The Influence of Family Worship on Children

Taken from The Family

There are many readers of these pages who, like the author, can go back to no period of recollection in which the worship of God was not duly observed under the parental roof; and they will agree in testifying that this is among the chief blessings for which they have to thank an ever-gracious Providence.

If called upon to name the principal benefit of the institution, we should indicate it’s benign operation on the children of the house.

The simple fact, that parents and offspring meet together every morning and evening for the Word of God and prayer, is a great fact in household annals. It is the inscribing of God’s name over the lintel of the door. It is the setting up of God’s altar.

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Why Revival Leaves

Late in the 1950s Leonard Ravenhill wrote a book that quickly became a classic on the subject of revival entitled Why Revival Tarries. It addressed the perplexing question: If God earnestly desires to pour His gracious Spirit onto all flesh, then what is preventing it? In other words, what is stopping us from experiencing this outpouring, and what would it take for us to experience real revival like we have read about? I think it is a question that does indeed challenge each of us as we long for more from God and desire to see true revival in our day. But perhaps the thought that should vex us even more than why revival tarries, is the question—why does revival leave? Why, when a people have experienced a genuine presence and outpouring of the living God, would they turn away from it and choose another way?

As I have studied revival and church history, the question that often troubles me when looking at a particular work of God is—what happened that made this group lose every trace of all that God had done through them? Why does the glory of God leave? The Lancaster revivals of the 1950s, the Wesleyan revivals of the 1700s and 1800s, the East African revivals of the 1940s, and even the famous Welch Revival of 1904 are all for the most part gone. Why?

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03. The Exception Clause

Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage (part3)

When we step back and look at the practice of divorce and remarriage in the Church today, it is hard to imagine that Jesus ever gave any prohibition against divorce and remarriage at all. Recent studies have indicated that the divorce rate among people who call themselves “born again” fares even worse than non-Christians, coming in at 27%. Catholics and atheists tie for the lowest divorce rate, averaging around 21%.

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