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https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/moral-matters/the-noahide-laws/
https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/moral-matters/the-noahide-laws/
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00:00If you want to find Genesis 11 in your Bibles, we'll just read through that account.
00:14Genesis 11, starting at the first verse.
00:16Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
00:20And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar,
00:24and they dwelt there.
00:25Then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.
00:30They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.
00:34And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens.
00:39Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.
00:44But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
00:49And the Lord said, Indeed, the people are one, and they have one language, and this is what they begin to do.
00:53Now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
00:58Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
01:04So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
01:10Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.
01:16And from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
01:20So going back to the very beginning of human civilization, an event which took place,
01:26really the first event which is described in the Bible after the flood,
01:31and after people began to resettle the world,
01:34takes place in a place called Babel,
01:37Babel in Hebrew, which is the same word as Babylon.
01:41In fact, one of the confusions you have in the Bible is that,
01:44in this case it's called Babel,
01:46Babel, but later on in our translations it's Babylon.
01:50But it's the same word, Babel.
01:52Babel, which actually means confusion.
01:56And Babel, Babel, or Babylon, becomes a city,
02:00a symbol of a city in opposition to God.
02:03And if you look through the Bible,
02:04you've got a conflict, if you like, between Babylon and Jerusalem.
02:08City of the devil and the city of God.
02:10And when you look in the Bible, it comes to its climax in the revelation
02:14with the Babylon, the great, in Revelation chapter 17, religious system.
02:20Babylon as a commercial and political system in chapter 18 of Revelation.
02:26And you can see that there are certain principles relating to Babylon,
02:30Babel, against the Lord's people,
02:33here in this passage in the book of Genesis.
02:37Genesis.
02:38And things which are relevant to the end time proposition.
02:44So the first thing we see is that the Tower of Babel was the first event
02:46which really takes place after the flood.
02:49And when you look into the flood narrative,
02:51you see that after the flood,
02:53God gave a command to the survivors of the flood
02:56to go into the world and to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
03:01So the Lord blessed Noah and his sons and said to them,
03:08Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,
03:09and the fear of you and the dread of you
03:11shall be on every beast of the earth,
03:13on every bird of the air,
03:15and on all that move on the earth.
03:17And on all fish of the sea,
03:19they're given into your hand.
03:21Every moving thing that moves, lives,
03:22shall be food for you.
03:24I've given you all things, even as the green herbs,
03:27but you shall not eat flesh with its life,
03:29that is, its blood.
03:30Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning
03:35from the hand of every beast I will require it,
03:38from the hand of man,
03:39from the hand of every man's brother
03:40I will require the life of man.
03:43Whoever sheds man's blood by man,
03:46his blood shall be shed,
03:47for in the image of God he made man.
03:49But as for you, be fruitful and multiply,
03:52bring forth abundantly in the earth
03:54and multiply in it.
03:55Just as a little word of introduction,
04:00I do believe that the flood really happened,
04:02that it was a worldwide event,
04:05and that the events which are described here in the Bible
04:07are historical, not just mythological.
04:12When we look at this passage,
04:14we see that God commanded the survivors of the flood
04:17to go out of the ark,
04:18to multiply,
04:20and to establish some sort of a governmental system
04:24and spread out across the earth.
04:27Now, it's interesting when you look at rabbinic Judaism
04:29that they have derived from this passage
04:33in the book of Genesis,
04:35and also from some other passages,
04:38a theory that God gave to Noah seven laws
04:41which are to be a moral code for all of humanity.
04:46And basically they are these.
04:48They said that they are to establish courts of law.
04:51So even in the passage about the life being in the flesh
04:56and taking the life is a kind of legal system
05:01which requires then to have a court of law
05:03to decide upon it.
05:05So you have to create some kind of a justice system
05:08to uphold the laws
05:09which means some kind of local government.
05:13It goes on to say,
05:14don't blaspheme God,
05:15refrain from cursing God,
05:17don't commit idolatry,
05:18don't worship idols,
05:20don't commit murder,
05:21safeguard the sanctity of human life,
05:24don't commit sexual immorality,
05:26avoid illicit sexual relationships,
05:28do not steal,
05:29respect the property of others,
05:31and do not eat the flesh of a living animal.
05:33That's apparently to prevent cruelty to animals.
05:37Now that's rabbinic teaching.
05:39And according to the rabbis,
05:39that's actually what all of Gentiles are supposed to keep.
05:43So if you're a Gentile,
05:45if you're not a Jew,
05:46those are your laws.
05:47If you're Jewish,
05:48you've got the Ten Commandments and all the Torah.
05:50But rabbis say this is for the Gentiles to keep.
05:53They should keep these laws.
05:54I did once ask an Orthodox Jew,
05:57well, if this is the case,
05:59personally,
05:59I've lived in a Jewish area for probably the last 40 years.
06:03I've even worked in a Jewish school.
06:05I'm a Gentile.
06:06No Jew has ever come to tell me
06:07that I have to keep these laws.
06:09And he said,
06:10well, you should.
06:12I then did meet some people from the Lubavitch,
06:15the ultra-Orthodox group
06:16who are trying to convert Jews to Judaism,
06:18or bring them back to Judaism.
06:21And he got talking to me.
06:22I gave him a few answers,
06:23and he thought I was Jewish
06:24until I told him that Jew I was not.
06:26And he said,
06:26oh, well, you don't have to keep all these laws anyway.
06:28So he gave me a little pamphlet
06:29which did give the seven laws of Noah,
06:31said these are what you're supposed to keep.
06:33So I said, thanks very much,
06:35but I actually keep the law of Messiah,
06:37Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah,
06:39which he wasn't so keen to hear about.
06:41But basically,
06:42there is an idea in these passages
06:45that God did give to Noah
06:47a pattern to live by,
06:48and that these laws are actually
06:51genuinely ones which Gentiles should keep,
06:55which everyone should keep.
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