IS IT true that "all members of the family center in the father"?1 Is it true that "the father represents the divine Lawgiver in his family"? 2 Is it true that "the father . . . will bind his children to the throne of God by living faith"? 3 is it true that "the father's duty to his children cannot be transferred to the mother"? 4 If so, how many fathers reach these ideals? I am personally acquainted with one father who met these and many more specifications. What I say about this father is intended as a tribute to all fathers whose leadership pleases Heaven.
I am a fortunate man. Anyone who has a God-fearing father, one who has consistently set a Christian example before his family, can count himself blessed above most people. My father, Chester Spangler, retired from teaching business college about the same time I entered the ministry. He retired early in order to devote his life to lay witnessing. But the Ohio Conference had other plans. They invited him into the gospel ministry. Not too many men have had the honor of being ordained to the gospel ministry the same year their father was. He was ordained in Ohio and I in Florida. He came to my ordination and I to his, where we welcomed each other into the ministry! I owe a lot to that man and I know I speak for many a minister today who recognizes a similar debt to a godly father.
Dad's age is a secret, but since I am at the half-century mark you can judge that he is quite a few years beyond the sustentation dateline. But why do I refer to his lengthy life? Among the nearly two thousand letters I've received from him during my near two-score-year absence from home, there hasn't been one that did not contain a pointed sermonette. Recently, my mail brought another one of those written exhortations. The thoughts were taken from one of his recent sermons preached at the Far Hills, Dayton, Ohio, church, where he is the pastor emeritus. Former Pastor Don Jacobsen bestowed this honor upon him several years ago.
Evidently the title of his sermon was "Reactions to the Messages of Jesus and the Prophets and Apostles." Not a bad title! "Persecution faces the man who preaches the truth," he declared. "Church people attempted to throw Jesus over a cliff; Paul crawled into a basket and was let down over a wall; Jeremiah was tossed into a pit talk about fringe benefits; they had plenty of them!" I can hear my "pappy" (my most affectionate term for him) waxing eloquent on these points.
A paragraph or two later I was startled to read a quotation taken from Testimonies, volume 8, page 37. I had read it before even had it marked but it struck me with new force. It was one of those passages Ellen G. White wrote with deep feeling:
My heart is filled with anguish when I think of the tame messages borne by some of our ministers, when they have a message of life and death to bear. The ministers are asleep; the lay members are asleep; and a world is perishing in sin. May God help His people to arouse and walk and work as men and women on the borders of the eternal world. Soon an awful surprise is coming upon the inhabitants of the world. Suddenly, with power and great glory, Christ will come. Then there will be no time to prepare to meet Him. Now is the time for us to give the warning message.
Then dad's commentary began: "When John the Baptist preached, it was with power. 'Generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?' Jesus said to Nicodemus: 'Ye must be born again.'And did Nicodemus react! Sarcastically, 'How can a man be born again? Can he enter his mother's womb again?' Nicodemus knew what it was all about. He may have professed ignorance, but to no avail. Jesus had a very kind way of revealing faults but He revealed them. Paul says, 'Preach the doctrine; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering.'"
Then came the punch line "Remember, Bob, preach on this!" Following this came some personal news, 'but the final paragraph is so typical of all his letters to me and the rest of the family. "How good it is," he said, "that in all the commotion about us we can quote to ourselves the wonderful promises such as 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.' Every night before going to sleep I quote to myself John 14:1-3, 'Let not your heart be troubled.' I just have to do this. Love, Dad."
One of these days the postman will stop bringing these encouraging and provocative letters to my door. When they cease to come, the messages they have contained will have become a part of me. They have given me many ideas for sermons, many illustrations to brighten up talks, and above all, they have constantly encouraged me to fight the good fight of faith. Oh yes, one more supremely important point: Dad is 1 Corinthians 13 transformed into twentieth-century flesh and blood.