Let's turn now in the word of God to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20, and we'll take our text for this evening in the words of verse 12. Exodus 20. and taking our text in the words of verse 12. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Honor thy father and thy mother. Computed in Thomas Watson, describes the Ten Commandments like a ladder. They start at the top, with God himself, thou shalt have no other gods before me. And they descend from that which is most heavenly to that which is most earthly, thou shalt not covet. We have the whole spectrum of human life. contained in these 10 commandments. The Lord Jesus gives us the great division of the commandments into two, because he summarizes, sums up this law as, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, strength, and mind. And of course, particularly that has regard to the first four commandments, which refer to man's relationship to God and Love thy neighbor as thyself, the last six, which refer to man's relationship with man. But I want you to consider what comes first. What is the beginning of God's will for man's relationship with man? We might well think, well, surely the right of private property. or surely the importance of marriage, or surely the sanctity of human life. These are all important and these all are commandments that relate to the people who love all that. The family honour thy father and thy mother. Here is the building block of society. Here is the foundation of God's will for man. to honour your father and your mother. So here then is a most important commandment. Very important commandment for children and for young people to learn and know how vital, how necessary to honour the father and the mother that God has given you. But of course it's wider in its application than that. And we know that because in the scripture the word father is used of other human relationships as well. Let kings be your nursing fathers. So this refers to the Christian in the state. It indicates the respect that government must have in its right and proper province from every Christian believer. Honor thy father and thy mother. Masters, in the sense of bosses and lawyers, They are referred to as fathers. And so again, there is that solemn duty of honor, which rests upon the Christian worker or employee. And of course, ministers are called fathers. Galatians 4.19, the apostle Paul, my little children of whom I travel in birth until Christ be formed in you. So this command is much broader in its application than merely the immediate household. It refers to man's relationships with man. And in that sense, it's a very radical command. We saw in 2 Timothy chapter 3 that it is one of the marks of the end times that this commandment ceases to be observed. And I want you to consider what a drastic radical change has occurred in our society in your lifetimes. I'm not speaking about ancient history. I've seen this change in my lifetime, and I am one of the younger adults present here. Have you not seen this change? This undermining of respect and deference towards legitimate authority. Scorn, even contempt for those whom God in his providence has placed in positions of power. We can see it even in the realm of fiction. A society's fiction tells a lot about a society's mindset. You go back to the fictions of the Victorian era, how much there was there about children needing to learn, to select, to submit, to be taught by their elders. You spend time in the fictions of today, where will you find that message now? Always the message is the same, that authority is to be ridiculed or to be challenged, that parents are themselves just overgrown children. that there is no difference, that there is no distinction, that age is not worthy of respect, that position is not worthy of deference. We may be inclined to say, well, why is all this important? Let's get back to the gospel. Friends, this is the gospel. Honor thy father and thy mother, that is a gospel text. Each of these commandments ultimately brings us to the gospel to the way of salvation and to the way of life. Honor thy father and thy mother in the highest sense, what is that? But the honor due to God, our father, which is in heaven. And unless we will learn to defer and to submit and to respect, then we will be lost forever. because that is the foundation of the gospel. It is to give God his place, to submit to his rule, to bow before him as our master and as our king. And so I urge you friends this night, not to see this command as something simply for children to pay attention to, or as something secondary and unimportant. It's directed at you, whatever your age, It is directed at you in terms of your relationship, yes, with man, but ultimately with God. And it is a command that calls you to obedience. The command to honour our parents. Honour your father and your mother. Never let anyone tell you that the Bible or traditional Orthodox Christianity undermines respect for women. That is utterly false. Here we see women in their right province honoured, respected and valued. Here we see a command from God to honour and to respect women. And of course this applies more broadly than our mothers according to the flesh. This refers to mothers in Israel who command our respect not merely from their experience of life but from their experience of faith and from their walk with the Lord. Honor the mothers in Israel. Never be too proud to learn from them It's very telling that it was the women who saw the risen Christ first. The women, they were the ones thus honored. They had walked closest with the master. They had believed most fervently in him, and that was rightly and properly acknowledged. There is a respect, therefore, for women, And of course, ultimately, that is a respect for the Church of Christ, which is command. The Church is feminine. Jerusalem above, which is your mother, Galatians 4.26. What a respect, what a love we should have for the true Church of Christ. Honor your father and your mother. Two points. Tonight, as the Lord will enable us, I'd like us to consider, firstly, what this commandment requires, and secondly, to consider who keeps it. So firstly, let's consider what it requires. Honour your father and your mother. Well, firstly, it indicates an honour and respect in the heart. This is not merely referring to outward conduct. It must begin within. So we have to strive against the thoughts of the heart, which are naturally contemptuous and proud and disrespectful, to maintain a respectful, a mean, a submissive and a loving spirit towards those who are our fathers and our mothers. Respect them, value them, reverence them. They're God's gift. You will miss them once they are taken from you. You will think back and feel shame for the times where you were impertinent and disrespectful. The parents, how precious. How precious their presence, how precious their teaching, how precious their example. You older ones here whose parents are now departed, don't you look back with deep affection to words that your mother and your father spoke to you, to times that you shared together? Don't you value the happy memories? Don't you prize and honor your parents now in your mind, perhaps even more than you prized and honored them in your lifetime? What reason we have does. to keep this commandment. To honor them in the heart, to obey them in practice. Keep it into practice what they command us. To respect their word as law. Oh, there are limits. There are limits on all human authority. All human authority is ultimately subject to the authority of God. So when man sees one thing and God sees another, we must obey God and not man. but how often your parents commanded what was right and urged you to that which was good. And is it not true that often your disrespect or disobedience was a disrespect and disobedience against God? And even when it came to things indifferent, spiritually speaking, things that did not matter either way, Well, what reason then to honor your father and mother in that which is indifferent and to strive to fulfill their will. Honor your father and your mother, reverence them, respect them, obey them, bear with their infirmities. All authority in this world is tainted by the fall. Every human being is fallible and inadequate. Our father and mother, we live closely with them. We see them in all different circumstances. And yes, we will see their infirmities. Oh, let us bear with these things. Let us cover over that which is unworthy. Let us love and respect them for that which is good. Honor your father and your mother, says God. And how much more when you think of the everlasting father, the father who is Lord of heaven and of earth and who commands you to receive his son Jesus Christ as saviour. Honour your father and your mother. Do you hear the word of God this night to your soul calling you to repent The kingdom of heaven is at hand. To repent because the last days are surely upon us. To repent because we see, even in the last 50 years of our country's life, we see Second Timothy chapter three being fulfilled as disobedience to parents became endemic in our society. There's another side to this commandment as well, which is that it also applies to parents, too. Honour your father and your mother. Well, parents have to expect and require such honour. They have to conduct themselves worthily of honour. Here's a responsibility on parents not to conduct themselves like overgrown teenagers, not to behave merely as their children's friends. but to remember the authority committed to them, a solemn, a holy authority from God to direct their families and their households, to guide and teach and nurture them in truth. You're not a kind of referee just there to keep the peace. You're in charge. You are the steward who is responsible and it is required of a steward. that a man be found faithful. You must give an account of your stewardship. You must give an account of your fatherhood, of your motherhood, what you taught your children, what obedience you required from your children, what example you set before them. We've got many bad parents in scripture. They're not there to excuse bad parenting, they're there to warn against it. An Eli who would not discipline, his sons, and what wreckage that resulted in. A Jacob who showed favoritism to one child over the others. What a disaster that provoked in his family life. A Saul who exploded in rage against his son, and Pearl, a javelin at him. Are these your models? Would you aim to follow such examples? Or let us strive rather for godly parenthood, godly motherhood. Think of a Joe praying for his children after they had been together for a night of festivity, lest any of them had sinned inadvertently and had committed a trespass against their God. There's a godly, exercised father. What an example to us of good parenting. What does it forbid? Honor thy father and thy mother. Well, disrespect, of course. Contemptuous thoughts in our hearts towards our parents. How wicked these things are. These wicked thoughts must be crucified and put to death. I say Samuel Rutherford, sorrow and love are the nails with which we put the old man to death. Let us by sorrow and love strive to mortify, to crucify these wicked thoughts in our hearts when we find them. Let us strive rather to be respectful Disobedience, that's forbidden. Awful thing to disobey a parent. Wicked, contemptible, and not just obedience at word. I go, and he went not. That's not enough. No, but to actually practice, to actually do what we are commanded, to honor our parents. And above all, to listen to them. to listen to the word of God. There is a gospel message which speaks and it summons you to honor your father which is in heaven. Think what he has given. This is the root of the moral authority of fatherhood and of motherhood. You know, you children here, You will never be loved as constantly and as selflessly as you have been loved in infancy by your mother. A mother is constantly alert to the needs of her child. She is constantly aware of the tiniest eye, of the most trifling requirement, that she can ease it, that she can relieve it. The comfort of her child is the burden of her heart. A father and a mother have loved you, have spent themselves in your care. That's why they deserve you, Noah. Come to God. And think of the spiritual fulfillment of that which in this world is just a picture. God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God who commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What love that is there in that gift. And what reason, therefore, to hear the gospel? Be ye reconciled to God. Do you hear Him summoning you this night to stop wasting what He has given you, to stop squandering His precious inheritance on that which satisfies not? Honor your Father, how? by using what he's given, by using the blessing gift of his son, Jesus Christ, by using the new and the living way which he opened up through the veil, that is to say through his flesh, and so by coming to God by him. What a summons there is here. Honor thy father. and thy mother, the spirit and the bride say come. The church of Christ to you tonight by me, an unworthy minister, says come. God speaking to you in his word this night, the father of spirits and the maker of your soul says come. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Honour your father and your mother. There's a reason annexed to this commandment, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Now, of course, it follows naturally from the fulfillment of this commandment that there will be benefits, health benefits, where we live contentedly and at peace one with another. That's good for us. Reason itself teaches that. Where we benefit from the inheritance of our parents, the care from the support of our parents, that is good for us. Naturally, we would expect it to be true. that those who honor their parents, that those who put into practice their wise and sensible advice for their lives, that those who are not recklessly overindulging in alcohol, that those who are not squandering and wasting their money on that which will not satisfy or benefit them. But even naturally, their days will be long on the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Naturally, it's true. Supernaturally, it's also true. We have many examples of this in scripture. For example, Abimelech in Judges chapter 9, the son of Gideon, massacred his brother. And we are told because of that dishonor that he had shown to his father, Judges 9, 56. Therefore his life was required of him. We have it with regards to fathers more broadly. Think of Nabal and what disrespect he showed to the Lord's anointed when he would not send a tribute to David. And so his life was required of him. And he died because of his sin against the king, which was ultimately a sin against the fifth commandment. His days were not long upon the land. It even applies in the church. Ananias and Sapphira, who took upon themselves to lie to God's anointed apostle, to lie to the church, and they perish for their sin. This is true naturally. This is true supernaturally. This is a solemn reason to put this commandment into practice, but it's also true evangelically. that thy days may be long, and what is longer than eternity. And when you honour your Father which is in heaven, then your days shall be eternal upon the inheritance which the Lord gives you." You see how the gospel is all wound up in that. How the gospel is pictured by that which is humble and human. and how we can move from that which is in the immediate household to that which is eternal and infinite in its scope and scale. This command refers you ultimately to your relationship with the everlasting Father. So much then in our first point, what it requires, but secondly, who keeps it? Who keeps it? God's people keep it. They are regenerate. And part of regeneration is to have the law of God written upon the heart. Holy Spirit has come in, has awakened you to spiritual things. Now you see your sin, now you see your need. Now you see the law of God, which before you despised or disregarded, now you see it. as solemn, as fearful, as exposing sin in your heart. Now you love that law. Consider particularly how this commandment written upon your heart affects you. With reverence for God's providences, A regenerate people see God's hand in where they are and in what happens to them. There hath no temptation taken you but that which he has given. He reigns. He is in control. He has determined your path and your course through this world. In thee we live and move and have our way. Consider the temptations. Consider the trials. Consider the disappointments. Consider the blows. Consider the humiliations. Consider the distressing, dreadful occurrences, things that would bring the world low. and yet he is our God. He will not try us, above that we are able, and he reigns. The Father is in control. When we have this perspective on life, it changes everything. You see God's hand in what occurs, and so you are not amazed, you're not appalled by every wind of circumstance. You recognize God has a purpose in this. I might not know what it is, but I know and I trust and believe that it is there. You'll recognize this is for my good because it is the purpose of my father, which is in heaven. And he is a good father. You know how to give good gifts unto his children. You know that there is learning and benefit in every experience, in the shattering, the devastating, difficult as well as in the beneficial and the joyous and the happy. You find God's hand in the circumstances of this life. You see his hand in the parents you were given, in the upbringing that you received, in the things you were taught, in the example that was set before you, in the influences that were brought to bear, in the way that your life opened up, your education, your career path, and your relationships, you see God's hand at work. You'll recognize this is of God, not of man. And your reverence to God who has placed you in these circumstances, who has given you these fathers and mothers, in the broadest sense, that now you have. There is a reverence to the Christian. It's the exact opposite of the world. This spirit of discontentment that's out there, this raging grievance, I don't have what I deserve, I don't have what I'm entitled to. The Christian is the exact opposite of that. And the wonderful thing is it's so much more joyful. There's so much more contentment when you see yourself rather as the undeserving beneficiary of the abundant goodness of God. There's sweetness in the Christian world. Reverence, another mark, humility. You see, this command is about giving honor. Of course, it does imply also receiving honor as well. We have to be prepared to receive and accept such honour as a physician demands of us. We even have to require that honour at times, for example, as fathers and mothers in teaching small children to respect and to love their parents. We have to require that. But there's a humility. The force of the commandment comes, not exact honour from children, but honour your father and mother. You see, as believers, we have a deep sense of our own sin. We feel our own unworthiness. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. That's God's people described. That's the Christian. Meek. Submissive. Not the one who's always instantly ready to answer back and to justify themselves. stand up for themselves. Let the world conduct itself like that. Blessed are the meek. There's a humility in the Christian life. We're not perfect. We fail deeply, grievously at that. There's a wretched pride in the heart of every sinner. But do you, with all your pride, do you still in a sense wonder that God should be so merciful to such as me? And that must, that must spill over then into an honour for God and into an honour for those he has raised up over you. And then, especially, reverence, humility, adoration. This command, above all, it imprints itself upon your practice with regards to God. You see the Father which is in heaven, altogether worthy of your love and of your devotion. You see, I must love this man, I must honor him, I must reverence him, for he has been so loving, so merciful, above all that I could ask or even think, what grace he has given to me, what kindness he has shown. The Lord's people are marred by utter where you find this wonder, the mercy of God. Do you not see something that flesh and blood does not talk, but rather the spirit of God himself is put into the heart? Honor thy father and thy mother. Well, friends, as we come to a close, let me lay upon you a couple of final applications. Honour those who are your fathers and your mothers. You have many of them. Even if your parents by the flesh are dead, you have those in authority over you in the state. Honour them. Honour the Queen. Pray for her, for our royal family. Honour the Prime Minister and the Government, the First Minister and the Scottish Government, the local council, judiciary, the police. Honour them. Respect In their legitimate sphere, they are of God's appointment, and when they are fulfilling their legitimate calling, they do so with the authority of God. We honour them as we honour the God who has put them in charge. Honor authority in the church. Honor and love your elders, your interim moderator, your presbytery, the general assembly. Remember them, pray for them, seek God's blessing upon them. Honor authority in your family circle. Respect those who are elder than you, who are older than you. Respect their wisdom, their maturity, Respect especially those in your circle of acquaintance who are well advanced in Christian faith. Honour them, the fathers and mothers in Israel, how much we have to learn from those who have gone along in the Christian walk. Let us never be too proud to sit at the feet of those who are seasoned believers. Honour your fathers and your mothers. Discern. Discern the one who kept this commandment perfectly. Honor your father and your mother. Who did that? Jesus Christ. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Why was the father well pleased with Christ? Because Christ honored him in everything. My meat. to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Knewest thou not that I must be about my father's business? Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, Madonna. That was the love that brought him to Gethsemane. That was the love that carried him to Golgotha. and was the love that brought him down to the grave. He honored the father unto the end. So if you're here this night and you feel your sin against this commandment, and you're convicted that you have not kept it as you should, then let it drive you to the one who has. Behold the Lamb of God. which taketh away the sin of the world. Behold that lamb in his beautiful white spotlessness. Behold him in his absolute moral perfection. Honor the Father by honoring his gift. Honor the Father by accepting his salvation. Honor the Father. by becoming his children again. Honor him, and find the honor that he has laid up in store for the children of the living God. Amen, and the Lord bless his work. Let's come for him in prayer.