Last week we talked about the division of conscience. And it was the period of time from the fall to the flood. It was after Adam and Eve sinned. And at this point, obviously, they know good and evil. They knew they were naked. We talked about that and the shame. And they knew that there is a God that they're accountable to. And we saw last week that during that time period from the fall to the flood, God spoke to Cain, He spoke to Enoch, He spoke to Noah, and we didn't have any written Word from God, but we had those three accounts of God speaking to man. We also learned that our conscience can't save us, but our conscience can do what? One of you young people remember from last week. Slip your hand up. What can our conscience do? It can't save us, but it can convict you. It can convict you. And the conscience, that division or that dispensation, if you will, was a pre-flood dispensation. And we don't have any mention from innocence. We talked about that in conscience. We don't have any mention of families. We don't have any mention of tongues or nations or countries where there's ruling and governing. Obviously, Adam and Eve were the first family. But we're moving now into some more truth as we come into Genesis 9. And up until this point, the only thing that was governing man was his individual conscience. Up until Genesis 9, that was all they had was their conscience that God gave them and then past experience. So they can recall what happened in the garden. But they didn't have any other governing force down here on earth. It was just their conscience from the fall to the what? To the flood, that's right. Alright, now let's look at Genesis 9. Genesis 9, verse 20, and we'll all read that together. Genesis 9, let's read verses 20 to 22. Nice and loud. Alright, here we go. And Noah began to be in husbandmen, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without." Wow. So, here's what we've got. Noah steps off the ark. He plants a vineyard. The first guy to run his own moonshine outfit. Right? And he's drunk. And his own sons have to see it. Now, let me just stop and go back to what we talked about last week. God's definition of nakedness in the Bible. I doubt Noah was laying there without his loins on. My guess is that he was probably just a bare-chested man, drunken, and his sons come in with him. Now, the text doesn't say that, but given some of the other defining ways we look at how God defines nakedness for parts of the body, that's what I think that has happened. Nonetheless, he's naked and he's drunk, and he steps off the ark, and guess what abounds? Once again, sin. In the garden, in a state of innocence, that couldn't save a man. Sin abounded. God gave man a conscience, and so after the fall from the flood, his conscience could be his guide. Could that save him? No. Man fell again. Both times, God has to step in. And so now, God has to find a way. He doesn't have to find a way. He knows a way where man is going to be governed. And this is where we have the division of what's called human government. So everybody say that. Human government. So we've got three divisions so far in our Bible. Everybody say, innocence, conscience, human government. Alright, let's flip the page to Genesis 10. Human government is a post-flood dispensation, meaning after the flood. Now, let's look at some of the words we'll start to see now. Verse 1 in Genesis 10. Hannah, can you read that nice and loud? Genesis 10, verse 1. Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Hanan, and Jacob. And unto them were sons born after the flood." Everybody see that? After the flood. So now we're in a post-flood dispensation or division. And now look at v. 5. Hannah, can you read that verse nice and loud? V. 5, "...by these were the isles of Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families and their nations." Perfect. Very good. So the Gentiles, everybody say, see that word? Divided. Say that. Divided. Divided. And this is the first time now we see these phrases come up. Everybody say tongue. Say families. Nations. We don't even have armies or kings. All that comes into play after the flood has happened. Look at Genesis 10.32. And Wilder, can you read v. 32, the last verse of chapter 10? Perfect. Very good. Again, the key words we see. Everybody say, families. Generations. Nations. All of this is post-flood stuff. And we see these terms being mentioned for a reason because there's going to be some governing. Who is the head of the home? The man. The Father is the head of the home. He is responsible before God for what He did. Will, his kids and his wife aren't responsible before God on how the home went. But Will is. He is the one, you are the one, I am the one that's responsible. In other words, God says the husband, the man of the house, he is to be the one that leads that home. That's right, Paisley, amen. That's right. And God is going to hold us men responsible for what we taught our children, for how we dealt with our wife, how we ruled our family. Human governance is into play. Look at Genesis 11 now. And let's all read verses 1-4. Genesis 11. Let's read the first four verses together. Alright, here we go. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven. And let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." How about that? Look at verse 4. Let's read. where after it says, top may reach unto heaven. Let's read up to the comma together one more time. And let us make us a name. Young people, let me hear you nice and loud read that. And let us make us a name. Bad move. Bad move. This was their downfall. And it will be our downfall if we don't heed this truth. When man wants to make a name for himself, it's going to be a mess. I'm a self-made man. That man's ruined. I am self-sufficient. Really? You're not relying on God to supply all your needs? That man is going to make a mess. And that was the problem. And you know what? They were united, all right. What were they united in? Themselves. Themselves. That's right. They were united in themselves. Self-exaltation. And the group came together and said, you know what? Let's go to a Tony Robbins seminar so we can have a great self-help. We can all help ourselves be better. That's what all that stuff is. That's why they're called self-help gurus. Self-help gods. Why? They're going to tell you the same thing that they were being told by themselves and their friends in Genesis 11. Do what you want. And they tried to get to God. They tried to get to heaven. on man's self-made works. And God just squashed the whole thing. Bad news. Better to unite in obedience around God's Word rather than to unite in rebellion against what God told them to do. And if God tells you to build an ark, which He didn't. He told Noah that. Noah was obedient. But if God tells you to go and replenish the earth, and I want you scattered and dispersed, and you say, no God, I'm going to stay here and build something I want to build. Young people, this is probably the only time you can use this word. Repeat after me. That's a dumb idea. That's a dumb idea. Don't call your brother dumb. Don't call your sister dumb. What they did was just a downright dumb idea. They united in rebellion against the will of God, rather than uniting in unity around the Lord. Now, Aidan, Lillian, Walter, Josiah, Hannah, young people, you're better off uniting together in unity and obeying what your mom and dad want. rather than devising a little scheme on your own to do what you want outside of the table, because you're planning to come crashing down. Now, it might not right away, but eventually it'll come crashing down. People are united around something, and those people were united. You couldn't convince them that to come apart. But they were united in rebellion against God. God wants us in unity, in obedience. And that's what we're trying to do here. Ok, now watch what happens in v. 5. Aden, can you read v. 5 for us? In Genesis 11 v. 5. Very good, Aidan. Can you believe that the Lord couldn't believe what was going on? He Himself had to come down and see. How about that? How about that? You know, there's a verse in the Bible that says, God canst not look upon iniquity. God isn't running film. He's not watching all of the filth that's going on. His eyes are pure eyes. He canst not look on iniquity. He has to come down and see what in the world they're doing, and then decides, I'm going to throw some judgment down. he couldn't believe. Young people, you're up in your room, or you're outside, or you're over a friend's house, and you're doing something that you ought not do, and you know your parents are right, you know your parents are just, you know that they govern well, you know that they know that what you're doing is wrong, and if they were to catch you doing that wrong, you know that you'd be out in the woodshed. Okay? But they don't know. But all of a sudden, they come into your room, or they go up back, or they go over to your friend's house, and they see what you're doing. You're in trouble, aren't you? You're in trouble. This is why man needs an outside governing force. This is why fathers are heads of homes, and there's kings and rulers and all that over nations, and this is why there's governing rule on our land even up to today. God can't believe it, so He says, let's read verse 6, all of us together. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down there, confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. Now, they could have understood clearly what God told them to do, they just chose not to. So we see there's a lot of preaching in there, but for the sake of time, we'll say this. Self-confidence will kill you and I's chances of salvation. It will cause us to deny God. This is why we're constantly preaching you can't be saved by works. Because that belief, and when the world unites around that belief of I can be saved by works, it's just a continually ingraining of deny God, deny God, disobey God, don't trust God. That's why when you ask someone, hey, are you saved? Oh yeah, I go to church. Well, when did you get saved? Well, my dad is a deacon. Great, when did you come to a point when you trusted Christ? Oh, I just grew up in a Christian home. The Gospel isn't hard. What is hard is trying to convince people, especially down in the buckle belt, the Bible belt. I was speaking in tongues, didn't I? In the Bible belt. We're supposed to be in the buckle of the Bible belt. It's trying to convince people they're not good, they're not saved, because they go to church, or their daddy's a preacher, or their granddaddy's buried in the cemetery at the church. None of that makes you a Christian. You have to come to a point where you have denied self and you have denied your unity around rebellion against God. Is that right, sister? Right? Yeah, they have to come to a place where they have denied themselves and put their full faith and trust in Christ. But what happens here is that the people are, verse 8, The Bible says, fill in the blanks, young people especially. So the Lord, in v. 8 of Genesis 11, so the Lord did what? Scattered them. And when the Lord scattered them, now leaders start to be in charge. Now how many of you have pets? Or livestock? A lot of people, okay. We have sheep, and we have chickens. And there is going to be one leader out of the rams. And they will determine who will be the leader by ramming each other. And when you watch that, you think, that can't be fun. But to them, that's what they're designed to do. Apparently, that's fun. It's amazing watching them hit and how hard they hit. How much power from this distance, from two foot apart, they can generate and, boom, slam into each other. And they do that to determine who is going to be the leader. In a pack of dogs, the same thing. Horses, the same thing. Some works at a horse ranch, and they have it. They cannot put the alpha stallion out with just any old stallion, or somebody's going to get hurt. Why? Because in groups, a leader has to arise. So they get scattered, and some are in small groups, some are in large groups. And now they are being governed by the heads of those groups. Go to Genesis 17. Look at v. 17, v. 5, "...Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham. For a father of many..." What? "...nations have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." Abraham's a father of many nations. We see now kings coming out. All of this is we're moving from individuals governing themselves through conscience to leaders governing those individuals. Look at some other key words in Genesis 17. Let's read v. 15 and 16 together. Genesis 17, 15 and 16. And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations. See that? Kings of people shall be of her. All of this is developing into kings and nations and its leadership. Look at v. 19. Let's read that together. And God said, "...Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him." And Isaac had two sons, and Jacob had 12 sons, and they were heads of tribes. And you have all this. nations and tribes and families and leaders over them. Verse 20, it says, And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he beget. and I will make him a great nation." Again, princes now instead of kings and leadership now is coming into play. And Ishmael had 12 sons and those sons were rulers. So the rulers now are responsible for those under them. And now rather just an individual being responsible for his conscience before God, now the leader is going to be responsible to God on behalf of the group. That still is in play today. As a preacher of the Word of God, I am responsible to God for what I speak to you from His Word. And if I teach you wrong, God isn't going to hold you responsible for my wrong teaching. But He's going to hold me responsible for what I did to confuse you or drive you into a ditch. Anybody want to get in the ministry? Let's break it down this way. You sure you want to have a family? I'm not saying that to discourage anyone from having a family or having more kids. I'm not going down that road. What I'm saying is, do you understand the magnitude of that responsibility? The Bible says to train up a child. Well, when you have families that have 15, 20, 30, I don't even know what, it's like it's a contest now. Are you training them? Because if you're not training them, you're responsible to God for bringing life and Him giving you a blessing and you doing nothing with it. It's called homeschooling for a reason. It's not called homing. We don't keep them at home. They are to be schooled. They are to be trained. And God is going to hold you responsible, fathers. Even if you're not the one opening up the English book, God is going to hold us responsible. We have to train them and govern them. So let's not forget that. A couple of examples. I'm going to give Aidan my car keys. Oh, hey, no problem. There's a key to the church house on there. Well, there's a key to my safe. OK, so if the bad guys come, you'll have plenty of guns and ammo. There's a key to the tractor. You need to clear out any trees. Yeah, roll that. You got that. Oh, there's a key on there. The wheel lock for the trailer. In case you need to hitch that up to the truck. Just pull that down. Just be careful getting on 40. Plus you're changing lanes. It can get kind of scary. Alright, so hold on to those keys there, Aiden. Now, I'll tell you, back in Second Kings, we have Josiah. And Josiah did what was right. You don't have to turn there. Josiah brought the law back and he did all that was right in the eyes of the Lord. He returned the people to obeying God's law. He tore down all the idols. Beautiful picture. I wish I could do that going around town, all these churches. I tried that one time during Christmas time. There was a big pagan troll in a red outfit. I pulled in and I tried to convince them, but it didn't work. So the pastor who was dressed up as the pagan troll had his bodyguard come over and do the work for him, which was Mrs. Claus. So she came over and let me have it. And I figured, well, I guess they did that in the Old Testament. I'm probably not going to be too successful. Didn't win friends and influence people that day. But Josiah would have done that. He would have done that. And he did. But you know the interesting thing about Josiah, his son Jehoahaz didn't rule like his daddy ruled. As a matter of fact, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He only ruled three months, and he was taken captive by Pharaoh Necho, who was an Egyptian king. And Josiah's son, Jehoahaz, he ends up dying in Egypt. You can read about that in 2 Kings 23. Now, do you think Josiah governed his home right? I'm going to pretty much bank on it, he did. But his son, Jehoahaz, made his own choice, and he didn't follow in his daddy's footsteps. Josiah is a very interesting king in the Old Testament because his dad and his grandfather didn't do right either. So after Jehoahaz dies, Josiah's other son, Jehoiakim, if you're looking for some J names, just throwing that out there, he ruled for 11 years. You can read about that in 2 Chronicles 36. He also did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And Jehoiakim was taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. And the Babylonian invasion was basically God's punishment or God's judgment upon Judah for their sin, based upon what those leaders did. Josiah's sons ruled wickedly. And the nation of Judah had ongoing unrepentant sin, and God judged them, the people for it, based on what Jehoiakim and Jehoahaz did. Bad news. That's why the nation fell. The nation fell because of the decision of its rulers. Now, Aiden, can you come on out here? Would you mind doing that with those kids? Why don't you other kids come on out here too? All right, so we've got Aiden over here. Come on over here, guys. Now, Aiden, you're the leader of the group, okay? You got the car keys, okay? Now, you gotta convince them to follow you as you go ahead and drive the car, okay? Pretend like you're walking out the door. Go ahead, pretend. You can't really do it, but turn around to the door, and you guys follow Aiden out to the door. We're just going to go two at a time. You guys all following Aiden? Yeah, because he's a very persuasive leader. OK. Now, if you follow Aiden, if they follow Aiden and he goes and drives the car downtown, what do you think is going to happen? It's not going to be good. It is not going to be good. Not only is it illegal, it's highly unsafe. And someone is, everyone is probably going to get injured. Someone could very well die because of a leader who is unfit to lead. Now Aiden, come on over here. Change keys now. Get another key on there. Come on over here because this is where the safe is. You gonna follow? Bad idea, but okay. That's a safe right in there. Should you ever, ever give a child the key to a gun safe? Never. Never. If a child sees a firearm, what should he do? Everybody say stop. Stop. Don't touch. Don't touch. Run away and tell a grown-up. Yeah, that's right. You don't touch a firearm. Does Aiden have any business with the key to the gun safe? No. Do you have any business following him? No. But you are because he's a very persuasive leader. Okay, very good. Give me a high five. Thank you. Can I have my keys back? You all may be seated. Now who does have a key to the church house? I do. So I better be ruling right or I'm in trouble. Whether or not the people catch it or not. Just in case. Osteen or Furtick or one of these fakers are listening, which they're not. But their judgment, I'd hate to be there. I would hate to have their life. They don't realize it. And it's not like they haven't been warned. Leadership. Fathers. Tag, we're it. We're responsible before God. And if you want to have a family, you better realize, Chris, you hold the keys. Use them wisely. Because God is going to judge the people based on your decisions. Do individuals still have a conscience during this time? Yes, they do. but that has failed to restrain man." So God adds the governing power of leaders. And now people have a national identity. We see that today, right? Our leaders govern us. We see that in names, family names. We have different last names. It all has to do with there's governanship. And in the Old Testament, during this time, these men are not prophets. God is not speaking through them. But once the races are divided and the languages have been changed and confounded, now human government comes into play. But there isn't anywhere in the Bible where that has ended. What chapter do we go to in the New Testament to understand that this has not ended? Anybody remember? We were there a little bit ago. Josiah, what chapter in the book of Romans do we go to? Romans chapter number 13. Romans chapter number 13. Go there. We already preached through this quite extensively, so I'll just make some mention of key words. Romans 13, look at verse number 1 and fill in the blank for me. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. That's governanship. And whosoever therefore resisteth... This is verse 2. Whosoever therefore resisteth the ordinance of God. That's right. Look at verse 3. For rulers. You see that? There are rulers who are in charge. Now, they're supposed to minister good. But if they don't, God holds them responsible. God holds them responsible. In Matthew 11, look at verse 12. Watch what Jesus says. Matthew 11, verse 12, and from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven, that is not the kingdom of God. There's distinctions made in the Bible. The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. It's within. It's what we are a part of as a child of God. The kingdom of heaven is an earthly, physical kingdom. That's more in reference to the Jews. You only see the phrase kingdom of heaven in the book of Matthew, which is a Jewish theme throughout the entire book. And that's why it shows up. Because God has promised that national group of people a piece of real estate. So, when He says the Kingdom of Heaven, He's talking about physical land, a physical dominion is a better way to say it. Watch what it says, "...suffereth violence, and the violent take it..." How? By force. Why do we have the United States of America? Because our armies took it by force. We took the land and now we own the land. That's how nations now operate. This is why we want a strong military. Why? Because by force, we want to keep what's ours. Fathers, this is why we have a gun safe. Because by force, we want to protect what is ours. And that's biblical, by the way. Personal property rights is biblical. But the Bible says in Proverbs 21, you don't have to go there, that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever he will. It don't matter who the king is. God can turn it any time He wants. So you don't have to worry about what's going to happen in our nation. I don't. I know what the end is. So do you. We should be praying that Christ directs the thoughts of the king's heart, whoever the president is, so that he rules in harmony with God's order. That's Romans 13. Human rulers, governing rulers. Let's talk about our country before we close out. Governing rulers can be a great source of blessing to a nation if they govern in accordance to God's law and to His principles and to His Word, even if they are not saved. Biblical principles work whether saved or lost. That doesn't mean the lost has been regenerated. It just means that everybody agrees they want safety. Everybody agrees they want an honest neighbor. Everybody agrees that... But also, governing rulers can be a great curse to a nation. We see that in our nation, how the rulers are governing against the will of God, and we're continually spiraling downward. But human government has no end. It will extend into eternity. I'll read you the verse, and then I'll be done. Isaiah the prophet had something to say about this. Innocence doesn't end. The child is innocent until he comes to an age where he knows he's sinned against God. Conscience doesn't end. We all still have that now. We read Romans 2 to see that. Human government has no end. It will extend into eternity. Isaiah 9. You all know the verse. For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end." He's going to come back. He is going to set up His earthly kingdom. And even when the heavens and earth are burned up, and God creates a new heaven and a new earth, that land's going to be there. We have an eternal governing King that's coming back. And He's going to govern all of us righteously. So, we'll close on that note. But we've got, everybody say, innocence, conscience, human government.