Welcome to Class 76 of “The Ramp” to the Highway of Success course for young men. I am Daniel Whyte III, chairman of the National Association to Save Young Black Men in partnership with the Martin Luther King Senior Institute for Young Men & Young Women. The Institute aims to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Sr., commonly referred to as “Daddy King”, whom God used to raise the great leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Our purpose is to guide young men and young women, and help them get on the path to becoming kings and queens for the glory of God.
I am your instructor for this course and the author of the ESSENCE national bestselling book “Letters to Young Black Men”. We are using that book as the text and its study guide to guide you through the course. The study guide was developed with the help of Jamie McCallum (M.Div, Truett Theological Seminary), Charles Garrett (M.Div, Southwestern Theological Seminary), and now my youngest son Danyel Ezekiel Whyte who is in his third year of college. This course is for all young men, but especially for young black men and young men of color who oftentimes have a “difficult journey” in this great country called America. I call this class “the Ramp” to the Highway of Success because my goal is to get you on “the Ramp”. As a man, you ought to be able to make it from there. Out of respect for you as a young man, my job is to get you on the ramp and point you in the right direction, not to tell you all the details once you get onto the highway of success. With God, you can do great things.
— Let’s Pray —
This is part 8 of our lesson titled “Oh, The Mistakes I’ve Made.”
“One trouble with trouble is that it usually starts out like fun.” I trust that you are doing well. I hope that you have made the decision not to make any of the life-altering mistakes that I have made and thus suffer the troubles that I have experienced.
I am sure I surprised and broke my mother’s heart many times as a teenager, but there were two instances, in particular, when I really broke her heart. I have already told you about one situation and that was when the young woman and I made the awful mistake of aborting that baby. What I didn’t tell you was that, for some strange reason, my mother went into my little gray safe that I kept under my bed in my bedroom, and she found the receipt from the doctor’s office. She was livid. She was speechless. She was so hurt she could not even bring herself to punish me for what I had done. I knew then I had hurt her deeply.
LESSON
When a man doesn’t protect his preborn child, either by passively watching the woman in his life have an abortion or by pressuring her to, it can undermine his confidence in his manhood. Why? Because God created men to be protectors, just as women are nurturers.
To protect is a deep, God-given desire; when a man understands that he has violated God’s principle of protection through abortion, it can erode his ability to lead, both morally and spiritually.
The most important battle is when a man fights spiritually for those he loves. Unfortunately, when a man violates God’s law through abortion, his confidence is also impaired to engage in spiritual battle.
So, after permitting or even encouraging an abortion, how can a man take back the authority that God has given him to lead his family? Even though it can be a challenge, Scotty says a man needs to own his sin and receive God’s forgiveness.
If the Lord tarries His Coming and we live, we will continue lessons in our next class.
Let’s Pray.
***
In closing, Tony Dungy, the first black coach to win the Super Bowl and the host of NBC’s Sunday Night Football said, “You are never going to get anywhere in sports or in life until you become convinced of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You may become a professional athlete or have fame and nice cars and nice houses and a lot of money, but what you’ll find is that all of that stuff goes away pretty quickly. You have to understand that Christ died for our sins, and that He died not just to be our Savior but so that He could be the center of our lives.”
Now, like many of you, I grew up in a very religious and church-going family, and during that time, I often heard the phrase “Being Saved.” Now, much of what the church people I grew up around said “being saved” was back then especially, in my community, is wrong according to the Bible. I wrote an article about it titled “On ‘Being Saved’ in Black America” which is available for you to read free of charge on our website, gospellightsociety.com. Right now, I want to share with you very briefly what the Bible says “being saved” really is.
First, understand that you need to be saved because you are a sinner. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
Second, understand that a horrible punishment — eternal Hell — awaits those who are not saved. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus Christ said that God will say to those who are not saved, “depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Third, realize that God loves you very much and wants to save you from Hell. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
If you want to be saved from Hell and be guaranteed a home in Heaven, simply believe in Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose from the dead for your sins, and then call upon Him in prayer and ask Him to save your soul. And believe me, He will.
Romans 10:9-13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That is the most important decision you will ever make.
If the Lord tarries His Coming and we live, I’ll see you for our next class.
BCNN1 WP 