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• Fatherhood In A Time Of Rebellion

              In  watching  the  destructive  collapse  of Western civilization under the weight of rebellion against God and His Word, one of the saddest spectacles is the marginalization of men and their absolutely essential role as fathers in the family. Yes, throughout the centuries many mothers have had to step up in the absence of their husband/fathers and done well under the adverse circumstances. However, in what is to be this short-lived day of the woman and overt rebellion against the God designed family of a man, his wife and children endorsed even by many compromising churches, men as fathers are being purposely devalued leading to the destruction of the family as we have known it for millennia. The Lord led me to blog about this and to encourage aspiring strong men of God fathers in 2013.  I post it again now as the rebellion continues unabated.

   

  Originally Posted June 16, 2013

   

              Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers reading this blog!  By God’s design only human males can be fathers.  As a critical partner with their wives in the preservation and expansion of mortal humanity (without conception and births, death would soon overtake and destroy mankind from the face of the earth), men as fathers are indispensable.  But the indispensability of men as fathers goes well beyond biology to family and societal order, stability, direction and spiritual condition.  In God the Father’s image, men are designed to lead their families as husbands and fathers.  If they lead well, the family and families that make up a nation goes well.

   

              However, if the men lead poorly, then the family and families that make up a nation suffers.  The latter case is the present reality in our nation and many other Western nations that have independently decided fathers are only absolutely needed for the biological creation of children and are quite worthless otherwise.  I offer a number of statistics in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics that show how our nation is being devastated by a redefining of what a man, woman and family is contrary to what God in His Word declares they are.  Social engineers and legal authorities know about this devastation but most insist on trying to fix the problems of re-definition within the context of the rebellion that is causing it!

   

              In their redefinition of a man, for example, men are being demanded to financially support the children they create (those that are not destroyed through State sanctioned abortion, that is), but leave the rearing to the State and mothers--isn’t that taxation without representation all over again?  The result is that irresponsibility by men is being encouraged by the State which has for the sake of an anti-Christian secular worldview, inserted itself into the fathering role and responsibility.  Thus, our problem in America in major part is not that married men are leading poorly as much as it is absent and irresponsible men are not leading at all thanks to the State--though as the Lord has led, I teach all men lead by their example whether they intend to or not.

   

              Also, in the moral and spiritual climate of rebellion against God, His Son, Jesus Christ and Word, many well off feminists do not even care for the financial support of baby’s daddy since they purchase his sperm from a bank in total detachment.  So deep is the anti-male authority influence of feminists on our 21^st century culture (including the biblical worldview that fathers are the head of their daughters until marriage), in its many acts of creative license with the birth narrative of Christ, the 2006 film, The Nativity, written by Mark Rich and directed by Catherine Hardwicke has teenage Mary initially angrily questioning her father’s will for her to marry Joseph.  This feminist attitudinal insertion is completely opposite of the New Testament Mary who finds favor with God expressly for the humility and submission she no doubt displays prior to and after hearing God’s will from the angel (Luke 1:26-38)!

   

              Tragically, relieved of their duty from nearly all quarters many men are living large in a sinful male’s utopian world of irresponsibility that is destroying children, the fatherless, families and our nation in the process.  God in His Word teaches why the role of fathers is so important.  As God the Father showed with Adam in the beginning, a father gives visionary leadership to his children (Genesis 1:26-28).  Where there is no such vision in a family or a nation from the father or leader respectively, they throw off restraint, chaos ensues and they perish--think high rates of child sexual exploitation, teen promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, delinquency, school dropouts, gang violence and deaths, suicide etc. (Proverbs 29:18).

   

              God as a Father to Adam not only initiated his existence, but led, taught, provided for and protected him in Eden (Genesis 2:7-25).  While children with godly fathers in the home may still rebel because of sin, men are to do with their children as God did with Adam so they have a leader to look up to, instruction with discipline, certain provision and security.  When Adam sinned, God the Father pitied him and did not treat his sin with the instant death it deserved, but killed an animal shedding its blood instead and used its skin to cover his fallen creature against the day in love when He would provide an eternal atonement (Genesis 3:17-19, 21, 5:1-5; Psalm 103:13-14; John 3:16).  So, men are needed to be firm yet merciful and gracious authorities to their children. 

   

              To the child with a natural father (or mother) that has forsaken him, God offers Himself a Father (Psalm 27:10, 68:5).  As His tangible love, Christian men are to be mentors and spiritual fathers to the fatherless who allow it.  In the day of rebellion as we now have, God sends forth His prophet to call men and their children to reconciliation to avoid his curse on top of all of the destructive natural consequences already doing their work (Malachi 4:5-6).  Are we listening in the churches since our assemblies are suffering all of the same devastation as the world due to straying from God’s Word and the priority of teaching men their roles and responsibilities?

   

              To the faithful godly fathers doing it God’s way with a made up mind, stay the course.  Do not yield to the fathering instructions and ways of this condemned world system taught even in compromising churches.  God’s example and instruction in His Word as well as your very real daily experience with Him as your heavenly Father are perfect.  If you remain faithful the Father of fathers will bless and mightily reward your faithfulness here and now and with immortal glory in the Day of Christ.  Such is the joyful hope and expectation of every aspiring strong man of God father!

   

• Men Must Be Taught To Father Like God

            Entailing as it does such a magnitude of responsibility from God, it is amazing to me looking back over membership in churches since 1977 that so little instructional importance was attached to parenting and fathering in particular.  New member orientations if any, instead, focused on introducing church leaders, beliefs, responsibilities, programs, activities and service opportunities.  Intensive training and equipping if any, offered in depth Bible study topics and in a few churches, deep theological education.  All of this was done in the quickest possible time frame lest the relative few participants became even fewer!¹  This has been devastating to Christian men and their families.

   

            Fathering like God is not natural to sinful mortal men as I have painfully discovered in my own journey during these latter days.  Sadly today, it is not widely seen enough either to be emulated or purposely taught among professed Christians and their churches as I opened this post lamenting.  Being a father with all it involves as God the Father exemplifies in His Word and intends for human fathers to imitate is a life skill that is supposed to be intentionally passed on by them to their sons through precept and example as I write in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.²  However, with so many sons without their fathers doing this on purpose, fallen human models of fathering prevail.

   

            Fallen human models of fathering run the gambit of sin driven conduct.  These models are learned from having watched one’s own father (with the family or not) or someone else’s; taking in as well, those portrayed in all forms of media and the streets.³  The fallen human models include, but are not limited to the absent, willfully neglectful, verbally and physically abusive, self-centered, grumpy, harsh, stern, intimidating, controlling, overly disciplinary (which is where I was as I write about in my book), not disciplinary enough or at all, spoiler, pushover, briber, pleaser etc.  Though no fallen father is nor can be perfect before God, those that do better father more like Him.

   

            Such fathers may have had not only good instruction, but examples from their own fathers.  As maturing Christians, they may have also come to appreciate that childrearing is a sacred and fearful responsibility from God one needs His help with and why in His infinite wisdom He confined procreation to a man and woman committed to each other in holy marriage as the best arrangement for it.  However they came to it, these men consider the business of fathering an important and serious undertaking.  They understand initiating the existence of a new human being is only the beginning of an incredible experience that must be purposely planned for, embraced and carried out.

   

            Indeed, this is the example of God the Father in the Bible.  From eternity He purposely planned and prepared for the creation of man (Genesis 1:1-26, 2:4-6).  Then, He embraced and carried out initiating man’s existence from the dust (Genesis 2:7).  After this, He led, taught His will, provided for and gave environmental protection first to Adam and then, his wife taken out of him (Genesis 2:8-25).  At the end of God the Father’s creative work, Scripture summarizes it, His marching orders and instruction to the first man and woman as well as presents His appraisal of the momentous occasion (Genesis 1:27-31).  Nothing about the foregoing is done haphazardly or at a distance.

   

            Furthermore, when the first couple sinned, God the Father brought His promised consequence and then some, while also clearly demonstrating His continuing love for them (Genesis 3).  He purposely displays and teaches His model of Fathering throughout all of the rest of Scripture so that certainly, we that profess to know Him are without excuse for our ignorance.  Yet, four years into being a Christian and church attendance, I entered into marriage and a blended family ignorant.  For nearly another ten years I struggled to walk out God's Fathering learned from the Bible with no church instruction until finally, my then, pastor, began a purposeful teaching on the family out of Scripture.⁴

   

            At the same time, my pastor introduced us men to the Promise Keepers men’s movement.  Heightened in interest by my need, as a Christian radio announcer and avid listener, I also started paying attention to the instructive counsel about what a father is and does coming from national programs such as Focus On The Family and those produced locally out of Dallas, TX.  Slowly, with my own intentional Bible study on the issues of manhood, marriage and family, the veil of ignorance began to lift; change and growth in my fathering through the help and power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin and sinful flesh fed character flaws, attitudes and behavior that continues to this day!⁵

   

            Even so, though well intended and better than no man and fatherhood church instruction at all in the early 1990s, the growing popular teaching clearly was not fully biblical as I was learning since for example, while God’s order of mankind electing men as leaders was acknowledged, it was not being practiced in the many of churches of American Christianity.⁶  Biblically conservative churches of every hue that will be true to “the whole counsel of God” must repent as I did from departure from it in any teaching of man and fatherhood and their example; dereliction to intentionally present it as the apostle Paul modeled (Acts 20:25-27; Ephesians 6:4, NKJV).⁷  Worse off than I was in ignorance, 21^st century males coming to Christ absolutely need this instruction in a confused culture now, hostile to it!

   

  1 Though I write here primarily of churches I did not also serve as pastor, in full transparency I acknowledge coming up short of and not doing more to reach the instructional

     mark I write about when I was a pastor. 

  2 The  book  is  published  by Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and available in print or digital formats at major internet booksellers.  You can also purchase a print

     copy along with its companion, The Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study for in-person or virtual use in the Strong Man Store.

  3 Physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually present or absent, biological fathers teach our sons and daughters whether we purposely intend to or not.  Writing in my book

     and  other places, it is the standing and force of authority God has given to and designed men with that is the source and cause of this.  Read especially my June 21, 2015

     part one post, Mama’s boys, under the category, Black History.

  4 Very importantly, with church instruction also came a sense of accountability, empathy and group support. 

  5 Without making excuses for  myself or any professed Christian not an active rebel (writing the following only to clarify the biblically taught reality of the marathon journey we

     are on), Christians are not fully formed at new spiritual birth anymore than a physically newborn human being.  Christian fathers as redeemed sinners develop and grow over

     time  (some  slower  than  others) into this role as all of our other roles through the often painful process of uncovering and being convicted by God about sinful thinking, atti-

     tudes and conduct in putting “off the old” and putting “on the new  man,” (Ephesians 4:17-32, NKJV).  We struggle with sin aroused by the Law within and righteousness and

     must  have  our minds renewed putting on the new man as a conscious and deliberate decision every moment to walk in the Spirit our Helper (John 14:15-18; Romans 7:12-

     8:13; Galatians 5:16-25).

  6 See the three-part post beginning January 8, 2017, In God’s Revival Men Are Restored, under the category, The Cause.

  7 Read the September 20, 2020 post, What Will It Profit A Man?, under the category, The Cause.

• Fathers Help Build Excellent Wives

            As I concluded in an October 2020 post, it is only fitting that females embracing worldly feminism taught by demons in these “latter times” as foretold should be part of the multi-faceted rebellion against God and His Anointed, the Lord Jesus Christ (Psalm 2:1-3; Acts 4:23-28; 1 Timothy 4:1, NKJV).¹  Indeed, the rebellion against God in all of its forms is a manifest sign of the world now, being fully in its latter times just before His return as He has led me to assert in many posts from Bible prophecy.²  Worldly feminists in their rebellion against God and His Anointed are focused on undoing His purposeful and perfect design of the order, roles and responsibilities of mankind.

   

            In rebelling against God’s assignment of male authority through the husband-father in His design of family order particularly, feminists seek to overthrow it and re-structure the family after their own design.  In their design rooted in their rebel vision of equality, there are impossibly two family heads, no head and an equal sharing of authority or the acceptance of females just as capable to lead--a reality in many homes by deliberate male default to avoid drama or acquiescence in spiritual ignorance and/or weakness.  Not only has this rebel vision of family authority impacted marriages, but it has left the children confused especially about their very important relationship with their fathers.

   

            While in His design as the Lord has led me to write in other places, fathers teach the whole family His Word generally and their sons specifically about biblical manhood,³ they also have important teaching as well as leading, providing and protecting responsibilities to their not of age and single daughters at home.  Full disclosure here for me in that much of what I am about to write I have learned after my daughters in a blended family became adults.  I wish I had exercised the knowledge I did have more wisely in their youth with that which I have gained since.  And of course, back then, I completely underestimated the extent to which feminism would consistently undercut my efforts.⁴

   

            Worldly feminism has purposely set daughters against their fathers as in no other time in the history of mankind!  In the short span of the mid-1960s until now, many females urged through feminism to resist male authority have also been rebelling against their father’s God assigned family headship over them up to the time of marriage (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:3-6).  Godly fathers exercised authority over and taught daughters to value themselves and their bodies by staying virgins until given to husbands with their permission (Genesis 24:10-51; 1 Corinthians 7:34-38).  They also provided for and protected them from lust driven, sex seeking males like me as an unsaved teenager.

   

            The value of a female virgin was such that male family members would kill a man that soiled their sister who as today, were often traumatized (Genesis 34; 2 Samuel 13:1-33).  God’s laws to Israel also reflected the female virgin’s value (Exodus 22:16-17).  In my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, writing about the absence of women as lifelong celibates in the Bible the Lord leads me to present the sad case of Jephthah’s daughter who as a virgin, mourned not that she would die because of her father’s wrongheaded vow, but having kept herself pure, the fact she would not ever know marriage and family (Judges 11:29-40).⁵  Fathers and daughters valued their purity.⁶

   

            However, the Women’s Liberation (from God’s order and morality) Movement born of worldly feminism and followed closely by the Sexual Revolution enabled through birth control and abortions changed everything!  I am a living witness to and participant in these historical events which seemed like a boon to us males everywhere at the time, but as in so much of what feels good for the moment, the consequential aftermath has not been pleasant at all.⁷  Fathers that understood something of God’s ancient will for them were thrown aback.  Suddenly, professed Christian females who had understood their value as virgins and intended to remain so until marriage were greatly challenged.

   

            Still, in the midst of a world where our daughters are urged to scorn and rebel against us from every quarter, aspiring strong man of God fathers must stand firm in the fact God’s will, way and Word concerning His order, our roles and responsibilities are right!  Start as young as you can teaching all your children to understand the realm of your home is different from the world outside because you have chosen to follow Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  Let them know you would like to have them choose to follow Him also, but until then, your home is built on the values and life outlook you have from a biblical worldview that is non-negotiable (Joshua 24:14-15).  Be consistent while also being relationally available and providing alternative activities when needed that are “fun.”

   

            Make sure you affirm the value of your daughters as persons of worth and dignity.  This does not mean pandering after them as even some Christian father-daughter gurus seem to suggest, but imitate God the perfect Father (Genesis 16; Numbers 12).⁸  Knowing His will for females to marry and bear children, encourage them to pursue an education and a line of work by which they can sustain themselves on their own until then.  Otherwise, if they choose to stay home under your authority to further their education and/or work while waiting for God to bring His man to them, give them adult space, but with the understanding you and all house rules must be honored; a circumspect lifestyle maintained.  In all this you work with God to build daughters into excellent wives (Proverbs 31:28-29).

   

  1 See the October 11, 2020 post, The Great Woman Of God’s Character, under the category, The Cause.

  2 Read the April 8, 2018 post, The Second Adam Rules And Judges, under the category, Bible Prophecy, along with the three-part post beginning April 18, 2021, Daughters Of
     This Age, under the category, God’s Creatures as examples.

  3 See  the  June  13,  2021 post, The Heart Of A Son, under the category, Instruction and on July 11, 2021, A Father And Mother On Purpose, under the category, God’s Crea-
     tures.

  4 No  matter  what  my  daughters that lived with me watched in the media or where they went--school, church, friend’s homes etc., what their father taught them at home from
     a biblical worldview such as I knew was challenged by the rebel views of feminism among others of this world! I know I am not alone in my experience and this is the reason,
     no  doubt,  the Lord in part has me writing this post to encourage and help a struggling Christian father; his daughter if she will give heed.  For as aspiring strong men of God
     in  the image of Christ we are not to just throw up our hands in exasperation caving into the way the world works in rebellion.  But this too, is part of fighting “the good fight of
     faith,” (1 Timothy 6:11-16, NKJV)!

  5 The  book  is  available  at  your  favorite  internet book seller and in the Strong Man Store.  The prospect of lifelong celibacy and sexual purity are are also discussed in The
     Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study available through the same outlets.

  6 I  will  say  it  again here.  Sons are also to be taught to value their virginity until marriage.  Sinful men have historically allowed a wicked double standard I acknowledge and
     condemn in Christ.

  7 Casual  and  no  fault  sex  has led to unprecedented promiscuity, millions of out of wed-lock births and abortions (used as birth control after the fact when either unprotected
     intercourse  or  other  forms  of  pregnancy  prevention  measures  failed),  unmarried couples living together in large numbers, inconsequential adultery,  increased date and
     stranger  rapes,  an  out  of control porn industry with related addiction, sex trafficking, sexual abuse and perversion, widespread and incurable sexually transmitted diseases
     as well as a long trail of broken and ruined lives.

  8 God never compromises righteousness while also being gracious and merciful. Having then, given the warning about pandering after daughters leading inevitably to a father
     compromising  God’s  standards  of  righteousness  for  the  sake  of  being  loving  and  accepting,  I  defer to the counsel of more qualified men such as Dr. James Dobson,
     Dr. Kevin Leman  and  Dr. Willie Richardson  among  other  faithful  Christians  as  experts to help.  Under  no  circumstances  do I encourage following the advice of anyone
     about raising daughters that is accommodating to the rebel values of feminism as though it will perpetually stand as the defining global norm.  Truly, even “Before the coming
     of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of the Lord” near at hand, the Lord is sending the prophet Elijah to restore fathers and children in Israel as well as the willing beyond (Mala-
     chi 4, NKJV)!

• Rebel Children Of Godly Fathers

              The  final  rebellion  of  this  mortal  age  will feature the combined forces of fallen angels and unregenerate humans in the multiplied millions led by Satan marching against King Jesus ruling from Jerusalem. This occurs after His millennial reign ends in accord with His Father’s will so that He might eternally destroy them all (Ezekiel 38:1-17; Revelation 20:7-10)! You would think they would have learned their lesson at Armageddon when a thousand years before, God moved to restore Israel and displayed His superior power over the opposing fallen angels and human ancestors of those now being destroyed in His holy fire (Ezekiel 38:18-39:29; Revelation 16:15-21, 19:11-20:3). 

   

              However, rebellion rooted in sin can and will not reform itself to submit to God (Romans 8:7). This is the reason God in His infinite wisdom has called men to a salvation that immediately begins to regenerate and sanctify them from sin. Consequently, all aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ understand that the urgent imperative of our fathering like the Father is to lead our children to faith in Christ and teach them about Him by precept and example! I want to encourage the godly men who like me nobly set out to do this very thing but have seen only mixed or limited results; godly fathers whose children are rank rebels of this world in spite of our best efforts.

   

              First, let us be clear. No parents in the history of this world have ever raised a perfect child but God, Joseph and Mary of Nazareth! Therefore, those of you reading this that proudly look down on us with rebel children: it was not your perfect parenting that may have spared you from the more obvious displays of sin in your child’s life or some special favor with God that caused any one of them to get saved. Truly, unsaved and rebellious parents end up with children that get saved every day as was my own case. My parents could lay no claim to leading me to faith in Jesus Christ because they did not even try. My grandmother took us to church periodically and that was it for family outreach.

   

              Second, stop measuring yourself against the supposedly perfect fathering of my fellow authors in their how to books, pastors and the men at church whose children seem to be perfect. If you have done your best in seeking to be a father as modeled by God the Father, then hold your head up in thanksgiving that you have pleased Him--He knows you were not perfect and accepts this fact as reality. After all, He as the only true perfect Father had His creatures destined to be sons rebel against Him (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:6-11). Is anyone in their right mind faulting God as a failed Father because Eve and Adam rebelled? Or which of you perfect fathers will counsel Him (Job 36:22-23)?

   

              Indeed, the rebellion against God by Adam’s seed continues to this very hour even among those claiming to love Him; those who by their rebellion show that they despise Him (Malachi 1:6-14; John 14:15; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 14:33-37). The Bible is also sprinkled with incidents of children rebelling against their godly fathers. One of the most famous of these is the case of Absalom when he rebelled against his father, David (2 Samuel 15). Now, David, as an imperfect father, did have some serious failures including when he did not severely discipline his son, Amnon for raping Absalom’s sister (2 Samuel 13). Still, this was no excuse for Absalom to rebel against his father.

   

              For while God did permit the adversity of a rebellious son to come forth as judgment on David for his sin in the Bathsheba affair (2 Samuel 12:7-12), God Himself rose up against Absalom to destroy him in his rebellion against his father (2 Samuel 17:5-14; 18:1-18). Divine destruction in judgment is the final end of all unrepentant rebels whether it is my child or yours. This is why God made honoring parents one of His Ten Commandments and put capital punishment in the laws of Israel as a stern deterrent for those children that would hit or curse them or be rebellious without repentance (Exodus 20:12, 21:15, 17; Deuteronomy 21:18-21). And woe to those adults that support the rebellion of a man’s child against him as has happened to me (Romans 12:19)!

   

              Last, my fellow godly father, keep praying and hopeful for your rebel child until your dying breath. In contemporary history, Franklin Graham, the son of one of Christianity’s greatest Evangelists, Billy Graham, rebelled as a youth against his father by his own testimony. Yet, like the prodigal son of our Lord’s parable given in part to show God the Father’s patient wait in love for His rebellious sons, he returned home in repentance from the “far country” of rebellion (Luke 15:11-24, NKJV). As Ezekiel 18:1-18 teaches, each soul is responsible to God for his own actions. If after having done your best, your children rebel, God does not hold you accountable--you did not fail!

   

              In the final analysis, our rebellious children have done what their God given free will has desired in rebellion to do: rebel! No question about it; watching the self-destructive deeds of our rebel children is painful and it gets worse. Truly, God’s Word foretells a widespread feature of these latter days is the pain of having our rebel children in the midst of much family betrayal, turn on us to the point of betraying us to death--get prepared (Micah 7:5-7; Matthew 10:21-22, 34-39; Mark 13:12-13)! Nevertheless, your pain will never be greater than our holy God who must destroy them if they never repent. At that time, we will see if the children of the perfect fathers stay true to them and God or not.

   

• Motherhood In A Time Of Rebellion

              In his aloneness, mortal Adam fully equipped by God for procreation yearned for the corresponding companion that would be found to help him fulfill the divine ordained mission (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:7-20). When he saw the wife God created from him, for him every part of his inner being as well as hormone in his body was set ablaze with joy and marriage was instituted by the Lord (Genesis 2:21-25)! As richly satisfying as relationship in marriage was to be, God’s priority is the mission He gave Adam and his wife reflected in her name (Genesis 3:20) and that continues to this day in spite of a raging rebellion against it that has only intensified since I posted the following blog last year. Sadly, we should only expect this rebellion to continue intensifying.

   

  Originally Posted May 12, 2013

   

              Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers reading this blog! By God’s design only human females can be mothers. As a critical partner with their husbands in the preservation and expansion of mortal humanity (without births, death would soon overtake and destroy mankind from the face of the earth), women as mothers are indispensable. Too, the natural love of a mother for her children is ancient; achieving such a high metaphorical status as bankable that even the Lord uses it in presenting His faithful love to Israel in the Bible’s Old Testament.

   

              In a context in which the Almighty assures the Jewish people of His efforts to preserve them for a future time of salvation and blessing, He says through the prophet: ‘“Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you,’” (Isaiah 49:15, NKJV). As faithful as a mother’s love used to be, God’s love is all the more so! Did you catch that? A mother’s love used to be as reliable as sinful, human reliability could get but not anymore! What has changed? How about the full on rebellion against God by women calling themselves feminists that exploded in the early 1960s who decided His original purposes for them as creatures is no longer acceptable?

   

              Many name Betty Friedan and her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique as the clarion call to resistance and seminal feminist moment. Whatever the human spark may have been, a generation later the feminist rebellion against God and His Word has so saturated the American culture that along with hyphenated last names for those that marry, abortion (the murder of a mother’s unborn child in or outside of the womb) is a normative form of birth control. The mainstream media has gone so far recently as to not initially cover the shocking trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell, for killing a female patient and four children born alive, shielding the government protected practice from negative publicity.

   

              How can a mother murder her child? As I have painfully witnessed as an unsaved youth, it is done out of deceit; the lie that what has been conceived in the mother’s womb is not a human life in its earliest stages of development. The deceit continues by elevating the final judgment of what a woman does with her body to being hers alone. O, how crafty that evil one who first lied to Eve to her face saying concerning the consequence of disobeying God’s tree directive, ‘“You will not surely die,”’ (Genesis 3:4, NKJV)! Now, to the faces of her daughters in this latter day rebellion he causes them to believe the lie that their authority as a creature exceeds that of their Creator who has created them to bear children and forbids the murder of human life (Genesis 1:27-28, 3:20, 9:1-7; Exodus 20:13; Isaiah 29:15-16; Matthew 5:17-20; Mark 10:17-19).

   

              Deceived by the god of this world already under judgment for his rebellion (Ezekiel 28:14-19; John 12:31, 16:7-11), narcissistic feminists are even empathetic with women that murder or abandon their born children to others; sacrificed to the causes of selfishness rather than the self-denying acts of loving motherhood as God designed.  To be sure, the feminist rebellion against God impacting motherhood dovetails with all of the other ways human beings at this hour are rejecting God and His Son, Jesus Christ along with the divine will, way and Word contained in the Bible. Indeed, this rebellion that reaches to many professing Christians and their churches and is a cause of increasing persecution is foretold by God as I have written in other blogs as well as my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics (Psalm 2:1-3; Matthew 24:9; Acts 4:13-31; 2 Timothy 3:1-4:5).

   

              Therefore, let every rebel woman and sympathizing man repent or else be warned again out of His love that the God that foretold your rebellion also foretells the coming of His wrath to squash it (Psalm 2:4-12; 96:13; Isaiah 13:6-13; Zephaniah 1:1-3, 14-2:3; Revelation 6:12-17)! Already the bodies of some rebels wither away in His judgment as the fig tree that became worthless to its Creator by not fulfilling the purpose it was created when called upon (Matthew 21:18-19). Let every aspiring great woman of God in the image of Christ stay true to His original purposes for you that you may be blessed now and as sons of God in the resurrection to immortal glory, forever! Get my book to learn more about God’s original purposes for women.

        

   

• The Need For Spiritual Fathering

              Of the greatest sins manifested among many church leaders today is the arrogance to believe that they can somehow improve upon and expedite God’s program for making and teaching disciples of Jesus Christ!  Though ancient now, the methods Christ and His apostles empowered by the Holy Spirit used to make disciples (preaching the Gospel) and teach them to obey God’s whole Word were effective (Mark 1:9-20, 3:13-19, 4:10-12, 33-34, 8:27-38; John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-16, 36-47).  Even so, 100% of the people who heard their preaching and teaching did not accept it (John 6:60-71; Acts 4:1-4).  Our problem is we want that 100% even if it means doing stuff in the flesh to get them!

   

              The Lord’s approach and example to teaching men as disciples was Self-denying, labor intensive and time consuming.  But these are the inescapable realities of spiritual fathering our Lord embraced as well as called, equipped and charged His disciples turned apostles to also do.  Church pastors are imperative in the work (John 21:15-17)!  Having been a pastor and mentor of boys and men I fully understand the demands especially of time spiritual fathering make on one’s life.  However, this is why a pastor equips those he spiritually fathers to do as he does.  If he is too busy to do what the Lord has commanded as his priority, then he is too busy!  As the Lord leads me to point out in this edited 2013 Commentary, men are being hurt because of disobedience to His commands.

   

  Originally Published September 2013

   

             While our Ministry celebrates every brave incarcerated man that steps out before our Strong Man Of God Rally assemblies to publically pray to receive Christ or rededicate to Him, it saddens me personally to see the great numbers that rededicate.  Most of these rededications are men that were Christians before their incarceration for a second or third time.  It is certainly true Christians that commit crimes must take personal responsibility for their actions.  However, after talking to many of these men it becomes clear that they are not getting the one on one mentoring of a “spiritual father” needed to deepen their walk with Christ in the churches they are members of as I did not early on.¹

   

              To be sure, the failure to make committed followers of Christ is a wide spread problem in the churches.  Spiritual infancy dominates today in a Western church culture that is more concerned with the numbers than whether members are maturing in Christ.  This lack of emphasis on the slow process of making disciples as our Lord commanded is hurting men the most since they are God’s chosen leaders in the home and churches.  Many sit and the relative few that serve largely do so as babes in Christ with no intentional plan to disciple them.  Once a month meetings and the annual golf tournament are not enough to turn baby Christian men into fiery, maturing disciples of Christ!

   

              As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, teaching his family is a responsibility God assigns every man.²  As the head of the house, a man teaches his wife and children.  As a father, he teaches all of the children, but with a special duty to mentor and guide his sons into manhood; his wife, their daughters into womanhood.  Beyond their families, aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ imitate Him in taking newborn Christian men under their wing to spiritually father them into maturity.  We know this process is slow because our Lord spent more than three years of intensive time with His twelve disciples, then the rest of the lives of those who became faithful apostles (Matthew 4:18-22; John 14:18, 16:12-15).

   

              In the Lord’s “Great Commission,” He commands His disciples to make, baptize and teach new disciples from all of the nations (Matthew 28:19-20).  As it concerns teaching, veteran disciples are to teach the new “to observe all things that” Christ had commanded them (vs. 20, NKJV).  Teaching what Christ “the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV) commanded entails more than just important doctrines, but also all of the thinking, attitudes and behaviors of Christ-likeness we are also to possess in pleasing God the Father as He did (Philippians 2:5).  To this end, the apostle Paul also instructed his spiritual sons to teach and pass on what they had learned to men who would do the same with other men also (2 Timothy 2:1-2; Titus 1:1-9, 2:1-5).

   

              To their shame, not only do many pastors and churches not encourage spiritual fathering or mothering in their ranks today, but too many have no formal discipleship instruction at all much less for newborn Christians in the pews who need the “pure milk of the Word” not the philosophical musings of men (1 Peter 2:1-3, NKJV).³  And for the churches that pride themselves on offering lofty sectarian seminary level courses such as Systematic Theology as sufficient to fulfill Christ’s command to teach especially babes, repent!  You are causing them to gag and choke in confusion on what is not even biblically organic, but sinful humanly processed and genetically altered meat (1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:14-16, 3:14-17).

   

              Shame too on you guilty pastors that look down on my work in the prisons as though it were inconsequential when Christ your Judge is recording for Judgment Day how many of the Christians I find there that are members of your churches (Romans 14:10-13; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11)!  We salute all of our fellow workers in the prisons filling in what lacks in the churches.  To the pastors that need help setting up a discipleship plan for new believers or want to know more about teaching biblical manhood to and spiritually fathering men contact this Ministry.⁴  The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"

   

  1 Read Part 1 of the August 21, 2016 post, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, instruction.  I lament the early lack of spiritual fathering that potentially

     could  have saved me from many painful failures and shortened the inordinate length of my infancy in Christ in the opening of this post and also that of the October 2,

     2016 post, Gifted With A Prophet’s Heart, under the category, Call To Repent.

  2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.

  3 See  the  September  25, 2016 post, A Leadership Caused Failure and Pastors As Developing Christian Men posted on December 17, 2017 both under the category,

     Call To Repent.

  4 Get contact information for Strong Man Ministries and learn about for example, the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study as an important help in making disciples of

    men and teaching them biblical manhood on our Web Site.