Proverbs 6:20 My son, keep thy father’s commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother
Did your parents have rules for you when you were growing up? My parents did, but I have to be honest, there weren’t a lot of them. We had specific guidance, so we knew what was right and wrong, but it wasn’t so much a code of conduct that was written down as it was “do the right thing or else.” I loved my parents and my parents loved me, and they made clear what was right and wrong. So, it wasn’t so much a rule book, although there were some rules in our family. Rules are not bad, they are good.
Why rules? In Proverbs 6:20 the Bible is speaking from the perspective of a father to a son, a parent to a child. He says, “My son, keep thy father’s commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother.” Why? Verse 22 says, “When thou goest, it shall lead thee.” “It” is the father’s commandment and the mother’s law. It continues, “When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee: and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” So, God has established the home to give direction, protection, and counsel to young people. Part of this guidance is through rules.
What is interesting is what follows. It says, “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” So, rules help you go the right way to have a good life. Verse 24 says, “To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange women.” “Strange” here means that she is a stranger to you, she is not your wife, and she doesn’t belong to you. What is instructive here is that if you look at the next chapter, Proverbs 7, you have the same encouragement and for the same reason.
Proverbs 7:1 says, “My son, keep my words.” Verse 5 says, “That they may keep thee.” “If you keep my guidance and law,” Dad says, “they will keep you from the strange woman.” If you look at Proverbs 5:1-3 and Proverbs 2:1 and 16, you find that the reason parents are to give guidance is because it gives leadership. The reason they need to give leadership is because of the danger of the adulterous, strange woman who does not belong to you. Why is that so important? It is important because without the family there is no society.
That would seem to be common sense, but increasingly there are people who would contest that. Government will continue to take more and more of the responsibility of what homes should be doing as parents and families abdicate the responsibility and shove it off on someone else. Government is more than happy to do what parents will not. So, without family there is no society.
Without marriage, there is no family. That is God’s creation. Now words mean things, so “family” means something. There are people that are like a family, like your “church family” or some special group that is like a family, but the fact is that God has established the family as the basic building block of society. It is life at the nuclear level. Without marriage there is no family.
In turn, without rules there is no marriage. How can I even say that I have marriage if I don’t know what marriage is, and if God the Creator cannot define what marriage is then how can there actually be a marriage? How can that word mean anything if it means everything? For instance, if I have an “open marriage” what kind of marriage is that? So, without rules there is no marriage and without proactive parents there are no rules or guidance.
It is interesting that the Proverbs instruct us that parents are to give direction and protection to their children. A father to the son is what is specifically given in these first seven chapters, but by implication it is speaking to parents and children, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters. So, if you won’t rule as a parent, chaos will. That is the history of the universe. God has given parents to give direction, protection, and counsel to their children.
Let me give you three way to do that. First, we should do that by example. How can I say to my son, “Do as I say not as I do” and expect things to go well? How can I continue what God has given to my family if I am not leading by example? I am not leading my family when I am serving myself. If I as a parent am watching filth on television or my iPhone and shoo my kids off to bed early so I can watch whatever I want, that is not the example that is going to help them. So, I need to give guidance by example.
I also need to give guidance by input. What am I allowing to speak into the life of my children? If I am allowing the strange woman to be in my child’s music, movies, and friendships, then I am not protecting them and giving them direction, protection, and counsel. I am to lead, keep, and talk. That is what commandments and laws do. Now, I never felt like my parents were strict, but they gave guidance and security and controlled the input into my mind and heart. That is important.
Finally, leadership and guidance are given through restraint. If you don’t rule, chaos will. If I can’t tell my four-year-old, “Don’t play in the street,” and know that he will not, then the day will come when I will say, “Don’t go with that woman,” and he will go because he has not learned restraint. Parents should give restraint to their kids in a number of areas, but the one example consistently given in the Proverbs is that of an evil woman or a froward or crooked man. Both are dangerous.
So, if I will not teach my children early on to accept my “yes” or “no,” then they won’t understand when I give them a reason for it. I need to give both restraint and reason, but the point is that when I give guidance and restraint in the smaller areas of life, it prepares them to receive restraint in larger areas of life like the relationships with the people around them.
Marriage is important because family is important. Family is important because it is the basic building block of society. If I as a parent will not rule, chaos will.