The Scourge Of Racism
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Released January 5, 2024
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I am fully thankful to God to be among those who are born again Christians according to His love, grace and mercy that brought His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to make it possible through His atoning sacrifice (John 1:1-18, 29, 3:1-21). Indeed, salvation is the number one thing I am thankful to God for this Thanksgiving and every day! From the Lord’s saving of my soul has flowed every other thing I am thankful for not the least of which is His continuing work to help my progress toward becoming that strong man of God in the image of Christ I aspire to be (Philippians 3:12-14)! If you don’t know Him, I urge you to read last week’s post where I present God’s only means to His salvation through the Gospel.1 Have a safe, God honoring Thanksgiving holiday!
1 See the November 14, 2021 post, Overcoming The Male And Female Challenge, under the category, The Cause.
In between the frantic activities of the week, reflect on this edited 2011 repost.
Originally Posted November 18, 2011
Thanksgiving has almost been lost as “Black Friday” and the “Holiday Shopping Season” looms large. Besides the commercialism and greed for which Thanksgiving has become only a launch pad, the holiday has lost some of its luster spiritually as our secular society requires only a passing attitude of gratitude to satisfactorily celebrate the day. Thinking of the blessings of God are no longer required as the warm and fuzzy feelings of gathering with family and friends takes the top spot as the reason for having had a really great holiday.
Echoing the declaration of that ancient aspiring strong man of God, Joshua: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” (Joshua 24:15, NKJV). In an extra special way from our routine on Thanksgiving, we will reflect on the goodness of our God who has saved and blessed us abundantly in so many ways over the past year. I can lead my family to do this thankfully to God, because I have a wife who lets me serve in my role and place as the head of our family. I challenge every man reading this to prayerfully seek the Lord for the courage to lead your family to at least have a special prayer time giving thanks to God if in fact, this practice has been lost in your Christian house.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
In light of the posts the Lord led me to write beginning September 25-November 13, 2022, this Thanksgiving I am beside myself with gratitude to know and walk with Him by faith! I am grateful too, in those posts along with all of my service to the Lord through Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. to still be on this side of Heaven declaring His mighty works--past, present and future (Psalm 118:17-18)! This is part of His good ends in allowing me to have been afflicted with Prostate Cancer which in accord with His promise of deliverance nearly a year ago to the date He gave it, I am progressing toward fulfillment.1 Truly, God is good to those who look to Him. “Oh, give thanks” with me to God daily and this Thanksgiving, “for He is good,” (Psalm 136:1-3, NKJV)!
1 Read the July 24, 2022 post, Afflicted For God’s Glory And My Good, under the category Glory To God! Also, watch the corresponding Bible Instruction message the Lord gave me to proclaim, Afflicted For God’s Good Ends! on our Strong Man Virtual Institute Channel for a more in-depth presentation on affliction as chastening He brings and/or allows into the lives of His sons for our good.
In light of the Harvey and now, Irma Hurricanes that have hit our nation, I am foregoing posting the celebratory new blog post for this week the Lord gave me and with His permission joining the faithful in praying for His mercy as well as the welfare of our impacted citizens. My wife and I along with this Ministry have also joined with many in providing financial assistance for those still suffering from Hurricane Harvey through a trusted disaster relief outlet. This moment, however, is a time of continuing prayer and sober reflection for our nation as the Lord led me to warn in the introduction of my Mother’s Day blog re-post this year concerning the certainty of His coming judgment upon our nation for its many sins. I also warned in an August 30th post on our Facebook Resource Page that all of this activity of the natural order is foretold "labor pains."
Please re-read or read that Mother's Day blog re-post for the first time and understand, the God of the Bible is serious about sin. In its introduction specifically, the Lord has me reference Jeremiah 30:23-24 that speaks about “the whirlwind of the LORD,” going forth in fury “in the latter days,” (NKJV). According to the dictionary, a whirlwind is an apt description of several kinds of serious wind events to include the hurricane. The Lord had earlier warned ancient Israel not to listen to lying prophets as I so sadly do you now, that speak only comforting words, but do not warn the guilty to repent since God brings judgment on our and all nations because of sin (Jeremiah 23:16-22, 25:30-32).1
1 Re-read or read my January 3,,2016 blog, The Never Changing God, under the category, Call To Repent. Among other things, it presents the Christian preacher’s responsibility before God in the disasters He allows or brings on the earth.
God’s salvation from my sins in Christ is the best thing that ever happened for me! When I think about how by even at the young age of twenty I had lived such a sinful life and was still alive to tell about it, I am fully thankful to God for His longsuffering He obviously had graciously and mercifully shown me. A wretch if there ever was one not a few who knew me in those days would hesitate to affirm, I marvel to this day that God forgave my sins, filled me with His Holy Spirit and took up residence in me on that Easter Sunday 1977 to begin the intended “forever” relationship He undertakes with all of those He saves (John 1:12-13, 3:1-8, 7:37-39, 14:15-24; Acts 2:36-39, NKJV).
While it took the Lord another 22 months from when He entered my life to finally have me get real with Him during a time of fasting and consecration He commanded me to,1 in the years since, I have been undergoing everything I wrote about from Scripture in a post earlier this month concerning the transformational renewing and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.2 I am a living witness that when a professed Christian gets real with God in all submission and letting go of the world, the Holy Spirit will supernaturally act to begin transforming our way of thinking formerly governed by Satan, sin and self for example, to the bring it into line with “the mind of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 2:6-16, NKJV).3
In The Scourge Of Racism, I write about experiences with racism from my youth that filled me with anger and futile bitterness.4 Having been made in the image of the perfectly just and righteous God (Genesis 1:26a) though it is fallen due to sin, all mankind at some level has an angry reaction to injustice and unrighteous wrongdoing. For this cause, I can still be angered by the bigoted attitudes of racism and attending acts of discrimination I experience and/or see happen to others in the world. But now, after years of the mind renewing work of the Holy Spirit I am learning to dispose of my anger properly (Ephesians 4:17-32). When I do, bitterness cannot set up in my heart.5
In renewing my mind, the Holy Spirit has also fully convinced me to trust in Christ’s defeat of racism and all sin on the cross (Hebrews 9:26b); His fiery victory over racism and all forms of evil in the coming vengeance of His and the Father’s wrath (Romans 12:19; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10; 2 Peter 3:10-13)! Too, the Holy Spirit has given me the means through His spiritual gifts, calling and ministry to help His way in the right now struggle against racism and all of the harmful sins of humanity. As a preacher of the Gospel, I am able to joyfully herald the salvation of God in Christ that made human and my inner regeneration possible; teach about it as a teacher to willing believers and as I have in The Scourge Of Racism, serve also as the Lord’s watchman/prophet calling His people to obedience.
1 Read the February 17, 2019 post, Surrendering All To Jesus, under the category, Glory To God!
2 See the November 12, 2023 post, Loving With The Love Of God, under the category, Instruction.
3 Aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ are taught in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics that having the mind of Christ is an absolute imperative! The book is available in the Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Editions in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
4 The Scourge Of Racism, Copyright 2023, ODCM Publishing Division, Portland, OR, p. 31-32. These cited pages briefly present my introduction to racism growing up in Seaside, CA on the Monterey Peninsula. Get the recently released book in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores. Watch the book trailer.
5 Bitterness as an entitlement right of victimization many blacks cling to is contrary to the will of God for the professed Christian (Ephesians 4:30-32). If you are living in bit- terness you are walking outside of Christ. He bids you return to Him. Understand this fully by watching our thirty minute Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, on YouTube.
As the Lord leads, in this post for now, I wrap up talking about His Father’s planned eternal day very near; that day He has prepared for those He has saved from His just wrath against sinners by grace through faith in Christ which launches it.1 Professed Christians have been the first audience for the posts discussing His eternal day as the culmination of those the Lord led me to write July 2-23, 2023. Depending on whether or not the professed Christian reader was truly saved and faithful, the posts I pray were hope inspiring! If not, then, the Lord made clear His call to return lest you miss out on God’s eternal day.2 As always, unsaved sinners were an important second audience for the posts.
For the sake of the unsaved sinner, as the Holy Spirit gives words and power I humbly yet again declare the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ; that out of God’s love He came into the world to die on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. All who repent of their sins and place their faith in Christ’s atoning work announced in the Gospel will be forgiven and saved from eternal condemnation and God’s approaching just wrath against sinners. Too, the believer is brought to spiritual birth and eternal life by the Holy Spirit who also marks him out for God’s eternal day (John 3:16-21, 36; Acts 2:36-40; Romans 10:11-13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Ephesians 1:3-14).
Beyond superficial intellectual assent to the Gospel announcement as belief in its content, the Lord instructs that the one truly saved came to it and Him with the heart of a humble little child. He said, ‘“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven,’” (Matthew 18:1-4, NKJV). To be converted is to experience a real change of heart first toward one’s sins from calloused acceptance to grief they exist with appeal for rescue granted (Matthew 5:2-6)!3 Second, it is to appreciate from the heart what God has done in Christ to deliver us from our sin guilt through unmerited forgiveness (Romans 3:9-4:8, 5:6-11, 6:23).
The Holy Spirit would have me also review what is at stake for the unsaved sinner as one who never accepts the Gospel or one of the many impostors that proliferate within professing Christianity at this hour. If you never receive the Gospel and become converted before dying, at your death you will be sent to Hades under the earth to await the judgment of your works. And not being found in the “Book of Life,” you will be excluded from God’s eternal day in Hell forever (Luke 16:19-31; Revelation 20:11-15, NKJV)! Concerning religious folk as impostors in and outside of the churches that even in His ‘“name’” do astounding works, the Lord is clear the same fate is yours (Matthew 7:21-23, NKJV).4
The same fate also awaits ‘“anyone’” who ‘“worships the beast (Antichrist) and his image, and receives his mark…’” or who remains hardened to the Gospel up until God in wrath launches His eternal day (Revelation 14:9-11, 16:1-21, NKJV). If it is all like that for unfaithful Christians, the unsaved and religious impostors, how could it be those that abandon the faith as apostates have a place in God’s eternal day? They don’t (John 15:6; Hebrews 3:7-19, 6:4-8, 10:37-39)!5 The Word of the Lord as it is written could not be plainer: ‘“But he who endures to the end will be saved,’” (Matthew 10:22, 24:13; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:19, NKJV). We then, who are by faith truly saved must faithfully endure in it with all perseverance to the end to enjoy God’s eternal day (Hebrews 10:35-36)!6
(I am taking Labor Day off next Sunday, September 3rd with thanks to God for the privilege to labor in His Kingdom causes! He willing, my next post appears September 10th. Enjoy your Labor Day.)
1 Read the following posts: July 30, 2023, There Is An End!, August 13, 2023, There Is A New Beginning! and August 20, 2023, God’s Eternal Day Firmly Established, all un- der the category, Bible Prophecy.
2 As it is referenced in each of the posts noted in the above footnote and now, this one, the Lord is calling His dull of hearing sheep among others as well to turn back to Him with a whole heart through this Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, featured on its dedicated YouTube Channel.
3 Indeed, the transformation of heart in biblical conversion is so thorough, the person saved is described as “a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new,” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NKJV). If that is not you in heart, then, you are not saved!
4 Read the September 4, 2016 post, Christianity The Religion American Style and the related two-part post that begins September 11, 2016, American Culture’s Religion, both under the category, Call To Repent to consider the truth that Christianity as a religion of human invention and practice does not impress God nor can it save!
5 Let every professed Christian and any self-anointed “good person” claiming a spot in God’s eternal day and holy city carefully consider who is excluded by Him and Christ (Revelation 21:8, 27, 22:12-17)!
6 This is most certainly the aim of every aspiring strong man and great woman of God I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. Pick up your Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Edition in the Strong Man Store, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
Sometime between the fourth and ninth months of her pregnancy, Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus Christ and her betrothed husband, Joseph, received word of an imperial edict that would require them to leave Nazareth. As Gospel writer, Luke, reports, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus” Roman Emperor at the time, “that all the world (controlled by the Roman Empire) should be registered,” (Luke 2:1-2, NKJV). Consequently, the couple made their way to a Judean town named Bethlehem. They had to make this seventy to ninety mile trek because as members of the tribe of Judah and descendants of king David, both needed to register there (Luke 2:3-5).
Mary had just traveled to an unnamed “city of Judah” in the first trimester of her pregnancy to visit “Elizabeth,” her “relative” who like her, was the recipient of God’s grace and supernatural power. Elizabeth was enabled to conceive a son by natural means “in her old age.” Their joyous initial interaction is one for the ages (Luke 1:36-56, NKJV)! Now, fully showing in her pregnancy, Mary’s trip to Bethlehem in obedience to the decree of Caesar Augustus with thousands of others from all over Israel would not be as easy. Indeed, it was not intended to be since the inconvenience of the trip was not of God’s perfect, but His permissive will, foreknowledge and prophetic purpose.
Caesar’s census decree at that precise moment in history was of Satan as he continued persecuting and seeking for ways to destroy the unborn Son of God to keep Him from coming into the world!1 A census in and of itself is not evil for the Lord commanded Moses to number Israel as one means to collect an offering to Him designated “for the service of the tabernacle of meeting,” (Exodus 30:11-16, 38:25-26, NKJV). God also commanded Moses to take a census of the males twenty years old and over “who are able to go to war,” (Numbers 1:1-4, NKJV) and did so again after He had punished Israel with a plague that killed thousands (Numbers 25-26:4).
However, it is also written, “Now, Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel,” (1 Chronicles 21:1, NKJV). The king’s motive was the sin of pride for which God punished the nation (1 Chronicles 21:2-17).2 Having the title “Augustus” (meaning “exalted” as one divine), Satan easily moved Caesar in pride not only to know the number of Roman citizens throughout his empire, but non-citizens under subjection to press into his service and tax to finance his ambitions. The Jews chafed under Roman taxation this new census would facilitate and no doubt the burden of traveling to their ancestral regions to register Joseph and Mary now, found themselves doing as well.
Not able to cause the possible destruction of her unborn Son through miscarriage or otherwise during the perilous, untimely journey to Bethlehem, Satan waited in the shadows for an opportunity in the town when the time for Mary’s delivery came (Luke 2:6). The town overflowing with descendants of Judah and David made it very hard to secure a suitable place as the devil anticipated. In the place scholars debate was either a cave, stable or home where animals were sheltered because there was no other room for them, Mary lay in the agony of labor;3 vicariously embodying one of the major purposes of her people, Israel: to be God’s means of bringing His Son into the World (Romans 9:1-5)!
A “great” summary prophetic “sign” the apostle John was later shown affirms the foregoing truth (Revelation 12:1-2, NKJV). “Another sign” in the same prophetic review of messianic history depicts Satan as “a great, fiery red dragon” that “stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born,” (Revelation 12:3-4, NKJV). He was not permitted by God to do so as Mary “brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger,” (Luke 2:7; Revelation 12:5a, NKJV). Frustrated yet again, the devil could only look on powerlessly as God sent angels to announce to lowly Jewish shepherds what the nation had been waiting generations for--the birth of “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord,” (Luke 2:8-20, NKJV)!
1 Read the December 4, 2022 post, Christ Persecuted Before Birth, under the category, Instruction.
2 As the Lord leads me to address in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, pride is the number one sin of men--saved and unsaved! Our enemy, Satan, knows just the right recipe of temptations to bring it out of us. Get my book and learn what God has provided for our victory more often than not as aspiring strong men of God in in the image of Jesus Christ! It is available at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore and the Strong Man Store.
3 I invite every aspiring great woman of God in the image of Christ to get the Strong Man Of God Audio Resource, Christmas From Eve To Mary to hear three messages the Lord led me to preach celebrating human femininity as designed by Him! Learn more about this resource, listen to a sample and make your purchase exclusively in the Strong Man Store.
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