True Definition of Husband. --The home is an institution of God. God designed
that the family circle, father, mother, and children, should exist in this world
as a firm.
The work of making home happy does not rest upon the mother alone. Fathers
have an important part to act. The husband is the house-band of the home
treasures, binding by his strong, earnest, devoted affection the members of the
household, mother and children, together in the strongest bonds of union.
His name, "house-band," is the true definition of husband. . . . I
saw that but few fathers realise their responsibility.
The Head of the Family Firm. --The husband and father is the head of the
household. The wife looks to him for love and sympathy and for aid in the
training of the children; and this is right. The children are his as well as
hers, and he is equally interested in their welfare. The children look to the
father for support and guidance; he needs to have a right conception of life and
of the influences and associations that should surround his family; above all,
he should be controlled by the love and fear of God and by the teaching of His
word, that he may guide the feet of his children in the right way. . . .
The father should do his part toward making home happy. Whatever his cares
and business perplexities, they should not be permitted to overshadow his
family; he should enter his home with smiles and pleasant words.
The Lawmaker and Priest. --All members of the family centre in the father. He
is the lawmaker, illustrating in his own manly bearing the sterner virtues:
energy, integrity, honesty, patience, courage, diligence, and practical
usefulness. The father is in one sense the priest of the household, laying upon
the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice. The wife and children should
be encouraged to unite in this offering and also to engage in the song of
praise. Morning and evening the father, as priest of the household, should
confess to God the sins committed by himself and his children through the day.
Those sins which have come to his knowledge and also those which are secret, of
which God's eye alone has taken cognizance, should be confessed. This rule of
action, zealously carried out by the father when he is present or by the mother
when he is absent, will result in blessings to the family.
The father represents the divine Lawgiver in his family. He is a labourer
together with God, carrying out the gracious designs of God and establishing in
his children upright principles, enabling them to form pure and virtuous
characters, because he has preoccupied the soul with that which will enable his
children to render obedience not only to their earthly parent but also to their
heavenly Father.
The father must not betray his sacred trust. He must not, on any point, yield
up his parental authority.
To Walk With God. --The father . . . will bind his children to the throne of
God by living faith. Distrusting his own strength, he hangs his helpless soul on
Jesus and takes hold of the strength of the Most High. Brethren, pray at home, in your
family, night and morning; pray earnestly in your closet; and while engaged in
your daily labour, lift up the soul to God in prayer. It was thus that Enoch
walked with God. The silent, fervent prayer of the soul will rise like holy
incense to the throne of grace and will be as acceptable to God as if offered in
the sanctuary. To all who thus seek Him, Christ becomes a present help in time
of need. They will be strong in the day of trial.
Maturity of Experience Called For. --A father must not be as a child, moved
merely by impulse. He is bound to his family by sacred, holy ties.
What his influence will be in the home will be determined by his knowledge of
the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. "When I was a
child," Paul says, "I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
The father is to stand at the head of his family, not as an overgrown,
undisciplined boy, but as a man with manly character and with his passions
controlled. He is to obtain an education in correct morals. His conduct in his
home life is to be directed and restrained by the pure principles of the word of
God. Then he will grow up to the full stature of a man in Christ Jesus.
Submit the Will to God. --To the man who is a husband and a father, I would
say, Be sure that a pure, holy atmosphere surrounds your soul. . . . You are to
learn daily of Christ. Never, never are you to show a tyrannical spirit in the
home. The man who does this is working in partnership with satanic agencies.
Bring your will into submission to the will of God. Do all in your power to make the life of your wife pleasant and happy. Take the word of God as the
man of your counsel. In the home live out the teachings of the word. Then you
will live them out in the church and will take them with you to your place of
business. The principles of heaven will ennoble all your transactions. Angels of
God will cooperate with you, helping you to reveal Christ to the world.
A Fitting Prayer for a Quick-tempered Husband. -- Do not allow the vexations
of your business to bring darkness into your home life. If, when little things
occur that are not exactly as you think they should be, you fail to reveal
patience, long forbearance, kindness, and love, you show that you have not
chosen as a companion Him who so loved you that He gave His life for you, that
you might be one with Him.
In the daily life you will meet with sudden surprises, disappointments, and
temptations. What saith the word? "Resist the devil," by firm reliance
upon God, "and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw
nigh to you." "Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make
peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me." Look unto Jesus at all
times and in all places, offering a silent prayer from a sincere heart that you
may know how to do His will. Then when the enemy comes in like a flood, the
Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard for you against the enemy. When you
are almost ready to yield, to lose patience and self-control, to be hard and
denunciatory, to find fault and accuse--this is the time for you to send to
heaven the prayer, "Help me, O God, to resist temptation, to put all
bitterness and wrath and evilspeaking out of my heart. Give me Thy meekness, Thy
lowliness, Thy long-suffering, and Thy love. Leave me not to dishonour my Redeemer, to misinterpret the words and motives of my
wife, my children, and my brethren and sisters in the faith. Help me that I may
be kind, pitiful, tenderhearted, forgiving. Help me to be a real house-band in
my home and to represent the character of Christ to others."
Exercise Authority With Humility --It is no evidence of manliness in the
husband for him to dwell constantly upon his position as head of the family. It
does not increase respect for him to hear him quoting Scripture to sustain his
claims to authority. It will not make him more manly to require his wife, the
mother of his children, to act upon his plans as if they were infallible. The
Lord has constituted the husband the head of the wife to be her protector; he is
the house-band of the family, binding the members together, even as Christ is
the head of the church and the Saviour of the mystical body. Let every husband
who claims to love God carefully study the requirements of God in his position.
Christ's authority is exercised in wisdom, in all kindness and gentleness; so
let the husband exercise his power and imitate the great Head of the church.