Welcome to the Hackberry House of Chosun. My name is Bob. I want to thank you for listening. We have on this site over 3,400 audios featuring great preachers, persecution stories from North Korea and other lands. We have Bible studies. You can now go to Google Play Store and the Apple Store and download the ChurchOne app. That's C-H-U-R-C-H-O-N-E, ChurchOne app. for Sermon Audio. Enter Hackberry House as your choice of broadcasters. And my book's also on Amazon.com you can check out. And contact me if you like at bob.j.falkner.72 at gmail.com. I'm reading today from the Free Grace Broadcaster that's a quarterly put out by the people at Mount Zion Bible Church. It's in Pensacola, Florida. The topic this quarter is the fifth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother, Exodus 20, 12. To speak on it, we're reading the rest of what we started with last time with Thomas Watson, who lived from 1620 to 1686, one of the classic Puritan writers. And he's just giving instructions about children obeying their parents. He says, doth God command, honor thy father and thy mother? then let it exhort children to put this great duty into practice. Be living commentaries upon this commandment. Honor and reverence your parents. Not only obey their commands, but submit to their rebukes, for you cannot honor your Father in heaven unless you honor your earthly parents. To deny obedience to parents entails God's judgments upon children. the eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. Proverbs 30, 17. Eli's two disobedient sons were slain, 1 Samuel 4, 11. God made a law that the rebellious son should be stoned, the same death the blasphemer had, Leviticus 24, 14. It says, if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him out unto the elders of his city. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die. Deuteronomy 21, 18, 19, and 21. A father once complained, never had a father a worse son than I have. Yes, said the son, my grandfather had. A prodigy of impudence that can hardly be paralleled. Disobedient children stand in the place where all God's arrows fly. Second in this exhortation, let parents so carry it as they may gain honor from their children. Carry it meaning to conduct themselves. Question now, how many parents so carry or conduct themselves towards their children? Excuse me. that their children may willingly pay the debt of honor and reverence to their parents. Answer, if you would have your children honor you, number one, be careful to bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord. Ephesians 6, 4, bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. You conveyed the plague of sin to them. Therefore, endeavor to get them healed and sanctified. Austin, that's Augustine, saith that his mother, Monica, travailed more for his spiritual birth than his natural. Timothy's mother instructed him from a child. She did not only give him her breast milk, but the sincere milk of the word. Season your children with good principles, betimes, that soon that they may, with Obadiah, fear the Lord from their youth. When parents instruct not their children, they seldom prove blessings. Children are young plants which you must be continually watering with good instruction. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The more your children fear God, the more they will honor you. Number two, if you would have your children honor you, keep up parental authority over your children. Be kind, but do not cocker them. That means to pamper or indulge them. If you let them get too much ahead, they will condemn you instead of honoring you. The rod of discipline must not be withheld. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, thou shalt deliver his soul from hell, Proverbs 23, 14. A child indulged and humored in wickedness will be a thorn in the parent's eye. David did that to Adonijah. His father had not displeased him at any time in saying, why hast thou done so? First Kings 1.6. And afterwards, he was a grief of heart to his father and was false to the crown. Keep up your authority and you keep up your honor. Number three, provide for your children what is fitting, both in their minority and when they come to maturity. The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. They're your own flesh, and as the apostle saith, no man ever yet hated his own flesh. The parents' bountifulness will cause dutifulness in the child. If you pour water into a pump, the pump will send water again out freely. And so if parents pour in something of their estate to their children, children, if ingenuous, will pour out obedience again to their parents. Number four. When your children are grown up, put them to some lawful calling wherein they may serve their generation. And it is good to consult the natural genius and inclination of a child. Forced callings do as ill, sometimes as forced matches. To let a child be out of a calling is to expose him to temptation. A child out of a calling is like fallow ground. And what can you expect should grow up but weeds of disobedience? Number five, carry it lovingly to your children. In all your counsels and commands, let them read love. Love will command honor. And how can a parent but love the child who is his living picture, nay, part of himself? The child is the father in the second edition. Number six, carry it prudently towards your children. A great point of prudence is when a parent does not provoke his children to wrath. Colossians 3.21, fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Question, how many ways may a parent provoke his children to wrath? Answer, number one, by giving them approprious terms. Approprious, that's abusive, expressing scorn or contempt. Thou son of the perverse, rebellious woman, said Saul to his own son, Jonathan. Some parents use imprecations, that's curses, and call them down on their children. This is to provoke them to wrath. Would you have God bless your children, and do you curse them? Number two, parents provoke children to wrath when they strike their children without a cause or when the correction exceeds the fault. This is to be a tyrant rather than a father. Saul cast a javelin at his son to smite him, and his son was provoked to anger. It says, so Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger. Skips to number four here. I'm not sure where number three went to. Number four, when parents carry it unequally toward their children, showing more kindness to one than to other, this is another way they can get discouraged. This sometimes breeds bad blood. Though a parent hath a greater love for one child, discretion should guide affection, that he should not show more love to one than to another. Jacob showed more love to Joseph than all his children, and what did it procure but envy? Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, it says, and when his brethren saw that, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him. Number five, when a parent doth anything which is sorbid and unworthy, that which casts disgrace upon himself and his family. as to cheat or take a false oath. This is to provoke the child to wrath. As the child should honor his father, the father should not dishonor the child. Number six, when parents lay such commands upon their children as their children cannot perform without wronging their conscience. Saul commanded his son Jonathan to bring David to him. Fetch him unto me for he shall surely die. Jonathan could not do this with a good conscience, but was provoked to anger. Now, the reason parents should show their prudence in not provoking their children to wrath is set down, lest they be discouraged. Colossians 3.21. Number seven, if you would have honor from your children, pray much for them. Not only lay up a portion for them, but lay up a stock of prayer for them. Pray that your children may be preserved from the contagion of the times. Pray that as your children bear your images in their faces, they may bear God's image in their hearts. Pray they may be instruments and vessels of glory. This may be one fruit of prayer that the child may honor a praying parent. Number eight, encourage that which you see good and commendable in your children. Commending that which is good in your children makes them more in love with virtuous actions. And it is like the watering of plants, which makes them grow more. Some parents discourage the good they see in their children and nip virtue in the bud and help damn their children's souls. They have their children's curses. Number nine, if you would have honor from your children, set them a good example. It makes children despise their parents when the parents live in a contradiction to their own precepts. When they bid their children be sober, yet they themselves will be drunk. They bid their children fear God and yet are themselves loose in their lives. Oh, if you would have your children honor you, teach them by a holy example. A father is a looking-glass, a mirror, by which the child often dresseth himself. Let the mirror be clear and not spotted. Parents should observe a good decorum in their whole carriage, lest they give occasion to their children to say to them, as a son once said to his father, If I have done evil, I have learned it from you. That whole piece was from the select works of the Reverend Thomas Watson. And that was published in 1855. It's in the public domain and you can get it for nothing. Well, thank you so much again for being here. I do hope that you will follow through with the Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida. And you can have this free periodical that I've been reading from sent to you every three months, free. Just send an email to chapel at mountzion.org. Chapel at mountzion.org. This is the Hackberry House of Chosun, and Lord willing, we will talk again real soon. Bye bye.