The Blueprint of Your Home — Abner Kauffman

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Oh, Heavenly Father, thank you for that. God, you smoke me. I know I love my home, Lord. I love my children. But God, my priorities are not always right. Thank you for speaking to me. God, I pray that you would speak to us this afternoon.

Oh, Lord, let it be a simple, plain, what could I say, Lord? Just a simple, plain message. You know the battle I have with pride at times. God, take that away and break my heart and humble me for the glorious things that you have done.

In Christ's name, Amen. You may be seated. I would like to get started very quickly. I have something I'd like to talk this afternoon, and I tend not to be able to put it together like I'd like to, to make it concise.

But my brother here is going to put something up in the front here, and some of you may have seen this already. I don't know, but I'm making no apologies. I'd just like to use this as a sort of a guide to us.

The Biblical Blueprint for the Home

If you would turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 24, I'm going to speak on the blueprint of your home. And I use the word your carefully. Before we read this scripture, I'd like to tell you a little something.

I debated this forenoon as I was sitting back here whether I should say it or not, and I just felt that I had to say it. My wife and I, as I said yesterday, I'm not sure whether I said it here or whether I said it in my prayer group, but my wife and I are in a business at home, and we wanted to build a new home because somebody had asked to buy our home where we lived in.

And on our property, we wanted to build a new house. And knowing that my wife had been very patient, the days we were farming in Mifflin County, we had bought a farm up there just to get through this very quickly, which the house was in very poor shape.

The only insulation we had was bird nests because of the holes that the birds could crawl in. And we bought a poor farm because when I was converted, my father disinherited me, so I didn't have any, like some former Mennonites, I had nothing to go back to, and I had to come up with something.

And I wanted to farm, and I bought this farm, my wife and I did, a very cheap farm. The ground was pretty run down, and the buildings were in terrible shape. And we moved on there and moved into this little house.

And my wife, my wife being the beautiful person she is, it was good enough for her. And we lived in that, and the Lord led us on to the point where we came where we are now in Bedford County. And I told her, well, I said, let's build a new house.

And I would have built, I'm not a builder. I'm not, to me a house is not a, is something, the home is the thing that to me is important. But you know our wives, they like a nice house. Now, what I did is I went and got some blueprint books from Lowe's Lumberyard.

I don't know if you know what they are or not, surely some of you do. And I got a blueprint book, and I took this to my wife and the daughter that's living at home with us. This was just a year and a half ago or so.

And I told my wife, I said, Anna, I would like you and Violet to look in this book. I don't know much about it. And find something in a decent price range where you feel the layout is what you would like to have.

And then I'd like to get some builders to build this. And they did that, and I looked at the pictures. And yeah, it's nice where I could put, this is the living room, here's the kitchen. But I didn't realize, I didn't realize, you know the Bible says, who's going to build a counter, a tower, and not count the cost of it?

I preached a message at home not long ago, and the title of my message was, What does it cost to be a disciple? Well, going back to my house, I looked at this, and I thought, well that looks pretty grand.

So I got the carpenter, and I showed him the figures here. Of course, being the carpenter, he knew exactly what it is. I mean, I showed him the blueprint that was in that book. And he said, yes, we can build that.

I said, well, go ahead. And when he started putting the trusses on that house, I said, what am I doing? I mean, the trusses were every which way. And my idea of a nice house is a square house with a roof and not a whole lot of complications.

And I'm not that stupid. I had seen that the rooms were a little like they are, but I had no idea this thing was going to look like this. And I'd like to tell you something. There's a lot of us people that start with our homes, and our blueprints are entirely wrong.

Now, we're living in the house, and we like it. But it's just a little more house than I really feel we need. Maybe I'm making a confession. You know, we are told that we're to be strangers and pilgrims, and a lot of us are just strange pilgrims.

That's all we are. And I look at this thing, and it's something that I've learned to live with, and I live in it. But I would like to this afternoon, as quickly as I can, because I have a race with that clock.

But I'd like to tell you that I believe you and I, as husbands, as fathers, need to have a blueprint in mind. We need to have a goal. We need to have a vision for our home. I'm going to read you something, and this is the work of God.

A brother came to me in the break, in the lunch break. I wasn't up in the eating part, and so he came to me, and he said, Brother, he said, I have something I'd like to give you. And when I read that, I thought, oh, what a message.

Listen to this. This is not mine. Yes, I'm going to claim it now. What's the problem with our world? We have a weak nation because we have a weak government. We have a weak government because we have weak society.

We have a weak society because we have weak people. We have weak people because we have weak churches. We have weak churches because we have weak families. Is that enough? No, brethren, we have weak families because we have weak fathers.

Oh, please, Abner, you gave me enough yesterday, not more today. We have weak fathers. And brethren, I'm going to tell you this afternoon, my home, as I look back, and the turmoil of earning a living and having little children one after the other, and being poor and struggling in some of these things, it can take your vision of your home and destroy it unless it's planned and solid in Christ Jesus.

Now, God is able to do marvelous things with your home. Don't be discouraged. I had some marvelous, or some, I don't know what to call it, blessed responses from the message yesterday afternoon. And I hope the brother that's here will bear with me.

I'm not going to say your name. But he said, Abner, I'm scared to get married. I blessed him. What a way to start. But these young men that think they've got it all packed together and they've got it all together and this is how my marriage is going to be.

I say, ooh. You know why? Because there are so many hidden areas that we don't know about. And so when a brother comes to me like this, I am encouraged. I am encouraged. Alright, we need to get going.

Marriage, Sorrow, and the Choices of a Father

Deuteronomy chapter 24. What do you want in your marriage? Listen to this. Verse 5, When a man hath taken a wife, a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business, but he shall be free at home one year and, listen, shall cheer up his wife.

I didn't do that. I don't know if you did. I tried to cheer up my wife. I blew that somewhat. But I tell you, brethren, I believe this is still a beautiful recipe, if I may use that carnal word, for us in the marriage.

Now, I'd like to turn to another one that I found in Ruth chapter 1. I'd like to read this one in Ruth. And I want these to stay with us today because I'm giving you the choice. No, I'm not giving you the choice, but I'm showing you what can happen.

In Ruth, we have this. Before we read it, I'm going to ask you a question. What does Marah mean? That's right. Now, let's read this. We have the account of Noah coming with her daughter-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, coming back, going back to...

And as they went, it says in verse 19, until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem that all the city was moved about them. And they said, Is this Naomi? And she said, Naomi.

And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi. Call me Marah. For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full. And the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi? I'd like to ask you fathers, do you want to be called because of the situation of your home?

And a lot of you know it. My three oldest... I have six daughters. But my three oldest daughters all lost their husbands. My oldest daughter lost her husband. They were missionaries in Honduras. She picked up a disease there and he died.

He was 34 years old. My second daughter and her husband were sent to Africa, Liberia, Africa, and he wasn't over there very long before he got a tremendous headache and they sent him home and he had a tumor in his brain and he died.

My third daughter, in age I'm saying, he was 39. My third daughter lives here. They went to church here. And he had a problem with his heart and one morning my daughter called me. She said, Dad, daddy's not breathing.

He died. Now, I have a choice as a father. Three times God. Am I going to be able to call my daughters Naomi? Or am I going to call them Marah? Marah. You have a choice, brethren. You don't have a choice how your things and situations are going to happen in your marriage.

Yes, you do to some extent. But you have a choice in the things that happen in your marriage to be called Marah or Naomi. You have that choice. My wife and I, and praise God my daughters, have taken the choice.

Bless God. And I know that every one of my daughters loved their husbands. They had a good marriage. And today I say this because this is a men's group here. My daughters aren't here. But I am so blessed at how my daughters, not without tears, not without coming to daddy sometimes, but how they face life.

Naomi! Instead of Marah. And I want you this afternoon, as we go through this home, I would like us all to realize that it's not irreparable. Your home may be a mess. I don't know. And I want you to...

And I'm going to say something quickly. I'm not an architect. I just drew what I would call a blueprint here. And I'm going to go through those rooms and through those things here. I'm in no sense, am I trying to tell you, that you follow the things that I teach this afternoon.

You know we have back here, and I tell you brethren, it's hard for me to come in here in this building and preach about the home when I know that back there is the Godly Home Series. And it's hard for me when I realize that there is all kinds of writers writing about marriages and homes and things like that.

And I look at my home and the messes I have made. It's hard for me. And yet, it's a gladness that I do it. Because maybe you can learn from some of my mistakes that I have made. And something else I'd like to say, lest I forget it.

Avoiding Imitation and Building a Distinctively Christian Home

Don't go copying the... Denny, please hear me out. Don't go copying the Home Series. Don't go copying Michael Pearl. Don't go copying Larry Christensen and whoever else. Copying to the extent that you're going to set them on a pedestal and you're going to do just what they did.

It will not work. I try to tell young families that. You know sometimes a preacher gets up and a young preacher came to our church years ago. And he was a fireball. And somebody told him, you're imitating so-and-so.

I'm not going to say who he was trying to imitate. And he came to me weeping. He said, what should I do? I said, you be yourself. Don't you listen to those people. Yes, you listen to them, but don't let it affect you.

And brethren, I'm going to tell you that this afternoon. Your children are uniquely yours. Something I want to say quickly. I don't want to talk about child training. I'm going to hit some of it. But your children are uniquely yours.

Your home is not Abner's old, hatted, crazy blueprint up here. It's a complete other home. But maybe we can take some lessons. Maybe we can... Oh, I tell you, you know what I thought? I sat here this forenoon, and I was so blessed by these messages and so condemned.

And I thought now, Abner, you're going to get up there and talk about the home and spoil it all. And then, just out of curiosity, I turned back to... I use a Thompson Chain reference. And I turned back to the Thompson Chain reference, and something, God showed me something.

Do you realize, I'm just saying it for what it's worth, that the topic of the home in the Thompson Chain reference eats up five pages. Back in the references. The topic of the Holy Spirit eats up one and three quarter page.

Is it important? I was intending to think, you know, well, in a gathering like this, shouldn't we? And I love to preach about Jesus Christ. And here I'm going to preach on the home. And then God said, Abner, that's important too.

And I believe it is. But I was tempted to feel that I'm getting, you know, I'm getting second best out here to you, brother. But I don't want to do that. Alright. Let's look at your home. Dr. Campbell Morgan.

I read one time, and you'll have to forgive me. I do a lot of reading. I get confused with the author sometimes. But I think it was Dr. Campbell Morgan's father said, or he wrote that when he and his wife got married, they got this little house to live in.

You know how it is. My wife and I, I told you yesterday, had this little trailer at Harrisburg State Hospital. And you know, it's not much, but it's ours. It's ours. And so Dr. Campbell Morgan says that he was so happy with his home, and his father came to visit him.

And then his father took a walk. He said, Dad, I want to show you our house. And he took him all the way through the house. And when he came out to the front door again, he said, Dad, what do you think of my house?

Well, he said, Son, it's very interesting. It's very interesting. But he said, you know, Son, if a person would come into this house who would not know that you are a child of God, what did he see in here that would show that you are a child of God?

And Campbell Morgan said later, or wrote later, that it just deflated his balloon. And I tell you, brethren and sisters, if your home does not show Jesus Christ, and I'm not talking of your house. I'm talking of your home.

If your home does not show Jesus Christ, and you can run home after tomorrow and put all kinds of mottoes and stuff on the wall. That's not what I'm talking about. Though they are good. But your home, and your home can be a shack, or it can be a big mansion.

I'm not critical. But if your home does not show Jesus Christ, it may show that you love back to earth people. It may show that you don't like anything, no flowers around. It may show that you want a cheerful house.

But if it doesn't show Jesus Christ, you're cheating someone. I'm talking of our life in the home. Alright, let's go on. Oh, I've got so many... I shouldn't sit in a seminar like this before I preach, because I get so many things coming.

Christlike Witness and Spiritual Influence Within the Home

When Brother Denny talked about a flight, going on a flight, and here's something I've told other people about this, but it was such a shocker to me. I was flying from Houston one time, home from Houston a few years ago, and there's this young girl come on the airplane, sat down right next to her.

Her designated seat was next to me. She was 18 years old. You say, how do you know? Because I ask her. I like to talk. And I don't like to sit in a flight and stare at movies or stuff. I like to talk to somebody.

And so she sat beside me, and we were going a little bit, and then I asked her, I said, where is she going? And she was a very friendly girl. And she told me, well, she's coming back from El Paso, and she was out there with her boyfriend who was in the army.

She was out there with him for the weekend. And I said, oh, I see, I see. And then I said, are you a Christian? Do you love the Lord Jesus? And she just looked down. And this has to do with Moses' message this morning.

She looked down and then she said, you know, sir, when I was a little girl, I was five years old, I went to Sunday school, and my Sunday school teacher said that if we raise our hand for Jesus Christ, we will never have to go to hell.

And she said, I guess that's... Does that make me a Christian? I tell you, I got a vehement, righteous... I hope it was righteous... indignation at that topic that Brother Moses was hitting this morning.

Now, I believe we people need to be careful. I don't want to get sidetracked from the home. We need to be careful, because we tend to get off balance and the sovereignty of God is lost. But I tell you what, and I had a talk with that girl, and then she was just so open.

And then she said this. She said, are you a married man? I said, yes. I said, I have seven children. Hey, that's not much. I found out this week. My dad had 14. And I know there's some God is blessed with more.

You hear what I said? God is blessed. I want to hit that today a little bit. We have seven, I told her. And she said, how long were you married? And at that time it was 41 or something like that years.

I said, whatever it was, I told her, I don't remember right. And she said, to one woman? I mean, she said it almost like I did. To one woman. Brethren, I learned two lessons. I learned the horribleness of the doctrine of unconditional, eternal security.

And I learned the blessing of Christ Jesus in the home. And I won't preach anything else but that. My wife told me this morning, she was here, by the way, last evening. And my wife told me this morning, just before I left, she said, oh, dad, God has been so good.

And I don't deserve it. Well, alright. There are things in your home that need to show forth Jesus Christ. Now the Bible tells us, wisdom hath builded her house. Wisdom hath built her house. And she hath hewn out her seven pillars.

Now we can go and try to figure seven pillars together. And I've done that already. I've preached wedding messages on the seven pillars of wisdom in the home. But brethren, your pillars may be different ones than mine.

There are some things, you know, I have a message I've preached a few different times, found back in chapter 8 of Romans, that I call the four pillars for the Christian. And I love that message. I love to preach it.

It's so encouraging. And I'd like to preach about pillars in the Christian home. But that's not really my message this morning. So we're going to take a walk through a house. You know, David said, when he was pursued by Saul's army, he said, oh, he said, oh, and I don't understand all that.

I'm not quite sure. You know, I've said already that some fathers, and it almost makes me... I realize my wife is a better cook than my mother ever was. No, I don't want to say ever. Yes, I guess so. My wife is a good cook.

Very good cook. You can see it. But I have been very puzzled at some of these fathers who, after living 20 or 30 years with a wife, have been able to say to their wife, well, yeah, that pumpkin pie is good, but it don't taste like my mother's.

I'll tell you something. You don't remember a taste of a pumpkin pie for 30 years. I don't believe you do. And furthermore, you are defaulting your wife. And I hear this. But I want to say about David.

And I didn't intend to use this for David. But David was there, and he said, oh, for a drink of the water of the well in Bethlehem. And I would like, if each of us here today has that longing for our home tomorrow evening, that they are willing to brave the battles of life to go back to that well in Bethlehem.

Not all of you can have your wife coming like mine did this week. All right. Ready to go? Let's take a look at this blueprint. Now the first thing that I have down here, and I don't know if you can see the numbers.

Maybe you can't. I'll try to explain it. I just wanted to do something to give you an idea. And please, again I'm going to tell you, you might never design your home like I did. I just want you to have a Christ-centered, good, beautiful, wonderful Christian home.

It's possible. Oh, I want to encourage you. It's possible. I have worked with people in homes, in their home life, in their marriage life, and in the things that are going on in their home. And there's nothing worse, like Denny was saying this morning, than just to quit.

It's a terrible thing if you just quit. So don't quit. You say, but Abner, you don't understand. I know I don't. But God does. I don't understand. I don't even profess to understand. The foundation. Mennonites love that verse that Mennonites claimed as one of His favorite verses.

But they still don't know how to build a foundation too many times. And I said, Mennonites, I say that for all of us. But I'm going to tell you that I, even though my wife and I, and here I go, my wife and I did not build on this foundation.

Somehow. Well, I'm going to say this. The foundation. What on what is your home built? Is it built on love? And you know that we're sort of cheated in the English language, because Greek actually has four terms for love.

And we in the English have one. And I'm not going to go into that. That's not my cry today. But we can say our home is built on love. My wife and I fell in love. I want to correct something I said yesterday.

I told you about this thing of dim lights and candle lights and it's romantic. And maybe I thought when I left, or last night when I was home, or when I was at my daughter's place, I thought maybe I left the impression to you brethren, that this isn't romantic.

I guess it's maybe not quite my idea that that's going to bring, shoot some kind of strange feelings through me to be in a dark place. Maybe I gave that impression. There are things that my wife loves.

And one of them is candle light. And so I have learned I need to be romantic. Pretty hard for a loud mouth like me, you know, to feel romantic. No, it's not hard. The idea is that we have different ideas, you know.

And I just wanted to correct that. If you and your wife can just get closer by sitting under candle light, God bless you, I'll bring the candles. Because I think it can be a beautiful thing. That's not really what I meant to say.

My biggest problem was the light situation. And so let's think about this. What is your home built on? You know, the world today is getting married on the foundation of love. And now, as somebody was telling me not long ago, they have computer programs that Tim LaHaye might like, I don't know, where it measures your temperaments.

And if you're melancholy with so much of this, and there's four of them, I made a study on it and I forget it. And you have this and that and those and that and that and that, and that fits. Let me tell you something.

That can also cause a big accident. Because it's still selfish. And so the foundation of the home is Jesus Christ. And I praise God that my Heavenly Father took my wife and I, and we've often talked about it.

I'll just say this. My wife and I did not have fights before we were converted. I loved my wife. I'm ashamed. I bow my head in shame. You know what I told my wife? I was an obsessed hunter. Yesterday I told you I smoked cigarettes.

I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. And I told my wife, after I had asked her if she would marry me, I said no. And she had said, let's try it. No, she didn't say it that way, but she agreed. Then I told her, I said, Anna, I had two sins in my youth that were horrible.

Three, four, five. But two that were a real hard one to give up. And they were my cigarettes and gambling. I was a diseased gambler. And before we got married, I decided, I had come back into the church and this has to stop.

But I told my wife, I said, Anna, I smoke and I go hunting. And this is not just deer hunting. This is not just rifle hunting. This was the whole scenario. And my brother had married before I did. And I said, I don't want a wife like his.

Because she constantly controlled him here and there. And so I thought, I'm going to lay the foundation. Do you know something, brethren? When I came to the Lord Jesus Christ, those two things, after confessing my horrible sin and sin life, my sins and the sinner that I was, those two things, the Lord brought right to my door.

Nobody came and talked to me about it. The Lord brought it to my door. He had ways of doing it. I shouldn't say nobody talked to me. I was in church one night and the preacher, Uri Shetler, many of you wouldn't know him.

That man was a spark in my young Christian life, years ago, in the 60's. And that man was preaching a message and he said in his message that he was hunting up on the mountain and he loved the Lord. And he said all at once, it was almost like an audible voice.

And the voice was from God and it said, Uri, I called you to hunt souls, not deer. And my wife told me later, she didn't tell me that night, praise God, but she sat there and she told me later, she said, oh Abner, do you hear that?

I went home and I got my gun cabinet, my pistols, my bow, my arrows, my shotguns, my rifles, and we didn't have eBay, but I had an eBay sale. I sold everything. Please, brethren, if you love to go out there and hunt, I'm telling you, if you're obsessed with it, you better deal with it.

But the foundation, I have to get off of this one, but you need the solidness of the love of Jesus Christ in your home. You need that. I don't care, brethren and sisters, you can work a lot of other things out.

When that's there, you can work it out. Alright, the second one is the porch. You know, we're walking into this house, and please, you understand what I'm doing. I'm not telling you how to build a house.

The Porch: Hospitality as a Christian Witness

I'm telling you how I have seen things in having a home. A home, not a house, a home. And so you come on the porch. Well, you know, the porch is the place where you welcome your people or your guests.

This is a part of the godly home. It's hospitality. I believe we can do no greater favor to our home, brethren, than to teach yourself, first of all, help your wife find a balance in this, and if you have children, to let your children know what is godly hospitality.

It is a need. I tell you, I travel here and there, we have people at home, they never go any place, and it's hard for them to know the blessings of hospitality in the home. There's five places, if I'm not mistaken, where the Lord directs us, and I'm going to say, commands us, to be given to hospitality.

I've related this story, and I'm going to repeat it to this group of men, to my own shame. I was in a church in Wisconsin, Sheldon, Wisconsin, probably 11, 12... No, it's... Yes, it is. It's more than that.

It's 15 years ago. And I preached a message on hospitality. One message. You know, you didn't think I could spend an hour preaching on hospitality. I did. I went home. We were remodeling our old house.

I was down in the basement. I was working down there. I was busy. My daughter, who goes to church here, wanted to get married. And I wanted this finished. And I'm an impatient man. And I was down here working, and Anna opened the staircase and said, Abner, there's someone up here that wants to see you.

We talk Pennsylvania Dutch, Anna and I. And I was down in the basement, and I thought, oh, these guys want to sell me something and I don't want to buy anything. And my impatience came up, and I said, in Pennsylvania Dutch, Anna...

I almost said it in Dutch, I don't have time. Who is it? Then she said, it's somebody that was a preacher in the church in Wisconsin where you were. Oh, okay. I goes upstairs, and I come out the door, and, brother, it's so good you came to see us.

Well, he didn't understand Pennsylvania Dutch. You know what he said? Wie bist, Abner? I never will forget that. I'm not forgetful to entertain strangers. I have two, if you notice on here, a front porch and a back porch.

Sometimes we can easily show hospitality on the front porch. But what if that dirty looking bum comes around and he comes at the back door? What if the neighbor over here whom you see his life and you're not interested in it, we should be, but we aren't, he comes to the back door?

The same thing stands. What is our hospitality? May I say this, brethren? In my life as a minister and my life at home, I am convinced that hospitality in the church of God and in the homes of godly people is going to mean more to your neighbors than all your...

I'm not throwing that away, but in all your preaching and all that kind of thing. Because it is not natural. For the natural man... You know, the Bible says, that am dierlich mensch, vernimmt nichts vom Geist Gottes.

I like the German, by the way. And what it means is the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit. But he will understand hospitality. It will open up his heart. Oh, when I hear the testimony this dear brother gave, I think of that.

Now, here was a boy and a girl. Well, I better not get sidetracked. But they came from a home and they were seeking love. And that's what a lot of people are looking for. Can we show it? Number three.

Oh, I want to say one more thing. I wrote some things down so I don't forget them. I was at a place one time... I'm giving you some don't-do-its. I was at a place in Indiana one time and I was told to go to this certain house for the noon meal.

I was having me. I came to this house and there was nobody around. And so I went up and I knocked on the door and all at once I heard a lot of scares scurrying around inside. And I heard the mother in the house say, Girls, the preacher is here!

I mean in that type of tone. I didn't know. You know, I have a tendency to sit in the house and I don't like to lock the house. My wife, where we live, it's not the best maybe just not to keep everything unlocked.

But I like to sit in the house and I'm one of those if I'm sitting down and somebody knocks at the door, I come on in! My wife says, That's not real hospitality. And I think she's right. Get up and go over to the door and open the door and say, But I thought that's hospitality.

You know, just let your hair down. Come on in. Hospitality. Number three. The living room. This is the place in the Christian home where, as I just said, you let your hair down. Brethren, I'm going to tell you something.

The Living Room: Communication, Affection, and Discipline

If your Christian home, and let me use this term, in the living room is a tense place where there is friction, where you can almost feel attitudes. If you have children, I want to say that those children are going to become very insecure or very rebellious.

You say, Why? I'm sorry to tell you this. But that was my parents' home. My father, in his early years, my younger brothers, Melvin and some of those, the home was a little different. But my father was a workaholic.