Episode Transcript
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A remain standing if you're able and
give your attention to Genesis Chapter Eleven,
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Genesis Eleven, verses one through nine. Here now God's word and the great
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contrast between the pride of man and
the Authority and sovereignty of God. Genesis
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Eleven. Now the whole Earth had
one language and the same words. And
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as people migrated from the east,
they found a plane in the land of
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Shinar and settled there, and they
said to one another, come, let
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us make bricks and burn them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone and
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bitumen for mortar. Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a
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city and a tower with its top
in the heavens, and let us make
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a name for ourselves, lest we
be dispersed over the face of the whole
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earth. And Jehovah came down to
see the city and the tower which the
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children of Man had built, and
Jehovah said, Beho Old, they are
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one people and they have all one
language, and this is only the beginning
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of what they will do, and
nothing that they will propose to do will
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now be impossible for them. Come
let us go down, and they're confuse
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their language so that they may not
understand one another's speech. So Jehovah dispersed
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them from there over the face of
all the earth, and they left off
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building the city. Therefore, its
name was called Babel, because Jehovah confused
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the language of all the Earth,
and from there Jehovah dispersed them over the
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face of all the earth. You
may be seated every day, each of
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us, to some degree or another, some of us more than others,
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are confronted with a reality that is
in many ways ever present, and it's
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simply the one that's described here in
genesis eleven, that we don't all speak
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the same language. Sometimes this happens
on a very small scale, even between
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a husband and wife I've known each
other for a long time, if they've
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grown up in different parts of the
world or different parts of even this country,
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little words will occasionally slip in the
or perhaps unknown before. This,
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of course, isn't any great challenge, but on a big level it is.
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There are many, many peoples in
the world and many, many languages,
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and we struggle to communicate with one
another. You see evidence of this
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in all kinds of ways. You
see it at the airport when you are
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looking at signs. You see it
when you're reading things or trying to read
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things, or visit another country or
work on a project across our borders.
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Every day we're confronted with the reality
of very the reality that we don't all
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speak the same language in our world. Now, as usual, we're tempted
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to think that this is just the
way things are, but is it?
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Well, genesis eleven tells us that
it's not. The truth is God is
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telling us this morning that this isn't
just the way things are, as if
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they happened by chance. The division
of our different languages has come because of
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a very particular moment in history.
It has a particular cause. The the
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division in our different languages and the
divisions that it creates in our homes,
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in our neighborhoods and our country,
in our world, they are from this
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very particular moment. Now, this
is important to understand, because the way
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things played out in the past shapes
how we understand it things, these events
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in the present and also in the
future. So we're called to pay attention.
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We're called to understand this story,
not only so that we might understand
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why things are, just to get
some background, but so that we might
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understand something about God. God,
after all, doesn't reveal his word to
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US just for pure knowledge sake,
just to let us know because you were
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curious, how things happened, but
to tell us something about ourselves, to
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tell us something about himself. So
what happened? Well, story in genesis
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eleven is pretty straightforward. We read
and verse one that the Earth had one
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language and the same words. You
might translate this literally to say the Earth
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had one lip, there was one
way of speaking. But the earth also
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had a problem, and we've known
this ever since the earliest chapters of Genesis,
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and that problem is sin. We've
seen how sin, from that very
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first sin of Adam and Eve,
has spread throughout the generations over and over
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again, and not in any kind
of subtle or small way either. Very
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first thing we see after the fall
of Adam and Eve is their sons,
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one murdering the other, and other
sins committed there. In fact, there's
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a number of things in this story
that connects the sins that we see going
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on here with the sins of Cain. There's ways in which God is purposefully
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connecting us to those two to a
cane in his line. You see it
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in the way that people are migrating
to the east. This often in genesis
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is a way of showing a separation
from God. You see it in the
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way that they are building a city
to establish themselves apart from God, the
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way that they are proud manufacturers.
These are all ways that the Bible has
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characterized for us just recently in the
earlier chapters, cane and his people.
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They were great city builders, manufacturers, people that established themselves in mighty and
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powerful ways in the earth. But
they are also people who did this apart
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from the Lord, who separated themselves
and cared not for God's judgment, as
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the line of lay mack, as
the genealogy is given there. You are
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sorry, Kane. You remember that
we come to laymk who takes on himself
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this authority of God to judge,
to judge and to be even above judgment.
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All these things to remind you of
the way in which the sins that
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we have here in in Genesis Eleven, God is specifically telling us that these
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people aren't just building something, they
are doing it for a very particular and
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for a very sinful purpose. Genesis
eleven we see that they have one language.
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They also have this same original sin
and from that sin, mankind,
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humanity, decides to unite around a
very specific project, and it has no
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other purpose except to establish man as
autonomous over God. You hear it in
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their language and you see it in
their actions. They say, come,
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let us build for ourselves a city
and a tower with its top in the
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heavens, and let us make a
name for ourselves. You see their purpose
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here. They want to establish themselves, but notice who they are establishing themselves
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against. This is not one city
of man establishing itself over and against another
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city of Man. This is not
one political body trying to establish itself and
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protect itself, to build a name
for itself against another political body, another
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king. They are seeking to establish
that the name for themselves over and against
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God. They are unified in this
project. Mankind works together to create this
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city and to create this tower that
they might have a name for themselves,
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which is to say apart from God. And they don't just want to build
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a tower to to watch out for
things or for some kind of defense against
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other people. Know, they want
to build a tower with its top in
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the heavens, lest we been dispersed
over the face of the whole earth.
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So you see that they are unified
not to protect themselves against one another but
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against God. They want to in
some ways encroach up into the place where
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God is, says he dwells the
heavens. They want to move beyond the
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place that they have been given up, up, up higher and higher,
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to move in a sense, into
God's territory. Of course it's all God's
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territory, as will see in a
moment. Well, this action is paralleled
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not only here but in in the
ancient world, and many times we read
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that there was a we know that
there is a Zigarott at Larsa and it
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was called the House of the link
between Heaven and earth. There's a similar
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tower in Babylon that has a shrine
painted at the very very top in blue.
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This way of sort of joining heaven
and earth itself, of coming in
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and even trying to be like God's
well, for all this, and like
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came, they are judged by a
worst migration. But also we see the
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way that God, like Cain,
continues to propagate them in the world under
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his blessing. As with Caine,
we see that their sin reaches and seeks
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for a kind of autonomy, but
the Lord will not stand it. So
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this is the story that we have. This is the background, the the
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the background that explains the divisions that
we have in the world, why languages
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are the way they are. Well, what are the lessons that we are
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to learn from this? Let me
give you three brief ones. The first
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one is that God judges man's pride. God Judges Man's pride. This is
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the first lesson we see here.
Now, though, it's true he willingly
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and mercifully allows man to live in
rebellion against him under his covenant with Noah,
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that does not necessarily mean that he's
going to withhold his hand from particular
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in individual acts of judgment on his
people or on people, on groups of
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people, or even cities and nations. In other words, just because God
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has said that he will no longer
flood the whole earth, judging the whole
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Earth again until that great and last
Judgment Day when Jesus comes, it doesn't
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mean that he sort of holds back
his hand from all judgments in particular.
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Just because he says that he will
no longer wipe humanity off the face of
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the earth, it doesn't mean that
he won't do this with particular people and
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individuals. That he won't see fit
to judge the pride and sinfulness of Man.
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You see that here in this chapter. These people on build themselves up,
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and it's true. God, by
His mercy, preserves them. He
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allows them to continue on, he
allows them to grow. He doesn't just
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squash them. And how he could? We read that they are building this
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great tower up into the heavens,
and what is God do? He has
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to come down to see it.
They think it's so big, but it's
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ads this the text presents it as
if it's so puny that God has to
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descend down to the earth to see
this little thing that they're building. And
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when he sees it, when he
comes down, he there confuses their language.
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When you think about language, the
complexity of it, the beauty of
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it, on the variety that we
have. If you are a person who
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loves to to read poetry and literature, these kinds of things, you know
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how awesome and amazing language can be, and if you've had the opportunity to
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study and learn in a language that's
not your own, this is even multiplied
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more. Well here, God creates
these things, creates these languages and which
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people will use all over the face
of the earth. There's a judgment in
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it, isn't there? There's also
a mercy, as will come to see.
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But the point here, this particular
lesson, is that God, UN
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is powerful to act that though man
thinks he can make a name for himself,
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establish himself as autonomous over God,
he cannot. You see that here.
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You see it in Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar, who goes out to his balcony,
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surveys his kingdom and says, look
at everything that I've done, aren't
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I amazing good stuff? And what
does God do? He turns him into
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a beast who wanders around on the
ground eating grass until he knows that God
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is King. He does this with
Belta sharp. He does this with Sodom
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and Gomorrah later in Genesis. He
does this over and over again Antonias and
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Sapphire in the New Testament, who
think that they can lie to the Holy
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Spirit and deceive God, God strikes
them dead on the spot. Just because
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God preserves the world in this a
amazingly merciful way that he does, doesn't
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mean that people should live with complete
should live in pride. It doesn't mean
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that we can go out into the
world and say well, we can do
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whatever we want, because we can't. It's true, we do live in
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the world and have a certain measure
of autonomy, but that autonomy, our
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freedom, is always lived out under
and by the sovereign control of God.
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You are not your own. What
you build, what you eat, what
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you make, what you have,
he's only and always by God's will,
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and those who refuse to submit to
this will certainly be judged on the last
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day. But God may not necessarily
wait until then. He doesn't always,
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especially when the pride and arrogance reaches
to such a height that he chooses to
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humble. The multiplicipity of languages that
we have in the world today is a
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proof and reminder of that. That's
our first lesson, that God does Judge
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Pride. The second lesson we have
is that there are limits on man,
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there are limits on what a person
can accomplish. Now, this seems it's
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like such a simple thing to state. We all know this, right.
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You all know that you are limited, that you can't accomplish everything that you
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perhaps would like or think you can
do, and yet we fight against this
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all the time. We push ourselves
constantly past what we can eat, past
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what we can sleep past what we
can love. We strive to do more
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than we're able individually and as a
society. We are constantly told, and
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we tell others and we tell ourselves, that we can have it all,
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that we can reach any goal that
we set our minds to if we simply
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work hard enough and have enough faith
and and push and push and push.
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But it's simply not true. I
tell you this now and of course you're
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going to agree with me, but
it's just going to be a matter of
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moments before you begin planning and striving
and moving beyond all natural limits again.
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But we do have limits. Genesis
eleven reminds us of that. We have
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limits, of course, in our
own nature, by nature, in the
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way that God made us, but
we also have limits that God has superimposed,
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we might say, even on top
of our nature, things that go
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beyond our nature. There isn't any
particular natural real reason, in other words,
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that we have different languages. It's
not a necessity built into who we
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are as part of the image of
God or as part of our biological makeup.
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And yet that is a limit that
we all and all face and always
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will face. God has superimposed this
and other limits on us, I'm some
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which are expressly given here in scripture
like this one, and sometimes others.
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I'm we have, for example,
King David, who was anointed by God
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to be king over Israel, who
was, I'm, given authority and given
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promises, and yet was being chased
around in the Wilderness and hiding in caves
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and being pursued like a dog.
He had limits by the Providence of God.
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He could not do certain things,
and David had to accept that,
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and God honors him for accepting that, for holding back his hand from killing
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Saul when he had opportunities, for
not rushing to take the throne but waiting
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for God to do what he would
do. These things that we consider here
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from genesis eleven, in other words, these limitations of language, as one
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example, but others as well,
are human are creaturely limitations. These are
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all reminders that we need to be
cautious in our optimism or, even better,
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we need to be humble. We
need to be humble and what we
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can do and what we can accomplish
doesn't mean we need to be negative or
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we need to despair or we need
to cut each other down. We just
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need to be humble and accept and
be thankful even for the limits that God
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has placed on us, and that
takes us to lesson three. God is
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not only judges mankind in limiting us
in this way, with languages in particular,
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but there's also a mercy in it. It may feel frustrating, I'm
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sure. I'm sure it certainly did
for these people on the planes of Shinar
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to have your language confused. All
of a sudden you're working with one guy
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in the one one moment making bricks, putting together the project, talking about
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architecture plans, and the next minute
babble. It may feel frustrating like that
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now if you're working on a business
deal, you're trying to communicate with someone,
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or your wanting to go overseas for
work or for missions and you can't
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speak the same language. For those
of you have been in those kinds of
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experiences, you know it's isolating,
it can feel lonely, it can be
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very difficult and frustrating. Sometimes can
cost you money, time energy. But
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though it maybe feel frustrate, it
may have a certain amount of frustration to
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it to have human flourishing in our
lives limited by God. There are also
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we have to recognize is a mercy
in it. God wants us to see
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in genesis eleven that he limits our
capabilities not only as an act of judgment
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but also as an act of mercy. He restrains our freedom in order to
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restrain our sin. You might think
of it this way. How far would
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we go in our sin if we
could do all that we wanted to do,
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if we could do everything that we
set our minds on? How far
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would we go? How many evil
things, how many evil possibilities, would
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be opened up to us? We
read that God confused their language so that
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they would not be able to do
the things that they might be able to
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do otherwise. We God speaks with
hyperbole, of course, when he says
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that nothing will be impossible for them. But there's this extent in which man
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can go very, very, very
far, too amazing heights of evil,
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if he wants. And we've seen
this, haven't we, even in just
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the last century or so, how
mankind, when he works together and when
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he's at his most efficient and most
thoughtful and exercising his mind in the best
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ways, can create some of the
most evil and dangerous and horrific kinds of
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places and lives. Murdering millions and
millions of people, Unrestrained Power, lust,
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greed. How far would we go
in our sin if we could do
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all that we wanted to do?
Examples are everywhere. It's by the grace
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of God that he limits us,
that he restrains us by putting the sun
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down at night and telling us to
go to bed, by keeping us from
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being constantly energetic, from being able
to communicate at all times in an every
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way. How many terrible evils,
how many prideful towers, could humanity manufacture
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if it could finally be all by
itself with its sin? Now, sometimes
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God does give us over to our
sin, and the results are repulsive.
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We should be grateful for the limits
that he does place on us. Well,
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these three lessons that God judges our
pride, that there is mercy in
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his limiting us and that there are
indeed limits on man. We are faced
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with a choice. How will we
respond to this? These lessons will lead
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to one of two responses. Sometimes
they're both found in a single person.
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The first is that we rail against
this reality, we fight against it,
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we knock against the boundaries that have
been set. I've noticed how we've been.
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Some of you know looking for our
cat and we've gone to different shelters
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and I've noticed how different animals will
react differently to their cages that they're in.
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Some sit quietly or seem to be
rather content within the environment, even
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though it's difficult. Others knock and
rub against the cage and push and cry.
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Others are scared. All kinds of
different reactions. and the animals,
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and you see that in people too, and the boundaries that God places on
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us our lives. Some people hit
them again and again and again and again,
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and it doesn't matter how strong those
limits are, how unmoving they will
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be, they will keep going and
going and going and going until they collapse
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or die. Others learn to be
content. This is the other option.
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Instead of banging and yelling and crying
and screaming and trying and trying to fight
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against God and his universe, against
his immutable will, they accept it,
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pay submit to it. Many people
do, and it is a great blessing
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that they do. They realize that
they are not God, that they will
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not be able to do all that
they set their heart to do, and
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then, in some ways that's even
a really good thing. But neither of
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these two options really lead to anywhere
wonderful, anywhere really filled with blessing or
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anything really worth hoping in to.
A bare kind of submission to God's moral
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order, to the universe and and
structures that he's placed in society is a
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good thing, better than hitting that
those boundaries, painting those bars again and
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again, but that kind of bare
submission, though it will create something of
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a better life for you, is, is in many ways limited. The
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Bible, however, in the following
chapters, offers a third option, a
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third option that is more than just
submitting to the way things are, but
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actually hoping in something greater, seeing
and accepting from God a gift of something
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that's beyond just being purse are just
persevering in the world as it is,
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but actually entering into a new world
that is much better than a world that
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we live in. A third option
for those who know that true submission to
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God only comes when we completely surrender
ourselves to his will and to His grace.
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A third option which would recognize is
that true submission and blessing and and
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a life that is filled with blessing
and not just being preserved, happens when
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God comes down, not just in
temporal judgment and temporal mercy, but comes
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down to bring final judgment and consummated
grace. This is what God does when
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he sends his son. God gives
us more than the Tower of Babel.
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This is, after all, just
the beginning of the Bible, just the
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beginning even of Genesis. In fact, in just at the next chapter,
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Chapter Twelve, God is going to
start making some amazing promises that begin to
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fulfill the early promises he made to
Adam and Eve. Listen to the beginning
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of Genesis twelve. After a genealogy
that ends at this man called Abram,
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we read that Jehovah says to him, go from your country and your kindred
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and your father's house to the land
that I will show you, and I
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will make you a great nation and
I will bless you and I will make
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your name great, so that you
will be a blessing, and I will
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bless those who bless you, and
him who dishonors you I will curse,
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and in you all the families of
the Earth shall be blessed. So in
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a way, God takes the Tower
of Babel and he spins it like a
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top, scatters the people across the
earth, but then he comes to this
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single man, Abraham, eventually called
Abraham, and in him and in those
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promises he begins to gather together a
people again. In you, all the
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families, all the nations of the
earth will be blessed. I will make
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you, Abram, a great name
for yourself. You hear this gift that
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God is giving him. Abraham isn't
crawling up into the heavens to get himself
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something. God is descending on to
the earth to give something, and all
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this blessing that is being poured out
on Abraham pulls in God pulls in many,
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many people. These promises that are
made to Abraham will become fulfilled in
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Jesus, when Jesus comes down out
of the heavens, out of his dwelling
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place with God, and as God
gathers to himself people from all over the
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world, Jews gentiles. Going back
to Daniel, we read there in one
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of the prophecies that after these great
kingdoms come the four great beasts and the
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four kings who shall arise out of
the Earth. The Saints of the most
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high shall receive the kingdom and possess
the kingdom forever and ever. This great
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kingdom that's coming, this thing that
man wants, power and honor and greatness,
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will come to him, but not
in his autonomy. It will be
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given to him by the Great King. Under him and through him and by
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him, God will make this covenant
that will do more than preserve the world.
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He will create and establish something new, a kingdom in which man will
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live not apart from God but with
God and therefore full of blessing, not
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just in a temporal way, but
eternally, a kingdom that is, Daniel
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says, is established forever. And
this third option is the best option,
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obviously, and it's the only eternal
and lasting one. And this is where,
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as we live our lives in this
world, we must direct our deepest
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feelings. Our greatest hopes, are
our greatest desires. The unity that we
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want with one another can be achieved, but not on our own, but
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in Christ
