Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is our daily devotional for Wednesday, October the 2nd, 2024, and I'm delighted to have this time with you. Let me go ahead and say it right now, tonight, 645 Old Providence, blah, blah, blah, Old Providence, Presbyterian Church, we are having our Wednesday night Bible study and prayer meeting. We are rolling our way through the book of Hebrews right now. My goal is to be finished. I don't know if it's possible, but I'm really, really hoping we get close to finishing by Christmas time or when we take our Christmas break. which is really not that far away, so we're starting to take larger chunks of the book of Hebrews. But I would welcome you to come to that. It's from 645 to 730, informal time, dress however you want. It's very simple. We just go through God's Word, and then we have a prayer meeting. Tonight, 645 to 730 is when we are meeting, and we also have children's activities that are offered, so bring your kids. We would love to have them too. All right, now, where do we pick up today? We pick up with Genesis chapter 10. We're also rolling through Genesis. Yesterday, we saw the, how shall I say it? Uncomfortable count of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah's three sons. Uncomfortable because of the perversion that is there? Even if you don't take that reading of it, which is, if you're curious about that, go back and Watch yesterday's devotional that when Ham looked on his father's nakedness, it's the same kind of looking that was provocative looking, as in desirous looking, sexual sin, homosexual perversion looking, okay? I know it's uncomfortable. I know it's just nasty. It's just gross. But we see this curse that is laid down on Ham and all of his descendants as a result. And in the same way, we see this blessing that is given to Shem. Now, why is that? Well, because of the underlying heart of the matter. This goes back to a general principle. We see the surface level here. We don't know what's going on inside people's hearts, but the Lord does. Whether it's what God said to Samuel concerning David, that he looks on the inside, not on the outside. whether it's John chapter two, where it says that Jesus could see into a man's heart. That's what God has done here. And as a result, Shem and all of his line are blessed. In fact, we didn't get to it yesterday, but when these curses are being laid down, we see a real promise here. And that's what we're gonna pick up with, but with the curse promised too. So let's pray and then we'll dig in. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that you have given to us and we pray that you would guide us in it. Watch over us in this time as we come to this portion of God's word that some would just overlook, wouldn't even give it the time of day, but sadly so, for in it, there is such an important development. So many important things are shown. So give us wisdom and understanding as we come to your word now. and we pray it in Christ's name, amen. All right, so what I didn't get to yesterday, and it was intentional, believe it or not, because of where we're going today. We're going to Genesis chapter 10, and Genesis 10 verse one says, this is the account of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah's sons, who themselves had sons after the flood. And then we go through the sons of Japheth, the sons of Shem, eventually the sons of Ham, all of these different things. And it is one of those genealogy things. But y'all, in those curses and blessings that are laid down, it's not just the curse against Ham that we saw yesterday. That's what we focused on. And we're going to focus on that again as we go through what's been referred to as the table of nations. How Noah and his sons fulfilled that command to subdue the earth, fill it, multiply, repopulate the earth. We're going to talk about it there. What we didn't get to was the blessing. Okay, and we're just scraping the surface of it. But yesterday, well, let's go back to Genesis 9, 24. We have the episode going, Noah plants a vineyard, has too much wine, gets drunk, passes out, apparently he's naked. Ham, son, goes in, sees his father, gazes upon him, and whether it is a sexual desire thing or whether it's just disrespect, whether it's the fact that he goes out afterwards and he's saying to his brothers, Dad, you know, dad's in there. It doesn't matter which one it is. Ham is cursed. Genesis 9, 24. When Noah awoke from his wine, excuse me, and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, cursed be Canaan. The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. Time out, time out, we didn't talk about it yesterday. Who's Canaan? What's going on there? I thought his name was Ham. Well, we're gonna find out, all right? And then he continues. He also said, blessed be the Lord. And if your scripture is, if you're reading along with me, which you should be, that's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That is the proper name of God. Some say Yahweh, Yahweh. I'm a Jehovah guy, right? I think it's Jehovah for lots of different reasons, but nevertheless, blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem. May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth. May Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave. Now y'all, we got a double blessing going on here. for Shem. You've also got a blessing coming to Japheth. Japheth is pretty interesting. If you read the book of Jeremiah, you find something fascinating. In Jeremiah chapter 25, you see this prophecy that is issued for saving grace going to all nations, and it refers to Judea and then to the Isles. like the islands, right? That term, isles, in Jeremiah 25, 22, is applied to every nation that is not Judah. Okay, remember, you got that northern kingdom, Israel, southern kingdom, Judah, Judah is where Jerusalem was. This is after the kingdom split when Jeremiah is given this prophecy, okay? But You've got God's people, and then you've got everybody else. Everybody else falls into what's referred to as the Isles in Jeremiah 25, 22. Later on, or excuse me, previously, I should say, in Isaiah chapter 42, because Isaiah's before. Isaiah 42.4, in a similar prophecy about the gospel, though Jesus isn't named in person, but about saving faith, going out to other nations, you hear in Isaiah 42.4 that the islands shall wait for his law. What we understand that in Isaiah 42 to be about is a prophecy about Gentiles coming to a saving faith of Jesus Christ. Rewinding to here. This idea that's given for Japheth, that Japheth live in the tents of Shem, okay? It's this idea of Japheth not being from the line of Shem, Japheth is his own line, but redemption is coming for Japheth. There's a blessing for Japheth too, but the idea is that Japheth would go out and be the father of Gentile nations. Shem, however, the promise for Shem is that God's people would come from Shem. And we know later from genealogy that that includes Jesus. Jesus would come from the line of Shem and all the Semites. You ever wonder where that term came from? You hear about somebody, an accusation being leveled at somebody as being anti-Semitic. If you're like, well, what does Semite mean? Semite is the root or comes from the root Shem. It's all those that came out of the line of Shem. So you see, these blessings are doled out right there in Genesis chapter nine. Didn't focus on that yesterday, because we're doing the table of nations today. Or, well, we're almost nine minutes in. We'll at least do some of it. Now, with those promises, and I know that that's a lot, go look up those passages. But what you see here is the building blocks of the world around us. That's what this is. Genesis chapter 10 shows us how the world came to be what it is. How Noah and his sons followed that command that God gave them to fill the earth, to subdue the earth. Let's see some other things too. As we've read, Genesis 10 one says, this is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah's sons, who themselves had sons after the flood. And then it starts out with Japheth, right? It says, the sons of Japheth, verse two, Gomer, Magog, Madi, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, and Tiras, the sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz, Rephoth, or Riphoth, and Togormah, or Togormah, excuse me, Y'all, I get into this stuff. If you've been with us on Sunday mornings, whoo! My goodness. The Sons of Jevon, Elisha, Tarshish, the Kiltim, and the Rodna. From these, the Maritime people spread out into their territories by their clans within their names, each with its own language." All right, so time out for a second. Y'all, I talked about this previously when we were in Ezra. I just prayed about this. Let's be honest and say that we're at a portion of God's Word that's very easy to just skip, right? It's like, man, that name, I don't even know how to say the name. How do you pronounce rodinum, ashkenaz, tagramah? It doesn't even fit with the way that our tongues, that's why it's so hard to say it. Remember, this is the English alliteration of things that are written in Hebrew, so it's very difficult for us to understand. The temptation that we face is to just skip over these things. But y'all, we shouldn't do that. Why? Well, because the idea that is given to Timothy through Paul, what's breathed out in God's word is that all scripture is God-breathed, and Aaron, it's useful for teaching, rebuking, training in righteousness, and so forth. It's all the Bible. Genesis 10-4 is just as important as John 3-16, okay? So there's that principle. But aside from that, remember what I said before I started reading. What we find here is the foundation for the rest of the scriptures. It's the foundation for how the world works. I talked about it already with Japheth, the idea that we get from Jeremiah 25 and Isaiah chapter 42, where you've got God's people and then you got everybody else. But everybody else in terms of the Gentiles really is classified as isles or islands. And what did we just read about? We just read about where Shem and all of his descendants would go to, right? With their languages, their maritime stuff. And we see certain names that pop up in there. Names that ought to be reminiscent, in some ways, and names that we might say, wait a second, where have I heard that before? Take, for instance, Tubal, right? Didn't we hear about that previously? After Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel, Cain killed Abel, and then Seth, and then you see the line of people reckoned out, you see Tubal again here. Not the same Tubal, but it ought to be reminiscent of that. Another one, in particular, verse four, the sons of Javan, Elisha, Tarshish, the Katim, right? Those little names are names that will crop up later, especially Tarshish. Now, you Bible trivia people, where do we hear that name? Think really hard. Wouldn't there eventually come a prophet who was supposed to go to a place called Nineveh? And he hated the Ninevites. Oh, he hated them. They were nasty people. Their stench had risen before God. So God told him to go down to Joppa, get on a boat, go to Nineveh, proclaim the truth, turn to the Lord, repent. But you remember that stubborn prophet said, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to Joppa or I'm not going to Nineveh. I'm going to go to where? I'm going to go to Tarshish. Wonder where Tarshish came from? It's named after this, the son of Japheth. You see, these things are interconnected throughout the scriptures, and there are more examples of that. But again, verse five, from these, the Maritime peoples spread out into their territories. That would be Maritime leaving that place, going and spreading the different nations. And again, is this the same kind of blessing that Shem gets? No, it's not. Because we know that these people groups that would go out would not know the Lord. But we do know that a time was coming when they would turn to the Lord. And praise God, most of us here would fit into that category because we're from the line of Japheth. You know, if we're not Jewish, and I got a great grandmother, anyways, nevertheless, For the most of us, we're almost all completely Gentiles. It would be the line of Japheth that we come out of. Now, that's Japheth, and there's much more to say, but I wanna get into Ham just a little bit. Verse eight, or excuse me, verse six. The sons of Ham, Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Hanan, All right, even there, we should start seeing some names that crop up to us. The obvious one is Canaan, right? Israel has to contend with the Canaanites, okay? Canaan is the land that God gave to them, the land of Canaan. That's the obvious one. Cush, though, it's not just that God's people would have to contend with Canaan. You know where Cush is? There's a little joint called Egypt. Okay, so even here, we see not only God's blessing on Shem and curse against Ham, but we also see conflict coming right at the beginning. And it's not conflict per se at this point, this is what eventually is gonna happen, but this is that foreshadowing moment where we see you got God's people, and then you have people that aren't God's people yet, And then you have the Canaanites. Then you have the descendants of Ham that are first. Okay. And I want to talk about this for a second because I keep throwing out that word curse. To me, y'all, that's one of the most misunderstood concepts in all of God's work, right? People can turn it into everything from fadism or fatalism, where it's like, oh, there's a curse on us, can't do anything about it, to almost superstition kind of thing, I put a hex on you kind of thing. You know, biblical curses are very real things, okay? And so therefore, They are not to be doled out lightly. When you curse something or someone, that's a very serious thing. But nevertheless, y'all, the curses that we're dealing with here is a curse of eventuality. And what it comes down to is this, this isn't anything about magical, it's not anything about fatalism, it's simply a cause and effect idea. It's the basic principle of reaping and so on. Look, when third and fourth generations and so forth are cursed and laid down, basically what we need to keep in mind is this is given to people that have no regard for God. Ham had no regard for God. We know that through how Ham treated Noah. We can surmise that through God looking at his heart. But y'all, the simple cause and effect is that, listen, if your great-great-granddaddy hated God, then probably he taught your great-great-granddaddy to hate God, and he probably taught your great-great-granddaddy, and he probably taught your great-granddaddy, and your great-granddaddy probably taught your granddaddy, and your granddaddy probably taught your daddy to hate God. That's just how that works, y'all. Now, are those curses broken? Absolutely. Are there other curses? Absolutely. There's generational curses. That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is the enemies of God, you see, and that gets passed down. Even here, the first sons of Ham, Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Now, we're continuing on, and then we're gonna wrap this up, but it says the sons of Cush, Terba, Habbalah, does that sound familiar? Yeah, you'd find out about the Israelites of Habbalah, all right. Sabta, Rahama, Sabtakah, the sons of Rahama, Sheba, and Dedan, or Dedan, Sheba. What, Sheba? Anybody know? What about the queen of Sheba? Right, going to Solomon. Fascinating stuff, y'all. Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. Now, this is where we're gonna pick up tomorrow, with Genesis 10, verse nine. But what we find is fascinating here. When you read about Nimrod, he talks about him being a mighty warrior and so forth. This is the first place that we see that God, definitely carried out his mission in restarting the earth and ending the life of all those things that had turned against him. But y'all, the curse of Ham, it's not only that he would be the fathers of these nations that would be subservient. The curse of Ham is not only that he would be the father of these nations that would be warring Y'all, this is the first hint that we get, that it's not only through Ham that we find the enemies of God, it's that it's through Ham that we start to see what we saw before the flood. When we read about Nimrod, he's gonna sound a whole lot like those men of old who were of renown. And that's the concept that we'll pick up with tomorrow. But y'all, sometimes, this just goes to show, sometimes the punishment for sin Sometimes the curse of sin is just more sin. God lets you go and do your own thing. The end result, of course, is ultimate damnation, but also the hardness of this life. What's the application for all of this? If you know Jesus, praise God. Really, praise God. We don't think about it often, admittedly. Our minds don't go back to pure lineage of bloodline and that kind of stuff. But what we have here in this story of bloodlines, in this table of nations, if you want to refer to it as that, what we have here is a path of redemption. And that betrays a principle about God. It tells us something about who God is. And that's that God always provides a way, y'all. He always provides a way. You see this, after the flood, this terrible things happens with Noah, and even in that, God provides a way. He's always providing a way, He's always working. Are you grateful for that aspect of God? Do you praise Him that He's always working, that He always provides a way? And do you believe that? I don't know what you're going through, but I know that God provides a way. I don't know what you have faced, but I know that God has brought you to this point. God is faithful. And the calling that we have is to be faithful in turn. Let me close with some prayer. Our God and our Father, we thank you for all of your word, even these portions that we might skip over. Let us not do this. Instead, let us see the value in the way that you have provided, in what you do, and give us grateful hearts. And we pray it all in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we will be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Love to see you tonight at the church at 645 right here in Providence Hall. Until then, take care.