Annual address (sermon) to NBCUSA

Annual address (sermon) to NBCUSA

1969 September 10

Terrill, Levi and Jewell

Levi and Jewell Terrill collection

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Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library

Sermons

Introductory Sermon Delivered by Dr. L.M. Terrill, Minister, in the Zion Hill Baptist Church and First Director of the Morehouse School of Religion in the I.T.C. and President, General Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia, Inc. at the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. held at the Municipal Auditorium Kansas City, Missouri September 10, 1969 Subject “Bring Meal”
“Bring Meal” II Kings 4; 41: But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people that they may eat, and there was no harm in the pot.
I

There wasn’t too much difference between the world during the time of Elisha and the prophets at Gilgal and the world during our times. Hunger is nothing new. There is nothing strange about words like poverty, famine, a dearth in the land, and feeding the poor. The basic human needs of man were present then as they are present now. People were hungry then and people are hungry now. There was a famine in the land then and there is a famine in the land now. There was a famine in the midst of plenty then and there is a famine in the midst of plenty now. The voice of the prophet needed to heard then and the voice of the prophet needs to be heard now for survival.

Sensing the need for food, Elisha ordered his servant to set on the great pot and boil pottage for the sons of the prophets. This tremendous task of feeding the poor was assigned to Gehazi, the servant of Elijah, but before Gehazi could act, a young man attempted to take the job away from Gehazi, the servant of Elijah. Look what happened! He went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild[?] vine, and gathered thereof wild[?] gourds, his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage;

He went out to meet the needs of the people without designation and without instructions. He gathered a lap full of wild[?] gourds from a wild vine, brought them back, cut them up into the pot of pottage and poured out for the prophets to eat and all of them were at the brink of death when the cry went up “O man of God, there is death in the pot.” Here we see a vivid example of the great danger of a man who was not selected by God or his prophet, who was uninformed, proceeding to meet the hunger problem of the people.
2 Zeal, good intentions without sufficient instructions, and knowledge and without being chosen are on display here.
A man who doesn’t know many prove dangerous and what gathers, cuts up and prepares for the people to eat may be dangerous and deadly. A man’s burning zeal and good motives and good intentions need knowledge to brace, strengthen and guide his actions. Any man or organization that has a mission in the world should cultivate his personality and his heart, but what about his mind? What about proper teaching and instructions? In this day of technological advances, scientific discoveries which have opened new vistas and avenues of knowledge and broadened the intellectual horizons of men, it is absolutely necessary for the door of the church to be high enough for a man to bring his head into the church as well as his heart and his personality.
The only thing which this young man lacked most was knowledge. He had plenty of zeal, good motives and good intentions, but he lacked sufficient knowledge. God spoke to Israel and to us when he said in the book of Isaiah, “Come, now, and let us reason together, etc.” How can you reason well with God or anybody else without a cultivated mind? Paul said “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Jesus, himself, not only had a great heart and unusual zeal, but he also had a great mind. It took a great mind to produce the beatitudes, the parables, and the teachings and sayings of Jesus. They came out of a great mind. A leader needs a cultivated mind and a leader needs to cultivate the minds of his followers (Illustration of conversation that H.H. Coleman had with a friend of his that he preached for)
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Without proper instructions from his teacher, Elisha, the young man didn’t know where or how to go and gather food for the people to eat. He had good motives, good intentions and a burning zeal, but he didn’t have enough information. Consequently, he almost killed everybody trying to feed them, He almost destroyed them trying to help them. He just didn’t’ know. He didn’t know the difference between a wild gourd and a pumpkin.
There are some social scientists and other specialists who are trying to feed the people properly who don’t know the difference between right and wrong. There are men and organizations like this young man today who are trying to set our American House in order who do not know the difference between a racketeer and a pulpiteer, between law[?] and grace, between justice and mercy, between damnation and salvation, between hell and heaven. Therefore, they frequently damage and destroy people trying to help and save them.
Let us notice what the young man gathered and how much he gathered. He gathered a lap full of wild gourds which were full of poison. Though his motives and intentions were good, the stubborn fact remains that there was death in the pot, a lap full and then a pot full of poison for the prophets to eat. Poison is all right, if you don’t make a whole meal out of it.
The sad part about the prodigal son story is that the boy wasted all of his substance in riotous living. He made a whole meal out of it. The story would have been entirely different if he had used his substance in Godly living.
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Poison needs regulation. Physicians and scientists use strychnine, morphine, cocaine and other poisonous drugs and chemicals, and these poisonous drugs and chemicals prove very helpful because they know how to prescribe them in proper dosage and regulate them.
There is a great deal of poison in our social order and in our world today but in the hands of zealous persons with good intentions, without knowledge and the ability to regulate, these poisons can prove very harmful. But in the hands of trained political, social, economic, and religious scientists these poisons can be controlled and become very useful and beneficial.
Let us look at the things that our untrained zealous leaders have brought us today. They have brought us a world community in which the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, we have the unequal distribution of wealth, racial prejudice, atheism, peonage slavery, murder, a caste system based on color, money and military might, dead churches, struggling schools, mounting unemployment among negroes all out of proportion for that among whites, strikes, boycotts, naked children, hungry widows, undernourished babies, crime, racketeers, profiteers, divorces, unlawful gain, death and hell. The taste of these wild gourds is bitter, nauseating and poisonous. The same poisonous elements are present now, America, in our declining and decaying society as they were in the fall of the Roman Empire as described by Gibbons.
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Jerome Davis, in his book “Capitalism and its Culture” tells us that the poisonous elements in our decaying capitalistic system have even penetrated our church life so strongly that we think of our minister as an executive, an administrator, a money raiser, a go-getter, a good public relations man, rather than a gospel preacher, a physician of souls or a counsellor in whom people can confide and be helped in their moments of great need in this mad and disjointed world.
Our present world situation is in the same category, it seems, as it was during the time of Elisha, and, we too, find ourselves in a great world dilemma. If we eat what our present world leaders have put in this world pot, we will die, and if we don’t eat we will die. What shall we do? Was the cry then and it is the cry now. O, man of God, what shall we do? Shall we have war in the Middle East which could lead to a totally destructive world war? How long shall America hold military vigil over the nations in South-Vietnam and Southeast Asia? Shall we stand idly by while Russia and Red China destroy all of us while destroying themselves? How can a domestic society continue to exist when you have so much starvation in the midst of plenty?
How long can we survive in a world half-slave and half-free? How long can we long exist in a world community in which every effort toward freedom by the oppressed peoples of the world is met with continued exploitation and even bloodshed?
There is a great and urgent need for a summit conference not only between the United States, Russia, and Communist China, but a summit or mountain top conference with God.
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If we go to the summit or the mountain top we have a good chance to hear the voice of Elisha say “Bring meal” and put it in the pot and the prophets can eat unharmed.
What does Elisha mean? He means that we need not throw the wild gourds away, we need not cast aside the young man with the good intentions good motives and a burning zeal; just bring the other ingredient which the young man left behind and nothing and nobody will be lost, for God is not a God of destruction, but a God of salvation. We need not cast aside our education, our progress, our social, political, religious and economic order, nor the persons who administer world affairs. We need to instruct them to go back and bring the meal which they left out.
Our Convention is saying and I am saying to the rulers of America like Elisha said to the young man, years ago, Go back and bring the meal which you have left out. You have left out the meal.
You have left out God, the Truth; Honesty, Justice, Mercy, the Bible, Regeneration, Patience, the Gospel of Love, and self-denial. The Christian Church today like Elisha of Old gives the answer and the solution and that is “Go back and bring the meal.” Bring God in your science, Truth in your mathematics, mercy in your sociology, love in your Economics, regeneration in your biology, the Bible in your Political Government, patience in your chemistry, the Gospel in your Genetics, sacrifice in your medicine, self-denial in your History.
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Unselfish service in your Theology. Go back, young man, said Elisha – Go back, America says our Convention, and bring the meal. The meal will neutralize the poison in the wild gourds and make them eatable and helpful. McKeener, in his book “Social Causation” says that the economic factor in our social structure is out of balance. The “meal” will put balance and equilibrium in our total structure and make us a redeeming, well-balanced social structure and society. The thing we need most in our world pot is meal. Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “One thing thou lackest, Go sell that thou hast and give to the poor and take up your cross and follow me.”
For the meal to be most effective it must be ground up. Not the full grain of corn is needed in our world situation, but ground up meal. Meal which is well ground, crushed and born out of nature’s suffering and humiliation. That’s the kind of meal that is necessary for you social scientists to bring back and the kind of meal it will take to make all of these wild gourds fit to eat. Elisha sent the same man who brought the poison to go back and bring the neutralizing meal, bruised and crushed.
Perfume is the by product of the crushed flower. Quinine comes from the bruised bark of the cinchona tree. Turpentine comes from the wounded pine tree. Salvation comes to us from the bruised and crucified Savior for “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes are we healed.”
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The crushing and bruising process enables Jesus to be both human and divine. Jesus is the son of man, he is the son of God, both in one. He is just as much son of man as though He were not son of God, and is just as much son of God as though we were not son of man. Someone in describing the humanity and divinity of Christ has said, “He was so human, he became weary; He was so divine He said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” He was so human He became hungry; He was so divine He could take five loaves and two fishes and feed five thousand; He was so human He felt the need to pray; He was so divine that in all of His praying there was no confession of sin. He was so human that He had to sleep; He was so divine that He arose from sleep and stilled the roaring tempest. He was so human that He accepted a village girl’s invitation to her wedding; He was so divine that at this wedding He changed water to wine. He was so human that he yearned for human sympathy; He was so divine that he trod the wilderness alone. Jesus is our prophet, priest and king, root out of dry ground, Abraham’s friend, Jacob’s Shiloh, Aaron’s rod, David’s staff, Solomon’s Rose, Jeremiah’s Battle ax, Ezekiel’s wheel, Daniel’s stone, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
He changes your sadness into gladness, your bitterness into sweetness, your darkness into light, your grief into joy, your sin into regeneration, your damnation into salvation, your badness into goodness, your death into life and your hell into heaven.