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But anyway, let's get into 1 Chronicles tonight. The Book of 1 Chronicles is probably one of the least preached books in the Bible. I've never preached through the Book of 1 Chronicles. And so I'm pretty excited about going through it verse by verse and teaching this. Now, the Book of 1 Chronicles does have a lot of exciting stories. The good news is there are a lot of exciting stories coming up. The bad news is it's coming about two and a half months from now, because of the fact that we're going through one chapter per week. And it's really chapter 10 where the story starts. So chapters 1 through 9 are just names. But in each of these chapters, there are little interesting nuggets mixed in. You know, we've all heard of the prayer of Jabez, right? That's pretty famous. You know, there's a whole book written about that. So I feel like I can at least get one sermon out of that, if that guy got a whole book out of that. So you know, each chapter in 1 Chronicles 1 through 9 has little gems, little nuggets, little interesting things like that. So there's good stuff to preach in all of these chapters. But it really picks up the story starting in chapter number 10. Now, let me just give you a basic overview of what the Book of 1 Chronicles is about. If I had to sum up the Book of 1 Chronicles in one word, that word would be David. Basically, 1 Chronicles is all about David. Now, it starts out with David becoming king, Saul dying and David becoming king. And then it ends with David being ready to die and pass off the scene. So it basically gives us the reign of King David from when he becomes king until he stops being king. So it covers that 40-year period. Now, the Book of 2 Chronicles gives us all of the kings of Judah who followed David. So starting with King Solomon, all the way down through Josiah, and Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim, and going off into the Babylonian captivity. So the difference between Chronicles and kings is that the books of the Chronicles focus on David and his descendants. So they focus on the southern kingdom of Judah. Everything is from the perspective of that southern kingdom of Judah. Whereas the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, they focus more on Israel, the nation of Israel. And they talk a lot more about the northern kingdom. Now, of course Chronicles covers the northern kingdom and Kings covers the southern kingdom. But Kings is more focused on the northern kingdom and what's going on up there. And Chronicles is more focused on the southern kingdom. So if we wanted to have a parallel for the Book of 1 Chronicles, 1 Chronicles pretty much lines up exactly with the Book of 2 Samuel. So if we take 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, those are going to cover the same period of time, the same stories. And then if we took the books of 1 and 2 Kings, those combined cover the period of time in 2 Chronicles. So that just kind of gives you an idea historically of what we're looking at in the book of 1 Chronicles. Now, 1 Chronicles starts out with all these names. And what these names do is they tell us everything about the people and the nations, first on the whole earth, and then specifically the people of Israel, and then specifically the people of the tribe of Judah, and specifically David and his sons. Then we get into the story of David's reign. Then at the end of Chronicles, we have chapters about how David's kingdom was laid out and what David's kingdom was like. So again, the book really ultimately is all about King David and his reign. Now, chapter 1 starts out by just giving us the names of all the people leading up to King David, basically. And again, it takes a few chapters to get through all that. But most of the information in 1 Chronicles chapter 1 is also found in the book of Genesis. And a lot of the other information in these genealogies is found in Exodus and other places. But there are extra details and extra things that are here. And also, 1 Chronicles is kind of just putting it all in one place, in a sense. Just in nine chapters, it's just giving you all the families of the earth and all the families of Israel It's just kind of a one-stop shop for checking out genealogies and figuring out where people came from. So let's go ahead and jump into this, starting at verse number 1, which is a real easy memory verse to memorize, because it's only three words. Adam, Seth, Enosh. Now, the first thing that you'll notice right away, even just from verse 1 here, is how in the book of Chronicles, things are spelled differently than they are when you're reading back in Genesis and older books of the Bible. This is because the book of Chronicles is one of the latest books in the Bible of the Old Testament, that is, because it's one of the books that's written after the Babylonian captivity. So it's toward the very end of the Old Testament that this book is written. Whereas, obviously, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers in Deuteronomy were written by whom? Moses, that's the books of Moses. So those go back to a much earlier period. So why are things spelled different? Why have the names changed? The simple reason is that the Hebrew language changed during that time. Now, this kind of flies in the face with a strange mentality that sometimes people have. They think that Hebrew is some kind of a magical, mystical language, or that it's a heavenly language. Up in heaven, God and his angels only speak Hebrew and all this stuff. And when we get to heaven, we're all going to learn Hebrew. And they think that you have to only read the Bible in Hebrew. There are even some crazy people who claim that the New Testament was written in Hebrew. You know Paul's epistle to the Thessalonicans? It's like, if you're going to send it to people in Thessalonica and you're going to write a book called First and Second Thessalonians, why would you write it in Hebrew when they're Greek people? That wouldn't make any sense, would it? How about the epistle of Paul to the Romans? Does that sound like it was written in Hebrew? How about the epistle to the Colossians, Philippians, Ephesians? Or how about the book of Revelation that sent out to seven churches in Asia, meaning Asia Minor or modern day Turkey, where at the time they spoke what language? Greek. How about Luke when he wrote to a guy named Theophilus? What language do you think he was writing to him in? Obviously, in the book of Acts. Obviously, this is written primarily to a Greek-speaking audience. Now, there are a few books in the New Testament that are made out to the Hebrews, like, for example, the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. Or, for example, the book of Matthew seems to be really geared toward a Jewish audience. But they can still read it in Greek. They still spoke Greek. And so I believe that there's no controversy, there's no question the entire New Testament, all 27 books, was written in Greek. And not only that, but part of the Old Testament's in Aramaic. We just learned about how part of Daniel is written in Aramaic. So Hebrew is not this magical, special language. God can speak in any language. God, at the day of Pentecost, allowed his word to be translated into all tongues by the Holy Spirit himself. God's word can be in Hebrew. It can be in Aramaic. It can be in Greek. And thank God, it can be in English. That's good news for us, since that's our native tongue. Wherein we were born. And so the reason why things are spelled different in Chronicles is because the Hebrew language changed from the time Genesis was written to the time that 1 Chronicles was written. Hebrew changed. Why? Because Hebrew is a language, just like any other language, that changes over time. And throughout the course of the Old Testament, it changed. And then by the time you get to the time of Christ, people weren't even speaking it anymore. It was almost a dead language. Most people in that region spoke Greek and Aramaic. Those were the two big languages around the time of Christ. Greek and Aramaic. And by AD 100, Hebrew had pretty much become a dead language. And Hebrew was officially a dead language from around AD 100 all the way up until the late 1800s, 1882. Now you say, what is the definition of a dead language? Well, a dead language is a language that no one speaks as their normal, everyday, native language. So a lot of people say, well, that's not true. Hebrew wasn't a dead language. The rabbis spoke Hebrew. Well, rabbis speaking Hebrew doesn't mean it's not a dead language. I mean, Catholic priests speak Latin. But it's still a dead language. You know, scholars in India speak Sanskrit. Hindu priests speak Sanskrit. But Sanskrit is a dead language. Why? Because that is no one's everyday, normal language that they roll out of bed speaking. Now, Hebrew became a living language again in 1882 when the first native Hebrew-speaking child was born that was raised by his parents to speak Hebrew in the home. And then after that, a whole generation of Jews put their kids in schools where they only spoke Hebrew all day. And they revived a dead language, Hebrew. And it became a living language once again. And now it is the native language of millions of people who live in Israel and around that region. But it was a dead language for a long time. So Hebrew was born. It lived. It matured. It changed. And then it died. And then it was resurrected again. So the point is, it's not some special language that never changed. Even within the Bible itself, you have variations in the style of Hebrew or in the way things are pronounced and stuff like that. You see, there's a story in Judges where the Ephraimites, they couldn't even make a sh sound. You remember that? To them, it was Sibyleth. Right? But to the people on the other side of the river, it was Sibyleth. So basically, that letter had changed in pronunciation over time for some people, but not for others. So that's why we see here that Seth becomes Sheth. Because it's a different time period. It's a different pronunciation. And Enos, E-N-O-S, is the spelling in Genesis, becomes Enosh. So when you're reading the Book of the Chronicles here, you have to kind of open your mind to the fact that maybe some of these names are spelled a little different than what you're used to. So don't say, well, that must be a different guy. This isn't Seth. This is Sheth. No, that's the same guy. All right, it's just a different spelling. So we got Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahaliel, Jared, Henoch, what's that guy's name? Enoch, right? Enoch, that's the guy who walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. But here, it has an H at the beginning, because the language has changed a little bit there. Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And of course, we know that Adam begat Sheth. Sheth is the son of Adam. Enoch is the son of Seth, and so on and so forth. And then we get to verse four, Noah had three sons. And Noah's three sons are Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So everybody on this earth descends from these three guys, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Because if you remember in the story of Noah's Ark, Noah and his wife and the three sons and their three wives were the only people that survived the flood. Everybody else was wiped out. So therefore, every single person on this planet descends from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now, notice, I didn't say they descend from either Shem or Ham or Japheth, because every single person on this planet descends from all three. So you say, well, that Ham was a squirrely guy. Well, sorry, you're descended from that guy, because of the fact that when these guys got off the ark, it's just them and their wives and their kids. So who do you think they married, their sister or their cousin? They married their cousin. So there were about 100 years between the flood and the Tower of Babel. And for those 100 years, everybody on the earth lived together. So all of Shem's descendants, Japheth's descendants, and Ham's descendants, they all lived together in one city, in one place. And then after 100 years, the earth was divided. And we're going to get to that, actually, in this chapter. Now, when it talks about the sons of Japheth and the sons of Ham, it explains where these different nations come from. That's because when God is reckoning lines of families and kindreds and nations, it goes by who your dad is. It's sort of like today, our children, they take the father's name, right? My children are Andersons because my last name is Anderson. My wife's last name doesn't really come into the picture as far as my descendants. And so they take the name of the father. They're considered to be my lineage and my posterity. And so everything in the Bible is reckoned by the father's line. So the sons of Shem, they could have had a wife of Japheth or a wife of the sons of Ham, their daughters. But it doesn't really matter because it just goes by who your dad is. That's what your name or nationality is considered. So it says here, the sons of Japheth. And then we have a list of names. And then we're going to get into the sons of Ham and the sons of Shem. Now, just to give you a rough outline here, the sons of Japheth basically are going to be your European nations. These are going to be the people who ended up settling in Europe. So basically, just to make it simple, it's white people in general. But here's the thing. We're all mixed. Those of us who are white, we still have a little bit of black and Asian in our DNA because we've mixed over the last many thousands of years. And the same with black people. They're not just purely black all the way back to Ham or something like that. The Asians aren't just purely Asian all the way back to Shem. So the point is that there is mixing. But in general, Japheth is where we get our European nations. Ham is where we get the African nations and some of the Middle Eastern nations. And then Shem is basically the Middle East and Asia. That's just a rough breakdown. And as we go through these names, you'll see that. The sons of Japheth are Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tyrus. And the sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz and Riphath and Tagarma. And the sons of Javan, Elisha and Tarshish, Kitim, and Dodonim. Now, a lot of these names don't really mean a lot to us. But if you study these names throughout the Bible, you'll find that they're in the region of the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. For example, Tarshish is around modern day Spain and the Straits of Gibraltar. Kitim is probably a reference to Cyprus or somewhere around that region, and so on and so forth. Now, one of these guys might stand out to you if you know anything about the history of the Jews and the nation of Israel. And that guy's name is in verse 6, Ashkenaz. Now, have you ever heard of the Ashkenazi Jews? Who's ever heard that term, Ashkenazi Jew? This is the guy where they get their name from, Ashkenaz. Now, here's what's interesting. This guy's a Gentile. This guy's not Jewish. This guy's not even close to Abraham in the family tree, is he? No, Ashkenaz is a son of Gomer. This is where we get the modern day nation of Germany. Would be like Gomer and Ashkenaz and those type of people. So the Ashkenazi Jews are not really Jews that we would think of as being descended from the 12 tribes of Israel as people try to often define Jews, right? Because the real definition of Jew is different than what a lot of people think. The real definition of a Jew is that it is a religion. It is an ideology, whereas a lot of people want to make it into a race. It's not a race. Now, the word Jew has changed meaning over time. In the Old Testament, when the word Jew is first introduced, it actually is referring to a citizen of the southern kingdom of Judah. Because remember, Israel was broken into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. So basically, that southern kingdom of Judah and the Old Testament, the people who live down there are called Jews after the name of the kingdom of Judah. And in fact, the first time Jew is mentioned is 2 Kings chapter 16, where the Jews are fighting against Israel. So there must be a difference between Israel and the Jews. Why? Because Israel is the northern kingdom, and the Jews are the southern kingdom of Judah. Then later on, it became a religion known as Judaism. Once they were scattered throughout all the world, many of them still hung on to that religion that the Pharisees had taught them, the rabbis that Jesus preached so hard against. That wicked religion of the Pharisees that was passed down to them became known as Judaism, so they became known as the Jews, people who follow that religion. Now, in the earliest days of that religion, yeah, most of them were closely related to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of Simeon, perhaps, tribe of Benjamin, things like that. But over time, as they were scattered throughout all nations, there were other ethnic groups that converted to Judaism. So they weren't descendants of the Old Testament patriarchs. They were just white people in Europe and elsewhere, Central Asia. There was a famous group known as the Hazars that converted to Judaism. Large groups of people that converted to Judaism. So over time, you have a lot of basically just white people who say we're Jews. And the reason that they're saying that they're Jews is because they've embraced the religion of Judaism. They've embraced the ideology and culture and traditions of being Jews. It's sort of like we consider ourselves Americans, right? But ethnically, we might originally come from England, or Sweden, or Poland, or France, or Germany, or other places like that. But today, we've just become Americans. And even people today that are black people, Asian people, and they came here, but now they just consider themselves an American. They don't consider themselves necessarily a Kenyan or a Nigerian. They're just an American, right? They've just assimilated into our culture, and they're just a citizen of the United States, right? Well, here's the thing. Over time, if you look at the Jews, they just kept getting whiter, didn't they? The longer they lived in Europe, you know what I mean? They just kept getting whiter. And that's why the Palestinian leader said they left brown and they came back white, OK? Now, this is because today's so-called Jews that have blonde hair, blue eyes, many cases red hair and freckles. They're pretty much just white people whose ancestors hated Jesus and embraced the false religion of Judaism. But what's funny is that the Christian Zionists say, well, hey, God promised these people the land of Israel. God didn't make any promise in the Bible that says, hey, white people who hate Jesus and spit three times every time you hear his name, and read out of the Talmud and the Kabbalah, and wear a funny hat, I got a special land for you. I got some special promises for you. Now, when you preach that, a lot of Christians will say, ah, it's not true. They really are Jews. Those blonde-haired, blue-eyed, redheads, they really are Jews. How dare you question them? OK, show me their genealogy. They don't have one. Ask them what tribe they're from. You know what, they're from the 13th tribe, Ashkenaz. And in fact, even the Jews themselves call Ashkenaz the 13th tribe. They're Ashkenazis. Now, some of the Jews today in Israel of small minority are what's known as Sephardic Jews. Who's ever heard of the Sephardic Jews? These are Jews that had sojourned in Spain, and they're actually darker in skin color. They're actually more closely related to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But they're still mixed, just like we've all mixed over the thousands of years. But they're closer to being a real ethnic Jew if there is such a thing. But you know what the Bible said? Avoid genealogies. And you know why the Bible said avoid genealogies? Because in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. We're all one in Christ Jesus. Red, yellow, black, and white, God has made all nations of the earth of one blood. And we're all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. It doesn't matter who's a Jew or a Gentile. If it mattered, you know what? You'd need to prove that in genealogy. That's why in Ezra and Nehemiah, when they spent 70 years in captivity, 70 years is a long time. And so when people started coming back 70 years later saying, I'm Jewish, you know what they said? Show me your genealogy. And a lot of them are like, I don't have one. And they're like, sorry. And then they're like, I'm of Levi. I'm one of the priests. They're like, OK, which family of the Levites are you from? Well, I don't know. Well, then you can't be a priest then. You're not considered a Levi. I mean, back in the Old Testament, you had to use genealogies to prove what tribe you're from, who you are. That mattered back then. Look, if genealogies didn't matter, why do we have nine chapters of them? They must have mattered at some point. But you know what? You know what? They don't matter at all right now. Now, they do matter to study for theological learning, for instruction in righteousness. All scriptures given by inspiration from God is profitable for doctrine. But you know what this chapter is not for? This chapter is not for you to say, oh, well, I'm descended from that guy, so I'm better than so-and-so. No, that stuff doesn't matter. You know, that is an Old Testament concept. In the New Testament, the only genealogy that matters is whether you're begotten of God. God begat Stephen Anderson. That's all that matters. You know, is God begat your name here? That's all that matters is whether you are born again, whether you're begotten again by the Lord. So anyway, I just want to point that out. Underline that name in your Bible, Ashkenaz, all right? That's the Ashkenazis. And that is associated with modern day Germany, Germanic tribes, the Teutonic peoples. OK, so those are your European nations. Look at verse 8. The sons of Ham, Cush and Mizraim. Now let me point out that word Mizraim, that is synonymous with Egypt, OK? So whenever you see Mizraim, we're talking about Egypt there. So the sons of Ham include Cush, Mizraim, which is Egypt, Putt, and Canaan. Canaan would be the father of the original inhabitants of Palestine before the children of Israel went in there and conquered in the days of Joshua. Remember all the people that were already living there? Those are the Canaanites. And the Bible says the sons of Cush are Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Rehama and Sabtika. And the sons of Rehama, Sheba, and Dedan. Remember the queen of Sheba that came to Solomon? This is that Sheba. And Cush begat Nimrod. He began to be mighty upon the earth. The Bible tells us in Genesis that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord and that he was a mighty one in the earth in the days of the Tower of Babel. Now that leads us to believe, even though the Bible doesn't really give us a lot of information about Nimrod, that leads us to believe that he's probably a bad guy because of the fact that the world was in disobedience at that time, building the Tower of Babel. So if he's a mighty one in the earth, if he's ruling and reigning and he had a kingdom, the Bible tells us, then obviously, if it's a wicked kingdom, he was probably a wicked guy. But what we want to make sure we don't do is get carried away and start making up all kinds of stories about Nimrod. I mean, you could go online and probably spend 100 hours reading up on Nimrod, even though the Bible says barely anything about it. Why don't we stick with what the Bible actually teaches us and not get off on some Nimrod rabbit trail, being a mighty hunter of rabbit trails and trying to figure out everything about Nimrod's life story. The Bible doesn't tell us, and a lot of people have made up a lot of fake stories about Nimrod, because they know that there are people who will read them. So Cush begat Nimrod, he began to be mighty upon the earth. And Mizraim, again, that's who? Egypt, begat Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naftuhim and Pathrusim and Kasluhim. So there's a lot of baby name options in this chapter as well. And of Kasluhim is of whom came the Philistines. So you know what that tells us is that the Philistines are pretty closely related to the Egyptians, aren't they? Because we're talking about sons of Mizraim, and then it says of whom came the Philistines. So there's a relationship there between the Egyptians and the Philistines. And of course, they're not very far apart geographically. Egypt is in North Africa, and it's pretty close to the Middle East, it's very close to Israel on a map. And I encourage you to look at a map and understand the geography of the region where the Bible takes place. It's always good to look at a map and just understand at least the basics of where's Israel, where's Europe, where's Egypt, Bethel and Jerusalem, not the same place, right? You know, things like little details like that. But anyway, verse 13, it says, and Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn. You'll often see that spelled with an S in the Bible, Sidon, his firstborn in Heth, the Jebusite also, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite, and the Hivite, and the Archite, and the Sinai, and the Arvedite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite. Now notice the switch there. First, we were getting specific people's names. This guy begat this guy, like it said in verse 13, Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn. So there's a guy named Canaan and his oldest son is named what? Zidon. And Heth is his next son. But then we don't really know a lot about Canaan's other children because what it begins to do is just give us these ites, the Jebusite, the Amorite, and the Girgashite. So what it's saying is, you know, we don't have an exact family tree for Canaan. We know his firstborn was named Zidon. We know his second son was named Heth. But after that, we don't really know what the genealogy specifically of the Canaanites are. But here's what we do know. We know that these tribes of Canaan, known as the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, these tribes are descended from Canaan. So we know they're of Canaan. We know they're Canaanites, but we don't have their exact family tree because it doesn't really matter because they're all supposed to get wiped out anyway later on in the story. So he just kind of basically tells us, okay, this is where these nations came from without giving us an exact family tree. Isn't that a bummer that we didn't get all the names? We could have got even more names here, but you know, we just have to be satisfied to know that they came from Canaan. So let's move on to Shem, right? Two down, one to go, right? We got through Ham, we got through Japheth. Now look at the sons of Shem, Elam and Asher. Now let me stop and say something about Asher. This is the father of the Assyrians. The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter 11, if you're reading a King James Bible, it tells us that Asher went and built Nineveh. And so Nineveh is the capital city throughout the Old Testament of Assyria. This is where Jonah went and preached against Nineveh, Nahum went and preached against Nineveh. So Assyria comes from this man's name, Asher, and you can see that those words are pretty similar. And Arphaxad, Arphaxad is the father of Abraham, not, you know, not directly, but he's the ancestor of Abraham, I should say. And Lud, and Aram, and Uz, and Ho, and Gethur, and Meshech. And then we get into Arphaxad's family tree, because that's the one that matters the most, because this is the one that gets us into the Israelites. And Arphaxad begat Shelah, and Shelah begat Eber, and Eber were born two sons. The name of the one was Peleg, because in his days, the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. Now let's stop and talk about this for a minute. When we talked about the sons of Shem, we're mainly focusing on Arphaxad, because that's where the Israelites come from, who are the main characters of the Old Testament. But then also we got the name Asher, and we know something about the Elamites, and we know something about some of these people. But you ask yourself, where did the people in India come from? Where did the people in China come from? Well, a lot of these sons that are listed here, we don't really ever hear about again in the Bible. We don't hear about their descendants. So obviously, some of them went to India, some of them went to China, and ended up producing those nations. Now, I wanna stop and focus on this thing about the earth being divided, because it says, in his days, the earth was divided. Keep your finger in 1 Chronicles, let's go back to Genesis, and let's take a look at the story about the earth being divided. The Bible tells in Genesis chapter 10, at the very end of Genesis chapter 10, beginning in verse 31, it says, 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. So what we see in Genesis chapter 10 is a list of nations, and it's basically the same nations that we saw in 1 Chronicles. You know, a lot of the same names are there. Now, if you actually go through and count the nations in Genesis 10, you know what you come up with, 70 nations. It's kind of interesting that it's such a round number, especially since 70 is kind of a significant number in the Bible, there are a lot of sevens and seventies and things like that in the Bible. So 70 is a pretty round number, right? And he lists all these nations, and then he says, these are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations, and by these were the nations in the earth divided after the flood. So what lines were they divided along? They were divided along these lines, okay? Well, what does the Bible tell us in verse one of chapter 11? And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. So when people read this verse, where it says, in his days, the earth was divided, a lot of people take an interpretation that says, that's talking about like the dirt, like the actual soil, the earth, God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called the seas. And they basically believe that earth was like Pangea, and that in that guy's days, the earth ripped apart into continents. That's not true, that's not what happened here. Now you say, well, what does he mean by the earth was divided? Well, what did it say? In verse 32, by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. Verse one of chapter 11, the whole earth was of one language. So when it says the whole earth was of one language, is it talking about the landmass there? Or is it talking about the people? This is like when God so loved the world, the world there is talking about the people. And here when it says the earth was of one language, the earth is the people. And so when it says that the nations were divided in the earth, and then it says in his days, the earth was divided, the earth being divided is talking about the division into nations. Now we know, of course, this happened at the Tower of Babel because at the Tower of Babel, man was trying to build a tower whose top would reach unto heaven. And of course, God was not pleased with that. God wanted them to spread out and fill up the earth and to separate from one another, but they all wanted to be united together. And so what God did was he confounded their languages. He confused their languages. So from one moment to the next at the Tower of Babel, they're working along and they're building this tower and they're working together. And one guy basically looks over at his buddy to ask him, hey, hand me that hammer. And he says like, Chingay watch, I got. That guy's, what in the world? You know? And then, you know, he looks over to another guy and he's speaking another way. So basically just all of a sudden they can't understand each other and you can't live together. You can't work together. You can't cooperate. You can't have unity with different languages. And so God broke up the language. Everybody was speaking one language. It must have been Hebrew. No, I'm just kidding. No, no, no. Everybody's speaking one language and God broke it up and separated out the languages. So, and here's the thing. You know what you'll notice about the languages of this world? Many of them are related to each other but then others are just way different. Way different. Like for example, if you go to Hawaii and look at the language of Hawaii and you'll notice it's very strange because it only has, correct me on this, somebody who's from Hawaii. Is it, what do they have, nine letters? 13? Yeah, it's like eight consonants and five vowels is what they have, right? So they have like eight consonants. I mean, how do you have a language with eight consonants? It's insane. Eight consonants and five vowels? 13 letters? You know, and then we have what? 26 letters. You know, we've got 21 consonants, five vowels. Okay, so that's a big difference, isn't it? I mean, that's just a super different thing. But if you look at all the other island languages all throughout the Pacific, they're the same way. It's just a bunch of M's and L's and N's and H's and it's like, what in the world? Where's the rest of the alphabet? Okay, then there are languages that are tonal languages, right? Like for example, Navajo, which is a native language here in Arizona, is a tonal language. So what a tonal language means is that a word means something different based on the tone you use. So basically there's do, do. Those are two totally different words. Now we use tones in English not to change the definition but to change whether it's a question or a statement. You know, we'll say like, he's going to the store. Or, he's going to the store? So like, ooh, what? Right, so that's how we do tones. We'll go up at the end for a question, right? Or we'll go down or whatever. Well in other languages, they go up and down, it changes the word. It's a totally different word. So these languages have kind of a sing song sound to them, to us. And then if they want to make a question, they don't change their tone, they just use a different word. They'll add a question word. They just, like a word that just means, okay everybody, this is a question. And they'll add that question word. Okay. They'll just make a statement but add in a question word. Okay? So those are just really deep differences. Or how about the clicking languages? We don't have any clicks in our language. But if you look at Indo-European languages, none of them have any clicking that I know of. I've never experienced any clicking languages in Indo-European languages. But the Navos have clicking. And the African languages, many of them have clicking. Zulu, Osa has clicking in it. It's a language by the way, and I didn't click very well. But I tried. And obviously those ones that are just all clicking. Those are really weird. But the point is, there are dramatic differences in language. It's not because they changed over time. You don't just start clicking. And it just, you start. Look, I guarantee you, those people have been clicking ever since the Tower of Babel. There was a guy at the Tower of Babel who was like. And that guy headed for Africa. You know what I mean? He headed for Mongolia and ended up in Alaska and Northern Canada and everything like that. So, you know, the point is, there are some, you know, one guy was making tones. The other guys, you know, there are just some really deep differences in the language. Because these differences literally go all the way back to the Tower of Babel when the languages were just split into dramatically different languages. Now probably a lot of those 70 language streams have died. Some of them merged. Because some people adopt someone else's language over time. And eventually, you know, languages change. They die, they're born. You know, think about how Latin has turned into a bunch of languages now. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and so forth. So, French. So the point is that God divided the earth in the days of Peleg into these different nations through language. Through miraculously changing the languages like that. Now, what's interesting about that is that tells us when that happened. Because we can see when that guy Peleg was born. Go if you would do First Chronicles chapter one. And since we know that he was born just a shade over a hundred years after the flood, that tells us that the story of the Tower of Babel and the languages being split happens a hundred years after the flood. Now, if we do the math that I did in my sermon, the Age of the Earth. I just did a sermon, what, a month and a half ago called the Age of the Earth. And I went through and calculated it. And there's a lot of bad information out there. A lot of charts that are wrong. But I went through and I proved everything from the Bible. You can check my work on that. And if you actually follow the Bible and study it out the way that I laid out in that sermon, you'll see that the flood happened around 2600 BC. A lot of people have that off. The years are off on that. They have it too late. But it's around 2600 BC is when it actually happened. That would mean that the nations were split around what year? 2500 BC, about a hundred years later when Peleg is being born. And here's the thing about that. If you even read secular history books written by atheists and those who reject the Lord, here's what they'll tell you. Hey, civilization begins around 2500 BC. And it doesn't matter whether you're studying India, whether you're studying China, whether you're studying Egypt, whether you're studying Mesopotamia, no matter where in the world you're studying, you can only trace a concrete history back to 2500 BC, period. And of course, some of them have fantastical stories. We've been here for 10,000 years. We've been here for 5,000. There are two types of history. There's the history that people tell about themselves. And then there's the history that other people tell about them, right? Those are two types of history. There's us talking about ourselves and other people talking about them. Now, when people talk about themselves, that's not usually the most reliable way to learn about people. Like if you wanted to learn about someone, you don't just ask them, you ask the people who know them. You ask their parents, you ask their brothers and sisters, you ask their church friends and people that know, right? They could tell you a little, why? Because everybody will sing their own praises, won't they? And a lot of people lie too, don't they? But if you can get a lot of independent witnesses to tell you something, then you can know something true. So if you ask the Navajos where they came from, they might tell you, hey, we're on our fourth world. We've passed through three other worlds and we're living in the fourth world right now and they'll tell you about changing woman and all the different mythology and things like that. But then if you ask someone else where the Navajos came from, like somebody who's studied the history, they'll tell you, hey, they migrated down from Northern Canada 400 years ago. And before that, they came over from Asia and they're related to people in Mongolia and so forth. So the point is, you can't just trust the Hindus when they tell you, oh yeah, we've been here for a million years or whatever. If you actually study reliable history, written records, actual stuff that can be verified, even a secular historian will tell you that goes back to 2500 BC. Isn't it interesting that civilization starts all over the world at the same time, around 2500 BC? Why? Because that's when they spread out from the Tower of Babel and started founding these different nations and civilizations. And you know what? They founded some very advanced civilizations. If you look at the civilizations of 2500 BC, 2000 BC, and that time period, they were pretty advanced. If you look at, for example, the Indus River Valley, civilization of Northern India, which is from around 2000 BC, I don't know exactly when it's from, but around that time, as best as they can estimate. I mean, these people had sewer systems, they had plumbing, they had things that were pretty advanced I mean, they lived a pretty civilized life. They lived a clean life as far as sanitation and so forth. They weren't just saying, ooga booga, and running around the jungle like a caveman, okay? And this is why evolution makes no sense. Because evolution teaches, oh yeah, mankind, for just tens of thousands of years, was just running around saying, ooga booga, doing nothing, building nothing, accomplishing nothing, achieving nothing, and then all of a sudden, all at once, he's just building these gigantic structures, building cities, building walls, aqueducts, pyramids, Stonehenge, just all this super advanced civilization. And if you look at the ancient languages of 2000 BC, 1500 BC, these languages are more complicated than our language. Now, wouldn't they be just, ooga booga, me, me make fire, me like you, you know? Wouldn't it be a simple language if you were just learning how to talk? It'd be like a baby talk. No, no, no. Actually, the languages back then are more complicated because the people back then were even smarter than we are. Because we're not evolving, we're devolving. I don't believe in evolution, I believe in devolution because we're all going to the devil as a society. It's devolution, the world's going to the devil, the hell in a handbasket. So the point is that the evolution model doesn't make any sense. Oh, people just kept getting smarter and whatever, and then all of a sudden, boom, they're just building all these amazing structures. We don't even know how they built the pyramids, for crying out loud. And don't even say it was aliens. So then, you know, but if you follow the Bible's model, it makes sense that all these super smart people that got off the ark and they're building the Tower of Babel and they're living to be hundreds of years old, they're very intelligent, very smart people, they spread out and founded all these great civilizations all over the world. Whether it's in China, India, Mesopotamia, Europe, wherever, all at the same time, 2500 BC, just like the Bible teaches. So that actually makes sense. Anyway, I got to hurry up, I'm just about out of time. But it goes on to give some nations of Sheth here, Joktan, Begat Elmodad, and Shelef, and Hazar Maybeth, we're in verse 20 of 1 Chronicles 1, Hadorum also, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Ebal, and Abimeel, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab, these were the sons of Joktan. If you look up Ophir and Havilah, you know, those are places that the Bible mentions from time to time, not really that central to the story of the Bible though. Then in verse 24, we have a little bit of a review here. Okay, this is just giving us the direct lineage. Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah. So this picks up where verse three left off, right? Because verse three was like, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, right? Now we're going to pick up with Shem in that chain. It goes, Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Sarach, Nahor, Terah, Abram, the same as Abraham. So that gets us all the way from Adam to Abraham, right? If we take verses one through three, and then we take verses, and part of four, and then we take verses 24 through 27, that gets us to Abraham. And then it tells us the sons of Abraham are Isaac and Ishmael. These are their generations. The first born of Ishmael, Nebaioth, and Kedar, Avdiel, Mipsam, Mishma, and Dumah, Massa, Hadad, and Temah, Jeter, Naphish, and Kadima. These are the sons of Ishmael. Now the sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine, she bears Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shewa, and the sons of Jokshan, Sheba, and Dedan. Then it gives us the sons of Midian, and so forth. Now what's this Keturah, and this concubine, what does that mean? Well the word concubine literally means a woman that you sleep with. This is someone that you cohabit with, a woman that you lie with. That's what that word literally means. So a lot of times in the Bible, I think what this is referring to is when someone has what we would call like a common law, or a live-in girlfriend, but it's not really his wife, it's just his concubine. So basically they're in a long-term relationship, but they're not married. And obviously this is not right, okay. But other times in the Bible, the word concubine will be used for a wife that is of a lesser status, okay. Because if you actually look up this story back in Genesis 25, Abraham doesn't have Keturah until after Sarah dies. Because Sarah's his legitimate wife, right, Abraham and Sarah. And of course he commits sin by taking Hagar and producing Ishmael, okay. But then after Sarah dies, he basically, this is the exact wording, I wanna give you the exact Bible wording. It says he took Keturah to wife after Sarah died. He takes Keturah to wife. But then in the next breath in Genesis 25, it calls her his concubine. So what that could mean is that, well, he took her to wife, but they weren't really actually technically legally or officially married, so it's a concubine. That's one interpretation you could take. Or you could take the interpretation of, well, he did actually marry her, because it does say that he took her as a wife, but he didn't want to basically put her on par with Sarah, his first wife. So he gives her the lesser status of being considered his concubine. So whichever way you wanna interpret that. But a concubine is definitely a lesser status than being a wife. But I believe that most of the time, concubine is for sure referring to someone who's just, they're not married. But it could also refer to a wife of a lower degree or status. So the children of the concubine, you know, the Bible says that Abraham sent them away when he was an old man in his lifetime, and he sent them to go live in the east. He gave them gifts, he took care of them financially, but he didn't want them to inherit with Isaac. He wanted Isaac to inherit the promised land and Isaac to be the one who was the chosen to produce Israel and that nation. So he sent them to the eastern country. And some of these countries would later become enemies of Israel, right? Because if you remember the Midianites, that's an enemy that comes up in the book of Judges. And that's one of the sons of Keturah. And then after that, it talks about how Isaac had two sons, Esau and Israel at the end of verse 34 there. And of course, Israel is also known as Jacob. Then the rest of the chapter just lists off for us the sons of Esau. And then it gives us all the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel, according to verse 43. So it lists the sons of, the whole rest of the chapter is the sons of Esau, the kings of Edom, and the dukes of Edom, all right? That's what rounds out the chapter. Now chapters two through nine are all gonna deal with Israelites, okay? So basically the purpose of chapter one is like to tell us about everything except Israel. These are all the families and the nations and the peoples besides Israel, because in chapters two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine, it's all gonna have to do with the children of Israel. Because that's really what matters to us, right? I mean, when we're studying the Old Testament, that's definitely what matters to the chronicler here. That's definitely what matters to the Lord as far as the history of his people in the Old Testament. And remember, what's the one word that sums up the book of 1 Chronicles? David, it's all about David. It's about the reign of David. David is an Israelite. David is of Judah. So that's what the bulk is about. Chapter one just covers everything else except for that. So that's why we don't get into Israel's genealogy until chapter two, verse one. Look at chapter two, verse one. These are the sons of Israel. And then we begin to talk about Israel's descendants. But everything else is caught up in chapter one. The only point that I wanna make in chapter one before I close is that it says in verse 43, now these are the kings that reign in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel. Now, why did they have kings in Edom before they had kings in Israel? I'll tell you, because nothing in the Bible is by accident. Why is God bringing that up? Why is that point repeated in Genesis and here? Because of the fact that God did not intend them to have a king. God's original intent was that he would be their king. The Lord would reign over them directly as their king and that they would just have judges ruling them, but not a king. But if you remember in 1 Samuel chapter eight, they rebel and say, give us a king that we may be like all the nations. We wanna be like everybody else. We wanna keep up with the Joneses. Give us a king. And he tells them, you don't want a king. It's gonna be bad. You don't want a big government, minimal government. They're like, no, give us a king anyway. And the Lord says, you're rejecting me as king. Basically what you're doing. You're rejecting my perfect will. But he gives in and gives them their king, Saul. He doesn't pan out. So it eventually goes to David and David becomes a great king and it turns into a great nation. In spite of not being in God's perfect will, it's a permissive will to allow them to have a king. But the king was not the intention. That's why Edom, they went down that road first. Why? Because Edom was not as godly of a nation as Israel. So they took that wrong path of setting up a king over them sooner. Now in America, we don't have a king. Isn't that great? We used to have a king. But ever since 1776, we don't have a king anymore. Because we got rid of the king of England and with the declaration of independence. And you know what? I believe that it's better that we don't have a king. I don't wanna have another king until it's Jesus. Amen? All right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord. And I pray that people would not be intimidated by the book of 1 Chronicles, Lord, but that they would come to church and learn your word and understand the Bible, Lord. We need to know these things so that we can understand all the truths that are just sometimes on the surface in the Bible and sometimes that are hidden away and deep in the pages of the Bible, Lord. Help us to keep reading and keep studying and keep learning, Lord. And we just pray that you'd bless us and our church and help us to reach as many people as we possibly can with the gospel and also with all the other things that the Bible.