Derek Redmond was already a tragic hero. Having been forced to pull out of the 400-metre relay in 1988 due to an injury to his hamstring 90 seconds before he was to start, it seems Lady Luck was not on his side. When he returned to Barcelona in 1992, he had undergone eight operations, but was in relative good health. The first part of the relay went great; Redmond posted the fastest time and the t
eam made it all the way to the semi-finals. But a mere 250 metres from the finish, Redmond re-injured his hamstring, and it seemed like victory was snatched from him once again. But a powerful thing happened. He refused to give up. As he hobbled along the final stretch, his father made his way past security to help his son cross the finish line. Sixty-five thousand people cheered them on. Although he came in last in the Olympic race, he came in first in the Human race.
“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” Bruce Lee
Our so-called elite have failed to learn from Benjamin Franklin(1706 - 1790), who observed that: "As inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficulty for a man in want, to act always honestly, just as it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright." or from Plato in his book "The Republic".
To have a friend, you first of all must be a friend and be regarded a thoughtful rather than gifted, loving rather than bright, gentle over being powerful, a listener more than a great communicator, available rather than a hard worker, sacrificial instead of successful, reliable not famous, content more than driven, self-controlled rather than exciting, generous instead of rich, compassionate more than competent. ♥
THE Senate, yesterday, disclosed that Nigeria has the highest number of oil spill incidences among oil producing countries with no penalty regime attached to such oil spills.
It noted that the level of spills in the country was a reflection of the total disregard on our environment and the dignity of our people.
Declaring open a public hearing on National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Amendment Bill 2012 in Abuja by Senate Joint Committee on Environment and Ecology, Chairman of the Committee, Senator Bukola Saraki, said oil spill had become an irresponsible environmental behaviour and reckless waste of the people’s wealth and benefit, adding that it was high time multinational oil companies in the country stopped oil spills.
Saraki said the move had become imperative against the backdrop of its devastating effect on the environment and livelihoods of the people, even as he lamented that the statistics of oil spills in the country was “shameful” while the impact on the environment is “offensive.”
He said that the Bill titled: “An Act to amend the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) establishment, etc, Act 2006 and for other matters connected therewith” was designed among others to redress the legal loopholes in the existing Act.
He said, ‘’Oil spill is ravaging our environment and has become one of the greatest threats to our sustainable development. This amendment Bill is a clarion call to us all, to put a stop to this.
‘’The statistics of oil spills in Nigeria is shameful; the impact on the environment is offensive. It can no longer be business as usual. Without a doubt, oil spillage is dealt with all over the world as an environmental issue and a human right issue that goes to the quality of the environment and the value of life of those impacted by spills.
‘’It is erroneous to continue to view oil spills as a necessary consequence of oil exploration.”
Senator Saraki who stressed that the Act setting up NOSDRA was presently deficient to meet current challenges posed by oil spill and at such a better legal framework was required, said, ‘’this bill seeks to cure the observed deficiency in the previous law by
tweaking the institutional framework for oil spill management and regulation to make it more efficient.
‘’Our objective is to reverse the ugly trend of endless spilling and devastation of our environment and the repugnant impact on our people.
‘’This bill seeks to make business more peaceful, the regulatory and governance system much clearer and predictable for all and achieve a more livable environment for our people.
‘’This bill also seeks to provide specific powers that will help deal with the regulatory confusion in the sector, which has pitched certain government agencies against one another and inhibited effective regulation.
‘’It is in the interest of all that we streamline this jurisdictional challenge and make it more economical for everyone involved in the causative chain of oil spill management to prevent spills as much as possible and where there is a spill, that our people are protected from bearing the economic and opportunity cost arising from same.
‘’Internationally, where there is a spill, the polluter pays for the cost and damage. But it is worrisome that in Nigeria whether an oil spill has been as a result of accident, operational failure, deliberate sabotage, negligence to take adequate measures or refusal to act there is as yet no legal mechanism or structure for determining mode of paying compensation or recovering damages.
‘’Rather we heap the brunt of the spill on the necks and shoulders of our citizens, whose livelihoods and opportunities are severely impacted by refusal to cleanup and remediate the environment.
‘’It is reprehensible to neglect or refuse to pay compensation for loss or damage from oil spill.
“It is irresponsible to characterize the damage to our country’s invaluable coastal economies, wildlife habitats, and overall coastal livelihoods from oil spills as collateral damage. This bill has as one of its objectives that must be met, to create a realistic framework for compensation for damages and cost.”
Senator Saraki who noted that because of lack of penalties and cost framework, much of the spills in the past have been largely been “ignored, neglected and in most cases never cleaned up or the sites remediated. “Little wonder then that several expert report and testimonies have acknowledged that some of the spills of over 40 years ago had not been cleaned or remediated till date.
“To continue to allow this to persist will be a major dereliction of duty on our part. This bill represents our statement of intent that we will no longer tolerate this state of affairs; responsible parties will no longer be allowed to pass the bulk.”
Declaring open the Public Hearing, Senate President David Mark who was represented by Senate Minority Whip, Senator Abu Ibrahim, Katsina said that it has become crucial to pass the bill as that would put in place a holistic framework to manage the environment, adding that that the country cannot afford to down play the impact of the oil spills.
Culled from Vanguard. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/11/nigeria-has-highest-oil-spill-in-the-world-senate/
@Mr Abd'l-hakiym; Good, fantastic reasoning: I am glad you have decided to debate unlike the other guy that just came out with some rhetoric about not not following the constitution; I wonder if you think we live in the stone ages B-).
Now sir if you follow your own logic you can see that "I also do not support corrupt" preachers and so-called men of God. I have criticized them very openly in my previous post.
However, which holds more trouble? A corrupt preacher or a fanatic with a bomb? My reasoning is simply that while we are criticizing Christian leaders; why can't we also get Islamic leaders to openly condem Boko-Haram. I do not support corrupt preachers the exact same way that you do not support Boko-Haram. Now let us get both our religious leaders to "do the right thing."
Also; the Issue of Sharia law in Nigeria is very clear; Let us in the same manner of objectivity examine the issue:
We have a constitution signed by our founding fathers from all parts of the country; in that constitution - EVERYONE has the right religious freedom. A few decades later, a region says no; we do not want to follow this laws anymore - Is that not a variation of what caused the Nigeria-Biafra war in the first place? The Igbos decided they wanted something different and the country went to war - lead by the North - Now you decide you want a different set of laws as well - do you think this is fair?
If we have a constitution that allows everyone to practice their religion freely - then of what use exactly is the Sharia law?
I want to preach this morning from the subject: "The Birth of a New Nation." And I would like to use as a basis for our thinking together a story that has long since been stenciled on the mental sheets of succeeding generations. It is the story of the Exodus, the story of the flight of the Hebrew people from the bondage of Egypt, through the wilderness, and finally to the Promised Land. It’s a beautiful story. I had the privilege the other night of seeing the story in movie terms in New York City, entitled "The Ten Commandments," and I came to see it in all of its beauty—the struggle of Moses, the struggle of his devoted followers as they sought to get out of Egypt. And they finally moved on to the wilderness and toward the Promised Land. This is something of the story of every people struggling for freedom. It is the first story of man’s explicit quest for freedom. And it demonstrates the stages that seem to inevitably follow the quest for freedom.
Prior to March the sixth, 1957, there existed a country known as the Gold Coast. This country was a colony of the British Empire. This country was situated in that vast continent known as Africa. I’m sure you know a great deal about Africa, that continent with some two hundred million people and it extends and covers a great deal of territory. There are many familiar names associated with Africa that you would probably remember, and there are some countries in Africa that many people never realize. For instance, Egypt is in Africa. And there is that vast area of North Africa with Egypt and Ethiopia, with Tunisia and Algeria and Morocco and Libya. Then you might move to South Africa and you think of that extensive territory known as the Union of South Africa. There is that capital city Johannesburg that you read so much about these days. Then there is central Africa with places like Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo. And then there is East Africa with places like Kenya and Tanganyika, and places like Uganda and other very powerful countries right there. And then you move over to West Africa, where you find the French West Africa and Nigeria, and Liberia and Sierra Leone and places like that. And it is in this spot, in this section of Africa, that we find the Gold Coast, there in West Africa.
You also know that for years and for centuries, Africa has been one of the most exploited continents in the history of the world. It’s been the "Dark Continent." It’s been the continent that has suffered all of the pain and the affliction that could be mustered up by other nations. And it is that continent which has experienced slavery, which has experienced all of the lowest standards that we can think about, and its been brought into being by the exploitation inflicted upon it by other nations.
And this country, the Gold Coast, was a part of this extensive continent known as Africa. It’s a little country there in West Africa about ninety-one thousand miles in area, with a population of about five million people, a little more than four and a half million. And it stands there with its capital city, Accra. For years the Gold Coast was exploited and dominated and trampled over. The first European settlers came in there about 1444, the Portuguese, and they started legitimate trade with the people in the Gold Coast. They started dealing with them with their gold, and in turn they gave them guns and ammunition and gunpowder and that type of thing. Well, pretty soon America was discovered a few years later in the fourteen hundreds, and then the British West Indies. And all of these growing discoveries brought about the slave trade. You remember it started in America in 1619.
And there was a big scramble for power in Africa. With the growth of the slave trade, there came into Africa, into the Gold Coast in particular, not only the Portuguese but also the Swedes and the Danes and the Dutch and the British. And all of these nations competed with each other to win the power of the Gold Coast so that they could exploit these people for commercial reasons and sell them into slavery.
Finally, in 1850, Britain won out, and she gained possession of the total territorial expansion of the Gold Coast. From 1850 to 1957, March sixth, the Gold Coast was a colony of the British Empire. And as a colony she suffered all of the injustices, all of the exploitation, all of the humiliation that comes as a result of colonialism. But like all slavery, like all domination, like all exploitation, it came to the point that the people got tired of it.
And that seems to be the long story of history. There seems to be a throbbing desire, there seems to be an internal desire for freedom within the soul of every man. And it’s there—it might not break forth in the beginning, but eventually it breaks out Men realize that freedom is something basic, and to rob a man of his freedom is to take from him the essential basis of his manhood. To take from him his freedom is to rob him of something of God’s image. To paraphrase the words of Shakespeare’s Othello: Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing; twas mine, ‘tis his, has been the slave of thousands; but he who filches from me my freedom robs me of that which not enriches him, but makes me poor indeed.
There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom. There is something deep down within the very soul of man that reaches out for Canaan. Men cannot be satisfied with Egypt. They tried to adjust to it for awhile. Many men have vested interests in Egypt, and they are slow to leave. Egypt makes it profitable to them; some people profit by Egypt. The vast majority, the masses of people never profit by Egypt, and they are never content with it. And eventually they rise up and begin to cry out for Canaan’s land.
And so these people got tired. It had a long history. As far back as 1844, the chiefs themselves of the Gold Coast rose up and came together and revolted against the British Empire and the other powers that were in existence at that time dominating the Gold Coast. They revolted, saying that they wanted to govern themselves. But these powers clamped down on them, and the British said that we will not let you go.
About 1909, a young man was born on the twelfth of September. History didn’t know at that time what that young man had in his mind. His mother and father, illiterate, not a part of the powerful tribal life of Africa, not chiefs at all, but humble people. And that boy grew up. He went to school at Achimota for a while in Africa, and then he finished there with honors and decided to work his way to America. And he landed to America one day with about fifty dollars in his pocket in terms of pounds, getting ready to get an education. And he went down to Pennsylvania, to Lincoln University. He started studying there, and he started reading the great insights of the philosophers, he started reading the great insights of the ages. And he finished there and took his theological degree there and preached awhile around Philadelphia and other areas as he was in the country. And went over to the University of Pennsylvania and took up a masters there in philosophy and sociology. All the years that he stood in America, he was poor, he had to work hard. He says in his autobiography how he worked as a bellhop in hotels, as a dishwasher, and during the summer how he worked as a waiter trying to struggle through school. [recording interrupted]
"I want to go back home. I want to go back to West Africa, the land of my people, my native land There is some work to be done there." He got a ship and went to London and stopped for a while by London School of Economy and picked up another degree there. Then while in London, he started thinking about Pan-Africanism and the problem of how to free his people from colonialism. For as he said, he always realized that colonialism was made for domination and for exploitation. It was made to keep a certain group down and exploit that group economically for the advantage of another. He studied and thought about all of this, and one day he decided to go back to Africa.
He got to Africa and he was immediately elected the executive secretary of the United Party of the Gold Coast. And he worked hard, and he started getting a following. And the people in this party, the old, the people who had had their hands on the plow for a long time, thought he was pushing a little too fast, and they got a little jealous of his influence. and so finally he had to break from the United Party of the Gold Coast, and in 1949 he organized the Convention People’s Party. It was this party that started out working for the independence of the Gold Coast. He started out in a humble way, urging his people to unite for freedom and urging the officials of the British Empire to give them freedom. They were slow to respond, but the masses of people were with him, and they had united to become the most powerful and influential party that had ever been organized in that section of Africa.
He started writing. And his companions with him, and many of them started writing so much that the officials got afraid, and they put them in jail. And Nkrumah himself was finally placed in jail for several years because he was a seditious man, he was an agitator. He was imprisoned on the basis of sedition, and he was placed there to stay in prison for many years. But he had inspired some people outside of prison. They got together just a few months after he’d been in prison and elected him the prime minister while he was in prison. For awhile the British officials tried to keep him there, and Gbedemah says—one of his close associates, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Gbedemah— said that that night the people were getting ready to go down to the jail and get him out. But Gbedemah said, "This isn’t the way; we can’t do it like this. Violence will break out and we will defeat our purpose." But the British Empire saw that they had better let him out. And in a few hours Kwame Nkrumah was out of jail, the prime minister of the Gold Coast. He was placed there for fifteen years but he only served eight or nine months, and now he comes out the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast.
And this was the struggling that had been going on for years. It was now coming to the point that this little nation was moving toward its independence. Then came the continual agitation, the continual resistance, so that the British Empire saw that it could no longer rule the Gold Coast. And they agreed that on the sixth of March, 1957, they would release this nation. This nation would no longer be a colony of the British Empire, that this nation would be a sovereign nation within the British Commonwealth. All of this was because of the persistent protest, the continual agitation on the part of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and the other leaders who worked along with him and the masses of people who were willing to follow.
So that day finally came. It was a great day. The week ahead was a great week. They had been preparing for this day for many years, and now it was here. People coming in from all over the world. They had started getting in by the second of March. Seventy nations represented to come to say to this new nation: "We greet you, and we give you our moral support. We hope for you God’s guidance as you move now into the realm of independence." From America itself more than a hundred persons: the press, the diplomatic guests, and the prime minister’s guests. And oh, it was a beautiful experience to see some of the leading persons on the scene of civil rights in America on hand to say, "Greetings to you," as this new nation was born. Look over, to my right is Adam Powell, to my left is Charles Diggs, to my right again is Ralph Bunche. To the other side is Her Majesty’s First Minister of Jamaica, Manning, Ambassador Jones of Liberia. All of these people from America, Mordecai Johnson, Horace Mann Bond, all of these people just going over to say, "We want to greet you and we want you to know that you have our moral support as you grow." Then you look out and see the vice-president of the United States, you see A. Philip Randolph, you see all of the people who have stood in the forefront of the struggle for civil rights over the years, coming over to Africa to say, "We bid you Godspeed." This was a great day not only for Nkrumah, but for the whole of the Gold Coast.
Then came Tuesday, [March] the fifth, many events leading up to it. That night we walked into the closing of Parliament—the closing of the old Parliament, the old Parliament, which was presided over by the British Empire. The old Parliament which designated colonialism and imperialism. Now that Parliament is closing. That was a great sight and a great picture and a great scene. We sat there that night, just about five hundred able to get in there. People, thousands and thousands of people waiting outside, just about five hundred in there, and we were fortunate enough to be sitting there at that moment as guests of the prime minister. At that hour we noticed Prime Minister Nkrumah walking in with all of his ministers, with his justices of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast, and with all of the people of the Convention People’s Party, the leaders of that party. Nkrumah came up to make his closing speech to the old Gold Coast. There was something old now passing away.
The thing that impressed me more than anything else that night was the fact that when Nkrumah walked in, and his other ministers who had been in prison with him, they didn’t come in with the crowns and all of the garments of kings, but they walked in with prison caps and the coats that they had lived with for all of the months that they had been in prison. Nkrumah stood up and made his closing speech to Parliament with the little cap that he wore in prison for several months and the coat that he wore in prison for several months, and all of his ministers round about him. That was a great hour. An old Parliament passing away.
And then at twelve o’clock that night we walked out. As we walked out we noticed all over the polo grounds almost a half-a-million people. They had waited for this hour and this moment for years. As we walked out of the door and looked at that beautiful building, we looked up to the top of it and there was a little flag that had been flowing around the sky for many years. It was the Union Jack flag of the Gold Coast, the British flag, you see. But at twelve o’clock that night we saw a little flag coming down, and another flag went up. The old Union Jack flag came down, and the new flag of Ghana went up. This was a new nation now, a new nation being born.
And when Prime Minister Nkrumah stood up before his people out in the polo ground and said, "We are no longer a British colony. We are a free, sovereign people," all over that vast throng of people we could see tears. And I stood there thinking about so many things. Before I knew it, I started weeping. I was crying for joy. And I knew about all of the struggles, and all of the pain, and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment.
After Nkrumah had made that final speech, it was about twelve-thirty now. And we walked away. And we could hear little children six years old and old people eighty and ninety years old walking the streets of Accra crying, "Freedom! Freedom!" They couldn’t say it in the sense that we’d say it—many of them don’t speak English too well—but they had their accents and it could ring out, "Free-doom!" They were crying it in a sense that they had never heard it before, and I could hear that old Negro spiritual once more crying out:
Free at last! Free at last!
Great God Almighty, I’m free at last!
They were experiencing that in their very souls. And everywhere we turned, we could hear it ringing out from the housetops. We could hear it from every corner, every nook and crook of the community: "Freedom! Freedom!" This was the birth of a new nation. This was the breaking aloose from Egypt.
Wednesday morning the official opening of Parliament was held. There again we were able to get on the inside. There Nkrumah made his new speech. And now the prime minister of the Gold Coast with no superior, with all of the power that MacMillan of England has, with all of the power that Nehru of India has—now a free nation, now the prime minister of a sovereign nation. The Duchess of Kent walked in, the Duchess of Kent, who represented the Queen of England, no longer had authority now. She was just a passing visitor now. The night before, she was the official leader and spokesman for the Queen, thereby the power behind the throne of the Gold Coast. But now it’s Ghana. It’s a new nation now, and she’s just an official visitor like M. L. King and Ralph Bunche and Coretta King and everybody else, because this is a new nation. A new Ghana has come into being.
And now Nkrumah stands the leader of that great nation. And when he drives out, the people standing around the streets of the city after Parliament is open, cry out: "All hail, Nkrumah!" The name of Nkrumah crowning around the whole city, everybody crying this name, because they knew he had suffered for them, he had sacrificed for them, he’d gone to jail for them. This was the birth of a new nation. This nation was now out of Egypt and had crossed the Red Sea.
Now it will confront its wilderness. Like any breaking aloose from Egypt, there is a wilderness ahead. There is a problem of adjustment. Nkrumah realizes that. There is always this wilderness standing before him. For instance, it’s a one-crop country, cocoa mainly. Sixty percent of the cocoa of the world comes from the Gold Coast, or from Ghana. And, in order to make the economic system more stable, it will be necessary to industrialize. Cocoa is too fluctuating to base a whole economy on that, so there is the necessity of industrializing. Nkrumah said to me that one of the first things that he will do is to work toward industrialization. And also he plans to work toward the whole problem of increasing the cultural standards of the community. Still ninety percent of the people are illiterate, and it is necessary to lift the whole cultural standard of the community in order to make it possible to stand up in the free world.
Yes, there is a wilderness ahead, though it is my hope that even people from America will go to Africa as immigrants, right there to the Gold Coast, and lend their technical assistance, for there is great need and there are rich opportunities there. Right now is the time that American Negroes can lend their technical assistance to a growing new nation. I was very happy to see already people who have moved in and making good. The son of the late president of Bennett College, Dr. Jones, is there, who started an insurance company and making good, going to the top. A doctor from Brooklyn, New York, had just come in that week and his wife is also a dentist, and they are living there now, going in there and working, and the people love them. There will be hundreds and thousands of people, I’m sure, going over to make for the growth of this new nation. And Nkrumah made it very clear to me that he would welcome any persons coming there as immigrants and to live there. Now don’t think that because they have five million people the nation can’t grow, that that’s a small nation to be overlooked. Never forget the fact that when America was born in 1776, when it received its independence from the British Empire, there were fewer, less than four million people in America, and today it’s more than a hundred and sixty million. So never underestimate a people because it’s small now. America was smaller than Ghana when it was born.
There is a great day ahead. The future is on its side. It’s going now through the wilderness, but the Promised Land is ahead.
And I want to take just a few more minutes as I close to say three or four things that this reminds us of and things that it says to us—things that we must never forget as we ourselves find ourselves breaking aloose from an evil Egypt, trying to move through the wilderness toward the promised land of cultural integration. Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. And if Nkrumah and the people of the Gold Coast had not stood up persistently, revolting against the system, it would still be a colony of the British Empire. Freedom is never given to anybody, for the oppressor has you in domination because he plans to keep you there, and he never voluntarily gives it up. And that is where the strong resistance comes. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance.
So don’t go out this morning with any illusions. Don’t go back into your homes and around Montgomery thinking that the Montgomery City Commission and that all of the forces in the leadership of the South will eventually work out this thing for Negroes, it’s going to work out; it’s going to roll in on the wheels of inevitability. If we wait for it to work itself out, it will never be worked out. Freedom only comes through persistent revolt, through persistent agitation, through persistently rising up against the system of evil. The bus protest is just the beginning. Buses are integrated in Montgomery, but that is just the beginning. And don’t sit down and do nothing now because the buses are integrated, because, if you stop now, we will be in the dungeons of segregation and discrimination for another hundred years, and our children and our children’s children will suffer all of the bondage that we have lived under for years. It never comes voluntarily. We’ve got to keep on keeping on in order to gain freedom. It never comes like that. It would be fortunate if the people in power had sense enough to go on and give up, but they don’t do it like that. It is not done voluntarily, but it is done through the pressure that comes about from people who are oppressed.
If there had not been a Gandhi in India with all of his noble followers, India would have never been free. If there had not been an Nkrumah and his followers in Ghana, Ghana would still be a British colony. If there had not been abolitionists in America, both Negro and white, we might still stand today in the dungeons of slavery. And then because there have been, in every period, there are always those people in every period of human history who don’t mind getting their necks cut off, who don’t mind being persecuted and discriminated and kicked about, because they know that freedom is never given out, but it comes through the persistent and the continual agitation and revolt on the part of those who are caught in the system. Ghana teaches us that.
It says to us another thing. It reminds us of the fact that a nation or a people can break aloose from oppression without violence. Nkrumah says in the first two pages of his autobiography, which was published on the sixth of March—a great book which you ought to read—he said that he had studied the social systems of social philosophers and he started studying the life of Gandhi and his techniques. And he said that in the beginning he could not see how they could ever get aloose from colonialism without armed revolt, without armies and ammunition, rising up. Then he says after he continued to study Gandhi and continued to study this technique, he came to see that the only way was through nonviolent positive action. And he called his program "positive action." And it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? That here is a nation that is now free, and it is free without rising up with arms and with ammunition. It is free through nonviolent means. Because of that the British Empire will not have the bitterness for Ghana that she has for China, so to speak. Because of that, when the British Empire leaves Ghana, she leaves with a different attitude than she would have left with if she had been driven out by armies. We’ve got to revolt in such a way that after revolt is over we can live with people as their brothers and their sisters. Our aim must never be to defeat them or humiliate them.
On the night of the State Ball, standing up talking with some people, Mordecai Johnson called my attention to the fact that Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah was there dancing with the Duchess of Kent. And I said, "Isn’t this something? Here is the once-serf, the once-slave, now dancing with the lord on an equal plane." And that is done because there is no bitterness. These two nations will be able to live together and work together because the breaking aloose was through nonviolence and not through violence.
The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence however, are emptiness and bitterness. This is the thing I’m concerned about. Let us fight passionately and unrelentingly for the goals of justice and peace, but let’s be sure that our hands are clean in this struggle. Let us never fight with falsehood and violence and hate and malice, but always fight with love, so that, when the day comes that the walls of segregation have completely crumbled in Montgomery. that we will be able to live with people as their brothers and sisters.
Oh, my friends, our aim must be not to defeat Mr. Engelhardt, not to defeat Mr. Sellers and Mr. Gayle and Mr. Parks. Our aim must be to defeat the evil that’s in them. But our aim must be to win the friendship of Mr. Gayle and Mr. Sellers and Mr. Engelhardt. We must come to the point of seeing that our ultimate aim is to live with all men as brothers and sisters under God and not be their enemies or anything that goes with that type of relationship. And this is one thing that Ghana teaches us: that you can break aloose from evil through nonviolence, through a lack of bitterness. Nkrumah says in his book: "When I came out of prison, I was not bitter toward Britain. I came out merely with the determination to free my people from the colonialism and imperialism that had been inflicted upon them by the British. But I came out with no bitterness." And, because of that, this world will be a better place in which to live.
There’s another thing that Ghana reminds us. I’m coming to the conclusion now. Ghana reminds us that freedom never comes on a silver platter. It’s never easy. Ghana reminds us that whenever you break out of Egypt, you better get ready for stiff backs. You better get ready for some homes to be bombed. You better get ready for some churches to be bombed. You better get ready for a lot of nasty things to be said about you, because you're getting out of Egypt, and, whenever you break aloose from Egypt, the initial response of the Egyptian is bitterness. It never comes with ease. It comes only through the hardness and persistence of life. Ghana reminds us of that. You better get ready to go to prison. When I looked out and saw the prime minister there with his prison cap on that night, that reminded me of that fact, that freedom never comes easy. It comes through hard labor and it comes through toil. It comes through hours of despair and disappointment.
That’s the way it goes. There is no crown without a cross. I wish we could get to Easter without going to Good Friday, but history tells us that we got to go by Good Friday before we can get to Easter. That’s the long story of freedom, isn’t it? Before you get to Canaan, you’ve got a Red Sea to confront. You have a hardened heart of a pharaoh to confront. You have the prodigious hilltops of evil in the wilderness to confront. And,even when you get up to the Promised Land, you have giants in the land. The beautiful thing about it is that there are a few people who’ve been over in the land. They have spied enough to say, "Even though the giants are there we can possess the land, because we got the internal fiber to stand up amid anything that we have to face."
The road to freedom is a difficult, hard road. It always makes for temporary setbacks. And those people who tell you today that there is more tension in Montgomery than there has ever been are telling you right. Whenever you get out of Egypt, you always confront a little tension, you always confront a little temporary setback. If you didn’t confront that you’d never get out. You must remember that the tensionless period that we like to think of was the period when the Negro was complacently adjusted to segregation, discrimination, insult, and exploitation. And the period of tension is the period when the Negro has decided to rise up and break aloose from that. And this is the peace that we are seeking: not an old negative obnoxious peace which is merely the absence of tension, but a positive, lasting peace, which is the presence of brotherhood and justice. And it is never brought about without this temporary period of tension. The road to freedom is difficult.
But finally Ghana tells us that the forces of the universe are on the side of justice. That’s what it tells us, now. You can interpret Ghana any kind of way you want to, but Ghana tells me that the forces of the universe are on the side of justice. That night when I saw that old flag coming down and the new flag coming up, I saw something else. That wasn’t just an Ephemeral, evanescent event appearing on the stage of history, but it was an event with eternal meaning, for it symbolizes something. That thing symbolized to me that an old order is passing away and a new order is coming into being. An old order of colonialism, of segregation, of discrimination is passing away now, and a new order of justice and freedom and goodwill is being born. That’s what it said: that somehow the forces of justice stand on the side of the universe, and that you can’t ultimately trample over God’s children and profit by it.
I want to come back to Montgomery now, but I must stop by London for a moment, for London reminds me of something. I never will forget the day we went into London. The next day we started moving around this great city, the only city in the world that is almost as large as New York City. Over eight million people in London, about eight million, three hundred thousand; New York about eight million, five hundred thousand. London larger in area than New York, though. Standing in London is an amazing picture. And I never will forget the experience I had, the thoughts that came to my mind. We went to Buckingham Palace, and I looked there at all of Britain, at all of the pomp and circumstance of royalty. And I thought about all of the queens and kings that had passed through here. Look at the beauty of the changing of the guards and all of the guards with their beautiful horses. It’s a beautiful sight. Move on from there and go over to Parliament. Move into the House of Lords and the House of Commons. There with all of its beauty standing up before the world is one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
Then I remember, we went on over to Westminster Abbey. And I thought about several things when we went in this great church, this great cathedral, the center of the Church of England. We walked around and went to the tombs of the kings and queens buried there. Most of the kings and queens of England are buried right there in the Westminster Abbey. And I walked around. On the one hand I enjoyed and appreciated the great gothic architecture of that massive cathedral. I stood there in awe thinking about the greatness of God and man’s feeble attempt to reach up for God. And I thought something else—I thought about the Church of England.
My mind went back to Buckingham Palace, and I said that this is the symbol of a dying system. There was a day that the queens and kings of England could boast that the sun never sets on the British Empire, a day when she occupied the greater portion of Australia, the greater portion of Canada. There was a day when she ruled most of China, most of Africa, and all of India. I started thinking about this empire. I started thinking about the fact that she ruled over India one day. Mahatma Gandhi stood there at every hand, trying to get the freedom of his people, and they never bowed to it. They never, they decided that they were going to stand up and hold India in humiliation and in colonialism many, many years. I remember we passed by Ten Downing Street. That’s the place where the prime minister of England lives. And I remember that a few years ago a man lived there by the name of Winston Churchill. One day he stood up before the world and said, "I did not become his Majesty’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."
And I thought about the fact that a few weeks ago a man by the name of Anthony Eden lived there. And out of all of his knowledge of the Middle East, he decided to rise up and march his armies with the forces of Israel and France into Egypt, and there they confronted their doom, because they were revolting against world opinion. Egypt, a little country; Egypt, a country with no military power. They could have easily defeated Egypt, but they did not realize that they were fighting more than Egypt. They were attacking world opinion; they were fighting the whole Asian-African bloc, which is the bloc that now thinks and moves and determines the course of the history of the world.
I thought of many things. I thought of the fact that the British Empire exploited India. Think about it! A nation with four hundred million people and the British exploited them so much that out of a population of four hundred million, three hundred and fifty million made an annual income of less than fifty dollars a year. Twenty-five of that had to be used for taxes and the other things of life. I thought about dark Africa, and how the people there, if they can make a hundred dollars a year they are living very well, they think. Two shillings a day—one shilling is fourteen cents, two shillings, twenty-eight cents—that’s a good wage. That’s because of the domination of the British Empire.
All of these things came to my mind, and when I stood there in Westminster Abbey with all of its beauty, and I thought about all of the beautiful hymns and anthems that the people would go in there to sing. And yet the Church of England never took a stand against this system.The Church of England sanctioned it The Church of England gave it moral stature. All of the exploitation perpetuated by the British Empire was sanctioned by the Church of England.
But something else came to my mind: God comes in the picture even when the Church won’t take a stand. God has injected a principle in this universe. God has said that all men must respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, "And if you don’t do that, I will take charge." It seems this morning that I can hear God speaking. I can hear him speaking throughout the universe, saying, "Be still and know that I am God. And if you don’t stop, if you don’t straighten up, if you don’t stop exploiting people, I’m going to rise up and break the backbone of your power. And your power will be no more!"
And the power of Great Britain is no more. I looked at France. I looked at Britain. And I thought about the Britain that could boast, "The sun never sets on our great Empire." And I said now she had gone to the level that the sun hardly rises on the British Empire—because it was based on exploitation, because the God of the universe eventually takes a stand.
And I say to you this morning, my friends, rise up and know that, as you struggle for justice, you do not struggle alone, but God struggles with you. And He is working every day. Somehow I can look out, I can look out across the seas and across the universe, and cry out, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." Then I think about it, because His truth is marching on, and I can sing another chorus: "Hallelujah, glory hallelujah! His truth is marching on."
Then I can hear Isaiah again, because it has profound meaning to me, that somehow, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every hill shall be made low; the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
That’s the beauty of this thing: all flesh shall see it together. Not some from the heights of Park Street and others from the dungeons of slum areas. Not some from the pinnacles of the British Empire and some from the dark deserts of Africa. Not some from inordinate, superfluous wealth and others from abject, deadening poverty. Not some white and not some black, not some yellow and not some brown, but all flesh shall see it together. They shall see it from Montgomery. They shall see it from New York. They shall see it from Ghana. They shall see it from China.
For I can look out and see a great number, as John saw, marching into the great eternity, because God is working in this world, and at this hour, and at this moment. And God grants that we will get on board and start marching with God, because we got orders now to break down the bondage and the walls of colonialism, exploitation, and imperialism, to break them down to the point that no man will trample over another man, but that all men will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. And then we will be in Canaan’s freedom land.
Moses might not get to see Canaan, but his children will see it. He even got to the mountaintop enough to see it and that assured him that it was coming. But the beauty of the thing is that there’s always a Joshua to take up his work and take the children on in. And it’s there waiting with its milk and honey, and with all of the bountiful beauty that God has in store for His children. Oh, what exceedingly marvelous things God has in store for us. Grant that we will follow Him enough to gain them. [recording interrupted]
O God, our gracious Heavenly Father, help us to see the insights that come from this new nation. Help us to follow Thee and all of Thy creative works in this world, and that somehow we will discover that we are made to live together as brothers And that it will come in this generation: the day when all men will recognize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Amen.
In November 1960 Martin Luther King traveled to Lagos, then Nigeria’s capital city, to attend the inauguration of Nnamdi Azikiwe as Nigeria’s first governor-general of African descent. Azikiwe, who later became the first president of Nigeria and was a life-long advocate of African independence, personally invited King to take part in the official inauguration festivities in a letter dated 26 October 1960.
Azikiwe was born 16 November 1904 in northern Nigeria, and attended mission schools in Lagos. In 1925 he left for the United States, where he studied political science, earning a BA (1930) and MA (1932) from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. While a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Azikiwe met Marcus Garvey and other leaders of the Back to Africa movement. In 1934 Azikiwe returned to Africa where he joined the Nigerian Youth Movement and founded the West African Pilot and several other periodicals that advocated independence from Britain. After more than a decade of working as a writer, Azikiwe was elected to the Nigerian Legislative Council in 1947 and began a career in government.
When King traveled to Nigeria in 1960 the liberation struggles there and in other African nations were having a profound impact on the American civil rights movement. Noting that Azikiwe and other African leaders were ‘‘popular heroes on most Negro college campuses,’’ King called the African liberation movement ‘‘the greatest single international influence on American Negro students,’’ offering the young people hope and guidance in their own struggle for freedom (King, ‘‘The Time for Freedom’’). Azikiwe was elected the first president of Nigeria in 1963, but was removed from office by a military coup in 1966.
Sources King, ‘‘The Time for Freedom Has Come,’’ New York Times, 10 September 1961.
Reverend Simmons, platform associates, members and friends of Second Baptist Church, I need not pause to say how happy I am to be here this morning, and to be a part of this worship service. It is certainly with a deal of humility that I stand in this pulpit so rich in tradition and history. Second Baptist Church, as you know, has the reputation of being one of the great churches of our nation, and it is certainly a challenge that, for me to stand here this morning, to be in the pulpit of Reverend Banks and of a people who are so great and rich in tradition.
I'm not exactly a stranger in the city of Detroit, for I have been here several times before. And I remember back in about 1944 or 1945, somewhere back in there, that I came to Second Baptist Church for the first time—I think that was the year that the National Baptist Convention met here. And of course I have a lot of relatives in this city, so that Detroit is really something of a second home for me, and I don't feel too much a stranger here this morning. So it is indeed a pleasure and a privilege for me to be in this city this morning, and to be here to worship with you in the absence of your very fine and noble pastor, Dr. Banks.
I want you to think with me this morning from the subject: "Rediscovering Lost Values." "Rediscovering Lost Values." There is something wrong with our world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don't think we have to look too far to see that. I'm sure that most of you would agree with me in making that assertion. And when we stop to analyze the cause of our world's ills, many things come to mind.
We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don't know enough. But it can't be that. Because in terms of accumulated knowledge we know more today than men have known in any period of human history. We have the facts at our disposal. We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy than we've ever known in any period of the world's history. So it can't be because we don't know enough.
And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific genius lags behind. That is, if we have not made enough progress scientifically. Well then, it can't be that. For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains, so that today it's possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. Back in about 1753 it took a letter three days to go from New York City to Washington, and today you can go from here to China in less time than that. It can't be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man's scientific genius has been amazing.
I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man's problems and the real cause of the world's ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men. (Lord help him)
The trouble isn't so much that we don't know enough, but it's as if we aren't good enough. The trouble isn't so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. (Well) The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live (Help him God) have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. (That's right) So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. (Well) The problem is with man himself and man's soul. We haven't learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that through our scientific genius we've made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we've failed to make of it a brotherhood. (Lord have mercy) And the great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much that atomic bomb that you can put in an aeroplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people—as dangerous as that is. But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, (Lord have mercy) capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness—that's the atomic bomb that we've got to fear today. (Lord help him) Problem is with the men. (Yes, yes) Within the heart and the souls of men. (Lord) That is the real basis of our problem. (Well)
My friends, all I'm trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we've got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we've left behind. (Yes) That's the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning of it. The only way we can do it is to go back (Yes) and rediscover some mighty precious values that we've left behind.
Our situation in the world today reminds me of a very popular situation that took place in the life of Jesus. It was read in the Scripture for the morning, found over in the second chapter of Luke's gospel. The story is very familiar, very popular; we all know it. You remember when Jesus was about twelve years old, (Well) there was the custom of the feast. Jesus' parents took him up to Jerusalem. That was an annual occasion, the feast of the Passover, and they went up to Jerusalem and they took Jesus along with them. And they were there a few days, and then after being there they decided to go back home, to Nazareth. (Lord help him) And they started out, and I guess as it was in the tradition in those days, the father probably traveled in front, and then the mother and the children behind. You see, they didn't have the modern conveniences that we have today. They didn't have automobiles and subways and buses. They walked, and traveled on donkeys and camels and what have you. So they traveled very slow, but it was usually the tradition for the father to lead the way. (Yeah)
And they left Jerusalem going on back to Nazareth, and I imagine they walked a little while and they didn't look back to see if everybody was there. But then the Scripture says, they went about a day's journey and they stopped, I imagine to check up, to see if everything was all right, and they discovered that something mighty precious was missing. They discovered that Jesus wasn't with them. (Yes) Jesus wasn't in the midst. (Come on) And so they paused there and looked and they didn't see him around. And they went on and started looking among the kinsfolk. And they went on back to Jerusalem and found him there, in the temple with the doctors of the law. (Yeah, That's right)
Now, the real thing that is to be seen here is this: that the parents of Jesus realized that they had left, and that they had lost a mighty precious value. They had sense enough to know that before they could go forward to Nazareth, they had to go backward to Jerusalem to rediscover this value. (That's right) They knew that. They knew that they couldn't go home to Nazareth until they went back to Jerusalem. (Come on)
Sometimes, you know, it's necessary to go backward in order to go forward. (Yes) That's an analogy of life. I remember the other day I was driving out of New York City into Boston, and I stopped off in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to visit some friends. And I went out of New York on a highway that’s known as the Merritt Parkway, it leads into Boston, a very fine parkway. And I stopped in Bridgeport, and after being there for two or three hours I decided to go on to Boston, and I wanted to get back on the Merritt Parkway. And I went out thinking that I was going toward the Merritt Parkway. I started out, and I rode, and I kept riding, and I looked up and I saw a sign saying two miles to a little town that I knew I was to bypass—I wasn't to pass through that particular town. So I thought I was on the wrong road. I stopped and I asked a gentleman on the road which way would I get to the Merritt Parkway. And he said, "The Merritt Parkway is about twelve or fifteen miles back that way. You've got to turn around and go back to the Merritt Parkway; you are out of the way now." In other words, before I could go forward to Boston, I had to go back about twelve or fifteen miles to get to the Merritt Parkway. May it not be that modern man has gotten on the wrong parkway? (Lord help him) And if he is to go forward to the city of salvation, he's got to go back and get on the right parkway. (Amen)
And so that was the thing that Jesus' parents realized, that they had to go back and find this mighty precious value that they had left behind, in order to go forward. They realized that. And so they went back to Jerusalem and discovered Jesus, rediscovered him so to speak, in order to go forward to Nazareth. (Lord help him)
Now that's what we've got to do in our world today. We've left a lot of precious values behind; we've lost a lot of precious values. And if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in which to live, we've got to go back. We've got to rediscover these precious values that we've left behind.
I want to deal with one or two of these mighty precious values that we've left behind, that if we're to go forward and to make this a better world, we must rediscover.
The first is this—the first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (Lord help us) I'm not so sure we all believe that. We never doubt that there are physical laws of the universe that we must obey. We never doubt that. And so we just don't jump out of airplanes or jump off of high buildings for the fun of it—we don't do that. Because we unconsciously know that there is a final law of gravitation, and if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences—we know that. Even if we don't know it in its Newtonian formulation, we know it intuitively, and so we just don't jump off the highest building in Detroit for the fun of it—we don't do that. Because we know that there is a law of gravitation which is final in the universe. (Lord) If we disobey it we'll suffer the consequences.
But I'm not so sure if we know that there are moral laws just as abiding as the physical law. I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure if we really believe that there is a law of love in this universe, and that if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences. (Yes) I'm not so sure if we really believe that. Now at least two things convince me that we don't believe that, that we have strayed away from the principle that this is a moral universe. (Lord help him)
The first thing is that we have adopted in the modern world a sort of a relativistic ethic. Now I'm not trying to use a big word here; I'm trying to say something very concrete. And that is that we have accepted the attitude that right and wrong are merely relative to our . . . [recording interrupted]
Most people can't stand up for their convictions, because the majority of people might not be doing it. (Amen, Yes) See, everybody's not doing it, so it must be wrong. And since everybody is doing it, it must be right. (Yes, Lord help him) So a sort of numerical interpretation of what's right.
But I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so. It's wrong to hate. (Yes, That's right) It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. (Amen) It's wrong in America, it's wrong in Germany, it's wrong in Russia, it's wrong in China. (Lord help him) It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it's wrong in 1954 A.D. It always has been wrong, (That's right) and it always will be wrong. (That's right) It's wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. (Yeah) No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it, it's wrong. (Yes) It always will be wrong, and it always has been wrong. It's wrong in every age and it's wrong in every nation. Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute. The God of the universe has made it so. And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we're revolting against the very laws of God himself. (Amen)
Now that isn't the only thing that convinces me that we've strayed away from this attitude, (Go ahead) this principle. The other thing is that we have adopted a sort of a pragmatic test for right and wrong—whatever works is right. (Yes) If it works, it's all right. Nothing is wrong but that which does not work. If you don't get caught, it's right. [laughter] That's the attitude, isn't it? It's all right to disobey the Ten Commandments, but just don't disobey the eleventh, "Thou shall not get caught." [laughter] That's the attitude. That's the prevailing attitude in our culture. (Come on) No matter what you do, just do it with a bit of finesse. (All right) You know, a sort of attitude of the survival of the slickest. Not the Darwinian survival of the fittest, but the survival of the slickest—whoever can be the slickest is the one who right. It's all right to lie, but lie with dignity. [laughter] It's all right to steal and to rob and extort, but do it with a bit of finesse. (Yes) It's even all right to hate, but just dress your hate up in the garments of love and make it appear that you are loving when you are actually hating. Just get by! That's the thing that's right according to this new ethic. (Lord help him)
My friends, that attitude is destroying the soul of our culture. (You're right there) It's destroying our nation. (Oh yes) The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. (Lord have mercy) A group of people who have come to see that some things are wrong, whether they're never caught up with. And some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
All I'm trying to say to you is (Have mercy, my God) that our world hinges on moral foundations. God has made it so. God has made the universe to be based on a moral law. (Lord help him) So long as man disobeys it he is revolting against God. That's what we need in the world today: people who will stand for right and goodness. It's not enough to know the intricacies of zoology and biology, but we must know the intricacies of law. (Well) It is not enough to know that two and two makes four, but we've got to know somehow that it's right to be honest and just with our brothers. (Yes) It's not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, (Have mercy) but we've got to know the simple disciplines of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. (Oh yes) If we don't learn it, we will destroy ourselves (That's right) by the misuse of our own powers. (Amen)
This universe hinges on moral foundations. (Yeah) There is something in this universe that justifies Carlyle in saying, "No lie can live forever." There is something in this universe that justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying, "Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again." (My Lord, Amen) There is something in this universe that justifies James Russell Lowell in saying,
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future. (Lord help him) Behind the dim unknown stands God, Within the shadow keeping watch above his own. (Amen)
There is something in this universe that justifies the biblical writer in saying, "You shall reap what you sow." (Amen) This is a law-abiding universe. (Amen) This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. (Lord help him) If we are to make of this a better world, we've got to go back and rediscover that precious value that we've left behind. (Yes)
And then there is a second thing, a second principle that we've got to go back and rediscover. (Help him) And that is that all reality has spiritual control. In other words, we've got to go back and rediscover the principle that there is a God behind the process. Well this you say, "Why is it that you raise that as a point in your sermon, in a church? The mere fact we are at church, we believe in God, we don't need to go back and rediscover that. The mere fact that we are here, and the mere fact that we sing and pray, and come to church—we believe in God." Well, there's some truth in that. But we must remember that it's possible to affirm the existence of God with your lips and deny his existence with your life. (Amen, Preach) The most dangerous type of atheism is not theoretical atheism, but practical atheism (Amen)—that's the most dangerous type. (Lord have mercy) And the world, even the church, is filled up with people who pay lip service to God and not life service. (That's right, Filled up with, Come on, Lord help him) And there is always a danger that we will make it appear externally that we believe in God when internally we don't. (Yes) We say with our mouths that we believe in him, but we live with our lives like he never existed. (That's right) That is the ever-present danger confronting religion. That's a dangerous type of atheism.
And I think, my friends, that that is the thing that has happened in America. That we have unconsciously left God behind. Now, we haven't consciously done it; we have unconsciously done it. You see, the text, you remember the text said that Jesus' parents went a whole day's journey not knowing that he wasn't with them. They didn't consciously leave him behind. (Well) It was unconscious; went a whole day and didn't even know it. It wasn't a conscious process. You see, we didn't grow up and say, "Now, goodbye God, we're going to leave you now." The materialism in America has been an unconscious thing. Since the rise of the Industrial Revolution in England, and then the invention of all of our gadgets and contrivances and all of the things and modern conveniences—we unconsciously left God behind. We didn't mean to do it.
We just became so involved in getting our big bank accounts that we unconsciously forgot about God—we didn't mean to do it.
We became so involved in getting our nice luxurious cars, and they're very nice, but we became so involved in it that it became much more convenient to ride out to the beach on Sunday afternoon than to come to church that morning. (Yes) It was an unconscious thing—we didn't mean to do it.
We became so involved and fascinated by the intricacies of television that we found it a little more convenient to stay at home than to come to church. It was an unconscious thing—we didn't mean to do it. We didn't just go up and say, "Now God, we’re gone." (Lord help him) We had gone a whole day's journey (Yes) and then we came to see that we had unconsciously ushered God out of the universe. A whole day's journey—didn't mean to do it. We just became so involved in things that we forgot about God. (Oh yes)
And that is the danger confronting us, my friends: that in a nation as ours where we stress mass production, and that's mighty important, where we have so many conveniences and luxuries and all of that, there is the danger that we will unconsciously forget about God. I'm not saying that these things aren't important; we need them, we need cars, we need money; all of that's important to live. But whenever they become substitutes for God, (Yes) they become injurious. (Amen)
And may I say to you this morning, (Lord help him) that none of these things can ever be real substitutes for God. Automobiles and subways, televisions and radios, dollars and cents can never be substitutes for God. (Amen) For long before any of these came into existence, we needed God. (Amen, Yes) And long after they will have passed away, we will still need God. (Oh yeah)
And I say to you this morning in conclusion (Lord have mercy) that I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in things. I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in gadgets and contrivances. As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early (Oh yeah) to give my life to something eternal and absolute. (All right) Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, (Come on) but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Amen, Amen)
Not in the little gods that can be with us in a few moments of prosperity, (Yes) but in the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, (That's right) and causes us to fear no evil. (All right) That's the God. (Come on)
Not in the god that can give us a few Cadillac cars and Buick convertibles, as nice as they are, that are in style today and out of style three years from now, (All right) but the God who threw up the stars (Come on) to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity. (All right, Oh yes)
Not in the god that can throw up a few skyscraping buildings, but the God who threw up the gigantic mountains, kissing the sky, (Amen) as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blues. (Yes)
Not in the god that can give us a few televisions and radios, but the God who threw up that great cosmic light that gets up early in the morning in the eastern horizon, (Oh yes) who paints its technicolor across the blue (Oh yes, Come on)—something that man could never make. (All right, Yes)
I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in the little gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, (Yes) but the God who has been our help in ages past, (Come on) and our hope for years to come, (All right) and our shelter in the time of storm, (Oh yes) and our eternal home. That's the God that I'm putting my ultimate faith in. (Oh yes, Come on now) That's the God that I call upon you to worship this morning. (Yes)
Go out and be assured that that God is going to last forever. (Yes) Storms might come and go. (Yes) Our great skyscraping buildings will come and go. (Yes) Our beautiful automobiles will come and go, but God will be here. (Amen) Plants may wither, the flowers may fade away, but the word of our God shall stand forever and nothing can ever stop him. (Bring it down) All of the P-38s in the world can never reach God. All of our atomic bombs can never reach him. The God that I'm talking about this morning (Come on) is the God of the universe and the God that will last through the ages. (All right) If we are to go forward this morning, (Well) we've got to go back and find that God. (All right) That is the God that demands and commands our ultimate allegiance. (Right)
If we are to go forward, (Oh yes) we must go back and rediscover these precious values: (Well) that all reality hinges on moral foundations (Lord have mercy) and that all reality has spiritual control. (Yes) God bless you. (Amen, Amen, Amen).
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