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Dripping Springs Weekly Bulletins
"Be it Ever So Humble,
There's No Place Like Home"
More than one hundred fifty years ago, John Howard Payne wrote words that still touch the hearts of people all over the world:
‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam; Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home...Home, home, sweet, sweet home; Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.’
As they say, “they don’t write ’em like that any more.”
A teen-ager once defined home as “the place where you go when everything else is closed.” Yes, they may think that way now, but if they have a good home, the time will come when they change their mind.
You can “bet your boots” those soldiers coming home from Iraq long for home. Home. The very word says Trust. Hope. Love. Peace. Safety.
But what makes a home “good”? Is it carpet and kitchen, paint and polish? The home as God planned it has many ingredients that make it “good.”
Home: Where Parents are Parents
Children don’t need a “buddy” as much as they need parents who love and listen to them. Home is a place where children’s thoughts are respected, yet Mom and Dad are still in charge. It is one of the best gifts a child can receive, because “this is right,” Ephesians 6:1. Home is where children learn to obey their parents’ rules and ultimately the laws of God and man. If they don’t learn them at home, they may never learn them.
Home: A Place of Instruction
Parents are a child’s first teachers. Their earliest lessons are mostly by example, but as children grow, then by words, discipline and rules. This is where they learn the Bible, the dignity of work, the value of integrity and honesty, forming priorities, taking responsibility for their actions, and preparing for marriage; all are serious lessons of life. These cannot be ‘sub-contracted’ to school, preachers, elders or teachers. Parents, you are “teachers” whether you realize it or not, and what and how you teach will guide those children for life.
Home: A Place of Preparation
Have you noticed that puppies, and baby birds are on their own and ready for life within weeks or months, but children are in the care of their parents for years. Why? Children have a soul, a soul that must be prepared to meet the world, evade its dangers and resist its temptations.
Life includes relationships, marriage being most important. Young men and women must learn early that God’s Word governs marriage; that it is a permanent relationship. If we prepare them biblically, they can look forward to life without the sin and sadness of divorce, which, in fact, God hates, Malachi 2:16. Preparation —that’s a job for parents and it’s an obligation of love from parent to child.
Home: Where We Learn to Serve
We may expect a child to think of self first, but the parents’ responsibility is to guide them in the direction of serving others. Jesus’ statement, quoted by Paul in Acts 20:35 says:
“…remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Jesus’ apostles had to learn this lesson (Mark 9:35) and our example — along with our words— enables a child to become a caring, selfless, loving child of God, reaching out to serve those in need. This is an area in which our example is much more powerful than our words.
Home: Children Obeying Parents
The Bible is not hard to understand on this subject. Ephesians 6:1 says:
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.”
Note the phrase, “for this is right.” It is right because God knows children need to learn, not teach. They must first learn to obey, not command.
How many of our mothers and/or fathers stayed up with us until the wee hours of the morning when we were sick? Or gave us confidence, or took us to places of importance to us?
Have we truly shown our parents how much we love and appreciate them? Have we told them so? Or have we been content to just keep on ‘taking’ and never giving back a measure of that love they gave us?
A child who has loving parents— parents who discipline, love and lead — what a wonderful blessing for us today and in the future. It is my hope that all children so blessed will not only obey their parents but show them every day their love for them.
Have any of us taken our home for granted, forgetting what that home means to us? The first institution God created was the home, and we thank you, God, for a blessing that keeps on giving and giving.
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“Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,”
“One of the most important things a man can know is that, as he approaches his own door, someone on the other side is listening for his footsteps,”
“It matters not how sloppy a man’s coat might be, how baggy his trousers might be, if his children stand for thirty minutes with their noses pressed against the window pane watching for daddy to come home, you can trust that man with anything in this world.”
[quoted by Oran Rhodes in his book,
God’s Way For The Home, p. 65]
“I know [Abraham], 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,”
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The Influence of Only One
During the War Between the States, a young woman learned the truth and obeyed the gospel. Her sweetheart, J. H. Halbrook, was a Confederate soldier. He was captured by the Union Army and kept a prisoner in Michigan until the war was over. He was given a ticket to Nashville and $2.50, and from there he returned to Centerville and found what was left of his home and family. He was reunited with his girlfriend and they were married.
Mr. Halbrook’s new wife studied the Bible with him, and he soon became a Christian. He thought the truth was so good and so simple that he began to teach and baptize many of his friends and neighbors. Then he began to preach, but he recognized his need for more training, so he enrolled in Mars Hill Bible School and was taught and trained by T. B. Larimore.
Upon completing his studies at Mars Hill, Mr. Halbrook and his wife chose to move farther south rather than going back to Tennessee, and they went into Walker, Marion, Fayette, and Lamar counties in Alabama. Of his many converts were Charley Alexander Wheeler and his wife. Mr. Wheeler, after obeying the gospel, soon began preaching to others. He started more than 100 congregations, and he baptized more than 6,000 people.
But wait – the story does not end here! One of those 6,000 baptisms was my father, the late Gus Nichols, and under my father’s preaching, 12,000 people were baptized!
And how many of those 12,000 began to preach “the glorious gospel of Christ”? No one can know the exact number, but I personally know several who did. I am one whom he baptized and whom he encouraged to preach the gospel. And under my preaching, about 3,000 have been baptized. Among that number a few have gone on to preach the gospel.
Only eternity will reveal the total results of the conversion of that one girl during the War Between the States, nearly 150 years ago. But at least 21,000 people have already become Christians through this single thread in the fabric of her influence.
“Go, and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:37), for you are important too!
Dear reader, if you go to heaven, others probably will be saved because of you! “For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:16)
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Even only one can be very influential.
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