Strong Man Of God Blog

          As the Lord leads me to make plain in the book, The Scourge Of Racism, racism leaves no one involved untouched; not the object or the perpetrator!¹  In the book chapter similarly titled as today’s post, He leads me to firmly assert the very real resulting wounds of racism in the American Church require healing through God’s methodologies already prescribed in His written Word!  Of course, one must first be biblically conservative to honor and preserve God’s instruction in His Word intact and willing to objectively interpret, apply and submit to it in obedience.  Because all or some part of the foregoing is missing in the main, the Church is now, under God’s judgment!²

          Through its human vessels beginning with guilty professed Christian white colonists from before the nation’s founding, their local assemblies and subsequent institutions, the Church in this land that came to be America has tolerated, practiced and enabled racism within its ranks.³  Some of the guilty professed Christian objects of racism in bitterness have returned the favor.  Obviously, none of these persons were practicing biblical conservatism in preserving or obeying Christ’s commandment to “love one another” over the past four centuries nor are the guilty doing so now (John 13:34-35, NKJV).⁴  This ungodly reality is contrary to the example of many biblical personages.

          The Lord Jesus Christ is the foremost example of a biblical conservative.  He announced to Israel He had not come “to destroy the Law or the Prophets…but to fulfill” them (Matthew 5:17-20; Luke 16:14-18, 24:25-27, 44-45, NKJV).  Every godly person in the Bible after Christ also treats the Word of God with reverence and acts on it as it is written (Joshua 8:30-35; Daniel 9:1-2; Luke 2:25, 23:50-51).⁵  Even Satan and his demon cohort take God’s Word at face value while corrupting it to whoever will pay heed (Matthew 4:1-7, 8:28-29; 2 Peter 3:14-16).  No, Christ’s commandment that His disciples love each other has willfully not been honored, preserved or obeyed!

          There is absolutely no excuse for disobeying Christ’s commandment for the real “born again” Christian because the impetus and spiritual substance of God’s love through the Holy Spirit fills our hearts providing what we need to obey (John 3:1-8; Romans 5:5; 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, NKJV).  Beyond yielding to the sinful flesh along with worldly family and cultural conditioning, this raises the prospect of fear and the outcome of cowardice which the Lord does not accept as a reason for disobedience (Romans 13:8-14; Galatians 5:19-25; Revelation 21:8).  After these reasons only one other is plausible and that is the disobedient are not Christians at all, but impostors and apostates.⁶

          In my book, I do not pretend healing racism’s wounds in the American Church will be easy.  The biblical process will be spiritually, psychologically and emotionally challenging for authentic Christians that have been practicing even subtle racism a long time.  For the personal sin of racism and that of one’s fathers must be confessed and repented from before God to receive His forgiveness (Daniel 9:8-11; 1 John 1:8-2:2).⁷  Also, the forgiveness of those known brothers and sisters one has been bigoted toward and discriminated against is to be sought.  Guilty black and Christians of every other hue must confess and repent from bitterness and be willing to forgive those past and present who have brought harm through racism (Mark11:25-26; Ephesians 4:31-32; Colossians 3:12-13).

1 The Scourge Of Racism, Copyright 2023, ODCM Publishing Division, Portland, OR.  Learn more about the book to be released October 5^th and the specific chapter referred
   to, The Sting Of Racism, at this link.  The book will be widely available in Ministry Web Site Stores, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.

2 Read the June 10, 2018 post, God’s Judgment Upon His House, under the categories Bible Prophecy and God’s Creatures.

3 See the respective September 10 and 17, 2023 posts, Our American Heritage and Racism A Two-Fold Scourge, both under the category, Biblical Worldview.

4 Read the September 24, 2023 post, Racism In Christ’s Church A No-No, under the category, Instruction.

5 This  is  the  heart  of  every  aspiring  strong  man  and  great  woman  of God I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.  It remains available in the
   Strong Man Store among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.

6 See  the  two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction.  Practicing and attempting to pass off a counterfeit form
   of  manmade  of  Christianity, religious folk as impostors that grow worse and apostates who knowingly infiltrate local assemblies are foretold (2 Timothy 3:1-9, 13; Jude 3-4,
   16-19).  These are easily persuaded by Satan, sin and self to hate as racists because the love of God is not in them!

7 Racism  is most assuredly among the sins of the fathers and one’s own the Lord is expecting those professed Christians who will return to Him to confess and repent from in
   His appeal through this Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord.

          Patriotism is found among individuals in all of the nations on earth!  It becomes idolatry when the love for and devotion given to one’s nation including service and gifts exceeds that which is given to “the only true God,” (John 17:3, NKJV).  This prescription for idolatry also applies to anyone or thing that we may become devoted to beyond our nation.  For the first commandment of ten proclaimed by God to and written for Israel that also embodies the uppermost of His eternal transcendent spiritual principles is ‘“You shall have no other gods before Me,’” (Exodus 20:3, NKJV).¹  Excessive devotion to a nation in idolatry is as precarious and detrimental as it is with any other god of this age!

          Adam at the beginning and all mankind thereafter in whatever ethnic and/or national groupings were supposed to exclusively bow to and worship the God of the Bible as our Creator and sovereign Ruler (Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17; Acts 17:22-28).  However, Satan, that fallen angel, worked to turn the first man’s heart from God by successfully enticing his wife, then he, to disobey Him (Genesis 3:1-11). Later, God did what He had never done or would do again.  He purposely formed a nation through the elect men Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Personally acted to bring them out of bondage to another nation to be His own people, Israel (Exodus 2:23-25; Deuteronomy 4:32-40; Romans 3:1-2, 9:1-5).²

          It is in the context of making a covenant with Israel that God gave them His Law contained in Ten Commandments He audibly spoke to them then, along with Moses wrote them and related ordinances, statutes and judgments (Deuteronomy 5:1-22, 9:9-11, 31:24-29; Psalm 147:20).  I opened this post quoting the first commandment. The second is related.  It prohibited the making of and bowing to an image of anything in the sky, earth or water.  In it God transparently declared He is “a jealous God” as the reason (Deuteronomy 5:8-10, NKJV).  Not the nation as a first priority, but God was to be the primary object of loving devotion by every individual Jew and the nation as a whole.

          The Lord Jesus Christ affirmed the foregoing when He quoted from the written Law answering a question about the chief commandment saying, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength,” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Mark 12:28-30, NKJV).  Clearly, the Lord also applied His answer to Himself as the Son of God (Luke 14:25-26).  Despite this, many professed Christians revere and exalt our nation to such an extent as to easily be idolaters and offensive to Heaven.  Some even attempt to justify their excessive devotion by asserting America is “a Christian nation” and imply God established it as He did Israel.³

          If in fact America is a Christian nation it has apostatized and will suffer fully as Israel over the millennia, but with no hope for a future recovery through deliverance by Christ since the nation now, willfully rejects Him they once all believed in (Hebrews 6:4-6, 10:26-31)!⁴  And as it concerns the good intentions of the professed Christian founders of the nation to anchor it to the Bible’s morality, the guilty began the slide to where we are today by retaining slavery.  Others even corrupted the Bible by ripping out pages to take the hope of freedom away from slaves.⁵  Besides this, a Christian nation apart from all being born again Christians precludes submitting to God’s moral Law (Romans 8:6-9).⁶

          In a prophetic context that announces the time near at hand when God in majestic greatness will show up in Person to “comfort” His doubly punished people, Israel, with all of the accompanying upheaval on the earth and in the universe, He makes known in no uncertain terms what He thinks of the Gentile nations formed by men (Isaiah 40:1-14, NKJV).  The prophet declares, “Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and counted as the small dust on the scales…All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless,” (Isaiah 40:15-17, NKJV).  The normal meaning of “all” here would have to include our nation too.  In His sovereign will and for His temporal purposes, “He makes nations great, and destroys them,” (Job 12:23a, NKJV).⁷

          “To whom” or what can God be compared to?  Surely, nothing in creation or made by men in idolatry will do which is another reason God forbids making images of anyone or thing and worshiping them; nation worship being no exception since you insult the only living God (Isaiah 40:18-20, 44:6-8; Romans 1:18-23, NKJV)!  He looks down from Heaven on the earth and “its inhabitants” in the midst of the universe He in wisdom and power created (Isaiah 40:21-26, NKJV).  He rules the nations as He raises them and their rulers up and brings them down (Psalm 22:27-28; Daniel 2:20-21).⁸  “Blessed” indeed, “is the nation whose God is the LORD,” (Psalm 33:10-12, NKJV)!  Yet, God is also gracious to rebel nations; giving them opportunity and time to repent if they will (Jeremiah 18:7-12).⁹

1 Faithfulness to God is one of several eternal character traits of Christ He forges in the hearts of His aspiring strong men and great women in His Son’s image I write about in
   my  book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.  I invite you to pick up a Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Edition of the book as well as the companion Strong Man Of God
   Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.

2 Read  the  July  2,  2023  post, Christians Are To Fulfill God’s Written Law, under the category, Instruction.  Continuing His original intent with Israel under the New Covenant
   still to be fully realized by them at Christ’s return, God has included Gentiles at present in fulfilling His creation of a “holy nation,” (Matthew 22:1-14; 1 Peter 2:4-10, NKJV).

3 I  have already asserted directly from Scripture why such a thing could not be the case in the second paragraph of this post and others previously.  See for example, part two
   of the two-part post that begins August 2, 2020, Flavorless Salt Is Worthless, under the category, Call To Repent.

4 An apostatized America is preposterous!  Read footnote 8 of the above cited post.

5 See and learn more about The Slave Bible on this Ministry’s The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site.

6 Here  is  absolute  truth  from  apostolic  instruction  that  cannot be brushed aside without seriously corrupting the faith.  The Lord recently led me to warn that the attempt to
   force  obedience  to His moral law upon our secular nation through legal means will be disastrous.  Read the August 7, 2022 post, Saving Souls Not Nations, under the cate-
   gory, The Cause.

7 In  the  eyes  of  God,  America  is not exceptional or too big (important) to fail!  Rather than the arrogant stance of exceptionalism, professed Christians holding to this belief
   should  be  humbled  and petitioning God not to righteously destroy our nation for its wickedness while repenting from their sins displeasing Him beginning with arrogance as
   well  as  those  of  the nation’s fathers with it idolatrously venerated!  Watch the Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, on our YouTube Channel and consider
   this from His Word along with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

8 God  is  not  being  capricious,  but is working all  things toward His predetermined end in Christ (Daniel 2:44; Ephesians 1:7-10)!  See the January 10, 2021 post, Praying At
   Cross-Purposes With God, under the category, Bible Prophecy. 

9 Israel is the poster child for the nation both blessed of God and punished for rejecting His call to repentance from sinning against Him (Jeremiah 18:13-17; Ezekiel 36:16-38).