First Commandment With a Promise — Carter Conlon

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The First Commandment With a Promise

Father, I thank you that your church, Jesus, is not built in a flash. It's built line upon line, little by little, victory by victory. And tonight I come just to put one more brick in the wall that you're building around your saints.

I ask for the skill to put it in carefully, to put it in rightly and solidly, that this truth may remain in the heart and conscience of the hearers. I ask you, Lord, for intelligence far beyond any ability that I may have, that I may speak simply and clearly and in a manner that it can be understood in the inner man by every person that you have brought into this house.

Jesus, thank you for your manifested presence tonight. Thank you that you love us so much. God, that you come and allow us to experience the freedom of worship and praising you. Then you come to build into our lives those things which are going to keep us and glorify your name until you come.

Give me great grace tonight to speak this and give great grace to the hearers to hear it. Lord, there's going to be a tearing down of a stronghold in some people's lives. There's going to be some pain involved with this.

But Lord, you're the one who said that you come and the anointing is given to release those that are bruised in heart. And I'm believing that bruised hearts are going to be set free. I'm believing that those that have been captivated by this issue are going to be released.

And God, the very course of some people's lives is going to be changed. And Father, I thank you for it from the depths of my heart, because you are the only one, Jesus, who can do this. And Holy Spirit, you're the only one that can open this truth and make it a reality.

If you don't quicken it, it will just fall to the earth. Give us ears to hear and hearts to obey. I thank you for it in Jesus' mighty name. Ephesians chapter 6 in the New Testament. Ephesians chapter 6.

And the title of my message tonight, or should I say rather the Lord's message to you, is the first commandment with a promise. The first commandment with a promise. Now, there are all types of commandments in the Old Testament.

Thou shalt not kill, for example, or thou shalt not steal are simply commandments. There's no promise with them, other than the obvious, that you'll not suffer the punishment of disobedience. But this is the first one with a promise.

It's found in Ephesians chapter 6 and only verses 2 and 3. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. And here's the promise, that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.

I want to read it again. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. Now, I'm going to tear this verse apart very slowly, because I'm believing that God wants to build something of this truth into our lives tonight.

Now, the word honor in the Greek text is to mean to prize something or to fix a value upon something. God is saying, I want you to fix a value upon your father and upon your mother, that it may be well with you.

Now, the word well means well done. It's the word actually that Jesus uses in Matthew chapter 25 verse 21, where he says, I gave a certain skills or talents to a person who brought it back and had made increase with what I had imparted into their life.

And he looked at that servant and said, well done, good and faithful servant. And that's the context of this word well. This means that I may be able to say to you, well done, at the end of your course.

The word be means to be made or formed, to be created from nothing or to have something come to pass. And the last word I want to just dissect for a moment is the word earth, which means land. And it also means sometimes it is a word used as a place that is fit for fruit bearing.

Now, to sum all of this up, I want to give you my definition of these two verses of Scripture. Now, this is strictly mine, and I'm trying to make it applicable to our lives tonight. And here's how I read this.

Prize or fix a value upon your father and mother that you may be formed by God into a servant over which he may proclaim, well done. Fix a value on your father or mother. God says that I can make you into something that you are not yet.

And at the end, I can look at your life and say, well done, good and faithful servant. And that you may long live in a place that is fit for bearing good fruit or you may long dwell there. Incredible when you begin to tear it apart and look at it doesn't mean just that it would be well and you'll live long on the earth.

I don't think it necessarily applies just to longevity. But if I honor my father and mother, I'm going to make it to eighty five and then I'm going to die. No, it's more than that, that you will long dwell in a place that is fit for bearing good fruit.

Jesus Rebukes Traditions That Nullify the Commandment

Now, there are some commandments in the Bible that even God's own people from time to time are reluctant to obey. Now, if you go back with me in the Bible to Matthew, chapter 15, I want to show you this very principle as applies this commandment of God.

Matthew, chapter 15, beginning at verse three. Now, the scribes at the beginning, they came to Jesus and they got all upset because his disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate bread. Now, he answered them about something much more serious than just washing your hands before you eat bread.

Chapter 15 of Matthew, verse three, he said, why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, honor thy father and mother and he that curses father or mother, let him die the death.

In other words, it was so serious, this commandment in the sight of God that in the Old Testament, he said, if any man curses his father or mother, he's to be put to death. But you say, whosoever shall say to his father or mother, it is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by.

In other words, whoever says, I'm under no obligation to do anything for my father or my mother. If I do something for them, it is strictly out of the generosity of my heart. It is an absolute gift. And honor not his father or mother, verse six, he shall be free.

In other words, he said, you've changed my commandment. And you said that there's no necessity of honoring father and mother. That whatever I do for my father and mother will just be a gift out of my own generosity.

And I'm now free from the commandment of God. And he said, thus, you have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Verse seven, he said, you hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, this people draw nigh to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

For in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Now, it's an amazing thing. It looks as if by the time that Jesus arised on the scene in the Gospel of Matthew, that the people just simply didn't want the burden of disobedience.

Families, to some degree, I suppose, had begun to break down. Selfishness, as a society, begins to draw farther away from God. Selfishness always begins to take over from self-sacrifice. And it became to be a burden, I suppose, to look after or to honor father and mother.

And so many of the people just began to draw back. And they began to change the commandment and just alter it a little bit and make it more palatable for the hearing. And say, well, let's just change it.

We'll still sort of obey it. But we'll change the obligation from a commandment to a suggestion and ultimately to just the benevolence of doing whatever we feel like doing. And Jesus said, but this is a tragedy, in a sense, of a people who are approaching me and not taking seriously some of the things that I've shared and spoken that have to be done.

Now, Paul the Apostle, in 2 Timothy chapter 3, said the last days are going to be characterized by very perilous times. And the perilous times are going to be essentially times of selfishness, self-centered lifestyles.

People disobedient, he said, to parents. Now, that's an incredible thing. You wouldn't think, well, that's gone all through history. And how is that going to characterize the last days? No, he said, no, but there's going to be an increase in this kind of, as the Bible calls it, lawlessness.

And they're going to be a people who have without natural affection. And the word in the Greek text means family affection. They're going to be a people who are disobedient to parents. There's going to be a breakdown of the family as it is as God ordained the family to be.

Society is going to begin to move away from God's order. Every man will begin to do what is right in his own sight. And natural family affection will begin to die. And this will be a perilous time. It is a perilous day when we see families breaking apart, when we see the very structure of the family under attack in our generation.

We can be sure this is a sign that we're living in perilous times. There are strong movements underfoot now in society itself to change the very definition of family. And with the change of that definition, you're going to be sure.

And it's under the guise of tolerance. But you're going to be sure once the definition is adequately changed, there will be an intolerance for the original God-given definition of the family, being a father and a mother and the children in subjection to their father and mother and such and so forth.

Malachi's Call to Restore Family Affection

Now, the prophet Malachi, just go backwards in your Bible to the last book in the Old Testament, just only a few pages, and it's in chapter 4. God was speaking through the prophet Malachi. And he's talking about the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Now, we know this scripture was fulfilled initially, at least with the coming of John the Baptist. Because the apostle said to Jesus, well, doesn't the scripture say that Elijah's got to come first before Christ is going to return?

He said, well, I'm telling you that Elijah has already come. He's talking about this initial fulfillment. But I believe this is something that God did just prior to Christ's coming through John. But it's also something that the Holy Spirit has to do in every heart of every believer before God can truly visit with his life-changing power.

And he says in chapter 4, verse 5, he said, Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Now, this is my interpretation of how this verse could apply to you and me. I will send a message to you which must be heard before I come. Now, the message I send to you will turn your heart back to something or someone which you have rejected.

And if you don't hear this message, my coming will smite your fruitful place with destruction. He said to Malachi, the Lord said to Malachi, I'm going to come. But before I come, I'm going to send a message.

And the message that I send has got to turn the people's hearts back to God's established order, beginning in the home, in the family. And he said, if it doesn't happen when I do come, I will smite the earth with a curse.

That's an incredible warning. An incredible thing written in the scriptures. My heart's crying when I read this. It says, oh God, I understand now that the true ministry that stands in the name of Jesus Christ and says, I have called to God to prepare your heart so that Christ may come and dwell within you, has got to turn your heart back again to some things that we may not want to look at.

There are some things in all of our lives that might be unpleasant to look at, some places that we don't want to go, some calls to obedience that might be hard to obey. But the Lord said, if I'm going to come, if I'm going to bring you into a fruitful place, you've got to be able to hear this.

There are certain orders that have to come back into the church, the nation, and of course the Christian life above all else. Now go with me back in the Old Testament to the book of Exodus now, chapter 15.

Pharaoh's Hardened Heart and Israel's Deliverance

I want to talk a little bit about the children of Israel. Now this is right after they were set free from 400 years of bondage. God sent a message. And he sent it through two messengers, Moses and Aaron, and they stood in front of Pharaoh, the most powerful king at that time in that part of the world, with a simple message, let my people go.

And he hardened his heart against that message. And because of the hardening of his heart, all types of destruction and depravity began to come into his own nation. Ultimately it culminated with such judgment coming upon him that he was forced, and the people were forced to release the children of Israel into freedom.

The Bible says that they went through an impossible sea. God took them through powerfully and they sang songs of great deliverance. That's where Miriam and Aaron sang the song of God sending Pharaoh and his chariots into the depth of the sea.

And it was a marvelous deliverance. I suppose it's a type of you and I when we come to Christ. The devil had us in his grip, but God sent a word. He sent it through somebody. It could have been a friend at work.

It could have been a sermon you heard in search. In some cases it's just Christ himself through the Holy Spirit coming and speaking into the heart and revealing himself to somebody who's in desperate straits and looking for God, looking for a way to freedom.

And you and I found freedom in Christ and we walked through and out of the grip of darkness and walked through the impossible places of captivity and we found that the devil himself could not hold us because the hand of God was on us.

And we come into the house of the Lord like we are here tonight and we sing the songs of Zion. We talk about Pharaoh being drowned in the sea and we know and understand that we're in the hand of God now and nothing can stop us.

Nothing can stop the plan of God that he has destined for our lives. The Bible tells us in Exodus 15 beginning of verse 22 that the children of Israel were only a few days into the journey when they were confronted with water that was too bitter to drink.

So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of shore and they went three days into the wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Marah they could not drink of the water of Marah for they were bitter and therefore the name of it was called Marah.

And the people murmured against Moses and said what shall we drink? You know sometimes in the Christian life we get only a few steps from our salvation and find ourselves in a very bitter place. We find ourselves we say oh God this is living water just like you said through Isaiah.

You said you're going to pour out upon me and you're going to cleanse me and wash me. And I feel like those in the banquet feast in John chapter 7 when Jesus you said if anyone thirst let him come to me and drink and I've come and the water is so good.

You remember when you first come to Christ how good the water is? How good the promises are? How good it is to go to sleep at night knowing that heaven is your destiny? Knowing that God's got you in the palm of his hand?

Knowing that none of your enemies yes you might be struggling against hell itself but there's the inner knowledge that no power of evil that's formed against you is going to prosper. You now have the power to condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment.

And you come to the house of God and it's so exciting because you say oh God the water is so sweet, the water is so sweet, it's so sweet. After years of abuse and years of lies and years of struggling and suffering under the lashing tongue of the devil finally I'm in a place of sweet water.

And one day you come so soon and early into your journey you come into the house of God and all of a sudden here's some water put before you. And it's so God how could you expect me to drink this? Lord this is so bitter, this is a bitter place.

Why did you so soon have to bring me to this bitter place? You see there was a type happening here. God says yes I'm going to bring you out of Egypt, I'm going to show you my power but before we can progress, before I can take you into the land of everything I promised you I've got to take you through these bitter places.

It's part of your growth because if this doesn't get out of your heart I'm not ever going to be able to plant you in a fruitful place. Everything I begin to do in your life, this bitterness that's not dealt with is going to come and strangle it.

And my coming which should be a blessing ends up being to you a curse in a sense because nothing grows, nothing ever comes to fruition. It's planted but it doesn't grow because there's a bitterness in you, there's a root and that root is deep, it goes right through your loins.

It's part and fabric of everything you are and everything I plant within you this root will come and work its way around it and in the end will choke it out. And my coming which should have been a blessing ends up being a curse until this is dealt with in your life and so he brought them to this water and it was a type of what happens in the Christian life when we come to Christ.

Honoring Parents Through Forgiveness

Some people never want to deal with the bitter water. They never want to go to these difficult places. They just look at the pool and just try to pass it by but you can't pass it by. It is something that has to be dealt with or it will choke the very life of Christ out of you.

Bitter water, too difficult to drink. I know exactly what some are thinking tonight. You've read a scripture that said it's the first commandment with promise. You said I'm to honor my father and my mother.

But tell me, pastor, how do I honor a father and mother who abandoned me? Tell me how to honor a father and mother who beat me. How do I honor a father and mother who abused me physically or verbally?

And folks, I'm not minimizing it because I know in some of your lives because I've heard these stories, the depth of the pain, the depth of the wounding, the physical, the sexual abuse that occurred in some cases in your own house, the verbal abuse of a drunken father or mother or just an angry person who just constantly is speaking death into your life.

Tell me, how do I honor a father or mother who I never have known or never took an interest in my life? There will be some here tonight who could say, pastor, you're telling me to honor a man. I don't even know who he is.

I never met him. My mother was single when I was born or my father took off before I was born or when I was just a child. I don't even know who my father is. I never have gotten a birthday card. I've never heard from him at Christmas.

He never calls. I don't even know who he is. And you are asking me tonight to honor him. You're going to have to tell me how I do this because otherwise I'm never going to be able to get away from this.

And the people looked at Moses and they were so upset that they began to murmur against Moses. And they began to say, look, you bring us out of Egypt and you bring us to this place and show us this pool of water.

You tell us now how we're going to drink this. It's not possible. It's too bitter to drink it. And it's true. There are some situations here that are so awful that in your natural strength, you'll never be able to deal with this.

It's impossible. You can't drink it. You look down, the memories come flooding back. You're saying you're asking me to honor somebody that traveled down the hall at midnight and abused me. You're asking me to do these things.

I'll never be able to do it. The memories are too bitter. But he said, Moses cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a tree. And when he cast the tree into the waters, the waters were made sweet. And there he made them a statute and an ordinance.

And there he proved that. And God said, there's only one way this will ever happen in your life. I'm going to show you the power of the cross at the cross. Christ said, I myself suffered the wrath of my father.

You have to understand the wrath of God was poured out on him. Everything that you and I have ever deserved was poured out on Christ. I'm comforted by the fact quite often that everything that we will ever have to experience, he experienced.

The wrath of his father came upon him. Incredible when you think of it. And Christ made a determination to honor his father, even though he knew he had to suffer his father's wrath before he would be raised on the third day from the dead.

And it's only when the power of the cross is applied to these areas of our lives can they ever be made sweet. It's in the power of the victory that Christ won on Calvary that you and I can enter into that victory.

When he rose from the dead, he truly took captivity captive. He truly took every memory captive. He truly took the weakness of the human heart captive. He truly took every lie of the devil captive. And he gave, the Bible says, gifts unto men.

He gave us the power, the scripture says, to those who believe on him. He gave us the power to become the sons and daughters of God. He gave us everything we need to triumph and to do what God asks us to do in these areas.

To do this in our own strength is impossible. How could, I know it's to ask an impossibility to ask anyone here to drink such bitter water. It's only when we apply the power of Calvary, the power of God, the promises of God, that we will ever find the strength to be obedient to these areas of our lives.

Obedience and the Promise of Healing

Then he gave a promise, verse 26, he said, If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, and will do that which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments and keep his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon you which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee.

Now there's a promise for obedience. God said, if you will obey me in this, I will put none of these diseases upon you that you have seen come upon the Egyptians. I will set you free from all of the cancerous hatred, from all of the blind, awful words that are spoken about family.

I will set you free from the wounds that are plaguing and driving all of this society from pillar to post, looking for happiness and looking for peace. God said, if you will obey me, I will take these things off of you.

I will set you free. I will give you a testimony of grace and glory. I will cause you to stand. You will have such a testimony of life if you will obey me in this, and allow me to give you the strength to perform what I ask you to do.

Now the most recent disease in their memory would be the loss of the firstborn of each family, because of the stubborn refusal of Pharaoh to hear the word of God. Imagine that the word of God came and they wouldn't obey it in Egypt.

And they would be so, so remember God. I remember the wailing and the anguish as every house had a dead child. And usually the firstborn was a symbol of the continuance of your family lineage, your strength.

Every house lost its strength in other words. The lineage was destroyed because there was a refusal. The word of God came. The instruction was simple, let them go. But Pharaoh wouldn't let them go. And I think of the song that the children of Israel were singing on the other side of the Red Sea.

I think of them sitting around the campfires at night saying, how foolish of Pharaoh. How insane. The word was so simple and he just wouldn't obey it. He could have saved his family unspeakable sorrow.

He could have saved the destruction of the fruitfulness of the nation. There was fruit, there was livestock, there was provision. It was all destroyed because of simple stubbornness to hear a simple instruction.

Let the people go. And he wouldn't do it. And I can see them just after they set free and then very short time later they're sitting around the same campfire. But now they're around the pool of Marah.

And that pool of bitterness in a sense is where they're being given the same instruction that Pharaoh was given. The same word is coming to them. Now I want you to hear me on this. I'm drawing an inference from the scriptures which is not specifically stated.

But it does have an application in every one of our lives. You see the question arises how do we respond when we sit in Pharaoh's seat and the word of God comes to us saying let them go. It's an incredible thing.

We can see the foolishness of Pharaoh. We sing about it. We even clap our hands and worship about it in Times Square Church. But how do we respond when God's word comes to us and says those that kept you in bondage, those that wounded you, those that made your life hard bitter bondage, let them go.

And now we are sitting in Pharaoh's seat. You see those who have not let them go, you are now sitting in Pharaoh's seat. You are Pharaoh. And the word of God comes to you and says listen, yes I know you were hurt.

Yes I know you were held in bondage. Yes I know that you were betrayed. Yes I know you were abandoned. Yes I know you were not provided for. But you are now living in a higher place than you used to live.

You are now in the hand of God. So I say to you, let them go. That that they owe you. Let them go. Set them free. Let them go. And so now we have a choice just like Pharaoh. We can obey and yield to the word of God or we can harden our hearts and watch the provision of our land taken away.

Watch our cattle die. Watch our families go into the same spiral of destruction that we have come from. Verse 27. He said they came to Elam where there were twelve wells of water and three score and ten palm trees and they encamped there by the water.

After the tree was applied to the water, God said if you will obey me, I will bring you to a never ending supply and I will give you life and give you peace. Now I know that there are people here tonight that say pastor you are just going to have to get more specific with me.

How do I honor a father or mother who has already died? Or is too far away or in some place where I can't get to for any kind of face to face reconciliation? Tell me how can I honor them? Here is the best way.

This is only an illustration. You do it whatever way you have to. I think maybe someday you can just sit down and write all the things that you feel that they owe you. And were never done for you. Then take it.

Tear it up. Offer it to God and just throw it away. And say I have released the debt. How do you know when the debt is released? Well first of all it is when you stop rehearsing the matter. When you stop telling everybody you meet how rotten your father and mother were.

You stop rehearsing it. That is how you know you have let the debt go. When you stop talking about it. When your face doesn't get all twisted every time you start talking about. You see those who don't.

My experience has been those who don't release the debt always seem to struggle with authority all their lives. Never trust any authority. A woman goes into a marriage. Her husband has some little failure and she says you are just like my father.

You ever said that to your spouse? You are just like my mother. You want to know why you said that? Because you have not released the debt. You are still rehearsing the matter. In your spirit you are not letting it go.

And you see what should be the blessing of God is a destruction. The Lord says until this is dealt with in your heart. My coming instead of bringing fruit ends up being a curse. In what should be bringing life into your heart and your home.

Looking to Christ Rather Than the Past

Those who don't forgive run the risk of reliving the very thing they despise within their own families. I have seen it over and over and over again. Job said it in Job 3 .25. The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me.

I will tell you why it happens. I think the principle is fairly simple. And it is simply this. The direction in which you are looking is most often that which you will become. If you are motivated as a Christian to change just because you don't want to be like somebody else.

If that is your motivation you will more than likely become exactly like that person. It is an incredible thing. I have seen this so many times now I know it is not coincidence. I have had people come in for counseling and say I hate my father, my mother, whatever is my uncle.

I hate that person and I am becoming just like them. The very thing I hate I am becoming. You see folks they are becoming it because that is the direction they are looking in. Not looking to be like Christ but looking to be unlike someone else.

Folks if you want to grow in Christ the Christian motivation to move forward must always be to like Christ and not to be unlike someone else. You have got to release the dead. You have got to let it go and then look to Jesus the Bible says.

The author and finisher of your faith. And say Lord I want to be like you. I release everybody that has hurt me in the past. I let them all go. Family, husbands, wives, children whatever the situation is I let it go and I look to you now.

Because you are now the source of my hope, my life and my strength. And everything I am going to be I want to be like you. I honor my father and mother if they are still living. You can show acts of kindness.

Galatians 6 .10 says as we have opportunity let us do good to all men. Especially to those who have the household of faith. I am sure your father and mother has a birthday. If they are still living you can send a card.

You could write a letter and tell them what God is doing for you. Whether or not it is reciprocated is not the issue. God did not say honor your father and mother if they have done everything right. He just said honor them.

And that was a commandment. That it may be well with you. That you may live long upon the earth. There are so many things you can do. So many acts of kindness to begin to turn this whole thing around.

Even if it does not turn around your original relationship with your mother and father. It will change your family relationship. The Bible says whatever you sow that is what you are going to reap. And you can be sure that if you choose to honor your father and mother that your children will honor you.

They will arise up as the scripture says and they will call you blessed. And lastly you can take the caring of your parents as a holy charge from the Lord. Because really that is what it is. Colossians 3 .23 says whatever you do do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.