All right, Genesis 11, 1 through
9. And the whole earth was of one
language and of 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. And they said one to another,
go to. let us make brick and burn them
thoroughly, and they had brick for stone and slime they had
for mortar. And they said, go to, let us
build us a city and a tower whose top may reach into heaven. And
let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the face
of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see
the city and the tower, which the children of men built it. And the Lord said, behold, the
people is one and they have all one language. And this they began
to do. And now nothing will be restrained
from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down,
there confound their language that they may not understand
one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad
from thence upon the face of all of the earth, and they left
off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called
Babel or Babel because the Lord did there confound the language
of all of the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them
abroad upon the face of all of the earth. These are the generations
of Shem. Shem was 106 years old and begat
Arphaxad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he
begat Arphaxad 500 years and begat sons and daughters. Now as I said, this at one time
was the closing study on a series on Revelation. There are some
things that might perplex us. Mayans no doubt have considered
some things in the past as we contemplated knowing that God
is the only source of life and such like. Surely we pondered
where did the different races come from? How did the different
languages have their beginning and take their root? Why are
there human beings on every remote island of the sea, no matter
how remote or how small? What about people who have lived
in the past? Where did Cain and Abel get their
wives, seeing there was but one family to appropriate the human
race? How did the languages develop,
which at the first was a separator of mankind and intended for that,
and what kind of division is meant in the text. Texts like
Genesis 10 verse 25, where in his days was the earth divided,
and then that one that we read in our text. Now perhaps the
first thing to do is to start with that question, how to account
for the different human races that there are upon the face
of the earth. Especially when we are bound
to admit that all have come from one common couple or bond. Acts 17 and verse 26, and he
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell upon the
face of the earth. Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse
8. When the Most High divided the
nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam,
he set the bounds of the people according unto the number of
the children of Israel. Now mankind did not evolve We
believe that to be certainly a true statement. None of them,
and not each nationality, had for themselves a separate pair
of individuals from which they descended. all came from Adam
and from Eve. Certainly that must be our conclusion
by the scripture. But all these different races
and all these different nationalities and cultures and languages and
such like. As in Genesis chapter 32, or
3 in verse 2, I'm sorry, and Adam called his wife's name Eve,
and the margin says living, Because she is the mother of all living. Acts 17 26 again. Hath made of
one blood all nations of men. And Paul there in Acts 17 and
verse 26 may be staining the pride of the Athenians in being
native inhabitants of our land. They called it Octopton or Aborigines
is the word that you may sometimes hear, that they were native descendants
of that area. Some even saying that they sprung
up out of the soil. So let's see what light the scripture
might be able to shine upon these questions for us this evening. Where did the races originate
in the scripture? Remembering that Eve is the mother
of us all, Genesis 3 and verse 20, and up to the Tower of Babel,
we read Genesis 11 and verse 1, the whole earth was of one
language and one speech. Very clearly, there are different
races of people that inhabit the earth. There are several
distinct races of mankind that are to be found upon the earth. from some say from three to a
half dozen different kinds of people there are that are dwelling
upon the face of the earth. Now our first consideration therefore
is to inquire as to how this is. Again, seeing that all descended
from one common pair of and that would be Adam and Eve. How did
they come to be the various features or have the various features
that are characteristic of each one of the groups seeing that
evolution is not the answer or they did not evolve? Now I should
tell you that the matter of whether the flood was local or whether
it was universal has a bearing, a definite bearing upon this
question. For some there are who contend
for a localized flood only in the book of Genesis. They also
contend for a pre-Adamite race dwelling upon the face of the
earth that preceded Adam and Eve. That is, so that they are
simply an extension, or an existence rather, before Adam and Eve were
created. One such person is R. A. Torrey. You might have heard
of him, rather well known in days gone by. He held to a pre-Adamite
race of men. and even held that some lived
over in the Bible time and to show how one era leads to another. Torrey also believed that the
days in Genesis were not 24-hour days, but they were long periods
of time, and that Genesis is simply an account of recreation,
not of original. You find that in R. A. Torrey's
book, Difficulties in the Bible, I think page 32 if you're interested
in tracing it out. Bernard Graham, in his book,
Science and the Scripture, posits the position that there were
pre-Adamite people and a local flood, which accounts for the
diversity, he said, of the human race. Now some solve the difficulty
in a simpler way, by saying that Noah had three sons. One was
white, one was black, and one was yellow. And the other species
or the other variations of these three are simply what we have
in the world today. So the question is, how could
this variation occur since all mankind involved and proceeded
from Adam and Eve from the one blood, as Paul says it, unless
it be admitted that such genes were created by God and created
in Adam and in Eve. It should be noted that evolutionists,
in their pursuit of their dogma, have no answer for the race differences
and the race features according to evolution. They can claim
that man came up from a fish or from a reptile or mammals
came to be human beings, yet they cannot explain the different
races that exist in the Homo sapiens species upon the face
of the earth. Said the famous evolutionist
Theodosius Dabzhansky in his book Sexual Selection and the
Descent of Man, page 75, quote, it is almost incredible that
a century after Darwin, the problem of the origin of racial differences
in the human species remains about as baffling as it was in
his time, unquote. Therefore, in tracing out the
various pedigrees We will consider, if you might, three passages
of the scripture. Number one, Noah's prophecy concerning
his sons in Genesis 9 and verse, I believe, 24 through verse 27.
Number two, the genealogy of Noah's sons in Genesis chapter
10. A, Japheth in verses 2 through
5, and B, Ham in verse 6 to verse 20, which lineage produced Nimrod,
a very wicked, open enemy, God and see his son Shem in verses
21 through 32 and out of this race out of this son came Abraham
and the Abrahamic family and Offspring you'll find that in
Genesis 8 11 and verse 10 through verse 32 but then thirdly in
Genesis 11 8 and 9 and The Lord God scattered mankind over the
face of the earth, and that by families, by tribes, and by nation. In the Lord's providence, he
directed the dispersing of the various families, of the human
family, out over the face of all of the earth. Now, let's
look first of all at the prophecy of Noah regarding his sons. You have it in Genesis chapter
9, 24 through verse 27. And Noah made prophetic predictions
regarding each of his three sons. And I trust none here would dismiss
the prophecy of Noah on the ground that he had been recently drunk
therefore not reliable chapter 9 20 through 23 not dismiss that
anymore then you would dismiss the prophecy of Jacob who lay
upon his bed deathbed making prophecy might be dismissed by
some as hallucination in Genesis 41 1 through 33 Thus, the fact that Noah had
been recently drunk, or Jacob died soon after he had spoken,
in no way diminishes the truthfulness of their prophecy. Both prophesy
to their sons as to what shall face them and what shall befall
them in the time to come. Noah to his three and Jacob to
his 12 son gathered about his bed. Now we understand Noah to
be speaking under inspiration as he delivers his prophecy,
not drunken babblings, but inspired prophecy or he awakened from
his wine in verse 24 in case we're interested. Especially
are we interested, I think, in the seed of ham. Canaan, who
seemed to exhibit some of the carnality of his father Ham before
him. Noah, by the Spirit, discerned
both the moral character and the future state of his sons
whom he had begotten. First, let's look at the prophecy
of the three sons. Ham, in Genesis 9, 25. he that
is referring unto Noah said cursed be Canaan a servant of servants
shall he be unto his brethren which can which case while servitude
is repeated in relation to his two brothers Shem verse 26 and
Japheth in verse 27 now there can be no doubt that Canaan was
cursed for his father Ham's sake as we read the scripture. Verse
18, And Ham is the father of Canaan. Verse 22, And Ham, the
father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. And though the
sin was Ham, yet the curse lighted upon Canaan. What was Ham saying? Well, you have it in Genesis
9, 21 and 22, when he beheld the nakedness of his father and
seemed to act in a very carnal way. Ham's sin, seeing Noah's
nakedness, was not accidental. It was not unintentional, but
it was what somebody called a willful flaunting of the sad situation. And he took the tale about it
under his brother. So as one said, Noah's sin and
fall served to display the hearts of his son. One son, Ham, made
sport of his father's situation while the others turned their
back and covered the nakedness of their father in the 23rd verse. Their behavior influenced Noah's
prophecy, especially in the case of Ham. I read John Gill who
said, Ham is represented by many writers as a very wicked, immodest,
and prolific character and speaks of him as the public corrupter
of mankind. that he taught men to live as
before the flood, to lie with their mothers, and their sisters,
and their daughters, and brood, and creatures of all sort, and
that he actually did so himself." End of quote. John Gill's observation
of this son. Kylen Daly said, the sin of Ham,
there lies the great stain for the whole Hamitic race whose
chief characteristic, it seemed, was or is sexual sin. The descendants of Canaan became
enemies of the Lord. They became hewers of wood and
drawers of water. Joshua chapter 9, verse 21 through
27, and 1 Kings chapter 9, verse 20 and 21. So that the
descendants of Ham eventually settled in Egypt and in Africa. And by the way, out of the line
of Ham came Nimrod, a very wicked and a very violent tyrant of
a man, and led that generation to defy God and seek to build
a tower that reached even into heaven. Then we come to the son
Shem, S-H-E-M, of Noah, verse 26. Blessed be the Lord God of
Shem, or rather Shem's God blessed, which is not said of Japheth
later. The line of Shem produced the
patriarch Abraham. You see that again in Genesis
11, 10 through 32. Thus the Jews descended from
Noah's son, Shem. And ultimately, so did the Messiah. And for centuries, these were
the stewards of God's worship upon the face of the earth. Thirdly,
Japheth, Genesis 10, two through five. Japheth was to be the progenitor
of many nations, of the people and of the Gentile, and would
spread to a large part of the known world of that day and hours,
and to islands even of the sea. Matthew Henry, the commentator,
believed that the descendants of Japheth went to people Europe,
much of Asia, and possibly part of America. But let's be more
specific, as all came from Adam, so all the natural nationalities
and all the races descended from the three sons of Noah after
Noah and his wife. Now from him came such people
as the Egyptians and the Canaanites, the African tribe, some orientals
as Chinese and Japanese, and in the opinion of Henry Morris,
you know who Henry Morris is? He wrote a lot against evolution
and for biblical creation. He included in that list the
American Indian as well. And from Shem came the Jews and
perhaps others. From Japheth came then the European. Thus these three gave the world
three philosophies as well as three kinds of people. One spiritual,
one material, and one physical. One promoted monotheism, one
pantheism, and the other polytheism so that they live in the world.
But now we come to an important matter. That is the Tower of
Babel and the dividing of humanity into many nations, many tribes,
and many different dialects. For until now, two things had
been true of the human family. Number one, They were all of
one speech and of one language. Therefore, they were all able
to communicate one with the other. Genesis 11 verse 1 again, the
whole earth was of one language and one speech. And secondly,
not only were they of one speech and language, but they were all
congregated one place some people think possibly the old-time Babylon
and then God scattered them so we read read in our text Genesis
11 8 & 9 the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth
now there are three mentions of of a dividing of the earth
in Genesis chapter 20. I'll read the verse 5. By these, that is, the sons of
Japheth, were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their land,
everyone after his tongue, after their family, and in their nation. Then in verse 25, and unto Eber
were born two sons, the name of one was Peleg, P-E-L-E-G,
and then watch this statement. For in his days was the earth
divided. And the word Peleg or the name
Peleg means division or margin. We're not surprised at that.
Then look at verse 32. These are the families of the
sons of Noah after their generation in their nation. And by these
were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. Now it
was the will of God that people inhabit every part of the earth. that there be different nations,
there be different tribes, languages, nationalities, and such like. For God defeated their plan of
one-worldism. They wanted to stay together
and be together and not be scattered. And God overruled their plan
one worldism and separated them and caused there to be among
them different cultural, racial, economic, and religious differences. This he did at Babel and by so
simple a method as confusing their language. Now we won't
go into it But for the meaning of dividing the Earth, there
are two views of it that you might find the commentators holding. Number one, that it speaks of
a continent drift, or polar wandering. as it is sometimes called, that
there was an actual shift in the mass of the land separating
one continent from another. The original earth may or may
not have been all in one piece, but we do know that the water
was gathered together in one place. So something that the
accounts of these being people in every place, including the
islands of the sea. There's a second view that it
describes the work of God in polarizing, or should we say,
in pairing off the people in the various nations, or in other
words, that the word scattered, Genesis 11, eight and nine equal
the words divided in Genesis 10, verse five, 25 and 32. God scattered by dividing them
into group. Having divided, he scattered
them using the language as a main force under that end. And though
Bible means confusion, that yet the dispersion was, it seemed,
orderly, for the scattering and dividing was not shuffling of
all together, but the division was according to tongue and family
and nations, chapter 10 and verse 5. In other words, the family
of Ham dispersed together, as did the family of Shem and of
Japheth. And in Genesis 10, 5, 10, 20,
1031 because God gave each one of
them a Dialect they understood each other in their own tongue
for God's caused them to speak with different languages or tongue
Much like he reversed that procedure in the miracle of Pentecost in
Acts chapter 2 thus by this miracle He separated the families of
the sons of Noah according unto kindred and language. Then, that brings us to discuss
two questions. Number one, since all came from
a common stock, how is it that we see different races and nationalities
with traits common unto their races? And how about skin color,
physical traits, and red, white, brown, Yella did not at Babel
God did God at Babel make some change in their genes or did
he engineer it in a certain way we do not know about but first
let's remember one thing that we learned from our study of
the scripture that all human beings have a very unique DNA,
which program such things as heredity, traits, and diseases,
and eye, and hair, and skin tone. All these factors are dependent
upon the DNA or the gene structure of the producing parent. Remember
what it said in Genesis so many times, after his kind or after
their kind. The answer is either one of two
things. A, God created and preserved
in the flood survivors in a gene pool or variation sufficient
to give rise to all the various nationalities in the world. Or
B, God altered by some miracle not beyond his power or skill
or wisdom at Babel or whom thereafter, to bring about the will of scattering
the people upon the face of the earth, as to make therefore the
different races that we see. And as these stayed more or less
to themselves, congregating and gathering to themselves, They
produced them, of course, after their kind, with a fraction of
the whole genetic range of the human family from which it had
been separated. And this caused rapid surfacing
of genetic traits common to their nation, physical traits and appearances
that were unique under them. Henry Mars said it could only
take one generation to produce all the color variation that
we see today. But then secondly, how did the
people get in every place in the world? Wherever there is
land mass, wherever there is land area, We have found people
living in those places, the Indians in America, the Negroes in Africa,
the nations of the Isles of the Sea, the Eskimos up north, and
such like. How and why did they arrive at
those particular places, we are not told and have no scripture
to tell us. But at any rate, God caused a
worldwide dispersion or division of people. All but the sons of
Shem and Abraham, listen to this, were left for a long time without
spiritual illumination and revelation. According to God's good pleasure,
He left all mankind, with the exception of these, without a
spiritual revelation. Though everywhere that men lived,
wherever they were, God gave unto them in creation and conscience
a revelation of himself. In creation and in conscience,
both spoke unto them of God's existence, but they did not have
a spiritual revelation as God had given to the line of Abraham. So we ask, what are those people
therefore left in those conditions and in those situations? What
about that? Well, all we can conclude, and
we have to stay with the scripture, go no further than it takes us,
is that God created one pair, Adam and Eve, and from them came
all people and all nations of people in the world. From them
came both elect and reprobate. And so God revealed or he hid
himself under them according as it was his good pleasure and
for that were they created and God's purpose was worked out
in them. He made all things for himself
and in due time the son assumed humanity and dwelt in the world
among men and revealed God the Father further and further unto
us. I'll just close by saying evolution
is a bankrupt philosophy without a single article of proof. Not one example of evolution
in action can be found or has ever been found upon the face
of the earth. As Christians we stand. God created
Adam and Eve. They did not evolve. God propagated
the race, they did not evolve from a bug or a mud puddle or
something of that sort. We do not understand it all,
but by faith we believe that God by his word formed the heaven
and the earth in Hebrews chapter 11.