All right. Just turn to Genesis
chapter 10. We'll be in Genesis 10 and 11. Last time we considered the lineage
of Japheth. In that, we saw the blessing
of God to show mercy to the Gentiles. The Gentiles were the ones that
came from Japheth. Shem came the Jews. Japheth was
the Gentiles. But this evening, I'd like for
us to consider the lineage of Ham. Now, you remember Ham was
the one who looked upon his father Saw him naked, told his two brothers,
his two brothers put the cover on their shoulders and backed
up, covered their daddy. And because of that, God placed
upon the lineage, the heritage of Ham a curse. And I want us
to find what the scriptures has to say about that curse that
was put upon Ham and how it manifests itself. How we see it today. We're still going through the
effects of that curse that was put upon the lineage of Ham. Now I found in reading And actually,
I'll start in verse 6 of chapter 10. The scripture says, and the
sons of Ham, Cush, and Mizoram, and Phut, Canaan, the sons of
Cush, Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Rehama, Sabtacha, the sons of Rehama,
Sheba, Dedan, Cush begat Nimrod, he began to be a mighty man in
the earth. Now as we read those names, By
and large, those names are actually their men. They were men. They
were actually sons. But actually, their names are
associated with the land that they inhabited. And Cush actually
was the one that was the father of those that were in Ethiopia.
Mizraim, those in Egypt, Thut, those in Libya, Canaan in Canaan,
in the land that was known as Canaan. But most of those of
the lineage of Ham resided in the area of Africa. But of those men that came from
Ham, the one I'd like to consider is the one that we found written
in verse 8, Nimrod. Nimrod was shown to be a man
who was a picture and type of rebellion against God, the God
who rules in heaven and earth. And we're going to see through
this. Now here's a picture. Now what
we're going to be looking at is the effect of the curse that
God placed upon the lineage We're going to see the effect of it.
And as I said, we're seeing it today. We're seeing what it is.
So keep that in mind as we look. Here's a picture. He was a very
ambitious man, wicked. One that is shown, in a minute
we'll see, to possess the very heart and desire that was expressed
by Satan. Isaiah 14, verses 12 to 14, I'll
read this to you. The scripture says, How far thou
art fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How that
thou art cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations,
For thou hast said in thine heart." Now, again, I made mention of
this last week or week before, how this shows you the inspiration
of the Scriptures. Here's the Spirit of God telling
us what Satan thought. You said this in your heart.
I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation of the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. The thought of Satan, and that
last part right there, I will be like the Most High, is the
very thing that is set forth concerning the heart of man as
he's born in Adam, that carnal heart that thinks himself to
be capable of establishing peace with God because he is able. to do what he thinks he can do. Listen to this. Hold your place
in Genesis. Turn to 2 Thessalonians 2, 1-4. 2 Thessalonians 2. I'd
like to read verses 1-4. Now listen to this. If you want to know the very
heart of what free will thinks, not what it can do, but what
it thinks. Not everybody, not God's people,
not God's believers, but this is man by nature. Listen to this.
2 Thessalonians 2, 1-4, Now we beseech you, brethren, by the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together
unto him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled,
neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter from us, as that
day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means. For that day shall not come,
except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God." Now think about what we just
read. Who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God. or that is worshipped, so that
he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that
he is God. Someone says, well, you know,
I know some people believe that man has a free will. This is
the spirit of Satan. I will. I will. I will. Paul was preaching there to the
church at Thessalonica, and he was talking about that man of
sin, that man of sin. And I know many people believe
that that is going to be an individual, but rather this man of sin seems
to be the spirit of Antichrist that is possessed, the spirit
of Antichrist. Brother Henry nailed it in my
mind, gave me some understanding on it. He said this spirit, it's
not that man by nature, he's not anti-religion, he's not anti-morality,
he's not anti-good works, he's Antichrist. That's what he is.
He's Antichrist. It's that spirit of Antichrist. that is possessed by all unregenerate
men. That spirit that opposes, Scripture
says, and exalts itself above all that is called God or that
is worshipped. Listen to this. People are looking
for a man, an individual, the son of perdition. That's who
they're looking for. First John 4.3 says, In every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of
God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereas you have
heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the
world. That's what the Lord said. Paul
spoke of that son of perdition that we just read about being,
you know, revealed, you know, before the coming of the Lord.
And the Lord Jesus, in John 17, 2, declared Judas to be the son
of perdition. So this spirit of Antichrist,
this spirit of the son of perdition, that spirit of being against
the Lord, that's what we find here in this man Nimrod. He exhibited that. So back in Genesis 10, verse
8, it says, And Cush begat Nimrod, and he began to be a mighty one
in the earth. This mighty one. The scripture
says in verse 9, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And actually the word there being
before, one of the definitions of that word before is against.
So he was a mighty hunter against the Lord. I don't doubt for a
second that his hunting, it could have been, that he maybe did
hunt animals. Some of the writers said he was
an animal hunter and I don't deny that. That could be the
case, but it says he was a mighty hunter. in the earth. And based
upon what he progressed to expose of himself, or what the Lord
exposed of him, is his aspiration not to be just one of the gang,
just not one of the rest among all the people. He was resolved
to tower above his neighbors and he was going to elevate himself
against the Lord. He was a mighty hunter against
the Lord and his name actually means rebel or rebellion and
his actions proved to be that very thing. Now I see because of the way he handled
himself and started spreading out his influence. And we'll
look at it in just a minute. I'm going to look over what we
just read about the Tower of Babel in just a second. But it's
like his influence was being spread more and more over the
people and having dominance over the people. And it was trying
to get people to his side. It was like those Pharisees that
the Lord spoke to in Matthew chapter 23, 15. Woe unto you
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You know what a hypocrite is?
That's one pretending to be something that he's not. That's basically
what, in the theater, the actors, that's what they are, they're
hypocrites. They're pretenders, they play like. Remember that
we play that in school, let's play like. We play like Army,
play like Superman, play like. That's what they're doing, they
play like. You compass the sea and land to make one proselyte.
And when he's made, you make him twofold more the child of
hell than yourselves. That's always been a strange
last line right there. You make him twofold more the
child of hell than yourselves. Robert Hawker wrote this. This
is just a quote from Mr. Hawker. He said, the Pharisees,
like all man-centered religion, This was the first thing, twofold.
He said, first, like all man-centered religion, they labored to tell
the proselytes that the person and work of Christ for salvation
before God is unnecessary, untrue. If you believe that salvation
is left up to you, then really you're calling the shots. God's
done what he's done, but he said that's what they labored to do.
They were saying that salvation is not of grace, therefore denying
the word. That was the first thing that
they led their proselytes to believe. That's what they taught
them. Secondly, he said, they declared to their converts that
righteousness is obtained by man's works, declaring that a
man has or can produce a righteousness that will be accepted of God.
denying the recovery of a sinner by the goodwill and grace of
God. So they denied Christ's glory and gave glory to themselves,
is basically what he was saying. I thought, well, of all the things
that I've tried to look, I said that sounds consistent with what
I know. But here was a man, Nimrod, And
he set out to build himself a city. The scripture says, verse 10
of Genesis 10, and the beginning of his, that is Nimrod's kingdom,
was Babel, and Urik, and Akkad, and Kalna in the land of Shinoah. Those last few words there, those
are cities that was all kind of enclosed. It was like, you
know, when you go from, especially if cities kind of build out,
you know, they get almost to a point where you just go right,
one city right into another one, and you don't even know when
you really got out of it, if it's a pretty good-sized city.
Well, that's what it was. This, you know, it was actually,
Babel was actually the big city, and these other little cities,
and he built them. So God had said that the sons
of Ham sons of Ham, Noah's son Ham, of which Nimrod was from
Ham, they were going to serve Japheth and they were going to
serve Shem. And Nimrod set out to prove God
wrong. There's no doubt, I had no doubt
in my mind that Nimrod knew what God had said concerning Ham and
his heritage. And so he goes out to build him
a city. He was going to build him a city
and the beginning of his kingdom was Bible. Now the details of
what he did is what we read in the beginning here in chapter
11 verses 1 to 9. The whole earth was of one language,
one speech, And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east,
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, burn
them throughly. They had brick for stone, slime
they had for mortar. And they said, go to, let us
build a city, a tower, whose tower, whose top may reach into
heaven. Let us make us a name, lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And
the Lord came down to see the city, the tower, which the children
of men built it. And the Lord said, Behold, the
people is one. They have all one language. And
this they began to do, and now nothing will restrain them. From
they which they have imagined to do, go to let us go down,
and 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 the earth, and they left
off to build the city. And therefore is the name of
it called Bible, Confusion. Because the Lord did there confound
the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord
scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. In the
beginning, the scripture says, the whole earth was of one language
and speech. One lip, one word, one accent
and mode of expression. Everybody spoke the same language. What a wonderful world the Lord
created. The Lord created this world,
the scripture says, there was no confusion, there was no miscommunication,
No diversity of language. When God created man in the garden,
Adam and Eve, God spoke to them. They understood. They heard.
They spoke back. And man was created to speak
one language. One language that gave all the
honor and all the glory and all the praise unto the Lord. That's
how he was created. You take a believer. A believer,
when he speaks, he wants to honor the Lord with his mouth. He wants
to honor the Lord with what he hears, what he sees. He wants
to. But faith that cometh by hearing,
he wants to say that which is glorifying to God and edifying
to God's people. But sin marred man's speech. Man spoke after Adam's sin in
the language of dishonor. Let's make ourselves some aprons. Let's hide from God. The whole thing changed. Let's
don't let Him find us. His heart was far from God and
the evidence of that marred and tainted speech is seen in what
Nimrod said and what he did. Man found a place out in Shinar. He found a place that suited
his fancy. And in arrogant defiance against
God, he said, let's make our own way to God. That was the beginning of it,
right there, in Babel. That place that means confusion. And that city, spiritually speaking,
That city throughout this book is set forth to be a supreme
representation. Whenever you hear Babylon, Babylon,
you don't hear a whole lot of good, God honoring things about
Babylon. I mean, Revelation chapter 17. How many times have we read of
the mindset of that great whore? I won't read it for sake of time.
You know the part. Mystery. Babylon the Great, the
mother of harlots and abominations on the earth. Babylon. False religion. That woman drunken
with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. Babylon
I found, which means confusion after this right here, but originally
I found it was originally, now this is for our understanding,
our information, originally the word Babylon which was a derivative
of a Greek word, was actually from the Akkadian. I don't even
know what Akkadian is, but he just said it was from the Akkadian
language, and it meant the gate of God. That's what it originally
meant. The gate of God, and very possibly,
probably so. That was the name foolishly and
arrogantly intended by Nimrod. I'm going to build a way to God.
He called it Babel, and that's what it meant. But it came to
mean confusion after God came down and confounded the language,
after men tried to establish their own way to heaven. God
is not the author of confusion, but of peace. Man is the author
of confusion. So God came down and he declared,
as we just read, that man was one, united in his purpose, united
in his language, united in rebellion against all men think as being
born in Adam, all men think alike. They're all carnal. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. And God came down, and came down
in mercy. I'm telling you, it was merciful
that God came down. The scripture says concerning
the Lord seeing what was going on. The Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven.
His eyelids behold. His eyelids try. He knows. He knows the children of men. But listen to what the scripture
says concerning the Lord coming down. It says in Psalm 113.6,
who humbleth himself to behold, now listen to this, the things
that are in heaven and in the earth. He humbles himself to
even behold the things in heaven. Humbles himself to do that. In
mercy, He came down in the tri-unity of his being, Jehovah, Father,
Son, Spirit, and said, let us go down. Came down and saw. And now we realize that this
Babylon was more than just a city that was being built. It was
the actual expression of man by nature's heart. to set himself
up above God. That's what he wanted to do.
He was gonna do it against God, against God's Christ, against
the shed blood of Lord Jesus Christ. Let us build us a city
whose top reaches to heaven. Man was saying, I have no need
of God's refuge. I have no need of redemption
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no need of the
cleft of a rock in which to hide, no need of God's grace, no need
of God's righteousness, no desire for that city that Abraham sought
when he said he looked for that city which hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God. This city, this tower, this is
the expression of false religion. We can do it ourselves. Let's
do it that we might have all to glory in. Let us make us a
name. And here's what we'll do. We'll
take some brick and we'll take some slime. Boy, that sounds
real stable, doesn't it? Let's take brick and slime. and
we'll get to heaven. We don't need God. But oh, the need of the scriptures
declaring 1 Corinthians 3.11, for other foundation can no man
lay than is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So the Lord came down
and He confounded their language. They all spoke one language.
One language, one speech. Now you talk about the expression,
I said this just comes right on into today. What a picture
of false religion today. Every branch, I don't know how
to say it. Have you ever noticed, I know
you have, everywhere where you go where a gospel church has
been raised up, they all speak one language. I can go right here, I can go
to Todd's Road, I can go to Darwin's over at Taylor, Arkansas, I can
go to Frank Tate's, I can preach the same message right there,
I'm preaching right here. And it's all received. But every
other religion, every other denomination, There's always a different branch. There's always a different segment.
There's always a different chapter. There's always something. They
all speak different languages. They all have one goal. To build
a tower to reach unto heaven. Build that city. And that thought
hadn't changed from the fall. That's the same thing. They're all scattered. That's
what happened. They all branched out. Nobody
understood each other. They didn't speak the same language. Their heart was never changed,
but they just didn't say it the same way. I don't speak Spanish. I like to make some people think
I do, but I can't speak Spanish. I got about three words that
I know, and I throw those things around. I can't speak Spanish. Somebody could be saying the
same thing to me that I'm saying to them, and I don't have a clue
what they're saying. Some other guy come over here
speaks Russian. He can say the same thing that that guy said
and I said. I said it in English or Southern. He said it in his
language and he said it in Russian. And we all said the same thing. That's what false religion has
done to date. You know, one says salvation
is by baptism. One of them says, no, it's by
speaking in tongues. One of them says, no, it's by
being united to the church of your choice. We're all working
for the same thing. Salvation is like a big wagon
wheel. But to lay hold of anything associated with the religion
of this world, doesn't matter how they say it, it all works.
It all comes back to the same heart. Their hearts weren't changed. They just said it differently.
They just spoke it in a different way of speaking. It's always
religion that appeals to the flesh. The religion of Babylon,
false religion, that we see right now, same thing, hadn't changed. They just all scattered out and
raised them up a little group and they're doing the same thing,
is certain death. You cannot, grace and works don't
mix. They don't mix. And Joshua, if
you want to turn there, it's over in Joshua chapter 7. Joshua
7, there was a time when Israel went up to fight a city called
Ai. And Joshua sent some spies over to Ai, and he said, go check
it out and see what kind of strength they came. And they came back,
and they said, it's not that big a deal. We got this. You don't have to send all the
people. You know, we got them. So Joshua sent 3,000 men. He didn't even send the whole
group. And they went over there and
the men of Ai smote, the scripture says, 36 Israelites. And Joshua fell down before the
Lord. What happened? that Israel turns
their backs on their enemies. And in Joshua chapter 7, verses
10 to 13, the Lord spoke to Joshua about it. And the Lord said unto
Joshua, Get thee up, wherefore liest thou upon thy face? Israel
hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant, which
I commanded them. For they have even taken of the
accursed thing, also have stolen and disassembled also. They have
put it even among their own stuff, Therefore, the children of Israel
could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs
before their enemies because they were accursed. Neither will
I be with you anymore, except you destroy the accursed from
among you. up, sanctify the people, and
say, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow. For thus saith the
Lord God of Israel, there is an accursed thing in the midst
of thee, O Israel. Thou canst not stand before thine
enemies until thou take away the accursed thing from among
you." And the next day, the Lord exposed a man. His name was Achan. They came and the Lord started,
you know, they took this one and they came down to, kept narrowing
it more and more and more, getting closer and closer and closer
to Achan. The scripture says in Joshua 19 to 21, Joshua, when
he came down to Achan, Joshua said unto Achan, my son, give
I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession
unto him and tell me now what thou hast done. Hide it not from
me. And Achan answered Joshua and said, indeed, I have sinned
against the Lord God of Israel. And thus and thus have I done.
When I saw among the spoils of goodly, here we go, Babylonian
garment, 200 shekels of silver, a wedge of gold, 50 shekels weight,
then I coveted them and took them. And behold, they're hid
in the earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under
it. They went and found it. Sure
enough, that's where it was. In verse 25 and 26, it says what
happened. And Joshua said, why hast thou
troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this
day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, burned him with
fire after they had stoned him with stones. And they raised
over him a great heap of stones upon this day. So the Lord turned
from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore, the name of that place
is called the Valley of Achor unto this day. Here's the effect. If you want to know the end,
of claiming faithfulness to the Lord and holding to which God
has forbidden works. Claiming to believe grace and
clinging to the flesh, professing grace, clinging to man-centered,
man-honoring religion. Death. This attitude of Nimrod
This is the attitude of every unbeliever in this world. Here's this attitude, I'm gonna
wind this thing up. Turn to Daniel chapter four,
Daniel four. Here's the attitude right here,
Daniel four. A man named Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel chapter four, verse 28
to 33. Here is Nebuchadnezzar talking
about Babylon, spiritually setting forth what a man by nature thinks
concerning his salvation before God. Listen to what he says,
Daniel 4.28. All this came before King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of 12 months he walked
in the palace in the kingdom of Babylon. The king spake and
said, is not this great Babylon? that I have built for the house
of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of
my majesty. While the word was in the king's
mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar,
to thee it is spoken. The kingdom is departed from
thee, and they shall drive thee from men. Thy dwelling shall
be with the beasts of the field. They shall make thee to eat grass
as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know
that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth
it to whomsoever he will. The same hour was the thing fulfilled,
upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from men, and did eat
grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until
his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like
birds' claws." So here's man's thought. I'm going to build me,
I'm going to build me a tower. I'm going to do it by my own
will. I'm going to build me my way to God. I'm going to do it
by my might. I'm going to make a name for
myself. And the scripture sets forth, in closing, in the last
of these, I'm going to just read back in Genesis chapter 10, I
want to read the last few verses, verses 11 through 20, because
verse 21 starts in with the lineage of Shem, Lord willing that I'll
look at next time. But verses 11, Genesis chapter
10, verses 11 to 20. I'm going to read these and you're
going to recognize some of these names. I'm going to stop. I'm
just basically going to read them. But I want you to listen
to where these lands, the lineage of Ham, where they were. And
think about when some of these names pop into your mind. What
happened to some of these places? All because of God's good pleasure
to leave Ham to himself. God has a right. Verses 11 to
20. Genesis 10, verse 11. Out of
that land went forth Asher, and built in Nineveh the city Rehoboth
and Calah, and Reson between Nineveh and Calah, the same as
the great city. And Mizoram began looting, Ananimim,
and Lehabim, and Naphtahim, and Patherishim, and Kasluhim, out
of whom came Philistim, and Kaph-Torim, And Canaan begat Sidon, his firstborn,
in Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite,
and the Hivite, and the Archaic, and the Sinite, and the Arvidite,
and the Zimorite, and the Hathmaite. And afterwards were the families
of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites
was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, and Gaza, as thou goest
towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and Adma, and Zeboam, even Untalasia. These are the sons of Ham, after
their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their
nations. Now here we have a list, and
I can just tell you from just reading them and looking at them,
these are the ones that by and large, now out of every nation,
kindred, tribe, and tongue, God's got a people. God has a people. I mean, you know, there was that
eunuch. Where was he from? Ethiopia.
Ham. There's a land of ham. And God
was pleased to save him. God's got a people out here.
But by and large, these are the places that set forth where God
left them to their selves. That's what they're pictured.
And now we know from these verses that any religion that makes
any part of salvation to be dependent upon man's work, man's will,
that's pictured in the lineage of Ham. That's what that picture
and type is. That's the religion of Babylon. We'll do it. I can handle it.
Salvation is all of grace. So we've looked at the lineage
of Japheth, We've looked now at the lineage of Ham. This is
what God has to say. We see it right on into today.
We see Gentiles. That's Japheth, that's what we
looked at last. Japheth, God calling out Gentiles. Thankful. We looked at Ham today and Lord
willing we'll look at Shem. That shem was in the bloodline
of the Lord Jesus Christ and we'll look at his lineage next
week. I pray that this was profitable.
I pray it was glorifying to the Lord and it was profitable in
edifying for God's people for his glory in our good.