I just returned home from attending a wonderful conference, Speak Truth in Your Heart, hosted by Sarah Mally Hancock and her Bright Lights faculty, at the Ark Encounter. It was the best conference I have ever attended with so much scripture and spiritual content, wonderful worship music, courtesy, and kindness. I left feeling like I knew a little more what Heaven may be like.

The purpose of the conference is to teach girls from a young age to replace lies they are believing with God’s truth. It encourages them to be saved and develop a relationship with God, making Him front and center in your life before anyone else. It encourages them to stay in God’s word, memorize scripture, and to live out Psalm 1:1-3. Mothers and grandmothers come for the purpose of learning things they may never have been taught at an earlier age so they can pass it on to the next generation. At the conference the importance of knowing your foundation, knowing God and exposing lies, knowing your identity in Christ, controlling your emotions and using them for Christ, resisting temptation with truth, and trusting the Bible from the very first verse until the end was stressed in the sessions. For more information on future conferences and Biblical resources— go to: tomorrowsforefathers.com.

Ken Ham spoke at one of our sessions and on the afternoon of the second day, we were able to tour the Ark. I highly recommend both the conference and a visit to the Ark.

As Ken Ham spoke, and after reading the information at the Ark Encounter on the sons of Noah and their wives, I came to the conclusion, if everyone realized that we are all one race, then there would be no room for even having the term racist. If you decided to use that word, you would be including yourself in a derogatory statement.

In Ken Ham’s session we were reminded that everyone came from Adam and Eve and that God created man (and woman) in His own image.

EVERYONE

Acts 17:24-26 spells it out very clearly: “God that made the world and all things therein….seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth….”

With the dispersion of people throughout the earth by God at the tower of Babel, and as these people moved into “people groups”, changes had to happen based on adaptations to new environments and the intermingling of DNA.

Melanin gives color to the skin. The more you have, the darker your skin will be. At the session with Ken Ham and a tour of the Ark Encounter, you find that most people are a “middle brown”. It is thought that Adam and Eve were a “middle brown.” Once the flood happened and no one was left on earth except Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives, the generations started again. The Ark’s depiction of their domestic quarters showed Shem with a “middle brown” wife. Japheth had a light skinned wife with blue eyes, and Ham had a very dark skinned wife. All the son’s tended to be more of the “middle brown” and the information provided noted that more of the DNA changes of skin tones, eye shapes and colors, and the other various traits, probably came through the different wives they had married.

I have always been fascinated with the story of Moses, when Aaron and Miriam condemned him for marrying an “Ethiopian” woman. (Rabbinical scholars are unsure if this was his first wife, Zipporah; a second wife in addition to Zipporah; or a replacement for Zipporah because she may have died by this time.) Numbers 12:1 says, “And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” Moses apparently did not see “race” but saw a people group. Miriam and Aaron saw a race. God came down and spoke to them. When God left, Miriam had leprosy and Moses had to pray for her healing. God was not displeased with Moses. God defended him. (You can read the full story in Numbers 12).

Another fascinating book of the Bible to look at is Song of Solomon. In chapter one where Solomon is writing of the beginning love story between himself and a Shulamite woman she describes herself in this way: “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me:” (Song Of Solomon 1:5-6a).

It seems that the men who followed God strongly and sought wisdom from Him, understood we are all descended from Adam and therefore one race. The warning from the Bible comes not from marrying someone that looks a little different from you, but from being “unequally yoked” with a non-Christian. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”

In a conference session entitled “Lies, Guys, and Purity”, Sarah and her husband, Andrew, addressed the lie: “It is okay to date an unbeliever as long as I don’t actually marry him.” Sarah spoke of the powerful emotional bonds that develop when girls date a guy. She equated it to this example: “It’s okay for me to swish this poison around in my mouth if I don’t swallow it.” That is the best example to use for any sin you are tempted to do. Thinking deeply about it can make you stop. Try swishing anything around in your mouth and then try not to swallow. What a great picture to have ready in your mind the next time you are tempted by any sin. And just — Don’t put the poison in your mouth.

One day many of us will be in heaven together. We won’t care what color anyone’s skin is as we worship together, but everyone there will have to had made the decision on earth to confess Christ as LORD and turn to Him. So—what is the most important thing to be looking at in others? The things that make them different from us, or whether they know Christ? And the next question is — How can we make sure all our relatives from Adam and Eve get there to worship with us?