Friday, January 12, 2007

excerpt

From King's sermon entitled "Unfulfilled Dreams" - March 3rd, 1968

"And the question I want to raise this morning with you: is your heart right? If your heart isn’t right, fix it up today; get God to fix it up. Get somebody to be able to say about you, "He may not have reached the highest height, he may not have realized all of his dreams, but he tried." Isn’t that a wonderful thing for somebody to say about you? "He tried to be a good man. He tried to be a just man. He tried to be an honest man. His heart was in the right place." And I can hear a voice saying, crying out through the eternities, "I accept you. You are a recipient of my grace because it was in your heart. And it is so well that it was within thine heart...

...It will be dark sometimes, and it will be dismal and trying, and tribulations will come. But if you have faith in the God that I’m talking about this morning, it doesn’t matter. For you can stand up amid the storms. And I say it to you out of experience this morning, yes, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll. I’ve felt sin-breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus, saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to leave me. Never to leave me alone.

And when you get this faith, you can walk with your feet solid to the ground and your head to the air, and you fear no man. And you fear nothing that comes before you. Because you know that God is even in Crete. If you ascend to the heavens, God is there. If you descend to hell, God is even there. If you take the wings of the morning and fly out to the uttermost parts of the sea, even God is there. Everywhere we turn we find him. We can never escape him..."

2 comments:

Buffy said...

I was a college freshman the first time I read one of Dr King's sermons. It was "God is Able" and I remember being completely overwhelmed. I still get this way when I read his words. They're breathtaking to me - as a christian, and a writer.

Jessica said...

Just in looking for something to post to commemorate MLK day, I started reading his speeches and sermons. They really are absolutely beautiful.