Participants: Pr. Carlton Byrd
Series Code: BOL
Program Code: BOL000179
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00:01 Are you looking for an exciting change in your life? Well, get ready for a breath of new life.
00:06 Today Dr. Byrd speaks on the topic All Lives Matter." And now, here he is, 00:11 speaker/director of Breath of Life Ministries, Dr. Carlton Byrd. 00:18 Matthew chapter 22, verse number 36. The Word of God says to us today, "Master, which is the great 00:29 commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy" what? Heart. 00:35 PB: With all thy what? Aud.: Heart 00:38 "And with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. 00:42 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy" what? Aud.: Self. 00:48 "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Father God, now for the next couple of 00:55 moments speak to Your people. Hide them behind Your cross. Immerse me in Your Holy Ghost. God, 01:03 we promise You through it all we will love You, because we thank You for loving us. When the appeal time comes, 01:08 Lord, I want to be shaped, but Lord, You do Your work, and I praise You in advance for what You're going to do. 01:15 In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen. All lives matter. All lives matter. For the past few months we've heard 01:35 black lives matter. We've heard hands up, don't shoot. We've heard, I can't breathe. We've even heard how to 01:52 get away with murder. Many Americans, both blacks and whites, who have echoed these statements thought that 02:00 the racial tensions of the 1960s were behind us. Many believed that we were entering a post-racial era with 02:08 the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 as the first black president of the United States. Some naively 02:18 believed that Jim Crowe was over. That the segregated South was done. And we were living in an era of freedom, 02:28 free will and forgiveness. But then came February 26, 2012. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old black male, 02:44 is walking with friends home from a 7-11 store after buying Skittles and an Arizona-brand, watermelon-flavored 02:54 drink. George Zimmerman, a non-black neighborhood watchman volunteered. Better termed, I believe, as a 03:06 self-proclaimed vigilante, calls the local police department to report a suspicious person walking through the 03:15 neighborhood. The police tell Zimmerman, stay in your car. Their words were clear: Don't follow the young man. 03:42 and manslaughter charges and Zimmerman goes free. Then came July 17, 2014. Unarmed black man, Eric Garner, 03:58 is simply walking the streets in Staten Island, New York. White officers approach him. Garner tells them, 04:20 Single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. An officer, Daniel Pantaleo, puts Garner in a chokehold. Garner yells, 04:47 the officer goes free. The next month, August 9, 2014, Ferguson, Missouri, is the city. An unarmed 18-year-old, 05:11 backs us his police cruiser on the city street. An altercation ensues with Brown and Wilson struggling through the window 05:20 of the police vehicle. Wilson fires his gun. Brown seeks to flee. Brown's friend hides. Wilson pursues Brown, and fires 05:33 a total of 12 rounds. Brown is dead. What's even more chilling is the fact that his body lay in the streets for four hours. 05:47 Wilson is not indicted. Wilson goes free. Then, on November 22, 2014, a 12-year-old black boy, Tamir Rice, 06:03 is playing with a pellet gun by himself in an empty Cleveland, Ohio, park. A video of the incident captures 06:12 a police squad car racing up. A white officer, Timothy Loehmann, jumps out of the car, fires his gun and shoots the boy. 06:22 All of this happens in two seconds. The cop said he shouted from the car for the child to put the weapon down. 06:30 How, in two seconds? But even before the cop got to the scene, the neighborhood resident who called the police 06:38 in the first place told the police twice that the gun was probably fake. Rice dies the next day. The gun was a toy. 06:51 His death is ruled a homicide by the county medical examiner. It is later discovered that Loehmann, the police officer, 06:58 in his previous job as a policeman in another Ohio city, had been deemed emotionally unstable and unfit for duty. 07:08 The deaths of Martin, Garner, Brown and Rice sparked outrage and unrest in the United States and abroad. 07:22 Questions of black genocide become more prevalent each and every day. The phrase "black lives matter" 07:30 is heard across the country. Some people applaud the protests. Other people condemn the protests. I get concerned 07:42 when people condemn proper, peaceful protests because let's be clear today: it's because of black America's protests 07:53 in the '60s that all of us benefit today. I get concerned when I hear people say, If you're white, you're all right. 08:04 If you're yellow, you're mellow. If you're brown, stick around; but if you're black, get back. I don't have to get 08:15 back for anybody. I am somebody. God made me in God's image after God's own likeness. Do I have a witness in this place? 08:26 [Aud. reaction] PB: Before Trayvon Martin's death, before the summer of 2014, before we saw Eric Garner lying on a 08:34 Staten Island street, before Michael Brown was lifeless in a pool of blood in the Missouri sun for hours, we may have 08:42 lulled ourselves into believing that a struggle was over. That it had all been taken care of, back in the '60s. 09:20 We must keep our faith, even as we work to make our country live up to its creed. And we must know deep within our bones 09:27 and deep within our hearts that if our ancestors could survive the Middle Passage, then we could survive anything. Why? 09:35 Black lives, they do matter." It's shocking that such a slogan would have to be spoken in the first place, but too often in 09:45 the history of our country and racial incidents like Martin and Garner and Brown and Rice speak otherwise. So in case 09:52 you didn't know, that's why we have protests. That's why we have sit-ins. That's why we have die-ins. 10:01 That's why so many people are frustrated--not just because of Trayvon, not just because of Eric, 10:07 not just because of Michael or Tamir's deaths, but because of a pervasive sense of injustice. Injustice anywhere is a 10:17 threat to justice everywhere. But friends of mine, today it's not just about black lives. It's all lives. 10:29 [Aud. reaction] PB: All lives matter. Police killings of unarmed black men are not an isolated problem. 10:36 They are the logical outcome of a system predicated upon the notion that some lives simply don't matter. 10:43 For 400 years there has been a struggle for black people to be treated with equality with mind, thought and in 11:02 Let me be clear: Whites will trample over whites to get to the top. Whites will trample over blacks to get to the top. 11:11 Blacks will trample over whites to get to the top. And Blacks will trample over fellow blacks to get to the top. 11:19 We call it the crab mentality. Today, it's not either or in reference to blacks and whites, but it's both and. 11:37 chemicals; 11:46 60 percent of us are not even registered to vote; 35 percent of us are unemployed; and there is, friends of mine, 11:53 a conspiracy though, led by the devil to destroy the black man, the white man, the yellow and the red man. Society is trying 12:06 to eliminate each other, but the devil is trying to tear us all up. That's why two non-black police officers sitting in their 12:33 more people died yesterday in a hostage standoff in a grocery store in Paris by a black man and a white woman. 12:59 Nowhere in Scripture is there any indication that black people, or any other people whether of color or not, 13:06 are outside the embrace of God's love. [Aud. reaction] 13:21 Ham's son, Noah's grandson, who Noah cursed. Noah cursed Canaan because Canaan's father, Ham, saw Noah naked. 13:30 Genesis 9:25 says Canaan's descendants would be servants of servants. But this servitude had nothing to do with 13:37 race or skin color, because neither race or skin color is ever mentioned. [Aud. reaction] The devil is alive. 13:46 [Aud. reaction] Let's go further back, even before the incarnate Jesus came to this earth. 13:52 Let's go to the motherland, let's go back to Africa. Too often we forget that God was involved in Africa 14:01 long before God was even known in Europe. A lot of folk have problems with that because they believe, 14:08 friends of mine, they believe that they don't think of God as choosing an African to make a difference. 14:16 But when God's African people were being oppressed by another group of African people, known as Pharaoh 14:21 and the Egyptians, God chose to bring their deliverance through Moses. Another African, who had to stand up 14:28 and demand freedom for his people. The black race is not cursed. When I read the Bible, I find it very interesting 14:50 Slavery in this nation began in 1607, when the Pilgrims settled in Jamestown, Virginia, and it took 402 years 15:03 for the color of a slave to be the color of the president of this nation. The black race is not cursed, but 15:13 racism has been a foundation cornerstone of this nation from the very beginning. Say all you want about our 15:21 nation's vision for freedom and liberty and justice, but you have to understand it only applied to the 15:27 Founding Fathers in their eyes. Because the same Founding Fathers who preached liberty had slaves in their homes. 15:37 They used slaves to get rich, and slaves for their own sexual desires. Read about Thomas Jefferson, 15:45 third president of the United States. Read about his black family with Sally Hemings. Read about Senator Strom Thurmond, 15:53 one of the great voices of Jim Crowe laws and segregation. He was a governor of South Carolina, elected to the senate. 16:01 He was opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, yet he carried the secret of having a black child born 16:06 when a black mother was 16 years of age. But the Bible does not focus on skin color as a form of 16:20 criterion for the love of God. All have sinned, all have come short of the glory of God. All are 16:32 the recipients of God's grace through Jesus Christ. For Jesus, all lives matter. Red and yellow, 16:41 black and white, all are precious in His sight. Jesus said in the text, "Thou shalt love 16:47 the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all they soul and with all thy mind. This is the first 16:53 and great commandment. The second is liken to it, thou shall love they neighbor as thy" what? 16:58 Aud.: Self. "On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets." These two commandments 17:03 we teach are just extensions of the Ten Commandments Law in Exodus. The first four deal with 17:10 our love for God; the final six deal with our love for one another. In the text, "great," 17:16 in essence, means greatest. The text says that the first and the greatest commandment was to love God. 17:23 So the Pharisees exalted the first four commandments as being more important than the last six. 17:29 But they failed, when it came to matters of practical religion. Don't be so heavily minded that 17:38 you're no earthly good. Don't be so enthralled by theory that you forget application. 17:44 Don't be so engrossed in religion that you don't understand relationship. Don't be so entrenched 17:51 in legalism that you don't know what it means to love. Well, you weren't married. You slept around. 17:59 You got pregnant. The law says, put you out of the church. But don't judge somebody just because 18:10 they sin differently than you. [Aud. reaction] What happened to the love that would bring that 18:17 person back to the church? Yes, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, but you've got to love each other, 18:25 too. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thy homeless neighbor; thy black neighbor; thy white neighbor; 18:38 that Muslim neighbor; that Jewish neighbor; that Christian neighbor; that Catholic neighbor, 18:46 that Baptist neighbor; that COGIC neighbor; that Methodist neighbor; that homeless neighbor; 18:55 that addicted neighbor; that atheistic neighbor; that agnostic neighbor; that adulterous neighbor; 19:03 that lying neighbor; that gossiping neighbor. Thou shalt thy neighbor as thyself. 19:13 Jesus here quotes from Leviticus 19:18, where "neighbor" refers to a fellow Israelite. 19:19 But Jesus widened the definition of neighbor to include all who are in need of help. This was 19:23 illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan. A Jew was attacked by thieves. The priest passed him by. 19:31 The Levite passed him by. But it was the Samaritan who stopped by to help him. This is what it 19:42 means to love somebody as yourself. To love regardless of color. To love and help, regardless of class. 19:51 To be selfless in dealing with others. Don't get it twisted. To love God was the first commandment, 19:59 because for you to be selfless with others, you've got to first love God. 20:04 Every day someone's asking the same question: Is God hiding His face from our problems? 20:11 Why do bad things happen to good people? Does God really hold my destiny in His hands? 20:20 The Breath of Life ministry has the perfect answer in a beautiful new book called 20:26 "How Can I Understand the Bible?" This helpful book explores the Bible, its history, 20:32 meaning and impact in a way that will help unlock its powerful message for you today. 20:40 Its your gift free with your donation of any amount. 20:43 Contact us at www.BreathofLife.t v. Or call us at 1 (877) 265-633 3. Now, 20:54 back to Dr. Byrd with a message already in progress. 20:59 When you love God, you can't help but love others. When you love God you can't help 21:04 but love black people. When you love God, you can't help but love white people, 21:08 red people and yellow people. When you love God, all lives matter. If we're not 21:14 here for God, we can't be here for each other. If we don't love God, we can't love each other. 21:20 If we're not right with God, we cannot demonstrate integrity toward each other. If we are not 21:25 thoroughly related to God's Word, instructed by God's Word, energized by God's Spirit, 21:31 motivated by God's love, guided by God's hand, strengthened by God's power and saved by God's grace, 21:39 we cannot be connected to the human family, members of the church family, or active in the political family. 21:48 Today, all lives matter. A doctrine of black supremacy is just as evil, Martin King said, 22:00 as a doctrine of white supremacy. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 22:07 with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 22:14 This is the first and great commandment, and the second is liken to it. So if your Christian 22:19 life were a door swinging on two hinges, they would number one be loving God, and number two loving your neighbor. 22:28 All the rest of Christianity swings on those two hinges. Love thy neighbor. 22:37 God said, Moses wrote it, Paul explained it, and Jesus quoted it. A person can 22:49 be a good Hindu and be immoral at the same time. A person can be a Muslim and have 22:56 a multiplicity of wives at the same time. A person can be a Buddhist and be a first-class liar. 23:03 But you can't be a Christian if you don't love your neighbor, and that's why all lives matter. 23:13 Because you've got to love everybody. This is not radical. This is not revolutionary. This is not new. 23:23 Just love everybody. Is not every man our brother? Is not every woman our sister, who has accepted Jesus 23:33 as their personal Savior? Christ is not the Savior of any particular class or race. 23:40 [Aud. reaction] Jesus is the Savior of the human race. He's the Savior for everybody, and because 23:50 He died for everybody, all lives matter. The gospel Commission of Jesus is given without regard to race, 24:00 color or condition. Jesus came to the world to save sinners. Not white sinners, not black sinners, 24:08 not red or yellow sinners, but all sinners. The Christians at Galatia were divided on this issue. 24:15 So Paul told them: "Whereas many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 24:21 But there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, 24:24 for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." And so the motif that all lives matter, and we must love our neighbor, 24:35 must begin in the church. In the household of faith. It must begin in God's house. The end of racism 24:49 and classism must begin in the church. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about, 24:57 'cause I'm about to bowl down somebody's lane right now. Today, I'm not speaking a foreign language. 25:04 There's racism in the church. There's classism in the church. Whites versus blacks; blacks versus whites; 25:16 African Americans versus West Indians. Preach, Pastor Byrd. I'm doing the best I can. 25:24 [Aud. reaction] PB: West Indians versus African Americans. It must stop! 25:32 [Aud. reaction] Because it's not so much where you come from, but where you're going to. 25:39 Because the truth of the matter is we all came from Africa; we just got dropped off on 25:45 different slave ships in different places. Let me be clear: I respect, I admire and 25:58 I appreciate who I am. I'm a black man, and I'm proud of it. My ice is as cold as anybody's. 26:09 I'm a black man. Call me an African American man, I'm proud of that. And let me throw this in. 26:18 I was reading, and I believe Carolyn Ann Knight when she says, "Many of us struggle with low self-esteem, 26:25 because we are more familiar with the American side of who we are than the African side." 26:31 [Aud. reaction] She says, "We need to get in touch with the African side of our identity; 26:38 then we will know that we come from a great family structure, where men are kings, women are queens, 26:46 children affirm every aspect of their identity. We need to remember the great ancient cities that we built, 26:55 the many contributions that we made to science and medicine, literature, the arts, religion and business. 27:02 We need to get in touch with the African side to know we are a great people." She says, "We are a great 27:09 people with a great history." She says, "We've got to stop reciting the failure studies that have been done 27:16 in our communities. We must never forget that God has always done great things." I said, great things! 27:25 [Aud. reaction] Through Africans. They gave us straw; we gave them bricks. They gave us seeds; 27:33 we gave them cotton. They gave us sorrows; we gave them songs. They gave us pain; we gave them poems. 27:43 They gave us trouble; we turned it into a testimony. They gave us segregation; we gave them Spellman. 27:51 They gave us misery; we gave them Morehouse. They gave us terror; we gave them Tuskegee. They gave us failures; 27:58 we called it Fisk. And I'll throw this in: they gave us opposition but we created Oakwood. 28:06 Thank you for joining us for another exciting broadcast. We'd like you to partner with us, 28:11 as we offer the breath of life to dying world. All of our sermon titles and DVDs can be purchased 28:18 at www.BreathofLife.tv. Until next time, God loves you. |
Revised 2015-02-20