The Intensity Of The Father's Grief In The Tragedy Of Death Of A Son

Can we compare the intensity of grief between the Heavenly Father and the Human Father in a tragedy of a son's death?

After the creation of the world, and have given birth to man in the likeness of His image, He was so pleased to see everything's good. (Gen. 1:31)

However, when man fall into sin, there was mourning in heaven.

Imagine, how a father's feeling, when his son dies unexpectedly. If you are also a father, then you can just slightly understand the feeling of God, who is the father of all creation.

I believe, its not worth comparing the love and agony of God who is the Father of all universal hosts and creator of all things, animate and inanimate, against a mortal human father.

However, lets identify some differences in a human point of view.

Why an earthly father's pain towards losing a child, cannot be compared to the Heavenly Father's agony upon the fall of man to sin?

Because, when an earthly father loses a child, or loses one among his children, he just lost one life, and could find comfort from his wife; from other members of his family; and from his colleagues in the church.

Second reason, as human being, having understood about death which is the ultimate end of life of every being, so, he knows that he himself will come to an end sooner or later.

 Furthermore, he may find comfort from his church teachings that, there is life after death, and the assurance to be reunited once again with his lost family in the near-future. 

While the Heavenly Father, when He lost man to sin He lost the whole human race.

So, going back to the side of God, lets put ourselves into the shoes of our Creator, Heavenly Father:

Prior to Creation of man, there was laid a so called, "Plan of Redemption". What is it all about? 

* The plan was to create or give birth to who would be exactly like Them, to grow and evolve as expressed image of God in all things that pertains to the whole feature of man; that would comprised the whole being of man which is in physical, mental and spiritual aspects of life. Therefore, man was designed to be the "Masterpiece of all Creation, and the Crowning glory of His creation." 

* The plan further features a man  as "Free Moral Agent", meaning, he was vested with a power of choice, to decide independently in the course of his action.

However,  man was governed with the "Law of Liberty" for proper guidance, with all the informations available of the possible in-results thereof, in every choice he makes. After all, he was created a perfect being, with super intellectual power to grow in knowledge and understanding of the things around him and apply them to wisdom.

* But the most critical plan within the Plan was the provision "Plan of Redemption".

The plan denotes that: incase man fall into sin, One of Them must die as a sacrificial offering, in substitute to man's death, in order to fulfill the requirements of the Law to pay the penalty of sin; to rightfully redeem back their Son, the fallen man.

And this was the most heart-breaking reality that actually happened in the situation of God the Father:

After losing His youngest son (man), He also eventually lost His eldest Son, the only begotten Son in heaven (which is an Equal-God of Him), to come down to this earth and take off His godliness, to become a mere man and suffer the sufferings of the curse of the sinful man and die as a man.

That was so great agony that the Father has underwent as to whether to allow His only begotten Son to become man, with the possibility of failure and totally lose both sons, incase, the encarnate God fails in his mission and ultimately die as well; or not to allow His Eldest Son.

And you could just imagine the magnitude of the sacrifice the Father underwent, and the profundity of His agony in beholding the sufferings of His beloved Son at the cross in Calvary hill. 

Truly, His suffering was incomparable!

Truly, the intensity of pain felt by the Father as he watches His dear Son hung on the cross was more than the measure of pain of the Son who was actually hang. Because, His pain was eternal; while the Son's pain ceased upon his death on the cross.

What it means eternal, because  since the time of the fall of man to sin, up to the present,  our Heavenly Father's agony did not quench at all. He was a martyr Father who continues to follow His wayward children no matter how they disobey Him; no matter how they left Him and refused to hear His call.

He continues to appeal:

"My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother" (Pro. 1:8)

My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments"  (Pro. 3:1)

My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction"  (Pro. 3:11)

Do you think our Heaven Father is not tormented as He sees His children at war, killing each other right now at Ukraine, and the rest of the world?

Do you think that our Real Father does not lament for every death of human children throughout the world, afflicted by the COVID-19 variant?

Surely He laments to see His children dying in hunger in Burundi, Africa, in the war zone, and other calamities in various parts of the world today.

May we be merciful to Him, by becoming filial sons and daughters of God; not to burden Him anymore by sinfulness, but obeying His will and selflessly serving our fellow brothers and sisters in the world, just next to you. 

Should the whole world come to the right sense, and possess a heart of God, then there would be absolute peace on earth, all God's children harmoniously and happily living together as One Universal Family!

 Oh, Real Daddy!

Let Your Kingdom now come very soon!

Amen!

Honoring Parents (Part 1)

Text: 

Exo. 20:12 - "Honor your father and your mother; that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you."

In this article, I would like to emphasize the grand blessings of honoring and obeying our parents, and

 the worse consequences of dishonoring parents.

This is in response to the present family crisis in all the world today, suffering from disentegration due to disrespectful, rebellious children, thus, affecting the society in general, which can be associated being the root cause of disunity of a nation and even, could be the actual factor of the global conflicts that the world is experiencing today.

In a socio-political perspective, it's because, a family is the smallest unit of people in the society, that a community or barangay; a town; a province; a country; and ultimately, the world consists of.

Let's look into the Biblical and theological perspective:

The origin of sin was committed by dishonoring parents, when Lucifer vested with power and authority as the leader of angels disrespected the authority of the Father, and coveted the throne. (Isa 14:13, 14)

And the consequence of his being disrespectful to his Father-God, he was expelled from heaven, and it's so unfortunate that he chose to fall into the earth where the naive newly born Adam and Eve was.

Another consequence of his sin was, losing the light of his countenance, (for Lucifer means light) and began to die, deteriorating his whole being, and eventually was transformed into devil, demon Satan. Because he left God the source of life, therefore, he would surely end to death as the end-result of sin (Rom. 6:23).

Likewise, our foreparents' (Adam and Eve)

sin was committed through dishonoring their Real Father-God, by doubting His Word, and instead, believing the lies of the serpent.

And that was the fall of mankind, that's why, the human race up to this point in time is struggling and fighting for life, but just to lengthen its suffering, however, they would surely and eventually come to an end, because of the curse of the sin of dishonoring their parents.

 Because of man's wrong choice to believe and patronize the lies of the deceiver, Satan got the rightful ownership to the world, and became our fake foster parent-god, and enslaved the human up to the present. 

Thanks to our Real Father's love, that pursued us persistently, no matter how we run away from him,

That's why, although Adam and Eve was cast out from the Eden Paradise, their Father did not forsake them totally, but visits them frequently and continued to nurture and care for them as their loving Father who gave birth to them.

But because sin became part of human anatomy and is present in all body systems, it dominated the whole being of a person, and filled the earth with wicked human race. 

So God was left with no option but to clean the earth by water, and preserved human race with just a family of eight, Noah, who remained respectful and honorable to Him. 

But, after the flood, when they were living a normal life, there was an undesirable event that happened in the house of Noah. When Noah was drank of the wine, and carelessly unveiled his private part, "Ham, (one of his sons), the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers about.

And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness." (Gen. 9:21- 23)

" And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him." (V-24)

"And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." (V-25)

" And he said, blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." (V-26)

" God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." (V-27)

In verse 24, says that Noah knew  what his younger son had done unto him, although it was not clear what Ham did, aside from looking at his nakedness and didn't take action to redeem the situation, but Ham in the eyes of his father dishonored him. And because of that irresponsibility, Ham, Canaan his son and towards his generations to come was cursed of being a servant to his brothers, Shem and Japheth.

While Shem and Japheth were blessed to their generations to come, due to their good act of respect by covering the nakedness of their father and avoiding their face towards seeing the shameful condition of their pitiful father.

Well, there are lots of examples in the Bible that portrayed the same lessons: like, Moses who showed filiality to her mother, Jochebed, who assumed to be his nani only, because he was adopted by one of the princesses in the palace of Paraoh. Yet he loved so much his real mother.

However, Samson was the opposite. He showed hardheadedness to his parents and defied his parents' counsel not to take a heathen woman to be wife, and the end result, Samson died young.

Our key text is Exodus 20:12, which is part of the Ten commandments, or Decalogue Law. It says: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you." 

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This is the only commandment among the Ten that specifies the blessing of honoring: it says, "That your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you."

This promise means, you will live longer on this earth, and the LORD your God will give you eternal life.

While the opposite of dishonoring your parents is that: your days may be short on this earth, and that disqualifies you to enter into eternal life with your fathers.

I appeal to everyone who is a son or a daughter in this world to contemplate upon this grand, Grand Truth of "Honoring Parents", that,

while there is time yet, please take your opportunity to restore right relationship with with your ever-loving father and mother who longed, and awaited you to come to your right sense and come, for they're thirsting to express their love to you.

Proverbs 1:8

"My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother" 

"My  son, forget not My law; but let thine heart keep my commandments" (Pro. 3:1)

"My  son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of His corrections" (Pro. 3:11)

"My  son, the son of my womb..."  (Pro. 31:2)

"You  are my son, this day, I have begotten you" (Ps 2:7)

Our Real Father Bless you!