One From Among Thy Brethren: Why God Commands Men to Lead the Faith, Family and Nation

By H. Raymond Godfrey

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul conveyed Christ's command that Christian men should lead the faith ("Let your women keep silence in the churches" [1 Corinthians 14:34-35]; "Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man" [1 Timothy 2:11-15]) and the family ("Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands" [Colossians 3:18]). In the Old Testament, Moses conveyed God's command that an Israelite man should lead the nation of Israel ("One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee" [Deuteronomy 17:15]).

It is clear from the Bible that God intends for men to lead the faith, family, and nation; but never has a detailed explanation been given as to why this is the case. This book is an endeavor to provide that detailed explanation.

In 1920, American men granted women the right to vote and thereby relinquished their leadership of the nation to women. Since then, men have also relinquished their leadership of the faith and the family to women.

As a result of men relinquishing their leadership duties, the faith, family, and nation are becoming increasingly separated from God, resulting in a growing embrace of sexual immorality (homosexuality, transgenderism, pedophilia, pornography), abortion, irrational fear, Marxist ideology, Christian persecution, fatherless families, atheism, revisionist history, book burning, rioting, unmanageable debt, and so on.

God has a masculine personality; and He wants the faith, family, and nation to have the same masculine personality. This is why He commands Christian men to lead the faith, family, and nation; and this is why today's feminine leadership has separated us from God.

This growing separation between us and God is frightening and painful to experience; and it is destroying the faith, family, and nation. However, it has one benefit--it allows us to see the devastating consequences of feminine leadership.

God hates the fact that we are separated from Him, and He wants us to come back to Him. The only way to do this is to return the faith, family, and nation to masculine leadership as intended by God and commanded by the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638740766

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One From Among Thy Brethren

Why God Commands Men to Lead the Faith, Family and Nation

H. Raymond Godfrey

ISBN 978-1-63874-075-9 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63874-076-6 (digital)

Copyright © 2021 by H. Raymond Godfrey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The Word of the Lord

As flowers for life on the water depend,

And dawn brings the close of a night’s full measure,

All that we know will come to an end,

But the Word of the Lord will endure forever.

To always remember too often forgotten,

In spite of our effort, in spite of endeavor,

A hardened steel by the acid will soften,

But the Word of the Lord will endure forever.

Men are commanded their glory to lead,

Their glory commanded by God to surrender,

So it has always been, so it will ever be,

’Cause the Word of the Lord will endure forever.

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum (The Word of the Lord Endures Forever)—Motto of the Lutheran Reformation

Preface

Christians have always debated and argued over various aspects of the faith, but one thing that we always agreed on is that sexual immorality (e.g., fornication, homosexual behavior, transgender behavior) is wicked and should be condemned. And why not? It is expressly condemned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Today, however, many Americans (and people in other Western nations) who claim to be Christians shockingly reject the Bible and openly embrace sexual immorality.

Some people warn that this embrace of sexual immorality will bring God’s judgment upon us, often citing, for example, the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the Bible also teaches us that an embrace of sexual immorality is an indicator that God has rejected His people. In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul describes how God gave the first human beings over to their own wickedness.

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers" (Romans 1:21–29; emphasis added)

By the phrases gave them over or gave them up, Paul is saying that God rejected them. Thus, in Romans 1, Paul explains that human beings rejected God (e.g., they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful… Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools), which caused God to reject the people—He "gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, gave them up unto vile affections, and gave them over to a reprobate mind". That is, in Romans 1, the wickedness of sexual immorality is not a cause of God’s judgment but instead is an effect of God’s judgment.

The same wickedness referenced in Romans 1—uncleanness, vile affections, fornication, women lusting over women, and men lusting over men—is being embraced by most Americans today, even many people who claim to be Christians! This is an indication that God has rejected America because we have rejected God, just like the people Paul referred to in Romans 1.

This leads us to ask two questions. First, how has America rejected God? Second, how has God rejected America?

Regarding the first question, Romans 1 lists a number of ways in which the people rejected God. Consider also the story of Saul in 1 Samuel 15 where God instructed (through Samuel), Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass (1 Samuel 15:3). However, Saul disobeyed God and spared King Agag and the best of the livestock. Samuel told Saul that "Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king" (1 Samuel 15:23; emphasis added).

Thus, Saul caused God to reject him by rejecting "the Word of the Lord." He substituted his own feeble, foolish judgment for the holy and righteous judgment of the Lord. God has a real problem with people who believe that they know better than He does. In the same manner that God rejected Saul for rejecting the Word of the Lord, God has rejected America today for rejecting the Word of the Lord, i.e., for rejecting the Bible.

So what part of the Bible have we rejected that has made God mad enough to reject us? Is it the Genesis story? The story of Noah and the Ark? Or Moses parting the Red Sea? Many Christians today do not believe these stories (which surely displeases God), but this is not what has caused God to reject us.

No, we need to focus on parts of the Bible of which many Christians are ashamed. Disbelieving God’s Word is certainly a rejection of God, but being ashamed of God’s Word takes one’s rejection of God to a whole new level. Being ashamed of God’s Word requires a much greater level of arrogance, insolence, and defiance toward God. Indeed, Jesus warned us in Luke 9:26, For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed.

Unfortunately, many people find certain verses in the Bible to be deeply offensive. In fact, many people who claim to be Christians are ashamed of these verses and would likely delete them from the Bible if they could. The verses to which I am referring are the Verses Commanding Male Leadership—verses that command Christian men to lead the faith (Let your women keep silence in the churches [1 Corinthians 14:34–35]; Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man [1 Timothy 2:11–15]), the family (Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands [Colossians 3:18]), and the nation (One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee [Deuteronomy 17:15]).

Nearly every church in America is ashamed of these verses, even churches which claim to embrace them. You probably can’t remember the last time that your pastor gave a sermon on the importance of these verses because he never gave such a sermon.

There are other people who aren’t necessarily offended by the verses but still reject the verses. These people are afraid that others will call them sexists or women haters if they embrace the verses. These people are shamefully following the same path as Saul whose excuse for rejecting the Word of the Lord was given in 1 Samuel 15:24: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. Like Saul, these people are choosing to obey others and not God. They are choosing to follow the world over the Word!

Regarding the second question (i.e., how has God rejected us?), Isaiah 3:1–12 describes a mechanism that God used to reject the people of Jerusalem and Judah and give them over to their own wickedness. There, God took away their mighty men, wise men, etc. so that the people were given over to their own wickedness as described in Isaiah 3:8–9:

For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory. The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

Today, God has used the same mechanism to give the people of America over to our own wickedness—He has taken away our mighty men, wise men, etc. The result today is the same as in the days of Isaiah as he described above in Isaiah 3:8–9 and also in Isaiah 3:12:

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

America and its churches are collapsing today because we have rejected God, causing Him to reject us by taking away our mighty men so that women (and feminine men) rule over us.

In Malachi 3:7–12, the prophet conveys this message from God:

Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you… And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

The Old Testament tells of how God helps his people to defeat their enemies and defend their nation. This is still true today. God will help his people to defeat these enemies and defend their nation. However, since America has rejected God, we are no longer under God’s blanket of protection and guidance. He has taken away America’s great men—wise men and men of war. Thus, today, America has become like a fatherless child. We are like the Israelites who also rejected God, unable to defeat our enemies and unable to defend the nation. God has left us alone in the desert, wandering around without his guidance, power, strength, and wisdom. He has allowed us to enslave ourselves like the Israelites were enslaved by the Babylonians and the Assyrians.

God will return the mighty men to America and its churches when America and its churches return to promoting (i.e., not merely tolerating) the Verses Commanding Male Leadership. Until that happens, America and its churches will continue to collapse. That is, in order to stop the collapse of America and our churches, we need to stop rejecting God’s Word and return to embracing the Verses Commanding Male Leadership. This will make us worthy of God so that He will return our mighty men and wise men who will set us back on the right path—the path of our fathers.

The goal of this book, therefore, is to teach men to embrace the Verses Commanding Male Leadership. For most men, this will not happen overnight. The world has feminized men, and feminine men think like women, making it difficult for them to embrace the verses. However, in time, a dedicated study of the book will return men to their proper masculinity, allowing them to embrace the verses and their biblically mandated roles as leaders of the faith, family, and nation.

Chapter 1

The Precipitous Decline of Christianity in the West

Christianity was once the foundation of Western civilization. For centuries, people in Western countries were devoutly Christian. Their cultures were founded upon the principles of Christianity, and their governments promoted Christianity among the people.

Their faith imbued them with humility, compassion, and mercy. It instilled them with a duty to serve others and to forgive those who had wronged them. It inspired them to love not only their neighbors but also their enemies. It gave them the willingness to embrace the change needed to advance the human condition.

It also instilled them with confidence that the Christian faith was the one true faith and necessary to people’s salvation. It made them assertive and aggressive, driving them to defend the faith and spread the faith. It drove them to seek the truth and taught them that there was inherent value in human life. It inspired them to sacrifice themselves for Christ in anticipation of His heavenly reward. It instilled them with a sense of morality, a respect for authority, an embrace of godly traditions, and a desire for structure and order.

This combination of qualities was unique to Christianity and set the faith and those who practiced the faith apart from the rest of the world. Christianity’s unique combination of traits was the engine that drove the faith to become the most commonly practiced faith on the earth and led Christians and Europe to conquer the world. For centuries, much of the world was ruled by Christian empires driven to conquer and spread the Christian faith—the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, and the American Empire.

However, the age of Christian dominance in Western countries has come to an end. The West is now abandoning the faith that led them to world dominance. Christianity is now dying in the West, and it’s dying a lot faster than you think.

Polling Data

European countries are leading the West in the decline of Christianity. A 2017 Pew survey revealed that only 22 percent of people in Germany and 18 percent of people in the UK and France were practicing Christians who attend church at least monthly (Being Christian in Western Europe, Pew Research Center, 2018). The percentage was even lower in the Netherlands (15 percent), Norway (14 percent), Belgium and Denmark (10 percent), and Finland and Sweden (9 percent).

The decline in Christianity has been accompanied by a rise in the religiously unaffiliated in Western Europe. The survey revealed that in Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, the number of religiously unaffiliated was 42 percent, 43 percent, and 48 percent, respectively.

In Canada, a 2018 Pew survey revealed that only 55 percent of Canadians identify as Christian and that nearly 30 percent of Canadians identify as atheist (8 percent), agnostic (5 percent), or nothing in particular (16 percent) (Spring 2018 Global Attitudes Survey, Pew Research Center).

In Australia, 2016 census data revealed that the percentage of Australians identifying as Christian has declined from 96 percent in 1911 to 52 percent in 2016. The percentage of the Australians who marked no religion on their census has risen from just 0.8 percent in 1966 to 29.6 percent in 2016 (Australian Census: Religious Affiliation Falls As Population Changes Rapidly, The Guardian, June 26, 2017).

The United States, long considered to be the most religious of the Western countries, is also experiencing a dramatic decline in Christianity. The decline may be most visible by the diminishing number of Americans who attend church regularly, which has resulted in many abandoned church buildings littering the American landscape. Simply put, massive numbers of churches in American are closing their doors and being converted to apartments, offices, or other uses or, alternatively, are being torn down and replaced with condos, apartments, etc.

The plight of America’s churches and the abandonment of the faith is disturbingly described in a recent article in the Atlantic:

Many of our nation’s churches can no longer afford to maintain their structures—6,000 to 10,000 churches die each year in America—and that number will likely grow. Though more than 70 percent of our citizens still claim to be Christian, congregational participation is less central to many Americans’ faith than it once was. Most denominations are declining as a share of the overall population, and donations to congregations have been falling for decades. Meanwhile, religiously unaffiliated Americans, nicknamed the nones, are growing as a share of the U.S. population. (The Atlantic, November 25, 2018)

The notion that Americans are abandoning Christianity is supported by recent polling data. Indeed, according to Gallup (http://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx), the percentage of Americans identifying as Christian has decreased from 93 percent in 1965 to only 67 percent in 2019. Figure 1 below provides a graph of the Gallup polling data, which should help the reader to understand the alarming rate of decline in Christianity in the United States.

As illustrated in the graph of Figure 1, the current rate of decrease in those identifying as Christians is about 1 percent per year. Assuming that the rate of decrease in Christianity in the United States remains steady at 1 percent per year (depicted by the triangles in Figure 1), the percentage of Americans identifying as Christians will be about 49 percent in 2036.

Other polling data confirm the Gallup data indicating that the current rate of decrease in Americans identifying as Christian to be about 1 percent per year. Consider these statistics from a 2014 Pew survey:

The percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4 percent in 2007 to 70.6 percent in 2014.

Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated—describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular—has jumped more than six points, from 16.1 percent to 22.8 percent.

However, I am confident that the rate of decrease in the faith will not remain fixed but will actually increase. Anti-Christian sentiment is on the rise in popular culture, which controls public opinion. The faith is increasingly mocked in entertainment and the media. Movies, radio, TV shows, and print media once celebrated the virtues of the faith but today increasingly portray Christians as simpletons and hateful bigots. Popular Internet websites, including social media such as Facebook and Twitter, are increasingly popular breeding grounds for anti-Christian rhetoric.

At the same time, Christians are becoming increasingly disinclined to defend and protect the faith in the face of these attacks. Indeed, many Christians today appear to have a self-loathing attitude, and some even appear to be welcoming these attacks.

As a result, I believe that in five years the rate of decrease may be as high as 2 percent, and in ten years the rate of decrease may be 3 percent or more. Thus, a more reasonable projection (depicted by the circles in Figure 1) is that the percentage of Americans identifying as Christian may be about 49 percent as early as 2029 and about 29 percent as early as 2040. In other words, by 2040, less than one-third of Americans will identify as Christian!

However, the bad news does not stop there. The graph in Figure 1 does not tell the entire story because it only plots the people who identify as Christian. As I will discuss in more detail below, the meaning of Christian is rapidly diverging from the true meaning—its scriptural meaning that instilled the faith with the unique combination of traits that led the faith to conquer the world as described above. What it means to be a Christian in 2020 is completely different from what it meant in the 1960s. If this divergence continues, then it is unimaginable what the meaning of Christian will be in 2040.

Based on my predictions, it is an immense understatement to state simply that the future of the Christian faith in America is extremely bleak. It is more accurate to say that Christianity has no future in America.

Today’s Christian: A Portrait of Submissiveness and Indifference

All Christians should be upset by the precipitous decline of Christianity in America. The decline is an indication that we are not being obedient to Christ. It is evidence of a defective faith. A culture that is obedient to Christ will not experience a decline in the faith. Christ commands us to love our neighbors, and we love our neighbors who are unbelievers by bringing them to Christ. We are instructed by the Bible to spread the gospel to all nations—this applies especially to our own nation.

In addition, instances of Christian persecution are increasing as the percentage of Christians in the population decreases. To be more precise, the continuing decline in Christianity is resulting in a corresponding decline in Christian political power and an increase in attacks on the faith by the state. Thus, the decline of Christianity is making it increasingly difficult for Christians to practice the faith and increasingly likely that our children and grandchildren will simply abandon the faith altogether.

Government attacks on the faith have accelerated over the last several decades. In the 1950s, the courts in America began banning Bible reading, prayer, and posting the Ten Commandments in public schools and banning the posting of the Ten Commandments in our courthouses and statehouses and essentially banned Christian symbols such as the nativity scene at Christmastime.

More recently, the Supreme Court has declared various deviant behaviors that are contrary to basic Christian principles (e.g., abortion, distributing pornography, engaging in homosexual acts, and even homosexual marriage) to be fundamentals rights that trump the rights of Christians to practice their faith. An increasing number of federal and state laws and municipal ordinances are requiring Christian taxpayers to pay for abortions, Christian clerks to marry homosexual couples, Christian bakers to decorate cakes that celebrate homosexuality, and so on.

Christians have shamefully responded to such attacks by the government with stunning submissiveness and indifference. Judging from their reaction, I would estimate that only about ten percent of Christian men who claim to be saved are actually saved. How can I say that? Because no man possessed of the Holy Spirit could see what is happening to the faith today and not make saving the faith his top priority. Indeed, Christ saw that a few moneychangers were defiling the temple and He overturned their tables and drove them out of the temple with a whip. Imagine how Christ would react if he were to walk into some of today’s churches.

The response of Christians to government attacks on the church during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 has been especially shameful. As deaths from COVID-19 began to rise in America, state and local governments began to prohibit what they considered to be nonessential activity. They closed bars, movie theaters, and dine-in restaurants; but most businesses remained open. For example, hardware stores, liquor stores, office supply stores, retail stores, and pet supply stores all remained open. Even restaurants could still remain open and prepare food for delivery or takeout.

Business was down significantly, of course. In public places, people—for the most part—were wearing masks and maintaining social distancing of at least six feet, based on government recommendations. However, business was still being carried out. The drive-through lines of fast-food restaurants were often backed up; and the parking lots of Lowe’s, Kroger, Walmart, Office Depot, etc., were often packed.

However, one activity that was considered nonessential by many governments at the time was attending church. Many states banned church worship services—including Easter services. In fact, the Democrat governor of Kentucky ordered the state police there to record the license plate numbers of cars in church parking lots on Sunday mornings (https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/04/12/kentucky-churches-hold-in-person-easter-services-despite-order/5127260002/).

The disparate treatment of churches by the states surprised many Christians. Why did the state deem the churches to be nonessential but deem most businesses and even liquor stores and abortion clinics to be essential? Why was it that we could attend Walmart or Lowe’s walking up and down the crowded aisles only two feet away from thousands of other shoppers for twelve hours a day, six days of the week, but on Sunday morning we were banned from attending church with a hundred or so of our Christian brothers and sisters?

There seemed to be no effort by those states to reach a compromise with the churches that would allow them to remain open. Why didn’t the states treat churches the same way that they treated businesses—allow them to stay open but require them to take certain precautions to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19, such as wearing masks and staying six feet away from each other?

The fact is that there was no legitimate justification for the disparate treatment of churches by the state. The only reasonable explanation for these restrictions is political—the state benefits from a diminished religiosity among the public, and in particular, a diminished Christianity. A man’s religion keeps him from fully surrendering his heart and soul to the state.

In 2020, COVID-19 exposed the dramatic imbalance in power between the government and the church, and it also revealed the submissiveness and indifference of today’s Christian and today’s church. Christians and churches should have been defiant in response to the government’s disparate treatment of churches, but instead, they were submissive.

It became clear that the states deemed the church to be nonessential because, well, they could. The states knew that Christians would comply because today’s church teaches Christians to be submissive and mindlessly compliant to the state.

Over the last several decades, the religious devotion of the citizenry has been replaced by a secular devotion to the state. All those American flags in our church sanctuaries across America, all the prayers offered in support of the federal government, all the national anthems we heard at the ball games, all the pledges of allegiance that we repeated, over and over and over again—these are all inspiring acts of patriotism that have had the effect of drawing us closer to the state and realigning our priorities so that the state has become more essential to us than our faith.

Thus, the states could respond to the COVID-19 crisis by deeming Christian worship services to be nonessential because the church itself now deems the faith to be nonessential, or at least, less essential than the state. American Christians have come to deem the state their master; and a man, as we all know, cannot serve two masters.

The year 2020 will go down in history as a watershed event in American history—the states now realize the overwhelmingly submissive nature of Christians and churches, and the states can begin to take advantage of it. The states now realize that they can put Christianity in its place in America. They can now remold and reshape Christianity in their own image. They can transform the church from a tool for glorifying God into a tool for glorifying the state.

The End Game: An Outright Ban on True Christianity in the West

As Christianity continues to decline in the West, attacks on the faith by state and local governments will only get worse. In fact, it is likely that by about 2045, true Christianity (i.e., Christianity that embraces the entirety of the Bible as the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God) will be banned in Western countries.

The notion that true Christianity could be banned in the West is not merely hyperbole. It has happened in other countries around the world (e.g., communist countries such as the USSR), and