GOD'S LAW IN THE HOME by Ruth Gardner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jun 20, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 25.

GOD'S LAW IN THE HOME.

By Ruth Gardner

ALL of God's laws, both in the natural and spiritual realms, are harmonious and perfect, and produce harmony. God is love, and love is harmony.

What, then, is the cause of all the dire disorder and inharmony that have made society a pandemonium of discord and strife, and have caused the sweet music of home, like a harp unstrung, to cease, or give place to clashing discords and misery and heart-break?

Who was the founder, and what was the foundation principle of the home? The record of the first marriage is found in Gen. 2:18-25, and the reason given for it was that "it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him," saith the Lord. And He who doeth all things well created for Adam, of the man's own flesh and bone, a companion who would have satisfied every need of his soul life except his great supreme need of God. And God joined them in a bond of union that no one but He can sunder. Mark 10:1-12. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh."

In this beautiful plan of God, He has made perfect happiness possible. God has not constituted us, men or women, self-satisfying and self-sustaining creatures. In great wisdom He has provided that that which He left lacking in man's stronger nature should be supplied by the gentler attributes of the wife, and thus his own life would be rounded out to perfect completeness.

It is natural for us to admire in a friend whatever of excellency we lack in ourselves, and in just the measure that we feel our need and unworthiness, is our friend precious to us. So, much more in this wonderful two-in-one union, God hath purposed that each should be the complement of the other's nature, each filling up the measure of the other's joy and heart's content to a perfect whole.

God has given His creatures to know something of His delight in His chosen One—"the only-begotten Son," who dwelleth in the bosom of the Father—when He gives to man one, "only one," to be his very own, "sealed" (Solomon's Song 8:6, 7) unto himself by a love that is stronger than death, partner of all his pleasures and disappointments, joys and cares, "his other self." He finds in her a sympathetic and responsive chord to every thought, feeling, and purpose of his life.

What a well-spring of joy God has ordained in every truly-wedded household! If it draws its supply from the great Fountain-head, it is indeed an overflowing fountain, as described in Prov. 5:15-19, that spreads out in ever-widening circles of influence, and blesses everything that comes in touch with it.

But it is written, "Let them be only thine own, and not strangers with thee." God has drawn a vail between the inner sanctuary of home and its outward manifestation; and within the boundaries of that sacred privacy that belong to husband and wife alone, let no third party presume, on any pretext, to intrude. Whenever this divine appointment is disregarded, wittingly or otherwise, by any "friend," however good and dear, the result is always to bring distress, clouds, and misunderstanding. Not even father and mother can safely disregard this law of inviolable confidence, and the first offense is only the entering wedge to final disruption, if not quickly repented of.

But who can estimate the terrible condemnation of that guilty soul who, by guileful arts, creeps into the inmost sanctuary of home, and defiles the fountain of another's joy,—the true heart in which he trusted, in whose sworn faith he had found his soul rest and repose?

Of what is he not guilty! A home is in ashes as truly as tho the incendiary's torch had been applied. A sanctuary is profaned, and all its holy ministrations of the past are only a ghostly mockery of the present despair. Confidence is destroyed, virtue lost, and hope dead. Is not the destroyer of a happy home even as a murderer?—Yes; the Word says it.

And what is true of a man that can do this evil is equally true of a woman who would usurp the wife's place in her husband's heart. Woe unto that one, be he man or woman, who builds his or her happiness upon the wreck of a ruined home. I care not how plausible an excuse the tempter may frame, nor how exceptional may seem the conditions, there is absolutely no exception to this law. Mark 10:9, 11, 12. There can be no real happiness without the blessing of God, and His blessing can never be upon a thing that is contrary to His law.

And, dear sister or brother, if you have found that your marriage relation is only a bondage unto Satan, and you are bitterly disappointed in not finding all you hoped for, trust wholly in the Lord. God knows the longing of every hungry heart, and He says He will satisfy it. Ps. 107:9. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass." Ps. 37:7, 4, 5.

And remember that "no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." "What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?" 1 Cor. 7:16. God is able to create your dear one a new creature in Christ Jesus, if he or she can be won to yield the will to His power.

But if your house is left unto you desolate to-day, open your Bible and read Isaiah 54. It is all yours if you belong to Jesus, for it is written at the end of that healing chapter, "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord."

Jesus is our sufficiency here, tho our home hearth may be dark to-night. He is able to give us more than all we have lost for His sake; for it is written, "None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate." Lay hold on these precious promises now. They are yours if you will believe them and take them.

God has not told us all that He has in store for those who will walk with Him by faith, trusting their life, with all its miserable complications and disappointments, wholly into His hands. He alone can straighten the tangled skein of our life. If we try to do it ourselves, we shall only become the more hopelessly entangled; for he that is against us (Satan) can foil us every time. "Trust in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength."

I know that Satan has thwarted the good purpose of God for us many times because we did not seek counsel of Him in the critical choosing time; but there is no one, in however sad condition in life, where sin or persecution may have brought him, whose case can not be reached by God's power and mercy. Will you not trust your life fully in His hands?

God is going to bring harmony out of this chaos of sin, and sorrow, and misery by and by, when every earthly tie is riven, when sin and Satan (its author) are utterly destroyed, and the purified earth created new, in peace and righteousness and joy forever. Then shall God give His faithful ones their "inheritance." And there is the blessed hope that we may have a part in "the marriage supper of the Lamb" when Christ shall gather the whole family of God on earth and in heaven into one grand reunion, which shall never, never end. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."

RUTH GARDNER.