" ...Do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ."
-Galatians 1:10-
-Found in the pocket of a Major during the American Revolution.
The above excellent portion was printed in TEMPLE TIMES, a ministry of Calvary Temple, East Point, Georgia.
Mr. Robert McCurry is Pastor
Part One: SANCTITY OF THE HOME
Text: "And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an HELP meet for him.’" – Genesis 2:18
God has founded only two institutions: the Home and the Church, and in this order. And since it is God who has originated these institutions, they are hallowed—they are sacred.
The Scriptures tell us "Adam was first formed, then Eve"—(I Timothy 2:13), so therefore we note that man was not made for woman, but rather woman for the man. As Augustine, the early church father once remarked, "If God wanted woman to be a slave to man, He would have taken her out of man’s feet; and if He wanted woman to rule over man, He would have taken her out of man’s head; but He took woman from man’s side, nearest his heart." Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." – Genesis 2:24
The most important possession a man has is his family. His wife is his "little ewe lamb", his "Darling," and husbands are commanded to "love (their) wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it...." –Ephesians 5:25.
The Sanctity of the Home is recognized even by the anti-Christian world. When Caesar Augustus noted the moral decline and general erosion of society, in 19 and 18 B.C. he passed what are known as the "Julian Laws" which sought to restore the Family by encouraging marriage and the establishment of homes.
The revolutionary leaders in Russia during the 1920’s sought to destroy marriage within their society. The legal definition of "marriage" was abolished, and both bigamy and polygamy were permissible under the new provisions. Abortion was facilitated, Pre-Marital relationships were praised, and Extra-Marital relationships were considered "normal." But within a few years after millions of lives had been wrecked, and work in the nationalized factories was slackened, the government was forced to reverse its policy. Today, Russia has returned to strict standards of sexual morality, and has imposed Biblical morality upon the people.
Communist China as well is outwardly a morally clean country, sexually speaking.
Therefore, when the anti-Christian world accepts the Biblical principle of the Sanctity of the Home, we would submit that they who do not recognize the same are either 1.) Willfully blind; or 2.) Deceitful people who have sold themselves to work evil in the sight of the Lord;
or 3.) They are already Degenerate. The strength of a nation lies in the strength of the Home, and the Home is only as strong as the Moral Code that binds it.
It must therefore be obvious that since even the Church cannot be stronger than the Families that constitute it and the Morality they maintain --it must therefore be obvious that it is the Home upon which we must expect the Enemy to descend.
I find several columns already engaging in open combat with the Home.
Part II --The Sanctity of the Home Under Storm and Siege
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January 1, 1756 --A Huguenot worship service is help in the neighborhood of Nismas, France. The assembly has scarcely been constituted by prayer when the alarm is given that soldiers are upon them! The youngest and most agile make their escape by climbing the surrounding rocks. Among those who escape is Jean Fabre, a silk merchant. Hearing his father has been made a prisoner, he returns and with earnest tears and prayers asks that his 78-year-old father be released and replaced with himself. The offer is accepted.
Imprisoned first at Nismes, he is prevented seeing any friends including the young lady he was shortly to marry. Transferred to Montpelier, he is judged and sent to the galleys for life. With no prospect of ever being released, he will become seriously ill. He will be sent to Toulon where he will be placed among criminals and will be chained to one of the worst. At last, he will become accustomed to the rags, the dirt, and the vermin, and the abominable speech.
Then the young lady to whom he was engaged will have a desirable offer of marriage. Her friends will be anxious that she accept, and Jean Fabre’s father, now stricken with paralysis, poor and unable to maintain himself as well as a daughter, urges her to give up his son now hopelessly imprisoned for life. When the young man himself is consulted, seeing no prospect of release, he urges her to do the same.
She will yield, and the day of her marriage will be set; but at the last moment, she will relent. Her faithfulness and love for the heroic galley slave has never been shaken, and she resolves to remain constant to him, and to remain unmarried forever, if need be.
At last, after a galley slave for six years, he obtains a temporary liberty. But even now, he must move in concealment, nor can he marry, not having been discharged. Finally, after much social pressure, he has been exonerated, and set at liberty. His father has long since been dead, but now, after these long years of loneliness, these long-separated sweet-hearts will be united in marriage.
January 5, 1876 --Rev. S. W. Foljambe, in a sermon preached to the Massachusetts lawmakers, exhorts, "Observe the Hand of God in the wise and beneficent timing of events in the dawn of our history. The events of history are not accidents. There are no accidents in the lives of men or of nations. We may go back to the underlying cause of every event, and discover in each God’s over-ruling and intervening wisdom. It has been said that history...is the autobiography of Him Who is graciously timing all the events in the interest of His Christ, and of the Kingdom of God on earth."