The great American civil rights leader Martin Luther King was a person with tremendous courage. He endured vilification, beatings, imprisonments, death threats, his house was firebombed, and as we all know, he eventually was assassinated.
So what kept him going? It was his strong sense of God's call upon his life. King was just 26 years old when he was appointed leader of the civil rights campaign in Montgomery, Alabama. Apart from terrifying threats from the Ku Klux Klan, King was harassed by police. Arrested for driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit he was given his first stint in jail. The night after his release he was at home when the phone rang. "Nigger", said a menacing voice on the other end, we are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren't out of this town in three days, we're going to blow your brains out and blow up your house."
King was unnerved and very afraid - for himself, for his wife and for his little children. Shortly after the phone call he sat at his kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. "And I sat at that table" he said, "thinking about that little girl and thinking about the fact that she could be taken away from me at any minute. And I started thinking about a dedicated, devoted and loyal wife, who was over there asleep...And I got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I was weak...
And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself. And I bowed down over that cup of coffee. I will never forget it...I said, 'Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I think the cause we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage...And it seemed to me at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world.'...I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone.. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone."
Three nights later the menacing threat made in the phone call came true: a bomb exploded on the front verandah of the King home. Thankfully no one was hurt. But King was able to get through it: "My religious experience a few nights before had given me strength to face it." Time and again throughout his ministry Martin Luther King returned to that experience to strengthen him as he faced terrible difficulties.
Application: call, motivation. Apart from his sense of Christ's call King could not have continued against such insurmountable odds.
Application: Christ's presence, troubles, suffering, taking up the cross, discipleship, Matthew 15:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 14:27. The experience at the kitchen table that night left King assured that whatever he went through Christ would be with him - "Never alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me alone." King didn't expect Christ's presence to make his life comfortable. "Christianity" he said, "has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his cross, with all its difficulties and agonising and tension-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its mark upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering." He didn't expect Christ to make his life comfortable, but he did expect Christ's presence to make whatever he encountered bearable and meaningful.
Application: guidance, God's word, God's voice, bible application, Spirit. King's experience around that kitchen table provides a wonderful example of the way the Spirit of God takes God's word in Scripture and makes it a word to us. The Spirit brought Jesus promise that "I will be with you always, even to the end of the world" (Matthew 28.20) and allowed him to hear it as a personal word, speaking to him in his context.
Source: information on King reported in Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor. Yancey draws heavily upon David Garrow, Bearing the Cross. The first quote from King is taken from a tape of a sermon King preached.