Tuesday, November 14, 2023

HONORING OUR FOREBEARS

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)

 Jesus was upbraiding the scribes and Pharisees for misusing their fathers and mothers. Jesus was validating that one of the Ten Commandments remained the Law of God. In the original version it is written in the following manner: 

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)

 Jesus, the “finger of God” (Deut 9:10) wrote that on stone for perpetuity, and now perpetuity has arrived. Jesus said this about that: 

Honor your father and mother and He that curses father or mother, let him die the death. (Mat 15:4)

 Note that Jesus said it first because He is God, and He said it later because He was still God. God did not change nor did the Word of God. Beneath that human flesh, Jesus remained God. Neither the ‘Word’ nor the commands ever changed. Those who claim God as their Father understand that Jesus is the ‘Father.’

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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