Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Reformation Covenant Church

God. I’m just going to read a single verse from Acts chapter 22, which we read a couple of weeks ago, and then talk about the upbringing of children. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. We sort of rise up, you know, as the army of God to receive instructions from God’s word to go out and into battle. And so, we’re reminded it is a command word as well as a grace word to us. In Acts 22, in Paul’s defense of himself and presentation of the gospel to his persecutors, we spoke on a couple of weeks ago. In verse three, Paul says this about himself.

I am verily a man which am a Jew born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the seat of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, even as ye all are this day.

Let’s pray. Father, we pray, Lord God, that you would help us to understand the great importance of raising up our children in the nurture and admonition of you. Help us, Lord God, to teach our children a holy reverence of your ways. And help us to model this before them, Father, that we might indeed nurture them as little children, train them as young men and women, and then rejoice in the faithfulness that they demonstrate as a result of that training and the grace of your spirit in our old age. We pray for that to that end then, Lord God, that you would bless our time together.

As we take your word, help us, Father, to take it from you thankfully and gratefully and then begin to work with it and apply it to our lives and help us Lord God to have ears that are wide open to hear the things of your scriptures and hands that are wide open ready to do your work and feet Lord God that delight to walk in your paths. We pray this father because we know that of ourselves apart from your spirit our ears are shut our hands are closed and our feet wander.

So we pray that your spirit might be amongst us and amongst our children to cause them to walk in reverence toward you. In Jesus name we pray and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

In 1985, the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate here in the state of Oregon and a small band of committed Christians went to the legislature, the Democratic controlled legislature, with a very controversial homeschool bill. Howard L. and I, I think, made the first trip to Salem and talked with my representative Dela Jones. God granted us success. Debbie Fakuda and my wife went down one day to lobby—if you can imagine that. You know, their concerns, as our concerns were, not prepared. Didn’t know what we were doing really. And these dominion women went to Salem to lobby legislators who you must realize are very proud for the most part and convinced of their necessity of them controlling everybody’s lives.

In that Democratic controlled House and Senate, we got that bill passed and it became one of the best homeschooling laws in the country. In 1995, a decade later, Republicans now control House and Senate, thanks primarily to the efforts of Christian activists such as the people in this church, Parents Education Association, Oregon Family Council, Right to Life, and other Christian groups. We introduce a not so controversial homeschool bill asking for a few small things really. That bill dies in committee. That bill dies as a result primarily of a Christian Republican representative. But I’m not going to talk about that today. Really a lot of lessons in that. I’ll be writing on that and preaching on that probably for some time to come.

But I want to remember something else that happened back in 1985 or thereabouts. I don’t have a specific chronological reference point. But back in ’81, ’82, as Reformation Covenant Church was starting and we had a series of Bible studies going through *Unconditional Surrender* and associated scriptures. We would gather together Friday evenings and work through that stuff and there would be children there. The children would be part of the prayers that were offered up. Children would pray, young ones, little children—two, three, four year-olds—had enough reverence to be still during those prayer times and to pray themselves.

And now here we are a little over a decade later, and I think that as we look at some of our prayer times together, both corporately here on the Lord’s day and in various homes, I don’t think we see that same intensity of reverence to God on the part of our children. Now, maybe it’s there and maybe truly just been improper in teaching them the outward manifestations of that. But that’s what I want to talk about today.

After all, why did we go down to Salem ten years ago and again this session? And I’m going back tomorrow and I’m going to meet with a particular representative, myself and another fellow, and try to help him to understand a few things. Going to go tomorrow and try to give some testimony on the child abuse bill, which now is a provision, an amendment that would amend it that would make every one of you more likely to have a comprehensive assessment by the CSD.

Here’s a bill that I’m getting off on a tangent, but that’s okay. Bill directed to reform the CSD and to trim its sales and cut back its authority. And tomorrow in the Senate, they’re offering amendments to that bill that will probably pass in spite of my protestations to the contrary, that will say that if you’re hotlined twice by a school person or somebody who doesn’t like you or whatever, even though there’s nothing wrong with you and there’s no abuse, proven or anything else, the CSD will have to do a mandatory comprehensive assessment of your family.

And the man that tells me this, the administrator for the committee says, “Well, it’s really for the good of the parents because we want them to have a clean record. And we want, you know, if somebody’s bugging them, we want to be able to prove to them there’s nothing wrong with us, you know, with this family. And so, we want to give you a clean bill of health, and we can’t do that without really doing a comprehensive assessment of your family, you know.”

Now, this is ridiculous. This is a Republican controlled House and Senate, and the same conservative Christian Republican representative is the one who’s offering these amendments. A lot of lessons here, but why are we doing this political action work so that we can train up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? It is strictly in those two issues a defensive position to defend the family.

But if while defending the family, we fail to give our children a sense of reverence toward God, then our actions in Salem are completely wasted. Wasted. So the reason, the thing that correlates these chronological events, is the need to train up our children in the nurture and admonition of God the Father and with a sense of reverence toward him and particularly that is seen in the context of Lord’s day worship. This is the model for the rest of the week and the rest of our lives.

Many of you know of Robert Dabney, great southern Presbyterian theologian in the mid-1800s in the time of the Civil War. And I mean he was, you know, a Reformation man like a lot of men in this church are. He knew economics and he could write about the dollar of the daddy and talk about the transition in man’s law that bad coinage drives out good coinage and that the silver coin would drive out the gold and something else would drive out the silver.

And here we are a hundred years later with money that has nothing behind it except the confidence of the people. That’s a con game. And he knew about those things based on the scriptures. He could write about political action. He wrote about the women’s movement that was developing at his time. He wrote about biblical principles of government as it related to the Civil War and the north and south division. He could write about theology. He has books, tremendous books on good Calvinistic theology.

And you know, Dabney said the most important reason why God places here, the most important task most of us have, not all of us, most of us have on earth is to train our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The most important task. It was Dabney’s writings on this subject that gave me this wonderful picture: that the Old Testament revelation closes with the promise of the coming of the prophet and the spirit and power of Elijah who would turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to their children.

And then the revelation which remains closed during the intertestamental period opens again with the angel coming to John the Baptist’s father. And what does he tell him? He talks about again turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to their fathers. Says, “Lest I come and smite the land with a curse.” That’s how it finishes. If we do not train up our children to have their hearts turned toward their parents who represent God, toward the elderly who represent God, and to ministers of the gospel of Christ who represent God, and also to civil magistrates who represent God, and then beyond that to have their hearts turned to God the Father.

If we do not do that, God says he will come and smite the land with a curse. And he will smite this people with a curse if we fail to educate our children and to begin that knowledge which in the Hebrew knowledge always acts. It’s never intellectual truth only. Knowledge is knowledge that acts. It’s knowledge that does things. But the beginning of that process is the fear of the Lord. The reverence of God, a dreadness, a lovingness, yes, and a reverence, but a fear, a dread of displeasing the one with whom we have to do.

Now, Elder Mayhar last week spoke on Ephesians, and there’s a tremendous truth. He touched on many tremendous truths, but one I wanted to just mention here again is Ephesians 2:6, that God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What a tremendous truth. Your essential identity as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is not the old man who has been crucified with Christ. It is the new man.

Now, you want to cast off the habits of the old. Certainly, there’s a put off, put on model that the scriptures teach us of, but our essential identity, who we are, is in union and covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ, with his humanity, and we are seated in heavenly places. We rule whether we like it or not. We are princes and princesses. I took my young children to see a movie this past week and there was a preview for this new Disney movie coming out this summer called *The Little Princess*, which I guess is an old story and I don’t know how they’re going—I don’t know much about the story—but at that time I whispered to my little two and one-half-year-old Charity, “You’re a princess.” Every child in this room we should understand and presume to be princes and princesses. What’s a prince? It’s a son of a king. And that’s what we are in Jesus Christ. And our children should recognize that. They should conduct themselves as princes and princesses in a godly sense.

Now, a lot of times that means being spoiled in this day and age, but it used to mean caring, having a demeanor and a character, your speech, what you think about, how you act. Children, what do you do? What did you do this morning, boys and girls, when you got ready to come to church? Think of what you did. Did you conduct yourself as a prince? If you’re a boy, a boy who’s going to grow up one day and be a king, God willing.

And if you’re a little girl, did you conduct yourself as a princess, one who is being trained to exercise rule and authority in the home and to a degree in the community as well as a queen? Did you conduct yourselves with that kind of respect and honor? That’s what God wants us to know, that we are in Ephesians 2. He wants us to put it into our heads that we’re sons and daughters of the king. We rule in heavenly places.

Now, that’s a great privilege. I don’t know who wouldn’t want to give a lot of money to become a prince or a princess. People buy those offices and they have in church in state history. It’s a great honor, but it’s also a great responsibility—is my point, boys and girls. And if you’re a prince or a princess today, if you’re a member of a Christian family, you have a great responsibility to conduct yourselves as godly boys and girls. And that particularly in the context of worship.

Now, there’s another truth the scriptures teach. Just as clearly as it preaches the truth that you’re a prince or a princess, the scriptures teach that we, your parents, have passed on to you a deadly disease, a disease that needs curing and needs curing badly. We passed on to you the heritage of sin and a fallen nature and old habits. We passed on a disease. And you’ve got to recognize that when you come here at the Lord’s day for instance, or when you go to family worship, when you read your Bibles, you should be looking to get cured, to get healed when you come here.

You got things wrong with you. See, and your parents have things wrong with them. I’ve got things wrong with me. And I should pray to God every Lord’s day that when I come here, I go away healed somehow. I get better in my disease, not worse in it. I cast off those sinful habits—pride, lying, and deceit, covetousness. You want what the other child has. You want to grab what he’s got. You want to steal it behind his back. You want to lie to your mom and dad. You want to do that, boys and girls. I know you do. That’s the old nature. It’s a habit. If you’re born again in Jesus Christ, you put off those things, but they’re still there. They tend to want to pull you down.

Satan walks around as a lion. Children, we went to the zoo this last week, and the lions didn’t look very lionly, but a lion when it’s really hungry, it’ll get out there and prowl around and roar at you. See, Satan wants to do that to you. He wants to get you to think real puffed up about yourself. Instead of being a prince who trains himself to be a king and has a sense of responsibility, a sense of dignity, yes, but a sense of responsibility—”I got to do better if I’m going to be a king one day”—Satan wants you to think, “I’m a prince. I don’t need to obey anybody.” Be prideful. He wants you to covet what your friend has. He wants you to lie about people and lie about yourself to your parents. He wants you to do all kinds of mean, nasty things. And you’ve got a tendency in your fallen nature. You see, you’ve got this disease.

And so when you come to worship God, you come as princes and princesses, but you also come as princes and princesses who need some cure, who need some medicine every day from God that you might get better. And this old sinful habits you got would be thrown away. You see?

So that’s the two great truths we got to remember. Now, Paul understood this stuff, and in the text we read, he was trained up zealous toward God in the context of the law and in context of the temple and the worship of God. And it’s a picture for us of what our children should be like when they get older—be able to look back on their lives and say, “I was raised in the faith and I was trained by good men and I was trained primarily that the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, the reverence of God.”

I want to talk a little bit today about the fifth commandment. I want to use some quotations from again from the good Thomas Watson in his commentary, *The Body of Divinity*, on the fifth commandment. Now as opposed to what I’ve used before—stuff on the tribulations and what God does through them—I want us to remember that in a very real sense worship prepares us for the rest of life.

And boys and girls, if you don’t develop good habits on the Lord’s day then I don’t think you’re going to have good habits throughout the rest of the week. If you’re disrespectful to adults, your parents or the ministers on the Lord’s day, you’re not going to get more respectful tomorrow, probably. And if you’re not kind and courteous to your brothers and sisters and your playmates today, you’re probably not going to get any better on those things tomorrow.

This is the focus day, you see. And behind all this stuff that I want us to talk about a little bit—our duties toward the old people of church, toward our parents in the context of worship, toward the ministers—the driving force for all that is your attitude toward God. And if on this day, on the Lord’s day, children, your hearts are not turned to God in a special sense, aren’t thinking about God, and as a result aren’t being careful what you do here, then you’re probably not going to do much better tomorrow and not into the week—you’re going to do worse.

So, I want us to focus upon these things in the context of worship. Leviticus 19:30 says this, “Ye shall keep my Sabbath and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.” Reverence my sanctuary. Reverence in the Old Testament—this word meant to be fearful and afraid, to have an awe and a devotion, is a sense of awe. All that stuff is wrapped up together. I remember I saw—you’ve seen movies, you know, where kids will go into a place where they’re forbidden from usually and the music will play and they’ll get—I remember there was this movie about baseball.

I don’t remember the name of it. I should probably know these things better than I do, but there was this movie about baseball and they needed a ball and so the boy went into his father’s room and he had a baseball up on a little trophy stand there that was signed I think by Babe Ruth or something. And he took that ball out to go play ball with the boys and he knew he shouldn’t do it. But when he goes into that room, to the father’s room, and there’s this stuff up there, he’s like—he’s got fear, he’s got reverence, he’s got a sense of dread. “I don’t want to be caught in here and oh I don’t know if I should take this ball down or not.” See? Well, that’s what it means to reverence my sanctuary.

When you come in here, when you come together to worship God, and you want to draw near with confidence in the Lord Jesus, but you also want to draw near with a sense of fear, dread, lest you do things wrong. You’re in the presence of God and you spit on the floor. He’s not going to like that much. See, God said in the Old Testament, boys and girls, that in the camp of God, when the army went out to go to war, one of the things each soldier had to have was a shovel. Because what he was supposed to do—he had to go to the bathroom. He was not supposed to go to the bathroom in the context of the military encampment there. He had to go outside that border and then cover that stuff up because God doesn’t want that in his presence when we go to the bathroom.

Well, see, that’s what you want to do here. And sin is worse than going to the bathroom. Going to the bathroom is a bodily function, but sin is even worse than that. So, you don’t want to sin in the presence of God on the Lord’s day. So, let’s talk some about this. I’m going to try to help you see how you can keep God’s Sabbath—you’re done—you’re here and reverence his sanctuary. Reverence his sanctuary.

I was listening to Peter Marshall this last week and he said that Connecticut was a good model state for us in years gone by because it really had a lot of application of the Christian faith to what people did in life. And the motto of Connecticut used to be “The Land of Steady Habits.” It’s kind of the land of steady habits. And I’d like us, boys and girls, and parents to try to build steady habits of righteousness into ourselves, and the Lord’s day is where to begin to start to do that.

Now, I mentioned Psalm 89:7. Well, Leviticus tells us to reverence the sanctuary, the dwelling place of God. And Psalm 89:7 says, “Who in heaven is like God?” Boys and girls, think about that. Who in the heavens is like God? Nobody. God made all of this. God made everything. God knows everything. God is all powerful. He created all things and he keeps them together by the strength of his will. This is the God we come to worship today. That God is so immense that we cannot comprehend it, but we should know that he is one that we are to come together. And on the basis of that then it said that he is held in reverence of all them that are round about him. Children, you’re here today round about God and you’re supposed to have reverence.

Spurgeon, who was a great commentator on the Psalms, commenting on this verse said that irreverence—not to have reverence, fear that results in changed actions, boys and girls—fear and love that results in changed actions. Irreverence, Spurgeon said, is rebellion to God. And so, if you come here today and are not reverent, paying attention, trying to sing the songs as best as you can, listening to the prayers, and trying to pray in your heart with what’s being said, listening to what your Sabbath school teachers instruct you, being in communion quietly and yet listening—if you’re not reverent, then you’re training yourself in a habit of rebellion to God. You’re treating God as a light thing.

Deuteronomy says, “Cursed is anyone who treats their parents lightly, as if they weren’t a big deal.” Your parents are a big deal to you, kids. God is a bigger deal to you. When you come together on the Lord’s day, you should be very careful of what you do, what you say. You don’t want to do things wrong. You want to do things right. You want to try real hard to sing those songs. As I said, you want to try real hard to listen to the prayers. You want to try real hard to be respectful to adults—to look at them in the eye when they talk to you, to respond to them, to speak with them a word in return when they say good morning, to say good morning back to him. Give him respect and honor. You ought to be real careful here because otherwise you’re going to train yourself to rebel against God.

And the end of that is not good. The end of that is God’s curse on us. Watson said that, you know, in the old days, houses were shut. When houses were shut, it meant the plague was in the city. When all the doors are locked up and the windows are shut and everything in a city, it’s because the plague’s there and everybody’s staying inside ’cause the plague’s there. And he said, “When children’s hearts, what they feel, what they think, how they act—when their hearts are shut toward their parents, there’s the plague is there in that heart. How much more so if the heart is shut against God and doesn’t think about God and isn’t sensitive to God, there’s the plague there in the context of the heart.”

Reverence, as I said, is fear, it’s dread, it’s love. It’s all those things together really—that’s what’s talked about. There are a couple of words that are the most common words in the Greek New Testament about reverence. One is fear. It’s the same word the basis for our word *phobia*. You know, maybe you saw that—what was that fear of spiders movie—well, whatever it was—*arachnophobia*, wasn’t that it? Yeah, *arachnophobia*—fear of spiders. So fear and this word *phobia* in the Greek meant to put to flight, you run—you run away from something. See, that was fear. Anything that puts you to flight, that’s this word that eventually became used for reverence toward God.

So, it involves a fear of displeasing him. It certainly also involves love. The other word in the Greek that was used for reverence, translated reverence in the King James, is a word that means to be turned into oneself, to be aware of your own shortcomings and so pull back. See, that is reverence toward God too—to be aware and be ashamed that you sin and that you don’t think, do things right. That also is part of what reverence is.

And so, we want to talk about that a little bit today and use, look at some verses about how to practically talk about this and practically put us in a state of reverence to God, particularly on the Lord’s day. One quote I wanted to read from Vine’s, a dictionary, to help you get a sense of what reverence is: “The reverential fear of God will inspire a constant carefulness in dealing with others in his fear.”

Okay? So if you have reverence for God, it will inspire a constant carefulness in what you do on the Lord’s day toward others and of course towards God. “Fear and reverence of God,” Vine said, “as a controlling motive of the life in matters spiritual and moral. Not a mere fear of his power and righteous retribution, but a wholesome dread of displeasing him.”

You know, you don’t want to displease your parents usually, boys and girls, right? The last thing you want to do is get them to get sad with you and have to pull back from you or spank you or whatever, ’cause you love them and you don’t want to see them unhappy because of something you did. And that’s the way it should be with God. Your heart should be the same thinking, the same thing of God. “It’s a fear which banishes the terror that shrinks from his presence, but which also motivates us to action that is good and godly. It influences the disposition and attitude of one whose circumstances are guided by trust in God through the indwelling spirit of God”—reverence, fear, awe, dread.

Let’s talk now about how this works itself out. Watson—we’re going to think about this in terms of three things here in the Lord’s day. First, our relationship to the elderly, or the ancient, as Watson calls them. And boys, this is true of parents. And if you’re single here today, you can make application of this in terms of your attitude toward those who are older than you, the gray-headed ones. We’re going to talk about that a little bit—toward elders and children. We’re going to talk about how you treat adults at church. And then secondly, ministers and how you treat ministers at church and then apart from church. And then third, your parents. And then behind all of that, boys and girls, those things all show what your heart is toward God.

And so what I’m going to try to do is get you to think about God and your responsibilities to him. And then after that, we’ll talk about the importance of this one more time and hopefully we’ll get through all this today. Okay, first of all then the ancient ones who, in the words of Watson, their souls are flourishing while their bodies are decaying—and pray to God that each of us would be that in our older years, that our souls would be flourishing even though our bodies are decaying.

Boys and girls, listen to this. Leviticus 19:32. This is a law from God. “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear thy God. I am the Lord.” See, if you fear God, then you’re supposed to fear and have reverence toward the pictures of God. And the ancient ones, the elderly, are that.

Now, in the context of Reformation Covenant Church, and you’re being here, boys and girls today, that means when parents come into the room or when old people come into the room, you should stand up for them. That’s what it’s saying here. And that’s a habit that is biblically based on God’s law that all of us should develop. And so, when we have a get together or something and an old person walks into the room, we should stand up and honor to that particular person.

The scriptures tell us to respect elders. And boys and girls, that means as well that you should be speaking, as I said earlier, to any adult that speaks to you. Make eye contact with them as they look at you. You might be real fearful and you may want to run away. See, but remember, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a fear that makes you do the right thing toward your parent or toward the older person. It wasn’t good for Adam and Eve to be so fearful that they ran away from God. Our fear should drive us toward God because he’s going to get mad if we run away.

And the older people here will not appreciate it if you don’t look at them when they talk to you. So, boys and girls, rise up. Honor the older people in the church. When they speak to you, look at their eyes and answer them. You don’t got to say much, you know. I’m not telling you to be saucy with them. I tell you to be so—you know, that’s the other side of the coin. The other way we sin, boys and girls, is to think we’re just as good as those people and they don’t bother us at all.

“Yeah. How you doing there, Pop? How’s it going?” And that’s just as bad. You want to know your place. Reference to the older ones. In reference to the older ones at church, if you’re a boy or a girl, not a man or woman yet, you should have a sense of reverence and respect toward the older people at church. The scriptures clearly teach that to us. Let me read you a couple of other verses.

Job 32:4. Elihu—this is a grown man. He had waited, talking with Job, and there were people around Job telling him what was going on. Elihu waited because he knew that they were elderly, more elder than he was. He waited his turn to speak until the older people spoke first. Understand what’s going on there? It’s a picture from God.

Isaiah 3:5. This is talking about when things are bad. “When things are bad, the people shall be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbor. The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient.” Children, if you’re behaving yourself proudly against the ancient and you don’t recognize the respect you have for them, you think you’re just an equal with them—that’s a sign of God’s curse in the land. That’s what Isaiah 3:5 says.

Lamentations 5:12. Again, a sign of bad times. “Princes are hanged up by their hand. The faces of elders were not honored.” Children, the first thing I want you to do in response to God’s word and the preaching of it today is to change the way you act toward adults. Maybe some of you do these things. Well, that’s good. But children and adults, we should respect the elderly in relationship to us. Respect them and not being so fearful away, and not being so comfortable with them that we don’t listen to them and give reverence to them before we speak back.

Speak, make eye contact. Secondly, in addition to those who are ancient, we have—we worship in the context of ministers. And Mr. Watson says a number of things about this. I’ll quote a couple of them. He says, first of all, that in terms of ministers we should give them respect, we should esteem them very highly. First Thessalonians tells us that: to respect them, esteem them very highly.

There’s some quotes from Dr. Watson now. He said to the ministers: “Open their mouths to God for you in prayer, then open your mouths in defense of them. If they labor to preserve you from hell, labor to preserve them from slander.” Now I should have mentioned here that what he is—these quotes that I’m going to be reading here—when you honor ministers, you listen to what they’re saying. You show deference to them. And you also—one of the things you want to do with your ministers—and I like to say also, boys and girls, in terms of application with your parents and with other adults—that if the other children speak badly about your ministers or badly about someone else’s parents or badly about another adult here at Reformation Covenant Church, you should defend the honor of those people that represent God to you.

And now Watson here is talking about adults and their need to defend the reputation of ministers. But it applies, boys and girls, in the context of you’re talking together here as well. If you’re sitting around after communion, you’re playing out in the playground, and one child starts saying, “Oh, that was a stupid sermon. Or, well, that Sunday school teacher really doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Or you defend the reputation. You don’t just—not, of course, don’t want to say those things yourself, but you want to say, “Wait a minute now. These are our ministers. This is our teacher. These are our parents. These are the older people in our church that we’re supposed to respect. I’m not going to hear bad things about them, and you shouldn’t say it.”

And now to Watson’s quotes. “Do the ministers open their mouths to God for you in prayer? Then open your mouths in defense of them. If they labor to preserve you from hell, then you should labor to preserve them from slander. If they labor to save your souls, then you should labor to save their credit. If the master takes is very careful for the servant’s body, so the servant should be careful for the master’s name.” And that applies to your parents, boys and girls. If they take care of you physically and everything, that you should take care of their reputation as well.

Now, you know, there’s a lot of talk about being possessed with different kinds of demons. You know, there’s a demon of drunkenness supposedly and a demon of gluttony. I guess this wasn’t any different back in Watson’s day. There were people that said those sort of things. And Watson said that if somebody comes up to you and starts talking bad about your pastor, about your parents or something, and you don’t say anything—this is what he said about that. He said, “It’s no excuse if you are possessed with a dumb devil, demon of dumbness or quietness, when your minister or parent is reproached.”

So you should honor the ministers by defending their reputation or giving them reverence and conforming of course to their doctrine. And then third, of course, we’re going to talk now about your attitude toward your parents. And all this is true all week long, but particularly true on the Sabbath.

In Leviticus 19:3, God says that you were supposed to speak into the children of Israel and tell: “Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. And what’s the first application? Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father and keep my Sabbath. I am the Lord your God. Turn ye not unto idols, nor make unto yourselves molten gods.”

See the importance, boys and girls, of your attitude toward your parents. As soon as he tells you to be holy, to do what’s right because he’s holy, he then tells you immediately the application is fear your mother. And he starts with the mother there, which is interesting. And fear your father, see—reverence them, respect them, bow down to them, etc. And keep my Sabbaths. If you don’t do it, he said you’re turning to idols. So we, third, we want to talk about your importance of treating your parents correctly.

Listen to the way that Solomon, a king—I talk to you boys and girls, say about being princes and princesses. What about a king? What does he have to do toward his mother? Well, listen to this. First Kings 2:19. “She therefore went in under King Solomon to speak unto him for Adonijah.”

It was somebody else. So the king’s mom’s going to come and talk to him about somebody else. And what does Solomon do, the good king? “And the king rose up to meet her. He shows her deference. He fears his mother even though he’s a king, boys and girls. He rises up off of his throne to greet her. And then you know what he does? And he bowed himself unto her. And then he sat on his throne and received the communication from her.”

See, he shows her honor. Here’s a king of all of Israel representing the King of Kings. And his mother comes to talk to him and he gets up out of his chair and he bows down to his mother. That’s reverence. That’s fear of one’s parents. Boys and girls, I’m encouraging you to have that attitude, to even take those actions, to train yourself in that attitude toward the elderly, toward your ministers and toward your parents to reverence them.

As I said, Deuteronomy 27:16. “Cursed be he that seteth light by his father or his mother, and all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” It doesn’t say, “Cursed is he that strikes out against or hates his cursed is he that simply sets light by his father or mother.” It’s not a big deal what they say to me. They say things: “Well, I’m not going to rebel, but I’m not going to treat it with much reverence.” God says, “Cursed is that person—cursed.”

God says we’re supposed to have reverence for our parents. They represent God to us. We’re supposed to show reverence by hearing their counsel. “My son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother.” Instruction from the father and the law of the mother. That’s my wife pointed out to me—that’s a something you’ll find throughout the book of Proverbs that instruction is relative to the father and the law to the mother. It’s interesting. We would probably wouldn’t put it that way in our culture. But that’s the way God puts it.

But boys and girls, you reverence your parents. It’s not good enough to stand up for them and bow down when they come into the room and all that stuff if you don’t listen to what they tell you to do. Hear their instruction. Don’t forget their laws. Okay? Not enough just to show outwardly that you have honor for them. Show inwardly that you have honor by obeying them. Have esteem to their persons.

Hebrews 12:9. “We give them reverence. That is our fathers of the flesh who chastise us. We should have fear mixed with love.” As I just read from Leviticus 19:3, we have an inward attitude. Then, boys and girls, think about yourself right now. What is your inward attitude toward your parents? Is there rebellion there? If there is, confess it to God and ask him to help you not to be that way. ‘Cause in your heart, you should have reverence toward your parents, reverence toward the ancient ones and reverence toward your ministers.

And if it isn’t there, don’t lie and say that there’s not a problem. If it isn’t there, confess it to God and pray and ask your parents to help you in that. And parents, if every time you talk to your kids, the first response is negative, recognize that there is a heart of rebellion growing there and your child desperately needs you to bring that cure to him. You brought the contagious of sin. Watson says you should pray hard and work diligently to bring the cure to your child as well. It got there because he inherited it from you who got it from Adam eventually.

Children, your heart—you should have love for your parents in your heart and fear, a dread of doing what’s wrong. And then you should respond to your parents in word and in gesture correctly. Word. Titus 2:9. “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters and to please them well in all things, not answering again.”

Now, we can make application to children and parents here. “Not answering again.” You see, don’t talk back. In other words, you’ve heard your parents say that. It’s biblical. The scriptures say if you’re a servant to your parents and a master to you, which is what it is, then you shouldn’t answer again. Don’t give them cross answers is the way that Watson presents it.

Watson then gives a great little phrase: “If the heart were more humble then the tongue would be more silent.” If the heart were more humble, the tongue would be more silent. See, parents, if you see your children answering back a lot, pray for their heart. Work on their heart. Get it soft toward God, soft to you. And children, train yourself, discipline yourself well, not to answer back and talk again to your parents, to contradict. They tell you, “Go do this,” and you—”I don’t want to do it. No, no, no.” Don’t answer back. Serve them in word. And indeed, as I said, your gesture—apparently there were some cultures that Watson talked about. If a child carried himself not speaking words but if he carried himself arrogantly or saucily toward his father, his father could on the spot disinherit him and name a new heir for his property on the spot. Completely legal. Required in some cultures. Your carriage is very important, boys and girls. What you say, what you think, and how you feel, and then how you carry yourself to other people—and as I said—to listen to your parents’ commands.

As Watson said, “Don’t be a deaf adder to your parents,” and dumb snake who doesn’t respond, who doesn’t listen in doing what the parents command them to do. “Children watch the shed should be the parents’ echo.” It’s a nice phrase. Children should be the parents’ echo. And then finally, one final thing that Watson says I thought was very significant: that another way to honor your parents, children, is to relieve their wants—to relieve their wants, their needs. And he said that apparently young storks by instinct of nature, when the older storks can no longer fly and get food, the young ones feed them. Isn’t that nice?

It’s called the *lex palrinian* or something—the law of the particular stork—that does this according to Pliny. And that’s a model for children: when the parents are older you, to relieve their needs and necessities. And you have to train for that now. And as I said, Watson said that when houses are shut up there, the plague is. And when children’s hearts are shut up against their parents, and even in their old—particularly in their old age—the plague is certainly there.

Now all these stuff I’ve talked to you about—you need to be more respectful toward your parents, toward the elders at church, toward the ministers. But all of this is for nothing if you don’t have reverence for God. That’s what drives all these other things.

God says in Malachi 1:6, “If then I be a father, where is mine honor?” He says, in other places, that he’s raised up children who are in rebellion to him. So God identifies himself as a father to us and he demands that we honor him both as adults and children, particularly you. And the context of holy worship. Children who do not obey God stand in a dreadful place.

Watson said, “The disobedient children stand in a place where all of God’s arrows fly.” And children, if you think you can just sort of brush him off, treat God lightly and the church people lightly, you stand in a place where God’s arrows fly and they fly thickly and they will hit you. You will hurt because of that kind of attitude. You should be very fearful of displeasing God in heaven.

And when we come together on the Lord’s day and when we pray as a church, when we all combine our hearts and thoughts to pray to God in his throne room, children, what will God think if you’re doing this, that, or the other thing? If you’re looking around at the church structure and thinking about things while the prayers go on and on, if you don’t share what’s being said, if you’re not praying along with the adults, if you’re doodling on a piece of paper or something, you’re talking to your buddy or your buddies, or you’re going off to the bathroom to talk to your buddies during worship—what will God think of that?

His arrows will fly. His arrows will fly, boys and girls. Listen to the prayers. I know it’s hard. I’m going to mention a few things here. Maybe next week, maybe I’ll get to it today about ways that parents and masters should treat their servants to get a proper respect from them. And I know that we should understand your frame. I know it’s tough to listen to long prayers sometimes, but boys and girls, you can do it. God gives you the strength to do what you need to do.

You can be respectful and you can at least not distract others from their prayers by getting up and down and walking around and looking around and making noise and giggling and stuff. Don’t do that. And you know, the height of our worship together—let me get to that in a sec. In the songs, God wants us to come forth to praise him. That’s one of the best ways we honor God, people, is to praise God. And I don’t care if you like to sing or not. This is the Lord’s day. And he says songs will be offered to me. You will worship me with your voices. I don’t care what you think about your voice. Sing. It’s a command of God to give praise to him in the context of the church.

And boys and girls, the same is true of you. I know it’s hard. I know that some of these songs you don’t know and it’s difficult, but you’re not going to get any better if you don’t practice. Don’t be of a prideful heart. “I’m not going to sing. I’m not going to raise my hands at those people.” Don’t do that, boys and girls. God’s arrows fly in that spot that you stand when you don’t do what he requires in holy worship.

When your Sabbath teachers preach, or when—if you stay in here—don’t train yourselves every Sunday not to hear the sermon by drawing cartoons. Now, I know that sometimes it’s useful, parents—have younger children learn to draw to keep quiet in church. It’s good to keep quiet in the sermon. You don’t want to disturb others. And you can maybe direct the drawing of the little ones to something about the sermon. But don’t make that a habit for them.

Don’t—you know, if you see eight, nine, ten-year-old children drawing when the word of God is being preached and being distracted by that drawing, not listening to the word—that’s not good. And see, it’s real easy for that to become a habit. We want children here worshiping with us, and it’s real easy to keep them quiet—most concerned they not disturb somebody else. But parents, you should be most concerned that your children’s thoughts are focused to God, that they’re worshiping God. See, that should be most concerned for that.

Secondly, you know, their attitude toward their neighbor: “Love God with all your heart soul mind and strength.” Try to get their hearts engaged and their minds engaged and their strength engaged to discipline themselves to think about at least the scriptures that are being read and preached on. If they can understand it, they can at least read the Bible passage over and over and meditate on it, can’t they? Or they at least think about it.

The height of our worship is Holy Communion. And when we go down to have communion together, our children at that point, more than any other, should be aware of the fact that we’re with the Lord Jesus having a meal with him. And we should want to reverence God in that particular—the highest point of our worship together. And again, if you’ve got older children drawing with their eyes open while the prayers are going on, not thinking about what the communion speaker is saying—kids, it’s five minutes is all it is usually down there. Maybe ten. I know you’re tired. I know it’s difficult. God will give you strength to listen.

Is that what your heart wants? Think to yourself right now, boys.