The Scourge Of Racism
Paperback Book
Released October 5, 2023
Get Your Copy
Now In The Strong Man Store!
Because Jesus Christ and His message are an offense to a hostile world, His faithful preachers have suffered as He from the 1st century (John 10:31-39, 19:1-22; Acts 4:1-3, 5:17-32, 7:51-8:3, 12:1-4, 26:1-29). Suffering in some measure up to and including death for His Word as absolutely spiritually, morally and ethically true is the lot of God’s appointed faithful preachers who would rather suffer than compromise or corrupt God’s Word as it is written (John 15:18-16:4; 1 Corinthians 15:29-34)! Indeed, willingness to endure even severe persecution for the Word preached is one of the sharp differences between faithful preachers and those that are not in Christian history.
Faithful preachers of the Word of God beginning with the Gospel have themselves first been brought to salvation and spiritual regeneration by it! They intimately know and love the indwelling Person of the Word, Jesus Christ (John 1:1-5, 14-18), the Holy Spirit and Father with all submission and obedience (John 14:15-24). As a result, they also love and keep God’s written Word (Psalm 119). Their obedience includes confessing and repenting from their sins as they occur so they might continue to enjoy unbroken fellowship with God (1 John 1:5-10). The apostle Paul was greatly humbled by the magnitude of God’s grace and mercy to save him and all sinners. His faithful and diligent service to God as His appointed preacher was a manifest token of eternal gratitude (1 Corinthians 15:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:12-17).
It is out of such a spirit of humility and gratitude for personal salvation that the apostle Paul exemplifies and is God’s enduring template for the zeal and service He expects from all of us as aspiring strong men and great women of God in the image of Christ and His appointed preachers. His faithful service as a preacher of the Gospel is one reason he is so passionately direct about God’s authorized declaration of destruction for the one who preaches another gospel other than the one God has given (Galatians 1:6-9). The other reason is his question of whether he (and by implication all Christian preachers) are preaching to persuade and please men or God (Galatians 1:10)?
If it is true with God and men that one appointed is to serve to please the one who appointed him as surely it is, then Paul and us after him appointed by God to preach His Word in the Gospel and otherwise are to please Him with the mind of Christ to the point of even considering ourselves His slaves in all faithfulness (Philippians 2:5-8). And right here is where the wheels have come off for many genuinely God appointed preachers throughout history to this very hour. For to their disgrace through any number of motives not the least of them being men rather than God pleasers, many Christian preachers have willfully compromised and corrupted God’s Word in all falsehood and deceit.
A perfect example of this in action is the not so subtle satanically inspired transformation of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday into a day of good works in this 21st century. No accident or product of natural progressive community evolution, it has come about as the polite, but purposeful effort of secular individuals and morally tolerant professing Christians and preachers to separate King from the offense of his spiritual roots as a Christian preacher of biblical morality; the ground on which he stood to call white America to do right by its black and other disenfranchised citizens. While King did preach service to humanity, he did so explaining the biblical motives of Christians to serve and his own in stepping up to help his people and others hurt by America’s failure to live up to its ostensible Christian heritage as he did in a message he preached two months before being assassinated.1
To morph the totality of Dr. King’s biblically rooted cause and message into only a day of do good works in the community is to white wash over the deeply oppressive and blatant evil of American racism he challenged as an appointed preacher of God. No, King and his preaching in the matter of Civil Rights for black Americans cannot be successfully surgically removed from its biblical moral underpinning anymore than the preaching of John the Baptist who rebuked Herod for his adultery and other evils or the Lord Jesus who preached against the hypocrisy of Israel’s religious leaders (Luke 3:15-20; 11:37-54), Martin Luther who called the Catholic Church to reform its corrupt practices or Europe and America’s abolitionists who advocated slavery’s end.
Not so subtle either in this King Day service emphasis is the growing wider effort to spin “real” Christianity into a salvation by works which is very plainly not taught in the Bible (Romans 3:21-4:4; Ephesians 2:8-10). Yet, many preachers have embraced this false gospel of works undergirding the King Day and other assorted heretical doctrines applauded by the world. Moreover, a great number of preachers even trample on God’s Word in rejection after preaching it by leading the people to disobey it in practice seeking to please them rather than God. This latter thing is especially prevalent among preaching pastors in the tradition minded churches of manmade Christianity the religion in spite of God’s rejection of such folly (Mark 7:1-23; Luke 6:46-49; James 1:21-25, 4:17). The guilty should immediately repent!
While I could wish too with some of his godly black American preaching contemporaries such as Rev. Howard O. Jones that Dr. King and other preachers around him had preached the Gospel as intensely as the biblically rooted moral imperatives of the Civil Rights Movement,2 nevertheless, faithful preachers in these latter days understand we must do so with the “whole counsel of God” as was done by our example, Paul, in the 1st century (Acts 20:17-27, NKJV). And like him too, we must be ready in what is shaping up to be the closing opportunity to publicly preach unfettered in the West to suffer for it to the end, not being ashamed of Christ, the Gospel about Him or the whole counsel of God in His Word (Matthew 10:16-39; Mark 8:34-38; Romans 1:16-17; 2 Timothy 1:8-12); in the power of the Holy Spirit, pleasing God in preaching to lost and wavering souls so that many may be saved (Jude 20-25). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
1 Dr. King preached a message entitled, The Drum Major Instinct at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on February 4, 1968 in which his text and content regarding serving hu-
manity was taken from Mark 10:35-45. The sermon can be heard as a sound recording and easily found for purchase online.
2 Howard O. Jones, For This Time (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966), 59-61.
The Holy Spirit continues to stir my heart from last week’s blog, The Never Changing God, under the category, Call To Repent, to remind all of us gifted to preach the Gospel and truths of God’s Word that we are “appointed” by Him as were all who ever came before us (John 15:16; 1 Timothy 2:7, NKJV)! We, therefore, are God’s preachers since it is always the case that the one appointed serves the one who appointed him. Appointed by God, Christian preachers in service and message owe Him loyalty first and above all other loyalties to include churches, denominations and self. That the Holy Spirit would insist such a reminder be given indicates not a few have forgotten these truths.
In biblical use, to preach is to herald, proclaim or publish the words or message of God to the human audience He directs. Noah is identified by the apostle Peter as a “preacher of righteousness” and would be one of the earliest in the Bible (2 Peter 2:4-5, NKJV). Appointed by God, Noah preached warning those of his day their righteous Creator was about to destroy them in their wickedness and the evil world they had created (Genesis 6:11-13). After the flood, God would appoint and equip many men to publically preach His messages as prophets (authoritative spokesmen, seers and watchmen) primarily among His chosen people, Israel, but beyond them as well (Exodus 4:10-17; Jeremiah 1:1-10; Jonah 1:1-2; Mark 1:1-8).
In preaching to Israel, Moses foretells that God would raise up a Prophet like, but greater than him (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). This Prophet is the Lord Jesus Christ as the last of the Old Testament prophets He commends, affirms (Matthew 11:7-11; John 1:29-36, 3:22-36). Moses’ announcement came with a solemn warning that reaches right down to this hour concerning any prophet that presumed to speak (or preach) a word in God’s Name which He had not commanded or in the name of other gods--so much for ecumenicalism; all the other gods do not stand on the same ground and are clearly not saying the same thing as the God of the Bible (Deuteronomy 18:20-22).
Not only is Jesus Christ the Prophet of God, but He is also the Preacher and Apostle of God’s joyful good news of repentance, faith, salvation and the Kingdom to Israel (Mark 1:14-15; Hebrews 3:1-2)! After His death for our sins, burial, and resurrection, He sent the disciples of His inner circle He had made apostles out to Israel and the nations to make new disciples by preaching the Gospel about Him, repentance and faith in Him for the forgiveness of sins, the New Covenant and promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit as well as God’s Kingdom on the earth (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:44-49; John 20:19-23; Acts 1:6-8, 2:1-40, 3:11-4:22)!
Then there is that Jewish apostle of Christ sent specifically to us Gentiles, Saul of Tarsus also known as Paul (1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Galatians 1:11-24; 1 Timothy 1:12-13). He tirelessly preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout Roman controlled Asia and Greek speaking Europe; always pressing to preach where Christ and the Gospel had not yet been preached (Romans 15:14-21). It is from him that we learn Christian preachers are an important fulfillment of God’s long ago announced plan to send heralds of His greatest message to the world yet; the Good News of salvation from sin by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ, His Son (Isaiah 49:6, 52:7; Romans 10:14-15)! Truly, God desires the salvation of all men (1 Timothy 2:1-6; Titus 2:11-15).
It was by Paul’s instruction too that we understand preaching is far beyond the wisdom and skill of men even well taught in public speaking. It is the required foundational spiritual gift from God to equip His appointed heralds to deliver His message of salvation in His power (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)! Such are apostles who run to the ends of the earth as heralds preaching the Gospel where it has never been preached, making disciples and planting churches and evangelists who irresistibly preach the Gospel and witness Christ to the unsaved wherever they find themselves. Also, apostles, evangelists along with prophets within the whole Body and pastor/teachers in the local churches preach the Gospel and expound God’s Word to equip His people for service and build them up to maturity in the faith (Ephesians 4:7-16).
The foregoing all being biblically true, it stands to reason that no professing Christian man or woman having declared themselves called of God to preach should conduct their lives in an ungodly manner (1 Corinthians 9:24-27) or preach where He has not authorized in all disobedience (1 Corinthians 14:33-37; 1 Timothy 2:11-15). Neither should any preach a gospel or any other message He has not commissioned from His Word; communication embodying suppositions of their own invention and fleshly wisdom as emissaries of Satan that deny biblical truth and even the Lord of our salvation. The consequences of corruption and falsehood are eternally severe no matter who you are as the original New Testament apostles warn (2 Corinthians 1:12-14, 4:1-6, 11:13-15; Galatians 1:6-10; 2 Peter 2:1-3).
Therefore, let all of the appointed preachers of God repent to whatever extent you are coming short of His will while there is still the opportunity since the foretold judgment in His house is already underway. Caught in sin, how shall you escape? If the biblical Gospel and sound doctrine purely proclaimed are no longer enough to make disciples, form or sustain churches, then clearly we are in (and you must accept we are in) the foretold perilous paradigm of the latter days (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3; 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 4:3-4). Resist the evil temptation to slander God, compromise or corrupt His Word to satisfy your personal thinking and ambitions in spiritual weakness to build a following.
Rather, stand as aspiring strong men and great women of God in the image of Christ preaching His Word as it is written regardless of the cost and to the end that you may please God and gain an eternal reward! Get a copy of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to learn what being an aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Jesus Christ is all about because it is for preachers too! It is available directly or by order wherever books are sold and in our Strong Man Store at www.thestrongmanofGod.org.
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