Homes of Our Own

They also took up with a great many ideas and thoughts from their own intelligence. Arguing over the minutest details they snatched up from Scripture and particularly tradition anything that agreed with their own notions, their minds worked like birds that soared in the sky and swooped down and took whatever they wanted out of the field. They plucked up every seed they could find which then could not produce any real fruit. Their selfishness, their desire to get what they wanted, used any thought that they could acquire. So in that church the birds, or what they represented had nests, they had a secure place. They could snatch up what they wanted, but the Son of Man, the name of the Lord that means the Word of God, the Word of God had no place: no place to rest, no home in that church. And so we have a picture of the way in which the people at that time had left the Word.

But today we want to particularly think of the concept of our own homes. We want to be sure that we provide a place for the Lord there. To guide us we turn to the pattern which the Lord gave of His house. His tabernacle, His temple, His home, that He said should be established for the church was also a model of the way our individual homes should be established. And this follows very clearly because the Lord teaches that husband and wife together make the church. The basic unit of church society is the home.

Now follow for a moment the representative model that was given in the concept of the Tabernacle, and think of the things that took place in that tabernacle (Exodus 40: 16-33). The things that were there and the things that happened there teach us something about what should happen in our own homes.

The tabernacle had an inmost chamber, and, to represent what is most important, the Ten Commandments as the Word of God were in that chamber. Those commands were given with a great miracle to show that God spake all these words. The Word, the Lord speaking to us_, was placed in the inmost chamber. Representatively, the Son of Man, the Word of God, clearly had a place in the tabernacle: indeed the inmost place. Inmostly in our homes we must provide a time and a place where the Lord can speak to us. We need this, because we would not know anything about heaven, anything about spiritual life; we wouldn't know our purpose for even being, without Divine Revelation from the Lord.

Now one of the things that took place in that inmost chamber was the high priest inquiring of the Lord what they should do, seeking enlightenment. Many believe and it seems to be implied in the doctrine, that lights flashed in the breastplate within its precious stones. But the idea was that Israel would seek from the Lord what to do. Innocence must be at the heart of every genuine home; not innocence in the sense of the word that says faultlessness, but innocence as the Writings use the term which means willingness to be led by the Lord. At the heart of our homes we must have that desire to inquire of the Lord. "Lord, what do You want us to do?"' And if we do, we know that the Lord will, in His good time, give us the light, the answer, even as He answered Israel.

But in a more conscious area of life, nevertheless inspired by spiritual thought and affection, we find as it were a middle chamber, represented by the second chamber in the Tabernacle. On the one side was the lampstand, always lit: the seven branched golden lampstand giving forth perpetual light. On the other side was the table of showbread. The bread was placed there every day, fresh baked: the bread of God which comes down from heaven which represented good from the Lord. And so we have represented in that chamber good from the Lord inspiring our will and we have the perpetual light of truth guiding our understanding.

But in the courtyard also was a laver full of water. Whenever the priests were going in or out of the Tabernacle to do their function, they washed. The water of the laver is like the ultimate letter of the Word, the ultimate commands, the things that cleanse our daily lives and our words and deeds. Those basic truths provide the opportunity to cleanse our lives, in the slang of our day, to clean up our act. This opportunity for cleansing was represented by the priesthood. But we aren't talking now about the Church as a big institution. We are talking about the Church in our home. What is like the priesthood in the individual home or in the individual person is the teachings, the doctrines that we understand and want to use. That doctrine moves from outside in the court into the inside and washes on the way. It also moves from the inside to the out to offer sacrifice, to sing, to praise, to apply and again it washes. Our homes need that cleansing power of the direct, clear, primary teaching of the Lord: the Lord is One, we should shun evil as sin against Him, we should look towards a life. that leads to heaven. Those are the kind of teachings that are like the water that can cleanse the life of our home. The doctrine of the Church has its integrity in the individual man's heart when he sees that it is based upon the cleansing truths that are clear in the Lord's Word. When he can see that and can acknowledge that, it enables the doctrine to as it were move to where they can help us think clearly inside, and to feel more deeply with our hearts. We try to cleanse our thoughts and affections when we try to see the light of truth, to be inspired by good, and particularly when we bare our deepest self to the Lord in prayer. And when we see, "Yes, that is what I should do, and here is what I should say," then we as it were move outside again into daily life. When we do we wash once more.

So we have this beautiful model of what kind of home that we can offer to the Lord if He is to have a place to rest His head among us. It's all too easy in the pragmatic pressures of our day to make a place for those conniving states which the foxes represent. Its all to easy to let prudence guide us pragmatically, to be driven by all the circumstances that press in upon our homes. But that is no going to make a place for the Lord. It is simply making a place for what He likened to foxes.

The Son of Man needs a place to rest His head in our homes. Nothing is more important than to have homes and families where the Lord can indeed be present, where the Lord is not just as some say, a welcomed guest, but where that home is so patterned that by analogy the Lord feels at home there, feels at rest there, feels as if His work of salvation can take place there. That's the kind of home that is patterned out for us in the Lord's Word. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture. It puts the challenge clearly before us. Each of us needs to have that inmost desire that asks, "What does the Lord want me to do?"

Through reading the Word, we need to perpetuate the light of truth like the lampstand. We need to renew the goods we strive for like daily bread upon the table of shewbread. We need to offer daily prayers that bring affection and thought together in that inner spirit of a conscience, or a new will that is so different from our self will. We need to bring sacrifices of praise to the Lord when things go well, and we need to offer sacrifices of our selfish desires as sin offerings when things go ill.

If our homes follow this model, then truly the Lord will have a place in our homes where He can lay His head. He will come in and sup with us.

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In heaven all are associated according to the similarities of love; and according to these they have their homes. For in the spiritual world there are not spaces but appearances of space.. . according to the states of life, and the states of life are according to the states of love. For this reason no one there can dwell in any but his own house, which is provided and assigned to him according to the quality of his love. If he abides elsewhere he labors in the breast and breathing. (CL 50)