Deuteronomy 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you; that your days may be prolonged… I. CHILDREN ARE BOUND TO REGARD THEIR PARENTS WITH RESPECT AND REVERENCE AT ALL TIMES. Particularly these exercises of filial piety are — 1. To exist in the thoughts. Here the whole course of filial piety begins; and if not commenced here will never be pursued with any success. Thoughts are the soul of all duty. His affections towards them ought ever to be reverential, grateful, warm, and full of kindness. 2. The same exercises of filial piety are to be manifested in the words of children. 3. The same spirit ought to appear in all the deportment of children. II. CHILDREN ARE BOUND TO OBEY THE COMMANDS OF THEIR PARENTS. This obedience ought to be — 1. Uniform and faithful. 2. Ready and cheerful. III. CHILDREN ARE BOUND TO DO WHATEVER WILL REASONABLY CONTRIBUTE TO THE HAPPINESS OF THEIR PARENTS, WHETHER COMMANDED OR NOT. 1. Every considerate child will feel his filial duty strongly urged by the excellence of this conduct, and the odiousness of filial impiety. 2. Considerate children will find another powerful reason for filial duty in the pleasure which it gives their parents. 3. The demands of gratitude present a combination of such reasons to every such child for the same conduct. 4. The great advantages of filial piety present strong reasons for the practice of it to children of every character. 5. The declarations of God concerning this important subject furnish reasons at once alluring and awful for the exercise of filial piety. 6. The example of Christ is a reason of the highest import to compel the exercise of filial piety. (T. Dwight, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. |
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