WWUTT 2115 Q&A Marriage With No Children, When Marriage is Not Marriage, Alan Ritchson Talks Christianity

Is it a sin if a married couple doesn't want children? If a woman becomes a Christian and the man she's living with doesn't want to get married, what should she do? And did Christianity borrow from religions older than Christianity?

The answer is when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that we may hear the word of the Lord and be conformed to His will. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

Psalm 14 is where we are this week, and I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord, as you said. The wicked fool says in his heart there is no God. They act corruptly. They commit abominable deeds.

There is no one who does good. Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is anyone who has insight, anyone who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become worthless.

There is no one who does good, not even one. Do all the workers of iniquity not know who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon Yahweh? There they are in great dread, for God is with the righteous generation.

You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but Yahweh is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion when Yahweh restores his captive people. May Jacob rejoice. May Israel be glad.

And by the way, just to make this point at the end of that particular psalm, the promises that are given to Israel are not exclusive to Israel. All of God's people receive those promises.

I was going to say, isn't that for the church?

Yeah.

So that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion. That's for us.

Amen.

The salvation of Israel has come out of Zion.

Yes.

And we sing about it every Christmas.

We do.

Yeah.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

Yeah.

Almost said, and rapture captive Israel. We can do that too.

Take us home.

Take us home, Lord. But yeah, this psalm you might recognize as being quoted in Romans 3. They have all turned aside, together they have become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. And that is all of us.

That's our condition without Christ before we come to know the Lord.

Yeah.

We're worthless. We have become worthless. We were made in the image of God, and as said in Genesis 1 and 2, whatever he made was very good.

Yep.

But then Adam and Eve sin, and all of us who are descended of Adam are active participants in that sin, in that rebellion against God.

Yeah.

And we have made ourselves worthless, and there is no one who does good. The depravity of our hearts is always to go after what is contrary to God and his law. It is not in our nature to seek God, and no one by their nature seeks God.

Since no one does good, and seeking God would be a good thing. There is no one who seeks God, not even one, which is also in Romans 3.

Yep.

So this is our natural state. This is describing who we are. It is, of course, talking about all the rebellious of men. God is with the righteous generation, but God is against the wicked. His face is against the wicked.

And so how do we become that righteous generation? By faith in Jesus.

I was going to say, by the salvation of Christ.

Who clothes us in his righteousness. And in this, Christ makes us worthy. We are worthy to be in his presence. We are worthy to be called his children. We are worthy of the eternal life, the eternal kingdom that he has promised to the Son.

We are fellow heirs of in Christ. We are made worthy by his righteousness. So it is the fool who says in his heart, there is no God. And you know, oftentimes, this is like the atheist verse.

Okay.

We'll use Psalm 14 .1 to say these are atheists. They have said in their heart, there is no God. But this may also describe the person who acknowledges God with their lips.

That's what I thought of, yeah.

But their heart is far from God. As Isaiah said of the hypocrites, and then Jesus repeats that, of course, to the Pharisees, you well, did Isaiah speak of you hypocrites? They acknowledge me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

So they may say that they follow God, but in their hearts, they believe he's not really.

There.

He's not really watching me. He's not really going to hold me accountable for the evil that I have done. And so they continue to do evil in secret or even oppress those who are the righteous. And yet there is no one who does good.

No one who by their own merit chooses to do the right thing and therefore does it. But Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is anyone who has insight, anyone who seeks after God.

He's the one who draws us to himself. John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. So this is God who draws us to himself. We would have nothing in our hearts to go after God if it wasn't for him coming after us.

As is said in Luke 19, 10, the son of man has come to seek and to save the lost.

Yes.

God is the one who has drawn us to himself and saved us by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Wonderful psalm. It goes without saying, but still it's a wonderful psalm. All right. What do we got today, Bex?

I have no idea.

Becky Deer, what are we looking at today?

Becky Deer?

Yes.

That's a new one.

Somebody, have I have never said that before?

I don't think so.

No?

At least not often enough.

14 years of marriage and I still surprise you.

This is very true.

With endearing nicknames. Somebody came up to me recently and told me how much they loved your voice. I'm not going to say who it was because she may want to tell you in person, so I'll wait. And if she doesn't, then I'll spill the beans, but just came up to me recently and I love listening to the podcast.

Your wife's voice is so amazing. I agree.

So sweet.

I told her the story about how Sonia and I had really convinced you to be on this program, but you had the right voice for it, but you were dragging your feet. So we have some questions here about the Hear the Word of the Lord podcast.

By the way, on the Friday edition, we respond to questions from listeners and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. I've had a few about the new podcast, so I started another one which began on March 1st.

And unfortunately, you can't actually enter your information into podcast websites to search for it or podcast host sites like Apple and Google. You can't do it unless you have a published podcast.

What?

So I can't set up the podcast and then say like, we're launching on March 1st and I've already got it set up on all of these search sites. You have to actually publish the podcast before it will let you enter it into Spotify or anything like that.

Oh.

Well, that's interesting.

It's been out for two weeks.

You've got to have it first in order to put it somewhere?

Right.

Okay.

So it's been out for two weeks, but people are still not yet finding it on Apple. I don't know how long that takes before it finally shows up on Apple.

Who knows it's Apple.

Yeah.

I like Apple, but it's still frustrating at times.

Is it still iTunes?

I think so.

I use the podcast app on my iPhone. That's what I use. And I'm not an Apple user. I mean, I don't use an Apple, a Mac. I'm using a PC, but I do have an iPhone and that's the app I use to listen to podcasts.

But yeah, I've done the same. I've tried to search for Hear the Word of the Lord. I'm not subscribed to it yet either. You can find it on Podbean, of course, because that's the host site. It's hearthewordofthelord .podbean .com.

I don't know if it's coming up yet on Google and Spotify. Somebody told me that they were listening to it on Spotify.

Oh, cool.

So maybe it is there. But anyway, it's Caroline's email that I'm going to single out here. She says, hi from Canada. Before I get to the podcast question, the proper pronunciation of salt steamery.

Oh yeah, I love that one.

Is Sue St. Marie.

Sue?

Sue. S-O-O.

All right.

Like soup or soothe, but good try.

It had on the Google, of course.

Yeah, you looked it up.

And I was like, that's so.

So, right.

That's not Sue.

Right.

But at the same time, Google's not always right. So, thank you.

Touche.

That's awesome.

I really enjoy your friendly, fun banter and laughter. Such a welcoming sound. Again, so thankful for all your work. I cannot seem to find the podcast, even on Apple podcasts or my other one that I use.

There is a podcast called Hear the Word of the Lord, but I don't recognize any of the people's names who are reading the Bible. Is that really what it's called? I know that I did a search for Hear the Word of the Lord and one of the episodes was called that.

But it didn't seem like the whole podcast was called that. From what I could tell from my own searching, I didn't see anything that was called Hear the Word of the Lord. Anyway, I could be wrong. She goes on to say, plus they have other random episodes on it.

Perhaps I am spelling it wrong. Thanks again. So, yeah, to find it directly, the site that I host the podcast on, it's hearthewordofthelord .podbean .com. I don't know what's taking it so long to get on Apple and Spotify.

Is that it?

Yeah, that's it.

That's Spotify.

Oh, so it does come up on Spotify.

It does.

Okay.

Now, anyway.

Well, somebody's listening to it because it gets several dozen downloads a day.

Oh, that's cool. So people are finding it eventually. Eventually. Give it a little time. It'll be good.

There's only like one or two episodes that have 100 downloads.

Oh, yeah.

It's not many. I don't even think there's 100 subscribers yet. I may be wrong.

Okay.

But, yeah.

So, again, in case you haven't heard, this is a Bible reading podcast, and it's only Bible reading. There's no intro or outro. You just bring it up, and boom, I'm reading scripture. I'll give you chapter markers.

You know where we are. But it'll go from March 1st to February 28th, reading through the Legacy Standard Bible, which is what I'm doing right now. And since there's a backlog of those episodes, I mean, you can go back and listen to them whenever you want.

Did you just say March 1st to February 28th?

Yeah, March 1st to February 28th. That's a year.

Oh, that direction. I was going backwards.

You're going back in time?

I've been a little slow.

How do you do that?

Or a lot to go backwards.

And then the ambition is, I don't know if I'm going to get this far, but the ambition is that next year I'd do a new translation, which would be the New American Standard, since I've got most of that one recorded already.

Oh, yeah.

But right now doing the Legacy Standard Bible. Well, we just finished up Genesis, so starting in Exodus. But you can find the podcast directly from Podbean. And I guess we just have to wait till it shows up everywhere else.

Yeah, and Spotify.

Yeah.

It was on Spotify.

Yeah, and on Spotify, that's right. You do find it there. But thank you, Caroline.

There's a few.

Hopefully it'll be a little easier to find.

Very quickly, hopefully.

Hey, why are we so late on this episode today?

Because we've had a sick household.

Okay, I didn't even remit. I don't know what our excuse is.

Yeah, it's run through the family.

It's, yeah.

Yeah, the kids have been sick.

Yep.

You've not been feeling well.

Nope.

I was feeling ill earlier in the week.

Yeah.

So I don't have an excuse. But, well, you told me Thursday night you couldn't record.

Right.

Well, I told you don't worry about it.

I was dizzy.

Yeah.

I couldn't even stand up. That was weird.

You clearly didn't feel well, so I just said, just go to bed. And then I was going to record, and I'm just sitting here going, I don't want to do this. So I worked on something else. And then I thought, Friday, sometime Friday, Becky and I will be able to do this.

And then that didn't even work out.

No, that didn't.

So we're recording this Saturday, though it's still dated for Friday. Sorry we're behind.

A little bit.

The Sin of Refusing Children and the Wisdom of Marriage Discernment

But one of the things I was going to do if I had recorded this by myself, if I had to do it by myself, was respond to a video of Bill Maher responding to, well, no, it's Bill Maher having a conversation with Alan Richson, who is an actor.

He's the subject of a recent What video I did. We'll play that video here in a moment.

Okay.

And then somebody, a couple of people, in fact, sent me this interview with Bill Maher and Alan Richson and said, you know, basically, like, what do you think of the answers that Alan is giving? It sounds like he's a theological liberal.

And so we're going to play that.

Okay.

Since doing that video, folks have asked me, well, is he a Christian or not? I mean, can we trust anything that he says? I said in the video, you can't trust anything he says. Don't follow any of his stuff with regards to, you know, the InstaChurch channel that he's got on YouTube.

He's trying to present what he believes to be Christian teaching, but it really is through a liberal lens. It definitely is that. So, anyway, we'll get to that toward the end here. Let's look at a few of these other questions.

First from Simon, who says, praise the Lord, brother. Is it a sin for a married couple not to have children if they have health issues like diabetes and otherwise, and financial constraints, no sufficient savings?

I am 39 and my wife is 32. So will age also be a challenge to become first time parents? Well, it's sad that you don't think that you'll be able to have children. My encouragement to a couple has generally been, if you can have children, you should.

But if you've got some health concerns, like it might even be risky for your wife to get pregnant, then perhaps it's not a good idea. Those are things you have to consider. You might want to get a doctor's opinion on that.

Definitely.

So if you can get pregnant, you should. If you can have children, it's a good idea. But if you can't, or if you think that it would be risky, is it therefore sin for a married couple to not have children?

There are some ministries out there, and very unfortunately, this has become wider spread. I think it's more on social media than anything else. But there is kind of this faction, I would call it legalistic, that is saying that if you're married and you don't have kids, then you are in sin.

What?

You should not even get married if you don't want children. And I don't see that as being a mandate in Scripture.

No.

There's nothing in the Bible that says that if you don't want children, then you can't get married. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul doesn't say anything there, with regards to all the instructions there in 1 Corinthians 7 about marriage.

He encourages you to stay single if you can stay single, but so that you don't burn with sexual desire, it's better for a person to get married than to burn with desire. But he doesn't ever say anything in there about, if you're going to get married, you should have kids.

And if there's any chapter where you would think that instruction would happen, it would be there in 1 Corinthians 7.

Yeah.

So there is a one-flesh aspect to marriage between a man and a woman that is God-honoring without having to have children.

Right.

God says to Adam and Eve, after he creates Adam, names all the animals in the garden, it says, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. And so he creates Eve for him, and Adam says, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

So they have a union with one another. And, of course, God says to them, be fruitful and multiply, because they're the first man and woman on earth.

Right.

And there is a general, I think, command that is good for mankind to follow with regards to being fruitful and multiplying. But that doesn't mean that….

Everybody has that.

Right. Every marriage has to be that.

Right.

That doesn't mean that. There are….

We're in a fallen world.

Yeah.

That's just not going to be possible for every married couple to be able to have children.

Well, to be able to have children, but even the desire to have children.

That's true.

If you don't desire to have children, then you probably shouldn't try.

Yeah.

But at the same time, if that's what you've resolved in your marriage, you need to be careful with how you prevent that. Like, how are you preventing having kids? Because there are methods out there that are abortifacients, meaning that you could be using something preventative that could be inadvertently causing abortion, and you are not even aware that that is happening.

Right.

It's true.

And so I've strongly discouraged any kind of birth control that would cause that. So you need to be wise with how you're preventing that if you think that you can't do it. But it is not somehow inherently sinful if you, as a married couple, decide that you don't want to have children.

This is definitely a question that you need to take up with a pastor, with someone who knows you better. You need to be shepherded in this question.

Yes.

Not just listening to a podcast host and then taking my word for it. But certainly consult your pastor and talk about these things. Somebody who knows your condition better, having a longer conversation about this.

Yes, definitely.

And, of course, seeking the Word of God and understanding what God's Word has said concerning these things, not based on opinion or anything else. But you can still have godly offspring even without having children.

Yes.

The whole church is called to that.

Yes.

Like even people who can't get married, can't have kids, you can still have godly offspring. And you do that through sharing the gospel. As the Apostle Paul will talk with the various churches about being a father to them like he does with the Corinthians or with the Thessalonians even.

And with Timothy. We're finishing up 1 Timothy and he calls Timothy a child in the faith. He calls Titus a child in the faith. So bringing others to a knowledge of Jesus Christ, sharing the gospel, you therefore produce godly offspring, a spiritual offspring.

So we're all called to that, whether or not you may have actual physical offspring.

Yes.

There's still an offspring that we are to be producing and that is through the sharing of the gospel.

Amen.

So let's still be faithful to that.

Yes.

Even though you may not feel like you are called to have a family in these present days.

Did you read it as they didn't really want to have children or just didn't want to biologically have children? Because of health concerns?

Yeah, they don't want to have children at all. I'm reading this as not just my wife getting pregnant and having kids, but even because of our health concerns, we don't even feel like we're physically capable of caring for children.

Got it.

Check, check.

Now I've known adults who have married one another because they really couldn't live alone. And so having a partner to care for each other in sickness and in health, that's a perfectly valid reason to get married.

It doesn't have to be because we're getting married to have offspring. If we can't have children, then we shouldn't get married. That is a legalistic implication.

Yeah.

It is not stated in scripture that you can't get married unless you're also deciding to have children.

Right. Yeah.

I don't know. That bugs me.

It bothers me too.

That people put that on others.

Yeah.

That kind of pressure.

Parachurch ministries like the Gospel Coalition have gone too far pushing singleness the way that they have. We should be encouraging marriage.

Yes.

And should be encouraging families, godly families.

Yes.

That is a good thing.

It is.

But by no means should we therefore say, well God has not called you to be single. Maybe he has.

Yeah.

There is a segment of evangelicalism that pushes back on that hyper singleness approach.

Okay.

And becomes hyper marriage.

Oh.

It's like the pendulum swings too far the other direction.

It's like somebody needs to stop it in the middle.

Yeah.

I mean there are single adults that I have counseled before and I have said do not get married.

Yes.

Please don't get married. You're not ready for it. You're not mature enough for it. It would be a disaster if you were to do it.

Or terribly hard.

Yeah.

Really hard or whatever. Or a person who has been through like three or four marriages. And I have to tell them this is not a good track record.

Yeah.

Maybe it is not your fault that all four of your marriages have fallen apart. But it just seems to me that this is not a wise thing to do right now. All I have to go off of is wisdom. Don't get married.

Right.

So there are certainly occasions in which I've had to counsel somebody to not get married. And that is the right counsel. There have been other occasions I've seen where I could name some, but I'm not going to.

A pastor encouraging somebody to get married. And it turned out to be an utter disaster.

Yeah.

There was even a pastor in Junction City where I was pastor for 10 years in Kansas. Somebody went from my church to another church because they knew I was not going to bless that union. And the pastor married them.

And before he did, I emailed them. I tried to call him, but never could make a connection through a phone call. So I emailed him and I said, don't marry this couple. Don't do it. And he did it anyway.

I tried to explain the whole situation. This is why they should not be getting married. Never even responded to the email. I did find out that he told them, your former pastor, Gabe, emailed me and actually tried to tell me not to marry you guys.

Because then they came back to me upset that I would try to interfere with their getting married.

Yeah.

He married them anyway, and it was a disaster. I'm not at liberty to tell you in what ways. It was just really bad. But I certainly felt vindicated, not joyfully, but the warning was right. They should not be getting married.

And then it just turned out to be a terrible, awful thing. So there are occasions in which a person should be discouraged from getting married. And then there are other occasions in which getting married, maybe the couple cannot have children, and they're not doing anything sinful.

But once again, Simon, I would say that is a question that you should definitely ask a pastor, somebody who knows you, Sunday school teacher, someone, some spiritual mentor that you know, that knows you more personally and can guide you through those things and give you more sound advice for both you and your spouse.

Yes.

Common-Law Marriage, Fornication, and Shepherding Unmarried Couples

This next question comes from Siervo. This is a little bit long.

Okay.

Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky,. I first wanted to thank you for your many years of service. Your Bible studies and Q &A with Becky have been a blessing to my life that I can't measure or explain with my faulty English.

Aww.

I'm from Chile and have been a full-time ministry in Costa Rica for over a decade.

Oh, fun.

About five years ago, I planted a church in a very socially difficult area of San Jose. This area is populated mainly by Nicaraguans looking for better job opportunities. Even so, it is an area full of violence, drugs, and other things that I cannot mention.

But the Lord has been faithful, saving many within this community.

Oh, amen.

Something that is very normal in places like these is that most families are not married, but rather get together and live at a very early age and begin to have children and live as if they were married, many times even living still in their parents' houses.

Most of the families that have come to our church come from this background, and God has given us the opportunity to celebrate weddings for many couples who receive the gospel and want to put their families in order.

My question has to do with those who have come to the Lord, but their partners remain unbelievers. Many of them have shown fruits of salvation and want to get married, but their partners refuse to do so.

Most are women who have children with their partners and are financially dependent on them. My questions are, do you think that these women are living in fornication since, although they are not legally married, they live in committed relationships as if they were?

How would you encourage them to strengthen their walk with Christ when there is an obvious desire to follow Him, but their partners do not help them? Would you withhold baptism, communion, and membership from someone who is stuck in this family situation but shows evidence of salvation?

I apologize for the long email. I ask you for a little wisdom and advice here. I hope I have been clear explaining our situation and need. If one day you want to come to Costa Rica, you are more than invited.