Lessons From One Family's Legacy

There is nothing more difficult than reading Genesis chapter 10, but I want to let you know something. This chapter is so rich and so full of great principles for you and me, I want to give you just three of them this morning about the legacy from one family. Every family has a legacy. Noah's family has many legacies and we want to draw three of them this morning for you so that when we leave this place we understand the will of the Lord for our lives. It was William Albright, who is probably the most accomplished and most recognized authority on archaeology when it comes to the Near East, who though himself does not believe in the infallibility of Scripture said these words about Genesis chapter 10, the Table of Nations.

He says it stands absolutely alone in ancient literature without a remote parallel, even among the Greeks, where we find the closest approach to a distribution of peoples in genealogical framework. The Genesis chapter 10 is the most accurate document when it comes to the history of the world and where everybody came from. Everybody comes from the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Everybody. No one's excluded. And what we have in Genesis chapter 10 is the most accurate account of the nations of the world.

And we're not going to go into all the great details as to each of these names and what they all mean and what all these names represent and which countries they represent, just a few of them for our time this morning. But it's very important for us to understand that through Shem, Ham, and Japheth come particularly through Japheth the Gentile world, the nations of the world. Through Shem of course comes the Hebrew people, the nation of Israel, and from him they come the people that are located today in Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia.

So what is it God wants us to know? What is it we need to learn about these names and how they apply to us? Three principles. Very simple. Number one, the very first thing we learn from Genesis chapter 10 and the legacy from one family is our responsibility to reach all the nations of the world with the gospel.

Our responsibility to reach all the nations of the world with the gospel. Now you're going to say, how on earth did you get that out of Genesis chapter 10? I want you to notice with me four verses.

Verse number 5, verse number 20, verse number 31, and verse number 32. There's a repetition of four words. One, families. Two, languages. Three, lands. And four, nations. God never does things on a whim. God never flies by the seat of his pants. God has a plan. God has a purpose. And part of the plan of God, listen very carefully, was to divide the world up into four major categories. One was families. Families have always been important to God. They should always be important to us. Although our society has tried to redefine the family and reprioritize the family and redirect the family, God has always had a design and primarily it specifically deals with the family.

As you read through Deuteronomy chapter 6, you realize that the responsibility of the father is to teach his family, to teach his children the word of God. That somehow they might understand the oracles of God, the principles of God, the precepts of God. That somehow his family might learn to honor God. It's dad's responsibility to do that. In order for there to be a social order in society, families must be intact. For once a family begins to disintegrate, the society begins to deteriorate. But it all based around the family structure.

God designed the world to be built around the family. It begins with a marriage, a husband and a wife, and their children. That's number one.

The second thing I want you to see is the word, languages. This is very important. Listen very carefully. God designed after the flood, God had a plan. And that plan was to divide people up linguistically. You will note that the distinctives of every culture centers around their language. You've heard of cross-cultural missions, cross-linguistic ministries. What makes a mission a cross-cultural mission? The language of the people we're trying to reach. God has always determined from the flood to make sure that people are divided linguistically.

Now even within that language sphere there are subcultures. We had that even in English do we not? On the West Coast we have a certain culture. Go down south in the southern part of America and you have a completely different culture although we speak the same language. You go to the Midwest you have almost an entirely different kind of culture although we speak the same language. But if you go to a place like Argentina which speaks a different language, or to Russia that speaks a different language, you have an entirely different kind of culture.

And it's that way based specifically on the language of that culture. God has designed the distinctiveness of cultures based on their languages. And some of you are going to say, wait a minute Pastor, what about the Tower of Babel when God divided up all the languages? Isn't that a result of all that God wanted to happen? Yes it is. Well isn't the Tower of Babel where we got all different languages? Yes it is. But it was designed before the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis chapter 11 because Genesis 10 comes before Genesis chapter 11.

Third thing I want you to notice is the word lands. God has designed that people come together in different lands, different locations. When you look at a globe, when you look at a map, you've got all the lines there you know.

And you've got Africa, and you've got North America, and you've got Europe. And you think, well you know how did they get all those lines? You know how they got all those lines? God. Which leads us to the fourth word and that is the nations. The nations. God has designed the nations of the world, the political structures of the world. God intended the nations or that nations would have their own political distinctions. From the beginning His commission was that the human race disperse and spread over all the earth, have different languages, be in different lands, have a different political structure.

You know why God divided people up into different lands and habitations? For one reason, that they might seek after Him. Folks, God's got a plan. God's always had a plan. God didn't just divide people up into into families and lands and nations and different languages because He couldn't think of anything better to do. He did it because He knew that that was the best way for man to see God. Some would say, well if everybody lived in the same place and everybody spoke the same language, then it would be a lot easier for us to tell people about Jesus Christ.

Not so. Because if that was the case, that would have been the way that God designed it. God did not design it that way. He wanted it to be the way it is this very day because that would make man seek Him more than anything else. Praise be to God for that. Paul says, because God is the creator of the world, because God sustains man, and because God has designed where man should live. You see, we have a problem sometimes with our family. We have a problem with where we live. We have a problem with the land, our government.

I want you to know something, God designed all that. God put you where you are because He knew that that would be the best way for you to learn to seek Him. And because of that, Paul says that God is now declaring that all men everywhere need to do one thing, and that is to repent of their sins. Why? Because God is going to use one man, that man Jesus Christ, whom He raised from the dead, to judge man according to a sin. And the response was threefold. First, there was derision among the people.

They sneered at Him. They mocked at Him. They said, You're a fool, Paul. There's no God that does all this kind of stuff. God's not in control of that. What are you talking about? Our God does dwell in a temple made with hands, and we bow down to Him, and we worship Him. So there was derision. Others delayed. Some said, Well, we'll see you again on this matter. We'll hear you again. They had no guarantee of tomorrow. They had no guarantee of next week. They don't know whether or not they have the next hour, but they would delay their response.

And then there was a dedication on some people. They believed. They believed in what Paul had said. Not a lot. Text says just a few. The Bible says, Go into all the world, Matthew 28, make disciples of what?

All nations. All nations. This is part of the plan of God to reach the world with the gospel. So important. You know that there are over 16,000 different cultural and linguistic varieties in the world today, 16,000, that number one, do not have a disciple nor a verse of Scripture in their language, 16,000.

And God wants us to go into all the nations and reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's our responsibility. And Genesis chapter 10 teaches us that our responsibility today is to reach every people group in the world. Not to focus on one people group, but to reach them all because God has designed them the way they are. And we are to go after them that they who are seeking after God might find Him as we go to present to them the truth of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now notice this, Revelation 7, John says in verse number 9, After these things I looked and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches, were in their hands.

And they cry out with a loud voice saying, Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. One day there will be people from every tribe, every nation, every tongue, and every people who stand before the throne of God. There will be no people group left out when it comes to the salvation message of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our responsibility as Genesis 10 teaches is to reach every land, every family, every nation, every language with the gospel of Jesus Christ as best we can until our Lord returns.

Which leads us to the main point number two, not only our responsibility to reach the nations of the world, but number two, the reliability of God's Holy Word.

If Genesis 10 teaches us anything, it teaches us about the reliability of God's Holy Word. Remember Genesis 9, verse number 27, it said what? Genesis 9, verse number 27 states, May God enlarge Japheth. May God enlarge Japheth. The question comes, did God do what He said He would do with Japheth? For if He didn't, then you can prove the Word of God wrong and therefore you can throw the whole book out because a part of it is wrong. The bottom line is God did exactly what He said He would do with Japheth.

And we know that by just looking at the sons of Japheth in verse number two. The sons of Japheth were Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Japhon, and Tubal, and Meshach, and Tiras. Now, if I was to sit down with you and give you the historical background and all that archeology has dug up concerning these people groups, you would be astonished. I'm not going to do that for you this morning. I'm just going to give you a part of it. Listen very carefully. Gomer is the father of the Indo-European nations.

In history we know that they conquered Phrygia, and Lydia, and Asia Minor, and today they are called modern Turkey. Magog is mentioned in Ezekiel 38 and 39 and is connected with Tubal and Meshach, and they lived in the outermost parts of the north, north of Israel. And if you go to the utter extent northward from the land of Israel you go into the Soviet Union, modern day Russia. And thus you have a fulfillment of the prophecy of the enlargement of Japheth and his descendants, the Gentile nations of the world.

You have Russia. You have Turkey. Madai you have the Medes and the Persians, the Persian Empire. In Japhon you have the father of the Greeks and the Ionians. In Tiras you realize that they became the mighty Roman Empire. All you have to do is trace back through the history of the world and understand archeology and all they have dug up and you will realize that God was true to His Word, that the Gentile nations have become enlarged as God had prophesied. God was true to His Word. I want you to notice something else.

Up in verse number 25 of Genesis chapter 10 it says, "'And two sons were born to Iber. The name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Japton." But what I want you to see is that in the days of Peleg the earth was divided. What does that mean? It means that when you get to Genesis chapter 11 the earth was divided at the Tower of Babel when the world came together as opposed to the plan of God. The world wanted to live together as opposed to the plan of God and they wanted to become like God.

They wanted to become a God. And we'll talk more about that when we talk about Nimrod in a moment. And because of that God divided them up and gave them different languages as He originally intended. Now note, if you know anything about archeology, if you know anything about linguistics in the study of archeology you know that there was one language that covered the face of the globe in one generation. And the very next generation there is a multiplicity of languages that cover the globe. Archeologists do not understand how that happened.

For language to develop it takes time. It takes generations. But we know for certain that in one generation there was a global universal language. But in the following generation there is a multiple languages across the world. And the question is how did that happen? And we know the answer. Genesis chapter 11, the Tower of Babel. It is so important to understand that the accuracy and the historicity of the Bible is the most complete document we have that tells us the history of the world. While archeologists and linguistics have, those who study linguistics have a problem with or question how it all happened we know what the Bible teaches and what happened in the Bible.

In a moment of time God divided the people up and gave them all different languages. And the Bible is the answer to the archeologist's question. That tells us about the reliability of the Bible. Folks, let me tell you something, if you get anything out of Genesis chapter 10 get this, God's Word is true.

God's Word is reliable. If it says it, it means it. If it says it's going to happen, it's going to happen exactly as God said. The third thing I want you to see is the rebellion of Nimrod.

The rebellion of Nimrod. We've looked at the responsibility that we have to reach the world with the Gospel. We've looked at the reliability of God's Holy Word. The third thing I want you to see is the rebellion of Nimrod.

Whenever you go through a genealogy and there is a pause to talk about one individual and not go on to the other names, you need to take note as to what God wants to teach us. And in Genesis chapter 10 verse number 8 it says, Now Cush became the father of Nimrod. He became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. Note, number one, first time the word kingdom is mentioned in the Bible.

It's a kingdom, not of God's kingdom, but a kingdom of a man by the name of Nimrod, whose name means to rebel or to revolt. That's what his name means. And so the very first kingdom in the Bible that's mentioned is about a man who led in the kingdom whose name means to rebel.

We could close our Bibles and we could read history books on Nimrod and they would be completely accurate as to this man's immorality, his leadership, his desire to revolt against the plan of God. Nimrod was the leader of the Mesopotamian and Sumerian Empire. The empire that existed long before the Egyptian Empire existed. And this man was the first human to conceive of a one world government.

And we'll read about that in Genesis chapter 11. He wanted all the peoples of the world to come together. This man was one who is dedicated to his own greatness. The word mighty in Hebrew means chief one. Nimrod wanted to be the chief man. He wanted to be the top dog. He wanted to be the king. So what did he do? He began a kingdom. And the name of that kingdom was Babel, which means the gate of God. You come to me, you come to my kingdom and you'll come to God because he set himself up as God to be worshipped as God.

And you will note that in the end times there was one, the coming world leader who's called the Antichrist who's going to set himself up as God and demand that the peoples of the world worship him as God. Note this, every pagan religion in the world has its roots in Nimrod, the man who revolted and rebelled against God, who set himself up as God to be a God, to deify himself so that other people would come and bow down to him and worship him. He was the mighty hunter before the Lord. The text should read against the Lord.

The preposition could be translated either way. He was a mighty one before the Lord or against the Lord. For those who say it's against the Lord, here was a man who would revolt against the plan of God. God said, I want there to be languages. I want there to be families. I want them to dwell in lands and different nations. And Nimrod said, No, I want all the families to come to me. I want all the lands to come to me. I want all the nations to come to me. Why? Because I am the one who revolts against God's plan.

I am the one who demands that man bow down and worship me. Others say, No, it really should be translated before the Lord. And their interpretation is that Nimrod did what he did before the eyes of the Lord. That is God in a sovereign plan would use Nimrod to accomplish his purposes and the purposes specifically in the multiplicity of languages that happened as a result of people coming in Genesis chapter 11 to worship at the Tower of Babel. And that could be well said as well. The bottom line is this man rebelled against God.

He revolted against God. He lived in rebellion against God. What's the point for you and me? Very simply this, if you don't accept God's plan and God's purpose, you accept whose plan? Your plan, your purpose. What Nimrod began, the Antichrist will seek to do in Revelation 17, Revelation chapter 18, as he sets himself up as God for the whole world to come to him and to worship him because he believes that his plan is better than God's plan. Satan's always believed that. What do you believe? Do you believe in God's Holy Word?

Do you believe in the truth that it conveys? Do you believe in your responsibility to reach all people with the gospel? If so, you won't fall under the snare of Nimrod. You won't rebel against the plan of God. Instead, you capitulate to that plan and honor and praise our glorious King. Let's pray together.