What Toys 'R Us, colleges, and social security have in common

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TOYS ‘R US ANNOUNCES CLOSING OF STORES — WHY?

TOM LAMPRECHT: Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, an institution for kids, Toys ‘R Us, that sprouted off another business called Babies ‘R Us, was 800 stores wide across America and it was recently reported by a number of media outlets that it is now shutting down. Harry, is this the internet taking over or is there another story behind this?

DR. REEDER: Babies ‘R Us because babies are rare. Toys ‘R Us shutting down because toys aren’t needed since babies are rare. And why are babies rare? It’s called the industry of abortion, protected, propagated, perpetuated, tax-funded now and the most prolific purveyors of abortion, Planned Parenthood, were included in the last spending bill of our Congress.

IS THIS A CONSEQUENCE OF SEXUAL REVOLUTION?

We have made a comment a number of times from a Christian world and life view and that’s this: You cannot break God’s law without God’s law breaking you. If you insist on sexual immorality — its practice and the attempt to normalize it — you can’t normalize it and it’ll break you physically, it’ll break you emotionally, it’ll break you medically — they call them sexually transmitted diseases.

Well, if that’s true of the seventh commandment, you can rest assured it’s true of the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder”. We murder unborn children. We have a society that rationalizes, promotes and protects the murder of the child, not the life of the child in the womb.

Therefore, what has happened? Well, you lose 1.5 million children a year since 1973, what happens within a nation? A nation begins to realize, “That’s 1.5 million taxpayers, that’s 1.5 million consumers, that’s 1.5 million students a year that are being lost.”

Secondly, you promote the Planned Parenthood agenda and now, in America, the reproduction rate is 1.77 children per woman and that rate, of course, will not sustain a population. We don’t feel it in America because both legal and illegal immigration continues to cause this nation’s population to grow, to some extent — not significantly, but it is growing because of immigration.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE MARRIAGES AND FAMILIES GONE?

TOM LAMPRECHT: On top of that, Harry, a CNS news story says that Pew research cites that young Americans today are less likely to be married today than any prior generation. In 1965, nearly 80 percent of “Silent Generation” members between 21 and 36 years old were married — 80 percent. Today, that number is 37 percent.

DR. REEDER: And that means, without marriage, there are less children desired and less children that are born. And, unfortunately, those that are born out of wedlock are born into unstable situations and usually end up in some kind of poverty, which then ends up into some kind of downward cycle of addictive behaviors or criminal behavior.

Toys ‘R Us has to close down why? There’s no children to go in there to buy like there were. They’ve had to start closing down and closing down and then once you begin having to close stores, the whole model was built on growth and there’s no growth. You’ve got to have kids to have stores for toys because it’s kids who want the toys. And, obviously, Babies ‘R Us also has lost its marketplace.

SMALL COLLEGES ARE FEELING THE PINCH OF LESS STUDENTS

Tom, I just got out of a meeting this last week in which we went through a survey. It is estimated that, in the next 18 years, over 50 percent of the small colleges and universities in America will close down.

There are multiple reasons why that is happening, but one reason it is happening is a diminishing pool of eligible students. The pool for students is rapidly decreasing. In fact, if it weren’t for international students, the rate of closures would be going up rapidly. Again, just as immigration is saving the population numbers, the immigration for our colleges — that is, international students arriving — is, at the moment, saving their very existence but it can’t last forever.

And then there will be another wave of closings after these large private schools with large endowments run out of their endowments. Right now, the only thing that they think is going to have any stability are the big state universities because of their athletic receipts and revenues and because they are taxpayer supported.

You see colleges diminishing. Why? No students. You’re looking at the blip on the timeline moving up. Babies ‘R Us — no babies, closed. Toys ‘R Us — no children, closed. Colleges — no students, closed.

SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM TEETERS ON THE BRINK

And then, of course, let’s go to the end of the timeline and that is retirement. We have a Social Security system that, unless it is fully funded by the government, which will further destroy the economy of the United States, it also is at the moment of crisis and implosion as it implodes upon itself. Why? The whole system was built upon increasing the population of those entering the workplace to take care of those who were exiting the workplace.

Now it’s top-heavy. Now the number of those exiting the workplace drastically dwarfs the number of those entering the workplace or who are in the middle of their careers where they ought to be earning their most money. Therefore, those at the end of the timeline will suffer.

Therefore, look at the flow: Babies ‘R Us — no babies, close the stores. Toys ‘R Us — means no children, close those stores. Colleges — no students, close those colleges. Now retirement — there is no retirement for there’s no one in the system that can support those who are at the conclusion of their life in the system which, by the way, is payback because it is those who are coming to collect their Social Security that created the death culture and approved the death culture that destroyed the young who will not be there to take care of them in their old age.

You see these particular news stories become a metaphor to remind us of what happens when a country walks away from a Christian world and life view with the sanctity of sexuality, the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of life, both in the womb and at the conclusion of life.

ABORTION MINDSET WILL STRIKE BACK AT SENIORS WITH EUTHANASIA

One final thought on this, and that is if there are all these now at the end of life and, because of the culture of death, there aren’t many to support them in the middle of life, it won’t be long until the culture of death visits those at the end of life with not passive euthanasia, but mandated euthanasia as people will decide who will get treatment at the end of life and who will not, due to the expense of keeping people alive and we don’t want to have to feed people who are living off of us. No matter what they did with their lives before they got there, they’re now in the way of our lives.

Those who survived the abortuary, those who were able to get through their childhood and get their education now look at older ones and realize, “There aren’t enough of us to support you, therefore we’ll have to cull the herd,” and the aged will have to be removed.

TOM LAMPRECHT: Lest anyone thinks you’re overstating the situation, the U.S. Census Bureau predicts that, by 2035, senior citizens will outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history.

THE REMEDY IS TO LIVE BY GOD’S OUTLINE FOR LIFE AND FLOURISH

DR. REEDER: And that is an untenable position for a Social Security system and even for the economics of a nation. Therefore, what are the answers? Well, people know what I’m going to say: The answer is to get out there and share the Gospel and then disciple people so that they begin to live with rationality instead of the irrationality of rebellion against God, and the culture of death, and the culture of immorality and the culture of rebellion against the God of glory.

God’s Word gives us the outline for life. If we embrace it, then you can see human flourishing so let’s love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind. And Jesus is the one who will bring you because of the love of the Lord for you and, when that happens, then you can love your neighbor as yourself and we can return to sensibility when we love the Lord with our mind, our heart and our soul.

Dr. Harry L. Reeder III is the Senior Pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.

This podcast was transcribed by Jessica Havin, editorial assistant for Yellowhammer News, who has transcribed some of the top podcasts in the country and whose work has been featured in a New York Times Bestseller.