Well, we are in Hour Three of Learn The
Bible In 24 Hours in which will undertake to review chapters 4 through 11 of
Genesis. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are viewed by most people as prehistory.
This is the first unit of a two-unit review of Genesis. From Chapter 12 on Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are the patriarchs. But we are in Hour Three in
which we will talk about chapters 4 through 11. And so, as we look at the
Panorama of History where we've been through the Creation and the Fall of Man
and now are undertaking the story of Cain and Abel. We'll talk a little bit
about Noah. The Flood of Noah, of course. But what will surprise many is, we talked a
little bit about the days of Noah. Most people have little insight as to why the
flood really came, and what that's all about. And then we will conclude this session
with a quick look at the Tower of Babel and what's called the Table of Nations.
So that's our challenge for this session. Hour Three. Genesis chapter 4 is the
famous story of Cain and Abel. The two brothers. And they both had offerings.
Cain was a farmer. Able a shepherd. And they both gave offerings. The significance of
the offerings is often misunderstood. Cain, of course, being a farmer, gave an
offering of the fruit of the ground. Able gave a lamb. But not just because he was
a shepherd. One of the insights that most people miss, and you wouldn't get this
unless you've read the rest of your Bible and come back to this, is the lamb was
the designated offering to be given. And Cain may have meant well, but he wasn't
following the directions. So Abel's offering was accepted and Cain's was not.
Now the first question that should occur to us, is, "how would they know?" When you
put an offering in the offering plate in church, you can be pretty sure
it'll be accepted. But in any case, you would have no knowledge if they didn't.
But in these days apparently there is some scriptural indication that the
offering was consumed by fire from heaven. That may sound strange to us because
that's not our normal practice, but it's clear that both Cain and Able recognized
the acceptance or non-acceptability of their offering, and that was what gave
rise to Cain's envy or hatred of Able. And so Cain's offering was the fruit
of his own labors. Abel's the lamb. And Cain's offering was rejected. And that's
what caused him to, or should say motivated him at least, to murder his brother
Abel. Rather extreme. So we have the second murder. Many people call it the
first murder and in a sense it is, but the really the first murder was when
Satan deceived Adam and Eve. And in effect they lost their immortality. They
were mortal. They were ... consigned to death ultimately. So let's take a look at this
though. Both Cain and Abel came from the same parents. Ok. Fallen parents. Both of them were outside of
Eden. This did not occur in Eden, so they were judicially alienated. I'm going to
suggest that we're all in that same boat. And they had a differing basis though
because Cain's offering was of his own works - the fruit of a cursed ground. But
in contrast to Abel's offering which anticipates representatively the
offering of Jesus Christ. And it's only the offerings that are acceptable to God
that are going to be acceptable. And He's been very, He has been very specific on
the specifications. It's interesting to realize that death
was required. See it was the substitutionary death of the Lamb that pointed to
the fact that there will be a substitutionary death on our behalf to
be given. And that was just emblematic of that which occurred, of course, on the
cross 2,000 years ago. And God would provide. And we'll see that very
dramatically dramatized when we get to Genesis 22 in very clear terms. And it's
when you read not just through Genesis but the rest the Bible and come back and
reread Genesis, you begin to realize how this fits in to the picture. Reading the
story on its own may leave you hanging there. But another question I'd like to
deal with as we get into these early chapters. The story of Cain and Abel, I think all
of us know. I know everybody likes to ... Whenever I go around they always ask where
did Cain get his wife? Well, he married his brother's sister
because he was Able. So I just leave that with you to solve that. We should
realize that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters the scripture indicates that.
And obviously there's a ... non-trivial population at the time.
Remember the combination of the many boys and girls that were born in the
family and recognize that the years go by these are extreme longevities. There's
quite a population. So much so, that Cain was in fear of being attacked. That's why
God gives him special protection. But there's another issue. As we get to
Genesis chapter 5. It's a strange chapter. The first
three, four chapters are exciting. You've got the Creation. You got the story of Adam and
Eve. And then Cain and Able. When you get to Genesis 6 on you have the Flood of
Noah and all that action, but Genesis chapter 5 is one of these strange
chapters you tend to sort of skip over. It's just a genealogy. Family tree. Why bother? I mean is it ... why is it there?
Well, I'm going to suggest to you that one of the exciting discoveries that you
need to make for yourself, is to discover the hidden messages that're all through
the Bible. I don't mean just the Bible codes that create some controversy. But
messages both in terms of what the lessons are from the narratives. But also,
there's some other hidden messages. And the scripture says that there are. In
Proverbs 25:2 it says, "it is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but it's the honor
or duty of Kings to search out a matter." Well, let me start this with a riddle. Who is the oldest man in the Bible?
Anyone? Methuselah. Methuselah lived 969 years, yet he died before his father. Whoops! How can that be? He's the oldest
man in the Bible, yet he died before his father. That little riddle you can spring
on your neighborhood Bible study this week, because everyone forgets who his
father was. His father was Enoch who didn't die. Enoch's a
very interesting guy. When he was 65 years old something happened in his life
that caused him from that day on to walk with
God. In fact, he did for 300 years following. And among the things that happened there
is that he had a son by the name of Methuselah. Now you should understand that
the Flood of Noah did not come as a surprise. It had been preached on for
four generations. In fact, what God told Enoch was that when his son was born
the judgment of the flood that was coming would be withheld for as long as
he lived. As long as he's alive the judgment of the flood would be withheld.
So he named his son Methuselah. It comes from to Hebrew roots. The word "muth"
which means "his death" occurs a hundred and twenty-five times in the Old
Testament and the verb "shalach" which means "to bring or send forth". The name
Methuselah made up of those two roots is "his death shall bring". Strange name, but
it's a prophecy because his father knew that as long as his son's alive,
this judgment that was coming would be withheld. And indeed, if you look at the
genealogies that are presented in Genesis chapter 5 Methuselah was 187 when his son
Lamech was born and Lamech was a hundred eighty-two and his son Noah was born. And
it's the 600th year of Noah's life of the Flood came. And if you take the 187 + 782
you get the 969 years that Methuselah was alive. Methuselah's life becomes a symbol of
God's mercy. And it's interesting that it is thus the longest lifetime in the
Bible deliberately. Because of God's ... as an expression of God's mercy. Not
infinite. There comes a point at which its cut off. But it is, what shall I say,
extravagant. But there is this genealogy in Genesis chapter 5 - Adam, Seth, Enosh,
Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah. Well, if there's all this
insight behind the name of Methuselah, what about these other nine people? See,
our problem in Genesis chapter five is not translated for you. The rest of the
passage ... Bible, of course, is translated from its Greek or its Hebrew into English. But we don't translate
... normally proper names. My name, my legal name, is Charles. What does it
mean? Who knows. There's all kinds of conjectures, but it's been lost in
antiquity. But in Hebrew, the names are ... all Hebrew words are made
from up from a three-letter root. If you know what the root means, you can infer
the meaning of the word. And the problem here is we don't translate the
proper names. Even if you go to a Strong's Concordance or something of that nature,
you'll find that it doesn't deal with proper names. And so what they do here is
they transliterate these names. They approximate the way it's pronounced in
the English. Let's take a look. Let's take a quick look at the Hebrew that lies
behind these names. The first name is Adam means, comes from adomah which
means "man". And that's pretty straightforward. Adam and Eve have a son
named Seth. After Cain kills Abel Eve has another son by the
name of Seth. The word Seth means "appointed" and you can infer this from
the Hebrew root dictionary something of that nature. But also Eve explains it to you
at the end of chapter 4. In chapter 4 verse 25 when when Seth is born, Eve
said, "for God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew." And
when you look at a Hebrew Bible and look at the word appointed, you'll find
it's essentially the equivalent word of Seth. "Appointed me another that became" Ok. He
has a son by the name of Enosh. Now this comes from a root which means "mortal,
frail, or miserable" and that's the route the route is a "anash" which is "an
incurable thing." Usually used of a wound or sometimes of grief, sickness, that sort
of thing. And so that's kind of a rough handle to go through school with, you
know. "Hey, Miserable, you're on our team." You know. Doesn't quite work. But
he names his son Kenan. Some of your Bibles say Canaan that's a misunderstanding. Kenan can mean "sorrow, dirge or
elegy" like a funeral. And now he was tired I think of his name and his
father's name, so when he has a son, he gives him a mouthful, but a fabulous
name Mahalalel. "Mahal" which means "blessed or praised one" and "el" the name of
God. Mahalalel means "the praised God" or "the blessed God." That's pretty
slick. Mahalalel has a son by the name of Jared. And that comes from the verb "yaradh" which
means "shall come down". That's very straightforward. There's more behind that, but
leave it for now. His son is Enoch. Now we've mentioned Enoch ... as
the father of Methuselah. He's an interesting guy for many reasons, but what does his name
actually mean? It turns out, it's an academic term. It means "commencement or
teaching". And so it's interesting that the oldest prophecy in the Bible uttered
by a prophet is a prophecy of the second coming of Jesus Christ and it was
uttered before the Flood of Noah by Enoch. You won't find it here in Genesis, you'll
find it in the book of Jude, the second to the last book of the Bible. "and Enoch
also, seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold the Lord cometh with
ten thousands of his Saints, to execute judgment upon all, and convince all that
are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken
against him." Jesus Christ. So it's interesting that
before the Flood of Noah there are prophecies of the second coming. Now, we know a lot from this prophecy
in Jude. We know the Lord's coming is certain. It's sure. We know who will come with
Him. We know the purpose of His coming, and we know the result of His coming. All
from this little prophecy of ... Enoch. Enoch was translated - that
is raptured, if I can use that term, and he was apparently roughly midway between
Adam and Abraham. We're going to discover another guy by the name of Elijah will
be translated midway between Abraham and Christ. These are ... the persons
we'll deal with when we get there. Ok. Now in Hebrews 11:5 there's an
allusion to Enoch being translated. "By faith Enoch was translated that he
should not see death and was not found because God translated him: for before his translation he had this
testimony, that he pleased God." So Enoch's quite a guy. And he
walked with God. That was not a casual stroll. It lasted 300 years. And he was in
agreement with, he was surrendered to, he was a witness of God. And that privilege
that he had is available to us today. Colossians, Galatians, and second
Corinthians will point the way for this for all of us, in our own way, to do
that. But let's get back to a son Methuselah. I mentioned that its root
means "his death shall bring". And that the year the Flood came is the year Methuselah died. Ok. Then we have Lamech his son. And here's a root in the Hebrew that we
have even our English today. Its evident in our english word lament or lamentation. And
what does the Hebrew root really suggest "despairing" or its equivalent.
And Lamech has a son by the name of Noah. Which, of course, we've heard of, but what
does his word mean? It comes from "nacham" which means "to bring relief for comfort". Ok. Comfort or rest. Now, let's take a look
at this genealogy again. We have Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch,
Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. So far, so good. Let's read this genealogy,
this family tree, in English. Ok. Man is appointed mortal sorrow but the blessed
God shall come down teaching that his death - whose death? God's death - his
death shall bring the despairing comfort or rest. Yeah, every time I do this I get
goose bumps. Man is appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come
down, teaching that his death - God's death - shall bring the dispairing comfort
or rest. Here is a summary, a one-sentence summary,
of the Christian gospel tucked away in a genealogy in the Torah in the Book of
Genesis. Specifically in the Book of Genesis. It has several implications.
First of all, it demonstrates that God's plan of redemption was not a knee-jerk
reaction to Adam's sin. He knew before Adam was created that he would, if given the
chance, would get himself in a predicament that nothing less than the
death of God himself would avail to ... to extricate him from that predicament. So it's a summary in that sense, but yet
there's another aspect of this, even more practical in the ... apologetic sense.
There's no way that you will ever convince me that a group of Jewish
rabbis contrived to hide a summary of the Christian gospel in a genealogy in
the Torah. No way. No, this is a fingerprint of the Holy Spirit. So we
have one integrated design here. The New Testament is in the Old Testament
concealed. Here's an example. And the Old Testament, of course, is in the New Testament
revealed. So, again, I want to underscore the basic pillars of our ministry. The
thing ... the focus that makes it somewhat distinctive is based on two
discoveries. The first discovery is that these 66 books that we have in our laps called
the Bible. Even though they're penned by over 40 different guys over thousands of
years, they are integrated message system. Every detail of those 66 books is there
by design. A design that could not be anticipated by the penman over those
thousand years. But it all fits together. It's just like you ... you've built, you find a bunch of pieces
and put them together and find that they are perfectly matched jigsaw puzzle with
no pieces missing and no pieces left over. You begin to realize that was
designed. It wasn't by accident. Now, if you go that far in your
understanding. And again, you need to discover that for yourself. But once
you discover that for yourself, there's another insight that emerges and that is
that the origin of that message system had to come from outside the
dimensionality of time. And once you discover that, it alters your entire
approach and understanding of the Bible. You'll have an awe or reverence that
comes no other way. Now let's get back to the text that
we're getting into. But a little bit of background. You know, Jesus made a strange
remark when four disciples came to Him for a confidential briefing on His second coming. He includes a strange remark. He says, "As the
Days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of man be." Now, most of us don't really understand
what He meant because we don't know what the Days of Noah were like. We know about
Noah's Flood, but we may not have studied the reasons the Flood came. What problem was it solving? Well, the
world was very sinful. If that's the case, we better get some life jackets. No,
there's something deeper I believe. In Genesis chapter 6 it opens up with a
strange passage. "It came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the
earth and daughters are born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters
of men that they were fair; and took them wives of all which they chose." Now, the
first point I'd like you to notice, because most people miss this, is those two
verses Genesis 6 verses 1 and 2 are a single sentence. And that will aid
us from making some mistakes here. "It came to pass, when men began to multiply
on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them" ... Its men in general and
daughters in general ... "that the sons of God" we'll come back to that term - a very
special term "saw the daughters of men that they were fair; took them wives of
all which they chose." This term "sons of God" is the is bene ha elohim sons of
God. This term is used in the Old Testament of angels. Every place it
appears it's of angels. In the Old Testament it appears in Job three different
places Job 1:6, 2:1, and 38:7. And in the New Testament the equivalent thing
in Luke chapter 20 verse 36. There is a Hebrew book, it's not part of
the Bible. I'm not going to suggest that it's inspired, but it's a valuable book
for grammar and vocabulary. It emerged about two centuries before Christ, was
very popular for several, many centuries called The Book of Enoch. It wasn't
really Enoch, it was compiled by some rabbis. But it does demonstrate the belief that
they had in those days, and also helps us with the vocabulary and grammar. And it
uses this term the same way of angels in great depth. But perhaps even more
authentically the Septuagint translation. Three
centuries before the Ministry of Jesus Christ the Hebrew Scriptures were
translated into Greek. The Greek is a very very precise language. The best
scholars they could find came from Jerusalem to Alexandria to do this work.
It took 15 years for them to make the translation. And the Greek is very
specific. And it does illuminate this passage in the direction we're talking
about. We also find in this passage, the daughters
of men benoth adam these are daughters of Adam. I want to emphasize
that, because some people try to make this something else. It's the
daughters of Adam. And so this is the same term as in the earlier part of
the sentence in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2. When you get down to verse 4 of
chapter 6 of Genesis, it says, "there were Nephilim in the earth in those days and
also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and
they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men
of renown." So this word Nephilim is another word that's important to understand.
It's a very distinctive word. It means "the fallen ones". It comes from the verb
"nephal" which is "to fall away" "to be cast down away, to fall away, to desert" if
you will. The Nephilim are the fallen ones. These give rise to the HaGibborim
"the mighty ones". And we'll hear more about them as we get through
the scripture. Now the Septuagint, that is, the Greek translation of this. The word
Nephilim was translated "gigantes" which is rendered in your English Bible
as Giants. Now they did happen to be giants - that's another issue, but the word
gigantes doesn't really mean Giants. It comes from gigas which means earth-born.
So in the Greek they're the earth-born in the Hebrew they're the fallen ones. These are hybrids.
These are something unique and strange. Furthermore, when you get to verse 9
of Genesis 6, it speaks of Noah's family tree. "These are the generations of Noah: Noah
was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."
Same phrase we used with Enoch, interestingly enough. But he was perfect in his generations. This word in the Hebrew
is tamiym. Which means "without blemish, sound,
healthful, without spot, unimpaired". It's a term used of physical defects. What this
says in the Hebrew is that Noah's genealogy was not tainted, was not
blemished by the goings-on. So what we're suggesting here is that
fallen angels came down to the earth and contrived some way to generate hybrids.
And I believe that this was Satan's strategy to try to corrupt the human line to try to avert any possibility of a redeemer. And we'll talk
more about that as it goes. So this is what's called the angel view of Genesis
6. And we'll get into this more. But if this is valid, we would expect - this is a very
strange idea, I grant you, but if this is valid, we would find it confirmed in the
New Testament. Things are always confirmed by two or three witnesses. In
Jude verses 6 and 7 is the following: Jude says, "the angels which kept not their
first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the
cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going
after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of
eternal fire." Jude is making another point, but he makes reference to, not only
Sodom and Gomorrah, but these angels which went after strange flesh in Genesis
chapter six. In second Peter a similar remark is made. Peter says, "for if God
spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus," he uses a
strange word it's translated hell in your Bible, but it's a strange word. It's
the only place that this word occurs in the Bible. "cast them down to Tartarus, and
delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment; and spared
not the old world, but saved Noah ..." and he goes on. He adds an interesting thing. He
ties this strange going on to the days of Noah. But this word Tartarus probably
deserves a little comment, because it's unique here.
It's not unique in Greek. It's used in other literature, but it's the only place in
the Bible it occurs. Tartarus was to the Greeks - it's a term for the dark abode of
woe. It's the pit of darkness of the unseen world. In Homer's Iliad, it's
described as being as far below Hades as the earth is below heaven. So I still
don't know where it is, but I don't want to go there. Now, this whole idea of
angels, fallen angels coming down and mixing with human women to create a
hybrid is a strange concept, but we're startled to discover that legend ... It
gives rise to legends in every ancient culture. The Greek Titans are probably
familiar to most of us in the Western world. The Titans were part of
the Greek mythology. Partly terrestrial, partly celestial, they rebelled against
their father Uranus, and after a prolonged contest were defeated by Zeus.
And then condemned into Tartarus. That's all part of the Greek mythology. But
apparently, embodies a memory of some serious things that did happen in .... prehistory. These legends will find in Sumer, Assyria,
in Egypt, the Incas, Mayan, the Epic of Gilgamesh. You'll find these equivalent
legends in Persia, obviously, in Greece, in India, Bolivia, South Sea Islands, even the Sioux
Indians. It's interesting, I'm told by the anthropologists, that American Indians,
when they met a stranger, they would hold up a hand. This business of "how" is
Hollywood stuff. But holding up a hand, if you had a stranger, you want to count
his fingers, because they had a terror of the six-fingered men. And they have
legends of all kinds among the American Indians of these giants that
populated the earth, came down from - they called him, some called them the
star people. They were very, very large very powerful. And you even find
allusions to these ... in Buffalo Bill's autobiography. And so on. So in the
classic art we have ... we have Hercules who was a Nephilim in Hebrew.
And Atlas these were ... these legends derived from these hybrids. Now there is
an alternative view. There are many people that
are graduates from seminaries that have never been exposed to the angel view that
I'm sharing with you. They've been taught, many people have
been taught that the sons of God term really refers to the line of Seth.
Seth - these were presumably the good guys and that the sons of God is a term they
try to ascribe to the sethite leadership. And the daughters of Adam,
they weren't really the daughters of Adam, they were the daughters of just Cain. And I don't know what's wrong with the daughters of the others, but anyway, and their sin that
that's involved there, is a failure to maintain separation. They try to make ...
They say that the line of Seth should be separate and they commingled with
the daughters of Cain and they shouldn't have done that. So the failure to separation they
assume is the sin involved. And they don't explain why the offspring of these
two families would be supernaturally weird. The Nephilim. Which were ...
obviously distinctive. This view, the so-called line of Seth view, emerged in the
fifth century. Celsus and Julian the Apostate used the traditional belief of
these fallen angels and so forth to attack Christianity. And Julius Africanus
resorted to the Sethite theory as a more comfortable way of defending the
scripture. And that was fine, except and Cyril of Alexandria used it to repudiate
the Orthodox position. They said the Orthodox position was quaint, but not
true. And AgustÃn embraced the Sethite theory. And by his doing
so, it became the primary doctrine of the medieval church and has endured through
the derivative denominations from the Reformation and the rest of it. It prevails
right into the middle ages. However, the text itself said the "sons of
God" is never used of believers in the Old Testament. Seth was not God. Cain was not Adam. These are all contrivances and there's no mention of the daughters of
Elohim. It's unbalanced and there's also a grammatical antithesis that is ignored.
And I won't get into that here. The lines were separated later, it isn't until
Genesis 11 that we have the separation imposed. And that was only on Isaac. Ishmael not so. And furthermore, Genesis 6 says "all flesh was corrupted". There were no good guys,
if you will, and Noah found grace and that's the whole 'nother issue. But only
Enoch and Noah's 8 are spared. Now think about this, God chose to wipe out the
entire world except for nine people. He removes Enoch first, and then these eight
on the barge or boat that we'll get to, are spared. And also these BarHaElohim
took wives doesn't sound like they had any choice in the matter. They chose who they wanted to. If the
Sethites were the good guys, why did they perish in the flood? And furthermore,
Enosh, who was Seth's son, is the guy that initiated defiance of God if you study
the the text carefully. See, in Genesis 4 verse 26 in the previous chapter, we
discover there's a mistranslation "men began to call upon
the name of the Lord". No, "men began to profane the name of the Lord". And that's
in the Targum of Onkelos, the Targum Jonathan, the Hebrew translations, the
most venerated translations among the rabbi's make it quite clear that Enosh
was bad news. So the ...
line of Seth was not the good guys. And Cain the bad guys. Quite the contrary
Cain murders his brother, and yes, he did sin, but you'll also notice if you look at his
genealogy, his children for several generations carried the name of God in them.
I believe they were believers. Believe they were repentant believers. In the rabbinical literature ... is the one that
supports this angel view of Genesis 6. The whole idea of the Nephilim being
unnatural is important. They had supernatural offspring. The so-called HaGibborim, the mighty men. And it's also ... There were no women of renown.
What's going on here? What made Noah's genealogy so distinctive? See,
it's a gene pool problem that underlies the Flood of Noah. This angel view, of
course, is a traditional rabbinical view. The book of Enoch supports it. Not that it's authoritative, not that it's
inspired by ... speaking of vocabulary and grammar, as well as other literature.
Testimony of the 12 Patriarchs, Josephus presents this. The Septuagint. The early church
fathers taught this. Philo of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and the rest of them. Modern scholarship - G.H. Pember, DeHaan, McIntosh, Delitzsch, Gaebelein, Arthur W.
Pink, Donald Gray Barnhouse, Henry Morris, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Hal Lindsey, Chuck Smith.
Modern scholarship also embraces this. The Sethite view that most people have been
taught, even in seminaries, is unscriptural. The text itself refutes it.
The inferred separation's nonsense. The inferred Godliness of Sethites is not true. The inferred Cainite subset Adamites. The
unnatural offspring. The New Testament confirmations. But perhaps the most
important thing, and that's one reason I'm spending this time on it. You will
not understand much of what happened in the Old Testament, and you won't
understand some of the prophetic issues unless you understand this view. I used to think, well, it's just a view, and
it says there's two different views. And that's fine, let's go on. Until I realized
that this undergirds a great deal of understanding or misunderstanding of the
Old Testament. Whether or not you understand the angel view. You see, there
were Nephilim after the Flood also. And Genesis 6:4 says, "There were in those days
and also after that". And you'll discover when Joshua goes into the land, when he
finally gets into the land, there are at least four tribes, tribal names, that he's instructed
by God to wipe out every man woman child of these tribes. The Rephaim, the Emim, the
Horim, the Zamsummim. These were vestiges of the Nephilim. Arba,
Anak and his sons the Anakim. When they encountered Canaan in Numbers 13:33.
When Moses sends the twelve spies into the land to spy out the land, ten of them come back and say we're grasshoppers in their sight. They're terrified. Two of
them, Joshua & Caleb, said, "no, the Lord's on our side. Go." And because they
trembled didn't go, they wandered for virtually forty years in the wilderness. What did they encounter? They encountered
Nephilim. Numbers 13:33. There were Nephilim in the land, so it's important to understand
this. Og the king of Bashan was the king of the giants. There were Nephilim up in
the Golan Heights. That's in Deuteronomy 3 and Joshua 12 and so on. Goliath and his four brothers were Anakim - sons
of Anak and so forth. See, these are stratagems of Satan. He was
attempting to corrupt Adam's line. When we get to Genesis 12 and God calls Abraham
and announced His plan of redemption for man isn't just ... His
Redemption doesn't just involve man, is going to involve specifically Abram ...
and his descendants. Satan could then focus his attack on Abraham. The famine, the
destruction of the male line, and the Exodus, Pharaoh pursuing even after he
released them, Pharaoh pursues them to wipe them out. Satan is trying to wipe out the Jews
because he's trying to wipe out God's program of redemption. When they finally return to ... well, when
God announces to Abraham that his descendants 400 years later are going to
return to Canaan. That gave Satan 4 centuries to lay down a mine field. And he'll
populate Canaan with these strange creatures. When God reveals that His plan is
going to involve David, that allows Satan to focus his attack against David's line. And
as you go right through the whole chronicle from 2nd Chronicles, Isaiah, and so forth.
You'll discover, again and again, there's attempts to wipe out the royal line, but
there's always somebody that gets saved. A servant that saves a child and so forth
to maintain that line. And even when you get the the book of Esther in the Persian
Empire. Haman tries to wipe out the Jews. Again, it's a satanic plot very analogous
to what Hitler tried to do in more recent times. When you get to the New
Testament it continues. Joseph's fear when Mary's pregnant. That was a capital
situation there. Herod's attempts to wipe out all the
babies in Bethlehem. When they try to throw Jesus off the cliff in Nazareth. There were two storms at sea and I personally suspect that those storms
were not normal storms. They were exceptional storms. The
disciples aboard were professional seamen that knew those waters, and they
were terrified. Something strange going on there. And, of course, the ultimate thing is
the Cross. And it's still not through. One reason we need to understand this, is because Satan is still at it in a variety of different ways. You need to understand that. Let's talk a little bit about angels,
because I think they're often widely misunderstood. Angels always seem to
appear in human form. At Sodom and Gomorrah they
were there. The homosexuals want to attack them. It tells you something about
angels. They're always in pairs at the Resurrection, at the Ascension, and in other
places. Angels spoke to men. They took people by the hand. They ate meals with
them. The New Testament tells us that many of us have entertained angels
unawares. So they apparently can take human form. They are capable of direct
physical combat. The Passover in Egypt was the result of the Death Angel in Egypt. This
one angel after dinner one night slaughters a hundred and eighty-five
thousand Syrians. And so this is ... we'll get into some of this as we
get into those descriptions. But the point is, angels are capable of
materializing and engaging in physical combat. We do know that angels in heaven don't marry, because marriage ... procreation
is for mortal beings, is a way of multiplying mortal people. These are not ...
they're not designed, not intended to be reproducing. Because they don't marry
in heaven many people assume they can't have sex. Let's be careful here. I think the
scripture makes no restriction on angels technically. A technology
available to them, especially if they're bent on mischief and that's what we're
dealing with here. Angels are formidable. Demons in the New
Testament are very different creatures. They always seek embodiment. Angels
are materialized. Demons can't. Demons appear to be powerless except to the
extent that they can indwell a host of some kind. And they have to do
that with permission, apparently. So we'll ... you want, when you study your Bible, try
to summarize what you think you learn about angels and summarize what you
learn about demons. I think you'll find they're distinctively different. See, in
Matthew 22 and also Mark 12 he says speaking of believers, that are in the
resurrection body "for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in
marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven." And that simply means that
sex and procreation is not part of the program there. That doesn't make any comment about what
angels that are up to mischief might do. This word "habitation" is a fascinating
word the word in the Greek is oiketerion. It only appears twice in the
Bible. It refers to the body as a dwelling place for the spirit, but it's
used 2 places - in Jude 6 it's that which the Angels had disrobed from. In
2nd Corinthians 5:2 it's alluding to the heavenly body that we aspire to as
believers. And in Jude 6 "the angels which kept not their first estate but
left their own habitation". There's that word oiketerion. In 2nd
Corinthians 5 it says, "we know that if our Heavenly house of this Tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our
house" or habit or habitation or oiketerion "which is from heaven." So it's
interesting, same term ... I think this is a highly technical term, used in a
very specific way. It also has its roots in Genesis 3 when God declares war on
Satan. He says, "I'll put enmity between thee" that's the nachash, the shining one, "and the woman,
between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise
his heel." and so we have a conflict between two seeds the seed of the woman
from that passage becomes a title of Jesus Christ. It becomes a Messianic
label. The "seed of the woman" which incidentally, is a contradiction in terms,
because the seed is the man not the woman. It's a contradiction in biology, not
just grammar, but, of course, it's an allusion that Isaiah in 7:14 picks
up as a indication of a virgin birth. We'll talk more about that when we get
there. But it also alludes to the seed of the serpent. There's another seed. The
serpent being the red dragon. These are allusions to the coming world leader who
is assisted by a false prophet. And this duo is going to wreak havoc. And we'll
deal with that when we get there, too. But these forces are behind the world today.
We need to recognize that. They have an agenda. That agenda is to entrap you into
and bring you to oblivion. The Flood of Noah. Now we get to the
famous story of Noah. Noah's Ark. It's amazing how many people say, well, you know the skeptics say
that the Ark was not big enough to hold all the species. Couldn't be. Well, how big
was the ark? They don't know. They don't know. How many species were there? We're not
sure. Well, let's take a look at this. The ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide,
and 30 cubits high. It's specified. There's some scholastic debate as to just exactly
what a cubit is. Anywhere from 18 to 22 inches is the typical estimate. For our
purposes, we'll just assume it's 18 inches. Foot and a half. That would make this
ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. It would have a displacement of
approximately twenty-four thousand tons. 1.4 million cubic feet. The equivalent
roughly of 522 railroad cars. That's a non-trivial volumetric space. That would
be room enough for a hundred and twenty-five thousand sheep. Now, taking a
sheep as a nominal average. Obviously, many animals are smaller; more smaller
than larger; and there are, of course, obviously some large exceptions. But in
any case, how many species? A defendable estimate is about 18,000 on the high side.
You've got a hundred twenty-five thousand sheep. You've got room for eighteen thousand
species. That leaves you room for some, a few large ones. And now there's a couple other ...
We don't know. We do know that whatever entered the Ark, a year later left. They
lost none. Gained none. Okay, fine. They're preserved none died. That's
surprising, but, secondly, the fact there ... was no multiplication, no
additions indicates that God somehow ... we ... most scholars presume ... we didn't say this,
but presume that some kind of hibernation may have been established, because God is in this thing, obviously. This is all based on the cubit
of 18 inches. The most common estimate you see in most of the textbooks. But there are
cubits that virtually approach 25 inches. If it was a 25-inch cubit, just to give
you some feeling here. That would be 625 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 63
feet deep. And its displacement then be 65000 tons, 4.1 million cubic feet, 1400 railroad cars, and, of course,
that gets to be, you know, a third of a million sheep and so forth. You still
only have 18000 species. So, the point is, this estimate is not only
very large in the original, but even it's also vulnerable to being much larger by,
depending on what the cubit really was. And as a Naval Academy graduate i
have to talk a little bit about the marine architecture here. The Ark, as I say, was ... 50 feet,
using the foot and a half cubit, about 50 feet wide and 30 feet high. That turns out to
be mathematically a very useful ratio. Because you have the center of gravity
in a device like this. And you have a center of buoyancy, depending on the water
that it displaces. And if it tilts over, gravity's pulling down from the
center of gravity, the center of buoyancy is pushing up from the center of
buoyancy, and you'll notice there'll be a tendency to moment, to right
this up. It turns out with these particular ratios, it can sustain an
enormous tipping and still be stable. These ratios have a very,
very attractive stability hydrologically. And so this is not some primitive contrivance here. There's some very
subtle engineering behind this. Well, the Flood. It rained for 40 days, but there's ...
that's not ...doesn't account for all the water. See, it wasn't just rain. The "fountains of the deep" were opened up.
And these waters prevailed for 150 days. It rained only for 40 days. The
waters prevailed for 150 days. They're in the Ark five months floating, seven months
waiting on this mountain. Now, it's interesting, again, if you go through the
ancient traditions, you discover there are traditions of a flood - a global flood,
disastrous flood - in virtually all the ancient traditions. Many of them are
quite fanciful. Many of them, most of them, in fact, contain elements that are
consistent with a Biblical account. The Egyptian, Babylonian,
Persian, Greek, Hindu, Chinese, the Druids, the Polynesians, Mexicans, Peruvians, American
Indians, again in Greenland. They all have very colorful, very interesting flood
traditions. Now the question is, "was it universal or
local?" There are some people that try ... indicate "well, this was just a local
flood." If it's just a local flood, God did not keep His promises. See every living
thing was destroyed the scripture says. All high mountains ... under ...
the entire heavens were covered. You say, gee, there's some mountains that are a lot higher. Yes, they may have been disrupted since.
That's another issue. "And the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat". But God then
promises Noah that He'll never do that again. Now if that was a local
flood, there have been lots of local floods. Which means God didn't keep His promise.
If that was a universal global flood, that God says I'll never do that again.
Peter warns us to watch the small print, because the next time He'll do it, He'll do it with fire not water. That's his point. Now, some questions here. We know that
dinosaurs, apparently, were quickly drowned and buried. Is that possible? We believe there were some dinosaurs on ... there were some on the ark, probably babies, I assume, because we find
dinosaurs talked about in the Book of Job. And we find that mammoths were
quickly drowned in North America and quick frozen in Siberia. These are
mysteries. That the ones in Siberia where they're frozen, they still have food in
their digestive tract. They can analyze their diets. But the main thing is, they
were ... they died suddenly. Very quickly. And the Petrified Forest found 100
miles from the South Pole by Admiral Byrd. Petrified forest at the South Pole.
Really? See, it was a universal climate at one-time. Land animals found fossilized in
locations below sea level. Now the very fact you have fossils. You talk a little bit
about that, but ... fossils imply pressure. And the absence
of decay is also an indication of shortness of time. Sea animals are found
fossilized at high elevations. You go to very high mountains and find seashells
and so on. One key thing about fossils. You
understand, fossils are dead. And that may sound silly to say, but realize that
means they are after Adam. After Adam. And there's no decay, which implies a
sudden quick change. And the dating depends on circular reasoning. "Gee, we
found a 10 million year old fossil here." "Really, how do you know it's 10 million
years old?" "Well, because it's in the layer that's represents 10 million years." Oh really?
How do you know that layer is 10 million years old? "Well, because there're 10 million year old
fossils there." You see the circular reasoning? You think I'm being facetious?
Watch the reasoning in your textbooks. You'll discover that they date the fossils
by the layer. And they date the layer by the fossils. It's all circular reasoning.
And based on all kinds of attackable premises. And why are there no
fossils formed today? If something dies. It goes down and decays. There is a theory
about the Flood that has to do with a canopy. And the fact that ... the
theory is, that there was an atmospheric water shield that protected the earth from
cosmic radiation. And this may attribute ... may be one of the explanations to the long
lifetimes before the Flood. We have these extended lifetimes prior to the Flood.
And the water falls. It complements the subterranean waters that are unleashed
in chapter 7. And also, we understand from chapter 10 of Genesis, this
continental drift occurred from the fractured landmasses. Now, if you're
interested in this area, I encourage you to look at the books by the Institute of
Creation Research. Particularly Henry Morris and John Whitcomb's book called The
Genesis Record. And they get into this and you get into the whole canopy theory.
And it has its proponents. There are many scientists who believe this is correct. There
are other scientists that have a slightly different view. There are a lot of
geological mysteries, however. The Grand Canyon origin is something worth
studying. That alone will certify all of this if you want to get into it. The fact
there's mid-oceanic mountain ranges have to deal with this. The ...
submarine canyons involved on the earth. Magnetic variations on the ocean floor.
Coal and oil formations. Frozen mammoths. All of these are areas of study that
we'll discover all argue for support of a recent global flood. Metamorphic ... there're certain
rock changes that are worth studying. And the Fossil Graveyards. All these are
geological mysteries that are explained by a universal flood. And the jigsaw fit
of the continents. There's another ... in contrast to the ...
canopy theory, there's another view called hydroplates. Probably both of
these are to some extent. Hydroplate theory points out that the continents are
and were interconnected. There's subterranean water underneath them. With
increasing pressures there's buckling that takes place. Its horizontal buckling that
explains most of this, and if you're interested this area, I encourage you to
investigate the Ministry of Walt Brown in the Center for Scientific Creation,
Phoenix, Arizona. It's got marvelous materials on this and the whole creation area.
Basically pointing out that the earth is ... had a cracking and a breaking. And
these things all fit. There is a great deal of technical background in
their materials you can get into. But let's get back to the Flood. It rained for 40
days. Again, not just rain, there were fountains of the deep. Waters prevailed
for 150 days. The Ark. They're in the Ark for 377 days. Five months floating,
seven-and-a-half months on the mountain. Now, some perspectives on all is. There's
only one Ark. There's only one way to be saved in that old world. There was only
one door in the ark. And when that door was closed, it was closed. And what an interesting
question. "Who closed the door?" God closed the door. And I'll leave it to you
to think about this. Could Noah have gotten out if he wanted to?
I personally don't think so. There's no births or deaths. Everybody on the ark was
preserved. Now all your theological speculations certainly would end when
that door was shut. And the people outside could argue all they like, they
were not saved. There are only three groups of people
that are dealt with in the flood of Noah. Those that perished in the flood, of
course, most. All but nine people. There were those that were preserved through
the flood. The eight that were in the ark. And there are those that were removed
prior to the flood. And I suspect that there's some lessons here in terms of how
God deals with things. I think that we all three groups of people that are
going to be dealt with prophetically as we get into the prophetic word. There'll
be those that are removed prior, there are those that'll be preserved through the
judgments that are coming. As I say, there are other flood traditions all through the
ancient groups. Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, so forth. Now, you can get through it
carefully ... you'll find some people to quibble about the record. If you read the
record carefully, you'll find it all fits. And ... that's not only true here
it's true in general. Many places you'll find some critics say, "well, here it says
this, and here says that", and they don't really seem to agree. Whenever you find that, rejoice, because
behind that will be a Discovery. The Lord always rewards the diligent. But getting
to this that we have Noah enter the ark at the tenth day of the second month.
Seven days later the rain begins. And then we have 40 days later the heavy
rains stopped. And 110 days later the waters recede and the Ark's now on Mount Ararat.
74 days days later that mountaintop starting to become visible. 40 days later
the Raven is sent which can survive on its own. Then the dove is sent. Dove number one is
sent, returns. Dove 2 is sent, returns with leaf. Dove number 3 is sent, does not
return which tells them that it's safe now to leave the ark. And so 22 days
later the water recedes. And Noah saw dry land. And when land is completely dry, they
exit the ark. That's in the ... so, that's a That's the ... chronology. You can
study it more carefully if you want to get into the details. But basically,
there's that seven days til the ... from the seven days, there's a 150
days at rest on Mount Ararat. 163 days they saw dry land. Anyways, it's a total of 377 days if you want to get into that. But it's another interesting thing. This is
something we're going to talk a lot about as we go. The ark rested on the
seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month on the mountains of
Ararat. And I want you notice the word mountains there is plural. It turns out
to be important as many people ... there's much tradition that has ignored that. Why did the
Holy Spirit want you to know this very day? See if ... you're a well-adjusted
person, you're reading your Bible and it says "the ark rested on the seventh month on the
seventeenth day of the month on the mountains of Ararat", you say "fine" and you read on. But if
you've been one of my Bible studies, you are no longer a normal, well-adjusted
reader, because you'll remember that I said everything in here is by design. Everything in here is
deliberate. Everything here is a result of the Holy Spirit. Why did the Holy Spirit want
you to know that the ark rested on the seventh month on the seventeenth
day of the month on the mountains of Ararat? Well, you need to understand, first of all,
there are two calendars in the Jewish community. The civil calendar is the
Genesis calendar. The year starts in the first of Tishri which is in the fall. It's called Rosh Hoshana the head of
the year. The new year. The Jewish new year is in the fall. But they
have a religious calendar where it starts in Nisan which is in the
spring. Because in Exodus when God sets up the Passover, he tells Moses, among
other things, this month the month of Nisan "shall be unto you the beginning
of months it shall be the first month of the year to you." So, because of that, the religious year
starts in the spring in the month in which Passover Falls. The month of Nisan. So, the old calendar Tishri is the first month, Nisan is the
seventh, but from the Exodus on, the religious calendar starts in Nisan
it's the first month, and it turns out, that Tishri becomes the seventh month. Ok. Jesus Christ was crucified on the
Passover. The fourteenth of Nisan. How long was He in the grave? Three days. The
Resurrection then took place on the seventeenth of Nisan, the seventh month on
the Genesis calendar. See, God's New Beginning on the planet earth was on the
anniversary, in anticipation, of our new beginning in Jesus Christ. And I think
that's very deliberate. I think it evidences that God enjoys
dealing in precise patterns. I never use the word approximate and God in the same
sentence. But it fascinates me to see a pattern set down in Genesis fulfilled in
the Gospels. So, be sensitive of that because there's many of these throughout the
scripture. The ark rested in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of month on the
mountains of Ararat. So, Noah's New Beginning on the planet earth on the
anniversary in anticipation of our new beginning in Christ. Ok. Now Ararat in Turkey, which many people think
is the Mount Ararat, is a single Mountain. They're not a lot of mountains around it
which makes it suspect. But let's move on here. In Genesis chapter 11 we're going to discover "the whole earth was of one language and one
speech." Basically, paleo Hebrew the ancient Hebrew. "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." That's the first couple of verses of Genesis chapter 11. Well, if you take a look at a map, I've
marked on the map in the left there, there's a place called Mount Ararat in
Turkey. A traditional Mount Ararat and you have Babel or what later becomes
Babylon south of it. I might point out to you, that Mount Ararat is not only north of
Babel, slightly west. Mount Ararat in Turkey is a site that was labeled by
Marco Polo in the 14th or 15th century. It's a traditional site. And there're many
people that claim to have seen the ark up there. That have found ... you know,
pieces of wood and that sort of thing. And so far, the people I know that have
tried to check that out get quite frustrated because it's all legend, all
myth. It defies confirmation. But let's stay with the scripture. Genesis 11:2
says, "they came from the east to Shinar". which means if I was looking
for the Noah's Ark I would look east of Babel. That's where they came from and
east of here there's a whole range of extremely high mountains. And I
anticipate, I won't get into conjectures here other than to say I anticipate that
it's going to be found. And I think when it is found, it's gonna be found in Iran, in the high
mountains of Iran. But let's get back to Genesis 9. We've got a new beginning now. They're out of the ark. There's a whole new order. They're not vegetarians anymore. God
instructs them to use ... to eat animals and so forth. Capital punishment is
ordained and the human government is established. There's a whole ... you can study that
quite carefully ... Sinful man has been wiped out by the Flood, but not sin.
Man is still sinful and Noah is no exception. He has a vineyard and there's some
things that happened. But there's a prophecy "may God enlarge Japheth. And may he dwell in the tents of Shem;
And may a Canaan be his servant." So Ham Shem and Japheth. Their prophecies here
we'll pick up when we get into chapter 11. Something else, back when we talked
about the Creation, we talked about an entropy profile of the universe. How order was
inserted in the universe in the six successive steps. And then rest. We
recognized that the Fall of Man and God's curse that the the order was disrupted.
That entropy was increased. Entropy increases as you go down
on this chart. So the Fall of Man results in a decay ...
destruction of the universe. The Flood also. The Flood was more than just a lot
of water. We know a great deal ... of changes. We don't know anything
about the Creation prior to the Fall. And we only have some conjectures about the
Creation prior to the Flood. And the history as we know it really is
certainly since the Fall of Man, but probably history as we know it in other
terms since the Flood. The post-Flood changes. We know the thermal blanket that
once protected the Earth is gone. Because the universal climate is no longer there. It's
the end of the universal climate. We find these tropical creatures embedded in the
ice near the poles and realize that the earth had a very different
ecological situation in those days. Atmospheric pressure apparently is reduced
fifty percent because we know that pterodactyls couldn't fly unless we
at least two atmospheres of atmospheric pressure. And we also notice
that these extended longevities that are recorded, start to decline. So, going
from the hundreds of years down ultimately, down to the three score and
ten or the seventy years that even to this day with our improvements in medicine
still hover around. Well, let's move on to chapter 10. Chapter
10 is a discussion of the genealogies of the sons of Noah. It's called the Table
of Nations. And Noah had three sons. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Japheth had sons. It goes through
all of these. Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, and Tiras. And as you study
your Bible, you may want to make note of these and and try to learn especially
the important ones. Magog is very, very important to
understand when you get to Ezekiel. Because Magog is the forbearer
of the Scithians. Which in turn, are the forbearers of the true Russians. And they're very
prominent in the prophecy in Ezekiel and you want to watch that. Madai ...
from them came the Medes which, of course, we call the day the Kurds. And they're
going to be a prominent in our current news broadcasts, too. As will Tubal and Meshach were principle
ingredients to the area that we know is Turkey. So that's it. Now Ham is the other ...
he has Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan. When you think of Cush, he settled south of
the second cataract of the Nile. It tends to be idiomatic of black Africa.
Mizraim is a different guy. And that's Egypt. Mizraim is the Biblical term for
ancient Egypt. And Put is North Africa which is quite distinct from Cush. North
Africans are yet another ... So you've got Cush, Mizraim, Put, ... all Hamites, but of different
backgrounds. And of course Canaan. And it's interesting that all Israel has to
do to find out who the enemies are is to take a look at the genealogies. They
would be their enemy. So the Cushites, that is the descendants of Cush settled
in South Arabia and in southern Egypt, Sudan, and northern Ethiopia. And they
became ... mingled with some of the Semitic tribes there and so forth. The first Hamite that's really significant. Not this ... is, of course, the Canaanite group. The
third son, of course, is Shem with Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.
And Shem are the ones that we're interested in, because out of that will
come a very prominent one. He has Elam which is Persia. It's interesting when
Isaiah is called upon to talk about the Persian Empire a hundred years before it
emerges, how does he deal with it? He calls it, he
speaks of it in terms of its forbearer Elam. Elam is what the Bible calls ... what
we think of as Persia. Which is modern iran, and we have others here. Arphaxad is very important. Under him is Selah, which in turn has Eber, from which the
word Hebrew comes. And then we have Peleg. During which the the earth is divided.
and Joktan. And we have some others. But it's from Peleg that we have, ultimately, Terah whose whose son is
Abraham. And our whole study of the second unit of Genesis, the second half of Genesis -
chapter 12 to the end is our study of Abraham. Very, very important. Probably one of the most important people in history for a lot of reasons. Kind of interesting.
There are about 26 mentioned under the under Shem, 30 under Ham, and 70 under
Japheth. There are 70 nations listed in Genesis 10, the table of Nations. That's
interesting, because they're going to put in parallel to the 70 of the family of
Joseph, or family of Jacob, I should say, that goes down to Egypt. When we
number them. And so we have 70 nations from Noah. Ham, Shem, and Japheth. We'll
have 70 families that will enter Egypt. And that's interesting, that God
indicates in Deuteronomy 32 that the bounds of both are set. That the
boundaries of these nations are determined by what God wants to have
happen. And so, there are ... some discrepancies here. In Genesis 10 we
have 70 in the table of Nations, and they're mentioned as 66 and 46 and 47. We
have a total of seventy that go to Egypt, but in one place there's only 66 because
there are already four down there. And so you have the six plus four
still gets to 70. In Acts 7:14 Steven mentioned 75, because he's including
Joseph's grandsons. Which the Septuagint makes clear. So these discrepancies
get resolved. But the main issue is to recognize that the scripture clearly seems to set a
parallelism between the seventy in the Table of Nations and the 70 that become the Nation
of Israel itself. For what it's worth. Ok. There is a person
that emerges ... out of Ham that is very important to be aware of. That's a guy by
the name of Nimrod. The First World Dictator. His name means "we rebel". He's the first world dictator. He founds two cities. Babylon and Nineveh - of both of which
become world capitals in their history. Babylon will be the capital, I believe, of his successor in a sense. There
will be a world dictator that emerges out of Assyria. That we call the
Antichrist. I believe Babylon will be his capital among others. But anyway, let's
get back, take a look at chapter 11. There's one language. The
language of Hebrew. There's a godless confederacy organized by the first world
dictator on the plain of Shinar. You need to be familiar with that term. The
word Shinar occurs seven times in the Old Testament. Always, it alludes to the
plain in which Babel, the Tower to Heaven, was built. And Babel was
originally some kind of astrological temple. It's at this place that the zodiac, as we
know it, or the Mazzaroth in the Hebrew was corrupted. It, strangely enough,
seems to embody a record of God's plan of redemption for mankind if you
understand the names of the stars and the order brightness of the twelve
constellations that link to the twelve tribes. But all that gets corrupted at this
time. So most of what we know in the field of astronomy carries labels from
the original Babylonian terms. Don't confuse this with astrology, which
is an occultic application of those things. These labels are still used by
astronomers today. And, in a sense, a form of geography. You should also
understand that your whole Bible can be viewed as a tale of two cities. The city
of Babylon which is regarded as the city of man or the city of Satan, if you will, and
the city of Jerusalem with all its faults is still considered the city of
God. In fact, it's replaced by the New Jerusalem. Babylon and Jerusalem from
the beginning, climax at the end, where Babylon was
destroyed in Revelation and the New Jerusalem replaces the one destroyed. So we have the Tower of Babel. Very, very prominent in ancient history. Going to be
prominent again in prophecy. And we'll deal with that when we get to the Book
of Revelation. And ... also Isaiah and Jeremiah will deal with it. Ok. So we have now moved to the
next unit. We finished our survey of the first unit of Genesis - chapters 1 through
11. In the next session, we'll be picking up chapter 12 to the end of chapter the
Time of the Patriarchs. We'll talk about Abraham from chapters 12 to 20. Isaac from 21 to 26. Jacob from 27 to 36. and then the rest of it, the
incredible, colorful story of Joseph. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Commonly called the Patriarchs. And we'll take that up in the next hour.
