The Family — G.W. North

Well, my subject has been announced. I said the other day that while I was over in Sweden, I was asked there if I would preach on the family and I had to do it for an interpreter, of course. It's wonderful that God does give interpreters.

I called her my mouthpiece. I don't know how long we took but It takes twice as long through an interpreter. I don't know how long the meeting went on but God moved in a very real way and I became aware perhaps In a way that I hadn't quite thought before the of the necessity to talk to the children of God about the family and Well, here we are.

I want to talk to you about the family tonight. I Had thought that it might be answered in some other time because it came as a question. Not quite in those terms, but it seemed to confirm the fact that we should consider it because I had been asked if I would do so and There was a question in the box on the topic.

God’s Family and the Importance of the Home

You know God is very very concerned about our families. Really I Don't think we've got to get the wrong idea about it. We have to know what the Lord says. I Think I'd like to start in the book of the Genesis.

The beginnings and I think we ought to.

Take it to our hearts beloved That God is a family God. This is the great revelation that scripture gives us that God is a family God. The family is God's idea. It isn't man's it is God's and He calls his people that really born-again children of God these are his family.

Jesus Christ we're told is not ashamed to call them his brethren. That we should all be one in the family of God. Now you may be sure that God who created man on the earth and Has moved in this way has great ideals for his family.

I That the families of the earth are far astray from that which God wants. But he wants his people. In fact because it is written in the book He is really a demanding of his people that they be what he wants them to be.

It's a totally erroneous idea That we can think that we can be right in the family of God. That is right as we should be if And pay no account to our family relationships on earth. I think I'd like to ask you a question.

I've asked it once or twice. I'm going to make two statements. What they're almost alike. When I've made them I'm going to ask you which is the correct one. Here then are the statements. God the church.

The family. The other one is God. The family the church. Which is the correct order. The second one absolutely true. It's so important listen. That a man can't take any position in God's church if he's not right in his family, that's how important it is.

What a tremendous thing for us to understand. Lest we get things right out of Proportion and perspective. We need to know these things and take them deeply into our hearts. I want to start as I've said in the Genesis in the in chapter 18 it's the story that it's the chapter that contains the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Judgment, Sexual Sin, and the Promise to Sarah

You will know that the Sodom and Gomorrah are infamous for the terrible sin That went on in these two cities the breakdown of the proper relationship of male and female human beings in the earth. I I Want to tell you beloved? that There is a great relationship in the judgments of God.

The judgments of God are related to the condition and the basic principle operating in the persons judged. For instance men with men worked that which was unseemly and Burned in their lusts one to another so God burned them.

That was his judgment. You can say it's poetic if you like that term. I Say that it is related on a basic principle judgment to the condition and the kind of thing that you do. How wonderful that is? Praise the name of the Lord.

I Would also like at this juncture not to dwell on it. To say that the whole Psychiatric concept of such things is utterly wrong. God did not Judge a lot of sick people and burn them up because they were sick.

He burned them up because they were wicked. It wasn't a sickness that they had in Sodom and Gomorrah it was deep terrible sin the breakdown of proper human relationships, I Think it must be a sign of the last days in which we are living.

That these kinds of things are brought up now and treated as psychological and psychiatric disorders and it's symptomatic of our Terribly sick and disordered society that it should be so that men should dare to contradict God.

And dare to set up their findings as against the findings and judgments of God. Praise the name of the Lord but here in Sodom and Gomorrah God was going to move in judgments and You know the story At the time God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

And blot out this deadly thing from his creation this blot upon the face of the earth. Was the same time? Praise God in which he determined to send his seed into the earth when men with men had corrupted themselves unto the very sink of iniquity.

God said he would send his seed the righteous man the holy man who would burn with the pure fire of love and He came with the promise of the seed to Sarah. What a wonderful thing. It is glory be to God.

I tell you that it bears out the truth That before there's life there must be death. The destruction of the old Before the new every time. Not the carrying over of the old for destruction afterwards. But the destruction of the old before he starts the new that's the revelation of Scripture as I was saying this morning as Truth has to has to be true upon the whole tenor and teaching of God's Word not upon an isolated text.

But every text properly viewed and interpreted Will be of one piece with the whole if your interpretations of scriptures bring you out of tune with the whole tenor of Scripture revelation your interpretation is wrong.

So is mine too if I do it, but God When he's going to destroy This thing he comes down to deal with the proper family. Hallelujah, what a marvelous thing it is. And so in verse 14 the chapter 18 Is anything too hard for the Lord he says At the time appointed I will turn unto thee According to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son.

Hallelujah then Sarah denied. Not that she was going to have the son but that she laughed. Saying I laughed not for she was afraid and he said nay, but thou didst laugh. And he wasn't piqued and offended and cleared off some people talk about God as though he's that thin-skinned.

That if you sniffed a bit hard he'd run away. He didn't say well now you've lost your opportunity forever. Amen, so let's get the devil off your back about that. He's a liar anyway and everywhere. But he is God now the men rose up from thence and looked towards Sodom and Abraham went with them to bring them on their way.

And the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do. Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation. And all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him and They shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and Judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham That which he hath spoken of him.

Amen, and you see the reason why God shared with Abraham this secret is simply because He was going to have his family, right? What a tremendous thing that is. Now Abraham didn't know anything about it.

I would press upon you that he was living in a terrible age of the wickedest and most obscene and demoralizing human exhibitionism. I mean it was even worse than England in 1974. Yet he was going to command his family.

It's a tremendous thing for us to understand and They were going to apparently keep right in the midst of a world that was absolutely soaked in sin. This is a thing that you find right through for instance.

No you remember that God came to know and he says you're the only one you're the only family I found righteous in the earth and virtually an Ark was prepared though. It has much to typical significance for us today in the day when he did it God had come to the end.

There was just one Righteous family in the earth the seed had been preserved and so God Commanded an ark to be built in order to preserve the righteous family and the righteous family Stepped out on the new earth.

You say really? Oh, yes. Only the righteous family stepped out onto the new earth that had been regenerated During the days of the flood so tremendous was it that. That Peter said That there were great Changes in the earth in those days.

You must read Peter's comments on the flood. He's great on the flood read both his epistles. He's elemental. He gets down to basic things. He's rugged and he doesn't come with any sort of finesse about it.

He tells you the exact truth and They stepped out on the new earth. I know that men quickly degenerated again because that's only in type. That's why he says we're going to have an earth wherein dwelleth righteousness in the new creation.

When Peter talks about it and only the righteous family in its great extended sense of the family of God He's going to live in that new creation. But coming back then to Abraham He said it was because Abraham's family was going to be right.

That he imparted unto him the knowledge of the truth. And what a wonderful thing that is. God wants us right in all our relationships. And you know These are days when The family has come to a great break breakdown and a great break up.

Social Institutions and the Breakdown of the Family

It's a terrible thing to realize it but every System in this earth is aimed at breaking up the human family. Isn't that right. Yeah, even your educational system does it you can't now send a child To the school next door if they say it's got to go to ten six miles away.

Oh, well, we'll provide a bus of course away it goes and You get your O levels when you get your a levels and so on. Oh, of course, you'd better go to St. Andrews University up in Scotland. So away you go.

Or they say well now I think you ought to come into the army and so away you go. Everything in this world is aimed at the breakdown of the family unit. It can't help it. It must do in order to exist. That's how wrong it's got.

And there's no hope for it and God's going to destroy it and hallelujah Amen it's gone far. Far away and drifting far away all the time and the Lord has great plans. For us beloved we who are his children.

That we being taught of God Should come into a place in Christian homes and families Where We are right before God. Now God wants us to be there and as I have already pointed out the importance of the The family is so great That a man can be qualified or disqualified For holding position in the Church of God just by how his home is run.

What a tremendous thing that is beloved. Now we're going to read in the New Testament then something about These glorious truths. I want to turn you to the Ephesian letter first of all and in the chapter 3 when Paul Commences his great second prayer in the third chapter.

The Household of Faith and Spiritual Family Life

He says in verse 14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. I Know that can be translated every family but it doesn't have to be translated every family and It's a commentary on the spiritual understanding of the translators.

If they do translate it every family. For God is speaking about only his one family in the earth. That's what he's talking about. It's always wise. I want to tell you this excuse me digressing a little bit.

When you read a Bible if you have an ability to go back to the Hebrew and the Greek and when I say a Bible I mean a translation of the Bible and See how they translate a word. What they put in your English or whatever version it is.

It'll tell you their spiritual conception of truth. Always. Do you realize that? It'll tell you what that their own Spiritual understanding is the way they interpret a word the way they translate a word.

For words in the Bible are not to be translated according to mental concepts but according to spiritual understanding. And when a word has a variety of meanings Watch the particular meaning that they put down.

It'll teach you a lot. God named the whole family in heaven and earth. And if I understand that right that means that this is the Jesus family now I've got my. I'm not talking about any modern ideas about the Jesus family.

But this is a family. Jesus people. Another marvelous thing. God's got a whole family of these people. Praise God. Some of them are called dads and some of them are called mums and some of them are called boys and some of them are called girls.

It's all according whether or not of course whether they've been born from above. If they've been born from above they are in a family. They're in the family of God and you and I have to get the family instinct the family knowledge.

Praise the name of the Lord. I'll tell you this much. That people who feel lonely Rejected outcast Unwanted as an interior Spiritual condition they can't have been born yet. Not born from above for birth from above immediately.

Imparts the consciousness of being in the family. That's what it's all about. If it fails that it's failed in its chiefest virtue. That we should know that we're in the family of God as they used to teach me to sing when I was a boy.

No. Never alone. Did they used to teach you that yeah. She wasn't a boy, but she's fairly old. Like I am and this is the whole truth. That we've been born into the family of God. Is there anybody in this room tonight that feels rejected?

And outcast. Unwanted out on a limb not in you do. I Said if you feel it now. Well, yeah you was so so was I. One of the most wonderful things about a true son of God is that he's got a past. Yeah, he's got a past.

Amen, it's past. It's over. Amen. But he's got a present and he's got a future. And it's a marvelous thing for us to understand and you and I must see this that we're in the great family of God and God loves this great family concept and over and over again when he writes through the pens of the Apostles or the people that the Apostles used in Dictating to them the Word of God.

He comes on to this family position in the Church of Jesus Christ. And if we look down into the sixth chapter of the Ephesians later I I Want you to remember that he only here is considering a family that talks about being filled with the Spirit will start in verse 18 of Chapter 5 that you're not to be drunk with wine wherein is excess.

But be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves, did you note it didn't say rowing one another it says speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and Making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting yourselves One to another in the fear of the Lord now, that's a marvelous position to be in.

If you are filled with the Spirit, so the scripture says You will speak to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and make melody in your heart to the Lord and listen to this one. You'll give thanks always For everything all things.

How many spirit-filled people are there here tonight on that basis? See we like the text which says in Everything give thanks because you don't have to give thanks for it then but in it you can still say oh, this is horrible.

I wish you could go away, but but I'll praise God. I've I've read a book called from Grumbling to praise or something Hallelujah, you see Oh prison to praise sorry. This this is a tremendous truth giving thanks for all things Unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now there are some tremendous standards here for a Christian family. Now you parents you listen this is not first of all put upon the children but upon you your children aren't old enough to know and When you are married your children are to be born into this kind of a home were they a home Where there is spirit-filled parents a Home of song a home where there's melody in hearts a home Where Thanksgiving is always a rising to God?

Who what a place to be born? Hey Praise God all you kids tonight stand up if you'd like to have been born in a home like that. Yeah. Amen. Aren't many children have that then you've got Christian parents say they're baptized in the spirit always grumbling about their children and Delinquency.

I want to tell you that the first trouble on this earth is not youthful and child delinquency. It's parental. They think that if they go along to the church and use their tongue and say hallelujah. Amen, that's a Christian home far from it.

Amen, this is the home all you children. I want to speak to you now. This is the home that you should have expected to have been born in if your parents claimed To be born again. I'm not breathing discontent now.

I want to tell you the truth. I'll talk to you later. Here then is the tremendous position what a family. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. What a great thing this was, you know, this is a tremendous position.

Submission, Marriage, and the Order of the Home

You know, I think some of you must have heard me say this before. But you know whenever I go out of the country as soon as I turn my back something happens. Because when I get home, I find there's a new gimmicky word going around the country.

What's this now? Who I came back from India sometime ago and all I could hear was submission. Submission submission. I was as green as grass. I didn't well I look green don't I? Well, I was brown as a berry really I'd come back from India, but but the.

But inside I was quite green and Tappy got up from the seat somewhere about it wasn't you but I don't know it was in the city of London. You see that's where they always make the greatest mistakes and.

Well, it's right as soon as you get the bigger the crowd that there is together the more liability there is for mistake obviously. Well, of course look you you see it in your educational system they take it's right you you take.

You take young people at an age when they are just about one in the you know. And you group them all together in a thing called a youthful university. You slip them you get them living in halls or what not there and there they all are together and before long.

They've hatched up the wickedness of their heart all together and you've got trouble. You've got student trouble if they'd have left them on their farms or in their villages you wouldn't have had it. That's right.

That's the idiocy of men. Thinking that education is going to put our youth right. Education has put the world wrong. Because it's on a wrong foundation. That isn't to say you aren't to get your faculties trained, but you've got to see the background of it.

Well anyway this Young man, he came up to me. I don't know what I've been preaching on and most people when I sort of speak they sometimes talk to me. Well, I'd well, you know talk about what what being the subject he said, you know.

We haven't a wonderful time in our church, we've got all we've got this truth of submission. I said, oh, yes, you know greens anything I don't know. They'd slipped it in while I'd been abroad. Said We've got this truth of submission, you know, I said, yeah.

Oh fine. Yes. We submit to the elders our elders submit to brother so-and-so. He submits to brother so-and-so going higher up the scale all the time. Just ready for this pyramidal teaching to come over.

Yeah, it's amazing how the devil alerts people. So we submits and he submits to so-and-so and he submits to so-and-so. I said Well praise God, you know glory. I thought that was marvelous well. Then there sort of came a gap nothing was said and he walked off.

And he went to it. He went to a brother of mine over somewhere over by the wall and he said he said.

He went through the whole story again. Then he said who's mr. North. Submit to. I'm telling you the truth.

So the young man had the sense to say I don't know go and ask him. So he did it came back and he went through his story again see. And I said to him look. The truth of submission is bound up here. Submitting yourselves one to another.

I Submit to you sister. One to another don't say to the chap higher than you. One to another though, there is a truth of submission. To those that God has put over you. What a tremendous thing. This is submitting yourselves one to another.

Glory be to the name of the Lord. Well. This is in the larger family of God and then from this he launches straight over into the human family and he says Wives. Submit yourselves unto your own husbands.

Well, I You know, it's a pity he started with the women but he had to. Don't you know that's how all the trouble started in the world. It's right you dear sisters. You must face the truth. It's right the whole Story of the failure of mankind ties up with a woman that wouldn't submit to her own husband and because of that She cooperated with the devil.

The devil came in and I think I said this here last year, but suffer me to repeat it. Sometimes when we read the story in Genesis We read it Thinking that when the devil the serpent tempted Eve it was in Adam's absence.

There is no justification. If you read the story for thinking that Adam was not there at that time but the serpent Went behind and dishonored God went behind God's back on it. God made man the head. But he bypassed God's order, this is his subtlety and went to the woman and the woman Took and She disobeyed God.

She was deceived says the scripture and then she took and gave to Adam the silly thing Gave to Adam and he ate and that was that and it was through the woman. That it all happened in the beginning. Mind you the woman was selected to be the blessed one that should bear the seed.

If you like she's redeemed her character. It's a tremendous thing that God has done this. Of course it's all happened in the great wisdom of God. But here then in the family in the New Testament He comes first to the wife.

And he says now you wives. You must submit yourself to your own husband then notice what he says as Unto the Lord. How many of you women do this? How many of you wives? Submit yourself to your own husband's not after a long argument.

Not in bad grace but willingly. Voluntarily submit yourself to your own husband as Though he was the Lord. The great example of Christian marriage is indeed Sarah. At whom we looked in chapter 18 of Genesis Peter commends her.

Because it says that she called her husband Lord Abraham was her Lord and she is held up as the perfection in this realm for Christian wives to follow. How many of you really believe that your husband is your Lord and How many of you really act as though he is your Lord?

How many and How many children in a Christian home? have gone wrong because wives mothers have not submitted themselves to their own husbands as unto the Lord. Listen one of the loveliest things I like in Church comings together is what took place on Sunday morning here.

It's funny wherever I go. I seem to have this put on me. It's a delightful joy. I went to Sweden. Well before we knew where we were there about two or three babies to dedicate it was a marvelous time and And There they were all waiting.

Well, of course, some of them have been sprinkled beforehand and they decided that was all wrong. So they came and got their babies dedicated unto the Lord in a proper manner and You know. Well, it was it's marvelous.

And I pray. I love to pray for the parents never. I never believe in. I don't know what you leaders of Fellowships to or elders or whatever you want to call yourselves. I Don't know whether you want this.

I say, you know get it done. Lord is the baby. Ah I Like to pray for the father. I like to pray for the mother. They're together in a great family. Hallelujah, I Can't help it. I always do. I Wonder some of you keep coming effect.

Norman and I had a little chat today. And we wonder that some of you keep coming to these meetings where we preach because we always say the same things. We never say anything different we always say the same things.

Hallelujah, I don't know what it's because you do like the same thing said. That you keep coming. I don't know but I like to pray for these precious women that they shall be an Example to the precious, babe.

They've born. I Love to pray that they will learn how to guide the home. I love to pray that God Will give them strength and the babies will so love their mummy that they'll want to love their mummies Jesus.

That's right. I once asked a question in a meeting. And I asked who is the most Christ like person, you know, who's the person, you know most of all that's most like Jesus and the young lady came up to me afterwards and she said It wasn't you.

I thought about my mother. I said praise God. The most Christlike person I ever knew. My mother and if I may say this because none of you Except the person concerned Knows anything about it that person is in the room.

But don't look because you won't even know who to look at. There's nearly there about 300 of us here. Anyway, we're saying that woman had a devil for a husband wives submit yourselves Unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife wife. You are your husband's body. He is your head. Just as Jesus Christ is the head of the church, which is his body. So the husband in the Christian marriage.

Especially though this should have some substance in every marriage. The the husband is the head of the wife. You are your husband's body and you ought to treat him as your head. Glory be to the name Lord.

Do you? You know, I've met husbands and I Don't think it was like this in. I would certainly wasn't like this in our family they they I've sat in a room and I've been with them and They've married some girl or whether whether the girl married him and and She's highly educated she's been through University.

He's a bricklayer. She does nothing else but belittle her husband. Nothing her superior manner her superior education. Get out of it. You're the body. He's the head and Stop it and stop it at once. You're sinning I want to say in our family.

It might have been the other way around. Wasn't so with my wife. The tremendous thing about it beloved is That the husband is the head of the wife and when you girls Go to get married you marry someone who you can have as your head not just as a lover.

Jesus isn't only just the lover of man's soul. He's the head of you. You've got your perspectives, right wrong. If you can't look up and honor and hold your man as your head, you mustn't marry him this young man.

Christian marriages are not based on physical or sexual attractions. They may have a part. The Tremendous thing about Christian marriage beloved is that you're not any of you women. You're not to marry a man whom you can't look up to as your Lord.

Not to take the place of Jesus. Don't misunderstand me and If you can't hold him as your head. You mustn't marry him and he whoever he is. He's certainly misguided if he can't look upon you as his body and Love you as his own flesh.

Christ’s Pattern for Husbands and Wives

Now, let's go on shall we? The head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church and He is the Savior of the body. I Don't know whether you've got a capital H for he there. Or whether you've got a small H.

It will decide what you think about that statement. Amen. As the blessed head is the Savior of the spiritual body if You get your relationships, right? Man and wife. The true man who's the head is also the Savior in this limited sense.

Please not the Redeemer of your body. You must never mistake the word salvation for redemption. There are two distinct words. He is the Savior of the body. Hallelujah, you say if this be true. Well, no, let's read on Phil.

Let's get 24 over. Shall we therefore as the church is subject unto Christ. So let the wives be to their own husbands in Everything. Are you subject to your husband? Does he reign over you? We are subjects of the Queen.

She reigns over us. I know that again. We're living in days when Monarchy doesn't mean so much as it used to but it did in those days when the Bible was written and you're to understand it In that concept of the truth.

You are to be subject Unto your husbands in everything. You are not to quarrel. You are not to force him to do what you want to do. You are not to nag him until he gives in. For a man I'll let you into this secret all you women most men that I know Will do anything for a quiet life.

So if you nag long enough, you've learned this you'll get your way, but you're sinning sinning. You ought to be subject to him. I didn't just say you aren't to lovingly talk to him. That isn't to say you aren't to show him where he's wrong.

He's often wrong. He's not the infallible head as Jesus is the infallible head but then neither you are the infallible body. Are you Blessed be the name of the Lord. What a tremendous thing it is then for God to have it like this.

No. You say what is it pretty hard on the wise but wait a minute the man's terms coming. We're only dealing with it in the fallen order that still obtains in the earth the the the fallen order was Satan via the woman into the man and It's still the fallen order where human relationships are concerned.

So Paul starts in the fallen order. He is speaking as he says in one or two places after the manner of men though he is speaking with the authority and the power of God and. So I want you to notice what verse 22 says now all you women can sit up and start smiling.

I Says wives Submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord my you men. Can they you husbands can they? Do you enforce a? Position that you don't produce by your own life. Can your wife submit herself to you as unto the law?

Are you anything like the Lord in your relationships with her? See what you've done in getting married, don't you? Marriage isn't all honeymoons. You see what you've done. You've taken on a position. In your relationship with your life with your wife.

That you have to fill as Jesus Christ. You've got to be ahead. Not a boss Arthur Wallace a name much revered among us and probably known by every one of us once said at a wedding in Exeter. Something which I wasn't at the wedding something reported me back.

But you so I sort of tucked it away in here when I heard it. He said this during his address. He said that God didn't take woman from Adam's head. To he didn't take a bone from Adam's head to make a woman that she should reign over him.

He didn't take a bone from Adam's feet. That he should trample on her. He took a bone from Adam's side. That she should be equal with him. I've remembered that. It's true. That is true but remember that when you come into a proper new birth.

When you respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ God intends to set in operation in your family the true order. That Adam and Eve lost in the beginning. It's a restoration as well as a regeneration. It is a setting in order as well as showing you wonderful grace.

And If you want to be treated as the Lord then be as the Lord. Amen. You ever learned how Jesus speaks to you? Hey. Have you do you know Jesus has never shouted at me once. How about that? I wish I could say that about my wife.

I've never shouted at her once. I'm not trying to tell you that. I'm always bawling in anger at her. That's not what I'm saying. I Distinguish the things that differ. I wish I wish I could Jesus never shouted at me.

You know, he's got me by Whispers that's the language of love. You see. It's that that counts. You see. I love my brother. Norman. Come here Norman. He's writing down all the things I'm saying. Now I love my brother.

Now if I wanted to tell him I loved him you think oh I'd get him so close that he could hear the whisper. That's right. That's love. Learn the truth and move in the reality of. What God is saying is at least basic common sense.

You see and you are to be as the Lord. Let's look at verse 25. Husbands. Love your wives. Even as Christ also Loved the church. Amen. Well blessed be the name of the Lord. See that word also. That means that Christ is head of the church.

Christ is Lord in verse 22, but listen. He loves. He's the Lord of love. He's the very head of love. He's the crown of glory. That mustn't cover his head at all. Because he's glorious, that's how it's to be.

And I want to tell you That if you and I don't create this kind of a home We ought not to think of bringing children into the world. For this is the background and atmosphere into which they should be born.

They should be begotten and formed in a woman. Where if they can hear in the spirit, they can hear her heart singing and making melody. They shouldn't be brought into the world ushered in by the sobs of a breaking heart.