To My Dear Friends Podcast

The Home Must Triumph
#0869
Study Given by W. D. Frazee—September 22, 1961

Clean Copy-Paste Transcript

Turn to Ephesians the third chapter. You will remember that we spoke from this text in our last vespers service. We want to go further with it tonight:

“Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church…”

That is, through or by means of the church.

“…the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” Ephesians 3:8–11.

God has an eternal purpose. It includes revealing His character, not merely to this world but to the universe. This world, in God’s providence, is the theater of His grace in which that eternal purpose is being displayed, revealed, demonstrated. Manifested for all the angels to see, for all the people on the other worlds to see.

And as we saw last week, it is imperative that demonstration of God’s purpose be made not merely by individuals but by the church. Not only must individuals triumph, the church must triumph. Unless that happens, God’s purpose has not been fully carried out; His promise has not been fulfilled in its entirety. God’s purpose will be carried out. His promises will be fulfilled.

Now this evening, I want to study with you not merely why the church must triumph but why the home must succeed. Because, as we shall see, the home is the unit of which the church is built. Homes make up the church. The home is the heart of this demonstration. We’ll take a statement of two on that:

“Out of the heart are ‘the issues of life,’ and the heart of the community, of the church, and of the nation, is the household. The restoration and uplifting of humanity begins in the home” Ministry of Healing, page 349.

Where does the work of restoration begin? In the home. Has it started in your case?

Out of the heart are the issues of life, and the heart of the community, the church, and the nation is the household. What is the household or the family or the home in relation to the church? The heart of it. Now, I won’t make that statement, but I echo what God says about it and be all right, can’t I? Yes. It’s a tremendous statement. So the church isn’t just an aggregation or congregation of individuals. The church, in God’s ideal plan, is a bringing together of homes as homes.

You remember how in Israel, the congregation was made up of heads of families. Each man stood for his family. That’s a wonderful picture, friends.

I love to see families sitting together in meetings. We have a number like that here tonight. It’s a wonderful thing to do. It helps to reveal and promote the solidarity of the family in the church. It’s part of God’s plan.

This is not some recent thought that the home is the heart of the church. When we go back to the Garden of Eden, we see that the home was established the very day man was created. Within a few hours of each other, the home and the Sabbath were instituted, and in a sense, they began together.

In the time of the end, every divine institution is to be restored. That’s why, as the repairers of the breach, those who are to raise up the foundation of many generations have been given the Sabbath reform message.

In Matthew 17:11, I see a very significant statement from Jesus that Elijah shall come first and restore all things. How many things are to be restored? All things. Who did he say was to come and restore all things? Elijah. Elijah shall truly come and restore all things. Do you know where Elijah begins in his work of restoration? Well, if you turn to the last book of the Old Testament, the last chapter, the last two verses, we’ll read:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” Malachi 4:5–6.

Now, before we look at what is said here, not the last two lines here. What is going to happen to people who have not done what Elijah is coming to do? They are going to be smitten with, what? A curse. That’s right. I don’t want that curse, do you? No. I don’t want my life under that curse. I don’t want my home under that curse. There’s only one thing that can stop it, friends, and that is the work of Elijah in restoring all things.

Notice it begins with the home. “He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” If we can get that done, we’ll have a church that is ready for the Loud Cry and the grand demonstration.

I would like to read a few interesting statements which will help us appreciate how the home and the church are related, and how this matter of the demonstration in the home is related to the demonstration before the world.

“In the home it is possible to have a little church which will honor and glorify the Redeemer” Adventist Home, page 323.

What are we to have in the home? A little church. Isn’t that nice? Yes. A little church. Then when we get together on the Sabbath in the sanctuary to have the hour of worship, we have, as it were, a group of little churches meeting together in the big church. Is that right?

We were studying this particular statement the other day in our family worship, and someone asked the question, “Well, how the home is a church” We got to looking at it and asking ourselves, “Well now, just what is the church for anyway?” Well, the church is for worship,” someone said. Is that right? Are we to have worship in the home? Definitely. Then somebody said, “The church is for service.” We all agreed on that. It’s organized for service. Do we have that in the home? That’s right.

We may meet in church capacity once or twice or three times a week, but how many days do we meet in the home? Every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. And in the home, it is possible to have a little church that will honor and glorify the Redeemer. I like that, don’t you? Now, on page 322, I read. Notice the connection between this and my opening text from Ephesians 3:

“To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” Ephesians 3:10.

Watch how the family fits into that:

“Fathers and mothers who make God first in their households, who teach their children that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, glorify God before angels and before men by presenting before the world a well-ordered, well disciplined family, a family that love and obey God instead of rebelling against Him” Adventist Home, page 322.

Isn’t that wonderful, friends? Think of it. Even the angels are watching. Fathers and mothers who learn these lessons and make this demonstration in the home are bringing glory to God before the angels and the inhabitants of other worlds. They’re making the demonstration down here on this earth that all the universe is looking at. What a privilege, friends! What a challenge! Now, notice the connection between the home and the church. When we have good home religion, we will have excellent meeting religion:

“In the home the foundation is laid for the prosperity of the church. The influences that rule in the home life are carried into the church life; therefore church duties should first begin in the home…” Adventist Home, page 318–319.

When Paul was writing to Timothy and Titus, he told them the qualifications for church office, and high on the list for elder or deacon was a man who does what? Rules well what? His own house. Then Paul asks the significant question that if a man cannot look out after his own house, how can he look after the church? Well, how could he? But it’s amazing how that thing is overlooked sometimes.

The reason, friends, is no accident, and it’s not incidental. The home is a little church, and the church is a larger church, you see. The same principles of leadership and government that are carried on in the home will be brought over into the church. If they are true principles, right principles in the home, those same principles will be brought over from the home into the larger church. But if the individual is falling down on the job in the home, either because he does not know what Heaven’s principles of government are or because he lacks something in carrying them out, that same ignorance or weakness will be brought over and made manifest in the church. So the proving ground is the home. That’s basic. That’s fundamental. Then I found on page 317 this very interesting little sentence which I hope some of you will want to commit that to memory. It’s very short:

“He who would become a saint in heaven must first become a saint in his own family” Adventist Home, page 317.

Will you say that with me?

“He who would become a saint in heaven must first become a saint in his own family” Ibid.

Once more:

“He who would become a saint in heaven must first become a saint in his own family” Ibid.

I don’t know, it might be there may be in somebody’s heart the thought, “Oh, I’m afraid that I couldn’t do that. My family knows me too well. Well, that’s the point, friends. That’s just the point. Don’t you think when we get to Heaven, people will know us pretty well? Oh, yes. They will know us better there than they do here. And they will have all eternity to find out anything about us that is not up to standard, won’t they?

“Ah, but somebody says, “there will not be anything like that there.” No, there won’t. Do you know why? Because we got rid of it down here through the saving power of the Gospel of Christ.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth” Romans 1:16.

So, instead of being discouraged about this, dear friends, we ought to be wonderfully encouraged. I hope that nobody will become discouraged by what we’re studying tonight at all unless it’s to become discouraged with some sham or some hypocrisy. It would be a good thing to be discouraged about something like that, wouldn’t it? Let us never become discouraged over the idea of what God expects.

Why friends, wouldn’t it be an awful disappointment if the word should come to us from Heaven authoritatively that God was finally releasing the information that it was best to end the controversy without producing people who were in full harmony with the law of God? Would that be a disappointment?

Suppose He would send down word He had decided that He would stop everything in this world without first producing a church that was perfected. What a sorrow that would be!

And oh tonight, think of this, wouldn’t it be too bad if Jesus would send the word that in view of the disordered state of society and all the temptations that confront us today that the plan of salvation would close without producing families that were well ordered, well disciplined, and reflected here on earth the love and order of the family in Heaven? I’m glad no such announcement has been made, and I am glad no such announcement will be made. God is abundantly able to finish the work that He has begun, and if we work with Him, we can have a little Heaven here on earth to go to Heaven in.

Elijah must come and restore all things. Let’s listen to Elijah; let’s let him work for us. What do you say? How does He do it?

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” Malachi 4:5–6.

Let me give you a wonderful statement on that as it’s put in Volume 6 of the Testimonies, page 119:

“Those who bear the last message of mercy to the world should feel it their duty to instruct parents in regard to home religion…”

Now, watch this next sentence. Another one of these great big statements:

“…The great reformatory movement must begin in presenting to fathers and mothers and children the principles of the law of God” Testimonies for the Church, Volume 6, page 119.

How does the great reformatory movement begin? It begins just where Elijah begins, in presenting to fathers and mothers and children the principles of the law of God. Does the law of God have anything to do with this? Yes, it does, friend. Let’s think of the Ten Commandments. The first four have to do with our duty to whom? God. The last six, our duty to whom? Man. Of those last six, two of them deal specifically with the home.

The Fifth Commandment, love and order as manifested in the relation between parents and children.

The Seventh Commandment, love and order as manifested in the relations between husband and wife.

If we get those things straight, friends, we will have pretty good homes. Won’t we? The Fifth Commandment and the Seventh Commandment, then, are basic in building homes after Heaven’s order. And note that the great reformatory movement begins in presenting those principles of the law of God to fathers and mothers and children.

Let’s look at them for a little. Because to learn these principles, to practice these lessons, is to be ready for the great final demonstration when the law of God is fully revealed by His people here in this world.

Let’s look at that Seventh Commandment. Let’s say it together, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” That is a negative statement. We need not feel bad because God makes a number of negative statements in the Ten Commandments. It is considered fashionable today to never make any negative statements. Always be positive. It’s a good thing to be positive, but in the Ten Commandments, God shows us there is a time to be negative. Like any other good principle, it can be abused, but there is a time for negative, a time for don’t. Many of the Ten Commandments are phrased with a “thou shalt not.”

This is a “thou shalt not”—“Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The positive of that I find in Ephesians 5:25. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church.” I think that that is the positive statement of the truth which is presented in a negative form in the Seventh Commandment. It is only as there is love in the relationship between husband and wife that one can fully keep all that is involved in the Seventh Commandment. We recognize, even at a casual glance at this commandment, that it involves a special love between one man and one woman. As Jesus said, “God made them male and female, and for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and they two shall be one flesh.”

We are living in a day like Sodom, like the days before the flood. This commandment, like others, is being trampled in the dust. But God’s people who receive the Latter Rain and give the Loud Cry will be keepers of the Seventh Commandment.

There will be a love, a heart union between the true husband and his wife such as is experienced by no one outside. No one else is allowed to come into that

inner circle. I feel sorry, my friends, when I see people consciously or unconsciously trying to get satisfaction outside that one proper place. There are many ways in which that craving manifests itself.

I feel sorry also as I see husbands and wives who could mean so much to each other, living in the same house under the same roof, sitting at the same table, and never entering into those glorious privileges of deep spiritual union which only they two can have. It would be both wrong and impossible to have them with others—what we are dealing with here.

I trust these few words will be a challenge to some individuals here tonight. For my dear friends, I have read to you that if we are to be saints in Heaven, we must first be saints in our homes. I challenge each of you men who are husbands. Do you love your wife as Jesus loved the church? Are you having an experience of heart fellowship with that wife? Can you pray together? Do you pray together? And oh, if in the heat comes the thought, “Oh, I don’t think that I could do that. She would think that I was a hypocrite.” Well, dear one, I just ask you, how will you make the demonstration? Don’t think that the Spirit of God is going to come down someday in a meeting, and you are going to get the Latter Rain if you haven’t settled this thing at home. Don’t think so.

“In all that pertains to the success of God’s work, the very first victories are to be won in the home life” Testimonies for the Church, Volume 6, 354.

Where are the first victories? In the home life. I hope, dear husbands, that you and your wife pray together, not merely in family worship with other people around. There are times that problems come up in the training of children, or other matters, where there needs to be the utmost ease. The path needs to be traveled so often that it is easy to travel so that husband can say to wife or wife can say to husband, “Come, let’s pray together about this. Here is a problem with the children; let’s come together and pray together and talk it over.” Whatever the problem, praying together binds hearts together.

And remember, friends, thou shalt not commit adultery. I say to every man, if you have not found that deep spiritual fellowship with your wife, don’t even begin to try to find it with any other woman. Don’t do it. I don’t care how saintly it appears. I don’t care how spiritual it seems to be in its beginnings. It leads to hell.

There is one with whom it will be safe for you to seek God with all your heart. There is one to whom you may pour out your love and devotion. And there’s a man that says, “Brother Frazee, you just don’t know the kind of home I have.” No, I don’t. I don’t know what kind of home you have, but Jesus does. He is the one who wrote this.

My dear friends, I read in these inspired counsels that what human wisdom cannot do, divine wisdom can do. And one of the things that will help you to do it is to recognize that the Seventh Commandment shuts you to that with a high board fence. The only way you can get away from it is to leap over it. And when you do, you leap into hell.

There is one who you promised before God and angels to love and honor and cherish as long as you both shall live. Will you merely keep the letter of that law and keep your hands and heart off somebody else? Will you go along cheating, yes, cheating the one with whom you could have that deep spiritual fellowship? Cheating her and in the experience, cheating your own heart until you cry out for something you know not what, perhaps? Ah dear ones, get down on your knees together, the two of you. Put your arms around each other and say, “Why we should have something that no one else in the world could give us. We’re the only ones that can keep each other from having it. We can have it. God had promised it to us. We will have a love, and a fellowship that the world can never give us, and the world can never take it away.”

Remember, the angels are watching. From Heaven’s gates, they are looking for that demonstration. Husband and wife, join in bonds of love that nothing can sever. Oh, let’s believe in it and pray for it. What do you say, friends? Let’s do it for Jesus’ sake to make the demonstration.

Husbands, if you have to humble yourselves to do it, do it. It’ll do you good. Well, I leave it with you wives to do what you can. I have been talking to the husbands, especially. I hope no wife would go home after a meeting like this and say, “Husband, you heard what Brother Frazee told you that you ought to do tonight. Didn’t you?” [The ladies in the congregation laugh] No. I don’t mean that in a light way. Oh no. I hope every wife here will pray earnestly that God will help her to enter with her husband into this experience. This is the yoke that takes two to wear together. It will never come by each going halfway, but if each one goes all the way, friends, then you’ll overlap, and it will work.

Now I come to that Fifth Commandment. Will you repeat it with me?

“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” Exodus 20:12.

I read a very interesting comment on this the other day:

“Parents are entitled to a degree of love and respect which is due to no other person” Patriarchs and Prophets, page 308.

I marked that many years ago. Like other inspired statements, it glows with greater radiance with the passing years. Notice how much is wrapped up in that one line:

“Parents are entitled to a degree of love and respect which is due to no other person” Patriarchs and Prophets, page 308.

Does it really mean that?

Let’s word it in some other ways and see if we can get out the meaning. There is nobody in all the world that is entitled with as much love and respect—the kind of love and respect as my father and mother are. Is that right? Is that what this says? That’s right. That’s right. I want to tell you something, friends, the favorite temptation of the Devil to married people is that my partner does not understand me. The next temptation is that, therefore, you’ve to go to somebody else.

That’s to married people. To children and young people, the Devil has the same thing worded a little differently. One of his favorite temptations for children and young people is, my father and mother just don’t understand me.

It could be true, friends. There have been cases like that—both with husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and children. It’s too bad. But I say to you, friends, the Devil is willing to use either the straight truth or a lie on this subject. In any event, the Devil will crowd that home to the soul.

But remember, we are in the time of the end, and Elijah has come to do what? Restore all things. He is turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

I want to ask you parents, are you willing to have your hearts turned? That’s the question I would like to ask, are you willing to have your heart turned. Now, you can see that the only person who would need to have his heart turned is somebody that has it turned in a wrong direction. Isn’t that right? If anything is turned right, there is no need to turn it. The reason that Elijah has to come and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers is simply this, my friends, too many parents are doing too many other things rather than turning their hearts to their children. And too many children are going out after this thing and that thing, this idea and that idea, this person and that person instead of turning their hearts toward their parents.

One of the favorite devices of the Devil to keep us from being turned one to another is to turn our hearts inward. Whether it is the parent’s heart or the child’s heart, if the main interest is self, it will be pretty hard to get together. Won’t it? Selfishness is the great destroyer of family love and peace. So, let us ask God that He will help us to get our hearts turned. What do you say? And thank God, Elijah is in the business of doing it. I read it here:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” Malachi 4:5–6.

Has Elijah come to your house? Is he doing his blessed work in your home? The order here is significant. In God’s best plan, it begins with the parents. That’s where it ought to begin. That’s why I studied with you first about husband and wife. If husband and wife, father and mother, can get close together with God and each other, then from their united love issues a stream of love pouring out to the children

and the other members of the family. That’s God’s plan. That’s His ideal plan. That’s His best plan.

If for some reason, one parent will not enter into it, then the one that will, should go ahead. Children are too precious to be lost. God will help the one parent who will go ahead. But in any event, God wants the hearts of the parents turned toward the children. Not in a selfish way. Not in a way that makes the children feel that they are the center and everything is to revolve around them. No. Children are to be our helpers in doing the work to which God has called us.

I read something on that I want to share with you on that, friends. Sometimes there is some muddled thinking on this matter, and people get the idea that in order to carry out their responsibility to their children, they have to stop everything else and just look after their children. That’s a mistaken idea.

“In an effort to excuse themselves, some say, ‘my home duties, my children, claim my time and my means.’ Parents, your children should be your helping hand, increasing your power and ability to work for the Master” Adventist Home, page 485.

What did that say? Why, your children are to make it possible to accomplish more for God instead of less. So let no one take the rearing of children as an alibi for not carrying out God’s complete program. Study these pages, and don’t be misled by some beautiful and wonderful statements which are true, that the first responsibility of the children is their parents. The word first indicates there might be some other things along with it.

The children are to be our helpers in the needy world about us. But the place to begin is in the home:

“The circle of family and neighborhood duties is the very first field of effort for those who would work for the uplifting of their fellow men” Ministry of Healing, page 351.

What is the demonstration? What did I study with you on the other evening? What is this great burst of glory in the Loud Cry that the church is to reveal in full and final display? It’s the love of God—doing the will of God here on earth as it is done in Heaven. If fathers and mothers, parents and children will unite together and seek God that their hearts may be turned together in love and sympathy, we can have a little heaven here to go to Heaven in, and as the result God will be pouring out His Spirit in rich, abundant measure.

In closing, I want to give you the key to this whole thing. It’s tucked away here in the 50th chapter of Isaiah, the 4th verse. Dear children, if you will get hold of this, your hearts will be turned to your parents. Dear fathers and mothers, if you get hold of what I am about to give you, your hearts will be turned to your children. Husbands and wives, if the lesson of this verse can be fully grasped, husband and wife will unite in the closest love, a deep, tender love such as Heaven delights to give.

What is the secret? Ah, that secret is found as each individual goes alone with God. There is no other key, friends. While there are things you must get together as married couples and as families, there are some things you can never get there until you have first gotten alone with God. Now, will you read this verse with me?

“The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned” Isaiah 50:4.

Who wakes you up in the morning? God wakes us. What does He wake us up for? To hear. And to hear, we have to… listen. That takes time. The first thing to do when we wake up in the morning is to listen to our heavenly Father—to visit with Him; to listen to Him while He speaks and speak while He listens. Let Him talk to us through His Word and by His Spirit, and to talk to Him in prayer.

If you and I will do that day by day, we can have these victories in the home life we have been studying tonight. And that will make it possible for us to have a successful church and be part of the church victorious. And that will make the great demonstration, friends, and Jesus can come. Then we’ll go with Him from world to world all through the universe of God.

Some of you who are students away from your homes, for the time being, you are a part of a home here. I know you are seeking to be faithful home members. You will not misunderstand me when I say let none of that in any way weaken your devotion to and love for your parents at home wherever they may be. Write them— love letters. Tell them of the lessons God is teaching. Seek to cheer their hearts with your sincere affection for them. Let them see that God is doing things for you and that what He is doing for you makes you a better son, a better daughter.

If they know God, it will cheer their hearts and make them glad for what God is doing for you. And if they do not know God, that approach can be one of the most wonderful soul-winning efforts you can possibly engage in.

Now for everyone: older ones, young people, children, fathers and mothers, our last key text. How often are we to have this experience told in our key text? Morning by morning. At least seven times a week, won’t it? Yes. Morning by morning, He awakens us, what for? To hear. May I suggest to you a little habit if you have not already formed it? I find that the people who put the best breakfasts on the table (and I’ve sat at some of those tables) usually get a number of those things ready the afternoon and evening before. They may have the granola made the day before.

Do you want to have a wonderful experience with Jesus in the morning? Begin it with a little quiet time with Him in the evening before you go to bed. As you lie down in slumber, ask Him to wake you in the morning with the thought of God in your heart. Lay down all the cares of the day. Put them aside.

Do not go to bed to worry. Do not go to bed to think over what happened or what is going to happen. Settle all that on your knees with God before you go to bed. And as you lie on your pillow, look up and tell God you love Him and that you would like to have Him wake you up with the thought of God in your heart. David had that experience.

“How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with Thee” Psalm 139:17–18.

See? David as he went to bed, he was thinking the thoughts of God. Not a lot of worries and fears and frets. He was thinking the thoughts of God and counting them over. He said they are more in number than, what? The sand. Some people count sheep to go to sleep. Don’t do it, friends—count promises. Think the thoughts of God. Just fill your mind with those sweet and precious thoughts of God, and you can drift off into dreamland in sweet and quiet slumber. And then David says, what?

“When I awake, I am still with Thee” Psalm 139:18.

Isn’t that sweet? Still, still with Thee.

[Singing, “Still with Thee”]

[John Jensen leads out in the testimony meeting.]

Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

W. D. Frazee Sermons P.O. Box 102, Wildwood, GA 30757 1-800-WDF-1840 / 706-820-9755 www.WDFsermons.org support@WDFsermons.org