Turn in your Bibles to Genesis Chapter 11.
We'll be in Genesis 11 this morning.
For those who are new with us this morning, let me fill you in
on what you've dropped into here.
Back in the fall, in September, we began a study in the book of
Genesis and you can see from the slide it says parts 21.
So today is the 21st message in this series in Genesis and we
are only in Chapter 11. Things will begin to speed up
here momentarily. But I should warn you we may
take a break for the summer and then come back to it again in
the fall. So I foresee us probably being
in Genesis another year, which is fine by me.
I hope. I hope you're OK with that.
But I am loving the study in Genesis.
So that's where we find ourselves this morning, Genesis
Chapter 11. Now if you stop and consider
ancient history, you'll be confounded by the number of
seemingly impossible human achievements and find yourself
asking how did they do that? The Great Wall of China,
Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids of Giza, Chichen Itza, Machu
Picchu, the Roman Colosseum, Petra and even the Moai of
Easter Island. All these projects baffle the
mind of modern day people and engineers.
How could they do that? How could they, with their
technology, build such impressive structures?
This morning's text gives us perhaps a little bit of insight
into ancient humanity's capacity.
If you're able, would you please stand as we read from Genesis
Chapter 11, verses one through 9 this morning?
Now the whole earth had one language in the same words.
And as people migrated from the east, they found a plane in the
land of Shinar and settled there.
And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and
burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone,
and by two men for mortar. Then they said, Come, let us
build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the
heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be
dispersed over the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower with
which the children of man had built.
And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they have
all one language. And this is only the beginning
of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to
do will now be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down. And they're confused their
language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the
earth, and they left off building the city.
Therefore, its name was called Babel, because they're the Lord
confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord
dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
You may be seated. A few weeks ago we looked at the
table of nations in in chapter 10.
This was an extensive genealogy and it showed us where all the
people of the world came from. As we look at our text this
morning, I want to make sure you understand Genesis isn't moving
in a strictly linear chronological sense.
Strictly Chapter 11 is a a flashback.
Chapter 11 is inserting itself part way into the genealogy of
chapter 10. And as we begin our this study
this morning, we look at humanity United.
Verse one just told us the whole earth had one language and the
same words. When Moses referred to the whole
earth here, he wasn't saying globe, he was saying all the
people of the earth compacted into this one region all had the
same language. Now as an aside, it's hard for
me to think in terms of their world.
For example, the first time humanity saw this picture was
December 11th, 1966. This picture was not available
before December 11th, 1966, when the satellite ETS1 took a
picture of the Earth and for the very first time in history
revealed the entirety of the Earth's shape.
It blows my mind. Granted, the picture leaves a
bit to be desired, but that was the very first time that
specific image was recorded. As a result.
Now, when we read the word Earth, many of us, we think of
that. We think of the globe.
But here in Genesis 11, Moses is referring to all the people, the
world who lived there in Mesopotamia.
Those people, they had one language and the same words.
They had one language, the same words at that time, one set of
words. Having one language made it
possible for humanity to to unite together in carrying out
great projects. Now stop for a moment and
consider the fact that we all speak English.
Now we can say we all speak English, but that does not mean
we all speak the same exact words right?
If I said the golf clubs were in the boot then most of you would
think I was crazy. A few people here would say Yep
that sounds about right. Golf clubs would be in the boot
that is your trunk. If I asked you where you got
your sunnies, you'd be baffled as to what in the world I was
talking about. And you would say, well, it's
sunny outside, I get sun outside.
And you would be clueless as to the fact that I was actually
asking you where you got your sunglasses.
So we share the same language, but we have different words
sometimes. Having the same language made a
number of things easier, not simply just for communicating
with each other, but also being able to share ideas.
Communication was easy and it enabled mankind to easily work
together. By the way, I should say though,
I was born in Kansas City and I'm not sure what word they use
there. Though I was born in Kansas
City, I am a West Coast person, so as such I will always use the
word soda to refer to carbonated drinks.
They are not whatever it is that a lot of you refer to them as.
I can't even say the word. It is a soda, just to be clear,
in case there was any question on that.
For what it's worth. It's just that's just how it is.
You know, it's funny, I remember going to the South one time.
I would like a Coke. What kind?
A Coke, right? That was kind.
I was not ready, ready for that was not on my radar that I
needed to specify what kind of Coke.
Anyways, I digress. So in verses 2 and 4, two
through 4, we look at the building of Babylon.
Verse 2 through 4, as people migrated from the east, they
found a plane in the land of Shinar, and they settled there.
And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and
burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and
by tomb and for mortar. Then they said, Come, let us
build ourselves a city and a tower with this top in the
heavens, and make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed
over the face of the whole earth.
There are few things for us to 1st address.
First of all where we are. It's good to remind ourselves
that that our setting is still in the region of Mesopotamia.
The story has yet to relocate to Canaan, there to the West.
Everything all started here in Mesopotamia, Eden and in its
garden where we're there in in that region could have been in
the South of Mesopotamia, could have been at the north.
Those are the two options for where Eden may have been.
The first humans were kicked out of the garden just a little bit
to the east. So it could have been in Iraq,
could have been in Iran. Adams descendants all lived
there. Noah and his family lived there.
And the ark landed on the northern edge of Mesopotamia,
somewhere near in the mountains of the Ararat region.
So here we are, the text tells us in Shinar, which is the
southern part of Mesopotamia, largely located in modern day
Iraq, just South of Baghdad. Babel was where it says
Babylonia there on the map, the mighty warrior Nimrod.
He began his Kingdom here in in this region.
From this point on out, whenever Shinar or Babylon are mentioned,
the region isn't set up as a model of godly behavior.
Rather, Shonar is characterized by Pagan idolatry, sexual
immorality, human pride, and spiritual rebellion.
The prophet Daniel, he served in Babylon under King
Nebuchadnezzar. And whenever we see the
Chaldeans in Scripture, it also is a reference to the people of
this region. So how did they plan to pull off
this great feat of building a city and a tower with its top in
the heavens? Well, they invented a new form
of technology and this was fired bricks.
Fired bricks. Before this moment, people used
mud bricks and wood for building.
Any bricks that were used consisted of mud bricks set out
in the sun to to dry. The Babylonians came up with
this new way to make bricks, burn them in a kiln.
Burning bricks meant they were much more durable and were
sometimes referred to as artificial stone.
Now remember in art class when we we would make ashtrays.
I don't know why we made ashtrays.
I'm not sure why our art teachers thought that all of our
parents were smoking. Maybe some of them were, but we
made ashtrays for some reason. And then we took them and what
did we do? We fired them, right?
The the teacher put them in the kiln so that they would become
hard and they would last much longer.
That's is exactly what was happening here.
And then they also used bitumen to hold the walls together.
This is a binder and petroleum products.
And today it's used to bind concrete in asphalt.
So with these new stone like bricks and by two men as their
mortar, they were able to create structures that could last
longer, even outlast their own lifetimes, and be impervious to
the weather. Verse 4 continues.
Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the
heavens, and make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed
over the face of the whole earth.
They planned to build a city and tower.
They plan to build a city and tower.
Of course, this wasn't the the first city to ever be built.
Cities had likely already been around for thousands of years
since Kane's son Enoch built the first city.
People had lived in cities before the flood, and here after
the flood, they're returning back to city building and
living. If you're like me, when I was
growing up, I always thought they were literally trying to
build a tower to reach all the way up to heaven, as though they
could build high enough to actually touch the the Skydome,
whatever it was that they thought was up there.
Growing up, I thought it looked perhaps something like this
picture, a very tall tower with its top in the clouds, I guess
kind of like Jack and the Beanstalk, something like that.
But you see, they weren't literally trying to reach heaven
or the clouds. When it says they were trying to
reach up to heaven, it's a way of saying they were trying to
seek heaven's favor. And so actually what they built
most likely looked something more like this.
Scholars believe they were trying to build a massive
ziggurats. We have evidence of this
ziggurat form the world over, not just in the ancient Near
East, but also in other parts of the world, even in the Americas.
Some of the high places in the Old Testament were likely
ziggurats. A ziggurat is a massive mud
brick structure that served as a temple for the gods.
These were completely solid structures with terrace levels,
each receding from the previous level and utilizing long sets of
stairs to gain access to their various levels as well as to the
temple on top. It was believed that the gods
lived in the temple at the top of the ziggurat, so only the
priests and other highly respected individuals could
enter them. The goal of the Babylonians was
accessing the realm of the divine.
They wanted to solicit the help of the gods, these false gods
that they were worshipping. When we talk about Babel, we
talk about the tower, but the city and the tower aren't
necessarily to be distinguished from each other.
The tower actually symbolizes the purpose of the city, and
that was to glorify themselves, Make a name for themselves.
That's what they wanted to do. They wanted to make a name for
themselves. In a couple weeks in chapter 12,
we'll see that God tells Abraham that He would make Abraham's
name great. So what's wrong with the people
of Babel having a great name as well?
Well, Abraham's name being great wasn't for Abraham's own sake or
for his own glory. The greatness of Abraham's name
points to the One who worked a miracle and chose this family in
order to bring salvation to the world.
The people of Babel. They wanted notoriety to be
distinguished above all the other peoples of the earth, to
have the spotlight pointed back on them.
Words like ourselves and and themselves point to the self
interested and independent efforts of these Babel lights.
They weren't concerned with Yahweh.
Abrams name was received as a gracious gift, not pointing to
himself, but rather to the one who made him the father of many
nations, even when it seemed impossible.
Their goal was to make a name for themselves and and also to
avoid being scattered. They wanted to avoid being
scattered. This was a form of risk
avoidance. They wanted to avoid risk.
Being scattered across the earth may sound mundane, but in a
world where there is a massive amounts of wilderness and open
deserts, being scattered is dangerous.
It's a dangerous thing to roam around the open desert and
potentially come across bands of Raiders.
Not to mention, if my little family and I are removed from
the city and sent out into the wilderness where there are no
support systems, it'll be much harder for us to survive.
We'll have to do everything on our own.
We have to grow our own food, and we also have to kill all our
own animals. No one would be around to help
us. This is a scary prospect.
So it was far easier to band together with others and build
cities, relying on each other for their provision and safety,
rather than relying on God. Next in the text, we look at
God's response and the undoing of Babylon.
Verse 5 says something interesting.
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the
children of man had built. Now it's not good when God comes
to town. In Genesis 1820 and 21 Yahweh
says regarding the city of Sodom.
Then the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and
Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to
see whether they have done all together according to the outcry
that has come to me, and if not, I will know.
In both of these passages God is saying I'll go down there and
see what's going on, which is code for things are about to go
down. God is not happy, He's coming
down to earth means he's about to act in judgment.
Then verse 6 read, the Lord said, behold, they are one
people, and they have all one language, and this is only the
beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they propose to
do will now be impossible for them.
God took notice of the fact that they had this one language and
everyone was so well united behind this project.
CS Lewis coined the term chronological snobbery.
I love that chronological snobbery.
This is the idea that newer is truer, more recent is better
than historic, and people of today are vastly more
intelligent than the people of the past.
Chronological snobbery imports an air of superiority into the
conversation. People from ancient times
couldn't do the things that we can do today.
Well, there is some truth to this.
Since peoples from old couldn't clone wolves and sheep, they
couldn't build robots and they couldn't fly to space past the
moon and back, but they were still able to pull off many
impressive building projects. Even building a 450 foot arc
today is quite impressive. I'll say when we went, when we
went to the arc a month ago, the most, the biggest thing that I
just was astounded by, like it's cool what they've done.
Like it is amazing that somebody had a vision.
Let's build an arc in the middle of nowhere and people are going
to come to see it and we're going to make lots of money.
I'm sure they've made lots of money.
I know they've made lots of money, but I'd love to know what
the what cost them to build it. But you look at this thing and
even by today's standards, it's huge.
You walk through it and you're just impressed.
Doing that in Noah's day is just unimaginable.
But humanity had had such vast capacity for work and technology
and engineering. The unity of the ancient Near
Eastern peoples was remarkable, and God took note of that.
His final summation of these people was that they could pull
off anything they wanted if they came up with an idea they had
the know how to make it happen. Verse 8 continues So the Lord
dispersed them over the face of the earth and they left off
building the city. Therefore, its name was called
Babel because they're the Lord confused the language of all the
earth. And from there the Lord
dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
God had told them to feel the earth, but they weren't doing
that. Instead, they were choosing to
congregate in in urban areas. Though urban environments are
havens for crime and evil to hide out, they're also places of
relative safety, beckoning people to take refuge within
their walls. So God gave them different
languages. He stopped the building of the
city and tower and spread them out over the earth and and gave
the city a name. They wanted a name.
They got a name, Babel. In Hebrew the word is Babel and
in Greek it's Babylon. So these words both refer to the
same place. So what do we know about
Babylon? First of all, Babylon is
synonymous with confusion. It's synonymous with confusion.
The name Babel is a word play with the Hebrew word Bilal,
which means confusion. These words have the same root.
So Babel is to be interpreted as confusion because there the text
says the Lord confused their language.
It's also on a on amata poetic. We all know what that means.
Onomatopoetic means that it the word sounds like that sound, so
it's onomatopoetic. Nature means that the name of
the place is pronounced the same as what we call it.
When someone is speaking confusing gibberish, they're
babbling. It's Babble when we talk about
culture. The primary vehicle for cultural
transmission, that is to pass down culture from one generation
to another is language. It's language that enables
communication, the learning of traditions and stories, and
facilitates passing those down to following generations.
Now everything is a is a culture.
Culture existed prior to this point, but after this point is
where we begin to see diversity in culture as people have
separate languages and then they begin to move towards Europe,
towards Asia, as well as towards Africa.
If you want to know more about that, check out my sermon from
three weeks ago as I went through that chapter of
genealogy. Needing to transport words and
ideas into another language is a significant hardship, so
progress on the city ceased. God wasn't simply stopping them
from building the tower, but also from making a name for
themselves. God gave them the name, and now
Babylon is synonymous with confusion.
Next, Babylon is synonymous with rebellion.
They were rebellious people. Babel's reputation is that of
rebellion against God and his commands.
The first act of rebellion was staying in and building a city.
This wasn't just a little oops, it was rebellion against God's
commands. They literally began this
building projects, they said, so they wouldn't be dispersed
across the earth. They've been instructed to to
fill the earth. That was the original
instructions in the cultural mandate.
That was the original instructions to Adam and Eve.
And then the cultural mandate was reiterated when Noah and his
family got off the ark. Be fruitful, multiply and fill
the earth. But their rebellious hearts
instead chose to defy God's instructions to them.
And lastly, Babylon is synonymous with evil.
Babylon is synonymous with evil. The name Babylon appears more
than 250 times in Scripture from here in Chapter 11 all the way
through to Revelation 18 explicitly and then chapter 19
implicitly. Roughly 7 to 800 years after
Moses wrote the Torah, some of Israel's prophets began to
announce God's judgment on Israel would come to them
through through their oppressor Babylon.
It was completely unconscionable that God would use these
horrible people for His purposes and to discipline His people.
How could God use the Babylonians to discipline the
Israelites, God's people Nonetheless, it was Babylon who
carried away the 2 southern tribes of Judah into exile, and
they destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in the process in the
name Babylon. It figures greatly in the end
times. Now, some have suggested that an
actual Babylonian Kingdom will arise, such as that which Saddam
Hussein attempted to rebuild in the 80s.
I was not aware. I was 3 when he started his
project in 80 attempting to rebuild Babylon.
He, he was essentially going to be the fulfillment of scripture
is essentially what he was trying trying to do.
Well, not trying inadvertently fulfilling it, but he attempted
that back in the 80s. But actually it's more likely
that Babylon is a label given to the the forces who will
persecute faithful believers in the end times.
The people about wanted a name, so that's what they got.
A name that would literally never be forgotten.
Babylon will always be connected back to the events of this
chapter and the evil Kingdom that would take up residency in
Shannar. So what do we do with this?
Most of us have not been to Babylon.
I suspect somebody in here has has probably been been in that
region set to Baghdad. But how does this, how do we
live differently because of what we see with the Babylonians?
First of all, this will sound simple.
Live a life of obedience and everyone says, well, duh.
Yeah, right. Obviously we're supposed to be
obedient. I know it seems like a given,
but but we need to apply the Bible to our lives.
It's important that we understand what it means to walk
in obedience. Deuteronomy 533 says you shall
walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you,
that you may live and that it may go well with you, and that
you may live long in the land that you shall possess.
Walking in obedience is the key to living life well.
It's the key to success in life. And we're not just trying to
promote some health and wealth gospel or something like that.
No, we're defining success as living within God's standards
and and looking at his ways and his blessing, not measuring
success according to the world's.
So we uphold God's standards, we walk in his ways.
John in the New Testament, John devotes a significant amount of
space to writing on this topic. And in John 1415 he records
Jesus words. Jesus said if you love me, you
will keep my commandments. God's expectation is that we
will actually do what he says. We can fill our heads with all
sorts of knowledge and information about God, but if we
don't do anything with it, if it doesn't transform us, then it's
pointless, James says. If we don't obey God's words,
then then we are deceiving ourselves.
So walk in obedience to God. Do what He tells you to do right
away and with the right heart attitude.
The people of Babel lived in rebellion against God and His
commands. They didn't do what He said.
If God tells you to do something, well God, let's talk.
You know, that's a good suggestion.
That is not how we want to work. If God tells you to do
something, then do it. To not heed God's words is to
have an attitude of pride and to declare that God, I know what's
right. I know what's best.
News flash, if you got your way, your life would not be what you
think. I know that from my own personal
experience. Lastly, use your gifts for God.
Use your gifts for God. Each of us is born with a shape.
And I should actually take this moment to mention because I know
somebody will come to me and say, oh, the very last line on
your note sheet is a typo. Yes, I know it's a typo.
I realized you already noticed already already there.
I realized it last night and I just, my thought was, hey,
people will figure it out. Maybe I'll even say something.
The very last line should say something like how are you using
your shape? Are you using it for God or
something like that? I think it's how are you using
your shape? I forget what it actually says
there, but how are you using your shape?
So shape S is for spiritual gifts.
These are the Holy Spirit induced gifts that God gives you
at the moment of conversion, at the moment that you place your
faith in Him. They enable us to serve the
church effectively. H is heart hearts or or your
passions. What are the things that you
like to do When you get connected to ministry in an area
you're passionate about, then that helps make it extremely
fulfilling. Now I have to say, be careful.
For years I dreamed is there a way I can just ride the bike
like 4568 hours a day and I could get into professional
cycling and that could be my ministry.
Like, OK, there are some people who yes, surf ministry is their
thing or cycling ministry or, or being involved with professional
sports, whatever. There are people like that, yes,
they've God has worked something, managed to align
their hearts with ministry, but for most people, that's not
necessarily how it's going to work.
What are the things, though, that you are passionate about?
For example, when God called me into ministry on Christmas Day
of 1997, I was passionate about music.
So it made sense for me to spend the first nearly 25 years of my
career in ministry as a worship pastor.
That was what I was passionate about.
I still have passions about that, of course, but but in
recent years, in the last few years, God began to shift my
passions and give me a passion for sharing and preaching the
Word so that now I am engaged in ministry in another area that I
am passionate about. Being involved in ministry that
aligns with your passions can be extremely fulfilling.
So that's heart and passions. A is for aptitude or abilities,
special abilities and aptitudes. Josh Barnes works in finance for
von Marr. So what does he do for us?
He does financial things. We have a number of people who
are involved in IT, who do things for us that are behind
the scenes, and we couldn't do ministry without these people.
They have special aptitudes, special abilities and
personality. This is all the unique
characteristics and traits that make you you.
Fortunately, there's no one else like you.
Amen. We don't want another another
one of me just to be clear. But you are the only one who is
you, so you bring yourself to the table and offer yourself to
God. Lastly, E is for experiences.
Each of us has had different experiences in life, some of
them bad, some of them good, and we can take lessons we've
learned from the various aspects and the challenges, and we can
help guide others who might be going through similar challenges
as what we have gone through. Also, First Peter 410 reads as
each has received a gift. Use it to serve one another as
good stewards of God's varied grace.
This is to say that God has poured out his grace into our
lives. So then we take it.
We take God's grace and then we re gift it.
This is where we gifting is actually good.
Re gifting isn't just good for that white elephant party that
you're going to No, here we're taking God's grace and we're re
gifting it, giving it out to others.
The people of Babel, they, they took the gifts, the knowledge
and the aptitude, these great abilities that God had given
them and they use them strictly for their own purposes.
Obviously some of these areas will help you make a living,
those of you in finance IT and whatnot.
But what about serving God? Are you serving God in some
manner? What is it that you feel called
to? Don't abuse the gifts God has
given you. Use them for His glory.
Now, you would think that each generation after the flood would
have learned the lessons of Noah's generation, but that's
not what happened. Humanity was bent on redefining
right and wrong and glorifying themselves.
They were intent on becoming a God unto themselves and
excluding the lordship of the Creator, resting control of
their lives from God's hands. So my final encouragement this
morning is to live with clarity in our words and our actions.
Our lives should point others to God.
When people look at us, they should see consistency between
our words and actions. There shouldn't be any confusion
about about whether or not we actually believe what we say we
believe. And if we walk with integrity,
then people will know that we mean what we say.
And lastly, live with obedience in our lives and goodness in our
hearts. Obedience is further proof of
our relationship with the Savior of the world, and goodness
demonstrates the humility modelled by our Savior.
Let's walk the walk, be doers of the Word and not hearers only.
Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.
Father God, we come to you this morning.
God, thankful for the many ways that you have poured your grace
into our lives. You have for those of us who
have placed our faith in you. You have poured out your
salvific grace into our lives, and we're so thankful for that.
You've also given us common grace.
Everybody has received personality, abilities, gifts.
They have passions, experiences, all these things.
Everybody's received these. So may we all be diligent to
take these things that you have given to us and to use use them
to serve others. God, would you also give us
lives, hearts that are passionate for obedience.
May we not be stubborn and pushed back when you call us to
something, but when you call us when we be passionately
passionate about obedience. God, give us your humility that
we would not seek for our own name, but for Your name, Your
Honor. So we surrender us to You, and
we worship the wonderful name of Jesus Christ, the name that is
above every name. In His name we pray.
Amen.