Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Genesis

Genesis 10-11 04/07/02

Intro: Genesis is the book of beginnings. And as such it provides answers to many questions that puzzle us.  One question that many ask concerns the beginning of languages and nations. 'If the whole world is descended from Noah, where do the different nations and languages come from?'  Well, that question  is answered in chapters 10 and 11 of Genesis.

 And in answering this question, Genesis points us in a new direction. From this point on, a major theme in the book of Genesis is the ever narrowing process of selection which will culminate in the choice of Israel as a nation through which God's redemptive purposes will be worked out.

 And yes, if you have peeked at Gen. 10-11 you will see it is primarily a genealogy. And some of you are saying..not again, another list of dead people with names I can't pronounce. Let's skip to the good stuff... Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

 Well, the problem is, if it wasn't for these dead people with hard to pronounce names, there would be no Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. And, it was these dead people with hard to pronounce  names that founded the nations that throughout Biblical history interacted with each other and helped accomplish God's purposes on the earth. By the way, they were not only the ancestors of Israel, they were our ancestors as well.

 I want you to note that the genealogies found in chapters 10-11 are not typical genealogies ..they are a genealogy, atlas and history. They describe the movements of people groups on the earth.

  But, I get ahead of myself. Take out your Sermon notes. You will see that we are not reading from chapter 10 to 11. That is because chapter 11 vs 1-9 chronologically comes before chapter 10. Ch 11:1-9 gives the reason for the dispersion of people  found in chapter 10. I believe Moses put ch 10 first to show that  the funnel of God's sovereign selection is beginning to narrow and will find it's apex in the birth of Abram at the end of ch. 11.

Trans: So, turn in your Bibles to Genesis Ch. 11:1, page 8 in your worship center Bible.
 
Read: Genesis 11:1-4

 All right, what's happening here? As Noah's sons began to have children and their children children, they all spoke one language because they were one family.  They decided it was time to move, perhaps it was getting too crowded. They traveled to the east and found a good place to live. Once there, they built a city. OK so  far. Then someone decided to stay in one place and encourage the people to build a tower that show how great they were.

 You see, here is the problem. God told them to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth (9:1). They decided it would be better for them to stay together. And think about it..make their name great, to whom? There were no other people. It seems the tower was built to serve notice upon God. They wanted to show that they didn't need him to survive.

 Well, why did God judge the people of Babel? Because of their pride and rebellion. Understand something, this tower was the precursor of the religious tower called ziggurats built by the Babylonians later in history. It was built to make a name for whom? Mankind.

 And that is the master motive behind all religion; to share the glory of God. We must understand this or we will never understand the power religion has over people. Religion, represented by the Tower of Babel, is a way mankind seeks to share what is rightfully God's alone. It is man's attempt to reach up.... not to know God, but to become like God. (where have we heard that before...garden, tree, serpent)

  And because they wanted to be like God, they felt they didn't need to listen to him, so they stayed together rather than spreading out over the earth like God had told them. Perhaps they thought if they stayed together there would be safety in numbers before God.

 But God will not share his glory with anyone and comes down to swiftly judge the pride and rebellion of these people. God is not interested in religion, he is interested in relationship..so God comes down to mankind.

Read: Genesis 11:5-9

 What was behind God's actions here? Was he jealous, threatened? Was he hurt that these people thought they didn't need him anymore?  No, but this is what we have been telling ourselves ever since. We have heard this before....'We can do anything we want,  if we want it bad enough and just put our minds and hearts to it.' God? We really don't need him, he's optional, and if believing in him makes you feel better..go ahead believe! It's a lie. The truth is the very things we work out, apart from God, often become even bigger problems for us later.

  God comes down, not to protect himself from mankind, but to protect mankind from mankind.  If allowed to keep on the same course, mankind would lose all hope in God and then there would be no hope for mankind. So what does God do?

Picture this:  One morning the workers come out to the job site to work on the tower and they couldn't communicate with each other. That must have been a hoot! Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? The foreman would give orders but the workers would just scratch their heads because they couldn't understand what he was saying. The foreman would yell, but they still wouldn't get it. Imagine the fist shaking, table pounding and yelling that went on. It was utter confusion.

 This was great, it was so simple, yet so brilliant. By God  confusing their languages, making everyone speak a different language, He got them to do what He wanted them to do..spread out over all the earth.

 God did this by judging their disobedience. But it didn't have to be that way. They could have been blessed through their obedience to God, Instead they were judged because of their disobedience and rebellion. This text assures us that either way, God's sovereign plan will be accomplished, if not with mankind's obedience, than in spite of mankind's disobedience.

Trans: Now lets turn to Ch. 10 where we will see just where all the people go that God spread over all the earth.

Read: Genesis 10:1-5

 Here we see what happened to the descendants of Japheth, Noah's oldest son. This section is the shortest of the accounts of Noah's three sons, but may be of  interest to us because this is where most of our ancestors came from. We are Japhethites. These are the people the Bible speaks of as Gentiles. They settled in the area of India and Europe.

Read: Genesis 10:6-20
 Next we have the Caananites, and other people groups who were the descendants of Ham. These are the groups that  immediately surrounded Israel.

 Notice that the text mentions Nimrod specifically and gives some additional information about him. Nimrod is important because he is the founder of both the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations who will be constant enemies of Israel in the OT.
The text makes Nimrod sound pretty good. 'He was a mighty hunter before the Lord'. But this is not a compliment. It is a label of  rebellion. It relates to the hunting of men, a killer of men. And he did this openly before God, in defiance of Him. It is no wonder the name Nimord means 'let us revolt'. For that is what he and the cities he built did, they revolted against God.

Read: Genesis 10:21-31

 Here we see God's funnel. A funnel is a devise that is used to narrow the flow of liquid or powder from a wide to narrow opening. That is what God has been doing here in Gen 10. Shem, the last of Noah's children, is the neck of the funnel where God is narrowing the flow of salvation history..to the people of Israel, to the Hebrews.

 It is interesting that the text says that Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber. Eber was Shem's great grandson and from him Abraham was born. Eber, by the way is really pronounced Heber...it is where Abraham's descendants got the name...Hebrew.

 Shem's descendent Peleg is also given some extra detail with his name. It seems that it was during Peleg's life that the event of the Tower of Babel actually happened. So the dispersion began with Peleg and those who lived at the same time he did...5 generations from the flood.

Read: Genesis 10:32

 This is a recap of what happened after the Tower of Babel and God's judgment.

Read: Genesis 11:10-26
 
 This text takes up where Ch. 10:32 leaves off discussing the line of Shem. It is a straight genealogy designed to show legitimate ancestry. Whose ancestry? Abram's.

Read: Genesis 11:27-32

 The funnel of salvation history gets even more narrow here. We see the immediate family of Abram...Terah, his father, Nahor and Haran his brothers and Lot his nephew. We are given information concerning Abram's background. His brother dies and Abram adopts Lot his nephew. Abram marries Sarai who is not able to have children. They travel as a family to Haran where Terah, Abram's father dies.

Conclusion
 
That is the history. So what can we learn from it?

1. God is the God of all nations. God gave the nations their inheritance and determined their boundaries.

2. That there is an important relationship between the people of Israel and the other peoples of the world.

3. That God is a God of purpose. This text shows that God's selection of a people of His own was a narrowing down process which culminated in Abram.

4. That God is essential to our lives. We can not live apart from God, even though those at Babel tried.

5. That religion looks up,  but God comes down. Time after time again in the Bible, God comes to mankind, to the individual, to reveal Himself to them so that they might worship, follow and be comforted by His presence.

 And God comes to you, everyday, when you have eyes to see and ears to hear. God is not far off, He is here, right now in our midst. He is here every time we gather together in His name. He is with you each time you call out to him in prayer.

 Later, you will be asked to give testimony of a specific time God has met with you. To give witness to a time when you especially felt God's loving and guiding presence. Don't be shy. Your testimony of God's presence in your life will be an encouragement to us. Share it with us so that like the apostle Paul, our joy may be full.

 Finally, be of good cheer, Emmanuel, God is with us. He is here, he is near and He has come down. Draw near to Him.