A religious movement is of value only in the measure in which it changes people's lives for the better. The mere holding of meetings, let us say, or the printing of books or else the organising of congregations, camps, conferences and committees is of little worth if it does not lead to godly living on the part of those influenced by such enterprises. The holy life is the end in view of all true religious activity and it is its ample reward and justification. Wherever and whenever a religious movement ceases to produce the spiritual mind and the God-fearing life it has become a spent force. Whatever men may say in defence of such a movement's being continued, it is questionable whether it has the sanction or the blessing of heaven. History is strewn with examples of churches and organisations which began well and did good but which then departed from their original good work. Our own day with its many Christian movements and enterprises is no different from the past.

But it happens the other way round too. Sound churches and good organisations may suffer because, though they are doing the work of God faithfully, men do not live up to their privileges but learn to take the grace of God for granted. Many a good preacher feels like a man who is forever pouring water into a bucket full of holes. He empties out gallons of truth into men's ears over the space of a year, but he seems to see scarcely a spoonful of it taking effect in people's lives.

It is to be feared that there is a culpable leakage in our churches and fellowships. Many who attend Reformed and evangelical churches make little or no attempt to live up to the level of their church creeds and confessions. Many parents who hear sound preaching take marvellously little pains to see that their children are brought to a knowledge of salvation. Many parents who sit under the sound of the gospel do disappointingly little to order their homes and their family life in accordance with the principles of holy scripture. Between the pulpit and the pew there is a leakage to be seen which saps the life of churches and fellowships and which ought to be taken more seriously.

Godliness Quickly Lost⤒🔗

Godliness is soon lost. It is a delicate plant. A great preacher does not always have spiritual sons and does not often have spiritual grandsons. The saintly parent cannot guarantee godliness in his children, still less in his grandchildren. Holiness is vulnerable in this world. It is like snow that is quickly melted or mist which disperses when the sun rises up. In one single generation of a family or of a church the power of godliness which it previously had may be lost totally.

If we are to maintain and preserve the spirituality of our homes and churches we must act decisively and purposefully. This we shall not be prepared to do unless we are first convinced of the fact that godliness is the greatest blessing we can wish for our children and for all others over whom God gives us influence. We ought therefore to begin with the conviction that neither health nor happiness, wealth nor education, nor any other thing is comparable in importance to knowledge of God. If our children, our families and our congregations are poor in all else yet rich in their love to God, they are rich indeed. But if they are rich in all else and poor in love to Christ, they are miserably poor indeed. There can be no doubt that this is God's view of the matter and that it ought therefore to be ours also.

Godliness in the Family←⤒🔗

Not all Christians who have families have Christian families. There are families where Christians live but when the distinctives of a truly Christian home are absent. This is so where parents go to church but leave their children unnecessarily at home. It is so where meal-times are not sanctified by 'the word of God and prayer' (1 Timothy 4:5). It is so where there is no proper order, no discipline and obedience, no reasonable punctuality, no respect for parents, no prominence given to the things of God except in a purely nominal way or where there is no sanctification of the Lord's Day above other days.

It should be the delight and the ambition of young Christians, when they become parents, to set up a home which is Christian in every sense. This is not done merely by hanging scenes from John Bunyan on all the walls. It begins with the cultivation of love, truth and respect between the members of the home. The parents must pull together, speak well to one another and speak well of one another. The husband, as head of the home, must 'rule' the house by his general bearing and demeanour as a man of abounding affection and good sense whose leadership is of proven worth and whose judgment is known to be formed by his extensive knowledge of the Word of God.

Such a man does not need normally to shout or to act heavy-handedly. He is loved and esteemed by all around him. Though they may sometimes behave playfully or take good-humoured advantage of him in slighter matters where no principles are at stake, as soon as he is seen to be in earnest every other member of the family must come to attention and treat his words with the gravity they deserve.

Similarly the wife of a Christian home must 'guide' the household and its affairs with a prudent regard to the well-being of each member and to the peace, unity and affection of the family as a whole. 'The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.' No one can do a mother's part in life but the mother herself. It is her glory in the home that God has given her the first place of instinctive affection and intimacy with all her children. The children of the home need her even more than they need their father. Her influence for good is incomparable and she should exert all the energy she has to steer her children affectionately yet firmly in the ways of the Lord.

Generally speaking, the fault of Christian parents in this day is not to expect enough of their children in terms of the work and study which they do.

We live in an age which is obsessed with sport, leisure and recreation. The Christian parent needs to correct this imbalance. The biblical ethic is in the words: 'six days shalt thou labour' (Exodus 20:9). That is to say, work is the main business of life and play is very secondary. 'Bodily exercise profiteth little' (1 Timothy 4:8). This attitude to life is 'according to godliness' and a wise parent will see that work, not play, is the main note in a child's developing outlook on life. Work is a blessing in many ways, not least because it leaves less room and strength for mischief and temptation. Similarly, a wise parent will put a stop to childish friendships outside the home which may not be for their child's spiritual or moral good.

Good parenting is vitally important for the good of the overall cause of God in the world. Not for nothing does the Bible tell us the names of the mothers of so many Old Testament kings. We are most of us either made or marred by our mother.

Good parenting can only be done by the parent. It cannot normally be done by anyone else, though in families where special circumstances exist a godly relative or friend may play a minor role. It is a thousand pities that most modern children come under the dominant influence of a 'third parent' in the form of the television set. Those Christian parents who allow their children to watch television programmes habitually ought in conscience to God and out of regard to their children's good to watch the programmes with their children. It is the one sure way to monitor what they see and hear.

Christian parents who use the television set as a regular 'child minder' while they themselves attend to other things would do well to ask themselves if they are really acting responsibly. Can they be sure that while their back is turned the television is not forming in the child's mind habits of thought and feeling which will one day end in practical atheism? A child, let us remind ourselves, may grow and develop perfectly well under the impression of Bibles and books, without the supposed benefits of those programmes which non-Christian families down the street may look on as essential for their own children.

Every minister of the gospel today knows that godliness is leaking badly in families where films and popular music are allowed to control young lives. After all, children are only in church (hopefully) two or three times a week. But the television and the popular records are available every day when parents let it be so.

It was a good saying of an old divine: 'We have filled our children's bones with original sin and we must spend all our strength rooting it out'. There is nothing to compare, if godliness is to be present in families, with the good old practice of holding family worship morning and evening. The head of the family gathers his wife and children about him while he reads a passage of the holy scriptures, sings with them and prays for them. To this practice should be added that of catechising the young. It is still possible for children to learn by heart the Answers to the Westminster Shorter Catechism or similar work. It may take the combined determination of parent and child to accomplish this feat. But it can be done and should be attempted. Even the less able child can be taught the catechism if enough parental care is taken. Even before a child can really speak it can be taught simple truths about God by means of story and picture.

What about the child in church? It astonishes many a preacher that parents do not go through the sermon afterwards with their children at home. At an early age children may be trained to listen for the text of a sermon and for the main headings, illustrations, etc. It might mortify many parents if they realised that their children hear scarcely anything a preacher says in his sermon, but are thinking their own thoughts! This is pardonable in the very young and in any event it is better that children should be in the house of God listening to preaching than not in church at all. But we ought as parents to gather up the crumbs for the young by asking them questions at home and by helping them to recall and to understand at least the rudiments of what the minister was preaching from God's Word.

How do we Worship?←⤒🔗

It goes without saying that a great part of godliness has to do with the attitude we form towards the worship of God. There are a number of areas where we might tighten up our modern approach to public worship.

One such area is that of the gravity of our minds when we come to worship. It strikes us as very doubtful whether the scriptures allow us to approach God's worship casually at any time, but especially not on the Lord's Day. God challenges as special right to order and govern his own worship and the frequently-repeated pronouncements of scripture concerning our approach to him all lead to the conclusion that we need to put ourselves into a serious state of mind before and during every time of worship. The ineffable holiness and majesty of God demand that we come into his presence with awe and godly fear, with self-examination and self-abasement. These things will affect the way we speak and behave when we are in God's house. They will even be reflected in the way we dress and carry ourselves.

It is essential that there should be silence in the house of God during the worship. It may at times be tolerated if very young children utter babyish sounds. But it is not proper for parents to retain their children in the place of worship, during the sermon especially, if they are not able to keep them quiet. It occasionally happens that a parent has not the wisdom to realise this and needs to have it courteously pointed out to him or her by a responsible member of the congregation. But it ought not to happen. No preacher can compete with a crying baby and no congregation should allow the problem to arise.

Nothing which smacks of 'entertainment' is appropriate in the worship of God. Infinite harm is done when elements in a church service are aimed at amusing sinners rather than directing their minds to God. In some churches it has been a longstanding tradition to have certain 'lighter' events in the worship programme. But these, we believe, only mar and spoil God's worship and are not welcome to spiritual people. Laughter is not the appropriate response of a worshipping congregation. It is, we suggest, a pity when a congregation expects to laugh regularly in the course of a service of worship. We would do better if we controlled this spirit of mirth and kept it for other occasions.

The Christian's Self-Watch←⤒🔗

Christian character is largely formed, where it is correctly formed, in the secret place. This is why it is all-important for the believer to attend to his private devotions each day. No advice is easier to give or harder to follow. There will, however, be no stopping the leakage of godliness unless we make conscience of our daily secret times of worship. It is as we meditate on the Word of God and hold communion with him in private prayer that the soul is transformed, we cannot say how, 'from glory to glory' (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It is not so much what we say or what we know that counts for Christian character and influence as what we are. One man who is known for his sanctification and walks closely with Christ will be listened to when he utters a quiet rebuke more than another who speaks volubly and yet lacks a convincing life-style. There are talkers in plenty in every age. But those few who make a mark on their fellow-men for good are always the ones who have an indefinable 'something' about them which carries the stamp of authority and which arises from their nearness to God. Several of the spiritual duties which used to be regarded as normal and commonplace for earnest Christians have regrettably fallen out of fashion in recent years. We refer to the good old practice of learning passages of the Bible by heart, not forgetting the Psalms. If we are to be followers of the Reformers and Puritans in any sense of the word we must labour long and hard to master the Bible in our own language. It ought to be a matter of shame and regret to us not to know the text of the Bible better. If we cannot quote it then we are not Christians in 'complete armour' but in a semi-armed, and therefore semi-vulnerable, state.

This point is too often overlooked in all the modern debate about 'versions' of the Bible. It is not self-evident that those who enjoy the advantages (as they see them) of the more fashionable versions are able to quote the Bible more perfectly. The supreme need is that we should be full of the scriptures, having it dwell plentifully in our hearts (Colossians 3:16) so that we may combat the devil and so adorn the gospel with lives that are spiritual and sanctified.

A second point worth making about private devotions is that from time to time we might make it our policy to have an extended period of prayer. We probably all have our 'measure' in prayer. For some it is an hour daily. For many others it will be less, perhaps a lot less. By `measure' we mean that extent of time spent in secret prayer which satisfies our soul and allows us opportunity to say to God more or less all we have to say at the time. More is expected of ministers in this respect. But all Christians are to spend a reasonable length of time in secret prayer.

What we here suggest is that it is very much for the advancement of godliness in ourselves and others that we should occasionally prolong our normal time of prayer. At seasons of felt need, for instance, we might well set aside a full hour or more for waiting on our knees before God. There are obvious and undoubted advantages in this practice. It is a way of exercising ourselves unto godliness (1 Timothy 4:7). It 'stretches' the soul and enlarges its capacity. It deepens our seriousness. It calls forth an increased measure of grace from the Almighty. Too few, we fear, are the times when modern Christians pray or fast to the point of fatigue. But the Psalmist knew such an experience:

My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.Psalm 109:24

A third suggestion for promoting godliness which our forefathers made good use of was the keeping of a religious diary, or 'day-book’, to use the old phrase. There are numerous benefits to this practice. It teaches us to notice the daily providences of God — an oft neglected yet rewarding duty (Psalm 107:42-43). It teaches us to put spiritual thoughts, experiences and desires into appropriate words. It trains us to check and compare our progress today with our progress in the past. It shows how God prompts us to prayer, hears prayer and eventually answers prayer. It will become a well-spring of comfort in hours of darkness. In short, the keeping of a daily record of our spiritual state will go a long way to enriching our life and advancing the great task of glorifying and enjoying God.

God has blessed us in this generation with a recovery of many glorious doctrines long buried under the rubbish of tradition and error. Our concern must be to 'improve' our privilege. Not to do that would be ingratitude to God. We owe it to Christ to be the best of Bible-readers and the best hearers of sermons. We owe it to our families and to posterity to see that the church children of this rising generation see the best examples and receive the best instruction. Then let it be our heart­felt wish to stop up the leaks between pulpit and pew, between the godliness of father and son, between what we are in our creeds and what we are in our lives. It is a subject in which great issues are at stake.