Faithbase

Hello and welcome to Thinking About God's Law. And we come now to the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. And I haven't been talking about the covenant sequence. I have not been talking about the things we talked about at the introduction to this whole series. This isn't really time to do that. That's something that they'll have to perhaps produce and put up on the on my website later, something you can look at. But when we talk about honoring your father and your mother, we are talking about continuity. We're talking about the covenant and its future. And the reason is because this is the first commandment of the promise according to Paul, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you. And Paul repeats that, but he changes that, that your days may be long on the earth. Because it was the whole earth that was promised to Abraham in the covenant that God established with him. And we are heirs of Abraham if we are in fact in Jesus Christ. So honoring your father and mother is more than just not treating them poorly. It's also to be treating them well. Now does this mean in the Old Testament here, it never says one way or the other, but are we supposed to honor parents that are not very good parents? Well the Bible says that we honor our parents. Now we have wisdom, we should use wisdom. We never confirm people, we should not confirm people in sin or in their bad behavior. But to honor parents means that you don't speak ill of them, even if they were parents that were leaving a lot to be desired. It means that you don't mistreat them, even if they did mistreat you as a child. That you don't ignore them, even if they did tend to be too busy for your activities or whatever as a child. So the original audience had a whole different culture than what we have today. And it would have been unthinkable for children to mistreat their parents in the way that most, I shouldn't say most, many, let me put it that way, many children that I've seen in this modern world, the way that they treat their parents in public sometimes even, is reprehensible. And that would not have been tolerated in that ancient culture. But God reminds us, reminded his people back then, that their parents should be honored. They should be taken care of both physically and emotionally. They should be honored in the sense that not just in their presence, but away from them. You do not speak ill of them. You do not tear them down. So what I would like you to think about today is, as you think about God's law, is how have you failed to honor your parents? I mean, we all have. And how can you better honor your parents? That's something we can all think about. I'm blessed to have my parents still living. They're in their mid to late 80s. But how can I honor my parents? How can you honor your parents? And in what ways have I failed to honor them that I should ask for forgiveness, both of the Lord and probably of them as well? So be thinking about that. And we will return to our series thinking about God's law tomorrow. Until then, may God bless you.