The Scourge Of Racism
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In last week’s post, I announced this Ministry’s evangelistic outreach with the Gospel to Generations Y and Z through our latest Online Rally.1 The preaching of the Gospel and witnessing of Christ to make disciples has been and will remain the starting place of our restoration work among men and all mankind until God’s end! This priority is consistent with and clearly signals our continuing obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ who gave it as the Great Commission to His followers (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-49). Search high and low in the New Testament and you will not find a directive from the Lord to seek to save any nation, no, not even Israel, but souls from among them!
As a concerned, voting citizen of this nation with family and progeny here, I empathize with those calling themselves conservative Christians and patriots that want to fight to save it from its very obvious downward spiral to collapse. But this is not the priority Christ has given His followers. We may use every legal, biblically righteous and praiseworthy means to stand against the evil destroying America as our secondary labor, but the first task authentic believers in Jesus Christ have been given following His example is taking the Gospel to the lost or did He not know Israel was occupied and oppressed by pagan Rome (Matthew 4:12-17; Luke 13:1-3, 15:1-10, 19:1-10, 20:20-26)?
It is actually the Lord’s assignment to preach the Gospel and witness Him making disciples with revival among those already claiming to be in the fold as positive outcomes that hold out the best chance of at least bringing about a temporary slowdown to our nation’s self-destruction as I similarly wrote previously.2 Otherwise, fighting as a priority to forcibly impose biblical morality through political and legal processes on a nation in the majority that does not want it hastens the day of its collapse! The angry response to the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade is Exhibit A for the open hostility in the nation toward plain biblical morality and righteousness (Exodus 20:13).
Indeed, the Supreme Court decision taking away the ungodly legal sanction of murder has awakened virulent hostility toward Christians like no other time in our nation’s history.3 The reaction is comparable to taking away an addict’s stash without consent. Expecting the deprived addict to be calmly accepting of this is absurd! Only salvation with Holy Spirit wrought true conversion and biblical instruction can cause anti-Christians enraged by the Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade to be “renewed” in their thinking (Ephesians 4:17-24, NKJV). Hence, the wise focus in obedience to Christ on saving souls as a first priority is the best hope for prolonging the nation past a sooner downfall.4
Even so, there is no biblical guarantee the sovereign God will allow America to stand any longer than necessary to harvest from it the balance of souls He has foreknown from eternity will answer His call to repentance and faith in the Gospel of His Son. Working through The Acts Of The Apostles in my personal Bible study, I have been amazed yet again at their faithful evangelistic labor focusing on saving souls, not nations. After the Lord checked them on their anticipation of immediate national restoration and set their priority work on witnessing Him, His twelve apostles maintained their hope for Israel’s future restoration as they obeyed Him (Acts 1:4-8, 15-2:41, 3:11-26, 10:24-48).
The Jewish apostle Christ sent to us Gentiles, Saul of Tarsus also called Paul, was of the same mind (Acts 13:13-49; Romans 11). He made several missionary trips making many disciples from Syria, the Mediterranean Islands, Western Asia, the provinces of Greece and finally Rome itself. Never once did he speak of preserving even his home town or the Jewish homeland. Instead, he concurred with the Lord’s prophecy of wrath coming upon his fellow Jews which it did in 70 AD (Luke 21:20-24; 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16). While Jerusalem as the birthplace of Christianity was destroyed and the Jews scattered from the land first, Syrian Antioch and most of the other great cities and territories Paul in Acts preached the Gospel eventually came to ruin also.
Only standing at this hour (with a few other locales where Christianity once took hold in the first century whose final humiliation is in God’s foretold plans) after over nineteen hundred years of ruin because Jerusalem is still destined for its greatest days (Zechariah 14:16-21), the Gospel is being preached anew in it. The point being history clearly shows God as affirmed in His Word has been more concerned about the Gospel being preached for the salvation of souls than the preservation of nations! Those that believe our nation is so exceptional God would not allow its collapse need to sober up in the face of this reality.5 To be about our Lord’s business is to be zealously preaching the Gospel to make disciples as His priority, not fighting to preserve a nation He is judging (Psalm 2)!
1 Read the July 31, 2022 post, God’s Message Of Reconciliation Proclaimed, under the category, The Cause.
2 See the two-part post beginning September 11, 2016, American Culture’s Religion, under the category, Call To Repent. Our nation is in trouble not only because many do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, but also due to the fact a large number that profess to know Him including among conservatives who want all to honor certain moral prin- ciples from the Bible are hypocritically not obeying His Word as it is written themselves and refuse to repent!
3 The Supreme Court’s decision will be looked back on as a trigger event for the coming violent persecution of Christians in America virulent hostility morphs into the Lord has been leading me to warn about (see the two-part post that begins May 17, 2020, Persecution, Hatred And Betrayal, under the category, Bible Prophecy). Their vio- lent persecution explodes on all the saints because of the persistent, forceful acts by conservative, mostly religionist professed Christians through political and legal means from the court’s decision to continue rolling back more of what the unsaved and rebels consider social “progress.”
4 Lack of the transforming power of God in the Gospel at work is the reason anti and those professing to be Christians out of alignment with Christ and His priority of making disciples are so bewildered about why their worldly based efforts to bring peace and order to their lawless communities are not working. I can understand this of unbeliev- ers, but professed Christian pastors and churches--seriously?
5 Some conservative white professed Christians on Christian television of late have been attempting to rebuke biblical conservatives from all hues for not supporting their idolatrous fervor for saving America. On the sly, they have even used blacks that share their view of American history and exceptionalism in an attempt to negate biblically conservative black voices like mine. Shame on the guilty for falling back on this old, well worn tactic of using either unsuspecting or outright complicit blacks to attempt to nullify the righteous truth spoken by those with whom they disagree. Shame too, on the guilty blacks for being complicit out of a desire for their support. Let all repent! For yet another time I cry out in the Lord: biblical conservatism is not the equivalent of political and social conservatism though, the latter selectively borrows from the for- mer! Biblical conservatives in the image of Christ present and stand on God’s Word as it is written (Luke 4:1-21). They as it suits them with their opposition substantiate their claims by the clever and corrupt twisting of Scripture.
Patriotism is found among individuals in all of the nations on earth! It becomes idolatry when the love for and devotion given to one’s nation including service and gifts exceeds that which is given to “the only true God,” (John 17:3, NKJV). This prescription for idolatry also applies to anyone or thing that we may become devoted to beyond our nation. For the first commandment of ten proclaimed by God to and written for Israel that also embodies the uppermost of His eternal transcendent spiritual principles is ‘“You shall have no other gods before Me,’” (Exodus 20:3, NKJV).1 Excessive devotion to a nation in idolatry is as precarious and detrimental as it is with any other god of this age!
Adam at the beginning and all mankind thereafter in whatever ethnic and/or national groupings were supposed to exclusively bow to and worship the God of the Bible as our Creator and sovereign Ruler (Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17; Acts 17:22-28). However, Satan, that fallen angel, worked to turn the first man’s heart from God by successfully enticing his wife, then he, to disobey Him (Genesis 3:1-11). Later, God did what He had never done or would do again. He purposely formed a nation through the elect men Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Personally acted to bring them out of bondage to another nation to be His own people, Israel (Exodus 2:23-25; Deuteronomy 4:32-40; Romans 3:1-2, 9:1-5).2
It is in the context of making a covenant with Israel that God gave them His Law contained in Ten Commandments He audibly spoke to them then, along with Moses wrote them and related ordinances, statutes and judgments (Deuteronomy 5:1-22, 9:9-11, 31:24-29; Psalm 147:20). I opened this post quoting the first commandment. The second is related. It prohibited the making of and bowing to an image of anything in the sky, earth or water. In it God transparently declared He is “a jealous God” as the reason (Deuteronomy 5:8-10, NKJV). Not the nation as a first priority, but God was to be the primary object of loving devotion by every individual Jew and the nation as a whole.
The Lord Jesus Christ affirmed the foregoing when He quoted from the written Law answering a question about the chief commandment saying, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength,” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Mark 12:28-30, NKJV). Clearly, the Lord also applied His answer to Himself as the Son of God (Luke 14:25-26). Despite this, many professed Christians revere and exalt our nation to such an extent as to easily be idolaters and offensive to Heaven. Some even attempt to justify their excessive devotion by asserting America is “a Christian nation” and imply God established it as He did Israel.3
If in fact America is a Christian nation it has apostatized and will suffer fully as Israel over the millennia, but with no hope for a future recovery through deliverance by Christ since the nation now, willfully rejects Him they once all believed in (Hebrews 6:4-6, 10:26-31)!4 And as it concerns the good intentions of the professed Christian founders of the nation to anchor it to the Bible’s morality, the guilty began the slide to where we are today by retaining slavery. Others even corrupted the Bible by ripping out pages to take the hope of freedom away from slaves.5 Besides this, a Christian nation apart from all being born again Christians precludes submitting to God’s moral Law (Romans 8:6-9).6
In a prophetic context that announces the time near at hand when God in majestic greatness will show up in Person to “comfort” His doubly punished people, Israel, with all of the accompanying upheaval on the earth and in the universe, He makes known in no uncertain terms what He thinks of the Gentile nations formed by men (Isaiah 40:1-14, NKJV). The prophet declares, “Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and counted as the small dust on the scales…All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless,” (Isaiah 40:15-17, NKJV). The normal meaning of “all” here would have to include our nation too. In His sovereign will and for His temporal purposes, “He makes nations great, and destroys them,” (Job 12:23a, NKJV).7
“To whom” or what can God be compared to? Surely, nothing in creation or made by men in idolatry will do which is another reason God forbids making images of anyone or thing and worshiping them; nation worship being no exception since you insult the only living God (Isaiah 40:18-20, 44:6-8; Romans 1:18-23, NKJV)! He looks down from Heaven on the earth and “its inhabitants” in the midst of the universe He in wisdom and power created (Isaiah 40:21-26, NKJV). He rules the nations as He raises them and their rulers up and brings them down (Psalm 22:27-28; Daniel 2:20-21).8 “Blessed” indeed, “is the nation whose God is the LORD,” (Psalm 33:10-12, NKJV)! Yet, God is also gracious to rebel nations; giving them opportunity and time to repent if they will (Jeremiah 18:7-12).9
1 Faithfulness to God is one of several eternal character traits of Christ He forges in the hearts of His aspiring strong men and great women in His Son’s image I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. I invite you to pick up a Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Edition of the book as well as the companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
2 Read the July 2, 2023 post, Christians Are To Fulfill God’s Written Law, under the category, Instruction. Continuing His original intent with Israel under the New Covenant still to be fully realized by them at Christ’s return, God has included Gentiles at present in fulfilling His creation of a “holy nation,” (Matthew 22:1-14; 1 Peter 2:4-10, NKJV).
3 I have already asserted directly from Scripture why such a thing could not be the case in the second paragraph of this post and others previously. See for example, part two of the two-part post that begins August 2, 2020, Flavorless Salt Is Worthless, under the category, Call To Repent.
4 An apostatized America is preposterous! Read footnote 8 of the above cited post.
5 See and learn more about The Slave Bible on this Ministry’s The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site.
6 Here is absolute truth from apostolic instruction that cannot be brushed aside without seriously corrupting the faith. The Lord recently led me to warn that the attempt to force obedience to His moral law upon our secular nation through legal means will be disastrous. Read the August 7, 2022 post, Saving Souls Not Nations, under the cate- gory, The Cause.
7 In the eyes of God, America is not exceptional or too big (important) to fail! Rather than the arrogant stance of exceptionalism, professed Christians holding to this belief should be humbled and petitioning God not to righteously destroy our nation for its wickedness while repenting from their sins displeasing Him beginning with arrogance as well as those of the nation’s fathers with it idolatrously venerated! Watch the Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, on our YouTube Channel and consider this from His Word along with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
8 God is not being capricious, but is working all things toward His predetermined end in Christ (Daniel 2:44; Ephesians 1:7-10)! See the January 10, 2021 post, Praying At Cross-Purposes With God, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
9 Israel is the poster child for the nation both blessed of God and punished for rejecting His call to repentance from sinning against Him (Jeremiah 18:13-17; Ezekiel 36:16-38).
As God’s preacher, I am compelled by His love to contend for the souls of humanity bound by Satan’s ties through preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I fish for men as a first priority because we are His chosen leaders in the human family as He constructed it. Among men are those for whom I am deeply burdened because of our shared experience of being born black in America. If it is true that Satan binds men with spiritual, mental and emotional ties that are common to the human experience, then why have black American males historically had such an extraordinary and disproportionately difficult ordeal in terms of dysfunction, criminality and incarceration?
Nearly two million men are presently on lockdown and just at fifty percent or more of them is black American. They are there for murdering or harming mostly one another through gang and other crime related violence along with all manner of conscience and natural self-control breaching lawless conduct. They are there not only because of a cycle of poverty, low educational attainment, unemployment, fatherless households, culturally conditioned poor choices or the very real white controlled societal apparatus still adverse to them, but also their own self-sabotage as I wrote in June 2015 blogs reflecting on the state of black Americans one hundred and fifty years after slavery.
However, even the foregoing does not get to the root ties Satan has used to bind the black male soul so tautly there is self-hatred enough not only to self-sabotage, but as well, lash out violently on our own people. Again, these root ties are common to mankind, but have been applied during the excruciating events of the black American historical experience; root ties that are the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism. By stating this, please do not hear me to be making excuses for the evil behavior of black males as criminals--set free by Christ, I no longer embrace victimization--or somehow diminishing the pain of those hurt by them.
Nevertheless, I can testify to the fact the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism as root ties that at some point have bound nearly every black male soul are actual, understandable and hallelujah, removable! As a result of the work of Sigmund Freud and those that have come after him since the turn of the last century, the soul business has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the West. Exploding in the middle of the last century, the troubled souls of mostly whites have paid educated persons to help them identify and cope with any number of mental and emotional maladies through counseling, therapy and drugs. It is even trendy to have a “therapist.”
If the souls of white folk cannot “just get over it” (whatever it is that leads to seeking help), why do the souls of black males have to? Because of the stigma of perceived weakness as a man that remains to this hour though, many pride filled men do not voluntarily present themselves to the soul doctors for help. For black American men, it is also the sense of final capitulation in seeking help after clinging so long to the delusion self-remedies will finally successfully handle the root ties that bind their souls. Besides, if the dismissive attitude from guilt toward the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism by white professionals dominant in the soul business is anything like white society at large, why should a troubled black male soul bother?
Among the root ties Satan uses to bind the black male soul as continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism I have identified in my research and from personal experience are anger, victimization, powerlessness and frustration. Examining just anger for a moment, hostile, violent and subtle oppression as a bully creates anger in its object in short order. Imagine being oppressed almost 400 years with very little relief. Now, imagine being threatened to suppress that anger short of being killed by the bully and add to the mix other sources of anger such as an absent or neglectful father. Any normal human being without any intervening positive coping mechanisms such as Christian forgiveness would be beyond angry (Matthew 6:9-15, 18:21-35)!
I bring up the issue of the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism in a number of published works in my “Journal” on our www.fromslaverytovictory.org Web Site. The site beginning on its Home Page points the willing toward the biblical worldview and truths that can begin to bring help, healing and hope to the seeking soul. Too, I mention the legacies related to barriers to black male professing Christians aspiring to become strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics with an eye toward future elaboration.
In light of all of the trouble black males are having with the police among other white authority figures and their non-coincidental high rate of incarceration, this Black History Month I plead with my brothers by race to recognize we need help; help only God the soul’s Creator can provide through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Genesis 2:7; Psalm 139:13-14; Luke 4:16-21; 1 John 5:4-5). He alone has the superior power to one by one break every chain as ties Satan has used to bind our souls and enable us to live victoriously as aspiring strong men of God in Him going forward!
Not only do faithful Christians seeking to obey Christ’s Great Commission face a steadily closing window of opportunity, hardening and cold hearts resisting the Gospel and our witness in these latter days as I have been writing about,1 but diminishing returns on the investment of time, energy and expense made in making disciples! Simplified, diminishing returns is an economic concept companies use to help them understand how costs increase and profit margins decrease over time producing their products. They can typically predict when they need to either make adjustments in their product, spending on it or consider the feasibility of abandoning it altogether.
Faithful Christians need to understand how our preaching of the Gospel and witness of Christ as a spiritual product is also subject to diminishing returns and be encouraged. In the first place, since our product is of divine origin in Word and Person, it has had and has staying power (Matthew 24:35, 28:18-20)! After nearly 2,000 years the Gospel still saves and the testimonies of the saved remain unimpeachable. So, there is nothing wrong with our product. No adjustments are necessary in the Gospel or our witness of its life changing results in Christ though, a number in these latter days have been foolishly and corruptly making them to build their own doomed made to order churches!2
Second, our Lord warned of such days as we live in where it would cost us more in time, energy and expense including blood to present the Gospel and witness Him making disciples (Matthew 24:9; Mark 13:11-13; Revelation 6:9-11). One reason for this is that the world is now, saturated with our product! There are relatively few major population centers left in the world where the Gospel has not been preached and a witness of Christ given.3 Spiritual apathy, increasing secularization and rising hostility greet bearers of the message in nations such as our own where Christianity as biblical or manmade religion with apostasy has been settled in for centuries.
Another reason is violent persecution brought upon believers in other nations as the Lord warned where once there was a toleration of Christianity, but now, due to a return to indigenous and national religions it is regarded as a threat to be destroyed. This mentality will reach its global zenith shortly under the auspices of the Antichrist (Daniel 7:15-25; Revelation 13:1-10). Consequently, nearly 2,000 years later our fishing nets are not as full as they once were as recently as the Billy Graham era just last century; diminishing increasingly until that “night” arrives and “no one can work,” (John 9:1-4, NKJV).4 Even so, all of this for us means the glorious Second Coming of our Lord with His eternal rest from and rewards for our Kingdom labor is closer still (Revelation 14:13, 22:12).5
1 Read the August 28, 2022 post, It Is Now Or The Peril Of Never, under the category, The Cause and Shaken, But Not Stirred, posted September 11, 2022, under the category, Biblical Worldview.
2 See the June 5, 2022 post, Made To Order Church?, under the category, Instruction.
3 Though these are minimal outcomes, they are important in the primary mission Christ has given His followers (Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:44-49; John 20:19-23; Acts 1: 6-8). If after preaching the Gospel and witnessing Christ no disciples are made or churches planted in a locale (as is often the case in these latter days), we have done well since we are not accountable for the people’s response (Luke 10:1-12; Acts 2:36-47)! In the days of the Antichrist when his reign of evil globally ends the public preaching, witnessing, making, baptizing and teaching of disciples along with church planting by God's mortal saints, He will send an angel with only “the everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth” a final time (Revelation 14:6-7, NKJV)!
4 This does not preclude spikes in the harvest of disciples made such as during the Holy Spirit sparked revival I joyfully await that ensues when He marks out the rem- nant of Israel as foretold in a second fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:28-29; Revelation 7:1-8) before God’s severe trumpet warning judgments begin (Joel 2: 30-32; Revelation 8-9).
5 While as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, the first motive of every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in serving our Lord’s Kingdom purposes is love for Him, His promised rest and rewards are excellent biblically taught motivators also (2 Timothy 4:6-8; Hebrews 4:1-13, 12:1-2)! The book is available with the companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, at your fa- vorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
As the Lord leads, I write on this twelfth day of February, Black History Month and the birthday of Abraham Lincoln to first acknowledge in the positive that leaders can and should lead their nations into God’s blessing through obeying and trusting in Him (1 Kings 9:1-9; Psalm 33:16-22)! Mr. Lincoln is just such an example of a leader when as a professed Christian white American, man of character and President of the then, divided States of America, he courageously set my slave forefathers free with the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This act subsequently helped bring the Civil War over slavery between Northern and seceded Southern States to an end and reunite the nation.
At a time when both sides in the war were praying for God to bless them with success, He showed as Lincoln also acknowledged who was actually on His side as the just One!1 Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ came to Israel at first on a mission “to set at liberty those who are oppressed,” (Luke 4:18, NKJV). When He returns to rule the earth as King, the Lord will deliver the remnant of Jacob from “the fury of the oppressor,” (Isaiah 51:9-16, NKJV). This is fully consistent with the Lord’s attitude toward oppression elsewhere written in His Word accessible to any that will objectively read and take it to heart (Exodus 2:23-3:9; Psalm 10:12-18; Lamentations 3:34-36; Acts 10:34-43).
Leaders can get their nations in trouble of the worst kind when they operate in the sinful flesh and blatantly disobey God’s Word. I wrote about king David’s fiasco (1 Chronicles 21:1-17) as an example in a December 2022 post.2 Another of many Bible illustrations is found in 2 Chronicles 21. King Jehoram had married into the family of wicked king Ahab and followed after their ways. He also murdered his own brothers to eliminate them as rivals. God responded in judgment that brought trouble on the land of Judah and the king personally; sending him a memo in the only recorded letter written by the prophet Elijah. Jehoram died as Elijah foretold and was buried without honor.
It was leaders north and south among the thirteen colonies who passed up the opportunity to do the right thing at the end of the Revolutionary War for “liberty” and extend it to all that incited the Lord’s anger. Having sent awakenings before and after that war along with raising up abolitionists as prophets who cried out against slavery and were rejected, He brought judgment and His will to bear in the Civil War (2 Samuel 2-3:1).3 As I have written in other posts, my forefathers were only supposed to be enslaved with hard labor a little while not perpetually for sin in their native land and to humble their hearts before God as was also the case with Judah (Psalm 107:10-12; Zechariah 1:1-6, 12-17).4
The Lord’s good intent is seen in His entrusting slaves brought to the New World to people as masters who largely professed to be Christians, supposedly feared Him and obeyed His Word (Colossians 4:1). But the many guilty leaders flagrantly chose not to heed His Word and no amount of denial about or dressing them up can alter the historical facts. For in an effort to deflect the tarnish of a heritage filled with the sinful and racially bigoted abuses of their colonial and after forefathers, many conservative white Christians today are rightly targeting the deceit embodied in progressivism’s liberal Critical Race Theory, but wrongly denying the hard truths still preserved in the historical facts.5
This approach finds no favor with God since it too, is deceitful and foils the humble repentance He requires to receive His forgiveness taught in Scripture as not only Daniel demonstrated in the Blog cited in the foregoing footnote, but others as well (Nehemiah 9:1-37; Psalms 32:1-5, 51:1-17; Isaiah 59:1-15, 66:1-2; Jeremiah 3:21-25, 14:17-22; 2 Corinthians 7:8-11). God punished the whole nation for the wicked decision of its leaders to deny freedom to all as He also answered the cry for it by humbled Christian slaves, their ostensible brethren (Psalms 103:6-14, 107:13-16, 39-43; Philemon 8-21). Therefore, let the guilty leaders of a now, divided America repent; carefully considering that only those fully obeying His Word as it is written and trusting in Him are on God’s side (Luke 11:14-28)!6
1 Read the President’s exact quote regarding someone’s assertion God was on the side of the Union North.
2 See the December 11, 2022 post, Christ Persecuted To His Birth, under the category, Instruction.
3 All Israel in the cited Scripture knew God had anointed David king of the nation instead of Saul (1 Samuel 16:1-13) and should have rallied to him after Saul’s death. Howe- ver, they resisted His will. In the same way God’s will for men to enjoy freedom was well known to the nation’s founders who gave it to themselves and those that were white skinned, but not all despite declaring and enshrining in their founding document “that all men are created equal” by God, “their Creator!”
4 Read the two-part post that begins February 21, 2021, Willful Ignorance Destroys, under the category, Black History and particularly the second part that addresses God’s purposes behind slavery.
5 See the two-part post that begins January 16, 2022, Arriving At These Times, under the categories Bible Prophecy and Call To Repent. With relatively few exceptions, pro- fessed Christian white America’s form of slavery was openly over the top violently brutal, oppressive and sexually exploitive in rebellion against, transgression and perver- sion of all the spiritual principles, morality and ethics found in God’s Word. This not universally confessed and repented of evil has contributed to the rejection of Christian- ity by untold negatively impacted, demoralized and embittered black males to this very day!
6 As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, professed Christian men as husbands, fathers, pastors, elders and ministry leaders are to set an example of obedience as Christ did with His help. When we do not give heed to “the whole counsel of God,” just like leaders of nations we can be sure His judgment will catch up to us too (Acts 20:26-27; James 3:1, NKJV). Pick up a copy of my book at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore, the Strong Man Store and the FSTVEP Resource Store on The From Slavery To Victory Education Web Site I urge you to visit to get more of a biblical worldview of black history as part of American his- tory.
Now that I have laid out all of my missteps and taken full responsibility for the bad business decision I made last year, I write about one more aspect of it that is just as relevant and a deadly serious alert sounded to all aspiring strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ. I am deeply grateful to the men I have regularly met with over the past two years for prayer and Bible study at the church I attend that prayed with and comforted me in my consequences. Tim Staples and Jerry Schoon in particular recognized the involvement of the predator of men’s souls and encouraged as well as interceded for me accordingly. I was responsible for my sin, but as they correctly discerned, I had also been snared.
Without apology or shame as one of the Lord’s heralds of the Gospel and teacher of the faith rooted in the Bible, I preach God’s requirement of repentance from sin for forgiveness leading to salvation and continued right standing with God. The divine call to repentance from sin clearly asserts and exposes the reality of its presence in every human heart as judged by God (Romans 3:9-20, 23; 1 John 1:8, 10). We expect resistance to the truth of sin guilt from rank sinners that love their sin and refuse to turn from it (John 3:17-20). However, many professing Christians and their leaders resist repentance from sin to include heresies among their reasons to save face. A quick check with Webster’s Dictionary reveals that the layers of definition attached to the word, “face” includes the consideration of our “standing in the face of others;” our “prestige.” All of us to some degree or another have concern about how others see us. None of us wants to be seen in a bad light or found to be something other than what we say we are. From the example of our forefather, Adam and his wife, Eve--who sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves, hid from God when they heard Him coming and then played the blame game as God inquired about their behavior--we especially have a great difficulty with being found guilty of sin (Genesis 3:6-13). Since Adam, humanity has reflexively employed all manner of device to deflect away sin guilt rather than simply owning up to it. As little children even, we will immediately lie to avoid consequences and of course, to save face. Of the many Bible characters beyond Adam that acted deceitfully to cover their sin and save face, Saul the first king of Israel is a prime example. Like most folk, Saul wanted to first save face in denying he had sinned at all by disobeying the Lord in the Amalekite mission (1 Samuel 15:18-21). After Samuel gave God’s eternally standing instruction on obedience, Saul finally admitted that he had sinned in disobeying the Lord (1 Samuel 15:22-24). Here is seen again the difference between godly and worldly sorrow over confessed sin (2 Corinthians 7:8-11). For though Saul admitted he had sinned in disobeying the commandment of the Lord, his heart was not truly repentant as is borne out by his behavior in the rest of what is written of him going forward from this incident. Indeed, immediately after reluctantly admitting he was wrong, once more Saul wanted to save face before the people by having Samuel participate with him in worshipping the Lord. At first Samuel refused understanding the very serious nature and consequence of Saul’s sin and no doubt, his motive (1 Samuel 15:25-26). When Samuel turned to leave the scene, Saul grabbed hold of his garment and ripped it in the process. This gave rise to Samuel’s affirmation of God’s judgment of Saul symbolized in the tearing away of his garment. After this, Saul confessed again he had sinned, but pleaded with Samuel to “honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God,” (1 Samuel 15:27-30, NKJV). Saul wanted to diminish the gravity of his sin and consequence by having Samuel make him look like he was still alright with God. Samuel worshipped with Saul for what he knew was the last time and finished his mission (1 Samuel 15:31-35). I know well the sin and temptation to save face when I have done wrong in now this fifty-eight year old life. Nevertheless, God, a Father exceedingly great above all, has steadfastly insisted of me to own my stuff immediately not to escape consequences and save face, but always to receive His forgiveness! And since this is also biblical, it is the will of God that all men embrace it (Ezekiel 18:20-23; 1 John 1:9). Yet, over the years I have lost count of the number of professing Christians and leaders that have sinned against me or are in sin and have lied to my face or lied in denial about their sin to save face. Proudly refusing to confess and repent from sin to avoid consequences and save face is shamefully common among professing Christians. Like Saul, many professing Christians and leaders attempt to diminish the gravity of their sin guilt and any consequence in saving face by going on with church worship and activities. This is very evident in churches where the Holy Spirit is not really operating (emotion is not spiritual fire) or welcome (much religious activity does not mask spiritual deadness). Sin not confessed and repented from before God is sin not forgiven and it does not matter who the guilty party is! Therefore, let every son and aspiring strong man of God in the image of Christ continually confess and repent from his sins being more concerned about how God sees you than men (2 Corinthians 5:9-11)! The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
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