Sunday Night, Dec 10, 2017

From what we can tell, not being a Jew but being a Gentile, the only Gentile author of the New Testament. And Luke, being one who has been traveling with the Apostle Paul on international journeys, has this concentration, this mentality of the gospel going everywhere to all the nations and feels necessary and inspired by the Holy Spirit to write to Theophilus and talk about the 70 being sent out.

And so if Genesis 10 is in his mind, it's not instantly clear, but it is an interesting connection. So when you look at Genesis 10, we have to, in some ways, put ourselves in the mindset of the Israelites.

And they are going to be hearing this from Moses as he writes this down by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It gets passed on to the Levites who pass it on to the rest of the nation as they are encamped there at the Acacia Grove under the shadow of Mount Peor, next to the Jordan River.

They're going to go over to Canaan soon and conquer that land. And they're getting some background to that. As in the previous chapter, we hear about the curse on Canaan and that the descendants of Canaan will be judged.

Ultimately, the descendants of Canaan will be subservient to the descendants of Shem. And we will be shown in Genesis 10 about the descendants of Shem going through Eber, or thus they're called the Hebrews, and going all the way to the ancestry of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And that we piece a lot together starting in Genesis 10 and moving on. But remember that Israel, that when this is being written to the Israelites, they have already been delivered up out of Egypt. They have been wandering about the wilderness.

They have encountered all sorts of nations. A lot of them were hostile to them as they, kind of like a pinball, go bouncing around in the wilderness and put themselves in position to finally enter in.

They have failed to enter in the promised land the first time because of the faithless report of the ten spies versus the faithful report of Joshua and Caleb. And nations, all these nations out there, it's very much on the brain of the Israelites.

And they've got to go in and conquer these Canaanite tribes, nations. And so Genesis 10 is very meaningful to them. It explains a lot and gives them the proper focus. So we're told in Genesis 10 that everyone comes from Noah and his three sons.

And as I read through, I try to keep track of those few moments in the chapter where we take a little break from the list of names for a little bit of history. And those will be clues to help us understand what comes next in chapter 11.

Verse 1 says,. Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. And sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth were Gomorrah, Magog, and Midiah, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshach, and Tiras.

The sons of Gomorrah were Ashkenaz, Rephoth, and Togramah. The sons of Javan were Elisha, and Tarshish, Ketum, and Donanim. From these, the coastland of the nations were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

The sons of Ham were Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Sheba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Reamah. And Sabtica and the sons of Reamah were Sheba and Dedan. Now Cush became the father of Nimrod.

He became a mighty one of the earth. He was like a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Echad, and Kalneh, in the land of Shinar.

From that land, he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth-ir, and Kala, and resin between Nineveh and Kelah. That is the great city. Mizraim became the father of Ludum, and Anunim, and L 'chaidim, and Naphtuhim, and Paschutim, and Kalsuhim, from whom came the Philistines, important, and Kaphtarim.

Canaan became the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth. And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite, and the Hivite, the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zimorite, and the Hamathite.

And afterward, the families of the Canaanite were spread abroad. The territory of the Canaanite, very important, extended from Sidon, as you go to Gerar, as far as Gaza, as you go towards Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, as far as Lasha.

These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations. Also to Shem, three cheers, these are the good guys, the father of all the children of Eber, and the older brother of Japheth, children were born.

The sons of Shem were Elam, and Asher, and Arpachshad, and Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram were Uz, and Hol, and Gather, and Mash. Arpachshad became the father of Shelah, and Shelah became the father of Eber.

Two sons were born to Eber. The name of the one was Peleg, for in his days, the earth was divided. And his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan became the father of Almadad, and Shephelah, and Sheleph, and Hazarmatheth, and Gerah, and Haderam, and Uzzal, and Dekelah, and Obel, and Abimele, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Ahabalah, and Jobad.

All these were the sons of Joktan. Now their settlement extends from Misha as you go towards Sephar, the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, according to their nations.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations, and out of these nations were separated on the earth after the flood. So when you read all of that, you end up and you hear that these nations that came from Shem, Ham, and Japheth were separated on the earth after the flood.

They were separated. And that's not the only part of the chapter that tells us about some kind of separation or some kind of division. We also hear about that as well with one of the sons of Eber, right?

Who was that? Yeah, Peleg. For in his days, the earth was divided. We're not told very much more about that until chapter 11. But he is the third generation from Shem. Now if you back up a little bit more, the second generation from Ham, there was a man named Nimrod.

Nimrod, his name was so famous that he had a saying, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. We're not exactly told what he hunted. Perhaps he hunted deer. Perhaps he was the first taxidermist. He had stuffed heads all over his hut.

We're not told exactly what he hunted. However, when we read of his kingdom, when we read that he has a kingdom that begins with Babel, we may assume that this hunter mentality has more than animals in mind.

Maybe he is a hunter of fame and glory and power. Maybe he's a hunter of lands. Maybe he's a hunter of people. But he is mighty. I think the emphasis there is more on mighty than hunter because he is shown to be a very powerful man in the ancient world.

Now the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, but it didn't stop there and it spread on until he built Nineveh and other cities including Nineveh. Okay, all of these are very important name places. Now he was the one who founded Babel, and we see that this was in the land of Shinar, it says in verse 10.

Now all those key words about Babel and Shinar and the land being divided and the nations being separated bring us in a historical context to the point of Genesis 11 verses 1 through 9. Here we discover what happened in the plains of Shinar at Babel, why Nimrod's kingdom began there but did not stop there.

Here we discover why it is that in Peleg's day, he was just one generation younger than Nimrod, why the land was divided. Nimrod got his kingdom started in the plains of Shinar at Babel, but by the time Peleg came around, everything had been divided on the earth.

The earth had been divided up amongst all these different people groups. Why? What happened? Well, we come to Genesis 11 verses 1 through 9. Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.

It came about as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they used brick for stone, they used tar for mortar.

They said, come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name. Otherwise, we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

Now we've already heard whose kingdom began at Babel in the land of Shinar. So when they said, come, who's the ringleader? It's Nimrod. Nimrod's the ringleader of the they who say, let's go do this and that.

And so what are they all about? What are they trying to do? What's it sound like? Right, we're going to build a tower to heaven. Now there's a particular benefit to that, right? That's a great ziggurat, isn't it?

Now they didn't know how to make bricks straight. So they're going to build a great tower to heaven. Now likely, we don't know exactly what it looked like, but likely it had something similar to the most ancient structures we still have on the planet that would have a very steep staircase going up to the top.

And if common memory is any indicator, there's some sort of place of sacrifice, some sort of temple on the top of it. Okay, they're going to go all the way back up to heaven now. What, beyond trying to get back to heaven, do they seem to indicate about the motivation of why they're doing this?

What does it say? Yeah, they don't want to be scattered, do they? Is that a problem? Is that a problem? It's a little. Oh, original commission for the image of God was to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.

And they're saying, we're going to fill this spot. Thank you very much. And what's their motive? Let us build for ourselves and let us make for ourselves a name. This is, in some sense, the reconstitution of the fall.

There's nothing more perverse than the image of God saying, we will glorify ourselves. I mean, that's just, that's the ultimate perversity. And so they have gathered together, and they are going to build themselves a city, a tower who will reach up into heaven.

I think that, you know, they're trying, in some sense, they're saying, by our own efforts, by our own means, we will reach back up into heaven. The Tower of Babel is obviously a symbol of every kind of workspace, man-centered religion.

Christianity alone says heaven came down to us to come get us. But man-centered religion says we have to build something to get back to heaven. Okay. Well, how does God feel about this? He hears about it.

He hears about this great tower being built all the way up into heaven. And so in verse 5, the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. When the Lord comes down, sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing.

The Hebrew word for judgment is the same Hebrew word for visit, pachad. When the Lord visits, sometimes he comes for judgment, sometimes he comes for salvation. The Lord visited Abraham, and he also visited Sodom and Gomorrah.

Okay. The Lord comes down, and I think that at this point, if you are a Levite and you're reading the word to half the clans of the tribe of Zebulun, and you said the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built, there's going to be a murmur of laughter rippling through.

Because they said they're building a tower that reaches all the way to the heavens, but it's so short and squatty that God has to come down to find the thing. Where is that thing? So it's not much. And that's really the ultimate conclusion about whatever man can do.

Not very much. And so the Lord said, behold, there are one people, and they have all the same language. This is what they began to do. Now, nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them, saying they're just going to do whatever they want, however they want, and there's no resistance to their rebellion.

Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's speech. And so in parallel yet contradistinction, we hear the rebellious image of God saying, come, let us do this.

But then we hear God himself in the Godhead, in the triune Godhead saying, let us, let us go down. We will do our will. And if there's any persons of the Godhead who come down, it's the Son and the Spirit.

And this is an indicator. We're going to talk about that later. But there's a connection there. It says, come, let us go down, and there confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's speech.

So it's a matter of judgment. The Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. We call it the city of man. This is what we do to build ourselves up.

Therefore, its name was called Babel, which is the Hebrew word for confuse or confusion, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the whole face of the earth.

Here is the city of man. This is the great harlot Babylon of, here's what man will do, and we will rule, and we will do what we want, and we will save ourselves, and so on and so forth. The great merits of man uniting together, overcoming all distinctions and differences to overcome whatever comes our way, the theme of most Hollywood films.

It's not true. It's not true. So what will be the hope for these peoples of the earth? There was a promise given to the entirety of humanity. All of humanity at the same time was given a promise. Adam and Eve, all of humanity, there they are together, and they're given a promise, a promise of the seed of the woman.

How is that promise going to be held true and seen through if all the peoples of the earth now speak different languages and are separated from one another? What happens to the promise? What happens to the holding on to that promise?

What happens to the fulfillment of that promise? All sorts of question marks should be appearing in our minds as we try to trace the storyline from Genesis 1 until now. Well, we're given some direction in the latter section of Genesis 11 in terms of showing us the trajectory of the seed.

As we talked about this morning, the genealogies in Genesis, many of them are tracing the genealogy of the seed, and some genealogies are saying this is the seed of the serpent, but most genealogies are saying here's the seed of the woman.

But I find this interesting when it says, come let us go down there and confuse their language. That's judgment, no doubt about it. But that's not the only time that God came down in relation to the people's language, is it?

God came down again, particularly and centrally, as God the Son took on human flesh, Christmas, Advent, and he came to live and die and rise again for people with every tribe, tongue, and nation as the ultimate fulfillment of the seed of the woman.

But also, God came down in Acts 2. God came down in Acts 2 and at that point, where you have people from all these different regions of the earth and they have gathered together, they began to hear through the preaching of the early church, the gospel in their own languages, their heart languages that they grew up learning, not just the trade language, not just the official imperial language, they heard it in their own heart language where they could best understand it.

And they heard it by the power of the Holy Spirit as the apostles and those with them preached the gospel in languages that they had never ever learned before. And so, God came down. But at that time, his visit was one of blessing, one of declaring the good news.

And ultimately, what happens here at Babel is reversed. As I already said, when we come to the end of all things and the redeemed are a multitude, which no man can count from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, all the different languages, all the different languages, this curse has not ended the hope of the seed.

In the end of all things, it glorifies the wideness of the mercy of our God and the power of our Savior to bring the gospel across those language and cultural lines to save such a flock of people from every nation.

So, I think that's important to remember. Any questions or thoughts about Genesis 10 and the beginning there of chapter 11? Okay, so next time we get to be together in Genesis, we'll look at this genealogy of Shem.

It takes us from Shem to Abram, and then we'll see what happens after that. Well, let's close by the singing of the doxology.