Womb For God
By Evangelist Ken McDonald B.D., Th.M.
©2023
Psa. 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
Psa. 127:4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Psa. 127:5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
There has been a “philosophy” going around for years in churches that a woman should give her womb to the Lord. The underlying message is that if you limit the number of children that you have then you are not as spiritual as the ones that don’t use birth control. You are not surrendered to the will of God for your life. This philosophy can greatly grieve a woman who cannot have children, or only has one or two due to health matters. The verses commonly used for this is Psalms 127:3-5.
Now if you desire to have many children, praise the Lord! I definitely am not of the mindset of the Satanic population control philosophy of the world! God did tell the man and woman to: Gen. 1:28 "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." That is a command from the Lord.
The problem I have is the guilt trip that is placed on husbands and wives that they are not right with God if they don’t have as many children as they physically can produce. If both of you are worn out from raising children, it could really put a strain on the major purpose of marriage, which is to avoid fornication. 1Cor. 7:2 "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." A couple could end up in fear of getting together, which definitely is not of the Lord.
Someone would come up with the retort, “Well, then you are just not trusting the Lord the way you should be. That is why you have the fear.” Or they will claim you are not surrendered to the will of God the way you should be and that is why you have the fear. Either way, the rebuke comes back that you are not as right with God as they are.
Be careful of proceeding ahead in life out of guilt and fear. Usually it is not of the Lord.
Alright, so what is the right view, or the scriptural view to handle such an argument?
Well, first of all, by this “philosophy” (Col. 2:8 "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.") the apostle Paul was not blessed by God in this respect, which is obviously not true. (1 For. 7:7 - And, NO, Paul was not a widower! Yes, I have heard that, and my Fundamental Baptist Pastor at the time that told me such got upset when I didn’t believe it. Can you imagine Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wishing that all men were widowers? Crazy man!!!)
But the Bible states concerning children, “…happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” (Psa. 127:5) Now a quiver is the device that holds arrows for the archer. It can be slung over the shoulder and rest on the man’s back, or it can be attached to the bow for quick and easy access, but the question comes up, “How large is a quiver?”
One day my wife decided to investigate the size of quivers. Not knowing anything about archery, bows, arrows and quivers, she called some archery stores in order to get qualified information on this subject. What she learned is really amazing.
At one archery place she called, an old man answered, who was also a saved Methodist in his 70’s, and who had been in archery for over 40 years. She asked him, “ I do not know anything about archery, but in the churches the women are claiming you should have as many children as possible and thus have a quiver full of them. So how big is a quiver?”
The man replied, “Well, it depends on what you want to do.”
She asked, What do you mean?”
“Well,” he replied, “Do you want to do target practice, or do you want to go hunting?”
Again, she asked, “What do you mean?”
He replied, “Well, if you are just going to do target practice, then you will have a large quiver that holds 15-25 arrows. The quivers for target practice are very large and hold more arrows. But if you are hunting, then the quiver is much smaller.
My wife then asked, “How small is a hunting quiver?”
He replied, “Usually a hunting quiver holds two arrows, or it may hold four arrows. For hunting you will use two arrows, but you will have four in case of defense.”
So, what do you want to do? Well, that is not the right question. So what does the Lord want you to do? What is God’s will for your life? Have there been men and women who served God with large families? Yes, of course! But there are also couples, who out of a desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, have limited the number of children they have so they could have the freedom to serve the Lord. There is no set formula for this, it is a matter of faith between a couple and the Lord. But to place a guilt trip on that couple that claims they are not right with God if they limit the number of children they have is not of God. Actually, they just might be more spiritual in only have a couple of children so they can serve the Lord! Hello?!
Not only that, but they may be led of God to limit the number of children, and due to the guilt trip, have more than was God’s will for them and thus hinder their service for the Lord Jesus Christ.
As Baptists we believe in the priesthood of the believer. You have a direct relationship with Jesus Christ, and you are to obey His leading in your life. If your Lord Jesus Christ leads you to have many children then have as many as He leads you to have. If the Lord leads you to have a couple of children then you are not any less spiritual or any less right with God than those with many children.
Rom. 14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
©2023 EWP