Honoring Parents (Part 1)

Text: 

Exo. 20:12 - "Honor your father and your mother; that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you."

In this article, I would like to emphasize the grand blessings of honoring and obeying our parents, and

 the worse consequences of dishonoring parents.

This is in response to the present family crisis in all the world today, suffering from disentegration due to disrespectful, rebellious children, thus, affecting the society in general, which can be associated being the root cause of disunity of a nation and even, could be the actual factor of the global conflicts that the world is experiencing today.

In a socio-political perspective, it's because, a family is the smallest unit of people in the society, that a community or barangay; a town; a province; a country; and ultimately, the world consists of.

Let's look into the Biblical and theological perspective:

The origin of sin was committed by dishonoring parents, when Lucifer vested with power and authority as the leader of angels disrespected the authority of the Father, and coveted the throne. (Isa 14:13, 14)

And the consequence of his being disrespectful to his Father-God, he was expelled from heaven, and it's so unfortunate that he chose to fall into the earth where the naive newly born Adam and Eve was.

Another consequence of his sin was, losing the light of his countenance, (for Lucifer means light) and began to die, deteriorating his whole being, and eventually was transformed into devil, demon Satan. Because he left God the source of life, therefore, he would surely end to death as the end-result of sin (Rom. 6:23).

Likewise, our foreparents' (Adam and Eve)

sin was committed through dishonoring their Real Father-God, by doubting His Word, and instead, believing the lies of the serpent.

And that was the fall of mankind, that's why, the human race up to this point in time is struggling and fighting for life, but just to lengthen its suffering, however, they would surely and eventually come to an end, because of the curse of the sin of dishonoring their parents.

 Because of man's wrong choice to believe and patronize the lies of the deceiver, Satan got the rightful ownership to the world, and became our fake foster parent-god, and enslaved the human up to the present. 

Thanks to our Real Father's love, that pursued us persistently, no matter how we run away from him,

That's why, although Adam and Eve was cast out from the Eden Paradise, their Father did not forsake them totally, but visits them frequently and continued to nurture and care for them as their loving Father who gave birth to them.

But because sin became part of human anatomy and is present in all body systems, it dominated the whole being of a person, and filled the earth with wicked human race. 

So God was left with no option but to clean the earth by water, and preserved human race with just a family of eight, Noah, who remained respectful and honorable to Him. 

But, after the flood, when they were living a normal life, there was an undesirable event that happened in the house of Noah. When Noah was drank of the wine, and carelessly unveiled his private part, "Ham, (one of his sons), the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers about.

And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness." (Gen. 9:21- 23)

" And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him." (V-24)

"And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." (V-25)

" And he said, blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." (V-26)

" God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." (V-27)

In verse 24, says that Noah knew  what his younger son had done unto him, although it was not clear what Ham did, aside from looking at his nakedness and didn't take action to redeem the situation, but Ham in the eyes of his father dishonored him. And because of that irresponsibility, Ham, Canaan his son and towards his generations to come was cursed of being a servant to his brothers, Shem and Japheth.

While Shem and Japheth were blessed to their generations to come, due to their good act of respect by covering the nakedness of their father and avoiding their face towards seeing the shameful condition of their pitiful father.

Well, there are lots of examples in the Bible that portrayed the same lessons: like, Moses who showed filiality to her mother, Jochebed, who assumed to be his nani only, because he was adopted by one of the princesses in the palace of Paraoh. Yet he loved so much his real mother.

However, Samson was the opposite. He showed hardheadedness to his parents and defied his parents' counsel not to take a heathen woman to be wife, and the end result, Samson died young.

Our key text is Exodus 20:12, which is part of the Ten commandments, or Decalogue Law. It says: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you." 

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This is the only commandment among the Ten that specifies the blessing of honoring: it says, "That your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you."

This promise means, you will live longer on this earth, and the LORD your God will give you eternal life.

While the opposite of dishonoring your parents is that: your days may be short on this earth, and that disqualifies you to enter into eternal life with your fathers.

I appeal to everyone who is a son or a daughter in this world to contemplate upon this grand, Grand Truth of "Honoring Parents", that,

while there is time yet, please take your opportunity to restore right relationship with with your ever-loving father and mother who longed, and awaited you to come to your right sense and come, for they're thirsting to express their love to you.

Proverbs 1:8

"My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother" 

"My  son, forget not My law; but let thine heart keep my commandments" (Pro. 3:1)

"My  son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of His corrections" (Pro. 3:11)

"My  son, the son of my womb..."  (Pro. 31:2)

"You  are my son, this day, I have begotten you" (Ps 2:7)

Our Real Father Bless you!