Powerpoint Pictures: Hello written in French, German, Italian, Arabic, Swahili, Chinese, Greek

Can you tell me what languages the following words are written in? (French, German, Italian, Arabic, Swahili, Chinese, Greek).  Why are there so many different languages in the world?

The answer comes in the next part of the true story of the Bible.  After Noah and his family came out of the ark, when people only spoke one language, God told Noah to “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1)  That is to have lots of children and spread out so you fill the earth.  This was one way people could love and obey God.

But what we find is that they didn’t want to.  Instead they stayed together in place.  Instead of worshipping God they built a tower to show how great they were.  The flood did not solve the problem of sin and people still disobeyed God.

So God did something again.

Not a flood, remember He promised He would never flood the whole earth again.

To show He was the greatest, and to get people to spread out all over the earth, God confused their languages so they couldn’t understand each other.

Imagine two people on a building site.  One said, “Could you pass the hammer please?” but other person thought he was saying “You smell like a pig!”

So people spread out over the earth with other people who spoke the same language and became the different countries and nations we see today.

But remember that God had promised someone who would come and put the world back together again, by sorting out the problem of sin.  He would also bring people of different nations together too!  Who would this person be?