Life As Usual

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Don Filcek, Beginning with God: A Walk Through the Book of Genesis; Genesis 9:18-10:32, 11:10-32 Life As Usual

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan where you can grow in faith community and service
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This is a message from the series beginning with God walking through the book of Genesis by pastor of teaching and vision
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Don Filson If you'd like to learn more about recast or access our sermon archive, please visit us at recast church .com
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Here's Pastor Don in our text this morning.
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We're gonna be in Genesis 9 through 11 There have been several times since the start of recast that we have walked through a text that seems strange
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Repetitive or a face value like it has little application to our daily lives Have you encountered that maybe in your own daily
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Bible reading or you've encountered a text and you're kind of like I really don't Quite know what to do with this. Have you if you're being honest?
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Have you had that before you're like reading a genealogy or you're like in Leviticus and you're reading about sacrifices or the book of Numbers where it just talks through names and names and names and We're gonna be in the middle of a huge dose of genealogy today
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I get the opportunity to butcher some names for you as I read through this text And and the fact of the matter is it would be easy to skip over this text
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I think probably many of us when we're reading Reading through the Bible in a year or something like that. Some of these things.
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It's kind of like I skimmed it this morning I just kind of skimmed it and hit the you know, hit the highlights It'd be easy to skip over it
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But my method the method of preaching here that God has convicted me of is to walk us through a book of the Bible not Skipping sections but dealing with the text as God brings it to us.
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And so that's where we're at this morning And I usually find by the end of my study that God has met me in the most obscure corners of his
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Revelation this morning. We do encounter it right from the get -go some something of an uncomfortable strange occurrence
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Some a story of Noah that happened in his lifetime. That's a little bit bizarre Noah who we encountered earlier in the text
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It was declared that he was who's righteous and blameless in his generation We get a chance to see him acting like a drunken fool
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His son mocks him his two other sons protect his honor And then in the end we see
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Noah slinging curses at his grandson by the end of this God And ultimately as we move forward in the text
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We find that also God is there Walking us through the march of history towards a major turning point coming in chapter 12 and I titled the sermon life as usual I think of it like business as usual.
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It's it's it's the theme of this text is that life goes on pretty normal Even in the midst of what
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God is doing in the big picture of things. We're gonna see him rising up nations We'll see people in rebellion against him
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Noah the hero faltering and in the midst of all of these things
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God is in the background working to bring about his redemption through the line of Shem We're gonna see that in the text all the way down to we're gonna see finally revealed for us a dude named
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Abram Anybody recognize the name Abram? Finally by the end by the time I get to the end of reading this you're gonna be glad for a name that you recognize
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Okay, but there's significance to that So I want you to open your Bibles, please to Genesis chapter 9 you find it on page 6 in the
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Bible That's in the seat back in front of you So if you take out that Bible turn to page 6 you'll find Genesis 9 and we're gonna start in verse 18 of that chapter and read all the way through the end of chapter 11
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So it's a pretty good sized chunk of Scripture Like I said, I get to butcher some names in the process of this so bear with me
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But I'm also gonna skip the account of the Tower of Babel in the middle of this So we're gonna when we get to chapter 11, we're gonna jump down from skip verses 1 through 9 next week
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I'm gonna deal with that in isolation on its own what it is. This is a chunk of narrative set in the middle of these genealogies for intention rather than telling it three times going through the line of Shem and telling you about the
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Tower of Babel and then going through Japheth's line and then telling about the story of Babel and then going through Ham's Just tells it once in the middle of it.
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So we're gonna take that separate. Does that make sense? Everybody everybody okay with that? We're not skipping it. We're just not gonna deal with it this week
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We'll we'll save that for next week. So follow along as I read Genesis 9 18 through the end of chapter 11.
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I'll tell you when to skip And the sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were
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Shem Ham and Japheth Ham was the father of Canaan These three were the sons of Noah and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed
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Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard he drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent and Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside Then Shem and Japheth took a garment laid it on both their shoulders and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father
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Their faces were turned backwards and they did not see their father's nakedness When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his son
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And knew what his son had done to him he said Cursed be
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Canaan a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers He also said blessed be the Lord the
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God of Shem and let Canaan be his servant May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let
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Canaan be his servant after the flood Noah lived 350 years all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died
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These are the generations of the sons of Noah Shem Ham and Japheth sons were born to them after the flood the sons of Japheth Gomer Magog Madi Javan tubal
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Meshach and Tiras the sons of Gomer Ashkenaz Riffath and Togormah the sons of Javan Elisha Tarshish Kittim and Odin him from these the coastland people spread in their lands
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Each with his own language by their clans in their nations the sons of Ham Cush Egypt put and Canaan the sons of Cush Seba Havilah Sabta Rama Sabteca the sons of Rama Sheba and Dedan Cush fathered
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Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man He was a mighty hunter before the Lord Therefore it is said like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the
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Lord The beginning of his kingdom was Babel Erech Akkad and Kelna in the land of Shinar from that land he went into Assyria and built
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Nineveh Rehoboth Ur Kala and Resin between Nineveh and Kala that is the great city
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Egypt fathered Ludum Annamim Lehibim Naphthahim Patherson Castle him from whom the
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Philistines came and Kaftarim Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth and The Jebusites the
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Amorites the Girgashites the Hibbites the Arkites the Sinites the Arvidites The Zemurites the
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Hamathites afterwards the clan of the Canaanites dispersed and the territory of the Canaanites Extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza and in the direction of Sodom Gomorrah Adma and Zeboiim as far as Lasha These are the sons of Ham by their clans their languages their lands and their nations to Shem Also the father of all the children of Eber the eldest brother of Japheth children were born the sons of Shem Elam Asher Arpikshad blood and Aram the sons of Aram Uz Hull gether and mash
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Arpikshad fathered Sheila and Sheila fathered Eber Eber were to Eber were born two sons the name of the one was
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Peleg for in his days The earth was divided and his brother's name was Joktan Joktan fathered
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Elmodad Shalaf Harzema Harzema Beth Jera Hatterim Uzzal Dikla Obel Abimele Sheba Ofer Havilah and Jobab all these were the sons of Joktan The territory in which they lived extended from Misha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east
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These are the sons of Shem by their clans their languages their lands and their nations These are the clans of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies in their nations and from these nations spread abroad on the earth
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After the flood skip down to verse 10 of chapter 11 These are the generations of Shem when
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Shem was 100 years old He fathered Arpikshad two years after the flood and Shem lived after he fathered
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Arpikshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters when Arpikshad had lived 35 years He fathered
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Sheila and Arpikshad lived after he fathered Sheila 403 years and had other sons and daughters When Sheila had lived 30 years he fathered
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Eber and Sheila lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters when
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Eber had lived 34 years. He fathered Peleg and Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters when
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Peleg had lived 30 years He fathered Rue and Peleg lived after he fathered Rue 209 years and had other sons and daughters
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When Rue had lived 32 years he fathered Sereg and Rue lived after he fathered Sereg 207 years and had other sons and daughters when
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Sereg had lived 30 years he fathered Nahor and Sarug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
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When Nahor had lived 29 years he fathered Terah and Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters.
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When Terah had lived 70 years he fathered Abram, Nahor and Haran. Now these are the generations of Terah.
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Terah fathered Abram, Nahor and Haran and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father
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Terah in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans and Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's father was
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Sarai and the name of Nahor's wife Milca, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milca and Isca. Now Sarai was barren, she had no child.
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Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai, his daughter -in -law, his son,
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Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran they settled there.
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The days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died. in Haran. Let's pray.
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Father, we read this list of names and to us it's just like some of it's just gibberish to be honest. We just have a hard time wrapping our mind around the reality that these are real people living life as usual, being married, having children, having joy and delight and rebellion and sin and father just some relating to you based on faith and others just in opposition to you and Father, I think that we can kind of reflect and start to see ourselves in the text as we realize that life goes on as usual, that we live in a very busy time where there's so many things that would war against our attention and we could just easily live from birth to death and have some kids in the middle and get married and just do life and and be ignorant of the amazing scope of what you are doing in our midst in our time and in our generation.
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Father, just like these people who may not have realized all that was going on in the bringing about the line of Shem, bringing to a culmination in Abraham who is going to be a person who relates to you based on faith and is all that line and the lineage of Jesus Christ, your
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Savior who you sent on this earth and we're just seeing glimpses of your movement of history, pushing it forward, doing your thing.
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Father, even despite and in the midst of sinful human behavior. Father, I ask that as we have an opportunity to lift our voices before you that we would lift our voices as people who live in a very privileged generation.
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We are so amazingly privileged to live in a time in an era where we know the name of the Savior. We know the form of his salvation to take on humility and even humility to the point of death on a cross.
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And so Father, as we lift up our voices, I pray that you would free our hearts, free our tongues, free our minds to be able to engage with you as you truly are, as you have revealed yourself in your majesty, in your glory.
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Let us pour out hearts of sacrifice before you in these songs. Let the words wash over our mind in a way that brings about truth and correct thinking.
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Father, even as we sing some songs that we might not be very familiar with and some that we know and some that we, I pray that you would help us to remove the concept of the style of the music or the way that the music goes to ultimately bring honor and glory to you through hearts given to you that we reflect on you and help us to step out of the way.
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I ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Honored and lifted high. Awesome.
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I encourage you to get comfortable. You can get coffee, donuts as they last there. I know we just took a break, but feel free to get up at any time.
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Bathrooms are back here. And I encourage you to have your Bibles open so that we can kind of dive into this and you can see what's going on from the
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Bible that's in front of you as well. Are you guys ready to do this? Okay, a little bit. We're gonna be a little bit weird.
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I'm gonna be a little bit sketchy at the beginning and then we're gonna get into lots of fun names here by the end. But more than that, we are looking at what
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God wants to tell us, something about Himself and something about us. And I want you to remember that when you come to Scripture, whether it's in your private reading or you see a verse mentioned on the back of a bumper sticker or wherever you encounter
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God's Word that you think, what does this say about God and what is this, what is he telling me about me?
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Right, and that's something that's reality of, that ultimately Scripture interprets us.
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It has an impact on the way that we understand ourselves and in a relationship to God. Right off the bat, we're gonna be reminded of the flood.
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Verse 18 takes us back there. Now, we know we've seen kind of a little bit, they've already come off the ark. We saw the promise, we saw the rainbow, all of that was last week.
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But then in verse 18, we get a reminder again. The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth.
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So that's kind of the setting, the context. They're coming off the ark and these three guys are there.
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And right away, we also see in verse 18, it lets us know that Ham was the father of Canaan. You see that in parenthesis there in your
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Bible? You see that there? That ought to clue you in that something important about Canaan is gonna be revealed to us, right?
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I mean, when you see something that's kind of out of place like that or it's in parenthesis, it's kind of like, okay, I think that God wanted us to know that Ham was the father of Canaan for a purpose.
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It's not like, just throw out an obscure name there and just kind of throw it into the text and put it there. But there's going to be some significance.
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Canaan is going to play an important part moving forward. We're going to see that. Verse 19 states something that's, I think, somewhat obvious to us.
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These three were the sons of Noah and from these, the peoples of the whole earth were dispersed.
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So everybody ultimately goes back down to these three dudes. All of us in this room are in some way related to Ham, Shem or Japheth.
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Do you guys agree on that? I mean, the story is what it is. And so when we go back there, we see that we're all related.
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We find out that Noah, through this text, that Noah, shipbuilder, has a midlife career change.
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Any of you here have that happen to you? Like you were kind of heading in one direction and all of a sudden you're doing a different job all of a sudden. Noah started as a shipbuilder, a midlife career, and he changes and he gets into viticulture.
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You guys use viticulture a lot? Do you use that phrase a lot? The tending of vines, growing grapes, making wine.
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Noah's a bit of a renaissance man, we find out. So remember that his resume, his resume, he's getting a career shift here.
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His resume includes preacher of righteousness, boat builder, discoverer of God's grace, blameless dude in his generation, and esteemed winner of the last family standing contest.
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Okay? So he's got a pretty, would you say that Noah has a pretty decent resume? But now he adds to that resume the title vintner.
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Vintner being a person who makes wine. But Noah throws himself all in.
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I got to imagine he was pretty zealous and pretty enthusiastic about building a boat, pretty enthusiastic about preaching righteousness, and he takes it right in stride.
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He's pretty enthusiastic about his wine, and he gets into it.
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And he drinks too much, and he gets drunk, which adds a couple of other things to his resume here.
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We see right away Noah was a sketchy drunk. Okay? Sketchy drunk. The clothes come off when he's had too much to drink, and it's right there in the text.
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I'm going to just deal with it like it says. So something sketchy about this, and the clothes are off. But fortunately
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Noah's nakedness was private. So he's had too much, he's in the tent, but the flap of the tent must be open or whatever because somebody walking by is able to see that he's laying in there without any clothes on.
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Not cool. Okay? This isn't good. Now we know from further Scripture, and I just want to point this out to be clear here, that really throughout
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Scripture there's a theme of wine as a symbol of delight and joy and gladness. It's not actually a negative thing, but a symbol of joy, celebration, and good things.
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Wine is not wicked or evil as some Christians have preached down through the ages. Any of you ever heard preaching against alcohol that it's the devil's drink and all of that kind of stuff?
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It's not substantiated from Scripture. But can it be dangerous? Absolutely.
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And I think we all recognize that. And we also ought to recognize that clearly spelled out for us in the book of Ephesians is that drunkenness is a sin.
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To have too much to drink and to go across that line is a sin. And I think primarily because of the issue of self -control and inhibition.
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Do we see a problem with Noah's inhibition in the text? Is it kind of moot? It's gone.
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So what are some of the things that we know about Noah again? He was declared to be righteous and blameless before God and his generation.
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Is he a pretty good guy? So I think what we encounter here is something that ought to be kind of like a good picture in our minds of what it looks like when a normally
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God -honoring individual encounters drunkenness. Everything just kind of flies to the wayside.
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Do you see? Is that dangerous? Is that something we ought to be seriously considering? Absolutely. I'm confident that Noah in his right mind would not be pleased with his lapse in moral judgment here.
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Do you agree with me? That if he had his faculties about him at this point, he would be disgusted with himself and disappointed.
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And I think that that's an awesome, excellent picture of what drunkenness really ultimately is in a person's life.
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But the reality is I think sometimes we have in our minds sin can be quarantined. And I've mentioned this before. Like I can take my sin.
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It can be private. I can hide it from everybody else, and it's going to be okay. And it's just only affecting me, right? It's only hurting me.
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And do you see the potential for this to be a very private sin? I mean, can you see how
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Noah might think, I'm going back to my tent, I'm going to sleep this off, and it's going to be okay. Everything's going to just turn out fine. Just hide out in my tent, and it'll be okay.
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Do you see what I'm saying? How he can be thinking he's quarantining this. Quarantining?
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He's not, you know, whatever. But it spills over to his sons.
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Because Ham, Noah's youngest son, walks past the tent, glances in, and sees his father in the state of nakedness.
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Now, isn't that awkward? Anybody awkward with this? Can you move on now? Can we just move on to the next part of the text?
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As awkward as this text is, so many have actually argued and debated back and forth about what the actual sin of Ham was.
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What did he do wrong? Look down at verse 22. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. Has he sinned yet in the text?
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This is the wrong place, wrong time. Glanced in, there's his dad. Is he sinned?
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No, not yet. But now go on down, keep reading. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and what?
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Told. Told his two brothers outside. I think that is
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Ham's sin. As a matter of fact, all of the commentaries universally that I read about the scholars that have written and studied in Hebrew and all of this stuff, they all agree that the sin is found at the latter half of verse 22.
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The implications by the Hebrew language here is that Ham makes fun of his father. He mocks him.
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He makes a laughing stock of his dad. Not only did he observe his father in a state of disrespect, but he went on and told others, his brothers, in what was likely a mocking and deriding kind of way, like to say, hey, bros,
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I saw the old fool drunken naked. That's the image that we have here. So he goes and he makes fun of his father.
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And it's unclear. I mean, we know that at least he told his two brothers, but it's not unlikely that he told others as well, that he was in a state of spreading shame to his father.
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Now, the whole event is awkward and very strange for us in our modern culture. Like, I mean, you're kind of like going, well, wait a minute.
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What about when I'm at the Bronson Athletic Club? You know, and it's like, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you should just keep the towel around you.
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That's fine. You can do that. That's legitimate. OK, you can do that. But is that what's the is that the sin that's talked about here?
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You know, the guy's locker room or whatever. There are a couple things that I want to point out that I think will help bridge the gap in this text for us to help us understand what's going on here.
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I think that it's very, very important for us to remember the only other time we've seen the concept of nakedness mentioned in the text so far.
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Where was that? In the garden, right? And what was the first thing that Adam and Eve responded to?
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What was the first sense or the first shift or change that happened in them after they ate the fruit and sinned and rebelled against God?
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What did they experience? Shame because they were naked.
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OK, so that is the context in which we can understand how bad is this thing that Noah has done?
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Is it bad? Is it kind of like, well, I mean, in your mind it might be kind of like, oh, this is, you know, I mean, what's the deal?
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No, no. They sowed fig leaves together. They sowed leaves together and it wasn't sufficient. And God killed an animal to cover their nakedness.
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Right? I mean, it was significant. God took the life of an animal in order to cover their shame.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? And there's something that's unique about the concept of clothing. You ought to have a theology of clothing.
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Now, that seems strange, but you ought to have an understanding of why do we wear clothes? Because, in all honesty, if you were to approach life from a purely evolutionary standpoint, you will be hard -pressed to figure out why the animals back in the past wasted decent, good resources in order to clothe themselves.
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Time and energy and resources in order to provide clothing. Any other animals?
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Have you ever seen other animals wearing clothes? Well, come on. I mean, some of you have seen sweat.
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Did you guys have sweaters for your dogs? OK. OK, I'm going to end there then.
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A couple of you do. Yeah, my cat does not have a sweater. By the way, I don't have a cat.
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My kids own a cat. I just want to clarify that. I do not own a cat. Every once in a while I say to my wife, did you know there's an animal living in our house?
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It just blows my mind. I don't even know why we have an animal living in our house, but it's there. It runs through them like, oh. They taste like chicken.
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OK, I'll take your word for it. My kids aren't in here, are they? That's not in my notes, so I've got to catch up here.
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So this concept of shame, though, is, I think, something that's a little bit lost on us. That when we really think about it from a biblical perspective of what the nakedness meant in the scope of the fall, that shame clings to the concept of nakedness, and it's there.
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So Noah, what Noah did was utterly disrespectful to expose himself to his kids there in that tent.
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But also in a highly patriarchal society, what Ham did was even worse. Not only did he observe his father and his shame, but then he went on to perpetuate that shame, to spread that shame to others, calling attention to his father's foolish behavior.
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Was Noah acting disrespectful? Let's be honest. Was he? Oh, yeah. You better believe he was acting disrespectful.
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But in his position as father and head of that household, did he deserve respect?
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He still deserved respect. Honor your father and mother. And it doesn't say honor your father or mother if they're acting respectfully.
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Does it give that exception? Honor them for the office that they hold. That right there,
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I could preach a whole sermon on just how difficult a task that can be for some of you. And I'm not just throwing that out flippantly.
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I know some of you have just intense pain that's caused from your parents, and I'm sorry for that.
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And we can talk about that. If you're here and you're wrestling through that and you're trying to work through some of those things that you can't get past,
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I would love to sit down and talk further. But it's there. The idea, the concept that the office is worthy of respect despite the disrespectful behavior.
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Verse 23 goes over the top in explaining the resolution to the shame that we might really understand. This is one of the reasons that we really get what
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Ham did wrong here. One of the reasons we know that is because what the solution was to the problem.
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And that's in verse 23. It goes over the top in explaining the resolution. Shem and Japheth being respectful of their father, and ultimately we'll see
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Shem even declared to be respectful of God by what he does here, took great effort to cover their father's shame without even bringing further shame to him.
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The contrast between the nobility and the honor of Shem and Japheth shows the contrast to the response of Ham who mocked his father.
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They put a cloak between their two shoulders. They back into the tent and watch for his feet.
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And as the cloak covers his feet, and then his feet are exposed, then they drop the cloak and they cover him without looking. You get the picture there.
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You get the image. They are respecting him and they are not going to dishonor him in this way.
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Noah sleeps it off, wakes up with a headache probably. It doesn't say that in the text, but I assume so. A little bit groggy and pretty grumpy.
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And we're going to see that at least in the text. He finds out what Ham has done and it's quite possible that Ham had shared that with others.
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Like I said, I don't know for sure, but we do know that this account happened later down the line. Noah has had time to develop vineyards, to produce wine.
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Some time has passed here and he also has now grandchildren. So we can kind of set this in the timing of a little ways removed.
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It's not like he stepped off the ark and this happened three days later. You get what I'm saying? Some time has passed here. And Noah is furious.
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You see that? You see his response? So we find that the very first words recorded of Noah, I challenge you to go back and look and see where else you can find the words of Noah prior to this account.
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Anybody realize that? Noah hasn't said a word to us yet. He's just been building a boat and being faithful. And now all of a sudden this, in the very first recorded words of the man of God named
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Noah, the very first word he utters in Hebrew is cursed. The hero, hero of the faith.
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And the very first thing he says is to curse his own grandson.
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Cursed be Canaan. He's the one, remember, wait a minute.
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This is the guy that the children's books tell us to, tell the kids to act like, right?
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Isn't that the end of every Noah story? I went through all the kids'
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Bibles that I have in my house, which is a few. And every single one of them ends where in the life of Noah?
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The rainbow. Not a single one of them recorded this event at the end of the life of Noah.
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I don't know. Probably for a good idea. I don't know. I'm not going to draw pictures.
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But, sorry, sorry. But they end there. And Noah ends up a hero by the time the rainbow is there, right?
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That's great. Does Noah end his life a hero? Is Noah a hero that you want your kids to act just like Noah?
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Noah's not a hero. He's a man. And as far as men in his generation, he was a standout.
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I don't want to minimize that. He stood out in his generation. He had faith.
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He found favor. But he responds here in the text in anger.
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And that's the way that Noah ends.
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Why the curse? His first words are cursed be Canaan. Who did the sin?
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Ham. I want to point out that I think Noah is spitting angry, and I think he really actually wants to put an extra barb into his son
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Ham. Because this is what I see happening here. If you want to get under my skin, if you want to really put a barb into me, attack my wife or my kids, right?
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I mean, any of you relate to what I just said? Are you in agreement with me on that? Attack my spouse or attack my kids.
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Now, you can attack me or say bad things about me, and we might not be best friends after that, right? We might not be getting along, okay?
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But you say bad things about my kids or my wife, and it's go time, right? Do you know what I'm talking about? The gloves come off.
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This is not going to go well. I mean, this is bad news, okay? Did you just have an image of your pastor fighting with somebody?
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I don't really want to leave you with that either. Stop it, stop it.
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Yeah, you see these guns. Fear. Okay, I go down fighting.
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Okay, you know what I'm saying. So I think Noah here intentionally hits
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Ham where it hurts. You get what I'm saying? I mean, he curses his son. That's rough.
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This is grandfather cursing grandson to get to his son. Is this brokenness? You seeing some brokenness in this family already?
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They just stepped off the ark. I mean, I'm saying there's some duration here, but this is the family that God preserved.
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Already messed up. Already a bunch of stuff going on. He's cursing his grandson.
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And he curses Canaan to servitude to his brothers. His curse against Canaan, however, and this is important.
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His curse against Canaan is set in the context of blessing Seth and Japheth. So that contrasts it even more.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? Noah is going to sit down and bless his two sons and curse his grandson in the same sentence.
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You getting what I'm saying? I mean, does that even make it more of a contrast? Curse you. You are going to serve these two, and these two are going to be blessed.
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May Japheth expand, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem. In other words, actually calling down unity.
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May God bless Seth and Japheth. May they dwell in unity and have fun together and enjoy each other's company, and may
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Canaan pour the iced tea for them and bring it to them and serve them.
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May he be their servant. You getting what I'm saying? It's a pretty significant contrast there.
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Why is Noah doing this? Noah is genuinely grateful that Shem has demonstrated honor by following God.
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He actually declares that that's the reason he wants to bless Shem. Identifying something about Shem's motives in walking backwards into the tent because he's a follower of God.
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So he says, Bless be Yahweh, the God of Shem, and may Japheth be expanded.
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If you've been paying attention throughout the first several chapters of Genesis, you might see what I begin to see here in the text, and that's already the lines are being drawn once again.
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Before the flood, the lines were drawn. The line of faithful Seth, the line of Abel, and the line of Cain, who did not trust
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God and did not show faith. Do you see that already starting again? Ham, who acts without faith.
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Shem and Japheth, who are acting in faith. Those who trust
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God and those who don't. And the division is already forming again very quickly. Unity and blessing between Japheth and Shem, but of Cain and all that Noah has to say of him is three times reiterating a consignment to servitude.
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It's worth noting that from the vantage point of Moses, the author of Genesis, that this explanation of Cain would have been helpful in his generation.
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Where is Moses while he's writing the words of this book that we're reading? He's on a journey, an exodus, if you will, from Egypt to the
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Promised Land. What's another name for the Promised Land? Canaan. He's going to the place where the descendants of Canaan are going to eventually settle, or where they have settled by Moses' time.
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And so he's here talking about the history of this family, saying that the Canaan, who is the founder of this group of peoples that we're going to see later in the text, actually settle in what is modern -day
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Israel and are the barrier between God's promises to Israel and the taking of the land.
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So in the book of Joshua, who are you going to find Joshua fighting against to take the land? The wicked
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Canaanites. You're seeing how this all ties together. I mean, the entirety of Scripture ties together in an amazing way, the way that these things all point together in Moses' writing about Canaan as they're getting ready to go in and conquer
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Canaan. There's intention here. But wrapping up chapter 9, we discover that Noah lived a super huge long life, 600 years before the flood, 350 years after the flood.
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This is all going to be set in the context of decreasing lifespans that are coming up in these genealogies, implying that this is, again, true, that the lifespan is slowly getting down to normal, and the text takes for granted that we ought to be in awe of the lifespan of these people, that we're supposed to be in awe of them, and that eventually they get down to smaller and smaller.
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But can you imagine the things that Noah saw in his lifetime? 950 years. 600 years of life in that wicked era before the flood.
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Encountering, experiencing the flood, and then 350 years of watching generations regrow and the world regrow after the flood.
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Any of you looking forward to taking a number and talking with Noah on the new earth about just the way that all that went down, the things that he saw, the things that he experienced, what was life like, what kind of changes came upon the earth during that flood?
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It would be awesome to talk with him. But before we move on to these genealogies,
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I want to consider the finish line of Noah in Scripture. What we see here is his finish line. 950 years and he's done.
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We end with this old man having shamed himself with a drunken nakedness and then cursing his own grandson. I don't want to be discouraging, but I want to point out a caution for those who seek out heroes.
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I want to just say this. I took a speech class in high school. Did any of you take speech? Some of you had to endure a speech class.
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Any of you kind of struggle with speech class? That was tough for you? I want to tell you God's sense of humor just as a sideline.
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I struggled intensely with stage fright as a kid. I have all the way through my entire life struggled with stage fright.
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So what does God do? He calls me to be a preacher. That's his sense of humor. So he and I kind of laugh when
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I preach. We kind of joke about that. Let me explain to what degree. In my preaching class in college, now that's not that long ago, in my preaching class
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I got up to give a sermon. Everybody had to deliver two sermons, one midterm, one at the end. I got up at the end.
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Final, like 40 % of my grade is riding on the sermon. I get up to preach it, lose my place in the notes, and just go sit down at my desk.
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I was so flustered I just could not read anything. Linda could testify that early on in our marriage when we were raising support to go over as missionaries we'd have to speak at different churches.
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I would pray the night before that God might break my leg or do something to me to keep me from having to get up in front of everybody and speak.
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That's the intensity of stage fright. So God has a pretty good sense of humor. In that speech class, my teacher in high school said, every one of you is going to give at least one impromptu speech during the course of the class, of the semester.
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I'm not going to tell you in advance. It's impromptu, and everybody's going to give one. There's going to be one a day, and you're not going to know what it's on or anything.
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I'm going to give you the topic at the start of the class, and at the end we're going to wrap up the class with you giving a five to ten minute speech. So she says to me once,
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I'm trying to hide in my desk. She says, Don, I want you to talk about your hero.
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I want you to get up and give a speech about your hero. And I was like, you know, what we could do is we could just take an
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F on this assignment. You could just write that in the book, and we could be done. And honestly, in my mind I was thinking,
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I don't really have a hero. I mean, that was honestly the first thing that ran through my mind. I'm not the kind of person who idolizes athletes or whatever.
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And I did end up eventually getting up and trying to say something about Jesus Christ. And I struggled, and it was about a three minute, maybe a three minute speech, it tops.
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And just got up and said a couple things and sat back down. But if you're the kind of person who needs a hero, this is for my speech teacher, so I'm going to do a better job on this one.
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I ought to send her a copy. If you're the kind of person who needs a hero, let me recommend for you really a hero that will not disappoint you.
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Noah will disappoint you. David in the Old Testament will disappoint you.
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Peter in the New Testament, he'll disappoint you. But there is a hero who will not disappoint you.
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There is only one who started well. There is only one who lived well.
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There is only one who served well. There is only one who loved well, who did community well.
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And he finished well. And his name is
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Jesus Christ. He is the hero of the pages of human history. Everything before him pointing forward to him, everything since him pointing back to him.
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He ended his life naked and ashamed. You say, how is that finishing well?
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Well, it wasn't because he was drunk. He rejected the wine that was offered him at the end of the spear. So unlike Noah, he finished well because he was taking the shame and the nakedness and the exposure that you and I deserved on himself.
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He finished well. And praise God that wasn't the end, because when
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I say he finished well, God granted to him the most awesome and inspiring vindication of a life ever by raising him up from the disgrace of the grave.
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And he is now exalted to the right hand of his Father in heaven, and all things are now his, all enemies placed under his feet, including the ultimate enemy of the human race, death.
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Now under him. Now if you need a hero, there's your hero.
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Not these sports figures, not these musicians, not One Direction. You know what
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I'm talking about. There's one hero, and his name is Jesus Christ. The history marches on in the post -flood world.
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It really is just like life as usual, business as usual. We find out that Shem, Ham, and Japheth had children after the flood.
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These are real people living real lives in a real historical context. And most of the names of these genealogies end up becoming nations, people groups, or city -states.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? The name of the person often identifies the people. Like for example, there's a guy that we're going to see here in just a moment.
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His name is Egypt. Guess where the Egyptians come from. This dude, okay, his name is
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Egypt. There's another guy named Cush. Now because we're Americans, we have no idea about some of these historical events and some of these huge empires that used to exist, because we're
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Americans and all that matters is the last 200 years of history, right? We don't really study it that much. But there was an entire empire called the
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Abyssinian Empire in the area of Cush, which Cush is Ethiopia. Did any of you know that Ethiopia at one time was the place on the planet?
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That was one of the most enormous empires on the face of the planet, an extremely rich and wealthy empire in what is now modern -day
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Ethiopia. Cush is the guy who was the founder of that line for the
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Abyssinian Empire. All of these people, we'll see different cities, their names reflect a city that was settled or something like that.
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And in verses 2 through 5, we find the descendants of Japheth, from which almost everybody in this room arises, every single one of us.
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How many of you are into tracing your genealogy? You're going to struggle to get back this far. But I can tell you that if you come from anything
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European, you probably come from Japheth, because Japheth's line primarily settles the northern shores of the
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Mediterranean. From Japheth springs the Greeks, the Romans and all the proto -European tribes and the
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Germanic tribes and all of those people come from Japheth. Japheth is the forefather of the
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Gentiles. Any of you a Gentile? That means basically non -Jew. All of those in the north.
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And that's according to the list of his children and where they're settled. Now in verse 5, we see in chapter 10, that a spreading out happens during the time represented by these genealogies.
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Do you see that in verse 5? It says, Wait a minute,
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I didn't know, do they all have different languages yet? Wasn't that the whole Tower of Babel thing that's coming in chapter 11?
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Anybody ever read this and go, what's going on here? How come they have different languages and tribes and nations?
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What we're doing is we're walking through the line of Japheth and we come to a point where it tells us that everybody spread out.
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Well, why did everybody spread out? Why did everybody disperse according to languages and nations? Because that whole
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Tower of Babel thing happens. That's going to be the place where the spreading out occurs.
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So ultimately, in each one of these lines, we see signs of different places where the spreading out happens.
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And that Tower of Babel, again, I'm going to talk about that next week, is recorded for us in Genesis 11, 1 through 9. But here in chapter 10, we get the genealogy of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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And so the Tower of Babel incident happens somewhere during each one of these lines. And that spreading out and that dispersion and the giving of languages.
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Again, we're going to be talking about that next week. But verse 5 expresses that spreading out for Japheth's line. There was a point where they were all together and something caused them to spread out with separate languages.
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And linguistic theory, I just want to point this out. You can get online and look at PhDs and documents and different writings about language theory and all of these people who study languages until they're blue in the face.
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And what it really comes down to is almost all of them are unanimous that humanity started language together with one language.
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And that all languages diverge from a common source. That's the way that languages work. So that whether you're a
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Christian or not a Christian, whether you're an atheist or you're a believer, you have to deal with the reality that all languages come from a common source.
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And then, if you believe in evolution, you actually have to take it a step further, which just gets very, very difficult to actually say at what point was it advantageous for me to call it a rock and somebody else call it a
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Petra? You see what I'm saying? At what point does it become advantageous for me to call it something different than you call it and eventually develop, hey,
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I'm just going to develop my own language. Can you imagine if the elders of the church just decided we're going to speak a different language than the rest of you.
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We're going to invent it, we're going to make it up, we're going to come up with our own writing style, and you guys can just deal with that. How many of you think that would be advantageous for the church?
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That's not going to work, is it? And so, if you believe in evolution, you'd have to deal with language theory as we understand it, that there's very clear indication that everything has come from a common language.
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So either way, I'm getting ahead of myself because I'm going to talk about this next week with the Tower of Babel, but you have to deal with this very clear indication that everything was once one language.
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Ham has four children. Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan the Cursed. These are the people groups that are in the closest contact with Israel down through the ages and are most often the thorn in the side of God's people.
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Ultimately, what I just want to point out is the curse of Noah seems to play out in the interactions between the children of Shem and the children of Canaan very clearly throughout
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Scripture. We even find out that the two greatest empires in opposition to the people of God came out of one ancient tyrant emperor named
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Nimrod. He was a son of Cush, and in verse 8 he is identified as a mighty man.
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As a matter of fact, if you look at verse 8, there could be something confusing there. Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man.
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Anybody struggle with that statement, that phrase? If you've been listening throughout the entirety of the book of Genesis so far, were there other mighty men mentioned?
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There have been, haven't there? So if there have been other men who were called mighty men of old, then now how could we call this guy the first?
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The thing that you need to understand is that in Hebrew, the word first can mean preeminent or most important or highest.
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And so what I think we have here is Nimrod being ultimately identified as the world ruler during this time.
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People are still speaking one language. They're all together at this time in the line through Cush, and they're all together, and because they're all together, there's one guy who's the ringleader, and his name is
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Nimrod. He's declared to be a mighty man, a mighty hunter. Some have actually interpreted that as a hunter of men.
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He's a warrior. The phrase before the Lord, so you see that he's a hunter before the Lord.
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He's a mighty man before the Lord. Does that sound like he's a godly guy when he says before the
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Lord? It just means in the eyes of God. So even God identifies this guy as powerful. He's like this is a world ruler here.
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This guy has a lot of power vested in him. But the fact of the matter is Nimrod is not a good guy.
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Have you wondered that before? Who is this guy and what's going on with him? He's actually, his name gives us a pretty good indication of who he is.
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His name means we will rebel.
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Don't name your kids Nimrod, okay, for other reasons too. It doesn't just mean stupid or idiot or something like that,
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Nimrod. It means we will rebel, even worse, right? Don't name your kid
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Nimrod. We find that he started the kingdom of Babel, Erech, Akkad, Kelna.
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What are all these? This is in the land of Shinar. Babel being the origins of the word
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Babylon from where the entire Babylonian empire is going to be raised up. They're the ones who are going to eventually lead
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Israel into exile, by the way. So they're going to be used as a tool of God to judge his own people eventually because they've sinned and they've sacrificed to idols and all this stuff.
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But not only that, but he's also, we find out, the founder of Babel which is where they build the tower of Babel.
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This guy is instrumental in the unifying of people from a multitude of tribes to bring about the building of this temple that God opposes.
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That's ultimately rebellion against God. His name means we will rebel, and they do.
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And he unites the people under his authority. But in verse 11 something happens that makes Nimrod forsake his kingdom in Babylon.
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Look at this. From that land he went into Assyria. Now how many people often build a huge kingdom, rise to tyranny over that kingdom and then ditch it and go start something new?
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You ever heard of that happening? That doesn't happen. Something happened in the land of Shinar, in the realm of Babel that caused this dude to pick up and move to another place and found a new empire.
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What could that be? Anybody have any ideas what might have led this guy to move on? God dispersing the languages and scattering the people like we're going to see in chapter 11?
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Maybe that has something to do with it. Nimrod picks up from Babylon, leaves that area and founds a new nation called
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Assyria which Assyria is going to be used to judge the northern kingdom of Israel.
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So Israel is eventually going to be divided in half. Both sides, both halves get into wickedness and sin and actually worshipping all kinds of gods and stuff.
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And God brings in the Babylonians to cart off, I think it's Babylonians cart off the north and Assyrians cart off the south.
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So these two that are founded by Nimrod are the ones that are eventually used to judge the nation of Israel.
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And I believe that when the tower of Babel went down, Nimrod jumped ship from his kingdom because it was faltering and started a new kingdom in Assyria.
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Verses 15 through 19 identify the Canaanites and the places that they settled which are pretty much exactly where we find them in the book of Joshua when the
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Israelites come in to conquer them. All of those iths, the Girgash iths and the Arvid iths and all of those iths that are in there, you find those same people groups in the land of Israel when
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Joshua comes in to conquer. And lastly we cover Shem and his genealogy is broken up into two tracks because one traces the line of unchosen here in chapter 10 and in verse 11 we find the chosen line that's going to end up springing forth with the
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Messiah at the end. Jesus Christ comes through the line of Peleg, not through the line of Jocton.
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But you'll see a group of people or a person that's mentioned in high esteem here. In verses 21 and 25 you see this guy named
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Eber. Interesting to note that the word Eber means Hebrew. That's what it means, it means the ethnicity
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Hebrew. So we call it Hebrew, they called it Eber in the Hebrew language and Eber is the foundation of the
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Hebrew peoples. But what is most valuable to know about Eber is that he has two sons who are alive during the
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Tower of Babel incident. He names one Peleg which means division, obviously for the separation, the division that God brings at the
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Tower. And the other son is Jocton. In chapter 10 we follow Jocton. In chapter 11 we follow
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Peleg which means division. And the reason I'm including chapter 11, 10 through 32 here in the sermon is that it ultimately finishes up this genealogy with hope.
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Everything in these genealogies is life as usual. People are being born, the lifespan is decreasing as you can see for yourself in chapter 11.
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We start with Shem living 600 years and by the time we get down to Nahor, Nahor only lives 148 years.
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Still a long life but definitely shorter than the 950 that Noah lived. Lifespans are decreasing and yet we still only have recorded for us four generations between the flood and the
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Tower of Babel and those four generations spanned 1 ,405 years according to the math in this text.
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Long generations. But in chapter 11 rather than follow the children again of Jocton, Moses traces the line going forward from Peleg his brother and this line is going to prove to be very important because when we get down to verse 26 in chapter 11 we see finally a familiar name.
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A name that even many irreligious people will find familiar and recognize as having religious significance, the name
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Abram. He shows up and these genealogies serve the purpose of showing that life is going on as usual.
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How many of you think that 1 ,405 years is a long span of time? How many of you think a lot of life was lived in that time?
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A lot of details that we don't know about, a lot of pain and suffering, a lot of joy, a lot of tears, a lot of laughter.
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Real life and real people. And did they know, were they aware of God's ultimate plan that was moving forward?
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This big scope of things that's going on above us that we are privileged to know by the word of God but ultimately how many of you would admit that sometimes your week gets busy and you don't take the time to reflect on where you are at in the big picture scheme of what
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God is doing? Would you admit that? That there can be weeks, months, maybe even years that go by without reflection on the privileged position that you have in the time and the era of history that God has brought you to.
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We get so caught up in our jobs, in our relationships, in all different kinds of things, in entertainment, that we can miss what
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God is doing all around us. Life as usual. He brings
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Abram to the picture. We've bridged a couple thousand years from the flood to Abram in one very brief time and we find already some signs of things to come.
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Abram's father seeks to move his family to Canaan but for some reason is sidetracked in Haran and he dies before they make the trip complete.
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God is going to eventually take Abram's people to Canaan. I'm going to be honest, when
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I started my work on the text this week, I was thinking, what am I going to do with this? I'm just honest. I read it through a couple of times and I was like, a lot of genealogy in here, a lot going on.
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Over the course of this week, God revealed to me just this concept of life as usual that's going on all around us.
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Think about the things that have happened to you this week and then think about some of the things that I'm just going to say here of what we see in this text of history just unfolding.
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The hero falters. The mighty rise up and try to usurp God's power.
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The wheel of time spins. God keeps moving things forward towards redemption, healing, and fulfillment all the while babies are being born and life is going on and people are dying and life is happening.
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Humanity does its part, sinning, slouching, and stumbling, and God is there in the midst of the mess working
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His plan to bring about redemption through the line, the chosen line of Seth. One is going to come.
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One is going to be born of the line of Seth through Peleg and Ark Peshad and all of these crazy names, but one is going to be born who is in that lineage, the descendant of Shem.
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We take communion each week to celebrate our awesome and great hero from the line of Shem, Jesus Christ.
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He's the object of our hope for reconciliation with God. Over the course of history, generations have rolled on, people have been born, rebellions, uprisings, faith, and hope all mixed in with human failure.
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What a privileged people we are to be born this side of the new covenant. Have you ever paused to rejoice for the era and the time in which you have been born?
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Have you ever taken a moment to say, Thank you, God, for bringing me to this place of grace.
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We are privileged to know the name of the Savior. We let the awe of that and the wonder of that settle on our lives because I'm going to tell you honestly,
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I'm indicting myself in this next statement so you could walk away offended, but I'm in here too. I think that we are petty.
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I think that Americans are petty. I think we get so caught up in the trivial and the mundane and the
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People magazine and who's doing what and oh, she didn't say that. You know what
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I'm saying? All of this stuff that matters for nothing. I hope the
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Tigers win this year. I hope they do well. And how about that weather? It's getting warmer out.
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We miss the awe of what God has given us in His word and in the era and in the time and grace.
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Let that sink in. And if you can't find time during the week, then could you do me a favor and just take the moments that we give you during communion to do that?
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Could you take that time when you take that cracker and you take that juice in your hand and let some awe wash over you?
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That we know what these elements are about. They are about the sacrificial system being fulfilled for us in Jesus Christ our
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Savior. That all of these Old Testament patterns point to God providing a way for us.
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What a privileged people we are to be born this side of this new covenant. To be honored with the knowledge of the name of Jesus Christ.
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And what a privilege to celebrate together the cross as a past tense event that we can read about and study and know.
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God is the one who orchestrated the birth of nations. And He also orchestrated the place of your birth to bring you to this time and this place under the protection of His new covenant of grace.
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Jesus died on the cross, humbled, shamed, and naked. That we need not be humbled and shamed and naked before our
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God, but clothed in His righteousness. And that should give us great joy in the midst of life as usual.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You so much for Your grace.
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I thank You for the time and the era that we live in. It's sickening in my heart to think of how we can afford to be petty.
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Many generations and many cultures and in some places on the face of the planet today, they can't afford to be petty because of fear of the authorities coming and breaking up their fellowship and arresting them and putting them in dungeons and prisons or even worse yet, killing them for their faith.
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And we live in a place where we have the truth and we have grace and we have mercy. And Father, I pray that You would forgive my pettiness and our pettiness and Father, that You would move us out this week with purpose and with joy and with enthusiasm.
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Father, not some morose, sickening, deep, dark severity over life, but with a deep abiding joy that comes from knowing our
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Savior. Would You move us, Father, that we take communion and we remember Your Son.
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Remember the blood that was shed for us and the body that was broken for us. And may that move us to a healthy, whole, complete picture of this big thing that You are doing, that we have a part to play.
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Father, use us in this community and in this era we live in to shine out the truth and the glory and the joy of Your gospel.