God Has A Dream

"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." Genesis 11:7-9

Under the topic of the dispersion of people around the world, a Christian evangelist says, "The Bible tells us Adam was the first man. That his wife, Eve, was the mother of all the living. This means we’re all descended from Adam and Eve. And we’re all one race or one blood as Paul says in Acts chapter 17. So why do we look a little different? Well, the Bible gives us the history to understand that too! The global Flood reduced the population to just eight people—Noah’s family. Eventually, Noah’s descendants rebelled against God, so at Babel, God divided their languages. It forced them to spread out and fill the earth. These new language families took their distinct genetic characteristics with them, and, over time, people groups and cultures arose." This, in short, gives the explanation for why we have what has come to be known as different "races" of people. The idea of their being different races is both spiritually and scientifically incorrect. On August 28, 1963, during his "I Have A Dream" speech, the Reverand Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Some sixty years later we have made tremendous strides on some levels, but have regressed in others. Today, in an effort to eliminate racism, we have inadvertently kept it alive. We have decided that rather than to judge a person by their character, as King dreamed, we separate ourselves not only by skin color but by behavior and endless other differences. It is something I call the "hyphenated American Syndrome." It has become second nature to identify ourselves as African-American, White-American, Mexican-American, Asian-American and so on. Plus, we now have added behavioral and psychological traits to the mix and you don't know how to refer to a person without being labeled as some sort bigot if you misidentify them. Yet, in the midst of this development people will still make calls for unity. To which I ask, "How can you be unified when you demand to be identified by what makes you different?" The fact is, you cannot have unity this way. The only way to rectify this problem is to find a biblical solution.

In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul was preaching in Athens on the subject of the "Unknown God" when he said, "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings (Acts 17:26)." With one sentence Paul establishes the fact that there are no different races. There is only one race; the human race. Differences in skin color are a byproduct of the dispersion of mankind at the Tower of Babel when God confused the languages of the people. This confusion led to the isolation of different people groups and they spread out across the world. Later, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28)." When a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ they are now identified as a child of God. This takes the focus off all our individual differences and puts it directly on Jesus Christ. You end up realizing that from God's perspective there are not different races. From God's perspective, a person is either spiritually alive to Him through faith in Jesus Christ or spiritually dead to Him because of their rejection of Jesus Christ. By removing skin color from the equation all you are left with is the character of each individual. It is only by accepting the salvation offered by Jesus Christ that we can begin to see the "dream" of Martin Luther King, Jr., realized. On that day when we all stand before God, it is not going to matter one bit what "race" you belong to. All that will matter is whether or not God knows you or not. For a born again Christian, they can take comfort in the words of Jesus Christ when He said, "I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me (John 10:14)." For those who reject Jesus Christ, they will hear God say, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness (Matthew 7:23)!" As we celebrate the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., let us remember that God has a dream as well. God's dream is that He is "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)."