Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

And my sermon today is the first in a series on the fifth word, the fifth commandment. We find ourselves in increasingly troubled times and we don’t have that freedom that we once did as a nation. And we look for God’s vindication of the enemies of his people in his church. And one of the ways God ministers that is through the growth of godly families, and that’s what the fifth commandment in part is about, of course.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Deuteronomy 5:16, the fifth word. “Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you and acknowledge that we live in the land that you’ve given us. We want to live long in it. We want, Father, to have days that are prospered by you. We want to live well in this land. And to that end, help us then for that motivation to attend to your law today. May your holy spirit show us the importance of this bridge command to the rest of them. And may we, Lord God, be transformed by the power of your spirit through your word. In Jesus’ name we ask it, and for the sake of his kingdom and its manifestation on this earth. Amen. Amen.

Please be seated. I’ve listed several verses at the top of your outline. We’ll be talking about them as we proceed. We’re in Deuteronomy going through the ten commandments. We call them 10 words because, as in today’s command, it’s not just a commandment. There’s a promise attached to it, a motivation. And these—and that’s actually what God calls them. He doesn’t call them the ten commandments. He calls them the 10 words in the Hebrew Old Testament. Now, they are commandments, but that’s why it’s the fifth word.

And so we’re moving on from the fourth word, which we concluded last week with a picture of the enthronement of man in Christ at the resurrection and the transition of the Sabbath into the Lord’s day. And we’ll talk more about that because that’s of central significance, I think, in what our task is in our country. I think these two commandments, the fourth and fifth commandment, are absolutely central to fulfilling the rest of the ten commandments.

This is a bridge commandment, so to speak. We’ve gone through four commandments that resulted in Sabbath enthronement and the culmination of God’s work both in creation and redemption. And then we sort of move into more horizontal relationships with men. Of course, that happens on the Lord’s day, but this kind of moves into that series of commands that are geared at what we do in terms of people, and it begins with this reference to hierarchy, and this is a difficult thing for our culture today.

I mentioned this at the wedding yesterday, but NPR had a show—they have a show, “Philosophy Talk,” the wise men of our world—and they were saying how the word “wife,” you know, should be gender-neutral now. Well, the word “wife” just means “woman”—that’s the origin of the word “wife”—and in the Testament, in the New Testament, in 1 Peter 3, that I talked on yesterday, the word for “wives” is just “woman.” And the word for “husband” is just “man.”

Now, it’s “woman” in relationship to her husband, to the man that God has brought her into covenant with. So she has that role in that relationship, and the man has a role, but it doesn’t change the essence of who they are, which are equal created beings in the image of Christ given dominion over the world. The world today has an absolute, you know, stupidity to it that seems to be unable to talk about subordination of functions without thinking that somehow implies inequality of person. I—it’s ridiculous. It’s really stupid. God has blinded the eyes of our smartest people, it seems. If “Philosophy Talk” probably isn’t, but if it’s any indication, and the consequences for that are radical.

This command before us, as we’ll see in just a minute, I think applies generally, as the Westminster Larger Catechism says it does, in a wide variety of relationships, because they understood that certain relationships—you know, children to their parents—is an analogy for all kinds of functional relationships as well. So, you know, it refers to the church, it refers to the state, it refers to the workplace. We are all usually in a functionally inferior position, right? I mean, you got all kinds of relationships, and most of those were not the boss. There are bosses. Now, what kind of bosses they are is, you know, a whole other matter. And probably God’s raised up the stupidity of these things about wives and the avoidance of the term “submission,” because maybe it’s the slap of God against a Christian church that has allowed sinful men to use those terms in ways that God never intended—to deny the essence and equality—and to see that usually the relationships in marriage are matters of emphasis.

Yeah, wives are supposed to be submissive, desiring to follow their husband. But of course, in Ephesians that’s immediately preceded by: we’re all supposed to be submissive to each other, right? I’m supposed to be submissive to my wife, desiring to follow whatever lead she may give. Now God has an emphasis in terms of husbands, but that’s the way it works.

Well, our culture—it reminds me of an old Talking Heads song, “Pull Up the Roots.” That’s what’s happened in my lifetime. The roots have been pulled up, and the Sabbath—the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day, I should say—has been discarded. In my lifetime, church, you know, businesses used to be closed on Sunday when I was a kid. That’s the way it was. It’s in our lifetime that this has happened. And it’s been in our lifetime, and specifically more in the last—it started with the Lord’s day, but then it moved to the fifth commandment.

And I was part of the counterculture in the late 60s, early 70s, and the whole thing was a complete violation of the fifth word. That’s what it was all about. And as a result, it led to all kinds of violations of the rest of the 10 words, right? Sexual freedom, supposedly, which is actually sexual—not freedom, but the other thing, whatever that—sexual captivity, covetousness, all kinds of things. But it started with these.

So I think these two commandments are absolutely central. If we want to turn what’s happening in our country, we’ve got to move back to the source of knowledge, Jesus. “Philosophy Talk” is an example. When men move away from Jesus, they become stupid, because Jesus is the Word. He’s the source of all knowledge. So it’s the same with us. The Bible is our garden. And as we follow the Bible and focus on it in our relationships, it leads us into little gardens in our homes.

And as we take that Bible and syncretize it with Buddhism—there’s some material at the church, I guess they have Buddhism in the church—syncretize it, or if we syncretize the philosophies of men, or if we tend just to put it on the back corner, then we move away from a garden and we create—as we’re creating in this country—a growing wilderness. So the centrality of the Lord’s day and parents is what I’m talking about here.

Now, on your outline, I kind of list three things here. And so, you know, remember that in Deuteronomy, it’s picking up after the 10 words were originally given in Exodus 20, you know, 38 years before, whatever it was. Exodus 20 said, “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you.” Okay? And Deuteronomy 5 says, “Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you. What does that mean? ‘As the Lord your God has commanded you.’

Well, probably as a reference back to Exodus 20, reminding us that this is a renewal of that word, ‘that your days may be long and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God has given you.’ There’s a transition from Exodus to Deuteronomy. There’s increased blessings added to it. And so that’s why I wanted to reference these two texts together.

And additionally, and I know this hasn’t been what I’ve done so far—usually we’ve waited a week or two to get to the Leviticus 19 and the restatement of the 10 words in 70 commands. But today I want to start here as well, because in Leviticus 19 we have, you know, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And then we have a series of sections marked off by references to God. And the first one is found in verse three:

“Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.”

So the header for the entire, you know, kind of sermon or restatement of the ten commandments in 70 words—the centrality of Sabbaths and honoring parents, reverencing parents—is placed there. So this is evidence, I think, for the centrality of these two commands in the context of our lives. If you’re going to ask yourself, “How am I doing as a Christian?” high on your list of evaluation points on whether you’re holy or not should be: Do I reverence the Lord? Do I reverence my parents? And we’ll talk about what that means. And then do I keep the Lord’s day?

The Lord’s day, right? It’s astonishing to me that people can turn the Lord’s day into an hour. I noticed that because in Exodus 20, it ends with “Sabbath day.” And there’s two words there: “Sabbath,” “yom,” “day.” And of course, John in Revelation is “in spirit on the Lord’s day,” right? I mean, so anyway, the Lord’s day is your mark of how you’re doing in terms of being a disciple of Jesus Christ and whether you’re creating, you know, a garden in your life and in the world that you walk into the rest of the week, or whether you’re adding a little bit of thorns and brambles to it.

And as I said, this reverence of parents—notice, by the way, if you listen to what I said: “Every one of you revere his mother and his father.” Revere—so that’s a different word, and we’ll talk about that in a minute—but it reverses the order. So we’re to honor our father and mother, and in Leviticus this—it says we’re to reverence our mother and our father.

Now, I don’t—I’m not sure all the reasons for that, of course—but let me just say that on the face of it, it seems like what it wants us to do is avoid an unhealthy, sinful view of patriarchy. The rule is by mother and father, or father and mother. And you find the same thing in the Proverbs. It’s really interesting because there are proverbs about how you’re supposed to obey the law, the commandment of your mother and your dad. The mom’s the nurturer. No, that’s not really how the Bible portrays it. It’s not wrong to have that kind of relationship in a particular family, but God, I think, by reversing the role in Leviticus from Exodus, wants us to see the equality of place for mother and father in terms of honoring and reverencing.

So, and it’s—and it’s interesting because these commands—and this is, maybe it’s, I hope it isn’t confusing—but on your outline, then you’ll see, if I can find where it is, somewhere on your outline. Yeah. So I’ve got under point number one: “Exodus 20: Sabbath holy, honor pop and mom. Okay. So you’ve got you’re keeping the Sabbath holy, and you’re honoring your parents. And then in Leviticus 19, you’re supposed to be holy because “I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And you do it by reverencing mom and pop and by keeping the Sabbath. And in Deuteronomy 5, that’s where day follows Sabbath. In Exodus 20, the word “Sabbath” is the end there: “Keep the Sabbath holy.” And here, “Sabbath day, honor pop and mom.”

So the point is, if you think about the connections that are made, then it seems like it’s stitching, bringing these commandments together. And it seems to me this is because of the centrality of these commandments.

Now, as I say, both are disappearing. You know, you don’t have to look too far—including some of the churches that are represented here—to see examples where children have acted. Or we’ll make a distinction between children and sons and daughters. A child is a son and daughter under the age of maturity. I think that’s 20. Good. People disagree about that—whether it’s a fixed age or a maturation point. Okay, it’s fine. But under the age of maturation, which by the way our culture, as it goes crazy, pushes lower and lower—I think there’s a connection. But under the age of maturation, the stress in the epistles will be “obey.”

And here the command is “honor,” not “obey,” because it’s a general command given to all of Israel. It’s not specific to children. So it means everybody in this room, right? has to honor father and mother. Well, so whether you know a person that’s 17, 18, 19 acts dishonorably or disobediently—no matter what we say in terms of whether they’ve matured into being an adult or not—it doesn’t make any difference because they still have an obligation to honor mom and dad.

And you don’t have to go too far afield—even in good CRC churches—where this has been radically violated and children just blow off mom and dad, and sometimes in some very ugly ways, and end up being grabbed in by the next church. Not a CRC church, we wouldn’t do that, but the next church down the road or down the state line or wherever it is, and everything’s cool. We cannot complain about the violation of time sequences in our culture and sacredness of time and place. Nor can we complain about the cultural revolution, the hippie movement in the 60s and 70s, and the violation of the fifth word, because it stems now from the church.

If churches won’t see the seriousness of this command and apply sanctions, correctives, knowing that it’s not good for a rebellious child or a dishonoring child—it hurts their eternal soul—if we won’t do that, well, what do we have left? Well, how can we possibly think that it’s a bad thing when some young person spits on an old person in public, which happens, they spit on him in the church? Maybe not literally, sometimes literally, I suppose. It’s okay. Just go down the road a little bit, and everything’s cool.

See, it’s very important, and it seems to me that it is very important that in the context of the church, you know, we take care of this issue and we see the tremendous importance of the command. And by way of implication, of course, it’s immediately talking about a family situation. And this is the commandment that tells us how important the family is. And when the family disintegrates, your culture goes away.

Pragmatically, there’s a reality to that. As the family disintegrates—I mean, why? Why? I was thinking as I listen to NPR, listening to this woman say, “Well, of course, my children, you know, I have to exercise authority over them. They have to obey me. But you know, certainly my relationship with my husband is equal, with no difference in function.” Why? What’s the basis for that? Well, it’ll go away too. In fact, it is going away.

That’s age discrimination? Or that’s intellectual discrimination? Well, you just think you get to lord it over them because you’re smarter than them. But, you know, why would that be? The smartest guy doesn’t get to make all the rules. The oldest one doesn’t get to make all the rules. You see, the whole society is unraveling because of the violation of the fifth word. And the church of Jesus Christ in not emphasizing the fifth word, and the family, and relationships in the family, and then in the broader culture, are the place where the unraveling of the sweater is beginning.

And so as the culture pulls away at it and it unravels faster, you know, let’s remember: judgment begins with the house of God. All right, so let’s talk about superiors and inferiors. Next week we’ll look at the—see, and you can’t even use terms like this anymore without people getting all, you know, all worked up. And this is just common English language. It doesn’t mean “superior in essence.” It means there are superior and inferior relationships.

As I said yesterday at the wedding, the submission of wives—that’s stressed in that verse—begins, the very verse starts with the word “likewise,” to make sure that sinful men or fearful women won’t somehow think that “superior” and “inferior” has anything to do with essence. It doesn’t, because the “likewise” points back to Jesus the Son trusting the Father. Men that want to be men who are functional superiors, women who are functional superiors, have got to be like the Father. They have to convince those under them not to be fearful of them. Okay. And that’s what the text goes on to talk about.

So this term we should use it: “superior” and “inferior.” This is what the Westminster Larger Catechism uses. And next week we’ll look at the sermon portion of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is mostly a sermon on the 10 words. And we’ll look at the portion, giving the outline here, and it has nothing to say about parents. All right. It talks about judges. That’s where it gets right out of the shoot. It talks about functional superiors. And so the fifth word, while importantly emphasizing parents and family—you can’t just blow that off as an analogy—on the other hand, those things stand for all kinds of positions, superior and inferior positions, in relation to other relationships.

If you turn to the second page of your outline, if you have it: Question 124, the Westminster Larger Catechism. This is just so helpful on the 10 words in general, but certainly here as well. “Who are meant by ‘Father’ and ‘mother’ in the fifth commandment?” “By ‘father’ and ‘mother’ in the fifth commandment are meant not only natural parents. So we don’t want to leave them out. That’s the first application. But all superiors in age and gifts, and especially such as by God’s ordinance are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.”

Okay. So that’s what it refers to in this broader sense. “Why are superiors styled this way as ‘father’ and ‘mother’?” “Why does God do this under the terms ‘father’ and ‘mother’? Superiors are styled ‘father’ and ‘mother’ both to teach them in all duties toward their inferiors, like natural parents, to express love and tenderness to them according to their several relations, and to work inferiors—to work inferiors to a greater willingness and cheerfulness in performing their duties to their superiors and to their parents.”

The so there’s all kinds of, you know—so the idea is that the relationship in the home is a model then for the relationship in the workplace. We have Sunday school teams that have leaders of them or facilitators. Those relationships of congregants to deacons, or congregants to elders—relationships of who we are to our elected officials. You see, it goes right through. And what it does is it informs all those relationships in terms of the superiors: that they’re to be like solicitous parents toward those under their care.

Now, people don’t like that either. “I don’t—I don’t need that. I’m a full human being. Why do I want some employer treating me like his son?” Well, you know, you could overdo it, of course. There’s ditches in the road on both sides here. You could certainly be condescending to, you know, full image bearers of Christ—or even full image bearers of God who are in rebellion against Christ, but still bear the image of God. You could be condescending. That’s not what we’re talking about.

But we’re talking about properly motivating people. And in the scriptures, of course, the contrast between what the Westminster Catechism correctly sums up here for us and the way the world sees superior and inferior relationships is: Gentiles use force. Right? It’s all about authority, power, force. And in Christian circles, it’s not. It’s about motivating people to love. Now, force is part of the mix, but it’s really the last part of the mix, and these other things are there instead.

So we’ll talk in weeks to come about the relationship to other parents in the church and commonwealth. But today we want to talk about the specific commandment itself—the fifth commandment proper—and just do some obvious stuff, but I think important stuff. So, first of all: what’s the obligation? Well, the commandment itself is to honor parents, right? Clear enough. Well, what does the word “honor” mean?

Well, we sang that word a lot today already: “the King of glory.” Glory is the same as honor. The Hebrew word is the same. It’s translated “honor your parents,” and that Jesus is the King of glory. Okay, glory and honor—they come, they have the same word. And the word basically in its meaning means “weight,” means “heaviness.” And that word can actually be used, and is frequently, negatively, right? Eli was glorious. He was fat, not good. Absalom’s hair was glorious, probably prideful and not good. God makes people’s hearts, lips heavy or dull, and that’s the same word. It isn’t a good thing.

So the word really connotes either good or bad by relationship to what’s being said. But it’s the same word for glory. And so you’re supposed to glory toward your parents. You’re supposed to honor your parents. That’s what the basic meaning of the word is.

It’s interesting that in 1 Chronicles 29, and I know I’m rushing ahead a little bit to the promises, but in 1 Chronicles 29:28, David at his death, it says this: “So he died in a good old age. He had long life, full of days, and riches and honor. He had the length of days and did well in the land that God had placed in, and he had honor. Solomon his son reigned in his stead. He had glory. In other words, he was glorified by people. He had made himself glorious or honorable.”

So basically the commandment is: give weight to your parents. Honor them by giving them weight. The same way you sing forth God’s praises and you glorify them—you know, you speak well of your parents. You try to listen to their counsel. You honor them and glorify them.

Proverbs 21:21 says, “He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor.” So there’s a finding of honor. Honor can be attained to by people, and that has implications in a couple of minutes for parents. But there’s this relationship between honor and ethical obedience—that’s what I wanted to point out here. So to honor your parents, you don’t honor them if you really just disobey them when you’re under maturity, or if you just blow off their counsel.

Honor him. You know, what did God say? “This people draws near. They honor me with their lips, but they don’t honor me with their hearts.” That’s why he devastated Judah in the prophecies of Isaiah, because that’s what they were—hypocrites. So honor has this relationship to ethical activity that is related to it.

Proverbs 22:4: “By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.” And again, this is kind of a summation of actually the whole fifth word, because in its both in its Leviticus text as well as the Deuteronomy text, we’ve got the fear of the Lord. That’s the same word as reverencing parents—the fear of parents. And we’ve got honor here, and we’ve got riches and long life. So everything’s kind of wrapped up in Proverbs 22:4: “By humility and the fear of the Lord.” So the beginning phrase there is “humility.” So to honor your parents implies the necessity of being humble before God.

Psalm 66:2: “Sing out the honor of his name. Make his praise glorious.” So again, this word is used in terms of the glory of God. And as I said, when we sang this morning and when we heard the call to worship and when we sang the entrance liturgy, “the King of glory” is the same word—”the King of honor.” Okay? Honor, glory.

Exodus 28:2: “You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.” Now, this is instructive because it tells us a couple of things: that glory is related to beauty. That glorifying, or making weighty things in a good sense, is related to beauty. Their garments were garments of glory, but in order to be glorious, they were also garments of beauty. So there’s a relationship between glory and beauty, and we could talk a lot about that. Those of you that are given to artistic accomplishments or activities—you know, that’s a very important relationship in the scriptures. Glory and beauty are what go together.

But the verse also says that these garments were holy. Remember we said that fourth and fifth commandment together—you’ve got holiness going on, and then honoring. Well, so these garments are described as holy garments, garments of glory. Okay? And what are they done? They’re placed on Aaron and his sons. And now some ministers wear robes today. That’s kind of what it’s all about. It’s robes to demonstrate honor and glory.

And some people think that one way to try to recover the fifth word is to make these kind of evident—these truth that God’s superiors in church, state, business, whatever it is, family—they carry the glory of God with them. They’re representatives of God to you. I mean, there’s the glory that mother and father get—or that father and mother get—is really the glory that’s due ultimately to God the Father. Okay. And so they have the reflected glory of God. They represent God in a culture. And if you say you glorify God and honor him, but don’t honor your parents, you’re a liar. First John makes that quite clear: “If you say you love God and don’t love your brother, you haven’t seen God. You see your brother.” It’s the evidence that God graciously gives to you. It’s the feedback loop, right, to tell you whether you’re really doing well or not in loving God.

Do you love anybody? And the feedback loop for whether you honor God the Father—and if you have in your hearts what you sang with your lips in this morning’s service already—that you give glory to God. The proof of that is in the pudding in relationship to those people that are your functional superiors in life and specifically parents. They wear the honor or glory that God puts on them. It’s not of themselves. It’s of the calling of God. And that calling of God is what you’re ultimately responding to when you honor people. Okay? So that’s important to see: that the glory of God is now reflected in people.

Now, we talked last week about Sabbath enthronement. We talked about the middle of the creation week. We’ve got Shekinah glory—the light of God’s own presence. And at the middle of the week, he makes those that take that glory and shine it. The moon reflects the glory of the light of the sun. The sun is really the same sort of reflection of the light of God. And Hebrews 1 makes this quite clear: that it’s Jesus who is this great light, the Trinity is. And God sets these people with reflected light as rulers, right? The sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night.

And so, you know, our country has stars, and the Islamic countries have moon, or whatever it is—the sun, moon, and stars. These are demonstrations or evidences of rule and authority, but they’re at the center of the creation week as God giving created things some of his brightness, or glory, or honor, or light. And it’s the same thing here. Honoring parents is not because they’re great people or have great wisdom about you. It’s because God has placed them there. This is the providence of God.

And we believe in a sovereign God. We believe in an all-wise God, right? Well, I think that means that your parents are the very best ones that you could have had. Doesn’t it mean that? Seems like it is. I mean, God could have given you different parents. And if he thought in his wisdom it’d be better for your sanctification to give you better parents, he would have done it. So they’re there at God’s command, God’s appointment, God’s providence.

And that text with the reflected glory of Aaron and the church officials in that case, but we can apply it to the family, is very instructive on what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to give honor to our parents.

Psalm 145:5: “I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty.” So again, referencing it back to God. And then in Isaiah 6:3, it’s related to holiness: the angels cry to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” So there’s a relationship between glory and holiness again, which has implications for parents. You want to be truly glorious—reflecting the glory of God—then be holy. Okay. There’s implications.

Finally, John 1:14 says: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” So glory there is related to grace and truth, but ultimately glory is seen and perceived in the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. Glory resides in the Trinity. God gives functional superiors reflections or positions of honor and glory, and it is our job to honor those parents—specifically—and by application, other functional superiors. Okay.

Turning back to the Westminster Catechism, it says in question 128: “What is the general scope of the fifth commandment?” “The general scope of the fifth commandment is the performance of those duties which we mutually owe in our several relations as inferior, superiors, and equal. So they’re going to articulate superior, inferior, and equal relationships. What should be done referring to those, and how they may—how are they sin against one another?”

“What is the honor of the inferiors owe to their superiors?” This is the obvious, first, direct application of the text. “The honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is all the reverence in heart.” So there we have it, right? It’s not just an external honoring of them by giving words, but it’s a reverencing in heart and in word—not just in your heart. If your words don’t speak, your heart isn’t that way. And behavior—what you do. Your heart attitude, your words, and your behavior should be such that honor God’s appointed officials, particularly in the family, with parents.

Prayer. How often do you pray for your parents? Confession is—the catechism is good here. You honor your mom and dad when you pray for them, and you pray with thanksgiving for them, right? Thank God for them.

Imitation of their virtues and graces. Willing obedience to their lawful commands and councils. Due submission to their corrections. Fidelity to defense and maintenance of their persons and authority. So you have an obligation to keep them glorious by what you do—maintaining their gloriness. In other words, you don’t let your functional superiors get slandered. You don’t let people throw mud on them. Okay? It’s proper for you not to try—try very hard not to allow that to happen. You want to defend their character, not bring disrepute upon them.

Bearing with their infirmities. This is part of honoring them. Your parents have infirmities and weaknesses, you’re supposed to bear with them, and actually covering them in love. That so they may be an honor to them and to their government.

So, you know, I could read the rest of it. I won’t, but it would be good reading for you today and as we move into this series to read the Westminster Catechism in terms of how it goes. It’s important.

The freedom of our land, the return of liberty, or the return of the parts we’ve lost—the well-being of the culture here—depends on how well you observe the fourth and fifth words. And so acquaint yourself with the great divines from Westminster as they summarize together what those duties consist of, and then do something about it. I would love it if you know, I find out this week that many of you went home today and called your parents. “How you doing?” Lord’s Day is a great day to call your parents. Tell them you’re thinking of them. You love them. You appreciate their hard work for you. Honor them. Okay.

Secondly, you’re supposed to reverence your parents. That’s Leviticus 19:3. And this word is interesting because it’s a word that basically can—it can mean—it’s often translated “fear.” It can also be translated “revere” or “reverence,” and it can be translated “worship.” So the “fear of the Lord,” right? That’s a good thing. The “fear of man” is not a good thing. So again, it’s like the glory word. It depends on the reference of what you’re fearful of, and that changes the concept of what that fear is all about.

But I think it’s very significant that God takes this word that is almost always applied to God directly—fearing God—and then takes it and applies it to your mother first and foremost, and then to your father. So reverence, fear.

Psalm 112:1, as well as other places in the Psalms: “Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in his commandments.” We’ll see that shows the relationship of your parents in the Lord. You’re going to get blessing if you honor, and if you’re under maturity, obey and reverence your parents. And this thing says, well, you’re blessed. You get the blessings. The one who fears the Lord and delights greatly in his commandments.

So there’s this parallelism between God and our parents that’s very difficult to miss once you start to look at it.

Leviticus 19:14 says, “You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord.” So here the important thing I point out with this is that the fear of a thing changes the activity of the person who is doing the fearing. You don’t fear God if you break his commandments. Okay? And you don’t really reverence your parents if you disobey their lawful commandments, or if you fail to honor them with your actions.

So fear—again, yeah, there’s a heart attitude involved, but it has to be reflected in actions.

Deuteronomy 17:19: “And it shall be with him, that he shall read it—this is the king—all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God.” So the king personally was to learn the fear of the Lord by reading the Bible. Okay? So if we want to increase in the fear of the Lord, and as a result of that, a proper reverence of our parents and a fearing of them, read your Bibles. Read your Bibles. It’s that simple. That’s one of the component elements the scriptures tell us. That’s how you learn the fear of the Lord—is by reading the Bible.

Deuteronomy 31:11 says, “When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses, you shall read the law before all Israel in their hearing to the end.” He says that you should gather the people together, men and women, little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear, fear—and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God. So private devotional exercises, reading your Bible, increases your knowledge, fear of the Lord, application to parents. Corporate hearing of God’s word is another mechanism that God says he uses to teach you a proper reverence for him, and by implication, a reverence for his—those that represent his authority in your lives, parents as well as others.

Deuteronomy 14:23: “You shall eat before the Lord your God in the place that he chooses to place his name.” That’s what we’re doing here today, right? And the end result of this is that you may learn to fear the Lord. You come together in church, you have the Lord’s Supper, and this increases your knowledge, your learning to fear the Lord, and your obedience to your parents. Fourth commandment creates fifth commandment. Okay? In terms of the actual actions:

Joshua 22:25: They were afraid because the tribes across the river had built this altar, and they didn’t know what was, and what they were afraid of was: “Is that the end result is you’ll make our descendants cease fearing the Lord?” Now, what they meant here was: our kids who live the other side of the Jordan, part of our—you know, part of the tribes of Israel—they’ll stop coming to Jerusalem to worship, and they’ll worship over there. And so it’s a—it’s a synonym for worship. Fearing the Lord is corporate worship, coming together, hearing the word of God, eating a meal with God, worshiping God, increases and acknowledges, and builds our fear of the Lord and our fear of parents. As a result, fourth commandment leads to fifth commandment.

In Joel 2:31, the day of the Lord is referred to as a great and fearful day, an awesome day. The day of the Lord itself is identified with the fear of the Lord, of course. And when we’re meeting, we’re meeting on the day of the Lord, the Lord’s day, every week. And this place is a place where God says you’re to come together and fear God, reverence his name, have a holy—all of his power, authority, and might—and that you’re going to learn the fear of the Lord here, and then you’re going to apply it in the context of your families to those that represent him in your families and in the culture.

Leviticus 26:2: “You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.” Okay, so here in Leviticus 19 it says, “Reverence your parents, keep the Sabbaths.” Here it says, “Keep the Sabbath—and reverence my sanctuary, right?” Reverence my sanctuary. Well, the parallelism tells us what? Where’s his sanctuary? It’s in parents. Now, you know, sanctuary is the place where his presence would dwell. Sanctuary is where we come together to worship God in the church. But the parallelism here means that sanctuary is present in the world in the identification of functional superiors. Do you see the connection?

So we’ve got, you know, you’re supposed to reverence your parents and keep the Sabbath. And here, you’re supposed to keep the Sabbath and reverence God’s sanctuary. Parents equal sanctuary. Functional superiors equal the presence of the sanctuary. It was just an indication of the presence of God in the culture, right? I mean, the whole world is the Lord’s, but that was the special place where he put his name. His special presence was there. And that special presence is manifested then in those who have the authority—the shining light of the sun, moon, and stars—as rulers in the various spheres or places that God has created.

Finally, in Psalm 22:25: “My praise shall be of thee in the great assembly. I’ll pay my vows before those who fear him.” God-fearer is one who worships God and goes to church. Okay, that’s what that Psalm says, and it’s what the scriptures teach us. And so again, the relationship between fearing parents, the fifth commandment, and fearing God, reverencing his time, his law, his food, his covenant renewal services, his convocated host—these things work together. Okay?

So honor your parents, reverence your parents, and for children, obey your parents. This is from Ephesians 6:1-2 and Colossians 3:20.

Here, the word is not “honor.” Well, it is quoting the honor verse, but specifically the commandment now is to obey your parents because the verse is written specifically to children, not to children and adults together. It says, “Children, obey.” Now, when a child reaches maturity—as I mentioned earlier—when they become an adult, obedience becomes honor. Or better put: the honoring isn’t just tied to simple obedience. Or, you know, you don’t have to obey your—I have adult sons now, adult daughters. They don’t obey me the way they did when they were little kids. They still have an obligation to honor me.

But when you’re small and a child, you’re honoring a lot—it’s about obeying your parents.

Now, there’s no distinction in sexes here. Hope I don’t step on anybody’s toes. But it seems to me important to recognize that because of the equality of men and women, when women reach the age of maturity—whatever you decide that is, informed by the scriptures—that at that point they don’t obey anymore, either. They honor. So I think there’s a distinction to be made, and we don’t want to draw the lines too heavy, but there is a distinction to be made. The fifth word says—the fifth sermon says—”as you’re a child, obey your parents. Whatever they tell you to do, unless it breaks God’s law, do it.” But it doesn’t tell that to us in terms of adults. This is very significant, I think, in terms of all kinds of governance. “You have to do whatever you have to obey the civil government, everything that he says”—well, see, this factor has to come in. But specifically in terms of parents, children who have become of age are no longer required to obey—or to honor in the same way—with simple obedience.

And that is a unisex application of the fifth word. I mean, in other words, you got a 21-year-old son, he’s not obeying you in the same way he did before. And if your 21-year-old daughter is obeying you in some way that he isn’t, I don’t understand that. So anyway, there’s this distinction between children and adult sons and daughters.

What are parents to do? Well, parents are to act honorably. You know, these commandments have implications. You know, a lot of women don’t like anymore because it’s been so misused—the verse I mentioned yesterday: “Sarah calls Abraham Lord.” Well, this is a bad thing. And it is, because men routinely use that verse to exile, to exercise Gentile lordship over their wives. But, you know, these kind of phrases in the Bible always cut both ways. What it means is that a husband has to act like a lord. And a lord is not somebody that orders somebody about. It’s somebody who provides life, bread, and who guards his wife. That’s what the English word “Lord” comes from. And that’s what the implication is in scripture.

The wife does the same for the husband. There’s an emphasis on the husband. So, you know, if when women throw out the verse, they throw out the obligation of the husband to act like a lord. It doesn’t help us. It’s the same thing here. God says, you know, “honor your parents.” That means, and we’ve looked at all these verses—we’ll quote a couple more here—that parents have to act honorably.

How much weight do you give your parent? Honor is just giving him weight. We give all weight to God, right? We give all the weight—the world—that created order is his glory. We don’t do that with parents. We might give them 50 pounds of weight. And some parents who act very foolishly, we only give them a penny or two worth of weight. You got to honor them for their position. But the amount of honor you give to them is not always the same, because parents have to act honorably.

Ephesians, immediately after telling children to obey their parents, tells dads to act honorably, right? Goes immediately on to dads, and he says, “Don’t provoke your children to wrath. Bring them up in the nurturing admonition of the Lord. Dads are guardians of their kids. And the one thing that Paul says you have to be careful to guard your kids against is yourself. Isn’t that interesting? Dads, we have to admit who we are in our sinful nature.

So God says, the implication of children obeying is: we’ve got obligations not to act unhonorably toward them, not to act as Gentiles in relationship to those who are functional inferiors.

So parents are to act honorably. This is an implication, but it’s an absolute requirement.

Proverbs 26:1: “As snow and summer and rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.” Now, okay, so you’re an adult and you’ve got a parent, and the parent is acting like a fool. Now, you got this law that says you’re supposed to honor your parents. And here it says it’s not fitting to give honor to a fool. What do you do? Well, you still give them some degree of honor because they’re reflections still of God’s authority in your home and in the world and all that stuff. We have an obligation, though—our civil rulers today, and many of our church rulers, are acting as fools, right? We have an obligation still to give them some degree of honor. But it’s not much. It’s not much, because we want to obey what Proverbs says: “Honor is not fitting for a fool.”

You know, an implication of this, getting back to this discussion earlier: when a pastor brings in rebellious, dishonoring children, or adult sons and daughters, either way, they are violating the fifth commandment themselves. They’re not acting honorably as church father or church mother to those under their charge. They’re disobeying the fifth commandment. That’s the situation we have commonly now in the context of the church.

Proverbs 21:21—I mentioned this earlier, but now we’ll throw a little twist on it: “He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor.” Parents, my kids don’t honor me. You say, “Well, are you—got to find honor by following righteousness and mercy. Are you just—are you compassionate? If you’re not, then you’re probably not going to get as much honor. You won’t find the honor, because that’s how you find honor.”

Nehemiah 7:2: “I gave the charge of Jerusalem to my brother Han and Hanani, the leader of the citadel. So who does he give ruling authority to? For he was a faithful man and feared God more than many.” Parents, do you want to be honored? Fear God more than the rest of the people. Civil rulers are exalted in their positions by a godly man. When they fear God, that’s when they get the honor of ruling in the context of the civil arena.

So, you know, parents have to act honorably. And again, the Westminster Catechism addresses this, and I won’t take the time to read it today. We may come back to it. But you should read this second page in preparation for the rest of this series.

So yeah, children or sons and daughters have to honor, reverence, and under maturity, obey parents. But it means that parents have to act in a particular way—as the Westminster points out, and as these texts point out—they have to act honorably, and you can’t have one without the other. The commandment can tell us both things this way, and it does.

The motivation then behind this: long life on the whole. So “long life,” “length of days”—means you’re going to live long. It says in Proverbs 4:10, “Hear, oh my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many.” So we’re talking about physical life, lifespan will increase as people honor the parents and the authorities in the land.

Well, but you know, kids that were real honorable and died. Yeah. Yeah. This is “on the whole.” These are covenantal blessings. They’re being spoken. Not, you know, that this is going to happen to every individual who does this, but God’s people will have increasing lifespan as they obey the fifth word in its various applications.

The Catechism says it nicely. It says that you’ll get this stuff “as far as it shall serve for God’s glory and their own good.” So you know, if it serves God’s glory and the good of those, they’ll get the long life and the rest of the blessings. But some people God is glorified not to do that. And some people it’s not to their good to give them long life. So but in general—in general—the promise is there. The command is there, and the promise is attached to it. We have a tremendous motivation: the blessing of God to a people that honor God by honoring his authorities is life. He’s the source of all life, and it’s life as reflected in length of years.

It’s specifically life in the land in Deuteronomy 5:16 and Exodus 12, because they’re going into a particular place. The exile was a sign that they had drawn near to God with their lips but not with their heart. The exile was a sign that they had broken the fifth commandment, and they weren’t going to be in the land anymore. They may still live. They’re going outside the land now.

So the command is specifically given in Exodus and Deuteronomy in terms of the land. And in Ephesians 6:3, Paul changes the term to “the earth,” “that you might live long on the earth,” because the church now has burst the bounds of the land—the promised land. And now on this side of the cross, the whole earth is what we’re talking about. And so this expansion of blessing is indicated in the rewarding of the fifth word.

So it’s long life, and it’s a good life, right? “That your days may be well”—that you might live good life in the context of the land—that you might have blessings. So again, there’s a progression from long life in Exodus and Deuteronomy to blessings of living good lives as well. Good lives, prosperous lives, happy lives, lives with blessing around. Yeah, we always have a mixture of trials and tribulations, but generally on the whole—lives that are good lives that are lived out in relationship to this.

So we have tremendous motivation. Now, what this means is that something in the future is the motivation for an action in the present that has reference to the past, right? The parents that God has established in the past are the ones that in the present you’re to honor, and the end result of that is movement into a brighter future.

When the counterculture movement of the 60s and 70s violated the fifth word, they rejected the past, and they moved into not a good future but their revolutionary ways created a bad future. They didn’t have an increasing garden. What we ended up with was an increasing set of bramble bushes and blackberries and thorns and wilderness. Okay.

But as we, you know, as we lean—as we have an appreciation for the past, the traditions of the families that we come out of—then we can build toward the future in a godly way. The key to building a godly future is having a correct relationship to the past that God has given to us.

Now, you can air in the other ditch. You can so preference the past—we talked about this in the second word—that you become past-bound and you don’t move ahead. Simple obedience to the parents will maintain the past, right? Whatever they said, that’s what we’re going to do. The totems remind us that the ancestors are looking at us. Whatever they did is what we’re going to do. The future is nothing but the past. But in Christian culture, it moves from obedience to honoring. And that means that you take into account that, but then you apply that in the future.

The key to good life, to a life of blessedness, to a life of living in the context of the garden is obedience to the fifth word, which springs from the fourth. And then we properly have relationship to the past. In the present, we honor what God tells us to honor. And he says then the end result is blessing in the world. The garden is made more and more manifest.

Now, these things are all true “on the whole.” You might live short life, you might not have that blessed of a life. On the whole. But the last thing that’s attached to a motivation in Colossians 3:20 is not “on the whole.” This is for everyone that obeys the fifth commandment. This is the motivation that’s common to everybody.

Not “common”—it is absolutely certain of everyone. You might not get long life even though you’re obeying the fifth word. You specifically, you might not get a lot of prosperity. But this one, this motivation is there. What is it?

“This is well pleasing to the Lord.”

Well, as soon as I say it, it’s quite obvious. This is our only motivation. We want to do those things that please Jesus. And what an astonishing thing that we can. I can please, in fact, I can be well pleasing to the Lord. That’s my motivation. And yeah, I’m really happy if he gives me long life and prosperity. But what you should want to do as a result of what we celebrate today—the death and resurrection of Christ for you—what you should want to do is please Jesus, right? Everything you do this week, you can ask yourself: “Am I pleasing Jesus in this?”

So the greatest motivation for the fifth word—yeah, there’s all kinds of societal implications. Yeah, there’s blessings both for yourself individually and the culture. Yeah, there’ll be the turning around of this movement back into the wilderness into a garden once more in our culture. All that’s true. But at the end of the day, the crowning motivation is that God says we can be pleasing, well pleasing to him.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for what a delight it is that we can, as limited as we are, as sinful as we are, as aware of our own shortcomings as we are, we can be well pleasing to you. Thank you so much for that. Father, bless us as we continue on over the next few weeks thinking about the fifth word, that we may have as our motivation our primary motivation—yes, an anticipation of the blessings—but more than that, a desire to please you, to be well pleasing to you in all that we do this week. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.