A0284_Burj Dubai Monument to Pride
Date: 21st January 2007 (Sunday AM) Ref: A0284
Place: Kambah P.S.
Title: Burj Dubai Monument to Pride
Text: & Gen 11:1-9
Illust: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The Burj Dubai skyscraper currently under construction has reached its 100th, nearly two-thirds of the way in its relentless climb to become the world's tallest building. With 3,000 laborers adding a new floor nearly every three days, the $1 billion spire is days away from surpassing a neighboring skyscraper that is currently the tallest in the Middle East, Dubai-based developer Emaar Properties said. "The tower is a symbol of the city's pride and a statement of our arrival on the global scene as one of the world-class cities," Emaar chairman Mohammed Ali Alabbar said. When finished in two years, the silvery steel-and-glass building is expected to rise beyond 2,300 feet and more than 160 floors — dozens of stories taller than the world's current tallest building, the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan, which measures 1,671 feet and 101 floors.
I. Rebellion of Man
A. Build a City
i. Only about 90 years after coming off the Ark, the natural state of man is reasserting itself – State of Rebellion
Genesis 6:5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (NKJV)
ii. & vs. 4 ~ They desire to build a city. What is a city? – A place of settling down, of government, commerce & society. Truth is that man is always trying to build a society apart from God – This is in direct defiance of the command given to Noah.
Genesis 9:1 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. (NKJV)
iii. This is the state of our society today, we have the ACT Stanhope Government with it’s decidedly socialist leanings & even our Federal Government has expanded the public service & eroded our freedoms, legislating them away in order to “protect us” – This is the world many citizens in the ACT & Australia like the comfort that ‘Govt will take care of you’.
B. Build a Tower
i. In the late 90’s the main High Rise developer in Melbourne Grocon Constructions wanted to build the tallest tower in the world. The then Kennet Govt squashed the plan. – Not about Melbourne. It was all about Grollo. So he went to Dubai. The Burj Dubai is also his project.- All about ego & the brevity of life
ii. All through history, man has built mighty structures, the Aztecs, the Pyramids’ of Egypt, The Burj Dubai. Man knows he is finite. People want to leave a legacy. Builds a monument to himself. Josephus records when Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem a fascinating insight into his motive;
And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and after the acts already mentioned, undertook a very great work, that is to build of himself the temple of God, and make it larger in compass, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions, as it really was, to bring to perfection, and that this would be sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him; {emphasis added}
iii. We know we are going to die, one day, many especially ambitious people (this city full of people who are ambitious to climb the Govt ladder) desperate to preserve something for etermity, for an everlasting memorial to themselves, something that they leave behind that says “I woz ere”
Psalm 39:5 Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my age is as nothing before You; Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah (NKJV)
II. Man’s Babel
A. Pride
i. The actions of the people in the plain of Shinar & in today’s society amount to rebellion against God, plain & simple & at the very core of that rebellion is the sin of pride.
ii. I can do it without God, we don’t need God – ‘This is our nation this is our land, a land of pride, a land of arrogance’ – Organisations that claim to have the answers based on humanistic philosophies. Socialist agendas – i.e. New Matilda, Evatt Foundation – incredible intellectual arrogance. We the masses & the current government really don’t have any idea & we’d be best handing over the running of our lives to people like them.
Even the Burj Dubai’s own press proclaims:
The goal of Burj Dubai is not simply to be the world’s highest building. It’s to embody the world’s highest aspirations. … It is a fact – an unprecedented example of international cooperation – and a symbol – a beacon of progress for the entire world.
iii. This is the challenge; this is the opposition we face as we try to bring the Good news of Jesus Christ. Massive clash: To come to Christ requires humility, we live in a city of pride.
Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (NKJV)
1 Peter 5:5 “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” (NKJV)
B. Folly of Babel
i. Nothing has changed in 4000 years. The rebellion & folly of Babel that is demonstrated in our text remains the same for every system of humanistic systems for society.
(1) False Safety
The flood would have been still relatively fresh in the retelling of the people, the Tower may be seen as an attempt to build something that can rise above the judgement of God.
This is what we see in our society, an attempt to escape from the concept of the judgement of God.
Also to create safety, we are an incredibly over regulated society in the name of protecting our safety yet are we really safer than 100 years ago
European Union bureaucrats have ruled that children's swing sets can be no higher than three meters. They've also issued strict regulations on how far seats can be from the ground and from the frame. The rules aren't law. But if anyone is injured on a swing that doesn't meet E.U. standards, the city, park, or school that owns it could face lawsuits. At least one English village already has removed old swings that don't meet the standards, even though no one has ever been hurt on them.
God alone is the safety for you & I
(2) False Ambition
The raising up of a monument that will stand, Herod’s folly, less than 80 years after the completion of his everlasting memorial, Titus Vespasians Roman Legions had burnt it to the ground & he had commanded it taken apart stone by stone to recover the gold.
A word for Grollo & all involved. – It won’t last! – All of man’s efforts are doomed to failure. Even the great Sphinx of Egypt has had numerous attempts at restoration since 1400BC and will continue, but the ravages of time are wearing it away.
Ultimately even the societies, the rules of man pass. – God alone is eternal
!!!!! (3) False Unity
Man is always attempting to unite, United Nations, multiculturalism, European Union, World Council of Churches; False unity, iron mixed with clay. – World Government, apart from God. Man ruling man. – Kingdom of Man
III. God’s Kingdom
A. God Comes Down
i. Truth is that no matter what man may think or scheme, when God comes down everything changes. & vs. 5
Isaiah 64:1-2 1 Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence— 2 As fire burns brushwood, As fire causes water to boil— To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence! (NKJV)
ii. That’s what we need this week. This city with its predominantly socialist leanings, its Babel complex. God can intervene, can see His purposes fulfilled
iii. You need to believe that, need to pray for it.
B. God’s Grace
i. We have an awesome picture in our text that applies to today, despite how rebellious our society is towards God, how similar it is to the society of Babel. What is exciting, is the Amazing Grace displayed by God to these people.
ii. Think about it, less than 100 years after the flood, rebelling again. What is surprising is that God didn’t just say ‘enough!’ & wipe them all out. No He acts to confuse their language, to disperse them so that His plan & purpose is still accomplished.
iii. Truth is that there will always be rebellion until the New Heavens & New Earth in eternity. God is always looking for people who will proclaim His amazing love & grace to lost, rebellious humanity. Men & Women who will stand in the Gap. To pray & believe Him.
Ezekiel 22:30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. (NKJV)
iv. A lesson from the Tower of Babel; Society / Man hasn’t changed, but neither has God. He can still bring about His purposes, when He comes down. Believe that this morning that God can change the hardest heart, the most pride filled & rebellious people, city & nation. God is still sovereign.