Job 1:4-5 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day… There is not a father or a mother among us to this day to whom God has not often said, Hast thou, in this matter of thy children, considered My servant Job? No. We confess with pain and shame and guilt concerning our children, that Job here condemns us to our face. But we feel tonight greatly drawn, if it is not too late, to imitate Job henceforth in behalf of our children. We have not wholly neglected them, nor the Great Sacrifice in their behalf. But we have not remembered it and them together at all with that regularity and point and perseverance and watchfulness that all combined to make Job such a good father to his children, and such a good servant to his God. But if our children are still about us, and if it is not yet too late, we shall vow before God tonight that whilst they are still with us we shall not again so forget them. When they set out to go to school we shall look out of our windows after them, and we shall imagine and picture to ourselves the life into which they must all enter and cannot escape. We shall remember the streets and the playgrounds of our own schooldays, and the older boys and their conversations. And we shall reflect that the games and sports and talks of the playground will bring things out of our children's hearts that we never see nor hear at home. And then, when they come the length of taking walking and cycling tours, and fishing and shooting expeditions; and, still more, when they are invited out to eat and to drink and to dance, till they must now have a latchkey of their own — by that time it is more than time we had done with all our own late hours, and had taken ourselves to almost nothing in this world but intercessory prayer. We shall not go with them to watch and to judge over our children: but we shall not sleep till they have all come home and shut the door to our hearing behind them. And we shall every such night, and in as many words, plead before God the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, for each several one of our own and our neighbour's children. (Alexander Whyte, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. |
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