I am sure this title surprised a lot of readers. But we need to bring to light a lie that the devil continues to use to stop the fulfillment God’s plan for our lives. It’s the same old trick that he used to try and make Jesus fall : using a verse out of context.
To Jesus, the devil said : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Luke 4.9-11) The devil knows the Bible, and he tried to make Jesus fall. Yes, it is indeed written in the Bible that the angels will guard us… but not if we throw ourselves out of a cliff! Those verses are in Psalm 91, which talks about the protection we have in God. It talks about protection from a hazard, not from bungee jumping without a cord! This is what we call using a verse out of context.
The devil still uses this tactic to mislead God’s people. Psalm 127.3 says : “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.” And by using just this verse, out of its context, some Christians justify the idea of having kids out of marriage. They are saying things like “Even if she is not married, it’s ok, her child is a gift from God”. However, if we put this verse in its context, we see right away that not all children are gifts from God. Starting at verse 1, we read : “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.” We see here that children are a gift of God WHEN the parents build their home on God’s ways!
A child born outside of marriage is not a gift from God. It’s a simple and natural consequence of sexual relations. It’s not a reward from God because they were not conceived in God’s plans. The child might bring a lot of joy to the parents, they might even become a great man or woman of God, later in life. But the child will never have the blessing of being born in a family built and protected by God. They will grow up with the role model of two parents, sometimes just one, that only did what they wanted to do and did not follow God’s plans.
All the Church, the body of Christ, is losing when a home is not built by the Lord. The “Christian” parents that take this direction are not even different than the people in the world. In the contrary, it shows to the unsaved that you can wear the title of “Christian”, but it doesn’t mean anything, especially in regards to family or sexuality. In the end, all society suffers a great loss, because the Church is not even showing how to have a healthy family.
Let’s not fall into the trap of the enemy. Let’s not build our decisions based on a verse taken out of context. We owe that to our kids, to the Church and to all of society. If God is really our God, let’s teach our children to respect Him by living a good example. Marriage under God first, THEN comes the children.