The Kingdom of Mankind Genesis 11:1-9

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Earlier this week, Brianna and I were at home and Brianna had a little break upstairs and Alethea and I were downstairs in the playroom playing with her toys.
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And what we did is we were building a tower of blocks all the way as high as we could get.
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And every time she would put a block on another block, she would clap because she likes to do that. She does something good and then she claps for herself.
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And as she did that, and as we were building it, I noticed that she had actually gone into the other room and I was the only one building the tower now.
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And so I kept building it and I was thinking, once Brianna comes downstairs, I want to show her how impressive this tower is.
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And Alethea comes back into the room and she sees the tower of blocks and you know what kids like to do, they like to mess things up.
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And so she was eyeing the tower and she reached her little hand in there as I was trying to defend it and she knocked the whole thing over.
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So I wasn't able to show Brianna how impressive this tower was built.
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Now I say this kind of as a joke, but in all seriousness, people do things to try to make a name for themselves.
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Now the fame of that wouldn't have spread beyond the playroom, but the fame of what people try to do is they want future generations to see these wonderful things that they have done.
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And we have this temptation in our own heart to want to make a name for ourselves, to want to do these great things so that people will look on and see what we have done.
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And so that people will say, wow, look what a wonderful thing they have accomplished.
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And we're going to see this today in the story of the Tower of Babel. And what we're going to see is that the sins of generations past, the sins of thousands of years ago, because this was over 4 ,000 years ago, the sins do not change as time goes on.
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If you go all the way back to the garden, the nature of sin is always the same. And so we see these same sins in our world today.
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And so if you have a Bible, please turn with me to Genesis chapter 11. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 9.
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And if you don't have a Bible with you, there's Bibles in the pews, those red
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Bibles, it's on page 8. And what we're going to see here is the
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Tower of Babel. The title of the sermon, as I mentioned earlier, is The Kingdom of Man.
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Not the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of man. And our big idea is a life of rebellion against God always leads to consequences.
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A life of rebellion against God always leads to consequences. And what we're going to see is three ways that people defy
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God according to this text. And what we're going to see is the consequence of these people defying
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God. And we're going to see the consequence of people today defying God. The first way that people defy
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God according to this text is they live lives of separation from him. And in your bulletins, there's an outline there if you want to take notes.
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The first point here is they live lives of separation from him. As we saw last week, after the flood, the people spread all over the earth to Asia, to Africa, and to Europe, as far west as Spain.
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All these people came from Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, as the human race started anew after the flood.
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But before they spread all over the earth, the people lived in one centralized place.
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And I mentioned last week that the chronology of time here, chapter 11 actually happens before chapter 10, but we're going with the order of the author.
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And so, at this point in history, before everybody spread all over the earth, everybody lived in one place, in the
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Middle East. The Bible explains to us why the world is the way it is.
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And we have seen numerous examples of this already in Genesis. And we're going to see how all these languages came about.
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In the world today, we have so many languages, and we're going to see how that happened. We're going to see the reason why everybody lives all over the earth as well.
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And what we are going to see in the nine verses of Genesis is the origin of people being scattered over the earth and why there are so many languages.
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So let me begin by reading the first two verses of Genesis 11. Now, the whole earth had one language and the same words.
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And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
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So what we see is the entire earth had one language and the same words after the flood. So the language barrier that we see today did not exist.
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In America, we typically do not notice the language barrier because pretty much everybody speaks
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English. But if you go to other places in the world, this shows up. Immediately after the flood, this barrier would not have been there.
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Could you imagine that? Everybody speaks the same language. This is how it was. Verse 2 tells us that these people migrated from the east to the land of Shinar.
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Now, the land of Shinar is located where the ancient Babylonian kingdom was.
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And you might say, well, where in the world is that? It's located in present -day Iraq. And we know where Iraq is, most of us do, because of the war that America recently fought there.
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So these people are traveling from the east of that location. Now, there is a reason the author
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Moses includes everything he does in his writings, in the same way that every biblical author includes the details they do for us.
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When Moses writes that these people came from the east, he is not merely referring to geography, that they came from an eastern location.
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He is referring to that, but he's referring to something more than that. He's also trying to get a meaning across that will impact you, the reader.
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There's a theological meaning here. There's a meaning that God wants us to see.
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When Moses writes that these people came from the east, what he's referring to, there's a spiritual meaning to this.
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The Garden of Eden, in Genesis chapters 2 and 3, were described as located in the east part of Eden.
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Okay, so Eden is this region, and the Garden is located in the east. The word east signifies separation from God in Genesis.
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It marks separation from God's blessing. When Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, the angels guarded the east entrance to the garden, because Adam and Eve were sent eastward, and this symbolized separation from God.
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When Lot left Abraham in Genesis 13, we'll see this several weeks from now, he went eastward and encountered disaster in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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When Jacob wrongly fled his homeland, he went to the eastern peoples in Genesis 29.
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So the fact that these people came from the east, from the land of Shinar, here in the Tower of Babel account, shows that they were not under God's blessing.
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The author Moses highlights this to demonstrate their disregard for God. So we know right from the get -go of this chapter that these people are rebelling against God, and they settle in the land of Shinar.
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Living a life separate from God is a big mistake, as we know. And this is what they do.
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And not only them, but everyone who is not a follower of God lives their lives separately of Him.
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They live eastward. And we are warned here not to be like these people. Not to be eastward people who live lives cut off from God.
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God created us so that we would have a relationship with Him. He created us so that we would have fellowship with Him.
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That we would go through life every step of the way with Him. So ask yourself this question.
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Do you live your life in constant relationship with God? Do you spend time in prayer with Him throughout your day?
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Do you spend time reading the Bible? Because this is His word to you. The world we live in lives like He is not there.
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And they reflect the behavior of these people from the east. The people from the land of Shinar who were cut off from God.
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So this is the first way that people defy God. They live lives separately of Him. The second way that people defy
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God is they worship idols. They worship idols. In verse 3, the author makes it even more clear that these people were acting in defiance to God.
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Verse 3 says, And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.
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And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. The practice of burning bricks for the purpose of building was typically an idolatrous act in ancient times because of what they were using the bricks for.
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They used these bricks to build cities and towers within them to false gods.
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They thought by building this tower they could reach the deities in the sky. Because this was a polytheistic world.
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Polytheistic means they worshiped many gods. They thought by building this tower they would reach these gods in the sky.
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And at the top of these towers was a temple or shrine. So this was very religious. Building this tower had a very religious component to it.
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Now this tower that was built was known as a ziggurat. This structure had a temple at the bottom and a temple at the top.
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The temple at the top was the residence of the Babylonian god Marduk. In Mesopotamian mythology a text has been found right around where this tower was built that describes the goddess
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Ninter calling humanity to build cities and to congregate in one place.
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So it's possible that Moses may have had this in mind as he wrote this to show that they got this idea from a false deity to build this tower in this one place.
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And other deities like Marduk were worshipped here. So you can see that these people in the land of Shinar were not following the god of Seth and Noah.
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We looked at the line of Seth, this was the godly line. We looked at Noah, Noah was a righteous man.
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These people from Genesis were godly people who lived their lives in step with God.
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These people were going their own way, living their lives with their own idols. Now the question is, what is an idol?
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Sometimes you hear people say, this person is my idol. Every time I hear that I cringe because I'm thinking, okay, that's not healthy to say that.
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Now if you look up to someone, that's fine. But to say the person is your idol, I think that's taking it a little too far. An idol is when you worship anything that is not
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God. This can be something in creation or something that people make up with their imagination, like a false deity.
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When we try to understand people from ancient times, we can observe that they were very religious.
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If you read the Old Testament, you can see that all of Israel's neighbors worshipped false deities. In the
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New Testament, in the first century AD, when Paul came to Athens, he said, I perceive that you are very religious, as he saw the many gods that they worshipped.
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This is what we see with humanity. From the very beginning to today, people are very religious.
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Several weeks back, in our Wednesday night Bible study, we discussed a quote by 17th century philosopher
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Blaise Pascal. He said that every human has a God -sized void inside of them.
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This vacuum can only truly be filled by the one true God. It only makes sense that our creator would be the one who could satisfy us.
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But what if you don't worship the one true God? Do you cease to try to fill that void?
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The answer is no. You try to fill it with other things. Israel's neighbors tried to fill that void with false deities to satisfy this desire.
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In America, we have lots of false religions. We might have a course on this as we talk about what we're going to do on Wednesday nights in the future, but understanding false religions, what they believe.
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In our country, we see Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses.
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There's lots of different false religions that do not lead to God, the one true
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God. So people are trying to fill this void, and so they worship a false god who cannot hear them and does not exist.
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So we see false religions where false gods are worshipped in this country. But I don't think that is where we see the most idolatry.
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We see most of the idolatry within secularism, which is ironic.
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Because secular people, people who want nothing to do with the church, nothing to do with religion, people who are secular are very religious.
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People worship Hollywood, TV, music, sports,
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Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, their phone. People even worship good things, like family.
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People worship food. These are good things that God's given us, but if we ever elevate them above God, then they become an idol.
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If God is number one in our life, then these things are all in the right place, in proportion where they need to be.
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So everybody has this void, and everybody's trying to fill it. You won't find one person on planet
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Earth who is not trying to fill this void. Everyone is. But only God, the
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God who wrote this, can fill this void. Only God can fill the human heart, not a created thing.
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So as I say this, people don't even know they are doing this. So what we must do is recognize the idols in our own life that we are tempted to follow, that we are tempted to find our satisfaction in.
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And we need to turn from those idols. And secondly, we need to help others recognize their idols in their own lives, so that they turn to the one true
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God and worship Him alone. And when you're doing evangelism, when you're sharing the gospel with an unbeliever, that's what you're doing.
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You're calling them to turn from their idols in their life, and to submit to the one true
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God, and that they would find their satisfaction in Him, and He will satisfy them.
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Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Whoever comes to me will never thirst.
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Anybody who goes after a false god will always be thirsty, will always be hungry. And so this is what you're doing when you're leading them there.
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So these people at what came known to be Babel were an idolatrous people. They lived separate from God and took part in idolatrous practices as they built a tower with a shrine to worship false gods.
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So we see the same idolatrous behavior in our world today. It's always been this way. And if we live in conformity with God, we will worship
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Him and not live for idols. Psalm 16 is one of my favorite chapters in the whole
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Bible. And verse 11 says that in your presence there is fullness of joy.
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At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So it's talking about the satisfaction that only God can give.
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And then earlier in that psalm, it says, the sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply.
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So it's sorrowful to live for something other than God. So this is the second way that people defy
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God. They worship idols. The third way that people defy God is they live for self -promotion.
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So we're going to see this right here, and I'm going to explain why this is relevant to you in our present day. We have already seen the first two ways that these people in the land of Shinar defy
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God. And all sinners defy God. And I say all sinners because sin doesn't change over time.
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It's the same going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. So here in verse 4, we see the sin of self -promotion here.
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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.
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We saw a few months back after Cain killed Abel, he lived his life independently of God.
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In order to establish himself, he built cities, and so did his ancestors. And the point
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I make back then was that the line of Seth probably built cities too, but they weren't known for that.
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They were known as people who followed God. But the line of Cain was known for that.
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And this is what is taking place here in verse 4. Like Cain, they were building these cities to make a name for themselves.
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And that's what these people are doing too. They are kingdom building. But this is not the kingdom of God.
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This is the kingdom of man. They are trying to make a name for themselves. They desire to build a city, and within the city, a tower into the heavens.
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Now, if you wonder, it says here, build a tower into the heavens. When I was a kid, when
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I heard this story, I used to think that this tower actually went to heaven, to where God dwells.
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That's not what this is referring to. In Genesis chapter 1, in Genesis 1 .1, it says,
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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The heaven that that's referring to is outer space.
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The universe. All that space that's out there. In Genesis 1 .8,
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it actually refers to a different heaven. And this is referring to the first heaven, which is the atmosphere. This is where birds fly, planes fly.
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If you let a balloon and it goes up into the sky, and we did that a few weeks back, and it kept going and going.
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That's the first heaven. That's the atmosphere. So the atmosphere is the first heaven. The second heaven is outer space.
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The third heaven, this is where Paul was caught up to in 2 Corinthians 11.
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The third heaven is the place where God dwells. So this tower being built into heaven is referring to the first heaven, which is the atmosphere.
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So it would have been high in the sky. The closest big city we have to us is, of course,
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Minneapolis and St. Paul. And it's always amazing to see those huge skyscrapers.
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I always enjoy, when we were living closer to the cities, driving down 394 west of Minneapolis and seeing those huge buildings transcending in the sky.
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It's quite a sight to see. Now, by early standards, this tower would have been high.
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But by modern standards, not so much. It was 80 feet high. That's it.
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80 feet. So when we look at that today, we're like, that's not that impressive. But back then, this was the tallest thing that they built.
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Now, this is one -fifth the height of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis. The Foshay Tower used to be the tallest building in Minneapolis for a number of years.
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So this is one -fifth the height of an average -sized skyscraper, according to modern standards.
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But this would have been huge in those days. Now, their goal in this building project was to make a name for themselves.
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But building big towers is not bad in itself. In Genesis 28, Jacob built a house to God.
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Jacob's ladder was said to reach to heaven. Jacob built this house to God for the right reasons, but those in the land of Shinar did not.
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They did it to make a name for themselves. They did it independent of God. They did it to build their own kingdom.
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Because they were thinking, if we do this, we will build up our reputation so that people will always know our might and power.
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People will always see, look what we can do as humanity if we work together.
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Now, I mentioned earlier the sinful tendencies of humanity does not change even though thousands of years have passed.
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We have this in our hearts. This temptation is there to make much of ourselves, to be self -promoters.
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Before I pursued the ministry, I was a sales rep for a running shoe company. I've mentioned this before.
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I was up in Duluth one time at an expo at a marathon.
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At marathons, they had a packet pickup where everyone would pick up the supplies they needed for the race the next day, and there would be all these vendors, all these different companies and brands who would sell their product as people came in to pick up their packet.
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I was working one of these up in Duluth. One of the vendors
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I was with, there was another guy who was a sales rep for another shoe company. We were talking, and all of a sudden there was this guy who was walking down the hallway.
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He was a famous runner. Thirty years before, he was one of the best marathoners in the whole world.
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What this guy said is, this guy likes to make much of himself. He's a self -promoter. This was coming from an unbeliever who was saying this to me.
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I had to agree with him. This was the guy I actually looked up to because I was a runner. I wanted to become faster and faster, but he was right.
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This guy was a self -promoter. He was trying to make much of himself. He would go to these events and try to make himself visible and to be seen.
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We all know in our hearts, in our sinfulness, that we desire to bump ourselves up. We want people to know who we are.
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We want to make a name for ourselves. It is easier to do this in our day than in any other.
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We have social media. We have Google. Have you ever Googled yourself?
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We even Google ourselves to see what comes up. It is important for us to see that these people in the land of Shinar are not all that different from us.
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But something happens when you are a follower of Jesus Christ. The temptation to promote yourself is still there, but you are not a slave to it.
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Those who have saving faith in Christ have been set free from this bondage to make much of themselves.
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You no longer live to promote yourself, but to promote the one who is worthy of worship, the one true
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God, the one who is glorious. John the Baptist is one of the most interesting figures in the
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Bible. He was a follower of Jesus Christ, and he was a man who had all these people following him.
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People were coming to him to be baptized in the Jordan River. We know
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John the Baptist's true faith because of his response to people leaving him and then going to Jesus, once Jesus' ministry started.
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In John 3, verses 28 -30, this is what he says, You yourselves bear me witness that I said,
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I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.
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The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.
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Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. This is what John the Baptist says. He says, He must increase, but I must decrease.
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Is that your attitude? John the Baptist was delighted to give all the glory to Christ, worshipping and giving glory to the one who is worthy.
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This is the path of joy. If we pursue our own advancement, our own kingdom building, our own promotion, that's not a joyful path.
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But to give it to the one who is worthy and to experience his joy as you do it, that's the path of joy.
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Be a Christ promoter, not a self promoter like those in the land of Shinar. These people at the Tar Babel, this is what they were.
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They wanted to make much of themselves. They were self promoters. Now, one reason they built this tower was to make a name for themselves.
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But the end of the verse 4 tells us there's another reason why they wanted to build this tower in this city.
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This is what it says at the end of verse 4. It says, Lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.
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So, the additional reason is they did not want to be scattered all over the earth.
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They built this for their own security. A fortress like this would make them less vulnerable.
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The city was located in a plain. Since this tower was built before the dispersion where people spread all over the earth,
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I'm assuming this text is not referring to protection from outside attacks, but possibly weather extremes like flood or drought or food shortage.
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So, they figured if we all live close together, if we all live in this one place, we'll be able to make it.
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This is their security. They think if we spread out, we're in trouble. We all need to stay together here.
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We all need to build this kingdom together. Now, living close together, they probably did this for trade, food, and having this shelter.
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And we saw the scattering of people to the ends of the earth last week. God intended from the very beginning that people would scatter all over the earth.
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God made the earth the size it was so that it would be populated. Mankind did not need to rely on its own initiatives for survival.
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But they could rely on God to take care of them. He made a world where there are resources all over the earth.
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In Sunday school this morning, we were talking about how Russia sold Alaska to the
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United States for 7 cents an acre. Because they were thinking, this is just tundra, this land won't be useful, we'll just give it to them.
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What they didn't realize is how many resources are in Alaska. It blows your mind to think how many resources are there.
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And not only in Alaska, but all over the world, there's all these natural resources that people use to live.
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That people use to survive. God made it this way. And so, for the people just to go in one place in the world, that goes against God's purpose.
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His plan from the very beginning was that people would spread all the way to the ends of the earth. In Genesis 9 -1,
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God told Noah and his family, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. These people in the land of Shinar desire to make a name for themselves and to prevent themselves from being scattered all over the earth.
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And God sees this as a threat. He sees all they are able to accomplish as sinners in one place with the same language.
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When you put lots of sinners in one place, lots of bad things happen.
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Without God restraining it. And what they are doing here is building their own empire. Promoting themselves.
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And God takes this very seriously. Lots of people in one place is why there are so many problems in cities.
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Las Vegas is called Sin City. But every city should be called Sin City. Through kingdom building, we see this defiance of God as these people try to work together.
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So this is the third way that people defy God. They live for self -promotion.
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They are living to build their own kingdom. And this kingdom building by the people of Shinar leaves
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God with no choice. He has to do something about this. This defiance against Him, He has to do something about this.
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So as I conclude today, I'm going to explain what this consequence was to the people at the
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Tower of Babel. So I'm going to read this consequence here in verses 5 through 9.
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And this consequence is because of their separation from God, living their lives separate from God, worshiping idols, and self -promotion.
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So verses 5 through 9. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built.
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And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language.
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And this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
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Come, let us go down. And there confused their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.
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So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth. And they left off building the city.
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Therefore its name was called Babel. Because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.
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And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
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So in verse 5, it says the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built.
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You see the irony in that? This huge tower that they were so proud of, that they were so impressed with.
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It says that God had to come down to look at this puny little tower that they had built.
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You can see how unimpressed God is with the advancement of man. Especially if it's separate from him.
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Any advancement man achieves with technology is God giving people the ability to accomplish such feats.
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But think about what God has done comparatively. He has created hundreds of trillions of galaxies.
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And mankind is proud that we made a computer. Think about this. The punishment that God delivers is confusing their language.
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Why does God not destroy the place? He easily could have done that. He doesn't destroy the place because they would just rebuild it once he destroyed it.
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By confusing their language, they wouldn't be able to come together with their evil schemes to be able to accomplish things like this.
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And so, he confuses their language. And so, if you look at the world today, the world could be a lot worse if everybody lived in one place.
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But the fact that everybody's scattered out, it's actually less worse than it could be.
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Now, I mentioned earlier that the Bible details why the world is the way it is. There are over 6 ,900 living languages today.
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And here, there was one. It all started here. God prevents them from doing more evil by scattering them all over the earth.
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And this is the consequence. Now, there is another consequence, too. Remember, they built this tower to make much of themselves.
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To build their reputation. Did they accomplish this goal? Well, you know what?
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This is an infamous tower, is it not? If you talk to someone on the street, they might know about the Tower of Babel, even if they don't even know the
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Bible. So, this tower that they built to make much of themselves became a laughing stock.
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So, that's God's punishment. It's embarrassing. The Tower of Babel. What does
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Babel mean? The word Babel comes from the Hebrew word Ba 'alel, which means to confuse or to muddle.
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So, this place became known as a place of confusion. That's not what you want to be known for, right?
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And this is what happened. And so, their aim at self -glorification, God humiliated them.
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He dethroned them. Because the Lord will not give his rightful glory to another.
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Now, if we aim for our own independence from God and our own glorification, we too will face consequences.
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The consequence in this account was the confusion of language and being scattered over the earth and the embarrassment that came from it.
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The eternal consequence of mankind's rebellious behavior is so much more severe.
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And I'm going to close by reading this passage from Romans 2, verses 6 -9.
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This talks about the difference between the unbeliever's destiny and the believer's destiny.
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It says, And so, what this is talking about is, your works, they're not the grounds of your salvation, because you're saved by grace through faith, but your works prove your salvation.
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And so, it says, So, here is the gospel.
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Jesus Christ saves us so that we no longer live for ourselves, but for him. And we no longer have to face the consequence that we deserve for our idolatry, for our sin against God where we give glory to ourselves and to other things, but we don't give glory to him.
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So, our eternal joy comes from our dependence on him, our submission to him, entering into this eternal relationship of happiness forever.
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So, you see this morning, the two roads that humans travel. So, my question to you is, which road are you on?
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Are you on the road of self -glorification, or are you on the road of being forever dependent upon God?
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The first leads to eternal death. The second, to eternal life. Let's pray.
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Father, I pray that we would see the significance of this passage.
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I hope that people saw it today. The glorification of man.
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It never ends good. Because, Lord, you will never give your glory to another. You alone are worthy of our worship.
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You alone are worthy of glory. And so, Father, I pray that our hearts would be in the right place where we would recognize this.
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That you would show us the idols in our own life. The temptations to go after other things.
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The temptations to make much of ourselves. The temptations to live our lives independently of you.
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You created us, Lord, to be in constant fellowship with you. You created us to be in eternal fellowship with you.
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And I thank you that through Jesus Christ, you have made a way that we can have this fellowship forever with you.
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And it starts in our life now. And then it goes on forever. And so, I pray that we would recognize this at Eureka Baptist.