Lesson 19: God's Holiness Generates a Reminder, part 12

The fifth commandment reminding us that God is Holy and we are not is, “You shall honor your parents.”

Exodus 20:12 - "Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."

The fifth test God puts us through revealing His Holiness and our sinfulness is the command to honor our parents. You might think you respect them for who they are and for what they have done, but it is one thing to say you honor your parents, and another thing to demonstrate it through behavior.

You see, the word "honor" means "to glorify, to consider great, or to be rich towards." When it comes to this commandment, most people not only think it is no big deal, but they think it only applies to us when we are young. But that is not what Jesus said.

Matthew 15:3-6 - "He answered them, ’And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, ‘What you would have gained from me is given to God,’ he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God."

In this one statement, Jesus declares that this command to honor your parents applies not only to the teenage years, but the adult years as well. Why would Jesus say this? He was trying to warn us of a principle of Scripture calls “reaping what you sow.” Yes, believe it or not, it applies to how you treat your parents even as an adult.


There are circumstances where keeping your aging parents at home with you may not be practical, but dropping them off somewhere and then ignoring them is not honoring your parents like God said.

Matthew 15:4 - “For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’"

No number of man-made laws, 10 or 10,000, is ever going to fix man's wicked heart; what we need is God! This is what God has been trying to remind us of in the Ten Commandments. If we as Christians will not learn to honor our own parents, then we certainly cannot truly honor God.

Deuteronomy 8:19-20 - “And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God."

God is serious about His holiness as well as ours. If we refuse to receive God's gracious offer and ask Jesus to forgive us of our destructive behavior, make no mistake about it, God says, "Then destruction you will get." God is Holy, Holy, Holy. He never has and never will treat sin against Him lightly.

* How have you found yourself treating God’s laws lightly?