One Blood

This is yes, right. Noah survives the flood and the only people who survived the flood sons of Noah, which means that everybody alive today kick to all themselves a son of Noah. By the way, in Genesis chapter five, we have a genealogy ten generations from Adam to Noah through the godly line of Seth. So if you are a son of Noah, you are a son of Adam, and we are all of one race. Why do we have a hard time with this? Two things and the modern mindset that make it difficult for us to accept this biblical truth, this biblical reality. One is evolution and the other related to it, racism. I want to look at both of these things. First of all, let's look at evolution and its influence. Paul Weston and Creational Online says, the increasing spread of evolutionist doctrine has much to answer for in relation to the way people often treat each other. Sadly, people rarely recognize that the prejudices which have slowly become ingrained in their psyche have often been a result directly or indirectly of evolutionary thinking. One of the reasons that we don't believe in the one blood hypothesis, one of the reasons we functionally don't believe it. Again, if you pin someone down in Bible class right and force them to answer under a spotlight, then they will say, yes, yes, one blood, one race. We all come from one person, right. But when we operate out there in the world, we don't believe it. You're black and you see a white person and you see other, they're not the same. You're white and you see a black person, a brown person, and you see other, they are not the same. There is some inherent difference in us. Had a conversation not long ago with a young woman, a young African woman, who just didn't matter. I could quote Bible, I could quote history, I could quote genetics, psychology, for lif didn't matter. She had been a few places in the world, and she said, listen, white people are just better than us. They just are. And you can't convince me otherwise. Sitting here talking to this young lady for I don't know how long the conversation went on, and I went back and forth between wanting to cry and wanting to throw over the fence. I did. I didn't either. Some of you are sitting there, what did you, did you cry or did you do both? No? But it was a frustrating conversation. And she's not alone. There are people who absolutely believe not only that there are inherent differences, but a real superiority and inferiority with every fiber of our being. And we may not say it, at least not openly, but how many times have you, in whatever business that you're involved in, some big deal happens at work and you come back and go, oh man, we had this big deal. It was great, and it was a white person. I can't say amen. You ought to say out because we believe it. We do. We do. Stephen J. Gould in his book Ontology and Phylogeny, Biblical arguments for racism may have been common before eighteen fifty nine, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. Had a picture here that I was going to share with us. I'm not able to. I didn't have enough forethought and brought this instead of my laptop where I could have shared it with you. But we've all seen the picture, right, We've all seen the picture of the evolutionary diagram, and on the one end, there is the ape right, you know, and then progressively, you know, you get more humanoid, you know, and then eventually, you know, you get something that looks like modern man, and he's walking a little more erect until the end. And at the end, what do you have somebody who's walking completely erect. But one of the things that we usually don't acknowledge in that photograph is that the skin color gets lighter as evolution increases. We laugh because we know it's true. If you've seen the picture, you've seen this. The skin color gets lighter as we get more evolved, because as we evolve, we not only stand up straight, but we stop being black. You can go to the museum right here in Zambia. I remember the first time I, you know, went down to Living cit. I went to the big museum and I'm walking through the museum and I'm just shaking my head the whole time. Some of the most racist Darwinian evolutionary theories that I've ever seen manifested in my life. We're manifested in the museum right here in Zambia, right here. Besides the evolutionary ideologies, let me give you a couple of things. There are a couple of ways that people view this. Number One, some people just believe that as man evolved progressively got lighter until you finally get white people. But there's another idea. Listen to this from Crookshank. The widely held view was that blacks evolved from the strong but less intelligent guerrillas, so we're stronger but less intelligent. The oreotos or Asians evolved from the orangutang, and whites evolve from the most intelligent of all primates, the chimpanzees. That's how evolution explains the distinctions between the so called races of people, and we are distinct races and evolutionary theory. But what are the implications of that? Because once we believe that, once we believe that there are some people who are inherently superior to other people because of their race, and that you can tell this because of their skin color and because of facial features and other things. I mean, if we believe this, and if you accept evolutionary theory and evolutionary theory survival of the fittest, what does that look like if you follow it through to its logical conclusion. A higher race subjects to itself a lower race a right which we see in nature, and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right. Who said that? Adolf Hitler? Because the Nazi regime was built on the foundation of Darwinian evolution. The Nazis believed that all biology had evolved upward, that less evolved types should be actively eradicated, and they did so in the gas chambers. That natural selection could and should be actively aided. If the white Aryan race is the apex of human evolution, then why should we tolerate anyone or anything in inferior to the white Aryan race. Get rid of them and let the strongest continue to thrive until we evolve further? How do you argue with that if you accept Darwinian evolution? On what basis do you argue with that? If you accept Darwinian evolution? Therefore, the Nazis institute of political measures to eradicate Jews, Blacks, others, Gypsies whom they considered underdeveloped. Modern abortion. The leader of the modern abortion movement is a woman called Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood known worldwide the American organization the Planned Parenthood is known worldwide. Margaret Sanger believed that abortion was away that she could carry out her Malfusian eugenic ideals and eliminate inferior races. To this day in the United States, by the way, seventy five to eighty five percent of all planned parenthood abortion mills are in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. She made no qualms about it. This is a way to keep the less stands and the lower bands, the darker, skin less evolved people from multiplying. Where does that come from? Comes from Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution. When it gets ingrained and we follow it through, there are logical conclusions. You also see this in cult type. Listen to this from the Ku Klux Klan, another American group. We believe the white Anglo, Saxon, Germanic and Kindred people to be God's true literal children of Israel. Only this race fulfills every detail of biblical prophecy and world history concerning Israel, and continues in these latter days to be heirs and possessors of the covenants, prophecies, promises, and blessings Yahweh God made to Israel. Guess what Black nationalist groups like the Nation of Islam make the exact same argument about black people, that black people are the true israel There's a cult today, the black Hebrew Israelites. They're arguing that black people are superior because black people are the true Israelites. Mormons. Bruce McConkie, a Mormon apostle, we know the circumstance under which the posterity of Cain and later of Ham were cursed with what we call negroid racial characteristics. And for a lot of the cults and for other non cultic groups, this became the basis for the mistreatment of people of color and the belief that we are not all of one race. It's the curse of Ham. Listen to this from the Book of Nephi. This is in the Book of Mormon. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto flint. Wherefore, as they were white and exceedingly fair and delight some that they might not be enticed unto my people, the Lord God did cause the skin of blackness to come upon them. The black skin came upon the godless ones so that the white and delight some godly ones wouldn't be attracted to them. This is in the Book of Mormon. Yeah, you know those guys you see walking around in pairs with the black name tags on right here in Lusaka. Yeah, this is their book, The Jehovah's Witnesses The Watchtower, July twenty fourth, nineteen twenty nine. The curse that Noua pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the black race the nation of Islam, because it goes the other way. This is from Elijah Muhammad, one of the founders of the Nation of Islam. The origin of all sin, the origin of murder, the origin of lying are de originating with the creators of evil and injustice. The white race. Even today they like climbing and jumping. The monkeys are from them. Before their time, there were no such things as monkeys, apes and swine. Yes, it goes both ways. But do you notice the foundation for this. It's a denial of the one blood faces in Genesis. It's a denial of the idea that all people came from two people. It's a denial of the idea that the people who populated the world after the flood were from one family, and all human beings come from them. The only way you get here is by somehow either going toward evolution to eradicate this idea, or going towards some perverted view of the curs of game that takes you to the same place. But the idea is the same. There is otherness. We are not the same. You are not like me. Unless you look like me, unless you are from my tribe, you are not like me. You are other. And I am justified in not treating you as well as I do those who are like me. Folks, this impacts the way we think. Unless you think that this only happens with those who are outside the church, there have been times in history when this has happened inside the church. The Southern Baptist can mention forty three thousand churches plus. Ever, wonder why they call Southern Baptists, because in eighteen forty five there was a split over the issue of slave holding missionaries at the convention, and because of that split, those who were pro slavery went in one direction and those who were not win another. The pro slavery group was the Southern Baptist Convention. As late as nineteen sixty eight, a survey found that eleven percent only eleven percent of Southern Baptist churches would admit black members. There was an apology issued in nineteen ninety five on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding. Fundamentalists had their issues John Rice in nineteen fifty six. John Rice's the founder of Sword of the Lord magazine, popular all over the world. Socially, it is better for both Negroes and whites to run with their own kind and intermarry with their own kind. The mixing of races widely differing is almost never wise. Thus, if a girl would do wrong to marry a Negro boy, she would be wrong to keep company with him, mixing regularly with him in social life. Bob Jones University banned interracial dating all the way up to the year two thousand. Another fundamentalist university all the way up to the year two thousand Bob Jones graduate student missions right here in Zambia, people who don't necessarily hold these ideas, but all the way up to two thousand. By the way, why did they change in two thousand, Well, George W. Bush was running for president and went and made a speech at the school. It was discovered that they had this policy and they changed it because of the media pressure that came. The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa apartheid again from people on the inside of the camp, people in the reform part of the Again, he's not fundamentalists. These are people on the reform side of the camp. Listen to this from one article on Reformation history. As Black Africans and people of mixed race converted to the religion, church members debated the question of racial separation. Pressure grew from racially separate for racially separate congregations, and the issue was complicated by the demands of some black church members for their own churches and congregations. In eighteen eighty one, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church established a separate colored church. In nineteen ten, when black South Africans made up about ten percent of the community, the Senates established the NGK in Africa, as it became known for Black Africans. An Indian Dutch Reformed Church was formed in nineteen fifty one. It matters. It matters when we do not accept the one blood hypothesis. It changes things. The Just Reformed didn't go the curse of cane route. They had a different philosophy built on these three principles. Number one, the Bible teaches that the differences between races are as fundamental as the unity of humanity, redemption in Christ, and the restoration of humanity in Him. Number two, the story of the Tower of Babel teaches that God's will is seen in the division of the people into separate communities. And number three, Paul's speech to the Athenians forms another ingredient. It hinges on Paul's statement that God defined the borders of their habitation. Don't ask me to make sense of it, because it doesn't make sense. But what's at the root? People who don't look like me are other. Is there a better way? Of course there is, you know, there is based on what we find in Genesis chapter ten, and really the whole Bible, all that we've been looking at in Genesis one through ten, based on the fact that God made the human race from two people. Literally, Genesis one through ten is literal. That's our whole premise here. It's not symbolic, it's literal. Adam and Eve were not symbolic people. There were literal people, and all of humanity literally came from these two people. Noah was a literal person. The flood was a literal flood, And when humanity repopulated, it was the sons of Noah, shim Ham and Jayfeth, through whom we derived all the various types of people. What does the Bible say about all this? Number one, it says that we are one in Adam and in Noah. We already look at next chapter seventeen, verse twenty six. God made us from one man. Also, we are one in Christ. So even even the non Christian from a human standpoint, even the non Christian is one with me in Adam. Amen made in the image of God from the same stock of the same stuff. There is less than a two percent genetic difference between any two people on Earth. I don't care where you find them. There is a less than two percent genetic difference between us. You go back five to seven thousand years. We come from the same set of ancestors. By the way, if we were technically different races, we wouldn't be able to reproduce with each other because we would be different kinds. Huh. And from Genesis one, we've already learned that everything produces after its own kind. There is one kind, one kind. We're one in Christ Galatians three twenty eight two. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free, no bemba ay maen. I'm going no uh, no male female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. Either we believe that or we don't. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to promise. Do we believe that? Do we believe that? We will be one in Glory? Revelation five, beginning of verse nine, and they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals? For you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people in nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Revelation seven. Nine. After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. We are one in Adam, one in Noah. We are one in Christ and we will be one in glory. Amen. True science agrees with this. True science agrees with this. We all descended from common ancestors. That's not up for debate. There is one race, many nations or ethnicities. God put beautiful diversity within this one race. Amen. We're of one kind, but we're not all the same, and that's a beautiful thing. There's less than a point two percent I said two percent earlier, point two percent genetic difference between any two people, regardless of their ethnicity. Less than a point two percent difference. You take the blackest black person and the whitest white person on earth, there is less than a zero point two percent genetic difference between them. We all share the same genes because we all come from the same parents, and we are all the same color. Yeah. You know, the thing that colors our skin is a chemical called melanine, and it comes in a variety of different types, but it's basically the same chemical. The difference between lighter colored people and darker colored people is the amount of melanine that you have in your skin. That's why you can have parents who have children. If they have enough of them, they can color a spectrum. Yeah, you get two people who are middle brown. I mean they can have really really light children and they can have really really dark children. So, now, if this is the way we think about about one another, what does that mean? This means that we celebrate our oneness and Adam and Noah and Christ. We celebrate our oneness and Adam and Noah in Christ. Amen you just I praise God for the privilege that He's given me of meeting Christians all over the world, most of whom look nothing like me, but they are my brothers and my sisters. I have found myself in the middle of church service singing is going on in the language I don't even understand. I just try to pick out the word for Jesus right, and I sit there and sometimes can just become overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because we're want in our humanity. But that's raised another notch when we're one in our Christianity. And this is why it is so sad when even among brothers and sisters in Christ, we allow faulty thinking about race to divide and separate us. And it's not just a black white issue. In India, the caste system separates people and sometimes among Indian Christians, the caste system is allowed to separate people. We're one and Adam one and Noah one in christ. Secondly, recognize all racism as sin, even in ourselves. Recognize all racism as sin, even in ourselves. By the way, and when I say that, I don't just mean. And you know what some people have done is they try to say, well, you know, racism is you know, you're you're oppressing other people in Europe and no, no, Actually preferring other people is racism as well. Believing in the superiority of other people is as racist as believing in the inferiority of other people. Recognize it as such. It does not come from the Bible. It does not come from God. Thirdly, and this is a difficult one, I think we should stop using race as a category. I fight hard now to you listen, I am not politically correct. If you think I'm politically correct, you don't know me. Political correctness is just not even in my You know, when I find out things are politically correct, sometimes I just run the other direction, don't even think about whether or not is That's not me. I don't let people forced me to, you know, do you gotta be careful about this. You got to be careful about It's crazy. I'm not talking about that here, but I fight hard not to use the term race and instead to talk about ethnicity. And here's what I found. It makes people pause, and it's a beautiful opportunity to get into the gospel. They're talking about this and that, and they're saying race this, race that, and I'm saying ethnicity this and ethnicity that, and they just keep that and eventually they just kind of give me that look, or they just say, why is it that you keep saying ethnicity? Why is it that you don't like to say race? Ah? Because God created the world, and he created human beings, created two human beings, and from those two human beings, all human beings have been derived. And because of that, we are all of one race. Even though we have multiple ethnicities. God redeemed us through the person and work of Christ. And now we're even in one man. More than that, more than just one race, we're in one man. We're in one body. You see. Now we get to talk about the gospel. But beyond that, I want to force myself to be reminded of this because I grew up in this world too. I grew up in an environment that pounded into my head other other other, different, different, different, better, superior, inferior. I grew up in a world that pounded that into my head, and I fight to actively renew my mind on this issue. We live in a world that every day tries to reinforce these ideas every day. How can we be bombarded with Darwinian evolutionary ideas all day, every day and not fight it and somehow not succumb to it. Next, Acknowledge your culture, but advance the kingdom. Acknowledge your culture, but advance the kingdom. Culture is a beautiful thing to be probably wondering why I chose to put this on tonight, you know when time a vest and everything in the morning and you know, you know, let's bring you the one that you tanga. Nobody told me it was a tangay night. Right. Culture is a beautiful thing. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging culture. There's nothing wrong with celebrating culture. Amen, there's nothing wrong with that at all. But when we use it as a means of defining ourselves. Versus other that's when it's a problem. That's when it's a problem. And no, forget it was I don't know, maybe the second trip or so that I came pastor. Conrad took me to a village and we walked around in the village and he was just you know, showing me, showing me around. You know, American tourists got to go take him to the village, right. So we sat and talked a few people and walking out and there's this one lady who's, you know, having a conversation with him. I don't know what language it was that was speaking, and so she addressed me and I spoke to her, and then she just laughed out loud said something to Conrad, and he laughed out loud. And I'm sitting there like, you know what, and he says, and I don't know if you remember this. The woman said to him, he looks black like us, but he's a white man. I didn't know how to take that, but basically it was just a reminder. It was a reminder that regardless of the color of my skin, there's a whole lot more that makes me who I am. And just because I share skin color with people, that doesn't mean that I am automatically part of that particular group. Because there's more diversity in us than that, and it's a beautiful thing. Amen. But here's the deal. We gotta get that way about other characteristics as well. When I see somebody that has different, you know, facial skeletal features, or see somebody that has you know, different levels of melanin or whatever, what they look like does not determine who they are. We're one and at them, we're one. To Noah, we're one in Christ our confession. And this is in sixteen eighty nine, you know, lest we begin to think that, you know, we're the first ones who've ever kind of gotten this. And it is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry in the Lord. And therefore such as profess the true religion should not marry with infidels or ourdolaters. Neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked by marrying with such as are wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies. Sixteen eighty nine. Nothing in there about if the person is this race, that race, this ethnicity, that ethnicity, because that's not what matters. It wasn't what mattered in sixteen eighty nine, it's not what matters today. One set of parents, one race of men, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one one. Do we believe that? And if we believe it, does it impact the way we think out there? Does it impact the way we communicate out there? Does it impact the way we interact with people out there? Does an impact the way we treat people out there? Does it impact what we expect from people out there? Because if it doesn't impact all of that, then it's not really what we believe will always behave in accordance with what we believe. Let's pray, God, our heavenly Father, we pause tonight to reflect on that statement that you are our God. You are our father, We are your children, We are one family, one blood. You are not a father who has many families, your father who has won. And you are our father, and you are the father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. You are our God who created us in his image from two people who are our parents, our first parents. Grant by your grace that we might embrace this truth, that we might be embraced by it, that we might be transformed by it, and that those with whom we come in contact would be impacted by it. We pray this in Christ name and for his sake. Amen, s.