Welcome to God First with Brian C. Thomas, a program committed to encouraging you to put God first while viewing life through the window of the Bible. Now in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, let's join Brian C. Thomas for today's message. Could you use some good news today? Are you ready for some good news? Because sometimes when we look around the world and we look at society, it seems like wickedness is winning. And even as believers in Jesus Christ, sometimes we get focused on the negative.
We tend to look at the evil things that are going on and we get consumed by it. But I have some good news to share with you today. On Saturday, citizens of Lubbock, Texas voted to make their town a sanctuary city for the unborn. With the passage of Proposition 8, abortion will be illegal in Lubbock city limits. Lubbock is by far the largest city yet to pass this life saving ordinance. And folks, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you should be praising him right now.
You should be celebrating him right now. You should be giving thanks and glory and honor because in this city of Lubbock, Texas, abortion is illegal. No more babies will get killed in the womb in this city.
That is now the law. This report goes on to say Planned Parenthood just began performing abortions on April 15th, 2021 in Lubbock, but God has stopped that. The unofficial vote counts indicate 62% voted for the ordinance banning abortion at 37% against.
This is tremendous folks. This ordinance empowers the people of Lubbock. The report goes on to state, the ordinance will allow residents to sue abortion providers and anyone else who assist a person obtain abortion services.
Women seeking abortions are protected from penalties and not liable under the ordinance. And I tell you folks, we can learn so much from the efforts in Lubbock because in the fall of 2020, the citizens there, they petitioned the Lubbock city council to pass an ordinance making the community a sanctuary city for the unborn. And despite calls from activists and locals, the in the announcement that Planned Parenthood would begin committing abortions in 2021 within Lubbock, the mayor and city council, they torpedo the effort. The pro life people, the citizens of Lubbock gathered enough petition signatures to have a referendum on the ordinance during this local election. This makes Lubbock the largest town to become a sanctuary city for life. Again, folks, that's good news. That's great news.
The fact that there will not be abortions perform in the city of Lubbock. And again, we should be praising God because folks, when we look around the world today and you look at the news and it can just drag you down because it seems again, like wickedness is winning, but we know folks right now, yes, the majority of society, I would say is not on the side of God. And it looks as though if you were playing a basketball game, it would look as though that side is going to win by far. But what we're going to experience is going to be the greatest comeback ever seen, because when Jesus Christ returns, all evil is going to come to an end. And so folks don't get discouraged.
Don't get dismayed. This is a sign here that there is still righteousness. Our Lord says there will always be a remnant. And that is why we have to continue to press forward. We have to continue to fight, fight for the unborn and fight for righteousness because our God is still on the throne. And he has a remnant of people and he's calling out to us to continue to fight the good fight. So I want to commend the citizens of Lubbock and folks, if they can do it, we can do it here.
We can do it everywhere. Don't stop fighting for the truth of God's word. Well, today, folks, we're going to look at the trumpet judgments. We're going to continue in part three today.
We are looking at the fourth trumpet, and I'm going to get deeper into that in a moment, but I want to share with you a recent conversation that I had last week with a friend of mine. And as we look at what is in the headlines of the news today, it seems as though the topic of systemic racism, race relations and policing is just something you can't get away from. And so the topic came up with a friend of mine about a week ago. And during the conversation, I asked him the question because this is I'm for those who do not know me, you've never seen me. I am a black man.
And I was talking to another black man. We are both Christians. He's a professing Christian.
I am a born again believer as well as he is. And so he was having the discussion with me and he doesn't quite see things the way I see it. And so I asked him the question, do you believe that the statistics that show that more whites are shot and killed by the police than blacks last year in our country?
Do you believe those statistics are true? And he responded that he would like to see the actual information on the issue because he has some skepticism. And he said that he knows that there's a very disproportionate statistical number on black and brown people that are incarcerated in prisons and jails across the country. So that was a bit of a diversion there. Cause you know, I was asking the question about, well, do you believe more whites are shot and killed by police than blacks last year in our country? And so he went into talking about the incarceration.
So I had, I had to sort of reel it back in. And so I said, well, I'm only referring to the killings, not the incarcerations. I'll get to that in a minute, but do you believe that is true? And he said, well, there seems to be a lot of misinformation and a lot of inaccuracies being reported. So again, he's showing skepticism. Like he's not ready to just come out and say, yes, I believe it.
Or even to say, no, I don't believe it. And so I went on to state that, well, there are credible sources out there that say the statistics are accurate, that more whites by far are killed by police than blacks. I went on to explain to him that the liberal media though, through reports, they, they, they put things out there in a deceptive way that causes people, especially blacks to believe that more blacks are killed by the police. They don't put the killings of whites in the headlines typically because, well, it does not incite people.
It does not increase ratings. And so there's this agenda out there by the liberal media media to cause division, to cause lawlessness, to call calls chaos. But we, as Christians, we must be wise. We must transcend their deceptions, which is ultimately a deception of Satan because in the book of Matthew chapter 24, verse seven, it warns that this would be the climate before the return of Jesus Christ, that there would be nation against nation, which is another way of saying ethnic group against ethnic group.
As in the Greek, that word is ethanol versus ethnos, which is where we get the word ethnicity. So I explained to him that I'm trying to wake up blacks to the fact that we are being used as pawns, but many are sadly taking the bait. So he went on to state that, well, he, he does believe it. He said, okay, I do believe it. And he said, we, as believers must be cognizant of the tactics of the enemy because it is a spiritual battle.
So, you know, conversation is going well at this point, I would say. And I pointed out to him that race was never mentioned during the George Floyd trial. And the reason it was not because there was no evidence of it, because if there had been, the prosecution would have been all on it to make their case. But even though there was no evidence of race being a motive, everywhere you turn, people are still making it out to be a systemic race incident. And I just stated to him, I pray that people will repent of their bigotry and stop being so gullible because Satan wants to tear down our nation's system.
And he's using racial tension as a means to doing it because folks, if you look at the bigger picture, the Bible tells us of a one world government that is coming in the future led by the antichrist, but you see, our way of governing has to be out of the way in order for that to come into place, but many do not see it. So he, I think kind of took exception to my use of the word gullible. He said he didn't consider himself to be gullible. He said he thought that the George Floyd case was an excessive use of force.
And so, you know, he was taught to be skeptical of people. And he went on to say that I should be careful not to categorize people when I do not know what they've experienced. And he says that he tries not to do that because we end up stereotyping others.
So as we continued in the conversation, I said, well, yes, I do believe that George Floyd incident was a definite use of excessive force. I said that from the beginning and I agreed with the trial verdict, but I was reiterating to him how people rushed to judgment, to call it a race incident when there was no proof of that. And that causes people to lose credibility when they jumped to the race card with no facts to support it. That's what I meant by people need to stop having bigotry and being gullible because the media, again, they try to incite people and so many take debate, but I am careful to, to not categorize or, or stereotype people unjustly. But you know, there is a lot of, of things out there again, folks, when people rush to judgment. And so I'm making the general statement that people should not do that in which he, he agreed with that.
He said, yes, people should not do that. But he also said, well, you know, not only do liberals do it, but, but conservatives can have a tendency to, to do the same thing as well. And I said, well, you know, all sides can be guilty of stereotyping, but sometimes what people call stereotyping is actually the truth. And I said to him, you know, there are examples of the black community. When you see black babies that are born out of wedlock at greater than 70%, that is not a stereotype.
That is true. And it's devastating the black community, but you know, some people call that a stereotype, but that is, that's a factual statement. And so again, as our conversation continued, he, he stated, these are evil times that we're living in. And the social racial strife is just causing a lot of problems within a lot of families. And you know, and I, again, I said, you know, concerning gullibility and rushing the judgment, we, we see the racial issues in America. He started to point out things like the healthcare disparities and how they're well-documented and you know, folks, there are disparities in our, in our country, but I want to say to people that sometimes disparities are because of poor decision-making.
Okay. And what I mean by that is this, when I was in school growing up, um, I had it within me to try to do my best in school, to try to do my best in class, to make good grades. And therefore I was placed in what would be considered the gifted class. And so during, throughout my grade school years, though, I was the only black boy in class almost every year. There may have been one or two that would come and go, but for the most part, um, I spent my entire grade school years as the only black boy.
And there were a few black girls and the rest, you know, were white. And so the other black, black guys, they would, they would make fun of me. They would call me white boy, you know, because to them, the cool thing to do was, uh, skip class.
Don't do your homework. Don't, don't turn things in and, and make bad grades. They thought that was cool. They thought that was funny, but you know, now as I have ran into some of them later in life and they've some have had prison stints and they're struggling, um, to, to make ends meet. And they've said, man, I wish I had did it your way. I didn't, I didn't see it back then.
I wish I had did it your way. And that is one of the things that when I look at the black community disparities are because of sometimes these bad decision makings. And so I said to him, I don't see how it can be a stereotype when, when you can support it with poll data and you can see factual cases like with Tawana Brawley and crystal Mangum and George Floyd, which were all examples of people rushing to judgment, to be proven wrong, that it had nothing to do with race. Just because a cop harass a black person at one point in time, doesn't mean that all cops are bad. It doesn't mean that all cops harass all blacks.
And so it is not wise to do that. It is in, it is just simply a not true statement. When you paint everyone with a broad brush and he agreed, he said, you know, there were other cases though, in which, um, he felt like there were some, some racial issues going on. And so I said to him, um, I don't see the cases that, that you're pointing out in which race was an issue. Again, I look at Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd case, he was proving to be guilty, which I agreed with. And I told him because he was pointing out cases like, uh, Tamir Rice and Sandra bland. And I said, I don't see any racism in those cases. And so I told him, I think that, that this issue has a stronghold on you.
I really think that it has a stronghold. And he took, took exception to that. He said, well, you know, he thinks that I need to read more about the history of racism in America. And I told him, I'm well aware of the history of racism in America, but see the key word is history. That means that it's in the past and that is what we have to do. We have to, to move forward.
We have to stop looking back in the past because of when you hold onto the past, then you will be inhaled in bondage. And so I continue to explain things to him as to why we need to look at things in a certain manner and be, be privy to the deceptions of the evil one. So when we come back after the break, I'm going to continue to share my conversation with him about race relations in America.
Don't go away. You are tuned into the God First program. You are listening to Brian C. Thomas on God First. For more of Brian's teachings, please visit Godfirst.org to browse our extensive library of material. There you will find devotionals, blogs, articles, and audio messages available as MP3 downloads on various topics such as salvation, Bible prophecy, marriage, and the significance of Lesson Israel.
Just to name a few. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter and visit our web store. So please visit us at Godfirst.org. Now, let's return to the conclusion of today's message. Welcome back to the God First program. My name is Brian Thomas and if you are just now joining us and you can listen to this program in its entirety by visiting our website, Godfirst.org.
You can also write to us at God First Bible Fellowship, PO Box 266, Knightdale, North Carolina 27545. So as I continue with this conversation with a friend of mine about race relation and policing, again, he took exception to me stating that I feel like he has a stronghold in this area and that we must not hold on to things of the past. I know full well again about racism in America. And what I told him is I wish he could speak to my grandmother who was born in 1921 and she faced way more racism than he and I have combined in our lives but she always preached to forgive and let it go or it will keep you in spiritual bondage. And I told him that I wish he were here today. She passed away almost two years ago but I said I wish he were here today so she could speak with him.
And he said he wished that he could speak with her as well. But you know, the key thing is folks, you have to forgive and let go. And the thing about it is what's so interesting to me is that what is happening with the history of our country? Slavery was way before our time. None of us that are alive today experienced it on either side, white or black.
We didn't experience it. But we that are ancestors, we cannot hold on to it. And that's what a lot of people are doing. They're holding on to the pains of slavery and Jim Crow and they're bringing it into the present. But we cannot do that because that is when you are going to be held captive. Okay. He told me he had one time been involved in the nation of Islam and of course that is a hate group that speaks hatred against whites. That is the Louis Farrakhan factions of it. And so I told him history is history.
Okay. And I do believe that much of today, what is deemed as racist acts, systemic racism, I think a lot of it is fabricated to be honest, because again, the media likes to get a rise out of people. But I don't, I don't dismiss the idea or the notion that there are some racist people in this country on both sides of the aisle and all races and all ethnic groups, there are racist people. But you see critical race theory teaches us to get even, not forgive. That is anti biblical and the racial tensions in our nation is because people will not forgive.
People refuse to forgive. And folks, you cannot see to go forward when you're always looking back. And if you don't believe me, try, try driving down to the local Walmart. And rather than looking forward to see through the windshield, look over your, your shoulder. I guarantee you that you will not make it a half mile down the road before you will crash because you're always looking back. You cannot see how to go forward. And that's what so many people are doing. They're looking at past transgressions of racial disparities or racial injustices.
And they're, they're bringing it into the future. And, and you know, if you're driving a Walmart, yeah, you can, you can glance in your rear view mirror to see where you've came from. Maybe you're driving along and there's a storm and a, and a tree fell across the road and you just missed it. You, you glance in your rear view mirror to see that near miss. And you thank God for what he brought you from, for what he brought you through.
But folks, you can't, you can't look back over your shoulder because then you can't see how to go forward. And Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, verse 14 through 15, for if you forgive me in that trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive me in that trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses folks. We have to forgive.
Jesus made it very clear. If we don't forgive what people have done in the past, then the father will not forgive us because none of us are perfect. We've all seen, we have to forgive. And I want to encourage people today for those who are holding on to racial strife and racial tension that you have to forgive or be left behind to face the judgment of God during the tribulation in Ephesians four verse 32 verse chapter four verse 32, it says, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And when you look at things today, when it comes to the race matters, we look at all the, the, the vitriol that is out there, the hatred that is being spewed and in people that are claiming to be in the body of Christ. And I asked the, I asked the question, where is the fulfillment within you of be kind to one another, be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you, Jesus said, love your enemies.
Okay. That's what Jesus said. And again, folks, I I'm not acknowledging that there are people necessarily that are our enemies, but there's this perception out there by, by, by, by, by many blacks and by the media, that there are whites who are their enemies, but let's just for the sake of, of, of making this case. So let's just say hypothetically, if they are your enemy, Jesus said, love them. He said to forgive them. And we're not smarter than Jesus, but you see the thing is, is that people don't want to forgive. And when you don't forgive, you're, you're held in bondage. And our Lord tells us to forgive because supernatural things happen when we forgive people, when we forgive supernatural things take place and it goes against human understanding. It goes against the natural.
And that's what's so special about it. And that's why our Lord says to love your enemies and to forgive those who persecute you forgive those who hate you, because if you don't, you'll be left behind in to the tribulation during the tribulation, when the fourth trumpet sounds in revelation eight verse 12, then the fourth angel sounded and a third of the sun was struck and a third of the moon and the third of the stars. So that the third of them were darkened.
A third of the day did not shine. And likewise, the night, this trumpet involves the bodies of light when it comes to the earth. And when we look at Genesis chapter one, verses 14 through 19, then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so then God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness.
And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the first day where this same God that made the light has the power to diminish the light. And that is what he's going to do in the tribulation. When he pours out this judgment during the fourth trumpet, he's going to take away a third of the light. And this corresponds to the ninth plague of Egypt in Exodus chapter 10. And folks, I'm a lover of the light.
When I get up in the morning, when I say my prayer and I thank God for allowing me to see another day, I go and open the blinds because I want to let the light in. And we as believers in Christ ought to be children of the light. And this is fulfillment of Luke chapter 21, verses 25 through 26. And there will be signs in the sun and the moon and in the stars and on the earth, the stress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves rowing men's hearts, failing them for fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth for the powers of heavens will be shaken. The inhabitants of the earth will be in total chaos. The Bible says that men's hearts will fail them.
They're literal hearts because of the chaos that is coming upon the earth. God is going to judge. And one of the reasons he will judge is going to be because of unforgiveness. And then in revelation eight 13, and I looked and I heard an angel flying in through the midst of the heaven saying with a loud voice, whoa, whoa, whoa, to the inhabitants of the earth because of the remaining blast of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound the three woes of revelation of entry are introduced. These three role woes are the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpet judgments.
And as bad as the first four judgments have been, things are about to get even worse. Even in the midst of this though, man's rebellion against God gets even stronger. And it's really sad to say, but the seventh trumpet, it introduces the last half of the tribulation, the bold judgments. And so as again, as we look at these trumpets, the seventh trumpet and the third woe are one in the same, the second woe in the sixth trumpet are the same.
The first woe in the fifth trumpet are the same. And there are those out there who refer to these three woes as hell let loose on earth. So folks, I want to ask you the question, are you holding grudges against people today? Are you not wanting to forgive again? As I talked about my grandmother, she's told me stories that have been handed down to her about slave masters and how they, they beat her, her ancestors and my ancestors and how they, they raped the women. She's told me about stories in which she was mistreated because of the color of her skin. And again, remember folks, I'm black. And this guy that I was having this conversation with last week is also black, but she, she told me about those incidents, but I can tell you with, with 100% confidence and truth that my grandmother never spoke any eel about a white person.
Never did she do that. And she would always tell me, you have to forgive people. You cannot hold onto it because if you do not forgive, the father will not forgive you. And again, folks, supernatural things happen when you forgive people.
I've, I've had deep betrayals in my life hurt that I'd never thought I would experience before from people that I thought would never do the things that they did to me. And the pain, the hurt was so great. And I felt like I could never get past it. And I struggled and struggled.
And then I finally, I said, Lord, Jesus, please Lord, take this from me. And when I finally released it, when I finally gave it to him, I was set free. All the hurt went away. The bad feelings went away. I could see those people and not feel hurt. I could even hear about something bad happening to them that at one point in time, if I'd heard about it, I, I would have been glad, but because I had forgiven them, my heart ate for them.
I felt, I felt pain because of what they were going through. So I want to encourage people today, as we look in our society, don't follow critical race theory, which says, get even, you're not going to get even. You're only going to go deeper and deeper into bondage. And that is the deception of Satan, but we must forgive. If you do not forgive, then you'll be left behind to face the judgments of God during the tribulation in which again, this fourth trumpet, he will take away a third of the lights. You don't want to be here to face that judgment. And then the woes that are to come, Jesus is going to judge.
He's going to pour out his wrath upon an unbelieving world. And I want to encourage you out there today that if you're holding on to, to strife between your, your brother, your sister, your dad, your brother, whoever it may be, I want you to forgive them. I want you to repent. I want you to even go to them if you can, if they're alive or they're in your, your vicinity and, and, and, and say to them, I forgive you, or ask them to forgive you, make things right.
Supernatural things happen. You get released, you find true freedom. And for all the blacks out there who feel like this country is systemically racist, I want to encourage you. If you would just give it over to Jesus Christ, you can be set free. You will have freedom and peace and joy and happiness, which Satan does not want you to have, but there's joy and peace and forgiveness in our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, folks, we're all out of time for this week, but I want to thank you for joining me.
Please come back next time. As we will continue to encourage you to put God first while viewing life through the window of the Bible until then remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and to the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. You've been listening to the Bible teacher, Brian C. Thomas, founder and president of God First. Brian and God First reserve all copyright protection under applicable law. Our copyright policy is available at our website, Godfirst.org. Until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God.
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