Participants:
Series Code: BOL
Program Code: BOL000683S
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00:01 (Breath of Life Theme Music)
00:06 Sermon #B683 - You Must Take A Stand 00:20 Dr. Byrd: If you have your Bibles, take them with me to the Book of Daniel. 00:24 Daniel chapter three, verses sixteen and seventeen. Daniel chapter three, verses sixteen and seventeen. 00:34 We are going to read today from the King James Version of the Bible, Daniel chapter three, verses sixteen, 00:41 seventeen, and eighteen. Daniel chapter three, verses sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. 00:46 I am reading and you are hearing the word of God says, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 00:50 answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 01:01 If it be so, our God whom we serve, he is able," hallelujah, 01:11 "to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace." Verse eighteen: 01:15 "But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, 01:25 nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." 01:31 Today, I want to take this text and I want to challenge you with the message today. 01:37 You must take a stand. You must take a stand. 01:46 We thought with the election of Barack Obama as the first president of the United States that we had entered 01:52 a post-racial age, that Jim Crow was over, that the segregated South was done, that racism was behind us, 02:04 but that was our problem. We thought. We did not think that after the senseless killings of Trayvon Martin, 02:11 Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, 02:23 Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile that racism was surely over, but that was our problem. 02:32 We thought. Then, Ahmaud Arbery was shot while jogging, Breonna Taylor was shot while sleeping, 02:42 and George Floyd had a knee to his neck. We started marching. We started talking. 02:51 We started peacefully protesting. We thought that the message was getting across, 02:58 that people of color were being unjustly targeted, marginalized, and killed, but that was our problem. 03:08 We thought. 03:10 This week, here we go again. Jacob Blake is at a party in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 03:21 There is a domestic disturbance at the party. The police are called. 03:29 When the police arrived, Jacob Blake goes to his car. He is unarmed. 03:36 His three children are waiting for him in the car ready to go home. A police officer follows him. 03:46 Jacob Blake is getting in his car. The police officer grabs him by his shirt 03:54 and then he shoots him not once, not twice, but seven times in his back. 04:02 His children witnessed and watched all of this. 04:06 Jacob Blake is now in the hospital paralyzed from the waist down, and up until yesterday, 04:14 he was cuffed to his hospital bed. Imagine that. You have been shot seven times. 04:22 You are paralyzed from the waist down, but yet you are cuffed to a hospital bed. 04:27 Now, let me be clear today. I am not here to say that Jacob Blake was a perfect man. 04:34 I am not here to say that he had never done anything wrong, but what I am here to say is, 04:41 I am here to take a stand against what was done to him because it was wrong, 04:48 but the police department is trying to say that because he had a knife in his car, 04:52 a knife they did not know he had, by the way, until he told them. 04:55 They are trying to use that as license for shooting him seven times in the back, 05:02 and he is just trying to get in his car but yet it is ironic that that same police 05:08 department did not feel threatened when Kyle Rittenhouse, a seventeen-year-old from another state, 05:15 with a Smith & Wesson AR-15 rifle style was running towards them, rifle in hand, after killing two people, 05:28 wounding another, claiming he was there to restore order and to protect physical property 05:34 but yet he crossed back into the state of Illinois 05:37 because he was allowed to leave while in the presence of police. 05:41 Then, he was not taken into police custody for another twelve hours when he turned himself in. 05:49 In the name of Jesus, he was wrong for killing those two people. 05:55 The police were wrong for shooting Jacob Blake seven times. 06:00 Friends of mine, it is time to take a stand against wrong. 06:05 Now, there are some people who do not want me to preach this. 06:09 There are some people who want me to be quiet. There are some people who have called me everything 06:15 but a child of the most high God. I know after this sermon, I am going to get more letters. 06:21 I am gonna get more emails. Pastors should not protest. Pastors should not march. 06:28 Pastors should not speak against racism. Pastors should just be quiet and pray. 06:33 Yes, I am going to pray, but I cannot be quiet. I will not stop marching. 06:40 I will not stop peacefully protesting. I will not stop speaking up and speaking out. 06:47 I do not care if the organized church says I must stop. I answer to a higher authority. 06:54 I have got God on my side. If God be for us, who can be against us? 07:01 No weapon formed against us is going to prosper. God told me to do justice, 07:06 love mercy, and walk humbly with him. God is on my side. Not only that, 07:12 I have got the spirit of prophecy on my side. Again, Ellen White said in this manuscript release, 07:19 volume eleven, page two hundred twenty-nine, "I was confirmed," she said, 07:23 "in all I had stated in Minneapolis, that a reformation must go through the churches. 07:29 Reforms must be made for spiritual weakness and blindness were upon the people who have been blessed 07:37 with great light and precious opportunities and privileges. 07:41 While we endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace," then White said, 07:46 "we will not with pen or voice cease to protest against bigotry." 07:53 I must take a stand. You must take a stand. Four hundred years ago, we were beaten on our backs. 08:02 Four hundred years later, we are being shot on our backs. We must take a stand. 08:09 I am drawing a line in the sand. Enough is enough, but within the faith community, 08:18 some people within our community feel that if it does not affect us directly, we can be silent, 08:24 but we cannot be silent. If someone does something to someone else, 08:28 it is just a matter of time before they do it to you. 08:31 Jesus said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 08:37 It was Dr. Martin Luther King who said, "In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies 08:43 but the silence of our friends." Racism is wrong. Racism is sin. 08:49 It is time for the people of God to take a stand against sin. 08:54 I do not understand some church folk. I do not understand the so-called people of the good book, 09:01 the so-called saints who can sit idly by and not say anything. 09:06 More than that, I do not understand the saints who speak out against those who speak out against racism, 09:14 but praise God this week for the NBA players. Praise God for the WNBA. Praise God for the NHL. 09:22 Praise God for Major League Baseball. Praise God for Major League Soccer. 09:27 At least they were willing to take a stand. LeBron James spoke. Doc Rivers spoke. 09:35 Kenny Smith walked off the TNT set. They said, "We must make and take a stand." 09:45 Basketball was canceled not because of COVID-19. Basketball was canceled because of racism. 09:52 Today, this cleric, this preacher, I want to know, can the church take a stand? A stand against racism. 10:01 A stand against injustice. A stand against police brutality. A stand against white supremacy. 10:08 Let me tell you something. Every person whether black or white, rich or poor, 10:12 male or female, young or old, educated or uneducated, church member 10:17 or non-church member ought to stand for something. Every person ought to live for something 10:22 and possess some basic principles, some basic beliefs and convictions, 10:26 that he or she is willing to die for. The trouble too many of us is we are too fickle 10:31 or too afraid to commit ourselves too much to anyone calls or course of action. 10:36 Rather than commit ourselves to something that we are willing to back, our lives, our jobs, 10:41 or other symbols of human security, we would rather play it safe with indecision where we do not make 10:48 any choices, but we allow others to make choices for us. 10:50 We rather play it safe with popularity where having people speak well of you means more than the 10:58 integrity of your convictions, or play it safe with convenience where we advocate a cause as long as it 11:04 does not cost us anything, or play it safe where two-facedness, 11:09 where you will say one thing in my face but say another thing in somebody else's face, 11:14 but nobody respects a person who talks out of both sides of their mouth 11:17 or tries to stand on both sides of the fence. Joshua said, "Choose you this day whom you are going to serve. 11:23 " As for me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord. Elijah said on Mount Carmel, 11:30 "How long do you halt between two opinions? If the Lord be God, then follow him." Jesus said, 11:36 "No man can serve two masters: for either you will hate the one and love the other," 11:41 and so you must take a stand. 11:45 Our text teaches us that there are three Hebrew boys who decided to take a stand against the edicts 11:51 of the king, but they found themselves, as a result, in a fiery furnace. 11:54 We are familiar with this story, but sometimes, familiarity breeds contempt. 12:00 Because of this familiarity, it often makes us become silent or forget the power of this story. 12:07 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 12:09 decides that he is going to build a golden image of himself that is 90 feet high and 9 feet wide. 12:14 When the Babylonian orchestra was to begin to play music, everyone was to fall down and worship this image, 12:21 but the Bible says there are three church boys. They are known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 12:28 who refused to bow down. When they do not bow down, Daniel chapter three, 12:33 verse twelve says that some of the king's subjects run to the king and tell him," 12:37 O king, you are a great king. You are the greatest king ever. You have done wonderful things. 12:44 You made a simple request that at the playing of music, everybody was to bow down 12:51 and worship the golden image that you set up. Well, 12:55 those three boys that you set over the affairs of Babylon, 13:00 those three boys that you passed over some of us for, those three boys you promoted before us, 13:06 those three boys that you are always bragging about, those three boys that you are always looking out for, 13:13 well, those three boys did not bow down to your image." 13:16 When Nebuchadnezzar heard of their refusal to bow to the image, 13:19 he flies into a rage and orders them to appear before him. Let that be a lesson for us. 13:25 Whenever we take a stand, whenever we stand for the right, whenever we have to oppose important people, 13:32 kings, queens, presidents, politicians, leaders and even church pillars, sometimes, 13:37 we must be prepared to lay our futures on the line, our lives on the line for what we believe. 13:43 Nebuchadnezzar says in verse fourteen, "Is it true, Shadrach? Is it true, Meshach? 13:50 Is it true, Abednego, that you will not bow down and worship my golden image? Is it true?" 13:58 In other words, the word on the street is that the three of you have defied my decree. 14:04 Now, let me help you here. Nebuchadnezzar says, 14:07 "Do not you know that I am the one who promoted you from nothings to noblemen, 14:12 from the lower class to the upper class? I changed your names. I opened doors for you. 14:20 I know you do not want to cross me, so let me tell you what we are going to do. 14:24 I am going to give you one more chance. Let us just say you did not hear the music. 14:30 Let us just say you were not paying attention. Let us just say you did not fully understand. 14:35 You are from another country and that is why you did not bow down 14:39 because you did not understand what was going on, because if you do not bow down, 14:44 I am going to throw you into a fiery furnace." 14:47 In verse sixteen on text, one of my favorite texts of scripture, they give their response. 14:52 Let me read it to you in verse sixteen. 14:54 "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this manner." Stop right there. 15:03 In other words, we are not scared of you. In other words, we are not intimidated by you. 15:08 We have talked it over. We put a motion on the floor and the vote was unanimous. We ain't bowing. 15:17 This does not take a lot of thoughts. This does not require a lot of discussion. 15:22 No matter what you say, no matter what you do, we are not going to bow. 15:27 Yes, we should be obligated to you. Yes, we should be accountable to you. 15:31 Yes, we should be indebted to you. Yes, we should be loyal to you. Yes, you have elevated us. 15:37 We appreciate what you have done, but we have got a different perspective. 15:42 For every time you opened the door for us, we said thank you, but we praise God. 15:46 Every level you elevated us to, we say thank you, but we praise God. 15:50 Every rank you promoted us to, we say thank you, but we praise God. 15:54 Everything you have given us, we say thank you, but we praise God. In fact, king, we cannot worship you. 16:02 You are just a courier. You are just a conduit. You are just a channel through which God sent our blessing. 16:08 We cannot worship you anymore than we can worship a tree for giving us shade, a cow for giving us milk, 16:14 a bee giving us honey, rain for giving us water. We thank you, but you are not worthy of our praise. 16:21 God and God alone is worthy of our praise. We might love you, but we are not going to worship you. 16:27 We might respect you, but we are not going to worship you. We might honor you, 16:31 but we are not going to worship you. Nebuchadnezzar says, "Look, if you do not bow, 16:36 you are going to burn." 16:38 I love verse seventeen. Look at it. It says, "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able," 16:53 now if I had people in the church, I would say, "Say able." At home, say able. Able. 16:58 To deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 17:06 In other words, throw us into the furnace, and that is okay because, king, 17:12 we serve a god who is able and he will deliver us out of thine hand. 17:18 Verse eighteen: "But if not..." Hallelujah, I shout right there. 17:27 "But if not," the text says, "be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, 17:32 nor worship the golden image which thou has set up." In other words, we know God can save us, 17:38 but if not, we know God can free us; but if not, we know that God can rescue us; 17:47 but if not, we know that God can give us a job; but if not, we know that God can heal us; 17:56 but if not, we know that God can stop the cancer; but if not, we know that God can slow the corona-virus; 18:05 but if not, we know that God can break that habit; but if not, we still will not worship thee. 18:13 We are going to worship the God of Heaven and Earth, the God of Abraham and Isaac, 18:17 the God of Jacob and Joseph, the God of Miriam and Moses, the God of Enoch and Elijah, 18:22 the God of Rachel and Rebecca, the God of my mama and my daddy, the God of you and me, the God of Heaven. 18:30 As a child of God, you got to get to the point in your faith where you will say that even if God does not, 18:37 even if I lose my job, even if I lose my house, even if I lose my car, even if I lose my my friends, 18:46 even if my family does not understand, I may have to stand alone, 18:51 but God is still able because it is not a matter of if God can but it is I know that God will; 18:58 but if not, I am still not bowing down. 19:02 Let me tell you something. I speak in the name of Jesus under the unction of the Holy Ghost, 19:07 no matter what you may be facing today, 19:09 Carlton Byrd is a witness that God is bigger than the stuff you face, 19:13 bigger than your problems, bigger than your circumstances, bigger than your situations, 19:18 bigger than your fears, bigger than your troubles, 19:21 bigger than you because he is God and he has been God longer than you have been you. 19:25 Just ask David and Goliath, ask Noah about an ark and the flood, 19:30 ask Samson about blinded eyes and a temple filled with Philistines, 19:34 ask Moses about a Red Sea, ask Joshua about Jericho's walls, ask Joseph about the pit, 19:41 the prison, and the palace, ask Mary about a virgin having children, 19:45 ask a dying thief about a saving Lord. If you do not get anything else, get this today. 19:52 My God is able. 19:55 Nebuchadnezzar turns the heat up seven times. Why does he do this? 20:02 Ellen White says that Nebuchadnezzar felt it required more than ordinary power to deal with these noblemen. 20:10 Nebuchadnezzar's mind, 20:11 she says, was so strongly impressed that something unusual would interpose on their behalf, 20:17 so he intensified the heat and his strongest men were ordered to deal with them. 20:23 In other words, Nebuchadnezzar sensed that something might happen to come to the aid of the three Hebrew 20:30 boys. My question for you today is simply this, family, how come the enemies of God know the power of God 20:37 and we the people of God act like we do not know the power of God? 20:41 Do not you ever forget that the devil is no match for our God. Put God on the front line of your life 20:47 and watch God win. The Bible says that Nebuchadnezzar threw the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace, 20:54 but before we get excited, before we shout, before we stomp, 20:56 before we clap our hands over the deliverance of God for the three Hebrew boys, 21:00 let us take an important look at verse twenty-three. Because in verse twenty-three, 21:04 when you read it, it tells us that the Bible says that the three Hebrew boys fell to the ground in the 21:11 fiery furnace. 21:13 Look at verse number 23, the Bible is very clear. It says, "And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, 21:19 and Abednego, fell down bound in the midst of the fiery furnace." 21:26 Now, one would think that if they fell to the ground, they were on their way to sure death, 21:35 but somebody knows that man's extremity is God's opportunity. 21:43 Somebody knows that our setbacks are just setups for comebacks. When it seems like you are going to fall, 21:54 that is when Jesus stands up for you. It seemed as if the three Hebrew boys were going to fall, 22:04 but all of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzar says, "Hold up. Wait a minute. 22:11 I thought we had three boys in the fiery furnace." His subjects: "We did." 22:17 "I thought we heated the furnace seven times hotter." His subjects: "We did." 22:22 "Well, why do I see four men loose, walking in the fire, 22:28 and the fourth has the appearance of the Son of God?" Why? 22:33 Because when Jesus shows up, Jesus shows out. When you take a stand for what is right, yes, 22:42 you might get thrown into the fiery furnace but know that Jesus will show up, Jesus will show out, 22:48 Jesus will stand with you, and Jesus will deliver you. We must take a stand. I said we must take a stand. 22:59 A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything. Why are we so afraid to take a stand? 23:07 Some are going to say I am a racist. Some are going to say I spew hate. 23:12 Some are going to say I am trying to divide the church. Some will say I have lost my mind. 23:17 Some are going to write me letters. Some are going to email me. Some are going to try and stymie my career. 23:24 Some are going to try to misrepresent my true intentions. Some are going to try to flat out lie on me. 23:30 Some are going to try to say all manner of evil against me falsely. 23:34 Some are going to even try to make up stuff on me. 23:37 Some are going to try to do whatever they can to shut me up, but I will not be silent. 23:45 I will not be quiet. When police brutality stops, when racial supremacy stops, when overt 23:54 and covert attempts to restrict people from their duly appointed right to the voting booth stops, 24:00 then I will stop. Until then, I will not stop. I will not be quiet. I will not shut up. 24:09 I am not a racist. I am not the one trying to divide the church. 24:14 I am not the one who financed Osama Bin Laden. 24:17 I am not the one who allowed drugs to flow through Afghanistan. 24:21 I am not the one who put Nelson Mandela in prison for twenty-seven years. 24:25 I am not the one who had ignored hundreds of thousands of blacks who were killed in Rwanda. 24:30 I am not the one who conjured up the Tuskegee experiment to kill hundreds of black men, 24:35 injecting them with syphilis. I am not the one who passed Jim Crow laws, segregation laws, 24:40 or apartheid laws. I am not the one who beat John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge simply 24:46 because he wanted black people to have the right to vote. 24:49 I am not the one who assassinated Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Medgar Evers. 24:53 I am not the one who beat Rodney King to death and then got acquitted of the charges. 24:58 I am not the one who killed the nine people in that Charleston Church, Mother Emanuel, 25:04 while they were having prayer meeting. I am not the one who killed Ahmaud Arbery while jogging, 25:09 Breonna Taylor while sleeping. I am not the one who put a knee to George Floyd's neck. 25:14 I am not the one who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back while he was trying to get in his car. 25:22 I am not the one who is trying to end Obamacare which will leave twenty-three million Americans without 25:28 health coverage and make it harder for sick people to get new health coverage at a time 25:32 when the coronavirus is disproportionately impacting black and Latino Americans. 25:37 I am not the one who is trying to create a bureaucratic bottleneck prohibiting the removal of 25:42 confederate monuments in downtown squares claiming the problem is money, 25:47 but then when we raise the money, the monument is still there. 25:49 I am not the one who fired rubber bullets at people who were simply trying to exercise their right to 25:55 peacefully protest in downtown city squares. 25:59 I am just trying to take a stand. 26:01 I am challenging you to take a stand. This is not about black versus white. 26:08 This is about right versus wrong. Racism is wrong. Shooting a man while jogging is wrong. 26:18 Shooting a woman while sleeping is wrong. Shooting a man in the back seven times is wrong. 26:24 Putting a knee to somebody's neck for almost nine minutes is wrong. You must take a stand. 26:32 I must take a stand. My model, my example, my standard, is Jesus. He took a stand. 26:43 He was born in Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger, 26:50 smuggled into Africa reared in Nazareth, baptized in the muddy Jordan, misunderstood by his family, 26:58 put out of the organized Church, arrested in Gethsemane, beaten by an angry, vicious mob, 27:05 condemned by the government, crucified on Calvary, wounded in his side, died on a cross, 27:12 put in a tomb, but he was resurrected from the grave. Ascended back to heaven and 27:18 because I am standing, because you are standing, one day, he is coming to get us where we are standing, 27:24 and I am going to stand, you must stand, because if we do not stand, the church will be eradicated. 27:31 The community will be devastated. The school will be dominated. The world will be disintegrated. 27:36 Our children will be debilitated. The race will be exterminated. The globe will be annihilated. 27:43 You must stand 27:47 Thank you very much for tuning in to this week's Breath of Life broadcast. 27:52 We hope and pray that you've been blessed by Dr. Byrd's inspirational message. 27:56 If you would like to hear this sermon in its entirety, 27:59 please feel free to visit us at www.breathoflife.tv. 28:05 Or, call us at (256) 929-6460. 28:18 Dr. Byrd: Pain, loss, trama, 28:27 in life we experience these things. 28:30 My wife and I have a story, 28:33 we have a testimony of how we lost 28:37 our first born daughter in a horrific car accident. 28:44 We have this new sharing book, its en-titled “Gone.” 28:49 And, in it I want to share with you 28:53 how God has helped me, 28:55 how God has helped my wife, how God has helped us, 29:00 as we had to endure the fact that our first born daughter is gone. 29:08 www.breathoflife.tv 29:14 [END] |
Revised 2020-09-03