[AI translation] Dear invisible church! A father of a family with a wife and children at home once asked the apostle Paul and Silas, after a great spiritual upheaval: "Gentlemen, what must I do to be saved"? Then they said to him these oft-repeated words, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and both you and the people of your house will be saved'! There is a great promise in this Word, but it also places a tremendous responsibility on us! It focuses our attention on the salvation of ourselves and the people of our house, and brings the two into close relationship with each other. Faith in Christ has serious consequences not only for the salvation of yourself, but also for the salvation of the people of your house, the people around you. It is good to see these two so closely side by side, in relation to each other for once! What this Word means is that God holds us responsible for the souls of the people of our house. Let us face the serious question, do we take this responsibility, and if we do, how do we go about it?We have read in our church bulletins this autumn that many more parents wanted to enrol their children in our church schools this year than last year and in previous years. So many have already applied to our overcrowded schools that if we had twice as many schools, they would all be full. This is an expression of the great need that parents have, perhaps unconsciously, for their children to live a life of faith in God. It expresses the subconscious suspicion that we adults have not taken the things of faith seriously, that we have failed in our Christianity. And if we have made a mess of it, we would at least like to make amends in our children. This world has paid a very bitter price for its disregard of God's eternal laws. And if we have been so heavily condemned for our sins, at least let the future repent to God, and be better than we were. May more blessings thus shine on the paths of our children's lives!
This is a good request, my brothers and sisters, but it does not yet take care of the responsibility of which the Word speaks! For by sending the children entrusted to our care to school and by ensuring their participation in the education of the faith, we have not yet settled the question of responsibility for their salvation! And yet, for most parents, this is the sum total of their concern for the faith life of the people of their house. They entrust their children's religious education to the school. It is the priest or the teacher of the faith who is there to set the child's affairs straight. As if the most precious inheritance of our children, their salvation, could be bought by paying tuition fees! Do we not feel that in doing so we are renting out the performance of our most sacred parental duty, and are rest assured that we have done our best?
Sometimes it is good to think back to the vows we made when our children were baptised. We vowed then that we would raise and educate the child so that, as he or she grew up, he or she would become a self-conscious follower of Christ. Many parents just raise their children, leaving the spiritual guidance to someone else, but even more important is how you yourself, at home, train the people of your house to follow Christ! How do you personally care for the salvation of the people of your house? You can have someone else teach them music, languages, maths, sports, and if they don't progress well you can blame the paid teacher, but you are primarily responsible for their salvation! Note well: the Word speaks of the salvation of the people of your house. So it is not a question of your child learning religion alongside geography, because you consider it necessary that he should always have a spiritual crutch at hand which he can draw on when he is wounded in the storms of life. It is not a question of a general religious spirituality, but of the salvation of his soul! It is about the glorious future inheritance that Jesus Christ has acquired and bequeathed to his children through his moving death on the cross. The most precious treasure of the people of your house is at stake! At your baptism, the Lord made you promise to take care of it and to do everything in your power to bring your child to receive this inheritance. The people of your house are mortal, and at any moment the Lord may call one of them. Can you send him on his great journey with the assurance that he will not be in default of salvation? Art thou accustomed to discuss with God this most important matter of the people of thy house?
I know that every one is busy today with his busy-busy business. We hardly have time to sit down quietly and have a serious conversation with the people of our house. Hence the irremediable omissions. I read somewhere that a young man was once on trial for some embezzlement. The father of the accused was a well-known jurist, and his famous law books were in the public domain. How could he bring such disgrace on his head? "Yes, I remember," replied the boy, in a monotone. 'I remember very well that when I went to him for something, he looked up from his books and addressed me: "Go away, my boy, can't you see I'm writing a book? And my father has finished his book, and I am standing here!
The trouble is, we have long since ceased to educate the people of our house to open and discuss their spiritual matters, their questions of salvation, among themselves. We lack the spiritual atmosphere in which hearts can be opened in full confidence. And if you did not have time to listen to your little daughter complain to you when her little doll with the hair was broken, do not expect her to bring her complaints and sorrows to you when her heart is broken!
Have we still any authority of faith before the people of our house? Do they trust us in matters of faith and of the soul? Would they believe and accept our spiritual counsels and teachings? Do they not see us too closely, and know us too well, for our fine moral sermons to have long since lost their credibility with them? Or is it even good that the people of our house do not discuss the problems of their salvation with us, for we would be embarrassed? Would we not know what to say, since we ourselves are so uncertain about these things? If our child were seriously struggling with a sin, could we advise him or her what to do? Could we take his hand and lead him to the throne of grace? Could we reveal to him what the death and resurrection of Christ means to a sinner's heart? What would our children's life of faith and following of Christ be if only the example we saw at home and the teaching we heard at home were the only way to educate them? And yet, wherever they go to school, whatever reputable or pernicious influences they may be exposed to elsewhere, it is at home that they are most influenced! I am often struck by the eerie similarity I see in my children of some of my movements, some of my words, some of my character. Parents do not take seriously enough the responsibility of acknowledging that their children's souls are like a secret camera or gramophone, unconsciously recording and reproducing what they see and hear. If the people in your house do not see and hear Christ at home, how can they believe in Him?
Do you value the salvation of the people of your house? Well, do you know where it begins? It starts there, that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! Thus says the Word of God: 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and both you and the people of your house will be saved' (Acts 16:31) A missionary who had returned home on leave was asked by someone when he was on an evangelistic tour at home: 'What is easier, evangelising at home or among the Gentiles? The missionary replied: It is much easier among the heathen, because they do not think they know what Christianity is. It is to be feared that we know too well, too well, what Christianity is. And when we hear such a simple exhortation, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and both you and the people of your house will be saved," we think we are past that! But are we really over it, are you over it?
Do you really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? So the question is not whether you believe in God in general! Nor even whether you believe in Christ! That is, do you believe what is written about Him and what He taught to be true? All devils believe in Christ, that is, they acknowledge His person, His doctrine, to be true and amen. That is why Satan is afraid of Him. But the question is, do you believe in Christ? So it is a living faith by which you are connected to Christ, and He is connected to you, He flows into your life. It's like putting a sponge in water, the sponge is in the water and the water is in the sponge. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? But not as a teacher, poet, philosopher, social reformer, ideal - but as your personal Saviour, who for you, for you and in your place, took up the shame of the cross, the atonement for your sins! Whose blood cleanses your soul and your life from all sin! Believest thou, O thou, not only in His teachings, but in His holy Person, Who willingly undertakes to reveal, to live out His pure, true life in thee, if thou wilt, if thou wilt, if thou wilt let, if thou wilt ask? And if you will believe in Christ in such a way that the people of your house will recognize Jesus in your word, in your countenance, in your love, in your appearance, in your service, then the Prince of Life will slowly overpower the souls in your house. The Jesus who truly lives in you by faith cannot long be resisted by the people of your house!
Only you "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ", and then you can trust in the blessed promise of our Word that "both you and the people of your house shall be saved"!
Amen.
Date: 28 September 1947.
Lesson
5Móz 6,1-9