This sermon emphasizes the biblical perspective on race, explaining that all humans belong to one biological race but can be divided into two spiritual races based on their relationship with God. It also addresses the misconceptions about the curse of Ham and interracial marriage, highlighting the importance of focusing on the heart and spiritual unity in relationships. The speaker encourages looking beyond outward appearances and cultural differences to see people as God sees them.

Well, what I want to do tonight is to equip us with some of these answers. And I'm going to concentrate on one particular aspect. Dr. Kerry Parker will do a number of different things. He used to be a Bible-believing... He used to be, sorry, an atheist, an evolutionist atheist, and he became a Bible-believing Christian creationist. He's going to sort of go through his testimony, and in so doing, he's going to fill you in a bit of geology and biology and a bit of this and a bit of that and all sorts of interesting answers, and it'll really encourage you and equip you. One of the questions we get asked as we travel around is this, well, if the Bible's true and we all go back to Adam and Eve, how do you explain the different races of people? How do you explain all the different skin colors and so on? Actually, if the Bible is true, which it is, the Bible's history is true, and we're all descendants of Adam and Eve, then there is only one race. There aren't any different races, only one race. And in fact, what I'm doing tonight is based on the book, One Blood, One Race, which there are some copies out there. That book was written by myself and an African-American pastor, Dr. Charles Ware, so we co-authored this particular book to help people understand there is only one race. You know why that's important, by the way? Because we take the gospel to every tribe and nation because we're all related to each other, because we're all descendants of Adam and Eve. I've actually heard of Christians, I know a Bible college in Australia when I lived there that actually taught that there were different races of people and so you don't take the gospel to the Australian Aborigines, they're a different race. And then I've had people say, well, to get all the different so-called races, God must have made a race of men and a race of women. Wait a minute, only descendants of Adam can be saved because God's son stepped into history to be the last Adam, to be the God-man, to be a descendant of Adam, so the descendants of Adam can be saved. So you see, it's important to understand there is only one race, the human race. In fact, the next time you're filling out your census form and it says, what race are you? What we all should put down is Adams. You can imagine some public servant saying, who is this Adam character? I've never heard of Adam's race. Well, these days, probably most of them haven't, unfortunately. Or put down human race or something because really there are no different races. And I'm going to show you even the secular world is admitting that. But before we go on talking about that, one of the questions I get asked wherever I go about this issue is, okay, if we all go back to Adam and Eve, where did Cain get his wife? You know, one of the sad things is I talk more about Cain's wife than my own wife, but that's the way it is in this ministry. Well, a little test for you. Can you marry your relation? Yes, no, probably only after counseling. The reason I ask that is because people say to me, oh, you're not allowed to marry your relative. I've got news for you. If you don't marry your relative, you don't marry a human, then you're really in trouble. See, if we're all one race, descendants of Adam, aren't we all related to each other, whether you like it or not? Isn't that right? Yeah, I mean, when my hair was a little darker, my beard a little darker, I would walk down the street and people would stop me and say, you know, you look like Abe Lincoln. And I would say, yeah, he's one of my relatives. And they'd look at me, you're related to Abraham Lincoln? I'd say, sure, isn't everyone? Well, anyway, it was a point of contact for the gospel. So that's why I did that. Well, 1 Corinthians 15, 45, Paul says the first man, Adam, there was only one man to start with. Genesis 3, 20, Eve was given that name because in the Hebrew, it literally reads, she was to become the mother of all the living. So one man, one woman. And Paul, when he's witnessing to the Greeks in Acts 17, we read there, and God made of one blood, or some translations put from one man. We're all related. We all go back to Adam and Eve. So if we all go back to Adam and Eve, I hope you're not like the chef I met once in England. I was in London, actually. And the chef at a restaurant heard that we were doing a seminar nearby. And he came out to me and he said, so you believe the Bible? And I said, yes, we believe the Bible. He said, I don't believe the Bible. I said, oh, okay, why not? He says, well, it says God made Adam and Eve and they had Cain and Abel. Where'd all the people come from then? I said, oh, Genesis 5, 4 says Adam had sons and daughters. And he looked at me and said, oh, I didn't read that far. And you know, that's the problem with a lot of people. They don't read that far. But get rid of all outside influences. We have Adam and Eve, and they had sons and daughters. Then originally, and knowing that the doctrine of marriage is one man, one woman, originally, brothers married who? Sisters. Well, we don't want to say that, do we? Well, because, wait a minute, you're not allowed to marry your relative. Oh, wait a minute, we do marry our relatives. It's just we don't marry as close a relative today. See, think about it. It wasn't until the time of Moses that God said no longer can close relatives marry. Abraham was married to his half-sister. Wasn't a problem. Why is that? Well, think about it like this. When God first made Adam and Eve, they were perfect. Their genes were perfect. But because of sin, everything changed. Now because of sin, everything runs down because we run down and die. The whole of creation groans. And so now, from when one generation copies genes to the next generation, now there are mutations or mistakes. And those mutations add up over time because they get accumulated into the genes and the next generation accumulate more and more and more. 6,000 years later, we're a mess. Look around the room. And here's the problem. We've all got all sorts of mistakes in our genes. But you see, the more closely related you are, the more that is a problem in this way. If brother and sister were to marry today, because of 6,000 years of accumulated mistakes, they're more likely to have similar mistakes inherited from their parents. And so sperm fertilizes egg. The mistakes get together. There's an increased likelihood of deformities or problems in the offspring. The further away in relationship you are, the more likely where one has a good gene, the other has a bad gene, the good gene tends to mask the bad gene. And you can see the results of that as you look around the room, the crooked noses, ears, mouth's out of whack, chin's out of, you know, those mistakes are there. Aren't you pleased they're sort of masked in a way? But the further back you go in history, the less of a problem that is. Until you get to the time of Adam and Eve, no mistakes. Their children, relatively few mistakes. So there's really no problem with brother and sister marrying originally, provided it was one man and one woman, because that's what the doctrine of marriage is all about. And that's no different than a man and woman getting married today, except in the closeness of the relationship, because we're all related anyway. So from biblical perspective, history perspective, that's very easy to understand. Now, I was on a radio program once and a man called up and he said, if you believe Cain married his sister, then that's immoral. And I found out he was an atheist. I said, you're an atheist? Yeah. You don't believe in God? No. So there's no absolute authority? That's right. Everyone has a right to their own opinions? That's right. I said, number one, sir, you can't call me immoral. You're an atheist. So you can't do that. And secondly, how can he decide what's moral and what's not? It's just a matter of subjective opinion, right? And then secondly, I said, do you believe in evolution? That man's just an animal? There's no such thing as marriage. So anyone can do anything with any what, whatever, however. It doesn't matter. And you think we've got a problem? You're the one with the problem. And then people will say, well, what about incest? Well, the word incest is a modern word. I think I told one of the groups this morning, just like the word dinosaur is a modern word, like the word email is a modern word. Well, the word incest is a modern word. And we put a whole range of things under incest, some of which have always been immoral, but not brother and sister marriage in the context of biblical history. And then other things to think about. People say, well, the Bible says Cain went out to the land of Nod and got a wife. Weren't there other people? Some people say he went and found a different race. Actually, it says he went out to the land of Nod and knew his wife. He was already married. And then they say, well, then when he killed Abel, it says he was frightened of people. Who was he frightened of? Well, if you look at the time between when Cain, Abel were born and the time that Cain killed Abel, you could get almost 100 years there. So there'd be lots of people by then. So who was he frightened of? All his close family members, because he killed one of them. It's just very easy to understand those things. And then we come to saying, okay, all right, well, I understand that. Well, how do you get all the different groups of people? And I'm going to tell you there aren't any different races. So I like to call them people groups, as you will see as we go on here. Not races, but people groups. But to do that, we need a little basic course in genetics. Now, what I'm going to do is at a very layman's level. It's much more technical than this, but I also want you to understand you don't have to be a PhD scientist to talk on these issues. There are big picture things that we can discuss. There are basic principles that all of us can talk about and you don't have to be a PhD scientist to do that. Certainly, there's a lot more technical information, but nonetheless, we can all look at the big picture and understand it and you can use that out there. Don't be intimidated by the scientists. In Genesis 1, we read that God made the animals plants after their kind, after his kind, after their kind. The implication is that each kind produces its own kind. Now, we need to understand what is meant by the word kind. We've had a number of scientists that have researched this and we would say this. When you look at the classification system, kingdom, then you have final class, order, family, genus, species, we would say the family level in the classification system is most likely the kind in most instances. Maybe not every instance, but certainly in most instances. For instance, there's one dog family and then you have all these different species of dogs, so there's one dog kind. So you'd only need, for instance, two of the dog family on board Noah's Ark, just as an example. There's one cat family, so that's the cat kind. Different species of cats, but one cat family. When it comes to elephants, it's interesting. With elephants, there are a couple of different families, the way they classified it, but it's more likely with elephants that the kind is the order. You get the idea. In most instances, kind is not species. It's more at a level of family. In some instances, like the elephant, probably the order. We're going to look at dogs in particular to help us understand this. Here's a quote from the secular world. The dog family is a diverse group of 34 species. You know, there's lots of different species of dogs, dingoes, wolves, coyotes, jackals, fennecs, foxes, collies, and so we go on. Based on genetic, morphological, and behavioral data, it is clear that the domestic dog originates from the wolf, according to the secular world. So the wolf, which is one of the dog species, over time gave rise to a domestic species, including poodles. You know, when people look at that and say, you're saying that, which looks like a dog, gave rise to that, or that, or that, they say, isn't that evolution? No, that's not evolution, because actually what's happening is a downhill process. And it doesn't involve new information added into the genes, it actually involves a loss of information, a redistribution of information. In fact, a poodle to me represents the end of the line in dogs. If you go beyond a poodle, you can't, because that's it. You can't get any worse. That's really what I'm saying. Now, we don't know how many dogs God made originally, but let's say he made two dogs, and they got married and had kids, they got married and had kids, they got married and had kids. Anyway, we end up with lots of dogs. So how do we get the different species? Wolves, coyotes, jackal, fennec, foxes, etc.? Well, in genetics, we label genes, as I said, this is just big picture stuff, basic principles, much more technical, much more complicated, but we label genes with letters. Capital A, capital B, capital C, dominant genes, little a, little b, little c, recessive genes. And, you know, if we say that male and female are a male and female dog, let's say they're wolves, and so they have an offspring, and they get this combination. Have a look at this combination here, big A's, big B's, big C's. Has this got more information, less information, or the same amount of information as the parents? What would you say? I hear some saying same, some saying less. Actually, it's got less, because it no longer has the little a, little b, little c. Do you see that? It's got less variability. It's got the information to be a dog, but it's got less information, okay? Now, over time, you can get some more combinations. I like to look on this one here, the little a's, little b's, little c's, as representing what we call our purebred mutant dogs, I mean, poodles. So how do we get our purebred dogs? Well, mutants, same thing. But how do we get our purebred dog? Well, you know, we look at one and say, oh, this has a short nose, this has a short nose. Let's breed these together so we have no longer got any long-nosed dogs together. We just select for the short-nosed dogs and you sort of get rid of all the variability. That's how we get our different domestic varieties within the domestic species. Now, I want you to look at this. Again, it's an analogy to help us understand. If this is a poodle, when you breed a poodle with a poodle, what are you going to end up with? A poodle. That's it. I mean, sad. You can't get anything else. Now, could you breed two poodles together and rebuild a wolf? And the answer is what? No, you couldn't. But theoretically, could you start with two wolves and again get a poodle? And the answer would be yes. Now, how much information is in our genes? This is where it gets mind-blowing. The number of atoms estimated in the whole universe is one followed by 80 zeros. That's a pretty big number, isn't it? A big, massive number. That's the number of atoms estimated in the universe. If you took one man and one woman from this audience, how many children could you have without having two with the same combination of information? It's that number. Now, here's the thing. Do you realize how big that number is? That number is so big you can't even think about it. It's enormous. Now, here's the point that we need to understand. God put that sort of variability in the dog kind, the cat kind, the elephant kind, the human kind. You get the idea? Darwin collected, for instance, finches, and he saw some finches with little beaks and little beaks, big beaks, and so on, and he's saying that this is evolution. It's not evolution, by the way. You look around this room, you've got people with big beaks, not little beaks. That's not evolution. But see, here's the point. What Darwin was looking at is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the variability God built in those genes, and he said it was evolution. In fact, when you look at finches' beaks, little beaks, big beaks, that's not as much variability as you see within our dog species. Now, to help us understand, two of each kind, not two of each species, two of each kind. In most instances, we would say the family. Two of each family of land animals went on board Noah's Ark. Seven of some, but two of each. So two dogs were on Noah's Ark. They come off the ark, increase in numbers again, but they're not going to stay together. They'll split up and go to different places, and as they do, different combinations of genes will survive in different areas. And what I want to show you is how this works from a big picture perspective. Much more complicated, but from a big picture perspective. Who's heard of the term natural selection? Okay, there really is no such thing as natural selection because nature doesn't select. But what they call natural selection, I want to show you what it is. And in the school textbooks, we're told natural selection is one of the mechanisms involved in evolution. I'm going to show you when you understand natural selection, it's the opposite of evolution. And then adaptation, we've heard of adaptation. But animals don't really adapt. They don't go up and say, oh, I think I'll grow a long coat because it's getting cold. But what they call adaptation, I want to show you what that's all about. So here we have the two dogs that go off Noah's Ark. They have an S gene for short hair and an L gene for long hair. So they have an offspring that inherits two S genes. Now, you look at that and say, oh, it's got something new. It's got short hair. See, this is what happens in the public schools, even the universities. Students are led to believe it's got something new that's evolution. Actually, you know what's got new? It's got a new combination of information that was already there. It's actually got less information than the parents, the opposite of evolution. For evolution, you start with matter, no information. Matter supposedly has to produce a code. I'll talk about this with the teenagers tomorrow. And then you have to produce books of information, zillions of bits of information. We've never seen matter produce one bit of information. But when you understand what's going on here, it's a loss of information, the opposite of evolution. Now, you can get another offspring the same as the parents, and then another one which has two Ls, long hair. See, students will be told it's got something new. It's like when students are told this, oh, there are bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics. That's evolution, because now they have a resistance that they didn't have before. In most instances, and there's all sorts of, there's other different reasons, but in most instances, it's a loss of information. And the resistant bugs aren't as strong as the original. It's the opposite of what the students think. So, imagine these dogs move towards a cold climate, Minneapolis, when there's winter. We didn't have winter this year. Do you have winter this year? No, we didn't have winter. We missed out on winter. We went to spring, but then again, we missed out on spring too. But then again, we've gone back to winter. So, okay, so they move towards a cold climate. In a cold climate, what happens? Well, the short hair and medium hair get cold. And they die. And now you're left with dogs with L genes who on their own will only produce dogs with L genes. See that? They can't produce short hair and medium hair again. You know, when evolutionists look at that, they say, that's evolution. Look how far they've evolved. They've lost information that they can't regain unless they mix back with the other dogs. Imagine others go towards a hot climate. They go to Arizona. I've never understood. I've been to Phoenix. In fact, we lived in Phoenix area for six months once. And I've never understood how anyone could stand there in the middle of that desert, look around and say, what a great place for a city. There's no water. Temperature gets up to unbearable temperatures in the summer. Let's build a city. I've never understood that. But anyway, so dogs move towards a hot climate. In a hot climate, those with medium hair and long hair overheat. And they die. And they're left with dogs with S genes who are on their own and produce dogs with S genes. And so over time, much more complicated. But you can imagine, you end up with these different species because you start with the information in the dogs from Noah's ark, and then it gets spread out and diluted and bits lost and so on and different combinations. People, that's the opposite of evolution. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, students will be told, well, if creationists are true, you should find the species we find today in the fossil record. Not at all. You wouldn't expect to. You'd find the kinds, but not the species. You see the difference? Because the species have developed since the flood. To help us understand, here's a wolf and I have a jar of jelly beans representing the information in the wolf, say. And then over time, you can get less and less information. You can even get to the stage where there's not a great deal of information left. And I can't stand cats at all, as you can see. But, so, this helps us answer a question. How many animals did Noah need on the ark? Actually, when you do the calculations, we have someone working on that right now. And it's a little difficult because, you know, to try to build the original kinds, like llama, alpacas, you know, one hump, two hump camels, they're all the one kind. Deer, moose are the one kind. But to try to rebuild that is difficult. But the estimates seem to be about a thousand kinds representing two to three thousand animals because there were seven of some on board Noah's ark. And the average size of a land animal is not that big. There was plenty of room. And I'll even explain to the kids tomorrow how dinosaurs were on the ark. Did you know the average size of a dinosaur is the size of something like a German shepherd dog or something like that? So most people don't realize that. And there's only 50 families of dinosaurs, which means only 50 kinds anyway, not hundreds of kinds. So there's a lot of information that people don't realize. So now what I want to do is this. I want to apply this little basic understanding of genetics to the humankind. And we're going to do it this way. I want you to think through. If you're going to get distinct groups of humans, and we all go back to Adam and Eve, think about what we did with the dogs. So something has to happen in history to split up the human gene pool and take groups away from each other and isolate them from each other. Can anyone think of anything in biblical history? Is there anything at all in biblical history? Can you think of something that could do that? The Tower of Babel. I mean, the answer's right there in scripture. And by the way, if that is so, that would explain something else. How come we have flood legends in cultures all over the world that sound like Genesis? How come we have creation legends? The Australian Aborigines, before they met missionaries, had stories that sounded like Genesis. Woman made while man was asleep, a forbidden tree, and woman took some sweet honey from it, and now there's death in the world, and a global flood, and three sons on a boat. I mean, back to the Babylonians and others. See, you know what we're told in our universities? The Babylonians had stories like the Jews. The Jews borrowed their stories from the Babylonians. It's the other way around, because the Bible's history is true. This means there's different people groups, but not races. You know, when Darwin published his book in 1859 on the origin of species by means of natural selection, the rest of the title said, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. Now, the origin of species was about animals. But at the end of that book, he actually made this statement in the origins. In the distant future, light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. He intended to apply that idea of favoured races and so on to man, which he did in his book, The Descent of Man, which he published 12 years after he published The Origin of Species. And in fact, that's why the late Stephen Jay Gould from Harvard University said this. Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. See, in Darwin's Descent of Man, and I won't bore you with the quotes because it's a very convoluted sort of book to read. In fact, Darwin, to me, is very convoluted and hard to read. But Darwin actually said that there are different races of people and the Australian Aborigines were closer to the apes than the Caucasians, and the Caucasians were up here further away from the Aborigines and so on. And Darwin himself wasn't a racist, but you can understand why Stephen Jay Gould said it fuelled racism because it got the idea there were lower races and higher races. In fact, in Darwin's book, at the end of this long quote, he talks about the Aborigine and the Negro, that term he uses, and he's saying they're closer to the apes whereas the Caucasians are further away. No wonder it fuelled racism. In 1924, the New York Tribune newspaper that existed then published an article that said the missing links were found in Australia. They were the Australian Aborigines. And in fact, scientists from England and Germany, as part of Australia's history, sad part of history, they sent people to Australia to hunt down the Aborigines. They actually paid property owners to go on their property, herd them over cliffs or into swamps, and kill them. Then they had instructions from the scientists how to boil up their skulls and skin them for specimens in the name of evolution for museums around the world. Five to ten thousand Aboriginal graves were desecrated in the name of evolution. You see what happens when you have evil ideas, wrong ideas and the evil consequences. You know, back in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, at the very time of the Scopes Trial, which is a whole other issue which the press totally misinforms people on. It had nothing to do with the teaching of evolution in schools. That was already being taught. It had to do with the Butler Act and just the evolution of man being taught. That's a whole other issue. But most people don't realize in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee and in other states in America, the biology textbook used in the public schools by Hunter actually made this statement, the races of man, at the present time there exist upon earth five races, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America. No wonder there's so much prejudice, I find, even today in American churches, by the way. Because a lot of kids back then who became adults and a lot of them went to church, they were being taught the Caucasians were the highest race. And I find there's still a lot of prejudice in American churches and in certain areas, an incredible amount of prejudice in regard to, if we're really honest about it and face it head on, it's in regard to skin color, what they would call white and black. Is that not true? It is. And there's a lot of racism and so on. I challenge people, I challenge the church, we need to get rid of the term races. We should be leading the way in this. Actually, why haven't we already done this? Because you see, if we really believe God's word and we believe God's word in Genesis, we're all descendants of Adam and Eve, then biologically there can only be one race. You know, back at the time of Thomas Jefferson, when you did use the term race, it's one of those instances where words have changed meaning a bit and we need to be sensitive to that. A church needs to be looking at that. When you talk about race, you would mean the English race or the Irish race. In other words, you'd mean a people group. But Darwinian evolution has forever changed the meaning. Because of the popularization of Darwinian evolution around the world, people now tend to think in terms of races as lower races, higher races, primitive races, advanced races, and so on. For that reason, regardless of who we are, I say let's get rid of the term races. Let's talk about people groups. Imagine if we go out there and start, every time someone talks about race or races, excuse me, there aren't any different races, we'll talk about people groups. Actually, do you know the secular world is saying this? The secular world is. They're leading the way in this area and the church is not. You know why the church is not leading the way? I suggest to you, it's what I said this morning. Because much of the church so compromised millions of years evolution with Genesis, and they didn't teach Genesis, so we avoided Genesis. Leave that out of the question. So we don't really know what we believe, don't really understand the history aspects. So we're not prepared to stand up and authoritatively say, excuse me, there's only one race. But the secular world that has been doing real observational science in this area has found out there's only one race. For instance, in the Journal of Counseling and Development, 1998, we read, evidence continues to collect that the term race is meaningless, used to point out differences in people that are not definitive. When I went to school, I was taught there was a Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, Astraloid race. I'm sure many of you were taught. How many of you were taught that sort of thing? Yeah, I see a lot of hands. Well, in 2000, the Human Genome Project released to the world, they'd mapped the human genome. And one of the statements they made was this, that they'd put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and researchers unanimously declared there is only one race, the human race. Wow, who would have ever thought of that? You know, when they made that statement around the world, you know what the church should have jumped up and did? We should have jumped up and said, said, you know, oh, of course there's only one race. You're finally getting it right. You're showing the Bible's true. Of course, you're catching up to the Bible. Why didn't we say that? Because we don't, because much of the church doesn't really believe it's history in Genesis. And we're intimidated by the world anyway. In Nature Genetics, we read this in 2004. Humans vary only slightly at the DNA level, and then only a small proportion of this variation separates continental populations or people groups. And in fact, in the American biology teacher, in 2011, we read, here is the biological problem with race. The genetic variation within each of the various ethnic groups of Homo sapiens is greater than that between the various ethnic groups. Let me explain what that means. If you use the false idea, the old idea of races, you've got these different races, supposedly, here's what this is saying, that the variability within each race is greater, the DNA, the difference in DNA is greater within a group than that which determines that they're different groups, or was used to determine they're different groups, which means the whole idea of races is meaningless. And that's exactly what the secular world is saying. In 2008, in ABC News, we read this, but the genes that explain the phenotypic differences, like hair color, et cetera, between populations only represent a tiny part of our genome, confirming once again that the concept of race from a genetic standpoint has been abolished. And then the American biology teacher again in 2011, all humans are one race, Homo sapiens. There is absolutely no genetic or evolutionary justification for racial category of humans. And then, in the New York Times in the year 2000, we read this, the criteria that people use for race, this was dealing with the human genome research, the criteria people use for race are based entirely on external features we are programmed to recognize. You know, in this culture, from a young age, we're programmed to look at skin color, if we're really honest about it. If we weren't programmed that way, you wouldn't see it as a major difference. You see, as we look at these issues, one of the things that I like to look at is dealing with that skin color issue to help us understand what it's all about, because there aren't any different colors. In reality, it's really different shades of the one color. The main pigment we have is melanin. Now, there's a couple of forms of melanin. There's some other pigments that have very little bearing on this, and there's issues of how close your blood vessels are to your skin and the amount of fat in your skin and a yellowish tinge and all sorts of things. But the main pigment we have is a brown pigment called melanin. And actually, people who have really dark skin and people who have light skin, in most instances, you actually start with the same amount of melanin. People with light skin actually lose melanin. It's a sort of a complicated issue involving stem cells that migrate to the surface of your skin and so on. But if big A, big B, little A, little B, again, we'll use those. If the big A's and B's represent a lot of melanin, little A's and little B's a little bit of melanin, then if you have all big A's and big B's, a lot of melanin, dark shade. Little A's and little B's, light shade. Or if you're a mixture in the middle, your middle shade. And the main pigment is a brown pigment. So you're either dark brown, light brown, middle brown, or anywhere in between. And so then the question is, what shade, not what color, but what shade would Adam and Eve's skin have been? And people, I'm going to suggest to us that what we need to be doing is rethinking some of the terminology we use in the church to try to deal with this issue properly. For instance, we should talk about shade, not color. It's not what color you are, it's what shade you are. We shouldn't talk about races, we should talk about people groups. You know, some people say, oh, there's a group of colored people. I've got news for you. Everyone in this room is a colored person, because if you're not, you've got problems. Okay? So we're all colored people, and everyone's related to everyone else. Yeah, let me give you a couple of practical things here. For instance, I was in a church a couple of years ago, and after I'd finished speaking on this, a man walked up on the platform and he had very dark skin, what some people call black, but we need to understand, he's got a dark shade. And he walked up and he looked at me, and by the way, wait till I finish this so you understand where I'm going. Don't jump to conclusions. He looked at me and he said, so we're all the same color. I said, yep. Just different shades. Yep. There's no black or white. I said, no. You know, I voted for President Obama because he was black. Now you're telling me that was a stupid reason to vote for him. And I said, wow. And then I used it as an example for the whole congregation. I said, people, you know something? We shouldn't vote for somebody because they're Democrat, Republican, Independent, black, white, whatever. Whoever it is, we should be judging what they believe and teach against the authority of the word of God and then vote accordingly. You know what? That may change a lot of American politics if the church started doing that. And see, then another church, there was a man and woman sitting over here beside the pastor, a man with his wife. He had very dark skin. She had very light skin. People would call that an interracial marriage. By the way, you can't have such a thing as an interracial marriage that way because we're all in one race. So there is no such thing, right? But you know what people are like in America. Anyway, they're sitting beside the pastor. And so the husband with really dark skin turns to the pastor after I'd spoken and he said, wow, this is great. I'm just pleased to know I'm not married to a white woman. So there's all sorts of practical applications here, okay? Now, what would Adam and Eve have been? Well, and maybe I should give you one other one. You know how in churches with the Sunday schools, we used to sing that chorus, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white. Now you realize, oh, we shouldn't sing it that way. No, well, how should we sing it? Let's see, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Shades of brown, from dark to light, all are precious in his sight. There you are, there's a way of doing it. Okay, so. And wouldn't that send a signal to the kids? Really would. Now, Adam and Eve wouldn't have had all little A's and little B's because then the whole world would be like that. Adam and Eve wouldn't have started with all big A's and big B's, the whole world would be like that. That's not what we see. We see genetic variation, that would lack genetic variation. If Adam and Eve were in the middle, remember like the wolves in the middle, and then they could have children who were dark through the light in one generation. And by the way, there's lots of families like that in the world today, middle brown couples who have children darker than them and lighter than them, everywhere in between. In fact, in a way, they're exciting couples, exciting families. Think about it, what's the next one going to be like? You know, you've got some variability here. National Geographic, back in 2000, had an article to teach people, this is a secular evolutionist magazine, actually it was 2002, to teach people that everyone has the same skin color. And so they put these children from Washington International Primary School all in a line, lined them up to show you you've got more and more melanin until you get to a real dark shade and hear a light shade. See, if this person's sort of as analogous to all big A's and big B's, she marries someone like her, all their children would be like that. This one has analogous to all little A's and little B's, marries someone like her, all their children would be like that. These are more in the middle. So in the middle, if they marry someone like that, their children could be like that all the way through to that. You get the idea? Now it's much more complicated. There are certain genes linked to other genes and so on. It depends on who lives in an area and survives and the sex links genes and all sorts of interesting things. But you get the basic principle, don't you? You get how it could happen. And that's why you can end up with twins like this one, these, in Australia, or these in England. The father was Jamaican and he had very dark skin. The mother was from England. She had very light skin. So you have those twins. I was at one church once and a man called out and he said, now are they identical twins? That's where a speaker says to himself, do I just throw my computer on the floor and walk out? I mean, is it really worth even continuing here? But anyway, I'll assume that none of you are going to ask that question. Okay. So then people say to me, okay, how come then you get some groups that only produce dark skinned people and some groups only produce light skinned people? Well, why do poodles only produce poodles? You get the idea? Think of the Tower of Babel. Over time, if you end up with a group that only has big A's and big B's on their own, that's all they can produce. If you end up with a group that only has little A's and little B's, that's all they can produce. And by the way, very similar for eye shape. You know, you have the almond eye, for instance, and it depends on the amount of fat in your eyelid and some other things as well, but they're only minor, minor differences, really. And that's why the secular world said this. It was in ABC News in 1998. They said, what the facts show is there are differences among us, but they stem from culture, not race. The major differences are cultural, not racial. You see, the Bible's history is true. The Bible's history concerning one man, one woman, Adam and Eve, and then the Tower of Babel, that's the history that explains what we see. And that's what we see in observational science confirms that history. Now, what I want to show you is these are phenomenal. There's a number of these DVDs out there, by the way. We produce six videos that are very fast moving, and they do a whole year's worth of teaching in three minutes. You ready? Well, this one's a bit longer. This is four minutes. Everything I just taught then in the last 45 minutes, we're going to do in four minutes. These are incredibly powerful. I wish we could show these in public schools across America. There's one on evolution, one on the fossils, one on death and suffering, and one on radiometric dating, and so it goes on. But we're going to watch this one. I just want to show you, just as a revision now, you know, a good teacher always revises what they do. Make sure you reinforce it. And to say that, hey, I would encourage you to get this DVD and these videos that are on here and use them as witnessing tools. So fasten your seat belts, make sure your tray tables and seat backs are in the upright position, and your luggage is under the seat in front of you or in the overhead locker. Okay, you ready? Here we go. I hear this one a lot. How can there be so many races in the world if we are all descendants of Adam and Eve? Well, check this out. First off, let's talk about the word race. Sometimes when people use the word, they mean supposed races of people who have evolved at different times, rates, and in different locations. That's not true. Of course, the word race is also a term we use to distinguish between groups with different physical traits, namely skin color. But are there really different races? Take a gander at Acts 17.26, where it is written that God, from one man, made every nation of men. It's clear then that the Bible teaches that there is one race, the human race. The Bible is also clear that all people on the earth are descendants of Adam and Eve, who were created by God. Check Genesis 1.26 through 28. Easy enough. God created two people in his image, male and female, and told them to increase in number. So Adam and Eve are mom and dad of the human race. Then their children had children, and those children had children, and so on and so forth for many generations until, according to Genesis 6.9, the world's population was reduced to eight people who were protected inside an ark during a global flood. And those eight people later walked off the ark, and according to Genesis 9.19, from them came the people who were scattered over the earth. But wait a second. What do I mean scattered? Well, jump over to Genesis 11, and let's talk about an event known as the Tower of Babel. Basically, because of the sinful actions of the descendants of Noah, the Lord confused their language and scattered them from there over all the earth. That's pretty clear and concise. Okay, so we've got lots of people who are descendants of the eight folks who came off the ark, and now they have been scattered all over the earth. That explains that we are still one race, and that different groups of people ended up in different locations. But how do we get a bunch of different colored people if we are all one race? Well, follow along. This, of course, is a simplified explanation that the basic principles are true. We all have a pigment in our bodies called melamine, which, depending on different variables, produces different shades of the one main skin color we all possess. Several genes control the amount of melamine produced and thus the variability in the skin shade. In fact, it's easy for one couple to produce a wide range of skin shade variability in just one generation, as we'll see in just a moment. Time for a quick genetics lesson. DNA is the molecule of heredity that is passed from parents to children. A child inherits 23 chromosomes from each parent. Each chromosome pair contains hundreds of genes which regulate the physical development of the child. However, to illustrate basic genetic principles pertaining to the topic, we'll just talk about two genes, the genes that control the production of melamine. So, let capital A and capital B symbolize versions of the gene that code for large amounts of melamine, while little a and little b code for small amounts. Got it? Easy. Check this out. Take a look at the upper left. Let's say dad contributes capital A, capital B genes, and mom contributes capital A, capital B genes as well. Together, they will produce a child with capital A, capital A, capital B, and capital B. This is a kid with a lot of melamine, and thus he will have very dark skin. Easy to see. Here's the bigger point, though. Let's say dad contributes capital A, capital B, and mom contributes little a and little b. Well, the child's skin will be middle brown shade, the combination of capital A, little a, and capital B, little b, which, by the way, represents the majority of the world's population. Not only that, but if each parent is capital A, little a, capital B, little b, the combinations that could be produced in their children could result in a very wide range of skin shades in just one generation. So, since Adam and Eve were the first people ever, it makes sense to conclude that God placed in them a combination of genes that could produce all different shades of skin we see. Those same combinations would be present in Noah and the seven other people on the board of the ark. And because God dispersed people at the Tower of Babel, he dispersed the population, thereby isolating gene pools in the different people groups. Over time, different cultures formed in different locations with certain features like skin shade becoming predominant. And here we are today, and since we all go back to Noah and his family, it makes sense that we are all different shades of brown, one race, multiple people groups, just like the Bible teaches. Simplified for sure, but enough said. Isn't that exciting? Can you imagine the difference it would make if we showed this in public schools, churches, all across America? People, we need to lead the way out there and tell the truth. You want to deal with a race issue? The Bible's history is what solves it. We've got to get back to God's word. We should be out there proclaiming this. Now, two other things I want to deal with at the end here, and usually I like to deal with these at the end and then leave. Because some people get pretty emotional, particularly about the second one, dealing with interracial marriage. But we're going to do that head on here in a moment. First of all, how many of you have heard of, doesn't mean you believe it, but you've heard of the so-called curse of Ham? Put your hand up. I'm very sensitive to that, having the name of Ham, as you can understand. Now, how many of you have heard of the curse of Ham? Doesn't mean you believe it, but related to skin color, particularly dark skin. Yeah, that's what we've heard in this nation. By the way, there is no curse of Ham in the Bible. It's amazing to me that so many people in America talk about the curse of Ham when there is no curse of Ham. Look at Genesis 9. Ham, the father of Cain, and Ham, the father of Cain. Interesting how it singles out Ham as the father of Cain. Ham, the father of Cain, and I'll come back to that. And then it says, cursed be who? Cain. Cursed be Cain. Now, in Genesis 9, we read that Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him. Most people automatically assume that that was Ham, his youngest son, Ham. Actually, most of the commentaries that I read, and I've read a lot to look into this, would say that the term youngest son, John Gill in his commentary, says that term youngest son in Hebrew there really means grandson. It wasn't Ham, it was Canaan, which would explain why it says cursed be Canaan. Now, it says Ham, the father of that Canaan, singling Ham and Canaan out, and I suggest there's a reason for that. In fact, Ham had four sons listed there in the Bible, Canaan being the youngest. And you know what it's like, I wonder about this, you know, as you have more children, it's sort of, oh man, another sinful creature to bring up for the Lord. And isn't it true that sometimes the more children we have, the more lax we become, we're not as strong with them in the way we train them as we do our first one. We get old and tired, aren't you pleased God doesn't tire dealing with each one of us day after day, generation after generation. But see, I suspect that Ham had, there was a problem with Ham, and you know, when there's sin in one generation that's not dealt with, you usually find it to a greater extent in the next, which you do in Canaan. Canaan did something. Ham stood by while Shapeth and Shem tried to sort out the issue, and so I suspect there's some problem with Ham there too. But really, it's a warning concerning don't raise up a Canaan. Ham, the father of that wicked Canaan. Ham, the father of that wicked Canaan. Look at the descendants of Canaan, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Canaanites, some of the most wicked people that ever lived on earth. And it's really a warning to us not to raise up a Canaan. Don't lose the next generation. Train your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Has nothing whatsoever to do with skin color. And then the other issue I want to deal with is what people call interracial marriage. Of course, biologically, there's no such thing, is there? Because according to God's word, there's only one biological race. And if we want to understand this correctly, we also have to understand about marriage. Now, there's a lot of teaching you can do here, of course, but what's one of the primary importances of marriage? In Malachi 2, the Israelites were divorcing their wives, marrying pagans, and through the prophet, God asks a question. It refers back to Genesis. Actually, it refers back to the one flesh that Eve was made from Adam. It refers back to the doctrine of marriage. Why did God make them one? Why one? Because he sought not just offspring, but what sort of offspring? Godly offspring. See, the family is the most fundamental of all human institutions which God ordained in Scripture. It's the first and most fundamental of all the human institutions which God ordained. And the family is the educational unit of the nation. By the way, the state was never given the right to educate our kids. That was given to the family, and particularly to the father as the spiritual head. The state was given the role of maintaining law and order, but not the right to educate our kids. But that's another issue. But you see, we are to produce godly offspring who influence the world for Jesus Christ, to produce godly offspring who influence the world for Jesus Christ, to produce godly offspring who influence the world for Jesus Christ, generation after generation. Number one, we have to produce godly offspring. And number two, for godly offspring to produce godly offspring, there's another principle we need to look into. Second Corinthians 6.14, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness is lawlessness. What communion has light with darkness, which is not talking about light and dark skin, but spiritual light and spiritual darkness. Bottom line, in marriage, a Christian should never knowingly marry a non-Christian. In other words, the interracial marriage the Bible actually speaks against is the marriage between the two races, the saved and the unsaved. Now, of course, if two people are married and one becomes a Christian, then there's very specific teaching in the Bible about that one being submissive to the other and being a witness to the other to maintain the family and so on, and pray that that other one will become a Christian. But that's a side issue to what we're talking about here. You know, I also use this verse this way. I believe that when Christians take millions of years in evolution, which is really the religion of this age, and add it to the scripture, they're being unequally yoked with unbelievers. So which impending marriage here does God clearly counsel against? Does God clearly counsel against A? Does he clearly counsel against B? Or does he clearly counsel against C? Which one does God clearly counsel against? C, biological fact. All humans belong to one race. Spiritual fact. All humans are divided into two races. What is the difference between the two spiritual races? The direction in which they are racing. There's the broad way and there's the narrow way, right? You know one of the things I've noticed in America? I see families where the mother and father are more concerned their son or daughter not marry someone they think is from a different biological race instead of whether they are of the same spiritual race, which is what marriage is all about and what the Bible is all about. You see because we have the wrong view of history then we have the wrong view of marriage. So important to take God at his word, isn't it? And you know as you think about that then the intermarital marriage that God speaks against is a marriage between the spiritual races. Now caution. If you're from two totally different cultures and you want to get married, I encourage you to have strong counseling. Then again, if you just want to get married, I encourage you to have strong counseling. But the point I want to make is if you're from two totally different cultures you can think so differently. I mean I have visited many cultures around the world and I've learned things that you say in America that you, you know I remember the first time I went to Japan and I said something I thought was funny and nobody laughed. And then I said something serious and they laughed. I found out they just think differently and they laughed at things I didn't think they should laugh at and they didn't laugh at the things I thought they should. That was embarrassing really. But see if you're from two totally different cultures you need to make sure you understand the differences in the way you see and think and speak and so on. Because otherwise there have been marriages that have had big problems because of that because you misunderstand each other. But bottom line, provided there are no other biblical principles that obviously have been broken in regard to a couple, a man and woman, no matter what skin shade, eye shape, ear shape, different cultures they're from, whatever, who both love the Lord with all their heart and all their soul and all their mind want to get married, there's nothing in Scripture that says they can't. And I want to give you an example. Remember Rahab, Rahab the harlot in Jericho? There's a Senator Ham, presumably, Canaanite. The Bible says that the Israelites were not to marry the Canaanites. Yet it would appear that Rahab is in the lineage leading to Jesus. And that wasn't spoken against. Why? Because Rahab stopped being a Canaanite spiritually and became an Israelite spiritually. Once she's of the same spiritual race she's free to marry an Israelite. It wasn't the spiritual, it wasn't the biological races that was an issue because they're all the one race anyway. It was the spiritual races that was the issue. So once you're of the right spiritual race, it's not an issue. Then she'd be free to marry an Israelite. You see, the interracial marriage that God speaks against is a marriage between the two spiritual races. And I want to challenge us this way. And then I just want to mention a little bit about the resources and what's coming tomorrow. And then we'll have a break here in a moment. And that is this. You know, when somebody we meet has some slight differences, and they are only slight. Genetically, the outside, the differences are slight. They might have much darker skin than us, but it's a slight genetic difference. It's about time that we started when we look at people that we deprogram ourselves from looking at the outside and thinking they're major differences. And instead, we look at the person. Do they need our love, their help? Do they need food? Do they need the gospel? What a difference it makes when you do that. In fact, you know, God sets the example for us. You remember when Samuel went to anoint the king and he didn't know it was David. And from the context of what we read there, you can imagine him looking at one of David's brothers and, oh, he's tall and muscly, and he's the football star, if they played football back then. And he's handsome. And obviously, he's going to be the king. Remember what happened? But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So quick applications for us. Next time you're driving down an inner city street and you see a drug deal on the street, might not be the right time to stop your car, park, go witness to them. You may not have a car when you come back. But it doesn't make a difference when you look at them and say, they're my relatives and they're probably going to a priceless eternity. Do you get a burden for them and pray for them right there? Maybe you could seek out an inner city mission that is involved in reaching those people and say, how can I volunteer to help them? How can I support them? And there are such missions, even in the city. Imagine a Christian girl looks at a guy and she says, oh, he's handsome and tall and he's the star and oh, I'd like to go out with him. You're a Christian lady, you know the most important thing? Does he love the Lord with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind? It's not the outside that matters at all, it's the inside. Or a Christian guy looks at a girl, oh, she's so pretty and just the color hair I like and oh, I'd like to go out with her. You know the most important thing? Does she love the Lord with all her heart and all her soul and all her mind? It's not the outside that matters, it's the inside. And you know what? I have a warning for the guys. The outside changes with time. Look at the mother. Oops, sorry about that. You know, about every second time I go away, my wife comes with me now. She also likes to be home with her grandkids as well. So she comes with me every second time and often she'll be sitting over there and I'll say, I remember when she was 17 and gorgeous, beautiful and now, over 40 years later, she's more beautiful than ever. See, I know the right thing to say. And see, the point is this. If you fall in love with the outside, you can fall out of love. But if you choose to love the inside, the person, then you should not fall out of love. It's a very different thing. Well, isn't it exciting when we take God at his word? You know what? You know what I'm saying to you? People, if we just take God at his word, this all makes sense, it explains it all and science confirms it anyway, which is a great thing for today too. It really is exciting. Well, if you want a lot more detail, what I said to you in more detail and also a whole section by Dr. Charles Ware as an African-American pastor, you can get in the book, One Race, One Blood. It's out there on the tables. And also, if you get our Answers magazine and if you subscribe to that, it's for the whole family, even though we have a mini magazine for kids in the middle. And we'll give you your choice of a free DVD for each year you subscribe. But if you get that, we teach you these sorts of things, every issue. In fact, we have 80,000 subscribers on Answers magazine, which is phenomenal for a specialist magazine like that, Apologetics magazine. And then to get the books, again, we have these special combinations for you at discounted prices. You can put combinations of books and DVDs together and you'll get these discounted prices. As I said to you this morning, the three Answer books are the most, we have three Answers books, have 100 of the most asked questions answered with a whole series dealing with what I spoke on tonight. Now, I think we're out of at least one, maybe the whole three, I'm not sure. But tomorrow morning by nine o'clock, we will have another truckload of these books here. And then already gone, I know we're out of that from this morning. I encourage every teen and adult to read that, Why We're Losing Two-Thirds of Young People from the Church. He imports the book of Genesis, we'll have that back tomorrow. And any of these sorts of books that I mentioned to you this morning, we have wonderful Apologetics books out there, How to Know the Bible's True, Demolishing Contradictions, we've got more of those coming as well. How Can You Believe in a Loving God with All the Death and Suffering in the World? Actually, I had a brother younger than me who died of a horrible brain disease and I wrote that book as a result of that. And a lot of people have told me it's really helped them in a special way because it's very down-to-earth book and it has answers because we start with God's word in Genesis and understand that. My brother and I wrote this based upon how our parents taught us and what the Bible says because they built from the scriptures how to raise godly offspring in an ungodly world. I praise the Lord for parents who passed a spiritual legacy onto us that we're now passing onto our children and grandchildren. Books on How Do You Evangelize a Culture That's Changed Foundation. Answers Books for Teens. A book dealing with compromising Christian colleges. We did the research and found it will shock you what we found in Christian colleges across this nation. Gary Parker has books to teach children from a biblical perspective about life before birth and fossils and so on. In fact, this is a great book if you want to teach your kids to make sure that they understand that life begins at conception. And then Gary has some textbooks that will teach you, for instance, this one here, Building Blocks. It'll teach you basic genetics. It's really meant for junior high, even into senior high, and yet it's great for adults to read. And he has an excellent coverage of genetics and the kind issue and species and so on in this one, Creation, the Facts of Life. So I know a number of those we're out of, but by nine o'clock tomorrow morning we'll have them back. And then I said to you, the cream of the crop, our teen adult library pack. We put them together. We ran out of those this morning, but you can actually go and ask. I forget how many we've got coming in the truck, but we've got a number coming and you could actually order that now if you want. We have some of these left, the Kids Answer library pack. And if you buy both of those, then you'll get two free museum tickets. And if you do that in this break and just put your name down and collect your library pack tomorrow, we'll do that for you too. And if we still run out of stuff, if you order it here and pay for it here, we ship it to you postage. We'll pay the shipping. And then our Kids Answers books for junior high, middle school into junior high. These are incredible for that age group and even for mums and dads to use as devotion books with their kids because we have many questions from real kids with simple answers. And then we ran out of these this morning too. We ran out of just a lot of things, didn't we? The Begin book. Remember I said this is one of my favorite witnessing books. We have Genesis 1 to 11, Exodus 20, the book of John, the book of Romans, the last two chapters of Revelation, then a summary in between all of that. So you get a whole perspective of the Bible and then 10 of the most asked questions with simple answers. And then what does it mean to be saved? Great for new believers for witnessing. And we've got a few hundred of those coming up again. I think we had about 800 of those and they've all gone, which is good. But we encourage you to buy multiple copies and give them away, use them as witnessing tools. And we'll have another 600 or 700 tomorrow at nine o'clock. And then we also ran out of my curriculum set, which is the talk I did tonight. There's some individual copies of those out there, by the way. But the talk I did tonight and my other main talks were the whole curriculum to go with it. So we have quite a number of materials out there, the Dragons books for kids, apologetics for ages seven through 12, 30 lessons in apologetics. For little kids, it's a whole curriculum to take you through the museum, teach you through the creation museum. So lots of those sorts of materials. I encourage you to go online at answersandgenesis.org to look at our website. We have a whole series of websites and also look at the materials. Pastor Troy, any announcements or I'll hand over to you and Dr. Gary Parker will be here at 7.30 and you'll hear him confess as to how he used to be an evolutionist and how he repented.