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Part
8 OUR
FATHER (continued)
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven...” (Mat. 6:9). Jesus
was a Son of God treading the dusty paths of earth. His life and ministry
had been spent revealing this sonship relationship to God. “I know you
hear me always,” He had said outside the tomb just before crying,
“Lazarus, come forth!” He knew who He was and was so certain of that
position that every petition He asked of the Father was granted. He, the
Son, was on a mission for the Father. He had come only to do His will, and
then all that He needed to accomplish this, when He needed it, was as
certain as yesterday. His declarations of His position were stated many
times: “I and my Father are one...the Son does only what pleases the
Father.” The first thing in prayer is: I must meet my Father. The light
that shines in my secret place of prayer must be the light of the
Father’s countenance. The fresh air from heaven which permeates the
atmosphere in which I breathe and commune must be the overwhelming love of
the Father, God’s infinite Fatherliness. In this knowledge and
experience of God’s Fatherliness all the mysteries of the
Man needs to know God as Father. If we can visualize with our
mind’s eye the finest Father in the world, we think of a man with loving
strength that provides for and protects his loved ones. There is nothing
in the world he would not do for his children, if he felt it was in their
best interests. He would do it regardless of the cost in money, life,
health and comfort. God is like that, only He is a more wonderful and
gracious Father than any human father that ever lived! His will for our
lives is that we may receive out of His love and wisdom all that we need
to walk as His sons in this earth.
At the very beginning of the Lord’s prayer the word of
identification is “Father,” and it reminds us that He once said,
“Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in
heaven” (Mat. 23:9). The patriarchal society of Jesus’ day reveals why
He chose this word. The entire life of the family revolved around the
father. As one has written of the culture of that time: “Genealogies
were traced through the father; the family was utterly dependent upon the
father for everything: their protection depended upon the father;
inheritance came through the father; food and the meeting of all physical
needs was the job of the father. The father held a very special place, so
much so that it is difficult for us to imagine his importance in terms of
today’s society. In the West today, where women work and compete on
equal terms with men in every area of life, and where women can inherit
and be financially and socially independent, it is well-nigh impossible to
appreciate the role of the father in distant times. In our imagination we
can sense, however, what the word must have meant to Jesus.”
It is a great tragedy that in the flesh many people have known only
harsh, hard, or irresponsible fathers. Their father may have been a
selfish, self-centered person who cared little for their well-being. He
may have been lazy, shiftless, a drunkard, a dope addict, a deserter, or
some other perverted person who wrought havoc with their personalities in
early childhood. He may have been a weak-willed person who could command
no respect from his children. Even at best he may have at times fluctuated
in his moods and temper, one day lenient in dealing with his children, the
next tough and terrifying. So how could one so inconsistent, so
unpredictable, bring strength, understanding, counsel, stability or wisdom
to his offspring?
A brother once wrote: “I recall one lady at a conference honestly
confessing that she found it much easier to go to Jesus for forgiveness
than to think of approaching her holy, austere, heavenly Father. In fact,
she inwardly hoped the matter could be taken care of by Jesus, and not
even mentioned or brought to the attention of God the Father! In her mind,
Jesus was perceived as being far more understanding and forgiving than the
Father. I have raised this concern many times in audiences the world over
and found the majority of people have similar feelings. Most of them know
better in their heads, but many can’t really grasp the reality of the
Father’s love in their hearts. Indeed, some have such a distorted
concept of His character, they subconsciously picture God the Father as a
divine, but distant, legislator, judge and executioner who seemingly finds
a peculiar pleasure in severely punishing violators of the law. Such
legalistic mentality leads to a life that is continually under a cloud of
condemnation.”
Recently David Wilkerson shared some significant and sobering
observations. He said, “Not long ago, Newsweek magazine featured a cover
story entitled, ‘A World Without Fathers.’ The focus was primarily on
African-American families and the alarming increase of children being
raised without fathers. Consider, for example: (1) A black child born
today has only a one-in-five chance of growing up with a father until he
is sixteen. This statistic reflects not just poor families, but also a
staggering 22 percent increase among those families making $75,000 or
more. Right now some 62 percent of all black families are without a
father. (2) Divorce is taking its toll among Caucasian families, as
fathers flee their responsibilities in increasing numbers. There is no
longer a stigma placed on fathers who just ‘disappear.’ The government
is having to track down a growing army of runaway fathers who won’t
support their children. (3) At Hannah House, New Life for Girls and Teen
Challenge Home for Women, one of the biggest struggles for women in the
program is to forgive their father or stepfather for having molested them
while they were young. Many of these young women have spent years battling
memories of being terrorized by a lust-driven father or stepfather. One
girl at Hannah House had a most difficult time forgiving her biological
father for getting her pregnant. The Holy Spirit helped this young woman
to forgive him recently, just before he died. But her life has been marked
by his brutal sin. (4) A stepfather in upper DISTORTED VIEWS OF THE FATHER
Plutarch, the great Greek biographer, once wrote, “I had rather a
great deal men should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch than
that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as
soon as they were born.” He preferred to have men deny his existence
rather than to have them hold an unworthy conception of his character.
Carrying this thought into the spiritual realm we may raise the question
as to whether it would be more pleasing to God to have His existence
denied or to have men hold a distorted and unworthy conception of His
character. We may not be able to answer that proposition with certainty,
but the fact is that in this world far vaster multitudes of men hold
distorted concepts of God than deny His existence! There are fewer
atheists in the world than religious folk who continually malign and
slander the character of the heavenly Father!
It is helpful to understand how men in ancient times viewed their
God; the way in which they conceived of Him who created them. Would that
we could go back to those ancient days in India or China or Japan and see
the hideous idols with their grimacing countenances, their devouring
teeth, their many arms and sharp claws, something of the devouring,
hateful nature of their deities — or go back to the cruel Assyrians or
Babylonians or Egyptians and the monstrosities, the tyrannies, which they
worshipped as gods. The people of
Among the many references to the Almighty crowding the various
books of the Old Testament the name Father is applied to God only seven
times — five times as Father of the Hebrew people, and twice as Father
of individuals. One of these is a prediction that men will one day pray to
God, calling Him Father. That which was dim in the Old Testament becomes
bright in the New. Jesus called God His Father, and bids us, “When ye
pray, say, Our Father.” He takes us into the presence of the great
Yahweh, and says to us, “He who is my Father is your Father too.”
Absolutely everything depends on this one fact, that it is Jesus Christ
who teaches us this prayer. He alone, in His life, in His death, and in
His resurrection, is the guarantor that there is a Father. This is the
grandest, tenderest, most glorious thought of God that has ever come to
man — the Father revealed in Christ.
Since it is an everlasting truth that men become like the god they
worship, so this revelation, the unveiling of the face of the Father in
heaven in the person of Jesus Christ, has done more to soften and conquer
the hearts of mankind than anything that man has ever discovered. It has
brought more love and more genuine progress to civilization than anything
else. Without it we might still be as the Assyrians who worshipped cruel
and merciless gods and, therefore, when they descended upon their foes
they placed thousands of sharpened stakes in the ground, picked up their
adversaries and left them impaled to die an agonizing death. Those they
did not impale they flayed alive and covered the walls of their captured
towns with the skins of their victims because that was the kind of god
they worshipped.
But have we really made that much progress? The same beloved John
who wrote so extensively of God’s marvelous love left us this solemn
warning, “Little children, keep yourselves from IDOLS (that is, false
gods, or false ideas and representations of the true God)” (I Jn.
“Little children, keep yourselves from false ideas of God!”
False ideas about God. How the world and the Church are filled with them!
Many who read these lines have gone through several rounds of smashing
idols, false images of the Almighty, and will probably continue to drop
false ideas until Christ be formed in them. Many people view God as a
schoolboy did: “...the sort of person who is always snooping around to
see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.” Then
others make God out to be a tyrant, or a vengeful, wrath-filled FIEND. But
the Bible knows of no such God. No more terrible insult was given to the
God of all grace who came in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto
Himself. This story is told about a little girl. After she had heard her
father preach a sermon on the awful wrath of God, and that the unsaved
would go to a red-hot, sizzling, burning hell the moment they died, and
that they would twist in agony and torment forever, without mercy, this
little girl said, “I wish Jesus were as good and kind as my father.”
God does bring judgment upon sinners — swift, strong, effective,
corrective judgment — but never meaningless, sadistic torture.
Do you know what God wants more than anything else? And in the end,
will it be God or the devil who gets what he wants? “For this is good
and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO
BE SAVED, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:3-4).
His mercy runs so deep that He sent Jesus as the redeemer of the race, and
has mapped out a beautiful and comprehensive “Plan of the Ages” in
which to reconcile all things unto Himself. He has revealed that His
tender mercies are over all His works; that He hates nothing that He has
made; that it was all for His pleasure; that He is kind unto the
unthankful and the evil; and that He has provided a way that even the
banished may return to Him — self-banished though they may be by sin.
The unquenchable and eternal love of God our Father for all of His
creation is the great center of all Christ’s teaching. He said, “For
GOD SO LOVED the world...” He said, “I say not unto you that I will
pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you.” He is not
pleading with the Father to love us or any man in the world infinitely,
for He came from that Father with the Gospel, with the glad tidings of the
Father’s love; that He so loved the world that He sent His Son into it,
not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
What compassion! What wisdom! What love! What a God!
In coming to know God we pass in through all His power, and all His
majesty, and all His overwhelming surroundings — and we are not content
until we come to His heart, to God’s very, very heart. What a thought!
Oh, all ye thinking men! What a thought! What a heart must God’s heart
be! What knowledge it must have! What pity it must hold! What compassion!
What love! How deep it must be! How wide! How tender! What a mystery! What
a universe we belong to! What creatures we are! and what a Creator we
have! and what a God! Above all, what a Father! “Oh, the depth of the
riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are
His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For of Him, and through Him,
and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
And now our relationship to God is one of a Father infinitely
loving a son. One author tells of a boy who again and again broke the laws
of the land and would end up in jail. His father would go down to pay his
fine and get him free. Finally it cost the father about all that he had
and also his heart was almost broken. A friend said to the father, “If
that were my boy, I would let him go.” He replied, “If he were your
boy, I would too, but he is my boy and I can’t let him go.” Well, God
is your Father and, no matter what happens, He is ever seeking to bring
you back to Himself.
When the apostle Paul described his prayer life he said, “For
this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Eph.
Let us define this name Yahweh. He is the one who is what He is.
When He appeared to Moses He said, “I AM WHAT I AM.” He is the
eternal, unchanging One. That is clear, but it does not describe what He
is eternally and unchangeably. There is a deeper meaning in the Hebrew
name. Andrew Jukes has given the following definition of the Hebrew name
Yahweh. “Yahweh is the expression of God’s being as truth and
righteousness. Therefore He loves righteousness and hates iniquity and
finds in all evil something that is antagonistic to His nature, which
because it is not true or just must be opposed and judged.” That is the
underlying principle behind God’s everlastingness and unchangeableness.
He never deviates from truth and righteousness, and will not ultimately
tolerate error or sin anywhere in His universe. Jesus Christ is the Son of
this God, Yahweh, whose being is truth and righteousness, who loves
righteousness and hates iniquity. For this very reason the scripture bears
witness of Him, “For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee? And again, I will be to Him a
Father, and He shall be to me a Son. Unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O
God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of
Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore
God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy
fellows” (Heb. 1:5,8-9). THE DISCIPLINE OF SONS
Some months ago I was deeply moved by a message from our dear
brother, Bennie Skinner, on YAHWEH AND THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. I am
constrained to use most of the rest of this Study to share this vital and
significant word with my readers in the hope that it will speak as
profoundly to your heart as it has to mine in this significant hour. I
quote...
“People say, ‘How can a God of love do this, or do that; permit
this, or permit that? How can a God of love permit fires, wars, famines,
earthquakes, plagues, and a world of other catastrophes and sorrows that
befall mankind. How can a God of love allow all these things to take
place?’ You see, if you knew all the sides of God’s nature, you would
understand how a God of love can allow all of this — and not only allow
it, but bring it to pass. You need to know God in all the sides of His
nature and not think of Him as an indulgent old granddaddy, a goody-goody,
and everybody can do anything they want to, and He still loves them anyhow
— ‘it’s alright darling, everything is going to be wonderful in the
end.’ Ah, yes, it will be wonderful in the end — but let me tell you
something, beloved; before you get to that end you are going to discover
another side to God’s nature. You will know a number of sides to God’s
nature.
“When I had children born to me I loved those children
unconditionally. There were no reservations to my love, because I am a
father. Regardless of what they did, how they acted, or what they didn’t
do I still loved them the same. But suppose I had said to them, ‘I love
you — I don’t care what you do,’ and just let it go at that. Do you
know what kind of un-holy terrorists I would have raised? Do you know what
kind of juvenile delinquents I would have reared if I would have said,
“Anything goes, everything goes, I love you darling, it’s alright,
it’s O.K.,’ and never taught them a thing about life or
responsibility. Can you imagine how they would have lived? There are
multitudes of people today who think of God in this way and so they think
of themselves like that as parents. They don’t want to bear the
responsibility of showing another side to their nature. They equate love
with permissiveness. They invest nothing into their children to teach them
and train them. Consequently the children grow up to be juvenile
delinquents. The real problem is parental delinquency. If you know and
understand God and the different sides of His nature it will put a balance
in your life that will be reflected in your home, in the way you treat
your wife, in the way you treat your husband, the way you treat your
children, the way you treat your parents, the way you treat your neighbor,
the way you treat your employer, the way you treat your employees, the way
you treat humanity — in all these relationships the way you know God in
the sides of His nature will be reflected. That’s why it’s important
for you to know the names of God and the sides of His nature they stand
for.
“YAHWEH is the Father side of God. Yahweh is the stern One.
Yahweh is the Law-giver. Yahweh is the Head. ‘And God spake unto Moses,
and said unto him, I am Yahweh: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac,
and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai, but my name Yahweh was not
known to them’ (Ex. 6:2-3). El Shaddai means ‘the breasted One.’
What is it that a baby learns first? Or, better yet, what is it that a
baby doesn’t have to learn? A baby doesn’t have to learn how to suck
— it is born with that ability — it learns that while still in the
womb. The first thing a baby learns is what to suck, and where to find it.
A baby learns about mother’s breast. A baby learns where dinner is. A
baby learns who mother is before he or she learns who father is. Whenever
we come to God, the first thing we learn is to know that He is our
sustenance, He is our provider, He is the One we draw our life from, He is
the One who blesses us, helps us, keeps us, protects us, watches over us,
looks out for us, and cares for us no matter what. We know Him as El
Shaddai — we know the motherhood of God. We learn to eat of Him and
drink of Him, we learn to eat His flesh and drink His blood, we learn to
partake continually of His life and draw all sustenance and strength from
Him who is our Mother — the breasted One.
“Elohim can say, ‘I am Yahweh,’ just as I can say, ‘I am a
father.’ We are not talking about more than one God — it’s the one
and same God who can be all these things. Each of us, though we are one
person, has various relationships and offices. I am a father. I am also a
son. I am a husband. Furthermore, I am a citizen of
“Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God in only two sides of His
nature — Elohim and El Shaddai. They knew Elohim the Creator, and El
Shaddai the breasted One, the nourisher and sustainer. No wonder that
Abraham could lean on Him and draw from Him and when he was a hundred
years old and Sarah was ninety they could have a baby. They drew from His
life. They partook of His life. But they did not know Yahweh.
“Let me ask you something. Can children be raised without a
father and there not be something lacking in their character? Unwed
mothers and single mothers are one of the plagues of our society. They are
trying to bring up their children without a daddy. But the children have a
flaw, a defect in their character because they haven’t had a father to
train them. I’m not speaking against these children or the mothers —
I’m just telling you that a woman by herself cannot raise her children
as well as if she had a husband in harmony with her, working together with
her, bringing that balance into their children’s lives. We must come to
know Yahweh. We must know the Fatherhood of God. We must experience Him as
our Father. We have known Him as the One who loves us. ‘For God so loved
the world.’ We have known Him as El Shaddai, the provider, the breasted
One, the One who nourishes us, who blesses us and watches over us with
that tender, loving care of a mother. And now, we’re going to have to
learn to know Him as a Father.
“‘Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O
Yahweh. Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put
to shame, and perish: that men may know that Thou, whose name alone is
YAHWEH, art the most high over all the earth’ (Ps. 83:16-18). Have you
ever prayed that kind of a prayer for anybody? ‘Lord, make their faces
ashamed, that they might seek Thy name, O Yahweh.’ No — we’ve wanted
God to reveal Himself to those we pray for as El Shaddai — ‘Lord,
bless your children; Lord, help them, have mercy upon them, reveal to them
your love and goodness.’ We want people to know God as El Shaddai or
Elohim. But here the Psalmist has come to know Him in a deeper way, so he
says, ‘Fill their faces with shame, O Yahweh, that they may seek Thy
name.’ Do you dare to release your children, to release your loved ones,
to release your friends, to release your neighbors — do you dare to
release them in prayer to Yahweh? That’s the only way there will be any
mighty changes take place in them. They have to be released into the hands
of Yahweh. They have to learn some things. They’ve got to learn that
they can’t do whatever they please and get by with it. Not with Yahweh!
Oft times a mother will let children get by with things and are less stern
than a good father. Father will tell you one time, and that is it; do it
again, and punishment will be sure and swift. Now I know this is not
always the case. We have a lot of fathers who won’t be fathers. They are
not men, just males.
“There is an awesome responsibility with being a father. It
requires wisdom, knowledge and backbone. You see — in many mothers there
is a soft streak, a tenderness that overlooks. And that is how it should
be. God made mothers that way because it is the balance for the sternness
of the father. Both are aspects of God’s nature in mercy and in
judgment. So the ladies should not try to make the men like them, nor
should the men try to make the women think and act like them. God made us
different — God took the woman out of the man that she might be a
different creature to think differently, act differently, and react
differently. Men are reasoners, they are logical, they face the issue
squarely, whereas a woman goes by intuition and feelings. Each needs the
other. My wife has saved me from many a hurt by that intuition she has.
And I thank God for her, I need her, I’m not complete without her, but
she’s not complete without me, either. Whenever I disciplined my
children, and I was pretty stern with them sometimes, she went along with
me. And whenever I chastened them they didn’t run to mother to get help.
Mother wouldn’t give them any help. And when mother chastened them they
didn’t run to daddy, because daddy wouldn’t give them any help.
“So let me assure you, beloved — we need to know the Fatherhood
of God. We need to know Yahweh. You don’t fool with Yahweh. He says what
He means and He means what He says, and if you don’t obey you will be
punished for your disobedience. He loves you enough to correct you. You
say, ‘When a father takes off his belt and lays a whipping on his
children does he not love them? Why be so stern? Why be so hard? Why not
make a compromise?’ He loves them enough to do that. And the God we are
serving — part of His nature is Yahweh. He has given some commands and
He wants those commands to be obeyed. And He’s not fooling around with
us. If we don’t do what He says, if we refuse or neglect to do what He
commands, He will lay the rod on us. If you don’t believe the Lord
chastises His children you just fool around with Him and you’ll find
out. He will lay the rod on you. And I’m glad! For ‘whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth’ (Heb.
12:6). We’re not dealing with an old gray-headed, long-bearded
granddaddy that you can twist his nose, pull his hair, or pout, and get
him to do anything you want him to do. You are dealing with GOD. Elohim,
yes. El Shaddai, yes. But YAHWEH who is going to be obeyed.
“Do you know what’s lacking so much in the deeper truth message
today? It’s balance. There is no balance in so many areas. It’s out of
balance. When things get out of balance there is trouble. Remember Uzza
— when the children of
“Do you think it didn’t hurt me when I had to chasten my
children when they were little ones, and I was a big strong man, and I
laid the belt on them and they cried — their tears fell, and they were
hurting because I put a hurting on them. Do you think I didn’t feel
that? Don’t you think there was a side of me that would rather just have
dismissed the whole thing, and forgotten about it? Yes, — I hurt when
they hurt. I felt it when I had to severely chasten them. It actually hurt
me more than it did them. They got over theirs in five minutes. But I
would go in that night, and watch them lying there in the bed asleep, and
how my heart would go out to them! I would hurt in my heart. But I knew I
had to do it. It had to be done. The alternative was unacceptable. The
alternative would mean rebellion, trouble and heartache. And Yahweh loves
us enough that He will chasten us.
“‘And in that day ye shall say, O Yahweh, I will praise Thee:
though Thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and Thou
comforteth me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be
afraid: for the Lord YAHWEH is my strength and my song; He also is become
my salvation’ (Isa. 12:1-2). How many who read these lines know that
there was a time when the Lord was angry with you? When you disobeyed,
when you did your own thing, when you acted in the flesh and acted as if
you didn’t even know Him, do you think God winked at that? ‘Oh,’
someone says, ‘God never gets angry with His children; He loves them.’
Yes He does get angry! Let me ask you as a parent — have you ever been
angry with your children? Do you think God can’t be angry with His? If
they disobey Him He is angry with them until that thing is straightened
out, until that sin is confessed and forsaken, until there is repentance
— a change of mind — and a turning back to Him with a whole heart.
Then there is great mercy, there is abundance of compassion, there is
love, there is forgiveness, there is acceptance, and there is blessing
from that same One who a few moments before was angry with you. Now there
is balance!
“In this Kingdom message there has not been a enough emphasis on
this side — the Yahweh side — of God’s nature. So we thought we
could do just anything and get by with it — the grace of God would cover
it. ‘I’m O.K., you’re O.K.’ is the mentality of a world without
God. But a lot of us would have been saved from a number of pitfalls if we
had truly understood the anger and wrath of God as Yahweh. ‘Though Thou
wast angry with me...behold, God is become my salvation’ says the verse
we quoted above. The One who was angry with me has become my deliverance,
to bring me out of that condition, to change me, and make me like unto
Himself.
“I know who my Father is. I had an earthly father who was like
Yahweh in this respect. He loved us — he showed us in many hundreds of
ways that he loved us — but whenever he said for you to do something and
you didn’t do it, he didn’t argue with you, he didn’t use a little
psychology on you, he didn’t take away privileges. He would grab that
razor strap that he had on the back porch and he ‘laid it on,’ he
applied the rod of correction to the seat of understanding, and you gained
some understanding. Do you think I hated my dad for it? No — I love him,
I honor him, and I respect him to this day. He didn’t go to school a day
in his life, he couldn’t read or write, but he knew how to raise
children. He raised fourteen of us. One day one of my brothers-in-law said
to him, ‘Mr. Skinner, you successfully raised fourteen children —
what’s your secret?’ Dad looked away from him and didn’t speak for a
long time. He didn’t speak for so long you would think he had forgotten
the question. But dad was thinking. Finally he fastened his eyes on my
brother-in-law and said, ‘When you speak to children, say what you mean,
and mean what you say.’ Let me tell you — that’s a pearl of wisdom.
That’s a proverb from a wise man. That is what it takes. And let me
assure you — when our heavenly Father speaks to us He says what He
means, and He means what He says. And you won’t have to wonder whether
this is His nature or not, whether this is His will or not, He will make
it clear and plain to you.
“God is very patient. He will let you try to do any way you want
to — but when you know what He has said, you had better obey Him. I tell
you, my beloved, I fear the Lord. I’m not afraid of Him, but I have a
good healthy respect for Him. I don’t fool around with the Lord, because
He doesn’t fool around with me. And when I need the Lord I call upon
Him, and I don’t want any foolishness then, because I need Him now and I
need Him then — and He comes to my rescue. Before I ever call He hears,
and while I am yet speaking He answers. What a wonderful Lord! But you
must walk with the Father, you have got to know the Father like this. This
is what the overcomer must do, he must know the many sides of God’s
nature. That’s why I am preaching this word of the God of the
Melchizedek Order — because if you come into the overcoming company, if
you become a part of this Melchizedek King-Priest Order, you are going to
experience and know the different sides of God’s nature. You have to
respect that, and God will respect that in you, too, because He knows that
His nature is built into you” — end quote. TO BE A FATHER — TO BE A SON
Fathers and mothers want their children to have “the best of
everything.” But sometimes that comes when certain things children want
are withheld from them. Ann Landers, the newspaper columnist, shared a
letter sent in by someone who wrote about what her parents did not do for
her. They didn’t let her do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted,
and they didn’t shower her with things, things, and more things. They
also did not pass up the opportunity to teach her the value of money and
the benefits of hard work; they never failed to listen to her when she had
a problem; they never refused to give her advice when she asked; and they
never left any doubt about their love for her. Whoever wrote that letter
understands that parents try to do for their children what will help them
grow into responsible adults. The Bible, too, teaches that the
relationship between parents and children is based on a natural love that
God established when He made them. God even requires this love in one of
His commandments. Parents and children must love each other in the Lord.
The best expression of this is when loving parents ask for their
children’s obedience and children respond by obeying in love. As
children honor their parents and parents conduct themselves as worthy of
their children’s honor, both parents and children benefit immeasurably.
This principle is just as true in the family of God as in earthly
families. There is responsibility on both sides — the parent and the
child. God has a responsibility to each of His sons, and every son has a
responsibility to his Father. This responsibility is powerfully expressed
by the Holy Spirit in II Cor. 6:17-18. “Wherefore come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing;
and I will receive you. And I will BE a Father unto you, and ye shall BE
my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” God can never BE a
Father to you until you receive and walk out the revelation of your
sonship. Millions of Christians today call God Father, and pray to the
Father. Yet their sonship to God is totally meaningless to them. They see
themselves as Christians, believers, forgiven, saved, justified, redeemed,
sanctified, etc., but they walk not in the consciousness or experience of
SONSHIP to God. They live out their lives as believers in Jesus,
Christians, Church members, teachers, preachers, etc. But God is not their
Father! He is their Saviour, their Healer, their Deliverer, their
Comforter, their Blesser, their Baptiser and their “soon coming King”
— but He is not their Father. They have not been sons, and He has not
been a Father to them.
Now, let me explain what I mean by this. “I will BE a Father to
you, and ye shall BE my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
There are two levels of Fatherhood. The first is biological, the second
practical and experiential. On the first level one bears the title of
“father” merely because he has biologically generated an offspring.
His name will appear on the birth certificate as the father of the child,
even if he has never been seen again since the night of conception. On the
second level, however, one is respected and loved as a father because he
fulfills all the responsibilities, privileges and potentials of
fatherhood. He is there when the child is born. He provides, cares for,
loves, nurtures, disciplines, guides, trains, and counsels that child
through all the years of his growth into adulthood. Thus, there are
fathers who are not fathers — they have merely contributed the sperm to
generate an offspring, but have never had a father’s heart nor fulfilled
the responsibilities of fatherhood. They have not actively, truly,
caringly BEEN a father! With what wonder and understanding do we now
receive the promise of the Lord: “Come out from among them, and be ye
separate, saith the Lord...and I will BE a Father unto you!”
In like manner there are children who are not children, sons who
are not sons. Oh yes, their name, too, is on the birth certificate as the
child of the one who gave them life. They are biologically the offspring
of their parents, but they do not relate to the parents in a functional
way. Rather than submitting to, obeying, respecting, honoring, and loving
their parents, they are rebellious, disrespectful, uncaring, and hateful.
On the one hand they are legally the children of their parents, but on the
other hand they have not BEEN sons and daughters. They have refused to
fulfill the responsibilities of sonship. They have failed to walk in the
relationship of sonship. They have spurned the spirit of sonship. Can we
not see by this the deep cry of the Father’s heart when He says,
“Wherefore, come out from among them (the idols, false gods and false
ideas of the true God —
We have seen that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only One who could
have revealed the Fatherhood of God to us. In fact, that is the very thing
He came to do. Truly God is a Father, as far as He is concerned. His whole
attitude toward all men is that of a Father, but the trouble is that our
attitude often is not that of sons. Men see themselves as human beings,
sinners saved by grace, Christians, Methodists, Baptists, or Catholics.
These are the most common terms used both in the world and in the Church.
It never dawns upon their understanding that the terms “children,”
“son,” “sons,” “daughters,” and “Father,” appear
multiplied hundreds of times in the scriptures, whereas “Christian”
appears only twice and Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, or Roman Catholic
not at all! Sonship is God’s revelation in Christ Jesus. Sonship is the
central issue of God’s great and eternal purpose. Sonship is the hope of
creation. Sonship is our calling and our destiny in God. When we are
quickened through Jesus Christ it is not God who becomes our Father, but
we who become His children. It is not He who changes His identity,
attitude, and relationship toward us, but we who change ours toward Him.
We become in a conscious and practical way His sons and His daughters. May the blessed spirit of Truth within make this real and precious and powerful to all who read these lines. With what confidence and unhindered joy can we then pray, “Our Father, which art in heaven!” By J. Preston Eby. [ENTER TEXT OF WRITING / SCRIERE HERE] |
Other Writings in This Series:
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