Well, we've taken quite a break on the book of Ephesians, but in chapter six, and I'll be trading around with Pastor Darrell every once in a while. So I'm trading today. We had planned to be gone, but due to COVID, we're now gone. And so he and I will trade a few around this summer. And I may not be here for Father's Day. So this is a Father's Day message. So I thought, well, I'll start in Ephesians here. Here's Father's Day. in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, last chapter in the book of Ephesians. The introduction to the letter is found in verses 1 through 2 in chapter 1, and the conclusion in chapter 6, verses 10 through 24. That's a long conclusion. The two major sections in between are 1, 3 through 21, as I give those. The first major section talks about the wonderful work of salvation, and the second major section about the worthy walk of the saved. That's where we're at in these messages. This is found in chapter 4, verse 1 through 6, verse 9. And here we are instructed in everyday Christian living. We are to walk worthy of our calling. Here's our walk. Here's our calling. Saint. Christian. Saint. And this is supposed to be balanced. Walk worthy of these. That is a high call. So our calling is that of the saints of God, and we should walk worthy of being called saints. Then in 417 through 32, we are not to walk like the unsaved. You know, that should affect our dress and everything, not to walk like the unsaved. I think sometimes we've given in too much on dressing like the world dresses. In 5.1-14 we are to walk in love, and Paul spelled that out, he spelled out what it meant, and then last in 5.15-6.9, in this last section, the Christian is to walk circumspectly. Our passage is found in that section. In general, that means we are not to walk as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. To this day, we see this all around us. The Christian, now I read the Martyn Lloyd-Jones and he talks about how bad it was in his day and how could it get any worse. Well, he hadn't lived where we live and we haven't lived where our children will live if the Lord tarries. We need to prepare them. So the Christian is to know the will of the Lord, what the will of the Lord is for his or her life. The Christian is not to be drunk with wine but to be filled with God's Holy Spirit. If one is filled with God's Holy Spirit, one will have a godly walk. Specifically, walking circumspectly is especially crucial in the home and at work. The home life is dealt with in 522 through 6-4. It deals first with husband and wife relationship, and we have looked at that in 522 through 33. That brings us to chapter 6, and we had verses 1 through 4 read for us earlier. So in the circumspect walk, we have this teaching now on family-related matters. I ask you, is this important? The first point then relates to children. We have this command, chapter 6, verse 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Here we have a direct command to children, and it is that they are to obey their parents in the Lord. Now I want you to notice that it is children with Christian parents that are addressed here. We're talking about those who are under the care and government of their parents. Doesn't matter how old you are, 18 or 20, you're under the care and government of your parents. You need to live in obedience to your parents. Notice in verse four that these are the children that are still being trained up. There are those who teach That you should always obey your parents regardless of whether you are married and on your own or not. Bill Gothard and some of these have made huge requirements in such areas. Verse 4 does not allow that interpretation here. I believe no parent should ever try to have such a sway over their children. It should be the aim of the parent to have their children so trained that by the time they reach adulthood, they are capable of handling life. Amen? It's a huge thing. Parents should teach them right and then allow them the freedom to spread their wings and live as they deem best. That does not mean you cannot give advice, but you do not control their life. Now, the word to obey in our text is a word I've often mentioned, hupo kuu. It comes from the word meaning to hear, with the preposition under, to hear under. You know what it's like when you hear over? So what means to hear under? It is a submissive hearing, a hearing that does what is instructed. It is not a hearing that obeys on the outside, but is rebellious on the inside. Note in this text that children have a free will, and they are to exercise it by being obedient to their parents. Can a child choose? Can a child choose? Yes. From very young? Yes, from very young. And children are to choose to obey their parents. At a very young age, they choose by nature. At a very young age, a sin nature manifests itself in children. And it does that in that which they choose. Obedience to parents is one of the first important areas where children should learn to live right. The well-being of the family depends on obedient children. The well-being of the church depends on it. Yes, the well-being of a nation depends on it. The home is the first institution God established, and it is a most important institution. The pastor in Calgary challenged Jason Kenney, who cares more for the people under my care, me or you? Who cares more for their children, the government or the parents? The government has no idea, unless they too have children. Now note that children are to obey their parents in the Lord. How do you obey in the Lord? Are they to obey insofar as their instruction is in the Lord? That is, if the parents require that which is not biblical, then they are not to obey? Or does it mean they are to obey because the Lord commands them to obey? If one takes the first view, then if a parent requires something that is not biblical, the child ought not to obey it. Then they only obey if it is in the Lord. So we might say they are to be obedient insofar as what the parents instruct them in is right. That is, if they are given instruction that is not biblical, then obedience is not required. or the meaning is that they are to obey because it is a command of the Lord. The Lord says you are to obey, so obey. So, well, there may be truth in both of those, but in the context, the parents of the children instructed here are Christian parents, and I tend to think they are to learn to obey their parents because this is a divine principle. Here we have the first and most important institution given by God to mankind as relates to human relationships. And the first and most important principle children can learn is obedience to their parents. Learning this will have a good impact on the rest of the life of the child, correct? That's huge. You see, it says they are to obey their parents in the Lord because this is right. This is the beginning of righteousness in their lives. Disobedience is unrighteousness. Here a child learns the very first principle of living right. You see, God's commands are for our good and they are for His glory. When we do that which is right, we are doing that for which God made us. And in learning obedience, children take their first step in learning and living right. To learn to obey is one of the most important things a child can learn. It will affect the rest of their life. Now I recommend. that the parents have a very important part in the lives of their children in teaching them how to be obedient. So a word to parents is in order. One of the most crucial things ever undertaken by anyone is parenting. When anyone undertakes parenting into the hands of parents is committed the task of determining the eternal destiny of every child they bring into the world. In seeking to determine that, I should say, I used to hear that the communists said years ago, give us a child for the first five years and you can have him. There's the importance they saw in these early years. By the way, those first five years are just extremely important. In this verse, we are dealing with Christian parents. Unsaved parents can direct their children as to their physical well-being. Go to our grads and you will hear what our schools and parents pump into their children. They will teach the child, no, unsaved parents will, if they're concerned, they will teach their child not to play on the highway, not to climb onto high places that are not safe and all such things. You do not have to be saved to guide children as to their physical well-being. You do not have to be saved to seek to give your children a good education so that they may prosper in life. but a godly Christian parent is better able to guide a child in their physical well-being than any unsaved parent can because godliness added to other parts of life will have a great impact on how they handle things in all other areas of life. But parents who are not Christians cannot guide their children right in their spiritual lives. It's not possible. If one is unsaved and one wants to raise children that live a moral and godly life, do you know how many people there are like that? Well, it used to be. I'm not sure how it is today. They wanted their children to live right, but they didn't live right themselves. If one expects obedience to principles that are moral and godly, one most likely will raise a rebel when you don't live it yourself. By the way, that happens in many Christian homes. Christian parents who live in things that are not right but expect their children to live right will most likely raise a rebel. Children have very little respect for a parent who expects one thing from them when they are by themselves and live another standard elsewhere. Years ago, I was working with a logging crew. We went to work and back in a crew cab, and one of the men in the crew was not a Christian, and he and I were discussing such things, and he said something like this, listen, I teach my children to make up their own mind. as to what is right. I don't keep them from Christianity. They can choose for themselves. I said, when your children learn to walk, did they ever try to put your shoes on and make their little feet try to do what your big feet do? Oh, yeah, yeah, seen this. And I said, well, did you teach them to walk in your shoes? No, no, you haven't taught them. They had learned it from him without him trying to teach them. Somewhere I've heard this saying, more is caught than taught. Do you get it? More is caught than taught. A parent might not verbally teach their children things that are not right, but when the child sees them live wrong, they catch it. Our verse says, children, obey your parents. Children should be safely able to do what their parents teach them, whether verbally or by how they live. How a parent lives is as important, if not more important, excuse me, than what they teach verbally. If dad does not steal, from that children will learn not to steal. If dad pulls shady deals, from that children will learn to pull shady deals. Now parents, what is your responsibility in teaching your children to obey? Largely children obey or disobey by the way they are taught. Obedience must be taught. We will see this when we deal with a verse on fathers. Parents should teach their children to obey. Let me ask you, parents of children, how many times do you have to tell your child to do something before they do it? Do they know that when your voice reaches a certain decibel, now obedience better happen? If so, You are teaching them to disobey. You are teaching them that you can disobey until I get so or so loud. You have taught disobedience. Someday that may cost your child their life. I found in our home we would slowly let things go And then all of a sudden, we realized what was happening, and we turned things around. I started to discipline. And then slowly, the same cycle would start again. I ask parents, do you teach your children obedience? Or do you teach disobedience? Do you say no, but it doesn't really mean no? Do you give instruction, but you don't really expect it to happen? You say, but it is a lot of work to teach obedience. I believe it takes more work not to teach it than to teach it. In the early years, one of the most important things parents can do is teach their children to obey. And if you do not, chances are very high that you will pay for it later on. Our text says, children, obey your parents. Moms, do you expect obedience? Or do you get worn down and finally you just shrug and say, oh, well, I'm just too tired to carry this thing through? Well, you don't really say it, but you think, right? Moms, do you side with your child when dad will punish for disobedience? It is most likely that you will pay for this. Dads, do you expect your wife to do the disciplining? Can your wife say, Johnny or Sarah, when Dad comes home, I will inform Dad about this? And when you come home, your child knows you will deal with it. Is that the way it is? If you do not discipline when it falls to dad to do so, you will likely pay for this later as well. Let me insert a note here. I read the other day on church discipline by David Cloud. Since we're on the subject of discipline, discipline has pretty well left the church. And it has a very bad impact on the church and on families. He quotes Albert Mahler in his book, The Compromised Church, and he writes this, the decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the modern church, contemporary church. No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other. The present generation of both ministers and church members is virtually without experience of biblical discipline. Most churches haven't seen it. Who's afraid to do wrong in the church? Then he says, by the 1960s, only a minority of churches even pretended to practice regulative church discipline. Consumed with pragmatic methods of church growth and congregational engineering, most churches leave moral matters to the domain of the individual conscience. We won't talk about that. We're on the subject of discipline here. When correction by discipline fails, it has consequences in the home and in the church, and we are reaping those today. Now, just a few aside things for parents. Teach your children to respect age. We worked with youth for a long time. We'd go to someone else's house, and then we met for devotions, and the youth would sometimes just scramble for the best seats. And we would ask them to give those to the youth leaders or parents of the homes. Then I would highly recommend, teach them not to address older people by their first name. When you do that, you fail to teach respect for age. You have lifted the child from here to here. It will do something. It is not a new teach them respect where respect is due. It is not a new thing for children to think they know better than their parents. We all had our hand in that, didn't we? Somewhere down the line. Or than other older people or those who are in position of authority. You cannot put an experienced mind on a child. Can't do it. As a child, It is not possible to have the experience of the parent or other older people. It's not possible. I agree. Not all parents are always right. But all parents, by nature of having children, exceed the experience of the child. And experience has taught them many things. Wise parents teach their children to respect age and authority. Let me mention one other very important thing for parents. Teach your children to respect the property of others. When you go visit somewhere, teach your children to respect the property of others. Don't let them go into every room and check whatever they want to check. Make sure they take care of the toys that belong to others. Respect for property is a very important thing for children to learn, and when you hire someone when you grow up, that's the kind of child you want to hire. If you teach children to obey in these areas when they are small, then you can watch them when they grow older to see how well they obey what you have taught. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord, but I believe parents ought to teach them how to obey. Learning to do right in this most crucial area of obedience will pay off in so many other areas of life. It will pay off throughout life. Disobedience can be very, very costly. Verse two. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. The most well-known commandments in the world are the Ten Commandments. The first four relate to man's relationship to God, and the last six to man's relationship to man. The first commandment that relates to man is what Paul gives in verse 2. It comes from Exodus 20, verse 12. And this commandment says, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Paul gives support to his command for children to obey their parents from the Ten Commandments. Here's the key way for children to honor their parents. It is to obey them. Now the New Testament word for honor is temao. We get our name Timothy from this word. It means, anybody remember? Temao, to value. to value. Children are instructed to value their parents. The context of children honouring parents in our text is that of children while they are still under the care of their parents. When children obey their parents, they honor them, they value them by obedience. Disobedience to parents is dishonoring the parent. But the command to honor one's parents goes beyond children. I believe this command to honor one's parents hold true for life. In Judaism, this command to honor one's parents lasted until the parents passed away. It meant that when the parents got old and needed to be cared for, the children had that responsibility. They did not have seniors' homes. This command to honor one's parents put the onus on children to look after them when they were old. If the parents did not have enough money, the children paid for their care in their old age, providing food and clothing and whatever else they needed. About a year ago, the Canadian Armed Forces were sent to check out some of the seniors' homes in Ontario's worst-hit homes with COVID, by the way. Seniors' homes should have been checked many, many years ago already. How the government let that go, I don't know. But listen to what the Army found. cockroach and bug infestations, seniors calling out repeatedly for help, rotting food, COVID-19 infected patients put in the same rooms with those who are healthy, missed meals, seniors left in soiled diapers and linens. These are just some of the things Canadian Armed Forces personnel have seen while helping in five long-term care homes in Ontario." and there are horrifying stories. Now, what does that tell you about the children of these seniors? For the sake of time, I will leave out reading Matthew 15, 1 through 6, but there you can read how the Jews found ways around honoring their parents in old age. In that passage, Jesus teaches that the command to honor parents includes taking care of them in their old age. But the Jews to get around this command could say their money or their substance was dedicated to God, and then it could not be used for their parents. I thought they got around stuff. And thus they violated the command to honor their parents. So when the aged parents were in need, they were told, I'm sorry, I can't help you. My money is dedicated to the Lord. Though this is not the subject in context, it raises the question of how to honor one's parents when they are unbelievers or maybe ungodly. Or how to honor parents when they try to run the lives of their children after they are grown and left home. Such things put children under huge stress in many cases. In most cases, children slowly progress to where they become grown up, and then they move out, and then they are on their own. As long as they are under their parents' roof, they need to respect and follow the guidelines of the parents. But when children are entirely on their own, or they are married and have their own family, parents need to respect their right to run their own families. How is honoring father and mother to be practiced when parents disrespect this right? I'm not experienced enough to know the answers and the cases are so varied that it may be hard to answer in many of these situations. But here I have a word for parents. From my own perspective, let me make this point from the command that wives are to be submissive to their own husbands. The Bible never says husbands keep your wives submissive. That command to be submissive is given to the woman. She is to submit herself. If she does not submit, she is in a disobedience to God Almighty, and she will be judged for it. Now that is in general. Here too, situations vary so much it would be impossible to address them all. There are men who demand things where a woman is put under great stress to know how to submit to such a man. Am I right? But here's the point I'm stressing. The husband is not instructed to make his wife submissive. He should not hold the Bible over her head and say, it says here, to submit. In the same way, when it says children are to honor their parents, it is not a command to the parents to make their child honor them. The children must decide what they should do, and if they go wrong, they must give account for it. And let me add here that just as many a wife is put under great stress because she is commanded to be submissive, and the husband's demands are beyond what they should be, just so many a parent has put his children under great stress because the children are to honor their parents, and it is very hard to honor what the parents do. even professing Christian parents. A word to dads. Children want their dads to be proud of them and to respect them for who they are. How many a son has not wished to hear his dad say, well done, son? So dad, don't overdo praise, but be honest. When you see something praiseworthy, say it. Now for a wife who is to be submissive, many times the husband lives in direct violation to the command that says, husbands, love your wives. Did you know the Bible never says women should love their husband, agape love? Never says that. The husband is to love his wife. When a husband truly loves his wife in general, the wife will have little difficulty being submissive. There are, of course, always exceptions. The wife who has difficulty being submissive to a loving husband is in the wrong. She's living sinfully. That's wrong. I have observed some parents who have disrespected their grown children and then try through things like difficult circumstances in life to manipulate their children to honor them. In my view, this is one of the biggest family crimes a parent can commit. Parents then who deal in anger with their children or they manage and manipulate their children to achieve their goals cause great stress on the children. I have seen Christian parents commit horrible things to their children and very few know what is really happening. A while ago I spoke of the revived life. It is a life lived in a glass house. As Nancy Lee DeMoss puts it, the walls are down and the roof is off, and others are allowed to look inside. Their life is open, but many people live with the walls up and the roof on. I recommend many families are like that, Christian families. Nobody in the community really knows what it is like at home. The home life is not an open, honest place. In how many a home is dad an angry man at home, but on Sunday all are dressed nice and it all looks fine? You know what dads like that do? They're training up rebels. But before they got on the road, there was plenty of anger. Looked good on Sunday morning in church. And oh, the stress those children are put under when such commands as honoring one's parents are brought up. I have seen a woman's face look like she had been struck with an arrow when the subject of submission came up. How many a godly mother, woman, has suffered under the abuse of that command? So it is with honoring parents. Here's my advice to parents. Live a life worthy of honor. You profess to be a Christian, live it. Train your children upright and don't hold the command to be honored over their heads. If you have to do that, you are a problem. You are a problem. Well, that went a little beyond what Paul had in mind in the verse, but it didn't go beyond the command to honour one's parents and what that means. Let's look at the rest of verse 2 now. Honour your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. Now note that Paul says this is the first commandment with promise. How so? Well, of the 10 commandments, this is not only the first. It's the only one that has a promise attached to it. Verse 3 says, here's the promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. So first it says that it may be well with you. Notice the words may be. This is called a subjunctive verb. It does not say if you honor your father and mother, it will be well with you. It does not say that at all. It says it may be. By the way, if you honor your father and mother, your chances just go up a long way for living a long life. It says that it may be well with you. Consider any child now that does not learn obedience. How much more likely is it that such a child will fall into something that will cause things to no longer be well with them? The chances of that go up considerably. So here's the clear implication. If you do not learn to obey father and mother, it may not be well with you. I know some people I've heard of others, very ungodly people, they live to be 90 or 100 years old. There's not a promise here of that respect. Here, illustrations of things not going well if you disobey your parents would just abound. How many a parent has paid a very dear price for allowing disobedience in the child? Here's a word to parents. Now, there's a second part to this promise, and that is, and that you may live long on the earth. First, a disobedient child raises the risks of falling into the disaster that the parents see for them when they instruct them in the first place. There are two major problems parents want to fall into. One is being overlaid disciplinarian. That happened in the past much more than today. The other is a lack of discipline, and that is rampant today. Let me raise now another problem that develops when parents raise disobedient children. It affects the church and the nation. And the long range, by the way, we're governed by people who may well not have learned much at home. It affects the church and the nation, and the long-range cost for the country that has undisciplined children is that in the long run it won't be well with that country either. It begins to affect every area of life. Consider now that the Lord Jesus Christ, though he was creator of heaven and earth, became human. Turn to Luke chapter 2. When Jesus was 12 years old, he found himself engrossed in spiritual teaching. His parents left Jerusalem after a visit during the Passover season, and as was the custom, a number of families that were from the Galilee area set out to return. And we begin in verse 41. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. When they had finished the days as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. Now, so it was that after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. Just think of this. Think of this young lad. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. And he said to them, Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. Now this is a most amazing account. I wonder sometimes, when did Jesus begin to understand who he was? Did he know it all along? What was he like with his half-brothers and sisters? But here at 12 years of age, the Spirit of God is at work in his life. Now look at verse 51. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. For all the children, consider this now. When Jesus was your age, he was subject. He obeyed his father and mother. Now turn to Hebrews chapter five. And we'll begin in verse 5. So also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest, but it was he who said to him, you are my son, today I have begotten you. As he also says in another place, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear. Though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. It speaks here, no doubt, of his human nature. And in his humanity, he learned obedience. We are to be conformed to Christ. Here, children can learn to be conformed to Christ by being obedient. Parents, teach your children to obey. Children, learn to obey your parents. It will affect your life for good as long as you live. That brings us now to verse four. One verse for fathers. It says, and you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Interesting, is it not that it says, children, honor your fathers and mothers, and then it leaves out mothers and says, and you fathers. When it comes to father-child relationship, there is a dad problem that Paul feels he must address. Now the word provoke in our text does not occur here. Translated literally, I think it could well be translated, and you fathers don't anger your children. A father who angers his children will be hard to honor, if it is possible. It causes great stress for the children to be put under the burden of honoring fathers who anger their children, or those who deal with them in anger. I might say further that it is a major problem for dads to become angry with their children. That is why Paul addresses this and why he says, stop doing it. A father may anger his children with anger. This is a major problem in many, many homes. From what I have seen of life, true honor is won, not bought, not finagled, not coerced. And from my life's experience, I would say that the dad who seeks to be honored, a dad who seeks to be honored will have a son or a daughter who are hard to honor. If instead a father will seek in all honesty to please God, if he will seek first the Kingdom of God and the welfare of his children, he will, I think generally, you would have to have a very bad rascal that he would not be honored. So what we have seen is the one negative. True honor will come if a father obeys two positives of this message. The word but ties the negative and the positive together with a contrasting conjunction. It goes like this. And you fathers, stop angering your children. By the way, it's a stop doing it. It takes for granted it's already happening. But train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Consider then the word translated to train. Our word to bring up children give the idea of this word here. We used to teach a course called Growing Kids God's Way. Didn't really like the word kids in the title, but Growing Children God's Way is the idea of our passage. Now there are two very key things in this. The text says bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. For the word training, the King James Version says nurture. This word is generally used for discipline. In 2 Timothy 3.16, it is translated instruction. It says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction. That's the word in righteousness. The word translated instruction is our word in this text. or in this text, in the word instruction, is the idea of practical training. But practical training has other applications. For example, if you will teach them to build something, you will have to instruct them here and there. Sometimes you have to show them, and then they have to learn by doing it themselves. It is a lot of work to train. Is that right, mothers? A lot of work to train, dads to train. It's just a lot of times so much easier to go do it yourself. It takes a lot of work. But remember this, not training will end up being a lot of work, too. And it won't be as fulfilling. So first then is practical training, whether by discipline or practically helping them learn to do something. So here involved in this is chastening. Here's a word to dads. Be very careful how you let anger get involved in disciplining. Discipline before you get angry. I know it's a big command. But do it. This is a place many dads fail. It is amazing what a well-applied spanking will do. I watch a younger parent sometimes and I say to myself, you just don't seem to understand. You would remove that bug from your child if you would just spank them. But now it just stays there. With regard to instruction, give clear instructions. The second word is admonition. Children are to be brought up in practical ways, but they are to be by the way of admonition. Here, in this word, we have the word nuthasia. This comes from the word nous, as Pastor Darrell, I think, mentioned some time ago, the storage part of the mind, and the word tithimi, to set. So here's what you do. You set in place in their mind certain things. and it means to teach them. We find this word in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 11. Let me read it for you. Now, all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. The things that happened in the wilderness wanderings of Israel are written down for our learning or for our instruction. They are meant to be placed in our minds so that we will not fall into the same things that they fell into. Many of you read through the Bible and then start over again. This is one of the best habits you can get into. So when you are training children, you might show them how to do something, and then you say, follow these instructions now. And then you give them three steps or whatever it is they need to do to do it themselves. So in this verse, we have the book learning and the practical. Here we have two key areas in child training. Both of these are set over against angering your child. Both of these are very crucial areas. A father who will be honored will want to be diligent in practical training and verbal instruction. Well, that's a lot of instruction for one message. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Parents, in my view, two big things you can teach your children when they are little that will help them to learn to obey is to teach them, number one, not to whine. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. No, if you don't do this, you will be helping them to disobey. Then do not let them get away with a tantrum. I've told you the story about this boy who one of my Bible school teachers told me about it. He threw a tantrum and he went on the floor and he kept hitting his head on the floor. And the dad said, well, I see you need a little help here. Then later on along came a younger brother, and he threw a tantrum, and he started banging his head on the floor, and the older brother said, it won't work. The next instruction is to children as well. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Oh, how costly can disobedience and dishonoring be? Children, you will hardly honor your parents more than by obeying them. Is that right, parents? But this command goes beyond children, and that isn't necessarily Paul's intent. But let me tell you a little story here. I have a daughter. I won't tell you which one, but she plays piano. Years ago, a church in town had a praise and worship time. You know, they'd have this time they'd dim down the lights and bodies were swaying in praise and worship. And they wanted my daughter to play the piano for them. And we didn't approve of this praise and worship hour. And then she grew up and left home and they said, ah, Now she's out from under her dad's thumb. Now she'll come play for us. So they asked her. And she said, that wouldn't honor my parents. From our perspective, she could have done it. She left home. It was free to do. We would have never said anything. Children, you will hardly honor your parents more than by obeying them. And this was a bonus. We didn't expect it. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath. Such huge instruction in a few verses And if you want a godly home, let me tell you parents something. When you get to where you are my age now, your life is largely in your children. And if you want a good old age, moms, don't get too tired. Do it. Dads, When you know you need to be done, do it. Somewhere down the line, it will all be worth it.