THE CHRISTIAN HOME 1 – WHY STUDY THE CHRISTIAN HOME? By Gbile Akanni
Prayer:We bless you because of Your presence again with us, thank You for this opportunity to look into Your Word, even the living oracles. We ask Lord that both us and those that listen to us will receive a definite touch and a definite opening of our eyes; that issues concerning our homes and our families will become resolved and (will) become permanently and perfectly established to the glory and praise of Your name.
Thank You for hearing us for we have prayed in Jesus Name. Amen.
We would like to thank God for yet another opportunity to come your way on the Living Seed (Web and) Radio Broadcast. We are persuaded that God will have us concentrate and spend some time on the issues of the Christian family and the Christian home. (Therefore) we are going to be studying the Word of God as much as it is possible and as much as God will make (His instructions) available to us.
I want to ask you to keep a date with us as we go through this by the grace of God.
We will be studying at various levels: we realize that there are people that have been married for many years and that there are those that are just getting into marriage while yet there are those that are praying and are still to meet their life partners, we are trusting God in His eternal wisdom to make instructions for each of these band of people available to us as we seat at His feet through these weeks in the Name of Jesus.
Today as a general introduction; if there is no reason to talk or to teach and study on the Christian home there would not have been any basis for us to dedicate all these weeks ahead (that we shall be studying together) to focus on the Christian home! We realize that the Christian home is such a very crucial aspect of our lives – there is nothing that you can do for God when your family is in shambles!!
Taking that thought through you find out that when a family is broken down, a society will be broken down. I do hope you recognize that the family is the basic unit of the church, it is also the basic unit of every nation. When our families and our homes are not in order, you can be sure that it will be carried over and express itself as problems (to be confronted) in the larger society. You must realize, for instance, that every armed robber that you meet on the road came from some family – he didn’t fall down from the tree but rather was born by somebody! It will shock you to note that some of the many harlots working our streets right now were married before. What has happened that someone will pack up her family and take to prostitution? These are some of the issues we shall be dealing with in the weeks ahead.
There are so many people today who are staying under the same roof with their husband but as mere tenants, the only thing that is keeping them together (and why they are not separated) is social pressure – it is because they have gone too far to face the shame of becoming a divorcee! We want to trust God (as we study together) that the Christian family can be better than that – we can have a deep satisfaction in our homes if we will study the Word of God carefully and we will understand the Manufacturer’s design over this important matter.
Today we will discuss why we must undertake this study; and please listen to me – I believe that if you understand the need to study the Christian home you will be greatly helped as this would prepare your mind on why you must also seat down and take all notes and be ready to act on the truth that God is about to reveal to us.
May God grant you understanding as we go ahead in Jesus Name.
I want us to look at one scripture in the book of Proverbs Chapter Thirty as an introduction to why we must study the issues of the Christian home. We read verses Twenty One to Twenty Three.
Pro 30:21 For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear:
Pro 30:22 For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat;
Pro 30:23 For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.
(King James Version)
Pro 30:21 Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up –
Pro 30:22 A slave when he becomes king and a food when he is filled with food
Pro 30:23 An unloved woman when she gets a husband and a maid when she succeeds her mistress.
(Revised Standard Version)
Looking at this particular scripture, the Bible says there are three things that make the earth to tremble; when these three things happen the earth begins to shake and becomes disquieted and under four it cannot stand, no matter how you try – the earth cannot handle it! What are these four things that the Bible speaks of with such magnitude?: i.) When a slave becomes a king, when an idiot becomes a ruler, when someone that does not know what to do becomes a leader, you find chaos everywhere because he does not know what to do: he is a slave and he is only excited about what he can eat. I don’t want to talk about that because I am not dealing with the political issues of our land in this study: policy makers and politics is not my concern right now as my concern is to deal directly with the issues of the Christian home! So whatever you understand by this first issue the Bible raises, please go ahead with it and think it through.
The Bible says the second thing that confuses the earth and makes it not to stand is when a fool has enough thing to eat: a fool when he is filled with food (and according to the King James Version of the Bible, when a fool is filled with meat). A fool when he has plenty of food and when he has plenty of money to play around with causes confusion everywhere! That is the second thing that the Bible says when it happens the earth is disquieted: when a fool cannot be called to order because he has everything he needs, he can take a wrong decision and you cannot reorder him!! Though you be a wise man but don’t have money and food: since you don’t have the resources what can you talk? There are so many, so many wise men in our land today who are just neglected, they are thrown away because they don’t have the wherewithal by which they can make their wisdom relevant to what is going on in the society.
But you see all of this is still not the focus for our study right now.
The Bible speaks about a third and a fourth thing which will make the earth to tremble and which the earth cannot tolerate. That is what we shall study: an unloved woman when she gets an husband and a maid when she succeeds her mistress.
Look at this! Out of the four issues that the Word of God says cause the earth to tremble – two of it are issues regarding the family!! It looks to me as if we will take that scripture seriously – that there are four things under which the earth will be in disarray and confusion, we will see that out of those four things, two of it are issues that concern the home. 50percent of the troubles that is worrying the world system today are found in the family, 50percent of all the confusion all around! You may not realize it, but that is the truth!
When a man’s family is in disarray, he comes to the office shouting on everybody! If you are unfortunate to meet your boss when he had just quarreled with his wife and you came in to greet him in his office – you will see the way he will react to you. If you are unfortunate that your file should come to his table first thing that Monday morning, you are in trouble already, he will just confuse your own situation and you will be wondering what you have done to this man that he is doing this to you! You have done nothing to him: he is (only) coming from a troubled and a troublesome home!
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The Bible says out of the four things that will trouble the earth and will not make the earth to bear up, two of it are matters concerning the family. If we are in a situation where 50percent of all the troubles that is going on throughout the world concerns the home, why would we all not seat down and pay close attention to it? Everyone listening here – whether you have been in church or not been in church, I know the issue of the family is an issue you cannot ignore: I know the issue of your wife or your husband is not a matter you can dismiss from your mind as not being important. That is why I want to demand of you to seat down! Seat down wherever you are and let’s discuss. Let’s find out from God how he wants to take us out of this problem!
Let’s look at those issues before I leave them – the issues in Prov. 30:23. I am not going to deal with them per se today, I am only impressing upon you what is the need to undertake an in-depth study on this important matter on the family. The Bible says “…an unloved woman when she gets a husband…”: (you can) just imagine what happens when the husband that you married has no more love for you. Imagine what happens in a family when your husband has already switched off the love with which he says he loves you while you were in courtship when you first started: those love letters that he was writing to you that among all the trees in the garden you are the rose of his life, you are the flower of his experience, all of those things are finished currently in your marriage! There are so many women listening to me today – I can see you nodding your head especially when you remember how you started: the kind of love, intoxicating love that your husband seemed to be showering on you in the beginning. But what is happening now? Now, all of those things are finished.
An unloved woman when she gets a husband is such a terrible experience! My prayer is that God will spare you that kind of terrible experience in the Name of Jesus Christ. And if you are already going through it and you just realized that the man you married does not love you again or the woman whom you married has seen another person whom she says she loves better than yourself, that is the problem and the source of all jealousy and all polygamy – that is the problem that brings confusion everywhere in the family, you should lay down all defenses and receive the Word of God and let it instruct you and heal you. The Bible says when such thing is happening the whole earth is disquieted: the whole environment, the family – the children, everybody around, the relatives – are in trouble because an unloved woman now gets a husband.
The number four thing still is on the family – a maid when she succeeds her mistress. Look at the way the King James put it – an handmaid that is heir to her mistress. What is the meaning of that? …When a house-girl begins to take and share the same bed with her mistress… You may not be able to imagine what I am talking about but those that are going through that experience know how terrible it is! Sometimes it may be the junior sister of the wife, sometimes it may be a girl that you just brought in from the village to come and help you with household chores and yet your husband is flirting after her, they are talking late into the night and things are happening and this girl begins to flex her muscles against you. You tell her go and do this and she says “Madam please don’t shout at me.” You keep wondering what is happening! When you stand up and want to rebuke that house girl your husband says “why are you so strict with this girl, why are you always shouting on that girl? if you are not careful I will beat the hell out of you here!!” And then you, the woman of the house, are confused. The Bible says such things cause confusion to the earth.
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So what is the solution? What is the answer to this matter? That is why we are undertaking this study.
The first thing I will say to you before we get into the depth of the study today is that whatever your situation is, whatever is happening in your family, there is a solution. There is an answer. That answer is in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ! Settle down with Him so He can help you instead of going up and down – I have seen so many wives carrying their husband to the Government Social Department but I have never seen any of such families restored by Social Welfare. What you don’t know is that those people that are in the social welfare department themselves have family problems. You only need to check what is going with their own families and in their own homes! You cannot give to a man what you yourself do not have, that is what we are talking about! Some of you carry your marital issues to your father-in-law, you go to your mother-in-law; do you ever imagine that that is where the solution to this problem is? The answer to this matter that we are dealing with is in the Word of God. The answer is in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to ask you to seat down, open up your heart to God and begin to pray and say to God “Lord this issue of the family, this issue of my home, this issue of my husband, this issue of my wife, you have an answer to it, I want you to help me!” And the Lord will answer you. The Lord will do something about it.
I am trusting that by the time you go through this series from week to week – if you follow us – God will turn your family around, God will turn your marital relationship around and turn around that home that has become a battle-ground.
I met one man the other day and even though he was highly placed and was a very learned man, yet what was his testimony? He said “before I met Jesus my home was a battle-ground, my wife was my punching bag (that thing that boxers hang and practise their punches with)!” He said anytime he wanted to test his strength he engaged his wife in a fight. How can an educated man do that? But I tell you – education does not make people wise, education does not remove the animal nature of man. No! Only the Word of God does it, only Jesus can do that when He comes into a man’s life.
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God will help us as we go on with this study in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Maybe you have just married for two weeks or you just got married two months ago and you are wondering and saying to yourself “in my own family I don’t have a problem!” You may say “as for me nobody should talk about this kind of thing because I am enjoying and my husband is the best man in town, my wife is the best woman I have ever met!” Sometime I see you stand up and tell your wife “you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” I want to congratulate you for that. I am happy that that woman is the best thing that has ever happened to you. But just before you go away in intoxication, I want you to listen to a very practical situation. Even though you don’t have a problem in your marriage today it would be necessary for you to settle down and ask God how to build that relationship so that the enemy of your soul does not take advantage of it.
Can we go back to the Scriptures and turn our Bibles to the book of John Chapter Two while I introduce you to something that is so practical and which talks about how to begin to deal with the issue of your family? Lets read John chapter Two from verses One to Ten.
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Joh 2:1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
Joh 2:2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.
Joh 2:3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.
Joh 2:4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
Joh 2:5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
Joh 2:6 And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.
Joh 2:7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.
Joh 2:8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.
Joh 2:9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,
Joh 2:10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.
(KJV)
May God bless His word into your heart in the Name of Jesus Christ.
Whereas we have many lessons to learn from this particular story this being the first miracle Jesus performed, what is touching my mind this hour (as touching this scripture and what it says concerning the theme of our thoughts with you) is what this scripture says about why we must study and pray and prepare for the building up of our homes. What is touching me is not that Jesus performed a miracle and he turned water into wine. I would like you to note some very important key issue that is coming out of this scripture.
The Bible said there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there and both Jesus and His disciples were called to the marriage. Maybe I would come back later on to talk about that. But I would like you to listen to what happened. In verse three the Bible said
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Joh 2:8 When they lacked wine…
(KJV)
The New International version says
Joh 2:8 When the wine was gone Jesus mother said to Him they have no more wine.
You see, something happened. I imagine that this marriage started and everybody was rejoicing, things were happening and as long as good things were happening and all was well, Jesus was outside. He was kept outside! Everybody was excited, marriage was going on very seriously and everyone was moving fine. But then the word of God says the wine finished, there came a time in their marriage when their wine ended. When the wine of that marriage was exhausted something happened. It looked as if the whole thing was going to collapse right at the point of the wine finishing. It looked as if that was the end of the feast! But I noticed that something happened: the mother of Jesus quickly came to call Jesus!
Now that is what I want to say to you before I go on: the Bible says under the trouble that this marriage came to in the course of time, they quickly sought the Lord.
I have shared with you according to the word of the Lord that 50percent of the world’s troubles came from the family. I you again as I have said before: the solution to every problem in marriage is Jesus. The Bible said both Jesus and His disciples were called to the marriage. If you will call Jesus to your marriage, if you will call Jesus into your relationship something will happen!say to
Maybe what you are going through in your family is so difficult and you have tried: you have gone up and down and nobody has been able to solve that problem for you. But will you call Jesus? The mother of Jesus knew that the solution to the problem of that marriage in Cana of Galilee was to call Jesus. Will you call Jesus into your marriage?
I will stop here today because I am trusting God that as I come in the next edition of this program I would like to continue on this passage. I want to tell you – under these four things the earth is disquieted! 50percent of the troubles that is going on in the world is in the family but I say to you that the solution cannot be anywhere else, it can only be found in Jesus!
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And Jesus was called.
Will you call Jesus into your marriage today? To call Jesus into your marriage you must call Him into your life, you must call Him into your heart!
If you as a husband realize that your wife that you thought you loved in the beginning you find you don’t love her again, you just find that your heart is out: whatever she does you don’t enjoy, you don’t cherish it, I think you need to call Jesus into that marriage. You need to bring Jesus into this relationship so that He might rectify it for you. Madam, are you the one that just realized that your husband is beginning to run after the office girl and you are wondering what you will do? The alternative you might be considering is “I will go and fight the girl!” Unfortunately that will not solve your problem as you will only ridicule yourself. Call Jesus into the matter! Call Jesus into your life! Call Him into your heart and something will happen.
The mother of Jesus came and said “Look! there is a problem with this marriage” and she called Jesus in. Will you call Jesus into your relationship today?
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As we sign off here will you call Jesus? Jesus is the only one that will bring the solution, He will turn the water of your life into wine and things will go on again according to His purpose for your home.
As you bow your head and as our brother prays for you, Jesus is standing and He is knocking at the door of your marriage, if you call Him in He will come. He will not interrupt your marriage except you call Him in.
Call Him in today and you will never regret bringing Him in unto the root cause of your family problem. As He changed the course of the home He was called into in Cana of Galilee, He will help your own situation also in the Name of Jesus.
God bless you.
Prayer: Our Father we thank You today for turning Your attention to our homes. We know You are standing by and Lord as many as are calling You into their troubles and into their family problems: Lord, step in. Some are turning their lives over to You today, Lord let them know peace even as You intervene in the situation of their homes and their personal lives.
Thank You for You will do it for we have prayed in Jesus Name. Amen.
References
https://witsite.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/the-christian-home-1-why-study-the-christian-home-by-gbile-akanni/
