Exodus 6:6-7 says, “Therefore say to the children of Israel: “I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”
“I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”
God Knows
For anyone who has been to a football, baseball, basketball or soccer stadium they are familiar with the voice calling the game. It is the voice of a human being; a man or a women who is present, and who has been given the task of describing the action.
They call out, and describe the plays, fouls, and scoring drives; the voice you hear rings of truth; truth that is affirmed by your senses; your eyes, ears and ability to think and reason.
The voice describes what you see, what you observe, what you experience from your seat in the stadium. And, as for people listening on their radio, or sitting comfortably in their den watching TV, the voice is but an echo of what they see and hear.
Interaction with our families and communities, our personal experiences, education, as well as history and social norms work together to shape the foundation of our knowledge and what it is to know what we know.
You know what you know, and what you know is the foundation of knowledge. You have knowledge about yourself; you know your hands, feet, face and hair. Doesn’t matter if someone tells you, you don’t have feet, hair, etc., you know what you know.
The actions of people, the events that take place in nature and society; and everyday living, define what we know; we drink water because we know it is water, we eat food because we know it is food. This is the nature of knowledge; true knowledge has the innate ability to transcend one generation to another.
God said too Moses, “Say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgements.”
God revealed Himself to Moses amid a burning bush. Moses saw the fire coming from the bush, then he heard a voice rise out of the burning bush. Moses sees with his eyes, and hears with his ears, as God reveals Himself.
God’s voice was audible, and His words were prophetic in nature. God spoke of future events that would take place in the lives of the Hebrew people, who were slaves in Egypt.
Moses listened, and God described future events that would transcend the realm of belief and manifest in social action, and activity that all of Egypt would experience.
God knows Moses, and God reviled Himself too Moses. He revealed Himself to Moses within the history of Egypt, to ensure that not only Moses, but that all of Egypt would know God.
It was not Moses’ story, nor Moses’ activity alone, wherein the Egyptians came to know God. God’s conversation with Moses manifested in social, political and supernatural activity; activities that changed the day to day lives of all Egyptians.
Who is God
God tells Moses, “Say to the children of Israel, “I am the Lord,”and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you of their bondage.”
The children of Israel, are Africans who identified with their ethnic heritage. Their ethnic heritage leads back to Jacob, who was Abraham’s grandson. The Israelites are descendants of Jacob, therefore, descendants of Abraham.
Genesis 32:24 says, “Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me?”
“So He said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Genesis 35:9-11 says, Then God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Padan Aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel.
Verse 11 says: “I am the God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.”
There is the sense that when God changed Jacob’s name to Israel; it signified the birth of a new beginning. The name Israel is symbolic in nature; it is a name that represents the birth of a nation of people chosen by God.
Israel is a family, and through Israel God’s plan to bless the world will be fulfilled.
When you hear people say, God is sovereign; it simply means God can do whatever He wants. God’s power has no limit, and no boundaries. When God declared that Jacob would be called Israel; it was a manifestation of His Sovereign will.
Not Jacob, but God was the head of the family; God was the Father, Creator, Leader, King and Judge. And as Israel evolved through time, it would be governed by reconciliation to God, no matter the circumstance or situation.
On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man stood there in the streets of Ferguson with his hands up in the air. Even so, he was shot by a white police officer 6 times, killing him, and his body was left laying in the streets for 4 hours.
Like Michael Brown, unarmed Black men and women are being killed by police at a higher rate than Asians, Mexicans and Whites in the United States.
Giving respect to the families; and respect and honor for their lives and memory: Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Botham Jean, Stephon Clark, Aura Rosser, Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner.
Theses Black men and women were all unarmed when killed by police officers; most of them white police officers.
In 2019, there were 235 Black people killed by police. And, here in 2020; 142 Black people have already been killed by police officers.
All of us remember February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin was killed by want to be police officer, George Zimmerman. People all over the world grieved with the Martin Family.
And, on May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis. The killing was so egregious, that people all over the world took to the streets, to protest police brutality.
In Niger, a country in central Africa, at least 1,476 Black people were killed by authority figures acting on behalf of the State.
In Nigeria, 841 Black people were killed by police officers in 2018. And here in 2020, Nigerians who are detained by the police unit, SARS are subject to a variety of methods of torture including hanging, mock execution, beating, punching and kicking, burning with cigarettes, waterboarding, near-asphyxiation with plastic bags, and sexual assaults.
In Brazil, State data reports that of the 885 people killed by police in the first half of 2019, 80 percent, or 711 were Black people.
Black people in the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, Europe, Saudi Arabia, India and the world over are heavy burdened, and many of them are in bondage.
Black people are not only being killed with impunity, but all over the world they are denied basic human rights.
The Arab Slave Trade, followed by Atlantic Slave Trade exported Black people to all parts of the world, and with that bing the case; perhaps, there was a supernatural revelation involved.
God Almighty told Jacob, Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.”
Genesis 46:27 says, “And the sons of Joseph who are born to him in Egypt were two persons. All the persons of the house of Jacob who went to Egypt were seventy.
Joseph’s father was Jacob (Israel); Jacob and seventy members of his household entered Egypt. And so, Jacob (Israel) and his entire family (Israelites) were subjects of Egyptian Pharaohs and lived among Egyptian people.
Jacob and his family entered Egypt a party of about 70 people, and after 430 years Moses is called by God to lead them out of Egypt. It is estimated that a mixed multitude of more than a million Africans left Egypt with Moses.
It is certain that 99.9 percent of the Israelites who left Egypt with Moses, were born and lived their lives in Egypt, which is in Africa.
And after 430 years of living in the African climate, and intermixing with Egyptians, any physical variance between the Israelites and Egyptians would have been genetically eliminated.
And so, while living in Egypt, the Israelites acknowledged their ethnic heritage, but what is ofter overlooked is that by todays standards, the Israelites were Black people; i.e., Egyptian nationals. The historical birthplace of the Israelites is the Motherland; i.e., Africa.
The people who left Egypt with Moses, were people of African decent. And, what is often glossed over is the fact that thousands of Israelites, also known as Hebrews migrated to the Southern part of Africa, instead of Near East Africa (referred to in the bible as the promise land).
Consequently, many of the Black people who were Enslaved by Arabs and Europeans are the descendants of Israel or the Israelites. Of the millions of Black people who comprise the African Diaspora, many are descendants of the ancient Israelites/Hebrews.
Slavery, bondage, suffering, displacement, dying; nothing has been able to diminish God’s covenant with His people. Black people know that they are God’s people, and that there is only one God; i.e., the God who reveal Himself to Moses, appointing him to lead Israel out of bondage in Egypt.
For Black people who were dispersed from Africa, and their descendants, God is not a hypothesis, nor is he a theory. Black people know God, they talk to God, and God hears them.
Jacob and Moses both used their voices to describe the action taking place in the stadium of life. Their voices described manifestations of God’s power over human beings, animals and nature.
The ancient Israelites left Africa only after seeing, and experiencing the supernatural power of God. The manifestation of God’s power was the impetus of Israel’s exodus from Egypt.
The African people, who identified themselves as Hebrews, Jacobs descendants, the Israelites came into the knowledge of God in real time, life and living.
God appeared, interacted and spoke to Jacob. God caused the plagues to befall all of Egypt. God initiated supernatural activity and events that were observed by an entire nation, tested by the ruling hierarchy, and verified by outcomes.
African and it’s people; i.e., Israel is not a myth, belief or fictional story; Israel is a modern day nation; it is a testimony to events that took place in history and moved forward with time.
Simon Brown, an ex-slave said: The folks would sing and pray and testify and clap their hands, jus as if God was right there in the midst of them. He wasn’t way off in the sky. He was a-seeing everybody and a-listening to every word and p-promising to let His love come down…. yes sir, there was no pretending in those prayer meetings. There was a living faith in a just God Who would one day answer the cries of His poor black children and deliver them from their enemies. But the slaves never said a word to the white folk about this kind of faith.”
God knowing you, is why you know God.
The text says, “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”
In his book, Shifting Your Paradigm; For Optimum Health and Longevity, Dr. U-Shaka Craig, quoted Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop: “The history of Black Africa and Black people will remain suspended in the air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt.”
The cultural, as well as, the foundations of Judaism and Christianity were developed in Egypt, that is, in Africa. African – Americans, African – Caribbeans, African – Brazilians, African – Columbians, Afro – Europeans, African – British, African – Arabs, African – and Asians all have genetic, historical, and spiritual connections to their ancient African ancestors.
The world we live in today has all but banished the history of Africans to the backwoods of modern culture. Modern culture would have us to believe that God’s revelation, and presence among our ancestors is a myth; no more than religious stories that cannot be proved.
The modern world strives to hide and deny the history, relations, and connections between Afro-descendants, their ancient ancestors, and God who said, “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.”
But the texts says: “Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” The word “know,” is translated from the Hebrew word yaw-dah.
To know God, that is yaw-dah has the meaning of taking notes; observation and recognition of what you see. It is to acknowledge and comprehend (the way we know our mothers, fathers, siblings).
The meaning is captured in, 2 Samuel 3:25: “Surely you realize that Abner the son of Her came to deceive you, to know your going out and your coming in, and to know all that you are doing.”
And so, our African ancestors were chosen to know God; He is not a static God, stuck in ancient times among our ancestors.
Scriptures are not only written to record the history of ancient people, scriptures are inspired, and so, the scripture is layered, and the top layer is the revelation of God, i.e., God making Himself know to generations of people; past, present and future.
Jeremiah 9:24 says, “But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth.”
The Egyptians took notes as the prophetic voice of Moses warned Pharaoh that plagues would be unleashed on the land of Egypt one after another until he released the Hebrew people from bondage.
Their were ten plagues; the water turned to blood, dust turned into insects, the air became thick with flies, unrelenting hail rained down, and thunder roared over the land.
Exodus 12: 29-31 says, And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the first born in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.
As a result of the tenth plague, “There was not an Egyptian household where there was not one dead.”
God caused Pharaoh’s heart to become hard and unyielding; it paved the way for God to reveal Himself and His power. Pharaoh defied Moses, believing he was defying God.
In all that Moses and his brother Aaron said and did, left to themselves, they could not prove the existence of God.
But, God was with them, and the events that took place ushered Moses, his brother Aaron, Pharaoh and the Egyptian people into the knowledge of God.
Truth, like knowledge can hold up to the test. Knowledge is verifiable; it transcends speculation, and is present and secured in human activity, social practices, norms.
The liberation of the Hebrew people from bondage in Egypt and their subsequent freedom has it’s origin and is the result of prophetic promises.
The origin of the human race is present in the text ascribed to have been written by Moses. Genesis 2:7 says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
Genesis 2:22 says, “Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to man.”
God knows who we are, He created us. And here in this modern age there are no innately good Black people and there are no innately evil White people.
Dr. Ife Kilimanjaro, African Time; There is only the human race who now exist, and have populated the earth. The human race has evolved into many different phenotypic variations based on climate.
There is no innate superiority. Human beings reflect where they settled, and variations in their appearance result from innate genotype and phenotype adaption too different climates after long periods of time.
All humans initially originated in Africa, then walked out to people the world. Skin color is a superficial difference based on climate and the amount of ultraviolet light affecting pigmentation.
When Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, used his knee to choke the life out of George Floyd, tens of thousands of people from every walk of life came together to protest the senseless taking of a man’s life.
People of every nation, race, and ethnicity walked out of the safety of their homes amid a pandemic to join the human race in proclaiming “Black Lives Matter.”
The Coronavirus has infected over 40 million people and become the cause of death of over 1.3 million people throughout the world.
It is God’s breath that made us livings beings; it is God’s breath that sustains our lives and when God withdraws His breath, we die. And so it is, we are born and we die.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.”
God, who is present in the most sacred and inner parts of our bodies, knows us better than we can ever know ourselves. He knows us in life and He knows us in death.
The Apostle John took some notes as Jesus prayed. The prayer is for all believers, and is recorded in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John.
Beginning at verses 25, Jesus prayed: “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
God promised Jacob, who’s named He changed to Israel that, “A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.”
Black people are on every continent, and they are descendants of God’s chosen people; people who know God, and were pre-destined to the work of nation building.
Out of the manacles of slavey came Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington and Fredric Douglas.
Out of the black codes of Jim Crow, came Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and Rev. Jessie Jackson.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and the American Baptist Church; since their inception, they have validated Black lives; while advocating on behalf of God’s lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness.
Barry Gordy, and Motown became home to Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and many other Black men and women who grew up in the church, and went on to become international icons.
Their gospel roots transcended their music and touched the lives of all people; rich and poor, black and white. It touched drugs addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and people behind prison bars giving them hope and making their days and nights better.
The scholarly works of Cornell West, James Cone, Toni Morrison, Henry Gates Jr., Cain Hope Felder, Dwight Hopkins, Claud Anderson and so many others took the world stage, dispelling doctrines that Black people are inferior to white people.
The Civil Rights protests are the parents to the Black Lives Matter protest. The presence of Black people in the nations of the world ensure that fight for truth, justice, equality and love are rooted in the foundations of social evolution.
The Black presence in the nations of the world, will forever perpetuate the knowledge and power of prayer, as we take part in transforming the troubles of this world into spiritual consciousness, courage, perseverance, kindness, gentleness, righteousness, and love.
The resilience of Black people is anchored in their being God’s chosen people.
God loves us so much, that He gave to all people who would receive Him, His Son Jesus Christ. Romans 10:9 says, “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
When Jesus walked the earth, He snatched the fiery darts of this hellish journey out of our hearts and minds. And He gave meaning to our hope and faith in better todays and tomorrows.
The war is ongoing, and the battles are many; but we will not quit, give up or surrender. We will march, we will stand, we will sing and shout until God returns and ushers us into our new homes, homes not made with our hands.
Thomas A. Dorsey “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”
Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand, I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m lone, Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home,
When my way grows dreary precious Lord, linger near, When my light is almost gone,
Hear my cry, hear my call, Hold my hand lest I fall, Take my hand precious Lord,
lead me home,
When the darkness appears and the night draws near, And the day is past and gone
At the River I stand, Guide my feet, hold my hand, Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home,
Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand, I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m lone, Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on to the light,
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
