Dealing with Your Parents, or A Story of Three Kings

(Transcription of a message preached at Faith-Grace Vietnamese Baptist Church, Stone Mountain, GA; 13 July 2014)

Text: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11

In preparing this message, I was amazed yet again about how much the Bible has to help young people. Did you know that an entire book of the Bible is aimed at a young person? Look at Proverbs 1:1, 4: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel…To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.” Many young people have the mistaken idea that the Bible is a book for grown ups. That’s a big mistake. Paul told his dear friend Timothy, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).

One of the biggest issues in any young person’s life is how to deal with two sets of people: (1) his peers, or friends; and (2) even more importantly, his parents. The Bible is where you need to turn first to learn what God expects of you as a young person still at home and under your parents’ authority. The Bible, especially the old testament, has plenty to say about this, if we will take the time to study through it.

The portion of scripture I’d like us to consider is from one of the historical books of the old testament (Joshua-Esther): 2 Chronicles. This book is a record of kings’ reigns, mainly the kings of Judah after Israel splits in two after Solomon’s death, which we talked about in one of my previous visits, if you remember. Three kings show up in the last chapters of this book that, in my opinion, teach us some great lessons about how to deal with our parents.

Let’s begin with the passage we read earlier. Here we meet a man named Hezekiah, who, for the record, is one of the greatest kings of Israel; the greatest, according to scripture as to his faith in God. Look at 2 Kings 18:5, “He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”

To me, that’s an amazing statement. The kings of Judah after him would include the devout king Josiah, and the kings of Judah before him would include David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14--sought; Acts 13:22--found). But according to God, neither of these men trusted God like Hezekiah did. One of the major events in Hezekiah’s reign was when the greatest army in the world at the time, the army of the Assyrians, invaded Israel and surrounded the capital city, Jerusalem. Hezekiah’s army was very weak compared to the invaders, yet he trusted God for deliverance, and do you remember what happened? One angel went out at night and killed 185,000 of the invaders’ leaders and best soldiers (2 Chron. 32:21). David and Josiah never faced such overwhelming odds: David had a great army once he became king, and Josiah was never invaded in 31 years. So Hezekiah stands out among all the kings of Israel for his faith…

But did you know that he had a wicked father? His father’s name was Ahaz, and you can read about his rule in 2 Chron. 28. It’s an awful story. Ahaz turned away from the God of his father, Jotham, and grandfather, Uzziah, both good kings overall. He desecrates God’s temple with a pagan altar and by marring some of the temple furniture used to worship God. In the end, he even shuts the temple down altogether. A very bad man! Destined to have a bad son, right? Highly likely, it would seem.

But not the case, praise the Lord. No sooner is the man dead and his son, Hezekiah, steps forward as the new king, and in the first month that he’s king, he opens the doors of the temple! What a shock that must have been to everyone. They probably thought that Ahaz’s son would have been even worse than Ahaz, growing up like he did. But just the opposite happens. Why do you think that is? I’d like to give you my thoughts on it, and use this relationship (Ahaz-Hezekiah) and Hezekiah’s relationship with his son, Manasseh, to show you three things God expects of young people regarding their parents.

1. The first thing I see about Hezekiah is his submission to his father. His father was a very bad man, perhaps one of the worst men the southern kingdom ever produced, because he led the entire nation into worshipping false gods, even in the temple of God itself. At some point, Hezekiah comes to believe in the true God of Israel. He was nine years old when his father took the throne from his good father, Jotham, so maybe Jotham’s example inspired the young boy. We don’t know. But in the sixteen years that followed, Hezekiah chose, at some point, not to go after false gods, but cleave to the LORD, despite what his father was doing. Nevertheless, he didn’t rebel against his father, but continued to do what his father told him to do. But when his father was gone, and he was in charge, he bravely stepped forward and set the nation on an entirely different course than the one his father had them on.

In every age, including this one, God expects children to submit to their parents. Let’s look at a few verses aimed at the children of Christian parents. First, Ephesians 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour 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.” Next, Colossians 3:20, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is wellpleasing unto the Lord.” Now, even though these verses are aimed at the children of Christian parents, they really apply to all children. Did you notice that the passage from Ephesians quotes the ten commandments? That is God’s holy law, and Paul tells us in Romans 2 that even if a person or a people don’t have God’s written word, it’s written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15). One of those laws is that children should honour their parents (Ex. 20:12)—the fifth commandment, as a matter of fact. If you’ve read the letters of the apostle Paul, you notice that in several passages he lists sins, and at least three of those, he mentions “disobedience to parents” as being very displeasing to God, for all families, not just Christian ones.

So Hezekiah had to submit to his wicked father for a time, but God took care of him, just like he’ll take care of you, if you trust him like Hezekiah did. I was not raised by Christian parents. They were churchgoers but they taught me very little about God and set a bad example for me in many ways. But when I came of age, I decided that I really wanted to know God and do whatever he wanted me to do, and it’s the best decision I ever made.

2. That brings me to the second thing that God expects of children. He expects you to learn from your parents lives: both the things they do right, and the things they do wrong. Hezekiah seems to be great example of a young person who learned from the bad things his father did and decided to go the opposite direction. A very wise child! He saw, I believe, that the way his father was living was not working. Something was deeply wrong, he thought, and he wanted to know why. I believe that led him into the arms of God, through his grandfather’s example or his own search, or both.

Now, God also expects young people to learn from the good example of their parents. This brings another character into this drama: Hezekiah’s oldest son, Manasseh. Manasseh was a miracle baby, in a way, since he was born after God miraculously healed Hezekiah from a deadly illness. But sadly, he turns out to the worst king of Judah, even worse than his grandfather Ahaz. But why, you may ask? He had such a good father. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Here’s a boy, Hezekiah, with a wicked daddy, who turns out great, and here’s a boy, Manasseh, with a righteous father, Hezekiah, who turns out awful. What is going on?! Well, the answer is simpler than you might think. Every child, no matter who his parents are, decides his own course in life. He decides whether he will learn from his parents’ successes and mistakes, like Hezekiah did, and benefit from that, or whether he’ll ignore them like Manasseh and suffer. Manasseh ends up losing his power and carried away in chains to imprisonment in a foreign country (Babylon). And there’s been many a man like him that ignored the good example of his parents, even Christian parents, and ends up in jail, maybe even overseas.

Do you see how important this time in your life is, and why it’s so important for you to know what the Bible says about this stuff? Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” It’s almost impossible not to stumble in the dark without a light, and that’s what this precious Book is. I didn’t start reading it until I was 18, and I wish I had started far earlier than that. My two oldest children started reading the Bible when they were 4 or 5, and God’s truth is already being laid up in their hearts, 13 years before it was in mine. One of the first things God taught me after my salvation was, not surprisingly, to obey and respect my parents. It’s wonderful how that desire, which was not very strong at all before, sprung up in my heart, and it was something I wanted to do rather than had to do. If you truly come to know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, he can and will produce the same desires in you, if you allow him to, and the results are wonderful. I know that my parents saw the change in my attitude toward them, and I believe that God worked on their hearts through it.

3. The last thing I’d like to mention, in closing, that God expects of young people, I’ve touched on already, but would like to emphasize: following your parents. It’s natural for you to do so, but you have to first submit to them, learn from their examples, then decide to follow them where they are right. Look at Ephesians 5 this time, verse 1: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” So it’s natural for children to follow their parents, and the parent-child relationship is so critical because of that. God tells his children, those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, to follow him, because its’ the natural thing to do. But God, unlike our earthly parents, is perfect and sets a perfect example. But since our parents are sinners just like us, we have to study the Bible and compare their lives to it, just like wise King Hezekiah did, and decide what and what not to follow. As a parent, it’s very rewarding to see my children follow the right things I do, but it’s a grief to see them pick up on my faults. My challenge to any parents present is to think about this and be very careful about your walk and example. You cannot set a perfect example for your kids, but you can try, and where you come short, God can use that to show them that you too are a sinner in need of God’s grace, like they are.

So, in closing, I’d like to thank God for the lessons that we can learn from men like Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh on how to deal with our parents. The Bible is the most holy and the most practical book that you will ever read, and I encourage you to get as deeply in it as you can. Your leaders here, if not your parents themselves, can help you with your understanding of it, either to come to know the Lord personally, or having done that, to grow in grace and knowledge and enjoy the happiest of lives, as young person and as an adult. Thank you so much for your attention, and God bless you all.