N.A.B.I. New Testament Survey

What to to When Facing God's Judgment

Abortion and Other Current Societal Ills

Pro-Life Groups:

Human life coalition: https://www.humancoalition.org/

Susan B. Anthony List: https://www.sba-list.org/

NC Values: https://www.ncvalues.org/

Monroe HELP Crisis Pregnancy Center: https://monroehelp.com/en/home/

Some Current Facts on Abortion:

https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6PD3BRDPARIsAN8pHuEiGWhF1mhDcg37FR3Z7CgAwI0xV3Oqa3bDOg67bBrS4brm7UUSdQoaAo4KEALw_wcB

https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/Data_Stats/Abortion.htm

https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/planned-parenthood-sets-new-record-abortions-single-year#:~:text=As%20the%20Susan%20B.,the%202018%2D2019%20reporting%20year.

Some black perspectives on the current societal ills (again, I use “black” because some people need that word to understand the context, but I reject it as a term that we ought to be using – when using “black” or “white” we are perpetuating racism – when will we all see that?):

Morgan Freeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrgrbUNxzk

Larry Elder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dE6qlOarj8

Anthony B. Logan: Aunt Jemima: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PIoikXsrpk&t=191s

“ “ Shining Shoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJVE6xqQjSs

Voddie Baucham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCivUBcap8Q

What Black Lives Matter actually believes:

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

On the Dangers of “Progressive Christianity” by Alisa Childers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFJ2yurcfNw&t=4598s

Retiring the Broadus Gavel is Political Dribbling and Less Than Worthless

Raise your hand if you had heard of the history of the Southern Baptist Convention gavel mentioned by J.D. Greear BEFORE Greear mentioned it in a piece on the Baptist Press News on June 11.[1] A current gavel could certainly affect the systemic racism of abortion in America, but a retired gavel would not help either way.

So, here’s the real racism and the real racial reconciliation that needs to occur in America. The real racism going on is that the human race (that’s us) is killing off our race by means of the abortion industry. Additionally, blacks in America are the biggest victims in this tragedy. This is so because more blacks currently use abortion clinics and women’s health clinics for abortions than any other “race.”[2]

Racism is being practiced at the largest level in America in abortion or “women’s health” clinics. Here, black babies have their lives snuffed out every week – that amounted to roughly 236, 918  in 2016.[3] In 10 years, do you realize how many black babies are dead at the hands of women’s health clinics and the Left continues to support it and turn our attention more and more to what in comparison to the atrocities of abortion are superficial issues? These issues cause unrest, create chaos, and lead more of the same demographic into more crimes, all the while turning their attention and the media’s attention to less serious issues, and away from the evil of abortion.

And here’s where God has manifestly clearly called His people to stand up against immorality and to stand up and speak out for the unborn – and protect them. Southern Baptists and other Christian leaders should speak out the loudest and longest against this “systemic” racism. Unfortunately, as older Christian leaders (and I, as a Southern Pastor pastor, am referring primarily to Southern Baptist leaders but also to all Christian leaders in America) have died off or retired, the younger generation of leaders is lacking the biblical wisdom, social courage, and spiritual umph to speak God’s truth into this culture and educate and warn and spiritually and politically fight for the unborn. Again, let me make it clear: the biggest racism issue in our country is abortion! This and other moral ills and evils in our society are where the battle for souls made in the image of God and life itself rages the fiercest. And we’re worried about a largely unknown small block of wood?

God is not pleased with thousands of black babies being killed annually. But He is also not pleased with His people not standing up for the unborn.[4] God’s people are currently too busy bowing to political expediency, fearing the wrath of man and what’s popular, pandering to the demands of criminals, being sure we follow CDC guidelines for a virus (another example of making every effort to conform to the culture), and turning a blind eye to deep matters. Lives matter. If they do, why aren’t we defending them? If black lives matter, why aren’t we defending the most vulnerable of the black lives – the little ones?

Real racial reconciliation would ask something like “What if we as Southern Baptists come up with a plan to help families and especially young men and women to see and understand what’s being done to their race and to the human race and how that many of us are being used by the Left to eradicate some of us.” The numbers are there, so let’s help our neighbors understand the evils of abortion and how that God loves each and every life, small or large, red, yellow, black, or white. But we can’t be of much help to stem this moral evil and this eradication if we are busy with surface issues, with symptoms.

Perhaps if God’s people actually turned to Him and stopped asking the culture how to think and live, and if God’s people called out to God, and if they actually obeyed God (especially in defending the unborn), perhaps we would not be plagued with a pandemic, with chaos, civil unrest, a mental health crisis, enemies like leftists (and worse) both in this country and without funding destruction, crime, racism, and chaos. Perhaps God would bless us.

Additionally, there are other moral issues – homosexual agenda, traditional marriage, and one-parent homes. The Southern Baptist Convention used to stay on front lines with these issues. But we’ve gotten lazy. We cower under the guise of “let’s preach on ‘racial reconciliation’” or, “well, we’re just called to preach the Gospel.” But the Gospel includes many pieces of good news and we’re commanded in the Bible to do a lot more than just preach the Gospel. Speaking up for the unborn is one of them. We’re at ease in Zion and this ease has led to bondage to political correctness and submission to media and an ungodly culture. Is there no God left in Israel?!

Conclusion:

We should get back to the business of caring about issues God deals with in the Bible instead of pandering to an ungodly culture. The pandering helps nothing. It’s so much political correctness and it’s for naught. It does nothing to stem the tide of genocide. It does nothing to help with race relations. Race in fact, is a social construct as Voddie Baucham has pointed out.[5] To turn our attention to the onslaught of the media’s uses of red herrings and continual tossing minor issues into our faces and our thinking, is superficial pandering of the worst kind.

Real racism in America is abortion. This beats out an old gavel used in a denominational convention once a year that up until now no one has known about. What are you thinking – that if all the black women over the last 47 years had seen this gavel retired, they would not have aborted their babies – or that by retiring this gavel, you’ll save several hundred thousand black babies in the next few years.? The only “symbolic yet tangible message”[6] that retiring said gavel sends is that we are taking the cake on “majoring on the minors.” It’s an all new low in Southern Baptist Life. Is this the best we have to offer?

So, here’s the leadership of the SBC – pandering to political correctness, keeping a blind eye and a taped-shut mouth about the larger evils in our land, not continuing a fierce battle for lives and the soul of this nation, not coming up with a plan to help our black families see and understand what’s being done to them systematically through the evil of abortion, and instead worrying about a gavel that’s used once a year at a convention, the history of which no one knew about and the first user who no one today up until now knew his racial views. What about the racial views of the Leftists who are defending and funding abortion? Let’s retire them and their ideologies and their gavels, and their statues, etc. This helps nothing, but since you’re retiring this gavel, maybe just maybe one or two people will sleep better and safer at night, and the gospel will be heard like never before.

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[1] http://www.bpnews.net/54938/first-person-its-time-to-retire-the-broadus-gavel. Accessed July 1, 2020.

[2] See [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/ss/ss6811a1.htm. Accessed July 1, 2020; https://www.grrtl.org/genocide/, and https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2008/08/abortion-and-women-color-bigger-picture. Accessed July 1. 2020.

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm. Accessed July 1, 2020. This number is a lot higher – at 890,000 at https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/; accessed July 1, 2020.

[4] There are many verses that support pro-life movement – just do an internet search. A few that include why God had the ancient Israelites to wipe out the pagan nations, how the Bible teaches that a baby in the womb is alive, and the fact that we should stand against this murder are: “Instead, he followed the example of the kings of Israel, even sacrificing his own son in the fire. In this way, he followed the detestable practices of the pagan nations the LORD had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites.” (2 Ki. 16:3 NLT); “They even sacrificed their own sons and daughters in the fire. They consulted fortune-tellers and practiced sorcery and sold themselves to evil, arousing the LORD's anger.” (2 Ki. 17:17 NLT); “He also defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech.” (2 Ki. 23:10 NAU); "You shall not murder.” (Exod. 20:13 NAU); “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.” (Ps. 139:13 NLT); “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.” (Ps. 127:3 NAU); “There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood” (Prov. 6:16-17 NAU); “For the choir director. A Psalm of David. How blessed is he who considers the helpless; The LORD will deliver him in a day of trouble.” (Ps. 41:1 NAU).

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCivUBcap8Q. Accessed July 2, 2020.

[6] http://www.bpnews.net/54938/first-person-its-time-to-retire-the-broadus-gavel. Accessed July 1, 2020.

Real Racism

Real Racism

I’d like to strike a nerve with the consciences of Americans. This note should be considered a religious one and not a political one (although these two elements intersect and overlap out of necessity when it comes to culture and government). Racism is afoot. But the biggest and most long-lasting element of racism is not individuals being picked out and picked on by cops. The systemic problem (if there is indeed a systemic problem – our government is set up so that anyone of any race can have gracious opportunity – just ask Morgan Freeman[1]) is the wiping out of a generation of kids before they come out of the womb. Organizations offer to kill the unborn humans, and people will actually pay these organizations to do so.

The largest demographic of the population to visit and utilize abortion clinics needs to wake up and see that these clinics, funded and defended by the Left are wiping their race out, literally. There is a movement to stop black genocide, found on the website Abortion73. Grand Rapids Right to Life states, “Abortion is the number one killer of black lives in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abortion kills more black people than HIV, homicide, diabetes, accident, cancer, and heart disease … combined.”[2] The Guttmacher Institute has this to say, “This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women.”[3] According to the CDC, recent stats show that “Among the 32 areas that reported cross-classified race/ethnicity data for 2016, non-Hispanic white women and non-Hispanic black women accounted for the largest percentages of all abortions (35.0% and 38.0%, respectively) . . . .”[4] And in the same year (2016), there were 623,471[5] abortions and therefore 236, 918 black babies were killed by abortion in the United States in one year. This is racism of the worst kind. And it’s effective. And it needs to stop. God had only horrendous judgement for those pagan cultures who practiced infanticide and genocide. God places no premium on funding this evil, turning a blind eye to it, or using red herring-like tactics to veer the culture’s gaze away from it. It needed to stop, and it needs to stop.

The consciences of men and women that God placed in them seeks value, purpose, and guidance. But neither of these goods are found in culture and don’t derive from culture. These are goods offered to humankind by the Creator. We are created in His image and therefore we have value. A poor man is no less valuable than a rich man. A person who can’t read or can’t think critically has no less value than an educated man, a non-Caucasian has no less value than a Caucasian, and an unborn child (who is living and kicking) has no less value than a 30-year old.

God has commanded that His people stand up for the helpless, the orphans, and the widows. Our culture is inundated with fatherless homes, women having to make it on their own and support and rear children on their own. Kids are thereby orphaned. But this is the case only if they are lucky enough to make it out of the womb. Widows are made because of disintegration of the biblical, traditional family. And all of these ills are supported by the very organizations that get the loudest voice and longest airplay in mainstream media. All the while more and more minority babies are killed in the womb and fatherless homes continue to abound. In responding to responses to the 1979 C. Everett Koop-based film, Francis Schaeffer stated that with this film “. . . we observed something very instructive. The call for a public stand against abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and against the general eradication of the unique dignity and worth of all human beings was not widely accepted at first. Many of the evangelical leadership either were totally silent about abortion, or qualified what they did say about abortion to such an extent that they really said nothing, or less than nothing, as far as the battle for human life was concerned.”[6]

Racism is huge but it’s being perpetrated in plain sight and atoned by secular media and leftists. This is truly “systemic racism” in America if it exists system-wide. These entities and people are very good at pulling the wool over the eyes of their victims. God-fearing people must speak up in an effort to protect the helpless, namely, the unborn of all races.

So yes, racism is afoot, but I think we’re missing it because we’re allowing the cloud of politics and emotionalism to shroud the truth. And the fear of man (instead of the fear of God) and allegiance to political expediency are winning the day.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrgrbUNxzk. Accessed July 1, 2020.

[2] https://www.grrtl.org/genocide/. Accessed July 1, 2020.

[3] https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2008/08/abortion-and-women-color-bigger-picture. Accessed July 1, 2020.

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/ss/ss6811a1.htm. Accessed July 1, 2020.

[5] https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm. Accessed July 1, 2020. This number is a lot higher – at 890,000 at https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/; accessed July 1, 2020.

[6] Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982.

Ravi Zacharias Tribute

Today I watched Ravi Zacharias’ funeral that was live streamed on Youtube. Dr. Zacharias was a greatly-used servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. His book, lectures, talks, and answers have encouraged many of us Christians for a long time. He was a very knowledgeable man and a very humble man. He seemed very passionate to get people to understand the superiority of Jesus Christ and to get people to trust Christ. I have listened to Ravi for over 20 years and read several of his books. I got to meet him last summer at Calvary Church in Charlotte. He was actually preaching the funeral of another great apologist, Dr. Norman Geisler. I was very fond of Dr. Geisler as well and continue to benefit from his numerous writings. Both men were knowledgeable but humble servants of our Lord. They are getting their great reward now. Our VP Mike Pence spoke at the Zacharias funeral today, along with other notables such as Tim Tebow, and LeCrae. For me personally, I was very moved by Ravi’s daughter’s (Sarah) tribute to her father. I think the man was very honored through her words. Dr. Zacharias will continue to be remembered and through his lectures, teachings, and writings will continue to disciple and encourage many of us. But who will fill these men’s shoes? May God raise up many more to take the message of the cross of Jesus Christ and to humbly and clearly explain the faith to seekers and edify other believers.

Ephesians 5, Redeeming the Time During the Corona Virus Pandemic

This version comes without my political rantings:

Lydia - spelling bee champ!

This past February, my daughter, Lydia D. Winstead, won the Scripps regional spelling bee in Florence, SC and punched her ticket to the national spelling me that was scheduled in the D.C. area this May. This is televised annually on ESPN, and expenses for Lydia would be paid. Wow!, what a blessing. We were proud of here and so excited. Recently, however, the spelling bee was suspended, and several days ago, we received the final word that that the Bee has been totally canceled. We’ll try again next time! I am still a very proud father.