Father's Day 2023*

There are billboards along the roads with the word, "Dadication" on them. Their message is that fathers are essential to the American family. We have seen that everything around us is tryin g to destroy the concept of the nuclear family. This goes back to the idea that God, Who is our Father, is an absent, or distant, uninvolved Being. However, God has always wanted a daily fellowship and a relationship with us as He had with Adam in the Garden. There is a oneness to God, and a oneness that God desires in His relationship with us. This oneness as expressed in Hebrew is echad. It signifies a unity, but that unity includes plural parts. This is mentioned in Gen. 2:23-24, when Adam said of Eve, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his (aleph-tav) father and mother, and they shall be one (echad) flesh." The LORD describes Himself with that same echad oneness: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD..." (Deut. 6:4). The name "LORD" is written with the Hebrew letters Yod-Hey-Vaw-Hey. Each of these letters has an individual meaning, but when joined together in echad oneness, they have the meaning, "Behold the hand, behold the nail". This is the name of the LORD. Jesus spoke with great detail of His echad oneness with the Father. Those who should have understood this oneness found in scripture from Genesis onward the most, refused to understand or accept the oneness with His Father of which Jesus spoke. When they condemned and sought to slay Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus answered them: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." (Jn. 5:16-17). This made his listeners even angrier as Jesus referred to God as "My Father", thereby making Himself God's Son, and equal to God. Jesus told them that He, the Son, could do nothing except what He sees the Father doing. Because of this echad oneness of His Father/Son relationship with God, God showed His Son everything that He was doing, including greater works that the Father would do in the future (v. 18-20). Jesus later said that we, in His name, will do these greater works of the Father also. This is the fruit produced by an echad oneness relationship with our Father, through His Son, Jesus. Jesus said that He raised the dead in the same manner as His Father did! (v. 21). In fact, Jesus declared: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him who sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." (v. 24). Jesus went on the tell them that the Father bore witness to who Jesus was by these works of the Father that Jesus did. As the listeners then began to cast aspersions in their ignorance of the true circumstances of Jesus' birth, Jesus told them that if they had known Him, they would have known His Father also (Jn. 8:12-20). Jesus' relationship with His Father is so close in echad oneness, that there is no separating them. Because the people refused to accept the explanation of Jesus, He told them: "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins...When ye have lift up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." (v. 23-24,28-29). The religious people who argued with Jesus told Him that they had no need of anyone to set them free from sin, or anything else. They said that they were already free because they were Abraham's sons, and that their Father was God. Jesus answered: "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham...But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham....If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God...Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it...He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." (v. 37-47). Those who are of God are those who believe God, His words, and the Son whom He sent to save us with the truth. Let us always have discernment to hear God's words. Those listening to Jesus that day were outraged, and accused Jesus of being one of the hated Samaritans, and of having a demon. Jesus assured them, however: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." (v. 51). Jesus went even further telling them that not only would Abraham have rejoiced to see the day of the appearing of Christ, but that Jesus, as the Christ, existed even before Abraham: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." The crowd picked up stones to stone Jesus but He escaped through the midst of them, and went out of the temple. (v. 58-59). On another occasion when Jesus was in the temple, the people there surrounded Him again and demanded that He tell them plainly if He was the Christ (Jn. 10:24). Jesus answered that He had already told them, but they did not believe. The works of His Father that He did testified of who He was, but they had not accepted that either. Jesus said that they did not believe because they were not His sheep: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." (v. 25-30). Again, they picked up stones to stone Him. This time they accused Him of blasphemy, saying that He was making Himself God. Jesus told them that if He does the works of His Father, then believe Him. If they will not believe Him, then believe the works that He does. By believing the works, they will end up knowing: "...that the Father is in me, and I in Him." (v. 33-38). They tried again to seize Jesus, but He escaped from them. This oneness with the Father of which Jesus spoke, and by which He taught truth, and did miraculous works in authority, and assured freedom from sin and eternal life, was never intended to be limited between God the Father, and Jesus the Son. Jesus prayed for us also to have that same oneness with Himself, and His Father. Jesus prayed before He went to the cross: "And now I am no more in the world, but these (His disciples) are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are...Sanctify them by thy truth: thy word is truth....Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one...Father, I will that they also...be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world...And I have declared unto them thy name, and wil declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." (Jn. 17:11-26, excerpt). God wants us to manifest His glory, and we manifest it through that oneness between the Father, the Son, and us. This oneness is not only for our benefit, but its purpose is also to testify to the world that the Father did not forget the world, but sent His only Son into the world (v. 21, 23). This is the love of a (the) Father's heart. This oneness is also a fulfilment of a prophecy given by God to Malachi for the time of the Lord's return: "Behold, I will send you (aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the (aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) earth with a curse." (Mal. 4:5-6). The "Dadication" billboards mentioned at the beginning of this message not only declare the importance of fathers in the lives of their children, but also the importance of bringing the hearts of God's people back to their Father, God. *Based upon the 6/18.23 message of Dr. Kenneth E. Stavenson to the Church. To hear the full message, or to contact this ministry, look for Dr. Stevenson's Facebook page. God bless you.