Lesson 8<\/p>\n
The Beginning of the Nations<\/p>\n
Genesis 10 and 11<\/p>\n
Me-<\/p>\n
One of the things I enjoy doing, especially in the winter time, is to work jigsaw puzzles.\u00a0 I especially like the ones with a thousand pieces which provide just enough challenge.\u00a0 Recently I tried to work one which became an exercise in futility and frustration.\u00a0 Not only was there a lot of the same color but also many of the pieces were almost identical in size and shape.\u00a0 In fact the box top which shows what the puzzle should look like as a finished product did not help.\u00a0 It became an almost impossible task to complete, so I gave up on it.<\/p>\n
The only thing more frustrating than the above mentioned one is to work at putting a puzzle together only to find that there is a piece missing.\u00a0 Usually it can be found on the floor or in a chair but occasionally it cannot be found at all.\u00a0 Without it the picture is complete and the enjoyment I expected to get from accomplishing is gone.<\/p>\n
My life has been somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle. I know that God has had a plan and purpose for me.\u00a0 Sometimes because of my actions there seems to be a piece or pieces missing.\u00a0 It is only when I follow through on what He has given me to do is there the joy of accomplishment.\u00a0 Thankfully He sees each of our lives as just one piece but as a part of the whole.\u00a0 He views us as a completed picture through His Son.<\/p>\n
We<\/p>\n
What I have described is not limited to individuals.\u00a0 Organizations have to look at the box top to see the purpose for which He has brought it into being.\u00a0 The picture represents the vision that God has for each church.\u00a0 In order to fulfill the vision we have to approach it from the standpoint of what God wants to accomplish.\u00a0 Once we know that then all of the pieces can be brought together to complete the picture.\u00a0 There cannot be extra ones and for sure if one is missing.\u00a0 Lacking one part of the whole makes what we hope to accomplish incomplete.<\/p>\n
In chapter 10 and 11 we will begin to see God\u2019s plan, His vision, for mankind.\u00a0 Before the seed of Eve could come to defeat the devil the world had to be made ready for His appearance. \u00a0Most of us like to skip the genealogies because to us it is just a list of names.\u00a0 To God each one of the people mentioned served a purpose His overall plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Genesis 10:1<\/p>\n
God was about to do something.\u00a0 He was going to bring about through the sons the fulfillment of His plan to multiply and fill the earth.\u00a0 Every person is a descendant of one of those three men.\u00a0 Here the names are given in the order of their birth.<\/p>\n
Genesis 10:2-5<\/p>\n
Moses begins with the family of Japheth the youngest son.\u00a0 It is interesting to note that in the genealogical lists the elected family comes last.\u00a0 In this case it would be Shem.\u00a0 Each of the sons was the forefather of distinct people groups or nations.\u00a0 Gomer who many believe was the founder of the Germanic people and Magog who was the founder of Russia are later mentioned in Ezekiel as enemies of Israel.\u00a0 It is agreed that these along with the others mentioned started the nations of Europe and parts of Asia.\u00a0 The dispersion of the peoples had begun. Each would have its own language. Because of the location of these nations interaction with the nation of Israel would not occur until much later in its history. For a more definitive breakdown of the nations begun by each of the sons \u201cExploring Genesis\u201d by John Phillips would be one source to use.<\/p>\n
Genesis 10:6-7<\/p>\n
Next in order were the families of Ham.\u00a0 For the most part they settled in what is now called the Middle East and the nations of northern Africa.\u00a0 He had four sons Cush Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.<\/p>\n
Genesis 10:8-12<\/p>\n
Cush after having other sons had Nimrod.\u00a0 Nimrod played an important role during that period of time.\u00a0 He is described a \u201cmighty one on the earth.\u201d\u00a0 Further Moses said, \u201cHe was a mighty hunter before the Lord.\u201d\u00a0 The word \u201cbefore\u201d might be translated against<\/strong>.\u00a0 He became powerful enough that he was able to establish several cities including Babel, later Babylon, and Nineveh, the future capital of Assyria.\u00a0 The anti-god sentiment of Nimrod can be seen in the naming one of the cities Babel.\u00a0 Babel means, \u201cthe gate of the god.\u201d\u00a0 Eventually Babel (Babylon) would become one of the most powerful nations on earth under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar.<\/p>\n Genesis 10:13-14<\/p>\n Mizraim and his family founded Egypt. \u00a0This fact is important because the nation of Egypt eventually would give rise to the Philistines who came from the family of Casluhim.<\/p>\n Genesis 10:15-20<\/p>\n Aside from Egypt and the Philistines the descendants of Canaan, the grandson of Noah, would have the greatest interaction with Israel in the future.\u00a0 The list is a who\u2019s who of the enemies of the nation of Israel and inhabited the land that eventually became the Promised Land to be given to the Jews by God.<\/p>\n Genesis 10:21<\/p>\n Moses finally gets to the family of Shem.\u00a0 Notice that he jumps two generations and mentions Eber through whom the chosen people would come. As mentioned above it was the practice to list the family of the elect of God until the end.<\/p>\n Genesis 10:22-25<\/p>\n None of the sons of Shem would live in what is now called Israel permanent until the time following the death of Moses. They travelled to places like Assyria, east of Babylon, Arabia, and Mesopotamia.\u00a0 Throughout the listing of the descendants there are certain names about which more will be written.\u00a0 Arpachshad (Arphaxad in some translations), Shealah, Eber (who became the father of Peleg.\u00a0 It was during the lifetime of Peleg whose name means division, that the incident at the tower of Babel occurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n Genesis 10:26-31<\/p>\n In this chapter the genealogy of Peleg stops but that of his brother Joktan is given in more detail. Joktan is thought to be the father of the Arabians. Of his sons the only exception to those who lived in Arabia was Almodad who possibly founded Yemen.<\/p>\n \u00a0Genesis 10:32\u00a0<\/p>\n With the naming of Shem\u2019s descendants the completion of the dispersion of Noah\u2019s family was complete.\u00a0 Each of them founded different nations.\u00a0 One of the criteria that described the separation was the differences in language each spoke. \u00a0All of these events described in this chapter were written by Moses from the perspective of almost one thousand years.\u00a0 The language factor is expressed in verse 5, 20 and 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n Genesis 11:1-2<\/p>\n Moses returned to the time before the world was divided among the different people groups to explain how Genesis 10:6, 20, 31-32 occurred.\u00a0 At that point in time all the people were together but they then began moving out from one location to populate the whole world.\u00a0 Evidently, many of them migrated to the east went into the land of Shinar (present day Iraq) and settled there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Genesis 11:3-4<\/p>\n In contrast to the permanence of God\u2019s kingdom, this new world order man\u2019s attempt to make a name and place for himself would be made from that which cannot last.\u00a0 All one has to do is look around to see the crumbling remains of societies long past to realize that what they were trying to do was an act of folly.\u00a0 Notice each time they spoke of what they were going to do it was always with the words, \u201cLet us.\u201d\u00a0 God was not going to be part of their plan.\u00a0 Their attempt to make themselves the center of the world included three ideas:<\/p>\n The words which spoke of the tower suggested not that they expected that they could actually achieve the building of a tower all the way to heaven, but that the top would be the signs of the Zodiac.\u00a0 It is the first mention of a false religion dominated the lives of man.<\/p>\n Genesis 11:5<\/p>\n Let be said that God did not have to have down physically.\u00a0 Moses was speaking about God\u2019s involvement in the affairs of man.\u00a0 Inherent in the description of the tower there is the limited capability of man. The tower did not reach to heaven as has been mentioned previously.\u00a0 God let the people complete what they desired to build before He intervened.<\/p>\n Genesis 11:6<\/p>\n The common factor identified by God that allowed man to accomplish what they had done was that all of them spoke the same language. When He spoke to the God head it was not so much that man could actually accomplish because he cannot.\u00a0 It was about an attitude that completely excluded God to his own detriment.<\/p>\n Genesis 11:7-9<\/p>\n God dealt with the issue by taking away the means that the people had of communicating with each other.\u00a0 No longer could they coordinate the activities involved in building the city.\u00a0 Since there was no longer a commonality the people separated themselves and were scattered by God over the entire earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Genesis 11:10-23<\/p>\n Here is found the same pattern that was used in the writing of Adam\u2019s genealogy in which the age when a son was born and the length of life of each father was given.\u00a0 Notice, unlike those who lived before the flood, the life span of those born after the event was much shorter.\u00a0 This was a consequence of the judgment God brought on man at the time of the flood.\u00a0 It was in His sovereignty to limit the life span of man.\u00a0<\/p>\n The previously listing of Shem\u2019s genealogy had ended with Peleg.\u00a0 When Moses returned to providing information about Shem\u2019s family not all of the sons were listed.\u00a0 He only mentioned those who were ancestors of Abraham. \u00a0Remember he was writing genealogy after the birth of Abraham.<\/p>\n Genesis 11:24-28<\/p>\n Moses now begins the narrative of one of the most important men in the history of not only Jews but the world.\u00a0 Abram was born to Terah, the son of Nahor.\u00a0 He had two brothers, Nahor and Haran.\u00a0 Lot is also introduced in these verses.\u00a0 He was the nephew of Abram.\u00a0 His father was Haran who died while the family still lived in Ur of the Chaldeans.<\/p>\n Genesis 11:29<\/p>\n Abram took a wife whose name was Sarai.\u00a0 Later Moses will tell us that Sarai was Abram\u2019s half sister.\u00a0 His brother Nahor also married.\u00a0 Milcah the daughter of Haran would also play an important role in the life of Abraham\u2019s descendants.\u00a0 Although her sister-in-law was able to have children, Sarai was barren.<\/p>\n Genesis 11:31-32<\/p>\n Terah set out from his homeland with the intentions of going into Canaan.\u00a0 He carried with him his sons, their wives and Lot his grandson.\u00a0 For a while they settled in Haran which is in present day Syria.\u00a0 It was there that Terah died at the age of two hundred.<\/p>\n You-<\/p>\n We-<\/p>\n In this lesson we have discussed how the world became so separated.\u00a0 Hopefully the very things that happened close to four thousand years ago will teach us that whenever we exclude God from our lives that the consequences can be so destructive.\u00a0 Often we find the greatest problem becomes the alienation that comes from our actions both from those around us and God.<\/p>\n Happily God had a plan all along.\u00a0 It began with Abraham who came from the family of Shem who was chosen to father in a way our Savior Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The Scriptures tell us what a difference He has made.\u00a0 While the world at the time of Peleg had to go their separate ways because of apostacy, Christ has come to reunite us by reconciling us to the Father.\u00a0 In 2 Corinthians 5:19, we are told that,<\/p>\n \u201cGod was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.\u201d<\/p>\n We read further in Ephesians 2:14-16,<\/p>\n \u201cFor He (Christ)<\/em> is our peace, who made both groups (Jews and Gentiles)<\/em> into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.\u201d<\/p>\n Christ has come and fulfilled all that God intended to be.\u00a0 May we not live a life that is in open conflict with Him.\u00a0 May we be an instrument of reconciliation of the world to each other and to the Father.<\/p>\n Additional Notes:<\/p>\n BL- At the time the people attempted to build the Tower of Babel everyone once spoke the same language.\u00a0 However, when men settled in the plain of Shinar, they began to build a tower of bricks (a “ziggurat”!) in order to reach the heavens.\u00a0 This was the first “religion”–man’s attempt to reach God through his own efforts.\u00a0 The residents of Babel used bricks; people today often use rituals or good deeds, but the results are the same.\u00a0 Sinful man can never<\/span> reach holy God by human means.\u00a0 God, however, DOES reach out to US, and that is what makes Christianity a relationship<\/span>, rather than a religion.\u00a0 It is\u00a0a relationship initiated by God in which He came down to meet US through His Son, Jesus Christ–and when we, by faith, trust in Christ as our Savior, God forgives our sins and clothes us in His Son’s righteousness, making us holy and acceptable in His sight. This has been God’s plan from the beginning; we saw the first hint of it in Genesis 3:15 and we see it again here in verse 7 when the Lord says, “Come, let us<\/span> go down and confuse their language. . .”\u00a0 God initiates the action of salvation; He accomplishes it through Christ; and He convicts us of our need for salvation through the Holy\u00a0Spirit.\u00a0 The Lord confused men’s speech in vv. 6-8 because He said that if He didn’t stop them,\u00a0 . .then nothing they planned to do would be impossible for them. \u00a0He realized that men, left unchecked, will attempt to build a world according to their own specifications; and because men are flawed, the world they create will be flawed as well.\u00a0 As an example, there is the supposedly utopian society that the Communists tried to create in Russia and the evil to which they resorted\u00a0in an effort to maintain it.\u00a0 Could the same be true of our own country?\u00a0 It will be, if we leave God out of it!\u00a0 Are we, as Christians, willing to stand up for what we believe?\u00a0 One of the best places we can start is in the voting booth!\u00a0 Don’t forget to exercise YOUR freedom to vote next Tuesday! (Gen. 11)<\/p>\n BL-Are there any positive aspects that came from\u00a0events surrounding the\u00a0Tower of Babel and God’s subsequent destruction of it? \u00a0The sudden dispersal and inability to communicate, forced people out of their “comfort zones.” The action by God fostered new cultures and ideas.\u00a0 It also taught the people humility and made them more dependent on God instead of each other.\u00a0However,\u00a0in building the Tower, the people had<\/span> learned the value of teamwork.\u00a0 They were unified in their goal, their purpose, and their planning.\u00a0 What they tried to do may be compared to the Church today, in which each believer brings unique gifts that can benefit the entire entity.\u00a0 What gifts has God given you and me?\u00a0 How are we using them to build up the existing body of believers?<\/p>\n How can we use them to reach out to those who do not yet believe? (Gen. 11:1-9)<\/p>\n BL-In the remaining verses of chapter 11, we traced the background of Abram, a descendant of Noah’s son, Shem.\u00a0 In chapter 12, Abram was commanded by God to leave his country, his people and his father’s household and go to the land God showed him.\u00a0 If he complied, God promised to make Abram into a great nation (although Abram had no children at this point,\u00a0to bless him and make his name great.\u00a0 Abram did <\/span>obey God–but with a few concessions!\u00a0 He left his country, but he took along all his possessions,\u00a0his servants, and his nephew, Lot–extra baggage that would weigh him down considerably at a later time! \u00a0In v. 7, God promised to give Abram’s offspring\u00a0the land of Canaan, but Abram still did not trust God to care for him.\u00a0 A famine in v. 10 sent him scurrying to Egypt, and there, his lack of trust prompted him to commit yet another sin–he deceived the Egyptians into believing that Sarai, his wife, was really his sister. Pharoah took the beautiful Sarai into his palace and gave Abram sheep, donkeys, servants, and camels in return.\u00a0Who knows how long Abram would have lingered in this land of plenty if God had not intervened? \u00a0However, God inflicted Pharoah and\u00a0his household with diseases.\u00a0Pharoah quickly surmised the reason for his suffering and ordered Abram, Sarai, and Abram’s people out of Egypt. \u00a0Sometimes, God will use even godless people to set His children straight!\u00a0<\/p>\n M-Those who followed Nimrod came to the point where there concern of be scattered caused them to build a city that would give them a name.\u00a0 One of those cities was Babel.\u00a0 It became a good idea gone sour. For in that city they decided to build a tower to reach all the way to heaven.<\/p>\n When the reason for working at a project of the magnitude of building a tower to heaven is based on pride then it has become misguided and will not provide the fulfillment the builder\u2019s desire. Babel was just such an endeavor.\u00a0 It was doomed from the beginning because it was based on the same premise that caused the fall of Adam, to be like God or in other words replace Him with our own accomplishments and worship the material things that man has made. (Gen. 11:4-6)<\/p>\n WM-Man\u2019s arrogance began to surface as he attempted to build a monument to themselves.\u00a0 It is the same idea that the secular humanists have today of elimination God from all of their endeavors. (Gen. 11:4)<\/p>\n WM-The people who arrived at Shinar failed to understand that God has placed limitations on what finite man can accomplish.\u00a0 When man begins to attempt to make himself equal or above God he can expect that He will take action to re-establish His preeminence among men.\u00a0 God is jealous of His position and His name and will let no man take those attributes from Him.\u00a0 Man has never caught on to the fact that every- thing he does is temporary at best, except for the eternal relationship he may have with the Father. (Gen. 11:5-10)<\/p>\n C-In the building of the tower of Babel there is the foundation of the present day humanistic philosophy and ideology. (Gen. 11:4-6)\u00a0<\/p>\n DM-The decision to build a city and the tower which became Babel has impacted the world from that point on.\u00a0 Man has continually attempted to make a name for himself.\u00a0 God then has had to intervene with discipline and judgment.\u00a0 Man has not learned that God cannot and will not be supplanted. (Gen. 11:4-9)<\/p>\n RT-It was not the physical tower of Babel itself, but he pride of the men who were building it who responsible for it becoming a symbol of dispersion.\u00a0 The tower was left standing but the people were all gone from that place. (Gen. 11:4-9)<\/p>\n UE-Unlike the gods that the pagans worship, God takes interest in the affairs of men. Especially when it calls for His direct intervention He took at the tower of Babel when He confused the language and scattered the people.\u00a0 This was not done out of vindictive- ness but because man had become proud and arrogant believing that somehow by their own hands they could reach and become like God. They soon learned they lesson that it is God who reaches down to man with was beneficial for him and not man reaching up by his own achievements. (Gen. 11:4-9)<\/p>\n C-Attitudes of people sometimes necessitate change.\u00a0 It may be as simple as a little attitude adjustment.\u00a0 In the case of Noah\u2019s descendents, God had to use more extreme measures.\u00a0 As the people spread out over the face of the earth they reached a point in which they began to believe that they could build a tower all the way up to heaven.\u00a0 In essence to accomplish this would raise them in their own minds to the level of God.\u00a0 This could not happen.\u00a0 God showed sovereignty over man by giving each of them a new language, thus ending the building project.\u00a0 We can only imagine the chaos that one act caused.\u00a0 No longer could any man understand what another man was saying.\u00a0 The language barrier separated man from man and each went to different parts of the earth.\u00a0 I believe that not only was the language changed but all races came into being at the same time as God allowed each to adapt to his new environment. (Gen 11:1-9)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lesson 8 The Beginning of the Nations Genesis 10 and 11 Me- One of the things I enjoy doing, especially in the winter time, is to work jigsaw puzzles.\u00a0 I especially like the ones with a thousand pieces which provide just enough challenge.\u00a0 Recently I tried to work one which became an exercise in futility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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