Chuck Larsen

Genesis chapter 12 begins the greatest adventure ever experienced. Verse 1 introduces it to us, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” It’s God’s call to Abraham to forsake his life in Ur of the Chaldees to follow God’s call to a new place that he cannot see. The rest of the chapter contains the specifics of that call to leave it all and walk forward in a life of faith. He promised to bless Abraham. To make Abraham prosperous. To bless his descendants. To make him famous in the entire world in every generation. To bless everyone who blesses him and to curse all his enemies. All Abraham had to do was trust God! As the story of Abram, who becomes Abraham continues, we learn the most important lesson in life: We can trust God.

This account has long range effects on all the writers of the New Testament. The call of one man who will become the nation of God’s people as well as the father of all who have faith is a story that headlines the three major religions in the world. Judaism, Islam and Christianity all look back to Abraham as their father. Strassner observes, “When we read about God’s calling of Abram, we are not simply given a lesson in history. We are actually tracing a story line that takes us all the way to the Lord Jesus himself. So the calling of Abram—the beginning of the nation of Israel—is a story of tremendous significance.”¹

God’s promises to Abraham are all unconditional. The phrase “I will” that God uses is in direct contrast to the previous story concerning the tower of Babel. There it was all about what man would do! Here it’s all about what God will do. There are at least seven of them.

1. I will give your offspring this land
2. I will show you a land.
3. I will make you into a great nation
4. I will bless you.
5. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.
6. I will bless those who bless you.
7. I will curse those who curse you.

Here is the message of Genesis. God is worthy of our trust. Adam and Eve failed to trust God. Cain failed to trust God. Lamech failed to trust God. The whole world in Noah’s day failed to trust God. Since they did not find God trustworthy, they disobeyed. God would now show the world how trustworthy he is as he calls Abraham, the father of those who trust God. Abraham hears God’s call, trusts God to keep his promises, and obeys by following God’s directions. The rest of the book of Genesis will show us how God keeps his promises to Abraham and his descendants. The message of Genesis is God is trustworthy! He will keep his promises. By the way, God hasn’t changed. You and I can trust him also. He will keep his promises!

¹ Kurt Strassner, Opening up Genesis, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2009), 60–61.

Beginning in verse 10 of Genesis chapter 11 we have another long list of genealogies. Verse 10 begins the refrain by introducing it, “These are the generations of Shem.” You can’t help but remember the long list of names given back in Genesis chapter five. But There are two fascinating distinctions between the genealogy of Genesis chapter 5 and Genesis chapter 11. First is the mission refrain, and the second is the length of life. Back in Genesis chapter five every birth recorded is followed by a recorded death. Remember? “And he died… and he died…and he died,” over and over! It was a dramatic reminder to us all of our mortality. This was even more remarkable in the fact that these men who all died lived to be hundreds of years old. Shem lived nearly 700 years. Eber lived nearly 500 years and of course Methuselah lived nearly 1000 years. But they all ended with the refrain “and he died.” Notice that in the genealogy of chapter 11, no mention of death is made. Why? How strange is that since Shem’s son Arphachsad’s life is only 2/3rds the length of his father’s. Peleg’s 239 years is about half of his father Eber’s life. At the end Hahor’s life span is only 138 years. You would think death would be even more prominent in this genealogy, but it is completely absent. Why?

This genealogy is moving towards great hope for mankind. It’s introducing us to Abraham. The genealogy of chapter five ended with Noah, the man with three sons. All life died. The genealogy of Genesis 11 ends with Terah, the father of three sons. One being Abraham, through whom everyone who trusts God will live. The man who teaches us how to trust God did so by obeying God’s command to sacrifice his son. The Angel stopped this sacrifice and in keeping with Abraham’s prophetic answer to his son’s question, “here is the wood, here is the fire, but where is the sacrifice,” God, himself, “provided the sacrifice.” God took death in the person of his son Jesus Christ and destroyed death itself for everyone who believes. Thus, even though our life spans are so much shorter than even the shortest (138), to us, death has been destroyed. God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so that whoever believes in him, will not perish (read “die”), but will have everlasting life.

I’ve heard many sermons, and I’ve preached a few, suggesting we have the faith of Abraham. Abraham had enough faith to offer his own son on the altar in obedience to God’s call. We too must give up the most precious thing to us if we are to follow God like Abraham did. Most of us aren’t there! I know i’m not there. But I’m convinced that it’s not what I give up that matters but what God gave up for me, His only son. He did not require Abraham’s son. He was pointing to the fact that what he would not require of Abraham he would do himself. That’s encouraging to me. I like how Guzik said it, “If you despair in knowing you do not have Abram’s faith, take comfort in knowing you have Abram’s God.”¹

¹ David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 11:26–28.

Genesis 11:1 which introduces us the tower of Babel story begins with God’s assessment of the situation on earth. The text says, “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.” The one language enabled corporate potential but they used it to unite against Him.  Guzik observes, “If we accept the Biblical teaching that mankind has a common origin in Adam, then this simply makes sense; that there was a time when humanity spoke one language instead of the hundreds on the earth today.”¹ Verse 4 tells us what they say with this one language, “Let us make a name for ourselves and build our own tower to heaven.” Since this is the first recorded event after the flood apart from Noah it has been suggested that the tower was man’s fear of another flood and they wanted to have security from that if it ever happened again. That, of course, is a complete mistrust of God who promised he would never destroy the world again with a flood as he had in Noah’s day. But i believe the key to understanding what was going on is found in verse 4, “Let us make a name for ourselves.”

If Canaan is the illustrative case of sexual perversion, Babel (Babylon) is the Illustrative case for the pride of man in which he attempts to take God’s place. “Let us make a name for ourselves and build our own tower to heaven.” (Genesis 11:4) Nebuchadnezzar, centuries later, looked at the same territory and said, “Look at what I have built.” (Dan 4:30). Then Centuries later Herod, Acts 12, accepted man’s praise as being a god and not a man. This passage is about what God thinks about our “little Babylonian heart.” We are all tempted to exalt ourselves to the very throne of our lives and displace God. “Let us make for ourselves a name.” Strassner is correct when he observes, “Isn’t that the mantra of our age? It’s why we wear what we wear; why we drive what we drive; why pastors long for the bigger and better church. It is why the Pharisees (like some of us) loved to do their religious deeds—to be noticed by men. Self-promotion is simply the air we breathe in the Western world.”² Francis Thompson wrote a poem many years ago about this. He wrote,

And all man’s Babylons strive but to impart

The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart.³

But God is always paying attention to us. Notice that Vs 5 says, “The Lord came down to see” what man had done. It wasn’t necessary for God to come down, but it struck me as funny that these men who were intending to build a tower to heaven didn’t make anything more noticeable than a toothpick. God had to “come down” to see it. (I think there’s humor in God’s word) Then, in verses 6 through 8, God’s hammer of judgment drops. Their means of corporate identity, the one pure language, is destroyed and ever since man has been unable to globally unite on anything! And the tower came tumbling down! You might say, “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men couldn’t put humpty together again.” I believe that God sending His Holy Spirit in Acts where everyone heard Peter in his own language was God’s way of entering mans “Babylonian heart” and uniting us all to our corporate potential of worship rather than rebellion.

¹ David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 11:1–4.

² Kurt Strassner, Opening up Genesis, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2009), 54.

³ Francis Thompson, “The Heart,” Poems of Francis Thompson (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1941), p. 267.

After a full year at sea, Noah really appreciated the dry ground. I can relate to that somewhat after having served on three different Navy ships and sailing around the world with various port stops. We always loved it when the ship stopped at a port, even if it was just for a quick refueling. The solid ground was a marvelous thing once we got our sea legs back. Noah, however, got a little too intimate with the ground. Genesis 9:20-21 says, “Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.” The story goes on to tell us that Ham, one of Noah’s son, found his father drunk and naked in his tent and ran to tell his brothers. It appears there was a deep disrespect for his father and not a real concern for him so much so that Noah ended up cursing Ham as a result. The other two sons, Shem and Japheth took immediate action to cover their father’s shame.

Ham “uncovered” his father’s “nakedness” and Noah responded with the age old parental curse, “I hope you have a son that does to you what you have done to me!” I’m sorry to say that I can remember my mother saying similar things to me. However, God was in the curse that Noah put on Ham’s son Canaan. Surely, Canaan disgraced his father ham through every generation. Canaan was the father of the Canaanites. They became Israel’s greatest enemy. Kent Hughes observes that, “The Canaanites were a sensually depraved people. Everything the pagan Canaanites did was an extrapolation of Ham’s lurid sensuality. From the moment Abram entered the land, the Canaanites were there spreading corruption… Leviticus 18 describes the degenerate practices of the Canaanites with a litany of euphemisms so as not to offend the reader, employing the word ‘nakedness’ twenty-four times.” Uncovering one’s nakedness in Leviticus was to perform some kind of disgraceful sexual practice.

What a way for the man Noah to end his career! What a shame. Alcohol brings some terrible consequences sometimes. Guzik comments on this and says, “This is repulsive, but not terribly surprising. Many people who get drunk become victims of abuse, sexual and otherwise. 75% of the men and 55% of the women involved in date-rape situations were drinking or taking drugs just before the attack. The FBI says 50% of all rapes involve alcohol.”¹ Guzik continues, “There are more costs to drunkenness. In the United States 100,000 people die each year in alcohol-related deaths, while alcohol abuse costs the nation hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Still, the average American television viewer sees 90,000 incidents of drinking on television by age 21 and 100,000 beer commercials by age 18.”¹

¹ David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 9:20–23.

After his year at sea, Genesis 8:1, tells us the Noah was still on God’s mind. It says, “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.” The flood narrative moves on from the presentation of Noah’s faith and trust in God’s word, to God’s response to Noah’s faithfulness. He “remembered…” In the Bible when God “remembers,” it’s not that something had slipped His mind. It’s a way of introducing God’s actions as they fulfill His promises. God is always “faithful” to the “faithfilled.” God brings the flood to an end, dries up the waters, blesses Noah and his family and sends them out into the big, wide, wonderful world to live life to the full. But God, as usual, does more than He promised. He extends to Noah and the entire creation another special promise, which He has kept to this very day.

With much joy, Noah and his family step foot on dry ground after a year and rejoice together and celebrate with a big feast. I was once at sea for 38 days straight as my destroyer, the USS RATHBURNE made it’s way from Hawaii to the Tonkin Gulf back in 1974. Those were a difficult 38 days. I can’t imagine what a full year at sea would be like. We all knew that dry land existed at the end of our cruise, I think Noah just trusted God for that. But the God who never forgets, took action and brought the rain to an end and raised up dry ground for Noah and his family and all the animals. Noah and his family were elated to say the least and had a party during which they offered sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God. Genesis 8:21 says, “When God smelled the sweet aroma” of Noah’s sacrifice he said, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.” I believe verse 22 is a song. We find several places in the Bible where God is said to sing. Did you know that God sings? The Hebrew text and many of our English translations put this verse as a poem or a song.

While the earth remains,

seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night,

shall not cease.

The situation the reigned on earth before the flood in Noah’s day was not pretty. We had a demonic invasion of sorts. Genesis 6:2 says, “…the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.” Thus we are introduced to what is probably the most debated passage in the Bible. Who are these “sons of God” who had sex and children with the “daughters of man?” Let me begin by saying, “I don’t know.” But I have an opinion (as usual). I believe they are fallen angels. Peter and Jesus’ brother Jude both refer to them during the time of Noah as angels who left their own domains. There are other good reasons to think so. But since angels are spirit beings they cannot procreate. They have to take on the bodies of real men. Thus I see them as Kent Hughes does, “fallen angels commandeering the souls of men (demon-possession, in modern parlance), and these demonized men marrying the daughters of other men.” These became known as the “Nephilim.” The represent the arch-enemies of God and God’s people. The interesting passage is in verse 4. It says, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” The practice continued after the flood it seems and the results of those ungodly unions were the “Anakim.” The giants that occupied the land of Canaan that scared the Israelites away. Goliath was one of the latest of the Anakim that is referred to in the Bible along with his four brothers. They all represent the arch-enemies of God and God’s people. Michael Heiser’s book on the “Unseen Realm” is very interesting on this issue.¹

In this chapter we see two things that serve as preludes to God’s judgment on the earth which comes a few chapters later in the form of a universal flood that wipes out all life except that saved by Noah and his family. The first is sexual perversions as mentioned. The second is violence. It began back with Lamech who is the first bigamist and ended up killing a young boy. Sex and violence! Lamech even bragged about it. As a result chapter 6, verse 5, tells us that “God’s heart was filled with pain.” Genesis 6:6 says, “And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

I remember when Mike Tyson bragged about an upcoming fight. He said he would kill his opponent and that he would do anything because he was a convicted rapist! (sex and violence). By the way, this is the guy who bit off Holyfield’s ear. Sex (not biblical sex) and violence are indeed glorified in our society. Both of them fill God’s heart with pain. Sex is a gift from God and is proper inside the bounds of holy matrimony. That’s what Jesus said. But the sex as we see it displayed and viewed in our society is not a pretty thing to God.

¹ Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 44.