You
We can go and find our seats we'll go ahead and get started
And for our first song we'll go ahead and get started song number
419
Song number 419
Sound the battle cry
Song number 419
Everybody's singing out real loud together on the first
Sound the battle cry see the bow is nigh raise the standard high for the Lord
Gird your armor on stand firm everyone rest your cause upon his holy
Brows then soldiers rally round the banner
Ready steady pass the word along
Onward forward shout aloud
Hosanna
Strong to meet the foe marching on we go while our cause we know must prevail
Shield and banner bright gleaming in the light
Oh
Thou God of all hear us when we call help us one and all my
Browsing soldiers rally round the banner
Great singing everybody. Let's all pray together
Thank you Lord so much for steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you Lord for pastor Shelley. Thank you Lord for everything
He's done for us Lord and
We just love this church we love the preaching we love the fellowship and we just ask you to bless it today in Jesus name
Amen
Alright for our next song. Let's go to song number 228
Song number 228 I love to tell the story
Everybody sing it out together on the first I
Love to tell the story
Oh
To tell the old story
I
Love to tell
Then
All our golden dreams
Oh
I
Love
More
Oh
To tell the old story
My singing our last I love to tell the story
See
I see
Oh
All right before announcements wanted to go and take a second to
Just announce y'all might be wondering what the balloons and confetti and everything's about but we're celebrating today
pastors fifth year of being a pastor as well as his birthday, we just wanted to give a
thank you to you pastor for everything you've done for us and
All the hard work you put into this all the zeal you put forth and the example you've given us as a Christian
So we love you pastor and we just want to thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you
Well
Thank you very much to everybody who decorated and for just being here on the Lord's Day that's obviously
the best thing a pastor could hope for is just people that want to come and serve the Lord and
Sing praises and everything like that
So thank you guys so much for being here and it's definitely an honor and privilege to be the pastor of this church
The reason why this church is so great is because of you guys and so I really appreciate
Everyone that's here
If you didn't already get a bulletin this morning and you would like one you can just lift up your hand nice and high
Hopefully one of ushers come by and get you guys a bulletin if you don't have one on the front
We have our Bible memory passage
Psalm 58 verse 6 and
That's a great that's a great
Verse there that you could think of when you walk outside. So
Also on the inside. We have our service and so many times our church stats
Several ladies that are expecting so please be in prayer for all of them. Also our prayer list and then
one a special announcement
Next Sunday, we're gonna have our semi annual finance
meeting this is just our
Normal regular scheduled meeting that we have as a church family
Typically what we do is we just present the church finances on a semi annual basis
And so it should have been maybe a little bit sooner
since we we should have got those maybe done a little closer to the end of June, but
we do have them and we'll be ready to prepare those and
Present them next Sunday. Also, I'm just gonna go over a few like church
Announcements and stuff in that particular meeting
So if you don't normally stay or come on the Sunday evening service and you are a member of our church
I do recommend trying to come next week at least and be a part of that meeting
It is for members only and then just to make it clear again. Some people don't understand
Or maybe they are newer so they don't know how a membership works
But essentially to be a member of the church you have to have tended our church three times
Within a one-month period so basically if you've come to three services within a one-month period you have
automatic membership now if you
Let's say you kind of like don't come for church services for like three to six months straight somewhere in that time frame
Then you would be removed from the list if you ever have a question
You can ask me but more than likely you're probably on the list. And of course, you know when it comes to membership
that's just
Kind of in reference to services that we provide at the church for free such as maybe a free wedding free baby showers
Just other things that we may hand out or distribute to church members
Email or or online groups that are related to the church
That's kind of how we determine who gets to be a part of those particular things. But of course some people
Visit every once in a while and there's nothing wrong with that
but just what classifies someone as a member is that I know some churches have you officially come down and
Sign a card and you have to like actually say you want to be a member. It doesn't work for us
You know, you know, we just automatically graft you in so it's kind of like the Lord's Army where when you get saved
You're automatically drafted. So, you know, that's just kind of how the institution works
Of course, if you don't want to be a member you can stop leave. You can stop coming to our church whenever you want. So
On the back church reminders and then some upcoming events the August 17th and 19th is the mighty men's conference
October 12th through the 15th is the fire-breathing Baptist Fellowship and then November 4th, I think I might have
Given another date last week. So just this this is the date that it's locked in
So November 4th is gonna be the Abilene, Texas soul winning marathon
I'm not sure if the website I'd have to look it up
I'm not sure that a website had that address right if it doesn't I'll change it
But it's gonna be November 4th is gonna be the Abilene, Texas soul winning marathon
So that's pretty much all I have in regards to announcements
We'll go ahead and sing a psalm psalm 67 in your special handouts
So if you have that you can use that if you need to you can just use a Bible
Psalm 67 for the Dustin's gonna lead for us
All
Right, that was Psalm chapter 67
Psalm 67 in your King James Bible or in your laminated handouts
It's all singing together on the first
God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon
That my way
Let the people praise the
Crazy
Oh
Bless
Great singing everybody now as the offering plates are being passed around
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1 as Genesis chapter number 1
You
Genesis chapter 1 the Bible reads in the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and
Darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said
Let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good and God
Divided the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness
He called night and the evening in the morning were the first day and God said
let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and
God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so and
God called the firmament heaven and the evening in the morning were the second day and God said
Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and it was so and
God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters called heat seas and God saw that it was good and
God said let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind
Whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed
after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind and
God saw that it was good and the evening in the morning were the third day and God said
let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for
Seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth
And it was so and God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night
He made the stars also and God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over
The day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good and the evening in
The morning were the fourth day and God said let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and
fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven and
God created great whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth
Abundantly after their kind and every winged fowl after his kind and God saw that it was good and God
Blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl
Multiply in the earth and the evening in the morning were the fifth day
and God said let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind cattle and
creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind and it was so and
God made the beast of the earth after his kind and cattle after their kind and
Everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind and God saw that it was good and God said
Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea
And over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon
The earth so God created man in his own image in the image of God created
He him male and female created he them and God blessed them and God said unto them be fruitful and multiply
and replenish the earth and subdue it and have
Dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth
And God said behold
I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and
Every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you
It shall be for meat and to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air and to everything that creepeth upon
The earth wherein there is life
I have given every green herb for meat and it was so and God saw
Everything that he had made and behold it was very good and the evening in the morning were the sixth day
Let's bow our heads forward a prayer
Father in heaven. We thank you Lord for steadfast Baptist Church and I pray father that you would fill pastor Shelley
With your spirit give him the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit now
so that he can preach his
sermon for us with boldness help us to receive the message to apply the message and to be doers of the word in order to
Glorify you and everything that we do. We love you and in Jesus name I pray. Amen
Men so I'm continuing my series on the shiny happy people and tonight or to some morning
Sermon is entitled large families large families and you know
I've covered a lot of different subjects in regards to this particular documentary series and
This documentary series for the most part is just attacking the Bible
Of course, they point out a lot of the flaws of people like Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar
IBLP and just even some crazy
Christians out there Michael pearls, you know kind of a psychopath when it comes to discipline
but a lot of the principles and a lot of the philosophies that these people employ are just coming straight from the Bible and
of course, that's what the devil likes to do is he likes to take a bad example of a biblical subject and
to try and demonize the Bible the Bible with it to throw the baby with the bathwater out the window and
Essentially just not really give credence to the truth here. And of course when it comes to the Duggar family
probably the the main essence of
Why they're popular and famous is just because they have a large family
I mean their TV show that made them really famous was specifically about the number of children that they had. I
Don't know exactly what the the beginning number was
I think it was maybe like 14 or 15 forgive me if I forget the number but
Every time they had a new child. It was like they renamed the show, you know with the next number and I think it eventually got
to
19 and counting or something like that because they have 19 children and so Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar had a lot of children
19 is quite a few that doesn't include a couple of the miscarriages that they also had but as far as just
Children that I mean, I believe they're all still alive today. They have 19 children and that's very large
that's a lot of children and this documentary really tries to demonize the idea of
families being big or having a lot of children and of course 19 is kind of an
Extremity when we talk about large families. In fact, I looked up online
What is a large family right? Because it's just like what does that even mean?
It sounds kind of subjective and online to have this pie chart of just everybody's opinion or poll
Like what do they consider a large family and it was just like I can't remember all the numbers specifically
But it was about like 5% think 3 and above is a large family 3 children or more is a large family
46% of the pie chart said 4 or more children is a large family
Then it was about like 19 20%
Was 5 and above and then the pie chart starts to get pretty small from there. So honestly to the world
Having 4 children or more is pretty much a large family according to the world
Just to most people in our society me personally before I looked at the chart. I was kind of thinking like
Maybe 6 and above is kind of like my philosophy of what I would have probably considered a large family
I think I would have personally thought maybe between 3 to 5 children's kind of medium size and
Only 2 or less is kind of like a smaller, but that was just my personal opinion
Okay, it doesn't really matter what anybody's opinion is but at the end of the day when we talk about large families
I'm kind of more talking about 6 plus. Okay, so so when I talk about large families, that's kind of my
definition that's kind of my
Colloquialism for what I'm determining they're not just having
Three children because I don't necessarily think that's a ton of children and from a biblical perspective
We see people having much larger families than only three
Children, but when it comes to the principles found in Scripture, the Bible is really clear. Look at verse 28
This is the first commandment
it says and God blessed them and God said unto them be fruitful and multiply and
replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and
Over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth now
If you understand the chronology of the Bible
This is not technically the first commandment given because it's given to both Adam and Eve and we know that Eve did not
Exist when God commanded Adam to not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden
Okay, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
But
This is the first commandment that's given to both of them
So when they are both in existence after they've both been created
God is giving them a commandment and what is the number one commandment given to a husband and his wife?
It's to be fruitful and multiply
Not only that it's the first commandment found in Scripture period though. Also think about this
This is the first thing the first mention of anything God commanding man to do is to be fruitful and multiply
So I would take it as if this is the first instruction
It's probably the most important and I believe that I still believe today that the most important commandment
That God has ever given mankind is to be fruitful and to multiply and of course, there's two ways to apply that isn't there?
There's a physical multiplication and there's a spiritual multiplication
Both are super important. In fact, if you look at our bulletin, it's all about that
I mean if you open up our bulletin
We we have soul winning on this side and then we have pregnancies on this side
And why because we're talking about spiritual multiplication and we're talking about physical multiplication and both are very very important now
Of course, we preach a lot of sermons here on soul winning and preaching the gospel, which is spiritual multiplication
But I think there's also room in place for us to preach about
Physical multiplication which is having children. What is the Bible's commandment to be fruitful multiply now, here's the thing
anybody that's ever done multiplication
Understands we're not typically talking about times one
Right, or when you multiply it times two or three or four
So in order for you to talk about multiplication, it sounds like you're going more than us for no more
It sounds like you're probably having a bigger exponent added into the equation because if
Parents only ever had one boy and one one girl you would actually diminish the population over time
Because of the fact that not everybody's gonna get married and everybody's gonna survive and everybody's going to have children
So if the maximum amount of children that every woman ever had was just two
Population would continually decline and so in order to actually multiply as a population
You have to have more than two children just mathematically if you understand how these things work go forward to Genesis chapter
Number nine Genesis chapter nine now that some people tell me. Oh, this isn't a commandment
It's just a blessing like you're just blessed if you have multiple children
Well number one, you definitely are blessed if you have multiple children
I'm not I'm not disagreeing or arguing with that. But yes, I believe it is a clear commandment
Now this is not just for Adam and Eve. This is actually mentioned multiple times in Scripture
look what it says in Genesis chapter 9 verse number 1 and
God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth
So God repeats this commandment to Noah now
Don't you think it's probably important from to repeat that commandment when God's literally decimated the entire population of the earth
And we've gone all the way back down to essentially eight people
I mean, we have no his wife his three sons and their wives eight people on the planet
God's saying look you guys need to be fruitful multiply just like Adam and Eve. It's very important for you to observe this and
Some people get this weird idea that like the commandments given to these people are only for them
But think about this wasn't there a commandment given to Adam and Eve
About the importance of a man leaving father and mother and cleaving unto his wife. Let me ask this question
Did that apply to Adam and Eve?
Does Adam and Eve have to leave mom and dad from home to go join themselves together somewhere else
No, they're like the only couple it never applied to
So God and his infinite wisdom is giving them Commandments that don't just apply to Adam and Eve they apply to all mankind
Now they applied to Adam and Eve in the context of their children right telling them
Hey, your children need to leave you guys and they're not going to necessarily be under your authority forever
They need to leave and cleave and join under their spouse. But as for Adam and Eve themselves, they didn't have to leave mom and dad
They don't have mom and dad
Okay
Technically Adam is Eve's mom and dad, you know, she's his rib
Okay, so obviously it's a really unique situation for them in that particular context
And of course Adam's dad is God and he wasn't supposed to leave him
So, of course that commandment is an instruction given for us as mankind
So you can't look at the instructions given to Adam and Eve and Noah and say well that's just for them. No, it's for us
We also are supposed to be fruitful multiply. In fact, he's so
Determinate on this particular issue notice God repeats it again in the exact same chapter
Look what it says in verse 7 and you be ye fruitful and multiply bring forth abundantly
In the earth and multiply therein notice how he's wording it multiply
Abundantly multiply this doesn't sound like just one child
This doesn't sound like China's one child policy or just two children
It sounds like we're having a lot more
Than one or two now go if you would to chapter 35 go if you would to chapter 35
I'm just kind of laying down some some groundwork before I get into the sermon
but to have a large family or to have several children is
Simply just taking God's commandment seriously. I mean God said to be fruitful multiply
He didn't he it's not like this is just a made-up idea or a made-up
Conception of man or man just says I just want to have a lot of kids
I would argue that a lot of times people don't necessarily want to have a lot of children and
I think that's why God
designed having children the way he did because no one is ever like typically
Thinking about having children in the way that they actually have children. It's completely different, right and
God hardwired men to want something a lot
There's like this one thing that just bothers every red-blooded man, okay
There's this one thing that men are really interested in and you say how often all the time
Like every second and you say like what is that?
Well, it's God hardwired men to want to have children in that way
But of course, you know, he didn't hardwire us in the way that we're just sitting here. Just like man
I just really would like some more toddlers
I mean an infant sounds amazing right now
No, we don't we don't really connect the dots there. We're not really thinking about it that way
But in Nate in man and woman is a desire to have children
Albeit God kind of has it designed in a unique way. We're not really thinking about children
We're thinking about something else, but we have a strong desire for that and that's good
God wanted to give that to us because think about it if you had zero desire in that area how many men would procreate?
How many how many people would be born if there was no desire there it would be far less
In fact, I don't even think we would exist
I mean human population just couldn't exist with that without that innate desire
Because it's just not something that people are necessarily as into so when it comes to this particular situation
You have to think about it God literally hardwired all of us to be fruitful multiply
He designed us to be through more
There's a handful of people in the world like the Apostle Paul that have a special gift and can keep that subdued
But apart from the point zero zero zero zero zero one percent of the Apostle Paul's out there
It's hardwired into all of us
Okay
And look at Genesis 35 verse 11 and God said in them
I am God almighty be fruitful and multiply a
Nation and a company of nations shall be of thee and King shall come out of thy loins
So God doesn't want the children of Israel to stay as a small group of people
He wants them to become a giant nation and a company of nations tons and tons of people
God wants to have lots of multiplication. God loves us. God loves mankind
God wants lots of servants God wants lots of children and you know what God gets children through us
We're the vehicle by which gives him children and he wants to have as many children as possible
And so it's God's direct desire for us to be fruitful multiply go to Psalm
128 go in the middle of your Bible Psalm 128
That was plenty of verses
For us to see that God just constantly commanding be fruitful multiply be fruitful multiply
I don't need another verse like well show me that in the New Testament
I don't need it in the New Testament because frankly speaking. He said it so many times already and I believe all the Bible anyways
Plus it's not like Jesus died on the cross so we could stop multiplying
Stop being fruitful that that doesn't really make any sense. Of course the most important fruit being fruitful and the most important
Multiplication is a spiritual one by preaching the gospel and getting people saved
But think about it
Even if even if soul winning is the primary goal having lots of children and then raising them to be so winners is the best
Thing you can do
Because the harvest truly is plenty s but the laborers be few and it's hard. It's hard to make new soul winners
It's not that hard to get people saved. Like it's you know, it's relatively easy because it's a free gift salvation. So
Beautiful people can be very receptive and want to hear the gospel people like free things
And so going out and preaching the gospel a lot of people will get saved
But you know very few people want to be God's disciple
Very few people want to actually follow Jesus Christ's commandments and want to be a faithful servant of God
And if you study the parable of the sower you notice that most people don't fall into that final category
You know that that first category is the whole world that doesn't get saved
And then the second one is the ones that are easily offended they can't even handle church a real church
Then you get the next category of people that
essentially
they can handle real church but they let the cares of this world and the seatfulness of riches enter and choke the word and
They don't become fruitful and then you finally have that last group that's willing to pretty much sacrifice a lot of their carnal and physical desires
They're willing to make a lot of sacrifices in their time money effort and energy and they're willing to be fruitful
Spiritually and that's a few people. It's not as many as people that would be saved
It's a that it's a very small minority of the people that are saved. Look at Jesus. I mean Jesus ministry
He's reaching thousands and thousands and thousands and then after his death. There's only a hundred and twenty people gathered together
Some people could could look at a church like ours and be like, ah, well if y'all are of God, why aren't you running thousands?
Okay. Well, why is Jesus only running a hundred and twenty after three years or so? I mean, this is Jesus Christ here. I
Bet he was a pretty good pastor. I bet he preached some pretty good sermons and if you think I preach long
Yeah, read what Jesus did. Okay
Now he did feed them. Okay, I get it
But at the end of the day you have to realize that
It's not necessarily tons and tons of people that want to serve God lots
Lots of people love free salvation and love being ministered unto but they don't necessarily like ministering. They don't like necessarily
Sacrificing they don't like necessarily doing the hard work and the same comes with having children. Let's be honest having children is
Is a lot harder than the motivation to know your wife, right?
Everybody wants to do that. Everybody likes that aspect of marriage
But the actual having of children many people are not interested in and they try to prevent it
They try to stop it. But what does the Bible say about this particular topic? Look at a hundred Psalm 128 verse 1
Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord that walketh in his ways for thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands
Happy shalt thou be and it shall be well with thee thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine
By the sides of thine house thy children like all of plants round about thy table now
I think this is an important verse because notice
Verse 3 thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine. Is that really a complete thought by itself?
No
No, we're not we're not changing into a new thought
It's actually coming on the tail end of what was previously discussed
What was previously discussed in verse 1 that walketh in his ways. So notice when someone walks in God's ways
What is the result of that thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house thy children
Like all of plants round about thy table meaning someone that's going to walk in God's ways
Is going to end up having multiple children because that's God's design for them
Now, of course some people can't control that you could technically walk in God's ways and be barren because there's like
There's tons of women in the Bible that are some of the greatest women to ever live and they were barren for a long portion
Of their life, but we're saying generally speaking
Just the general population the general amount of Christians that are walking God's ways doing what God actually commanded
they're gonna have lots and lots of children as the Bible is
giving us a picture of where you have all these little plants just pop it up all around the table and
Notice you should have dinner at the table with your family. Hey, there's a sub point for you. Okay, look at the previous
chapter here
127 the Bible says in verse number 3
lo
Children are in heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward
Notice how God describes children a reward
He doesn't say they're a cursing or a burden or a problem. He actually says it's a reward
Verse 4 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 the enemies in the gate now
This is a pretty
Famous and a pretty well-known section of Scripture. In fact, some movements are even kind of based on this scripture
They're called quiver full. Okay. Now here's the thing. I'm not necessarily endorsing that movement or
Things associated with that because I don't really know and people have all kinds of different definitions
But I am gonna endorse the Bible and the Bible says that the person that has a quiver full is happy
Now, do you think that God and his infinite wisdom?
Could have used any metaphor any analogy he wanted here
Or do you think he was just locked and he has to use quiver now?
He probably used quiver on purpose right and God's logical, you know
He didn't necessarily say as the sand is filled as the as the seashore is filled with sand
So is happy the man had that many children right because how many children would be sand pebbles on us on a seashore?
Millions right that's not even possible. But what about a quiver?
now
I'll be it. There's a little bit of gray here. But how many how many arrows actually fit in a quiver and
This is kind of interesting now
I've looked it up and there's a lot of different views on this
There's kind of three that I want to talk about if a guy goes to battle an archer goes to battle
It's kind of assumed he would have 60 to 100 arrows
Okay, but in that case they typically might have three quivers or they might even have extra side arrows
I don't think that's really the analogy. He's painting here is a guy going to battle
Second when it comes to a particular quiver
What's just the max amount of quivers that you could just shove or stuff into?
You know
You're just trying to max out that particular quiver with as many arrows as you can kind of shove in
Many of them are designed to be a max of 20 or a max of 40. Okay
Again, I don't think necessarily the picture being painted here
Is that of the idea of just like trying to just stuff this thing so full?
Because that's again kind of equating to the battle scene where you're just you know on the battlefield as an archer
You don't want to run out of arrows, you know
Because then you're kind of stuck and you have no way to really defend yourself very well
That's your your purpose
But I looked at another thing and it was just saying commonly if people are just going out
They're using their quiver on a regular basis. How many?
Arrows are they typically taking how much is this quiver typically designed to have says about 10 to 12 now
That kind of seems like a reasonable number
When we think about the context of what the scriptures actually kind of saying, isn't it?
Where a man that has about 10 to 12 children is like having almost like a full quiver and that he's very happy
Now I think that those numbers are kind of interesting because of the fact that you know
Mathematically that's about the max that I believe a family is probably going to have
Assuming they're following God's commandments now you can go higher than that. You can go lower than that
There's all kinds of different scenarios if you get started a little early if you have twins
there's a lot of reasons why that number could go even higher and
Obviously you get started later. You have more miscarriages or problems
It could be lower but just generally speaking healthy young fertile people that get married pretty young and
They go through a normal cycle. They're pretty much gonna go to about a 10 to 12 max and I'm saying max
I'm not even saying that that's the average
I'm saying that's kind of like the max and
That seems to be pretty much going inciting with this verse of the idea of a person just having a lot of children
I think what scares people is they watch the duggers and they say I can't have 20 kids
But but here's the reality like the reality is of you having 20 kids is almost just 0%
like even if you tried like having 20 children is
Super difficult, even if you were trying your hardest to have as many children as humanly possible
So I don't want you to like get this scared and terrified idea
I think there are a lot of people they come to our church or they're young or they're newly married and they have a kid
And then the dad says, you know what? I want to have as many kids as I can have
That's what the Bible teaches and then they're like, I can't have 20 kids. It's like you have one
Let's let's start with one let's not worry about number 20 when you're on one
Okay, because just physically you may not even be able to ever get anywhere close to that
Anyways, so it's kind of like this boogeyman that scare a lot of women scare a lot of I can't imagine the thinking of 20
Births like that sounds terrifying. Okay, I get it. You know, I can't imagine 20 kids screaming all at the same time, but
Obviously, they're not gonna all be the same age either folks, okay, but when it comes to these big numbers
I think sometimes it's in an effort to scare people from having a lot of children
It's like the duggers are a poster board to scare people from having lots of kids even though they were never gonna have 19
They were never gonna have that many children now 10 to 12 could still sound intimidating
But at the end of the day, you know
Lot of times you're never gonna even have 10 to 12
Even if you had 10 children, you're probably not even have them all at the same time in the same household because
Eventually, they're gonna start leaving eventually
They're not even gonna be there anymore
And so it's gonna be even difficult to have 10 kids in the same household all at the same time
Anyways, it can happen and I've seen it's Irish the Catholic, you know, it's Irish twins and Catholics, right?
But they have some other issues that I want to talk about here in a minute
But I want to show you that in the Bible a lot of people had
Big families go if you went to Genesis go back to Genesis chapter 5 for a moment. Okay, go to Genesis chapter 5
and
What I don't want you to do is to be terrified to have a large family because the Bible is keeps painting is a picture
of being a blessing and
Historically having a large family was never seen as a curse was actually always seen as a blessing
It's kind of more of a modern phenomenon
Maybe the last 200 years where there's been a
Degregation of society a moral decline of society society has changed his viewpoint on this a little bit through the Industrial Revolution
But historically speaking, you know, most people were building on their own farm
They're in agriculture and the more hands to help was a better, you know
So most of the time throughout history having lots of children was always seen as a good thing
So most people weren't really struggling with this
In fact, many women were very upset if they couldn't have as many children as their husband could possibly give them
That's even what you see commonly in the Bible is that women are constantly being upset about not having as many children
Or constantly wanting to have more children with their husband
It's it's our weird perverted society that we live in that does the opposite
I mean I was in the hotel one time and I stepped in the elevator and there's two young ladies there and
She's got a baby with her a young toddler or something and the other girl was talking with her and they're just talking real open
Right in front of me and she's just like oh man
You know, how many kids are you gonna have and she's like, well, hopefully just this one
The worst thing I could ever imagine is having another child
And I was just like thinking like man, how can this young mother with a brand new baby?
Be so against chill like be so tear like I don't want another one. It's just like that's like not having any love
like typically women right after having a child are the most like
Positive about having children because they just love it and they're just like they're so cute. I want another one or whatever
That's usually a time when they have the exact opposite reaction is they just think like wow
This is such a precious human being God's blessed me. They really have a lot of love for that child
So it's a weird perverted society that we live in we're having children is just awful
But you know what?
It probably kept her out of the club and she while he wasn't drinking as much alcohol
She wanted and she wasn't a whore like she really wanted
So she's just looking at this baby as restricting her sinful lifestyle and that's what's terrifying to her
Let me tell you something. If you don't want to live a sinful lifestyle children are a blessing
They're not a curse
Now when we come to mothers in the Bible
I was thinking about this like how many children did women in the Bible have
Well, we know that Eve had Cain and then she had Abel and then she had Seth
Now the Bible gives us a genealogy
it also says here look at Genesis chapter 5 verse 4 and
The days of Adam after he'd be gotten Seth were 800 years
So this is talking about after Seth it says and he begat sons and daughters
So I'm just trying to be really really conservative here if he had three children and then he has sons and daughters
That would be at least two more boys and two more girls meaning Eve had at least seven children in
My opinion could have been 20 or 30 or 40. I don't know
But I'm just saying conservatively we can pretty much estimate that Eve had at least seven children
Okay, which is kind of an interesting number now go if you would to
Genesis 25
We're just kind of skipping around
It's really difficult to understand how many children a particular woman had by their husband
Because a lot of men in the Bible had multiple wives and so it's not really certain
Plenty of men have lots of children and Rehoboam has a ton of children, but it was through a lot of women
So it's hard to know like how many children a particular woman is having
So I'm trying to isolate it to scenarios where we have a closer idea of the actual woman herself
Here's one where we know the know for sure look at Genesis 25 verse 2
Well, that's verse verse 1 gives us context then again Abraham took a wife and her name was Keturah
And she bare him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and ish back and Shuah
So according to the Bible
Keturah Abraham's other wife had six children
So this woman's having six children that we know about go to chapter 30
because you would say well Eve of course had a lot of children because they live to be like a thousand years old approximately and
And I get that but you know women always have had kind of a time box on when they can have children
They can't just have children forever men can apparently have children till you die. So, you know, just keep that in mind guys, but
Women, you know, they're kind of they kind of have a limited window of when they can have children per se
and I mean think about the craziness of Abraham because
Abraham is like
99 years old when he had Isaac and it was kind of seen as like wow
They had children when they're really old and then with Keturah just has a whole bunch more
I mean, isn't that kind of crazy like if you think about it?
Now Genesis chapter 30 look at verse 20, here's another one that we actually know
For a fact look at verse 20
it says and Leah said God hath endured me the good dowry now will my husband dwell with me because I have borne him six sons
and she called his name Zebulun and
Afterwards she bear a daughter and called her name Dinah. So we know for a fact that Leah had at least seven children
So again Eve at least seven we have Keturah six Leah seven
Go if you would to Genesis 46 Genesis 46, so I'm just showing you
Some of the women in the Bible how many children they're having. Okay, Genesis 46
Look at verse 21
He says and the sons of Benjamin were Bela and Beaker and Ashbel
Gira and Naaman EI and Rosh Mopam and Hoopam and Ard
so
Actually Benjamin had ten children now. Here's the thing. I don't know if this was one woman or not
So I'll give that caveat but he has ten children in a pretty short time frame and
Considering all the like naming it's possible that they were
With one woman it's possible. There are multiple but he has ten children. Okay
look at verse
27 for a moment says in the sons of Joseph which were born in each born him in Egypt were two souls all the souls of
the house of Jacob which came into Egypt were three score and
Ten so
Bible says seventy souls came into Egypt. I think in the book of Acts it it later says 75
Because I think in some of these calculations it didn't include the wives and it didn't necessarily include Joseph
So like you add all those other people it's like about 75
What's interesting is the children of Israel have about 70 to 75 people total?
but when it comes to the men
it's only like
You know it arguably it's 13 and
Then it could be maybe 20 or so because I don't know how old these children are
Like some of these men have already had some children like Judah and some of these other guys
So like it's possible that some of their children have already become men. We know they have about 13 men, maybe 20 men
Now what's interesting about this though? Is that when we fast forward go to Exodus chapter 12 go to Exodus chapter number 12
Then we have a lot more children of Israel, okay go to Exodus chapter 12 and look at verse 37
The Bible reads and the children of Israel journey from Ramesses to suck off about
600,000 on foot that were men beside children. So when they come into Egypt 13
Maybe 20 somewhere in that range if you count some of those other younger men
Some of the children that were born, I don't know because it doesn't give us ages but somewhere between 13 20 guys
Now they've expanded to six hundred thousand men now
If you look at verse number 40, it says now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty
Years, so it actually gives us a time frame. So they went from just you know, a dozen plus
to six hundred thousand and four hundred and thirty years
Now what's interesting about this to me is just how much multiplication would they have to have been doing to get to such a number and
It's actually not that hard at first I was thinking like man they must have been having some big families
But honestly, they didn't even have to have necessarily a lot of big families. I
Did a little bit of a calculation and I'll just give you the numbers just real quick
But I kind of just estimated that if every generation was about 25 years
Which the average generation calculated today is twenty six point nine
But I would say about twenty fives accurate because the only age that matters is the age of women
Okay, and women are pretty much fertile and able to produce children between the ages of 18 to about 40
That's kind of their window. And so and typically they're most fertile those younger stages
So assuming that they had about two children before 25 and two children after it kind of averages to an age range of about 25
Years and every 25 years you're just pumping out another generation. Okay, you can have at a 25 year cycle 17 generations
Approximately from that time all the way to this 430 year mark
so they averaged about four children and this is just assuming that every you know, you cut the
Population in half for male and female they get married. They have four children cut it in half
They marry their children right and you just keep like doing this cycle
I mean you could get to like five million people by that time
So it kind of makes sense though
why
Pharaoh's actually throwing a lot of the men children in the river because think about how quickly they expand it and according to Scripture the children
Of Israel were a lot larger than the children of Egypt after several years
I mean eventually they got to a point where they really overtook them in population, which tells me something
it tells me that the Egyptians were not multiplying at all hardly and
Let me tell you something the world virtually does not multiply
it's Christians that multiply and Christians have always consistently multiplied and then
Eventually generations start getting wicked and they become heathen again, but you know what?
It's the Christians that are really the reason why we're here today
Okay, and it's God's people that are the ones that are constantly multiplying and growing and outliving everybody and we you know
It's so funny all of these people that hate God and stuff
There's still the direct descendants of all these godly people
Look whether you like it or not. You're a descendant of Noah
do you realize like every person that protests my church is Noah's grandson and
Noah's granddaughter and Adam and you know, lots of righteous people. In fact, we're probably all Jewish. Sorry to burst your bubble or whatever
but we probably even have some Jews in our lineage just from the sheer fact of how reproduction works and
You know
It's Christians are the ones that are constantly doing this work and it's an important work to keep bringing forth good people and godly people
We're the ones that are going to repopulate the world
The world's killing their children
We as God's people need to be the ones
Repopulating it and it doesn't even take that many think about this in such a short period of time
They expanded such a giant number a giant host and even if you look at human population
Boy it just jumps really fast as far as you know
When we go to billions
Like I think that we only had a billion in like the 1900 or something like that or maybe was 18
I could be wrong but not that long ago
The population of the world was less than a billion and now it's already like eight and this is with
Giant efforts to squash human population. I mean it is a
Full scale attack on trying to limit human population
But we see a lot of women in the Bible seven six seven
I want to show you a couple more go to first Samuel chapter to go to first Samuel chapter number two
Honorable mention which I can't verify but job
Has ten children at the beginning of the chapter and it only alludes to one wife
So I'm not saying that I know for a fact that all those children from that wife. It's possible
They came from handmaidens and stuff like some of the other guys
It's also very likely that it was just as the children of his wife. Okay, and then after
He's restored. He has another ten children and
Here's the one thing about it that leads me to believe it could have possibly been the same wife for all 20 children
Is that all of the children are described as being very attractive?
So it stands to reason that they probably had the same parents that of course
Job was blessed to have you know, all these different
Daughters with the same woman and they had very attractive children. And so she's kind of at that extreme mark, right 20
That's probably the max of course back
Then people are still living a lot longer ages and lifespans than we did today
But that's kind of like the max that you even see and it's not even verified
I can't tell you for a fact Job's wife had 20 children
But that's probably about the max that you could even have in
idyllic pastime situations, okay, so
There's your the Duggars. Okay, there's the more famous Duggars right of years past
But you know a lot of people in the Bible are not having that many children are they?
Look at first Samuel chapter number two and look at verse number five
Now this is talking about Hannah and she was barren for a while
But then it says this
They that were full have hired out themselves for bread and they that were hungry see so that the barren hath borne
Seven and she hath many children is waxed feeble now. Here's something the Bible
Gives us an objective standard that seven children is many children
So again, I said a large family with six plus the Bible is objectively saying that someone who has seven is many
Okay, so I think there's nothing wrong with someone having six seven eight children
That seems to be a pretty common theme go go to Matthew chapter number 13. Go to Matthew chapter number 13
Why why are you bringing up these numbers Pastor Shelley? Well, I'm bringing up these numbers to show you that
in the Bible
Many godly people and and people that were trying to have a lot of children pretty much have
seven children, you know or somewhere around that kind of that range and
Even if you look up
statistics from history in
In the past, so I looked it up
global fertility
So global fertility before the Industrial Revolution kind of before we had a lot of this wickedness
the average family had 4.5 to 7 children and
This is basically, you know before a lot of modern-day birth control techniques and a lot of other things that people were using
Now today global fertility is 2.3
So it's gone down a lot and this is globally. This isn't just America in America specifically in
1800 the average number of children was seven or eight
The average number I'm not saying like
Just a big family. I'm saying the average was seven or eight children
But it also it wasn't 20. Okay, folks
Why because typically people aren't going to get much past 12 13
people, you know are usually not going to go that much higher and
Most people that aren't practicing any kind of foreign birth control are probably gonna have a minimum of four or five six. Okay, so
You say pastor Shelley if we just have as many kids as God blesses us. How many you think we're gonna have?
Probably seven or eight, you know, I don't know for a fact. I can't prove it
Maybe you get a quiver full you have 10 or 12. I don't know
I'm not I can't predict the future but the if you come to me and say I'm afraid of having 19 children
I'm gonna say like don't worry
Don't worry about that. Okay, and I'm gonna explain a few things about that in a moment
but
What happened? Well
Essentially in the 1800s. There was no abortion. There was no divorce
There was no family planning. There was no public school
Women weren't working and there was no birth control
So why did they have seven to eight children? Let me know abortion no divorce
No family planning. No public school. No women working and no birth control. So
If you fast forward from 1800 to 1900 exactly, we're not talking about the 1900s
We're talking about 1900 exactly the year after 1899. Okay
The average number of children in America was 3.5
So you went from 7 to 8 to 3.5 why increased abortion?
increased divorce
increased family planning books public school women working and birth control
All of like a full-scale attack of just these six items
That's interesting number notes getting but six items that are just really going after
Family size now in 2012
so this is interesting statistics, but in
2012
Or I think actually this is just recently. I don't know. It's either 2012 or more recently, but essentially
People that have children. So this is you it's a married couple that has children. Their average number of children is 1.94. I
Don't know what a 0.94 child looks like but
You know
That's that's crazy
Now they also had another statistic just of all the married couples and then all the children. It's point seven eight
So it's point seven eight kids per family in America. That is really strange
We know how far our country has changed and how it's devolved to such a low extremity
but you know biblically speaking
Tons and tons of people are having seven children and I believe it's it's godly to have a lot of children now
Here's another example. Look at verse 55 and this is a little bit closer to the modern era
but
Verse 55 is not this the carpenter's son is
Not his mother called Mary and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his sisters
Are they not all with us? Here's another lady that had a minimum of seven
Now I don't know exactly how many Mary had but we do know that we had James Joseph
Simon and Judas that's four and then sisters is a minimum of two. So that's six siblings that Jesus Christ had
So Mary had at least seven births and assuming these are not twins. I don't think that they are but
That seems to be not any different than Hannah
That seems to be 90 different than Leah that seems to be 90 different so
obviously
Even some of those, you know Job's wife might have been kind of a little bit different time
But notice the Bible still kind of having a pretty similar around seven, you know, possibly more
We don't know the exact number. I
Thought about this. What is the just according to the world?
What's the most children anybody's ever had and we're not talking about men here. We're talking about women, okay?
Women it's Valentina
Vasiliev
She supposedly had 69 children
Okay in
27 births
So there must have been something unique about her body or maybe she was on drugs
But basically almost every birth was a multiple birth like almost every birth
Like she had something crazy like a dozen twins and like eight triplets and you know, I'm just saying numbers
But it was something like that. That's crazy. This is the world record. Okay, so if you come to me pastor
I'm worried about having 69 children
You already don't have a chance. Okay, you'd have to just started pumping out twins and triplets like every year virtually, okay
27 births is
crazy folks
because if you are
18 years old and you get pregnant you pretty much max out at about age 45
So if you would have 27 births
For starting at the age of 18. I mean we're talking about literally one a year. I
mean
That like every 12 months having a birth is crazy
Okay, that's hard to physically even do okay
that's probably about the max number of births a woman could even have I think that
Michelle Duggar she's in that she's like
2021 birth somewhere in that and that is like basically the physical maximum that she could have and I mean she got married as a young
Cheerleader and they started having kids pretty soon after getting married
So she's kind of an example of someone that's you know
Started pumping out kids as soon as she could all the way to the bitter end
I mean basically to the point where she hits menopause and she can't have children anymore
And so again Matt, this is like the absolute max
The second place woman was 57 children with 21 births. So she had a lot of multiples as to
when you look at the men's side of the equation gingis kong supposedly had like thousand to two thousand children, so
Men have an unlimited capacity or ability, but you know, if you look on the men's side, it's pretty much three categories
it's a king or
It's someone that's a donor or it's a Mormon it's basically one of these three people. Okay on the men's side and
Again on the female side like it starts dropping fast
But there's a lot of women they were on the list that had 20
but again
These are talking about world records of all time and you know who wasn't even on the list
Jim Bogg and Michelle Duggar weren't even on this list that I saw so like when people are worried about having 19 20 children
It's like is that possible
Technically, yes, but it's a virtual zero percent chance. You're more likely to play in the NBA folks
Okay
You're more likely to be a professional athlete or celebrity or win the lottery in many cases than you are
To be someone to have that many children. So it's kind of like this this scary idea. That's never gonna happen
Go go to Genesis 38
Go to Genesis 38 now. I showed you a lot of verses there because I just think it's kind of unique
But
Again, what's the point that I'm trying to make this is the point that I want to make to you
Is that having large families is not as scary as the Duggars number one
But number two that it's biblically consistent
You see a lot of women that it gives us there how many children they add they're having around seven kids and that's a pretty
Common theme that we see brought up in the Bible. Maybe a few more maybe a few less
Of course, no one can control that God's in control
I believe God opens and closes the womb but at the end of the day generally speaking, you know
The Bible says happy as the man that have this quiver full of them, you know having seven eight children
According miles many children. I think a lot of people would say hey that that to me seems like I have a quiver full of
children and
There's nothing wrong with having seven or eight children. It used to be normal
Until what evil creeped in?
By and large to society like abortion who's gonna sit up sit here and tell me that abortions good
Abortion is wicked. Now, of course abortion wasn't invented in the 1800s. Obviously the children of Israel are committing
Crazy forms of abortion in the Old Testament, you know sacrificing babies into Moloch and doing all kinds of weird
Bizarre things obviously the Mayans doing all kinds of weird things with baby it the devil is pretty consistent and killing babies
in the Bible whether that be through Herod or Pharaoh or
Whoever, you know the devil loves the destroy children because why he hates people being fruitful and multiplying
you'd think like man if the devil is the antithesis of Jesus and God and
God's like one number one priority is to have lots of children. What do you think the devil's number one agenda would be?
To stop people from having lots of children to destroy lots and lots of children
And of course one of the most satanic things in this world is abortion
We are a mother to destroy her own child is just such evil and having no natural affection and it's just ugly
plus divorce itself limits a lot of people's family people stop having children or try not to have children or
Now they're physically not able to have children because they're divorced or whatever
The scenario is but divorce disrupts the family unit as well. But here's another one
That's more subtle because of course the devil is a subtle beast
Obviously just killing the baby seems pretty obvious at what the agenda is, right?
But here's another agenda that I believe is of the devil and it's family planning. It's family planning now the Bible
Does bring up a story that's kind of like this that it's kind of the only time it's mentioned
but we might as well talk about it since we're on the subject look at Genesis 38 verse 8 and
Judas said unto Onan go in unto my brother's wife and marry her and raise up seed to thy brother and Onan knew
that the seed should not be his and it came to pass when he went in unto his brother's wife that he spilled it on
The ground lest that he should give seed to his brother. So this is Onan former
practicing a couple things kind of a
variation of birth control
mixed in with also the idea of family planning in the sense that he's trying to not have children and
He knows what causes
Having children and so he's taking measures into his own hands and saying I don't want to have
Children at this time or with this woman or whatever the scenario is now
What is God's?
Attitude verse 10 and the thing which he did displeased the Lord wherefore he slew him. Also notice
This was not something that God took lightly
God ended up destroying Onan
Now I think this story is very important because again
Let's go back to Adam and Eve did Adam and Eve have to leave their mother and father in order to get married
No, they did not so that commandment given to Adam and Eve is also for us. Is it not?
Let's also think about this
How many people have been in a scenario where your older brother was married and died and then his wife's a widow and then you?
Were forced to marry her who had that scenario?
What?
We're not in Kentucky and I'm just kidding
Isn't that a pretty rare
Situation that almost applies to virtually no people. So why do you think God would include a story like hey
Here's this really weird scenario that's gonna happen to virtually no one and apply to no one
You know why it's because it's not really about the scenario
It's about the situation and and what is the reason why Onan is doing the thing he's doing?
He's just not wanting to have children
That God's wanting to have in that particular timing and as a result God gets very angry
Then he slays him which tells me this that God doesn't want us to take birth into our own hands
And of course, what is natural family planning? It's a Catholic doctrine. It comes from a good origin, doesn't it?
Catholics now, why is it coming from Catholics?
Well, I'll explain a few things here in a minute
But go if you had to 1st Corinthians chapter 7 go to 1st Corinthians chapter 7 now Catholics historically do not believe in
divorce they of course don't believe in abortion and
they believe in
You know a lot of things that are still biblical as far as just being married and having relationship with your wife
But I would venture to say that Catholics don't always follow the Bible very well
Since they literally worship idols in the church, which is a pretty big subject in the Bible about not doing that
They literally think that
Mary is still a virgin so they're confused, okay
This eternal virgin so they've got some strange practices and beliefs
But you know, there's kind of this common theme in Catholics, you know, you call them Irish Catholics where they have children
You know
so much so that they're kind of like that one year cycle that we talked about with that lady that had that record and
A lot of people call a particular phenomenon Irish twins when a lady will have two children
Within a less than 12 month period so they have the same age
Basically, they're both eight, but they weren't born at the same time. They were born in the same year
It's called Irish twins, and it's a phenomenon that doesn't naturally occur
okay, but Catholics were notorious for this where they're just pumping children out just like bam bam bam bam and
It causes problems, you know, I'm not recommending
I'm not saying it's healthy to have Irish twins because I don't believe it's it's it's the best way to have children
Okay, it's far from it
It's better than not having children
But it's not ideal and it can cause a lot of problems that can be a lot of issues a lot of stress
It's you know, God didn't even design it that way
So they're obviously making some some mistakes typically in this category by having just children that fast and that quickly
So what was their remedy the remedy was natural family planning or basically they would figure out hey
What do I need to do to not have children right now and they would employ that method now
Of course, that's not what there's not one method to this
There's all kinds of methods since then evil people have even created all kinds of devices that you can use
There's all there's all manner devices that allow you to do this let alone just
calendars or figuring out your your timing or whatever or
Just doing Onan literally, but you know, God was mad at the Onan method
God destroyed Onan for that. Not only that there's even worse things out there where people are just abstaining and
Look, this is violating the Bible
What does it say in 1st Corinthians chapter number 7 in verse number 4 the wife have not power of her own body?
But the husband and likewise also the husband have not power of his own body
But the wife the fraud ye not one the other
Except it be with consent for a time they may give yourselves a fasting and prayer and come together again
That Satan tempt you not for your incontinence II now
Here's the thing fasting is a means of afflicting your body and not having pleasure for a spiritual purpose
Okay, so of course it's kind of making sense that hey, let's not in let's not do something that I really enjoy
That's that's pleasureful in a time of fasting because then it's kind of nullifying the whole point of fasting
You know, what? It's not saying is just hey, let's just be abstinent whenever we want
according to the Bible if you do that, you're gonna give Satan an opportunity to tempt you and
Incontinence II just means lack of self-control
so, you know if
Couples are not following this. They're more likely to have big issues like adultery like
alternatives and all kinds of different things are happening Catholics lots of adultery and
In an effort to not necessarily pump out children once every year
They employed natural family planning and taught a lot of people how to do this, you know, I don't subscribe to that method
I don't believe in that method. I don't think that's the right method go if you would the
Lamentations chapter number four
Obviously
Birth control I'm strongly against too
Now, let me explain something birth control is not conception control. It's birth control and it's named correctly
because
While it does in in some ways try to prevent conception
It doesn't always work. But you know what? It does work birth control
It does work and hardening the lining of the uterus and causing fertilized eggs to die
Before they can be birthed. It does it's very effective in killing
You know fertilized eggs
Seven day old babies, you know, and that's why I'm firmly against it, you know
Of course, I would even be against it even if it was only conception control because that's the that's the Onan method
You know, the Onan method is the conception aspect killing the child's even worse
So I would never use birth control
You know having this understanding now, of course many of us probably have done that or have had a pass that I just would stop
Doing it. Okay, and birth control has a lot of serious side effects apart from what I'm talking about. It can cause cancer
it can cause
You know a lot of issues with desire for a woman changes her hormones
It's just it's just a bad product it's ungodly and of course there's a lot of consequences to ungodly products out there
But you say well, okay. Well, how do I not have children every 11 months?
Well, there's this great thing that God designed it's called
breastfeeding
Okay, and in fact, it's as a medical term. It's the lamb method
lactational an area method and if you employ the lamb method according to
You know science and even I believe what the Bible, you know alludes to you can't have children every 11 months
You can't have them every 12 months
Now there could be an exception to this and I'm not trying to shame people but I'm just saying generally speaking
the land method according to science is
98 percent effective for the first six months and
If you add six plus nine you get a number 15
15 is larger than 12
15 is larger than 11. Okay now I personally believe that's for another reason why the number six is actually not even necessarily
is as accurate as it could be but
Look what the Bible says in Lamentations chapter 4 verse 3
How would you feel about it if my children were starving all day and asking me for food and I kept telling them no
You'd be like that's kind of mean but it's saying that's the same thing when you're not breastfeeding the child according to the Bible and
You know, obviously there's alternatives for a reason but generally speaking most every woman can breastfeed and
You know what? It's according to the Bible. It's saying even animals do this
Animals have more love than a many mothers, you know, and it's saying the mother's breastfeed now for a second time
I'm only gonna go one more place
I want to explain a few more things, but I'm gonna go one more place
You can look it up in the Bible
Consistently the Bible say when someone gets weaned then they conceived again when they get weaved they conceived again
and it's just fact that God built in a method of
Conception control that he deems is okay. It's breastfeeding
Now I think there is there's nothing wrong with employing God's method
And I think it's the best method and it'll help space out your children
You say what birth control and family planning methods do you employ pastor Shelly zero birth control
Zero family planning. Our family planning is that we pray that God will give us as many children as we can possibly get
Now saying that our children are still basically around
20 to 24 months apart
You know, I'm not saying like I'm special. I'm doing something that no one's ever thought of
I'm unique. No, no. No, I think I'm just as normal and average as every other person
but if you employ
Breastfeeding properly according to the lamb scientific method. It's 98% effective and it can go well past the six-month mark as well
Now this is not pastor Shelley. This is a scientific article. That is not a fundamental Baptist. They don't care
this is what they said in order for the lamb method to work in
Order for the lamb method to work mothers have to be feeding on demand and that is not her demand. It's the baby's demand
It's the one time you allow your baby to be a terrorist, okay?
And you have to you you don't even negotiate you just give them their demands, okay?
For the land method to work you have to feed them at least
Every four hours during the day and at least every six hours at night. Okay, so that is
Part of this thing it has to be within the first six months according to their article
It says you cannot use any covers. I
Didn't say that this scientific article did okay. Why why not? Well because
Have you how many of you are gonna go eat lunch today and you're gonna do this?
You're gonna be like man, it's hot it's hot in there
And you know what happens when you get hot you get frustrated you want to get out of the situation
You're just done and so
Babies are no different folks. It's not like babies magically love heat or something
You know they or just being like, you know hidden from he's like, where did you go?
You know
They get freaked out when others, you know, and babies don't even know what's going on
So all of a sudden they went from seeing this is like black and it's like
Yeah, what's happening?
It confuses them, okay
So it causes them to eat less. Here's just the result they eat less as a result of them eating less
They don't they don't breastfeed the same
They're not getting the hind milk typically and that causes a change in the hormones of a woman
When the hormones of the woman change, what is the what is happening?
God built your body to respond amazingly
Whenever your baby is eating less, you know what your body thinks is happening. I'm weaning the child
Because whenever you start giving it other food, it doesn't need as much milk. So it doesn't eat as long
So then your body's thinking like oh shut it down shut down production and then it starts shutting down production
And then basically you just go back to that cycle
It's a result of covers. That's why I don't force covers in church because I don't think it's right
Another thing avoid bottles pacifiers and artificial nipples
Again your body responds everything you do when it's an infant. It's constantly going to be doing a sucking motion
And if the mother is the only option for that child
What it's going to do is your body's constantly responding to that and it's creating hormones and it's saying hey
You have a little baby. You have a little baby. You have a little baby. You have a little baby
You have a little baby. You have a little baby whenever it's using pacifier, you know, your body's not saying you have a little baby
When you're using artificial nipples and bottles and all this other stuff
It's not saying you have a baby you have a baby you have a baby
So what happens is your body starts changing and adapting and responding to the environment shuts it down
now
Here's another thing. That's very interesting
Look at Ruth chapter 4 and look at verse 16, okay?
The Bible says this and Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it now
I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt
That my interpretations, right?
Because this is an ambiguous verse and I've looked it up and virtually every translation
The Hebrew and all the crazy things you want to think about but it's somewhat ambiguous
Some people argue that this is not saying what it's saying
But I personally think it's actually saying that Naomi breastfed her grandchild
Now some people say like is that even possible? Yes, it is possible
In fact, I looked up an article
There's several about this but I wanted to read just a small portion of this to you
Apologize for me using my phone in church, right?
but
It's in foreign countries because of course America. They don't even want to breastfeed their own child let alone their grandchild
But in some, you know other countries in Nigeria
They've done a research study and they say it's very possible
We have mothers who even up to 60 years old have the ability to start
Relactation process to recover the ability to produce breast milk under some kind of tutelage says with a bit of training
Women can begin to produce breast milk again
so
According to this art and this is well past menopause
This is not like they just had a child of their own like the father of the bride to or something
this is like they've well past childbearing years and they can relocate again and
Why I think this is important and again, let's say the Ruth is not saying that okay, but it gave me that idea
grandmothers can can can actually breastfeed and
It's true. They can't but this is what I found interesting about the article as
Some women will say like oh, I'm not good at breastfeeding or something or maybe my production slowed down
But here's the thing your body responds to your actions
So even if you had a problem with breastfeeding or it's not going well, it can actually get better
Think about it
This grandmother was not lactating and then went to lactating why because your body will respond if you're doing the right things
Okay
So even if you're struggling or you're happy going through a low spot you can build back your production again
supply and demand
But this is what this article said and I think this is very interesting. It's not pastor Shelley
This is just this article, but I find it interesting
Breast milk actually is produced from the brain
When the person who is going to start breastfeeding develops the passion the willingness and the love for that child
the brain has hormones that are able to change the
Orientation of that woman who is going to start breastfeeding and before you know
It the breast begins to produce breast milk again
So unless there is no willingness on the part of that grandmother
Breastfeeding is possible
Now again, that's not pastor Shelley
This is just some random article or whatever
But it seems to fit with a lot of things that we've been looking and if there was any woman in the Bible that was
Willing it was Naomi. I mean she wanted grandchildren's more than anybody and
I think that there is a little bit of psychosis that goes into breastfeeding that I think if women
Don't want to breastfeed or have a negative view towards it and they're not
having a willingness that it could have a
Net a negative effect and
Cause them not have a lot of children and here's the thing
I want you to have lots of children and I feel like a lot of people are I mean, I look at lists we've got
11 on the list and I know there's women here. They're pregnant or not on this list. Okay, not because I'm a prophet, right but
But here's the thing
You know, that's a lot of babies and you know
I want these babies to keep being produced and I don't want you to feel like you're just constantly suffering and look having
Children every 11 12 months is really difficult
You know, I don't think that's ideal God wants them to be spaced out better than that
But you know don't be afraid to have large families and you know when I talked with my wife about this a long time ago
She was a little nervous about how many children we could have but I just explained her
I said based on our age and what we're starting in life. Our max is probably 10
You know, but that may not even happen
And you know, why don't you worry about just the next one instead of worrying about 10 and you know now my wife wants 10
She was she's like she's like I'd be disappointed if I didn't have 10 and isn't it funny how the tables turn right?
We don't have 10. We're working on six. Okay
But we may never even get the six or the seventh or the eighth of that
It's like we may never even get to that level
That we were so afraid of and now she totally wants it. And you know what you your desires young ladies may change
But let me tell you something following God's commandment will always give you the most happiness the most satisfaction the most joy and
Don't let naysayers
Like these documentaries shiny happy people discourage you from having lots of children
Don't let them. Oh, how are you gonna love all of them?
That's stupid
You know, I'm when we had a next child. I wasn't like well, I love you guys a lot less now
You know, I can't love more than one person in my life. I love all my children equally. Oh
Well, how are you gonna play with them? We all play together
You know basketball with one person isn't as much fun as with six
You can't even play some sports with only one per how you can play baseball with one person, right?
You need a whole team right and so having lots of children makes things better it doesn't necessarily make things worse
It makes life more full more joy more happiness. And yeah, it's a lot of work
But you know what God designed women to have children. He did did not design women to play in the NBA
He did not design women to be pastors he didn't design women to go out there and fight in wars
he didn't design women to be men and
There's one thing that you can do that we'll never do it's have children folks
Why wouldn't you want to be the greatest woman that you can be and have lots of children?
That's what God wants you to do. Oh
You just think women are just for having children. No, but I think they're great at it
They're way better than I am at it, okay, I never want to even try okay
Kidneys don't scare me. All right, let alone child. All right
But let us just embrace the Bible embrace God's commandments
Let us just be fruitful and multiply and not let the world tell us how many kids to have. Let's go to prayer
Thank Heavenly Father for blessing us. There's so many ladies that are pregnant. I
Pray that you would just continue to bless our church with children and I pray that you would help our mindset
That we'd see it as a blessing
That we'd see it as the joy that it should be I pray that you encourage men to
Desire to have a quiver full of children and to fear the Lord and to walk in your ways
I pray that you wouldn't let the naysayers and the devil and his methods creep into our lives
Because we understand that following all of your commandments is the best the best lifestyle and I pray that you would help all of us
To have the courage and the faith to have as many children as you bless us with in Jesus name we pray. Amen
All right, amen
All right before we sing our last song we're gonna go ahead and sing
Happy birthday to Pastor Shelley. And so everybody turn around and stare at them awkwardly while we sing
Happy birthday pin them down. All right
We're gonna do this acapella
All right, everybody
Now
For our last hymn, we're gonna go ahead and sing song number
246
song number
246 in
Closing we'll all sing it together on the first redeem song number
Oh
No language my rapture can tell I know that the light of his presence
with me
continually dwell
I
Think of my blessed Redeemer
I sing for I cannot be silent
Love is the theme of my song
Redeemed by the blood
It's
Who lovingly guarded
I
Want to make sure you got those people out there to sing happy birthday to
No, I'm just kidding
Well, we ended up having a packed house this morning. So we broke our record again, and we had
222 so I guess we're having ice cream for for birthday. All right, so
God bless you guys. You are dismissed. All right