sensitive to a little child. And that's an important thing, an important presence of little children in our culture is important because it reminds you there are those who need protection, there are those who, and they draw forth your sympathy because you think, well they haven't done anything, here I need to protect them. Old people, not so much, because you had your chance, you know. You messed up. You deserve to die. Honestly, that's the attitude toward many young people. You've had your time, you know. I'm sorry if you're unhappy now. Well, so what? I can't help you. And so you don't get the sympathy for old people, but you should. And a culture is softened by children, babies. But we're not having them around, so what happens is you get harder and harder and more and more barbaric and insensitive. You can expect to see euthanasia laws passed throughout Europe. They're already being passed. And it's already being practiced, by the way, even though it's not advertised. Nobody will acknowledge it. But at every hospital, when they learn that you can't pay, or there are no funds available, then you're left to die. And it's not, sometimes more or less overtly. There are ways that your death can be sped along. that cannot really be traced. So euthanasia will become legal and become very obvious and nobody will think a thing about it in a few years because of the realities that they're having to face. You see, the unbelieving children of unbelieving parents are not going to be more generous than their parents. Right? They're not. They will not like having to pay a high price to support the sick and infirm when the price for this goes up every year. And that means that their ability to get their fancy foods and all their gourmet and specially made clothes and all that, they won't have it. And that's not going to be acceptable. So it's a terrible judgment, but that's what happens. when you hate children. That's what happens when your children know that they're only alive because you thought they would be convenient and fun. So the rule of life means that if you're convenient, you don't cause a lot of trouble, and you're fun, we let you live. But you know, if you're not fun, and you're causing me trouble, you should die. Why should you live? You're messing my life up. You made me feel guilty. I have to come visit you every now and then. That's a pain. I have things to do that are important. Why should I care about you? You're a pain in the neck. You get sick all the time. You don't feel like going out and doing things. You're too slow. Now you think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. I'm underplaying this. The attitudes of many young people in our country, it's already there. Because they know they were the children of convenience. They know they have brothers and sisters that are dead because their mother and father did not want them because they did not want the extra expense. They didn't want the extra burden of having to care for them. They didn't want the trouble. They didn't want any of that. And they taught their children, that's the rule. That's how you live. And that level of mercy will be paid back with interest. That's what we're facing. We hate children because we love ourselves. That's the bottom line. Unfaithful man is centered on himself. He sees no value in children. And think of all the reasons that really, you know, when he tells you, why should I care about children? And he starts listing the reasons. You say, well, all these things are true. I have to tell you. He says, well, they're expensive. And I say, yep. Can't say otherwise. They are. They cost you money. If you have them, you have less to spend on yourself. And that's true. You don't have the extra money for clothes and travel and gadgets. You used to, but now you don't. Because you're having to pay for these little people that eat. They have to wear things. They have to be warm, and it's a pain. You're using good money on these little people, and you could use it on yourself. And they say they're disruptive. And I say, well, you know, that's pretty much true. They change your life plans. They prevent women from having a career. You have to stay home from work. And then if you put them with a sitter or you put them in a daycare, you feel guilty all day because you know you're supposed to be a mother and you're not even seeing your children but a few hours in the evening. And then you start inventing things like quality time to make you feel better. Right? There's nothing quality about that time. It's just that helps mother understand at least I'm trying to show the world I do care about my children even though I never get to see them. I never spend time with them. And the only time I do want to have, I want to be able to maybe see them eat their last meal and stick them into bed and maybe read a really short story to them. That's quality time. No, that's a guilty mother trying to salve her conscience. That's what that is. They change your schedules unmercifully. They don't understand that you need to sleep at normal hours. When we first had our first two boys, and I did it with all of them, and Charity too, because she was one of the worst sleepers. As if you couldn't assume that, you know. No, I'm joking. I would take them around, you know, in the middle of the night, three o'clock in the morning, I'm taking Matt around going, Matt, pull the, pull the, pull the, what do you call the things? Curtains. Pull the curtains aside and say, what do you see out there? Nothing. Because it's dark. And that means you're supposed to be asleep. Dark time is sleep time. When it's light time, it's awake time. But this time is a sleeping time. And he just sat there and paid no attention to what I was saying. Yeah, they mess up your schedule. They don't like to eat when you do. You can't have your own plans anymore. You have to include them and that drastically changes your life and children affect the whole of your existence. That's the truth. You're transformed people. You come into a new world and every new one brings you into another new world. They disobey and they act ugly and generally seem to do as much as they can to embarrass you in public. They were fine at home, but now we get out and they've been transformed. And they're inconvenient. You can't go and do the things you used to be able to do. You feel as though you will never again eat in a restaurant that doesn't have a clown or a king or molded plastic seats. with playgrounds full of plastic balls in full view of your table so you can watch them and not have to stand outside. You know? Oh man. And you have to stay at home more and you have to watch out for them because they get into things and they cause messes everywhere. And they are burdensome. You not only have to clothe them and feed them, you have to discipline and teach them and that's hard because they don't take your word for things and it's just difficult. It's a pain. Discipline demands that you deny yourself. And so a lot of people just say, you know, that's too much. I'm denying myself in other areas so much. I'm not going to do that. I'll just trust they'll turn out all right. Discipline demands consistency, and that's a lot of trouble. It's easier just to keep them appeased and keep them out of the way and keep them quiet. Make them behave. That's all people care about. But you see, the rule, our goal is not that you behave, but that you be holy. And if your goal in child rearing is just having children who behave, you don't have the right goal. And they bring troubles and sorrows. Do they ever. They cause anxiety and concern and worries and fears. And they make you vulnerable because your future is tied to theirs. Their health and their decisions and their faithfulness or their unfaithfulness. Troubles and sorrows certainly always come with children. All that is true. And when a guy sits there and makes this list, I'm nodding my head. You're right. You're right. Oh, you don't know the... Yeah, that's it. All of it's true. Which is why the having a baby is cool thing, you know, Hollywood gets into every now and then. Having a baby was so meaningful for me. It only lasts for a little while, and it wears off really quickly, as all mothers know. The idea of having a baby is cool, but having a baby gets pretty uncool pretty quickly. Because you really, when you actually have to take care of babies, that's a different story. You can talk about having them, and you can go on TV and tell your stories and all that, but taking care of them is another thing, so that pretty quickly, Hollywood mothers find nannies and those children or mommied by nannies, not by movie star anymore. And they end up hating mother and writing their books about their mothers and all the rest. Babies become a drag really fast. And so you end up finding books on the New York Times bestseller list with titles like this, The Mommy Myth, subtitled, Why Motherhood Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be. Wow. Okay. Children are trouble, and when you love yourself, it's more trouble than you're willing to be put to. And this, of course, as I've mentioned, this is directly related with marriage. This is all a part of it. You see, if the goal of marriage is my self-fulfillment and happiness, it's hard to find a place for children if that's my goal, because they are attacking that goal every day. They're not concerned about my happiness and fulfillment. They don't care about my well-being. They don't care about how much of my money and time they take up. After children come, we often have to make a concerted, coordinated effort just to have a time of conversation together. Much less go out on a date. They cause trouble, and they don't care. So if marriage is supposed to be for my happiness, then children are absolutely unnecessary and in fact they are a positive hindrance to this. I've got enough trouble, I've got enough problems on my job, I don't need to have it when I come home. And so this spirit has pervaded the world, but it also is seeping into the church as well. We're just not quite as open about talking about it. We just have these attitudes in here, and then we try to invent a holy-sounding excuse for how we're living. We hate children because we're unwilling to use the God-ordained means of teaching them and training them and chastening them. And here I mean the use of the rod. It's happened again. Every five years or so, a group of Christians comes up with what they think is a new argument against spanking. And it's really nothing, there's nothing new about it, they're just repeating the old things that have been said by Dr. Spock and many others long, long ago. There have always been these arguments that spanking is wrong, it's destructive, it's unnecessary, it's harmful, it's violent, it's aggressive, it's abusive. We need gentle parenting, they say. Well, I'm against violence to the children, I'm against aggressive abuse of children, I'm against abuse of any kind, whether it's aggressive or not. I'm against doing them harm, I'm against destroying them, I'm against all those things that warp them. And that's why I'm for spanking. Understand? The rod is, God says it's indispensable. And I know it's hard, and it's hard to talk about it without sounding like you approve of it, or it doesn't bother you that children get injured sometimes by angry parents. It does bother me that children get injured. And children being beaten is a horror. Yeah, that bothers us. And that's why a lot of people don't want to talk about spanking, because it so easily can be abused. And I acknowledge that. And God does too. But the God who hates wickedness and abuse and bullying in the sense of a larger person abusing someone who's to be dependent and defenseless. That same God says that we must not only teach our children, but utilize the rod. It's clear in the Bible that biblical discipline involves both verbal instruction and correction as well as physical chastisement to enforce the instruction. So listen again, this is what God does for us and we're to be like him. You have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons, my son. Do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives." Now, that's pretty strong language because you know what scourging meant, but obviously he's using it in a less serious form, but he's saying The Lord inflicts pain to his children because he loves them and he understands they need to connect sin with pain. And so he sends the rod of chastening. He not only rebukes us, but he chastens. Both things are necessary. God's discipline involves not only verbal correction, rebuking, sitting the child down and saying, look at me, I need to talk to you. You know, and talking to them and explaining to them. and as they get older, reasoning with them and laying out the argument, the rationale, this is why mom and I do this, you need to understand why we're doing it, but also chastening. Listen to Proverbs 29, that was Hebrews 12 by the way, this is Proverbs 29, to rod and reproof, both give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame on his mother. Now again you see, this is It's so emphatic. People say chastening just means speaking strongly to your children and making them understand that you're displeased and that they can do so much better. And I agree, that's admonition, but that's not chastening. Chastening, God says, means not only reproof, but giving the rod as well. Both the rod, physical chastisement, and reproof, verbal correction, are necessary if wisdom is to be imparted. To administer the rod without reproof and instruction and correction is to ignore the fact that our children are creatures of God. They're created in God's image. That is wrong. So a guy that just thinks, yeah, you know what I do? I just beat my children. Well, you're not, that's not what God commands and that's wrong and you are injuring your children. I would say that's going to cause bad problems if that's all you do. But God has told us that's not all we're to do. You're not to train your children like animals so that when you give the word they can go hop in the chair. They're not animals. You don't train them like animals. You chasten them, you discipline them. That means enabling them to grow in wisdom and discernment themselves. You're moving them from the chastisement with the rod so that they will respond to your word. The whole point of spanking is to teach them to respond to your word. Because they've got to learn to respond to God's word. And I want them, when they hear God say something, they immediately go, whoa, okay, that's what I, that's the way I have to go. Just as much as I want my, I wanted to train ours, if they were running out in the street, and they're, you know, They're half an acre away from me and they're running out in the street. I want to be able to say, stop. And they stop. I told them, I can't catch you. You're going to be in positions that I'm not going to be able to get to you. So I need you to when you hear me, when you hear the word, you respond right away. That's the goal, because they've got to respond to God like that. And of course, it's for their safety. Mothers and dads who are always chasing their children around and making them do it. all the time. And so you see these six-year-olds, they don't respond to anything, and mama has to go run, and she's... I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what's going to happen in a few years? I mean, he's going to get faster, and you're not. You need to be able to have something you can appeal to aside from speed. And they've got to learn to respond to the Word. That's the goal, right? We want them responding to the Word of God. That's what wisdom means. And that's where we want to go. That's our goal, and so that's what we want to do. So we have to have the rod, God says, in order to have wisdom, that kind of wisdom. And so if you give the rod without admonition, you're wrong. But it's equally wrong to give admonition and forsake the rod. And you think that your admonition is so helpful to children. And it is, but it's not as effective as you think. You know, so I see these, sometimes these dads with a ten-month-old giving him a lecture on presuppositionalism or something, you know. Here's the way you have to understand. The foundation of all is God's Word. Now, understand that? Three-year-old, you know, ten-year-old, ten-month-old. Yeah, he got it. I know he did. There's a presumption that's unwise. They need to learn about sin, and they learn with the connection, they learn that when you sin, it brings pain, and the rod is the thing that brings that. The rod is as indispensable as admonition. And again, just a couple more things from the book of Proverbs. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it from him. Now, if I told you, you know what your child's problem is? It's foolishness. What would you initially think is the corrective thing, the thing that needs to correct that foolishness? He needs to listen to some good sermon tapes. Right? He needs to read a book. Give me a list of books and he won't be a fool after that. And I'm saying, no, no, what you need to do is just spank him. That's it. He doesn't need to read a book. He doesn't need to listen to tapes or CDs or MP3s or whatever it is, the latest thing. God says the thing that will keep him from being a fool is the rod. And if you forsake that, then you're obviously happy with him being a fool. You've got to believe that. He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Now that's as straightforward as I think it can be. If you think you're wiser than God on this, not only are you blaspheming God, you're showing that you despise your children. No matter how sentimental and emotional you get, you hate your children because you're not willing to do what God has called us to do. Now, I haven't even gotten in. I know there's a whole bunch of stuff. How do you do this? How are we to do it to God's glory? How do you keep from abusing? All that's all true. Don't have time for that. But just want to emphasize, this must be done. And I'm concerned that many, many, I think a lot of Christians, some of the Christians I really admire, are now coming out and saying, no, we are learning that spanking is unnecessary and harmful. And making no distinctions there between abusive spanking, which I will stand with them on against, you see, the abuse, and wise, faithful, loving chastening with the rod. Now this, let me, one little thing, please, I think it's good to use something other than your hand. Because I don't want my hand connected to the chastening. It's not, I'm not, I'm not the one that's been offended preeminently. It's God. And I want a symbol of the fact that Daddy and God are not happy. But God is the one who's told Daddy that he's got to deal with it. Okay? So this, when I go and get the you know, the thing that is decorated and is obviously coming from heaven. They know this is the day of the Lord. And they run and try to find fig leaves and cover themselves. Because it is the day of the Lord. I want them to know God's not happy. Daddy's not happy, but you know what's worse? God's not happy. And you're not happy, but you're going to get happy. We don't do something here until you're really happy, and we're all going to be happy again, and that's the way we like it in our house. And that's what we try to do, but the rob is necessary. But you see, when you won't do that, the truth is you hate children. And we need to just face it, and if you've had that attitude, I really would appeal to you to repent. and then ask the right question. Okay, how do we do this without conveying hatred for our children, or anger toward our children, or being violent toward our children, or encouraging violence in the children? All those are good questions, but they don't mean you forsake the ordained means that God has given us to train up our children in the nurture and admonition of Jesus. And that leads me to the last thing, which is we hate children because we distrust God. We hate God. It's obvious from what I've said. God loves children. And did you notice how he talks about them in Psalm 27? Children are a heritage of Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is his reward. He doesn't focus on the expense. He says, hey man, that's an inheritance to you. That is value. He doesn't mention how much they're going to cost. He talks of them as rewards. And that's the word for wages. That's the word for getting something back and enriching you. He doesn't focus on how much it's costing. He focuses on what a blessing and enrichment they are. He doesn't mention them making you vulnerable. Indeed, he speaks of them as your protection and defense. They are arrows. They're means by which you can attack the enemy. They are the arrows in the hands of a warrior. He doesn't talk about them as bringing disruption or frustration or inconvenience. Rather, he says they are the foundation of true happiness and honor. The man who has them shall not be ashamed. He's not going to be embarrassed. in the streets. God views children as great blessings. In the first chapter of the Bible, you hear about it. It says, God made man male and female and blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. You see, so the idea is the blessedness of man, the true happiness and settled merriment of man is fundamentally joined to the children that God gives him and that God works through to help him take dominion over the world. So, man can be like God, you see, so man's love God loves to multiply His love through us, which is one of the reasons He created man. He wants to enlarge the circle of His love, you see. And man, as His image-bearer, wants to do the same. If we've got the right spirit, we're given mates not merely for companionship, but so that the circle of our love can get bigger, have more people involved in it. So children are not the main purpose of marriage, but they are central to marriage. They're not merely consequences of marriage, they are in a sense of the essence of marriage, of the marriage relationship, and one of the greatest blessings. They are blessings because it's through them primarily that we are able to extend and multiply God's love to the world. So not only are we sanctified ourselves through our children, but the kingdom of God is advanced. Psalm 128. right after Psalm 127 celebrates the blessing, the blessedness of the man who fears the Lord. It says, blessed is everyone who fears Yahweh, who walks in his ways. And what are the blessings of this man? Well, there are two that he's mentioned. He shall be able to exercise dominion by laboring with his hands to the glory of God and the good of others. So verse two says you will eat the labor of your hands and you'll be happy and it should be well with you. You're going to be able to work and your work is going to be fruitful. And secondly, you are going to be fruitful. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house. Your children like olive plants all around your table. Both of these are connected, though. The domestic blessing of children promotes the well-being of society, because of his fruitfulness, the man who fears the Lord is going to see the good of Jerusalem. That's the way the psalm ends. Marriage is not for you, it's for the world. Your children are not just for you, they're for the world too. So the whole point is, you're going to be blessed, you're going to be enriched, but the great part of this blessing is seeing how your children are a blessing to Jerusalem. They're going to be a great blessing to those around them. And that's going to increase your blessedness. He says, as he closes out, Yahweh bless you out of Zion. And may you see the good of Jerusalem all your days. And listen to the parallel line. Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel. The grandchildren are like, that's the thing that he's talking about here, seeing the good of Jerusalem. The multiplication of your love is going to go forth outside of your family into the world. In Psalm 113, the psalmist describes the grace of God by the twin figures of a man being given dominion, the poor are raised by God's grace to sit with sinners. I'm sorry, sit with princes in verses 7 and 8. And the second image is a barren woman being given not a position of a CEO in a corporation, but fruitfulness. He grants the barren woman a home like the joyful mother of children. Praise Yahweh. It's like, how can I describe to you the highest blessings of God's mercies and forgiveness. The effects of sin are completely undone by God's grace. By God's mercy we're able to take dominion over the earth and we're able to be fruitful and multiply. And this is where children fit into the marriage. The primary purpose of marriage is to glorify God by displaying and embodying his faithfulness to the world. Children fit in not because they bring so much personal fulfillment to their parents, though they do that, but fundamentally because they're the means through whom the kingdom of God is expanded and advanced. And for this reason, God's people have always viewed large, disciplined families as a blessing. David left the ark in the care of Obed-Edom, the Gittite, not an Israelite. And God blessed Obed-Edom's house, we read. But in the Chronicles we're told particularly what form that blessing took. Listen to this. God gave him eight faithful sons. All of them became gatekeepers in the tabernacle. That was the blessing of Obed-Edom. for housing the Ark of God during the early days of David's reign. And so Christians have never been afraid of overpopulation. Indeed, having an increased population is one of the great blessings that God promised Israel if they were faithful. You're going to multiply. Israel was to be like the stars and the sand of the seashore. They're going to be this huge number of people. That's the great blessing of God. And the contrary judgment was a depopulation. Curse will be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land and the increase of your cattle and the offspring of... You will be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven for multitude, because you would not obey the voice of Yahweh your God. So just as it was that Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing, and you shall be plucked off from the land which you go in to possess. And the Lord pronounces judgment on unfaithful Israel in these terms. Glory shall fly away like a bird. No birth, no pregnancy, no conception. You think of glory, the glory of the Lord is going to depart. How? Okay, here's one of the main ways you're going to know it's departed. No birth, no pregnancy, no conception. God's perspective is clear. Children are blessings. They're not blessings in disguise. They're blessings. Straight on. Straight up. They're inconvenient. They're a lot of trouble. They cause heartache. They're expensive. But they're part of the blessedness and the goodness of God. I told you about this article about the stats about the cost of children. Well, a few years back, the stat at that time was that to raise a child from birth to age 18 came up to $160,140. $160,140 for a middle-income family. That didn't include college tuition, which would, according to this, boost it up another, up to $200,000, say. Huh? No, it doesn't. Right. The wedding. So it's $800,000. No. But this guy who wrote the article was saying, hey, this is what the government just told me it's costing me to have my children. But he says, hey, look what I'm getting. I'm getting naming rights, first, middle and last. He said, I'm getting endless wonder over rocks and ants and clouds and warm cookies. I'm getting a partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites and building sandcastles. I'm getting someone to laugh myself silly with, no matter what the boss or how my stocks perform that day. He says, I'm getting a finger pain. and carve pumpkins and play hide and seek and catch lightning bugs. I have an excuse to keep reading the adventures of Piglet and Pooh and watching Saturday morning cartoons and going to Disney movies. I get popsicle stick picture frames and I get beautiful crayon art and cards with backwards letters and all of them go up on the refrigerator where all the truly great art is in our home. I get to pull kites out of trees and frisbees off of roofs and take out splinters. I get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, the first word, and watch the first hit and the first haircut. He says I get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communication, human sexuality, and no college can match in this education, he said, I get a long list of names in my obituary called grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And he says, I get to train the next generation of heroes and change history. And he says, I can do all that for the bargain of $160,000, $140,000, that's a bargain. He says, you see, this reminds us of the real cost of not having children. People in Europe are not having that extra cost, but look at what they're facing. They don't know who's going to pay taxes. They don't know who's going to perform the work necessary for society to function. But what is worse? They're not going to have a bunch of people getting excited and not being able to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. And that's the real cost. When you're young and strong, it doesn't matter to you. But when you get old, it matters. And all this is connected with who you marry. As I said before, you've got to have somebody who's not only a Christian, but shares a common mission, but doesn't hate children. And that's hard to find sometimes in our day. And this is one of the chief reasons why we should greatly rejoice over the babies that God has given us. God is giving you many babies. He's giving us a lot of babies. And we need to continue to be happy over that and rejoice over that. Every baptism is another sign that the Lord hasn't forsaken us. And He's still showing us mercy by increasing the number of our children. So, you know, the world may be deep going down in population. Our church isn't. Yours isn't. And that's a great, great blessing. People who rejoice over children nowadays are literally one in a million. And this will increasingly become one of the marks of God's people that distinguish them from the world. We'll be the ones who are happy that someone is pregnant. We'll be the ones who rejoice. And so pray that the Lord will continue to have his mercy on us, continue to make us and all of our brothers and sisters fruitful so that we can multiply to his glory. Let's pray. Father, help us to learn these lessons and not to be affected, not to be conformed to the world around us, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can glorify you in all things. Thank you for teaching us better. and clearing our vision so that we can understand that what we hear is often a lie. Help us always to be alert to Satan's lies and not believe them. And teach us to honor you in everything we do, for Jesus' sake. Amen.