B y Gordon Chilvers
npHE greatest need of the world today is homes where God is honored. Some years ago the Queen Mother Droadcast a call to the women of Britain for a revival of Christian faith and life. She said: “ It is on the strength of our spiritual life that the right rebuilding of our national life depends.” Then she added: “ Our homes must be the place where it should start.” The home is a divine institution. How to make it happy has been the quest of millions of people over thou sands of years in many different lands. God has told us exactly how we are to succeed where millions before us have failed. Putting God first is the essential condition. When God gave us His instructions, this was the first thing He said: “The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4). This is undoubtedly where millions of people have made a mis take —God was not pre-eminent. To put God first means to love Him altogether. “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” If God is love then the most reasonable thing in all the world is to love God. This is so important that our Lord when asked which was the greatest commandment answered by quoting this verse. God meant us to live in an atmosphere of love. God lays stress on the essential part of a man’s being — his heart. “ These words, . . . shall be in thine heart.” The God who made the heart also gave us His Words, and our spiritual life depends upon their being there. So we should say with the Psalmist (119:11): “ Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” We may have the Scriptures in our intellect, in our memory, and even on our tongue, but we have failed if they are not in our hearts. The Word that dwells in our hearts is to be taught in the family circle. “And thou shalt teach them dilligently unto thy children.” The word for ‘teach diligently’ means to ‘sharpen’ as a man sharpens a knife upon a board. “ For the word of God is . . . sharper than any twoedged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). A knife is not sharpened by one move ment, but by plying backwards and forwards. So the child is to be told not only once, but over and over again, habitually. As the parent is responsible for a child coming into the world, so the parent has a responsibility which he cannot pass off to a Sunday School teacher. God expects us all to be teachers, though the pupil may be but one little child. “ Experience shows that we have never really mastered truth until we are able to teach it” (D. M. Panton). The instruction that we give must flow from a heart of love. Unless we love the truth and are zealous to impart it, our lessons will be delivered so coldly that our children will not be interested. They will soon know when we speak from conviction and feeling. Teaching which is marked by parental affection will calm the giddiest into attention and soften the most stubborn. Some parents object, saying: “We will not influence 26
our children in making choices and decisions in the matter of religion.” But why should we not? The press will influence them. The radio, the cinema, and television will influence them. Our neighbors, business men, and politicians will influence them. We use our influence over our gardens or we could not grow flowers. Should we treat our gardens better than we treat our children? What is the result of allowing our children to please themselves instead of teaching them the Bible? A mother bird sat on a low hanging bush and cried desperately. Hearing her anguished cry of distress a naturalist found her on the bush and saw a big, black snake taking the last baby bird from the nest. Too late to give aid, the naturalist simply said to the crying mother bird: “Mother, you built your nest too low.” How many parents have cried as desperately, when some black sin came into their home and robbed them of a son or a daughter! They built their nests too low; they lived their lives on too low a spiritual level, and thereby they risked the future welfare of their children. Happy is the child of whom it can be said, as it was said of Timothy: “ From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures” (2 Timothy 3:15). A thoroughly Chris tian education is the most precious legacy we can leave to our children. It is far better than all the wealth we could possibly save. If we give them just money, it may do them more harm than good. A Christian training will never be forgotten. There may be a sad wandering from God, yet in the worst and most distant aberation, some light struck in the early years of childhood, will leap like a live spark from memory. This was the case with John Newton. He was at the helm in a tempestuous sea while living the life of a prodigal. Suddenly a text came to his mind which his mother had taught him in the nursery — a text he had forgotten for twenty years. This was the first of the steps which turned him to everlasting life. Dr. Talmage has pointed out that the opportunity of influencing our homes for Christ and Heaven will soon be gone. For a while the house is full of voices and foot steps of children. Sometimes you feel that you can not stand the racket. It is a rushing this way and a rushing that way until father and mother are well nigh beside themselves. But the years glide away. After a while the voices are not so many and those that stay are more sedate. First this room and then that one becomes quiet. Death takes some, and marriage takes others until, after a while, the house is terribly quiet. Yes! Yes! The house that is noisy now will soon be still enough. Just as when you first began housekeeping there were just two of you; there will be just two again. Oh! the alarming brevity of infancy and childhood! The opportunity is glorious, but it soon passes. Parents may say at the close of life: “What a pity we did not do more for the Christian training of our children while we had them with us! But the lamentation will be of no avail. The opportunity had wings and vanished. THE KING'S BUSINESS
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