I want to preach to you today
out of the Ten Commandments. And I don't want to vain jangle. I want to teach you properly
using the law as it should be used. And I want you to see how
important the law is. How very important it is. Exodus
20 verse 12. One verse. Honor thy father and thy mother. Everybody here is a child and
or everybody here has children. Honor thy father and thy mother. Now this is called the first
commandment with promise. Notice it has a promise here
with it. Here's the promise. That thy days may be long upon
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Why would God make
this law the first law with promise? That strikes me as being very
important. It's something that I want to
look into this law, what this commandment says, because this
is the first commandment in the Ten Commandments that's given
with promise, with a promise attached to it. Well, who is
God? He is God the Father. And this
commandment says, honor thy father. Who are you? Who am I? Everybody sitting in this room
is a child of God the Father. Whether we've been called by
His grace or we have not been called by His grace, whether
we've been elected unto salvation in Christ or we have not, we
are still children of God the Father. Everyone here. And this
is what God requires of His child according to His own law. He
says, honor thy father." Truly the word is, honor God thy father. What's the promise if you honor
God the father? If you honor God the father,
thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee. Now, if we break the law of God,
there is a penalty. What's the penalty of dishonoring
God? What is the penalty of dishonoring
God the Father? The penalty of dishonoring God
is found in Leviticus 20 verse 9. Now this will come by dishonoring
your mother or your father, because if you dishonor your mother or
your father, you dishonor God the Father. Alright, Leviticus
20 verse 9. Here's the penalty. Everyone
that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to
death. Mama and daddy's penalty don't
sound so bad, does it? This is God's penalty. Everyone
that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to
death. He hath cursed his father or
his mother, his blood shall be upon him. Now look over at Deuteronomy
27. Well, somebody might sit here
and somebody might say, well, I've never cursed my father or
my mother. I've never outwardly with my
lips cursed my mother or my father. Alright, Deuteronomy 27, 16.
The Lord says, 2716, he says, Cursed be he that setteth
light by his father or his mother. What does that mean? That setteth
light by his father or his mother? It means if you've even thought
about dishonoring your father or your mother. If you even had
a thought that entered your mind. Mama and Daddy said, Get up this morning, get dressed.
It's time to get ready. We're going to church this morning.
Get up, get dressed, and come in here and eat breakfast. We're
not going to be late this morning." And you laid around there in
the bed a little while, and you dishonored them right then. You
set light by your father and your mother. You dishonored them.
Why are you telling me this? And God says of that, death. Death. You mean it's that serious? It's that serious. Death. Why
are you telling me that? Why does God demand death if
I disobey my dad or my mom? Because when I disobey, when
I dishonor my mother and my father, I am disobeying God the Father.
God the Father. Well, why do we even have thoughts
about disobeying our parents? Because the heart we're born
with is only evil continually. Well then, why would God give
a law to a people whose heart was only evil continually and
he knew that there was no possible way they were going to be able
to do the law he gave them and live. Why did he give that law? Romans 5.20 says the law entered
that the offense might have been. What's the offense? You see,
you hear me preach about depravity. I want you to understand, you
sitting here, all of us sitting here are children. All of us
sitting here have gritted our teeth and under our breath, walked
out of the room dishonoring our father and our mother. There's
not a soul here that hasn't done it. And every one of us have
broken the law of God and dishonored God the father by doing that.
And God says every one of us hat are cursed. We have nothing
to come in our way but death if God leaves us alone. You see,
you hear me preach about depravity. I want you to understand that
depravity is not simply a doctrine we teach. Depravity is what you
are and it's what I am. Is it coming home to you today
when everybody's, nobody's sitting here without It has not broken
this law. You understand that? So this
is what we have facing us if we come into God's presence.
Death. Cast out eternally from God Almighty. Death. Alright? He said that the law entered
that THE offense might have been. Alright, back in Adam's day,
and I won't have you turn here, you can if you'd like, Genesis
2, 16. Adam was the first son of God the Father. Adam was the
first son of God the Father. And he's the head of the whole
body of mankind. Alright, all mankind will be
born of Adam. Those born of Adam will be like
Adam. All right, so God the Father
put his son, Adam, in the garden. God is Adam's father. Adam is
God's son. And he put him in the garden
and he gave him one law, the law. He gave him the law. And
he said, the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. You know what God
told Adam then? He said, honor thy That's exactly
what he told Adam. Honor thy father. And he said,
he gave a promise to Adam. He put him in a paradise. He
put him in a spotless land, a spotless man in a spotless land. And he
put him there and he said, when he gave him that law, he said,
honor thy father that thy days may be long upon the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee. That's exactly what he was telling
Adam. But there was a flip side to that law. There was a penalty
to that law. He said, In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. Now Leviticus 29 said, Everyone
that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to
death. It said, Cursed be he that said of light his father
or his mother. And in Genesis 3.6 the last word
says, And he did eat. Adam dishonored his father. And when he did, God said, cursed. You're cursed. You come under
the curse of the law. Now that is the offense. That's
the offense. The law that entered in Moses'
day entered that the offense might abound. Everything that
Adam did, when he broke that one law, the law, he broke everything
that you read about in the Ten Commandments. He set up an idol
for himself. He coveted the glory that belongs
to God. He tried to steal the glory that
belongs to God. He committed spiritual adultery
against God the Father. He dishonored the Father and
he died. And so Adam had children and
they had children and they had children all the way down the
line to you. Legally, The law says, you've
broken it, you're guilty. But not only that, you were born
of Adam, so that you're born with a heart just like Adam had
after he died. So that you come forth as soon
as you can, breaking the law of your father, dishonoring thy
father and thy mother. I've told you this before, I
think. I told the kids this in the Bible class. Whenever, first
time that Will, I can remember Will showing me truly what he
is in his heart was there was a mirror laying on the, up against
the wall by the, in the bedroom. And I said, Will, don't get around
that mirror. You can play anywhere in this
house you want to, but don't go near that mirror. And I walked
out of the room, and I walked back in, and that mirror was
laying on the floor broken. He was just barely able to walk.
I should have just picked it up and moved it. He was barely
able to walk, and he broke that mirror. And I went to looking
for him and calling his name. Will, Will, where art thou? And
I went into his bedroom, and there was, from his knees down,
sticking out from under his bed, because he couldn't get himself
all the way under his bed. And I just thought of Adam. Adam,
where art thou? That's what we are. Nobody teaches
us. Nobody teaches us to dishonor
our father and our mother. We know how to do it without
even being taught it. And we know how to hide when
we've done it and try to cover ourselves in fig leaves and say,
no, I hadn't done it. Nobody teaches us that either.
But God won't accept anybody who's broken His law. He won't
accept one person who's broken His law. And everybody here has
broken it. So there's not a single one of
us here that can look at these Ten Commandments and try to keep
these Ten Commandments and expect God's going to show us some kind
of favor in any way whatsoever. It will not happen. It will not
happen. All right, now that's the first
point. Here's the second one. So then is this law not important
to me? Me as a child, if I'm still a
child, I still have a father and a mother, is this law not
important to me? You who live at home with your father and
mother right now, is this law not important to you? This law
is very important to you. It's very important to you. The
whole law of God is holy, just, and good. It's very important
to you. Why is this law particularly so important to us? Well, it's
important for us to honor our father and our mother for this
reason. There are other reasons, but
this is very important. Listen to this. God is going
to use somebody that he has already taught his gospel to and already
made a new creation by His glory and His power. And He is going
to use them to teach His gospel to those that He shall save through
that gospel. God is going to do that. All
the old writers would tell you that honor thy father and thy
mother means even more than just our immediate father and mother.
It means It means those in civil authority. It means honor to
whom honor is due. Now, the most important thing
is the honor is due to whoever it is that's teaching you the
truth about God Almighty. Now, look at Deuteronomy 4 and
look at verse 9. This is what God told them after
He gave them this law. Deuteronomy 4, 9. He said this. only take heed to thyself. He's saying be careful to take
heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget
the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from
thy heart all the days of thy life. That's what a witness is.
He has seen with his eyes and he has created in his heart the
truth of God by God's power and Spirit. He says teach them thy
sons and thy son's sons." Now if the son is not honoring his
father, it won't do any good if the father's trying to teach
the son or not. He won't hear and listen and
hear what the father's teaching him. So this is very important. Now look now what he said to
especially teach your sons and your daughters. Especially, verse
10, the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb. That's when they stood there
at the foot of Mount Sinai and God gave the law through Moses.
When the Lord said unto me, gather me the people together and I'll
make them hear my words that they may learn to fear me all
the days that they shall live upon the earth and that they
may teach their children. You see this? teach their children. And he says, And you came near
and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with
fire unto the midst of heaven with darkness, clouds, and thick
darkness. He said, Now you don't forget
to especially teach them this. When they came to that mountain
and they came there and God gave the law, that mountain, it trembled
and it quaked and it was on fire and it was filled with a thick
darkness. And God was declaring in no uncertain
terms, nobody, nobody under the curse of the law shall ever come
to me in this law. You'll never come to me having
obeyed this law by your hand. You'll never be able to come
to me by the work of your own hand. It is not possible for
a sinner to come into the presence of a thrice holy God. Impossibility. But there was
something else that happened that day too. He said, you teach
your children especially this. There was something else that
happened that day too. God received them and spoke to them and communicated
his word unto them through a mediator, through somebody who came between
them and God. He dealt with them that way,
and that's the only way he dealt with them. And God says, now
you go teach your children. And he says to the children,
honor thy father. You listen to what your father's
teaching you. And he tells the father, now you especially teach
them this. There is nobody that's gonna
come to me in this law having obeyed it themselves. You have
to have a mediator between you and God. You have to have a go-between.
have to. Alright? That's how we're going
to be accepted of God. Now let's look at the go-between.
Alright? You remember, you remember whenever
Adam I mean Abraham was promised that there was going to be a
son of promise that would come. And in Abraham's seed, that means
child, in his seed, in his child, the son of promise, all the nations
of the earth would be blessed. God was speaking of Christ. I've
showed you that numerous times. Galatians 3, 15 or 16 tells you
that. That seed is Christ. And the
immediate son would be Isaac. And he would be a son of promise,
because Abraham couldn't have children, Sarah couldn't have
children. It appeared to them a great mountain of utter impossibility
for them to have a child. But what God promises, God's
able also to perform. And He said, you're going to
have a child. Well, Abraham got tired of waiting, and Sarah got
tired of waiting. So Sarah gave Abraham her handmaid,
and Abraham married the handmaid, and he went in and he had a son
with the handmaid, and they named him Ishmael. Well later on when
God told Abraham to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice is a picture
of Christ. He said this, the Spirit of God
tells us in Hebrews 11 that God said to Isaac, offer up thy only
begotten son. That's the only place in scripture
where that phrase only begotten son is used other than when it's
used in regards to Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of God.
You see, God did not anymore regard Ishmael at all. He didn't even regard him as
even being a son. He said, Isaac is your only begotten
son. Well, when Adam sinned, that
was God's son. When Adam sinned, God disregarded
Adam as a son, and God disregarded every person born on the face
of this planet throughout all time that is a son of Adam. He
disregarded all of them. And God has one son, one only
begotten son, and that's his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he sent him forth into the earth, and this was his word to his
son. Honor thy father. Honor thy father. That's the
word God the father gave to God the son. Honor thy father. And
he entrusted into his hand all the glory and all the honor that
the father possesses. He gave it to his son to honor
the father, to honor him. And he entrusted all the elect
of God that he purposed to save, he entrusted them to his son.
So all the glory, all the honor, all the salvation of all the
elect children of God is in the hands of the Son to whom God
the Father said, honor thy father. If my father tells me, your father
tells you, would you go in there and pour me a cup of coffee? There's a whole lot more. dishonor being shown to my Father. If I don't do it, they may just
not go on and do what my Father said. I'm doing exactly the opposite
of what God the Son did. God the Son is trusted with all
this honor, all this honor. And when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive
the adoption of sons. He obeyed the Father. This one
who was in a place called glory. I'm so sinful I can't even tell
you what that place would be like. He's in a place called
glory. And he leaves that place and he comes into a place where
everybody in that place is only evil continually. He comes into
a place where everybody he faces are sinners. He comes into this
place where everybody he has any contact with are as opposite
of him as you and I are to God and our nature. And he comes
into that place because he came to honor the Father. And he was
made under the law. He became a man that he might
be under that law that his children broke. that He might walk all
the days of His life and fulfill that law. Turn over to Matthew
5.17. Men who are vain janglers, men
who like to teach the law and they don't know what they're
teaching, who bring believers under the yoke of the law, they
accused Paul of being lawless, but that's not all. They accused
my Savior of being lawless. And my Savior said this, Matthew
5.17, The Son of God, the only begotten Son, the faithful Son
said this, Matthew 5, 17, Think not that I am come to destroy
the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but
to fulfill. Here's the illustration. Is there
anybody here that doesn't have sense enough to know that if
you fill this cup full to where you can't add another drop to
it, that the cup's full? It's full, right? It's filled
full. It can't anything else be added
to it. Christ said, I did not come to
destroy the law. I did not come to destroy everything
that's written of me in the prophets. I came to fill full so that nothing
else needs to be or can be added. That's what he came to do. He
came to honor the Father and He came to do it on behalf of
a particular people given to Him of the Father that we might
receive the adoption of sons. Alright? The Son of God fulfilled
everything that was written of Him. Everything that the law
said. But now remember there was a penalty to that law. There
was a penalty to that law. Honor thy Father. And that penalty
said everyone that cursed his father or his mother shall surely
be put to death. We've got to be justified from
it. We've got to be justified from that law. Not only have
fulfilled it in every jot and tittle, we've got to be justified
from it. Christ never cursed His Father. He did only that which pleased
the Father. We read over and over. He said, I must do this
that all righteousness might be fulfilled. He's read it over
and over. He did this that the scriptures
might be fulfilled. He did everything he did that
he might fulfill everything written about him in this Old Testament.
Everything that was required by God in the law, that the righteousness
that he wrought, that he worked out by his own obedience would
be the righteousness given to his children, wherein they would
stand completely completely haven't obeyed that law because he obeyed
it for them. But they've got to be justified
from it too. That's part of that righteousness. They've got to
be justified from that law. And so, this is what Romans 5
says. I want you to see this. Romans
5. We go there a lot, but I want you to see this particular verse
especially. And I want you to bear in mind
this. Romans 5.15. Romans 5.15. Paul has been telling us how
Adam was a picture of Christ and how they're similar as federal
heads and representatives of their people and how they're
different. And in this particular verse he tells us how they are
different. Watch Romans 5.15. Not as it was by one that sinned,
so is the gift." The gift that God gives to his people is not
exactly like it was when Adam sinned. For the judgment was
by one to condemnation. In other words, Adam only made,
it was the offense that Adam transgressed. Just one law, one
man, one law, and condemnation came upon all mankind. But the free gift given that
God gives to his elect for whom Christ died is of many offenses
unto justification." We're talking about Christ being made sin for
his people here. We're talking about Christ coming
under that law as the guilty one. Every offense, you just
think about sin. We've been sitting here for 25
minutes. You think of the offense of how many times your mind has
wandered from the Word of God your Father. How many times you
have set light in your mind, in your thoughts right now, God
the Father right now so that you deserve death. Think of how
many times that's happened just since we've been sitting in this
room in 25 minutes. Now you think of how many offenses
the elect of God, one child, one elect child of God had had
transgressed over his whole lifetime. Now you take every elect child
of God from the beginning of time all the way to the end of
time and every offense they have ever committed and that's what
Christ was made to be. It was so bad he's the only man
in the history of the world who It caused his capillaries to
bust and he sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, the promise said, Cursed
be he that saideth like by his father or his mother. Cursed
be he. And in Galatians 3.13, it said,
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? Being made a curse for us. Now that is what it takes to
honor God the Father. Anybody here want to come to
God and say they've done it? Anybody here want to come to
God the Father and be so ignorant and so foolish that they will
walk up to God and say they have honored the Father by what they
have done? Anybody want to do that? But you remember that promise,
honor thy father and thy mother, or that commandment, it had a
promise with it too, didn't it? The promise with it was that
thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee. God the son, having honored his
father completely, even unto the death of the cross, was highly
exalted by God his father and given a name which is above every
name. You know what that name is? He
said in Psalm 26, I've set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
And the Lord said to my Lord, He said, I'll declare the decree.
Thou art my son. That's a name above every other
name. God the Father said, Thou art
my son. If God the Father is not ashamed
to own this one and say he's my son because he honored him
so that God, holy God can say he's my son. We need to find
out about this son. We need to find out about who
he is because God don't even regard me and you. He don't even
regard what we've done. He said, I've begotten thee.
Ask of me, I'll give thee the heathen for thine inheritance
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. I'll
give thee a land. And he has given him a land eternal. Now, you listen carefully. This
is what God says of you and me. This is what we have to do. We
have to honor thy father. Honor thy father. Honor thy father. Those tables were the work of
God, Exodus says. Somebody came to Him one day
and they asked the Lord Jesus, what must we do that we might
work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, this is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom
He hath sent. You believe on Him whom He hath
sent. Now turn to John 5.22. Honor thy Father. That's what
you have to do. Honor God thy Father. Well, how
I see that Christ did it. I see Adam didn't do it and I
see that I didn't do it in Adam and by my own transgression.
I see Christ did it and how am I going to honor the Father?
How am I going to honor God the Father so that God will receive
me perfect? Perfect. This is what He said. This is what Christ said. He
just said the word is, the work is that you believe on Him whom
He hath sent. Now when He gave the law, Exodus
30 said that those tables were the work of God. That was the
work of God. Christ said this is the work
of God, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent. In other words,
you believe on Him, that law is fulfilled. And what do you
do believing on Him when you believe on Him? John 5, 22. The
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the
Son, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the
Father. He that honoreth not the Son
honoreth not the Father which hath sent him." How do I honor
the Father? How do I honor the Son? If I
don't honor the Son, I don't honor the Father that sent Him.
The Lord said, this is the work of God that you believe on Him
whom He hath sent. And Christ says, and if you believe
on Me whom He hath sent, you honor the Father. You honor the
Father by honoring the Son. And how do we honor the Son?
Verse 24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My
word and believeth on Him that sent Me, You see, believing on
Him whom the Father sent is believing on the Father who sent Him. And
thereby, we honor the Son and we honor the Father. And He says,
"...and they hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but are passed from death unto life." God said
that promise. Everybody that honors Me, He
said, "...that thy days shall be long." How long? those that
believe on His Son and trust His Son to have completely fulfilled
the law for them, He gives them eternity. A lot of days. Eternity. That thy days shall
be long upon the land, it's the new heavens and the new earth,
which the Lord thy God giveth thee. You didn't have to do one
thing to work for it. Christ did it all. And the Father
says of those that believe his son and honor him, I give it
to you. I give it to you. He says of
us who believe by his grace what he says of his son, thou art
my son. My son. Now, Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. What
does that mean? It means Christ is the end of the law period.
End of the law period. We don't make void the law through faith,
that's how we fulfill the law, by believing on Him who fulfilled
it. And when you've heard this, when Christ has been formed in
your heart, that's when the law of God is written on the inward
man. And when the law of God is written
on the inward man, you know what you'll do? You will honor the
Father by telling your mother, your father, your sister, your
brother, your husband, your wife, your daughters, your sons, that
do not yet believe this gospel, you will honor the Father by
telling them the truth about His Son. And whenever God has
put this word in your heart and written His law in your heart,
you will love that father and that mother who faithfully declared
to you the truth of His Son, who honored the Father by honoring
His Son, who told you the truth, whereby God quickens you to life
and gave you faith in Christ. You'll love them and you'll seek
the rest of your days to honor them. And that's how God makes
His people faithful. Faithful. That's how we fulfill
the law and that's how He makes us to, after our inward man,
walk after the law. Under grace, not under the law.
under grace. Amen.