The scripture reading is Genesis, the 11th chapter, if you'd like to follow along as I read. Genesis chapter 11, which is the account of that wicked rebellion at the Tower of Babel. Beginning in verse one. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and by tomb and for mortar. Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves. lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, behold, they are one people and they have all one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. "'Come, let us go down there and confuse their language "'so that they may not understand one another's speech.' "'So the Lord dispersed them from there "'over the face of all the earth, "'and they left off building the city. "'Therefore, its name was called Babel, "'because there the Lord confused the language "'of all the earth And from there, the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. And there is the judgment of God recorded for us. That is his word and we are to receive it as such. Well, let's come then to the ministry of his word and ask his blessing upon it. Father, we pray now as we come to your word, that you, by your spirit, would bring it with power to us, that we would come to your word in faith, that we would hear and obey, that we would be strengthened in our faith, in our love for you. Father, we pray that if there be anyone that's listening who is still dead in trespasses and sins, that you might show them mercy, give them eyes to see and ears to hear, and grant them faith that they might be saved and justified before you. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, as I started to prepare this sermon, I thought, you know, There's a time warp in this place that happens. There's that time zone that you're in, and there's a time zone that I'm in. Up here, an hour goes by just like that. See, that's what happens. And so, as I started to put this sermon together, I said, I'm going to try to hold this down to like 45 or 50 minutes, but that's not going to happen. So, it just, I had to put this introductory part in here, as I was doing some more reading this past week. And the reading that I was doing was in a book by Joel Beeke. You've probably heard of him. And it's a book on the theology of John Calvin. It's really largely a book on biblical doctrine. And it's called Theology Made Practical. And Beakey emphasized some truths that we all need to get a hold of. When I say we all, I mean myself too, right? All of us need to just, we just need to have a little refresher here. And so that's why I put this introductory part in. We have not always been taught as boldly as we should have been, either in the past, maybe in churches that we grew up in, or maybe even in this church, and I probably haven't emphasized it as much as I should either, that we have not always been taught to esteem the preaching ministry of God's word as seriously as we should. Now, for myself, as a pastor, Um, this means that, you know, I, I at least, at least most of the time when I'm not yielding to my sinful flesh, I don't want to be arrogant. I don't want to want to be dictatorial. And, uh, you know, I said it, therefore you'd better, uh, believe it. But I can go, I think I've gone in many ways, often anyway. too far in trying to be humble and at the expense of saying, this is the word of God, and you must hear it and you must obey it, and so must I, all right? And there's a danger of familiarity. I've been your pastor for over 30 years. And it's easy, I mean, I include myself in this, it's easy to fall into the trap of hearing a sermon or writing a sermon and, well, what was the sermon? Well, Jeff said this, and Jeff said that, and that sort of a thing, and that's a trap. And I think we've seen people, quite a few people over the years in this church, make shipwreck of their faith as a result of that. If we start regarding, the ministry of God's word, if it is the ministry of God's word, then if we start regarding it as the word of just, of a man, and this can sneak up on us, that poison will increase, the enemy, and as time goes along, until pretty soon the day would come where we actually despise then the word of God. I don't know that, I hope anyway that no one here is in that trap, but this is just a warning then for all of us. The word of God is the word of God. Listen to this excerpt from Beaky's book, and he quotes Calvin here as well. The word goes out of the mouth of God in such a manner that it likewise goes out of the mouth of men, for God does not speak openly from heaven to us today, right? But he employs men as their instruments. He's given Ephesians 4, he's given pastors and teachers and bachelors and so forth to the church. Calvin, says Beaky, viewed preaching, and you insert scripture here for Calvin, Calvin viewed preaching as God's normal means of salvation and benediction or blessing. He said, that the Holy Spirit is the internal minister who used the And he uses the external minister in preaching the word. The external minister, that's me, all right, in this case, the external minister holds forth the vocal word with his voice. And it's received by the ears, but the internal minister truly communicates the thing proclaimed, which is Christ. And thus God himself speaks through the mouth of his servants by his spirit. Wherever the gospel is preached, it is as if God himself came into the midst of us. It's the word of God being proclaimed. It's God's word then, you see. And Calvin, Beecke goes on, often preached to his congregation about their responsibility to hear the word of God rightly. He taught his members in what spirit they should come to the sermon. Since all true preaching is biblical preaching and ministers are to preach only what God commands by opening his word, people are to test the sermons by this criterion. Unscriptural sermons are to be rejected. Scriptural sermons are to be accepted and obeyed with an attitude of willingness to obey God completely and with no reserve. See, you should never go away from hearing a sermon with saying, you know, well, that was a good sermon that he preached. That was, that's right. Our pastor says this. This is what our pastor says, you see. Well, if that's all it is, then there's a problem. He goes on, here's another comment, if the same sermon is preached, say to 100 people, 20 receive it, I would have lowered the number probably, but 20 receive it with a ready obedience of faith, while the rest hold it valueless, or laugh, or hiss, or loathe it, but it's the same sermon, they heard the same thing, you see. And Calvin spoke, here's another point, Calvin spoke of experimental, that's an old word, and it just means experiential. Calvin spoke of experiential preaching. Experiential preaching seeks to explain in terms of biblical truth with an aim to apply God's truth to the whole range of the Christian's experience in their family, in the church, and in the world around them. Experiential preaching, Calvin said, and here is, I just am convinced this is a fact, this is where so many churches are going wrong today. It's why there's so many, if they have large congregations, this is what's missing. Experiential preaching, Calvin said, is discriminatory preaching in that it clearly defines the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. It opens the kingdom of heaven to the one while shutting it to the others. Discriminatory preaching offers the forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who embrace Christ as Savior and Lord by true faith, but it also proclaims the wrath of God. and his eternal condemnation upon those who are unbelieving, unrepentant, and unconverted. This preaching teaches that unless our religion is experiential, we will perish. Not because experience itself saves, but because the Christ who saves sinners must be experienced personally as the foundation upon which the house of our eternal hope is built. That's just another way of saying the biblical truth. You must know Christ. Experimental preaching then is applicatory. It applies the scripture to every aspect of a listener's life, promoting a religion that's truly a power and not mere form. Robert Burns, I think he's a preacher from long ago, defined such religion as Christianity brought home to men's business and bosoms and said that the principle on which it rests is that Christianity should not only be known and understood and believed, but also felt and enjoyed and practically applied. Experiential preaching then teaches that the Christian faith must be experienced, tasted, and lived through the saving power of the Holy Spirit. And so there it is. But if we don't come prepared to hear in the preaching of God's word, God's word, and recognize that it is God's word, then all that's going to happen is nothing. We will just be hearing a man's word. So with that, when we come to the sermon, we ask, you know, am I ready to hear and obey God's word and reject some notion that it's just the opinion of man? And I caution again that this shipwreck, you know, I can think of people, this enemy is so deceptive. It just sneaks up on you. I can think of people, I can think back 20, 25 years ago, people that seemed to be really tracking on the same page, being of us and so on, and then all of those years go by and what happened? What happened? They made shipwreck of their faith and they end up actually despising then God's word. We must hear it, we must recognize that if Preaching is biblical. If it's preaching what God's word is, then it is God's, then it is God's word. Well, what I wanted to do this morning, then, is to call your attention once more to the days of Noah. And then we'll plan to return to our, well, you know, I was gonna plan to return to the Apostles' Creed next Sunday, but case reminded us that next Sunday is Reformation Sunday. So we probably ought to hear something fitting to the Reformation, not that the Apostles' Creed wouldn't be then. But we've already read Genesis 11, one through nine, the account of this rebellion against the Lord. Let's think again of the days of Noah. What was the flood? In modern computer terms, we might say the flood was God's reboot. It was a restart of creation, a kind of starting over. All human beings except Noah and the seven members of his family had been destroyed. God preserves his church as he always did, even though there was only seven people in it at that time. And then Noah is commanded by the Lord to go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That's just a reiteration of the command that God originally gave then to Adam and Eve. So once again, we see, okay, it's kind of like a new creation. It's not really, but in a sense, that's the imagery that we're given here. It's a new start. Let's begin again a beginning, a new beginning. All the wickedness that Noah had had to put up with all of his 600 years to that point was gone. All of those people wiped out. The mockers had perished. And but as they come out, you know, he could have been there. And if you, you know, standing back watching the thing, it'd be kind of like one of those, you know, those sci-fi movies where there, finally, they had victory over the alien and they're headed home, but one of the aliens crept on board. And you know, there's going to be a sequel to this thing now, you see. So, well, in Noah's case, that monster called Sin had survived. It survived the flood in the spiritual DNA of Noah and his family. And you see hints of it happening right after the flood. For example, chapter nine, verse two, the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are delivered. Well, it wasn't that way in the original Eden, so something's kind of amiss there, it looks like. And then again, verses five and six, and for your life blood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it, and from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own blood. Well, apparently there's going to be murderers. You know, Cain's lineage is going to crop up again. And then verses 20 to 25, Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent in Ham. The father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. So there was this the cursing that had gone on and the sin of Ham and most likely, I guess, of Noah as well. Things were still not right. So Eden had not been restored. A lot more is going to be required. A savior is going to be required before that could ever happen. And this is one of the reasons I have been staying up late at night reading the sermons of John Calvin on Job and the Psalms and 2 Samuel and Ephesians and Galatians. And it's just one of the amazing things about it is this sermon I'm going to quote to you from here was preached 463 years ago. That's a long time, 463 years ago, but it speaks to us because God's word is living and abiding and it's powerful. And his sermon was entitled, Ambition, Its Consequences and Cure. So let's look at how man went after the flood. This is what he said. We've seen how God, following the flood, miraculously restored the human race and multiplied it in such a way that sometime later the earth was inhabited here and there in very remote regions. Moses, and he says Moses because Moses wrote Genesis, all right. in search of story here to show men's ingratitude. Whereas they were supposed to prepare themselves to worship and honor God in those places where he would be pleased to lodge them, they now contrive to rise up against him. The flood was always to be in their memory before their eyes to hold them in fear in as much as they had seen God exercise such a grievous and horrible judgment on the entire earth. On the other hand, they were also supposed to be moved by the goodness of God, who had preserved them this way and had made a new world. It was also supposed to incite them to align themselves completely with him, but as we shall see, there is no discipline or gentleness that can draw them to the good and prevent them from making war against God. The point that's being emphasized here that God wants us to learn as well, so that we give him glory, is that man is totally fallen. I mean, think about it. What should have straightened man out? A worldwide flood. Everybody was killed. Everybody, except eight people. That's all that was left. And yet, Noah, Noah lived 350 years. He lived for 950 years. He lived 350 years after the flood. Now, how many descendants would have come from him and his sons in three and a half centuries? Quite a few. A lot of people. But still, still, people had fresh in their memories, or should have had anyway, what God had done in the flood and why he did it, you see. But man in his sin is totally fallen. It is his nature unless God causes him to be born again, makes him a new creation. Man will never save himself. He will never reform himself even in light of a worldwide flood. And so here they are saying, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. Now there's nothing wrong with building a city, although you could make probably a pretty good study of cities in the Bible. There's not a whole lot of good that comes out of cities in the Bible and in the history of man. There will be the city of God, but even the earthly city of Jerusalem, Jesus called it Sodom and Gomorrah then, you see, but in itself then, well, there's maybe nothing wrong with building a city, but we want to look at a person's motive. And in this case, here they are, they're going to build this thing and make a name for themselves. And it was in defiance of God because he had commanded them to multiply and fill the earth. They were to spread themselves out, you see, and they decided, well, wait a minute, if we do that, we're not going to be able to make a name for ourselves. We do what God says will be dispersed all over and that's not what we want then, you see. So this was a rebellion against God. Calvin puts it this way. Before we're scattered, let's make a name for ourselves. Let's build a city and a tower whose top will reach heaven. So we see that they were driven by ambition and pride. In addition, their self-exaltation was so excessive that they wanted to raise themselves up against God as if they were intending to show their contempt of Him. And that's what man does in his sin. He shows his contempt of God. This thing called pride is a terrible, terrible thing. self-glorying, this business of ambition. In some ways, you could say it's the root nature of sin, you see. Sin is lawlessness, and man, the sinner is lawless because in his pride, I will be a law to myself. I will write my own law. I will do what I want, and I will get the glory then for it. So as Paul says in Romans 8, the sinner is hostile to God's law. He hates God, and he refuses. He cannot submit. himself to the law of God. And where pride goes, destruction follows inevitably. Here's this Proverbs 16, 18, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. That's similar to what Case was reading to us earlier. Where there's pride, you be sure of this, the wicked, corrupt, pride-filled rulers of the world and of our nation today, they're gonna hang on their own gallows. A fall for them is coming, you see. All of us have to be on guard against this. Psalm 139, here's the prayer that we should remember often. Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Lord, here I am, search my heart. You can see my heart. In fact, you see into me better than I see into me. Search me. If you find sin in me, expose it and grant me repentance, you see. So as we said, Noah lived to be 950 years old. So here we go, then we got, let's see, Jim then has lived almost 950 years. One of Noah's, like, you got nine more centuries to go, you know, would we want to do that again? Well, that's what Noah did, you see. And after the flood, he lived 350 years. And you know, increasingly, those had to be grievous days for Noah. Because Noah would have realized after, you know, he's seen God's judgment, he built the ark, he and his family were preserved, they'd given a kind of a new start. All right, we're gonna get it right this time. The wicked are gone, and yet slowly, and then increasingly, the same old story starts to evidence itself Again, sin and rebellion in spite of the fact that they knew that the flood had happened. Now, I don't know how many years after the flood, the Tower of Babel took place. It's possible, I think you can go back through some of those early genealogies and kind of, I think somebody said was it they came up with, 1656 years after the creation, the flood came. Anyway, something like that. But I don't know how long after the flood, Babel took place. But it might be that Noah was still alive. It's possible that he was. And since scripture calls him a preacher of righteousness, There's no reason to think that Noah didn't continue to preach righteousness after the flood and warn people, look, don't do this, don't you remember what happened then before? But he saw it happening all over again. Man in his sin, as Calvin had mentioned, is grossly unthankful to God. God had been so kind and merciful to Noah and his family, and then they had children, and their children had children, and their children's children had children, and God was blessing them. He restored the earth. It was probably fruitful and multiplying. But the sinner is unthankful to God. Listen to Calvin again. Men cannot use moderation. when God is bountiful, generous toward them. God bestows such liberality that men not only have what is required for their needs, but they have a super abundance to enjoy. The more God displays his liberality, his generosity toward us, it's certain that we have greater reason to love him and devote ourselves completely to him. the good things he places within our hands should serve us in a manner of speaking as ladders to lead us higher in our love for him so that we will not be like unthankful brute peace. But Moses shows us here how men profane all of God's benefits and that it was not just said for the Jews but for us. In other words, this is written for us today. In other words, after fattening themselves up, they kicked back against their master. And in that sense, let me see here. In other words, when God draws us to himself and allures us, so to speak, we, now one thing you have to realize when John Calvin's writing, He'll sometimes say, as he does here, we become wild, ferocious animals. He's talking about we as mankind in general, all right? He's not speaking here of man as a Christian, although in our flesh, if we're not careful, our sin can do this. But here he's talking about man mankind in his sin. When God draws us to himself and allures us, when he's generous to us, we become wild, ferocious animals. And after stuffing our bellies, after being intoxicated with our lusts and delights, we conceive an arrogance and pride against him. And this is how the land of Chaldea, Shinar, corrupted those who lived there in Noah's day because God had blessed it and made it fair. A fertile place. They were being blessed by the Lord. They should have paid homage to God and thought, we were forced to change our dwelling place and we came here as if by chance. And yet God has given us this unimaginably beautiful and delightful country. And we are even more deeply obligated to him. This is how they should have been moved to praise God and thank him for such a blessing. But now, what did they do? They exalted themselves. and ambition blinded their eyes. This is the inevitable pattern that sin follows. Think about our own nation. God has abundantly, super abundantly, in the history of this nation, blessed America. But what has been our nation's response? Thankfulness to God? You see in the I think I saw in the news recently, and this has cropped up before, but it's increasing, that the chaplains in the military are not permitted to use the name, mention God, right? What do you want to have a chaplain for? You see, but in the early years of this country, after certain calamities and so forth, there was more thankfulness, but not many years passed by before God is forgotten. The people give credit to themselves. And the one-time prayer, God, please bless America, has now become a demand. God, bless America. You have to. You're required to do that. And so the result, we're reaping the harvest of iniquity today. Pride and ambition and self-worship in God is largely today disregarded and becoming increasingly irrelevant, a myth only fools believe. If you follow Christ, then you're seen as a fool. So Calvin continues, moreover, when it said that they said to one another, you know, let's build this tower. They said to one another, well, we understand that even though there were some leaders for such an undertaking, some primary conspirators building a city in the tower, Moses doesn't say some of them came up with a plan or someone in the group suggested, but that they said to one another, all of them, And so we have a plot agreed to among both great and small. No one in the group could say he was not guilty of being the principal author of such a wicked thing. In that sense then, we see that men are so inclined to evil. Now this is great, look at what he says here. Men are so inclined to evil that they don't have to go to school, for they are all masters when it comes to rebelling against God, going astray and devoting themselves to every confusion. And there's no one who does not try to corrupt all the others. And men scratch like mangy sheep and spread the infection everywhere. See, the sinner is not content to just sin himself. He's gonna spread the infection to everybody else. Come on, come on, come on. We see here, Calvin says an example well worth noting, that from the youth there's only evil in us. All our imaginations are rebellious and perverse and that all the compartments of man's soul, his reason, his thoughts, all his desires and all his affections are worships. It's kind of like factories for forging weapons to battle against God. That I say is what we are by nature. All the more than we must be urged to pray to God that he remake us. It's not enough that he correct the evil that's in us, but we must be completely changed or we will never be worth anything. And that's what you see in the flood, the total depravity of man. Now, you know, if you have heard much about John Calvin, If you talk to many, if not maybe even most, professing Christians and mention John Calvin, they'll respond with hateful words. Calvin, we don't want anything to do then with that guy. Well, I think one of the reasons, first of all, oftentimes they speak in ignorance and they're just talking about what they've heard, but they also hate him because he doesn't pull any punches And he doesn't pull any punches regarding the sinfulness of man because the Bible doesn't. God tells us like it is. And this is what we, what is the T in TULIP, total depravity. And as Calvin said, and as Jesus said, unless we are completely changed, we will never be worth anything. Those are hateful words spoken even if, If pulpits of most local churches today were preaching this truth, the total depravity of man, and saying things like, unless we're completely changed, we will never, unless you are completely changed, you will never be worth anything. What do you mean I'm not worth anything? God loves me because he made me, and I'm worth something, and he loves me because I'm worth something. No, you're not. No, you're not. Do you ever read your Bible and see what it has to say about man while he's dead in his sin? Jesus told Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. You know, most evangelicals talk about being born again, but they really don't believe that they're all that bad. And they don't believe that there's no good thing in them when they're born into this world. And they can point to the preacher, they can point to John Calvin, but really their disdain, the target of their disdain is God, God himself. Think of this, 2 Corinthians 5. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And similarly, Ezekiel chapter 11, I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them and they shall be my people and I will be their God. Clearly, that's speaking of the new birth. Now, if man, in order to be right with God, has to be born again, if we have to be made new creatures, if the old me has to be put to death and a new me raised up with Christ, then plainly, it's a no-brainer that there's nothing redeemable in me. My salvation can't be just some remodeling work. Somebody was telling us recently, maybe it was our neighbors when we were talking to them, but they're talking about building codes and they were remodeling an old house that they had. and there was a building, it was over in Portland, and the further they got into this thing, I mean, this thing was just, basically, the whole thing needed to be torn down. It was in that bad of shape. It would have been easier to just start over. But the building inspector said they couldn't do that because new construction wasn't allowed in that area. If they would just leave a minimum of six feet in one wall, it could still be considered a remodel. So that's what they did. Well, Arminian theology, or the theology of so many, I'd say most professing Christians today, is like that. God has to do a real work in me and so forth, but there's some good, there's at least six feet wall of good in me, so it's not like that bad. He has to remodel me, you know. No, no, no, no. There's nothing good in us when we enter this world, absolutely nothing. That's why we have to be put to death in Christ and raised up then a new creation. People say, don't tell me I'm not worth anything. Well, you're not. There's nothing in us. As soon as I maintain that there's something of worth in me, of value in me by who I am, then what I'm telling God is that I deserve. I deserve, because then you see, And you see it all the time, these little catchy phrases that are thrown around. They're really heresy and absolutely unbiblical. I'm worth something because God doesn't make junk, you see. Well, sin made you junk, all right? And we enter this world as sinners. And it's only by God's mercy and grace that we are saved. Listen to some more as Calvin talks about this wicked rebellion at Babel. We have also said that every sinner will want to instruct his neighbors in order to lead them to hell. The devil's a master of that art. And we can't live with one another, again he's talking about man the sinner, without walking in the midst of, oh no, actually here, now he's talking about a Christian in this world. All right, cite Christian in Pilgrim's Progress. We can't live with one another in this world without walking in the midst of ambushes and nets which are laid to catch us. The world's full of treachery and we, as Christians, must be on guard. The devil uses all the people he has seduced to do evil and be drawn into the same confusion. So we are surrounded by the wicked who want to seduce and draw us into their sin. See, that's in the opening chapters of Proverbs 2. My son, if sinners entice you, don't go with them. Better look out. Let us be vigilant and let us do so willingly because our enemies are not far away in as much as those who should be showing us the way to come to God seek only to ruin us thoroughly. They said to one another, come on, you guys. Come on, everybody. Let's build this tower of Babel. You know, we should, young people and children, should have, especially in the church, older generations of saintly, godly people to show them the way, to put them on the right way. I have to say that in my own life, and I think in decades past, even in this church, we didn't have that privilege. What we had is older generations that were ungodly and would do all they could to lead us away from the Lord. They said to one another, he continues here, when we see people who have been corrupted, Let's flee from them as from deadly plagues. Let's flee from them when they come up and whisper in our ears as the wicked and reprobate those instruments of Satan have done in all the ages in order to spew their poison everywhere and have always used those deceptive words when they say we do not have to be greatly concerned about facing the judgment for God spares no one. For God spares men. God spares you. God is merciful. God loves everybody. Don't be so narrow in your religion. And then he says, this is a great statement. We live in this world, we live among the thorns. Let us take care not to be pricked by them. So here is this Tower of Babel. Sin survived the flood. And we see that if we're ever to be free of it, salvation has to be of the Lord. The Lord has to provide us with a Savior. These rebels at Babel are showing themselves to be children of the devil. It's the devil who said, I will ascend to heaven. I will be like the Most High. Well, what was going on at Babel? You know, they may have put this as an inscription on the foundation of that tower. You know, I will ascend to heaven. I will be like the most high. What they want is, I will be God. I will be God. And we're gonna go right up into heaven and tell him so. So we're gonna build this tower and city right then in his face. You know, you could probably do a study of the history of man's building projects. You can go way back, what, not only to Babel, but the pyramids. Think of the pyramids in Egypt. And then in our day, what's up with this skyscraper thing? You know, when they built the Empire State Building, there was a big competition. We have to have the tallest one. It has to be taller than anybody else. And I think they heard that somebody else was going to build one that was even a little taller, so maybe that's when they stuck that tower thing on the top of it or whatever. But this whole, you know, man's zeal in building skyscrapers. And then what's that tallest one in the world now over in the Middle East? in Qatar, is that where it is? Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, what's behind that? What is this skyscraper thing after all? It's interesting that on 9-11, the target was these two skyscraper towers, right? And what was that? It was a wicked and evil thing, but it was a judgment Those towers represent, well, they weren't motivated with a godly purpose. You can absolutely count upon that. Well, Calvin says of Babel, they committed the greatest evil possible. It is when men band together against God, the greatest evil. Here's one more important application here. When our desires and passions, that is our flesh, carry us along, nothing's too difficult for us. When I'm walking in sin, nothing's too difficult for me. Some pursue false religion. They'll even stop eating and drinking in order to say, as they say, rise higher and higher to achieve renown and glory for themselves. They will renounce all delights and pleasures and conveniences, and Calvin probably has the monks, for example, in this. If God commands us to do our duty, we will reply. This is typical. This is our flesh, right? And this is man and his sin. If God commands us to do our duty, and what he's doing, by the way, and I guess he'll get to it at the end of this comment here, but what's happening here, Calvin is pointing at the fact that they come there, we're gonna build this tower, but we don't have any stone and we don't have any mortar. So, well, We'll bake some bricks out of the clay. We'll make our own stone and we'll use this bitumen tar stuff for mortar instead. You know, we're going to get this thing done. No matter, we're going to overcome all kinds of obstacles. That's what happens when sin is the operative force in our lives. If God commands us to do our duty, we will reply, oh, oh, that would be too hard for me. I know my limitations. How would I ever do that? In other words, we will not even want to wiggle a little finger when it comes to walking where God calls us. And it will only then take some slight inconvenience to stop us in our tracks. Oh, I can't go on, you know, pliable in the slew of this bond. Whatever the circumstance, we will always defend ourselves with the excuse that, Lord, the thing that you call me to do is just too difficult. But when it comes to the devil, you know, when it comes to evil, and here he's talking about man and his sin again, when it comes to the devil, we're so inflamed by our passions that the devil wins out every time. We will leap over mountains to serve him, even to our destruction. Must we not then see that there is a monstrous perversity within ourselves, as man the sinner, within him? When men give themselves over to evil, such as these rebels at Babel, they'll overcome all difficulties. They don't have stone with which to build, but they'll make their own from the dirt. Well, there's no mortar, but we'll build with clay instead, and we'll make our own bricks. They are insane with their pride, and nothing will stand in their way. Now, as we bring that application home to ourselves, we have to confess that we've been guilty of those kinds of things at one time or another. another, you know? Well, Lord, yeah, I know I should be doing this, or I start out doing this, but the slightest little thing comes up that's inconvenient, and I go off. But when it comes to doing what I want to do, you see, what I want to do, well, then I'll overcome any obstacle in order to then accomplish that, you see. So we need to examine ourselves in this regard. What does the Lord call us to do, to follow Christ? What are the things that he calls us to do to be faithful then to him? Well, Lord, I'm just too tired to read my Bible. I'm too tired to pray. I'm too, what, you know, and all these little inconveniences. In contrast, we can exercise great zeal and overcome all obstacles when my sin is, in fact, what's leading, you know. Lord, I can't do that right now. There's too many hindrances, but the same person will turn around and do all kinds of other incredible things. Well, Here's this tower of Babel, man in his sin, he's rebelling against God, he's gonna do this, he's gonna be somebody, and the Lord speaks. He just speaks by the power of his word, and what happens? Now this is an incredible thing. Language is weird. If you think about it, not only is language weird, It's weird in itself, but it's weird in this sense. There's all kinds of languages in the world. How did that happen? I'm sure there'd be all kinds of naturalistic explanations. This is how it happened. It happened at Babel. Now, it's not just a matter of people speaking. It's like on the spot, instantaneously, By the power of God's word, their brains were rewired. You know, when you study languages, languages are really different in the way sentences are, and it goes back to the thinking process of the person behind that language. So that, for instance, in the New Testament Greek language then, If in the New Testament, say, the Apostle Paul wanted to emphasize something, a particular word, he puts it at the very beginning of the sentence. Now, for us, it's like, well, that didn't make any sense, because the words are all out of order. Paul, you've got to get these words in order. First, we say the subject, and then the verb, and then we tack on adjectives and adverbs. That's not what happens there. There can be a word here and the adjective that's modifying that can be clear over here. And you have to match. Well, this goes back to the people of those different languages, their thinking process is different. If you've ever been talking to a person that speaks Spanish, for example, and you're having them translate. And so you'll be talking in English and they'll be translating, but then you realize all of a sudden they're not saying anything, they're not translating. And I've done this before and I asked him, well, are you going to translate? He says, I have to wait until you finish that sentence before I can translate it. You see, he's got to have this. So the point is at Babel, God rewired people's brains and they could not communicate then with one another, except they're like, oh, I understand that guy and that guy, and then so they gathered together, they gathered together, and off they went, and off they went, and so much for the Tower of Babel. And it happened, and all that it required is for God then to speak. There is no hope for man the sinner apart from Christ. Sin was not washed away even by the great flood, but it is washed away by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for that blood. Thank you for your Son going to the cross for us. And we confess our sin of pride before you. We pray that you would search our hearts and examine us and show us sin that's lurking there that we might see it and you grant us repentance that we might hate it and turn from it and bring you glory and not glorify ourselves and we pray this in Christ's name, amen.