Children need to obey; parents need to teach them to obey.

Part 2

Yesterday:
“Children”
Children need their godly parents.
“Obey your parents.”
The child needs to learn to obey dad and mom, even when they don’t understand the command.

Today:
“Obey your parents,” cont.
Please note the scriptures are clear that the child is to obey both parents, his father, and mother.

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother” (Proverbs 1:8).

“My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck (Proverbs 6:20-21).

There is an important implication here.  If the child is to obey both father and mother, then it is necessary that both parents are training the child in the area of obedience.  It is not just one parent or the other.  The child, not taught to obey, has been sinned against by the very ones who should love him the most.

If the child chooses to not listen to dad or mom and fails to obey them, it is not just a matter of simple “disobedience.”  This is evil, and a matter of sin in the heart of the child.  This is not some little growing pain, but it is a matter of great consequence if not corrected.

Note the sins in this list of condemned sinners in Romans 1.

“Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents” (Romans 1:29-30).

Paul cautions believers about the great dangers because of the end of the age sinners.

“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy” (2 Timothy 3:2).

“Disobedient to parents” is listed by God with the most heinous of sins there are.  Helping our children to learn to discipline themselves to obedience is of the utmost importance to parent and child.  We deal with our child’s disobedience so that he will learn to obey.  Parents, we must obey God in this!  The most significant opportunity for our children to learn these lessons is at home under our tutelage.  There are eternal consequences attached to “disobedience.”  Could it be that the child who has not learned to obey his parents at home, will have a tough time obeying God in his adult years, away from dad and mom?  Unless the Lord somehow intervenes, how will that child finally learn obedience?

We teach our children that their disobedience is dangerous and sinful, but their obedience is a blessing to themselves and others.  Tomorrow we will talk about their compliance “in the Lord.”