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CONNIE: Do your parents weigh enough? Not on the scales, but in your heart. Join us today as we look at the commandment with a promise, and consider how we can claim that promise for a better and longer life.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. Today we’re looking at Commandment Number 5. In the King James Version, it reads “ ‘Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee’ ” (Exodus 20:12). Now Connie, that word which we translate honor, doesn’t refer to just giving some sort of rewards or recognition to someone for a job well done. It actually comes from a word that means “give weight to,”

CONNIE: Which is why you had me start our program by asking people whether their parents weighed enough, I suppose!

LONNIE: Exactly. We’re not talking about putting mom and dad on the scales and deciding to put them on a weight-gain diet! What God is asking us to do in this commandment is to give sufficient weight to our consideration of our parents, their needs, their desires.

CONNIE: I suppose we typically think of this commandment as applying to families with young children. It’s a convenient tool for helping keep the kids in line, but I sense that you’d like to point us a different direction in our study today.

LONNIE: Well, I think that it’s far too easy in our society to kind of brush off Mom and Dad after we move out of their house. Let them live their lives while we live ours, and they’d better not make too many demands on our time! That’s not the way that society operated back in biblical times. In fact multi-generational families usually lived together, and the gray-haired ones continued to play an active role in the extended family right up to the end of their lives.

CONNIE: In that sort of situation, it would be especially important to “give weight” to what the older ones had to say, wouldn’t it?

LONNIE: Yes, of course it would. This commandment was very practical in an agricultural setting where respecting the wisdom of years was often a matter of life and death. But we need to bring it into our modern world, where kids often go off to college and move clear a cross the country—how do we properly honor our parents these days? It’s an issue I’m dealing with, as I watch my parents moving into those senior years. I want to do everything I can to honor and respect their independence, without leaving them too much on their own when they need my help. It’s a fine line to walk.

CONNIE: I know what that’s like. The senior years can be challenging, both for the parents and their “kids” who aren’t really kids anymore by that time.

LONNIE; I’ll be talking a little about that whole “sandwich generation” effect later in my message, but before we get to that, I just wanted to share something with you and our listeners. A few weeks ago, I was calling some of our faithful Voice of Prophecy supporters on the phone, and I got to talking with a wonderful lady named Marge Jetton (Juh-tone). I thought I was talking with someone maybe in their sixties or seventies, but she soon made me aware that she was coming up fast on – get this – her 101st birthday! In fact, since we talked, she’s celebrated that birthday, been featured in National Geographic, done a lot of interviews. I asked her if she’d speak with us on our broadcast when we talked about the Fifth Commandment, and she said she’d be glad to, so we called her right back and got it on tape. I think you’ll be really amazed at this little centenarian’s quickness, and her great insights into our topic today.

CONNIE: Let’s listen in.

LONNIE: Mrs. Marge Jetton, welcome o the Voice of Prophecy broadcast, we are so glad to have you talking to us today!
MARGE: Thank you!

LONNIE: Now, you’re out their in Southern California in the hot sun, but you have celebrated how many birthdays?

MARGE: I’m 100!

LONNIE: 100 years old! When is your next birthday?

MARGE: September 29.

LONNIE: You’ll be 101! Now we’re talking this week about the Ten Commandments, in particularly, the fifth commandment, which says honor thy father and thy mother. There’s a promise that if you do that, that your days upon the earth will be long and full of blessings. Now Marge, if anyone has had some long days and received those blessings, you certainly can say that you are in that league. Tell us a little bit about how God has blessed in your life and given you such long, long years. Does it have something to do with honoring your parents?

MARGE: Well, I think that it does when you grow up happy. You have fun even though you don’t always want to do what they tell you too.

LONNIE: Were they godly people?

MARGE: I would say that they were.

LONNIE: They were spiritual people and they taught you from the Bible…

MARGE: That’s right!

LONNIE: Did you have good relationships with your parents?
MARGE: Yes!

LONNIE: So many kids today don’t! They hate their parents! Did you do things that were fun together with your parents?

MARGE: Oh yes!

LONNIE: Tell us about some of them.

MARGE: Well, we were poor people and we didn’t have money to do many things. We used to go to the mountains in the car. We lived on a farm when I was very young, and enjoyed the things that you do on a farm. Before the days of a tractor I rode on a harvester. My father was what you call a mule-skinner in those days, he broke in mules and it took 16 mules to pull a harvester.

LONNIE: A spiritual home then, a Christian home. Your parents set some rules and they had some parameters for you to operate in and when you disobeyed there were penalties you paid I suppose?

MARGE: Yes.

LONNIE: Actually that helped to gain confidence in your parents and trust them. Because they were predictable! You knew how far you could go and how far you couldn’t go.
MARGE: That’s right!

LONNIE: So, your life, you feel, as a result of obeying your parents in the Lord, you feel that God honored you with a longer life, is that right Marge?

MARGE: That’s correct!

LONNIE: Tell us a little bit about your own family…Your husband…

MARGE: Well, my husband died almost two years ago now, we were married for 77 years.

LONNIE: And God blessed your life too?

MARGE: God blessed my life.

LONNIE: Marge, what a privilege it is to have you on our broadcast today, is there anything else that you would like to say to the younger generations today?
MARGE: Well, try to listen to your parents, they are wise and they are only trying to help you.

LONNIE: Marge, what an honor it is to talk to you.

MARGE: Thank you for having me.

“As a Little Child”, Christian Edition, from DayStar CD.

CONNIE: Amen! That was Christian Edition with the song “As a Little Child.” As we take a look at the commandment about honoring our parents today, it’s good to remind ourselves that we are all children of God.

LONNIE: I just love the music of Christian Edition, and I know many of our listeners do too. If you’d like to hear more of the music from this great men’s group, the place to find out about their CDs is on our website at vop.com. We post information about all our music there each week. Just go to vop.com and click on “Music on Broadcast.”

CONNIE: You’ll find a ton of resources there, including transcripts, streaming audio, and even a place where you can sign up to receive our program as a “podcast” so your computer will download it automatically every day. Stop by vop.com for all the details. Right now it’s time for Pastor Lonnie’s message for today, “A Matter of Honor.” Be sure to stay tuned, because after that we have a special offer for you.

A Matter of Honor

There’s a touching scene in the Oscar-winning movie Million Dollar Baby, when Maggie, the boxer, does the best thing she can think of to fulfill the Fifth Commandment. Even though she’s been estranged from most of her family for several years, she still wants, in her heart of hearts, to honor her mother.

Maggie has been having a modest level of success in the boxing ring, and by living frugally has managed to save up enough money to purchase a small house, just a mile from the trailer court where her mother has lived for years. She takes her mother to the house and presents it to her as a gift, paid-in-full. A place to live rent-free, without even a mortgage payment.

But her mother’s reaction is not what you expect.

No joy.

No excitement.

No “Thank You!”

Just a “You should have asked me before you did something like this!” All the mother can do is worry that if she owns a house, she’ll be taken off the welfare roles and won’t have health insurance.

The camera focuses on Maggie’s face as her mother continues to chastise and even insult her, and you can’t help but share the pain. Because you’ve been there, haven’t you—had a gift or a kindness spurned. Maybe nothing so big as a house, but you’ve felt the pain of rejection.

If you’ve ever given a Christmas gift that someone rushed to the mall on December 26 to exchange, you’ve had a small sampling of the type of emotions involved.

But to be condemned, criticized, and even insulted for having scrimped and saved for years to buy a house for your mother? That’s got to hurt big time!

An important theme running through this silver screen story raises the question: How should you treat parents who don’t behave in an honorable way toward you?

Does the Fifth Commandment give carte blanche to parents to do whatever they please and still expect their children to honor and obey them?

It’s an important question, isn’t it? In fact, after the 2005 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Texas State Capitol to keep a copy of the Ten Commandments on display outside, Sara Vowell of Public Radio International posed that question in an op-ed piece published in the New York Times. Regarding the decision to keep this statue and others of historical value on the grounds, she commented: “Another statue honors the ‘beloved Texas cowboy.’ I happen to be descended from one of these. My Texas cowboy great-great-grandfather, John Vowell, abandoned his newborn baby, Charles, when his Seminole wife died in childbirth. Is it O.K. if I break the commandment about honoring one's father to point out that my great-great-grandfather was a deadbeat dad fiend?”

It’s a valid question, isn’t it? And one that comes up in the New Testament, when the Apostle Paul reminds the Christians in Ephesus about the importance of obeying this Fifth Commandment. Paul points out that this is the first commandment that includes a promise of blessings for those who obey it. Here’s Paul’s application of Commandment Number Five, as found in Ephesians 6:1-3:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘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’ ” (NKJV).

This is slightly different from the way the commandment reads in Exodus 20:12: “ ‘Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you’ ” (NKJV). But the principle is the same. Respect for our elders, and particularly for our parents, is a fundamental principle for the strengthening of society.

But is there a reciprocal requirement for parents to relate properly to their children? In the very next verse, Paul answers that question, but before we go on to that, let’s take a moment to review one of the most compelling biblical examples of what goes wrong when the younger generation doesn’t respect the wisdom of their elders.

Maybe you remember the story of Rehoboam, the son and heir of King Solomon. At the critical time when the future of the kingdom of Israel was being decided, when rebellion was threatened, Rehoboam first consulted with the gray-headed men who had served faithfully and well in his father’s court for many years. These men recommended taking an ameliorative stance toward the people of the northern kingdom who were threatening to secede if their demands for better treatment weren’t met.

You know, I remember, back in the 1960s when it was popular to talk about something we called the “Generation Gap.” Pop psychologists in those days spoke of it as if it was some sort of new thing in our modern age. But they were about three millennia late in naming this particular phenomenon. It was already around in 931 B. C.! Notice the Bible’s testimony found in 2 Chronicles 10:8: “But [Rehoboam] rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him” (NKJV).

“Those old guys don’t understand the times,” Rehoboam said. “Who needs their advice, anyhow?”

In rejecting the advice of the elders, Rehoboam was symbolically rejecting his wise old father’s advice. And in failing to honor his father, he brought disgrace and disaster on his entire nation. Rebellion ensued. The nation was split. And soon afterward the Egyptian Pharaoh appeared on the borders with an army. With the Israelite factions fighting each other, Pharaoh was able to march throughout the land which the Lord God had given to this people and take away their treasures—including much of the gold of the Lord’s temple! It was an amazing illustration of how the people’s life would not be long and prosperous on their land if they neglected to show the respect required by the Fifth Commandment.

The story of Rehoboam demonstrates the results of failing to obey the fifth commandment.

But is this a universal principle?

To return to the question we asked earlier, does the honor that this law demands need to flow both directions? What happens when parents don’t behave in an honorable way toward their children?

The apostle Paul was concerned about this when he wrote his letter to the Ephesians. Notice, after reminding young people to respect their parents, he turns immediately and addresses the parents, reminding them of their responsibility toward their children: “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4, NKJV).

So, it is a two-way street.

How much better life is, when respect and honor flow both ways—from parents to children, and from children back to parents. In fact, what better way could there be for children to learn to respect their parents than for the parents to behave in respectful and respectable ways?

You know, today we sometimes hear people complaining that they’re caught in the “sandwich generation,” caring for their children or grandchildren on one side and their parents on the other. It can make for some tough times, but it can be a blessing as well. In their book The Ten Commandments, Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rabbi Stewart Vogel share a poignant letter from a 44-year-old mother. It tells an amazing story of intergenerational honor reaching out in both directions. Here’s what this mother wrote:

I was out at my mother and father’s house, a seventy mile round-trip from my own, because my mother needed a little help. She needed a little help because my father, who has full-blown Alzheimer's, had taped duct tape all over the three long windows in the bathroom so that the ‘little people’ who haunt his days and nights wouldn't be able to look in. She needed a little help because her mother (my grandmother) who lives with them and who will be one hundred and two in December, likes to snack in bed and bugs were starting to show up in her room, which was generally a mess anyway. This is to say nothing of my mother's normal daily routine of cooking, cleaning, shopping, banking, medicating, driving, washing, ironing, not sleeping more than five or six hours a night due to dad's ‘little people pounding on the windows,’ and other mortally tiring duties and distractions that would fell any lesser human being. My mother is seventy-five and has had a hip replaced.

There were certainly other things I'd rather have been doing that day, but I love them dearly; so there I was, ‘helping.’ I emptied and washed my grandmother’s reeking chamber pot, scrubbed the bathroom floor where she regularly misses the toilet, took Daddy shopping for a bathroom curtain, pulled off all the tape, hung the curtain, washed and hung out several loads of really stinky laundry, scrubbed and swept, changed bedding and tablecloths, loaded the dishwasher, etc.

Then, weary and depressed, I sat down to dinner with my three darlings and a peculiar thing happened: I was overcome with a feeling of immense gratitude. It occurred to me that it was my honor to give them that measly gift of a single day's servitude out of so many thousands of such days my mother puts in single handedly without a word of complaint. . . .

I am decidedly not religious, but that day I realized that to serve others selflessly to the point of bone-tired, without expectation of reward or recognition, is the ultimate spiritual high.”

Wow! Talk about being part of the “Sandwich Generation!” And yet finding a blessing in service. Perhaps that’s why the Lord placed “honor your father and your mother” right in the middle of the Ten Commandments.

It’s often been observed that the first four commandments deal with our relationship to God while the last six deal with our relationship to our fellowman.

With that thought in mind, Number 5 makes a powerful transition, doesn’t it? By giving honor to our parents, we also give honor to the God who gave us the gift of life through them.

It may not always be easy.

It may not even seem that our parents deserve it.

But the commandment is there—and it’s there for our good. For our blessing. Giving honor and respect when it is due, and even when it is not due, has a powerful effect on our own self-respect. It allows us to rise above circumstances. To be the master of our own emotions and decisions, just as God wants us to be.

It’s a commandment with a promise. And I know, as I’ve taken a deeper look at it, I’ve resolved in my own heart to make honoring my dear parents a priority in my life.

How about you?

“Bless This House”, Joe Melashenko, from Step Into the Water CD.