ICR: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 culturea "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 offspringthat is,
offspring trained in the ways of the Lordthen 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 schoolsevolutionary 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
todaythis philosophy that says there is no God, that there are no
absolutestherefore 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 societythat are destroying the
family unitthe 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 nationthe 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).
