Sermon Tone Analysis

Exodus 20:12

 

/Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you/.[1]

/Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Avoid such people/ [*2 Timothy 3:1-5*].

These dark words, the last we have preserved from the pen of the Apostle to the Gentiles, are a prophetic statement of the progress of this present age.

These words are akin to those which comprise an earlier statement describing the progress of wickedness in a society which has forgotten God.

The passage is found in *Romans 1:28-32*.

Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

In either instance is found a */sin/* which is perhaps surprising to us.

In the last days /people will be … disobedient to their parents/ [*2 Timothy 3:2*]; and again a wicked society is characterised as one in which is found those who are /disobedient to parents/ [*Romans 1:30*].

As a society we make excuses for our children—they are high-spirited, they are hyperactive, they are high strung, they are creative.

I suggest that the situation is more a reflection of our disinterest in investing time or of our refusal to invest the time necessary to instruct our children than it is a reflection of the maturation of the society in which we live.

Perhaps it is that we actually worship youth, and consequently we worship our children, leaving them to self-destruct before they have attained adulthood.

To equip us in righteousness, to assist us in both raising our children and in encouraging other parents as they raise their children, we are given a great rule for living.

The *fifth commandment* is the first commandment with a promise.

If there were no promise, it would still be right to honour our parents.

To insure that none miss the importance of the rule which God has given mankind, He attached a marvellous promise.

Join me in an exploration of this fifth commandment that together we may discover the will of God.

 

*Children are Expected To Honour Their Parents*.

Long ages past, Agur son of Jakeh wrote of conditions which assured great upheaval in life.

/Under three things the earth trembles;/

/under four it cannot bear up:/

/a slave when he becomes king…/

[*Proverbs 30:21, 22a*].

Though I dare not compare myself to this wise man, surely I am correct in noting that just as the earth trembles under a slave who becomes king, so the earth cannot bear to witness a child who assumes the position of the parent.

The situations are analogous.

Parents are given to provide guidance and training for a child.

Through the provision of guidance and through investing the wisdom God has given to the parent, the child is protected and equipped with the passing of time to assume those responsibilities associated with adulthood.

Because the child is learning from the parent, the parent is to be honoured.

The issue before us in this rule for living—an issue which has been turned topsy-turvy in this day so far removed from that in which Moses gave the law—is authority.

Unlike a generation past, modern Canadians seem to barely tolerate authority; thus, this rule for living is resented.

Nevertheless, we need appeal neither to a parliament or a legislative assembly nor to some constitutional convention or constituent assembly to discover the source of parental authority; authority for their own children is conferred on parents by the Living God.

The verse before us is but an iteration of the responsibility of parents given by the very first parent.

Parents are to serve as authorities for their children and children are to heed the authority of their parents; but we are rather impatient with authority in modern Canada.

Governments, and especially well-meaning governments appealing to and endeavouring to implement the latest sociological fad to recreate society in their own image, must never be allowed to usurp or replace that authority which God has conferred from the beginning; and parents are authority for their children.

I observe the world about me today with growing dismay.

The Apostle wrote, /Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right/ [*Ephesians 6:1*].

The modern version is, Parents, obey your children, for you can’t afford to be bothered.

It is less a mark of enlightened minds than it is an evidence of darkened hearts that this situation prevails.

Children today are taught at multiple levels that they have rights, but it appears to me that those insisting most loudly on the rights of the child are most prone to neglect corresponding responsibilities.

Few children are capable of assuming adult responsibilities, which is why in years past they were denied many of the rights now taken for granted; children were expected to mature before they assumed either the rights or the responsibilities.

I am not merely ill tempered when I call the education system and the worship of contemporary social theory to account for our current dilemma.

Neither am I attempting to tar teachers or well-intentioned politicians with such a broad brush as to call into question every individual who pursues those careers.

However, modern education theory implemented by well-meaning teachers and modern social engineering imposed on us by well-intentioned politicians has brought about a situation in which a disproportionate number of children are taught to believe that self-esteem, whatever that term means, is of greater benefit than character.

Tragically, an increasing number of parents speak of genuine fears that government funded social workers will intervene should they discipline their children or stand firm in their insistence that their children render them due honour.

I read once of a father who was reading the evening devotion before family prayer just after his son had come home in disgrace from his fifth school.

The lesson related to the golden calf.

/I threw /[the gold]/ into the fire, and out came this calf/, the father read—a paraphrase of *Exodus 32:24*.

Then he added, looking with deepest meaning at his son, “The only word I need to change to fit my case is to put /schools/ instead of /fire/.”

I suppose that it is possible that some individuals resent this rule for living because they think it puts emphasis on the debt children owe to parents rather than upon the debt that parents owe to children.

This is not the case at all.

Instead of stirring our antagonism, this rule ought to win our hearty approval.

What is the purpose of the rule: /Honour your father and your mother/?

Light thinking individuals perhaps assume that the verse seeks the well being and happiness of fathers and mothers.

Without thinking through the issues, some perhaps imagine that the verse seeks to guarantee parents the joy which attends obedient children and that the verse therefore endeavours to spare parents the pain and anguish of being dishonoured and neglected.

However, this is not the primary purpose.

Without question, while loyalty to this rule will spare parents endless grief and heartache and while obedience to the rule will bring unmeasured joy, the real purpose of the rule is not to safeguard parents, but rather it is to safeguard youth.

This rule for living does not look toward the past, but instead, it looks toward the future.

This is evident when we note those who benefit through obedience to the rule.

The promise attached to the rule is not to parents, but to children.

In *Ephesians 6:1-3* the Apostle quotes from* **Deuteronomy 5:16*, the second recitation of the law.

Listen to Paul’s citation of this command in which God provides an expansion of the rule for living.

/Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

“Honour your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land/.

Let’s consider this vital issue of divine reward as we explore the next matter arising from study of this rule for living.

Obedience Is Rewarded by God.

It is an axiom of physics that for every action there is a reaction of equal and opposite force.

In fact, this axiom constitutes a general rule throughout all of life.

What holds true in the physical world is equally true in the realm of human interaction.

Disobedience calls for a consequence—if not in this life then assuredly in the life to come.

The Bible is replete with warnings that disobedience brings God’s disapproval.

For Christians, disobedience brings the discipline of a loving Father too wise to make a mistake and too good to injure us needlessly.

For outsiders, disobedience results in the deserved assignment to nether regions since they have rejected righteousness and sought to present their own goodness as sufficient to satisfy divine demands for holiness.

If there are consequences for disobedience, should we be surprised that there are also consequences for obedience to God’s divine rules for living?

When a child shows his parents the honour due them as parents, God has pledged by that which is most sure—His holy word—to requite that child’s obedience.

Note that in two particular ways is obedience to this rule promised to be rewarded: *we are promised prosperity and peace*.

It is an axiom of the Faith that our God is pleased with His people when they demonstrate /honour to whom honour is owed/.

It is of grave consequence to take note that the command to honour our parents is not restricted to children in the home—adults are to honour their parents.

So long as we have parents, we are to show them due honour if we will please God; and when they have passed beyond the realm of this life we are to honour their memory.

Neither can this a command be taken to mean that a child is to honour one parent while ignoring the other, for instance, honouring a father while neglecting to honour a mother.

A mother is equal to a father in this instance of anticipating respect from a child.

While parents, especially fathers, were responsible under the law to communicate covenant values to their children, each parent, regardless of competency in providing instruction, was to be honoured by children.

Mothers and fathers alike are due honour, and each must build respect for the other in the eyes of their children.

That the issue of honouring parents was viewed as most important is evident from an obscure law, which if followed today would horrify contemporary youth worshippers.

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.”

Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.

So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear [*Deuteronomy 21:18-21*].

Consequently, parents who fail to instil an attitude of respect in children are parents who do not love that child.

Parents divided on the issue of instilling respect in their children form a family which is delivering children over to the spirit of the age.

Though the community may not be horrified at the thought of disrespectful children, God is horrified by such a situation and is pledged to rectify the dishonour.

Consider this stern warning against disrespect which was penned by the wise man.

/The eye that mocks a father/

/and scorns to obey a mother/

/will be picked out by the ravens of the valley/

/and eaten by the vultures/