When Black Preachers Preach Volume 1

Introduction

Daniel Whyte III

The idea and vision for such a book as this one has been in my heart for quite some time now. In the not too distant past, God began to raise up a fresh and exciting voice in America. That voice is the voice of the black preacher who refused to use God’s sacred desk as a stage for entertainment or as a platform for political causes. Rather, these God-sent black preachers chose to stand boldly and preach Thus saith the Lord without compromise, fear or favor. These preachers are not popular, but neither were the preachers in the Bible. No, these preachers may not be popular, but they certainly need to be heard.

This book basically has a three-fold purpose:

A. To bring glory and honor to God and to His Son Jesus Christ.

B. To show honor and appreciation for the older black Baptist preachers who have paid the price, and who have laid the foundation for those of us who have followed. (Of course, all of the older brethren could not be included in this volume, but my hope is that these who are included will represent them.)

C. To reach this generation of Americans, who seem to have lost their way.

The sermons included in this volume were selected based upon how long the minister had been faithfully preaching the Gospel and based upon the impact of the sermon when it was actually reached.

You will notice that some of these sermons were stenographically recorded because we not only wanted to get the letter of the sermon, but the spirit of the sermon as well; so that when you read this book, you will feel as though you are actually in the congregation, hearing the man of God, preach thus saith the Lord.

I believe that if you read each sermon and the significant stuff in the back of this book, and you take heed to it, you will be convicted, challenged, comforted, and changed.—Daniel Whyte III, South Bend, Indiana

A WONDERFUL AND A HORRIBLE THING

Dr. Joseph Brown

Dr. Joseph Brown is the long time pastor of the Manna Bible Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?—Jeremiah 5:30-31

A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. What was Jeremiah speaking about? First of all, he was speaking about the wonderful things God had done for the nation of Judah, which was the last tribe that represented the true and living God. God had blessed their land and increased their cattle. He had made their land to flow as a land of milk and honey. The people had prospered.

Jeremiah was looking at the wonderful things God was doing for the nation, but at the same time, he was looking at the horrible thing being done: the people were not responding to the goodness of God. The people were guilty of idolatry. Their hearts had been turned away from God to selfishness, deceit, and brutality. Their religion had degenerated to the place where the prophets and the priests no longer prophesied rightly, nor did the priests serve rightly.

To sum up the situation of that day, Jeremiah said, A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. But that was Jeremiah’s day. Let us consider our day in the light of Jeremiah’s conclusion. First, let us consider something wonderful.

A WONDERFUL THING

It is wonderful that we are living in a land where the Bible is the most popular book and not the Koran. It is wonderful that we are living in a land where the cross is revered and honored, not the hammer and sickle. It is wonderful that we have food on our tables and we do not have to go to bed hungry unless we want to. It is wonderful that we have conveniences such as high-powered automobiles and electronic appliances to make our housewives’ days easier. We have washing machines we don’t have to go down to the creek and bang our clothes on rocks. We don’t boil them in big black pots like our ancestors did down South. We simply put them in the machine and it does the dirty work and the heavy work.

It’s a wonderful thing that we live in a land like this one. With all its inequalities and its shortcomings, I still would rather be in this land I know.

It is wonderful that on the cross Christ paid our sin debt. It is wonderful that we can open the Bible and read that Christ paid for our sins on the cross. I don’t know about you, but to me that is worth more than the appliances we have to make life easier. To know that our sins were paid for by Christ — that’s wonderful. The sin debt that none of us could ever have hoped to pay, has been paid for by Christ’s death on the cross.

There’s truth in the old hymn that we sing. One of the lines is: Long ago, long ago, the old account was settled long ago. I believe with all of my heart that it is wonderful that all of us who have been born again can look back over two thousand years and see that our sin debt was paid.

Many of us are not strangers to debt. We know what it is to be over our heads in debt. I don’t know about you, but I’ve known that feeling. I know what it is like to over-extend my credit and get deep into debt. Someone was talking to me the other day and he said, Preacher, I just can’t wait to get to church on Sunday and pay my tithe. I’m so sold on tithing, I just can’t wait until Sunday comes. Now I remember a time when that church member didn’t have that thrill. He continued on, I’m not working and I’m out of a job. But you know whatever we get, we tithe. I feel so good paying God’s part first that I find I have more now than I did when I was working! First we take ten percent and give that to God because it was His part first. Then we take ten percent for ourselves and put it away in savings. We live on the eighty percent. So every week I’ve got something to look forward to because I’m going to put away something!

I’m particularly excited today, he went on, because we have a place where we put our bills. We looked in our bill compartment and I pulled one out and noticed that the bill said, ‘last payment.’ There’s no better feeling than to know you’re pulling the last coupon out of the payment book. I simply said, Thank you Jesus.

Debt is all right if you don’t go overboard. My dear wife went through all our credit cards and either sent them back or tore them up. I thought that was a terrible thing to do, but it was the best thing we ever did. She’s got more sense than I do. She realized the easier it is to get something, the more debt you’ll get into.

One lady was out shopping with a wallet full of credit cards. She said, This is fun! And she was shopping her heart out. Give me this, give me that. But she didn’t realize there would come a payday someday.

None of your material debts could ever begin to compare with the spiritual debt you owe to a holy God. Every time you sin you owe God. Our sin debt is pretty big. I don’t know about yours, but I was in way over my head. You owe God! There are only two places where that sin can be paid. You’ll either pay the debt in hell, or you’ll have it paid at the cross. Since God is eternal, the sinner must suffer eternally for every sin. That is why it is a terrible thing for one man to tell another to go to hell. Hell is a terrible place, yet every sinner with his debt unpaid will pay for it in hell, the lake of fire. Justice will collect.

I think it is wonderful that Christ paid our sin debt. It is also a wonderful thing that on the cross Christ brought to us forgiveness. The Bible says, In whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins. You have committed more than one sin, an uncountable amount, but we have forgiveness for them all. Through Christ’s death on the cross in our place we are forgiven. One verse of a particular song always fastens itself on my heart: Forgiven, forgiven, forgiven by the atonement. Those are heavy words! How are we forgiven? By prayer vigils? By punishing our bodies and ourselves? Paying money? No! By the atonement. It is wonderful that we can sit here and know that our sins have been forgiven by the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe with all of my heart that man’s greatest need is to be forgiven.

Some men believe they cannot be forgiven. They feel they have sinned so hard and so long that forgiveness is impossible. But God can forgive. There is no one too sinful for God to forgive. He can forgive anyone of anything.

Now you may be thinking, What about blaspheming the Holy Ghost? Isn’t that an unforgivable sin? I don’t believe that you can blaspheme against the Holy Ghost. I believe you can resist the Holy Spirit, but to blaspheme the Holy Spirit I believe you would have to be living in Jesus’ time. You would have to see Jesus raise the dead, open the eyes of the blind, feed the five thousand, and then say, Jesus, you are doing these things by the power of the devil.

God can forgive anything. There is nothing too hard for Jesus. It is wonderful to know that! It is wonderful to know that you can’t blow it! That’s one thing I pray each morning, Lord, thank you for my salvation and thank you that you fixed it so that I can’t mess it up. If God had left one loophole for man, we’d blow it. But the salvation we have was fixed so that we can’t mess it up.

We weren’t worth saving in the first place, so there is nothing we can do to make God send us to hell. Christ brought us forgiveness for all sins — past, present and future.

Some folks say, Christ died for some of my sins, but not all of my sins. He died for my past sins, but not my present sins, unless I repent, and He certainly didn’t die for my future sins. How do I answer that argument? I ask folks who hold that opinion, Where were you when Christ died? You weren’t even here! So when He died, He died for your sins!

Some folks may say you’re crazy for believing that Christ died for all your sins. But either He died for all your sins or you’re on probation and you’re not sure of going to Heaven. A lot of folks have a probationary salvation. They say, "Christ forgave my past sins, and He will forgive my