Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 2 * PART 1 * BOOK 3
BABEL: FALSE GODS
GENESIS 9:1 – 12:1-3
Good evening and again it’s good to have everybody back and we’re going to pick right up where we left off, so if you’ll be turning in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 8 and then we’ll be ready to go into chapter 9. We would encourage you to study right along with us.
All right, let’s turn to Genesis chapter 8 and in just a few words of review, you remember that from Adam until the flood was about 1650 years. That’s a long time. And in that 1650 years we come from the perfect couple all the way down to a planet filled with people and I’m of the opinion that there were probably as many at the time of the flood as there are on the planet today, possibly even more. They had a tremendous technology, but you want to remember in that 1600 and some years, there was no civil government. There was no organized worship. And as far as we can see from Scripture, there wasn’t “religion.”
Now I think most people realize I don’t like that word. But, sometimes we have to use it for lack of a better one. But as a result then of no civil law per se, no government to maintain law and order and no system of worship to really maintain a relationship with God, we find that by the time you get to Genesis chapter 6, the earth is filled with violence. It’s corrupt.It is rotten to the core and God sees there’s only one remedy and that is to just utterly destroy them.
But then we found that God’s grace was still evident, there were eight souls that He was able to save and bring to the other side of the flood. There was Noah of course, and his three sons and their wives. Now that’s quite a commentary on how far the human race can remove themselves from any relationship with God even in a period of only 1650 years. And I think we’re seeing much the same thing taking place in our own day and time.
How rapidly we’re seeing the human race and we’re seeing the very fabric of what we call Christian society falling apart and even as Jesus said, “as it was in the days of Noah, so it would be at the second coming.” And for those reasons plus many, many others, we certainly do feel that we’re approaching the end-time rapidly.
And then in our last study you remember, we explained that the flood was not just a simple rising of rain water and a quiet flooding of everything, but rather it was tumultuous; it was cataclysmic! It was so fantastic that the whole planet erupted instantaneously to such a degree that all of the evidence of that pre-flood civilization has been all but totally removed. Now we have the fossil record of course, but other than that, it has been completely removed from the scene and then last week as we saw the floodwaters, begin to recede and finally new life appears and God instructs Noah now to leave the Ark and remember I told you that they didn’t go out the door. The door had been shut previously by the Lord Himself, and so Noah removed the roof, or the “covering” of the Ark and they went out through the top.
And then as we wound up our last half-hour in the final verse of chapter 8, we see that now it’s a completely different earth. It’s a different climate. And rather than having one climate of one spring-like temperature with no weather, and the beautiful environment of that pre-flood civilization, now it’s a complete change. And the earth is now going to come under weather. It’s going to come under climatic changes as we understand now the four seasons.
Genesis 8:21b-22
“I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” And I think possibly from a scientific point of view, that’s when the Lord instigated then the tilting of the earth as we go through our seasonal changes. That’s only speculation of course, the Bible doesn’t tell us.
Now we come into chapter 9 we want to keep moving on as quickly as we can. And yet I always like to explain to people the reason that I take Genesis so slowly and so in detail is that if you have a good solid understanding of the book of Genesis, then the whole New Testament is more readily understood. Now we’re living in a time when we’ve got all these various groups and they’ve all got their various ideas and their various doctrines. And many times I’ve told people, well analyze what you believe. Does it fit all of Scripture? Or are you just taking a verse here and a verse there and then building doctrine on it? Because if you’re going to have a doctrine that is true to the Word of God, it has to fit from cover to cover.
We have absolutely no options that we can pick and choose and that’s what I try to show people as I teach, that we’re using the whole Scripture and making it fit and that nothing is out of place, hopefully. But, we’re going to take our time and we’ll still be in Genesis for a little longer.
In fact a class that I started just exactly a year ago, we just finished the book of Genesis last night. So it was twelve months with two-hour classes once a week to go through the book of Genesis. So I think here on this program, we’re doing quite well. And of course it’s because we’re not being interrupted with questions, although I miss that. I like, and those of you who are in my other classes, you know, that we love to answer questions. And again, I can direct that to our TV audience. If you have questions we would appreciate hearing from you and I always tell my classes, I’ve never had a dumb question. If it’s a question on your mind, then it’s a good one. And it’s worthy of time to answer. But hopefully as we go through the Bible we’ll answer many questions that you might have.
The question about salvation comes up often. Have I believed what the Word says about my salvation? Well we might stop for a moment and answer that right here. As most of you know, God gave the Apostle Paul our instructions in this Age of Grace we’re now living in. (Acts 9:15, Romans 11:13, Ephesians 3:2) Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:1-4 for us to be saved “that we must believe that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again,” plus nothing else. That is called faith + NOTHING! And God loves it when we rely totally on what he has done for salvation. Now for our study in Genesis chapter 9 and we’ll begin with verse 1.
Genesis 9:1
“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said unto them, Be fruitful, multiply, and (what’s the word?) replenish the earth.” Now you remember way back in Genesis 1, and this is why I like to compare Scripture, come back with me again if you will to chapter 1 and drop down to verse 28. This is just after Adam and Eve have been created and placed in the Garden and they too are given a like instruction.
Genesis 1:28a
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and (what’s the word?) replenish the earth….” And are you getting the drift? Just as surely as Noah is now coming on the scene and filling up the planet that had been filled once before, that’s why I feel that Adam and Eve also then, were coming on the scene and refilling the planet, not that it hadn’t been inhabited by humans previously, but evidently by an angelic kingdom but Adam also was told to once again fill up the earth or the planet.
All right, now if you’re back in Genesis chapter 9, this is also the instruction to Noah the three sons and of course their four wives. “Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth.” Fill it up again. Verse 2, now I’ve got to emphasize, this is going to be what we would say in today vernacular, a whole new ballgame. This is going to be totally different than it was back before the flood and if you’ll remember we could have said the same thing when Adam and Eve came out of the Garden to the existence out of the Garden. It also was a whole new ballgame – something totally different. All right here it is again, now he says to Noah and these sons, we’re going to set down a whole new set of rules and regulations, a new criteria. And what is it?
Genesis 9:2-3a
“The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air and upon everything that moves upon the earth, upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand (He says to Noah and these three sons) they are delivered. 3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you;…” Now the King James uses the word meat, but it would be better translated ‘food’ because the word meat in the old English meant your general diet of food, and not just meat as we understand it. So, everything in God’s creation God is now giving permission to be food for the human race, but He’s going to put a stipulation on it. And here it is in verse 4.
Genesis 9:4
“But the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, you shall not eat.” Now there is a strict command of God to the human race that even though He’s given permission – they can eat of anything and everything, they were never to partake of blood. That has never been rescinded. That is still just an anathema even in the New Testament.
Now it’s interesting to note, that like almost everything else that God commands in one direction, the powers of Satan always come back and say what? The opposite. Now here is a good one, it’ll make you think. God has commanded that the human race never ingest blood of anything. And yet you get into the satanic cults and satanic worship, what’s one of the first things they demand? Drinking blood as part of their ritual. And that just should wake people up that that is in direct opposition to the command of the Creator. All right, now I want to get back to a little bit I skipped back there in verse 3 that emphasizes the change – now they can eat of meat animals. And remember before the flood they never had that permission.
Again let’s go back to chapter 1, we’ve got to compare back and forth, it’s the only way you can learn to study and as I’ve told my classes over the years, the only reason I go to all the trouble and take the time to teach, is to show people how to study. I’m not a proselyter. I have never tried to convince someone to move from one group to another, or from one church to another. That’s not my business, but what I do try to do is get people into the Book and show them how to study on their own.
All right, back in chapter 1 now then, by comparison with Genesis chapter 9, God told Adam and Eve, verse 29:
Genesis 1:29b-30
“…I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. 30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so.” Now what was the diet then of every living thing including man? Those things that grew naturally, the herbs. The fruits. The nuts. The grasses. The forages. There was no indication here of anything having the freedom to kill and eat.
Now, in chapter 9 this is all part of this whole new program. Now it’s just the opposite. God said anything that liveth, you are free to kill and use for food, with that one restriction. You cannot have the blood of it. All right, the reason behind it of course, as the Bible knew way back here and medical science really didn’t get the impact of it until WWII, those of you who are old enough to remember that even as WWII began, what did they use in badly wounded troops? Well not blood transfusions but what? Plasma. And then all of a sudden, they began to realize that life was in the blood.
I always like to remind people as well, you go back to even the early days of our country, what was the number one way of treating most disease? They’d bleed them. In fact, someone told me, I don’t know how much truth is in it, that was really what caused the death of George Washington. He had gone to what we now call barber shops, you remember that’s why you’ve got the red and white pole out in front of a barber shop, because that was part and parcel of their trade. They would bleed people hopefully to bring them back to health. And evidently according to, like I say I don’t know how much truth is in it, but someone said that this is what happened to George Washington. He was sick and someone just bled him a little bit too much.
But anyway medical science didn’t pick up on this until our generation that life is in the blood and now rather than take blood from a sick person; we transfuse them with more blood.And all that just to show that the Bible is so scientifically correct. So God says, the life is in the blood and then verse 5, He continues why He’s putting this stipulation on this.
Genesis 9:5-6
“And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, at the hand of man; and at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6. Whoso (or whoever) sheddeth man’s blood, (or kills him) by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” Now that puts man head and shoulders above anything else in God’s creation because we were created in the image of God and God so ordained that the life of this human being is in the blood. Now of course it carries through in all the animals and birds and everything, I know that. But God is putting a stipulation on the human being as not being cheap, but rather that this human being’s life is of intrinsic value to God.
Now we know there are many areas of the world where life is cheap. They think nothing of killing people by the hundreds or the thousands, in fact, we’ve seen it quite profusely over the last several years, first in the Far East – the killing fields of Cambodia and Viet Nam and now we’ve seen it again in the Middle East and this is nothing new of course to the human race, but this isn’t the way God ordained it. God ordained that man was to be of intrinsic value. His life was not to be taken lightly. And if someone did take the life of a fellow human being, what was the stipulation? That individual also then must be put to death by his fellow man.
Now we call that in the vernacular of Bible study, the instigation, or the beginning or human government. In other words, before the flood, man didn’t have this authority from God to control the behavior by capital punishment, or incarceration in prison or anything else. But now God is instituting that man would have authority over fellow man, under God.And that if man was guilty of murder or of some other crime, then the authority of human government was to take that person and deal with them accordingly. Now that particular aspect and we call it, capital punishment, has never been rescinded throughout Scripture.
Now there are some things of course, that have changed, but this has never been rescinded. It still stands as God’s law for the human race and of course, mankind and if there are sociologists listening to me, they’ll probably almost go into orbit, because you know they’re trying to tell us that capital punishment is barbarian and it’s just not fit for civilized society. But what has caused our problem? Why is crime increasing every day? I just read in yesterday’s Tulsa World that crime jumped what? Something like 27% again the last year? Why is it jumping? Because we are not deterring it with a severe enough punishment.
Now in the few moments that we have left let’s go back to the New Testament, because after all this is why we study is to compare, as I said earlier, all of Scripture with Scripture. Go back with me to Romans chapter 13 and now Paul writing to the church, and to the church at Rome in particular, but of course to the church down through the ages. Now in Romans 13, Paul is laying out so clearly the role of government. We in America are blessed aren’t we? We think that we have the best government that the world has ever known. And it’s got its weaknesses. It has its problems, no doubt about it, but still it’s the best that the world has ever seen. And we’re not to take advantage of it but rather we’re to recognize what a blessing good government is.
Romans 13:1
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, (now that higher powers is not talking about God, it’s talking about government – the authority over us in society) For there is no power (there is no government) of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” A Saddam Hussein? Yes. Why? Because certain things had to happen and they have happened because God has ordained it to come in the way it has.
Personally, I think this war that has just ended – the hundred hours – might very well have been a fulfillment of Jeremiah 50 and 51 where the prophet describes the total annihilation of the nation of Babylon, which of course, Saddam claims that he is. And he wanted to be another Nebuchadnezzar. But, a Hitler? Ordained of God? Yes.
And I’ve always said, and you know the German people got just exactly what they deserve and then horror of horrors, maybe you saw in on the news this morning and I read it in one of the newspapers yesterday, where now circulating amongst the young people again of Europe, did you see it? Video games, not tapes but games, where the player of the game actually is the head of a concentration camp and the game is registered on how they can put their subjects to death and how much they can make them suffer.
Now you see, this is all getting the world ready again for some awful things that are coming upon human society, but the government has been ordained of God for the good of Christian people. Now many time governments are not that, but again like I’ve just said, nations get what they deserve. And if someday we lose our beautiful democratic way of living, it will probably be because we’ve brought it on ourselves with poor choices.
Romans 13:2-3a
“Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, (that is the government) resists the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive unto themselves condemnation. 3. For rulers(government) are not to be a terror to good works, but to the evil.” In other words, when you meet a local policeman, he shouldn’t strike terror in the heart of the law-abiding citizen. Rather he should be almost complementary. But what should he be to the law-breaker? Just that. It should make that law-breaker just skip a heartbeat, because this is the reason that they’re there.
Romans 13:3b-4
“…Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? (or respect it?) do that which is good, (or which is right) and thou shalt have the praise of the same; 4. For he (the local government) is a ministry of God to thee for good. But if you do that which is evil (or you’re a law-breaker, you’d better be what?) you better be afraid; (that government should strike terror into the law-breaker) for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him who (what?) does evil.” Or is a law-breaker. And we’ve lost that. Our young people seemingly have lost that fear for the authority. Our criminals, they can let them out in a matter, I think I read it again the other day, in an average of eight months, some 70% if I read correctly, are back in. Why? Because they have no fear of it. And this is the only thing that holds the fabric of society together.
And this is what we call then, human government, and if you want to go back to Genesis for just a moment we have left – human government was to maintain law and order; it was to protect the lives of the citizens; and the deterrent for crime and murder in particular, God instituted capital punishment. And any nation that practiced capital punishment had a real low crime rate until they removed it. And I think the last, most visible example is the nation of France.
Up until sometime in the 70’s France believe it or not, still used the old guillotine to execute murderers. You know how many murders they had in France? You could just about number them on one hand. But you see again, they said, oh that’s barbarian, that’s something from the Dark Ages and so they outlawed it. What do you suppose happened? Their murder rate when up just like everybody else’s. So no one can tell me that capital punishment is not a legitimate deterrent to murder or to major crime.
So again, come back to Genesis chapter 9 and see clearly and do not forget what the Word of God says on these things because the Word is true. I stand on it from cover to cover. Make no apology for it. And so, here it is again the stipulation that “Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood by man (that is by man’s human government) shall that person’s blood be shed(he shall be put to death) for in the image of God he made them.”