Deuteronomy 5:16 (2) - Honor Father and Mother

Introduction

This morning we began to talk about the fifth of the Ten Commandments, the commandment to honor your father and mother.

This is a commandment that makes demands of both parents and children.

Parents are to teach their children to honor God by discipling them in the Word of God (cf. Deut. 6:4-9).

Children are to honor their parents by revering and obeying YHWH just as their parents did.

This is a command with a promise: life will go better for us here on earth if we obey this commandment (cf. Eph. 6:1-3).

This is a command with a penalty: those who dishonor their parents will be cursed; they will die as a result; and unless they repent and trust Christ, they will go to hell.

Of course, Jesus kept this commandment perfectly and died in our place to pay the price for our breaking of it.

Through faith in Him, we can be forgiven.

And we can forgive our parents if they didn’t raise us to honor the Lord.

And we can forgive our children if they haven’t honored us by honoring the Lord.

Tonight I want us to discuss a few more thoughts about this fifth commandment.

So let’s read the commandment and pray before we discuss it. Look at Deuteronomy 5:16…

[READING - Deuteronomy 5:16]

Deuteronomy 5:16 NASB95

16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

[PRAYER]

Now, tonight we’ll be more discussion than sermon—although I think they’ll be plenty of sermon as well.

But let’s begin by talking about attacks on the family...

Outline

Attacks on the Family

I said this morning that, “Ever since the fall there have been satanic attacks on marriage, on parenting, on the family, on unborn babies and young children, and even on elderly parents.”

Q: How is marriage, parenting, family, children, and the elderly attacked in our day?

Marriage = cohabitation, divorce, gay ‘marriage’, polygamy

Parenting = parents are dumb; it is accepted that they are disrespected

[ILLUS] The cover of one magazine for teen-aged girls asked, “Do you really hate your parents? Like, who doesn’t?” The magazine proceeded to offer advice on “how to deal with your detestables.”

[ILLUS] Book at the public library on transgender nonsense informed children that their parents didn't really know what gender they (the children) were when they were born, and if they (the children) decided they were a different gender, they didn't have to tell their parents.

Family = redefinition, division

Children = abandonment, abortion, transgender-ism; letting children decide what’s best for them

Elderly parents = discarding; physician assisted suicide

One commentator writes, “(This fifth commandment’s) most basic insistence from the point of view of establishing a responsibility that might otherwise be shirked is to demand that children take care of their parents in their parents’ old age, when they are no longer able to work for themselves...”

Another brother says, “Honoring our parents means making sure that in their old age they are in a comfortable environment, that they feel like part of the family, and that you communicate over and over to them that they are loved.”

Jesus is, of course, the prime example of this. As He died on the cross, He saw to the care of His mother, Mary, placing her in the Apostle John's care.

The Pharisees by comparison were the prime example of discarding a parent in old age. For example, a Pharisee would claim that, upon his death, his wealth would be given to God (cf. Mark 7:9-13).

He would then claim that he couldn't take care of his parents in their old age because then God wouldn't get as much when he died.

Jesus said that such a thing was sinful and just an excuse for the Pharisees to set aside the commandment of God for their own sinfully selfish traditions.

[ILLUS] All the things we’ve talked about constitute satanic attacks on the family and our brother in Christ, Philip Graham Ryken tell us why. He writes…

“Many historians believe that a significant shift in American attitudes toward authority took place during the 1960s. It was the decade of the anti-establishment. Young people were anti-business, anti-government, anti-military, and anti-school. But of all the institutions that came under attack, perhaps the most significant was the family.

Annie Gottlieb is one of many participants who identify “the Sixties” as “the generation that destroyed the American family.” She writes, “We might not have been able to tear down the state, but the family was closer. We could get our hands on it. And … we believed that the family was the foundation of the state, as well as the collective state of mind.… We truly believed that the family had to be torn apart to free love, which alone could heal the damage done when the atom was split to release energy. And the first step was to tear ourselves free from our parents.”1

What makes Gottlieb’s analysis so chilling is the connection she draws between the family and the state. She’s right: The way to destroy a nation is to destroy the family, and the way children can destroy the family is by disobeying their parents.”

Let’s shift gears and talk about the word HONOR

Deuteronomy 5:16 NASB95

16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

This morning I said that to honor your parents means to revere and obey them. But the word ‘honor’ implies that revere and obey them because of the weight they hold in our lives.

One commentator writes, “(The word ‘honor’) is a heavy word—literally. The word is kaved, which is Hebrew for ‘heavy’ or ‘weighty.’ It is the word the Old Testament uses for the glory of God, for the weightiness of his divine majesty. To honor one’s parents, therefore, is to give due weight to their position. It is to give them the recognition they deserve for their God-given authority. To honor is to respect, esteem, value, and prize fathers and mothers as gifts from God.”

But I think there is a mistake that we must avoid when we begin to think in this direction. There are some who believe that parents represent God to their children. One preacher I read kept saying that parents were temporary stand-ins for God to their children.

While I understand that parents have a temporary God-given authority over their children and that children begin to learn to submit to God’s authority by submitting to their parents, there are dangers in believing that you are God to your children and a danger in having our children believe that.

Q: What are some dangers in thinking that you represent God to your children or in having your children believe that you represent God to them?

The danger of believing that we represent God to our children is believing that we have absolute authority as God does. God can handle absolute authority without being compromised but we can’t. Our authority as parents is a delegated authority from God. It’s an authority under His authority.

I agree with John Durham in his commentary on Exodus. He writes, “The parents represent YHWH no more or less than does any other member of the covenant community…”

The danger of having our children believe that we represent God is that they begin to think that God is like we are.

That’s why we have people who blame Daddy for their God-issues and blame God for their Daddy-issues, all while never actually taking responsibility for their own issues.

Dad is not like God.

God is not like Dad.

[ILLUS] I know a man who described his relationship with his children before He trusted Christ as, “I was God, and you didn’t approach God.”

That’s the danger of thinking that we are God to our children.

Now that dad points his children and grandchildren to God through faith in Jesus.

That’s what we all should do.

This dovetails nicely into a specific Word to Fathers regarding this fifth commandment…

Turn with me to Ephesians 6:1-4…

Ephesians 6:1–4 NASB95

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Obviously the Apostle Paul is quoting the fifth commandment here but then he singles out father in v. 4.

Q: Why do you think Paul singles fathers out?

Because fathers lead the way. The husband is the head of household. He bears that responsibility. We like to say, “Happy wife. Happy life.” but the truth is happiness in the home depends on leadership from Dad.

Q: How might fathers exasperate or provoke their children to anger?

By being thoughtless, domineering, unforgiving, exacting.

A father who demands perfection from his children and then acts frustrated when they aren’t perfect and doesn’t quickly forgive their imperfections is sure to drive his children to anger—and a child who is angry is not looking honor father and mother.

But before anger come hopelessness or losing heart. When fathers (or mothers) are exasperating, the child may eventually ask, “What’s the point? Nothing I do will be good enough anyway?”

Colossians 3:21 says…

Colossians 3:21 NASB95

21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

As fathers, we are to be protectors of our children not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. Yes, we are to correct them when they do wrong, but we are to do so in a way that encourages their heart toward Jesus.

[ILLUS] A seminary student was working on his thesis for his doctorate. He was examining many of the major works of famous atheists of the past century. He wrote, “Almost all the famous atheists of the past century—Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Madelyn Murray O’Hare, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Albert Camus—(all had) a (messed) up relationship with their father.”

Let’s be sure that our kids don’t have a messed up relationship with their father.

No matter how old we are or they are, we can begin now to be the kind of father God calls us to be.

And finally a word to mothers...

Notice the beginning of Deuteronomy 5:16 again— “Honor your father and your mother...”

Q: What’s interesting about the inclusion of mothers here?

Israel was a male-dominated society. It was patriarchal. That is, it was father-led. So we would expect the ‘honor your father’ part but not so much the ‘honor your mother’ part.

One commentator wrote, “The equal status of the mother in this (commandment) is significant. The OT world was predominantly a male world, yet here … the woman is given appropriate recognition. Nearly always, it is the woman in her all-important role as mother who is accorded such recognition…”

[ILLUS] I had a mother of teenage children come to me once, “They listen to their father, but they argue with me. They disrespect me, but they don’t try that with him.”

Another mother said that she had become so accustomed to the disrespect from her children that she didn’t even notice it until her husband got on to the children about it.

My own children will look at me when Cheryl tells them to do something, seemingly asking, “Dad, do I really have to do that?”

I try to respond, “Did you not hear what your mother told you to do?”

That’s what I must do because she is as deserving of honor as I am.

Wives back up your husbands.

Husbands make sure your children are honoring their mother.

This unity between husband and wife/father and mother will go along way to encourage your children to obey this fifth commandment.

Conclusion

[PRAYER]