The Zambian Reformed Conference—The Third Day

Today (Wednesday) is the third day but the second full day of the Zambian Reformed Conference. I missed the opening day and the first full day (Monday) as Felistas and I crossed the Atlantic from the USA.

Dr Voddie Baucham preaching

Dr Voddie Baucham took the first session this morning. He was handling the theme: “Running Forward.” His task was to challenge us on the subject of missions. Today, he expounded the context of the Great Commission, i.e. the claim by Jesus that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).  He had this authority first of all as God and then in the second place he earned it as man. Using passage after passage across the New Testament all the way to the book of Revelation, he showed us the victory that Christ has won for us. He also showed how Jesus fulfilled ALL the promises of the Old Testament as the promised and protected seed and as the true Israel.

Part of the congregation listening to Dr Voddie Baucham

Dr Voddie Baucham then also showed the content of the Great Commission. Our first responsibility is “Go”. This is a global commission. The pattern of the apostles was that they went to the nations. This was a multi-ethnic commission. One of the demands of this is to translate the Bible into the various languages of the earth. This also implies church planting. This is an evangelistic commission. It demands that individuals abandon their previous allegiances and commit themselves to the triune-God. This is also a comprehensive commission. You need to teach them all the commands of Christ. We must make disciples. It is a doable commission because Jesus will be with us to the end of the ages.

Part of the congregation listening to Pastor Ken Jones

Pastor Ken Jones took the second session. He was handling the theme: “Remaining Faithful.” His task was that of preaching on the doctrines of grace. Today, he handled the doctrine of election. Before the foundation of the world, God knowing that Adam would sin and bring condemnation on his offspring, God sovereignly chose to save some of Adam’s posterity. It was not based on any good in them. This was a free and sovereign choice.

Pastor Jones then took the meeting through various passages of Scripture beginning with the Old Testament and all the way to the New Testament (e.g. Deut. 7:6-8, Rom. 9:6-21, Eph. 1:3-6, 2 Thess. 2:13-14). From these passages he showed that God chose sinners in spite their sin. The purpose for God’s choice is that those that he chooses would be holy and would love him. Whereas in our creation God puts us in Adam, in election God chooses us to be in Christ (the last Adam). The means us by which he brings us into Christ is the message of the gospel. It is imperative that we get that message right and we get it out! The motive for God choosing one sinner over another is the pleasure of his good will.

Pastor Ken Jones preaching

Pastor Jones made it clear that unconditional election is consistent with God’s attributes and character. He also postulated unconditional election does not violate human free will. Unconditional election does not negate evangelism but fulfils evangelism. Unconditional election lets grace to be grace. It shows that God’s favour is unprovoked favour. God freely chose to save sinners.

I missed the afternoon as I was battling jet lag. Hopefully, I will report on this tomorrow when I will participate in the afternoon 25th anniversary panel.

Dr Voddie Baucham preaching in the evening meeting

In the evening, Dr Voddie Baucham began by quoting John Piper’s statement that “Missions exists because worship does not.” He then went on to assert that if we are to understand missions then we must understand true worship. We must worship God only in the way that he has specifically instructed (the regulative principle in contrast to the normative principle).

Dr Voddie Baucham attempting to preach with a megaphone
during a power outage. In the end he preached without amplification.

Dr Baucham then went on to use the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) to show how true God himself delineates worship. The first commandment gives us the object of our worship. It must be the triune God and not what we want. The second commandment sets the limitations of our worship. Sincerity is not enough and innovation is not acceptable. Rather, we should aim for faithfulness. (At one stage there was a powercut and Dr Baucham preached in darkness).

Part of the congregation attending the evening meetings

The third commandment demonstrates the reverence that we are to have in worship. This refers to the attitude of our hearts. Everything that we do has consequences. We must ask ourselves whether what we are doing is reverent before God or just feeding our passion. The fourth commandment gives us the regularity of our worship. We are to worship God on the seventh day after six days of work. We do so because he says so. In missions, we are calling all human beings to participate in this worship. Missions exists because worship does not!

Another part of the congregation attending the evening meeting

Why should I not get married to someone who already has children?

[Disclaimer: This blog post is for young adults asking themselves this question. It is meant to give them a peep into the minds of their parents to understand why they give a vehement “No!” when they announce to them that they would like to get married to someone who has children. It is not meant to justify the reasons. It was written because of a query that I received from a young person in Zambia.]

QUESTION: Morning pastor. I have a growing concern that I seek clarity on. If possible, please answer it through your blog. I would like to find out: Is it right to get into courtship with a man/woman who has a child with a different person? They could be living with the child or not but you are well aware of this child's existence. I would like to know the pros and cons of this.

It is something that we youths would want to hide from parents and friends for fear of how we will be judged. Please, shed more light on this. How are we supposed to inform loved ones—assuming that courting someone with a child is right—without them having to second guess our decision? I await your response.

ANSWER: One of the hardest pills to swallow by parents is when their child comes home with the news that he or she is in love with someone who already has children. Of course, this is usually only the case if their child is a young adult who has never had any children.

This is why many men who have children outside marriage will hide them when they start courting a new suitor. They fear that once the new girl finds out she will break the relationship. Hence, these children tend to only come out of the woodworks after the wedding day.

Of course, there is no chapter or verse in the Bible that states that a person without children should never get married to one who already has children. However, there are a number of human reasons why most parents will do everything to stop this from happening.

Reasons for parental reluctance
All parents dream that their children will arrive on their wedding day as virgins and will get married to individuals who themselves are also in the same state. A suitor who already has children outside marriage says to the would-be-parents-in-law that they were already “sleeping around”.

This feeling is exaggerated in parents when it is a son who wants to marry a girl who already has children. Since a man is a proposer, they often wonder how their son could have bypassed all the virgins in town and ended up choosing a “used” woman. Was he given love portions? Hence, it often takes a very long time for the man’s parents to stop visibly resenting their daughter-in-law if the marriage still goes ahead.

What if the children were born when that person was in a previous marriage? Is that okay? Most parents still worry because they realise that their child is getting married to someone who is coming into the marriage with extra baggage. This brings some challenges with it.

Let me explain. If the person is a divorcee, their child will have to reckon with the on going presence of their in-law’s previous lover. The other parent of the children will often want to see the children or buy them things, which will always be seen as a threatening intrusion.

Even where the marriage ended with the demise of the other parent, the challenge often due to the different levels of attachment to the children. The biological parent is often more attached to the children than the one who inherited them as part of the marriage package.

It is not uncommon in such marriages to find situations where the biological parent is accusing the other one of lack of love for the children or the one who inherited the children through marriage accusing the biological parent of spoiling the children too much at his/her expense.

These accusations of bias tend to be worse when other children are born into this marriage. The victim of these accusations, rightly or wrongly, is the parent to whom some of the children were inherited through marriage. It is hard raising kids who are not your own!

Children also feel as if the person their parent has now fallen in love with is an intruder who has come to take away the attention and love they were enjoying from their parent. They tend to resent this. It takes quite some time and tact to change this strong negative emotion.

This only gets worse when children enter their teenage years. They seem to realise that this is a trump card they can use to get what they want from their biological parent. Hence, when their inherited parent denies them what they want, they scowl at him/her, and out comes this card!

Sometimes the victim is not the parent but the siblings who are half-brothers or half-sisters. Remember how King David’s family fell apart in 2 Samuel 13 when Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar, and later Absalom the full-brother to Tamar murdered him? Things like that can happen.

It is because parents know all this, either from their own experience or from the experience of others whom they have related to (see some of it here), that they kick and scream when their child tells them that they have a suitor but that suitor already has children. It is far from good news to them.

So, these are some of the reasons—whether spoken or not—that cause parents to dig in their heels and say to their child, “What on earth has gotten into you? Is this the only person you can marry? Be patient. God will bring the right person along without all this baggage.”

What should your response be?
How should young adults respond when they meet with this blockade? To begin with, they need to sympathise with their parents rather than immediately get into counter-attack mode. This was not their parents’ dream. In fact, it was probably one of their nightmares.

Young people should give their parents time to digest all this. Once tempers and emotions have cooled down, they should get back to their parents with tangible assurances that will show them that they respect them, and are going into this marriage with both eyes wide open. Saying, “But we are in love!” is not enough. Talk about how you feel God has prepared you for the complications ahead.

It is often wise to bring in other elderly people in the wider family and in the church who can listen to the anxieties of the parents with true understanding but who can vouch for the character of the father/mother of the children and testify to how the children have already emotionally bonded with the person who may soon be their step-parent. This goes a long way to calm parental fears.

The two individuals planning to get married should also take time to talk with older couples that entered into marriage in similar circumstances, especially if they are Christians. They need to hear what challenges they should expect—and how they can best overcome them. The person inheriting children through marriage must face the fact that there will be times of serious friction ahead.

Finally, the two individuals must hand over this matter to God in prayer, asking that his will should be done. It is rarely ever wise to go against parental guidance. Where parents continue to adamantly refuse to bless your marriage plans, the wiser route is that of waiting in prayer.

Often in the waiting, the Lord finally opens a door that you least expected. I wish I could say that he finally causes your parents to let you go ahead, but that is not always the case. However, the Lord finally gives you a sense of peace about what you must do.