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Christians and
Birth Control
Where Have All The Children Gone?
"Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They shall not be ashamed, when they speak with their enemies in the gate." Psa. 127:3-5  | |
An American Family
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The birthrate in the U.S. is so low- 13.83 per 1000 / 2.02 per couple- that we, as a nation, are staring at the eventual loss of our culture. In 1909 we had 30 births per 1000, three times as many kids.* Other cultures, some of whom are our avowed enemies, are having children at three times our pace (6.4). It has been estimated that in 20 to 30 years, if we don't change our views on having more children, the loss of our culture will be irreversible. As a nation, we'll be  | |
A Muslim Family
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"ashamed." How did we get to this point? We have a national mindset, Christians and non-Christians alike, that having fewer children is the right thing to do. And birth control is almost universally assumed to be how married couples achieve this "fewer children" goal. Imagine a typical, but obviously make-believe, conversation that Jesus has with a newly married couple today. The three of them are sitting in the living room of the couples home. Pleasantries are  exchanged. Then Jesus drops a bombshell by saying, "I want to bless your marriage." The newlyweds are really excited to hear this! Their minds run the gamut considering all the possibilities of the blessings Jesus might be giving them. But then Jesus adds, "I want to bless you with many children, beginning right now." "Children?" the husband responds. "Now?" "We are not ready for children," the wife responds. "We've only been married a few days." Jesus looks them both in the eyes and says, "Children are a blessing from Me. Human life is  the greatest of all my creative works, made in God's image. Trust Me and I will provide for all your children and you will enjoy these blessings for eternity." "Sorry Lord," the husband says, missing Jesus' point entirely. "We have decided to wait on having kids. We want to both work in our careers, save some money, get to know each other, and maybe get a bigger home in a better neighborhood." And the wife adds, "Plus, we don't really want a lot of kids. Just one or two, three at the most. We have no desire to have 10 or 15 kids, besides, raising children is so expensive. If we have a lot of kids, I would have to stop my career, our income would be cut in half, and we would have to live on one salary. We appreciate the offer, but we'll wait a while. We'll let You know when we think we're ready and then You can bless us." Sound familiar? That conversation is played out everyday in some form or another, with Christians and non-Christians alike. The God of the universe, through promises in His inerrant Word, offers to bless Believers with the greatest eternal gift available in this life (next to salvation). But this incredible blessing from God is amazingly shunned in favor of temporal things. In essence, we are saying to God: "I know better than You so I'm going to prevent You from blessing me." "I don't trust You to give me good gifts." "I don't trust You to provide for the gifts You give me." "I'm focusing my life on this world, not the next. I want more money, comfort and material things rather than more kids." And in reality, we're saying, "We're self-centered and temporal things like money, houses, cars, clothes, etc., are our primary focus on this earth, more important than having lots of children." "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." 1John 2:16 How in God's green earth did Christians begin to cavalierly accept focusing our life on this earth and not eternity? Why do we not want God's eternal blessings? When did we begin believing that we should have smaller families... that having fewer kids is better... when God plainly states the opposite? We have been deceived by the great deceiver. "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." Col. 2:8 Satan has cleverly moved us away from the greatest gift God wants to give us in this life. He has falsely proclaimed, mainly though our public, private AND Christian schools, that birth control is a private decision. That "overpopulation" is a problem. He's convinced us that large families are not to be desired and has assured us that we know better than God. "Do not be deceived... for he is a liar, and the father of lies." Jas 1:16/John 8:44c I believe Satan's biggest lie today is his successful demolition of the importance of God creating mankind in His Own image. During those six days of creation, God spoke the earth into existence displaying spectacular imagination. And the crown jewel of His creative process is man himself, made in the image of God. He made us a lot like Him! Today Jesus is on the throne with a body like ours... hands, arms, feet, eyes, etc. We are made in His image. IN GOD'S IMAGE! Wow! "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.' And God created man in His Own image" Gen. 1:26 "... For in the image of God He made man." Gen. 9:6 One of the few eternal blessings of this life is having children. They are God-given gifts, and He says the more the better. Ten is better than two. But Satan has used age-old tactics to prevent Believers from reaping the eternal rewards of children. He has duped us primarily through a false view of feminism (Gen 3:16c) and its two ugliest by-products: birth control and wives feeling compelled to find fulfillment outside the home-- all three deeply rooted in "self" and birth control directly linked to the quest for more money.  | | The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. |
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." 1John 2:16 We need to rethink our reasons for using birth control. Do we really want to trust our human thinking over totally trusting God? If someone has 10 kids in this life, is always tired and broke, is that bad? Only if you have your eyes on this world, not eternity. If God says it's a blessing, it's NEVER bad! "From the God of your father ... blessings of the womb." Gen. 49:25 This can obviously be a touchy/sensitive subject. Most of the people reading this, even if they agree, can't do anything to undo the past. My goal is not to put people on a guilt trip.  But if it's true that we should not use birth control, in almost all cases, that we need to pray for more kids, not fewer, then we need to repent and boldly proclaim the truth loud and clear for future generations. We must teach eternity is more important than this life. We must proclaim: "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; The fruit of the womb is a reward." Ps 127:3 Bill Perkins Executive Director Compass International, Inc. * Statistical sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/27/us-birth-rate-sets-record_n_697131.html http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/birth_rate.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU Biblical references are from New American Standard Bible, with permission. | 
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