The Scourge Of Racism
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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.
Freedom from the ties of sin and at the root, the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism is supposed to be the desired in process reality of every black American that becomes an authentically born again Christian and most assuredly all who serve us as leaders in our churches. This is so because freedom by and through Christ is the perfect will of God in His redemption plan for all sinners (Luke 4:18; 2 Corinthians 3:17)! Thus, to resist God’s will to be free from all satanic ties that bind the soul out of whatever motives is willful sin. Practicing sin always dulls the spiritual senses and deceitfully hardens the heart (Matthew 13:10-17; Hebrews 3:7-13).
Professing Christians bound by sin and Satan leads to the substitute and inferior practice of manmade religion, its traditions and rituals in their churches (2 Timothy 3:1-9). Youth are scarce in them and prisons full of our men with their names on the rolls because it is not enough to say “come to church” or therein, “the doors of the church are open” if manmade religion is all that is offered since it is powerless to save or give real spiritual help to anybody. Christ alone saves and in relationship with Him men are delivered through the transforming power of God’s Word and Spirit! And as we mature in Christ as aspiring strong men of God, we come to a biblical understanding of and right attitude about the troubles of this world which include continuing struggles with racism (John 16:33).
Rather than taking refuge in churches and attempting to escape through the practice of manmade religion, in God’s perfect will we emerge from them into the world as His eternal sons, disciples and servants to first overcome it in Christ (1 John 5:4-5)! For we know with certainty the troubles, difficulties, hardships, adversities, persecutions and afflictions of this world as God’s workmen are working together for our good; conforming us to the image of Christ in nature, character and demeanor (Romans 5:1-5, 8:28-29).5 Second, overcoming (instead of being overcome by) the world in Christ, we serve His cause and fellow man in the Gospel; preaching and giving witness to the divine call to salvation, liberty and victory to set others free (Luke 11:23)!
Tragically though, here is where most professing Christian black Americans and pastors bound by sin and Satan take their leave because of cynical unbelief, practiced disobedience to God’s Word and with anger, other root ties like entitling victimization which rise up to exert a tightening tug of pressure on their minds and hearts. Having been here, done this over thirty years, now, many are even angry at me for telling the truth and want me to shut up and go away--would to God I could! But His love will not let me go seeing as it is He that persists in calling after the many to repent before it is too late in spite of our false and hypocritical claim to innocence in victimization while steadfastly pointing an accusing finger at whites for their sins (Romans 1:18-2:4).
Supposedly being so spiritual, do we not grasp that to claim innocence before God as a victim all the way back to Africa is to call Him a liar? Or what part of “There is none righteous…none who seeks after God…none who does good,” and “all have sinned” in the divine assessment of all humanity do we not get or think applies to us (Romans 3:10-12, 23)? But someone will say, “Whatever our African forefather’s sins, they did not deserve what we got!” Biblical Christianity says such a one is right! Neither our forefathers nor we have gotten what we deserved for our sins which is immediate and eternal death (Ezekiel 18:4)! Professing Christians and pastors that choose victimization assure they will remain slaves to sin and bound by Satan with worsening consequences (Luke 11:24-26).
Truly, the sins of the many satanically bound pastors have not gone unnoticed by the Most High. Only because of His longsuffering forbearance and deference to the faithful reaching back to slavery has He not until now carried out a more severe judgment on you for especially the arrogance of changing the order of His house to put women over men as His appointed leaders done in rank rebellion and out of a satanically twisted sense of fairness hatched from victimization (1 Timothy 2:11-15, 4:1-2). Already--as the Lord has led me to declare to all of the churches, the latter day judgment of His house is underway (Ezekiel 12:21-28). As I am a witness, predominantly black American churches; those old time houses of refuge are dying right along with those from other ethnicities.
Therefore, because the relative few pastors and churches among black Americans on the front lines proclaiming the tie breaking message of the Gospel and doing related service in the community (I praise God for you!) cannot do it all and the remaining messengers are bound up and sheltered in place unless they repent, the foretold spiral of our community to disastrous ruin is unavoidable. For apart from God’s help in the Gospel, Word and Holy Spirit, there are no other viable answers or appointed messengers! To the glory of the sovereign God, the ruin occurs in the gracious aftermath of the clearly unheard of divine miracle that had those who first oppressed our forefathers in slavery also provide them with the key to freedom in the Gospel as the Lord led me to write in a 2003 Journal.6
Yes, my God has marvelously done and does His part so that no one as a victim blames Him on Judgment Day (Romans 2:5-11; Revelation 20:11-15). So, because the many were not willing to let go of their anger and victimization as only two of many root ties by which Satan binds them and instead, let God receive glory through them as Christ’s victors in our historical experience as a witness to the world, the opportunity will shortly be lost forever (Hosea 4:1-10)! In the day of ruin, it will be painfully seen that churches as a house of refuge without sanction from God are utterly worthless like rotten and wormy manna.
Too, in the day of ruin it will be seen that churches are not the real place of refuge any way for they shall be destroyed; it is and always has been God Himself (Psalm 32:6-7, 90:1, 91:1-2; Hebrews 6:16-20)! Likewise, the Promised Land for us never was this present world. It is the eternal Kingdom of God come in and coming with Christ of which the faithful and free in Him eat now of its sweet produce while we wait patiently by faith for His appearing (Joshua 5:10-12; John 18:36; 2 Corinthians 1:20-22; Galatians 5:22-23; Philippians 3:20-21; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12; Revelation 11:15)!7
5 Again, in a sermon over fifty years old entitled, Shattered Dreams preserved in written form by the book, Strength To Love, Dr. King affirms the advantage we Christians have through faith in our God to cope victoriously with the disappointments and manifold struggles of this life, p. 87-97.
6 Read this Journal at https://fromslaverytovictory.org/Journal-Sept-2003.
7 Help us reach out with God’s call to freedom in the Gospel and biblical manhood instruction by sending my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to over
800 prisons. Go to https://thestrongmanofgod.org/Give.
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.
As the Holy Spirit leads, in this post I circle back to last week’s and specifically the fourth footnote to glorify God and celebrate faithful black Christians from slavery!1 The footnote challenges the lie that Civil Rights leaders after Dr. King’s death had no other option but to align themselves with liberal professed Christians rebelling against God and His Word to successfully destroy the remaining barriers of bigotry, discriminatory acts and oppressions of America’s systemic racism denying black Americans the full rights and privileges of citizenship. This action was a clear break from the faith of our faithful Christian slave forefathers and those that suffered even martyrdom during the King years.
I have heard and seen it all before as well as been guilty of it myself more than a few times in my near 47 year journey with Christ; how guilty professed Christians so easily justify the need to help God out in a situation by making choices and decisions that seem right only to discover afterward, He was not in it at all! Having lived through the years I write about, I saw how many Civil Rights leaders once so devoted to God in dependent faith, the non-violent strategies of Dr. King and suffering arising out of biblically conservative Christianity sold out to back room deals and agreements with strange bedfellows supposedly in similar need to further the cause of racial justice for black folk.
And while a little progress was enjoyed mainly among those blacks politically, educationally, socially and financially positioned to lay hold of what came trickling out of governments and big corporations, the masses remain in dire need to this day. Poverty is still the norm. Black males disproportionately overflow prisons and graveyards while black females murder their unborn at a rate higher than any other group. Also, marching to protest real and alleged racial wrong doing against blacks continues plainly demonstrating that a generation after King, leaders who made the decision to take the tack of seeking allies among those rebelling against God were mistaken (Proverbs 14:12).
According to the Bible, the foregoing is not what happens when God fights your battle! This is as king of ancient Judah, Jehoshaphat, learned when he faced the daunting reality of war with neighbor nations making up a massive force already on the march for the battle. The king as a man of faith in God did what he was supposed to do: call on the Lord and led the people to do the same (2 Chronicles 20:1-13).2 Isn’t this what was done under Dr. King? Then, the Lord answered giving instructions through a Levite, Jahaziel, He used in the moment urging all not to fear ‘“for the battle is not yours, but God’s,’” (2 Chronicles 20:14-18, NKJV). Isn’t this what was done under Dr. King?
After spending time worshipping God “with voices loud and high,” the king encouraged the people to ‘“Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.’” Then they went out marching to battle continuing to sing the Lord’s praises in worship (2 Chronicles 20:19-21, NKJV). Isn’t this what was done under Dr. King? And though they routinely suffered physical violence and incarceration, most as Christians believed they were serving the higher purposes of God He validated by convicting the nation of its oppressive evil and unjust laws tied to systemic racism and making it begin to tear these down (2 Chronicles 20:22-30).3
Even before this our faithful Christian slave forefathers looked to God in faith and waited upon Him to fight their battle for freedom. In the meantime, they prayed and sang in worship resulting in a legacy of spirituals in the thousands that serve as tangible proof of their faith in God we their descendants ignore to our detriment as the West African fathers who heard the Gospel in their native lands, but largely rejected it (Psalm 78:5-8). Having been brought to this land in chains for what God intended to only be a temporary remedial judgment to humble the hearts of many which He accomplished, through the nation’s Civil War He fought the battle for their release when its time came (Psalm 107:10-16, 39-43). He had brought us in, He would bring us out (Lamentations 3:22-42)!4
But now, what was left to be done to help our nation righteously and justly overcome the debilitating sin of racism using a humbled, faithful people of faith in God, will never be fulfilled this side of Christ’s return since those in the liberal majority and their leaders have refused His help in exchange for that of rebels against Him and His Word as it is written (Isaiah 30:1-5, 31:1-3; Jeremiah 2:9-19, 32-37).5,6 This means of course, the promise of a bright future built on rebellion against the divine order as with feminists most who also sanction the murder of the unborn, the perverted ends of those that practice same sex relations and gender confusion will be exposed for the demonic deceit it is in the face of God’s near severe judgments and coming wrath (Psalm 75; Jeremiah 25:29-32)!7
1 Read the February 25, 2024, Liberal Black Professed Christians To Lose, under the category, Black History and Call To Repent!
2 Such was also the confidence of many other biblical characters where God showed up to fight their battles including the slaves from Judah taken to Babylon, Daniel and his three companions. Read the February 27, 2022 post, Daniel: Slave Of God, under the categories Biblical Worldview and Black History.
3 Beginning with the important 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision rendering public school segregation based on race unconstitutional and following the historic non-violent activities of those with Dr. King which began in 1955, unjust racially discriminatory behavior across the nation was outlawed within ten years by na- tional government measures in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act and in 1965 the Voting Rights Act.
4 Visit this Ministry’s From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site for more of a biblical worldview on slavery and God’s good ends.
5 It is an egregious sin and offense to God to be unfaithful to Him (Psalm 73:27)! Just ask another king of Judah, Asa, the father of Jehoshaphat who having previously en- joyed God fighting a victorious battle for the nation (2 Chronicles 14:9-15), afterward looked to a pagan king to deliver him from the attack of a brother Israelite king (2 Chronicles 16:1-9).
6 This general judgment of God does not preclude faithful, individual black American remnant Christians from laboring alongside those of other hues in biblical conserva- tism for the cause of racial justice issues that arise with Him leading as the Ally nor pursuing racial unity within conservative evangelicalism, my appeal in The Scourge Of Racism. The printed book is available in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores. The E-Book is available at major E-Book sellers. Learn more about the book, survey some reader endorsements and see its trailer at https://www.opendoorcommin.org/featured-publishing-resource.
7 Rather than anger at me for telling the truth, why not consider that if you are reading this post it has been another gracious opportunity God has provided you to return to Him (2 Peter 3:1-9)! Watch this Ministry’s thirty minute Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, on our YouTube channel.
The stirring John Legend written song, Glory, he and rapper, Common, perform with a little help from a choir as the theme of the movie, Selma, has risen up in my heart again in the present version of the ongoing black American quest for racial acceptance. Well captured in the song and the current news images of students passionately protesting long tolerated systemic patterns of racial mistreatment in American society, its campuses and streets is the deeply troubling pathos involved in continuing to fight the many centuries long battle that cannot seem to be finally won. Even so, as the song asserts, the fight continues to be won at last when the Glory comes.
Glory is a fitting close to the film biopic, Selma, that chronicles the challenges and adversities slain Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dealt with to safely and peacefully complete a march over the Edmond Pettus Bridge into the now famous Alabama city in 1965. Such marches were the cornerstone of King’s purposeful strategy of nonviolent resistance to America’s legally sanctioned racial discrimination against blacks that also involved students peacefully sitting in at segregated eating establishments across the South. The marchers and protesters stood up carrying in their hearts the long held aspiration of our slave forefathers for freedom, equality and justice.
Recently seeing tears on some faces of University of Missouri black students as they sang, prayed and expressed themselves vocally to protest incidents of racism they felt were ignored or not considered important enough by school officials to investigate coupled with the sometimes very angry marches of those that protest under the banner, “Black Lives Matter,” caused me to easily and compassionately empathize with them. Transported to my childhood a generation ago when the activities of the Civil Rights Movement unfolded in real time on my family’s black and white television screen, I too began to tear up at the sadness that this seemingly easy to resolve struggle continues.
While I do not find every single sentiment expressed in Glory biblical, I nevertheless, greatly appreciate Legend’s recognition and incorporation of the predominant Christian faith of our people going back to slavery. Also, his song includes the fight for what should be common human decency as just, an encouragement to peaceful protest, respect for Jesus Christ as victorious after a public crucifixion and of course, the exclusively Christian hope of His glorious return to make things right as themes. In my mind, these themes enable the song to be an appropriate final anthem for the struggle to a generation forced to face the reality this fallen world will not of its own do right.
Indeed, since Legend’s song invites the wisdom of the elders into the continuing struggle in this generation, I step up. I qualify to do so now after nearly sixty years of experience being black and having the requisite mental and emotional battle scars from wounds suffered in the struggle with secular white as well as professed Christians that practice racism. First, understand as God has judged and declares in His Word, all human beings are sinners unwilling and unable to line ourselves up with His perfect standard (Romans 3:9-20). Nevertheless, God in love, grace and mercy has provided deliverance and help for the willing in Jesus Christ (John 3:16-21; Romans 3:21-26).
Obstinate white men guilty as sinners have resisted doing right from slavery because racism is not just about skin color, but guarding selfish privileges and opportunities--economic and otherwise. In light of this, consider also your generation’s wholesale embrace of the world’s sinfully invented political correctness, tolerance, multiculturalism, gender and sexual equality and how these concepts have not brought the long quest of our slave forefathers to full realization. In fact, in spite of these concepts and a very morally tolerant African-American President, your generation is still marching to protest racism! A holy God is constrained to help because so many marching are in rebellion against Him as willful sinners (Proverbs 14:34; Jeremiah 5:20-29; Romans 1:18-2:11).1
Second, understand that the resistance in guilty white men to do right and your own rebellion is not only driven by sin within, but outside forces are at work too. Ultimately, the struggle of our and all people that long for a world of love, acceptance, peace and justice is opposed by fallen angels led by Satan (Ephesians 6:12). This is why finally, the struggle will continue until the Day I am pleased to say is near; the Day when Jesus Christ, the Glory of God comes in wrath to insert Himself and His Kingdom into this world (Revelation 1:7-8, 6:12-17, 11:15-19, 19:11-16)!
Wholeheartedly come back to the biblical faith of our Christian slave and free forefathers so that you will not suffer the fate of those who mistreat you and all sinners before it is too late! For the kingdoms of fallen men and angels will be destroyed, the victory of Heaven justly won and His righteous reign rolled out! 2 Those who waited on Christ living as it pleases Him (1 Thessalonians 1:6-10, 2:10-12) will joyfully stand in that Day with elect Jews in His triumphant, eternal Kingdom (Isaiah 25:6-10a).3
1 Read the June 2015 blogs under the category, Black History.
2 Read the July 26, 2015 blog repost, Final Deliverance From The Evil Oppressor under the category, Encouragement.
3 With a learner’s heart, I challenge my fellow black American readers to set aside the convictions you may have from the worldview of a victim, to consider a biblical worldview of the enslavement and suffering of our people presented on our From Slavery To Victory Web Site; reading all the way through the brief presentation to the Victory Page. Follow this link, https://fromslaverytovictory.org/Healing/The-Journey to be taken directly to the presentation.
The recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain along with our nation’s high suicide rate which counts a few of my relatives too, are reminders of how precious hope is as a soul resource. For this reason, there should be no doubt why Satan works hard as a lion to capture and drag so many to his lair of darkness to deceitfully convince them there is no light; no hope such that death is appealingly the only false escape. Hopelessness, loneliness, emptiness and despair can be dark and dangerous places that not even money and fame can overcome--though popular culture continues to feverishly sell the lie that these accomplishments will solve everything.
While she did not commit sudden suicide, the 2011 tragic death of Amy Winehouse I briefly wrote about in this edited repost follows after and precedes too many others of the rich and famous who died from slow death lifestyle choices that included the abuse of alcohol and drugs. Among these were the stellar entertainers Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and Prince all demonstrating again that not only money and fame, but superior talents and abilities are not sufficient to resist the destructive forces of this world system waging war against human souls (Ephesians 6:12). For the record, nominal Christianity or other religions which many have cannot deliver in the war for the soul ether!
Praise God for the light of “a living hope” those of us truly in and sold out to Jesus Christ by faith have and need to be more deliberate about witnessing to others that do not know Him regardless of their status in the world (1 Peter 1:3, NKJV). Not only does the Gospel--that Christ died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day--save our souls through faith, but we begin what is intended to be an eternal relationship with Him! This relationship with the risen Christ supplies all that a human soul needs to overcome everything that the world system uses against us in the unavoidable war of this mortal age (Genesis 3:1-15; John 16:33; 1 John 5:4-5).
Sudden or slow lifestyle suicides then, are very tragic since they are preventable by the simple, child-like decision to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all one’s heart! While God has allowed for each soul to make a personal decision in this matter, the Lord Jesus is clear that those that reject Him will die in their sins to face the fate worse than any problem or issue one thought so bad in this life: His judgment seat (John 3:16-21, 36, 8:21-24; Revelation 20:11-15). For this reason, the Lord’s love in me motivates me (and I pray you too, O, Christian) to zealously preach the Gospel to the lost whatever their life station so that they can at least hear of the life giving hope available in Him alone! For truly, this life gets no easier going forward (Luke 21:25-26).
Originally Posted July 31, 2011
I with so many others all over the world was deeply affected by the death of Amy Winehouse this past week. Though I had never bought one of her CD’s or even heard a full song of hers on the radio, her death was tragic to me on so many levels. Most moving for me is the pathos that the talents of this musical giant as sizable as they were, were not enough to stave off the inner torments of her soul including despair. We have encountered this so many times throughout history among the great and those whose names will never be known except by grieving and bewildered family and friends.
Many commentators brought up the age 27 as notable for such talents of recent memory to abruptly exit from the world stage. Among them are Jimmie Hendrix and Janis Joplin of my youth. While I had only begun in those days to really pursue an interest in music and barely knew their names, I remember the sadness in pondering why they had died since they were such excellent musicians. This all came rushing back to me with the death of Ms. Winehouse. I still do not have any answers as to why now, so young with so much life potentially yet to live--nor does any other mortal.
However, as a Christian, I do now understand that our abilities, no matter how great, are not enough to give light or minister healing to our souls. The soul belongs to God and only He has the spiritual remedies we need to cope and effectively navigate through a sin darkened world. That is the first lesson for the aspiring strong man of God I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.1 Unlike those outside of Christ, we draw our strength and every other spiritual resource from Him! As such, while it is true we will all depart this world through one cause or another, despair--an affliction of the soul--is not to be one of them for the aspiring strong man or great woman of God in the image of Christ.2
1 The book is available at all major internet books sellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
2 If you or someone you know are wrestling with thoughts of suicide or other self-destructive behaviors or want help with any number of the spiritual, mental or emotional
issues of our day, visit this resource for an important listing of hotlines some of which are Christian operated.
“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 30th. 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.
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