“How shall the young secure their hearts, -And guard their lives from sin? Thy word the choicest rules imparts-To keep the conscience clean.” That is the first stanza of a hymn written by Isaac Watts in 1719. Those words give inspiration to our message even today. What do you say you gather your youth around the TV to hear a Bible message for and about them.
Greetings to you, friend. Today we come to the fourth and the last in a series of messages about “The Christian Family.” They are being prepared so you may have them in this little booklet form absolutely free for the asking. If you’ll give us your request quickly, you will get yours in the mail very soon. We have more than fifty volunteers from the Edmond Church of Christ who will come and package them and get them ready for mailing as quickly as possible. My! Your response to this series has been great and we appreciate it!
Oh yes-- if you would like them on audio cassette tape or on a CD, they’re available that way, too. Our mailing address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or you may use our toll-free telephone number, 1-800-321-8633. Everything is free. And, we’re not going to add your name to a mailing list to send you a series of letters asking you for monetary gift. This ministry just doesn’t do that. It is a ministry of the Lord’s church and we treat it like it is. I know that is different from most religious programs. It isn’t a boast, friend; it’s a simple statement of truth. We’re sponsored here by some members and some churches of Christ in the area served by this station. We are grateful for them-- every one of them. They would like so much to have you pay them a visit sometime. We’d love that too. If you need help locating them, let us be that help, will you?
Well, we have noted earlier in this series about “The Christian Family” that God said one purpose He had for the marriage of a man and a woman and for their living together as a “family” was the birth and the rearing of children. We also quoted Dr. Albert Solnit of the Child Study Center at Yale University as having said, “People cherish the family and they cherish it because of their own experience even when their experience has been less than perfect.” Well, we would believe him because of our own experience, wouldn’t we? How many of us have-- perhaps in only the last few days-- been in a group of associates, when someone injected into the conversation something like, “When I was a kid, my mother often said.... or did;” or, “My dad”-- or-- “My parents always...” or perhaps they “never” did thus and so. Such memories of family life are dear to all adults, even if at times they were extremely disagreeable and unpleasant. Well, family: that’s our study. After the hymn, I’ll be back for Bible reading and prayer.
We are reading today from the book of Proverbs chapter 1, verses 7 through 9. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother; for they will be a graceful ornament on your head, and chains about your neck.” Now let’s go to God in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we are so thankful to You that we have a God who listens and grants our petitions in keeping with His will and His way for us that is the best way that we have ever found to live on this earth. We are thankful, Father, for Your divine, providential care and all that You do for us. Help us to search out Your ways and teach them to Your children. Bless this program to that end today. We pray You in Jesus’ name, Amen!
We hear so much about an increase in serious juvenile crime, teenage pregnancies and juvenile drinking and drug abuse and sexually transmitted diseases and all that-- as well as broken homes, latch-key children, abusive parents, absentee fathers and dysfunctional families that we might get the idea that, well, that’s the way it is most of the time and in the majority of families. Ah, maybe that isn’t the way it is. Did I hear someone say, “One thing’s certain-- behavior of children and our teenaged youth is certainly worse than when I was that age?” Probably so; I might have been heard saying that sometime myself. Yes, things are very different now than when I was growing up. It seems in virtually every morning and every evening news radio and television news report; there is something about some teenaged delinquency or crime, or something of that nature. But, one big, big difference between my youthful years and today is in communication. Radio and television and internet and cell-phones, and; well, they were all unknown to us. Oh yes, we had a radio. None of our neighbors had one yet. They finally did get some; but we got our first radio when I was about fifteen years old, and my dad said then “they’ll never perfect it.” So they wouldn’t be always on the market you know, if that had been true. So, we didn’t have access to news of an unmarried eleven-year-old girl giving birth to a baby in a London, England hospital-- or about two sixteen-year old boys robbing a Seven-Eleven store in Seattle or Boston or San Francisco.
In the opening sentence of what we know to be the sixth chapter of the biblical book called Ephesians, the Holy Spirit speaks to the children. “Children,” He says, “obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Oh! Then, there is such a thing as “right,” isn’t there? Hey! That’s good news in itself! And the opposite of “right” is “wrong,” isn’t it? And the Holy Spirit seems to have no fear of destroying the self-esteem of the youth by discussing this idea of “right” and “wrong” with them, does He? He doesn’t argue the point of right and wrong. He just offers no proofs for it at all; He just says simply “obey your parents in the Lord” because it’s the right thing to do. Why is it right for children to obey their parents?
Well, first of all, a child’s obedience to his parents is part of what the Holy Spirit calls “natural law,” written by God on the human heart. It just comes naturally (Romans chapter 2, verses 14-15). To be disobedient to one’s parents has generally been unacceptable behavior even in uncivilized societies. It was taught by pagan moralists among the Greeks and the Romans and even Confucius, too. It is part of what in medieval times came to be known as “natural justice.” It was universally held that a child’s disobedience to his parents was the kind of behavior that would be detestable even in an unbelieving society such as the Roman Empire (chapter 1, verse 30).
Second, “obey your parents” is God’s law. It was taught in the Jewish Scriptures in the Old Testament that “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear” (Deuteronomy chapter 21, verses 18 through 21).
It isn’t surprising then, that when the apostle Paul was describing the “perilous times” that lay ahead for the ungodly world or in the ungodly world, he said it would be a time when people would be “disobedient to parents” (2 Timothy 3 and 2). That is youth’s contribution to perilous living conditions, not only in the social order, but right at home-- within families. It’s worthy of mention, too, that when God says, “Children, obey your parents,” He isn’t writing to or about infants and toddlers, but to young people, youth old enough to choose whether they will do it or not.
Young people, the third lesson you ought to obey your parents, the third reason you ought to obey your parents in the Lord is because it’s your own advantage. It’s your contribution to the kind of family you would like. It’s your part of that “quietude, peace, harmony, affection, happiness of a well-ordered family. Trust is an essential to good family relations, and there is no better way for youth to earn the trust of parents than to be obedient children. People who are trusted have proved themselves to be trustworthy.
I was reading an advice column in the newspaper awhile back in which a sixteen-year-old girl wrote about having trouble with her parents. She said, “The major issue is freedom. They think I have too much; I don’t think I have enough.” Well, she didn’t seem to understand that the key to more freedom is obedience. When youth are obedient, parents are at ease with giving them more freedom.
The obedience required in Ephesians 6 and 1 is qualified, though. It is qualified by the prepositional phrase, “in the Lord.” “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Remember now that the letter was written to the church-- to the Christians at Ephesus. So we’re talking about Christian parents and Christian children. Therefore, “Children obey your parents in the Lord” simply means that children are to strictly obey their parents unless, of course, such obedience requires disobedience to God. Occasionally we hear in the news or read it in the newspaper that certain parents have been forcing their daughters into prostitution, or their sons into a life of dishonesty and deceit, peddling drugs or gambling or something else. But, those parents wouldn’t be Christian parents, would they now? No! Christian youth are not commanded to obey their parents to do evil-- ever.
Well, that brings us to another thought: “Honor your father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise.” Doubtlessly, this is a reference to the fifth commandment of the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments, written by the finger of God on two tables of stone at Mt. Sinai recorded in Exodus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter 5. If you don’t know the Ten Commandments, you will do yourself a favor to memorize them and have your children do the same. (1) You shall have no other gods before Me. (2)You shall not make for yourself a graved image. (3) You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain. (4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (5) Honor your father and mother. (6) You shall not murder. (7) You shall not commit adultery. (8) You shall not steal. (9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And (10) You shall not covet.
Well, they were written on two tables of stone. It’s sometimes said that the first four have to do with a person’s relationship with God and were written separately on one of the stones, and the other six govern our interpersonal relationships and they were written on the other stone. But the Jews believe that the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother,” was so very strong a principle influencing a person’s relationship with God so much that it was written on the first stone, too. They held that no person could be right with God who is not right with his fellowman. And I’m inclined to agree with that. We know that’s the Christian principle, so it would surely be true in parent-child relations, wouldn’t it? Does that mean when there are disagreements, parents are always right, and even if the parents are wrong, the children are to simply acquiesce? No, no, not at all, friend. But it does mean that even if they are in error, children are to show their parents honor and respect. Like most teenagers, I had some very strong disagreements and even some confrontations with my father. One of our bitterest and longest disputes was over my commitment of my life to God to “preach the word of God.” He was vehemently opposed to it and he just didn’t resist it; he fought it bitterly. But I never ceased to love him and respect him, and I revere his memory to this hour. I’m often asked if we ever made peace between us. Oh, yes, we did; yes we did.
But the verse says, “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.” Well, that probably means that it was the first commandment in the Decalogue in which a promise was specifically attached. It didn’t include any promises of the blessings derived from worshiping and serving God as the first four of the commandments had with them.
Well, what was the promise then? It was not necessarily the promise of longevity for those who kept it, but “that it may be well with you [personally] and you may live long on the earth, meaning then that it would be a national prosperity, and continued national possession of the land.
For the Christian it has the possibility of at least three applications: (1) personal health and length of days, (2) national or social well-being by observing the highest principles of human behavior. (Any society will collapse that gives sanction to wide-spread disobedience of all kinds), and (3) that it may be well with you-- the beauty and the sublimity of quietude, peace, harmony, affection and happiness of a well-ordered family are now yours.
Now I would like to take another quick look at the passage in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5 that talks about Timothy’s sincere faith which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and in his mother Eunice. Chapter 3, verses 14 and 15 also say, “You must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
Young people, if your parents and your grandparents are Christians and have taught you the faith from childhood, count yourself blessed. I can think of three responses you can make to the religious teaching of your parents and grandparents. First, you can say, “I’m not interested in the faith of my fathers; I’m searching for my own personal faith.” And that may sound smart and arrogant to the arrogant and the proud who are destined for a fall, but it really isn’t all that smart. In the very first place in his book, Basic Christianity, John R. W. Stott says on this very thing, “An appreciable number of people throughout the world are still brought up in Christian homes in which the truth of Christ and Christianity is assured. But when their critical faculties develop and they begin to think for themselves, they find it easier to discard the religion of their childhood than to make the effort to investigate its credentials.” You think about that!
Well my friend, I’m convinced that a rejection of the faith of our foreparents without honest investigation constitute dishonor to Christian parents. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we are so thankful for Your revealed will and for parents that lead us in the right way, lead their children in the right way. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen!
Of course! To be a part of and to enjoy a truly Christian family, every member that is old enough must be a member, or must be a Christian-- and live like it. Oh, I hope you are, my friend. If you’re not, would you become so today? Turn over a new leaf now. I’m saying repent of your old lifestyle that is contributing nothing to a Christian environment; unashamedly confess your faith in Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God; and render obedience to Him in baptism for the remission of your sinful past; then go on your way rejoicing. And that’s what the Secretary of the Treasury of Ethiopia did as is recorded in Acts chapter 8, verses 26 through 40.
Oh, there is much more to be said, but I can’t end this without looking at Ecclesiastes 12 and 1. It says, “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth.” What a great message to the youth of any culture. Young people, don’t try to live life without God. It’s a mistake. Don’t just blindly follow the crowd. Don’t just dance to the world’s music. “Commit your way to the Lord, and wait patiently wait for Him” (Psalm 37, verse 5).
If you would like a copy of these four messages this month about the family-- for yourself or for someone else simply give us your address and how we are to mail them to you. Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083, or by telephone 1-800-321-8633, or by e-mail searchtv@searchtv.org. They’re free. We are sponsored here by some churches of Christ in the area that is served by this station. They are your neighbors, maybe up the street, down the street, across the street, so why not pay them a visit at church real soon. Maybe attend one of their Bible classes or be with them in worship and get to know these people. I hope you will do that. Join us again next week. God bless you. We love you.
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