I Have a Dream

“I Have a Dream”

Given in Houston 1/14/2012 as split sermon

Expanded and given as sermon in Knoxville 1/14/2023

Given as sermon in Roanoke and Kingsport 1/13/2024

Given as sermon in London, KY 1/18/2025

This coming Monday is the day which the nation has set aside to honor the struggle for civil rights and its most famous figure, Dr. Martin Luther King.  At this time of year we often see written or hear repeated the words of his “I Have a Dream” speech which he gave at the famous march on Washington in 1963:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

In this sermon I would like to look at Dr. King’s dream – and the dreams of several others – in the light of God’s Word, and to show what should be our dream we should be living.

Dr. King saw the many problems that black people faced due to the culture of segregation – the unfortunate offspring of slavery which had preceded it.  They did not have educational opportunities similar to those of white people because segregation consigned them to inferior schools.  Even if they were able to acquire the skills to get good jobs their employment opportunities were limited because many employers would refuse to hire them (there actually was a Reconstruction-era federal law which prohibited such discrimination but it had been forgotten and was not enforced). Even if they had good jobs and the money to do so, there were many stores they could not enter and many hotels at which they could not stay.  Dr. King saw this injustice.  He saw that the time had come when the evil edifice of segregation could be brought down. And he had the wisdom to see that it had to be done through nonviolence and that black people could not let themselves fall into the trap of hating those who were oppressing them.  He realized that we must not hate those who have made themselves our enemies (Matt. 5:43-44).  A gentle tongue breaks a bone (Prov. 25:15).  In the parable (Luke 18:2-5) the widow won her case with the unjust judge with continual words (persistent peaceful demonstrations or marches might be put in the same category).  And over the next few years the culture of segregation, and the laws which enforced it, did indeed come down.  And those who had fought the marchers – with dogs, fire hoses or whatever – largely came to see and admit the error of their ways.  (By the way – we now see the “wokesters” who champion “critical race theory” trying to turn one of the ideals expressed in Dr. King’s speech on its head.  They think that being “color-blind” is racist.  They believe that people should indeed be judged by the color of their skin – that the only remedy for past discrimination is to set up a system of reverse discrimination.)

There was another black man who was born about 30 years before Dr. King.  His name was Percy Julian.  He had a different dream.  He saw that the segregation structure was still too entrenched to bring down at that time.  But he decided that he would work around it and be as successful as he could in his chosen field – which was chemistry.  This was his dream.  He struggled to get a decent education in the black schools of that day in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was born.  He finally found a university that would admit him (DePauw in Indiana) but had to enter as a subfreshman because he had been so unprepared academically.  He supported himself by cleaning a fraternity house and slept in the attic there.  But by the end of his time at DePauw he graduated as valedictorian.  He then went to Harvard and attempted to earn his Ph.D. degree there.  But after he had obtained his master’s degree, Harvard canceled his teaching assistantship because white students did not want to be taught by an African-American. This stopped his progress toward a Harvard Ph.D.  The Rockefeller Foundation later enabled him to study at the University of Vienna where he did earn his Ph.D. in 1931.  (Of course to do this he had to become fluent in German.)  He later taught organic chemistry at his old alma mater of DePauw but because of racial prejudice he was denied a professorship there.  But while teaching at DePauw he found that he could synthesize many of the body’s hormones – which had been far too expensive for use as medicines – from components which could cheaply be isolated from soybean oil.  The Glidden Company, which used soybean oil in paints, then hired him and he soon became its research director.  (DuPont had refused to hire him because of his race.)  He and his team continued to discover improved syntheses of more drugs based on soybean oil and other cheap starting materials – both at Glidden and later at his own company, Julian Laboratories.  Dr. Julian eventually received more than 130 chemical patents. He was the first black chemist elected to the National Academy of Sciences.  The main science and mathematics building at DePauw University – his undergraduate alma mater, but which nevertheless had once denied him a professorship because of his color – is now named the Percy L. Julian Science and Mathematics Center.

Dr. Julian’s dream was a good one.  (Proverbs 22:29).  And Dr. Julian indeed ended up standing before “kings.”  He did the best he could, working his way around prejudice.  Not that he ignored the civil rights movement in any way – when its time came he was a strong supporter.  But he saw that the 1920’s and 1930’s were too early for a successful attack on segregation so he did the best he could to work around it.

But about 20 years before Dr. Julian was a student in Vienna another man was living in that city.  And he too had a dream – a very big dream.  He didn’t stay in Austria but moved to Germany and ended up as an ordinary German soldier in World War 1, fighting in the trenches at Ypres in Belgium. Most of the soldiers there on both sides were terrified, sick of battle (and of their living conditions in the trenches) and could not wait for the war to end.  But this man was different.  He loved war. When the war was finally over most of the German soldiers were happy to have peace and go home, even though Germany had been beaten.  But not this man.  He cried and cried when he heard of Germany’s surrender.  Soon he had a dream.  He would lead Germany to avenge its defeat.  He dreamed of a Germany which would rule Europe and would dominate the world. He dreamed of taking over the nations to the east, forcing the people off their land (in other words, stealing their property) and settling Germans there.  And he dreamed of wiping out all the Jews, Romani Gypsies and certain other groups he considered inferior to the ethnic Germans.  Many of the German people were inspired and intoxicated by his dream.  They worked hard day and night to help him accomplish it.  And the result of Adolf Hitler’s dream was the death of between 40 and 60 million people (many murdered outright) with Europe left in a shambles. All because one man had a dream.  Not all dreams are good.

God does not say that one nation is superior to another.  God did not choose Israel because it was superior (Deut. 7:7-8, 9:4-6). And we are to help the stranger within our gates, not kill him or steal his property (Lev. 19:33-34). Hitler’s dream was not a dream consistent with God’s Law.

There was another German who had been born about 70 years before Hitler.  He also had a dream.  He saw that the working class in Germany, and later especially in England to which he emigrated in the late 1840’s, was oppressed.  They were working long hours in the mills and factories and living under very poor conditions, while the factory owners were living in luxury.  He dreamed of improving the conditions of the working class.  Some others were already going about this in a better way – nonviolently, as Dr. King would do for black people a century later.  They were organizing unions, striking and demonstrating as needed, and campaigning for the passage of laws to protect the worker.  But for this man these efforts were not enough.  He demanded the end of capitalism.  Dr. King’s nonviolence would not in any way have satisfied this man.  He called on the working class to stage violent revolution, seize the factories (in other words, steal the factories), take over the government and establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat” (his term for the working class).  This man died without ever seeing his dream actually implemented.  But others, in a number of countries, took up his cause.  They were inspired.  They bought into his dream.  They took over governments.  And the carnage is history.  Between four and five million people killed under Lenin.  Almost 40 million under Stalin.  Almost an equal number under Mao.  One-fifth or more of the Cambodian population dying in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. All in the name of Karl Marx.  All because one man had a dream.

Not all dreams are good.  Matt. 5:44 tells us we are to pray for those who despitefully use us, not hate them or kill them (or, for that matter, steal their property). But Marx wouldn’t have cared since he was an atheist anyway.  And was it not fitting that when Marxism eventually did fall in Eastern Europe, in most countries it collapsed without the firing of a single shot?  And in Czechoslovakia, what was the anthem of the protesters who brought down communist rule in 1989?  The song was called “Jednou Budem Dál.”  It was the same song that had energized the nonviolent civil rights movement a generation earlier and an ocean away – the movement, with Dr. King as its most noteworthy figure, which had brought down segregation.  It was “We Shall Overcome” – roughly translated into Czech.  We will show a brief video of the song and you are invited to sing along (from the handouts) if you wish!  (FYI – the words which flash in the window before the song begins, “Všem lidem, kteří nemyslí pouze na sebe,” mean “To all people who think not only of themselves” (cf. Phil. 2:4).  The sign “Zakaz Vstupu!” in the water scene at the beginning of the song is the Czech equivalent of “Do Not Enter” or “Keep Out.”  It symbolizes how citizens of communist-ruled countries were forbidden to travel to the West.) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an_cCdj1-yM&list=RDan_cCdj1-yM&index=1

Thousands (or millions or billions) of years before all of these events there was another being with a dream – an angel.  He had been given a lot – much more than any of us. But he wasn’t satisfied.  Like Hitler and Marx, he thought he had a better way.  He thought he could rule the universe better than God could.  His dream was to take over the throne of God in heaven by violence (Isaiah 14:12-15, Rev. 12:7-9).  He tried and failed.  But he had a “Plan B.”  He had a backup dream.  His dream was to get revenge by harassing, bullying, and hopefully destroying as many of humanity as possible – those to whom God was offering a position in His family, and who would replace Satan and his demons as rulers of the earth (Heb. 2:5, Rev. 5:9-10).  He wanted to minimize the number of those who would ultimately judge angels, including him, Satan (1 Cor. 6:3).  Hence he set out to deceive the nations.  Satan is very determined.  He will continue pursuing his dream until he is put in prison.  And the first thing he will do when he is let loose for a little while is to follow his dream again, to bring down as much of humanity as he can during the little time he has (Rev. 20:7-8).

Just as the segregationists attacked, shot at and bombed Dr. King and the civil rights marchers who sought the end of segregation, so Satan attacks us who proclaim the coming end of his rule.  He attacks all humanity but particularly focuses on us, those whom he has not been able to deceive – those whom he does not already have in his corner.  He attacks us through the society of this world which he rules.  He tries to make things hard for us.  He attacks us directly through our minds.  He wants us to violate God’s Law.  He wants us to become so enmeshed in sin that we give up trying to overcome it.   One of his favorite tactics against humanity in general is to inspire humans to hate one another and fight one another.  Why should he have to fight humanity when he can get humans themselves to do the job for him?  And in the same way he focuses this tactic on us.  He wants God’s called-out people to hate one another.  He wants them to bite and devour one another (Gal. 5:15).  He wants them to split from one another into smaller and smaller groups (1 Cor. 12:25).

Satan’s dream is to try to keep as many of humanity as possible from realizing the oldest – and greatest – of all dreams. That is the dream of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ to expand Their family (Rev. 3:9; cf. Rev. 22:8-9).  When God created us, He had a dream.  This dream was to give us the earth (Matt. 5:5) and the chance to reign on it (Rev. 5:9-10) with power over the nations (Rev. 2:26) and pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16:11).  The test of every dream we might dream is whether it is consistent with this greatest of all dreams – and with the laws which God says we must obey if we hope to receive it. The dreams of Dr. King and Dr. Julian were basically consistent with God’s Law.  The dreams of Hitler and Marx were not. 

Yes, the civil rights marchers sang “We Shall Overcome” as their anthem. And they did overcome.  They overcame their foes, who were the flesh-and-blood segregationists, with the physical weapons of marching, demonstrating, petitioning and voting.  And the Czech protesters a generation later – singing the Czech version of the same song – did overcome the Communist rulers of their country.  And we must overcome also.  But we must overcome enemies who are greater than flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12-13).  We have a bigger job.  We must overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:13-14) with weapons which are not physical (2 Cor. 10:4).  Our rewards for overcoming are detailed in the messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3.

We can think of the translated words of the song we just heard – “Jednou budem dál” (“One day we’ll move on”), “Cíl je blízko nás” (“the target is near to us”) and “Jednou přijde mír” (“one day peace will come”) – and these are even more applicable to us in our spiritual struggle against Satan than they were to the Czech demonstrators in their physical uprising against an oppressive human government.  So, as many people have followed their dreams, let us with renewed vigor follow God’s dream.  Let us proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the world.  Let us live this Gospel in our lives, following God’s Law in our dealings with the world, shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Phil. 2:15).  Let us proclaim the truth – the truth which will help people to become free of Satan’s clutches (John 8:32).  We see from the next few verses that when we sin – when we violate God’s Law – we become the slaves of sin.  Let me quote more of Dr. King’s dream from his famous speech:

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.…Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado….But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!  Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!  Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi! From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

But I, and we all, have a dream which goes even beyond that.  We look for the day when freedom -- true freedom, the type which can only be found in obedience to God’s Law -- will ring not only from these mountains, but also from the Diamond Mountains in North Korea.  From the Tien Shan mountains in China.  From Mt. Damavand in Iran.  From Pico Basile in Equatorial Guinea.  From Pico Turquino in Cuba.  From the mountains along the Kolyma River in Siberia, where approximately one million prisoners died of starvation and disease (or simply froze to death) while being forced to mine gold for Stalin.  From Cerro Rico in Bolivia, where an estimated eight million slaves were worked to death in the 1500’s and 1600’s mining silver for their Spanish colonial rulers.  From every hill and mountain on earth, beginning at the Mount of Olives.  Let us proclaim the time when Satan’s rule over the earth will end, when all mankind will be, as in the final words of Dr. King’s famous speech, “free at last.”  May God speed that day!

“Všem lidem, kteří nemyslí pouze na sebe”

(“To all people who think not only of themselves”) (cf. Phil. 2:4).

Jednou budem dál lyrics with translation

1. Jednou budem dál, jednou budem dál,
jednou budem dál, já vím,
jen víru mít, doufat a jít,
jednou budem dál, já vím.

2. Cíl je blízko nás, cíl je blízko nás,
cíl je blízko nás, já vím,
jen víru mít, doufat a jít,
cíl je blízko nás, já vím.

3. Jednou přijde mír, jednou přijde mír,
jednou přijde mír, já vím,
jen víru mít, doufat a jít,
jednou přijde mír, já vím.

4.= 1.

1. One day we'll move on, someday we'll move on,

Someday we'll move on, I know,

just have faith, hope and go,

We'll move on someday, I know.

2. The target is close to us, the target is close to us,

the target is close to us, I know,

just have faith, hope and go,

The target is close to us, I know.

3. One day peace will come, one day peace will come,

Someday peace will come, I know,

just have faith, hope and go,

Someday peace will come, I know.