Interracial Marriage

by Herbert W Armstrong

May 1982

(PLAY FROM START)

Well brethren, we are in the very last days. That is a sobering thing. I don’t think we really realize it. To us, I think, we seem to take life as if—that is, it isn’t life; it is only a chemical existence, a temporary existence that we have—but I think we seem to take it as if it’s going to go on forever, and as if we’re therefore going to live forever in this same world same kind of conditions, same life. So we want to live it up while we can. We want to get all the fun and the enjoyment and the pleasure out of it while we can. We should be sobered when we realize that we are in the last days. And all we have is a chemical existence and life isn’t very long anyway. I think I realize that more than when I used to speak to you 30 or 40 years ago. Somehow, I don’t know how, I sneaked past middle age. I never hit middle age. But now I look back and see I’m past it. I don’t know how I got past it. But in less than three months now, I will be in my ninetieth year. So that’s a little older than most of you and I've come to realize that life, this life, this temporary existence, is just a will-o-the-wisp, it’s just here today and gone tomorrow. Almost no time at all.

And why are we here? We’re here for a purpose and we lose all sight of that. We just want to think of the pleasure of the moment and going along with this world we are in. We want to be part of it. Now we are in God’s church and judgment is on us. It isn’t on the world. But judgment has begun with us. And we’re having our only chance right now. We’re being judged one way or the other and if we flunk out now, that means the lake of fire. The world, whatever they do that’s wrong, they’re going to have to give account but judgment hasn’t come to them yet. When it does, they’ll have to give account. But they might have a chance. But if you and I don’t make it brethren, we have no other chance! And we’re getting down to the last days. And we’re in a world of trouble. If you’ve been watching the news this week, it’s very much on the troubles over in Lebanon. Trouble escalating up in North Ireland. Trouble down in South Africa. And a lot of this trouble is racial.

Satan's Next Attack: (play from 3:00)

Today I want to speak on what may possibly be the very next attack that Satan will use against this church. I was studying at lunch before the meeting last Sabbath, with our minister there and he said “I think that very likely, the next attack of Satan” –now there was the attack of the State of California against us. There’s been another attack that most of you don’t even know anything about. It only hit a few of us at the top. But there has been trouble and don’t you think there hasn’t. Satan is on the job. But Christ is on the job and Christ is winning. And always will win! It’s like my executive assistant, Bob Fahey said, he’s looked at the book to see how it comes out in the end, and he says we win. [Audience laughs] Yes we do. That’s the way it’s going to turn out. At least Christ is going to win and we’ll only win if we’re on Christ’s side. We don’t need to worry about getting Christ over on our side. But he said, the thing that’s going to hit this church next, that Satan’s going to use, is interracial marriage.

Oh the pity. People can sometimes get their feelings all stirred up to a red hot pitch on something of that kind. Their prejudices, their emotions, their feelings. God almighty created us all. He put us here for a purpose. And we don’t have much longer. And we need to look into this. Now that was in New York City last Sabbath. On the plane, coming back, Mr. Fahey showed me a letter that had been handed to him from a member. I believe this member is in, yes, just across in New Jersey, just across from New York but had attended the service. And she had been talking to another member who lives in Philadelphia. And there’d been quite a heated conversation on the telephone. And I want to read you just one slight little bit of what was in that message and what is coming up in the church now. And you’re going to have to—IF GOD BE GOD GET ON HIS SIDE. AND IF YOU WANT TO GO WITH THIS WORLD AND THE WAY IT’S GOING, GET OVER ON THAT SIDE, and go into the lake of fire with it. That’s all I have to say.

I just want to read a few, this is about a 3 or 4 page letter, so, I’ll just read a part of it. She says,

“During the conversation, [that’s the telephone conversation, that’s the telephone conversation she had with this woman in Philadelphia] it was stated that the blacks in God’s church are dissatisfied with such doctrines that are not keeping with the current social trend in the world, which they feel are in keeping with the premises of international relationships that are a part of this nation’s background”

So we should go along with our nation and the social trends of the world. And this letter also says that they are trying to line up a group of blacks, TO GIVE ME AN ULTIMATUM! THAT I GET ON THE SIDE OF THE TRENDS, THE SOCIAL TREND OF THIS WORLD. OR ELSE!!! I’ll tell you what I’ll give them. I’ll give them OR ELSE. [Audience laughs] I won’t compromise one millionth of an inch. And if you will, you can go into the lake of fire if you want to. Now, I’ve never started a fight in my life but let me tell you, I’ve won every fight I've ever been in. But someone else always started it. I don’t want to start a fight. I’m the servant of the Most High God.And I’m as much a servant of blacks or of yellows or of any other color, pinks, polka dots, anything you want to mention - and the like. But I know what God has said. And that’s what I’m teaching you and that’s the way this church is going to go. We’re getting this church back on God’s track. That’s where it’s going to be and that’s where it’s going to stay.

Trends of the world: (play from 7:54)

Also, I understand that some are saying, we’ve got to have racial balance at Ambassador College. Well, what does God say about that? WE’RE NOT GOING TO GO WITH THESE TRENDS OF THE WORLD!! THE POLITICAL FOOTBALLS, THE SOCIAL TRENDS, THE THINGS OF SATAN. Those are all the ways of Satan and now God is going to use us because there are laws in the supreme courts of the United States. They passed a law here a few years ago and they’re taking advantage of it. Now, they may try to get laws, use the laws for the sake of the nation, against us if we don’t approve interracial marriage. But I say, as for me and my house, we shall serve the Eternal God. What are you going to say?[Audience applauds].

Now let me tell you something. This isn’t anything to get all emotional about at all. I happened to be born white. I don’t know why? I’m not white. They just call it that. I’m anything but white. So are any the rest of you that think you are. You’re not. But what difference does it make? If we make it into the Kingdom of God, what color skin are we going to have? You ever think of that? We’re not going to have any skin at all. But our eyes are going to be like flames of fire and our faces are going to be like the sun full strength. What color is that? It’s so bright it’ll blind you if you look without a smoked glass. And that’s the way it’s going to be.

Jesus Christ said, about the last days, he looked into that time in our day and he said of this in our day,

Matthew 24:37-38 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.(38) For as in the days of Noah,

And that’s the way it is today, exactly. And that was the end of that world. You know there are three worlds mentioned in the Bible? There are three heavens mentioned in the Bible. Did you ever realize that? There are three worlds, three heavens. Now there are a lot of twos, two this and two that, there are some twelves, there are some sevens. But there are three worlds. There are three heavens. The one heaven is Earth’s atmosphere where you fly an airplane and where birds fly. Another heaven is in outer space where we see not only our sun but other suns that we call stars and other planets. Then the third heaven is the heaven of God’s throne. We don’t know where that is. One scripture in Isaiah 14 (:13) in that case it will be in the far, far North of this Earth. That is as seen from this Earth, if we could see it. But we can’t. But the three worlds, there’s a world that then was, which was over flown by flood. Then there’s this present evil world. And then there’s a world to come, which I’ve been calling for many, many years, The World Tomorrow. The three worlds are mentioned in the Bible. Now Jesus said as the world in Noah’s day ended, as it was at that time, so it will be at the end of this world. And we’re at the end of this world right now. If you want to ignore that fact and get caught like a rat in a trap, you ignore it. But I wouldn’t advise it. Now notice what Jesus said, Matthew 24:37

Matthew 24:37-38 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.(38) For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,

What’s wrong with eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage? How did these things bring an end to that world? Those are the things he mentioned that brought an end to that world. And those same things are bringing an end to this world now. Alright, let’s go back to that world and see what the history of it is.

Wives they chose: (play from 13:30)

Genesis 6:1-2 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, (2) That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Which THEY chose. That’s what they want to do today. A black man wants to take a white woman for a wife. That’s what HE chooses. A white woman wants to become the wife of a black man. Now I don’t know of any cases where a white man wants to marry a black woman. Why is that? Answer that for me! I’d like to have someone give me an answer to that. Why is it our white women want to marry black men? Why is it our black men want to marry white women? Black women don’t seem to want to marry white men and white men don’t seem to want to marry black women. Why? It’s time we begin to think about these things and quit boiling up with our emotions. Now notice again in verse 5.

Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Some of what they chose was evil wasn’t it? And notice again, one more verse, a couple here.

Genesis 6:11-12 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(12) And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

So God just ended that world. Did you ever think about, why did God absolutely kill or murder if you want to call it that every human being that except Noah and his family, eight people? They were bringing us even unhappiness and misery on themselves. Sure they were getting a kick out of life. They were doing things they thought would be pleasurable. That they thought would be exciting.They had violence and oh how exciting that was. The earth was filled with violence. Something caused it. Jesus told the cause. He said they were eating and drinking; they were marrying and giving in marriage. That’s the only thing that you can find in the Bible that will give you a cause for the end of that world then.

Now what’s wrong about eating and drinking? Nothing at all if you eat and drink the right kind of—water or the right kind of, well orange juice is fine, and even wine in the small amounts, with temperance. But drunkenness is not right. No drunkard is ever going to enter into the Kingdom of God. And eating the wrong kind of food and eating too much is a sin. Now a little bit of it can be a very mild sin and I guess every one of us is guilty of that. We don’t seem to realize that, that’s important. What we eat is important. More than we realize. We just go along with what pleases us. What appeals to our appetite, our desire of wanting to get, wanting to have, wanting to enjoy. And we’re in a very small wisp of a lifetime and judgment is on us as to whether we’re going to have joy and happiness and peace and everything wonderful FOREVER. And we’re just letting this time go by, most of us, without taking it very seriously.

Well who’s Mr. Armstrong? (play from 17:29)

Oh I know it’s nice to come to church here every Sabbath, when we’ve got the most beautiful auditorium to come into on the face of this earth. There was an artist here just this past week, a well known artist performing here who said, this is the finest auditorium on the face of the Earth. Well, I’ve said that before and I’m glad to have an artist who’s been all over the face the Earth say the same thing. God has blessed you with these things. But do you just come here as God’s people, as Ezekiel says I believe it’s 33:31-32, And you sit here as the people of God, you hear my words and those of the other ministers. And to you they are like a musician playing on a beautiful instrument and it entertains you, it amuses you and you enjoy it. “Oh yeah, I sure enjoyed that church service. You Bet!”

Well, 4,000 enjoyed the church service over 4,000 in New York last Sabbath. I have had to wonder, they are our own brethren who I love and think they love me but brethren, I tell you I don’t think we take these things seriously enough. I wonder, out of that 4,000, if every one of them had been asked to write down oh say 25 or 50 words, just a very small amount, what did Mr. Armstrong teach about? How many would be able to tell? You think 10% could or do you really believe 90% would remember what I said? They’d say “Oh, we got to see Mr. Armstrong.” Well who’s Mr. Armstrong? He’s a nothing and a nobody. Except for what Christ has put in him and what Christ uses him for. Otherwise, I’m nothing. But they want to make me something because God has made me the leader of this church. The human leader, not the head of the Church, Christ is the head.

Yes, I appreciate the fact that they all want to come when I come to speak. But if someone else was the head of this Church, and had had the same kind of publicity and talked even from the little childhood with the little children growing up, they would all want to come and see him. Yeah I remember. I saw the President of the United States when I was 5 years old. I’ve always remembered it. Wasn’t that great? I saw President McKinley. How many of you here ever saw President William McKinley when he was President? I don’t think any of you did. But I was a little boy 5 years old and my father had to lift me up and hold me so I could see him over the crowd. They just want to get to see a noted personage. Well I’m no noted personage and I don’t like to be called such.I just have a job to do. I want to be your servant and I want to help you. I want to give you what is good for you and what will help you. That’s all I want to do. I’m not in it for what I can get out of it either.

Why Did God Erase That Earth? (play from 20:37)

Why did marrying whom they chose have something to do with leading to violence that was so bad—I didn’t finish what I started a minute ago—Why did God erase that Earth all but eight people? Because they were doing what they thought was pleasing to them. Sure they wanted excitement, just like people today. What do you want on television? You want excitement. You want sex or you want violence or you want something exciting. Take these game shows they have. The emcee comes out and he’s all dressed up and it’s all smart and it’s all full of life and someone’s going to win a lot of money. And they try to make it exciting. So they’re going to have some kind of a turning of wheel or like throwing the dice or something to see what kind of a prize he wins and someone gives the prize. And they get grilled before they go on there. They’ve got to make a big expression over every kind of merchandise that comes out that they’re going to get if they win this. ALL to make it exciting. Entertain people. That’s what people want. How about us? Are we like the rest of the world? Do we just want to be entertained? I sometimes wonder.

But they were also bringing unhappiness and misery on themselves and they were just trying to escape from it now and then, by thinking they’re getting something enjoyable and exciting. That’s the way it is today. That’s the way it is today. It gets so, that to find some excitement in life, we had topless restaurants. Well that got to be old stuff and it wasn’t exciting anymore so they had bottomless restaurants. Then finally they had shows with sexual intercourse, performed with naked man and woman right on the stage and people pay admission to get in there and see it. That’s how rotten this world’s gotten. They want pleasure and they want excitement. Now maybe we don’t want pleasures quite like that. But maybe we want pleasures a little more than we realize brethren. Now why don’t we stop and think about it once in a while?

They were in such misery, in spite of what pleasure they thought they were getting in between times, that God just simply did the kindest thing he could do for them out of love for them. He snuffed out their lives in two claps, like that. And when they die and when they lose consciousness and the next when they wake up it’ll be in the Great White Throne Judgment. And there, they will first give account for their sins but they will find that Christ died for their sins, if they want to change. And then that judgment, it will last a certain time to see if they want to change, they’ll have to prove it by their performance. They’ll have to bring forth “fruits meet for repentance,” as John the Baptist says. That’s what we have to do NOW. That’s what you and I have to do. We have to prove it by our performance. And how are we proving it or how much are we still in the world and still going the way of Satan, wanting to be entertained, amused and just thinking of things like that. I tell you, we need to wake up brethren. It’s a lot later than we think.

Now, we can stir up our emotions on certain things and get all heated up about it. God took them away from that violence and they’ll wake up when there isn’t any Satan around to deceive them.And when some of you and I, and I hope it’s all of us, are going to be God-beings there to supervise them and teach them under Christ, ruling with Christ on His throne, having power over the nations to teach them. Now that’ll be those who are still living on into the millennium for the thousand years and that’ll be those who will wake up in the Great White Throne Judgment resurrection, a thousand years afterwards. Well, let me tell you why that is important and why this whole thing is important. And why marrying such as they chose was important!!

God created the first man and the first woman and told them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. But before that first man, God put him in the Garden of Eden. Now I’m not going to read these scriptures because you know them already. Now I’m just going to talk about this and explain it for a while, just like I did to the ministers the other day. God had a purpose in creating man and that was to create in him God’s own perfect, holy, righteous, character. And none of us has that fully yet at all. Maybe we’ve started on that way. I hope we have. But that’s why we were created. And God is reproducing Himself and we will be born as God, as the Sons of God. But we have to have that character.

The two trees: (play from 26:24)

Now God created a man. He put him in His Garden of Eden. There were two trees in that Garden of Eden. I’ve gone over this so many times. Let me just rehearse it quickly without reading all the scriptures. One was the Tree of Life. The other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Alright, there’s great meaning in those two trees, very, very great meaning. Man did not have life. God did not create him with real life. God created him with a temporary chemical existence that is like an alarm clock wound up that is running down. And when it runs down, it’s through, if it isn’t rewound. Well, we’re like that. But we rewind our clock about three times a day when we eat food that gives us new energy to keep going. And if we don’t keep poking food down our mouths and eliminating it and taking more and more, we won’t live long.

There’s a man up in North Ireland now, who’s just about to die. I think he’s past his sixtieth day of fasting, something like that. You can’t live much longer than that.You can fast forty days and forty nights. There are a couple of examples in the Bible and one of them was Jesus Christ, Himself. Most people think that if you fast one day you’re going to die. [audience laughs] The Pope in Rome just a couple of days ago, was asking this man, pleading with him to please eat some food. Please put in some fuel so you’ll go on keeping this chemical existence going. But so far, he didn’t obey it. I haven’t heard any news this morning. But I think as of last night he was still alive.

Well, God offered Adam life. I mean life that was inherent life. REAL LIFE. IMMORTAL LIFE that was INHERENT within one’s self. Now God has that kind of life. Animals don’t have it. Birds and fishes don’t have it and Human Beings don’t have it. But God offered him life. He didn’t have life, he had a chemical existence. Now get this! God was not going to let him have life eternal, where he never could die and where he would live forever. God was not going to let him have that if he had to live forever in misery, in pain, sorrow, in suffering, in unhappiness, in wretchedness, in frustration and in agony. God is love. And every good thing comes down from God above. And God was not going to let him enjoy agony and sin and suffering and pain and screaming forever.

Now the devil’s got people believing that if you don’t do good in your own eyes, what you, yourself, think is good, that you’re going to roast forever in hell, just screaming and screaming in agony and pain, never-ending. Well thank God; God, Himself, never made any such a hell. God made a hell that’s a lot hotter than that. God made one that will burn up. It hasn’t been made yet but it will be. The whole Earth will become a molten mass and it’ll burn up those that go into it. And they’ll be as though it never been. They will be ashes under the soles of our feet. Sometimes I wonder what these Protestants and Catholic preachers think when they see scriptures like that in the Bible? They just don’t believe it or else they overlooked them. They skim right over them someway.

But you see, God had a Law which defines a way of living, a way of life. If you live that way, you will be happy and you will make others around you happy. You will be peaceful. You won’t be at war with your neighbor. He will be peaceful. He won’t be at war with you. You will be helping him. He will be helping you. You will help each other to have more to do more. You will help each other to be more and more happy. You will have more happiness. You will have peace. You will have joy. You will have, well since we’re material beings on a material Earth; we will have more of the material things to enjoy. We don’t live that way. We don’t have that kind of happiness. But there is a way, that lives that way and that is the Law of God.

Now understand this.Love is the fulfilling of the Law of God. But you don’t have the kind of Love to fulfill that Law because it is a spiritual Law. And you only have a natural love or a carnal love. It requires what the Bible says is the Love of God, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. God gives you that Love. God, Himself is that kind of Love.God is Love.

Now, before Adam, in the Garden of Eden, was the Tree of Life. And that tree was a symbol that if he took of that he would be taking the Spirit of God which is the Love of God that would have fulfilled the Law of God in his heart, in his mind. A way of living that would have made Adam happy, his children happy. They would have made one another happy. They would have had peace. They would have had everything good. And God offered it to him. God wanted him to take it. Also the Spirit of God, that he would have gotten if he would have taken of that tree, would have given him that Spirit that would have added to the spirit that was already in Adam from the time he was created to give him spiritual understanding and spiritual knowledge. Now the natural man does not have spiritual understanding or spiritual knowledge. He has a spirit that I call a human spirit but it doesn’t impart spiritual knowledge.

physical knowledge verses Spiritual: (play from 32:37)

Knowledge comes into the mind only through the five senses. Through your eyes, through your ears, mostly eyes and ears. Some knowledge comes in through the nose some through the mouth and the sense of taste and some through the sense of feel or touch. Now you can’t see spirit. You can’t here it. It doesn’t vibrate. You can’t smell it, taste it or feel it. You can’t know anything about spirit. The spirit in you doesn’t see. It doesn’t hear. The brain hears and sees. The brain hears through the ears and sees through the eyes but it’s the physical brain that does the seeing, not the spirit. But the physical brain is like a computer and it programs whatever knowledge comes into it, into the spirit. The spirit is the memory that stores it up and gives it back and that’s why a man, a woman, a human being, having the Spirit of God can think, can have instant recall of any bit of knowledge that has ever gone into his mind through the eye, the ear, the nose, the throat or the sense of taste. Animals don’t have that.

But we were made in the image of God and we had a spirit in us so that we could have the Spirit of God which would have given us immortal life. Now if Adam had taken of the Tree of Life, that would have given him life, immortal life inherent in himself. That would have given him the Holy Spirit; would have opened his mind to comprehend spiritual knowledge. It would have given him the Love of God that could fulfill His Law to live that way. But he didn’t have it. Instead what did he take? The knowledge of good and evil. In other words, he took to himself, the ability to manufacture and think out in his own mind which way he thought was best to live, the way to live. And man thinks the best way to live is to get, to take, to take away from someone else and to say “Look, I love me, but I don’t love you. I don’t care about what happens to you. I don’t care what happens to you. If you suffer, that isn’t going to hurt me. That’s no skin off my nose. Like that song.”

“Oh I love me;
I’m wild about myself.
I put my arms around myself,
And give myself a squeeze.
I’m wild about myself;
I’ll marry me someday.
I just love me.”

Adam had to choose: (play from 35:12)

That is what Adam decided to take to himself. Vanity, exalting the self, thinking I’m pretty big, when he is not. Wanting to decide for himself what is right and wrong. If he does something that he thinks is alright, he says, “Well, I wasn’t wrong. I decided that’s good. That’s good. It’s not evil.” You see, God’s Law tells us what is good and what is evil but Adam rejected that. He rejected the Law of God; he rejected the Way of God. He rejected LIFE! Because he rejected living the Way of God.

And all of his children, ever since, have gone that way. And Satan has pumped out that way into every little child that has ever been born. That includes you when you were a little child, every one of you. And by the time you were 6, 7, 8, 9 months old, you had a lot of a kind of vanity and selfishness in you. You put two little children down on the floor together and one toy and watch them fight and see who gets that toy. Satan’s been to work on them. But modern parents today don’t think they need to teach them anything. SATAN’S TEACHING THEM. He’s getting to them all the time. But our parents don’t. They’re neglecting it. We as parents are doing that and we’re guilty of it and we’re going to give account before God for it.

Now Adam had to choose. And he chose to take to himself the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. And in the days of Noah, they took to themselves the wives THEY chose. Adam made a choice. When he chose that, he chose something that’s going to bring death on him because he chose the wrong way of life. And so God drove Adam out of the Garden of Eden and he barred reentrance from that Garden of Eden lest humanity would go back and get from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever. And so the Holy Spirit of God was shut off from man. Now what happened? Satan was still there leading them all on. Well God gave Adam knowledge and Adam was able to transmit a lot of that knowledge to his sons. And Cain and Abel each had a little bit of that knowledge. But they were still doing what they thought was right. What they chose. And so Abel chose to bring as a sacrifice for God, a lamb. But Cain chose to bring just some vegetables and fruit that he raised out of the ground. Now Cain knew that the lamb was a type of Christ that would come as a sacrifice that would be for us. They had that much knowledge. And God spoke directly to Cain. God spoke directly to some of those way back there. He doesn’t speak to us that way, directly today. But he did then to them.

And so man started living the way that seemed right in his own eyes. And the way that was not the way of God at all, the way that would bring unhappiness on him, sorrow, suffering, misery, pain, anguish and by the time of Noah, men were making a choice about wives they would take and they took to themselves wives which they chose. But God had not chosen that kind of wives for them.

The cause of our troubles: (play from 39:03)

Now I want to go into some of that with you. Let’s get a little bit about the Way of God. Turn to Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 32:8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam,

Oh today they say that the cause of our troubles and racial troubles is segregation. So the Supreme Court of the United States, in human wisdom, without any wisdom from God, says we’re going to have integration. Man wants to go—you see, man chooses him the way that seems right in his own eyes. He takes to himself the knowledge of what is good and evil. That’s what our Supreme Court did. But…

Deuteronomy 32:8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, [notice, segregation not integration] he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

Different people, different families or different races, had their own land, their own plot of the earth. And God’s way is GEOGRAPHICAL SEGREGATION. AND INTEGRATION IS NOT THE WAY OF THE ETERNAL GOD (pounds on desk). It’s the way of deceiving man. It’s the way of Satan. And look what its doing in this country. Look what is going on in the 1960’s in this nation and the violence that came here and there and all over the nation. I’ll be going over this in other sermons that are coming on, like I did fifteen or twenty years ago. It’s time to get back to a lot of that again. Because man always thinks he knows better than God. It’s all what man thinks is the right way to go.

A son in his likeness: (play from 41:06)

But each person is born after his parents and after their kind or family. And we are born in a family. And the Bible doesn’t speak about race very much. It speaks about families. And there should not be inter-family marriage because a family is a kind. Now there’s a whole lot about where did the different races come from and a lot of things like that. I won’t have time for that. I’m only just going to start a foundation for this, today. I’m going to have a lot of sermons on this subject. I know Satan’s going to bring it up and I’m going to beat him to the punch. [audience laughs]

Each is born after his own parent’s kind of race, one way or the other. And either he’ll be yellow or black or white or he’ll be a mixture, of one or the other. Let’s go back now to Genesis 5

Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

Adam begat a son in his likeness. A black man married to a black woman begets a son after his likeness or a daughter maybe and they will be black. A white man and a white woman begat a son or a daughter after their likeness, and the son or the daughter will be white. And if you mix it, they won’t be either one. They’ll be part one and part the other, a blend of the two. Now I want to go a little further. But man, going the way HE chose, marrying the ones HE chose, instead of the way God said it should be, wanted to amalgamate, wanted to integrate. God had decreed segregation. Man wanted integration. Come now to Genesis 11, the first eight verses.

Genesis 11:1-8 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. (2) And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; [And this is after the flood now, shortly after the flood] and they dwelt there. (3) And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. (4) And they said, Go to, [that is, “let’s get going here”] let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; [skyscrapers, we call them] and let us make us a name, [WHY?] lest we be scattered [or segregated. We want integration WE don’t want segregation. Lest we be segregated, scattered.] abroad upon the face of the whole earth. (5) And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. (6) And the Eternal said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. (7) Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. (8) So the Eternal scattered them [or segregated them — He didn’t integrate them, He segregated them and scattered them] abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

The generations of Noah: (play from 45:30)

They stopped it. Now I want to go back to Genesis 10:5

Well let’s see, this is talking about now, these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and so on. The sons of Japheth, Gomer and so on. Now it mentions some of the sons of Japheth here and in verse 5 it says,

Genesis 10:5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families…

Or their races. The Bible uses the word family instead of race. A family is what you generate, as I say, two Japanese married will produce a Japanese child which we might call the Yellow and not the Caucasian race. Two Caucasians or whites will produce a white. Two blacks will produce a black. But it was after their families, after their races, in their nations. Now the sons of Ham and he begins to give them and I won’t go into those genealogies now. But there were a good many there.

Now, at the time of the flood, now let’s see. Man going the way He chose, wanted to amalgamate and integrate the races. Now, at the time of the flood, again. Noah was righteous in his generationS, plural. Not his generation. Meaning in his ancestry. Noah, in Genesis 6, in a minute I’ll have it here. Let’s read this again.

Genesis 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations…

He wasn’t perfect in himself or spiritually or anything of that kind. He was only perfect in generations or in his ancestry. He was the same strain that he had been. And if you want to check it all the way through, and his ancestry on down, you’ll find Noah was white. Noah’s wife was white. Now apparently, he was the only man left that was pure white. He had not mixed the strain. The family had remained intact, as God had decreed that it should.

But the others were not. They had intermarried and interracial, brought racial trouble they had racial violence and other violence in those days and we’re back to the same things today. As it was in the days of Noah, so it is today and that’s exactly where we are today.

Now let’s get something after the flood. After the flood in Genesis 10.

Genesis 10:31-32 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, [or in their race, family, race. The Bible uses the word family instead of race, usually]… (32) These are the families of the sons of Noah families [families or races of the sons of Noah], after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

A wife for Isaac: (play from 50:14)

Alright. Abraham was of the family of Noah. And Abraham was white. God called Abraham and told him to leave the family where he was and people of all of his race, his family, or his color or whatever you want to call it and go to a land where he would show him. In that land were people poaching there that didn’t belong there and God had never given it to them and God intended to give him that land, because it is the geographical center of the Earth, and it’s marvelous for climate. And once again, when God restores it like it used to be, it’ll be a land of milk and honey, which it is not exactly today. But it’s marvelous what has happened to it since the Israelis went back there. And the part that they have is rich in agriculture already. Whereas other parts that are occupied by Arabs are not. But Abraham went to a land that God showed him and it was a Promised Land that God was going to promise to him. Now God said to Abraham in that land, that he would give it to his children forever. That is the Promised Land but at that time, there were the Canaanites there. And they were black not white. Alright. Abraham finally had a son of his own through Sarah and the time came to select a wife for Abraham’s son. So he sent this older servant, which was really, the manager of all of his properties and over all his other servants, of which he had many, he sent him to his own family, where his family lived, to select a wife for Isaac. “Isaac must not,” he said. Well, let me read that. Let me see. I think I have that marked here. I guess I didn’t. It’s Genesis 24, in the first four verses.

Genesis 24:1-4 And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: [and if you chase the genealogy, Abraham was of the same strain as Noah, from Shem, right on down] and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things. (2) And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: (3) And I will make thee swear by the Eternal, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: (4) But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred,> [of his family or of his race, they were all of the same race] and take a wife unto my son Isaac.

Because Of the wrong religion? (play from 54:02)

Now some people will say that when Ezra and Nehemiah cause people, who had intermarried with another race, to send their wives and even the children born back away from them, and divorce them, and put them away, they said, yeah but that was because of their wrong religion. Oh no, it wasn’t. Abraham sent over to his kindred, to his color, but they were of a different religion. So a little later, you will find, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, who had worked for Laban for a long time you know, and when he left Laban, his wife Rachel stole the idols from her father Laban and carried those little idols with her. And Laban came out to find them. They were his gods. So they were worshipping a different god over there. But Abraham sent to get someone of that race, of that color, of that family, for a wife for Isaac, even though they were of a different religion. But I think they got God’s religion, once Rebecca came over. She got God’s religion through Abraham and through Isaac. So you can say that the only reason for not marrying another race is because it means that you’ll be going into a different religion. That’s not the reason. Rachel was of a different religion than knowing God and she stole those gods when they fled.

Now the ancient nation Israel is called the family of Israel. There were a family and they were of that race. I have traced it down and I find that God kept that family pretty well intact all the way down through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and down into the Children of Israel. And they didn’t mix with the Egyptians. They were in a country of their own, geographically segregated in the land of Goshen and not with the rest of Israel. And they were making bricks and things that were carried over to the Egyptian part of the land and not the same at all.

Now let’s look and see what we’re going to be in the time of the millennium Let’s look into Zechariah 14.

Zechariah 14:16-19 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations [or families or races] which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. (17) And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. (18) And if the family of Egypt [or race, there again, it’s a family, the family of Egypt] go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. (19) This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations [or families] that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

Now, that’s what it will be like in the millennium when God is ruling. Now what of us in the Church? In the church, God said that in Abraham would all the families, all the races of the Earth will be blessed in Christ. One race has just as much chance and just as much blessing in Christ as any other. Race is only a matter of generation, of begetting children. And that's why the marriage is so important. God is not the author of discrimination. We should love one another and in God’s Church, we’ve been trying to do that. But we find this racial prejudice, which gets down to hatred if you don’t squelch it before it gets that far. It keeps cropping up every once in a while. I’m sorry. I don’t want to have to get back to it like I did about fifteen years ago or twenty. But I see that it’s coming out again and we’re going to have to get back to it.

What is the Color of the sun? (play from 59:45)

Now in the resurrection and in the World Tomorrow, how many of us will be black and how many of us will be white, brethren? And how many will be yellow? If we’re in the Kingdom of God, not one of us will be any one of those. Our faces will shine as bright as the sun. What’s the color of the sun? That’ll be the color of your faces and your skin. Well maybe not your whole body, but there isn’t going to be any matter of color at all. You know why?

What about sex in the millennium? There won’t be any. There won’t be men, there won’t be women. We won’t have sex. We’ll be as the angels in heaven, so said Jesus Christ. Sex is a matter now of generations but it has nothing to do with coming to God through Christ and gaining Eternal life and getting into the Kingdom of God. It has to do with the raising of children and God wanted the races kept separate.

Now we have different color of roses. We have different variety in a lot of things. We have different variety of horses, different varieties of cows, different varieties of dogs. And different varieties can interbreed. But if you’re a stock raiser and you’re raising stock for display, to win a prize, at a stock show, you’re not going to mix the breeds. It’ll be a thoroughbred or a pure blood or whatever you want to call it. And that’s the way it ought to be with us.

Race is only something that has nothing to do with your salvation. It has only to do with reproduction. Now that’s why when you integrate, you get in danger of interracial marriage. We have integration at Ambassador College here. And this college was going so far over into Satan’s way, that we had an interracial marriage here. I don’t know was it, one year ago or three years ago? Something like that. Now one man who was one of our leading ministers, endorsed it and was going to perform that wedding. I understand he backed out at the last minute. And the couple, of course it was a black man and a white woman, they went over to Las Vegas and got married over there.

God is not in favor of interracial marriage. God is not in favor of discrimination either. But marriage and the reproduction of children is another thing altogether. Now this church has done everything it could for the black people. We’ve tried to have no discrimination of any kind. You know how the college in Bricketwood actually got started? I went over there in 1969. We’d outgrown the office. We had to get a bigger office in London. And at the time, I had the idea, because we had not gone to integration in the college. But we wanted to do what we could for our black people. Because they were in the church but we were not accepting them in the college just because we were afraid it would lead to interracial marriage. But they were accepted in the church. And one thing I wanted was an office that would be on the kind of a property where we could also have a school for black men since we could not accept them at Ambassador College. Because I thought a lot about them. And I didn’t want to discriminate and I wanted to give them every opportunity that the white man had, and that is as ministers. And we were only thinking of men only at that time because we were only thinking of a school for ministers. Actually what we found, we ran across the place that we did, and when we saw that, we said, “well God wants a whole, liberal arts college over here. He led us to a property for an entire big college. Not just a little small place. We found a little place that would have taken of the kind of the little school. I thought about only having thirty five students. And we found a small place that would have taken care of that. The office and 35 students and a school. It led to an entire college. But that’s what we had in mind at the time.

Geographical Segregation: (play from 1:04:52)

Now in the millennium, there’s going to be one pure language so that all nations can worship God but they are going to be segregated geographically in their own different places. Now if you turn to Nehemiah 13:

Nehemiah 13:23-26 In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: (24) And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. (25) And I contended with them, [and God had divided them and divided their language in order to divide the nations, geographically] and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. (26) Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

Well anyway, Ezra and Nehemiah just simply caused them to divorce those wives and to send them away. And they were the ministers of God and that is the way of God. Now there is a great deal more to this. I only wanted to give you just sort of a foundation and the background today. But we’re going to have to go into this. This church still has a little leaven to clean up and get out of our house. But we’ve been getting it out and we’re going to continue getting it out. And we’re going to continue right along to now. So that’s as much as I’m going to take time for today. But I’m going to write some more on this God willing.

I don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep this up, if this temperature that I have, sore throat, head cold (laughs) and everything doesn’t leave. It’s indeed very difficult but I’m fighting through trying to keep up. I hope you understand. I’m not up to par at all. I’m speaking to you and I’m way below par but God has given me the truth in my mind just the same and I hope that you’re getting it brethren. I’m doing the best that I can and I don’t know how I can do much more. Thank you very much.

Transcribed by JMF May 25, 2005