Alan Keyes
August 23, 1995

Keisha, I don't know. People tell me sometimes that it's hard to get up and speak after I get done, but I'll tell you it's hard to get up and say anything after you get done singing. Amen! Of course, that was true of the choir, too.

It looks like at Trinity here you make it as hard as possible for a man to get up and say a few words. Praise the Lord! But I am, though, very happy. You see, sometimes you say you're pleased. And you can be pleased, or gratified. This morning I am happy. I am happy to be here this morning. I had a chance to spend some time with Keisha in the Grace Elliott Clinic next door and talk a little bit about the work being done there. And then to come into service this morning, and just have my heart pierced by the spirit of this place. God is here. Amen! He is indeed here.

And I guess it's good in His presence that we should try to think about many things. And so today I want to spend a few minutes, in His presence, thinking about some things that don't make me so happy as I feel right this minute. Because when you feel the presence of the Lord, you are happy, but when you live, as we do, in the presence of those things which deny His will, His authority, His name, then that can bring great misery. And so we live in the midst of misery.

And we have to ask ourselves what God would have us do about it. And sometimes what God would have us to is to reach out to people one at a time to see what hearts we can heal, and sometimes what He would have us do is to speak to people more than one at a time to hope they would understand.

And I want to speak this morning, and I want to speak about some of the things that are being done to heal. But first, I have to speak about the affliction. And you would think, looking around you, that there are many afflictions. And you can open any newspaper, you can walk down any street, you can talk to any neighbor, you'll hear about these afflictions. And these days, to tell you the truth, it doesn't matter where you go, either. You see, some people think that you have to come to some special neighborhood in some special city in some special place in America, and you will find these afflictions. But that's not true anymore.

You go to any street, any city, any neighborhood, anywhere in America, and you will find the same hurts needing to be healed. And a lot of those hurts now are claiming the lives--and I don't mean that in just the physical sense, either--of the people we should be hurting least of all. Because we live in a time that especially . . . There have been bad times in human history. Matter of fact, it seems like there are always bad times, because there are always people out there doing hurt to other people. But sometimes those hurts are going to be hurts that at least are being done by those who know what they give and what they receive.

But you know that you are in the worst times of all when it is especially innocence that is hurt. When there is no age limit for the hurt--no one's ever too young or ever too old. You open the newspapers now and the stray bullets passing through the walls are killing infants in the crib, and old men reading their Bible verses in front of their home--no respecter of persons, the hurt of our time.

But it seems like that's the root of it, isn't it? We live in a time that doesn't seem to have respect for anything or anybody. It doesn't have respect at all--not for the high, not for the low. Life is getting dirt-cheap, because we have no respect for it. We have no respect for our own lives, we have no respect for the lives of others, and as a result, of course, no respect is being passed on.

It especially breaks my heart when I read about the 14-year-olds raping the 10-year-olds, and the 16-year-olds killing the 15-year-olds--for what? Usually for nothing: "You looked at me the wrong way, wearing the shoes I want." You know, "You didn't give me the money you owed me, so I'm going to take your life, because that's what your life is worth."

As I went through the clinic this morning, as I was listening to the beautiful music today, I was thinking in particular about the heritage of Black America. A story went through my mind that I had read when I was working on my book, "Masters of the Dream," a story of slavery times. In those times too, you know, if you were a black slave you got no respect. That was the definition of being a slave. You had nothing, and you were nothing that anybody had to respect. And so, in those days even the pregnant women were sent out into the fields to toil under any conditions whatsoever. If they didn't do it right, then they'd be beaten just like everybody else.

I remember, in particular, reading one story of a woman who was toiling in the fields pregnant and was beaten and beaten and beaten. They actually hollowed out a place in the ground so that she could lie down and her stomach would be able to be accommodated while she was beaten, until both she and the child were dead. You see, because they didn't have any respect.

But you know what hurts today? As I was thinking about that, what hurt me today is that the mothers and the children are being beaten today--only, it's not by slave overseers for the sake of some economic profit. People are being beaten and the children are being killed, literally; places are being hollowed out in the ground, so that the lives of our nascent and unborn children can be taken from us, so that the reality of this world can beat them out of existence. But the thing that hurts most of all is that it doesn't have to be anymore the whip in the hand of a master that beats the children to death. Because today people are walking in off the street and asking, they're even paying money, so that somebody can do what in slavery times at least it took the hands of a brutal master to do: reach into the womb and snuff out the life of children on the way.

These days, I guess, people feel like: "Why wait for somebody else to disrespect your life when you can do it yourself?" And this hurts most of all. Because that means that something has happened now that on my reading of it has never happened before, especially in the black community.

Because even in the days of slavery when nobody else had any respect, when you could not get a word of respect from master or mistress, could not get a word of respect from judges or laws, when nobody had any respect for anything that it meant to be a black man or woman, those people who were treated and beaten and exploited without respect did not lose respect for themselves.

And you know why? You know why they didn't? They never lost respect for themselves because they did not look for respect in the eyes of the master and the mistress and the law. They looked for respect in only one place. And that one place where they looked for it they always found it. That one place where they prayed for it, they always found it. That one place where they relied on it most of all, it never failed. Because they looked to the eyes of Almighty God for their respect, and they never found Him wanting.

And so, even though the lash came down and snuffed out their lives, it never crushed their spirit. Because it couldn't break their faith. And as long as that faith was burning they knew that nothing this world could say or do could take away their dignity.

See, that's why people survived. It's also why ideas survived that that slave system did everything it could to break up. The idea of family, for instance. There was a time, of course, when the historians, and some of the politicians who read those historians, would tell us that during slavery the black family was destroyed and crushed out. And that's why we come to our time and we see such a weak family structure. I have to tell you, my friends, that this is a lie.

In fact, the historical researches done in the last twenty, twenty-five years have shown something very different than that picture. What they show is that, yes, the slavery system did everything it could to break and destroy the family structure, for economic and other reasons. Did everything it could especially to crush out the role of black males, treat them with no respect. And yet people themselves never gave up this respect.

And the historians go back now and they look at the naming patterns and other things, and it turns out that, in every way they possibly could, people were maintaining those family links and that family consciousness. And that's why you read all the wonderful stories about how, no matter how many years had intervened, people would still go out when they got the chance--they might get their freedom, or after emancipation--and they would spend years looking for a lost spouse, a lost brother, a lost child, that had been torn from their bosom by the heartless hand of slave exploitation.

But they never gave up the idea, you see? Because that was something that they knew didn't depend on anything in this world. It depended on their spirit, and the spirit cannot be crushed out by this world, because it does not depend on the power of this world. It depends only on our faith in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and, through Him, in Almighty God. That's what it depends on, you see?

And the folks who were coming through those times, those hard times, they never forgot this. And as a result, no matter how they lived or died in a physical sense, no matter how everything was taken away from them, no matter how the world defined them so that they did not even own themselves--even this physical body could be put up on an auction block and valued for somebody else's money--they knew that they had a value that money couldn't buy, and whips and lashes couldn't destroy! And they held on to that; it was real.

And over time that reality allowed them to shape and reshape the reality of oppression so that it could not destroy that kernel of their dignity that nothing touches if you but have faith in God.

And it had beautiful results to, because at the end of that long, oppressive, dark period of slavery, people put their families back together. And the stories are amazing of all of the black folks who were going to get their marriages formalized, and to find their lost relatives, put their families back together, find out the names of which they could be proud. By the time you get to the early 20th century, the 1900's, 80% of the children being born in the black community are being born into two-parent households.

And people are putting together family, and rediscovering all kinds of abilities and talents. Not because anybody's doing anything; in fact, the world was ranged up against them at that time. Everything was being done, from disenfranchisement to lynching to everything they could think of to try to crush out any initiative and hope in the black community, but people didn't give it up.

A remarkable thing I remember reading that W.E.B. Du Bois points out in a study that he did at the time about literacy--and this was a time when the money was being cut back for education for black folks all throughout the south because of the "redemptionist" governments. Isn't that what they were called? The ones that came in and sort of took over and started basically disenfranchising blacks and ending all the programs that had existed for black education--the Freedman's Bureau was gone. So you weren't talking about much government money coming anybody's way, but do you realize that in that period, 1880 to 1910, when all this stuff was going wrong, it started out as a period where black literacy, the ability basically to read and write, was at 30%. And it ended up with black literacy at 70%.

You see? Now, you gotta ask yourself: how did that happen? You know how it happened? It happened because black folks were, in places just like this, determined that they and their children should be able to read the word of God. That's why it happened. It happened because everywhere you went, people might have nothing else, but if they had one person who knew how to read, that one person would be doing it after church, or in wherever folks were worshipping, and they'd get the kids together and others together, and they would pass on their knowledge.

And it wasn't just so that they could do well in the world and get a job, and so forth, because I'll tell you something: they knew even then that a lot of times it didn't matter how well prepared you were as a black person, you weren't gonna get anywhere.

But they didn't let that stop them, because they didn't want to read so somebody else could use their labor, and put some value on them--been through that. They wanted to read so that they could be with God and they could know the value He placed on them: a value that never fails.

And you see that's a spirit that I think basically helped black folks in America to survive. It was actually the spirit that, when it came to light in the Civil Rights movement of the late 50's and 60's, had the power to transform the hardened conscience of America, and to call the people of this country back to some respect for those first principles that, at the beginning of America's life, had also set it down that every single human being had a worth that comes not from laws and constitutions, but from the hand of God--that every government and every law and every power whatsoever is obliged to respect.

You see, those are the words of the Declaration: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." You know what that's saying, very simply. It's very simple what that says. It says that we are all the creatures of God. And our worth comes from God--that's all that says.

Now, these days, I gotta tell you, they don't like to hear it very often. We live in a time when you can show anything you want in terms of sexuality pretty much anywhere you want these days; it's not obscene. But if you stand up in a public place and speak the name of God, then you're obscene. You see? They're trying to keep it off the stage, make sure that nobody remembers that this is a nation that was founded on one principle: we are God's creatures, and our worth is determined by His will, and His law, not by your will and your laws. You see what I'm saying?

But we've got some other things going on now, though. And I think these are the things that are killing us in spite of everything, killing us in ways that those slave whips couldn't kill people. See, because if you really want to kill somebody, you know what you've got to kill? You've got to kill their spirit. You've got to kill their soul. You've got to kill the heart within them. Because if that is still alive, it doesn't matter what you do to their body. They will still prevail over you in the end.

But today, I've gotta tell you, we are subject to the most insidious, the most stealthy, the most cunning kind of assault, because it goes right past the body, it doesn't matter. Matter of fact, it flatters the body. It does. You know what's being done these days? You can see it being done in the music. You can see it being done in the way that our kids are being approached now. What are they being told? What they're being told is: "Flatter your body. Do what feels good for your body. And if it feels good, just go right ahead, it doesn't matter."

And so they are invited to show no respect for themselves as anything but bodies. "Get the money you need, get the pleasure you need, get the drugs you need. Get whatever you need to make this body feel good for a little while, because that's what it's all about." Isn't that what they're told?

But you know what that's doing, don't you? Now instead of beating the body, they want to offer all kinds of pleasure to the body. And they're using the body now as the whip with which to scourge the soul! They're using the body now as the weapon with which to kill the spirit! And it's being done.

And you know how I can prove it? I can prove it every time a young woman walks in to an abortion clinic and asks them to take the life of her baby. Because when she opens her mouth and asks them to slay that which God has placed within her, she is saying that "for the sake of this body, I will kill my living soul." That's what is happening.

And how do I know? Because she is doing something that, if you think about it--where do we come from? We come from God. Where does our dignity and our worth come from? It comes from God. Who decides whether it's a good thing that we're here or not? Is it us or is it God?

You see, now, if you believe that it's God, if you believe that everything about your worth depends on God, that He makes that decision and not you, then how is it that you can accept the idea that if you want that baby it's a life that you have to respect, and if you don't want it, it's just garbage that can be sucked out and flushed down the toilet? How could you accept that notion?

Because that puts you in the place of God. That means that God didn't decide on the worth of that child, you did! And since you decided that it was worth nothing to you, you can just dispose of it like so much trash, so much garbage, just let it go.

You see, that's what they're telling us now. Yeah, they're calling that "freedom." "You have freedom! You have your choice! That's your choice." But what they're not telling you is that if you make that choice, you are putting yourself in the place of God.

Now, if you put yourself in the place of God, and then somebody comes along and decides to take away your human dignity, who you gonna appeal to? See? After you've put yourself on God's throne, when the time comes for you to call on God's help, He's not on the throne anymore! What are you gonna do? Who are you gonna call on then, you see, when you're under somebody else's heel, when it's your turn to be treated like garbage, who are you gonna call on? Who are you going to pray to when you have put yourself in God's place? You see? That doesn't work. And it's not working now.

So, for all this they offer a little pleasure here, and a little something there, and then they say if the consequence comes along, you just put yourself in God's place, and do what you feel like doing. And that child will have no more worth than you say it has in terms of your convenience, in terms of your life, in terms of your career; if you've got no use for it, it's not human anymore. Just ignore all that and kill it, throw it away.

See, when I think about that reasoning, you know what I remember? I remember that my ancestors, at least black folks in particular, we ought to be very worried about that logic, because the last time that that logic prevailed in America was when people looked at our black ancestors and said, "You have no worth except what you fetch on our auction block. You have no value, except the value that we get from your labor. If you're a useful instrument to us, then you're worth a few hundred dollars. And if you're not a useful instrument to us, then I can beat you to death, slay you, kill you, treat you any way I like, because your worth comes from my decision. And if you're useful to me, you have worth. And if you're not useful to me, then I can take your life." Don't you see that it's the same idea?

I mean, today they're inviting us to set ourselves up and judge the life of our unborn children, put ourselves in God's place. But what we're really doing is we're resurrecting that old principle, that principle that says that the worth of human life doesn't come from God, it comes from our decision. See that?

Now, that's an interesting principle. What I wonder these days, though, is today we are using it to take the lives of our unborn children. What if somebody comes along tomorrow and uses the same principle to take our life?

It's actually being done already, you know. Because remember what we were talking about in the beginning, what's happening to our young people? I mean, "I want your shoes, I'll kill you." "You didn't give me that money, I'll kill you." You know what that is? It's that same principle at work. Your life is worth what you are worth to me. And if you're not worth anything to me, then I can take your life. Isn't that what's going on out there in the street right now? Isn't it going on every day? You know, "You get in my way, I'll kill you"--what does that mean? It means that if you are useful to me, I'll keep you around. And if you are not useful to me, then you are worth nothing, and I'll kill you.

That is the spirit of the gangs, and it's the spirit of violence that stalks the streets. It's the spirit of crime, but it's also the spirit of abortion! It is the principle that tells young women that they are God, and that they get to decide what that life in their womb is worth. And that principle, of course, then feeds on itself and it spreads like a dark shadow all over the community, destroying the heart, destroying the spirit of love.

Because, of course, what is love? What is love? Is love that which values you for what I get out of you? No, love is that which endures all, and forgives all, and hopes all. Love is there when you're useful, and there when you're not. It's there when I like you, and there when I don't like you very much. Love is there when the world is on your side, and everybody praises your name and wants you around, but it's also there to hold your hand when nobody else cares. It's there. It's there when you are healthy, and there when you're sick. It's there when you are young and beautiful and promise so much pleasure, and there when you're old and tired and burdened all with pain. Love is still there.

And love doesn't ask what use you are to me today. Love asks, "What use am I to you?" Love doesn't ask, "What do I get from you today?" but "What can I give to you?" That's love.

And so, when you turn it around and all you think about is "are you in my way? I'll slay you," you have not just slain an unborn child, you have killed the heart of love. And if you kill the heart of love, what love will be left for you? What love will be left for any of us? The love that we destroy when we kill our unborn children in the womb is the love that is not there for the children born when they hunger in the streets, when they thirst for caring, when they need the touch and hand of a father, but that father's gone today, or never knew even that they lived. We are killing more than unborn babies. We are killing everything it takes to live and love as families, and communities, as decent human beings and children of the Creator, God.

See, that's why I am happy to be here today. I'm happy to be here in the spirit of those who are working against that spirit of death, and working against that spirit of violence, and working against that spirit which takes away all the God-given human dignity, not just from unborn children, but from every single one of us, every time such a child dies! We die with it! Our dignity dies with it! Our worth dies with it! Our hope dies with it!

Just as every time a slave was scourged, all who called themselves their masters felt the lash. And every time a life was violated, all those who thought they profited lost just that much of their God-given dignity.

So, no more than they could in that century survive half slave and half free can we survive in this century claiming all this respect for our rights, while we violate the rights of those who are the most helpless, the most voiceless, children of God. It cannot be! It will not stand!

So I am happy to be here today. I am happy to be here and to join with all of those who are drawing a line of faith against this spirit which is killing our children in the womb, and in the street, and killing our families as they die.

Because that's what we've got to do, you know. I listen to all these people talking their big talk about what they're gonna do for jobs, and what they're gonna do for this and that and the other thing. You want to know the truth? Not all the money and all the taxes and all the bureaucrats in the world can possibly ever make up for the loss of family life and family love.

There is no check, no bureaucrat, and no job, that will ever take care of you the way one parent that loves you will take care of you, one brother that cares for you will take care of you, one sister that loves you will stand by you. One grandparent, one uncle, one aunt who knows the real spirit of family love will be worth to you more than a lifetime of bureaucrats and programs.

So I think what we need to do today is, as we are falling down on our knees with real happiness to thank the Lord for those like Keisha and all the others who are working and putting together with the help of love and spirit from this and other church communities, to work to put together that front line of the struggle to save those unborn children's lives, to heal the heart of their mothers, to waken, if we can, a sense of responsibility in their fathers. We have to be happy for them.

But we also have to fall down on our knees and pray that somehow, some way, God will open the eyes of all of us in this society, and take away the principle that is really the source of all this violence, the principle that denies that we are children of God and creatures of His hand, but sets instead our will up in His place and scourges out the hope and life of all this land. We need to pray that he'll take that great scourge away, that we may find our way back to a real understanding of freedom.

Because, do you know what freedom really is? Freedom is what I felt this morning when Keisha was singing from her heart, and in the Spirit of God and we stood in the stream of His love and knew that just surrender to His will, you shall surely be free. It is the freedom that comes in knowing that as He has given us life, as He has given us dignity, so we stand in His almighty hand, relying on His will. And we can look any power in the eye, and with courage and with dignity stand for what He wants us to be.

See, if we can get back to that kind of freedom, then you know, as His will shall endure forever, so our freedom will stand on a rock, on a solid place, that nothing can move, except the name of God.

Let this be our prayer today. And as we join with all of those who are dedicating this clinic and themselves to that service to God's will and Spirit, let's us dedicate our spirit and ask for God's anointing on our lives, that we may join in this great work, and in the love we show to one another, and with the hand wherewith we bless our spouses and our children and our brothers and our sisters, we can become the living examples of His truth--His truth that no matter who we are or where we come from, His love is what shapes our worth. And our worth comes from living in His love.

Amen.