Mark 15:7 – And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.

Amos 1:3 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:

Amos 1:6 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom:

Amos 1:9 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant:

Amos 1:11 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever:

Amos 1:13 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:

Hello readers, thanks for reading today. Hope you are all going well. There’s an answer to this race war. It’ll be a discussion type blog today, but in it, hopefully we see the answer to all of this. I have quoted various verses from the first chapter of Amos, but I suggest reading the book for yourself. Racism, fairness, justice and equality are the flavor of the day again. The race war is on. This isn’t a blog to diminish pain and suffering, nor am I a racist. But today it’s Bible time, the Bible which has a fair amount to say about all these issues. The Bible doesn’t just have the truth, it is the truth… and if our thinking isn’t ordered by and subject to the word of God… we may just be hopelessly lost and aimless in a world of lies. We might end up making a cause and a life that isn’t grounded in truth, that doesn’t actually get anywhere, that doesn’t end up doing any good.

What all this is about is different to what the media has made up. James talks about the power of the tongue, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! It sure has. Satan is in the media business… and just like those scribes and Pharisees that incited the mob to crucify Jesus, there are powers at play stirring up strife. That’s an abomination to God folks, God hates those that sow discord, who stir up strife. Off the bat, we know that these racial tensions are a fulfillment of what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 24 that nation would rise up against nation. Race wars. Black people in America today distinguish themselves by calling themselves African Americans. If you make a distinction between being an American and an African American… you have just created your own divide. Isn’t a black person just as much an American as a white person? Calling yourself an African American creates a sub identity. You want there to a division. Can’t you be an American or Australian with no need for further categorization? Anyway…

I know we think it’s the end days, but Jesus said the end is not yet, these are just the beginning of sorrows. Sounds promising doesn’t it? It seems like one bad event after another at the moment. Fires, earthquakes, pandemic, riots. And things are going to get worse until Jesus Christ returns. Black lives matter is the movement, but don’t all lives matter? See, it’s actually a reminder of and perpetuation of division… black lives matter in itself is a reminder of the difference that exists between black and white in their minds. There are people that stand to gain from division, but the masses are too stupid to see they’re just pawns in a greater political power play. Why are we as humans, black and white… so stupid? Do you want to be a dummy who’s just used by someone else to further their own goals? Those guys that followed Absalom… the Bible says “they went in their simplicity”. They were following the wrong guy, but boy they thought they were onto a winner. You can hook your train to every movement under the sun, but what are you really going to achieve out of it? So many people jumping up and down about change, but don’t even know what that change should really be. It was like that mob in Acts who didn’t even know what they were rioting about. Many people join these movements to feel better about themselves, which is all it’s really ultimately all about. Self medication. We often do “good” things, or things we think are good, just to make us feel better about ourselves..

Though the lines between the nations have become blurred, yet we are seeing the seemingly eternal problems in trying to assimilate nations together. Back at the tower of Babel, God confounded a people who were of one speech, who had a common goal (read all about it in Genesis 11). The Bible says in Acts 17:26 – And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. We as humans are all of one blood. We all come from Adam. But see the last part of that verse… God has set the bounds of their habitation. The formation of nations was a result of God’s judgement at Babel. All these guys had gotten together at Babel, and it was a bad situation. They were disobeying God, they were unified against God’s word. God sent confusion, and they all split. From there you have your nations, national identities. And with national identity there has inevitably come war. Humans have always oppressed each other, go to Genesis 14 and you see the first world war, nations against nations, and the winner making slaves of the other

So fast forward to black America history, when evil white men started fetching black slaves from Africa. It was all about money. They were living out philosophy from Darwin that had so permeated and poisoned their thinking that they thought of black people as degraded, as less human than whites, as an inferior race… and that’s why they treated them worse than animals. It’s inexcusable. It’s wrong. It’s not Christian, it’s not justifiable by the Bible at all, that same Bible which says we all come from Adam, we all were created originally in the image of God. Blacks suffered enormously at the hands of white people. There is no denying that. But the narrative has been twisted enormously by the same token. There’s nothing like rewriting history to also rewrite history’s lessons, as history is a very valuable teacher. Why are we always referred back to Noah’s flood, to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible? Because it teaches us so many things.

The fact is, bringing the blacks to America was a breaking of the bounds that God had put in place. As politically incorrect as this is, nations don’t get along with nations. They never have in history. Living together has always proved hard. There are differences in different peoples. How could you argue against what history teaches? General statements don’t necessarily hold true on an individual level, but nonetheless, history teaches us that nations don’t get along with nations. National identity has frustrated Satan’s plans, the coalescing of a global world united against God in worship of Satan has been frustrated by the differences between humans. National identity is very hated in today’s world as mankind tries to heal the deadly wound to global identity that God dealt at Babel. The push for global identity is great, but endlessly frustrated by race divides. So the blacks were slaves, but black slavery isn’t the only slavery, slavery happened back in the days of Abraham… that’s many thousands of years ago folks. Human history is a history of slavery. We’d all have ancestors who were slaves at one point.

People often talk about God being a racist. People that don’t know the Bible who are experts in the Bible when they think it suits their argument. Everyone talks on the behalf of the Bible, very few know it, and even less know the God of the Bible. Is God himself a racist? Well, God made the races so… that’d be a no. God made a nation of a man called Abraham. Israel is a national entity. God believes in nations doesn’t he. He is addressing many different nations in this book of Amos. He’s not a racist, but you’d call him a racist in this politically correct mad society we live in. When they went into the promised land, they were ordered by God to destroy the nations in there. Is it because they were subhuman? Is it because one was more from a monkey than the other? No. One blood. We are all equally human, we all come from Adam. While Israel was suffering in Egypt as slaves for CENTURIES, these nations were being wicked and heaping their wickedness upon wickedness. They got judged not because they were white or black, or because they were a degraded species, but because they were sinners who hated God and their evil lives reflected that. These nations were so far gone, all that was left was destruction. How far gone are you when no amount of pleading with you can change anything? God pleads with nations, and he will again (read Joel). But many nations didn’t choose God, they chose the devil. They were exceedingly wicked and reprobate. They wouldn’t listen to God, they hated God, what more can you do with a nation like that? That’s why God created his own nation of Abraham, a nation defined by faith in God, but a nation that really never lived up to that throughout history.

So what does the Bible say about slavery? Indeed many condemn God for condoning slavery because God gave Israel many laws regarding slaves. God’s purpose in creating mankind wasn’t for man to be a slave. Man wasn’t created to be a slave. No. Man made himself a slave. Slavery is a consequence of living in a sin cursed world. God gave rules to govern it, and thus slaves of Israel were better off than being slaves of any other nation. Slavery is man’s fault. Humanity fights each other, one dominates the other, the result are prisoners, servants, slaves.  It’s either that or kill everyone. When you don’t kill everyone, you’ve got a whole heap of people that you need to do something with. But onto something interesting…

We easily forget Jesus Christ himself was a Jew. He was born at a time of Roman occupation. He was born into a nation that had been slaves for a great proportion of their existence, and he was born into a nation that were well and truly under Roman domination! Where do you see him blaming the Romans, living a life of sin blaming the Romans? He didn’t come to start a coup, to start a war. He came to save us from our sins. You see, the deliverance that we all, black and white, actually need, and the solution to our lives individually and our national existence… starts at repentance of sin before God. We are starting to get to where the answer lies. We have recently done a blog on Barabbas, but Barabbas was in prison for insurrection. Hmm. An insurrection is revolution, revolt. It’s an action associated with national identity. It’s an uprising against government. Who are these mobs on the streets more like… Barabbas who was in prison for insurrection… or are they Christ like? Are their lives marked by truth, holiness, goodness, forgiveness, mercy, love… or are their lives marked by violence, envy, rage, bitterness, resentment, pride, self?

Barabbas was a rebel,thief and murderer. So he wants deliverance from the Romans while he’s a murderer and a thief, there’s an inconsistency in his cause, in his morality isn’t there? You see at the heart of all this movement and uproar are fundamental hypocrisies, contradictions and inconsistencies which we will touch on which tell you that this whole thing isn’t about any sort of true deliverance or change for the better. When you’re all angry, remember Jesus himself didn’t do a life of sin blaming the Romans. Quite the opposite. Rising up in life isn’t being a murderous thieving blaming rebel like Barabbas, it’s a person forgiven of his sin, made righteous in Jesus Christ, set free spiritually, someone who even against the backdrop of injustice, hard times, inequality.. whatever… has the power and grace of God upon their lives to do right, to make real change. How much change did Barabbas make? None. How much change did Jesus make? His obedience to his Father, his sacrifice of himself… will last for ALL eternity.

When you think the blacks have been exceptionally hard done by… remember, the Jews as a nation have been slaves more than any other nation. They were slaves in Egypt for over 400 years alone. That’s a very long time?  Isn’t that  FOUR times as long as black slavery in America? Was Pharaoh nice to them? Umm, they were in affliction and bondage, their children were getting butchered. It wasn’t a party in Egypt, it was hard work, it was bitter work. Their life was service to a cruel master. Generations grew up and died in it. And after all that, they were enslaved and oppressed by a multitude of nations throughout history from the Philistines to the Babylonians to the Romans. Why were they enslaved? Because they rejected God. The thing is, God has always used captivity and slavery to judge people. He judged his own with that. Things would always get that bad, that reprobate… the nation was beyond dealing with… all that was left was to send judgement to wake them up. Aren’t nations like that today? We are so ripe for God’s judgement… blacks and whites. The winepress of wrath is pretty full, the blood is going to run bridle deep one day.

You’re not going to have any wisdom of this situation without God’s wisdom. It’s just not possible. In Africa, satanism is abundant, these were nations steeped in Satan worship and all sorts of pagan evil practices. So while what happened to them was abominable, they did get exposed to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And many got saved. Everything in life is useless if it doesn’t lead you to the Lord Jesus. So while we love to get in our wolf pack and group identity, actually we are all individuals. If you’re part of that mob seeking justice while looting, burning, assaulting, murdering… can you see how far you’ve missed the whole point? You’re just a wicked sinful person with a sob story as if it justifies your abominable behaviour. Does systemic racism really exist, or is that the copout for you not taking responsibility for your own life? Abel paid for Cain not taking responsibility for his own poverty towards God. Abel got murdered by Cain, when it was all Cain’s fault. How much we like to pin our wrongs on someone else. We live in a society that validates themselves relative to someone else. We gauge our morality by how well someone else is doing. But someone else’s wrong doesn’t make your sin any more acceptable. Just think in all this, God is seeking someone who is looking for more, who is looking for personal salvation, who knows they’re a sinner, who knows they’re their own worst enemy.

I have quoted Amos so we can see something. Amos was a nobody shepherd whom God gave his word to. And his preaching was a lot of judgement. Amos, don’t you have anything good to say? It was judgement coming left, right and center. You know the term “tipping point”? Well these nations had reached it. So many nations, ALL doing evil. You see, black or white, we are all humans, we are all sinners, we all need to repent and be forgiven and saved and made alive in Christ. There’s injustices, unfairnesses, inequalities no matter where you look. Welcome to the world? It lies in darkness, in wickedness. So old Amos is going around preaching the destruction of nations like Edom, Ammon, Gaza, Damascus. Man he’s such a racist, discriminating against these people and that people right? He was targeting NATIONS with his prophecies. Amos you’re a racist, you hate other races… God hates other races… right? But it wasn’t about their skin colour, it was about their actions. They were wicked nations. Furthermore, all the Jewish people may well have heard Amos preaching and been thinking good! Go get em God! Amen Amen Amen! We are so quick to blame others, we are so quick to point at other people’s sin. But Amos’s prophecy wasn’t finished. There is another chapter.

Amos 2:4 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:

Amos 2:6 – Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;

Do you realize what Amos is saying? This is where the Amens stopped. Hey, that’s Judah and Israel getting judged as well? We’re getting judged? Our sin is getting exposed? That’s not supposed to happen! They’re God’s own people, both parts of the divided kingdom (Israel was divided into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon). Nobody’s getting by! You know what… God is the righteous Judge. Everyone’s blaming everyone, but you are to blame for your own sin. When will you take responsibility for your own life? Jesus came to a people justifying themselves because they were Abraham’s children. Hey Jesus, because we are Jews, because we are this line, this race… we are all fine man. But Jesus said that’s meaningless, that isn’t good enough. John the Baptist said God could of these stones raise up children unto Abraham.

The only real identity that matters is identity in Christ. Black or white or indigo or violet, it doesn’t matter, if you don’t have identity in Christ, you are SUNK. And when you have an identity in Christ, there is no black or white. That’s when true change has come to your heart. But unless you believe on Jesus Christ the Bible says we shall all likewise perish. No matter what nation you are, you answer to the same God, not just nationally… but individually you answer to the same God. God’s no respecter of persons, he never has and never will pervert judgement. So when you are all upset at someone else, at another race, God is going to sort out all the injustices. Why not just worry about your own life? Joining this cause and that cause doesn’t excuse your personal sin. No man and no government can deliver you from the curse you are under. There are injustices from a national to individual scale. There is an injustice when a black gang rapes a white woman. When a black man is killed by a white man. When white kills white. When black kills black. When white crooks black, when black crooks white. It is all happening, there are plenty of white officers shot dead by black men. This is a made up cause. How long can you live off blaming things that haven’t affected your life? If any person goes far enough back, he or she has been the victim. And he or she has done wrong him or herself.

It’s funny how the blame game is still on in earnest. Adam blamed God for making Eve. We love to blame. Because when we blame, we make it someone else’s fault and absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions and also legitimize our own actions. Look at Absalom, in his hatred and resentment and bitterness to his own father, he did FAR worse than his father ever did. Maybe, just maybe, you’re more racist than that person you’re accusing of being racist? But is that brand of truth too inconvenient for you? We love being the victim, because in being the victim, we excuse ourselves from answering for our own behavior. Compare Barabbas to Jesus Christ, which are you really more like? Barabbas caused chaos, and did a lot of evil… is that what you are like? While blaming the Romans? The black lives matter movement… like we all care about black lives, like noone cares about black lives. But wait a minute. Who’s taking all the black babies (in the womb) to the abortion clinics? Is evil white man? Or are black mothers and fathers making that decision in the droves? Who’s not fathering their children? Fatherless in black communities is an epidemic, when families are that broken down, which is the cornerstone of society… when you’re not raising the children you are more than happy to sire in sin… yet we are going to blame white men for our problem? Black killing black crime is sky high, why don’t the blacks even care about black lives matter?

Just think about this. What was George Floyd? His treatment and death was wrong, but he was a criminal. He shoved a gun in a pregnant woman’s belly… is that a guy we should be heroing? Blacks don’t love their own children, the fruit of their own bodies, yet they’re making someone else the reason for their calamity. You know what, you, just like white me, we all have problems. Yours may be different to mine. But the solution lies in the same person, Jesus Christ. We need all need deliverance that only Jesus can give. And you know what, black people can and do succeed in America, look at the actors and sportsmen and singers and politicians even the top neurosurgeon.  Did deliverance for the Jews come from blaming Egypt? Did God say, yep, Egypt’s done you wrong son, you go ahead and live in sin and do whatever you want because you were treated bad. No, God gave them the law. They needed law, they needed to know God, that was were their deliverance lay. God said, hey you remember what it was like to be a slave, and you treat others well. That’s what deliverance looks like. Black deliverance, white deliverance comes from the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you want the answer to the race war, look to Jesus Christ. All this race war shows is how reprobate and lost our society is, black and white. Your problem isn’t really your skin colour and how someone has treated you, your problem is between you and God. Without salvation, no cause you find, no amount of protesting, no amount of looting is going to provide you with the redemption and justification you seek. True justification only comes when Jesus justifies you by faith. You think you’ve been on the receiving end of injustice. And maybe you have. Jesus copped it worse than you. What did Jesus get? The Bible says his judgement was taken away. He was wrongly arrested, wrongly accused, wrongly treated, wrongly beaten, wrongly spat on, wrongly crucified. He took your sin and my sin and exchanges his righteousness and purity for our curse. He came to his very own people, and they are the ones who cried out for him to be crucified. Barabbas didn’t do noone any good. He didn’t die for anyone. He didn’t care for anyone. We all need deliverance, just people don’t want the real deliverance. They don’t want deliverance from sin, from blame, from bitterness, from envy, from pride, from lust…  they ain’t interested in that deliverance. These race wars are just a function of people that aren’t right with God, that have never been set free in the spirit. You know, the Jews were just as much slaves out of Egypt as they were in. Because Egypt was in them. An evil heart of unbelief. Look at all their behavior in the wilderness, it was evil upon evil.

God knows about the injustices, God knows about the evil. But each person in this mob is an individual. The answer to the race war lies in finding Jesus Christ. Nothing else can fix this absolute mess. If you are black, you can get everything you are demanding, and it won’t fix anything. Because if you are unsaved, unrepentant, things still aren’t right. You know white people are just as much slaves as blacks in sin? You know you can be a slave and yet free, and free yet a slave? Those people claiming Abraham’s lineage were slaves of sin. So much of this blog wasn’t really about those verses in Amos, but read Amos and you see God is sorting each nation out. Even his own people, they don’t get by. They PARTICULARLY don’t get by. If you’ve come from a family that endured slavery, you need Jesus Christ, not this cause. This cause can’t fix what’s broke. This cause can’t even begin to address what’s broke. Only Jesus Christ can turn evil into good. There’s only a future for those who love God and are saved… be it black or white. You’re rioting about injustice while doing a massive injustice to people’s homes and cars and possessions? Can you not see how lost you are? The only real “change” comes from when someone gets saved. Maybe as a nation and individually, this is all just really a function of the fact you aren’t right with God. George Floyd’s got more justice than many innocent people get, maybe you just have problems with bitterness and envy and resentment. Those things can only be set right by beholding the Saviour who died for the sins of the whole world. He took all the injustices of human history upon himself. The answer to the race war is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, Barabbas was in jail for insurrection. Yes we’ve already mentioned that. He rebelled against the Romans, he was looking for deliverance. He was a rebel, he was a murderer, he was a thief. This whole thing is really just insurrection. Is there a real systemic racism? Or is that just the easy way out? You may reject your Roman lords. But why did the Romans even have command over Jerusalem? Because of thousands of years of rejection of God, and rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact they cried out for their salvation to be nailed to a cross. The true deliverance was found in Jesus, but they chose the false deliverance in Barabbas. You sure you haven’t got this all wrong? The Jews true problem wasn’t the Romans, it was their own sin. It was their religion, it was their fakeness, it as their continual rejection of the prophets God sent them.

The Roman occupation… that was nothing compared to their spiritual slavery. You see, often we don’t want to address what the real issues are in our life. We have a problem, sin, but that goes undiagnosed and untreated while we try and fix the symptoms. Noone’s making black people abort their children, or not father their children, or choose a life of crime with a victim and slave mentality. Salvation starts with the heart, that applies to us all, white and black. And in Christ white and black is no more, but an identity in Christ and a citizenship in heaven. This world is broken, don’t be part of that mob that bayed for their Saviour’s blood, be that centurion who amongst it all looked at Jesus on the cross, and see for yourself the Son of God crucified in your place for you. You want deliverance, are you looking for it in Barabbas… or in Jesus Christ? Their deliverance they thought came from looking an innocent man look bad. That’s what the trial was all about. They set up liars, they lied, they bore false witness. They made an innocent man pay for their sin. You want deliverance? You want an answer? The Lord Jesus Christ. Just believe on him. He it is that will set you free, he is the true answer to this race war.

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