Call Not God’s Blessings Curses

And so I’m not trying to paint our the the world in which we live as uniquely evil, although there is some scriptural, reason to think that the times in which we live are progressing to a more and more evil state and we’re gonna look at that tonight. So it is getting worse not just in our country and other countries in a number of different ways, and as the coming of the Lord draws near, the societies and the vice is on the increase.

And one of the ways that we see that manifested in our time is the way people view family, is the way people view family. Now I’m speaking kind of writ large in kind of broad brush terms. I think you have a feature sometimes where you have people that say, oh I love my family, but they don’t have any kind of family value or priority. Right? In other words you have this, they call it cognitive dissonance where you say one thing and you hold to something exactly the opposite at the same time and you don’t recognize that they’re the opposite. And so there’s people in our society, if you were to just ask an average person the street, and you were to say, how important is family to you? And they’d be, oh man, family is so important, and all that stuff, but they have not managed to, they’re not prioritizing keeping their marriage together, They’re not prioritizing their children, training their children up in the way of the Lord at all.

In fact many of those same people, and I have personally observed this, right, and I’m sure you have too. Many of those same people who say my family is the most important thing to me will also at other times make disparaging comments about that very same family and those very same children. And you are like hold on, I thought your children and your family were the most important thing in your life, were the greatest thing in your life. So there is absolutely a disconnect that’s happening in our society.

And the vice that seems to be on the rise, and I think you recognize it as well, is the view of the family has changed just generally, not used to be in our society, it’s always been, listen, there’s always been vice, talk you to some of the people that have been here longer than I have and they’ll tell you that people have always been sinners, have they not? Believe, you know, they’ve always been adultery and there’ve always been people that mistreated their kids and there’s That’s always existed. There’s no It’s not it’s not unique to our time but it does seem to be a lot more open and maybe more frequent. Used to be people would stay married just because of the pressure of society to stay married, and now that’s that’s largely abandoned. In fact, what is on the rise now is don’t even bother getting married.

Right? And then the the fallout of that, the effect of that is people not having children or they do not have a a married mother and father and then of course, easy come, easy go. No marriage, when you get mad at each other, it’s over, that’s it. There’s no legal repercussion, there’s no anything. That is not God’s will. But it is increasing. It is a fact of our world and the truth is that it exists just as much in churchgoing people as it does people who don’t go to church.

Hear what I said? It is literally the same amount. And the reason I think this is happening is because of the way the family is viewed has changed. And I’ve heard it my whole life. I’ve heard disparaging comments about the family, about having children. I’ve heard disparaging comments about having a large family and mine is not large, know, it’s large compared to some, but average or maybe a little bit above average, but certainly not obscenely large.

I’ve heard disparaging comments about my marriage. How many of you know what I’m talking about? I’ve heard disparaging comments about the roles of marriage, about the priority of a marriage relationship, and then you look at the media, what do you see on the media? You see literally everywhere, every show, every channel is nothing but fornication and adultery and immorality everywhere. It is everywhere. That is what is being exalted and promoted.

And so, something has drastically changed in the way people view family and family in in many ways, although lip service is often given to the family, yet deep down there is really, I would say a level of contempt, especially among people who are younger. So some of you who are maybe in your 50s or older, if you know of course we tend to run with people in our peer group, People your age, that’s normal, that’s regular, my friends are generally people around my age, same is true with you. So if that’s the case, you might not recognize that people who are in their twenties do not think the same as you do. They absolutely do not.

They have a level of contempt for the family that would be shocking in many ways, especially when you get into people who aren’t aren’t familiar with with church things and and even people in church. So, lest I just go rambling and rambling on, let’s look at at at Proverbs 18. I wanna show you a few verses. Let’s pray and then we’ll read Proverbs 18 starting in verse number 22.

Our father, we ask for your help and grace tonight as we look in your word. Lord, help us to develop the values and the priorities that you have established in your word to give us indeed the mind of Christ, that we would not be conformed to this world. And, so help us as we look in your word. Help me to say what your people need and Lord, make us and transform us into the people you’d have us to be even in this way. We ask in Jesus name, amen.

So Proverbs 18 verse 22, notice what it says. Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the Lord. You know, get sick and tired. I’ve heard preachers, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard preachers quote that verse and say, then joke right after it and and thereby defang the verse and say, know, I could say something unkind right now, but I’m not going to, okay? See, he gets grace, he gets favor, he needs favor if he gets married, he needs grace. That’s not funny.

Because this verse is saying that if you get, if you find a wife and I think definitely the reverse is true. If you find a spouse, you find a good thing. It is good to get married. Amen, brother Ben.

It is good to get married. Marriage is good. Having a spouse is good. It is a blessing. Alright, look if if you would at Proverbs 19, next page over, verse number 14.

House and riches are the inheritance of fathers and a prudent wife is from the Lord. Not only is it good, but the source of this blessing that is the blessing of your husband, the blessing of your wife is God himself.

So how are we gonna speak disparagingly over something that is a gift and blessing of God? Look if you would at first Corinthians chapter seven. We’re gonna be bouncing around a little bit so just hang with me. First Corinthians chapter seven verse seven.

First Corinthians seven seven, now this is in the context of Paul recommending for that present distress that people don’t remain married, don’t get married, no you should remain married, don’t get married. And he says in verse seven, but I would that all men were even as I myself, that is he was unmarried, but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. Some people stand upon this and say, well, you shouldn’t get married because Paul said he would that all men were even as himself, but he says, but then he he kinda backtracks on that and he first of all he says in the previous verse, he’s speaking by permission not commandment, so this is not something the Lord has has commanded but then he goes on and he backs track and he says, but remember that God gives gifts to some and not to others and in that context the gift is referring to your wife.

So, that means that the the your wife, your husband is a gift from god. A prudent wife is from the lord. You you see that? Look at one more in Genesis chapter two.

Genesis two verse 18. Genesis two verse 18. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. And this is, remember, this is an innocency. They haven’t sinned yet. There’s nothing lacking to them. It is as if god created man with a gap.

As a part of his creation that was to be filled with a wife. He said, it this is the only thing that is not good in his creation. In other words, he intentionally left a block and that block was to be filled by his wife. He says, it is, it is not good that man should be alone, I will make and help meet for him. That means that means his wife was from whom?

His wife was from God. Now here’s the thing, our society to a large degree if you look at media, and media you know it’s not foolproof and sometimes it’s the algorithms that we get sometimes skew and warp exactly what’s actually happening but it does sometimes represent what’s on people’s minds at the minimum. And what you do see a lot in media is you see a lot of women that hate their husbands.

And you see a lot of men who roll their eyes at their wives and do everything they can to stay away from them and I’ve heard of them personally. They want to keep distance, they have their own life and they don’t want to be bothered with their yay yay yay wife all the time and then you have the woman who rolls her eyes and despises her husband and listen, this is it’s not just something that’s out there, this is real and it is common.

Marriage is frowned upon. And for the younger generation, the result of that has, that combined with the commitment is, I ain’t doing that. I’m just not gonna do that. We’ll live together, but we go to church, my pastor’s okay with that. Listen, living together, committing fornication is grounds for church discipline. Did you know that? You should be put an unrepentant fornicator should be put out of the church.

And yet and yet there are churches. There’s pastors. There’s churches that accept people like that not only into their membership but into their full fellowship and they are literally living in fornication. You know why? It is because marriage has been disparaged. That’s why.

That is the way our society largely views marriage. And even if people do get married, there’s always this halfhearted commitment that if anything goes sideways, there’s always a way out.

But that’s just one area, look if you would at Psalm one twenty seven. Psalm one twenty seven. Psalm one twenty seven verse three. Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, that means his property, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. So he gives his property to to us as parents. It is a gift of God, just like our wives, just like our husbands. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.

They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with enemies in the gate. Now it’s foolish to talk about how many arrows are in a quiver. That is not the point. How many times has verse five been used by overzealous people trying to describe how many how many children you have to have to be spiritual? That’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. But but but don’t go to the other extreme either because it says happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. In other words, having having a bunch of kids is a good thing.

Is a blessing It is something that brings joy It is not to be disparaged. Our family, my wife in particular has been in Walmart or grocery stores and had little comments here and there, sometimes well meaning, sometimes joking, and sometimes some of these snide little comments about kids. Listen, and that’s, that was mainly back twenty years ago when we had two kids or three kids, much less six.

What I’m saying is, is this is not how the world views children. Now babies at Madeline’s age, they’re a blessing, but when they get about five or eight or 11, not so much because they get annoying. And we all know kids, I was probably among the worst of them to be honest with you. But the bible says they’re a gift from God. The bible says happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. Have as many kids as as you can, as you want.

They’re a blessing. They’re a blessing. Look if you would at the next Psalm, Psalm one twenty eight. Verse three, thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house. Thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.

Being married, having a faithful wife, sitting around the table with all these little olive plants around, God says is a blessing. It is something to be desired, something that produces joy. Look at Job one, Go back to the left there, Job one. Job chapter one.

Job one, look at verse 21. Of course this is in the midst of Job’s sufferings, but notice what he says. It said, naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return thither. What does it say? The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. What is he talking about that the Lord gave? He’s talking about his children.

You see how he recognized that those came from God? You know, this is that cognitive dissonance I was talking about. There are some people of the Christian sort who will say, oh yeah, children, yeah, my children come from God. And at the same time, behind closed doors, they are furious with their children. Treat them poorly. They are not treated as blessings at all. They are not viewed as blessings at all. They are viewed as curses.

You not only had these verses that clearly articulate that family, husbands, wives, spouses, and children, however many you might have, are all gifts of God and God gives them as blessings to us. They are designed for our happiness, for our joy. They are not curses, they’re not, you know, veins or anything like that. They pure good that God has given to us, because every good and every perfect gift cometh from above, from the Father of Lights.

Our children have come to us from God. Not We have these verses that clearly state that, but we also have the testimony of godly men and women throughout scripture that almost universally viewed children as a gift of God and something to be desired. You have Eve, Abraham, Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Jacob, Isaac, Joseph, Naomi, Hannah, Job, as we just read, Elizabeth, and there are others. All of them viewed their children that god gave to them as a blessing, as something to be desired, not something to be avoided but something to be embraced.

So, I wanna say this, being married is a blessing of god. Having children is a blessing of god. It’s a good thing in both cases. It is not to be avoided. It is to be sought.

It will enrich your happiness. It will make your life better. Say amen brother Verner. We should call things that God says are blessings, blessings. Not only should we call the things blessings that God calls blessings, we should also believe and count those things blessings that God says are blessings. We should never ever think that that which God calls a blessing is anything except a blessing. Not a curse, not a hardship, not an unfortunate accident, or anything else.

What’s more is if these things, marriage, children, are god’s blessings, should we not also exalt them and promote them to young ladies, to young men in our family, in our friends? Should we not promote them to them and recommend to them? You should, listen, you, if you’re a young lady, you should set your heart on getting married to a godly man. If you’re a young man, you should be, you should be asking god to give you a good wife and once you get, once you marry, you should be asking god to give you some good children because it is a blessing.

It is pure good. That you you can’t deny it. What we just we just read all of these verses where they just repeated over and over and over. But we well know that this is not the way society views it.

Should we as adults not encourage younger people to pursue those things? Should we not speak of them as blessings to our children? Should we not describe these things as our greatest earthly treasures? Yes, this is how we should describe it, because they are not married, they do not have children, they do not know what those things are, How the how how it is. The only the only information they know about having kids and being married is what they hear from their parents and the and the adults in their lives, the older adults in their lives. And if they’re if it’s constantly disparaged and we constantly complain about it and we describe it in terms like it’s a curse, well they’re gonna think it’s a curse.

And how dare we, especially the people of God, call something a curse that God says is a blessing. Now there’s reasons that we in our society do not think of marriage and do not think of family and children as a blessing.

And the first reason is the world. One of the reasons people have begun to view marriage and children and families in a negative way is due to a shift in values, a shift in values and priorities in the world’s mind and in the heart of the people of this world. These days, and you know what I’m talking about, you can make your own judgment, but you know what I’m saying is true.

In our world, what are people longing for? What is their value system? What are they prioritizing? Here’s what people want. I just made a list, you have your own list. People want free time. People want amusement. They want ease.

They want immediate satisfaction. They want sexual freedom. They want actions without consequences. They want spending money, they wanna be able to spend money, have money to spend. They want careers. They want to amass wealth. They want me time and a 100 other things that they want. All of which are self focused. And this is one of the reasons that having a wife and having children is so blessed, is because there’s someone in your life that you can focus on other than your own stinking self.

And that is a blessing. That is a blessing. Just as a human being, not even Christian, non Christian, just it’s a blessing to be able to focus on another person, to pour your life into another, especially children. Did you know that your children are the only thing, you can amass wealth all you want, literally, doesn’t matter at all, nothing. The only thing in your life in this world that’s gonna live past you is your children.

Now, we know this. In the spiritual, that goes to heaven with us. But in this world, my children are literally not only passing me and passing my wife, but they’re passing our values and everything else down to the next generation. In other words, they are us living on.

Money doesn’t do that. Money’s fungible, you just trade it for something else and your guy is gone. Those sources gone. But these are the things that people in this world want.

They want these kinds of freedom, especially the sexual freedom. And children in particular are a hindrance, are a roadblock. And one of the reasons that people consider these blessings to be curses is because these blessings, marriage and family and children threaten to hinder and interfere with the things that they wanna do, some of which I just listed above. And there’s a big problem in our society with viewing children as the hindrance of these things.

And so they discourage it. Getting married is avoided. You can’t have multiple partners, you get married. Well, can, people do it, but it’s really gonna hurt your finances if you have a child, that’s true. It’s gonna cost money, a lot of money. It’s worth it.

You’re gonna be tied down to someone if you get married, it’s worth it. It’s worth it. Look at second Timothy chapter three. Second Timothy chapter three. It should be no surprise to us that this world has the view of family that it does. Just listen to this description in Second Timothy chapter three of the last days. And you say, well, I don’t think we’re in the last days. Well, meh, we can argue that point, but as we approach the coming of Christ, these conditions will increase. That’s the whole purpose of them being listed.

Verse one, second Timothy three one, this Know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. Tell me now why you don’t wanna get married? Why you don’t have children? I want me time. I wanna be able to spend money and go on vacation whenever I want. I don’t wanna have to be bothered and tied down with these things.

Lovers of their own selves. Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents. Isn’t that a weird thing to put in a list of the conditions of the last days? But here it is. You know what that reflects? It reflects a messed up view of the family. There’s no need for me to respect my parents. That’s a distorted view of family. It says, unthankful. Again.

What do I have to be thankful for? There’s a disconnect of what has come down to me, and that’s related to family as well. Unholy, without natural affection. You know it is natural to want to get married and have kids. And yet that is, these are part of the conditions that are drying up. Truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God. Just the very fact of pleasure and how people are willing to put aside family and put aside their children and getting married and doing those good things that God calls blessings so that they might pursue pleasure.

Notice verse five, same list, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. In other words, these conditions are all true, but are also true if people go to church.

And that’s what I’ve observed as well. I’m not gonna do it for time, but you go to Romans chapter one verse 26 to 32, you see a similar list. Fornication, vile affections, disobedient to parents, covenant breakers without natural affection, all of these things are listed in both passages, and they all affect the family. It is a condition of this wicked and degraded world. Now, we might think that these values and priorities that we read here are only present among the godless world, but that’s not true.

These things are present in every day and common men and women, including those who attend churches and including in those who name the name of Christ. And so the question is, is it possible for a believer in Christ to adopt to one degree or another the values and priorities of this world? And the answer is unequivocally yes. And so what is going on out in the world and the way this world views families not as blessings, although they give lip service, but in fact they view it as a hindrance and a burden and a roadblock, that can infect our mind as a believer. Look at Romans 12 if you would.

Romans twelve:one. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You know what verse two says? Be not conformed to this world. Now I know people say, well, this is just what you need, the kind of what you wear.

No, this is not The truth is chapter 12 verse two is not primarily referring to anything on the outside, it’s referring to the mind. The conforming of the Christian’s mind to the mind of the world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So this is not just talking about, and here’s the way we chalk it up, even some commentaries I read earlier today. Chalk it up to this is, you know, this deals with the kind of music you listen to and the kind of things you wear and the kind of places you go and the activities you engage in and your amusements. Yeah, it touches all of that, but that’s not primarily what it’s aiming at.

There’s something a lot deeper than that. In this case, this is a philosophy that denigrates and mocks and looks and frowns upon having a wife, having a husband who is faithful, who are faithful to one another, having children, especially if you have more than one or two, that you have a family where you love being around your kids and and you love being with your wife or your or your husband, that is denigrated, that is that is not exalted in our society and that then infects us. And instead of our mind being transformed and then conformed to the mind of Christ, first Corinthians two sixteen says, we have the mind of Christ.

Instead of our mind being conformed to his mind, which is written in scripture, the values that I just read, our minds are conforming to this world’s values and priorities. And it directly affects the way we view our family.

We must not mold ourselves after the pattern of the world and the way it thinks. With its values, its philosophies, its desires, and its priorities. Ephesians four twenty three says, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Romans eight, you know these verses. Romans eight says that we’re, God is conforming us to the image of Christ. What does Christ think about being married? What does Christ think about having children, raising a family? What does Christ think? You know what he thinks? It’s good, we’ve already read it. It’s good.

It’s a blessing. That should be our mind. And if there’s anything that’s telling us the other, it is not patterned after the mind of Christ as recorded in scripture. And there are many voices out there telling us to the contrary.

And our mind can absolutely become infected with the values of this world. And when that happens, you know what happens? We begin to sour toward our husband, toward our wife. We begin to sour toward our children. We no longer view them as a blessing, we view them as something else. A necessary evil, something we tolerate perhaps, sometimes even a curse.

It’s just a matter of conforming to the way this world thinks. There are some other reasons that people don’t view their family, their wives, their husbands, their children as blessings.

Sometimes God gives people blessings, but they do not handle their family in a way that is biblical. In other words, God gives them something that is intended to be a blessing, and because they do not raise their family and direct their family in a biblical and God honoring way, that blessing degrades into something that is a difficulty, that is a burden, when it wasn’t supposed to be. And that’s why God gave us directions in scripture.

So that that which is a blessing remains a blessing. But then there’s some others who view their family as something less than a blessing because their family has been a source of great pain to them.

You know, you think about problems with divorce. You know, maybe the husband or the wife viewed their husband or their spouse as a blessing, but then eventually that spouse for whatever reason went off the rails. And what was supposed to be a blessing is now a great difficulty. That doesn’t mean the thing was a blessing. What it meant, what was not a blessing rather, what it means is sin entered.

Same is true with your children. Your children are given to you by God as a blessing. But we don’t have guarantees that our children are gonna serve God and follow God. We don’t have guarantees, we have scriptural guidance, but there’s no guarantees in that. That’s why we pray and we trust God. And it’s a serious matter, we go to war for our kids, I’m serious.

But sometimes our kids become sources of pain, That which is a blessing becomes a source of pain. Again, that doesn’t mean having children is a curse, but that means it’s sin entered. All the more reason to be circumspect, to be on alert, to watch, to pray.

But you know what, even when these blessings we have, whether it be our marriage, whether it be our children, even when those blessings sometimes turn into difficulties for us, it’s still a blessing. You know why? Because even in those times, they drive us to God.

And anything that drives you to God is a blessing. Even when it’s hard. Anything, you know Charles Spurgeon famously said, I kiss the rock, I kiss the rock, the waves that throw me against the rock of ages.

So even in the difficulty, they can be a blessing in disguise. So we need to be careful as we speak to people who are looking to get married, people that are looking to plan their life out, what is your ultimate goal? When you speak to someone younger, someone who’s who like college age, right? What is your goal? Is your goal to go to school, get a career, make money.

Big one is, I just wanna travel. Fine, I like to travel, travel’s fine. But if your priority is not seeking the blessings, the things that God calls blessings in this life, some of the most important blessings, we’re missing some. We’re missing some. Because these things should be counted as blessings to us, no matter what the world says. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

Let’s pray together.