Do Human Technologies Ever Threaten Divine Sovereignty?
00:00:00.000 | Well, do human technologies threaten God's sovereign reign over humanity?
00:00:09.200 | This timely question is raised by Genesis, and the question fittingly arrives from a
00:00:14.120 | podcast listener named Noah.
00:00:16.200 | Noah writes in to ask this, "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:19.240 | In Genesis 11, verses 1 to 9, we are told that God confused man's common language into
00:00:24.480 | a bunch of different languages in order to thwart human progress."
00:00:29.240 | It sounds like God, who is infinite, was threatened by the unity of finite creatures.
00:00:34.960 | But how could God ever be threatened by anything man could do, even the whole of humanity united
00:00:40.400 | in any endeavor?
00:00:42.360 | And is He threatened by our far superior technological advances today?
00:00:46.360 | This has never made sense to me.
00:00:48.480 | Can you explain it?
00:00:50.200 | Before I try to answer that question, let's get the story in front of us.
00:00:56.600 | It's a really interesting story, and let's see if it raises the questions that Noah is
00:01:03.920 | raising.
00:01:04.920 | "Now the whole earth," this is Genesis 11, 1 to 6, "Now the whole earth had one language
00:01:10.720 | and the same words.
00:01:13.200 | And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled
00:01:19.400 | there.
00:01:20.400 | And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.'
00:01:25.320 | And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar.
00:01:29.200 | And they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens,
00:01:36.720 | and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole
00:01:41.240 | earth.'
00:01:42.240 | And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower."
00:01:47.480 | That's going to be significant in just a minute.
00:01:49.120 | "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built."
00:01:56.000 | I think that's sarcasm.
00:01:58.480 | This tall tower that's going to reach into the heaven can't even be seen from heaven.
00:02:05.400 | I love it.
00:02:06.800 | Verse 6, "The Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language,
00:02:14.560 | and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they propose to
00:02:20.320 | do will now be impossible for them.
00:02:23.720 | Come, let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one
00:02:29.360 | another's speech.'
00:02:30.820 | So the Lord dispersed them over all the face of the earth, and they left off building the
00:02:35.640 | city.
00:02:36.640 | Therefore, its name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all
00:02:41.040 | the earth, and there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth."
00:02:46.040 | Now Noah is asking, it sounds like God was threatened by these humans getting out of
00:02:53.440 | hand, and he wonders if God is threatened today by a far superior technology than burning
00:03:01.200 | bricks and putting them together with bitumen.
00:03:04.620 | If Noah is asking, does the text teach that there are resident in human nature ingenuities
00:03:14.300 | and abilities that, left unchecked by God, would frustrate God's purposes and thus vie
00:03:23.120 | for the very place of God, there are two ways to answer it.
00:03:27.800 | One, observe that the first point of the text seems to be that this effort on man's part
00:03:37.300 | to build a tower with its top in the heavens was ridiculously futile.
00:03:44.120 | God had to, so to speak, come down in order to see it.
00:03:50.120 | I think the point of the text is man's efforts to compete with God are pathetically weak
00:03:59.000 | and futile.
00:04:00.560 | So the first answer to the question seems to be, even if God doesn't intervene the way
00:04:08.120 | he did by confusing the languages, the human race is never going to attain the upper hand
00:04:16.600 | over its creator by building its way to God's throne by any technology whatsoever.
00:04:24.560 | That's the first answer, which I think is implied in the text.
00:04:28.880 | Second, more important is this, and I think we see it when we ponder the very nature of
00:04:36.200 | Noah's question.
00:04:38.440 | The more I think about this question, the more it sounds like this.
00:04:43.860 | Would God be threatened by man and man's ingenuity and man's abilities if God were not God?
00:04:54.640 | In other words, would God be threatened by man's actions if God could not sovereignly
00:05:02.040 | counter man's actions at any time and in any way he pleased?
00:05:09.220 | And the answer would be, well, yes, God would be threatened by the glory of man if God were
00:05:15.220 | another creature like man, rather than being the all-glorious, all-powerful God.
00:05:20.300 | But he is God, and so he calmly puts man in his place.
00:05:25.560 | God is not threatened by any of man's ingenuity or capacities because he can and does frustrate
00:05:33.400 | all of them at any moment in any way he please, which is what he did in verse 7.
00:05:39.520 | He confused the language.
00:05:42.400 | In other words, the point of the story is precisely that God cannot be threatened by
00:05:49.560 | man's designs or actions because God is God.
00:05:53.420 | God is sovereign over all man's designs and actions.
00:05:57.920 | If man begins to achieve things that God does not want them to achieve, God simply stops
00:06:07.520 | them.
00:06:08.520 | He takes the steps necessary to frustrate their designs.
00:06:12.280 | That's the point.
00:06:13.280 | They were taking steps to do things that were highly damaging to the human soul and highly
00:06:19.620 | dishonoring to God, and so God just stopped them.
00:06:23.440 | And he could have stopped them in a hundred ways.
00:06:26.200 | Goodness gracious!
00:06:27.200 | They could have gotten sick.
00:06:28.200 | There could have been opposition.
00:06:29.200 | I mean, goodnight.
00:06:30.200 | A hundred ways he could have stopped them, and he chose to do it by confusing their language.
00:06:38.240 | So there are two answers to whether God is threatened today by the amazing technology
00:06:44.960 | and ability of the human race.
00:06:47.640 | First, no, he's not threatened because all our most advanced technology is simply child's
00:06:55.280 | play as far as God is concerned.
00:06:58.320 | Our most advanced physics and artificial intelligence is a kindergarten primer in God's library
00:07:09.040 | at best.
00:07:10.040 | Let's get a life, right?
00:07:13.040 | We're talking about God here.
00:07:16.560 | Second, no, he is not threatened because at any moment in a hundred ways, he can simply
00:07:24.480 | thwart the plans of science, business, technology, nations.
00:07:30.080 | That's what Psalm 3310 says.
00:07:32.840 | The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing.
00:07:37.560 | He frustrates the plans of the peoples, and that would apply to all science, all business,
00:07:42.720 | all education, all technology, all industry, all military.
00:07:47.280 | The Lord brings the counsel of man to nothing.
00:07:50.560 | He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
00:07:53.200 | Now both of these answers, I think, are implied in Genesis 11.
00:07:58.920 | The great achievement of the tower is pathetic in God's eyes, and he can frustrate any pathetic
00:08:08.280 | human plan he please.
00:08:11.320 | That bit human little element is so prominent in the story, those bricks put together with
00:08:15.480 | tar is such a rare building process.
00:08:18.160 | You have to wonder if that was preparation for a second global flood.
00:08:21.660 | If he does it again, we'll be safe.
00:08:23.240 | The tower is going to be waterproof.
00:08:24.880 | It can't be washed away.
00:08:25.880 | It's almost like a man-made arc.
00:08:29.080 | I don't know why else that bit human is so prominent in the story.
00:08:32.000 | Yeah, and the bricks are burned until they become like concrete.
00:08:36.480 | Yes, this thing is waterproof.
00:08:38.640 | This thing will not be washed away when it happens again.
00:08:41.400 | Second man-made arc of source.
00:08:43.360 | Thank you, Pastor John and Noah.
00:08:45.440 | Thank you for the great question.
00:08:47.360 | For everything you need to know about this podcast, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:08:54.440 | Well is it wise for a girlfriend and boyfriend to travel together, to stay in the same hotel?
00:09:00.440 | Should they?
00:09:01.580 | It's a question we get regularly, and it's next up on Wednesday.
00:09:04.600 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:06.040 | We'll see you then.
00:09:06.840 | [END]
00:09:07.340 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn
00:09:09.340 | [PASTOR JOHN]
00:09:11.340 | [END]
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