ONE HEARTBEAT AWAY
- PART 57
(Mark Cahill's Book)
Fifth Commandment
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee.
Exodus 20:12
This is a completely unconditional statement. We are supposed to honour our parents just because they are our parents. We don't get to choose who our parents are. We are to obey them just because God put them over us. We are to acknowledge the significance and great value of our parents.
In return we get great blessing: long life.
This is emphasized in the New Testament:
CHILDREN obey your parents in the
Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou
mayest live long on the earth.
(Ephesians 6:1-3)
We dishonor our parents when we
treat them lightly or with disrespect.
Our attitude toward our parents will precondition our attitude toward the authority figures that we encounter in life.
This commandment
has nothing to do with
parent's worthiness, but deals with the obedience and respect children
should show toward their parents, no
matter how worthy or unworthy the parents may seem.
"Foolishness," says the Bible, (Proverbs : 22:15) "is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of
correction shall drive it far from
him."
That is, we learn to be wise by the correction of our parents, which
deters us from obeying foolish
childish impulses. We don't like being deterred from foolishness, but it
serves to help us grow in wisdom.
If we rebel against our parent's care
for us, we are being worse than
foolish.
For rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft and stubborness is as iniquity and idolatry.
(1st Samuel 15:23)
God considers rebellion the same
as witchcraft. Why would that be?
Because witchcraft is turning to a source other than God to get results.
And rebellion is refusing guidance
and determining, instead, to impose your own will on a person or
situation.
Stubborness is as iniquity and
idolatry. If we do not submit to our parents, we do not, and cannot
submit to God either.
Basketball was my sport when I was
a young man. When I was in high school, we were playing Columbia
High School for the sub-region championship. The first time we
played them we beat them 69-66.
That night I scored 36 points. If you
ever score more than half your
team's , you've had a good game.
The next time we played them for
the championship, I scored 9 points
and we lost. I was terrible.Late in the game I felt that the referee had made
a bad call. I'd been knocked to the ground but he didn't call the foul.
I slapped the floor and said "Get in
the game Ref!" He gave me a
technical foul. I flipped him off and
actually cursed
at him. He gave me another technical foul. I definitely earned that one.
As this was happening, my parents
had a perfect view of their lovely, disobedient son, making a fool out of himself.
When I went home that night, after
the game, my parents didn't say a
word. They didn't have to . I knew I
had stepped over the line of bad behaviour. I actually did the Carl
Lewis long jump over the line of bad behaviour. I was not a believer in God
at that point in my life, but even then
I knew I should not have dishonored
my parents like that.
Once, during the night after I had spoken at an event, an 18 year old
man came up to talk to me. But he couldn't talk at first. He just sat
there and wept.
Eventually he told me that when I mentioned this commandment of
God to honor our parents, God
brought to mind all the things he
had done to dishonor his parents
since he was five years old.
Have you honored your parents
since the moment of birth until
now? Just like the rest of us you
have broken this commandment.
next post 20th November
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