Martin Luther King, Revisited

Hello again, friends. This is Dave Scherrerrer. I'm the president of 100 Fold Ministries, and you have found Kingdom Offerings. This is our podcast environment, and I want to go back in time a little bit today. I want to go back in time to 1956, when I was just a two-and-a-half-year-old little boy. And then I want to fast forward about seven years to 1963, when I was all grown up, age of nine. And during these years, and in these years, there were events of such magnitude that they changed the world, but I was too young to notice. Maybe you remember this voice. From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. From the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado, let freedom ring. From the curvaceous slopes of California, but not only that, let freedom ring. From Stone Mountain of Georgia, let freedom ring. From Lookout Mountain of Tennessee, let freedom ring. From every hill and mole hill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last. These are stirring words for today, of course. Our world is seemingly engaged in a never-ending set of accusations about racism stemming from hatred and anger and fear. On Monday of this last week, we as a nation celebrated Martin Luther King Day, and just yesterday I drove down Martin Luther King Boulevard in Denver on my way to a non-profit campus that's pushing hard back against poverty here in the inner city of Denver. I believe Martin Luther King would be proud of this work. And now, this moment, I have in front of me an anthology of Martin Luther King's essential writings and speeches. It's almost 700 pages long. It's one of my most treasured books. I bought it in 1985 when it was first published, and I have yet to read even most of the pages. The pages I have read have inspired me. Of course, there are the famous words from his I Have a Dream speech that he offered in 1963 in the National Mall. Let me read some of those words from that speech. Martin Luther King says, So I say to you, my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It's a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, the creed that we hold these truths to be sold evident that all men are created equal. He said, I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. He said, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of the skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today, he said, that every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight. The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together. Stirring words. But there are some stirring words from a short impromptu speech that Martin Luther King gave from the steps of his home seven years earlier on January 30th, 1956. The black boycott of the buses of Montgomery was only a month old and the young preacher had been drafted to lead this movement protesting segregation. Dr. King was giving a speech to 2,000 people gathered at First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama when he got the news that his home just blocks away had been bombed. His wife, Coretta Scott King, and their 10-week-old daughter, Yolanda, were in the home at the time of the bombing. Dr. King rushed home and after confirming that his family was safe, he addressed an anxious and angry crowd of over 300 men who had gathered in front of his home, many of them so angry and carrying weapons. And he said from his porch, if you have weapons, take them home. If you do not have them, please do not seek them. We cannot solve this problem through violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. And the crowd dispersed peacefully after Dr. King assured them, go home and don't worry. We are not hurt and remember if anything happens to me, there will be others to take my place. He went on to say, I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them, love them, and let them know you love them. And this evening in the midst of this violence, this personal violence on him and his family, Dr. King's example, his deeply held belief in nonviolence was on full display. So let's just leave it right there today and let those kingdom words be set in our hearts, in our minds. And let me say peace to you and let's work together to fight injustice wherever we see it, that God's will might be done on earth as it is in the kingdom of heaven. This is Dave Scherrerrer, and this is 100 Fold Ministries. Peace to you.