Intro to family relationships — A.J. Higgins

It may be helpful just to take a moment and adjust our expectations. This is not going to be a crash course in Christian psychology. We are not going to try to make sense of all the current theories that you can get from all of your different books relative to the psychology of marriage and the psychology of family.

We are going to look, hopefully, alone at the Word of God and see what the Word of God has to say. If you find me twisting scriptures to just make something that I think fit, then you either discount it or you call me to task on it.

If we cannot substantiate from the book in our hand every aspect of our family life, then we are failing to do what we ought to do before God. There will be lots of repetition because we will see that principles that apply in courtship, apply in marriage, and apply in raising children as well.

So we cannot pigeonhole somehow this is the way you act here, and this is the way you act there. You act this way at the assembly. You act this way at home. We will see that principles that have to do with godly living will pervade every relationship.

And as we consider relationships, we will see it will go beyond the broad scope simply of family, and we will see principles that should control and regulate how I treat you and how you treat me as brethren and sisters in Christ.

So the very simple conclusion from that is whether you are here and never intend to be married and or are beyond that and your family has grown and you think that the rest of life is just sailing on into the sunset, let me assure you that there is something for everyone in these meetings.

If nothing else, if nothing else, if it stirs you to pray for young couples, if it stirs you to pray for those who are seeking partners in life, if it gives you a sense of the burden that families feel raising children in today's world and drives you to your knees before God, then these meetings are of value to you and will be a benefit and blessing to the assembly.

I will do my very best to respect the time. In a sense, you are entrusting me with 60 minutes of your time, and I will try to respect that and appreciate it and use those moments wisely and not abuse them or go beyond the time you've allowed me.

I recall we had a dear brother, Mr. Frank Piercy, one of those unique evangelists now with the Lord. He said he went somewhere once and asked them how long he could preach. Well, they told him the meeting is over at 8 .30, and that's when we leave, but you can go as long as you want.

So I will try to respect the time and bring you in at 8 .30 as God helps, and if we have to leave some things out, we'll leave them out for questions and answers. So without it before us then, I want you just then to think first of all with me from what we have read about.

Every year, every election year, at least in America, the politicians invariably drag out an expression that is so hackneyed and so trite anymore, and they begin campaigning for family values. Family values.

That's the great buzzword at election time. Whoever can convince the electorate that they are for family values is the man who seems to be, you know, Mr. Clean, moral and upright, and just the man America needs for its current moral crisis.

Well, I am NOT here to sell you on family values, but I am here to sell you on the value of family. The value of family. The importance of family relative to God's assembly. So the first thing I want you to think of, I want you to think of the family as a teaching sphere, a teaching sphere for divine relationships.

Marriage as a Picture of Christ and His Bride

Let me first of all take you to the first one, and then we'll back up and I'll show you what I mean. If I were to, if this were a Bible reading and we had more interaction, I would ask you, what is the ultimate purpose for marriage?

I am sure we would get an interesting assortment of ideas. Someone might say, well, it's a great way to go through life in companionship, and that certainly seems wonderful, doesn't it? To have a companion through life and enjoy life together.

And I want to tell you, with the right companion, marriage is the greatest blessing God has in the natural sphere for individuals on earth. It is the grace of life. But that's not the ultimate reason.

Someone might say, well, it's a way of continuing the species of life being propagated upon earth. But anyone here that's gone through high school or college biology knows that God has been able in creation to have self-reproducing species that require no other help.

It could have been done that way, couldn't it have? Some might say, well, it's not just for that purposes, but maybe there are other purposes involved. Not only companionship and not only the idea of the continuation of the species, but for help in serving one another.

Yes, and it's there too. But I'm going to suggest to you that the ultimate purpose of marriage is for God to communicate truth that you and I would have never, never have dared think had God not told us.

Now, what do I mean? God's ultimate plan, God's ultimate design is a bride for his son before the world began. Chosen in Christ, the Lamb foreordained, the bride chosen, God's eternal plan to honor the object of his love, his son, to bring to his son a bride, to share and enjoy and have an eternal companion, God's ultimate purpose.

And God designed marriage, Ephesians 5, to give you and to give me insight into what that wonderful union will be. Please don't think that one day God woke up, and I speak reverently, that one day God woke up and said, now I wonder, how can I teach men and women something about what that wonderful union for eternity will be like?

Oh, yes, there's marriage. Maybe I can tweak it and make it fit. No, no, no. God's ultimate plan and purpose was a bride for his son and to give you and to give me some understanding of a wonder and a beauty and the unity and the closeness of that relationship.

He gave us upon earth marriage. So the first thing then we are beginning to see, I hope, is that it is the teaching sphere. Within family, there is a teaching going on that we should be learning. Not only do we see the ultimate purpose of marriage, but we see the unique privilege of fathers.

Fatherhood as a Revelation of God’s Fatherhood

The unique privilege of fathers. We read in Ephesians chapter 3 that Paul says he bowed his knee unto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom all fatherhood derives. Do you know where your fatherhood derives?

Do you know what your fatherhood should be taking character from? That fatherhood. You see, the first, the very first insight, the very first inkling that your child gets of what a father is like is when he or she looks up into your face and says, Father, Dad, whatever they call you, there's that relationship and they are beginning to learn what a father is like.

Again, that's the very reason God brought it about. God brought about not only marriage to give us an insight into that eternal, wondrous relationship, but he gave us fatherhood here upon earth to learn what his fatherhood is like.

Now, you'll forgive me. I promise you I will not lapse into first-person incidences very much during these meetings because I feel a failure in many ways. But at least this much I can tell you and tell you honestly.

When I stood in the delivery room and my firstborn child was suddenly in my arms, you know, kids talk about having an epiphany, you know, a sudden sudden change of heart. A sudden insight. When they put that little minutes old infant into my hands, and if someone asked me, do you love that child?

And then they would ask me, why do you love them? I couldn't have given them an answer why. I just realized it's mine. This is mine. And at that instant in time, I suddenly realized that's what he's like as a father.

That's what he's like as a father. Never, never really appreciated until I held that very first one of my own in my hands. And it wasn't for him. The child was only a minute old, scarcely. And suddenly I realized that's what his heart is like.

Regardless of anything, I'm his. He loves me. I've never done a thing for him that he should love me, just as that babe as only a minute old had never done a thing. A lot of kicks during the night to my wife and a lot of those other things that you women all know about hadn't done anything for a shed, and there was a lot of grief that lay ahead.

But it was mine. I loved it. Listen, you just look up at that father tonight and just be assured of this, no matter what. He loves. He loves to the end because you're his. That's what we learn about being a father.

Now, that's not something that is, you know, a shortcoming that other women can't have. You'll understand when I am speaking in these roles and these relationships that we all experience it in different ways.

But this is God's great program, the unique privilege for fathers. And then, of course, we didn't take time to read it, Paul's expression earlier in chapter 3, that united place within the household of brothers and sisters.

So that every human relationship, husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, every human relationship has been given to us to give us an insight and to teach us about a spiritual relationship.

See, that was God's ultimate purpose. Spiritually, that's the going thing for eternity. These are just the temporary which are to teach us in light of that day and in light of our own education. So the first thing then, as far as the value of family, it is a teaching sphere for sacred relationships.

The Home as a Training Ground for Children

But as well, it is a training ground for sanctified children. A training ground for sanctified children. The Word of God tells us, doesn't it, throughout, that the home should be where precepts are taught, the precepts of Scripture.

We could go back to Deuteronomy chapter 6. And Jehovah, as he speaks to his people there, he speaks about them that the Word of God being in their hearts, the Word of God being in their hand, the Word of God being spoken about in the home, the Word of God written over their habitations, the Word of God as frontlets controlling their horizons.

He says, this is what your home should be like, the Word of God. Now, there are pluses and minuses to coming to a place where you've never been. One of the pluses is, I don't know how things are here, so no one can accuse me of throwing stones.

Do not leave for Sunday school teachers what you should be doing in your home. Now, I'm not minimizing and demeaning the value of Sunday school work. It is a great, great blessing to the assembly. But don't just feel, well, it's their job to teach my children the Word of God.

It's their job to to make sure they know this book. No, God says in the home, in the home, it is where the precepts of Scripture are taught. Proverbs, you can hardly read Proverbs without being so conscious how the wise man is telling his son, responsible to to discipline your children, responsible to disciple your children, responsible to direct your children in life, give them the truth of God to control them and to guide them.

The Hebrew home was a home that was marked by by questions. What mean ye by the sacrifice? What mean ye by these stones? What mean ye by this service? What mean ye by these statutes? Now, let me ask you, parent, can you answer the questions or is it just, look, you know, that's that's just what they do over in the gospel hall.

Can you answer the questions? When they come up at the dinner table, when they come up with those family times of discussion, can you, is there a time for the children to ask questions? Can you answer them?

The family should be a place where their children are taught the precepts of Scripture, but also taught the principles of salvation. Timothy was told, or rather when Paul was writing to Timothy, how from a child you've learned the the sacred scriptures, the temple scriptures, which were able to make you wise unto salvation.

Precepts of salvation taught in a home. Yes, the majority of our children are saved in gospel efforts, saved during series of meetings or at gospel meetings, but the great matrix upon which the Spirit of God works are those scriptures that you are filling their minds with, those values you are embedding in their hearts beyond the reach of secular education and beyond the reach of a world that would try to dilute and diffuse everything you teach.

You teach the principles of God's salvation just as Timothy's parents, Timothy's mother did with him and seek by God's help to have your child preserved for God. But not only that, taught a pattern of service.

Teaching Children Service Through Parental Example

Where are children going to learn to be others-oriented? Now, I know, I am not trying for a moment, and you have a good reason to question me, I am not trying for a moment to make our children little Christians when they're unsaved.

You'll understand. I recognize we are speaking out of spiritual things, but where are they going to learn principles if they do not see them carried out in your life? Where is a child going to learn that it's important to serve others, that it's, this is the normal Christian life to care for others, to see others who are in need and meet that need, to seek to be helpful to others.

If a child is just taught that his world all revolves around him and never needs to think of anyone else, never needs to be concerned with someone else, they're going to see it in you first, going to see it in me first.

The vast majority, the vast majority of us are one of two things. We are either almost carbon copies of our parents, or we are exact opposites. We have either gone to the other extreme, or we are very similar.

Now, whether that's good or bad remains to be seen, but that is what is natural to us. But children are going to learn from the pattern seen in the home, from the character of your life, from what is obviously important to you.

I don't know, you know, what's the frenzy over here in this country. I know over with us, sports and sporting events and special things are major things, and you know, we sometimes say, you know, if if you say, well, you know, it's Super Bowl night.

We can stay home from the gospel meeting tonight. You think your children are going to somehow think that staying home from the meeting is just a rare occasion? Well, dad did it for that. I'll do it for this.

And if staying home from the meeting becomes a way of life, well, you know, if it's convenient, we'll go. Do you really think the assembly meetings are going to be that important to your children? You recall, don't you, that telling scene back in the book of Judges?

An angel has come to the wife of Manoah and that wise woman, as she hears the report from the angel relative to the birth of a child, Samson, she runs to get her husband and she brings her husband and Manoah comes to the angel and requests there, how shall we order the child?

The angel says to Manoah, of all that I told a woman, let her beware. She shall drink neither wine nor strong drink nor come in any dead body. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not worried about my wife.

I asked you about the child. Of all that I said, let her beware. Let her not come. You want a Nazarite child? Then you be a Nazarite. Okay, that's simple. I shouldn't say that's simple, but that's the principle.

You're going to have a Nazarite son and it will be because you'll be a Nazarite. You want your child to live for God? Let me ask you this. Would you be content? Would you consider your parenting a success?

If your child rose no higher in life for God than you are right now. Okay? Would you just sit back and think, thank God, thank God for that we brought someone into the world and here's a life that is making a mark for God.

Could you sit back? Could you look at your child or young adult, whatever they are? Would you be content at this moment in time if your child never rose higher than you are right now? Now, by the grace of God, they may.

But you and I have no right to expect it if we are not willing to live Nazarite lives. So it is a place where patterns of service are seen. But I want to add one other thing. It is a place where priority of subjection is taught.

Obedience and Submission Learned in the Home

Ephesians 6 has been a difficult portion for many people. Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long on the earth and so on. Now, most people have a difficulty that I do as well. I'll be honest with you.

We all know individuals who have been respectful, individuals who have sought to honor their parents, and it seemed to us in our reckoning that they were taken away prematurely. Taken away long before their days of usefulness were over.

So how do we understand Ephesians chapter 6 then? Some have suggested that it is the idea of a full life, not necessarily a long life. There is much in the Proverbs and elsewhere that would certainly be consistent with that.

To be full of days, not necessarily be living long, but to have carried out my purpose for God. Some would suggest to us that the stress really is not so much upon the fact that this holds true for us today, but this commandment is so important to Israel that God actually gave a promise with it.

That the stress is on the first commandment with a promise. It's so important that that's why it's listed this way. And there are some other explanations that are possible with it as well. I'm going to suggest a different one if I can.

That thy days may be long in the land. In the land. In other words, it was a corporate promise to the nation, not an individual promise to people. And what's the difference? What God is saying is if you will teach in your homes, if the Hebrews will teach in their homes this principle of subjection and obedience, then that is going to spill over to the nation and the nation as a whole will be marked by obedience and by subjection to the Word of God.

If they learn subjection and obedience in the home, then it will be a small thing to transfer that to God. But if they never learn obedience or subjection in the home, then they'll never learn it towards God.

And I will spew them out of the land. What happened to Israel? What is the sad tale the spirit of God has written over the history of that nation? God had to spew them out. A whole heart is sick. God had to just take them into captivity.

Let me bring it down to today. If you have allowed your child free reign, well, you know, we can't restrain him. The idea of today is free expression. He's got to reach his peak. He's got to find fulfillment in himself and self-expression.

And he has never learned to obey, never learned to submit. If by some miracle, God saves that child and now they come into assembly fellowship, do you think they're suddenly going to learn to submit? To obey?

Life has for them been one constant, boundless, fenceless, limitless, freedom to do whatever self-will wants to do. So Paul is telling us, family, not assembly. Family is where obedience and submission are first learned.

And if it's not learned there, the great likelihood is it will never be learned. We have enough mavericks. I don't know if you use that expression here. We have enough freelancers. We don't need more in God's assembly.

That doesn't mean we need cowed people who just go around saying yes to everything. That is not the idea of submission. My children should be able to come to me and respectfully question my authority.

And we seek to teach our young people in the assembly, it is your responsibility, if you differ with the oversight, to respectfully come and question what we were doing. And if we can't give you the Word of God for it, then we've got to go into the presence of God and get it.

Nothing wrong with teaching people to respectfully question authority. That's far different than in-your-face type of attitude. But subjection and respect is taught in the home. So it is first of all then, as time is going, the teaching sphere for sacred relationships, a training ground for sanctified children, a testing site for spiritual promotion.

The Home as a Testing Ground for Spiritual Leadership

The home is a testing site for spiritual promotion. I'm going to hurriedly go through this because for our sisters it's a place of her ultimate usefulness as she, according to 1st Timothy and Titus 2, as she is the ruler of the home and the keeper of the home, and she is raising her children, it gives her that confidence then as she comes to Titus chapter 2 to teach the younger sisters.

She's finding her sphere of service. She's finding her usefulness for God in the home, save through childbearing, which we'll look at another night. But Titus chapter 2, she is instructed in light of her experience now to teach the younger women with their children and their husbands and so on.

It is certainly a training sphere for our sisters. Her potential is seen there and likewise her privilege according to 1st Corinthians chapter 11. But let me come to its relationship to our brethren and the home as seen as a testing site for spiritual promotion.

1st Timothy chapter 3, Titus chapter 1, the home should be a place where there is a proper display of loyalty. The expression that is often debated in Bible readings and discussed, the husband of one wife.

I think a man can be married and not be the husband of one wife. That word, that expression to me, if I understand it in the original language, carries with it the thought of a one woman man, a one woman man, a man whose affections are for one woman alone, not a flirt, doesn't need to get, you know, all the vibes from the other sisters about what a wonderful person he is and has to flatter them to get something back, doesn't trifle with other people, but his affections are loyal to one woman.

God says the man that is going to lead my assembly, the men who are going to be in the forefront representing me and leading me, if they are going to be faithful to me, they have to learn to be faithful in the home to one person there.

One woman man. See, the home becomes the site then where loyalty is tested. If I can't be loyal to my wife, and I'm not speaking of immorality or infidelity, you don't know what, I hope you understand where I'm coming from.

I am speaking of affections which are pure. For one person alone, if I can't be faithful and loyal to someone whom I have seen. How can I be loyal to someone who I have not seen? Loyalty being tested in the home, but he tells us as well in First Timothy, Chapter three, not only is there the proper display of loyalty, but there is the proper administration of leadership.

If he know not how to rule his own home, how shall he take care of the church of God? So if I can't lead with two or three children, how can I possibly lead God's assembly with 40 or 50? You learn reality in the home.

You know, you start out with your children to go all these wonderful rules, and you know the answers to every problem in life, and you know what everyone should be doing, and you've watched everyone else make all their mistakes, and you're not going to make those mistakes, and you've got it all down pat, and along comes number one, and it all seems to work.

And along comes number two, and it's a whole new world. I am so thankful I had more than one child. I would have loved to have had more. We had two. That's what the Lord gave us. But if I had only one, I would have thought I had all the answers.

You know, number one, if she misbehaved, you looked at her, and, you know, she kind of backed off, kind of put her head down, almost started to cry, and the issue was done. Number two, you looked at her, and she just looked back, you know, and you looked at her, and she looked at you, you know, and you would say, no, don't do it, and she would do it, you know, and you'd punish her, go back, do it again.

And, you know, it was suddenly, you know, where's the rule book? It doesn't fit. And suddenly, you're faced with having to learn how to lead in situations that just don't fit the rules. Well, Paul says, if a man doesn't know how to take care of his own home, can't learn leadership skills and ability dealing with those he has such a vested interest in, then God says, I'm not going to commit to your care those I have a vested interest in.

I've got a vested interest in that assembly, and I want to make sure, if you can't take care of those you have a vested interest in, I am not going to commit to your hand those I have such a vested interest in.

So it is a place, then, where leadership is learned, but also it's a place where there is a proper consistency of life, of life. He says, look, it's not a matter just that when you are with the assembly, you have the right suit on, right color combination and right tie and smile at the right people and shake hands and say the right thing.

And then when you go home, you're someone else. No, he says. Home life is going to give character to assembly life, a proper consistency of life. One of the greatest, if not the greatest stress on our reality is what we are at home, what we are at home.

It is relatively now, it's not always, but it is relatively easy to put a good front on. For an hour, three times a week, however often you meet, relatively easy to slip in and out amongst the believers and everything look good on the surface.

Paul says there's got to be loyalty to one wife. There's got to be leadership ability with your own family. There's got to be a life that is consistent at home as well as before the believers. That's why he calls it the training ground for spiritual promotion.

Christian Homes as Public Testimonies

Let me come to this home then as a testimony publicly for scriptural order. Divine order in a world of disorder, holy homes in an unholy world. We could speak for great length on those themes, but if nothing else, 1st Timothy five, the care of the widows and a person caring for his own family.

His own widows and Titus chapter two and the care of women for their own families and so on. All of those bring in, and this is not extraneous, you go to those portions and read it for yourself. They all bring in this, that the word of God be not blasphemed, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.

He is saying to us time and again, the way a home is conducted is either going to lead to reproach for the gospel or it is going to adorn the gospel. The way your home is functioning in the neighborhood, in the district, as people look on and see how you carry on your family life.

That is either going to be a plus or a minus for the testimony of God that meets here. You know, we cannot, psychologists teach us to pigeonhole our lives. You know that in your business life, you've got to put that up here and don't let that interfere with your family life over here and your religious life over here and your leisure time over here.

So you can be anything you want to be over here in your business life, just so long as you don't use those principles in your religious life. Paul's saying, sweep away the pigeonholes. There is no such thing.

We are in our homes bringing either reproach or honor upon the testimony of God and upon the name of God. I noticed recently, and there isn't time to go into this, you can look at it for yourself. If you go back to Leviticus chapter 23 and that wonderful unfolding of God's religious calendar for his people, you go through that and you notice how often these words occur in my dwellings, in my dwellings, in my dwellings.

God is saying, in effect, I want the big thing, the spiritual to permeate and control what goes on in your homes. And then he says elsewhere, I would take it at least there are two things that are mentioned as being made in the home and brought out.

Speaks about the new meal offering being made in the home and being brought. And the weaving for the tabernacle was made in the homes and brought. You see, there was that which is being contributed from home life into the assembly life, into the collective worship of the company as well.

So you can understand then all that is there. Let me take this a step further, and I would hope that you'll take this the right way. Some may differ with me. I don't think there is anything wrong with inviting your children's friends from school to come and have a meal at your home or inviting the neighbors in for a meal, just so long as you have the right reason for it.

Let them see what a Christian home is like. You know, there are children that your children rub shoulders with at school. That hardly know what it is to sit at a table with two parents and have a meal, had never in all their life had someone bow their head and thank God for a meal, never seen it, never heard of it.

What are we doing? They would say, giving thanks to God. Your children just do it from day one. Take it for granted. You know, somewhere around a year and a half or two, they begin learning how to just kind of cover their eyes and bow their heads.

And it's just natural that they would not think anything else goes on in the world. But there's a whole world out there that has no idea of it. Don't be afraid to have them come in and see what a Christian family is like.

You'll be surprised. I know elsewhere where, you know, sometimes children get to that awkward age where they begin to get embarrassed by it. And one was making an apology to a friend and the friend said, what he said, that was neat.

That was that was tremendous that we all sat together and had a meal. Our home should be testimonies, even in these simple ways. We take so for granted a home as a target for satanic attack. Satan is demanding your children demanding mine.

Satanic Attacks on Children, Marriage, and the Home

Centuries earlier, Egypt said, we want your children sacrificed to our God in the river. Every first born son. In the river. You can trace through the Old Testament. What different nations sought to do with the people of God.

Egypt sought to engulf their sons. Midian sought to entice them and to entertain them. Babylon said in Daniel one, we will educate them. Assyria said, we will enslave them. Ancient nations may have passed, but.

Since behind it all was the strategy of Satan, it hasn't changed. Engulf them in the world, entertain them in the world. Educate them in the world, enslave them to the world. It wants your children in mind.

Now, I know I sent two girls to college. I realize I am. I would be hypocritical to stand here and rail against education and rail against preparing our children for the world. The great thing is, what is the motive?

Is it just to prepare them for the world so they can get through? Or is it because we want them to excel? We want them to be the greatest and we're going to push them to the limits. Maybe fulfilling our own frustrated fantasies.

Because we couldn't, you are. Danger. The world wants your children, demands them. Satan also not only demands our children, but he divides spouses. He divides spouses. You know what is tremendously searching?

And if time permits, we'll touch on this another night. He will take. Now, mind you. He will take the most spiritual exercise. First Corinthians chapter seven, where two people agree for a period of time.

To give themselves to a spiritual exercise. Paul says Satan will tempt you for your incontinency. He will take the most spiritual exercise to drive a wedge between married couples. Now, if he can do it with the most spiritual, you just imagine what he can do with everything else in between.

He's out to divide spouses because he knows if he can touch a home, he will eventually touch the assembly. There are very, very few homes that are destroyed. Very, very few marriages that are wrecked.

That do not have a week that the assembly feels at some time or another in its trail. He will demand our children. He will divide spouses. He will discredit testimony. He will disseminate error. He will divert from spiritual priorities in the home.

Family Life as a Means of Personal Transformation

The time is gone. I just want to mention one other area. In which the family is of tremendous value, it can be the transformer. For all of our selfish ways, there is nothing that so makes me conscious of how selfish I am as a human being.

As marriage and family. I'm ashamed to tell you that. I am ashamed after now 37 years of marriage to tell you. I still discover how selfish I am. In my. Spousal relationship. That's where I say it. That's what.

Is so humbling and drives one to their knees to God for for grace. Oh, to change and to have grace to not be that way. In the. Context. Maybe that's a poor word. In the safety. And the permanency. Of an unconditional love.

Between a husband and wife. There is every liberty to change. And as I realize that. Then I begin to realize in the safety and security of an unconditional relationship with God. That's the place I have liberty for change.