The sermon titled 'Early Piety as it Respects Men' by Scott Brown focuses on the critical matter of love and how honoring and obeying parents preserves love in the world. It emphasizes the importance of honoring parents as a way to bring glory to God in one's early days and lays the foundation for success in life. The sermon explores various ways to express honor in the family, school, church, and community, and urges young people to pray for and imitate faithful Christians, teachers, ministers, and state authorities. The sermon concludes by highlighting the role of young people in creating a world of love and the blessings that come from honoring those in authority.

You can open up to the third chapter of early piety. Okay, so it's on page 59, so get there, but let's pray before we start. Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us insight into this way of living that you've ordained for us, that you would provide direction for us, for all of us in this matter of honor that's here in this chapter. Well, we pray that you would humble us, make us ready to listen, easy to teach, easy to lead by your Holy Spirit. Amen.

This chapter is about a critical matter of love. We've been talking a lot about love in our church. The Bible says that in the last days, most men's love will grow cold. But not everybody's love will grow cold. Because the true church will not grow cold in its love.

This chapter identifies one of the critical ways that God has designed to keep love alive in his church. And it is through honor and through obedience that begins right in the home, particularly with children, toward their parents. It's a way that God preserves love in the world. You think about a loveless culture. What is that like?

Well, it's a terrifying culture on the one hand. People treat one another shamefully. They abuse one another. They're not nice. They hurt one another.

And that's not the kind of world of the Kingdom of Heaven. And so this chapter here really helps us to understand what that looks like. And it also defines a really critical matter for young people. It helps young people understand how they will bring glory to God in their early days. How can a young person glorify God in the years of their youth?

And also, how do they lay a foundation for success in their younger years? Because in God's scheme of things, you build your foundation of success when you're young. We've been looking at 1 Corinthians 13. Here are two critical things we've learned from 1 Corinthians 13. If you don't love, you are nothing.

And if you don't love, whatever you do profits you nothing. What we learn here is if you do honor your father, it does make what you do something. And it also profits you greatly because the Bible says if you honor and obey your parents It will go well with you So if you love your father and mother and obey them it does profit you and that's the critical matter that's explained here in particularly this kind of signature passage of scripture that the author is focusing us on. And it's Ephesians 6, 2, which is really a quote from the law from the 10 Commandments. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.

So what the writer is speaking of here in this sermon is that honor is the foundation for success in the life of a child. Now, here's one thing that I've discovered over the years. The happiest, most adjusted people I've ever known have one thing in common. They honor their father and their mother. It's just the way it is because God blesses those who honor their father and mother.

On page 59, you can see what the basic subject matter is. You have a pretty extensive outline in front of you. And he speaks of this critical principle that should be recognized when one reads the Ten Commandments and particularly when one reads the commandment honor your father and mother and it's a very broad principle it doesn't just apply to your father and your mother but it speaks of honor to all people who are in authority. And that's why on page 60 he says it's a precept for all. And then he begins to itemize those different kinds of superiors that this command applies to.

Honor toward all superiors, as you can see in the bottom of page 60. And he says this, So by father and mother I mean all your superiors in family, school, church, commonwealth, yea, every relative you have in the world, your equals or your inferiors are to come into consideration with you, and the honor here required of you takes in the whole duty which God requires of you in every relation. So it's a broad commandment. This command to honor your father and mother is a basic principle to honor all those who are in authority. And then at the top of page 61 he identifies this fact of this command that it comes with a promise and it's like no other command in that sense.

And he speaks of just how merciful the commandment is because it does promise success for those who would honor their father and their mother. He speaks about the reward and he says that it's a temporal reward. In other words, the reward happens on earth. So many of the rewards that God promises us are in heaven, but there are hundreds of rewards that we reap on the earth as well. And this is one of the promises that young people reap right now.

In other words, you get a return right away. You don't wait for it, it brings you the reward in this life. And it also says that it may be well with you, that has to do with your life, from the moment that you begin to honor your father and mother, and then that you may live long on the earth. In other words, it's a life extending kind of a command with a promise. And then at the bottom of page 62, he makes it very clear that honor is expressed outwardly, And notice what he says, in words and actions and behavior toward men.

And then he identifies the various places that this honor is to be demonstrated, family, school, church, and commonwealth. Well then, after this, the preacher here begins to itemize the various specific kinds of people that this honor is due. That's the longest part of this whole sermon that's here in chapter 3. I've identified nine different kinds of people that young people are called to honor. And as you can see, this kind of honor is not just something that is required of young people, but all people.

But there's this very special promise to children who fulfill this command. Now, he begins with honor in the family at the top of page 63. And you'll notice there are many different ways that you honor in the family. And he just mentions them one by one. And he speaks of brothers and sisters and workers in the family.

And at the bottom of the first section of page 63 he uses various words to describe what this honor should look like in the family. Are you ready? Reverence. Do you reverence your siblings? Do you reverence your father?

Do you reverence your mother? The next word, honor. The next word, gratitude. The next word, affection. And he says it's affection and gratitude and honor of your souls.

In other words, it actually comes from your heart. It's something that you see as right and worthy and you desire to bring these things into play toward your father and your mother. And he speaks about this as all being under the basic heading of honor toward God. That honor toward father and mother is a way that you honor God. Very interesting quotation from Leviticus 19 there at the bottom of page 63.

Every one of you shall revere his mother and father, and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Here in this verse, Moses in Leviticus chapter 19 takes these two things honoring God and honoring him by keeping the Sabbath and honoring your father and mother and he puts them together. Because he's saying that they have a similar root and they really have to do with honor toward God. He says, children, let me tell you, you cannot fear and worship God if you do not fear your father and your mother.

Your father in heaven will accept no worship from you if you do not at the same time carry yourselves piously toward your earthly parents." And with these words, he's basically saying, don't say that you love God, but don't honor your father and mother. If you say you love God and don't honor your father and mother, you're a liar. That's basically what he's saying. And he really identifies what is often hypocrisy in young people. They say they love God but they don't honor their father and mother.

And their hypocrisy is exposed by this very principle here. And I thought this was interesting at the bottom of page 63. He notes that in Leviticus 19, the mother is first named and then the father. And he just makes a point of that in terms of a priority of honor toward mothers. You know, this often is tested, particularly in young men as they grow up.

They sometimes go through a season of not honoring their mothers, and the father has to take action. And I've known many fathers who have had to finally say to their sons, if you disobey your mother, your history, you mess with her, you are messing with the apple of my eye, and you will obey her. And if you don't, it's prison. So, figuratively. So this explanation of what this looks like, I have it there on the outline.

At the top of page 64, love them as the Lord. And then he speaks of obedience and quotes Proverbs 30 verse 17, the eye that mocks its father or scorns obedience to his mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it. There really is a terrible punishment that God meets out to those who do not honor their father and mother, those who mock their father and mother, that it won't go well with them, that the birds will pluck out their eyeballs. And he uses this very graphic language to explain how tragic it is to end up mocking your father and your mother. Then at the bottom of 64, learning from parents is another way that you honor your father and your mother.

And he says, believe, receive, and retain their words. In other words, to learn from them, to take the things that they're teaching you, and he says cleave to them, cleave to their ordinances, learn from them. It's a way that you express your love to God. And then he expands this whole matter of obedience, he's actually saying cleave to their admonitions, to their rebukes, to their corrections. Because if you refuse to obey them, you are refusing to obey God himself.

And then he speaks of imitating faithful parents in the middle of page 64, imitating what is good about their lives. Now this is really important, and I'd like to pause here and try to emphasize this matter. All parents have things worthy of imitation and unworthy of imitation. All parents have that. And what the author is encouraging is that parents are imitated in what is good, but that Children should be realistic about their parents and recognize that there are some sins that need to be covered.

And he uses the example of Japheth who went backwards and covered his father's nakedness, Noah's nakedness in Genesis chapter 9. He's bringing up this matter that parents are sinners as well. Children should be mature and wise and recognize The only kind of parents you get are sinners. That's a real problem. And your parents will fail you in different ways.

They have imperfect patterns and they have imperfect thoughts. But what are children supposed to do? They're supposed to be like Jafa. Cover their parents' sins and imitate the things that are good about them. Got that?

It's very critical. So not only is honoring father and mother expressed in imitating parents, it's also caring for parents when you're grown up. And so that parents have the security of a place to live and sustenance when they get into their old age. Then he speaks of helping parents And under this heading of helping parents, he first of all speaks about defending parents, defending their name, and then ministering to them in sickness, and then supporting parents, This is in the third paragraph on page 66, by contributing to their support, and then to come to their aid for their maintenance and for their relief, and to be a blessing to parents. The idea is that parents have provided for you, now it's your turn to provide for them.

And this is the way that God has ordained the family to operate. And then, not only by helping parents do you honor them, He also talks about praying for your parents. Now this is an interesting one. You know, do you pray for your parents? He says, piety will teach children to pray for their parents and to thank God for the blessing they have in them.

Now I really wanted to pause on this being a parent. Being self-serving, wanting prayers, and also hoping that perhaps maybe the other parents in this church might get a lot more prayers than they're getting right now. Often children don't think that much about praying for their parents. For different reasons. We could probably list reasons that children just don't think naturally about praying for their parents.

Well, their parents are in authority, They're the ones that are making everything happen. What do they need? And often, particularly younger children might think that their parents are just bulletproof, and they don't need prayer. But here's the truth about all parents. Parents have hurts.

Parents have fears. Parents have insecurities. Parents struggle with sin. And so it's right that children would pray for their parents. And I say that just in hope that somehow the Spirit of God would enliven the children here in our church to particularly pray for their parents, maybe in ways that they haven't.

So that parents are also supported from below in their homes. What a blessing it is to have children who are bowing their knee before their father in heaven and crying out for blessings for their parents. What a sweetness that is when you have parents praying for children and children praying for parents. All of them recognizing that they are sinners, that they have great needs, and that they all need prayer. So if you see the outline, these various ways, you know, honoring care for parents, prayers for parents, honoring their advice is another way that you express honor in the family.

And then he brings up the example of Christ, where the Lord Jesus Christ takes care of his mother and he's speaking about how the Lord himself provided for his mother while he was hanging on the cross. In John chapter 19 verse 27, the Lord Jesus turned his mother over to the care of the disciple whom Jesus loved. This was John. This was the author of the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation, and also 1st and 2nd and 3rd John. Lord Jesus Christ is on the cross, and he asks John to take care of his mother, and Then in John 19, 27, we read that he took her into his home.

And so Mary, the mother of Jesus, had someone to care for her in her old age. And so he's speaking even about how older children honor their aging parents in that sense. He talks about sibling honor at the top of page 68, but he says, but be meek and mild and obliging toward one another. He says, the devil, not God, dwells in that heart and house where children quarrel, give hard and ill words, call names, wish evil, they fight and they strike. And he says you should tremble at Christ's words, whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hell fire.

That's in Matthew 522. So honor in the home looks like honor towards siblings as well. And you just might ask yourself, are we fighting? Are we calling names? Are we selfish in our home?

And it's against this whole principle of honor. Then he speaks of bearing with one another at the bottom of page 68. And he's speaking about siblings. Be silent, suffer wrong, answer not again, turn the other cheek, for it is your brother. Yet reprove him more gently or severely, as fits the occasion.

Tell him the fault of his sin, and what he says and does, and if he will not hear you inform your parents as of his ill matters. He's taking Matthew 18 and applying it in the home. That there is an authority in the home and he's saying that if you appeal to your brother or your sister and you make no headway then take the matter to your parents as a principle of Matthew 18 itself. He speaks of praying for brothers and sisters at the top of 69, and Then he also speaks of honor toward workers in the home. This was written in a day and time where families had workers in their homes.

I take this to be people who are contractors in today's terms who will come in and out, people who are around your home, to honor them as well. And not to be insolent toward the lowest worker in the house. And then he speaks of honor toward authority on page 69, and then submission on page 70, and then honor toward teachers. He moves from honor in the family after dealing with these various settings that I've just gone over and then he speaks of honor toward teachers and then ministers, and then other faithful Christians, and so forth, as you can see, are itemized in this outline. But he urges honor toward teachers to give love and affection and to be faithful with their education.

And at the bottom of 71 is a really interesting quote for all those who are still in school. Anybody still in school? Anybody being educated by somebody, by father or mother, this is for you. Are you ready? You know, it's so easy to get away with murder in a home school, isn't it?

It is. And Some of you have gotten away with murder in your homeschooling through your laziness, right? So here's what he says, If you are idle before your teachers, you deceive your parents, you are base and ungrateful to them, You do in effect lie to them from day to day. You say, sir, I go and learn, but do not. You disobey them and rebel against them.

Nay, you in effect rob them and steal from them, defraud and cheat them. In all this wickedness you daily live. Is it not the way to be cursed children? Now this was written in 1721 and it's fairly contemporary isn't it? Children have always tried to skate through school without actually doing their work.

But what this author is saying is that it's a way that you dishonor your father and mother. And he says, no, love them, esteem them, honor them, obey them, and submit to them. He turns from teachers to ministers. If you look in the middle of page 72, honor toward ministers, And he says they are fathers by office, not only to you, but also to your fathers. And he speaks of the fact of respect toward ministers, and as people who are feeding the sheep and who are caring for your soul.

He says this, these are the servants of the Most High God which show us the way of salvation. You must remember that they have rule over you in the Lord and to submit yourselves to them for they watch for your souls. You must hearken to them in public and in private, in God's house and in your Father's houses. When they speak to you the word of God, believe them fully and perfectly and lay up their words in your hearts. Amen.

I got a big amen on that. Okay. He says, desire their prayers. Form yourselves by their grave and gracious conversation. Then he says, give thanks for them.

And then he urges young people to pray for their ministers. I like that one too, quite a bit. Pray for them. I like this one even better. Thank God for them.

Observing that they naturally care for your souls. That they have no greater joy than to see you walking in the truth." You know that is absolutely true. You know pastors have no greater joy than to see young people walking in the truth. It's the sweetest thing and it's so encouraging. He says, do not easily believe evil of them.

Abhor the act of those who would insinuate into you vile things, respecting them, and spoil your reverence of them, and spoil your profits from the ministry. It's a tragic thing when there's disrespect of ministers because then you can't hear. Your ears get plugged by disrespect. That's what disrespect does. It plugs your ears full of garbage and so you can't hear the good things that they bring.

He says, rebuke and avoid them that would teach you to mock and revile them. Boy, that would be fantastic. Remember the fate of the 42 children who perished in such an action. He's talking about that situation in 2 Kings chapter 2 verse 24, where Elisha was going along down the road. And there are 42 youths that were mocking him.

And they said, you bald man, you bald man. And bears came and gobbled them up. See that bear skin right there? Imagine Mr. Bear gobbling you up because you dishonored your ministers.

Well anyway, he's saying pray for them, give thanks for them. And then he turns from ministers to faithful Christians, in other words to honor other faithful Christians. And he's speaking of those in the church and outside the church and he says you should admire and venerate them for the grace that is in them desire to be like them imitate their goodness there really is a lot of blessing for young people who will find the godly in the church and attach themselves to them and ask them questions, to seek them out, to seek their prayers, to get to know them. So that's what he's encouraging here, to honor faithful Christians. It's so helpful for young people to seek out the faithful Christians that are in the church.

And then he turns from faithful Christians to state authorities at the top of page 74. He says, honor the king, the governor, the magistrate, which he calls the civil fathers, the persons of eminence for wisdom, of learning and usefulness toward aged persons, toward the rich and toward the poor. He is taking this off of the statement, fear God and honor the king. So it's the whole matter of honoring civil magistrates and to pay them mind. And then he urges young people to honor prominent people in the middle of page 75, and then to honor the aged, the hoary head, you know, the gray haired people that have hair quite like wool.

And then he encourages them to bear with their infirmities. He says you know sometimes young people despise old people because of their infirmities. They might get weaker or fatter or not as well appointed and scraggly or something like that. But he says don't let that cause you to dishonor them. That's the whole idea at the bottom of page 75.

And then he, in the middle of page 76, he brings up the matter of honoring both rich and poor. In other words, don't be partial to the rich or the poor. Don't think that you can only receive good from the rich. That's a huge mistake. Rich people are not the only wise people in the world.

Sometimes rich people are not wise at all. He's just warning young people not to gravitate in a wrong direction because they misunderstand the rich and the poor. Then he speaks of honoring toward companions, in other words, friends who are of your same or similar age. And then finally, after urging honor in the family, toward teachers, toward ministers, toward faithful Christians, toward state authorities, toward prominent people, toward the aged, toward rich and poor, and toward companions. After that, there's this urgent call to pray, to pray for all of these, and to cry out to God, for all of these different kinds of people so that you would bring glory to God early in your days.

He says, so live to your parents' joy, to your teachers' pride, your pastors' crown, the delight of mankind, and inherit their joint blessing. Now this matter of honor and obedience is one of the ways that God has designed to keep love alive in the world. In order to create a culture of love in the world. That first of all your little family, which is kind of an insulated culture, a place protected, it becomes a world of love. And also that your church is also a world of love.

Because young people have a responsibility to create a world of love in their church. And young people should look to themselves in order to help create that world of love. They shouldn't walk into the church and say, I feel no love here. They should walk into the church and say, how am I going to create an atmosphere of love here by my honor, by my respect, by my prayers, and all of these different things toward all the different people in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This preacher here in this third sermon is urging young people to recognize how pivotal their role in the church is.

While in the world most men's love is growing cold, It's not so with you. Your love is not growing cold. It's growing warmer and warmer. It's growing among many different kinds of people and in doing so you're not wasting your life. Your life is not nothing.

Your life is profiting you something because you're walking in love. So this is how young people work with God to create a world of love. And let's just be very clear, you want a world of love. That's really what you want. Everything your heart desires is found in this world of love.

But it begins in the simplest relationship with your father and mother, extending onto your teachers and your pastors and other people in the community. Because God is love. And he wants you to create a world of love. And you, young people, are responsible to do it, just like everybody else is. OK, does anybody just have any thoughts in particular about this, any sort of responses, what stuck out to you?

And your brothers and sisters, that's the foundation for when they get out and you make grand times to your own uncles and cousins and they go out in there to the whole rest of the world. If you can learn that respect and honoring the love at home, you know, they'll carry it out and rest in peace. Yeah, I think that's absolutely correct because if they can't respect you at home, They won't respect anybody outside the home. That's a real problem. Hey, right now, companies are getting young people that never learned how to honor their father and mother.

And it causes trouble. It causes trouble when you have people who don't honor those who are in authority. What are some biblical examples children honored their parents in the scriptures? Can you think of some examples? Joseph, tell a little bit more about that.

Joseph honored his parents, and did what his father told him to do. He went to the fields, and his brothers erupted. He honored his father in that heritage. Because of his respectability in Egypt, he brought everybody over. And he honored his father, and his father's death, he honored them.

Yeah, so those three things. He obeyed, then he took care of them in their old age, and then he was a blessing to them at their death. Of course he was quite that young. When he got to Egypt, then he was in prison. He was listed as a jailer.

Yeah. And a favor. He was chained to prison. He was put in jail. And the jailer.

I have an example of because it talked of if you don't have earthly parents paid off quite well. We've helped her keep her cornered herself and the only by working in the field. And we honor her by not leaving her to be back at job and move the widow. That's a really beautiful example of a faithful woman toward an older woman. The older woman was feeling, you know, old.

But she had someone to care for her. Yeah, he said, not my will, but thine be done. He submitted his father. Of course there was an example of Christ honoring his mother by giving her to his beloved disciple. Other examples in scripture where you see this pictured?

David honored his father by bringing him to his father's temple. See this picture? He obeyed him, David. Right. He honored his father-in-law who came to him and said, you are going to wear yourself out.

This is not working. You need to bring in other judges to help you. And you need to delegate the authority. He listened to his father-in-law. Also got married with her mom.

Watched minutes in the basket, and then he went out to talk to There you go. Princess of Egypt. Uh-huh. Yeah. How is his father?

His father, right? There you go. Huh. Yeah. Scripture doesn't indicate any rebellion or five-inch.

And the Father is going to take it to God. Even perhaps to the last minute. Right. Yeah. Huh.

Yeah. And I would say Daniel and the Hebrew boys. Daniel and the Hebrew children. Because they honored God. Right.

And they did express honor toward, you know, toward the king. They appealed to the king in an honorable way and made a request, an honorable request. I mean, and you can see the success that they had. And their honor was the foundation of their success. Jephthah's daughter.

Right. Jephthah's daughter. Right. Yeah, he was getting ready to exterminate her people and she approached him honorably. So there's...

Great great great grandson of Johnadab. Johnadab, there you go. Reckabide. Reckabide. I mean there was something where they even honored not just the law of God that he gave, John adab there you go recabyte Yes, so here's the scene you can read about it in Jeremiah, I don't remember what chapter.

But the great grandfather commands his sons, you know, the recobites, They're not drinking wine, they're not going to plant, and they're not going to build houses. That's what we're doing. Our family isn't going to do that kind of stuff. And so for 300 years, that's what happened. And then Jeremiah calls the great-great-grandchildren into the temple and commands them to drink wine.

And they say, our daddy told us not to drink wine, we're not drinking it. There you go. But God honored them. But they honored their father for 300 years. And God blessed them.

And promised he would sustain their name forever. They're around. The sons of Jonadab are around. And they're doing well. Because they honored their father.

Interesting, their father, you know, commanded them not to do things that actually were lawful. Like it's lawful to build houses. It's lawful to have farms. But they honored their father. And God blessed them tremendously as a result.

So even when your parents ask you to do something that everybody else is doing, God's still going to bless you. You didn't follow the high priest? I did not know. I did not know. Because he didn't know the authority that was set, and the city that he was following.

Yeah, he called the man a whitewashed wall and didn't realize it was a high priest. So he apologized. Okay, any biblical examples of children who dishonored their parents? Specific examples of that. Samson.

Samson, right. Samson, who else? Absalom. Absalom who else? Sons of Eli yikes.

Sons of Aaron. God kills the sons of Eli kills them. Sons of Aaron. Esau. Adonijah.

Cain. Ham. Cane. Ham. Where's Jacob?

Baby pardon? Jacob. Honor or dishonor? It's not honor, it's home, but I mean dishonor is death. It's bad news.

I don't know. It was dishonor. Yeah. The parable of the son who told his father to go work in the video and then did not. There you go.

Yeah. You know you have the prodigal son. He dishonored his father, but he changed. There's hope. There's hope.

There's hope. Timothy, yeah. He served like a son. Yeah. Right.

Yeah, lots of dishonoring of fathers and the kings. Saul and Son basically, the statements he was making was writing the book. Rehoboam, yeah. And the things he proposed to Paul. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Yeah, Rehoboam is a great example of that. Could be Adam and Eve and they, the people of God, they did this honor. Yeah. That's where the rest of the system is. Yep.

Yeah, that's sort of the headwaters of the whole problem. They wanted something different. They wanted something better than what God gave them. And it poisoned them. And all of us.

Well, okay, so there it is. You know, how can young people keep love alive in the world? It starts at home, it moves on into the church and everywhere else you go. Honor those who are in authority. That's how you keep love alive in the world.

Thank you.