Genesis 11:1-9, Want to Make a Name for Yourself?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Genesis 11:1-9 and the Warning Against Making a Name for Yourself

Genesis chapter 11 be reading verses 1 to 9. Hear the word of the Lord. Now the whole earth had one language and 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's make bricks and burn them thoroughly and they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar.

Then they said come let us build ourselves a city in a tower with this 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 was the children a 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 proposed to do will now be impossible for them.

Come let us go down and dare confuse their language So that they may not understand what another speech. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of the all the earth and they left off building the city.

Therefore its name was called Babel. Because there the Lord confused the language of the earth and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. May the Lord has blessings to the reading of his Holy Word.

Human Ambition, the Space Program, and the Desire for a Name

Well when I was a kid I was fascinated with the space program. I still am really and for a while I lived not far from Huntsville, Alabama where they built many of the rockets and have a great space museum if you've ever gone there it's worth seeing with moon rocks and left over rockets and Stuff from all kinds of other stuff from the space program including a Saturn five.

It's still erected there on their grounds and a full-size replica on the landing of the Apollo 11 on the moon. There Neil Armstrong the first person to set foot outside earth first said That's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind.

And then the astronauts left a plaque there that said we came in peace for all mankind. We wanted that moon landing to be a symbol of what people could do. We also did it so that the United States Can make a name for ourselves, you know the Russians had already made a name for themselves by being the first to launch a satellite and Then being the first to put a man in space and with that the space race was on and we wanted to beat the Soviet Union to the moon hence once we were there we planted in that famous picture in an American flag a symbol of Us that we had made a name for ourselves that even though we may have come in peace for all mankind.

We the United States Came first and we put that symbol up to prove it. But Buzz Aldrin the second man on the moon said that as he was looking out the window with a lunar lander the Eagle. He saw as they were lifting off from the surface of the moon the exhaust from their rocket.

Blow down that symbol leaving the American flag lying in the dust. I wonder Do you want to make a name for yourself? I'll be careful or your name might be left in the dust. Here in Genesis 11, we see five warnings and solutions first the city.

Then the symbol and third the center fourth the silliness and fifth the sentence first the city in Genesis chapter 9 verse 1 God told humanity to scatter over all the earth to fill it. That's sort of the theme here both the beginning and the ending of it.

They don't want to be dispersed, but God wants them to disperse and in the end he will disperse them. But here in chapter 11 They've migrated in verse 2 and I've assumed that they means the all these people the descendants of Shem Hammond Japheth.

Listed in chapter 10 that genealogy they've migrated apparently all together the descendants of Noah. I'm kept together in one pack of humanity from the east and settled in the land of Shinar in Mesopotamia Kermit currently Iraq.

They were not scattering. They were staying together. Contrary to God's Command to them now they could speak the same language in verse 1 so they could talk to each other in verse 3. So they sign up, you know, they felt why not?

I want to talk. I want people to talk to so they stay together and they conspire to use technology. Bricks instead of stone if you've ever played civilization video game. Masonry is a technological brain breakthrough with that.

They can build a city. That is crucial here man begins in verse 3. Like God remember God in chapter 1 by took counsel among himself. He was gonna build. Man gonna make man body and soul in the image of God here chapter 11.

We that humanity is planning is taking counsel among ourselves to create a corporate body a city with the soul of a civilization. And think about what a city is a city is defined in sociology is quote the point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community as sociology for you, it's where a civilization is focused a self-conscious society.

Humanity conspires to build that quote. They say to themselves lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. They're trying to prevent that is people are trying to prevent being spread over the earth and God is trying to get them out.

The Tower as a Symbol of Human Achievement

At the end of verse 4 they say that lest we'd be dispersed. We don't want to be dispersed. The city here is to unite people around themselves and not around God. It's the secular society. Second the symbol.

Great cities have great symbols. Now the Washington Monument Statue of Liberty Big Ben the Eiffel Tower Tiananmen Square. Singapore has the Merlion, but now maybe it's new symbol is a building a Marina Bay Sands three 55 story towers.

It's the same height. With what kind of looks like I don't want you to describe it at the top kind of looks like a bow of a ship. Or maybe a tube a bottom half of a tube like a long canoe something like that.

And on the top of these three towers connecting them on the roof. It's very impressive. Really you should look it up if you don't if you haven't seen it before now here in Genesis 11 Man plans to create a symbol.

It's so impressive. That it will reach into the heavens. Notice that phrase that it will reach into the heavens. I don't think it just means be tall. Heavens where God lives means that it'll be so impressive even God will be impressed by it.

It'll just be magnificent. The the Lord himself will look at this admiration. That's what they think. It's as though they were it's not as though here that they're atheists. They're secularists not atheists.

That is they believed in God. It was just that they believed in themselves even more they wanted to do something monumental for themselves. Notice it says in verse 4 to make a name for themselves. We want to make a name for ourselves, don't we?

So we build a monument to ourselves. The Marina Bay Sands has helped make a name for Singapore for its opulence and success. We crave to build a monument to ourselves something we think will impress people.

We pay to build a monument to you know with our without maybe with our house, maybe with our money with our Degrees, whatever something we think people will impress people for generations to come. Perhaps even impress God himself with our religion.

Look how moral I am how good I am pastors and churches following this trap. They'll want to make a name for themselves by building a monument to their ministry the grand building the edifice complex. Oh, they may not admit it.

But how many church buildings look like they're an impractical monument to? Something. They're good enough. They're not good for anything except for having church services in them. Why now the people I studied the Puritans they were Center on God, they loved God.

They would even cross the ocean come to America to worship God so to be free to worship as God words Word said and you would think our way of thinking was surely they put a lot of Attention and focus and energy and money while everything they had in the building grand church buildings.

No, they did not. They built what they call meeting houses. Was they also used for city city meetings? They didn't believe the church was the building. They put no attention at all in their buildings.

It's because they came from England and they knew what happened when you go down that road. You could build grand cathedrals st. Paul's Cathedral in London build things like that very impressive looking.

But God is not in it. No, why is that? Why do churches so often have steeples? I mean, what do they do. Are they really meant to show our attempt to build something that will reach into the heavens. I don't know.

Billy the Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding wrote in the novel entitled aspire. About a minister who was consumed with his quest to build a magnificent spire Above his church and how that quest overwhelmed his ministry and nearly destroyed the church.

The Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, California an all-glass build was a monument to the money that one man was able to collect. It was a press a building. I've been around it never been in it, but I've been around it.

When he died the church collapsed and now the building belongs to the Catholic Church. So much for that people in the Middle Ages and otherwise chaotic, you know brutish poverty stricken time Barbarians ravaging the place would build grand cathedrals.

They're still impressive today. Some of the some of the most beautiful buildings still today built like a thousand years ago in medieval Europe. They're very impressive to look at. Sure, but you think they impress God?

When we were in Ethiopia, we saw the monument to communism built by the built in the center of Addis Ababa. At the cost of millions of dollars. They built a monument to communism in that poor country at the very time other nations were sending millions of dollars of food To Ethiopia to save the lives of starving people which are the real monuments to communism.

We long to have make a name for ourselves and to memorialize that name. The symbol was to be the center. Third. The center. They wanted something to unite around. Notice the verse for the second reason for the building of the tower unless they be dispersed but also to be a center.

Their society would organize itself around could something they could all mutually look up to notice that revealing phrase less. We'd be dispersed again. They assume that unless they made a symbol that would be the center for themselves.

Let's say of that symbol something for people to rally around it that nothing else not even God could hold them together. He assembled something. To hold them together. Maybe in many American cities now the football stadium.

We think we got to have that spend billions of dollars in a stadium to hold us together. It's our uniting principle without their work. They think they'll fall apart. We have our lurking fears. You see them here.

The fear of loneliness. So we have to stay together. The fear of vulnerability the need for mutual security. United. We stand divided we fall. The fear of insignificance. We want to make a name for ourselves.

We have to work work hard with bricks and mortar. Make make bricks burn them in ovens get mortar stack them up. That's hard work. God might even be allowed to be in the city. He said we want to impress him.

We could build up to him. You know, he may be allowed to be in our lives, but he is not the center. We seek another Center. The early 20th century poet William Butler Yeats wrote in a poem entitled the the second coming.

About our culture. He's describing our culture. What's happening as we get more. Western culture is getting more secular turning turning in the widening gyre assume it's pronounced gyre is in gyroscope the gyres the circle of the widening orbit as We get further and further away from our true Center.

The Falcon cannot hear the Falconer like a Falcon. The culture is like a Falcon sent off from its master. We get so far away That eventually we can't hear him calling us back to the center. Things fall apart.

What happens when you no longer revolving around the center. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. We try to make civilization. Center around ourselves. Something about ourselves. Maybe today in our culture just sensuality.

Something else in the middle of our lives of our nation of our civilization. But it's incapable of holding us together. Things fall apart. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere.

The ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction while the worst. Are full of a passionate intensity. That's life in our modern Western civilization drowning out the worship of God the ceremony of innocence.

That's the worship of God with a clamoring noise. Demanding that we put something in the center something about us about ourselves our quest for happiness. Resulting in the greatest unhappiness the loosening of violence.

That's that blood-dimmed tide is loosed because we who think we are the center of the universe. Clash with others who think they are the center of the universe. Every one of us thinks we're the center.

We're in constant conflict with each other. The best people then wish things were better. All they do they wish things were better, but they won't work to do anything about it. Well the worst. They're willing to work.

To sacrifice to give to fight to die here. To build brick upon brick burn those bricks stack them up use mortar. That's hard work. Nazis communists Islamic jihadists maybe here in this country now and Tifa or transsexual homosexual and the Crusaders.

The last century has seen this what a one group of evil people after another. The worst were full of a passion intensity organizing fired with passion for their cause trying to impose a new center. They will organize around.

Whatever it is their race. They're the workers of the world their religion, whatever it is their symbols swastikas hammer and sickles crescent moons rainbow colored or pastel colored flags. A new civilization.

Based on that they think that'll hold us together while the best. Timidly wish all for the good old days. Things fall apart. The sinner cannot hold. That's sad. But there's also here in this passage, I think I don't think I'm reading into it.

I think it's here. The sheer silliness of it and forth. The silliness. This passage shows us the silliness of our attempts to build something. Significant something is able to hold people civilizations together without God.

It shows us that I think. By making fun of it. Here we see the silliness of man made in the image of God. Trying to center his city and build his symbols without God in the center. Look at verse 4. You know there people say they're gonna build a tower so high.

So impressive, you know, it reaches up into the heavens again. I think that means gonna impress God himself. So significant. God is amazed by it. That's what they think. But then look at verse 5 the Lord came down.

To see the city and the tower. Well, this tower is gonna go up to heaven. The Lord has to come down. No, notice he has to come down to see it. Implying that he couldn't even see it from where he was. It's so small the word came down to see the city and the tower was the children of man.

Literally, the phrase means the sons of Adam all the way from chapter 1. This is what they've come to trying to build a Civilization of society without God. The children of man sons of sons of Adam had built they built this tower.

It's gonna reach up into heaven. It's gonna impress God the tower. They had such grandiose visions of was so small. God has to come down to see it. It's like what's going on down there. I can't quite make it out from here.

It's just so small. Now we know of course that God is everywhere. He sees everything. He knows all things and so this is verse 5. It's a human analogy. Applied to God to make a point and the point is that this is silly.

This is silly to God. God's sitting on his throne. Here's about This endeavor there at this tower. They're seeking to build and it's so insignificant in his eyes. That he needs to figuratively speaking Go down to earth.

It's like a trip way down there just to just to see it. It's just too tiny to him. And this reminds us of Psalm chapter 2 verse 4 he who sits in the heavens laughs. Gotta sit. Yeah, it's not intimidated by our attempts to build things without him.

It's not as if he's scared sometimes Christians talk about of the society. It's going it's going to the pits as everything is going horribly. Let's get this sense that the kingdom of God and God himself isn't is frightened of it all that it's terror.

That the kingdom of God is going to fall apart if things don't change. God just sits on the heavens. He laughs at it. It's not intimidating to him at all. God here is making fun of those who think that they can build anything significant without him.

He laughs because they are proud because we without God's grace. We're proud there's nothing as effective at humiliating and hopefully humbling a Proud person than to laugh at them. Here God laughs at us.

You know with our World Trade Centers our moon landings our Marina Bay Sands our cathedrals whether crystal or not. To humble us to show us that he is not at all impressed with what human hands have made without him.

So the sin of the tower builders is pride that pretentious humanism this says that what our own hands our own brains our plans our Organizing has made we think it's just so impressive. It's so magnificent what we've done.

You can see it from the moon. Huh? God can't see it from his throne. It's that small to him the confidence of man in man rather than confidence in God here. The sin of Babel is a corporate sin our inclination when we gather together to attempt to live Without God that whole way of thinking that we can be a successful nation or civilization or life without God.

It's called secularism. People may want to seek God on their own sure in private. They can have a little religion on the side here. They believe the God it was in heaven, but when we come together. Come together in our schools or in our government.

Whatever God cannot be mentioned that our corporate life must be without God. That's something else. Something we've made will hold us together. Diversity is our strength that'll hold us together. Somehow.

It's precisely that philosophy that here God laughs at and Scatters. He laughs at it because it is silly. It is silly because living without God ordering your life around your way. Your philosophy you're building the way of the world is like, you know, what's like?

It's like a it's like a small child like a four-year-old child gets angry at something that he has to eat asparagus or whatever and thinks he can run away and Live without mom and dad. He's gonna show them.

But before he gets even to the edge of his yard, he looks out and then what am I gonna do? He's afraid and has to go back. The concerned parent may run after him, but I'll either just laugh to them. What do you think was gonna happen?

You think you can make it on your own. Our sins are not only a tragedy but our pride in particular. It's a comedy. It's ridiculous ridiculous to think that we can live without God as our Center as a poet once wrote man rashly daring full of pride.

The Judgment of Babel and the Grace Hidden in Scattering

Most covets what is most denied counts nothing arduous and tries insanely to possess the skies. Fifth. God gives the sentence as the judgment in verses six to nine. God the judge on his bench. Passive the sentence they sought to be united.

So that they could stand united. They fallen into sin sin of pride so they will be scattered. They'll get the very thing that we're trying to avoid. By starting this tower in verse 7. God says that he will confuse the language of people that is he will create multiple mutually unintelligible languages.

So that they can't talk to each other and they won't because they can't talk to each other. They won't want to be around each other. Never been anywhere where people are taking another language. You don't understand and you don't want to be there anymore all divided.

Against each other and so divided they will fall. The verse 8 divided by dividing languages. God dispersed people all over the earth and they stopped building this symbol in the city. The power of the United Humanity was foiled by dividing languages.

That's the sentence. But within that sentence you think about it, what does it do. There's grace there. Because the judgment in the way it is designed to scatter humanity. It's what it's doing scattering humanity.

The way it's designed is to keep us from uniting perfectly. It puts restraints on our delusions of grandeur. Divided we won't be able to build nearly as high a secular society as We could if United. The truth is that even though compared to God's omnipotence Compared to that our greatest efforts are still silly.

Yet United people United societies Can do great things. God himself says so in verse 6 you notice that nothing that they propose Proposed to do will now be impossible to them. They might even make it to go to the moon.

United we stand we achieve great things together but then we achieve those things and we get proud and God resists the proud and scatters them. Eventually every civilization falls. With great civilization falls because it gets proud.

God didn't causes them to divide. Even the Roman Empire lasted a thousand years and it made a name for itself for a while but now people often use it as a. As a case study and why civilizations fall. Has become a byword for how fleeting human greatness is the Virgin Mary exclaimed when she was told that she would bear the Messiah that God has Scattered the proud and the imaginations of their heart.

The sentence is that we will be scattered that United We fall. We were intended to be like the moon. You know no real light of our own. Just reflecting the light of the Sun, but when we grasp for equality with God.

But the first Adam did and the sons of Adam did that in him? We refuse to just be a reflector of God's glory. We sought to be a source of our own glory so we could shine but just like the moon. We don't have any light of our own.

We don't have any glory of our own. We can try and that exert ourselves. Make bricks build towers and give our whole life the lives of millions of people in whole civilizations to build great symbols like the Marina Bay Sands and Of our own glory and we think we can erase God's name from our pledge from our coins for our courts.

And most importantly from our hearts and we imagine that we will still then have glory that is the lie of Babel. And it is as ridiculous and as empty as dark as the moon. Trying to shine without the Sun.

The City of God, Baptism, Communion, and Christ at the Center

We try to make make a name for ourselves. How do churches do that? By craving Respectability. Paul says that God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Those who are so proud of themselves are confounded by the foolish things God makes most of but today people think that they can use their religion to make a name for themselves.

Churches where you go, they often think to show off their their social skills their civilization. They're learning their religion. That they are respected part of society. Maybe where they can be looked up to is spiritual be the preacher.

And of course that means They don't want to be associated with people who are not Respected parts of society like Jesus. The sentence is if we are proud and think we stand united That we will fall. So what are we to do?

What are you to do to make a name for yourself at least one that won't Be forgotten won't be erased. Just another name on a tombstone that eventually is eroded away. That isn't lost. What are you to do?

Over a view here in chapter 11 and undo all the points of this passage. First join the right city accept the symbols be centered see the silliness and confess the sentence. First join the city the right city we are not called To build a city because only God can build his city.

But we are called to live in one Hebrew chapter 12 verse 22 tells us that all Christians says you have come. Have come in the past sense you have come in your faith by believing in Jesus you have come To the city of the Living God and that is the church.

The church is not just an option extra for Christians. It's not just a club for people with common interests. You kind of take it or leave it the church is never a building but the people of God. That's why we put a different name on the building.

The building is the the building is the gym put a different name on it that the church the church meets here. This building is a tool that the church would you? Uses It it the building is not the church.

The church is God's people. It's the city of the Living God. Come out of heaven to which we are a part if we're truly born again and Being part of the church. We will be part of a church. So we must join the city second except the symbols this time not the symbols of human achievement.

Whatever grandiose thing people build that they look up to what organized people can do with their technology or their hard work their money. But of what God has done. We remember what he did for us. So we accept we cherish the symbols of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

So today we did this we took the Lord's Supper in remembrance of him. It's a symbol of what the Lord Jesus did to save us. His body was broken. His blood was spilled and so we dare not take this symbol lightly because just like the symbol of a tower.

Represented the city the civilization. The way someone treats the symbols is how they treat the society. So to this symbol represents what the Lord did and The way we treat this whether we take it seriously or lightly is how we in our hearts treat his work for us.

So when we do take it the right way with faith and all in hope. We can in our hearts Commune with the Lord. That's why sometimes called communion. This is his symbol and even more than a symbol a way we could commune with him and We must accept it.

Third organize your life around. The center. Christ himself is the center now. Some people think to be a Christian means to put Christ at the top of a list of loves and interests. They think they think of lists.

You know one after another. Here the idea is the center in the middle not at the top but in the middle. Some people think there'd be a Christian needs to put Christ at the top of a list. That he gets the most attention he gets the most love but we still have room for some other things.

You know, we can love him on Sundays at church and prayer times and devotionals. But we have we have few other things that we can do without him. That's secularism still. We have some diversions. We have a few idols on the side.

But think of that compared to the marital relationship how many wives would like to hear for their husband say, you know I love you more than anyone else. Of course, I do not have the love a few other girlfriends to have a few others on the side you for variety's sake.

But I love you most of the time love you more than any of the others. You're the number one. You get the most attention you 51 Not divide the rest among other girlfriends, you know, that doesn't work with marriage.

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like that new wives. It doesn't work with the Lord. He's not asking to be your number one God on top of a list of several other gods. He has to be the center. That means the organizing principle around which everything in your life revolves your work your entertainment your family your money your marriage.

Watching TV. You're listening to music your sleep. Whatever it is. It's all done as a way to love worship and serve the Lord. With Christ in the center of the church the city of the Living God is united even over the language barrier.

The second the book of Acts second chapter of Acts. There the church is being raised up and there God briefly undoes. God undoes the judgment wrought in Babel. He erases the language barrier the gospel erases.

The language buried the judgment wrought here to proclaim the gospel in the various languages represented in the temple there. You know people whom all over the eastern Mediterranean were there on the day of Pentecost all over the Middle East all kinds of different languages and Most a lot of the times they could talk to each other and there they heard.

Suddenly just by the Spirit's power the gospel in their own language and God undid the dividing of languages here in Genesis 11. That's this sentence. He undid it. He said that by doing that that the center the source of unity Will be himself will be God in his word the gospel not humans of their ideas.

He will transcend this language barrier that he has here set up. That's why we try to be one church here even we have at least two languages maybe three if we throw in Indonesian Basa the one gospel was proclaimed in all languages and It's around that.

Not our ethnicity not our language not our culture. We must center our lives and our church. Fourth. Acknowledge the silliness. Here it is people thinking that they can build their own way to God. It's just silly and it's the same today.

We can't build a civilization or a religion a church a building of career that impresses God. Our buildings our manners our disciplines our success our learning our artistry our music, whatever it is all of that without his grace.

Doesn't get us closer to God. Doesn't impress him. He isn't looking down from heaven and us a while. That one is a really impressive character. Look what he did if we think it does. And we're just being silly so when we catch ourselves thinking that impressed by ourselves.

Laugh at yourself, you know, just realize you're silly. A musician for the band the Righteous Brothers in the 1960s and unbeliever at the time later became a prominent pastor, but he saw on the streets of Los Angeles a man with a call a sandwich sign and one big kind of placard on one side and Another one the back with the straps over the shoulder to hold it walking up and down and on the one in the front.

He said I'm a fool for Christ. And the musician thought looking at the band think how silly he's making a fool of himself and Then as the man's man with a sign turned around. The musician saw what ended up changing his life.

The other side it said Whose fool are you? Don't take yourself so seriously. Fifth. We must confess the sentence. Scott issues his sentence your people are desperate not to be dispersed. God issues his sentence and they are dispersed.

And to confess means to say the same thing as to agree with God. So we must agree that we're sinful. We could be desperate not to accept that to ignore it. But it will be done if judgment will be done.

Without God's grace every inclination of our hearts is only evil all the time remember that that we deserve punishment. We must humble ourselves beneath God's sentence on us so the gospel begins with God's scattering the proud and the Imaginations of their heart and then is spoken to people of all languages.

And so we confess in the symbols that he bore that infinite price for our infinite guilt we confess That he rose again so we could have a new life a resurrection life. Centered on him. Living in his city we confess that through what Jesus did for us He truly made a name for himself and then at that name every knee including ours will bow.

We confess that he was given the name that's above every name and we will bow at it. Want to make a name for yourself? I'm gonna go to the moon build a tower aspire a reputation a business a church something monumental.

Well, it'll take other people and If you really want to do that if you really want your name written where it will never be erased first. Give up making a name for yourself. I Confess that Jesus's name is above yours that Jesus is Lord and So don't try to live in this city the city of man as If this is all there is.

This world is a city without foundations and it is fading away. It's towers no matter how impressive the Marina Bay Sands. They'll all one day be condemned and collapse. Instead believe in that message that goes out in all languages.

And resolve that you'll live in the city which has foundations which lasts forever. The city whose builder and maker and Center is God.