No Partiality in the Church of God

Okay, this is the fourth installment of No Partiality in the House of God. No partiality in the House of God. And in the first sermon we went through James 2, we learned that partiality is putting one group above another group. The rich above the poor have versus they have not, those in power versus those not in power, as though there's some kind of difference between human beings. Then we went through in the second sermon on the race of Israel and were they actually a race? Were they a super race? Or were they just the children of Abraham, whom God was using as a spiritual example? Was it their genetics or was it their obedience? That was the important thing. We determined it was their obedience, not their genetics. And then last week, last Sabbath, we started talking about racism. We went through the scriptures and showed that according to the Bible, there's just one race. And we've all taught that, but it means different things to different people. And throughout the time that I've been in the church more than 50 years, I have seen very consistent messaging from the church. And yet a few people would come up with some interesting, erroneous conclusions based on the things we learn in the Bible. And so that's the thing I want to address today when we're talking about racism. And the reason this is so important is racism is kicking back up in America and it's kicking up in multiple ways. And we in the house of God must sidestep racism, stay out of it, because there is no partiality in the house of God. If you and I want to be part of the solution when Jesus Christ returns, we will not be partial to any human being.

But when we look at mankind, we see many distinct types of humans. Eye color, eye shape, hair color, differences in height, differences in skin color, as we call it. You can recognize someone from Africa or Europe or Asia just by looking at them. You can recognize a person who is an Australian aborigine, a very distinct look. Genesis chapter 10 is the table of nations. And Genesis chapter 10 in verse 1 says, These are the descendants of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Children were born to them after the flood. So there are three divisions of man after the flood. The children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. What are these divisions? Do they constitute race? Or do these supposed races need to stay pure? Is Satan trying to mix the races? Is it possible for Satan to mix the races? These are all questions I have heard growing up in the Church of God. The answer to all of those questions is no.

By admission of the Encyclopedia Britannica, race is a human construct that is, in its definition, very subjective. So a lot of times it depends on what you mean by race, whether or not you should even use the word. I suggest we don't use the word. I suggest we use the word family, not race. Family is far more pinpoint accurate than the word race. Race can be taken to mean so many different things by different people. Family? That is family. You know what a family is. Here's what Britannica says, quote, The term race generally refers to a group of people who have in common some visible, physical traits, such as skin color, hair texture, facial features, and eye formation. End quote. Yeah, no kidding. But people judge and make distinctions on appearance, don't we? Darwin wrote his most famous book, On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection. The second part of the title, as we heard from Mr. Isaac, was The Preservation of the Favorite Races in the Struggle for Life. This is his very famous book, and when people quote Darwin, they're usually quoting this book.

It is his first book, On the Origin of Species. But Darwin wrote a less famous book 12 years later called The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. In this book, Darwin poured gasoline on the race issue and fueled a malignant racism that infected our education system, and it even affected people in the church because we were mostly public schooled. And we don't realize how much the Darwin way of thinking has affected us. The late Stephen J. Gould wrote about Darwin in his book from Harvard University titled, Ontogeny and Phalogeny, quote, biological arguments for racism were common before 1850, but increased on orders of magnitude after the acceptance of the evolutionary theory, end quote. So, what did Darwin teach? Here's what Darwin taught that affected the Western way of thinking. This is at the core of evolution, and even though modern scientists absolutely reject this statement, why they haven't thrown Darwinism in the garbage is a mystery. Eventually, this type of education spread and affected the entire world. In Darwin's book, The Descent of Man, from my version of the book, it's on page 101, there are many different publications of this book, so you could find this quote on a different page, most likely. But you can see Gould's point when I read this. Now, this will be offensive. This is Charles Darwin, not me. I am in opposition to this statement because I am a student of the Bible, as are you. But listen to what Darwin taught. Quote, at some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time, anthropomorphous apes, skipping down a ways, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of now between the Negro and the Australian and the gorilla. End quote. You see what he did there? He categorized human beings into different kinds, different types. He separated the races by quality. So he's saying the gap between the African and the Australian and the gorilla is not so wide, but the Caucasian will wipe them all out. This was what Darwin said, and this is in our education system. When the Caucasians wipe them all out, then there will be a wider gap between man and ape. In other words, Darwin is saying we're different kinds of human beings. And just less than a hundred years later, the Axis powers in Europe tried to wipe out people who they thought to be inferior races. Jews and what they then called gypsies and other ethnic families that they thought to be inferior, and what we now call the Great Holocaust during World War II.

A strong argument can be made that Darwin's theories influenced the decision to kill so many millions of people based on their family origin. People don't realize that Darwin taught that. You don't hear that in school today. Oh, that's very politically incorrect.

But that is Darwinism at its core. A hatred for God and his family. An utter hatred for God's family. This attitude must not be in the house of God. No partiality. The separating and judging humans as superior or inferior types is a direct contradiction to the Bible that claims that all are of one man, one blood, Adam. Remember, the key scripture last sermon was Acts 17 and verse 26. Don't forget this scripture.

So we already don't believe what Darwin says. But it is interesting to see how God made us and notice from the science of it all that we are actually one race that can actually be proven.

The human race has many families, but just one human kind.

The Human Genome Project did an extensive study and published in the year 2000 that definitively showed that the DNA that all men came from the same exact ancestor. They traced it back to the same mother. They traced us back to Eve. That's the way the DNA study worked. But the New York Times wrote an article, and I don't have time to quote everything that I have researched, so I'm only going to give you little bits and pieces of research today. But the New York Times wrote an interesting article when that study came out. This was all the way back in the year 2000. I remember a Time magazine cover about this article when it came out.

This is the New York Times article, Do Races Differ? Not Really? Gene Show by Natalie Angler, August 22, 2000. Quote, A race is a social concept, not a scientific one. said Dr. Craig Venter, the head of Celera Genomics Corporation in Rockville, Maryland. Dr. Venter, a scientist at the National Institute of Health, recently announced that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome. And researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race, the human race. So if the Bible is saying we all came from one blood, and science is agreeing that we are one race, how can we explain, how do you explain, when you are asked about the large differences between the different families on the Earth? And how large are those differences? The question we need to answer is, did mankind grow apart from the Flood and become different after God's intervention at the Tower of Babel? In other words, did God cause us to become different kinds? What I'm going to do now is I am going to play a video excerpt from Ken Ham's presentation called One Race, One Blood. I called Answers in Genesis this week and asked permission to play this, so we can play it over the Internet, no problem. I have full permission to play every single thing that Ken Ham has ever produced, except for two things that were produced by another company when he first got his start. So we are going to play something very interesting from Ken Ham on this subject of how do we get so many differences in the human race, and yet still we are one race. Is that really true? Let's play the video. In the secular evolutionist journal Nature Genetics, in 2004, we read this. Humans vary only slightly at the DNA level, and only a small proportion of this variation separates continental populations or people groups. And this is the American Biology Teacher, 2011. Here is the biological problem with race. The genetic variation within each of the various ethnic groups of Homo sapiens is greater than that between the various ethnic groups. Do you know what the secular scientists are now saying? What we once called distinct races, they're finding the genetic variability within each of the so-called races is greater than that between them.

You know what that means? It means there's no such thing as races, genetically. Here's another one from Nature Genetics. Based on research from France, the genes that explain the phenotypic differences, the sort of outside differences, like hair, colour, and so on, between populations only represents a tiny part of our genome, confirming once again the concept of race from a genetic standpoint has been abolished. All humans are one race. American Biology Teacher, 2011. All humans are one race. Homo sapiens. There is absolutely no genetic or evolutionary justification for racial categories of humans. In fact, it's interesting, in the New York Times article about the Human Genome Project, we read the criteria that people use for race are based entirely on external features we are programmed to recognise. And you know one of the things I challenge people in America? Americans have been programmed to look at skin colour, and particularly what they call black and white. And if we weren't programmed to look at it the way we do on the outside, we wouldn't think the way we do.

And see, that's an important one to talk about, and I like to talk about this issue. Because in America, it's brought up on the news all the time about the racial divide, and the blacks, and the whites. Actually, did you know there are no truly black people, and there are no truly white people?

See, people say to me that you're a white person. I can prove to you right now, using operational science, that I am not a white person.

This is white. If I look like that, you'd be calling the ambulance straight away. What's the problem? We've got a white person talking to us, major catastrophe.

Did you know, if I had someone up here that you said was black, they're not truly black?

You see, the main pigment we have in our skin is a pigment called melanin. Now, there's a few other pigments. Melanin is the main pigment, and there's a couple of forms of melanin, but melanin's a brown pigment. It's sort of like, go down to the paint store, and you say, I want a dark brown paint, or I want a medium brown paint, I want a light brown paint.

It's all the same basic color. Now, there are a few other pigments that can mix in and give you different variations, but our main pigment is melanin. And if big A, little A, big B, little B represent the amount of melanin. Capital letters, lots of melanin. Small letters, small amount of melanin. And there's a lot more genes than that. Then, if someone has all big As and big Bs, they'd be very dark. Someone, all little As and little Bs, is very light. But if you're in the middle, middle brown. So then we have to ask the question, what shade, not what color, was Adam and Eve's skin? See, it's interesting. We have to actually think through the terminology we use.

And I'm going to challenge this in regard to this. We shouldn't talk about colored people, because everyone actually is a colored person. If you're not, you've got a problem. It's not what color you are, it's what shade you are. We shouldn't use the term races. We need to talk about people groups. And you know, often when we think of our relatives, we think of our close family members, but I can use for you, everyone is our relative.

You know, that makes you think differently in regard to the Gospel. When you see someone doing something terrible or evil, to think they're my relatives, they need the Gospel. Do you remember when we went to Sunday school, we learned that chorus, Jesus loves the little children and all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white?

Do you realize it teaches the wrong idea to kids? And so we came up with some different words. In fact, I was at a conference once, and I said, you know, I've got some different words for you. And there was a young lady come up to me and she said, oh, Mr. Hem, I've got some new words for you. And I said, oh, you can tell me.

She said, I said, what are yours? And she said, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, shades are brown from dark to light, all are precious in his sight. I said, that is great, I love that. That teaches it correctly. She said, what were your words? I said, oh, mine like the finesse of yours. She said, oh, I said, well, mine was Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, brown and brown and brown and brown and brown and dark brown and light brown and medium brown and brown.

She admitted her words were better, and I believe they're better as well. In fact, we just produced a t-shirt in the United States that has, on the front, one race, one blood, Acts 17 verse 26, and on the back, shades are brown from dark to light, all are precious in his sight. So, what shade was Adam and Eve skin? Adam and Eve couldn't have been all little A's and little B's, light skin, because the whole world would be. Adam and Eve couldn't have been dark skinned with all big A's and big B's, the whole world would be. That lacks the genetic variability we see. It makes much more sense that Adam and Eve were in the middle, and their children could have been dark through to light in one generation.

Do you know there are many families in America, in Florida, for instance, there's many families there, there's different nations all over the world, where you'll find kids that are darker than the parents and kids that are lighter than the parents. It's very easy to understand. National Geographic, back in 2002. This is an evolutionist journal, National Geographic. Look what it says. It lined up all these kids from Washington International Primary School from light skin through to dark skin.

Look what they said. Yet with the effects of human migrations and cultural habits, people in one place can show tremendous variation in skin tone. Notice how they don't say color? It's skin tone, skin shade. The secular world knows. We're all the same color. Like students from Washington International Primary School. See, in a way, this person up the end here represents all little A's and little B's. If she married someone like that, the children will be like that. This one represents more, you know, all big A's and big B's. If she married someone like that, the children will be like that. These here represent a mixture. Big A, little A, big B, little B. If they married and had children, they could be light through to dark in one generation. Now, it's much more complicated than that, but it gives you the big picture perspective. That's why you can end up with twins like these. These were born in Burpengarry in 2006.

Or these from England. And there's been articles on these two that have kept people up to date. Or these. And these. And these. Very easy to understand. And so you see, because they're Tarah Babel, think about it. If you end up with a group that only has the big A's and big B's on their own, they can only produce dark-skinned people. If you end up with a group that only has little A's and little B's on their own, they can only produce light-skinned people. Remember, poodles on their own can only produce poodles. Right? You can't breed poodles and go back to the original dogs. But you could start with the original dogs and again get poodles. Because the original dogs have all the information, the poodles don't. You get the idea? It's very easy to understand. And it's the same with eye shape. The reason we have different eye shapes, one of the major factors is the amount of fat in your eyelid. It's just a small genetic variation. And that's why ABC News, even in 1998 in America, was saying what the facts show is there are differences among us, but they stem from culture, not race. And you know what the answer to racism is? You start with the true history of the world in the Bible. There's only one race. We're all related. We're all one family. We all have the same problem of sin. We all need the same solution, Jesus Christ. Okay. You can watch the entire video. It's about an hour long. He goes through a lot more genetic detail. He starts with dogs and explains how dogs could come off of Noah's ark. And we have so many different kinds of dogs today from those dogs that came off of Noah's ark. And he does a very good job of explaining that. It's called One Race, One Blood from Answers in Genesis.

But that's interesting information. In just one generation, outward appearance can change. Your children can actually be different than you. Apply that to Adam and Eve. Apply that to Noah, Shim, Ham, and Japheth. Consider this. Did the people called Aborigine in Australia come from the same people as the Africans, the same division of mankind?

If you look at their appearance, you might think so. But anthropologists generally do not think so. This from Britannica.com in an article titled Australian Aboriginal Peoples, quote, It is generally held that the Australian Aboriginal Peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia, now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines. You know what that means? That means that they're in the family group, they likely descended from one of Noah's sons named Japheth, not Ham. According to the Table of Nations in Genesis, Chapter 10, the Africans descended from Ham. And many of them are very dark-skinned, and the Australian Aborigine is very dark-skinned.

And if you judge them by appearance, then you would categorize them in the same family group. But you would be wrong! When you consider their family of origin, Aborigines are as far apart from Africans as Africans are from Vikings.

Darwin could not have been more wrong.

You cannot judge family on appearance that is such a minor part of the human genome.

It's beautiful. The variety is beautiful. If we had one kind of flower on the Earth, it'd be kind of boring.

Imagine a field of Texas wildflowers, and it was just red or yellow or blue, all the time with no variation.

You never have a bouquet! Oh, you got me blue flowers again!

1 Samuel 16, verse 7. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. Now, here is an absolute statement on how we judge.

For man looks at the outward appearance, and as we have learned, which is absolutely irrelevant, but the Lord looks at the heart.

The heart is the seat of your innermost motives. The heart determines your actions. That's critically important as we move forward.

See, how does God separate the children of Adam and Eve? Let's do that. Let's now take a walk through God's opinion. We'll start by looking at how human appearance, which is based on genes, and some great misconceptions that some, a few, have had in the church concerning race and the Bible, which have led to some wrong conclusions.

According to Genesis, there are three divisions of mankind, Japheth, Ham, and Shem. They were spread out to the whole earth by God through at the Tower of Babel. When the children of Noah got off the ark after the Great Flood, they eventually all gathered in what we call today Mesopotamia, or what the Bible calls the land of Shinar. Genesis 11 tells us that story. Genesis 11, verse 1. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And they migrated from the east and came upon the plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. Who settled there? All the sons of Noah, the children of Noah, they all went to one place.

Verse 3. And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and we'll burn them thoroughly. And they had bricks for stone and bitumen for mortar. And they said, Come and let us build ourselves a city and a tower, and with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Stopping there. Now that's rebellion against God. Because God told mankind in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 28 to fill the whole earth. And now what does mankind do right after the flood? The very first thing they do? They refuse to fill the whole earth. Verse 5.

Now we'll be impossible for them. Come, let us go down. And I'll just pause there and make a brief comment. Obviously, what we would have done if we had stayed in one place is destroy ourselves. Because that's what we keep doing over and over and over again. God wanted a big family. He wanted us to spread out and fill the earth. Had he let mankind stay there, they would have eventually built a nuclear bomb and destroyed the whole thing. Okay. Verse 8.

Now God separated the people in Genesis chapter 11. Sent them all over the earth. Question is, how do you separate them? Does the Bible say what God determined to separate them? Yes, it does. Much of the Bible is written with the conclusion first, and then it goes back and tells the backstory.

Genesis chapter 11, in the story of the Tower of Babel, is actually the backstory. Genesis chapter 10 actually lists the end result. God starts with the result, and then he tells the backstory. The table of nations in Genesis chapter 10 shows how human beings are categorized. And it's by family, not kind, not race, not DNA, not genetics.

Notice this is how God separated mankind at the Tower of Babel. Genesis chapter 10, verse 1. Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood.

The sons of Japheth, notice it's a family label. The sons of Boo, their dad, Japheth. So who are these people called after? The dad, Japheth. The sons were born to them after the flood. Were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, and Tiraz. Drop down to verse 6. The sons of Ham were Kush, Misorim, which means Egypt, Put, and Canaan, the Canaanites. Drop down to verse 22. And the sons of Shem were Elam, Asher, Afaxad, Lud, and Aram.

Very important statement, then, is made in the concluding statement of chapter 10. This is a critical statement. Genesis chapter 10 and verse 32. Notice the words God inspired to be used. This is His categorization of mankind, not scientists, God. Genesis 10 verse 32. These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations. Families in nations. Reading on. And from these nations were divided on the earth after the flood.

How did God divide the nations? By family. God invented the family. Nations were divided by family. And the nations had names. And those names were the names of their forefather. Notice that in this way God categorizes His children. Not like Charles Darwin did into higher and lower races, but instead God spread them all over the earth and categorized them by the name of their father. God invented family. And therefore God devises kids by family group, not by kind.

Notice that God names the nations after their forefather, and He never loses track of who you are. But how is that possible? How is it possible for God to not lose track of who you are when so many people enter married? What happens when people enter married? Does God lose track of who you are? Not even close. God's got this. At the end of the age, when God is about to begin the Great White Throne Judgment, so this is after the millennium, a great war will happen. So will Satan stir up? Who will Satan stir up to bring about this war?

Notice! Revelation, all the way to the end of the book! We started in Genesis 10. Now we're going to go all the way to Revelation. All of human history has happened in between. Revelation 20, verse 7, Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together in battle, whose number will be as the sand of the sea.

Who are Gog and Magog? They're the descendants of Japheth, listed all the way back in the table of nations in chapter 10. We just read that. Magog is listed in chapter 10. Later, Gog is listed in Ezekiel as being a nation that lives in the land of Magog by implication a family descendant.

The point is, through all of human history, and all intermarrying, and all wars, and everything that man could possibly have done, God never forgot what family they were in. He never forgets what family you were in. He doesn't lose track. From the time of the Great Flood, all the way to the end after the millennium, God keeps track of who the family of Magog is. The son of Japheth, the son of Noah, the descendant of Adam and Eve.

One family, one kind. So what is a nation? Is a nation a separate kind of human being? No. It's just a distant relative, part of the family of Noah. Notice that the church has always taught this. Just not everybody understood it. I'm going to read from a plain truth article from December of 1962, titled, Germany and Prophecy. This was published 61 years ago, before me and many of you were even born.

Quote, and this is by Dr. Hay. This is Dr. Herman Hay. Quote, where do the Germans come from? The German people who number over 100 million throughout the world today are one great family. But they are composed of numerous small tribes. Nations, remember, are families grown big.

This is the church, the Church of God. And this is what we have always taught. And some people will forget this along the way. Take Israel, for example. The nation Israel descended from one man, Jacob, who was renamed Israel upon his conversion. Stop there. Notice Israel is named for their father.

Reading on. But Israel had 12 sons. His family, therefore, was divided into 12 tribes. You read so often in the Bible about the 12 tribes of Israel, Judah, Dan, Ephraim, Levi, etc. The same is true of the German people.

So if you think that it is wrong or impure to marry someone from another nation, another distant family group, because you think God separated them and wanted them to stay separate, otherwise he might lose track, because their genetics would mix, well then you are mistaken. When they got off the Ark. Think about this. After the flood, and they started having kids, and those kids grew, and they married each other.

Who did the kids marry? Who did they marry? Only their sisters and brothers? Where does this say that? Were their cousins available too? And if so, did that immediately mix the races? There's no such thing as race. They likely married cousins too. Remember, they all grouped together in the land of shine, are and built one big city.

So it is likely that there was a lot of genetic mixing going on, if you know what I mean. And yet, God never loses track of those nations. He never forgets who Magog is. How does he do that? Because he determines your nation, your family, by whoever is the head of the family, the father. Who invented that? God did. That's the way he never loses track. You know who my children are? The children of Rod. Pretty simple. Right? And I'm the children of Roger, or one of the children of Roger, who was a child of Willie, and so on and so forth.

How did God not lose track when they got off the Ark? He tracked who their father was. Who are you? A descendant of whoever your father is. That's who you are. That's how God does it. He's the inventor of genetics. There's no such thing as mixing races. There is no such thing.

We are all one race. God simply tracks who the father is. And that's the nation you are. So when Joseph married an Egyptian, his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were not half Israelite, because he married a human kind and had sons. And they are his sons, the sons of Joseph. Remember, Israel put his name on Ephraim.

The name of Israel was transferred to Ephraim. Ephraim is now called Israel as a people. When you read Israel in prophecy, you should attach the name Ephraim to it. Sometimes it'll say Israel and Judah. Well, is it Judah part of Israel? Yes! The prophecy is simply referring to Ephraim. And all the tribes, the ten tribes that went with Ephraim, God simply tracks the father. That's what nation you are. It's simple. God made it simple. He never loses track. Just because Ephraim had an Egyptian mother, didn't make him half Israel. Israeli. There was no problem with that at all.

Let's consider this. Let's put our thinking caps on. Rahab the harlot was a Canaanite woman, descendant of Noah's son Ham, according to the Table of Nations. She helped the Israelite spies at Jericho and was saved. And then she married an Israelite man. Later, in that same family, Boaz married Ruth, a Moabite woman. Moabites were of Hebrew descent, the same family as Abraham. Let's notice Genesis 19, verse 36.

Thus both daughters of Lot were the child of their father, the firstborn bore a son and called him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. According to 2 Chronicles 12, verse 13, a little later in that family, Rehoboam's mother, who was Rehoboam? Solomon's son. So Rehoboam's mother would be Solomon's wife, one of many, but okay, we're focusing in on her. Her name was Nahma. And she was an Amorite. Yet all three women, Rahab the Canaanite, Ruth the Moabite, and Nahab, Nahma, excuse me, the Amorite, are ancestors of our Lord Jesus Christ. Their genes played a role in his genetic makeup.

Matthew chapter 1, verses 5 and 6. Matthew 1, 6, Solomon to get Boaz by Rahab. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king. And it went on through Solomon and Rehoboam and all the other kings until it went all the way down to Jesus Christ. So is there some loss of genetic purity in the lineage of Jesus Christ? No. There's no such thing. There's no such thing.

No partiality in the house of God. Let's take a look at Noah. It's one of the biggest objections to the concept of one human race that I have heard most often in the church in the past. Was the objection that God selected Noah and his family and saved him on the ark because Noah was perfect in his generations. You all heard that. If you've been in the church for 30 years or more, you've definitely heard that objection. Or you weren't paying attention, which is fine. Genesis 6 and verse 9.

Here's the verse. This is the big one. Genesis 6 and verse 9. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. Oh. So that means, as we insert Darwinian thought, that Noah was genetically pure. Noah was racially pure. Everybody else was intermarrying and mixing the genes, but Noah stayed pure. Yeah, how'd that work?

Some people view this passage through Darwinian view, separating people into different kinds, and this is their justification. They say, you see, God chose Noah because he was perfect in his generation. In other words, Noah was pure in his genetic background, which means his family didn't mix with the other races. And they say that, though God was protecting the pure race, he took Noah and put him on the ark, and everybody else died in the flood. Ha, ha, ha. And how do you get all the people, different people, today?

But that's not even what Genesis 6 and verse 9 means. Remember, it was translated from English, from Hebrew, into multiple languages before it got to English. Just read the commentaries on what pure generation means. This is from John Gill's commentary on Genesis 6 and verse 9. Speaking of Noah being perfect in his generation's quote, was sincere and upright in heart and life, lived an unblemished life and conversation, untainted with the gross corruptions of the age he lived in, the age he lived in, which he escaped through the knowledge of grace, the fear of God, and therefore it is added, he was holy, upright, and blameless in his generations, among the men of several generations he lived in, and as the generation before the flood, which was very corrupt indeed.

Notice how other Bible translations interpret the Hebrew language in Genesis 6 and verse 9. Completely different than what the King James phrases it like. Genesis 6 and verse 9 in the New Revised Standard Version. This is what the Hebrew actually means. These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless, in his generation. He's talking about his actions in his heart, not his genetics. That's what it means. Noah walked with God. So perfect in his generations is a phrase that meant he kept away from the bad habits and practices of the people that he grew up with.

It had nothing to do with his behavior, his heart, and nothing to do with his genetics. Noah was chosen because he was a righteous man who listened and followed God. Do we know that for sure? Yes! Hebrews 11 and verse 7. Hebrews 11 and verse 7.

Paul explains why God chose Noah. Hebrews 11 and verse 7. By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of the things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared the ark. Notice the action involved with Noah. Notice he was following God's rules. This is what God's looking for in his children. And who are his children? Well, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. That's the way God looks at it. Moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for saving his household, by which he condemned the world and became the heir of righteousness, which is according to the faith.

Nothing about his race or genetics is mentioned. How is he an heir? What is he an heir of? What is the heritage of Noah? Righteousness. Righteousness, not race. Noah wasn't perfect in character. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but he did have faith, didn't he? He built an ark. When everybody made fun of him, he did it anyway.

He followed God, and that's why God said he was perfect in his generations. Noah was a righteous man. But what about Abraham, Isaac, and the Israelites? There are rules in the Bible about intermarrying. What about that? It's another objection you've heard to the one race of man. We've all probably heard it in the past. Abraham and Isaac's objections to their son, marrying women in the local area. And then, when that family grew up and became a large nation, they were forbidden from marrying people of other countries.

But other specific countries, and all other countries, were left out. Notice, Abraham's objection was in Genesis 24, verse 3. It says, And I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife from my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But you shall go to my country and my family and take a wife for Isaac.

So he had to take a wife from his own family, and with our Darwinian education and influence, we read into that because that was his race. But it doesn't say why he objected to Isaac marrying a Canaanite woman. We do read about it a little bit when Isaac and Rebecca forbade Jacob from marrying a Canaanite woman, and it was because the local women irritated Isaac and Rebecca. But it doesn't say why they irritated Isaac and Rebecca. It just says they irritated them.

Isaac's objection is in Genesis 28, verse 1. A little backstory here. Esau had already married two Hittite women, and he was getting ready to marry a woman from Ishmael, his uncle. And it says in Genesis 28, verse 1, 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. No way you're marrying any one of these women. Why? Was it racially motivated? Or was it behaviorally motivated? We get the answer a little bit later in history when God forbids the Israelites from marrying Canaanite women.

And God is very clear, extremely clear, puts the dot on the bullseye as to why you were not allowed to marry a Canaanite woman if you were a son or daughter of Israel, a woman or man. You couldn't marry a Canaanite. Why? Exodus 34, verse 12. Take heed to yourself lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going.

Lest it be a snare to you, not a genetic watering down of your bloodline. A snare. In your midst, verse 13, But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images. Oh, that's their religion. God's objecting to their behavior, not their genetics. Let's read on. For you shall worship no other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and play the harlot with their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods. One of them invites you to eat at his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons.

And his daughters play the harlot with their gods. And make your sons play the harlot with their gods. It's religion, and every time it is forbidden to marry someone of another tribe. It is always unanimously over religion, not race. Notice something before I read the next verse. There is no prohibition in the Bible for any other group on planet Earth to not marry anybody else in another group on planet Earth. There is no part of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not intermarry.

It is nowhere to be found in the Bible. Why? Why is it just the Hebrew people? They were the keepers of the oracles of God, Romans chapter 3. They were to keep the word of God pure. It was about God's word, not their genes. Verse 17, You shall make no mold in gods for yourself. That was the point. This prohibition was only for Israel, not for any other nations. And this prohibition was for religious reasons, no mention of being for racial reasons. Here's a couple more that you can look up.

Deuteronomy 7, verses 3-4. Deuteronomy 7, verses 3-4. It says, so you don't serve other gods. No mention of race being impure ever mentioned. Later in Joshua, Joshua chapter 23 and verse 12, it goes back and in verse 16 of Joshua 23, it says, so you don't serve other gods and bow down to them. Again, it's religion. The other nations, if you intermarry outside of your faith, has always been the issue.

The nail in the coffin is after Judah was conquered by Babylon, and then Babylon was conquered by Persia. And Persia allowed the Jews to return to the land of Judah and Jerusalem. So the people started to intermarry with the local people. And this event is recorded in both books, Nehemiah and Ezra. But Ezra records the reason why. Nehemiah doesn't record the reason why, but Ezra does, and it's the same event. Ezra chapter 9 and verse 10. And now, O God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants and prophets, saying the land which you are entering to possess is unclean, with the uncleanness of the peoples of the land.

Is that their unclean genes? No. Read the next statement. With their abominations, which they have filled it, their actions, their religion, their attitude, from one end to another, with their impurity, what filled the land with uncleanness? The local people's genetics? Their bloodline? No. Their abominations? Their evil actions? Verse 12. Now therefore, do not give your daughters and wives to their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons.

Never seek their peace or prosperity, for you may be strong and eat good of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever. Verse 14. Should we again break your commandments by joining in marriage with people, committing these abominations? Again, it's about religion. It always was. This command did not marry outside of God's belief. Do you know what that means? If it were to marry someone who has the same skin tone as you, who regularly commits abominations, then it is to marry someone who has darker or lighter skin tone than you, who follows God.

It is the action and the heart that matters to God, and always, always has. Notice what the apostles confirm in the New Testament for this principle, and notice not only what's stated, but what's not stated. 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 14. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And I won't read the whole thing for time's sake, but Paul talks about the difficulties that you run into when you do marry outside the faith, and it is challenging. Just ask anybody who has a spouse outside the faith. Paul talks about it in Romans chapter 7.

It's difficult! The bottom line is this. There's no such thing as mixing the races, no matter who marries who. We're all human. There's one race we are to never show partiality based on trivial variations like appearance. And as we have seen, some have misrepresented the Bible to more closely match the Darwinian explanation of mankind.

Other than what the Bible truly says, does that mean that all who are single can marry whomever they please and ignore the advice of their parents? No! Absolutely not! This is a dark world that judges on appearance. Pay attention! This world shows partiality, and your parents and grandparents have context of this world that you do not have. They have been in it longer than you. Always take the advice of your parents before you marry. There are things to consider that we have not discussed and that you do not have context for, but your parents do.

So listen to them. Colossians 3, verse 20, Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. So how do you decide who to marry? You better get advice from your parents. The racial topic that has been stirred up again in America is not only the old battle lines of the so-called black and white that still exist, but now we are being fed another line of reasoning called critical race theory, where there is this supposed systematic racism based on someone's race, which doesn't even exist.

The problem isn't race. The problem is human nature. And the world does not offer a solution to this problem. But we can't change the world right now. So there is no need to address the world with this sermon. But it is in us, in the house of God, that is being addressed. We understand and accept God's viewpoint on the human race, or we better get started.

We are the human family, and we are to overcome our internal nature through the power of God's Spirit to become part of the solution of all of the trouble that this world is in. And we can only do that if we are with Jesus Christ at His return. And I would suggest we will not be with Jesus Christ at His return if we don't think like God. That is our focus. We, you and I, are to look inward. We look for corruption inside ourselves. We change. We overcome. That's the solution. Then when Christ returns to be our Savior and the Savior of the whole world, we will be by His side to teach others the things we are learning right now.

It is our job to self-examine and self-correct based on the Word of God. James 2, where we started this series. My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory, the Lord of glory, with partiality. Root that out of your thinking. Verse 9, But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Don't believe what's going on in the news today as they pump this new theory down your throat.

It's just as racist as all racism is, and it's not the solution. Verse 10, For whoever shall keep the whole law, yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. God does not show partiality, and God does not tolerate partiality in his children, and we are his children. It is time to make sure that we understand God's point of view and that we show no partiality to anyone, meaning we do not mistreat one person and treat another person well based on anything other than the law of God.

The only dividing point is how we behave. Not how much money we have, not what skin tone, not color we have, not what ordination level we have, not what department head we are. Just family. We need to get that right and never, ever be influenced by this world and Satan trying to pump partiality into us. There is no partiality in the house of God.