Now, Numbers 12 beginning verse number one, the bible reads, " And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman, and they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it.
(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth. And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and he departed. And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned.
Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb. And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee. And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again. And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran."
What I want to preach about this morning is the subject of interracial marriage, interracial marriage. I've never done a whole sermon on this, but there's so much in the bible on this subject that it's a great subject for a sermon. There's a lot of misunderstanding out there, and a lot of false doctrine out there on this subject.
This is a great example right here where we have Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman. When Moses marries this Ethiopian woman, his brother and sister are very angry at him. Now obviously, an Ethiopian is a very black person, and Moses an Israelite, and he was often mistaken for an Egyptian. We could figure that if Moses was mistaken for an Egyptian, by the way, Joseph was mistaken for an Egyptian, and even the apostle Paul in the New Testament was mistaken for an Egyptian, we can figure that probably the Israelites in bible times, probably looked similar to Egyptians.
Basically, they're brown people. If you look at all Egyptian artwork and everything, you can tell that they're not black, but they're not white either. They're basically brown. You'd look at that and maybe get an idea of the type of look that Moses had. For whatever reason, Aaron and Miriam are angry at Moses because he's married an Ethiopian woman, and that makes them angry, and they start to speak against Moses. Then basically, God judges them.
Now, there's nothing in chapter that rebukes Moses for what he's done or corrects Moses for what he's done. In fact, I'm going to show you from the bible this morning that there is nothing in the bible from Genesis to Revelation that condemns so-called interracial marriage, nothing in this whole book. Yet, many people will teach for commandments the doctrines of men. They believe it's wrong, they have a problem with it for whatever reason, and then they'll try to impose that opinion on someone else even though there's no scripture to back that up.
Let's go back to the very beginning, Genesis 10, and let's try to understand this subject biblically. First of all, let me just point out to you that the word "race" is never found in the bible, except for to talk about someone running a race, which is obviously [inaudible 00:04:04] but the concept of there being different races on this earth is not a biblical concept.
Now, the bible does talk about there being nationalities, talks about there being families. It talks about kindreds and tribes, but it does not ever talk about there being a race. You say, "Well, what's the difference, Pastor Anderson?" There's a big difference, and I'll show you the difference.
Those who do believe in this race theory would point to the three sons of Noah often and say, "Shem, Ham, and Japheth represent the three races: the White, the Brown and the Black." This is what people will say who believe in this. They'll point to that and say, "That's the major divisions of mankind." You'll even hear people use terms like Semitic, coming from the name of the person Shem or Hamitic or whatever.
Look if you would at Genesis 10 and look at verse number 31. It says, "These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations." Verse 32, "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." At the end of Genesis 10, we see how the nations were divided after the flood.
Now, back up if you would to verse number 25. The bible says in Genesis 10:25, "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan." Let me just break this down to you, and this is all by way of introduction, but here in Genesis 10:25, we have a guy named Peleg, and the bible says that he received the name Peleg because in his days, the earth was divided.
Now, what does it mean that the earth was divided? Well, just a few verses later in 31 and 32, he talks about the nations at the end of verse 32, divided in the earth after the flood. You see, often when the bible uses the word "world" or the "earth", he's not talking about the soil. He's actually talking about the people who live in the world. Like when the bible says, "God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son," it's not saying he loved the planet; it's saying that he loved the people in the world, right?
When the bible says, "O earth, hear the word of the Lord," he's not speaking to the ground. When he says, "O earth, hear the word of the Lord," he's talking about the people in the earth. When the bible talks about in verse 25, the earth being divided, it's talking about the people in the earth being divided. If we actually go by the context of the passage, a few verses later, he says, "The nations are divided. The earth is divided. The nations are divided."
Let's read Genesis 11 to get an idea of what this is talking about. Look at verse one, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." Again, notice. The whole, what? The whole earth was united. Notice earth there referring to the people. Why would earth be referring to something else in 10:25? Doesn't make any sense.
Look at verse number two. It says, " And it came to pass, as they journeyed," talking about all the people in the earth, "from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
What we see here is that all of mankind is united. They all speak the same language. Not only that, they have a desire to stay together, and they're very unified, and talking about how they're one people, "We're going to make a name for us. We're going to make a city for us. We don't want to be scattered."
Now, this was not God's plan. God actually wanted them to be scattered over the face of the earth. God actually wanted them to fill the entire earth, and to be separated into different nations and different languages and different families. Of course, God comes down at the Tower of Babel, and he confounds their languages.
Let's just read the story quickly, but it says in verse five, " And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."
Now, why did God not like what they were doing? Why did God scattered them across the face of the earth? The bible is teaching here, he did not like the tower that they were building. That tower that they were building, the Tower of Babel is a picture of man trying to work his way to heaven or make his own way to heaven. That's what it symbolizes because they said, "Let's build a tower whose top may reach unto heaven."
They're trying to build this tower, man working his way unto heaven, obviously was futile, right? Can you really make a tower that's going to reach all the way to heaven? Okay, but guess what? You can't work your way to heaven either. It's just as futile when you think that being a good person is going to get you to heaven or living a good life, doing good things.
The bible says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." No matter how hard we work or how hard we try, just like that tower is going to come short, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're not going to be able to make it.
When you look at the story, here's what I want to point out. The bible says that that guy's name was Peleg because in his days, the earth was divided. It's very clear from the context that he's referring to this event at the Tower of Babel when the earth was divided, and the people were sent there separate ways.
If we go down further in chapter 11, there's a little genealogy given. Look at verse 10, "These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah," and on and on the genealogy goes.
Well, if we go down in the genealogy to Peleg, you will find that Peleg was born 101 years after the flood. Did you hear that? 101 years later if you do the math. It went Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, and you had those four generations: Arphaxad, Salah, Eber and Peleg, four generations taking place after the flood in a space of 101 years.
You know what that tells me? That tells me that Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and all their descendants were united for 101 years after the flood. If Shem, Ham, and Japheth's descendants were all united for 101 years after the flood, and we had three, four, five generations of childbearing, people are having kids together, you know what that tells me? That that means that all three of those nationalities or all three of those families were mixed in the first, second, third, and fourth generation.
How can you sit there and say, "Oh, these people on the planet, they descent purely from Shem. These people descent purely from Japheth. These descent purely from ham." How can you even say that when they spent 100 years mixing with each other? Over the course of four generations, they're going to become completely intermingled.
Not only that, but you say, "Well, no. Shem ..." Look, when you're getting off the ark, you're not going to marry your sister; you're going to marry your cousin. Think about it. I mean, if you're getting off that ark, you're more likely if you're a child of Shem, you're looking at the daughters of Japheth and Ham than to marry your own sister.
Obviously, they're marrying their cousins. Obviously, there's no division for 101 years. They're all saying, "We have one name. We have one city. We have one tower. We're one nation. We don't want to be divided. Oh, but let's only marry in our own families." Is that what you see in this passage? No.
This whole theory of Shem, Ham, and Japheth being three separate races is a complete fallacy. It's a fraud. It's not biblical. It doesn't make any biblical sense because you have people intermarrying.
Now, all throughout and I'm going to get into a lot of bible this morning, but I just want to explain a few concepts first of all. All throughout the bible, you have genealogies, and these genealogies that are found in the bible, they primarily only talk about the men in that genealogy. We go down through the list here of who begat who. Usually, the women are not listed. Usually, only the men are list, right? It will say that basically, Shem begat Arphaxad, and Arphaxad begat Salah, and Salah begat Eber, and Eber begat Peleg, and that's all you get.
Let me explain something to you. That does not tell you anything about someone's ethnicity when you have a genealogy that only talks about the men. Now, you might be tempted to think to yourself, "Oh, if we have a genealogy that only shows the men, we're only getting half the story because we're not knowing about the other half of their ethnicity."
Oh, no. You're not getting half of the story; you're getting a thousandth of the story. Let me prove to you why. I'm going to show you on the board. Let's say this is you at the bottom. Then let's say you've got your mother and father. Here's your mother, here's your father. Then they have a father and a mother. Then they have a father and a mother. Then they have father, mother. This is as nice as my other chart, I know. Doing this one on the fly.
Basically, we got mother, father. We got mother, father. This is only going back three generations. That's it. One, two, three generations. Very limited, right? How many people do I have at the top here in this generation? Eight people, right? Let's say I did a genealogy where I just went with my dad. Steven who was the son of Raymond, who was the son of Dwayne, who was the son of Gustav.
Am I getting half the story of my ethnicity here? I'm getting one-eighth of the story, right? If I went back four generations, I get one-sixteenth. If I went back in my own genealogy and I said, "Steven Anderson is the son of Raymond, who is the son of Dwayne, who is the son of Gustav, who is the son of Gustav, who is the son of Adolf. Different Adolf, folks.
Anyway, if I already go back through like that and go back six generations, you know what that genealogy would tell you? You'd say, "Oh, I know everything about Pastor Anderson's ethnicity because I saw this genealogy that went back hundreds of years, that he's of Raymond, of Dwayne, of Gustav, of Gustav, of Adolf." You know what that tells you? That tells you about one-sixty-fourth of my nationality.
That means I could be 63, 64 something completely different, and you think that you know or you look at someone's last name and say, "Oh, that means that you're Jewish," or "That means you're German," or "That means you're French." It could be telling you that they're one-one millionth Sweden.
Not mentioning the women in the genealogy, it doesn't just tell you half of the story of the ethnicity, it tells you almost nothing about the ethnicity. It tells you a tiny fraction of the ethnicity because all the women in each generation branch out into all these different branches that would make the genealogy much more complicated.
You say, "Well, Pastor Anderson, then why did God not include genealogies like that in the bible that show all the different branches?" You know why? Because God doesn't care about our ethnicity. If ethnicity mattered, then God would have to show us who people's mother is in the bible. The reason that he shows just the father is because it's just a legal thing. It's just a national thing. It's just who people identify with.
When people get married, the wife takes her husband's name, the children take their father's name. I'm an Anderson, my children are Andersons, their children are going to be Andersons, the boys. The girls are going to marry someone and take on their identity. The kids are going to be named after that. It's just an identifier of who people are and where their family come from. It's not about race. It's not about ethnicity because genealogy can't tell you that. It can't tell you that.
Now, let's go to the genealogy of Jesus. Go to Matthew 1. Now, there are two genealogies of Jesus. There's the genealogy of Matthew 1 which is the genealogy of Joseph, and then there's the genealogy in Luke 3 which gives the genealogy of Mary. So we get a genealogy of both Joseph and Mary.
Now, Joseph is not the father of Jesus Christ, but he was basically, I guess you could call it a stepfather. He's there raising him. Basically, the bible says he was supposed by society to be the son of Joseph. "As was supposed," the bible says he was the son of Joseph because that's what people thought because they didn't know that Jesus was born of a virgin.
If you think about that, I wonder how many other people there are who are supposed to be of a certain father that really aren't, people who've been adopted or maybe who's committed adultery. That's why going through a genealogy can't really tell you the exact ethnicity of someone. Let's look at the genealogy of Jesus found in the first chapter of the New Testament.
By the way, the last genealogy ever found in the bible is Jesus' genealogy because that's the only one that matters because today, genealogies don't matter. The bible says, "Avoid genealogy. We're in Christ is all that matter."
Look at what it says in verse two, " Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Phares and Zara," watch this, "of Thamar;" This is the first woman who's mentioned in the genealogy. Let's go ahead and ... I'm going to underline these in my bible as we go. I'm going to underline Thamar in verse three as being the first woman who's mentioned.
"And Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab." Let's underline Rachab as being another person who is a woman in the genealogy mentioned. "And Booz begat Obed of Ruth." There's another woman, right? "And Obed begat Jesse; And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon," watch this, "of her that had been the wife of Urias," that's Bathsheba. So let's underline her.
"And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias," and on and on the list goes.
let me just point out a few things about this genealogy. First of all, this gives us a little tiny ethnic picture of who Jesus is because it's only giving one family line. God does sprinkle in a few women's names that gives us a little more info. Okay. Well, here are the women that are mentioned: Thamar, Rachab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Those are the four women that are mentioned.
Two of them are foreigners. Two of the four are for sure foreigners because Rachab was of the Canaanites, and Ruth was a Moabite. We have two of the people in Christ's genealogy that are not Israelites, that are not Hebrews, that are of foreign descent.
Now, the other two, Thamar and Bathsheba were probably also foreign as well because Bathsheba was married to Uriah, the Hittite. So chances are, if she's married to a Hittite, she very likely could have been a Hittite. We don't know for sure. We know that of course, Thamar was given unto Judah's son when they were in the land of the Canaanites and intermarrying with the Canaanites.
Therefore, even in the genealogy of Christ when he just happens to bring up a few women that are significant characters of the Old Testament that we will know who they are, and not just list women who we don't know who they are, 50% of them are for sure foreign. So did Jesus Christ just have this pure genealogy, just purely Israelite, just purely Jew?
Now, I realized that this is not Jesus' physical genealogy because it's through Joseph, but wait a minute. If we go over to Luke 3, we're not going to do it for sake of time, we could go to Luke 3 and guess what? The genealogies converge at David because Mary and Joseph were both descendant from David.
Then these people would still apply. Rachab, Ruth would still apply. The two foreigners would still be there, so even in Jesus' physical genealogy, not just his legal genealogy through Joseph. What I'm trying to say is that this idea of just racial purity and everybody's just pure White, and pure Jewish, and pure Black, and pure of this, it's a total myth. It does not exist, and it never has existed. This idea of Shem, Ham, and Japheth being three races, White, Black, and Brown just simply doesn't exist.
Go back if you would to ... Let's go back to Deuteronomy 7. I got a lot I want to cover, and I have very little time. So let me just crank through some facts here. Go to Deuteronomy 7. While you're turning there, let me just point out some things about the Israelites. There were 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 sons of Jacob. One of those sons, Judah, was the one who became the ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Judah married a Canaanitish woman. That right there is a mingling of the Jews with the Canaanites. Then we have Joseph, another one of the main 12 patriarchs. He married an Egyptian woman. Right away, even the children of Israel were mixing in with other nationalities immediately.
now, go to Deuteronomy 7 because this is what a lot of people will point to to try to say that interracial marriage is wrong. There's nothing they can point to in the New Testament, of course, but they try to take stuff from the Old Testament and en suit it to their needs. Look at verse one. It says, " When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee," notice the emphasis on the word "nations", "the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son."
Look, he explains to us why. Look at verse four, "For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth."
Now, some people will try to take this. Flip over to Deuteronomy 26. Some people will try to take that and say, "Oh, when God says you're his special people, he means racially. He means ethnically, and he doesn't want them to mingle that race or mingle that ethnicity with these other nationalities." That's not what that scripture is teaching.
He said, "Don't mix with these particular heathen nations because you don't want to end up worshiping their gods." That's the problem. Now, the proof of this, and I don't have time to repreach this, but a couple of weeks ago, I demonstrated this on a Sunday night how over and over again the bible talks about the stranger or the foreigner, and he's always contrasted with him that is born in the land.
He says, "The stranger is the same as the one that's born in the land." I showed you just verse after verse the other night where it said, "Born in the country, born in the country, born in the land, born in the land, born in the land." The bible said over and over again that if a stranger would come to Israel, get circumcised and keep the Passover, he becomes a part of the nation. He becomes an Israelite. His children that are born in the land are full-pledged citizens.
So that means if a Black guy from Ethiopia in the Old Testament came to Israel, got circumcised, kept the Passover, he was considered a full-pledged member of the nation of Israel. That's what the bible says repeatedly over and over again.
Now, I just want to show you where I had you turn there in Deuteronomy ... What chapter I have you turned to? Deuteronomy 26 and verse number five, it says, "Thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous."
Right there, we learned the nationality of Abraham, don't we? Because Abraham is the father of Israel. If he's the father of the Jews, what was Abraham's nationality? What was he? Syrian, but let me ask you something. Were are the Syrians in the Old Testament, what about all the other Syrians, were they God's chosen people in the Old Testament, the Syrians? No. Why not? They have the same race, same ethnicity as Abraham, right? They're Syrian. Abraham is Syrian. They're Syrian.
It wasn't ever about race; it was about the fact that they were worshiping the Lord. That's what made them special people. It was the fact that they were circumcised and following the covenant of the Lord God. That's what made them special. It wasn't their race that made them special. It wasn't their ethnicity that made them special. That's why people in Esther 8:17 could become Jews because it wasn't about ethnicity, that's why. It was just about whether or not they worship the Lord.
When God says, "Don't marry these nations because they're going to get you to worship their gods," that's what he's trying to preserve, the religion. He's not trying to preserve the ethnicity. That's why nowhere in the New Testament will you find a commandment that says, "Hey, don't marry people that are of a different ethnicity, but you will find a scripture that says, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness?"
When he says light with darkness, he's not talking about the color of your skin. He's saying light with darkness like evil. He says, "What concord hath Christ with Belial or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols"
Now, go back to Song of Solomon, if you would. Song of Solomon, and let me just give you a quick review of what we've learned so far. First of all, we learned that there being three races on this earth, White, Black, and Brown, depending on whether you're of Ham, Shem, and Japheth is not real because of the fact that all three mixed in the first three or four generations. So we all descent from all three.
Every single person on this planet descends from Ham, Shem, and Japheth, all of them. Not only that but we showed how God actually became angry with Moses' siblings when they rebuked him for marrying the Ethiopian. God never said, "Hey, he shouldn't have married the Ethiopian but you shouldn't ..." No. He just got mad at them. There was no rebuke to Moses.
Then we showed that the commandment not to marry other nations given unto the Israelites was so that they would not worship other gods. Then if I had time, I could show you all the places that talk about people coming in from other nations and becoming a part of Israel, joining the nation. Once the males were circumcised, they could all be married, they could all join the group, and be part of Israel.
Here's what's interesting in Song of Solomon because a lot of people will point to Song of Solomon 5 to try to say, "Hey, you know, the ancient Israelites were White people. They were just totally White." Look at Song of Solomon 5:9. It says, "What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?" Here's what she says about her beloved in Song of Solomon. "My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven."
They'll take this and they'll say, "See right there. The ancient Israelites were White people with black hair." Boom! There it is with Solomon. Hold on a second. If you're going to take it that literally, go to chapter one, and look at what the woman says. So Solomon's white, right? Look at what it says in Song of Solomon 1:5. This is what the woman is saying. "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon."
If you're going to go by that, then basically you say, "Okay. I guess Song of Solomon is a love story about a white guy and a black girl." Here's the thing though. If you look at the context or look at the next verse, it says, "Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me." Now, what is she saying there? She's not necessarily saying that she's a black person like that she was of Ethiopian or African descent. She's saying she's black because she's been in the sun a lot. What does the sun do to your skin? It darkens it. It tans it.
Now, here's the thing. If you're a really, really white person, the sun doesn't make you black. You know what I mean? If you're really white, and I'm not really the whitest person of all time, but I'm pretty white. I can go in the sun all the time and nobody's going to say I'm black.
Who's the whitest person here? If we found the whitest person in this room, you could put them in the sun as much as you want and they're never going to turn ... or anybody could even ... even just exaggeratingly calling them black.
Here's the thing. People that are brown, people that are like a light brown or whatever, if they go in the sun, they'll get a lot darker. I remember, we had this Hispanic guy at our church in Sacramento, and he wasn't that dark. Then he got a job as a roofer. So he's just up on the roof in the sun all day, and the guy turned black. He looked like an African by the time he was done with a summer of roofing. I mean, he turned black. You could see, "Okay. The son looked upon him, and now he's black."
If you just use a little common sense here, you'd realize that the ancient Israelites are probably brown people that if they spend a lot of time indoors because they're royalty, because they're living an easy life, they're probably going to be lighter skin. Then the ones that are out in the field working all day are probably going to become darker, but they're probably neither white nor black. They're probably in between.
Just because you have one white guy that looks White, you can't just say, "Oh, they're all White," or "They're all Black." It doesn't matter, but people want to just go through and find proof text to try to prove. Then there's a whole movement out there today to want to prove that the Jews and the Hebrews, they're Black.
I mean, have you ever heard of the Black Hebrew Israelites? We run into them out soul-winning. They're basically Black people with a star of David around their neck, and they're like, "Jesus was Black, and the 12 patriarchs were Black, and Moses were Black, and they're all Black. They all have ..." because it said Jesus' hair was like wool. They say, "That means he was black because Jesus' hair was like wool," but what [inaudible 00:32:36] forget is that it says Jesus' hair was white like wool.
You see, it's ridiculous to try to go back and forth. It's silly to try to prove that Jesus was White. It's silly to try to prove that he was Black. Guess what? It doesn't matter. If God wanted us to know, he would have told us. You know what? All pictures of Jesus are a fraud. You say, "Is the Black Jesus a fraud?" Yes, but so is the White Jesus. They're all a fraud. The Brown Jesus is a fraud. Every picture of Jesus is a fraud. God doesn't want us to have pictures of Jesus. This is a picture of Jesus. Read the word of God and figure out who Jesus is. Jesus is the word made flesh.
You know what? God didn't tell us every physical characteristic because he didn't want us to worship that physical characteristic. If the bible told us that Jesus was White, then we'd go around, "Well, we're White, so we're better than everybody else," or "Oh, Jesus was Black. See, yeah, the Black people are the true Israelites. We're better than everybody else."
Let me tell you something. People that are racist, it goes both ways. White people get the wrap for being racist. Just by being a White man in America, I'm automatically racist, no matter what I say or do. I can go out soul-winning, and I've had people mouth off to me and start yelling at me and calling me a racist before I even said anything to them just because you're White. I said, "How do you know that's what I believe?" They're like, "Because you're White."
What I'm saying is racism goes both ways because if you study your bible, and let's look at a couple of scriptures on this. Go to Acts 10:28, Acts 10:28, and once you get your finger in Acts 10:28, go to Genesis 43, Genesis 43. Genesis 43 and Acts 10. Look at Acts 10:28. The bible says, "He said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean."
Now, when he says unlawful, he's not talking about the laws of the bible or the laws of God. What he's actually talking about is just the laws that the Jews had at that time. They're telling him that he can't have company with people that are Gentiles.
Look at chapter 11 verse three. This is where they're rebuking Peter saying, "Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them." They have this law that says, "Hey, don't eat with the Gentiles," but God showed them not to call any man common or unclean.
Now, look at Genesis 43 and verse 32. This is where Joseph is in Egypt and his 11 brethren come to see him. What does it say in verse 32? "And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by themselves: because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians."
Here, we have the Egyptians saying, "It's an abomination for us to eat with Hebrews." Then in Acts, you've got the Hebrews saying, "Well, it's abomination for us to eat with Egyptians or to eat with anybody else." So it goes both ways. Do you see that?
There are people on this world who have an attitude where they think that their nationality and their ethnicity or their race is better than everyone else's, okay? It's not just White people that have that attitude. It's people of all nationalities that could glory and take pride in being Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, whatever. That is not a biblical concept. God never taught us to take pride in our nationality or our ethnicity.
He said, "Let him the glory of glory in the Lord." He said, "In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile." He said, "If you're in Christ, you're Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Let him the glory of glory in the Lord. Don't glory in the flesh," but people brag about their ethnicity. It's funny because I guarantee you that people are not the ethnicity that they think they are.
People are not the ethnicity that they really think they are because first of all, I just demonstrated how a genealogy can show such a limited part of the story. Let alone the fact that your parents and grandparents and great grandparents will lie to you about what ethnicity you are often. Maybe not even lie to you, but just be wrong about it themselves because nobody knows.
Recently, I got my DNA tested for a documentary that we're doing. The guy told us at the DNA lab, he said, "Prepare to be shocked because ..." he said, "... everyone's surprised when they do it because everybody thinks they're just one thing." It comes back with all this stuff, and people are blown away by it.
Not only that, but my parents, both my parents got their DNA checked. You want to know the truth about my ethnicity? You want to know what I really am? I am a Black, Chinese, White, Indian, I mean, a Moroccan, Arab, Jew. That's what I am. Honestly, I've got a certificate hanging in my office to prove it.
Seriously, I mean, when I checked my ethnicity on my dad's side, my dad is where I had a lot of Black African on his side. He didn't see that coming. Here's what I've been told my whole life, "Oh, you're Swedish ..." This is what I'm told my whole life, "You're Swedish, you're Danish, English, Irish." That's all I've ever heard. Sweden, Denmark, England, Ireland, I mean, totally White, totally Scandinavian, totally Germanic person.
Yeah, none of that came up on the DNA, hardly at all. There's almost nothing. You know what came up over and over again? Do you where my Whiteness comes from? Polish and Russian. None of that. I've never been told in my life, "You're Polish." Never, but yet, my mom's DNA was like, "Polish, Polish, Polish, Polish, Polish, Polish." My dad had a bunch of Polish, Russian. Never heard of being Russian. French, never heard of that.
Swedish wasn't even found anywhere in the DNA. No Swedish even came up even once. If you look at the map, Poland is right next to Sweden. Probably the people from Poland were living up in Sweden. They're right next to each other. Then you know what else I had a ton of in my ancestry? A ton of Spanish, but I'm told my whole life, "Oh, you're English, English, English, English," but when you look at the DNA, it's Spanish because guess what country is right near England? Spain.
Obviously, Spanish people living in England, you'd think, "Oh, they're English," because when you're a Spanish person living in England, guess what you tell people? "I'm English." When you're seven-eighth Spanish and one-eighth English, and you're living in England, you're English. When you're fifteen-sixteenth Polish and one-sixteenth Swedish, and you're living in Sweden, guess what you are? You're Swedish. We're Swedish. We've always been Swedish.
People change their name when they change countries to try to fit in. Burzynski becomes Berzins or whatever. People change their name. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's my theory. That's my theory about that. I'm just saying, when you switch countries, people will often change their name just to try to fit in. Then somebody looking later says, "Oh, yeah. Well, look at their last name. You can tell exactly." That tells you nothing.
On my mom's side, she had every kind of Asian mixed in from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino. It was all represented on my mom's side. On my dad's side, all these countries in sub-Saharan African. Both sides had Arab, Egyptian, and all kinds of stuff. I mean, I had Australian people in there. I mean, every continent was represented.
My question is then, how can people sit there and even have this attitude of saying, "Oh, we need to keep our race pure." It's too late. It's too late for me. Save yourself. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just saying, it's too late for me. I'm a mixture of everything.
Then my wife, she's thinking, "Yeah, you're this mongrel. You're from the United States, this melting pot." I checked her DNA just to take her off her high horse. No, I'm just kidding because my wife is this blonde-headed woman, blonde hair, blue eyes, half-German, half-Hungarian.
I mean, isn't that simple? Half-German, half-Hungarian. The DNA, German was number 48 out of 50 on her nationalities. German was found at number 48. Hungarian wasn't even on there. It was Hungarian-Jew was what was on there.
What I'm saying is you run into people who hate this nationality, and they hate that nationality. I guarantee you if they got their DNA checked, they would have what they hate probably mixed in, seriously, because even sometimes, Asians, they hate other Asians, like the Chinese hate the Japanese or hate the Korean or hate the Filipino.
Here's the thing. I guarantee you if any of them got checked, they're going to have it all. If a Chinese person went down there, they're going to have Japanese, Korean, everything mixed in. We're all mixed. I had Native American in me. I had tons of Hispanic, Black, Asian, a little bit of White mixed in. No, I'm just kidding. No, I have a lot of White mixed in. I'm saying, this whole idea of separate races, it's bogus. It doesn't make any sense.
Now, you say, "Wait a minute, Pastor Anderson," and these are some of the arguments that I've heard to say that interracial marriage is wrong. First of all, I've seen the argument that said, "Well, the children of Israel weren't supposed to marry other nationalities, so neither should we." Of course, they're taking that out of the context that number one, anyone of any nationality could become an Israelite, number one, so that proves it wasn't about race or ethnicity. Number two, it was in the context of not worshiping their gods.
Another argument I've heard people say is they'll say, "Well, interracial marriage is wrong because if you start allowing interracial marriage, everybody is just going to turn brown. Everybody is going to look like Tiger Woods." They basically say that if you take ... and they use the illustration if you take the crayons, the eight pack of crayons, you got red, blue, green, yellow. If you mix them all together, it's all just brown.
Basically, they say, the White race is going to become extinct. Even Black people will say, "The Black race is going to become extinct because of all the abortion in the Black community." By the way, abortion is targeted at the Black community because it was invented by racists like Margaret Sanger in New Genesis.
They say, "Oh, the Blacks are going to go extinct. The Whites are going to go ... Everybody is just going to be brown person. We're all going to look the same. We're going to mix the DNA. We're all going to look the same." This is so ridiculous. If that were true, it would have already happened by now because we've been mixing for 6,300 years. So it would have already happened. How is it still separate?
First of all, here are a couple of reasons why it's still separate because it doesn't take long to go back to if you mix and let's say you have a person who's half-Black, half-White, it doesn't long for that family to go back to being Black or White.
For example, take Barry Soetoro, also known as Barrack Obama. Did you know ...? Who here did not know that his mother is as white as snow? Who did not know that? One person, a small child. I'm just kidding. Anyway, his mom is whiter than I am. His father is Black, his mother is White. So he's half-Black, half-White, right? Okay, but he's married to a Black woman, if it's a woman. He's married to a Black woman, and here's the thing. The kids look Black.
Let's say they grow up and marry Black men, and then they have kids that marry Black people. Is anybody ever really going to remember that they had that White ancestor? They're just going to look so Black, right? Let's say, Barry Soetoro would have married a White woman. Then his kids ... some of his kids would have looked whiter than us. Then let's say those kids grow up and marry White people, they'd be totally back to being White people, and nobody would even know that there was ever a Black person. I didn't know there's a Black person in my ancestry, but it's on my dad's DNA. It showed multiple Black ancestors.
What I'm saying is that you still ... people still can marry whiter people, marry whiter people, blacker people, and you're still going to have all the different variety, and different people that look different. That's number one. It doesn't take long for it to go away, those genes to go away.
For example, my sister is as white as snow, even though she has all the same mixture that I have. My sister is married to a Hispanic guy who's very dark. Her and her husband have some kids that are very brown. A couple of her kids look just 100% white. You would think that they had a White father and mother. Why? Because that's just the way genes work.
So no, we're not all just going to turn into just brown people that all look identical with each other because we're all just mixed together, and we've just lost any variety of the way that we look. That's just ridiculous.
Secondly this, that will never happen because some people have a preference where they're White, and they want to marry a White person. Now, let me say this. I've spent this whole sermon preaching that it's okay for people to marry whatever nationality because we're all mixed. Did I not preach that this whole time? So does anybody think that I'm some White supremacist up here, some racist because I'm not.
Now, let me give the other side and say this. If someone has a preference where they only want to marry a certain race, not that I believe in race, but if somebody says, "Hey, I'm White. I want to marry a White person," that's okay for them to have that preference, and you should not persecute that person because sometimes, the persecution goes the other way where if somebody is pressured and told, "Hey, why aren't you open to marrying outside of White people?"
You know what? If somebody ... Many people have said to me, "You know what? I'm White and I want to marry a White person," and I didn't say, "Oh, you filthy racist. You wicked scoundrel," because you know what? That's okay. So what? I mean, look, what if a guy just said, "I just want to marry a blonde because I just like blondes," is that okay? You don't think that's okay? What if somebody just said, "I like redheads."
Look, I have a friend that's Black, and he is only open to marrying a Black woman. That's what he's saying. He's saying he's not interested in anything except a Black woman. He's Black, he wants to marry a Black woman. Is there something wrong with that? No.
Look, this cuts both ways, folks. Don't try to impose your beliefs on other people when they're not biblical. The bible does not say that it's wrong for you to marry an Ethiopian or marry Hispanic or marry an Asian or whatever you want to marry, but the bible also doesn't say, "Hey, you have to marry, you have to mix, and you have to marry other nationalities." Does it say that either? No.
If somebody has a preference and says, "I'm Black, I want to marry Black people," or a Black person ideally, "I'm White, I want to marry a White person," "I'm Chinese, I want to marry a Chinese person," that's perfectly fine. Just get off people's case. Don't just say that that makes them a horrible person if that's what they think.
If somebody has an opinion and said, "Well, I think that's better," that's fine, as long as it's just their opinion. It's okay for us all to have preferences and opinions. Some people's opinion might be, "Hey, I think it's great to marry all nationalities." Other people might say, "Hey, I think it's better to marry within your own nationality." You know what? Who cares? Let people have their own opinion, but don't try to force it on people as a commandment of God.
Where I'm against it is where people start saying it's a sin to marry of another race because you're adding to the word of God, and you're teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men. We should keep preferences in one category, and biblical convictions in another category, and not mix the two and try to impose our views and impose our opinions on other people.
If some people are comfortable with it, fine. That's their prerogative. If other people think it's great, fine because it's not a biblical issue. What we learn from the bible is that we're all of one blood. The bible says, "God has made all nations of the earth of one blood."
What we find from the bible is that we all descend from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. What we find from the bible is that the colossal difference between me and someone else on this earth is whether we are saved or unsaved. That is the distinction, Christian and non-Christian. I would much rather have my children grow up and marry saved Asians, and saved Blacks, and saved Hispanics than to marry some unsaved Aryan White person. That would be an unequal yoke. That would be polluting the bloodline right there when they marry an unsaved person.
Again, not trying to impose my beliefs on you. If you say, "Hey, I still don't like it. I'm still going to marry my own nationality." Fine. Go for it, and that should be tolerated. I've said to somebody something and they said, "No, I'm only interested in marrying my own ..." Great, but some people would call you a racist for even thinking that that's okay.
It's like, "Good night. Just let people do what they want to do as long as it's not ..." Aren't there enough commandments in the bible? If you don't think there are enough, then come on Sunday nights and I'll show you how many hundreds of them there are.
Let me tell you something. There are enough commandments in the bible for us to follow where we don't have to start adding man-made commandments and man-made ... Why don't we worry about keeping all these commandments before we start adding commandments that aren't even in the bible and imposing those kind of views on other people?
Then the third and last thing that I want to cover that people will say as a reason why we should be against interracial marriage, they'll say, number one because of what was commanded the Israelites. We already showed that that is legitimate.
Number two, they'll say, "Well, because it's like we're losing the variety. Everybody turns brown. Everybody is Tiger Woods theory." They don't know anything about genetics if they think that, and they don't know anything about history.
Then the third thing they'll say is they'll say, "Well, you know, by being okay with interracial marriage, you're promoting the end times scenario of a global government because you're trying to unite humanity like the Tower of Babel." Here's the thing. I'm not trying to unite humanity because I believe that there should be separate nations, but nations don't have anything to do with your race or ethnicity. I do believe that we should have separate languages. I don't think everybody should speak English in the world.
God divided men based on language. God divided men based on nationality which nationality has to do also with government, with who is grouped together in a state. For example, we, today, are Americans. That is our nationality. I was born in America. I am an American.
I definitely don't go around saying I'm Swedish anymore now that I know that was a big fraud, but I'm not going to go around saying, "Well, I'm Polish." You know what my number one ethnicity is? Moroccan Berber. Number one. I am a North African Moroccan. That's the number one thing I am.
My sister went online and she found a picture of a Moroccan Berber that looked a lot like me. She's like, "This guy looks just like you. This Moroccan Berber, this is your relative." She sent me a ... The guy was dressed like Barney Rubble on the Flintstones. He was just living out whatever. He was just like a caveman because he was in some really backward part of Morocco.
She's like, "This guy looks just like you." I'm like, "Yeah. Okay. With that outfit, I can see that." They'll say, "Oh, you're promoting a one-world government." Here's the thing. Think about Europe for a second. Europe, right? Whether they're French, German, Polish, Swedish, they're all White, but does that mean they've been all united throughout history? No. See, there's a big difference because people unite along other lines not just, "Oh, we're both the same color?" No, that's not always enough to unite people.
People should be divided based on religion. We shouldn't unite all religions. We don't need to unite all languages into Esperanto. We don't need to unite all nationalities into a one-world government. We don't believe in that.
To say that you're forwarding the cause of the anti-Christ and the one-world government by allowing people to marry somebody of the same race is ridiculous, folks, because that's not how people have even been historically divided because even throughout Africa, just because everybody is Black in Africa or parts of Africa, doesn't mean they're all united. They're all warring against each other in Africa. Europeans are warring against each other.
I mean, tell that to Chinese and Japanese that they're just united because they're both the same nationality. No, they're not. You say, "Well, it's not the same. You're stereotyping all Asians." Get over it. You know what? All that to say this, folks. We looked at a lot of bible. We started with Moses marrying the Ethiopian. We showed a lot of scripture. We talked about how all nations are of one blood. Everybody is mixed.
I challenge anybody who thinks that they're pure this or pure that, go get your DNA tested, and you're going to be a Heinz 57 of nationalities just like I am. Every White person is part Black. Every Black person is part White. Every Chinese person is part Japanese. It's all mixed, folks. Get over it.
We should not get this racist attitude that thinks that any nationality is better than another, White people are better or Black people are better, Jews are better than Gentiles. It's all fraud. We're all human beings. You know what? It actually defies evolution because this racial theory comes out of evolution. It comes from Darwin and Adolf Hitler got his theories from Darwin of racial superiority because that's what Charles Darwin taught.
You know what? If you actually look at our genetic makeup, it actually proves the bible to be true because it shows that we're all of one blood, that we didn't just evolve separately on different continents, and White people are more evolved than Black people. That's what Charles Darwin taught. Actually, the reality is that we're all the same. We're all human beings. We're all of one blood.
So people can accuse me of being a racist because I don't think Jews are better than other people, but you know what? I just believe that we're all equal on God's sight, and that nationality doesn't matter. If somebody wants to marry somebody, and I've had people attack me for performing interracial weddings, and criticized me.
There's the thing about that though. You know what? If somebody wants to marry someone of their same color, that's up to them, and I'm fine with that. If somebody wants to marry someone of another color, I'm fine with that. I've heard this too, "Oh, but you don't understand, Pastor Anderson, they're going to have marital problems." Have you heard this one? "Yeah, but there's going to be a problem."
There's problems when you marry a White person too. I mean, that's a good one. "Oh, if you marry someone of another race, you're going to have marriage problems." Good night. What about when you marry a White person you have marriage problems? Hey, news flash. If you get married, you're going to have marriage problems. "Oh, there's going to be a clash of culture." Yeah, no matter who you marry. Get over it. If you think you're going to get married and not have problems, then you need to just not get married then.
Anyway, this is what the bible teaches. This is my say. Let me tell you something. I've not changed my belief on this. I believe the same ways since I was a little kid. I remember reading Numbers 12 as a little kid, and understanding this subject the first time I read it, and my whole life ... Here's the thing. When I was a teenager and I was dating, I never had this attitude that said, "I'm only going to marry a White person." I never had that attitude.
Now, I pretty much only ended up dating White girls, but you know what? Maybe that was just my preference, but I always had an open mind toward whatever because of the fact that I believe the same doctrine. No one can really accuse me of changing my doctrine on this because I believe the same thing since I was in childhood. I got my belief on this from the bible. If I'm wrong, then prove me wrong from the bible.
If somebody thinks I'm wrong about this, I defy them to show me in the bible where interracial marriage is wrong because you're not going to find it because it isn't there.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. There are so many things, Lord, that people have as really strongly held opinions, Lord, and they don't want to change what they think, but Lord, if our opinions aren't biblical, we need to change.
Father, I just pray that you would help us to get strong, firm convictions about things that the bible actually teaches and commandments that are actually in the bible, and not to just get these strong, militant beliefs that are not found in the bible, whatsoever, Lord.
Help us not to glory in our race or ethnicity or take pride in who our ancestors were, Lord. Instead, help us to take pride in the fact that you are our father. That's really the only genealogy that matters is that Jesus begat Steven Anderson. That's really the only thing that matters. So help us to glory in that and take pride in that. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
