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So we're continuing in the Fifth
Commandment in general. There were some follow-up questions
from last week, which we will look at, those follow-up questions,
as best as we can. If I do not answer your particular
question satisfactorily, please feel free to write another question,
and we will consider it next week, Lord willing. So, before
we get into the materials, let's go over the follow-up questions.
That's Appendix A. You'll see there's, in your handout
there, Appendix A follow-up questions. First question was, do you believe
that honor is due to biological fathers, that biological fathers,
the honor due to them extends to ancestral fathers already
past? That's a very good question,
and you find it addressed within scripture. Anybody know what
we, or the early theologians in the Church are called the
Church Fathers? Now we are not necessarily connected
to them as our ancestors, except in their doctrines. We believe
many of the same doctrines that they believed. We have the same
Bible that they had. But to answer this question,
there are two ways in which the Scripture addresses our dead
ancestors. One is it prohibits us from elevating
them to the status of gods. It's a species of heathenism
by which people consider whatever their ancestors told them to
be infallible canon. So for example, the Pharisees,
they considered their ancestors to have infallible authority
in doctrines and practices, and they would pass those traditions
down. So that's negatively what we may not do to our ancestors. We may not worship them as gods.
But on the other side, if you think about how does the scripture
address our genetic ancestors, it encourages us in the same
way that we're to honor our father and our mother, we're also to
honor the memory of our ancestors. that it would be genetic ancestors,
that would be political ancestors, that would be theological ancestors,
any superior that preceded us in whatever situation we're talking
about, we have a duty of honor and respect for them. So we ought
to keep, if they handed us indifferent customs, there's John Adab who
required all of his children not to have houses, they couldn't
possess fixed dwellings. and they could not drink wine
or have anything that was a fruit of the vine. And they were not
Nazarites. They didn't have Nazarite vows. But Jonadab, the father
of these people, told them, you must do thus and such and thus
and such. And they were brought in in the
book of Jeremiah, I think around the mid-late teens in chapters. But they are brought in as an
instance to say, Israel doesn't honor me, their God, but the
sons of Jonadab still keep the statutes of their father, even
though he was dead. So they still honored and respected
what he had handed down to them. They were not permitted to violate
it or it would have been disrespecting the Fifth Commandment. So the
honor that we owe to current existing parents, we also owe
a similar honor to our ancestors. Even in that sense, with the
descendants of Jonadab, they owed a duty of obedience to the
law that he created for them concerning not owning lands and
concerning not drinking wine. And actually, when they were
brought into the temple, wine was set before them and they
were told to drink and they refused. And then God explained why that
was. Why did they refuse to partake
in a lawful thing like drinking of wine? So that particular question,
negatively, we are not to canonize and divinize our ancestors and
worship them. In fact, many of the prayers
in the Old Testament are confessing the sins of the fathers and acknowledging
that our genetic ancestors violated your statutes and did not obey.
So obviously, they're not infallible. But on the other hand, we're
to respect and honor their memory and even in lawful things that
they have required of their ancestors or their descendants, we're required
to obey them in that sense, even though they're dead. Another
instance is In the book of 1 Peter, you find that Sarah is mentioned
as an example for all Christian women. Again, not necessarily
genetically related to her per se, but at least by faith, they're
related to Sarah. And one of the most remarkable
things about what Peter does under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit is that he refers to how she called her husband
her Lord. And if you go back in Genesis
and you read, what is the context in which Sarah called Abraham
her Lord? You'll find that it was in unbelief. Sarah was not believing the promise
that God would have a son through Abraham. So it's an unbelieving
circumstance in which she says this thing that is good. So the
apostle draws out the good and makes no mention of the bad.
So in that sense, when you're talking about godly ancestors,
you have a duty of honoring and respecting their memory, remembering
the things that are good about them, which we'll talk about
that when we talk about the duties of inferiors to their superiors.
You have a duty to cover over their infirmities, and you have
a duty to celebrate and follow after what they do that's good.
And so Peter says, she is an example for you because she called
her husband Lord. Even though when she called him
Lord, it was a very sinful thing she was doing, talking about
how God couldn't cause the son of promise to be born to her
because she didn't have a period anymore. And that's basically
crassly what she says. I have no capacity to reproduce
in my body. It's all dried up. How can I
have a child? There's a lot to find fault with
there. But the Spirit covers over that and merely emphasizes
the good. And so yes, there is an honor
due to our ancestors. You also find this in the Reformation,
where the church fathers are treated with a lot of respect,
but they're never canonized. The reformers will say, we believe
this and this and this. And here, you can read this in
Chrysostom. You can read this in Augustine. You can read this
in Hippolytus. You can read this in Gregory
the Great. And they'll quote these guys and bring arguments
from them But they never say they're infallible and we have
to believe everything that they stated. So you see that as a
good example of honoring fathers, even in a theological way, who
are not genetically your parents, but are theologically your forebears
in the faith, while also avoiding the pitfall of idolatry and ancestor
worship. Okay, another question we had,
what if there is a conflict between a greater and a lesser authority
in indifferent matters. In other words, mom and dad,
I have an authority here that says X, and I have an authority
over here that says Y, and they're conflict. One tells me to do
this, and the other tells me to do that. What am I supposed
to do? It's not a sin to do either one.
How should I approach that? So a couple of principles biblically
of how to think about it. One is, the greater authority
has more authority to command. Therefore, their word should
be obeyed. But, with this caveat, if you can obey both the greater
and the lesser in that particular matter, if there's any way that
you can honor both of them, do it. Find a way. People are creative. I can't speak to every circumstance,
but I can tell you this. Because you have a duty of honor
and respect to your mother, and you have a duty of honor and
respect to your father, you ought to try with all your heart to
honor both. If, however, you can't honor
both, you must honor the greater over the lesser. This said, you
must still respect the lesser authority, and if you're going
to disagree with them, you must do it in a respectful way, just
as Timothy was commanded when he was to rebuke those who were
in church with him, but were under his church authority, he
was their pastor, they were congregants, but they were older than him,
he was to appeal to them as a father, for example, the older men were
to be appealed to as fathers. So in a similar way, If you're
going to disagree with one of your authorities, you must do
it respectfully, and you must not try to sow seeds of dissension
between the greater and the lesser authority. Don't set mom against
dad, in other words. Don't play them against each
other to get your way, which is something kids tend to do.
So that's something to avoid. And the same goes in any sphere
of authority. Always try to honor all of them.
If you must do something that is not quite what they required,
always appeal to them respectfully with love and with honor for
them. So that would be basic principles
of how to deal with a conflict between a greater and a lesser
authority in matters that are neither good nor evil in themselves
in different matters. Okay, a third question. What
should we do if all rulers in the church or any other jurisdiction
are evil? So a couple of principles here.
One is we must not become perfectionistic. And what I mean by that is every
authority is human. Every authority is evil to some
extent. Now there are authorities that
are greater evils, they do more wickedness, and there are other
authorities who do less evil. Also, there are authorities who
want to do what's right and are plagued with evil, those are
believers, or even moral persons. And then there are people who
really don't want to do what's right, and they delight in doing
evil. So depending on what category
of evil you're talking about, the response would be very different.
So let me take a couple instances. You have somebody who wants to
do the right thing, but they're plagued by their own sin. They're
in the church, they're in the state, they're in the family.
These are Christian people, they're growing in grace and knowledge,
but they may not be very far along in their growth, but they
rule over you in the church, and their life is a mess. How
should you approach that? We'll get into this in more detail
when we talk about the duty of inferiors to their superiors.
But one thing is you must respect their office even if you can't
respect their person. So because we're talking about
a church authority here, if you have an elder or a pastor and
you know that this person is very wicked. You know that they
don't appear to be growing at all. They don't appear to be
repentant about their sins. They're constantly covering their
sins. You must respect their office even if you don't respect
their person. Because they're in that office,
I must show them honor. I must show them respect. So
that's one thing we must do. Another thing that you must do,
or you should do, is if the person is legitimately ungodly, you
ought to try any remedy available to you to remove them from office.
So that would be, in the case of a Presbyterian church, you
would appeal to the Presbytery, you would get evidence against
the person, and present it to your Presbytery as to why you
think that person is not qualified for their office. Sometimes,
though, in this life, you'll find that you're not going to
find justice, you're not going to find resolution, and things
aren't going to get answered in precisely the way you thought
they would. And in those cases, we have to continue to honor
the office. We have to continue to bearing
patiently with wrongs that we might be suffering. But above
all, I would say this. Do not have a fault-finding spirit.
Do not be censorious. Do not try to point out all the
faults in a person. If there are big, unrepentant
sins, you've got to do what you can to clear your own conscience. And if that person doesn't repent,
that's not your responsibility any longer. You pursue what you
have jurisdiction over, what your authority is, to try to
rectify that situation, but at a certain point you have to recognize
you can't fix everything, and God doesn't want everything to
be fixed in this life. There will be evil people who
will exist in authority in the church, in the state, in the
family. So those are some things that you can do when you encounter
evil, or even if all rulers in the church are evil, you still
have a duty of honor to their office. A fourth question. What are some good ways to tell
if someone acts more like God? So I take this question to be,
we were referring to the giftings that God gives and how you have
a duty to honor if God exalts somebody and gives them graces
or gifts. How do you tell if a person has
been exalted by God with gifts? That's a great question. Mainly,
the standard we would use to tell if someone is godly is the
moral law. Does a person obey the commandments
of God? James talks about it as good
works. If a person says they believe
or makes a specific profession about their status before God,
but then you find that the way that they live their life is
not consistent with that. That will be true again, as I
said, of everyone to some extent. But you'll be able to tell if
a person has as much faith as they profess by the way that
they live their life. If they do the will of God, if
they obey the commandments of God, if they are striving after
holiness, if they're striving to do what's right, even though
they fail, that's how you can tell if someone is more godly
or less godly. It's always measured against
the moral law. Now, one important point about
this, though, is that when you evaluate other people, you must
be very careful because you are playing with fire. Jesus referred
to it this way, he said, if you have a brother you find fault
with, and it's something that's very small, you might think it's
huge, but he says you ought to evaluate yourself as having a
beam in your eye, and your brother as having a mote, or a little
tiny speck of wood. So it's important that when we
evaluate other people, that we do not become fault finders.
And anytime we're talking about how do we tell if someone acts
more like God, the question really, the more important question is,
how do I tell if I'm acting more like God? How do I evaluate my
own actions? And that would be evaluating
yourself against the moral law. Do you love God with all your
heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do you love your neighbor as
yourself? Do you live out the Ten Commandments
as they explain those two great commandments? Am I living up
to that standard? And what Jesus encourages us
is consider the beam in your own eye first before you go and
help the other person. And we'll talk about this when
we get into the duty of honor that inferiors have to their
superiors. Evaluate yourself more harshly
and others more charitably. Put the best construction on
other people's actions and words, and put the harshest construction
on your own actions and words. That's the opposite of making
excuses for your sins, by the way. When you're hard on yourself,
you'll be given to repent of your sins. When you're easy on
yourself and flatter yourself, you'll be likely to extenuate
your sins and say why they're okay. So just a thought about
general sanctification is deal harshly with yourself and charitably
and easily with others. A fifth question was, Why did
the apostle use the term travail in birth in Galatians 4.19? That's a great question. He says
there are a couple of things about travailing in birth and
he says that he was travailing in birth a second time for these
people, for the Galatians. When a woman travails in birth,
it is a very painful process. It is a very difficult process.
It's very strenuous, it takes a lot of energy, and it causes
a lot of suffering. So what the Apostle is saying
is twofold. One is, I am like your mother
who bore you. In other words, you ought to
honor me, you ought to respect me. On the other hand, he's saying
the reason why you ought to honor and respect me so much is all
the pain and sorrow and difficulty that I went through for you should
cause you to respect me all the more. And we talked about this,
about mothers, with the quotation, I think, from Durham, where he
went into extensive detail. Why does the fifth commandment
say fathers and add mothers? Why does it put the subordinate
authority? The father is the supreme authority.
The mother is the subordinated authority. She's under the husband's
authority. Why does it even mention her? And he talked about all
the pains that a woman goes through and all the tenderness and love
to give of herself for the birth of that child. So the apostle
is showing, one, all the pain and suffering and difficulty,
and two, the duty of honor that they owed to the apostle Paul
to imitate him in his doctrine and in his commandments that
he issued as an apostle. So if you have any follow-up
questions from those, feel free to write them on a three by five
card and I will try to answer them in the future. Also, if
there are particular circumstances that don't fall within the general
scope of this, I would be happy to have more particularized discussions
about these things outside of the class. Okay, so last week,
let's pick up part one, page five, question 126. And just
as a reminder, we looked at 123, which is the fifth commandment.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. We looked at who
are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment. We
saw that it was not just your natural parents, but it also
included anyone who is superior in age, in gifts, and especially
such as by God's ordinance are over us in place of authority,
whether in family, church, or in the commonwealth. And then
we looked at 125, why are superiors styled father and mother? And
we saw 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 a greater willingness and cheerfulness
in performing their duties to their superiors as to their parents. So now question 126, what is
the general scope of the fifth commandment? And the answer is,
the general scope of the fifth commandment is the performance
of those duties, which we mutually owe in our several relations
as inferiors, superiors, or equals. So a couple of passages of scripture
that talk about this. One is Ephesians 5.21, which
says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Now, if you continue reading
in Ephesians 5 and into chapter 6, You find that submitting yourselves
one to another in the fear of God does not mean everybody submit
to everyone else. That's not what it means. Rather,
as you go through, you find there are relationships of superiors,
such as husbands, and then there are relationships of inferiors,
such as wives, Other relationships like parents or fathers, superiors,
children, inferiors, masters, superiors, slaves, inferiors. So what he's doing by saying
submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God, he's doing
two things. One is we have a lot of different
relationships in the church. As we talked about with Timothy,
the older men and older women, he had a relationship of honor
to them as their younger, but he had a relationship of superiority
as their pastor. So in the like way, there are
relationships that exist within the family, and those are the
ones he addresses following this, husbands, wives, parents, children,
masters, and slaves. And each one of those has mutual
duties to the other. Just because you're in authority
doesn't mean you have no duty to the other person. So you might
say, for example, William Gouge, he talks about how a husband
has a duty of submission of service to his wife, not a submission
of obedience, but a submission of giving his life out of love
for her, being willing to spend and be spent for her sake. So
that is a duty where you submit to the other person or you honor
the other person. Peter talks about the same thing,
that husbands are to honor their wives as weaker vessels, that
their prayers be not hindered. So there is a duty even that
superiors owe to their inferiors. Now, 1 Peter 2, verse 17, gives
us again that general scope of the fifth commandment. Honor
all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. So you see several classes here. One is, he says, honor all men. Everybody has some honor that
we owe to them. And this is why, as I said last
week, I think of the fifth commandment as the keeper of the rest. It
provides a paradigm of honor to whom honor is due. I have
a duty to respect life, I have a duty to respect marriages,
I have a duty to respect goods, and I have a duty to respect
reputation and truth. So in all those ways, honor all
men. I owe a duty of honor to everyone,
whether they're my superior, my inferior, or my equal. Love
the brotherhood, he says, the second injunction. Love the brotherhood. Here we see the honor that's
due to our equals. It is an honor of love. I'm to
love that person as I love myself, for example. But specifically,
not just the general love for all men, but a love for those
who are united together in a common brotherhood. This would be believers. Do good to all men, the apostle
says, especially to those of the household of faith. So loving
the brotherhood means having a special affection for those
who are fellow believers. This also goes for family members.
You ought to love your own family members more than you love other
people. You have a duty to honor all men, but you have a particular
duty whenever people are joined together with you, whether as
parents, As guardians, as teachers, as brothers, as church members,
whatever the case may be, when you have those common lines that
Providence has drawn for you, you have a special duty of love
to those people. Then he says, fear God. Now this was also in Ephesians
5.21, I failed to point it out, but you read it there. Submitting
yourselves one to another in the fear of God. So the reason
why we honor others, the reason why we submit to superiors is
that we have a fear of God. We dread his judgments. We honor
his statutes. We keep his commandments. We
repent when we sin. This is all part of the fear
of God. And you'll remember, If from the sermon we talked
about living as a brute, and we looked at the false teachers
in 2 Peter 2, that we saw one of the things that characterized
them was they did not respect authority. They had zero qualms
about speaking against divine glory, speaking against angelic
dignities. They had no problem railing against
those in authority over them, those who are their superiors.
And that's because they did not fear God. They did not live with
a consciousness of God's judgments. They did not tremble at his threatenings.
They did not yield obedience to his commandments. They did
not fear God. So here, Peter is giving us the theological
interpretation of this. This is how you honor all men.
This is how you love the brotherhood. You recognize in them the image
of God, and therefore fearing God is very important in that
regard. And then he says, honor the king. So there's a special duty to
civil magistrates that rule over us. We have a duty of honor to
them. There's also commandments to
pray, which we'll talk about, Lord willing, shortly. Okay,
so the general scope of the Fifth Commandment is to perform duties
which we mutually owe in our several relations, several meaning
all different kinds, several relations as inferiors, superiors,
or equals. So here, Romans 12.10 says, be
kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love. in honor,
preferring one another." Here we have Scripture commandment
concerning, one, our affections for one another, and then Two,
preferring one another. One is, you might say, the internal
affection, and the other is the external action. How should I
feel about these people? What should be my internal movement
toward them? Sometimes we call that emotions.
Scripture uses the term affections. It's how you are moved toward
a particular person. And the affection of equals is
kindly. We ought to be kindly affectioned. one to another with brotherly
love. Now this is the opposite of those
who lack in natural affections. Those whose bowels are not moved
toward the right objects, but toward the opposite. People who
love other people's children, the neighborhood kids, more than
they love their own kids, are without natural affection, for
that's a sin they're struggling with. But he says, when you think
of the brotherhood, Your fellow believers, especially those that
you are in church with, these people in this room right here,
for example, he says, we are to be kindly affectioned one
to another with brotherly love. So there's kindness, there's
love, there's affection moved toward that person in the light
of that kindness and love. And kindness, actually, I talked
about this in the sermon, where the yoke of Jesus Christ It's
the same word. Kindness. It's lacking in bitterness. It has none of that astringency. When you eat a sour grape and
your tooth gets set on edge, that's the bad effect. It's not kind to you, whereas
the good wine is kind. It's kind to your senses. You
want to drink it because it tastes so good. And so he says, our
affections ought to be like that. No bitterness toward one another,
but rather brotherly love. And this is the duty that equals
have to each other. Now think about this for a second.
If you are in a position of submission to a person, This is for your
equals to be kindly affectioned. How much more those who are above
you? So this kindly affectioned one
toward another in brotherly love is just for equals. And then,
how much more for those who are your parents, or for wives to
their husbands, or church members to their pastor and elders, or
pastors and elders to their brethren in the presbytery, or citizens
to their government, those who fill their offices. We ought
to have this love for one another and a kindly affection toward
one another. And then he goes on and says,
in honor, preferring one another, Now the opposite of that is where
you prefer yourself. You want your kingdom to come. You want your will to be done. You want things to be your way. You want to go first. You want
others to go behind you. And you'll notice all of us by
nature, you see this in little children, they always want to
go first. They want to get the choice of
the movie. They want to choose which snack we're going to buy.
They want to get in the door first. And they're willing to
run in in front of somebody else and knock them out of the way.
Why? Because they're not in honor preferring one another. So those
that we are equals to, we ought to give deference to. We ought to prefer other people.
Not just mind your own things, but to mind the things of others.
Jesus is the example par excellence. He had authority over heaven
and earth as God, but he humbled himself and became obedient as
a servant. And he went all the way to the
cross in preference for other people's needs, the need of justification,
the need of salvation. So he gave himself to tremendous
sufferings and torments so that he would bring his really his
inferiors up to salvation. He would deliver them from the
bondage of sin and death. And the apostle uses that as
an example for all people in the church. And even that's an
example for those who are in a position of superiority. So
be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in
honor preferring one another, letting others go before you,
preferring their interests over your own. This also can come
out in how we speak to one another. Do I have an interest in what's
going on in your life, or do I have an interest in telling
you what's going on in my life? Do I have an interest in hearing
what you have to say about a topic, or do I have an interest in shoving
my views down your throat? That's a temptation for all of
us, but we're commanded to do the opposite. James Durham, I'll
quote him again, he says, it is to be considered that this
command in its scope respects the duty that we owe to all relations,
whether they be above us, inferior to us, or equal with us. This
is clear from Christ's summing up all the second table and consequently
this command with the rest in that comprehensive general, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And therefore our neighbor in
general must be the object of this command as well as of the
rest. And so it takes in all the duties
of honor that everyone owes to another, whatever be their place. There is a duty of honor and
respect called for from everyone to everyone. And so, Ephesians
5.22, it is pressed upon wives toward their husbands and upon
husbands toward their wives, 1 Peter 3.7. which we'll look
at that later, which must be comprehended here. Thus, father
and mother are here to be largely and synecdochally understood.
Now that word synecdochally means where one part stands for the
whole. Because he mentions fathers and
mothers, he's referring to all relationships under the title
of just two of them. That's what that means. It's
to be taken largely. One sort of relations being in
a figurative manner put for all the rest. So the father-mother
relationship put for all the rest of the relationships that
we have. So a couple of thoughts here
about what he gets at. Love your neighbor as you love
yourself. We talked about preferring other
people, which I would venture to say all of us like others
to defer to us. or to ask us, how are you doing,
versus pushing themselves on you. All of us, I would venture
to guess, want others to be kindly affectioned toward us. We would
want them to love us, to think and move internally toward us
in a way that is kind and without the bitterness, wrath, and hatred
that often accompany relationships. I would imagine we all want people
to honor us. And I would imagine that if we
had authority over them, we would like them to listen to us. So loving your neighbor as you
love yourself means putting yourself in other people's shoes. We could
talk about this in terms of the ninth commandment. How would
you like people to construct what you do? We talked about
that in the scripture reading. where they found fault with John
and Jesus. How much more if you are in a
position of obedience, you ought to respect them and think well
of them and honor them. And we'll talk about that shortly.
So here, the general scope of the fifth commandment concerns
all the mutual duties that we owe in our several relations
as inferiors, superiors, or equals. Now, Thomas Vincent, we have
a book here that we have for you to borrow from the church
library if you're interested. He has a book on the shorter
catechism explained from scripture. And he asks regarding the duties
of those who are equals. He says this, question 17, what
are the duties of equals one to another? And then he answers,
the duties of equals one to another are, one, to live in peace with
and sincere love to one another, preferring each other in honor. Be at peace among yourselves.
First Thessalonians 5.13. Let love be without dissimulation. Dissimulation is where you pretend
and then you wear a mask. You pretend you love someone,
but in actual fact you're covering your hatred for them by a mask
of love. So he says, let love be without
this mask that we wear to pretend like we love people we don't
actually love. He goes on, be kindly affectioned one to another
with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. Romans
12, 9, 10, 2. Or excuse me, 9 and 10, and then
point 2. To be pitiful, courteous, and
affable. A couple of words I'll just define
for us here. Pitiful doesn't mean you're a
pitiful specimen of humanity. That's how we often use it. But
what it means is to be full of pity. Think about the circumstances
that person finds himself in. Think about the troubles that
they experience or the sorrows or maybe the person, if you know
somebody who has a handicap, whether mental or physical. To
be pitiful means that you have pity for that person and you're
moved with compassion for the suffering that they undergo.
Courteous has reference to refraining from being rude and pushing yourself
in your own ways, but having an approach that considers other
people and looks to their good and welfare. Affable has to do
with being, rather than a churl and a jerk, you are a friendly
person who speaks friendly to other people and you have a desire
not of flattery and to spread a net and to push your agenda
on them, but genuinely care about the other person and use affability
as a way of showing kindness and love to them. Everybody in
the morning likes to hear kind words when they get out of bed.
There are not too many people who want to hear about all your
troubles and all the faults you want to find with them and all
your grumpiness and that's the opposite of affability is when
a person is churlish or unkind. So he says, to be pitiful, courteous
and affable. and ready to promote one another's
good and to rejoice therein." So not just promoting their welfare
and the good of their life, their body, their goods, their good
name, but to be happy, to rejoice when good things come to them.
And then he quotes, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, 1 Peter
3, 8. Let no man seek his own, but
every man another's wealth." 1 Corinthians 10, 24. Rejoice with them that do rejoice. Romans 12, 15. So these are all
the duties that we owe to one another just as equals without
regard to whether we stand in a position of superiority, inferiority,
or equality. Now, if you take all these and
you say, okay, well this is my duty to equals. What is my duty
to those above me? You can basically multiply that. Your duty to those above you.
If you have any of these things as duties to those on your same
level, it becomes more important that you show those same respect,
courtesy, pitifulness, affability, ready to promote their good,
ready to rejoice in their good, That's even more important when
you're talking about those who are your superiors. Okay, so
that's the end of part one, the fifth commandment generally considered.
Now turn to part two, page one. The Fifth Commandment, Parenting
and Marriage, Part Two, The Duties and Sins of Inferiors. So you have a status of inferiority,
you're under somebody, they're above you in whatever way, like
we talked about before, whether in your family, in your work
situation, in the commonwealth, in the church, whether it's age
or giftings or beauty or money or whatever it is, any kind of
superiority. That said, if you are in a position
of inferiority, what's the honor that we owe to those superiors? And the answer comes back. The
honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is all due reverence
in heart Word, and then we'll get into the rest. We'll stop
there and take up heart. Malachi 1, verse 6. God in Malachi is complaining
about the people of God. And he says this, a son honoreth
his father and a servant his master. If then I be a father,
where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is
my fear, saith the Lord of hosts, unto you, O priests, that despise
my name? And ye say, wherein have we despised
thy name? Now, by the way, Malachi is a
continuing assault upon people extenuating their sins. People
covering their sins. God brings an accusation. They
say, I never did that. I wasn't despising your name.
And then he gives an explanation of why. But notice here. God
gives a human, two human examples and says, you owe me obedience. I am your father. I'm your master. Why don't you honor me? Why don't
you fear me? But the point is, by the law
of nature, people understand that a son has a duty to honor
his father. By the laws of nature, we understand
anyone who's inferior owes respect to his superior. So if you're
a slave and you have a master, you're supposed to fear him.
You're supposed to honor and respect him. So this is first
internal. It's the internal motion of the
heart. And that's actually where the fifth commandment starts
itself. Honor thy father and thy mother. It's a internal reverence
and fear. Leviticus 19.3, the Lord says,
ye shall fear every man his mother and his father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. So here
God joins together his right of one day in seven, his Sabbath
right. He joins that up with the fifth
commandment and your duty to fear your mother and your father. So the fear of God and the fear
that you owe to your parents are joined together in God's
commandments. You shall fear every man, his
mother and his father. So not just honor, But fear is
also the duty that children owe to their parents or that inferiors
owe to their superiors. Respect for what they say. Respect
for their persons. Obedience to their commandments.
This is all entailed in the word fear. but it starts inside. It starts with an attitude of
respect. The opposite of fearing and honoring
would be holding a person in contempt. Notice he says there
in Malachi, you priests have despised my name. You think little
of me. So same way, if you have a superior,
if you think little of your superior, you can write it down. You've
got a problem with the fifth commandment. You must honor,
you must fear, you must not despise or neglect or think ill of your
superiors, even honestly, if they deserve it, you might say.
Again, back to the respect the office, even if you don't respect
the person, you still have a duty of fear and honor to the office
that the person has over you. Okay, so then not just internally
with reverence in the heart, but also reverence in your words,
in what you say. Proverbs 31, 28, her children
arise up and call her blessed, her husband also and he praiseth
her. So here, notice the children
are brought forward as an example for us. This is how children
ought to think about a hardworking mom. They ought to rise up and
call her blessed. Then he brings out the example
we referenced earlier, 1 Peter 3, 6. Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham,
calling him Lord, whose daughters he are, as long as you do well
and are not afraid with any amazement. So here, the word that Sarah
used, the thing that she said about the one in authority over
her was, he is my Lord. Again, that's as opposed to,
he is my servant. Men who speak of their wife as
their boss are defying God. Any man who thinks of himself
and denigrates the authority God put upon him is doing the
opposite of what Sarah did. She lifted up his authority.
She recognized that he was in command over her. The word Lord,
it's a very interesting term in Hebrew, it's Baal. It's also
the word used for a husband in the Old Testament, Baal. Now,
often the people would take and make Baalim, that's the plural
of Baal, all these little gods and masters that they had, all
these lords and masters they would make up. But it's suitable
within the context of marriage for a wife to think of her husband
as her Baal, as her Lord, not as her God, and to bow down and
worship him, but to respect his person, his authority, to speak
well of him, to use her words to praise and honor him as opposed
to using her tongue to tear him down, which the Proverbs have
much to say about wives and their continual dripping and their
nagging and their all these things that they say to tear their husbands
down. Rather, they're to use their words to lift them up.
And this is true, not just of children, not just of wives,
but of everyone who's under authority. There's a duty to use our words
in a way that honors those above us. Now Thomas Boston concerning
this duty of inferiors, he talks about the inward disposition
of the heart required by God of those in inferiority. He says,
singular love to them as the parents ought to bear to them.
So this is the duty of children, but he says also singular love
is the duty of parents to their children. This is called natural
affection. The want whereof, that is the
lack if you don't have this, the want whereof is accounted
among the most horrid abominations, Romans 1 31. Such natural affection
did Joseph show to his father, Genesis 46 20, when, quote, he
went to meet him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck
a good while. So here you see, When Joseph
sees his dad after all these years, maybe 14 years of absence
from his father, his natural affection was unabated. In fact,
you might say it was strengthened by the absence of his dad. So
that his singular love for his father went out in this weeping
on his neck for a good while. Now you might say that Jacob
didn't necessarily always deserve respect, did he? Think about
all the things. Jacob itself means a deceiver. It means that he was a person
who would steal the birthright from his brother. He would steal
the blessing from Isaac, his father. And he would do all these
tricky little things. And when he makes a vow and he
goes off to Paddan Aram and God brings him back safely, does
he fulfill his vow? No, he doesn't. So in himself,
you might say, Jacob is not really worthy of much respect, but Joseph
loved his father. He had a singular love, not directed
to other parties who were not his father. He had a special
love, natural affection, scripture calls this. It's the motions
of love that should go toward those who are members of our
family, that we look out for their best interests, that we
kindly think of them, that we treat them in a way that is kind
and without bitterness, without fault finding, in charity and
love. This is the love. that Boston
is talking about here. And this is what God requires
of us in positions of inferiority. Page two, we continue. Again,
the question is, what is the honor that inferiors owe to their
superiors? And it goes on, the honor which
inferiors owe to their superiors is all due reverence in heart,
word, and behavior. prayer and thanksgiving for them,
imitation of their virtues and graces. So we'll look at this
in detail here. First, let's look at the behavior. Leviticus 19, 32. Thou shalt
rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old
man and fear thy God. I am the Lord. Notice here a
few things. This is not necessarily your
parents he's talking about. He has a way of identifying,
and in fact in this chapter he identifies your mother and your
father. Here however, the only thing he's referring to is the
age of the person. That's it. He says they have
a hoary head where the hair is all white on top. That is the
ultimate period of aging among men is when you get a white head
of hair. And then he says, to honor the
face of the old man. First, stand up when he comes
in. Show him honor. Show him respect. Give him a place to sit down.
Look after his interests. In other words, it's not just
the act of standing that he's referring to. He's referring
to all the actions that show honor to an old person, a person
who is aged, who has a hoary head. Rise up. And then he says,
honor the face of the old man. What does that mean? The face
represents the presence of a person. And the presence of a person
you respect by listening to what they have to say, by not being
rude or interrupting them, and by doing any of those actions
of honor that you would want done for yourself. If you would
want people to wait on you, to give up their seat for you, to
look after your interests, can I get you something? Can I help
you? If you see an old person and they're putting their groceries
in their car, go and ask, can I help you with that, ma'am?
Can I help you with that, sir? That's honoring the face of the
old man. It's not just old men, it's old
women as well. And notice there, he joins together.
Fearing God with respecting those who are aged. Again, as I said,
those who are aged reflect God's eternity. Because as compared
to the younger, they've been around longer. They often have
more wisdom. But even if they don't, they
have the years under their belt that we do not have. And so in
that way they resemble more than we do God's eternity. And so
he calls us to fear him and to show that by respecting those
who are aged. And again, these are instances
in scripture that help us to know the basic idea of how do
you treat those who are above you in some way. If the aged
man, how much more your own father and your own mother. Should you
do these sorts of things? Show them honor. Do things to
help them. Honor their face. Don't interrupt
them. Don't find fault with them. Give to them. Serve them. Love
them. These are the things God is calling
us to in our positions as inferiors, superiors, and equals. And just
time out for a second. Think of this as parents. There
are a couple of things we need to do. One is, do not allow your
children to go on in disrespecting older people or you as their
parents. You might think, well, this is
really humble. I'm going to let them walk over me and treat me
like garbage. And what you're saying to your
kid is, I want you to go to hell. Because I want you to learn to
be disrespectful toward God, and therefore disrespectful toward
your authorities. So we have a duty to recognize
that they must honor us, not because we deserve it, but because
God has commanded it, because we're created in God's image,
because we have authority over them that reflects God's authority.
We must not permit them to be disrespectful, to speak in a
way that is flippant or that is dishonoring to our authority. And it's not about us. Again,
it's about God and it's about their good that they must not
learn to speak flippantly or disrespectfully or to be disrespectful
to old people or to their parents or to any authorities for that
matter. Okay, 1 Kings 2.19, 1 Kings 2.19,
Bathsheba therefore went unto King Solomon. Okay, time out. This is his mom. Bathsheba is
the mother of Solomon. Solomon rules the kingdom. He
is the top dog. So keep that in mind. She went
unto King Solomon to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king
rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down
on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother.
And she sat on his right hand." Now this always puzzled me when
I was younger. Why in the world would the king bow to one of
his subjects? Well again, we have several relations
as superiors, inferiors, and equals. Here, he has a two-fold
relationship. He is her king. He is her superior. But, he is also her son. He is Bathsheba's son. Now, Bathsheba was not always
honorable, was she? How did she come to be married
to David? By committing adultery. And then
David murdered her husband. And then David married her. And
then David had Solomon after the baby died. What else is she
scheming at this very moment? She comes to speak unto him for
Adonijah. She's doing somebody else's bidding
to manipulate King Solomon. Was she honorable? Perhaps not. You might find fault with that.
You might say, what a manipulative woman. But here's Solomon nonetheless,
despite her checkered past, despite her present questionable motives,
He rises up to meet her. He bows himself under her. He
gets a seat ready for her so that she can sit down next to
him. How beautiful is that? He respects and honors with his
behavior. By the things that he does, he
shows respect for a woman who sometimes wasn't so respectable.
And he is shown to us here as an example of honoring the authorities
that are over us. Thomas Watson says the following.
He says, among the Lacedaemonians, if a child had carried himself
arrogantly or saucily to his father, it was lawful for the
father to appoint whom he would to be his heir. Okay, so let's
stop there. Saucy is where you say sarcastic,
smart remarks, you disrespect by the words that you use, or
you're arrogant. I'm not going to submit to you.
I'm not going to do what you say. That's arrogance. Saucy
is disrespectful language and abusive language. Arrogance is
where you think so highly of yourself you refuse to submit.
And by the way, you don't have to pound your chest to be arrogant.
It's just a refusal to do what your parents tell you. You can
be quiet and sweet and go off and do something else other than
what they told you to. That's still arrogance. So he says,
among these heathens, they had a law that if you did that to
your dad, he could say, you're out of my will. I'm going to
get somebody else. I'm through with you. And then
he says this, oh, how many children are far from thus giving reverence
to their parents. They despise their parents. They
carry themselves with such pride and neglect toward them that
they are ashamed to religion and bring their parents gray
hairs with sorrow to the grave. Cursed be he that setteth light
by his father or his mother. Deuteronomy 26 or 27 16. By the way, setting light by
someone means I don't think very highly of you. I don't think
it's important what you say. I don't think your words are
weighty. I don't think your commands are
imperative. Yeah, maybe I'll do what you
say. Maybe I won't. I'll think about
it, Mom. Give me a minute. I got to finish
what I'm doing here. That's setting light by your
mother. And God pronounces a curse. Then
he goes on. If all that set light by their
parents are cursed, how many children in our age are under
a curse? You want to go back to the good
old days? They weren't that good. People still disrespected their
parents in the 1600s. He goes on, if such as are disrespectful
to parents live to have children, their own children will be thorns
in their sides and God will make them read their sins in their
punishment. And what a fearful thought that
when you grow up, kids, and you have your own kids, if you don't
learn to respect your parents, if you set light by your parents,
he says, you might find out when it's too late how disrespectful
you were to mom and dad. Because God's going to show you
your sins in your own kids' sins. He's going to punish you by making
them to disobey you. And this is a good rule for anyone
under authority. If you do not know how to respect
and treat with gravity those in authority over you, you might
find the people under you don't have interest in doing what you
say. So it's very important for authorities to keep that in mind,
to have an attitude of respect for their authorities and thereby
to bolster their own. But in any case, children who
set light by their parents are under a curse. We must consider
our authorities as important. We must listen respectfully.
And if we disagree, like I said earlier, we must do so in a way
that is kind and appealing and without bitterness and without
disrespect or arrogance, or saucy for that matter. Okay, so the
catechism goes on. Prayer and thanksgiving for them. 1 Timothy 2 verses 1 and 2, he
says, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. for
kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a
quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. So there's
a general command of prayer for all men, but then there is a
special way in which those in the commonwealth, kings, or all
in authority, he says, we ought to pray for them. making specific
requests, making intercessions, making general prayers, giving
thanks on their behalf, or even giving thanks for them, that
we are to do that for those in authority, those in authority
over us in the Commonwealth. Why? That we may lead a quiet
and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Remember, the Fifth
Commandment has a promise. that if you do these things,
you will have a good life. It'll go well with you and you
may live long in the land. So if you want to have a quiet
and peaceable life, pray for your civil government. Pray for
those who fill the offices that they may be converted unto the
Lord and uphold both tables of the law. But in any case, if
you have a nation filled with disrespectful people who rail
against their authorities, who don't pray for them, what are
you going to have? You're going to have quietness? You're going
to have a peaceable life? You're going to have all godliness
and honesty? No. You will have impiety, loudness,
troubles, famine, sword, difficulties, dishonesty, ungodliness, because
people are not respecting the authority. And so God's cursing
on a massive scale nations as opposed to blessing those nations.
So we will conclude our study here for this week. We'll pick
up continuing in question 127, God willing, next week. If you
have any questions, feel free to fill out your three by five
cards and I will try to answer those next time. Let's close
in prayer.
The Fifth Commandment, Parenting, and Marriage - Part 2
Series 5th Cmd, Parenting, & Marriage
| Sermon ID | 2102013272694 |
| Duration | 1:02:58 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Bible Text | Ephesians 5:21 |
| Language | English |
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