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Coach Myrna is the host of the podcast "Transform Your Mind to Transform Your Life." She provides insightful commentary and analysis on various transformative topics, including personal development and historical reflections. In her "Five Minute Fridays" segment, Coach Myrna delves into influential books, empowering listeners with knowledge and inspiration. With a keen focus on Black history and its pivotal figures, Coach Myrna shares lessons on resilience, freedom, and the unyielding human spirit.Episode Summary:Coach Myrna revisits the powerful memoir "My Bondage and My Freedom" by Frederick Douglass. As Black History Month invites reflections on pivotal historical movements, Douglass' poignant narrative stands out as an emblem of persistence and advocacy against the institution of slavery. Coach Myrna enriches the dialogue by offering insights into Douglass' transformational journey from an enslaved child to an iconic abolitionist and public speaker.The discussion takes a comprehensive look into Douglass' early life, revealing the brutal realities of slavery. From his childhood marked by extreme deprivation and cruelty to a revelatory moment that fueled his quest for education and freedom, Douglass' story is a testament to the importance of resilience and self-education. Coach Myrna highlights Douglass' strategic exchanges with sympathetic white children who clandestinely taught him to read, a skill he recognized as crucial to his emancipation. The episode serves both as a tribute to Douglass' legacy and a clarion call to recognize and continue the struggle against racial injustice.Key Takeaways:Frederick Douglass' Early Life: Douglass' journey from slavery to freedom began with his childhood experiences of extreme neglect, brutality, and dehumanization.Importance of Literacy: Douglass identified education as a pathway to liberation, understanding that the ability to read would equip him to challenge the status quo of slavery.Defiance and Escape: Despite enduring severe oppression, Douglass' resolve led him to escape through the Underground Railroad, later becoming a vocal abolitionist in the North.Impactful Personal Narratives: Douglass' memoir details not just his escape from bondage but also a powerful critique of the societal and institutional hypocrisy supporting slavery.Continued Relevance: The episode underscores how Douglass' reflections extend to modern struggles against racism and the ongoing pursuit of dignity and equality for all.Resources:"My Bondage and My Freedom" by Frederick Douglass"Up From Slavery" by Booker T. WashingtonTo advertise on our podcast, visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/TransformyourMindor email kriti@youngandprofiting.com See this video on The Transform Your Mind YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@MyhelpsUs/videosTo see a transcripts of this audio as well as links to all the advertisers on the show page https://myhelps.us/Follow Transform Your Mind on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/myrnamyoung/Follow Transform Your mind on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063738390977Please leave a rating and review on iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/transform-your-mind/id1144973094
Eddie Brock y su simbionte están de vuelta, porque créanlo o no aún era una novedad a principios de los noventa ... ¡Acompáñanos! En este programa: Amazing Spider-Man 1st series #332 - “Sunday In The Park With Venom!” - May, 1990 Amazing Spider-Man 1st series #333 - “Stalking Feat!” - Jun, 1990 Amazing Spider-Man Annual #24 - “Quark Enterprises!” - Aug, 1990 Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #10 - “Into The Microverse” - Aug, 1990 Web of Spider-Man Annual #6 - “Up From Slavery!” - Aug, 1990 En honor al 60mo. aniversario de nuestro querido héroe arácnido, decidimos juntarnos a reseñar su historia en cómics y seguirle hasta donde la vida nos alcance. Conducidos por un supuesto experto y un supuesto novato, estaremos leyendo y platicando sobre este clásico run comiquero. Acompáñanos y lee con nosotros, que nunca serán demasiados cómics... FICHA COVACHA MESA: Spider-Gámez y Bernardo Arteaga GRABACIÓN: Domingo 26 de enero, 2025. EDICIÓN AUDIO: Bernardo Arteaga Síguenos en Twitter, Facebook, YouTube y Twitch Suscríbete al Podcast: Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, Anchor Descarga Directa: https://archive.org/details/dec-065 Playlist Podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7yILsml9F0W1F8JGEaGZpb?si=c5edfc71325d47bc Playlist Archive: https://archive.org/details/@lacovachamx/lists/1/desde-el-clar%C3%ADn?sort=-date Marvel Unlimited: The Amazing Spider-Man (1963 - 1998) Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (1976 - 1998) Web of Spider-Man (1985 - 1995) Orden de Lectura Recomendado (aunque no prometemos cumplirlo por completo) http://www.comicsbackissues.com/comic-book-reading-order/spider-man-read-order-chronology/#order Go Fund Me Peter David: https://gofund.me/a7f67421 Música: Intro de The Amazing Spider-Man de 1994 de Kussa Mahchi, Jeremy Sweet, Shuki Levy y Joe Perry The following music was used for this media project: Forgot About Me by Dreamheaven License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
According to Pew Research, the median number of books read by Americans annually is four. Joining us to delve into the transformative power of reading within the Black community are our guest co-host, the insightful "Queen of Intellect" LaTrice Ross, and special guest, author Brother Ankh. Together, we'll discuss what books should be considered essential for Black readers today. Do classics like The Mis-Education of the Negro, The Souls of Black Folk, and Up From Slavery still provide the tools African Americans need to navigate the American experience effectively, or is it possible these same works now hold us back? Are there new or lesser-known books that could serve us even better in today's society? Mental Dialogue is here to ask the questions others avoid. CALL IN to share the books you believe can make a meaningful impact on the African American community as well! ALL I ASK IS THAT YOU THINK --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/montoya-smith/support
In this episode, Dinesh outlines the wide implications of Israel's decimation of the top Hizbollah leadership, and makes the case that Netanyahu has confounded his critics and emerged as a hero. Siaka Massaquoi, who plays a key role in the re-enactments in “Vindicating Trump,” joins Dinesh to talk about his role in the film and also his active involvement in conservative causes. Dinesh concludes his discussion of Booker T. Washington's “Up From Slavery.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, Dinesh reviews Obama's speech and other events at the ongoing Democratic National Convention. The legendary actor Jon Voight joins Dinesh to talk about his role in the upcoming new film “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid playing the lead role. Dinesh continues his analysis of Booker T. Washington's “Up From Slavery.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode 109: Ernest Ellender, PhD & (a) His Book, This Is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods: A Practical Guide for Healing Past Intergenerational Stress and Trauma & (b) Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington ABOUT ERNEST Ernest Ellender worked in the fields of psychology, life coaching, and martial arts for over 25 years before authoring his first book entitled “This Is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods: A Practical Guide for Healing Past Intergenerational Stress and Trauma.” His advanced martial arts training combined with his doctorate in clinical psychology to produce his effective skills-building curriculum for healing past childhood traumas and family dysfunction. Ernest was raised in Louisiana's Cajun communities that celebrate family life and a close connection to nature, and he spends his free time enjoying the wonderful Cajun cuisine, marshlands, beaches, and local microbreweries of south Louisiana with his family and friends. CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS What a little bit of mischief and thrill-seeking in youth can mean for adulthood and career later. Going from general practitioner to finding your niche. Where the overlap exists between martial arts and psychology. Being aggressive in a good way. Examples of generational trauma vs. generational desire to help the community. How Sylvester Stallone, Charles Bronson, and Chuck Norris led Ernest to the work he's doing now. What you find in the MRI Images associated with childhood trauma. Playing as an adult is essentially diving into the mud of life. "Healing requires training, education, empathy for all." The power of healing in human connectivity. Even coaches, therapists, and doctors needs to take their own medicine. "Anger begets anger, violence begets violence, and love begets love." The dignity of work. The MAIN QUESTION underlying my conversation with Ernest is, What does your intentional process and practice for healing look like? FIND ERNEST Website: www.ernestellenderphd.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/coach-ernest-ellender Ernest's Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXJ5C4NB LinkedIn – Full Podcast Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/episode-109-ernest-ellender-phd-his-book-how-we-heal-john-m--iibdf/?trackingId=mbJaytKBQ7aLHNjQMO0UXg%3D%3D CHAPTERS 00:00 - The Book Leads Podcast 00:53 - Introduction & Bio - Ernest Ellender 02:27 - Who are you today? Can you provide more information about your work? 05:57 - Ernest's life coaching specialization. 07:48 - The connection between martial arts and psychology. (More at 39:00) 10:42 - What "respectful aggression" means. 16:53 - How did your path into your career look like, and what did it look like up until now? 26:45 - What draws Ernest to the field of trauma and family dysfunction. 41:12 - How does the work you're doing today reconcile to who you were as a child? 43:34 - What does leadership mean to you? 45:05 - Can you introduce us to the book we're discussing? 45:47 - Can you provide a general overview of the book (Ernest's Book)? 47:34 - What made Ernest write his book. 50:20 - An overview and breakdown of the chapters in the book. 01:18:43 - What evolved in you in the process of writing the book? 01:28:45 - What's next for your writing? 01:30:16 - An overview of Booker T. Washington's book and why Ernest chose to discuss that book as well. 01:46:13 - The lessons readers can take from Booker T. Washington's book. 01:57:03 - What are you up to these days? (A way for guests to share and market their projects and work.) This series has become my Masterclass In Humanity. I'd love for you to join me and see what you take away from these conversations. Learn more about The Book Leads and listen to past episodes: Watch on YouTube Listen on Spotify Listen on Google Podcasts Listen on Apple Podcasts Read About The Book Leads – Blog Post For more great content, subscribe to my newsletter Last Week's Leadership Lessons, if you haven't already!
In this episode, Dinesh evaluates Biden's “mush for brains” proposal to eliminate presidential immunity and “reform” the Supreme Court. Author and Newsweek columnist Josh Hammer joins Dinesh to talk about Biden, Kamala and Trump. Dinesh picks up his discussion of Booker T. Washington's “Up From Slavery.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, Dinesh discusses the reasons why Biden won't leave, and truth be told, the reasons why we don't want him to leave. Dinesh give the scoop on his travels with Tucker Carlson in Australia and also his family reunion in London. Dinesh introduces a timely classic, Booker T. Washington's “Up From Slavery.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A man descended from slaves explains his success and why the success of future generations rests on the Godly principles that were foundational to his nation. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/619/29
In this episode of "The Last Kingdom," host Jeremy Walker delves into Booker T. Washington's autobiography "Up from Slavery," exploring his remarkable journey from slavery to becoming a pivotal educator and leader. Walker discusses Washington's core belief that personal character and integrity transcend circumstances, using his life to highlight themes of self-improvement and resilience against societal challenges. Through Washington's quotes and philosophies, the episode reflects on contemporary societal issues and emphasizes the enduring relevance of Washington's advocacy for education and moral development as foundational to personal and communal advancement.
Booker T. Washington (1856 - 1915) Up From Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks and native Americans. He describes his efforts to instill manners, breeding, health and a feeling of dignity to students. (Summary from Wikipedia) Genre(s): Biography & Autobiography Language: English --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/librivox1/support
This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Prof. Albert Cheng of the University of Arkansas and Alisha Searcy interview University of Tennessee Prof. Robert Norrell. He explores Booker T. Washington's early life in slavery, his transformative leadership at Tuskegee Institute amidst Jim Crow racism, and his advocacy for vocational education as a means for racial uplift. Prof. Norrell also discusses Washington's 1901 autobiography, Up From Slavery; his controversial White House dinner with President Theodore Roosevelt; and his often overlooked legacy following the activism of the 1960s Civil Rights era. In closing, Prof. Norrell reads a passage from his book Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington.
Last Words
The Secret of Success in Public Speaking
The Atlanta Exposition Address
Two Thousand Miles for a Five-Minute Speech
Raising Money
Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie on Them
A Harder Task than Making Bricks Without Straw
Anxious Days and Sleepless Nights
Teaching School in a Stable and a Hen-House
Early Days at Tuskegee
Black Race and Red Race
The Reconstruction Period
Helping Others
The Struggle for an Education
A Slave Among Slaves
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Rachel shares some life-changing lessons from great men and women of history.Up From Slavery by Booker T. WashingtonThe Hiding Place by Corrie Ten BoomChristian Heroes: Then and NowWho Was Book SeriesThe Value Tale SeriesOrdinary People Change the World Gift SetAdventures in OdysseyFaith-Based Productivity Community
Today, we preview the next episode of the Bearded Monkey Podcast. Tomorrow's podcast is going to wrap up our two part series on the great American, Booker T. Washington. We'll be taking a deep dive into some excerpts from the book, Up From Slavery, again. But, we'll also share some personal thoughts and feelings on the man and what he brought to the United States during a very trying time in our history. Can't wait to share this one with you. God Bless! #welcometothefamily#beardedmonkeytactical#beardedmonkeypodcast#personalexcellence
Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzqqRXS3Der0akViaQE-KVg/join Welcome to my Channel! You are watching : Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington Book Review www.Road2RedemptionPodcast.com for past episodes & merch ►►SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/CamWilliamson Watch more videos Rick Rubin - The Creative Act : A Way of Being | Book Review | Every Creator NEEDS This Book! - https://youtu.be/Jl7UDHuXGJc Prince Harry Memoir "Spare" Book Review - https://youtu.be/9CX_nu2RjX8 The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama | Book Review + Spoilers - https://youtu.be/fr0kLE2qVi8 My Channel features podcast's about mental health, and self-improvement tips to end the stigma and promote awareness. Also, my videos include vlogs, reviews, and a lot more. Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and COMMENT so that I can continue to create valuable content for YOU! ►►SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/CamWilliamson #UpFromSlavery #BookerTWashington #BookReview
In this episode, I read out of the book titled "Up From Slavery." It is an autobiography written by Booker T. Washington. My co-host, Lasamoa and I discuss the book and some of our thoughts on the writing. Again, we at Bearded Monkey Tactical, believe that inspiring others to pursue excellence in themselves is what our mission is. The mindset of Booker T. Washington goes hand in hand with that. I hope you're as touched as I was by reading this book and I encourage you to purchase a copy for yourself. Please reach out to us at beardedmonkeytactical@gmail.com, or check out what we're all about at beardedmonkeytactical.com on the web. #welcometothefamily#beardedmonkeytactical#beardedmonkeypodcast#personalexcellence
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915)[1] was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary black elite.[2] Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington--- Pick up your copy of 12 Rules for Leaders: The Foundation of Intentional Leadership NOW on AMAZON! Check out the 2022 Leadership Lessons From the Great Books podcast reading list! --- Check out HSCT Publishing at: https://www.hsctpublishing.com/. Check out LeadingKeys at: https://www.leadingkeys.com/ Check out Leadership ToolBox at: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/ Contact HSCT for more information at 1-833-216-8296 to schedule a full DEMO of LeadingKeys with one of our team members. --- Leadership ToolBox website: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/. Leadership ToolBox LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ldrshptlbx/. Leadership ToolBox YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJvVbIU_bSEflwYpd9lWXuA/. Leadership ToolBox Twitter: https://twitter.com/ldrshptlbx. Leadership ToolBox IG: https://www.instagram.com/leadershiptoolboxus/. Leadership ToolBox FB: https://www.facebook.com/LdrshpTlbx.
Gabriel Custodiet talks to Marco Wutzer, a crypto investor, world traveler, and sharp thinker about today's problems: and tomorrow's solutions. Wutzer discusses his ascent as a self-educated digital nomad, some techniques for using DeFi and cryptocurrencies, and what to expect traveling around particularly South America. Guest Links → https://secondrenaissance.com → https://marcowutzer.com → https://twitter.com/MarcoWutzer → https://www.marcowutzer.com/crypto-quantum-leap Guest Mentions → https://1inch.io → https://stealthex.io → https://simpleswap.io → https://changelly.com Watchman Privacy → https://watchmanprivacy.com (newsletter, consultation requests) → https://twitter.com/watchmanprivacy → https://www.amazon.com/Watchman-Guide-Privacy-Financial-Lifestyle/dp/B08PX7KFS2 Privacy Courses → https://rpf.gumroad.com/l/privatebitcoin → https://rpf.gumroad.com/l/hackproof Monero Donation Address (If you can't see the whole string, double click in the middle to select all) →8829DiYwJ344peEM7SzUspMtgUWKAjGJRHmu4Q6R8kEWMpafiXPPNBkeRBhNPK6sw27urqqMYTWWXZrsX6BLRrj7HiooPAy Please subscribe to and rate this podcast wherever you can to help it thrive. Thank you! Timeline 0:00 – Beginning 1:31 – When did he become an anarchist world traveler 2:23 – How did he escape German collectivism? 4:30 – German influence of southern cone of South America 5:18 – Thinkers who influenced Marco 7:28 – Dropped out of school; daily educational habits 11:17 – Daily routine of a self-directed investor 14:45 – Self-destruction of the West 16:21 – As a economic red piller, where do you entrust your wealth? 17:46 – How to invest broadly in crypto with non-custodial wallets 21:19 – Did FTX collapse change your approach to crypto? 25:08 – How to use DeFi right now 28:30 – Marco's problems with Bitcoin maximalism 35:23 – How to accumulate large amounts of crypto privately 40:50 – How does traveling change you? 42:57 – Best countries 48:22 – Dangers of Europe today 50:38 – Things to realise before traveling around South America 53:15 – Logistical advice for world traveling 54:44 – How to become wealthy today
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington audiobook. Up From Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks and native Americans. He describes his efforts to instill manners, breeding, health and a feeling of dignity to students.
In his autobiography, Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington shows how traits such as self-reliance, honesty, and enterprise led him to become the first principal in Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. Tuskegee's mission was to teach black students both intellectual and practical skills, so they could create value in the business world. The school's first students literally built the new classrooms brick by brick. Are you interested in learning about Ayn Rand's Objectivism? Check out our FREE ebook:
Five time! Five time! Five time champion!...Oh wait wrong Booker T! This Booker T. rose from slavery to be a champion on his own race. Listen to the pod to see how Booker T overcame and succeeded!
This week we take a break from our Black Philosophy Debate between Booker T Washington & W.E.B. Dubois to discuss Netflix's Colin in Black & White. This short series chronicles Former NFL Quarterback & Social Activist Colin Kaepernick's upbringing. Come join the conversation. If you can, please consider supporting the podcast at: (https://www.patreon.com/imperfectallies (https://www.patreon.com/imperfectallies)) and/or leaving us reviews on iTunes! Read Booker T. Washington's book with us for the next 2 weeks. https://www.amazon.com/Up-Slavery-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486287386 (Up From Slavery)
This week we discuss Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois, exploring the concepts of The Veil and Double Consciousness. Come join the conversation. If you can, please consider supporting the podcast at: (https://www.patreon.com/imperfectallies (https://www.patreon.com/imperfectallies)) and/or leaving us reviews on iTunes! Read Booker T. Washington's book with us for the next 2 weeks. https://www.amazon.com/Up-Slavery-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486287386 (Up From Slavery)
Our centerpiece this month is Booker T Washington's Atlanta Exposition Speech, both historical and controversial. In this excerpt from his book, Up From Slavery, Washington speaks of events following this speech. Enjoy! If you'd like to support us, donate through Paypal at Romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #booker #bookerwashington #bookertwashington #founder #tuskegee #tuskegeeinstitute #alabama #alabamahistory #slave #slavery #indefatigable #indefatigabledrive #drive #education #accomplishment #autobiography #upfromslavery #harrowing #inspiring #historicspeech #atlantacottonstates #cottonstates #internationalexposition #civilwar #postcivilwar #thesouth #racerelationsbooker
In history this month we read Booker T. Washington's famous "Atlanta Exposition Speech" and selections from his autobiography UP FROM SLAVERY to show the context. In reciprocity, then, the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar contextualizes Washington's words, and is in turn contextualized by them. Lynchings in the South were peaking as Booker T Washington gave his speech to the Atlanta Exposition. Thus we find in the juxtaposition of poem and speech the real and the ideal, man's most evil deeds and highest aspirations. "The Haunted Oak" is curiously dispassionate, as it is the judgment of nature itself in the old oak tree upon man's inhumanity to man. The final stanzas disclose the psychological horrors of the perpetrator's "debt," and the violent desecration of nature and of nature's God: And ever the judge rides by, rides by, And goes to hunt the deer, And ever another rides his soul In the guise of a mortal fear. And ever the man he rides me hard, And never a night stays he; For I feel his curse as a haunted bough, On the trunk of a haunted tree. "And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother .... What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." If you enjoy our content, consider donating through PayPal to romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #dunbar #pauldunbar #paullaurencedunbar #blackexperience #slavery #postslavery #dissimulation #south #thehauntedoak #debt #psychologicalhorror
Booker T Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, was born a slave in 1856, and the story of his indefatigable drive to education and accomplishment, as presented in his autobiography, UP FROM SLAVERY, is both harrowing and inspiring. On September 18th, 1895 he delivered this historic (and later controversial) speech at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, designed to display the economic progress of the post-Civil War South. The choice of Washington as speaker was intended to show similar progress in race-relations. If you'd like to support us, donate through Paypal at Romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #booker #bookerwashington #bookertwashington #founder #tuskegee #tuskegeeinstitute #alabama #alabamahistory #slave #slavery #indefatigable #indefatigabledrive #drive #education #accomplishment #autobiography #upfromslavery #harrowing #inspiring #historicspeech #atlantacottonstates #cottonstates #internationalexposition #civilwar #postcivilwar #thesouth #racerelationsbooker
In history this month we read Booker T. Washington's famous "Atlanta Exposition Speech" and selections from his autobiography UP FROM SLAVERY to show the context. In reciprocity, then, the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar contextualizes Washington's words, and is in turn contextualized by them. In "The Debt" Dunbar contemplates the choices and compromises we make in life, and the consequences we bear for those choices. It is short, powerful and profound. In "We Wear The Mask" the poet speaks both particularly of the black experience in post-slavery America and universally of human dissimulation in social structure. I cannot help but draw attention to the connection in these two poems of the term "debt." We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile The debts we must pay are our own and others, but in ALL cases, personal and social, it is human guile, dissimulation itself, the great lie, which exacts our souls as the remorseless creditor. As Solzhenitsyn said, the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being. https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #dunbar #pauldunbar #paullaurencedunbar #debt #wewearamask #blackexperience #slavery #postslavery #dissimulation
Our centerpiece this month is Booker T Washington's Atlanta Exposition Speech, both historical and controversial. In this excerpt from his book, Up From Slavery, Washington gives the introductory context of this speech. Enjoy! If you'd like to support us, donate through Paypal at Romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #booker #bookerwashington #bookertwashington #founder #tuskegee #tuskegeeinstitute #alabama #alabamahistory #slave #slavery #indefatigable #indefatigabledrive #drive #education #accomplishment #autobiography #upfromslavery #harrowing #inspiring #historicspeech #atlantacottonstates #cottonstates #internationalexposition #civilwar #postcivilwar #thesouth #racerelationsbooker
In history this month we read Booker T. Washington's famous "Atlanta Exposition Speech" and selections from his autobiography UP FROM SLAVERY to show the context. In reciprocity, then, the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar contextualizes Washington's words, and is in turn contextualized by them. Dunbar's poem, "Paradox," echoes well themes from THE CHRISTIAN ATHEIST podcast, "where faith and reason fuse in the Incarnation." Dunbar here speaks of the contradictory realities in which we all exist, paradoxes that invoke the beauty and tragedy of life, both of which are real in the most robust of senses. Although Dunbar was not particularly religious (as I understand), I cannot avoid the resonances with the Incarnation itself in such lines as these: I am thy priest and thy poet, I am thy serf and thy king; I cure the tears of the heartsick, When I come near they shall sing. Enjoy the lyric beauty and the thoughtful spiritual challenge in these verses! If you enjoy our content, consider donating through PayPal to romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #dunbar #pauldunbar #paullaurencedunbar #blackexperience #slavery #postslavery #dissimulation #paradox #beautyoflife #tragedyoflife
Parshat Noach - Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and Pastor Dumisani Washington of IBSI - Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel and Christians United For Israel for a live recording of a discussion on Clubhouse Friday October 8th with the Pastor regarding his book Zionism and the Black Church: Why Standing with Israel Will Be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century. We follow a less traveled path down Noah's family tree. We discover the Biblical Mission of Africa and the bond between the Children of Shem and the Children of Ham. Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/352058 Transcript: Geoffrey Stern 00:00 [To Reverend Dumisani Washington] Thank you so much for being with us. On on our clubhouse when you come up to the platform, we say first of all that you're coming up to the bimah [the podium or platform in a synagogue from which the Torah and Prophets are read from]. And then second of all, when we make you a presenter, we give you smicha... So that means that you are ordinated. So instead of Reverend, we'll call you Reb. Is that okay? Dumisani Washington 00:20 That sounds good to me. Sounds good, no problem. Geoffrey Stern 00:23 So anyway, welcome to Madlik. Madlik is every week at four o'clock, and we do record it and post it as a podcast on Sunday. And if you listen to it, and you'd like what you hear, feel free to share it and give us a few stars. And what we do is disruptive Torah. And what we mean by disruptive Torah is we look at the ancient text of the Torah, with maybe a new lens, or to see a new angle. And today, I'm delighted to say that we're not only looking at it through a new lens, but we're looking at it through another lens, a lens of a pastor, of a man of God, who we will learn about his mission. I heard about it on clubhouse one evening, I was scrolling, and I stumbled upon you Reverend, and you're on a mission and you see Judaism and you see Zionism from a whole new perspective. So I want to thank you for coming on. And I want to say that, as I told you, in my email that I sent you that you know, every week about Saturday on Shabbat, on Sunday, I start thinking about what I'm going to pick as a subject matter for the coming Madlik session. And I purchased your book maybe two months ago, and it was sitting by the side of my bed, and for some reason, and of course, I'm sure there are no coincidences in this world. I picked it up this Shabbat. And it starts with our portion of Noah, it starts by talking about the line less traveled by us Jews of Shem's son Ham. And I should say that nothing is written for no reason in the Bible. And when it gives you a genealogy, it's because of what comes in the future. And many of us Jews will look at the genealogy in Genesis 10. And focus on Shem... with Semites. And that's where the name comes from. And we go down that path, and your book starts. And of course, I should say that your book is called "Zionism and the Black Church, Why Standing with Israel will be a Defining issue for Christians of color in the 21st Century". And it begins by traveling down this path less taken, of Ham. Welcome to Madlik. But if you could begin by touching upon our portion of the week, no off and and and discussing what you see in it, and maybe your mission. Dumisani Washington 03:06 Absolutely. And thank you, again, Rabbi for having me on. Yes, there are six chapters in "Zionism in the Black Church". And the first chapter is entitled The African Biblical Tie to Israel. And so we as I say, in the book started the beginning, right, we start at the beginning of the Scriptures, and so as you know, between the two portions of "Bereshi" I believe whether the towards the end is when Noah was first introduced, but of course in "Noach" there's the explanation of the nations where all the nations of the earth come from, from Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Jafet. And so we recognize that in the Scriptures, it is said that Ham has four sons. And there's a couple of unique things as you know, you read the book, that the scriptures that in the law of Moses deals, Psalms and some of the prophets, there's a term that's given several times in the scripture about Ham's descendants harms the sentence differently, then either Jafet or Shem. The land of Ham is actually something that's in the scriptures. And I don't know what that Hebrew word is ... "Aretz Ham" ... I never looked at that part of it, Rabbi but it talks about that, which is really interesting because there's not, to my knowledge, and I've kind of looked at for a little while, a similar rendering like the Land of Japhet or Land of Shem. Right? We're obviously the genealogy is there, right? But there's not the same thing that deals with the land and the peoples .... interesting and we've come to know that of the four sides of Hem, which are in order Kush, which you know, is where obviously the Hebrew for later on Ethiopia I believe is a Greek word, but from that region Mitzrayim, which is Egypt. Fut or Put which is Libya, and then Canaan, which is Canaan, right? So those four sons who come from him. But interestingly in the scriptures when it says land of Ham, it almost exclusively refers to Egypt and Ethiopia, what we would call today, Africa, right? This region. And again, you're talking about an antiquity these regions were much broader in size. And they are today if you look at the map today, you see Egypt as a small state and go down to the south, west, south east, and you'll see Ethiopia then you see Yemen, you see Kenya, well, obviously all those states weren't there that happened much later in modernity is particularly after the colonial period where those nations were carved up by a few states in Europe, and they were given certain names everything right, but these were regions in the Bible. And so Kush, the land of Kush, and the land of Mitzrayim, they're actually dealt with many, many times. Right? After the words obviously "Israel" and "Jerusalem". You have the word Ethiopia, I believe one of the Ethiopian scholar says some 54 times or something like that the word Ethiopia actually comes up in the Bible, obviously not as many times as Israel or Jerusalem but more than virtually any other nation other than Egypt. Right? So Egypt obviously that we know too. Africa plays a huge role in Israel's story right? The 430 years in slavery is in Africa, right? The Torah was received at Sinai: Africa. All these things happen in Africa. At some point God tells Jeremiah during the time of the impending doom, the exile that will happen at the hand of of Nebuchadnezzar and God says to to the Israelites to the Judeans, and "don't run down into Egypt, Egypt won't be able to save you." Why does he say that? Well, because historically the Israelites would go to Egypt when it until it got safer, right? For those Christians who may be on the call, you'll know that in the New Testament, Jesus, his parents take him down into Egypt because Herod's gonna kill him. Right? So there's this ongoing relationship between Ham and Shem, that's very intertwined. Moses, his wife, or his second wife, depending on how you interpret it.... Some of the sages. She's Ethiopian, right? She's kushite. So you have this interchangeable thing all the time, throughout the scriptures, but actually starts with the genealogy. And I'll say just one last thing, rabbis ..... we're opening up. This is also unfortunately, as I mentioned, the book as you know, the misnomer of the quote unquote, "Curse of Ham", as we know in the text, Ham is never cursed for what happens with Noah it is Canaan that is cursed. And he actually says, a curse that Canaan become a servant of servants shall he be, even though it was Ham who however you interpreted.... I've heard many different interpretations of "uncovered the nakedness he saw his father, naked," but somehow, for whatever reason, Noah cursed Canaan, not Ham. Who is Canaan... is one of him so's, his fourth son, as we know those who are listening, you may know that it is The Curse of Ham, quote, unquote, that has been used sadly, unfortunately, among many other things as a justification of the slavery of Africans. Right? That somehow, Africans are quote, unquote, "Cursed of Ham", therefore, the transatlantic slave trade, the trans Saharan slave trade, those things are somehow... God prescribed these things in the Bible, the curse was making him black. That's why he's like all those things that are nowhere in the text whatsoever, right? skin color is not in the text. slavery as a descendant of Ham. None of those things are in the text. What's in the text? Is that Canaan is cursed for that? And so we start there, Rabbi, and from there trying to walk out this whole Israel Africa thing. Adam Mintz 08:47 First of all WOW... thank you so much. I just want to clarify in terms of color, I think that's a very interesting thing. It's very possible that in the biblical period, everybody was dark. Dumisani Washington 09:00 Yes, sir. I mentioned that in the book as well. But yes, sir. Yes, yeah. All right. Sorry, Adam Mintz 09:04 I didn't see that in your book. But that's important, you know, because a lot of people are caught up in this color thing. Did you know that there's a distinction, we don't know it for sure but it makes sense that everybody was dark in those periods. So that the difference in color was not significant. So when, when Moses marries goes to Ethiopia, maybe is king of Ethiopia, and marries an Ethiopian. And the idea is that he marries a foreigner. The fact that she's darker may or may not have been true. Dumisani Washington 09:39 Yes, absolutely. No, thank you Rabbi. And I do touch on that, as well. We say in the terms in this modern term, even in my book, I use the term Christians of color and I don't usually use those terms just in when I'm speaking. I did it that way in the title so that it would be presented in a way that is going to deal with some provocative things but hopefully the people that they read it they'll see what I mean by that and if you're talking about the Israelite people, the Hebrew people they are what I call an afro Asiatic people. Israel is still at that at the point of where those two continents meet right Southwest Asia northeast Africa is landlocked with Egypt I tell people God opened up the Red Sea because he wanted to right ... He's big and bad and he can do what he wants to do but you can literally; I wouldn't recommend it obviously, but you could literally walk from Egypt to Israel and you always have been able to for 1000s of years that has always been the case and so you have a people that in terms of skin tone or whatever... Yes, absolutely, they would be what we would call today quote unquote people of color right and so unfortunately particularly in our country we all know race and colorism is such a huge topic and it's often so divisive and it's used in so many different ways and we know much of that goes back to whether slavery, Jim Crow, people being assigned work obviously based on how dark or light they are all of those things but the problem as you all know is that those things aren't in the Bible right? There's no God likes this person doesn't like this person, this person's dark this person's like, that type of thing. But again, that's what men do, we are fallen creatures, we read what we want to read into the text, and then we use it unfortunately, in a way that's not helpful. Let me just say and pause here, I can tell you that as a Christian pastor, over the years of my just delving into what we often call the Jewish roots of our faith, by studying Torah with rabbis and with other Jewish scholars, my faith has been more important to me than ever in that it helps me understand even more so right, what is the Hebrew in this word here? What do the sages say about that, that's been a fascinating journey for me, over the last 30 some odd years since I've been doing this particular work. Geoffrey Stern 11:58 So I just want to jump in, you said so many things. But there is in this verse that we are reading today, the word "ashkenaz", he was one of the children of of Shem, and you quote, an Ethiopian Rabbi named Ephraim Isaac, and this is a sample of some of the humor in your book or the sense of discovery. And somebody said to him, You don't look Jewish. And he said:, "Ethiopia is mentioned the Bible over 50 times, but Poland not once." And I feel like that was, that was a great line. And what it really talks to is our preconceptions, and your book, and your vision, and your mission breaks preconceptions of what it is to be a Jew, what the mission of a Jew is, but most importantly, what the relationship is between the Jewish people and the African people. And one of the things that you touched upon was the sense of Mitzraim and Kush , and in your book, you really talk about how many times they're interchangeable, because really, it is the same area and those of us who think about Mitzrayim, or Egypt, we focus on the Exodus story, we focus on the pharaoh story. But as you mentioned, the prophets later on, we're having to talk to the Jews about not going back, because ultimately, the experience in Egypt was always favorable, it was our neighbor, and it was our place of refuge. Abraham goes down there with Sarah twice, Jacob sends his kids down there during a time of famine. The relationship and the reference to a Ham and to Mitzrayim and to Kush is a very positive one. And yes, it does say in our week's parsha of all of the children, it says, "b'artzetam v'goyehem" , that they have a special language, and they have a family and they have a land. So the fact that we are neighbors is so important in the biblical context. So I said if we were going to walk down this wonderful path, and I would love for a second to talk about your mission about reuniting our two peoples and some of the challenges that you have. Clearly you don't speak to groups like us very much, although I think that I'm going to have an opportunity later to say that I think you should, because there's so much that we can learn. But what is your mission? How did you discover it? And what are your challenges? Dumisani Washington 14:40 Well, I'll do it concise, just because I don't want to take up too much time to firstly touch as much as we can. I am the founder and CEO of an organization called The Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel. I started it in 2013 but for about nearly seven years, I was not as active I started it. I did a lot of touring and a lot of speaking throughout the United States, churches, sometimes synagogues as well. And with this mission, it was a mission that was really placed in my heart. Actually in 2012, my first trip to Israel, I went as a guest of Christians United for Israel, I would come later on to join the staff with CUFA. But I was a guest pastor, I knew some friends who were part of the organization. And the short version of that story was my first tip ever, I'm in Israel, I'm at the Western Wall of the kotel. And I have a very intense experience in which I feel although Africa and Israel were passions of mine already, but the fusing of those two things together and a real work in which we continue to strengthen the alliance between Israel and Africa. And then obviously, in the States in the black and Jewish community. And there and finished the first edition of the book now, what you have there Rabbi is the second edition. And we started this organization for that very purpose to do both of those things continue to strengthen the black Jewish relationship, and also the Israel Africa Alliance. And so the challenges have been probably more than any other thing disinformation, right? There's a lot of false information that's there, when it comes to those things that would seek to divide and separate when you're talking about whether Africa Israel, now we're talking about the modern state of Israel, obviously, the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Israel's close ties with African nations throughout the continent, starting especially with Golda Meir, the foreign minister, all the way up into the 70s, where you have, as I mentioned in the book, Israel has more embassies throughout Africa than any other nation other than the United States, African economy, some of them are thriving, a great deal. You have a lot of synergy between the African nations and Israel. And after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, like never before Israel's enemies target that relationship between Israel and its African neighbors for different reasons. One of those is voting in the United Nations, right? And that became very much of a challenge. So one of the greatest challenges is, is information. What we share in the book and when we do our organization, we teach what we call an organization "Authentic History” is really simply telling what happened, how did something [happen]. Whether we're talking about biblically, whether we're discussing the parsha or we're talking about historically, right? We're talking about what the relationship was, and is. Why those connections there? And I'll just give one quick example if you're talking about black Jewish synergy in the United States, not just Dr. King's relationship with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in the civil rights community, not that it happened, right? But why, what was that synergy about? Right? So we've delve into that. We share from the documents from the Rabbinical Assembly; Dr. King's most famous words regarding Israel that were recorded 10 days before he was killed, right, why? And as a pastor, what we call a prophetic moment. Why 10 days before he's taken from us, is he telling the black community in the world to stand with Israel with all of our mind and protect its right to exist? Why is he saying these things? What's so important about it. And even the generation before? Why was it a black and Jewish man who changed the trajectory of this nation, Booker T. Washington, and Julius Rosenwald; millions of now first and second generation, slave; free slaves, right? but who had no access to education, not in a broader sense, and why that synergy saw some 5400 Rosenwald schools built throughout the segregated south. We touch on those historical points, and we delve into why that black Jewish synergy has been so powerful for so many people for so long. So that is our mission to strengthen those ties, because we believe that there's a great future ahead. Geoffrey Stern 19:05 You did such amazing research. I mean, I can tell you I never knew that Herzl said about Africa, "that once I have witnessed the redemption of Israel, my people, I wish to assist in the redemption of the Africans." And that is taking a small quote out of a full paragraph where the histories of the two people are so similar. I mean, it comes to us as a pleasant surprise, these synergies but it shouldn't because both our peoples have really traversed and continue to reverse the same pathway. And you quote Marcus Garvey and even Malcolm X and William Dubois. Malcolm X says "Pan Africanism will do for the people of African descent all over the world, the same that Zionism has done for Jews. All over the world." there was a sincere admiration for this miracle of a people returning to its land, we were talking before you came on about this whole kind of image of an ark. And it reminds you of Odesyuss... and it reminds you of all of these stories of man going on this heroic journey to find their their roots to come back, gain, experience and come back to their homeland, to their Aretz.. On the one hand, your job should be very simple. I guess, like any other fights, the closer you are, the bigger the friction can be. And there's nothing bigger than the friction between brothers. But it's such a challenge to address, as you say the misinformation. Dumisani Washington 20:51 Absolutely. And this is, again, why that's our primary goal. And then as part of what our mission is, we have launched here just recently, an initiative called The PEACE initiative. And PEACE is an acronym for Plan for Education, Advocacy, and Community Engagement, and the short version of that, again: We recruit young, black American and African young people from certain cities throughout the United States, a group of them, they go to a 16 week study course having some of the same conversations we're having now, including the modern state of Israel, ancient Israel, the United Nations, all these things that intersect when it comes to the black Jewish relations, then they will travel to Israel for about 10 days, and returned to the cities from where they've been recruited, and be the hub of black Jewish synergy in their communities. We believe with our organization that one of the reasons for the synergy that we've seen in the past, whether it was at the turn of the century with Booker T Washington, and Julius Rosenwald, or the mid part of the century with Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, right now we are in different challenges, there are challenges that face particularly the more vulnerable black communities. And we see that that synergy could really address so many issues, whether it's education, whether it's jobs, those types of things, they can be really be addressed in a very holistic way. And really harnessing that synergy between the black and the Jewish community. And this is what we are doing. An Israel advocacy that is also rooted in these communities. And it's amazing. We see already rabbis and black pastors are working together all over the country. So that continues to happen. But we want to highlight those things even more and go even further in meeting some of the challenges what we call MC ambassadors will be leading that in different cities across the country. Geoffrey Stern 22:02 That's amazing. I want to come back to this sense of self-discovery and pride. And we always talk about it from our own perspective. So if you're African American, you want to make sure that your children believe that black is beautiful, that they come from an amazing heritage to be proud of who they are. And if you're Jewish, you want the same thing. But it seems to me, and you kind of cage the question in this way, "Why standing with Israel will be a defining issue for Christians of color", when we as Jews can see ourselves in the black community as we did during the civil rights movement that redeems us. And that empowers us. And I think what you're saying, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but the same thing works in reverse. That in a sense, when the African community can recognize in Israel, its own story. It also can find a part of itself. Is there any truth there? Dumisani Washington 23:50 I believe so Rabbi. I believe that that's exactly as a matter of fact, what we saw was the synergy. So let me use the example and go back to the early 1900s with Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald. The way that story happens, as you may know is that Booker T Washington writes his seminal book "Up From Slavery". Julius Rosenwald, who lives in Chicago at the time, is very active in his community. As a matter of fact, he was active, using his wealth; of those of you who don't know of Sears Roebuck fame, he is the one who took his company to this whole different level, economically and everything. And so with his wealth as a businessman, he's helping the Jews who are being persecuted in Russia. And one of his own testimony, I don't say this part of the book, but I kind of alluded to it, that here he is driving to work from the suburbs to where his factory is where his store is, and he's passing by throngs of black people who've left the South, right? looking for a better life, but they're living in very, very bad conditions, a lot of poverty and everything. And he says to himself, basically, if I'm going to do all of this to help Russian Jews right, way over the other side of the world, and I have this human crisis right here, where I live, I want to be able to do that and his, his Rabbi was Emile Hirsch, one of the founding members of the NAACP. Right? So his Rabbi encourages him. And we see this with our Jewish brothers and sisters all the time, see yourself, do help, do use your wealth, use your ability, right? To help. And so he reads Booker T. Washington's book he's taken with him, they begin to correspond. And Booker T. Washington says, Here's how you can help me I'm trying to build schools for my people who don't have access. And Rabbi to your point. Here is this man, this Jewish man who is very well aware of his history, he knows his People's History of persecution and struggle and triumph, right? Very much sees himself in that black story, and then he uses his ability. It's amazing even what he does; there's a Rosenwald film about Rosenwald schools, I believe his children were the ones who produced it. And they were saying that what he actually did was pretty ingenious, he put up a third of the money, the black community raised a third of the money, and then he challenged the broader white community to partner with them and bring the last third and that is how those Rosenwald Schools began. Because what he wanted to do, he wanted to see people come together, he wanted to see them all work together. Even though Booker T. Washington passes away only three years into that, right, that venture continues on Julius Rosenwald goes and sits on the board of the Tuskegee college, Tuskegee University, right? There's this long connection that's there. So in that struggle, the black American community, and he connected with this black American leader, the one of the most prominent of the time, Booker T, Washington, and they, like I tell people, changed the world. Like, can we imagine what the United States would have been if you had those millions of now freed slaves, right? with no access, and particularly those who are living in the Jim Crow South, no access whatsoever to education, Would the Harlem Renaissance have become what it become, with the black Wall Street, whether it was in Tulsa, whether in Philadelphia, these things that explode because of the access to education to now these first and second generations of people coming out of slavery, right? So I believe that that's the case and which is why I'll say again, here today, some of those challenges are there, some of the challenges are different than they were, obviously 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago, but we believe in organization that those challenges can be met with that same amazing synergy between the black and the Jewish community. Geoffrey Stern 27:26 A lot of people would argue that the rift or the change of the relationship between the African American community and the Jewish community was when the Jews or Israel stopped being looked at as the David in the Goliath story and we won the Six Day War. And how do you ensure that the facts are told, but also as you climb out of the pit, and as you achieve your goals, you shouldn't be necessarily punished for being successful. Success is not a sin. It's an inspiration. But it seems to me that's one of the challenges that we have, especially in the Jewish community for our next generation of children, who really do see ourselves not as the minority and don't see ourselves anymore mirrored in the African American community. Dumisani Washington 28:25 But one of my favorite things about the Jewish tradition of the Seder, is that you all lean and recline in the Seder today, and you tell your children, when we had the first one, we sat with our sandals on, our staff, in our hand, our belts ....because we were slaves leaving slavery, but now we are no longer. And that whole ethos of telling children, right? There's a strong parallel in the black American community, right? The whole point of going from struggle to a place where you can live in peace or at the very least, you recognize and realize the sacrifice of the people who came before you right? And I won't step into the controversial for lots of different reasons, we'll be able to unpack it, but let me just say this, for the black American experience when you're talking I often teach this in our sermons and other things that arc .... and let me say again, no, people are monolith. Obviously we just kind of put that on the table, all the Jews arent' alike all black Americans aren't alike..... Having said that, there is an overarching story when you talk about black Americans, who, from slavery to Jim Crow, segregation, black codes, all of those types of things to the modern era. And that story cannot accurately be told without talking about God and His people. In other words, when you're talking about the spirituals "Go Down Moses". "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" and I talked about that in the book, these songs that are rooted in the scriptures, most of the time in, in the Tanakh, our Jewish brothers and sisters' side of the Bible. I mean, sometimes in the New Testament, most of the time, these songs are being sung in hope. And that hope was realized, right? It's not an Negro spiritual song technically, but I put it in that category, part of the greatest one ever. I mean, how it culminates would be "Lift Every Voice and Sing" us a song that today has all these political things connected to it for lots of different unfortunate reasons. But when James Weldon Johnson wrote that song, wrote it as a poem? Those stanzas and anybody listening to this, I want to tell Google that Google Lift Every Voice and Sing"; just read the words. And this was a very powerful, very, very much God and God's love, and our hope and our faith and our trust, and our honoring the people who came before us; all of those things. And he talked about being free. Now, it's written in 1899. Right? You still have questions. I mean, there are no laws against lynching there going on, it's still crushing racism. However, he as a father in the black community is not only acknowledging what God has done, there's amazing things that are happening. One of the economist's that I quote, in my book, Thomas Sol said that the black community after slavery, and less than 50 years after slavery went from 0% literacy to almost 50% literacy, in that half a century, something economic historians say has never happened before. And now you're later on, you're talking about the black Wall Street, you're talking about black oil barons and landowners and factory owners, right? You're talking about this black middle class emerging. There's been no civil rights bill, right? There's been no Pell grants for school. These things don't even exist yet. We're talking about the 19 teens and the 1920s. You're talking about black people who had previously been slaves for hundreds of years. Why am I saying all that we as a people know full well; if we know our history, know full well what it is to come from all of those dire situations into a place of blessing, even though there may be struggles just like our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are convinced an organization that as we know, as a black community, particularly younger people that we are talking with, and teaching, as we know and appreciate our history, not the history that's regurgitated in terms of media and, and for political purposes. But truly our history, there is a great deal to be proud of about that. And to see, as I said in the sermon a couple of months ago, not only does it not a victim narrative, I descended from superheroes, my people went through slavery, Jim Crow, and still build on Wall Street still built the Tuskegee Institute. Still, we're soldiers who fighting for their own freedom in the Civil War. I mean, you're talking on and on and on things that they should have never been able to accomplish. When I consider what they accomplished with not very much help often. I recognize the greatness of the heritage that I come from, then that allows me to see an Israel rise like a phoenix from the ashes and not spurn that but recognize that our Jewish brothers and sisters have gone through millennia of this and Israel then to be celebrated, not denigrated. Adam Mintz 33:12 Thank you. We want to thank you. Your passion, and your insight is really brought a kind of a new insight to our discussion here. We really want to thank you, you know, we at Madlik we start on time and we end on time, Shabbat is about to begin in just a little while. Hopefully we'll be able to invite you back in the future as we continue this conversation. But I know I join Geoffrey and everybody on the call and everybody who's gonna listen to the podcast. Thank you for joining us and for really your insight and your passion. You really leave us with so much to think about as we begin the Shabbat. Dumisani Washington 33:51 Thank you. Thank you for having me. Adam Mintz 33:53 Thank you Geoffrey, Shabbat Shalom, everybody, Geoffrey Stern 33:55 Shabbat Shalom. And Reb Dumisani, you mentioned the songs. There's a whole chapter in your book about Negro spirituals. And as the rabbi said, w are approaching the Shabbat. And as you observe the Sunday we observed Saturday, but you know that the secret of living without a land or being on a difficult mission is that Sabbath, the strength of the Sabbath, and the connection between Noah and the word Menucha which is "rest" is obvious. And there was a great poet named Yehuda halevi. And he wrote a poem about the Yona; the dove that Noah sent out of the ark to see if there was dry land. And he he said that on Shabbat. Yom Shabbaton Eyn L'shkoach, "the day of Shabbat you cannot forget" Zechru l'reach Hanichoach" He also uses Reach Nichoach which is a pleasing scent,Yonah Matzah Bominoach, the yonah, the dove found on it rest v'shom ynuchu yegiah koach and there in the Shabbat , in that ark of rest on that ark of Sunday or Saturday is where we all gain strength. So I wish you continued success in all that you do. And that this Shabbat and this Sunday we all gather the strength to continue our mission. But I really do hope that we get another chance to study Torah together. And I really hope that all of the listeners go out and buy your book, Zionism in the Black Church because it is an absolute thrill. And I understand you're coming out with a new book that's going to talk more about the Jewish people and the various colors and flavors that we come in. Dumisani Washington 35:55 Hopefully to put that out next year sometime. Absolutely. Geoffrey Stern 35:59 Fantastic. Well thank you so much so Shabbat Shalom and we are we are in your debt. Dumisani Washington 36:05 Thank you. Shabbat Shalom and looking forward to bye bye Music: Lift Every Voice and Sing - Melinda Dulittle https://youtu.be/6Dtk9h1gZOI
In history this month we read Booker T. Washington's famous "Atlanta Exposition Speech" and selections from his autobiography UP FROM SLAVERY to show the context. In reciprocity, then, the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar contextualizes Washington's words, and is in turn contextualized by them. Dunbar's delightful poem, "The Cornstalk Fiddle," must warm the hearts of country folk everywhere, with its recall of inventive genius in "making do" with what nature provides in order to share in the communal joys of life and love. One can almost feel the cool autumn evening and the excitement of potential love moving in time to the cornstalk fiddle, evoked by these homespun verses. If you enjoy our content, consider donating through PayPal to romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #dunbar #pauldunbar #paullaurencedunbar #blackexperience #slavery #postslavery #dissimulation #thecornstalkfiddle #countryfolk #communaljoys #life #love
Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Franklin County Virginia just a few years before the Civil War began. With heroic determination, he got himself an education and went on to found the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, where he remained principal for the rest of his life. By the time Frederick Douglass died in 1895, Washington was with no comparison the most well-known and influential black American living.
Freedom, self-control, manhood, work ethic, personal responsibility, education, culture, unity. These ideas exemplify the autobiography of Booker T. Washington and they remind us how much we have gained and how much we have to lose. We must not squander our inheritance. Support the show (http://www.donorbox.org/leonydus)
In this episode, JWil is joined on the line by Matt & Doug on 3 way to discuss Booker T. Washington's book, "Up From Slavery". After being greatly impacted after reading or listening to the audio book the guys share all of the things they grasped from the book. The JWil song of the Day is Leaders of the Free by JWilMusic! Join the text family by texting BeInspired to (833)946-2518. JWilMusic shares a new music from his project, "The Inspiration" now playing on Apple Music. Be Creative. Find Purpose. Be Inspired. Prepare to be inspired! Visit JWil on Instagram: www.instagram.com/mr_bellwether (@Mr_Bellwether) Donate to IGP via Paypal : Send to jermainewilsonmusic@yahoo.com Listen to today's show and past episodes by visiting www.inspiregodspeople.com/podcast Listen to IGP on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inspire-gods-people-the-podcast/id1438530566 Email Jay at Jermainewilsonmusic@gmail.com Add JWilMusic to your Apple Music playlist https://music.apple.com/kn/artist/jwilmusic/558161868 Stream More JWilMusic at www.jermainewilson.bandcamp.com
Booker T. Washington was born a slave and rose to become one of the most important educators and unifiers in United States history. I give a review of his monumental autobiography Up From Slavery. Snippet from JRtheP - Ep #166 - 27/02/2021.
I round out Black History Month with a review of the monumental autobiography "Up From Slavery" by Booker T. Washington. I also talk about explosions at gender reveal parties, my friend Charlie Chicken and high schoolers getting sent home for wearing lingerie. Recorded on 27/2/2021.
Booker T. Washington's life story has impacted me so deeply. I can honestly say, this is one of those books that has changed me. I have the utmost respect for this man, what he did to lift himself and thousands of others out of the awful repercussions of slavery, and to bring unity to white and black communities just years after slavery was abolished, was nothing short of heroic. He was born a slave. He didn't know who his father was. He didn't even know his birthday. His deep hunger for education drove him to take some massive risks and endure some incredibly difficult circumstances. But his tenacity and perseverance and hard work carved a path to create such an incredible life and legacy, which I'm going to talk more about today. I hope you'll listen in to his inspiring story, my top three takeaways, and I really, really hope that you're going to pick up this book. Resources from this episode: Nancy Ray Book Club Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington’s Autobiography Work & Play Cornerstore Affiliate links have been used in this post! I do receive a commission when you choose to purchase through these links, and that helps me keep this podcast up and running—I truly appreciate when you choose to use them!
John J. Miller is joined by Desmond Jagmohan of the University of California at Berkeley to discuss Booker T. Washington's 'Up from Slavery.'
It's all about Victor LaValle, Lovecraft, slavery, racism, and WAP as we dig into the Stoker Award winning story, "Up From Slavery," published in the inaugural Weird Tales relaunch issue #363! Plus, reviews of Josh Malerman's Bird Box sequel, Malorie, Worse Angels by Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones's Night of the Mannequins, and more! (Recorded Aug. 16, 2020) The theme music, "Insidious," was created by Purple Planet Music and is used here under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. Music: https://www.purple-planet.com Follow Staring Into The Abyss on Twitter: @intostaring
What is the key to racial reconciliation in our nation? Dr. Carol Swain joins Michael Knowles on this month's episode of The Book Club to examine the life of Booker T. Washington, a former slave turned educator, as seen through the lens of his autobiography Up From Slavery. In our fast-paced world, it's tough to make reading a priority. At least it used to be. At Thinkr.org, they summarize the key ideas from new and noteworthy nonfiction, giving you access to an entire library of great books in bite-size form. Read or listen to hundreds of titles in a matter of minutes: start your free trial today at https://thinkr.org/
A discussion of Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington, an autobiography covering his experience as a child born into slavery, his struggle to obtain an education, and his time spent helping to establish what would become Tuskegee University. Show notes are available at http://noirehistoir.com/blog/up-from-slavery-book-review.
The Color of Cider provides a snap shot of an early practices used to deter black farmers gaining true equality and the difficulties facing African Americans today who may view farming as a step back to the plantation. We begin this episode with a quote from Booker T. Washington who born into slavery on April 5, 1856. He was able to learn to read and write despite the tendency of slave owners to not allow blacks to gain education. He help co-found the Tuskegee Institute. On September 18, 1895 Washington gave a speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Georgia. He asserted that vocational education, which gave blacks an opportunity for economic security, was more valuable to them than social advantages, higher education, or political office. Washington asked blacks to "Cast down your buckets where you are" and focus instead on becoming agricultural and industrial laborers. In essence he was asking for blacks to not push against racial segregation. In turn for this act of accepting one's station in the black community, he asked for a guarantee that blacks would receive a basic education and due process in the law. The largely white audience in attendance loved the speech. The fall back from the black community, who were called at the time "Black Intellectuals" was immediate outrage. W.E.B. DuBois, also a famous black activist called Washington's speech, the"Atlanta Compromise." Du Bois denounced Washington platform to accept ones position. What was curious about Washington was that he asked Black Americans to accept their unequal position, while at the same time secretly funded litigation for civil rights cases. Five years later, in 1900 Washington founded the National Negro Business League, with the mission of promoting the economic development of African Americans. He wrote a ground breaking auto biographical book called Up From Slavery. One particular quote/story from B. T. Washington makes the case of why it was and so hard for Black to gain upward mobility. This comes from an article in the Country Gentleman magazine described as a journal for The Farm, The Garden and The Fireside. "In one case I happen to remember a family that had three or four strong persons at work every day that was allowed to rent only about ten acres of land. When I asked the owner of the plantation why he did not let this family have more land he replied that the soil was so productive that if he allowed them to rent more they would soon be making such a profit that they would be able to buy land of their own and he would lose them as renters. This is one way to make the Negro inefficient as a laborer—attempting to discourage him instead of encouraging him." One doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to see that Cider today is white because blacks did not have the same opportunity to own land and farm. Washington died on November 14, 1915. Today in 2020, we are witnessing an uprising of Black Lives Matter taking place not only in the US, but world wide. Today's Black Live Matters shows I believe that Washington's call for acceptance of one's status didn't work. Blacks have never been treated with a fair due process in the law. For our modern times, I recommend the following book. Farming While Black : Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by, Leah Penniman Published by Chelsea Green Printing Contact for Soul Fire Farm Help Support Cider Chat Please donate today. Help keep the chat thriving! Find this episode and all episodes at the page for Cider Chat's podcasts. Listen also at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher (for Android), iHeartRadio , Spotify and wherever you love to listen to podcasts. Follow on Cider Chat's blog, social media and podcast Twitter @ciderchat Instagram: @ciderchatciderville Cider Chat FaceBook Page Cider Chat YouTube
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. ONH was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, one of the most influential 20th Century black nationalist and Pan-Africanist leaders, was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. Greatly influenced by Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up From Slavery, Garvey began to support industrial education, economic separatism, and social segregation as strategies that would enable the assent of the “black race.” In 1914, Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Kingston, Jamaica, adopting Washington's inspirational phrase “Up, you mighty race; you can conquer what you will.” By May of 1917, Garvey relocated the UNIA in Harlem and began to use speeches and his newspaper, The Negro World, to spread his message across the United States to an increasingly receptive African American community. His major audience included the thousands of Southern blacks who were then migrating from the “shadow of slavery and the plantation” to the urban North. Black veterans of World War I were another Garvey audience. Most of them had experienced both French equality and US military bigotry and returned home as militant “race men.” They were attracted to Garvey's calls. The UNIA grew larger still following the race riots in the Red Summer of 1919.
In Episode 21, we discuss the historical form of slavery in the Bible and America. We also discuss: Biblical examples of slavery, how slaves should be treated and the mindset of the slave. Booker T. Washington's book "Up From Slavery" Being a slave to Christ rather than Satan
Booker T. Washington is both controversial and incredibly impactful. In this episode I break down his mindset, which details exactly why he will be forever be remembered, regardless of what his critics say. #BOOKSandbars
Reviewing a book I just finished. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Should have read this a long time ago. Hope you learn something!
Although he was delivered from the manacles of slavery by the Emancipation Proclamation, Booker T. Washington knew that freedom was not free. In the Reconstruction-era South, he knew that in order to manage their freedom well and benefit from it fully, former slaves would have to undertake a lot of hard work. How does his experience compare to ours? One hundred fifty years later, is freedom free? Or does it still come at a cost? How can we manage and protect our freedom? And how does the study of the liberal arts help us do that? Listen as we discuss these questions and more!
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/presidential-academy/Session+25+Morel.mp3 Focus What did Washington believe were the most urgent priorities for blacks at the close of the 19th century? On what issues was Washington prepared to compromise and why? What were the goals of Washington's program and how did these differ from the recommendations of W.E.B. Du Bois? Why does Du Bois seek to "conserve" the races? How would "the conservation of the races" help the future of the Negro race as well as the future of world civilization? What principles of the American regime appear to run counter to Du Bois's emphasis on "race organizations" and "race solidarity"? What does Du Bois mean by the "talented tenth"? Compare Washington and Du Bois on the purpose of education. Readings: Booker T. Washington: Brotz, African-American Social and Political Thought, 1850-1920 "The Educational Outlook in the South" (July 16, 1884), 351-356 "Atlanta Exposition Address" (September 18, 1895), 356-359 "Democracy and Education" (September 30, 1896), 362-371 "A Sunday Evening Talk" (February 10, 1895), 508-515 "To J.R. Barlow" (March 1, 1911), 608-609 Du Bois: Brotz, African-American Social and Political Thought, 1850-1920 "The Conservation of Races" (1897), 483-492 "The Talented Tenth" (1903), 518-533 Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings–Souls of Black Folk (1903) "The Forethought" "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" "Of the Training of Black Men" Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings–The Crisis "An Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson"(March 1913) "Another Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson"(April 1913) Supplemental/Optional Readings: Booker T. Washington: Washington, Up From Slavery (1901), chap. 3, "The Struggle for an Education" Washington, "Address on Abraham Lincoln," (February 12, 1909) Louis Harlan, "Booker T. Washington in Biographical Perspective" (October 1970), 1581-1599 Fairclough, Better Day Coming, chap. 3 W.E.B. Du Bois: Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings–The Crisis "I Am Resolved" (January 1912) "Returning Soldiers" (May 1919) "An Open Letter to Warren Gamaliel Harding" (March 1921) "President Harding and Social Equality" (December 1921) "Abraham Lincoln" (May 1922), 1196 "Again, Lincoln" (September 1922), 1197-99 Fairclough, Better Day Coming, chap. 4 The post Session 25: Booker T. Washington; W.E.B. Du Bois appeared first on Teaching American History.
sermon transcript Introduction Now, for years, I've been watching sporting events, and for years, I've been told by successful athletes what the secret of their success was and that it was, believe in yourself. If you just believe in yourself, you can achieve anything. Now, I wanna add, as I listen to, let's say, Allen Iverson telling me, “Believe in yourself and be lightning quick.” Or if it's David Robinson, he never said it, but “Believe in yourself, and be 7 feet tall,” I get it. Now, I don't think it really works, that if I believe in myself, I can be an Olympic athlete and win a gold medal. Actually, I'm suspect of the whole philosophy. I wanna challenge it right now in your hearing because it's so much a part of the American myth. It's so much a part of what we think is true. It's so much a part of our educational system now that young people are being told this again and again, and they're just reciting back the things that they've been trained to say, “Believe in yourself.” Ben Franklin said it in 1736, “God helps those who help themselves.” It's the gospel of self-reliance and it’s part of the American myth. The self-made man that faces the elements, loneliness, disease, hostile people, enemies, to carve out an existence from the wilderness with his own bare hands, with his axe. Daniel Boone carving a road through the Cumberland Gap to settle in the wilderness of Kentucky. Abraham Lincoln in that same area in Kentucky, rising up from a log cabin to be the president of the United States. Booker T. Washington writing his memoirs, calling it Up From Slavery. Immigrants coming in from Ellis Island, passing by the Statue of Liberty, where it says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” And they go into the city, in New York or Chicago or some other place in the inner reaches of the US, and they make a living for themselves and they build a legacy out of their own labor and their own efforts. And so we're told that God helps those that help themselves. God helps those that save themselves. A poll was done by Barna concerning that phrase, God helps those who help themselves. If they ever come from Barna and ask you that question and ask, “Is it in the Bible?” Please be part of the 19 percent that said no. Seventy-five percent of the teens that were asked that question were told it is the central message of the Bible. Friends, it is not the central message of the Bible. The central message of the Bible is stated in many different times and places, many different ways. But how about this? “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst.” Old Testament version would be, “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.” Or as Jesus put it in John 14:1, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” Overcoming self-confidence is part of that fight each one of us has with the sin nature, we got it from Adam, as part of our fall in Adam. Amazingly, human beings can be in open rebellion against God, their minds saturated with enmity against God, unable to obey his laws and they can still say, “I'm basically a good person.” Though we are frail and weak, harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, we can still feel mighty and capable and powerful because of some little tricks we can do in space and time. Our culture sells us this line again and again: you can do anything you wanna do, be anything you wanna be, if you just believe in yourself. This is the message of self-esteem, of self-confidence, of self-assurance, of self-salvation. It's part of the American myth, and it is a myth because the Bible is diametrically opposed to all of this. The message of the Bible is that we need a savior. We cannot save ourselves. We need a savior, and his name is Jesus Christ. And it's my privilege every week to get up here and tell you that. And here as we come to this text in Matthew 26:31-35, we have sadly put on full display the overweening confidence of the apostles, particularly Peter. Peter is a main example. The self-confidence of these men is completely misplaced as later events will bear out. They were absolutely certain of their loyalty to Christ, they were certain of their commitment to him. They felt that nothing could come their way that could shake that loyalty, that would shake that commitment. They were certain of it; they were certain that they were willing to die for him. All 11 of them felt the same way. And that same night - within hours of these statements, these assertions - that same night, they all abandoned Jesus and ran for their lives. Just as Jesus said they would do. Isn't it marvelous that we have a savior that knows us completely, knows exactly what we're going to do and loves us anyway? Isn't that marvelous? I get to preach a savior that knows us so completely and loves us anyway. Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” I don't think we really believe that as we should. It's the centerpiece of my sanctification to grow, to believe that more and more vigorously. Apart from Christ, I can do nothing. We think of ourselves more highly than we should. And so today we get to look in a mirror, if we do it rightly, you'll look in these verses as in a mirror, and you'll see yourself. You're not gonna blame Peter, you're not gonna blame the 11, you're gonna see yourself. And you get a chance as you look in this text to look at the road ahead for you. But what is facing you from here until the day you die or the day the Lord returns? The Bible tells us it's an arduous, difficult journey, a race you're going to run. It's going to be opposed every step of the way by the world, the flesh, and the devil. And my question to you is, just like we heard in the song, “How do you know?” That's how they began. I was thinking of those words, How do you know you're going to make it? How do you know you're gonna finish your race? And if your answer has anything basically to do with yourself, you're wrong, you're off. And I wanna heal you of that today. I want you to say “The way I know I'm gonna finish this race is that Christ, the very one who began that work in me, is gonna carry it on to completion. If left to myself, I will fail. Satan is too strong for me. He is able to orchestrate circumstances around me and I will come crashing to the ground, just like these 11 did.” Look in the mirror, look at these verses as in a mirror and find yourself, and then look up from it to Christ and say, “Oh God, save me, save me from myself, wean me off of self-reliance from this text.” Christ Predicts the Sinful Flight of the Apostles (vs. 31) Context: The Night of Jesus’ Arrest Let's look at it carefully, verse by verse. Look at verse 31, there Christ predicts the sinful flight of the apostles. “Then Jesus told them, ‘This very night, you will all fall away on account of me. For it is written: “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.”’” This very night. What night is it? Well, we're jumping right in the middle here in this sermon, to the context that we've been following along in Matthew's gospel. Matthew 26-28, the crucifixion account and the resurrection account, that's where we're at in Matthew's gospel. And that was the night of Jesus' arrest. By then, Jesus had been anointed by Mary in Bethany. Judas had already arranged to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. And then we saw Jesus prepare the final Passover through the disciples that were sent on ahead, they prepared that upper room. And he predicted Judas's betrayal, we saw that last time, and he celebrated the last supper with them, instituting body and blood as the permanent reminder of his death for them. “This is my body, this is my blood. The blood of the New Covenant, do this in remembrance of me.” We talked about all of these things last time, and then they sang a hymn and they went out in verse 30. Now, in between all of that, we have to insert John's gospel and all of the incredible rich instruction that Jesus gives them there in John 14-16, and then the prayer that he does for them in John 17. So that happened before, I think, verse 30 in our Chapter. So he does all of these things, he tells them of the promised Holy Spirit, the counselor who's going to come. And he tells them of the persecution and suffering they're going to go through for his name's sake, that in this world that they would have trouble. And that they would be hated by all people on account of him, and that they would be put out of the synagogues, and that they would be beaten and even be put to death. And those who were doing these things would think they were serving God by doing them. And he warned them about all of these things, and then he prayed for them beautifully, that none would be lost. Except the one doomed to destruction, he leaves him out of that prayer. But that none of them would be lost, and he prays for those who will receive the gospel through their word, that all of them, all of us, will be one. Just as the Father and the Son is one that we would all be one. All of these things happening, and the teachings and instructions he was giving there in the upper room, but they weren't ready for all of that. They couldn't hear it all. Jesus acknowledged that in John's gospel. In John 16:12, he says, “I have much to say to you, more than you can now bear.” You're not able to absorb all of this and take it all in. At some point they would be ready for all of these themes, the themes of persecution and suffering, and the coming Holy Spirit and all of those things, but first they had to learn a lesson, a very bitter lesson. He'd warn them about it. He's warning them right here in this text. It's a bitter lesson about themselves, but the words wouldn't be enough, they had to live it out. They had to go through it. And only, especially after Peter, only after Peter went through it, did he see who he really was, did he understand how self-reliant he had been and how much he needed a savior. And so all of that happened, they sing a hymn, and then they go out, go out from Jerusalem. They're going out to the Mount of Olives. They're going to Gethsemane, the very place where Judas knew where they would go, the place where Jesus would pray, and the place also where he would be arrested. And they would make their way out of the crowded city of Jerusalem, where there would be hundreds of thousands of pilgrims that were there to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover. And they would cross the Kidron Valley, they would go across the Brook Kidron, where all of the blood from the sacrifices, the thousands and thousands of lambs that had been slaughtered that night was being carried down also perhaps by some of the rain water. And it was being carried down there, and so it's like a river of blood they must have literally physically crossed as they crossed the Kidron Brook to go up to Gethsemane. I don't know if they noticed by the light of the full moon, but I'm certain that Jesus must have understood the significance of those lambs that were slaughtered and how they pointed to what was about to happen to him. Jesus Drops a Bombshell And so they were going to Gethsemane. And I don't know if it was while he was on the way or right before they left, or how it happens, but following a chronological order, they sang the hymn and went out and perhaps as they were walking along, or maybe once they got to Gethsemane, but he drops a bombshell on them, and Jesus is just rocking their world. One bomb shell after another. And they're just not ready for all of this. They're not ready to hear it. He just said a moment ago that Judas was going to betray him, and they were all troubled by that, and very sad and began to say, one after the other, “Surely not I Lord,” all that. Now he's very clear about who he means. Maybe they didn't know for sure it was Judas, but now he's very clear when he says these words, “This very night, you will all fall away on account of me,” with no doubt about it. And look at the time frames, it's very specific. This very night, it's going to happen, within hours. Now, what does it mean they will all fall away? The Greek word is “scandalidzo,” from which we get “scandal” or “scandalized.” Generally, translated in the sense of a stumbling stone, you'll stumble tonight. The literalistic translation has to do with a trapper, a snare with a kind of a bait stick that the prey goes after to get lured in and then trapped. And so that's going to happen to all of you. You're gonna get lured in and you're gonna get trapped. And what was the bait? The bait would be their love for their own lives, their love for themselves, that was the bait. And Satan was going to put a trap around them and he would cause them to flee because they loved their lives in this world. The Root of the Scandal: Jesus’ Suffering and Death The root of this scandal was Jesus' suffering and death, something that they just couldn't seem to get their minds around, something they just couldn't seem to accept that Jesus had to die. Peter in particular, just struggled with this. He just couldn't come to grips with it. It began in Matthew's gospel and back in chapter 16 where, in Caesarea Philippi, he has this time with his disciples. And it says, “From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hand of the elders, chief priest and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day, be raised to life.” He was very clear about this. “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said, ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You're a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’” Well, the apostles all expected, as we've been told time and again - certainly after the triumphal entry, as Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph - they really expected that he would sit on a glorious throne and rule over the whole world, and that they would get to sit at his right and his left on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel, and it was going to be a time of glory and of honor, and prestige, and comfort and luxury, and all. That's what they really thought was going to happen. And so Jesus is scandalizing them with his arrest and his suffering and death, they couldn't understand it. They couldn't understand the need for the suffering servant, the need for the shed blood of Jesus, they didn't understand the atonement. And so as he was being arrested, they would be scandalized by their shock, and they would revert to their former way of thinking, “Save yourself, you need to save yourself,” and they would run. They would not trust him, they would be left bewildered, they would be back where they started, pondering a way to re-enter their own lives. They left the fishing industry, they left their boats and their nets, and maybe they'd go back to that. It'd be a lot easier for the fishermen than for Matthew, the tax collector. I don't think he's getting that thing again, that was a good setup. And there was definitely some Jew that took his place as a tax collector, and so it'd be really hard for Matthew, but they probably were thinking these kinds of things. And Jesus said, “This very night, you’ll all fall away because of me, you'll be scandalized because of me. I'm going to offend you. Because of what I am saying, because of what I am doing, because of me, you will be offended.” It's the very same thing that he said in reference to John the Baptist. Remember when John was in prison and he wasn't quite sure he was following the trajectory of Jesus' ministry. It didn't make a lot of sense to him, and he was being broken down in prison, it was hard for him. And so he sent messengers, Matthew 11, he sent messengers to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else?” I mean, do you realize what John's asking there? Someone else means his life, John's life, has been wasted because he pointed to him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He pointed to him, he was the precursor, and now he's arrested and he's gonna die. So he was not the voice of the one calling in the wilderness, he was just reeling through unbelief at that moment. Jesus then performs a bunch of miracles in front of the messengers, and he said, “Go back and report to John what you see and hear, the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor.” And then he said this, “Blessed are all those who do not fall away on account of me. Don't let anything that I'm doing offend you. Trust me in everything I'm doing. Not just some of what I'm doing, trust everything I'm doing. Don't fall away on account of me.” They Would ALL Fall Away! But he says to the 11, “This very night, you will all fall away on account of me.” Isn't it amazing how little loyalty and courage they had after watching and being involved in the only perfect ministry there has ever been? That Jesus could not engender more loyalty and more courage than that is just astonishing. Note: Jesus’ Knowledge of the Future... Based on Scripture Note again, Jesus' specific and detailed knowledge of the future, as we discussed last time in reference to Judas. Jesus has meticulous, complete, accurate foreknowledge of everything that will happen. John makes it plain concerning this very night when he's arrested in John 18:4, it says, “Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and said, ‘Who is it you're looking for?’” So John makes it very plain, what he wants us to think. Do you not understand Jesus' omniscience? He knew everything that was going to happen to him before it happened. Well it wasn't just that he knew everything that was going to happen to him, he knew everything that was gonna happen to them. And so he says in John 13:19, “I'm telling you this now, before it happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe that I am.” That’s all it says in the Greek, “you will believe I am.” “You'll believe that I am God, so that when all of the bad things that are about to happen tonight happen, you will believe that I am God.” Says it again, John 14:29, “I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe.” So Jesus is predicting their falling away. So he knows the future, he knows it perfectly. He also knows the past, and by that I mean specifically, he knows prophetic scripture. He knows the Old Testament better than any man that's ever lived, and so he finds an obscure prophecy in Zechariah, that predicts that those things would happen, this very thing would happen. The same book that predicted the 30 pieces of silver, the same book that predicted what would happen to the 30 pieces of silver, we'll get into all that in Matthew 27. But in Zechariah 11 it was all predicted. The 30 pieces, the throwing to the potter in the house of the Lord, all of that predicted, he then goes ahead two chapters to find this phenomenon, in Zechariah 13:7, we have this prophecy, “‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me!’ declares the Lord almighty, ‘Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones.’” At Zechariah 13:7, this prophecy shows that even their falling away, even their running away to save their lives had been predicted by the prophets. Now, I would say that without Jesus' link here, without his explanation, we wouldn't have found it. We wouldn't have linked it to this event, we wouldn't have found Jesus and his arrest and them running away here, but as William Cowper put it in one of his beautiful hymns, “God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.” So if he tells us it was predicted in Zechariah 13:7, it was, and so it was made plain. And in the original context, in Zechariah 13, Zechariah is talking about false prophets who are going to turn away from their false prophecy and forsake it, and renounce those false prophecies, but suddenly in Zechariah 13:7, the prophet speaks into this word about the true shepherd of Israel, and he says, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” And it's amazing, the prophecy calls for God's sword to awake against “my shepherd,” “my associate,” or “the one who is close to me.” It's very strong in the original language. It really points to the deity of Christ. The shepherd of God's sheep is one who's very close to Almighty God. Made me think of Philippians 2:6, “Jesus who being in very nature, God did not think it robbery,” KJV gives us, “did not think it robbery to be equal with God.” It wasn't 'cause he was equal with God and is. He says in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one,” and so strike the shepherd, the associate, the one who's close to me, and the sheep are gonna be scattered. But it's also clearly a prediction of the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus would be struck by the wrath of God. And so I meditated on this and I thought, it's amazing. Jesus is our good shepherd. When you take the shepherd away, the sheep have no protection. We are at the mercy of the wolves and they have no mercy, and that's why the sheep are scattered, we're in danger. So that's the effect. That's why it happened. That's why they ran away, because their shepherd was gone - How much do we need Jesus! But then conversely, isn't it marvelous that it's as Jesus is being struck, that he provides the shelter for us, so that we are protected! It's in the striking we get our protection. So I wanna say the final story is strike the shepherd and the sheep will be gathered. Amen. Hallelujah. So they're scattered for a while, but then the Lord is gonna gather them by the Holy Spirit and bring them back. So it's kind of depressing this text, but it has a happy ending. They're going to run, they're gonna get scattered, and Jesus is going to bring them all back. We'll talk about that at the end. Peter Displays His Sinful Self-Reliance (vs. 33) Perhaps the Worst Statement Ever Made in Scripture by Any True Follower of Jesus I haven't forgotten verse 32, but let's go on to verse 33. I'll do verse 32 at the end. But look at verse 33, Peter displays a sinful self-reliance. He replies, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” I don't know if this is true, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it, anyway. This may be the worst statement ever made in scripture by a true follower of Christ. If there are others, fine, find them and we'll talk about it. But it's up there. It's in the top five. This is horrible. It's horrible at many levels. Let's do the worst part of it at all. First of all, Peter's statement is arrogant, over against Jesus himself. In effect, is he not saying, “Jesus, you're wrong. You're wrong.” Now, Peter's bold to do this, I've noted it several times in the pulpit here, and I'll just say it briefly, four times Peter says “Never” to the Lord. Four times. I've already quoted one in Matthew 16 about his death. “Never Lord!” he said, “this shall never happen to you.” What I love about each of these four times, God gets the final word, every time. Jesus gets the final word. So Peter is just wrong. He rebukes him in Matthew 16. Here in our text, he says it twice. He says it here, and then he says it again, “Even if I have to die with you, I never will disown you.” So he says it twice. He says it at the foot washing, remember that one? “Lord, are you gonna wash my feet?” Jesus says, “You don't understand, later you will,” and he proceeds. He said, “Never, Lord. You will never wash my feet.” I love the fact that a minute later, he's washing Peter's feet. Isn't that wonderful? Thank God that Jesus wins every argument he has with us. But even after the resurrection, even after the giving of the Holy Spirit, he's still doing it, still fighting that fleshly tendency to challenge God and to disagree with God. That's when, in Acts 10, the Lord is getting him ready to go preach the gospel to a Gentile, to Cornelius, remember that, and he shows him a sheet full of animals that up to that time had been unclean for him as a Jew, but now God has made clean, because Jesus has declared all foods clean. He says, “Arise Peter, kill and eat.” And he said, “Never, Lord, I've never eaten anything impure or unclean.” And then the voice comes from heaven a second time, “Peter, do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This is his tendency. In effect, what is Peter saying to Jesus? “Jesus, you know a lot of things. You're really good at those miracles, I don't know how you do it, it's amazing, and you're right about so many things, but you're wrong about me. You're wrong about me.” The root issue here is definitely pride. “You don't know me very well.” And yet, isn't this true? Psalm 139, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise ... before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord.” He has searched us and he knows us. Secondly, Peter's statement is arrogant compared to his friends, the other apostles. Do you see it? But what is he saying here compared to them? “I am the greatest of all the apostles. I am the first, the chief, the most courageous, the most loyal, and even if all fall away on account of you, I know I never will.” Very arrogant, and it's the kind of jockeying that you see these guys doing all the time, arguing among themselves as to which of them is the greatest. If you were one of the 11 and you heard Peter say that, wouldn't that cause a rise out of you? Say, “Now wait a minute, Peter. Wait a minute. I think I might actually be the last to cave in.” And so there was that kind of bickering, that kind of arguing that goes on, that jockeying for position. But friends, what about this, what about Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing out of selfishness or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves.” Do you see that kind of humility in this statement here by Peter? I don't. Is he considering others better than himself? The Root Issue: Pride and Self-Reliance So the root issue here is the whole theme of the sermon, I believe, and that's pride and self-reliance. Pride and self-reliance. He underestimates the incredible trial that he's about to face, he doesn't understand how strong the prince of this world who is coming is. He said, “The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing on me.” Jesus said that. But he's coming. And he is going to sift them all like wheat, Luke tells us. He's going to test them. So he greatly underestimates the trial that's coming, but even worse, he greatly overestimates his ability to meet any trial that comes. It's like, “I got this one. I can handle this night, and I am not running, and I am not going to forsake you.” He's relying on himself. “I will be up to the task.” We'll talk more about self-reliance at the end of the message. Christ Predicts Peter’s Three-Fold Denial (vs. 34) The Specific Prophecy In verse 34, Christ predicts Peter's threefold denial. He says, “I tell you the truth, this very night before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” This is a very specific prophecy, it goes even beyond this very night. It's before the rooster crows. The Jews divided the evening into four parts; by this time two of those parts are done. Evening was from six to nine. Midnight from nine until 12. The cock crow could happen anywhere from 12 until three. And morning from three to six. By the time they arrived in Gethsemane, I think it's well after midnight. It's been a full night, the Passover lamb can't be slaughtered until Twilight. And so, they've had all of these things, the eating, all of the teaching, everything they had, so I think it's late, really late, or early, depending on how you looked at it, the next day. And so Jesus is predicting that they're going to fall away within a couple of hours. Within a couple of hours. That Peter is gonna deny him three times, within a couple of hours. And yet, do you not see the grace of God in all of this? It is by this prediction, the specificity of it, that God is going to draw Peter back from the dark extremities of unbelief and of turning away, and he's gonna draw him back away, back into the light of a healthy walk with Christ. You remember what happens? He denies him, denies him, denies him, and he even calls down curses on himself, and then the rooster crows and then he remembers. He remembers the words that the Lord had spoken, and he goes away from that very tempting and tough situation, and he goes alone, and he weeps bitterly, and that's the road back. That's the road back. Do you realize what Jesus said Peter would do? “You will disown me. You'll disown me. You'll deny that you even know me.” Talk about taking an axe in your hands and chopping down the tree you're sitting on, if you could even do that. Imagine that. Do you realize the significance of that knowing that happens between the soul and Christ? Do you realize that that is the essence of eternal life? In John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” What is Peter saying? “I don't know Jesus.” According to John 17:3, he's saying, “I don't have eternal life, I'm dead.” Conversely, do you realize how significant it will be on Judgment Day for Jesus to know you? “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers.’” Says it several times. In Luke 13, “You will stand outside, knocking on the door and saying, ‘Sir sir, open the door.’ But he will answer, ‘I don't know you or where you come from.’” That's in a parable. “I don't know you.” Luke 12:9, “He who disowns me before men will himself be disowned before the angels of God.” 2 Timothy 2:12, “If we disown him, he will also disown us.” Thanks be to God he didn't disown Peter, amen. He disowned him three times. He said, “I don't even know him. Never heard of him. I'm not his disciple.” The Specificity Displays Christ’s Omniscience, and Underscores His Grace and Love And he's very specific about the rooster crowing and about the number of times, three times, and that specificity, again, displays Christ's omniscience, and the prediction underscores Christ's grace and love, because he's going to go as a good shepherd and he's gonna bring this sinner back in. He's gonna restore him, he's going to redeem him, he's going to renew him, he's going to give him a ministry that he doesn't deserve, and he's going to bolster him up and strengthen him in his two weak areas, his self-reliance and his fear of death. And he's gonna cure both of those, so that he will be a mighty minister of the gospel for Jesus Christ. He's gonna cure both of them. And so in John 21, when he restores him and he says, “Do you love me?” He says, “I love you,” three times. He restores him, and then he says, “I tell you the truth, in the past, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and you went wherever you wanted to go, but in the future, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and take you where you do not wanna go.” And then John tells us that this is the way Peter would glorify God by death. And so he would lose his self-reliance and he would lose his fear of death, but he had some very bitter learning to go through first. Peter and the Other Apostles Deepen Their Sinful Self-Reliance (vs. 35) Amazing Arrogance! And then in verse 35, Peter and the other apostles, deep in their sinful self-reliance, they go even deeper here. I would have stopped after the first statement, wouldn't you? Maybe, I don't know. See, I think I was just arrogant there. I probably would have said it five more times, so I don't know. But it's so stunning, it's not enough, this one encounter, he's gonna go even deeper. “I see you're getting real specific with the prophecy here Lord, but you're still wrong. Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same. This is amazing, arrogance. “Lord, you are so wrong about me.” Now, here we see the total reliance on self, that's gonna translate into the sin of prayerlessness in a moment in Gethsemane. They're not gonna pray. You know why? Because they don't need to pray, because they've got this one, they're fine, they're underestimating what's coming their way, and they're not ready for it. If they were not so self-reliant, they would pray. The mark of your self-reliance and mine is prayerlessness. That's how you know. How do I know that I'm self-reliant, it is prayerlessness. Whatever you don't pray about, that's what you're relying on yourself to do. I'm convinced of that. So I see big pockets of self-reliance in my life. The Mention of Death Goes to the Heart of the Matter Isn't it interesting that Peter also goes to the issue of death, and he says, “Even if I have to die.” I think that's the very thing he was afraid of. That's what made him deny Jesus. He was afraid of torture and death. He was afraid of torture and death. So when the servant girl challenges him at the entrance of the high priest's house, he's gonna shrink back and say, “No, no, I don't know him,” and then it's gonna get worse and worse, and Jesus had called on his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will find it. What good would it be for a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” The heroes in the book of Revelation, we're told about them, in Revelation 12:11, “They overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, that they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” But Peter does love his life so much as to shrink from death, so do the other of the 11, and it's completely understandable. I'm not slamming on Peter here. It is the most natural thing in the world to preserve yourself, to seek survival. It is completely natural. All animals do it, all people too. You try to survive, try to live for another day. Get out of it, get your foot out of the net and get out of there, so you don't die. It's the most natural thing in the world. It is supernatural to face death joyfully because you believe in an invisible heaven that's going to come. That's supernatural, that comes only by faith, and that's a supernatural work of God's grace. And that's what makes Peter's self-reliance so bad. Only God can make us supernaturally confident in the face of our own death. It is only by faith that we can face the visible reality of our death with the invisible reality of the heaven that will follow it. Self-reliance looks ahead to the trial and looks inward to the resource and says, “I can do it.” But faith looks ahead to the trial and looks upward to God and says, “Only by your help and your strength can I do this.” Through prayer, you say, “God, grant me strength. I can't face this trial alone. You've gotta help me.” Christ Predicts the Cure (vs. 32; Luke 22:31-32) Jesus, Even as He Made His Initial Prediction, Pointed Ahead to His Resurrection Victory! Well, let's go back to verse 32. Jesus predicts the cure. Amen. Jesus predicts the cure. The final word will be grace, the final word will be triumph and victory, not defeat for these 11. Then Jesus told them in verse 31, “This very night, you will all fall away on account of me. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” Verse 32, “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Furthermore... They Would See Him Again... They Would Not Be Abandoned I'm going to die, but I'm going to rise again. And then I'm going to see you again. This isn't gonna be our last night, it's a bad night, but this isn't our last time together, you will meet me in Galilee and we will be together and you'll see me in my resurrection glory, and we'll go on from there. And I'm not gonna fire you, I could, but I'm not gonna fire you and find some people who will be more loyal and more courageous and more faith-filled, I don't know where I'd find them, 'cause we're all the same. No, I'm gonna work with you and I'm going to restore you, I'm not gonna abandon you, I'm going to renew you, and even better, I'm gonna give you the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the power of the Spirit, you're gonna overcome your self-reliance and you're gonna overcome your fear of death. And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when they arrest you, don't worry about what to say, because at that time it will be given you what to say, because it's not gonna be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. The Power of the Holy Spirit And you will lose your fear - and so he did, in Acts chapter 4, there's Peter arrested for the healing of a lame man, and he and John are brought in, and then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, said this, “Rulers and elders of the people,” those were his arrestors, his inquisitors, his executioners, he's not afraid of them at all. “Rulers and elders of the people, if we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” He's lost his self-reliance, and he's lost his fear of death. And why? Because the Holy Spirit was poured out on him. And so it would be for all of them. All of them would be martyred. Church history tells us one story after another, you can look it up, what tradition says. Some hideous deaths awaited them, but they were not afraid, they continued to testify to the resurrection of Christ. All except John, who went in exile in Patmos. They lost their fear of death, and they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. And so, this story has a happy ending. Praise God. Applications Forsake Your Self-Reliance and Come to Christ! What applications can we take from it? First of all, the most significant form of self-reliance you have, has to do with judgment day, your own death, judgment day and heaven and hell. May I plead with you on the basis of the gospel to stop trusting in yourself and flee to Christ? May I plead with you to look to Christ alone? Do not begin to say, “I'm not a sinner.” You know you are. The law of God stands against you. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is not one of us righteous, not one of us can stand on our own righteousness before the judgment seat of a holy God who sees everything we've ever done, and survive. And so we must have a savior. So turn away from self-reliance and trust in Christ. He is the Son of God, his blood was shed on the cross for sinners like you and me. And as we've already said, God raised him from the dead on the third day, and that atonement has been accepted. See in This Account Your Own Weakness If you've already come to Christ, you're a Christian, face the weight of the question I asked you earlier. How do you know you're going to finish this race? Is it because it's going to be easy? It's not. The world, the flesh and the devil will oppose you every step of the way, and you know it. How then do you know you're going to finish? There is still a part of you that says, “Because I …” There's still a part of you. You may not say it at the time of confessional, you know where I say, “How do you know?” “Jesus saved me.” You know the right answers, but we don't live them like we should. All of us struggle with self-reliance. How do I know that? Because one of the greatest apostles, greatest men that ever lived was the Apostle Paul, and he struggled with it, badly. And as a matter of fact, the only thing that would get him to turn away was to be in trial so severe that he thought he was going to die. That's the only thing that can wean us off our self-reliance. 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the trials we faced in Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed in our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But this happened so that we might no longer rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.” There's so much in there. What that teaches me is that even the apostle, a mature man of God, was still somewhat self-reliant. And only the pressure of extreme trial caused him to rely fully on God who raises the dead. So what are those things you think you can handle and don't need to pray about? What would you include in that? Parts of your job, your work life, financial life, academic life, relationships, marriage, parenting, single life, sexual purity? You got that one? Are you able to handle that one on your own? How about anxiety? You can handle anxiety. “I got anxiety licked, I'm good at anxiety.” Well, you're good at anxiety, you're not good at beating it, but we can be anxious. Alright, what is it? Circle with a red pen those areas of your life that you don't think you need to pray about. It's like, “Oh, I know the right answer. That's nothing, I know I need to... “ Alright, what do you actually pray about and what do you not pray about? And I would contend those things you actually don't pray about, there's a good indication you're probably relying on yourself. Forsake that. Learn to pray about everything. Learn to ask God for help in everything. Encourage one another in your fellowship with another, look to God, trust in God, let's trust in him for all things. The High Priestly Ministry of Christ... Praying for Our Faith: Luke 22 Finally, I want to point you up into the heavenly realms, and I wanna tell you something that's going on right now to help you, and it's mentioned in the parallel account. Go in your Bibles, hope I get the quote right this time, Luke 22:31-32. I wanna finish by pointing to this one. It's the same story, but it was told with a little more detail in Luke's gospel. Jesus predicting Peter's falling away. Luke 22:31-32. There Jesus says this to Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat.” The you there is plural. So he's gonna sift all of you. “But I have prayed for you, Simon,” the you there is singular, “I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” This is an incredibly vital glimpse into the heavenly realms to the priestly prayer ministry of Jesus for you. He is at the right hand of God, Hebrews 7:25, and is interceding for you right now. And it tells us who he's talking to, we know, he's talking to the Father. He's talking to the Father, but it tells us the topic of the conversation. “I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith” - Simon's faith is the topic of that conversation. “Father, I'm praying right now for Simon's faith.” What is the end of that prayer? What is the end result? “That it won't fail. That it won't fail.” Let me ask you a question, without Jesus' priestly ministry for you, do you think your faith would fail? Can your faith survive the siege warfare of the devil as he hurls the world at you, and as your flesh unlocks the gate of the walled fortress to let the enemy in, can you survive all of that without Jesus' intercessory prayer for you? I tell you, you can't. So therefore, he's praying for you continually, that your faith won't fail. And guess what? It won't. It won't. Why? Because the God who gave it to you will sustain it every moment of your lives until the day you die. And the Son who died, who shed his blood to buy you that faith, is praying that you'll keep having it until the day you die, and then you will. You will. So what I would urge you to do is, first, just know that's going on all the time. He is interceding for you, that your faith won't fail. Don't trust in yourself, rely on him and join him in his intercessory prayer ministry for yourself. Say, “Oh Lord, please, sustain my faith, don't let my faith fail, let me keep believing in you, let me... “ And then extend it outward and join in a kind of a priestly ministry for each other. Let's pray for each other. Pray for so and so that his faith won't fail. Her faith won't fail. They're going through a medical trial, I'm praying that their faith won't fail. They're going through medical trials, I'm praying, Oh God, that their faith won't fail. That's the focal point of your prayer. And away with self-reliance. Amen? Away with self-salvation. Away with all of that. And look to the savior, the one who saves us. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the lesson that we've had. It's been painful, it's a painful lesson, to look in the mirror and find in Peter and the 11, such self-reliance, to find in them attitudes that we deplore in ourselves, but they're there, of self-reliance. Forgive us for our self-reliance. Forgive us for our prayerlessness. Forgive us for thinking we can do this or do that or do the other on our own. Apart from you, Lord, we can do nothing. Strengthen in us a sense of total dependence on Christ, and to realize that only through that high priestly praying ministry will our faith not fail. And God is sovereign, the one who gave us the faith to begin with will sustain it until the day we die and don't need it anymore, because faith will be sight. We thank you for these things and pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
An excerpt from Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. For more audio tailored to the lifelong learner, please visit www.learnoutloud.com.
An excerpt from Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. For more audio tailored to the lifelong learner, please visit www.learnoutloud.com.