# Honor thy father and thy mother

Key Passage: Exodus 20:12
Date: June 7, 2024

Turn your Bible to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. We are continuing our study of the Ten Commandments. We are in the middle week here; we are on Commandment number five.

Last week, we covered the Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. I mentioned last week that we had a little pamphlet on the Sabbath. We were out of them, but I did this week. If you would like to get one, you are welcome to do so. It deals with much more detail than I could cover in one service. There is a back corner over here, on the top of that rack. You will find it, “Sunday or Sabbath.” They are free. There are about ten in there; I kept some back. If we need more, I will put them out. Get that from last week if you need it. By the way, I think we are going to try to compile all ten of these when we are done, and you can purchase them in a little CD packet or maybe a thumb drive or something. We will work on it. But the Ten Commandments—let me just review a touch.

If you have heard this already four times, act like you have never heard it, all right? We want to review just a minute here. We have not covered it every week, but remind you that God had already brought His people out of Egypt, all right? They already crossed the Red Sea by faith. Remember, Pharaoh followed with his army, and they crossed in the Red Sea. Those walls of water came down on them and drowned them. So it was a step of faith for the children of Israel. They went through by faith, and they crossed over. God delivered them from the world, which pictures someone already saved. Now they are going over to the land that God had promised them, the Promised Land—the land flowing with milk and honey. You understand what that means? That means chocolate chip ice cream. Amen, it meant chocolate chip. There it is. If you study it out in Hebrew, that is what it means, I promise. It could mean chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. But land flowing with milk and honey—come on now, you know. It has to have ice cream in there somewhere, I promise you. Anyway, in that journey, God gave them the Ten Commandments for the law.

There are over 600 commandments in the law. He kind of narrowed it down to the agenda, or the Decalogue, as we sometimes call it. We have been focusing on these ten commandments. Probably the clearest place in all the Bible for the Ten Commandments is in Exodus 20. That is where we are at this morning. Help me out. You know this: the first four deal with our relationship with God. The last six deal with our relationship with each other—mankind. We are beginning the first of these relationship-with-mankind commandments, and we are in verse number 12 of Exodus 20.

Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord—by the way, when it is capital L, capital O, capital Jehovah—that the Lord thy God giveth thee. Would you read that verse out loud with me, please? Here we go: “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

I say that, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” A lot of different things happen in mind. Some of you are kind of over here on this side: “Well, duh!” It is almost like you are on the bandwagon, ready to enforce and make everybody—you ought to honor your parents. That is a given. Then some are on the other side, and you say, “Well, Pastor, honestly, the truth is, I do not even know who my dad is. How in the world could I honor him?” Some will say, “Well, Pastor, it is easy for you to say, but you did not have a parent that put their cigarettes out on your legs for you to say, ‘Honor your parents’ or whatnot.” And you have not been—there are a lot of people. Some people, when you say that, they bristle. Some may be out of a lack of understanding of God’s word’s teaching here and say, “There is no way I could ever do that.” Some of you just kind of have this thing aside because you do not know how in the world to deal with this commandment in your life, in your shoes. So would you just be a little bit patient with me? Do not draw too many conclusions until the end. We will be on both sides of the fence sometimes, and sometimes I am on the other side. You say, “Well, I do not know about that.” Would you just kind of wait? We do our best to rightly divide God’s word and be honest with God’s word on the subject. Just stick with me on this.

Can I say this? I mentioned in the prayer: This is such a key. In fact, as it starts to deal with these commandments in our relationship with one another, this is the first. It is almost as if you can get this one right, in honoring thy father and thy mother, then it is going to help you so much in the remaining five that are left. This is a key one. And so we want to honestly, sincerely deal with it in the light of God’s word. This is the first one of the Ten Commandments that has a promise with it. Did you notice a part of the verse? Look back there, if you would, verse number 12. Notice what He says: “that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Now, some will say that means you have a long life. We are not over there; there is a little bit more detail given that we do not have time to get into. Everyone has an appointment with death, which can be lengthened or shortened, by the way. We will not take time to dig into that. But can I say it is more than just you live a long life? Long life? Notice how God words it there. Everything in the Bible is there for a reason. Notice how He words it. He says, in verse number 12, “that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord Jehovah, thy God giveth thee.” For a day—rehash a little bit. They were out of Egypt, crossing over to the Promised Land, where the ice cream is, right?

God says that your days may be long upon the land. Here is the thing: Remember God said, “Now Israel, if you do right, this is going to be your land forever.” It will be their land forever. But God put a clause in there: “Israel, if you turn your back on Jehovah, I am going to disperse you.” Remember that happened? Towards the end of days, the Bible says it will be the regathering of the Jewish people. We have already seen that, and it is still going on. In 1948, Israel became an issue again. In 1967, Israel took Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. By the way, praise the Lord, our president now said our embassy will be in the capital in Jerusalem. That is very big biblically. We will not take time to sort all that out—the regathering of the children of Israel back to the land.

So what is going on here? God says, if you fulfill this commandment, you will live long upon the land. You will be blessed. The opposite of this, if you look over in the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, the last chapter of the book of Malachi, the chapter before, the last verse—verse number six. It is kind of the opposite. It is very sad how God ends the Old Testament. He ends it with the word “curse.” Look at Malachi 4, verse number 6. Keep your finger in Exodus, as we will go back to it. But Malachi 4, verse number 6: “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” God said if this is not going on between the father—and I believe the father includes the mother in there also; He is the head of the wife, the Bible says—and if the hearts of the parents are not turned toward your children and the children toward the parents, He is saying society will get so bad, He has to bring a curse. We have seen a lot of that in time. In the last generation, one of the greatest sins, I think, is a lack of fatherhood and shame. But over here He said, “Now look, if you get this saying of honoring thy father and thy mother, your days will be long upon the land.” In other words, I will be able to bless you. This is a big commandment. I will give you long life in that land. You have the blessings of God in your life. You see the importance of this command.

Keep your finger over in Exodus. You can drop your finger in Malachi. Do not drop too many fingers; you will look like your pastor. Look over in Ephesians. Ephesians breaks it down a little bit for us. Look over in Ephesians chapter 6. He breaks down this thing a little bit, and I want to explain it because sometimes we mistake and think verse number 12 of Exodus, “Honor thy father and mother,” is just for children. It is not. But the Bible does break down what is for children and what is for all of us. It does not matter how old you are; you are still a child to your parents. My mom is here this morning, and I am her pastor, and I am 30 years old now. I hear Jim back plus a couple, you know, but I am still her child, okay? So let us break this thing down a little bit. Look over in Ephesians 6, look in verse number 1. Ephesians 6, verse number 1. Notice the first word He says: “Children.” That is children, that is younger folk. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Children, young folk, people living at home. By the way, even if I was 49 years old right now and lived at home, I still live under the roof. I have some honor, some responsibility if I am living under the roof, right? But it is not necessarily—He is saying children here: Children, obey. By the way, it is so vital, parents, that you teach. Parents, you are going to have to teach your children to obey. The next verse: “Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise.” It is for all of us. No matter how old you are, you still have a mom and dad. This is you: honor. If Mom tells me to do something, I do not necessarily have to obey it, but as an honor, I ought to think about it. Now, she tells me, “Paul, give me $100.” I do not know what I would do. Mom says she is trying it right now, you know. But as a child, when I was young, I was supposed to obey. Now, I am to honor them. That would mean I would put very strong consideration into something they said, but I am not necessarily under obligation to obey. That is for children. But as a son of a mom and dad, I am to honor. Everybody is to honor. Look at the next verse right there—last verse, I am sorry. Let us go back to two: “Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, He bless thee, and that thou mayest live long upon the earth.” See? Not just live long, but it may be well with you. You honor them, and God says, “I will be able to bless you.” This is a big thing, honoring your parents.

That word “honor”—I do not put everything in it, but Strong’s Concordance, I will use it as a Bible study sometime. Strong’s Concordance, the first way he begins to give a definition of it is “to be heavy.” In other words, whatever your parents say, it bears weight. It is heavy. Their words are heavy to you. Everybody is supposed to honor their parents. Can I say this? If a child is not obeying their parents, there is a good chance they are not going to honor you later on. Because as a child, you are not teaching them that your words bear weight. You are not teaching them to obey you. So there is a greater—your words are not going to bear a whole lot of weight then either. Y’all can say amen right there. And parents, it is our job when they are little to teach them to obey. And there is a much better chance that they will honor you later on in life.

Can I say this? As you are raising children, you want to be a parent first. Do not make it your goal to be their friend. Make it your goal to be the parent. And as they are little and they learn to obey, maybe later on they will honor you, and you can build a good relationship on that. But my goal is to be their best parent. You can have a lot of friends. There are all kinds of people that can be their friends, but they only have one mom and one dad. They need you to be a mom and a dad. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Honor—that is for everybody. Why? It will be well with you. You live long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Now, I want you to know something else about this. Y’all stay with me this morning. John and McKinney had not fallen asleep yet, and they did not go to bed until 3:30, so you can stay awake. Of course, they are not. I keep putting pressure on them to stay awake. They are like, “Thanks a lot. Really appreciate that.” Anyway, let us look back over here in Exodus, Exodus 20, back over there, verse number 12. I want you to notice how God words it, Exodus 20. Look at verse number 12. Notice how He does this. Help me out. Does He say, “Honor thy parents”? No, no. He very specifically says, “Honor thy father or thy mother.” Is that what He says? No. He says, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” He says both.

If you are a single parent, I am not trying to cast stones. God’s grace is sufficient, amen? Some of the best Christians I know were raised in single-parent homes. God’s grace is real. But God does give us a target to shoot at. You shoot at nothing, you hit it every time. And the target God gives us is right here. So let me just for a little while talk about those that are in other situations. Let us give them a target to shoot at, maybe even if they are young or not even married. This is a goal: Honor thy father and thy mother. Both. See, not a question of both. If they just honor Dad and they do not honor Mom, we are not hitting the target. We are not hitting the goal.

By the way, men, more often than not, especially when those children get to be teenagers, especially young men—Dad says, “You do not talk to your mom like that.” You get all about yourself, man. Well, they are honoring me? You are not following God’s word. “Honor thy father and thy mother.” We are not honoring God’s word. Honor thy father and thy mother. And men, it is a shame if that lady who usually spends much more time raising those kids for you—if that mother does not have a husband who kind of backs her up and says, “You disrespect Mom, you are disrespecting me, boy.” I used to always say my dad would always call me “boy.” I said, “I am not going to call my son boy.” John got a little bit older. Every once in a while, I still call him boy, and he is 24. He is a man. But they are going to need that. See? Honor thy father and thy mother. Both. See? Both are very, very, very… Men, do not go behind—do not go behind your mom’s back and say, “Well, Mom has issues.” You have problems, but just look good in front of her. No, do not. It is a shame on you, man. Honor thy father and thy mother.

If it is just the mom they honor, maybe because the dad will not get involved. Maybe because Dad will not be the man and put his foot down sometimes. Maybe because Dad will not fight for leadership sometimes. Maybe because Mom is overbearing and she wants to just have total control over the kids, and if the dad is going to deal with the kids, he has to go through Mom. That is not right. But look, it is not just “Honor thy father.” It is not just “Honor thy mother.” It is “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Ladies, you do not want to run the roost. You do not want to be in control. You do not want to take the leadership. That is the role God gave to that man. Both must be involved. Both. Honor thy father and thy mother.

It was a good day to me when it seemed like it was all night. No child wants to go to bed. You understand? They are playing a video game or whatever. You are sitting around goofing off, twiddling your thumbs, you know. I mean, if you have thumbs, whatever you are doing, you know. You do not want to go to bed. In our house, it was usually me, because I tended to get up earlier, and everybody else says, “All right, time to go to bed.” I have watched it more than once. My kids, of course, did not want to do what I said to do. So the next thing that happened was their eyes went to their mom just to see if they could get in their way. And praise the Lord, I had a good, godly wife who said, “All right, kids, you heard Dad.” And they said, “Well, we cannot divide them. I have to honor thy father and thy mother.” We stayed one, and they went to bed. And praise the Lord, we got a little sleep, amen. All that is important: Honor thy father and thy mother.

You said, “Pastor, what if their dad, what if their mom, whatever—what if he is truly messed up?” The best thing you can do for your kids, even though their parent, the other one, whatever, is messed up, is to teach that child to honor them. They have issues, I understand, and I am not trying to take away from the fact that they do have issues, and we will talk about that in a little bit here. But the best thing for that child, that they may be well—Ephesians says—that they may live long upon the land which the Lord, for their sake, honor thy father and thy mother.

I thought about a lady. She is in the ministry, a godly lady. She did not tell me; she told my wife. But in her house, her mom was a good, godly lady who went to church. Her dad was a functioning alcoholic. Not a horrible man as far as going out and cheating on his wife and all that. He went to work every day, but he just—he was a functioning guy who did not go to church. I am not sure of his salvation or not. But this lady, who is a pastor’s wife, told my wife, “Honestly, Dad would—Dad would go to work, he would come home, and he sat in his easy chair.” And she said, “Honestly, Mom treated him like a king. She did not preach about him. She did not, you know, all of it.” And she said, “Honestly, we grew up not thinking that he is the most miserable guy in all the world. We honored him the best we could.” And I am not sure about this part—my wife would know—but I think even her siblings, her sisters, are good, godly ladies. I think all of them are in the ministry, if I know the story right. I thought, what a wise mother she had. She did not say, “Girls, your dad is about as rotten as they come. He comes home and drinks every night. Such an easy, lazy bump.” She did not do that. She told her kids, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” It turned out pretty good for the kids. Okay. Y’all still with me this morning? Let us keep going; there is so much to cover. So let us deal with this saying: What does it mean to honor? What does it mean to honor thy father and thy mother? Can I say this right off the bat? It does not always look the same.

Follow me here a little bit. If someone has what we call a model parent—there is no perfect parent, by the way; there is only one, that is God—but they have what we call a pretty close to perfect parent. I mean, they love the Lord, they model Christ in the home, they are servant leaders, and they raise them in church. Oh, it is going to look a little different to honor them than maybe a child that has a dad that is in jail, or maybe they have a dad they only met in their adult years, or maybe they have a parent that continually hurts them and continually, continually does things against them. By the way, that is reality. That happens sometimes. There is going to be a difference here. It does not always look the same. Somebody I can already hear saying, “Well, Pastor, what about Romans? Give honor to where honor is due.” Let us talk about what it looked like to honor. Let us try to give some—maybe a little bit more specific here.

First of all, let us talk about what honoring is not, right? What honoring—Honor thy father—what does that mean? Let us talk about what it is not. It does not mean that you have to let them continually hurt you. Okay. It does not mean, “Well, I am supposed to honor thy father and mother, so I have to wear this thing on my back.” You ever do that in school? You write it, kick. You put some tape on it, and then when they are not looking, you put it on their back, and they walk around school and everybody… Anybody ever do that? Nobody is honest in the room here. Thank you. I had three that were honest about it. The rest of you are all liars. You know you did it. I am joking, of course. But it does not mean—it does not mean you have to go where they are saying, “Go ahead and stab me and twist the knife, and I will just take it.” It does not mean that. Honoring thy father, it does not mean that you continually just let them hurt you over and over and over again. That is not an honor. Y’all with me?

Honoring your parent does not mean living in denial. If some things were done that were not right, it does not mean you deny that ever happened. You cannot forgive for something you do not admit happened. You understand? Honoring your parents does not mean living in denial of them. In fact, if you live in denial about some things, you are putting your Christian life in at least some aspects in neutral where you do not go. You see, because you are not properly dealing with that, so you cannot move on to forgiveness and healing. And God cannot use that in other people’s lives rightly like you would like to because you have not faced the issue. You know what I mean? Honoring your parents does not mean living in denial. I cannot learn from something if I have not dealt with it or admitted it has happened. You see.

God—He loves the world, does not He? But He sees the sin. In fact, even those that get saved, He does not say, “Well, let me sweep that sin under the rug.” No, no. He dealt with that sin by sending His Son. He dealt with that sin when He placed that sin on Jesus Christ. That is why it pleased the Father for the Son to crucify it—why He was dealing with that sin. But God, who is love, does not just sweep the sin under the rug and never deal with it. He faces it, and He, through His Son, allows for forgiveness for that. So honoring your parents does not mean living in denial. It is not what God is saying. That is why some of you say, “I can never honor my parents.” Oh, yes, you can. It does not mean you live in denial, but you deal with it. You forgive, you move on. We will talk about this in a moment. Honoring your parents does not mean you do not admit what they did affected you. Now, I am not trying to—I am not trying to preach an excuse, you know. “Well, so-and-so burnt down that house over there. That is all right. They can burn down a house because they were in the—when they were a little bitty baby, and it said up to 30 pounds, they did not realize it was the weight of the child. They thought that is how much the diaper could hold.” And so they have an excuse to go and do all these rebellious things. No, I am not talking about excuse here, but I am telling you that it does affect you. You all with me?

Remember Moses and his sister, Miriam? Remember at one point, Miriam got rebellious against her brother, the leader, and she was part of a rebellion against him? And actually God allowed Miriam to get cancer. Let me read for you what God—not what man, but what God said about this saying, found in Numbers 12:14. And God said, “And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days?” That was a little bit of practice in that day and time. It was just a very extreme discipline; the father would actually spit, and she would be pushed aside for seven days. It was in practice. In other words, God is saying, if her dad had dealt with her sin years ago, she would not be here today. In other words, God says what happens when you are young affects you today. You understand where I am saying? So it does not mean you say, “Well, yes, such and such happened. It does not matter to me.” It does matter to you. Let it affect you. And honoring your parents—you admit that. You do not dwell on it for the rest of your life, but you admit that. You are honest and sincere. You are not living in denial. You understand there are no perfect parents. I have loved long enough now to say, hey, John—we were teasing a little bit at his wedding about something we did to him when he was little—we scared him with the bear when he was little, you know, a little teddy bear and whatnot. And John said, “I wonder why I was always just scared of bears,” and so on and so on. It is a long story. And I said, “You are probably right, John. Probably a little dumb of us to do that one.” And there are other things. I am old enough now; I look back and say, “I wish I had done a little bit more of this. I wish I had done a little less of that.” There are no perfect parents. By the way, if your kids are turning out right, do not get prideful. Praise God for His grace. There is no perfect parent, friend. Only one is perfect: that is the Lord. Thank for the grace of God and thank for my children making their right decisions—them making those decisions. So I am saying, you are not living in a perfect world. Honoring them does not mean denial because you are getting stuck.

Most of you know I was dreaming about this 15 acres over here on Nambeville Road as you come in, right past the bread store there. We are looking to build and all those things, and I have been eyeing that for months and months. It had been raining—you know, this year we have had a lot of rain before. Now we are getting the drive; we have had a little rain lately. But anyway, I went driving my truck on there. It is just two-wheel drive. I was doing pretty good riding across there. I had talked to the real estate and all that stuff until I got in a little mud patch. Oh, dirty Bick and Bickerbocker Slater, man, my tires were spinning, but I was not going anywhere. I was supposed to meet Brother Anthony up here to go, you know, and I had to call him. “Brother Anthony, stuck over here. Bring some wood and a shovel or whatever else you can find.” He came over there. We dug for about an hour. We got about six foot. Very humbling for me. I am driving a GMC or Chevy, you know, and I had to call Brother Bruce Ippel in his Ford Excursion to come pull me out. What a shame. The Lord knows how to humble you, does He not? And I live in denial; I am stuck. Some people are stuck emotionally because they have never dealt with issues. And what I am after—and I do not want to belabor it; we have got to hurry along—let us get over here a little bit, though. Do not be stuck. Let us move beyond. Let us learn. Let us grow. Let us be able to—God use this to help somebody else because of faced issues from the past. Okay. Now, real quickly here, what does it look like? Different scenarios, different people. What does it look like for me to honor, for you to honor your parents? Number one: Respect their positions.

Yesterday, we were across the street from—it used to be Shoney’s—and we were across the street there, and there was a little old—it used to be a little cell phone accessory shack there—and we were in that parking lot watching the air show and the Blue Angels show, and there was a police officer out there directing traffic. Now, I do not know that man. He may be one of the sorriest men you ever meet in the world. I do not know. Hopefully, he is not your best friend, whoever was. But I respected that man because he had the uniform on. Sometimes in the military, they say, “Respect the uniform.”

You say, “Pastor, you do not understand what my dad, what my mom has done. I do not understand all this that happened with you.” But I would say this: Honoring them has to do with you respecting the uniform. It does not mean living in denial, but it says that is still my mom, that is still my dad. And the best that I can, I am going to respect the uniform. Number two: It has to do with loving them as they are. Yeah, they have got problems, but so do I. I am going to love them out of my love to God. If you have a difficult time with it, out of my love to God, I am going to love my mom and my dad. You love them. Number one, you respect the position. Number two, you love them as they are. Number three, you forgive them. You forgive them. It may take a process. Sometimes we think, “Come to the altar and I am going to forgive them.” It may be daily. It may be months, years. We have someone in our church whose mother recently committed suicide, and their mother is not going to watch her grandchildren grow, their children, and all these things. It is still right for that person in our church to say, “You know what? I am going to forgive my mom.” Is it wrong? Yes, it is wrong. If I am going to live in denial? No, I am going to face it. Does it affect me? Yes, it affects me. It is going to affect my generation here. But I am going to forgive them. Hey, Christ forgave me for my sin and all my shame, and He paid the debt. There is a debt I am going to admit, I am going to face—there is a debt because of what she did—but I am going to pay that debt, and I am going to forgive them. That is honoring. It does not mean living in denial. It admits the truth. It faces the elephant in the room, if you will, but it says, “I am going to forgive.”

It may be a process. You say, “Well, that is easy for you to say; you were raised in a Christian home.” I understand, but the Bible still says it does not give exclusions here. It just says, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” for your sake, for your children’s sake. Forgive. That may be—if you have major issues in your past, I am sure you will go through stages of bitterness. I am sure that will happen. Do not let it grow a root. Do not let that bitterness get a root down in there. If you are facing bitterness when someone says, “Honor your father and your mother,” and that mom or that dad that did such and such comes to your mind, and you bristle a little bit, you might need to face: “I have some bitterness.” For your own sake, for your children’s sake. Forgiveness means you do not spend the rest of your life just focusing on what they did wrong and talking about it. And you are probably going to need to talk about it, maybe with your mate, maybe with a good counselor, a godly counselor, a godly friend. But you do not spend your life telling everybody about what all your parents did wrong. You deal with it, and by the grace of God and the love of God, and as God leads and heals, you forgive. It is honoring your parents.

I have to hurry along. But can I just say this? You becoming the best person, the best Christian you become, I believe, is honor to your parents. Honor your father and thy mother. Honor—you seek good in them. Someone recently—they have been abused as a child, and I will not go into all that—but they said recently, “My parent taught me to be clean.” I thought that was very proud of them. They saw some good in their parents. Maybe your dad did not ever go to a ball game. Maybe he did not ever love you and be the father you ought to be, but maybe he went to work every day. He made some bills. Hey, see the good in them. That is honoring them. Fine. Does it deny the bad? You deal with the bad. You are under the grace of God. You try to move on and forgive. But you look for the good in them, whatever the good may be, and you honor them while you are looking for the good. See the good in them. Y’all with me this morning? I hope you are letting the Holy Spirit make this real to you in your situation. Honoring your parents means you take care of them when they cannot.

What about old age? The Bible talks about that in 1 Timothy 5:8: “But if any provide not for his own, and especially those of his own household…” By the way, the context is “widow indeed,” if you read that. He says it is worse than an infidel. See? In our day and time, we have such a big brother government mentality. The government is supposed to kind of do everything for us. We are getting to that point. Paul Revere said, “Give me liberty, give me death.” The next generation said, “Give me liberty.” The next generation just said, “Give me.” We are getting there. You understand where I am coming from. And we are a little bit there in our time. The government, you know, they are supposed to take care of the elderly. And the government and what are the government and all these government age and health care? Can I tell you what God’s plan is? It is family. When they cannot—when they cannot provide. By the way, when you get old, it is family first. Mom and Dad and children say, “You know what? We might better get some things settled because we are going to have to provide when they get old.” Children might say, “I might need to forgive and move home. I might better stop stabbing them in the back because they are going to be taken care of me pretty soon.” I understand. Family first, then if there is no family there, then the church. Biblically here, we are talking about widows, and we will take time to look at that. And then government. We have a society where government does everything, and so we have no families working out issues. Government, government, government. And I am not saying all of it is sinful and wrong, but you understand how we are getting out of whack. God says this saying about honoring thy father and thy mother so it can be well with you. You live long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Here is a wonderful thing. God says, “I would love to be your Dad.” God says, “I will rescue you from hell.” I will come down, I will sweep up my little girl, my little son, and through the shed blood of my Son, Jesus, and the grace of God, I will rescue you from the pit of hell." And God says, “I will be your Dad.” Such a sacred thing. So do not let anybody on earth call you father—not much spiritually. I am your Heavenly Father. He is a perfect Father. You said, “Pastor, you do not know my life. You do not know my past. You know all that.” But God does, and God says, “I will be the I AM Father.” Whatever you need, I AM. We are almost done. Let me say this: Parents, you are modeling to your child what honoring father and mother looks like. They are watching how I honor my mom, my dad. And there is a good chance they are going to honor me the same way one day. And God says this saying is so very, very important. This first commandment of relationships—He says, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” It is the first commandment of promise, Ephesians 6, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Original File: Honour Thy Farther and Thy Mother - Pastor Paul Chisgar Sunday AM 6-9-19