It is with great joy that I announce the re-release of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics this July 1st under the exclusive publishing imprint, ODCM Publishing Division a unit of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc., I was privileged by the Lord to found in 1985. This day has come in spite of all of the resisting and hindering tactics the enemy has employed in the process--to God be the glory! Why does this book concern Satan so? Because he fears the prospective results for good among Christian men that will result from widespread encounter with the content. For this re-release, I am reposting two blogs this and next week that stress the great need and urgency for my book. I have done some minor editing in paragraph construction and content in this first repost.
Originally Posted October 13, 2013
This edited 2010 Commentary followed immediately after one I wrote as the Lord led challenging men as fathers to step up and accept the divine assigned responsibility to protect our children starting as they are unborn in the womb.1 Transparently owning my own shameful failure to do so as an unsaved teenager, I also urged fellow aspiring strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ to stand up for and defend the right of the unborn to live.2 Continuing in that vein, this post puts the failure of men guilty of not protecting our children in its proper spiritual context as part of the ongoing rebellion against God, His design and order of the family. It also warns about the unfolding consequences that will continue to intensify and calls professed Christian men to the cause and work of restoring men.3
Originally Published February 2010
A man's responsibility to protect his children from conception to the age of majority is bound up in God's design of the human family. We do the mothers of our children no favors to remain with them--it is God's will that we do so! He holds us accountable to walk in His design and fulfill the purposes of our creation plainly spelled out in His Book of beginnings. There, it is written: "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it…,'" (Genesis 1:27-28a, NKJV).4
Man and woman as husband and wife in the lifetime bond of marriage is God's original and enduring context for the bringing forth of children. Formal marriage of the first couple took place after God created the woman and brought her to the man (Genesis 2:18-23). He then presented His will through Moses: "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh," (Genesis 2:24, NKJV). Any doubts about whether the first couple was truly married or not is dispelled in the next verse, "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed," (Genesis 2:25, Emphasis mine, NKJV).
In the rebellion against God and His Anointed that has intensely gripped our world over the last generation, living together without formal marriage has become so common we have considered it normal. But man's rebellion does not alter God's original design. Therefore, every man and woman living together without the benefit of formal marriage is sinning against the Lord. Every man and woman having sex outside of marriage is also sinning against the Lord. This is so, whether they consider themselves Christians or not!5 Since God will never let sinful men mock Him, the harvest of consequences from the seeds of rebellion have long been showing themselves in our nation and world.
Never before heard of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS sprang up in the latter third of the 20th century in the heat of the so-called "sexual revolution." The trail of broken relationships and shattered lives through break up and abandonment circles the globe at this hour. Irresponsible men now, even brag about the number of children they have by different mothers. Meanwhile, fatherless children bear more fatherless children that are deeply bitter, hate-filled and ready to make everybody feel their pain! And this is all good? I don't think so! We are killing ourselves doing things our way and it is time to admit failure.
To reverse the present course of self-destruction we are on, mankind must turn back to God, our Creator and Judge--His will, way and Word while there is still time (Acts 17:24-31; 2 Peter 3:7-9)! This, of course, includes restoring marriage and family as He designed them. Whatever God does in the original is "very good" by His own testimony (Genesis 1:31). What we have done in one generation rebelling against God's very good way of marriage and family is not good at all. In fact, it is plain evil! Leading out in this turn back to God must be every man that calls himself a Christian and that aspires to be a strong man of God in the image of Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-15).
Indeed, if you are like me, you had your time in the rebellion, contributed to the folly of today by fathering children out of wedlock and are filled with deep regret over the burgeoning consequences. I began to turn away from my participation in the rebellion when I became a Christian on Easter 1977 (Romans 6:21; Titus 3:3-8). Now, it's time we Christian men man up and lead the repentance charge back to God in all understanding that unless we do, our children may well be the generation that experiences the full outpouring of His foretold wrath on those in rebellion against Him (Psalm 2:1-5; Isaiah 13:11-13; Romans 1:18-32; Revelation 6:12-17). I am doing my part through this Ministry in seeking to restore men and their families as God designed. I challenge you to join me!
1 See the January 21, 2018 repost, Protecting Our Children, under the category, Biblical Worldview.
2 Learn about the strong man of God in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. It is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick
and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 Read the July 27, 2014 post, God Of Order and November 16, 2014, Christian Women And Restoring Men, both under the category, Instruction.
4 God’s purposeful design of male and female bodies to procreate is incontrovertible evidence of procreation being a part of mankind’s purpose shared in common with all
of the other creatures of this physical creation after their kind. See the May 1, 2016 post, Natural Bodies By Divine Design, under the category, God’s Creatures.
5 Read the two-part repost beginning February 11, 2018, Christian Singles Having Sex, under the category, Black History.
First it was the humiliation of missionaries coming from the former imperial possessions of Western nations including America in recent years to evangelize them. Now, in a stunning and decisive stand, United Methodist Christians from largely African nations recently stood against the formerly dominant Western denomination’s insistence on sanctioning the ordination and same sex marriage of LGBTQ persons within its ranks.1 Such is the intense spiritual warfare of these latter days as those that would be faithful to God and His Word as it is written not only must stand against a secular world in rebellion, but those that have infiltrated and would foment it in God’s house!
As a Christian descendant of African slaves in America, I am pleased in the Lord to have founded this Ministry and to be leading its Kingdom cause to restore men, families and communities also standing firmly on God’s Word!2 Surely, it was ‘“for such a time as this’” (Esther 4:13-16, NKJV) in the Body of Christ that God has touched many hearts among those once considered of no account and inferior by their former masters to stand with the faithful of all hues against the “madness” of rebellion and apostasy now underway in the West and a large number of its churches as I write of my own labor in the Preface of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics; with joy replacing a “dumb donkey” for Christ’s sake (1 Corinthians 1:27-29; 2 Peter 2:12-16, NKJV).3
Prior to the book’s first publication in 2011, the Lord led me to write this edited 2010 Commentary contending for lifelong marriage as He designed it.
Originally Published March 2010
As an institution, marriage is under attack as never before as humanity in rebellion seeks to loose itself from all of God's program laid out in His Word (Psalm 2:1-3). Not only is marriage on the decline due to abandoned moral standards that permit temporary relationships of casual sex and living together, but it is being outright corrupted by those who want to legitimatize their same sex relationships. Destroying marriage as the Bible knows it too is the incredible divorce rate both in and outside of the churches. These divorces occur for many reasons beyond what the Lord Jesus Christ has permitted.
Marriage as God designed it is foundational to human existence and the oldest of all forms of human relationship. Indeed, before God introduced marriage, mankind was bottled up in the seed of the first man. The Bible does not glamorize God's purpose in creating the female version of man; it was to facilitate His will that the earth be filled with humanity through procreation (Genesis 1:27-28a). However, as a blessing to humanity and to sweeten the means to His end, the Lord gave us the gift of marital relationship. Thus, marital relationship exclusively between a man and a woman is of the purposeful construction of God, not society or the State since neither yet existed.
In the presence of Adam God declares, "'It is not good that man should be alone,'" (Genesis 2:18a, NKJV). God already knew that He was going to create a female for the man, but Adam had to know that being alone was not good. Adam also had to appreciate the value of relationship with another creature like him. If relationship for its own sake had been His sole purpose, then God was more than enough! However, procreation as He designed it would require Adam to have a suitably created, committed companion and helper with whom he could relate to for life.
God proclaims, "'I will make him a helper comparable to him,'" (Genesis 2:18b, NKJV). This helper God has in mind would not be an exact duplicate of Adam, but correspond to him as no other creature on earth (Genesis 2:19-20). After putting him to sleep and removing one of his ribs, the Lord God purposefully fashioned a woman and presented her to Adam. As evidenced by his joyful words, this woman corresponded to Adam in every way human--spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically (Genesis 2:21-23). They were equal in their humanity, but had different roles and responsibilities as plainly seen in their order of creation and the unique construction of their bodies.
Adam and his wife had a basic and functional relationship built upon their correspondence that would be mutually satisfying and endure for a lifetime apart from the romanticized notions of love we have today in which an estimated 40-50% of marriages fail in divorce.4 This does not mean they would not enjoy romance. However, this was only a small part of a total relationship that would be sustained in the main by a committed love for each other in unity and their Creator whose purposes they gladly sought to fulfill.
The Lord Jesus Christ, our Creator in the flesh declares, "'What God has joined together, let not man separate,'" (Matthew 19:4-6, NKJV). In God's design of marriage, it is permanent! While because of men's sin hardened hearts He allowed the concept of divorce to enter human experience, the Lord makes it clear before sin "'from the beginning it was not so.'" He permits divorce only after sexual immorality, which is already a break in the marital covenant (Matthew 19:7-9, NKJV). The Lord's apostle, Paul, later addresses the de facto divorce that occurs when an unbelieving spouse permanently deserts the marriage (1 Corinthians 7:10-16).
Aspiring strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ living to please Him and do His will, must labor vigorously to restore marriage as our God designed it. This means that we have to first be sure we are honoring His marital design.5 Then we must lock arms with our pastors that are faithfully holding the line on marriage as God designed it. Unless God's design of marriage is restored, we can count on seeing the rapid fracturing and decay of our society along with its descent into social chaos continue to the point there is “no remedy”6 and in the end, “wrath” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16, NKJV).
1 View the short news story produced by CBN News on its Christian World News program starting 13 minutes and 40 seconds in that interviews a Liberian leader in the denomination.
2 See the April 26, 2015 repost, Obeying God’s Word On His Side, under the category, The Cause and many others among my blogs using the search word, “marriage.”
3 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
4 Google “2018 divorce rate.” Some social scientists actually see a downward trend in divorces driven by millennials for such reasons as marrying later in life (which still
does not conform to God’s will) according to a Bloomberg article.
5 As I discuss in my book, this means among other things marrying “only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39, NKJV), loving his wife in the sacrificial, constructive and es-
teeming care displayed by Christ for the Church (Ephesians 5:25-33a) and honoring the vow of marriage as God intends for men to honor all of our vows (Numbers 30:
1-2; Matthew 5:33-37). Christian women too, must marry only in the Lord and honor the wedding vow as well as love their husbands as Christ loves the Father and the
Church, Him, in all submission and respect (John 6:38, 8:48-49; Ephesians 5:22-24, 33b).
6 A point which since I wrote this in 2010, the Lord led me to proclaim has arrived! Read the first mention of a “point of no return” in the July 15, 2015 part one 2012 re-
post, Powerlessness Of Being The Minority, under the category, Encouragement. A second mention follows in the October 22, 2017 part two 2013 repost, Mocking The
Rainbow, under the category, Biblical Worldview.
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!
Faithfully proclaiming the Gospel and witnessing Christ as written in the Bible (Luke 24:44-47; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4), all faithful Christian men boldly labor to restore other men beginning in their own families and wherever the Holy Spirit leads (Acts 8:1-5).3 Anxiety about this is reduced by remembering the mission is simply to proclaim what we know from the Word and our own experience with Christ if given the opportunity, not to convert folk! Our work is finished upon rejection and we move on (Luke 10:1-16). When a man does come to Jesus, while local churches still exist he should be taken or directed to one for baptism and sound instruction in the faith and biblical manhood.
Woe to any pastor that does anything other than encourage and begin to teach and personally mentor newly restored men in the faith and biblical manhood or delegate this to another faithful man right away! Given the deteriorating times, if a newly restored man has no pastor or biblically sound church that can be found from one in a house to a larger, brick and mortar building, then the man who led him to Christ should take responsibility to give some instruction and at least baptize him if possible (Acts 8:26-40). Otherwise, the newly restored man should be told to earnestly seek the Lord for a maturing Christian man to teach and mentor him in the faith and biblical manhood (Acts 9:1-19).
Satan’s intense offensive drive in these final two minutes of the game will eventually become widely violent in America, the West and globally well before his Antichrist arrives on the scene (Matthew 24:9). His objective is to hatefully eliminate Christians from the earth as impediments and destroy as many Jews with much of the rest of humanity as possible before certain defeat by Christ at His return! In the meantime, laboring faithfully in the Lord’s Kingdom cause, work and warfare to restore men and standing firm in the faith will require all that God has designed and equipped restored men as aspiring strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ to be!
Truly, in the thick of our two minute drill, all restored men in Christ must seriously honor His instruction as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics and follow His example (Matthew 16:24-25).4 For as a Son, He made pleasing the Father in Selfless devotion and doing His will the core ambition of His earthly life (Psalm 40:7-8). As a Disciple of His Father, the Lord Jesus absorbed and gave Himself over fully in obedience to His instruction as well as trusted Him for help (Isaiah 50:4-9). With a Servant’s heart, Christ endured the scorn of those who rejected and gave Him over to violence and death in order to pay for our sins (Isaiah 52:13-53:12).
In my book, I also point out how the result of Christ’s uniquely Personal work and warfare in God’s Kingdom cause brought salvation and restoration to the world! Commissioned by Him, our work and warfare in the Kingdom cause is to ensure fellow humanity beginning with men as a first priority hears the Good News of Christ’s triumph on our behalf (Romans 10:14-15)! Then, only after this do we baptize and teach those that repent and believe. So, as faithful sons of the Father, disciples of Christ and servants to God and humanity we press with selfless ambition to carry out our mission; willing even to suffer and die in it because with Christ’s heart, humanity is precious to us.
From the earliest times, men have fought and died in wars for all manner of purposes. It is in the hearts of men to face death for even ignoble causes they believe in. How can we not believe in the noblest of causes; that of God’s Kingdom cause, work and warfare in this present age to save and restore, since we who are saved and restored are grateful beneficiaries? There is also the not so small matter of seeking the greatness of God’s promised rewards for laboring to the point of physical death in His Kingdom cause, work and warfare beginning with the resurrection to immortal glory Christ already has (Matthew 5:10-12, 16:25-27; Romans 8:12-18; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; James 1:12)! Of course, in all of this I speak biblically and not as a passive religionist.
As a result, in biblical Christianity character matters! Through much adversity, God builds Christ’s character in restored men aspiring to be strong men of God in His image as eternal identity and in order to work, war and make our defensive stand for the Kingdom to His glory on this mortal side of endless life. Again, I go into more detail in my book. However, in this space, know, for example, Christ’s holy character including zeal, courage, strength, humility, obedience and tested faith of which He is “the Author and Finisher,” is fully demonstrated in His life and ministry (John 2:13-22, 18:1-11; Philippians 2:5-8; Hebrews 5:5-9; 12:1-2, NKJV). God also equips us with the Holy Spirit’s strength and power along with the battle proven armor of Christ (Ephesians 6:10-20)!5
3 Our faithful sisters work cooperatively with their Christian husbands to reach their children. Then, their priority is female family members and other women. Obviously, having been led to Christ by a woman, I am not teaching a woman can never share the Gospel with or witness to a man (John 4:27-30, 39). I give only God’s general rule of priority. However, as it concerns mixed gender group instruction in the faith and one on one mentoring of biblical man or womanhood, the Bible gives God’s ancient, unmistakable instruction (1 Timothy 2:11-14; Titus 2:1-5). The fact I am compelled to make any clarifying statements at all shows the devastating negative impact the rebellious feminist worldview has had on the psyche of many professing Christians (who are made to feel in a biblical worldview such as I teach, women are overlooked in God’s program--what a lie from Satan!) and how far from God’s Word they are. O, my faithful sisters, you have your full part in all that pertains to the bib- lical faith, service, tribulations and glories to come in Christ!
4 You can learn details about my book on its dedicated page at the strong man of God Web site.
5 Learn more about men and causes in the five message CD Series, I AM A Man as well as the war strategy and armor of God by way of my four message Series, We Are At War! available in the Strong Man Store.
The repentance and revival of guilty professed Christian men (includes leaders) in and out of the churches is urgently needed to get them off the bench and into the King’s game during these final two minutes! From revival will come the fresh fire, zeal and power through the Holy Spirit to engage in the Kingdom cause, work and warfare to restore men on an increasingly hostile field of play and referees that unashamedly cheat as agents of the other team! All of what biblical manhood entails and the whole armor of God will be required. As in days of old, our God will also soon do more to support us in foretold, undeniable wonders only He can do in the sky and on the earth!
As the Lord has led, in other recent blogs I have already written in summary form the primary reasons guilty professed Christian men are in sin before Him.1 The bottom line is they want to do their will and not His. The consequences are many; not the least of which is men as God’s chosen leaders are being destroyed taking families, churches and communities out with them! Too, the catastrophic swirl of the foretold, latter day global rebellion as an unstoppable offense is pushing the spiritually weak and constantly compromising defense of professing Christianity backward. Our team bench is spiritually dehydrated and distracted in many ways including by religion.
Repentance and revival among professed Christian men is God’s righteous and only remedy for those seated on the bench and sinfully not in the game! In their present sinful state, they are as the “old wine skins” in the Lord’s famous parable (Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22, NKJV). He teaches that new wine cannot be put into an old wine skin lest in the fermentation process, it bursts, is ruined and the wine spilled out. But new wine is put into a new wineskin so that both are “preserved.” Moreover, He adds in Luke’s version, having tasted the old wine, one does not want any new wine right away because it is felt, ‘“the old is better,’” (Luke 5:33-39, NKJV).
Like Israel--the Lord’s first audience of application for old wine skins, professed Christian men active in and spiritually deadened by unbelief, disobedience and sinful distractions cannot without repentance receive the new wine of Jesus as Lord and the Holy Spirit’s fresh fire. They must first become new wine skins through repentance and all brokenness before God as He has plainly and graciously taught in His Word (Psalm 51:1-17, Isaiah 57:15; Hebrews 4:14-16; 1 John 1:5-2:2)! By the way, as with individuals, so, churches! No professed Christian or church can get right with God and become new wine skins ready for new wine without heartfelt repentance (Revelation 3:1-3)!
Remaining in sin is not an option. For unless professed Christian men on the bench do repent, hardness of heart sets in. They are finally destroyed in God’s judgment because their sinful way is better to them; living in the deceit God’s love will sweep them on into Heaven anyhow (Ezekiel 18:24-32; Luke 6:46-49, 12:42-48; Romans 2:1-11; Galatians 5:16-21, 6:7-8; Hebrews 3:7-19, 10:26-31). However, after heartfelt repentance and God’s forgiveness, the repentant gladly welcome Christ to reassert His Lordship in and the Holy Spirit to freshly fill their hearts as new wine in all personal spiritual revival (Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 7:9-11; Revelation 3:19-20)!
Hungry for God, revived Christian men immediately return to such disciplines of the faith as daily Bible study and prayer. They also leap up off the bench ready to get in the game and testify about their revival! As the Lord leads, they tell what great things God has done for them and witness Him in all grateful joy to saved family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and anyone else including fellow men the Holy Spirit brings near (Mark 5:18-20). In such encounters, they find themselves not only testifying to what the Lord has freshly done for them in repentance and revival, but about Jesus, the Savior and Gospel of Him whose sacrifice has made it all possible! Finally, with the Spirit’s fire burning freshly in their bellies, they yearn to serve the Lord as when they were newborn in Him.
Surely, revived pastors are eager to once again stand to lead by example in testifying of and proclaiming the grace and mercies of God to His flock; urging all to follow in their footsteps. They fast; they pray, enlisting other leaders and whoever will to join them in calling on the Holy Spirit to fall fresh on that local assembly of believers as repentance is urged of all. New vision comes to them from the Lord and they are ready to abandon the dead works of selfish ambition and the traditions of religion. In their new Kingdom vision, revived pastors see the value and the Lord’s priority of restoring men; men that after proper instruction in biblical manhood will restore their families and lead the way in restoring other men that will shore up a faltering defense on the field of play.
1 Read all the July 2017 blogs, but especially Pastors In The Two Minute Drill and Churchmen In The Two Minute Drill under the category, The Cause.
In a recent radio interview discussing my book, one of the hosts and sister in Christ shared that from her experience, most women--Christian or not--want a strong man. While this may be true, contemporary feminist ideology--which at its core seeks for a separate and independent identity from men in what is called “equality”--sabotages this aspiration more so than any failures men may have that do so. Truly, there is nothing innately wrong with men that God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and power of the Holy Spirit cannot fix. However, willful rebellion against God’s order by women that are guilty including those professing to be Christians exacerbates the problems men in sin weakness have and provokes the wrath of God against them as rebels.
As the Lord led, I wrote about the issue of re-defining men, women, their roles and responsibilities that coincides with what is also being done with sin in the second chapter of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. As is plainly shown in His Word, God did not create two heads in the order of the human family. Indeed, as I have taught over the years, we instinctively understand a two headed anything is not natural or normal. God created the man first and brought forth the woman second from out of him specifically to be his companion and helper (Genesis 2:7, 18-25). She was fully equal to him in person, but God gave the couple different roles and responsibilities that are also plainly seen in their bodies.
The man was to be the head over his wife and chief leader in the family. This was not about inequality, but divine will and order for humanity; order that is everywhere apparent within the family of God, Heaven and its ranks of angelic majesties, the cosmos and every kind of display of life on planet earth. Truly, God is One (communicating absolute unity and equality of Person) and yet, within the triunity of God, the Father is the Head, Christ the Word is the Son and the third Person is the Holy Spirit ready to do the will of the Father and Son (Genesis 1:1-3; Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 3:13-17; 28:19; John 1:1-5, 14-18, 14:28, 15:26). Read my July 27, 2014 blog, God Of Order under the category, Instruction to learn more about the divine display of and commitment to order.
So, men are to be the heads over their wives by the express will of God in consistency with the divine order in which the woman came from the man for him, but since then, both are dependent on the other in the Lord’s continuing program of marriage and procreation (1 Corinthians 11:3, 8-12). Understanding from the Holy Spirit the surpassing greatness and blessing of God’s order of marriage framed within the Christian faith, the great apostle Paul purposely taught it to first century Christians (Ephesians 5:22-24; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:1-5). With consistency, he also taught how God’s order of marriage in male and female roles and responsibilities were to be carried out in all of the churches largely made up of Gentiles since the Jews already knew from the mosaic law and had been obedient since Abraham’s day (Genesis 3:16b; 1 Corinthians 14:33-40; 1 Timothy 2:11-15; 1 Peter 3:1-6).
Yes, in general historically, men have blown it big time as it concerns being the kind of ruler God designed after the image and likeness of God and perfectly modeled by our Lord Jesus Christ (Genesis 1:26; Ephesians 5:25-33; Colossians 3:19; 1 Peter 3:7). I own this truth in the book and apologize to my sisters for it. However, I also say the failure of men does not warrant a full on rebellion against God by women in these latter days since the failure of men is due entirely to the fall and sin as an indwelling reality going forward. Though because of his status before God as the head, Adam’s disobedience condemned the race (Romans 5:12), nevertheless, it was Eve who led the way as the first human sinner (Genesis 3:6; 1 Timothy 2:14).
Now, today, will the women who are guilty as Eve’s daughters also lead a rebellion against God’s order and expect that their sin will set everything right? Apparently they think so since the rebellion is in progress and has been growing for a generation. At this point, as the Lord leads, I especially speak from the heart to the women of my own race and people. I know so many of you have had to step in to fill the void left by missing men since slavery and not all from the demoralization of our experience that affected those without Christ the most. Some were irresponsible as men weak in sin then, as the many are today. By default and for your children, you had to become the head of the family as Deborah also had to save Israel when the men were weak before God (Judges 4:4-22).
We who are learning the way of the strong man of God in the image of Jesus Christ understand from the foregoing that we owe you a great debt of gratitude. But if in these latter days a significant number of us will successfully rise up from the dead of sin weakness into the restoration of strength through Christ to become strong men of God in His image, those of our sisters who are guilty must repent from the pride of feminism and relinquish your grip on headship to return to honoring God’s order in the home and churches as it is written in His Word! Two independent heads of the house sounds good to the rebel heart, but in practical application engenders conflict and blocks a man from becoming strong in his role and responsibility to lead as God has hard wired into his existence and is revived in the strong man of God message and cause.
Too, as is well known, what is being done right now in rebellion is not working to facilitate intact families. The high levels of single females who feel obliged to be sexually promiscuous and enable male irresponsibility by financially supporting them to attract their interest, domestic violence, divorce, shacking and single female headed households (many with children from different absent fathers) amply demonstrates the truth. If women of the world will not return to God’s program, then, surely those professing to be Christians should though some of my strongest opposition to restoring men over the years has come from this group because they do not want to abandon their selfish ambitions for position, power and recognition in the churches inspired by the flesh and feminism not God! Let all unrepentant rebel females be warned that since God shows no partiality, they equally face His wrath with guilty males (Romans 2:1-11).
So, how can willing professed Christian women who are guilty return to God’s program and help restore men as aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ? The first step always where sin is involved is to confess and repent from it before God. Second, accept the fact God is the Author of the roles and responsibilities of men written in His Word not mortal flesh and submit to Him. Third, if relinquishing the authority of headship is a problem for you, in your fresh submission to God ask for the heart of John the Baptist who as the Lord Jesus greater in role and responsibility came on the scene said, ‘“He must increase, but I must decrease,’” (John 3:30, NKJV). John understood and accepted his role in God’s program (John 3:22-36). So should every aspiring great woman of God in the image of Christ today as divinely appointed helpers and spiritual descendants of those from ancient times recorded in the Bible and history that God may be glorified in you!
Join The Strong Man Of God Resources Conversation!
Get Your Copy Of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics Today!
Your purchase supports restoring men, families and communities through Strong Man Ministries!
Purchase It Now
