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 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 3 Part 6

10) Anger of the children

“For son dishonors father, Daughter rises against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies
Are the men in his own household.”
Micah 7:6

The most distressing result of this epidemic of fornication to me is the pain/anger of the children. The most devastating thing I have heard is the voice of a child looking for their daddy. Are you my daddy? To see the hopeful look of that child turn to disappointment is heart wrenching. According to God’s perfect plan for the family, every child needs a father and a mother. This was always God’s plan. It was that way from the beginning and continues to this day. As much as some women would like not to believe it, children need a father in their lives. It is a painful thing for a child to grow up missing a parent. It is even more painful if the parent is still alive and is choosing not to be a part of the child’s life or not allowed by the custodial parent. To the child it is not important who is right or wrong in our little petty squabbles. They just miss the parent. With fornication, you add a different component, the child as well as the mother may not even know who the father is. We have all seen or heard about those young women on those daytime talk shows who brought a number of men on the show for DNA testing and it turns out that none of the men were the actual father. We look at the women with empathy or ridicule, but how about that child? Who can know the pain/anger that child feels or will feel in the future? Imagine a person so sexually promiscuous that they do not even know who got them pregnant. Where is the outcry? Where is the help? This person is obviously in need of some serious help.

My main concern for this book is the pain/anger of the young men in our community. We have a generation of angry young men. They have every right to be angry. When they were looking for a man to lead them and to guide them, no one was available. I blame them for their actions, but I do not blame them for their feelings. Women, no matter how many men you have been with you do not know what it takes to be a man. You may know what you like in a man or do not like in a man, but that is very different from being a man. Because of this epidemic of fornication, we have a generation of young men that do not know what it takes to be a man. Their concept and definition of being a man is askew. There have been no men in there lives when they needed them and they are angry. They are especially angry with the men of the generation that begat them. They are acting out this anger daily in our communities through the outbreaks of senseless violence. Because of their anger/pain, they do not respect their own lives or the lives of anyone else. Why do you think that they live the lifestyles they live, take the risks they take. In their minds, they have nothing to lose. Nothing to live for. The value of life for them is cheap. Our communities are not friendly places because of this anger/pain. It does not matter who the victim is. Their anger knows no bounds. The majority of drug dealers in our community are these angry young men. The level of violence is off the charts. I remember when I was a young man, all the drugs were sold by whites and there was not this violence. These angry young black men have gotten a hold of the game and with it has come this senseless violence. Back then, you brought your dope and went about your business; you and your business were appreciated. Not so today, buying drugs from these angry young men is an adventure in abasement. You are giving them your money and you are being verbally and sometimes physically mistreated. It makes no sense. It is as if you went to Wal-Mart and the clerks began to verbally assault you as you walked up to the check out line.

The bulk of the anger is reserved for the generation that gave birth to them. Their attitude seems to be you want drugs/poison, no problem. Here you go and I hope it kills you, because you remind me of my parents on drugs. They were off getting high when I needed someone to raise me and my brothers and sisters. I don’t even know who my father is. You think this generation is angry, wait for the one following it. These angry young men believe that women are nothing but “hoes” and “bitches” and are to be treated with no respect. They are not looking for any long-term relationships, let alone marriage. Look at what they have been taught by their parents. They are another generation of fornicators creating another generation of angry children. This next generation will be even angrier and even more violent. I am afraid of what their future will hold. The level of violence is going to escalate to a level that I think will be shocking to all who witness it. Everyday we are outraged by the senseless acts of violence we see or hear about. Our communities are in for urban warfare due to this epidemic of sin. In between the police and the angry young men, we are under siege. God is not mocked. We cannot continue to flaunt our sinful ways before God and not expect any repercussions. What we are doing is practicing intentional sin and God’s word is clear on those that do intentional sin. The Bible tells us that God will visit the sins of the fathers to the sons and the son’s sons. Most experts believe that addictions/alcoholism are hereditary and pass from generation to generation. I believe that for us fornication will be the same. We must begin to act on this epidemic or it will be the death of us as a people. We have become ensnared by this sin and it will be difficult to extricate ourselves from it, but we must. I hear all the time how it is a cultural thing and it amazes me how so inbred it is that we continue to excuse this sinful behavior. Our children will be cut off from God and the face of this earth if we do not act. There is no greater problem facing us today. We talk about our economic woes, and joblessness, but these issues pale in comparison to fornication. If we continue down this road it will not matter how much money we have, it will not be enough to combat the problems we will be facing. We should rally together as a people and speak to this issue. Our very lives depend on it.

Chapter 3 Part 4

6) Lack of respect

“…But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”
Proverbs 29:15

Another problem with fornication is that it causes us to lose respect for ourselves, our bodies, and the other person. You cannot respect others if you do not respect yourself. By fornicating you lose the sanctity of your own body. You profane the temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body becomes a tool against itself. When we can no longer resist our fleshly desires and become slaves to them, we lose respect for ourselves. We become disappointed in ourselves for our failure to withstand the onslaught of the flesh. Over the course of time, we become addicted to our pleasure and lose our identities. We become nothing more than instruments of gratification, losing our God given human dignity. God created us to be more than just sexual organs. We were designed to reflect the image of God on earth. I believe that we were created for a higher purpose than cheap sexual pleasure. Self-respect is gained through accomplishments of a higher level than the number of sexual partners or conquests we have. Men are not immune to this loss of respect. The more sexual partners we have the more of an object we become and the less respect we have for ourselves. When people become objects to us it does not matter who or what they are. It is no longer about them, it becomes about my selfish pleasure and me. There were times when I would be with someone that I not only did not know, but what I did know about her I did not like. That did not prevent me from having a sexual relationship. When our sexual desires become perverted it does not matter whom we are with, it only matters what we want. For some unknown reason many modern Christians believe they are entitled to some sort of exemption from God’s laws and God’s word. I think a lot of them are going to be in for a rude awakening. At some point in my life I came up with the mistaken idea that the rules did not apply to me. The laws of man and nature no longer held me in their limits. I was of course wrong and the results of my life bear witness to my error. I believed that I was smarter, cooler, slicker than everyone else so what happened to you would not happen to me. The laws of God apply to all, there are none who are exempt, none.

7) Deterioration of society

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
Isaiah 5:20

The Bible tells us woe to any society that does not obey God’s laws. The insidious nature of fornication is that it perverts God’s plan for the family. Without commitment between a man and a woman there is nothing holding together the fabric of the family or the fabric of society. God’s plan for us is more than momentary pleasure with no thought to the consequences. For a while now we have seen the signs of our society and community deteriorating. Our historical institutions are crumbling under the weight of this sinful epidemic. Crime in our community has reached new levels of savagery. It is no longer safe for children to pay outside or for old people to walk down the streets. Our community and neighborhoods have become war zones. Granted, society as a whole is falling apart, but it seems to be at an accelerated pace for us. The institutions that use to give us stability have not been able or willing to stem this tide of lawlessness. I believe the reason is their failure to address this crisis of fornication. I think that on further investigation many of our “so called” leaders may themselves be participating in this sinful activity. How many times have we heard on the news or read in the newspaper that some leader is confessing to having an illegitimate child from an illicit affair. It would be difficult for them to condemn what they themselves are guilty of committing. We have allowed society to dictate to us what is right and wrong and not relied on the word of God. Many black churches in particular and many modern churches as a whole have chosen their master and it does not appear to be God. If it were, they would not continue to condone through lack of condemnation, this problem. With no clear direction, it is no wonder our children are continuing down this slippery slope to hell. If I have been a fornicator and have not repented, how can I teach others not to do it with any conviction? It is like me telling my kids not to do drugs while puffing on a marijuana cigarette, kind of loses some weight. I do not know if our community can withstand another generation of angry children.