“The promise is unto you and to your children” —Acts 2:39.
IT is a recognized principle, running through all dispensations, that God desires to save the households of His people. Noah prepared an ark for the saving of his house (Heb. 11:7), and God said to him, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation” (Gen. 7:1). Of Abraham the Lord declared, “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” (Gen. 18:19). David said, “Thou hast spoken also of thy servant’s house for a great while to come” (2 Sam. 7:19). The promise to the Philippian jailer was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).
“O Thou who gave them, guard them—those wayward
little feet,
The wilderness before them, the ills of life to meet.
My mother-love is helpless, I trust them to Thy care!
Beneath the blood-stained lintel, oh, keep me ever there!
The faith I rest upon Thee Thou wilt not disappoint;
With wisdom, Lord, to train them my shrinking heart anoint,
Without my children, Father, I cannot see Thy face:
I plead the blood-stained lintel, Thy covenant of grace.
Oh, wonderful Redeemer, who suffered for our sake,
When o’er the guilty nations the judgment-storm shall break,
With joy from that safe shelter may we then meet Thine eye,
Beneath the blood-stained lintel, my children, Lord, and I.”