Genesis 18:19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD… In Greenland, when a stranger knocks at the door, he asks, "Is God in this house?" and if they answer "Yes," he enters. Reader, this little messenger knocks at your door with the Greenland salutation, Is God in this house? Were you, like Abraham, entertaining an angel unawares, what would be the report he would take back to heaven? Would he find you commanding your children and your household, and teaching them the way of the Lord? Would he find an altar in your dwelling? Do you worship God with your children?... If not, then God is not in your house. A prayerless family is a Godless family.... I have sometimes seen family worship in great houses; but I have felt that God was quite as near when I knelt with a praying family on the earthen floor of their cottage. I have known of social worship among the reapers in a barn. It used to be common in the fishing-boats upon the friths and lakes of Scotland. I have heard of its being observed in the depths of a coal-pit. I scarcely know the situation in life in which a willing family might not contrive to pray together. If you live in a scoffing, ungodly neighbourhood, so much the better. Abraham built his altar whilst the heathen Canaanites looked on. He lifted up a testimony for God, and God honoured him, so that Abimelech, his neighbour, was constrained to say, "God is with thee in all that thou doest." (J. Hamilton, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. |
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