The following will illumine the African American contribution to the erosion of God’s protective covering from this nation. This came to me shortly after the events of 9/11, was distributed nationally to about 3,500 African American orginizations/churches via “e”-mail, and is entitled;Gangsta Rap – God’s Final StrawPlease pass it on, if you "hath an ear", and the mind to wave His righteous standard.Dear fellow Saint, I was recently channel surfing, as usual, and came across an interview on BET, with Ed Gordon, and three prominent rappers. In retrospect I know that our Lord meant for me to hear what was being said, so that He could say something back thru me. Usually I’d just flick right past such pseudo celebrities with the quickness, being so disgusted with their turning of Dr. King’s dream into a nightmare. But I stopped and caught Mr. Gordon’s questions to them, which centered around whether they felt a patriotic duty to fight in America's new war on terrorism. Not a single one of them felt such an obligation. They spouted the usual rhetoric of still far to many African Americans, based on our nations past injustices of government sanctioned slavery, and the continuance of societal racial prejudice, from Emancipation till present. Their final justification for not feeling an obligation to possibly making the ultimate sacrifice was, “What has America done for me”? … That floored me! In case they hadn’t noticed, our government no longer sanctions slavery, or racial prejudice. In fact we now have laws against it. Nobody’s holding anybody back from a good education, or job, even though it may require its dogged pursuit with the same gusto as say a dream to become the next Michael Jordan, or Jigga Man. And about someone disliking one for ones ethnicity, hey, this is America! In American you’re free to dislike anyone you please. You’re just not free, by law, to hinder advancement, or harm anyone physically because of it. I sarcastically questioned out loud to Jesus, “What has America done for rappers”? … Then the following just began to flow … America has afforded the Luke Skywalker’s, Ice T’s, Ice Cube’s, Dr. Dre’s, Snoop Dogg’s, Russel Simmon’s, P. Diddy’s, Master P’s, and all hell spawn following, the luxury of misleading generations of black youth down satan’s broad and spacious path to destruction, while making mad chedda (millions of dollars). You'd think they’d be the first to grab their collective crotches, take up their 9’s, AK's, and filthy language, drive their quarter mil drop top Bentleys on 20” dubs, full of drugs, bubbly and bimbettes, to the nearest airport, and catch the first thing smoking to Afghanistan. After all Bin Laden’s disruption of our economy is about to get into their pockets as well! It was in watching that interview that the Spirit of God began to reveal to me just how grieved He is with Black America, and even more so than with White America. Why! Because Black America was that nation, within this nation, that so desperately leaned on His everlasting arm to escape the shackles of physical captivity, and mental and emotional bondage from without, only to turn right around and re-enslave ourselves to a more heinous spiritual chaining from within. Black America so much reminds me of another group of enslaved people freed from Egypt, only to fall victim to the worship of the Golden Calf once set free. Their mistake too was brimming with gross wantonness. The end result was a separation to destruction for those unfortunates! God loves to be sung to! And more importantly He likes to be sung to with feeling! Check your Bibles, and you’ll find that the angels primary purpose in heaven is to sing worship praises to God. People in bondage sing very meaningfully. They sing from their spirits, hearts and souls. And as the ancestors of stolen Africans learned of Jesus, and fixated their faith on Him, they eventually birthed our greatest contribution to American music, Black Gospel. Praise music to God is the purest form of music, and was never meant to be secularized. But as with everything birthed by the Holy Spirit, the unholy spirit did contort. And so out of Black Gospel the devil formed his own opposite praise music, and called it the Blues, a music grounded in fear, despair, anger, violence and sexual innuendo. Then from that, on to Rock & Roll via a head cleric by the name of Little Richard. There was always a following in the Black community for the devils music, but back then it seems the great majority of African Americans were greatly influenced by Jesus, and the Black Church. And being that in those times Blacks were still under heavy oppression, were basically still clinging to the Everlasting Arm, as if their very lives depended on it. So called fine upstanding white Americans in the vein of Bull Connors, and Lester Maddox, were appalled by the Blues, and Rock & Roll, but as long as it remained amongst the niggras it was tolerable. They described the Blues, and Rock & Roll, as decadent and capable of turning the heads of their children to the vileness of sex and drugs. They were right! Satan uses the worst that he can from any group of mankind, and with the African American it would be the dark side of our music. Whether good or bad, our music moves folk! So satan utilized a little white boy from Tupelo Mississippi, named Elvis Aaron Presley, and introduced black Blues/Rock & Roll to white youth in masse, and the rest is a history of creature worship (idolatry), mass hysteria and excesses of the flesh. But basically the black community was still in segregations vacuum, still discriminated against, still held down, even in the music world. But freedom was about to come to the Black man! And with that satan would no longer have to use the homogenized, watered down version in song, of that sin that so easily ensnares Black folk, namely SEX! ... Soon he’d be able to give evil Black music to the entire world in all it’s rawness. But in order to prepare the way, he’d start by introducing the smooth, melodic, trance inspiring sounds of R&B. So with freedom came opportunity, and the opportunistic. Black Gospel, by Black artist this time, was transformed into worldly R&B (or themes from the pit, sang with heavenly feeling). Just listen to Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Al Green and Marvin Gaye. Compared to today’s Rap, their corrupting of God’s music seems harmless. But it paved the way for today’s depravity, especially the music of Marvin Gaye for he was actually the first main stream R&B singer to slip expletives into his cocaine inspired lyrics. Satan erodes away good, thru time, like the trickles of waters that eventually formed the Grand Canyon. Each generation of parent can see satan in their kids music, but very few can see him in their own. There was a time, not to long ago, when Black America thought that White America was crazy. There was a time when the only true angst music was Blues, Country and Rock and Roll, then came Heavy Metal, and it reflected the decadence of white youth. Songs of black Sabbaths, the occult, necromancy and necrophilia didn’t interest black youth at all. Black America’s youth for the most part still had at least one foot in the Black Church, and were content with having their prurient interest tickled first by the sounds of Doo-Wop, and then on to the polished orchestrated sounds of Motown, TSOP, and the raw funk of James Brown, George Clinton and the southern sounds of Stax. Then came the musical and racial melding of Disco, and it’s ensuing depravity. Then on to Punk Rock, and it’s hard core drug suicidal binge on the white side, and Punk Funk, on the Black side, with the Super Freak himself, Rick James, who brought to popularity the ménage-a-trois, and even further widespread moral decay. Then on to the androgynous Prince and Michael Jackson, and their blurring of the gender line, providing the wicked soundtrack to the introduction of Herpes and Aids. By this time even tried and true, died in the wool, Gospel music, both black and white, had started to be affected, and there came a new genre: Contemporary Gospel. And the God of the once bonded African American was now being pushed further and further away, as Black America lost it’s integrity to the Author of their salvation, in its new found integrated freedoms. That once God dependent, God fearing Black nation within our nation, were now just as crazy as the racist whites they once derided .... if not crazier. The “we shall over come”, had now just plain ole “come on over”, and was soon to lose it’s proverbial “soul” to the imminent just over the horizon Gangsta Rap. As sang in the Jefferson’s theme, we’d finally gotten our piece of the pie! … The devil’s pie. When hip-hop first burst upon the scene it was dismissed as a flash in the pan. After all it was nothing but electrified beats, interspersed with oft times ridiculous sounding human beat box noises, over spoken words that hardly made sense. It was dance/party oriented. The black kids loved it, it was relegated a black kids thing, and so it was ignored by everyone. Except the kids! … All of the kids! … Little did anyone realize that it would soon become the deadliest weapon in Satan’s arsenal thus far, in which to "pied piper" the souls of our youth. Unlike Rock and Metal’s ability to attract black youth, Rap, especially Gangsta Rap, would come to ensnare all youth, world wide. God is really not pleased with we Black Christians, and the Black Church. Of all the people in America, He feels that WE should really know better. He wonders how a people who were only a short while ago primarily covered from head to toe in His Son’s blood, are now at most only stained by it? … He is wondering how, after all that He’s done for us, thru our faith in Him, that we have abandoned that faith, that we have slacked so sorely, that we have become worse to ourselves than the enslavers of old, and that we have allowed the blight of the so called Hip-Hop culture, and Gangsta rap to take hold of our children, and our children’s children? … He wonders how we could defend these black purveyors of filth when they are attacked by whites, accusatory or concerned, with the flawed reasoning that whites distributed filth first? …He wonders how we can still permit our pain of prior prejudice, to blind our present spiritual sight to the fact that two wrongs can’t make a right, and that once in Him ALL former ties with the heathen are broken, regardless of how deep they run? … He wonders why we’re still placing our ethnicity over our spirituality? … He wonders why we have not united to collectively call out these preachers of unholiness, and their backers, and to let them know that they will not sweep the souls of our children into an eternal hell without a fight! … He wonders why instead we’ve chosen to rub elbows with such decay and to receive awards for our alleged Gospel music to Him, on the same stages of the award shows dedicated to their music of Baal? … He is wondering why we have ceased to be an example of that faith the size of a “grain of mustard seed”, that non violently cast our seemingly oppressive, immovable “mountain, into yonder sea”? And I heard the voice of the Lord say: “REPENT O BLACK CHURCH OF AMERICA! .... REVIVE! ..... AND ADVANCE TO THE UNSHAKABLE FAITH OF YOUR ANCESTORS ..... RE-SEPARATE YOURSELVES FROM AMONGST THE HEATHEN, AND WITH YOUR RIGHT HAND SMITE MINE ENEMIES WITH THE SWORD OF MY WORD. AND WITH YOUR LEFT HAND WIELD THE SHARP SICKLE OF MY FINAL HARVEST ... FOR I AM SOON COMING, AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE FOUND LACKING .... REPENT ... REVIVE ... REBUKE & REAP”!!!Bro. Rahman ReubenIf you feel led of the Spirit please "e-mail" this link to other saints and pastors;
