Psalm 16:8 - I Shall Not Be Moved

Psalm 16:8

I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

There is an old gospel hymn that is entitled" I Shall Not Be Moved".

Glory, hallelujah, I shall not be moved

Anchored in the spirit I shall not be moved

Just like a tree planted by the water

I shall not be moved.

Though men assail me, I shall not be moved

Jesus will not fail me, I shall not be moved.

Just like a tree that's planted by the water

I shall not be moved.

That song became a Civil Rights song, We Shall Not Be Moved, that I sang many times during the 1960s.

We shall not, we shall not be

We shall not, we shall not be moved.

Just like a tree that's planted by the water

We shall not be moved.

We're fighting for our rights and we shall not be moved.

We're fighting for our rights and we shall not be moved.

just like a tree that's planted by the water

We shall not be moved.

v.3 We shall all be free...

v.4 God is on our side...

v.5 Black and white together...

The song is a powerful way to express what this verse in Psalms is saying: I have declared my faith and trust in the Lord. I shall not be moved.

The following story is from the series Standing on the Promises by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray.

Len Hope was a black man from Alabama who had listened to various preachers talk about the Holy Ghost and wondered how you can have the Holy Ghost to guide you always. He made it a matter of prayer. Shortly thereafter a couple of Mormon missionaries left a tract at his home, "The Holy Ghost - who is he? How is the spirit obtained?' All this happened after Len had had a dream where he was baptized and his life changed.

Len immediately sought out the missionaries and requested they bestow him with the Holy Ghost. The missionaries told him they could not baptize him until he understood what the gospel was and fully understood the commitment he would be making. They gave him a Book of Mormon, a Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price to read. He replied, "Whatever you give to me, I will read it through. Then I will come back here and I will ask you to baptize me and give me the gift."

World war 1 interrupted Len's plans but as soon as he returned home he found the missionaries and was baptized. It was 1919.

The persecution began immediately. The KKK went to his home to let him know he didn't belong in a white man's church. He told them, "I've been looking into the saints church from way back before I went overseas. Done decided it was God's church, so I come back and joined. That's the whole of it."

They let him know he needed to remove his name off the church rolls or else.

Len went to church the following Sunday and told everyone what had happened. They told him that if he felt the need to remove his name, it was still written in heaven. If he felt the need to distance himself it was okay. Len had to make a decision. What he knew in his heart drove that decision. "If you folks can endure persecution, why can't I? Maybe I get hung from a limb and shot full of holes, and Jesus take me if that happened."

I SHALL NOT BE MOVED

While all this was happening in Alabama, the KKK was parading in Salt Lake City even though President Heber J. Grant was speaking boldly against it. White America was not ready to change. Crosses burned on Ensign Peak.

Len left Alabama and moved to Cincinnati, hoping to escape the Jim Crow problems of the South. He had married, his wife was baptized in 1925. The two of them moved to that new city and looked for the church. There was no welcome for them there - only glares and whispers. When the sacrament was passed it was not offered to them.

"The next Sunday, the Hopes went to church again, after a long prayer. But you can't pray someone out of their life - held ideas any more than you can pray a window out of its built up dust."  

This second time they went to church was a repeat of the week before and soon after the branch president came to tell them they would not be able to attend the Latter Day Saints Church.

I know what I would have done it that point but for Len and Mary Hope - well, their testimonies burn deep in them.

WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED

They offered that branch president a compromise. They would come once every 3 months to a district conference, sit in the back row, invisible, pay their tithing and leave.

This faithful couple did just that. They studied the gospel at home, taught it to their children, attended district meetings where they greeted every missionary and their investigators. The missionaries responded to them and began visiting them every fast Sunday to hold a meeting in their home and offered them the sacrament. There they had their own testimony meeting.

Later an LDS newspaperman visiting Cincinnati heard about the Hope family and joined them for their home services. Mark Peterson took note of their worn scriptures and hymn book and asked his wife to send new ones. And then a young missionary visiting the Hope home for one of their Sunday meetings took ill - sore throat, burning fever, head so dizzy he could not stand. Mary Hope insisted she would care for this young man and he was too sick to refuse. That young missionary was Marion Duff Hanks. A friendship was formed between Duff Hanks and the Hopes. And they talked about the realities of being black in the Mormon Church. Elder Hanks, with all the caring and love he could have for the Hopes, expressed his regrets that Len could not have the priesthood. "There are some things I don't understand. I guess we both go on faith."

Of course Len wanted the priesthood, but what concerned him most was how he was living  the life God had given him.

I SHALL NOT BE MOVED

I need to finish Book 3 of Standing on the Promises (The Last Mile of the Way) before I know how Len and Mary Hope's story ends but I know this. They exemplify a deeper faith and trust in the Lord then I have ever had.

"I may not have the priesthood but I have the Restored Gospel, and that is rich bounty. Elder Hanks, priesthood will come. I don't know when but I believe it will come in God's time."  

"There's many people needs healing - not just in their bodies but in their hearts and in their souls. I believe they need to understand some things before the Lord going to change what is."

I SHALL NOT BE MOVED