Well, let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 9. I want to move to the second of the great judgments in — I'm sorry, Genesis chapter 11. Second great judgments in Genesis, this book of beginnings, as we have seen how that the Lord is revealing Himself to us, and that's the prayer that we might see more of God and understand who God is, and in turn understand ourselves as men that we might follow after the Lord. So Genesis has these really four, but the last three spring from the judgment that comes because of Adam and Eve eating the fruit. So from this fall, mankind is thrown into sin. Man's nature will be sinful. His nature will be towards himself and not towards God. And we see the effects of that as God sends in these three great judgments that the New Testament tells us are to be looked at throughout history, that we might understand the ways of God and the coming judgment of God, that we might be warned, we might be provoked to love the Lord, to learn from those who did not follow after Him. So it's a sobering study, and yet it leads to a glorious study that is that God, in the midst of such turbulence and chaos and rebellion, God reveals His purpose and grace that was hidden from all ages before the world began in choosing Abraham We're gonna see this walk of God's grace in the patriarchs soon, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, but we must work our way through the judgments first. And so, this one today is a bit unconventional. It's not what I've preached on before. I hope it'll stir your hearts and your minds a bit, and I hope it'll even start some good conversation. There's something I've missed here that you might see it. Very fascinating and I think very relevant, yet not one that we look at every week. We're talking, of course, about the Tower of Babel. Genesis chapter 11. And Lord, we'll look at this for a couple of Sundays. Genesis 11, I'll begin reading in verse 1. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a place, a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name. lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down. and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth. From thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth." Well, interesting story, isn't it? We've been praying for Isabella Jewett, who has leukemia. And the plan to combat this leukemia is to take a bone marrow that fits her blood type, kill the cancer cells that are in there, remove her bone marrow, and then replace that bone marrow with the similar bone marrow that will then, if it's not rejected by the body, and there are drugs that she'll be given to help it not be rejected, If the body doesn't reject it, that bone marrow will replace what her old bone marrow was supposed to do, and it will do it the right way. And that's about as much as I understand about it. Bone marrow's role in blood production, according to my very quick Google search this morning, wasn't discovered until 1868. Meanwhile, Hebrews chapter 4 tells us that the Lord is able to discern between the joints and the marrow. Isn't that amazing? In fact, you wonder, what did people who are reading the Bible Before 1868, think when they read that passage. What bit of understanding do they have? What does this mean? There was some, of course, understanding of it, but not to the degree we have now. And 1868 pales in comparison to what they're about to try to do with her. Amazing. Think about the minds in research laboratories. who were studying blood and marrow and said, hey, let's try this. And think about all the many sequences of let's try this, let's look at this, let's do this, that has gone into what they're about to try that has been successful with many people. Man's ability is amazing, isn't it? It's astounding. Or don't take something else, take something like hormones. The child is born. It's quickly evident. The child is not growing, not developing the way that it should grow. And researchers and scientists have looked and they've studied and they understand something of this regulatory thing called hormones. And they're able to give these synthetic hormones. Again, I'm thinking way out of turn right now. Brother Jefferson's probably cringing as I use words. He's like, that's not right. But it's something like this to enable a child whose body is not growing right to start to grow normally. Isn't that amazing? Think of the years, the time, the minds that pulled together And tried things, and experimented, and discussed things, and crossed this off. And said, yes, let's try this. And all the collective wisdom to do amazing things. And then consider this. The same minds, maybe in a lab just down the hall from the growth hormone side, what if Someone decided they didn't want, a child decided they didn't want to be a girl. Couldn't we do anything physically to help them along with that affirmation? And yes, similar things, hormones, synthetic, given. to take the body that God made and reshape it, literally, in a fashion that the child says, this is what I want to do. Now, we just went from smiles to sort of uncomfortable spot here, didn't we? Yikes. What's going on there? What's going on with this bone marrow thing and then this hormone thing that has such drastically different outcomes? I think part of it is this. John Calvin said, man's heart is a perpetual idle factory. The atheist Nietzsche said this. The most fundamental drive of the human heart is a will to power, a lust to dominance. The idea being that man seeks out some obstacle to overcome, always seeking to overcome one more roadblock, one more mountain, one more hill that we can climb over. And in one arena, that's a wonderful trait. And in another arena, that's a horrific trait, isn't it? So what is it that man's lusting after? What is it that man is seeking to dominate? What is happening here? What is the idle factor that he's producing? It really is a monument to himself, isn't it? If I can overcome all obstacles, then I will be where I want to be. I'll be at the top. Well there's one more thought that I want to share in this reality of what man is. This is from the book of James. This is what God says. Very simple, you've heard it all your life, but it's a very important truth for you to understand. God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble. Understand that. God resists the proud. and gives grace into the humble, and there you have the story of the Tower of Babel. The question is, how does one go from? Notice in verse 9 that God gives the name Babel because of the confounding of language, but really the word was Babylon. I didn't probably say that right, but Babylon means the gate to God, the gate to the gods. So how does man go from right on the precipice of reaching to the gods, of dominating, of overcoming all obstacles, to babble. This confused, unintelligible, it's cute in a child, isn't it? When you hear a child babble, it's cute. But when you get to see an adult babble, you know that something has gone horribly wrong. Maybe the adult has had a stroke. Or maybe they just see something that's horrific, and they're shocked. And for a while in their shock, they can't speak right. That's what we're talking about here. How does one go from this height of human possibility to this depth of human confusion? And the answer is, God resists the proud, but He giveth grace unto the humble. The story of the Tower of Babel is a story of humanity. It's a story of you and me. The story of humanity. According to Romans 1, it's the folly of human ambition that challenges God. Here we see, at this story, we see man at the very zenith of possibility. Mankind is together. They have the same goal, the same mind. There's unity. The triumph of the human spirit, the unity of the collective, the dream of human progress, the possibility of human progress is all right here in the story of the Tower of Babel. It's all right here. As I was studying for this message, I get this — it's a temptation for me, it's also a blessing to me — I get this email every Sunday morning. And it is a compilation by a couple of editors of the best long-form writing from the past week. Again, it's a temptation because I love long-form stories. And it's also some good information at times, so I have to be careful to just give myself a little bit at a time. And so there were two articles I read in the study this last week. One of them was an interview with the first client of Neuralink. You know Neuralink? This is the height of human possibility right now. Neuralink came about when Elon Musk, a few years ago, was riding along with his chief of staff somewhere in a car, and he's sending a text message, and he gets very frustrated because his fingers aren't working as fast as his mind will work. Maybe he hit the wrong things. Go back a little bit. He says, why can't we figure out how to send text messages just by putting our thoughts out there? And so he sent him to that task, or he hired some engineers, and Neuralink was created. And so this article was an interview with the first client of Neuralink. This is a man who, a few years ago, was paralyzed. He was paralyzed in an accident with some friends, still a young man. Paralyzed, his life changed forever. And so sure, why wouldn't I try this? And so he underwent the brain surgery and they implanted some wires in his brain and some whatever, that's as far as I can talk about it. I don't know anything more than that. And here's the big takeaway. It's truly amazing. He is able to play video games faster than you can. I said you, whoever you are in the room. It would be a big deal for me. For some of you, it would be a big deal. He can play video games faster than you can because he doesn't have to have the video game impulse go from his brain, you know, the action go from his brain to his thumb and then to the button. It goes straight from his brain to the game. Are you following me? In other words, He controls the video game by his mind. His fingers don't work. He thinks, and the cursor moves. Is that not insane? Insane, I just mean amazing. That's amazing, isn't it? And by the way, he's the first one. There's been at least two more, and they can do more things than just that. Again, there's no thumb moving. He just thinks. Yes, it's reading his mind in a sort. It's reading some impulses from his brain, right? He's both thrilled and he is terrified. He's like, can it read the rest of what I'm doing and thinking? The answer is, yeah, I can read the rest of what you're doing. What's the next frontier? The human possibility is everywhere here, right? In the same week, I read another article that shows the problem with mankind and its limits. And the answer is, it's just our sheer humanity. It's our nature. This article was about Rupert Murdoch. Have you heard about Rupert Murdoch? You know who he is, right? Rupert Murdoch is a great media, Australian media tycoon who became insanely rich and famous through his media takeover over the last half century. And he's the one that owns Fox News. And he's conservative politically. But he's also 90-something years old. So he's gonna die. And one of the things that he did while he was living, he's still alive, but while he's been living his life was he kept trading in wives for new wives. And so he kept having children. And he's conservative politically and he really, really, really wants his Fox conservative news to continue. He wants his legacy to be this conservative legacy. Here's one of the richest men around. And yet he has no power at all to ensure his legacy. In fact, his legacy is going to die on something radical happens. Because when he divorced wife number two, instead of giving her half his money, he agreed to let all the kids that he would have there have equal control over the future. And guess what? Some of his kids, well, more than him and his conservative son, are liberal people and they want nothing to do with this conservative legacy. Isn't that amazing? A man with limitless wealth, incredible power, the moment he dies, gone. Isn't that something? Why? How can humanity be so amazing and yet so limited? Well, the Tower of Babel, the story of the Tower of Babel, is a story ultimately of man versus God. Let me just give you a few things here. We have the greatest of man's strength. Verse one, the whole earth was of one language. and one speech. That's the strength of man. They're all one. By verse 9, or actually by verse 7, God says, go to, let us go down, and there confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech. The strength of man versus the strength of God. just in being able to speak and understand. The wisdom of man, verse 3 and 4, man says, go to. Let us go build this city and this tower. Man's collectively decided this is a good thing to do. We will save ourselves. We will preserve ourselves. We will make ourselves a name. Listen to verse. Seven, God says, go to, Genesis one, go to, let us go down, and there confound their language. Man's strength is confounded, man's wisdom is thwarted, and then man's ambition. Look at verse four. And by the way, I hope that when you're hearing man, you're not just hearing some man out there, Musk or Murdoch or whoever, I hope you're hearing me. My ambition versus God's. My strength versus God's. My wisdom versus God's. Here's man's ambition, verse four. Let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. We're gonna go see God. We're gonna go be where God is. We'll reach into heaven. I hope you notice verse five. I think the writer knew what he was doing here. It wasn't as if God was nearsighted. or had some limited vision. Verse five says, and the Lord came down. You hear that? Let's go. And God says, let me go down and see what's happening out there. There's a height, a gulf far too vast for man to ever bridge. the might of man, the wisdom of man, the ambition of man, all confounded by God. So what ultimately happens in this story is that what they feared most, what did they fear most? We will be scattered. Let's build this, lest we be scattered. What they feared the most happened to them, and what they desired the most, like a name for ourselves, was turned to infamy, Babel. I confounded their language. I made them talk unintelligibly. Do you take any lessons from that? The greatest collective of mankind ever that we have, all brought together, same purpose, same speech, same goal, all thwarted. We'll get to that more next time we meet. It's a cautionary tale, isn't it, for all of us? I think you should also note the story's place in the narrative, okay? So this is right before, this is right before the table's gonna turn and the table's gonna turn to one man and one family that will become this great family. And Deuteronomy 32, verse 7 and 8 tell us this. They tell it, let me just read it to you. Deuteronomy 32. What's happening here is God is proportioning out the nations. God is dividing the nations. It's the same thing that's been happening all the way from the beginning of Genesis, as there's the seed of the woman and then the seed of the Lord. There's a division, there's a difference, friends, among the nations. And the division is so important for you and I to understand. There's all the nations, that's the heathen, and then there are the people of God, and that's the division. So listen to Deuteronomy 32, 7 and 8. It's talking about this very scene. He says, remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father and he will show thee thy elders and they will tell thee when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance. When he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. What's happening here? God is scattering the nations, and He's sending them out to all these places, and God sets His favor, His love, His care upon Jacob, upon Abraham, who will be the father of this holy nation. Friends, understand, again, understand this. This is, this is, there's one holy nation, you better find out where it is, right? It's the people of God. Just a couple more notes in general about the story. I really do believe, I've said it already, I believe this is a prototype story. This is the story of humanity. If you don't understand Babel, you will not understand yourself. This is the way of man. This is the way of mankind. This is one that's been repeated throughout history. So really, the question is, who should listen to this message? Who should listen to the story of the Tower of Babel? And the answer is everyone. Nations should hear this story. The United Nations should hear this story. Collections of nations should hear this story. Those who would want a one world system should hear this story. Elon Musk should hear this story. Jeff Bezos should hear this story. They all should hear this story, and so should you and I. Every one of us, from collectives to individuals, And then the last thing I'll note about this story in general is this. This is a devastating story of judgment. You see, as opposed to when Adam and Eve fell, there are no coats of skins in this story. Now, there is, but it's not obvious. There's no Noah found grace in this story. This is a story of God scattering the nations. In fact, the only hope in this story is in God's judgment. The only hope is in God limiting man's ability to do what man wants to do. By the way, praise the Lord for that. That's where we'll end today. Our hope is in a God who's ruling this world righteously and justly and who's more powerful than me. Are you? Is that how you feel? Do you trust? Is your hope placed? When I say hope, I mean you're putting all your cards into a God whose wisdom is better than yours and whose power is more than yours. Don't think that you and I are not like Babel. We think we know what we need, and so we put all of our eggs into the basket of, I will chase this, and I will make this, and I will be this. Our ultimate hope is the opposite of that. Our hope is in a God who knows better than us. It's more powerful than us. So let's just try to jump into it. We'll do it a little while today and then we'll do some more next time. Here's the general history of this story. I'm going to give you my slant on this. There's different ways of looking at this. I'll give you my slant. So Genesis chapter 9, the flood has ended. Noah and his family have come off the ark and there's a sort of reset and this restating of the creation mandate. God says, you guys go forth and you replenish and you multiply and you fill the earth. God is sending mankind to go through the earth to live in the image of God, making things, building things. The building's not the problem here. Building things, creating things, all under the authority and in obedience to God and for God's glory. Okay? That's Genesis chapter 9. God gives this promise, this covenant rainbow that he will not destroy the earth by water again. And then in Genesis chapter 10, you have this, what's called the table of nations. It's just this listing of Noah's sons and their sons and their sons and how the nations began to take shape. I don't believe that Genesis 10 and 11 are chronological. I believe that what happens is that God gives the table of nations in Genesis 10, and he circles back around to this episode that happens in Genesis 10, in my understanding, at Babel. So let me tell you why I believe that. A couple of reasons. Number one, we're gonna go to Genesis 10 for a minute. Number one, in Genesis 10, it mentions a man named Pelag. And it says, in the days of Peleg, the earth was divided. And then in Genesis chapter 11, right after the story of the Tower of Babel, it again brings up the name of Peleg. This is verse 18, and Peleg lived 30 years, and begat Riu, and lived after he begat. So it places us in the same place, the same generation. Now, I just wanted to mention that. That doesn't mean that much to you, but it is a little ray of light and hope. Because again, this is a story of devastating judgment. Pelag, who... I don't know anybody named a child Pelag. Maybe we should Pelag, okay? In Luke chapter 3, again, this is God confounding the nations. This is God destroying the nations. But in Luke chapter 3, this man, Pelag, who lived in this time when the earth was divided and scattered and brought on God's judgment, this man is listed in the line of the people from whom Jesus Christ will be born. Isn't that wonderful? So from humanity comes devastation, and from humanity comes the hope of a man who will come and will bind the nations and will bring us back together. And that's where we're headed, by the way. Next Sunday, two weeks from now, it's going to be about what's the answer, what's the solution for Babel? And I'll just give you part of the answer. The answer is Pentecost, right? What a glorious thought. We'll move along. Okay, so let's read in Genesis 10, and I'm going to read to where we have this one other man. This is verse 8. Genesis 10, verse 8. And Cush begat Nimrod. What a name. He began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel." Anybody ever heard the name Babel before? It's where it comes from, comes from Nimrod building this thing called Babel. Every child's favorite song is Babylon is Fallen, right? Well, that's why you love that song. You're about that Babel's a babbly place. It's not a good place. Babylon is Fallen is going to be a theme of scripture. Babel become a theme all throughout scripture. What starts right here, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. and Erech, and Ached, and Calna in the land of Shinar, okay? So Nimrod is this mighty hunter, and Nimrod is this kingdom builder. Nimrod is the first man that we have in scripture who built a big kingdom. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. He forms this government. He forms this consortium. He has this first great kingdom at Babel. The first great man of renown. How many great men of renown have there been throughout history? Well, this is the very first great kingdom, king. First great man of renown. Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. He builds this place called Babylon. Well, I said it already, I'll say it again. Babylon is a city that will be synonymous all throughout history and throughout Scripture. with human ambition and humanity at war with God. That's what Babylon is. Humanity at war with God. Humanity making the most of itself. Now Babylon as a city was a thing of beauty in the pagan world. Babylon was known for its great glory, for its great pride, for its government, It thought very highly of itself. You've probably heard of the ziggurats, right? These steep, rectangular towers that oftentimes had a temple at the very top. Nebuchadnezzar was known for his temple that was, I think, that was seven stories high, massive structures. This is what was called the, I can't pronounce the name, but the name of the Nebulasers was, had the idea of linking heaven and earth. That's the idea of building these towers. And it's believed that all these ziggurats were based upon what was attempted here in Genesis chapter 11. It comes right back to the Tower of Babel. So Babylon, this glorious city, the Babylon, this place of great government, Babylon, this place of great pride, Babylon, this place of human ingenuity and human ambition and growth. This is where this comes from. And of course, you know, we remember the story earlier today already, what happens is, is that they had this desire to build, to build, to build, and God forged this desire. That's the history, the setting of this story. So I want to look at it from just a few vantage points, thinking about the way of man. Today is the way of man. The way of woman, the way of all of us, the way of man. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. This is how the chapter starts, this is how the story's introduced. The whole earth was of one language and of one speech. He is showing us here the one speech really means, the one language, one speech, it means, it's showing us the solidarity, the unity of mankind. Now you may not think of mankind as being very unified, but here the emphasis is on the unity of mankind. Mankind is together. There is a collective The living arrangement, the collective place that they are, and a collective desire that mankind has. And in a real way, he is warning us here against mankind's unity. What is mankind unified in? Mankind is unified in its rebellion against God. All of mankind, according to Scripture, is unified in its rebellion against God. All together, all of one speech, all of one language, all in one location. The one speech literally means one set of words. Now you can't have it in your house, can you? We're all saying the same thing on the same page. But here, He said, mankind is saying these same words. Mankind is unified. Mankind is together. And what is mankind together in? They're together in unity. rebellion against God. Well, we're warned about that scripture, aren't we? The very first warning in Proverbs is this. My son, when sinners entice thee, when this collection of sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Proverbs continues to go on and say, because what happens is, is that we believe that we can pull our resources together. We can achieve safety, it'll be good for us, and we will be more wealthy. Proverbs 1, I'm totally paraphrasing here right now, if we will do this together. When sinners entice thee, consent thou not. And so, Fred, just for a minute, let me just say this. I don't, we can go overboard in this. But you and I should have a healthy skepticism towards collective wisdom. People were mocked, vilified a few years ago during the COVID epidemic. when they were accused of not believing the experts, or not fully complying with the experts, not fully following the science. And the years have come to demonstrate that the science wasn't so scientific all the time, was it? Now we have to put up a very careful border on our own souls here because also there are many fools who will not listen to anyone. And Proverbs warns about that as well. The Baptist people have been known, one of their traits over time has been, I believe, a healthy independence. That's why we've emphasized things like the priesthood of the believer, or local church autonomy, or the liberty of conscience. We can talk about those later, but terms like that describe where we understand that we have to answer to God alone, and we must answer to God, and God has given us the resources to be able to understand His word and follow Him, and we will strive to listen to God as opposed to trusting in collective wisdom that might not be from God. Well, that's just one example. Isn't it true, though, children? Isn't it true that oftentimes the worst ideas and the worst things that you try come from listening to collective wisdom? Your worst messes happen when somebody says, hey, I've got an idea. It just feels more powerful in a group, doesn't it? The possibilities become more endless in a group. You see, the command that God had given was, you go. Go explore the West. Go be Lewis and Clark. Go throughout all the earth. Trust me. Obey me. Follow me. I will help you replenish the earth. Instead, it seems safer to stay right there with the collective as opposed to trusting God's word. There's a lesson there for us, isn't it? Trust God's Word. Obey God's Word. Well, that's just one small piece. The next thing, verse 2. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain, the land of Shinar. They dwelt there, and they said one to another, go to, let us make brick and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And here's the point here. The marred There's two points. The marred glory of man. Man, we said it before, human growth hormones, beautiful. Bone marrow transplants, amazing. Re-engineering gender, horrific. But friend, you cannot see this story without seeing the glory of man. God has, even in a marred image, given man great glory. You see it here in man's ingenuity. Go to, let us do this. They're conscious of their ability. We don't have the best resources, but we can take some brick and we can really burn it. This reminds me of India. There are little homemade brick kilns everywhere in India. And the brick's not that good. It can't be. Because the resources that they have to build it are not. But they can make some stuff with it. It's amazing. Just a little heat, and a little clay, and a little man with a pot, and some wood. And they're making brick. How ingenious. Friend, the ziggurats are incredible. They didn't have excavators and big vats of concrete that can turn in a wheel and drive to your site and dump it there and even bring it up from the top and lower it down. They didn't have cranes and all these, but they built amazing things. Let's go to heaven. Oh, the glory of man that God made. But when it's turned the wrong direction, friend, what a horrific thing that it is. So know this, God has made you. with incredible ability. And God has made you to use your ability to the very best of your ability. If you are not pursuing excellence, then you're robbing God of what he's given you. But notice also here, it's still man. And so what you, I don't think I'm wrong here. I think I'm right. You hear a mocking tone in this as well. As God focuses on, you know, this is a very short story. We have a very few things to focus on. He focuses in on man's resources, his ingredients. What does he say? He says, and they had brick for stone and slime for tar. Slime had they for mortar. Yes, ingenious, but it couldn't last. It's brick. It's not stone. God had made the stone. If they had stone there, it would have been a great to build with. They didn't have stone. All they had was brick for stone. It's as if God is saying, are you really serious? You really think that you can make an everlasting name for yourself and you don't even have stone? And you don't even have good mortar? Oh, you got slime? Be aware of your ingredients, brothers and sisters. The Bible emphasizes this. Lord, make me to know mine end, that I might know how frail I am. Isaiah, warning Israel, who was filled with pride, he says, It's so visual. Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils. Where's this vast vat of breath that I can have, God? Right there in your nose. That's what you got right now. That's all you have right now. If you have any more, I'll give it to you. But all you got is right there. Are you going to trust in that? Friends, building is good. I'll say it again. Building is good. Building is very good. But the aim of building is everything. What you're building for is all that matters. The problem is not the building. The problem is who is building it, where they were building it. It should have been a bunch of things being built all over the world. because their aim was for the glory of man. Now, we gotta hurry up and finish this thing up, so let's keep on rolling. The third point of this passage is, I just call this the fatal aim of man's pride, the fatal aim of man's pride. Again, this is the way of man, this is how all mankind is. This is not just some story a long time ago. Friend, you and I have resources that we trust in that are nothing. You and I are tempted to follow the collective wisdom. The fatal aim of man's pride is what is the glory of man. Let's read this. And they said, go to, verse 4, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. Ultimately, Babel's aim is against God. Know that. The way of man is ultimately against God. That's what Romans 1 says. Romans 1 says, and it describes man, it says, listen, the problem is that man is not thankful, and so man wants to take God's glory and receive it to himself. And you can't have, you can't live for God's glory and self-glory, and so God becomes the enemy, right? And I seek the glory for myself. So man's aim is to make something great out of man. This is Eve. Ye shall be as God's. Why won't God let me share in His glory? This is the universal human inclination, to make a name for myself. Now you may be craving fame. It's not about fame. It's about security and safety and prominence and being something. Permanence. And really control. I want to be able to rule my world. Now notice, notice that undergirding all this is a desire for safety. I want to be safe. I want to be secure. So I'm going to build this structure. When I have this, then I'll be safe and I'll be secure. Let me just start right there. You know what's driving this? Fear. Insecurity. Because friend, even though man gets so full of himself and a very conscious of man, we still know there is a God. Right? We know there is judgment. We know that we're just human. We try to push it from our minds, but we know that we are. I was talking to a guy this week, he's not a believer, and he said, I saw you guys praying, and I wanted to come in there so bad, but I have these questions about Adam, and it just starts moving in a bunch of crazy directions. You see, man, in his heart, he knows there's a God. So he's insecure, he's not safe, and he seeks to control his life, control his circumstances, to build what he can build to provide safety and security. Friends, fear is so closely tied to sin. So we can say this, if the materials were weak, the builders were even weaker, right? Is that something? It's not just the slime and the brick. It's the builder himself. It's the weak one. But foolishly, man convinces himself some way, I can do this. I can live my life the way I want to live my life. I can build this. I can do this. It's a lot of Hebrews, isn't it? Isn't that interesting? I want to link heaven and earth. You see, there's a power in becoming our own gods. There's a glory in having control of our own lives. So this thirst to link heaven and earth has always been in the heart of man. And you can only do that in three ways. How do you do that? How do you link heaven and earth? Well, the first way is you can bring God down. And people are trying that all the time, aren't they? I was watching a clip yesterday of a United Methodist Church pastor. He was talking about the idea that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that no man can go to the Father but Him. And he said this, he goes, listen, he goes, the idea that people would go to hell who rejected Jesus is a vast overstatement. That punishment doesn't fit the crime. You wouldn't even punish somebody for a week for that, much less for eternity. And I thought to myself, I thought, the problem right now, that you have no understanding of the glory of God. The glory of God, who said, this is my son. I'm well pleased with him. Here you heal me. Go, you can do anything you want to do with Jesus. But that's not a big deal. What's really a big deal would be to be intolerant of lifestyle, whatever it might be. You don't know God. You got to bring God down to your level. Make Him malleable, adjustable. Well, the second way is to aspire to be God. This is what's happening right here, right? Aspire to be God. We're going to go for all we can get. I'm going to control my own life. I'm going to chase immortality. My friends, there's a third way. The third way to leave heaven and earth is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. the great ladder between heaven and earth. Look at that maybe next time. Well, let's close this way. Here's the reality, friends. Here's the end of the message. Man remains the same. After the Tower of Babel, after God thwarts this, as we'll see next time, man remains the same. You see, This is a story that's a long time ago. It's a story that's incredibly relevant to our day and time, isn't it? On a big picture level, let's talk about Neuralink. You know Jeff Bezos right now, his dream, his goal, he's the head of Amazon. His goal is to, if we could build, if we could make a space station, massive space station, and populate it, and have good control over it, we could, We can take care of our population problem, and our health issues, and maybe even some of our crime issues, and poverty issues, and food issues. And we can build this other ecosystem in the space station. Because man can do anything that man puts his mind to. See, man, when he takes his power, in big ways or small ways, things I can control the world. Just recently, Memphis, our school board, everybody in the city is saying you're doing something wrong. Yet you have seven or nine people who have the majority, seven to two, whatever the vote was, and they go, we don't care if it looks completely illegal and wrong to the whole world. We can do whatever we want to do because we have the power. Listen to the Article 1 of the United Nations purpose. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end, to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace. and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about, by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace." We can bring peace. Listen to this. "...to develop friendly relations among nations based upon respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determinations of peoples." and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace, to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as a race, sex, language, or religion, and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends." We can do whatever we want. We can bring peace. We can bring goodness. We can bring respect. We can bring self-determination. We can bring whatever it is if we'll just fall under the wisdom of the collective. Well, that's a long way from where you and I live on a daily basis. This message is also to you and me as well. It's to you and me. What is it that I am building? Maybe there's a hint of insecurity there. I know I'm not living my life the right way. I know I'm building some things that are not so good, but I'm building this because this will bring me good. This will make me safe. This will make me secure. This will get me where I want to be. Well, friend, here's the end of the message again. I said it before, I'll say it again. The hope of this message, again, there's no obvious Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord or coats of skins for Adam and Eve. The hope is in God's judgment. The hope is in God stopping man's purpose. The hope is in what God did when Jesus Christ went to the cross. Listen to this. This is the same exact or similar scenario to what happened to the Tower of Babel. This is in Acts 4. This is Peter and John and the others who've been punished for preaching Jesus Christ. This is them quoting Psalm 2. Here's what it says. The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together." I get chills reading this. Against the Lord and against His Christ, for of its truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel. Everybody's together in this. We're gathered together. for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." That's the hope, friends. The hope for you. Because we're all rebels against God's nature. We can look at the UN and go, oh, the UN's so bad. But look at ourselves. Our hope is in God stopping our worst impulses and stopping our ambitions to serve ourselves and to please ourselves. Everybody live in my little kingdom. Our hope is in God stopping that. And he did stop it, praise the Lord, when Herod and Pilate and the Gentiles and the Jews and all the world's wisdom was gathered together against his holy child. And God steps in. And He intervenes, and He confounds the purposes of men, even as His Son dies at the hands of men. And the kings have to shut their mouths at Him, and all men will open their mouths at one day to proclaim His glory. That's the hope. The hope is in Jesus Christ. Not just for heaven. But my hope is in Jesus Christ to not screw up my life so bad. To not ruin my marriage. To not ruin my walk with you. By chasing after what I think is right. I can get that from my own thoughts, I can get that from collective wisdom. But my hope, my hope is in God stopping and casting death. A couple Sundays ago, Brother Zach preached on hope from Romans 8. Brother Jarrett shared this with me. He had brought his Chinese Bible that day, trying to reconnect with Chinese. I'll get this mostly right, hopefully. The symbol for hope there, he didn't recognize, so he looked it up later. Of course, Chinese words are built structure upon structure upon structure kind of an idea. So one of the, and I won't get it all right, but one of the structures, maybe the base structure was the word for king. And there was another structure that was the word for death. And then I forget what the next one was. And then there was the earth. So here's the Chinese structure for hope. Here's hope. That the king has taken death and cast it from the earth. Friends, that's your hope. Your hope is that the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, by thwarting the impulses, the wisdom of man, which only brings death, He's taken that. He's cast it from the earth. He has. He has. And friends, by the Holy Spirit of God, He can cast down imaginations that rise up against Jesus Christ in your mind today by turning you to His Word and causing you to trust in His glorious wisdom. I'm so thankful for the story of the Tower of Babel, because it explains a lot about me. And I need to know those things about myself and the way of mankind that I might build on Him and not myself. Let's pray. Father, thank You for this time together. Take these words, Lord, and do with them what you will. You've got to make them go from just interesting to imperative. And you can do that, Lord. So we ask you to do it. Thank you for scattering the nations. And thank you for the one holy nation that you've formed, through the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we hope and say amen. Is there a hymn? Babylon has fallen. Sing that. Hail the day.