Truly offended! what should be the answer?

How should we relate to what is happening right now in this nation? Should we take up arms against the dominant political process or should we affirm and strengthen it, how do we reconcile our desire for justice with the need for the law to prevail, where is the grace, where is the love? it is a swarm of contradictions and the children of God need advice from their pulpits, from their spiritual leaders.

I launched myself into that preaching in the Name of the Lord and I know that even here among us who are Latinos, and that I believe that theologically there is more unity in certain areas, I believe that right here if we took an exam there are many who think one way and others who think another, and they are all pious Christians who love the Lord and who love the truth, and are people of mercy and love, and yet we are divided with each other.

These events lately, these marches that have taken place remind us that it is necessary to talk about these things, that is why I have postponed the series that we were preaching to do what I think we should. In other words, if there were no comment from this pulpit at this time, I think it would be a very serious and serious omission, you need to listen and be encouraged to think about these things in biblical terms, and that is what I am I propose to do in a moment this afternoon.

And that is why this passage from Genesis 34 presents us with a situation of extremities, of bitter feelings in a sense of offense. Part of what is driving this nation right now in its actions is that people feel offended, people feel threatened in their interests. There are different groups in this nation that feel neglected and mistreated, working class whites, people from rural areas, people who feel that their government has previously neglected them, that they are being economically mistreated, that their rulers have forgotten them, those regions of appalacha, the south, rural, of the white working class and that have left instead of defending their interests, they have gone after homosexuals, what they call identity politics, identity politics, addressing groups of interest and complaint that scream a lot and demand a lot of attention, and that therefore attention is given to them at the expense of an entire sector of the nation.

So the whites, let's say of the class, blue collar that they call, workers feel that the government has gone after issues of homosexuality, to attend to people who are on welfare, to not attend to the laws of the nation and then allow that a wave of undocumented immigrant people enter the nation at the expense of the workers of the United States, they are aggravating social services, schools, demanding health care, insurance and all that type of thing taking away jobs, and that is the perception of this sector of America that is resentful as you cannot imagine and that its young people are seeing, as we see here for example, many of the homeless people who are using drugs today, it is called the opioid crisis, it is affecting whites why?

Because I believe that before, what was only the territory of blacks and Latinos is now also getting into the white working class and is also affecting that class, because that's how sin is. When a nation neglects its foundations, evil creeps in and starts with the weakest but sooner or later reaches other groups that have no moral or spiritual support, this nation is experiencing this.

On the one hand, there is that class that also has another group within it, that not only have economic or social complaints but that there is real evil within them, they want to go back to the times of lynching African-Americans, they want to go back to the times of the slavery and suppressing black rights here in this nation, they want to go back to the days of white supremacy.

And among those elements, let's say reasonable, there are also diabolical groups that are taking advantage of this opportunity and the enemy is also interfering because that is what happens, when these things are clear, all kinds of evil come inside and corrupt.

So there are also anti-Semitic groups that are attacking the Jewish people because they believe that the Jewish people are the source of all evil and all bad doctrine, all corruption and all economic oppression, and they are anti-Semites, and they are also anti-blacks, racists, and they got in, and this then turned into a ball of anger and terrible threat.

But then there are also the Afro-Americans who, with their past injuries and all the offenses they have experienced, feel that the status of generals from the South who fought to maintain slavery are an insult to their dignity, they also feel attacked and feel increasingly that they pass for a general with his sword out and his huge horse that fought for slavery, they feel like this nation is not taking their offenses into account, how they feel and that those things should be torn down, they should be completely removed, that part of history must be completely erased.

These other groups then react against that and say: see? that is what we have here, the abuse of minorities who are getting away with it and wanting to erase the history of our nation, and are not taking into account our sensitivities, they do not see these statues as something offensive nor a glorification of the slavery or anything like that but as part of the history of their relatives, grandparents, parents, siblings that they also lost in that war, and that they have a place that way, and that they want to honor then, that other group sees it in a totally different and offensive way.

Then there are the homosexuals who feel oppressed on their part, there are the undocumented immigrants who feel violated in their aspirations and not cared for in the fact that they have been here for decades, have children here, have businesses, have homes here, and their government supports them. What he wants is to remove them without any kind of mercy, to prevent them from having access to their dreams and their aspirations, and that they are also partly right in this process.

Now a question: all those interests and all those senses of grievance, and offense, and need that compete with each other and that society does not have enough elasticity or space to include them all because that is the thing, how do you put hundreds of interests and people without that ship sinking or breaking into twenty thousand pieces, the whole ship sinking with all the people inside, how can one accommodate interests and worldviews, including mutually exclusive spiritualities that sooner or later they are going to destroy each other unless there is a resolution? and that is the great dilemma of this nation at this moment.

And the Word of the Lord has advice for us, and I am simply framing this terrible process that we are experiencing at this time because we need to pray a lot for this nation, for the world because interestingly what is happening here is happening in many other parts of the world too.

In Barcelona, four or five days ago, fourteen people lost their lives and a hundred-odd people are terribly injured and run over by a car led by a seventeen-year-old Muslim who went into Las Ramblas, we have been there last year walking through those streets and it is a very historic, very special area of Barcelona, an incredibly beautiful city and there all those lives were run over in the cruelest and most terrible way by Muslims who also have a great sense of complaint with the West, and these terrorists also have their own grievances, and they want to settle them with everyone else with violence by forcing their point of view on others in the most costly, most terrible, most destructive, most cruel ways.

The world is like this, be it England, be it Holland, be it France, Germany, Poland, everywhere you look there is today a terrible division in the world, and only the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we believe, can free us and give us the path to continue.

And what I want is to fertilize you and my own life with what the Word of the Lord says, give me a little while, okay brothers? to take this off and fray it in front of you, I hope it is a blessing, I believe that this is part of the education of the people of God.

This passage from Genesis 34 was given to me by the Lord several months ago in other contexts but it is very applicable to us and I am going to read this segment of the history of Israel so that you can see how similar it is to our nation, which was given three thousand plus years ago. This affected the sons of Jacob at the very beginning of God's people. “And Jacob had a daughter named Dinah” and Dinah is a very tragic character in Scripture.

It says that Dinah went for a walk, to walk on the earth, she is the daughter of Leah, one of Jacob's wives, "Dinah the daughter of Leah, who had given birth to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the country." She says that she went to visit her friends, she went to visit maidens that she knew in different parts of the Earth. Unfortunately for Dinah, she was a very beautiful, very attractive woman and Shechem, the son of Hamor, a Hivite from a pagan tribe, a tribe that was around the Jews, “prince of that land, saw her, and took her, and slept with her, and dishonored her." Siquem, a noble, powerful young man, sees this beautiful Jewish maiden and desires her, and falls in love with her, and he took her, he says violently, with violence, he took her and dishonored her, can you imagine in those times how dishonorable it was for a maiden having sex with someone other than her husband, and it doesn't matter that she wasn't part of what was happening, that it was forced, she was dishonored, her life was damaged, it dishonored her.

But look at this, what happened to Shechem, that "his soul clung to Dinah, the daughter of Leah." What began as a bestial animal appetite, a purely physical desire ends in love, a crush on this young woman. Shechem falls in love with her, "his soul was attached" he says it in a very poetic way, "but he fell in love with the young woman, and he spoke to her heart" the text in English says that he spoke tenderly to her, he spoke tenderly to her Dyne. What words will Shechem have shared with Dina? Perhaps he expressed his love to her, perhaps he wanted to speak to her soul and comfort her, and he told her: don't worry, Dina, I'm in love with you and I'm going to fix things with your family, I want to marry you.

And what happened to Dina? we are not told much about Dina's feelings because we are talking about three thousand years ago and the Bible is not writing a novel, it is summarizing events, and women are simply not given the same, and in this case it was simply a summary of what had happened, did Dina fall in love with Shechem? Will she have listened to his arguments? Could she have been convinced by his words of love and tenderness? she was a woman from three thousand years ago in the Middle East, perhaps women at that time did not see things as we see them at that time.

Perhaps for us it is scandalous and: no, how will she forgive this scoundrel who disgraced her? It is possible that Dina accepted the arguments, besides, what was left for her? no one was going to want to marry her, she was miserable for life and possibly condemned to live all the years of her life in shame without being able to marry, a burden on her family, and it is possible that Dina, upon hearing the arguments of this noble, powerful young man, said: hey, okay, let's get married, let's go ahead with this process.

And then the father of this young man, it seems that the young man spoke to him and said: father intercedes for me before this family that must be totally offended and will not want to know anything about me, talk to them and offer them a way to fix things, I want you to see what is being set up here, it is a theater, it is a scene of the correct offense.

These relatives of Dina have every right in the world to feel anger and hate for what has been done to their sister. At no time does the Bible, at this time or in any other instance, endorse the rape of a woman, abuse of a woman in any way, be it sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, denigration of any kind in the context of marriage or outside of it. of marriage, the Bible abhors the abuse of women, let that be clear, and also of men if possible, right? There is no effort here to, like, lessen Shechem's terrible act.

But there is a very interesting complexity here and in this time in which we live in America it is the same. Many groups have been offended, truly offended, and have every right in the world to feel truly angry about what they have suffered and been through, but what should the response be? is what one wonders at this time, where everyone is offended and we all have the right to ask for a little bit of justice, and where if we continue in this way there will never be peace in this nation because everyone is asking for justice and there is no Enough justice to distribute to everyone. What does the Word of Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus ask for in the face of offense and grievance?

What does the Bible tell us? if you are offended, take up the sword and fight back? If you are offended, take your adversary before the judge and demand what you are, we are not saying brothers either, the courts exist to resolve conflicts in a peaceful way, but the Word of God also speaks a lot about grace, right? of forgiveness, of mercy, of forgiving the offense, of heaping embers of fire on those who persecute us, loving them, forgiving them and giving them food and drink, yes or no? What is the center of the salvation message of the Gospel? that Christ came to take enemies and make us one people.

That's what we talked about last Wednesday, Christ removed the wall of separation, he said he removed the enmities that existed between man and God, the Gospel comes to reconcile God who is terribly offended by the sins of man, by His creation that has denigrated him to Him, who has not given him the care and respect, and the reverence that He deserves, and who have given it better to the lizards, and to the cows, and to creation instead of giving it to Him, and to man He has sinned terribly against God but God, says the Bible, who is great in mercy, slow to anger, when we were plunged into sin says that he sent Christ to save us, God did not give us what we deserved for our offenses but He gave us reconciliation, forgiveness and grace.

Christ is the example and the Bible invites us to the same type of behavior, and that is what is terrible, what is hard. Taking that pill requires a very high level of morality and it is what God asks of us. And today there are many people who have the right to feel offended and to demand justice, but I believe that the Gospel invites us to do something different. In this case there is no doubt that this man did something terribly offensive and criminal, and that there is every right to demand the law of retaliation, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But what does the Bible still say in this passage? in the beginning, the Book of Genesis is the first Book as we understand how they are written. At the very dawn, at the very beginning of the history of the people of God, Israel, and later Christianity, we see that the concept of grace, mercy, forgiveness, tolerance of the offender, of not returning evil for evil, but good for We see it here already suggested in a very strong way and I believe that this is what God is calling us to in these times in this nation of so many grievances and so many offenses to us to exercise the same type of mercy and meekness in the face of offenses that they are reprehensible.

Then Shechem tells his dad: dad go and talk, he says, take this young woman for me, go and ask Dina's parents for her hand and ask them for forgiveness on my behalf, and let's see how we can fix this and solve it. “But Jacob heard that Shechem had sullied Dinah his daughter; And while his sons were in the field with their cattle, Jacob was silent until they came. He knew these boys had it for him: they were violent, aggressive, vindictive, and he feared what their reaction would be when they found out what had happened to his daughter.

Jacob was of another spirit, he knew what it was to offend, when he offended Esau he took away his birthright using tricks, right? and he deserved, Esau wanted to kill him too and he had to run for his life, remember? and Jacob has already been punished, he has his wounds, he was deceived by his uncle, he had to spend many years deceived in these things as well.

And Jacob is already a chastened man, a man experienced in pain, his own cunning has cost him, and I imagine a man of peace and mercy, and he understands that this is a great opportunity for there to be healing from this situation, and she is afraid of what her children are going to think, how these hotheads are going to react to what they have done to her sister.

And it says that: “Hamor, Shechem's father came before Jacob to speak with him, and Jacob's sons came from the field when they heard it; and the men were saddened and very angry, because he did wickedness in Israel by sleeping with the daughter of Jacob, which should not have been done.” For me it is clear, the Scripture is saying: there has been a sin, there has been an offense, there has been a violation, that should not have been done, the Bible is not excusing that terrible act any more than slavery is excusable, the abuse of the poor in this nation, the neglect of the weak, all of that is absolutely reprehensible and even other things, which are offensive.

These African-Americans who feel like they are being stabbed with a hot knife when they see a statue that reminds them of how they were lynched, how they were torn from their homes, how children were taken from their parents to be sold like cattle in another state and never saw their parents again. fathers, how their men were lynched in trees in rural Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama and all these places, and how they were not allowed to sit on a seat on the bus but to go there at the end and eat what white people ate nor use the same bathroom because they were animals, and these things hurt, and it should not have been done. I put there: "which should not have been done."

But Hamor comes and speaks to Jacob and his sons, and says to them: "My son's soul has attached itself to your daughter, I beg you to give her to him as a wife." This is a father interceding for his son who has seriously screwed up, help me with this, I want to fix things with you, you guys know how they are. And I beg you to give her to him as a wife.

And then he says: “And become related to us; Give us your daughters, and take ours." We are going to get married, we are going to unite lineages. It frankly moves me to hear this man intercede for what has happened. How many times do parents have to suffer from their children's blunders, how many times? And if there were no people who forgive and have mercy, where would the world be?

Marry with us, give us your daughters, take ours, live with us because the land will be before you, dwell in it, take possession of it, and Shechem, the boy himself says, said to Jacob and her brothers: "I found grace before your eyes" forgive me. Grace is a very clear word, please, perhaps pardon, have mercy, I find grace in front of your eyes, and I will give what you tell me, because there were dowries, right? the dowries that had to be given, paid for the woman he was going to marry, were the customs of the Middle East, right?

"Increase in my charge many dowries and gifts" multiply what you want the dowry, take advantage of me, get the juice out of me because I want to fix things and I want to marry her, "and I will give whatever you tell me, and give me the young woman as a wife .” Beautiful words, poetry almost in a sense, although there is also the side of giving, it's like she's a comfort, right? give it to me, but those are, we are talking about three thousand years ago, about a world, we have to get into that world, worlds are not judged by what we see but by what they were and that is one of the things we have what to understand

God does not see the world as we see it, we are involved in our own reality and when you measure history and the reality of the experience by its immediacy you make a very big mistake. We Christians do not measure history by the moment we live, but in the light of eternity, in the light of the values of the Gospel, how God sees history, how God sees the world. Christians must have the eyes of a grandfather, a great-grandfather and a great-grandfather to see humanity as children who sometimes do not know how to distinguish their left hand from their right hand. We Christians have to have a very broad and very generous vision, one that lets a lot of water flow, that forgives a lot, tolerates a lot and expects a lot.

What does the Bible say? that love believes everything, expects everything and supports everything, and I think that's the idea. The more one learns to love, the more one tolerates, the more one endures, the more one forgives, the more one believes, everything is believed. It's not that love is naive, it's that love believes that good can come from anyone. The criminal who one day stole a bag from a Church one day can become a preacher who testifies that he stole a bag from a Church one day, and one would like to say: Father send him a rocket and break it in the middle from top to bottom directly , and one says: Lord, give me patience and have mercy, but yes, give him even a good buttock, that's right, arrest him, that's what I've been praying for. Be careful with your bag and your things because sometimes once in a while the devil gets upset and starts doing things, and even though he can't do much damage he comes and throws little rocks from the other side but that's all he can do, he We rebuke in the Name of Jesus.

But we have to have a vision, brothers, that believes everything, hopes for everything, supports everything, that loves, that sees as God sees, how many criminals and genocides are we going to have to live all eternity with them up there because they repented? ? How many serial criminals, we don't know, repented and God has received them into His Kingdom, and when we get there thank God we'll have a new and different nervous system because if you didn't imagine, there would be fights there in the first days of salvation and everyone pulling their bows, what about you here, how dare you?

The mercy of God, brothers, is incredible, and the Word calls us in everything possible while we are in this flesh to love as God loves and to forgive as God forgives, and to tolerate, and to wait, and to be patient, and to ask for the Kingdom of God to come. God on Earth and His Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, and we cannot be filled with panic and hatred for something that is happening in a moment because we do not know what is going to come next, the world can change in a instant brothers.

Everything we are seeing, a visitation of the Holy Spirit and this can change in one day, I tell you, or a cataclysm, a war, a national or international tragedy can come and men fall facedown at their feet and be humiliated in their arrogance, and having to appeal to God, and in a day or two can change all this spiritual arrogance that we see in the world, God can do immense, powerful things, and God's people have to pray, cry out, wait, make war spiritual, send angels against the powers of the devil, our fight is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, it is not against the Nazis, it is not against the anti-Semites, it is not against the racists, it is not against Trump, it is against the powers of the devil that are under all human strategies wanting to sow death, war, genocide, division, anger, revenge.

Children of God, our weapons are not carnal, they are powerful in God for the destruction of strongholds, and we overcome darkness with light, we overcome hatred with love, we overcome weapons with the Spirit and meanwhile we wait, he says: be be still and know that I am God, in stillness will be your strength, in rest you will be saved says the Lord.

The child of God sits like a spiritual ninja and concentrates on the Spirit, and sends energies of power around him, and with that he changes history. The devil is defeated and shamed when the children of God decide to love and forgive, and bless instead of fighting back, seek their rights, insist on staying in their offenses. The one who keeps the offense and the one who retains it is a nail that grows inward and pokes him, and kills him, and poisons him, that dirty nail poisons his flesh, infects him, rancor is the most terrible thing. Get rid of the grudge.

If someone offended you, forgive him, forgive him because it is the best way in which you can heal, otherwise you will be a prisoner of life all your life and the devil will take advantage of your anger, we have to live lives clean.

When he immediately enters into spiritual warfare to get it out, get it out, flee for his life, because what the sense of resentment and the sense of offense does is kill and sow more resentment and more death. God is powerful to fight for us, I believe in the power of grace and in the power of forgiveness and mercy. The more people there are fighting for their rights and each one fighting for their little pieces of the yard, the more war there will be, the more blood, more resistance, more hatred, more resentment, the devil loves it when people stand up with a sword to fight for his little piece of land, that's what he wants to do in this nation, turn the whole world against each other to be eaten alive, raise up men of war.

Today there are men of war everywhere: Turkey, North Korea, Russia, China, different countries in the Middle East, they are groups that are all there, they have chosen the devilish way to solve their affairs and here in this nation we have an infection also the same, he is very happy to help himself with the big spoon.

God's people have to offer a totally different alternative. This man comes, he has committed, he has watered it, he has gotten muddy, but he comes to ask for mercy and says: whatever you want, and what do the sons of Jacob do? They set a trap for him.

They listen to him calmly but they already have a well-formed, well-prepared plot, and they tell Shechem: we're sorry, Shechem, we can't do what you ask because we are Jews and if you want to marry our daughters and our families, and become related, you're going to You have to do one thing, every man in town is going to have to get circumcised, and look how devilish and calculated it is, hey, you guys came up with something real subtle and mean, get circumcised and then we're all getting married, everyone here we go to have a big make-up party.

And something occurred to me talking to Meche up there during the interim of both services, that it is ironic that these men in their excessive desire for revenge used a religious symbol to carry out their disastrous strategy, circumcision, which marked the distinctive, and in a sense one said: already these men, in a prophetic sense they became Jews because they got circumcised given what they were telling them, what they were saying is: accept this ritual and then you will become like Jews, and then we can marry you because God forbids us to mix with an opposite race.

They use religion as today, religion can also be used many times to attack and to stop, brothers and sisters, let us not allow Christ to be kidnapped, to be kidnapped and for the Gospel to get involved in the same fight, in the same struggle, in the same fight, in the same arguments of the world, let us not allow our faith to be corrupted by the arguments of the devil and the flesh, of revenge, Christianity floats above, thirty-two thousand feet above the storms of history and of humanity, Christianity is eternal. Christians live in another dimension, we are in the world but we are not of the world, we cannot allow our churches to become part of the struggle, and today there are people who come and say: no, let Pastor Miranda go to this meeting where we are going to make protests against this and against the other. Thank God I was out of the country and I had an excuse because I really don't feel, I feel that this has to be resolved in other ways, with other weapons, with arguments, with a different conviction, the Gospel is what has to dominate here.

People out there use the Church when they feel like it. They come to our churches to ask for their things and they want to use us. Every time a politician stops here, don't think that I'm asleep there or I'm overwhelmed because: oh, so-and-so came, I know what's going on and my game is also there being played. No man or woman inflects this Congregation, you know? It could be the President of this nation who comes here, let that be clear.

Many times people see our way of receiving and think: oh, Pastor Miranda is like an embulla'o peasant there dazzled by so-and-so, they don't know me and don't understand brothers. Let them come, say hello and we benefit in other ways for the Kingdom of God, and advance interests, like Paul with his Roman citizenship, but make no mistake. This Church has bitumen and the world's arguments slip, always understand that from now on. The Church of Jesus Christ has Teflon and nothing sticks to it.

Christianity must never be hijacked by the bickering and the strife and the pettiness of men. Unfortunately, these young people take the Hebrew symbolism and use it to kill and genocide, because when these pagans, in their desire to make peace, get circumcised, the Bible is very crude and very clear, that is why it is one of the things that reminds me of its historicity, it is historical.

It says that on the third day when these men had already been circumcised, on the third day it says that when the pains were greatest and they were weakest, two of Jacob's sons came, Simeon and Levi, leading this strategy, and it says that each one took his sword, they came against the city that was unprepared and killed every male, and Hamor and Shechem his son they killed with the edge of the sword, and they took Dinah from Shechem's house, Dinah seems to have already been there with her fiancé, she had stayed at his house, and where was Dina? these boys didn't care about Dina, these boys cared about her hate. They were not thinking that their sister was going to be ashamed all her life and that she no longer had a chance, the only thing that interested them was their sense of offended honor, they simply wanted to give expression to their hatred, and Simon and Levi they did and undid every male in that city, “and their brothers came and joined them, plundered the city because they had defiled their sister, took their flocks and herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city, and in the field, and all his possessions, they took captive all his children and wives, and stole everything that was in the house. Good example, good message of how the children of God work, right?

I have titled this sermon: A Wasted Opportunity, Why? Because what moves me the most about all this is that here was a great opportunity for the people of God to set an example of grace, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation, and that the whole world would win. Dinah was going to win, Shechem was going to win, the economy of those towns was going to win because they were going to be able to pool resources, the racial relations of the whole region were going to be improved because these races were going to tie and share some with the others. others, the principles of the Kingdom of God were going to be affirmed, these people were perhaps going to be able to enter into the spiritual legacy of Israel, and yet all that was wasted, and instead of all those beautiful things something bad came out of what came out it was devilish, satanic, hellish. Death, destruction, civil war in all the ways that have and will be.

If it had happened and nothing was said, perhaps we would say: well, they were right but the Bible is very clear, it should not have happened, there was definitely damage, there was reason to feel offended but that was not the correct behavior.

Look at what Jacob tells Simeon and Levi in verse 30: “You have troubled me with making me abominable to the inhabitants of this land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and I having few men, they will gather against me and attack me, and I and my house will be destroyed. But they answered: was he to treat our sister as a harlot? what do they care about their sister? They don't care about their sister, they care.

It is interesting that after reading the chapter that follows there is a blessing from God for Jacob, God calls Jacob, invites him to go to the altar and says that God put Jacob in fear, verse 5 of chapter 35 says: "They went out and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not persecute the sons of Jacob.” God in His mercy saw Jacob's heart and said: Do not worry, I am going to defend you and you will not pay the consequences of the damage to your children, I am going to put holy fear on that town so that they do not take revenge on them. you, is that God looks at the repentant heart and the heart. Sometimes when we make mistakes our children make, we ask for forgiveness and God has mercy, and does things.

But do you know what is the most graphic and the most dramatic? that years later Jacob on his deathbed says a few words that confront us with the magnitude of the sin of Simeon, Levi and his brothers, which shows us that his revenge, his vengeful attitude, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, was not approvable by God, and that although there was reason there was no justice or love in them, there was no love or grace, rather, in them and it was not in accordance with what God wanted. The Bible says: everything is lawful for me but not everything suits me, perhaps it was legally lawful but not spiritually.

Decades later in chapter 49 of Genesis Jacob on his deathbed in a prophetic trance, this old man already has one foot and one hand in eternity, and he is still lying on his bed but he enters a prophetic trance and begins to prophesy to all his children who are around him. These are the last words these men heard from their dad before he died, and what was supposed to be a moment of blessing for them is a moment of curse from their father, what a terrible wound these two men were going to bear on rest of his life that his father, for a Jew at that time, a descendant of Abraham, instead of blessing them, left them a curse and a legacy, because that is what happens when there is anger, when there is revenge, when there are acts of anger and violence pay the price, do not worry about justice, God does justice in His moment and His time, He takes care of it.

Look how old Jacob talks about his two sons Simeon and Levi who led this great tragedy, verse 5 of chapter 49 says: "Simeon and Levi are brothers, weapons of iniquity, their weapons, let my soul not enter their counsel, and Let my spirit gather in their company, because in their fury they killed men, and in their rashness they unleashed bulls, cursed their fury, which was fierce, and their wrath, which was harsh. I will separate them in Jacob, and I will scatter them in Israel."

Ah, what pain these men must have carried the rest of their lives! they had the curse of their father that was going to persecute them, it is that God is like that brothers, God is sinister when he has to be also, God's justice is final, we cannot question that. I prefer to let God do justice.

This nation paid for slavery with a million men and with trillions of dollars that it has lost in thousands of ways from its economy yet. Every time a young black girl gets pregnant or has an abortion, or doesn't go to high school and this nation loses thousands of dollars of its economy in different ways that's payback, that's payback for all the messes they've made to this culture. African American in this nation, thousands of ways.

Simeon and Levi were cursed all their lives and we Christian brothers, we have to act in other ways at this time. What is going to heal this nation is not each one of us asking for justice and fighting, and letting ourselves be carried away by the arguments of men and politicians who do not know God and want to solve things, on the left and on the right. The Church of Jesus Christ has another methodology, it has other weapons, it has another spirit, it is the Spirit of the Word in Philippians 2 that says: "May he find in you the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who, being equal to God, does not He took being equal with God as a thing to cling to, but emptied himself" stole Himself, became man, took likeness, and being in the likeness of man became obedient and obedient unto death, and not just any death but death on a cross, he humbled himself to the utmost.

He did not take His right, He could say: No, I am God, how am I going to put myself in the skin of a baby, and do all the idiots that a man has to suffer in his flesh, go to the toilet like any other and To feel the same feelings, the impure temptations that the human being feels, I, God, do that to save a humanity that does not deserve to be saved? The Lord said: Father, if that is what you want, I am going to get into the skin of one. Yes, something a little higher than the monkeys and I'm going to live in that skin, and I'm going to undergo all the experiences of a man, and then I'm going to climb a cross to be shamed and exposed, it didn't take being equal to God as a thing to cling to.

But it also says that Christ did that and God exalted him to the utmost and gave him a Name that is above all names so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow on Earth, in heaven and under the earth. For me that is a paradigmatic expression, a paradigm of how things happen in the world of the spirit and of the Word.

The children of God do not cling to our right, we do not fight with the weapons of man. God's children take our rights, put them aside and gird ourselves with the garments of the cross, and then we fight on the cross, and from there on the cross we achieve victory that no other human weapon can achieve. The Bible says that on the cross Christ defeated the principalities and powers, there he annulled the act of decrees that was contrary to us and exposed the principalities and powers before the whole multitude as a defeated army is exhibited, on the cross, sign of impotence, defeat, shame, that was where the Lord defeated the power of the devil because the devil is not defeated with diabolical weapons but with weapons of light and weapons of the Kingdom of heaven.

I call you and I call our Church brothers not to get involved in the little struggles of men and to use the tools of this world and of this century, we are a people who fight with weapons of love, mercy, tolerance, equality, silence as Maria did when she did not understand the mystery of this son that she had, she says that she was simply meditating.

Things are happening in this world that we should not rush to judge yet. Meditate, think, pray, shut up, don't get into a fight like everyone else does. The children of God wait a lot, we meditate a lot, because sometimes there are things that God is doing that are so mysterious that we cannot understand, we have to wait, we have to give time for God to unwrap His package. God is a strategist who has billions of pieces on His board and He sometimes moves a piece and we say: but why if they are going to eat it? no, he's going to eat twenty pieces after they eat those because he's like that.

The follies of God are wiser than the wisdom of men, and sometimes we see things that seem crazy but then we are going to say: wow, he ate them. Wait, pray, and love much, and obey, that is what I declare, that spirit upon Lion of Judah, not the spirit of Simeon and Levi. The spirit of love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, believing that good things can come out of a heart that has made a terrible mistake, loving a lot, forgiving a lot, waiting a lot, keeping quiet a lot, blessing offenders, I who preach this I need to apply this message to myself every time I go out to 93 and a car gets in front of me (laughs), but I know what the Word calls me to.

I'm not going to excuse my mistakes by putting lipstick on the monkey (laughs), no, I know what the Word tells me. And even when we make our mistakes, we go back to the Word. Lord: I stick again to what Your Word says, forgive me for having done this in that way but I accept love, mercy, love and grace, help me to be more loving, more forgiving, more tolerant, more patient next time, that's the only thing that can save this world brothers. May that be the spirit that prevails over this Congregation right now.

Stand up and let us cry out to the Lord for this nation, for this Church that the Lord wants to establish as a place of reconciliation. This morning we were ministering to African Americans, whites, rich, poor, children, adults, homeless people, everyone in here, and right now we are ministering to nations in different parts of Latin America: blacks, whites, browns, blondes, browns of all kinds. , whites of all kinds, faded, but how beautiful, wow! indigenous people, descendants of the Aztecs and the Mayans, glory to God! how beautiful, that is what God wants, the mixed races, that it is not known if it is white or black because it is so mixed that one no longer knows, that is the beauty of our town and from now on it should always be a town of reconciliation, love, goodness, mercy where the rich see the poor and say: wow, teach me, instruct me, and the poor say to the rich: hey show me, give me some little secrets there because I need to go make money, right?

The lawyer tells the illiterate: look, you have something, a wisdom that I don't, your children are beautiful, your marriage, your wife, teach me, and the illiterate says: well, I'll teach you if you tell me how you did your money and you got to Harvard, and you went to the university, I want my children to learn; come to my house and talk to them, and give them your example, infect them with your intellectual success, that's what God wants, that the races mix.

That Hamor and Jacob become related, that Shechem, Simeon and Levi instead of killing each other learn to love and forgive each other, and that races mix, that is why God made whites and blacks and made them different so that they mix, and constitute a symphony of love expressing the complexity of God's character, and that is what God wants for us. That is the spirit that we say right now: Father, let that be the spirit that prevails in this Congregation. May León de Judá be known as a Church of mercy, love, grace, hospitality, grace, meekness, forgiveness, tolerance, consolation, advice.

We invite the Spirit of Jesus to fill this Church, fill its Pastors and leaders, love, mercy, meekness, the Grace of Jesus, weapons of light, weapons of goodness, weapons that have no fuss, where the devil does not it takes place and it doesn't know what to do because there is no room for it, there is nothing like it.

We renounce hell, we renounce false justice, we renounce revenge, we renounce affiliated weapons. We adopt the weapons of light, we adopt the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it begins with me Lord. And we repudiate everything that is racist, everything that is anti-Semitic, everything that is vengeful, everything that is superiorist, everything that lacks mercy, kindness, love, everything that denigrates the poor, the helpless, the weak, We love and we choose love as Church brothers.

Glory Lord, and we give glory and respect to the principles of the Kingdom of God. Father, let this sermon be like a part of the constitution, a clause in our spiritual constitution, we plant it there as a declaration, the highest aspiration of our hearts for this Church while it is here on Earth before Christ comes, that it be the hallmark, that no element of division or anger enter this body Father, we reject it in the Name of Jesus and we ask you to help us to dwell in love and meekness, that Christ feels comfortable dwelling in our midst. Forgive us if we have been less than that, help us get there, we ask it in Jesus Name. And the people of God say: amen, God bless you my brothers, the Grace of the Lord be with you.