Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1744
August 23, 2026
Deuteronomy 5.16 Click here for audio worship.
Dr. Ed Pettus
(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)
“Fifth Commandment – What is Forbidden”
“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you,
that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
What is Forbidden:
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Sins Against Those Under Authority
As we heard last Sunday the Fifth Commandment extends beyond the family, beyond just father and mother, as far as those to whom we give honor. Through the whole of the Bible we see how honor to those in authority is paralleled in the teachings of how to show honor to father and mother. The Larger Catechism teaches that we are required to honor those in authority in the family, church, government, and any profession or position of authority. We are required as people with any authority to exercise that authority as parents would. We are to honor one another in equal positions with dignity and love.
Today we look in the opposite direction, not at what is required of us, but what is forbidden by the Fifth Commandment. The first category deals with those in authority who sin against those under their authority. First, what is forbidden is failure to perform one’s duties. This was the critique of the religious leaders in the Old Testament, those in authority. Ezekiel 34.1-6, “The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
Are there not a hundred positions of authority where we would be pleased as punch if they just did their job!?! The Fifth Commandment forbids failing to fulfill one’s duty in the authority given that position. Parents are to parent. Governors govern. Pastors pastor and preach and teach, I could go on but you get the point. The message from Ezekiel is that shepherds of Israel failed to feed the sheep, failed to feed God’s people. They failed to do their duty. Because they failed the sheep were scattered.
A second failure is to use a position of authority inappropriately. This would include seeking to enhance one’s power or wealth, to glorify one’s self, or to satisfy one’s own pleasure. Those in authority are forbidden to command that which is unlawful. In Acts 4.17-20, we read that the authorities tried to stop Peter and John from preaching the truth about Jesus. “But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Those in authority, the Larger Catechism teaches, are forbidden to encourage or reward evil or discourage doing good. They are forbidden to exercise excessive punishment or to provoke to anger. In essence the Fifth Commandment forbids doing anything that dishonors the position of authority by those in authority.
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Sins Against Those in Authority
We all live in one way or another under the authority of another or a system or government. The same situation holds true here as it does for those in authority. Those under authority are also forbidden to fail in their duty. Jesus quotes the Fifth Commandment and then proceeds to speak to those under the authority of the parents. Matthew 15.4-9 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
Our duty is to obey God’s Word, God’s Commandments, and not the doctrines of men. Honoring those in authority is one of our duties.
And I would think we should be extra careful not to be envious of those in authority. Psalm 106 has a serious warning on that! “When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron, the holy one of the Lord, the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. Fire also broke out in their company; the flame burned up the wicked” (16-18).
We are forbidden, as those under authority, to show contempt, to rebel, to dishonor those in authority. I spoke last Sunday about how the Bible uses the authority of father and mother as a guide to all positions of authority. This is the case in Proverbs 19.26, He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach.” The same applies to those under authority who seek to do violence against those in authority.
There is no doubt that these teachings can be difficult to navigate when some in authority are failing to do their duty by failing to keep the Fifth Commandment. We must be diligent to discern what else the Bible teaches when any party breaks the Fifth Commandment. It would certainly lead us to pray, perhaps to call others to repentance, or maybe we are the ones who need repentance. What the Fifth Commandment forbids is failure for those in authority and those under authority to do everything in our power to obey the Commandment, and yet, better said, to walk in the Spirit who enables such obedience.
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Sins Against Those Equal
Our final word in the Fifth Commandment is what is forbidden among those in equal standing. We are called to the same level of commitment with one another, forbidden to fail in performing our duty to one another. Jesus teaches this duty as loving our neighbor as ourselves and the Apostle Paul says it this way, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13.8). Is the law Paul’s refers to here the Fifth Commandment? Certainly! Our duty is to love one another as Christ has loved us (John 15.12).
The Larger Catechism tells us what it forbidden in this kind of love: Devaluing others, being envious or coveting, and not having an attitude of “holier than thou”. The Bible is filled with lessons on these areas of concern:
Proverbs 14.21, Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.
Galatians 5.26, Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
We may recall the elder son in the Prodigal Son story who was coveting what the younger brother was given, “But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends’” (Luke 15.28-29).
Or remember when some of the disciples began to argue as who who would be the greatest, who might be “holier than thou!” “A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (Luke 22.24).
In the second letter to Timothy, Paul writes several points that touch on the Fifth Commandment, kind of a catch all passage! “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3.1-5).
Lovers of self and lovers of money will have no honor for those in authority or for those who are equal to them. Disobedient to parents is straight to the point of the Fifth Commandment. We could take just about every descriptor in these verses and make an argument that they are against the Fifth Commandment and therefore forbidden.
The Catechism adds one more thing before we leave the Fifth Commandment, and that is the promise given in this Commandment. Catechism Question 133. What reason is added to the Fifth Commandment emphasizing how important it is to obey it?
The Answer: The reason added to the Fifth Commandment is in these words: that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
This is the first Commandment that comes with a promise. The promise is for long life and prosperity. The promise is that it will go well for us if we obey this Commandment. The promise is the blessing of God in our lives when we do what is required and avoid what is forbidden in the Fifth Commandment. Amen.
