The fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments left by God says: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.” Exodus 20.12
Perhaps, you had a bad experience with your parents and thought: “The last thing I will be doing in my life, is to honour my father and mother because they dishonoured me, they hurt me.”

But before you reject this message, this commandment, wait a bit and let’s reflect: God was on Mount Sinai with Moses; the Hebrew people had just left Egypt after 400 years of slavery. The only law that those people knew was the law of making bricks to build Egypt for Pharaoh and the law of the whip on their backs.

So, it was a lawless, disorderly, indisciplined people, and to become a nation, they needed laws, let’s say, a constitution. Just as countries in the world have their constitution and their set of laws that govern their people, Israel needed laws.

See, of so many things that a nation needs to be regulated; God thought it right to include in the Ten Commandments one about honouring father and mother.

God, in His infinite wisdom, showed that a nation begins at home, with a family. The nation of Israel, for example, started with a couple; Abraham and Sarah.

So, looking at the Ten Commandments, you will realise that four have to do with the family, and the most direct is this fifth, about honouring parents.

But there are still other commandments, such as “you shall not commit adultery;” and “you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife”, both to protect your marriage and the marriage of your neighbour, and there is still the commandment of the day of rest, the seventh day because it was a day where people refrain from all work to dedicate themselves to God and their family.

God also left an extra piece of information, the second part that says, “that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you”.

That is, this fifth commandment teaches us that many people’s lives are shortened, cut off from having pleasure and joy for not honouring their parents. I mean, one of the secrets of a long life, a whole, healthy life, is to honour father and mother. That’s what God is talking about here, and when you look at the statistics in Brazil today, if you look for the number of deaths by age group, you will find a very high rate of deaths of young people between 15 and 34 years old, violent deaths, deaths by suicide. Many young people die unnecessarily and lose their lives today, and those who do not die, live their lives like the living dead.

Watch the video above for the entire message and understand what God wanted to teach when He spoke about honouring father and mother as a commandment.