Strong Man Of God Blog

            God can and does use whoever He wants to but never in corruption of His already written Word!  A donkey spoke in service to the divine purpose of the occasion not because God intended that going forward, dumb animals should now be preachers to men (Numbers 22:21-35).  Likewise, Mary Magdalene who was at the tomb of Jesus because of her deep devotion to her Deliverer stood outside weeping because it was empty.  She encountered the risen Lord and was commanded to go repeat a message to His disciples not because He was giving her a new ministry or authority over them, but simply because she was there to go to them as she had done earlier (John 20:1-18)!

            Arguments from experience attempting to justify the corruption of and disobedience to God’s already written instruction in His Word abound among professing Christians today.  From sensational Charismatic claims to of course, the exaltation of females to positions of authority over men in many churches, experiences have played more of a role in bringing these about than the objective truth of God’s Word.  This has occurred in spite of our Lord’s foretold royal character and instruction we are supposed to live out in following Him (Isaiah 11:3-5; John 7:21-24).  Also, the motives are legion and include pastors that bow to the idol of success by every worldly means.

            The Lord’s apparent slowness to righteously judge has deceived many into believing He is fine and even complicit with them doing whatever works to fulfill their selfish ambitions instead of what is actually in accord with His will, way and Word.  However, such persons have confused the Lord’s forbearance with His permission as they will soon learn (Psalm 50:16-21).  Truly, we have come to the time of God’s severe judgment among the churches because His forbearance is drawing to its close (1 Peter 4:17-18).  His judgment will break the demonically controlled stranglehold arguments from experience alone has on a large segment of professing Christianity as I warn in today’s blog.

Originally Published May 2011

            Tied directly to emotional arguments are those from experience that are made to justify willful disobedience to God's Word.  To hear some professing Christians and preachers discuss or refrain from discussing the matter, personal experience has not only been elevated to a sacred status higher than God's Word itself, but it is forbidden to be questioned.  As a result, just about anything goes today in many churches because people are able to say, "I think, I feel, I believe God…" to have their way in either direct defiance of or by clearly corrupting Scripture.  Such is how, in part, female leadership over men in American churches has come to be routine over the past 100 years.

            God declares, ‘“The just shall live by his faith,”’ (Habakkuk 2:4b, NKJV) not feelings and experiences.  Always, the object of our faith is the Lord who is holy, never changes and acts consistently with His already written Word!  Human emotions cannot be trusted because they are easily influenced by sin in us and manipulated by Satan from without.  For the same reasons, we cannot put unquestioned stock in experiences.   In fact, because of sin’s deceitfulness, we put no confidence in the flesh even related to religious stuff understanding that by pride and evil desires, we can and do invent experiences that support our cause to have it our way (Philippians 3:3; Colossians 2:18).

            We are commanded by the Lord through the apostle Paul, "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, emphasis mine).  For those that trust their feelings and experiences supposedly inspired by the Spirit, there should be no issues about us weaker ones testing these by what He has already inspired in the written Word!  In obedience to Paul's instruction, we would hold on to that which is good (consistent).  However, we would abstain from (reject) every form of evil.  All that leads to the disobedience of God's already written Word is evil!

            “On any given Sunday there are 13 million more adult women than men in America’s churches,” an I’m The Man Conference promotional Web page proclaimed.¹  With great pronouncements from God but in defiance of Scripture, male pastors have been ordaining women to take authority over men in and to lead churches as pastors.  Aside from caving to the feminine power represented in their numbers and the worldly emotional argument about equality in the churches, many feel led to support this movement of disobedience arguing from experience.  They assert that they cannot deny those whom God has obviously given the ability to preach and lead the opportunity to do so.

            As it concerns biblically defined preaching, it should be no surprise that God would equip women to preach because according to the purpose of spiritual gifts, none of us can do anything in the Body of Christ without being gifted (1 Corinthians 12:1-11).  As it is written, however, “God is not the author of confusion (disorder) but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints,” (1 Corinthians 14:33, NKJV).  One of the reasons we are in confusion and conflict on this in the churches is because we have made preaching a matter of cultural style, emotion, ego, pride, fleshy show and entertainment rather than what it is--a demonstration of the Spirit and His power (1 Corinthians 2:4)!

            This demonstration of the Spirit and His power is not only of ability, but in giving honor and glad submission to all of God’s Word including its instruction that a gifted woman does not stand to speak, teach, preach or take authority over men in His churches (1 Corinthians 14:34-40; 1 Timothy 2:11-14).  Women in prisons, for example, are in dire need of gifted women to proclaim to them the “unsearchable riches of Christ” in the Gospel!  But there is no glory there; the prize in the flesh is to be admired by men.  God gives His strong men and great women spiritual gifts and expects that we will honor His fixed family order in our homes, His assembly and beyond in exercising them.

            To their peril, far too many male pastors and women have ignored the fact the church on earth and in Heaven is not an invention of sinful flesh.  It is the construction of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God who maintains His Headship over it (Matthew 16:16-18; Ephesians 1:22; Colossians 1:15-18).  Church government, protocols and programs do not spring from emotions and experiences that contradict His Word, but Jesus is Lord!  Therefore, according to His already written Word, without repentance severe judgment is the indisputable experience of the guilty (Revelation 2:18-23).  The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”

1 http://www.imthemanconference.com/

            A blessed Mother’s Day to all of my sisters in Christ.  It is a shame that I had to pause and struggle a bit before prayerfully deciding how to express my heartfelt Mother’s Day salute.  In these days of confusion we now live in, mothers are being invented in all manner of peculiar ways including by way of men who transform themselves into women and become mothers to children in their care.  This state of affairs is supported by any number of emotionally charged arguments that defy the will and instruction of humanity’s Creator contained in the Bible; the God and Book not a few in many churches believe are no longer relevant as they serve the god born of their narcissism: self!

            Rebels may not want to honor God or His Word, but that does not dismiss them from existence.  According to the Word of God, females were designed and created by God to naturally conceive, carry in their wombs, birth, nourish and nurture children who are the next generation of mankind.  In so doing, a female indispensably helps to continue human existence on the earth as part of a team with the male, her head and bearer of the seed that initiates their children’s lives (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:18-25).  After the original couple’s fall, God’s program remained in place (Genesis 3:20) albeit with many unforeseen consequences that reach right down into the confusion of our day.

            Emotional arguments can be very appealing and strong, but also very wrong as plainly demonstrated by Eve when she led herself and her husband to disobey God (Genesis 3:6-11)!  Many male pastors have felt very strongly that women equally gifted as men should serve as God has only assigned men.  But they have sinned against the Lord and served as His judge by casting aside the Word of instruction in making women pastors, leaders and teachers over men in His house using emotional arguments; saying for example, “God can use who He wants to.”  This is true.  However, learn in today’s blog why this emotional argument and all others fail before the God of order!

Originally Published April 2011

            Beyond the childish arguments lifted up against God's faithful prophets in order to muzzle them (Isaiah 30:8-11; Amos 2:11-12; Micah 2:6), there are the many rebel arguments lifted up against His Word that are rooted purely in emotion.  As the Scripture foretells about these evil days, truth and reason have been exiled to a bygone era (Acts 26:24-25; 2 Timothy 4:3-4).  Many have gone after the world and left Christ, the living Word (2 Timothy 4:10; 1 John 1:1-3; Revelation 2:4-5)!  The Strong Man of God is written with the subtitle, Back To Basics because within its pages men and the churches are called back to the foundational biblical truths which declare God’s program for man.

            The Bible as the Word of God is of the most basic and foundational truths that all born again Christians should hold in common.  Yet, how many times I have heard professing Christians rebut sound doctrine with the emotional line, “The Bible was written by men.”  They miss the flaw in their argument that if it is a reasoned assertion fallen men writing the Bible dismiss the doctrine being rebutted, it also destroys all of Christianity since the faith is built on the Bible.  And so it goes; a desire to disobey a certain portion of God’s Word leads to flesh driven emotional arguments that seek to justify it.  This is an approach that is straight out of the world controlled by Satan.

            In its forceful move away from objective Judeo-Christian truth and morality, our society more and more offers its own truth and morality based on the emotional arguments of what works for the individuals involved.  Here are a few examples.  Two people should be able to marry based on love regardless of gender.  A person should be able to die (commit suicide) with dignity.  A woman's rights over her body trump those of her unborn child (spelled tissue).  And of course, directly related to my book and the instruction from God's Word that men as husbands are to head their families, this is now not fair and equal treatment of women since they are capable of leading also.

            As a Christian Black American, it is offensive to hear the emotional argument that since women are an oppressed minority like blacks, society must eradicate all perceived forms of inequality for them including the bondage of being the kind of wife the Bible describes.  The argument has also been expanded to include those that have willfully chosen sexually deviant lifestyles.  As it concerns women, we sinful men surely have messed up to whatever extent women have been unfairly and unequally treated by us in disobedience to God’s Word.  I apologize for this in my book.  However, by no means do the sins of men justify the all out rebellion now underway against God and His Word.

            In the book, I hold firmly to and stand on the testimony of Scripture that it is in fact, God breathed and penned by fallen men made holy He chose and empowered for the task (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:21).  As such, I also in truth and reason point up the right God has as mankind's Creator to set the ground rules for our existence.  Every argument lifted up against His program then (no matter how emotional) is of rebellion and sin.  For it is written, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” (Genesis 1:1, NKJV).  And again, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man…,’” (Genesis 1:26, NKJV).  You and I are creatures with a Maker over us (Revelation 4:11)!

           The same Creator that gave the universe, galaxies, solar systems and earth order, also gave it to the apex of His creation, man.  Man as male and female in marriage is God's orderly program for them to fulfill His purposes in this age.  Man the male as the head of his family--even after falling in sin--is so by divine will, design and order (Genesis 3:16b).  If the fixed order of day and night that God has established were to be disrupted, chaos on earth would ensue.  So it is now with human rebellion against His fixed order of the family.  As a consequence in part, God will soon give those who clamor for disorder fully what they desire (Revelation 8:12).  The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”