God's Directives To Children Series

And isn’t this true to life folks? Doesn’t experience bear this out? I don’t know about your homes but whenever our children are doing what they are told, being obedient and respectful to us as their parents, family life is a joy. Things go well with us. It is when there is disobedience and disrespect that the atmosphere of family life degenerates. Just think of how few fights there would be in the home, how much bad feeling would be quelled, how peaceful and enjoyable the atmosphere would be if children were to take this duty seriously And when things in family life in general are going well the children themselves benefit greatly from that. Obedience brings blessing. Take a very simple example of the outworking of this principle. You ask you parents if you can go round to your friends house for the evening and they agree and as you are going ut they say ‘make sure you are back in for 10.00pm. And just before 10 you come in. You have obeyed them. Same thing happens later on that week and again just before 10 you arrive home, again you have obeyed your parents. Then on Friday or Saturday night you are heading out again and ask your parents if you can stay out until 10.30pm. What happens? Well in all likelihood because you have been demonstrating an attitude of obedience and have shown that you can be trusted your parents will let you stay out that extra half-hour. Now that is a very simple example but you see the point I am making. You actually benefit from obeying your parents. Children obey your parents. Honour your father and your mother that it may be well with you.

But Paul also says that such obedience usually produces long-life. Now what does Paul mean by that? Well what I think he has in mind here is the idea that if you listen to and follow the advice and instructions of your parents, if you are obedient to them then you will not go down sinful paths and engage in sinful habits that by there very nature are detrimental to your health and well-being. For example your parents are certainly not going to encourage you to smoke, or to drink alcohol, or to take drugs or to live a sexually promiscuous life, or to gamble, or to keep company with people whose way of life is sinful, or to join paramilitary organisations and so on. All of these things and others like them will not only diminish the quality of your life but have the potential to bring your life to what from the human perspective is an untimely end - through lung cancer, some alcohol related disease, some overdose of drugs or being on the receiving end of a deadly tablet, some sexually transmitted disease, or getting shot or blown up because of your involvement with some paramilitary group. This I think is what Paul has in view here and in this, and perhaps he had this in mind, he is restating what was said in the book of proverbs 3:1ff “My son do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace…”

Children, young people. God in his blueprint for a happy family life has given you a keyword and that word is OBEY. When the alarm clock goes off tomorrow morning and you waken up you will know exactly what God requires of you insofar as your duty to your parents goes – “children OBEY your parents.” Do it because it is right to do so, do it because God commands you to do so, do it because God is pleased when you do so; Do it because you and your family will be blessed when you do so.