TEXT: "_What have they seen in thy house?_"--2 Kings 20:15.
If you will tell me what is in your own house by your own choice I will
tell you the story of your home life and will be able to inform you
whether yours is a home in which there is harmony and peace or
confusion and despair. Let me read the names of the guests in your
guest book, allow me to study the titles of the books in your library
in which you have special delight, permit me to scan your magazines
which you particularly like, allow me to listen to your conversation
when you do not know that you are being overheard, give me the
privilege of talking but for a moment to your servants, and make it
possible for me to visit with your friends in whom you have particular
delight--and I will write a true story of what you have been, of what
you are, and of what you will be but for the grace of God, even though
I may not know you personally at all. In other words, whatever may be
seen in your home determines what your home is.
I was a man grown before I visited Washington, the capital of the
nation. I was the guest of a member of the President's Cabinet.
Riding with him the first evening, when the moon was shining, we
suddenly came upon the National Capitol, and I said to my host, "What
in the world is that?" He said, with a smile, as if he pitied me,
"That is the Capitol building, and that is the home of the nation." I
am sure he was right in a sense, because the building is magnificent,
and is in every way the worthy home of such a nation as ours; but I
think I take issue with him, after careful thought, in his statement
that the Capitol building is the home of the nation. I can recall a
visit made to a home which was not in any sense palatial, where the
old-fashioned father every morning and evening read his Bible, knelt in
prayer with his household about him, commended to God his children each
by name, presented the servants at the throne of grace, and then sang
with them all one of the sweet hymns of the church; and from the
morning prayer they went forth to the day of victory, while from the
evening prayer they went to sleep the undisturbed sleep of the just,
with the angels of heaven keeping watch over them.
I recall another home in the State of Ohio where the father and mother
were scarcely known outside of their own county. The size of their
farm was ten acres, but they reared two boys and two girls whose
mission has been world-wide and whose names are known wherever the
church of Christ is known and wherever the English language is spoken.
These, in the truest sense, are the homes of the nation, and such homes
give us men and women as true as steel.
Napoleon once was asked, "What is the greatest need of the French
nation?" He hesitated a moment and then said, with marked emphasis,
"The greatest need of the French nation is mothers." If you will ask
me the greatest need of America I could wish in my reply that I might
speak with the power of a Napoleon and that my words might live as
long, for I would say, the greatest need of the American nation to-day
is homes; not palatial buildings, but homes where Christ is honored,
where God is loved, and where the Bible is studied.
A returned missionary, who had been for twenty-five years away from his
home because he would not accept his furloughs, was asked after he had
been in California for a little season what impressed him the most
after his absence of a quarter of a century. The reporter expected him
to say that he was impressed with the telephone system which bound
houses and cities together, or that he was amazed at the wireless
telegraphy, by means of which on the wave currents of the air messages
were sent from one city to another; but the returned missionary
expressed no such surprise. He said, "When I went away from America
almost every home had its family altar; now that I have returned I have
watched very carefully and find that a family altar in a home is the
exception and not the rule." Wherever this is true there is real cause
for great alarm, for in proportion as the home fails the nation is in
danger.
Hezekiah had been sick unto death. The word of the Lord by the mouth
of the Prophet came to him, saying, "Set thy house in order, for thou
must die." Then he recovered for a season. The King of Babylon sent
messengers to him, and when the messengers had gone Isaiah asked him
the question of the text, "What have they seen in thy house?"
The dearest and most sacred spot on earth is home. Around it are the
most sacred associations, about it cluster the sweetest memories. The
buildings are not always palatial, the furnishings are not always of
the best, but when the home is worthy of the name ladders are let down
from heaven to those below, the angels of God come down, bringing
heaven's blessing and ascend, taking earth's crosses. Such a home is
the dearest spot on earth, because there your father worked and your
mother loved. There is no love which surpasses this.
Some years ago, when the English soldiers were fighting and a Scotch
regiment came to assist, the Scotchmen, strangely enough, began to die
in great numbers. The skill of the physicians was baffled. They could
not tell why it was that there seemed to be such a rapid falling away
of the men. But at last they discovered the cause. The Scotch pipers
were playing the tunes that reminded the Scotchman of the heather and
the hills, and they were dying of homesickness. When the music was
changed the deaths in such large numbers almost instantly ceased.
We are drifting away from our old-fashioned homes; fathers have grown
too busy, mothers have delegated their God-given work to others. We
have lost instead of gained. Wherever the homes are full of weakness
the government is in danger. The homes of our country are so many
streams pouring themselves into the great current of moral and social
life. If the home life is pure, then all is pure. I stand with that
company of people today who believe that we are at the beginning of a
great revival of religion, and I am persuaded that this revival is to
be helped on not so much by preaching, though that is not to be
ignored; nor by singing, though that in itself is useful; but it is to
be helped or hindered by the condition of the homes in our land.
I
I have a friend, George R. Stuart, who says that when God himself would
start a nation he made home life the deciding question. He selected
Abraham as the head of the home, and in Genesis, the eighteenth chapter
and the nineteenth verse, he gives the reason for this in these words:
"For I know him, that he will command his children and his household
after him."
There are two great principles which must prevail in every home: