Stanford
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

"The Law of Spiritual Accumulation"

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date: January 1, 1948 to December 31, 1954?

Genre: Sermon

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education

Details

Text “For whomsoever hath, to him shall be given; and whomsoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that whinch he seems to have.1

Introduction—Show how this applies in the practical realm. This came immediately after the parable of the talents.2 Jesus was anouncing a law of accumulation. It was a sort of “survival of the fittest” law. He saw it as a law covering the whole of life. This is a fertile universe

Show how this truth is revealed in the practical realm. The rich get richer; the poor poorer; The more knowledge a man has the more the sources of learning open to him on all sides. The man who is being praised get more praise. The man who has many friends has many running to him. To him who has friends friends are given.

  1. The realm issue of our text appears, however, in its application to the moral life or the spiritual life. Goodness and badness have the same law of accumulation.
    1. The more a man gives himself to goodnss the more other avenues of goodness open to him.
      1. The more honest one is the more easier it is to be honest
      2. The more true etc…
      3. The more just etc…

                 Show how the law of habit applies here

  1. The a man gives himself to evil, the more avenues of evil open to him
    1. The more he lies the easier it is to lie
    2. The more he hate the easier it is to hate.

My friend there is a law of accumulation by which sin and goodness increase each after its own kind. There is something that makes the good grow better and the evil worse.

  1. Since this is a law of life, what can we say is the value of this principle fundamental truth.

    Its value lies in the fact that in whatever direction a man choses to develope his life he has the aid of the universe. If a man chooses to be bad the universe multiplies his badness. On the other hand if a man reconigzes his badness and tries to be good, he finds all the world declaring a disposition towards him, helping him on in the way which he has chosen.

    • Go out and undertake some duty
    • Go out and give yourself to some great ideal
    • God out and find you lost soul
    • Go out and serve humanity
    • Go out and be good

And in the grasping of any of these you will gain aid from the univese itself, which continually gives to him that has. And then you will grow and accumulate until you [strikeout illegible] accumulate that chrished gift of standing before the throne of God.

1.Cf. Matthew 25:29.

2.Matthew 25:14-30.

Source: CSKC-INP, Coretta Scott King Collection, In Private Hands, Sermon file, folder 50, Sermons Not Preached.

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