The Nations: Part 1 - 250204

SPEAKER A Hello, I'm Rod Butler. Welcome to Let God Speak. When God created the earth, it was his plan for people to live in eternal happiness and love. However, instead of fulfilling God's plan for them, people fell into the temptation of choosing their own path away from God. In this programme we will examine how nations rejected God and went their own way. Join us as we discuss the outcome of this desire for self government without God. On our panel today we have Cynthia Mafunga and John Kosmeier. Welcome Cynthia. Welcome, John. SPEAKER B Thank you. SPEAKER A Well, before we start our discussion, let's bow for prayer. Gracious Father, as we discuss this topic of the nations choosing their own way, their own path, without you, we ask for wisdom from the Holy Spirit. Please bless us here in the studio. And Lord, please bless all those viewers watching from their homes. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A Well, the book of Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were part of a perfectly created world. Their home was a beautiful garden in Eden. God gave them dominion over all the creation and the desire for self government, first manifested in the garden as a temptation by Satan himself. Adam and Eve believed the lie that by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that they would be like God, they wouldn't die. Tragically, they unleashed sin into the creation, which brought separation from God. Evil became so prevalent that after more than 1650 years, God destroyed humanity with a global flood. The exception was righteous Noah and his family, who were protected on the ark. So Cynthia, my first question is to you. What happened immediately after the flood? SPEAKER C Hmm, that's a good question. So the earth began to quickly repopulate from eight people to a lot more people. And everyone spoke the same language. And we see this in the bible from Genesis 9, verse 1, and it says, so God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And in Genesis 11:1 it says that now the whole earth had one language and one speech. So everyone is speaking the same language and there's a lot more people. SPEAKER A And with that blessing to go forth and be fruitful and multiply. I can imagine there'd be a lot of population very quickly in those early days, rapid repopulation. But humans were still sinners and they had that spirit of separation. They wanted to have their own self government. What eventually happened, John, when you go. SPEAKER B Back To Genesis chapter 10, you find the story of a mighty hunter there by the name of Nimrod. And his name means that he will rebel and rebel he did. He was rebelling against God and he built cities in the plain, the level area of Shinar, modern day Iraq, including Babel. Now Babel, ironically, the meaning is door of God. Hmm. Bible eventually became Babylon and Babylon became the city of Satan and Jerusalem became known as the city of God. SPEAKER A It became a tale of two cities. SPEAKER B Isn't it the story of two cities? Absolutely. SPEAKER A So going back to Nimrod, Nimrod was the great grandson of Noah and he was the son of Ham, son of Cushion, and who was the son of Ham. And Ham went down to Africa and the Kushites were that part of modern day Sudan. So for Nimrod to go to the Plain of Shine, that was a big trip. That was basically up the Nile, then down the Euphrates about 4,000 kilometres. So he must have been a mighty man in those days. So Cynthia, back to you. What was the goal of Nimrod going all that journey to set up these city states. SPEAKER C So the goal was to build a city, a nation that is apart from God, a society that is self governing. See, after the flood, they were terrified that the flood would come again. So they decided to build a big tower, the Tower of Babel, and like John said, the gates of God. They wanted to reach God and keep themselves safe from the flood and also gather together without spreading, as God had commanded in Genesis chapter 9. And we'll find their thought process in Genesis 11, verse 2 to 4, and how they were thinking and why they were building this tower. And Genesis 11, 2, 4 says, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinah and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city, a tower whose top is in heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. So they were in complete defiance of God's commandments to multiply and to spread. SPEAKER A You can see that defiance coming out in those verses, can't you? So John, how did God deal with this approach by the people of Babel to set up their own, their own rule without him? SPEAKER B Very interestingly, he confused their languages. And when they couldn't speak to each other anymore, confusion set in. And the power. The Tower of Babel stopped being built. And as a result, it was never completed. And they ended up going in different ways in their language group. Now, I'd like to add something to the script here as a suggestion, and that is that not only did they find people who could speak like they did, but when they got away, they realised that they were also in different colour groups, which very quickly enabled the world to have the different groups that we have now. SPEAKER A That's a good point. Over time, the nations developed and we have this situation where pagan cultures also developed. So we have, as you say, separation. People wanting to do their own thing. They set up their own culture, their own religions, pagan deities. Cynthia, how did God deal with this? Because at the end of the day, God wants to have his people, but the world's going in a different direction. What did he do? SPEAKER C Yeah. So like you said, God desired to have a people set apart for himself. And so he went and called a man called Abraham. And this was 420 years after the flood. He was a descendant of Shem from the nation of the Chaldeans. And we find this in Genesis, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. And this is the call of Abraham. It says, now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. So this was God's plan. SPEAKER A It's interesting when you look at Abraham. Abraham, he was contemporary with Shem, and of course, Shem being the son of Noah, Noah, he was contemporary with Methuselah. And Methuselah, if you look at the ages, would have known Adam. So Abraham would have only had a few people for oral history to pass down. He would have been quite well informed about God, I'd imagine. John, what was going to be so different about this nation that God wanted to have Abraham lead? SPEAKER B Yes. Other nations, they decided to rule themselves, but God called Abraham to establish a nation that would actually be ruled by God. And when you read Genesis, chapter 12, verse 3, following from what you were reading, verse 3, it says, I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And this is where. Let God rule you and you will have the blessings that God wants to give. SPEAKER A Yeah. And Abraham, obviously were the patriarchs. He had Isaac and Jacob and they went into captivity. I want to read now from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 4, 5, 8. And this is Moses speaking to the Israelites. They're about to go into the promised land. But here's what he said, and this is God speaking through Moses to the people. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither you go to possess it. Keep therefore, and do them. For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say, surely, surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? So from that, what were the conditions because God wanted a nation to be contrasting to those all around the surrounding nations? What were the conditions for God's blessings? Cynthia? SPEAKER C So verse five that you've just read says, even as the Lord my God has commanded you. And then verse 6 says, Keep therefore, and do them. For this nation to be a blessing and a witness to the nations around them, they had to follow the commandments of God to be set apart and to be different. SPEAKER A Very good. And yes, I like that answer, John. How are the pagan nations from this plan to get to know God? How were they to be witness to? SPEAKER B When Abraham followed God and kept his commandments and was richly blessed, then he started to increase in prosperity and all kinds of manner of ways of living, and he was actually a witness to the other nations of how they should live. And it's the third effect of the law. See, the law points out righteousness and it points out sin. But the third effect of it is that when people see people living by the law of God and prospering, then automatically they do the same. And hopefully they'll learn about the God who is to blame for the goodness that they receive. SPEAKER A Yes. So they'll see material blessings, which always attracts people. But when they go and inquire, they will see the joy and happiness in the people's lives. And most people who are looking for joy and happiness, if they see someone with it, they. I'll have what that person has. They're attracted to it. SPEAKER B And one of the things that God blesses them with is peace. And if ever the world needed peace, it is today. SPEAKER A Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So, Cynthia, what if God's people didn't choose to follow the commandments? What if they just, you know, I'll do my own thing again. What would. What would happen? What happened? SPEAKER C Oh, yeah, that's such a good Question. So like we're reading in Deuteronomy 4, verse 9, it clearly states that they were to teach these laws to their children. It was so important. I'll just read that for us. It says, only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen and lest you depart from your heart all the days of your life and teach them to your children and your grandchildren. And this is what the commandments meant. But if they didn't follow them, as we keep reading Deuteronomy, it tells us that if they didn't follow these commandments, they would have curses instead of blessings, and that would be the consequence. SPEAKER A And we get that from Deuteronomy 28, don't we? The blessings and the curses. And that's worth, worth going through. It's very, very powerful. Chapter. Well, moving on. Then we have the children of Israel. They go into the promised land. Then we have this period of more than 350 years of the Judges, and there's the high priest basically ruling, so to speak. And we have at the end of Samuel's ministry, the people are asking for a king. And up until that point they were just following the Lord, he was their ruler. Suddenly they're asking for a king. What was that, John? Why did they do that? SPEAKER B It's very sad, really, but it's recorded here in First Samuel, chapter eight. And I'm reading from the new King James Version, First Samuel, chapter eight, reading verse three to five. But Samuel's sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain. They took bribes and were perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. How sad that when the sons don't follow in the footsteps of their righteous Father, that this happens and it actually made them decide to put God no longer as the head of their nation. SPEAKER A Yes, very, very solemn, Cynthia. What did God say about this request to have a king rather than having God himself? SPEAKER C So we find in 1st Samuel, chapter 8 that Samuel is heartbroken. He's confused. Why are the people rejecting him? But God says this to him in First Samuel, chapter 8, verse 7, in their request for a king. First Samuel, chapter 8, verse seven. And it says, and the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them. How heartbreaking. People didn't realise that ultimately they were rejecting God in their decision to choose an earthly king. And God told Samuel to tell them that the outcome of their choice would be to reject God. And yet they still said they wanted a king. Samuel even went and listed what the king would do, what the king would take away from them. And in the same chapter, 1st Samuel, chapter 8, verse 19, says, nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, but we will have a king over us. So they chose a king. SPEAKER A It's interesting when you go through Samuel chapter eight and look at the things that Samuel warns them would happen. It says that the king would take their sons and daughters, they'd have to work in the military, do all the things, for the king would take their livestock and their horses, their fields. So they were actually unbeknownst to themselves, they were allowing themselves to have all these things taken from them. But they still doubled down, didn't they, as you said in verse 19. And they still wanted to have their king, which is interesting. So did God grant the request, John? SPEAKER B He did, and he allowed them to have a king. But fortunately, God had already given the limiting factors of what a king should and could not do. And here it is in Deuteronomy, chapter 17, starting from verse 14. When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me, you shall surely set a king over you, whom the Lord your God chooses one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother, but he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. For the Lord has said to you, you shall not return that way again. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. You know, I'm starting to read the story of Solomon here also. It shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests and the Levites, and it shall be with him. And he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. Can God make it any plainer? SPEAKER A You see God's mercy. Even though he's been rejected, he's still putting safeguards, checks and balances to protect them in their ignorance of what they've asked for. Cynthia, do we have any examples of the nation of Israel being this great witness to the other nations? SPEAKER C Yes. Yeah, we do. And a good example is the Queen of Sheba, who comes to Solomon in the early days of his reign to see what God has done because he had heard of his fame. And this, we find this in First Kings, chapter 10, and I'll read from verse four until nine. And it says, and when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers and his entryway, by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her. Then she said to the king, it was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However, I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes. And indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceeds the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men, and happy are these your servants who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you setting you on the throne of Israel, because the Lord has loved Israel forever, therefore he made you king to do justice and righteousness. So the Queen of Sheba recognised this as a blessing from God, that Israel had a wise king that had done so much. And yeah, she blesses God for it. SPEAKER A That's an amazing account. But John, what does history reveal when it comes to the history of Israel? SPEAKER B Sadness, not good. They ignored God. They chose their own path. And when you look at the history, you'll find that after Saul, David and Solomon, the kingdom was split into two, the north and the south. And of the northern kingdom, the Bible records that 20 Kings of Israel, that's the northern part, they were all evil. And the southern part, which eventually became known as Judah, 16 of the 20 kings were counted evil. And so Judah and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Babylonians after 345 years of rule by man instead of by God. SPEAKER A Well, just this point about the kings being evil, Cynthia, how important, how much Influence was there on the people from what the king did. SPEAKER C Yeah, very, very important. The influence was. Was very big. It says that as the king goes, so goes the nation. Right? And in second Chronicles 12, verse one, we see an example of that. It says that now, it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself, that he forsook the law of the Lord and all Israel along with him. So when Rehoboam started to go the wrong way, all of Israel followed. SPEAKER A So the spiritual side of the king was vitally important. So if the king didn't follow God, the people followed the king, the nation went that way. But if the king was God, the people would follow God. Very powerful. Tragic sort of example, isn't it, of what happened to Israel that they gave God away for an earthly king, a sinful king to lead a sinful people. I want to read now, turn now to the New Testament. I'm going to read First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 11. And I've got a question for you, John. First Corinthians 10:11 says, now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world have come. Now, this is Paul talking about the children of Israel in the wilderness. But he's saying all these things were examples. Would this apply to the kings as well? Can we learn from what the kings didn't do and they should have done. SPEAKER B Not only to the kings, but to all kinds of Christian leaders? When you go here To Matthew chapter 20, you find the expectation that Jesus has upon our behaviour. And here I am, I'm one of those who's a leader because I'm an ordained pastor. And here Jesus said in Matthew chapter 20 and verse 25 and 26, and Jesus called them to himself and said, you know, that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and those who are great exercise authority over them. It shall not so be so among you, but whatsoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And here God talks to Christianity today to be servant ministers. You minister as servants, not as those who boss and rule over us. SPEAKER A Yes, yeah. SPEAKER B And that's a very high standard. God forgive me. SPEAKER A Well, John, just staying with you. Is this copying of the culture around us a problem for the church today? SPEAKER B The battles that were fought back there are just being fought all over the same way again today. And so it applies very much to the Christian church today. SPEAKER A Yeah, we have that text in John, don't we? It talks about the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Don't love the things in the world. Very, very powerful. SPEAKER B First John, chapter two. SPEAKER A Yeah. And we have this situation where today people make gods out of celebrities. They got gods out of money, out of music. All these things totally take their focus away from the Lord and they focus on that. The popular culture is a big problem. I see. For in Revelation 18, let's just quickly turn to that. Revelation 18. I'm just going to read Revelation 18:4,4. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues. Here is. Here are the people being called out of Babylon. So Cynthia, a question to you. God's people have been called out of Babylon. And as John said earlier, that represents Satan's city being called out. Where do they go? They're called out. Where do they go? SPEAKER C Yeah, yeah, that's such a good question. They're called out of Babylon to unite with and to work with God's faithful remnant. And the Bible tells us a perfect description of who the remnant are and what they look like. And this is found in Revelation chapter 4, 14, 12. And it says, here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. So the remnant keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. SPEAKER A So these folk coming out of Babylon, they're to look for people who have those characteristics or a church which have those characteristics. And if they've got those characteristics, that can be with a they worship where they learn more and so forth. John, just from what we've discussed today about nations choosing their own way, what do you see as being the primary purpose for God's church today? SPEAKER B God makes it very clear in Revelation 12 and you read verse 12, but the verses in front of it give us three things starting from verse 6 of Revelation 14. I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to everyone, every nation, kindred tongue and people. And here give glory to him for the hour of his judgement. Come and worship him. And so that's the purpose that God wants us to do today. SPEAKER A Thank you, John. Well, that's all we have time for today. Well, God. God promoted blessings to his people if they were obedient to his commandments, as we've discussed. But sadly the nations rejected God and went down again a path of darkness. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. And this is not being legalistic. This is something that is a joy because we love God and want to be with Him. Well, we're glad you joined us on Let God Speak. Remember, all our past programmes plus teacher's notes are available on our website 3abnaustralia.org.au. Email us on [email protected] and God bless. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.