Honor Difficult Parents

How do you honor a parent when they are the one pushing you away from Jesus Christ? Why does it have to be a difficult question? How do you honor a parent when they are the reason for you being pushed away from the Lord Jesus? Okay, well, I'll put it this way. I'll ask two questions or one question. Number one, whoever is asking this question, I need to first know how old you are.

Reason being, because maybe this judgment is made by what you know, and what you know is not the truth, or it's not the whole truth. Maybe the way you are perceiving it, that parent is becoming a stumbling stone. Maybe, I'm just saying.

So that's why, I don't know, I need to see more in details who this person is in order to give you a more accurate answer or reply at least. But on the other hand, you see, the reason why I'm saying this, because if somebody asks you, what is life? What is the definition of life? The definition of life in a nutshell, life is experience and knowledge. That is the nutshell definition of life.

Life is experience and knowledge. Parents, when they address their children, they address their children based on experience. When children address their parents, they address their parents based on knowledge, not experience, because they haven't lived to the life of their parents in order to speak based on experience.

So when parents come and talk, they are talking out of experience, because they were one day a teenager. They were one day in their 20s and their 30s and their 40s, and now they are in their 70s. So when they talk, they talk out of experience.

But when children talk, and especially teenage children, which 99% of the time, they know what they're talking about. Don't ever question question my integrity and my intellectual capacity, because I know what I'm talking about. So when they talk as children, they talk out of knowledge.

That's all they have. They have an experienced life, the way parents have. Let me tell you one thing, my beloved son and daughter.

A piece of advice. No matter how knowledgeable you are, with that experience, you are ignorant. No matter how knowledgeable you are, with that experience, you are ignorant of the facts.

You may think you know, but what you think you know is not what the real thing is. So that's why I'm asking, how old are you? To say that my parent is a stumbling stone. Maybe they're not.

Maybe they are. But if they are, how do I deal with my parents? Saint Paul in his writing to the Corinthians, he says, parents, discipline your children in Christ. Parents, discipline your children in Christ.

Children, adhere or be obedient to your parents in Christ, not outside of Christ. So if a parent comes and deliberately teaches you and tells you and orders you to do something against the Lord Jesus, then no one comes before the Lord. No one.

You have the right to say to your parent, no. If they are taking you away from the Lord, you can say no. But, there's always this three letter word, but you have to love them.

Never lose track of them. See, loving parents is one thing and listening to parents is totally different. But you see, when it's to do with love, there should never be anyone that comes before the love of Christ.

Christ always comes first. So I don't know the the situation and what kind of things are happening in this kind of a relationship between parents and children, but my advice to parents, if you are teaching your children the wrong things and it's against the Lord Jesus, then you are not fulfilling your role as parents. I'm sorry to say, because parents are supposed to take their children to the Lord Jesus.

And if they're not taking their children to the Lord Jesus, then they are taking them to the devil. Because it's either light or darkness. It's either the Lord or Satan.

If you're not showing them the way to the Lord Jesus, then which other way is there other than Satan? But again, we need to look at the situation and we need to see it more in detail and more in depth to really make a better judgment. As I said, maybe the children are being a little bit more extreme in their judgment and they just want to get away from their parents. But if the parents are being stubborn about it and teaching them wrong things, then it's their consequences.

If children leave home, then it is the parents' fault, not anyone else. It's the parents' fault. Not anyone else.

My advice to every mom and dad is you have to try this. I'm not going to say that it's going to work but you have to do it. You have to be a friend with your children.

You need to be friendly. If the father speaks to his son as father and son, he will lose his son. If the mother speaks to her daughter as mother to her daughter, she will lose her daughter.

Unless we speak to them as friends, we will never gain their trust and attention. Reason being, there are, you may have heard us say this before and we'll say it again, on earth there are five friends. There are five friends on earth.

Father, mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, friends. Five. Father, mother, husband and wife, brother and sister are for earth.

Friends is for earth and heaven forever. The rank of friends is for earth and heaven forever. And let me say this, father, mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, if they are not friends first, before they are parents, before they are husband and wife, before they are brothers and sisters, if they are not friends, the relationship will not be healthy.

So if the father is not a friend with his son, if the mother is not a friend with her daughter, their relationship is not healthy, there is friction, there is problems. The husband and wife, you have to be friends before you are husband and wife. Otherwise, there is no relationship.

Reason being, in all these four, father, mother, husband, wife, brother and sister, the ranks are different. The only place all ranks become equal is friendship. And this is why God became man in order to be our friend.

Because his level is way beyond us. If Jesus Christ spoke as God to us, we wouldn't have understood him. But he came down to our level since we couldn't go up to his level.

He could have come down to our level, that's why he came down to our level and befriended us, being so that when he spoke, we could relate to him. He became our level. That's why we could relate to him.

And hence, we became his friends. That's why children don't tell secrets to parents, but tell them to their friends. Why? It is only natural for a human being, the only time we will open up and say what is in our hearts, when we see the other person speaking our language, same level with us, I'll never talk to someone that is way above me or below me.

I won't talk to them. The only time I'll share my heart, feelings, emotions and everything inside of me, when it is the same level as me. When that person is my friend, i.e. same level.

So that's why we need to be friends before anything else. So talk to your wife as a friend. You know, if you've been married for 10, 20, 30 years, when you remember the first time you met as friends, wasn't that the most beautiful time? It was the only time you never fought or argued.

Normally, fighting happens after honeymoon. Friendship is always beautiful. Friendship is always beautiful.

And since I spoke about friendship, especially to the young ones, my sons and daughters, don't have too many friends. Maximum, maximum, maximum, three. The healthiest, one.

A little bit more healthy, not bad, two. Three, pushing it. Four, five, six, ten.

Trouble. Trouble. 100% trouble.

You have 10, 20 friends, you'll never stop arguing. But if you find a friend, one, maximum two, and they are, they talk like you, think like you, life is beautiful. Life is beautiful.

You never argue. You share the same thing, same ideas.