The Tower of Bable
Notes
Transcript
Who Is on you heart
Who Is on you heart
Main Idea:
Me:
who here has been grounded before?
who wants to share why they were grounded?
I was grounded often and most of the time I agreed with why I was grounded but let me tell you about this one time. a
where my punishment was riding the bus for 2 weeks as a high school junior.
When I was in high school— it would have been my junior year, I had some standardized testing.
Pretty lame if you ask me.
And my mom, she believed in having a good breakfast.
So she told me I needed to eat a good solid breakfast.
You know to help your mind.
Studies show that a good balanced breakfast can help with brain memory, clear and quick thinking, and of course energy.
What are some examples of a good breakfast?
Eggs, bacon, and toast.
Biscuits and Gravy.
Pancakes
You get it.
I grabbed pop tarts.
I threw them in the microwave and put butter on them!
They were and still are so amazingly good.
Yet here was the issue, I had a pop tart, not a good breakfast in my mom’s eyes.
It didn’t matter that I had a pop tart the day before, I was told not to eat it today.
Mom’s know what is best for us don’t they.
I didn’t think my mom did.
I thought it would be fine, I didn’t see myself as very smart anyway and a good breakfast was not going to fix this dumb.
But here is the thing— what did I do wrong?
I disobeyed my mom.
I thought, that I know better, I thought that I could just not listen and do my own thing.
I thought that my way was the right way.
That my mom was taking away all the fun— Pop tarts are way more tasty then eggs and toast right?
I thought that my way was greater.
We
You all ever think that you are smarter then your parents?
Like they don’t know what they are doing?
Or that you have it figured out and they don’t
Like we can totally make it on our own without mom and dad.
Yeah, I think there are times we all feel that way.
And here is the crazy part, if we do that with our mom and dad, how much more do we do that with God?
Maybe you are thinking, nah, I don’t do that.
I would never do that.
Yet, we often find ourselves questioning God commands don’t we?
We tend to throw away the commands of the Lord.
God says don’t lie but we do.
God says honor your parents but we don’t.
God says go and share your faith, yet we chose not too.
God says trust me, yet we take things into our own hands.
We tend to think we know best.
Just as Eve in the garden was told by the serpent— You will surely not die.
God said one thing but you know better— you don’t have to listen to God.
It is the same story with Cain and Able.
Able brought God his best and Cain did not.
God said give me an offering.
Give me your best of the offering or at least have a pure heart.
Able brought the best— with the best intention.
Cain did not— He did not have the best intentions.
He thought he knew best.
He thought his way was right.
But it wasn’t.
At the end of the day no matter what we do or say or even believe it comes down to your heart posture.
Eve doubted in her God that God was good.
Cain didn’t want to bring God his best.
It was a hurt issue.
That is what sin is it is a heart issue.
It is us saying I know more.
And depending on who we surround ourselves with they can either call us out and hold us accountable or they can egg us on and continue to let us fall deeper into sin.
So tonight it’s not about pop tarts or even listening to our parents, it really comes down to your heart and your obedience.
And we are going to look into God’s word and see more about this.
If you have your Bible let’s open up to Genesis 11.
GOD
If you recall the last couple of weeks we are diving into Genesis.
Two weeks ago we learned from Nick about the Noah and the Flood.
And Nick did a great job of showing that even with the flood sin was still present.
The flood did not get rid of sin and we again find the next generation of people on earth in the same spot.
They are in sin and their hearts are not following after the Lord.
Tonight we are going to be talking about the Tower of Babble.
So let’s read about this from God’s word.
Let’s pray and then lets break down the text here:
PRAY
Alright let’s start in Genesis 11:1
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
Up to this point there was only one language.
Everyone understood everyone.
Can you imagine how simple that would be if we all commented under one language?
It would be pretty nice!
It would be great if it was english, what way I didn’t have to learn a new language but one universal language would be pretty wild.
Imagine owner manuals only having a front and back back no other language is needed.
This is the world from creation until now.
All one language.
Verse 2
And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
Noah’s family gets off the ark, they set up camp, they begin to have babies and they are repopulating the earth once again.
And the families are settling in other areas as we learn in Genesis 10, yet a large amount of them are stay together and they are going away from the east.
Why is east significant?
This is the second time we hear of people moving away from the east.
We know that in the east is the Garden of Eden— which human were kicked out of.
And we know from Cain and Able that Cain was moving away from the east.
Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
They people are moving further away from God not just in their distance but also spiritually as well.
East is where the garden is and if the garden is east— the people here are coming from the east— backs to Eden and moving further away from the Lord.
So the people here settled in a nice plain.
And you can imagine they are trying to set up a home for themselves and they begin to talk and then listen to verse 3
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city 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.”
So the people gather up and they are smart people because they have figured out how to make bricks and mortar.
They are not dumb, people.
I think sometimes we think of cavemen, yet, they at least knew enough to have Noah build a massive ark— I think figuring out bricks was nothing.
So they knew how to do this and like anyone they think— we got these bricks let’s make a tower.
Let’s make a massive tower— and people will come from all over to see how awesome our tower is.
We will have the greatest tower anybody has seen.
It will reach to the top of the heavens— it will be so massive and tall they you won’t be able to see the top of it.
Let’s make a name for ourselves.
This right here is the start of them wanting to make whose name great?
That’s right their own.
And it not like they did’t know this was a bad idea.
For they even say at the end of verse 4.
Lest we are dispersed over the whole earth.
Why did they think this?
These people wanted to make a name for themselves to avoid being scattered.
Why is this an issue?
What did God tell them to do once Noah got off the boat?
And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
To fill the earth.
God said look the whole earth is yours fill it up and multiply it.
Noah and Noah’s son’s all made a covenant with God.
And the intentions of the people here at Babel was that they would make a name for themselves and by doing so they would avoid being scattered.
Man’s intention again was against God.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
The Lord knows what his creation is doing, so he comes down to his this tower.
Which always made me laugh.
This tower is suppose to be massive and huge that is reach the heavens,
yet God has to come down to earth to see it.
Like it is to tiny to see from heaven so he has to come down to our level to see this tower.
Let’s read on:
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.
God comes down and sees this tower and understands the implications of not doing anything.
We have sinners— who are disobeying what God asked them to do and all of these sinners are hanging out with other sinners who are all disobeying God.
If this was allowed to continue it would be just like the garden of eden.
God had to do something about this.
To let them stay and build would not have been good for them.
These people wanted to make a name for themselves.
They wanted glory and God said left alone nothing would be impossible.
If nothing was impossible or even if it was achievable is that something you would want to strive for?
Might I suggest that God was carefully looking out for his creation and protecting them from themselves.
Yet we could read this passage in a different way.
This is the part that sounds like God is scared of his creation.
Like God see’s what they have done and it would seem like God is going, oh— if I allow these people to keep doing their thing they are going to be able to do anything.
Look at this sweet tower— I mean, I can’t see it but I will be able to if I allow this to happen.
And It seems like God is worried, that this tower and these people may be on to something.
And at times I feel like we view God this way rather than the loving God that is protecting us from ourselves.
We see God as the no good, don’t eat a pop tart for breakfast, man upstairs who is absent unless he breaks up all the fun.
And then we read verse 7 and go see:
Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
That sounds pretty cruel God.
Imagine if one second you were having a conversation with your friend and all of a sudden you couldn’t understand each other.
It was just noises coming from your mouth.
It would be the worst!
Or like if you had kids and you could’t understand your child.
It would have been chaos.
And some will read this as God is a jerk for switch up the languages and not letting them complete the tower.
And as we read verse 8, we see God separate the people.
So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
How could God do this?
Doesn’t he want us to be united?
To have friends?
To have a family?
To make something of ourselves?
Doesn’t God want me to be happy?
Here’s is the deal— God extends love and mercy to those who are his.
And what I want to do to is look at the tower of Bable through God’ mercy.
Ultimately the merciful element is found in the fact that God didn’t just leave the people alone, free to do whatever pleased them.
Such unity in sinfulness would have resulted in even greater sin, which is why it was merciful that God confused their language.
And set them apart.
What if their sin lead to more deeper and terrible sin.
I cannot stress enough that God hates sin.
He loves you but he hates sin— so much so that he was willing to sacrifice his son to pay the price for sin.
God saw their sin and knew that if he did nothing he would not be loving nor would be God.
This chapter ends in verse 9.
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.
It was called babel— the people’s language was confused and they no longer understood each other.
They wanted their own name to be great.
Their hearts were on their greatness rather then God’s.
So God in his loving mercy came in and shook up these people’s lives.
He made it so they could not understand each other and then sent them out.
To fulfill their purpose which was to multiply and cover the earth.
There are times when we think what we are doing is the right thing.
Don’t lose slight of this.
God did not punish them because they were building a tower.
It was because they wanted to become great then God.
It has very little to do with the tower and it has everything to do with the heart.
God 100% cares about your heart.
So much so that God sent his Son Jesus to live a perfect life and to die a death that we owed because of our sin.
Jesus is what brings back unity in all people.
It is Christ that is our strong tower.
Christ is the one who raises us up to meet him.
It is Jesus that brings redemption.
It is the name of Jesus that we must strive to make great.
Because it was through the life of Jesus that people were brought back together.
Look at this in Acts 2:6-11
And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
God confused all the language because the people were trying to make their name great.
After the death of Jesus and his resurrection and after he ascended into heaven— God brings the people back together and allows Peter to speak to everyone present— so that everyone understood in their own language.
The people went out to multiply the earth and now were brought back together to go back to their homes and tell the greatest news ever— That God loves you and he sent his son to die for your sins, and that the tomb is empty.
So repent and be baptized, as Peter state later on.
As we close tonight we are given this same mission to go out and share the good news of Jesus to those we come in contact with.
It is easy to be so focused on your own life and wanting to build up your brand— but the only brand that is going to matter at the end of time is who you say Jesus is and what you did with that information.
Pray with me.