Posted on 11/26/2017 8:01:55 AM PST by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
The 31-year-old mother of four made an announcement to family and friends on Facebook: She and her husband of four and a half years were expecting a fifth child. “We’re blessed,” wrote she.
Most Christ followers believe an automatic blessing awaits mothers- and fathers-to-be, no matter the circumstances under which their newborns are brought into the world. But the Bible does not say that the actions of expectant parents can displease God, yet the arrival of their newborn guarantees the Almighty’s blessing.
In fact, it teaches us the opposite – that God does not reward parents-to-be whose actions run contrary to His divine will.
So it was with Abraham and Sarah. God promised the couple they would be the father and mother of nations. But Sarah lost faith when she thought herself beyond child-bearing age and urged husband Abraham to use her Egyptian handmaiden Hagar as a surrogate womb.
So Hagar bore Abraham a son named Ishmael, who would become the progenitor of the Arab peoples. Fourteen years later an angel of the Lord appeared to Abraham and told him God’s appointed time had come for him and Sarah to have a child of their own. And God fulfilled His promise with the birth of Isaac.
Ishmael resented his younger half-brother Isaac, as Sarah and Hagar mutually despised each other. Thus was Abraham forced to drive out Hagar and Ishmael from among his people.
Then there was David and Bathsheba, who brought forth a child out of adultery and the killing of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite. God was displeased with David, and though David pleaded with God to spare his newborn son’s life, the Lord struck down the child.
Were Abraham and Sarah blessed by Ishmael’s birth? Absolutely not. Because it was not God’s will. And while God forgave Abraham and Sarah their lack of faith, while He kept His promise that Abraham and Sarah would be the father and mother of nations, the descendants of Ishmael are to this day sworn enemies of Isaac’s descendants, the Jewish people.
Were David and Bathsheba blessed by their unnamed son’s birth? Hardly. For while God forgave the couple, while He anointed their son Solomon to succeed his father to the throne, God also decreed that the sword would never depart from David’s house.
And so it was that David’s rebellious son Absalom sought to overthrow his father and take his kingdom. When rebellious Absalom was killed, his father David wept bitterly.
That brings me back to the mother and father of four who are expecting the arrival of their fifth child next March. These young family members of mine think themselves blessed simply because they have a child on the way. But it just might be that God withholds his blessing because the couple has done things their way and not His way.
Indeed, I am reminded of a sermon by the pastor of megachurch in Northern California where my wife and I were once members. “God’s will,” the pastor said, “without God’s timing is not God’s will.”
The mother- and father-to-be have lived in poverty since they wed four and a half years ago, each bringing a four-year-old, out-of-wedlock child to the marriage. The husband currently has a $30,000-a-year job. His wife hasn’t worked in two years, and barely six months total during their four and a half years of marriage.
Yet, that didn’t stop them from having a third child three years ago and a fourth child just last year, both births of which were paid for not by the couple, but by welfare. And now they have a fifth child on the way who also will be a welfare baby.
I believe it was neither God’s will nor God’s timing for this mother- and father-to-be to bring three children into the world in addition to the two they already brought to their the marriage. And I don’t think God is going to reward this couple – to bless this couple – for the questionable choices they have made that condemn their children to poor life chances.
Does that mean the husband and wife’s four-going-on-five children should not have been brought into the world? Does it mean the children are cursed because of their parents’ bad choices? Does it mean the children will not rise about the situation into which they were born?
No, no and no.
Once conceived, no matter the circumstances, a pre-born child has a God-given right to life. And though born out of their parents’ unwise choices, God has mercy on the children. And, finally, though children be born in poverty, be raised on welfare, those of us who are Christ followers will be a blessing to the children because they did not choose their parents.
You must not have children
When God told folks things during the Old Covenant, He expected them to be obedient - look at what Jonah went through because he decided his judgement of whether others were worth trying to save outweighed God's wishes on the matter.
That’s irrelevant.
Children are a blessing.
Yes, children are a blessing!
The author completely misses the meaning of being blessed. The blessing is receiving Gods gift of a beautiful healthy baby.
What is this tripe???
I just want to say "Who is in charge here?" Are you trying to tell God what to do?
God promises he'll always love you, he'll always be with you, he's prepared a place for you to be with him forever. He didn't promise you a Ferrari or a wonderful life here on Earth.
The above is true, byut asserting that parents of newborn children are not automatically blessed is wrong, for it suffers from shallow theology, failing to distinguish btwn children themselves being a gift, a blessing themselves from God, versus turning out to be a blessing in the long run.
According to you, Scripture could say, children are a curse from the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his punishment, which sounds like the god of the pro-life crowd.
Bu what Scripture plainly states is,
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. (Psalms 127:3)
But like as material riches are a blessing from the Lord, both these as well as children can become a curse due to what people do with them. "Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. "(Psalms 69:22)
While children are blessing of the Lord, for promises that they will be blessed, parents must,
hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: (Deuteronomy 7:12)
And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. (Deuteronomy 7:13)
The shock value of your blog may get you hits, but do not complain at the reproofs of your shallow theology.
We are all called to be go examples.
Correction: good examples.
Please do not fault the children!
Also Psalm 127:
3Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
4Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
5Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
.
>> “In fact, it teaches us the opposite – that God does not reward parents-to-be whose actions run contrary to His divine will.” <<
God does not reward anyone whose actions run contrary to His divine will.
That has little to do with children, and there is much in the bible declaring the blessings of child birth.
The author of this filthy screed has an evil agenda.
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Amen!
.
People who say babies aren't blessings intrinsically, in and of themselves, don't seem properly impressed by Who it is that sent them.
And if this family is having financial difficulties,
(1) so did the families of most of the saints (1 Cor 1:26 - "Not many of you are educated, powerful, or rich...") and
(2) it is the bounden duty of their Christian community to both share their burdens and guide them into greater responsibility and self-sufficiency.
Amen?
Anyone who says otherwise is childless and eternally jealous
There. Fixed that!
If it turns out you're wrong, and the family does well, achieves financial independence, and gets good-to-above-average outcomes from their children, will you be angry with God for not following your rules for "blessing" or "rewarding"?
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