0201. His Home Life

His Home Life

"Unto David were sons born in Hebron: * * the third, Absalom, the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur" (2Sa_3:2-3).

No one need doubt that the home life means everything in forming the character of the child. God’s Word says, "Bring up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

1. Absalom had a father, who was truly God’s man, and yet David must have been so greatly occupied with the affairs of the kingdom that oft-times the needed counsel was lacking.

Solomon does speak touchingly of the training he received from his father. He said: "He taught me also, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments and live."

Whether Absalom had this same training we do not know, but we fear he had not. There is a supreme duty which falls to the father. It is to him God speaks, when He says: "These words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house."

2. Absalom had a mother, who was daughter of Talmai, the king of Geshur. His mother may have been very accomplished, being a daughter of royalty, but she was also a heathen and little prepared to give Absalom that training he so much needed, especially in things spiritual.

How glad satan is to divide the home. If he can have either the father or the mother on his side, he will be able to go a long way toward neutralizing the teaching of the parent who may know God.

It was to Moses that Pharaoh said: "Go now ye that are men, only let your wives and your children be stayed."

Satan knows that a house divided against itself cannot stand and that if he can get an entering wedge he will soon be able to do much toward the wreckage of the home.

Illustration: A wicked mother is a great bane in a home. It is said that when Charles IX. of France was a youth, his mother instilled into his very soul a deadly hatred for the Huguenots. No wonder then that when the same Charles was dying, he is reputed to have sweat blood from his forehead as he cried, concerning his butchery: "I see the mangled bodies of the Huguenots, they drip with blood, would to God that I had at least spared the infants at their mother’s breasts."

May parents give to the children of their homes, a home life that will yield the rich perfume of a holy life. An environment conducive to Godliness.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR