The Great Migration Genesis 10

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After the flood was over, there were only eight people who lived on planet Earth.
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Noah and his wife, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives.
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To give you an idea of when this was historically, this would have been roughly about 4 ,300 years ago from this present time.
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Once the flood ended, the human race started anew. And if you can remember several weeks back, the
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Ark settled on the mountains of Ararat. These are the mountains that are located in modern -day
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Turkey. Now, Turkey is located at an interesting spot in the world.
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It's pretty much half European, half Asian. It's located in a region known as Asia Minor. This location on the
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Earth is where the human race started. And what we are going to see today is that a huge migration takes place from these three sons,
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Ham, Shem, and Japheth. And this sermon is going to cover a wide range of topics. Genealogy, which of course traces family lineage.
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We're going to see geography. These people who are born from these three sons are going to migrate north, south, east, and west all over the
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Earth. And the third topic we are going to cover today is kingdom building by rebellious humanity.
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Genesis 10 is the time when one man was known for rebelliously establishing his kingdom independent of God.
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This chapter is going to set the stage for the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 that we'll see next week.
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And this man will establish a kingdom that in its pinnacle tries to build a tower to heaven to make a name for mankind.
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But before we get to that point, we're going to look at the migration that takes place before the Tower of Babel. Though the
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Bible is often ordered chronologically in time, there are some times where the author, for reasons, for topical reasons, inserts things before other things.
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And so the Tower of Babel actually took place before what we're covering today. But we're going to follow, of course, the order that the
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Bible takes. And so we're going to look at Genesis 10 first. And our big idea this morning is that the
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Bible is a history book that is intended to impact its reader through the
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Godward meaning of the text. The Bible is a history book that is intended to impact its reader through the
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Godward meaning of each text. And I encourage you, if you don't have a Bible with you, please open with me to Genesis chapter 10.
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It's just a few pages into the Bible. And we're going to look at this chapter together. And what we're going to see is that this chapter has three topics that impact you, the reader.
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And the first topic is the genealogy of the three lines that trace your physical and spiritual origins.
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The genealogy of three lines that trace your physical and spiritual origins. And this outline is in your bulletin, if you want to take notes.
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What we're going to look at in this first point is who these people were. Three weeks ago, we looked at the account at the end of chapter 9 where Noah drank too much wine and laid naked in his tent.
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Noah's youngest son, Ham, found him in his humiliation. Instead of covering his father up and addressing this sin in private, like he should have done,
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Ham made this sin public. Ham told his brothers Shem and Japheth, and the account implies that he was laughing as he did it.
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Okay, so what Ham did was it was a horrible sin. Ham dishonored his father. Ham knew that his father was a godly man.
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Genesis 6 -9 describes Noah as a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
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Noah walked with God. Ham knew this. He knew that his father was a godly man.
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But Ham was not a godly man. He took joy in finding sin in his father.
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And what I said three weeks ago is that an ungodly person pointing out the sins of a godly person is not a noble act.
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The motivation of this is typically to justify their own sin. The rationale is if these godly people sin, then why can't
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I sin? I mean, we see this all the time in our culture. Why can't I do what these supposedly godly people are doing?
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What we saw three weeks ago is that the sins of a believer and the sins of an unbeliever are different.
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A believer's sins are forgiven, while an unbeliever's are not if they remain in it.
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Once Noah discovered what his youngest son Ham had done, he prayed to God. He prayed what he wanted the outcome of their lives to be and the outcome of their offspring.
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And what we are going to do now is look at these three lines that came from Noah's three sons. And we are going to see that the
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Lord closely answers this prayer of Noah. In Genesis 10 -1, it says that these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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Sons were born to them after the flood. And we are first going to read the line of Japheth.
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And what I'm going to do is read each of these three lines and comment on each, first with the line of Japheth in verses 2 through 5.
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The sons of Japheth, Gomer, Magog, Mediah, Jevon, Tubal, Meshach, and Tirith.
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The sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz, Ripeth, and Togamar.
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The sons of Jevon, Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these, the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans in their nations.
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So in Genesis 9 -27, so the chapter previous to this,
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Noah prayed that God would enlarge Japheth. And let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let
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Canaan be his servant. Noah prays a prayer of blessing upon this line. And these people that I just read would become
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Gentile peoples. Now what is a Gentile? A Gentile is anyone who is not an
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Israelite. Okay, so we would be Gentiles. And later on in history, many of these people would come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
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And I'm going to unfold this a little more in the second point, when I cover where these people migrated to. But a little hint is that from Japheth is probably where everyone in this room descended.
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Okay, so this will be fascinating to you. As we look at, we're obviously always very interested in where we came from.
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And we're actually going to learn here today, where did we, mostly European in this room,
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I'm assuming, where did we come from? Now the second genealogy that this account details is the line of Ham.
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And I'm going to read these verses here. And pray for me, by the way, as I say these names.
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These names are hard to pronounce, okay? The sons of Ham, Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.
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The sons of Cush, Seba, Havala, Sabta, Rama, and Sabtica.
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The sons of Rama, Sheba, and Dedan. Cush father Nimrod, he was the first on Earth to be a mighty man.
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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 Kalneh in the land of Shinar.
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From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth, Ur, Kala, and Rezin between Nineveh and Kala.
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That is the great city. Egypt fathered Ludum, Annamum, Lahamim, Naphtahim, Pathurizim, Kashlim, from whom the
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Philistines came, and Kapturim. Okay, so these are not your everyday words, as you can tell here.
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Now as you read this, you'll notice that peoples and nations at this time were named after their founding fathers, so to speak.
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So for example, you see Cush, Egypt, and Canaan. These are peoples and nations that we are familiar with.
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You ever wonder how they got their name? Well, they get their name from the people that they came from. Now you will notice in verse 15 that another name is mentioned besides one of the three sons of Noah, and that is
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Canaan's name. Canaan is, of course, the son of Ham. In Genesis 9,
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Canaan is the only son that is mentioned that was born from the three sons of Noah. And what
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I explained three weeks ago is that the people of Canaan were a significant people in the history of Israel.
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They populated the promised land. The promised land would have been, you know, pretty much where modern -day
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Israel is in Palestine. The land that was promised to Moses and the
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Israelites. And Joshua was commanded to wipe out these people because God did not want this wicked people who worshipped other gods and did some abominable things to pollute the holy people of Israel.
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So God sent Joshua, and they wiped out most of the Canaanites. But they didn't wipe out all the
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Canaanites, and so they disobeyed God by doing that. And so God actually left these people, the
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Canaanites, as a thorn in their side throughout their history. And if you read the Old Testament, you can see that these peoples constantly caused them problems.
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And this was the consequence for not wiping them out completely. Now, the author Moses gives this background information to the
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Israelites so that they would know how the people of Canaan became so wicked.
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And I'm going to read in verses 15 through 20 about these people who descended from Ham's son,
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Canaan. Verses 15 through 20. Canaan fathered Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth. And the
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Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Arkites, the
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Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemurites, and the Hamathites. Afterward, the clans of the
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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, Admah, and Zeboim, and as far as Lashah.
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These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. So, these people would be predominantly wicked people because they descend from Noah's rebellious son,
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Ham. We've already seen this in Genesis. The lines tend to either be wicked or righteous.
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The line of Seth was the righteous line. The line of Cain was the wicked line.
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That doesn't mean that everybody from that line is wicked, but for the most part, it's true. And it doesn't mean that everyone from the line of Seth was righteous, but for the most part, it's true.
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And that's how it is with the line of Ham, from Canaan. Most of these people are sinful and not followers of God.
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Now, Noah prayed these harsh words about the descendants of Ham in Genesis 9 .25.
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He said, So, you see those strong words, and the
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Lord appears to have answered it when you look at the history of what came of these peoples. They were mostly not a blessed people.
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And it is important to point out here that this specific prayer is directed at Ham's son, Canaan. In verse 6, four sons are mentioned, and only
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Canaan has these harsh words directed at him. But even if you look at the other sons of Ham, for the most part, they did not turn out very good either.
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Because Babylon came from Ham, and Assyria came from Ham, and Egypt were in this line.
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If you read the Old Testament, you can see that these people were not a blessed people. These nations would be enemies of Israel.
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So the ungodly line of Noah's three sons is the line of Ham. The line of Ham is a Gentile line, and the line of Japheth, which we already looked at, is also a
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Gentile line. But the line of Japheth is far more blessed than the line of Ham.
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Now the third line detailed in this genealogy is the line of Shem. And this is detailed in verses 21 through 31.
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And I'm not going to read this whole thing, but it says here, To Shem, also the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born.
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And then you see the list here, the sons of Shem, and then the list goes on from there.
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And I'll talk about this more in our second point. Now this is a line of blessedness.
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When Noah prayed to the Lord, this is what he said about this line in verse 26 of chapter 9. He said,
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Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. Three weeks ago,
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I read the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 3. And what we saw is that from Noah's son
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Shem came the Messiah and the Savior of the world. So from Shem would come the people of Israel.
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Okay, so this is the most blessed line of all. So we saw Japheth, you know, God was generous to them, even though they were a
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Gentile line. We see the line of Ham, which was cursed. And then now we see the line of Shem, which the people of Israel would come from them.
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And you can see that the Lord answered Noah's prayer and blessed this line. And I said earlier that you can trace your physical origins from these three sons of Noah.
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That is obvious since from these people, these three sons would come all the people of the world.
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But you can also trace your spiritual origins. If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, then you have been blessed through the line of Shem.
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It is through this line that the Savior came. And he saved you from the penalty of sin that you deserve for your sins.
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So this is the first topic that impacts you, the reader, in Genesis 10. This genealogy traces your physical and more importantly, your spiritual origins.
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The second topic that impacts you, the reader, is the geography of Noah's descendants reveals your origins and God's future plans for you in all nations.
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I remember when I was going through school growing up, I loved geography. I don't know what it was, but I was just born into—I just loved geography.
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And so that was always my favorite class. And so when I saw this chapter, I was like, I can't wait to go through this because we're going to learn about geography here.
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And I hope you like geography too. We should because geography really tells history.
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It's very fascinating. It's very interesting. Now, each of these peoples migrate to a specific location on the earth.
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And this is what we're going to see. And I'm going to tie this together to show you why this is significant to you.
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Okay, so even a genealogy and even geography is significant to you. And I want to show you this.
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All the Bible is relevant to you and even these topics. And we will start with Japeth here.
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The first group we're going to look at is where the descendants of Gomer migrated to.
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Okay, so Gomer was a son of Japeth. The sons of Gomer are
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Cimmerians who live in the area north of the Black Sea. Now, this would be in present -day southern
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Russia and present -day Ukraine. Okay, so they migrated north to that region.
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Now, the second son of Japeth, Magog, is mentioned right after Gomer in verse 2. And these peoples from him also migrated far north, probably to Russia as well.
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And this is a name that is familiar because it shows up in the book of Revelation. As you read the Bible, you see the battle of Gog and Magog.
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And this is a battle that will take place after the thousand -year reign of Christ on the earth and before the eternal state starts.
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And this Gog between Gog and Magog, it's called that because these peoples that are going to come upon Jerusalem are actually coming from the north.
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Okay, so they're coming from Russia. That's why people today, when they study the end times, they think that Russia or one of those kingdoms up there is going to be one of the end -time kingdoms who's going to come down to Jerusalem and fight against it.
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So it's always fascinating to follow that when you watch the news and when you see what might come of this.
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Now, the third son of Japeth mentioned in verse 2 is Madai. And this later on would be the Medes.
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The Medes had an empire along with the Persians in the 5th century BC. And they inhabited the area in northwest
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Iran. Okay, so they went east. You've got to remember here, all these people are migrating from the mountains of Ararat, which is in modern -day
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Turkey. So that kind of gives you the central point of where they started.
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Now, the fourth son of Japeth mentioned in verse 2 is Javan. The sons that came from him are mentioned in verse 4.
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And verse 5 says where they migrated to. It says that from these, the coastline people spread in their lands, each with his language, by their clans in their nations.
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Now, Javan is significant to you because this is the descendant that you likely came from.
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These peoples are Mediterranean peoples or European peoples.
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These people migrated to Asia Minor, to Greece, and all the way to Spain. You can see the connection here.
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Pretty much everyone in this room, and I'm pretty sure I'm probably right here, is descended from Europe.
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Javan and the sons that came from him would be your ancestors. So here is a connection to the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ. During the Apostle Paul's missionary journey in the 1st century, and by the way,
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Paul had four missionary journeys, after Jesus had died on the cross and risen from the dead,
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Paul and his companions came to this region, preaching the good news that all who believed in Jesus would have their sins forgiven and would receive eternal life.
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They preached the Gospel to all these peoples. And we can see from history that the
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Gospel spread like wildfire in this location. What's fascinating about the
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Roman Empire is that Christianity actually outlasted the most powerful empire in the world. The most powerful empire in the world in the 1st century was the
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Roman Empire. And Christianity was this small sect of people who were commoners.
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They were the disciples. These were fishermen. These were tax collectors. These were people who were not high status in society.
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And God showed his power through these people by turning the world upside down through them.
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So if you think that I'm not going to make a difference in the world, I'm not an elite in society, I'm just a common person, those are the people who
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God used to change the world. And he did that, and they outlasted the Roman Empire.
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Because the Gospel started with 12 people, and they lost one. They lost Judas, so they went down to 11.
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And it just multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. And before they knew it, there were millions and millions of followers of Jesus Christ all over the
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Roman Empire. Now the Roman Empire effectively came to an end in the 5th century AD. I mean, it was still around, but it wasn't the empire it was.
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And the Christian faith became the dominant religion in Europe. So how did the
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Gospel get to America? If you know a little bit about history, for most of world history, the
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Americas were populated by Native Americans or Indians. So there were no Europeans until Columbus sailed the ocean blue in what year?
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Very good, 1492. I remember learning that in elementary school. Now this is when
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Europeans came to the New World. But people who were true Christians came to America when the
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Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts in the early 1600s. And of course, we know how godly these people were because they celebrated
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Thanksgiving with the Native Americans there and they were offering thanks to the
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God of the Bible. This was a holiday for God. Now the Puritans, who were
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Bible believers, came from England and they populated the northeastern part of the
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United States in the 17th century. So all these Christians are coming over from Europe.
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And these are the Europeans, the descendants of Javon, who almost 4 ,000 years after Javon brought the good news of Jesus Christ to the far west, where we live today.
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And many in this room are Scandinavians. Most of you and me come from Sweden, Norway, Finland, or Denmark.
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Some of you may be German, English, Irish, or Italian. And if I missed what you are,
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I apologize. You can fill that in the blank there. The gospel got to the upper Midwest through European Christians who came over and passed on the good news of Jesus Christ from generation to generation.
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And I've shared with you before that I have a strong Christian legacy on my mom's side. My dad actually was the first one to become a
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Christian in his family. He has a long line of unbelief. But my mom's side, it goes way back. It goes back at least to my great -great -grandfather.
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And probably earlier than that, and they came from Sweden. And actually, my great -great -grandfather always wanted to be a pastor.
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And he never became a pastor. So I feel like I'm almost fulfilling his dream by being a pastor.
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Now, my European ancestors passed on the gospel to me. And you can probably, many in this room can probably say the same thing.
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And so you see why geography is so important. You see why migration is so important. You see God's work through this.
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Through this migration in Genesis 10 after the flood, you can see God's plan for the world.
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Jesus, the Savior of the world, would die on the cross in the 1st century A .D. in the
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Middle East in Jerusalem. And the gospel would spread from His disciples to others.
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And then they would share the good news until it reached the ends of the earth. Until it reached
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Eureka Center, Wisconsin. We are the ends of the earth if you think about it, how far we are from Jerusalem.
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And this is what Jesus said after His resurrection. This is what I read this morning. He said the gospel is going to start in Jerusalem, then it's going to go to Samaria, which is north of Jerusalem, and then it's going to go to the ends of the earth.
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And that's us. You can see that God caused this migration. And He planned that people from all over the world would be
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His children through Jesus Christ. And not just Israel, but even sons of Javan like you and me can enter into a relationship with God.
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Now the rest of the sons of Japheth mentioned in verse 2 are Tubal, Meshach, and Tiras. And now we will look briefly at Noah's youngest son,
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Ham, and his descendants. And we'll see where they migrated to. But you can see, it's kind of neat, where we came from.
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Now we will see where all the peoples have come from. Now verse 6 says the sons of Ham were Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.
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And from these would come the traditional enemies of Israel. And these enemies were
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Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, and Babylon. These were the most powerful empires in the world at that time.
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None of these empires ever had complete control over the world. But some of them got pretty close.
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If you think about Alexander's empire, he was Greco -Macedonia king,
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I guess you could say. His kingdom reached all the way to India. Can you imagine that? So Europe, Middle East, all the way to India.
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And a lot of these empires stretched that far. And it is no surprise that these wicked nations descended from Noah's youngest son,
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Ham, who humiliated his father, Noah. These people were mostly unbelievers.
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And after the flood, these people went southwest from the mountains of Ararat when they got off the ark.
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And the people of Cush went to a location south of Egypt in Africa.
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Another son of Ham is Egypt. And of course we know where Egypt is. Where it was then is where it is now.
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It's in northeastern Africa. Now the third son is Put. This would be modern -day
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Libya. And Libya is west of Egypt in Africa.
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The fourth son is Canaan. And we already talked about this. And these would be the people who populated what would be modern -day
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Israel or the Palestine region. Jordan, Syria, that area.
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And this would be the land that the Lord would give to Moses and the Israelites. Now verses 15 through 20 are devoted to explaining who these people were and where they lived.
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These people occupied the promised land as I mentioned that God would give to Israel. And verse 19 describes this region.
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It says the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Adam, and Zebulun as far as Alasha.
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And you might say well what does that mean? But it's technically the area where modern -day
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Israel is. Now the last migration we are going to discuss is the line of Shem.
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The author Moses saves the best for last since Shem is the most blessed of the three sons.
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In verses 21 and 22 we see that five sons are mentioned here.
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Verse 22 says the sons of Shem are Elam, Asher, Arpachad, Lod, and Aram.
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Elam is the first and Elam is located in modern southwest Iran and these would have been
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Semitic people who lived in this region early on. And the second son is Asher. The peoples of Asher were located in modern -day
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Iraq. And the third son is Arpachad. And this one is unknown but they are located somewhere but they migrated somewhere to the region of Mesopotamia.
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Which is pretty much where modern -day or not modern -day but where Babylon, the Babylonian Empire, their central location was.
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Now, Arpachad is significant because from this man would come
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Abraham. We know about Abraham from the Bible. We're going to see him in several weeks from now.
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But from Abraham would come the Israelites and would come Jesus Christ. That's why he is such a significant person.
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The fourth son of Shem is Lod. These people were from Asia Minor or modern -day Turkey. And the last son of Shem is
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Aram. And his descendants lived in modern -day Syria. So these are mostly Middle Eastern people from the line of Shem.
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So there's the geographic location of each of Noah's three sons. Now verse 32 summarizes their migration.
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And this gives you the big picture of where all these people spread to. They didn't spread to the Americas. They didn't go that far.
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They didn't spread to modern -day China or India. But this gives you an idea here. They spread as far north as Ukraine or Russia, as far east as Iran, as far south as Egypt, or south of Egypt, and as far west as Spain.
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So from there people would later on spread to the furthest parts of the earth. So the
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Bible is very interested in history and in geography. And so you can see how carefully all of this is recorded here.
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And so we can see why this is important to us. And what I mentioned earlier is that the gospel would reach these places when
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Christ came over 2 ,000 years later. But we just got a taste of how the migration happened after the flood.
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So this is the second topic that impacts you, the reader. The geography of Noah's descendants reveals your origin and God's future plan for you and all the nations.
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And specifically of how the gospel would get, how the good news of Jesus Christ would get to the ends of the earth.
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The third topic that impacts you, the reader, is this genealogy warns you not to foolishly build your own kingdom.
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And this is probably the most applicable point of the day here. And the last point, we are going to pay special attention to verses 8 through 10.
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Because in this genealogy and in this history of the geography of where all these people spread, it actually talks about a specific individual.
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And it describes certain details about him that we need to avoid. In verses 8 through 10, we see the person
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Nimrod introduced here. And sometimes that word's been used as an insult to people.
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So this is where it comes from and this is not a positive name. 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
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Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. The beginning of his kingdom was
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Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Kalneh in the land of Shinar. Now the author
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Moses highlights Nimrod because of the significant role he played in establishing
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Israel's future enemies. He founded cities such as Babel, which would later become
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Babylon. That's how Babylon got its name. And Nineveh as verses 10 and 11 explain, these cities and nations would be arch rivals with Israel.
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And this is why this chapter precedes the Tower of Babel, even though in time, chronologically, it actually comes after.
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Because Nimrod is the chief leader of the Tower of Babel. And so he's introduced, I think that's why the author put chapter 10 before chapter 11.
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Now the peoples who dispersed after the flood populated their regions over time. And Nimrod, by contrast, built his empire by aggression.
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Okay, so obviously these civilizations are going to grow over time, and that's fine, but Nimrod did it in such a way where he really dishonored the
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Lord. And this would be how other empires would come into existence later on.
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The sinful heart of man desires power. And so what mankind does is they take things into their own hands to establish their own kingdoms.
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If you look at, we're very blessed to live in a country where our founding fathers knew this. Our founding fathers knew history.
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And they know that the human heart is corrupt. And they knew that people are going to try to establish their own dictatorships or their own kingdoms.
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And so that's why our founding fathers established a separation of powers with the legislative branch and the executive branch and the judicial branch so that there wouldn't be one person who would take control and run their own kingdom.
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Now, this Nimrod is one who does that. And what we know of Nimrod is that he was a champion hunter or warrior known for his military achievements.
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We know that he built quite a reputation with the Israelites that they made a proverb in his name that I just read.
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And he found significant cities in the region of Mesopotamia. These titles and activities of Nimrod in verses 8 -10 do not sound negative at first glance, but when you realize that he was the chief leader of the
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Tower of Babel, an event that God despised, then you can see that these titles are not compliments.
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His kingdom was made up of Babel, Iraq, Akkad, and Kalna, and the land of Shinar. And this was located in the area of modern day
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Iraq or ancient Babylon. His kingdom did not stop in Babel. It spread to Assyria.
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He built the city of Nineveh, and he built these to make a name for himself. And Genesis 11 -4 says that the purpose of the
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Tower of Babel was that very thing, that they would make a name for themselves in the world.
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So they're building their own kingdom. So Nimrod takes after Cain. Remember Cain did this?
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Cain built cities independently of God. In Genesis chapter 4.
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And the author Moses highlighted that. But Abel and those in the line of Seth did everything in accordance with the
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Lord and did not go off on their own. And this raises an important application.
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Do you live to build your own kingdom or do you submit to God's kingdom?
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Do you serve in God's kingdom? Do you live your life independently of God or do you live following God's will?
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This is a question we need to ask. And this is difficult for us Americans. We don't literally build kingdoms and cities, but we do build our individual profile.
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And I'm not just talking about Facebook. I'm talking about other you know, we try to make ourselves look better than we are.
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And this passage is talking about this. We become self -made people and say,
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I don't need God. I'm just doing fine on my own. We do this all our society does this all the time.
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This is the path our society has taken. And through work or family or hobbies, we establish our own identity apart from our creator.
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And this passage is warning us not to be like Nimrod and establish our own kingdom.
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And if you are living your life independently of God, then you are living for yourself and building your own kingdom.
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And you might not even know it. But that's precisely what is taking place.
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The focus of your life may be ease, comfort, status, earthly pleasures, financial gain, and it could be anything.
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And if this is the focus of your life, then you are following in the footsteps of Nimrod. What this text calls you to do is to live in accord with God's will and trusting yourselves to His care and not going after your own desires and building your own kingdom.
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Like this wicked man did. I remember when I graduated from college, I just wanted a life of ease.
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I wanted a life of comfort. And as I was thinking about my job prospects, that was in my mind.
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And then the Lord intervened in my life and He said that's not how it's going to go. You're going to serve Me. And that's what happened.
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He woke me up. He caused an awakening in my heart where I said, you know, I need to live my life for the
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Lord. And that's why I'm here today. And it should be all our aim to not build our own kingdom, to live our lives independently of God, to live our lives for ourselves, but to follow
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God's will and to realize that in Christ we are citizens of God's kingdom. And that is the best path to take.
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That is the most joyful path to take. So as I conclude here, I just want to stress here that our big idea this morning was that the
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Bible is a history book that is intended to impact its readers through the God -word meaning of each text.
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Every text has a meaning for your life. And I hope you saw that today in Genesis 10.
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And we have seen three impacts on your life. The genealogy of three lines traces your physical and spiritual origins.
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The geography of these nations reveals your origins and God's future plan for you and all nations. And this genealogy warns you not to foolishly build your own kingdom.
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And what we have seen today is not just a genealogy that informs us about world history. What we have seen is how this history filled with meaning is very relevant to our lives.
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And my prayer is that we would reflect on this and praise God that as the people dispersed all over the earth,
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God had a plan that through Jesus he would make himself known everywhere on earth, including to our
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Eureka community, the St. Croix Falls Valley. Let us strive all the more to seek to know our great
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God who guides all history. And we have seen that today. Now next week we will look at the story of the
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Tower of Babel and today really set the stage for that. This is a story that we're all familiar with, or at least most of us are.
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And so we're going to dig into that to see what this has to say to us. But let's close in prayer.
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Father, I thank you Lord that you do guide all of history. You're guiding history right now.
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You guide the future and you guide forever. And we've seen that today from this text.
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We've seen the people that we came from. We see where these people migrated to. And we even got a message from this genealogy not to be like Nimrod, to build our own kingdom, to live our life independently of you.
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But Lord, if we are your children, we are in your kingdom, and you call us to live our lives in accord with you, completely dependent on you.
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And I pray Lord that everyone in this room would do that and that they would see, Lord, that that's what your word calls us to do.