Brethren, good morning to everybody.
Let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. We have heard a lot of talk about
in the world about saving the world and saving the planet changing, I have to
adjust my hearing aids just a second, about saving the climate, a lot
of talk about unifying people and eradicating racism and sexism
and all these various things. I was listening to, I was watched
an interview of one of the wealthy men who had recently gone up
into space, and we've seen several, at least three, do that. I was
listening to this man speak, and he was saying how that, I
mean, just with certainty, with no ifs, ands, or maybes about
it, about how we're going to make it livable on other planets
or the moon so that we can save the human race, and that's exactly
what he said. So we can save the human race,
and he said, and this is just in case we don't get control
of the climate. And I thought of this passage
of scripture, and I want you to look here in Genesis 11. That's
exactly what Nimrod and the people in his day were trying to do,
exactly. Nimrod means rebellion. And this was rebellion against
God. He's a picture of the devil, Nimrod is, and the people who
are under, who are the devil's seed. It represents men who are
attempting to save themselves and the world apart from God.
apart from God, and that's what was going on here. Now verse
1 tells us, the whole earth was of one language. This is right
after the flood. The whole earth was of 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, and they said one to another. This is
man speaking with man. This is Nimrod speaking to people. He was a rich man. He was a hunter
of men. He was trying to build himself
a kingdom. And he said to people, and they
began to speak to one another. This is men talking to men. This
is nobody consulting God. This is not God speaking. This
is man talking to man. They said, go to, let us make
brick and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone,
and slime had they for mortar. And they said, let us build us
a city. A city in those days was a fortress. It was impenetrable. It was considered
a, Whole people lived in a city
and it was surrounded by walls and what have you a fortress
and this city They're talking about Babylon and it says verse
4 and let us build us a tower whose top may reach to heaven
and Let us make us a name. I Don't think there's any thought
here that they were actually trying to build a tower up to
God, as men say. They were building an impenetrable
city with a large tower in it where they could kill anybody
that came around and try to threaten them. And here's the reason. Let us make us a name. Let us
make us a name. Verse four, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth. lest we be scattered. Let us make us a name, lest we
be scattered. And God ended Nimrod's plans
just very easily. I mean, just very easily. And
he can change things just like that. I mean, just so easily. And he did exactly what Nimrod
was trying to stop. Verse five, the Lord came down
to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built
it. And the Lord said, behold, the people is one. They have
all one language. And this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained
from them, which they have imagined to do. They were just in such
a frenzy and so set that they were going to do this. And that's
what he's saying. They're just going to try to
do anything comes into their imagination. He says, go to,
let us go down in there, confound their language, that they may
not understand one another's speech. And so the Lord scattered
them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and
they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called
Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all
the earth. And from thence did the Lord
scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. This is
the reason we have different languages. This is the reason
we have people scattered in all the earth and different races,
different ethnicities, different all sorts of customs and God
did it. God did it. Sinners were trying
to save themselves and preserve a name for themselves, and that's
what the Lord did, and he continues to do this. Our Lord continues
to do this. They said, let us build us a
city. There is a lasting city. There is a permanent city, an
impenetrable city, but it's the city of God. It's the city God
builds. Verse 4, they said, let us build
us a tower whose top may reach to heaven. God's people have
a tower. They have a strong tower. And
it unites us with God in heaven. That tower is Christ. The righteous
run into him and are safe. They said, let us make us a name.
God's people have a name. He's given us His name, the Lord's
name, the Lord our righteousness, but He's made us a name. It's
His name and His work. They said, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth. All man's sin, all man's
efforts to save result in God scattering man abroad. No man's
going to be able to save ourselves by our work at all. God will not have it. He will
not have it. But God does unite and he does
save his people. He unites his people and he does
save his people. Now, in Genesis chapter 12, we
looked at this recently, but I want you to notice the difference
here between what we just saw and what we see here. God makes
his nation himself by his word, by his word. He speaks the word
to his people and that's how he unites. Verse one, now the
Lord had said unto Abraham, Nimrod and the inhabitants were talking
amongst themselves and coming up with this idea how they could
save themselves. But here, the Lord comes to Abraham. You remember Paul said in Galatians,
the gospel was before preached unto Abraham. The Lord spake
to him. The Lord's gonna create his nation
and his people and unite with his word. And he told him, get
thee out of that country and from thy kindred and from thy
father's house, the Lord does some separating too. But he's
gonna separate his people from the world and from all who are
not his together with his people, together with his people, unto
a land that I will show thee, and he said, and I will make
of thee a great nation. Nimrod and his followers thought,
we're gonna make ourselves a great nation, we're gonna make a name
for ourselves. God promised Abraham, I will make of thee a great nation. The nation is God's nation, made
up of God's elect, God's city, God's kingdom, God's people,
that he makes. We see at Babel how all the languages
came about, how all the divisions came about amongst people. Some
believe that's when the Lord actually separated the land and
various, I don't know how, but that's what some people believe
took place at that time. But sinners ever since that day,
ever since the day of Nimrod, sinners, unregenerate sinners,
with governments and religion and out of religion and just
every sorts of way. Sinners have been trying to unite
people. Been trying to unite people.
Been trying to get people to regard each other as one. But
God divided people on purpose. He gave these different languages
so we couldn't communicate on purpose. He scattered us in the
earth. True unity is gonna be by the
spirit of God. It's going to be by the Holy
Spirit, giving us one heart, one faith, one Lord, by His work. So before God, you have all these
people now, and if you read back there from the end of our text
down to verse 12, you can see this whole listing of an ancestry. of, you know, he had already
destroyed the world and all it was was just Noah and his sons. And so everybody came from them.
But you list all this list of people and you have all, you
see all this big scattering of people and all these people in
this genealogy. And then God starts with Abraham.
Just one man. One man. You know, there's only
two people in the whole world. There's only two races in the
whole world. That's going to be shocking to
some to hear, but it is. There is the devil's children
and there's God's children. It's the only two there are.
The race has to do with origin. And there are only two origins,
two races that came from two different origins. Those who
originate from God and those who originate from fallen man. The origin of God's people is
of God. Chosen of God, created of God,
in the mind and purpose of God before he made anything. Created
by Christ coming and making his people righteous, by his being
the holiness of his people to create us anew in our heart,
by him uniting us and when he gives us a glorified body and
we're in glory, everything about us will be all of God. It will be all God's creation
that Christ created. We will not have done anything
to create it. It will all be of God. It originated with God and it
was created of God and it will be to his glory. Sometimes the
word generation in scripture means an age or a period of time. It refers to people living during
a specific time. But other times in scripture
the word generation refers to a class or a race. It refers to kindred, family,
a tribe, people of the same origin, people of the same nature, people
of the same kind. And listen to this. God's people
are called in 1 Peter 2.9 a chosen generation. You're a chosen race. A chosen race. This doesn't have
anything to do with racism like men are talking about. This is
God's created people. God's created people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. That means a distinguished
people that he made, that he set apart. The psalmist said,
call them the generation of thy children. Speaking of God, he
called this generation the generation of God's children. He said in
Psalm 14.5, God is in the generation of the righteous. He's in this
generation. Don't think of it as an age.
We're talking about a people. The Lord's seed shall be mighty
on the earth. The Lord's seed, his children,
the generation of the upright shall be blessed. That's speaking
of his people. A seed shall serve him. It shall
be accounted to the Lord for a generation or as a generation. The devil is the serpent and
his seed are called the generation of vipers. That's what Christ
called the devil's children. And you see here, the devil can
do nothing but what God permits. When you see all the things going
on in the world, all the things going on around you, all the
things going on that happen to God's church, nothing, Satan
can do nothing without God's permission. Nothing. Satan could
not even use Nimrod when everybody was speaking the same language.
and was one people. He couldn't even use Nimrod to
keep those people unified. God divided them. God separated
them, confounded their languages. But God came to Abraham with
the gospel. It came to him preaching this
one word of the gospel and he unites his people by the one
message of the gospel. He created all these languages
and he gives his people one language. It's the language of the gospel.
We don't all speak it in the same tongue. in the same language
according to the earth, but no matter what tongue it's being
spoken in, it's the same language that his people understand no
matter what nation they're in. You can go down in Mexico, and
you can start preaching, and you can have it translated for
you, and you just see God's people's faces just light up. They hear
it, they rejoice in it, they know the language. And that's
what God promised. Listen to Zephaniah 3.9, He talked
about doing away with Israel and doing away with the old covenant
and what have you. And he said in Zephaniah 3.9,
then will I turn to the people a pure language, a pure language,
that they may all call upon the name of the Lord and serve him
with one consent, one mind, one accord. He said, I'm gonna do
that. I'm gonna give them one language,
one language. And he manifests his glory in
being able to do this in spirit, in the heart of his people. People
that have so many differences and are so different, and are
different races, different faces, different from different places,
and all the different things that are different, but God can
make his people one. He started doing this at Jerusalem. Well, he started it with Abraham,
and he called his people throughout the ages. But then at Pentecost,
go over to Acts 2. We see this very clearly at Pentecost. He's been doing it through this
gospel age and will continue until He calls all His people.
But look here in Acts 2. Acts 2 and verse 5. Now we saw how God spoke and
he confounded the language and he created all those language
barriers. God did. Now look here at Jerusalem. Verse
5, they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men. That means men walking in godliness. That's what the word godliness
means. Devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when
this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, they began to
speak. But I want you to just see there,
they were out of every nation under heaven. Now look at verse
nine. There were Parthians and Medes and Elamites, the dwellers
of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, on and on you go. You see this, all these different
languages are there. They're all speaking different
languages. That came from back there in our text when God did
that. And in verse six it says, Every man heard them speak in
his own language. God gave the Holy Spirit, and
when you read a speaking in tongues, it's not some unknown foreign
language that people are just speaking some nonsense. God gave them the ability to
speak in each of those countries, each of those languages. He gave
his disciples the ability to speak languages they had never
learned before. And they spoke in those languages.
And every man heard them speak in his own language. But what
were they speaking? They were speaking that one pure
language. That one pure language. Look down at verse 11. It says there at the end, they
said, we hear them speak in our tongue the wonderful works of
God. That's what they heard him speak,
the gospel. They heard him preach the wonderful
works of God, the message of Christ and what he had accomplished. And God, by sending the Spirit
into their heart, giving them a new heart, making them believe
on Christ, he called all these different people out of their
nation into his one holy nation. He called them out of all these
different languages and gave them ears to hear the one pure
language, the gospel of Christ. He called them out of all their
cities and made them citizens of His one holy city. Made them
members of His one holy family. All the blessings of God's people
are of God. Now, not only did he appear to
Abraham, and he started it right after he divided everybody. He
appears to Abraham, and he speaks to Abraham. And he speaks the
gospel to Abraham concerning Christ. And not only does God
do this, he makes his people won by giving all the blessings
from him. It's said back in Genesis 12
in verse 2, he said, I will bless thee. Nimrod and all his people
were trying to do everything for themselves. God said to Abraham,
I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be
a blessing. And in verse three he says, and
in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Nimrod
was trying to make his name great, And the children of the devil
are seeking to make a great name for self. That's what unregenerate
natural man is doing, trying to make a name for self. He sought to make the families
of the earth come under his rule. That's what Nimrod was trying
to do. The reason he wanted to build that city is he wanted
everybody in that city to obey him and be under his rule. But
by grace, God promised Abraham I will make thy name great. I
will make thy name great. God made Abraham wear his name. He made him wear his name, the
Lord our righteousness. He made you wear his name, the
Lord our righteousness. He gave him a name better than
any name. He's called the father of all
that believe. That's a good name. He called
him the friend of God. That's a good name. But he said,
I will make thy name great. And when he said there in thee
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. It's because
Christ came through Abraham. That's what he's speaking about.
And through Christ and what he accomplished for his people.
He unites all his people in his righteousness by his spirit.
And so that his, this elect people that God chose and that make
up this one holy nation, they're in all the nations, all the kindreds,
all the tongues in the earth, but he gives them this one language
and he blesses them in Christ. And by Christ, they're blessed. And he gives us his name. He
made all the sins of all God's people meet on our Lord Jesus
Christ. And Christ took them away. He
put them away. He thoroughly answered the justice
for them. And Christ, by his obedience, made his people the
righteousness of God. Think about that. The righteousness
of God. A righteousness that's one with
God, that God will receive, that God says, I'm well pleased. That's what Christ did. That's
what Christ did. He did it on the cross. They
said in Revelation when they sang the new song, they spoke
of Christ and they said, thou was slain and thou has redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people and nation. When you read in the scripture
and you read that for God so loved the world, And this is
what it's referring to. God has a people all over the
world. God has a people all over the
world, not just Jews, but Gentiles as well. Out of every nation,
kindred, tongue, people on this earth. But he's gonna make them
one in Christ. They're gonna all have this commonality. Turn to Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2.14. By Christ coming and by Christ,
there was a great separation between us and God. Our sin separated
us from God. We sinned in Adam. So the last
Adam had to come and put that sin away and bring us back into
oneness with God. And he did that. And because
he did that between us and God, he does that between each of
his people. Look at this in Ephesians 2.14. He is our peace who hath made
both one. He's speaking to Jew and Gentile.
And he was talking to God's believing Jews and God's believing Gentiles. And he was saying to the Gentiles,
there was a time you didn't even know God. You weren't even a
part of Israel. You didn't have the oracles of
God. You didn't have the scriptures. You didn't have any of the promises.
You were just alienated, separated, separate. That's us, isn't it? By nature, that's how we are,
just separated from God, don't know God, don't wanna know God. How's he gonna bring all his
people together and make us one? He's the only one that can do
it. He's the only one that can do it. You think of how much
we have to separate us. If we're gonna be united, God
alone's the one that does it. God alone is the one that does
it. The devil, sin, our sin, the sin of the world, there's
everything under the sun trying to separate God's people. If
we're gonna be one, God's gonna do it. God's gonna do it, and
he will do it. He's gonna do it for his people.
Here's how, Ephesians 2.14. Christ is our peace who hath
made both one. and hath broken down the middle
wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh
the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." Men
were using the law to try to put a difference between them
and the Gentiles. God sent Christ, his son, and
he fulfilled the law, and he took that difference away. He made all his people have one
righteousness, him. He made us see in ourselves we're
all worms. At our best, state vanity. All
our righteousness is a filthy rag. We don't ever stop seeing
ourselves that way. Because if we stop seeing ourselves
that way, we stop seeing Christ as our only righteousness, which
is to have one. And so that's how he takes away
that enmity that's there between a person that wants to exalt
themselves by their works over the one that's fallen and transgressed. He does it by making you see
that one that looks like he's done the wonderful works and
the one that doesn't, if they're his, they're both equally worms
in themselves and they're both righteous in Christ by Christ.
That creates unity. That breaks your heart, that
creates unity. He did it to make of himself of two one new man,
so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God
in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And
he came and he preached peace to you which were far off and
to them that were nigh, for through him we both have access by one
spirit unto one Father, the Father. Now therefore, you're no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
and of the household of God. built upon one foundation, the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone. And in him, they were trying
to build this tower. In him, all the building is fitly
framed together and you grow into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you're building together for a habitation of God through
the spirit. He builds his city of living
stones by His Spirit, fitly framing His people together, growing
us into His temple. That's His work. He says over
in Ephesians 4, here's the oneness of it, there's one body. Ephesians
4, 4, there's one body, there's one spirit, even as you call
in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who's above all and through all and
in you all. And this is gonna be by Christ's intercession.
He prayed that they all may be one. Father, thou art in me,
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, I in them,
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. And that
one is Christ. The devil's seed strive with
one another based on carnal differences. Race, gender, class, education,
all the religious differences. And most of the religious differences
come down to this. practice. That's what they come
down to. Most of them do. You can see
it on the sign, usually. Since the fall, the majority,
whoever the majority is, it doesn't matter. The majority persecute
the minority. It's the way of the sin nature
in every fallen sinner. They've done studies where they
take an odd number of children, young children, and put them
in a room. And they make, you know, They take an odd number
of children, and they give the majority of them some commonality,
and there's a minority that don't have that in common with them.
And it really doesn't matter what it is. The ones with the
commonality usually come together, and the ones without it are in
the minority. And you've had children in school.
You've had it happen. You've heard of it. You've seen
it happen. Maybe it happened to your own children. That's
the sin nature. Sinful man can try to eradicate
that. Sinful man can try. It is our
nature to exalt ourselves over somebody else. And if we think
we've got the numbers with us, that gives us power to think
we can get by with it. That's the sin nature. We can't
subdue that sin nature, and we can't create a new nature. So
the unity is going to have to be made by God. And he just brings
glory to himself by showing how he does this, putting together
people that otherwise would have had nothing in common. And he
brings you together. And when he gives you a new heart
and makes you just really see. I was talking to a brother. It
was interesting. I was talking to two different
brethren this week. And the first time we were talking, and we
were talking about pride. And I made a statement. I said,
I just didn't see just how proud I was. And I said, it's just
so much pride. And I was talking to a brother
last night. And we weren't even talking about
this. And he said, I just didn't see how proud I was. And just talking about, I mean,
weeping. and talking about just how we're just worms, don't have
a thing to be proud about. And yet God's been merciful. And when he makes you see you're
one in Christ, Galatians 3.28 says there's neither Jew nor
Greek. Neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, you're
all one in Christ Jesus. Speaking of those he's given
faith, those he's made to see ourselves as the only thing we
have that made us different from where
God found us is Christ. Because otherwise we're sinners.
But Christ has made us righteous. And that's our only hope, Him.
By His grace, constant, continual, indestructible, never-ending
grace. Grace abounding over sin. Grace, grace, grace. Beginning
and end. Christ only. Christ only. When that's the case, there's
neither Greek nor Jew. I look in a circumcision or uncircumcision,
Not look into barbarian, Scythian, bonder-free, educated, uneducated. Christ is all and in all. Christ is all and in all. We either believe that or we
don't. It's just that simple. Just that simple. But one last
thing. I'm going to give you this one last thing. Ishmael
always persecutes Isaac. This world of other generous
sinners are never gonna be one with God's people, and God's
people are never gonna be one with this world. And the world
will persecute God's church. It's gonna, they do, they have
in the past, they will more in the future. But listen to this
carefully. God also promised Abraham, I
will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse him that cursed
thee. Remember, I was trying to build
a fortress and a tower to protect him and the people that were
following him. The Lord said to Abraham, I will
be your fortress. I will be your strong tower.
And that's Christ, brethren. The name of the Lord is a strong
tower. The righteous runneth into it
and is safe. What does that mean? It means
that the Lord is going to make you in spirit when you're being
separated, persecuted, oppressed, everything that would make you
fall away, the Lord in spirit is going to make you run to Christ
in spirit. Look to Him, believe on Him,
and cast it all on Him, and He's going to keep you. He's going
to keep you. And when I say keep you, I don't
mean that something might not happen to your body. This is
our flesh. It's going in the grave one way
or another. But he will not let you the new
man born of him ever be separated from him. He will bring you down. He will subdue your flesh. He
will keep you trusting Christ only. And as he works that in
each of your brethren, he will keep his people united together. That's just so. That's just so. That's our confidence, what God
has promised. what God has promised. And in
the dispensation of the fullness of time, he shall gather together
in one all things in Christ. All are going to be gathered
in one in Christ. Things in heaven, things in earth.
He's saying all his people, he's going to gather us all together
in one in Christ. And every knee is going to bow
and every tongue is going to confess and all the glory is
going to be to Him. And that day we're going to see,
we're going to see Christ really did do this for me beginning
and end. That time I thought I was strong
and I thought I was in the right and I was doing this and that.
And He's going to let you see you were surrounded by wickedness
and wicked angels and fallen angels and just just trying their
best to separate you from Christ, and Christ wouldn't let it happen.
He kept you. Things you can't even see now
that he's doing for his people, that's what he's doing. So look
to Him. Don't get carried away with the
world. If you sin, flee from it to Him. If you get puffed
up, flee from it to Him. Whatever it is, look to Him. He'll burn all the rest of this
up. And we're looking for that city, this God city that He's
built. And every one of His people are
going to be in that city. Look only to Him. Live for Him. If you've sinned in the past,
don't dwell on it. Don't keep thinking about it.
It will separate you from Him. Learn from it and don't do it
again. And flee to Him and rest in Him. You can't put it away anyway.
And if you keep thinking about it, all you're going to do is...
It may be how He uses you to prove you're not His. But if
you're His, He's going to turn to you and say, I'm your righteousness. I'm your righteousness. You can't
put away your sin. He already has for His people.
And He's going to teach you. I'm your righteousness. Look
to Him. Amen. Father, we thank You for this
Word. We pray You bless it. Thank You for these promises.
Thankful, Lord, that You continue to work in Your people. Oh Lord,
thank You that You Keep us and save us by grace. Lord, help us to hear, help us
to look to Christ only. Keep us protected and united
in him. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy. Thank you for your power and
grace and sweet forgiveness we have in Christ by his blood.
Help us, Lord, to honor you and follow you. Create a love that follows you
and is devoted to you and you alone, Lord. We ask it in Christ's
name, amen.