Now this is part of the promise of God's covenant and, as such, it has its conditions and its responsibilities, of course. But, this morning, I want to concentrate on the promise of the covenant, that God would be a God to us and to our children. This is, after all, one of the great facts of history, of the history of the world as well as the history of the church. Most Christians in the world are the products of Christian homes, the vast majority of Christians through the ages have been the products of Christian homes. And of the also great multitudes of those who have been won from the world and the life of unbelief, most of them have become themselves, by the grace of God and by this covenant, the progenitors of a line of Christian belief beginning with themselves and stretching into the distant generations.
Evangelism is fabulously important, of course.
Let no one take our crown in commitment to the winning of lost souls to faith in Christ and to eternal life. But evangelism is not the first, the principal means of enlarging the church. It never was and will never be except perhaps in that single generation when the Spirit will descend and the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. You have heard me on this subject before. It is not only that most Christians hail from Christian homes, it is as well that most of the heros of the faith, its greatest thinkers, its martyrs, its missionaries, its preachers, its choicest mothers, through the ages have hailed from Christian homes.