Does Having Children Guarantee the Future?
We live in a day of self-indulgence. Many people have eschewed marriage and long-term relationships because they are afraid that they will be left by their wife or husband. This is foolishness to the utmost highest. To avoid a relationship because you fear that your relationship will fail is really a form of self-harm. Why would you live under such cowardice and fear? Why would you let that control your life.
I would find this completely shocking, that someone would avoid ever pursuing a relationship for fear that it would fail, if I did not remember that I thought this way myself when I was about 15 or 16 years old. I remember there was a girl who liked me that I knew liked me, but I never pursued her. I was too shy in this arena. But it was not long after that situation that I learnt from that and things changed dramatically. But I was a teenager at the time. Being an older teenager is when you work these things out. It is unseemly, and unbecoming for a man to still be in this place of fear of approaching a woman when he is in his twenties, thirties or forties. Yet, the truth is that many men have settled into this mindset, and nothing can shake them from it. Or so it appears at least.
It is common for those of us in the nationalist camp to tell people that if they do not have kids then they cannot win the future. This is most often the case. I say most often because someone could bring up the exceptions of Jesus or Paul. But this is a bit retarded, because you are never going to be Jesus, and you are almost certainly never going to have the impact on civilisation that Paul had, either. Jesus is a one off the situation. He is the Lord and King of all, his role was singular in humanity. His role was to be the second Adam, the God Man who achieved for us salvation. And Paul’s role was also to some degree singular. He was called to be the chief of the Apostles with regards to the impact of scripture and of explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ to world. This is a high calling.
Paul even appeared open to having a wife. He says in 1 Corinthians 9,
“3 This is my defense to those who would examine me. 4 Do we not have the right to eat and drink? 5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? 6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?” (1 Cor. 9:3-6).
Though he did make it clear that in some way he was gifted to singleness,
“6 Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. 8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. 9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Cor. 7:6-9).
So, there is a gift to singleness, but Paul notes it is rare, and we can observe that those who can’t control themselves far outweigh those that can. Bringing up exceptions to disprove a rule is sub-standard thinking, though that is common too, is it not?
When all is laid out at the end of the day the best chance that you have for having an impact on the future is children. Having children allows even the humblest of people to have a mighty impact on the world. I think it is right for the nationalists to emphasize that in general all young men and young women should be pursuing righteous marriage and posterity through children. I have seen way too many avoiding this completely, or delaying it for a host of reasons, usually because of influence from their parents that want them to delay, or because of some idea that they need to have a lot of money before they can get married. Either way, a lot of young adults are delaying marriage.
There is also something broken in Generation Z when it comes to sex and having children. An increasing number of young men are not finding relationships, and are not having sex, but instead are turning to things like porn and Onlyfans.[1] “There has been a more than 50 per cent increase in men 18-24-years-old not having sex since about the turn of the millennium.”[2] I have even heard young men in this generation say that they are happy not to marry, and are happy to stay at home indefinitely. The cost of living today, and a host of other issues, have driven a lot of young men out of the dating pool and away from marriage, and this is an issue in the church and outside the church. So there needs to be a healthy correction pointing these young men to marriage and children. So they can lay a claim more surely on the future.
And yet, I have been reminded by my own devotions over the last few days just how much this is not simply a physical or material problem, but a spiritual issue. It is simply not completely true to say that those who have the most kids win the future, because it is more biblical to say those who have God’s favour do. This is highlighted well by a few examples in the book of Kings.
Let’s look at Ahab because this serves to really emphasize this point. God said to Ahab,
“20 Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. 21 Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 22 And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. 23 And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.’ 24 Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat” (1 Kings 21:20-24).
Ahab so angered the Lord that God told him that he was going to destroy all his descendants, just as he had done to Jeroboam and Baasha. And though Ahab repented and this prophecy was delayed (c.f. vv. 25-29), it truly came to pass. First Ahab died in battle, and then later Ahab’s son Joram was judged, and then Jezebel was judged (2 Kings 9). We read in 2 Kings 9 how the servant of Elijah anointed Jehu as king and prophesied that he would fulfil this duty,
“6 So he arose and went into the house. And the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. 7 And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord. 8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9 And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah” (2 Kings 9:6-9).
Jehu then fulfills this word, by going after Joram, the king of Israel and the Son of Ahab, and Ahaziah the king of Judah, whose mother was Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab. And then he takes out Jezebel, as we noted. Then, after this, Jehu went after the 70 sons of Ahab,
“6 Then he wrote to them a second letter, saying, “If you are on my side, and if you are ready to obey me, take the heads of your master's sons and come to me at Jezreel tomorrow at this time.” Now the king's sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who were bringing them up. 7 And as soon as the letter came to them, they took the king's sons and slaughtered them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel. 8 When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king's sons,” he said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.” 9 Then in the morning, when he went out, he stood and said to all the people, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who struck down all these? 10 Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord, which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab, for the Lord has done what he said by his servant Elijah.” 11 So Jehu struck down all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his great men and his close friends and his priests, until he left him none remaining” (2 Kings 10:6-11).
But Jehu was not yet finished. Next, he ran into the relatives (NKJV says “brothers”) of Ahaziah, who was, remember, also related to Ahab and an idolator,
“12 Then he set out and went to Samaria. On the way, when he was at Beth-eked of the Shepherds, 13 Jehu met the relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah, and he said, “Who are you?” And they answered, “We are the relatives of Ahaziah, and we came down to visit the royal princes and the sons of the queen mother.” 14 He said, “Take them alive.” And they took them alive and slaughtered them at the pit of Beth-eked, forty-two persons, and he spared none of them” (2 Kings 10:12-14).
A few verses later we read, “17 And when he came to Samaria, he struck down all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah” (2 Kings 10:17). And after this he went after the religion of Ahab and struck down the prophets of Baal, and the idols of Baal, “26 and they brought out the pillar that was in the house of Baal and burned it. 27 And they demolished the pillar of Baal, and demolished the house of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day” (2 Kings 10:26-27). Jehu went about making sure that Ahab had no posterity. And he was pretty thorough at seeking to fulfill this task, especially in Samaria.
Even after Jehu was gone, this word continued to be fulfilled in Judah. Athaliah, who was the grand daughter of Omri, and the daughter of Ahab, took control of Judah and killed almost all her descendants (2 Kings 11:1-3). Only one survived, Joash, the son of Ahaziah, who was taken by his aunty and hidden in the temple. This Joash, or Jehoash, was technically a descendant of Ahab, but really he was preserved so that God’s promise to David would be fulfilled, because he was a descendant of David as well. His being raised in the temple ensured that this put an end to the Baal worship of Judah for a time, after his grandmother, Athaliah, was eventually defeated,
“1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2 And Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3 Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places” (2 Kings 12:1-3).
All of this shows that you can have all the children you want and if God’s favour is not on your side you will still lose the future. Ahab had no posterity left just as God had prophesied, “21 ‘Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free” (1 Kings 21:21). Ahab had 70 sons, that is just his sons, he had daughters as well, and God took it all. And one of his few technical descendants left was more closely related to David and raised in the faith of David, instead of the faith of Ahab.
So, if we want to win the future it is not just a case of having lots of children, though we should do that. It is a case of making sure that we have a physical and spiritual legacy of righteousness. Because you can have a large family but then war, disease, pestilence, or some other calamity from God can take them all away. But a spiritual legacy is a sure foundation, and a spiritual legacy that you build into your children is an even more sure foundation.
I am not seeking to rebuke or disagree with anyone who says we should be encouraging young men to get a wife and have kids. I am all for this. I just think what I saw in my devotions over the last week or more, about God taking away the posterity of the wicked is an important addition to this conversation. Ultimately this is not just a physical world, it is a physical and spiritual world, and we cannot forget this. As we read in Job 18 about the wicked, “5The light of the wicked indeed goes out, And the flame of his fire does not shine…19 He has neither son nor posterity among his people, Nor any remaining in his dwellings.” When God’s favour is not upon you there is nothing in the physical that you can do to overcome this. But if God’s favour is upon than you can overcome everything this world has to throw at you.
May you look up God for his favour. And may God favour you with an incredible posterity.
List of References
[1] Gregory Matos 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-of-our-unions/202302/why-are-so-many-young-men-single-and-sexless?msockid=2652711681de61e7277a647085de6fbb
Having children and raising them well is necessary but not sufficient for guarding the future of your line and your nation. There are few guarantees in life