Population Decline, the Suicide of a Culture, and the Judgement of God

 

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:24-32)

 

Our Culture is Committing Suicide

This is such a sobering passage of scripture. As a young person I read it in wonder, as an older man now I read it with understanding. I am watching its fulfillment around me. God has removed His hand of blessing from all of western culture and as He has done so it has entered into a death spiral—committing cultural suicide.

The new societal emergency that is now the topic of conversation is a declining population.

South Korea Cannot Pay People Enough to Have a Baby (CNN)  “South Korea recently broke its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate. Figures released in November showed the average number of children a South Korean woman will have in her lifetime is down to just 0.79.  That is far below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population and low even compared to other developed countries where the rate is falling, such as the United States (1.6) and Japan – which at 1.3 reported its own lowest rate on record.”

Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications (New York Times) “Fewer babies’ cries. More abandoned homes. Toward the middle of this century, as deaths start to exceed births, changes will come that are hard to fathom.”

There are hundreds of articles on this subject. Elon Musk, the champion of alternative fuel vehicles, says that population collapse is more dangerous than global warming.

The sinful, selfish, anti-family, and anti-traditional marriage behavior that results from a disregard for the Creator leads directly to this problem. Consider all the behaviors and their results.

Sexual promiscuity encourages young people to put off marriage until their late 20s or 30s so that young people can sleep around. The problem is that when they settle down for marriage—especially women—they are substantially less fertile than they were in their 20s and have a much harder time having children.

This sexual promiscuity produces unwanted pregnancies that are terminated with abortion, thus causing more population decline. No one seems to speculate about how many great people, who would have made great contributions to their families and society as a whole, were never even given the chance at life.

Same-sex relationships contribute to population decline for obvious biological reasons. And of course, transgenderism renders its participants sterile. Add to that the despair that leads to suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and other social ills and it is clear that the path of selfishness is the highway to self-destruction. This is how a society kills itself.

The attack on marriage has led to more single-parent households, and no matter what the feminists tell you, it is hard to raise children as a single parent. It is no wonder that single women don’t find the prospect of having more children desirable.  The sexual revolution has failed—miserably failed—and we are in the middle of a demographic (as well as spiritual) disaster because of it.

So, why is it that this path seems so tempting to Christians? It is the path to destruction.

We can win our culture back if we do not join in its deviance. Here is a simple plan for winning back our culture in 30 years.  These are the key ingredients:

True Christians must walk in simple and sincere obedience to Christ.

We cannot spread Christianity unless we have true and vibrant Christian lives ourselves. One of the reasons that we are failing to impact our world is that our world is succeeding in corrupting us. That has to stop, and we must take deliberate, even drastic measures to halt that influence.

We must commit to Christian marriage.

Christian husbands must embrace the selfless faithful role that God has laid out for Christian husbands and wives must commit to biblical femininity. The feminist movement has sold the lie that women living like men is the path to true happiness and fulfillment. It is not. Women, men, and children are suffering for it. We desperately need believers who will live like Christians.

We must dedicate ourselves to raising intentionally Christian families.

Christian young people need to think about getting married earlier rather than later. Have children, and not just a few. Yes, I am advocating larger families for Christians. Raise those children purposefully. Do not get distracted by careers, hobbies, or other issues that could be detrimental to your most important parenting responsibilities.

We must re-commit to evangelism.

When I was an undergrad ministerial student we would sing “Souls for Jesus is our battle cry, souls for Jesus we’ll fight until we die.”  Do we think that way anymore?  We must. There must a renewed level of urgency to our evangelism.

There is a world that is miserable and in turmoil. We will not be able to reach all of them, but there are many of them that the Holy Spirit is already drawing. We must be committed to sharing Christ with the lost and seeing them not only trust Him but follow Him in life transformation.

Our brand of Baptist fundamentalism has to own our failure in this area. Most of our churches are evangelistically dead. We can make excuses or even find real reasons for the problem, but unless we fall on our knees and beg God to change this, and take the steps necessary to facilitate that change, blame falls at our own feet as well. Lack of evangelistic fervor is disobedience to the Great Commission and we must repent of this sin.

Our corrupt culture will die by its own hand. The only way it will survive is if believers surrender to it and perpetuate it with new recruits from our own ranks.