WHO OWNS OUR CHILDREN

 

Utopian idealists tend to believe that the State owns then. However, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao have proven poor parental substitutes. Consequently, they are now all gone and their experiments in State ownership are history.

Some collapses haven’t been violent and abrupt. Some utopian communities have merely found their idealism unworkable, and, therefore, have reverted to a more traditional understanding and practice.

In the early 70s, I had spent time on a number of Kibbutzim of the most radical and socialistic movement, Hashomer Hatziar. The Kibbutzim of this movement had been so radical that, initially, they had rejected marriage and the nuclear family as oppressive forms of “ownership.” However, by the time that I had stayed with them in the 70s, all had reverted back to the traditional nuclear families, although some tasks remained communal.

However, this discredited ideal of the State ownership of children stubbornly continues. In “To Whom Do Children Belong,” Melissa Moschella attempts to defend parental rights. At the beginning of her book, she quotes Melissa Harris-Perry:

·       “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” 

Well, why shouldn’t children belong to their State? Doesn’t the State have a right and responsibility to ensure that children grow up into responsible adults? Of course! However, who can best ensure the welfare of the children and their positive adjustment to society?

Under the various utopian schemes, children have been made into the pawns of the prevailing ideology rather than the beneficiaries of parental love. The same critique can be made today.

Now, many school districts are pandering to the ideology of transgenderism. As a result, they are proscribing gender specific pronouns and encouraging young children to explore sexual alternatives. Besides, this ideology has become so militant that parents are no longer allowed to exempt their children from teachings they regard as inappropriate. Often, they are not even told about the schools’ advocacy of transgenderism.

About transgenderism and the State usurping the responsibility of the parents, psychiatrist Boris Vatel has written:

·       The NYC Commission on Human Rights maintains that gender identity is "one's internal deeply held sense of one's gender, which may be the same or different from one's sex assigned at birth. This statement intentionally uses language to distort reality. Except in cases of rare medical conditions resulting in ambiguous genitalia, no one's sex is "assigned" at birth any more than the fact of belonging to the human species is assigned at birth.

·       More significantly, this statement erroneously implies that a person's beliefs about himself carry more legitimacy than the physical facts that contradict such beliefs. Using the Commission's reasoning, can we declare an alternate "age identity" to be legitimately different from one's true age? What about "race identity" or even "species identity"? If one accepts as legitimate the logic by which men may identify themselves as women and insist on being considered as such by others, there is no reason to reject as invalid any number of other idiosyncratic identities that have no basis in reality. (Salvo Magazine)

Vatel compares the delusion of a boy thinking himself a girl with the delusion of subordinate thinking yourself the CEO of the company. Vatel argues that responsible psychotherapy has to challenge delusional thinking and not exalt it and pander to it through sex-change therapies.

If choice is exalted to encourage a boy to think he is a girl, why not also to encourage a Black to think he is a White, or a human to think he is a bird or a cow.

The parent understands the absurdity of such thinking, even more so, the potential damage to her children. The State doesn’t care. It has other concerns.

King Solomon, in his surpassing wisdom, understood this. When two women came before him, each claiming maternity over a certain baby, Solomon ordered that the baby be cut in two – one half given to each claimant. At this, the real mother cried out:

·       “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!” But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!” Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.” (1 Kings 3:26-27)

In contrast, the State might have answered, “Fine! If I can’t have the child, then no one else should.”

The State can never provide parental love (and it has no interest in providing this), and the parents will never sacrifice their child to a vague, politically correct ideal. This is why parents must retain control over their children!

DID GOD SET UP ISRAEL FOR FAILURE?

 

God had demanded that Israel follow ALL his laws. Even worse, as Moses had written, He cursed them when they failed to obey in even one law:

• Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deuteronomy 27:26)

Did this divine requirement for moral perfection doom all Israel? Evidently not! God had often blessed Israel for their faithfulness. For example, when King Solomon blessed the newly built Temple, he thanked God for His faithfulness to Israel and to his father David:

• “Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—as it is today.” (1 Kings 8:23-24) 

How was it that they were blessed in light of their only partial obedience to God’s commands? Further on in his prayer, Solomon provides some illumination:

• “When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly’; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy.” (1 Kings 8:46-50) 

It was only through the mercy of God that Israel dodged the curse and received blessing. In particular, the Psalms highlight the mercy of God, as David had written:

• Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. (Psalm 32:1-2)

Blessedness was always based on the mercy of God to His repentant people. However this raises another question. “If God could forgive and have mercy on Israel, why then the need for the Cross?”

Why then the need for Christ to die for our sins? All of God’s mercy is predicated on Christ and His atonement for our sins:

• For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23) 

This verse echoes the fact that any infraction of the law placed us under a curse, but it adds that mercy is found in Jesus, and Him alone:

• For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

However, if all of God’s promises of mercy and forgiveness come through Christ, how then did Israel receive mercy? Also, through Christ! But how? God granted mercy in view of the propitiation of the Cross. Perhaps we should think of it in terms of a loan granted in expectation of future payments. How do we know this?

• The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:13-15)

The Cross forgives and cleanses past sins. Consequently, the Hebrew saints could not receive the fullness of what had been promised until the Cross:

• These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40)

Even the Hebrew Scriptures gives ample evidence that the Hebrew saints could not receive what had been promised. Here’s just one example. The prophets talked about a future marriage between God and His people (Hosea 2:18-19). However, Israel couldn’t even enter into the presence of God and still live. Nor could they tolerate His presence (Exodus 20). This would only be resolved at the initiation of the New Covenant.

Who are we and why are we here?

 

Part of being human is about knowing ourselves, even why we are here. The beloved Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel, asserted this very thing:

• It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Life is filled with suffering and injustice. The innocent become victims in what seems to be a senseless flow of snickering events. These force us to re-ask Heschel’s question – “What am I here for.”

Solomon’s life had been devoted to answering this question:

• I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. "Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)

As hard as Solomon tried, he was unable to grasp life’s meaning. It was like trying to grasp “the wind.” Instead, his wisdom-quest produced “much sorrow” and “grief.” Why? Normally, he extolled the value of wisdom. However, when it came to grasping ultimate meaning, he was frustrated. He needed to know about the afterlife. Only this knowledge could give him the understanding for which he searched. However, his intellect was unable to pass through the curtain separating this life from the next. From the perspective of his limited wisdom-quest, it appeared that there was no meaning to life:

• For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!  So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-21)

Without the confident knowledge of life’s meaning, which requires the big picture, Solomon hated life. However, he wasn’t alone. Even secularists have expressed our utter need for life to having meaning.  Psychologist Arthur Deikman writes:

• Human beings need meaning. Without it they suffer… Western Psychotherapy is hard put to meet human beings’ need for meaning, for it attempts to understand clinical phenomena in a framework based on scientific materialism in which meaning is arbitrary and purpose nonexistent.

According to Deikman, meaning could not merely be subjectively created. For “Western Psychotherapy… purpose [is] nonexistent,” and we are not able to create what is “nonexistent.”  Even the atheist and Christianity-despiser, Frederick Nietzsche, wrote that “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how!’” However, once we reject the afterlife, that “why” becomes unattainable.

Despite all that he possessed, Solomon could not bear life without answering this “why.” This is why the Christian is so blessed! Alluding to Solomon’s perplexity, the Apostle Paul wrote:

• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

• If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." (1 Corinthians 15:32) 

Without heaven, life has no more meaning beyond a mad rush to fulfill ourselves. However, self-fulfillment will not satisfy, even in this life. Suffering is inevitable! How do we deal with it? Paul declared that we can only remain joyous in the hand of suffering as we look beyond it:

• I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

It is only the fragrance of our confidence in the next life that will enable us to look beyond the suffering. Why then are we here? It is eternity’s boot-camp!

Prayers that Please God

Which prayers does God hear and answer? Which please Him? The Bible has a consistent answer. Solomon consecrated the Temple he had built with a wonderfully God-centered prayer. Here is a representative segment:

• "When they [Israel] sin against you [God]—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly'; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you” (2 Chronicles 6:36-39). 

Solomon touched on all of the key areas of prayer—sin, righteousness, justice, confession, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. What did God think of Solomon’s prayer? Evidently, He was pleased. Fire came down from heaven to consume Solomon’s offering (2 Chron. 7:1) indicating that God had received his prayer. Also:

• The LORD appeared to him at night and said: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:12-14).

What did it mean for Israel to “humble themselves”? Jesus told a parable about two people who entered the Temple to pray. The Pharisee was self-righteous and looked down on everyone else. The tax-collector was despised and held in contempt by all. The Pharisee’s prayer was “about himself”—his worthiness before God. The tax-collector could only cry out, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.” However, it was the tax-collector who humbled himself and confessed his unworthiness who received forgiveness. Jesus explained:

• "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:14).

However, according to the faith or prosperity preachers—some call them the “name-it-claim-it preachers”—humility has nothing to do with receiving from God. Instead, it’s about demanding our rights. Pat Robertson once stated:

• “Most people ask God for a miracle but many omit a key requirement—the spoken word. God has given us authority over disease, over demons, over sickness, over storms, over finances. We are to declare that authority in Jesus’ name…We are to command the money to come to us” (Michael Horton, The Agony of Deceit, 128).

Actually, the Bible clearly teaches us that everything God gives us is by His unmerited favor. God will never be in a position to owe us anything!

• Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! (Romans 11:35-36) 

Since all good things come from God (James 1:17), we are always beholden to Him. Jesus instructed that even if we do everything that we are supposed to do, we must consider ourselves unworthy servants (Luke 17:10). Instead, the prosperity preachers claim that we are so worthy that we have the right to “command the money to come to us.”

Commanding God is something that we never find in Scripture. Perhaps the closest thing to this was the hubris of Simon the magician, who wanted to pay God for a supernatural gift. The Apostle Peter was horrified by such an arrogant suggestion:

• "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin" (Acts 8:20-23). 

To think that we can merit something from God with either our money or good deeds shows that our minds are “captive to sin” and still tainted with darkness. In contrast, Solomon’s prayer reflected a mature understanding that everything comes to us through the mercy of God.

Prior to this, Solomon had prayed for wisdom:

• "Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?" The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this (1 Kings 3:7-10). 

The Lord was pleased that Solomon hadn’t asked for wealth and power. Instead, he asked for the wisdom to govern His beloved people. Nor did Solomon command the wisdom to come to him. In fact, no one in the Bible had such an expectation.

Solomon had learned well from his father, King David. David also knew how to pray humbly to God. He, confessing that he deserved nothing from God but punishment, found blessedness through confession:

• Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"—and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:1-5). 

David understood that blessedness was a matter of receiving the grace of God through a humble confession of his sins and not from claiming things that he didn’t deserve.

Prosperity preachers claim that we can establish heavenly merit through good deeds and then demand payment. Joyce Meyers claimed:

• “It says in Romans 4:17 that…we have a God who gives life to the dead and He calls things that be not as though they already existed…If there’s something in your way, speak it…When I talked with Dr. Roberts today and we talked about this seed-faith thing, he said…when you give you get a receipt in heaven that when you have a need you can then go with your receipt and say ‘You see, God, I have got my receipt from my sowing and now I have a need and I’m cashing in my receipt’” (Christian Research Journal, Joel Hunter). 

Meyers is right about one thing. God will answer us according to our deeds or righteousness. However, this doesn’t mean that God owes us anything (Romans 11:35) or that we have a heavenly bank account in the black from which we have the right draw. Rather, if we want to draw from God what we rightfully deserve, it is nothing but condemnation! Instead, it is by the mercy of God alone that we receive anything good from Him.

Jesus taught that we don’t even deserve a “thank you” from God. Instead, we are to consider ourselves as unworthy servants (Luke 17:6-10), not deserving anything from Him.

Well, how is it that He blesses us according to our obedience? Because it is the fruit that He produces through our obedience (Philippians 2:12-13)! Paul confessed he couldn’t take credit for any of his labors, let alone make demands on God, because of his heavenly account:

• But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me (1 Corinthians 15:10).

God even gets the credit for our labors. Sound confusing? Well, it is! God produces the fruit, and yet, we must still take full responsibility. Can we understand this fully? No, but we shouldn’t expect to!

If we deserve anything from God, it is death:

• For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

While our heavenly account will always be in the red, our Savior has given us life.

Meyers is mistaken about Romans 4:17 in another way. Yes, God has the power to call things into existence from nothing. However, there is nothing in this verse to suggest that we have such a power. Claiming that we do places us on the same level as God. This represents a denial of God’s revelation.

Instead, the prayers that move God are characterized by a humble brokenness—the acknowledgement that it is all about the mercy of God. King Hezekiah had been a good king. However, because of his success and wealth, he became proud and distanced himself from God. However, God struck him down with a fatal disease. Hezekiah did not pray as some of the faith preachers recommend: “I am healthy and will live to be 100!” Instead, he “wept bitterly” (Isaiah 38:3) and God answered his prayer for life. As a result Hezekiah thanked God:

• “Like a lion he [God] broke all my bones; day and night you made an end of me. I cried like a swift or thrush, I moaned like a mourning dove. My eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens. I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid! But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this. I will walk humbly all my years because of this anguish of my soul. Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live. Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back” (Isaiah 38:13-17).

Hezekiah’s illness restored his humility.  He acknowledged that God’s ways are just and that He, in His mercy, had struck His servant down.

In contrast to this display of appropriate humility, TV megachurch pastor, Joel Osteen, claims that our words have “enormous creative power”:

• “Our words are vital in bringing our dreams to pass. It’s not enough to simply see it by faith or in your imagination. You have to begin speaking words of faith over your life. Your words have enormous creative power. The moment you speak something out, you give birth to it…Just look in the mirror and say ‘I am strong, I am healthy. I’m rising to new levels, I’m excited about my future.’ When you say that, it may not be true. You may not be very healthy today, or maybe you don’t have a lot of things to look forward to, but Scripture tells us in Romans [4:17] we have to call the things that are not as if they already were” (Christian Research Journal, Joel Hunter).

Scripture gives us no indication that we have such power. Rather, God wants truth in our inmost being (Psalm 51:6). We have no right or authorization to play fast and loose with the truth. All truth is God’s truth. Consequently, we are not free to manipulate it.

James chastens those who speak arrogantly, who say that they will make a financial killing:

• Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil (James 4:15-16).

Our words have to conform to God’s reality and not to our imaginations and dreams. Claiming that we can shape reality with our words is boasting. Instead, we have to acknowledge that it’s all about “the Lord’s will.” James claims that we need to realize that we are no more than a “…mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14b).  We are incapable of succeeding at anything apart from God.

King Manasseh of Judah was the worst of the worst. He reigned for 55 years in Jerusalem and bathed the city with the blood of the righteous. Scripture informs us that he was worse than the Canaanites. However, Manasseh was captured by the Assyrians and thrown into jail. There he humbled himself in prayer before the God he had hated:

• In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And when he prayed to him, the LORD was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God (2 Chronicles 33:12-13).

Amazingly, God restored Manasseh to the throne! Had Joel Osteen counseled Manasseh in prison, he would have instructed him:

• “The moment you speak something out, you give birth to it… Just look in the mirror and say ‘I am strong, I am healthy. I’m rising to new levels, I’m excited about my future.’”

However, such an assertion cannot be found in Scripture; nor would God have responded to such a prayer!