Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness

Every generation needs to see Remember the Titans. This is a movie that should be shown in classrooms all across America. There is a very powerful scene in the movie where Coach Herman Boone takes his T.C. Williams high school football team on a long trek through the woods that culminates at the fields at Gettysburg. He leads these young men from all different backgrounds to a cemetery where he begins to give his boys a lesson on what will happen if they do not come together. Keep in mind that the year is 1971 and racial tensions are very high. This team is about ready to self-destruct all because the color of their skin is just a bit different. So that Summer, Coach Boone decides to take his team deep into the hills and valleys of Virginia away from the chaos and noise of the world so that these boys can have a chance to come together not only as a team but as a people.

As these young boys reach the end of their long and exhausting hike covered in sweat, tears and mud and approach a vast cemetery Coach Boone, out of breath and exhausted himself, asks his team a question:

Anybody know what this place is?

The team, falling over from fatigue, gives him a look as if they have no idea what he is talking about or are just too tired to answer.

So Coach Boone proceeds with why he brought his team and staff to this particular spot.

“This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we’re still fighting amongst ourselves…..today. This green field right here was painted red, bubbling with the blood of young boys. Smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men.

‘I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.’

You listen and take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right now, on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed just like they were. I don’t care if you don’t like each other, but you will respect each other. I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”

This team learns to come together after they had shut themselves off from the world. Sometimes when we shut off all of those voices we tend to listen to each other a bit more and learn from one another as we find out that we have more in common than what we ever realized. The problem today is that we are blinded by hatred and we simply do not listen to our neighbor. Today we are at war with friends and family and for what? Mask no mask? Vaccine no vaccine? Republican or Democrat? Biden or Trump? Right or wrong? Left or right? Up or down? Short sleeves or long sleeves? I believe that it goes much deeper than this.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

When we look in the book of Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 14 says this:

“For he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;….”

Christ did not come to bring us peace. He is our peace. Christ is love and only that dying love can truly unite us as a people. We cannot have peace and unity in this world apart from Jesus Christ. As soon as we become Christians there is absolutely no room in our hearts for hatred of anybody. It is completely inconsistent if we have the grace of an almighty God dwelling in our hearts to harbor malice toward others.

That word malice is used over and over for a specific purpose and it means:

….desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another….

When I listen to what comes out of the mouths of those in America today I see that there are so many who desire to cause pain, injury, and or distress to their fellow countrymen all because we disagree on we should pursue our God given right to life, liberty and happiness.

As Coach Herman Boone said If we don’t come together now as a people we will be destroyed. That destruction can only come from within. We are absolutely destroying ourselves from the inside out today without any regard for what the consequences of our actions are going to produce for generations to come. We are living in the moment blinded by hatred and malice toward all.

Our nation is on a collision course with destruction and it can be prevented if we all were to just stop listening to those sitting behind the desks on CNN or Fox News, stop listening to those on Capitol Hill who claim to know what is best for us, these are the ones who are stoking the flames of the fire that will consume us as a people.

We can come together here in America once again if, and that is a big if, we are willing to sit down and listen to each other once again. We don’t have to like one another but even enemies can show respect. There is no respect anymore. Everybody just wants to ‘get’ the other. Father’s we must set the example for our children and show them that we can put our pride aside and sit down with those have different views than ours while remaining civil and we can do this without compromising our principles.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. Only light can do that.

We are still fighting the same battles that our forefathers fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, we are still fighting the same fight that Martin Luther King Jr. fought as he and his followers locked arm in arm marching through the streets of Birmingham, and if we do not come together our kids will be fighting the same fight we are fighting today. We can end it but the question is can we set aside our pride long enough to allow the grace and humility of Christ to shine through us? This is the light in which Dr. King was referring to.

If we continue to choose the path of pride then destruction is the only thing that awaits us.

Proverbs 16:18- Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. 

This is the message that this generation needs desperately. This generation needs to know that Christ is our peace and only He can bring unity to a lost and dying world.

As Abraham Lincoln attempted to bring the nation together as the Civil War was drawing to an end he spoke these words that we must heed today:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”