Truth Magazine

By Holly Turner

As I have grown, I have come to value the important role a woman plays in the development of a Christian home. A woman who has God as the center of her life will prove a valuable asset to her husband, her children, and the church. Many of us have seen wonderful examples of such women in our mothers, grandmothers, and fellow Christian women. We must not let the world influence our ideas and values as it tries to indoctrinate us with feminism and humanism.

The role of the woman is in the home. She is to be the keeper of the home and the manager of the home (Tit. 2:5; 1 Tim. 5:14). If she is very rarely in the home, how can she adequately fulfill her God-given role? Yes, sometimes, circumstances do not allow a woman to stay at home. My fear, however, is that many women are working solely so the family can have more, do more, and travel morebenefits that might satisfy for the moment but prove worthless in the end.

In Proverbs 31, Solomon highlights the life of a “worthy woman.” He sets forth a number of important roles for such a woman including being a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, and a good neighbor. By displaying such roles, a worthy woman will not only benefit those around her, but she will also bring to herself a good name.

First, a good woman is a diligent worker. She stands apart from other hardworking women because she works unselfishly, knowing the benefits she obtains are not only monetary, but spiritual. Her focus is on helping others, not promoting self. She is good and honest in all her dealings. She has God at the center of her life.

Second, a worthy woman is also a good wife. A good wife always seeks the best for her husband, and her attributes are a complement to him. She demonstrates her love by willingly submitting to him. She does not submit out of fear and tenor but out of a desire to obey her Lord. A woman such as this should be praised.

Third, Solomon deals with the role of a good mother. He states in Proverbs 31:21, “When it snows she has no fear because her household is clothed in scarlet.” It is obvious from this statement that this mother gives the best she can to her children. Her family is of great importance. The worthy woman sees her family as the king and herself as the servant. She rises early to tend to her motherly duties and is always striving to fulfill her obligations to them. Why does she do these things eagerly? She does this because of her love for her family and ultimately her love for God.

Fourth, a worthy woman also serves those outside her family. She helps the poor and lifts up the needy. She is always ready to lend a helping hand to those around her. Whether it be visiting those in sorrow, bringing food to the elderly, or inviting friends and strangers into her home, she does it with a glad heart. She also speaks wisely, never giving heed to vain words or gossip. Her wisdom is known among the people, and many seek her advice. She does not gloat in her wisdom but freely advises those who desire her words.

Solomon states in Proverbs 31:10 that such a woman “is valued far above rubies.” “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her” (v. 28). What tremendous satisfaction she must gain when she hears such words!

As young Christian women, we need not look out into the world for our role models but to the Bible and to the church.

Are the goals we have for our lives going to hinder our roles as godly women, wives, and mothers? If they are, let us refocus so that when we have families we can remain in the home. For many it will mean a sacrifice of a career, that big new house, that beautiful new car, or those great vacations. But what a small sacrifice to make for the ability to play an important role in the making of a godly home. The rewards will far exceed anything in this life that we can imagine. That is why I desire to be a godly woman, wife, and mother.

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: 6 p. 24
March 16, 1995

By Daniel H. King Sr.

There are people all around us these days, searching for something in their lives. Many of them will readily and ambivalently admit that they feel empty inside. Something, they know not what, is missing. They are lonely and desperate, agitated and unhappy.

They have financial success, many of them, and with it all the “things” that money can buy. But it does not give them lasting pleasure. They are not satisfied. A deep emptiness haunts their very existence. They enjoy most of the earthly delights for which multiplied thousands seek, yet find no enduring gratification in any of these carnal diversions.

A man cannot live his life apart from a relationship with his Maker and be truly happy. God made us that way on purpose. As Augustine wrote in his Confessions (VII 5), “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.” Or, as David said before him, “0 God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” (Psa. 63:1).

Whereas much that this world offers to mankind leaves us feeling vacant and hollow, there is lasting spiritual satisfaction in our relation-ship with our heavenly Father. As

David went on to say in his psalm: “Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me” (63:3-8).

Remember, please, the following important points which relate to these devotions from David’s heart under the influence of the Holy Spirit:

1. A Man Needs God In His Life. As the psalm puts it, one’s relation-ship with God is as indispensable as water “in a dry and thirsty land.” Water is a requirement, essential to existence, not a luxury. Likewise, worshipping, praising, and loving God is not one of life’s distractions. It is not a sideline to what we do, nor is it a peripheral issue to who we are. Rather, it is the essence of who we are and what we do. A man does not just want God in his life, like to have him as his friend and Father, prefer to devote some time and energy to reverencing him, or desire an affiliation and association with him  he needs God, he must have him in his heart and his life, or else he will continue always to be thirsty for the water of life which God gives (In. 4:10, 13). This is life eternal, a foretaste of the heavenly glory, as Jesus said: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (Jn. 17:3).

2. Having God In One’s Life Brings Satisfaction. “My soul shall be satisfied…” writes David. Just as food (“marrow and fatness”) leaves the stomach feeling full, so one who knows the Lord’s mercy and walks with him in his life experiences fulfillment. Those who do not know what is missing in their lives and who often wind up in dissipation, drug abuse or even suicide, will not admit that God is really what is lacking, the deficiency that plagues every aspect of their being. They cannot be happy because the one Person who can de-liver lasting contentment “God” is consciously and permanently shut out of their lives.

3. This Satisfaction Inspires Worship Of One’s Maker. Says the Psalmist, “My mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.” The practice of one’s religion through worship is not viewed by this author, as with some of us, as a chore or an onerous duty, but as the joyful outpouring of a thankful heart. This is the way that each of us ought to view worship. We ought to extend such homage to God, and offer it out of a comparable inner motivation.

4. Private Devotion Is A By-product Of This Spiritual Satisfaction. “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches,” in v. 6, shows that David was not merely practicing his religion publicly in the Temple. The passage describes private devotion, which according to the Savior is critical to true religion: “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:6). If the only prayer or praise which we give to God is that which we offer in the assemblies with other Christians, then our religion is woefully lacking.

5. Diligence Will Not Permit This Satisfaction To Be Denied Us. The Authorized Version rendering of v. 8 is this: “My soul followeth hard after thee…” Other versions interpret the Hebrew phrase variously as, “My soul clings to Thee,” and “My soul cleaves after thee.” Such unrelenting pursuit of God and his truth has even been a quality of genuine religion (Deut. 10:20; Hos. 6:3). God is described in Scripture as a Father who ever waits longingly for us, watchful for our return to him (Lk. 15:20). But God did not leave home, we did. So we must make our way back to him, not he to us.

Those are his terms, and it is up to us to meet them. If we are diligent to do so, satisfaction and fulfillment are sure to follow in the wake. The emptiness and desperate groping of so many of this generation is proof positive that the world cannot give us lasting contentment. God alone has this within his power. And he metes it out solely to those who would seek his company. As the psalm says, “My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee. . . My soul shall be satisfied…”

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: 7 p. 1
April 6, 1995

By Mike Willis

The Lord’s church in Danville is richly blessed with spiritually minded teenagers. We have three teenage boys who lead singing as capably as any of our adults. One is preparing himself to preach the gospel. At the end of his senior year of high school, he will enter his second year in a summer training program. Our young ladies also are committed to the Lord, although they do not have the opportunity to serve publicly.

The young people at Danville have not developed accidentally. There are several things that have been done that I mention, not to brag about what we have done, but to help others who might be searching for ways to keep their teenagers interested in the Lord’s work.

1. We have committed parents. Our teenagers all come from strong family units. The parents of every one of our teenagers have provided a stable family influence for the children. Two of our teenagers have come from homes that have experienced divorce. The spouses who are rearing the children are committed to the Lord. One has the resource of grandparents who are devoted Christians to give support; the other family is first generation Christians who have made a genuine commitment to the Lord. These families have worked hard to overcome the tragic effects of divorce and they are succeeding.

The parents are interested in the school work of their children, supporting them in whatever extra-curricular activities they choose to be involved. I do not know of any of our parents who unintentionally or intentionally has conveyed to his child that he is not wanted or loved. The parents are effectively communicating to their children that they love them, creating and building healthy self-esteem (see Tit. 2:4).

They also are committed to serving God in the local church. The families try to be present every time the doors of the church building are open. If they happen to be out of town, they make arrangements to worship while away on their trips. The church is the center of the family’s life.

Many parents also conduct home Bible studies with their children. I can only speak directly of what my family has done with our children, but I know that other families also have home Bible studies. We would usually read a chapter of the Bible together and have a prayer before Jenny and Corey left for school. We did not rigidly do this; there were days that we missed because someone was running late. At other periods of time when the children were younger, we would read the Bible together before putting them in bed. One of the secondary benefits that we derived from this time together was to help our children develop their reading skills. When our children were in the early years of grade school, they drew a picture of something we had read from the day’s Bible reading which we kept in a notebook that we used for review. These are precious memories that we have. I cannot doubt that these Bible studies helped shape my children for good.

Our society is gradually being forced to admit that the breakdown of the home is creating a generation of children who have no morals. Reluctantly the social engineers are talking about children conceived out of wedlock and homes torn apart by divorce that has left “fatherless homes.” ” Billions of dollars in federal programs have been spent to repair the damage created by broken homes. Our children at Danville have been richly blessed in having good stable home environments in which to mature.

2. We have opened our homes to their friends. The Danville teenagers enjoy associating with each other. Rarely is there a church service when some of them do not do something together. They may go to Wendy’s to get a coke or a cup of coffee (after all, they want to act adult). Their social life is centered around the young people at church. They mostly go out as a group, rather than entering serious boyfriend/girlfriend relationships prematurely. The various families at church have welcomed the teenagers into their homes, many times with very little planning, because these are the kinds of friends we wish to encourage our children to associate with.

One of the things that Sandy and I have done is to open our homes to teenage Bible studies. While I was living in Bowling Green, I visited the Bible studies conducted in the homes of Joel Plunkett and J.R. Bronger who both were working in the Nashville, Tennessee area. I was deeply impressed with the impact for good these times created for the young people. When I moved to Danville, there were relatively few teenagers in the local congregation. To provide opportunities for our children to associate with other young people, we opened our home once a month to a Bible study. Of course, that meant that the heaviest burden of the work fell on my wife, Sandy. She c leaned the house, moved the furniture around, tolerated the spills on the carpet, and other things associated with having a house full of young people. Many times she would complain all the time she was getting ready for having them over. But, I remember very few times that we were not spiritually revived by the experience. We usually had 30-40 teenagers in our home from 7 to 11 p.m. on one Saturday night a month. On some occasions we have had over 60. Some-times we had to move all of the chairs out of the room and sit on the floor to have our Bible study. These inconveniences were minor in view of the good impact these Bible studies have had on our lives.

The order for the Bible study was to sing for about one hour and invite someone to speak to the group for 20-35 minutes. Sometimes we would use local preachers who would volunteer to come, at other times one of the young men would speak for us, and when all else failed, I was drafted. Following this, we took a break for refreshments, provided by the young people (the boys brought drinks, the girls brought snacks; if they didn’t bring it, they didn’t eat it). Then, they had a couple of hours to visit with one another. Many times while Sandy and I were visiting in the dining room with adults who brought their children, the children in the family room started singing again. They sang because they wanted to and liked it. The idea that young people must be kept in church by trips to amusement parks, entertaining speakers, and other claptrap is an insult to our young folks. Many of them have deeper spiritual commitments than do their parents. Sandy and I have been encouraged by the parents around Indianapolis who thanked us for opening our home to the young people.

3. Most of us have taught our children to date Christians. We have tried to encourage our children to date and marry someone who is committed to the Lord. Sometimes Sandy and I made a distinction between dating someone who has been baptized and dating someone who is committed to the Lord. Some who have been baptized have no interest in serving the Lord, so we have tried to encourage our children to look deeper than just determining whether or not someone had been baptized when choosing whom to date. I do not remember any of Danville’s teenagers bringing a boyfriend or girlfriend who was an embarrassment to them. They have been attracted to and attract others who are trying to live right.

4. The congregation has given them opportunities to participate in the public worship. Our teenage boys who lead singing are part of the regular rotation of song leaders. All of the young men take part in Scripture reading, prayer, offering the invitation on Wednesday evening, and serving at the Lord’s table. They have been given more frequent opportunities to participate because we are a relatively small congregation (80-90). About twice a year, we have a Sunday service in which everything is conducted by the young people: two of them will speak at each service, they will lead singing, make announcements, offer prayer, and serve at the Lord’s table; the young ladies are responsible for preparing the communion. We have been encouraged by seeing their growth spiritually and challenged by the lessons they delivered.

Conclusion

The Danville church is not perfect; we have many weaknesses to overcome and we who are parents of these teenage children are most aware of our own weaknesses (our teenagers help us to see ourselves in a different light through mimicking us parents). However, this congregation has been truly blessed to have a group of teenagers who have brightened our worship and our homes. I want to express my appreciation to each of them personally: Rex and Beth Guyer, Bryan and Matt Miller, Megan Robbins, Jason and Derrick Hosfield, Jennifer Stotts, and Corey Willis. Four of them are graduating this year (Rex Guyer, Bryan Miller, Jason Hosfield, and Corey Willis). Two have already committed themselves to go to Florida College (Jason and Corey). May God bless each of you and thanks for the encouragement you have been to my life.

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: 7 p. 2
April 6, 1995

By Connie W. Adams

We don’t go to the movies much anymore. The last few times we did, we were greatly disappointed and left feeling we had wasted our time and perhaps had contributed to a business which is helping to ruin the moral sensitivities of many in our nation, including many who profess to love the Lord. It appears to me that the problem is akin to Isaiah’s complaint against Israel in his day. He said, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20)

What has happened to us is that we have lowered our tolerance level for that which ought to make us shudder and draw away in revulsion. Instead, we have learned to tune out obscenities, crudities, profanity and look for the artistic expression in the music or the acting. This seems especially true of many in the younger generation. We have had younger friends to rave to us about certain movies which were listed as PG or PG-13 and have inquired about how much sex, profanity or obscenity is in them, only to be met with a sort of blank stare and either a lack of recall of any of that, or else an admission that some of that was in them but that in spite of it, “it was really a great movie.” We have walked out, sometimes before we had finished the popcorn. Other times, we read reviews of some of these which were enough to tell us we did not need to go.

We have been told repeatedly by Christians whose judgment we would normally trust what a great movie “Forrest Gump” is. This is a story about a man of lesser intellect who was endowed with a great measure of common sense and who succeeded in spite of all his obstacles. We did not go and have no plans to do so because we understand there is a great deal of profanity in it and we are exposed to enough of it in the normal course of life that we just don’t aim to pay to hear anymore of it. But the other day I was reading the last edition of Think published by Al Diestelkamp and came across an article by Ed Brand on “Forrest Gump.” Based on recommendation from friends he decided to see this PG-13 rated movie. Following is a part of the article.

Within ten minutes his mother committed adultery with the school principal (who didn’t have any principles), so Forrest could go to regular school.

In college and in the army he associated with people who could not speak normally. Their language was laced with “God” this and “God” that. Of course, Jesus was also a popular item in their speech, plus every kind of profanity Americans have learned to use. I guess that’s what I had to overlook. It was sort of hard to overlook it. There was so much of it.

Then there were the obligatory sex scenes. One involved Forrest and his girlfriend. Another involved his former unit Captain who had his legs amputated, with two half-dressed prostitutes.

Then there was the war, with blood, gore, napalm, death and the inevitable cussin’. You know, the general family-type entertainment of the liberated 90’s.

I never did find out what happened to Forrest. My senses were so overwhelmed by what I had seen and heard. I got up and left.

It may be that these are the reflections of an old man (Ed is a good deal younger than me CWA) who can’t adjust to the present standards (?) of entertainment. You are right, I can’t. I thought that something which makes the time pass pleasantly was entertainment. “Forrest Gump” was not pleasant, nor was it uplifting. It contained the combinations of speech and action which were offensive and repugnant. Jesus said something about what you put in your mind comes out in action (see Matt. 15:10-20).

It seems ludicrous to go to the garbage can to try to find something sweet to eat. I’m sorry I went. I thought you might want to know (Think, Oct., Nov., Dec., 1994).

My brethren, when men and women who rake active roles in the work of local churches, some of whom are fathers and mothers, elders, deacons, song leaders, Bible class teachers, and preachers and their families, give rave reviews to the likes of “Forrest Gump” and speak of what a “great movie” that is, and who urge “you just have to go see it,” then in all candor, I truly fear for the future of the church.

When moral senses become dulled by overexposure to this sort of thing, then how can doctrinal soundness not be affected? If we can learn to just “tune out” all such wickedness in the interest of artistic expression, then what is to prevent “tuning out” some false teaching if the general material is well organized and presented in art appealing fashion? It is my conviction that is already happening in a good many places. Some brethren have become so accustomed to an overdose of pretty motivational speeches with a little Chuck Swindell and Max Lucado thrown in to make it tasty, that many brethren are actually startled. and some outraged, when they hear sound doctrine which draws a line between truth and error. We heard one young brother giving the invitation talk on a Wednesday night who held up a copy of a Chuck Swindoll book and then a copy of one by Max Lucado and recommended both of them very highly. Oh yes, he also used the NW as his text. He read only a verse or two and then treated us to lengthier readings from the two aforementioned books. The sad thing is that many brethren are blissfully unaware of the dangers involved.

Evil is not good and good is not evil. Bitter is not sweet and sweet is not bitter. I leave you with these passages to ponder.

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prow. 4:23).

“Righteousness exalteth and nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34).

“The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord: but the words of the pure are pleasant words” (Prov. 15:26).

“Oh generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:34).

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there by any praise, think on these things” (Phil. 4:8).

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: 7 p. 3-4
April 6, 1995