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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.
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!
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.
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 has led and arising from last week’s blog, I repost this edited 2012 blog to cause professing Christians to fully consider this business of accusing God of being unfair in these latter days. All of the world’s causes are not God’s causes no matter how right they may seem or emotionally appealing they may be to us (Proverbs 14:12; John 7:21-24). Standing with those as a professing Christian that are accusing God of being unfair is not the side you want to stand on in light of His ongoing judgment in the churches and fast approaching wrath.
Originally Posted May 20, 2012
I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to challenge the whole degenerate spectacle today of so many individuals and groups calling for fairness. It is not new to be sure. The ancient Israelites were so bold as to accuse God of being unfair to His face after He laid down His standard for judging the eternal destiny of souls (Ezekiel 18). Souls that sin, die. Righteous souls live. Righteous souls that backslide into sin and do not repent will die. Wicked souls that repent will live! Israel thought that this was unfair and apparently many professing Christians do today that also cannot bear the thought that God would condemn them for willfully sinning without repentance. But God stands His ground then and now (Ezekiel 18:25-32; Hebrews 10:26-39).
Save your rebuttal of protest on my citing Ezekiel 18 as a Scripture reference for Christians since it is from the Old Testament. I am fully aware that the righteousness spoken of at that time was of the law. However, to God righteousness is righteousness whether it is of the law or from faith. None of the Old Testament saints were declared righteous by keeping the law perfectly because they could not. All who have ever been declared righteous by God were--as the apostle Paul makes clear, declared so based on faith in His promises (Romans 3:9-4:25, 10:1-13). Nevertheless, the righteous of God by faith in all epochs obey His Word to include properly dealing with sin guilt or suffer the consequences. Those who do so in love find it easier to obey (Psalm 32:1-5; 1 John 1:8-2:2, 5:1-3).
Thus, living the way God expects is required of Israel in the Old Testament and Christians in the New. God is perfectly just as our Creator to demand that we live as He has commanded. We are His creatures for whom He has set down His will for our conduct presented in the Bible based on His own holy, just and righteous character (1 Peter 1:13-21)! Christians may not have to obey the letter of the law to be saved, but we have been given commandments that actually fulfill the law we are to obey in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us according to the New Covenant, to help us do that very thing (Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 13:34-35, 14:15-17; Romans 8:1-4; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6).1
Israel’s exile to Babylon for breaking His covenant and law proves God meant business then, and surely He also means it now for those of us ushered into the New Covenant by the blood of Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son (Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, 11:27-32)! In spite of this very clear warning though, among the rebels calling everything and everyone including God that stifles their desires unfair are professing Christians in no small numbers. But how can this be? Have they not read in the Bible or been taught God and the Son of God is perfectly and eternally just (Deuteronomy 32:4; Zechariah 9:9; Acts 3:14-15)? Do they not understand that they are blasphemously accusing the holy God of sin and will be condemned with the wicked without repentance because His just ones live by faith in Him (Habakkuk 2:4; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 11:6)?
Truly, what began a generation ago as the right thing to do in reversing hundreds of years of inequality and unfairness visited by whites (including a great number professing to be Christians) upon blacks and other racial minorities in our nation has now degenerated into a narcissistic feeding frenzy of souls from every walk of life clamoring for equality and fairness as they selfishly see it. Anything one does not personally agree with is childishly labeled unfair. This state of affairs has turned governments, institutions, churches and families into confused bowls of gelatin afraid to say or do anything lest someone be treated unfairly and trying desperately to be all things to all people.
As a black American, it is painful and deeply offensive to watch since racial discrimination continues as it always has and the just demand of my forefathers for its end is mocked and trampled upon by the present clamor for fairness from every quarter including some blacks with all other immoral sinners simply wanting their way. Talk about unfair; now, the very quest for the divinely displayed nobility of fairness has been hijacked by evil so that those in it are treated as and lumped together with all the other whiners that selfishly only want something for themselves. Alas, it would finally come to this in a world that has been unfair since man’s fall to sin and Satan.
Indeed, the world is not fair because we are sinners and its current ruler, Satan, is completely evil. Violently clamor, march, litigate and legislate all you want to; this fallen, sinful world will never of itself be entirely fair. In The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics as the Lord leads, I teach men how He expects us to live in an unfair world following His example (1 Peter 2:18-23). When there are egregious instances of injustice such as that suffered by my forefathers in slavery, Jim Crow segregation and the continuing “isms” that plainly violate God’s standards, we that love the Lord must rise up even at personal cost to peacefully take a stand to advocate for a righteous correction.
Nonetheless, every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Christ and peculiar to the world knows full well that the just world we seek will only arrive when the Just One comes in wrath to perfectly give the narcissistic agitators for fairness exactly what they demand, vanquish the present ruler and set up His own righteous Kingdom on this planet (Psalm 2:9, 72:1-4; Isaiah 42:1-4; Matthew 6:9-13; Revelation 19:11-16, 20:1-3). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
1 See the January 2014 posts, God’s New Covenant under the category, Holidays and Party Of The Second Part, Pt. 1 and 2 under the category, The Faith to learn
more about the New Covenant as the one and only covenant from God Christians have to be concerned about.
How plainly narcissistic are the many demonically inspired and patently false doctrines flowing from numerous pulpits and media labeled Christian exposed in the illumination of God’s current and escalating judgment in His house! Yet again in history people claiming a connection to God must decide who speaks the truth from Him between the prophets of peace and prosperity that proclaim with zeal, “It’s your season” or those such as me calling for repentance while in real time judgment unfolds among dying churches? Since the Bible shows the immutable God consistently vindicating the prophets of judgment, the decision should be easy, but sin deceives and destroys in all seasons!
Today, megachurches are built on ear itch relief teaching as foretold that falsely has God always graciously blessing and bringing folk into their selfish season of prosperity--who would not want to hear that all of the time if it were so (2 Timothy 4:3-4)? Truly, God is gracious to bless His people sold out to Him and His cause in the Gospel beginning in their souls and despite whatever else they may lack (Philippians 4:10-14; 3 John 1-4); for Christ died on the cross to completely save sinners, impoverished souls with no hope of accessing the riches of spiritual life available in God alone (Matthew 5:3). This truth is true for believers in any nation and economy on earth!
Notwithstanding the deceitful preaching by so many of my male and female contemporaries, I declare as the Lord has commanded: repent, judgment is not for some future time far removed, but is now in progress and intensifying (Ezekiel 12:21-28)! In line with the experience of prophets such as Jeremiah who had to also contend with the contrary message of false prophets and the apostle Paul’s charge to Timothy, I stand knowing what is received as negative has never been popular and certainly is not in today’s “be happy” world (Jeremiah 6:10-15, 8:10-12; 2 Timothy 4:1-2). With the world, in fact, the very mention of the word “sin” is considered negative by many professing Christians.
Indeed, professing American Christians and those in other Western nations at this hour are not the first thinly religious people to so enjoy the pleasures of sin that they find the divine call to repentance and warning of judgment repulsive (Jeremiah 5:10-13, 28:1-17). Ancient Israel was repeatedly called to repentance and warned by her faithful prophets, but chose to ignore, persecute and murder them (Jeremiah 25:1-7, 38:1-6; Matthew 23:29-36). As the Lord Jesus points out in contrast to Israel rejecting Him--the greatest of all prophets, mighty pagan Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah (Matthew 12:38-42)! Outwardly religious Israel had the Son of God crucified.
Similarly, Foxe’s Book Of Martyrs details professing Christians and their manmade Christianity the religion have a history on par with Israel on this score. Unregenerate men more devoted to their invented forms and doctrines of Christianity have barbarically and hideously put to death those they considered heretics including the faithful souls God raised up to call them to repentance. Though they presently do not murder physically as a general rule, denominational leaders, pastors, elders and churches that resist God’s call to repentance for whatever motives do so now by maligning, shunning as outcasts and treating with hostile contempt those He sends to them as I am a witness.
Even so, hear now, this summary Word of the Lord from Ezekiel 13 to the sixth century BC “foolish prophets” of Israel that reverberates in application down to the false prophets, prophetesses and teachers of peace and prosperity in this twenty-first century (NKJV). Woe to you! You prophesy out of your own heart; having seen no vision from God, you express what has come from your own spirit in falsehood and futility. He did not send you and you lie on Him that He has spoken to you for the sake of money. The Lord’s hand is against you. Unless you repent, your name will not be written down with the righteous because you have seduced His people with your false messages and teaching of peace and prosperity to enrich yourself.
With your lies you have built a spiritually weak wall for those that follow you. This is a wall that will collapse from the storms of God’s judgment in His house and the world. Being no respecter of persons, the Lord will not spare the women either who have boldly stepped up to claim their right to speak and be heard before and in all authority over the assembly; lying on God to say He called you to do this and making Him a party to confusion and sin (1 Corinthians 14:29-37; 1 Timothy 2:11-14). Together with your male counterparts, it is your season; your season to experience the judgment of the holy God who judges us in accord with our works ostensibly born of faith, love and obedience (Jeremiah 17:9-10; John 14:15; Romans 2:5-11)! Be certain that with dying churches, your foolishness will die also.
There will be no peace in the world during this present, evil milieu except within the faithful Christian (Isaiah 26:3-4; John 14:27, 16:33); the Western economic system that made material prosperity possible, drawing to its inevitable end as well (Isaiah 24:1-13; Matthew 10:34-39, 24:7; Revelation 6:5-6). Not until the Lord, the Prince of Peace returns will there be thorough and lasting global peace and prosperity (Isaiah 9:6-7, 11:1-9)! Greatly blessed are the gray headed that largely fill the relative few faithful Western churches that remain. They now depart home in peace and the prosperity of their souls; removed from the troubles ahead (Psalm 116:15; Isaiah 26:20-21, 57:1-2). Let the younger faithful prepare by coming to the way of the aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of our Lord Jesus Christ and the soon coming revival fire of the Holy Spirit!
Before having you read the short tribute of praise to God in this 2012 blog repost, He has sanctioned my brief and appropriate lamentation in advance for the local churches of history from the 1st century until the destruction of great Babylon. It is appropriate for the faithful to lament now, since upon our departure to Heaven (Hebrews 12:18-24) and in the resurrection to immortal glory to follow we will no longer lament or weep over what we will not remember from this present mortal age (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:4). Of course, many tears of bewilderment and loss are already being shed in various parts of the world for re-tasked, empty and destroyed buildings where professing Christians can no longer assemble; many more tears are still to come.
With understanding and our hearts properly set on God’s eternal big picture, however, let the faithful of God join me in this purposeful lamentation for the coming end of the overt local churches and this mortal epoch of the Church on earth. For we know Christ did not suffer to save temporal buildings, but the souls that become the spiritual construction material for the glorious eternal Church He builds (1 Peter 2:1-10)! Let professing Christians bound anchor and chain to this present age hear this lament as a sign and yet another prophetic warning from the Lord to get your priorities straight in all repentance (Romans 2:4)! The prophet Jeremiah’s Lamentations 1-2 and Revelation 18:21-23 serve as the Scriptural backdrop and Holy Spirit fired inspiration for my lament.
How lonely sit the churches that were once filled with people! The re-tasked, empty or destroyed buildings that once hosted the weekly parade of men, women, boys and girls into its rooms, now, only offering a kaleidoscope of bittersweet memories to them as they pass by seeking for hidden refuge elsewhere. No more ringing church bells or families dressed in their Sunday best filling seats to hear prayers, sermons, hymns and songs; the silenced voices of deacons, preachers, choirs, soloists and musicians a mere echo in the swift moving memories. No more babies crying or children rustling restlessly during the service. No more baptisms, communions, weddings, dedications or funerals.
The picnics, potlucks and fellowship meals are no more; the polite banter of adults and laughter of children at play are no longer heard. Endless meetings where members in the pride of the flesh sought to wrangle for their way have ceased; labor and activities devoid of the Spirit’s leading and power halted. The distinctive qualities which made every church formed among the ethnicities unique are no longer exhibited; the world famous emotional shouts of ecstasy, dancing and testimonies in the churches of my own black American people: gone. Re-tasked, empty or destroyed buildings certainly display the fruit of satanic hatred; the displeasure of God on the evil done in His house--no more an offense to His holiness and the shed blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:26-31)!
Originally Posted July 8, 2012
As a short postscript to my July 1st blog, Death Of A Church--One Year Later, under the category, “Glory To God!”, I offer up my praise and worship to God Almighty for the amazing work done to save souls in the multiplied millions to this hour in spite of the intense opposition of the powers of darkness as well as the failures of many professing Christians and local churches. Indeed, how awesome; how great is the triune God who has suffered long, is patient and persevering in the divine cause to redeem men from the day Adam fell through these nearly two thousand years since the Son of God was crucified because of our sins, buried and raised for our justification (Romans 4:25)!
What many even faithful Christians fail to appreciate about this so-called “church age” is that the local church was never intended to be a permanent fixture on earth. Local assemblies of mortal believers have come and gone as the Spirit of God moves throughout the earth pressing the cause of saving individuals through the preaching of the Gospel in power (Acts 1:8)! To that end, God never needed us, but dispatches His eager sons redeemed by faith in the cause (Romans 10:14-15). Truly, the everlasting Gospel will be preached one final time to the whole world by an angel not churches (Revelation 14:6-7)!
Therefore, I praise the Lord God Almighty for His steadfast work of saving sinful men like me around much satanic opposition and many obstacles of fallen men in building His eternal Church of the redeemed (Matthew 16:13-18; Revelation 5:8-14, 19:1-10). To God be the glory!
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