Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. This is our Daily Devotional for Thursday, October the 3rd, 2024, and I am delighted to be back with you today. It's very strange. Maybe you can see something in the, sorry, things are reversed on the camera. Maybe you can see something in the window behind me, this orangish tint, this giant ball of flame in the sky. I don't know, it's been so long. Well, it's easy to forget. Seems like it's been raining and raining and raining and raining here in Spotswood. But we needed the rain. However, we pray that this rain would subside in places that absolutely do not need it. Of course, still a mess further south. I hope that you are still praying for folks. especially in Florida, Georgia, to a somewhat lesser extent, but North Carolina, South Carolina. North Carolina and Florida are really what we're hearing most about, but it's in South Carolina that they are really, really without electricity. Hundreds of thousands of people without electricity. So please do be in prayer for those folks. I think everybody in my family has gotten their electricity back yet, at least, or at places where there's electricity maybe. I don't know. Nevertheless, what a mess, but it's good to be with you this morning or afternoon or evening or whenever it is that you happen to find this. I'm glad we have this time. What we're doing is not very complicated, though some of the things we're talking about are. We're going chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the book of Genesis. If this is your first time, I probably should have gone back and looked at what devotional this is on Genesis, but we've been rolling for Genesis for a while. Because we're in Genesis chapter 10. A lot of foundational, fundamental stuff with not only doctrines and principles revealed in God's Word, but also some real explanation as far as how the world works, why the world is the way it is, where the nations even came from. If you have those nifty but non-inspired chapter headings, then yours might say something like mine over chapter 10. Mine says, The Table of Nations. And in essence, what chapter 10 is, is it's saying, okay, this is the line of Shem, this is the line of Ham, this is the line of Japheth. Japheth and Shem are the two sons that are blessed. Shem, predominantly blessed. It is through Shem's line that you eventually get the Messiah, that God reckons a people for himself. However, as we saw yesterday from Jeremiah 52 and I think Isaiah 42, nevertheless, I'll have to go back and look at that again. You see these prophecies concerning the isles, right, the islands, those that are not originally part of God's people, but the promise being extended to these people. That's talking about Japheth. And then you have Ham. Yesterday, we covered Japheth. We started on Ham, and it's with Ham that you start to see things unravel and fall apart. You get Japheth, and it's like, okay, all right, we're rolling here. The earth is being repopulated, okay? Looking forward to Jeremiah, Isaiah, and other places, you see that there's this promise of reconciliation coming to this people group, God calling a people for himself out of this group, out of Japheth's line. And then you get to Ham. and you start seeing things, things crop up. And that's where we're gonna pick up today is in chapter 10, verse six. Yes, some of the difficult names, but some of these names are very important to your understanding, to my understanding of how the world works around us. They're very important to us. I mean, they're crucially important to us understanding how humanity would develop and the things that would go on in ancient Israel and the surrounding areas. And it's all because of this lineage. Remember, on the ark, it's Noah and his three sons. These are the only men, right? They will have offspring. The offspring will populate the earth or repopulate the earth. And what we find is fascinating. So let's pray and then we'll dig in. Father, please be with us now. Again, as we come to this portion of your word that we might be tempted to skip over because it's the genealogy stuff. It's names that are hard to say, but Father, let us see the story. that you are telling through these names. Let us see the people, the places, the reality that is present here as a result of your blessings, but also as a result of your curse. Father, we thank you that you, in all of these things, have worked your plan of redemption, starting all the way back in Genesis 3 with that promise that one day, the seed of the woman would rise up and crush the head of the serpent. And Father, we know that the one that would crush the head of the serpent would be Jesus the Christ, and we know that in Him, there is no East, West, North, South, male, female, Jew, Gentile, Greek, Instead, through Christ, you reckon a people for yourself, a people that cannot be moved, for it is the church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against. But in these fundamental stages, as we look at these fundamental, crucial items, give us wisdom, give us understanding, let us stand up to that temptation, just skip this stuff. And we pray all of it now, in Christ's name, amen. All right, so I just alluded to it in my prayer. Temptation is a skippet. It's not exactly easy to read. Keep getting into this stuff with Ezra, with here and now, but nevertheless, we are gonna read again, starting in verse six, the sons of Ham. Okay, this is Genesis chapter 10, verse six. The sons of Ham. Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Now two of those, we talked about this yesterday a bit, two of those names don't mean much to us. Mizraim and Put, right? It's like, okay, put it where? Yeah, yeah, sorry, forgive the pun. But two really should. The first is Cush. Now, I realize that you may be using a different translation than I am. I'm using the 1984 NIV. By far and away, it is my favorite Bible translation. I would use it on Sunday morning if it were more readily available, but the fact of the matter is, it's not. They pretty much removed it entirely online, and so I use the Christian Standard Bible, which I think is a very good translation. Very easy to read and so forth. But my favorite is the 1984 NIV, which is what I'm reading from. And it does mention the name Cush as the first son of Ham. But does that name bring anything to remembrance for you? If you watched yesterday, you'll know what it is. And getting back to that translation thing, if you have a more modern translation, it might not say Cush at all. Instead, it might just say Egypt. The land of Cush, right? That's the ancient term, but some modern translations, I don't have any issue with this because that's what is really being gotten at here. The land of Cush is Egypt. And this is the first hint that we get, Japheth is not blessed like Shem. But you get that promise, those promises that are coming to Japheth's line. Japheth and Shem were the ones that respected their father, that covered their father's nakedness, walked him backwards with the robe after Noah had passed out drunk, you know, kind of tossed the robe. You know, I get this idea, maybe I'm wrong, but it's like they shrugged the cloak over their shoulders, it covered Moses, and they walked back out, never looked on their father. Certainly, if Ham looked on his father with sexual desire, they definitely weren't guilty of that. And so, Japheth, you get these hints of blessing, but Ham, y'all, this curse, this curse. Go back to Genesis chapter nine, verse 24. When Noah awoke from his wine 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. Now, we're gonna talk about Canaan. We're talking about Cush right now. The temptation would be to say, well, it just shows you how Noah was wrong because it was not Egypt that was enslaved by Israel, but much to the contrary, was it not Israel that was enslaved by the Egyptians? And indeed it was for a very, very short amount of time. God heard the cries of his people, as we know from the book of Exodus, he delivered Moses, and systematically, systematically, one by one, God reckoned a war against the Egyptian pantheon, the Egyptian gods and goddesses, all those most important gods, going all the way up to Pharaoh himself. And if you recall, when it was time for the Israelites to leave, they weren't just bid a fond adieu. They were thrown gold and trinkets. They were showered with the spoils of the war that God, Jehovah, the Lord of armies, spoils of war that the Lord of armies had won for them. So yes, for a time, Egypt enslaved Israel, but who was really enslaved in the end? Interesting, right? But, this is where we see the wheels start to come off the wagon in terms of the world, how the world works. You see, Egypt comes out of Ham. Mizraim put, and Canaan. Yes, Canaan, the detestable Canaanites. Canaan, the lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. And indeed, it was so. And indeed, it is so. whether it's here as we're dealing with Canaan and the Canaanites, or whether it is later when Abraham listens to his wife. And that's not the problem. The buck stops with Abraham. The real problem is Abraham. But Abraham ends up having a child with Hagar, his wife's chief handmaid, which what could go wrong with that, right? Anyway, you get this episode where they have a child and his name is Ishmael. Abraham, in a not very shining moment for mankind in general, but certainly not for Abraham, ends up sending Hagar and Ishmael away. Hagar basically eventually just sits down to die because they're so destitute. She cries out to God, God hears her. God hears me is what Ishmael means. It's the naming of the child. But God makes a promise that he's gonna turn Ishmael into a great nation as well. And you see this doubling down on Canaan and the Canaanites and the wild Arabian races. You know, when God promises, and we're talking about continuing to be enslaved, when God promises to make a man and all of his descendants wild asses of men, And I use that in the truest sense of the word there. I know I've used vernacular, but I'm using it in the King James sense because that's the best translation for this. That's what it says. When God makes that promise, he keeps it. I don't know if you've looked around the East lately. Certainly there are some technological advancements. If you look at Dubai, money has bought a lot of things, but it's not exactly the most peaceful area of the world. It never has been. it never will be, okay? I don't want to get too much into my revelation study, but when God makes a promise, he keeps it, okay? We see that with Canaan, with the curse. We see that with what was produced out of Canaan. But first Cush, he says, the sons of Cush, Siba, Havala, that's a name that comes up late in the Old Testament, Sabta, Rahama, Sabtaka, the sons of Rahama, Sheba, and Dadan, okay? And then we find out more about Cush and his descendants. Now, this is where we kind of left off yesterday, but I had to get to that stuff first. It says in verse eight, Genesis chapter 10, verse eight, it says, Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before Jehovah. That is why it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Qalna in Shinar. Well, time out again. I mentioned to you before that it's with Ham and his descendants that you start to see the wheels coming off of the wagon a little bit here in terms of why God destroyed the world to begin with. And it's not that God made a mistake. It's simply the presence of sin that continues in the world. This is not something that should be a surprise to us. The flood did not wipe out sin. The flood was a restart, and it was a way for God to reckon people to himself, and God accomplished exactly what he did. But it doesn't mean that wickedness did not stay on that arc, too. That's not what it means at all. As a side note, we find a fascinating principle here. You have Noah, who multiple times is called a righteous man, a man who did exactly as God told him to do, a man, as we read, who walked with God. That designation is incredibly reserved in God's Word. Really, you only see it a couple of times. You see it with Enoch, you see it with Adam. Noah walked with God, and he's got children. And you have two that do right, and you have one that does wicked. Y'all, one of the most heartbreaking things I deal with and my vocation is with parents that have wayward children. And the temptation that parents have to blame themselves, to say, what did I do wrong? Was it this? Was it that? Should I have done this? Should I have been harder there? Y'all, the reality is, is that you parent, you raise your child in as much as you can in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But so many times, you see throughout God's word, so many times I've seen in real life, you can have a family with children and you can have multiple children that know and love the Lord and go in exactly the direction that a parent would want them to go. And then you might have one, you might have two, you might have the majority that absolutely turn their back on the Lord. Cain, right? Abel, Cain, and Seth. Cain turns, Jacob and Esau. Now that's kind of a double whammy. Take Jacob's children. A bunch of them tried to kill Joseph, his favorite son. He shouldn't even have a favorite. You see what I'm saying? And here, Noah. You got Shem. You got Japheth, these boys. These such good boys. These boys that love their father, that fear the Lord, that do right. and then you got Ham. And so you see this wickedness carried on through Ham. And not only do you get the hint that the wheels are starting to come off the wagon in terms of worldly wickedness, you do that especially with Nimrod because as it describes Nimrod there, that he's a mighty hunter. You know, somewhere along the way, Nimrod became referred to as an insult. Now I think I know where it came from. I think it came from Bugs Bunny. right, where Bugs Bunny calls Elmer Fudd, what an Elmer Fudd, what a nimrod, right, and he was being sarcastic because you know Elmer Fudd is the hunter, right, he's got the shotgun and he calls him a nimrod not because he's dumb, he's making fun of him for the fact that he's not a nimrod, okay, that he's not a mighty hunter. Nimrod is actually a compliment. Not too long ago, I was referred to as a great white hunter, and I think intrepid traveler, which, hey, should probably put it on my business card. The person who did it was not trying to be nice to me. But nevertheless, that was probably a Bugs Bunny kind of thing with Elmer Fudd. But nonetheless, y'all, the actual term Nimrod is a positive thing. That's why if you go to Water Street, Michigan, Go to Water Street High School on a Friday night, you'll find the mighty Nimrods out there playing football. I think they're the only mascot in the United States. Hillsdale College has actually a men's group. that is referred to as the Nimrods, okay? And if you don't know the biblical context, it's like, okay, these must be some winners, you know? But really, I don't know anything about the group, I just know because I looked it up. But nevertheless, Nimrod is a compliment, but it also ought to make us think about something else. This business of mighty hunter, Number one, this is not just talking about Annams. As we just read about with his kingdoms, Nimrod was able to rally men as well. He was able to build, he was able to do mighty things. This ought to take our mind to two places. First, it ought to take our minds back to Cain and to Cain's descendants, the builders of these great cities who made these grand proclamations and then are soon forgotten. So that ought to remind us of that. Also, shouldn't this remind us a little bit of what's said prior to the flood? Back in Genesis chapter six, we find out in verse four that the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. And then you find this phrase. It's very much like one of my favorite movies. Probably my favorite movie when I was a kid was Conan the Destroyer. His chronicler, teller of his tale, tells you about Conan, the barbarian, the Sumerian wandering king. And when he's given the little narration at the beginning, and then before it cuts to the magnificent, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, right? The Basil Palidor and stuff. You hear him say, come, let me tell you of the days of high adventure. And then Conan the Destroyer is the title, right? Y'all, that's fiction imitating reality, that's art imitating truth, because in Genesis chapter six, verse four, we hear about these old warriors. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. Now, that sounds super cool to me, you know, bid on a dime battle and all that kind of stuff. I can't get over that. I think it's in all of our DNA. Maybe it's not in yours if you're a man watching this. But it's in there. It's in there pretty hard. There's a reason I have an office like I do. But nevertheless, we hear about that and we think, man, that is slick. That is cool. That's awesome. But it's not. because that language is used in relation to men who forgot God, men who were mighty and powerful in the face of God. And the next time we hear language like that is with Nimrod. Again, verse nine, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Jehovah. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And then we find out more about this Nimrod. Not only is it, oh, this doesn't sound good, he sounds like one of the reasons that the Lord destroyed the world, brought the flood. Then when you find out who came from it, verse 10, the first sinners of his kingdom were Babylon. Y'all, there's a reason why Babylon is named first. There's a reason why you see that terminology used in the book of Revelation as in the whore of Babylon. Not nice things come out of Babylon. It's not that God doesn't use Babylon. In the book of Jeremiah, he talks about his servant coming from the north, referring to Nebuchadnezzar, referring to Babylon. But nevertheless, the fact that Babylon would be the center of his kingdom, Not good, y'all. And he goes on, Erek, Akkad, and Kalneh, and Shinar. From that land, he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh. Again, right up there with these names, and if you skip over this stuff, you miss all of it. Right up there with these names, like Egypt, and Canaan, and Babylon, right up there with them is Assyria. The Assyrian Empire, Persia, right? The biggest, it's still the fifth largest empire on the face of the earth in all human history, was the Assyrian Empire. But when it swept through and destroyed Babylon, when Persia and Artaxerxes and others took over, it was the biggest empire the world had ever seen. And they were not nice people. Okay? They were terribly wicked people. And so we hear about Assyria. You hear about Nineveh, which was one of the main cities of it. Remember what God said about Nineveh. We talked about anthropomorphic language with God a few devotionals ago. But in the book of Jonah, God describes Nineveh and their wickedness as though their smell had wafted into his holy nostrils and it was repugnant. Their wickedness was putrid. Okay? That's the lineage. That's the heritage of Ham. That's the heritage of this Nimrod. He's the one that built Nineveh, the source of so much death, disaster, rape, robbery, pillaging, wars. And all it took was one son. Remember yesterday we talked about curses and blessings following down lines. Oh, this is a powerful thing that we're witnessing here. Powerful indeed. Nevertheless, verse 12, and reason, which is between Nineveh and Qala, that is, the great city. Mizrahi was the father of the Luddites, the Anamites, the Leobites, the Naphtuhites, the Pathrusites, the Kasluhites, from whom the Philistines came, and Kaptorites, Y'all again, we're hearing these names. Cush, which is Egypt, right? Canaan. We said at first, we don't know much about Mizraim. All we need to know is that the Philistines came out of him, that Philistine people group that was such a thorn in the side of God's people. They should have been destroyed, but God's people didn't. And so you read the book of Judges about the enslavement. Oh, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy. And then we find verse 15, Canaan was the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and of the Hittites. Oh my, the things written about the Hittites, how they exploited God's people, the wickedness that they did, worshiping Molech, human sacrifice. the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Aravardites, the Samuradites, or the Zamorites, and the Hamathites. Y'all, again, these names, these names representing so much pain and suffering, the Jebusites, the Amorites. Oh. Later, the Canaanites clan scattered, and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar, as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, and Zebelim, as far as Lasha. These are the sons of Ham by their clans and languages, and their territories and nations. And y'all, what a lineage this is. If Genesis chapter 10 ended there, we wouldn't be here. I don't know if you ever thought about that. But the wickedness that is represented in these people groups, these names, the stories that are associated with them, praise God that Genesis 10 doesn't end here. Now, what does this have to do with you and me? Very quickly, because we're 25 minutes in, I'm sorry. Still working on the getting down to 15 to 20 minute thing. Thank you for your patience. But y'all, I get passionate about this stuff because you might say, well, what does it have to do with me? Well, just like here, when things look the most bleak, when things look darkest, you find in verse 21, sons were also born to show. God provides a way. Not knowing what you're going through, not knowing what you have faced, God provides a way. We'll end on that note. pick up here tomorrow and see that way. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that you have given to us, and I thank you for the patience of the people that are on here with me. These names, all these names, what they represent. It's my prayer that we've seen the value in going to your word, trusting it, and not just skipping stuff, because what a story we have heard today. But Father, though the story is bleak, We are so grateful for verse 21 and the promise, the fact that you always provide a way. Let us hang on to this in our darkest times and in our brightest times so that we would not forget you. And I pray it all in Christ's name. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord Willem will be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Until then, I hope that you have a very pleasant Thursday, that you enjoy yourself. The weather's supposed to be glorious here in the Valley. Get out there and enjoy it. Get some vitamin in you, and yeah, break away from the rainy weather blues. We'll see you soon, Lord Willem.