Strong Man Of God Blog

            “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath,” so, laments Jeremiah the prophet in the aftermath of God’s judgment on Judah which he witnessed after years of warning the people it was coming unless they repented (Lamentations 3:1, NKJV).  Nearly twenty-six hundred years later, I have experienced the prophet’s travail of soul in the midst of the painful fall of great Babylon in progress; the judgment of God within the churches as a prelude to pouring out His full wrath upon the whole world.  In the face of falling great Babylon under His judgment, God calls to the faithful: ‘“Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues,’” (Revelation 18:4, NKJV). 

            The warning of divine judgment and appeal to come up out of great Babylon is exactly what I have been urging spiritually speaking (the day of the urgent physical call out draws near) in all of my service to the Lord and the churches for over the past thirty years as a watchman/prophet (Ezekiel 33:1-9) and two stints as a pastor.  It is my most recently completed service as a pastor that I write about in the following 2011 blog repost and the two that follow.  To seem to fail at anything hurts, but even more hurtful is to see God’s judgment fall because people refused to give heed to His Word.  That was the experience of Jeremiah that became mine and will be every godly leader’s own until the end of God’s judgment in His house comes at the completed destruction of great Babylon.

Originally Posted July 10, 2011

            One of the most profound images of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament is His weeping over the city of Jerusalem because of the dark days of judgment that were coming in light of the people’s rejection of Him as their Messiah (Luke 19:41-44).  Surely this was the humanly unfathomable heart break of God voiced many times through the prophets of the Old Testament but now seen in the tears that ran down the cheeks of the Son of Man.  While we can never know His pain in absolute terms, God has seen to it that we who serve humanity in and outside of the churches can feel it in some small measure (2 Corinthians 2:1-4).  Even so, it is still no lightweight experience.

            As of July 1st I became the retired pastor of the St. Mark Baptist Church.  I was brought to this circumstance because our church disbanded this past June 30^th.  As the church’s last pastor I take full responsibility for our dissolution due officially to a lack of numerical growth and inability to meet our financial obligations.  I take responsibility for several reasons.  First, for fourteen and one half years I have preached the Gospel and the whole counsel of God uncompromised.  Many do not want to hear about sin and holy living anymore but only what God will do to meet their felt needs.

            Second, I was unwilling to adopt constant entertainment, worldly tricks and gimmicks as methodology for getting people into our church.  We did do many creative outreach events including block parties, Vacation Bible School and evangelistic concerts featuring Christian artists.  We also went door to door in our neighborhood several times and taught our people friendship evangelism.  We did community ministry involving mentoring, sports and prison evangelism, direct mail etc.  Thousands were reached, some visited but not enough stayed to take root.  Third, in fear and honor of the Lord I ran an orderly and tight ship of integrity--too tight for many religion minded persons.

            Last, of course, my stand on God’s fixed order for the family in the home and His church thoroughly explained in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics served as a bone of contention in and outside of our congregation.  My stand invited slanderous verbal persecution against me, much of it from professed Christians.  In all these things I have wept before the Lord and been comforted by Him as He made me understand His own pain from sinful humanity including that which I too had brought Him.  True to His ways, the Lord was not letting the man commissioned by Him to write urging other men to become strong in Him escape the painful process.

            In the same way I am not a perfect man, in no way do I wish to convey I was a perfect pastor who was a victim of all the things I have written.  I made some people skill and judgment mistakes along the way.  Reflecting back, in spite of the difficulties I had much joy seeing the few “get it.”  I also closed the eyes of a number of saints I look forward to seeing again in glory--praise the Lord!

            In the end, our remaining members acted with nobility in being willing to dissolve the church rather than fire their pastor because they found no fault with my essential doctrines, lifestyle or leadership.  I am honored and blessed that they should think so highly of me.  With the tears of God’s heart break in my heart, I have given myself over fully to the work of restoring men, their families and communities as my future that perhaps there will be many as a result that escape the world’s turn to experience His foretold dark days of judgment drawing ever closer.

            ‘“Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city…’” (Revelation 14:8, NKJV).  The apostle John wrote what he saw looking into the future as He had been commanded by the risen, glorified Christ concerning what to him and the saints of his day was the mystery of “Babylon the great,” (Revelation 1:17-19, 16:17-19, 17:1-18:24).  Alive now, in days nearly 2,000 years removed from those of which John wrote, I declare by the Holy Spirit, my own eyes and statistics Babylon the great is falling just as the apostle saw in advance!¹  There is only one city that at once has ruled in history over kings, been the seat of Christianity the religion of men on earth and calls itself the “eternal city:” Rome, Italy. 

            God has made Jerusalem His chosen, eternal city; “the city of the great King,” (Psalm 48; Isaiah 65:17-19; Jeremiah 3:17; Zechariah 1:12-17, 2:1-5, 8:1-8, 14:1-4, 8-11, 16-21; Revelation 3:12, 21:1-2, 9-27, NKJV)!  There is no place for a rival.  Therefore, the city 1^st century Christians code named, “Babylon” is coming down to the ground with those of every nation save Israel in the Day God pours out the fullness of His wrath upon the earth (Isaiah 13:9-13, 24:19-20, 40:4-5; Revelation 16:19)!  As the Lord Almighty gloriously displayed His superior power over the gods of Egypt, Pharaoh and his armies, so, He will destroy all vestiges of the evil legacy of Rome, its Empire and Caesars (Exodus 15:1-12; Ezekiel 38:16-39:8; Revelation 6:12-17, 15:1-4, 19:11-21).

            Before that Day, however, God will bring about the destruction of the part of Rome that is fully the focus of what John saw prophetically, even that sovereign city-state, Vatican City, where for seventeen centuries with few interruptions, the dominant, corrupt form of Christianity as a manmade invention has wielded power over men’s souls, kings and nations; a wealthy, arrogant queen who has defied all prophecies of her downfall.  Nevertheless, she has only been preserved by God for this coming moment of fatal judgment like her ancient namesake and by the consummate representative of her cherished adulterous connection to Rome (Isaiah 47; Revelation 17:15-18:8).

            As the Lord has led, I have sprinkled much about great Babylon throughout my blogs in writing about the historical origins and activities of Christianity the religion of men and certain events.  Read for example, The Falling Away, February 2, 2014 under Bible Prophecy, Re-defining Sin, November 9, 2014 under Call To Repent and Worshipping God Without God, Pt. 3, the January 18, 2015 repost, under the same category.  The fall of great Babylon is among the shining triumphs of the Antichrist.  For God, however, it is the grand finale of the foretold judgment on His house which will have included every outward form and structure of Christianity on earth--as was the case with Israel’s Temple and for similar reasons--that is already underway (Matthew 23:37-24:2; 1 Peter 4:17-18). 

            Though His judgment has been painful to watch and experience all around me, I rejoice with the Lord, Heaven and all the saints to see in view the final end of great Babylon that persecuted the faithful to the death and destroyed so many souls through her many spiritual harlotries (Revelation 18:20-19:4).  By the time her day comes, her many Protestant and other harlot daughters will have also drank deeply from the cup of God’s displeasure for the evil of their ways and refusal like ancient Israel to repent (Jeremiah 2-3:10)!  Indeed, while I believe myself very blessed to have been alive to see the height of God’s use of faithful Christians in the Kingdom cause of the Gospel, I have also seen and endured much evil from among those professing to be Protestant Christians.

            If there was a century left for scholars to debate the highest height of Christianity on earth from the 1^st century coming of our Lord Jesus and His apostles that took the Gospel to the nations at His command until His glorious Second Coming, most would agree the global preaching and evangelistic crusades of Billy Graham in the 20^th century was it!  In the power of Christ, Dr. Graham also managed the miraculous feat of uniting cooperating churches to support, serve in and receive the millions of souls brought to the Lord in those evangelistic crusades.  Though there are yet some faithful evangelists and churches laboring in the Lord, none will in the end reach the height of the Graham era.  I thank God not only to have seen, but also to have once participated in that pinnacle work.

            Awakened by the smell of frying bacon and what I knew were the accompanying pancakes for the weekly Sunday breakfast cooked by my late grandfather, Richard Campbell, my siblings and I would later go off to Sunday School and church with our also now, departed grandmother, Eunice.  Though this memory is sweet, attached to it is the reality that even in progressive California, the Protestant church we attended in the mid-sixties had only black members due to the evils of racism.  I also remember being terrified by a deacon there who put the fear of him in us if we put anything down on the communion table as my introduction to manmade Christianity the religion, its rules, traditions and hypocrisies conducted by men out of their sinful flesh. 

            To this day both issues I have just raised still exist in Protestant churches along with all manner of carnality of the flesh to include divisions with political intrigue, factions and rivalries, greed and covetousness in idolatry (1 Corinthians 3:1-4; Galatians 5:19-21; Colossians 3:5), biblical compromises such as joining the confused rebellion against the divine order (Romans 1:18-2:11) and corrupt falsehoods made to pander after the world in order to fill seats and bank accounts in all apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Peter 2:1-3, 12-22).  For nearly forty years I have been told that this is the way it is because the people will not mature spiritually.  Never mind the men telling me this have been as carnal and spiritually immature as those they lead!

            Unrepentant professing Protestant Christians and their churches in sin may be the way it is, but that does not mean the longsuffering God is pleased.  Therefore, as the example and warning of Israel’s dealings with the immutable God plainly shows us in Scripture (1 Corinthians 10:1-11), so, judgment not rapture is the present and immediate future for unrepentant sinning professing Protestant and other Christians in their churches.  And no one should foolishly ask, “What did we do,” (Jeremiah 5:20-31, 8:4-7; Luke 14:25-35)?  Time is up; the end of God’s long forbearance has come (Ezekiel 7; Amos 8:1-3).  Great Babylon is falling never to rise again as the Lord clearly warned in advance nearly 2,000 years ago.

1 Read the 2015 blog reposts for August 30^th and September 6^th respectively to learn more about my experience with and statistics on falling Babylon the great.