Ephesians chapter 6, and let's
read these nine first verses again. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse
1. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother,
which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be
well with you that you may live long on the earth. And you fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to
them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling,
and singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. Not with our
service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing
the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service,
as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatsoever good
thing any man does, the same shall he receive of the Lord,
whether he be bond or free. And you masters, do the same
things unto them, forbearing threatenance, Knowing that your
Master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of person with
Him." Now, one of the things that you'll notice as you read
these passages, you're beginning in chapter 5 and verse 22, is
what a wonderful balance the Scriptures have. That's one of
the things we love about the Scriptures. It's so difficult
to keep a balance in your life. It's difficult to keep a balance
in our practice. It's difficult to keep a balance
in our theology. We're always in the ditch on
one side or the other, but the scripture always presents before
us a perfect balance. And I call your attention to
that here in verse 22 of chapter 5. Remember this, wives, submit
yourselves unto your own husbands. But he doesn't stop there, does
he? He turns right around and he says, Husbands, love your
wives. We have this perception and we
always get off on one side or the other. I never will forget
when I was marrying Ashley and Rob. Ashley called me one day
and she said, Now I don't want to say I will obey my husband.
And so I confronted her about it. Now I said, Ashley, you're
not going to obey your husband? And she said, well, yes, I'm
going to obey my husband. So I started talking to her about
it. I didn't tell her that I didn't have those in my little book
anyway that I used. It don't say obey my husband.
But the reason she asked me that and didn't want to say that is
because of her perception of what it was for the wife to obey
the husband. She was looking at it from one
side, what people had told her from one side, and I'll give
you a good example of that. Jo took the grandbaby swimming
one day over at the lake, and she came home that evening, and
she said, ìYou ought to saw what I saw today.î She said, ìA bunch
of Muslims were over there swimming, and the men were out there in
their swimming trunks having a good time, and here the women
were, fully dressed, with their burqas on, trying to swim.î Now,
thatís not balance, is it? Thatís not balance. When the
men have all the liberty, And the women have to dress in their
burkas and go swimming. The Bible knows nothing about
this imbalance in these things. Wives, submit yourselves unto
your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. It was sort of like back in the
early 1800s when Joseph Smith and some of the other Mormons
were marrying different wives. Isn't it strange how the husband
could have all these wives, but the wife could just have one
husband? Why didn't they go ahead and say every time a husband
marries a new wife and brings her into the family, the wife
gets to marry a new husband and bring him into the family? What
would they have thought about that? But it's balance, it's
balance. The same time the Bible says
husbands Wives, submit to your husbands. It says, husbands,
love your wives. Let every woman have her own
husband, one of them, and let every man have his wife. And
let her reverence him and let him love her. The second balance,
look in chapter 6, back here in verses 5 through 9, look here
what a balance. In verse 5, servants, and you
know these were literally slaves. Many of the converts in the early
church were slaves. And Paul tells them, be obedient
to them that are your masters according to the flesh. And he
goes on to tell them, just like you're doing it for Christ. You're
not really working for your master. You're working for Christ. And
it's not the will of God. We're never instructed. The employee
is never instructed. to demand certain things of his
employer with a threat, if you don't get it, then I'm going
to shut you down. Nowhere is such a principle taught
in the Scripture. But we have another side to that,
don't we? We have a balance here in verse
9, and you masters do the same things to them forbearing threatenings. It never was meant, and it's
not the will of God, for an employer to lord it over his employees. To work them for nothing with
a threat, if you don't do it, then I'll disbar you. Somebody
else is out there wanting your job. So we have the balance. You employees give a good day's
work. And you employers give them a
good day's pay. You respect your employer, the
employer respects the employee. And then we come here to chapter
6 and verses 1 through 4, and we see the same thing. Firstly,
on the children's side, he says here in verse 1 and verse 2,
children, obey your parents. Listen to them. They're the voice
of authority. Give close and pay close attention
to what your parents tell you to do, and then do it. They're
your parents. Listen and obey your parents. But he says something else here
in verse 2. He doesn't only say obey, he says honor your father
and your mother. Now, what's that about? Honor. Obey them. Honor is different,
isn't it? Honor is not something that you
wear on your sleeve. Honor is not something that you
can see. Honor is from within your heart.
This word honor means to value. It means to prize your parents. A child obeys its parents because
it prizes that parent. Boy, this is what we want to
steal in a child, isn't it? Not just when the parent is around,
but the child obeys when the parent is not there. Why? because
it honors the parent. And we'll see more of that in
just a minute. But here in verse 4, notice this. Here's the other
side. The Bible gives the children their side, obey the parent and
honor the parent, but look at this. Here's the other side.
And you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Fathers, provoke
not your children to wrath. Our parallel passage over Colossians
3 says provoke not your children to anger. This word provoke is
a very interesting word. It means to anger alongside of. To anger alongside of. And I
can give you the perfect example of this. If you remember Gomer
Powell, USMC, do you remember that Clarence? Clarence probably
don't like it much because Gomer Powell joined the Marine Corps.
Remember that? Clarence was a Marine. He wasn't
the Gomer Powell type. But remember when the show first
came on and Gomer, he was sort of a goofy fellow, and he was
marching. All of his squad was marching
and he was skipping more than he was marching. But here was
Sergeant Carter. up in his face, walking alongside
of him, barking out these orders. And you can tell he was angry,
and he could not get Gomer to straighten up, so he just kept
on and kept on walking beside of him, barking out these orders. That's what this word means.
It means to come alongside of in order to anger, provoke, provoke. Now, there are parents, and we'll
all have to examine ourselves. They either like to fuss or they
get upset and can't get over it. If a child ever disobeys
them, the parent can't just correct the child and go on. The parent
just keeps on and keeps on and keeps on until finally they provoke
the child to anger. The child gives this negative
respond, and when that happens, then you've got two problems
You've got the original problem, and now you've got the problem
that you've provoked your child to anger. Provoke not your child
to anger, lest he be discouraged. Now, old Gomer, he never did
get discouraged. You know, he's a light-hearted
fellow. He's such a tender-hearted fellow. He just thought, oh Sarge
is trying to help me. So he led Sarge to death. But
our children aren't like Gomer, are they? If we keep on and keep
on and keep on and keep on, what do we do? We provoke them to
anger. Do everything you can not to
provoke your child to anger. Because if you do, they'll be
discouraged. And then they'll begin to think,
I can't do a thing to please Mom anyway. I can't please Dad
anyway. So I'm not even going to try.
It's never good to be provoked to anger. The attitude of the
parent is training the child, and it is just as important for
the parent to keep hold of themselves. We first have to be concerned
about our own attitude as parents. Then be concerned about the attitude
of the child. If my attitude is that I'm just
going to ride my child and fuss at my child and fuss at my child,
then what am I going to do? I'm going to provoke him and
discourage him. I never will forget my dear sister.
Bless her heart. She's my oldest sister and I
love her to death. But this is the attitude she had when she
instructed one of her children to do something. Her instructions
consisted of two elements. First was a command, and then
a threat. That's what her instruction was
made of. We'd be standing around, and she'd look at her daughter
and say, Felita Gayle, go down there at the gate and bring that
bucket up here right now, girl, or you're in big trouble. And
we'd just stand and look at each other. What was that all about?
Why was she threatening a child like that? All she would have
me done is say, Flea to Gil, I need that bucket down there.
Would you please go get the bucket for me? But it was always this
command alongside of this threat. And it's that way with her grandchildren.
Bless her heart, she hasn't learned at all. And I've seen her children
get so upset with her and get discouraged because that's the
attitude that she has. A threat, a threat. Try this
sometimes. If we get this way with our children,
and it's this demand with a threat, and we talk to them in this manner,
try this. You mothers and you dads and
whoever's training y'all, try this. Miranda, if you do that
with your children, try it on Terrence when he comes along. Try talking to him that way.
And if a dad or a grandparent gets on their children this way,
try it on your husband. Try it on your wife and see if
that works. If I talked to my wife sometimes like I talk to
my grandbabies, I'd provoke her too. She'd be upset with me too. If we want our children to honor
us and prize us, then we must treat them with honor. We mustn't
treat them as if they're beasts to be driven. They have to be
led. Be careful with our attitude
towards our children. We need this balance, don't we?
The same time He says, children, obey and honor your father and
your mother. He turns right around to the
mom and dad and says, mom and dad, watch your attitude. Don't provoke your children to
anger. Don't provoke them lest you discourage them. That's the
first thing. When we look at the Scripture
and these things, we have balance. The scripture always gives us
balance. And secondly is this, look at
it from this angle, and here it gets just a little bit more
difficult. There are times when the child has to be corrected. The child absolutely has to be
corrected. I don't know of a child that
does not need correction. Listen to some of the things
Solomon says about correction. Foolishness is found in the heart
of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from them. Withhold not correction from
a child. If you beat him with a rod, he
shall not die." Beat him with a rod? Now, when you see that,
and you see that often in the Scripture, it doesn't always
mean the belt or a limb or whatever. When you see the rod, if you
want to, just put in there, correction. That's what the rod is about.
It doesn't exclude the rod. It doesn't exclude the belt.
But when you see him there, if you beat him with the rod, he
shall not die. If you correct him, he shall
not die. And listen to this one. The rod
and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings
his mother to shame. He that spurs the rod, he that
spurs correction, hates his son, but he that loves him, corrects
him quickly, and he corrects him often, if necessary. That's so important, isn't it?
It's so important to correct quickly. If the child does something
that's wrong, don't wait. If you know that he's done something
wrong, let the child know immediately that he's done something wrong.
If you correct him one time for doing something wrong, then you
let the very same incident go the next time, and you're not
consistent in it, he'll get confused. So if something's wrong today
the child does, make sure if he does it tomorrow that he knows
it's wrong. Son, we went through this yesterday,
let's go through it again today. He chastens him B times, quickly
and often if necessary. If a child gets mad when you
correct him, then consider these four things. If you correct your
child, if you correct a child, and that child gets mad, it gets
angry, consider these four things. First of all, the correction
was too severe. It's just like we said a minute
ago. You've got too severe. You've got too strict. You've
kept on and on and on until you've brought out the bad in the child.
You've made him angry. That's one thing. Secondly, the
correction is not severe enough. You've seen all this. We've all
seen this in our little children. A little two or three or four
year old kid, and you slap them on the hand, or you pat them
on the butt when they're doing something wrong, and they get
mad at you. And I mean they let you know.
Boy, they're mad and they're puckered up and they're screaming.
What's the matter with them? You weren't severe enough. All
you did was make them mad. They didn't feel anything. If
they'd have felt some pain, if they'd have felt some displeasure
in that, they wouldn't have got angry about it. I remember my
dear dad. He never took off his belt and
put it back on without whipping me. If he took it off, I was
in trouble. He never broke a switch without
using them. But when he whipped me, and he
didn't whip me very often, very few times he whipped me, but
when he did, I'll tell you this much, I didn't look at him and
say, man, I hate you. I'm waiting to get out of this place. You're
the sorriest dad I've ever had. You know what I was doing? I
was twisting. Oh, daddy, please. Daddy, I'll
never do it again. Oh, daddy, forgive me. Please, I'll never
do it again. He hurt me. He didn't injure me, but, buddy,
he knew, son, you've done wrong. You've done wrong. It was severe,
it wasn't too severe, but it was just what I needed. And I
didn't get angry with him either. He always whipped and threatened
later. We threaten now and threaten and threaten and never whip,
do we? My dad would whip me, then he'd say, son, you do it
again, you'll get the very same thing. And I would, and I knew
it. When a child gets mad at you for correcting them, it's
one of those two things. Either you've been too severe,
or you haven't been severe enough. Or thirdly, the child is spoiled. The child is just spoiled, and
you take a spoiled child, you can't do anything with them.
I don't care what you do, they're miserable in themselves, and
no matter what you do, they're going to be miserable. You've
got to take a different approach to that child, find out why the
child is spoiled, and try to correct that. And fourthly is
this, the child is manipulating you. It doesn't lack correction,
but it's smart. The child is pretty smart. And
the child is trying to make you think that your correcting them
is doing them more harm than good. Children are smart. Did you know that? So there's
four things to think about, but no fifth. Here's the balance. Here's the balance. On one side,
spur the rod and spoil the child. But on the other side, correcting
the child must be always about training the child, not punishing
the child. Correction is about training,
is it not? It's not breaking a child. When
I was growing up, we used to break horses. Then when I come
north and you get with some people that train horses. And they don't
like that word break a horse. You got some horses we could
break? Buddy, we don't break horses. We train horses. Then
I found out what the difference was. When you break a horse,
you break his spirit. He's no good then. But when you
train a horse, you develop You train him. I have a neighbor,
most of you know my neighbor, and he used to train a lot of
horses. And I've seen him come down the road with a horse's
ear in his mouth, chewing on it. That's a strange thing, him
being over the horse with a horse's ear in his mouth, chewing on
it. The horse got his head turned
sideways, trying to get the strangest thing. I've seen him take a big
old club, and the horse wasn't acting right, and him sitting
up on the saddle, and hit the horse down across the ears, and
hit the horse on the side of the head. He subdued the horse. You could ride the horse, but
if you smiled at him, he thought you was going to bite him. If
you waved at a neighbor, he'd almost dive out from under you
and think, oh, here comes the club. But he didn't train the
horse. That's what Paul is talking about
here. Training of the child. I had a dear brother-in-law that
we buried not long ago. I've lost three brother-in-laws. Three precious brother-in-laws.
I have only one brother-in-law left. And the one we buried the
other day, I loved him like a brother. And his son, Mark, some of you
may remember Mark and David. Mark got up to say something
at his dad's funeral. This is one of the things that
stuck with me. He talked about his dad correcting him and his
brother. But he said, one thing Dad always
said to me before he corrected me, don't matter if it was withholding,
taking something from me, or whatever correction it was, the
belt, he said, Dad always said this to me, Son, this is not
a kick down, this is a kick up. This is a kick-up. That's what
training is about. It's not breaking the child.
It's not crushing the child's personality. It's developing. Train up a child in the way that
he should go. This word here in chapter 6 in
verse 4, I was almost shocked when I read this in verse 4.
Bring them up. Bring them up. You know what
that word is. And you look this up in Strong
Concordance. Look back up here in chapter
5 and verse 29. He's speaking about husbands
love your wives. Look in verse 29. For no man
ever yet hated his wife, but nourished and cherished her. You know that word nourished
is the same word down in chapter 6 verse 4, bring up. Nourish
up the child. Don't break the child. Nourish
up the child. Boy, this should be our goal
in correcting children. Do it with the same motive that
our Father in Heaven corrects us with. Listen to this wonderful
verse in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 10. Paul said, our fathers,
we've had fathers of the flesh, who for a few days chasten us
after their own pleasure." Sometimes, it's not so much they're doing
it for the training of the child. They do it because they're mad.
We've embarrassed them, or they've embarrassed us. So we get on
to them, we correct them. But listen to this. The Father
don't have that motive. Listen. But He, the Father, for
our own profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. I wish we could have that motive.
When the Father chastens His children, I mean, He may chasten
them sore. It hurts. But one thing you can
always remember, He does it because He loves us. It's always a kick
up. It's never a kick down. Children,
obey your parents. Parents, nourish them up. Nourish them up. Spare the rod,
and you scold the child. But the rod must be training.
Training. Not punishment. It's easy to
punish. It's more difficult to train.
Here's one more point. Consider this. And this is so
important. Children, obey your parents. and honor them, which
is the first commandment with promise. I want us to see three
things here. Look here in verse 1. Children,
obey your parents, for this is right. We see three things here. We
see, first of all, what's this correction about?
Number one, it's about instilling character in the child. Obey your parents, for this is
right." Boy, if we can instill that in a child. If a child,
a young teenager, a young adult, can get this in their heart,
they're going to do it because it's right. Dad's not around,
as I said. Mom's not looking on. Nobody's
going to see what I'm going to do. But I'm going to do it because
it's right. That has to do with character,
doesn't it? I remember a friend, an old deacon friend I had, years
and years ago, not long after the Lord saved me, I went to
his house to visit him. And we were sitting there talking,
and his son, which was probably 16 at the time, he came in and
said, Dad, there's some friends here, and they want to know if
I can go to the movie with them. Well, I could tell by the way
my friend was acting, he didn't want him to go. But here's what
he said. Son, I'll leave that up to you.
Whatever you decide, I'll go along with it. But his son knew
he didn't want him to go. But he put all of that on his
son. We sat there and talked. He went back outside. In a few
minutes, I got up and went outside. His son was out there playing
basketball by himself. Why didn't you go? I just didn't
feel like it really. I didn't want to go very much.
You know why he didn't go? You know why he didn't go? He
wanted to do what was right. What was right. Boy, this is
right. Just do something, Jordan, because
it's right. It's right to obey your parents. And that's why I want to do it.
Because it's right. That goes to character in a person. What an example the Lord Jesus
Christ is of this. The best example that we could
give anybody was the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate, twelve
years old, was so zealous about doing his father's business,
and yet his mother says, why have you worried me? You need
to come home with us. We're worried about you. And
what did he do? The Scripture says He submitted
Himself unto them. Here He was, His mother's God,
and He submitted to her. His mother's Savior, and she
believed Him and worshipped Him, and yet here He is, her Son. And what does He do? He submits unto her. Why does
He do that? Because it was right. It's right. Do it because it's right. That's why my young friend didn't
go to the movies. Because he says it's right. It's
just right. Character. It goes to character.
Secondly, this. It establishes reverence for
God. That's what chastening is. That's what we try to do in training
is instill these things. And secondly, it instills the
reverence of God And reverence for his word. Look in verse 2.
Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment. Do it because God commands you
to do it. Here's where the fear of God
begins in the heart of a child. God is our creator. God is the
creator of our children. And we hope that through His
grace, they'll begin to realize that He's God. That He's my Creator. And as such, I owe allegiance
to Him. I'm not to question what He commands
me. I'm to love Him and obey Him
supremely above everything else, no matter what it costs me. This
is God's commandment. And He's God. And He has a right
to command me. And if I break this commandment,
if I live in disobedience to His revealed will, then it's
sin against Him. And He will call me into question. Obey your parents because God
says for you to do it. Fear God. Fear His Word. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. And thirdly, look at this. It
establishes the child in the faith. Training up a child has
to do with building character. He does it because it's right.
It has to do with instilling the fear of God within him. This
is God's word. This is God's commandment. And
thirdly, it has to do with establishing that child in the faith. Look
what he says in the last portion of verse 2. Honor your father
and your mother, which is the first commandment, with promise. With promise. If you'll read
Exodus chapter 20 sometime, you'll see what he's talking about.
This is the fifth commandment. Honor your father and your mother.
And it's the first commandment that has a promise attached to
it. Honor your father and your mother
that it may be well with you in the land where you go. Told
the children of Israel. Here's what he told them. He
says, You prove me. You prove me. Now that's something
God tells us to prove Him with. But here's what he says to the
children. You prove me. This is what I've told you to
do. I've told you to honor your father and your mother. So prove
me. You obey my word. You believe what I've told you.
And you see, if I don't live up to my promise, And what it
does, it teaches the children at an early age to believe God,
to believe His promise, that He will and that He is able and
that He is faithful to fulfill His promise. Look over here in 1 John with
me. Here is what I am talking about. Look in 1 John. Look in
chapter 3. That parallel passage. to our text. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord. He said in the parallel passage,
For this is pleasing to the Lord. How does a young child please
the Lord? By believing Him. Just by believing Him. Taking
His Word and obeying That's the way we please our Father. That's
the way the children please the Heavenly Father. His commandments. His commandments. The first commandment
with promise. Look in 1 John chapter 3. Look
in verse 22 and verse 23. And whatsoever we ask, we receive
of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight. What's pleasing to the Father?
I'll tell you what's pleasing to the Father. A child to obey
their parents. For a child to honor their parents. That's the first commandment
with a promise attached to it. The Lord says, you do this, I'll
bless you. I'll bless you. And look what
he said in verse 23. And this is his commandment.
Look at this, that we should believe on the name of his Son,
Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. What pleases the Father for us
to believe in his Son? That pleases our Father. And
look in chapter 5 and look in verse 13. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God. that you may
know that you have eternal life." You think He hasn't blessed us? Here's His commandment, that
you believe on the name of His Son. What happens when you believe? He gives you eternal life. Ain't
that a blessing? And I tell you one thing, God
has never made a promise He's not able to keep. He's never
out-promised Himself. If He speaks to the children
and says, you obey your parents, I'll bless you. You honor your
parents, I'll bless you. Or whether it's anybody, them
or us. He says, you believe in my Son,
and I'll bless you. I'll give you life. He never
out-promises himself. And I tell you, he'll never let
a promise fall to the ground that he's made. Look back over
in chapter 2. Look back in chapter 2 and look
in verse 25. He commands us and says, I'll
bless you when you obey my commandments. I'll give you eternal life. And
here he says, and this is the promise that he has promised
us, even eternal life. So when we instruct our children
to obey their parents and to honor their parents, let's go
ahead and tell them the whole story. This is what God commands
you. And here's His promise that follows
this command, that your days may be long on this earth. And
if it's for His glory, if it's for His honor, I tell you, He'll
fulfill that promise. He'll do it. He'll do it. So here in chapter 6 and verse
4 of our text, He tells the fathers to bring them up in these truths. Bring them up in the nurture.
Tutor them. That's what that word nurture
means. Tutor them. Tell them about God's commandments.
Tell them about the promises that He's given them. Teach them.
Train them. Call their attention to these
things. Be consistent in it. And by the grace of God, seek
to instill these principles in their hearts. May God bless His
Word. Let's pray.