Well, hello and welcome to another broadcast. We've missed a couple. We had one of those weeks last week. Somebody said, cheer up, things could be worse. And I cheered up, and sure enough, they got worse. Anyway, we're back on track, and we're going to be looking at life after the ark. Stay tuned for our broadcast. Well we've seen in Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 the creation of the world and Adam and Eve and they have a perfect environment. Can you imagine what that would be like? But then unfortunately in chapter 3 we have these words, now the serpent and he comes along he was more subtle than any beast of the field and you know the story and Adam and Eve ended up falling into sin. Why, you know, when I first came to know the Lord, I was only 12 years old, and I was reading the story here about Adam and Eve, and I'm thinking, why did God put that tree there in the first place? He didn't need to put that tree there. Everything would have been just fine. Well, the reason He did that was He didn't make robots. He could have put a computer chip in Adam and Eve's brain, He could have had a little control panel up in heaven and push, worship me and pray now and do this and do that, and they'd have been robots. What God did when he created Adam and Eve was he gave them a free will. If you're going to love God, it's because we choose to love God. If you're going to believe God, it's because we choose. We have the choice. And so they had a choice, and a serpent came along. They were tempted of the devil to do something God said not to do, and they had a choice. Well, Eve was deceived into it, but the Bible tells us Adam made his choice simply because of his love for Eve, and he was not deceived. In any event, we have in chapter 3 now the serpent. And so as a result of that, in chapter 4, we have life after Eden. And we can't begin to imagine what that must have been like either for Adam and Eve as they left that garden and all that perfection, and here it's their first night out. Well, Adam, where are we sleeping tonight? We've got to find a cave here somewhere. Oh, those animals that used to be so friendly, they're not looking too friendly now. Look at that lion over there. He's coming after us. Run! It's not like it used to be. Whose fault is that? Not God's fault. God said, if you do this, that's going to happen. And guess what? When God says, that's going to happen, That happens. So now we have life. after Eden. Well, the first thing we read about is the way of Cain, and that's what happens as we get down to the end of the age. We read in Jude that people will go the way of Cain. And what is that? Well, that is not that he was a terrorist or anything like that. What he was doing, he was very religious. He bought of the fruit of the ground. He was going through the religious motions, as many people in the world are today. But no, we're just going to leave God out of this program. I don't want him running my life, and I want to do things my way, and isn't that the way most of the world is today? They have gone the way of Cain. Well, we always find in the Bible that there is a remnant. God always has a remnant. He has someone who's going to do it His way, and we find in chapter 6 that that was Noah and his family. It wasn't a very big group, and God's remnants are always small, but there's always a group of people who will say, I am going to do it God's way. And the remnant, you read about it in the Bible, the remnant was small. And it's small today. Well, we get into this flood in chapter 6, and so Noah and his family are on the ark. That must have been quite a thing when they got on there and spent those days during that storm. But when we get to chapter 8, we have life after the ark. And there's a new beginning, and in chapter 8 and chapter 9, God has some covenants or some promises that he makes with Noah. Well, chapter 10, as we said, begins life after the flood and after they get off the ark. And what happens here is we have the beginning of human government. Now, Noah is over 600 years old. He certainly has had enough life experience to organize a government. His youngest son, Shem, is 98 years old at this time. They've had a lot of life experience. They've had a lot of maturity. And not only that, we read that they were in communication with God. It says in Genesis 8 and 20, when Noah got off the ark, the first thing he did was he built an altar unto the Lord. Well, the Bible says that they were to replenish the earth, replenish the earth, the whole globe. Well, they disobeyed. See, what happened here was Noah died 350 years after the flood, according to Genesis 9 and 28. Well, they weren't replenishing the whole world. What we read here is that they decided to stay in one place, in one area. We read in chapter 11 and verse number 2 that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there. So they decided that they were going to have a one world system. They're going to have a one world religion. And that's what that tower was all about. They were building this. It was symbolic. of their one world system and their one world religion? Well, there was a problem with this one-world religion thing. You see, there's three boys there. There's Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now, if you follow the descendants of those boys, you have Ham's descendants, and they are basically going to be Babylon, and Egypt, and of course others. And then you have Japheth, and his descendants would be Iran, and Iraq, and today's modern-day Russia. And then you have Shem, and if you follow his descendants, you will find Abraham. And Abraham, of course, is one of those, is the one that God is going to use to start the whole Jewish nation in Genesis chapter 12. Abraham was a man who was after the things of God, wanted to do things God's way. Well, not those other boys. And so now we have these three groups. And you're going to have a one-world government. Well, that's going to be a little bit confusing. But you're going to have a one-world religion. That's going to be impossible to stay true to the Word of God and have a one-world religion with the Babylonians and the Egyptians and those from Iraq and Iran. They don't think spiritually like Abraham is thinking. And so God has to divide these people up and get the remnant going on the right direction. And so, about 325 years after the flood, we find the human government system, from God's point of view, is absolute failure. And so in Genesis chapter 12 we have another brand new beginning and God calls Abraham and he's going to start the Jewish nation with him and we'll read it here in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 1. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house into 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 him that curses thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Morech, and the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builted he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east. And there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land." Well, we find things are happening here. God calls Abraham and he says he is going to make a nation out of him. Now, one of the problems that we had by this time, of many problems, was that Noah's descendants had become idolaters. In fact, we find that even Abraham's father was an idolater. As we read here in the scriptures, it says very plainly in Joshua chapter 24 and verse number 2, Joshua is talking to them after they go into the promised land and telling them to choose you this day whom you will serve, he has said here. And Joshua said unto the people in verse 2, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time. Even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nechar, they served other gods. And so we see here that Noah's descendants had become idolaters. But God always has someone for a witness, and one of the ones who was a descendant of Shem was Abraham. And so God chose Abraham, and He is about to use him to start another nation. Well, the next thing we find out about them is that they start a downhill trend, too. We see even in this portion of Scripture that he did not do everything the way God said to do it. We see in verse number 1 of chapter 12 that the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee. Now notice those words, had said, we're talking past tense. So if you go into the previous chapter and read it from 27 down through 33, you'll find that not only did he take his father with him, but he took his nephew, Lot, with him. Now he had very plainly told, God had told him, to get out of thy country from thy kindred and from thy father's house. Well, you look back in verse 31, not only did he take his father with him, but it says Abraham, his son, Terah took Abraham, his son, Lot, the son Haran, his son's son, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son, Abraham's wife, and they went forth. Who's in charge of this trip here? This idolater? Abraham's father is the one who's in charge of this. He got in the middle of it. Now there's a serious lesson here to learn. God had said, get thee out of thy country, out of thy kindred, out of thy father's house, and do what I told you to do. Oh, I don't know if I can sacrifice my family on this. Jesus said, he that loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And Abraham made a serious mistake at this point. Well, we all make mistakes. God hasn't got anybody to use but sinners. And, of course, Abraham was one of those. But he had a desire to serve God. And that's what God is looking for today. He's not looking for perfection. He wants us. That's not saying, well, okay, we can go ahead and sin. God doesn't care. Oh, we pay for it. But God knows we're sinners, we're made of dust, we're made of clay, and you look at all through the Bible and you'll find that God was not slow to tell us the mistakes that people like Abraham made. Well, we're going to find out here that not too far down the trail they're going to end up in bondage in Egypt. Why is that? Well, Abraham wasn't totally, totally obeying God in how things were to be done here. And so we see his descendant, Isaac, and he is wandering further away from the ways of God. And then Jacob, you'll read his life, and he is getting a little further from the way things are supposed to be done. And, of course, Jacob had 12 sons, and those 12 sons got really far away from God, except for Joseph and once again we see that God always has a remnant. Well what happens here is they end up in bondage in Egypt and it's only about 430 years down the trail since they started this nation that we read that they are in bondage in Egypt. And so we find the influence of Satan. That's how it happened in the Garden of Eden, in the age of what we call innocence. They were influenced by Satan, and they fell into sin. Well, we've come to this age that is often referred to as the age of conscience. Let your conscience be your guide. Well, that didn't work out too well. Satan influenced once again, and it ended up with a flood. Well, we'll have human government. That'll be it. We'll do it that way. Well, that didn't work out very good either. They got judgment there at the Tower of Babel and that had to be dispersed. Well, now we've got the nation of Israel. Things are going to work out great for us now, aren't they? No, we still have the influence of Satan there, and then this is the age of promise. When God promised, He made a lot of covenants. He said, I'll promise you if you do this, I promise you I'll do that. Well, they didn't much listen to the promises of God, and that ended up They were in bondage in Egypt. In fact, the book of Genesis ends with the words in a coffin in Egypt. Well, our next program will begin with the next dispensation. That was the exodus and the law. And God gave the law that here we are. This is how it's going to be. And God himself would be in charge with the representatives that he put in place. That didn't turn out too good either. We'll look at it in our next broadcast. Be sure and tune in. We'll try to make it plain and we will try to make it simple.