The Scourge Of Racism
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Thank God that churches where Jesus is Lord do not pick men and women to serve as they see fit, but rely on God who has established spiritual gifts as the way He calls and equips His servants to serve! Globally known evangelist, Billy Graham is among those from the 1st century God has called and equipped by spiritual gifting to serve Him through the Body of Christ. I wrote the following blog as the Lord led to be of some support during the launch of what turned out to be yet another fruitful evangelistic campaign to our nation from the Graham team that continues. After repentance and revival, pastors and churches would do well to engage with them in this effort.
Another important reason I originally wrote this blog and present it as an edited repost now is to highlight again how willful pastor and church ignorance about spiritual gifts get in God’s way; hindering the work He wants to do through His servants like Billy Graham. No one delights more in hindering the work of God than Satan! Imagine his glee at having churches do his dirty work for him by overstepping the Holy Spirit in casting aside spiritual gifts and attempting to deploy members into invented religious service after fleshy wisdom and preference. In great joy I thank God that Billy Graham did not listen to flesh driven men in his service, but to Him as I have also done!
Originally Posted November 3, 2013
The memory of words spoken to me by one of the now departed mothers of the church I formerly served as pastor, Cleolia Wilder, came to mind as the Holy Spirit led me to consider this blog on Billy Graham: “Give me my flowers now,” she said. “I won’t be around to hear what you have to say about me after I’m gone.” Her playful, but real words echo wise as I reflect on a lifetime of having heard in some setting or another the name, Billy Graham; the name rising to the forefront once again as his national evangelistic broadcast event, My Hope America, is set to begin on the occasion of his 95th birthday November seventh.1
If there were anyone that qualified to be our nation’s spiritually wise grandfather with the right and clout to speak to us at such a time as this, it is certainly Billy Graham. Without question, Rev. Graham is a God gifted and called evangelist (Acts 8:4-5, 26-40, 21:8; Ephesians 4:11) and the greatest of post 1st century history in terms of reach and impact around the earth. Men like me “do the work of an evangelist” along with other ministry responsibilities (2 Timothy 4:5, NKJV). However, Billy Graham is a full-time, all the time preacher and witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the burning passion from Him to win souls!
Born in North Carolina on a dairy farm, Rev. Graham was himself won to Christ in a revival meeting as a youth. He answered God’s call to preach and evangelism and by 1949 had assembled a team that conducted a history making evangelistic Crusade in Los Angeles, CA. It lasted eight weeks and saw many hundreds come to Christ. In those days the secular media took note of the young evangelist and before long word spread around the nation about his fiery delivery of the simple Gospel message. He drew crowds in the tens of thousands in crusades on every continent and in many major cities at the height of his labor.
Noteworthy too is the favor God gave to Rev. Graham among the churches across denominational lines, though his lifelong affiliation is with Southern Baptists. He rallied the churches in the cities of his crusades to pray for, financially support and participate in them. I was privileged to participate as a decision counselor in a Billy Graham Crusade that came to San Jose, CA in the early eighties through the Emmanuel Baptist Church where I was a member at the time. During his nearly half a century of service Rev. Graham became known as “God’s ambassador to the world” and was spiritual advisor to American Presidents from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush.
Billy Graham also broke racial harmony building ground in publically urging white Christians to repent from racism.2 He endorsed the non-violent work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As a man of God, he stood tall as a role model in setting standards of humility, integrity and propriety with women that I as one of his admirers continue to emulate. For all of the fruitful labor and good God has used Rev. Graham to bring forth as a full-time evangelist, I stagger at the thought of what might have happened if he had listened to those early on in his young career that would keep him close to the local church to prove his loyalty to its program.
Similarly, other voices among the churches and in denominational circles would also attempt to pigeon hole him as a pastor; confining him to their unbiblical view of what “a call to preach” really means as has happened to me in my own Scriptural calling as a watchman/prophet. Billy Graham--as do all His gifted and called servants--served at the pleasure of God, not mortal flesh and as a result, stands as a towering Christian figure; an excellent example of an aspiring strong man of God in the image of Christ in our times who has earned the right to be heard nationally one last time in these latter days!
Therefore, whether you are participating in Billy Graham’s My Hope America through your local church or not (many churches have chosen not to be involved), I urge you to join me in praying for it.3 Pray that many souls will be won to the Lord through Rev. Graham and this broadcast as the Gospel is presented simply and clearly one more time by the devoted heart of a truly God called evangelist on a national platform. Otherwise, there is no one of his stature to command the cooperating media involvement he is getting now in the future. Indeed, most of the secular networks and cable systems are not participating in this broadcast event.4
Given the times, perhaps the next voices to command even global audiences for the authentic proclamation of the Gospel are God’s two witnesses who are prophets and finally, a holy angel (Revelation 11:1-14, 14:6-7). For this cause, pray also that God will be able to light a spark of revival among Christians as we understand with this broadcast how extraordinary it and the hour are. Thank you for your faithful service, Rev. Graham, and happy birthday!
1 For more information about My Hope America visit https://myhopewithbillygraham.org/.
2 Current events have clearly nullified the hostile conservative white evangelical put down of bringing up the charge of continuing racism among them and their churches
as playing “the race card.” Once again, the silence during an opportune time to proclaim and display a biblical worldview that black and all lives matter to God is
deafening. Billy Graham's call to repentance from racism then, is still appropriate now and required by God to be in the mix of all the sinful ways of the guilty to be
repented of before revival comes to them.
3 Oregon Regional Coordinator for the campaign, Ken Ramey is quoted in the November issue of Christian News Northwest as saying that “only one in every 12 churches
nationally knows about it.” He goes on to say the Graham team had met their goal to have 25,000 churches participate. For the entire article, Billy Graham My Hope
America Campaign enlists hundreds of Northwest churches, go to http://cnnw.com/2013/11/.
4 Three years later, if this year’s wicked race for President is any indicator of where our nation is at and going spiritually, then, in this reality taken seriously as it should be,
I humbly submit the Graham national evangelistic effort to all Americans using secular media in the mix is--barring divine intervention--truly the last of its kind as the Lord
led me to warn.
The following blog is a formerly published Commentary that has had minor editing for accuracy and publication on this date. Additional post-Commentary edited comments from the Strong Man Of God Monthly Newsletter--the original source publication--are also provided with good purpose.
Originally Published September 2011
The prophecies of our Lord Jesus and His apostles that false Christs, prophets and teachers would proliferate near the time of His return are being fulfilled. One of the ways a number of leaders has sought to protect the Church from such men and women is to declare that "no one speaks for God." Some have even gone so far as to themselves corrupt Scripture teaching that prophecy and the prophetic ministry no longer exist. In the Spirit that enabled God's faithful prophets of the Bible’s Old and New Testaments who were all His strong men in the making par excellence, I stand to challenge the view held by these men and ratify my own gifts, calling and ministry.
It seems these men have done again what religionists in the guise of scholarship have been prone to do historically: "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel," (Matthew 23:24, NKJV)! Indeed, for another result of their ill-conceived edict is that no preacher is considered as having anything to say any other is duty bound to hear--no matter how sound. The spiritual pride in this attitude is evident (1 Peter 5:5). Regardless, the Bible teaches that not only apostles (missionaries), but all empowered by Him to witness Christ and preach the Gospel are ambassadors (representatives and spokespersons) of God (Acts 1:8; Romans 10:14-15; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Ephesians 6:18-20).
Now, the preachers are all supposed to be repeating the same message spoken by the original and unique group of first century eye witness apostles and recorded in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 15:1-11). When they do not, it is a clear sign the guilty have corrupted the message whether in ignorance or intentionally. Listening with the Bible open can test and prove the accuracy of the message proclaimed. The same standard can be used to test authoritative claims men make for themselves. For example, any man that rises up to declare he is Christ, we can know instantly is false because our Lord gave precise signs to look for when He has arrived (Matthew 24:23-31).
Prophecy is a bit harder to test at times because it does not spring word for word from a biblical text and we often have to wait to see if what was spoken comes to pass or not. Just because this spiritual gift has been the subject of much corruption from ancient times and is not always easily or conveniently testable, does not mean God has eliminated it. But scoffers at the supernatural and religionists robed in scholarly arrogance dismiss what their faithless, spiritually dead hearts do not understand and cannot control. Others have been lazy and disobey the commands of the Lord given to the apostle Paul I quoted in a Commentary entitled, Experience Arguments (republished as the May 17, 2015 blog, under the category, The Cause).
Again, he writes, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil," (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, NKJV). To reject prophecy and the prophetic ministry as only a first century phenomenon for Christianity is to quench and despise an important gifting work of the Spirit. As well, it is to effectively blind, deafen and mute the Church in its contemporary context on earth (Isaiah 29:10; Ezekiel 3:17; Amos 3:7-8; Acts 11:27-30, 13:1-3, 21:10-14). Nowhere in Scripture does God announce the end of prophecy prior to the Second Coming of Christ; only after it for obvious reasons (Zechariah 13:2-6; 1 Corinthians 13:8-12).
Sinful men goaded by Satan have failed till this hour to silence God's voice to the Church and world through His gifted and called prophets (Joel 2:28-32a; Acts 2:1-21; Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, 28-30; 14:1-6, 24-26, 29-33; 37-40; Ephesians 4:7-16). Consistent with the mistreatment of God's prophets from Moses, many of church history such as Jan Hus (1370-1415) are not surprisingly among the martyrs made so by religious authorities.1 Contemporary religionists have also failed to properly love and receive the Lord's word through me among others (Ezekiel 33:1-9; Romans 12:9-10).
In over 30 years of formal prophetic and teaching ministry, some have been to me as David's brother who jealously resented his bold zeal for God (1 Samuel 17:23-29); others as the priest of Israel who would run off Amos, the prophet (Amos 7:10-13). My answer to the haters is that of Amos in which he essentially says he did not call himself (and I would add, neither did any authority of man), but God called him (Amos 7:14-15). Also, in Christ, I love and serve them in His cause whether they receive my ministry or not. Rather than saying in deceit, "no one speaks for God," test the prophets as the Lord commands.
First, understand there is no new prophecy about Christ--His Person, work or return (Luke 24:44-47; Hebrews 1:1-4; Revelation 1:1-3, 22:6-10, 18-19). Then ask three questions. Does what is foretold happen (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)? Is the prophet living a holy life (Matthew 7:15-20; 2 Peter 1:21)? Is the word given of whatever form consistent with God's Word and past works from Scripture (compare Jeremiah 27:1-8 and Acts 21:10-14)? If the answer to all three-test questions is yes, you do well to heed that prophet's word from the Lord; reject him that fails the test. The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
So, What’s The Big Deal?
The foregoing Commentary was soberly presented not only as I stated in its opening, but also after making my biblical case for the continuing ministry of prophets in His Church, to help interested Christians understand something of God’s beneficial purpose through us. Ignorance (willful and otherwise) where that is concerned has not only hindered my ministry, but that of untold numbers of other genuinely gifted and called servants of God that are labeled trouble makers in the churches.
Every true God called prophet from Moses until now loves Him and His people. Our hearts are zealous for the holiness, righteousness and faithfulness of God’s people. Even casually reading through the prophets in the Bible will show this is true. Hard and even harsh things are said by God through His mouthpieces to save the willing not condemn. In The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, I am given the already written Word and a right now word of warning to pastors and churches about restoring men and their families because they are a very big deal to God (Malachi 4:4-6)! I pray for your sakes that you will receive the Lord’s word through me and take action accordingly.2
1 John Foxe, Foxe's Voices of the Martyrs (Alachua, FL: Bridge Logos, 2007), p. 83-85.
2 Follow my posts to the Strong Man Of God Resources Facebook Page beginning November 4, 2016 proclaiming how the Lord’s call to repentance and revival among professing Christians and churches impacts His will to restore men!
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