The Table of Nations

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Grace Family Baptist Church. Gfbc's mission is proclaiming the supremacy of Christ to all men with a view of biblical conversion and comprehensive discipleship. Thank you for visiting Gracefamilybaptist dot Net. Join me if you will. In Genesis ten, and as we said, we thought about preaching through the first eleven chapters of Genesis. There were several places that sort of gave us pause, and one of the places was Genesis tenth. What do you do when you get to Genesis ten and the Table of Nations. But we're committed to systematic exposition. And one of the things that means is it's just like in our reading of scripture. I'm sure if you are a guest with us and you haven't been with us and you don't really know about what we do. We're committed to in worship. But one of the things we're committed to is the Bible says to give attention to the public reading of scripture. And so we read systematically through scripture, and we'll read in an Old Testament, and we'll read in the New Testament, and we'll take a book and we'll read through the book. And so right now we're reading through Exodus. A lot of people sit there and they've never been with us, and we're in Exodus twenty six, and they're going, huh, wondering how they're going to tie this in to everything else that they're doing. And we don't tie it in. We're just committed to the systematic reading of scripture. And if we believe that all scripture is God breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the Man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work, then what part of Scripture would be inappropriate to read in worship. Well? None, do we really believe that? Well, most times we don't. That's why most of us have never been in a church where Exodus twenty six has ever been read. Amen. But we read systematic, systematically through scripture. We read Revelation. The next next week, we'll read Revelation twenty two, and then we'll find another New Testament book and we'll read through it from the beginning to the end. We preach systematically, So right now we're preaching Genesis one through eleven. Most times you don't tackle Genesis chapter ten, the Table of Nations, lists of names. Amen, Holleljah, Praise the Lord. They just want to get up and shout and do the Holy Ghost dance. All right, reading lists of names. No, But if we're committed to systematic exposition and we look at the scriptures as a whole, the question is God put Genesis chapter ten in here for a reason? Can we in light of what we've taught all the way through Genesis chapters one through nine, and in light of what comes up in Genesis chapter eleven, can we understand how Genesis chapter ten fits into God's redemptive plan. Man, Sir, I believe is yes. Let's read it together, shall we? Or I'll read it. These are the generations of the sons of Noah, shim Ham and Japhath. Sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Jaypith, Gohmer, May Good, Madai, Javan, Tubaal, Mischik, and Tiras. By the way, we have a lot of expecting mothers here in the church with us this morning, and as we go through here, feel free to just dive in and grab any one of these names. The sons of Gomer, Ashkenas, Rifath, and Togarma, the sons of Javan, Elisha, Tarshis, Kidding, and Dodanim. From these the coastal peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language and their clans in their nations. And so now we see the sons of Jafith going off to these coastal regions, the sons of Ham, Kush, Egypt, Put and Canaan, the sons of Kush, Siba, Habilah, sabtah Rama and Saptika, the sons of Rama, Sheba and Dadan. Kush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Eric, Akad and Kuni in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh that sound familiar ringa both her Kellah and Resen between and Kenna, that is the great city. Egypt fathered Ludim Adamim Lehabim, not to him Pathrusim Casluhim, from whom the Philistines came and Captorim and so now we've seen the Philistines as well. We recognize them Canaan fathered Sidon Is firstborn, and Heath, and the Jebusites and the Amorites, the Synites, the Arbadites, and the Zamurites, and the Hamathites. Afterward, the clans of the Canaanites dispersed, and the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Ghia and Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, gomorrah Admah and Zedom as far as Leisha. These are the sons of Ham by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. And so now we see the sons of Ham much more prolific. These sons of Ham, we have one who's gone sort of coastal, and another one who has moved in a sort of southerly direction. To Shim, also the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Jafif children were born the sons of Shim Elim, Ashore, Arpachshad, Lud and Aram. The sons of Aram uz Hu Geither and mash Arpishad fathered Shelah and Shellah fathered Aber Aber to Aber were born two sons. The name of the one Peleg for his days, for in these days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Jocktan, Jocton, Fathered, Almadad, Shelaf, Hazara, Hazermaveth, Jerah, haderam uzal Dikla, obal Abimile Sheba ofir Hablah and Jobab All these were the sons of Joktan. The territory in which they lived extended from Misha in the direction of seyfor to the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shim by their clans and their language, and their lands and their nations. And so now we have Shim taking off in an easterly direction. These are the clans and the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies in their nations, and from these nations spread abroad on all the earth after the flood. Now here's the question. Do we believe that? That's the question. Do we believe that when we look at the table of nations, what the table of nations suggests is this, All the different people groups on Earth are derived from the sons of Noah, Shim, Ham and Jacob. Do we believe that now don't answer that too quickly because you may be surprised by the answer, because for the most part, we don't believe that. We don't believe that we all are of common descent and of common origin. Most of us. When we think and ask ourselves the question about the different people groups and from where they're derived and how they're derived, we ask ourselves that question from a perspective that is given to us by our culture. So as we think about this issue of nations and the origin of nations, we've been condied to think this way. There are multiple races of men, and these multiple races of men come from multiple origins. We believe this because that's what we've been taught, and there are several reasons that we've been taught to believe this. But all of a sudden we get back to Genesis ten and the Table of Nations, and we have to ask ourselves a question, how do we get multiple races of people? If everybody goes back to shim Ham and Jayfith, how was Noah able to have children who were multiple races? How'd that happened? And if Noah didn't have children who were multiple races, where the multiple races of people come from. Interestingly enough, there is a premise in the question that is false. And here's the false premise. The false premise is that there are multiple races of people. There is only one race. There has always been one race. There will always be one race, all descended from Noah, who was descended from Adam. There is but one race. Did you hear me? There is but one race. Now as I say that, I say it over and over again so that it will wash over us. Because if you'll remember, we always talk about Aristotle's famous question, does a fish know he's wet? The answer, of course is no, fish doesn't know he's wet, not till you get him out of the water. And the fact of the matter is, we have been conditioned by our culture for a number of reasons, to believe that there are multiple races of people. I have people ask me all the time is your church interracial? To which I always respond, Oh, absolutely not. We only accept humans as members. No, no, No, wouldn't dare. Wouldn't dare have anyone who is not human as a member of our church. We've got a little dog who hangs around out there in the parking lot. You know, he's wanting membership. He's trying to get membership. But no, no, no, this is a this is a human's only congregation. I've had people ask me about how I feel about interracial marriage or interracial adoption, to which again I respond, no, I do not believe in interracial marriage, Absolutely not. I am against interracial marriage. My children may only marry humans. Amen, that's all. Don't you bring a non human into my house trying to get my blessing to go and get married. All right? That there is but one race and one race only. Listen to this from Webster's eighteen twenty eight nitionary. I'm sorry some of this won't be up for you because some of it is quite visual. Western defines race this the lineage of a family or continued series of descendants from a parent, who is called the stock. A race is the series of descendants indefinitely. Thus all mankind are called the race of Adam. By definition, all mankind are called the race of Adam. Many races are one. Listen to paul In at seventeen twenty six, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling places. He's hearkening back to Genesis chapter ten. God made from one man every nation of men. There are not multiple races of men. There is but one race of man. What we have in Genesis chapter ten is not the table of races, but the table of nations. That's what we have in Genesis ten. Single parentage, single lineages. Not racists, by the way. Listen to this. A geneticist and a computer scientist and the geologists all at Yale sort of got together to do some number crunching and some figuring based on what we know of genealogy, and here's what they discovered. You'd have to go back in time only two thousand to five hundred years to two thousand to five thousand years, and probably on the low side of that range to find somebody who could count every person alive today as a descendant. These are not Christians, by the way. These are evolutionary biologists. These are evolutionary scientists who, by their computations have said, you only have to go back between two thousand and four thousand years to find a person who's from whom all of us are commonly descended. To two thousand to five thousand years Well, the flood happened about four thousand years ago. Interestingly enough, fits right in there. But wait, there's more. Furthermore, if you go back a little further about five thousand to seven thousand years ago. By the way, I believe the Earth is only about six thousand years old. I know that makes me a freak, Amen, But I believe Genesis. I do. I also believe science, and I believe the scientific evidence points to the Earth being only around six thousand years old, not billions and billions of years old. But these evolutionary scientists say, furthermore, if you go back a little further about five thousand to seven thousand years ago, everybody living today has exactly the same set of ancestors. I wonder who that might be. That would be Adam and Eve. One race or multiple races? Which is it? Our culture says that there are multiple races. The Bible says that there is but one. Which do we say? For most of my life, I've believed that there were multiple races For most of my life. I believe that even as a new believer, I believe that I became a believer. It didn't automatically change every aspect of my thinking overnight. Now, I was still swimming in the stream of this culture and believed with every fiber of my being that there were multiple races of people, and that you could determine those multiple races of people by external characteristics like skin tone like hair tiede like shape of face and eyes, and things of that things of that nature, but that there were multiple races of people. Why do we doubt the one race hypothesis? Two reasons. Mainly, one reason is evolution. We doubt the one race hypothesis because we are bathed in this theory of evolution. We believe this theory of evolution everywhere we go. It's assumed that man evolved, and evolutionary thinking is thought for a long time that there are multiple races of people. The second reason that we believe, or that we fail to believe, this one race hypothesis is because of racism. Because of racism, because of racial prejudice, and that category of race, and that category of thinking about people as races of people is actually racist in itself, that category that goes back to Genesis, chapter ten, and somehow believes that there was a mutation that took place, and that there were certain mutant races that came as a result of that. That's racism, or that idea that goes back even further to Adam and says that there was somehow a Subadmic race. That there is Adam and the people who descended from Adam, but then there are other people who did not descend from Adam, but they descended from some subademic race, some race not identified with Adam. That is racism. As we look at Genesis ten, I want you to understand that this gets to the core of who we are as people. This gets to the core of how we relate to one another. This gets to the core of how we treat one another, and this gets to the core of assumptions and prejudices with which all of us uncle all of us. Here's what I want to do, and the rest of the time that we have together, I want to show you how this struggle has come about. I want to show you the scars that this struggle has left, and then we will look back at a better way to think about issues regarding so called race and how it is we must address this because I don't think we understand how we've been affected first of all, evolution. Listen to this from PAULA. Western. The increase in 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. We don't know how much we've been messed up. Listen to this from Stephen J. Gould and his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny as a Harvard professor was By the way, biological arguments for racism may have been common before eighteen fifty nine. By the way, eighteen fifty nine is when we got this earth shattering book here, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, eighteen fifty nine, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. There is an alternate title to this book. By the way, most of the people don't put the whole title of the book on the cover of the book, The Origin of Species by Means of natural Selection or the Preservation of favored Races in the Struggle for Life foundational book for modern racism. Right here, I recommend you read it, and it's companion The Descent of Man. I recommend you you that because people who are basing their understanding of the world on Darwinian evolutionary concepts have no idea, no idea that at its core, Darwinian thinking is racist. Listen, it is. The widely held view was that blacks evolved from strong, but less intelligent guerrillas, the Orientals evolved from the orangutang, and whites evolved from the most intelligent of all primates, the chimpanzees. That was Darwinian evolutionary thinking. We all came from apes, just some of us came from more intelligent apes than others. Not Genesis Chapter ten, the Table of Nations. No no, no, no, not that, not all with one common ancestor. No no, no, not that. Some came from big, strong guerrillas, others came from orangutans, and others came from the intelligent chimpanzee. That's what I wish you could see. But there's a popular evolutionary picture, and you've seen it. You know. It starts with, you know, this knuckle dragging gorilla, and then he begins to stand more upright, and eventually at the end of it. It's man walking in his fully evolved form. Here's what a lot of people don't know. There are six drawings, and by the way, it's a drawing. There are six drawings on that evolutionary picture and that evolutionary chart, this Darwinian evolutionary chart. The first two drawings are very eight like. The third drawing is supposed to be this kind of missing link, kind of maybe Luci or one of these fossils. The fourth drawing is a black man, the fifth drawing is an Asian man, and the final drawing is an Anglo Saxon man. And so the teaching of Darwinian evolution, as depicted in this drawing is that as people became more evolved, they became less dark. So the darker you are, the less human you are. How many of us had that drawing in our science books. That drawing is often still in people's science books, and it impacts us that drawing is incompatible with the teaching of Genesis chapter ten. According to Genesis chapter ten, we all have common ancestry, and there is but one race and one race only. According to Darwinian evolution, I'm darker because I'm less evolved. Than my lighter brethren. Do you think that this has not affected us? Listen to this one's man's, one man's journey. David's father is theologists tried to reconcile evolution with Christianity. His father was methodist by concluding that evolution was the means God used to create life. This background set the groundwork for David's later acceptance of Darwinism. As he read more and more on the scientific issue of race, he became torn between his religion and science. David was doing his research on Darwinism while he was attending a Church of Christ school in New Orleans. As a result of his study of evolution, David openly challenged his teachers, discussing his evolving ideas about the origin of humans and their implications for racism. When endeavoring to combine his racist beliefs with Christianity, David used many of the same rationalizations used by theistic evolutionists to rationalize the plain statements in Genesis. David eventually cited with Darwinism and rejected creationism. He concluded that with each passing day, more evidence emerges of the dynamic genetically born, physical and physiological differences between the races, so ended his fleeting commitment to Orthodox Christianity, even though he still peppers his writings with religious phrases such as, if I can move our people one anch toward God, my life will have been worthwhile his life tells a very different story. In short after his acceptance of Darwinism, David Duke unabashedly classified both Europeans and Asian races as higher levels of human evolution than the African race. Who's David Duke? You remember the Grand Wizard of the ku kluts Klan rent for Congress? What were his ideals based on a rejection of Genesis ten in favor of racist the Owinian evolutionist ideas about who we are as people? Do we look in Genesis ten and see some of us? Or do we look in Genesis ten and see all of us? What about this racist idea? Listen to this. 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. It is the sole conceivable right of a more evolved race to subject a less evolved race. Who said that? Adolf Hitler said that that's a That's who said that? And that's what he believed. But that was then, right, I mean, come on, that was Darwin in the eighteen fifties over in Europe. Come on that that was Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Certainly that was other individuals and other cultures and not our own. Really, how about here in America? Ode Bengo was an African pigmy. He was captured and brought to the United States in the twentieth century, not the nineteenth century, not the eighteenth century. Ode Bengo was captured and brought to the United States in the twentieth century. He eventually ended up in a zoo, Yes, in a zoo. Listen to the heading of one paper when he first premiered in the zoo Bushman Shares Cage with Bronx Park eight oh oh. Did I tell you this was New York, not Alabama? And this was in nineteen oh six. Listen to the statements. There was always a crowd before the cage, most of the time roaring with laughter, and from almost every corner of the garden could be heard the question where's the pigmy? The answer was in the monkey house. That was September of nineteen oh six. How about this. We believe that the white Anglo Saxons, ger Manic 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. Where do you find that? Oh, the statement of faith at Ku Klux Klan. That's how they interpret Genesis. How about the Christian Identity movement. We believe that the man Adam is the father of the white race only. How about Mormonism? We know the circumstances under which posterity of Cain and later Ham were cursed with what we call negroid racial characteristics. Is it just the Mormons? How about this? Jehovah's Witnesses in July nineteen twenty nine in their magazine The Watchtower, you find this statement, the curse that Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the black race. Is it just the Darwinist Is it just the cultists? No? It's also been prevalent in the Church among Orthodox Christians. For example, in seventeen ninety four, a denomination was born, the African Methodist Episcopal Denomination. Where was the African Methodist Episcopal Denomination born out of the Methodist Church? Why was the Ame church born out of the Methodist Church in seven eventeen ninety four because of racism within Methodism that did not allow certain races entree into their churches. So they formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church. How about Southern Baptists, certainly not us right. The Southern Baptist Convention was established in eighteen forty five. Why because of a dispute? What was the dispute? Can a man who owns slaves be commissioned as a missionary? So at the Triennial Convention in eighteen forty five, some Baptists from the South sent a man up as a candidate to be a missionary sent out by the Convention. They rejected him on the grounds that he was a slaveholder. Because they did that, in eighteen forty five, the Southern Baptist Convention split and was thereby born. That was not a public acknowledgment or repentance from this until the on hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the SBC in nineteen ninety five. According to one survey, as late as nineteen sixty eight, only eleven percent of Southern Baptist churches allowed non whites to be members. Only eleven percent. Listen to this. How about the fundamentalists? What about them? Listen to this from John Rice, who's the founder of the magazine The Sword of the Lord. 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. Were those the only fundamentalists who thought that way? Well, there's one fundamentalist university who banned interracial dating. They lifted the band however in two thousand. In two thousand, they lifted the band. Why did this fundamentalist college university lift the ban on what they called interracial dating? By the way, how can you have interracial dating if you believe, according to Genesis ten, that there is but one race? You can't. So this fundamentalist school lifted the ban on interracial dating in two thousand, Why because George W. Bush was running for president and had a debate on their campus. The press was so upset with mister Bush for going to Bob Jones University that they raised a furor. And it was only then, in an effort not to hurt mister Bush's campaign, that Bob Jones University changed their stance on inner racial dating in two thousand. Is it just on the non dark skinned side? No. Listen to this from Elijah Muhammad, one of the founders of the Nation of Islam, and his book Message to the Black Man in America. The origin of all sin, the origin of murder, the origin of lying, are deceptions 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. So the other side comes back and argues, no, no, no, we're not the ones who were descended from the apes. In fact, the apes descended from you, dueling Darwinian racism. But Genesis chapter ten says Noah had three sons. They were Shim, they were ham, and they were Japoth. These three sons went to different regions of the world, and eventually all people groups come from those three sons. So what do we learn from Genesis chapter ten? What does the Bible teach us? Number One, The Bible teaches us that we are one in Adam, Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. There is one race, and Adam is the father of that race. Eve is the mother of that race. Secondly, the Bible teaches us in Genesis chapter nine and Genesis chapter ten that we are one in Noah. After the flood, there was a preservation of the human race, and it was through Noah and his sons shim Ham and Japhath. The Bible also teaches us that we are one in Christ, Relations chapter three and verse two. Turn there with me if you will, and agrees. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring heirs. According to the promise, we're one and Adam. We're one in Noah, We're one in Christ, and we will be one in Glory. Turn with me if you will to Revelation chapter seven. 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, and crying out with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. To who's God, our God? Which nation's God our God? Which people's God our God? Which tones God our God? That's Who's God. One in Adam, one in Noah, one in Christ, one in Glory. So what does this mean? Here's what I want you to understand. Make this observation, and then we'll close with a couple of applications. We all descend it from common ancestors. We know this from the scriptures. We also know this scientifically. There's one race, but there are many nations ethnic groups. Where do we get that term from. If you're a member of this church and you've been through new members of orientation, you know the one Greek phrase that everyone's required to know if you're going to be a member of Grace family. Baptist Church. That one Greek phrase is what tanta taesne? Where's that from the great commission? Go and make disciples of pinta tathne every ethnicity, every people group. There is but one race. There are many different ethnicities. Thirdly, understand this. There is less than a two percent genetic difference between any two people in this room, or I'm sorry, zero point two percent. There is less than a point two percent genetic difference between any two people in this room. You pick any two people in this room at random, and there is less than a point two percent genetic difference between any two people in this room, which means, Fourthly, we all share the same genes. Amen. There used to be laws against inner marriage based on the fact that if people were to marry from differing quote unquote races, that there would develop some mongrel race, that there would be some kind of freakish development as a result of the intermixing between those individuals. There is less than a zero point two percent genetic difference between any two people in this room. And newsflash, whatever you think you are, you're that and a whole lot more. Amen. Finally, here's what's also interesting. We're all the same color. We're all the same color. Well no we're not. Well yeah, actually we are. The color in your skin and the color in my skin all comes from the same chemical. It's called melanin. There aren't different colors of melanin. There are just different degrees of melanin in the skin. People are darker or lighter because they have more or less melanin in their skin. That's all. It's all the same color. Some people just have more of that color in their skin. And here's what's interesting about the whole deal. If we had started with two individuals, Adam and Eve, who just completely lacked melanin and were what we call white, we would not have gotten all the different colors of people or shades shall I say people? Or if we started with two people Adam and Eve, and they were individuals with as much melanin as me, and they were all what we call black, we would not have gotten all the different shades of people. However, if Adam and Eve were what we call middle brown, then guess what. From a middle brown couple, you could get every shade represented in this room, and only from a middle brown couple. So, newsflash, is the closest thing to what Adam looked like as it relates to the melanie in his skin. I was talking to Javier about this earlier. I didn't just spring that on him, by the way. I told him I was gonna do that. And when I told him I was gonna do that, Javier just sort of smiled, and they said, you know what's interesting in my country in Venezuela, we have people, We have couples, you know, and the couple will both be the sort of same complexion, like my complexion, and they'll have kids, and some of them be real, real, real light, and some of them be real, real, real dark. By the way, that's not new. That's what happened to Noah. They had some real light descendants, some middle brown descendants, and some dark brown descendants. They're all over the globe. And by the way, anybody have a purebread dog. Purebreads don't live as long. They got more medical problems. My brother and who are incredibly light, they got issues. Son just doesn't just you know, they get melanomas and all this sort of stuff just not a good thing. My Brotherren, who are really really dark, we have a tendency to have vitamin D deficiencies. Why because we're blocking out more of the sun. So, now, what if Genesis ten teaches us that there is but one race, but many ethnicities, what are the implications for you and me and the way we live our lives. Number One, we need to celebrate our oneness and Adam and Noah and Christ and in glory Amen. We need to celebrate our oneness. Secondly, we need to recognize all racism as sin, even that in ourselves, all of it. Are you worried or perhaps disinclined about your children coming home with someone of another skin color when it comes to marriage. Why? Why? Because a fish doesn't know he's wet. That's why we all struggle with that. Thirdly, stop using race as a category. If you believe Genesis ten, if you believe Genesis one, why would we ever use race as a category? This race, that race, the other race. For those of you who know me, I have just a few pet peeves, not a lot, but we've all got a few pet peeves. One of my pet peeves is I despise being called African American. I hate being called African American. I get angry at being called African American. Did I say I despise being called African American. I believe it's a racist term. Why why do why am I? Why do I have to be? First of all? Why do I have to be hyphenated at all? Amen? Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Why are we hyphenating and dividing ourselves in the first place? But I'm an Africa Okay, I'm African American. Okay, that's fine. Let's examine this to see if it's an appropriate term. I'm African American. Great. If someone is from Egypt, do we call them an African American? No, well, then the term's not appropriate. Egypt is in Africa, Libya is in Africa. So if we're going to call someone an African American because their skin looks like mine, why wouldn't we call an Egyptian with lighter skin who is actually Arabic in his ethnicity an African American. Why? Because African American doesn't mean what we like to say. It means it's a racist term. Well, okay, fine, then we won't use African American. Well yeah, well we use African American because we're still talking about people from Africa. Okay, that's fine, But we already established that the Egyptian. The Egyptian is from Africa as well. Well, we use Asian American. Is that appropriate? Well, let's examine it Asian American. When we use Asian American, we usually talk about people who are from Korea or Japan, or from you know, China. But guess what else is Asia? India and Pakistan. Do we call Indians and pakistanis Asian Americans? No? We don't, why because the term is inappropriate. We don't mean what we say. Someone from Russia who's from the southern part of Russia, are they a European American or are they an Asian American. By the way, someone from the Middle East, what are they Middle Eastern American? Well, no, they're Arab American. No, not necessarily because people from Iran are not Arabs, they're Persians. The terms don't work. That's why I despise the terms. What do we call someone from Venezuela a South American American? That would make someone from Mexico a North American American. Do you see how ridiculous this terminology is. The terminology is born out of our racist preconditioning. Who am I? How what C. S. Lewis calls son of Adam. Hey man, I love that term that Chronicles of Narnia term sons of Adam. That's what I am. I'm a son of Adam. That's what you are, Sons and daughters of Adam. Here's what I love. We've looked at a lot of documents and read a lot of statements that weren't very attractive. But are there any that get it right? Our confession of faith is the London Baptist Confession of sixteen eighty nine. Listen to the London Baptist Confession. In the chapter on marriage, 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 idolatris. Neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked by marrying with such as are wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresy sixteen eighty nine. They understood what the Bible taught. What did the Bible teach? The Bible taught where one and Adam where one? In Noah, we're one in Christ. When you're looking for somebody to marry, don't be like man who looks on the outside. You be like God who judges the heart home my son, or God to come home with somebody who's deep dark chocolate brown but doesn't know Jesus from the man in the moon, or somebody who hails from somewhere like Hong Kong or Singapore or Brazil or England, who loves God and has a multi generational vision for seeing to it that my children's children are raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Which one is it? Christ came to redeem his people and Adam and Noah, and he has but one people. We are but one church. We are but one race. There has always been but one race. All of us has been marred by the racism in our culture, every last one of us. Don't think for a minute that you've gotten away from it unscathed. You have it. You've bathed in it for years and years and years. And when you look at people, you make snap judgments. You do you do? Somebody walks in the door, and immediately we look at that individual, and if that individual has brown skin, we find one of our brown skin families in the church to introduce that individual to Why because we think brown skinned people are gonna have more in common with brown skinned people, and we want that brown skinned person to know, Hey, we got brown skin people in our church too. You can't say amen. You ought to say ouch, because we do it all the time. Why. Because a fish doesn't know he's wet. That's why. That's why a fish doesn't know he's wet. And you and I have no idea. Yeah that though we are followers of Christ and have been redeemed, that the area of racism and prejudice is something that needs to be scrubbed from our souls, from every last one of us. My prayer is that this church would always be a church that holds up high the banner of Christ. Period. End of discussion. And if you can unite around Christ, you can unite with us. I don't care if you paint green or purple. If you can unite around Christ, you can unite with us. But if you have a problem with accepting other people as one race, you are not welcome here. Repent, follow on your face before our Jewish middle brown Savior and beg him to cleanse you with his Blood that loves just like yours. You've been listening to the podcast or Gracefamilybaptist Dot death. Grace Family Baptist Church is located in Spring, Texas. For any questions or comments regarding Grace Family Baptist Church, calshol free at eight seven seven sixty five one eighty eight fourteen, or go online to Gracefamilybaptist dot net