The Fourth Commandment.

Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well- pleasing unto the Lord. Col. S, 20.

“We should fear and love God that we may not despise our parents and masters nor provoke them to anger.” Children who disrespect their parents by disobeying them and doing other deeds of wickedness and thus provoke them to righteous anger and sorely grieve them surely are not lovely olive-branches, but sharp and pricking thorns about the family table. They dishonor God by despising their parents.

God says: "Honor thy father and thy mother.” Our parents are nearest, and ought to be dearest, to us: our father, of whom we have been begotten; our mother, of whom we have been born. Next to God we owe to them our very being. Therefore “honor thy father and thy mother.” This is a commandment of the most high God, and woe to him who disobeys it! When children have learned to honor their parents, they can no longer speak of them as “the old man” and “the old woman” ; nor will they marry when they have grown to manhood and womanhood without the knowledge and consent of their parents.

Honor to our parents implies that we serve them, and that we do so not only when bidden, but whenever an opportunity offers to do something of which we know that it will please them. And we must support, nourish, and cherish them when they grow old and helpless in order to “requite” them as the Bible says, that is, to return in part the loving care which they bestowed upon us when we were young and helpless.

Due honor to our parents demands that we also obey them; for the Lord says: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” And again He says. “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord.” We should obey our parents in all things in which God has placed them over us and esteem them as a precious gift of God. Parents, to a certain extent, are the representatives of God over against their children. Obedient children are the pride of a home and give the hearts of their parents great pleasure.

Prayer.

Almighty God and Father, we confess that we have not honored Thee in Thy representatives, our parents, as we should have done, but have set aside Thy precept and therewith provoked Thy right­ eous anger. Grant that we may know our sin and repent of it and accept as the atonement for our disobedience the perfect obedience of Thy dear Son. Give to all parents a due sense of their respon­ sibilities and enable them to exercise their office to Thine honor. Give to us hearts that fear and love Thee, that we may honor those whom Thou hast placed in authority over us and render to them obedience and service, love and esteem. Amen.

DEEPER STUDY by Bishop Ogles

Commandment IV

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the

seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor

thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy

gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the

seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Many Bible scholars today seem to believe that God’s issuance of the Ten Commandments was the mo-

ment of institution of the Holy Sabbath. I disagree for it is mentioned in Genesis: “Thus the heavens and

the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he

had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the

seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and

made.” (Genesis 2:1-3) Again it was observed in Egypt as well in the wilderness Journey prior to Sinai:

“And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sab-

bath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which

remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.” (Exodus 16:23) and “So the people rested on the seventh day.” (Exodus 16:30) 

Though the Sabbath was not instituted at Sinai, it was, indeed, codified into the Table of the Law.

It is important to note that God begins this Commandment with the word, remember. It is important be-

cause God does not want us to forget, or take for granted, this serious Commandment. He tells us to re-

member the Sabbath for He knows that we will be inclined to disregard it. You may feel that you are

keeping the Sabbath today, but you may not be. Is Sunday the Sabbath Day? No, it is the first day of the

week. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week which the Spanish calendar still depicts as Sábado.

Sunday, by consensus, was set aside by the early church as an appropriate day to set aside to formally

worship the Lord, but it is not the Sabbath described in the fourth Commandment. The Hebrew Sabbath

began at sundown Friday evening and continued till sundown on Saturday. It is intriguing to know that

Jesus was laid in the Garden Tomb precisely at the beginning of Sabbath, and had already arisen before

light of day on Sunday (see John 20:1). So we do not know the precise moment that Christ broke the

bonds of death and rose from the grave. It could have been 4 A.M. or it could even have been at sun-

down on Saturday – the end of the Sabbath. One thing we do know is this: Christ kept that Sabbath Day

in the rest of death in the Tomb!

There have been numerous and voluminous works written to show that the Hebrew Sabbath was

changed from Saturday to Sunday, but all such attempts fall far short of success. The Sabbath was not

changed and still remains inviolate today for Christians. I realize that you are probably thinking that I amproposing that we must still observe the strict observance on a Seventh Day Sabbath – no, I am not;

however, I believe that Christ became our Passover when He died a substitutionary death for us on the

brow of Calvary: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.

For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:” (1 Corinthians 5:7) In the same sense, I believe that

Christ became our Sabbath (Rest). Can we do any good works apart from Christ working in and

through us? No, we are incapable of such works.

None of our Christian labors are ours, but belong to Christ working in our members. “Neither yield ye

your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those

that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” (Romans

6:13) “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Philippians

2:13) The only works we can take credit for are those of sin and disobedience, for the carnal man is

unable to please God. “Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a

time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them

rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the

people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God

did from his.” (Hebrews 4:7-10)

The Greek word for rest in the above verse is ( or Sabbatismos (sab-bat-is-mos') which

means, ‘keeping Sabbath.’ In my own personal opinion, I understand the Sabbath not to have been

abrogated by Christ, but rather made more stringent. Not only do we keep one day in seven as Sab-

bath, but seven days in seven, for Christ is our eternal Sabbath. All that we do, think, and value is

centered on the Lord Jesus Christ, if we are devout and serious Christians. Our labors are His labors,

and we have that rest promised by God in Christ.

Though Christ has become our Sabbath rest in God, our physical bodies are not immune to weariness

and exhaustion. Therefore, the one day in seven principle for physical rest remains needful for the

mortal body. Governments from China to France, from Soviet Russia to Nazi Germany, have at-

tempted eliminate any day of rest at all in the week, but to no avail. The Sabbath Day was not only a

spiritual rest granted to ancient Israel, but a physical rest given to all mankind in God’s natural laws.

Our keeping of God’s Sabbath today is to allow Christ to labor in and through our members. If we

step back and allow Christ to work in us, we will discover that we have the attributes of the great Ea-

gle. We will not grow weary in good works because those good works came not of our labors but of

Christ. “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator

of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He

giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths

shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall

renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and

they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31)22

in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in

the sanctuary.” (Psalm 63:1-2) We will seek His face early – even before we prepare food for the

belly, we will seek to satisfy the void in the heart.

And not only will our search for God and glorying in Him be in the daylight hours, but also the dark

nights of the soul: “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise

thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night

watches.” (Psalms 63:5-6) There are far too many of us who take a flippant view of our duties, and

love, for God. We believe that we can depend only upon a weekly sermon and reading of the Gospel

and we are set for a week of forgetfulness in the world. Really? No, we need the daily bread of the

Word, of prayer, and of dependence upon our Creator It is by His power and discretion that we receive

the next breath of life (did we labor for it?). And it is from His gracious will that our heart performs

the very next beat. None of the basic functions of life come as a result of our labor, but from God. He

continues those labors of His in maintaining our lives day by day, seven days a week. He is truly our

Sabbath Rest in every way.

There is no man to enforce the Sabbath. It is God who commanded it. His Voice thundered it from the

Smokey Heights of Sinai. That same Voice also thundered again on the Mount of Transfiguration:

“...This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard

it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise,

and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus

only.” (Matthew 17:5-8) Arise, be not afraid. The Law of God is no longer written on Tables of Stone,

but by Love upon the sinews of our hearts – written, not with pick and hammer, but by the Blood of

the Lord Jesus Christ!