Would you please now stand with me for the reading of God's Word, and we will begin in our reading in the Old Testament from Daniel chapter 4, and we'll read verses 28 to 37. Daniel chapter 4, verses 28 to 37. Daniel chapter 4, verses 28 to 37. beginning in verse 28. All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of the twelve months, he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon. The king spoke, saying, While the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven. King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken. The kingdom has departed from you, and they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen, and seven times shall pass over you until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men. and gives it to whomever he chooses. That very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen. His body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws. At the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, my understanding returned to me. And I bless the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion. And His kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to His will in the army of heaven. And among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can resist His hand or say to Him, what have you done? At the same time, my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my honor and splendor returned to me. My counselors and nobles resorted to me. I was betrothed to my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways are justice, and those who walk in pride He is able to put down. May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word. And now would you turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 7 as we read verses 21 to 28 together. Matthew chapter 7 verses 21 to 28. Beginning in verse 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock." But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell. And it was a great fall." And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. All flesh is like grass, and all of its glory is like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. And all of God's people said, Amen." Please be seated. Jew, bow your head with me one more time. Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray that you would calm our hearts and minds. We pray, Heavenly Father, that if there are any distractions about us in our lives, we pray that you would calm those down, Lord, as we look into your word. that you would do a work in us to hear from you, to abide in you for your glory. Help us, O God, to sit at your feet and to learn from you. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would even do a work in me as I look to exhort your people. Help me, God. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would minister to us and that you would strengthen us for your glory, for it is in your precious name we pray. Amen. Turn with me, if you haven't already, to Genesis chapter 11, as we look together at verses 1 through 9 and the Tower of Babel. Genesis chapter 11, verses 1 through 9. We're going to begin this morning by reading the text together, so would you please follow along with me as I read the passage for you, beginning in verse 1, chapter 11. Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, Indeed, the people are one, and they all have one language. And this is what they begin to do. Now nothing that they purpose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. This morning, or actually during the week as I was preparing for this morning, I remembered a show that perhaps you have heard of, and I'm under no illusion that many of us have watched, but a show entitled American Idol. American Idol. For about 15 seasons, beginning in June 11, 2002 to April 7, 2016, American Idol captivated millions of people by following the quest of thousands of young, aspiring singers. They come from all over this country, in fact, sometimes over the world, sacrificing time, money, and risking public humiliation for the chance of achieving wealth, the excitement of popularity and above all fame and notoriety. Journalist Jake Halpern studied the quest that so many have of becoming famous and popular, the exciting world of of fame, of notoriety, and he published his findings in a book entitled Fame Junkies. Fame Junkies. In the book he mentions attending a convention of small children looking to become actors and models. He notes, quote, I watched mothers from places like Dayton, Ohio, from the heartland of America, scream with excitement as their third-grade daughters strutted across the stage in bikinis. And some of their kids mistook me for an agent and were throwing themselves at me with wide-eyed desperation. Thirteen-year-olds. He conducted a survey of middle school children wanting to be famous. He notes, quote, young girls by a two to one margin would rather be famous than be kind to people. Would rather be a personal assistant to a celebrity than one to a United States senator. Then, more than a quarter of the boys and girls who were surveyed said that they believed fame would make them happier in this life. They would be more loved by their families. Most of these kids found the idea of dinner with a celebrity to be more appealing than dinner with Jesus Christ. One psychologist who contributes to Halpern's book mentions, quote, the average American today has exactly half as many close, deep personal relationships as the average American did just 10 years ago. The fame and the attention that comes with it seem like a shortcut to what is gained through deep relationships. As we look at the 11th chapter of Genesis, what no psychologist has been able to note, to make mention of, is that people want notoriety. They want fame. They want a perceived happiness by others that elicit some jealousy. that perhaps to be envied for their accomplishments is rooted in nothing other than man's sinful heart to be their own God, to live as it were without God, to be saved because of their own merits or worth in the world. Like the title American Idol indicates, man in our unregenerate state is an idolater at our core, looking after the promise of the serpent so that they, as it says in Genesis 3-5, will be like God. In other words, the drive within the human heart that is unregenerated by the Spirit of God is an innate desire to be seen amongst our peers as somehow better than others. Smarter. more capable of others, so that when they look at you, they envy you, so that you can somehow be lifted up amongst them. And that begins at the beginning of Genesis, but we see it also here in chapter 11 with the Tower of Babel. The scene that is before us today completes a portrait that the Bible depicts of a fallen mankind found in Genesis 1-11. In Genesis 3, verse 5, you'll remember that Adam and Eve fell under the spell of the serpent, desiring to be like God. In Genesis 4, verse 17, Cain murders his brother Abel and was cursed into exile by God and responded to God by building a city, not to the glory of God by way of repentance, but for his own glory, his own adoration, so that he could be like God. You see, in verse 23 of the same chapter, that Lamech's boastful lyric, in his lust to dominate, he says, quote, I have killed a man for wounding me, and a young man for striking me. In Genesis chapter 6, verse 5, God reports that every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. By Genesis 11, the exile of sinful mankind from Eden finds its confines in the idolatry of Babylon. What comes to mind as we look at this passage is summed up in Proverbs 16, verse 9. It says, "...a man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." The issue here, the reminder for us as God's beloved, we get from this passage is that within the sovereignty of God, the sinful heart of idolatrous man may make plans for himself or herself. We might have our strategies, but if God does not allow those plans to come to fruition, those plans are stopped dead in their tracks. To the praise of His name. The issue is also why do we as believers do the things that we do? Are we somehow looking for notoriety? Are we looking for popularity amongst ourselves? We find ourselves allowing the glory that should be inappropriately given to us is given to God. without Him who makes all our achievements even possible. We're talking about our hearts. We're not simply talking about changing our behaviors, although there is a call to obedience The idea is to go from trying to, by myself and in my own strength, change the way I live to understanding that there is something within me that makes wanting that notoriety a thing in my life. Something that needs to be repented of and dealt with. But is and only is dealt with on the cross of Calvary Jesus Christ our Lord. Our text then this morning, Genesis 11, verses 1 through 9, is broken up into two points. The first, verses 1 through 4, the plans of these builders, and then verses 5 through 9 is God thwarting those plans according to His sovereign will. Again, verses 1 through 4, the plans of these builders, And then verses 5-9, God thwarting those plans according to His sovereignty. Would you follow along with me as I read verses 1-4, Genesis chapter 11. Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Verse 3, Then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone and they had asphalt and mortar and they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11, a way of a sort of introduction, you may not know this, is an estimated give or take a few years, a hundred years after the flood. What it begins with is the realization that by God's grace, mankind is capable of great things. We're told, verse 1, that humanity has one speech. meaning they all speak the same language. And then verse 2, building off of chapter 10, God sovereignly moving people all over this world. But what we see here is a group going east to a place called the Land of Shinar. Why is that detail, the Land of Shinar, important, the specific place where they go? Well, first of all, this place is in the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates. We know it later on in biblical redemptive history known as Babylon, and to us it is modern-day Iraq. In other words, what begins here becomes a place of an entire group of people living in rebellion to God. It starts here in Genesis 11. You can read about the Babylonians in particular in 2 Kings chapter 17 through 25, 2 Chronicles 32-36, the book of Ezra, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. The Babylonians are the people that God uses to take Israel into captivity as a result of the people's sins. They destroy Jerusalem and the temple of God. The prophet Jeremiah, you may not know, was in the midst of the Babylonian captivity. He went with his fellow Jews, and he prophesied to the people that the reason they're going into the Babylonian captivity is because of their sins. That they're going into the captivity for a fixed number of years, and at the end of that, those who repent will be brought home. but in order to be brought home, the people of God, those, the regenerate, must repent. God uses these people who are His enemies as a judgment upon them to show the people that how desperately wicked they had become in His sight. In fact, the rest of Scripture Babylon becomes the picture of an enemy of, or what an enemy of God looks like, how they live in rebellion to God. So why is this important? Because yet another people living in rebellion to God and how that rebellion begins, moving forward, even into our present day. Notice something interesting here, verse 3. It says, Then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks, and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar." Bricks. It's not too altogether impressive, but the Hebrew word is libna. It is the same word used in Exodus chapter 1 verse 14, where the people are mixing clay from the earth with straw. The issue being that these materials are not in and of themselves altogether that important. It's that God, in His grace, gives them the ability to develop fire-brick masonry in order to build this place. In other words, they discover within their sinfulness a way of creating bricks from soft clay to give them the kind of stability to build this massive city and a tower in order to, verse 4, make a name for themselves. The issue, however, is not in their developing these bricks, or baking them in the sun. God has provided for them, even knowing in His sovereignty that they would live in rebellion to Him. The issue is what it says here in verse 4. He says, The issue here, as we see it, a heart's desire is to achieve this great thing of unity as they live in rebellion to God. You go back to chapter 9, verse 1, God tells Noah something that, a decree, an order rather, that goes back to Adam. He tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But what we see these people doing is the opposite of that. It is the resistance of God's command, and instead of spreading out to fulfill their own mandate, to sojourn together in search of a place that will give them glory. A theologian, James Boyce, describes the scene this way. He says, quote, Romans chapter 1 verse 23 says that when people reject the knowledge of God, they inevitably turn to false gods, the citizens of Babylon who rejected the knowledge of the true God. Therefore, we should expect the creation of a false religion as part of their dubious cultural achievements. The point here is that these people are directing their own path as if they themselves are God. It is the heart attitude that says, I will direct my own path, that God cannot tell me what to do or how to think or what I should do with my life. And at the heart of that declaration, that heart attitude, is at the same time the heart of false religion. That is, any idea that makes man ruler of his own life over and against God Almighty. They are bound together by a desire, by a consensus based upon their desires and beliefs rather than what God had called His people made in His image to do. Did you know, in terms of Christians, the Regenerate, the Apostle James James Epistle, James chapter 4, verse 13 through 15, he deals with the same issue. He says, Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. What is the point? It is the foolishness of thinking that our plans are the plan. Somehow if I create a plan for the future that I have the wherewithal to create such an airtight plan that nothing could thwart it, that nothing could derail it, that nothing could stop me from achieving it and believing that what I have set in motion is what is going to be. You see, what's really going on here in chapter 11 of Genesis is the usurping of God in the heart of man. The usurping of God. The point is not that they're actually building a thing that will reach up into the heavens. It's that they will somehow show themselves to be the people who did what they wanted when they wanted to do it. To displace God. Psalm 1 verses 1 and 2, Isaiah 66, verse 2. The prophet declares, The believer does not have to make life about their plans. or our decisions, our wants, because our delight is in the law of the Lord. The issue of a decision to be on the precipice of our minds is the issue that God, declaring to us, is the issue that God doesn't want us to make plans. No. It's thinking that what I want at the end of the day is all that matters. But does God want us to pray on our knees if we're able to get down on them and pray for hours about an outfit or two that we have to choose from? No, that's also silly. But what He does want for us as we look at this as His regenerate people, is to want what He wants for us according to His Word. To take the inner longings of our hearts, what we want, our desires, and to bring them under subjection as to what His Word calls us to be and to have. It's not that God wants us to get down and pray for hours about what we're going to eat for dinner. It's that when a decision comes our way that needs to be made and we don't necessarily know what to do, it's our disposition at a heart level to seek out what He would want from us before anything else. Secondly, verses 5 and 9, 5 to 9, excuse me, God in His sovereignty thwarts the plans of sinful man. Would you follow along with me I'll read the text for you. Verse 5, But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, indeed, that the people are one, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing that they purpose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth." What we're talking about is God's sovereignty. You notice, ironically, that God makes no announcement to these people that as they begin to build this place, a monument to their own names and glories, that he's going to make it so that they can no longer build this thing. He simply changes their language in an instant. The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the sovereignty of God as God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, ordained whatsoever comes to pass. Pass, excuse me. In Matthew 10, verse 29, Jesus illustrates what is happening here perfectly. He says, "...are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will." The point is that God alone rules in His creation, and He demands from His people that His word be obeyed. Something very interesting here happens in verses five through seven. It says, But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, Indeed, the people are one, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing that they purpose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. Perhaps you haven't noticed the fine detail, but God, in God's coming down to see what man is doing, he isn't simply looking as if he does not know before the creation of the world what these people were doing. He isn't surprised by this or wondering what he's going to do about it. In fact, this word translated stooping comes from the Hebrew word yarad. It means literally to bring down, to put off. So the idea is God looks sovereignly down on the hearts of these people, discerning the truth from a lie. His intention isn't so much to look at what they're doing. He knows what they are doing. It is, as the word indicates, to bring down or to put off. He comes, verse 7, in the Trinity. He says, let us go down and there confuse their language. to confuse, belal, to mix, to confound. The idea here is that in the wisdom of God, He doesn't just destroy the tower and therefore allow people to continue on as a united group. What He does instead is change their languages so that these people living in rebellion to God are no longer unified and capable of working together. You catch that? In his wisdom, he makes it impossible for them to communicate, to work together. He doesn't just blow the thing down and initially say, you know, start again, and when you get to a certain point, I'll knock it all down. He changes their languages. Psalm chapter 2 verses 1 and 4, Why do the nations rage, and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break these bonds in peace, and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall hold them in derision. Earlier you remember the Old Testament reading we read from Daniel chapter 4 verses 28 to 37. Let me reread verses 34 and 35. It says, And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, What have you done? The point here, very simply, is to rage against God Almighty, to plan against Him is foolishness. But when Nebuchadnezzar, in the regenerating work of the Spirit, lifts up his eyes, it means that he repented and was restored to sanity. The question is, as we look at this as believers in the 21st century, what are we to do with this? The first and most obvious is to be reminded that when a decision is to be made, placed in front of us, that it not be simply about our desires and our thoughts and our motives and our wants. but to recognize that from eternity past, God Almighty, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, according to His Word, desires to direct us, even if that means challenging something that we desire more than anything else in this world. and to find a way through prayer and supplication, through the encouraging words of our brethren, our brothers and sisters, to find the encouragement, the courage, the strength, if you will, to say, Lord, let it be unto me as you have said. In other words, when we think about our hearts in light of what happens here, is the difference between the believer, the regenerate, and this world, is that the world does what it wants and when it wants. But the believer must yield our spirits and our hearts to God and His Word. And the beauty is that as God works in us, it isn't this thing where we begrudgingly do it. It is something that we willingly give ourselves to because in our heart of hearts, what we want is to glorify and honor Him. In other words, we praise the Lord God Almighty when He works in us in such a way that we're looking at something that we desire, that if we could have it, we might very well feel happy. We might feel satisfied. We think about it more and more, and we realize that perhaps getting this thing has become bigger in my heart than I've let on for it to be. The Lord our God tells us that He is a jealous God. Perhaps having that thing is a good thing, but maybe having it is also serving an idol that's in my heart, and therefore I will give it up to honor Him and find my satisfaction in something else. That's the first thing. Finding it within our hearts to be satisfied by the Lord rather than this thing that I've always wanted. The other thing that comes to mind here is you may not know it, but if you've heard this story before, forgive me, muscle your way through it, and Lord willing, you'll be blessed by it. Several years ago, maybe 15, as you know, Rachel was working at KU, KU Medical Hospital. And she became friends with this woman. She was a single woman. She has two children, and she's pregnant with a third. Rachel, in God's grace and His sovereignty, made it so that as she was working and monitoring what the people in this department were doing, She just happened to come across this young woman, and they get to having a conversation, and this woman informs Rachel rather boldly that she is pregnant. She is deeply discouraged at being pregnant again, and doesn't know what to do. Her boyfriend doesn't want the child, and frankly, if she were honest, neither did she, and therefore she's thinking about getting an abortion. Knowing Rachel as we do, tears began to well up in her eyes. We had learned shortly before that that we weren't going to be having children. She says, well, how about my husband and I? Y'all think about it. She goes home, and she talks to her boyfriend, and her boyfriend tells her, no. Absolutely not. I don't want it, we're not going to have it, and you're not going to give it to them. No. A couple of days later, Rachel, in God's sovereignty, sees this woman and again begins to talk to her, not to find out the answers to her questions, but just to care for her. This woman says, I'm getting an abortion, and that's that. She comes home, she's distraught, and when my wife is distraught, I don't care what I'm doing. It's about you and finding out what's wrong with you, because she doesn't get distraught. She's got tears rolling down her face, and she explains to me this situation and the hard-heartedness of this man. I said, the only thing we can do is pray about this. We collected in a private group on some Facebook chat thing all of these people that we know. and they got a hold of people that they know, other believers. And soon we had a hundred people in this thing, and they're all praying for this woman. Not necessarily that we would get this child, although secretly that's what we were praying. It's that God's will would be done, that she would be prevented from committing murder, and that God would be glorified. A hundred people are praying for this young mother. Scared and young and left alone. It wasn't until about three months later that we finally heard about what happened. A hundred people, not knowing what's going on, let alone we ourselves not knowing what's going on, praying for this mother, finally, in God's sovereignty, sees this young mother and says, what happened? She said, three times, I went to get an abortion. The first time I went, there was a mix-up with paperwork. Couldn't get an abortion. Go the second time, I personally couldn't afford getting an abortion, but my boyfriend who could wasn't there. Couldn't get an abortion. And then third, in God's sovereignty, she goes. They have this baby equipment that would allow her to hear the babies. heartbeat. They hook her up. She hears it. She is brought to tears and she would not get the abortion. Three times in the sovereignty of God, God prevented her from getting an abortion and murdering her child for His glory. And we waited for three and a half or so months to hear about it. And you know what happened? We cried out to the Lord. because his love and his mercy endures forever. We didn't get a child. We longed to have our own child and God saw fit that the mother would keep it. to the praise of His glorious name. When we read this and God's sovereign work, and we hear about God's interactions with our brothers and sisters, delivering them from certain difficulties and trials, or somehow easing those trials in the hearts of our beloved, you know what ought to happen within us? Is that we step back in awe of Him and worship and glorify Him because of His grace and His mercy. In other words, what this reminds us of is that even if we're looking at a situation that we ourselves cannot solve, our God Almighty can, should He choose to. We're looking at the most desperate of situations in this world, and you have no clue how to solve it or what to do. And we humble ourselves before Him. It doesn't always mean that things will go the way that we hope they would. It means that God, in His goodness and mercy, will answer our prayers to the praise of His glorious name. Again, God didn't give a survey, you know, do you want me to help in the construction of your idolatry? He didn't send a prophet and say to them, I'm going to change your language unless you repent. Nope, He just went in there and changed their languages and kept them from being unified together. And then He scattered them. Do you understand that the very thing that they wanted to achieve in some unity, they looked to have apart from Him and He crushed it. By His grace, to the praise of His glorious name, we look at God and His sovereignty. It should humble us because He's good. Frankly, sometimes we just need to be reminded that He's good. In the Tower of Babel, the reminder that God works sovereignly behind closed doors and in ways we can't comprehend, ought to humble us and encourage us to the praise of his glorious name. Join me in a word of prayer. Lord God in heaven, thank you for your word, and I thank you for the reminder, O God, that we have many plans and ideas, and I pray that you would help us to submit those unto you. I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would lead and guide us, that you would give our brothers and sisters wisdom and that we would be open enough to share those decisions that are on our horizon. And I pray that you would help us to open up and that you would give listening ears and compassion to our brothers and sisters, that we would share with one another and encourage each other in what your word calls us to do. that we would submit ourselves unto you. I pray, Lord, that that would be for your glory, that you would help us, that as adults we would seek you all the days of our lives. The praise of your glorious name. I pray, Heavenly Father, also that you would remind us that you are capable of doing anything that you wish. We know that it would be for our good because nothing you can do will be contrary to who you are and you are good. Help us to trust in you. For it is in your precious name we pray. Amen.