Step by Step through the Old Testament

Step by Step through the Old Testament

Carlton L. Arnold, Teacher

Week 7

9/22/02 : Genesis 5-11 - The Flood and The Tower of Babel

We've been talking about the 2,000-year period from Genesis 1 to 11-God dealing with the universe and mankind as a whole. We're going to finish that this morning because next week we're going to get into God starting to work with the Hebrew Nation (Abraham).

Genesis 5 covers the genealogy from Adam & Eve and their children to Noah and his sons. This chart shows what we're going to get to. It shows some of the people. As you track down, you can understand when they were born and when they died. There are a couple of names that I want to pick out from the list. In Chapter 5, you read at the end of various verses, "...and then he died, ...and then he died, ...and then he died." I wanted for you to note that. Sin entered the world and physical death came. God said, "I don't want you to live forever in the condition you're in, so I'm going to banish you from the Garden of Eden. You can no longer eat from the Tree of Life so you're going to die." We discussed both spiritual and physical death.

Adam and Eve had many children and we're headed toward Noah. It comes down to Noah and his three children: Ham, Japheth, and Shem. That's what we're going to see this morning. Everyone before Noah is going to die as a result of the Flood and God's judgment. Before we do that, I want to look at Enoch again.

Genesis 5:21

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.

Some of you have heard of the mythological Methuselah, but this is a man in the Bible named Methuselah.

Genesis 5:22-24

And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

I mentioned this last week as an example of the Rapture. The Rapture that we're looking forward to has already occurred one time with Enoch and it's going to occur another time with one of the prophets. With Enoch, God just raptured him. God said, "You're no longer on Earth. You're going to be with me."

If you look on your sheet, you'll see that Methuselah lived the longest-969 years. As a matter of fact, if you look at Methuselah and Adam together, they lived almost 2,000 years. A lot of you probably think to yourself, "Well, how could people live that long back then? Maybe they're just stretching the imagination with how you measure years." It's all interpreted. You've got to interpret it. There are some scientists who believe that before the Great Flood, there existed a layer of water vapor in the atmosphere that shielded people from the deadly rays of the sun. Today we have to use sunscreen to avoid skin cancer. There are some things from a scientific or biological point of view that enabled people not to be subject to the same radiation, the same things that would kill you at an early age today. Back then, you could live longer. As a matter of fact, if you read things about aging, scientists still don't understand (nor can they explain) why we age, anyway. We accept it and we age, but we don't quite understand why. Through this class, we understand that it's because of sin. Sin has caused death and death is occurring. We're going to see God set a time limit on our lives.

It starts with Adam (930 years) and Methuselah (969 years). That's a long time, isn't it? You could have a lot of kids if you lived that long. Notice Shem, Lamech, Methuselah, and the Deluge. The Deluge is the Flood. Then we start over with Ham, Japheth, and Shem. I want for you to see that everyone is killed in the Flood except Noah and his family (Ham, Japheth, and Shem). Interestingly, Methuselah's Hebrew name means, "when he is dead, it shall be sent." The Flood came the year he died. This gives you an idea of the meanings of names and we're going to see many more names as we go through the Old Testament. Some of the names mean something to us. They were given names for a particular reason. Methuselah means, "sending forth," or "when he is dead, it shall be sent."

Genesis 5:32

After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.

So, there are Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Genesis 6:1-2

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

A lot of commentators believe that the "sons of God" are angels and the "daughters of men" are of men. You can interpret it that way. I've read several commentators and I believe that the "sons of God" are from Adam and the "daughters of men" are from Cain. That's my interpretation and the way I look at it because it fits everything. If you take the "angel" interpretation, it doesn't quite fit. There are some things like, "Well, if they were angels, why didn't they live forever?" It starts to break down. That's up to you. If you recall, Adam and Eve had a line that was made in the image of God. Cain came along and killed his brother, Abel, and God set him aside (where no one could kill him). So I believe it's talking about intermarriage, but a lot of people believe it's angels and men. They could marry each other because it was a genetically pure line from Adam. Only after many generations did we have errors and a breakdown of the genetic code and DNA that would cause deformities in what we would call today incest. That's what scientists believe, and it makes sense.

Despite the evidence and rationale, I told you from day one that you're going to have to step out on faith. Can you believe that someone really lived 969 years? You have to say, "Well, whether I can support it scientifically or not, I'll believe it because God said it." He will show you circumstances (like this week with John Culp's mother) that are miracles. The doctors said, "No. There's no way." God said, "No. I'm not through with her yet. Wake up." And she woke up.

The Miracle:

Two weeks ago, Beth and John Culp requested prayer for John's mother who had fallen in Texas and was in the hospital there. They went to Texas last weekend to check on her and found her in a coma and on a respirator despite a DNR order. She developed a severe case of pneumonia, had clots in her lungs and one of her kidneys was not functioning properly. The doctors said she would not regain consciousness and recommended that the respirator be turned off. The consent was signed on Tuesday by John and his brother. Wednesday morning, the machine was gradually turned off. Well, guess what??? She woke up!!! The doctors say it is nothing short of a miracle!! We know that, don't we!!!

Circumstances where we think a certain thing should happen and God intervenes are miracles. When God intervenes and two plus two equals five, that is called a miracle.

Genesis 6:3

Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

Now, how about that? You know, I hope you're challenged with reading Genesis. You could read Genesis and never pick up some of these things. But if you read that verse, what does it say? God was giving them time to straighten themselves out. "I'm only going to give them 120 years, not 969 years." There are only 120 years until the Flood. Go over to First Peter. Let me give you the context: this is talking about how you define "doing good." This is one of those "knock your socks off" lessons.

1 Peter 3:18-22

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand--with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Now, what do you think of that? Has anyone ever made this connection between First Peter and Genesis 6? What did it say that Jesus did in First Peter? It says that God waited patiently. Genesis 6 says that man's days will be 120 years. I think that's how long it took for Noah to build the ark. If people saw Noah building the ark and they had not seen rain before, what would they ask him? "Why are you building a big ark? What's going on?" And what would Noah tell them? "God told me to do it." "Who's God?" And Noah would tell them. So there is this time period of 120 years where anyone could have seen Noah building this ark, and Noah would have preached to them. He would have said, "Listen. Here is what God is all about." This is the God of the universe-the Creator, God.

It also says in First Peter, "he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah." Where did Jesus go and preach to them? In prison. Doesn't it say, "in prison?" Those of you who've been through the New Testament know the answer. We studied that when people died before Christ, where did they go? They went to Hades, Sheol, or Hell. In Hades there were two compartments: Paradise and Torment. When Christ was resurrected, He emptied out Paradise and took the Old Testament Saints to Heaven. The rest of the people in Torment are still there. This is another reference of Christ going to Sheol/Hades and told people what it was all about.

We're going to see this all throughout the Old Testament. We're going to see Christ in the Old Testament. I've already mentioned that I think it was He who was walking in the Garden with Adam and Eve. Instead of God, the Father, I think it was Christ. Whenever we see God walking with and interacting with people in the Old Testament, I think it was the pre-incarnate Christ. It was God, the Son, working with people.

Let's go back to Genesis 6. Noah is building a boat. God says, "I'm going to give them 120 years to hear my Word." If any of them had repented during that 120 years, guess where they would've been? On the boat. Because they didn't repent, where did they go? Torment.

Genesis 6:5-8

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

Notice that He didn't say that He would wipe out fish. Why not? Because it's a flood.

God has decided. We're going to have to work on this thought. There's this idea of, "How long does God wait for someone to acknowledge Him?" In other words, God says, "I will show you Myself in the rain, thunderstorms, and lightning. I will show you Myself in the miracle of a woman who wakes up from a coma. I will show you Myself in the birth of a baby." God shows Himself to people and says, "I am here. I am real. I am the God of the universe and I created you." And man says, "No. I can't believe in something I don't see. I've got to see it. I don't believe it so I'll live my life the way that I want to." God says, "No. I'm going to keep working on you." We've got to get this point across. God is going to give each person-every single person who has ever breathed life-an opportunity to accept Him, to acknowledge Him, and to have that relationship with Him.

Remember, I told you that the whole idea behind what we're going to be talking about is God's relationship with every created man, woman or child. He wants that relationship. We're going to see it again here. God says, "OK. I'm going to wipe everyone out. I'm going to pronounce judgment on people based on whether they've accepted Me or not. They're going to have 120 years and they're going to see this boat being built. Noah is going to preach to them." Does everybody get the message? We're going to work on that. Every time we turn around and say, "Well, God didn't give this person a chance." We'll look at it closer and see that He did. What did they say? "Nope. I won't believe anything unless I see it."

Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Whatever Noah was doing in terms of acknowledging God or having a relationship with Him, God said, "That is what I want."

Genesis 6:9-10

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

We have seen only two people who "walked with God." Enoch and Noah. God saved Enoch. Do you think Enoch would have been on the boat? Definitely. God said, "I'm right with him and I want to save Noah and his children."

Genesis 6:11-17

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

If you read the most atheistic, godless article in National Geographic or Smithsonian magazine, there is no doubt that every scientist believes that there was a Great Flood. They do not doubt that there was a Great Flood on this Earth. They disagree on whether it was global or local. But after looking at all of the archaeology and ruins, they know that there was a flood. We don't doubt that there was a flood and here we are reading about it. God said, "This is why there was a Great Flood. I'm going to destroy everybody except Noah and his family."

If anybody wanted to know if all of the animals would actually fit into the ark, somebody actually proved that. They calculated how much room all of the animals would need. You can read about that...I'm not going to go through it. Trust me. Somebody's actually done that. They calculated the cubic feet of all of the animals and said, "Wow. There's a lot of room left over here."

From the class: It's interesting that the Hebrew word for "pitch" there is the same word that was used in the New Testament to describe "blood."

Genesis 6:22-7:4

Noah did everything just as God commanded him. The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

Here is God's judgment. We're going to see God's judgment a lot and sometimes, we're not going to like it. Here, God is saying, "I am going to wipe out, kill, judge every single human being on this Earth." He judged Noah and his family, did He not? What did He say? "I find them righteous, so I will save them. I cannot find another righteous." In other words, the heart and mind of man (before the Flood) had become such that God said, "No matter what I do, they are not going to accept Me. They are not going to have a relationship with Me. They are just going to continue 'as is' so I'm going to wipe them out." That's God's judgment. We're going to understand and read about His judgment throughout the Old Testament.

Genesis 7:16

The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

If you read this carefully, you'll see that Noah didn't have to go out and get the animals. The animals came to Noah. That's a remarkable thing. (Sometimes I don't want to share these little "side" things, but I read this stuff and I think it's fascinating.) One of the things that scientists, today, cannot understand is the migration of animals. They just don't understand why a bird will fly 3,000 miles to nest. One commentator says that through his studies, he understands that this is why the migrations occur. The migratory instinct has been passed down through the animals because they had to go somewhere-to the ark. Now I don't know whether to believe that or not, but I said, "Man, that's a pretty good explanation to me." Migration: that's why they had to move-to go to the ark. That's an aside. You can do whatever you want with that. It's free.

Who closed the door? God did. It says that God did, but who do you think I think it was? Christ, the Son of God. I think He saved them and shut the door. Now realize, they went in there, but they didn't have somebody outside where they could say, "OK. You can close the door now." God came along (and I think it was the pre-incarnate Christ) and closed them in. When Adam and Eve were trying to cover up their sins, who really covered up their sins? God did. How? The garments of skin from animals. When He's going to save Noah, who does the saving? God does. God tells him what to do and shuts the door. It's the same way today. The only way you can have a relationship with God and be saved is through Jesus Christ. It's not through your own merit or works or anything that you can do. God has done it all. That is a basic, foundational doctrine throughout the whole Bible. It starts with Adam and Eve and runs throughout the Bible. You don't find an exception to it. We stand completely lost without God doing everything for us. That's our belief and that's our faith.

From the class: The people didn't believe Noah and the salvation and they perished just as those who don't believe Jesus and His salvation will perish today.

Genesis 7:24-8:1

The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

Genesis 8:15-21a

Then God said to Noah, "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you--the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground--so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds--everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after another. Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood."

That's why he brought seven rather than two. He said, "Hey. There's going to be a worship service after all of this is over with."

What does this tell you about your children? (From the class: They're evil. Ha Ha.) It is a true statement that there is a special provision for children. We'll talk about that in the Bible. The Bible says it and I believe it beyond the shadow of a doubt. God takes care of children up to the age of accountability (the point where they know what they're doing and the difference between right and wrong). Then it's between them and God. But this passage says that every evil inclination from childhood is within us.

Genesis 8:21b-22

And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."

Another interesting thing is that some scientists believe that the Earth tilted when the Great Flood happened. Now I am talking about things that people theorize. Before this, the Earth was spinning just great but then the three-foot layer of water vapor came and the Earth tilted. The Earth tilted and now we have seasons. That's what's talked about here-seasons. I don't know that, but this is where some scientists believe that seasons came in.

Genesis 9:1

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

Does that sound like Adam and Eve? And now it's Noah and his children.

How many of you want to be a vegetarian before the Flood? All of you. If you lived before the Flood, you were a vegetarian.

Now listen to this. This is important for a change in the way the animal kingdom and man relate (deer hunters, dove hunters, etc.).

Genesis 9:2-3

The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Now what can you do after the Flood? You can eat meat. Not only that, but before the Flood, you could walk up to a tiger or lion and they weren't afraid. Now, they're afraid. You can take that however you want, but that's what the Bible says. There was a time where you could walk up to a deer but you wouldn't kill him. (A turkey, maybe, but not a deer.)

Question: Did they hunt for clothing?

I don't know. That's a good question. I'll have to research that. What did they do? Maybe they used a lot of fig trees. Maybe they used the skins of carcasses or of sacrifices. The purpose of killing wasn't for food. It was for clothing or sacrifices. Good question. I like that. Makes you think and challenges you.

Genesis 9:18a

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth.

If you could think about this, you don't find "race" in the Bible. Man created "race." Everyone that we view as Chinese, African, Ethiopian, American, European, etc., came from these three people. You've got to think about that. Most of the darker-colored people came from Ham, Europeans from Japheth, and Arabs and Jews from Shem. The line from Shem is where we're going to find Jesus Christ. We're not going to read it this morning, but if you read the lineage of each son, you'll see that the rest of the Old Testament is about the descendants of Shem. From Shem come Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., until we get to Jesus Christ. This is what it's all about. God is saying, "From Adam to Noah to Shem comes Jesus Christ." Here's another way of outlining or reading the Old Testament. That's what God is telling you-that He's going to give you the lineage of Christ. When we get to the New Testament and ask, "Where did Christ come from?" You can go all the way back to Shem. You won't find "race." We created "race." This is what you'll find in Chapter 9.

Chapter 10 covers the table of Nations. It's got the sons of Japheth, the sons of Ham, and the sons of Shem. Ham was the father of Canaan. We will see the Ammonites and Canaanites when we get over to Israel and the Promised Land. They came from Ham. They were in conflict with the descendants of Shem. Descendants of these three sons represent all of the nations that we have today. They spread out, multiplied, and replenished the Earth.

Genesis 11:1

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

Think about that. We've been challenging our thinking this morning-when you think about the Flood, the long life expectancies, the vegetarians, etc. I've challenged you to think out of the box, completely, from what we know today just from what we've read in the Bible. Now think about there being only one language. No matter where you went on this Earth, there was one language-written and spoken. What would that mean? Excellent communication. You could go anywhere and talk to anyone. How many of you have been to Germany? Could you speak German? Could you communicate? How did you feel? "How do I say, 'Where's the bathroom?'" You feel lost. You can't communicate. Can you imagine the whole world having a common language and speech? Everybody spoke the same at this time.

Genesis 11:2-4

As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

We're talking about descendants of Ham, Japheth, and Shem. They multiplied and had descendants who heard about God and heard about the Flood, but where is man now? "Let us go and make ourselves a tower that reaches to Heaven. Let us be our own god." That's what they're doing. They're not saying, "Let's bow down and worship God, Creator." But, "Let's do it ourselves."

Genesis 11:5-6

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Do you realize that the atomic bomb could have been made back in 2000 BC if God hadn't done what we're about to read? Everybody was speaking the same language. Computers could have been invented in 100 AD instead of now. Do you understand? Yeah, I'm blowing your mind this morning, aren't I? You've got to think about this. They had one language and they could talk. They said, "Let's build these cities. Let's do this and that." Everybody was together and doing these things. But God said, "Wait a minute. Nothing will be impossible for them." So, here's man again, doing they're own thing and saying, "I will be my own god. I will do whatever I want to."

Genesis 11:7-9a

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Have you ever looked at someone and said, "Aw, you're just babbling?" You don't understand what they're saying--they're confusing. As a matter of fact, the word "Babel" means, "confused." There is a lot here: an unbelievable amount. "Babel" becomes Babylon. Babylon becomes the symbol/sign/center/focus of evil throughout the whole Bible. When we get to Revelation, you'll see God judging and destroying Babylon. You'll see Babylon throughout the Bible and it starts here with man wanting to be his own god. We'll see a parallel between Babylon and man wanting to be his own god.

We can think of the things that we do as "building our own Babel." One of the things that we deceive ourselves on today is that we do not believe that we're becoming our own god. We've got to really look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "But I am. I'm defining God the way I want to." Several weeks ago, I said that I was going to challenge you on your concept of God. You're bringing your own concept of God into this class based on what you've heard, seen, or read about from parents, teachers, or preachers. I want for you to look in the Bible and see who God is. I want for you to discover, first of all, that there's nothing that you can do to save yourself. It's God. You have to have this faith to say, "I cannot, of myself, determine my relationship to God. God has already made it for me. I've got to accept that on faith." No matter what happens, you've got to accept that. Otherwise, you're going to say, "OK. I went to church this week, I said hello to five people at church, I read my Sunday School lesson, I stayed awake in church. OK. I've done all of those things therefore I'm good. I'm righteous." And that's not what it's about. God says, "I'm going to make you righteous. I'll make you clean if you'll just have faith in Me and believe in Me."

God knows everything already. If He knows everything, why does it have to happen this way? It's because of our own will power, our own ability to decide what we want to do. God knows it. That's why God says, "I'm going to try this. I'm going to try that." But it gets to the point where no matter what God does, a person has turned his heart and says, "I'm not going to do it." God knows everything--past, present, and future. He tries to wake us up and get our attention. What did God tell the people to do? Go out and multiply and fill the Earth. What are they going to do? Stayed in one spot. "We don't want to go anywhere." What do we call that? Sin. Disobedience. They wanted to stay in one locale and build a city. "We're going to have our own thing. We're going to have our own religion, and it's centered around us."

Chapter 10 covers the table of Nations. Chapter 11 tells us about how we got all of the languages and how people were spread out. Chapter 11 occurs sometime during Chapter 10. The Flood happened. God said, "They have every evil inclination." Now they're doing it again and instead of destroying them, God said, "I'm going to confuse their language and send them out all over the place." God gives us opportunity after opportunity. What happened to John's mother this week is an opportunity for people to see God at work. That's an increase of attention to what God is doing. But some people hear about this and ignore God in it. What happened? They did not receive or acknowledge that as a miracle from God. They would explain it away with science or medicine, "Well, the drugs interacted and that's what happened." We have our own way of looking at these things and growing in God, growing in Christ. It's got to be on God's terms, not on our terms. I keep coming back to that. God, not us.

One of the interesting things about languages is that sociologists do not understand how man created so many different languages. They are baffled. They cannot go back in time and look at things and explain why people called a "tree" different things. The Bible explains that God confused them because people were going after their own way again. They weren't going after God. Since this event (going from one language to many), it has been the same. You have Egyptian, German, English, French, etc. I want to point out that there was a time in Acts 2, after the Holy Spirit comes, we see something that goes back to the pre-Babel times.

Acts 2:4-8

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?

God confused the language at Babel and everyone was speaking their own languages. Here is Acts, all of a sudden, everyone could understand each other. You still couldn't talk to each other, but you could understand what was being said. That's a miracle. It's God saying, "Listen. I'll take care of how you understand things. I'll put them in a language that everyone will understand." That's what happened here. So, we have the confusion in Genesis and the exact reverse of it in Acts. God said, "I'm going to have the Holy Spirit come and dwell with everyone on Earth." We'll talk more about it later, but I think it's just amazing to see God work.

With the Tower of Babel, you can read about the Ziggurats (here and here for example). They found the remains of what we're reading about in here. The Bible didn't make it up. They're there. After this time, they were built to worship different gods. The people started having their own gods and human sacrifices on top of these temples. That's man, again.

From now on, we're going to be reading about the line of Shem. What happened to Ham and Japheth? We're going to see them come in and out, but we'll be concentrating on Shem. Why? Because the Old Testament goes to Jesus Christ.

Genesis 11:26-27

After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

We're seeing the introduction of the family of Abraham. We have gone through the 2,000 years from Creation to Abraham in four weeks. We are going to start going much slower. I will be going faster through slower times. We're going to talk about Abraham for a week or two. Then we'll talk about Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., through Genesis. So we've got another month to month and a half in Genesis before we get to Exodus. You should be working through Unit 3 now in your workbook. Read through that and you'll be prepared for next week. Abraham gives us the promises of God. What's the most important chapter in the Bible? Genesis 12. You're going to believe that after I get through with you next week. Genesis 12 is the most important chapter in the Bible. It says some things that are very important for the rest of the Bible. So that's the first 2,000 years and we're ready for Abraham.

Prayer:

Father, God, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your Word. Thank you, God, for all of the things that we read in here--that we've been reading about-- we can talk about the scientific and the archaeology and the engineering and sociology and language and so forth, but Father, what I think you're trying to tell us in these 11 chapters is that you want a relationship with man. Man has spurned that relationship--rejected it--wanting to do our own thing, Father. You set about trying to get that relationship renewed with us. Father, if we would only step out on faith and have belief, you grant us that relationship. What a wonderful and loving God you are and what a patient and merciful and forgiving God you are with us! Father, may we not go a day without acknowledging who you are and what you've done for us. This week, Father, may you be on our minds. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Week 6

Forward to Week 8

Teacher's Email: carltonlcv@gmail.com

Web page / Transcriptioning email: agapeeric@aim.com