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Christian Family Principles
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1981
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Who Owns Your Children?

Chapter Five

INTRODUCTION: Text * Psalm 127:3-5

This lesson is from the Psalms about a very pertinent national question of our day. Psalm 127 was written about Solomon, one of King David’s sons. The whole gist of this psalm is an acknowledgment that God is really the final determining factor in all things that happen. King David is particularly acknowledging that only God can give a child.

In this acknowledgment, King David, who was a divinely inspired writer, also answers the questions of who owns your children and who should have direct control and jurisdiction over them. This is becoming more and more a question in our day, and I predict that during the very near future it will be a colossal issue in our nation and world. I expect there will be jailings, killings and possibly even war over this very issue. The thing that is kindling the flames of this issue is the fact that our political government, like many others of the world, is moving more and more toward the position that the state or political government really owns the children, and that they have the right to determine how your children should be raised, what discipline methods you may or may not use, where they should be taught, how they should be taught and what they should be taught. They may remove your children from your home if you fail to follow their orders.

Also very dangerous in today’s world is the new religion called New Age, where the brotherhood and "oneness" of all make your children their children; thus, they have the right to teach their philosophy to all children, since all children belong to all of us. Their main teaching ground is the public school system.

It is vital in these crucial days in which we live that God’s people be informed about what is happening in the world, what the truth is, and that they "earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints," as in Jude 3. In this case, if we don’t, we are going to lose our children to the federal or state government.

I. IT IS REALLY QUITE LIKELY THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO REALLY OWNS YOUR CHILDREN.

A. Let me tell you right away that the government does NOT own your children.

1. If you can swallow the arguments that the government does own your children, then you are laying the groundwork for the loss of your child.

2. I know that most governments, whether they be communistic in nature or some other type want to own all things. Power corrupts. Governments like to have control, so they like to own the land, factories and people. They like to get the people all working for and dependent upon the government. This way they can tell the people what to do and determine how the people are going to live.

3. Governments down through history have hated the free enterprise system and have rarely given it a chance to work. Our own government is destroying it in America today, while others the world over are discovering that the other systems don’t work and are beginning revolutions over this one issue. America moves backwards while the rest of the world struggles to get where we were. This is one reason why the Bible is hated so much, for the Bible teaches the free enterprise system and condemns human welfare states, also known as socialism or communism. That’s why the devil is trying his best to destroy the scriptures in the free world by watering it down through liberal translations.

4. It shouldn’t be surprising to you, the people of God, that our government is beginning to increase the intensity of its arguments that it owns the children of this land. Like all other things, it wants to control them, especially their minds. However, upon the strength of God’s Word, the government does NOT own your child.

B. Furthermore, YOU don’t own your child.

1. Most parents have the misconception that they own their children and that they can do with them whatever they please. How false!

2. You don’t own your children any more than the government does, and if you’d realize that children are not a piece of personal property to be handled as you please, you’d be a much better parent.

3. You need to get firmly implanted in your head that children are not yours to do with as you please.

C. The fact is that the children you have don’t belong to you or the government. They belong to God; He is the one who owns them.

1. Listen to how King David expresses the truth in Psalm 127:3-5, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." Among other things, David is saying that children belong to God.

2. God said to the people in Ezekiel 16:20-21, "Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast born unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?"

a. The ownership of the children here is unmistakable. He said the parents had just born children unto Him, and He called them "my children" in verse 21. Parents, the children you have born are not yours at all. God says they are His, and His claim trumps any claim you have.

b. Furthermore, from both Ezekiel 16:20-21 and Psalm 127:3-5 the idea of proper parental guidance at a young age is evident. David speaks of children as arrows in a quiver. You can bend an arrow as long as it is in the bow, but once it is let to fly into the world, it is too late to bend it. Likewise, you can direct and aim a child to the glory of God and the service of his generation when he is young, but once he is out in the world, you can scarcely direct or aim his life. And, too, many parents, rather than aim their children to the glory of God aim them, through carelessness and neglect, as arrows to their own hearts.

c. Furthermore, note well from Ezekiel that God takes a very dim view of any mistreatment you inflict upon His children. Parent, before you neglect, mislead, or in any way mistreat your child, you’d better think long and hard about the fact that God is observing very closely how you treat His property, especially His innocent little children who are at your mercy.

3. A further proof that God owns the children is the fact that His image is upon them.

a. In Matthew 22:15-21 a group of Pharisees questioned Jesus about paying taxes. If He said pay tribute or taxes to Caesar, they planned to accuse Him of disloyalty to God. If He said pay taxes to God, they planned to accuse Him of disloyalty to Caesar. But Jesus asked for a coin and pointed their attention to the fact that Caesar’s image was on the coin. Then He told them, "render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s," in verse 21. The implication is clear. The fact that Caesar’s image was on the coin was proof that the coin belonged to Caesar. The people in the land were just using the government’s coins.

b. Now folks, when it comes to children the image of God is upon them. When God set forth to make man, His words were, "let us make man in our image, after our likeness," in Genesis 1:26. And verse 27 continues and says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, created he him." As God is Father, Son and Spirit, even so every man is spirit, soul and body. Children bear the image of God. Now, if divine logic is true, and it is, then children belong to the one whose image they bear, and that is God.

II. NOW GOD, WHO OWNS THE CHILDREN, HAS GIVEN PARENTS, NOT THE STATE, THE DIRECT RESPONSIBILITY AND CONTROL OVER HIS CHILDREN.

A. The Bible plainly testifies of the fact that God places His children into the custody of parents.

1. In the first place, no man and woman would ever have a child if God did not directly cause conception to occur. As unspiritual as Jacob was for much of his life, when his wife Rachel put pressure on him about not having a child, he angrily asked, "Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of thy womb? " in Genesis 30:2. I Samuel 1:5-6 speak of how God shut up Hannah’s womb, and I Samuel 1:19-20 show how God later opened it up so that she bare Samuel the prophet. So God is the one who controls whether or not you have a child. That is the reason that when Esau met Jacob at Peniel, and Esau asked of Jacob’s children, "Who are those with thee?" Jacob answered, "The children which God hath graciously given they servant," in Genesis 33:5.

2. Now God instructs the parents, not the government, to care for the children God places in their custody.

a. Parents are to care for their physical needs. God’s words are in II Corinthians 12:14, "the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children." Note well that it says "parents," not political governments are to directly care for children. The government’s responsibility is to provide the kind of climate in which parents can effectively carry out their God-given commission. I Timothy 5:8 says, "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Again you can see that the direct responsibility of family care is on the parent, not the government.

b. Not only physical needs, but sound, Godly teaching is to be provided by the parents. God talks about His truths to parents and says, "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up," in Deuteronomy 6:6-7. He didn’t tell the government to do it. He told the parents to do it. The first seven verses of Psalm 78 make this same point.

c. Furthermore, children are told to obey their parents in Ephesians 6:1 and Colossians 3:20. The idea of government stepping in to take over the custody and raising of children is totally foreign to God’s Word.

d. Also, I Timothy 3:5 and 12 tell pastors and deacons to rule their children and houses well. This couldn’t possibly be done if the state owns or has custody of the children.

B. Now it is true that parents are to be obedient unto political govern- ment, providing that government and its laws does not force them to be disobedient to God in the process.

1. Therefore, the state has a right and a responsibility to God to establish laws to insure the safety and freedom of the children within its dominion. Parents should obey those laws, and if they do, and the laws are just, there will be no child abuse.

2. But, no state is at liberty to take away children from Godly parents, nor tell those parents what to teach or not to teach their children, so long as those parents are not teaching those children to subvert the very principles which guarantee their freedoms.

3. My dear friends, from Deuteronomy 6, it is clear that God tells parents what to teach children, not the government. The government’s job is to see that parents remain free to do that, not to steal that very freedom away from parents.

III. EVERY PARENT SHOULD RESIST ANY AND ALL GOVERNMENTAL EFFORTS TO CONTROL OR TAKE AWAY YOUR CHILDREN.

A. For the government to control or take away your child is in direct conflict with what God’s Word teaches on the subject.

1. I teach obedience and subjection to political government when- ever and wherever it is possible. Romans 13:1 and many other passages teach that.

2. But I also know that when political government comes into direct conflict with what God says, the people of God have no choice except to obey God, even if it costs them life and property. God’s Word is clear when it says in Acts 5:29, "We ought to obey God rather than men," and plenty like David, Peter, John and Moses demonstrated that.

B. Parent, you have a God-given command to "Train up" your child "in the way he should go," according to Proverbs 22:6, which according to Ephesians 6:4 is "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." You’d better not let government, or anybody else, keep you from obeying that command.

1. By encroachment or gradual brainwashing and cutting back of freedoms here and there, our own United States government is moving toward taking that parental, God-given right away.

2. Federally funded day care services and earlier mandatory atten- dance requirements at public education, coupled with the attempt to eliminate private and home school options, are being champ- ioned by many powerful groups, including feminist organiza- tions, teachers’ unions and organizations, and most liberal, and even some conservative, politicians. In a nutshell, this is an effort to take all children out of the home and put them into government controlled institutions. This would free both parents to go to work for the government to pay for the child care programs.

3. Parent, what that will do is put the children into the custody of the government to be taught the curriculums and attitudes the govern- ment decides, and the government will ultimately make it a crime to interfere in the education of your child by teaching him ideas that are not on the authorized government curriculum. The ACLU or some similar group will be around to press charges and lawsuits on you for interfering with the "civil rights" of your child if you teach him about Jesus, because that will be considered a pollution of his mind and unfair treatment of him.

4. You may think this can’t happen, but it can and has already. There is a nationwide cry to get Christianity out of anything which involves taxpayer’s money. God and His principles are being kicked out of politics, off public medias, and have been effectively removed from public education. It will soon be against the law to advocate a Christian principle in any public place, like a public street, store, park or meeting. Just ask those who protest abortions by kneeling and praying on a public sidewalk if they have the right to express a Christian principle on a public street. But you’ll have to ask them from jail where they are taken for making their Christian principles public. Thousands of people and the ACLU are doing all within their power to get God and every semblance of Him kicked out of every facet of American life, claiming it warps and stunts the mind and that it violates the constitution. You don’t need 20/20 vision to see that when God gets kicked out of the government and government gets control of your child, your child will get nothing but ungodliness crammed down his throat and pumped into his mind at every turn. As a Christian parent, you will be considered a criminal by the government and a threat to the welfare of your own child because you try to interfere with the government’s education of your child. If you do, you will be violating the law. Before the Soviet Union fell, it was against Russian law to tell your child about Jesus before he was 18 years old, and those who violated this law would have had their children taken completely away. The magazine Under ground Evangelism is full of documented evidence to this effect. As the Soviet Union runs away from this type of governmental control, America plummets straight for it at an alarming rate, and it may soon be against the law to teach your children the truths of God’s Word.

5. Fellow Christians, you’d better not be so neutral and passive about the truths of God’s Word. We’re in a fight, a real war, "against spiritual wickedness in high places," according to Ephesians 6:12. It makes a difference who owns your children. You’d better stand up for the fact that God does, and that He has given you, as a parent, the first line of responsibility and control over them.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"