| | WHERE ARE ALL THE GODLY OFFSPRING?
by Ken Ham
What is one of the primary reasons for divinely ordained marriage? In
Malachi 2:15 we are given the answer to this vital question: "And did
not he make one?.... And wherefore one? That he might seek a Godly
seed...." In other words, why did God make you two one? Now right
here, one of the greatest questions in the Bible is answered. Why
marriage? Why does God make two people one flesh? Because He sought a
Godly offering from your union.
The primary purpose of marriage is the production of Godly offspring
that is, offspring trained in the ways of the Lord. Notice how the
Scripture says "Godly offspring" not just offspring.
The family is the first and most fundamental of all human
institutions. It is the family unit set up at the time of creation,
and founded in Genesis, that God uses to transmit this knowledge from
one generation to the next and to affect the world for good. No wonder
the family unit is under so much attack in our society today. If it
can be destroyed, then the very unit (which is itself a witness to the
fact of creation, not evolution) that God uses to transmit this
knowledge from one generation to the next and a witness to the world
around has been destroyed.
If parents fail to transmit knowledge to the next generation, then
that generation will not have the knowledge to transmit to generations
after. Consider Psalm 78:1-7:
"Give ear, O My people, to My law; incline your ears to the words of
My mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings
of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children showing to the generation to
come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful
works that He hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob and
appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they
should make them known to their children: That the generation to come
might know them, even the children which should be born; who should
arise and declare them to their children."
The importance of this transmission of knowledge from one generation
to the next can be seen in Joshua 4:5-7 where God said ". . .and take
you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the
number of the tribes of the children of Israel: that this may be a
sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to
come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That
the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the Covenant of
the Lord;. . .and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the
children of Israel for ever."
We see here the importance God placed upon making sure that what He
had done was not forgotten but would be told to generation after
generation. So we as parents, and particularly fathers, must make sure
that we diligently transmit the knowledge of the Lord to our children.
As it says in Deuteronomy 6:5-12, in everything that we do we teach
our children because our children look at us and become what we are.
We as parents, and particularly fathers, are told to look at Jesus
Christ to become like Him (II Corinthians 3:18), and as our children
look at us they are to become like Jesus Christ. In other words, in
whatever we do, our children look at us and become like us. How
important it is, then, that our children become Godly offspring,
because the way fathers train them not only affects our children, but
what future generations will become.
The time not spent by a father in training just one child could lead
to hundreds, or thousands, or millions not having the knowledge of
God. It takes only one generation to produce what is termed a
"primitive race." Take the hippies who go into the jungles and produce
offspring who are not told of the Bible or of God and are not told
about medicine or technology, etc. In one generation, they have
produced a non-God-fearing and a nontechnological culture a "primitive
race."
This has happened in the past to the Australian Aborigines, the New
Guinea natives, the American Indians, and others. Somewhere in their
past, the fathers did not pass on all of the knowledge they inherited
via Noah. Thus, when discovered by the Europeans, they were regarded
as "primitive."
More and more we see in our society forces at work to take our
children at younger and younger ages to train them in anti-God
philosophies. In effect, this would produce a non-God-fearing, anti-
Christian nation. As Hitler said, give him the children for a
generation and he'd have that nation. This should make Christians more
diligent in insuring that their children are trained totally in the
ways of the Lord and grounded upon the Word of God as the absolute
authority in all matters of life and conduct.
Where are the Godly offspring? It is a known fact that in each
generation, a greater percentage of teenagers brought up in the church
abandon Christianity. If we do not produce Godly offspring that is,
offspring trained in the ways of the Lord then this knowledge will not
be transmitted to coming generations or to the world around. Where
then will be our evangelists, pastors, Christian teachers, Sunday
school teachers, etc.?
The family is under attack today as never before. The sad thing is
that one of the major reasons for the breakup of the family is that
the fathers have not obeyed the Scripture to be the spiritual head of
the house. In most Christian homes today, it is the mother who teaches
the children spiritually, not the father. This is in direct
contradiction to the clear statements in the Word of God. Fathers one
day will stand before their Creator God and answer to why they did not
spend the time to insure their family was built as it was meant to be.
Most parents have left the training of their children to the church,
school, or college. Many think that they can be absolved because they
spent much money sending their children to Christian institutions.
Many Christian colleges today have compromised with evolutionary
ideas, and are helping to destroy the foundation of the family because
they do not insist upon a literal Genesis.
How sad it is that one of the very things that destroys the basis of
the family is being tolerated by many in the church and in our
Christian colleges and schools evolutionary ideas: millions of years;
death before Adam; local flood. These things should be condemned
because they destroy a literal Genesis and thus the basis of the
family unit. Yet attitudes toward them in the churches have softened
to such an extent that many Christians don't even seem to know what is
right or wrong concerning these matters. Christians are being told
today to be tolerant of all views on these matters. Yet this
"tolerance" is in itself an intolerance of the authority of God's
Word. Right through the Scriptures we see God, over and over again,
emphasizing the importance of accepting His Word as truth ("let God be
true, but every man a liar;" [Romans 3:4] ).
A generation is arising that knows not the things of God, allowing
(and even encouraging!) pre-marital sex, abortion, homosexuality, and
easy divorce. This will result in the elimination of Christian
absolutes from our society. At the base of all this is the fact that
what people believe about origins develops their world view. That is
why evolution is so pushed through our schools and in our society
today this philosophy that says there is no God, that there are no
absolutes therefore anything pertaining to the Christian absolutes
from the Word of God cannot be tolerated. Thus the family unit must
come under attack and be destroyed by those who build their lives on
the anti-God beliefs that are destroying society that are destroying
the family unit the very unit God uses to transmit knowledge of
Himself to the world.
Each of us should ask whether he is one of those who has compromised
with the world, rejecting a literal Genesis and thus helping to
destroy the backbone of the nation the Christian family. Each father
needs to be obedient to the Scriptures and insure that his children
are trained in the truth that "Thy word is true from the beginning:"
(Psalm 119:160).../
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