January 10

Genesis 11 “If you want to believe in a myth about the Tower of Babel, you can, but don’t waste my time with it in class.” It was my History of the English Language undergraduate class in college. The prof was obviously trying to establish his belief that the Tower of Babel did not exist, and he would not allow any debate or inquiry in class. Is there any evidence for a Tower of Babel? There are thousands of languages in the world today. Some of them have absolutely no relationship to others. Some of them have descended from others. Obviously languages like Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian all descended from Latin and are related. English itself is a blend of Old French (Latin) and Old German. Latin has many similarities to Greek. Go just a little northeast of Greece and you will fine languages that have no relationship to western European languages. Across Asia are languages that have no relationship to each other. Mongolian is reported to have more similarities to European languages than to Chinese. African click languages are completely different from their northern counterparts. If language evolved with the evolution of man, would not one expect more commonality among all the languages of the earth than what we observe? Seems to me that the report of the Tower of Babel more properly fits the expectation of what would exist in language if God confused the language at a point in history rather than that they all evolved with the evolution of man. Where do all the races come from if we all are descendants of Adam and Eve through Noah and his sons? I remember substitute teaching in a high school biology class. The emergency lesson plan was to show a film on genetics using dog varieties as an example. The thrust of the film was that if all dogs lived together and were allowed to interbreed, then all dogs would eventually begin to look more homogenous in nature. The variety in breeds comes from isolation by humans allowing only certain genetically looking dogs to breed. The breeds are accounted for by the lack of genetic information over the generations, not the addition of new genetic information. My wife raises miniature golden doodles. We began with a golden retriever and a poodle. Over the generations we used different parentage to avoid inbreeding. Currently we have a goldendoodle female who has a goldendoodle daughter that is about half her size and looks like a miniature golden retriever, but she is all golden doodle. The second generation dog has a daughter that is a doubledoodle. She is the same height as her mother, but wider. Her father was a miniature labradoodle. She looks nothing like her mother. People often do not believe that the three are grandmother, mother and daughter. The cross breeds of the dogs produces a healthier dog than the previous purebred golden retrievers and poodles. At the dispersion of the Tower of Babel the human race possessed all the genetic information to produce all the different types of ethnic characteristics found across face of the earth. Upon the dispersion from Babel, the different family groups of languages migrated to different places upon the earth. These groups were isolated by vast geographic distances. Over the generations, those groups in those locations lost genetic information through inbreeding and survival of the fittest. It is no accident that lighter colored skin pigmentation generally occurs toward the polar regions and darker skin pigmentation generally occurs toward the equator. It is also interesting to note that in the mountains of South America in the carvings of the Incas, the oldest carvings of humans tend to display greater diversity of ethnic characteristics. As the carvings become younger, the ethnic features begin to resemble a more homogenous group more similar to the Native Americans of today. Hmmm. . . Could it be that the ancestors of the Incas migrated to South America shortly after the Tower of Babel? Sounds likely to me. It is also interesting there are cultures on every continent upon the earth, except Antarctica, that possess ancient stories of ancient times when the gods or god became angry with the inhabitants of the earth and destroyed the whole earth with a flood with the exception of one man and his family. Hmmm. . . Could it be that these cultures, separated geographically by thousands of miles and large oceans share a common ancestry and history from which spring the variety of different stories with the same basic plot? Sounds likely to me. Here are a couple of interesting websites on the topic: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/flood-legends It indicates to me the glory of God in leaving Himself a witness. Consider what these verses have to say about how God has brought from one family all the ethnic groups of the earth in order to seek Him. Acts 17:26–28 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. How does something tragic like the Tower of Babel reveal the glory of God? It demonstrates that God is indeed active in history guiding it to a certain conclusion. He created the ethnic groups so that we in our rebellion might not seek and accomplish a way to keep from coming to judgment. Yes, that is right, were there no division of tongues and ethnic groups, we might not even seek Him or even grope for Him. The conclusion will be when Jesus returns. He will return when the Gospel have been preached to all ethnic groups as a witness, Matthew 24:14. When the end comes, there will be representatives of every tribe and tongue surrounding the heavenly throne in worship, Revelation 5:9 & 7:9. Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --pastor john * Ezra 10 My friend sat before me and related an exasperating time in his relationship with the Lord. He told me of a time when he thought the Lord was saying to him that he must give up his relationship with his fiancé. He struggled with God for many weeks unwilling to end the relationship. Finally through many tears he said, “Okay, God, you win. I will break up with her.” Immediately the Lord assured him in his heart, “No, don’t break up with her. I just wanted you to come to the point where you knew that your relationship with me was more important than her.” What is the glory of God worth to you? Would you give up your marriage if it was a choice between God and your spouse? Jesus said that unless we are willing to leave everything, we are unworthy of the Kingdom. So is the glory of God worth giving up your marriage? Certainly the Scripture teaches the sanctity of marriage. Certainly it teaches that our marriages are to reflect His unity. What if that marriage is a union between a pagan and a believer? From the reading of the instruction of the apostle Paul, we would learn that whatever marital state, which we were in when we found Christ, we should be content with that marital state. However, if the unbeliever wants to leave because of Christ, we should let them go. How does that contrast with the situation with Ezra? The nation of Israel had been exiled because they had gone after the gods of the pagan nations. The kings had led the nation in this immorality. It was imperative with the return that the nation remains pure in their pursuit of Yahweh. Marrying pagan women threatened to undo the purity that they had achieved. It threatened their walk with the Lord. Would you give up your marriage for the glory of God. I am not suggesting that God desires divorce. He would have preferred that these men had never married the pagan women. For their time and their situation, this was a choice which they had to make. Was it worth the glory of God? Yes, it was! What does that tell us about the glory of God? He far exceeds the pleasure of any relationship, which we can ever have. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * Psalm 10 David Hannum, P.T. Barnum’s rival in the Cardiff Giant Hoax is reported to have said, “A sucker is born every minute.” It was eventually revealed that Hannum was the sucker. Perhaps Barnum could have added to the quote, “And two out looking for him.” That is a very cynical view of life, but probably fairly true. Have you ever wondered why payday loan stores and pawn shops are usually located in or near a low income community? One reason is that the rich do not need them. Another reason is that the rich are rich because they understand the principle of unreasonable usury. If the rich need a loan, they know how to and are able to get a low interest rate and to borrow only what they know they can -pay back. They know that if you convert the fees and charges of a payday loan into an APR that it would be equal to 50-200%! On the other hand the poor are usually desperate and make desperate decisions in order to make ends meet now. Jesus said that the poor will always be with us. It is easy to make a simple claim that the poor are with us because, as the first thirteen verses of this Psalm indicate, the wicked are abundant and seek to take advantage of those who have the propensity to fall into poverty. Indeed, that is one of the reasons that the poor are with us. But there would be those who are in poverty whether or not the wicked were there. Otherwise, how could the wicked crouch and wait to catch the poor in his net? It is also easy to make a simple claim that the poor are with us because of their own poor decisions. And that would very often be accurate. So it would seem that the poor will always be with us because of two reasons. The poor are desperate, and the rich are heartless. Why doesn’t God do anything? Is it His place? To the degree that He is the Great Judge of all the earth. It is His place. And because we are moral agents, He delays His judgment for at least two reasons, to reveal our hearts and to give us time to repent. During that delay, it appears that God doesn’t care. But let us not be deceived. God is a judge and a help, particularly to those most vulnerable, the fatherless and the oppressed. They are in poverty not by choice but by circumstance. A simple view of the Lord as our King and Judge forces us to declare and ask that He will do something about the poverty. When we ask Him to do something, He calls us to join in with Him in doing something. He asks us to work with Him in seeing His glory in the way He works to rescue the perishing. That is His glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john * Matthew 8:1-17 As a child I lived in a little community of 280 people. I have many fond memories of playing in the woods, building tree houses, swinging on vines (literally). One area that I played in was a heavily wooded area that had a little creek running through it. Actually, while it was a creek, it would probably have been dry most of the year except that the town's sewage treatment plant dumped its treated water into it. So it had a guaranteed source of water year round. But half a mile down stream it didn't smell too bad to a little boy. One day while swinging on a vine across the creek, the vine broke. Guess where I landed. Now at that point it was only about ankle deep water, which wouldn't have been so bad except, I wasn't expecting to fall. So it wasn't just my feet and ankles that got wet. Hey, even Tarzan usually fell from a vine at least once in every movie. Only he usually fell into crocodile infested water. I fell into treated water. Needless to say, I was unclean. I went home immediately and took a bath and washed my clothes. Every thing I touched was contaminated. In Jesus' day lepers were considered unclean physically and ceremonially/spiritually. When the leper asked to be made clean he was asking not only for physical healing but also spiritual cleansing. I have been fairly disgustingly dirty physically at times. However, none compares to my spiritual uncleanness before Jesus cleansed me. He took my dirt off of me and upon Himself and destroyed it. Is that amazing or what? Jesus was also a man of great authority. Military people seem to have a better understanding of authority than those of us who did not serve in the military. This centurion (a leader of 100 men in the Roman army) asked for the healing of his servant. But the significance of this story is not that he believed Jesus for this healing but that he understood the authority of Jesus. He knew that if Jesus desired, He would heal the servant without even entering the man's house (which would have caused the Jews a great problem, for in their estimation it would have made Jesus unclean). While it would not have made Jesus unclean to enter the centurion's house, Jesus honored and praised the centurion's understanding of His authority. Jesus has both ability and authority to cleanse, even from a distance. I'll bet my mom wished she or I could have cleaned my clothes without me ever entering the house. Jesus continued to heal many and Matthew sums it up by quoting Isaiah 53:4: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." Our King has the ability and authority to cleanse us from sin and physical disease! He can make our hearts pure after deep contamination. And He does it from a distance and draws us to Himself. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john