Marriage
And The Christian Home
Ellen White at Her Granddaughter's Wedding
--You each [Dores E. Robinson and Ella M. White] have an identity of your own, but in that identity there must be a unity. There is constantly to be a development of the faculties that God has given you, that you may improve, improve, and that you may indeed be looked upon by the heavenly angels with commendation. We care more for that than everything else beside. Let the light of heaven shine right in the home--and we believe it will--in every word and in every action.
You are not called to give up your identity; you each have an identity of your own. These may not always run in the very same channel, and yet there may be that blending that God requires. The husband is the houseband, the husband, the priest of the household, and the wife is the teacher, as she shall fill her place in the household, whatever may be her employment. If she has children to nurse and take care of, let me tell you there is a lesson there, Oh such a lesson, that God wants everyone to learn. The wife, united with the husband in the fear of God, is to be a strength and power in the church. God can make them thus. Well, then, how shall they blend? Counsel together. And if there be any difference of opinion, yet we would say, Counsel together, and the blessing of God will come right into the heart.
Christ was at the marriage in Cana. There He worked the miracle of turning the water into wine. Our Saviour ever honored the marriage relation and we want to say, wherever you may be, and whatever your circumstances may be, we have a God, One who loves us, One whom we can honor. If we would honor Him our lips should ever speak in wisdom. Here is the wife, the queen of the home--the blessing of God can rest upon her that she may be a sunshine, a sunbeam, in the house. Never, never, in any way, speak in a manner that would irritate. The voice is a talent: it is a talent of God. It is to be so cultivated that it will bring peace and harmony and light and love.
Here are these who are covenanted to the work of God. A great work is before us. Where their ministry will be we cannot say, but unitedly they can carry forward the work much better than separately. They can help one another; they can encourage one another; they can be a blessing to one another; and the Holy Spirit of God can rest on them as they bear the ministry to those who shall need their help. Both have an experience in this line; both feel an intense interest to cultivate the ability of talents which God has given to them to the very best and highest account; and if they are connected with the God of heaven, what a power they can be unitedly to blend together, to strengthen one another, and to carry forward the work of God intelligently.
I am very thankful today that I believe the Lord is present in this very assembly to accept this ordinance of marriage, and we thank you all that are here that you are present. We want to say to every one of you, There is a very great and a very grand work before us. We cannot discern it now. Time steals on, steals on so gradually, and the powers of darkness, like a thief, are watching their chance that they may make all the evil possible.
Now we are as men and women to stand in our allotted place, with the whole armor of righteousness on. To him that, what?--gives up to the powers of darkness, and yields to every influence?--No. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne." Now here is the work of overcoming. These do not give up this work, but they are blended together, to strengthen themselves in the work, and to go wherever the light of heaven shall shine upon their pathway.
We believe God will lead them; therefore we are fully in harmony with this unity, and we believe heaven is in harmony with it; therefore, these young people that have worked in the cause of God, that have tried to do His work, can now double their influence, increase their capabilities and their talents, by blending in the work of God. It is not a lesser work that is before them, but it is a higher, it is a more sacred, it is a more important work that they will have to do in the future than in the past; and may the blessing of God rest upon them right here.
I feel that it would be a privilege for me to bow, right here in this company, and plead with the Lord that His blessing may go with them. I know not when I shall see them again: perhaps never after I leave here. I am in my seventy-eighth year, and yet God has spared my life. There is a great work for us to perform, and I want that every one of us shall feel the importance of laying hold of that work intelligently, with hand put to hand, mind to mind, strength to strength, power to power, to carry forth the work of God, to seek and to save perishing souls. A little longer and He that is to come will come, and will not tarry. I want to offer a prayer here in this congregation before I shall leave:
(Praying) My gracious heavenly Father, I come to Thee at this time because Thou hast invited us. Thou hast said, Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Now, my heavenly Father, I ask Thee, when difficulties and trials and opposition that they may have to meet in the work shall come, may they remember this threefold representation, asking, seeking, knocking, with the assurance that they shall be heard, and that the blessing of God will come to them.
We believe Thee, our Lord Jesus; we trust in Thee. We are so grateful that Thou hast thought upon us, and that Thou hast left the heavenly courts and that Thou hast come to our world to connect with humanity, that humanity might connect with Divinity, through believing in Thee. Oh, my heavenly Father, sweep back every mist and every cloud of darkness, that it may not interpose between this people and the promises which Thou has made to them. Thou hast given Thy life--a life of suffering and abuse, and oh, at last, at last, Thy body was nailed to the tree, and by crucifixion Thou hast died. Now, my Saviour, we want kept before us the great love that Thou hast manifested to us, that we might repose in Thy love.
Let Thy blessing rest, we pray Thee, upon Dores; let it rest upon Ella; and we ask Thee that Thou wouldst take charge of them, that Thy Holy Spirit would rest upon them. May they have an eye single to Thy glory, and may they bear in mind Thy words, "He that will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." Oh, when oppressed, when weighed down, open the clear light that the sunshine of Thy glory may shine upon them, and that they indeed may reflect Thy light to the world. The light that Thou shalt give them, may they impart.
I ask Thee, Lord, that this congregation that is here this evening may realize the presence of God, our Saviour, with the crown of life presented before us, and encouraging us to put on the whole armor of God, and to fight the battles of the Lord, and be prepared that when He shall come in His glory, they may say, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us" (Isaiah 25:9). 10MR 179-182