There Is A Price To Pay If We Forget
NLF February 27, 2003 Psalm 105:1-7 Philippians 3:1-14
I received my tax bill on my house at the beginning of the month one June or July. I knew it was my property tax bill, so I intended to pay it at the end of the month with all my other bills on the 30th of the month.
When I got to paying the bills, I noticed it said, if this bill is not paid on the 27th of the month, an additional 10% charge would apply. That meant because of three days, I would be paying an extra $80. I made a note to myself not to forget to pay the tax bill earlier for the second half of the year.
When the tax bill came this time in January, I let it sit just like all the rest of my bills. I opened the bill on the 30th only to discover that bill was again due on the 27th and now I would have to pay another 10% penalty of $80. Now I had the money in the bank for the bill, I had saved it over the course of the six months, but I had to pay an extra price because of forgetting what had happened to me in the past.
There is a tremendous power available to us when we remember the past. Let’s meet Mary to illustrate the point. Mary went to North Carolina to take care of an elderly aunt who lived out in the country. The house was a small one but comfortable.
After a few years the aunt died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Mary was wondering how she was going to make ends meet without her aunt’s pension and social security check. As she was going through her aunts old papers, she came across her aunt’s will. Her aunt’s will simply said, "I leave everything I own to my niece Mary." Mary was glad that she at least had a roof over her head.
Unknown to Mary her aunt had a some stocks that were now worth $500,000.00. Now Mary intended to take the will to a lawyer, but she never did because she had no money. She saw the stock certificates but they looked to her like old worthless pieces of paper. Eventually Mary forgot about the will and lived at the poverty level for the rest of her life.
If only Mary had remembered that will and the stock certificates. She paid a price simply because she forgot a part of her past. If only she had known her family’s history through her aunt, her whole life would have been changed. The power to remember can get us through some difficult times and give us hope for the present .
God told the children of Israel again and again to remember, "When you were slaves for 430 years, I was the one who set you free by doing all kinds of miracles on your behalf. I was the one who brought you out of Egypt not as slaves, but as rich victorious people on their way to the promised land." God wants us to remember the past, so that we can best enjoy the present.
When we do not forget the past, we become more grateful for those who have come before us. Nothing makes us more ungrateful than a short memory. You see, we did not get where we are today, all by ourselves. Somebody had a hand in opening some doors for us.
I have yet to meet a baby, who changed his or her own diapers, or got up and got their own milk. Tell your neighbor, we all owe somebody something, and we ought to be grateful. We even owe some people that we will never meet in this lifetime. If we recognize our history, we will have a better understanding of who we are and how God is involved in our lives.
To forget our history, can cause us to remain in a state of economic poverty. We can forget that we have come from a people who were engineers, scientists, doctors, government officials, long before the first slave ships every arrived on the shores of Africa. The same thing can happen to us spiritually when we forget where we have come from.
Black people and people of color are in the Scriptures from the very beginning, and they have their roots in the God of the Bible.
You may recall, there was a flood during the time to Noah that wiped out everybody on the face of the earth. So all the people alive today, derive their history from Noah his wife, their three sons and their wives. Now the son from whom many people of color trace their lineage is Ham.
His name means heat, hot, or brown in Hebrew. Ham himself had at least four sons. They were Canaan, Cush, Mizraim, and Put. One of his four sons, Canaan received a curse on him, because his father Ham had not shown the proper respect for his father Noah.
When we look and see where Ham’s sons settled, we can tell that his sons were people of color because they settled in Africa and the Middle east. Now Ham’s son Canaan settled in the middle east. This means we as people of color were the first ones to get into the promised land, and then we blew it because of our disobedience to God.
In lift every voice and sing, there is a prophetic warning. It says shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to our God and true to our native land. Lest our feet stray from the places our God where met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world we forget thee.
God opened the door for us to enter part of the promised land that Dr. King saw in his mountaintop experience, but in our rejection of God and our history, many of us are worse off than before the civil rights era. Not because of lack of opportunity, but because of a chosen path of self destruction. The use of drugs and the tremendous increase in babies having babies has been far more destructive to our well being than fighting and living under segregation. Our freedom has landed way to many of us in jail and to few of us in college, especially for our black males. Far too many of our bright young teenage women are preparing for motherhood rather than for college. We do not have to follow these paths. God has something better in mind.
We are paying a price for forgetting that God has a plan and a purpose for every little black boy and girl along with all other little boys and girls and that plan includes being taught to love God, to love others, and to have respect for themselves.
When we respect ourselves, we can say no to behaviors that only lead to our destruction. Our forgetting where we came from is costing us some of the promised land just as the people of Canaan lost their blessing because of disobedience.
We have come from people who have done some awesome things. We need to remember that so that we will not make excuses for our behaviors. I can remember whenever we went somewhere, our grandmother would say, " remember where you come from."
It was her way of saying, "don’t you do anything to bring shame and disgrace to the family." We accepted it back then, that we did have a responsibility for the good name of the family. How are you protecting your family’s name. It’s not simply all about me and what I want.
Black History does not start with slavery in America. Our heritage is not simply the heritage of a people in bondage. Slavery was a part of our history, but our history goes back far greater than that. As descendants of Ham, our ancestors were among the first to find great civilizations.
Put founded Libya in Africa, Mizraim founded Egypt in Africa, and Cush found the Sudan in Africa. The Bible just told us in the very beginning it was Black people who first settled in northern Africa. It does not take much to figure out, that they must have been the ones to have built the great sphinx.
It’s the figure with a lion’s body and a human head and its huge, but its nose is missing. Do you know why. Because Muslim invaders into Africa used it as a target for military practice. They wanted us to forget the greatness we had known as a people by making it look less Black.
Most blacks in the Old Testament are referred to as Cushites. For years when we have thought of African warriors, we remembered those stupid Tarzan movies in which we had a flimsy bow and arrow, a spear that was about to break, and a bone between our nose. Tarzan and Cheetah would knock twenty-five of us with one swing on the rope. Yet that’s not what the Bible says about Africans.
Look at Genesis 10:8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD." The first great warrior mentioned in the Scriptures is a person with some black genes. We didn’t have to make up a mythical character like Hercules of Superman for a super hero.
The greatest hunter would be the one able to see things that others could not in tracing animals was a Black person. He had to have been skillful, intelligent and strong.
Unfortunately, if he were alive today, most of us wouldn’t go to him for assistance because he was Black. Our society still teaches us that somehow Blacks are inferior. We do not need affirmative action because Blacks are inferior. We need affirmative action, because prejudice and racism still is alive and well in people’s hearts and Blacks are rejected before they even get a chance to get in the door.
A recent study has found that resume’s are rejected became of names like Raheem, and Shaquita because they let you know this person is probably Black. Are you making it harder by naming your child something nobody can spell.
I also want you to notice that the Cushites did not simply live in little grass huts. The Scriptures state the first centers of his kingdom were cities, as a matter of fact at the end of verse 12, one of their cities was so great, that it was known simply as the great city. It was the New York City of its times, and we built it.
That means right from the start we had engineers, mathematicians, scientist and builders. So why do we keep telling our kids how hard it is to be an engineer major or scientist, or mathematician. We need to be telling them, you come from a line of engineers and scientist who have passed on their genes to you. Next time you think you can not do the work, you remember where and who you have come from.
Many of us are much more intelligent than we appeared to be in high school. Our problem was not lack of intelligence, it was lack of discipline and real vision for our lives.
We looked for ways to get out of work, to act the fool, and to do as little as possible to get by. We forget that we reaped what we sow, and the decisions made today, affect the opportunities available tomorrow. The better we equip ourselves with the presence of Jesus Christ as a part of our lifestyle today, the more successful we are going to be in life tommorow.
Remember where you want to go in your life, and start behaving like it today. We are an intelligent group of people who can stand next to anybody without a need to be ashamed.
We do not need to be ashamed of the continent of Africa today, because of its starving people. God put enough resources in the contintent of Africa to feed everyone there. But sin, greed, and corruption of governmental leaders have kept the continent in bondage. God created Africa to be a safe place in times of crises for His people.
I want you to know that when Abraham, and Jacob needed a place to survive the great famines that hit the land, God sent them both to Africa in Egypt. When Joseph was second to Pharoah , Africa fed other parts of the world. That means we as Black people were on the providing side of feeding others rather than being the ones needing a handout.
If only we knew the potential God has placed within us, and would say yes to the will of God, we could transform our lives, our families, our church and our community.
We know from ancient pictures and sculptures that many of the Pharaohs of Egypt were black. Their tombs indicate they were black. Statutes have large flat noses and large lips. Their paintings have people with black & brown skin It is more likely than not that the Pharaoh whom God gave the dream of the oncoming famine in Joseph’s time was black if not at least dark skin.
Yet we are programmed to believe that the Pharaoh’s could not have been black. We dismiss this because we saw the 10 commandments and the Pharaoh in Moses’s time was completely white in Yule Brenner and Moses also was white in the form of Charlton Heston. Therefore we assume that white European looking people were the Pharaohs of Egypt in Africa. Historically we know that there were no Europeans going to Africa at this time.
You know if you go to France and see the Eiffel Tower , or to China and see the Great Wall, or to the United States and see the Empire State building, there is no question as to who built it. The French built the Eiffel Tower in France , the Chinese built the Great Wall in China, the Americans built the Empire State Building.
Why do people keep saying, I wonder who built the pyramids in Africa? Doesn’t it make sense that the Africans built them? But we are programmed to believe that Africans were too stupid to build things that required technology far beyond that in existence in Europe at the time, therefore we’ve come the conclusion that aliens from outer space must have built the pyramids.
Our own self hatred of ourselves allow us to believe this ridiculous idea. If we had of remembered, when others were living in caves, we were building great cities we would have seen the pyramids would have been just another challenge for great minds to think through.
The next place we find us in Scripture is among the people of God when they leave Egypt. I know that there were Blacks among the Hebrews when they came out of Egypt because of what the bible says. Look at numbers 12:1 and you will see racism rear its ugly head.
It says, Moses’s sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. Now we know that the Cushites were Black and they were from the southern Sudan.
Doesn’t it follow that since the children of Israel did not go to Cush on their way to the promised land, that for Moses to have married a Cushite woman en route, there had to have been a group of Cushites with them for him to marry one. Why do you think they left out the scene of Moses marrying a black woman in the 10 commandments? They did give the girl some color in the cartoon movie version of it. God doesn’t care about the color of the person you marry. God is more interested if you’re marrying somebody saved.
Do you remember that Moses was the most important figure in the Old Testament in leading God’s people? Do you remember that God spoke with Moses as he did no other man? Do you realize that this outstanding man of God could have had his choice of beautiful women to marry, and of all these women, it was a beautiful Black woman that caught his attention. It was a Black woman that Moses went home to help him carry the burdens of leading that rebellious group of people. Black women didn’t just become strong, they’ve been strong a long time.
Do you realize that even though King Solomon had many wives , the only one to whom a Book in the Bible is written involving him is to a Black Woman. Turn in Song of Songs chapter 1, verse 5 in which she says "Dark am I yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon. Do not stare at me because I am dark.
In verse 8 she is called the most beautiful of women. We have tried to make Black women feel as though unless they could resemble a white woman, they could not be beautiful. This is not what the Bible teaches about being black and beautiful.
The Bible teaches there is a beauty present in each race of women whether they be red, yellow, brown, black or white. The call is not to exalt one form of beauty over another, but to appreciate the beauty God has placed in all women.
We find ourselves again being called by God in Isaiah 11:11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt and from Cush. My friends do you see that we as Black people have always been considered by God as part of his chosen people. We never adopted a white man’s God. God has always been our God, and God does not belong to black people, white people, brown people or any other people. It is we who belong to God, who has chosen to love a rainbow color of people.
If we go to the New Testament. We find that the last person to help Jesus out was Simon of Cyrene. Cyrene was the New Testament name for Libya in Africa today. It was an African recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that carried the cross for Jesus, when he had been beaten so bad he could barely walk.
We were there on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell. Acts 2:10 tells us there were people present from Egypt and parts of Libya. We were there in Acts chapter 8 in which an angel of the Lord goes to command Philipi to go and tell an Ethiopian who was studying the Old Testament about Jesus Christ. Why was it that God took Philip away from a booming revival to go out to the desert to meet a Black man and tell him about Jesus. Because God felt that Black people were important too.
-The Black Muslims want us to believe that Islam is the mother religion of Africa. But Islam is still another 700 years away from making it to Africa, and already we have seen our God has been at work in Black Africa for hundreds of years. I want you to notice also how Christianity got to Europe.
Our missionary history is faulty when it indicates Whites took the gospel to the dark continent of Africa. According to Scripture Africans took the gospel to whites. Acts 11:20 says, "Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene (which we know is Libya in Africa) went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks, also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. The first person in the Bible to go to Africa and preach Jesus was the Ethiopian who had visited Jerusalem and met Phillip on the road.
It was a group of Africans that helped get the church started in Antioch. Verse 11:26 says the, disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. If you study the Scriptures you find that all three of Paul’s missionary journeys into Europe started in Antioch.
Do you know who was in charge of the church at Antioch? We were right from the start. Acts 13:1 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.
Why is it important for us to remember. It’s because we have a history that is rooted in God and in the word of God. If we had of believed the message God has about us in Scripture, we would never have believed the lies and stereotypes that we still hold against each other as a people
Islam is not the root of our people. Jesus Christ the Messiah is. Christ had died and risen from the dead some 600 years before Mohammed was even thought about. Islam was a religion forced upon Africans by the sword in war. God however revealed his love to those Africans in Egypt, and Cush, and Ethiopia in the things He did for them. He was never ashamed to call them His children. They look forward to the coming of the Messiah.
As we celebrate Black History month, let’s keep in mind that from Genesis to Revelations, we were there. There’s a price to pay if we forget. But know that even with this history, without a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we are still lose. Paul boasted of his cultural heritage, but he said when it comes to knowing Jesus Christ, I count these things as a loss if they keep me from knowing who Jesus Christ is. Remember, we have been with God right from the start, and one day we will end up with up with him. The question, is will you be ready to give an account for all God has given to you.
1. Christianity 700 Years Ahead In Africa Before Islam
2. Some Africans Took Christianity To Europe
Acts 11:20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.
3. Christianity Came To Africa Via Black Man
4. Africans Started The Church At Antioch
Acts 13:1 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.
5. Why It’s Important To Remember
6. We Would Not Have Believed Lies—Stereotypes
7. God Has Always Been Our God
8. Nothing Really Matters Without Jesus Christ
9. We Will End Up Meeting Him.
Next Week Service Will Be Held At
10:30 At Glenville New Life Community Church, 711 East 105th Street, Cleveland, OH
We Will Be Celebrating The 14th Anniversary
Of Pastor Toby & Pastor Rick.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick 2/12/2003 NLF
There Is A Price To Pay If We Forget
Psalm 105:1-7 Philippians 3:1-14
A. Paying The Price When We Forget
1. Pastor Rick & The 10% Tax Bill Penalty
2. Can Anybody Use An Extra $80
3. Mary Goes To North Caroline For An Aunt
4. The Will, The Stocks, The Money, Forgetting
5. A Life Hurting Because She Forgot
B. God Is The First To Remind Us To Remember
1. When You Were Slaves, I Brought You Out
2. Short Memory Leads To Ungratefulness
3. We All Owe Somebody Something
4. Forgetting History Leads To Bad Times
C. Where Do We Trace Back Our Roots In The Bible
1. The Flood, Noah & His Wife, Their Children
2. Ham—Hot, Heat, Brown Four Sons
3. Canaan, Cush, Mizraim, Put, Canaan Cursed
4. Settled In Middle East And Africa 1st To Make It
D. The Warning Not To Lose God’s Best
shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to our God and true to our native land. Lest our feet stray from the places our God where met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world we forget thee.
1. Refusing To Accept The Promised Land
2. Drugs & Babies Having Babies—God Has Plans
3. Love God, Love Others, Respect Oneself
4. Grandma—Remember Where You Come From
E. Remember Where Our History Starts
1. Further Than Slavery---All The Way To Ham
2. Put-Libya, Mizraim—Egypt, Cush—Sudan Africa
3. Who Built The Lion –Human Head Sphinx
4. Blacks—Cushites—Deception Of Tarzan Movies
Genesis 10:8-9 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. 9He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD."
5. Not Hercules, Or Superman, But Nimrod
6. Nimrod Would Face Discrimination Today By Us
7. The Need For Affirmative Action
8. Think Before You Name Your Child
F. Who Is In Our Past
1. We Built The New York City Of Yesterday
2. Engineers, Scientist, Mathematicians, Builders
3. Smarter Than High School Grades Indicate
4. Equipping Ourselves With Jesus Christ
5. No Need To Be Ashamed—Africa Fed The World
6. We Were Pharaohs—Pictures & Sculptures Tell Us
7. Deceived By The Movie—“ Ten Commandments”
8. Trying To Figure Out Who Build The Pyramids
9. Are Aliens From Another Planet An Option
G. We Were There When They Left Egypt
Numbers 12:1 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.
1. Racism Did Not Start Yesterday
2. Cushites—Blacks From The Sudan
3. Why Did Charlton Hester Not Marry The Right Girl
4. Moses—Most Important Figure In Old Testament
5. A Black Woman Helps Carry The Burden
6. King Solomon Looks To A Black Woman
Song Of Solomon 1:5-6 Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon. 6Do not stare at me because I am dark,
7. Most Beautiful Of Women 1:8
8. Bible Teaches There Is A Beauty In All Races
H. God’s Plans & Use For People Of Color
1. God Knows Some Of His People Are Still In
Africa
Isaiah 11:11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
2. It’s Not A White Man’s Religion
3. Simon Of Cyrene From Africa—Jesus’ Cross
4. On The Day Of Pentecost We Were Present
Acts 2:10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome
5 Acts Chapter 8 Phillip Goes To Share Christ
Acts 8:26-28 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road--the desert road--that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.
6. God Felt We Too Were Important
I. We Owe Nothing To Islam As A People
