Closer to the ‘First Days’ of Humankind: Commandments With Promises

Jesus often chose to talk about very deep subjects and truths in metaphor and parables, which seems to be a way of powerfully distilling matters. Some were able to hear and understand, and others–even those actively wanting to follow Him–found His words and stories elusive.

I think that many of His words and parables get diluted in our understandings some two thousand years later because with modernization and technology we get further and further away from the most basic truths of nature and the natural order and design of all things. Truths that would have been richly layered and self-evident through nature itself, even one hundred years ago, are fast-tracked toward the artificial and the unnatural, eluding our own God-given intelligence.

I tend to string ideas and thoughts together in a way that might be hard for some to connect the dots. Perhaps I should just put some of these various thoughts out and allow the reader to assemble into whatever message God has for them–let him who has ears hear, basically.

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Jesus spoke of divorce in terms that “it was not so from the beginning.” Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of hearts, and for various biblical grounds.
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Jesus and other NT writers described Satan (and his minions) as spiritual beings/forces that speak lies and seek to rob, kill and destroy.
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In the NT, we are told that to honor one’s parents is the first commandment with a promise. I got to thinking on this. God’s very first commandment to us (prior to the fall of mankind), was to be fruitful and to multiply. The ten commandments were given us well after things went every-which-way-and-south of Eden, so-to-speak.
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The greatest command to love the Lord and one’s neighbor would not have been needed prior to the fall, when God and man enjoyed sweet fellowship and all was in perfect relational harmony between man, woman and Himself.
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Throughout Old and New Testaments, we are reminded that children are a gift of God. We are reminded that from generation to generation, the teachings and goodness of God will pass along. We are told that the fruit of the womb is a reward. We are told many things about honor and dishonor and inheritance and legacy. I don’t feel I need to find specific scriptures regarding these things; those who know God and have studied His words to us are surely in a position for the Holy Spirit to bring texts to mind.

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In the Old Testament, when tithing was a requirement of God within the structure of His people and the Temple, there is a reference in the book of Malachi asking, “Will a man rob God?” I’d like for readers to think along these lines in a different context.

When godly parents devote themselves to bringing new life into the world and give themselves over to teaching children the good way to go, to be, to love God and others, this is an investment of oneself. Sure, parents often fail in a number of ways to properly instruct, discipline, love and care and set examples. This is nothing new. What is new, however, is the social-political-religious doctrine of dishonoring parents and elders in the community and a robbing them of their reward.

We are in an age where many young people are calling for various forms of restitutions be paid to descendants of previous generations, all the while many of these same young people are robbing their own parents and families in the most cruel of ways. Who will redeem and restore from this vicious spiritual assault that has far-reaching effects into human souls, generations and society itself?

When I speak of reward, I speak of the joys that generally good parents are due after giving themselves to their children. The joys of a loving relationship with adult children, and the joys of grandchildren. Basically, these parents have sown seeds, given themselves to the protection, nurture and tending of their children, only to find that in many cases, their own children turn on them in the most ungrateful and undeserved ways, cutting them off from receiving the fruits of respect, love and all that God’s circle of life intends as children grow into adults and parents move toward the earthly grave.

There are many suffering parents from whom gender ideology is actively stealing rightful honor, respect and reward, not to mention grandparents and siblings and other extended family. This scourge is of biblical proportions to the death marches of Pharoah and Herod, and will ripple forth with death, destruction and despair far into the future. These parents are suffering in heart-breaking ways, in ongoing traumas and moments of desperation. They are watching in seeming helplessness as many thieves are ransacking and pillaging the souls of their children and family right before their very eyes.

As falsities are thrust upon those who long for the goodness of God in the world and in those we love, demanding our compliance with unspeakable evils (with the created-threat that if parents don’t do such-and-such they will have a dead child) the deep pool of traumatized parents (some of which are pushed to the point of suicidal thoughts themselves in the distress of it all) seems to be ignored by society and the hearts of these children.

Children who once trusted their mothers, leaning upon their breast for comfort and sustenance, and running and calling for their mothers/fathers in times of need are now swallowed up in a cult that erases and re-writes their personal histories. This is crushing to parents; no, piercing…this is piercing and lacerating to parents in ways they cannot fully articulate.

In fact, the cries of these parents are falling upon deaf ears, as their sons and daughters continue down a path that inflicts a variety of cruelties into the hearts of parents and especially, the hearts of mothers, in particular. I know this because I am part of a private network where these mothers are pouring out their pain and distresses day by day.

These days, it is pop-linguistical to use the word gratitude. I see it used by young people in ways that belie the ingratitude of their words and behaviors. And the rejection of patriarchy? Patriarchy is as patriarchy does. What is more exemplifying of patriarchy than sons treating women, especially their own mother, with forms of unfeeling contempt?

I think of Jesus as He hung on the cross, crushed with the weight of the sins of this world and having to endure the sight of his earthly mother’s heartbreak and despair. Jesus fulfilled the law of love and all that is good, right and holy in this world, including a son’s obligation to make sure his mother is properly cared for. Jesus told John to “behold, your mother” and to his mother (of John), “behold, your son.”

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Today, the most basic human value and innate following of God’s very first command of shalom into this world (“be fruitful, and multiply”….and this was all “good”) is being sabotaged by evil, into the future. Demonic forces are at work through humans and human institutions, and these forces are seeking the sterilization, de-nurturement and destruction of families and ultimately, humankind. These evil spirits set themselves up against the knowledge of God, and of what is good, right and true.

For those of us who value children as our Lord and Savior did and does, it is an unspeakable evil.

I will wrap this piece up with a referenced scripture, and with some images for contemplation, and with links to two thought-provoking interviews.

May God have mercy upon us all as the evil one seems to be in high gear to rob the fruits from God, the fruits of the godly. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.“
2 Timothy 3:1-5

First, the beautiful. As it was in the beginning.