You want to turn in your Bibles
to Genesis chapter 10. You may have never heard a sermon
from Genesis chapter 10 and 11. I don't think I have either.
It's not a place I would have chosen had it not been that we
were going through the book of Genesis together. But we're trying
to go through the entire book here and so we're going to take
it one one chapter at a time as it comes from God's Word. Because God wrote it, it's got
to be true. And because He put it there,
it's got to be important. But before we begin, let's ask
the Lord to be with us. Our great Heavenly Father, we
pray, Lord, that You would be merciful to us through the Lord
Jesus Christ, our only Savior. and that you would open your
word to us. We pray, Lord, that the warnings that you give to
us would drive us to Christ in our heart, so that we would look
to Him and find our all in Him. Help us to come to you, Lord,
now, not with anything in ourselves, but come empty, that we might
find our all in Christ. And so finding, find your salvation
to be the revelation of all of your glories in Him. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen. Genesis chapter 10 and Genesis
chapter 11 give us quite a list of the genealogies of the children
of Noah. Remember, Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
the three sons of Noah, were those from whom God repopulated
the earth after the flood. And in the beginning of the chapter,
chapter 10, I'm not going to read all these names to you.
The names themselves are significant, but I don't want to get bogged
down in all these names, tracing them through scripture and stuff
right now. Because I want to take it a little bit more of
an overview. It's already difficult enough
without getting into the names. But I will point out that in
the first few verses here, he gives the genealogy of the sons
of Japheth. That's in verse 2. It says in
verse 1, "...now these are the generations of the sons of Noah,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and unto them were sons born after the
flood." The sons of Japheth, and he goes on, Gomer, Magog,
Madai, Javan, and so on. I'm not going to read all those
names, but you can read them in your own time. But look in
verse 6, and then it goes to the sons of Ham. The sons of
Ham, Cush, and Mizraim, Cainan and the sons of Cush and he goes
on with all these different people. So Cainan was the son of Ham. Remember Cainan? We all know
who Canaan was, don't we? Canaan was that group of people
that lived in that land God promised to Israel. And when they would
go into that land, God drove out the Canaanites. And remember
who God used to drive them out? It was Joshua. Joshua, whose
name is the same as Jesus' name. Because he was a picture, a type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then look at verse 9 though,
verse 8, it says, And he was a mighty hunter before
the Lord, wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter
before the Lord. I'm going to point out some names
here for you so that you can kind of track how God uses names
to help explain scripture. The name Canaan means those who
are merchants or deal with merchandise. And Nimrod means rebel. So Nimrod was a rebel and the
words, the mighty hunter before the Lord, have also been translated,
the mighty rebel before the Lord. His skills at hunting were not
limited to animals. He was the hunter of men. He
was a tyrannical ruler. So we see in the next verse here,
and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. That's a very, very
significant place in scripture. This is the first time Babel
is mentioned. Babel is also that place which later became known
as Babylon. If you have any recollection
of the history of scripture, Babylon is used throughout to
represent the kingdom of Satan. We'll get some scriptures to
show that. Here it says Nimrod was the king
of Babel, or the king of Babylon. The first king of Babylon, which
we know from Isaiah 14, and we'll look at it in a minute, represented
the kingdom of Satan. And so, the beginning of his
kingdom was Babylon, and Erech, and Achad, and Chalni, and in
the land of Shinar. Shinar is the plains where the
land of Babylon was. And so, you can go on down here,
you can see that through these sons of Ham, there were the Babylonians,
there were the Canaanites, there were the Ninevites, there were
a lot of these different people who were notorious, meaning they
had a reputation for their wickedness throughout the Old Testament.
Remember what Noah did? He cursed Ham and his children. That's a very significant thing
in scripture. He cursed Ham and his children.
Why? Because Ham went in and saw his father in his tent after
he had become drunken and uncovered in his tent and he went out and
told his two brothers And we saw last week that that signifies
something very evil. First it signifies the perversity
of Ham. And it also signifies, more importantly,
his self-righteousness. Because self-righteousness causes
us to point out the evils in others in order to elevate ourselves
above them. Ham was a self-righteous, perverse
man. Noah, by the inspiration of God,
cursed him and his children. Nimrod was under the curse. Canaan
was under the curse. All these people were under the
curse. We see that throughout history because they were always
the object of God's scorn and His wrath. And so I point that
out in overview without going to all those scriptures. But
when you read the Bible throughout the Old Testament, there are
two entities that are going on there. There's the nation of
Israel, and then there's all the other nations. But primarily
there are the Egyptians, and the Assyrians, and the Babylonians,
and the Syrians. These nations, the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, the Egyptians, they all came from Ham. So they
were opposed to Israel. I point that out because there
is a significance in this. It is the significance that we
want to draw attention to. So you see in Canaan, in verse
15, begat Sidon. That would have been the Sidonians.
Sidonians were also wicked people. And he goes on and he describes
them, and look down in verse 19. We know what Sodom and Gomorrah
and these cities were. Those were the places God destroyed
with fire from heaven for their wickedness. But look at verse 21, And unto
Shem also the father of all the children of Eber, the brother
of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born. So Shem
was younger than Japheth, and his son named Eber was significant
because that's the name of the man who was the father of the
Hebrews. Eber is a name that means the
Hebrews. And so the children of Shem were
Elam and Asher and Arphaxad and Lud and Aram and all these children.
You can go down the list yourself in your own reading. But I want
to point these things out to you because in the New Testament
it shows us the significance of the genealogy here with respect
to Shem. Remember God blessed Shem and
He said Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem. And Canaan
or Ham will be His servant. So all the children of Ham, including
Canaan, were the servants of Shem, according to God's prophecy. But that's a very strange thing
because throughout history we see the nation of Israel not
being in control of all these nations. In fact, they were subject
to many of them throughout a large part of their history, to the
Egyptians. And they fought the Canaanites, and even after they
drove out many of them, they were still in the land of Canaan,
and they fought with them their entire history. So there was
constant war between Israel and the inhabitants of Canaan, the
descendants of these people, the children of Ham. And then
it says of Japheth, that of him, It says, the islands of the Gentiles
were populated, in verse 5 of chapter 10, by the sons of Japheth,
the isles of the Gentiles, divided in their lands, every one after
his tongue, after their families, and in their nations. So you
see these different people? There were the descendants of
Shem, through whom the Israelites came. And then there were descendants
of Ham, who were the cursed people. And then there were the descendants
of Japheth, which were called Gentiles. But really, all those
who were not the children of Shem, Through Abraham were also
included in the title called the Gentile Nations. I hope that
you get some sense of that. You don't have to have all the
details in your mind firmly. But I want you to think about
this. If you look throughout history, you'll see these children
of Ham. And you can trace them and people
have. They say, well, the people of Ham were those who lived in
Africa. And the people of Africa became slaves. You can see the
fulfillment of God's prophecy. And they fall into a trap of
thinking that God's prophecies with respect to these physical
nations and these nations of peoples apply to everyone in
those nations. Or that the significant part
of the prophecy was with respect to the nations, those people
in those nations. But that's really not the case.
Because throughout scripture, God uses nations to represent
a spiritual truth. Most prominent among those nations
that represent a spiritual truth are the Nation of Israel and
the Nations of the Gentiles. Those are the two nations by
which God has really divided all men. They're either in the
Nation of Israel or in the Nations of the Gentiles. throughout the
Old Testament. And you wonder, why are all these
wars? Why are all these destroying of these cities and those kinds
of things? And people have often asked me, how could God be good
and tell his people to go in and destroy the people of these
lands? Why? There's many cases of this. And
then the Babylonians and the Assyrians were cruel. Cruel people. The Egyptians too. And they held
Israel bondage and they took them away captives from their
own lands and subjected them to bondage and made them worship
their idols. And they worshipped their idols willingly. So you
can see this constant tension between the nation of Israel
and all the other nations in the Old Testament. But again,
between these two groups of people, God has divided them all into
the group of the Jews, or the Israelites, and the Gentiles.
And as I said, we always fall into this trap of thinking, well,
that must mean then that God is going to bless this nation
called the Jews, or the Israelites, and the rest of the people have
got to kind of find their way into that nation in order to
receive God's blessing. And that's the very trap That's
the very trap of thinking, the wrong thinking, that led men
in the New Testament to consider the Jews superior to having salvation
by the parents to whom they were born. By their birth to their
physical parents, rather than by something else, which is God's
spiritual birth. Jesus told Nicodemus, you must
be born again. And he had respect primarily
to that distinction that the Jews made. That the Jews were
different because of their birth to Abraham. Which was indicated
in them by their circumcision. They could trace their genealogy
back to Abraham. And they had this outward sign
called circumcision. And that distinguished them.
And they had the law. God gave them the law. So they
were definitely unique. God had blessed that nation.
And no doubt he had. God did bless that nation. You
can think of the ways He did, can't you? He separated them
from the land of Egypt. Destroyed Egypt for their sake.
And He talks about that in Isaiah 43. I have destroyed nations
for your sake. And then He brought them through the Red Sea. He
brought them through the wilderness. He fed them with manna. He took
care of them. The cloud of His presence was constantly with
them. He gave them His law through Moses. And from Moses, He gave
them the Levitical priesthood by which they came to God through
these sacrifices, year in and year out, day in and day out,
offered to God in order that they might be accepted by God.
But in all those things, and then they went into the land
of Canaan, and God wiped out nations for their sakes. When they left Egypt, God said,
not even a dog shall move his tongue against the nation of
Israel. All these things pointed to the special favor God had
to that nation. But he had favor to that nation
for a particular reason. He set them up as a symbol of
his favor to his true people. In Galatians 6.16 it says something
about this, if you want to look at that. And the New Testament,
especially the writings of Paul, but also Peter and James and
the rest, remove this distinction that men make. Galatians 6.16. I want to take you to this. There's
many verses and we'll look at a few of them just so you get
a sense of how God has made this so prominent. This is Galatians
6.12. Paul says, as many as desire
to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. To make a fair show in the flesh
means you're a person who has managed to convince people to
follow you and indicate that you adhere to their doctrine
by doing something outwardly. Something that men can observe.
And in this case it was circumcision. So they constrain you to be circumcised
only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of
Christ. In other words, if they constrain you to be circumcised
and they hold to Christ also, then they're compromisers. They're
not holding to Christ only, which is the only way you can be saved.
Verse 13, For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the
law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory or boast
in your flesh. Look, we've got all these disciples
and they're all circumcised. We told them to and they got
circumcised. And now we've joined together Christ and the Jews
and now we've got a superior religion. But no, it wasn't superior. It was the devil's religion.
Verse 14, but God forbid, this is the Apostle Paul, God forbid
that I should glory or boast save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. by whom the world is crucified
to me, and I unto the world." You see what Paul says there?
What was the division? What made the difference between
Paul and all these who claim to be Christ and yet held to
adding something to Christ in order to make themselves more
holy or justified before God? What was that distinction? It
was the cross of Christ. Paul as a sinner. said, My only
hope before God and my only boast before men is what Christ has
done. That's it. It's what God thinks
of Christ that is all of my salvation and I have no other hope. I don't
hope that I've kept the law. I don't hope that I've been circumcised.
I don't hope that I was born to Abraham. I certainly don't
hope that because I did something, either by my will or decision
or something that I could produce, my good works, any of those things
had anything to do in making a difference, it was Christ and
Him crucified. That's why he said, I only boast
in Christ and Him crucified, by whom the world is crucified
to me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus, verse 15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. It doesn't matter whether you're
circumcised or not, and don't boast because you're not circumcised.
Those things don't make any distinction. It's not what's happening on
the outside, he says, but a new creature. And as many as walk
according to this rule, being a new creature in Christ, because
of the cross of Christ, by His Spirit of grace, peace beyond
them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." That's who He's
talking about. Those who are Christ's. Look
at Galatians 3. chapter 3 verse 8 in the scripture
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen those are the Gentiles
and all those who are not the descendants through Shem that
God would justify the heathen through faith preached before
the gospel to Abraham saying in thee "...shall all nations
be blessed." What was the blessing? Verse 8, "...foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith." And what did
God say to Abraham? Well, he preached the gospel.
And what was that gospel? That in his seed, Christ, all
of his people from all the nations of the world, whether Jew or
Gentile, even whether they were the Canaanites or the Babylonians,
even them, God would bring His people. And that's the gospel. That was the mystery that was
hid from the foundation of the world and revealed by God to
His prophets and His apostles. And revealed by Paul when he
preached this. And so, look over here at Galatians chapter 3 a
little bit further. In verse 26. He says, You are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now, that doesn't mean
that our faith makes us the children of God. We're born to be children
of God. Remember what John 1, 12 and
13 says? As many as received Him, that
is, those that believe on His name, they were given authority
to be called the sons of God. Which were born, not of the will
of man, not of the will of flesh, not of bloods, but of God. Our spiritual birth is of God.
It has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with us. We're absolutely
passive. More passive than even an infant
born to its parents had nothing to do with its birth. More passive
than a dead man has to do with his resurrection. God must give
us new life. He must raise us from the dead.
He must translate us from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom
of His dear Son. And that is God's work alone.
And Paul and God, Christ, are jealous of God's glory in saying
this. He says, you're all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. God gives us the new birth. He
raises us to life. He gives us faith. The gift of
God by grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. And that
faith that He gives us allows us to see Christ. It's the evidence
of God's life in us that we trust in Christ only. Verse 27. As many of you as have been baptized
into Christ have put on Christ. But there is neither Jew nor
Greek. There is neither bond nor free.
There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you be Christ's, then are you what? Abraham's
seed. Who are the Jews? Who are the
true Jews according to God's word? If you be Christ's, there
are no Jews in God's mind except those who are Christ's. Look
at Romans chapter 2. I'm just driving these things
home so we can see the glory of God's purpose that began before
the world began and was fulfilled in time but was prophesied in
Genesis 10 and 11. He says in Romans 10, I mean
Romans 2, sorry, Romans chapter 2. Verse 25, circumcision verily
profiteth if thou keep the law. That's what he said in Galatians
2. If you're circumcised, you have to keep the whole law. If
you're saved by even a little bit of what you do, then you
must be saved by all of what you do. That's what it comes
down to. It's either all of grace Meaning
it's all of God, by Christ. Or, it's all of you. It can't
be both ways. Any mixture makes it all of you.
So he says in Romans 2.25, "...for circumcision verily profiteth
if thou keep the law, but if thou be a breaker of the law,
which all men are, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." Therefore,
in other words, you the Jew who trust in your circumcision, you
haven't kept the law, therefore your law breaking is undoing
your outward circumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision,
that means the Gentiles who aren't circumcised, keep the righteousness
of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
And shall not uncircumcision Which is by nature, if it fulfill
the law, judge thee who by the letter and circumcision does
transgress the law. In other words, if you keep the
law, it doesn't matter whether you're circumcised outwardly
or not. That's enough. You're righteous before God.
The problem is, is there is none righteous. No man can be justified
by keeping the law. That's the whole point. But look
what he says in verse 28. For he is not a Jew. not a Jew, which is one outwardly,
neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh."
God doesn't consider outward circumcision to be circumcision.
The true circumcision is the circumcision that God makes.
We're circumcised in the death of Christ and we're circumcised
when by God's Spirit we're made to see that. That's the circumcision
of the heart. He is not a Jew which is one
outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh,
but He is a Jew which is one inwardly. And circumcision is
that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise
is not of men, but of God." Now, I say all that to give you just
a very brief sketch of the fact, proof of the fact that Abraham,
when God promised what he did to Abraham, he was looking through
Abraham to his seed, which was Christ, the one born to him,
and he was making promises to the Lord Jesus Christ as our
covenant head. And making those promises to
our covenant head, He was making them to all those in that covenant. And that's a covenant of grace.
God fulfills all the conditions in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what the Lord Jesus Himself said in Matthew 26-28. I've quoted
it many times. Take this. This cup is the New
Testament in my blood. It was the blood of Christ that
fulfilled that covenant of grace. All the conditions were met when
Christ laid down His life fulfilling all of God's law in perfection. Bringing the law to its fulfillment,
so that everything required by the law for God's people is fulfilled
by their substitute, their Lord Jesus Christ, their surety. All
those things are meant to draw us to Christ. Now back in Genesis
chapter 11, I give you that in order to first point out to you
that God's dealings with these nations And here it begins, but
it carries through the whole Old Testament, was to set up
an outward physical structure that would teach us the spiritual
reality of our division before God. And I'm just waiting for
that to sink in just a little bit, because God has made a difference. God has made a difference. The
title of our sermon today is, Such Were Some of You. Because
that's the words from 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We'll look at that
in a minute here. But when you read about these
people, when you read about the children of Ham, and the Canaanites,
and Nimrod, and the Babylonians, and all these people. And you
see, hear God's curse upon them. It's so easy to gravitate toward
the physical descendants and just stop there. And then when
you read about the blessings God brought through Shem, because
Shem was the father, after the flesh, of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ was born through His genealogy. And you can read about that in
Luke chapter 3. So the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was born through
Shem, who was born through Noah, back to Seth and Adam. It's an
amazing thing here that God would be so gracious as to bring his
son through all these people. But God's division here is meant
to show us in a physical structure the political division or the
ancestry in order to teach us a spiritual ancestry, a spiritual
genealogy. We are in Christ. He is our elder brother. We are
born of God into the kingdom. We are not born by our parents
into that kingdom. God has to translate us. Let's
read on in chapter 11. And the whole earth was of one
language. At this time, there was just
one language. Whatever Adam had spoken in the beginning, that's
what these people spoke now. And they were 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. Now, again,
the land of Shinar was the area of Babylon. The place where Babylon
was built. And they said one to another,
Notice the words very carefully. They said one to another. They
took counsel together. Always a very, very dangerous
thing in scripture. In many places in scripture it
says, they took counsel together, or they spake one with another,
or they reasoned among themselves. And anytime that happens, they
always come up with the wrong answer. Because they didn't take
counsel with God. He says, 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 to heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Now
this was exactly in opposition to what God had commanded them
to do. He told Ham, Shem, and Japheth,
he says, multiply and replenish the earth. Before the flood,
men were all over the earth. The flood was across the whole
earth. And everyone on the earth died.
All the animals. Everything that had the breath
of life perished. And all men. And now God has
commanded them to replenish the earth, to spread abroad. But
no, they say, let's contain ourselves within a city. Let's build this
tower. Let's make us a name. What does
it mean to make a name? What does it mean for men to
make a name for themselves? If you notice, that in all that
they said, they excluded God from it. They made man the center
of all of their thoughts. They made the council of man
the basis for all that they did. And they made the objective of
making a name for men to be their end goal. And so they said, let's
make a city. And let's make a tower whose
top may reach to heaven. And let's make a name, lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. If we
gather together in a city, think of it, we'll be able to be much
more efficient. We'll be able to prosper. And we can have trade amongst
ourselves very easily. We can buy and sell. And we can
have the wisdom that collectively is greater than just us being
scattered around. We'll have the wisdom of men.
And then also we'll build this tower that may reach to heaven.
Because God destroyed the world in a flood, this will be our
refuge from the judgment of God. All these things. And if we build
a tower that can reach to heaven, then it means that we can rule
in the place of heaven's rule. This is the seedbed of man's
religion. This is where God shows it most
prominently. But it didn't start here. And
we'll see that in a minute here. And the LORD came down to see
the city and the tower which the children of men built. And
the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one
language, and this they begin to do. and now nothing will be
restrained from them 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. Therefore the name of it is called
Babel, 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 the whole earth." And then you go down, there's
the rest of the generations again. to Abraham. We're not going to
cover that today. So I want you to see here a few
things and let me just put them out there for you to consider.
Again, I've underscored this in several ways in taking you
to the New Testament. God's dealings with these people,
though it is outwardly by these divisions of nations and generations,
genealogies. God is setting them up in order
to show us the division that exists between men. There's really
only two types of people in the earth. There's only two religions.
And we saw this when we looked at Cain and Abel, didn't we?
Cain and Abel were the first two men on the earth that God
mentions. Have you ever thought about the
fact that God passes by all the history of Cain and Abel, however
many hundreds of years they lived, and he focuses on one thing in
their lives. And what was that? That Cain
brought an offering to the Lord from the ground. And Abel brought
a lamb of his flock. That was what distinguished between
these two men. That was the way God distinguished
between these two men. And that work of God in making
that distinction made itself evident in the way these two
men came to God. And what was the difference?
I'm just recalling to your mind. Cain brought from his labor There
was a combination of what he did and what God did. Cain plowed,
Cain planted, Cain watered, God gave the increase, Cain took
the harvest and brought it back to God and said, here, look what
we did. Isn't it wonderful? I'm presenting
this to you and myself to be accepted. God had no regard to
Cain. He brought nothing that he did.
This is God's doing. God required this. God provided
it. And God must accept this for
me to be accepted. That's the difference that God
made. The difference that God made
was seen in the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because
God's difference that he made between Cain and Abel was seen
in how they came to God. And how Abel came to God looking
to Christ in bringing that lamb. Because he did look to Christ. But God makes this difference.
And we see it here in these generations of all these people. What we
see is that throughout time there's a cursed people. And throughout
time there is another people through whom the Lord Jesus came.
And they're called, as we read in Galatians 3.29, they're called,
those are the seed or the children of Christ. They're the people
of Christ. They're in Christ. And it's evidenced
by their faith. Remember? He says, you're the
children of Abraham. They're children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus. You're not the child of God by
your descendant. And faith that God gives is that
gift that makes the distinction. Remember what Jesus told Nicodemus? You've got to be born again.
And Nicodemus said, I don't understand. I don't understand this. How? And Jesus said, as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up The serpent on the pole is Christ on the cross. Jesus said that whosoever believeth
on him, as they look to the serpent, whosoever believeth on him should
not perish but have everlasting life. That's the distinction.
Faith, the gift of God that draws a man as a sinner to Christ. and says he's everything. What
God thinks of him makes the difference between me and my eternal damnation. It's my only hope. It's all I
have. What God thinks of Christ. And we come to God and ask Him
to receive us for Christ's sake. That's the difference. And God
makes it. But, again, back to this section
here in Genesis chapter 10 and 11, what we see is that these
people who did this, as I said, they said these things, go to,
let us build a city and a tower and make a name, lest we be scattered. And the Lord came down and He
divided them up by this confusion of these languages. Now, Babel,
as I said, is the name that's used for the city that was called
Babylon later in Scripture. And the next time Babylon is
seen is actually in the book of Joshua, chapter 7. And I'll
just give you the story to save some time. Take a look at it
in your own time. Remember in Joshua, in the book
of Joshua, they were going into the land of Canaan. They came
to the city of Jericho. And God told them, now, when
you go to take this city, Utterly destroy it and do not take anything
from that city." Well, that's fine. God utterly destroyed it.
But there was a man there whose name was Achan. And when he was
looking at all the stuff there, he saw something. And what he
saw was a garment that was from Babylon. And he saw a wedge of
gold and some silver. So he took them and he hid them
and buried them in his tent. And after that, Joshua and the
people of Israel went to the next city, Ai, in order to take
that one. But when they got there, the
people of Ai actually came out and killed like 36 of the Israelites. And Joshua and all the people
of Israel, they fell on their faces. Lord, what happened? And
God said, because you've taken of the accursed thing. The accursed
thing. And so Joshua said, well what? And so the Lord told him how
and he actually found out. It was Achan who took it. He
asked Achan, what did you do? Well I saw this goodly Babylonish
garment and I took it. And I took some gold and silver.
You see, these things represented, and then what God had Joshua
and all of Israel do was to stone Achan. And all they had, his
family and everything. He was cursed by God because
he took a garment from Babylon. And again, that's the second
time you see Babylon featured in scripture. So it teaches us
something. The curse is on all those who
desire to find their covering and satisfaction before God in
the clothing of Babylon. And the gold and the silver represent
the gold and silver they use to make idols. And so these men,
in Genesis chapter 11, this is what they were doing. This is
man's religion. It had man at the center of it. Man was working in order to get
to heaven. Man was working in order to replace
God's rule with his own rule. And Nimrod, who was the rebel
before the Lord, who with great tyranny and cruelty killed Men
and others, he ruled over this place. Now look at Isaiah chapter
14, just to show you what this is later on in scripture. Isaiah 14, he said, in verse 4 of Isaiah 14, Thou
shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon. That's very
interesting. Who's the king of Babylon? Well,
there were lots of kings throughout history. But he uses a single
name, the King of Babylon, to refer to the religious system
of Babylon and the head of it. I shall take up this proverb
against the king of Babylon and say, How hath the oppressor ceased? The golden city ceased. The Lord
hath broken the staff of the wicked and the scepter of the
rulers. He who smote the people in wrath,
that was the king of Babylon, with a continual stroke, he that
ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted and none hindereth.
That was Nimrod in the beginning, but it was all those in this
place called Babylon he's referring to. Verse 7, "...the whole earth
is at rest, and is quiet, because the king of Babylon is going
to be destroyed. They break forth into singing, Yea, the fir trees
rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou
art laid down, no feller has come up against us. Because he
was destroying the people of God, and so he was compared to
a man cutting down trees. Verse 9, Hell from beneath is
moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up
the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth. It hath
raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become
weak as we? Art thou become like unto us,
these dead kings? Thy pomp is brought down to the
grave. And the noise of thy vials, the worm is spread unto thee,
and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground, which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in
thine heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High, yet thou
shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." This
is speaking about Satan and his kingdom, isn't it? It's clear.
Lucifer. God is prophesying of the utter
destruction of Satan and his kingdom. And he uses this title,
the King of Babylon, to refer to him. And with Achan, we saw
that he was the one who wanted this Babylonian garment because
it gave him great satisfaction. Man, look at this. It's beautiful.
If I'm clothed in this, I'm going to be really admired. That's
what man's religion does. You do what we say to do, and
you'll look good among men. That's what religion does, doesn't
it? Follow these steps. Do these things. Conform to this
practice, set of practices. Do all that you do in order to
be seen of men. And that's what the book of Galatians
is about. It's countering the religion
that is the religion of Babylon. Look at Revelation chapter 17. Revelation, I'm taking you, jumping
far ahead in the Bible, but this is the prophecy that was made
in Isaiah come to fulfillment in another prophecy in Revelation
17. He says, after these things I, I'm sorry, in chapter 17,
verse 1. And there came one of the seven
angels which had the seven vials and talked with me, saying to
me, Come hither, I will show unto thee the judgment of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters. Now that seems like
a strange thing. What in the world is he talking
about? A prostitute sitting on water? But if you look over in
verse 15, the waters are the people of the earth. Of every
nation and tongue. So the one sitting on here is
an adulterous woman because she has prostituted with all the
nations of the world. And we think, well, that's really
gross. I mean, how does that happen? Well, it wasn't a physical
harlotry, it was a spiritual adultery. Verse 2, "...with whom
the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants
of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication."
Now, what does wine represent in scripture? Jesus said, take
this cup. This cup is the New Testament
in my blood. The wine represents the blood,
doesn't it? And here, this woman is making all the nations drunk
with her wine. What is that? It's a substitute
For the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which all nations
are made dizzy with man's religion, they begin to trust in something
other than the blood of Christ alone in coming to God. Just
like Cain. Just like all false religion
does. I said before there's only two religions. There's the religion
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. in which God is sovereign and
saves his people by himself and there's everything else. And
everything else is called the works of men. You know what idols
are? How do you make an idol? Well,
men get out their hammer and their heat and they hammer it
out and they form it and they're very artistic and they make these
things and they call it the works of men's hands. They worship
the works of their own hands. That's what idols are in scripture,
the works of men's hands. You can find it in Psalm 115
throughout scripture. So idolatry is the work of men's
hands, and this woman here in Revelation 17 has made the world
drunk with antichrist, meaning a substitute for the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, substitute gospels, Antichrist religion,
where man's works are featured, and men love this. We naturally
love this. We naturally love this, don't
we? If God has saved you, He has saved you out of man's religion. You can be sure of that. He saved
you out of trusting in yourself. He saved you from seeking your
own glory to seeking Christ's glory. Let's read on just a little
bit here. Verse three, so he carried me
away in the spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a
scarlet-colored beast full of names of blasphemy, speaking
against God, having seven heads and seven horns. And the woman
was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full
of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon
her head was a name written, Mystery. Babylon, the great mother
of harlots and abominations of the earth. And so, in verse 6
he says, I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her,
I wondered with great admiration. This is the woman, not a real
literal woman, But a spiritual entity that represents the head
or all of man's religion wrapped up in one woman. Because whenever
Israel in the Old Testament served idols, God called that adultery. Adultery. That's strange, wouldn't...
That's strange that God would call that adultery. God calls
idolatry in scripture adultery, spiritual adultery. You can read
about a great explanation of this in Ezekiel 16. Spiritual adultery. And here,
peoples of all nations and tongues have committed spiritual adultery
with this one who is represented as the mother of harlots. The
mystery of Babylon. The mystery of Babylon is man's
religion. that seeks to bring a substitute
for Christ in order to get men to feel confident that they have
salvation from the judgment of God, and that they make themselves
a name. Because there's nothing more
satisfying to a person than to feel confident in their religion.
And though they have a name, they have protection, a refuge
against the judgment of God, at least that's what they think.
Because they've done what's right. They're worshiping in the right
way. They're doing all the right things. Therefore, they're good
to go. And God says they're cursed.
They're cursed. They've committed fornication
with the idolatrous harlot of man's religion. And so, if you
want to look over and In chapter 18 verse 4 it says, And I heard
another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that
you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her
plagues. In other words, the call from heaven is, separate
yourselves from Babylon. Separate yourselves from man's
religion. Man's religion is the persecutor
of the Church of God. In Matthew 22, Jesus said, All
of the blood from righteous Abel unto Zechariah shall be accounted
from this generation. And that generation was the generation
that refused to submit to the righteousness of Christ because
they trusted in their own works. Romans 10.3 says that they refused
to submit to Christ's righteousness. They trusted in themselves that
they were righteous. This is man's religion. And all
of those people that are the descendants of Ham who were cursed
signify the nations of the world that God has left to themselves. Look back at Genesis chapter
11. I want to bring this to a close here. In verse 5, the Lord came
down to see the city and the tower which the children of men
built, and the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have
all one language, and this they begin to do, and now nothing
will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.
It seems like, and as a kid I used to think, well, these guys were
building a tower and God was concerned that they would eventually
get to heaven, so He had to mess it up. So they couldn't do that.
But that's not the way to understand this verse. What it means is
that because men sought to establish themselves, they sought to worship
the creature more than the creator. Because they were trying to establish
their own name and set up their rule in the place of God's rule.
Refuge for God's judgment of their own making. Which is what
man's religion does. God says, therefore, nothing
shall be restrained from them. What does it mean for nothing
to be restrained from us? Remember Romans chapter 1? He
says, because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them up to a reprobate mind. To do those things which
were not convenient, which were evil. So God didn't restrain
them anymore. In other words, He gave them
up to do whatever was in their heart. And that is the definition
of the curse. When God gives us up to do what
is in our nature and doesn't restrain us, then He's just turned
us over to stand before Him on the Day of Judgment and answer
for our sins. There's only one way we can be
delivered from that. How can we be delivered from
our own sinful heart? How can we? We think, well, I've
just got to repent. I have to stop doing these things.
Well, go ahead and do that, because you'll spend the rest of your
life trying to repent. And you will not actually be
able to repent. You might clean up your outward
act, but your heart will still be a seething cauldron of iniquity. How can you repent then? What
does repentance even mean? Well, the only way, again, God
makes a difference. And the difference between man's
religion and God's religion is that in the truth, in the gospel,
God does everything. Let me show you three things
that God does, real quickly. Men say, and I'll break this
up into three areas. First of all, God makes the choice
in salvation. This actually smarts, doesn't
it? Because we've heard all of our
lives, you need to decide for Jesus. But look at Ephesians
1, verse 4. Men say, well, the Bible does
use the word elect, but we understand what that means. That means that
God elects those who choose Him. In other words, God is held captive
to man's decision and man's will. But that's not what the Bible
teaches. Look at Ephesians 1, verse 4. "...according as He,"
God the Father, "...has chosen us in Him," in Christ. When? Before the foundation of
the world. Why? "...that we should be holy
and without blame before Him in love." He chose us in Christ,
and having chosen us in Christ, He looked upon Christ for everything
and seeing in Christ a perfect obedience and a full satisfaction
to His law and justice, I'm satisfied. Blameless, without fault, and
in love. God's holy by the offering of
Christ. In verse 5, not only did He choose
us in Christ, having predestinated us unto the adoption, that means
the choice, God's choice of us as His sons, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will." Amazing! I've been
taught all my life that I was saved because God offered salvation
to all men, and I made a choice, and I distinguished myself between
myself and others. I made a distinction. No. That's
not the way it happens. Not at all. God has to make the
difference. And the first difference God
makes is in Christ. He chooses us in Christ. When? Before the world began. Before the foundation of the
world. This is His doing. And He not only chose us in Christ,
but He says, they're going to be my sons. And I'm going to
make them my sons by the redeeming blood of Christ. He's going to
open up the way so that justice can lavish forth all blessings
according to God's righteousness. And verse 6, "...to the praise
of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved." That's Christ. He's the Beloved One. in whom
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of his grace." You see the difference
here between man's religion? There's nothing spoken in these
verses about what we do. Everything is God's work. God chooses us. And what else? He redeems us. How? By the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I understand most people
would say, man's religion says, I understand that Jesus died
for everyone, and the reason that I'm saved is because I chose. I responded to God. That's usually
the language they use. I responded to God, and even
though Jesus died for everyone, I actually made His blood work
for me by responding to God when I said yes to Jesus. Isn't that
the way it says God loves everybody? God wants everyone to be saved.
Christ died for everyone. And we're just waiting on men
to make a difference. But that's not what happened.
God chose us. Not only that, but Christ redeemed
us. In Hebrews chapter 9, he says this, "...but Christ, being
calm and high priest of good things, to come by a greater
and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is
to say, not of this building." Verse 12 of Hebrews 9, "...neither
by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered
in once." into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. What is redemption? It's the
freedom. The forgiveness of sins. Freedom
from the curse of God's law. Freedom to access God. To come to God. It's freedom. It's liberty at the price of
a ransom, the blood of Christ. And God says here that when Jesus
offered His blood in heaven, the holy place, He actually obtained
eternal redemption for us. It wasn't a possibility of redemption,
it was a real redemption. He actually made His people free
before God. He justified them by His blood.
So God, He acted in our salvation by choosing us. And He acted
by redeeming us. And He acts in this way. Look
at Ephesians 2. Now, when we studied Cain, we
looked at Cain and we saw all these bad things that he did.
Man, he was a bad guy, wasn't he? Comes to God the wrong way. He hates his brother Abel. He
envies him. He gets mad at God. He argues
with God. He hides his sin. He kills his
brother. And then he blames it on God.
And then he says, you've driven me out from the presence of the
Lord. And I'm going to be a fugitive and a vagabond. Such a wimp.
Such a false man. It's so easy to dislike Cain,
isn't it? He was, in fact, in 1 John 3,
chapter 3, verse 11 and 12, Cain is called the son of the wicked.
The son of the wicked one. He's a child of the devil. The
son of perdition. What was the difference? Look
at chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2. And you, who were dead in
trespasses and sins wherein time passed, you walked according
to the course of this world. That's the Babylon of this world.
According to the prince of the power of the air. That's Satan.
The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
You walked that way one time among whom also Some of you,
no, we all had our conversation, our behavior in times past, in
the lust of our flesh, fulfilling, not actually just thinking it,
but doing it, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Well, what makes the difference
then? But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love, wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. By grace you are saved." That's
the difference. God made the difference. He chose
us in Christ, redeemed us by His precious blood, and then
because we were redeemed From the curse of His law, His law
having been satisfied, He raised us from the dead, spiritual life
given to us, the Spirit of God commanded us to life when He
preached the gospel to us, pointing us to Christ, giving us faith. God made the difference. We were
just like the children of Ham. We were just like him, spiritually
no different. Under the curse of God by nature,
Christ has delivered us from the curse. We live this way,
all of us. God made the difference. Ham's
children, the Gentiles, by nature, separated from God. God made
a difference. Thank God He made a difference.
And that difference is Christ and Him crucified. Paul says,
God forbid that I should boast in anything except the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom this world is crucified to me.
Babylon, all of religion, all of the trinkets of this world
crucified to me because they take away, they take away My
love for Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that
you would save us by your great mercy, your grace in Christ.
Save us for your name's sake. Take glory to yourself. We don't
deserve any. We will never have any reason
to boast in ourselves. But we pray that we might be
enabled and be given this great privilege throughout eternity
to praise the Lamb of God on His throne because He saved us
by His own precious blood. He washed us from our sins and
redeemed us out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. Thank
you, Lord, for this mercy in Christ that actually saved your
people. We could do nothing. You did
everything. And for that, we are eternally
grateful. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.