(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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One will be brought to you. And as always we have the service times on the upper left hand side there. Great to see everybody out tonight. Great to hear some good singing tonight. Everyone's singing it out nice and loud. It's like the way we like to hear it so you guys are sounding good tonight. Of course the service times as I mentioned are there. We'll be back this Sunday at 10 30 and again at 5 30 p.m. You have the soul winning times there and of course the note on the right hand side about the birthdays and the donuts that we had last week. We also have, of course Pastor Jimenez was up in Tempe last night and it sounds like everyone had a good time. I know I listened in. It was a great sermon. It's probably even better if you were there. Right, so I appreciate brother Adam driving everybody up there. Who all went to the service last night? Okay, good crowd. Alright, well that's great. That's going to be it for announcements really. Got a couple other things below there for the Tempe events. A lot of the several of the small town soul winning times if you'd ever like to jump in on that. You're always more than welcome to do so. And then let's just quickly count up the soul winning going back to Monday if there's anything from Monday. Got the one for Monday. Anything for Tuesday. Another one for Tuesday. And what about Wednesday? Anything Wednesday? And today? I don't think the group went out and got one here. Okay, great. Alright, well keep up the great work singing and soul winning. And we'll go ahead and sing another song before we get into preaching tonight. Song 19. Song 22. Song 23. Song 24. Song 25. Alright, we're going to go slow. 409. 409. No, 712. No, 712. Alright, 409. No, 712. No, 712. No, 712. No, 712. No, 712. No, 712. That's fine we'll pass it off the plate. As the plate goes around lets open up our minds Genesis, chapter 10. Genesis chapter 10 as always. It's alright if you talk, all this time there's a key for you and Genesis chapter 10. You can follow along here to Genesis 10, and the Bible reads in verse 1, Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and none of them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth, Gomer, and Magog, and Medei, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras, and the sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah, and the sons of Javan, Elisha, and Tarshish, and Kidom, and Dodonim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles, divided in their lands, everyone after his tongue, and after their families, in their nations. And the sons of Ham, Cush, and Mizraim, and Foot, and Canaan, the sons of Cush, Seba, Havilah, and Sabta, and Rehama, and Septecah, and the sons of Rehama, Sheba, and Dedan, and Cush begot Nimrod, he began to be a mighty one in the earth, and Cush begot Nimrod, he began to be a mighty one in the earth, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. In the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Achad, and Calne, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asher, and builded Nineveh, and the city of Rehoboth, and Calah. And reason between Nineveh and Calah, the same is a great city. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphuthim, and Pathrusim, and Kasluhim, out of whom came Philistim and Kaphtorim. And Canaan begat Sidon the firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite, and the Hivite, and the Archite, and the Sinai, and the Arvadite, and the Zemorite, and the Hamathite, and afterward the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the borders of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Geza, as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboam, even unto Laysha. These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations. Unto Shem also, the father of the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth, the elder, even to him were children born. The children of Shem, Elam, and Asher, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram, and the children of Aram, Uz, and Hull, and Gethur, and Mash. And Arphaxad begat Salah, and Salah begat Eber, and unto Eber were born two sons, the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. And Joktan begat Elomadad, and Sheleth, and Hazar-maebeth, and Jireh, and Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obol, and Abimeel, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from Misha, as thou goest unto Siphar, a mount of the east. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations. And by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. Brother Daniel, would you pray for us? Amen. So in Genesis chapter 10, of course, we've been reading about the flood the last couple of weeks. We had last week where they're coming out of the ark, and God's setting His bow in the cloud, and Noah makes that vineyard, he gets drunk, and then Ham goes in and sees his father's nakedness. We discussed all that, what that may or may not have meant. And then, of course, at the end of that, if we remember last week, Noah curses Canaan. So we're kind of coming to the end of the story of Noah, and whenever you kind of get to the end of a major character's life, at least within the book of Genesis, you kind of get these, at least in the beginning, you get a lot of these chronologies. So that's all we're really looking at tonight. You say, what can you do with this? Well, we're going to try, okay? And I'm sure if you really dig down deep and really took these things apart and really went after these names and figured out who everybody was and the relations and how everybody turned out, there'd probably be a lot more there. But I'm just going to, again, give us kind of a surface level here tonight and point out some really things that are just right there on the surface and also kind of make application here that, you know, it's important that we read every line in the Word of God. It's important we pay attention to what it's saying and to not just fall into kind of a, you know, just glaze over when we get to these lists of names and places because while some of them might not have a great deal of significance later on in the Scripture, there are some that from time to time will pop up that will actually clue us in on things that come up much later in the Scripture, okay? And we'll get in that tonight. But let's just pick it up here in verse 8 where it says, And Cush begat Nimrod, he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Achad and Calmi in the land of Shinar, okay? So these three verses rather, they don't have, you know, a lot to tell us about Nimrod, okay? And yet today there is a lot that's taught about Nimrod, isn't there? You know, if you go onto the internet and start looking up who was Nimrod, you go onto YouTube or other places and you start looking up who is this character Nimrod, if you go and try to find books on Nimrod, there's actually, you know, not a great deal that's been written about him, but there are people out there who are attempting to give us a history about Nimrod, okay? Now I've just read to you pretty much everything the Bible says about Nimrod. You know, he's mentioned it a couple other places in another chronology elsewhere, but this is the bulk of everything that we know about him right here. And really it's amazing to me when people can go and just extrapolate things and just make a bunch of conjecture about a character that the Bible says so little about, okay? And there's a great lesson to learn from that, okay? So what do we know about Nimrod versus often what's taught about him? Well, what's taught about him is a lot of times is that, you know, he's the one that was responsible for building the Tower of Babel, that he was some wicked king who brought in, you know, this idolatrous worship, you know, and obviously I don't want to get too far ahead of myself on the whole Babel thing because that's next week, but I am kind of laying some groundwork here, okay? So what does the Bible teach versus what's kind of taught about him or what's believed about him through traditions and other things out there in the world? Well, first of all, notice in the scripture that Nimrod is cast in a pretty neutral light. I mean, you can't really walk away from this passage saying, what a wicked guy, right? He's not really cast as a bad person. In fact, it sounds like as you read this that God kind of took note of him, that he was somebody that God noticed, right? Because it says that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, right? So it almost sounds positive to me. And yet a lot of negative things are taught about Nimrod, aren't there? There's things out there that want to make him into this wicked person, but when it has, you know, when the Bible phrases it this way, it just seems to me that maybe God is taking note of him. This might even be a positive thing. Also, it sounds like other people took note of him and mentioned him in a positive light as well. As it says in the latter half of verse nine, wherefore it is said even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. So everyone knew he was a mighty hunter. That doesn't necessarily make you a great person. It just means you're good at hunting, right? But the fact that it is said, it is said even as Nimrod, that means that's what people were saying. And they were saying something positive about him. Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, right? They're saying this guy's like, you know, you remind me of Nimrod, the mighty hunter before. So he had this reputation, but is it necessarily a negative reputation? Doesn't sound like it to me. It sounds, it's kind of benign. If anything, it leans, in my book, a little bit more towards the positive, okay? And yet despite that, you'll have people that are going to say, well, no, actually Nimrod was this wicked guy, and the reason why he's wicked is because he built the Tower of Babel, right? Because that's chapter 11, okay? That's what comes next, the tower. And if you ever wonder, you know, how to remember what certain chapters are about or where you could find them, Genesis 11, and maybe this is kind of a macabre way to remember it, is, you know, I always think of 9-11, the two twin towers, and then the Tower of Babel. So anyway, that's how I, that's, if you try to memorize things, you know, you got to kind of make connections like that, all right? So pro tip there, I guess, right? But look at Genesis chapter 11, verse 3, which is the story of the Tower of Babel, because that's what gets attributed to Nimrod. You say, okay, why are people, excuse me, saying that Nimrod was a bad person? Well, he built the Tower of Babel. And obviously, you know, in that story, it says that God came down to see what the sons of men did. So this wasn't a godly thing that they were doing. God broke it up. Now, it doesn't necessarily say that God was infuriated by it. It's just that he saw where it was heading, and it wasn't good that everyone's coming together in one place. I don't want to steal all my thunder from next week. But, you know, it's, obviously it wasn't a good thing, but good or bad, when you actually read the story, it doesn't sound like Nimrod built anything. He might have established that city. He might have built some other cities throughout that area. You know, he was a great leader. This was his kingdom. But it sounds, when you read the story in Genesis 11, it sounds like this is actually the idea and will of the people that were living there. It says in Genesis 11, verse 3, And Nimrod said, Oh, I'm sorry, wait, I misread that. And they said, right, one to another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Let us build. Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach into heaven. And let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. Okay, so the scripture's real clear that it's attributing the building of the Tower of Babel to the children of men, the people that were living in Babel at that time. This was their idea. They said, let us go and make this tower. It wasn't, and Nimrod commanded and, you know, enslaved everybody and, you know, made everybody, you know, work hard, like, later with the Egyptians and the Israelites. No, he, you know, isn't really mentioned in the story. You know, we read the mention of Nimrod in the scripture. And all it really says about him is that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And apparently that was of note before God and men, because people also said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And yes, the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Achad and Calni in the land of Shinar. But that's really it. And yet it's crazy to sit there when you hear people, you know, within Christendom and other places, different source material that's out there, that has nothing to do with the Bible. Say, oh, no, you know, Nimrod's this wicked guy. He built the tower of Babel. That's where it all started. And really, you know, there's really not even any, you know, when it comes to extra biblical sources, there isn't even really any scholarly work to back that up. You know, a lot of times there's archaeology and scholarly work and you have, you know, litanies of the names of kings that you can actually match through certain dates and stuff like that, through that whole process. And it'll line up with scripture. You know, it confirms what scripture says, or rather scripture confirms it, right? But none of that exists for Nimrod. None of that exists. He's not written down anywhere. This is it. This is everything we know about him. But people want to just make things up, don't they? And this is a trap that people fall into. Rather than just listening to what the Bible actually says, they want to get off on some tangent. They want to be like the Athenians who only want to hear or tell some new thing, right? Rather than just what the Bible actually says. You know, the Bible's plenty deep. The Bible has plenty of powerful, moving, great, amazing, wonderful truths in it. You know, we don't even have to go to these other sources and try to add to it. And a lot of times, you know, when people attempt to do that, they come up with some pretty harebrained ideas, don't they? And I don't even want to repeat them, okay? Because some of it's just so foolish and nonsensical, it's embarrassing to even bring it up from behind the pulpit sometimes. I feel stupid just talking about it, okay? But people do that. They go out there and they go, well, what, oh, Nimrod, who's that? Well, let me get on Google and find out. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong to ever, you know, go to Google or go to the internet and try to find some legitimate sources that maybe might give you a little insight into maybe, you know, the times of the Bible. And maybe just as a reference to kind of get your bearings, where you are in the world, you know, what time you are in the world or things like that. But when you find yourself, you know, at 2 a.m. or whatever, you know, pounding energy drinks and, you know, scrolling through Bitchute, you know, watching three-hour-long videos with dynamic editing about Nimrod and the Queen of Heaven, you know, and all these other things that, and the Tower of Babel, how wicked. You know, you've left the reservation at that point. You know, you're no longer using the internet as a resource tool. You're using it as a replacement for the Bible, okay? And, you know, it's put the can down and get some shut eye and wake up in the morning and just read your Bible and listen to what it has to say because it's got powerful things in it, okay? We don't have to add to it. So, we need to learn to interpret the Bible with the Bible, okay? Now, if you would, go over to 1 John, Chapter Number 4. 1 John, Chapter Number 4. That's the great truth that we're going to kind of take out of this genealogy tonight, okay? So, forgive me. I feel like I'm trying to squeeze, you know, blood out of a rock tonight with this passage because it's just a list of names and we get this one little gem in here and you got to do something with this, all right? Sometimes this can be some hard preaching, right, because it's just, what are you doing? You know, maybe we should just all go around practicing saying the names. Maybe that would be a time better spent. I don't know. But what we need to learn is to interpret the Bible with the Bible. And, yes, there's extra biblical sources that can maybe be a reference, but they should never trump what the Bible says and they should never gloss over what the Bible says, okay? They should always support the Scripture. And if they don't, they need to be cast out because they're wrong. You know, people have some crazy ideas about the Tower of Babel, too. And, again, I'm getting ahead of myself, but, you know, there's people that say, you know, the Tower of Babel, they called it Babel because, you know, when the Jews were in exile that they, you know, they were in a strange land where no one saw, you know, spoke the same tongue and they heard all this strange language and they saw that, you know, whatever that Babylonian world wonder was back then. I forget the name of it. And so then they, you know, they made up this story. And they'll just say, you know, that's Jewish teaching. That's what the Jews teach. That's a mythology that's taught. Oh, the Tower of Babel is just a mythology that they came up in exile. You know, and that's what you're going to find when you go out there and just, you know, just wander through Google. You know, what about the Tower of Babel? Right? Well, and the crazy thing, too, is, like, what does it matter? People get so worked up about this. It's like, what does it even matter? Right? What does it even matter, you know, whether Nimrod was a good guy or bad? What bearing does it have on your life? What kind of guy Nimrod was? Like, none. Nothing. It's not going to affect my life at all. If no one ever, if I never heard the name Nimrod ever again or anything about him, I doubt what the course of my life would alter very much. Right? It'd probably go just along, just like it would, but people would just, oh, Nimrod. You know, the Tower of Babel. You know, and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that these are pointless stories. You know, there's great application that can be made. Hopefully tonight is one of them. You know? There's things that we can learn. There's lessons, but it's the lessons that are within the pages of scripture itself. And if we're going to interpret the Bible or try to find deeper meaning in the Bible, our first source material should be the Bible itself. Okay? Because, you know, people will just read Genesis chapter 10, verses 8 through 10, and go, the Tower of Babel, Nimrod. He built the Tower of Babel. That's what the internet says. Well, read to the next chapter where it says they said, let us go to and let us make brick and burr it thoroughly and build a tower that reaches the heavens. It was their idea. It wasn't Nimrod's. So if you, you know, interpret the next chapter literally, just a few verses later, you would, you have the right, you know, interpretation of scripture itself. You're in 1 John chapter 4, verse 1, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. This is written in the time of the Apostle John, and he's saying at this point that many false prophets are in the world. He said elsewhere within 1 John that even now there are many antichrists in the world. And his day. And so there's all these people that are already out there, all these false prophets, and what do false prophets do? They tell lies for filthy lucre's sake. They just say whatever. They just tell blatant lies. Okay. That was then. Nothing's changed, folks. There's still plenty of false prophets in the world. There's still plenty of people out there that want to pull the wool out of your eyes. There's plenty of people that just want your money. They just want your views. They just want your like. They just want your subscription. You know, whatever. They just want to entertain you with, you know, pseudo-biblical teaching. Okay. And we need to learn to try the spirits. Okay. So how do you do that? We'll go over to 1 Corinthians chapter number 2. How would you do that? Well, you would use the scripture, right? And I'm going to read to you from Acts chapter 17 where it says these. And the these there is referring to the Jews in the synagogue of Berea. Okay. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so. Okay. So again, these were Jews, the people that knew the Bible that, you know, were of that nation that was God's chosen people, right? And yet they didn't just blindly believe whatever Paul said. They didn't just say, well, Paul said it, then, you know, whatever Paul says. You know, they thought for themselves. They were more noble because they, yes, received those things which were spoken, right? They received it with all readiness of mind. They showed up to church ready to listen, ready to hear, open-minded to what Paul was teaching, but they weren't just, you know, vacant, empty-headed imbeciles who were just waiting to just let nonsense be poured into their heads. Okay. A lot of times that's what people do when they start going these extra biblical sources like the Internet. They just turn their minds into just these open, you know, vessels that anything can just be thrown into. Like that saying, you got to keep an open mind, right? You got to be open-minded. You know, well, you put a lid on a trash can, right? You leave it open, people just start throwing trash in it. Same thing with your mind. When you just take in anything and everything, you know, you're going to take in things you probably shouldn't, okay? But the Jews in Berea, they were more noble in that, yes, they received the word with all readiness of mind, but what also made them more noble is that they searched the Scriptures daily. So how do you try the spirits with the word of God? You pick up the Bible and you read it and you compare line upon line, verse upon verse, Scripture with Scripture. That's what the Bible tells us. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual, as it says there where you are in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 13, which things we also speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. So we're going to try the spirits with the word of God. We're going to try the things, yes, we're going to have readiness of mind, ready to receive things that we're being taught, but we're going to be discerning and we're going to back it up with Scripture. And if it doesn't line up with Scripture, it's to be dismissed out of hand. And the real shame is when people get mixed up with this stuff. They're not discerning enough to just read to the next chapter and listen to what the Bible says. They go into chapter 11 with this preconceived notion that they got off the internet or somewhere and they miss what it's saying in verses 3 through 5, that it was the people that lived there, they're the ones that had the idea to build this tower. People that get all caught up with that, they don't discern, they don't compare spiritual to spiritual, the real shame is that they missed a great clue in this verse that would actually help you later when it comes to end times prophecy. When it comes to understanding a concept about Babylon. It's right there at the end of verse 10. You can go back there if you want. It says there in verse 10 of Genesis 10, And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Achad, and Calni. So these are the cities that he built. Babel probably jumps out to us, right? You think of Babylon, right? End times Babylon, Babel, Babylon. It's synonymous terms. And then it says there, in the land of Shinar. Now if you're just, as soon as you read Babel, as soon as you read Nimrod, it's just triggering you and you're remembering all the wild and crazy things you heard about Nimrod, and all the books that you read, and all the videos you watched, and you're just going to go right over in the land of Shinar. And that's actually an important clue that will help you understand something about Babylon, right? Because Babel, or Babylon, is within the land of Shinar. It's describing that geography, it's that region in Shinar. The city itself is Babel, okay? Now if you would, go to Zechariah, chapter number five. Zechariah, chapter number five. So, and I'm just using this as an example, okay, tonight, to teach us that we don't want to miss what matters in the text. You don't want to go off on a tangent and get all caught up, you know, in just some loony conspiracy, just some wild-eyed, weird, crazy, strange thing that maybe is a little entertaining, but you don't want to get caught up in that because then you'll actually miss what matters in the text. And look, Genesis 10 isn't exactly chock full with a bunch of, you know, deep, just on the surface truth, is there? I'm sure there's some powerful truths in there if you dig a little deeper, but they're not right there on the surface, are they? But this one is, right? And if you pay attention, you'll catch it. Don't miss what matters in the text by being distracted by some extra biblical, you know, teaching. You get this clue to understand end times Babylon, we see in Genesis chapter 10 that Babylon began in the land of Shinar, so that's a point of reference. So when we see Shinar come up again later, you know, that should help us understand that it's actually perhaps can be applied to Babylon, right? It could be referring to that same region, right? And I'm not going to go way into Zechariah, but look at Zechariah chapter 5 verse 5. The angel that talked with me went forth and said unto me, lift up now thine eyes and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, what is it? And he said, this is an ephah that goeth forth. He said, moreover, this is their resemblance through all the earth. So the ephah there, which is typically referring to a unit of measure, right? So but this is a vessel that would hold an ephah. That's when he's saying this is an ephah. It's talking about a vessel, right? And the proof is that it talks about the talent of lead that acts as a lid, right, verse 7. And behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead, and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the ephah, right? Now, when we get into Revelation, what do we see? We see that a woman rides the beast, right? Mystery Babylon, right? So here you have this woman that is sitting in the midst of the ephah, right? And he said, this is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah, and he cast the weight of the lead upon the mouth thereof. So that's how we know that the ephah, it has a mouth, right? And he's putting this lead on top of it, this lid of lead upon it, right? But there's a woman, right? And he says, this is wickedness, and he casts the woman in the ephah and puts a lid on it. That's what's being described here. So, again, well, let's just keep reading. So you get the picture of what's taking place, what Zechariah is seeing. Verse 9, Then lift I up mine eyes, and looked, and behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? So he sees this woman, say, someone says, this is wickedness, and he casts him into the ephah, this woman, her, rather, and he puts the lead lid on it, and then these two angels show up that look like women with wings of storks, and they lift the ephah up. And then Zechariah says, Whither do they bear the ephah? Where is it going? And that's an important concept right there, that the ephah is moving. It's being lifted up. And you say, well, how do you know that's a reference to Babylon? Because when I read Genesis chapter 10, I didn't just go off on Nimrod in the Tower of Babel. You know, we paid attention to the fact that it said in the land of Shinar, right? Verse 11 of Zechariah 5, and he said unto me to build it and house in the land of Shinar. So he's taking this wicked woman that's in the midst of the ephah and taking it to the land of Shinar. It shall be established and shall set there upon her own base, saying there's a place that's prepared for this woman that is called wickedness in the midst of the ephah that she's being born up and taken to the land of Shinar. You know, I believe that's a great picture of Babylon. That's what it's a reference to, right? Because, again, we know that Shinar is associated with Babel or Babylon, right? You say, well, what is the concept about Babylon that we're supposed to get out of this? That Babylon moves, right? And that's important because when you get to the Book of Revelation, people want to start debating about, you know, well, where is Babylon? You know, Jerusalem is Babylon, right? After God destroys that city, then turns and destroys Babylon after that, right? It's not. Jerusalem is not Babylon, okay? You say, well, in the end times, is Babylon going to be rebuilt in Iraq? And, look, I remember hearing that early on in my Christian life. Did you know Saddam Hussein's rebuilding Iraq or building Babylon? And, yeah, he was doing some excavation, right? But it wasn't like he was thoroughly burning brick and making a tower that went to heaven, right? He was just excavating an old town, you know, and they're like, this is it. This is the end times. Tower Babylon is going to be rebuilt. Babylon is being rebuilt. And, of course, we all know what happened to Saddam, right? Nothing good. He got toppled, and that's all I'll say about it before I get all political, okay? But, you know, people got all excited about that, you know, but, you know, if you read your Bible, if you knew your Bible, you would know, well, that's not necessarily, that might not necessarily be the case because Babylon moves. Another proof of this would be 1 Peter 5. I'll just read to you verse 13. The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus my son, okay? And a lot of people will take this verse in 1 Peter 5 13 and say, see, Peter's saying that the churches that is at Babylon saluteth you, and we know that Peter spent time in Jerusalem, therefore, Jerusalem is Babylon. But, again, you have to read the Bible for what it says. Did Peter say, I'm at Babylon? No, he just said the church that is at Babylon saluteth you, right? It's just like before the service tonight. Brother Adam came to me and said, hey, Pastor Jimenez wanted me to make sure I said hi to you. Oh, is Pastor Jimenez here? Are you with him right now? No, he's like, I had a message from him, and I relate it to you. It's kind of the same thing that's going on here. That's Peter just kind of relaying that message. And you say, well, maybe he was at Babylon. Well, where would have Babylon been back then? Who was ruling the world back then? Because that's what Babylon is. It's a world power, right? We get to the Tower of Babel, that concept of everyone coming together and trying to just have unity and not breaking up and going out and having separate nations, trying to make a one world government, right? So that's a great world power. Where would that have been back then? It would have been Rome, right? And Rome, for a long time, you could have rightly said was Babylon. I believe that. You could say, hey, that's a type of Babylon back then, because you had a world power, then eventually you had the Catholic Church start there, and that had a great political influence and, of course, was damning many, many, many souls to hell, right? So that was the world power back then, was Rome. And I'm not trying to go deep in end times prophecy tonight, but what I'm trying to get us to see out of Genesis chapter 10 is that there's this little clue there in the land of Shinar. And if we pay attention to that and I get caught up in Nimrod, the mighty hunter, right? And if we read that, Shinar, that's going to pop up when we get to Zechariah chapter number five. We're going to say, oh, Shinar. Well, now we can make a connection about Babylon and learn something. And then when we get to Revelation and elsewhere, we'll say, well, now we understand something about Babylon, that it's mobile, that it can be lifted up and moved from place to place. It's not Rome today, not in my opinion. What's the great superpower today? You're living in it. You're in Babylon, buddy, right? It's the United States. It's like a giant city state. You know, Washington, D.C. No, not Washington, D.C. Yeah. With all their idolatry and when the roads are literally laid out like a pentagram. And that's not, you know, that isn't just some wild internet theory. Like, you can just go look at Google Maps and, you know, it was all built by masons. It's just, ugh, right? You know, that might be where Satan's seat is today, right? But that shows us, you know, something about Babylon. But let's move along here through the story tonight. So, let's get back to verse 11 of chapter 10 of Genesis. It says, out of that land went forth Asher and builded Nineveh and the city of Rehoboath and Calah and Reisim between Nineveh and Calah, the same as a great city, and Mizraim and Ludim and Annamim and Naththuhim and Pathrusim and Kasluhim, out of whom came Philistim and Kaphtorim. Now, verse 15, and Canaan begat Sidon the firstborn and Heth and the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Gergashite and the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinai and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. Now, again, there's information that we're getting here about a very significant nation within Scripture. The Canaanites are a significant, if you want to call it a character, they play a significant role within Scripture because it's the Canaanites that have to be driven out of the land when Israel comes into it. So, you're getting a list here of these different nations that were considered Canaanites. Now, traditionally what people will teach, and later I believe some of these may be merged or the names might have changed, but you get a few. You get one, two, three, four, five of what's traditionally called the seven Canaanite nations, which are the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Gergashites, the Jebusites. That's the traditional seven Canaanite nations. That's who you're dealing with specifically when you get into Joshua when they're moving into the Promised Land. But there's some information right here about the Canaanite nations and where they came from. They came from Canaan, hence their name. And again, it's listing people that are cursed and marked for destruction, right? Because what did we read in the previous chapter? Cursed be Canaan, right? A servant of servants, shall he be. And now we're reading about who of Canaan in this chapter. You know, this is Bible study. This is what it is, okay? This is the sometimes dry bit of Bible study you have to do. If you want to understand the scripture and know the Bible, this is the kind of stuff you kind of have to pay attention to, right? So that later when you're reading about, you know, the Amorites, you'll know, oh, that's Canaan, right? That comes from Canaan. He's one of the Canaanite nations, okay? And again, these are all people. We're going to see this come true of them later. The prophecy of Noah will come true that they truly are cursed and that they are actually marked for destruction and that they followed in their great, great, great, great granddaddy's footsteps, Ham, and were wicked people. Because when you get to Leviticus 18, it says that for all these abominations had the man of the land done and the land was ready to spew them out, okay? Let's move along through the story here. I do want to try to make one more application towards the end or at least point something out kind of in the same vein of what the main point tonight. It says in verse 19, And the borders of the Canaanites were from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar and unto Geza, as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, that sounds familiar, and Admah and Zeboam, even unto Laysha. These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations. Unto Shem, you know, and that's where you get Semitic, Shem, right? That's where you get the Semitic people, the Shemites. It says, And Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, which some people will say that's where Hebrew comes from, the term Hebrew, Eber. The brother of Japheth, the elder even to him were children born, the children of Shem, Elam, Asher, Arphaxad, anyone's looking for a good name for a boy, Arphaxad, sounds like a drain cleaner. You know, it's like, bring me the Arphaxad, it's under the sink, you know. Probably because I'm thinking of Ajax, you know, it's got the A and the X. And Lud, and Aram, the children of Aram, Uz, and Hull, and Gethur, and Mash. And by the way, let me just say this, I always mention this when we're reading, you know, these litanies of difficult to pronounce names, read these names in your Bible reading and read them out loud. I'm serious. You know, that's one of the, I want to say it's one of the greatest tips about Bible reading I've ever heard, but when I heard that preached, I said, you know what, that's what I'm going to do. Now, I don't do that to this day, but there was a season where whenever I came across a litany of names, like when you get into First Chronicles and elsewhere, I said I'm going to take the time and I'm going to pronounce these out loud. Because now I'm standing in front of a group of people publicly trying to read these names, and I know I'm not getting them 100% correct all the time, but I'm doing a lot better than I might otherwise have done, had I not done that. Hopefully that made sense. Right? And you say, well, I'm never going to stand in front of a group of people and have to read these names out loud. It'll make you a great reader nonetheless. It'll make you a better reader regardless to help enunciate things. You know, we're living in such a passive time today where, you know, we're just receiving information. We're not really having to put more back out, right? We're not being challenged by it, okay? So it'll help you in your learning, learn how to look at a word and to pronounce it. It's important to be a good reader, you know, to be able to comprehend reading and to be able actually to articulate and say good words, okay? Speak good, okay? It's important. You should be able to do that. It says a lot about you, right? People, even if you aren't, you know, a dummy, you know, if you haven't practiced this, that's what people are going to think. If you can't speak well, and I'm not saying you have to be some eloquent orator that you have to get up and wow people in daily conversation, but if you can't even put words together and make whole sentences and speak reasonably, even if in your mind, you know, you're an intelligent person, and maybe you are, if you're not practicing speaking very often, you know, people are just going to assume, you know, they're just going to pat you on the head and say, we got a joke for you. Here, take this broom and go push that broom, right? Now, if there's anything wrong, push the broom, okay? Look, I got to get something out of this chapter tonight, all right? Read the chapter out loud. You know, maybe we should have gone around and tested everybody, all right? How do you pronounce, you know, we're going to sign everyone a verse tonight, okay? We're going to go around the room and everyone's going to pronounce a verse. And look, if that's making you nervous, you need to take me up on this challenge and start reading these out loud, okay? And I get it. It's hard. It is difficult. But so what, you know? Do it anyway. What if we just never did anything that was hard ever again, right? Not much would get done. Where were we? What was the last name I read? No one wants to say it. Eber, right? And unto Eber were born two sons. The name of one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. Now again, people will park it here and go the earth was divided. Pangea, continental drift, you know? They'll start thinking, they'll start going with that stuff. That means in Peleg's day that the earth shook and all the nations moved apart and that's where you had these different land masses, see? The Bible teaches Pangea. And I've had people tell me that. But is that what it's saying in the scripture? Well, if you just stop there, right? And then this is in the same vein as with Nimrod. If you don't keep reading to chapter 11 and you just listen to somebody that says, oh, Nimrod built the Tower of Babel. Well, if you just keep reading, it explains what it means, you know, rather it shows you that Nimrod, in fact, did not build the Tower of Babel, okay? That wasn't his idea. Same thing here. If you just stop at verse 25 and just say, oh, you know, continental drift, tectonic plate movements, you know, this is where all the nations Pangea was broken up. That's not what it means. And you only have to read to the end of the chapter to figure out what it means, okay? But if you go, oh, it's just a bunch of names, next chapter, you know, oh, cool, Peleg, yeah, right, next chapter. Who needs to read a bunch of names anyway? Well, you're going to miss what he means by that. And you're going to have a wrong idea or someone's going to be able to fool you. Look, is it that big of a deal? No. But it's wrong. It's not what the Bible teaches, you know, and we want to be faithful and much. We have to be faithful in that which is least. It says, in Jock 10, we've got Almodad and Sheleph and Hazar-Maveth and Jireh and Hadoram and Uzal and Dikla and Obel and Abimeel and Shebal and Ophir and Havilah and Jobab and all these were the sons of Jock 10 and the dwelling was from Misha as thou goest unto Siphar, a mount of the east. These are the sons of Shem and after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. So that's your answer in verse 32 to verse 25. What does it mean in his days the earth was divided? Well, it says by these were the nations divided in the earth, right? I believe that verse 32 is a reference back to verse 25, right? It's talking about, because obviously we're talking about a span of time, right? We're talking many generations are passing and coming and going and within this time by these generations of Noah were the nations divided in the earth and it was in the time of Peleg that these nations divided, that the earth was divided. Right? Because if all, get the picture, if all these guys are, these are the sons of Noah and they're spreading out throughout the earth and they're starting to claim land, aren't they dividing the land? Aren't they dividing the earth, right? Like if we are going to go conquer, you know, go, you know, colonize some, you know, land somewhere, we all get together and we say, well, hey, you know, from this region right here, this is mine. I'm going to divide my portion, right? From here to here, you know, this is my port and you stay over there and from this mark to that mark, whatever, that's your part of the land. We just divided the land. We just divided the earth, right? Make sense? I'm sure it does. Okay. But people want to read stuff like that and go, that's when God just like split the land and tore it all apart, you know, because yeah, it's exciting, but it's not biblical. It's not, that's not what I believe it says. You say, well, man, you really ruined Genesis chapter 10 for me. I was really into the Nimrod thing. I was really into the land, you know, being ripped apart, you know, by the hand of God or something. Well, you got the Shinar bit. I mean, that's kind of cool, right? You got the bit about Shinar, Babylon, because you have some understanding of something that's actually true, something that's actually biblical, right? So, you know, that's what I got for you tonight. It's important as God's people that, you know, yes, we receive things with all readiness of mind, but we are diligent and that we search the scriptures to see whether these things be so and not go to the scripture with the preconceived idea and try to just like force it on the Bible. You know, try to just shove that in there and say, no, this is what the Bible teaches when it doesn't. Okay. Even if it blows apart our favorite, you know, pet theory or whatever that's out there. There's plenty other things that are absolutely amazing in the scripture. We don't have to go to some extra biblical resource to, you know, try to wow us about things. We want to have integrity, okay? We want to teach what the Bible actually says, because that's how we're going to understand real doctrine that really has a real impact. Okay? Because, again, as I said, okay, let's say that the land was like literally divided in some way, like the land masses were separated in the days of Peleg. So what? Again, so what? It makes no difference. So what if Nimrod built Babylon? But do you think it makes a little bit of a difference if you understand that Babylon isn't just, you know, locked in in one geographical location? Isn't that kind of an important doctrine? Doesn't that have an impact on your life more so than these other things? Doesn't that help you understand like, oh, man, maybe I am living in Babylon. That kind of does matter, doesn't it? But that's the stuff you'll actually admit. That's what's in here. That's what's in this chapter. That's what you'll miss if you're, oh, Nimrod. Oh, Peleg. You know, which has no bearing, no difference, doesn't matter at all, no matter how excited you get about it. That's the stuff people miss, the stuff that actually matters. That's why we have to make sure that we don't miss what really matters in the text by getting distracted by extra biblical sources. Let's go ahead and close the order of prayer. Dear Lord, again, thank you for the Bible and for what it says, Lord, and how clear it is, Lord, if we'll just take the time to slow down and read it and just listen to what it's saying on the surface, Lord, there's so many great truths and truly there are many great, deep truths, too. Even within this passage, Lord, I'm sure we can come back years from now after having read it many more times and having our understanding deepened about the word of God and be able to pull out many great, powerful truths out of this very chapter, out of this list of names, Lord. And Lord, I pray you help us to never take the Bible for granted. Any single book or chapter or verse or word, Lord, that we would understand that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable and would help us to pay attention to it so that we can be thoroughly furnished into all good works. We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right. We'll go ahead and sing one more song before we write this next time. In that, slippin' up our hymnals to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat and go to song number 69. We'll close that beat.