The Scourge Of Racism
E-Book Availability 4/12-26
Released January 5, 2024
Download Your Copy
Now In The Strong Man Store!
I am pleased to share this week that the special Crowdfunding Campaign for our Books To USA Prisons Project I spoke of in my January 24, 2016 blog entitled, God Cares For The Incarcerated under the category, The Cause, will launch tomorrow, February 1st at 10AM PST on the Christian run, We Raise Web Site. Our campaign goal is to raise $9,000 in 45 days to send 2 copies of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to over 800 select State and Federal prisons across the United States. Our board of directors as well as every part of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. is involved with Strong Man Ministries leading out.
We need as many Christians as possible to help us who remember what it was like to be a lost sinner and all of the many ways God used (including books) to tug at your heart and present the Gospel to you. We are especially appealing to those that have read The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to step up and help us since you know firsthand not only that the Gospel is plainly and purely presented, but also God’s design and program for biblical manhood throughout eternity! Just this past week I received a letter from an inmate quoted from previous correspondence he sent and presented on the We Raise Web Site. In his new letter Troy Bayless writes: “I truly believe the message of the book is foundational and needed for all men.”
Troy is an example of an inmate we have corresponded with after his initial contact letting us know he had read the book. We have also sent him with others our printed Strong Man Of God Monthly Newsletter as a form of continuing ministry into his life. Here is what he had to say about that:
I want to thank you for continuing to send me the Strong Man Of God Monthly
Newsletters. They have been a source of strength and understanding of who
God calls me/men to be, incarcerated or not.
Having read about the Books To USA Prisons Project in the newsletter, Troy also offers his sincere commitment to pray for and when he is able financially, to support it as he has previously done in making a small, unsolicited donation to help underwrite the cost of mailing out the newsletter to him. Troy and many other inmates who have come to or rededicated themselves to Christ as a result of what He is doing through Strong Man Ministries and my book, are the fruitful reasons I am boldly asking for your help not only to raise the funds we need to carry out the Books To USA Prisons Project, but also all of our continuing God ordained work as a faithful partner or friend of the Ministry! Learn how to do that on the Give Page.
This project is definitely not about my ego as the book’s author, but another way to reach the many incarcerated men like Troy with the Gospel and the Lord’s foundational instruction on biblical manhood as I wrote in the already referenced blog! Willing men in prison can be saved and their lives turned around by the Lord! If you doubt that, I have to wonder how it is you believe you were saved since as a sinner in the sight of a holy God, you stood no more worthy of salvation than the worst incarcerated offenders (Romans 3:9-20, 23)? Indeed, the Lord Jesus came to earth to call lost sinners to repentance and salvation, not the righteous (Luke 5:27-32, 19:1-10)!
Because they fully know they are sinners, amazingly, I have witnessed more hearts among the incarcerated ready to receive God’s grace in the sweet Gospel than in most of the churches I have been in over my lifetime! Therefore, in remembering where God has brought you from as a “redeemed sinner,” I appeal to you in His love and all care for the lost everywhere including the prisons largely neglected by professing Christianity, stand with us to pledge your support in funding our Books To USA Prisons Project beginning tomorrow. While you can make a pledge as low as $5, I want to challenge you to pledge the largest possible amount not thinking that many others will also be making pledges.
Your pledge can only be made by credit card because no charges are processed until our fundraising goal is met. In fact, if we do not reach our fundraising goal, we will not receive anything and your credit card pledge is cancelled. At first glance, this policy by We Raise might seem to be unfair. However, they believe and I do too that we are raising funds for a project in which we have already counted the cost. If our fundraising comes up short of what the project requires, then it cannot be done. Because they have strict accountability, investigated us and required that we submit a budget, you can be assured your support is going to go fully to support the Books To USA Prisons Project.
You can investigate We Raise and their operating organization, Wheat Ridge Ministries out of Itasca, IL as we did to learn more about them and how they securely handle your credit card as a donor on their We Raise Web Site. After you have done what you need to do including sought the Lord in prayer, make your pledge as early as possible since the sooner we reach our fundraising goal the better--the end of the 45 day fundraising period on March 18th will be here before you know it! Thank you in advance for any consideration you give or pledge made to help us with our Books To USA Prisons Project.1
1 As of the close of the Crowdfunding Campaign March 18th, we did not reach our goal. However, a Designated Gift Campaign on this Web Site is underway until we reach our goal. For More Information Go to the Books To USA Prisons Project Page.
In this New Year 2016 I want to salute those Christian individuals, churches and ministries moved by God’s love for sinners to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and teach His Word to the incarcerated. Talk about unsung heroes! These servants of God do not routinely get appreciated by Christendom unless they reach the celebrity status of the now departed and former Watergate conspirator, Chuck Colson, because what they do is literally behind barred and locked doors as well as among a people group most (keeping it real) consider unworthy. Nevertheless, they serve because the living God desires to reach the incarcerated with His grace in the Gospel too!
While I am not writing to gain recognition, I know what I have written in the foregoing is true because I am one of those servants of God to the incarcerated as the Director of our ten year old Strong Man Ministries, a unit of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. the Lord led me to found in 1985. The preaching of the Gospel through our Strong Man Of God Rally and teaching of the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study by way of our Strong Man Institute in Northwest prisons are works of infancy compared to all that have gone before. However, our Ministry has in common with all others truly raised up by Him, God’s care for the incarcerated (Psalm 69:29-33).
The work in our nation is great! There are more than 2.4 million incarcerated men and women in the United States; a number that has quadrupled from 1980. We have the largest incarcerated population and highest rate of incarceration in the world! 90% of those incarcerated are men.1 It is estimated that black Americans make up nearly one million of those incarcerated and our men outnumber white men six times over. Blacks and Hispanics were 58% of all prisoners in 2008 though their combined total population is around 25%. Black juveniles comprise 26% of all arrests and 58% of those sent to state prisons.2 These statistics indicate a vast mission field among incarcerated men!
Even with all of our ongoing activity, we consider ourselves only partially engaged. Up till now, we have been waiting for more Christians, pastors and the churches they serve to joyfully come on aboard to help. Hoping against hope this has not happened for any number of reasons including a lack of Kingdom vision (John 3:1-8; Romans 12:1-2) and consequent lack of a mission and ministry focus typical of those practicing human invented religion (Matthew 6:31-33; Luke 9:57-10:16). Spiritually blind, carnal and deceived, the religionist believes that what he has made-up to do for God is enough to please Him.
However, even in the world parents and employers never reward for tasks carried out in complete disregard for what their instructions were! With God and sinful men obedience and diligent zeal to carry out assigned tasks are praised and rewarded as is plainly taught by the Lord Jesus in His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). This leads to what I am convinced of the Lord is the primary reason many professing Christians in general do not get excited to support or serve in the work of ministering to those that are incarcerated. It is that they have no love for the sinner and have selfishly forgotten that they are redeemed sinners saved by God’s love and grace!
Indeed, God reminds us through the apostle Paul that it was not while we were yet righteous that He displayed His love and permitted Christ to die for us, but sinners and His enemies (Romans 5:6-11). God saves mankind from all stations and circumstances of this life out of His overflowing love for us (John 3:16). With His love and continuing gratitude in our hearts, we as redeemed sinners have been granted the wonderful privilege to take up Christ’s Kingdom cause of preaching and witnessing Him to sinners so they may hear (and sometimes, such as on lockdown, really hear) the Gospel. And as the Lord commands, all new disciples are to be taught His Word (Matthew 28:19-20).
In the course of discipling men as newborn sons it is imperative not only that they be taught the basic knowledge of salvation, gifts and ministry as servants of God, but also His express will for them as man the creature in this present age and eternity. It is downright sickening to repeatedly hear incarcerated men who have read my book or been a part of the group study exclaim while being taught the elementary principles of biblical manhood embodied in the strong man of God: “I never knew that!” Many of these men are middle aged and older professing Christians with their names on the membership rolls of churches from any number of denominations; and no wonder, many churchmen on the outside are without knowledge too of what God intends a man to be and do!
Whether it is lack of love, Kingdom vision, mission and ministry focus or any other sin in not caring for the salvation of sinners, the Lord would call all professing Christians to confess and repent from it. For not lately, but from the declaration of His Messianic mission and its initial fulfillment He has incorporated care for the prisoner (Isaiah 61:1-2; Luke 4:16-21, 23:32-43). Being a prisoner in His cause, the apostle Paul missed no opportunities to witness and teach Christ among his fellow inmates (Acts 16:23-28; Philemon)!
Laying aside then every cynical excuse including how the men got to prison, their motives for interest in the faith or their prospects for success upon release, I urge you to get busy with the Lord’s commanded work to reach men with the Gospel among our nation’s large incarcerated population. You can also partner with us (or any of our fellow reputable Christian prison ministries) financially and/or as a volunteer as we go into the prisons. Not only do we need support for our ongoing activity, but this Ministry is set to conduct a Crowdfunding Campaign to fund our national Books To USA Prisons Project that will send two copies of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to select prisons throughout the United States. Locally, we will be enlarging our transitional ministry to newly released Christian men we have served while incarcerated or directed to us by pastors.
1 Michael Snyder, Mass Incarceration: 21 Amazing Facts About America’s Obsession With Prison, July 27, 2014, www.EndoftheAmericandream.com/archives/mass-incarceration.
2 Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, www.Naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet.
It has been very hard serving incarcerated Christian men here in the Northwest and not being able to spiritually father the sons I make among them beyond prison walls. Also, a frustration and regret is not being able to offer or direct releasing Christian inmates to much in the way of Christian run transitional housing and resources. As it concerns spiritually fathering the many men as sons I have served on lockdown, up until the present moment the Lord has commanded me to direct those that release to the churches and pastors they find (supposedly led by Him) to pick up where I left off as I have written is their responsibility1 in an attempt to build cooperation and avoid any conflict.2
Cooperating with willing churches when it is possible is important to this Ministry because the men are able to see a unity of Kingdom purpose and experience a consistency of biblical teaching they need to help them stay on track after prison. So sadly, there are not many churches I can enthusiastically recommend and of course, keeping it real, some released Christian men do not wish to continue growing in them. Nevertheless, for the incarcerated Christian men that would benefit from Bible teaching, Kingdom focused churches when they release, I wrote this edited 2013 Commentary to challenge these churches to step up to do more for them by way of intentional transitional ministry.
Originally Published July 2013
Concern for the eternal souls of men initially took our Ministry into the prisons to preach the uncompromised Gospel of Jesus Christ and bring strong man of God instruction that many might be saved and taught especially from among the black American community.3 Over the years, however, we have painfully discovered that there is a shameful lack of transitional help from the Christian community and churches many of our incarcerated brethren from all hues must cope with upon release. While there are a number of excellent ministries laboring to turn this around, relatively few churches are interested in this admittedly at times messy and risky business.
I write to remind us all that our Lord’s messianic mandate which every real Christian also shares is not only “to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound,” but also to minister to Him by ministering to “the least of these” He calls “My brethren,” (Isaiah 61:1; Matthew 25:31-40, NKJV). Now, I know that some of the incarcerated brethren of Jesus are guilty of some serious and even repulsive crimes. They were guilty before God and man. In the case of our God, they have received forgiveness upon their heartfelt confession and repentance (Psalm 51:1-17; 1 John 1:9-2:2) and endure His punishment through man by way of prison.
Nevertheless, if God--who is the ultimate Judge--sees fit to release men who have served their punishment back into society (Psalm 146:7c), it becomes necessary particularly for the Body of Christ to do all that we can to help our brothers (and sisters) make a smooth transition. This does not mean that the churches replace the important role family and the larger community has in doing their respective parts. However, we in Christ have a unique role as spiritual family that embraces our brother in love and helps meet his basic spiritual and tangible needs until he is able to get on his feet to support himself. Churches are equipped by God for such a ministry as this (Acts 2:38-47).
Now, all of the reasons most churches do not want to get involved with jail, prison and transitional ministry readymade for them by the Lord, only He knows. Apparently, though, He is not accepting those reasons since many others in the work besides this Ministry continues here in the Northwest and nationally to appeal to churches on behalf of incarcerated Christians. Our Ministry still envisions one day bringing willing Portland, Oregon area churches together to raise up an ongoing transitional work that includes a residence for temporary housing after release, services, continuing basic Christian instruction, mentoring and accountability groups.4
We have the collective means to make transitional help available to our Christian brothers that are incarcerated. The issue is will our pastors led by God concerned for the incarcerated give visionary leadership to their congregations to get behind His will? When the Lord in His Word repeatedly stresses His heart for those in prison, Holy Spirit led believers cannot just ignore this. We cannot ignore or escape the fact either that before meeting Christ we were all imprisoned by sin until He set us free! How can we so easily forget or do we actually believe the lie that we are somehow better than those incarcerated?
I tell you the truth from history, present reality and God’s prophetic Word; American Christians are just a relatively short time from experiencing mass incarcerations for the faith! Arrest and imprisonment for the faith as persecution is prominent in the New Testament and to this hour around the earth! It continues until the Lord returns (Mark 13:9-13, 14:43-46; Acts 5:12-18, 16:16-24; Revelation 2:8-11, 13:1-10).5 Shouldn’t we begin to show a little more empathy for the incarcerated and especially those that are Christians now, since many of our number will one day be among them (Hebrews 13:3)? The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read the March 3, 2019 post, The Need For Spiritual Fathering, under the category, The Cause.
2 While a man may have many godly men instruct and speak wisdom into his life, after his own father or seasoned Christian man that led him to Christ, a local church
pastor or his equipped and trusted designee ought to be among the very few authoritative spiritual fathers he has in Christ (1 Corinthians 4:14-17).
3 This Ministry has been conducting its evangelistic outreach, Strong Man Of God Rally since 2009 and through its Strong Man Institute, what became the published
2014 Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study since 2008 in Northwest prisons. Also, the Ministry is carrying out its Books To USA Prisons Project to place copies
of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics in federal and state prison libraries chaplains maintain for inmates in all fifty states.
4 Visit the About Us Page on our Web Site.
5 I write about the reality of Christian suffering for the faith and the need to gear up for it as aspiring strong men and great women of God in the image of Jesus Christ
in 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. Additionally, I h ave written many blogs discussing this prophetic reality; most recently, Standing In The Evil Day, posted on November 25, 2018,
under the category, Encouragement.
With great empathy for the men who serve as pastors in the churches of Jesus Christ among black Americans as I have also done, I must still declare the truth that far too many are the reason the churches they serve are stuck in the house of refuge mentality, spiritually immature and impotent as well as in rank rebellion against God! While over the years I have heard pastors say the people are to blame by being unwilling to grow--which is true in some cases, it is the pastors that are fully guilty before God because they are unwilling to repent from what they know is sin and spiritual immaturity in personal conduct and church priorities as they cling to manmade religious practices and traditions.
Since among many churches the culturally admired preaching skill of pastors cover a multitude of sins, character flaws and spiritual immaturity contrary to the teaching of the Bible (Titus 1:5-9), the spiritual state of members or impact on their surrounding community with the Gospel in obedience to Christ does not matter. Moreover, it is largely immaterial that a pastor may act out to the point of criminality because he is bound by the root ties of the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism. Though we know not even the godliest pastors have arrived, we are not supposed to settle for being bound by Satan as normal (Philippians 3:12-16; 2 Timothy 2:22-26).
Pastors bound by Satan with any tie binding work of the flesh in sin (to include pride) or at the root, the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism hurt themselves and their watching congregants because like it or not the Bible declares their leadership is primarily by example (1 Peter 5:2-3). A pastor can and will not preach Christ as the Deliverer superior in strength that breaks the ties Satan has used to bind up members of the church if he is complacently bound too (Luke 11:14-22). Satan stronger than sinful men has been able to keep such pastors and members bound even after their supposed new birth because they are unwilling to be set free by Christ.
As a result of being bound, the pastor’s preaching in the house of refuge majors on comforting himself and the people in their spiritual immaturity with God’s grace and mercy, railing against the system depending on his level of social activism and powerless moralizing. In the latter instance, while he might quote or take his text from Ephesians 4:26 wherein the apostle Paul declares from Psalm 4:4, ‘“Be angry and do not sin,’” and adds, “do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (NKJV), because he is shackled by the root tie of anger as a continuing mental and emotional legacy of slavery and racism, rather than obedience, he will urge all to join him in doing their best in their own inadequate strength to comply (Romans 7:14-23). Meanwhile, he remains an angry black man.
I know something about being an angry black man because I was until the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel and power of the Holy Spirit set me free (Romans 7:24-8:4) as I wrote in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics!3 And how did the Lord come to liberate me? In all confession and repentance before the Lord I owned my sin failures with anger and realization of being helplessly bound by it as a tie on my soul in the light of His Word (Genesis 4:1-8; Proverbs 29:22; James 1:19-20). I then asked Him for help! I have since learned that as sinners, it is why we are angry (Jonah 3-4) and what we do with it after it has risen up that will determine whether it is sin or not. Uncontrolled venting of anger or burying and letting the sun go down on it leads to sin every time.
Righteous indignation at evil, injustice and real or perceived personal injury naturally gives rise to anger which in and of itself is not sin since a holy God in whose image we are made gets angry too and judges (Genesis 1:26-27; Numbers 25:1-5)! Where petition for readdress of legitimate wrongs suffered can be made (to include peaceful protest), we pursue this (Acts 16:16-24, 35-40). In the meantime--regardless of whether or not we get relief, those of us aspiring to be strong men of God in the image of Christ willfully choose to call on the Holy Spirit for supernatural help to forgive the wrong done to us and trust God for vindication as it is written, ‘“Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord,’” (Luke 23:33-34; Romans 12:19-21, NKJV).
Now, what I have just written is how the Lord Jesus delivers us one by one from every tie--root or otherwise--binding the soul. Indeed, whether the ties are of the sinful works of the flesh or mental and emotional, we must own them before the Lord and then soberly confront them with the truth of His Word and power of the Holy Spirit! We confront with the truth of God’s Word as the Lord Jesus modeled for us because it exposes and destroys Satan’s lies in sin lifted up against God setting us free (Matthew 4:1-11; John 8:31-32). Through Christ, we confront in the strength of the Holy Spirit as our help because we are truly weak against Satan, sin and self controlled by sin (Philippians 4:13). Alas though, one must want to be delivered by Christ to engage in the process of liberation!4
3 See p. 109-110. Pick up your Hard or Soft Cover Editions of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics in the Strong Man Store. 4 Please support our Books To USA Prisons Project that will send two copies of my book for incarcerated men to over 800 prison libraries across the nation. Go to https://thestrongmanofgod.org/Books-To-USA-Prisons-Project.
This Black History Month, I cry out yet again as the Lord leads against the failure of the many churches among professing Christian black Americans to be at the forefront of dispensing the tie breaking truths in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our people, hurting men and those on lockdown in particular. Sadly, one major reason for this is that many of our churches remain caught up in the house of refuge mentality and practice of manmade religion. Another reason directly tied to this is that many of the leaders of these churches are themselves still bound by Satan with the ties of sin and the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism.
Though I have been crying out to the professing Christians and churches of black Americans at the Lord’s directive since 1986 through various media efforts to include our Ministry’s From Slavery To Victory Education Project launched in 1994 and ongoing at www.fromslaverytovictory.org as well as in blogs under the category, Black History on this site, it is very clear many have turned a deaf ear. For if the number of black American men on lockdown is any indication, things are not improving spiritually, mentally and emotionally for us, but as the Lord has foretold through me, spiraling downward to complete ruin and that in spite of an African-American President in the White House!
Truly, the heavy burden of lifting us up as a people should never have been put on the President, any other sinful, mortal flesh or institution of men because it is impossible. However, with the Lord strong and mighty, nothing is impossible (Genesis 18:9-14; Jeremiah 32:13-26; Luke 1:30-37, 18:24-27)! For those who will look to Him with a faith that is more than simply believing He exists, but full confidence and trust in as well as reliance upon Him, He remains a mighty present help in the time of trouble (Psalm 33:16-22, 46:1-3). What is impossible is pleasing God without faith in Him (Hebrews 11:6)! What happened to us; we used to know this?
Besides putting our faith in and spreading our love to all of the wrong people, places and things as a harlot of low self-esteem, we have stopped believing on and acting in obedience to the Word of God as it is written! Or how else is it that our transplanted African slave forefathers that became Christians persevered through their darkest nights with singing and dancing to God that drove their enslavers to fear induced mockery and greater attempts to break them down; their subsequent churches serving faithfully through the height of the Civil Rights era as houses of refuge from the fierce and violent storms of oppression as I have formerly written in Black History blogs.
As I have also written, the house of refuge mentality with all of its attendant manmade religious practices and traditions continue in many churches well past a generation later and have served to impede the spiritual development of our people (Hebrews 5:12-14). In comparison, retaining the house of refuge mentality is like Israel still insisting on manna after God cut it off. God had given them manna in the wilderness with instructions on how to collect it. The bread from Heaven was good when they collected it as God instructed, but was spoiled and stank when they did not. It stopped coming after they had crossed over into and began to eat the produce of the Promised Land--a new phase in their journey with God (Exodus 16; Joshua 5:9-12).
Israel wandered in the wilderness in the first place because they had refused to enter and take the Promised Land when God was ready for them to do so (Number 13:30-14:38). Now, in similitude because of refusing to do His will, professing black American Christians take refuge in their churches while our communities are war zones with our sons filling prisons and graveyards; our daughters enraged protest and with Beyonce, hearken back to the militancy of the Black Panthers as an answer. But like Moses to whom God showed the deliverance of his people was in his hand, so, we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our hand--if guilty professing Christians will repent, believe and proclaim it from the heart as commanded (Exodus 4:1-5, 14:10-16; Isaiah 49:5-6; Romans 10:6-15)!
It was never the Lord’s intent that the churches among our people should serve indefinitely as houses of refuge with their own religious program and agenda. Regardless of culture, race and language the churches of Jesus Christ are supposed to be about His business (Matthew 16:13-18); the business of making disciples by going as heralds to preach and give witness to the Gospel about Him, the reality of His love, grace and power operative in our own lives. After disciples are made, they are to be taught the whole counsel of God; the risen Christ laboring with us to the end (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:14-18; Acts 1:8, 20:17-27)!1 But the churches can go no further than their leaders (Proverbs 29:18).2
1 In a book of his selected sermons entitled, Strength To Love, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2010, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through a sermon rejecting Com-
munism, chided black American Christians for not having the same zeal for proclaiming and witnessing the Gospel truth of Christ as the Communist did for his em-
pty political system. He challenged the church he served as pastor (and all those in the black community as I do today) to a renewed devotion to the cause of Christ
such as the early church displayed and away from traditional inward and Sunday focused activities, p.106-108. 2 Please support our Books To USA Prisons Project that will send two copies of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back to Basics presenting the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and biblical instruction about becoming a strong man of God in His image to prisons across the nation. Go to https://www.thestrongmanofgod.org/Give.
Still at the head of the New Year and on the eve of another February Black History Month, I am posting what the Lord led me to write for all, but especially the young, black American male inmates that read the print version of The Strong Man Of God Monthly Newsletter distributed by Strong Man Ministries to mostly Oregon and Washington prisons.1 These young men fill prisons across America. In the cause of Strong Man Ministries to restore men, their families and communities, I have gone forth as its Director into the prisons, streets, schools, football fields and basketball courts preaching the Gospel, teaching God’s Word and witnessing Christ to the end of saving even a willing few.2
Devontay was among the most promising of the twentysomethings I had encountered in our prison ministry. He was street smart, tough, but real and humble about wanting to turn his life around as I write in this anecdote. I have only done a minor edit and added footnotes to it. If it would be helpful to steer other young people (to include any of his four children) away from what he had endured in his life and suffered from his admitted poor choices which is my aim (hence, “cautionary” in the title) then, Devontay would be glad for me to put this post out. May it be so, Lord!
(There will not be a post next week, February 7th as I celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary with my wife--praise the Lord! The Lord willing, my next post will be on the following Sunday evening, February 14th.)
Originally Published January 2021
The news put me in shock as the sudden death of those we know always does. I had not heard about the tragic early morning accident on the local television news shows I typically watch as I learned later was reported on. I found out about the accident that ended the mortal life of 27 year-old Devontay Rhodes back on October 22, 2020 from another one of my spiritual sons in the Christian faith who is on lockdown at Oregon’s Deer Creek Correctional Institution (DRCI), Martin Lockett, in a letter he wrote to me just before Thanksgiving.3 He thought I knew.
Martin had met Devontay when they were both at Oregon State Correctional Institution (OSCI). Devontay was transferred there after first being at the Columbia River Correctional Institution (CRCI) in the fall of 2015 where I encountered him as a participant in our Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study.4 Even now, my heart breaks thinking about how so very young he was and too many of our black American incarcerated males are. Unlike many of his peers though, bright, energetic and determined Devontay was genuinely eager for change in his life.
When an upcoming periodic baptismal service was announced during the study, Devontay requested that I baptize him. As a seasoned pastor, I proclaimed the Gospel to him to make sure the faith in Christ he professed rested on biblical grounds. However, I declined to baptize him until I had the opportunity to instruct him more in what it was about. He was disappointed, but clearly undeterred because he showed up at the service requesting again to be baptized. I relented. After giving him instruction, I baptized him.
As it turned out, Devontay was transferred soon after and I could not do any further instruction except through correspondence. I also wrote and asked Martin to help Devontay in the faith and he did up until his release. After his release, Devontay called me with some life issues I gave biblical counsel on how to handle. Then, began what became only our occasional phone contacts and more recently, e-mail exchanges until his death. In fact, we last exchanged e-mails this past August 31st in his renewed desire to live for Christ. I sent him a final follow-up e-mail on September 22nd.
My August e-mail to Devontay was like most of our previous phone conversations and e-mails with me providing biblical counsel on a life issue that went unheeded (Proverbs 19:21). In it, I addressed his ambition to be a bartender as a Christian and gave one reason it was incompatible with our faith being that serving alcohol to some led to intoxicated driving and tragic accidents. He died thirty days later ironically after a man charged with DUII crashed into his car on Oregon’s I-84. Devontay was eager for change in relationship with Christ, but was just not ready to do all of what He requires to obtain it! What about you? You only have so much time (Luke 9:23-26, 13:1-9)!
1 Subscription to the digital E-version of the newsletter is available.
2 Learn more about our evangelism and ministry among youth by visiting the Strong Man Minute Page on the Strong Man Ministries Web Site, The Strong Man Of God.Org.
3 Learn more about our ongoing national Books To USA Prisons Project on the Give Page of the Strong Man Of God Web Site.
4 This is the same Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study available for purchase in the Strong Man Store and most major internet booksellers.
Lest anyone should believe my chief motive in obeying God to preach the Gospel, teach His Word and conduct our Books To USA Prisons Project1 among incarcerated men is of some misguided human sentimentality, I write to declare such ones are greatly mistaken. I am completely aware there are men on lockdown that have committed some of the most heinous crimes in the world, not the least of which is mass murder expressly forbidden by God in His Ten Commandments. Oh, by the way, forbidden also is dishonoring God, parents, adultery, stealing from, lying on and coveting what belongs to a neighbor (Exodus 20:1-17; Mark 12:28-34)!
In God’s eyes, having violated one of His commandments, a man becomes just as guilty as if he had violated them all (Galatians 3:10; James 2:10). In their Jewish context, the Ten Commandments were to be enforced by the community in accord with the judgments, statutes and ordinances God also gave through Moses to guide them. However, the Lord left Himself a role in dispensing justice and judgment and gave that warning through Moses as well (see as one example, Exodus 22:22-24). Even a casual reading of the Old Testament makes it clear God was not soft on crime back then nor is He today if one interprets the New Testament accurately.
Indeed, for while the grace of God has come to the whole world through Jesus Christ, it did not come without a demand for repentance from sin and righteous living, a onetime cost or a continuation of divine hostility toward sin (Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:1-4, 3:7-19). Sinners experience the grace of God leading to forgiveness and salvation from the divine wrath to come only through repentance from sin and faith in the once and for all atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross, His burial and resurrection from the dead (Hebrews 9:22-10:18)! Without repentance and faith in Christ and His sacrifice there is no other remedy for sin guilt (John 3:16-21, 36, 8:21-24, 14:6; Acts 4:8-12).
In graciously offering salvation to sinners, God is not looking the other way on our sins, but only at the finished atoning work of Christ on Calvary (1 John 2:1-2). In Christ, all sins save one knowingly committed by the hardest of hearts (many that never see the inside of an earthly prison) are forgivable (Matthew 12:31-32; 1 John 5:14-17). Thus, as the preaching of the Gospel has gone out to all of the nations attended by the leadership and power of the Holy Spirit, both the grace of God leading to salvation for the repentant who trust in Christ has been displayed and also the severity of God toward active sinners even in the community of faith (Acts 5:1-11; 1 Corinthians 5:1-8, 11:27-34).
So, while the Lord has duly ordained and holds human governments accountable to mete out punishment in keeping order (Romans 13:1-7), He remains such an active participant in human affairs the Psalmist calls the incarcerated, “His prisoners,” (Psalm 69:33, NKJV). This should put great fear into the hearts of every man contemplating doing a crime, practicing criminality and now on lockdown especially if you claim to be of God’s household through faith in Christ. Think about it; God is not only the source and cause of every criminal’s eventual capture, but He is also the sentencing Judge and ultimate Warden of every earthly prison (Psalm 7:11-16)! But that is not all.
God also has another prison under the earth (Numbers 16:28-35; Luke 16:19-31) where He is the exclusive Warden and from which there is absolutely no release now apart from His will until Judgment Day when judged by works, mankind outside of Christ will experience final sentencing to the lake of fire (Revelation 20:7-15)! So, even if a criminal is not brought to justice in this life, he will not elude capture and confinement in Hades or eternal punishment in Hell by God! In case you were wondering, Jesus Christ led out the one and only human release from Hades to freedom through pardon upon His death, resurrection and ascension (Psalm 16:8-11, 24:7-10, 68:17-20; Matthew 27:50-53; Acts 2:22-35; Ephesians 4:7-10; Hebrews 12:18-24).
We do not naively look past the crimes the men we minister to have committed! But those of us sent into the prisons plead with men there as we do with all on the outside to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ that regardless of how long they justly remain in the custody of mortal authorities, they may experience the forgiveness, eternal life and freedom of God through His Son (John 8:31-36)!
The incarcerated are seen as those caught in God’s net of grace (Psalm 103:10) and given the extraordinary opportunity to get it right like all of the rest of us that have violated God’s Law (Romans 13:8-10) before finally and for some suddenly, the opportunity closes forever with their eyes in death (Proverbs 29:1; Romans 6:23). Soon, it will be plain to all only God’s gracious longsuffering has held back the full display of His wrath upon unrepentant, sinful men (2 Peter 3:1-9; Revelation 6:12-17)!
1 Please make a pledge to help fund the Books To USA Prisons Project at https://www.thestrongmanofgod.org/web/Donate/tabid/1239/Default.aspx.
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