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.