The Highest Welfare Of The Home

"And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? Son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place" (Genesis 19:12).

Our text this morning has to do with the highest welfare of those who are bound to us affectionately by ties of flesh and blood and marriage.  It is found in the first book of the Bible, in the nineteenth chapter: "And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? Son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place " The city referred to here is, as you will recognize, the old city of Sodom.  That whole city was plunging rapidly to doom and destruction.  The cause of such doom was the collapse of morality and righteousness in the city.  We are prone to write much and talk much about an economic collapse, but what is an economic collapse in moment compared with the moral and spiritual collapse of a people?

The people of Sodom had sown to the flesh. A center of wickedness was that city and, despite all warnings and entreaties to change their ways, they went from bad to worse.  The destruction of the city was inevitable, for as all men sow, so must they reap.  The laws of God are immutable.  The people of Sodom had sinned against all righteousness, and all warnings and exhortations to change their ways had proved futile.  God's patience was exhausted.  We see grand old Abraham on the heights of Mamre, as he was praying for his nephew, Lot, and his family, beseeching God to have mercy upon him and his household. God sent two messengers to warn Lot and his family of the doom coming to the city and to urge them to flee for their lives if they would escape.  "The men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides?  Son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place."

Is it any wonder that Jesus wept over the ancient city of Jerusalem? Oh, the pathos in the lives of some who reside in the city!  If the secrets of all hearts in a great city were revealed, what a story of tragedy and burden and difficulty and danger and distress, sin, shame, heartache and heartbreak there would be!  I should like to stand in the door of every household in this city and pour out mv heart for those dwelling under each roof, whether it be the roof of a great palace or of a lowly cottage.  A city is the nerve center and the storm center of civilization.  As goes the city, so will go Church and state and everything else in the social order.  Our cities saved means the salvation of civilization.  Our cities lost means the corruption and destruction of civilization.

The chief human institution in the city is the home.  To be sure, the Church stands in a class by itself, a Divine institution, fashioned by our Divine, loving Savior and Master, but the first institution that God gave to human society was the home.  It is the ultimate basis of human society.  As goes the home, so will go the city.  And I pause to say that the home is in peril and endangered now as it has not been in modern times.  With "society" and worldliness claiming our well to do people, with our highly mechanized industrial order, with multitudes of poor and underprivileged people in our larger cities, living in tenement houses, where peaceful home life is well nigh impossible, the sanctity and sacredness of home can be enjoyed only by the very few.

The competitive system, the highly industrialized order, the speed, the rush, the restlessness that marks life on every side, imperil and endanger as never before.  If the home is lost, all will go down into the maelstrom with the failing and defeated homes.  Important indeed are our economic problems, our problems of labor and state craft, our problems of public education, important enough to challenge the worthy attention of all men and women who care for their country - but far more important than any of these, or than all of these put together, is the conservation of the home.  More important than all the men we have in the national capitol at Washington, is the conservation of the home life of our American people.

We need to give ourselves to the consideration of this matter with a devotion and fidelity such as have not characterized us before. The conservation of the home is the primary matter that should challenge the attention of patriots, and especially of Christians from one side of this great land to the other. If people trifle with the home they are undermining the foundation of an enduring and worthy civilization.  But if they under gird the home and fortify the home and concentrate their best efforts unceasingly upon the highest welfare of the home, then they are making secure the foundations for an enduring and worthy social order.

When the messengers were sent of God to warn Lot and his family to get out of the city which was plunging rapidly to destruction, they said to Lot: "Hast thou here any besides?  Get thee out of this place.  The city is doomed.  The people will not listen to God.  They have trifled with His holy law.  They have mocked the great law of sowing and reaping.  They have trifled with the highest things until they are insensible to any calls.  They are desensitized to all appeals.  Get thee out of this place, without delay." A very dramatic incident.  You can go back and read it today, in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis.

We can see afresh how much is involved in the home life of our people.  Let this question be a meditation for us today to which surely we would do well to give our most earnest heed.  The men appealed to Lot about his home, about his sons-in-law, and his sons and daughters and all bound to them intimately and tenderly in the relations of family life.  Here is a question which concerns our natural affection.  When you appeal to people for the welfare of their homes, all the highest and holiest and most sacred instincts are involved and you immediately have their attention.

The highest dignity which God gives to humanity is parenthood. The most glorious sight that one ever sees beneath the stars is the sight of worthy motherhood.  It is behavior altogether unworthy and unthinkable for young people to shrink their responsibility of parenthood.  Where has obligation gone?  What has become of duty, if parents are not concerned beyond all words with the highest welfare of their children which God has given them?

Many are the times when I have seen tears on the cheeks of manly men in this city as they whispered with reverent words: "A little baby boy, or a darling little baby girl, came to our house last night." And I thought more of the men with that honest tear of gratitude and reverence upon their faces as they thought thus and talked thus about the advent of a baby.  The most interesting object in the world that God ever sent to a family is a little baby.

Parents who are conscious of the great responsibility and privilege that is theirs, in nurturing and training their children are rewarded throughout the years, by watching them as they grow up.  Who can ever forget how they looked as proudly they marched away that day to school?  Then as the years pass and they go off to college or university and later years return with their diploma, and then on and on until they stand at the marriage altar: Nor is that the end, for on and on they go through the struggles and varying duties of life.  Now what parent is not moved by these unfolding scenes in the lives of their children?

But how incongruent for parents to put their emphasis and interests on the temporalities of their children and leave out care for their spiritual welfare!  How disastrous to forget treat these children are heirs of immortality, that they must render their account to God - and that they must live somewhere, consciously and personally forever out yonder beyond the sunset and the night in the world to come.  How tragic for parents to fail in their duty to promote the highest welfare of their children!

"Take this child and rear it for me," says God in His Divine commission in the gift of every child in every home, and if parents forget that and if they fail at that point, then down the road of life there are heartbreaks, too sad for words adequately to describe.

Awhile ago a man's horses became frightened as he drove his wagon there on the country road and they rushed on despite all his efforts to restrain them.  Presently, he was thrown from the wagon, but he held on to those lines as on and on the frightened horses ran.  He held on to them until he was dragged over rocks and stones and bushes and fields.  His neighbors saw him and called to him to let go, release the reins, and yet he held on until at last his weight brought those horses to a standstill. When the neighbors came up and found him bleeding and bruised and wounded so that in a little while he died, they could not restrain their plea, their protest "Why did not you let the horses go, man?  Now you have been dragged to your death!  Why did not you turn loose the horses?" And he whispered: "Look in the wagon." And they looked in the wagon and there was his little baby boy two years old.  The father had given his life to save that baby boy from a tragic death.  Worthy?  We applaud him we lift our hats and bow before such high behavior as that.

Now, what am I saying?  I am protesting against the incongruity when we put our best on the temporalities of our children and leave off our highest concern, our best efforts for their spiritual welfare. "What shall it profit a man; what shall it profit a boy or girl, if he or she shall gain the whole world and lose the soul?" That old Prophet's question is the right question, when he met the Shunammite woman and asked her: "Is it well with thee?  Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child?"

Here is the piercing cry for all our homes.  Is it well with the head of the house there?  Is that father behaving as he should?  Is that husband in that home behaving worthily as the head of the house?  Is that mother behaving like Hannah, who gave her best for the little Samuel who became one of the chief prophets of God for all the centuries?  Is that wife behaving worthily as the helpmate of her husband?  What about the home?  Are the children in that home being given to understand that the things of life may be comfortable, may be pleasing, but that spiritual welfare out weighs the whole world?

Christians, are we giving heed to these great matters, these chief matters?  We shall have to come back to the home life in America if we would conserve an enduring, worthy civilization; we shall have to come back to the home.  Someone said to me concerning one of the finest men in all the land.  "My heart aches when I see his boy, his only boy, put the intoxicating cup to his lips at the various banquets and dinners we have attended.  I have seen him stagger and totter and I shudder to think of the downfall and shame that await him." Oh, I wonder if that father has done his best for that boy and for his home? It all goes back to the home.

One of the most touching sights I am ever privileged to see is behind this Baptistery Sunday night after Sunday night.  Fathers are there to see their boys Baptized.  I have seen the father brush a big tear away as he stood and watched at the steps and handed the lovely boy over to me to be Baptized.  And likewise I have seen the mother greatly moved as she planted a kiss on that daughter's cheek as she went down to be buried with Christ in beautiful Baptism.  Oh how glorious! I fancy that cavalcades of angels hurry back up the starry heights to tell the hosts of Heaven that the kingdom of God is coming down here in Dallas, because fathers and mothers are rejoicing with undeniable joy over their children's surrender unto Christ.  Think of the whole family safe within the fold of God, consecrated and faithful! How glorious!

I sometimes think there is not a more wonderful poem in all literature than Bobby Burns' poem "The Cotter's Saturday Night." That plain man, when the day's work was done, called the family around him and opened the Word of God and read there from.  Then they sang together and the patriarch knelt down and prayed.  Read Bobby Burns' "Cotter's Saturday Night"!  It is a beautiful picture of Christian home life.  Not many weeks go by that a father or mother does not come to me and say: "They are all in but one, and I have an ache in my heart that never ceases while this one is outside the ark of safety." One said to me recently: "Sleeping or waking, I am conscious that my boy is not saved."

How can parents be comfortable and satisfied when the children are not anchored to our Savior and Lord?  If one of them is left out, how can we go our way care free and unconcerned, when one child is drifting away from Christ and the great salvation?  Oh, surely the consciousness of our own peace and joy and safety in Christ will not keep us from giving our utmost for the safety of our children.

When sickness comes into the home people want to help.  Scarcely a day goes by that my telephone does not ring and a trembling voice say: "My boy is very ill, Pastor.  Will you pray for him?" And I hear a sob yonder across the city as the father says: "The thing that hurts so is that John is not a Christian at all.  That is the thing that hurts." What if that child should die in his sin?  The Word of God does not leave us in the dark about the destiny of those dying unrepentant and unbelieving.  What if that son should die in his sins?  Better for a man that he should never have been born than that he should miss the meaning of the duty and mission which God has for him, in the proper care for his children.

Oh the pathos of it when the parents bend over the bedside of suffering, dying young people who are passing away without hope and without God.  The pathos of it is unspeakable.  And when we parents shall come down to death, what will become of our children when we are gone?  Are we doing our best for them now?  I have seen numbers of the parents of this Church meet that last great hour, that grim sarcasm of life which we call "death" and have seen them meet it triumphantly.  I have also heard others as they talked about the children being left behind.  I am thinking now of one of the most devoted Christian mothers this Church family has ever had.  She was nearing the end of her earthly journey.  I heard her say just before she died; "The one concern I have as I leave the world is that some of my children are not saved. Do your best for my children. God forgive me for my own unfaithfulness.  You who are left, do your best for my children!"

Now before the last hour comes, we parents want to do our best for our children.  That hour is coming quickly to its all.  What about our children?  The question of our text is a call that challenges, "Have you here any besides?  Your sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whosoever you have in this place, bound to you, get them out of this city. Destruction overwhelming is coming to this city. Get them out." While life is with us, let us put forth our utmost, our supremest effort for our homes.

What about your home life?  Let us one by one answer the question now.  Are they all in the ark of safety?  Are there some who have made the profession and for awhile seemed to have attested it genuinely by devotion and sympathy and service but now have drifted?  Oh my soul, what a challenge to parents!  The father must see that boy and ask the question down to the depths about his drifting and the mother must see that daughter who is drifting.  We must be alert morning, noon and night; wide awake and alert, and with an affection unquenchable for our families.

Are they all in?  Is it well with your husband?  Is it well with you? Is it well with the child?  Are some drifting, dangerously drifting? You can not let it go at that. You should not be willing for the sun to go down on another day, ere you talk to those drifting ones.  These children ought to hear from your own lips even if they have never heard before that you are concerned about them and about their highest welfare. I heard one father in this city make a plea enough to melt a rock.  He said to his son: "God knows, my son, how much I love you and God knows that I would be willing to die for you, and I want you to come to Christ." It was just one week until I Baptized that boy in this Baptistery, upon profession of the boy's faith in Christ.

And I said to a woman with a beautiful home: "You must be very happy in this beautiful home, with a fine husband at the head of the house," and she said in a moment: "Yes" and her eyes filled with tears and she could not restrain them, and in a moment she went out and then came back and followed me to the door and said: "You say I must be very happy in this beautiful home with my fine husband. He is a fine husband, but he is not a Christian.  He is going the other way and the children are following in his steps.  He is not a Christian, but a fine man, dearer to me than anybody in the world, but he is not a Christian." Then she waited a moment, after stifling deep sobs with her handkerchief and said: "I had rather live on bread and water and live in a tent and have my husband and my children on the Lord's side with me, than to dwell in the grandest palace on earth with them going the wrong way."

Oh, ye husbands, are you going to let the journey go through to the night fall with the wife trying to walk the upward way, and you with your down pulling influence and example, taking the children with you?  Oh, you parents, are you willing to talk about success and achievements and crowns and honors and attainments, with the boy or girl lost?  What is life for?  What is parenthood for?  What is the meaning and the mission of a Christian testimony?  Surely such a scene as this cries for our attention and is one to provoke our most faithful efforts in behalf of our home.

I keep you a moment more.  I want you to note the bad outcome of Lot in this case.  Although he was warned early to leave Sodom, and exhorted by the messengers whom God had sent, he tarried, he parleyed, he hesitated, he delayed, and when at last he got somewhat awake and tried to get his sons-in-law with his daughters to go with him, they laughed him to scorn.  "Why there is nothing to it or we would have gone long before." And the married daughters and their husbands and families refused to accompany their father as he made his way slowly from the doomed city.

You remember the awful doom that came to Lot's wife because of disobedience.  And you recall that his two single daughters who went with him from the doomed city, became the mothers of two of the most wicked tribes told of in the entire Bible.  It is no wonder that the old man sat alone at his tent door as the sun went down and the night fall came on.  For a father to fail, for a mother to fail, for a home to fail - this is a failure so terrible that demons must laugh at the frailty of man.  Put crepe on the door of your heart if things are wrong in the family.  Put crepe on the door.

I was speechless before that father whose boy was drinking, speechless before that man who told me the sad story of delinquency in his home.  I was thrice speechless when a mother said to me: "My daughter is drinking at special gatherings." Oh my soul, such stories break the heart of the Pastor and such behavior paves the way to destruction and doom and death.  Put crepe on the door of the home where these conditions exist.

Now, what about your homes?  Is Christ Master there?  He alone can enable you to be all that parents ought to be. He is the One who can give the highest victories to you and your loved ones, even those children of your heart.  Let the highest welfare of your home be a major interest of life for you.  Let Christ rule in your heart and do your best to win each member of your family to the side and service of Christ who is the only Savior and the one rightful Lord and Master of all.

Is someone listening to me who says: "I am a Church member, but my membership is somewhere else"?  You are making it harder for every Church in town to witness worthily for Christ.  The detached Church member adds gravely to the difficulties and perils of the people of God as they try to go on in their Church life for Christ.  Are you here, man or woman, with your Church membership somewhere else? You are a resident now of this city.  Come with us and welcome.  You will find people here friendly like yourself and they will take great delight in helping you as they are able, and they want your help and need it and Christ wants the help of us all.

Who says: "I am a detached Church member, but I will be detached no longer.  I will present my letter or I will have you get my letter upon my statement"?  Do you say: "I come today out of hesitation and long delay into happy consciousness of the preserving mercy of God.  I come today with an honest, definite surrender.  I delay no longer.  I today yield to Christ who died for sinners and therefore died for me"? Who says: "Yes, I am coming" as we sing our hymn:

Who says today: "I want to follow Christ; I want to come and link my life openly with this Church and this people; I want to attend to the duty of obeying Christ"?  Who says: "I have never joined the Church but I have trusted Christ and out of my secret discipleship with Christ I come"?  Jesus says; "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out." Is it in your heart to come?  Then come now is we sing: