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Pastors that have learned their service in the spiritually dead churches, legalism and empty traditions of Christianity the religion and fear of men have much trouble. They hold these churches together MacGyver style using the biblically unrelated elements of fallen personality, human effort, psychology, intimidation, coercion, control, manipulation, capitulation to sin and the will of the people as well as deceit. In part two of this 2013 blog repost, I continue urging every pastor seeking a reward from Christ for your service, to repent if guilty from purposeful ministry out of the motives and deeds of the sinful flesh and instead, imitate the example of our Chief Shepherd in the power of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, woe to the domineering and sinful shepherds (Ezekiel 34:1-16)!
Originally Posted July 7, 2013
Pastor, the Lord does not see you as some infallible dictator He has assigned to lord it over His sheep. He really meant what He taught His disciples and modeled, ‘“he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves,’” (Luke 22:25-27, NKJV). Abuse of authority by leaders in the churches is ancient and continues rampant. Men weak and insecure in the flesh run off or attempt to destroy perceived rivals and those who do not agree with their every dictate like worldly despots. They are cultishly more focused on subduing and controlling others than they are serving them in genuine, Holy Spirit supplied love as the Master taught. There is no mystery as to why this is the case; such men are either impostors or quenching the Holy Spirit so that all of the failings of the sinful flesh dominate (Romans 6:1-16, 8:5-13; Galatians 5:13-26).
How can you realistically expect men to gladly follow you and it is plain you are not following Christ? Stop excusing your sin by calling it imperfection. We already know that. The issue is what are you going to do about it, pastor? The Lord calls us to confession and repentance from our sins not accommodation (1 John 1:5-10)! You cannot hypocritically call God‘s people to repentance and you refuse to do the same yourself since you are to be to them not a lord, but an example (1 Peter 5:1-3). The call from the Lord to pastor is a call to serve His local flock through visionary leadership, oversight, administration, loving works of service, teaching, guidance and counseling as a father in the home where God first begins to train you (1 Timothy 3:1-7).
As it concerns leadership and oversight, the business of leading men is not a matter of one size fits all just as it is not with our children in the home. Again, pastors and elders in the flesh without the love of God in their hearts, find it easier to see and treat everyone the same--as creatures needing to submit to their authority--falsely calling it equality. Notice that John describes himself as the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” (John 13:23, 20:2, 21:20, NKJV). Clearly, he speaks of favoritism to the carnal mind. Yet, there is not one recorded complaint by any of the other disciples about John’s special status with the Lord.
Surely, it is because none of them felt neglected and unloved; the Lord dealing with each man in accord with his personality even giving them special, descriptive names (Matthew 16:17-18; Mark 3:17). No wonder John felt loved--he was! Rather than cookie cutter conformity to a worldly authoritarian, flesh driven, religious handling of men, our Lord sets the perfect example of loving each man enough to really get to know him--his personality, proclivities, aspirations and needs (which requires spending quality time you cannot give if you are busy with the stuff of your own ambitions)--so that thereafter, you might gain his ear and voluntary following.
Finally--for this go round, I don’t know about you, sir, but the promise of reward from “the Chief Shepherd” means a lot to me (1 Peter 5:4, NKJV). If nothing else, serving for it has kept me from doing the things He certainly will not reward but punish since they are foreign to His shepherding example. It is Christ’s example that we are to follow in everything. For this reason, we challenge every Christian man including you, brother pastor, to aspire to be a strong man of God in Christ’s image (get my book to find out what that is all about)! Truly, being called by the Lord to be a pastor in no way suggests instantaneous spiritual maturity and Christ-likeness for the task.
In the time that is left before His return, be faithful in your service to Christ eagerly seeking to please Him. Pray, study and live out the Word as well as serve in the power of the Holy Spirit so that no sheep is lost due to your negligence (Matthew 18:6-9). Do this and you will have every confidence that His reward is yours.
It is painfully clear to me that pastors are sinful men too (except when they are sinful women in rebellion against the divine order)! Most pastors learn how to be a pastor sitting under and watching other pastors as their primary example. Watching another pastor is not a bad thing if he is following Christ’s example as did my father in the ministry, the late Rev. Percy N. Manuel, Sr. Christ is the “great” and “Chief Shepherd” of God’s flock (Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 5:4, NKJV). He is our example in everything including shepherding people as sheep since He is preeminently qualified, proven and our Head (Psalm 23; John 10:1-18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Colossians 1:9-18).
Too, He is our Judge which should cause the rebel pause since the local church is not your private flock to do with and teach as you please, but His (2 Corinthians 5:9-11). Truly, our Lord Jesus has only delegated this great responsibility of shepherding to us to be carried out under His tutelage and oversight. As foretold, however, from the first century until now, corrupt men as “savage wolves” have come among and led God’s sheep astray (Acts 20:28-31, NKJV). They do whatever it takes to gather a following including corrupt God’s Word to gain success and prove they are men of renown. Their ambitious sons in the ministry copy their manner and adopt their perverse doctrines.
The Western and especially American economic system with its attendant philosophies that for example, esteem the entrepreneurial spirit manifested in self-starting, self-made men, thoroughly saturates every segment of society along with the churches and enables such men as pastors contrary to the instruction of Scripture (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Galatians 6:14; Philippians 2:3-8, 3:1-19). In this cultural context, men rise up to found churches in any old hole in the wall with the aspiration not to see souls added to the Kingdom as a first priority, but to build a church of great numbers, wealth, buildings and stature in the community, among denominations, other pastors and churches who will envy and seek to emulate their self-made success.
Very sad are those men that after many years have not realized their aspiration, but hold on in maintenance mode with a few sheep to retain the status of being a church pastor. God calling us to be shepherds is not to satisfy the cravings of the sinful flesh, but to physically represent Him in the service of His flock (Matthew 20:20-28). In this 2013 blog repost I write urging every pastor seeking a reward from Christ for your service, to repent if guilty from purposeful ministry out of the motives and deeds of the sinful flesh. Instead, serve as men led, controlled and empowered by the Holy Spirit with the Lord our Shepherd as your role model and the pure Word of God as it is written as the final authority for your life and teaching.
Besides having served the Lord as a shepherd under Him just over sixteen years, I have been an observer of men in the office from my childhood. The ungodly attitudes and behavior that I have seen come from so many of these men over the years has been very grievous and in some cases, personally injurious. I know it is virtually impossible that leaders on our best days won’t offend or injure somebody given the high level of sensitivity many religious folk have. However, I am not talking about the stuff of over sensitivity, but the very real harm I have seen and experienced that was deliberately carried out by men who are supposed to be born again, love Christ and are completely sold out to serving Him by serving His flock (John 21:15-17).
On the occasion of the end of my second year since I last formally shepherded a local church, the Lord would use me to help especially a younger pastor by way of some important admonitions and words of encouragement. Let me begin by warning all pastors: the worldly conventional wisdom to only pay heed to models of success is not from the Lord, but the world and ultimately Satan who sets snares for us in accord with the ego needs of the flesh born of selfish ambition for achievement, accolades, power, standing and money (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 22:24). What? The world is crumbling around us, churches are dying ‘“And do you seek great things for yourself,’” the Lord asks, (Jeremiah 45, NKJV)?
We come to salvation mostly from among those that are not wise or noble (1 Corinthians 1:26). Does God all of the sudden change after we are saved to require of us credentials gained from the best institutions and how to information from the men who model the success we crave to do His will? No, but God has chosen us of the “foolish,” “weak” and “base things of the world” to bring glory to Himself in the wisdom, power and humility of Christ that is displayed through us (1 Corinthians 1:27-31, NKJV). Repent, brother pastor, if you are in it for your own flesh driven priorities and glory. The wisdom you need to please the Lord begins in Him and His Word (Proverbs 2) and will also come from Him through men other than success models (Romans 12:16).
In the final paragraph of my December 3, 2017 post, “Pastors And Developing Men” under the category, The Cause, I lamented as I do in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back to Basics, that another important reason many pastors do not teach and develop their men is because of being weak in sin themselves as professing Christians. In this edited 2012 repost, I elaborate further on this tragic reality which I have seen and experienced in my own journey from the pew to the pulpit. As I stated in that previous post, this is not about anyone being perfect, but God’s expectation of spiritual maturation among all of His sons including pastors and our zeal to pursue it (Philippians 3:12-16).
Originally Posted November 11, 2012
As a babe in Christ, I had no idea at the time that His burden for the churches He placed in my heart during a commanded seven day fast without food or water in February of 1979 was a formal calling to serve Him in the gifting of a watchman/prophet and teacher (Acts 11:27-30, 13:1-3; Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, 28-29, 14:1-5; Ephesians 4:7-16). I did not seek the associated gifts, calling and ministry nor did I initially embrace them. All I know is that as the Lord discipled me I gained an insatiable desire to know His Word and was drawn to the Old Testament prophets and their prophetic utterances with amazing understanding.
I also boldly spoke out against the wickedness in the churches that I only later began to realize I had been seeing since I was a child! After the thoroughly disappointing and humiliating Fort Worth, Texas launch of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. in the fall of 1985 that included calling pastors and churches to repentance with no result, by the spring of 1986 I was broken before the Lord and about to quit. He took me to Ezekiel 33:1-9 and made me understand the biblical and spiritual grounds of my service on His behalf and at His exclusive pleasure (Revelation 1:9-20). I surrendered in obedience and have been faithful ever since in His strength through many trials.1
In those early days, a number of pastors--a few well intended--told me I was not being heard because I was young, not a pastor and did not understand what pastors have to go through. Then the Lord made me a pastor and I was told you only have a small church and are not impressive enough for pastors of stature to hear you. Now, it is I have no standing to be heard by or to instruct pastors because I was not a successful pastor after having the most recent church I shepherded close its doors (Matthew 11:16-19).2 In the meantime, what the Lord has taught me in over thirty years of service to Him in the churches is that pastors are sinful, fallen mortals as all other men.
Pastors can and many do allow their sinful flesh rather than the Holy Spirit to rule their lives and impact the way they pastor (Galatians 5:19-25). Far from crucifying the flesh and its passions they even indulge it. Prominent is pride, lying, dishonesty, selfish ambitions, covetousness, stealing, envy, jealousies, evil plotting, lording it over the people, heresies, sexual immorality, alcohol and drug abuse. Rather than holding each other accountable for righteous conduct, many even celebrate each other’s sinful deeds. In the same way the outwardly religious people they shepherd do not want to hear and obey the truth of God from His Word that rebukes their sins, so also many pastors.
As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, it is a great tragedy that many pastors are not aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ.3 Not answering the call themselves, these pastors will surely not teach their men to become such men either. Therefore, as I have from the beginning in obedience to the Lord’s call on my life, I warn and strongly appeal to pastors that are guilty of being willfully weak in the flesh to repent and turn back to Him in all brokenness that the Lord might forgive and restore you. It is a lie from Satan and you have been greatly deceived to believe that because you are a pastor, somehow you have a judgment “get out of jail free card” from God (Deuteronomy 7:6-11, 10:17; Colossians 3:23-25).
If He has not yet severely dealt with you because you have failed to develop as a Christian before Him and to develop other men, chalk it up to His longsuffering, patience and forbearance not your indispensible position as a pastor (2 Peter 3:9). Thus, it was not because I was unfaithful to the Lord or had forsaken my own spiritual development that I know the pain of a disbanded church as the Lord’s judgment on His house. But I was too faithful in standing on and preaching His Word uncompromised along with growing mightily in it to suit folk steeped in religion so that a number over time departed from under my leadership (as even some depart as offended readers of this blog), while the Lord left me standing strong (Jeremiah 23:28-29; John 6:41-71)!4
Now, if my burden to proclaim the Word of God uncompromised and in growing spiritual maturity to live out biblical righteousness destroyed a local church in God’s will (2 Chronicles 36:15-16; Revelation 2:1-5), what really is holding together the one you shepherd, brother pastor, as you willfully sin against the Lord? How much longer do you have before His judgment finally catches up to you if it has not already (Numbers 32:23b; Jeremiah 23:1-2, 9-40; Micah 3:8-12; Matthew 7:15-23; Hebrews 10:26-31; James 3:1; 1 Peter 4:17-18; 2 Peter 2:4-22)? And if it is all like that for the men God actually does call to serve as pastors, where from His Word is your comfort, sister? The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 The Lord keeps having me repeat the story of my awakening to His calling to the end, I am sure, that sooner or later someone will realize it is biblically consistent and
authentic since by His will, all New Testament spiritual gifts continue to be given by Him until He comes and ends this present, mortal Church era (Zechariah 13:2-6;
1 Corinthians 13:8-12). Without biblical declaration otherwise, the denial of the ongoing display of prophecy among all spiritual gifts is only of sinful human suppo-
sition and suppression in rebellion as is typical of those practicing a manmade form of religion, their proud and arrogant religious leaders and educated elite (Mark 11:
27-33). Other posts with my calling testimony include the October 2, 2016 post, Gifted With A Prophet’s Heart under the category, Call To Repent and more recently
on October 1 this year, Not A Market Driven Work under the category, Glory To God!
2 Read the August 30, 2015, post, When Strong Men Of God Weep under the category, Glory To God! and the one that follows to learn more about my most recent ex-
perience as a local church pastor.
3 The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics is available at all major internet booksellers and in the Strong Man Store.
4 Because of my experience, the Lord has given me a tender and empathetic heart for faithful small church pastors and their struggles. If I can encourage, pray for or
serve you in some way, pastor, please contact me through this Ministry. Stand strong; you are precious to our Lord!
Having just spent time giving serious thanks to God for all of His blessings this Thanksgiving, the Lord again directs my attention to the persecution being suffered by my Christian brethren among many nations. Though I do not write a lot about the ongoing persecution of Christians, I stay regularly informed and prayerful for all. The aforementioned “all” includes not just the suffering faces of those in faraway lands such as North Korea and Nigeria, but increasingly, those enduring persecution in this Western hemisphere and our own nation. Truly, growing hostility toward and persecution of Bible believing Christians in America is a reality that can no longer be dismissed as only isolated.
As a supporter of similarly named, but organizationally unrelated Open Doors USA, our Ministry regularly receives their reports on what is happening among our persecuted Christian brethren around the world.1 Not only are our brethren suffering from family and community exclusion within the nations they live, but government harassment, arrests, unfair trials, incarceration, legally sanctioned mob violence and martyrdom. When the Christian men are targeted for incarceration or murder, it leaves their families to suffer. While Communist and Islamic run nations fill the list of persecutors, nations such as Christian Eritrea, Hindu India and Buddhist Bhutan are also prominent.2
It is about to get really real for those of us that profess to be Christians in America too. Intensifying opposition to the biblical faith once on the fringe of American society is going mainstream. Moral tenets of the faith once taken for granted as absolute and bedrock to American society are not only being challenged, but cast down as no longer acceptable. These are not just tenets governing marriage and family for example, but definitions of objective truth, right and wrong, good and evil as well as justice and injustice. In the wake of this swiftly moving river of moral upheaval, Christians that would dare stand firm for the moral tenets of our faith are suffering varying degrees of persecution.
Besides the “in-your-face” government policies and litigations to remove crosses and nativity scenes as public displays of Christianity to implement falsely believed constitutionally mandated church and state separation, some Christians have suffered being demoted or fired from employment because they had Bibles at their work stations or read them on breaks. And because many secular entities have a “corporate culture” now, that does not tolerate religious expression (though, they publicly trumpet “inclusion” and “diversity” as values), being hired a Christian with a social media presence may be very difficult and once hired, witnessing Christ to co-workers is out.3
American secular colleges and universities that have historically celebrated tolerating various viewpoints as a means in the process of vigorous, but polite debate to sharpen the thinking of young minds have in too many instances today, hung out the “not welcome” sign to a biblical worldview. Biblically conservative Christian students are routinely singled out and held up to ridicule for their faith. Christian professors do not escape either.4 The secular media regularly ignores and mocks Christians that hold to a biblical worldview being quick only to report on high profile “Televangelists” and “Megachurch Pastors” whose sins come to light, while social media giants resist them.5
As I have also commented in other posts, a number of American Christians have been purposely targeted and martyred in mass shootings such as the one at Columbine High School in 1999 along with churches as occurred in Charleston, SC in 2015 and Sutherland Springs, TX in 2017.6 In agreement with all other observers here, none of what American Christians have suffered to date compares with the daily egregious and violent persecution our overseas brethren endure--yet! Praying for “the persecuted church” like it is some disconnected entity that exists only in non-exceptional, often impoverished nations of the world is about to change as persecutors intensify their efforts in America.7 And why? It is their “hour and the power of darkness,” (Luke 22:52-53, NKJV).
For this reason, beyond seeking to sensitize us to the ongoing suffering of our brethren wherever they are as a primary reason for this post, exhorting faithful American Christians to spiritually, mentally and emotionally prepare for the kind of hatred fed persecution our overseas brethren experience is an important secondary reason since our Lord has warned it is to occur in “all nations,” (Matthew 10:16-39, 24:9, NKJV).8 Now, is the time to awake from arrogance and apathy to get ready for what our Lord foretells and assures will take place. Among the equipping resources available is my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics and related group studies.9 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 The organizational parent of Strong Man Ministries is Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. I was led by the Lord to found August 12, 1985. Read some of the
stories of persecuted Christians among the many countries on the 2020 World Watch List of Open Doors USA.
2 What many of our brethren overseas “normally” suffer from their persecutors has been intensified during the Lord’s Coronavirus judgment. As we are banding together
with other Christians to help and encourage one another here at home, the Lord would have us remember our suffering persecuted brethren in those faraway lands
with tangible support as well (1 John 3:16-18).
3 Sadly, our military as a work place is no exception. Read about the case of Chaplain Curt Cizek.
4 To learn more about the experience of Christians on American campuses read the following ACLJ, Beliefnet and IsChristianityTrue articles.
5 I can attest to the heavy-handed resistance of Facebook to biblically conservative ministries such as this one among the social media giants. “Likes” to our pages by
Christians mysteriously dwindle after I write blogs or make posts on their platform that are not politically correct, tolerant etc. which the Lord has had me call them on.
They want me to believe that just making better posts and spending more money to “boost” them will remedy the situation though, such has not been the case since
they also limit the reach of the same. For the record, I do understand a to be expected number of professed Christians that formerly liked our Facebook pages are sub-
ject to “unlike” them at any time as a show of disagreement with me. I get that, but not what Facebook is doing which lately has even taken away page likes whenever
someone has liked a post! I urge Christians that have liked our pages and those of other ministries to check back periodically especially if you have not received a post
in your newsfeeds for a time and re-like the pages if necessary. Also, enlist other Christians on Facebook to like our pages after you have done so.
6 Read for example, the June 8, 2014 post, And Then There Is The War, under the category, instruction. Revisit the cited respective church shootings at the following
links Charleston, SC and Sutherland Springs, TX.
7 See the November 12, 2017 post, God’s Throwaways?, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
8 Read the two-part post beginning May 17, 2020, Persecution, Hatred And Betrayal, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
9 A print copy or digital download of the book published by the Publishing Division of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. with fresh editing in 2019 for greater clari-
ty and updated web addresses in the footnotes is available 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. Too, leaders can teach, disciple and equip through The Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and The
Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study also in the Strong Man Store.
“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love,” (1 Corinthians 16:13-14, NKJV). The foregoing verses are among the final exhortations to the church at Corinth by the apostle Paul in a deeply sobering letter filled with instruction and correction. I pray these verses will find their mark in the heart of every professing Christian American that reads this blog and is searching for how to handle the morality shift of our nation that is retracting the welcome mat Christianity once had in a God pleasing way. To be sure, Paul’s exhortation does not sit well with our reflexive American cultural mind set to go on the offensive for our rights.
However, he is exhorting us to watch for something far superior to America in her best days; we are to watch for the glorious Second Coming and Kingdom of our Lord as He also taught (Matthew 24:42-44)! We are not to back up on Him in the face of opposition, but literally stand still in the faith--biblical Christianity as it is written! We are to be courageous and strong in the Lord while the opposition presses in on us laboring as aspiring strong men and great women of God in Christ’s image (Ephesians 6:10-20)! Finally, we are to do all of what we do in love--the love supernaturally supplied to us by the Holy Spirit--for fellow believers and those who hate us (Romans 5:5).
Presently, many professing Christians are not giving heed to the apostle Paul’s exhortation and have instead, chosen the American way of fighting--which in the right situation legally is not wrong. But what the Lord led me to write in 2013 about a business situation close to home here in Portland with many similar instances around the nation, I remain steadfast in conviction is not the right one to fight since discrimination violates God’s commandment to us and man’s law. Christians are not to show partiality or if you will, discriminate against someone’s person in making judgments (Deuteronomy 1:16-18; 1 Timothy 5:19-21). The subjects of the 2013 blog have since been penalized by the governing authorities for discrimination and others face similar consequences.
In this edited repost of that blog, I use the hurtful experiences I and most of those of my race with other racial minorities have had in being discriminated against in America as a backdrop to try in love to help my mostly white, conservative evangelical Christian brethren get this right going forward. Based on the Anglo-centric mail that I have received from some organizations, though, I see not only that this original word from the Lord through me as an ignorant black man was ignored, but it appears something sadly predictable as another part of the American way is occurring: discriminated against racial minority Christians are intended to be left to themselves.1 Seriously, racism to the end? Where’s the love? Even so, my God will thwart this evil too and prove His Word right (Acts 27:9-21).
Originally Posted March 3, 2013
I greatly empathize with the position Aaron and Melissa Klein who own the bakery, Sweet Cakes By Melissa here in the Portland area have taken not to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple. They have taken this position out of the biblical conviction that such marriages are wrong which of course, I also share. However, I do not believe they or any other Christian owner of a business open to the public has the right to refuse service to those whose lifestyle they morally disagree.
It would be one thing if this were a church or para-church organization and an immoral person came in demanding that these entities violate the tenets of their faith to allow the individual to become a member, be hired or receive services formally declared to be for Christians only. However, this situation is about Christians that own a business offering services to the general public without any stated restrictions (until now). By their own admission the bakery owners have gay customers and have served them previously.
As a black American, the whole situation is a painful reminder of the evil system of discrimination in this nation that legally permitted businesses to refuse service to blacks based simply on the color of our skin. If service was offered, blacks were humiliated in having to go to the back or side doors to receive it. Many of the white business owners then were good church members and believed they stood on Christian values in their discriminatory conduct as taught and reinforced by their leadership.
In shame, even many nominal white Christians today in honesty would have to admit this kind of targeted discrimination was morally wrong and unbiblical. Yet, many have stood to support the cause of this couple’s right to unlawfully discriminate (with thanks to God and the perseverance of those in the Civil Rights Movement, discrimination in public commerce and accommodations is illegal now) against two gay customers just because they want to marry each other which all Christians with a biblical worldview agree is wrong.
In line with the thinking of the late Chuck Colson and others concerned that we Christians hold to our biblical worldview in every corner of our nation’s secular culture, we are to engage unbelievers and rebels against the divine order in a winsome way. If Christians are going to open businesses serving everyone in the general public, they can be winsome about it for example, by using tactful signage that affirms in a positive way their standing as Christians with a biblical worldview. Their lifestyle, demeanor and conversation should also reflect the joy of relationship with Christ.
Any customers that come in know that this business owner is devoted to Christ and the Word of God and most will respect that. The few who do not respect this and want the Christian business owner to provide their product or service to them should be served in the love and humility of Christ who taught us to love our enemies and healed the cut off ear of one of the men sent to arrest Him (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 22:49-51). The message on a receipt for a product or service rendered can share the Gospel or for instance, read: “Served with love from the God who loves and forgives sinners!”
As I wrote back on December 16, 2012 in the Powerlessness Of Being The Minority, Pt.1, Christians are fast becoming a despised minority in America. Christian businesses which are important and strategic outposts for the Gospel do not need to incite our future persecutors by unnecessarily breaking the law through discriminating against them at this stage of things. In short, while I commend their willingness to take a stand, this is not a Rosa Parks moment for the owners of Sweet Cakes By Melissa, other Christian business owners or Christians at large. If a Christian that owns a business open to the public cannot in good conscience serve same sex couples, close it down. Similarly, if thinking of opening a business with the same conviction, do not open it!
Truly, already Christians are being discriminated against and our values rejected by our once welcoming society (Matthew 5:11-12; Luke 6:22-23). We are not to return evil for evil (Luke 6:31; Romans 12:17-21). The foretold severe persecution just for being willing to confess Christ draws near. As aspiring strong men and great women of God we will have plenty of opportunities to take a stand for Christ and I hope many will in all faithfulness and obedience (Revelation 13, 14:9-13).
1 Examine the art work, photos and primary victims displayed in a sampling of white, conservative evangelical Christian publications addressing the impact cultural change is
having on largely white evangelicals. While most assuredly I appreciate what their proclaimed intentions are, in the 21st century, to call “an oversight” the failure to in- clude the continuing fight against discrimination by all racial minorities, but especially their brothers in Christ as a related and worthy cause is beyond incredible. Of course, being the president of a small non-profit, I do also see the fundraising dollars and cents of this “oversight.” Nevertheless, I hope our Christian readers from all
backgrounds will consider donating to our Ministry because of the fair, balanced and truthful way in the Lord I deal with everybody’s stuff including my own!
After addressing the strategic use of television specifically to advance the evil cause of rebellion against God and His Anointed, He now leads me to speak to the use of the medium by professing Christianity.1 With a degree in Radio and Television Broadcasting, graduate degree in Communication and over thirty-five years in the field mostly heading up a small media ministry in the express will and facilitation of the Lord, He has qualified me to speak and so, I do in this urgent latter day post. In days soon to come, Christian broadcasting will be globally targeted for eradication which is why it must be maximized now in its use for God’s causes in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
To the credit of the initial Christian visionaries that understood God’s purposeful, creative hand in, vision for and use of the unfolding means of mass communication over the past century, there is such a thing as Christian broadcasting. For while the pioneers of radio and television broadcasting desperate for program content were initially welcoming of what was called religious programming mostly from Christian churches and their denominations, by the middle of the 1960s this began to slowly change due to the rising costs of production and air time and commercialism as well as the cultural shift toward secularism hostile to Christianity.
Television in particular--which provides pictures and sound--had such potential for good in the Kingdom cause of God to disseminate the Gospel of His Son and biblical instruction throughout the earth. This meant not only the opportunity to have men stand to preach and teach God’s Word, but to also be creative through such arts as drama. I feel blessed to be part of a unique generation that grew up watching the low tech clay animation of Davey and Goliath that presented important high moral lessons. The show was produced by the United Lutherans and featured the memorable hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, written by their famous founder, Martin Luther, as the theme music.
Nevertheless, the staple of Christian television fare has been worship services by large churches along with the preaching and teaching of their well known clergy. These churches and their denominational entities also provided holiday specials and helped to sponsor the televised specials of Evangelists such as the now departed Billy Graham, who was a trailblazer in the use of radio and television. Others in the Christian television vanguard include the also departed Paul Crouch, founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) and Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Together, these have all given Christian television its global presence.
Christian television’s global presence has not come without some scandal. Most Christian television networks feature so-called televangelists that dominate their programming schedules because they pay for the air time. But this has led to much and in some cases, questionable fundraising due to extravagant lifestyles bred of success.2 There has also been sensational heretical and conflicting teaching as well as sinful cultural compromises such as with feminism that allows women to take authority over and teach men.3 Nondenominational stations and networks that dominate the Christian broadcasting landscape are hesitant to deal with these issues (if they in guilt too will at all) because of the loss of income involved in removing paying customers from the air.
While all of the foregoing damages the integrity of Christian television, the continuing Babel and cultural compromises undermine what is supposed to be its unified message and imagery of the Christian Gospel in action (1 Corinthians 1:10; Ephesians 4:1-6)! The biblical Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) is not heard enough, though, the Christian programmers, television stations and networks all claim they exist to preach it globally; endlessly raising money supposedly to this end. Instead, unlike worldly programmers of sin who do all say and show the same thing, many professed Christian preachers pitch their own conflicting takes on the Gospel and God’s Word as they compete for followers and dollars (Acts 20:30); exporting their Babel and unbiblical compromises to the nations!
As television is supposed to do, this televised unbiblical and confused state of affairs precisely mirrors the spreading harlotries and spiritual dysfunction in American Christianity; a situation that no one of sound mind and Word should attempt to defend. For whatever good there may currently be in Christian television, it has so much greater potential in saying the same thing as it concerns the soul saving Gospel message and being consistently biblical as a divinely useful tool of dissemination. It is to the glory of God that there is indeed, some good on Christian television. Of late, TBN, for example, has made major creative inroads in children’s, youth and ethnic programming on several dedicated networks.4 CBN has the only major professionally produced Christian News program on television.
Even so, repentance from tolerating Babel and compromise is absolutely needed to most effectively use the medium now. Enemies of the cross are shortly to target Christian television and all Christian media in the ramping up of foretold global persecution (Matthew 24:9). This is because in modern warfare, the means of mass communication are seized or knocked out as a priority. Christian persecutors up to and including the Antichrist will be allowed by God to finally silence all means of humanly communicating the Christian message (involving the Gospel, biblical truth and prophecy) in opposition to their own (Daniel 8:23-26; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12; Revelation 13). But God will get His message to the world by an angel one last time before bringing His wrath (Revelation 14:6-7)!5 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 See the October 14, 2018 post, Grasping For Normal, under the categories, Bible Prophecy and Call To Repent.
2 Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker with their PTL empire at its height in the mid-1980’s have been among those so charged and are a tragic and globally known example.
Learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_PTL_Club.
3 The Lord leads me to explain why this compromise has been disastrous in the churches and for the Christian witness among the unsaved in many posts especially
under the categories Call To Repent, God’s Creatures, Instruction and The Cause as well as my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. It is available at
all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
4 The leading Christian network in the world shows flashes of the creative possibilities in television with original programming such as productions Drive Thru History
that has its host travel to key New Testament locations in the expansion of 1st century Christianity to explain events in an entertaining way and Creation In The 21st
Century upholding a biblical worldview of creation by interviewing Christian men and women of science and using well done displays, graphics and on location foot-
age. The Gospel is preached by such heavy hitters as Billy Graham in a “Classics” program that replays his crusades, Dr. Charles Stanley, Dr. David Jeremiah,
Greg Laurie and Dr. Michael Youssef to name some of the relative few that stand flat footed to regularly include it in their preaching and teaching. Learn more about
TBN at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Broadcasting_Network.
5 Read the September 13, 2015 post, Praise For The Lord God Almighty!, under the category, Glory To God!
It is truly unfortunate, but not surprising that with all else our nation must deal with at this hour, unresolved racial issues have recently come to the surface again through the citizen and police murders of black Americans, freshly proving racism is not a past thing. The incidents and resulting explosion of initial violent rioting, looting, protest marches and rallies not just by black Americans, but Americans from every hue were sparked by the recorded video of a Minneapolis, MN police officer’s murder of black American male, George Floyd. I wrote about this incident as the Lord led June 21, 2020 in a post under the category, Black History, entitled Has Racial Justice Arrived in America?
This time, among the early voices speaking empathy and counsel into as well as engaging with the crisis are a number of especially younger conservative white Christians. Along with the manifold increase of white Americans across the political and social spectrum in general, conservative white Christians as America’s “moral majority” speaking anything but condemnation into a riotous racial crisis is recent. While there have been apologies for slavery and Jim Crow segregation and endless talking by white conservative Christians with amicable black clergy about racial reconciliation since the 1960s, as I have written in other posts, there has not been any real, widespread progress.1
Our majority white society as a once professed Christian nation propped up supposedly by morals and ethics drawn from the Bible, has far too long tolerated the abuse of its black and other citizens of color in many forms that actually run counter to it (Zechariah 7:8-12; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-37; Romans 13:8-10). Not biblical Christianity as the order of the day since the nation’s founding, but corrupt, counterfeit manmade forms of it that even allowed for slave owners to commit adultery on their wives with their female slaves; church pastors, deacons and congregants to brutalize and terrorize blacks using burning crosses as a symbol of hate among many other evil acts.2
Such deeds were done while police, judges, educators, businesses, legislators (often as active participants) along with the larger white society through silent indifference were complicit.3 Over the past hundred years the most vocal champions of maintaining the morality of the Bible among professed Christians has been white Americans that self-identify as conservative in their religious, social and political convictions. Many are also intensely patriotic, devoted Americans who ascribe to the phrase “God and Country” as their motto though, on such issues as allowing systemic racism in their churches and other entities, God’s will in Christ has clearly been secondary (John 13:34-35).
However, at this strategic moment during God’s Coronavirus judgment when the festering sore of racial injustice has ruptured once more, younger conservative white Christians are speaking up perhaps finally perceiving, God Himself keeps bringing up the matter because those professing to know Him among their ranks have not dealt with it in accord with His written Word! After all, as I have offered in other posts, a “biblically conservative Christian” is supposed to be about objectively interpreting, applying and preserving the whole Word of God as it is written! In no place does it advocate for or tolerate hating a brother in Christ for any reason (1 John 2:7-11, 3:10-15, 4:20-21).4
Besides being and presenting the world a corrupt if not outright counterfeit form of biblical Christianity, guilty conservative white Christians (to include those calling themselves “Evangelicals”) have been hypocritical by insisting “our nation” uphold their cherry-picked morals and ethics from the Bible while they undergirded its systemic racism to this hour. This reality has been among the chief reasons many former biblically conservative black American Civil Rights activists searching for righteous allies over the years have abandoned the effort among their ostensible like-minded white brothers. Instead, those that are guilty through lack of faith in and impatience with God have to their shame taken up with rebels against Him for help (Psalm 2:1-3; Isaiah 30:1-5; Philippians 3:17-21).
The guilty among de facto apostate black Americans will give an account to God, but so will conservative white professed Christians who have been more loyal to a humanly invented religious, social and political philosophy that permits such sins as racism under the guise of Christianity than to the Lord who calls all to repent! Indeed, why but for sin am I as a black Ministry leader who has remained faithful as a biblical conservative not fully embraced and supported by conservative white professed Christians? Your sinful flesh built conservative philosophy does not welcome those of any race much less inferior black males who speak biblical truth challenging the wicked status quo; one white church elder once intimating this to me by essentially saying I needed to shut up!5
Now, though, the Lord during His Coronavirus judgment is plainly showing racism is one of the issues He is calling the guilty to repentance from among professing Christianity emptied out of its buildings. The authentic younger conservative white Christians coming forth repentant and in the power of the Holy Spirit to actually take a stand with their black brothers are representative of those I spoke of in my June 21st post.6 May the Lord bless you and all others to follow in what is very likely a last chance for conservative white Christians to get on the right side of the Bible and help forestall the eruption of greater ethnic conflict awhile longer in America; conflict ongoing in many parts of the world that fulfills another of the Lord’s foretold occurrences to precede His soon coming (Matthew 24:7a).
1 See the posts, Moral Pressure Rightly Applied, May 4, 2014, Biblical Equality And Equity, July 5, 2015 and Professing Christian Racism Is Sin Too, December 11, 2016
all under the category, Call To Repent.
2 Read the two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction followed by Christianity The Religion American
Style (which shows how even many black religionists to this hour mimic the practice of it by their former masters so pervasive is it) posted on September 4, 2016 and
the two-part post beginning September 11, 2016, American Culture’s Religion, all under the category, Call To Repent.
3 Read the August 9, 2015 post, Silent Endorsers Of Evil, under the category, Instruction. Whether Christians or not, like the white pre-Civil War Abolitionists, it has been
heartening to see current white protest marchers for racial justice carrying signs with wording like “Silent no more” and “Not silent and complicit.”
4 See footnote #9 in the two-part post, The Racial Divide, under the category, Call To Repent, that begins July 29, 2018 to see how the Lord led me to make a distinction
between “conservative” and “biblically conservative” to avoid any confusion about the Christians faithfully obeying His whole Word as it is written! Also, read the April
19, 2015 post, On The Lord’s Side, under the category, The Cause, cited in the footnote for a discussion of why all professed Christians ought to be standing with the
Lord Jesus as Bible conservatives!
5 Get my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to understand why aspiring strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ from every hue must be willing to
stand and speak as He commands (Matthew 10:24-33)! 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.
6 I invite those that are biblically conservative from all hues to stand with and support us at this like-minded Christian black American founded Ministry! The Ministry is cur-
rently engaged in a campaign to raise my 2020 full-time salary and is 63% there. Learn more at https://fundrazr.com/salarycampaign1. I am also seeking to raise the
funds necessary to license the music used in and Webcast our still relevant 1994 radio docu-drama, From Slavery To Victory: One Man’s Journey that presents a biblical
worldview of the black American experience from West Africa on our From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site, https://fromslaverytovictory.org.
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