Apply Within

Bob Davis: God said that His word would never fall. His word would never fail. And every bit of it, He says, will be fulfilled and we know it to be true. So, Christian, I believe it's time, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, that we start acting like it. Not just saying, "I believe it," but acting like it and knowing that this is solid stuff, not just something a few weirdos made up because they couldn't find a job.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Apply Within, a verse-by-verse study of the Word of God with Pastor Bob Davis of North Country Chapel. We invite you to join with us as we, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, apply what's within our own hearts as we study line upon line, precept upon precept, verse-by-verse through the Bible. As our study of Genesis continues in Chapter 10, we take a look at the table of nations. Here's Pastor Bob.

Bob Davis: Genesis Chapter 10 is really special. It is one of those chapters that many Bible readers skim through. And that's okay if you do. You're still just as saved because it's by grace. But if you skim through it, you may not see certain things here. Chapter 10 is called the Table of Nations. And it's called that by scholars of all kinds—not biblical scholars only, but all kinds of other scholars.

Keep in mind, before we start Chapter 10, this chapter is a basic listing of names. You understand that you're not going to get every single male that was born. I hope you understand that. It's just a basic listing of names, the Table of Nations, so you see where those nations came from. And it's been there all along. You could have read it by yourself.

Keep in mind, it would be huge. Books couldn't hold it if every name was listed. Dr. Wiersbe adds this to all that. He says it's difficult to identify some of the nations to try and match them up with modern names. Over the centuries, nations changed their names. And some nations moved to different locations, like the Scythians were some part over here in Turkey and just shifted over up to above the Black Sea, became Gog and Magog, etc. I'm sure you know all that. But they modified their languages and even altered their racial composition through intermarriage. Some were marrying the Moabites, and some were marrying the Ethiopians, and so you get some issues right there.

With all of that, now that you feel better, we can start. I hope you feel better. Now, these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And unto them were born sons after the flood. Remember, there were only eight on the boat—eight humans. Now they get off. God says, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth." And that's what they're going to do and that's what they're doing.

The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands. Basically, we see that Japheth, his descendants—I read them to you—I think you may recognize some of those names because throughout Scripture we run into them quite a few times.

Japheth's descendants are basically, as you can see, ancestors of the Gentiles. Everyone was a Gentile until the Hebrews came along. But the ancestors of the Gentiles were north and west of the land of Canaan. Remember, whenever you get north or south, east and west, it's not from Oklahoma or New York City. It's always from Jerusalem. It's always from Canaan. It's always from Israel. That's when the Bible tells you north and south. If they're coming from the north, you know that's coming up north above Israel.

I'm just paraphrasing for you. You see the ancestors of Japheth, the Gentiles, north and west of the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan will be eventually Israel. Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Let me say the modern names to help you, or the places where they end up. You're talking about Russia, that would be north, way north, by the Black Sea. Spain, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Great Britain, Turkey, Turkestan—that little region. The countries around the Black Sea, possibly including a teeny bit of what you and I would call Persia. Now Persia is a little bit of Iraq north and a little bit of Iran north and squeaking over a little bit even into Turkey.

Verse 5 here. So now you've got the basic idea where those people went. They went down and over. They went south and east. So you and I would call that Saudi Arabia. And so you've got Moab, which would be that way. You've got Jordan. You've got Esau and the land over there, right down south and just a bit to the east. And then they would go to the west, which would be your Spain, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Great Britain, etc., around that area.

Now verse 5 shows us here that this record was written after the Tower of Babel. Now the Tower of Babel is coming up next chapter. But verse 5 shows us that it was written after that. Why? Because the Tower of Babel and the dispersion of the people and the languages—God confounded their languages—that's going to happen in Chapter 11. We'll get to that next time we get together, hopefully. But when he's taking notes, he's writing down for you. Moses is adding in here that when they scattered, they were scattered and God did that on purpose.

By the way, I'll show you in Scripture coming up where God chose the areas for them. Not only did He choose the land of Canaan for Israel, but He chose the area for the Italians and the Greeks and the Methodists and the—He chose those areas, right? The Bible says He does, He did, and right here we're learning that also. Just keep in mind that verse 5 doesn't mean anything except that this—the notes were taken and added to after the dispersion and God confounded all the languages. So, that's Japheth.

Now we come to the sons of Ham. Maybe—what a name. I love that. Ham. You know the curse, and I'll read you a bit of it in a moment, but the curse was upon who? One of Ham's descendants. Do you recall that? Canaan. Because Ham had the attitude, passed it down to Cush, Cush passed it right—okay? So you see God put that curse on them, or Noah did. Not because God made them do this; God's telling you what they're going to do. And so, attitude Ham.

Sons of Ham. So let's read that. Verse 6. And the sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtecha. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. You start to recognize some of these if you're into the prophecies. You're starting to see these names already. You know basically where they're located. But he tells us anyway. The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan.

And Ham's descendants migrated southward to Arabia and then across the water there, the Red Sea, to Ethiopia. So the descendants are Cush—you could say Ethiopia, Sudan—that region. The surrounding area, Mizraim, would be Egypt and the Nile Valley region. Phut is the area of Libya. I think a lot of people today even still call it Phut. And that's Libya and that area, and also a piece back on the other side of the water of Saudi Arabia and that surrounding area way down south. That's Ham and the kids.

God chose those areas for those people. They think they chose it themselves. You know what brought you to Idaho? You think you did it yourself. "This is where my family is," or "This is where my home is," "This is where there's a mountain here. I saw it." No, I'll tell you why you're here. You're following God. Now how about when we weren't following God? I was still where I was because God took me there. Did you know that? God's placing us where He wants us. And we don't know why and we don't understand and we can't pretend to know why. We think we're doing it ourselves. We do. We're that big.

So listen, God's showing us where they went and how they got there. So look at verse 8. And Cush begat—remember, one of Ham's sons—Cush begat Nimrod. I do believe that Nimrod was his youngest child, it looks like. Cush begat Nimrod, and he, Nimrod, not Cush, he, Nimrod, began to be a mighty one in the earth. A mighty one, but God doesn't say one what. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord also. Not only was he a mighty one, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said, "Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord."

And the beginning of his kingdom—Nimrod's—was Babylon, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur and built Nineveh and the city Rehoboth and Calah and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, the same is a great city. He gave us not just the names of his son here, the youngest son of Cush, but he gave us a little detail. There's a reason for it. And when you skim through this, you just say he was a mighty one and you think, "Oh, that's totally cool. A mighty one what? A mighty—was he a good jump-roper?" What? He was a mighty something.

And not only was he a mighty one, but he was a mighty hunter as well. And so now you have to go into the Hebrew language and you have to look up the words or you're not quite sure what's being said here. Now we know Ham, coming from his kids they're going to have his attitude. There are some issues, there are some problems, and there's a problem with Nimrod. There's a problem with Cush. Because Cush, Nimrod was his youngest son, and Cush named him. It looks like Cush was really hurt by the curse that was put upon his dad and his brothers and himself. Ham didn't like it. Canaan, I'm sure, didn't appreciate it. But Cush seemed to really resent the curse put upon his father's family.

When Cush had his youngest son, he named him Nimrod. Nimrod means rebellion. You could say it could literally say, "Let us rebel." Okay, somebody's got an attitude and it wasn't the little baby. He didn't choose his name. It was his dad who gave him that name. So you can see that they're bothered by the curse that's supposedly on their family.

The idea here seems—the language seems to say that Nimrod basically was taught from childhood up to be a leader. And it says he was a mighty one. The idea, though, is rebellion. So he is a leader and he leads to rebellion. They even named that: "Let's rebel" or "Let us rebel." Against who? Who do you rebel against? Your dad? No, Cush is a good guy. You're rebelling against God—the God who put the curse on Canaan, on the family of Ham. And because Cush and his kids are part of that, he just doesn't like it.

So we've got a rebellious one now. Go get them. He became a mighty one. Not those other guys. Nimrod. The language portrays Nimrod as a cruel leader, a harsh tyrant, conquering men and establishing his empire. No one had done that yet. And now it's been quite a while since Noah, etc. But nobody's done that yet. Here comes Nimrod and he's going to do it. First leader on the planet.

Nimrod was a mighty hunter, all right. But it looks like he was hunting after the souls of men. He was looking to oversee and take authority over people. Doesn't mean he couldn't hunt deer and stuff too. Probably did that as well because he was a mighty hunter. But he was a hunter of souls of men.

He started up both Babylon, he had that built, and then he built Assyria. Both Babylon and Assyria became large empires and both crushed Israel. Babylon was built on the Euphrates, I know you realize that. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was about 200 miles north of Babylon, and it was built on the Tigris River. So there's a lot really in here.

So verse 13 tells us this: And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim, out of whom came Philistim—which of course you can guess where the Philistines came from. Okay, good. Yeah. And Caphtorim, and Canaan begat Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite—and there's the termites, you know—I'm sorry. And then the Hamathite, and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread. So all of those come from under Ham.

And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza, way down south there, as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, even unto Lasha. These are the sons of Ham after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations. So put all that together. You recognize some of those names. Those are troubled names. Canaanites worshiping false gods, etc.

Heth is the—we see his name. I read verses 13 through 20. Heth, you say, "I don't—that doesn't ring a bell." Well, he is the ancestor of the Hittites. They are there in the area of Asia Minor. That's where they were. The Hittites were in the area also hanging out around Canaan when Abraham, Father Abraham who came from Mesopotamia over there, when he went over there, the Canaanites and the Hittites were living together over there.

Now Shem. Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber and the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born. The children of Shem: Elam, and Asshur, Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. And the children of Aram: Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. How would you like to name—name Mash? That was kind of cool. And Arphaxad begat Salah, and Salah begat Eber—better underline that one. And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his day was the earth divided. And his brother's name was Joktan.

Peleg means to divide or literally division. And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, and Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from Mesha, as you go unto Sephar, a mount of the east. In other words, you and me would call that Mesopotamia, the area that's Iraq, Iran, and certain sections a little bit north right there.

These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in the lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations, in their nations, and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

So let's try to end it. We did it. Yay. You're welcome. Noah prophesied about Shem. Let me read it to you. Genesis 9, verse 26. And he said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." The children of Israel come from the family of Noah through Shem. And Shem tells his own descendants it was from the descendant of Eber, the father of Abraham. Father Abraham came out of the family of Eber if you will look it up in Genesis. The first time the word Hebrew is used, Hebrew is a derivative of the word Eber. And that's where Hebrew comes from.

Now notice something here about Peleg. In his days, the Bible says, the earth was divided. Now there's an argument among scholars, but it's not a big one. Just a few scholars believe that what's being said there is the continents began their shift, beginning to shift and spread under Peleg. His name, Peleg, means division or divide. And so some suggest that continents began to shift, but the language is really simple. And the continents, many believe because of the water receding after the great flood of Noah, that the continents shifted that way.

But the language here is so basic and simple. The logical understanding is this division: the division was the division at the Tower of Babel coming up in the next chapter, where God divided the people and the languages because He said if they stay one with one language, there's nothing they can't accomplish. They're going to try, they're going to fight Me the whole way. And He promised He wouldn't flood them out and destroy them again, so He has to scatter them out a little bit.

And God says when the world has one language, there's nothing they can't accomplish. You know the world right now has one language? It's computer. And all computers speak to one another. And God says with one language, there's nothing they won't try to do. They're going to try—the Antichrist is going to take over the world. Watch. What we've been looking at here is basically that God gave every nation their inheritance.

Deuteronomy 32:8: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel." God set the whole map up there. Paul, in the book of Acts, he goes to Athens, the capital of the intellectual capital of the world. The Greeks figured they were smarter than everybody alive. And he went up to the Areopagus. We usually say Mars Hill is what that means. And he was walking around during the day and he saw an altar to the unknown god. And so when he got up to the Areopagus and they asked him to speak, he said, "I want to talk to you. I saw a little monument over there because you're really religious. They have the god of the moon, the god of the sun, the god of the birds and the gods of dogs and cats and rats and—right?" And so he said, "But I see you have one marked to the unknown god because they didn't want to offend any of the gods. And if there were missing one, they just call him the unknown god." He said, "I want to talk to you about that God." That's what Paul says.

So let me read Acts 17. I'm just going to read verses 26 and 27. He says, "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Where do we come from? One blood. "And hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds or the boundaries of their habitation." God did that. Fighting here and fighting there, we get spread out a little, shorten it up a little, but God has done that for us. And that's what he's saying. God hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation.

Verse 27: "That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after God, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us." The one that you don't know, that God that you don't know, He's the one that put these countries together. But we're all one blood, He says. Made of one blood, all nations of men, men and women, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and He hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. And here is your Table of Nations. Go back and read through it. Try to pronounce the words. But you know what it shows me? That just reminds me that God is good and that He's in control. God's doing something in you. Let Him do it. He's teaching you something. Let's learn it.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Apply Within with Pastor Bob Davis. Apply Within is a radio outreach ministry of North Country Chapel. Our Sunday morning Bible studies are at 9:00 and 11:00 AM. We also have a Friday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM and a Monday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM. You can download today's message in its entirety at NorthCountryChapel.com/studies. That's NorthCountryChapel.com/studies.

If you would like a copy of today's message, write to us and ask for the message with today's date. The address is Apply Within, 2281 West Seltice, Post Falls, Idaho, 83854. Or call us at 1-800-572-8851. That number again: 1-800-572-8851. Our mobile app is available for iPhone and Android. Download it to listen to full-length studies, watch the live stream of our services, or to find out more about church events. If you have been blessed by the teaching or have prayer requests that you would like to share with us, write, email, or call us as well. Please join with us every Monday through Friday as we study together verse-by-verse on Apply Within, sponsored by North Country Chapel. God bless you.