Now, you're in Deuteronomy 7, look at verse number 1.
When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land where the thou goest to possess it,
and has cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites
and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations
greater and mightier than thou.
And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shall smite them and utterly
destroy them.
Thou shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.
Now, he's telling them, hey, when you run into these nations, you just need to wipe
them all out.
Is that because God's just a racist?
Is it because God just hates these other races?
He just hates the color of their skin?
No, it's because of their pagan worship, that's why.
It's because they're committing abominations in the land, folks.
Now look at verse 3.
Neither shall thou make marriages with them.
Thy daughter thou shall not give unto his son, nor his daughter shall thou take unto
thy son, for they will turn away thy son from following me.
So he's saying, I don't want this white guy getting married with this black girl and all
these Asian people.
No.
Is it because of their skin color?
It's because of, you know, one is yellow, one's black, and one's brown?
Absolutely not.
It has to do with the fact that the culture that they're involved in, the pagan religious
culture that they're a part of, would cause the believer to stray away from God.
That's what it was.
So God was not against race, he was against the pagan culture of that race.
Verse 5 says, But thus shall ye deal with them, I'm sorry, 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.
Folks, that's why it's important that when we get saved, we leave our culture behind
and we take on a Christian culture, amen?
Now keep the parts of your culture that are still good and wholesome, amen?
Keep the parts of your culture that line up with the Bible, you know, the food of your
culture, it's still good, amen?
But things of your culture that deal with religious idolatry or things that are pagan
should be completely forsaken, okay?
And the reason I say this is because some cultures, right, they identify their culture
with their religion.
I mean, you go out sowing and you run into Hispanics and they'll literally say they're
Catholic not because they go to a Catholic church, not because they even know what the
sacraments are, not because they've even done their first communion, literally because they're
grandma's Catholic, because they've always been Catholic, because they're Hispanic,
they're Mexican, you know, they're whatever.
And they'll say, well, this is what we've always been.
So they literally identify what they believe based upon their culture.
But that's not to say that a Hispanic person when they get saved can get right with God,
serve the true God, you know, have a Christian culture, but they have to forsake them.
It's not like, well, you know, I'm saved, yeah, but you know, back in my culture, we
have the Virgin Mary in our home and we have the crucifix in our home and that's just a
cultural thing.
No, those things need to be burned.
Those things need to be smitten and broken and burned because that's not a part of Christian
culture, okay?
So anything within that culture that would seek to take people away from the true God,
that's what God was against.
He wasn't against other races even joining Israel as long as they're willing to adhere
to what the covenant said, okay?
It says in verse 5, but thus shall ye deal with them, ye shall destroy their altars and
break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire.
For thou art a 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.
So he didn't want foreign nations to pollute the children of Israel by bringing in false
religion, false doctrine, and causing God's people to get away from him.
So that's why he said don't marry into these people, not because of the color of their
skin but because of their beliefs, their paganism, their abominations.
And look, a lot of these cultures, abominable, right?
To the point where the land would spew them out of their mouths as the Bible says.
They're involved in sodomy, they're involved in all kinds of wizardry and witchcraft and
just different things, necromancy, right?
They were abominable unto the Lord and that's why God said I don't want you even being involved
with these people.
I don't want you to marry into their culture, marry into that people because of the fact
that they practice paganism, they'll cause you to stray away from the Lord.