Well, hello everybody and welcome back. This is our Daily Devotional for Monday, October the 7th, 2024, and I hope that it finds all of you doing very well indeed. It's good to be back with you after this past weekend, after continuing on in our study on the book of Revelation yesterday, celebrating communion together, Had a great youth event, wonderful time with some Erskine friends. It was a very pleasant Lord's Day. Blessed in so many ways, but now it's good to be back with you. A new week is upon us, and we're continuing on in the book of Genesis. Last time we were together, we found ourselves in Genesis chapter 10. And we looked at the line of Shem, right? We talked about where that term Semite comes from. God reckoned his people through the line of Shem, ultimately resulting in Jesus, the Christ, coming out of the line of Shem. Lots and lots of interesting things. Some of you have reached out about this. Thank you so much for your kind words, your comments. Several folks have remarked that I've read this, I don't know how many times, but hearing you talk about the names, the places, the ideas that are present, what's revealed about the building blocks of the earth, that's really an encouragement to me. So thank you very much for doing that. And it's my hope that as we go through this together, that you yourself are blessed as half as much as I'm blessed, because this is really a wonderful thing going through this. What I found with Genesis, as a general rule, is that we're familiar with a lot of the things that are in there, but because Genesis is so fundamental in so many ways, we think we know it, we say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I got that, and then we move along. Noah's Ark is one of the most well-known stories. accounts in all of the Bible, and it's also a part of cultural literacy as a whole. And so it's those things that we think that we know that sometimes we really miss parts of. In the same way, when we come to things like Genesis chapter 10, which are genealogies, we're tempted to just say, okay... difficult names, difficult sounding places, Obol, Abimelel, Sheba, Ophir. What do these even mean? Why is this important? Well, it's in the names that we see faces, that we see stories. And one of those main stories is the stories of God's faithfulness. how God always provides a way, and he does this for you as well. Now, speaking of God providing a way, he also provided a way to save the earth. And no, I'm not just talking about Noah. I'm not just talking about the flood and God giving a covenant, preserving his people, because what we find is something that we talked about a couple of days ago. You remember when we were talking about the line of Ham and Nimrod, the mighty hunter, we said that the language sounds very similar to that which we find a couple of chapters ago, in chapter 6, where you hear this paradigm presented about the heroes of old, men of renown, these mighty, mighty warriors that God said he was not going to contend with, evil, wickedness, so he destroyed the earth. You get glimpses of that in Ham's line through Nimrod, through others, okay? That's the first hint that even though God started over again with Noah and his line, you got Ham sinning and it's like these hints of, are we going to go the same way that we went before the flood? No. No. Why? Well, Genesis chapter 11, that's why. I'm getting ahead of myself. It's a story we think we know, but you might have missed something along the way. Let's pray and then we'll dig in. Now, God and our Father, as we come to your word now, we come asking for you to bless us in this time. Give us wisdom, give us understanding. Work with us, Father, by your Holy Spirit, as we come to this passage that contains a story that we're really familiar with as those that grew up with God's word, if indeed everyone here falls into that category, but even if not, it's something that our society is familiar with as a general concept. But please, let us see the truth of what's going on here. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so there's a word that's in my little nifty subheading that is handy but uninspired. It's a word that is common. The word is babble. B-A-B-E-L is in a place, but we use a term, babble, don't we? When somebody babbles along and you can't really tell what they're saying. There's actually even an app that's really helpful to learn foreign languages called Babble. Right? If you say Babbel, I thought it was supposed to help you learn a language. What gives for that? I don't know the origin of that company, okay, in terms of its leadership, in terms of how it came up with the name, but I know where they got the name from. They got it from Genesis chapter 11. That term that we use, Babbel, as in somebody that's not making any sense, he's just babbling along. I'm accused of doing that sometimes. Hey, I'm a man of words. I talk for a living, okay? We're going to babble some. I'm a holy terror when it comes to scattergories. I'll play any of you and wipe the floor with you. We'll save that for Christmas time or something. But nevertheless, nevertheless, this term, right, gets its origin, or we find its origin in Genesis chapter 11 and the story of the Tower of Babel. That story that you may very well be familiar with, but I wonder how you were told this story. Was the Tower of Babel that you heard about the story of God being threatened? Where God looked down and saw what men were doing and said, ooh, I better disrupt this, or they're going to build a tower all the way to heaven. Was it something like that? It's fascinating what you see out there. What's the Bible say? Genesis chapter 11, verse 1, it says, Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a place in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They used brick instead of stone and tar for mortar. Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. Now, time out, pause for just a second. This is the root of the story of the Tower of Babel. Do you see the intent there? Y'all, what we find in Genesis chapter 11 is really no different than what we find in Genesis chapter 3. What might be similar in Genesis chapter 3? Turn back there with me. It's in Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 that we read, now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say, again, I love the King James, yea, hath God said? You must not eat from any tree in the garden. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that's in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will surely die. You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, what does this have to do with what we've just read? Look at the heart here. the heart of the matter. Why have these men, the premise is simple, everybody's speaking the same language, you have the flood, you have the generations begin to develop, people groups begin to form, they move east, they go to this place, and what do they say? They say, come, let's make bricks, and it details the technology they had in making bricks that would allow them to not only build, but to build something of great height. But why did they try to do this? What's at the heart? Well, what's at the heart of this is make a name for ourselves, as verse four says, and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. In essence, what they want to do is be a people unto themselves. In essence, what they want to do is be the masters of their own destiny, beholden to no one, including God their creator. They want to control themselves. They want to make the name for themselves. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say they want to be as God. building a tower that goes all the way into the heavens, establishing themselves as a people group so powerful that it can never be moved. You know, this harkens back to Genesis chapter 3, I believe very clearly, but it also goes back to that principle that we saw in Genesis 6, before the flood of men turning away from God, wickedness in their hearts. Genesis chapter 10 there, where we learn about Ham's descendants, great and mighty men, mighty hunters, mighty warriors, builders. This sentiment that they didn't need God. That's what's going on with the tower of battle. Self-sufficiency, that man is the measure of all things and who needs God? How would God respond to this? Verse five, but, but the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, if as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Y'all, let me be clear on something. I remember the first time I heard the story of the Tower of Babel, and the way it was told to me, it was as if God was worried that they would succeed in building a tower all the way to heaven. That God was worried that they would succeed in any number of things. Y'all, that's not what this is about. God's not worried about mankind. You do get that air that you find at the beginning of chapter six where he said, I'm not gonna contend with these people forever. 120 years, that's how much time they've got. And I think realistically that God said 120 years from now until the flood and they're gonna be wiped out. But it's the same principle. I'm not gonna contend with these people. But y'all, it's not as though God is fearing a battle that man will surpass him or anything like that. Listen to what he said, verse six. If, as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. And y'all, the nothing that they plan to do, the thing that they're planning to do is to leave God entirely, to become self-sufficient to the point that they don't need Him. They don't want Him. And it's not that they would get to that point, y'all. That's not what God is worried about. God's not worried at all. What you see here, what you ought to hear here is not a tone of worry, but instead a tone of loving concern. A tone of intervention on God's part, where he loves humanity enough to not let them keep on going in this path of destruction. Verse seven, come, let us go down and confuse their language so that they will not understand each other. Oh, God's brilliant, you know. God's brilliant, they had this joint effort to do this thing. They said, hey, we'll never be scattered over the face of the earth, we'll always be one. And you've seen God's remedy for this, to confuse their tongues, to make them babble, named after the tower of babble. And in so doing, God would preserve a people for himself. Verse eight, so the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there, the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Now, stopping right there. You might say, great story, preacher. What's that got to do with me? Y'all, I don't know if you realize this, but God is still in the business of tearing down towers of Babel. I mean, we've been seeing this lately, haven't we? Since the Humanist Manifesto was first penned, the idea that man is the measure of all things. Hasn't God dismantled that idea? You know, it's fascinating when you look at modern human history, how we thought after World War I, okay, that's it, no more wars. We're just gonna continue building as a society. We're gonna keep getting bigger and better. and then Germany cranks things up again. After that, oh, it'll be a time of peace, and then war would come again. You see, God removes his restraining hand of grace and mercy in order to draw people back to himself, to remind us that we need him, that we are not self-sufficient. In fact, for him, through him, and to him are all things. Now again, what does this have to do with you? Well, my friends, God loves you enough to intervene. God loves you enough to not let you go your own way. Instead, he intervenes, drawing you back to himself. Do you realize that God's love is so powerful? Do you realize that he's so active in our lives? If not, well, Let the Tower of Babel be a reminder to you of how the Lord intervenes. And also, we see another thing. You know, it's amazing what God uses to accomplish His will. It's said in a lot of ways, but the Lord really does work in mysterious ways. Never forget the command that God gave Noah and two of his sons. Go, fill the earth, subdue it, multiply, What do you see them doing in Genesis chapter 11, but saying, hey, we're all just gonna stick right here in this place. Not only does God use Babel to draw people back to himself, God also used Babel to disperse people. This isn't unique to Genesis chapter 11, though it is the first taste we get of this. He would do it much later on with his people, going all the way to Babylon to Persia. He would certainly do it in the early church when persecution hits. I believe He's doing that now. What does this mean for you and me? Well, lots of things, but I'll tell you one, and with this we'll end, because I'm trying my best to cut these down a little bit. I've been going long. But what this ought to tell you and me now is that the Lord is working, and He will accomplish His goals, His desires, His will will be done. And y'all, that we don't always understand that will. Shouldn't that be what we're praying for? If you come to Old Providence, you do every week when you pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The Lord is working to accomplish this for his glory, but for our good. Let me pray for us. Father, help us to take these things to heart. Help us to remember these things and to trust in your hand at work. We thank you for the Tower of Babel. We thank you for the explanation it gives in terms of the table of nations being dispersed, but also the message that it sends about your intervention, your love and your mercy. Let us bask in that love. And I pray it all in Christ's name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord Willem will be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Until then, I hope that you have a fantastic Monday or whatever day it is you happen to find us. Take care.