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 off.
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 non-technological culture—a "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 offspring—that is, offspring trained in the ways of the Lord—then 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 schools—evolutionary 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 worldview. That is why evolution is so pushed through our schools and in our society today—this philosophy that says there is no God, that there are no absolutes—therefore 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 society—that are destroying the family unit—the 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 nation—the 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).
DID YOU KNOW . . .
In the majority of Christian homes, it is the mother who is really the spiritual head-training the children in spiritual things?
According to Scripture, each father is to be the spiritual head of his house:
husband is head of the wife (EPHESIANS 5:23)
fathers are to train children (EPHESIANS 5:4)
fathers teach children truth (ISAIAH 38:19)
fathers teach the next generation (PSALM 78)
first mention of education in the Bible
referring to the father training children (Genesis 18:19)
teach children diligently train up a child (DEUTERONOMY 6:5-12)
fathers, discipline children (PROVERBS 22:6)
warning for those fathers who don't train their children (MATTHEW 18:6)
blessings promised for obedience (PSALM 103:17,18)
