Peleg - Division

“Judgment” is a word that holds a lot of negative connotations because it usually means that someone did something bad and they’re going to get punished for it. But there’s something deeper—maybe even hopeful—in the judgment that we’ll find in our story today.

For many years Noah’s family—the children of Shem, Ham and Japheth—all lived in the mountains near where the ark landed. But as weather patterns settled and the earth began to become lush again, they started moving down into the valleys.

This was as God designed it. He had planned for a group of people to wander off and set up a community, and as that one grew a few would go off and establish a new community a little ways away. Each community would express the kind of care that God intended mankind to show to the world—tending and keeping it as they supplied their own needs through agriculture and animal husbandry. When the population grew too big for an area of land to support them, they were intended to split up into two or three smaller groups and go off to find new land to tend and care for. This is how God put it to Noah many years earlier:

Genesis 9:7 ESV

And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

This was the exact same command that was given to Adam and Eve:

Genesis 1:28 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This idea of “filling” the earth had been around since the beginning of creation. Filling the earth has always required going. You can’t stay in one place AND fill the earth.

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But Adam and Eve’s story took a terrible turn when they decided to do their own thing and eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And then Noah’s story took a terrible turn when Ham decided to be disrespectful and irreverent towards his father. Those tendencies were passed along to his son, Cush and the rest of his descendants leading them to rebellion and apostasy. In the same way, Shem and Japheth’s respect and integrity were passed down to their children, leading to noble people who followed God.

Inevitably there was a division among the family. Ham’s descendants were incompatible with those who followed God and so they moved away. But they didn’t move for the right reasons—they didn’t GO—to fulfill God’s design. They were going for their own selfish reasons.

This inevitable division is important to note. Those who rebel against God and those who embrace Him in loving obedience do not fit together. They have incompatible ideas about life. This is why the Bible tells us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. A godly person and a worldly person,

can’t do business together,

can’t form governments together,

and they an’t marry each other

Sooner or later there will be conflict leading to division between God’s people and the world or to God’s people compromising with the world.

From the beginning of creation God designed one type of math—he called it multiplication. Be fruitful and multiply, He said. But sin created a different kind of math—division. The two different models have a similar appearance because they both lead to a group leaving. But there was a big difference. God’s multiplication created interlocking communities that would support and bless each other as they tended the earth, while sinful division created rifts as one group’s hatred for the other led them to break off and do their own thing.

And so Ham’s descendants looked around to find a place where they could live with independence from godliness and in the pursuit of ease and prosperity. They eventually settled in the Land of Shinar near the Persian Gulf. At that time it was lush and beautiful, and they decided to band together to build a mighty city that would one day be the citadel of a world-wide empire.

The Bible tells us about the man who led this city. His name was Nimrod.

Genesis 10:8–12 ESV

Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.

The Jerusalem Targum, tells the story of Nimrod with a little bit of creative detail. A targum is a verbal translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Aramaic language but sometime around the first century BC some of these Targums were written down. That wasn’t suppose to happen because the translators often sermonized, and it was thought that you couldn’t fully trust the quality of the translation. Still, what this particular targum says about Nimrod is enlightening:

"He was powerful in hunting and in wickedness before the Lord, for he was a hunter of the sons of men, and he said to them, 'Depart from the judgment of the Lord, and adhere to the judgment of Nimrod.' Therefore is it said: 'As Nimrod the strong one, strong in hunting, and in wickedness before the Lord.' "

This insight provides some context for the kind of person nimrod was. The Bible says that Nimrod was a might hunter “before the Lord” but that’s not because the Lord liked his hunting. He wasn’t hunting beasts—he was hunting people. Keep in mind that everything we do is before the Lord. God takes notice of us. When God designed people to fill the earth, He never intended there to be warn and killing. And so when a war-making man began to lead the group of rebellious people, God took notice.

Nimrod won allies to his side who shared his desire for greatness and power and control and they joined him to build cities to protect themselves. His growing power as a military leader broke the will of many of his enemies, who forged alliances with him out of necessity. And the small communes of people that were popping up here and there in the mountains and around the plain were forced to either join him, fight him, or Keep running from him. He was determined to sweep everyone into his empire of cities.

The first city Nimrod developed was the city that we know of as Babylon. The story is told in Genesis 11. Let’s turn there and read it.

Babylon and the investigation of God

Genesis 11:1–4 NLT

At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia* and settled there. They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”

Family tree

I did a some calculations and discovered that the time from Arphaxad’s birth, 2 years after the flood, to the fifth generation from Noah, would have been about 100 years. Based on the birthrate that we can find from Noah’s kids, and assuming that there were an equal number of boys and girls, as we generally have today. Noah would have had roughly 36 immediate grandkids born within 10-15 years of the flood. Those kids would have had another 1,000 or more kids in the next 30 years. By the third generation after the flood you could have had tens of thousands of people on the earth. By the fifth generation there could have been over a million people. Natural deaths were not as likely as they are today with fewer diseases and plenty of resources to go around and fewer wars to worry about. Add to that the fact that people lived so much longer than they do today, and you end up with all the makings of a very rapidly growing population.

Nimrod was probably in his late 60’s when he led the building of Babel. He was the great grandson of Noah, and he most certainly knew the spokesmen for God—Noah and Shem.

God has always had a witness for him. Every generation had a story teller, a preacher, a prophet.

Adam lived nearly a thousand years.

Before He died God raised up Enoch, and then Enoch’s son Methuselah who both told about God’s promise and the possibility of judgment for the wicked.

Then there was Noah who preached before the flood, and told stories of God’s mercy and judgment after the flood to all of his grandchildren.

Shem isn’t known as a prophet, but I’m sure he wasn’t silent about His God, especially when a whole group of the family was moving toward rebellion.

The people didn’t have any excuse. They weren’t raised in idolatry with no idea there was a God. No, this group that decided to build Babel was an openly rebellious group that were thrusting their fists in the air in defiance against God. Their motivation was to avoid God’s design. Instead of being scattered around the earth, they wanted to congregate in one place And build a powerful empire.

Let’s read the next part of this story in Genesis 11:5.

Genesis 11:5–9 NLT

But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.” In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Babel,* because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.

If rebellion is like a cancer that will kill and destroy humanity, then God’s judgment is like a surgeon’s knife creating the possibility of life again.

We think of judgment as a bad thing, but without God’s judgment the people of Babel would have quickly plunged the earth back into the pre-flood wickedness. To prevent that, and to promote the multiplication that He designed from the beginning, God mixed up their language.

And this is where we get the name of our sermon—Peleg, Division.

Genesis 10:25 (ESV)

To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided…

In Peleg’s day, God divided the earth—he spread out the people accross the earth.

Knowing how God works, I bet that He made sure there was someone who would speak for Him in every division and every language group. We usually think of prophets and messengers for God as coming from the people in the line of the messiah, and that’s definitly true in the Bible—most prophets come from the people of Israel. That’s partly because the Bible’s story traces a line to the Messiah and so its focused on those people directly connected to the Messiah. But every now and then we see a glimpse into the story of other people and we realize that God wasn’t just working to save Israel—He had an interest in all the world.

Jonah is a story of a prophet to Nineveh.

Ballaam and the talking donkey is a story of a prophet who lived just outside the land of Canaan long before Israel came around—God literally had a prophet for those people.

And even before that time, when Abraham came into the land there was a king who was called a priest of the God of heaven—Melchizedek.

God is in the business of revealing himself to people, and so I believe that each of those language groups had an influencer for God among them.

Do you remember that verse that says that All things worK together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose? God is able to turn difficult and bad things into blessings when we let Him be the ruler of our lives. I think God was exercising some of this same creative power to turn a bad situation into something that would be better for the world. God turned their divisive rebellion into a way to cause multiplication in the earth.

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Some would like to suggest that this story is about the evils of the city, and I admit that’s something that comes to my mind as you read this story. The communal, country-living groups seemed to be God’s design. The cities seemed to be Nimrod’s design—a result of rebellion. This would suggest that those of us living up here in North Idaho are more righteous than those city-folk down south. It may be a bit too easy to suggest that we’re living the lifestyle God designed while they’re living like the people of Babel. But I don’t think that is the conclusion that God intends us to get from this story. Yes, God intended people to multiply and fill the earth, not multiply and pack into a city. There’s no doubt that the city was not God’s original design. But keep in mind that God’s original vision for the first people after creation and the first people after the flood is no longer a pressing concern. The earth is already filled with people. The problem today is that the earth isn’t filled with messengers for God.

Go into all the world

The story of Babel is a relevant story for us today because we can too easily build our own society based on division. We divide ourselves and isolate ourselves from the world. If we’re given a chance, God’s people will congregate together and create an echo chamber of thought and relationship. And the more interested in holiness we are, the more isolated we become from society. But God designed us to GO and fill the earth, not to congregate and divide ourselves.

Matthew 28:18–20 (ESV)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

In Jesus’ prayer He asks that God would keep His followers focused on Him; not by taking them out of the world, but by keeping them from being absorbed by the world.

John 17:15–16 ESV

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

In the world, but not of the world. God designed us to GO and fill the world with the LIGHT of Jesus’ gospel message and love. He said, “you are the light of the world,” and told his disciples to be the “salt of the earth.”

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I wonder, if we were to evaluate our lives and witness, do we spend more time congregating or going?

And another thought question: If God were to mix up our languages today, would we each get a different language so we could be a witness for Him?

Sometimes God has to divide us in order to multiply us.

Have you ever noticed how relationships change? The people I’m spending most of my time with today are a different group than those I was spending a lot of time with last year. I have a different group of Bible studies going this year than I had back then. God allowed last year’s relationships to shift because the needs of those people changed. God freed me up to GO into someone else’s life. I haven’t lost those friendships from last year, but my emphasis has changed a little bit.

How have your relationships changed in the past year or two? Has God sent you into someone’s life to show them the Light of His Gospel?

Later this afternoon we’re going to have a business meeting where we’ll be discussing the vision and strategic plan for our church. We’re going to be talking about how God is calling us to go and fill our corner of the world with the gospel. I hope you’ll come tonight at 5 and get excited about what God plans for us, and then stay afterwards for gym night. You could bring some smoothie-making materials, or a frozen pizza; and play some board games or volleyball with us. You might be surprised that our gym nights are filled with opportunities to go because many from our community are coming to play with us.

Conclusion

We started this message with a consideration of the idea of judgment And I suggested that I was going to tell you something about God’s judgment that was hopeful. I don’t want to suggest that judgment isn’t something to be concerned about. The truth is that God’s final judgment for those who rebel against God is to give them what they want—division. They want to divide themselves from God, the source of life, and ultimately, He will allow it. Which means they won’t have life anymore.

But before that time comes, before there’s another extinction level event like the flood, God’s judgment brings life.

Just look at the message of Revelation 14..

Revelation 14:6–8 (ESV)

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”

This is the exact same message that God’s people would have been sharing in the time of Nimrod. Babel, that great city that you all built, is fallen. Worship Him who made the heaven and the earth. This has been the gospel message for all time, and it’s possible to give this message to the world—to offer everyone a chance to repent and return to the God of creation—because he was cut off on our behalf.

Maybe you didn’t quite catch the connection here. God’s ultimate judgment on the rebellious is to cut them off from his presence. He’ll give them exactly what they’ve been asking for, division, separation and independence from God. But that means their death because God is the source of all life.

In order to offer life instead of death, God himself was divided, separated, and cut off.

Daniel 9:26 (NKJV)

“And after the sixty-two weeks

Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;

This is the judgment.

The story of the gospel is that the God of creation divided (was cut off) himself so that we could have a chance at life. And that one day everyone who believes in Jesus will be cut off from wickedness so that we can live with God. God’s judgment, his dividing, is good news for anyone who believes!

This is such good news that God needs a witness. He needs messengers who will not be afraid to tell His story to the world.

I wonder how God’s plans for our corner of the world are going to send us? And I wonder if we’ll be ready to GO as He commanded, or if he’ll have to confuse our languages to get us to go out there and tell the good news.

——-—

Please stand with me as we sing a song of sending:

So send I You (578)