(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Good morning, church family.

Happy Lord's Day. I'd like to begin by reading Psalm 86, verses 11. And it reads, "Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to your name." We may be surrounded by many distractions and temptations, and I pray it would be our desire and prayer to have an undivided heart to the Lord and a devotion to Him alone.

(gentle music) ♪ Teach me your way, O Lord ♪ ♪ Teach me your way, O Lord ♪ ♪ And I will walk in your truth ♪ ♪ Show me your path, O Lord ♪ ♪ For I am devoted to you ♪ ♪ Purify my heart's desire ♪ ♪ I long to be your servant ♪ ♪ Give me an undivided heart ♪ ♪ That I may fear your name ♪ ♪ Give me an undivided heart ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ No other loves ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ Before you ♪ ♪ Teach me your way ♪ ♪ Teach me your way, O Lord ♪ ♪ And I will walk in your truth ♪ ♪ Show me your path, O Lord ♪ ♪ For I am devoted to you ♪ ♪ Purify my heart's desire ♪ ♪ I long to be your servant ♪ ♪ Give me an undivided heart ♪ ♪ That I may fear your name ♪ ♪ Give me an undivided heart ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ No other loves ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ Before you ♪ ♪ Give me ♪ ♪ Give me an undivided heart ♪ ♪ That I may fear your name ♪ ♪ Give me an undivided heart ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ No other loves ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ Before you ♪ - No other does.

♪ No other does ♪ ♪ No other loves ♪ ♪ No other loves ♪ ♪ No other does ♪ ♪ Before you ♪ (gentle music) - Okay, good morning, everyone. We have four announcements. First one, our Bible Lab, if you signed up for it already, will be beginning today at 2 p.m., meeting upstairs in the Sprouts Room with Pastor Mark, so get as prompt as you can.

Secondly, the Intentional Sisters Fellowship is also beginning. That sign-up is closing today, so it's not beginning anytime really soon, but today the sign-up's closed, so you do have to kind of make a decision, and all the information is up there in your apps. Thirdly, BAM is going to be having a winter retreat, and that's coming up fairly soon, so please sign up for that.

And then next week, we'll be having Communion Sunday, so you can prepare your hearts for worship, specifically for communion before next week. Okay, well, yesterday, our India team touched down back home, and so we're really happy to see them. They're kind of roaming around, but we're going to be showing a video of their trip, and then our brother Hubert's gonna be coming up to give a testimony about that afterwards.

Hi, my name is Hubert Kim. Thank you for this opportunity to share what I learned from this mission trip. Our team consisted of 16 members, 13 from Berean and 3 members from Cross Life Church. We departed last Friday and after a total of 30 hours of travel, we arrived at our final destination in India.

Over the next four days, we would visit a different village, and at each village, one member of our team would share their testimony with the locals who were gathered there. And then we would split into three groups, eye care, medical health screening, and BBS. I was so challenged by our team members, even despite the long journey, they served diligently with joy and with unity of purpose.

Pastor Sake, who's one of the main pastors there, shared with us that these medical camps had great impact in several ways. Many Hindu people would not give any attention to Christianity, but at the gathering, they're a captive audience and they hear the testimony about Jesus. In addition, when they receive treatment, they're surprised that Christians would help Hindus, and they express their deep gratitude.

After these medical camps conclude, the local pastors then would gain more credibility with the local people and are more willing to meet with them. I thought about the verse, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." And I began to understand that the long hours of travel coming to this remote village, on the exact opposite side of the world, was well worth it.

Not because of health care, but because of the valuable and precious message of Jesus Christ. Please pray for the India pastors. There are 42 pastors, and each of them each go to about two to three villages. I really saw that they're ordinary people, but I saw that the opposition that they face is very great.

Not only is it the political climate becoming more difficult for them, but during this pandemic, one of the main pastors, Pastor Isaac, passed away from COVID. Not only that, there's another core pastor within them, within their midst, one who has been with them for the past 20 years, recently fell away from the faith, and is actively hindering and opposing their ministry there.

In actuality, on the first and third day of our medical camps, we had to change location on the day of, as this former pastor was spreading lies and gathering opposition in the villages we were intending to go to. Please pray that they can endure through these hardships, and they will not lose heart.

Pray for the village leaders and Hindu people can turn to Christ. Each village has a village leader who acts as the law of the village. Pray that these leaders can soften their hearts to Christianity, and that they may come to know Christ. Pray for the Hindu people, a people with many gods, that they can come to know and worship the one true God.

Matthew 9.36 says, "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.' Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." I hope this year that you would commit to pray for the pastors in India and for the ministry there.

Thank you. We're going to spend this time now in offering. We have instructions up there and then a box back there if you'd like to physically give. But as we pray for offering, let's also pray for our team that's come with the news that they've brought. For us, these are such fleeting and passing things, convictions and a video that might be lighthearted and make us very happy, encouraged.

But the work continues, and the enemy doesn't rest, and prayers are needed. So let's continue in prayer. I'll pray for offering, and then after the praise, our brother Caleb's going to be coming up to be baptized this morning. Heavenly Father, we pray, God, that again, this would not be just a habitual thing we do every week where we drop something into a bucket.

But Lord, this would be our heart and our desire. Father, just as our team went, and just as the pastors there are continuing to labor, here where we are, we are doing the same. Father, that our desire is exactly the same. We want your kingdom to come and your will to be done.

And so, Father, I pray that it would be an offering up of our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let us all rise as we sing these songs. Hello, Breanne. My name is Caleb, and this is my testimony. I was born in the church, coming from a Presbyterian Christian background.

I was baptized at birth, and I spent my whole life going to church. I went to Friday nights, retreats, revivals, Harvest Festival, concerts, just everything you can imagine, really. I cannot remember the last time I really remember missing church other than being sick. My dad is a pastor, my older brother is a youth pastor.

I was so immersed in the Christian life so much as a young child that I thought my faith was solidified forever. Even through different hardships and struggles, I stood firm in what I called faith. However, in the fall of my junior year, I struggled with something that I could not really easily explain.

I thought about my faith and whether or not it was really real, but at a typical time of healthy skepticism, I wasn't worried. However, as I continuously scoured the Internet and I came upon different people, I came to realize that there were so many doubts and questions that caused me to think my faith was very shallow.

I was so passionate about believing in Christ, but I realized there was no knowledgeable foundation. I had no answers to any questions non-believers would posit about Christianity. I felt like there was nowhere to look and that the questions I had were too specific and too complex for a pastor or any church member to really answer.

I even lost trust in my parents' guidance when it came to the teachings of Christianity, thinking that the knowledge was too surface level and that they would never understand my confusion. And I was then afraid because maybe I thought that I would be a disappointment to them and that I failed them while causing them unnecessary suffering of doubting my faith.

And suddenly I felt so small and the world felt so big. Why did so many of these non-believers seem to be so valid in their skepticism, in their militant opposition to theism, to Christianity altogether? I could not dismiss it, and I let the doubt spread like a disease. At some point I remember telling myself, "I don't care if my dad or if my older brother are pastors.

I don't care how many crosses we have in our house, the Bible that we have. I don't care about the worship playlist that I collected. I didn't care that I was baptized or confirmed to high school. If Christianity was wrong and if Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, whom I looked up to for so long, if he had never died and truly rose again from the dead, if he was not divine, then like Paul says in 1 Corinthians, our faith is in vain." I had been a Christian for so long and I was ready to give up my faith, but we're pursuing a different journey and then just kind of die and fade into nothingness.

The world will never remember me, so what would it matter now if I kept trying to maintain blind, false faith? There is no God, and if there is no God, there is no hope, no purpose for humanity. Science was right, atheists were right, and religion was wrong. I quickly fell into depression and anxiety that I could not shake for many months.

Every morning I woke up and I felt empty. I stopped doing things that I enjoyed, and even things like eating was very hard for me because of how many questions and confusion that I had that I could not focus. Sometimes I would walk out of the house and just go all the way out into the freeway and just kind of drown in dejectedness.

One day I sat upon, or I climbed up on one of the walls near the freeway and just kind of told myself that maybe death would not be so bad if I could just avoid all this unnecessary pain and suffering since there was no God, there was no purpose, and the world would just die away and me along with it.

Maybe if I passed away I could just see God for myself without having to struggle here on earth. Ironically, I remember verbally crying out to the Lord, asking Him to give me the answers. I wanted to prove to myself that Jesus Christ was real, and His divinity was real as well.

I wanted to receive Christ back into my life. I wanted to bring Him glory. But all the doubts were plaguing my mind, and it kind of enslaved me. But as a well-educated student, I knew that I needed evidence before I just started lashing out and just leaving. So for many months I spent countless hours every day, every night, day after day, night after night, just looking for answers.

So many questions that I had, that plagued my mind, and they weighed very heavy on me every day. And many of these things I realized, or made me realize that I never really read the Bible in depth for myself, as much as I thought, even though I grew up learning about the Bible, even though I tried to evangelize, I didn't really fully understand the true image of Jesus Christ and what He meant for me.

I never fully applied God's message in a way that gave value to me and humanity in general. But I eventually figured that we were created in the image of God, which gives us a direction of not just moral excellence, but patience and sacrifice, which then gives us a destiny in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

After many months, I realized that even after the many times I cried out to the Lord and asked Him, "Why can't you reveal yourself? Why do I have to come looking for all these answers? Why do I have to search for all these things that frustrated me? Why do you make it so hard?

Why can't you just come down right now? Wouldn't that be much easier?" But I realized that He really had to reveal Himself. It's just that I was not looking in the right places. After a long time, I really came to know that Jesus is the origin, He's the meaning, morality, and destiny of humankind.

No other worldview would be able to sustain those aspects sufficiently without contradicting reality. At the end of it, it was simply undeniable for me. After reading and after doing all this research, I saw that there was just truth after truth after truth. I realized that once I knew that, I could find more joy in my life and a newfound sense of humility and purpose.

While it took me a while to apply it properly to my behavior in my life at home, I had a deeper purpose in the way I demonstrated myself before others because of the truth that set me free. I was not living for others anymore. One day, I was reading my devotions in Proverbs like I did every day.

I read chapter 2, verses 3 to 5, it stated that, "Indeed, if you call for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." God had started a spiritual awakening as a wake-up call to shatter my worldview so hard that I would turn to him, shake my arrogance, and really seek out his truth and take whatever steps there were to make Christianity all the more real to me, to make the glory and sovereignty of Christ more real to me.

Christ was simply the answer to everything that I was grappling with, and that he didn't just preach the truth, but he embodied the truth. He was the truth that I shunned for so long in my life. And I let my arrogance blind me from that. The truth has set me free, and through God's grace, I'm a living testament to that.

And to this day, that's why I'm getting baptized. Thank you. >> Caleb, do you understand by going into the water, you're uniting with Christ in his death, and by coming up out of the water, in his newness of life? I baptize you now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

>> Okay. Well, thank you, Caleb, for your testimony of faith. And I feel like I could recognize maybe some of your family around here. And to see the faithfulness, even a long suffering, and the faithfulness that needs to be exhibited, it's very encouraging to see that God is so faithful.

Let me go ahead and just pray for us, and we'll go right into the sermon today. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for your great truth. Father, just as Caleb said, it's not just the truth that is spoken, but it is the truth embodied. Father, that you are God, and that you are good, and that there is nobody like you.

And Father, we worship you and only you. There are no other gods. There are no other things out there that compare. Father, you are the creator, and we come before you, and we understand that the word we have in our hands comes from you. And so I pray, Father, that every time we come before your word, it would be an exercise of humility, one that desires to hear from our Father and God that it would be the very life in our bones.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay. Well, today we're going to be going through the Tower of Babel. And before we start that, this is something that I've been thinking about a lot for the last couple years, so it kind of comes in and out a lot for me as I've been trying to figure out what does God's will mean?

Not just to be able to define something like that, but we'll start by reading James 4, verse 13 through 16, where it says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.' But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." So we're very cognizant of this, that we are not in control of our lives, and that God is in control of our lives, and that we want to live for God's will and not our will.

Here, he says something that we would all agree with, hopefully, "If the Lord wills, then we will go about doing all these things." Now, this is the disposition of a Christian that's being talked about, because we know that God's will is going to come to pass, but to surrender ourselves to His will is what we see here.

But this also doesn't mean that we're supposed to go around and before every comment that we make, "Oh, if God wills, then I'm going to eat dinner tonight. If God wills, then I'll be able to drive home." It's not that, and yet, it's kind of all that. Everything about our lives is swallowed up in this understanding of the Lord's will.

Now, we know that's hard, because how many things in our lives are we, today, living outside of His will? We're not going to go into decreed and desired will. There are different kinds of wills, but outside of what He wants for us, how much of our lives falls there?

And in verse 16, where it says, "But as it is, you boast in your arrogance," and it talks about somebody who lives for his own will, not as just mistaken, or a little bit off course, he says, "This kind of living is evil." It's evil. It's arrogance. It's kind of boasting, self-will, thinking that I can wake up and do whatever it is that I want, plan whatever it is that I want, go and accomplish whatever it is that I want, go after the things that I want to go after.

This kind of will is evil. So, this being the common disposition to the Christian, we have to ask ourselves if we actually believe this. Now, some of the wisdom texts that we're going to be looking at will point to God's sovereignty in our lives. In Job 42, it says, "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." In Psalm 115.3, "But our God is in the heavens.

He does whatever he pleases." Proverbs 69, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 19.21, "Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand." These are wisdom texts. So, what this means is that if we agree to these texts, if we look at this and we say, "Yeah, I believe that," but we live outside of it, we're not living in accordance to it, that we are not subjecting ourselves to the truth of it.

It's called foolishness. It's not wisdom we're living in, because we're saying we believe it, and we say it with our mouths, and perhaps that's how we would commonly display our lives to be, and yet at the heart and at the core, whatever it is that we're living for, that big gap is called foolishness.

And James goes on to say that that is boasting and arrogance or evil. What we see in today's world is a world that's full of people who are daily, minute by minute, heartbeat by heartbeat, living in defiance before God's will. This is the world. This is the fallen world, and we're going to be looking at the Tower of Babel to see it.

So the first point is going to be the context before the Tower of Babel. We're going to go through Genesis 1-10 and do a quick overview. And the context is basically it's all pointing towards death. And so the idea of this is going to be that God's will, God's desire, is always going to be pointing towards life, but human will is always going to be pointing towards destruction and death, and that's what we see in the first 10 chapters of Genesis.

He says to Adam and Eve when they first come onto the scene in Genesis 1-28, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." If you remember, Adam and Eve had sinned. They don't live for God's kingdom. They don't live for God's will. They live for their own will, their own desires.

Aside from all the deepening theology that we can go into this story, if you want to put it very simplistically, they did not want what God wanted, and they wanted what they wanted. It was a battle of wills, and at that moment sin enters into the world because that's what that battle is.

When humanity comes up against God's will and fights and rebels, it's sin. And with sin came death, destruction. That's the immediate repercussion of this. It's death. So in the genealogy that we see in Genesis 5, it's the common theme. It comes in right away, not only with just Cain and Abel and a single murder that happened right away.

But if you look at Genesis 5-3, "When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters.

So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died." It's very tempting to look at this and marvel. You marvel. Why? Because he lived 930 years. He lived 930 years, and we sit there and go, "Wow, that's a lot of life." But is that what this passage was meaning to convey?

No. What it was going to convey is that there is death. We don't think it's remarkable that he lives 930 years. It's remarkable that he dies. It says, "was made in Adam's image." Seth is made in Adam's image, in the image of a sinner, where Adam was made in God's image.

Now he is made in the image of Adam, who is pursuing the will of man and not God's. I mean, this death that's introduced, it's not a slow devolution. It's the common theme. If you look at Genesis 5-5, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

All the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. All the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. All the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. All the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. All the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.

All the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. Different names, different ages, same result. Whether someone lives 700 years, whether someone lives 900 years, the result is the same. Death. And death is just not the finishing of a human, just a physical body. We're talking about eternal punishment that they enter into.

Death. This is the immediate ramification of sin, of humans who pursue their own will, and not God's will. See, God's will is always the way of life. Human will without God only leads to death. It is the inevitable end. During this time, we see that humans were living somewhere between 700 and 900 years.

It's a mind-blowing concept, right? Can you imagine? And as death is introduced into the world, again, the point is not that all these men lived that long. The point is that death reigned. Romans 5.12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." It's the result.

It's the punishment. It is the payment for sin. Death. We like to think about sin as just things. Things we do, thoughts we have. Sin is so much more than these things that we can accomplish. Sin has everything to do with a sinful heart. And that's what total depravity is.

It's a heart that has completely gone into this place where it is self-willed, self-desiring, selfish, and wants only my things, not God's. That's what brings death. It's humans who desire their own things. Their own lives always will make way to destruction. Take a moment to take that in. It doesn't mean that at every moment, if you look at Genesis 6.5, let's look at 6.5.

"And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Does that mean that at every moment, somebody was thinking of killing someone? Of raping someone? Of stealing? Of destroying? That's not what that is saying.

This passage is saying that this was the inclination of every heart. That evil is not being defined by the greatest pictures of sin, but that the heart was sinful. The entirety of what sin is is rebellion against God. And therefore, the sins that we see are just fruits. It's the resulting, the repercussion, the aspects that come out as a result of the sin that we have already taken into our hearts.

To live for personal will, not God's will. To live for personal kingdom, not God's kingdom. To live for my desires, not God's desires. That's death. That's a death sentence. It is not only a punishment given by God, it is also the natural result of sin. The proud, self-willed, human heart.

And so what we see is God proceeds then to wipe out everyone, except Noah and his family, in a worldwide flood. And we think that this is a terrible thing for God to do. No, it's not. The fact of the matter is, he executes what every human being already deserved.

Whether somebody dies in a flood at 20, or whether somebody is living 777 years old, the death, the result, is the same. Right? That doesn't matter. Everything ends up in the same place. We don't look up at God and say, "Oh, man, but if you let him live 900 years, that would have been fine." The fact that the perished humans had that much time to live ought to make us question God's goodness and justice.

How could God allow them to even live? Once the flood abates, God repeats the very same command he gave to Adam and Eve. This thing, again, the same command that God gave to Adam and Eve, and now he's cleansed the slate. He's made it so, you know, after the rain falls and everything just looks clean, everything looks beautiful, and the birds are chirping, everything smells better.

The entire world, the rain came over the entire world, everything looked clean, it looked like a brand new slate. It was like, "We can do this!" And God gives them the same command, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." The stuff of life to fill, to produce, to fill the earth with life, that gives life, and to pass that on.

And this is the will of God. But what we see is the very same thing. Nothing changes. Sin and death continues. Evil continues to spread. And just as the devolution was swift and immediate after Adam and Eve, even though God gives renewed hope to humanity after the flood, it says in Genesis 9.28, "Noah lived 350 years after the flood." So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

He was the last of them to live that long. And he actually started to outlive his children and his grandchildren because death was spiraling. To the point, you get to Genesis 12, people are living under 200 years. It's the same old, same old. You see that Noah and his family got to see the firsthand result of sin.

They got to see what happens when human will takes over and God's will comes up against that. Even though Noah's immediate family knew this, they deviate so far off course so quickly that what is just in probably about a few hundred years, we're trekking towards the story of the Tower of Babel in Chapter 11.

Humanity has already created their own false gods. This is nearing the time in history called the Ancient Near East, near the Fertile Crescent. It was the dawn of civilization when nomads roamed the earth. And according to James Boyce and historical record, we know that essentially the identities of all the various gods and goddesses of Rome, Greece, India, Egypt, and so on, were birthed from this location.

It was from Babylon, and this Tower of Babel was the birthplace of Babylon. The people during Babel were already beginning to create false gods while Noah was around. As they did that, they did it largely through astrology. It's known in history that the Chaldeans, also known as the Babylonians, began astrology, the Chaldeans being another name for the people of Babylon.

And from here originated all ancient world religions. And remember, with Noah, because his own family, the eight of them that were rescued from the flood, were all that were left of humans, everyone that was a son or a daughter that was born would what? They would speak the same language, right?

It doesn't even have to be said. I mean, it's so obvious. When you have kids, they just start speaking the language that you speak. But before Genesis 11, while everything is still Noah's family, look at what happens in Genesis 10, verse 5. Like a savvy reader would look at that and be like, wait, what?

Out of one family, but why are there languages now? And then the second son, Genesis 10.20. Shem, these are the sons of Shem. And out of these, the nations were separated on the earth after the flood. So it's a natural question that comes up. If there is only one family, how are there languages in chapter 10?

How are there nations? Why is everything separating? Why is everyone being scattered? And so we come to the story of the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is actually a story of the people of the land of Israel. And so we come to the story of the Tower of Babel.

The Tower of Babel is actually a story of God's intervening hand and man's plunge towards death. Chapter 11 tells us two wills that are running side by side. There's man's will and there's God's will. Man's will leading to immediate and obvious death, and God's will, we're going to be seeing the redemption plan of life to save mankind.

Not to live to a ripe old age of 800 or 900 years old, but eternal life, true life. So Genesis 11, verse 1 through 9. If you haven't yet turned there, you can turn there with me now. This is our second point. This is the narrative of the Tower of Babel.

Verse 1. Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. As soon as you see this, again, he's trying to make that link, just kind of the pin right there, right? The pivoting point. The whole earth used the same language. That's a no-does statement. If there's one family, there should be one language.

It says that they used the same words even. That's called repetition, right? He's trying to drive into us the tension that was built in Chapter 10, that there's a scattering that happened, and now he's going to tell us a story of why and how that happens. This is letter A, the world God's way.

God has always desired a filling of the earth to his glory. Remember what he said to Adam and Eve? He said again to Noah. He says to fill the earth because that's what image bearers do. Image bearers point. Image bearers give glory. The point was that people would fill the earth with the image of God, thereby bringing God glory.

And these people would be one in mind, one in heart, because why? They bore the resemblance of the same God. Now, what we saw is that Seth was made in the image of Adam, which wouldn't be a problem if Adam were still in the image of God, right? Like something perverted, something changed here.

Verse 1 here continues to build tension into us in this. Unity has been broken. Division has occurred in a place where God was always meaning to bring his people together for the same purpose. See, if this family, Noah's family, were the same family, they all spoke the same way.

It's not just common language. It's their body language. It's the intricacies, the intonations, the inflections. They just knew each other. Like there was just a oneness here. And as they grew in size, they began to have to go outwards, perhaps an uncle's flock of sheep got too big here, and so people would have to move out.

And this became a very scary thing to them. And so that's what we see coming up to chapter 11, verse 1. These men were moving eastward, and finally they found a plain in Shinar, a place that was very fertile in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. So they come up with this plan there.

It's their plan. They come up with something that is their will, their desires, their ambitions at their kingdom. That's what we see going here into verse 2. So let's look at that. This is the world man's way. Not united to bring God's glory, but in Genesis 11, 2, "It came about as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.' And they used brick for stone and they used tar for mortar. They said, 'Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.' And here they are questioning, going up against God's will.

Let's band together. Let's go inwards into a city, into a metropolis, a man to pursue his own glory instead of uniting to God's glory, to fill the earth with it, instead of accomplishing God's purposes, instead of trusting in their Lord, the one who saved their entire family, by the way.

We see here in the quick devolution of sin, a story that seems to continue what we saw in Genesis 6, 5, that the thoughts were evil always, continually, not because they're going around murdering everyone in sight, but because of their will. That's what sin is. It's self-will. It's what I want, not what God wants.

Even with the differences people might have, the core of sin is the same in every fallen human. Though there ought to be unity in bringing God's glory together, what we see in the world today, just as it was then, a unity in the broken world, in that all we want is what we want.

We want to be God. We want to sit on the throne. We want to call the shots. We want to make our own decisions. We want to fulfill the Lord with our own glory. Now that sounds so dramatic, but that's what's happening. Not just in the world, but do you not sense it in your heart?

This is the same heart in every human born into sin, and it directly results into death. You see it there in verse 4, don't you? "Let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." And so the problem isn't just trying to stop ourselves from committing major and overt sin, it's this will of ours.

In this time, man's sin is seen in bolder, more concentrated ways. Why? Because they were united. Man can accomplish a lot when you're united. Do you know why? Because that's what God made it to be. Except that unity was always meant to enhance his glory, but in sin, man will enhance his own glory.

Unity will always enhance efficiency, strategy, strength, corporate resolve. We'll root each other on in whatever accomplishment it is that we're trying to go for. Now what happens if this unity is in the context of sin? Personal ambitions and will, not God's. Perhaps their actions seem innocent enough. Perhaps they have their reasons.

Maybe they remember all the animals that were released out of the ark, and they were also proliferating into the world. And that's scary, right? A bunch of lions are just having a bunch of babies everywhere. That's scary. Maybe they were afraid because the land masses are beginning to drift apart.

As their population is increasing, maybe they're afraid of the fact that they're getting spread apart like this. Maybe they're afraid of the rapidly falling lifespan. But it didn't change the fact that God said to fill the earth, to go and to reach the ends of it, to his glory.

See, they didn't trust God, and perhaps they were afraid that God's plan would be against their best interests. In living a life of comfort and ease, their will was for themselves, their kingdoms, their safety, their names, to build up something that God, they were afraid. Because if God's will did not align with their will, then they're afraid of that.

Even though they were created to have their will aligned with God's will. The backwards nature of this. And so humans began Babel's construction, and they had hope in its completion. They said to one another in verse 3, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

And so all the ingenuity that God had given them, they're beginning to use this so that they can go after what they want. So they burned together these bricks and began constructing upward into the sky, this tower that goes into the heavens. And it probably resembled a ziggurat-like structure.

Interestingly, every ancient culture had some sort of ziggurat, which corresponds to this biblical reality in history, that all civilizations came from this place. Hence the commonality in origin stories. See, the ziggurats were towers with square bases, and they could have different details to them, but they were all common in that they were supposed to be structures that at the pinnacle brought them closer to reach the gods in the skies.

Celestial beings to worship. And in this world where already false gods were running rampant, just going everywhere, spreading, united humanity was coming together. Although there are many gods, the heart of man was the same against the one true God. Uniting to create a world where the power of God could be harnessed to accomplish their will.

Have you ever thought of idolatry, what it is? Idol worship? Isn't idol worship kind of strange? If you think about it, idol worship has always been-- idolatry has always been to harness the power of God, to get what you want. You worship something so that they will give you what you want.

In essence, idol worship or idolatry is, I'll worship you, but it's actually for you to worship me. I'll serve you, but it's actually for you to serve me. And so because humanity understands their weakness, that they can't accomplish the things that they want to accomplish, their will is weak and feeble, and they can't even sustain themselves.

So they have to, in essence, turn to God. And so as they turn to God, they worship God because God is powerful, but the image of what's going on there is not because they want to actually give Him glory, it's because they want what He can offer. That's really dangerous.

This is so much scarier than outright rebellion. We want to build up our own lives, our own kingdoms, and our own thrones. We want our comfort and our reputation and our communities. We want to eat what we want to eat. We want to visit where we want to visit.

We want to do what we want to do. And we want God's plans to be a side point in our lives, not the center. This is sin. Sin is not just the individual actions that we can list out. It's the individual thoughts that we can list out. Sin comes from a heart of sin, a sin that is perverted and corrupt.

A single sin in the human life is not an isolated incident. It says so much about who that person is, and they all seem to kind of come together at the same point, the commonality of human pride, boasting, ego, arrogance, and we're all the same in that. Coupled with, of course, a distrust of God, a hardened unbelief in our hearts to His promises, to His character, to what He says, a refusal to let go in the will of our lives.

Does this not seem closer to us than we thought? We can look out at an unbelieving world, but how many professing believers are currently living like this? On the outside, it might be a display of serving God, but on the inside, the desire is to harness Him, to put a bit in His mouth and to reign Him in so that He can do what I need Him to do.

They didn't say, "Let's build a tower that has our faces emblazoned on it." They didn't say, "Let's make this ziggurat and then just put our name right on the top of it." They did it to reach God. Wow. And so our prayers, and I've been so encouraged by our church.

I think there's been so much prayer going on. It's been really cool to see. And because we're recognizing it, but aren't we, because we're praying so much more often, like, aren't you with me right now where it feels like, "Wow, my prayers were so, so messed up at times." It can be so wrought.

Our prayers can be so wrought with this kind of fleshly and sinful thinking that we pray to God for our careers. We pray to God for our education, for our children, our food, our comfort, our peace, our entertainment. And that's what God is there for. He's our personal ziggurat.

He's there for us, and we only worship Him because we need Him to give us what I want. Not need Him because of Him, not need Him because of who He is, not need Him because we have nothing else, but because I need somebody who can take control of a life that I can't take control of, so you do it for me and give me what I want.

How many of us have been constructing a Tower of Babel reaching to the heavens with the express purpose of making a name for self? And frighteningly, how do we not know Bereanism being built like this? Saying the right things about serving and worshiping God, understanding in the mind and knowing the right things, that He is strong, that He is sovereign, that I am weak, that I am feeble and unable, and in all that, building up our own kingdom.

We must see that the danger to this is always much closer than we think, that the enemy works in much subtler, much more quiet, devious, hidden ways. He is not going to say, "Build this thing so that you can worship yourself." He's going to be lurking, nudging, causing questions, challenging.

Like with Caleb's testimony, right? It was just nudging, like, "How do you know?" Did God really say, "Is this who He is? Is this the best way?" We have to see the sinful tendency in us, because those questions, when we answer it, is going to be the crossroads, whether we choose to follow God's will or whether we decide we're going to take over.

We have to see the sinful tendency in us to say the right things while being completely about our own will and desires and not God's. You see, our desires are not only rebellious, but they're weak. Our desires are to set up something temporary. Our desires are for things that fade.

Our desires are for things that will harm us. Our desires, when you think about it, it doesn't even make sense to us, logically speaking. God wants far more for us than that. God wants us to have life, an abundant life. God wants us to stop pursuing our own will.

This isn't prosperity gospel. This is the truth. God wants us to have life that we were meant for, and that necessarily means that in His will, we must die to the world. We must die to our personal ambitions and desires and find what it is to find our desires in His desires, trusting that His ways are higher, that His ways are loftier, greater, better, and perfect.

So much so that we would live in simple obedience, childlike obedience before Him. Just say, "I trust what He says. I'll listen to Him. I'll do what He wants." So we live in a world that is filled with evil, rebellious people. There's a disturbing unity in this, this rebellious desire.

In an unbelieving world, that danger lurks even amongst us because we are unaware many times of our current state, of what sin actually is. It's just not trying to stop lusting or lying. We see this unity happening in the globalized world we live in. Me-centered, me, me, me. I matter.

I am valuable. I am worth it. I'll do whatever it takes to protect myself. God serves me. That's the world. It's the spirit of the Antichrist at work. It mimics spirituality. It mimics religion. It's not just like atheism and just like, you know. We don't have time. We don't have time to go into it.

Never mind. I've got to resist the temptation. Let's go to letter C. God's solution to man's way. Chapter 11, verse 5-9. So let's see how God responds to that. Genesis 11-5. Now this is a clear picture of how God responds to human will. God, as it says in Galatians 6, will not be mocked.

He will not be scorned. He will not be ridiculed. He will not be treated with contempt. What we saw with Jesus walking to the cross and subjecting himself to the crucifixion was not because he was powerless before humans and their will. It's because he was living out his will.

This was his purposeful, intentional decision to march to the cross. It was not a whip on his back. It was not steel nails that held him. It was him, his will, and his obedience to the Father's will. That scorn, that contempt, that ridiculing that came from the hands of man?

Do you think that just goes away? That because we believe there is forgiveness, that's gone? God is a God of perfect justice. No one gets away with anything. Not a single thing. And so you will either pay the judgment, the justice that needs to be paid, with your own life, or you place your faith in the one who can take it.

And that's always been God's will. This is a humorous story. We should be laughing at this story. We should be looking at this story and going, "What are they doing?" This giant tower, the ones, these humans are putting all their energy into it. They're trying so hard to build this thing up.

They're sweating as they're painstakingly shaping these bricks together and they're burning it with mortar and they have to go in front of a fire. Have you ever been really in front of a fire before? You're sweating and you're getting all charred. You lose your eyebrows. Everything is bad about this situation.

And they're waking up sore. They're so feeble, only to get another layer of bricks up. Some of them died as they're constructing this thing. And even then, it's like, "Oh, we have a long way to go in this." It was an unfinished tower. Cut and bruised. Weak and poor.

And then God, it says that He has to come down. The words are very purposeful. He comes down from the lofty heights that He resides. He comes down to see these humans putting all their energy into this thing. Because it was too small. He couldn't see it. He could see it, but it was just too small.

He came down and He looks. I'm like, "What are you doing?" Because this is a God who chapters before just spoke the world into existence and built everything. The atoms, the molecules, the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, water, fish, birds, animals, everything. Humans! With His words. These humans building up this thing.

To try to harness God. Human will versus God. He says, "Are you laughing with me?" Remembers, there's a TV show called "Pinky and the Brain." Have you ever seen that? No? Okay, we'll move on. If you read carefully at what's going on here, God simply reverses exactly what the people were doing.

They have one language and they've unified to make their name great. It's almost as if it's simple. It's time to come and step down and confuse their language. Humans said, "Come, let us go and build this." And God says, "Come, let us go and stop this." Where man was trying to build this up, God just thinks and it's done.

Foolishness. These humans thought they could challenge the Almighty God. The One who sustained everything about them. See, we make our plans. We pour our sweat into studying and working and building day and night. And we say we're going to do this or that. And we're going to go there and enjoy this and go there and accomplish this.

But who are we to work to personal ambition and will? Blind to the fact that I exist for God's glory. That's a lie if we live in that lie. That is evil if we live in that lie. We work so hard and looking for what is best for ourselves.

And so we think, "If it so happens that following God is what is best for me, then I won't feel guilty all week. I'll just do whatever it is. This is what I want. And if God's will matches up with mine, then great. I'll go to church. I'll serve.

I'll do everything that needs to be done." But if God's commands goes against what you really want, you typically just turn the other way. We've defined things. We've created standards and rubrics of what Christianity is. That I will give God these things, but really my life is still my own.

It is not. If you're a Christian in here today, you do not belong to yourself. Your decisions are not to be made for yourself. Your life is not meant to reflect your own glory. You are not here for your own personal reputation. You are not here for your personal enjoyment.

All of it is meant to be found in God. And only when it's found in God does all of that fall into place. God always works things to His purposes. And He always fulfills His plans. Even when we think, "Maybe, just maybe I can beat this system of God's.

Maybe, just maybe I can go against God's plans." You will kick. You will scream against God. But He is too powerful for you. Who are we to resist His will? He doesn't even break a sweat in frustrating our plans if they are not in line with His. God's plan is not that we would expand our own kingdom and names.

Even in those subtly deceptive ways. But to live to His. I'm going to read a quote from Arthur Pink. "The God of this 20th century no more resembles the supreme sovereign of Holy Writ than does the dim flickering of a candle, the glory of the midday sun. The God who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday school, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible conferences, is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality.

The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form gods out of wood and stone." Now take a breath here. Before we read this next part. "While millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a god out of their own carnal mind. In reality they are but atheists. For there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God and no God at all.

A God whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, possesses not title to deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship merits not but contempt." That's Arthur Pink. There's no middle ground to this. And we try to give a little bit more of our will and we feed it, we drip it into how we live day by day.

It is all or nothing. Is that not how we became Christians? That we surrendered everything. That is the entrance point to Christianity, not something we built to. And this was the result of humanity assembling together in unity at Babel. They're scattered. Look at Psalm 2. "And there the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing.

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, 'But as for me, I have installed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain.'" There was a time when I thought that this was so petty of God.

That God would be so worried about humans uniting in this way, that He would come down and confuse their language. I thought that was so petty. Until I had to do that, like a shake of the head, clear up my eyes to see what was actually going on. God's not afraid of humanity.

Who is He to be afraid of humanity and what they can accomplish? We're watching God's abounding grace in action. This is God inserting Himself into the downward plummet of humanity. One that barrels towards death. Every human born barreling towards death because will leads them there. We're seeing what humans do, how quickly humans devolve, how quickly humans will kill each other off and be destroyed.

Do we not see that in the world around us? That their efforts might be to unite, create, do good and great things with the perversion of sin. It will always lead towards destruction and death. The only unity that truly binds humanity together is sin. The only unity that truly binds humanity together is personal ambition and desire to overthrow God.

So that we can take control of our own lives. Creating a Godless society that has no ability to actively and actually love each other. We've seen the results not only in the first chapters in Genesis but in society at large. And so He so graciously scatters them because they're barreling towards death faster than they realize.

And so He spreads them apart. What grace of God. Because when they come together, there is a lot of human will that comes together. Their strategy gets better, they get strengthened. You know, like the unity, all that stuff happens. So in Genesis 11, 9, our final verse here. In this passage, before I read a few others to conclude.

"Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. And from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth." After this, right after this, you see the human age drop to under 200 years old. It just drops.

Now, to conclude. What I was trying to show is that there is human will and God's will. And this world is barreling down that thing of human will, personal will and ambition. And we see this in the Ark of Scripture. In fact, remember this was Babel. This is the beginning of the Bible, right?

We saw it. But it is actually the beginning, middle and end. We see the same thing going on. And he purposely, I think God purposely does this. Because when we get to the middle, right? In one of the prophets, in Daniel 3, 4, he says, "Then the herald loudly proclaimed, 'To you the command is given, O peoples, nations and men of every language, that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up.'" So Babylon, remember that's the birthplace of Babel, the birthplace of Babylon.

That the same thing is happening. That King Nebuchadnezzar comes up as a king and he tries to gather all the people of the world to unite, ironically, to worship this image that was set up of Nebuchadnezzar. Really interesting. That's the middle of the Bible. We get to the end in Revelation 17, 15.

This is a passage talking also about Babylon. "And he said to me, 'The waters which you saw where the harlot," that's her, "sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues," you see that? "The gathering and the unity of the people, and the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire.

For God has put it in their hearts to execute his purpose." Look at this though. "By having a common purpose," this unified purpose against God, "God has set that in their heart until the words of God will be fulfilled. The woman whom you saw is a great city which reigns over the kings of the earth." And then later on, it shows that Babylon is plunked into the ocean, and then there's no more ripple.

It's gone. Human will is barreling towards this thing to come together. And if you read the book of Revelation, you see the end. But here's how God wanted to. To bring it back to how he wanted it to be. In Acts 2, 5, "But now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.

And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language." Notice that these are all Jews. These are not just people from every nation. These aren't Gentiles. These are Jews that were speaking different languages. Isn't that interesting?

The same family speaking different languages. "They were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phyrgia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya, and Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.' And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'" God bringing people together.

And do you know what this is? This is the birth and the advent of the church. The people of God coming together to preach God, to preach the gospel. This is the beginning of evangelism of the church. To go out, to spread out. Do you see this? This is His mission.

It was always to go to the ends of the earth. To accomplish the will of God, His great commands, His desire, which is that none should perish but all to come to repentance. So what is God's will for you and for me? Vacations? Food? Retirement? Or is it to be His people, to go out to the ends of the earth, to share the gospel, His will for life to flow through the world and not death?

Revelation 7, 9, to conclude, "And after all these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their hands, and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, 'This is what He has always wanted, salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.'" Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray God that our will would break before Yours and that we would surrender and yield. And God, we would not do this with such a burden upon us, but with joy, with desire, that what we do is not so far apart from our hearts' wants. There is no satisfaction anywhere else in this world in the pursuits that might have distracted us.

Nothing, nothing better than serving You. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Would you all stand for a closing praise? ♪ ♪ Though the nations rage, kingdoms rise and fall, ♪ ♪ there is still one King reigning over all. ♪ ♪ So I will not fear, for this truth remains, ♪ ♪ that my God is the Ancient of Days.

♪ ♪ None above Him, none before Him, all of time in His hands. ♪ ♪ For His throne it shall remain and ever stand. ♪ ♪ Of the power, of the glory, I will trust in His name. ♪ ♪ For my God is the Ancient of Days. ♪ ♪ Though the dread of night overwhelms my soul, ♪ ♪ He is here with me.

♪ ♪ I am not alone, for His love is strong, ♪ ♪ and He knows my name. ♪ ♪ For my God is the Ancient of Days. ♪ ♪ None above Him, none before Him, all of time in His hands. ♪ ♪ For His throne it shall remain and ever stand.

♪ ♪ Of the power, of the glory, I will trust in His name. ♪ ♪ For my God is the Ancient of Days. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Though I may not see what the future brings, ♪ ♪ I will watch and wait for the Savior King. ♪ ♪ Then my joy complete, standing face to face, ♪ ♪ in the presence of the Ancient of Days.

♪ ♪ None above Him, none before Him, all of time in His hands. ♪ ♪ For His throne it shall remain and ever stand. ♪ ♪ Of the power, of the glory, I will trust in His name. ♪ ♪ For my God is the Ancient of Days. ♪ ♪ For my God is the Ancient of Days.

♪ Let's pray. Father, we remember how big and great You are. And Father, all things are accordance to Your plans. And God, we give You great gratitude today. Father, because as great as You are and as insignificant as we might be, You have given Your very own Son to die on behalf of me.

God, You love us. You are so gracious to us. You are patient and kind. So Lord, I pray that our will would be Yours because we live for You. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all both now and forevermore.

Amen. ♪ God sent His Son. ♪ ♪ They called Him Jesus. ♪ ♪ He came to love, heal, and forgive. ♪ ♪ He lived and died to buy my poor head. ♪ ♪ An empty grave is there to fill my Savior's hands. ♪ ♪ Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

♪ ♪ Because He lives. ♪ ♪ All fear is gone. ♪ ♪ Because I know He holds the future. ♪ ♪ And life is worth the living just because He lives. ♪