For a fresh, practical look into God's Word, join us now for "central study hour." Pastor Doug Batchelor and the pastoral team share new insights into the weekly lesson study. Receive power for practical living today. Good morning. Welcome to Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist church right here in sunny Sacramento, California. We're so glad that you're joining us this morning for another Sabbath school from central church.
For those of you that are watching 3 weeks delayed on the various networks, live on the internet this morning at saccentral.org, or listening on the radio a very special and warm Sabbath welcome to you. And of course everyone that is here with us here in the sanctuary. This morning you have probably noticed that we have something out of the ordinary. We have a special surprise for you. And that is the slovak choir from the Sacramento area that are joining us.
And instead of doing our regular hymn request, we'll hold those off 'til next week, they're going to sing two special Numbers for us at this time. They're conductor is natala russo. And she'll be conducting as they sing two pieces. Their first one was composed by mozart and is called, "give praise." And then the second number will be, "look at the cross." So this morning, the slovak choir will be blessing us with a special music. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Thank you so much for that beautiful music.
If you hang around for church you'll get to hear more of that. At this time, let's bow our heads for prayer. Father in Heaven, thank you for this beautiful Sabbath day that you have blessed us with. We thank you for bringing us all safely here this morning and for the beautiful music that we have been blessed with. Thank you so much for our extended Sabbath school family who are joining us.
And I pray this morning that we will have attentive ears and open hearts to listen to what you have for us this morning. And I pray that you will just shower your blessings down on us and your Holy Spirit, that he will be here with us as we study Your Word this morning. In Jesus Name, amen. At this time, our lesson study will be brought to us by Pastor Doug Batchelor, senior pastor here at Sacramento central church. Morning.
Thank you so much to the slovak choir. That was delightful. Amen? I sure enjoyed that. I just closed my eyes and sat back and felt like I was in heavenly courts. Such a blessing to hear that blend of voices.
Want to welcome our friends who are studying with us today at Sabbath school study time at central church. We're continuing going through our quarterly dealing with beginnings and belongings, and a very important foundational series of studies talking about the themes of Genesis. And today we're on lesson number 6. That is going to be dealing with the earth after the flood. Before we get into our study today, as always, we have a free offer.
And the offer today is one of the Amazing Facts study guides, "is obedience legalism?" Great study on the relationship between law and grace. If you want a free copy of this, just call the number on your screen. And it's 866-788-3966 and we'll send you one for free. Our study today is based upon Genesis chapter 9 through 11. And originally the pastors parcel out the different Sabbath school study times based on our schedules.
And we try to share a little bit. I admit I am the greediest of the pastors. I like to teach the most. And pastor mike was going to initially teach this one. And I began to look at it early in the week and I said, "mike, how far have you gotten in your study?" I said, "I'd sure like to teach this lesson.
" And so he said, "help yourself, doug. You'll be gone in india and I'll make up for it." So I am very thankful for the opportunity to teach today's lesson because they're just some really important points that I wanted to share with you. I wrote an article dealing with the tower of babel. And I hope we get to that aspect of it because that's a special interest of mine. We have a memory verse.
Memory verse is from the book of Peter 3:3-4, 2 Peter 3:3-4. I'll be expecting you here at central to say that with me. Are you ready? "Knowing this first: that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, 'where is the promise of his coming? For since The Fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.'" Now, our study today is the earth after the flood. You know if you've been following with us that God has preserved Noah through the events of the flood. I did a little more reading and research on the subject.
And you know what I even did today? If I had had more time, I would have shown you a slide. I went on Google. Any of you ever seen Google earth? There's a program that Google has where actually you get satellite perspective. It can be either low resolution or high resolution depending on what country it is and if they've got the high resolution pictures. You can for instance turn the earth with this program.
You take the earth, you turn it around, you zoom in to any part of the earth. And anything that's been mapped by satellite you can look at. And so I went to mount ararat this morning. It's a very interesting piece of geography. Now, you notice in the Bible it doesn't say that Noah's ark rested on top of mount ararat.
It says "on the mountains of ararat." It's a region. And if you read in the book, "patriarchs and profits," it tells us that towards the tail end of the flood, I'm paraphrasing, that God, to preserve the ark, had it kind of float into a grotto surrounded by a range of mountains in the mountains of ararat. It wasn't on a peak. It was actually sort of in a valley surround it, because for one thing it gave a natural harbor. And the boat was being beat by the swell and the rocking and the rolling.
Well, you know, could make you seasick. So it was to protect them that way a little bit. And then later on, God caused a great wind to pass over the earth that not only helped to dry the surface of the earth, but it just actually moved mountains and boulders. I mean a massive windstorm went across the planet. And this grotto protected them during that point.
Now we look at when they go to build the tower of babel and they're down in the area of mesopotamia during that time. And so I measured it depending on exactly where they were. It was somewhere between a 250 to 300 mile migration. It wasn't that far. My guess is that when they finally came out of the ark and they began to look around, they were looking for something familiar.
And since they had gone forth from the Garden of Eden, Noah remembered--the Noah's ark was probably constructed not too many miles away from the Garden of Eden. We believe that they were still bringing their sacrifices to the gates of the Garden of Eden up until the time of the flood, because there you could look across the river into the Garden of Eden. There was the gates to eden and the angel with the flaming sword. And that was all visible up until the flood. And people sometimes ask the question, I don't know if I've addressed this yet: what happened to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden? Well we believe, it doesn't specifically say this in the Bible, but we believe that because the Garden of Eden was unique in that it says, "God planted a garden.
" I mean, it was a special garden of God that before the flood destroyed the world, somehow the Lord assumed, raptured up that garden, or at least part of it, because in the new earth you have the Tree of Life, don't you? And I'm sure "the paradise of God," it says is there. So he did something to protect it. And you're probably thinking, "Pastor Doug, you sure have a vivid imagination." Well, doesn't the Bible tell us in Revelation that the new Jerusalem is coming down from God out of heaven? It stands to reason to me that if God can bring a city down he can take a garden up. And so I don't have any problem believing this at all. So, I believe that the Garden of Eden was preserved and that it will be there for adam and eve and the redeemed in the new earth.
And, I mean, we can build a space station. Don't we think that God can take a garden up? Matter of fact, on that space station, they've actually taken garden samples up there. So if man can do it, God can do it, right? Somebody help me. Amen? Thank you. All right.
Make me feel like I'm too romantic believing these things. Now, lets get into the Bible with Genesis. I just gave you the overview. And I want to get into the Bible, Genesis chapter 9. And who will read for me verses 1 and 2? "And God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them: 'be fruitful and increase in Numbers, and fill the earth.
The fear and dread of you will follow upon all the beasts of the earth, and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hands." All right. Now he tells them, "be fruitful and multiply." That sounds a lot like Genesis 1:28. Pancho, go ahead and hand your microphone to mike here, the mic to mike. And I want you to read Genesis 1:28 and especially notice the last part of this, friends, because there's something different.
The "be fruitful and multiply" that God gave to adam and eve is very similar to what he gave to Noah and his posterity. But something about the animals is different. Go ahead and read that whole verse. Genesis 1:28, mike. Genesis 1:28, "then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
'" Thank you. What is different about the animals from Genesis 1:28 to Genesis 9:2? In Genesis 1:28, had sin entered the world yet? No. But man was given dominion over the animals. What do you think that dominion was like? Do you think man just had a butcher shop on every corner? Was it man with a circus where he's whipping the lions and sticking his head in their mouths? Wild beasts. Or did man really have a stewardship of the animals? The same way he cared for and nurtured the garden, he cared for the creatures.
I don't think he fed them, but I think that he loved them. To the extent that man could before sin, he communed with them somehow. He observed them to learn about God. And the animals worshipped man the way that man worshipped God, because man was made in the image of God and the way that God almighty had dominion over the cosmos, man had dominion of this planet. But what changes about the dominion of man after sin over the animals? Animals now are eating each other.
They've become violent. The same curse of sin that's affected the ground has now affected the creatures. And as adam, as Noah and his sons, they see these massive beasts. Some of them probably went on the ark small and left the ark big. You know how much, what the weight gain is of certain animals within the first 1 year of their lives? Do you know how much a baby bear grows from birth to 1 year? It's like 1,000%.
Of course, they're that big when they're born. But some of the other animals, they see these massive creatures lumbering off the ark. And you know it's only angels that restrain them. And they're starting to think, "oh boy, this is gonna be, you know here we're gonna be prey and they're hungry." Some of these animals maybe started out vegetarians when they went on the ark; they come off the ark carnivorous. You notice that the diet changed for man afterward.
The diet changed for animals afterward too, 'cause you know when he finally lets them off the ark, you got a raven or a dove coming back with a olive leaf in its mouth. There's not a lot of vegetation in the world. And so that leads us to our next verses. So God is saying to adam and eve, "the fear of you and the dread of you will be on the beasts of the field." And you know with very few exceptions, most animals in the world are afraid of man. Periodically, I have friends that will come visit us at our cabin up in the mountains of mendocino county.
And it is not uncommon for us to see bears up there. I think I told you I was there this last month and in three mornings I saw three different bears every morning. And I've encountered them many times on the road, either walking or in my car or on my quad, four-wheeler. I've never been afraid because every single time I've seen them they've run. They're much bigger than me.
They could tear me to shreds. Mountain lions, run into 'em, they run. It's like the fear of man is upon them. And that's true of most creatures, even rattlesnakes. If you step on 'em, you might have a problem.
But every other time I've run into a snake, they don't want to have nothing, they can't swallow you, they don't want to have nothing to do with you. You look in the Bible; did God protect Daniel from the lions? So it's with God's blessing he had nothing to fear from the animals. Did God protect David from the bear and the lion? Did he protect Samson from the lion? The only time someone got devoured from the lion is when God withdrew his protection. You read in the Bible he sent lions among them. So things change then.
Then you read on here in Genesis chapter 9. Someone read verse 3 and 4. Got a hand right here. Genesis 9:3-4, please. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.
Even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." All right, now this verse has been often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Some believe that this is now a command that man might eat any creepy, crawly creature in the world. Then the laws about the clean and unclean animals for food, that was later given to the jews. I respectfully disagree.
First of all, does God make a distinction between the clean and the unclean animals when they first went on the ark? Before this statement. If you read in Genesis 8:20, "then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and he took of every," of course when they went on the ark, he took the clean animals by sevens, the unclean animals by twos. So you have possibly seven times more. Let me talk about that real quick and I'll move on. There is a disagreement among scholars about what that means.
Many of the clean animals among the cattle, you don't have 2 cows, you don't have 7 sets of cow, bull, cow, bull, cow, bull, cow, bull. With the cattle, you've got ram, 7 sheep, or 6 sheep; bull, 7 cows. They work with harems; buck, 6 does. You understand? So many scholars believe it was like that among the clean, the clean beasts. It wouldn't be that way among the clean fowl, the pheasant.
They do it in twos. They're monogamous that way. So what those Numbers were, we're not sure. But that could have meant that there were, could have been sets, so 14 of the clean animals in some cases, based on how they marry. And in other cases, bull, 7 cows.
So it's not clear. The one thing is clear, there were a lot more clean animals than unclean animals. Everyone agree about that? And then afterward, what does he offer to the Lord? Only from the clean animals. Why? What's wrong with offering unclean animals? So then that's also true if you're body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, you would not want to put an unclean offering in that temple. Now notice what he says here, "as the green herb, I'm giving you all the beasts to eat as the green herb.
" Man was allowed to freely eat of all the green herbs, the fruits, the vegetables that were clean. Are there some plants we're not supposed to eat? I got a list here of just a few. Can you eat any plant? Can you eat any fruit? Some are not good for food. It's always been that way. Some were maybe for medicine or they have other uses.
Not every kind of plant is safe for food or even touching: cowhage, poison ivy, poison oak, we know about that, poison sumac, ranges tree, trumpet vine, poisonous to eat, in many cases deadly, castor bean, chinaberry, death camas, lachina, oleander, pangi, psychic nut--that even sounds bad--water hemlock-- that's what socrates drank and it killed him--rosary pea, strychnine, tobacco! Lot of things that are plants God did not intend for us to eat every kind of plant like a goat. 'Cause some things, and even goats there's some things they can't eat and they can eat almost anything. Goats can eat poison oak. It doesn't bother them. So because there were obvious restrictions among the plants that were not good for food, the same is true when he says, "every animal you might eat, of the ones that are good for food.
" That would be the clean ones. Now here's a statement from "patriarchs and profits," 107, on this verse, "'every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you, even as the green herb, I have given you all things.'" So he gave them all animals as the green herb. Among the green herbs, it was the edible, clean ones. "Before this time, God had given man no permission to eat animal foods. He intended that the race should subsist wholly on the productions of the earth," vegetarian food.
"But now that 'every green thing hath been destroyed,' he allowed them to eat the flesh of the clean beasts that had been preserved in the ark. Furthermore, for those who want to argue that God is saying here they could eat anything that crawls, think about what that really means. That would mean buzzards are clean. Skunks are clean. Rattlesnakes clean.
Cockroaches are clean. Maggots are clean. Every clean--i mean, really think about it. So it obviously doesn't mean that. Furthermore, if when they come off the ark, they're all hungry and if the animals are beginning to eat each other, if man and beast were eating the unclean animals, how quickly would certain species become extinct? Think about that.
If man now, there's only two buzzards left in the world. And you think, "I wonder what buzzard tastes like." And you're with Noah and his sons and you can eat every unclean beast, there'd be no more buzzards. They weren't supposed to eat the scavengers. Anyway, right after the flood, was there anything to scavenge? Were there, yeah, there might have been some carcasses around. That's why he sent the raven forth first.
All right, so hopefully I think I've hammered that where it should be clear. Then go back to Genesis chapter 9:5, "surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require this of man. 'Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for he is made in the image of God. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.
'" All right, even the scholars, I looked through, I've got this great program that'll go through some of the greatest commentaries. And I pick one verse and I've got this whole library of great scholars, wesley and spurgeon and adam clark. And I just go through one verse and I see, "what do they say about this verse?" It's great. And of course, I go through the Bible commentary in our church, seventh day adventist Bible commentary, Ellen white's comments. There's a lot of confusion about what I just read to you.
The best explanation I heard is that this is where God explains if you're going to eat animals, you're not to do it with the blood in it. And there's a few reasons for that. First of all, somebody turn Leviticus 17:11, turn to Leviticus 17:11. I want you to read that for me. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.
" Very good, thank you. Matter of fact, if I read on there, it says, "therefore I said to the children of Israel, 'no one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.'" Not just the jews, even a stranger. "And wherever man of the children of Israel, of the strangers who sojourn among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that might be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust; for the life of all flesh is its blood. It sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, 'you shall not eat blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is in its blood.
Whoever eats it shall be cut off.'" Is that clear? By the way, is that an old testament law? Is that a dietary law? Or doesn't it also say in acts chapter 20, acts 15:20, "even the gentiles shall not eat blood." I mean, this law about blood is as clear as it can be old testament, new testament, but I've never heard, I've never heard in a Sunday church anyone preach about that. They may have somewhere, but I've never heard it. And I've heard a lot of sermons. I heard, when I was telling you I looked at all the scholars, this verse is a combination of teachings. One: life is sacred.
Anything that dies, if you're going to kill a clean animal and eat it for food, it's not to suffer. Man should respect all life, even animal life. Your life is sacred. You are not to take your own life. You are not to take the life of anybody else.
And then he goes on and he reiterates, if you're going to eat food for flesh, its blood should be spilled out, for a number of reasons. One is, blood is unhealthily to eat. By the way, very little meat, even among the clean meats that you buy is properly butchered, where all of the blood is drained out. I used to sell meat. I know of what I speak.
All you've got to do is look in that little styrofoam tray, the blood sloshing around. The blood is often still in the meat that people buy in the stores. And I would, I'd submit to you that I think that even people who say, "well, I'm just eating clean meat," chickens, they usually drain all the blood out, but not the beef. Chickens when they butcher 'em, I don't want to get graphic, but some of you need to hear this. They actually hang 'em up, I've been to chicken slaughterhouse factories, they hang 'em upside down by their feet.
They decapitate them. They drain the blood out. And that's why you find it's a lot lighter. But not so with beef, they are killed with the blood in the flesh. And anyway, just want you to be uncomfortable, sorry.
Think about that. That's one reason I'm a vegetarian. And I had my own meat business, such as it was. But another reason for this is they actually had some pagan cultures in the time of Moses that would begin to consume an animal, like wild carnivores while it was still alive, thinking that if you ate it while it was still alive, you actually were able to take life within you. And it was of course a savage practice.
But if all the blood was drained out, it insured it was dead. So there are a number of reasons for that, there was a health benefit, there was sacred reasons for it, there was the humane or humanitarian reasons for it, but they were not to eat any creature that still had its life in it. All right, let's move past that, we're not going to talk about blood and life anymore. I think that we've done that enough. After the flood, let's talk about the rainbow.
If you look here God makes a covenant with man. In verse 11, someone read for me Genesis 9:9, let's do that. Genesis 9:9, got a hand right here. "'And i, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you: of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.'" And in verse 11, he says, "'thus I establish my covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.'" And what was the sign God gives for that? It says, "I will place my bow in the heavens." "'I will set my rainbow,'" verse 13, "'and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.'" You might be thinking, "well, why would that be anything new? I mean haven't there always been rainbows?" Had it ever rained before the flood? And can you imagine even after the flood, were they seeing dark clouds continue to gather here and there? Were there showers? I mean after a storm, you often see showers. And I think that they maybe got a little nervous because they saw the atmosphere change.
They thought, "oh, are we going to have another flood? How often is this going to happen?" And God said, "look, I'm giving you the rainbow." You and I know that that rainbow is a result of the sun and the prism effect as it goes through the little droplets, the microscopic droplets of water. And it diffracts the rays. The white light is separated into rgb, the red, green, and the blue and all the variations in between. It's a very beautiful thing. But the bow is a symbol of a promise of God that he will preserve life.
Now you know there's other examples of the rainbow. Someone--I'll give you a couple Scriptures--someone look up Ezekiel 1:28, somebody else look up for me Revelation 4:2-3. "And immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardius stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne, inside like unto an emerald." Thank you. What's around about the throne of God in heaven? A rainbow.
Just all the colors that your eyes can even comprehend are there around the throne of God. Ezekiel 1:28, anyone over here want to read that for me? "Like the appearance of a rainbow in a clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell face down, and heard the voice of one speaking." Amen. When you think of a rainbow now, think about God.
You know it's annoying to me, irks me that a number of gay organizations have seized the rainbow as a sign of their organization. And it's supposed to be the idea of diversity. That "regardless of whether you're a homosexual or bisexual or heterosexual, we're just a rainbow of people and we all want to just love each other." And it kind of bothers me. I don't know if it bothers you that this symbol for God and the glory of God and the covenant and the promise has been associated with that. But biblically it is a symbol of the glory of God and the covenant of God and these beautiful features.
So whenever it began to rain, God would give them the rain, it was a promise that he would never destroy the earth with a flood again. Now with that in mind, look at Revelation 12:15, and I'll read verse 16 too. "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman." The dragon is trying to destroy the church with a flood. What did God say he'd protect his people from? A flood. "That he might cause her to be carried away with the flood.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon cast out of his mouth." Now, that flood was armies over history that the dragons sent to try to destroy the church, the woman. But God's rainbow, his glory, he protected his people from the flood. Again, he said, "a flood will not destroy you." I think there's also a spiritual analogy there, so I just wanted to make that connection. Let's read on here. Now we go into Genesis 9:18, most of Genesis 10 we won't spend a lot of time with because it's just chronologies and that could get tedious.
But I want to get to Genesis 11. "Now The Sons of Noah who went out of the ark were shem, ham, and japheth. And ham was The Father of canaan. And are The Sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard.
Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent." Now, you know we don't know what all of the reasons and the ramifications of this are. We'll assume that Noah knew that he was going to be inebriated by doing this. Can you imagine being Noah? And seeing for one thing, being able to see adam, being able to see the world before the flood and seeing how different and how depleted it is after the flood. That can be discouraging. And then to begin to see even in your offspring some of the same traits of character that were in cain.
And he probably got discouraged. Anyway, whatever the reason, he drank and he got drunk. And we're not justifying it. People when they drink do dumb things. And Noah began to walk around immodestly.
Is he building a house or is he in a tent? He's living a nomadic life. He was certainly capable of building a house. And ham, The Father of canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. And what he should have done is when he saw his father stumbling around--keep in mind; Noah's tent could have been as big as this building. I mean these are people that lived hundreds of years.
They were a lot bigger, taller, and more intelligent than we are. And maybe he heard Noah singing to himself and he walked into his father's tent and he saw him immodestly stumbling around in the tent. And instead of saying, instead of being grieved by it, and saying, "I need to cover my father up." He looked; maybe he brought in his son, 'cause later canaan is part of the curse, and says, "look at grandpa," and went out and told everyone out and snickering, very disrespectful. When shem and japheth were heard it--well let me read it to you from the Bible. "But shem and japheth, they took a garment, and they laid it on their shoulders.
" Why on their shoulders? "They went backward." They put a garment between them. They walked backward. They would not even look to dishonor their father. And they covered him up, showing respect for their father. By the way, there's a Scripture in the Bible that talks about "the wicked likes to publish sin.
The righteous concealeth the matter." I don't think Christians should ever be finding any kind of glee in repeating the failures of others. And yet some folks, you know them and I know them, they hear about someone else in the church who fails or falls or they make a mistake or they sin. They love to promote and advertise it. Is that the Spirit of shem and japheth or is that the Spirit of ham? We should never be proud of when someone else falls. Amen? So they cover him up.
Noah sobers up and he finds out what happens, verse 24. He hears "what his younger son had done to him. And he said: 'cursed be canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.' And he said: 'blessed be the God of shem, and may canaan be his servant. May God enlarge japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of shem; and may canaan be his servant.'" And then it goes on to say, "and Noah lived after the flood years. So all the days of Noah were years;" Noah lived longer than adam, "and he died.
" Now, what was this curse of ham? Some have said, I'm almost embarrassed to repeat it, but you've probably heard it. There are actual churches; it's part of their foundational teaching that Noah had three sons. One was white. One was asian. One was black.
How many of you have heard something or something like this before? Come on, fess up, I know it's shameful, but you've heard it before. That is ludicrous. First of all, have you ever known a husband and wife that had three kids that different? I mean that is just comic book theology. And that ham was the black one. And he was cursed and that's why so many of them were brought into slavery by both the arabs and the caucasians, is because the curse of ham was on this race.
How many of you have heard that? Come on. You've heard that before. Yeah that's ku klux klan 101 theology. Really, it is. It is absolutely absurd.
This is not a curse on a race. This is a curse on those who practice what ham practiced. There is a curse on those who do not respect their parents. That's what it's talking about. The curse of gehazi, when he said that "his descendents would be lepers," it's saying that those who are greedy are acursed with the leprosy of sin.
It's a spiritual curse. Doesn't the Bible say that "The Son will not bear the sin of The Father and The Father will not bear the sin of The Son? But the righteousness of the righteous will be upon him. And the wickedness of the wickedness will be upon him." The only reason that there is a curse, it goes from the 3rd and 4th generation is if the children imitate the behavior of the parents, the curse of the parents is passed onto the children because of the behavior. God does not curse a child because of bad behavior of the parents if the child does not follow in that behavior. All right, so where did we get the different races from? Everybody wants to know that, right? The tower of babel is where it was divided.
And don't forget that shem, ham, and japheth also had wives. We'd like to believe that their wives were related to the descendents of seth and not from the descendents of cain. Remember it says, "The Sons of God saw the daughters of men. The descendents of seth saw the daughters of cain and took them wives." So we're assuming that these came from the daughters of seth. Now adam, I'm sorry, Noah is called the 8th.
Why is Noah called the 8th out of all the people on the ark? You know, one reason for that is after you have a 7 day week, when you get into the 8th day you're in a new week, aren't you. Noah was the one who entered a new phase of the world's history. He was the crossover in that respect. The different races were formed after the tower of babel when they were scattered. And that is influenced by both inherited genes and there was probably some environmental influence.
But you know there really are more than three races in the world. We try to isolate things and we sing that song, "Jesus loves the little children. Red, yellow, black, white." There we got four, right? Have you ever met anybody really red? I mean even after they were too long at the beach. Sunburned. There could be pink, but they're not red.
I have never met anybody white. I'm talking about white, white. Everybody's really, I'm looking at you right now, everybody's really different shades of brown. And if you go to the aborigines in australia, they're a distinct race. The American indians, while they resemble the asians more the caucasians, they're still distinct.
But there are very great distinctions and variations among all the races that almost transition across the board, like a rainbow. People like to accentuate the differences and I think that actually is a form of racism in itself. People who want to highlight that and segregate that way. We're all just different shades of brown. Amen? And "God has made of one blood all nations.
" So I don't think we should make too big a deal out of that. It was from the tower of babel they spread. All right, let's go on now. I'm going to jump to chapter 11, because chapter 10 is largely dealing with genealogies and how they were dispersed. "Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said to one another, 'come, let us make brick and bake them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and they had bitumen," or asphalt, some versions say slime, "for mortar." Now, that tar was the result of, of course, the flood. This great wind that blew pushed these massive forests and things that had sat for a year during the flood, and all the dead animals, and they floated, and they sifted, just like the scum on a pond. And then it all blew up against the mountains and it settled and the pressure of the earth that was blown on top of these and created great pressure. And it formed these tar pits and the tar fields.
They discovered they could bake brick, which is the sill. They have this in abundance now. And it is one of the strongest materials. They probably had a rock foundation. And then they built brick on top of that.
And they started to build this tower. Now was God pleased with this? I mean, he told them to go forth and be fruitful. Everything they did with the tower of babel was in defiance to God. You think about this. For one thing, he had told them to scatter.
They said, "'let us make a name for ourselves.'" "'Let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is reaching into the heavens; and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the whole face of the earth.'" Well, what did God tell them to do? He told them to scatter. He said, "I've made the earth. Go forth. Enjoy it. Fill it.
Populate it." Now, something else it tells us is God told them to "be fruitful and to multiply abundantly." He did not say that to adam and eve, but last when Noah's descendents scattered, he told them to multiply abundantly. When you've got 8 families, I'm sorry, you've got 8 people, sets of husband and wife, we don't know that Noah and his wife had any more children. They could have. He lived 300 more years. Under ideal conditions, there could have been within years, a million people in the world.
Think about that. I mean when you live, seth, shem and ham, they were living years, terah, 200 years. I mean you get to Abraham, years; Isaac, 180. They were still living a long time. And Abraham was still having children up to 150 years of age.
He married keturah after Sarah died, had a whole nother litter of kids with her. It's true, that old man. The children of Israel, people went to Egypt, after 400 years, they estimate there may have been 2.5 million, million of them. The reason I'm telling you this is by conservative standards ,000 people were gathering there in the plain of sinar. There's a lot of people and they said, "let's build a city.
Let's consolidate. Let's have a confederacy. We can't trust God is not going destroy the earth." Who do you think their first king was? Someone named nimrod is identified. It says, he built a city and the beginning of his kingdom was babel. So you put that verse together with the tower of babel and the first king was nimrod.
And his very name means "in rebellion to God." And so here you've got this king. And one reason that maybe he was king is he's called "the mighty hunter." Were there some large creatures that came forth from the ark and they began to multiply, some great species that might be extinct now? We know mastodons lived after the flood. They multiplied. Many of them were destroyed in the ice age that came later. And a lot of these big creatures and he said, "I'll protect you.
" Even though God said, "don't fear them. I'll protect you." And so nimrod, somehow he took power and he was a mighty man, shrewd, mighty hunter, and they began to build this tower of babel. Now, this tower is very interesting. It had been rebuilt several times. You know it was abandoned when God cursed their project.
But one of the times when it was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar ii, herododus, the historian, wrote in 440 b.c., "The tower of babel was a furlong or 660 feet in length, breadth, and height. What does it say about the new Jerusalem? It is the same in length, breadth, and height. So this tower is almost a counterfeit, babel becomes a symbol for a counterfeit for everything God says. Notice how Babylon and babel--oh by the way, not only was it rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar, the great, alexander the great wanted to rebuild it. You know alexander the great died in Babylon.
He had it dismantled so that they could reassemble it. And alexander the great died before they could reassemble the tower of babel. But he wanted it to be a monument. Do you realize that this tower of babel in the time of Nebuchadnezzar was bigger than the great pyramid by 200 feet? But it was pyramid in shape. But it was a step pyramid.
According to the Greek historian, strabo, it rose to the same altitude, length, breadth, the same. And it was made of 7 steps with ramps that connected the steps. And I wish I had brought a picture I could show you of different artists. I got one even right here in my Bible in the notes. It was a step pyramid and there were ramps that led up, so you could theoretically ride.
the King could be ridden in a chariot all the way to the top of this pyramid where they would make offerings to the sun. It was the beginning of sun worship. Before the flood, is there any evidence they worshipped the sun? Could they see the sun the same way before the flood? If there's this envelope of water that surrounds the world, do you think the heavens looked different after the flood? For one thing, there's rainbows now, right? I think they saw things differently. And they feared the sun after the flood, because you had these extremes. Sun worship began.
And so a lot of things were changing. The tower of babel was a monument to salvation by works. God had said, "you are saved by grace." Babel says, "we are going to build our way to heaven." Now obviously, I don't think any of them really thought that they could build a tower high enough where they could step right into heaven. But it was sort of man's attempt to build a mountain and work their way to heaven. Point 2: the tower of babel was a monument to human pride.
You notice they didn't say, "let's build a tower for the glory of God." What they said is, "to make a name for ourselves." Babel is the antithesis of Jerusalem. Babylon is the opposite of the new Jerusalem. God all through the Bible says, "this is the city where I have put my name." Babel, they said, "let us make a name for man there." So it's almost man fighting against God. Point number 3: it's a monument to mankind's disobedience and defiance of God's will. God said, "go and to scatter.
" They said, "let's consolidate, have a confederacy, stay in one place, build a city." God took man and put him in a garden. Man says, "no, we're going to live in a city." That wasn't his original plan, was it? And so it's defiance of God's will. It represents a lack of faith. God said, "I'll never destroy the earth with a flood again." They might have been saying to themselves, "you know we got the tigris and Euphrates rivers here in the plain of sinar. They could flood again.
God could destroy the world again. Just in case we can't trust God. We're going to make this big platform to save ourselves. Point number 4: it's a monument to man's achievements. I mean, they took the, look at the great pyramid.
How many of you--now I've been to the great pyramid. I've been in the great pyramid. And it is absolutely astounding the precision with which they cut those stones. And there are all these odd shaped stones inside that are cut with such precision in these corridors; you can't put a razorblade between them. And you say, "how did they cut these stones like a puzzle and fit them together?" The technology is mind-boggling.
Who do you think had better technology? The Egyptians or the people that built the tower of babel? Some of them lived before the flood. They lived hundreds of years. They could talk to methuselah. They could talk to people who talked to God. Think about that.
The technology that went into this tower, it must have been something to behold. Amen? And so it was a monument to man's achievement. And let's face it, you know, you look at some of these cities, and man, they build these skyscrapers. And we still do that today, don't we? They put their corporation on there. What a big, beautiful building.
Let's call it "enron." Monuments to man's achievement. Someone caught that. Thank you for that chuckle of recognition. Number 5: it was a monument to disbelief in God's Word. I pretty much covered that.
He said, "I will no more destroy the world with a flood." They didn't believe it. And it was a monument of man making heaven on earth. All through the Bible you've got, here in Genesis, you've got man built a city and called it babel. You get to Revelation, it says, "God created a city, called it the city of peace." Where does the world Babylon or babel come from? Babel means, "gate to heaven." Matter of fact, it's even using the old word for God, "el"; babel. But it also represents a confusion because God confounded their work.
It's the work of man to save him himself to make a name for himself under the curse of God. Everyone began to babble. And I picture as they were starting to build this massive tower and God looked down, this is one of the last times in the Bible it says, God refers to himself in the plural. It said, "let us go down." And while they're building this tower and thousands of people involved in the construction and coordination of the products and materials going up and down and the design and architecture. And while they're building this massive project, God confounds their languages.
And communication was very important. Now I believe not only did God confound their spoken communication. I believe they knew how to write. God confounded their written communication. And all their methods of communication suddenly they couldn't understand each other.
And great fights broke out because of the frustration that suddenly the language--have you ever been dropped in a country where you didn't speak the local language? It's gonna happen again in about a week. And when you get out on the streets, it's great to have a translator, but I've been places before where you're out in the streets, you don't speak the language and they don't understand you. And you're using sign languages and you're drawing things in the dirt. And you're pointing and you're gesturing like charades and you're trying to get your message across. And it is very frustrating.
It can become irritating. And they began to fight and to argue among themselves. And pretty soon, the project broke down in just confusion. I also think that God struck the tower with lightening to show his displeasure. And just exploded the top of the tower where the altar was.
They may have done like the mayans did. You know what they did on top of some of the central American pyramids? Human sacrifice. They may not have been offering lambs and goats up on top of that altar. They may have resorted to human sacrifice. It's one thing that's interesting, you go to virtually any major civilization.
They have them in india. They're pyramids in central America. Pyramids in south America. There are pyramids in North America. There were mounds.
Did you know that? Even North American indians in some of the places back east. They were mound builders. They build these great big pyramid mounds. But all over the world, they took these pyramids when they scattered with them. Where do you think they got it? They were all at babel weren't they? And as they went from this place, they took these counterfeit forms of worship with them.
They also have them even in asia, these great pyramids. And then they went across the surface of the earth. They gathered in groups that could understand each other the best they could. And then you move into the time of Abraham from here. But the tower of babel also teaches us about the ultimate fate of those who rebel against God.
You can't fight against God. It's Jerusalem that's gonna win. By the word, by the word, by the way, you know where the word baby comes from? The word baby comes from the word babel. And the word "babalene" comes from the tower of Babylon, because they all began to speak the language of Babylon, which was babalene. And when a baby talks, they "ba ba ba ba.
" And that's where the word baby comes from. And it represents a confusion of tongues. One of the characteristics of the tower of babel was a confusion of tongues. One of the characteristics of Babylon and her daughters in the last days is a confusion of tongues. Do we see Babylon in the churches today? I believe in the gift of tongues.
But a lot of what you're seeing in the church is the confusion of tongues. That's not a sign of God's Spirit, friends. It's a sign of the opposite.