My dream… why I came back to Kentucky after living in Indiana and Michigan, was to surround myself with my descendants. That turned out to be merely wishful thinking.
The ideal relationship between
the patriarchs and their offspring was my own father and mother. Nearly every
Sunday and most holidays, their numerous offspring surrounded them because they
were dearly loved. My parents were the ‘glue’ that held the family together. So
long as they were alive, the family was cohesive. For the most part, there was
no dissension among any family members.
Dad was not only the patriarch of
the family but the religious head. To us, Dad was indeed the image of God
although he did have some faults, but very few, at least that we could see.
Dad was not always a ‘saint.’ In
his youth and early adulthood, even my righteous Dad sinned often. That was not
the father that I knew because his conversion changed the sinful man into a
righteous one. We did not judge him for how he had been but how he was.
Because we loved Dad so much, we all could overlook his past and understand that
he was no longer who he had been. I never saw Dad sin except for something he
saw as a sin himself.
Dad’s stronghold was tobacco. However,
Jesus was lenient about some sins; He said, “Not that which goes into the mouth
defiles a man; but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man” (Mat 15:11).
Jesus did not hold that against him and neither did we. However, Dad held that
against himself. He called on the Lord to deliver him from that sin and deliver
him He did! I cannot even imagine Dad smoking; it is as if the sin was blotted
out. (I did blot it out of his favorite picture; I edited the cigarette from
his fingers because that picture was of the original Dad and not the one that I
knew.)
We should judge others as we
judge ourselves.
Jesus encountered some scribes
and Pharisees who judged the disciples of Jesus as unclean because they failed
to wash their hands before eating. Indeed, that is unsanitary but not in a spiritual
manner. It is not like they had demons enter their mouths but the dust from
which they were made.
Jesus judged the scribes and Pharisees according to their own works, to wit:
You hypocrites, well
did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, “This people draw nigh unto Me with their
mouth, and honor Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in
vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat 15:17-19)
Honor your father and your
mother: that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you.
(Exod 20:12)
Honor your father and
mother and He that curses father or mother, let him die the death. (Mat 15:4)
Jesus, according to the Law, must
be honored for He is the Father. The scribes and Pharisees were there to
dishonor Father God, failing to understand what they were doing. Neither do
people of this age.
They followed Jesus wherever He
went but not to honor him. They were self-assigned judges who went out of their
way to undermine God, their so-called ‘Father.’
Jesus spoke in the Greek; father
and mother were pater and meter, respectively. Pater can
be the family patriarch like my Dad who was a ‘pater’ to his great-grandchildren,
grandchildren, and children. The Romans called that figurehead the ‘progenitor’
and all his offspring, his gens since they were of his genetics.
Father God is the Progenitor
of mankind and those who are of His Seed are of the gens of God. Everyone
is shaped in iniquity and to be of the gens of God requires
rebirth (John 3:7), not by natural means, but by God engendering
them to make them His progeny.
The mother in the Greek is
‘meter.’ She is the standard bearer. As such, Eve is the ‘meter’
of all living, or as it is translated to the English, ‘mother.’
Since Eve is the first woman and
her offspring were imperfect Cain and Seth, but Abel died, then Eve is the
progenitor of all. She is the ‘sin’ in us. As such, honoring the father and
mother is putting value (honor), not just on the parents, but all who came
before us. Because to honor yourselves is not in that commandment, those
who honor themselves and who disregard their forebears are sinning.
Honoring our forebears goes all
the way back to God. It is genetic and whereas often animals soon remove themselves
from their kind, we are not animals and should remain as close as we can to our
kind. That type of righteousness is not out of the mouth but from the heart.
Note that Adam and Eve are still
to be honored although they sinned by dishonoring their Father. Hence, since
original sin is genetic, then it is genetic that dishonoring those who came
before us is just as the original sin. The first sin was Adam and Eve dishonoring
their Father — the LORD GOD. Failure to honor your patriarchs and matriarchs is
the original sin.
The reward for honoring those who
became before you is a long life, possibly even eternal life. Jesus said that
in a different way; those who dishonor their predecessors will die the
death.
Note that “die the death” may
seem repetitive but remember that “surely die” (Gen 2:7) is literally to die,
die. It would mean both a short life and spiritually an enduring death in
Hell. Therefore, honoring all your predecessors is imperative. Note that Jesus
in either case qualified that. It does not say honor your perfect father
and mother, but any father and mother that came before you. Adam sinned
as well as Eve, but both should be honored.
I believe that Eve committed
adultery with Lucifer, since our ‘father’ is the Devil. Should the Devil also
be honored if that is the case? No.
However, we are of his gens,
and his will we will do. One specific commandment excludes the Devil… “You
shalt have no other gods before Me” (Exod 20:2). He portends to be God, so the
Devil, although the bearer of our gens, should not be honored.
On the other hand, everyone else
who became before us should be. Although they bear the image of Satan, they
also bear the Image of God. Whoever your father or mother might be is worthy of
honor because although they are depraved, they are not totally so. As God so
loves even the worst sinner (John 3:16), we too must love them.
To be honest, even though your fathers
and mothers may be evil, you too were shaped in iniquity (Psalm 51:5;
depravity). To dishonor parents is hypocritical as Jesus pointed out to the
scribes and Pharisees. Why so, you are no better because “all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God” (Rom
3:23). That glory is the Image of God and how Adam was created. Your
parents are not glorious, and neither are you. I am sorry, but sin is genetic,
we have the capacity to do what evil our forebears did. By the grace of God, we
may be more righteous, but it is not of our own works (Ephes 2:8).
Both you and all your forebears
were born in sin, but to think that you were not is hypocritical.
I was blessed. My immediate
father and mother were Christians. They are to be honored for that very
purpose. However, if my father and mother had not been Christians, they still would
be sinners such as me. Christians are not born righteous. We are made
righteous by God. God chooses to forget how we were, but we must never forget
that we too are sinners that will be saved by grace.
Even if we are the worst sinners,
God’s grace remains sufficient. He still loves us enough that he sacrificed His
own ‘Son,’ or Gens.
Not to honor those who came
before us is hypocritical because we are all inglorious bastard gens of
the Wicked One. Sure, some parents are much worse than the others, but God made
the difference in you. Who are you to judge their sins when we were all born
sinners? Judging others who have a little of the Divine Spark in them is not
your purpose. That remains for God to do in His time.
We need not condone their sins,
but neither can we condemn them (Luke 6:37) unless we use the same metric
(meter; Mat 7:2), for ourselves that we use on our ‘meter’ and ‘pater.’
Humbling ourselves, which God
calls us to do, means that we are no better than those who came before us.
As it turned out, my dream has
not come true. Not that any of my gens might hate me but some may
dishonor me. The truth is that I do not deserve honor, but Jesus never used
that criteria as none of us are pure enough to deserve it.
How can our progenitors be
honored from afar. I learned how. I drove hundreds of miles every month to
visit my own mother and father… to honor them in their old age. Sometimes it
was tiresome and required much time to travel the distance.
All Christians must go all the
distance to honor our Divine Father and those who came before us. As I revealed
with Peter in yesterday’s commentary, he walked on water part way but failed to
go all the Way to Jesus to become one with Him.
Honor is going all the way, even
when hurdles and tribulations are in the way. Sometimes going to Jesus is
indeed hard work, but the closer we get to Him, the better off we are.
Jesus went to the worst places to
love even the worst sinners, but nowadays Christians avoid sinners because they
are nothing but obstacles that must be overcome.
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