4th Commandment - July
6, 2016
Honor
thy father and thy mother that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live
long on the earth.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God that we may not despise our
parents and masters, nor provoke them to anger, but give them honor, serve and
obey them, and hold them in love and esteem.
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As we see in the 10
Commandments, God’s law is divided into two tables. The first table teaches us our duty to love
God. The second table teaches us our
duty to love our neighbor. To love God
requires that we fear him and trust him.
To fear him is to acknowledge that he made us and that he is right to
hold us to his holy standards. To trust him
is to have confidence toward him that he will deal with us as he has promised
in his word. This is what it means to
love God. It is both to fear and to
trust him so that we have no other god, so that we call upon him in all
trouble, and so that we gladly hear his word.
