The Plain Truth About Racism and Other Hatred

Well, thank you again, Mark. Happy Sabbath, brethren! As always, great to see you with us. And for those of you on Zoom, happy Sabbath to see all of you as well. Today, I'd like to talk about one of the most prominent sins that we see today in our world. We see it on the media. We see it in our streets. We see it within our diseased human Western culture. And that sin is the sin of hate. It used to be that people would have a sense of shame to demonstrate hate so openly and blatantly. And of course, they would be criticized for it. Now people demonstrate hate, and they're applauded. They're considered heroes. They get media attention and recognize for expressing hate towards other human beings. Let's go to Mark 12 and 28 and see something that Jesus said regarding our fellow human beings, no matter who or what they are, wherever they live in the world, no matter what their color is, or their religious beliefs, or their personal philosophies, or their cultures, or their languages, or many of the other hundreds of ways carnal human nature chooses to divide people. Mark 12 and 28, one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he, Jesus said, answered them well, previous discussion, said, and here's what he says, which is the first commandment of all? Verse 29, Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Answers the question. Nails it. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He goes beyond the question that was asked. Now it could be because, being God, the Son of God, he recognized a void in the heart of this scribe, perhaps, who asked this question, but for whatever reason, Jesus goes beyond answering the simple question he was asked.

Verse 31, and the second, like it, is this. Again, Jesus is going beyond the question that was asked.

This is the first commandment, and the second, like it, is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And, of course, if you look at the Ten Commandments, you will find the first part are all dedicated towards loving God and ways to demonstrate and show how you love God. And the latter part of the Ten Commandments are ways that we can demonstrate and show love towards our neighbor. So the Ten Commandments themselves are tied into these two great commandments that Jesus mentions here. So the scribe said to him, Well said, teacher, you have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. All of the burnt offerings and sacrifices you could possibly do, thinking you're pleasing God and doing some ritual to shake it to the right or shake it to the left or do whatever you think is commanded or needs to be done. More important than any of that, even the scribe recognized, is loving God and loving your neighbor. Jesus stated something similar in Luke chapter 10. A lawyer asked him to define who his neighbor is. Actually, he was kind of looking for a loophole. And Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan in the parable. Now, we don't have the time to go there today. That's not the purpose I actually gave that as part of a Bible study, a Wednesday night Bible study a few weeks back. So we're not going to cover all of that today. But in the parable, a gentleman is walking the streets, he's mugged, he's all beaten up, he's left for dead, he's wounded, he's bleeding, he's left for dead. And in the parable, two Jewish religious leaders did nothing to help the man.

Who did help him was a despised Samaritan. One of the people that the typical Jew thought was subhuman, one of the most despicable people on earth. So bad that Jews would go around Samaria rather than walking to it to get from a northern city above Samaria down to Judea.

They would avoid even going there. That's how much they hated the Samaritans. And it's this despised Samaritan who was the one who cared enough to help. So in that parable, Jesus Christ defines a neighbor as being anyone and everyone.

When you're hurting, when you're wounded, when you're desperate, when you're neglected, anyone who shows mercy and cares for you shows you that they're your neighbor. They consider you to be important and of value. And they offer you dignity and they offer you care while you're hurting. Obviously, the neighbor in the parable is that despised Samaritan who shows mercy to the injured person.

Well, we saw here in Mark 12, of course, the first commandment is to love God totally. And the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. This means that we should look at everybody, the rest of God's creation. They were all created, too, like us, to look at everybody and treat them the way we would want to be treated. The way that we would want to be respected in any particular situation or hurt. The way that we would want to be allowed opportunities in life. Those are the same kinds of opportunities that we should want for everyone and hope that they are able to have. This is the way that we are commanded to show love towards others.

This means to people who are of a different color, of a different gender, those who have different religious beliefs than we do, those who are of a different social class than we may be.

This is the command, the second great command that God has instructed. Now, many people mistakenly think, oh, that's so advanced. Jesus Christ introduced that into the New Testament. How advanced that knowledge was. It wasn't advanced at all. Let's go to Leviticus 19, beginning in verse 16. This teaching, this command, was introduced in the Old Testament by the very being who would later walk on earth as Jesus Christ. So what he's doing is he's repeating in Mark 12 what he originally instructed the ancient Israel, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. Let's read about this, Leviticus 19, verse 16. You shall not go about as a tale-bearer or a slanderer among your people. So you shouldn't be picking up the telephone and slamming other brethren, slamming whether they're in the church or not. God didn't die and put you in charge to think you have some right to pick up the telephone and slander other people because you may have a difference of opinion with them. You shall not go about as a tale-bearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. You shall not do nothing to endanger your neighbor's life. I am the Lord. Can you get more powerful command that you shall not slander other people? I am God. Is there anything you could possibly need more direct in Scripture? Continuing. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. I know that's a little cryptic in the New King James, so read that verse 17 from the New Century version. You shall not hate your fellow citizen in your heart. If your neighbor does something wrong, tell him about it, or you will be partly to blame. Now, something wrong isn't your opinion. If your neighbor sins, if your neighbor violates God's law, then you go to your neighbor. Again, you don't, as a tale-bearer, go and call everybody and complain about your neighbor. That's not Christian. That is not the way of God. What you do is you go to that person and you say, I believe that you broke God's law, and there's a serious issue here, and it disturbs me, and I want to talk to you about it.

Picking it up here again in verse 18, the New King James version.

That's a command. Command from the very being who would later empty himself of his glory and be born as a human being and walk on earth and be known as Jesus Christ.

This isn't a suggestion from God. This isn't God's opinion. This isn't simply a nice thing to do. It is a command from the Creator God.

Aha! What about if people don't like us back? What about if we're trying to be nice and we're trying to treat people decently and they treat us like garbage? What if people mistreat us? Does that give me the loophole? Does that give me an excuse to hate them? Well, let's see what Jesus said again in Matthew 5, verse 43. If you'll turn there with me.

Jesus was asked that very question. What if they consider us their enemy? And Jesus spoke on this question and his answer shook up the Jewish leaders of his day. Because the Jewish philosophy was that you love people who love you and it's okay to hate your enemies. Jesus shakes them up by his response. Matthew 5, verse 43.

Verse 45.

You know there are people who hate God? They still get sunshine every day. Rain falls and there you are just like it falls next to the Christian person living next door to them.

God still respects and treats people with love and kindness in spite of the fact that they mistreat him. That they mistreat his law. That they might not even believe in him. They may use his name in vain on a regular basis. And God still shows love towards his enemies. People who have declared themselves to be enemies of God. They're very actions to show that they're an enemy towards God.

Let's go to Galatians, chapter 5 and verse 19. Let's see what Paul wrote about this topic of hatred that we see so prevalent in our media today. Social media, on the internet, news media, our streets, our what we might call general discourse, just the discussions, commentary that we have going around in the world today.

Just to show you how shallow of a culture we have today, if you took every protester for the last three weeks and you put them all together. Because I keep up with this and most protests were 300-400 people, some of them were maybe a few thousand. You put every protester together.

You might might come up with half a million people and that's a great, probably a greatly exaggerated answer. That's like one tenth of one percent or less of the population of the United States.

So what are we focusing on? The 99.9% of people who are just getting up and living their daily lives and going to work? Or are we focusing on what the media wants us to focus on? What we're allowing in this country is the tail to wag the dog instead of the other way around. Galatians 5 and verse 19, Paul says, Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred. That's the one that I'm focusing on today in the New Revised Standard Version and other versions. It's called enmities, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, enmities, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, as I have also told you in the past, that those who practice such things, those in the church, who routinely practice, just allow this to be part of their lifestyle, they think nothing of it. Ha ha! I can hate people. I can be a bigot. I can be jealous if people have things that I don't have. I can have a little adultery if no one knows about it. I can check the Internet and look at porn when no one's looking. Ha ha ha ha! Paul says, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul says you're in for a rude awakening on that time called Judgment Day.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such. There is no law against the fruits of the Spirit. This Greek word hatred is actually the Greek word ekthra, spelled E-C-H-T-H-R-A, pronounced ekthra.

It means hostility, being opposed to someone, enmity or hatred. We live in a world that is saturated with hatred. Hatred in the carnal world is natural. Hatred is universal.

Hatred is part of carnal human nature. Hatred has always existed. Hatred exists today. And until the kingdom of God, hatred will continue to exist, as long as carnal human nature exists in this physical world.

There are different types of hate. That's what I would like to discuss today. Actually, there are many, but I have only a few time to discuss a few. I'd like to take a look at some of the types or subsets of hatred that exist in the world today. We should be aware of and hopefully we're not participating in. First of all, there's ethnic hatred. Hatred towards the fact that you're ethnically different than I am. Many millions throughout history have died in wars because their nationality or tribe was slightly different than the folks next door. In most cases, if you put these people side by side and someone put an elephant rifle to your head, you couldn't tell the difference.

But for hours, they could tell you the difference between the two of them. That's ethnic hatred. Many wars in human history have been wars over one ethnic group hating another ethnic group. Think of Yugoslavia, the wars that happened in the former Yugoslavia recently. There's cultural hatred. This is the hatred of those who have different social customs or values than you have. It might be their language or the way that they dress, or they might comb their hair to the left, and your group combs it to the right. So obviously there's something wrong with their culture, and you hate them. There's geographic hatred. This is the hatred of someone who may be like you in every other way.

If you were put next to a person who lives somewhere else geographically, people couldn't tell you apart. Except that the geography they have or live in or want is different than the geography you live in. Think of the famous Hatfields and McCoys. They were separated by a river between Kentucky and West Virginia. Both Appalachian families, you couldn't tell the difference between the two. They hated each other. Every week people are killed in the major cities in the United States over a turf war or a gang war. My gang is going to sell drugs in this neighborhood.

Oh no, mine is pow pow! That's hatred over geographic location. Very common. There's religious hatred up until the 20th century. Most wars in history were fought over religious differences. Again, in many cases you could put people side by side and couldn't tell the difference between the two. If you put a French Huguenot Protestant in the Middle Ages next to a French Catholic, I couldn't tell you the difference. They both looked French to me, but they could tell you the difference. And there was hatred between them. They could spend hours telling you the differences they have from one another.

There's gender hatred. There are sadly individuals who think less of the other gender. I prefer the French phrase vivale de françes. I appreciate those of the other gender. But there's no doubt that women have been oppressed in most of human history in the vast majority of human cultures. Even today, female genital mutilation, FGM, is still practiced on many young girls in many areas of the world. Recently, Germany was stunned to find an estimated 60,000 women who live in Germany have experienced FGM in their lifetime.

Not necessarily in Germany. They might be immigrants. But here's this civilized Western nation stunned to find out there are 60,000 females living in their country who experienced that tragedy. Their social economic hatred. This is hatred that can work both ways. One way is for the rich to think that they're superior to the poor. In Ezekiel, he stated in chapter 22, verse 29, The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy, and wrongfully oppressed the stranger.

And that's a problem in our country today. We have slick salesmen who take advantage of the poor, who sell the poor things, products they really don't need and can't afford, who give them artificial credit limits, and there's no way they're going to pay that back, but they get the sale, and there certainly is a struggle with that in our very own nation today. But, you know, that can be reversed as well.

Another way is for people who are in poverty to hate the wealthy, or to hate those whose lives are better off than they are. I know many people who misspent their youth chasing sex in the next high. That's all they wanted to do in their 20s. Chase the girls and get the next high! And they resent, sometimes, I've noticed this even in the Church of God, hate other people who in their 20s decided to invest in themselves and get a college education. Somehow that makes them bad. That they had the same choices but made different choices that that somehow makes them bad. Because now they're enjoying the opportunities that that gave them in life. That also is sin.

That also is a form of hatred. Then there's sinner hatred. This is the one that Christians are often condemned by in our secular society. Sadly, some people live in sin sexually, or they're immoral, or they have dozens of dysfunctions. Many people live by the works of the flesh. Some of them we just read a few minutes ago. They live a negative, degenerate lifestyle. They may despise the teachings of the Bible. They may even mock God Himself. But we should never hate them.

We may despise their lifestyle. We may feel poorly, badly about the harm they bring in themselves. Usually, I feel worse about the harm they're bringing on their loved ones. Usually what they're doing with their children, what they're doing to their spouse, what they're doing to the other loved ones who suffer because of their lifestyle or their attitude or their sins.

But that never gives us the excuse to hate them. As Jesus said, the sun shines in the good and the wicked. God is kind and merciful, even to evil. Jesus used the word evil in those verses. Let's go to Romans 5 and verse 8. This should be our attitude towards those who are living very harmful, dysfunctional lifestyles that we know are against God's word, that we certainly wouldn't participate in. Some of them may even make us physically ill to think about them, some of the things that they do to themselves and others.

But we want to demonstrate God's love. That's what Jesus was saying in the verse we read earlier. Not the human answer to problems, but God's answer to problems. Romans chapter 5 and verse 8, if you'll turn there, please.

Paul wrote for God demonstrates His own love towards us. In that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. You know, God didn't start loving us after we were called and repented.

He loved us before we were called and repented. He loved us when we were still struggling in our sins.

He loved us all along.

And we should follow His example. We may find a particular lifestyle disgusting, sin, unbiblical, personally repulsive, and I do many things that people do.

But I don't express that as hate towards them. They're living in ignorance. They're uncalled. They don't understand Christ. They're blinded. I have empathy for I feel sorry for someone living in that level of unhappiness their entire lifetime. It's certainly not an excuse or reason to hate someone.

So again, God didn't start loving us after we were called and repented. He loved us before we even responded to Him. And that's the example that we want to follow.

Then there's another type of hatred. And that's racial hatred. I want to talk about that for a little while. You see, hatred is kind of hierarchical. I'm going to tell you a way of human nature. My plan, which, human nature is wired to hate. And if I can't hate you because because of your skin color, which is an obvious distinction, then I'll hate you because of your gender. And if I can't hate you because of your gender, I'll hate you because of your ethnicity. If I can't hate you because of your ethnicity, I'll hate you because of the geography that you live in. And if I can't hate you because of your geography, I'll hate you because of your religion. You see, there's an escalating hierarchy in which when people have no reason to hate here, they just simply move down a level and hate you for another reason. Because again, hate is a natural and universal part of human nature. Hate has always existed! Hate exists today! And as long as there are human beings on earth void of God's Holy Spirit and a new heart, hate will always continue to exist.

Racial hatred is universal among humanity. Racism exists on every continent, in any and every culture on earth. Wherever you find people of the slightest shades of color, you will find racial hatred. You will even find racism within the shades of that color.

Because racism is universal. Here are some examples.

The majority of the people who dominate modern China today are called Han Chinese, H-A-N.

However, there's a province in northwest China called the Xinjiang Province.

And within that province live a group of people called the Uyghurs.

They claim to be the original inhabitants of that part of China.

The Uyghurs have about 60% European or southwest Asian ancestry and about 40% of east Asian ancestry or Siberian industry. Many of them have Caucasian features. They don't even look like the Han Chinese. Add to that, the challenge they have is the fact that they have a distinct culture from the Han Chinese who dominate China. And most are Muslim, and it has caused them to be very persecuted for who they are and because of what they look like. Approximately today, one million Uyghurs are detained in mass detention camps, termed re-education camps, aimed at changing their thinking, destroying their culture and their identities, their religious beliefs. That's racism. And it exists in China. During what's been going on in the United States today in some major Chinese cities, there's been the complaint of racism towards Africans who are living in Chinese cities. So we see that racism exists in China. How about India?

Well, Indian author and activist Arun Deeti Roy commented on racism in India recently in an interview. She was asked the question, how do you see blacks or what stereotype do we Indians have of them? Here's her answer. Quote, look at the Indian obsession with fair skin. It is one of the most sickening things about us. If you watch Bollywood movies, you would imagine India was a country of white folks. Indian racism towards black people is almost as worse as white people's racism. It's unbelievable. I've seen it happen on the streets when I've been there with my black friends. And sometimes it comes from people whose skin color is really no different. Rarely have I been so enraged and ashamed that racism has manifested itself in outright attacks. I add to that, of course, the caste system that illegally still exists in India holds many millions and millions of people back from opportunities because they were born in the wrong caste. Well, if you take the population of China and India, that's 37% of the entire global population. There's racism there. You see where I'm going with this? How about Africa? Well, most of us are aware of the horrible legacy of white racism and colonialism in Africa, including in South Africa, Zimbabwe, the former nations that were part of French colonies or Belgian colonies or English colonies. However, what we may not be familiar with is racism within African nations. This is from Wikipedia, an article on racism in Africa. I'd like to read you a few things from this Wikipedia article. Quote, ethnic pygmy populations in Central Africa suffer from racialized discrimination from Bantu peoples. Pygmies and Bantus differ physically and genetically due to a long separation until recent Bantu expansion brought them back into close contact. What is it? It's racism. That's what the article said. Racialized. Said.

But then, the Bantu get it on the other end. This is the next thing. The Somali Bantu ethnic minority face significant stigmatization in Somali society due to their differing physical appearance and ancestry from Kushitic origin, the majority in Somalia. Racialized epithets targeted at the Somali Bantu community exist, such as words like a dune, which means slave, similar in connotation to the Arabic term abid. In the 1970s, Uganda and other East African nations implemented racist policies that targeted Asian individuals who lived in those black African nations. Most of them were immigrants from India. Shopkeepers, many of them merchants, had lived there for generations.

I could talk about, if I had time, or the inclination, the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas, or prejudice against the native Inuit, the indigenous peoples in the Arctic by Canadians, the aboriginal people in Australia. What's my point? My point is that racism has always existed, racism exists today, and racism will always exist, as long as people have carnal human nature.

And even if you found a way to eliminate racism, they'll hate you because of where you live, what you believe, what your ethnic is, why you dress, how you walk, where you work, because hate is a typical dysfunctional human trait all over the world. That's my point.

I'd like to read you something from the International Labor Organization, which I think is part of the UN. This is from an article published by them in September 2017. It says, new research developed jointly by the International Labor Association, that's the ILO, and the Walk Free Foundation, in partnership with the International Organization for Migration, has revealed true scale of modern slavery around the world. The data released during the United Nations General Assembly shows that more than 40 million people around the world today are victims of slavery. How much effort is being put into eliminating that?

Let me help you with that answer. Zero.

The ILO has also released a companion estimate of child labor. Child labor are those forced to work in factories, forced to work sometimes 12, 15-hour days, in fact, for pennies an hour, so that our multinational conglomerates can sell their tennis shoes for $200 to Americans, to privileged Americans, or clothes. So how many people, how many people are involved in child labor violations? 152 million children around the world are exploited in a modern form of slavery, working 12 to 15 hours a day for pennies an hour.

The New York Times, in an article, Global Slavery by the Numbers, this is March 16, 2013. Now this is four years before the article I just read, so their numbers in slavery aren't going to be 40 million, they're 25 million. It was four years earlier, and also the United Nations probably has a more accurate answer when they say 40 million. But here's what the article said. While slavery is illegal across the globe, the Summall Foundation noted there are 27 million slaves worldwide, more than in 1860 when there were 25 million.

In 1860, the year the Civil War started, in all areas of the Americas, North America, South America, there were 25 million slaves. This article says there's now 27 million slaves. Now let me ask this question. What efforts are being made to end that problem?

Let me help you with that. Zero. You won't even find it in your media.

You won't find it unless you look for it. It's not an area of discussion, no one cares.

According to law enforcement statistics, let's go back to the United States now and the difficulties and the problems that we struggle with.

According to law enforcement statistics, there were over 10.3 million arrests for all offenses in the United States in 2018. That averages out to 28,000 arrests every day. 28,000 arrests every day.

And with that large number, sadly, some arrests will always go bad.

And anyone who tells you out of 28,000 arrests today that there aren't a few that goes bad, that there will always be a few that go bad, I tell you you're living in a fool's paradise.

That's a lot.

You know, every day, poor doctors in surgeries kill people.

People die on an operating table.

Every day, good doctors make mistakes, and good people die, and they're a good doctor, but they make a mistake, and people die on the operating table.

So should we defund the medical profession?

Because a few bad apples make mistakes?

Like anything, we always should work to make it better.

Have better medical facilities, better trained doctors, yes, better police, and better training for our police.

We should always, as a society, advance to make things better.

But at the same time, we have to acknowledge and realize that people are human, and absolutely, positively, human beings make mistakes.

And when the mistakes are made, those who made the mistake need to be confronted, and need to be dealt with.

If every time in the future, in this country, in this country, if every time in the future we're going to have destruction and violence in the street because a bad cop takes a life, knowing there are 28,000 arrests, I can guarantee you that there are going to be some bad arrests and some ugly things are going to happen to people of every color. Because when you have 28,000 arrests a day, people are going to do bad things, and people are going to make a mistake.

And if we think in the future of our nation that every time somebody makes a mistake, every time there's a bad cop, that we're going to justify destruction and violence in the streets because someone's life was taken away, then I pity the future of this republic. I truly do. I'm going to tell you what Fox News and CNN don't have the courage to tell you because they both have their agendas. I'm going to tell you the plain truth about racism. You can no more eliminate racism or hate any more than you can eliminate lust or greed or any of the other works of the flesh. Outlawing or shaming racism is about as effective as outlawing and shaming adultery.

Which we did for hundreds and hundreds of years. Most states had laws against adultery.

People were shamed who committed adultery. How well is that working?

You can't outlaw hate. You can't outlaw human nature. You can overcome it by teaching the right values beginning in the home and the school systems and by rewarding positive behavior instead of rewarding dysfunction, destruction, and rioting.

That's how you overcome racism, which is a terrible sin. Again, I want to emphasize that hate has always existed. Hate exists today and hate will always exist. In my sermon next time, I'd like to talk about protesting and our modern idea of canceling or shaming, which is human stupid trick number two. We'll change people's behavior by shaming them. Only a lunatic human society could come up with that as a solution. Most of my life growing up, people who were homosexuals were called queers, perverts, deviates. I could go on and on, but I don't want to offend anybody more than I probably already have. And the whole society was geared towards shaming. We'll call them names. We'll shame them into good behavior. How well is that working?

That's not the answer, and I'll talk about that more next time. But here's the one and only way that hate will be eliminated from the human race. Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 24, my final scripture today. And you and I should be demonstrating this today because we already have what was promised to the entire human race in the future after Jesus Christ returns to earth and establishes that wonderful kingdom of God. There is no excuse for racism to exist between God's people.

No excuse. No allowance. It's unacceptable. It's a sin. Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 24, for I will take from you among the nations, talking about the physical, uncalled carnal descendants of Israel and gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land, then I will sprinkle clean water in you and you shall be clean and I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. We can see by what God's going to do here. He doesn't hate them in spite of the fact that they're filthy. Verse 26, and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'm going to take that uncaring, stony, arrogant, selfish, prideful heart, which is carnal out of you and put a heart in you that has compassion and conscience and it cares.

Verse 27, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and will keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers. You shall be my people and I shall be your God. That is the solution to the many, many forms of human hate, including the sin of racism. Let us show by our examples, let us show the world, our family, the people we work with, our community, by our own examples that we reject all forms of hate. We reject all forms of violence, all forms of destruction, and what we do embrace are the fruits of God's Holy Spirit. Have a wonderful Sabbath. See you next time.