The Scourge Of Racism
E-Book Availability 4/12-26
Released January 5, 2024
Download Your Copy
Now In The Strong Man Store!
On Mother’s Day, May 8, 2011, I wrote the untitled paragraph immediately below as my second blog post ever as an author followed by the more lengthy, re-titled and edited offering readers have become accustomed to one year later as noted. What a difference one year made in my experience of Mother’s Day because of the ongoing rebellion against God’s order and morality being worked out in the laws and social policies of our nation! For this cause, no one should expect God’s judgment upon the land to diminish ahead even with a temporary repentance (Nehemiah 9:1-37), but severely intensify regardless of who the President is (Jeremiah 30:23-24; Nahum 1:1-10; Romans 1:28-32).
God made man male and female--Gen. 1:27-28. The days set aside on the calendar to honor our parents are good. In so doing, we are reminded of God’s purposeful acts to create and set in place the means by which the human race would perpetuate itself. As I discuss in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, by His intentional physical design man is male or female in this present age. On Mother’s Day, we celebrate females whom God designed to conceive, carry, birth, nurse, and nurture our children. My own mother departed to be with the Lord just after Mother’s Day last year. I remain grateful to her and salute all of the women including my wife, Mary that embrace their calling to be mothers as God designed.
Originally Posted May 13, 2012
Today, I remember my mother, salute again my wife and divinely designed motherhood with a profound sense of appreciation tied to the incredible role God has uniquely given you for bringing human life into existence. Adam so valued the unique role his wife would play in God’s purpose of marriage and procreation (Genesis 2:18-24) that he gave her a name related to it: “Eve” which means “life” or “living,” (Genesis 3:20, NKJV). A man as God designed him cannot conceive nor can a woman do so by herself. Human procreation is the cooperative effort between the seeds of men and women along with God who gives each human conceived a spirit (Psalm 139:13-14; Zechariah 12:1).
Apart from this cooperative effort with mothers in the middle, new human life would not come into being. Out of the joy of such clarity comes now, a deep sadness. As a professed Christian this past week, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, gave a public endorsement to same sex marriage and the resulting unnaturally assembled families as a matter of living out Christian morality. Specifically, he referenced the instruction of the Lord Jesus found in Matthew 7:12 (also Luke 6:31) and made it a moral underpinning for permitting same sex marriage so as to treat all people equal and fair.
With all due respect to his office (I address this matter upon his public profession of being a Christian), Mr. Obama in his reference to the Bible gives a classic example of corrupting God’s Word to support one’s own ideas. Did not the Lord just lead me to write two weeks ago (April 29, 2012) that seeking Him in humble prayer and paying attention to context are among the important steps to take in gaining a right understanding of His Word?1 Also, a common truth every faithful Christian knows is that God or the Son of God never, ever ratifies sin. Since He is immutable, God does not evolve in His thinking either. In love, though, He sent Christ to die for and save us from our sins!
Our President said he observed his staff engaged in and talked with his wife and daughters about same sex families and felt that they should have the same acceptance as any other family. Absent from his consultation list (publically anyway) is a talk with the immutable God who consistently from the Bible’s Old and New Testaments calls same sex relations sin, wicked, abominable, vile and sexually immoral (Genesis 18:16-21, 19:1-25; Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:18-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Revelation 21:7-8). In my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, we teach men their first loyalty in all things is to God.2 A talk with the holy God to understand His Word will never yield His endorsement of what He has already called sin!
In attempting to interpret and apply Matthew 7:12 to morally support treating people equal and fair, one must do so within the larger context of Jesus’ sermon beginning at Matthew 5:1 and the immediate context of the verse which starts at Matthew 7:1. In the larger context our Lord is teaching about Kingdom attitudes and conduct. In the immediate context He warns against the practice of condemning others in their faults because to whatever extent we dish it out, it is coming back to us. He also teaches that before we spend time judging others, we must begin with ourselves (vs.1-5). The Lord next presents instances of exercising proper judgment about things holy and God (vs.6-11).
The Lord’s instruction about doing to others as you would have them do to you in verse 12 comes at this point. In saying “this is the Law and the Prophets” (NKJV), the Lord equates His Kingdom teaching with the moral instruction of these Old Testament books and particularly their summation in loving your neighbor as yourself! In no way are we to interpret our Lord as teaching in our quest to treat people equal and fair as we also want to be treated that we are to accept what they do in sinning against God. Matthew 7:13-23 (which is still part of the larger context of Matthew 7:12) makes it absolutely clear Jesus was not teaching this.
What God calls sin, we call sin and there is nothing in this about being equal or fair except to the extent we apply the same standard (God’s Word and what He calls sin) to ourselves as we do others. Therefore, heaviness of heart has overtaken me as our President is the highest profile professing Christian in the world who along with a growing number of others is corrupting God’s Word to support their own ideas. In the name of the Lord Jesus, I call Mr. Obama and all such persons to repentance knowing Christ will have the last word (Matthew 7:24-29).
1 Read the May 31, 2015 blog, What Does God’s Word Say? under the category, Instruction, then take full advantage of the offer for a free Bible Interpretation Document Download. God will hold every single one of us accountable for how we handle His Word (2 Timothy 2:15; 2 Peter 3); a reality every prospective Bible interpreter should fearfully consider!
2 The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics is available through all major internet booksellers and the Strong Man Store where the E-Book Edition in two formats is currently
on sale through June 20th.
As a matter of final reflection on being a Christian forty years, I want to glorify God for my many positive experiences as a member of the Body of Christ on earth! For the sake of brevity in this blog format, I will confine myself to the company of the saints, biblical multiculturalism and music as areas of experience in the Body of Christ that have greatly contributed to the joy of my forty year journey thus far. Though I have written much about how religionists and spiritually immature believers weak in willful sin have brought me grief, I rejoice that occasionally in the journey, I have been truly blessed with being in the company of authentic and faithful saints.
These faithful saints were to me exactly what the Bible teaches: filled with faith and the love of God, obedient and true to His Word, unselfish, ready to give, encourage, edify or help, thoughtful, kind, considerate and eager to serve (John 13:34-35; Romans 5:5, 12:9-21, 13:8-10; 1 Corinthians 13:4-6; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-3). They have been an oasis of refreshment to me at strategic moments in my journey; appearing by divine providence at times like a man making his way across the desert who has seen mirages of water and finally comes upon its reality after many days. They shall remain nameless (lest any should be unnecessarily offended), but precious to me--bless them, Lord!
While I have left these saints nameless, I joyfully declare they are from both genders, different ethnicities, races, tribes, languages and cultures! The experience of this reality has been especially enriching for me due to understanding and fully appreciating God’s global, Kingdom cause in the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, as I wrote about recently in the four-part blog, God Of Restoration And Judgment under the category, The Cause with three others! What an absolutely amazing experience to meet a brother or sister in Christ from a place on the other side of the world who as a sinner, has come to Christ in repentance and faith and loves Him with a passion just like me.
As I wrote in another blog, I was prepared for this biblical form of multiculturalism growing up in Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula of California.1 While racism was extant, the forcibly integrated school system was such that many different ethnicities, races, languages and cultures were brought together. From this experience, I learned to appreciate and navigate among those that were from different ethnicities, races and cultures. What a joy to do this when the opportunities have come in the Body of Christ! However, the operative word here is “when” since a major share of grief in my journey has come from among racially bigoted professed Christians.
To this hour, a number of white Southern Baptist pastors here in the Northwest remain cold toward me for insisting that racism no longer be tolerated among their ranks. I made personal appeals, addressed meetings and wrote about how tolerating racism was unbecoming of those professing such high regard for Christ and the Gospel. Even in this 21st century as a continuing link to the days of America’s secular and church sanctioned practice of racism, my word as a black pastor still carried less weight than that of a white one. This led, for example, in one sad case to having others also receive my correspondence sent to an official so my words would be accurately known.
I agree with anyone that would say this sort of thing should not be among professed Christian brothers. However, until racism is dealt with as the sin it is and truly no longer tolerated in the Body of Christ, such actions will continue to be taken by blacks and other minorities that love our white brothers enough not to allow the guilty to reflexively force us into a less than equal place. Instead of being embittered toward me, such men should have godly sorrow and be deeply repentant realizing that a brother in their midst felt compelled to take extraordinary measures to be heard accurately in the multicultural Body of Christ charged to represent Him (Matthew 23:8; 1 John 3:10-15)!
Another important way I sought as the Lord led to build a bridge of multicultural love among Southern Baptist brothers was through an event called “Praisefest.” Out of what is supposed to be our common love for the Lord, we brought worship teams from churches of various cultural groups together to praise Him through the universal language of music. I never heard anything negative about those sweet times in the Lord which is good. Indeed, some of my most joyful experiences of the Body of Christ as His purposeful, multicultural construction have been marvelously through music! Being an appreciator of all kinds of music came from my departed mother as well as through school days experiences in choirs, bands and later in college and seminary, a radio disc jockey (DJ).
From the European Reformation and church hymns that followed along with the spirituals and work songs of my Christian slave forefathers to Black and Southern Gospel and Contemporary Christian Music my soul has been fully blessed “through it all” (the title of an André Crouch classic) by the multicultural music of the saints. As a DJ in Dallas/Fort Worth, how my spirit soared executing multicultural music sets that ministered to listeners and me! I feel so sorry for professed Christians that have never gone beyond their culturally preferred music to enjoy that of brethren from another culture.2 Thank You, Lord, for the foretaste of eternity with You I have enjoyed thus far, in the multicultural company, love and music of Your Body (Ephesians 5:18-20; Colossians 3:12-17)!
1 Read the December 6, 2015 blog, Celebrating God’s Racial Diversity Initiative, Call To Repent.
2 While I fully understand the worldly idea behind radio music formatting, what a lost opportunity to build a bridge of brotherhood in the Body of Christ and give a multicultural
witness Christian music stations have missed following this model that essentially mimics segregated Sunday morning church services. I am available on a professional
consulting basis to assist any Christian music programmer that would like to do a better job of offering a culturally diverse music mix.
Join The Strong Man Of God Resources Conversation!
Get Your Copy Of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics Today!
Your purchase supports restoring men, families and communities through Strong Man Ministries!
Purchase It Now