God's Views on Race

This last few years, I think Mr. Sexton was mentioning Sabbath or so ago about the COVID having lasted for three years so far. Time goes by so quickly it gets dizzying. But those last few years have been absolutely insane. And now, as we look at the Russian attack on the Ukraine, it's become even a little more insane. I was reading Mr.

Kubik's President's letter last night. His concern about his family in the large city up on the northern border, and also the Ukrainian Sabbatarians and their lot in life. And it made me reflect back. I noticed this morning I was on BBC News app, and they were arguing back and forth whether or not the Russian army had taken Malidopol, the significant city on the Sea of Azov, a port city.

And I had to reflect back upon the fact that two generations of my family were born not that many miles north of Malidopol on the banks of the river that runs right through that city into the Sea of Azov, and that those family members eventually fled that part of the world because of the impending nature of what was coming down the road very similar to what's happening right now with Russia's invasion of Ukraine under Premier Putin's orders. Overall, it's been difficult, as I look back over my lifetime, to see a time where there have been so many sensitive, angry, troubled people.

I can look at a time in the late 60s and 70s where if you took all the pieces that were not simultaneous and you put them all together, you could create an image somewhat like that, but not one where everything was focused as it's been focused the last three years in our nation and in the world in general. People all at one time angry about COVID, angry about politics, angry about race, angry about abortion, angry about gender, and that doesn't exhaust the list, but angry about all of them.

You know when you're a member of the Church of God, it's a challenge to navigate all of this, to truly be, as Scripture says, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove. To be able to walk that path when so many things are in turmoil at the same time is indeed a challenge. I'd like to take one of that collection of things that has kept our nation in a state of turmoil, and I'd like to use it as the subject of today's sermon. One of those items that I listed has troubled our society and that has been a flashpoint during the last three years. And the issue that I'd like to put on the table is the issue of race.

From the Black Lives Matter movement to the white supremacy backlash on the rise in the U.S. and the troubling amount of anti-Semitism that troubles the Jewish community as they see a higher level of anti-Semitism in both the U.S. and in Europe both have all been a source of tension and anger. You know, you and I, as we look at all of those things, and if somebody was to ask us, would you comment on it, would you give an opinion, would you give a perspective, every single one of us represent God. I was listening to the sermonette, and I was listening to that portion on the Sermon on the Mount where it talked about, you are the salt of the earth.

And without taking your breath, Christ went on to say, and you are the light of the world. And what He was saying is, you represent me. You are to give the world my flavor on things, and you are to illuminate how I see things and how I view things. To do so, you and I have to be truly, firmly grounded. The Apostle Paul at one point used the term being rooted and grounded. That's anchored in the firmest of ways.

I'd like you to turn back to Colossians chapter 1, just to take one look at where it is that we need to stand as questions arise and as issues arise. And we put forward a statement of position or a statement of belief or a statement of values. In Colossians chapter 1 and in verse 21, So he said, So he said, This is conditional, if you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which is heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

So he said in that last verse, the conditional nature was to be grounded and steadfast in the faith. So as we look at these questions, and I simply picked one that has been on the table during the last three years, if you are a rooted and grounded Son of God, the only real question that you and I should have is, where is God? Where is God? We could put it another way. What is God's view? How does God think? How does God feel? But where is God? And then to say, if we are rooted and grounded in the faith, wherever it is He is, is where I want to be.

So let's look at the question of where is God on the matter of race. You know, God's view has been badly obscured by social bias every since the days of Jesus Christ. And frankly, we could go beyond that, but since that's a nice, neat block of history, we can simply focus on the last 2,000 years.

Over the last 2,000 years since Christ, God's view on race has been obscured by those, sadly, who say they represent God, but then represent a totally different view than that which is God's. And you know, to an ignorant world, when somebody stands and says, I represent God, sadly, much of the population takes that for granted on face value. Tell me, then, what God has to say.

You know, within one century after Jesus Christ and the Apostles had died, a major religious figure came on the scene who established an anti-Semitic view in Christianity that was held and held firmly all the way through the last 2,000 years.

He blamed all the problems and all the difficulties of the world at that time religiously upon the Jews and advocated separation as far as could be separated from them. And that particular view has been held all the way literally up to the middle of the last century. The Pope made an apology on behalf of the Catholic faith to Jews for the duration and the erroneous nature of it. And in the Christian world, certain Christian scholars of the early 20th century have frankly been exposed as simply bigoted and carrying onward that same attitude. Closer to home, American Christianity has praised God for opening the doors of a conversion to the Gentiles, has spent more money than any other nation in the world to send missionaries everywhere on this globe to provide Bibles to people of every race and every nation, and yet ironically, within its own boundaries for the majority of its existence, has excluded from congregation those of the Black race. An irony. While the issues were never as simple as Black and White in England, England suffered the same disease as is testified by him that you and I sing over and over again. Having lived in England a couple of years, when I sing this, I may sing it a little differently or from a little different perspective than the majority that are here in the congregation. Page 183, O God of every nation, says, O God of every nation, of every race and land, redeem the whole creation with your almighty hand, where hate and fear divide us and bitter threats are hurled in love and mercy guide us and heal this strife-torn world.

The hymn says in the second verse, as it addresses the bias, from search for wealth and power and scorn of truth and right, from trust in bombs that shower destruction through the night, from pride of race and station and blindness to your ways.

Deliver every nation eternal God, we pray.

Our English brethren have probably excelled among all of us at pride of race and station. And I put the emphasis on station. Interestingly, as I've looked outward at three different scenes from where we are, let me pull it inside this room, and inside the room of every Church of God that is meeting today. Because, interestingly, regardless of which C-O-G and the initials before or after, we happen to be everyone that is sprung from the early, mid-20th-century Church of God, or 19th-century Church of God, 20th—I'll get it right sooner or later—are put in this same mold by the world around us. Because of our beliefs in the nations of modern America and the British Commonwealth, as those who are fulfilling in modern times the promises to Abraham, you and I have been put in the same pot with all of those that I was pointing a finger at as people who are racist and who believe in racial superiority.

So, as you can see, social bias has colored the picture and thereby has obscured—badly obscured—the answer to our question, where is God on the matter of race?

I have seen that bias probably from a unique position within this room, and probably a unique position within the United Church of God. I would expect there are few who have shared that experience. I pastored a congregation in Mobile, Alabama from 1966 to 1972, right in the heart and the depths of the Civil Rights era. I pastored a congregation that was one half black and one half white, something absolutely unheard of in the deep South in that time period, and dangerous—dangerous for everyone involved. We met in a National Guard Armory at a center aisle down the middle, from the podium to the back door, and all the blacks sat on one side, and all the whites sat on the other side. I've enjoyed over the years, conversationally, when that comes up as a topic, simply listening to the person or looking at the person who's listening to me, and then looking at them and asking, do you know why we sat segregated?

And I know all the biases. I know all the stereotypical biases. And I know automatically, as they process my question, where they would probably go. Now, I could have said to them, you know, I have a Spokesman's Club, and the black men and the white men meet together in the same room, and they all sit beside each other. We have a ladies' night. The black men bring their wives. The white men bring their wives. Passover comes. You may have black hands washing white feet. You may have white hands washing black feet. So I said, when it comes to all of these smaller occasions, there's a total mingling. And as they scratch their head, it gives me the opportunity. It is a delightful opportunity to go totally against the stereotype. I said, let me tell you why all the blacks sat on one side and all the whites sat on the other side. I said, we sat that way because the blacks came to the whites and said, we put you enough in harm's way by even being in the same room together. The least we can do to protect you who are white is to sit segregated during Sabbath services. There was a regard and a love that flowed across both directions, a respect that flowed across in both directions.

Let's move into the biblical examples. But before I do, I'm going to throw one thing out there, and I'm going to leave it dangling. I'm simply going to leave it dangling and blowing. That one-half black congregation and one-half white congregation all believed that modern America and Britain were the fulfillment of Abraham's promises.

And that's a subject for another sermon. But they weren't divided on the area that a world today will look at us and judge us as being racist because of those views.

That hundred-plus people sitting in that room in Mobile believed exactly the same thing we do about where the blessings of Abraham were being carried out.

So let's move on from modern social bias and focus on where we would go to begin looking from scriptural record at what happened. And the best place to go to is go back to Abraham, the same place where people go to start building a case for racial bias. You know, if we look at the biblical record, starting with Abraham, from the call of Abraham, we'll go all the way into the very beginning of the United—or, excuse me, the very beginning of the divided kingdoms. So in terms of giving a window into the Bible and Scripture and what it says, we'll take the span from Abraham all the way up to the very beginning of the divided kingdom. God began all of this journey by calling one man and singling out his offspring for greatness, not because of race, but because of faith.

There is nothing that indicates that God chose Abraham because of what color he was. God chose Abraham because here was an individual who was unique in the world at that time, like Noah was in his day, someone that would take God at face value and for 25 years follow God all the way to the place of being willing to sacrifice his son if that is what God wanted. And God said, I know after watching you for a quarter of a century, I know who you are, I know what you are, I know what you're made of, and my promises to you are irrevocable.

But those promises were based upon faith. And this man went down in history with the title Friend of God and Father of the Faithful.

Two titles of absolutely phenomenal value. You know, Moses is the only other one that by inference when God said, none of you are like Moses who I talk to like a friend face to face, but of Abraham it is said he was a friend of God.

That promised greatness, the greatness it was promised to Abraham had two faces. One was the honor of being the ancestor of Jesus Christ who would open salvation to all of humanity. Which really, if you want to look at it, is our first, and if you give it ranking, probably one of our most significant evidences of God's view.

That I will give my son for the sins of all humanity. The other honor was that his physical offspring would become prominent nations of vast size and wealth having an impact on the entire world.

Did race enter into the issue? Or more pointedly, was racial purity a demand of God?

I grew up with an aunt who enjoyed silly music, and when we were little kids, she would play silly ditties for us, and we would laugh, and she'd play them on the piano. And as I grew older, I eventually, someday, either at an antique mall or somewhere else, I saw a piece of sheet music, and I said, I've got to buy that. Because in the nationalistic stage around World War II, there was a comedian that the younger members in the congregation wouldn't know, so I'll try to give you as close as I can a modern parallel. He was Dr. Demento before Dr. Demento was born. His name was Spike Jones, and he played the goofiest and silliest of things. But I remember, as a little boy, singing the Fuhrer's face, and it was an American jab at Adolf Hitler. And the lyrics went, Not to love the Fuhrer is a big disgrace, So be Heil, Heil, right in the Fuhrer's face. Well, the Fuhrer says, VR the master race, So be Heil, Heil, right in the Fuhrer's face. I used to think Spike Jones invented that ditty, and then I found the sheet music and found out that Walt Disney was the one that created it for a cartoon movie ridiculing the racial purity demands of Adolf Hitler.

What does the biblical trail show us?

All of us know Abraham. In fact, the first incident, I'm not even going to turn to a scripture because you all know it backward and forward. Abraham was told to leave his homeland, go to the land that God would eventually give him, and live there. And he did. He waited 25 years before a son was born, and he waited another however many years, another 20 years before that son was old enough to marry. And when the son was old enough to marry, he brought his chamberlain, his chief servant, made him promise that he'd go back to his home, and he'd go back to his home, made him promise that he'd go back to his homeland, to where he came from, and he would get him a wife of his own people for his son. And he made him swear that he would do so.

And he did. He went back to the very people, race, family that Abraham came from, found Rebecca, found a wife for Isaac, brought her back.

You know, there are some things that you can only plant as a question. And some of the things I'll mention to you today, you can do no more than plant as a question.

The question of whether Abraham was concerned about the purity of race, or whether Abraham was concerned about something else, is something that neither you nor I can answer. But we at least need to have all the material on the table in order to make an assessment. We know that God appeared to Abraham progressively, Genesis 12, Genesis 15, and it continued on from there. And he ratcheted up the promises and the blessings each time they met. And so the promises got bigger and fuller and richer each time they met. In Genesis chapter 15, as God is now ratcheting the blessings up another level, he informs Abraham of something that Abraham would have absolutely no way of knowing if God had not placed it in his lap. In Genesis chapter 15, verse 15, he said to Abraham, Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation, they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. God was saying, I'm going to give you a land of people who are corrupt and becoming more corrupt and continuing to be more corrupt, and their corruptness has not reached that fullness yet, where I will drive them out of that land.

If you look historically at the maps of the Middle East by centuries or by millennia, in the days of Abraham, the Amorites occupied virtually the entirety of what we refer to as Israel. And so Abraham, no matter whether he was up in the northern part or the southern part, Abraham lived in the land of the Amorites all the time that he lived in the land that God was promising him. And so it is a legitimate question that can't be answered, obviously, of whether Abraham went back to his homeland to get a wife for Isaac. Because Abraham was told very bluntly, the place where you live is corrupt, it will continue to become more corrupt, and eventually it will become so corrupt that I will destroy all those people. You know, you and I, as members of the Church of God, we look at marriage, and we look at it outside the window of race. We look at it as what provides the better chance of success today and generational success as we go forward, marrying someone of a common faith or marrying someone of a very different faith. And from Paul's time and the instruction that he gave to the Church is onward, as we say, has not been rocket science. If you want a better opportunity for your offspring, generation by generation, remaining faithful to God, you marry someone with the same beliefs that you have. Isaac, as we said, married someone from his own family.

It is interesting, in Genesis chapter 26, when it came time to deal with the next generation, Jacob and Esau, there's a very telling account.

Genesis chapter 26 and verse 35.

That doesn't work because there isn't a 35. So, oh yeah, there is. 34 and 35. Verse 34 of Genesis 26. When Esau was 40 years old, he took as wife Judith, the daughter of Beery, the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon, the Hittite, and they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca.

As far as we know, the Hittites were racially the same color, but they were of a very different religion, a very different viewpoint on gods because they didn't believe in a god but in gods. And the Bible gave us a little window. It says it was a grief. It was a grief to Isaac and Rebecca that he would go that direction. Jacob went back to the same homeland, to the same family that his mother came from, and he married one of the next generation.

Esau wasn't deaf, dumb, and blind. He watched all of this going on, and the tale is told in the first verses of Genesis 28.

Genesis chapter 28, beginning in verse 1, shows us the dynamic of Isaac and Rebecca as the parents, Jacob seeking a wife, Esau already having married two Hittite women, and the family dynamics that developed from all of that. Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him, You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.

Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. And then it goes on to give a benediction. Verse 5, so Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Padan Aram, to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the Syrian, the brother of Rebecca, the mother of Jacob, and Esau. And of course, we know how that story ends. That's where he found his wife. But what's interesting are the next few verses. Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan Aram to take himself a wife from there, and that as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, saying, You shall not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

Now, you will remember when Israel went into the land, a listing of tribes that occupied the land were given—Hivites, Jebusites—but there were also the Hittites. And Esau had two Hittite wives. And he's looking at Isaac and Rebecca. Indication is, he probably never asked Isaac and Rebecca, Who should I marry? He simply probably married and told Mom and Dad, Well, meet my new wives. But now he's watching Mom and Dad tell the younger brother to go back to the homeland and to get a wife from that area and to not marry or take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. And so we begin the account in verse 6. Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, sent him away to Padanarim to take himself a wife from there, and that as he blessed him, he gave him a charge, saying, You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan, and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother, and had gone to Padanarim. Also, Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father, Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebuchadnezzar to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

So we can basically say he then added to the two Hittite wives an Arab wife, for lack of a better modern term, because Ishmael is recognized by all the Arab peoples as their father. So you're not saying something that is not agreeable to people who are Arabic. And so he added an Arab wife to two Hittite wives. But he could see in all of this something. As I said earlier, whether what he saw was race or whether what he saw was faith is simply not answered by the Bible, and God did not see it rise to a level where he had to address it as such.

With the record of Jacob, we enter next the third and fourth generations. So we had Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, and we move on from there to the next generations, the children of Jacob.

Now you begin to see certain things that if God were totally and completely concerned with the purity of race, you would have to ask yourself why certain blessings were given to certain people. Judah, who in Genesis 48 and 49, as the blessings were being given to each of the tribes, Judah was singled out to be the tribe from which all the royalty would come. This is where the kings come from. This is where the rulers come from. By extension, it is where David came from, and by further extension, where Christ came from. And yet, as we read the account in Genesis 38, it makes a very simple passing statement. Genesis 38, verses 1 and 2, it came to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers and visited a certain Adamite whose name was Hera. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shewah, and he married her and went in with her. And so Judah, as the father of all of the kingly lines, rather than going back to family and heritage, marries a Canaanite.

Joseph's story we all know quite well. Superficially, Genesis 41.

So we have this interesting situation that if you were to choose tribes to place at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of Jacob's family, the pinnacle on the royal side would be Judah, and the pinnacle on the birthright side is Joseph. As Jacob took his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and said, Jacob, I am placing my name on these two boys. And these two boys, I'm adopting. The blessings that go to the rest of your children will flow from these two who I have adopted to carry my name. In Genesis 41, again without fanfare, we simply see in verse 50, And to Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, whom Asanath, the daughter of Potipharah, priest of An, bore to him.

So his wife was the daughter of the high priest of the temple at An, and An was the center of the worship of Ra, the Egyptian sun god.

And so the mother, as we look at pedigrees, the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh, your mother and my mother, was the daughter of an Egyptian high priest in the temple of the Egyptian sun god, married to our Israelites father, Joseph.

When you look as you walk through the Old Testament, things that really, truly make a profound difference to God, God is not silent.

When something is significant to God, God shakes his finger and says, don't go there. Don't do that. Don't cross this line. Don't venture into this area.

It is interesting the silence as we walk through these historic events that are recorded, that there's not a time where God speaks up and says, you crossed a line. Now, in the days and times where these things existed, you had one of two options. You have either a wife who is taken who adopts the belief and the religion of her husband, or you have, as it was in Solomon's day, where a husband folds his tent and capitulates to the gods of his wife.

Or in between the two, Samson and Delilah, where they never got along religiously from day one, and they didn't get along till the day he died.

As we move from Judah and Joseph, we do so saying, first of all, that it is at least as important to understand that in the genealogical tables springing from Noah and his sons, that Egypt and Canaan are traced back to Noah's son Ham. Ham is the father of the Egyptian people. Ham, well, one of Ham's sons was named Canaan, so that's a duh. You have to go a couple of generations down and then go to history to see the trail to Egypt. But both of those are from the lineage of Ham.

As we continue on, we then go from the record between the time of Joshua and the divided kingdoms. And the first thing that I'll mention is one that we all know. Israel's first venture across the River Jordan is to attack the city of Jericho, and a Canaanite-ish harlot becomes now a converted Israelite and marries into one of the tribes. I'll save the tribe for a moment.

Little later on, after the days of Joshua, into the beginning of the time of the judges, we have an entire book by the name of Amoabitus, who married a Jew. She had been widowed, she and her sister, from Jewish husbands. And interestingly, Bible scholars wrestle with the fact that God had put a ban—not a short ban, not a three- or four-generation, but a long-standing ban—upon marrying a Moabite.

And the best that scholars can do—and I'm inclined to believe the scholars in this regard because of what I see biblically—is that the ban was on cross-pollination. The ban was on giving your daughters to a Moabite-ish man.

Otherwise, there is no way to wrap your mind around the book of Ruth.

And even more so, not just wrapping your mind around the book of Ruth, but wrapping your mind around where it all goes.

Because where it goes is Matthew chapter 1.

Matthew chapter 1 begins with genealogies.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac begot Jacob. Jacob begot Judah. Judah begot Peres and Zera by Tamar. Now, that's one where they're probably all the same race, but that's a really seedy, seedy relationship that produced nonetheless one of the forefathers of Jesus Christ. Peres begot Hezron. Hezron ram. And it goes on down the line until we get to verse 5, where it says, Solomon begot Boaz by Rahab. So Ruth's husband was Rahab the harlot's son. And Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, and Obed begot Jesse, who is David's father.

You know, the most interesting aspect of these combined accounts is that these women, Rahab and Ruth, well, really, we need to add another one. Because the seedy side, as people would see it, who look at this thing through a totally racially focused lens, doesn't really come to the level of fullness that I want to bring it until we get to 1 Kings 14.

One more genealogy to fill out the period from Abraham to the divided kingdoms. 1 Kings 14.

Solomon's son, Rehoboam, who took the throne of Judah at the divided kingdoms, his genealogy is given in 1 Kings 15.21, and it's the bottom of the barrel. And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king. He reigned 17 years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. His mother's name was Nehemiah the Ammonite. The very tribe, the very people that God said wipe out completely and totally.

And so by the time that we reach the beginning of the divided kingdoms, we have created within the genealogy of Jesus Christ our Savior, a Canaanite-ish harlot by the name of Rahab, a Moabites from a tribe or intermarriage was banned, at least we have to assume with the males, and an Ammonite-ish grandmother, wife of Rehoboam. God certainly had to use the pejorative. God certainly had very little in common with Adolf Hitler.

The individual records from the time of Abraham that a divided kingdom show a trail of intermarriages even with women from people held in contempt by God but allowed to end up in the genealogy of his own son.

Let's go from individual accounts to the composition of Israel at its founding as a nation. We now go from individual accounts looking at genealogies to the general rules and the general station and status of Israel under the command of God.

Somebody may very well, when Passover comes up on one of the days of Unleavened Bread, take us to Exodus 12, verse 38. I won't take you there because you know it. If we look at the founding of Israel as a nation, the formal founding was at the base of Mount Sinai, but if we look at the creation of the nation, you can accurately say that the nation was created on the last day of Unleavened Bread as they stood on the eastern shore of the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army drowned and singing thanks to God that they were now a nation.

And if you go back there and look at who was there, it was 12 tribes and a mixed multitude who came out of Egypt.

Egypt was a melting pot. Their power, their might, and their rises and their falls allowed them to conquer and bring in people from diverse areas, and also at weak times to be conquered by diverse peoples, and all of that to exist within Egypt. And God didn't say Israel came out with some Egyptians. It said God came out, God brought Israel out, and accompanying them was a mixed multitude. In Deuteronomy chapter 23, God begins to show us a few things about his point of view. Deuteronomy 23, as God is giving them instruction and directions, he says, you shall not abhor an Edomite. Now, who's an Edomite? Well, an Edomite is a son of Esau, and he may have been of different mixes. Hittite, Ishmaelite, along with Abrahamic blood. He says, you shall not abhor an Edomite, for he's your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land. So, as God talks about people, and racially, Israel had nothing in common with Egypt. He said, don't abhor Edom. He's kin. And don't abhor Egypt, because you've been there. You've been there. You know what that's like.

In Leviticus chapter 19, one of several admonitions appear.

Leviticus chapter 19, verse 33, God says in verse 33 of Leviticus 19, If a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. But the stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. I said to you earlier, when I walk through individual cases, the silence of God to make any comment about their marriages, the silence speaks. Because God repeatedly, once there in the wilderness, tells them, remember where you came from and treat those people like you wish you had been treated. And he doesn't just see it casually. He says, because I am your God. So he's putting a stamp on it of a different level.

Repeatedly through Exodus to Deuteronomy, he says, One law for the home-born, one law for the stranger. You treat him like you treat yourself. You and I read over and over the Feast of Tabernacles about excess second tithe that you give it to the widow, the orphan, the Levite, and the stranger that is within your gate.

I'm not going to turn there, but in Deuteronomy 21, there is even a series of commands between verses 10 and 13 about taking a wife from conquered people. And he said to them, when you go out to war and you conquer a people and you see a beautiful woman and you say, I want her for a wife, give her time to appropriately mourn her loss of her country, maybe even her husband if she was married, and then you're free to marry her.

The ironclad, if you want to look for something that really is the pivot point, is in Exodus 12.

Exodus 12.

Here is, as they say, where the rubber meets the road. We'll go to Exodus 12 during the days of Unleavened Bread and Passover because it's the institution of the Passover. And in verse 48, Exodus 12, talking about our holy days and the Passover, when a stranger sojourns with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, that all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as a native of the land. If you follow the trail of evidence that God gives from the time of Abraham onward, even when you stop and look at the Ten Commandments and God saying, let's start it out, I will not permit any other gods in my presence, that God's concern was religious purity. was religious purity.

God's concern was religious purity.

You know, when Ruth said, your people are my people, the beautiful song that talks about her totally embracing and adopting everything that was Israel, that's where God's focus was. Regardless of who Rahab was, who she became was what God was concerned about.

Let's close by book ending the topic. We have dealt with the period from Abraham up to the divided kingdoms. Let's move all the way to the end of the story and provide two bookends. Isaiah 19, probably one of my favorite Feast of Tabernacles scriptures, is found in Isaiah chapter 19 verses 24 and 25.

In Isaiah chapter 19, verse 23, In that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt, and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel shall be one of three with Egypt and Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed is Egypt my people, and to Syria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.

That's where the story is ending. That's the other end of the story.

In the book of Ezekiel, the last 10 chapters or so of Ezekiel are a peek into the millennium.

And in Isaiah chapter 47, I keep saying Isaiah, in Ezekiel chapter 47. I will get it right eventually. In Ezekiel chapter 47, we see God come all the way back to the scriptures we were reading from Leviticus and Deuteronomy about the stranger. He says in verse 21, speaking of how it will be in the millennium, Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. So when the millennium starts, Israel will be divided by tribe. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourself and for the strangers who sojourn among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel. They shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. I mentioned back in Mobile that our Black members espoused the same belief in the identity of Israel that we do. When you look at verses 21 and 22, you understand that when the millennium comes and God divides the land by lot, every single solitary person alive at that time, regardless of his color and his racial origin and his ethnicity, if he has been raised and born in that land, will inherit with that tribe and reside in that tribe as native-born.

So what are God's views on race? Well, when we go to the origin of the story, God has made all mankind in his image. It doesn't matter whether he's red, he's yellow, he's black, or he's white. He made humanity in his image. None were created inferior. None were created of inferior stock. Some, granted, were given special blessings, but they were given along with special responsibilities and told that your blessings come with a job. And if you don't do the job, I will take away the blessings. So it isn't just a matter of privilege and rank and right. But the most important gift, the most important ultimate gift beyond the millennial picture we saw in Isaiah and Ezekiel, is salvation and eternal life. And in closing, we see that picture in Revelation 5.

As the hosts of heaven are lamenting that there's a scroll with seals on it and they cannot find anybody worthy to open it, and they are, as we say, dying with curiosity to see what's inside, the Lamb of God comes forward and everybody breaks into song that here is someone worthy to break the seals off the scroll, and they sing a song, a new song.

And in verse 9 of Revelation 5, the song says, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth.