The culture is clearly buying into this concept.  Legal fights over apartment complexes and other accommodations come down to the claim that adults ought to be able to live in a child-free environment.  Others claim that too much tax money and public attention is given to children, and that this is an unfair imposition upon those who choose not to "breed."  Of course, the very use of this terminology betrays the rebellion in this argument.  Animals breed.  Human beings procreate and raise children to the glory of God.

Without doubt, children do impose themselves upon our creature comforts, waking us up in the middle of the night with demanding needs and inconvenient interruptions.  Parents learn all too quickly that children are not only the smiling cherub sleeping in the crib, but also the dirty-faced preschooler, the headstrong teenager, and the boisterous grade-schooler.

The church should insist that the biblical formula calls for adulthood to mean marriage and marriage to mean children.  This reminds us of our responsibility to raise boys to be husbands and fathers and girls to be wives and mothers.  God's glory is seen in this, for the family is a critical arena where the glory of God is either displayed or denied.  It is just as simple as that.

            The church must help this society regain its sanity on the gift of  children.  Willful barrenness and chosen childlessness must be named as moral rebellion.  To demand that marriage means sex--but not children--is to defraud the creator of His joy and pleasure in seeing the saints raising His children.  That is just the way it is.  No kidding.