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Today we are going to have a little heart-to-heart talk

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regarding the Fifth Commandment.

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And I am sure that if ever you went to Sunday school in your life,

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you know what the Fifth Commandment is.

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I shall wait just a second while you get out your Bibles.

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Read the Scripture with me.

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That's Exodus, the 20th chapter.

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And the Fifth Commandment is found in that 12th verse.

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Honor thy father and thy mother,

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that in thy days may belong upon the land

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which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

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Now if you've been following me in these little heart-to-heart talks

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regarding the Ten Commandments,

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you will know that God gave us these ten rules to live by.

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The first four of these ten rules deal with our relationship to Him,

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man's relationship with his God.

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The last five deal with our relationship with other people,

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our relationship with our fellow man.

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Somebody says, all right, Miss Coon, that only makes nine.

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I know.

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And I'm going to show you that this commandment,

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the Fifth Commandment, is one of the most important,

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if we can say that one commandment is more important than the other.

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Or in other words, I might say this Fifth Commandment bridges the gap

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between the Fourth Commandment and the remaining five.

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The fifth rule has been called the centerpiece of God's law.

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Honor thy father and thy mother involves both our relationship with God

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and with our fellow men.

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When God made man, he also set up the pattern by which men must live together.

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First, a man and a woman come together in marriage.

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Out of the union come children.

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The parents provide love and care and control for the child

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and in reality see something.

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The parent is to the child its first God.

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And as the child learns to love and respect its parents,

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so later does it love and respect God.

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Oh, before I finish our little heart to heart talk regarding this Fifth Commandment,

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you will see how important it is to be a parent, a good parent.

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You who are parents listening to me just now, a mother, a father,

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I dare say that you have never really fully realized

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the responsibility that is yours as a parent.

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I mean that.

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Great is your responsibility.

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Before you take on this responsibility,

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be sure that you can offer your child everything

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that God expects you to give that child as a parent.

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You have no right to parenthood if you cannot provide for that child.

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God expects you as a parent to love that child, to be the lawgiver,

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to be the provider for that child.

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That's the reason God says in the Word,

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any father who does not provide for his own, any father who does not provide

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for his offspring, for his child is worse than an infidel.

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That's right.

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There's a tremendous responsibility that goes with parenthood.

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That's the reason this fifth commandment is profound.

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This commandment is most closely linked in thought and intention

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to those that have preceded it, the four commandments that

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have preceded this fifth.

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For here in this fifth commandment,

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the parent is viewed as being in the place of God to the child.

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The first contact that a baby has with human life,

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with the outside world, with humanity, is with its mother and its father.

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That's the first contact.

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When that little baby makes his first cry,

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remember, its first contact with humanity is with its mother

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and then with its father.

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That little baby has no conception whatsoever of God,

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a deity, of divinity.

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When they become, oh, maybe four, five, six years of age,

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they begin to ask questions regarding God about heaven,

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questions regarding creation.

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But their little minds have no conception whatsoever

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of the bigness of God.

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You could talk to a little child about God,

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but when it comes to the spiritual things,

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God as the mighty creator.

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When you talk to them about Jesus Christ,

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the son of a living God, deity and divinity,

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the little mind has not developed to the place

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where it can comprehend the spiritual.

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Therefore, until that child reaches the place of adulthood

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or reaches the place where they have

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come to the age of accountability,

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the parent is that child's God.

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That's why here in this Fifth Commandment,

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we see that the parent is viewed as being in the place of God

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to that child.

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Now, that throws a great responsibility on any parent.

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In the early days of human life, while as yet the mind

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is unable to grasp the most elementary ideas of God,

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the supreme facts concerning him are

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to be impressed upon the child by the revelation of them

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in its parents.

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And then in the procession of human life, the child

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owes its being to its parents.

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And one of the most evident and most remarkable facts

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of human nature is the attitude of the opening mind,

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the affection of the little one toward them,

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an attitude absolutely differing from that entertained

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toward any other parent.

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An attitude absolutely differing from that entertained

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toward any other person.

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In other words, it's this simple.

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What God is to the adult, parents are to the child.

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The lover, the provider, the controller, and that's exactly

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what the heavenly father is to the adult when that one has

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accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

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I am an adult.

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God is more to me than just the Creator.

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He is my heavenly Father.

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And as my heavenly Father, He is my lawgiver.

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He is the controller of my life.

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I am surrounded by His love.

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I can depend on His love.

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I have confidence in His love for me.

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I depend on His every provision.

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And so it is with a child before that child has reached

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the age of accountability.

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The parent is to be all these things to that child.

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And when a parent has been a good parent and has been all

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of these things to that child, it is easy for that child then

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to make that transition from being an adolescent to go into

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that of being an adult.

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And the easiest thing in the world then is for that child to

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accept God, not merely as a creator, but as a heavenly

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Father.

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And we'll just automatically accept Him as the lawgiver, as

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the controller of their lives.

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They can understand the love of Jesus, the love of a heavenly

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Father is very easy to understand.

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And the transition is easy when they have received all of that

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in their own home.

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Sure.

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Upon the child's response to the first facts and relationship

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will depend its response to the higher facts to be revealed in

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the process of the years.

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And happy are those children who pass by a natural and

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beautiful sequence from the honoring of their parents to

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the hallowing of the name of their God.

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And happy are those parents who so hallow the name of their

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God that it becomes easy for the children entrusted to

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their care to honor them.

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It's like that.

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Oh, that fifth commandment has deep and

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wonderful significance.

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Again, I repeat, in this fifth commandment, the parent is

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viewed as being in the place of God to the child.

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I'll never forget it, never.

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Little Audrey Dolan.

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I'll never so long as I live.

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And it did something to me.

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It put me on my guard, believe me, because I know just how

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human I really am.

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And little Audrey Dolan, oh, I don't suppose she was more

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than seven years of age when her father and mother accepted

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Christ as their savior, their beautiful conversion.

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Audrey was their only child.

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Audrey had really never known what it meant to have a home

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life, a daddy who didn't come home without being drunk, a

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mother who was there.

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No.

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For both Red and Ann Dolan lived their own lives.

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And Grandma, of course, kind of took care of Audrey.

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And then Red and Ann Dolan accepted the

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Christ as their savior.

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And for the first time, little Audrey had a Christian dad, a

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Christian mother, a beautiful home life.

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And she knew that it was Jesus who had done all of this, who

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had made the great change in the life of her parents.

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Little Audrey could never come into my presence, but she

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started to bawl.

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I mean that.

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Those great big beautiful eyes would fill up with tears.

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And Audrey knew I'd loved her, and I knew

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she wasn't afraid of me.

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I knew it was in fear.

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But no matter where I was, little Audrey, when she would

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see me, would begin to cry.

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I'd put my arms around her, and when I would do so, she'd

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even weep hard.

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One day I said to Ann, Ann, tell me something.

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Why is it that Audrey always cries when she comes into my

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presence, when she sees me?

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She said, Pastor, I'll tell you.

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Jesus has done so much for Audrey's dad and for me.

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And she loves Jesus with all of her heart, but she's never

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seen him.

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And you represent Jesus to her.

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She can't see Jesus, but she can see you.

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And she said in her childish way, it's sort of as though

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she's seeing Jesus when she comes into your presence.

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And her heart that's filled with love for him just

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overflows in great big tears, and she begins to cry.

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That put me on my honor, believe me.

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There's never a day of my life that I don't think of that.

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And years have passed since then.

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Audrey has gone to college.

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She's a big girl now.

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She's an adult now, but believe me, those words are

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still holding me.

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Parents, you have a responsibility that God has

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given you that you can't get away from.

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You are to represent him to that child of yours.

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Know that.

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Know that.

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My friend, believe me.

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You have an influence over that child.

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They have no conception of what God is like.

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They have no conception of spiritual things.

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But you as a mother, you are their first introduction to

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God.

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You are their first contact with the spiritual things.

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Dad, you are that child's first contact that they have with

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God.

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You introduce them to the spiritual things of their life.

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That's right.

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How about your own life?

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Are you setting an example?

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Once a mother took her little boy to the zoo.

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And he was asking a thousand questions about the animals in

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that zoo.

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Oh, he was just intrigued by all of them.

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And then he saw something in a cage he didn't quite

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understand.

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And he said, oh, mama, mama, what are those?

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What are those things?

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And the mother said, well, honey, they're little wild cats.

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Wild cats?

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Why are they wild cats?

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Well, the mother was stumped for just a minute.

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And then this was her answer.

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She says, you know, they're wild cats because their mamas

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and their papas were wild cats.

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Do you want to know why you have a little wild cat at your

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house stopping the ground?

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Maybe it's because a youngster has wild cats for parents.

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Many a youngster is a wild cat because its mother is a wild

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cat.

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Oh, sure.

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We have the problem of delinquency, juvenile

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delinquency in our nation.

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But sometimes I think it's not the kids that are the wild cats

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as much as the parents.

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When we take care of our adult delinquency, we'll not have

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the problem of juvenile delinquents.

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Do you know why?

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Because it's the most natural thing in the world for a child

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to pattern its life after the life of its parent.

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It's like this.

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Oh, my goodness, life.

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I look up here at the clock.

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Time has gone so quickly.

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And I've only started this little heart to heart talk

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about a commandment that is one of the greatest of the 10.

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It's one of the greatest of God's 10 rules for living.

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This fifth commandment, the commandment

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that links the first four of the 10 commandments

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with the remaining sign.

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In our next little heart to heart talk,

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we're going to take up that word honor.

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What does it mean to honor thy father and thy mother?

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Father, I pray that you will have made the words real

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to hearts for Jesus' sake.

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Amen.