A Daily Walk

John Randall: You want to know how things get messed up in a life, how they get messed up in a nation, in a family? Just get away from God. Just try to get away from God and watch what happens. In fact, I'm going to encourage you, don't do that. Don't do that.

But that's how it happens. You just begin to distance yourself from the Lord. You distance yourself from the Word. You distance yourself from fellowship. You get away from what God says, and it's not long before everything falls apart. And none of us here are the exception to that. I could see how that could happen to them. I could see how it happened to that nation, but we're different. No, we're not. No, I'm not. No, you're not.

Guest (Male): Set aside the next half hour and join us for A Daily Walk. Pastor John Randall is leading us through an exciting study in Genesis, just part of our through the Bible journey. Not long ago, we explored what happened when God judged the world with a flood. Now it's time to repopulate the world, and we will see who our forefathers are. Join Pastor John now in the 10th chapter of Genesis as we bring you part one of The Table and Tower.

John Randall: All right, if you're here for the first time, we have been going through the book of Genesis. And you may recall that at the end of Genesis chapter nine, we read that Noah—yes, Noah, the man that built the ark—he died at the ripe old age of 950. That's right, 950 candles on your birthday cake. That's a lot of years.

But following his death, Noah's sons, whose names were Ham, Shem, and Japheth, were told by the Lord to be fruitful and multiply. And that is exactly what they did. And as you come to the 10th chapter now of Genesis, we come to what is called the Table of Nations. And the Table of Nations is a list of the patriarchal founders of 70 nations which descended from Noah's sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. 26 of the 70 descended from Shem, 30 from Ham, and 14 from Japheth.

Now, some interpret this list of descendants as exhaustive, but many understand this list is not an exhaustive list of every descendant of Noah that ever lived. In fact, it seems to be an abridged version of a genealogy. And what you're going to find is eventually it's going to all go down into one genealogy, which ultimately would lead to the Messiah. That's really the goal.

Nonetheless, you'll find that with many biblical genealogies in your Bible, this particular one includes representatives leading from Noah eventually to Abraham. That's really the goal. And from Abraham to the nation of Israel, and from the nation of Israel to the Messiah. That's the goal. But in Genesis chapter 10 and verse 32, it sums up the chapter succinctly when it says, "These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood."

And then you come to chapter 11, and what that does is it recounts the division of those nations there at Babel. But the purpose of this chapter—and I want to say there is a purpose—is to give us both the beginning and an end and to explain how the earth was repopulated after the flood.

But it is important to keep in mind, when you study through the Table of Nations, that not only is it a genealogy of people, but it also provides both an atlas as well as history. The table isn't, as I said, a complete listing. Not every name is mentioned, but there are from these groups listed some 70 nations that are mentioned.

We don't have all the equivalents to the modern-day people groups, since over great periods of time nations move from one location to another, the geological composition changes, heritage and racial composition through intermarrying and so on. Things change through the years. But it would seem that Moses, in writing this account, put together this table to make three distinct divisions of people groups.

At the end of chapter nine, Noah, you remember, had spoken a prophetic word over his three sons. And first of all, Shem. "Blessed be the God of Shem," Noah said concerning him, pointing out that from the line of Shem would come the religious advancements among mankind. And it's not surprising that when you go back and you look at the line of Shem, within the Semitic peoples have come three major religions of the earth: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, from his descendants.

And then you look at Ham, and from Ham were given the technical abilities of mankind. He made many technical advances. You look at Japheth, and in studying his descendants, you find that through that line came many intellectual advancements upon the earth.

Now let me also say this. Most of the time when you come to genealogies in the Bible, you skip them. Most of us do. Not you guys, but a lot of people do, because the fact is you can't pronounce half the names. You don't know if you're saying it right. You think you do. I'm pretty sure I do, but probably not. And then you go through, and a lot of the names you wouldn't choose for your own children. So you're not going to name your kid Magog. That's not going to be something.

So you don't look at it for baby names necessarily. You take names like Joshua and Ruth and others that are more common. But here in the Western world, we're not necessarily as concerned about your genealogy. It's like if I meet you for the first time, I don't say, "Hey, tell me a little bit about your genealogy." That's not the first question I'm going to ask you, or the second, probably. I probably won't even ask you that question if I've known you for five years.

Nowadays you can spit in something and find out where you came from, maybe. And you realize you're one percent Indian, maybe. You don't know. You may think you are. But back then, this was really important. Your genealogy, your family, your heritage—this is how you would identify. Today we just say, "Hey, what do you do for a living?" And we identify with our job, and suddenly that's who we are. But in this day and age, where you came from and who your family was was really important.

So with all of that introduction, Japheth's descendants, in verses two through five—again, I encourage you to read over those tonight when you go home. These are important names. But you'll see from these the coastline peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

Among the lists of names, we're told that Japheth had seven sons. However, only two grandsons are mentioned, leaving out the other five sons born to Japheth. And it seems to indicate, again, more evidence that Moses was very selective in the record that he put down. This is the shortest of the three genealogies out of all of them. And it's probably the most relevant to us, because if you study ethnology, what you find out is that probably the majority of people in this room are descendants of Japheth because of where they ended up and where their people groups descended to.

They're the ancestors of Gentile nations that were on the outer limits to the north and west of the land of Canaan. Again, the study of ethnology, as they trace genealogies through history, some of the names continue in history for long periods of time and allow the ethnologist to link our roots to certain people groups.

So the family of Japheth, for example, are split into two groups, in India as well into Europe. The Indo-European family of nations are connected to Japheth. It is interesting that the Indian and European nations trace their ancestry back to Japheth. In fact, the Greeks trace their ancestry to a man by the name of Iapetus. That's not Pinocchio's dad; that's a fictional character. He's not real.

But it sounds very similar to Japheth. The Indians, for example, they have an account of a flood in their history and even a similar story to the biblical account. The hero of the story is not named Noah, but he did have three sons. They have a flood story in their own history and trace it back to where they came from. And many cultures actually have this.

But some of the sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. He was the father, as I said, of the Indo-European people. And they are each linked together by linguistic similarities that often seem invisible to most of us but are more obvious to the linguist.

For example, Gomer. From this son of Japheth came the Germanic peoples, original peoples in Western Europe. It can include the French, the Spanish, and even the Celtic settlers. So if you come from that kind of heritage, you're linked back to Japheth. Who knew? I just told you. You don't have to spit in anything. I just told you. It's right here in the Bible.

Magog, Tubal, Meshech—they settled in the far north of Europe and became Russian people. The other son of Japheth, Madai, came to the ancient Medes, and they populated what is known as Iran and Iraq today. The peoples of India also came from a branch of Japheth's family. And then there is the name Javan. And from this son of Japheth came the ancient Greeks. Again, this is still a common name even in Greece today, but they use the name, they pronounce it or the form of it is Ionia. That's where we get the Ionian Sea. It's derived from this name Javan or Javan, however you pronounce it. They were a seafaring people.

Then you have the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz. That's a good one. And from the sons of Gomer came the people who settled north of Judea into what we would call today the Fertile Crescent. Togarmah, from the sons of Gomer, came the Armenians. So if you are of Armenian descent, this is where it all traces back to.

Then you move on to the descendants of Ham, in verses six through 20. And the descendants of Ham are known to have populated the areas of Africa as well as the Far East. Cush, apparently this family divided into two branches and founded Babylon, and others founded Ethiopia. And then there is Mizraim. This is another way that the Bible refers to Egypt. And then there's Phut. Phut is actually a word that refers to Libya, the region in North Africa west of Egypt. And Canaan, of course, refers to the people who originally settled in the land today in Israel and then the surrounding regions there.

A lot of information for you. But here you come to the sons of Cush, and I want you to see one name that sticks out. And we're going to talk more about this guy tonight. Trust me, I'm going to get through this genealogy. Hang with me. His name: Cush begot—notice the name—Nimrod. There's a name for you. Nimrod.

He began to be a mighty one on the earth, it says. And he was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord." And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. One of the sons of Cush named Nimrod, it says he was mighty on the earth, but not in a good way. Not like he was a mighty—not in a positive light. This guy is not a good guy.

He ruled over Babel, which we'll find out was the first organized rebellion of humans against God after the flood. That didn't take long. You guys remember the flood, right? What happened to those people? Nimrod's like, "I don't care. We're going to build something." And that's exactly what he would intend to do.

Nimrod was the founder of Babylon and was the founder of Nineveh. Both of these nations became great enemies of the nation of Israel as you go through Scripture. You find that it is so. But it says he was a mighty hunter on the earth. And what that implies is not his ability to hunt wild game to feed people. Actually, he was a hunter of men. He was a warrior. It was through his ability to fight and kill and rule ruthlessly that his kingdom of the Euphrates Valley and in the city-states was all consolidated, it was said historically concerning him.

It was interesting. It was said that he was a mighty tyrant on the face of the earth. And a man by the name of Josephus, a secular historian, he wrote about Nimrod. And for the sake of giving you some insight, this is what he said. He said that Nimrod had declared he would be revenged on God if he should have a mind to drown the world again, and that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach, and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying his forefathers. This is in the Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 4, by the way, if you'd like to look it up.

But the motive, according to Josephus, for building, as we'll see, the Tower of Babel, was to protect humanity against another flood. Inspiring people to worship the stars. He would be the one man who wanted to become—this is interesting—the one man who wanted to become the ruler of a one-world government, for lack of a better term. He wanted to be the one ruler, and he ruled from Babylon.

And the reason why I say that's interesting is because later on, at the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, there's another man called the Antichrist who wants to rule a one-world government, have a one-world power, one-world religious system. And he will be the Antichrist, and his kingdom, guess what it's referred to as? Babylon. Very similar. Nothing's changed. There's nothing new under the sun. Men were wicked then; they're wicked now. We still need a Savior.

Nimrod founded Babylon and really became the founder of much of the idolatry that's actually experienced today. Many mythologies are actually tied to Nimrod. He was said to have been the one guy that introduced a perverted form of worship. It all started with him all the way back in the beginning, a counterfeit to God's intentions. Secular history records that he instituted all of these things within the Babylonian culture.

Then in verses 15 through 20, we read of Ham's other son, whose name was Canaan. You remember he was cursed by Noah, and the descendants that came from him. But Canaan's sons were Heth; verse 15 tells us. Heth was the father of the Hittite nations. From the word Heth we get the word Cathay, which is actually, interesting, is an ancient word for China. I didn't know that. I looked it up. It's pretty amazing.

Then you have the Sinites. Sinners, I guess, I don't know. The Sinites—I definitely wouldn't want to be from there. But that's some of his descendants. But we also find that from their descendants came the Eskimos and the Indians. Again, from this particular line, it can be traced back. It's fascinating.

Then you have the descendants of Shem. And you'll notice in verse 21 that Shem was the father of Eber. Eber, many believe from that name came the word—that's where we get the word Hebrew, from a derivative from the word Eber. Abraham would come six generations after Eber, and he would be the father of the Hebrew nation. He would be linked to David, who then, of course, would be linked to the Messiah, ultimately to Jesus Christ.

And that is the genealogy that the author is seeking to ultimately direct our attention to. That is—it's all funneling down to one genealogy which would lead us to the Lord.

But one other thing I want to mention before we get into the Tower of Babel, move from the table to the tower. In verse 25, to Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. And the reason why I pause there for a moment, if you study through the book of Genesis, you'll notice in verse 25 that they discuss this dividing of the earth during the days of Peleg, which means division. There was a division of the earth.

And it probably refers to the dispersion that we're going to read about in chapter 11. But there are some Bible students who say that this division that is mentioned here refers to a special dividing of the continents and a rearranging of the land masses. Here's what we know for sure. There was a division. That's what it says. Was it the land masses and the—it could have been. Was it the people dispersed? Well, we're going to see them dispersed in a minute. It's not a salvation issue; it's just something for you to think about if you want to.

The Table of Nations. The Lord has a purpose, folks, for the nations to fulfill. From Genesis chapter 12 on, Israel will become the center of attention. The Lord narrows it down after naming all of these genealogies to one genealogy, to one man, and the rest of the Bible is going to be about the children of Abraham, both the physical descendants as well as spiritual descendants.

But God used these other nations. He used Egypt. He would use Babylon. He would use Assyria. He would use the Medo-Persians. He would use Rome to accomplish His purposes in reference to the Jewish people. He would use some of their leadership. God would use pagan rulers like Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, Augustus Caesar, Gavin Newsom—so many people God uses to get our attention, to bring us back to His. Now you're awake, hallelujah, right?

Oh, where's that in there? It's not. It's not in here. His name is not in the genealogy of the Table of Nations. Don't look for it. But what I'm saying is God uses these kind of people to get our attention. And we'll find when the nation of Israel wandered away from what God wanted to do, oh, He brought people into their life to bring them right back to where they needed to be.

Have you ever wondered why God chose the nation of Israel? Why Israel? Why not Italy? Why not Poland? Why not anywhere? Why Israel? You know, the Lord tells us. I have the answer to that question because the Bible tells us. The Lord told His people, the nation of Israel, it wasn't because they were the largest nation. It wasn't because they were the most prominent. In fact, the Lord said, "You're a small nation and you're stubborn. In fact, you're proud." The reason why the Lord chose the nation of Israel, you know why? Because it says He loved them. Wow, what a reason. He loved them. He set His love on them.

I think also when I think about the nation of Israel, and the reason why I pause, I was asked the question this week by a new friend of mine who was a prisoner in the Soviet Union in their prison camps. I'm actually reading his book right now. I'm going to have him come and share with us in the near future. But he asked me a question through translation. "How did your nation, our nation, how did America blow it?" I'm paraphrasing. There was a lot of Russian words in there; I don't speak Russian, but that was the paraphrase. "How did you guys get to this point with all of the blessings and all this freedom? How did you ever get to this point?"

And I paused for a second and I thought, well, and I responded, I said, a great example of this would be the nation of Israel. It's very similar. They were blessed. They had all these things handed to them by God, and then they became frivolous with it, and they took it for granted, and they just let it go. And then God allowed them to be chastened. That's how you get there.

Listen, you want to know how things get messed up in a life, how they get messed up in a nation, in a family? Just get away from God. Just try to get away from God and watch what happens. In fact, I'm going to encourage you, don't do that. Don't do that.

But that's how it happens. You just begin to distance yourself from the Lord. You distance yourself from the Word. You distance yourself from fellowship. You get away from what God says, and it's not long before everything falls apart. And none of us here are the exception to that. I could see how that could happen to them. I could see how it happened to that nation, but we're different. No, we're not. No, I'm not. No, you're not. And so that's how it happened for them.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Pastor John. And friend, keep listening; John Randall will be right back to take us into Genesis chapter 11 here on A Daily Walk. We're going through the Bible right now. You can hear the study from Genesis again at adailywalk.org. When a listener takes the time to write or call, it really blesses us more than words can tell. And yes, Pastor John reads your emails and your letters. The Lord deserves all the credit for anything good that comes from and through this ministry, and it's an opportunity to praise and thank Him for what He's doing.

Share a praise report or a prayer request at adailywalk@gmail.com. That's adailywalk@gmail.com. Here in the month of September, we are pleased to offer you a book written by Jacob Coyne entitled Stay Here: Uncovering God's Plan to Restore Your Mental Health. Jacob writes, "It's okay to not be okay, but you don't have to stay that way." It's time to shine the hope of Christ into the darkness and witness His love transform broken souls into living, breathing signs.

To live with tender words and compassion, He brings light into the dark corners of mental health, giving hurting souls a reason to live. It's available right now through our e-store for the cost of $12. Go to adailywalk.org or call us at 877-242-0828. Here at A Daily Walk, we make it our goal to please God in all we say and do. If you believe in what we're doing and would like to get behind us, we would very much appreciate your prayers and financial support.

Yes, God has proven to be faithful to provide where He's guided us, and we look to Him and to you to help us continue. To make a donation today, drop by adailywalk.org or call 877-242-0828. Back now, as promised, with a brief look into Genesis 11. Here is Pastor John.

John Randall: We move from the table to the tower. Check this out. Genesis chapter 11: "Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.' They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'"

At this time in the history of the planet, of the world, there was one language. We don't know what language it was, but there was one. That we know for sure because it says it. But what happens is these people are supposed to spread out, but they disobeyed. "We're going to stay together. We're going to stay together, and we're going to build something. We're going to build—well, we're going to build a tower." It's going to be called the Tower of Babel, as we'll see.

But again, keep this in mind. This is only a few generations after the flood. Some have estimated 100, maybe 150 years. So the earth has been rather repopulated, but rather than spread out, they all stay together. You'd think people would have remembered about the flood.

But now the earth is grown; the population is grown. They're living in this area called Shinar. Shinar is located in the Middle East. It's another name for Babylon or Babylonia, and it's the region really of modern-day Iraq. And as the post-flood generations migrated east—interesting it says east—from Ararat, Mount Ararat, they settled in this place called the Fertile Crescent, a well-watered plain near the Tigris and the Euphrates River. They felt like that's a place we want to set up.

And it seems likely that the tower that they were building was a tower that they were hoping would bring heaven down to earth, or maybe they could reach heaven if they could build it high enough. Some writers suggest, some scholars that have studied the Tower of Babel in greater detail, have suggested that this tower was tied to early development of astrology, the study and worship of the stars. They suggest that at the top of the tower—and the reason why they say this is because they've done excavations and they found similar-like towers similar to the Tower of Babel—and they found signs of the zodiac, this enormous symbol of man's attempt to control the universe apart from God.

This suggestion seems likely because we know that astrology originated in ancient Babylon. By the way, that brings up a very valuable point that I want to encourage you to take into consideration. Don't read horoscopes, friend. "Did you read the horoscope today?" No, I read my Bible. I don't read horoscopes. "No, it was legit, man, I'm telling you, the color purple was—" No, don't read that. That's nonsense, satanic. Don't be getting into that stuff. It's bizarre, it's weird, it started back here in Babylon. Stay away from that.

Guest (Male): And we'll cover more ground here in the 11th chapter of Genesis tomorrow on A Daily Walk with John Randall. We'll see you then. This program is made possible through your generosity and brought to you by Calvary South OC.