The Scourge Of Racism
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In preparing to make this edited 2012 repost, I had to refresh myself on the circumstances that stirred me up before the Lord to write it in the first place. Ms. Rosen’s now famous rebuke of Ann Romney which she walked back the next day certainly led to what is presented spiritually in the post and which I fully stand by in step with the posts I made on feminism last spring.1 However, also heavily on my heart that I did not include then was how that debate was so much one of race and class privilege. Mostly white women up until recent times could have such a debate about the work of women at home or outside of it.
Black women from slavery have had little choice but to work outside of the home to help support their families. What is striking is that the black women I have read about and known personally such as my grandmother, mother and wife did not complain or believe that they somehow were being cheated. Working to help support their families was something that had to be done and they did it with a resolute joy--though they came home tired and with sore feet; looking only for us children and when I married, husband, to show some appreciation by helping with household duties. I confess resentment in my youth I regret to having to wash dishes and do other household chores.
I did better as a Christian husband--although my daughters still laugh about my combing their hair on occasion for school. Women that work outside of the home in black and other communities of color is a fact of life. I salute all that do so including the memory of my grandmother, mother and with thanks to God, my wife, Mary, still with me whose employment and other sacrifices down through our thirty-eight years together have helped make it possible that I could serve in this Ministry. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers who work in and outside of the home; blessing their families as a result!
Originally Posted April 15, 2012
To tell the truth, I was not shocked by the national collision and resulting discussion of worldviews that took place last week on the issue of women that work in and outside of the home. In the second chapter of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, I am led by the Lord to address the 21st century confusion on what a man and woman are head on.2 It is an inescapable issue in light of the rejection of God’s ancient instruction on the matter by the secular world and a rising number of professed Christians along with their churches. And of course, it is the rejection of the absolutes of God’s Word that gives rise to the confusion and subsequent worldview collisions.
Democrat Hilary Rosen’s declaration on a News show that Ann Romney, the wife of Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, “never worked a day in her life,” sparked the latest round of national heated discussion over not only whether stay at home mothers really work or not, but the larger question of a woman’s role and place in the family. Whether she is a card carrying feminist or not, Ms. Rosen’s comment and attitude with it is typical of many women that are. Having encountered many feminists in my years of ministry, there seems to be antagonism toward especially Christian women that willfully choose to be full-time wives and mothers. In their minds, “real women” do the home thing, but only as they also pursue personal ambitions--whatever they may be.
The truth is, the woman that devotes herself full-time to her husband and family is pleasing to God and so is the one that in support of her family, chooses to (or must) work outside of the home as long as she does not neglect any of her divinely assigned responsibilities (Titus 2:1-5). Ah, and that is the catch for the career minded woman who like her male counterpart must often sacrifice family on the altar of achieving success. Clearly, God is not pleased with either a man or woman who does this. Both the stay at home and the employed woman can work hard; aspiring great women of God in the image of Christ in either situation will work very hard in order to please Him and their families. I devote two chapters of my book discussing such women.
Incredibly, the aspiring great woman of God does not feel nor is she chained to the home if she commits to serving her family full-time. As demonstrated by the woman of Proverbs 31:10-31, she sees fully after the needs of her husband and children first. But then she uses her home honed skills and God-given management abilities to operate businesses and/or serve others. At the end of the day, the family of this hard working woman is blessed by and calls her blessed that is motivated foremost by a desire to please God (Proverbs 31:30)!3
1 Read the posts beginning April 15-June 3, 2018.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 Visit our Strong Man Store to hear a sample of and consider purchasing the audio resource, Great Woman Of God Mothers.
Faithful Christians that are almost always eager Bible students understand the times we are living in and what lies ahead if not in specific detail, generally. This is because they do not read into Bible prophecy to concoct theories, spiritualize, or reject it, but reverence the Source enough to allow His illumination and instruction (Mark 13:23; 2 Peter 1:19-21). They also understand and accept it as it is written along with all other objectively understood portions of the Bible. Finally, unlike some theologians of history such as Augustine that rendered allegorical what he could not understand, the faithful realize some Bible prophecy would not be opened up by God until now (Daniel 12:4, 8-10)!
Those professed Christians that are selling themselves out to rebellion against God’s program with the world in unbelief do not know what time it is.1 The Lord Jesus and His apostles repeatedly make it clear however, that the faithful--every aspiring strong man and great woman of God as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics--must live fully by faith in Him; enduring to the end to obtain the promised salvation (Matthew 10:16-39, 24:13; Romans 1:16-17, 8:18-25; Hebrews 3:5-19).2 The Lord led me to write this edited 2012 Commentary to encourage aspiring strong men of God to remain faithful as Bible prophecy is fulfilled before our very eyes.
Originally Published April 2012
I stand amazed at our God who has made us both observers of and participants in the times such as are now unfolding. For unknown to the wicked and apparently even many professing Christians, the times we are living in were foretold millennia ago by the prophets of God in the Bible's Old Testament as well as Jesus Christ and His apostles in the New. This is all to the glory of God who reveals the end from the beginning and events long before they occur (Isaiah 44:6-8, 45:20-22, 46:5-10, 48:3-5)! God, the eternally living God who spoke time into existence (Genesis 1:3-5, 14-19) and fulfills His Word at the right time is resolutely ratcheting up this world's troubles (Matthew 24:6-7).
Not since the global flood of Noah's day had the world experienced a paradigm shift of such magnitude as the incarnation of the Son of God in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, now over 2,000 years ago. Planned from eternity (1 Peter 1:20), preliminarily announced by God in Eden on the day Adam sinned (Genesis 3:15) and fleshed out over time in revelation to His prophets, Jesus came to “save His people from their sins,” (Matthew 1:21, NKJV). In God’s perfect moment, at the right time He arrived to fulfill His mission as the apostle Paul later affirms (Romans 5:6). Interestingly, unlike the flood of Noah’s day, the world did not know He had come except those God revealed Him to.
For thirty years He grew up quietly in the ways of His people--a carpenter’s Son. After this, He engaged in a three and one half-year ministry of preaching, teaching and mighty miracles that authenticated His identity as God’s Anointed One. Then, before the eyes of His disciples, He was arrested and crucified. They did not understand that to save them from their sins, Jesus had to die in their place by divine decree (Romans 5:7-9). They buried Him the same day He died, but on the third day after, He showed Himself to His disciples alive from the dead and explained to them from prophecy all that had happened to Him in fulfillment (Luke 24:1-45).
The Lord then revealed to His still startled disciples that they were witnesses of all that had happened to Him. They would now take on the important responsibility to proclaim what they had seen and heard as well as the resulting good news to the nations in the power of God (Luke 24:46-49)! After leading them out to the appointed spot, the Lord ascended into Heaven with the promise He would be with them (and us) to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20b; Luke 24:50-53). The mission has continued through Christ's disciples in every generation since to this hour and will continue until the last soul known to God is saved; for He has a number in mind (Romans 4:13-18, 11:25-36).
Echoing his Lord, the apostle Peter in his first and second recorded sermons told Jewish hearers that what they had been witnessing in word, power and events concerning Jesus of Nazareth to that time had been foretold by their prophets (Acts 2:14-32, 3:18-24). They were living in a divinely ordained time of prophetic fulfillment with still more to come. It is for this reason that as led by the Lord I assert we have continued all of these years since in a time of prophetic fulfillment and therefore, remain in what should be properly understood as "God's times." This being true, those who walk by faith in His Son and obedience to God have never been out of step with or behind "the times!"
From the first appearance of Christ and His successful mission, “the times” have been “God’s times” in which He is presiding over His eternal plans and superintending His longsuffering work through the faithful to preach the Gospel to all the nations. God’s longsuffering has been of His unrelenting desire in love to save (Matthew 24:14; 2 Peter 3:1-9). While by His providence, men have advanced technologically during the last 20 centuries and exponentially so in the last two, they have made no self-generated improvement spiritually or morally. Indeed, lawlessness has been increasing, love decreasing and evil men grow worse as foretold (Matthew 24:12; 2 Timothy 3:13).
Confirming prophetic fulfillment shows us closer to the end of this present age than we imagined and the next great paradigm shift in God's program: the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ! In step with "God's times," we that love Him see that we are descending like an airplane into the foretold period of severe turbulence our Lord describes as an intensifying "beginning of sorrows” or “birth pains" to include global persecution caused tribulation (Matthew 24:8-9, 15-22, NKJV). However, it leads to a safe landing in His presence (Revelation 7:9-17). Every aspiring strong man of God will be very glad he did not sell the Lord out to be in step with the world's times (Mark 8:34-38). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read the April 28, 2019 post, God’s Program Matters!, under the category, Call To Repent.
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