Your Past Doesn't Have The Last Word | Charlie Dates

- From the pulpit to the classroom and throughout the city of Chicago, the Reverend Dr. Charlie Dates is a powerful voice for faith, justice, and lasting change. - Yeah, you never needed no counselor, but you have in your times of needing counsel. When you've got a decision to make, when you cannot figure out which way to go, he's a wonderful counselor. - He serves as senior pastor to both progressive Baptist Church and Salem Baptist Church, two of the nation's most influential black congregations. A gifted preacher, scholar, and civic leader, Dr. Dates brings biblical truth into conversation with the challenges of our time. KCMC, please welcome Dr. Charlie Dates. (audience applauding) - Let me rush to shout out Pastor Tim Dunn. (audience applauding) How many of you brothers are members of Grey's Way? (audience cheering) All right, I don't mean to shame you, but your celebration of your pastor should have been a little stronger and louder. Let me try it over you. Let me shout out Pastor Tim Dunn. (audience cheering) Sometimes we treat our male man better than our pastor, and God has used your pastor to bring you good news

every time he has stood up here. And so I say that with the measure of great hope and joy in the future of this church that you have one of God's best servants. I really am taken by what I've noticed and what I've come to see of him. He and I share a very dear man and common man, whom the Lord has used to help form me and direct my life in many ways. And since we're celebrating men today, I didn't come to beat up on you, bros. I came to celebrate. I feel like there's so many men being beat up around the nation. I came to celebrate you. Since we celebrate men, will you help me thank God for Dr. Dwight Perry? (audience cheering) I also have a preaching partner today. Y'all know him. I'm not even gonna say his name, 'cause he has some power and some cowboy boots that come along with it. But I'm thrilled today to share the pulpit with your heart and I know that God is going to bless you today in significant ways. First Samuel chapter 30 is the text I'd like to lift for our consideration today. I wanna begin reading at verse one and I'm gonna go until I stop.

And then I'll pick up again on the backside of the passage. Thank you. I know some of you, a lot of you may have no idea who I am and you're wondering can I preach and that's fair. I'm wondering, can you pray? Asking God to give us both grace. If you'll pray from where you're sitting, God will give me grace to preach from where I'm standing. Beginning at verse one of first Samuel chapter 30, I'm reading from the New American Standard Bible and it reads as follows, then it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day that the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev and on Ziklag and had overthrown Ziklag and burned it with fire. And they took captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great without killing anyone and carried them off and went their way. When David and his men came to the city behold, it was burned with fire and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep. Now David's two wives, one is enough, but he had two. David's two wives had been taken captive. A Hinoem, the Jezrealitis and Abigail, the widow of Nabal, the Carmelite. Moreover, David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him.

For all the people were embittered. Bruz, will you say embittered? "and his daughters, but David strengthened himself "and the Lord his God." Then David said to Abayathar, the priest, the son of a hemilec, please bring me the Ephod. So Abayathar brought the Ephod to David, and David inquired of the Lord saying, "Shall I pursue this band? "Shall I overtake them?" And the Lord said to him, "Pursue, "for you will surely overtake them, "and you will surely rescue all. "Jump over with me to verse 16. "When he had brought them down, behold, "they were spread over all the land, "eating and drinking and dancing "because of all the great spoil "that had been taken from the land of the Philistines "and from the land of Judah." David slaughtered them from the twilight until the evening of the next day, and not a man of them escaped, except 400 young men who rode on camels and fled. So David recovered all. So David recovered all. So David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken and rescued his two wives. I wanna tag the thought that I wanna preach to you straight from verse 18.

I wanna talk from thought. I want it all back. Thank you for those four give-it-backs. Will you turn to your neighbor with me and look at him and say, "Neighbor, I want it all back. "I want it all back. "I want it all back. "I want it all back. "I want it all back. "I want it all back." Will you breathe the word of prayer with me, please, gracious God in heaven. I do thank you and praise you for Jesus Christ my Savior, for the help and the hope that His hours and His name. I beg of you now for power in the preaching moment, clarity of mind, condition of speech and conviction of heart, that I may tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, for your glory and for our good. And if I've asked you for too little, you know we need more, which you do something even bigger than what I just asked you for. In Jesus name, amen. Her name is Maggie Barran-Kitzay. She is known as the mother Teresa of Barundi. 1993 when an ethnic genocide conflict broke out between two warring tribes,

the Hutus and the Tutsis, Maggie took in 25 children who were orphaned by the ethnic conflict. It's remarkable because Maggie had the resources to leave Barundi, that cousin country to Rwanda and to flee and enjoy a life of pleasure. But instead, she decided to remain in Barundi and to care for these children who were orphaned. Well, over the years, she ended up caring for braced yourselves. 20,000 children who had been orphaned by the conflict. Her my son Shalom, the mansion Shalom, took in 20,000 children. It's kind of a underground railroad, but on top, it was a network, a sophisticated system of housing and food and education and healthcare. And with little to no state funding, she raised a new generation. I say that because several of the children who went through her orphanage got trained in professional skills and came back to serve the people in Barundi. She literally raised a new nation that changed the nation. The thing that grabbed me when I read of her report is something she said to a reporter. When they asked her, "Why did she stay?" What motivated or prompted her work? She said, and I quote, "Evil never has the last word."

And then she said a line that grabbed me. She said, "I've learned not to waste a crisis." Brothers, I want to submit to you today Magga's prophetic in that line there. Never waste a crisis. She saw in that crisis in Barundi, a catalyst, an opportunity for real change. I wonder what you do with the crisis in your life. I want to do those crisis take you down, make you bitter. Do they cause you to throw self-pity parties? Or do the crises that you face, those that were created for you and those you've created on your own, If you've not noticed, we are in a crisis right now. The Supreme Court earlier this year voted to gut section two of the Voting Rights Act. For people like me whose four parents got their heads beat in crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on a march to Selma to try to give their children and grandchildren the right to vote, to see it systematically dismantled. And the longest serving, longest ten-year judge on the bench, an African-American man, say that if it were up to him, he would get rid of the entire act altogether. I'm floored by that because our nation finds itself again in a crisis. Whether you agree with what I just said or not, that's real. And the dismantling, the systematic dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion,

which has shook the foundation of black women in America. They have precipitously suffered the greatest decline of job loss of any people group as a result of D.E. and I, we're in a crisis. That's not political, that's real life. When our boys are being told in elementary school that they can choose whether they are a boy or a girl, and our girls have no clue what it means to grow up as a full woman in her femininity because TikTok has developed an algorithm to steal her joy. We are in a crisis. When crops are up but hunger is spreading, we're about to start importing beef and the brisket lovers here. Don't know the pain our farmers will feel. We are in a crisis. When 40% of the kids who graduate from Chicago public schools, rather at eighth grade or from the 12th grade cannot read at grade level, spurring in economic crisis and poverty, we are in a crisis. And when Negro Christians and white Christians still are mutually suspicious of one another because our pastors lack the courage to stand against an administration that keeps us at beef with one another, we are in a crisis. I didn't come today to exegithe the crisis. I came today to tell you that there's a way to handle the crisis, that God will give you and I

the resources necessary, the spiritual power to not only diagnose what we're going through, but to find the cure for it because the gospel is the only cure for what it diagnoses. And when we come to 1 Samuel, chapter 30, we meet a man named David in crisis. You don't believe me, I just read it to you. 600 men, according to 1 Samuel, chapter 22, that what a church David has amassed. 600 men are following him, they are in debt. They are discontented, they are distressed. If I had to plan the church and pick the kind of people I wanted to join my church, they would not be in debt. Discontented and distressed. But those are the people who amassed to follow David. And David is following a peculiar leader here. He's following the king of the Philistines because the king of Israel is a punk. He's insecure and he has come after King David, trying to take his life, young David, actually trying to take his life more than two times. And more than two times David has spared his life. It's interesting 'cause David didn't really do anything to saw, he was just anointed. And well, his anointing invited trouble. And the man who should have looked out for him is now trying to kill him. So David is forced to flee and he amasses of following. And right when David is about to join the Philistines to fight Israel, man, I don't have time to do this,

but I wanna do it. You know, the leaders, the elders of the Philistines say to the king of Israel, we can't take David in the battle because what better way for him to curry the favor of King Saul and his man if once he gets in the battle he turns on us. And so Aikish goes, king of Philistines goes to, David says, man, you've been done but good to me, but my man say you can't go with us. And David pleads to fight with the Philistines. Isn't it funny that sometimes when God is delivering you, you plead to stay in bondage. When the door opens for you to get out, you wanna prove how loyal you are to fullishness. All right, maybe that's just me. But the Bible says thus the law, So here's Menar, they're on their way back to Ziklag, this 55 mile journey south, and when they get there, the smoke piles are blooming and blooming in the air. From a distance, can't you see it? The men can smell the smoke, they can see the ash, they start to drop their weaponry and to run, they're breaking in to the camp and their homes are burned and they are pushing through the ashes, looking for children, yelling out for wives, everybody's gone. And when they assess the damage, the Bible says that they start to weep until there's no more strength left in them to weep.

Y'all, this is a crisis, this is the book of Job times 600. 600 men have lost their wives, their children and their homes and there's no CSI investigator to tell them in which direction they should go. How would you like it if you didn't even know where to start looking and they are so full of rage and so embittered that they decide we're gonna stone David? That's when David goes to God and David goes to God and he asks God, what should I do? He is in turmoil, he is grieving as a leader, he is in pain, but he does not let his present circumstance push him against God, but his present crisis and circumstance thrusts him upon the altar of God, and he goes to ask God, what should I do against his natural reaction? Rather than doing what he thinks in his brain, he ought to do, he goes to ask God, what should he do? And I see in that not only some good preaching but some good living, that when nightmare like crisis threatened to undo the fabric of your life you can find direction that will lead to a better than expected return, that when life starts lifeing you can fall on your knees before God and God will give you a word that will lead to something better than what you lost. I'm trying not to get to the end of my sermon before I get to the end of my sermon,

but God is so much a God that when you seek him, he will not only give you back what you lost, but he'll give you more than what you lost. I came to Kansas City to tell you I don't serve a God that can just give me back what I lost in my youth. I do not just serve a God who simply can give me what I lost, but I serve a God who looks at me and says I can build more in your future than you lost in your past. Pre-cholidays. I'm doing the best I can. And when David goes to God, God says to him, "Fight back. Pursue." How do you pursue? I just want to lift a few themes here and be in my seat. People, you pursue by killing some Amalekites. I know that doesn't sound striking to you yet, but in verse one, we get the kind of reason for this crisis. We get it. David doesn't know it. The Bible says that when they got back to Ziklag,

the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev. Well, David doesn't know that. And again, the Amalekites might not mean much to you until you remember that in 1 Samuel 15, Israel asked for a king and God didn't want him to have a king, but God let him have a king because sometimes, God will give you what you ask for even when he knows it ain't what you need so that when you get it and it fails, you'll discover he was what you wanted all along. God says you already got a king, but since you want a king, you can have this king, so they got a king and he was an insecure king because that's what kings are. His head and shoulders above everybody else, but because he was so insecure, He wanted to win the affection of the masses. And so the first assignment, military assignment he's given is to go utterly destroy the Amalekites. That's significant because in Exodus chapter 17, when the children of Israel are working their way through the wilderness, Amalek and his children unfairly ambush the children of Israel. And Moses, you remember, sitting up on the top of the mountain and he's holding his hands up like this, I remember that.

And as long as his hands are upheld, the children of Israel are winning down in the valley. And when his hands get heavy and his hands come down, they start to lose. And so his assistants come and they hold up his hands and then the children of Israel win until they prevail. And in the post-fight interview, God comes to Moses and say, "Hey, Mo, I didn't like what I saw. "Amalek, unfairly ambush, you write it down. "I'm coming for Amalek. "Five books later, 500 years later, "God gives to King Saul the assignment "to keep God's promise to Moses. "Kill him." Saul gets in the battle and he starts getting tweets and texts. Say, man, this brisket over here that the Amalekites have, this cattle is amazing. We ain't gotta get rid of this, the jewelry. I can see my wife wearing this. They were supposed to get rid of everything. And so Saul wanting to please the people, let them do it. This is the consequence of disobedience. Saul let an enemy live not knowing that enemy was going to attack a succeeding generation. David is having to fight an enemy, his forefather should have killed. I don't know why we let our enemies live to fight our kids. But there's some stuff in your life and in mind

that your kids are counting on you to destroy. 'Cause it doesn't need to trip over to the next generation. As hard as get out, but I'm making some commitments to my kids in my heart that there's some Amalekites that won't live. I'm gonna destroy some stuff in my generation so that by the time they get older, they didn't got to fight the same stuff I had to fight. I'm here today to tell you friends that there's some stuff in your life your daddy dealt with. That's in your life. How did that lyrical theologian say a papa was a rolling stone? Wherever he laid his hat was his home. And when he died, all he left me was alone. Got to learn some music at this church. There you go. So what Amalekites are you gonna destroy? What are you gonna let live? There's not only a reason for the crisis here. There's a response 'cause you got an option to how you respond to it. The men who were with David have a response of bitterness. The Bible says that they were embittered and so they started to speak of stoning David. I don't know why it is. That we seek to kill our heroes. The leaders that God has put in front of us. But I think one of the reasons we do so is because everything that happens to us,

we think is somebody else's fault. These men see David as the reason why they are in the trouble that they are in. Can I tell you, as a growing maturing man, at some point, you gotta come to the conclusion that everything bad in life ain't somebody else's fault and it's your turn to play the victim. Every man, so many men, I grew up around. The guys who were men, when I was growing up, they were good fathers. They were good men. My father didn't happen to be one of them. He was not present. He did not step in. He did not handle responsibility. Now I had a choice to make. I could live the rest of my life using that as an excuse to do whatever I wanted to do and to blame somebody who was absent who should have been present. But the challenge is, Gromand Charlie is driving the car, but I could revert and let little Charlie take the wheel and blame somebody else, but the grace of God in my life that is operative is the same grace that is operative in your life. You need to let little John, little Joey, little Derek get in the back seat because you got a new set of skills as an adult that little Charlie did not have. You've seen too much now. You've come through too much. You've been too blessed now to let that little fella have his way. I'm here today to tell you that to be bitter and to seek to stone others is

to let the trauma field little you drive and direct your life. Can I let you in on something every man that makes it to manhood had to come through some we men, but I'm in church. So I can't say if we were to retreat facility, I would say what I wanted to say. You ain't the only man who's had to come through trouble. You ain't the only man whose heart has been broken. You ain't the only man who's been abandoned. You ain't the only man who had to fight and call. You ain't the only man who had to work too early. You ain't the only man who had to stay up late at night. You ain't the only man who had to care for your siblings when that was your parents response, but you ain't the only one. You can use that as an excuse if you want to or there's a better response. It's not the embittered response. It's the blessed response. The Bible says that David went to a biothar and asked for the Ephod. The Ephod, David. See, the Ephod is a sleeveless garment made of the same expensive fabric that the veil of the temple was made of was bedazzled with jewels. It was only to be worn by the priest. David ain't a priest. The Ephod was worn by the priest when the priest went in to meet with God. It was like a covering and a connection at the same time, where he would get a direct audience with God. David goes to the priest and says, I don't need you. I need what you wear. David says, I need God so bad, brah. I need you to get out the way so I can go talk to him from myself. I wish I had somebody in here. See, life will happen.

Despair will come where you ain't got time to get a hold of your pastor. You ain't got time to get a hold of your small group leader. You need to know how to get a prayer through your dog on self. And I'm here today to report to somebody prayer still works. You ain't got to say, Amen, but I'm a preacher for my dog on self. I said, prayer still works. There's power in prayer. There's, there's deliverance in prayer. There's healing in prayer. And when you can't get nobody else on the phone, there is a Dr. Jesus, you can get on the phone. Ask me how I know Moses prayed and the Red Sea opened right up in front of him. And the Children of Israel walk on dry ground. He turned back around and prayed again. And the waters fell on Pharaoh and his army and drowned them in the Red Sea. Joshua prayed when he was leading the Children of Israel around Jericho, keeping silent until that seventh time on that seventh day and they blew that Rams horn and the walls fell down flat. I'm trying to tell y'all prayer works. Jonah had to pray in the belly of that fish because he didn't know what would happen in his future. And he found out that prayer will give you a second chance. Some of y'all on your third, fourth, fifth and 11th chance. And you should have said, Amen, right there. As the Kaya prayed, the Bible says that he turned his face to the wall when God told him life was going to be over. And God gave him an extended lease on life because prayer works. Jesus prayed in a garden one night while blood fell like sweat from his brow, trying to reconcile the pain that was in front of him with the plan of God above him and prayer gave him confidence and courage to mount up and the goal to the

cross. You don't know what prayer will do for you. Sometimes prayer will calm your nerves. Sometimes prayer will give you words. Sometimes prayer will help you sleep at night. Sometimes prayer will throw your hands up in the air. staying out. You never know what prayer will do. It's prayer is prayer is the availability of the power of God external to us. That becomes internal within us. Did you hear what I just said? Prayer is not passive resignation. No, when you pray, you're not just resigning to life circumstances. It makes the power of God effective inside of you. I didn't learn this in seminary. I learned this watching Papa to Salem, man. When I was growing up, we had great cartoons. I don't know the stuff that's on today, but man, I admire Papa. Papa, I like this girl named Olive oil, and I must be honest with you. I never saw in olive oil what Papa saw in olive oil. I never saw it. Even as a kid, she was just a little string bane with a big thing on a big head and an annoying voice, but Papa loved this girl. He stuck with this girl. And Papa had a nemesis whose name was Bluto. He's a burly, brawny, beardy, smelly looking dude, even from

the screen. And Bluto used to love to beat up on Papa. Y'all remember that blue one episode, Bluto clean a whole restaurant table with Papa. He just, he would come get Oliver, just cleaned it. And then one episode, I remember, Bluto had a right uppercut. He hit Papa so high, Papa went flying over whole towns, villages and cities and landed in a different spot. But I got to be honest with y'all, I never watched Papa on Saturday morning to watch Papa get beat up. I knew it was going to happen, but that ain't why I watched it. I watched Papa every time, waiting on that one moment. When Papa would say, no, I didn't took all I can take. See, every man got a hat in him. I didn't stood for all I can stand. Me can take no more. And I don't know where he got it, but he would get this little beat up can of spinach like off of his belt and he would pop the top and it would jump out of there and it would get inside of him and he would blow up. And the same fella that was getting beat down got the courage to fight back and to take his nemesis down. Now, I can't recommend no spinach to you this morning. I'm not sending you the whole foods, but I do know where you can find some power to fight. I do know where you can get some strength inside of you to stand against your enemy because somewhere I read that greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world somewhere I read that my God shall supply all of my needs

according to his riches and glory. Somewhere I read at the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous of they lit much. You got a response to me, but I'm in my seat. I got two minutes to tell you this and maybe a minute and a half to celebrate because I'm a Negro preacher from the South side of Chicago and I do believe in celebration. The Bible says that they ran into an Egyptian when they go to pursue who the Amalekites left behind. This is a word about providence. The God left somebody on the side and the Egyptian said, yeah, I'll take you to where they are. He was a sickly man. And so where we ended reading, David comes upon the Amalekites in verse 16, 17. The Bible says they're laid out everywhere. They're drunk. They're excited. They're rich because they've taken plunder from the Philistines and from the land of Judah. They got they stole David's stuff and other people's stuff. It's a lot of stuff. And David attacks them from the twilight until the evening of the next day. You talk about opening up a can of whoop from the twilight until the evening of the next day. That means he fought through the dark until the light until the God dark again. And David, the Bible says, recovers all. That's kind of an understatement because David got

everything he lost, but he also got the stuff the Amalekite stole from other people. Some scholars suggest that this is the beginning of David's wealth journey. He's got so much that he starts sending it out to friends and family. It turns out that his greatest crisis became a catalyst for him pursuing what God had for his life. You may have lost more than what you can imagine a human should suffer in life. I don't know where you're been. I don't know if it's been jailed. I don't know if it's been disappointment. I don't know if it's been stuck in a rut. I don't know. You may have lost time, you know what I mean? More than money. You need lost something and you feel like it's gone. You look in the rear view mirror of life and it's over, you think. God is so much a God that when something feels like it's gone, it's taken from you. He can not only replace it, but he can give you more. We had a condo in Chicago. I got broken into a number of years ago and man, it was an ugly break in too. We didn't even, they got us so clean. I mean, they were so smooth. They must have got in and out of it. They took everything. They took TVs and computers and drill sets. I mean, just all kind of stuff was gone and you ever walked into a place? Any of you have ever been robbed? I'm not asking you to testify aloud, but it is a painful feeling. It's like violating. You know, you're going to big old TV ain't on the wall no more. And so, I mean, I was sad for like two days and then it occurred to me that we have

this thing called insurance at the time. It was all state. No lie, it was all state. And so, I called our agent, Steve Ouela. I said, "Hey man, it just card to me. We had a break in and they took all of this stuff." He said, "Pastor, here's what I want you to do." He said, "I want you to take a list of everything. Find as many receipts as you can for what you've got." And he said, "Don't worry. I'm going to stick with you till we get through this." And I said, "All right, thank you." And he said, "One more thing. You're in good hands." With I said, "You think I'm joking?" I said, "Man, I don't want to hear that. I hung up. I got them everything he asked for. I pulled as many receipts as I could. I sent it all in." And they called and they said, "We got everything. We want you to know that we process everything." I was out of town preaching. They said, "When you get home, there ought to be a check." They're waiting on me. I said, "Well, all right. I hope that there is." And I had already tallied what we had lost. So, I knew what that amount was. So, I go and I open an envelope.

And the check is for more than what I had submitted. So, I said, "Oh, y'all ain't going to get me." I called back. I said, "No, this, you gave me more." And the lady said, "No, no, no, no." She said, "What you submitted is what it cost when you bought it." She said, "It costs more now." So, in order to replace it, we had to give you something more. Y'all ain't with me, I'm about to take my seat. But if all state can give you more than what you lost, how much more can God give you more than what the enemy took from you? And you say, "Where did he give me more on a hill? Fire away! Stood an old rugged cross." They put nails in his hands and a spear in his side. And a crown of thorns upon his head and he died, y'all. As I said, he died, y'all. Y'all listening to me in here, I said he died, y'all. He died till the moon ran down in blood. He died till the earth rocked and reeled like a drunken man. But that's not how that story ends, because three days later, early Sunday morning, Jesus got up with all power in his hands. And he gave us more than we lost in the Garden of Eden. You ought to holler back, "I want it all!" (crowd cheering) (audience clapping)