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The tenth chapter of the book of Genesis is often called
"The Table of Nations."
And it tells us where the major ethnic groups came from,
beginning with Noah's three sons.
The chapter ends with this verse:
Once again, centuries of time passed
and the population of the world increased.
Our story now moves on to what historians call
the cradle of civilization: ancient Mesopotamia,
now modern-day Iraq.
After the Flood, God had told man to:
But now man was not only trying to change the agenda,
but he also had something to add of his own.
First of all:
This was in direct disobedience to God's command.
As you can see, man has a problem with obedience.
Have you ever wondered why you don't need to teach
little children to disobey Mom and Dad?
You can just see it, can't you?
Mom sits little Johnny down with Suzy, and "Okay, Suzy,
"this is how you're sassy.
"Now now, no no, Johnny, now pull Suzy's hair.
"No no no, pull harder! That's right, that's right!
"There you're getting it.
Suzy, that's the way you talk back to Mommy now. Go ahead."
You don't have to do that, do you?
I don't need to tell you that you don't need to teach
little children to disobey.
It comes very naturally because defiance
is natural to the human heart.
It's part of the nature we inherited from Adam.
Basically, we as humans don't want to be told what to do.
We prefer to do our own thing.
This was the problem with the people of Babel.
Secondly: Along with the city:
Now, the tower that the people built is probably
what we now know today as a ziggurat.
And there are ruins of a number of these massive structures
that can still be seen today.
They were built of burnt brick, just as the Bible records,
and on the basis of its foundation one such ziggurat
has been estimated to be up to 300 feet or 95 meters in height.
That's pretty high.
And the Bible makes clear the purpose of the tower.
It is said they wanted to:
Once again, man was functioning independent
of the Most High God.
Babel, or what became known as Babylon,
And the people, the people in trying to reach heaven--
that's what they were trying to do--
were going about their own way of trying to reach God.
You know what?
It didn't work.
There's only one way to God-- and that's God's way.
Now, a good definition for the word religion is this:
Man's efforts to reach God.
You know, by nature, man is very religious,
he tends to be very religious.
He is constantly searching for
or creating new ways to find God.
It's a hopeless pursuit.
We will see that God says that man is LOST--
In contrast to religion, we'll find that the Bible teaches us
that the only true way to God was provided by God himself
when, in his mercy, he reached down to man and provided man
with a way to escape the punishment for sin,
through the blood sacrifice.
Now, none of man's impressive tower
and city building efforts escaped God's notice.
God was fully aware of what was going on.
God knew what history has proved to be true,
that with a common language, man's progress
in technology is much faster.
It seems to be the pattern, doesn't it?
The more advanced and comfortable things are,
the less man feels he needs God.
Though God had given man a free will,
he did not want man to live independently of him.
Well, the story goes on, it speaks for itself really.
God took action to confront man's defiance.
God said:
When God scattered them, he gave them new languages.
And He did a thorough job.
One of the languages in New Guinea,
that I was exposed to had 18 vowels.
18 vowels, can you imagine that?
Nine of them, were non-aspirated,
and nine of them had a little puff of air that was aspirated.
To hear the difference, it was just absolutely,
incredibly difficult.
Very complex languages.
Well, the city the people were building didn't disappear,
but it did take on a name.
It means confusion.
Paul, I'm wondering something here.
At this point, do some people ask about
the origin of all the races?
Yes, they do.
And in one sense there is only one race--
the, the human race.
It used to be that the multitudes of races
really stumped people.
Where did they come from?
The Bible was silent on the issue.
Well, now that we have come to understand genetics,
it is understood that significant racial
distinctions can happen after
only a few generations.
The Bible says that all the nations
of the earth came from Noah, his three sons
and their wives, who presumably
had the full spectrum of genes enabling
racial distinctions to appear.
So it really isn't a difficult problem to explain.
No, its not.
And once again there are papers and books written
so the layman can make sense of this issue.