The Scourge Of Racism
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“…for whatever is not from faith is sin,” (Romans 14:23b, NKJV). Faith in God is not just belief that He exists. It is trust and confidence in as well as reliance upon Him for everything. As it was for Israel, so, it is absolutely required of those truly restored in Jesus Christ to have faith in God if they will be blessed (Psalm 33:10-22)! From such faith in God proceed a man’s life and works that please Him. However, for many blacks since slavery, Satan, sin and self working through the “wine of the world” as well as powerless manmade Christianity the religion has obscured the truth that to believe there is a God is not the same as having faith in Him shown by lifestyle and actions.5
While it is admirable that most descendants of slaves have maintained at least a basic belief that there is a God, according to the Bible, one has risen no higher than a fool and done no more than a fearful demon to “believe there is one God.” It concludes, “…faith without works is dead,” (James 2:19-26, NKJV). Surely, no one really believes any work of sin is from God pleasing faith. The works of faith that please God begin with obedience to His Word! Obedience spurred minimally by faith in Him has been God’s requirement from Eden where Adam and Eve’s disobedience brought upon all mankind the horrors of a fallen world, pain and death (Genesis 3:6-19).
Preserving a godly line of men that related to Him in submissive faith down through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 2:23-3:8), God brought forth the nation of Israel to whom He gave His Law with again, the expectation of faith motivated, covenant obedience that He might be glorified before the nations (Deuteronomy 4:1-24, 32-40). However, Israel’s persistent disobedience culminating in the rejection of God’s Anointed led to all of their promised judgments and scattering to the Gentile nations (Deuteronomy 4:25-28). God judged them only after repeatedly sending His Word to no avail through His prophets and Son (2 Kings 17:5-23; 2 Chronicles 36:15-21; John 19:1-22).
Every instance of Israel’s stumble in disobedience to God resulting in His judgment was facilitated by or purposely came about through their leaders (Isaiah 9:16). Having such an affinity with Israel because of the similar way through slavery God has dealt with us, all of our leaders should have humbly sought to avoid the mistakes of their ancient spiritual and other rulers. While in general, our Christian leaders from slavery up through its end led well, at the turn of the 20th century a major act of disobedience took place. That major act of disobedience was followed by another in the middle of the century and post-Civil Rights Movement, while yet another came recently, a generation later.
Having powerfully visited our slave forefathers and their masters with mighty revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries, God did so again at the opening of the 20th century with the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, CA. This fresh fire from the Lord among struggling black Christians was His encouragement and power provided to continue His restoration cause in the difficult challenges of freedom. However, the leadership misinterpreted and applied the revival to assert God was making a change in the order of His house to allow women to stand with men in shouldering the leading, speaking and teaching responsibilities just because they also experienced His fresh fire.6
So persuasive then were the experiences everyone had at this revival, whites in attendance took notes back to their segregated churches to duplicate them. Segregated Pentecostalism and eventually the Charismatic Movement emerged and with other professing Christian groups following behind, now, prominently feature women acting contrary to Scripture to speak to the whole church assembled, take authority over, teach and pastor men (Genesis 3:16b; 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, 14:26-40; 1 Timothy 2:8-15). This “new thing” launched by black Christian leadership has hurt blacks the most since at this hour in the confusion, women are the dominate number in most predominantly black American churches; some with female memberships over ninety percent.7
After the height of the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many of our Christian and other leaders that had marched with him sold themselves out for personal gain in worldly fame, power and riches. Rather than God whose name and Word they invoked to stir emotion and conveniently paint over their lusts, they lobbied for the secular government to be the late coming deliverer of our “victimized” people. Now, through permanent welfare and other government programs many of our males have been reduced to being irresponsible, unwed baby makers in disobedience to God’s Word and are being destroyed along with their fatherless families caught in an endless cycle of poverty and institutional dependency (1 Timothy 5:8; Hebrews 13:4).
5 Read parts one and two of the three part article, Spiritual Reality Is The Reality that discusses James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Every Voice And Sing featuring this quote
from the third stanza of the song in the Journal Archives of The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site.
6 I devote Appendix space in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to discussing this grave error by a man I honestly believe meant well after reading the
account of this revival. Scripture has many accounts of men who were well intended, but sinned against the Lord in the process--see Aaron’s folly in Exodus 32, for
example. You can get my book in the Strong Man Store or any major internet book seller.
7 I reference this over the top statistic in my book from p. 56 of David Murrow’s, Why Men Hate Going To Church.
Considered uncivilized like other natives of the islands and lands in the Western hemisphere because they lacked the knowledge and customs of Western Civilization as well as the heavy clothing due to living in a much warmer climate, my West African ancestors were at first intrigued by the white skinned visitors. They engaged in trade with these men that also initially involved the selling of usually captives from rival tribes in territorial wars as slaves. They welcomed the Catholic and later Protestant missionaries who found them to be as spiritually unregenerate as the formerly mentioned barbarian tribes of Europe which after a millennium, had apparently been forgotten about.1
Indeed, just like the Europeans and every Gentile nation on the face of the earth, my West African forefathers had been guilty before God of practicing all manner of spiritual wickedness. This includes worshipping the creation--demons as themselves and masquerading as gods they deceived human minds to invent and construct with their hands as idols, the heavenly bodies, nature, sinful mortal flesh and ancestors long deceased. They too practiced witchcraft, sorcery and blood sacrifice in rituals of ignorance. Many tribes were also violent, ruthless and predatory; biblically defined sexual immorality, widespread. All of this is true while they also built great and rich empires.
Nevertheless, as with all other Gentiles since the first century, the grace of God in restoration came to West Africa as initially the Gospel was preached and Christianity introduced to many by the European missionaries. However, the simmering wrath of God longsuffering and forbearing in judgment, who had with all other nations post-Noah’s flood been good to Africa also while He waited to judge their sins (Acts 14:8-18, 17:29-31), brought it through the imperialistic Europeans as His instruments when they violently launched their transatlantic slave trade. Again, the prophets of God foretell His judgment on the Gentile nations for sin (Isaiah 14:22-16:14, 18:1-19:17, 21:11-16; Ezekiel 25-26, 29-31).
Besides death and destruction, among the judgments God foretold through His prophets He would visit upon the Gentiles is captivity and bondage (Isaiah 20). For those heroically minded individuals cut from the Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death” mold, I remind you that any one that dies without faith in Jesus Christ or perfect obedience to God’s law, perishes eternally with no hope of deliverance from Hell whether Jew or Gentile (Jeremiah 9:25-26; Romans 1:18-3:20; Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:11-15).2 Therefore, in a biblical worldview being a living slave with hope is better than being hopelessly double dead in sin (Isaiah 38:9-20; Ephesians 2:1-10)!3
While lamenting his people he watched go into Babylonian captivity as divine judgment, the prophet Jeremiah found hope renewed in God’s mercy, compassion and impeccable character (Lamentations 3:19-38) asking, “Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins,” (Lamentations 3:39, NKJV)? Though a number of West Africans were killed on their soil resisting the Europeans and others in transit to slavery, the survivors who became Christians experienced God’s restoration in chains. They came to appreciate Jeremiah and Daniel’s conclusion that slavery as God’s judgment was righteous and merciful (Lamentations 3:40-42; Daniel 9:1-15)!4
What is God’s will for those He restores in grace and mercy through the Gospel and delivers from bondage of any kind? Is it not to go tell it (Exodus 10:1-2, 12:21-28; Luke 4:16-21, 8:26-39, 22:14-20, 24:13-49)? Surely, my Christian slave forefathers did tell it in a rich legacy of work songs and spirituals I will not cease to remind the generations behind me are there for their benefit first, then, the entire world! They chose not to run away or escape on the Underground Railroad and instead, stand by faith in God. Satan has deceived many into scoffing at them, but they are heroes in God’s eyes because like Daniel, they willingly submitted to His judgment; trusting in His goodness, grace and mercies new every morning when joy comes after any night of weeping (Psalm 30:4-5)!
Though the release from bondage brought still more adversity, those that clung to God by faith in Jesus Christ walked in the victories of restoration and testified, while waiting for new deliverances and His majestic coming (1 John 5:4; Revelation 1:4-8, 2:8-11, 3:7-13)! For as Paul, the Jewish apostle to us Gentiles consoles, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” (Romans 8:18, NKJV). And again, it is written, “The just shall live by faith,” (Romans 1:17, NKJV). But the numbers of those living by faith among black Americans today are certainly relatively small since the heavy hand of divine judgment hangs over our communities like the soupy mist of settled fog; a clear sign of God’s displeasure (Hebrews 11:6).
1 In a nod of appreciation to the days of radio drama, I was blessed of the Lord to write, produce and voice my personal search for biblical understanding of the black
experience in an award winning docu-drama entitled, From Slavery To Victory: One Man’s Journey now a Webcast on The From Slavery To Victory Education Project
Web Site.
2 Quoted from Patriot, Patrick Henry’s speech made to the Second Virginia Convention held at the St. John’s Church, March 23, 1775, Wikipedia.
3 I do realize there are many different worldviews black Americans have of our historical experience that are mostly rooted in victimization. A biblical worldview of the
black American experience is only possible by the mind renewing work of the Holy Spirit when a man has been truly converted. I am led by the Holy Spirit to explore
eleven major worldviews black Americans have of our experience and compare them for benefit to us with the biblically formed worldview consistent with God’s
now, nearly two millennia long cause to restore men and punish the sins of Gentile nations in a seven-part 2006 article entitled, The Renewing Of Our Minds. Read it
in the Journal Archives on the From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site. 4 Read through the presentation beginning on the Home Page of The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site that uses art and graphics to make these im-
portant points as well.
In the last decade the impossible dream of a black President as a professed Christian from a sinfully broadminded denomination, wickedly linked our long time just cause for racial equality with that of all rebels against the divine order and biblical morality. By the grace of God I was among those He dispatched in 2008 warning not to vote for a man to be President just because he was black since this would be as wrong as what many white Americans had been doing.8 But deceived by the novelty and notion of creating history, a large number did so; making a terrible spiritual miscalculation in disobedience and disloyalty to God (Matthew 7:13-14; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 16:13-15).
The legally sanctioned social changes fostered by former President, Barrack Obama, compare in divine offense and devastating consequences to follow with that of Israel’s king Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:25-13:2, 33-34, 14:14-16) and Judah’s Manasseh even after he repented and revival led later by godly Josiah (2 Kings 21:1-16, 23:15-18, 24-27; 2 Chronicles 33:10-17).9 Leaders of any hue that defy the holy God and His Word always bring on His judgment because He does not condone sin (Proverbs 14:34; Ezekiel 18:4) and is immutable (Hebrews 13:8)! Having endured slavery does not spare black Americans in sin from further judgment with all other guilty Gentiles as it did not Israel.
For the God of restoration and judgment is working His plan unabated so that the Gentiles with His people, Israel, will shortly come to fully understand Israel was scattered and has suffered judgment from Him as have all peoples for their sins (Ezekiel 39:21-29). The historic spread of the Gospel and various experiences of His judgment among the ethnicities, races, tribes and languages of the Gentiles are so because God is man’s Creator, Judge, Savior and sovereign Ruler (Genesis 2:7; Psalm 50:6; Isaiah 45:20-25; Daniel 4:17)! Repentance and faith in the Gospel of His Son is His one and only provided path to saving righteousness (John 14:6; Acts 4:8-12; Romans 3:21-31).
And now, we are coming to the end of this period of grace since as foretold by the Lord Jesus, this would occur after the Gospel had been preached in all the world “as a witness” and very few peoples remain that have not heard it (Matthew 24:6, 14, NKJV). Until now, the Lord has visited individual Gentile nations with judgments of every kind including those of Europe and their satellites that have served as His instruments of it upon other nations--God is perfectly just!10 But His foretold regional and global judgments approach and will be especially hard on nations that have long had the Gospel and now, reject it (Jeremiah 25:30-33; Luke 21:10-11, 25-26; Revelation 8:1-11:6).
Following after will be God’s wrath (Zephaniah 1:14-2:15; Revelation 14:6-16:21). Only a tiny remnant of what is Israel today will survive the foretold final outpour of God’s wrath upon sinful human rebellion against Him. Honoring the faith of their fathers, God promised in mercy to hear the cry of this future remnant in tribulation that would be delivered through the Second Coming of His Son (Deuteronomy 4:29-31; Matthew 24:15-31). As foretold by the prophets and affirmed by the Lord’s apostles, this Jewish remnant with the Davidic kingdom will be restored in the land and He will reign over them (Isaiah 25:9; Hosea 3; Zephaniah 3:8-20; Acts 3:13-21; Romans 11:11-36)!
Because of Israel’s prophetic future, professed Gentile Christians were specifically instructed not to get “haughty” during this final Jewish Diaspora since we stand only by faith (Romans 11:19-22, NKJV)! For we do not replace Israel as some falsely hold. We enjoy the blessings of God’s New Covenant with those Jews that believe and to whom the Gospel went out first (Acts 2:1-39, 3:22-26; Ephesians 2:11-22). Due to the aforementioned falsehood and more, professing Christianity teaches Israel no lessons on faith in or faithfulness to God since judgment is upon it too (1 Peter 4:16-19)! Truly, all manner of ungodliness mar its history on the earth.
The historical sins of professing Christianity include the worship of relics and icons (idolatry) in manmade religion, political intrigue, violence, murders, crusades (wars), sexual immorality, heresies with syncretism, racism and twisted sanction of the violent subjugation of indigenous peoples and the immoral practices of slavery. Luther’s Reformation did not halt much of this since many Protestants are guilty of the same things. Today, it is rank rebellion as well as divisions rooted in disobedience to God’s Word as I have already written about among professing black American Christians. These are not God pleasing works of faith, but sin; sin that has not gone and will not go unpunished by the Lord (Psalm 135:14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-11; Hebrews 3:1-4:13, 10:26-31; Revelation 17-19:4)!
Glory to God who preserves His faithful in judgment! Commissioned as Israel to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” that gives glorious witness to God on the earth (Exodus 19:5-6; Isaiah 43:10-13; Acts 1:8; 1 Peter 2:4-10), the faithful of professing Christianity in history have been so. Truly, only His faithful ones will stand to the end through persevering faith in Christ (Revelation 3:7-13, 7:9-17, 12:9-11)! ‘“And we shall reign on the earth’” with Him also (Revelation 5:8-10, 19:5-20:6, NKJV)! Therefore, I will again glorify my God for His amazing wisdom and power to fruitfully fulfill His cause to restore men despite evil opposition and sinful human failure (Genesis 22:15-18). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord's side?”
8 Read the October 2008 Journal, Judging Righteous Judgment in the Journal Archives of The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site.
9 This is not said to suggest Mr. Obama’s break with the Bible as a professing Christian is the sole instance of this in American Presidential, Congressional or Court
history. His social policies sanctioned by the courts following a long line of blatant breaks with biblical instruction and morality, however, have pushed the nation
past the point of return (see the introduction of my July 12, 2015 blog, Powerlessness Of Being The Minority, Pt. 1, under the category, Encouragement) and
“remedy” with God leading to certain national judgment even with immediate repentance and revival as the Scriptures cited show. This shame is not what our
Christian slave forefathers endured by faith waiting for.
10 Read part three and the conclusion of the Journal article, Spiritual Reality Is The Reality in the Journal Archives on The From Slavery To Victory Education Project
The Lord’s cause to restore men through Jesus, Son Of Man is from eternity (1 Peter 1:20) and was announced in Eden for all to hear (Genesis 3:15)! From that garden announcement the sovereign God has moved in His timing and in accord with His plan to bring His cause to restore willing men from among every ethnicity, race, tribe and language spread across the earth to fulfillment beginning with Israel, His chosen people (Isaiah 49:5-6; Matthew 4:18-22; Acts 1:1-8, 9:10-16, 17:22-31). The absolute fruitfulness of the Lord’s work from the first century until now is known only to Him, but even early on the apostle Paul spoke of it (Colossians 1:3-6).
In learning about church history, I have consistently come across how advantageous the Roman Empire--the general peace it brought and its paved roads at the right moment--was for the arrival of Christ, His life, death by crucifixion, burial, resurrection and the eventual spread of the Gospel about Him through His apostles to all the world it dominated. This was, of course, a matter of divine foreknowledge, will and strategic plan that in those early years the Gospel should go forth in peace to all the lands the Jews of the pre-Christ, punitive dispersions resided among the Gentiles that they might hear it and believe if they would (Romans 9-11:10).
Many Gentiles into Rome itself also heard and believed the Gospel during that first century, though the men Christ sent to preach it throughout the empire were often violently set upon by Jew, Greek and the Roman politico-military establishment as He foretold (Matthew 10:16-26; John 15:18-16:4; Acts 13-14; Romans 1:1-17, 15:17-24). God graciously gave Israel in its land and dispersed a generation to hear and respond to the Gospel. After this period in AD 70, His foretold wrath led again to the nation’s destruction and this time their global dispersion (Deuteronomy 28:58-68; Isaiah 28:9-19; Jeremiah 25:1-11; Daniel 9:20-26; Hosea 5:8-15; Matthew 23:37-39; Luke 20:9-19, 21:20-24).
Although the Lord has continued preaching the Gospel to His scattered people with the foretold limited results and in recent times after over 1,900 years restored them to the land in ongoing prophetic fulfillment, during that same period He turned His two-fold attention to us Gentiles (Acts 13:42-49). As with the Jews, the Lord first graciously sent forth men preaching the Gospel to all four points of the compass among the Gentiles beyond the Roman Empire. Many disciples were made and churches established as the Lord moved to fulfill His cause to restore men to the ends of the earth. Meanwhile, the Lord was also fulfilling a second foretold objective among the Gentiles.
As He had announced through His prophets, the Lord has also been moving through the earth meting out long delayed judgment on the Gentile nations for their wickedness sometimes prior to as a softening up, but mostly after they had heard the Gospel (Jeremiah 25:12-28). Indeed, the Lord of hosts says to the Gentile nations, ‘“For behold, I begin to bring calamity on the city which is called by My name, and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth,’” (Jeremiah 25:29, NKJV). Thus, even Rome was felled by its gross immorality and European tribes known then as “barbarians” in the 5th century AD.
After this, as with the demise of Jerusalem as the vibrant birthplace of Christianity, so, every city of the former empire such as Antioch, Corinth and Ephesus where it had thrived for a time faded, was later destroyed or overrun by Islam. Greatly diminished in influence after four heady post-apostolic centuries, Christianity in variant forms as “orthodox” religion was and has remained dominant in the Greek East as it spread North into Asia and in the Middle East, North and East Africa. It was the influence of Christianity as a settled religion worked like yeast in Western Civilization as dough and overseen by Roman Catholicism in the West, however, that led to the Gospel being preached to the farthest reaches of the planet.
For the next thousand years Roman Catholicism’s preservation and teaching of Western Civilization (Greco-Roman thought and ideas with Christian morality etc.) brought the tribes of western Europe out of their barbarism to more refined tastes, renaissance, enlightenment and the ambitious quest to be enriched by and take possession of the whole earth! By the time German priest, Martin Luther, had launched his attempt to reform the Catholic Church in 1517, many previously unknown lands had already been reached and in divine providence, the Gospel proclaimed to the inhabitants. Among the lands and upon shores the sea brought Europeans and Catholic missionaries was West Africa from whence came my black forefathers as slaves.
God is awesome beyond human words to express, for even in the judgment of His “wrath” as the prophet prays, He does “remember mercy,” (Habakkuk 3:1-2, NKJV)! Consequently, a remnant of Israel will be forgiven in accord with His grace at the return of Christ and because “He delights in mercy,” (Psalm 103:8-10; Micah 7:16-20; Zechariah 12:10-13:1, NKJV). In parallel with Samson’s story as I write about in The Scourge Of Racism1 and biblical revival spurred by repentance among those of ancient Judah at the time of Hezekiah the king, the Lord is displaying grace and mercy to those of His Church that with humbled hearts return to Him during the adversities of His judgment.2
I will leave it to the reader of this post to discover the particulars surrounding the parallel story of the American Church with the Bible’s physically strong man, Samson (Judges 13-16).3 Suffice it to say here that although Samson had failed the Lord miserably in his spiritual weakness leading to utter humiliating disgrace, God showed him grace at his end such that he had a final outstanding fulfillment of his calling and mission. The Church of Jesus Christ exists on earth at all and in America not by the will of sinful flesh, but His (Matthew 16:13-18)!4 God has made Him the Head (Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:15-18). Many over the centuries have willfully forgotten these biblical truths.
Like Samson who started out well, during the assembling years of those fleeing the corruption and turmoil of Europe’s Catholic and Protestant versions of counterfeit Christianity to what would become America, there were some who nobly set out and did the will of Christ as His Church. Others--many others, did not as evidenced by the ignoble history of American slavery, followed after the Lord’s severe rebuke with Jim Crow Segregation which still found ways to violently oppress former slaves and others of color as even spiritual brothers and through the active overt arrogance of racial bigotry and discrimination by some; covert complicity through silence by many to this very hour.
As He led me to write in several previous posts, the Lord is now, moving through His Church in judgment for not only tolerating, practicing and enabling the gross sin of racism, but being so spiritually unfaithful as to serve other gods in idolatry, brazenly stand with the world in rebellion against God’s order of mankind from creation and indulge the sexually immoral among others.5 As has the Church’s sins, Samson’s finally caught up to him as the Lord in judgment allowed him to suffer the full weight of their consequences. After a little season though, the Lord showed Samson grace and mercy by letting him go out (die) fulfilling his calling and mission as intended once more.
Similarly, the Lord extends grace and mercy with bona fide biblical revival to His humbled (remnant to be sure) American Church in the midst of the escalating adversities allowed as part of His judgment. There is so much unnecessary confusion in the use of the word “revival” today. It is used by many especially in Christian media to indicate any apparent event where the activity of God seems to be at work to excite an assembly of people.6 But while everything having to do with the saving and reviving of souls is the supernatural activity of God at work, biblical revival follows His judgment on those already His people, their humble repentance from sin and deeds freshly empowered by Him.
What happened with ancient Judah under king Hezekiah is a perfect example. Following behind the evil deeds of his father, king Ahaz, who had worshipped other gods, sacrificed some of his children to the fire, destroyed articles of, trashed and shut down the Temple putting the priests out of work and leading to God’s severe judgment on the nation (2 Chronicles 28), Hezekiah went the other direction and cultivated a heart of faithfulness to Him. He called upon the priests and Levites to repent and commanded they clean up God’s Temple (2 Chronicles 29:1-19). He then, directed these men to restore worship and led out with other city leaders to participate (2 Chronicles 29:20-36). After this He called all Israel and Judah to commemorate Passover at the Temple (2 Chronicles 30).
Having freshly encountered God through repentance and revival of spirit, the people went forth to tear down the implements of idolatry in the land. The king also saw to it that the Temple and the men God had ordained to serve Him there were taken care of wherever they lived. As is typical of authentic revival that takes place in the heart, the king served God “with all his heart. So he prospered,” (2 Chronicles 31, NKJV). Such revival could have occurred in the American Church years ago, but holding on to the sin of racism among others has prevented it until now. Proud and obstinate, many have not been willing to receive correction.7 However, the severe adversities the Lord in judgment is permitting will change this (Isaiah 57:15, 66:1-2; James 4:1-10; 1 Peter 5:6-11).
1 The book is available in this Ministry’s Web Site Stores including the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores. View the short book trailer.
2 Watch this Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord. It is one of the ways the Lord is presently manifesting His grace and mercy; appealing to His professed people as Christians who have strayed from or are not living for Him with a sold out heart to return!
3 Greater are the men that are spiritually strong in the image of Jesus Christ as I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics! The Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Editions are available in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
4 While the Lord declares in the passage cited regarding His Church, “and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (VS. 18, NKJV), this does not mean as some I have heard assert that destructive evil He permits cannot assail and even diminish it on earth! What He means is “the dead in Christ” which includes every faithful believer and martyr from the first century until He returns are with Him in Heaven, not Hades where those who don’t know Him go when they die to await the judgment (Matthew 11: 20-24; John 14:1-3, 17:24; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Hebrews 12:18-24; Revelation 6:9-11, 7:9-17, NKJV).
5 Read the July 9, 2023 post, Corrupt Christians Not Hidden From God, the one on July 23, 2023, The Nations Do Not Impress God, both under the category, Call To Repent and the September 24, 2023 post, Racism In Christ’s Church A No-No, under the category, Instruction.
6 See the July 16, 2023 post, God Saves While Judging, under the category, Call To Repent.
7 The Scourge Of Racism, Copyright 2023, ODCM Publishing Division, Portland, OR, p. 57-58.
Besides the history of Israel as biblical precedent, the apostle Paul provides compelling New Testament instruction concerning why God would judge so harshly. Having praised the church at Corinth for remembering him and his teaching as he had presented it, the apostle could not praise them for the “instructions” he now, wrote in their failure to properly reverence “the Lord’s Supper“ when they met together for that purpose (1 Corinthians 11:1-2, 17-22, NKJV). They had ego driven divisions and factions when they met; some were selfishly eating their own food ahead of and not sharing with others leaving a hungry person while another came to the meeting drunk.
Such behavior showed not only contempt for “the church of God,” but Christ who is the holy Object of the memorial supper He instituted (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)! Paul is very clear, “whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” Thus, we are to “examine” ourselves thoroughly for sin to the end of confessing and repenting from it before partaking of the Lord’s Supper. We do this to avoid eating the bread representing the Lord’s body and drinking from the cup with His blood “in an unworthy manner” and bringing judgment upon ourselves (1 Corinthians 11:27-29, NKJV).
The guilty may not, but God plainly takes the sacrifice of His Son that has saved us from our sins very seriously (Ephesians 5:1-7)! As a result, the apostle reported in his time that many were “weak,” “sick” and dead from divine judgment for their disrespect of the Lord’s body and blood while practicing sin. And we can be sure this has been the case for every guilty soul until now, because “God shows no partiality,” (Acts 10:34-35, NKJV)! “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” by the Lord who calls us to repentance and chastens to help us avert eternal condemnation “with the world” if we will (Romans 1:18-2:11; 1 Corinthians 11:30-32, NKJV).
“Lest you come together for judgment” is the spiritual reality the apostle Paul sums up his Lord’s Supper instruction with; warning the Corinthian church and every other to this hour if they would pay heed (1 Corinthians 11:33-34, NKJV). The evidence of history is that many churches have not given heed either to the apostle’s warning about proper reverence for the Lord’s Supper or his instruction from Him on the order of their assemblies. Already during and after the first century many local churches became the pride of sinful flesh and manmade religion; their leaders also driven by selfish ambitions to pursue and relishing power and control over them (3 John 9-11).
Furthermore, as foretold, these men (and wickedly now, women too) in sin have purposely drawn away especially the gullible and weak among Christ’s sheep after themselves and made membership in their local church false proof of true salvation (Acts 20:29-30; 2 Timothy 3:6-9; 2 Peter 2:12-22). Something is wrong when like a drug addict people have a need to go to church, take their favorite seat, hear their pastor preach, the music team sing their favorite song or irrespective of gifting, work in their desired humanly invented position. Something is also wrong when pastors need to be up preaching to “their people.” This is textbook co-dependency God never intended!5
As houses of ill-repute, all manner of evil, impropriety, vice, false teaching, dysfunction, torture and murder of enemies in sin to name only a few things have been practiced and tolerated while the Lord’s Supper is featured and regularly taken as their grand display of Christianity in them! Arrogant, defiant and obstinate; those that are guilty in our times reached critical mass in much of the foregoing and practicing disorder in the Lord’s house. For they not only have rejected the Lord’s order of mankind from creation to be practiced by Christian men and women He gives through Paul, but the place, use and order of spiritual gifts in their assemblies as well (1 Corinthians 11:3-16, 12:1-14:40).6
The question is not why God would judge guilty local churches so harshly by shutting them down, but why did He take so long given how widespread the wickedness among them is? Is it not again the longsuffering of our God that in grace waits as long as possible for repentance since He knows when He finally does judge, it will not be a lightweight slap on the wrist (2 Peter 3:9)? As with Israel’s past judgments, He also knows His faithful though not guilty, will nonetheless, be impacted. He waits making the way and opportune time to minimize that impact (Ezekiel 9; Luke 21:20-24). The Lord’s Coronavirus judgment came suddenly and invisibly out of nowhere first in China last fall and then, upon our shores this past January en route to spreading fatally over the inhabited earth.
In the frantic mix of government solutions to fight the spread of the plague, churches along with others that host public gatherings were required to shut down. As the Lord also led me to write previously, the upside for Christians and their local churches that will survive is the fact He has provided opportunity for soul searching and repentance as needed.7 Too, the Lord has graciously given all an advance look at the near future and reality check about just how important the local church really is in His grand scheme of things. In a moment, churches can be no more as happens to our persecuted brethren in many places. Recognizing this, should not leaders be intentional about lining up the churches they can still serve with God’s will, way and Word as it is written?
(Thoroughly grateful to God to remain employed full-time in His service, I will be taking Sunday, September 6th off as my Labor Day rest. Lord willing, my next post will appear on September 13th. Enjoy your Labor Day and if you are looking for work, seek the Lord who is merciful for help.)
5 I write about this tragic spiritually, mentally and emotionally unhealthy reality of local church life which crosses ethnic and cultural lines in a March social media post
that I repeated and added to in the April 5, 2020 post, God Is Speaking, under the category, Call To Repent. We are to absolutely ever need only Christ (Deuteron-
omy 31:6; Psalm 23; Acts 18:9-10, 23:11; 2 Timothy 4:16-18; Hebrews 4:14-16)! Also pastor, you do not own His authentic sheep, they belong to Christ who “pur-
chased” them “with His own blood.” You sir, are a shepherd under Him if He appointed you and steward that must give an account (John 10:11-16, 21:15-17; Acts 20:
28; 1 Peter 5:1-4, NKJV). Consequently, you should fear lest you through wickedness be found the cause of even one of Christ’s sheep being “scattered,” “lost” and
devoured by that spiritual wolf, Satan (Ezekiel 34:1-10; Mark 9:42-48, NKJV)!
6 Contrary to the deceit planted by Satan and slowly cultivated by professed Christians over the past century, God has not changed His order of mankind from creation
as I also maintain in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. A print copy or digital download of the book 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.
7 See God Is Speaking.
As the Lord led last week, I wrote to exhort and encourage His faithful as we go together through this unprecedented time of the Coronavirus pestilence upon the world as judgment from Him. The exhortation was to go to and remain in God’s Word as His foretold days of judgment continue to unfold and escalate; the encouragement to draw comfort and hope from God and through His Word in the process.1 Today, the Lord would rebuke and instruct those who profess to know Him, but are incredulous there is any judgment from Him because it has included their being put out of their churches as supposedly His house. However, this is not the first time God has done this in judgment.
Incredulity that God would ever put professed Christians out of His house should not be among folk that claim to be so in touch with Him and His Word. But this haughtiness arises exactly from the fact some of those who have this false thinking do not actually know God in Christ (Matthew 7:21-23) or His Word (1 Corinthians 15:34). Others know what the Word says on the topic historically, but choose for whatever motives to willfully ignore it. For not only did God evict His ancient people, the Jews (our example in everything) from their meeting places with Him, but He destroyed those places in wrath because of their sins (Jeremiah 7:12-15, 52:12-13; Mark 13:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:1-11)!
So, where do Christians that are guilty of the same kind of sins that led to God forcefully evicting the Jewish people from their designated meeting places with Him get off thinking they are somehow in a better position in His eyes to avoid this? Yes, with them in Christ we have “a better covenant, which was established on better promises,” (Hebrews 8:6, NKJV). But nowhere in the New Covenant or God’s related promises does He take sin off the table as something He will no longer be concerned about. Truly, the Christian has a greater accountability before God for sin because we believed the Gospel of Christ to be saved from it (Luke 12:47-48; Romans 6:1-7; Hebrews 10:26-31)!
Neither the Lord nor His apostles make His Church about physical buildings, but the people who purposely assemble to Him by faith (Matthew 16:13-18)! Whether it was the Lord with His disciples or them after His departure, buildings were only mere tools used to facilitate the purposes and activities involved in meeting together (Mark 14:12-17; Acts 1:9-14, 2:40-47, 18:5-11, 19:1-10). Nowhere in the New Testament is anyone commanded or instructed by Christ to build Him an edifice as part of a sacred, required meeting place with Him for worship or any other purpose since He had taught true worship of God going forward from Him is “in spirit and truth,” (John 4:19-26, NKJV).
Moreover, the overarching eternal reality of the Church Christ builds and Heads with each soul assembled to Him by faith is relational and spiritual (Luke 23:39-43; Ephesians 1:3-14, 22-23). Too, the body of each believer on earth is a temple of God (John 2:19-21, 14:23; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19-20). With those already in Heaven we are at one and the same time as Paul teaches both “the household of God” the Father as spiritual family and a house for His everlasting abode. Not only is each one in Christ both family and a house, but as Peter also instructs, we are together “being built up a spiritual house;” in it serving as a “holy priesthood,” (Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2:4-6, NKJV).
We are God’s house! Even so, God in His wisdom provided the means for His redeemed to temporarily meet together while on earth at the Jewish Temple, in homes, previously constructed buildings and those built for that purpose to this day. Christians have also met outdoors and because of persecution, literally underground!2 The buildings were and are His house too, because He owns everything and to the extent real Christians assemble in them to carry out the biblically commanded mission of Christ. The buildings are all temporary because the existence of and Christ’s mission for mortal Christians in this present age before His return are (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).
Indeed, as the Lord led me to launch this year writing, only the individual Christians in local churches with ears that heard what the Spirit said to seven first century churches of Asia will be found standing in immortal glory at His return!3 None of those seven churches of Asia with many others of history remain, underscoring the reality of their temporary nature. And while persecution has had much to do with why local churches have disappeared from existence in their times, when His biblically rooted purposes are no longer primary through disobedience, corruption, wickedness and apostasy, the Lord Himself will shut them down as I am a witness and even destroy the buildings as foretold among the ways He judges (Revelation 2:1-7, 17:15-18:8, 19:1-4).4
1 Read the August 16, 2020 post, To The Word Of God!, under the category, Encouragement.
2 Most of the preaching and ministry along with teaching and training of His disciples by the Lord Jesus was done outdoors. Mountains, forests, fields, caves, waterways,
deserts, prisons, the catacombs of Rome--you name it beyond buildings, faithful Christians have assembled there in the Spirit, with the Lord to this hour and will do so
until the end!
3 See the two-part post beginning January 5, 2020, Revelation’s Seven Churches In Time, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
4 Read the August 23, 2015 post, Babylon Is Falling!, under the category, Bible Prophecy. Also, read the reposts of my own experience with the judgment of God upon
local churches and prophecy He gave me concerning them beginning on August 30, 2015 with When Strong Men Of God Weep, followed by Death Of A Church--One
Year Later and Praise For The Lord God Almighty! These were all posted under the category, Glory To God!
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