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Children Obey Your Parents

Ephesians 6:1-3

Jeff Noblit

Children Obey Your Parents

Ephesians 6:1-3

     Ephesians chapter 6, as we continue our study verse by verse through this wonderful New Testament letter the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus.  He’s in this practical doctrine part, which absolutely must stand on the glorious doctrines of grace that he so unfolded for us in the early chapters.  You cannot walk in the truths of Christianity if you’ve not been transformed by the truths of Christianity.  Boy, that’s so important. 

This is not a, a how-to society.  This is not a self-help society.  This is not a how to have a better life society.  This is how to know the God of heaven through His Son Jesus Christ, be transformed by the power of His gospel and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.  Then building on that power and that change, we live out the things Paul’s instructing us here in the latter parts of the book of Ephesians.  By the way, I want to say to you.  You cannot grasp, glory in, appreciate, or walk in the things I’m gonna preach if God hasn’t done a work in your heart of regeneration already.  It should be foreign to you if God hasn’t changed you.  It should be resistant to you if God hasn’t changed you.  These are family secrets I’m preaching to you.  Amen?  For God’s children, God’s truth. 

We come to this section where he’s talking about family relationships.  He’s already talked about husbands and wives.  Now he builds on this principle of submission to God ordained authority in the area of parents and children.  Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 3.  Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.  Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

Roman numeral one, let’s just notice simply and powerfully the clear command to obey.  The clear command to obey.  Now the thing that just jumps out at me as I meditated on this is Paul didn’t beat around the bush.  He didn’t qualify.  He doesn’t soften the landing field.  He just tells you, “Children, obey your parents.”  Now it seems to me that so many children in the world today have dishonorable, disrespectful attitudes toward parents and any God ordained authority.  And you wonder why it’s so. 

John MacArthur, in his excellent commentary, all of his commentaries are excellent, by the way.  But he says this.  He says, “In the United States at least eight million serious assaults are made each year by children on their parents.  In recent years a number of children have been convicted of murdering or hiring the killing of their parents. Then he continues, “Usually for no greater reason than resentment of parental control or discipline.  Children who are incessantly told they can do whatever they wish, they can have their own way are children who will soon mock their parents, teachers, moral standards, the law, and society in general.  All of human relationships obviously grow out of those children with parents.  Children who respect and obey their parents will build a society that is ordered, harmonious, and productive.” 

So there’s a great problem here and it has infected the church.  We’re not salt and light like we need to be, and it’s dominating the culture.  But where does this come from?  I see where it comes from.  It comes from a wicked, evil spirit that resides in the world.  And as I said, unfortunately has made major inroads into the church.  Now we live in the day where our present culture is so anti-truth, anti-biblical, and anti-God that it seems to revolt at the very notion of obedience to authority.  Some of you are sitting there right now and it’s rubbing you the wrong way that I’m talking about obedience to authority.  But I want to say something to you.  There was a day when even the non-Christian culture was so properly taught that that was an accepted and understood teaching.  You see, our culture has drifted so far from God’s norm, we are so sub-normal that it is true, Dr. Havner told us, that if you just try to act normal, most will say you’re abnormal.  That’s where we are today. 

Let me tell you about this spirit that’s permeating the world and has sneaked in and made an inroad into the church.  Jude chapter 1 verses 7 and 8 give us some real insight into this.  Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality…  Now we’re talking about homosexuality and the worst of all sexual perversions.  And went after strange flesh or exhibited as an example and undergoing the punishment of eternal fire, yet in the same way these men also by dreaming defile the flesh and reject authority and revile angelic majesties.  God says in His Word, “You find the most corrupt, wicked, abominable sinfulness, and you’ll always find rejection of God ordained authority.”  It’s satanic.  It’s of the world.  It’s wickedness.

Second Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10.  Now he’s writing to Christians, both in Jude and in the epistles of Peter.  He said, “Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the righteous under punishment, or the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the flesh and its corrupt desires and despise authority.  Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they do not revile angelic majesties.”  He says, “You want to lump the worst perversions and rebellions and wickedness together you always find a spirit of resisting and dishonoring God ordained authority. 

I was talking to a fellow pastor recently, and I said, “You know, really,” now we don’t do church business the way a typical Baptist church does church business.  But in the typical evangelical church and maybe congregational forms of governments like Baptist churches, rebellion and strife-spreading and divisiveness and all this spirit is just the way you do business in the church.  And it’s wrong and it’s not of God. 

I mean today if you hold that a person is responsible to obey and submit to anyone, well, you might be considered abusive mean-spirited.  It’s amazing what sophisticated, high sounding words we use to cover up sinful and rebellious attitudes and hearts.  The feminist would tell you that to teach a wife to submit to her husband, why, you’re abusing her.  Some union leaders would say that teaching employees to obey and work hard for his employer the way the Bible teaches is to take advantage of him.  The liberal church member believes if they’re taught to obey, submit to church elders, why, that’s abuse.  The citizens who love themselves and walk in sin believes that to be loyal and submit to government authority is tyranny and abusive.  There are some psychologists that would tell you today that if you tell a child, “No,” you’re warping them.  You’re hindering their development.  That’s the spirit of the age.  The age that we live in.  Today, resisting authority is championed.  It’s applauded.  It’s celebrated even in the church. 

We have the spirit that was evident in Judges 21 verse 25.  Judges 21:25 says, “In this day there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”  Everyone wants their preference, and they want their way.  But God’s the opposite of that.  God’s a God of order, and God’s a God of structure, and God is a God of decency.  And He’s ordained lines of authority for everyone to function under.  In the home, the children honoring their parents, the wife lining up under the headship of her husband, the citizen lining up under the authority of the government, the church members lining up under the oversight and the authority of the elders.  It’s God’s way. 

Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.”  This spirit comes from Satan.  For what is Satan?  He is the arch-rebel of the universe.  Rebelling against authority is his trademark.  He glories in it.  He stirs and tempts others to follow him in this.  The employer, the government, the church, the parents that establish good laws, rules, or standards and hold those under them accountable including discipline where necessary and expect obedience are not being abusive, brothers and sisters, they’re being biblical.  That’s what God says.  Those who resist, undermine, and disobey God ordained authority are not godly or wise, and they certainly should not be followed or admired.  They are foolish rebels.  They are not rebelling against a human individual or a human group.  They are rebelling against God, and the proud rebel will find God’s punishment.  God promises that. 

Psalm 40 verse 4 says, “How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and has not turned to the proud or lapsed into falsehood.”  Trust the Lord.  Honor His precepts, and blessed you will be. Psalm 31 verse 23:  Oh, love the Lord, all you His godly ones.  The Lord preserves the faithful and fully recompenses the proud doer.  The child that says, “I’ll be my own authority and I’ll not honor my parents,” God says, “I will fully recompense that.  I will fully punish that.” 

Proverbs 16, verse 5:  Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord, assuredly he will not go unpunished.  You cannot set your own law.  You cannot make your own rules.  God has ordained this, and He will bless those who trust Him.  You never trust in your parents, young people.  You never just trust in the government as the citizen.  You trust in the God who controls and works through that authority.  It’s a trust in God we’re talking about.  That’s why I told you earlier, if God hasn’t changed your heart you’ll resist this.  If God hasn’t changed your heart you’ll rebel against this.  But when God’s changed your heart you begin the pilgrimage of seeing how wonderfully sovereign and how almighty He is and that He works through lines of authority for your good and for His own glory. 

So this evil spirit that’s working in children today and working in parents today who will not teach their children to obey, this evil spirit of resisting authority is promoted by the devil, the world, and the flesh in every quarter, rather, of our culture.  It’s certainly infiltrated the nation, the church, the workplace, and the home.  But, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us be resolved to trust God and obey His Word concerning God ordained authority.  Let the rebel scoff.  Let the God-rejecter rage.  Let the seductive and the deceptive lie and undermine.  Let the liberal and the man-centered humanist laugh and mock and ridicule.  But let God be found true and every man be found a liar.  God’s truth stands, and on this rock I stand.  And so must you as God’s children. 

So getting back full circle, the reason I do this is because I get a little weary of moms and dads who dishonor their employers and moms and dads who cheat on their income tax and moms and dads that ridicule and undermine church elders, but children obey your parents.  This is a wicked spirit, and your children are not gonna honor you unless they see that you honor God ordained authority.  And this spirit infects all of us, and we must resist it and work against it for the glory of God.

Now back to children, and that’s where we’ll land for the rest of the session.  Children, obey your parents.  You see, children in past centuries should obey their parents.  Children in today’s world should obey their parents.  Children I the future should obey their parents.  Period.  It’s God’s truth for all times.  We are the people of God, let’s start acting like the people of God.  Children should be taught to obey their parents, and they should be required to obey their parents because God’s command is clear, very clear.

Well, the clear command to obey, young people.  There it is.  Moms and dads, there it is.  Paul just kicks off talking about the familial relationship.  Now notice he’s tying several things together.  He started in Ephesians 5:21 saying be submissive to each other.  Then he starts clarifying how that works.  He first of all talks about wives submitting to husbands, now children submitting to parents, and then he’s gonna talk about slaves or our equivalent, employees submitting to their employers.  That’s the way Christians function. 

Now let’s go to a second main thing.  That is the divine grounds for this command for obedience.  He makes a very simple phrase in verse 1:  “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”  We obey because the divine One, the Creator says it’s right.  I mean God our Creator has every right to design His creation to function the way He intends it to function.  Nothing more really needs to be said.  Now he’s talking about another truth, the truth of conversion.  But Romans 9;20 is a good thing to think about when you think about doing it because it’s right.  It’s the way God did it.  But he says, “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?”  Who are you, O man, o pompous, proud, arrogant one, to raise yourself up and not do it God’s way?  “Will the thing molded say to the molder, ‘Will you make me like this?’”  It wouldn’t say that, will it?  You see, it’s right to children to obey their parents.  It’s exactly as it should be, and all the liberal psychologists and all the liberal psychiatrists and all the liberals in pulpits and writing books in Christendom today who are questioning and bending the corners and compromising this are wrong because God says it’s right for children to obey their parents.  It’s right because it is woven into the nature of creation that children should obey their parents.  This is exactly as it should be.  It’s right and all of God’s commands are right, and we must lovingly and courageously teach God’s Word and expect ourself and others, particularly our children, to honor God’s Word and obey their parents because this is right.  God said it’s right.

Just some verses to show you an expression of the rightness of God’s Word and God’s teaching.  Psalm 19 verse 8, the psalmist said, “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.  The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”  Psalm 119 verse 75:  I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, or right.  Psalm 119:128, and we could do dozens of these:  Therefore I esteem all Your precepts concerning everything.  Wait a minute.  I esteem, I hold in the highest respect and purpose to obey all Your precepts concerning everything.  That includes, young people, obeying your parents.  You cannot hold God’s truth of salvation through grace as right and then say God’s purpose of authority and submitting to is not right.  It’s all right. 

Hosea 14 verse 9:  Whoever is wise, let him understand these things, whoever is discerning let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right.  Is that sinking in?  It’s right.  Whatever happened to God’s people lovingly but courageously and boldly looking at a rebel and saying, “It’s not right because God says it’s not right.”  Or, “It is right because God says it’s right.”  And, brothers and sisters, some things will be right even if everyone disagrees with them, and some things will be wrong even if everyone’s doing it.  Period.  It’s right.  And we don’t have to explain that it’s better for you and it’ll help your family, it’ll help your children.  That doesn’t matter.  It’s right.  Amen?  It will be better for you.  It will help your children.  It will bless your family.  It will build a stained and steady and stable culture.  But that’s not the issue.  It’s right.  We serve a God of absolute truth.  We must stand on that truth, not be cowered down and not be intimidated and not be frustrated and not run and hide.  Stand bold with courage, wit compassion and declare the truth of God.  Children should obey their parents.  This is exactly as it should be. 

Parents must teach their children to obey, and they must teach an obedience that is guided by love.  But listen.  Absolutely guided by love, moms and dads, but not abolished by love.  Parents, you cannot ever hold the false, destructive, sinful notion, “Well, I just can’t correct and discipline because I love them so much.”  You must love them with your discipline, but you can never abolish discipline because of love.  You see, allowing children to disobey is love.  It’s self-love.  It’s loving and esteeming yourself and your feelings over God and His truth.  Brothers and sisters, have we learned that we don’t trust our hea, our emotions and our hearts?  When my emotions and my heart contradict God’s Word I have to do what ole John Owen, the great old puritan, said.  I have to learn to pour my emotions into the mold of sound doctrine.  I have to get my emotions excited about what God says, not about what I think.  That’s Christianity, because we have the truth.  If my emotions are excited about error and falsehood and destructive things, I must discipline my emotions to get excited about the truth.  And by the way, they will.  If you’ll commit to truth, your emotions will catch up.  You see, it’s a disregard for God’s Word, it is sin, and it is unloving to your children to not require them to obey their parents.  Is this too strong?  Thank you. 

Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who withholds his rod hates his son.”  That’s the rod that requires obedience.  Could it be any clearer?  Do you love your friends enough that when they are not requiring their child to obey, not every, no one’s perfect.  We’re not talking about perfect perfection here.  But when they have a real pattern of allowing disobedience, and I’m gonna tell you, there’s nothing more dishonoring to the name of Christ than an household of kids that mock and rebel and scoff and run over mom and dad, particularly mom.  And you think you’re showing love, you think you’re showing gentleness.  No, what you’re doing, the Bible says you’re hating your children.  You’re hating your children.  There’s a principle I’m gonna tie in here as we go along that shows you what you’re doing and how you’re destroying them if you do that. 

But I want to say this with compassion and I want to say it with sympathy because I know a lot of you have been bombarded with error.  You’ve been bombarded with the lies of the world.  You’ve been bombarded by people you thought were strong Christians who were very negligent in teaching children to obey.  So I say it with compassion.  I understand the temptation and the force.  But I want to say with strength, not to condemn you and not to put a burden on you, but to liberate you from the tyranny and the oppression of the error that’s out there because it’s going to ruin you, certainly ruin your children. 

Proverbs 23 verse 13:  Do not hold back discipline from the child, although you strike him with the rod he will not die.  He’s not talking about clubbing your children.  He’s talking about appropriate, physical corporal punishment, to shepherd your children to Jesus.  When they disobey you must show them it’s because they have a sinful heart and they need a Savior.  You have to say, “And, honey, Daddy’s a sinner and I have to have a Savior too.  And God has to punish me and discipline me at times.  I need a Savior.  And, sweetheart, you need a Savior.  You must come to Jesus and know Him as your Lord and Savior.”  Shepherd your child to God through the discipline process.  Brothers and sisters in Christ, just a side note.  Nothing, nothing, nothing comes within a million miles of the importance of us getting our children to Jesus.  Everything we do should be shepherding them to Christ and salvation.  Not this silly superstitious stuff of just jumping through a hoop and parroting a prayer or walking an aisle.  But a true heart conversion where the heart turns from sin and self and the heart turns to trust in and rely on Christ that shows an outward evidence of fruitful righteousness in the life.  That’s the kind of thing we want to teach so that our children come to that true regeneration of God that changes their heart and life. 

Well, the phrase, ‘It is right,” goes beyond just the good of the child, the good of the family, or even the good of the nation.  It’s right just because it’s right.  It’s not right because the parents necessarily deserve it.  It’s not right because it’s going to help the family or the home.  It’s right because God says it’s right.  It will remain right if everyone opposes it.  But, oh how the world, the devil, and our flesh always comes up with a, quote, “exception clause,” end of quote.  You ever met anyone like that?  Anytime there’s a rule, any time to honor this person, obey this person, or keep these rules, they’re just exception clause people.  They’re skeptical of everything.  OH, Satan knows how to give us those.  Our flesh does well even without Satan’s help.  Foolish rebels always come up with great sounding reasons why they can exempt themselves from honoring authority.  Then to appease their conscience they recruit as many other rebels who join them in their rebellion.  And I believe they do this because these rebels feel like the numbers help shield them from God because when you rebel you violate your conscience.  You conscience condemns you.  You know you’re not right with God.  You know God’s judging over you.  But somehow if others can rebel you you feel a little bit safer.  Why you think rebels run in packs so much.  And I mean you can put a couple of rebels in a room full of two hundred people.  You can have two hundred young people in a room and put a couple of rebels in there and they’ll find each other in thirty minutes.  Like magnets to each other.  They just run to each other.  Now I’m not just talking about these teenage gangs with tattoos all over their bodies and body piercings and colored hair and lewd clothing hanging out at street corners.  I want to tell you also, there are rebel groups in churches.  They look like all-American kids but they have rebel hearts against their parents.  They lead others to do the same, and they mock those young people who will not go along with their rebellion.  If you ask them, they’ll always have an exception clause.  “Yeah, but my father was like this.  Yeah, but my father was harsh at times.  Yeah, but my father didn’t do this.  Yeah, but…”  They’ll always have an exception clause.  Satan is an expert at giving you exception clauses why you can dishonor authority.  But I want to tell you the home that as a pattern neglects to teach and require children to obey is a home of sin.  It’s a home of shame.  It’s a perversion of the God ordained pattern for the family. 

Proverbs 29:15 says, “The rod and reproof give wisdom,” but listen, “but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.”  It’s right because it’s right because God said it’s right.  Divine principle behind the command to obey.

Roman numeral three, the prominence of the command to obey jumps out at us when we get to verse 2.  The prominence.  He says, “Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.”  Now this is in all caps.  And it’s in all caps because it’s to signify that this is not just a new teaching Paul’s come up with for the church age.  It’s actually coming straight out of the Old Testament Ten Commandments.  Those Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  The scripture tells us those Ten Commandments were written in tablets of stone by the very finger of God.  Prominence.  Prominence. 

It’s prominent because of the great truth, and this is what I alluded to earlier, parents, that your children will learn to trust and obey God as they learn to trust and obey you.  You’re building divine principle and pattern in their hearts.  If they are not made to trust and honor and obey you, then they will have great difficult in trusting and honoring and obeying God.  There are times when children have to be made to obey and they say, “Why should I do this?” and you say, “Because I said so.”  There’s good in this, because God doesn’t explain everything He tells you to do.  Are you with me, parents?  There’s times to explain if their attitude is right.  You don’t play to a foolish, rebellious spirit.  You discipline a foolish, rebellious spirit.  But there are times when a child righteously and humbly asks questions, and it’s good to tell them when you can.  But you can’t every time. 

Now the Jews took this commandment to honor your father and mother and they listed it as the first of the Ten Commandments.  You know why they listed it as the first of the Ten Commandments?  Because they knew it was so foundational to a child learning to honor and obey God.  And they knew also it greatly affects succeeding generations.  See, here’s what happens.  Fathers teach their children what their father’s taught them.  And that’s where we need a revival and a reformation to beef up, to strengthen, to raise to a higher standard of truth what fathers are teaching children so we can restore what the last three or four generations lost in fathers, particularly, training their children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. 

One Chinese proverb says, “One generations plants trees, and the next gets the shade.”  So when you’re teaching your children and requiring them to obey you’re planting some trees, but their children and grandchildren will be blessed by the shade of that wonderful tree you taught them and built into their lives.  This is the highest command that God gave relating to the social order.  All them:  “Thou shalt not murder, commit adultery, steal, envy, all that, jealousy.”  All that comes under this primary foundational social order command “Children obey your parents.” 

He says also there in verse 2, “Honor.”  He doesn’t say obey when he gets to verse 2.  He changes.  Obey is verse 1.  Honor is verse 2.  And there’s a prominence in this because what he’s pointing out is is that the heart attitude must be involved here, not just external obedience.  So, young people, God’s telling you to cultivate a cherishing, loving attitude toward your parents.  Don’t just go through the motions and obey them.  God tells wives this.  Wives, Titus teaches, older ladies teach the younger ladies, not just submit, but to love your husbands.  You work with your heart and cultivate and teach your heart to love your husband.  Don’t just obey and submit to him.  Love him.  The same thing is told to church members.  You don’t just submit to the church elders.  You don’t just obey them.  The Bible says you’re to hold them in high esteem with love.  “I don’t feel that for my parents.”  Work at it.  Repent of your bad feeling and it will cultivate a good feeling of love for your parents.  It’s deeper.  It’s higher.  It’s more prominent than just an external coercion.  You’re to have an esteem for God’s great wisdom, and the great God of ultimate and infinite wisdom says, “This is the best way,” so you join in with that.  You throw yourself in that and say, “This is what’s wonderful because our God designed it in such a special way.” 

Man, the Jews gave this commandment such prominence that in Exodus 21 verse 15 they permitted the death penalty for someone who rose up in obstinate rebellion against their parents.  Literally and actually an ancient Jew could take their child to the, to the elders of the country and say, “This child premeditatedly and habitually dishonors me and his mom,” and they could stone him to death.  You say, “That sounds very extreme, and that sounds very harsh.”  Well, you just look what’s going on in our country today, the wickedness, the perversion, and the ungodliness.  It’s because children aren’t raised right.  And if that thing doesn’t stop, we’re sunk.  And it’s not gonna start with the world.  You know what I think is an absolute shame and disgrace to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?  That secular state governments are requiring marital counseling some before marriage and some before they’ll allow divorce.  They’re saying, “Somebody’s got to teach people the truth.”  And I want to say, “Where’s the church been?  Where have we been?”  Here’s where we’ve been.  We’ve been empty rhetoric.  Thunder it from the pulpit, but don’t practice it in the church.  Somebody’ll get upset.  Don’t hold any standards.  Don’t hold any biblical ideas.  And don’t have any accountability for church conduct.  Somebody might get their feelings hurt.  And instead of being the salt and the light to infect the world, we are now the world’s problem.  And we are a joke to the unbelieving world.  We can rise up all we want and talk about moral values in the government.  But I think the world in general looks at the church and says, “You guys aren’t any different.  Matter of fact, you’re worse.  Your words are empty.  It’s rhetoric.”  But we can strive to start raising the standard for the glory of God.  But you better count on something, brothers and sisters.  Hell will fight us every inch of the way in every seductive, scheming way it possibly can. 

Well, honor here means that that child must grow up after regeneration, obviously, because they’re not gonna do this.  This is not natural affection when they honor and esteem their parents.  It means that child has now a new love for God because God’s regenerated their heart.  That child now has a new affection and a new respect for God and His truth.  And because they see God’s Word and they see God’s truth and they have that new respect, they want to cultivate a love for that one that God’s placed over them in their lives. 

But I also want to say this in balance.  There are times when a child must honor but not obey.  I cannot think of anything more horrid than a parent that truly abuses their child.  And there are times, young people, when a parent may ask you to do something that is obviously evil and violates scripture.  You must always have an honorable attitude.  That’s God ordained authority.  But you have to humbly say, “Mom or Dad, I cannot do that.  I love you.  I respect you.  I’ll honor you in every way I can.  But I can’t do that.”  It’s very, very important, church members, in all appealing to authority you show great honor to the God who ordained it even though you may not can honor specific instructions or commands if that parent or whoever that person is in authority asks you to do something that’s obviously wrong. 

I think one example that we follow here is for example sometimes we see a child, a young person truly come to faith in Christ.  And we always get parental blessing before we go further.  And sometimes we talk with a parent, the parent says, “Well, I am against them being baptized.”  And we say, “Yes, sir, and we support you.  We understand that.”  But we would not support that parent saying, “And we don’t want this child to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.”  We’d say, “We’re gonna try to share with them about Jesus when they’re around us.”  We can’t obey that one.  And sometimes these are hard, and I understand that.  But there are times when a child must always maintain the respect for the authority because they honored the God who ordained the authority and they cannot obey the instruction or the command.

Roman numeral four, the promise attached to the command to obedience.  He ends this with a promise.  He gives some motivation here.  He gives some encouragement for the young person.  He says, last part of verse 2, “which is the first command with a promise that it may be well with you,” that’s quality of life, “and that you may live long on the earth.”  That’s quantity of life.  Now what you have to realize is that when this command was given, and it’s another quotation here, it, it’s given as a general promise, not an absolute.  It’s a general principle, not an absolute.  It’s much like Proverbs 10:4.  In Proverbs 10:4, God says, “Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”  Now you can’t go to that verse and say, “Hot dog.  If I’m diligent I’m automatically gonna get rich.”  No, as a general rule, the diligent, hardworking, enterprising person does well financially.  As a general rule that’s God’s general truth.  But not absolutely and always. 

James Montgomery Boyce, in his excellent commentary, said it this way, “This is a revelation of the general purpose of God, the usual course of providence.”  Now there’s a negative side to this promise.  He said, “Now if you honor your father and mother, you obey your parents, generally speaking God’s gonna see to it you have a better quality in life and a greater quantity to your life.”  But there’s a negative side.  Proverbs 13:17 says, “The eye that mocks and father and scorns a mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it.”  What does that mean?  Well, ravens and eagles are carnivores, if that’s a proper way to designate a bird that eats flesh.  And when a corpse is laying on the ground a raven usually gets there first.  And to check to see if it’s really dead, he plucks at the eye.  If there’s no movement from the body when the eye is plucked out, you know it’s dead.  And so the eating out of the eye, is usually the first thing one of these birds will do.  It means if you rebel against your parents there’s a good possibility you won’t live very long.  That’s God’s general principle.  That’s the general teaching or cause or course of God’s providence.

Now can I very hurriedly give you four conclusions for practical application?  Number one, we must work in our homes to promote not rights but responsibility.  I mean the home is always, “You’ve got this right, you’ve got this right, you got this right, you got this right.”  Don’t do that.  Yes, there’s a proper place for certain rights.  But I think in our culture today we have blown that thing way out of proportion, at least from what I understand from the Word of God.  The Word of God is constantly teaching responsibility.  You’re responsible to submit.  You’re responsible to obey.  You’re responsible to honor.  You’re responsible to esteem.  And then God steps in and takes care of your rights.  God’ll be your greatest defender.  God’ll go to war for you.  God’ll vindicate your name.  God will advance your cause if you humbly honor your responsibilities under God.  Daniel honored the king, a wicked king, a pagan king.  But God said, “Honor the king.”  He honored the king and God advanced him.  He looked at his responsibility, not his rights. 

Joseph honored God in his difficult situation and honored Pharaoh.  He was advanced to be the prime minister of Egypt.  God took care of his rights, if you will, as he honored God ordained responsibility.  You see, if you promote rights, you promote rebellion.  If you promote God ordained responsibility, you promote revival.  We need revival. 

Number two, understand that honoring authority is right and it’s a duty.  It’s right and it’s a duty.  Meditate on both of those.  It’s right.  It’s right for all the relationships involved.  It’s the best way for it to work.  It’s the only way it can truly work.  It’s woven into the natural law that God’s put in creation.  So it’s right.  And think about it being right, young people.  Think about it being right, moms and dads.  That I am contradicting the God of order and structure when I violate the responsibility to teach my children to obey.  It’s right.  But it’s also a duty that I must obey. 

Flying right along.  Number three, children, meditate on what’s right in your parents.  Now Satan is a master, and your flesh is just as bad at finding everything under the sun to justify why you cannot respect and honor and obey God ordained authority, in this case your parents.  Uh, but I read something and it, it stuck a not with myself and I think it will strike a note with many of you, especially you young people sitting here this morning.  That, uh, James Montgomery Boyce ended his section on this when talking about the problems he had with his father.  His father was a very successful professional man, and his father wasn’t at home a lot.  And he says that he in effect was struggling with that and growing bitter about that and maybe was resisting his father’s authority and was getting a bad attitude because he was hurt or wounded.  By the way, all rebellion almost always starts with being hurt or wounded.  But he said, “As a Christian I began to say, ‘God, I’m not gonna do that.  I want, help me to focus on what’s right with my father, on the things he does good and right.’”  And he said, “You know I began to learn that he sent me to a very good college and gave me a very good education because he made good money in his profession.  He said, “I also began to learn as time went on that my father, though he never flaunted his giving, he gave very generously, large amounts of money to our church and to the work of the Lord.”  He said, “And that blessed me.”  He said, “So by focusing on the good things and the right things my dad was doing I overcame that temptation to get bitter and resisting the God ordained authority.”  I thought, “Boy, that’s a great thing.” 

You know, the Bible says that love is that person who does not keep a record of wrongs done.  You got to fight that mess.  Young people, don’t keep a record of when your parents failed you.  Don’t keep a record of when they lost their temper.  Don’t keep a record of when they weren’t perfect.  That’s Satan trying to get you to justify disobeying them, which will ruin you and dishonor God.  Meditate on what’s right.  You want me to tell you something?  Dads, are you perked up and listening to your pastor?  You got a nine, ten, eleven, twelve, whatever age child that God’s really saved and they grasp this principle and they get on their face on their bed and say, “God, I’m gonna obey this father of mine.  You keep him right.”  I’m telling you, God will whip that man in shape.  “God, You told me to honor him.  Not if he’s perfect.  You told me to honor him.  You told me to obey him.”  And that child gets on his face and says, “God, I’m gonna do it because you’ve changed my heart.  You saved my soul.  I ought to be in hell.  But because I love You and respect You, God, I’m gonna honor him.  Now You make sure he’s the father he ought to be.”  God’ll honor that.  (end of side one) 

And lastly, number four, strengthen your resolve with a quiet time.  Of course you could say that about anything.  But I just do not know of anything out there that is as attacked as having a humble, honoring, obedient spirit to authority.  It is viciously and ferociously attacked because Satan knows that will thwart more of God’s work than anything else he can do.  So if you know you’re getting up in the morning, young person, and you know you’re going out into this world, and you know your flesh, you know Satan, you know this world, and you know your friends are gonna work against this principle, you need to get with God and strengthen yourself in His Word before you go out and face that temptation so you can stay strong for the glory of God.