Luke 6:17, 20-26 2/13/2022 (As built, Amite #484)
A. Level… As in level ground… as in… lower the water level…
B. My brothers and sisters in Christ it’s 1865… now remember the civil war is sixty- one theoretically to sixty-four… but here’s what history doesn’t tell us… it doesn’t tell us that sometimes messages don’t travel fast back in the day… I mean there’s no Facebook… there’s no gossip… there’s no Amite somewhere in-between… good you’re listening… my brothers and sisters in Christ his name is John… John Pemberton… he’s in the war… he is in the battle or the siege of Vicksburg… he is a confederate general… and as a result John will tell you… he said man the war may have ended in Appomattox…but it’s still alive and well on our side of the world… he said man I got to tell you it’s the fight of fights… he said not only did I get caught up in that fight… but now I’m caught up in a fight in a little city called Columbia… it’s in Georgia just outside of Atlanta… he said man this is the statistic for people in the civil war… one third of you will die… one third of you will lose an arm… and eventually die from it… or suffer a wound… one third of you will make it… but it would be with a debilitating injury… that’s the results of the civil war… less than half of one percent make it out free… he said man I’m caught up in this battle… and he said man I get a cut with a sword… he said it almost cuts me in half… he said they bring John to the aid station if you want to call it that… they now have come up with morphine… and they tell John… look… here’s the good news… we got morphine… here’s the bad news… we got morphine… John trying to keep his wits about him… he said look… it’s going to dull the pain…he says you got to take it… you’ll never make it…the problem is… when you finally get well… you’re going to be addicted… and the addiction is every bit as great as the pain… he said somewhere in-between… between you getting finished and getting well… somewhere on that level ground… is where you need to find yourself… you need to jump right then… fair enough… he gets hooked on it… no doubt about it… he said he wouldn’t have made it… he said man I did try to jump off of level ground… but man it didn’t quite work … I had to regroup he said finally… he said when I get out the war and it’s over… so a lot of people… after a while he started understanding how herbs work… and how… different type of nature can come back to aid you… so they used to call him doctor John… now he’s not a doctor… then he wanted to be a pharmacist… but it wasn’t until later… so he decided that if he takes the fresh nuts… and he takes some syrup… and he takes some green things… and he mixes them up… along with this morphine… man it sells well… as a matter of fact he says it got pretty popular… so he gets with a pharmacist… and then they decide to start selling it… the problem is that everybody… really liked it… to the point they said man… people would run through a brick wall… they work twice as long as they used to… he said but the problem was… that it was uneven… he said pretty soon they’re addicted… he said man I got to find a level ground… like it was for me… he said so I started pulling some of the extract out…of this leaf called the cocaine… oh man… that’s a huge hint… my brothers in Christ matter of fact he finished getting the syrup where he wants it … he called it Pemberton’s wine… and then he gives it to his book keeper and says come up with a name for it… so in script… you still see it today… he writes the name of the product… and that product is still being sold today… matter of fact brothers in Christ… he sold it… for twenty-five hundred dollars… and you and I call it Coca-Cola… man… did anybody have any idea who this guy was… that’s what I thought my brothers and sisters in Christ… and I was on fire here and I just didn’t know it… My brothers and sisters in Christ it’s about finding level ground…
C. That is that gospel… remember where we’re at now… this is the good Lord comes and he stops… on level ground… to give the beatitudes and the woes… you need to understand where we are… we are in Luke’s gospel… like is not an apostle… he’s a physician by trade… go figure… he believes in expert first hand witnesses… he is not… a firsthand witness… he did not see the blind see… the lame walk… the dead rise… he does not crucifixion… the resurrection and the ascension into heaven… he relies very heavily on Mark… the gospel writer… as a result of it he’s saying that they are near the sea of Galilee… they are actually on the hill called the beatitudes… the hill would roughly be maybe two hundred and fifty feet… three hundred feet high… not very high… but it slopes right down into the sea of Galilee… you come off the sea of Galilee and you’re walking up the Beatitudes… here’s the difference between the other Gospel… the other Gospel doesn’t speak to woes… so imagine Christ comes down the mountain… whenever somebody comes down a mountain the Jewish people believe it’s God… that why he’s always going up a mountain and comes back down… and now he’s stopping… why… like he did for Moses when he gave him the ten commandments… so people could make the correlation… so he stops on level ground… and then says the blessings… remember blessed are the poor in spirit… for theirs in the kingdom of God… now imagine… you go all the way to see him… blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who mourn…blessed are those who are meek… blessed are those who thirst for righteousness… blessed are those who are merciful… blessed are the peacekeepers… blessed are the pure of heart… and then all the sudden he tells you when you’re blessings come… and imagine… you travel weeks… and months to see him… and he said blessed are the meek… blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those that seek righteousness… you’ll get it someday…you’d say man I traveled a thousand miles to hear that my blessing is in heaven… he’s saying that’s exactly right… he’s saying that when you come in the world on this day… you’re going home on this day… that day is not negotiable… I’ve already determined it… everything between this day is on you… and if you don’t bring me into your world… your world will be a sign wave… it will not level… that’s what he’s trying to tell them… now remember all the people that are coming to see him… are not the people that have means… why would you go… if your belly is full why would you go… if your house is fine and your form is fine and your vineyards are good… why would you go… this is why he’s saying the people that are coming… are the ones that are poor in spirit… now remember this… every beatitude… builds on the one in front of it… blessed are the poor in spirit… that’s our language… in their language… is blessed are those who have a childlike reverence for God… who fear the Lord… in other words that when I commit a sin I’m so worried about offending you… not that you fear him in trepidation … but you’re disappointed in yourselves… it starts in heaven… blessed are the poor in spirit … for you will see the kingdom of heaven.. and then blessed are the pure of heart the peacemakers for you will see the face of God and you will return to heaven…my brothers in Christ it’s the journey from heaven to earth and back up… he said on earth it’s going to be this way… because the devil runs the world… so if you don’t find level ground… then you won’t make it…
D. Go back in history… all of our best players… know how to find level ground… imagine… of all people… you’re Saul… one day you’re the king of the world…three days later you’re blind… you don’t know it’s ending in three days… you’ve just been blind so long… and as a result of it the water levels…do you know at the end of his life the absolute only thing he owned was the clothes on his back… that’s when the water levels…when they find God… can you imagine you are Peter… for thirty three years Christ leaves in thirty three… you don’t die until sixty-six… for thirty three years…everywhere you go you’re Petros… you’re Cephas… man people talk to you… you’re curing people… do you know Peters curing so many people… they would actually take his garments… and lay it on people that he can’t get to… and they would be cured… acts of the apostles… so now thirty- three years later you’re in Rome and Caesar finds out you’re there… he’s come to kill you… I killed your boss… I’m going to kill you… as a result of it he leaves in the middle of the night… there’s a little Church in Rome… my God I pray somebody you get to go… in the middle of the isle… there are two sets of footprints in this boulder… that is the boulder that we believe Christ stood on…and those are his footprints when he said to Peter… Peter… where are you going… where am I going… man they are about to kill me…I’ve got to leave… what’s going to happen to the church… they said Christ steps off the boulder and begins to walk to Rome… and Peter is following him saying… messiah where are you going… he said well if you don’t go back to be crucified… then I have to go back… the water levels… because now he realizes that he is truly the vicar of Christ… and someday Peter they will take you where you don’t want to go… all be it upside down and for three hours you’ll proclaim the gospel… and your wife Porphyria will die within the same day if not the day before… my brothers and sisters in Christ all of our best players from Mary Magdalene who had seven demons… she doesn’t become the first to see the risen Christ until she finds level ground… level ground is Christ…
E. My brothers in Christ look at the world you and I now live in… this is insane… if I had told you ten years ago… that within a couple years… were just gonna… I tell you what… we’re gonna kneel during the national anthem… you would have said no way… I’d say you know what and we’re going to make abortions part of healthcare… if I would have told you that all of a sudden we’re going to kill more children in this world… then all the wars combined… if I would have told you that someday were going to make gambling legal… as if somehow or another that helps the poor… if I told you some day that we’re going to educate only a select few and the rest of them they just fall in the trenches… my brothers and sisters in Christ if I would have told you that we’re going to have elections… and that the Catholic president of the united states… would tell you that you have free choice… oh but we do… and so will he have accountability for that statement… my brothers and sisters in Christ what I’m telling you is you and I will not find level ground in this world… until it begins and ends with him… I’m asking you in the mornings when you wake up… when the rest of the world is going crazy… stop and find a place in your house… where you can sit still in quiet and pray… I don’t care if it’s a statue I don’t care if it’s a rosary… I want you to go to a spot… sit still for a couple of minutes… what are you turning the television on for… you want good news…oh that’s a great place to start… I tell you what… go to work.. come home and think it got better turn it on again… every night… and every morning you ought to be on level ground… because your day is going to be a sign wave… so if you skip that and run into the world you’re already on the sign wave … it may be going down before it goes up… but I guarantee you it will not level… until you’re in front of him… so if you’re going to the same amount of masses you went to last year then this year.. same amount of confessions and adoration I’m telling you… y’all are backing up… you’re never neutral to him… listen to me… y’all the world is not going to get better until you and I find our knees… it is not going to get better until we stop killing his children… so you and I can do whatever the Sam hill we think we want… but if we don’t fix that… we’re never going to get out of the desert… hence Jeremiah… what I’m trying to tell you is… you got to start taking care of your soul… and it begins and ends with you… and it begins and ends with you starting out on level ground… you start out in the morning… okay I was going to say before your cup of coffee that would have been a mistake… after you have your cup of coffee… sit still… just five minutes… when you come home at night before you go to bed and take those worries with you… sit still for five minutes… turn the television off… go into another room… and talk to him…
F. My brothers and sisters in Christ Billy Graham was right… I don’t care your money… I don’t care your color… I don’t care you education… I don’t care where you came from… it doesn’t matter… any of those things… because all ground… will level at the foot of the cross…
G. Amen…
