Pursuing Peace in the Home
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19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
Psalm 34:14 (KJV 1900)
14 Depart from evil, and do good; Seek peace, and pursue it.
Introduction
Introduction
Paul says to “follow” (pursue or persecute) Those things which make for peace. In other words “make an effort to do those things which will result in peace”.
Paul says, “don’t argue about meats, pursue the ingredients of peace in the church.”
Peace is “to set at one again”.
33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
If the home is not at peace, the church will not be at peace. Problems in the church begin at home.
Your home is the space you live in. Not your house necessarily, but your people, the ones you are responsible for.
Our routine, what we do every day, our spouses and children, is our home life.
The natural state of relationships and homes without the Word is chaos.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
There is no order without the Spirit quickened Word.
Beginning in the 1950’s Bro. Branham sees a decline in home life in America, and more specifically, in the churches.
Today, statistics show that your marriage will end up broken and your children will become drug addicts and perverts. We don’t want our homes and our marriages to be statistics.
They don’t have to be.
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
What are the things that make for peace in our homes?
What should we be pursuing? Are we doing the things that promote peace in the home?
Pursuing Prayer
Pursuing God’s Word
Pursuing Forgiveness
1. Pursuing Prayer
1. Pursuing Prayer
1 Give ear to my words, O Lord, Consider my meditation.
2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: For unto thee will I pray.
3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
In the Bible it was always the man who made the sacrifice. He was the priest of the home. The man being in the home brings peace and stability to the home.
It seems like that home life is running out into shallow water. It used to be, in a home, that father, the head of the house, would set down of a morning, and he would speak with his family, and they would all take out the old family Bible and read just a little bit, and all gather around the table and have prayer.
You don’t see that no more. And when the day was done, and ma had the dishes washed, they’d all gather in and read some more of the Bible, and pray before going to bed.
And home life is so neglected, till the Bible is laid back, till they’d have to hunt for an hour to find one, in many homes in America.
They go to church on Sunday morning, for their religion, for about twenty minutes. And if the pastor takes about thirty minutes, he’s called on the board. What is it? Home life is running out.
(Prayer changes us so we view others in their proper perspective)
It used to be that father and mother loved and honored and cherished one another. And when she was old and gray, and wrinkled up, and her poor old face all drawed up, and her glasses hanging down over her nose, pop loved her just as well as he did when she was young and pretty.
But, today, I don’t mean to be critical, but when she gets a little old, he just swaps her for a new model. It seems to be that way, like swapping cars or something. It seems like that that real family love don’t exist much more.
Just something has happened; home life is running out. We don’t have the old American home as we used to have it, long years ago. 58-1001 - "Lifting Him Up Out Of History"
The person who prayed the most in Scripture was Jesus. He is our example in prayer.
He prayed at the beginning of the day, in the middle of the day and at the end of the day.
35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
46 And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.
32 And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.
Bro. Branham is watching the breakdown of the home, to where we are too busy to pray.
Papa has a key to the house, and mama has a key. And they’re both out and gone, half the night. And the children, they don’t know where they are. And the little ones are with the babysitter. And that’s the way life is lived.
Do you know the Bible predicts all these things? So what is it then? It’s that we’re standing in a position watching these things run out. 58-1001 - "Lifting Him Up Out Of History"
Prayer brings our bodies subject to the Word.
40 And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
Bro. Branham sees the results of prayer leaving the American home. Prayer keeps you from temptation, and causes you to appreciate what yu have as a gift from God.
Let’s take, also, home life is uncertain. I tell you, I don’t know what’s happened to the moral fiber of our women. Divorce is on the move. It’s just terrible. And you see where the divorce courts are crowded.
Where girls and boys will marry and live together, and have two or three kiddies, or something another like that. And they’ll separate, and get out and marry another, and marry another, and marry another, and marry another, and marry another. And their homes?
I was in a poor, real poor home, the other night. The man said, “I tell you, I just don’t know.” Said, “I just don’t know how I’m going to make ends meet.”
I looked around. He worked. He had a little old wife there, just true blue as could be, and four or five little old dirty-face kids around on the floor. I said, “Boy, you’re a millionaire.”
And he said, “Huh! Well, Brother Branham, I wouldn’t dispute your word.” He said, “Brother, I ain’t got a dime.”
I said, “But you got something that money can’t buy.” I said, “You got a little old wife here that probably hasn’t got two dresses to her name.” And if she did, is some somebody gave her, ’cause the man just has a day’s work, now and then. And I said, “Looky here, but she’s just as loyal as loyal can be.”
I said, “There’s a many of multimillionaire, tonight, would give every penny he had, to come home to a wife like that. Right.” I said, “His wife is out with a bunch of men somewhere, on a barroom somewhere, cussing, singing, smoking, night-riding around, and things like that.
And yet he loves her, but look what he’s got. All of his life wrapped in that woman, and look the way she’s doing.”
And vice versa, woman to man. See? There’s no difference. It’s come time where all, everything, is just one conglomeration of sin. Little woman at home, trying to take care of her kids, and her husband out somewhere, drunk and carrying on, run with other women.
What would she give, if she had millions of dollars, to see that husband really become a man? There’s only one way for it ever be, Jesus Christ is the answer! There’s no nothing can ever do any good. It’s at the end time. It’s Christ, and Him alone. 60-1218 - "The Uncertain Sound"
We’ve never had a time when we had so many divorces in peace time, as we got now. Our home life is broke up. Years ago, it used to be that mother and dad was home at night, if it wasn’t for church times, or something.
And they never let their children roam the streets, and run around all night long, and nowadays it seems to be kind of a popular opinion.
Oh, how you just go to the modern home today, look what it is, Papa, he has to hurry down to the pool room, the boys are playing pool, or they’re bowling, or something, him and Ma; sister is at the canteen, somewhere, or out some rock-and-roll party; Junior’s got the hot rod, out seeing how many he can run down, and that’s about home life.
(Now Pa is gambling on sports and Ma is on Instagram and sister is dancing on tik-tok and Junior’s on some dating site)
And the Bible? Oh, it’s a great Book, but It’s put in a drawer somewhere, until Pastor comes in, or somebody. And we just don’t have the home life we used to have. Home life is so uncertain.
A man, nowadays, getting married, you young fellows, you better pray a long time, ask God to give you a companion, you young women, the same way, ’cause it is so uncertain.
California, I find out over there, that I think it was either fifteen, or twenty percent, something like that, of perversion, perverted people has increased in the last year or two. Oh, it’s terrible! And home life is uncertain. 61-0315 - "An Uncertain Sound"
(Today around 70 percent identify themselves as gay)
And notice in this day, that home life has become a situation that’s ought to be dealt with. My, you see little boys going out and taking a rifle and shooting papa and mama while they’re laying in bed.
Dishonesty amongst our women and men, our mothers and fathers. In lots of big cities the husband and wife pack secret keys, or same keys, rather, pass keys to their apartment, each one comes in, eat a meal somewhere, and one’s got a date, and the other one’s got a date. My!
Have no more decency, no respects at home. Homes in these days, don’t have the old fashion homes, might, too many doesn’t have, where the Bible is open and dad reads a chapter, and they kneel around the table and pray.
People go in, set down and eat. Just, I seen, people go to the table and just start gaumming, and slopping around, eating, never ask the blessing.
I noticed one time, it was out when we was living on the farm, it was, there was under, a hog, under a apple tree, and them apples was falling off and hitting him on the head, and he eat apples all day long, and he never did look up to see where they was coming from.
That’s right. Well, that don’t only go on hogs, you don’t realize where that food comes from, you better look up and thank God for it, because He was the One Who gave it.
We don’t have no more security of the home. Send your children to school, what do they teach them out there? Many times, too many times, they teach them we come from apes, well, we don’t believe that. No.
And if a man’s no more than an animal then eat, drink, and be merry. That’s what makes so many juvenile delinquents, that’s what makes so many crimes committed, because if people’s no more than a animal, it makes him act like an animal.
We got to tell him he’s a son of God, born for the Kingdom of God, and he is somebody. This is just a negative, a picture, negative, waiting for it to be developed someday, and death is the only thing that can develop it.
When you die out to yourself, a new picture starts on the inside, and then that new Creature, Christ Jesus, begin to show Itself through.
And one of these days, He will come and receive you up to Himself, then the whole thing will be changed, and then this negative shadow will become a positive. 61-0429E - "The Uncertain Sound"
2. Pursuing the Word.
2. Pursuing the Word.
133 Order my steps in thy word: And let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
The Word reading the Word.
People still go to church, but its become a striptease. Sodom and Gomorrah right in the churches.
Now, home life has become uncertain. You know, I seen a piece the other day, in one of the journals somewhere, that the American divorce rate is higher than any other nation in the world. And we’re supposed to be a religious nation. Yes, could be that, religion, all right, but it’s not the right kind. See?
Religion is just a covering. It’s hard tell what we make our covering out of. Adam tried to make some out of fig leaves, and it didn’t work. It got awful shaky when he had to come out to meet God.
So religion doesn’t meet it all. But could you think that our divorce rate, higher than all the rest of the countries, our divorce rate? We find immorality on the move in our homes.
It was astounding to find out, that, a great percent on the survey of the nation, and in the…I believe it was in Ohio, that a survey was taken of Christianity, and it was alarming what a percent that did not even go to church.
And then, about eighty percent of those that went to church, didn’t know why they went. They don’t know why they go. They just go to church. “Why do you go?”
“Well, mother took us when we was a kid, and we just keep on going.” And then, now, another percent of that, said that they went just for, oh, to meet their neighbors and talk a while. See?
Why, it’s alarming! No wonder the home life is gone, see, any home life that’s not stable. 63-0114 - "A Trumpet Gives An Uncertain Sound"
You want peace in your home? Pursue the Word. Go to church, and know why you go to church.
One of the great lackings of our day today, in America and the rest of the world, is godly parent, to set an influence upon their children.
The parents of this day got away from the principles of the Scripture. They went more to the fashions of the world. And the churches did the same thing.
In doing that, we let it loose, and brought the world into the church. And that’s the reason we have this great day of…if I say it respectfully here before these young people.
The reason we got so many hoods, and so forth, as they call it, and bad characters, too much of it is because of the home life that they were influenced by, in their earlier days. I’m still a believer, that, “Bring up a child in the way that it should go, and when it gets old it will not depart from it.” 63-1130B - "Influence"
3. Pursue Forgiveness
3. Pursue Forgiveness
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
A person without the baptism of the Holy Ghost will not pursue forgiveness.
And they know It’s right, but it’s just not in them to ask forgiveness or ask pardoning. They just won’t do it. It’s just not in them.
Now the genes in the father and the mother of this boy, no matter how much they are converted, still remains the flesh that’s been interbred out to this boy.
Therefore, the boy has got a complex in him, just like from his mother’s family, and they are not forgiving, they will not apologize, and that’s where that boy stands.
And the father raised up and said, “My son went to the altar. He was baptized correctly, in the Name of Jesus Christ, and water baptism in the pool.” Said, “I know my son has come to Christ.”
I said, “That may be all right, all the outward motions. He might be identified as a believer with the believers.
But until he is regenerated, born again, I’d advise that young man to never marry a woman. He’ll make Hell on earth for her, until that gentle, sweet, forgiving Spirit of Christ comes in. 63-0801 - "A Paradox"
Without the ingredient of forgiveness no home will ever have peace. This world is so broken, without forgiveness from the heart, we will never survive. Jesus understood this.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
Jesus died so we could be forgiven.
Without the cross no amount of rules would ever bring the human race into fellowship with God.
Legalism will never bring peace to your home.
When should we apologize? As soon as we are in the wrong. When should we forgive? As soon as the apology is made.
He doesn’t make us wait and suffer.
Brother, believe the story! Accept it, and be born again. Then walk up with pure faith, knowing this, that, God has promised, and God can’t lie. “God promised me Eternal Life, if I believed on His Son, Jesus Christ. I believed it; and He give me Eternal Life.”
I made many mistakes, still make them, will always make them. But, when I make them, the Holy Spirit tells me that’s wrong. Then I repent right there, “Lord, forgive me. Didn’t mean to do it. You help me now.”
And I walk right on, the same thing. Cause, just no sooner than it goes from my lips, “If we confess our sins, He is just to forgive them.” Is that right? Hallelujah!
The devil say, “You know what? I’ll tell you. You was supposed to go do a certain thing. You didn’t do it. Uh-huh, you sinned, didn’t you?” I say, “I confessed it.” “Well, I tell you…”
“No, don’t talk to me. No, sir. I have perfect faith in He Who told me if I confess my wrongs, He would forgive me. So, I confess it. Just go on away from me. I don’t care nothing about you, anyhow, so just keep moving on.” 54-1006 - "Law Or Grace"
The Token was peace to the home it was applied to.
The true Baptism of the Holy Ghost, the Token, speaks peace.
“And when I see the token, I’ll pass over you.” It’s a sign, it’s a sign that the price has been paid. Jesus paid the price, and you received it from Him. Holding the Token in your hand, you have an assurance of resurrection.
You have the assurance that everything you have need of, in this journey, is provided in that Token of His suffering at Calvary, where He met the price of every curse that could be put on you. That Token speaks peace. Amen. 63-1128E - "The Token"
Conclusion
Conclusion
Do you want peace in your home? Pursue the things that make peace. Pursue Prayer. Pursue Forgiveness. Don’t wait on it, pursue it.