Foundation Stones (Part 6) – Why Only the Life of Christ Restores the Church

They didn’t care whether they were cutting down Anglos or Italian Romans. Just cut them down. They were fierce. They were mean. They were wicked, and he said to one of his generals standing beside him, Listen to this statement, this is talking about white man. These people will never be civilized, because they are not human beings. They don’t belong to the human race. And so, he defeated them, and he took them by the tens of thousands, and put them in slavery, and brought them to Rome, and sold them on slave blocks. That’s right.

Now, my point. I was coming to this. Do you know? I know that we’re supposed to really feel bad about the fact that you were slaves. Listen, that’s a bad deal, but let me tell you something. Do you realize that if you had not been brought, or your fathers had not been brought to this country, as slaves, do you know what religion you would be today? Do you know what religion your great, great, great, great granddaddies were? Do you not know? You know. Don’t you know? Do you know? Huh? Voodoo? That came a little later, believe it or not. Well, I realize that some of it was called animism, which is the worship of trees and things. But no, your people were Muslims. Your people were Muslims.

Would you rather be a Muslim or a Christian? Person. Listen. Even a Muslim. If he knew better. Would rather be a Christian than a Muslim. Well. I’m trying to, I got a point in all this. That the Lord knows what he’s doing.

I had a great, great, great-grandfather who was standing on board a ship. And his country, France, was being ripped to shreds by the Reign of Terror – The French Revolution. But my great, great, great-grandfather was a coward. He didn’t want to go home. And he was a sailor, and he did what you’re not supposed to do. He deserted. He got up on the side of that ship, held his nose, and jumped in. And he swam ashore. I’m so glad that man was a coward. I’m not the least bit ashamed of that man was a coward. I wouldn’t want to grow up in France. Being a Roman Catholic or an atheist is about all I’d be. I’d rather be what I am. I’m not a Protestant. I’m not a Catholic. And I’m not an atheist. I’m a Christian. I’m grateful for that. I’m really wonderfully grateful. So, I have somebody in my background who’s a coward. Big deal. My grandfather was not a Protestant. He was a Roman Catholic, but he fell in love with a little Baptist girl. And she said to him, I’m not going to marry you. He said, “Why?” And she said, “You’re Catholic. I’m a Baptist. I’m not going to marry you.” He said, I’ll be a Baptist. She said, “Then I’ll marry you.” So, my grandfather went out and got baptized as a Baptist. And you know, wonders that man got saved in the process.

Really, truly, genuinely converted to the Lord. And loved the Lord, really loved him. I knew the old gentleman, but anyway, I’m so glad he did that. It wasn’t very ethical. I’m so glad he fell in love with Lucy. And I’m so glad Lucy wouldn’t marry him. Because I got, I eventually got saved because of that. My whole point is that those Jews had no businessmen in Antioch. But in that little incident, it changed the world. Because those Gentiles didn’t have any right to be Christians. But somewhere, because of that, I’m a Christian today. See, I’m not a Jew. Did you know that? I’m not a Jew. I bet you’re not either, gentlemen. Huh? Okay. We don’t belong in the lineage of salvation, but we got sneaked in. And we don’t have the culture. We don’t have the background. And the Jews, Jews were straight, strait-laced, moral people. The people in Antioch – they were some of the worst, loosest, and most immoral people on the face of the earth. I don’t want to even tell you about it. It’s embarrassing to tell. Antioch was a pit of sin and iniquity. And some of those gross, immoral people, standing in the marketplace, watching those crazy Jews, preaching to some more Jews, they decided they wanted this. And they got saved from their sins.

And the Jews didn’t know what to do. So, they sent this letter back home. Boy, tell us what to do. And Peter was too busy. He wasn’t watching what he was doing. He didn’t know history was changing its course. And he sent Barnabas. And I have the sneaky feeling that brother Barnabas was probably right up here, right up the ear, with Jewish traditions. He had grown up in a Gentile world. And I bet he was thinking we could improve on this.

I have the feeling that my black brothers and I have not had this feeling just overnight. This has been true for years. And I have brothers who will witness to it, I have a feeling that black brothers could really improve on the Christian church, way and away, above white brothers. And I am not kidding you, I mean that. I’m going to tell you a little story that will illustrate this. This is in Los Angeles. I have a dear friend out there who is a Christian, and he has a community in Watts.

You all know where Watts is. And they all, there are about 80 of them, they all live in one building. Oh, it is a circus. Anyway, at this particular time, the sisters in our group were all worried about babysitting and childcare for their children. And we went to visit these people, and the sisters always went around asking about childcare. What are you going to do with care? Why do you teach your kids? Why do you do with your children? So, when they got to Watts, to this black community of believers, a really wonderful group, there was this big yard, a fenced-in backyard, and all the kids who didn’t want to go to the meeting were in that backyard. Now, we had a whole building just for childcare with all sorts of things in it and all sorts of people taken care of. And it was a burden. And here’s Watts, and here’s this yard back there, and here are all these kids. There’s not a toy in it. There is nothing in that yard. The sisters are all interested. What do you do with the children, and how do you entertain them, and what do you teach them? We don’t do anything with them. Well, what do the kids do? They hang out. Well, I never heard that term. They hang out. So, you know, the brothers and sisters got to watching those black kids back there in that yard. You know what they were doing? They were just hanging out. They’re sitting there talking to one another, playing with grass or whatever. They didn’t need $150,000 worth of equipment to babysit their kids.

And I was talking to the brother in Watts about many of the problems we had, and the problems he had, and a lot of the problems we had, he didn’t have. And he said, “We don’t have problems like that.” I said, “You will.” He said, “No, we won’t. Those are just not part of our culture. We don’t have problems like that.”

Right now, the greatest place on earth that is an opportunity for true church life to take root is in the southern part of Africa, because the southern part of Africa is not given over to ritual and tradition. The white man’s culture did not make a great deal of inroads, or to put it another way, the British never got there. The British got over here, and they gave us the curse of our Sunday morning church meetings with our rituals and so forth. And I honestly believe, just as God embarrassed the Western world by bringing into the 20th century, the best experience or insight into the church came out of China in this century.

I have the sneaky feeling that we’re going to be learning from the black brothers next. And I think we’re going to learn a lot. Say, “Praise the Lord.” Say, “Praise the Lord.” I hope it happens. It will happen. I can’t think of anything that would embarrass the white man more, and he’s embarrassing. Maybe humble him a little bit for brothers from Africa to show us how to have the life of the church. Whenever anybody from Africa writes to us and asks us for books, we send them to them free. Free, and I’ll tell you what I want to do. There are two things I want to do. I want to set up a school of translation in Africa. I probably never will get to, but I want to, to teach people English, so they can take the best Christian literature that exists and put it in their languages. That’s one thing I want to do.

The second thing I want to do. I want to be responsible for sending some black brothers from America who have experienced church life here to Africa. I wouldn’t go there for nothing. I got it wrong suntan. I have songs on Sunday. I want to see some black brothers who there’s up in church and grew up in church life. My brothers, in the face of God, you will see more than you will ever understand in a lifetime. To get one glimpse of the glorious Christ is more than all the theology there is.