Father, thank you, Father, that you have given men and women wisdom to be able to put very,
very difficult truths and mysteries into words that can help us to try to get our minds around
them and to form us.
Father, we're going to read a part of your word now that is very, very challenging to
who we are before you.
It will challenge, Father, our love of appearances.
And Father, we ask that you would draw us to your word, that you would help us to hear your
word, that your Holy Spirit would move to take away the barriers within us that push your
word away or think it applies to somebody else other than us.
Father, bring your word home to us.
And as you bring your word home to us, make us disciples of Jesus who are gripped by the
gospel, living for your glory.
And this we ask in Jesus's name.
Amen.
So the actual text that we're looking at today is Genesis chapter 10, verse 1 to 11, 9.
But I didn't have Jeremiah read all of chapter 10.
A part of it is because that's 32 verses on top of 9.
That's 41 verses.
That's a lot of verses.
But the other reason is we should maybe have a little bit of a contest sometime in a church.
What is the most boring chapter in the Bible?
And I don't know.
Maybe we should do something like that.
Christians are allowed to say that.
Some parts of the Bible we actually find very boring to read, if we're honest.
So maybe we should have a little contest.
What do we think is the most boring chapter of the Bible?
I don't know.
We could have a little vote afterwards.
And I bet a lot of people, if they knew about Genesis 10, they would put that as one of the
most boring chapters in the Bible.
And so just, if you turn up, we're just going to read two or three verses and you'll see
why I didn't have Jeremiah read it.
It's called the table of the nations, by the way.
It's Genesis 10.
Now this is relevant to the rest of the sermon, by the way, but I just, it says something important.
Let's just look.
Genesis 10, 1.
Here's how it begins.
These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Sons were born to them after the flood.
The sons of Japheth, Gomer, Magog, Madi, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiraz, the sons of Gomer.
Ashkenaz.
Okay, have I put you to sleep yet?
You get my drift.
For many of us, this passage of scripture is really boring.
And so why on earth would it be in the Bible?
Here's something first to keep in mind.
When I first learned how to read, not just a few weeks ago, I was very young, but when
I was a child and I learned how to read, shortly after I learned how to read, I discovered
Hardy Boy novels.
People, Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew, do they still read that?
Like, do millennials still know about that?
Sort of maybe, yeah, but so.
Anyway, there were like young boys and young girls books.
And I discovered Hardy Boy books and I could not believe how fantastic they were.
In fact, I became an evangelist to my family as to why my parents should be reading.
Stop reading those books you're reading.
You should be reading Hardy Boy books because they're just so good.
In fact, I thought, I actually worried when I went into the store and I saw that there
were only like, I don't know, 40 or 50 of them at the time.
And I thought, how am I going to read these for the rest of my life if there's only 40
or 50 of them?
Because I just, I just love them so much.
At some point in time, I don't know when it was, it just all of a sudden one day I
discovered that I wasn't reading them anymore.
I wasn't looking for them in the store.
Or I'd moved on to other stuff.
And then, you know, later on, I happened to come across when I was visiting somebody,
I was visiting a cottage or something and I took one down and I tried, I could hardly
read two pages.
It was so childish and boring.
So here's the thing.
God didn't write the Bible just for people who are, who have certain types of literary
tastes and like certain types of things.
He wrote the Bible for everybody.
He wrote the Bible for people in all sorts of different conditions of life.
And this long thing of the table of nations, it teaches a very, very simple truth, which
it's only sort of a something which seems uncontested by many people in Canada because even people
in Canada who don't know that it's ultimately a Bible idea that's sort of in popular culture
in Canada, but not all over the world.
And the simple truth, if you could put the first point up, is this.
The simple point is that the one true and living God created, sustains, and loves one human
race.
The one true and living God created, sustains, and loves one human race.
Now, a lot of us, maybe not you, but a lot of us love statements like that.
But for a lot of people, this puts them to sleep.
I mean, if you're trying to communicate to a very young child, maybe, that God loves people
from all over the planet, you might say, well, you know what?
God loves people from North Korea.
And he loves people from South Africa.
And he loves people in Algeria.
And he loves people in China.
And he loves people in Canada.
Isn't that one of the ways that you would maybe communicate to some people, to young children,
maybe?
This truth that God loves all people, that there's ultimately only one human race.
And that's what the Bible is trying to do here.
In fact, it does it also in a very subtle other way.
Just, I know this is a bit of a geek moment, but there's 70 different people groups mentioned
if you count them up.
And in the Bible, the number seven often represents wholeness and completion.
And the number 10 often represents wholeness and completion.
So for those of you who like number patterns, seven times 10 means completion times completion,
which means it's very complete.
And it's not that the Bible writers thought that this was the only, that they were exhaustive
of every single people group that existed.
It's sort of dynamic.
But it's the Bible's one way for the Bible to try to communicate that.
And this is very, very important, right?
Because as we all know, I mean, look what's going on.
It's like a lot of times famines in Africa and other parts of the world are caused because
one tribal group or people group don't care for another people group.
And they take the food from them or they keep the food from them.
Or, you know, in our culture, we might think that people who voted for Clinton are way better
than people who voted for Trump or the opposite way around.
Or the gay community can feel superior over the heterosexual community or vice versa.
That we live in a world where often in our people groups, we think that we're privileged
or we're special or we're better than other people.
And so this Bible text, which on one hand is boring, is a very, very, very important thing
for when we're looking at different people groups, street people, or just people who
are very different than us, that there's ultimately only one human race.
There's only one human race because there's only one God.
And the one God who made the one human race has a care and concern for the entire human race
and all of its different people groups.
It's a very, very powerful Christian truth, which is why, you know, at the end of the
day, part of the reason why, at the end of the day, we send missionaries to Libya
and we send missionaries to Angola and we send missionaries to China and we send missionaries
to other nations of the world.
Because we have, we should have this basic concern for all people groups.
In our community, we should have concern for people groups that are very different than us.
Now, some of you might say, okay, and by the way, I didn't know this up until very recently,
but Genesis 10 and the part that Jeremiah read, the Tower of Babel, it's actually all
one literary unit.
So here's the very, very interesting thing.
You know, it's a very, it's always, it's an interesting question when you're reading
the Bible yourself is to ask, well, what follows from this?
So in Canada, we now have the story of the, okay, we have this table of the nations, God loves
all the people group.
This is a really good time for us all to stand and hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
Or maybe we will all stand and be like good socialist workers and sing the International
or We Shall Overcome.
Or maybe we'll have a bit of a care bear moment or something like that.
I don't know what, but what's going to follow from this?
Maybe, in fact, nowadays, there'd actually be a soft drink commercial, which would somehow
connect that all of this differentness is somehow all just one great marketing moment.
So the very interesting thing is, so the Bible uses this very, very, to us boring, but not
to everybody, but to us right now, boring way of trying to communicate a very, very important
spiritual point.
Now the question is, well, what follows from it?
Well, what's going to happen next?
Kumbaya, soft drink commercial?
We Shall Overcome?
What's going to happen?
Well, the very, very interesting thing is, is that God moves it in a very, very curious
direction that goes, because on one hand, we know that, so we can understand that one human
race is not a biological truth, and it's definitely not a sociological truth.
It's ultimately a biblical truth, a theological truth, but what comes from it in a world where
there's lots of division?
Well, how do we sort of put together all the prejudice and hatred and suspicion that's in
the world, and that's where the Bible moves us, and it moves us to the level of the heart.
So let's now look after this, what could be a Kumbaya moment, what is it that God moves
us in to consider, and it's the story of the Tower of Babel.
So once again, if you have your Bibles, it'd be really helpful.
Let's look at chapter 11, verse, actually we'll read chapter 10, verse 32.
These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to the genealogies, in their nations, and from
these nations spread abroad on earth, and from these, sorry, the nations, or the people groups,
spread abroad on the earth after the flood.
Now, the whole earth had one language and the same words.
Now, just sort of pause here for a second.
This is actually really, really important to the story, and it's actually really important
for you and me for some of the troubles and problems that we face.
Now, to understand the problem, turn back in your book.
So just look, they're traveling together, verse 2, right, and as a people, as people
migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
So, okay, why is that a bit?
Look, turn back in your Bibles to chapter 9, verse 1.
And in chapter 9, verse 1, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and
multiply and fill the earth.
And then there's a bit of an, we talked about this a week ago, other things that are said
there.
Look at verse 7, it's bracketed.
In other words, it's very important because it's said twice and it brackets the other commands.
All the other commands about the image of God, about murder, about the importance of life,
they're all bracketed, all to be understood within the context of this basic command.
Verse 7, and you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.
And increase greatly on the earth.
In the underlying language, it's the same as verse 7, this idea that you're to increase
and spread.
So twice God tells them, I want to bless you.
I want to make you fruitful.
I want to have you multiply.
And I want to have you fill the earth.
Now look back at chapter 11, verse 2.
And as people migrated from the east, they found a place in the land of Shinar and settled there.
Now you might be wondering what's going on.
Well, here's the point.
If you could put it up.
Here's the point.
I can appear to be listening to God and obeying him when in reality I am disobeying him.
So what could they all be saying?
Well, God, we're moving.
We're moving.
We're walking.
But they're not filling the earth.
They're staying together.
You see, it's really, really, really, really easy.
It's, you know, probably not much, you know, nowadays, here's one of the things.
Nowadays, only weird people go to church on a Sunday morning.
I just insulted you all there, by the way.
You didn't laugh at it, okay?
But only weird people go to church on Sunday mornings.
Because, you know, it probably was in 1957, they might say in the office or at the school,
you know, they seem like a really normal person, but they never go to church.
And now it would be more likely that people say, you know, he or she seems like a really
normal person, but, you know, they go to church on Sunday.
So it's a bit of an odd thing here, but it's been a case in many, many places of the world,
and it still is in some ways, that people come to church because it's a good place to
make connections for your insurance business.
Or it's a good place to make connections for your real estate business.
You know, in the United States, which has a very, very different, you know, custom,
what would Clinton do?
I'm not picking on Clinton.
You can multiply this with president after president.
What would they do when they're in trouble?
They'd go to church carrying a really big black Bible, like two or three times the size of this.
You see, it can look like you're obeying some, but you're not.
You know, it can be, it appears if you're listening to God and obeying him, when in reality,
you're actually disobeying him.
So they're, in the people, they're moving, but they're not filling the earth.
Now, so here's the thing.
The Bible's not going to take another bit of a funny turn.
It's going to say, well, why is this sort of going on in their lives?
You know, we are addicted to the fact that maybe if they just had like a better church,
if they had a better preacher, if they had better education,
maybe if they had a little bit of therapy to deal with some of the wounds of their family of origin,
if we just did a few couple of things and maybe they would fix it and they would be better.
But the Bible actually points out here that there's something at a far deeper level,
at a heart level, which is relevant to you and me.
It's all very interesting.
See, one of the reasons why in Sunday school and reading the Bible,
it's so important to know stories like this,
is that the stories like this in the Bible go along with the different other types of moral teachings
and stories have an ability at some point in time to start to touch our hearts
and help us to realize something that's going on deep inside.
Look at verses three and four to see the very funny turn it takes.
We'll read verse two again.
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 bitumen, which is a type of tar 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 remember in chapter nine, twice, God says,
I want to bless you.
I want to make you fruitful.
I want to multiply you.
And I want you to fill the earth.
And they here, just think about this for a second.
How many of us would like it if God all of a sudden just appeared before us and said,
well, I'll use myself as an example.
George, I want to bless you.
George, I want to make you more fruitful.
George, I want to multiply you.
George, I want you to do this.
Now, here's the thing.
It's a very, very, very important thing for us to understand about ourselves
and how we read the Bible.
If you could put this next point up here.
I easily hear God's word of blessing as a threat.
Maybe I'm the most wicked person here,
but I easily hear God's word of blessing as a threat.
See, look at this here again in the text.
Did you notice it in verse four?
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 earth.
What God tells them he's going to do in terms of blessing them
and making them fruitful and multiply and filling the earth,
they interpret that as a threat.
You see, here's the thing.
This is a constant problem with us,
not only when we're reading the Bible.
It often influences the way we read the Bible
because we're trying to take things out or blunt it or ignore it or whatever.
Like, you know, for very many of us,
it's just, you know,
I was just trying to explain just a little while ago to somebody about the importance.
In fact, I've had several conversations in the last month
about the importance of forgiveness.
And I know there's lots of,
there's a lot of false info around what the Bible means by forgiveness.
But when the Bible talks so much time and time and time and time again
about the importance of forgiveness,
we sort of feel that if we forgive,
it's going to make us weaker.
It's going to make us weaker.
It's not going to help us.
You know, one of the problems for,
I'll just use one example,
but a lot of problems for young women
is they might start to date a young guy
and they'll feel that if they don't sleep with him,
he won't stay with them.
And they don't trust that God's word
about sexual faithfulness is actually for their good.
You know, we hear the constant biblical teachings on financial generosity
and it's all in the context of how being more financially generous
will make us feel more free.
It will help us to take the idol of money off our back.
How God will provide for us.
It doesn't say give to me and I'll make you rich,
but you'll understand and see even more deeply
how I am your great treasure,
how I will provide for you.
But we hear these teachings and we experience them as a threat.
Many people thought, you know,
just to think that God actually caused the words in the Bible to be written.
That at the end of the day, not by mechanism,
but that every word that there is in the Bible
is a word that God ultimately wanted to have there.
And when we read the Bible,
we are face to face with God speaking to us.
But for many people inside the church and out,
that is a threat.
Not a blessing.
And that's all captured here in this very, very,
you know, in fact, if you think about it for a second,
verse four, look at verse four again.
Couldn't verse four be a motto
for just about every social movement,
ideology, and country in the planet
throughout all of history?
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.
You see, here's the other thing.
You know what that thing,
what's motivating them to stay together,
what's motivating them to hear God's word as a threat
is their anxiety and their fear.
If you put up the next point, please,
as you put it up,
one of the things,
I don't do much counseling,
but I do a little bit
and one of the things
which I constantly come across
as I talk to people
is how most,
many, many, many, many people
aren't entirely honest
or aware of the deep level of stress
and anxiety that's in their life.
In fact, sometimes what I'll have a person do
is just sort of try to articulate
the different things that are going on in their lives
that, in fact, always cause stress.
And a lot of times,
we're blind to our own stress
and we're blind to the amount of anxiety
that we're carrying around with us.
Where if we're aware of it,
it's just something we don't want to share
because Christians somehow or another
aren't supposed to be anxious.
We're supposed to have the joy of the Lord
as our strength.
But what we see here
is that they name it,
they don't sort of do anything,
but what they do
in the face of their anxiety and their fear
is, and this is what we do as well,
in vain we seek proud dreams,
fortresses,
and the scaling of heaven
as antidotes to our anxiety and fear.
This is what goes on in many of our lives.
At some time in my life,
I had some addiction issues
which I had to deal with.
And it was hard even to come to the terms
with the fact that I had some addiction issues
which I had to deal with.
And maybe this is just for those of us
who struggle with
or have struggled with some addiction issues.
One of the things that goes along
with those of us like that
is that we love proud dreams.
The strong man,
the guy or the gal
who has the right answer,
the competent one.
And we have proud dreams
and we retreat to them
in the face of the stress
and anxiety and failures
that we're surrounded with.
And we try to build fortresses,
maybe fortresses of wealth
or fortresses of degrees
or fortresses in terms of a perfect front.
And sometimes we try to scale heaven
by trying to look like
we're way more righteous than we are.
And that's just in our personal lives.
And the fact of the matter is
is that when I pursue idols,
when I pursue proud dreams,
when I pursue fortresses,
all I end up really doing
is making myself more anxious.
And countries and cultures,
the reason I'm using the word fortress here,
by the way,
is that if you look at verse four again,
then they said,
come let us build ourselves a city.
The word for city
is the same word for fortress.
What they wanted to build
was a fortress.
They weren't trying to build the Glebe.
They weren't trying to build Westboro.
They weren't trying to build
New Edinburgh or Rockcliffe
or Manitick.
They were building a place
with a big, strong, powerful wall
which would keep them safe.
In vain,
in other words,
it's futile.
We seek proud dreams.
We seek fortresses.
We seek to scale the heavens
as antidotes
to our anxiety and fear,
but they don't work.
So,
now here's the big question.
What is God going to do about this?
Like,
what's God going to do about this?
The question,
the thing has been set.
I don't know.
I mean,
a lot of us,
the type of God that we want
is a God
who's very,
very permissive,
like our favorite uncle
who will just
sort of nod and say,
well,
I know you've been
a little bit naughty,
but off you go.
And sometimes,
especially when it's things
which are very close
and dear to us,
we want to have,
you know,
we want to really punish.
We want to really hurt.
You know,
sometimes we want to mock.
Sometimes we want to show scorn.
Sometimes we're afraid
of what's going on.
So,
it's always very interesting.
The Bible's now set up
this situation.
The people are disobeying God.
They appear as if
they might be obeying God,
but really they're disobeying God.
There's fear and anxiety
which is driving them.
They're trying to reach heaven.
They're building fortresses.
They have proud dreams.
So,
what's God's response
going to be?
Like,
in a sense,
when we see what God's response
is going to be to this,
it gives us a bit of a clue
as to how God's response
is going to be to you and me
when we do the same types of things.
So,
look at verse 5.
And the Lord God
and the Lord
came down
to see the city
and the tower
which the children of man
had built.
Look at that.
And the Lord came down
to see the city
and the tower
which the children of man
had built.
Now,
it used to be
for many, many, many years
when I read this part of the Bible,
it used to actually frighten me.
Maybe it's just because I'm weird.
But I didn't like this language
because it made it look
as if God
didn't know all things
and wasn't all powerful.
That he actually had to come down
to see it
and to deal with it.
But here's what the text
is actually trying to communicate to us.
It's a bit of irony.
Here they think
that
they're using bricks
and they're going to build
a fortress
and they're going to build
a tower
that will take them
all the way up
to where God is.
And the very, very subtle irony
isn't that God is an omniscient.
He already knows what's going on.
But he says,
you know what?
That thing is so far away
and so itsy-bitsy,
teeny-weeny,
tiny
that I can't even see it.
That's what the text,
it's irony.
We think,
whoa,
look how great we are.
Look how fantastic things are.
Look,
look how much we are
like making heaven on earth.
Look how progressive we are.
Look,
look at our empire.
Look at our philosophy.
Look at our music.
Look at our religion.
Look at our rituals.
Look at our,
look at our yoga techniques.
Look at the things
that we're doing.
Look how high they are.
God obviously must be impressed.
And in this story,
God's saying,
wow,
is there something going on
down there?
It's so far from me.
I can hardly see it.
I guess I better get closer
to look.
That's what the text is doing.
If you could put up
the next point.
No human edifice,
that's something that we create,
of the body or the soul,
of the mind,
the heart,
or the will,
can scale heaven.
You can do yoga
and become the best yoga person
in the world.
You can learn meditation techniques.
You can learn all of the
Islamic prayer techniques,
and you can do it
five times a day,
and you can do all of those
other types of things.
You can learn religion
and creeds.
You can learn all about
gender theory.
You can learn about Marxism.
You can learn about science.
You can learn about technology.
You can be a progressive nation
and make our military
20 times stronger
to make sure
that progressive values
triumph throughout
the entire world.
But any attempt
to think that we are
making heaven on earth,
that we are scaling heaven,
it won't work.
Could you put up the next point?
It's another way of saying
the same thing.
The Lord must come down
and in.
By my own power,
I can never get up
and out to him.
I need God to speak.
Remember,
one of the things
about the Christian faith,
which is really,
really important
for us to understand,
is that we Christians
are not saying
that our philosophy
or our religion
is better.
We are not saying
that when you look
at Genesis
or you look at Mark
or Luke,
that you've never seen
anything which has been
written better than this,
that you've never seen
anything from our tribe.
Our tribe has
the smartest writers,
the most profound
insight to religion,
the most profound
insight to God.
That is not
what Christians are saying.
Christians are saying
as all of our attempts
to scale heaven
will fail.
God must break in.
God must speak.
Our wisdom
is in being receptive
and listening,
not in our assertions.
At the end of the day,
the gospel is one beggar
telling another beggar
where free bread
is available.
It's not us saying,
look, I'm the best baker
in the world.
I'm the most spectacular baker.
It's not that.
It's never that.
One more point,
if you could put it up.
All attempts
to reach God
on my own terms
and by my means
will fail.
See, their terms
in the story are,
we're not going to,
you know,
if we scatter
and disperse,
we're going to become weak.
We're afraid of that.
We don't really trust
that God really wants
to bless us.
I don't know what it is,
but we just don't trust it.
So we're going to make
a fortress.
We're going to try
to scale heaven.
We're going to bring
heaven down
and us to heaven
and heaven to us.
We'll have heaven on earth.
We'll be behind our fortress.
We'll all be together
and we're going to bless
ourselves in our own terms.
We're not going to listen
to what God says.
We want to improve
upon what God says.
We want to add to it.
We want to subtract to it.
We want to do our things
in our ways
with our conditions.
And the Bible is saying
it will always fail.
It will always fail.
Some of you might remember,
I've shared with you before
that when I became a Christian,
I was in grade 12.
And over the next six or seven years,
I had quite a few
very major crises of faith
where I almost left
the Christian faith.
And, you know,
I had a very secular education.
I went to the public school system,
went to university
where I majored in sociology
with a minor in philosophy,
did graduate work in sociology,
then went to a very, very, very
liberal secular school
to study theology
and to study counseling.
I've never had,
for any of my training,
a professor who was
an evangelical Christian,
a Bible-believing Christian,
never had one the entire time.
And there were lots
and lots of moments
and times and seasons
in my life
where I almost threw
in the towel
with everything.
But one of the things,
in a very odd way,
one of the things
which really helped me
was something I read,
I don't know,
I think I was in university
when I read it,
and it was,
I read several books
by Dostoevsky,
a 19th century Russian writer.
And one of the things
which he said,
I think it's in the,
I can't remember the,
I think it's in the devils,
but I can't remember now
which one of the novels it was.
He said,
no, I think it's in
the Brothers Karamazov.
If God is dead,
all things are permissible.
If God is dead,
all things are permissible.
The struggle that I always had
in my Christian,
when I was trying to figure out
whether I was going to leave
the Christian faith
or stay a Christian,
my problem was never
that I was going to become
a Hindu or a Buddhist
or a Jewish or a Muslim,
because I,
fundamentally,
I had no interest in religion.
For me,
the great danger
was always atheism and nihilism.
That's just me.
People have different things
which are their tensions.
And I have always thought
that that statement
by Dostoevsky,
that if God is dead,
all things are permissible,
is an unanswerable statement.
I still think that.
That if, in fact,
there is no God,
there is no particular reason
other than pragmatism
for me not to do
whatever I feel like doing,
whatever I can get away with.
That basically,
the entire moral world
is grounded
in the reality
and existence of God.
It actually,
thinking of things
in stark terms,
helped me to understand
the cost
and ultimately,
actually,
ultimately,
the naivety
and the foolishness
of many of the things
which were criticized
in Christianity.
It ended up helping me
to see the wisdom
and the beauty
of the gospel
and the Bible.
And in this simple story here,
a similar statement
to Dostoevsky
is actually part
of how God responds
to what they're doing.
It's,
look at verse 6.
Actually,
so we'll verse 5 again.
And the Lord came down
to see the city
and the tower
which the children
of man had built.
And verse 6,
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.
And I have to confess
that for many years
I was puzzled
by this
because I thought
it was telling me
that somehow or another
they were going
to reach heaven
and they could do
anything they wanted.
But God isn't talking
about that.
I mean,
the text actually,
when I've,
as I read the text
far more carefully
and I saw the irony
that here they think
they're making
this huge edifice
and they're making
this heaven on earth
and they're reaching
and scaling heaven
and God is sort of
saying there's something
so teensy-weensy
and far away from me
and completely
and utterly down there
that I have to come
down to see it
that what he's talking
about isn't that
they actually reach
heaven
but they believe
they've reached heaven.
They believe
they've reached
their heaven on earth
and are one
with the gods
and with their one
language
and this one belief
nothing that comes
into their hearts
that are in rebellion
against God
will be seen
as impossible
or wrong.
It's describing
Nazi Germany.
It is describing
the Soviet Union
under Stalin.
It is describing
Cambodia
under the Khmer Rouge.
It is describing
North Korea
and it is
potentially
increasingly
describing
our own country
as our own country
increasingly
comes to the awareness
that there is no God
and they can do
whatever they want.
And when people
believe
there is no God
that they're bringing
heaven to earth
that they can do
whatever they want
to bring heaven to earth
and earth to heaven
ordinary people die.
ordinary people die
first individually
then by the truck load
then by the train load
then by the killing fields load
with the help of bureaucrats
with the help of technology
nothing will be impossible to them.
no
basic
decent
moral
virtue
will say to them
that is a step
too far.
When I said
that verse 4
could be the motto
of virtually every nation
verse 6
can also increasingly
be the motto
for Canada
and has been the motto
for many nations
throughout history.
So how is God
going to deal
with all of this?
How is he going
to deal with this?
What will he do?
Look at verses 7 to 9.
Come let us go down
and there 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
or Babel.
Because
Babel means confusion.
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.
If you could put up
the point
in his mercy
and compassion
he came down
to judge
and bless.
That's what God
does in this story.
In his mercy
and compassion
he came down
to judge
and to bless.
he judges.
He does not
in his
he blesses them.
He does not
want to see
that anything
will be
nothing will be
impossible
to whatever
the imaginations
of their hearts
desire
that nothing
will stop them
from doing
the imaginations
of their hearts.
It's a judgment
but at the same time
it's a blessing
because he does not
want to see that
because he loves
all of the nations
of the earth
and all of the people
group
and his desire
is that God
takes no delight
in the death
of a sinner
but rather that
they will turn
from their wickedness
and live
said many many times
in the book
of Ezekiel
and reminded of us
when we read
and do morning
and evening prayer
and so God
does an act
of judgment
by giving them
many different
languages
and their own
sinful desires
to have their own
way
and to have
their rule
work
when they can
no longer
speak to each other
means that they
start to leave
each other
and breaks
the whole project
it has it
completely and utterly
fall flat
but at the same time
it's an act
of compassion
why is it
well not only
that he spare them
from a fate
of a land
where people
will do
whatever the evil
is
whatever comes
into the inclination
of their hearts
but at the same time
what was it
that he said
in chapter 9
he says
I want to bless you
I want to make you fruitful
I want to multiply you
so go throughout
the earth
and fill the earth
and what happens
at the end of the story
God sends them
throughout the earth
in other words
he's saying to them
my fundamental desire
to you
to bless you
to make you fruitful
to have you multiply
as you fill the earth
that's still my heart
for you
that is still
my heart
for you
that is still
my heart
for you
let's just wrap it up
if you could put up
the final point
obviously
for those of us
who know the Bible
a little bit
there's obvious
resonances
in this story
with what goes on
in the rest of the Bible
Jesus invaded
to die
he died
to save
he saved
to give
he gives
till he returns
you know
it's really interesting
you look over this
that for Christians
this is pointing
this story of Babel
is pointing
to when
God will come down
and in a sense
invade
in a very
very final
and divine
and
a very
very final
way
that starts
to bring about
the end of history
and if you think about it
it's just so funny
that here we have
the mighty Roman Empire
the greatest empire
on the face of the planet,
the greatest empire the world had seen
at that point in time,
so important for law, for art, for culture,
for a whole pile of things,
for its military might.
And how does God invade?
As a baby.
But it's an invasion.
He invades, we would want to invade
with dragons, monsters, drones,
X-Men or Avengers,
huge flying fortresses.
That's what we want to do.
But God invades as a baby.
And he invaded to die.
The entire, we, when we think of invasion,
and even when we're thinking of our fortresses,
when we're thinking of our cities,
when we're thinking of our proud dreams,
how we can have these cutting comments,
how we can be looked up to,
how we can be seen to be great,
and we can be putting people down,
and that's sort of part of the desire
and the cry of our heart,
but God invades to die.
We want to diminish others.
God came and diminished himself.
He invaded to die,
and we understand that his death upon the cross,
the invasion of God,
the coming down of God,
is a coming down to save.
In fact, when it says in the creed
that Jesus tastes all there is to taste of death,
even to the point of hell,
it's saying that the descent of God,
the Son of God,
to save human beings
goes down and down and down and down and down.
And there is no human being on the face of the planet.
There is no human being here today.
No matter how deep your despair,
no matter how deep your shame,
no matter how deep your sin,
no matter how deep your brokenness,
no matter how deep your addictions,
no matter how deep your poverty,
that God, the Son of God,
has not gone deeper still
so that he might take you in his arms and raise you up.
He invaded to die.
He died to save.
He saved to give.
In the cross, we see not only that Jesus takes upon himself
that which keeps us far from God,
we also get his perfect obedience and righteousness,
but this also points to a second invasion
that is a fruit of Jesus' death upon the cross,
which is, of course, the story of Pentecost.
In a sense, in a new age of the Holy Spirit,
the invasion of the Holy Spirit,
and as the Holy Spirit comes,
the nations of the world are gathered in Jerusalem,
and now the Holy Spirit comes,
and the heart of it is that they hear in their own heart languages
one message of God's mighty acts to save.
He invaded to die.
He died to save.
He saved to give not only his own life but the Holy Spirit,
and he continues to give this salvation
and the gift of the Holy Spirit until he returns.
We live in the already not yet.
We live between the invasion where he comes down to save
and the invasion whereby he will bring all things to their proper end
and make the new heaven and the new earth.
Please stand.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
Father, we confess before you that there are parts of your word
that you have only written because you want to bless us,
because you want us to be fruitful,
because you want us to multiply,
because you want us to be free,
because you want us to be whole,
and we confess to you, Father,
that there are parts of your word
that when we read them,
it does not make us feel any of these things,
but we feel threatened.
And we confess before you, Father,
that there are many ways that we can put on masks
and appear to be far more righteous and holy and spiritual
than we really are.
And we confess this before you.
And we confess before you, Father,
that often when we speak to you,
we want you to do things
and make changes in our lives in our own terms,
because we don't trust you.
Father, we thank you so much
that you do not wait for us to be perfect before you love us.
But, Father, you know the permutations
and the fears of our hearts,
and yet you love us.
And yet you died,
you had your son die on the cross for us.
We thank you, Father,
that his sacrifice is perfect and complete,
his obedience is perfect and complete,
that we cannot add to it or subtract to it,
and that when we put our faith and trust in Jesus,
his perfect covering of our sin and shame
and his perfect obedience becomes ours.
Father, grip us with the gospel.
Grip us with who Jesus is
and what he did for us on the cross.
Grip us with the gospel
so that as we read your word,
we're gripped by the gospel,
we start to lose our fears of your word,
that we have the courage and the freedom to follow
and to trust
that you who sent your son to die,
whose righteousness is perfect and complete for us,
is the same one who speaks through these words.
Father, make us disciples of Jesus,
gripped by the gospel,
learning to live in freedom
for your glory.
And this we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.