Christian Homekeeping: Do We Love the Word Preached?

I've been reading a book by Thomas Watson called "The Godly Man's Picture" and it has been a good read thus far! Here is an excerpt from a section "Do we love the Word preached?":

"...do we love the holiness of the Word (Psa. 119:140)? The Word is preached to beat down sin and advance holiness. Do we love it for its spirituality and purity? Many love the Word preached only for its eloquence and notion. They come to a sermon as to a performance (Ezek. 33:31,32) or as to a garden to pick flowers, but not to have their lusts subdued or their hearts bettered. These are like a foolish woman who paints her face but neglects her health.

Again, do we love the convictions of the Word? Do we love the Word when it comes home to our conscience and shoots its arrows of reproof at our sins? It is the minister's duty sometimes to reprove. He who can speak smooth words in the pulpit, but does not know how to reprove, is like a sword with a fine hilt but without an edge. "Rebuke them sharply" (Titus 2:15). Dip the nail in oil, reprove in love, but strike the nail home. Now Christian, when the Word touches on your sin and says, "You are the man", do you love the reproof? Can you bless God that "the sword of the Spirit" has divided between you and your lusts? This is indeed a sign of grace and shows that you are a lover of the Word.

A corrupt heart loves the comforts of the Word, but not the reproofs: "They hate him that rebuketh in the gate." (Amos 5:10). "Their eyes flash with fire!" Like venomous creatures that at the least touch spit poison, "When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth." (Acts 7:54). When Stephen touched them to the quick, they were mad and could not endure it.

Question: How shall we know that we love the reproofs of the Word?

Answer 1: When we desire to sit under a heart-searching ministry. Who cares for medicines that will not work? A godly man does not choose to sit under a ministry that will not work upon his conscience.

Answer 2: When we pray that the Word may meet with our sins. If there is any traitorous lust in our heart, we would have it found out and executed. We do not want sin covered, but cured. We can open our breast to the bullet of the Word and say, "Lord, smite this sin."

Answer 3: When we are thankful for a reproof: "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities." (Psa. 141:5). David was glad of a reproof. Suppose a man were in the mouth of a lion, and another should shoot the lion and save the man, would he not be thankful? So, when we are in the mouth of sin, as of a lion, and the minister by a reproof shoots this sin to death, shall we not be thankful? A gracious soul rejoices when the sharp lance of the Word has pierced his abscess. He wears a reproof like a jewel on his ear: "As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear." (Prov. 25:12). To conclude, it is convincing preaching which must do the soul good. A nipping reproof prepares for comfort, as a nipping frost prepares for the sweet flowers of spring."

Quotes to Ponder

If you’re a friend to all and an enemy to none, then you’re leading no one. - Unknown

The objective in Christian homeschooling is not to teach children how to "deal with the real world." I do not want to teach my children how to merely survive this life. As believers in Christ, we are called to be overcomers! - HE magazine

The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver, or their eyes. - Oliver Goldsmith

Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world. - Charles Spurgeon

In a time of universal deceit, telling the TRUTH, is a revolutionary act . -George Orwell

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. -Winston Churchill

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Christian mothers too often neglect their home-centered role for the empty promises of fulfillment in the workplace, while they warehouse their children in daycare centers. Parents send their children to secular schools where God is outlawed, and they allow them to watch trashy movies and listen to vile music—and hang out with those who do the same. After years of training in the ways of rebellion through godless schooling, debauched entertainment, and peer association, Christian parents are somehow surprised when their teenagers rebel, forsaking the God of their fathers.- Philip Lancaster

You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, and training them up in God's fear, and minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts. - Charles Spurgeon

“Why do women want to dress like men when they’re fortunate enough to be women? Why lose femininty, which is one of our greatest charms? We get more accomplished by being charming than we would be flaunting around in pants and smoking. I’m very fond of men. I think they are wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error….”-Tasha Tudor

SECULARISM is a philosophy that claims that there is no God-or that if there is a God, He is irrelevant. HUMANISM essentially says that in the absence of God, humans can and should act as gods by judging, choosing, and defining what is right for themselves. The philosophy pervading the public education system combines these two philosophies into one.-Ken Ham

The true defining situation for a person is what they do when they are alone and don't have to do anything else. What do they do? Do they do frivolous things? That's when you define what you are. -Kevin Rollins, former CEO of DELL

How can there be too many children? That’s like saying there are too many flowers. -Mother Teresa

Fifty-nine modern nations are plagued by the high-tech benefits of birth-control pills. Each of them have waged a cultural war against babies. Each of them suffer below-replacement birthrates. Each of them face potential extinction. But concerns such as national suffering, dangerous international geopolitics and the disappearance of entire nations are matters that would require mature thinking – something that was successfully bred-out of the American people when they accepted the pill as, in the words of Hugh Hefner, the greatest invention of the 20th century. - Geoffrey Botkin

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strength. -Corrie ten Boom

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