Chapter 7 Part 6

Young Women

“…’like mother, like daughter!’ You are your mother’s daughter,
loathing husband and children and you are the sister of your
sisters, who loathed their husbands and children.”
Ezekiel 16:44,45

Young women, the future of a people has never depended on a group more than we need you today. I know this may seem unfair; however, you are the ones who must begin to stop this epidemic. You should not imitate the world that is around you. You must choose purity over sinfulness, chastity over fornication. Our people must be rescued. The world wants you defiled because it is defiled. God has so much more planned for your life. You could be anything you want to be in this world, if you would only seek God and His righteousness. If you would only choose purity for yourself there is no limit to what God can and will do for you. This is the beginning of all that you desire. But it must begin with you submitting to God. The world wants you to believe that it is ok to defile yourself prior to marriage or that you do not even need to be married to have children. You look around and the television, movies, and music videos portray you as faceless objects. Gyrating bodies without human emotions and not deserving human respect. Do not be tricked by the world as it has tricked many of your mothers. The world wants you to believe that you are free to do whatever you want, but that is not true. True love of God means to obey God. Give God your body, your soul, and your heart. The Bible says this is only our reasonable service, nothing special.[1] The world tells you it is your body, you can do what you want with it. Pierce it, tattoo it, and give it to anybody and everybody without consequences. The world only gives us half-truths; it is true that God has given us free will to choose how we will live. However, there are consequences to our choices. If we choose to have sex without marriage or before we are ready, then we have children that we are not prepared to take care of, this puts us in a position to struggle when we did not have to be. Therefore, by our making that first choice all the other consequences followed. We must learn to choose wisely.

The pressure to follow the world is tremendous and every year it gets more difficult to ignore. Those without proper parental supervision and direction are really going to have a difficult time overcoming temptation. I can only imagine the level of peer pressure to defile yourselves that you encounter daily. Let me say for the record everyone is not defiling themselves despite what the media may report and you do not have to either. If anyone is trying to get you to give up your purity they are not your friends. If someone loves you they will not pressure you to have sex with them. Having sex with someone is not a sign of love, it is lust and of the devil. Sex is not a requirement of love, it is a gift of a loving relationship given to us by God. Sex can and should be a beautiful experience designed by God for the loving confines of marriage. Not some back seat of a car or with someone you hardly know. You are worth more than that. You are beautiful flowers allow yourselves to bloom and blossom.

“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor,
pressing him to your bottle, even to make him
drink, that you may look on his nakedness!
Habakkuk 2:15

Do not allow people to cause you to sin through drugs or alcohol. It may appear cool and like the thing to do, but nothing could be further from the truth. There have been countless young women who have been taken advantage of while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Many of them regret the decisions they made to this day. Your purity is something you can never get back. Once you lose it, it is gone forever. Do not allow yourself to be placed in positions where these things can happen to you. There are predators in this world that only want to take the purity of others as some kind of sick game, you are not human to them merely an object for their own selfish desires and sexual pleasure. Think about it, if your purity were not of any value then why are so many people trying to get it from you?

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[1] Romans 12:1

Chapter 7 Part 5

You should not lose hope and allow the enemy to defeat you. Our people need you. It is too late for your fathers, but it is not too late for you. We should stop this epidemic of violence in our communities. We should no longer continue to kill each other indiscriminately. We should give life back its respect. This will only begin with having respect for others as well as yourself. We will not be able to respect others until we have learned to respect ourselves.

“Therefore know that the LORD your God, is God, the faithful God
who keeps His covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with
those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
Deuteronomy 7:9

Faith is the key to changing our lives. Without faith there can be no change, because there will be no reason for change. The Bible says that we can not please God without faith.[1] We must believe that God can heal us, before we can begin to allow it to happen. Change is difficult for most of us and involves a lot of fear. Why does it take so much pain? I hope you realize how much we need you, the survival of a people rest in your hands. You are our future, we only rise as high as you rise. You will rise only as far as you allow God to raise you. If you could only recognize who and what you are, you would no longer continue to live this way. You are the Holy temple of the Living God. You are not the lies that the enemy tells you that you are. The enemy tells you that you are unlovable and worthless. Whenever anyone tries to love us, we show them just how unlovable we really are. This is done by behaving in such a way that you attempt to chase everyone away. But God is faithful and will remain with you until the end, His love is eternal.

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[1] Hebrews 11:6

Chapter 7 Part 4

“Fathers shall not be put to death for their children,
nor shall children be put to death for their fathers,
a person shall be put to death for his own sin.”
Deuteronomy 24:16

Sons of anger, you will be responsible for your own consequences. While God knows that you have gotten a bad start, He still requires you to acknowledge and obey Him. There is a lot of rebelliousness in your hearts, you feel like the whole world is wrong. The trials and tribulations of this world again are not to punish you but to draw you closer to God.[1] The real sin is not that we do not believe that God can change us, it is that we know He can and choose not to allow Him to. That we choose to stay enmeshed in our sinfulness. We prefer the filth of this world to the purification of God. With rebelliousness comes false pride. Our lives are a mess, but we are doing fine. We refuse to acknowledge that we need help. We refuse to say that life sometimes is too much to bear. As boys, we are not allowed to express fear, or sadness, or even to cry. The only emotions many of us are allowed to express is anger and aggression. I can not cry, but I can kick somebody’s butt. We are taught to not let anyone hit us, we must always fight back. For many of us as adults all of our emotions can be summed up into anger. When we are in pain, or fear, or we are sad, we lash out in anger. Anger has always been an acceptable emotion. This unchecked anger is fueling the epidemic of violence we as a community are now facing. Hurt people, hurt people. When we hurt, somebody has to pay. Give that anger and pain to God, we as a people have suffered enough. You not only hurt others, but you damage yourself as well.

For many of us our lives are being led by false pride. False pride says we do not need help from anyone. Many of your lives are full of disappointments, yet you refuse to seek help. We continue to suffer, yet the One who can relieve our suffering, we refuse to call on. Unfortunately, many of us stay in pain far longer than we have to. There have been times in my life when I have had pain and I have known the remedy to stop it and have chosen to stay in the pain. I wish I could say that I immediately seek a remedy for the pain, but sometimes I do not. Our pride becomes our idol, we worship our ourselves. We worship our own intellect we become wiser than God. We think that our “street smarts” will overcome the world. All we have to do is to look at our past histories to see the foolishness of this plan. All of our plans have only brought pain and suffering for our loved ones and ourselves.

“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,
but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.”
Proverbs 28:26

We must transfer that trust from ourselves to Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus said, “Who among you can add one inch to your height by worrying?”[2] Therefore if none of us can do the least thing, how can we expect to do the difficult task of fixing our lives. It will only be by submitting to God that change will take place. How can God who has the power to raise the dead, not have the power to change us? Does He not have the power to stop us from sinning? It is not that God can not change us, it is that we will not allow Him to. Then the question that each one of us must ask and ultimately answer is, “Why will I not allow God to change me?” Why do we continue to live this way? This will be one of the most important questions we will ever ask ourselves and answer. The answer will hold the key to the rest of your young lives and your eternity as well. The Lord, your God does not require our belief to be God. We should understand God does not need us we need God! The Bible tells us we must trust in God with all of our hearts and not lean on our own understanding or ourselves.[3] This is very difficult for us because we know and trust that “old man”. Let’s face it he shares all of our secrets, all our good times, and all our hurts and pains. We have been with him through thick and thin. And now just because I say so you are suppose to just trust in God who you can not see. I know it sounds crazy, but it is your only hope. If there were another way I would tell you, but all I know is Christ and Him crucified for you and me.

All I ask is for now is that you take fifteen minutes a day out for God. Take fifteen minutes to read His Word and to pray. I guarantee it will change your life. That still leaves you with twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes to yourself. I know with all your "busy schedules" it will be difficult, but you and your family are worth fifteen minutes. Just consider all that God has done for you. If you love your children are you passing along the life that you want them to live? I have a young daughter and if I had continued to live the life-style I was living, I might as well have given her the addiction I had right then. Is this what you want for your children, your cousins, or your nieces and nephews? Read a chapter of the Bible a day; remember if you do not like the change in your life you can always go back to your old life. How are things going right now in your life? What do you have to lose?

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[1] Romans 5:3

[2] Luke 12:25

[3] Proverbs 3:5

Chapter 7 Part 3

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things
which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness,
sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they
are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving,
unmerciful; who knowing the righteousness judgment of
God, that those who practice such things are deserving
of death, not only do the same but also approve of those
who practice them.”
Romans 1:28-32

The condition described in this passage is of a rebellious generation. A generation who chooses to ignore the knowledge of God and replaces it with their own selfish pleasure. A generation of fornicators has bred another generation of fornicators. Instead of seeking the righteousness of God, you have sought after the temporary pleasures of instant gratification. You have chosen to elevate yourselves over the Living God. Not only is fornication and selfish sexual desires tolerated by this society, they are promoted. If you are not participating in these activities there is something wrong with you. You are not having fun, you are missing out on life. You look at the movies and television and what are they promoting to you our young people? The media is promoting young people having sex with no commitment or concern for the consequences. You have the “so-called celebrities” fornicating with each other and the media is promoting it as if it were some news-making event. You have shows that do nothing but talk about their celebrity lifestyles and present them as the model to imitate. It is no wonder you our young people are confused. The message the world is sending is very misleading. According to the world, God is dead or at least no longer concerned with the lives of men. The world and the devil are liars. God is very much alive and He loves you. The path that the world is leading you to is death and destruction in hell. However, God has called you for something much better than this.

The world tells you that women are only objects for your personal gratification, to be used and discarded like so much trash. Look at the videos, how they glorify the riches of this world and show women as if they were not human. They call them disrespectful names and put them in all manner of undress. It is no wonder why your opinion of women is so low. Your view of women cannot be very good, between the media and what many of you have witnessed from your own mothers, who can blame you.

“Bring charges against your mother, bring charges;
for she is not My wife, nor am I her husband!
Let her put away her harlotries from her sight.”
Hosea 2:2

There are many of our young men who have witnessed things by their mothers they ought not to have seen. They have seen conduct and have had to endure things that have emotionally scared them for life. Because mothers have chosen their lovers over their children, they have become hardened. They have left many of you to raise your siblings as well as yourselves. The truth is that many of you have not been given the best start by fathers or mothers. Many of you are angry and in pain. You have many reasons to be so. However, God says that despite your present circumstances and those of your past you are still special to Him. You are predestined. God has a plan for your lives and He has had one for you from the beginning of time. That plan does not include the life-style many of you are leading now. All life has value to God. Let no one think that they have no worth to God. God created you not for drug dealing, fornicating, and the sinful life, but for His glory. Every person on this earth is a gift from God to this world. The majority of us have selfishly squandered our gifts. How can we look at the current state of the world and continue to be so selfish? I do not know what your gift is, but I know that the world is in desperate need of it. I beg you please give us the gift that God sent you to bring. If you do not know or think that you do not have one, ask God. He is the One who created you. The apostle Paul tells us, “to fan the flame” or the gift from God.[1] When any of us fails to use his or her gift the whole world suffers because of it. The problem for many of us is that we are using our gifts for our own selfish desires. Remember the ruler of this world wants to do two things to you: either to kill you or get you locked up for life. That way you are of little value to the kingdom or to this world. In the past too many of us have fallen into this trap. No matter what your background, you are in the final analysis responsible for what you do. The world today is trying to convince us that no one is responsible for anything that they do. The Bible disagrees.

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[1] 2 Timothy 1:6

Chapter 7 Part 2

Young Men

Now for the young men, I know that you are angry and that you have not received the guidance and legacy that you deserve. You did not ask to be brought into this fallen world with all of its injustice and seemingly endless obstacles or into this condition of fornication and sin. However, none the less you are here. For many of you the men who fathered you did not teach, lead, and guide you as they should have. Many of you may not even know who your fathers are or they refuse to have any contact with you. Some may not even acknowledge you as their sons, but it is not your fault. So often children can not understand or acknowledge that those who have been placed in a position to protect them sometimes fail. Therefore, many children blame themselves, which leads to self-hate, which in turn breeds self-destructive behavior. We put ourselves in positions of danger, because we feel as though no one cares anyway. There is one who cares and loves you and that is God. Though the world may disappoint you and everything appears to be against you, trust in Him who loves you. God has a special love for children, especially fatherless ones. The Bible says that in God the fatherless find mercy.[1] There are no words I can write to make right what has happened to many of you, but know this that God can and will heal you if you seek Him. He is the only One who can. If you continue down the road you are traveling on the results will be the penitentiary or death.

I remember for so much of my youth I thought if I just found the right woman, the right job, or the right amount of money I would be all right. What I have since learned is that it is not what is on the outside of me that brings me joy, but it is what or who is on the inside of me. What I needed on the inside was the Spirit of God living inside of my heart. There was a hole inside of me and no matter how much I tried to fill it with drugs, alcohol, money and every other manner of sin I could think of, nothing would fill it. That was because only one thing can fill it. God placed the hole there for a reason, only one thing can ever fill that void. That One is He who created you and the hole, God. Until we fill the hole with God nothing will ever satisfy us. The more you get the more you want. Have you ever noticed how no matter how much of anything we get it is never enough. I was never satisfied and neither will you be. All the money, cars, and women are passing they do not last. The pleasures of sin are only for a season.[2] The thing we must remember is that the game we are playing is a trap. The drug game looks like easy money, but look at the retirement plan. Most of the players end up locked up for a long time or dead.

“There is a way which seems right to a man,
but its ends are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 14:12

The things you desire seem like good things to pursue because they are constantly being displayed on television and in the movies. But think about it, what makes any of these people promoting these things any different from you? Nothing, they are being exalted by the world. The world loves its own. The “celebrities” are people who have given up certain things for their fame. When the fame fades they will be left with the consequences of their choices. This world is out to kill and destroy you. The ruler of this world is Satan, the devil. If you follow the world, you follow the devil. If your desires are the riches of this world, you desire the things of the devil. Do not make idols of the “celebrities” of this world; they are no more human or special than you are. Do not be misled they possess no power or anything greater than what you have. Seek after God; whose riches are not fleeting but eternal. Because you have chosen to go your own way and not chosen the way of the Lord, there are certain consequences. God gave us free will to choose our own path, but if we choose our own will then He allows the consequences to happen. Not to punish us, but to lead us back to Him. Because you have forgotten God and chosen to not believe, God has allowed certain things to happen.

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[1] Hosea 14:3

[2] Hebrews 11:25

Chapter 7 Part 1 Children

Chapter 7 Children

“Behold, children are a heritage of the LORD,
the fruit of the womb is a reward.”
Psalms 127:3

For me this is the most difficult chapter to write. As I look out at all the broken children and families that are in pain, my heart aches. Anyone who thinks there are no victims of fornication have obviously not spent time with the children of these illicit relationships. The Bible says that children are an inheritance of God, as a reward. They are to be treasured, they are our greatest resource. They are our future. Instead of treating them as the treasures they are, we treat them as inconveniences. How can we claim manhood when we father children we do not raise? Children we take no responsibility for. How can our women claim womanhood when they continue to bear illegitimate children without husbands? My heart goes out to all of the children. What lessons are they being taught? What values are they being taught? That it is ok to lay down with anybody and everybody with no responsibility or consequences. These consequences are human beings, they have names, and they are innocent children. When did a child become just something left over from some illicit relationship? Have we become so selfish that we can not see the damage we have done and continue to do? On the other hand, does anyone care? God gives us children to raise up for His glory and honor. We do not own them, they are given to us to take care of for Him. To train them and love them for His sake.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, And
when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6

How are we training our children? Are we leading them in the way of everlasting life or into the way of destruction? Each one of us must ask ourselves these questions, God certainly will. We must recognize the harm being done to our boys and young men. We neglect their training. We are so concerned with our own personal gratification that their needs are secondary. Children come into this world full of curiosity and wonder. They come to us without sin. If it were not for our inherited sinful nature, they would be given to us in purity. If allowed to follow their own desires they like us will choose to follow the world. Thus, the need for parental direction and involvement, except when the parents themselves are pursuing the things of the world then that value system is conveyed to the child. Because many of our children have not received the training they should have been given, today they are lost in a fallen world. They do not have the male role model training we were supposed to give them. Because we have pursued our own agenda of selfishness and childish pleasures they have not gotten what they needed or deserved. Therefore, we have children raising other children. Some of our young women were raising their brothers and sisters and felt that they might as well have their own since they are being mothers anyway. We do not have to be geniuses to figure out how that has been working out.

“Children are the crown of old men, And the glory of their father.”
Proverbs 17:6

The scripture is so appropriate for today. The crown of old men it says, we as old men of the last few generations should be ashamed of the crown that we are wearing. Many of these young men and women have received none of the tools they need to compete in this world. They have received none of the wisdom of their ancestors and now have a very difficult time coping with the world they find themselves apart of. For many of them they want to hide from this world through drugs or street crime. Instead of planning how to succeed through education they have chosen the fast buck of crime and drug dealing. There have been many ancestral heroes who have died for the opportunities they now take for granted and refuse to pursue. These words though written thousands of years ago ring true today. The honor and the adoration of children is their father. This is not only true for our earthly fathers but also for our heavenly Father. Today many of our children are being raised without that honor and reverence. In God’s perfect plan for the family a child is to be reared by both a father and a mother. It is funny how we will break something like a doorknob and then use something such as a piece of rope to open the door and say see how well the door works since I fixed it. The door may be operational, but that is surely not how it was designed to work. Granted there are those who have managed to succeed raising children as single parents and I applaud them, but that does not change the fact that something is still broken. The doorknob is still broken, yes, we are getting in and out of the house but the fact still remains the doorknob is broken. Our relationships are broken is the issue not whether we can patch something together to keep moving forward. The issue is how can we repair them and save our children? The father’s relationship with the children has a different component than the mother’s relationship to the children. The father is supposed to represent the head of the house, the leader. In our broken households, the head is missing. Every good soldier knows that if you remove the head the body dies. Moreover, our body (our community) is dying right before our eyes. Many single mothers do and have done a tremendous job under very trying circumstances and they must be commended, but that does not excuse the fact that we are still in desperate need of a solution to the epidemic we are currently facing. In this patched up worldly system the child is missing the authority and discipline that is best administered from the man. You notice I said a man, not the little boys that make babies and do not raise them that so permeate our communities today. Any one blessed enough to have been raised in a two parent home can attest to this. Because so many of our people have not been given this example they tend to minimize the benefits of this experience. When I was growing up all the mother had to do was mention the name of the father and order was immediately restored. Let the fathers begin to act like fathers and discontinue to act like the children they should be raising.

Chapter 6 Part 9

“And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither
did there remain anymore courage in anyone because of you,
for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and
on the earth beneath. Now therefore I beg you, swear to
me by the LORD, since I have shown you kindness
that you also show kindness to my fathers house, and give
me a true token, and spare my father, my mother,
my brothers, my sisters, and all that
they have, and deliver our lives from death.”
Joshua 2:11-13

Notice how she recognized who God was and what He was capable of doing for not only her, but also her family. She had determined that God was God and that He had the power to do what He said He would do. Now remember this woman had been serving pagan gods her whole life, yet when presented with the evidence she knew the truth by faith. And of course she was saved along with everyone in her family. Though the whole city crumbled around them they were kept safe. Likewise for us though our whole society or our whole world is crumbling under the weight of sin, we must stand in our faith. We should stand not in who we are, but in who God is. The world may say it is ok to fornicate, to continue in sinfulness and that God does not care. That the only thing that matters is our own personal wants and desires. Rahab was willing to risk death for God. What are you willing to risk for God? Are you willing to set aside your selfish sexual pleasures for God, for your family, and for yourself? Just as with Rahab the thing we do not realize is that yes her eternal life was saved, but also her earthly life got better. She got saved and stopped being a harlot, she was able to join God’s people. Sin destroys our spiritual lives, but also our physical lives become more burdensome. How much more difficult is the life of an addicted person to the life of someone who is not? We should stop looking at spirituality as some pie in the sky when we die. It is for our earthly lives as well. The Bible says, “if we follow God’s commands our lives will be better today.[1] It will not only be better for us, but also our children and our children’s children. That it will be good for us as a people, as a nation.[2]

Remember the world is at odds with those that love God and attempt to follow Him. The world always has been and always will come against those who choose to follow God. We are not of this world, just as our Lord was not of this world.[3] Why do we continue to follow in the ways of the world? The world hated our Savior, but you think it will love you? If the world loves you that can only mean you are of the world, because the world loves its own. We continue to put our children in situations that are dangerous for them. Today, it is not uncommon to see gangs of children walking the streets late at night. Where are their parents I often think to myself? It never fails when one of these children comes up missing or dead the parent will say how much they loved that child and maybe they did but not enough to protect that child. This is not to say that there are not predators that will prey on children no matter how vigilant the parent, however we should not make it easy for our children to be prey. I know this is tough to take, but we should stop giving these parents free passes for not protecting their children better. You have mothers who not only know their sons are selling drugs, but they are either his best customer, dealer, or sharing in the proceeds. When these sons are killed by the street violence, these mothers are heart broken. Did these mothers love their sons? I am sure they did, but they allowed their own selfish desires to come before that child’s welfare. These decisions are based on a lifetime of other bad decisions. It is similar to when they allow their fornication to place their child at risk, especially their daughters. We have women in this society that have men in their homes who are sexually abusing their own daughters and refuse to acknowledge it. They will blame the daughter or profess disbelief in the daughter just to allow this pervert to stay in their homes. Your children are at risk because you have these men who you know little or nothing about around your children. You have no idea if they are pedophiles are what! All you know is that he says he “likes me and keeps me from being lonely. You put your children also at risk by showing them a lifestyle that is not only sinful, but dangerous.

We look up to these “celebrities” who are just as guilty of fornication for direction in life. We look to the world to speak out against the ways of the world. These people are no different than you are I, they were just willing to do what it took to be a “celebrity” Some of their souls have already been bought and paid for by their actions and decisions. If you are not following God you are following the world no matter who you are. No matter how much money or celebrity status you may have. God has no respect of person; sin is sin to Him. We take advice from people who are not following the Word of God, but their own moral compass. If that were sufficient we would have had no need for the redemptive work of Christ. God is our moral director through His Word. If you are getting advice that goes against the Word of God, it is not from God. God will never go against His own Word. This advice is of the world and may sound logical, but it will come to ruin.

Finally, there is the troubling trend of some parents to have their children picked up on Sunday or during the week by churches they have never been to themselves. While most of these churches are trying to do God’s work, there are some that may not be. We are reading daily about this church or that denomination having scandals. Even if the church is reputable, you have no idea what they are teaching your children. In addition, you are teaching your children that this is not important enough for you to attend. The lesson from this is that it is only important for children to attend when you become an adult you don’t need this church thing. How much do we love our children? Do we love them enough to put them first for a change? Mothers love and protect your children for this is the will of God for you.

“She opens her mouth with wisdom. And her tongue is
the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her
household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and Call her blessed.”
Proverbs 31:26-28

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[1] Deuteronomy 5:29

[2] Deuteronomy 28:1

[3] John 17:16

Chapter 6 Part 8

Because of our freedom of choice, we as men and women can choose to ignore God. A lion cannot choose not to be a lion, but a woman can choose not to be identified as a woman. A man can choose to no longer be identified as a man. This ability to choose sets us apart from all other members of creation. We can use our choices to glorify God or to glorify our own selfish desires. This “so called” independence is really a separation from God and from one another. What those who participate in fornication do not understand is that the very things they think it will resolve (loneliness, lack of love, etc.) are the actual byproducts of fornication. After you have committed it you become separated from God an feel guilty. That guilt causes a separation between your partner and you. You both begin to see each other in a different light following the act. The man looks at the woman as a whore and you look at the man as a dog. A relationship begun in this manner cannot succeed for long. There will always be a deep seated animosity on the part of both people. As the relationship continues and there are more disappointments, that resentment grows. In the heat of an argument these resentments come to the surface and we say things we later regret. Where do these things come from? I believe they come from those early feelings of guilt spawned by fornication. The man thinks if she were truly a "good woman" she would not have let me have sex with her and the woman thinks if he really "loved me" he would have wanted to keep me pure.

“Now Jacob kissed Rachel, and he lifted up his
voice and wept. Now Jacob loved Rachel;”
Genesis 29:11,18

The above passage describes how Jacob traveled five hundred miles without a map to find the wife that God had chosen for him. And when he found her, he wept. She touched his heart and he feel in love with her. When they met and married she was pure, a saved woman. Their love was to last for many years and through many tribulations. Through it all their love instead of diminishing it grew stronger. Instead of resentment, they had respect. Women if you only knew how men would treat you if you only would remain pure. If you would choose abstinence over sinfulness and worldliness, the desires of your heart would be met. The man that you desire to find would be there. A man that would love you and cherish you as a special treasure, because you would be special. What is special about someone who has been with everybody or even anybody for that matter? What it says about you is that you respect yourself enough to wait, that you have something special worth waiting for. When you lay down in fornication, you are making the ultimate compromise with your most precious gift. What you lose in the moment (purity and innocence) can never be gotten back. Once you give it away its gone. I have countless stories about women who were pressured into fornication only to regret their decision later. By then it is too late. Do not allow the morals of others to dictate to you what is right and wrong. You are a child of light, walk in the light.[1] The only way to overcome the world is by faith in God. We can never defeat sin of ourselves, it is too powerful and cunning. The Bible says, “We battle not against men, but against dark unseen forces.”[2] If we could defeat these forces ourselves there would have been no need for Christ and His redemptive death. For us to resist the overwhelming tide of this permissive culture we need the belief that God not only rules in heaven, but also in this earth as well. Your choice will depend on what you know and believe about God. The Bible says, “Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world.”[3] But faith alone is not enough, we must put that faith into action. Our actions demonstrate if we indeed have faith. Our choices demonstrate whether we have true faith.

Do not believe that because you have fallen that you must remain in that state. Because we serve a God of second, third, and fourth chances, we always have the opportunity to repent and return to God. A good case in point in the Bible is the prostitute Rahab. Though she was a fallen woman and not a member of the tribe of Israel, her faith in God placed her in God’s community. Her faith in God allowed her to be included in the lineage of Christ. She was also the great grandmother of King David.

“Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by
works when she received the messengers and sent
them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is
dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
James 2:25,26

You see Rahab was a citizen in the city of Jericho, in the land of Canaan. The promise land that God has promised Israel, her people were the current possessors of that land. She lived in a heavily fortified city with twenty foot walls, but when the spies of Israel came into her house she had a decision to make; whether to trust God. She made the choice to trust God more than the fortified walls of her city, more than her people, more than everything around her. She chose to have faith in what she could not see despite all evidence at the time being against that faith. She found the courage to go against her own society to follow God, just as we must do. We should also find the courage to go against what this society is telling us when it goes against what God has told us. She had heard of the power of God, that He had delivered the children of Israel from Egypt. Here is this unbelieving pagan prostitute willing to gamble her life and the lives on her family on a belief in a God she had only heard about. And God seeing her faithfulness rewarded her and her family. How much more will God reward you and your family because of your faithfulness to Him? For our faith to be rewarded we must make decisions based on that faith in our everyday lives.

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[1] Ephesians 5:8

[2] Ephesians 6:12

[3] 1 John 4:4

Chapter 6 Part 7

You were created to reflect the femininity of God as the man was created to reflect the masculinity of God. They are different sides to the same God. Do you know that you were also created in the image of God just as the man was? The woman was created to help the man take care of the earth. More importantly, you were created also to fellowship with God. You and the man were created from the same essence of God. The Spirit of God dwells in us both. The Spirit dwells in you to help the man to be fruitful and multiply in a Godly relationship. From the beginning of time it has been this way and will continue until the end. In God’s perfect design for us just as it was not good for the man to be alone so it is not good for the woman to be alone. Only men and women were designed to fellowship spiritually with God and with each other. That fellowship was broken by the “fall” in the Garden of Eden. Not only was the fellowship with God broken and damaged, but also the spiritual connection between man and woman. This damage persists to this day. We do not relate to each other the way God originally intended for us to.

Just as the command of God represented a choice to them in the Garden of Eden, so we have choices today. God could have created us to worship Him without choice, but that would not be true love. That would be like the animals worship God. The animals worship God by being what God created them to be, the fish worships God by being a fish. True love is when we can love anybody in the world but choose to love the person we are with. I can eat from the tree you commanded me not to eat from, but I choose to obey you. Thus, I demonstrate my love for you in the choices I make. Christ Jesus told us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”[1] So love requires action on our part. If we profess love for God we are required to keep His commandments. There are no loopholes. I remember being in church and seeing the same men and women every Sunday taking the altar call to repent or rededicate themselves. There should come a time in the life of a believer when his life begins to manifest the life of Christ. Some would say these are backsliders. I would venture to say that you cannot backslide until you have truly repented and been saved. We cannot continue to commit the same sins weekly or daily and claim salvation. True salvation requires, no demands a change in our lives. God loves me too much to leave me the same way He found me. It becomes a matter of my choices. Am I choosing obedience to God or obedience to Satan? Christ Jesus says, “Whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.”[2] A slave means that sin is my master and has control of me. A slave loses control of his life and all that entails when he becomes a slave. We of ourselves can do nothing against this addiction to sexual immorality. In the final chapter we will discuss the ways to break this cycle and begin to stop this epidemic.

When it comes to making choices, we demonstrate our love based on our choices. We demonstrate our love to our wives and husbands not because we cannot commit adultery, but by choosing not to. By choosing the love of our mate over the momentary urge to satisfy our selfish desires we show our love. We may say we love someone or something, but it is our choices that reveal our true feelings. Love requires sacrifice, when we decide that we love someone we make a conscious decision to be with that person, forsaking all others. By our being with our mates we are choosing not to be with anyone else, there in lies the sacrifice. For many today they want the relationship, but without the sacrifice. The choices give love meaning. If I can continue to be with others and still be with you where is the sacrifice and the choice. Without choices there is no meaning to love. You can make someone do what you want them to do, but you cannot make someone love you. Sometimes we don’t even know why we love what or who we love, we just know we do. Our choices in this life say much about who we truly are, not who we claim to be. The key to many of the bad choices we make is a spirit of rebelliousness. The world calls it independence, but it is rebelliousness to God. Anything I do independent of God is a sin, no matter how noble it may be. We are saying we know better than God what is best for us. I know better than my parents what is best for me. If you choose to harm yourself this is probably not a rational or sane decision. If you are making these choices it is probably not you who is making them but the sin that dwells in you. Normal people usually do not make decisions that they know will lead to harm for themselves. Choosing to have sex as a young teen is a harmful choice, it can and usually does lead to pregnancy. An unwanted pregnancy has “harmed” a large number of young women and men. Any woman who is not married at any age choosing to engage in sexual activities is making a harmful choice. The harm is not only the possibility of pregnancy and sexual disease, but also the harm that the sin does to the spirit and the fellowship with God.

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[1] 1 John 14:15

[2] John 8:34

Chapter 6 Part 6

“You lust and have not, You murder and covet and cannot obtain,
You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that
You may spend it on your pleasures.”
James 4:2,3

You seek after the world’s glory and not the glory of God. First, you do not ask God for what you need because of your own selfish plans. You know better than God does what is best for you. Well, if you know so much, why are you sitting there with a house full of kids and never been married? You have never even been engaged to be married for real. Stay home and come out of the clubs. When you are ready for a man, God will send you one. You need to be purified by God first. God has to remove your worldliness that you have become so proud of. God tells us we need patience, but we live in the microwave generation. We go to restaurants with a drive-thru, we order at one window and seconds later we have our food at the next window. We can now cook meals in the microwave in minutes instead of hours. We expect God to operate in this same fashion. We want God to work on our time and not the other way around. When I pray for things, God answers my prayers in three ways: yes, no, and wait. The hardest answer for me is wait. God tell me yes or no, just tell me something. The wait I cannot take, so I come up with my own backup plans. These plans will not come to pass with any success because they are based in my own selfish desires. How many times have we seen a person we thought was our “soul mate” only to find out later they appeared more like the devil incarnate. Trust in God and He will lead you where you need to be.[1]

Young women guard your purity and innocence as though it were gold. No matter what the world says, it is important for all of us to stay pure. You will be blessed by God if you do. If anyone is pressing you to lose that purity, then he is not from God. God will never go against His own Word. God has a beautiful plan for your lives if you only have patience and believe. You are our future; we need you to stand strong for all of us. It does not matter that your mother, your grandmother, or even your friends may be fornicating, you do not have to. If you are not married, focus on your heavenly Father and His will for your life. Once you open the door to carnal lust, it is very difficult to close it. The Bible says, “that the only temptation we face are those created by the desires from our own past experiences.” In other words to someone who has never tasted ice cream to be tempted by ice cream would mean little to them. As the saying goes you cannot miss what you have never had. The temptation would be for someone who has already tasted it and depending on their like or dislike of it would determine the level of temptation. So in the partaking of it lies the temptation.

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own
desires and enticed, then when desire has conceived, it gives
birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown, brings forth death.”
James 1:14,15

So by surrendering to the world, instead of surrendering to God you bring death on yourself and shame to your family. O my little children if you only knew how much your heavenly Father loves you and how much this sinful life we are leading is hurting Him. We should learn to control our sinful desires through Him who has overcome death and sin, Christ Jesus. If we would only cry out to Him and repent of our selfishness and sinfulness. Why do we continue in sin that grace may abound? Why do we remain in our pain and suffering?

If you have already fallen, do not continue to practice the same sin that has already bound you. Stop; come back home to your heavenly Father, He is waiting with open arms. He will cleanse you of your unrighteousness.[2] But we must not continue in sin. Focus on your family and not the foolish lust that you have already fallen into. We must begin to break this cycle of sinfulness through a change in our character. Seek God while He may be found.[3] Have we not sinned enough already? We must pray for a change in our minds and our hearts, no longer choosing to live in the flesh and thereby dying in the flesh. Instead of walking in the lust of men, we should be pursuing the will of God.

“For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the
Gentiles-when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries,
drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these they
think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood
of dissipation, speaking evil of you.”
1 Peter 4:3,4

It is time to walk in the light, come out of the darkness. Your soul cries out for a change, you have had enough. Only you and God knows what you have done, but you know you have had enough. It is not going to be easy to stop but we must. It is the way of death and destruction not only for you but also for the children. The world will talk about you, the old girlfriends will talk about you, and those sorry men who have been laying around you will talk about you. But you must endure until the end, for in the end lies the promise of God. It is better to go to heaven alone than to go to hell with the crowd. No one said following God would be easy, in fact Christ said just the opposite.

[1] Proverbs 3:5,6

[2] 1 John 1:9

[3] Isaiah 55:6

Chapter 6 Part 5

Again, how can we expect the world to do what we refuse to do? The people who create television, movies, and records don’t care about our children. To them they are just consumers, someone to be bought and sold. If we as parents are spending more time in seeking material success in the world than we are in teaching our children, then we are failing them. They may have the latest fashions or electronic gadgets, but what good will these things be in hell? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul in the process?[1] No one said being a parent was going to be easy. We should stop following the instructions of the “academic community” concerning raising our children. It is time to stop being the friends of our children and return to being their parents. Sometimes being a parent requires saying no, not because we hate our children but because we love them. Parenting requires time and effort. Many parents today want to give their responsibilities to the school, the media, anybody but themselves. Many parents allow their children to spend hours at public places (malls, etc.) unsupervised and when the predators that now frequent these places violate them they seem shocked. Where was the security, the police, or somebody? The true question should be where were you? We as a society allow this to go unchecked too often. We allow parents to shirk their duty to protect their children, because not to do so would require us to look at our own behavior.

“Do not let your adornment be merely outward-arranging the hair,
wearing gold or putting on fine apparel-rather let it be the hidden
person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and
quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.”
1 Peter 3:3,4

So where does true beauty come from? It comes from the inner beauty of the spirit. A woman will be known and judged by her character. I know this is not what the glamour magazines say, but it is what God is saying. The television and the “so called” celebrities say it is all about what you look like and what you wear. By the way have you ever considered who these celebrities really are, they are for the most part sell-outs to the world. Many of them for the right price would endorse asbestos underwear in hell. Just because you have fallen does not mean you have to stay down or that you must continue to make the same mistakes. Modest apparel is the hallmark of a chaste woman.

“In like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest
apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or
gold or pearls or costly clothing but, which is proper for women
professing godliness, with good works.”
1 Timothy 2:9

I cannot say how many women I have seen in church, in church mind you, wearing the prostitutes uniform. Yet they profess to have godliness. They are in church on Sunday true enough and out all night at the club on Saturday. How can you find a godly man at the den of the devil? Rather than staying at home and praying for God to bring you a godly man, you come up with your own plan. God takes too long, He is working fast enough. When has your plan ever worked? And then you expect God to bless this mess that you have created and tossed at His feet. See many of you do not really want a godly man, you may claim this is what you want, but you keep choosing the slick talkers and fancy dressers that are going to impress your girlfriends and let them think that you are all that. In our scripture, it talks about women being in modest apparel; when you begin to cover yourselves, the world treats you with more respect. It shows that you have respect for yourselves. Will there still be sick people that will continue to harass you, of course but I guarantee the number will decrease dramatically when you change your attire. The scripture speaks of how a person is known by the “uniform” that they wear, if you appear gaudy and all made-up the world will perceive you to be a easy woman. Those who profess godliness should be exhibiting it in their lives by their dress, their actions, and their speech. You should not have to tell anyone you are a Christian woman they should be able to tell when you walk into a room, by your speech, your dress, and your actions.

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[1] Mark 8:36

Chapter 6 Part 4

“Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne
to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.
And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of
the country,, saw her, he took her and lay with her
and violated her.”
Genesis 34:1,2

So we see that Jacob’s daughter went out into the world to hang out with the daughters of the world. She was feeling the pressure to be apart of, to be worldly. How often do our children ask or even demand in some cases to be like the other kids (the world). In an effort to be our children’s friend instead of their parents we compromise, only to let drugs, alcohol, and fornication enter into their lives. I am writing about this in the women’s chapter, because most women know how often in the course of following the crowd they are placed in situations where men then take advantage of them. Many of our young women have lost their purity in such situations, secretly and quietly they suffer. We should be outraged, but we are not. You mothers know from your own experiences that these things take place and instead of preparing your daughters for these situations most of you carry on in silence out of your own shame or fear.

When I was in college, there were a number of young women that had the awful experience of “date rape”. For those unfamiliar with the practice it is where a young woman may agree to go out with a young man, an acquaintance, who during the course of the evening will violate the young woman. Many times out of embarrassment and shame these young women will not report the incident. For many there is a feeling of guilt for being in the position for this to have happened. It is reported that many of our young women have lost their purity in such circumstances. There is also the “peer pressure” of trying to fit in with drugs and alcohol, where the outcome is being violated by some sexual predator. We should be doing a better job of protecting our young women. Of course, this would begin with having a godly man in their lives from the beginning. Mothers you must do a better job of preparing your daughters and begin to emphasize purity and abstinence. Because the mother and daughter relationship is special it should begin with the mothers promoting a new attitude for their daughters and that begins with changing your own behavior.

Let me state for the record that I do not in any way, shape, or form condone the raping of women under any circumstances. In my opinion, a woman should be able to walk down the street naked without being accosted. A woman has the right to say no, even if she has gotten completely naked, no means no period. With that being said, the truth of the matter is that not every man shares my opinion on this matter. So in order to be safe, women do not continue to put yourselves in those dangerous situations. Let us begin to teach our daughters the dangers of worldliness. There is danger in wanting to be like the world. In our scripture, because Jacob was fooled by his material success he thought that the spiritual was being taken care of and it was not. In his desire for success, his daughter was lost to the desires of the world. The ruler of this world having been cast out of heaven has come with great anger for he knows that his time is short.[1] Therefore woe to those who seek out the world and it’s values. They will be sadly disappointed with what they receive. Our ruler has told us to love not the world or the things of the world.[2] However, how closely do we follow this teaching? From the scripture we see the dangers when we seek the world more than we seek our God. It is time for the women in our community and in our nation to break the silence and speak out against this epidemic. Our children must know the problems and dangers that are lurking out in the world.

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[1] Revelation 12:9,12

[2] 1 John 2:17

Chapter 6 Part 3

“And everyone who has this hope in Him
purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
1 John 3:3

Our spirits have become dead to sin. It no longer bothers us to be sinful. We give and are given in marriage with no concern of where or with whom our partners have been with. We change partners like we change our socks. There should be a national outcry against this sinful behavior, against this epidemic of fornication. We should send an unconditional message that our young women should stay pure. The days of harlotry must come to an end. They will only come to an end when we as a people make it a priority to end them. When we let our sons and daughters know that we want and expect purity. Not only should we stress it with them we should demonstrate it in our behavior. Mothers, you must stop allowing these men who you are not married to into your homes. At least while your children are present. You should stop allowing these men to come into your homes and rob you and your children. Your children are watching you. If they see you as a harlot, your sons will think all women are whores and your daughters will think this is acceptable behavior. That this is the type of behavior a woman has to do to attract a man. Why do you think that the majority of teenage unwed mothers come from teenage unwed mothers? There must be a national effort from all of us to turn this epidemic around.

Mothers your children depend on your guidance. What is your behavior teaching your children? They see these men who only come around when it is payday. They see these men come and go as they please. Your sons are learning this behavior; for these men are their male role models. They are being taught by the same men who are doing this behavior to you to do this to the women they will eventually meet. It is as though we are in this viscous cycle that no one wants or is willing to break. By you opening up your legs to whomever you are taking on their sins to yourself. You are sharing in their filthiness and their destruction. Remember sexual sin goes against our own bodies.[1]

“But if a widow has children or grandchildren these should learn
first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their
own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents,
for this is pleasing to God.”
1 Timothy 5:4 (NIV)

The Bible says that a widow or single mother with children must show piety or self-control so that her children will help her to make ends meet and supply her needs. But it says the single mother who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.[2] So if pleasure is more important than your family God will judge you. You should consider not your own desires but the example you set for your children. We should stop looking to others to be the role models for our children no one initially has more influence over our children than we do. It is only when we fail to provide leadership that they begin to look to others for what they find lacking in us. If you run around with your butt hanging out of your clothes, this is what your children see as their example. I once heard it said that if a person approaches my car in a car that has flashing lights and gets out wearing a uniform with a badge, I am going to assume they are a police officer, because primarily the uniform that person is wearing. So if you come up to me with your butt hanging out and your breasts sticking out of your top wearing a prostitutes uniform what am I suppose think? If you do not want to be treated as a prostitute, you might want to stop wearing the uniform. In a perfect world a woman should be able to wear what she wants to with no problem, however we do not in any such place. Our world is a fallen world with fallen people. We allow not only some of our young women, but also some of our little girls to dress as women. We not only allow them to dress like grownup women, but like harlots. We give them the impression that for a woman to be attractive, she must dress like a harlot. Look at the celebrities and how they are presented by the world. You have gifted singers that have to dress like harlots to sell records and get on television. This is what is being fed to our children. Even “so called” Christians are falling into this trap of the world. In an effort to imitate the world, they dress like the world. We are supposed to imitate not the world, but Christ.[3] Our little girls are wearing makeup, getting plastic surgery, and being put in situations that invite sin. These “so called” Christians appear in all the outward appearances to be just like the world. Because of the parents desire to have material success they have placed training of their children secondary to their worldly success. What happens then is the children become lost in the attractions of the world with disastrous consequences. The parents spend so much time trying to achieve material success that the children’s spiritual development takes a back seat. The results are frequently a lack of moral conviction and this leads to sinfulness such as fornication. Fornication then opens the door to other sins. Material success despite what the “ministers of prosperity” are preaching does not equate to being in God’s will. Material success should never be our primary goal. Their are a number of successful people that do not serve God, just as there are a number of poor people who do. A good example of this is Jacob from the Bible, for ten years he appeared to be successful. He had all the trappings of success, a nice home, money, and many material possessions.

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[1] Romans 6:18

[2] 1 Timothy 5:6

[3] 1 Corinthians

Chapter 6 Part 2

Instead of your children being the priority, it is your selfish pleasure that rules you. These children did not ask to be put into these dysfunctional relationships, you chose by your choice of a partner and your behavior to bring them into these relationships. And once they are brought into these relationships, you ignore your children for your selfishness. Not everyone that can be a mother is a mother, just like not every man that can make a baby is a father. Some are just sperm donors. A mother’s first priority should be to her children, sadly today this is not always the case. Today the rule seems to be that it is all about the individual, the world revolves around me. The world promotes this selfish attitude through the mass media. Seek your own pleasure first, do not worry about the consequences. Well these consequences have names they are our children. God has something to say about these children that are so easily ignored.

“For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived
them has behaved shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my
lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool
and my linen, my oil and my drink.”
Hosea 2:5

In order to gain selfish pleasure you have sought after sexual partners more than your God or even your children. In God’s perfect plan for relationships purity is vitally important. We are to seek after God and not the idols of selfishness and sexual pleasure. Children are a lot more aware than they are given credit and they know when they are being treated as an inconvenience. The behavior of our children demonstrates their hurt. Mothers it is time stop talking about what is right and start being about what is right. It is not enough to tell our children they are important we must begin to show them by our lifestyle choices their importance. Let me say that there are a lot of single, unwed mothers who are attempting to provide good and moral homes, but it is difficult to provide for their emotional and spiritual needs when you are working all the time.

As women, you should demand more for yourselves and your children than what you are receiving now. Our future as a people depends on the choices you make. The time to demand more for yourselves is not after you have given yourselves away, the other person already has gotten what they want. At that point you are just trying to hold on to some semblance of a relationship so you don’t feel like a complete fool. If you continue to choose selfishness over righteousness and allow yourselves to be misled, we will all suffer. These children will become not only burdens on our community, but also predators in our community. Our community is full of these little predators that are the products of these failed relationships and selfish life choices. Women look around you, this having babies without fathers is not working. You are not helping these children, you are instead sentencing them to a life of anger and frustration. I am not saying that you don't love your children, but without the right balance in their lives the odds are stacked against them. In this society, the deck is already stacked against us, why add to the misery. The right balance is the balance that God has prescribed, a man and a woman to raise children.

Unfortunately, it has been left to you to shoulder this burden of child rearing for now. Until God raises up more men who are ready and willing to take responsibility as men, you will be in this position. However, you can help yourselves by demanding the men you choose to lay down with to be responsible men and not just some guy with a good line and a cute smile. I would suggest that you give that area of your life to God and allow Him to bring you a Godly man. This will not happen though as long as you refuse to be patient and wait for God. For so long, you have been our stabilizers, overcoming incredible odds. You have kept the little righteousness that our communities have had through your attempts to support our churches. The men have left you to remain under the authority of God and training our children up in spiritual matters. By doing so, we have left the path that leads to life and exchanged it for the path that leads to destruction. The efforts of many single mothers are worthy of applause considering the incredible obstacles placed in front of you. However, for most of you these struggles in your paths are struggles based on decisions you have made. Because of your desire for love, intimacy, and a human relationship you have allowed your purity to be taken from you like a thief that comes in the night. Your purity is the purity of a people. Just as the men represent the strength of a people, so a woman represents the purity of a people. Guard it, for it is much more precious than you will ever realize. Its value is only understood after it is lost. It is your glory and your honor. From your purity you derive your respect as a woman. It will keep you when others around you have deserted you and lost theirs. I believe that if you only knew the power of staying pure there would be no power on earth that would be able to take it from you. I just ask those of you who have lost your purity to remember when you lost it and to whom, if you had the opportunity would you have done it differently? Give that testimony to all the young women you meet, let them know what it has cost you. The time for silence is over in the face of this epidemic. If this were some physical malady, we would be holding telethons, having marches and demonstrations, calling for the scientific community to come up with a cure. Well, this problem is more deadly than any physical disease it is a spiritual disease. Do not be fooled just because its victims are not instantly struck with a symptom that does not mean that it is not deadly. It kills the soul and damages the spirit. Moreover, it is killing more of our people every day.