Thoughts On Marriage, Family And The Home

Family – December 2011 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Thoughts On Marriage, Family And The Home

Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” — Matthew 19: 4-5 NKJV

It is good for us to remember that the real purpose of marriage is to bring forth children, and thereby establish a godly home which is a marvelous testimony for Christ in the midst of a corrupt world. “Home” is one of the sweetest words in the English language. What memories it evokes! What stirring of the hearts, and what thanksgiving to God are aroused as we recall the joyful home circle and the impressions made there on our young minds. For though we may have wandered far from it, home is still the most sacred place we know on earth.

Yet vast numbers of people have never known its mystic spell. And in many languages of earth there is no word exactly equivalent of our word “home.” Few pagan tribes have any synonym for it. They speak of a hut, a house or a shelter; but to them home, as we understand it, is something unknown. Yet “God sets the solitary in families” (Ps. 68:6), and He established homes for mankind long before the rise of governments and before the Church was brought into existence.

It takes more than four walls and comfortable furniture to make a home. In the truest sense, home is where love rules. The ideal home of Scripture is a dwelling place – whether it be a pilgrim’s tent or a grand mansion – where the family lives together in love and harmony, each delighting in the company of the others, and all seeking the good of the whole. Such homes were found among the Israelites when all the rest of the world was steeped in idolatry, and where fear ruled instead of love (Ex. 10:21-23).

Christ lifted home life to an even higher plane, making it a place of deepest spiritual fellowship as well as tender love. The Christian home is a scene where father, mother and children together enjoy divine favor and protection, and where the whole family honors Christ as Savior and Lord. From such a home the voice of prayer and praise will rise up as a continual sacrifice day by day.

The weakening of the marriage ties and the lowering of the home ideals are perhaps the two greatest evils of our times. Divorces are increasing at an alarming rate as people come more and more to disregard the teaching of Scripture about the sacred character of marriage, and to give free rein to inordinate affections and selfish desires. And children are the worst sufferers in the breaking up of the home. We are sowing the wind, and we are destined to reap the whirlwind (Hos. 8:7) unless we turn to God in repentance and seek to walk in humble obedience to His Word.

At the rate in which divorces are increasing family life will soon be a thing of the past in the majority of cases, as far as the unsaved are concerned. The children of God should avoid any complicity in this evil thing by implicit obedience to the teaching of our Lord in regard to the intended purpose and permanence of the marriage relationship.

By H. A. Ironside

Light In Their Dwellings “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness which may even be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” — Exodus 10:21-23