The Scourge Of Racism
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The so-called two-stage Second Coming of Christ where He first comes secretly to evacuate His Church from the earth before seven years of tribulation to include the last three and one half years of great tribulation and then returns after with the saints in glory is no where taught in Scripture. This heresy must be artificially constructed by starting with the false premise that especially the great tribulation is all God’s full on wrath and then fancifully reading into 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 that it is His means of evacuation prior to. However, in context, the apostle Paul is not comforting his readers about an evacuation from tribulation of any kind or wrath. He comforts and instructs them about the saints who have died with his words about their return with Christ.
An amazing thing has happened at times in history when God’s people have come under persecution or painful adversity. Rather than being entirely destroyed and diminished in strength, a faithful remnant endures--though captive, on the run, in hiding or underground--and becomes even stronger in faith, spiritual fervency and power (Daniel 1; Acts 4:1-31, 5:17-42, 7:59-8:8, 14:19-28). Surely, this has everything to do with faith in and devotion to the living God, His affirming presence and power at work in the lives of His faithful saints; aspiring strong men and great women of God in the image of Jesus Christ who was sent to suffer and die for us (Romans 5:6-8, 8:31-34)!
Repeatedly warned in Scripture and having had our faith regularly tested by “various trials,” faithful Christian men should not be surprised by “the fiery trial” of persecution that comes because of the Gospel and standing firm in defense of God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:10-12; 1 Peter 1:3-9, 4:12-14, NKJV). Besides adding to the joy of sharing in Christ’s sufferings and anticipated glory, we understand our suffering in these latter days is the beginning of God’s just judgment and testing of ultimately all mortal flesh through which His faithful persevere (Mark 13:13; 1 Peter 3:13-17, 4:15-19; Revelation 3:7-13). No one will accuse God of letting the disobedient in His own house slide, while condemning others.
As has happened historically and is now taking place among our brethren in nations with violent persecution against Christians, husbands and fathers are making tough choices impacting their families. Faithful Christian men love our families! However, as Christ has righteously demanded, our love for Him to the point of death is above all (Luke 14:25-27). Half-hearted religionists blow past this teaching of Christ as if He does not mean it. Yet, He does mean it and before the game is over, many faithful Christian men globally will have faced the choice of being loyal to and doing what is best for their families or Christ and His Kingdom (Revelation 13:11-17, 14:9-13).6
God is plain in His prophetic Word: “the cowardly” will be among those that are found outside of His eternal Kingdom and in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:7-8, NKJV)! Thus, the Lord Jesus warns all up front that would be His disciple to “count the cost” and consider the outcome of the man who makes himself worthless through quitting on his commitment (Luke 14:28-35, NKJV). Having counted the cost and rejected unthinkable cowardice, faithful Christian men as aspiring strong men of God in Christ’s image resolutely continue their walk, work and warfare in His Kingdom cause knowing by faith the good end that God has planned (Hebrews 10:32-39; James 5:1-12)!
They are also praying for their needs during the course of the game and its end with the arrival of Christ and God’s Kingdom to earth (Matthew 6:9-13; Acts 4:23-30)! Such prayers will become more fervent as the world intensifies its hatred and violently presses its offensive drive down to first and goal on our two yard line. Exhausted and globally worn out on the field; our bench depleted to the lowest levels in history due to injuries, the apostasy (Matthew 24:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:3a) and game ejections to captivity and death, prayer will be all that our team has left before an imminent score and irrecoverable defeat by Satan’s team. But God true to His promises answers their prayers!
The prayers of His faithful are more than enough to have left when it concerns God! For the Lord Jesus taught us how our heavenly Father values persistent prayer (Luke 11:5-13). So, on the heels of those desperate, impassioned and persistent prayers offered by His faithful at the very end of credible hope, our God answers and intervenes as He did when Israel in oppressive, Egyptian bondage could bear it no more (Exodus 2:23-3:12). He will use the first of three timeouts to stop play; dispatching four mighty angels to cause the earth’s four winds to temporarily cease blowing on that historically unprecedented day as I wrote in a previous blog (Revelation 7:1).7
Rising from the east, another angel bearing the Holy Spirit--who is the invisible, living “seal (mark) of the living God”--cries out to others designated to harm the earth and sea not to do so until ‘“the servants of our God’” are sealed (marked) on their foreheads (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Revelation 7:2-3, NKJV). Prophetically reminiscent of the event in Ezekiel Nine, 144,000 Jews as the foretold elect remnant of God are marked for protection from harm by His judgments or otherwise up to Christ’s Second Coming (Isaiah 1:9, 10:20-23; Zechariah 13:7-9; Revelation 7:4-8). For among the Jews in much travail as well, prayers will have been going up asking God to deliver (Psalms 10, 44, 144; Isaiah 51:9-11)!
Acting for the sake of His great Name, the Jewish patriarchs, Gospel cause and prayers of His faithful (Ezekiel 36:16-32; Romans 11:11-15, 25-36), God marks the elect Jewish remnant outwardly with the Holy Spirit and launches a second, final and complete fulfillment of Joel 2:28-32! His faithful will be set ablaze again and their strength renewed whether gasping for air on the field, injured on the bench or languishing in captivity (Isaiah 40:27-31; Acts 4:31). Under heavy conviction of the Holy Spirit, many vacillating believers will repent, be revived and take their place with the faithful. Too, the unsaved not yet hardened into sin will repent and be restored in vast numbers through the Kingdom work and warfare of the faithful along with God’s initial plainly seen works of power to follow.
Truly, with mighty wonders greater than the August 21st solar eclipse as warning judgments, God will exalt Himself a second time before the rulers of this world as He did when He brought Israel out oppressed by Pharaoh at first (Exodus 6:2-8; Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 16:14-15, 23:5-8; Ezekiel 20:33-38)! Meanwhile, as I write in my book, the global revival will be the greatest ever in history in terms of scale and souls coming to Christ! However, I also soberly warn it will not return the world back to some idyllic past. This brief moment is only the beginning of the end and preparation for the faithful to endure the darkest days ever; days that will see Satan’s team finally score with their invincible player, Antichrist, who martyr’s more faithful than anyone before him (Revelation 7:9-17).8
6 A very inspiring film to watch highlighting this point is The Robe with Richard Burton from the 1950s.
7 Read the March 16-23, 2014 two part blog, The Prayers Of The Saints, under the category, Bible Prophecy, for an understanding of why rapture does not come during the event I am discussing here and more detail about it along with others I describe which immediately follow.
8 Read the October 23, 2016 blog, Revival For Seeking Saints, under the category, Bible Prophecy to again appreciate why repentance and revival are absolutely essential among professed Christians even now! Also, learn more about the “night” referenced by that blog in a teaching on CD entitled, The Night Is Almost Here! available in the Strong Man Store.
Why is there still apparently so much angst and now, tumult among many that are politically conservative and profess to be Christians including those self-identified as evangelicals after this year’s Presidential election? Is it not because a year after the Coronavirus pandemic that persists, social unrest and political losses many are squaring up with the reality conservatism as it has been practiced in America may not endure? This is truly a frightening prospect to those that have rested their hope in this life almost exclusively on the control of human institutions of society to perpetually ensure their religious, moral, social and political values, dominance as well as prosperity. I get it.
Indeed, this line of thinking is by no means unique to American conservatism. It has been displayed by the peoples, nobles and royals of every nation and kingdom of men since the beginning. However, from the beginning also, the Almighty God, man’s Creator has been involved and at work in the affairs of men as His Word affirms (Genesis 3:9-11, 17-24, 6:5-22; Job 12:13-25). It is certain that neither Adam nor the people of Noah’s day that perished in the flood wished for an end; nor did king Nebuchadnezzar to whom God through the prophet Daniel revealed the future of His work to raise up and bring down kingdoms starting with Babylon until the coming of His own (Daniel 2:14-45).
The sovereign God has been in charge of the rise and fall of kingdoms up until now, and still is! Grasping this truth, the faithful in Christ understand our times are in His hand and accept His will to move them along even with judgments in accord with His plans and timing no matter how inconvenient, troublesome or adverse to our own plans, hopes and dreams (Psalm 31:14-15).1 While in general it is not wrong to pray for God to continue His gracious and merciful acts to preserve our nation and way of life as they are, it is to pray at cross-purposes with Him if it is abundantly clear as it is today, that the early warning judgments of His foretold end have begun to come upon the earth!
The generation that perished in Noah’s day had 120 years of his preaching as warning to prepare (Genesis 6:3; 2 Peter 2:4-5). Israel had all of the prophets from Moses and finally, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son--some 1,400 years--to warn them before their nation was destroyed and the people scattered a generation after His death, burial, resurrection and ascension (Ezekiel 7; Luke 19:41-44, 21:5-6, 21-24). Now, God has patiently given the world nearly 2,000 years since those days; time lengthy enough that some foolishly dare to scoff at us who continue to steadfastly wait for Christ’s promised glorious return and wrath as foretold (2 Peter 3:1-9; Revelation 6:12-17).
That a holy God has given sinners even one day is gracious and merciful (Ezekiel 18:4), but almost 2,000 years with the preaching of the Gospel (Acts 17:30-31)? As the Lord led me to write last year, the prayers of those professed Christians that He move His Coronavirus judgment and save our republic for among the emotionally manipulative and selfishly hypocritical reasons “the sake of our children and future generations” will not be answered by Him the way they want.2 If you truly cared about the children’s future, then, you would have fully repented from all of your biblically defined sins, rebellion and wickedness by now as God calls for (Numbers 14:1-3; Jeremiah 8:4-7).
Instead, by your refusal to repent, cavalier attitudes about and disbelieving denial of the consequences until now, it is too late to delay His on the way judgments more severe than losing elections, a nation and way of life (2 Kings 20:12-19; Ezekiel 12:21-28).3 And though they will suffer short-term, the eternal fortunes of our saved children will be infinitely greater than the inheritance of a crumbling nation and world facing divine wrath (Numbers 14:26-33; Hebrews 3:7-19). This is why the best inheritance to give our willing children is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they might be saved and instruction about how to faithfully endure suffering persecution to the end (1 Corinthians 15:19)!4
It is time to stop denying the present and warnings about what is coming we Christians have as a legacy of hope from God through His prophetic Word; His plans and purposes now, in play! Therefore, let those that repent of all selfishness and rebellion pray in accord with His will for God to restore you through the Holy Spirit. Pray for strength and wisdom to be a bold witness for Christ. Pray to stand firm in faith throughout all that is unfolding against believers in the darkness as trouble and be encouraged in it (Psalm 46; John 16:33; Philippians 4:4-6; 1 John 5:4-5).5 Pray for all your sustenance. Pray for and support fellow persecuted brethren everywhere. Pray for the expeditious coming of our God’s Kingdom to the earth (Matthew 6:5-15; 1 Peter 5:5-11; Revelation 6:9-11, 7-8:6)!
1 This is a reality the Lord had me address early on during the spread of His Coronavirus judgment in a May 3, 2020 post, Why Now, Lord?, under the category, Encour-
agement.
2 See the April 5, 2020 post, God Is Speaking and that of April 19, 2020, Does Anybody Repent Anymore?, both under the category, Call To Repent.
3 In a chapter aptly titled, God And Politics in his 1989 book, Against The Night, (Vine Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan), political and biblical conservative, Chuck Colson, is
unambiguous in asserting the 80’s Reagan Presidential era and height of evangelicalism’s Moral Majority had “failed” in the attempt to effect a swing in our nation to a
decidedly Christian morality. Religious conservatives, he contends, ignored “two key truths” as reasons writing: “first, the solutions to all human ills do not lie in political
structures; and second, it is impossible to effect genuine political reform solely through legislation,” (p. 117). Colson ought to have known since he came to know Christ
while incarcerated for crimes committed carrying out political dirty tricks in the cause of a conservative President. Too, the historic sinful duplicities of religious conser-
vatives such as upholding systemic racism also contributed to their failure. The failure of the 80’s continues into the present hour where a divided nation is crumbling
into ruin as the Lord led me to warn in a two-part post beginning September 11, 2016, American Culture’s Religion, under the category, Call To Repent. Consequently,
Colson also affirms my conviction from the Lord that any real national reformation would have begun with individuals which only He can effect through Holy Spirit em-
powered salvation (Titus 2:11-3:8).
4 My book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics can help in this instructional effort. A print copy or digital download of the book published by the Publishing Division
of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. with fresh editing in 2019 for greater clarity and updated web addresses in the footnotes is available at major internet
booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only). You can also purchase a print copy in the Strong Man Store. Too, parents
and church leaders can teach, disciple and equip the next generation through The Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and The Great Woman Of God Women’s
Group Study also in the Strong Man Store.
5 Colson in his book earlier referenced and others that followed is not calling for disengagement from culture, but for the Church to be the Church as salt and light serving
God’s Kingdom purposes which include holding up “the blood stained banner” of Christ and His transcendent morality, (pp. 118-121, 135-137). This is not possible to
any effective extent of course, if the many that profess to be Christians are corrupt and complicit with this dark world in its rebellion against God. For this reason, Colson
also calls for repentance among guilty professed Christians and their churches, (Chapter 15 and beyond).
Shortly after the greatest of all revivals commences, while earth’s inhabitants are going about their noisy routines, Heaven briefly goes quiet from its normally thunderous worshipful activities. As reported by the apostle John, the solemn silence in Heaven is a prelude to the divine warning judgments about to be unleashed on earth that lead finally to wrath. This time has come urged by the prayers of all the saints in both locales that are fragrant to God. In dramatic fashion, seven trumpets are given to seven angels that blown in Heaven, signal God’s actions to take place and countdown His coming Day of the Lord on the earth (Psalm 34:15, 119:126, 141:1-2; Revelation 6:9-11, 8:1-4).
The angel that had ministered the prayers of His saints before God, now, fills his censer with fire and throws it to the earth. Suddenly, there is a global wonder in the sky of loud noises, booming thunder, fierce lightning and a quake that rattles the entire planet at once! In an instant, God’s response to the prayers of His saints who have waited millennia for Him to act occurs and creates the fitting fear and alarm among humanity very clear “acts of God” should elicit (Revelation 8:5). Quickly recovering from the suddenness of this terrifying event and emboldened all the more, the faithful ratchet up their Kingdom work and warfare and stiffen their resolve to stand on the Lord’s side!
The seven angels prepare to blow (Revelation 8:6). The question of whether there is a God for all but the most cynical in denial is answered after the first four angels sound their trumpets of judgment (Revelation 8:7-12)! These “third” judgments fully demonstrate God’s control over nature and the cosmos as well as His ability to destroy all when and should He desire.9 Thus, as with the plagues upon Egypt, God’s first four judgments are meant to awaken unsaved mankind and their rulers to His superior reality. After graciously giving the unsaved an opportunity to repent and believe the Gospel to be saved (Ezekiel 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9), timeout on the field ends.
With the atmosphere still filled with smoke and the stench of death from decaying sea life, many will be those including non-remnant Jews and professed Christian religionists that willfully harden their hearts against the Gospel like Pharaoh who was not impressed with God’s display of power and resisted Him (Exodus 5:1-2).10 So, in support of His two-fold elect God will repeat another thing He did in Egypt: make a distinction between His people with the mark of the Holy Spirit and those without Him in the first of three woes an angel has warned about (Revelation 8:13). The game resumes with the first and goal attempt by Satan’s team to run its favorite persecution play against God’s faithful and Jews when immediately the fifth trumpet sounds.
Confusion ensues and the play is stopped dead in the backfield as God’s judgment summons Satan to release demonically controlled creatures that painfully sting only those without the mark of the Holy Spirit for five months; members of his own team of deceived mortals (Exodus 8:20-24; Revelation 9:1-12)!11 The pain is so great the unsaved want to die, but cannot do so. The temporary nature of this judgment and woe once more shows God’s grace and willingness to save. Though the faithful continue laboring to restore men, the results are negligible because instead of being humbled by their pain, the unsaved persist in their sins. The sixth trumpet sounds (Revelation 9:13-15).
Knowing plainly who God’s faithful are, Satan’s team is about to blast up the middle on its second and goal murderous play to steam roll into the end zone when reinforcements foretold from ancient times suddenly take the field (Joel 2:1-11; Revelation 9:16-19). The play is turned back by God’s army with a major loss of yards as one third of unsaved mankind then on earth is killed and eternally condemned! Humiliated, nevertheless, the now fully heart hardened remainder of unsaved mankind defiantly refuse to repent from their sins (Revelation 9:20-21). However, they are weary of God’s judgments and are reluctantly ready to concede to another of His demands through the Jews.
In echo of His demand of Pharaoh by way of Moses, God declares to the world rulers of the day as spoken to me and through the passionate insistence of Jews, “Let My people go worship Me at the Temple built on Zion’s hill for that purpose,” (Exodus 8:25-32)! God then calls His second timeout to allow the necessary details of His demand to unfold. Those details include the successful negotiation efforts of the still mortal Antichrist that result in Daniel’s seventieth week and the Temple worship covenant (Daniel 9:24-27). John is told by an angel there will be no more delays in the days just before the seventh trumpet sounds (Revelation 10-11:2). The game resumes with Satan carrying out a third and goal persecution screen pass play intended to harm the Jews in particular.
However, two men suddenly appear in the defense; God’s foretold two witnesses His faithful and worldwide Jewry recognize in the familiar plagues they freely bring on the earth to validate their prophetic utterances, glorify God and take out enemy blockers coming against them and Israel. They serve the first half of the seven year Temple worship covenant (Malachi 4:4-6; Revelation 11:3-6). During this period, Satan has trouble in Heaven too since the holy angels have made war against and defeat him and the heavenly hosts of his team; casting them to the earth. In “great wrath,” he presses the screen pass play that is stopped short of the original line of scrimmage by another divine miracle reprise from the days of Moses (Numbers 16:23-33; Revelation 12:1-16, NKJV).
9 I have referenced the judgment of Revelation 8:12 in a number of blogs over the years mostly noting the chaos it will cause when for His two-fold elect’s sake as foretold, God shortens the end time days (Matthew 24:22; Mark 13:20) by making a day sixteen instead of the twenty-four hours humanity has known from creation. Read the July 27, 2014 blog, God Of Order under the category, Instruction, to learn that while this judgment is a blessing to God’s two-fold elect and all mankind because mortal life will be preserved, in the immediate face of its jarring suddenness, the world is thrown into debilitating fear, stress-filled be- wilderment and disorder (Luke 21:25-26).
10 God’s 144,000 elect Jewish remnant will not accept the Gospel either because their repentance and complete conversion by His will awaits Christ’s Second Com- ing (Zechariah 12:10-13:1) lest they lose their mortality required for their promised experience of David’s kingdom restored (Jeremiah 23:5-6). However, they will not be hostile to the Gospel or its messengers who they understand like them, enjoy the Holy Spirit! By the way, this all being true, the teaching that the 144,000 are Gospel evangelists cannot be equally true.
11 The world’s love of fictional horror and hideous monsters to scare themselves is surely behind this judgment too which in perfect and real divine justice, painfully terrifies the unsaved!
This blog post is an edited and expanded version of supplemental articles the Lord led me to write in the June 2012 and 2013 Strong Man Of God Monthly Newsletter that immediately followed “Man As God Designed Him” and “Raised To Immortal Glory, Pt. 3” when those Commentaries were respectively published in the same publication. Clearly, the glorious immortal destiny of the saints of God is infinitely greater than those that choose to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the mercies of God, I cry out to the reader outside of Christ by any means including as a professing Christian impostor or spiritually dead religionist to repent now and turn to Him while you have the opportunity!
Originally Published June 2013
Scripture teaches every single human being that has ever lived and died will be raised from the dead by Jesus Christ: some to immortal glory; some to immortal condemnation (Daniel 12:2; John 5:25-29)! In accord with God’s will and purposes as the apostle Paul teaches, the resurrection of all deceased humanity to immortality will be in ordered sequence. Thus, Jesus Christ is the first glorified immortal followed by those that by faith belong to Him at His Second Coming (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). Paul is led by the Holy Spirit to narrowly discuss only the resurrection of the saints directly following Christ’s as the focus of His instruction on the topic to the church at Corinth.
However, the apostle John reveals that between the resurrection of Christ to immortal glory and that of the saints, there will be a select number of persons that are raised to immortality. The next immortals after Christ will be the “Antichrist” (1 John 2:18; Revelation 13:1-10, NKJV), God’s two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-12), the false prophet (Revelation 13:11-18) and as “firstfruits” to God and Christ before the full harvest of all the saints, 144,000 men who had been lifelong celibates in the Lord’s service and now form His new and unique innermost circle as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics (Revelation 14:1-5, NKJV).
Three and one half years after the resurrection to immortality of the Antichrist, all of the Lord’s saints are raised to immortal glory (Revelation 14:14-16, 20:4-6). One thousand years after this, all of the wicked are resurrected to immortality to be judged on the Day of Judgment and immediately condemned to “Hell” or if you will, “the lake of fire” with “Death and Hades” (Matthew 18:7-9; Revelation 20:11-15, NKJV). The two evil human immortals, Antichrist and false prophet, will have actually preceded Satan and his fallen angelic hosts and the main body of wicked immortals as the first to be cast into the lake of fire (Daniel 7:11; Revelation 19:19-20, 20:7-10).
The clear evidence the Antichrist is truly slain and resurrects an immortal (Revelation 13:3) is his single handed take down of the Lord’s supernaturally empowered two witnesses. Until the Antichrist, no human force on earth is able to get near them as they carry out God’s campaign to protect Israel during their reinstated temple worship complete with animal sacrifices and plague assisted call for humanity to turn to God in repentance. “The beast” or Antichrist is described as he “that ascends out of the bottomless pit” (which is another name for Hades, the realm of the dead awaiting judgment) to kill the two witnesses, stop temple sacrifices and launch his God shortened 42 month reign of desolation (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-22; Revelation 8:12-13, 11:1-7, NKJV).
Those obsessed with their worldly brand of gender equality are surely stymied and disappointed to know the beast and later the resurrected false prophet along with all of the pre-Second Coming immortals are men and retain a masculine form in their immortal spiritual bodies. Hence, the immortal Antichrist in appearance “greater than his fellows” and “fierce” of face is called the “man of sin” and “son of perdition” since his masculine form indicates this is what he is (Daniel 7:19-20, 8:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:3, NKJV). Consistent then with the immortal spiritual bodies of the saints, the spiritual bodies of the immortal wicked will retain the general frame and form of the natural, mortal human body. Wicked immortals will not marry, procreate or even desire sex either.
Besides transformation from natural to spiritual, the immortal bodies of the wicked as seen in the Antichrist share indestructibility in common with those of the saints. He is able to kill God’s two witnesses because they cannot kill him with their God granted power of fire that destroys mortal flesh. This is perfectly consistent with what our Lord Jesus teaches about Hell’s torment as He stresses that the worm of the wicked immortals there never dies in the fire that is never extinguished (Mark 9:42-48). Unlike God’s glorified immortal sons, wicked immortals in Hell will have the ability to shed tears and experience pain as they forever weep and grind their teeth in agony (Matthew 13:41-42, 47-50, 24:48-51, 25:41-46; Revelation 21:4).
Too, the immortal spiritual bodies of the wicked are stripped down from those of the saints. They have no glory. And while Scripture does not specify whether or not the Antichrist or false prophet are able to fly, appear or disappear, it does declare that Satan and all of his hosts will have been confined to earth at this time precluding any travel in the spiritual realm by anything evil beyond it (Revelation 12:7-12). Save what God grants these two evil immortals to temporarily do by the power of Satan (Revelation 13:11-15), they will not have any supernatural abilities--the glorified immortal saints by contrast, eternally operate in the power of the Holy Spirit! Indeed, all that these two evil immortals do is orchestrated, empowered and overseen by Satan (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
For this reason, the Antichrist will fully honor only the devil as a god above himself--therefore, understand, he will not advocate for any major religion or preside over any form of ecumenicalism as some teach (Daniel 8:24-25, 11:36-39; Revelation 13:4). Truly, as seen in the Antichrist, the wicked are not done at all with evil after death. Returning from his short stay in Hades very bitter knowing his eternal fate--as do all at death, his first major act is to kill men who are plainly God’s servants fully showing no repentance. Conversely, he is eternally hardened into his evil mindset in which God’s just end for him and all that reject Christ is “outer darkness” in Hell forever (Matthew 22:1-14, NKJV)! The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
One of the saddest evil developments among many of Christianity since the first century is the form of it as a religion invented by men. I have had to contend with this powerless, manmade evil from my infancy in Christ and in accord with my calling, gifting and ministry from the Lord in over forty years of service; writing much about Babylon in this blog.1 Not only is corruption of and willful disobedience to God’s Word with confusion characteristic of it, but false piety ostensibly informed by Christian love and enforced submission to men as leaders acting in the flesh of whom Scripture is quite clear are not pleasing God (Romans 8:8). (Does God in Scripture really require unquestioned loyalty and obedience to disobedient leaders--2 Corinthians 1:23-24, 11:1-21; Galatians 1-2:16?)2
Leave it to children to show the way of God as even the Son of God affirmed they do in their natural behavior. In this edited 2011 post, I reference the Lord’s instruction of His pride and selfish ambition filled disciples using the naturally humble hearts of children as the example of impossible conversion apart from God’s supernatural work their own hearts would need to enter the Kingdom. Such genuine humility of heart is characteristic of a man converted through the new birth of biblical Christianity. Too, like a child’s heart displayed by the children around Dale Ostrander who prayed for him as he drowned, a converted heart is willing to believe God--not as the religious who eloquently pray out loud, but act in their own power to accomplish their will (Matthew 23:14).
This Thanksgiving I am grateful for the children who remind us of what biblical Christianity is and the God of my salvation who makes it possible for me to walk it out in the authentic power of His Spirit; the life of an aspiring strong man of God in the image of Jesus Christ! Have a great Thanksgiving.
Originally Posted August 14, 2011
Speaking to men in Matthew 18:1-4, the Lord Jesus answered the question of His disciples, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” (NKJV)? He referred them to a child and indicated unless these tough guys were to be converted and become like “little children” in humility and faith, they could not “enter” or be considered “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” That’s a hard one for proud men to swallow. But this past week the news was filled with a miracle story that verifies the humble and trusting heart of a child is great before and honored by God.
Dale Ostrander was on a beach outing with his youth group in Long Beach, WA. He got sucked under by a rip tide and pulled out over a hundred yards from shore. Another youth, Nicole Kissel, tried to help him back, but when she turned, Dale was gone. Rescuers searched for over 20 minutes for what surely would be and was the drowned, lifeless body of Dale. But while the rescuers were on their way and during their search for Dale, on their faces in the sand weeping and calling on the name of the Lord were members of Dale’s youth group. These children not only believed that God could save their fellow youth, but passionately asked Him to do so with the humble, trusting hearts of children. And what was the result?
Even the most cynical of newscasters throughout the TV News media called Dale’s return to life “a miracle.” But not only did Dale come back to life, he is expected to recover.3 God is receiving glory all over the planet because some kids had the audacity, humility and faith to believe God can do anything! In my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics,4 I tell men in order to receive its contents they must have the heart of a child as Jesus teaches in Matthew 18:1-4. The Dale Ostrander August 2011 return to life on the prayers of children is overwhelming evidence of the blessings and benefits of why. To God be the glory and thank you children for reminding proud, self-reliant adults and men--religious or otherwise--in particular, of the heart that pleases God!
1 See for example, my August 23, 2015 post, Babylon Is Falling, under the category, Bible Prophecy and August 21-28, 2016 two-part, Christianity The Religion Of Men,
under the category, Instruction.
2 Protestants certainly cannot believe this without hypocrisy since our whole existence is a repudiation of corrupt 16th century Catholicism and its leaders famously galva- nized by heralded reformer, Martin Luther--a Catholic priest!
3 Dale Ostrander lives today and continues a progressive recovery from certain death.
4 The book is available in print or digital download formats at major internet booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only).
You can also get the Hard or Soft Cover print versions of the book in the Strong Man Store.
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