The Scourge Of Racism
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Released January 5, 2024
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Whatever attributes, attainments or accolades credited to black Americans, Christianity and the spirited, homogenous churches we were compelled from bigotry to form are going to be identified with us until the Lord returns! As much as the distinctive pigment of our skin, physical features and abilities, Christianity and our churches are an inseparable part of Black History. This trilogy of black Americans, Christianity and churches is yet another of our self-made accomplishments to hear many especially black liberals in willful ignorance tell it. However, in a biblical worldview the trilogy exists at all because of a gracious God who is not pleased with the failures and apostasy of His glory stealers!
The faith of our Christian forefathers from slavery is a precious historical reality I never tire of celebrating and trumpeting as widely as possible. As the Lord leads me to warn once again this Black History Month though, their Christian faith was supposed to flower into an amazing community-wide testimony of and to His glory, not ours as the contemporary black Americans that are guilty would have it. For black Americans to glory in Christianity as a construction of our doing in any part, it would actually have to be the case. To the extent this is the case, it is wickedly not of God, but the responsible black Americans as a work of human religious invention as I have written before.1
The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. written, produced and hosted two-part documentary, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song that aired this past week on PBS is the most recent display of self-congratulation and glorying in Christianity as a religious invention of blacks. This purpose can be read in the promotional statement on the documentary’s official Web Site before ever watching it. In part it says, “The documentary reveals how Black people have worshipped and, through their spiritual journeys, improvised ways to bring their faith traditions from Africa to the New World, while translating them into a form of Christianity that was not only truly their own...”2
Even a superficial reading of the Bible’s New Testament makes it clear Christianity did not originate with any mortal ethnicity, but God! As it is written, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth” expressly identified as “Jesus Christ,” (John 1:1, 14-18, NKJV). Sent down to earth by God the Father in love, He preached the Gospel that willing mankind can be saved from our sins, receive new birth, eternal life and entry into His Kingdom through repentance and faith in Him (John 3:1-21, 34-36).
The Lord’s first coming is the culminating fulfillment of prophetic promises made through and to the Jewish people as one of them (Matthew 1:1-17). Even so, His message of salvation and the Kingdom from the Father by His sovereign will transcends His Jewish ethnicity and their historic culture (John 14:6, 18:35-38) to reach all of the ethnicities, tribes and languages of mankind on the earth (Isaiah 49:5-6)! Indeed, Christ declared on the strength of who He is and the course of His work, “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:13-18, NKJV) and after His death, burial and resurrection, tasked apostles to labor with Him before ascending back to Heaven (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:4-11).
Now, if Christianity and the Church are of Christ, where does any ethnicity of man except the Jews as the original recipients, beneficiaries and conduits for disseminating the Gospel get off attempting to lay claim to these as their own (Romans 1:1-17, 9:1-5)? Surely, the Lord knew the faith would face tremendous pressures to be culturally conditioned as it was spread throughout the earth and in the worst case, corrupted, from the counter working of Satan as it did still in the first century. For this reason, His apostles sternly warn all who embrace the faith against altering it or His Word in any manner (Galatians 1:1-10, 5:1-15; 2 Peter 2:1-3, 3:14-18; Revelation 22:18-19).
Otherwise, God who created mankind and ordained diversity of skin pigment, physical features, abilities, languages and unique ethnic cultures is glorified when they “in spirit and truth” offer up thanksgiving, praise and worship to Him for His great salvation with faithfulness to the Word and obedience (John 4:21-26, 14:15; Acts 17:24-29; Romans 15:7-13, 16:17-27, NKJV)! The faithful among these peoples never forget or lose sight of the fact it is God in grace and mercy that found and saved them through the Gospel of Christ! His Person is to be exalted and His transcendent holy Word, Kingdom principles, values, morals and ethics held in highest esteem over anything they might think, feel, believe or do culturally. In short, they do not allow their culture to overcome the faith.3
1 Read the two-part post beginning February 8, 2015, Strong Through God, Not Religion, under the category, Black History.
2 See the full promotional statement at https://pbs.org/weta/black-church/.
3 This is as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, in a word to pastors. Published by Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc., the book is available
in print or digital formats at major internet booksellers. You can also purchase a print copy in the Strong Man Store.
The real fear and depth of pathos in the face of 12 year-old black American Keedron Bryant as he sings the song his mother wrote, I Just Wanna Live, overwhelmed my heart along with many others as it went viral and global in the days immediately following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis, MN police officer back on May 25th this year. And while I cannot speak for Keedron’s feelings, in it for me was not just the Floyd murder, but the repeated killings of black American males in the news across America since I can remember in over sixty years of living not only by the police and white citizens, but other black males in predominance as I have written about in other posts.1
I write to Keedron, my own progeny and every black child now, and to come in this 21st century with a word of encouragement from the Lord! First, Keedron, know your mother’s song expresses the heartfelt prayer our forefathers had in slavery God has already answered for those willing to believe. For while a relative few slaves thought to liberate themselves through violent uprisings, those that had become Christians in larger numbers decided to put their faith in and wait on God who had allowed their plight and would in His timing, set them free which He did (Psalm 107:10-16).2 Their faith in God brought them and its legacy the Christians that have followed through much suffering!3
Second, know that God in Jesus Christ, His Son, has already answered your prayer for freedom from fear of death and to live in peace in spite of what is going on all around you. You are right to believe you should not have to live in fear and feel like prey from any source much less those of your “kind,” officers as sworn agents of God and men to uphold the law or fellow citizens. But the one who really wants you to live in fear for your life is not human. He is the devil, one of God’s fallen angels who hates Him and mankind. He works through sinful persons from all walks of life to hurt and destroy as many as he can unlike Jesus (John 8:44, 10:10-11; Ephesians 6:12; 1 John 5:19).
Making the Lord Jesus your Shepherd assures His protection on this earth to the extent He wills since out of love for Him, we as His sheep are already prepared for the slaughter; living as though we have already died in Him who raises us from the dead to live with Him forever (Psalms 23, 44:22, 118:6; Romans 6:1-8, 8:31-39)! Also, He gives us His peace, the peace of God so that we do not have to live in fear of man or anything else of this world (Isaiah 26:3; John 14:27; Philippians 4:6-7). Too, we are to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might;” putting on all of the “whole armor” He has given to stand while we purposely live holy (Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 John 5:18, NKJV).
Finally, once more the Lord has already answered your emotion laden prayer in song through Israel’s king David who over three thousand years ago made many of his divinely inspired prayers Psalms for all to read in the Bible. To those in Israel similarly oppressed, troubled by and living in worrisome fear of those doing evil, he wrote encouragement in Psalm 37:1-11 we can take hold of. His key points are not to worry about those who do evil or practice things clearly forbidden by God because they will not long endure (vs. 1-2). Instead, “trust,” “delight yourself also in” and “commit your way to the Lord,” (vs. 3-6, NKJV). “Rest in” “and wait patiently for Him” as well (vs. 7, NKJV).
Furthermore, along with ceasing from worry, do not be continually angry and bitter as are many of your “kind” that destroy themselves and others as victims or again, worry about evildoing racists with or without police badges. God is going to deal with them, but anger, bitterness and worry harms you (vs. 8-9a, 10)! Therefore, let these destructive emotions go through faith, forgiveness and hope in the promises of God “who cannot lie,” (Habakkuk 2:4; Ephesians 4:26-27, 31-32; Titus 1:1-3, NKJV). Among the promises God has made to all David calls “the meek” is that we “shall inherit the earth” and enjoy an “abundance of peace,” (vs. 9b, 11, NKJV).4 God will take this present world away from evildoers, reverse the way it works and give it to us, His saints to rule under Christ!
Indeed, teaching His disciples in first century Israel the Lord Jesus affirms God’s promise made a thousand years earlier through David declaring: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” (Matthew 5:5, NKJV). The Lord comes to the stunning promise of future reversal in favor of those that humbly serve God now, after acknowledging how they first came from having poverty of spirit and continual grief through the wicked works of evildoers as well as their own sins (Matthew 5:3-4, NKJV). But God begins the process of reversal right now, through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to save us from our sins and resurrection from the dead; assuring the Kingdom we wait for comes to earth, His forgiveness and eternal life are available to all in the meantime (John 3:1-8; Acts 2:36-39).
1 See the August 12, 2018 post, Curtailing Gang Violence, under the category, Call To Repent and its follow up, August 19, 2018, Valuing Human Life, under the cate-
gory, Biblical Worldview.
2 Read the two-part post beginning June 2, 2019, Message From A Redeemed Black Man, under the category, Biblical Worldview. Be sure to also visit our Ministry’s
Web Site dedicated to the cause of presenting a biblical worldview of the black American experience, https://fromslaverytovictory.org.
3 The legacy of faith our Christian slave forefathers left us is embodied in their simple, and deeply emotive “Spirituals” (which I Just Wanna Live harkens back to); those
Christian black Americans thereafter in most forms of their Gospel Music to this present day!
4 To be meek is not to be weak, cowardly or an “Uncle Tom” as negatively defined by many black Americans (read the biblical worldview of this fictional character the
Lord led me to present on our From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site). Meekness is the willful choice by aspiring strong men and great women of God
to walk in Christ’s humility as a Lamb and His strength under control as a Lion. I give this instruction as the Lord leads in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To
Basics. It is an excellent resource for godly parents to use in teaching and mentoring their children into biblical man or womanhood as they near their teen years. Get
a print copy or digital download of the book at major internet booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only). You can also
purchase a print copy in the Strong Man Store.
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