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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Acts chapter 17, the Bible says, Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also, whom Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed, also of honorable women which were Greeks, and of men not a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people. And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea, but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens, and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him, and said, What will this babbler say? Others some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is? For thou bringeth certain strange things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean. For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed in the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them, howbeit certain men clave unto him and believed, among the witch was Dionysus the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, thank you for the souls that were saved, and thank you for allowing us to sing praises to your name. Please bless Pastor Shelley as he preaches your word in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So I wanted to start a new series on Sunday nights called Controversial Topics. And so this evening I'm preaching on interracial marriage. Now, interracial marriage is kind of still a controversial topic, especially from the past, but I feel like it's kind of rearing its ugly head again in our society where there's a group of individuals online specifically that really hate the idea of, quote, interracial marriage. And honestly, it's not necessarily something that I run into often, but it still happens today, and I've even had people contact our church that said, wow, I really like your church, I really like your position on standing against the Sodomites and the King James Bible, and I'd really like visiting your church, but what's your views on interracial marriage? And I can already tell this person's not someone I'm interested in, so I just kind of gave them a simple answer to that, and they were like, yeah, I'm never going to your church or whatever because of your view on interracial marriage, but it's not my view, it's the Bible's view, okay? Now, if we just read Acts chapter number 17, notice what the Bible says here on verse 24. God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is the Lord, or seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing it giveth all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men, for it to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. So according to the Bible, God has made of all nations of one blood. Therefore, this is a foreign concept to the Bible to have this idea of race. Race is not a biblical idea. It's not a biblical concept whatsoever. Now, in this passage, it also says, verse 27, that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring. For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device. So according to the Bible, man is God's offspring. And this is where sometimes there's a distinction in the words that's very important, because some people say, we're all the children of God, but that is not true, okay? We are all the offspring of God. We are all the creation of God. And man was made in God's image, and that's the point that he's making, that we are all in the image of God as men. And so if we're in the image of God, we shouldn't think that God is a rock or a stone or a twig or something, because we're not rock, stones, or twigs. But at the same time, it's not saying that everybody's a child of God. And so a lot of times I'll even address that at soul winning or talking to individuals. I'll say, yes, we're all the creation of God, but we're not all the children of God. You have to become a child of God. And there's your John 1-12, you know, a great verse to kind of show them and explain to them, but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, meaning you have to become a son of God. You start out as offspring, you start out as creation, but you have to become a child of God. Now, the Bible brings this subject up in a few other places. Go over to Romans chapter 10. But the Bible's saying that we're all one blood, meaning there's just one race, it's the human race. We are all humans, and there's a lot of genetic diversity that God's obviously given us, but even within that, this idea of race is a foreign concept of Scripture, and it's unscientific. It's not a scientific classification, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. But look at Romans chapter 10 verse 12. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord overall is rich unto all that call upon him. Notice that there is a little bit of a distinction in the New Testament when it comes to these categorizations or classifications of people. Jews and non-Jews or Jews and Gentiles or Jews and Greeks. But he's saying they're the same, and they have the same Lord, we have the same God, and we have the same opportunity to be saved. Go back to chapter 2 for a moment in Romans, and also notice that being a Jew in some sense of the word isn't even a physical thing. It can be a spiritual thing. And it says in Romans chapter 2 verse 28, For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God. So God, when he talks about Jews in some senses of the word, it's not even talking about a physical description, it's talking about a spiritual delineation. And when we talk about the Jews, even in the New Testament, it wasn't really a physical thing. Even when we talk about the Christ killers, okay, that's how I refer to them. The Christ killers weren't even necessarily this pure-blooded genetic group. Really, what unified them was their belief system. That's what a Jew was. It wasn't about being a specific ethnicity. You can read in Acts... Let's go there. Let's go to Acts chapter 2 for a second because we're just trying to show how stupid this idea of being a specific race or something is. There's no such thing. It does not exist. It's impossible for me to be racist because I don't even believe in race, okay? Now, that does not mean I can't be prejudiced. That doesn't mean that I can't judge people. That doesn't mean I can't believe in stereotypes. But it is impossible for me to be racist, okay? Now, Acts chapter 2, it says in verse number 8, and how here we every man in our own tongue when we were born, Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia and Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Crete and Arabians. We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. So does this sound like one pure-blooded ethnic group, or does it sound like people from virtually every nation in the world at that time? It's virtually every nation in the world at that time, okay? But specifically, what does it say in verse number 5? And they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews. So what does Jew mean then? It's talking about a certain group of people that are categorized by their religious beliefs, not their ethnicity, not their skin color, not any kind of a physical thing, but rather they were of the religion of Judaism at that time, which is different than our even modern-day version of Judaism, okay? But they're just simply adherents of the Old Testament. That's what you would call Jews even in this time. Jews in the Old Testament could mean a lot of different things. It could mean those who were of the tribe of Judah. Sometimes it could just mean people that live in Judah. Those are two completely different things because you could be of the tribe of Judah and live in Babylon. You could be of the tribe of Judah and living in Samaria. You could be of the tribe of Judah and living wherever in the world. Or you could literally be from Babylon or any of these random places and have moved to Judah and live in Judah and be a Jew. So you know, Jew is contextually understood. You can only understand the word Jew based on the context because it's so broad in its particular aspect. And there is no such thing as this pure-blooded ethnic race of people called Jews that are just God's chosen people based on their lineage. That is racism, okay? Zionism is racism. In fact, if you look at our doctrinal statement, and I've always had this, I said, we don't believe in racism. And then I explained what that means, Zionism. Because people think like, oh, how could you be anti-Zionist? Well, I'm thinking like, I thought you were against racism. You know, being Zionist is being racist because you genuinely believe that there is a categorization of race and that certain races are better than other races, our being Jews, that they're God's chosen people and they're special. And we must bless him that, you know, is of Abraham. Even though that's not what the Bible's teaching at all, it is a form of racism and it's unscientific, it's unbiblical, it's anti-Christ, okay? I don't believe in any of it. Go to Galatians, chapter number three, go to Galatians, chapter number three. Point number one that I want to make in my sermon is there's no such thing as race. Now, here's what happens. Type in the word race in the internet and just look up the definition. This is what it says according to Wikipedia, which is not the most godly website, okay? It's run by Jews. This is what it says on Wikipedia. This is race definition on Wikipedia. Race is a pseudo-scientific categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities in the groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. Even online, Wikipedia mainline science today will admit to you and explain to you that race is not a real thing. It's made up, it's fake, it was unscientific garbage brought into our world in the late 1600s and 1700s, and it was basically embraced by evolution. Evolutionary theory is what really made racism the belief that it is today. And then it was rejected even by modern science today recognizing, wow, there really isn't such thing as separate races or subspecies or the distinctions between humans based on physical outward characteristics is all made up garbage. Read about the word race in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Same thing. It'll explain to you how it's fake, it's not real, it's been disproven, it's unscientific, it's not legitimate whatsoever. Well, I could have already told you that from the Bible. I didn't need for science and DNA to come along and explain to me how that's an unscientific theory. I already recognized it was an unscientific theory, okay? And the Bible is very clear that there's just mankind. There's no such thing as these weird races. Now, of course, there's people that are born in different nations. There's obviously physical distinctions between humans, but that does not create a race. There's no such thing as a race. Galatians chapter 3, look at verse 26. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Again, something that unites us is a spiritual belief, not some kind of a physical distinction. It says in verse 27, For as many as of you have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So, again, there's no distinction physically about those that are in Christ. This Jew and Gentile thing is a carnal understanding of the world around us. It's not a spiritual understanding. It's not even really scientific anyways, okay? Now, I want to show you even more evidence of this. Go to Matthew chapter 1, because some people will be like, no, that's not true, Pastor Shelley. God knows who's a Jew. I've heard this, because I'll explain like, wait a minute, there's a lot of people out there, they don't even know if they're a Jew or not, or they don't understand all the heritage and the lineage, and then I'll hear this, well, God knows if they're a Jew or not. Who's heard something like that? Okay, yeah. And it's just like, okay, but what about the Jews that we do know about? Are they a pure-blooded, pure-race Jew? And in fact, even today, if you were to try to determine if you're Jewish, you know how they try to trace it? They only trace it by the mother, which is actually the opposite of the Bible does it. The Bible does it by the father and like that kind of a lineage, whereas today it's based on women, and it's based on the reality that, especially for Jews, there's so much infidelity that they don't really know who the father is, but they can trust who the mother is at least, all right? So they're trying to figure out if they're Jewish based on their mother. So I guess Barack Obama's Jewish, okay? There you go. And white. But look at our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and let's ask this question. Is Jesus Christ of a very specific, you know, genetic gene pool that never changed, never altered, or was never mixed? Well, look at verse 5. And Salman begat Boaz of Rakab. Oh, oops. That's Rahab the harlot of the Canaanites. Is she an Israelite? Is she a physical descendant of Abraham and of the Jews? Or was she in a completely different gene pool? And we see that Jesus, let's just keep reading. And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth. Oops. You mean Ruth the Moabitess? Did you realize that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has two descendants, at least, at minimum, that are not part of the children of Israel, that were grafted in, coming from the ungodly, from the heathen. Why? Because it wasn't about a physical, pure-blooded, like, ethnic state or something like that. The children of Israel were mixed genetically, just like every other nation has always been mixed genetically. There is no such thing as this perfect genetic race. It's garbage. It doesn't exist. It's fake, okay? It's fake. It's always been fake. Because God doesn't care about those physical distinctions. He cares about the spiritual distinctions. And, of course, there's no such thing as race. So, is someone to say, like, what do you think about interracial marriage? Here's my first comment. There's no such thing as race. What do you mean? What does that even mean? I mean, just think about the logic of this for a second. Now, when it comes to race itself, even when you read about it, and I've read a lot about it, especially in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is a pretty trustworthy source of information, it says, like, there is no commonly accepted definition of race anyways. No one even knows what it means. And it can be as generic and simplified as there's only three races of mankind, all the way to the, I think it was something like 176 races or something like this, okay? In the really simplified version, they basically just categorize people as white, yellow, and black, okay? Just for lack of, you know, I guess, distinction. They basically just have Europe as like Coscoid and then Mongoloid and then like African, okay? So they basically just, that's almost like the Shem, Ham, and Japheth doctrine. And, you know, there's people out there, even Christians, that would kind of say, like, there's these three races. You know, there's the Japheth is European and Shem is Asian and Ham is like African. And they just kind of like say, this is what the world is. And of course, is there some truth to that? Yeah, obviously Noah got off the ark and they repopulated the world and were all related to Shem, Ham, and Japheth, okay? Generally speaking. But that's still not a race. And there's been so much mixing, intermingling for centuries that there's no real way to tell what those are. Of course, if you fill out an application in America, they don't just have three. They typically maybe have about like five, right? They have like Caucasian and then they have African American. Then they have, sometimes they don't really put Hispanic. Sometimes it just depends on which one you're filling out. They might be like a Hispanic, white, or non-Hispanic white. They might kind of put that distinction. But they'll put Asian or Island Pacific, Pacificer, or something like that. So they might put like five different distinctions there. If you go into Europe or you go into other places, they'll have another whole classification or identification. So I'm not trying to say this is even real, but some people basically say like there's a category of like black as a race and like white as a race, okay? Let's just say for hypothetical situation, we believe that. We literally believe that there's this white race and there's this black race. What happens when a white person mates with a black person? What is the race of that child? Did we create a new race? And in fact, let's just be honest with what America does. If a white person, a black person, and a child, that kid's black. Because it's like if they're even just like a little black, they're just black, right? I mean, it doesn't even matter how light they are. Just our world just classifies them as quote, black. What does that even mean? And honestly, the people that live in Africa that are actually really dark, they wouldn't think that you're even black. You know, a lot of black people in America, they would think like, no, they're way too light. And in American history, they would call people like mulattos or they had all kinds of other distinctions. But here's something that you probably didn't know. I didn't even know until researching it. Interracial marriage was illegal in America for the vast majority of its history. In fact, in most of the southern states, if not almost all the southern states, it was illegal to marry someone outside of your race until 1967. Isn't that crazy? And it was illegal to just date. It was illegal to cohabitate. It was illegal to get married. It was illegal to have a child until 1967 in Texas and virtually all of the southern states in America. Isn't that crazy? And it was like a specific case that was brought up to the Supreme Court that overturned a lot of laws in all of these states at the same time specifically. Some states had already adopted a modification to this. Some of the more northern states and some of the outside states had already done this. But it's kind of crazy to think about, you know, oh, I want to go back to the 1950s. Well, some of you wouldn't be able to be married to your spouse if we went back to the 1950s. Did you ever think about that? I mean, isn't that kind of crazy? And it's like, what does this even mean? Because, personally, I don't even believe in race. So, you know, interracial marriage doesn't even exist because we're all, quote, interracial married. And it's so silly to me. Oh, all white people are the same race? Really? So I'm supposed to believe that every French person, German person, Scandinavian person, Eastern European person, every person from Russia, they're all the exact same. There is major differences between those people just because they're all white. And you know what? There's a lot of white people in their government that I don't like either, okay? And, oh, Jews? They're white? How do they even get white is a question that we need to ask. But, you know, what about black people? I mean, you have black people that are from Africa. In Africa, there's even huge distinctions between people from South Africa, people from Kenya, people from Uganda. Hey, there's black people that are from now, since there's been a lot of, you know, changing, there's a lot of black people from UK, there's black people from the Caribbean, there's black people from South Chicago, there's black people from South Fort Worth. If we got five black people, one from Jamaica, Bahamas, South Africa, Kenya, South Chicago, these people would not even be friends with each other. They have, like, nothing in common, okay? Why? Because there's no such thing as this, quote, black race. And, in fact, most people, when you read about race, they just say, yeah, it's basically us just understanding that there's certain parts of the world where there's a certain culture that everybody kind of generally has. And now that's true, that, you know, we look at certain demographics in this world and a certain geographic region, a lot of them have the same style of culture, and that might be distinct from other parts of the world. But, you know what, that's not racism at all. That's a completely different thing in and of itself. So let's be honest with a few passages in the Bible, though. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 22 for a moment. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 22. And, you know, at the end of the day, there are plenty of verses in the Bible that talk about marriage and talk about who to marry. And they talk specifically about not marrying people outside of your tribe or not marrying the heathen or all kinds of different things that are out there. But, you know, that does not mean what a lot of racists would love for that to mean, okay? Of course, in the Old Testament, we have specific guidelines and parameters about marriage and what people should do. I feel like I wrote this verse down wrong. Go to Numbers 36 for just a moment. Go to Numbers chapter 36. The Old Testament talks about if a widow is seeking remarriage, that she's not supposed to remarry to a stranger, but is supposed to take a husband from one of her brethren and that the brethren would raise up seed onto this widow. Now, that's kind of quoted in the New Testament. You might have remembered this. The Sadducees, they're tempting Jesus, and they're asking this question like, well, whose husband is she in the resurrection that had married? But, you know, obviously while that was a physical thing and that was kind of something that happened in the Old Testament law, it still has application for today. And all the distinctions that we had in the Old Testament about these marriage requirements were, again, not so much about a physical race distinction. They were about a spiritual picture that they had. What is the ungodly or the heathen picture in the Old Testament? They picture unsaved people. And what do the brethren picture? They picture saved people. So basically think about it this way. If a widow ends up wanting to get remarried, she shouldn't marry an unsaved person. She should get married to a saved person that's going to end up, you know, having children with her and raising up that seat. But it should not be marrying an unsaved person. That's what that distinction would mean and what it means to be equally yoked. Numbers chapter 36, look at verse 5. And Moses commanded the children of Israel, according to the word of the Lord, saying, The tribe of the sons of Joseph hath said, Well, this is the thing which the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, Let them marry to whom they think best, only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry. So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel move from tribe to tribe, for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. So again, this is saying like they weren't allowed to even marry from Judah to Benjamin or Benjamin to Simeon. They wanted that inheritance to stay within a particular tribe. What would be the relevance for us today in the New Testament? This would be not getting married outside of Christianity. They should marry within Christianity because we don't want to mix with Catholics. We don't want to mix with unsaved Presbyterians. We don't want to mix with all these other tribes out there and basically ruin the inheritance that we can give to our children. Our children need a Baptist heritage. They need a Christian heritage. They need the King James Bible in their hand. And there's a lot of people out there that will literally marry interfaith. And to me, you kind of look at two distinctions. You have one, not marrying the heathen and then not marrying it outside your tribe. Well, I would make the distinction of we shouldn't obviously ever marry into a completely different religion, right? Some people marry like from Christian and a Hindu or Christian and a Buddhist or Christian and an atheist. That's a horrible union. But then even within the realm of Christianity, even in the branch of Christianity, let's not have Baptists marrying Catholics and Baptists marrying the Presbyterians. You should be married to someone that has the same faith, the same heritage, the same lineage. It doesn't make sense. Now, again, there are plenty of saved people in some of these other denominations. But if I was a serious Christian, I wouldn't marry them unless they're going to join this tribe. If you're not going to be Baptist, then I don't want to mix that way. Now, in all fairness, whenever I was getting married to my wife or when I was interested in my wife, I wasn't a Baptist at the time. But I did have this same idea. I did want to make sure that my wife was going to go to the same church as me and we were going to be equally yoked because that is a biblical principle for you to be equally yoked and not switching tribes, switching faiths, switching religions. But then a lot of carnal people take verses like this and they'll be like, oh, see, we shouldn't be intermingling with different races or something. There's no such thing as race. Remember point one, there's no such thing as race. Point two is all the distinctions about marriage and the Old Testament are about being equally yoked. That's what they picture. That's what they foreshadow. Go to 2 Corinthians 6. There's a lot of examples of people in the Old Testament intermingling and it was terrible. Think about Samson marrying to one of the daughters of the Philistines horrible union. Why? Because he's not equally yoked with her. So it's important to be equally yoked and the Bible literally teaches this in the New Testament. Now, again, while this is mentioned in the New Testament, it's not a concept limited to the New Testament. Of course, this would apply in the Old Testament, that you would have wanted to be equally yoked in your marriage and in your union, in your relationships in the Old Testament. 2 Corinthians 6, look at verse 14. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. So again, in the New Testament, it emphasizes again the idea of not being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. I think that's a broad application. But what more important yoking could you ever have than marriage itself? And if he's saying, don't be unequally yoked with people, and you think about, well, that's friendships, business relationships. How much more marriage then? Marriage is way more important than those relationships. And even in those relationships, you don't want to be yoked up with unbelievers. Therefore, marriage is even more important that you should not have that unequally yoking. And we see with Samson and other people it causing problems. Go back to the Old Testament. Go to 1 Kings 11. Go to 1 Kings 11. Let's see some of the consequences of being unequally yoked together. And of course, while the Bible is going to show Solomon or other kings or other individuals marrying other nations, and some people might interpret that as racism, the problem was not the other nation. The problem was the spiritual distinction between these nations and what they did to him. Look what it says in 1 Kings 11, verse 1. Solomon clave unto these in love, and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom, the daughter of the Ammonites, and Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father. Now again, it's even going to explain here in verse 7. So Solomon literally is basically building planned parenthoods in his own neighborhood. I mean, that's sad. And this is what's really sad, is Solomon is a guy that really loved God. He really loved the Lord, but the Bible says that his wives turned away his heart. Meaning, even if you're a great Christian today, you're still susceptible to changing in the future. You could be a really, really great Christian right now, and you could be a really bad Christian in the future, and you could allow people that are closest to you to drive you to that. That's why it's important who you marry. That's also why it's important to be guiding and leading your wife so that she doesn't guide and lead you to the wrong tree, and you eat the forbidden fruit. You know, it wouldn't be the first time in the Bible where a wife drove her husband into an unbiblical or to an ungodly lifestyle. It actually happens a lot in the Bible and in the Scripture, and it's important to keep them grounded. It's important to lead them, and you know, vice versa. There could obviously also be women that love the Lord, and they allow their husband to drag them down or to keep them back from serving God. You know, we need to both be iron sharpening iron, and we need to keep that fire burning hot, and you know, I say this, and I truly mean it, that I feel like one of the biggest obstacles to being a faithful Christian is marriage, in the sense that I see a lot of people that it seems like they want to serve God, but their spouse isn't as interested, and eventually the one that's not interested wins out in the long run and kind of draws that other person or drags that other person out of church, or even just frankly speaking, they just get sick and tired of the fight. They get sick and tired of the conflict, or they just don't want that kind of division in their own even relationship. You know, the Bible says a man's foes are they of his own household is what the Bible literally says, and it even says that people have to forsake lands and houses and brethrens, and it even says wife. It doesn't say wives. Okay, it says wife, all right, but, you know, Solomon marrying a woman that's not necessarily physically descendant of the children of Israel wasn't necessarily his big downfall as much as the fact that they had false religion that they brought with them, and I want to kind of show you a distinction here because did you notice in verse number one, it says, but King Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharaoh. So it's not clear, but it seems like if you read between the lines that Solomon's first wife was the daughter of Pharaoh. She was from Egypt. Okay, go to Song of Solomon for a moment. Go to Song of Solomon. Should he have married a woman from Egypt? Probably not. I think there's a lot of things in the scripture that make it clear you shouldn't go to Egypt for wives. That was one of the commandments given to the king, but generally speaking, it doesn't seem like this marriage was the downfall of Solomon. In fact, while he was married to the daughter of Egypt, he did some of the greatest tasks he ever did for the Lord. That's when he offered the sacrifice. That's when he built the temple, and he did a lot of things. Now, he still understood that she wasn't allowed to go in there. He built, like, a special house for her, and he understood the distinction, but you have to understand that at one point in Solomon's life even, he had a great marriage. Now, that went downhill, obviously, at some point, but Song of Solomon is written by King Solomon, and this is like a great love story between him and his wife, which is presumed and most likely the daughter of Egypt, the daughter of Pharaoh, okay? So she's an Egyptian, but the Song of Solomon is a spiritual book. You know what it pictures? Solomon pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, and this daughter pictures the church. It pictures the saints. It pictures the children of God. Now, why would the Lord choose this Egyptian woman to represent all of Christians, all of the saved, if he's so against interracial marriage? Riddle me that, right? He's marrying this woman from Egypt, and then she's going to literally represent all the saved? And here's some more evidence of this. Look at verse 5. I am black. That's pretty straightforward, okay? But comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Now, again, that's even further evidence that she's being honest about the color because you put black shades and black curtains in because that'll actually prevent the light from coming through. If you have really light curtains, well, they're not going to stop sunlight from coming in. What actually prevents sunlight is black curtains. It's called, you know, like blackout curtains. Who's heard of that, you know? If you actually really want to get sleep in the morning or early in the morning, you want blackout curtains, okay? Because you can actually make the room still seem like night even during the day with blackout curtains. So again, this is just talking about her being really dark. Verse 6. Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me, my mother's children were angry with me, they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept. Now, here's the thing. Maybe she's what we would think of like when we think of someone being black. Maybe that's an option here. It could be that she's just really, really tan. Like she's just so dark from the sunlight. She's got such a dark tan that she considers herself black even though she isn't necessarily black, which is what I personally believe. I don't think that she was just black by birth. She was actually kind of probably a little bit lighter skin, but she's out in the sun all the time, and she's got that tan. She's got just like a really, really dark tan, and then she categorizes herself as being black. But she's Egyptian, and the Egyptians did look like the Hebrews, but they're distinct. They're not the same. And this would be, even by the world standard, interracial marriage. But, you know, it's not a negative thing. It's actually one of the most beautiful passages of the Bible. It's a great love story. They have a great marriage, and the problem with this marriage was not the interracial part. It was that Solomon, you know, he allowed himself to end up marrying other wives that were ungodly, and they turned his heart away from the Lord, and that was the problem that he had. Go if you want to Numbers chapter 12. I want to go to another place, Numbers chapter 12. Nehemiah 13 says that Solomon's problem was that he married a lot of these outlandish women and that we shouldn't marry strange wives. And Nehemiah gets really mad and plucks off the hair of people, and he's just like freaking out about marrying all these women from different tribes. But again, that's not about a physical distinction. You know, it's about a spiritual difference. You know, why was he not getting mad about Ruth the mobitis or, you know, Rahab the harlot or any of these other distinctions? And in fact, according to the Old Testament law, if you saw a daughter of the captives that was beautiful, you could marry her. That's what the Bible said. It didn't say you couldn't marry someone like that. It just was saying, hey, here's an exception. Here's a rule. Of course, generally speaking, they should marry within their tribe, but, you know, Ruth, if we think about her, was Ruth the typical mobitis or was it a woman seeking the Lord? Was it a woman that said, now your God is my God, to her mother-in-law? So this was someone who was maybe physically distinct but not spiritually distinct, and so she was a good woman for Boaz to marry. And again, when it comes to who you choose to marry, way more important than their physical characteristics, what country they're from, or what their skin color is, is what do they believe about Jesus? How do they feel about the Lord? That's what's important. And that's the true beauty that people should be seeking after, not a specific, quote, race, okay? But some people can't get past this. Racists have always existed. Racists will continue to exist. Look at Numbers, chapter number 12, verse number 1. And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman. So they weren't falsely accusing him. They didn't make something up. Miriam and Aaron got mad at Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman. Now, here's the thing. I do believe that this was probably a mistake just because, generally speaking, they're supposed to marry within their own tribe. But the problem wasn't that she's a distinct tribe, okay? The problem is that, of course, the spiritual thing, and I don't know why Moses married this woman, but here's the thing. God ends up getting mad at Miriam and Aaron. God didn't side with them and, like, yeah, can you believe that? This guy who's marrying, you know, these other races or whatever, like, what a weirdo. No, God doesn't really care. In fact, God's on the side of Moses, okay? So anybody that wants to sit here and pretend like the Bible condemns interracial marriage, well, you're like Aaron and Miriam here, okay? And they weren't supposed to be speaking against Moses anyway. And it's pretty clear that God's on Moses' side and even says that he's, in verse number seven, look at this, my servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. How could he even look at Moses and say, this guy's faithful in all my house? Oh, except for this interracial marriage issue that he's got. God doesn't seem mad at him at all about this, okay? And so, you know, it's just a weird attitude. Of course, you should be equally yoked. You don't want to be like Solomon and marry a bunch of ungodly heathen women that turn away your heart from the Lord, but at the same time, there's technically nothing wrong with marrying some other nation, some other distinction. Go to Romans 14. Esau married without his tribe, but why was that such a bad thing? You know, he's marrying the daughters of Ishmael, but it was because they weren't godly. His parents were upset. It wasn't like, oh, you know what? Our babies aren't going to be white. That's what I hear. I mean, I hear people like, oh, my babies aren't going to look a certain way so I don't like this particular marriage between my children. You know, that's a dumb reason to not like your children getting married, is saying because of a certain thing or whatever. You know what you should care? Oh, my children aren't going to be Baptist. Oh, my children aren't going to be Christian. That would be a scary thing, but not how they're going to look or how they're going to be. Now, I say that because I still want to make one last point. So when we talk about interracial marriage, number one, there's no such thing as race in the Bible. I don't even believe in it. So we've already proven that it doesn't matter. Number two, when we talk about like distinctions in the Old Testament or the New Testament, the distinction is more about what you believe in religion than is your ethnicity or what country you're from or any of those things. Those things don't matter. But here's my third point, and I kind of want to try to balance these two, is I personally don't think there's anything wrong with something having a personal preference when it comes to marriage. So if someone says like, I only want to marry someone with a specific outward appearance or certain physical characteristics which the world calls race, then you know what, that's fine. I think that every single person should be totally entitled to have whatever preference they want, and if they have that preference, I'm not going to be mad at them. If someone says like, I only want to marry chicks over six feet tall, you know, it's like, okay, go for it, buddy. You know, I only want to marry short chicks. Or, you know, they say, I only want to marry black, Asian, Hispanic, white, you fill in the blank. I don't care. It's none of my business. And you know, at the same time, I'm also not going to call that person racist for having a preference, because we're all different and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To one man, it's trash. To the other man, it's a man's treasure, okay? And it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, we all have different preferences. Some people just genuinely don't like or not attracted to certain demographics, and that's okay. Some men are attracted to those demographics. That's okay. At the end of the day, it matters what you think. What's my number one rule when it comes to who you're going to marry? If you're attracted to them. So if you're not attracted to them, then go marry them. But don't force your opinion on someone else. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, okay? So, you know, sometimes people just don't really have any strong feelings towards a specific look, style, demographic, or whatever. That's fine. That doesn't make them a bad person. That doesn't make them racist, because they don't have, they don't want that. And additionally, because we live in a world that has a lot of culture issues, sometimes they're tightly coupled. You know, I can see how a lot of American men may not, that are Christian, may not want to marry a lot of certain foreign demographics, because most of the time they're not Christian, or they don't have Christian culture. So they may desire to have a woman that's more American because they want that particular style. In some cases, some men may abhor American women. I could think of some people like that. And they may desire specifically ethnic style women. And I totally understand that. You know, there are certain areas in this world where there's all kinds of pros and cons to who you marry, right? I mean, some societies, the women are a lot more feminine, more godly, maybe they are accentuating certain characteristics physically or whatever. You know, and everybody has their own preferences. And you know, there isn't like this thing where we have to force you, like, you must like this. Like, if you don't like this girl, then you're a bad person. It's like, maybe you just don't find her attractive, okay? And if you do find someone attractive that this other person doesn't, great. Let's not hate on people for who they like and who they don't like. Because I hear it. I hear people being like, you know, I'm not attracted, and then they'll say, in a crude way, a specific race. Okay, they'll just say like, I'm not attracted to X. And then they'll be like, oh, I think this person's races are a bad person or whatever. It's like, they can have that preference. If they genuinely don't like it or they don't want that, that doesn't make them a bad person, okay? And it doesn't make those people bad either, just because one person doesn't like you. Let's just be thick-skinned and not worry about that kind of stuff, right? We don't want to be over the top in our hatred for, you know, these people that are racist to where then we act like you must like everything. Because if you like everything, then you don't like anything. Right? If you love everyone, you love no one. You know, there should be some specifics. Plus, let's just be honest, a lot of times people just kind of have a desire towards that which they're comfortable with or similar to. If you look at interracial statistics, it's like less than 10% of marriages are interracial in America. That makes sense, because, again, while race is not a real thing, people tend to like things that are similar. And I don't want to say this, but I'll say it, okay. A lot of people are attracted to what their parents look like. Okay? And it's not in a weird way or a creepy way or whatever, but just for some reason, a lot of people marry someone that's similar to their mom or their dad, you know, and vice versa. And you might think that that's weird, but, you know, some people, it's exactly how it is, okay? Now, Romans chapter 14 brings this up, and I want to say a couple points, but these are hard points to prove because it kind of just takes the knowledge of the whole New Testament, but nothing in the New Testament brings up the word race. You know what the Bible also doesn't bring up? Anything about distinctions of Gentiles. Did you notice that? It's just like all Gentiles and all Greeks are just lumped together. They're not like talking about the black Gentiles and the white Gentiles and the Asian Gentiles and these... It's like... It's just Gentiles. Because from God's perspective, there isn't this weird classification of Gentiles or whatever. It's just Gentiles. And then he's trying to say there's no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles because there really isn't any difference. Now, if someone has a specific preference, they say like, I only want to marry people from, you know, Dallas County or whatever, you know. It's like they were that specific. Okay, great. No problem. Look what it says in Romans chapter 14, verse 5. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. So in one vein, what I want is I don't want people to condemn somebody for having a preference that you don't like. So you say like, I'm attracted to this girl. Oh, gross. I can't believe you're attracted to someone that looks like that. Well, you know what? That's the wrong attitude. And secondly, I also don't want someone to be ashamed or embarrassed if they like someone that other people don't. You know, if you genuinely are attracted to someone and you like them, don't let society or your friends or your parents or whoever talk you out of liking someone or being in a relationship with someone where you're spiritually equally yoked and it's a good fit. Because you know what? Racism is stupid. And it's way better off that you marry someone that's way different than you physically or ethnically and you'll both love Jesus than to marry, oh, I married this white chick but she hates God. Oh, I married this white feminist. Oh, I married this liberal from California. Oh, I married this Jewish woman. You know, I'm sure that there's a lot of women out there that I can look exactly like but it would be a horrible match for me whereas I guarantee there's plenty of women that look nothing like me whatsoever that could be a great match in these hypothetical scenarios. Of course, I don't need a wife. I already got one. And she's white. Okay, it's okay. And you know, even if I had that preference, it doesn't matter. But you know, I didn't marry my wife because she was white. I married her because she's a beautiful person on the inside and she loves the Lord and she's a great fit. But you know, even if I was gonna say I'm gonna limit myself to only women of this specific demographic, well, you better make sure that one of those limiting factors is that she's saved and that she loves the Lord because that's the one that really matters. And for me personally, the thing that mattered the most in picking a spouse was how good of a mother she would be. That was the most important thing to me. And my wife is a great mother. She's a wonderful mother who loves her children, is very sacrificial for her children. You know, that's gonna distinguish a lot of women in America today because most women don't even want to have kids or want to have very few kids or even willing to murder their own kids through abortion or all these kind of things. And that's a scary woman to be with. You know, you should try to find a woman that loves children, that loves Jesus, that loves the Lord, not like, oh, well, she has this specific physical characteristic. That's gonna change anyways. You know, and frankly speaking, it's vain. It's meaningless. You know, and we should make sure that we stay far away from these Baptists that are so against interracial marriage. And they still exist. In the independent fundamental Baptist movement, there are churches all over the Bible Belt and Kentucky and Tennessee and all these areas where they still believe in white people not marrying black people, like thinking it's a sin or wicked or they'll show you all these passages in the Old Testament about not marrying this tribe, and they'll act like that's the downfall of America. And it's like, oh, so you're gonna literally worship Zionism. You're gonna worship the Jew and then say that black people is what causes the problems in America. You know, that's wicked. That's foolishness. And it's like, I'm gonna trade one form of racism and embrace another version. Right? Because it seems like most of these people that, quote, hate black people in America still, they love Jews, which I'm thinking like, how stupid are you? Okay? Because there's nothing wrong with black people, and there's nothing wrong with white people with big noses, where there's a big problem with Judaism, all right? And there's a big problem with racism, because racism has already been proven as unscientific. It's pseudoscientific. Why would I want to embrace something that the Bible condemns and science condemns? You're just so behind the times. And with as much mixing as we constantly have in America, you're just gonna look dumber and dumber by the day. And if we were to all take a DNA test, you would be shocked if we went far enough back how we're basically all the same. And we all have that distant relative that's a different color than you were. Okay? Because no one's this perfect shade of white, unless you're Dylan, and no one's like this perfect shade of black or something like that. You know, like we all have a little bit of mix in there. And in fact, Hispanic people didn't even exist until this white Spaniards came and mixed with the indigenous people of the Americas and created a brand new race called Mexicans, okay? Like, they didn't... Where do you think Mexicans came from, folks? And it's funny how then you go to the Philippines and they look like Mexicans. And you wonder why? It's because white Spanish people went there and mixed with the indigenous people there. And so that's why they kind of have a little bit of a difference, you know, but they look very similar. In fact, if you're a Filipino in America, they think you're Hispanic. And if you're Hispanic in the Philippines, they'll think you're Filipino, okay? Now again, there's a little bit of distinction between them. There's some Asian influence, obviously, in one area and not the other. But it would be silly to start thinking like these are completely different races, man. You know, you gotta get away from all of these intermingling of these races and whatever. And the problem is we've mixed with the wrong race. You know, this is all distractions from the real battle going on, the spiritual battle that's constantly raging. And, you know, I think that people need to stop worrying about this crap, is what I would call it, interracial marriage. It's not a real subject. It's not a real battle. It's not a real fight. We should stay away from it. But you know what? If you are sitting here saying, I disagree with every word that you said, my children will only marry white people or only marry black people or whatever, have fun. I'm not even gonna fight you on that. I'm not against you. Go for it. Don't teach anybody that trash, though. You know, don't try to tell me it's biblical. If you say it's your preference, I will embrace your preference all day long, but I will fight you if you say that's what the Bible teaches or that that's somehow what everybody else should do. You know, you can have your preferences all day long, and that's great, but don't make it a rule. Don't make it a law. Don't make it a law, right? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the Word of God. Thank you so much for giving us the clarity in Scripture to understand that we're just all brothers and sisters in Christ and that there is no physical distinction, that you're the same Lord over all and that you love us all regardless of our shapes and sizes and colors and all these vain things that are meaningless. I pray that you would help the young people and people that are interested in marriage to recognize the importance of being spiritually yoked, not yoked on some carnal physical outward appearance, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. All right, for our last song, we're going to go to song 146. Song 146, a shelter in the time of storm. 146, a shelter in the time of storm. The Lord's our rock, in him we hide A shelter in the time of storm Secure whatever will be tied A shelter in the time of storm Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A weary land, a weary land Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A shelter in the time of storm A shade by day, defense by night A shelter in the time of storm No fears of heart, no foes of fright A shelter in the time of storm Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A weary land, a weary land Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A shelter in the time of storm The raging storms may round us feet A shelter in the time of storm We'll never leave our safe retreat A shelter in the time of storm Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A weary land, a weary land Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A shelter in the time of storm Oh, rock divine, oh refuge dear A shelter in the time of storm Be thou our helper ever near A shelter in the time of storm Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A weary land, a weary land Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land A shelter in the time of storm Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed.