“ Our Biblical Worldview” ( 10 ) God and the Nations 11/21/2021

First Baptist Church Leominster

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Pastor Jason will do so. What is it? 2 Thessalonians chapter 3.

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So today we conclude this epistle and then

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Pastor Jason will pray for us. Thank you. 2

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Thessalonians chapter 3. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the

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Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men.

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For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

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And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.

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May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you have received from us.

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For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.

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It was not because we do not have the right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

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For even when we were with you, we would give you this command, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

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For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.

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Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

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As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.

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Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. And may the

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Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and every way, the Lord be with you all.

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I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine.

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It is the way I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Let's pray.

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Our Heavenly Father, we do exalt your righteous and holy name.

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Lord God, you are just, you are good, you are gracious, you are merciful, and you are a

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God of peace. And Lord, we thank you for the work of Jesus Christ, that he achieved peace with us, with you.

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And we pray, Lord, that we would remember these things, that we would remember your great character, that we would remember our great salvation and the work that you accomplished on our behalf.

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Lord God, we thank you for all of these wonderful gifts and these promises. We pray,

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Lord, that as we open up your word today, that we would be mindful of what it says. We pray that we would keep focused on your word, that you would take the word from our ear and implant it in our hearts.

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Help us to live out these truths every day of our lives. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Well, this morning we're going to consider the passage of Genesis chapter 11 and its implications.

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So let's turn there. You who are visiting with us today, we extend a welcome to you and would ask if you would take a moment, fill out a visitor card for us, it would be great.

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You can hand it to me after service. When you come here, we welcome you as a visitor, but we also assume the responsibility to become your servant on behalf of Jesus Christ.

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We're here to help you. And if you have come here, we would hope that you would realize you cannot say, no one cared for my soul, because this congregation does.

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And so if you'll leave a record of your visit, we'll send you some information about our church and contact you and just see if we can assist you in any way in walking with the

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Lord. Well, in order for us to better understand the worldview that Christians are to formulate in their thinking, worldview derived from the scriptures, the word of God, it's important for us to consider the purpose and role that God has for the nations of the world and how

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God has governed the nations through history. And so it's a broad theme, but we want to address this today.

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And so we'll do so initially from the 11th chapter of Genesis, in which we read of God initially creating or forming the nations.

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And it was really a manifestation of his judgment. He formed the nations of the world and then scattered them across the face of the earth.

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And so this passage describes an event sometime after the flood of Noah, in which

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God had destroyed the former world. But here is the account of the Tower of Babel and God's resultant judgment upon the people.

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Here's Genesis 11, 1 through 9. Now the whole earth had one language and one speech, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

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And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.

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They had brick for stone, they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens.

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And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

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But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of man had built.

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And the Lord said, indeed, the people are one. And they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do.

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Now nothing that they purpose to do or propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down there and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

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So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city, and therefore its name is called

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Babel. Because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the

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Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. Last Lord's Day we gave attention to the judgment of God upon the world when he called forth the great floodwaters in the days of Noah.

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He destroyed all living things except for Noah and his family, and of course the animals that were with them in the ark.

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Noah and his family and the animals came forth into a new world, and it set forth in Genesis as a new creation that God had established for them.

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And at that time God commissioned Noah and his family, just as he had done Adam and Eve, he used the same language, just as Adam and Eve when he put them in that first creation, here in this new creation,

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God said to Noah, be fruitful and multiply, same language he gave to Adam, and fill the earth.

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But though God had given the human race a new beginning and a new world, it soon became apparent that sin also survived the flood, it was in them, for it soon emerged in Noah and his family.

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We won't go into detail there, but it's a sad commentary. We read in the following narrative that the population of the world greatly increased after the flood, and also culture, civilization developed in many different ways, and that's recorded for us in Genesis 10.

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Sadly, however, sin also once again greatly increased, culminating in another great intervention of God, another judgment of God, bringing judgment upon mankind here at the

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Tower of Babel that we just read about. God had declared that unless he brought judgment upon them, nothing that they proposed to do will be withheld from them,

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Genesis 11, 6. Matthew Henry commented on this, now nothing will be strained from them, this is a reason why they must be crossed, in other words, confronted, countered, and thwarted in their design.

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God had tried by his commands and admonitions to bring them off this project, but in vain, and therefore he must take another course with them.

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See here first, the sinfulness of sin and the willfulness of sinners, ever since Adam would not be restrained from the forbidden tree, his unsanctified seed, her descendants have been impatient of restraint and ready to rebel against it.

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And secondly, see the necessity of God's judgments upon the earth to keep the world in some order and to tie the hands of those who will not be checked by law.

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And so God is active through history, bringing judgment upon people. Well the result of this incident, this act of God's judgment, was that the

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Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth and they ceased building the city.

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And so God had divided humanity at this point into separate ethnic groups, nations, each with a different language, so that their desires for uniting humanity against God would be prevented.

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And so again, to recite some words of Matthew Henry, who I think gave a good summary of what occurred, the builders were scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth, they departed in companies after their families and after their tongues or languages to the several countries and places allotted to them in the division that had been made, which they knew before but would not go to take possession of until now that they were forced to do.

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Observe that first, the very thing which they feared came upon them, they feared they would be scattered, the result of God's judgment, they were scattered.

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That dispersion which sought to be, to evade by an act of rebellion, they by this act brought upon themselves, for we are most likely to fall into that trouble which we seek to evade by indirect and sinful methods.

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That's a spiritual principle, isn't it, in history. Second, it was

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God's work, the Lord scattered them. God's hand is to be acknowledged in all scattering providences.

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If the family be scattered, relations are scattered, church is scattered, it's the Lord's doing. If we had time we could go into Acts and see how the

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Lord persecuted the church, so they were scattered and everywhere they went they were preaching the word, and so the gospel greatly expanded through God's scattering them.

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Third, though they were as firmly in league with one another as could be, yet the Lord scattered them, for no man can keep together what

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God will put asunder. Of course that's an allusion to, about marriage, what

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God has put together let not man put asunder. And here he's saying that no man can keep together what

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God is determined to put asunder. Thus God, fourthly, justly took vengeance on them for their oneness in that presumptuous attempt to build their tower.

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Four, shameful dispersions are the just punishment of sinful unions.

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Simeon and Levi, two tribes of Israel, who had been brethren in iniquity, were divided in Jacob, in other words in Israel.

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Fifth, they left behind them a perpetual memorandum of their reproach in the name given to the place, it was called

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Babel, which means confusion. Those that aim at a great name commonly come off with a bad name.

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And then sixth, the children of men were now finally scattered, never did nor ever will come all together again to the great day when the

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Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory and all nations shall be gathered before him. Now, I question whether that sixth point is true, with the movement of spirit of globalism in the present world, it may come to that, who knows.

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And so it's here at Babel that we begin to learn of the purpose and role that God has for the nations of the world. I'd like us to consider several matters from this passage and from other passages to which this is related.

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First, let's recognize the important biblical theme of God's judgment in the word and the idea, the theme of exile.

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In God's judgment, he separated sinful people from the place where they might encounter the presence of God, they were scattered, exile.

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He excludes evil people from his presence. And this results in their forfeiture of the blessings of life that come to them who know him and live before him in faith and obedience.

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God excluded Adam and Eve, he exiled them out of the garden. Second, we'll also consider briefly the quest of mankind in exile suggested in our passage and elsewhere, which is a uniting of fallen mankind to produce or attain that which they forfeited through their departure from God.

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In other words, they continue to desire for personal glory and immortality rather than seeking the glory of God.

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Secondly, an attempt to secure personal safety and protection, that's why they wanted to build a city, one of their motivations.

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And third, to obtain continuance or permanence, to establish themselves. But then we'll also speak to the corollary of the theme of exile in the

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Bible and that is the idea of exodus. And exodus is coming back from exile, actually

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God going down and taking his people out from exile to return to God.

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And so through exile, God in his judgment excludes people from the blessing of his presence.

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And through exodus, he restores people to the blessing of his presence and the blessings of life that he gives his people.

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Sin excludes, it's like an exile away from God, from God, forfeiting the blessings of God, but salvation is an exodus, a returning to God, and all the life and privileges and blessings that come with knowing

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God and living in his presence. And so after addressing these few overarching themes, we'll consider more specifically

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God's role for the nations and how they're to be regarded in the light of the kingdom of God over which

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Jesus Christ reigns as king. And of course that took place upon his crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, enthronement in heaven at the right hand of God, Jesus Christ is

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Lord, he's king. And so let's consider first a few words regarding the biblical theme of exile.

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This is a biblical theme and it's found throughout the word of God. From the opening chapters of Genesis, it's clear that the goal of God's creation was for the fellowship of humanity with God as creator.

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As one described what is set forth, created in the image and likeness of God, humanity's highest purpose, the meaning of life and existence was to be found in the awe -inspiring prospect of engagement with the uncreated being who transcends all creation.

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That's why God made us. God had created humanity that he, God, might live among them on the earth.

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That's what we have in the garden. But with the entrance of sin and that Adam and Eve broke covenant with God, God excluded them from his presence in the garden paradise where they and God could meet and have fellowship with one another.

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We might say that God had sent them into exile from the garden of Eden.

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Away from his presence into a harsh world that is often depicted in the Bible as a wilderness where there's little life, little that would sustain life or bring blessing to life.

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They forfeited their life before and with God and all the blessings of life that flow from that relationship.

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And so they're exiled out of the garden into a hardened world. But then we read, of course, in Genesis how very soon the sin of Adam and Eve showed itself in their children.

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Cain murdered his brother Abel as we considered in Genesis 4. And in this act of Cain's murder of his brother, not only was sin shown to have been more egregious but the consequences of sin are shown to have been pronounced.

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And so just as the Lord God had sent Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, so we read that God sent

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Cain out further from his presence who came to dwell in the land of Nod.

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As one wrote, estranged further from God, even more than his parents, Cain's place on earth is no home but a vast no man's land bare of comfort.

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In Hebrew the word for wandering is Nod, N -O -D. So there's no small irony when the narrative goes on to recount how

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Cain departed from the face of Yahweh, that's the actual Hebrew name of God, Jehovah commonly said, but Yahweh actually, and dwelt in the land of Nod.

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So, that is, he made his home in the land of wandering located east of Eden.

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The farther one's removed from God, the greater one's disorientation becomes. One who's far from God is a confused person, chaotic person, without self -control or discipline.

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Such rebellion, welling up out of a heart polluted by sin is all the more tragic as the maker of heaven and earth reveals himself to be abounding in mercy and steadfast love.

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And God shows himself that way even to sinners. So God had exiled

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Cain into the world in which he became a wanderer with no settled home or people with whom he could dwell in peace and rest.

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But Cain didn't want to be a wanderer for he desired to settle down and that he built a city and the city has important significance and meaning.

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Genesis 4 .17 records, Cain knew his wife, she conceived, bore Enoch and he built a city and notice called the name of the city after the name of his son,

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Enoch. Here we see that Cain desired what all fallen people of the world desire, he purposed to build a city by which he could obtain personal recognition or glory.

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I'll build a city for myself. He named it after his son showing that it was really his personal ambition.

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He desired to be the recognized originator of the city, its founding and building would be a credit to him, bring glory to him.

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Or he must have thought he wished to leave a legacy of himself. He built the city for the protection it would afford him in a hostile world, he'd no longer be a wanderer he thought but he would have some protection, he'd settle down.

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And he also built the city with a view to establish himself and his posterity, a sense of permanency, stability.

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When we come to the events that led up to the Tower of Babel before what we read in Genesis 11 we see a similar pattern emerge that was suggested earlier that we've already read, we didn't draw attention to it, it's been pointed out that the

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Tower of Babel portrays humanity in ways remarkably like the earlier depiction of Cain back in Genesis 4.

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Just as Cain desired to build a city, Genesis 4, 7, so these people of Babel wished to build themselves a city.

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And so Genesis 11, 3 and 4 again, come let us make bricks, bake them thoroughly, they had brick for stone, they had asphalt for mortar, they said come let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered and brought over the face of the whole earth.

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And so these people seemed to be motivated just as Cain was, who due to the fear of a dangerous world before him and with a sense of vainglorious pride and a sense of self -sufficiency he'd build himself a city.

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These people would also make a name for themselves just as Cain desired. They desired to unite themselves believing they would be stronger together than apart.

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They had stated their motivation, they said let us build lest we be scattered abroad, in other words, exiled further over the face of the whole earth.

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They sought human glory, human achievement, even a name for themselves. They would leave their mark, their legacy upon the world, they desired to build a tower which was no doubt a ziggurat.

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And over there in Iran today there's a ziggurat, this thought, this may have been the Tower of Babel, tradition certainly says it was, whether it was or is or not we don't know.

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A ziggurat, a man -made temple for themselves dedicated for their own glory and advancement. They would ascend to a lofty position on this tower in which they could either reach their god or gods in order to control them, manipulate them, get them to serve them, or maybe obtain for themselves the authority and glory as gods.

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They were filled with lofty opinions of themselves, of their capabilities and opportunities. And then we read again of the judgment of God upon them, but the

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Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built, and the

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Lord said indeed the people are one, they all have one language and this is what they begin to do, and now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them, come let us go down, probably the blessed

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Holy Trinity, Father to Son, Son, Holy Spirit, come let us go down there, confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech, and so the

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Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth and they ceased building the city, and therefore its name is called

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Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth, and so God brought his judgment upon the human race, and due to his judgment

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God had caused the various nations to come into existence by confusing their languages,

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God scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth, the entire fallen world now is seen as the place of exile, they're scattered, and that word scattered, that verb carries the idea he exiled them, he scattered them as it were across the world, excluded from his presence, and so the entire earth was a wilderness void of the blessing and life that God brings to his people who dwell in his presence, and so here we see that it was in God's purpose in history to prevent this spirit of globalism from achieving its desires, its ends, and this has always been and always will be the desire of tyrants and empires,

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Hitler the third Reich, the third kingdom, the last a thousand years he was attempting to build a millennium so to speak, but with God's judgment the warring factions of the nations would prevent the human race from banding together in a common cause of united sin and rebellion against God, thank

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God for the various nations so when you have an evil nation like Germany at that time in history you have other nations rise up to put it down, there's value in nations,

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God has a purpose in them, I would argue that globalism is not a good ideal when you have fallen men in charge, the

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Lord Jesus said this is what depicts or describes the history of the world, this nation against nation, he said you'll hear of wars and rumors of war, see that you're not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet, see wars between nations nor wars down through history are not indications of the second coming of Christ, Jesus is basically saying that this will take place, nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places, this is the course of this fallen world over which

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Jesus is king, is Lord, and so he said these things are not signs of the end, they are the kind of events that occur through history in a fallen world filled with nations competing and conquering one another through history.

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Here's a good summary of what the Tower of Babel portrays in the biblical record, separated from the one

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God who is himself the only true source of life and peace, human beings are fugitives and wanderers on earth and still humanity ever endeavors to reclaim the benefits of life with God, immortality, protection, rootedness apart from God himself.

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Having been expelled from his presence in Eden, humanity's natural bent is to deny the exile and to reclaim the good life through science and technology and art, a pursuit of hapless as it is endless, destined to failure.

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Such pursuits in themselves are the good gifts of God and that's recorded in Genesis 10, but they are used to circumvent

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God rather than for his glory. City building is thus portrayed in the biblical record here as a humanistic attempt to defy

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God, a sadly arrogant energy of self -will and self -assertion that shakes a fist in the face of God to one's own utter and inevitable demise, ever grasping for deceitfully just out of reach allurements of the city of man project.

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The scattered nations each now within its own ethnic context return to their building endeavors so that rather than praising the maker's name, the creator's name, they steeped in their dark plight of exile continue the anthem, let us make a name for ourselves and living to exalt their own reputation, power, and glory.

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The whole drama of human history and God's redemption of the nations turns on this subject of the glory of Yahweh's name.

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Are you going to live for your own glory or are you going to live for the glory of God and Jesus Christ? Two different ways of living.

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And so here at the beginning of the biblical record, Babel is first introduced as the great city -state that is defiantly opposed to God.

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The city was the center and home of this rebellious seed of the serpent that we've been following in the early chapters of Genesis.

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The seed of the serpent, the descendants of the serpent, the devil's people who are opposed to God and opposed to God's people who are the seed of the woman.

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Over the course of the biblical story, the entire Bible, Babel continued to reappear in history as a great enemy and oppressor of the people of God, not just here in Genesis 11, but throughout the whole

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Bible. It was from this region from the Assyrian Empire where Babel was located, which emerged this nation, this empire,

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Assyria, to destroy the northern kingdom of Israel and nearly extinguish the southern kingdom of Judah in the 8th century

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B .C. And in its place, Babylon arose. Neo -Babylonia is what it was called.

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The namesake of Babel here in Genesis 11, the great city -state, the worldwide empire which was opposed to God's people.

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And so God used evil Babylon to bring his judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, destroy the temple, and to take into exile a few

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Jewish survivors. This took place in the 6th century B .C. And later in the

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New Testament, Babylon became the apocalyptic codename for the world empire of the day, the

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Roman Empire. Peter referred to Rome as Babylon in his epistle.

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It's also reflected in the book of Revelation. The early churches, those seven churches would have read the term

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Babylon and would have immediately thought, he's talking about the Roman Empire that was oppressing them.

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But in the Revelation, the nation of Babylon is set forth in a much larger proportion as the emblem of all the seed of the serpent, much larger than just the

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Roman Empire. The evil seed of the serpent which is opposed to God and afflicted

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God's people throughout history. And so Babylon, by the time you get to the end of the

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Bible, has emerged and grown in intensity and in power from this little ziggurat tower in this region of present -day

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Iraq, Iran, to become an emblem of the entire fallen world system opposed to God.

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And so in the Revelation, that Babylon is the fallen world system for which we are to be on guard ourselves as Christians.

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And we are called to overcome this oppressor. And we overcome through faithfully enduring in and through all of the difficulty that they may heap upon us.

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And so the head and power of Babylon, this fallen world system, is the great dragon, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

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He's the one who energizes and leads the Babylon, the world system.

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And so this is the spirit behind the movement toward secular globalism, which would unite the human race with the cause of its own glory, security, and permanence.

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The promise of security, stability, well -being for everybody, it's a false promise.

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For as it has been throughout all of history, there are individuals and cobbles that intend to promote and head this system for their own ends, for their own wealth and power.

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You don't want sinners in charge of a world government. It's actually in God's purpose that there will be a united world, a single national identity.

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In this sense, God is the ultimate globalist. But it's in his purpose that the uniting of the nations of the world will be a people wholly committed to dwelling with God as their king.

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In other words, God would have the people of the world, all people from every nation, to become citizens of the kingdom of God, ruled over by God's King, Jesus Christ.

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And so at Babel, we see that God would not allow the nations to rally as one nation, one people, in rebellion to him.

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Rather, God thwarted their efforts. But we know that God intended to reach the world and bring them together because in the very next chapter,

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Genesis chapter 12, we read of the call of Abraham, who would eventually, through his descendants, a nation would arise, a kingdom would arise, that ultimately would bring blessing to all the nations, all the families of the earth.

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And so in Genesis 11, we have fallen man's attempt, you know, to, for a worldwide government and globalism, and in chapter 12, we see the beginnings of God's effort to bring his creation back into submission to himself.

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And so God first began this work in the calling of Abraham, who, it's interesting, was called to come out from the nations, or the

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Chaldeans, in order to form a new nation, a nation which would ultimately encompass and be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

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And so the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, with the scattering of the nations, is a precursor to Genesis 12, where God reveals his purpose for the nations.

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And so we read, the Lord coming to Abram, in the region around Babel, get out of your country, from your family, from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.

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I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great.

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You shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse them who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth, all the nations, shall be blessed.

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And so Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.

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And so they traveled from that place to the land that was an emblem of heaven and the new earth, basically.

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That's why he lived in tents. He didn't see that as his homeland, but rather an earthly type of a reality.

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He looked for a city whose builder and maker was God, and so he lived in tents in that land.

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And so there's a few words about, a few thoughts about the matter of exile. Now let's consider a few words regarding the biblical theme of exodus.

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The theme of exile is very important in the biblical account of history. Exile, again, refers to God sending away people from his presence, from whom alone true life and its blessings may be experienced and enjoyed.

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The term exodus is a reversal of that. It speaks of God calling and bringing his people back from exile unto himself.

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Exile conveys the idea of rejection and alienation. Exodus conveys redemption and reconciliation.

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Exile speaks of God's rejection and condemnation. Exodus speaks of recovery and acceptance as his people who come out of sin, and this results in alienation to God, returning to him in faith and repentance.

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Exile speaks of people experiencing defeat and bondage, slavery in Egypt, for example.

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Exodus speaks of being set at liberty, enjoying victory and deliverance from one's enemies.

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And so when God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, he delivered him from the region of exile into which he had sent the nations at the

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Tower of Babel. God was causing Abraham to experience an exodus from the nations. As one wrote, in calling

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Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, God was delivering an ancient Mesopotamian man along with his wife

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Sarai out of exile and initiating a relationship that would serve as a kernel for all humanity's new life with God.

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The divine call to leave Ur was also a deliverance out of Ur, out of the plight of the nation's exile.

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As the first human being to experience a reversal of the spiritual exile narrated in Genesis 11,

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Abraham himself stands as the first fruits of an international deliverance. The call out of Ur was, in other words, an exodus.

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And the goal of Abraham's exodus, the land that Yahweh would show him, was the land of Canaan. Centuries later,

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Abraham's exodus out of Ur and entry into Canaan would be followed by Israel's exodus out of Egypt into the land of Canaan.

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And so in Genesis 15, God would proclaim to Abram, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Ur of the

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Chaldees to give you this land to inherit a divine declaration and exodus formula that will be echoed in the proclamation to Israel later.

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I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. You see the similarity of language?

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A divine declaration, an exodus formula. In both instances,

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God defines himself as his people's deliverer. To his people, Yahweh is and can only be known as the

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God of the exodus. And we'll point out as we get through this is that our own salvation that we have in Jesus Christ is leading to our exodus out of this fallen world and into the presence of God in the new heavens and a new earth.

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And so this exile exodus theme is found throughout the entire biblical record.

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By the way, I didn't get into this, but this gives evidence that God is the author of the Bible. You know, how can you have dozens of different writers of these books of the

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Bible who lived over the course of 1 ,500 years from every different walk of life and places where they lived and yet you have this unified story that has these themes that you don't pick up readily.

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It was a divine mind that inspired this book. This is God's book and it records his purposes and will.

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Now let's consider for a few minutes the exile and exodus theme throughout the history of redemption.

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In other words, Bible history. The themes of exile and exodus are recurring major themes throughout the biblical record.

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Exile is a common metaphor for God's judgment and exclusion from his life -giving and life -enriching presence.

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And exodus is the accompanying metaphor of God calling and recovering his people from exile to bring back to himself to receive and enjoy life in his presence.

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When we come to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, personal Lord and Savior, we are encountering a deliverance from being alienated from exile and being brought by him through a spiritual exodus into his presence.

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And of course the exodus of Israel out of bondage in Egypt led by Moses was the greatest Old Testament demonstration of God bringing salvation to his people.

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And in fulfillment of his promise to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt to enter the promised land, the land that he had promised to them.

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And so this was a manifestation of God's saving grace and power toward people in their exodus from bondage in Egypt.

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Now of course the nation of Israel entered into covenant with God at Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments.

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And they entered the land and would retain possession and the blessing of God in the land, conditioned on keeping the terms of that covenant, in other words ordering their life according to the law of Moses.

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They would order their national and private life according to the Mosaic law. They never did because they were sinners of course.

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And so after centuries of repeated and increased affection and rebellion, God brought his judgment upon his people once again.

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And of course they failed miserably and repeatedly incurring God's judgment. And so we read in the biblical record that both

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Israel, the northern kingdom of ten tribes, Judah, the southern kingdom of two tribes, were sent into exile to the nations particularly to Babylon.

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They're sent back there to that region, same place where the Tower of Babel was.

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Israel and Judah became as wicked as the nations, they're sent back by God to the same region into exile.

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Nevertheless God, through the prophets, promised he would not bring a total end to the people but that he would save a remnant and cause them to return to their land.

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And he promised that there the people, a remnant, would return to their land.

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He promised he'd give them the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit, which would cure them of their defection and their rebellion.

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And he would enable them to live in righteousness before him. And so this return to the land promised to the prophets, to a remnant of Israel, is found in many places in the prophets and it's described as a second exodus.

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The first exodus was from Egypt into Canaan. The second exodus is not from the south but from the north,

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Babylon and the nations, all the nations to which they had been scattered. And so the

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Lord spoke to Jeremiah of his promise, therefore the days are coming, says the Lord, that they shall no longer say as the

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Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. That was their signal event that identified them as the people of God up until their exile to Babylon.

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But rather this is what they're going to be thinking about, settling themselves upon, as the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country, not the south country, the north country, from all the countries where I had driven them and they should dwell in their own land.

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And we would argue of course God did that. It was rubbable, Nehemiah, Ezra, the people were brought back into their land.

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Here's Isaiah 11 verse 11 and 12, it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again, the second time, see a second exodus, to recover the remnant of his people who are left.

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And notice a number of nations are mentioned, they weren't just sent to Babylon but they were scattered from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathros and Cush, from Elam, Shinar, from Hamath, the islands of the sea.

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He'll set up a banner for the nation, in other words a signal, come this way and we'll assemble the outcasts of Israel and we'll gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

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And so exodus, a second exodus from exile. We're not going to read the whole passage of Ezekiel 36,

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I trust that most of you are familiar with it, but it reads about this second exodus and the giving of the Holy Spirit.

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He would make sure that they will never again repeat that rebellion and that defection from him, but rather he would bring them back and give them life, spiritual life, and through the

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Holy Spirit, you might see the bold italicized words I have in that passage, this land was desolate, has become like a garden of Eden.

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See they're returning, as it were, to the paradise of God. The wasted, desolate, ruined cities are now fortified and established.

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And so this is a Old Testament prophecy of salvation. God would transform their lives in bringing them salvation.

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He'd establish a new covenant with them through which he'd grant them freely the full forgiveness of their sins and would secure their allegiance and obedience to him.

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Now we know, again, that God historically brought the Jewish people to the promised land of Canaan.

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It's clear that their return under the leadership of Nehemiah's rebbeble in Ezra, however, was not the realization of these glorious promises that we've already read.

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The second exodus is much more than just a physical return of some Jews. Their physical return to Canaan from the

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Babylonian captivity was a historic type or shadow or picture of a greater deliverance.

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And that's the deliverance we have in Jesus Christ, set forth in the

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New Testament, our salvation from sin and from this fallen world. The antitype of that return of Jewish remnant back to their homeland to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, the antitype, the realization of that, again, is in the

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New Testament. In the New Testament, we have the true and full realization of God's promises through the coming of Jesus Christ, the establishment of the promised kingdom of God through his life, death, and resurrection, and his ascension to the throne of God in heaven.

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God would call forth a people from the nations of the world. He would bring a great exodus through history of his people from the nations as they come to faith in Jesus Christ as their

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Lord and Savior. He's calling people from all over the world. He's even got a church beginning in an

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Islamic land in eastern Turkey, amazingly. He's saving people and he's bringing them to Jesus Christ and they're in a pilgrimage of faith and they're journeying as we are to our new

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Jerusalem that God has promised. And we're moving in that direction with other believers throughout the world and we'll arrive one day.

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And so Christians are ones who came forth from exile in the nations unto him, unto his kingdom through faith in him.

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The prophets themselves, when they gave prophecies about the coming kingdom and the return of exile, recognized they weren't talking about themselves and their own people at that time, but they were speaking about us in this church age.

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Peter declared that. It's recorded that way in the Book of Acts in Peter's preaching.

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Now the Lord Jesus, who prior to his incarnation of course was the eternal second person of the

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Holy Trinity, took upon himself our human nature, which is a physical body and a reasonable human soul.

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He entered our fallen world as one of us in order to lead us in a great exodus out of our world of sin and death.

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Just as God went down to Egypt and brought them out using Moses, God through Jesus Christ has come into this fallen world and he's taken his people out on this great exodus.

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The Lord Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. The idea is that he has blazed the trail leading us and we follow him in faith.

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As a trailblazer has gone on ahead, one who is far greater than Moses, Jesus set out to deliver us from this fallen world, eventually to a new heavens and a new earth, a new

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Jerusalem, which one day will come down from God out of heaven, according to the last couple chapters of Revelation.

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And so as Abraham lived as a pilgrim in a foreign land while in earthly Canaan, we also live in this fallen world waiting for the city whose foundation, whose builder and maker is

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God, not one that's erected for the fallen in the memory and glory of fallen man.

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And so the Lord Jesus came among his own, the Jewish people, for the purpose of seeking and saving the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

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He was the true Passover lamb prefigured in the exodus of Egypt, and so he brought a true and full deliverance from our slavery of sin and Satan.

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And upon his resurrection and subsequent enthronement, at which time he deposed the devil's control over the nations, the

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Lord Jesus has been calling an innumerable number of people from all the nations of the world,

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Gentiles out of exile, to take part in a great spiritual exodus that leads them by faith unto their eternal home.

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And so the Lord would call unto himself people from all the nations. What of this great hindrance of their coming together as one, their ethnicity, their disparate languages preventing them from coming together as one people, one nation, one kingdom?

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Well we see that remedied, of course, on the day of Pentecost. God made provision to remove that which separated and scattered people from one another, and so through the

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Holy Spirit he gifted some to communicate to all the various languages of the world.

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We read about that in Acts 2, the day of Pentecost. It was a reversal of Babel.

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They all could hear the wondrous works of God and Jesus Christ in their own languages. We'll not read that passage, but people from all over the world.

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The Lord Jesus even spoke about his own exodus from this world. When he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, he spoke with Moses and Elijah, and the three of them were talking about his exodus.

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It's recorded in Luke. Now it came to pass about eight days after these aids, Jesus took

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Peter, John, James, went up on the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the appearance of his face was altered, his robe became white and glistening.

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Behold, two men talked with him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, and spoke. And it's a plural verb.

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They all were speaking with one another about his decease, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

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And the English word decease is a translation of the Greek word tein, exodon. And exodon, you can kind of hear it, is the word from which we get exodus.

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It's a Greek word speaking of departure. His death on the cross and his resurrection was a departure from this fallen world, returning to God as father and all those who are dwelling in his presence.

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And so he departed out of this world of exile, and we as Christians are now to regard ourselves as exiles in this fallen world.

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We don't belong here. We're citizens of another kingdom. We have dual citizenship, obviously, in our nation, but a greater citizenship in heaven.

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But we are to regard ourselves as exiles. We don't belong here. This isn't our home. Don't get settled down.

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Don't build a tower of Babel as though your whole existence is contingent on what you do or achieve in this life.

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We live for the life to come. And so God has called us, one by one, to be released from our bondage to the devil, our sin, leave this world in our affections, pursuits, live for our

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Savior as he leads us through life on our pilgrimage, journeying by faith on desire the city of God.

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Hebrews 12. And so Christians are called, for example, in 1st Peter 1, the pilgrims of the dispersion.

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Christians are the true Israel dispersed throughout the world. Again, that's the word of the exodus, dispersion.

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And then also we're described as the twelve tribes scattered abroad, according to James 1, which identifies

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New Testament Christians as the people of God in exile, the twelve tribes scattered abroad. We're the true

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Israel in Jesus Christ because he's the true Israel, the true Son of God.

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The nation of Israel was the unfaithful Son of God. Jesus is the true Israel, the true

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Son of God. And we become united to Jesus Christ through faith and so we become members, although we're

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Gentiles, we become fellow citizens with all those who believe on him.

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And we're awaiting our full and final exodus when we pass from this life onto our eternal home in a new creation, even the new heavens and the new earth.

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And so this exile -exodus theme permeates the story of the scriptures and should affect our biblical worldview.

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It affects how we should view ourselves, think about the world in which we live, think about our future, think about the manner in which we ought to value things, disvalue some things as we live for Christ.

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Now we need to conclude with this, okay, and that's how God's, God manifests his sovereign rule over the nations through history.

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The Word of God declares God is the sovereign ruler over all the nations of the world.

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This is not to say the devil doesn't have sway, he certainly has, he's the god of this age, he is the prince of the power of the air, and so it's true that the devil rules, but it's also true that God overrules the devil who rules.

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And so the devil does his evil purposes and activities, nevertheless used by God it always accomplishes

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God's purposes in history. The devil must be the most frustrated creature in all of history, everything he attempts to do ends up falling out for the advancement of the cause of God in Christ.

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God is able to make all things work together for good for those that love God and are the called according to his purpose.

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But God is the king of over all the nations throughout all history. It's declared in the

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Old Testament, let the heavens rejoice, the earth be glad, let them say among the nations the Lord reigns.

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Psalm 47, God reigns over the nations, God sits on his holy throne. Psalm 22, for the kingdom is the

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Lord's, he rules over the nations. Now as the ruler,

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God governs the nations according to his standards of righteousness. He assesses the nations, every individual nations, evaluates them, rewards them, punishes them, depending on how they order the life of their nation according to his righteousness.

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Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people, any nation.

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Of the Amorites, it said that Israel couldn't go in and take their land yet because their iniquity was not yet full.

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God was giving them space to repent. God spoke through Jeremiah of his dealings with the nations in history.

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The instant I speak concerning a nation, concerning a kingdom to pluck up, to pull down, destroy it, if that nation against whom

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I've spoken turns from its evil, I'll relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it, and the instant

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I speak concerning a nation, concerning a kingdom to build and plant it, if it does evil in my sight so that it does not obey my voice, then

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I will relent concerning the good which which I said I would benefit it. God judges the nations through history, and so God through history raises up nations to bring his judgment upon other nations.

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He'll employ the armies of an evil empire to bring his judgment upon smaller, weaker, but evil nations, and then there are periods in history where God says

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I've had enough of this, and he purges the whole world, all the nations. That's why he raised up Babylon, and you read about the catalog of nations in Isaiah and Ezekiel that all fell in the 6th century

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BC because God raised up his servant Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan king, to affect his judgment.

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One of the great problems that the Prophet Habakkuk had was, all right God, Judah's wicked,

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I recognize that, we deserve punishment, but how can you use this nation, more evil than we are, to punish us?

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And God answered him, well I'm free to do this, and after I get you done using them to punish you,

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I'll take care of them. Nobody gets away with anything in God's world. Thankfully God will spare a nation for the sake of some righteous people in it, however.

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Thank God for that. God would not destroy Sodom as long as Lot was in that city.

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God will spare a nation delivering it from his judgment upon its repentance. Nations should repent.

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The great city of Nineveh, a Gentile city, illustrates this at the last few verses of the book of Jonah. It repented, and instead of being overthrown in 40 days, it was spared to Jonah's consternation, by the way.

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There never has existed such a thing as a Christian nation in history, apart from the kingdom of God, which is called a holy nation.

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First Peter 2 .9, identified with the Church of Jesus Christ as the Israel of God. But though no nation could rightly be called a

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Christian nation, there have been what we might call Christianized nations, and there's been many of them in history.

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And in my opinion, the manner in which our nation was constituted originally is the best that God has ever created in history.

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And I would say that for much of the history of the United States of America, it was a Christianized nation. I wouldn't the responsibility of Christians to desire, pray, and labor to have their nation's laws reflect the righteousness that God has set forth in his word.

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Involvement in the political process is not wrong. It should be encouraged. Godly people supported, encouraged to seek government roles, but let us be mindful that the answer to our nation's or world's problems does not depend upon a political party or a political cause, but upon the mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ.

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I hope Christians realize this. Otherwise, we might have a reprieve if we get somebody in office we think will do us well, but it might be like the temporary revival in the days of Hezekiah or Josiah.

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As soon as they're gone, it reverts, and sometimes we're worse off than when we began.

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The answer is in Jesus Christ and the gospel of salvation, not in the countries of this world.

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And I'll conclude with this, and you take it for what it's worth. Maybe I'm stepping over bounds here, but I'm of the opinion that the

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Lord has taken us down as a nation. I don't see any suggestion that things are going to improve unless the

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Lord sends a revival, which God can do, and he's done in the past. Otherwise, the

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Lord is going to raise up forces to take us down further. We're under the wrath of God. Romans 1 is clearly stated.

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If the Lord doesn't return in the near future, I hope he does, I suspect he'll probably raise up China to dominate the world.

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Next 50 years are going to be tough unless the Lord brings revival or unless the

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Lord Jesus himself returns. And in doing so, God will be just in bringing his righteous judgment upon the peoples of the world, the nations that have turned from him.

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There was a time when our presidents would commonly call for a day of fasting and prayer and confession of national sins to invoke the mercy and blessing of God.

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This was common during the wars, World War II. Those days are gone, and now it's this just futile, fallacious thought that somehow we're going to get a deliverer in political office who's going to save us all.

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It's not going to happen. Jesus Christ is Lord, and he's the only hope of fallen men.

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Amen? Let's pray. Father, help us, our God, to see the glory of your

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Word and your purposes and work in history. Thank you, our God, that the Lord Jesus is calling people,

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Lord, a divine call, a heavenly call, summons upon the souls of people, awakening them to their sin and the need to get to you, to get with you, for in you alone is life and blessedness and happiness and true security and the promise of everlasting life.

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And we know, our God, that it's only through your Son, Jesus Christ, that we can come to you. And so help us, our

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God, forgive us of our sin, our rebellion, our folly, our Lord, and help us to walk with you in faith.

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And help us, our Lord, to be faithful to you in declaring this glorious gospel to the world in which you've placed us.