The text which I have selected has a special application to Christian people and to parents. This command of the Scripture was given to Noah not only for his own safety, but for his household, and the question which I put to each father and mother is this: “Are your children in the ark of God?” You may scoff at it, but it is a very important question. Are all your children in? Are all your grandchildren in? Don’t rest day or night until you get your children in. I believe my children have fifty temptations where I had one. I am one of those who believe that in the great cities there is a snare set upon the corner of every street for our sons and daughters, and I don’t believe it is our business to spend our time in accumulating bonds and stocks. Have I done all I can to get my children in? That is it.
Now, let me ask another question: What would have been Noah’s feelings if, when God called him into the ark, his children would not have gone with him? If he had lived such a false life that his children had no faith in his word, what would have been his feelings? He would have said: “There is my poor boy on the mountain. Would to God I had died in his place! I would rather have perished than had him perish.” David cried over his son: “Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee!” Noah loved his children, and they had confidence in him.
Someone sent me a paper a number of years ago, containing an article that was marked. Its title was: “Are all the children in?” An old wife lay dying. She was nearly one hundred years of age, and the husband who had taken the journey with her, sat by her side. She was just breathing faintly, but suddenly she revived, opened her eyes, and said:
“Why! it is dark.”
“Yes, Janet, it is dark.”
“Is it night?”
“Oh, yes! it is midnight.”
“Are all the children in?”
There was that old mother living life over again. Her youngest child had been in the grave for twenty years, but she was traveling back into the old days, and she fell asleep in Christ asking, “Are all the children in?”
Dear friend, are they all in? Put the question to yourself now. Is John in? Is James in? Or is he immersed in business and pleasure? Is he living a double and dishonest life? Say! Where is your boy, mother? Where is your son, your daughter? Is it well with your children? Can you say it is?
After being superintendent of a Sunday school in Chicago for a number of years, a school of over a thousand members, children that came from godless homes, having mothers and fathers working against me, taking the children off on excursions on Sunday, and doing all they could to break up the work I was trying to do, I used to think that if I should ever stand before an audience I would speak to no one but parents; that would be my chief business. It is an old saying—“Get the lamb, and you will get the sheep.” I gave that up years ago. Give me the sheep, and then I will have someone to nurse the lamb; but get a lamb and convert him, and if he has a godless father and mother, you will have little chance with that child. What we want is godly homes. The home was established long before the Church.
I have no sympathy with the idea that our children have to grow up before they are converted. Once I saw a lady with three daughters at her side, and I stepped up to her and asked her if she was a Christian.
“Yes, sir.”
Then I asked the oldest daughter if she was a Christian. The chin began to quiver, and the tears came into her eyes, and she said,
“I wish I was.”
The mother looked very angrily at me and said, “I don’t want you to speak to my children on that subject. They don’t understand.” And in great rage she took them all away from me. One daughter was fourteen years old, one twelve, and the other ten, but they were not old enough to be talked to about religion. Let them drift into the world and plunge into worldly amusements, and then see how hard it is to reach them. Many a mother is mourning today because her boy has gone beyond her reach and will not allow her to pray with him. She may pray for him, but he will not let her pray or talk with him. In those early days when his mind was tender and young, she might have led him to Christ. Bring them in. “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” Is there a prayerless father reading this? May God let the arrow go down into your soul! Make up your mind that, God helping you, you will get the children in. God’s order is to the father first, but if he isn’t true to his duty, then the mother should be true, and save the children from the wreck. Now is the time to do it while you have them under your roof. Exert your parental influence over them.
I never speak to my parents but I think of two fathers, one of whom lived on the banks of the Mississippi, the other in New York. The first one devoted all his time to amassing wealth. He had a son to whom he was much attached, and one day the boy was brought home badly injured. The father was informed that the boy could live for a short time, and he broke the news to his son as gently as possible.
“You say I cannot live, father? O! then pray for my soul,” said the boy.
In all those years that father had never said a prayer for that boy, and he told him he couldn’t. Shortly after, the boy died. That father has said since that he would give all that he possessed if he could call that boy back only to offer one short prayer for him.
The other father had a boy who had been sick for some time, and he came home one day and found his wife weeping. She said:
“I cannot help but believe that this is going to prove fatal.”
The man started, and said: “If you think so, I wish you would tell him.”
But the mother could not tell her boy. The father went to the sick room, and he saw that death was feeling for the cords of life, and he said:
“My son, do you know you are not going to live?”
The little fellow looked up and said: “No; is this death that I feel stealing over me? Will I die today?”
“Yes, my son, you cannot live the day out.”
And the little fellow smiled and said: “Well, father, I shall be with Jesus tonight, shan’t I?”
“Yes, you will spend the night with the Lord,” and the father broke down and wept.
The little fellow saw the tears and said: “Don’t weep for me. I will go to Jesus and tell Him that ever since I can remember you have prayed for me.”
I have three children, and if God should take them from me, I would rather have them take such a message home to Him than have the wealth of the whole world. Oh! would to God I could say something to stir you, fathers and mothers, to get your children into the ark.
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