I hope you're right there listening to my last of the Heart to Heart talk with you regarding the fifth commandment.
In fact, I hope you've not missed a single one in a series of messages that I've been bringing to you on God's ten rules for living.
Because that's exactly what they are.
When God created man, when God made man in his own image and after his own likeness, when God put Adam and Eve here on this planet,
He gave them and all of those who were to follow ten rules for living.
Think what a mess the whole thing would have been if God had not laid down certain laws and certain rules.
Oh, as it is.
The whole thing is so complicated and we've gotten ourselves in such a mess.
God knew human nature from the very beginning and He knew that He'd have to lay down certain laws, make certain rules,
and that man would have to abide by those rules, live according to those laws, if he was going to live in harmony with God
and be able to live with other human beings.
That's why when we break any one of these ten rules that God has laid down, we suffer.
That's right.
That's why the world is in the mess that it is today.
We've tried to take into our own hands the running of our lives, of other people's lives, and of the world,
and we're trying to run these lives of ours and run the nations of the world contrary to God's ten rules for living.
And we've gotten ourselves in a jam.
You will remember a statement that I made over and over again when I brought you some prophetic messages.
I said at that time that God will never destroy man, never.
Don't ever have the idea that God is going to destroy man.
Man will destroy himself.
Man is destroying himself.
And many a man has destroyed and is destroying himself gradually, slowly, but surely by trying to live contrary to God's rules for living.
And in this generation, in this point in the century, we know all about life.
There was never a time when teenagers, youngsters, for their age, knew more about life than they know today.
Oh, they're smart little jiggers, let me tell you.
But there are few youngsters and very few adults who know how to live.
And what we need to do is to get back again to God's ten rules for living.
That's right.
Well, sir, I hope you have not missed any one of these heart-to-heart talks.
And I'll feel very sorry if I'm listening to someone who did not get the heart-to-heart talk in my first message regarding this, the fifth commandment,
because I feel that you will have missed everything that is so important to this commandment.
Let me read it to you.
It's the fifth and is found in the 20th chapter of Exodus, the 12th verse.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Now, here is a commandment with a promise.
If you keep this commandment, if you're obedient, if you're faithful in keeping it, God has given his promise.
He has made an agreement with you that he'll bless you.
Isn't that something?
You read these commandments when you realize that this is one commandment, that with it there comes a promise,
almost like an award that's given you for having kept this commandment.
Therefore, I feel that the Lord feels that this is a very sacred, in his sight.
This is not only a command.
It is something that's sacred to him.
That's something that's especially precious to him.
And with it, he gives an award by saying, If you'll honor your father, if you'll honor your mother,
thy days will be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
In other words, he will bless you.
He'll be with you.
He'll prosper you.
You know, it's too often taken for granted that this is a commandment addressed to just the children only.
But nothing can be further from the truth.
And those of you who heard my little heart-to-heart talk in a previous message regarding this fifth commandment
saw that with this commandment there is a responsibility on the part of the parent that is so tremendous that it's almost overwhelming.
What God is to the adult.
Parents are to the child.
Know that.
There is a link between God and the baby, the little child, the youngster before he has reached the age of accountability.
And that link is the parent.
That's right.
Here in this fifth commandment, the parent is viewed as being in the place of God to the child.
The youngster cannot understand God or spiritual things.
He asks 10,000 questions.
Why, Daddy?
Why, Mama?
Why?
Oh, sure.
That little brain is going 90 miles an hour and sometimes faster than that.
He's learning.
He's just beginning to comprehend.
Why?
And of all things that he cannot comprehend would be God, spiritual things.
There must be a link between that child and God.
And God has so ordained and in his great blueprint, he has made the parent the link between that youngster before he reaches the age of accountability,
before he can make his own decisions, before his little brain has completely unfolded to the thing spiritual.
That child cannot understand God.
He cannot become a Christian until he reaches the age of accountability, until he can make his own decisions.
Therefore, the parent is viewed here as being in the place of God to the child.
Isn't that a responsibility?
And during that time of training, during that all-important time, what God is to the parent, what God is to the adult,
the parents are to the child, the controller, the lawgiver, the lover, the one who provides.
Oh, right.
Therefore, we see that this commandment is not only addressed to just the children, the son, the daughter, but also to the parent.
Now, watch this.
Now we come to that word honor.
What is involved in that word honor?
The word honor has a much larger meaning than that of obedience.
Very often I think that many a parent has gotten the idea that this word honor has but one meaning, obedience.
Every parent should have the complete obedience of their youngster.
But this word honor has a far deeper meaning than just obedience.
I have seen some children who were obedient to their parent because they were scared stiff of them.
They were scared to death of their parents.
They were scared to death of what the result would be if they did not obey.
That's right.
Those same children had absolutely no honor, no respect for the parent.
It was fear.
Now, I have never been a mother.
I have never been a parent.
But I would feel as though I had been unsuccessful.
I would have been a failure as a mother if I had a child who only obeyed me because they were scared to death of me.
I mean that.
If that child had no respect for me, did not honor me, did not love me enough to obey me,
I would feel as though I had been a failure as a mother.
And yet I have never been a mother, but I know my own feeling when it came to Papa and Mama.
Do you want to know something?
Papa never laid a hand on me.
Oh, not because I didn't need it.
Mama made up for it.
But let's talk about Papa.
Papa never as much as slapped me.
He never touched me as a rebuke.
I cannot ever remember Papa ever rebuking me.
He didn't have to.
I had such respect for Papa.
I had such high regard for him.
I had almost as a reverence for him that I didn't want to disobey him.
Believe me, I would just look at his face.
He didn't have to say anything.
If that look was on his face that I learned to know so well, I knew that he was displeased,
and I would not have displeased him for anything in the world.
In other words, it isn't a matter of how much you beat your youngster.
You can whip the daylights out of that youngster, and yet, my friend,
believe in confide the word of God.
That's right.
And as a youngster, you may be absolutely obedient to the last word to your parent,
and yet be breaking this commandment.
It's something that's thought deeper than that.
The word honor has a much larger meaning than just that of obedience.
Now, the thought of obedience is necessarily included.
In the process of the years, however, all human beings,
for the development of their own possibilities, come to the place of personal responsibility
where they have to choose for themselves in the great crisis and the minor matters of life.
A boy will never be a man if he always must obey his parents.
Nothing is more disgusting than an adult, a man, still being a little boy in the presence of his mother.
There's nothing more disgusting than a full grown man who is still a mama's boy.
Nothing more disgusting except a mother who never acknowledges that her son has become an adult
and still has him tied to her apron strings.
It's like that.
A boy will never be a man if he always must obey his parents.
The training of the years of obedience will affect all the choice of subsequent years,
but beyond the period of control, there must come that of individual responsibility.
It is at once evident that this command includes the whole life of a child,
for all men and women are still the children of their parents.
I don't care how old you may be this hour.
You may be 40, you may be 50, you may be 60,
but God still demands that you honor, that you respect your parents.
And even though the days have passed when it is necessary or right that they should obey,
the days are never passed when it is necessary and right that they should honor their parents.
The command then has a two-fold application.
First, to the period of childhood.
Secondly, to the period of adult life.
The meaning of the word honor is to attach weight to,
to put in the place of superiority, to hold in high opinion,
to reverence in the best sense of that word,
to the child who is not yet of age, to think, to plan, to will.
The honoring of parents consists in subjection,
in obedience that is gladly rendered because of the respect that that child has for the parent.
This, like every law of God, is for the child a gracious and yet an imperative requirement.
It is gracious in that it frees the child from responsibility and care
until character is formed and the mind is trained to the possibilities of correct judgment.
A little child has not matured to the place where it has judgment, where it can think for itself.
Oh, sure, every kid thinks that it has far better judgment than its parent,
that it is in a position to make far greater, better decisions.
No, uh-uh.
The parent has charge of that child, complete charge, until character is formed
and the mind is trained to the possibilities of correct judgment on the part of that child.
The divine thought for the child is ever that it should play.
The tides of young life are full of hope, movement, development,
and that these should not be hindered in their development.
God has said over the life those who are in the very nature of the relationship
that they bear to the child to give them the best thoughts,
to plan the best programs for them.
And the little one is free from these cares for which it is not prepared,
and they can grow and develop.
Honor, oh my friend, that wonderful honor.
Honor, which also includes obedience.
Obedience to father and mother is God's safeguard and law of development for child life.
That's right.
The moment comes when for the perfect development of character,
the child must act apart from control.
But to cease to honor your parent never comes in the life of any individual, never.
There's a great responsibility, parent.
Are you the kind of parent that your child can honor?
You can demand his obedience with a whip,
but no whip in the world will ever force that child to honor you.
To feel his little hand in mine, so clinging and so warm,
to know he thinks me strong enough to keep him from harm,
to see his simple faith in all that I can say or do,
it sort of shames a fella, but it makes him better too.
And I'm trying hard to be the man he fancies me to be,
because I have this little chap at home who thinks the world of me.
I would not disappoint his trust for anything on earth,
nor let him know how little I just naturally am worth.
But after all, it's easier, that brighter road to climb,
with the little hands behind me to push me all the time.
And I reckon I'm a better man than what I used to be,
because I have this precious little chap at home
who thinks the whole world of me.
Amen.