Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do and let's give our attention now
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to genesis chapter ten. Genesis ten, please give your attention to God's word.
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These are the generations of the sons
of Noah, Shem, Ham and
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Japheth. Sons were born to them
after the flood. The sons of Jafef,
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Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tyrus,
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the sons of Gomer Ashkenaz Ryfath and
Torgamah, the sons of Javan, Elishah,
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tarshish, kittum and Dodanim, Dodonian. From these the coast land people
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spread in their lands, each with
their own language, by their clans in
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their nations. The sons of Ham, Kush, Egypt, put and Canaan,
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the sons of Kush, CIB,
Havla, SOB to, Rama and
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Septica, the sons of Rama Shiba
Didon. Kush fathered Nimrod. He was
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the first on earth to be a
mighty man. He was a mighty hunter
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before Jehovah. Therefore, it is
said like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before
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Jehovah. The beginning of his kingdom
was Babel, Eric, a cod and
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Calneh in the land of Shinar.
From that land he went into Assyria and
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built Nineveh, Rahabbath are, Kala
and rest in between Nineveh and Kalah,
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that is, the great city Egypt. Fathered Ludin on AMM LEHEBEM and Naphtaheim
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Pathraciem Castleheim, from whom the Philistines
came, and Kafterem Canaan fathered sid and
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his firstborn and Seth and the Jebusites, the Amorites and the Gurghashites, the
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hivites, the archeits, the Synites, the Arvad Arvadites and the Zemorites and
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the have Hamathites. Afterward, the
clans of the Canaanites dispersed in the territory
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of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in
the direction of Garrar as far as Gauza,
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and in the direction of Sodom,
Gomorrah, Oddma and Zeboem as far
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as lasha. These are the sons
of ham by their clans, their languages,
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their lands and their nations. To
Sham also the father of all the
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children of Eber, the son of
J fef children were born the sons of
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Shem Elam Ah Ahshur our, Parkashad, Lud and Aram, the sons of
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Aram, US whole gether and mash
our. Parkashad fathered Shallah, and Shallah
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fathered. Eber to Eber, were
born two sons. The name of the
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one was Pealeg, for in his
days the earth was divided, and his
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brother's name was Joktan. Joktan fathered
Almadad Shlipe or shall ef, Hazamaref and
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Jarah Ha, Jerah, Hadaram,
Uzal Dik Lah, Obal Abimil Sheba,
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Ophir, Havlah and Jobab. All
these were the sons of Jokton. The
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territory in which these they lived extended
from Mesha, in the direction of Safar,
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to the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem
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by their clans, their languages,
their lands and their nations. These are
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the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their
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nations, and from these nations spread
abroad on earth, abroad on the Earth
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after the flood. May God bless
his word to us. Please be seated
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over these several chapters in genesis,
to be beginning of the Bible. We've
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been considering in various ways the great
power and sovereignty of our God, of
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the only God, the God of
over the God who is over all the
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world, who made the world.
When we think of God's sovereignty and his
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power, we are right too often
think of creation, and we do,
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and the Bible points us this way. We think of the world that God
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has made as proof for his sovereignty
over his power in it. But the
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one who considers God's power in creation
has to think beyond just creation. I
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say this because often times many people
stop at this point. They think of
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God having made the world, but
they don't really think of God exercising his
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power in the world old. But
listen to how the Bible expresses both truths
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and Psalm thirty three, verse six. By the Word of Jehovah, the
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heavens were made and the end,
by the breath of his mouth, all
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their host. We see that God
doesn't just create a shell, in other
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words sort of a shell of a
world, but he he feels it as
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well. He makes the heavens and
he fills it with their host. He
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does this, of course, with
the sea and the sky and also the
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land, the earth itself. We
see God's sovereignty, not only in creating
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the world and beginning it, but
continuing to exercise his power and his authority
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in every way. Among the animals
and plants, scripture most often speaks of,
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though, I'm his sovereignty among men. The reason for this is because
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scripture is addressed to us, I'm, not to the plants and animals,
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but to us. God is speaking
to us, and so he affirms and
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reaffirms over and over his righteous rule, I'm over us. So Psalm thirty
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three, after confessing this truth,
I'm goes on to say, let all
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the Earth Fear Jehovah, let the
inhabitants of the world stand in awe of
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him. This is the takeaway,
this is our application of these truths,
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when we recognize is the world that
God has made his sovereignty and his power
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and every aspect of our lives,
we are to fear Jehovah, we are
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to stand in all of him,
for he spoke and it came to be,
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he commanded and it stood firm.
Reading on just a little bit more
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in Psalm thirty three, we read
how this these actions then begin to pertain,
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or do pertain, to the particular
affairs of mankind. Jehovah brings the
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counsel of the nations to nothing.
He frustrates the plans of the people's the
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counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
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Genesis chapter ten speaks of all of
these things and puts in concrete detail
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these truth spoken about in Psalm thirty
three and many other portions of scripture.
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God doesn't just create an empty shell. His sovereignty is and not limited to
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a particular moment in time, but
it extends to the filling of the world,
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extends to all those people and generation
after generations, time progresses. God's
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sovereignty is over all people. Again, he brings the counsels of the nations
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to nothing, he frustrates the plans
of the people. This will become even
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more concretely true in Genesis Chapter Eleven. There's a lot of things foreshadowed in
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genesis ten that are anticipating what will
come in the Tower of Babel, this
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great plan of the people, where
they will construct this great tower reaching up
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to the heavens. This this expression
of Hubrists, of pride, of a
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denial that God is not sovereign over
them. And what does God do?
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He will frustrate their plans, he
will bring their plans to nothing, he
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will confuse their languages. We read
here in Genesis Chapter Ten that these are
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the people according to their languages.
Well, you may have wondered. Well,
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I thought the language dispersion happens in
the next chapter. This is one
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of the ways that the Bible,
we call it, dischronologizes things, sometimes
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foreshadows, gets things, prepares us
for certain events. It's beginning as we
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see the world spreading out. Even
as it spreads out, we're seeing sin
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continuing on, and yet God's sovereignty
over it. So I want to focus
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on that this morning. God's sovereiggnty
and his power, as we see it
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in Genesis chapter ten. We see
it in a number of ways. Want
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to point some of them out to
you. First, we see it in
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the context. You remember. After
all, God has created the world,
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that man's sinned and fell and that
the world was filled with violence and corruption.
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God flooded the world and judge those
people, Saving Noah and all of
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these events, we see God's great
sovereignty over it. He's capable of doing
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what he wants, of ruling the
world, every aspect of it, according
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to his good pleasure. We also
saw it in the covenant that God made
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with all the world, this promise, I'm to mankind, the animals and
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the plants, that he would continue
things on a covenant of preservation, that
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he would continue the world until the
last day when Jesus comes in final judgment.
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But it's not just in the context
of Genesis ten, but in specific
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things in genesis ten. We see
it, for example, in the way
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that he in the naming that goes
on here. Now it's true that these
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people were named by their families,
I'm probably their fathers. These name,
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all of these names that we read. God wasn't necessarily in the delivery room
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telling them name him this, name
her that, although that certainly could have
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been the case. We see that
in other portions of scripture where God does
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give people their specific names. But
even if he's not there in the delivery
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room, so to speak, he
is, I'm sovereign over at all.
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We see it, for exact example, in the in pae leg when he
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is born. We read in the
his this is verse twenty five to Eber
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were born two sons. The name
of the one was Peleg, which means
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division, for in his days the
earth was divided. His name was division,
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for in his days the earth was
divided. This is one of the
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ways we see God exercising his sovereignty
in the world. These people being named
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in this way. That brings a
testimony not just to that particular person but
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an entire course of history. How
could such a thing be? Certainly no
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man would be able to predict that
kind of thing, unless, of course,
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God was sovereign over it. We
so we see it in this these
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specific names, and there are others
that we might point to as well.
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But we also see it in the
way that the chapter comes to us.
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God is not here a standing as
a stenographer, right. He's not sort
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of saying, hey, here's some
things I went out, I figured out
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now I want you to know to
here's what happened. Thought you might be
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interested now. That's not how this
comes to us. This comes to us
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as God himself delivering what he has
purposed and what has fallen out according to
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his plans. We remember, after
all, that Noah didn't just appear on
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the scene. He was a son
of Adam and Eve, and Adam himself
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is one who is called a son
of God, one who is made of
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God. These are the generations,
therefore, not only of Noah, but
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of God himself, the father of
all people. We see it in other
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ways too, in the way that
the this particular history comes to us.
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You remember, just before Genesis,
chapter ten, that got that a particular
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event happened. God cursed Canaan,
he blessed sem and he blessed JFUV,
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and we see that the history of
the world is falling out according to those
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lines. Nimrod, this mighty hunter
of the Lord, is one who will
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be established all the great enemies of
God's people, Syria, Babylon, Egypt
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and others. Canaan is also included
among the children of him. But in
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addition to these and that those aspects
of the curse, we also see this
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blessing being given. I'm it's not
obvious here in chapter ten, but Luke
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and Matthew tell us that Jesus is
born of Shem's line, that he comes
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from Peleg and is and and is
that promised promised seed. So these histories
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are falling out according to God's perfect
plan. Consider also that this genealogy is
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not merely a strict record of events. It's not a bear record of facts.
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It's better to think of it as
a story told in a particular way
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to make a particular point. God, in other words, doesn't simply record
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one thing after another, but he
styleizes all of these genealogies in a very
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particular way for the very particular point
of demonstrating and and confirming his sovereignty.
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Let me point out some of those
things to you. First, at the
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end of the genealogy we read that
there was a kind of selectivity going on
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in the genealogy. So in Genesis
thirty two it says these are the clans
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of the sons of Noah, according
to their genealogies, in their nations,
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and from these the nation's spread abroad
on the earth after the flood. So
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there's this kind of particularity to it. We also see that it's not a
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bear record and it doesn't meet all
of our assumptions of how genealogies work in
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other ways. So, for example, the order given here is not necessarily
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by birth order. There's one place
in verse fifteen where it does speak about
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birth order. Kane and fathered Sidon
his firstborn in heath. But there's a
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kind of reversal of the names here. The genealogies here are given first of
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JFF, then in Ham and then
in Shem. This is the different order
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than we've seen in other places.
So, for example, verse one says
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Sem, Ham and JFF as opposed
to JF HEM and sham or Sheem.
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There are other things too that we
see a going on. Why would God,
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for example, reverse the order that's
always been going on here? Surely
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there must be some reason. One
reason we see is there is a kind
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of geographical sequence of these genealogies moving
in closer and closer to the center of
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attention, God's people, Israel.
It starts out with JFF, these people
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in these outer boundaries that it moves
into ham, the Israel's closest neighbors and
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most difficult enemies, and finally ends, not necessarily with Israel herself, but
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that from which Israel would come.
There's this kind of focus, the spiraling
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in that's meant to show God's focus
and it and a parallels much of what
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we see in scripture. We see
other things too that shall teach us.
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This genealogy is ordered according to theology
and not a bear record of events.
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Words for example, like father,
son and beget a have some measure of
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flexibility, not completely. They aren't
meaningless, but there's some measure of flexibility.
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One example in Verse Twenty One.
We read to him also the father
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of all the children of Eber.
This is an interesting way of speaking.
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Notice he's not saying that he's the
father of Eber, he's saying he's the
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father of all the children of Eber. Well, we normally talk about those
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people as GRANDPA's right, not the
father of the children of someone else,
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but the grandfather of those children.
So we hear, we see that father's
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used in in a slightly flexible way. You see it even more, though,
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when you continue to read on and
find and you find out the Eber,
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or sorry that Schem, wasn't the
grandfather of Eber, but he was
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the great great grandfather, because the
line doesn't go from Shechem to eber to
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pay leg, but from sem to
Arpicashad to Shella to eber then to pay
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leg. So according to this that
we have here, though, it introduces
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him as the father, or possibly
the grandfather of Eber. You read on
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and is he seems to be the
great great grandfather. There's a kind of
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gaping of generations. That happen.
If you compare this genealogy with the genealogy
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and Luke, we read of yet
another person who isn't even mentioned in genesis
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ten, Canaan. That's C A
N A N, another generation between Shem
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and Eber. So this if we
take that genealogy, he's possibly even the
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great, great great grandfather of Eber. Now this is all probably a little
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bit technical and maybe uninteresting to you, but the point is simply to say
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this one thing, and that's that
these genealogies, we have to read them
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as they're written. God has given
to them to us in the way that
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he has decided. We can't take
a modern form and the ways that we
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want to deal with them and impose
that on God. We have to take
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them as they are. And so
we ask questions like, well, if
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God is gaping certain genealogy, certain
records, if God is leaving out certain
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people, what is the purpose of
those things? Well, there's various answers
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we can give. And let me
make one point. Notice how Genesis Ten,
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twenty one jumps to Eber Right,
and many of these others it's been
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more or less just moving on forward
so he was the father of this one.
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WHO's the father of this one?
But there's kind of a jump,
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a sort of foreshadowing, even of
just a few verses and twenty one.
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SEM also the father of all the
children of Eber. Why does he talk
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about that here? Well, it's
because there is something very important going on.
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We did. God wants us to
think of Shehem not merely as the
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father of these particular children, but
particularly as the father of the children of
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Eber. Why? Because there's a
division there between Joctam and pay leg.
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And what's important about that? Well, it's important because, remember, there
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was a blessing promised to Shem.
But we see here that, as with
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Noah and as with Adam and as
will happen with Abraham, it's not a
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straight line. There's kind of a
jogging that happens through these genealogies and through
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God's promises. In other words,
when God gives the promise to Adam and
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Eve, who does that promise come
through? The promise of the promise,
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I mean it comes through seth and
not through others. Right, there's a
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kind of division that happens, that
the children of the serpent or the seed
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of the serpent and the seed of
the promise seth and and Kine. You
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see a similar thing happening with Noah, where the promise is given to Sheem
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and not to ham. And yet
then we see yet another division of the
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promise, and that's why this point
is made here, that chem has both
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sons of Eb for all the sons
of Eber belong to him, both Joctam
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and Peleg. Through PYLEG will come
the Christ, not through Joctam. This
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is all to point out God's again, his sovereignty in these things, and
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how, at every point even the
people who are receiving the promise must trust
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in God. They can't guarantee that
every child that comes to them will come
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to them, will be part of
the promised people. They must at every
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point depend on God, depend on
his sovereignty, depend on his coming and
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taking care of them. This Abraham
fails at, miserably him and his wife
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when they seek to bring about the
promise in an immoral way again, instead
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of trusting in God, trusting in
his sovereignty, trusting that he will accomplish
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what he means to do. There's
all kinds of other things we might note,
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and seeing God's sovereignty in this genealogy, but we might summarize it in
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this way. God wants us to
see that his feeling of the world is
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no accident, that he has complete
control over it and he is the one
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who gets to interpret its history.
He gets to define things how he wants
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to define them, he gets to
make the connections that he wants to make,
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and he does this because there are
spiritual connections most important to God and
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more important than the biological ones.
Are Spiritual ones, ones which will eventually
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be fulfilled in Christ. The last
way we've been focusing on the form and
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some of the details of the genealogy
that speak to God's sovereignty. The last
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way we see it is in the
way that God notes the strength of Man,
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the strength of man as he fills
the earth and yet is not threatened
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by it. Earlier this was in
our prayer, our confession of sin.
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We spoke to God and we asked
him to forgive us for fearing man.
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Here God recognizes that there are very
powerful people in this world, that is
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the earth is filled. There are
people like Nim Rod. Notice the strength
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of Nim Rod. How God speaks
of this man's strength. We read in
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verse nine or Verse Eight. He
was the first on earth to be a
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mighty man, to be a mighty
man. We read on. He was
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a mighty hunter before Jehovah. Therefore, it is said Nimrod is a mighty
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hunter before Jehovah. Why this extra
line? Well, tells us that Nim
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rod was so powerful, so strong, that he became kind of a proverb,
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a sort of way. If you
wanted to talk about someone who was
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really, really strong, really mighty, you would say, well, like
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Nimrod, mighty hunter before Jehovah,
that powerful. And of course we who
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know how history falls out from here
know how powerful he became. These things
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that he went to did establish.
The beginning of his kingdom was Babel,
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Eric, a cod cal nay,
in the land of sin our. From
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that land he went to a Syrian
built Nineveh. It later talks about Egypt.
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These are the great empires of the
world, all of them headed up
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by this mighty Hunter King Nim Rod. The way that it describes this happening
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before Jehovah is a way in which
saying that God recognizes this man's strength and
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it's a way of telling us that
even when the powers of this world are
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very strong, that God recognizes it. They are not over Jehovah, but
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they are before Jehovah, they are
under his watchful eye. And so is
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Israel looks back to this point and
sees her enemies, and beginning here,
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Israel is reminded that all people belong
to the Lord and that these particular people
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belong to the curse. You remember
what was prophesied at the end of chapter
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nine. It was prophesied blessed be
Jehovah, the God of Sheem, and
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let Canaan be his servant. May
God in large J ff and let him
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dwell on the tense of Chechem,
and let Canaan be his servant. There's
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a little bit of tension, isn't
there between that prophecy in nine and the
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very next thing that's set in ten. Do we see Nim rod cowering down
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before the mighty people of Shem?
No, it's just the opposite. We
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see Nim rod establishing himself as the
one who is singled out among all of
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these people as being particularly mighty,
powerful, even proverbiably, proverbially. So
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how do we account for this tension? How do we deal with it?
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Will we deal with it in the
way that we have been all along.
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We are called to remember God's sovereignty, remember God's promise that, despite the
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way things look, despite the powers
and the dangers that people face, despite
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the way it seems that Nim rod
and his kingdom from from his father ham
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are ruling over the world and do
come to rule over the world, that
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God will be victorious. So as
we read the genealogy and Genesis ten,
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the point is for us to see
a very simple picture. God sovereign over
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it as the world spreads out,
it spreads out before him, and we
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need this reminder because we often don't
think of life in these terms. Sometimes
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we think of the world is sort
of a nameless mass of people, just
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this kind of chaotic thing. But
that's not the way genesis ten describes the
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world to us at this time or
in times to come. No, it's
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orderly, isn't it? It's falling
out particularly and purposefully according to God's plans.
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Sometimes, if we don't think that
the world is a nameless mass of
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chaotic people, we are. We
think of the particular power of people,
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the Nimrods of the world, who
seem to even reverse their own curse.
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By their strength, we feel that
God is weak and unable to do anything.
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But Genesis ten forces us to see
things in another way, to see
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that this mighty hunter king who is
establishing these great empires is doing so before
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Jehovah, and not just before God, but before Jehovah, our covenant God,
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our King Who has established his covenants
of grace with us, who is
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made promises to Adam, to Noah, to Shem, to Abraham, to
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David, promises that are ultimately fulfilled
in Jesus that tell us that Nim rod
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will not last, God will be
sovereign over all his people, all the
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peoples of the Earth. Let me
remind you again of what Psalm thirty three
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says. Let all the Earth Fear
Jehovah, let all the inhabitants of the
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world stand in awe of him.
Jehovah brings the counsel of the nations to
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nothing, of the nimrods of this
world, the babylons, the Assyrius,
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the roalms. Whatever powers we may
face, whatever great cities, will tempt
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us to give up our Lord,
to give up on our confession of faith,
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to turn to the pleasures and strengths
of this world. God says do
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not fear them, but fear Him
who stands forever the plans of his heart
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to all generations. We read again
Psalm thirty three, verse thirteen. Jehovah
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Looks Down From Heaven and sees all
the children of Man. From where he
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sits enthroned. He looks out on
all the inhabitants of the earth, He
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who fashions the hearts of all of
them and observes all their deeds. The
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king is not saved by his great
army. The Warrior is not delivered by
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his great strength. The war horse
is a false hope for salvation and by
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its great might it cannot rescue.
Behold, the eye of Jehovah is on
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those who fear him and on those
who hope in his steadfast love that he
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may deliver their soul from death and
keep them alive in famine. You hear
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the great promises and truths of our
king. You hear this covenant that he's
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making. He says that these promises
that I make to you are stronger than
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the things that you see, the
cities that are powerful, the people that
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are ruling, the wealth that's being
accumulated. Let it go. God is
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powerful and he will keep his promises. Now, on this word alone,
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we should trust him. Shehem should
have trusted him. His brothers should have
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heard it and repented and trusted in
God. But you, who live all
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of these generations after these people,
have even more. We have the coming
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of the son of God, in
Jesus Christ, who exercises this amazing power
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on the cross. It's true he
went to his death, isn't it?
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But how does he go to his
death? Does he do it kicking and
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screaming and whining and complaining, frustrated
that God didn't keep his promises? No,
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he goes like a man to the
cross. He goes in all the
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full confidence that God will do as
he is promised. He goes step after
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step after step, not crying out
but, let's like scriptures say, like
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a lamb being led to the slaughter, but not in weakness, mind you,
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in great power and authority. He
goes before kings, he goes before
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Herod, he goes before pilot,
he goes before this nation, the Great
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King of all the world, and
he goes to the cross not to be
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defeated, but to defeat, not
to be made a mockery forever, but
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to be victory over all things.
He does this, doesn't he? On
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the Cross? He dies, yes, but what does he die for?
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To forgive our sins, to rule
over us, to conquer Satan, to
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put down all authorities and principalities and
powers, to crush that serpent under his
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feet, this promise seed, who
is kept by God's sovereign power and his
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promises of grace from generation to generation
to generation, comes to the point of
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Jesus Christ. And you know what? It doesn't divide any more. It
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doesn't split at Jesus Christ and to
the seed of the serpent and into the
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seed of the promise. That's it. If you belong to Jesu, Jesus
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Christ, end of story. If
your faith is in him, then you
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have victory over everything and overall people. You are, you belong to the
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great family of God, not in
only an earthly and in a visible way,
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but in an eternal and internal way, and you belong so forever and
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ever. This is God's sovereign grace, in his power, and this is
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why we can stare death in its
face. Why, as the Psalm,
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going back to Psalm thirty three,
says, behold, the eye of Jehovah
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is on those who fear him.
To fill that out with more scriptures,
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to say on those who fear him
and trust in Jesus to keep them,
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protect them, those who hope in
his steadfast love, is given to us
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in Jesus Christ, that he may
deliver their soul from death. Psalm thirty
369
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three NDS. This way, our
soul waits for Jehovah. He is our
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help and our shield, for our
heart is glad in him because we trust
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in his holy name. Let Your
Steadfast Love, Oh Jehovah, be on
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us, even as we hope in
you. Let us pray
