June 10, 2020 Show with Randy Hekman on “Sweeter by the Dozen: Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family Size”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carwile, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions.

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And now here's your host Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth.

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We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 10th day of June 2020.

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And I'm very delighted to have on the program for the very first time someone who comes by a very high recommendation from Reformation Heritage Books and that is

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Randall Heckman. Randy is a retired juvenile court judge who has headed several

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Christian non -profit organizations committed to benefiting families. He's the executive director of the

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Grand Awakening and husband of Marsha for more than 50 years having parented with her their one dozen children.

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And today we're going to be addressing a book by Randy published by Reformation Heritage Books, Sweeter by the

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Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of our Family Size. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Randy Heckman.

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Well thank you Chris and it is a delight to be with you and your audience here today. Great and it's a delight to have you.

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And let me give our listeners our email address should they want to join us on the air with a question of their own.

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Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com c -h -r -i -s a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

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And as always please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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What we usually do on this program as a tradition Randy is when we have a first time guest we have them give a summary of their salvation testimony.

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But before we do that I'd like you to tell our listeners about the Grand Awakening. Sure Chris, I appreciate that.

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The Grand Awakening, we've been in existence about five years. And again as we will get to and you kind of introduced already,

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I mean I have a background in law and government. I was a prosecutor, judge for 15 years.

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At one point I actually ran for U .S. Senate. I've worked in a non -profit that dealt with communicating family issues to our state government.

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So I get government. But we've got some major problems in America today that I don't believe government by itself can fix.

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We have problems in America? Are you kidding? We have a few. But government is a, as one state legislator once told me, he said you know that public policy or government is a lagging indicator of the health of the culture.

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And I agree with that. But I go one step deeper. I believe the problems with the culture deals with something deeper than that.

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The culture is a lagging indicator of the health of the church. That's us.

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And I really believe we have a heart problem. The real problem with America is selfishness. Me, me, me, my party, my group, my whatever.

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And the gimme, gimme, gimme. And regrettably that attitude is in the church as well.

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And it's in me. We want our comfort, our stuff and so on. If you can snap your fingers and make everybody be like Jesus who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

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And so many of our problems would go away. So how do we change hearts? We got a heart problem. We need people to come to faith in Christ and to be all in with him.

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And how do you do that in a rather quick way, the quickest way in history of our country has been through these great awakenings or revivals, great awakenings that we've had.

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So that's been our prayer. That is our goal. And we do it without shame, without embarrassment, as we are praying for a spiritual awakening.

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It can start anywhere in this country, but we'd love to see it start here in the west side of Michigan and spread across the country, spread across the world, bringing ultimately billions to new faith in Christ.

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So that's what the grand awakening is about. Great. And for those of you listening who want to find out more about the grand awakening, you can go to grandawakening .org,

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grandawakening .org. Okay. Well, if you could let us know something about what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were born and raised in and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

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Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you? I love that question,

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Chris. And I can't point to a specific day, but I can sure point to a specific period of time.

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But I was raised here in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. And those that know us here, historically, it's largely

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Dutch, Christian Reformed was our background, which is a

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Calvinistic, nothing against it, but I went to Christian school, went to catechism at our church once a week.

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A lot up in the head, but not a ton down in the heart or in the life.

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And then my dad's job after ninth grade in our Christian school here in town, my dad's job moved us to the

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Chicago area where I then began to attend, in fact, we moved into Wheaton, Illinois.

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I started to attend Wheaton Academy, which is a Christian high school there. And that, you know, every day

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I'm hearing in chapel about how Jesus wants to be my Savior, but then he also has a plan for my life.

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He loves me, knows me better than anyone else. He's got a plan for my life. He wants to be my

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Lord, my boss. He's got a plan. He wants me to follow him. I never heard that before. And then

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I was all into math and science and that sort of thing. It's not a hard math problem, but I just sat down one day,

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I remember when I was about 15, and to compute, okay, how many days from birth to age 70, how many days does one live?

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And believe it or not, it's less than 26 ,000 days. You can multiply that times 24.

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It's less than a million hours. I thought, wow, that's like nothing. And I said, how can

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I make sure my life counts? I guess if God really loves me and really has a plan for my life, if he says my life counted, it counted.

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If he says my life didn't count, it didn't count. So I want it to count. So that propelled me to say, okay,

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I'm in, a Savior and Lord of my life. And boy, I could just tell I was getting good grades up to that point, but I even got better and God just opened up huge doors for my future as a result, including ultimately meeting my dear wife,

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Marsha, in a total providential circumstance. And the rest is history, as they say.

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So that's it. Praise God. Well, I'd like to hear more about this brave woman,

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Marsha, how you met, where you met, and how you entered into a journey of, a lifelong journey of marriage together.

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Yeah, we, again, I attended undergraduate school at MIT in the

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Boston area. And Marsha went to Northern Illinois University. We actually, you know, did not know each other, but we were both involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, now called

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CRU. In fact, she came to faith in Christ her freshman year at Northern Illinois through CRU.

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And immediately, I mean, she's an evangelist. She immediately began to share with her family. She was not from a

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Christian home. They all came to Christ. And I mean, she hasn't quit yet. In fact, I was looking at her just a few minutes ago.

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She's down the block sharing the gospel with some of our neighbors. That's my dear wife. Now that I don't share, but I mean, she really is amazing along those lines.

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But anyhow, so she came to faith through CRU, and I was involved in Crusade. And I figured, you know,

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I may as well, you know, first, I guess, spring vacation of our sophomore year, I did go down to Daytona Beach, share the gospel a little bit down there.

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And I actually saw her down there. We never talked, but I do, I never forget her face. I remember seeing her down there.

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I knew she was from Illinois. So then fast forward to the summer between sophomore and junior year of college.

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And I decided if I'm going to be involved in CRU, I better get out to Arrowhead Springs, which is where the headquarters was at that time.

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Marcia was out there for the summer, basically, and I went out for a week. And I had just broken up with this very attractive girl who went to Wellesley College.

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She was in the same year, by the way, as Hillary Rodham, just for the record. Young lady, this young lady was actually pretty.

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Okay, just like, I won't go down that road. But I tried every which way to convert her, and she just wouldn't be converted.

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And then at one point, she broke up with me, and it hurt. But deep down,

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I just knew it was right, because I did really want to follow the Lord. And this was not going to make sense.

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I ended up going out to Arrowhead Springs, and there's all these beautiful Christian co -eds there at Arrowhead Springs.

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And I found myself saying, I wonder if that's the one. I wonder if that's the one. Wait a minute.

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I said, wait a minute. I came out here all the way from the Chicago area to learn more about you,

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Lord. I don't care as much. I'm getting emotional just saying it, because even though it was many, many years ago, this was so true in my heart as a 20 -year -old.

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Lord, I don't care if I never get married. I just want to get to know you better. And that afternoon,

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I'm in the bookstore, and I see this young lady. And I remembered that she was from Illinois.

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And my pickup line was, hmm, I want a postcard my mother would like.

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And she comes over. Well, this is a nice one. And she's still frustrated I didn't buy that particular one.

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And I've told her a few times, you know, Marcia, it had nothing to do with my mother or postcards. But anyhow, we ended up going to hear

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Hal Lindsey speak that night. And we went out for a Coke in a little place they had, a little cafe.

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And I was transfixed by her heart for Jesus, just overwhelmed. And we made arrangements to maybe meet the next night to see the athletes in action, play basketball.

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But she got held, you know, she could come because of a delay. And so I had to end up leaving via helicopter to LAX.

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And I had to fly out of there. All I knew was her first name. And I was just decimated.

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But before I left, I left my address with somebody there. I said, give it to this girl named Marcia. I think you can find her in this place.

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And sure enough, he got it to her. And a couple of months later, she wrote me after I tried, you know, unsuccessfully to get her name and address.

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And she said, you may not remember me, but we did meet. I just felt God wanted me to write you. And we, from there, you know,

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God just told us in no uncertain terms that he wanted us husband and wife.

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And we ended up, as we graduated, I got commissioned in the Navy. This was during the

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Vietnam era. I was assigned to the Pentagon in Washington, D .C., applied for law school, was able to work in the

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Pentagon, go to night law school. And we were married. And yeah, that's how I got started.

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Well, praise God. And just to remind our listeners of the title of the book that you have written,

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Sweeter by the Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family Size. Did you have any idea when you first married

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Marcia that you would have that many children? I mean, sometimes couples immediately say, we want a big family.

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Sometimes they don't say that, but God gives them one anyway. But did you have any idea it would be that big? No, not at all.

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I mean, we had Michelle while I was still in the Navy. And then she got pregnant with Renee and gave birth to her shortly after I left the

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Navy and law school, came back to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where my parents had moved back to.

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That just seemed to be the place to go. Got a job in the prosecutor's office and so on. But no way.

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Although we did go to a banquet one time. I had to speak at a banquet as a prosecutor, I think.

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And Marcia sat next to this lady that had 12 kids. And Marcia just didn't know what this gal would look like.

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I mean, what does a person look like that has 12 kids? I mean, it was kind of a jaw -dropper for her.

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But that's as close as we came to even thinking. I mean, we were going to have maybe three. And we did.

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We had three lovely daughters. And then, even though we were using birth control and everything,

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Marcia got pregnant with number four. So that was a surprise. And that's it.

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I mean, come on. Because, I mean, one of my dreams is flying private airplanes.

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So it was kind of one of my hobbies. And I could think of maybe buying a four -passenger or six -passenger single -engine plane at some point.

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But beyond that, forget it. And our car couldn't fit anymore. Our house couldn't fit anymore.

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And kids are expensive, for crying out loud. And a lot of work. In fact, you see that, especially when you go from two to three.

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You know, there's one for me, one for you. Then you get that third little kid. And all of a sudden, you think, man,

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I'm glad I don't have any more. But the thing is, they start growing up. And then the oldest ones can start helping a little bit, you know, playing with and so on the younger ones, which we found out.

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But so we were done. I mean, we were done, done. And Marcia has two sisters, no brothers.

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I have three sisters, no brothers. We have no background for this at all. And then, but Marcia is so real.

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You got to meet her. You really should be interviewing her rather than me, Chris. She's so amazing.

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Well, I'm sure that we'll arrange that. Oh, well, she is something else. She is so real. So she, here we are, you know, with four kids.

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And she prays. She said, Lord, that's enough kids, right? But if you want us to have more, change

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Randy. She was willing, you know, she said whatever. And again, it was not easy.

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We had some challenging pregnancies and she hates pain. Every time we go into labor or delivery.

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I mean, she is asking every person around to pray for her. I mean, that's, that's my dear, dear bride.

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But she's also courageous and just wants to do what God wants. So anyhow, God began to mess.

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Once you prayed that, God began to mess with me. And I just,

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I started seeing scripture in the Old Testament. God opens a womb, closes a womb.

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Psalm 127, you know, children are a blessing. Blessed are you whose quiver is full. And I thought,

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God, what do you want? Okay, God, we'll go cold turkey on any birth prevention method.

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But I am confident, God, because I know you love me. A, B, you are wise.

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And C, you know, I need that airplane that we're not going to have anymore.

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You're going to close her womb. Well, of course, two, three months later, Marcia looks at me with a smile and says,

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I feel a little lightheaded. She pats her stomach. Wow. Oh, no.

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What did we do? And I was sharing with somebody earlier today. I could, it was a Cessna 206, green and white in my imagination, in a spiral nose dive, crashing on the ground as soon as she said that.

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Well, there goes my airplane, in other words. Well, aren't you happy, Randy?

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Oh, oh, yeah, happy. I thought, what are we going to do with five kids?

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Well, shame on me. That son, we had four lovely daughters that I could brag about each one.

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I mean, they're walking with Jesus. They're impacting their world where they live for him.

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And then David is born. And he's now a professor at University of Colorado.

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And so proud of him. And we pray with him on the phone once a week now. And then

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Susie that started a kid club in the Lansing area for kids in a public school.

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She gets over 100 kids after school sharing the gospel with him. You know, where would the people be that impact?

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You know, and John, again, I could go on and on. Scott was a pastor down in Austin, Texas.

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Lori was in a ministry with people that have sexual dysfunction. She and her husband, they have three lovely kids.

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And Daniel, a resident physician. Angela, sweetheart here in town, just had a baby.

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And then Nathan, her baby was valedictorian in his high school and straight A's through University of Michigan.

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He works for IBM. His wife just gave birth to their firstborn. And they're walking with Jesus. Children are messages we send to a time and a place that we ourselves can never go.

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And we think so small. And God has provided college tuition.

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He's provided cars. He's not going to get broke. But we have all these reasons to be so afraid in our world.

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It's overpopulated and blah, blah, blah. And we deal with all that in this book. It's the lie of overpopulation and all these other things.

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So back to you. Now, how long did you, how many children did you have when you finally came to the conclusion that you were not going to use birth control anymore?

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It was basically four before the child was born. That was it. And after that, was there any strong theological conviction over that?

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Or is this just your choice for your wife and your family, not anything that you...

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Well, yeah, that's a great question. Along the way,

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I mean, I was a juvenile court judge. And just separate from this issue,

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I had a case of a 13 -year -old who was pregnant by her boyfriend.

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And she was already a temporary ward of my court for having run away from her mama.

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And we didn't know she was pregnant at the time. But she became a temporary ward of the court. We adjourned it to find out how things were going.

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We left her at home with her mom. And then we found out she's pregnant. She went to Planned Parenthood.

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And they said, oh, you need to get an abortion because, you know, if you give birth, your heart's going to stop.

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Well, that was a total lie. I mean, she's physically mature and so on. They just were blowing smoke in her nose.

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But they wouldn't give the abortion because she was a ward of the court.

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Plus, they knew that I was pro -life. And I think they were trying to set me up. Anyhow, her lawyer came and asked for me to order the abortion of this little unborn baby.

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She was five months pregnant. So, I mean, long story short -er, is, you know,

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I looked at the law and basically the law would suggest from the Supreme Court that I should totally ignore the unborn baby there and just look at the best interest of this 13 -year -old.

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We took testimony. And frankly, all the testimony that we had was that it really would not serve her best interest to have the abortion.

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And I made that finding, but then I went on to say, even if somehow emotionally it might help her, again, if it was going to physically kill her to give birth, that's a different story.

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But that's not what this is. I said, even when the other way, that somehow emotionally someone might suggest it would be better for her to be aborted,

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I will not do that. I consider that a criminal act that I will not do.

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Here I am, a juvenile court judge protecting born children from abuse and neglect, and you're asking me to order the killing of an innocent unborn child?

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I'm not that schizophrenic. Well, that thing blanketed the country.

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That was back in 1982, believe it or not. That blanketed the country. There's even an editorial in the

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New York Times about me. It was not very favorable. But I got like 800 letters from all over the country, and anyhow,

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I say that, and then I end up writing a book called Justice for the Unborn and traveled the country.

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And as I was doing that, the connection, and this is going to blow people away, but I'm going to do it anyhow, the connection between my attitude about not having more children and abortion is significant.

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People do not have abortions because they want to kill an unborn baby. I've got in front of me, in fact, this chart that shows the reason why people do have abortions.

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They don't feel they're mature enough to raise the child, they're old enough, they're not ready for another child, they can't afford a baby, they're done having all the kids they want, they don't want any more, blah, blah, blah.

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Those are the major reasons. It's not to kill the baby. Well, what are the reasons people use birth control?

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It's exactly the same reasons. So just let me bottom line it.

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We have the same motivation, same attitude, the same result.

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No child born. Different means. You think

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God just says, well, that's fine. God is the one that makes children in the womb.

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It's not biology. God uses biological principles, but he decides whether there's going to be a

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Moses born, or an Abraham, or a David, or whatever. Whether it's male, female, what the personality character is.

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You know, look at Psalm 139, it's clear. But we take this into our own hands. So all this began to work in my mind at that time, and I saw the connection between abortion and birth control.

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And that is, Jesus said, don't commit murder. But then he says, you know what leads to murder?

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Hate. He says, don't commit adultery. But you know what leads to adultery? Lust. I would say, don't kill unborn babies.

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But what leads to killing unborn babies? This attitude that sex is very important, but one of the purposes

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God has for sex is not, namely, children. So we have high value for sex, low value for children.

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God is not pleased with that. And I don't think we're ever going to totally eliminate abortion in America until we

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Christians adopt a pro -child that we love children, that we quit worshipping sex.

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Sex is wonderful. It's a means to wonderful communication between husband and wife. But it's also the means to create a child created in the image of God that has the potential of changing life on this planet for good, can lead people to the

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Lord, etc., etc., and is going to live forever in his kingdom. And I'm supposed to run this area of my life?

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Aren't we Christians trained for Jesus to be Lord of every area? Is this an unimportant area of my life?

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I'll get off my soapbox for a minute, my friend, but that's what I came to. And along the way, while you were passing perhaps five children, did you have any close friends, family members, even brothers and sisters in Christ who said, we really think that you should stop?

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Well, sure. You know, the in -laws, you know, is that all or is that whatever?

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You do get those sorts of statements or questions. But then, you know, once they're there, you could ask grandpa, so which one of these do you want us to throw away?

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Well, wait a minute, you know, sort of thing. So we didn't get much pushback. But we did get some people just raising their eyebrows, what exactly is going on?

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But once they saw the children, you know, once you see the child, that's why

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Out of Mind, you know, that movie Unplanned, where, you know, with the killing of it through abortion, you know, but once you see the ultrasound and that child squirming away from that knife, you know, or whatever, oh, there's a person in there.

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And once you see the actual child and they begin to grow and show the love of, you know, they reflect their creator, you just think.

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In fact, it was an editorial in the Grand Rapids Press years ago by a doctor, he says, why I no longer do abortions.

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And he knew this, I think he's Jewish, I doubt he's a Christian, but as a doctor, he used to do abortions and then this friend of his said, hey, you know, we're pregnant, we're kind of done, so we'd like to schedule an abortion.

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And he scheduled it, but there was some medical complications, the uterus was too, whatever, they had issues, said, hey, come back in two weeks.

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But two weeks later, they'd already changed their mind, yeah, we're just going to have this baby, okay. And two years later, three years later, this guy's at the country club and this little boy

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Bobby that he was going to abort, laying in the sandbox, and he said to himself, thank

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God I didn't kill that little boy. And he decided at that point, he saw the reality of what children are, and he no longer did abortions.

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Wow, praise God. Amen, amen. We have to go to our first station break, so if anybody would like to join us on the air, send an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and as always, give us your first name at least, city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

28:15

USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Randy Heckman and the book we are addressing today,

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Sweeter by the Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family's Sighs. This radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot.

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

32:30

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net,

32:41

that's 631 -696 -5711, that's 631 -696 -5711.

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Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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We are excited to announce another new member of the Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family,

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Bhanu Gadi, owner of three New York pharmacies, Lee's Drugs of Floral Park, Long Beach Chemists, and Prescription Center of Long Island in Hempstead.

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Bhanu Gadi earned a doctorate in pharmacy degree and is very knowledgeable on the current coronavirus pandemic.

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Please contact Dr. Gadi so he and his expert staff can give you proper guidance amid all the contradictory confusion we are all hearing in the media.

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Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Bhanu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through.

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In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,

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I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

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He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

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God has designed and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

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God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to him.

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When the whole world is searching for a solution, God in his infinite mercy has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be very serious.

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Such is the beauty of his design. Knowing that design, how can we not add up in praise to our great

35:11

God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in his design.

35:18

Thank you. Is your business shut down during the

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. This is

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Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

38:16

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

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Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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41:02

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program is

41:09

Randy Heckman, retired juvenile court judge who has headed several Christian nonprofit organizations committed to benefiting families, executive director of the

41:18

Great Awakening, the Grand Awakening, I'm sorry, and husband of Marcia for more than 50 years, having parented their dozen children.

41:29

We are discussing Randy's book, Sweeter by the Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family Size.

41:36

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. chrisarnzen at gmail .com

41:44

if you have a question and remember to give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence.

41:50

In fact, we do have an anonymous listener right now. An anonymous listener says, have you ever heard from a brother or sister in Christ, which is the most cutting and cruel way to hear this, that when you have a large family, you're actually committing a sin because you are depriving the children of being able to benefit from your income and the size of your home, etc.,

42:17

and also you may be putting a burden on the church? Sorry.

42:26

Last I read, you know, Matthew, is it 533, whatever, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

42:37

All these things will be given to you as well. I mean, we have just seen God just miraculously meet our needs.

42:44

We have not had to depend on the church to meet our needs. I mean, there have been times toward the end of a month, you know, where I said,

42:52

Lord, I know you love me. This would be my prayer. But looking at scripture, you especially love children.

42:59

Lord, look at those kids over there. Would you please meet their needs? And I'm just telling you, Chris, he always, always came through to meet our needs.

43:08

In fact, I was challenged when we were first married. I was making like $7 ,500 a year as an officer in the

43:16

U .S. Navy in Washington, D .C. And Marcia started to teach for the first two years.

43:21

She was making $9 ,000 a year as a teacher, a high school teacher. And, you know,

43:27

I was tithing my net income, okay? And a friend of mine, actually a fraternity brother that came to faith in Christ while I was at MIT, he challenged me.

43:39

He said, you know, do you want God to bless your net or your gross income? I said, well, are you kidding? If I would tithe the gross income, we're going to starve.

43:48

But I thought, okay, God, here we go. And I'm just telling you, I'm not bragging.

43:54

I'm just telling you that God, you can never out -give God. And he has all,

44:00

I can tell you, miracle after miracle after miracle about meeting our needs for college tuition. We did not have to borrow for college, which is crazy.

44:09

And I'm not independently wealthy. And again, if you want me to go down that road more,

44:14

I can do it. But I would just say back to your anonymous person with a question, yeah, apart from God, yeah, you'd be in big trouble.

44:24

But through God, he can provide and will provide.

44:30

And he has done it for 50, it'll be 51 years of marriage this

44:36

Sunday, Marcia and me. Praise God. Now, I will give you the opportunity, if you'd like to, to go down that road of some of the other ways that you were blessed by the

44:48

Lord by getting unexpected financial blessings that got you through the month, etc.

44:54

Because I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that might have a third of the number or less of the children that you have that still are frightened about financial struggles and so on.

45:06

Yeah, and just to point out, you know, the average, I mean, the federal government does these things and they say, yeah, it typically costs, you know, 200 and some thousand dollars per child on average to raise them from zero to 18.

45:21

And that's for the first one. But they also, if you read the fine print, you know, the younger ones don't cost nearly so much per child.

45:31

So I mean, again, the bottom line is, you know, what about God? Absolutely. It's just, for example, we outgrew houses.

45:39

Surprise, surprise. We had this lovely house, the red house, the two -story, six -bedroom house on a nice little lake here in West Michigan.

45:50

And we started to outgrow it. But I became friends with a farmer who lived across the main street in kind of a rural area called

46:00

Rockford, north of Grand Rapids. And this gentleman, we became friends.

46:05

He allowed us to hike on his 109 acres. And he was getting on in age. And long story short,

46:12

I made a deal with him to purchase his property on a land contract, which I would then divide up and sell the parcels.

46:20

And by the grace of God, we sold the parcels. And by selling them for a slight profit, we were able to earn our own little 12 acres when the park was like 45 acres to hike through and cross -country ski through.

46:36

And by having that piece of land basically for free, we were able to build a 6 ,000 -square -foot house with 12 bedrooms in it.

46:46

And so that was one just amazing thing of God providing that open door.

46:53

And then I quit being a judge. I voluntarily quit after 15 years because we were being recruited by a

47:00

Michigan family forum, which was connected to Focus, James Dobson, Focus on the

47:05

Family. And so we voluntarily left the judgeship. And I started commuting from Grand Rapids to Lansing, which is about an hour plus, hour, 10 minutes each way.

47:19

And at some point, we said, you know what? I'm sick of this commuting. So after three years of basically commuting every day, we said, we got to move.

47:28

So we put our 12 -bedroom house on the market. And we said,

47:34

I guess we're going to have to build a house in the Lansing area. I can't find anything big enough. But it just happened that my chairman of my board of directors found this thing.

47:45

He said, how about an 11 ,000 -square -foot house with 11 bedrooms, nine and a half baths with an indoor swimming pool on 10 acres?

47:55

I said, what? And sure enough, there was a home in the Lansing area that had been an adult foster home.

48:03

And long story short, we bought it for $175 ,000, what

48:09

I just described. Now, that's the good news, but not so good news. It was uninhabitable because the septic drain field was not working.

48:16

We had to put $35 ,000 into it. But still, at $210 ,000, you have an 11 ,000 -square -foot home with a 20 -by -40 indoor swimming pool?

48:27

Are you kidding me? But now we got to sell. I had a bridge loan with my board of directors that expired on March 31st of the next year.

48:37

And meanwhile, we're trying to sell our 12 -bedroom house. And believe it or not, there's not a huge market for 12 -bedroom houses.

48:44

I hope that is understood. So we said, what are we going to do? One of our daughters said, don't quit praying,

48:51

Mom and Dad. So again, the bridge loan was due to this board member on March 31st.

48:58

And we kept praying. And sure enough, someone came back in and said, if we knock down a couple walls, we'll make it into a seven -bedroom house.

49:06

And we closed on it on March 30th. God's never late.

49:12

He's seldom early. But that worked. So that's just another miracle.

49:18

But then the college tuition. If you want me to go on with these things. Oh, yeah, sure.

49:24

OK. So college tuition. I mean, it ain't cheap sending kids to college these days. I just purposed, you know,

49:30

God, you can come up with money. We don't have to necessarily borrow. So our first daughter went to Wheaton College.

49:38

And that was like, at that time, was $12 ,000 a year. And that was a hard year for our fam.

49:45

I was still a judge when I started at Michigan Family Forum, which is a non -profit. And our second born was a pianist,

49:53

Renee. She went to Indiana University. And that was likewise about $12 ,000 a year.

50:00

And I thought, wow, this is going to be really tough. Because I was making decent money as a judge, but not an incredible amount.

50:08

And then at the non -profit. So I told Michelle, since I was starting to commute to Lansing, I said, why don't you apply to Michigan State, which is in Lansing.

50:18

And that's only, I think, like $3 ,500 a year. So OK, Dad. But she didn't tell

50:24

Wheaton College she wasn't coming back to Wheaton. She's our oldest. That summer, between the end of her freshman year and her sophomore year, somebody in our little

50:34

Baptist church north of town heard that maybe Michelle wasn't going back to Wheaton College, which is where these people in our church had attended.

50:45

And the gentleman, the husband, was an attorney. And he represented a foundation, a

50:53

Christian foundation, that gave money to help people in Christian ministry to send their kids to college.

51:02

Very long story, much shortened. Our kids applied for that. And we, as a result of that connection, received over $100 ,000 of tax -free income to pay for tuition for a ton of our kids.

51:20

Wow. And it's kind of funny that every one of our kids, Chris, has gone to a different college.

51:28

OK? We have Wheaton, you know, we've got Calvin, Hope, Taylor, as far as Christian schools.

51:37

Maybe we have Cornerstone, and then we've got Michigan State, University of Michigan, Indiana University, Grand Valley State, and we could go on and on.

51:47

I'm just saying it's so funny. But I'm just telling you that God has met our need for tuition.

51:53

Now, we needed a 15 -passenger van. I'll just tell you one more story, and there are many more. I mean, we've got a big family, you know.

52:01

And these friends of ours said, you really need a bigger vehicle. What if we gave you a 15 -passenger van?

52:10

Twist my arm, and it drops out of the sky. I'm just saying, thank you,

52:17

Lord. All glory to you, Lord. That's all I can say. He, it's not that we're so perfect.

52:24

We make many, many, many mistakes. But he is so gracious. And when we make mistakes, we own it up, own up to it, and say,

52:33

Lord, please forgive. He does. And if I offend one of my kids, I say the three hardest words in the

52:40

English language, I was wrong. Please forgive me.

52:45

And they do, and we go on. So praise his name. Amen. And we have to go to our midway break right now.

52:52

The midway break is longer than most of the breaks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

52:57

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because they, according to FCC regulations, have to localize

53:06

Iron Trump and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida. So while we air our globally heard commercials, they are airing their public service announcements and other local things.

53:17

So please use this time wisely. Write down information provided by as many of our advertisers as possible, so that you can more frequently patronize them, which will subsequently give them more incentive to stick around as our advertisers, which means, subsequently, that we,

53:36

God willing, will remain on the air for a longer future, because we rely upon the finances that come in through our advertisers, in addition to our very generous donors in the audience.

53:48

So please write down as much of the information as possible from our advertisers, and send them questions to Randy Heckman about his book,

53:58

Sweeter by the Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family Size. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

54:04

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

54:26

As host of Iron Trump and Zion Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how He shall be worshiped and how

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He shall be represented in the world. They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

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God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

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Baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, this is

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John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

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Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

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Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

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Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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today. Thank you, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, for your faithful support of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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Word from their pulpit on many occasions have led youth retreats for them and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

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New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the

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Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

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I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

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Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

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That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:00:17

Was your business shut down during the COVID -19 pandemic, depriving you of earning any money, causing you to default on your rent as you try to survive without income?

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That's liyfc .org. We are excited to announce another new member of the

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Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Bhanu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through.

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In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,

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I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

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He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

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God has designed and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

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God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to him.

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When the whole world is searching for a solution, God in his infinite mercy has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be pretty serious.

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Such is the beauty of his design. Knowing that design, how can we not add up in praise to our great

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God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in his design.

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Thank you. Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225

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Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402 or visit

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That's solid -ground -books .com, Solid Ground Christian Books. And before we return to our discussion with Randy Heckman on his book

01:13:27

Sweeter by the Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family Size, I just have a couple of announcements to make that I hope you will take advantage of right now, etc.

01:13:38

First of all, a week from this Friday, that's

01:13:44

June 19th, for the very first time ever on this program, we will be featuring

01:13:50

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01:13:56

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01:14:20

But the book is Fool's Talk, Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion, and that's by Oz Guinness, of course.

01:14:28

The second hour, Gary DeMar, founder of American Vision, returns to the program, and he's going to be discussing a book that he has brought back into print.

01:14:38

It's Greg L. Bonson's book, Against All Opposition, Defending the Christian Worldview.

01:14:44

So that's going to be an excellent hour of programming on Friday, June 19th. Make sure you mark your calendars.

01:14:50

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I need a church in the subject line. I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world and I've already helped listeners all over the planet earth find churches near them that they didn't know existed that they have either joined or recommended to family and friends and loved ones or that they have visited while on vacation.

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So any of those reasons and more that you need a church, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put

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I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Randy Heckman, the author of Sweeter by the

01:18:24

Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of Our Family Size. That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:18:34

And Randy, we have a question for you from Bobby in Hartsdale, New York.

01:18:42

He says, could you tell us how to respond to people who are against large families?

01:18:48

You already mentioned briefly about the argument of overpopulation.

01:18:53

If you could go further in detail into how to respond to that argument and any other arguments that you have conquered over the years that people throw in your face due to a large family.

01:19:05

Sure. I appreciate that question. Thank you. Yeah, the, uh, when in the sixties,

01:19:11

I mean, we, uh, really brainwashed with people like Paul Ehrlich who wrote the population bomb and it's almost humorous to be very honest with you.

01:19:22

Some of the things that he suggests in that he says he wrote it in 1968 and in his book,

01:19:31

The Population Bomb, and again, we were all totally convinced that we have overpopulation.

01:19:37

He said, you know, by 1979, which was 11 years later, he gave just a number of points of how terrible things will be.

01:19:49

His last point was he said, the most intelligent creatures ultimately surviving this period are cockroaches.

01:19:58

So that was supposed to happen in 1979 and exactly the opposite is true.

01:20:06

I've got a whole big section in my book that talk about this myth of over population.

01:20:13

And again, it would take forever for me to describe every detail, but let me quote a person who was from Harvard university described as our century was last century, our century's greatest economic historian.

01:20:28

And he said that wealth is proportional to a growing population.

01:20:35

I mean, there's so many directions to go here, but if you could take every man, woman, and child in the whole world, they would fit in the state of Texas and you get each one of them approximately 700 square feet to live on.

01:20:53

Now, again, nobody would want to necessarily do that. I'm just saying, we have this picture of wall to wall people around this world, and that is not accurate.

01:21:02

Um, we can describe other things. Do you know how many children it takes, uh,

01:21:07

Chris, her female, just to have what we call zero population growth.

01:21:13

I have no idea. It's 2 .1 children per female, not married to all females.

01:21:21

Why 2 .1, one to replace her, one to replace her, the husband, the father of the child.

01:21:27

And 0 .1, just because some people don't have kids or can't have kids and so on. Do you know that since 1973 in America, actually 1970, the number of children born per female in America has been below 2 .1.

01:21:47

You say, well, our population continues to go up. Yes, because of immigration. But the demographers say that within 30 years,

01:21:58

America's population, despite immigration is going to start to decline and never turn around.

01:22:04

The average, the median age of Americans in 1970 was 28.

01:22:10

That means there's, it's in the middle. It's now 38 .2. You say, well, what difference does that make?

01:22:18

All right. There's two groups of population that are dependent on the middle population providing the economic strength.

01:22:27

Those are children, zero to 18 and retired people basically above 65.

01:22:36

The average person in that middle category gives back approximately 10 times what they consume.

01:22:44

People are not just drains on resources. A company would never hire somebody unless they give back more than they consume.

01:22:52

Well, that's just true. We, we, we produce, we don't just consume, which is the, again, the picture of some of these folks, but as the elderly grow, they become more dependent.

01:23:05

Right now, social security and Medicare are at the point of insolvency in America because the average age of America has gone up.

01:23:13

It's going to continue to go up and we will have so many people in the senior years that they're going to come to you folks that are younger in a few years and say, would you mind taking this little pill and saying bye bye to everyone?

01:23:29

Because we can't afford to take care of you anymore. We need more people.

01:23:34

I've got quotes in my book from a wall street journal saying underpopulation is the problem.

01:23:41

We need more workers. Our economy is hurting because of the lack of people. Japan is in the worst shape.

01:23:51

Their fertility rate, that is the average number of children per female is 1 .57 in a few years.

01:23:59

I mean, their population is going to, in America, the white deaths over the last three years have outnumbered white births in America, and that's going to continue to accelerate.

01:24:09

We don't realize what's going on, but you've got to look at the data instead of just continuing to quote these

01:24:16

Paul Ehrlichs from the 1980s who have, you know, just, they're all out for lunch. It's not consistent with true economic needs and growth and the ability of people to produce.

01:24:29

Just one final point on this point. See, necessity becomes the mother of invention.

01:24:36

We used to think it would take, okay, we've got to communicate with Europe and England. Oh, we've got to put this transatlantic cable.

01:24:45

It's going to take tens of thousands of tons of copper to make the wire. Oh, terrible, terrible.

01:24:51

Do we have an alternative? How about one communication satellite? Oh, they used to make piano keys out of elephant tusks, ivory, and then they said, you know, we're running out of elephants here.

01:25:08

They developed something we call plastic. I mean, God is not running out of resources.

01:25:15

So that's how they do, that's why they develop plastic, huh? Well, that's one of the reasons, yes, is that God is so creative.

01:25:25

He's, he doesn't, the problem with the world is not the lack of resources, it's sin.

01:25:32

He blesses, what did two million Israelites do in the wilderness for 40 years?

01:25:38

Oh, we're going to starve to death. He created this thing called manna. What is it?

01:25:44

And he produced water for them. He sustained two million people for 40 years in the wilderness because that's

01:25:52

God. Why do we get afraid to have another child? Oh, we don't have room.

01:25:59

We will starve. Yeah, well, I guess God's not powerful anymore. He created this universe and he saved our souls and we're going to live forever with him and how are we going to be sustained in heaven for eternity?

01:26:16

You think, you think God's biting his fingernails? My goodness.

01:26:24

Praise God. Before I go to any other questions, do you have any other of the obstacles people tried to throw in your way or arguments that you?

01:26:35

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, they say, hey, look, medical science, they've come up with, you know, birth control and so it's, you know, it's everything medical science comes up with must be good.

01:26:49

How about infanticide? You know, how about abortion? You know, how about euthanasia?

01:26:55

You know, we know how to kill people, unborn babies. Just because science comes up with it doesn't mean it's right.

01:27:02

And the reality, excuse me, is that the birth control movement, which surprised me when

01:27:10

I started doing the history of the birth control movement, I was amazed at where it came from.

01:27:20

Excuse me, most people are assuming that I'm just going to go on mute for a second and cough and then

01:27:27

I'll be right back. Can you hang on? Yeah, I'm going to announce our email address again. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:27:32

If anybody wants to send in a question of your own, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:27:39

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N. I'm sorry. Yep. Anyhow, back with you.

01:27:45

Sorry about that. But as I was looking at the history of the birth control movement, again, we assume that, you know, it's just kind of a medical thing and it's just what we need to do and that's what modern people do.

01:27:56

But as you look at it, and again, I got a few books written by people who are far from being right -wing

01:28:04

Christian -type people. I mean, just the opposite. And one of them,

01:28:13

Peter Fryer, who was just proud of, you know, the history of the birth control movement and he talks about, you know, how he says today in 1965 when unmarried women, this is when he wrote it in 65, still find it far from easy to obtain contraceptive instruction and equipment.

01:28:32

By the way, it was illegal in states like Connecticut in 1965. Actually, not. 1963, the

01:28:38

Supreme Court changed that. But anyhow, let me go on. It is salutary, says

01:28:43

Peter Fryer. That's why he likes this. To recall that, and I'm quoting him, the birth control movement throughout the 19th century, those were the 1800s when this thing got started, was part of a vigorous challenge to Christianity and Christian notions of sin.

01:29:06

Excuse me. Sorry about that. I'm going to have to take another quick break. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

01:29:12

is the email address. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com if you have a question for Randy Heckman.

01:29:20

Sorry about that. Marcia brought me some water and help. Good. Anyhow, so he said, it's a vigorous challenge to Christianity and Christian notions of sin, and every one, and we document this in my book, every one of the birth control pioneers, this is the religious orientation.

01:29:39

Francis Place, atheistic. Richard Carlyle, atheistic. Robert Dale Owens, agnostic, became a spiritist.

01:29:49

And opposed to Christianity, atheistic. I'm just going through it. Christian, then atheistic, then the occult.

01:29:55

Margaret Sanger is the name that'll be familiar. She started Planned Parenthood. She was atheistic, but dabbled in the occult.

01:30:01

Marie Stokes claims God told her on a vision about all this good stuff, but she's a mystic.

01:30:09

And then finally, Paul Ehrlich was agnostic, probably pantheistic. But I mean, every one of them said, you know, hey, we're going to really be cool here.

01:30:18

We're going to fight God. God wants babies. We want sex. And this will be really cool.

01:30:25

And so that's where it started. And so we just continue, and we just accepted it. Our culture speaks to the

01:30:31

Church in so many ways. I have yet, my good friend Chris, to hear a sermon on this important subject.

01:30:39

I've heard many sermons on Jesus needs to be Lord of every era of my life. But when

01:30:45

I got married, I didn't even have a clue that God cared about the area of how many children he might want to produce through Marcia and me.

01:30:54

I have yet to hear a sermon specifically on this point. But we've shared this with others, and it's been so exciting.

01:31:01

I share in the last chapter of our book about this, and again, we were on focus on the family in 1990.

01:31:09

It was repeated in 1994 with James Dobson. And this one family, the

01:31:15

Bontrager family that we've never met before, heard it in 1994. They're going to have two or three kids.

01:31:21

They end up having 10 kids because they heard our program, Marcia and me. And they all wrote us, every member of the family wrote us a handwritten letter that we got in 2015, just, you know, five years ago now.

01:31:35

And every member of the family thanked us for, again, Mom said it was hard at times, but we are so grateful.

01:31:43

Thank you for sharing that. And the baby in the family said, I wouldn't be here. But you know this family, they're called the

01:31:49

Bontrager family singers. They travel the country. Maybe some of you folks have heard of them. And that's just one family that's been impacted by this, by just making

01:31:58

Jesus the Lord of family size. And so we need to get this word out because we need more.

01:32:05

There's not enough good people in this world to impact our world and to change lives and witness.

01:32:13

And I mean, oh, it's, it's, people are created in His image and we really could use many more if people would just give this area to Jesus and say,

01:32:22

Lord, we trust you. By the way,

01:32:28

Bobby in Hartsdale, you have won a free copy of Sweeter by the

01:32:34

Dozen, Making Jesus the Lord of our Family Size. So make sure you give us your full mailing address in Hartsdale, New York.

01:32:41

In fact, there was an earlier on in the program, there was an anonymous listener.

01:32:48

I forgot to tell you. Give me your full name off the air, of course, and your full mailing address.

01:32:56

We will send you a copy as well. Actually Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will ship it to you at no expense to you or to us.

01:33:06

And we want to thank our friends once again at Reformation Heritage Books for their generosity in providing these copies that we have been giving away.

01:33:17

We have another anonymous listener. And this anonymous listener says, do you believe that if your wife does not want to have any more children after a certain point because of the fact it is straining her physically, perhaps even mentally or emotionally, that that is a valid reason to not have any more children?

01:33:44

I'm not talking about having abortions because I believe it's murder. I'm not talking even about using contraception that is artificial.

01:33:54

But is it a valid reason to cease having children in your opinion? Mm -hmm.

01:34:01

Yeah, again, we're talking about Jesus being Lord of this area. If my wife has a physical, particularly,

01:34:11

I mean, that's easier on that side than on the emotional side, issues, you know, you can take the extreme case.

01:34:18

She's in the hospital in a coma. I mean, does God expect us to, you know, somehow try to see if we can have a child?

01:34:25

Are you kidding me? Come on. Jesus has to be Lord. But right now, the way we do it in America as Christians, okay, we've got all the payments made.

01:34:37

We've got this. We've got that. Okay, let's make a child. Let's start, you know, they don't have any kids, so they have this expression.

01:34:45

I hate this expression. Let's start our family. My friends, the family starts when you walk down the aisle and say,

01:34:53

I do. Amen. Yeah, so I mean, to me, the presumption should be that you have a husband and wife that are both physically healthy.

01:35:06

We can talk about emotions in a minute, mental state, and so on. But we're both physically healthy.

01:35:12

To me, the presumption is that we are open to the children that God may wish to create through us.

01:35:18

But if there's some reason that we feel would be sinful to do, it'd be wrong to do that.

01:35:25

We pray about it. If God gives us the peace in our heart, again, we're willing to do whatever. And he just, you know, there's a big red flag that he puts in our face.

01:35:36

Then, you know, whether it's birth control, whether it's, you know, just natural family, whatever it is, abstinence,

01:35:44

I don't know. You make that call. You report to God. You don't report to me, obviously.

01:35:50

But the way we do it in America is we wait, you know, until everything is just how we want it, and then we'll make maybe that one or two kids, and then we're done.

01:36:01

Then we go get the vasectomy. We go get, you know, the tubes tied, and that's all we can afford anymore.

01:36:08

You know, there's overpopulation. There's not overpopulation. And again, if you doubt me on that, get my book, and I document that from start to finish, quoting secular authors as well as Christians.

01:36:21

So that's my thought. But as far as emotional things, again, you've got to pray about that, my good friends.

01:36:30

And again, is it just that you're stressed with the children you do have? Is there...

01:36:37

Again, God will show you. If we're willing... If we're not willing to do anything, then he's not going to show us his will.

01:36:46

But if we say, Lord, if you say for us to go ahead and be open to have a child that you might create, despite the cloud that's over our head, whatever, or the concern we might have, then he's going to lead us.

01:37:00

But if we say, nope, I'm not really willing to do... I'm really not willing to be open to having another child, then

01:37:06

I don't think he's going to really lead you. We've got to be willing to do his will, and then he will definitely show us his will.

01:37:15

Okay, I'm going to read you a question and then have you answer it when we come back from our final break.

01:37:22

Sure. And it's a much briefer break, or much more brief break. Yep. We have

01:37:27

Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Who asks,

01:37:33

I understand that the Muslim population continues to rapidly grow and dwarf the ever shrinking

01:37:42

Christian population on the planet. Is it a good motivation to have large families, to have hopefully, according to the will of God, Christian children, who will then be added to the number of evangelists in this world, spreading the gospel, to compete, as it were, with false voices like the

01:38:04

Muslims? And we'll have you answer that when we come back from our final break. And if you have a question that you'd like to ask

01:38:12

Randy, send it in now because we're rapidly running out of time. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

01:38:19

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Randy Heckman after these messages. ChrisArnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

01:38:27

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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We are excited to announce another new member of the Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family,

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Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Banu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through.

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In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,

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He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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800 -656 -0231. And since CVBBS .com is a distributor, please go to the website of our publisher advertiser,

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01:51:20

And Randy, before the break, we had a listener in Suffolk County, Christopher, who wanted to know if it was a valid motivation to have a large family to, for lack of a better phrase, compete with the rapidly growing

01:51:39

Muslim populations because you want there to be numerically more Christians out there. And you're, of course, you're hoping your children will be

01:51:46

Christian. You're not guaranteed that, as opposed to what some of our friends believe.

01:51:53

But what do you think about that? Well, to me, again, the motivation, the subtitle of my book is making

01:52:02

Jesus the Lord of our family size. I know a number of couples that would love to have any children and God has closed the womb of the woman.

01:52:10

And they end up adopting, maybe their foster parents, whatever. To me, the motivation is not to, you know, get even or to create this or that.

01:52:23

It's to say, Lord, what do you want to do? Look at Psalm 139, where he talks about, you know,

01:52:30

David speaking to God in verse 13, you, and the Hebrew is emphatic, you alone formed me in my mother's womb.

01:52:37

So it's a question of, am I going to run this era of my life or is God? I mean, the question implies

01:52:43

I'm running this era of my life. No, I think we need to be open to God. But I think God's plan would be for there to be many, many, many, many more

01:52:52

Christians who then can share the gospel. That's where it just blows me away to think if I had run this era of my life, we would have stopped with four lovely daughters, each of which is precious.

01:53:06

They love Jesus. But then there would be eight more kids now who are planted around our country, sharing the gospel, being

01:53:17

Christians, having children of their own. We have 32 grandkids across the country.

01:53:22

They're going to have an impact on our world. You think of the Israelites in Egypt. Over a period of number of years, they went from 70 to 2 million and the

01:53:34

Egyptians said, hey, they're going to overpower us one of these days. The Egyptians probably weren't having that many kids.

01:53:41

Yes, there will be an impact. In Europe right now today, it's becoming Muslim.

01:53:46

Why? Because the domestic Europeans are not having even the 2 .1

01:53:52

babies per female to break even. They're aging themselves. They're going out and the

01:53:58

Muslims are at least doing one thing right. They're having kids and Europe will become

01:54:04

Muslim, even as London as a Muslim mayor at this point. Nothing against them, but the reality is if we simply say,

01:54:14

Jesus, you be the Lord of my family size and let God give us the five kids or six kids, which would be the average you would have if you just let

01:54:22

God run it. It wouldn't be 10, 11, 12. We just end up with 12, but we prayed before Marcia ever got pregnant.

01:54:29

She'd always pray, oh, I'd love to get pregnant again. I never kind of, I said, well, that's what God wants, but by the time we got to 11,

01:54:37

I figured 11 is just kind of a weird number to end on. I said, okay,

01:54:42

Lord, let's have the 12 tribes of Heckman and then

01:54:48

Nathan was conceived. Along the way, we had a couple of miscarriages. God did that.

01:54:55

So that's, that was our story. And Christopher, give me your full mailing address because you have also won a free copy of Sweeter by the

01:55:05

Dozen, making Jesus the Lord of our family size. And by the way, I want to, before we run out of time,

01:55:13

I want to make sure I read an excerpt from the forward of this book written by my friend,

01:55:21

Dr. Joel R. Beeke, founder and president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and also founder of Reformation Heritage Books, the publisher of this volume that we've been discussing.

01:55:36

Dr. Beeke says, this is a book that needed to be written. Too many Christians today view children as something that gets in the way of what they desire out of life.

01:55:48

So they end up living selfishly by striving to limit the number of children they bear to coincide with their all too frequently selfish plans.

01:55:58

Too many Christians also fail to grasp the beauty and the joy of a large

01:56:04

Christian family if the Lord sovereignly provides for his own honor and glory.

01:56:09

Excellent commendation. I would like you to have the remaining minutes of the show to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners in regarding A Sweeter by the

01:56:23

Dozen, making Jesus the Lord of our family size. Well, I appreciate that, and Chris, so appreciate this opportunity.

01:56:32

The bottom line to me is that children are the one thing that we will be with forever, provided again they commit themselves to the

01:56:44

Lord as that comes through our example, our prayers, and so on.

01:56:50

Our money, our luxury, our vacation homes, all this stuff, it's not going to follow us to heaven, but children are of such incredible value.

01:57:05

They're created in the image of God, and they have the potential of of gracing our life.

01:57:12

Yes, they are expensive. Yes, they are work. Yes, it takes effort. Yes, it's not pleasant.

01:57:18

Yes, but what in life can give you this kind of ultimate payback?

01:57:26

In other words, you're producing children that can influence the world that we're in, as we talked about in that last question.

01:57:33

They can lead people to the Lord. They can lay up treasures in heaven, and then they can live in his eternal kingdom forever, and what an amazing thing.

01:57:43

And God can provide the resources. He can provide the home. We've seen that happen, and I just want to encourage my brothers and sisters there.

01:57:52

I know this is radical. This goes against many assumptions. I've been there, but I'm just telling you

01:57:59

I could cry forever now knowing children number 5 through 12, as precious as each one is, knowing as I know them, but then to tell me that we never had those precious children.

01:58:14

I would feel so... I could grieve forever because they are treasures, and I just want you...

01:58:20

Now again, for those of you who have already made irrevocable decisions, you're past the age, whatever, God will accept you where you're at, but maybe you can talk to your children, grandchildren, to look at this issue anew.

01:58:35

So don't despair. God meets us where we're at, but if you are in a position as a younger married couple, or unmarried, about to get married,

01:58:44

I challenge you to give this area to the Lord, and you will never regret it.

01:58:49

It'll be work, but it'll be worth it, as you lay up treasures in heaven for obeying

01:58:55

God in this such important area. Amen, and folks, don't forget that the website where you can find out more about Grand Awakening is grandawakening .org,

01:59:07

grandawakening .org, Reformation Heritage Books, who published the book we've been discussing, Sweeter by the

01:59:12

Dozen. You can find them at heritagebooks .org, heritagebooks .org, and don't forget, folks, although we want you to explore that website, please purchase the book from cvbbs .com,

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our sponsors, because that does not hurt Reformation Heritage Books in the slightest bit.

01:59:31

cvbbs .com, we'll have to purchase the books from them, so everybody wins. I want to thank you so much,

01:59:37

Randy, for being such a superb guest on my show. I would love to have you and your wife come on the show at some point, and I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater