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Now in Numbers chapter 12 beginning verse number 1 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, Had the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Had 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 the 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 angle 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. And 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 Hazaroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran. And 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, and 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. And 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 is an Israelite, and he was often mistaken for an Egyptian. So 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, you know we can figure that probably the Israelites in Bible times probably looked similar to Egyptians. So basically they're brown people, if you look at all the Egyptian artwork and everything, you can tell that they're not black, but they're not white either, they're basically brown. And you look at that and maybe get an idea of the type of look that Moses had. But 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, and then basically God judges them. Now there's nothing in this chapter that rebukes Moses for what he's done, or corrects Moses for what he's done. And 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. And 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 chapter 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 a completion. 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. And you say, well what's the difference Pastor Anderson? Well there's a big difference, and I'll show you the difference. But 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, you know, the white, the brown, and the black. This is what people will say who believe in this. And they'll point to that and say that's the major divisions of mankind. And you'll even hear people use terms like Semitic, coming from the name of the person Shem, or Hamitic, or whatever. But look if you would at Genesis chapter number 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. So at the end of Genesis chapter 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 the one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. So let me just break this down to you, and this is all by way of introduction, but here in Genesis 10 verse 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? Or when the Bible says, oh earth, hear the word of the Lord. He's not speaking to the ground. When he says, oh earth, hear the word of the Lord, he's talking about the people in the earth. So 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 chapter 11 to get an idea of what this is talking about. Look at verse 1. And the whole earth was of one language and one speech. Again, notice, the whole what? The whole earth was united. Notice earth there referring to the people. So why would earth be referring to something else in 1025? Doesn't make any sense. So look at verse number 2. 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 mortar. And they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach into heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. So what we see here is that all of mankind is united. They all speak the same language. And not only that, they have a desire to stay together, and they're very unified. Talk 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. So of course, God comes down at the Tower of Babel, and he confounds their languages. And let's just read the story quickly. But it says in verse 5, 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 began 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 scatter them across the face of the earth? Well, the Bible's teaching here, he did not like the tower that they were building, okay? 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, okay? So they're trying to build this tower, man working his way unto heaven. Obviously it 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 you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And 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. But when you look at this 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 their 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 a 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 a hundred and one years after the flood. Did you hear that? A hundred and one years later, if you do the math. So 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 a hundred and one years. You know what that tells me? That tells me that Shem, Ham, and Japheth and all their descendants were united for a hundred and one years after the flood. And if Shem, Ham, and Japheth's descendants were all united for a hundred and one 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. So how can you sit there and say, oh, these people on the planet, they descend purely from Shem, these people descend purely from Japheth, these descend purely from Ham. How can you even say that when they spend a hundred years mixing with each other? Over the course of four generations, they're going to become completely intermingled. And 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, you know, than to marry your own sister, okay? So obviously they're marrying their cousins, obviously there's no division for a hundred and one 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. So 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 the, 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. You know, we go down through the list here of who begat who, usually the women are not listed. Usually only the men are listed, right? And it'll say that basically Shem begat Arphaxad and Arphaxad begat Salah and Salah begat Eber and Eber begat Peleg. And that's all you get. But 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, right? Because we're not knowing about the other half of their ethnicity. But oh no, you're not getting half the story, you're getting like a thousandth of the story. And let me prove to you why. I'm going to show you on the board, okay? Let's say this is you at the bottom, right? Okay? And then let's say you've got your mother and father, right? Okay, so here's your mother, here's your father, okay? And then they have, you know, a father and a mother, right? And then they have a father and a mother. And then they have father, mother. This isn't as nice as my other chart, I know. I'm doing this one on the fly. But basically, you know, we got mother, father, we got mother, father. Okay, so this is only going back three generations, that's it. One, two, three generations. Very limited, right? So how many people do I have at the top here in this generation? Eight people, right? So let's say I did a genealogy where I just went with my dad, right? Steven, who was the son of Raymond, who was the son of Duane, who was the son of Gustav, right? So am I getting half the story of my ethnicity here? I'm getting one-eighth of the story, right? And if I went back four generations, I'd get one-sixteenth. So if I went back in my own genealogy and I said, Steven Anderson is the son of Raymond, who is the son of Duane, who was the son of Gustav, who was the son of Gustav, who was the son of Adolf, okay? Different Adolf folks. Anyway, if I were to go back through like that and go back like 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 Duane, 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 sixty-three-sixty-fourths, 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. So 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. But 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. You know, 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. And the kids are going to be named after that. It's just an identifier of who people are and where their family comes from. It's not about race. It's not about ethnicity. Because a genealogy can't tell you that. It can't tell you that. Now let's go to the genealogy of Jesus. Go to Matthew chapter 1. Now there are two genealogies of Jesus. There's the genealogy of Matthew chapter 1, which is the genealogy of Joseph. And then there's the genealogy in Luke chapter 3, which gives the genealogy of Mary. And so we get a genealogy of both Joseph and Mary. He was not the father of Jesus Christ, but he was basically, I guess you could call it a stepfather. He's there raising him and 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. Well 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. You know, people who have been adopted or maybe someone has committed adultery. That's why going through a genealogy can't really tell you the exact ethnicity of someone. But let's look at the genealogy of Jesus found in the first chapter of the New Testament. And 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. Jesus says avoid genealogy where in Christ is all that matters. But look at what it says in verse 2. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren, and Judas begat Pharoah and Zerah, watch this, of Tamar. 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 Tamar in verse 3 as being the first woman who's mentioned. And Pharaoh begat Esraam, and Esraam begat Aram, and Aram begat Menedab, and Menedab begat Naasah, and Naasah begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab. So let's underline Rahab as being another person who is a woman in the genealogy mentioned. And Boaz 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 Uriah, that's Bathsheba. So let's underline her. And Solomon begat Rehoboam, and Rehoboam begat Abia, and Abia begat Asa, and Asa begat Joseph, and Joseph begat Joram, and Joram begat Ozias, and Ozias begat Jotham, and Jotham begat Achaz, and Achaz begat Ezekiel, and on and on, you know, the list goes. But 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. But 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. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Those are the four women that are mentioned. Okay, two of them are foreigners. Two of the four are for sure foreigners, because Rahab was of the Canaanites, right? And Ruth was a Moabite. So 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, Tamar 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 Hittite. We don't know for sure. And we know that, of course, Tamar was given unto Judah's son when they were in the land of the Canaanites and intermarrying with the Canaanites. So 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... Now I realize 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 the sake of time. We could go to Luke 3, and guess what? The genealogies converge at David, because Mary and Joseph were both descended from David. So then, these people would still apply. Rahab, 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 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. Well, Judah married a Canaanitish woman. So 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. So 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 then suit it to their needs. But look at verse 1. 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, and notice the emphasis on the word nations, the Hittites and the Girigishites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Parisites 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 show 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. But look, he explains to us why. Look at verse 4. 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 burn 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 a 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 worshipping their gods. That's the problem. Now the proof of this, and I don't have time to re-preach this, but a couple 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. And 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. And 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. And his children that are born in the land are full-fledged 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-fledged 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 did I have you turn to? Deuteronomy 26 and verse number 5, 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. So right there we learn the nationality of Abraham, don't we? Because if Abraham's 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 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 had the same race, same ethnicity as Abraham, right? They're Syrian. Abraham's Syrian. They're Syrian. It wasn't ever about race. It was about the fact that they were worshipping the Lord. That's what made them a 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 817 could become Jews because it wasn't about ethnicity. That's why. It was just about whether or not they worshipped the Lord. So 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? And when he says light with darkness, he's not talking about the color of your skin, okay? He's saying light with darkness is like evil. And he says, What concord hath Christ with Belial, or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement hath with 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, four generations. So we all descend from all three. Every single person on this planet descends from Ham Shem and Japheth. All of them, okay? Not only that, but we showed how God actually became angry with Moses's siblings when they rebuked him for marrying the Ethiopian. And God never said, Hey, he shouldn't have married the Ethiopian, but you shouldn't have. No, he just got mad at them. There was no rebuke to Moses. And then we showed that the commandment not to marry other nations, given unto the Israelites, was so that they would not worship other gods. And 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 a part of Israel. But here's what's interesting in Song of Solomon, because a lot of people will point to Song of Solomon, chapter 5, to try to say, hey, you know, the ancient Israelites were white people. They were just totally white. Look at Song of Solomon, chapter 5, verse 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? And 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. So they'll take this and they'll say, see right there, you know, the ancient Israelites were white people with black hair. Boom, there it is with Solomon. But hold on a second. If you're going to take it that literally, go to chapter 1 and look at what the woman says. So Solomon's white, right? Okay, look at what it says in Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 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. So if you're going to go by that, then basically you say, okay, I guess Song of Solomon's a love story about a white guy and a black girl. Okay? But here's the thing, though. If you look at the context, though, 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. And 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 could go in the sun all the time and nobody's going to say I'm black. Okay? You know, if we took the, you know, 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 to where anybody could even, even just exaggeratingly calling them black, right? But 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. Like, I remember we had this Hispanic guy at our church in Sacramento and he wasn't that dark. But 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. I mean, he looked like an African by the time he was done with a summer of roofing. I mean, he turned black. So you could see, okay, he's, you know, the sun looked upon him and now he's black. So, you know, 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 skinned. And 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. And 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. You know, it doesn't matter. But people want to just go through and find proof texts to try to prove. And there's a whole movement out there today to want to prove that the Jews and the Hebrews, they were black. I mean, have you ever heard of the black Hebrew Israelites? And we run into them out soul-winning. And they're basically black people with like a Star of David around their neck. And they're like, Jesus was black, and the 12 patriarchs were black, and Moses was black, and they're all black. You know, because it said Jesus' hair was like wool. They say that means he was black, because Jesus' hair was like wool. But what they conveniently forget is that it says Jesus' hair was white like wool. Huh? But 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. And if God wanted us to know, he would have told us. And 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, the Word, made flesh. And you know what? God didn't tell us every physical characteristic, because he didn't want us to worship that physical characteristic. And if the Bible told us, hey, Jesus was white, then we'd go around, well, we're white, so we're better than everybody else. Or, you know, oh, Jesus was black. See, yeah, the black people are the true Israelites. We're better than everybody else. And let me tell you something. People that are racist, it goes both ways. You know, white people get the rap for being racist. Like, 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, well, and I said, how do you know that's what I believe? And they're like, because you're white? So what I'm saying is, racism goes both ways, because if you study your Bible, and let's look at a couple scriptures on this. Go to Acts, chapter number 10, verse 28. Acts chapter 10, verse 28. And once you get your finger in Acts 10, 28, go to Genesis 43. Genesis chapter 43. Genesis 43 and Acts chapter 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 has showed 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, okay? What he's actually talking about is just the laws that the Jews had at that time. And they're telling him that he can't have company with people that are Gentiles. Look at chapter 11, verse 3. This is where they're rebuking Peter, saying, Thou wouldest tend to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. Okay, so they have this law that says, hey, don't eat with the Gentiles. But God showed him 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. And 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 them by themselves, because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. So 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 an 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 in this world who have an attitude where they think that their nationality and their ethnicity or their race is better than everyone else's. And 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. But 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, and 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. And maybe not even lie to you, but just be wrong about it themselves because nobody knows. And recently I got my DNA tested for a documentary that we're doing. And 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. And it comes back with all this stuff and people are blown away by it. But not only that, but my parents, both my parents got their DNA checked. And 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, Moroccan, Arab, Jew. That's what I am. And honestly, I've got a certificate hanging in my office to prove it. Seriously, when I check my ethnicity, on my dad's side, my dad 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've been 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. Okay, yeah, none of that came up on the DNA, hardly at all. You know what came up over and over? You know 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, okay. Swedish wasn't even found anywhere in the DNA. No Swedish even came up even once. But if you look at a map, Poland is right next to Sweden. Probably the people from Poland were living up in Sweden. They're right next to each other. Okay, and then you know what else I had a ton of in my ancestry? A ton of Spanish. But I'm told by all, oh, you're English, English, English, English, English. But when you look at the DNA, it's Spanish. Because guess what country is right near England? Spain. And so obviously Spanish people living in England, you 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 7'8 Spanish and 1'8 English and you're living in England, you're English. When you're 15'16 Polish and 1'16 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. You know, Burzinski becomes Burzins or whatever. You know, 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. But I'm just saying, you know, when you switch countries, people will often change their name just to try to fit in. And then somebody looking later says, oh, yeah, well, look at their last name. You can tell exactly. That tells you nothing. And let me tell you, 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. And on my dad's side, all these countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Both sides had Arab, you know, Egyptian and all kinds of stuff. I mean, I had Australian people in there. I mean, every continent was represented. So my question is then, how can people sit there and even have this attitude of saying like, 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, you know, it's too late for me. I'm a mixture of everything. So then, you know, my wife, she's thinking, yeah, you're this mongrel. You know, you're from the United States, this melting pot. I checked her DNA, you know, just to take her off her high horse. No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, you know, because my wife, you know, is blonde-headed woman, blonde hair, blue eyes, half German, half Hungarian, right? I mean, isn't that simple? Half German, half Hungarian, yeah. The DNA, German was like 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, okay? You know, and what I'm saying is, you know, 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 like even sometimes Asians, they hate other Asians. Like the Chinese hate the Japanese or hate the Korean or hate the Filipino. But 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. You know, it's all, 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. I had a lot of white mixed in. But 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, okay? 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. But 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. And number two, it was in the context of not worshiping their gods, okay? But another argument I've heard people say is they'll say, well, interracial marriage is wrong because if you start allowing interracial marriage, everybody's just going to turn brown. Everybody's going to look like Tiger Woods, you know? They basically say that if you take, you know, and they use the illustration, if you take the crayons, the eight-pack of crayons, you know, you've got red, blue, green, yellow, and if you mix them all together, it's all just brown. And that basically they say like the white race is going to become extinct, you know? And even black people will say the black race is going to become extinct because of all the abortion in the black community. And by the way, abortion is targeted at the black community because it was invented by racists like Margaret Sanger and eugenicists. But, you know, they say, oh, the blacks are going to go extinct, you know? The whites are going to go, everybody's just going to be a 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? Well, first of all, here are a couple 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 take long for that family to go back to being black or white. Like, for example, take Barry Satoro, also known as Barack Obama. Okay. He's, did you know, who here did not know that his mother is as white as snow? Who did not know that? One person. All right, a small child. No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, his mom is whiter than I am. Okay, his father's black, his mother's white, so he's half black, half white, right? Okay, but he's married to a black woman, you know, if it's a woman, okay? He's married to a black woman, and here's the thing. So the kids look black, right? Well, 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? But let's say Barry Satoro would have married a white woman, right? Then his kids would, you know, some of his kids would have looked whiter than others, and then let's say those kids grow up and marry white people, they'd be totally back to being black to, black to being, they'd be back to being white people, and nobody would even know that there was ever a black person. Like, I didn't know there was a black person in my ancestry, but it was on my dad's DNA. It showed. Multiple black ancestors, okay? So what I'm saying is that you still, people still can marry white, whiter people, marry whiter people, black 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, you know, she has all the same mixture that I have. My sister is married to a Hispanic guy who's very dark, okay? So her and her husband have some kids that are very brown. A couple of her kids look just 100% white, and you'd never, you would think that they had a white father and mother. Why? Because it's just, 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. Okay, that's just ridiculous. But 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, okay. But now let me give the other side and say this. If someone has a preference where they only want to marry a certain race, you know, not that I believe in race, but if somebody says, hey, I just, 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 somebody is pressured and told, hey, you know, why aren't you open to marrying, you know, outside of white people? But you know what? If somebody, people, 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? Or what if somebody just said, I like redheads? Or, you know, look, I have a friend that's black and he is only open to marrying a black woman. That's what he said. 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. So 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 a 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. So if somebody has a preference that says, I'm black, I want to marry black people, you know, or a black person, ideally. But, you know, I'm white, I want to marry a white person. I'm Chinese, I want to marry a Chinese person. You know what? That's perfectly fine. Just get off people's case. And don't just say that that makes them a horrible person if that's what they think. Or if somebody has an opinion that says, well, I think that's better. Well, that's fine as long as it's just their opinion. It's okay for us all to have preferences and opinions and 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? Oh, 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 aren't 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. And 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. And 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. Because 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 biased. 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. But 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 resources. 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? And then the third and last thing that I want to cover that people will say is a reason why we should be against interracial marriage. They'll say, number one, because of what was commanded of the Israelites. We already kind of showed that that isn't legitimate. Number two, they'll say, well, because it's like we're losing the variety. Everybody turns brown. Everybody's Tiger Woods theory. They don't know anything about genetics, if they think that. And they don't know anything about history. But 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 time scenario of a global government. Because, you know, you're trying to unite humanity like the Tower of Babel. But 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. And I do believe that we should have separate languages. I don't think everybody should speak English in the world. God divided man based on language. God divided man based on nationality, which nationality has to do also with government, with who is grouped together in a state. And so, 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. And you know what my number one ethnicity is? Moroccan Berber, number one. I am a North African Moroccan. It's the number one thing I have. 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. The guy was dressed like Barney Rubble on the Flintstones. He was just living out whatever. He was dressed 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, OK. With that outfit, I can see that. But they'll say, oh, you're promoting a one world government. But 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 all been united throughout history? No. 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. So people should be divided based on religion. You know, 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. But 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's 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. OK? You say, well, it's not the same. You're stereotyping all Asians. Get over it. And 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's 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. You know, it's all mixed, folks. Get over it. And so we should not get this racist attitude that thinks that any nationality is better than another, white people are better, black people are better, Jews are better than Gentiles. It's all a fraud. We're all human beings. And you know what? It actually defies evolution because this racial theory comes out of evolution. It comes from Darwin. You know, and Adolf Hitler got his theories from Darwin of racial superiority because that's what Charles Darwin taught. But 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. But actually the reality is that we're all the same. We're all human beings. We're all of one blood. And so, you know, 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 in God's sight and that nationality doesn't matter. And, you know, if somebody wants to marry somebody, and I've had people attack me for performing interracial weddings and criticize me. But here'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. And if somebody wants to marry someone of another color, I'm fine with that. Oh, but, and I've heard this, too. Oh, but you don't understand the problem. 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. Well, good night. What about when you marry a white person, you have marriage problems? Hey, newsflash, 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 know, you need to just not get married then. So anyway, this is what the Bible teaches. This is my saying. And let me tell you something. I have not changed my belief on this. I have believed the same way since I was a little kid. And I remember reading Numbers 12 as a little kid and understanding this subject the first time I read it and my whole life, you know. And here's the thing. You know, when I was a teenager and I was dating, you know, I never had this attitude that said I'm only going to marry a white person. I never had that attitude. Now, you know, 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 believed the same doctrine. So, you know, no one can really accuse me of changing my doctrine on this because I believed the same thing since I was in childhood. And I got my belief on this from the Bible. And 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, and 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. And 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. And 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 Stephen Anderson. That's really the only thing that matters. And so help us to glory in that and take pride in that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.