Continuing The Difficult Conversation-A Conversation Among Blacks

Continuing The Difficult Conversation

2/21/2021 Jeremiah 26:1-11 Luke 9:18-26

If someone were to ask you how much is 2 plus 2 what would be your answer be. What if they told you 2 plus 2 is 5 and then asked you how much it would be, what would be your answer? What if they told you 2 plus 2 is 5 and put a gun to your leg and said how much is 2 plus 2 now, what would your answer be?

What if they shot you in the leg, and said tell me the truth, how much is 2 plus 2? How many of you will answer 5? How many of you will answer 4? How many of you will be afraid to answer?

Pastor Kellie started a conversation with us on talking about difficult conversations. She talked about the difficult conversation on race relationships as blacks and whites look at the past with the goal of moving to the future.

But there is a difficult conversation that we as Blacks need to have with each other with the goal of moving ahead to the future. We have to be honest about the truth of where we have come from, what we have done, and what we are doing.

We are living at a time in which truth is no longer truth. 2 plus 2 can be 5 or whatever an individual believes it to be. You have your 4 and that’s truth for you, but I have my 6 and that’s truth for me.

Cancel culture will not allow me to try and prove to you that no, it’s really 4. If I do, that proves I am hateful, demeaning, and intentionally hurting you. I need to be silenced to protect you to hold the view that it is 6.

The prophet Jeremiah lived at a time when His people had rejected God’s law. Poor people were being oppressed and sold into slavery. When their 7 year period was up, the people would not set them free even after they had paid off their debts.

Adultery and sexual immorality was happening all over the place. The people would talk about God, but they lived as though God did not exist, and even encouraged each other to try out new gods.

Who was to say that the idol, Baal, or the goddess, Ashtoreth, were not just as much a true as the God of Israel. The people were even sacrificing their children to a god called Molech by throwing them into fires. Who was to say there was anything wrong with killing their own children?

God told, Jeremiah to go and tell the people,” if you do not repent and turn from your evil ways, I am going to destroy this temple, this city, and send you into exile. The people were under the false belief, that as long as the temple was in Jerusalem, God was okay with whatever else they did.

Jeremiah spoke the truth concerning the past, the present and the future, but cancel culture existed back then and it’s interesting how they seized on one part of the message, but not the other. They didn’t want to hear that part about they needed to change and repent, so they seized on a part that they could get the people excited and riled up about.

Cancel Culture which was made up of the religious and political leaders of that day got the people angry when they proclaimed, “how dare Jeremiah claim that God will destroy this temple. His voice must be silenced.

Some insisted that Jeremiah should be killed.” What was Jeremiah really guilty of on that day. He was guilty of telling people the truth about what God had told him to tell to the people. We live at a time when simply telling the truth can get you into trouble.

The word Negro originally came from the Spanish word meaning black. Slaves from Africa became known as Negroes because they were black. That became Nigriss to talk negatively about slaves and to pick up the white southern accent. That became Niggers to put down black people.

That has become nigga’s to get around using niggers in our music, but it means the same thing. Let me ask you something, how many of you have ever heard anybody in your family call someone a nigger? How many of you laughed at it. How many of you have ever called or referred to some black people as niggas?

When we talk about niggers, isn’t what we mean, people who are of a lesser intelligence. People who are not on the same social level as we are. People who don’t have the same culture or behavior patterns as we have. People that can’t be trusted to say or do the right thing, the right way.