William C. Turner, Jr. - "The Voice from the Bowels" (January 17, 1999)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | It's from the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter one. | 0:03 |
The next day, he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, | 0:07 | |
"Here is the Lamb of God | 0:11 | |
"Who takes away the sin of the world. | 0:12 | |
"This is He of Whom I said | 0:15 | |
"after me comes a Man who ranks ahead of me | 0:17 | |
"because He was before me. | 0:20 | |
"I myself did not know Him, | 0:22 | |
"but I came baptizing with water for this reason, | 0:24 | |
"that He might be revealed to Israel." | 0:27 | |
And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven | 0:30 | |
"like a dove, and it remained on Him. | 0:34 | |
"I myself did not know Him, | 0:37 | |
"but the One who sent me to baptize with water said to me, | 0:39 | |
"He on Whom you see the Spirit descend and remain | 0:44 | |
"is the One who baptizes with Holy Spirit, | 0:47 | |
"and I myself have seen and have testified | 0:50 | |
"that this is the Son of God." | 0:53 | |
The next day, John again was standing | 0:55 | |
with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, | 0:57 | |
he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God." | 1:02 | |
The two disciples heard him say this, | 1:06 | |
and they followed Jesus. | 1:08 | |
When Jesus turned and saw them following, He said to them, | 1:10 | |
"What are you looking for?" | 1:13 | |
They said to Him, "Rabbi," which translated means teacher. | 1:15 | |
"Where are you staying?" | 1:19 | |
He said to them, "Come and see." | 1:20 | |
They came and saw where He was staying, | 1:23 | |
and they remained with Him that day. | 1:25 | |
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. | 1:27 | |
One of the two who heard John speak | 1:30 | |
and followed Him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. | 1:32 | |
He first found his brother Simon and said to him, | 1:35 | |
"We have found the Messiah," which is translated anointed. | 1:38 | |
He brought Simon to Jesus, Who looked at him and said, | 1:41 | |
"You are Simon, son of John. | 1:44 | |
"You are to be called Cephas," which is translated Peter. | 1:46 | |
This is the Word of the Lord. | 1:49 | |
(congregation responds) | 1:52 | |
- | Good morning, I greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus. | 2:10 |
Let me read in your hearing verse one from Isaiah 49. | 2:17 | |
I'm reading this from the Authorized Version. | 2:23 | |
Listen, oh isles, unto me, | 2:28 | |
and hearken, ye people from afar. | 2:34 | |
The Lord hath called me from the womb. | 2:38 | |
From the bowels of my mother | 2:42 | |
hath He made mention | 2:46 | |
of my name. | 2:49 | |
Let us pray. | 2:51 | |
God, be merciful unto us and bless us. | 2:54 | |
Cause Your face to shine upon us | 2:57 | |
that Your way may be known upon the earth, | 3:00 | |
Your saving health to all generations. | 3:02 | |
Send the power of the Holy Ghost | 3:06 | |
upon Your servant and Your people | 3:08 | |
that Your Word may be truly declared and heard. | 3:11 | |
For Christ's sake. | 3:15 | |
Amen. | 3:17 | |
The voice | 3:20 | |
from the bowels. | 3:22 | |
What continues to impress me about this date, | 3:26 | |
Martin Luther King Junior day, King Day, | 3:31 | |
whatever you prefer to call it, is that to my knowledge, | 3:34 | |
this is the only holiday we have in this nation | 3:41 | |
for remembering a preacher. | 3:44 | |
I find that to be particularly satisfying | 3:49 | |
(crowd chuckles) | 3:52 | |
that there is a holiday to remember a preacher, | 3:54 | |
not a politician, | 4:00 | |
not a banker, | 4:02 | |
not a general, | 4:04 | |
not a past President, | 4:06 | |
not a victory in war, but a preacher | 4:09 | |
of the Gospel | 4:14 | |
is remembered | 4:15 | |
and honored | 4:18 | |
on this date. | 4:19 | |
This needs to be stated, in my opinion. | 4:22 | |
This needs to be stated lest the valence on King | 4:24 | |
be kept upon his activism, | 4:29 | |
lest the emphasis be upon him always | 4:32 | |
as a civil rights leader. | 4:36 | |
It is true that there is certain dubious progress | 4:39 | |
that is enjoyed in this nation in race relations | 4:43 | |
that can be traced largely to his public ministry, | 4:46 | |
to his tenure, but he was ever so clear in the matter. | 4:51 | |
What motivated him more than all else was his love | 4:56 | |
of the prophet of Nazareth. | 5:00 | |
The prophet of Nazareth gave him the calling | 5:04 | |
and gave him the vocation, | 5:08 | |
gave him the direction in which his life was to move, | 5:10 | |
and it was his determination to his dying day | 5:16 | |
to do the will of God. | 5:20 | |
With what was nearly his last breath, | 5:23 | |
he intoned these words. | 5:25 | |
"Like anyone else, I would like to live a long time. | 5:27 | |
"Longevity has its place, but I've been to the mountaintop. | 5:32 | |
"I've viewed the Promised Land. | 5:37 | |
"What I want to do now is to do God's will." | 5:40 | |
There's a sense in which this is not one voice | 5:46 | |
that we hear from King, not one voice at all. | 5:50 | |
It is a collective voice. | 5:53 | |
That is the nature of the truly prophetic voice | 5:56 | |
is it is a collective voice, not just one voice. | 6:01 | |
The question can be asked incessantly but without answers | 6:06 | |
why this young man named Martin | 6:10 | |
and why this particular time in the history of the nation? | 6:13 | |
Good an orator as he was, | 6:20 | |
he was not without peers. | 6:22 | |
Keen as his mind was, | 6:26 | |
it was clearly a matter | 6:29 | |
of commonly shared knowledge that he articulated for us. | 6:32 | |
He spoke from a common fund of ideas. | 6:37 | |
He spoke from a fund of folk knowledge, | 6:41 | |
theological wisdom, and social philosophy | 6:44 | |
that came from a common fund. | 6:47 | |
Tropes and cadences from his speeches and writings | 6:52 | |
are not original | 6:56 | |
to him. | 6:59 | |
They are not unique with him. | 6:59 | |
He was called forth | 7:02 | |
from deep within the collective consciousness, | 7:04 | |
or should I say the collective unconsciousness | 7:09 | |
of the nation? | 7:13 | |
For that he still speaks, | 7:15 | |
and we do well to still hear his voice | 7:18 | |
as the voice | 7:22 | |
from the bowels. | 7:25 | |
Now Dean Willimon informed me just awhile ago | 7:28 | |
that to his knowledge and research, | 7:31 | |
this is the first time the word bowels | 7:34 | |
has been used in this chapel. | 7:39 | |
(crowd chuckles) | 7:42 | |
And I assured him that I took it straight from the text. | 7:44 | |
I remain a lover of the King James Version | 7:49 | |
even though I read and study other versions. | 7:53 | |
There's something about the graphic descriptions | 7:56 | |
that are given there that are hard to surpass. | 7:59 | |
A pattern. | 8:05 | |
A pattern for this sort of calling, | 8:05 | |
the calling that we see in King, | 8:07 | |
is given to us in this text, | 8:12 | |
in the text that we have before us, | 8:15 | |
this prophet of record, comes from deep within the bowels, | 8:17 | |
deep within the womb | 8:23 | |
of the nation. | 8:26 | |
He spoke with depth and with passion. | 8:27 | |
He was not free | 8:30 | |
to start and to stop when he got ready. | 8:32 | |
He declared his authority. | 8:36 | |
He justified his plea to be heard | 8:39 | |
as he spoke to the isles of the sea | 8:43 | |
and to people who were afar. | 8:46 | |
The account he gives of himself is within a space | 8:50 | |
of ministry | 8:54 | |
where he felt that his labor was in vain. | 8:56 | |
Folks seemed not to be listenin'. | 9:00 | |
I declare I can identify with the prophet too. | 9:03 | |
The labor appeared to be in vain | 9:07 | |
as he said it. | 9:11 | |
His observation suggested the Word was returning void. | 9:12 | |
It was going forth and coming back, | 9:16 | |
and nothing was happening. | 9:18 | |
His strength was being spent for nothing. | 9:20 | |
Hear if you can his insistence | 9:25 | |
as he recounts his conversation with God, | 9:29 | |
the God who made his mouth like a sharp sword | 9:32 | |
and fashioned him as a polished arrow | 9:37 | |
and then hid him in the shadow of His hand. | 9:41 | |
The Lord makes it clear | 9:45 | |
that the manner of the formation leaves no option | 9:46 | |
concerning his vocation | 9:50 | |
and the requirement that he obey. | 9:52 | |
His work is to restore the preserved of Israel. | 9:56 | |
He was formed for this work, | 10:01 | |
he says, | 10:04 | |
in his mother's womb, | 10:05 | |
in the bowels, | 10:09 | |
in the innermost being. | 10:11 | |
His vocation | 10:14 | |
was given in that mysterious, | 10:16 | |
secret place where the work of creation is done. | 10:20 | |
Yes, the place is the womb, | 10:25 | |
but it is murkier than that. | 10:29 | |
It is the bowels, | 10:33 | |
the bowels, | 10:37 | |
where the vocation is given. | 10:38 | |
The preparation of this prophet came | 10:42 | |
long before the moment of his agency, | 10:44 | |
long before the moment of his consent. | 10:48 | |
In this he is like the prophet Jeremiah, | 10:50 | |
who charged God with taking advantage of him. | 10:53 | |
Lord, You took advantage of me | 10:56 | |
because You knew I was just a child. | 10:58 | |
It's almost as if the Lord takes delight | 11:01 | |
in answering Jeremiah to say, | 11:03 | |
"You don't know the half, buddy. | 11:05 | |
"It's worse than you thought. | 11:07 | |
"Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you." | 11:10 | |
In this case, the Lord initiates this line of conversation, | 11:15 | |
telling the prophet of his prenatal appointment, | 11:20 | |
an appointment that shall not be revoked, | 11:25 | |
a calling that cannot be reversed. | 11:28 | |
He tells him of this appointment | 11:32 | |
and has reference to how he is immersed in the very life | 11:35 | |
of the people | 11:41 | |
in the bowels. | 11:43 | |
In the bowels. | 11:46 | |
We are well within the series of Servant Songs here. | 11:49 | |
They are contained in the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, | 11:53 | |
but nowhere do we see the name Isaiah of Jerusalem | 11:57 | |
in these Servant Songs. | 12:01 | |
Rather, we see a prophet | 12:04 | |
who claims to have been called by God prenatally | 12:06 | |
from the bowels of his mother. | 12:10 | |
Mention is made of his name by God in that secret place, | 12:12 | |
but the name is not mentioned. | 12:17 | |
The name is not given to us. | 12:20 | |
Prophecy is included in the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, | 12:22 | |
and it does sound similar themes. | 12:26 | |
The Holy One of Israel | 12:29 | |
is not limited | 12:32 | |
to being a territorial deity. | 12:34 | |
Rather, the God of Abraham is the ruler of all nations, | 12:38 | |
yea, even the isles | 12:41 | |
of the sea. | 12:44 | |
This God of all nations establishes justice, | 12:46 | |
may raise even those | 12:51 | |
who have not yet come to know the true and the living God | 12:52 | |
as instruments of righteousness. | 12:57 | |
The day will come | 13:01 | |
when the knowledge of God will fill the whole earth. | 13:02 | |
These are the themes | 13:06 | |
in this scroll, | 13:09 | |
but this prophet is simply called a servant of the Lord, | 13:11 | |
a name that can easily be substituted | 13:17 | |
for a collective person | 13:19 | |
and for the vocation of Israel, | 13:23 | |
but that's who Israel is. | 13:27 | |
Not one person, | 13:31 | |
but a collection of persons. | 13:34 | |
Not one pattern, but many patterns. | 13:37 | |
Indeed, contradictory patterns can be seen in Israel, | 13:41 | |
the servant of the Lord. | 13:45 | |
Israel was a trickster | 13:47 | |
and a prince, | 13:50 | |
the brother of Esau and the father of a great nation. | 13:52 | |
That's who Israel was, | 13:58 | |
the one whom God brought out of bondage | 14:00 | |
in the land of Egypt. | 14:02 | |
Israel was also the people who stumbled | 14:05 | |
in the face of giants and said, | 14:08 | |
"We look in our own eyes as if we are grasshoppers." | 14:10 | |
There were | 14:16 | |
a people in this place, | 14:17 | |
in this space, | 14:20 | |
in this time, who were a handful of nobodies, | 14:21 | |
but God raised them up. | 14:25 | |
They were faithless. | 14:28 | |
They were a murmuring band | 14:30 | |
who were stiff-necked and rebellious. | 14:32 | |
So you get it in this prophecy, | 14:35 | |
the tension between chastisement and comfort, | 14:37 | |
a calling that is high and a tug that is base, | 14:42 | |
a destiny that is grand | 14:48 | |
and a tendency that is | 14:50 | |
terrible. | 14:53 | |
Consider the image here, the image of the bowels. | 14:54 | |
Consider if you can, if you will, | 14:58 | |
the growling of the stomach, | 15:02 | |
the sensation which it communicates, the sound, | 15:06 | |
the urges, the issues, | 15:11 | |
the promptings | 15:14 | |
that cannot be ignored. | 15:16 | |
Have you ever been embarrassed | 15:19 | |
by the growling of your stomach? | 15:22 | |
You're sitting beside someone, | 15:25 | |
and your stomach starts making noise, | 15:26 | |
and everybody's looking | 15:28 | |
to see where the noise is coming from. | 15:29 | |
You look like you know it's not coming from you, | 15:32 | |
but you know it is. | 15:34 | |
(crowd chuckles) | 15:35 | |
Or have you ever witnessed | 15:37 | |
the emergency nature | 15:40 | |
of childbirth? | 15:42 | |
Ready or not, here I come. | 15:45 | |
I remember when one of my children was born. | 15:47 | |
My wife said, "I'm not ready yet." | 15:50 | |
She said, "I've got some more things to do." | 15:51 | |
And I said, "Well, I don't think that really matters." | 15:53 | |
Before the day was over, the baby was here. | 15:56 | |
That's the emergency nature of the prophetic word. | 15:59 | |
The truly prophetic word is not a word | 16:04 | |
that can be withheld at will, | 16:07 | |
nor is it just the word of an individual. | 16:11 | |
It is the word of one who is produced | 16:16 | |
from within the bowels | 16:20 | |
of a people, quite apart from the presentation | 16:22 | |
that is preferred for public display. | 16:26 | |
The time comes | 16:30 | |
when what is really on the inside | 16:32 | |
must come forth, | 16:36 | |
and that is the nature of the word | 16:38 | |
that came forth from King. | 16:41 | |
This section of the book of Isaiah is the foundation | 16:45 | |
for the prophetic understanding of history, | 16:48 | |
for the prophetic understanding of God's ways in the world. | 16:52 | |
There's a sense in which this understanding is the principle | 16:57 | |
for including the text that we have before us | 17:02 | |
in the material that is contained in the scroll. | 17:06 | |
It's consistent with this notion of hoping | 17:09 | |
against the odds, | 17:13 | |
reading the prognostications, and then dissenting, | 17:16 | |
consulting the power vendors | 17:21 | |
and following an opposite course. | 17:23 | |
This was the pattern of Isaiah of Jerusalem. | 17:26 | |
He counseled the kings in precisely the opposite direction | 17:29 | |
from what power politics would have recommended. | 17:35 | |
The prophet comes from the bowels, I tell you, | 17:39 | |
and for that, | 17:42 | |
he has heard the growling | 17:44 | |
and can announce God's Word with authority, | 17:47 | |
with the authority of intimate knowledge. | 17:50 | |
King was and is more than an isolated, lone voice. | 17:54 | |
Within his own image flowed the blood of slaves. | 17:59 | |
Within the church of his nurture | 18:04 | |
was a prophetic protesting stream. | 18:07 | |
In the church that nurtured him, | 18:12 | |
history is not merely the march of God | 18:15 | |
that you read positively from the script on the newspaper, | 18:18 | |
but history is an arena, a stage in which God contests | 18:22 | |
for justice and in which God brings forth righteousness | 18:28 | |
and vindicates those who are oppressed. | 18:32 | |
Within the American church and the American nation | 18:35 | |
are claims concerning being a light, | 18:39 | |
claims concerning liberty and justice, | 18:43 | |
but there is also within the American nation | 18:47 | |
and the American church certain Nietzschean notions | 18:52 | |
that would say we ought to hasten | 18:57 | |
the demise of the weak, | 19:00 | |
that we should not be co-conspirators | 19:03 | |
in prolonging their tragedy. | 19:07 | |
There is a mean religious conservatism | 19:10 | |
that is no more than a thinly veiled Darwinism, | 19:13 | |
and there is the haunting horror of the sophistry | 19:19 | |
that can lead to the conclusion | 19:24 | |
that God created some to be masters | 19:26 | |
and some to be slaves. | 19:29 | |
In King, we get a glimpse of the true mix, | 19:33 | |
what's really in the bowels, | 19:37 | |
who we really are when you mix it all up. | 19:40 | |
He is the son, the grandson, | 19:45 | |
of slaves. | 19:49 | |
Indeed, one biographer tells the story of a grandmother | 19:50 | |
who was incensed when her children were being mistreated | 19:54 | |
by a slavemaster, and she was a tough woman. | 19:58 | |
She jumped the man | 20:01 | |
who was mistreating the children and beat him. | 20:02 | |
She attacked him and broke his nose | 20:05 | |
and then stood back and said, "Who's the next | 20:07 | |
"to come get some of this?" | 20:10 | |
We see that temperament in his father | 20:12 | |
who would not knuckle under, who would not give in | 20:14 | |
to the segregation, to the reign of Jim Crow in Atlanta | 20:18 | |
during the days of King's youth. | 20:22 | |
We see this even in the pugnacity | 20:25 | |
that caused Michael King to change his name | 20:28 | |
and the name of the young son from Michael to Martin Luther | 20:31 | |
in memory of that great protestor, | 20:37 | |
in memory of the one who stood for his faith | 20:39 | |
and his belief. | 20:44 | |
It's important to note | 20:45 | |
that King was a man of relative privilege. | 20:47 | |
He was not rich by the nation's standards. | 20:50 | |
There's a sense in which he was barely middle class | 20:54 | |
even by the standards of his own people, | 20:56 | |
but he was not from the hardcore poverty class. | 20:59 | |
He was educated. | 21:04 | |
He was trained. | 21:05 | |
So were his parents, and for this, | 21:06 | |
he had been exposed to the ideas that resonated | 21:08 | |
within the life of the African American church | 21:12 | |
and the larger nation as well. | 21:15 | |
This was a plus for him, | 21:18 | |
but it entitled him to know what was truly in the mix | 21:20 | |
of the bowels of this nation called America | 21:25 | |
and the church that exists upon these shores. | 21:29 | |
How do the factors that create the republic mix | 21:34 | |
in the bowels? | 21:38 | |
They mix in this way. | 21:39 | |
There is slavery and oppression | 21:40 | |
alongside wealth and power. | 21:44 | |
Religion and race are intertwined. | 21:47 | |
So are politics and populism. | 21:51 | |
What is the real mix? | 21:55 | |
What is really in the bowels? | 21:57 | |
It's not all that pretty, | 22:00 | |
and it doesn't always smell so nice, | 22:03 | |
but that's where the fuel | 22:07 | |
for the body is given. | 22:10 | |
That's where the energy is manufactured. | 22:12 | |
That's where we are regulated, | 22:16 | |
and it is within the bowels that we have our contact | 22:19 | |
with nature and our feet truly touch the ground. | 22:25 | |
That's the place where the prophets emerge, | 22:29 | |
where life touches its limit, where people are on the edge, | 22:33 | |
where the tensions and contradictions are all around, | 22:39 | |
and God is the One | 22:42 | |
Who must speak to give clarity. | 22:45 | |
In King, we see what the nation really is, | 22:49 | |
what the church really is, | 22:52 | |
a heritage of freedom and bondage. | 22:55 | |
Tensions are present | 22:59 | |
between a reactionary tendency and protest. | 23:00 | |
Tension is present | 23:05 | |
between a reactionary tendency and protest. | 23:06 | |
On the other hand, and a critical tradition | 23:09 | |
that has the loftiest altitude. | 23:13 | |
On the one hand, there's a craven spirit | 23:16 | |
that defends the most brutal and demonic ways | 23:20 | |
that can be imagined in the history of humankind. | 23:23 | |
Then on the other hand are some of the grandest words | 23:28 | |
and deeds that can ever be spoken. | 23:32 | |
There is the intermixing of the races | 23:36 | |
alongside a social theory of racial separation. | 23:40 | |
There is evidence of black excellence | 23:45 | |
alongside a theory of white supremacy. | 23:49 | |
So King comes from the bowels, from the true mix | 23:53 | |
of who we really are, from the bundle of life | 23:58 | |
that is on the inside, from the stuff of life. | 24:02 | |
There is a way to hear this prophet | 24:07 | |
so that the growling of the bowels is muted. | 24:10 | |
There is a rendition that is triumphal, that is tame, | 24:14 | |
that is antiseptic, that is glorious. | 24:17 | |
There is a way of sidestepping the murkiness. | 24:21 | |
One of the great disservices we do to King | 24:24 | |
is when we tidy him up and remove all the prophetic edge | 24:26 | |
from his life. | 24:31 | |
Similarly with the celebrations of his life | 24:33 | |
that focus only on him as a civil rights activist. | 24:36 | |
What's in the bowels? | 24:41 | |
There's pain. | 24:43 | |
There is hypocrisy. | 24:44 | |
There's anguish of the same sort against which he cried. | 24:46 | |
It has not left. | 24:49 | |
It is with us even now. | 24:53 | |
If we would worship God, the Father of our Lord Jesus | 24:56 | |
as we celebrate the life of King, | 25:01 | |
this growling of the bowels must not be muted. | 25:04 | |
It is not pretty. | 25:10 | |
It does not smell sweet. | 25:12 | |
We see it in the terror of the children. | 25:15 | |
We hear it in the horrors of the cities. | 25:19 | |
We smell it in overcrowded jails. | 25:23 | |
We see it in the end of farming as a viable form of life. | 25:26 | |
We hear it in the plight of the unemployable. | 25:32 | |
We smell it in the captivity of the poor. | 25:37 | |
We see and hear it | 25:42 | |
in an impeachment trial | 25:44 | |
that formerly is about truth and abuse of power, | 25:47 | |
but we smell it in the hypocrisy | 25:52 | |
over which sinner can cast a stone at another sinner, | 25:56 | |
and the air of déjà vu surrounding the contest | 26:01 | |
of party politics and which social philosophy shall prevail. | 26:05 | |
With the prophetic reading of history there is a clear bias. | 26:11 | |
As King put it, the arc of the universe is long, | 26:17 | |
but it is bent toward justice. | 26:22 | |
He was clear in his understanding | 26:26 | |
that one knows the will of God | 26:29 | |
not primarily from what struts across the stage of history | 26:32 | |
but from what has been given in the prophetic word. | 26:37 | |
That word declares, "Thus saith the Lord, | 26:42 | |
"in an acceptable time have I heard thee. | 26:46 | |
"In a day of salvation have I helped thee. | 26:51 | |
"I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant | 26:55 | |
"of the people to establish the earth, | 26:59 | |
"to cause to inherit the desolate heritage | 27:02 | |
"that thou mayest say to the prisoner, Go forth. | 27:05 | |
"Them that are in darkness, Show yourselves. | 27:09 | |
"They shall feed in the ways, | 27:13 | |
"and their pastures shall be in all high places. | 27:15 | |
"They shall not hunger nor thirst, | 27:19 | |
"neither shall the heat nor the sun smite them | 27:22 | |
"for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them. | 27:26 | |
"Even by the springs of water shall He guide them, | 27:30 | |
"and I will make all my mountains a way, | 27:35 | |
"and my highway shall be exalted." | 27:38 | |
King heard this prophet, this unnamed prophet. | 27:43 | |
Yea, he took his name. | 27:46 | |
He intoned with him, "Every valley shall be exalted. | 27:49 | |
"Every mountain shall be made low, | 27:53 | |
"and the crooked shall be made straight, | 27:56 | |
"and the rough places plain, | 27:58 | |
"and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, | 28:00 | |
"and all flesh shall see it together | 28:04 | |
"for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. | 28:07 | |
"He giveth power to the faint, | 28:11 | |
"and to them that hath no might, He increaseth strength. | 28:13 | |
"Even the youth shall faint and be weary, | 28:17 | |
"and the young men shall utterly fall, | 28:21 | |
"but they that wait upon the Lord | 28:23 | |
shall renew their strength. | 28:26 | |
"They shall mount up on wings like eagles. | 28:29 | |
"They shall run and not be weary. | 28:31 | |
"They shall walk and not faint." | 28:34 | |
This prophet points us forward. | 28:38 | |
There's a real sense in which King points us backward, | 28:42 | |
backward to a voice | 28:46 | |
that commingles with his own, | 28:48 | |
the voice of the baptizer | 28:52 | |
who bids us to behold the Lamb of God | 28:53 | |
Who takes away the sin | 28:58 | |
of the world. | 29:01 | |
The baptizer said, "I baptize you with water, | 29:03 | |
"but One Who comes after me can baptize you | 29:06 | |
"with the Spirit and give the power | 29:10 | |
"that transforms your days and your ways, | 29:14 | |
"that gives you power to be one | 29:19 | |
"who with Him can open the blinded eyes | 29:22 | |
"and unstop the deaf ears." | 29:26 | |
And indeed, there can be | 29:29 | |
an acceptable year | 29:32 | |
of the Lord. | 29:35 | |
Let this year be acceptable | 29:37 | |
in the sight | 29:41 | |
of our God. | 29:43 |
Item Info
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