The urgent need of the hour which we have as Protestant Reformed people of God is for stability in our homes. We do not need better instruction in catechism or in our Christian day schools; we are greatly blessed in these areas, though we must always strive to do better. We do not need more societies in our churches; we have plenty of opportunity to study God’s Word together under capable leadership. We do need better homes. Every pastor, and undoubtedly every one of you young people, can recite instances in our midst in which the home is suffering breakdown.

I’m heartened that you show in part of your convention sensitivity to this need and you are concerned about it.

What really is the home? What is a Christian, covenant home?

Consider five things.

First, home is where we live. It’s the one place we can feel comfortable just as we are without having to pretend. Bare feet and pajamas are not out of place at home. If you have a headache and act grouchy, you will be surrounded by people that understand.

That leads me to the second thing, home is people. Mother is the home­maker, father is the home sustainer, the children complete the family. Yes, home is where the family lives!

Thirdly, the home is the expression of the deepest of all human relationships. Marriage is the backbone of the home. Children who are born within that marriage are the joy of that home. All of this is expressed within the bond of love which we have as children of God in Christ Jesus.

Hence we must add that the home is the deepest expression of the covenant. The home is not a product of society, it is a wonder of grace. Being redeemed by Christ, we have the heart that loves God and thereby also loves one another. Since the home is a gift of God, we recognize the need to obey God’s commands, also as they apply to the home.

In the fifth place, the home that thrives on the love of God and expresses that friendship with God has an eternal dimension. Not that we believe as the Mormons, that our marriages are for eternity; no, rather that in Christ we are members of an eternal family, brother and sisters in the family of God. God is our Father, we are His children. Even Ecclesiastes 12:5 speaks of man going to “his long home’’. Above our temporary, earthly homes, we have a heavenly, everlasting home. Under the blessing of God, our present homes prepare us for that home.

In one word, home is the place where the family expresses love for one another in the sphere of the covenant of God with a view to eternity.

Such a home is very important. There are many reasons for this, but let me cite three briefly.

First, the home is important for individual happiness. Are not the words of our convention theme introduced thus. “Rejoice, O young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee,” Ecclesiastes 11:9. Jesus expressed the joy of the citizens of the kingdom in the well-known beatitudes of Matthew 5 and each one begins, “Happy…Happy…Happy…” Our Reformed fathers recognized this in our beloved Heidelberg Catechism when they sound the key-note, Christian comfort enables us to live and die happily. We can say as believing children of God, God wants us to be happy.

A Christian marriage and Christian home is one of God’s greatest gifts to make us happy. I know the opposite is also true: when marriage fails, people are closest to a living hell. Yet it only proves that marriage in God’s love and favor is greatest happiness. When we have a happy marriage, the most menial task is pleasure: hammering nails, changing diapers, shoveling snow!

Secondly, the home is God’s means whereby He preserves His covenant. We can appreciate this as covenant young people. God has given us marriage, through the love-life of marriage, children are conceived and born. Parents receive children as God’s gifts and are willing to give their lives for the well-being of their children. Hence the home is like an incubator of the covenant. Parents try to protect their growing children from evil influences. They teach them by precept and example what God requires of us within His covenant. When that training process is completed, there goes forth from the home covenant young people that are willing to take on responsibilities for their generation.

Finally, the home is the stabilizing element of society. This relates to the principle of the fifth commandment that children honor father and mother. When we recognize that God is the absolute Authority over all of us, parents and children, we will accept our respective responsibilities. We will abhor disobed­ience, gang rebellion, and revolution. We will learn respect for authority and the need to be honest and trustworthy. It is for this reason that the Christian home is the greatest opportunity to witness to the world round about us. The entire neigh­borhood should be able to see from the way we live that our home is Christian!

This brings up the subject of pro­blems in the home today. There are definite threats to the well-being of the home in our society. Since we live in the midst of the world of our day, such threats must not be tossed aside and ignored. They often have an influence upon our homes as well.

We will simply list some of these problems.

We have the danger of government encroachment. There are obvious political implications in this. We are witnessing the practical results of a “free society”, especially as man sinks deeper into the dregs of depravity. Consider abused children, women who refuse to care for their own children but under the pretense of “liberation” want to work, the fear of population explosion and its consequent birth control, public education and the demands placed upon the schools. To accomplish its goals, government tries to control more and more: by taxation, by legislation, by establishing child day-care centers. It all comes down to this, do children belong to parents or to the state? More are answering in our day, the state!

We are living in an immoral age. More people are living together, including sexual relationships, without marrying. In 1978 there are 1.9 million people living this way, an increase of 5 fold over 1970. Add to this the divorce rate of almost half of the marriages in some part of our country. People openly brag about birth control, claiming to reach zero population growth, yet 20% of all pregnancies today end in abortion here in America (that’s over a million a year), and one half of the women who do deliver their babies have conceived them out of marriage. These facts cry to the God of heaven revealing a sordid life of debauchery and sin.

There are other problems facing the home. These include our mobile society. No more do families stay their whole life in one area or grow up in one-family houses. People move often and that, too, in all parts of the country and even the world. This divides the generations and somewhat gives opportunity for Satan to drive a wedge between parents and children. Add to this our affluence, our wealth of money. We have grown accustomed to a high standard of living. Now as the cost of that living goes up, we hate to give up that standard. We think we need all kinds of luxuries, so father gets additional work, probably mother leaves home to find a job, the children learn at an early age that jobs mean money and buying things they like. Often, the demand for money is not even for necessities, usually it is for luxuries. We like sports, boats, cars, fancy clothes, vacations, etc. It’s rather dull to have to work for tuition in a Christian school, it’s tempting to let that slide; but keep up with the fun. Much of this pulls the family apart, rather than bringing it closer together.

So we have to remember our Creator in the days of our youth. This will help us in dealing with the important place we have in the home.

Let me emphasize that your place in the home as young people is crucial. This is for two reasons.

First, you are at the transition point, about to leave your parental home and begin your own home. This causes you to respond negatively toward your parental home. Isn’t it striking, that the only time in a person’s life that he is dissatisfied at home is when he is your age, between 16 and 20 years of age. A young child is happy at home, an older person grows very appreciative of all that a parent has done when he looks back at his parental home. Yet, youth tends to grown restless. Many times you have a blow-up with your parents, you get angry, and threaten to leave home. Sometimes you sit quietly and dream about the good days that lie ahead when you can get out of the home. Allow me to make this observation for you: you are not alone in these feelings, it is somewhat normal; but here is the point, it is dangerous to act according to these feelings. You must learn to work them out. If you are really a mature young adult, you will not run from the home, you will talk this over with your parents and resolve it. By all means, do not enter marriage because you can’t stand living at home. If you can’t work out your problems at home, you are too immature for marriage.

The second reason why remembering our Creator is important in our youth is this, you are about to begin your own home. Your future home must be on a good foundation, if it is not, it will crumble and fall. It is so important that while you are young you maintain the correct Ideal of the home and what kind of a home you want for yourself with your future husband or wife and children.

If we remember our Creator it will help.

How must we do this? According to context of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon makes it very clear that we have to cut right through vanity. The great theme of the entire book is that,

“childhood and youth are vanity”, verse 10 of chapter 11. In the preceding chapters, he mentioned in detail what this vanity amounts to: wisdom and philosophy is vanity, so is science and knowledge apart from God, pleasures, materialism, fatalism, the big I, false religion, wealth, immoral living. Instead of this, youth does best to face the conclusion of the entire matter, “Fear God and keep His com­mandments for this is the whole duty of man”, 12:13.

We have the privilege to view these commandments in the light of the entire Word of God. More particularly, we can examine God’s creation of the home and learn from that what will make a happy home for us. If we remember our Creator as He made the home, we will have the principles for our Christian home today.

What does creation tell us about the home?

First, God wants us to live at home. Genesis 2:24 tells us. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother.” Why? To get married to a wife. That’s the occasion for leaving home. Until then, the young man belongs in the home of his parents, also the young woman. I’m not ready to say that it is wrong for young people to leave home, there are things such as jobs away from home, school, boy and girl friends, and other things. Yet, there is something sad and wrong if father and mother live in a well-provided home, and six blocks away a son or daughter live in an apartment by themselves. The occasion to leave home is marriage. When that is about to take place, it is honorable, Hebrews 13:4, it is not good for a man to be alone, Genesis 2:8, Paul instructed the young woman to marry, I Timothy 5:14.

Secondly, the creation defines the role of each member in the family. This is important for you, young people. The old fashioned home is never out of date because it is rooted in the God of creation! Genesis 2:7, God formed Adam out of the dust first and later made Eve. Because of

this the head of the home is the husband, I Corinthians 11:3 and I Timothy 2:13. The husband must rule in love as Christ rules His church, Ephesians 5:23. The wife must be an helpmeet to her husband, Genesis 2:20. God made Eve from the rib of Adam, hence she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. She became woman, taken out of the man. She is like the man, yet different from him, the perfect person to complete his life. Her role is to be subject to her husband, Ephesians 5:24. In that relationship, God the Creator has provided the means for child bearing. God made male and female. The physical differences complement each other in the sex act. The sex-act is not merely physical, it is the deepest expression of love for two persons. In sexually healthy adults, this physical relationship provides for conception and child birth. God made man and woman that way. Children are the natural result of a mutual love for one another. Hence, we read in Timothy, first letter chapter 2:14,15, “she shall be saved in childbearing”, that is, the wife experiences the joy of her salvation in bearing children, covenant children. What a high value we must place upon giving birth to children.

The Creator also spells out the duty of children: obey father and mother. I like the way the catechism expresses it in Lord’s Day 39, “That I show all honor, love, and fidelity to my father and mother, and all in authority over me, and submit myself to their good instruction and correction with due obedience and also patiently bear with their weaknesses and infirmities since it pleases God to govern us by their hand.”

To accomplish all this, the Creator placed within the heart of Adam and Eve the only power that would bring it all to pass, love. He made them in His own image, Genesis 1:26. We can appreciate this, since that love is now given to us also through Jesus Christ, Romans 5:5. Ah, this is it, love is of God! Marriage without love is dead, parenthood without love is an atrocity. The only source of this love is in God through Jesus Christ.

It is God’s will that the home continue. He created it, He renewed it by saving us in Jesus Christ, He wills that until Christ return, we continue maintain­ing Christian homes. Sometimes this will mean that we resist the temptation to be influenced by the world and abandon the home altogether: shack up with someone and not be married, have sex without marriage, conceive children without mar­riage. All this is sinful and contrary to the creation plan. Also it means that we will not break up our marriage by divorce just because there are problems in it. God intends the marriage to last until death, Matthew 19:8, this is rooted in creation. We must learn to solve our problems, confess our sins to one another and forgive one another.

Now, you understand why we must remember our Creator if we are going to do this. Note carefully, Solomon does not say, remember the creation, he says, remember your Creator. Such remember­ing includes believing in Him, holding His Word for truth, conforming your lives to His will. He is yours, beloved covenant young people. What a thrill it is to believe this. You have a glorious future, for I can assure you that God will continue to work in you to enable you to carry on that great task of maintaining His covenant. The home is the heart-beat of the covenant. Avoid vanity, read God’s Word and study it carefully, pray often and may He go with you. The conclusion of this whole matter is to fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.