Lesson 11

All right, we'll take our Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 9, please. Genesis chapter 9. So Carlos, when we began this class, we literally started off with, "This is a Bible. " I mean, that's how simple it began. And we've been going through, this is the 11th class. So if, trying to remember your wife's name. Nancy. If you and Nancy wanted to catch up, then you would only have 10 classes you could watch online, on demand, and you'd catch up to where we are. And you'd be right up with everybody. Because we've covered a lot in these 10 lessons. And so, we looked at the rainbow last Sunday, and how it was a token. And we saw what a token was, and how God, when He gives a covenant, He gives a token to go with it. And that token represents the promise, and it illustrates the promise. And we saw the rainbow did that last week. It represented the salvation that God provided through the ark. And it was a picture of the promise Savior to come. All right, so now if you'll look here in chapter 9, verse 1. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. Now, that word replenish means fill, fill the earth. God made the earth to be occupied. He made a big earth, and so He wanted them to replenish it. Everybody came from Adam. We've already learned that, Adam and Eve. And then, now everyone is going to be replenished through Noah and his three sons, and their wives, Ham, Sham, and Japheth. Actually, Ham, Sham, and Japheth, Noah and his wife didn't have any more kids after the flood, but through his lineage is what I'm trying to say. And so, someone asked me the other day, who had been watching the Genesis to Jesus class online, and said, "When were the cavemen here? " I guess they were before Adam and Eve, correct? Is what they asked. And the answer to that, and I understand what happens, people listen to these atheistic teachers, and they have them thinking that, you know, man evolved from these lower life forms, and you have two men looking at each other going, "Ugh, ugh, ugh," and then they get all excited because they made fire, and they invent this stone wheel, and they carry a club around their backs, and walk women on the heads, and drag them off to the cave. And none of that's real. All that's pretend. We saw with Adam and his offspring, we saw how they were metallurgist musicians. They built cities. They were intelligent people. And how Adam named all the animals, I mean, they were articulate, intelligent people. And there never was any of these lower life forms of men as they claim. Now, I'm not saying that no man has ever lived in a cave. We've had people that probably still live in caves today. And I went to Mexico once, and there were people living in houses made out of sticks and mud. But that doesn't mean that there were cave men in the sense that they were lower life forms of mankind. All right, so now God is replenishing the earth again with sham, ham, and jape with the three sons of Noah, and their wives. Now, let's go ahead and look here, if you would. We went over that last week, but if we'll move down to chapter 9, verse 18. "And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark," or out of the ark, "were sham, and ham, and japeh, and ham is the father of Canaan," which basically means the Canaanites descended from ham. "These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread. " All right, so overspread is an important word here. It means that the people began to spread across the earth instead of staying in one location. So everybody who spread across the earth, whether they are Chinese, whether they are Korean, whether they are black and African, whether they are white in Ireland, whether they are brown, over here. Everybody that spread across the earth came from those three sons, sham, ham, and japeh. Okay, so that's important for us to understand. All right, there weren't. . . And if you didn't understand it that way, it would be crazy. There are no logical odds of someone evolving into the complex creatures that we are. They're just simply impossible. But to say, even if it could happen, that people over here, that it happened once, and suddenly people began to evolve from animals and became what we are here, and then someone of different colors began to evolve and came up from animals on their own over there, and the same thing kept replicating itself? No, it's absolutely impossible. That's why we can depend on God's word. It's logical, it's true science, and it's historical. And so here now, of those three men, the whole earth was overspread. Now let's move on down, if you would, to verse 29. "In all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died. " Chapter 10. Chapter 10 is called the Table of Nations. The Table of Nations. It shows us where the original nations came from. And Genesis 10, the whole book of Genesis, basically, at least the first several chapters, are written almost backwards. What I mean by this is, it will give you a scenario of what happened historically. And then in the next chapter, you would think you would be progressing in time, but you're actually going back like a prequel. You know how a prequel is in a movie? So you'll give you a movie with a certain period of time, and then you'll have a prequel that actually goes back and shows, "Hey, this is how we got to this point here. " And it's very fascinating. So this is a literal strategy that God is using here in this literature to bring us a prequel. So chapter 10 is the Table of Nations. And it tells us how the sons of Noah were spread across the earth. Look here now if you would. Chapter 10, verse 1. "Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Sham, Ham, and Japheth, and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth, Gomer, and Magog, and Mediah, and Javen, and Tubal, and Meshach, and Tyros, and the sons of Gomer, Eschanes, and Riphath, and Togromah, and the sons of Japheth, and Elisha, and Tershaeth, and Kitim, and Dunenim. By these were the owls of the Gentiles divided in their lands, everyone after his tongue, after their families in their nations. " All right? So we're going to pause with here just a moment. And so the word "Gentiles" because we hear the word "Gentiles" all the time. And the word "Gentiles" let me ask you this. What would you say the word "Gentiles" mean? Not a Jew. Huh? Not a Jew. Not a Jew? I think that would be a common answer that people would give. Would you all agree with that? And it's really not an accurate answer though. Okay? I mean practically it's true. But biologically it's not. All right? And biblically it's kind of true and kind of not. The word "Gentiles" means nations. The people groups. Okay? Gentiles, nations. All right? So that's why it says, "By these," verse 5, "were the owls of the Gentiles divided in their lands, and every. . . " See, "everyone after his tongue, after their families, and their nations. " Okay? Now if you look at the word "nations" and the word "Gentiles," they're the exact same Hebrew word. Okay? Exact same Hebrew word. So you might as well have said, "After their families and their Gentiles. " Okay? I mean it's the exact same word. So what we have to understand is at this time there are no Jews. There is no Israel. It's just the nations of the peoples that descended from Noah's three sons. And they're spread across the earth. They're divided. And you see all of these names. And remember we've taken our time, we've read these names and the genealogies in the past, and I'll remind you this morning that the reason God is so detailed in the record of this genealogy is to show us the preciseness and the accuracy and the historicity of what we're reading right here. These are real people that are documented. We know the truth. We know how we got here. We know why there's all these different people spread around across the earth and that they're nations that came from these folks. All right? And so if you'll look here now, we're going to zero in on a particular man. Look here in verse 6, Genesis 10. 6. "And the sons of Ham, Kush, and Misraim, and Foot, and Canaan, and the sons of Kush, Sabah, and Habbalah, and Saptah, and Raima, and Saptecha, and the sons of Raima, Shaba, and Dedan, and Kush begat Nimrod, he began to be a mighty one in the earth. " So now the Bible is focusing in on a man named Nimrod. Okay? Nimrod. Have you ever heard the name Nimrod before? Y'all probably heard it in a derogatory term. Yeah, like an insult like, "You Nimrod. " All right? Well, this is where Nimrod came from. Okay? And a lot of times, huh? Nimrod was brilliant. It was not done. Well, we'll see here in just a moment. Yeah. And so, and that's a good question. And so a lot of people use the name Nimrod, and they didn't know why they were using it as an insult. They just heard someone else use it, and so they start using it. And that's kind of how dumb language goes. All right? But we focus here on a man named Nimrod. And watch what it says about him here. It says, "He began to be a mighty one in the earth. " And so what we're looking at here is dominion. Nimrod began, and just as, there's always going to be somebody who wants to control everybody else. Right? Always. Whether it's Hitler, whether it's, you know, whoever. There's always a dictator. Whether it's Napoleon. Somebody wants to dictate everybody, and they want to rule over the earth. And what that is, remember that when Adam yielded to Satan's temptation, and he yielded to him, it began a corrupt world system. All right? And so this corrupt world system, remember, it was supposed to have been God, and then man created in God's image, God gives man the authority, and man rules in God's place here on earth. He was supposed to have been a righteous representation of the heavenly God above us, and God was to rule through man on earth. But when man rejects God, that opens the door for Satan to begin to be the primary influence over fallen man. And so now we have a fallen world system, which is why there's constant fights, constant bombings, constant arguments, constant, I mean, that's why there's so much turmoil in the world. And it will not be until God takes back, controlled the world again at the end of time, that we'll have true peace on earth. Okay? But right now, Nimrod began to stand out over all the people, and he began to be the mighty one on the earth, and he wanted to rule under the influence of the devil, even though he may not have realized that, that's what it was. Verse 9, "He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. " If we were educated about Nimrod, we wouldn't say, "Well, you're a Nimrod," meaning you're stupid. You would say, "Man, that's a Nimrod. " We would have called Hitler a Nimrod. You know, we would have called any other dictator a Nimrod, because he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and he wasn't hunting bears and deer, he was hunting men. Okay? Just like we would say of a man today, he's going out on a prowl. You know, he's going out hunting somebody. So, he became a mighty hunter before the Lord. Verse 10, "In the beginning of his kingdom," remember we're talking about hunting as far as men and dominion and his might, "the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Eric, and Aacad, and Calne, and the land of Shonar. " So, if you'll look here now, this is Babel right here. All right? Just to give you an idea, where's my little pointer? My official pointer. I've had so many pointers. There it is. Thank you. I've had so many pointers here. This is much better. Look at that. So, here's Babel. And to give you an idea of where we're at, this is where it's at on Earth. Okay? This is where all this story is taking place at. This is Israel, the hot spot of the world today, where they're having the battle between them and Hamas. So, here's Israel, and here's Babel, where Babel was. This area right here. And when the Ark rested, the Bible says it rested in the mountains of Ararat. That's right here. So, the Ark with Noah and his three sons rested here. Naturally, they're going to populate where they're at. They begin having children. It's not like they had planes, trains, and automobiles back then. So, they come down to this nice area right here, where there's water and grazing and things like that for their animals. And they begin settling here. And Nimrod begins saying, "Hey, I'm going to take control of everybody. I'll be the ruler of the world. " So, this is where all this takes place. Okay? Now, let's get back here to our text. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel. Verse -- let's go down, because all it's going to be doing is giving more and more genealogy, if you'll begin to look there. That's why this is called the Table of Nations. Look in verse 18. "And the Arvidite and the Zemirite and the Hamathite and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. " All right? So, for example, if you'll look here, the Canaanites -- I'm trying to see if I can find a map with that time period. See that? I'm finding Canaan. The Canaanites, they were all in this area right here, the Canaanites were. We'll see those later. We don't have -- there it is. You see Canaan? Yeah, Canaan. It just doesn't say Canaanites. We see Canaan right there. This is where the Canaanites originally were. And it's showing who they came from, what son of Noah they came from, and who had their sons, and how that nation began to be filled with Canaanites. Because later in the Bible, when you read about Israel going in and wiping the Canaanites out, you'll know who they're talking about. And so this is why the Bible gives so much detail. All right? And verse 20, "These are the sons of Ham and their families after their tongues in their countries and in their nations. " All right? And so notice, "tongues, countries, nations. " Something took place that spread these people out, divided them up as different nations with different languages, okay, and different races. And because right now, they're all the sons of Noah. All right? They all have one language. Something took place to spread them out. Now, God told them to spread out. He told them to fill the earth. So what we're going to do now in the next chapter, chapter 11, is look at the prequel. See, how did we get to here? How did we get the different races, the different languages, and spread out in the different nations this way? We'll see that in the next chapter. All right? But for now, I want you to look at the last son of Noah. The last son of Noah, and this is in verse 21. "And Shem, also the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth, the elder, even to him were children born. " "The children of Shem, Elam, and Asher, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram, and the children of Aram, Uz, and Hol, and Gethor, and Mosh, and Arphaxad, Beget, Salah, and Salah, Beget, Eber, and unto Eber were born two sons, the name of one Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided. And his brother's name was Joktan, and Joktan, Beget, Almadad, and Shalith, and Hazam, Avath, and Jerah, and Hederim, and Uzel, and Dikla, and Obel, and Abimele, and Shabah, and Ophir, and Habbalah, and Jobb. All these were the sons of Joktan, and their dwelling was from Meshe, as thou goest unto safer a mount of the east. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations, and by these were the nations divided in the earth, after the flood. Now, Shem, the last son mentioned here, the Bible's going to start zeroing in on his offspring. Remember what happened at the very beginning. We zeroed in on Seth, the descendants of Seth. That was the believing line, okay? And I told you, since Abel was killed by his brother, and his brother begat the unbelieving line of people at the time, the ungodly line, God replaced Abel with Seth, and then children were born to him. You had a believing remnant, the people who believed in the one true God, entrusted in the promise savior that he gave, back in the Garden of Eden. And so now, it's going to be the children of Shem that are going to be the believing line, okay? We're going to follow them, not all of them, but some of them will be the believing line. It will come from there. Now, let's look in Genesis 11, and we're going to have our prequel. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, right? So when they get off out of the ark here in Mount Ararat, they come down here, there's only one language in the earth. There's only one language in the ark. They were a family. They come off, they have children, they begin populating the earth over a long period of time, and everybody speaks the same language. It makes sense, all right? And by the way, you know that within the past two years, scientists have discovered what they call the Adam and Eve gene. And scientists now say that all humans came from one set of parents. All humans came. That is science, that is secular science now. Yes, sir? >> So does that mean, like, if you all come from one line, you can write what she says, babies? >> Well, that's correct. Yeah, remember, Adam and Eve had their children who had children and who had children, and the same thing here with Noah and his sons. But you may have forgotten, when we looked at that, and we're getting a good glimpse of this right here, at the beginning of the human race, incest wasn't an issue because of our gene pool, and people could actually come out of their mother's womb and be a totally different color than their parents. We see that later on with Jacob and Esau. One was red and hairy, and the other was not and smooth, and one became the nation of the Edomites, and one became the nation of the Israelites. And so, yes, all of these people came from there. Now, later on, once the earth gets filled, God prohibits incest in his law. But at this time, this is the only way to populate the earth, and it wasn't like it is today. It just wasn't. People would come out different. It just wasn't the same. So that's a very good question. All right, so let's go ahead and look here now. One earth, I'm sorry, one language in the earth, one speech, verse 2. "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain of the land of Shonar, 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, had they, for mortar. " So we're here in the land of Shonar. Again, this is this area right here where Babel is, all right? And they say, "You know what? " Verse 3, "They said, 'Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. Let's get some really good, strong brick. And they had brick for stone, they had slime, that means bitumen, for mortar. " That doesn't mean slime like something real slimy, but it's talking about bitumen or something that, it was a binding, but it's literally bitumen in Hebrew. All right, so we'll go ahead and look at that. So they're going to have mortar in brick. All right, let's go ahead and look here now in verse 4. "And they said, 'Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach into heaven, and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. '" All right, now, here's what they do. They get down here, they start populating these areas. Nimrod wants to rule everybody. Nimrod's going to start organizing things. And Nimrod gets this going here, and they say, "Hey, look, there's no need in all of us spreading out everywhere, and everyone being their own people. Let's do this. We'll build a big, giant city. We're going to make a big tower whose top's going to reach up to heaven. We're going to make a name for ourselves. We'll name ourselves this particular city, and we'll do so so we won't be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. '" Now, the problem with that is twofold. Number one, God's supposed to be ruling the earth, not Nimrod. Number two, God told them to replenish the earth. He told them to fill the earth. So what they're doing is an exact opposite of what God told them to do. Now, the main thing that stands out to everyone is this tower. How many of y'all have heard of the Tower of Babel? That's everybody in here. All right? And how many of y'all were raised in church, or at least when you were young heard the story of the Tower of Babel? Anybody? Just one. Two. Huh? Long time ago. Yeah, okay. So let's look here now. When I grew up, they taught us about the Tower of Babel, and they said what happened was people were trying to work their way to heaven. They were trying to build a tower so they could go up to heaven and be with God, and God stopped all of it. None of that's true. All right? Remember what we learned about the word heaven in the book of Genesis. How many heavens are there? You're correct. There's one. And it's one heaven that exists in the world. It's three in one. Do you remember that? Remember that? Three in one. The first heaven is where the birds fly. Remember? The second heaven is where the sun, moon, and stars are. The third heaven is where God's manifest presence dwells. All right? The Apostle Paul in the New Testament said, "In the spirit," he said, "he was called up to the third heaven. " Okay? And so they're not trying to build a tower to the third heaven. They're building a skyscraper. They're building the kind of building that I work in every day, okay? Except for Saturday and Sunday. And so they're building a tower that reaches up to the sky is what they're doing, a big tall tower. And these towers in this land of Shonar or Babel right here, they are ziggurts. And at the top of these towers, oops, needs to be a little g, excuse me. At the top of these towers, there would be a center where they would worship a false God, okay? So these are stairs, and they would climb these stairs. They would come up here and they would offer sacrifices to a false God. They're ziggurts. You can still go to this area today. By the way, this historically is called the Cradle of Nations. Y'all ever heard that? The Cradle of the Nations? No? All right. Well, historically, this is what this is called in history, because it's clear historically that mankind began right here, civilization, rather, began right here. It doesn't mean the Garden of Eden was here, but civilization, after the Flood, began right here. Everybody knows it. Nobody disputes it. And the nice thing is the Bible already tells us about it. This is where it began. And so they're going to build a tower. Again, they're still, you can get online. I believe I'm going to spell it right here. I think that's right. If not, it's very close. You can get online when you get home, Google, or Quack, if you don't like Google. But query Ziggurat. And you can see the towers today, some of them still there that are thousands of years old that are just still hanging out there. All right? So they're going to build this tower, and they're going to make a name for themselves lest they be scattered abroad over the face of the earth. Now, here's what we see here. This is what this would do. Under a false religion, humanity would be united together under the rulership of a man. Now, we lack unity, but we want to come together not as people with man as the head. We want to come together and center around God with God as the head. Now, look at all of us in here today. We're a group of people today. We all met together today. We all meet together every Sunday, but the reason is not because you think, "You know what? I really like Brother Fulton's Western hat. I mean, I just got to say that every day. I got to get my fix every Sunday. " Or, "I just love the sound of his voice. " That's not why. We come together because of God, because we want to learn about Him. We want to study and we want to know what His word says to us, what His message is to us. And so what unifies us as a church is God. And when we have any leadership in the church, it's not man making up rules. It's man pointing to God's rules, and God still reigns. And so what this was was man saying, "We'll unite together. " But what good is it for us to unite together if we don't unite together in God? If God's not the unification, if He's not the bond that holds us together, what good is it if we come and join hands together and say, "Oh, we're a people. " Well, so what? In a few years we're all going to die and someone else has come and replaced us. They're going to think different than us. We need to be joined together in the name of God and the promise of the Savior He gave. And this is what these people were refusing to do. They were like Cain. They were ungodly. They didn't want to follow God's word. They wanted to do their own thing. And with this false religion they had, they could do whatever they chose because people who don't believe in God make up gods that let them do what they want to. That's basically it. And so this is what was happening here. So look now if you would in verse 6. "And the Lord said, 'Behold,' or look, '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. " Now if they were building a tower all the way to the third heaven, God would have never said nothing will be restrained from them, which they've imagined to do. What He's saying is if we don't stop this, this is what's going to happen. They're all going to stay here. They're all going to worship this false God. And we're going to have them destroy the earth all over again. So they couldn't even make it to outer space building a tower. And God knew that He created it. So He says in verse 7, "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. " When God created Adam, Adam had an entire language when God made him. He named all the animals. This is before God created Eve. Adam already had the entire language in his mind. Language is a gift from God. We don't create languages. We're born into them. And language is a gift from God. So God supernaturally confounded their language, divided it according to the people groups that were there, that we read about in the previous chapter, gave them each a different language, and confounded their language. Now you talk about unity. I mean, how do you all like it when you're somewhere and someone starts speaking a different language and you kind of smile and you shake your head? You're like, "I have no idea what they're saying. " So language is a big deal. It's a big deal. And so it's identity, it's communication. And so God confused their language, and now the people according to their language, according to their people, are going to say, "Okay, here we go. We're going to do what God told us to do to begin with now. We've got to. " And so now they spread it across the earth. If you'll look now in verse 7, "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 is the name of it called Babel, or 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 all the earth. " So here's what we have. Babel means confusion, okay? He's just babbling. Babel means confusion. And God says, "This is what happened. This is how we got the different languages, the different people groups, spread across the different places of the world. " From there, God scattered them across the world. You go back historically and you see, yes, this is the cradle of nations. This is what history teaches us. This is where the oldest things are. And they found the oldest basket the other day that they've ever found. And they're always unearthing very, very ancient things here. And so from there, they get scattered out, all right? So that's what took place. Now if you look in verse 10, these are the generations of sham. Now we looked at sham in the previous chapter. But remember, I told you the Bible is now going to zero in on sham because this is where the promised Savior is going to come through, from the descendants of sham, all right? Let's watch. "Sham was 100 years old and he begat Arphaxad two years after the flood and sham lived after he begat Arphaxad 500 years and begat sons and daughters. And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years and begat Saulah. And Arphaxad lived after he begat Saulah 403 years and begat sons and daughters. And Saulah lived 30 years and begat Eber. And Saulah lived after he begat Eber 403 years and begat sons and daughters. And Eber lived four and thirty years and he begat Peleg. And Eber lived after he begat Peleg 430 years and begat sons and daughters. And Peleg lived 30 years and begat Rui. And Peleg lived after he begat Rui 209 years and begat sons and daughters. And Rui lived 230 years and begat Surah. And Rui lived after he begat Surah 207 years and begat sons and daughters. And Surah lived 30 years and begat Nahor. And Surah lived after he begat Nahor 200 years and begat sons and daughters. And Nahor lived 920 years and begat Terah. And Nahor lived after he begat Terah 119 years and begat sons and daughters. And Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram. So we're going to pause right here. And I know that's hard reading all those names, but it's very important. Because remember, when we get to the New Testament and the promise Savior comes, the records are going to be so precise that the Bible is going to trace the promise Savior through all that genealogy all the way back to the people we're talking about now, all the way back to the very first man that God made. That's incredible record keeping. That's God's Word. And we do that and God put that here to let us know it's not some invention of man, it's not some fairy tale. And I gave the example several weeks back, I believe it was, when I was in law enforcement and I interviewed people. If they were lying to me and they fabricated things, the details had to be kept at a minimum because you always catch people's details. Here God gives us the details. Talk about transparency. And so now we look and we come to a man named Abram. Abram was a descendant of Sham, who was a descendant of Noah, who was a descendant of Seth. Abram. And now the Bible is going to focus in on Abram. When you are reading in the news or listening to the news and you hear about Hamas bombing Israel, what you're listening to is the news of the people who descended from Abram, who descended from Sham, who descended from Seth, who descended from Adam. That's fascinating to me, folks. That's really fascinating. And so we trace these people here all the way back to the very first man. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. The Bible just zeros in on them. So let's go ahead and look here now. Let's see. Verse 27. "Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begat Abram. Nahor and Haran and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity in Ur. " Look here at Ur. There's Ur there. In Ur of the Chaldees. So Abram is from this area right here. He was a senator of Sham. Let's go ahead and move on now. Verse 29. "And Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai. " So I'm going to put Sarai here. Let's look here now in verse 30. "But Sarai was barren. She had no child. " So right now they're empty nests. They have no children at all. Just Abram and Sarai. Verse 31. "And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. And they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan. And they came unto Haran and dwelt there. " Now what's happening is for some reason Terah, Abram's father, and Abram's wife Sarai, and Lot his nephew. They leave Ur so they can travel to Canaan. In the next chapter we're going to have the prequel, just like we did before. It's going to tell us what set things up to cause them to go to the land of Canaan. So move now to chapter 12. "Now the Lord had said unto Abram," this is why they were leaving, you see. "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, to a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. " Now we went through a lot today to come to this spot right here, and we're going to close right here, but here's what I want you to see. Out of all the chaos, out of all the rebellion, out of all the sin, out of all the people who have been begotten now, the Bible takes us to this lonely man named Abram and his wife Sariah, who have no children, and God taps this man who came from this man, who came from this man, who believed God and offered the appropriate sacrifice and trust for him to come. God taps this man and says, "Abram, I want you to leave her. I want you to get out of there. I want you to leave your father's house. I want you to leave your family behind, and I want you to go to a land that I'm going to show you. " He didn't tell him where it was. "You just go this direction. I'll take you there. I'll lead you there. " And here's what I'm going to do with you, Abram. This is why I'm telling you to leave. I have plans for you. I'm going to make you a great nation. In other words, this man here is going to have children who are going to have children who are going to have children who have become nation. It's the nation of Israel. It's still there today. Still in the land of Canaan, by the way, where God told them to go. And so I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make your name great. You'll be a blessing. Verse 3 is so important. Look at verse 3 again and we'll stop. "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. " Watch this now. "And in thee," in you, Abram, "shall all the families of the earth be blessed. " Not just the sons of Shem, but also of Ham and of Japheth. And of every tongue that I spread out across the earth in the different races I spread out across the earth, through you, Abram, all of the families of the earth are going to be blessed. Why is that so important? All these nations came from a man named Adam. What is the last thing we saw about blessing and all that from Adam? God told Adam, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake. " And remember, we all came from Adam, and Adam came from the ground, and the ground is cursed, so we're all born into the curse of sin and death. We all sin and we all die. And now, God gives this man, Abram, a promise that's going to overcome the curse of Adam. The promise that God made in the Garden of Eden to send a Savior who would bruise the head of the serpent and set man free, that Savior is going to come from Abram. The only way you can bless all the people in the earth is if you can overcome the curse. There's no blessing in the grave. Something's going to come from Abram. That's going to overcome sin. That's going to overcome death. That's going to overcome the curse, and that's going to restore the blessing that God gave at the beginning of creation. Send it around this man named Abram. And from there, we'll take up in the story next week. And as we go through this, the Bible now begins to mold our worldview, how we view the world, how we view life, how we view people.