Scattered People

Introduction

Please open your Bibles to .

We have a rather large passage for this morning’s sermon.

I debated whether I should read all of it or not.

Then I thought about Ezra.

When the Jews moved back into Jerusalem following their captivity, one of the first things that happened was that Ezra read the law to the people.

They all stood and had it read to them.

Women and children were present.

They didn’t just read one verse, or one chapter, like we often do.

They read the law, all 5 of the opening books of the Bible.

Then following that huge bit of time, the people wanted to have it explained to them and taught.

So as I debated whether I should read this whole passage, I thought of Ezra.

Ezra read all of Genesis to the people, and they stood the whole time.

True, you are different from them.

If you are a believer, you have the Holy Spirit in your heart, who has given you an appetite for His Word.

So, I’m sure you can handle having a large text read to you.

Please follow along as I read, beginning from to into 11:9.

Read .

This is our last week looking at the beginning of Genesis.

We’ve been answering the questions of how it all got here.

Then there is a point.

How did the earth get here?

How did creation get here?

Why does it look the way that it does?

Why are the continents where they are?

But this week we have two final questions to answer in regards to creation.

1. How did people spread across the earth?

2. Where did languages come from?

To answer these questions, we are in our text for this morning, .

You’ve already heard these passages read.

What I want you to know about these two chapters, is that they describe the same period of time.

Chapter 10 contains the genealogies for Noah’s sons: Shem, Ham and Japeth.

They aren’t complete genealogies, they contain just those essential for getting the point across, which is actually leading to Abraham, which we will talk about next week.

And when you talk about a genealogy, you are talking about large periods of time.

let me try and tell a brief story in a similar way as

Suppose I told you about 3 families that were started in the 1920’s, the Smiths, the Jones, and the Robinsons.

The Smiths had 3 sons.

In the 1940’s one of their sons died.

The Jones had 3 sons.

And in the 1940’s one of their sons died.

And the Robinsons also had 3 sons.

And in the 1940’s one of their sons died.

Then after telling you about these 3 families and their sons, suppose I then described the event that brought each of those families death, World War II.

So, my method of story telling I told you that each of these families had something in common.

So for example, suppose you described your family tree.

How would you do it?

You’d describe your family tree, starting with your great-great grandparents.

Then you listed your great-grandparents.

And then I told you how that common event happened, which was World War 2.

Then your grandparents.

That’s what these chapters are doing.

And your parents.

And after you said who your family was, suppose you spoke about your great-grandfather and how he fought in World War II.

Why didn’t you mention his role in World War II earlier when you described your family?

Because your first goal was to tell your family tree, all the people in it.

And after you did that, you then told specifics.

That’s what these chapters are doing.

They tell us about the families.

Then they tell us of the event that affected them all and caused them to spread out.

They cover large spans of time by telling the genealogy in chapter 10.

Then in Chapter 11, it explains how these families were spread all over.

So for example, Chapter 10:2-5 explains Japheth’s descendants.

Then in verse 5 it says, “From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.”

When it says they spread with their own language, that’s the big event that’s described in chapter 11.

Or even clearer is 10:25 when it says, “To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. “

Verse 25 happened in chapter 11.

The dividing of the earth is what each family had in common.

They all experienced it.

What event happened to cause people to spread cross the earth?

To answer that question, we must first look at a man in chapter 10 named Nimrod.

That’s a name we don’t find every day.

There are some people who are so infamous, their name is a curse.

You don’t meet many Adolfs, for obvious reasons.

You don’t meet many Judas’.

And I’ve certainly, never met a person named Nimrod before, though, it serves as a great insult.

Verses 8-9 describe him as a mighty man and a mighty hunter.

When you think of Nimrod, don’t think of him as a hunter who hunts animals.

Genesis’ use of the word hunter is not a compliment.

The people who are described as hunters in Genesis are men like Nimrod, are men who are actually rejected by God.

Nimrod, Ismael and Esau these are the guys who are described in Genesis as hunters.

The root word for a hunter was someone who sought to destroy life, not just animals, but life.

What’s even worse is that Nimrod was a hunter before the Lord, in the presence of God, or in the face of God.

He was a bold opponent of God.

Genesis 1:28 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

He was on the attack, and he wanted to attack God.

That’s who he was hunting, he was hunting God.

Verse 10 tells us that Nimrod was the founder of Babel, later to be called Babylon.

Then there is another point

And under his leadership, he gathered people together to attack God’s rule.

In chapter 11, it says that this was before the nations were divided.

Everyone had one language.

They had one tongue.

There was no confusion.

And they gathered together to build a city and a tower.

Under the guise of human accomplishments, they built a city and a tower.

In 11:4 they say, “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.”

It sounds like man is just trying to do something big, something noteworthy.

Unfortunately, this attempt at human accomplishment, comes at the expense of obedience and praise to God.

A command was given a few times in Genesis.

In , God blessed humanity and said, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And then we saw it again, just couple weeks ago, in , “And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

Man was given a clear command - fill the earth.

But what did they do?

They certainly didn’t fill the earth.

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.”

This reminds me of when Jonah was told to go to Nineveh to preach to them.

There is a point here.

But instead of obeying and going to Nineveh he turned, hopped on a boat, and went to Tarshish, which is near Spain.

Jonah completely disobeyed God, going in the opposite direction.

And in the same way, God gave a command, fill the earth, and instead of filling the earth, they gathered together.

Look at their motives for gathering together.

God said fill the earth.

They said, let’s gather “lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth.”

Their motive is disobedience.

And they began building a tower.

They wanted to build a tower into the heavens.

This was a statement.

They were saying, “God cannot tell us what to do. We are god.”

They were rejecting God, and in His place, tried to replace Him with themselves.

May I interject here. God is not pleased with human accomplishment.

Here God had commanded them to spread across the earth, and instead they put their minds to an architectural wonder.

They disobeyed God, and somehow everyone is supposed to be proud of what they accomplished?

Perhaps you’ve fallen into this trap.

God says to love Him above all else.

God says to repent of sin.

God says to trust in Him.

Instead of obeying Him and worshipping Him people say:

“I'm not really in a place for that right now.”

Maybe later.

You decide you will build a name for yourself.

Instead of obedience:

You decide you will build a name for yourself.

Or you will try to build a big bank account so your family can know you love them.

Unfortunately, God hasn’t told you to build a legacy, or to accumulate as much wealth as you can.

After defeating the Amalekites, Saul was told to devote everything to destruction.

The people, the sheep, the oxen, everything was supposed to be destroyed.

Unfortunately, Saul didn’t obey.

Instead, he tried to get creative.

He saved the best things.

He saved the best sheep and thought that they could offer it as a sacrifice to God, thinking God would be pleased with his accomplishment.

But God wasn’t looking for a sacrifice.

He wanted obedience.

says, “And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.”

God wasn’t pleased with human accomplishment.

He wants obedience.

Nimrod’s goal wasn’t for God to be pleased, but to reject God.

Augustine once said, “The real way to build a highway to heaven is by humility, for this lifts up the heart toward the Lord, but not against the Lord, as was said of the giant who was ‘a hunter against God.”

The real way to build a highway to heaven is by humility, for this lifts up the heart toward the Lord, but not against the Lord, as was said of the giant who was ‘a hunter against God.”

If you desire to please God, I’d suggest obedience to Him.

Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Books VIII–XVI, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Gerald G. Walsh and Grace Monahan, vol. 14, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1952), 496.

says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? “

As Nimrod and his people are trying to build a tower that stretches to the heavens, look what God says and does.

The people say, “Let us build a tower with its top in the heavens ...”

Look at what verse 5 says, “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.”

This makes me chuckle a bit.

Then there is a point.

They are trying to do something huge and big.

Then there is another point.

Something that is so high, it stretches to the heavens.

Surely, their rebellion against God will accomplish something.

Surely, God will notice them, and take them for a threat.

But then it says, “And the Lord came down ...”

It hadn’t scratched the surface of heaven.

I think there is a play on words here.

It’s so small, that God needs to come down a level to get a good look at it.

God is mocking their so called tower.

As if he’s in heaven saying, “It’s so small I can barely see it.”

God then observes the extent of man’s sin.

We’ve seen recently, that God has said that every intention of man’s heart is wicked, from his youth.

In verse 6 God says, “And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them

He isn’t complimenting them on their ability to accomplish the impossible.

He’s actually addressing their ability to sin.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), .

God is saying, they now can sin in every way possible.

This is a sad declaration.

Contrary to modern philosophy, man’s not just a little bad.

We learn that man is bad.

- “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

I wonder if we really believe that?

It’s as if mankind has an internal GPS for sin.

It’s not that we are a ship without a rudder.

We are a ship with a rudder, and that rudder is directing us to sin.

Instead of seeking God, we seek sin.

And in addition to pursuing sin, we try new ways of sinning.

God says that man will become inventive in their attempt to sin, and confirms this by saying that man becomes inventors of evil.

This ability to sin is something I still must go to war with.

You might not sin in the same way you did when you first became a Christian, but how do you sin now?

You might not sin in the same way you did when you first became a Christian, but how do you sin now?

I find it’s internal.

It deals with my thought life.

It deals with my passions.

It deals with my desires.

And I find I must go to war with these things.

My obedience now is more closely related to how I care for others and what my thoughts of them are.

So God steps down to see this so called tower, and what He does next is one of those things that you need to press into your brain.

By this point in time, the continents have already shifted.

The oceans have filled.

The land is spread out across the globe.

Have you ever wondered how people inhabited this green planet of ours?

How can there be people in the Americas, Africa, Europe, the islands?

Today, we have airplanes, and boats that make travel easy.

But what about then? How did this happen?

Verses 7 and 8 tells us.

First God confused their languages.

He created languages so that we wouldn’t be able to understand one another.

Second, verse 8 says, “So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.”

How did people spread across the earth?

God dispersed them.

Somehow, God picked up some people and put them in Africa.

Then God put some in Europe.

Then some in Asia.

Then some in North America, and then some in South America.

They didn’t have to take a boat, they didn’t take a plane, they didn’t walk.

He picked them up.

He gave them new languages.

He spread them across the globe.

We learn here, that God is sovereign over the nations of the earth.

I know we’ve said that in regards to politics.

But God is sovereign over nations even in their beginnings.

There is hope in this text.

As we conclude this passage, we see that people are spread across the world, and these many languages bring confusion.

And if that is how this all ended, then it’s truly a depressing story -

Man is confused and lost.

But the Bible doesn’t end here, nor does our tale.

Where Tower brought confusion, the Gospel brings order.

Before the scattering of the people, there may have been order among humanity, but spiritually it was chaos.

Each person did his own thing.

People were worshipping humanity rather then God.

Things were not good.

But the Gospel restores this.

After Babel, there was confusion among men.

They no longer spoke the same way.

And even today, there is confusion among cultures.

We don’t understand why people do things.

We don’t understand why people eat certain things.

Yet, the Gospel changes this.

I can’t help but think of what happened at Pentecost, and how it relates to Babel.

In , there are people from all over the globe in Jerusalem.

Basically, the day is coming when the confusion of sinful men will be changed into a praise of God.

It is at this point that the Holy Spirit was unleashed upon the young church.

records, “Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 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.”

The Gospel, brings order out of chaos, and peace out of confusion.

After Babel, there were many languages, that existed in confusion.

You can see this confusion in the world around us.

You go to another country, they don’t speak the same language as you.

But after Pentecost what do we have?

We have many languages proclaiming the Gospel.

We have many languages not speaking in confusion, but hearing a single truth.

This is sin.

But unless that unity comes in the form of submission and praise to God, and recognition of the Son, then it’s truly a vanity.

But unless that unity comes in the form of submission and praise to God, and recognition of the Son, then it’s truly a vanity.

And not just a vanity, but I’d say satanic, it’s opposed to God.

And in , they were amazed.

Here we are at the beginning of the Bible and we find confusion entering the world.

I'm , people are hearing the Gospel in many languages.

And by the time we get to Revelation, look what happens.

- And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

- And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

The day is coming, when out of many languages there will be a central truth, the lamb who was slain, opening the scroll of His victory.

How does this apply to you?

Because if you are a believer, you suddenly get to see things clearly.

While the world around us looks for meaning, answers, and purpose, you know the truth.

You know the single greatest problem facing mankind.

You know a single truth about mankind:

All have sinned.

The wages of sin is death.

And all mankind is headed to death.

You know this truth.

Sadly, the world around us doesn’t.

They don’t know of sin, they don’t know of their destiny apart from Christ.

And so, rather then try and eliminate sin, they try and find meaning in cars, retirement, homes, stability, and entertainment.

The world is like Nimrod.

They long for unity, they long for some kind of world peace, they long for human accomplishment.

But unless that unity comes in the form of submission and praise to God, and recognition of the Son, then it’s truly a vanity.

Because it’s not what we have been created for.

While the world is lost and confused, you know truth.

You also know that where the consequences of sin is death, you know that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - .

And so, we live as those who get to speak sense to a lost and confused world.

In a sense, you hold the key to the curse of the tower of Babel - the Gospel of Christ Jesus.

Unfortunately, sometimes we get so entangled in the affairs of this world, that we forget the cure for the curse.

What I mean is that it’s easy to become just like the world around us.

Many Christians struggle through life.

They struggle emotionally.

You hear them complain about life, and they sound just like the world around them.

Maybe that’s you.

And you are here today looking for some hope, for some grand answer to the problems of life.

There’s family struggles.

Children problems.

Financial problems.

You suffer from anxiety and worry.

What’s the problem?

You’ve forgotten the real question and answer.

You’ve embraced the confusion from the Tower of Babel and forgotten the real answer.

That there is Christ.

That He is seated on His throne.

That He is ruling.

That all things work for the good of those who are called according to His purpose ().

If this is you, may we lift our eyes to Christ.

Rest in Him.

Rest in His promises.

Rest in the eternal life that we have ahead of us.

And know that the curse of Babel is reversed in Christ.

Let’s pray.