So you can once again the help
of God to grant me the ability to speak to you this morning.
If I could you turn with me to the book of Genesis and chapter
11. I'm reading verse 1. Genesis 11 and verse 1. And the whole earth was of one
language, and of one speech. In Genesis chapter 11 we have the account of the tower
of Babel. As man began to multiply upon
the face of the earth they initially had only one language They were
like one big family. And as they travelled they decided
to settle in a place and they decided to build a city. And their motive for building
a city was to stay together. It was to build a tower that
would reach up to heaven and they wanted to make a name for
themselves. They wanted to go against what
God initially intended for them. God told Adam and Eve after he
had created them to multiply upon the face of the earth and
to subdue it in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26
and God says, let us make man in our image after our likeness
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over
the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them
and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the
earth and subdue it. and have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living
thing that moveth upon the face of the earth. So before Adam
and Eve sinned against God they were commanded by God to be fruitful
and to multiply and as they sinned against God they were driven
out of the garden of Eden and they began to have children. Cain and Abel were those first
children. Seth also came along and man
began to multiply on the face of the earth. Because man was
sinful by nature he multiplied and he multiplied. He rebelled
against God. He did not do what God commanded
him to do. We know that the earth began
to fill with violence as they multiplied, as they began to live together,
that the wickedness grew, that the imagination of man's heart
was evil continually. And God came and he said that
he was going to destroy the people that he had made but he
saved Noah and his family. And there's that tendency when
people come together that wickedness multiplies. They bounce off each
other. towns are more violent and wicked
than small villages in the countryside. As people come together, as they
multiply, as they build cities, as they congregate together,
wickedness is increased. And so it was in the time of
Noah as the people multiplied, wickedness and violence increased,
a hatred towards God increased, and God said that he was going
to punish the human race but he spared Noah and his family
by providing for them an ark in which Noah entered and his
family was saved. But as that flood descended and
as Noah and his family came out of that ark God entered into
a covenant with them And he again passed on that same command that
was given to Adam and to Eve and told them to be fruitful
and to multiply and to replenish the earth. As they began to multiply
and to be fruitful instead of replenishing the earth, instead
of spreading out, they came together. And they came together to make
a name for themselves. They came together to make a
statement. to build a city and to build
a tower that would reach heaven and to go against what God commanded
them to do. Instead of scattering abroad
upon the face of the whole earth they wanted to come together
and to make a name for themselves and
to go against what God had initially intended. They wanted to build.
They wanted to reach heaven. They wanted to make a name for
themselves. If you look at the line of Cain
and Seth, when Cain, after he killed Abel and is chased from
the presence of God and the Lord puts a mark upon his forehead,
you will see that he goes and he builds a city. he names it
after himself. If you look at the line of Seth
you hear nothing about his wealth, you hear nothing about his buildings
but you hear that he called upon the name of the Lord. So when
these early People were seeking to
follow God. They were not building themselves
places. They were travellers. Think of
Abraham, the pilgrim. Abraham, he dwelt in tents. He had no fixed dwelling. They
looked for a city that was out of sight, whose builder and maker
was God. And so them coming together for
this specific reason to build and to seek to climb up to be
near God was against what God had commanded. And so God brought
confusion to their plans. And the Lord said, Behold, the
people is one, and they have one language. And this they begin
to do, how now nothing will be restrained from them which they
have imagined to do. Go to Let us go down and confound their
language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the
Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth and they left off to build a city. Therefore the name is
called Babel because the Lord did confound the language of
all the earth that from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad
upon the face of the earth. And so the Lord came and stopped
their plans. Their unity was in their language. Their unity was to build and
to reach God, to go against what God had commanded them to do.
So God stooped down in their rebellion and he confounds their
language and he stops their plans. what they wanted to do. And he
brought about his own will and his own purposes in their life
to force them to do what he wanted them to do. And how often it
is the case in our own lives that we have these plans. This
is what we are going to do. This is what we are going to
achieve. And the motive for those plans or the driving force for
those plans is pride. It was pride that drove these
people to build pride that drove these people to make a tower
to get to God. It was pride that caused them
to want to make a name for themselves and it was pride. We know that
pride will never stand before a holy God. God hates the pride
of man and he will do all he can to bring to nothing the plans
of men, women and boys and girls and he would bring those plans
to confusion as he did with the tower of Babel, all that work
that they were doing, all that labor, just in rebellion against
God. God has said, go and scatter,
fill the earth. And they said, no, we are going
to build and we are going to worship God how we want to worship
God. We are going to build a tower
to reach up to heaven. We're going to do what we want
to do. And God came and confused their
language. And so the people were forced
to spread. Which is why we have so many languages in the world
even today because God dealt with the pride of man and forced
them to spread out over the face of the earth. And he brought
to nothing their plans. God is not normally a God of
confusion. The scriptures tell us in Corinthians
chapter 14 verse 33 for God is not the author
of confusion but of peace as in all the churches of the saints. to bring about his purposes he
brought confusion to stop the pride of man from being established. We know that God is not the author
of confusion by looking at his creation. God is the creator
of time. Time is given so that there is
an order There's an order for every day. There's an order for
every week. There's an order for every month.
As we looked at this morning with the Jewish calendar they
follow the lunar cycle, the monthly cycle of the moon. It has an
order to it, the same as the earth, how it turns, how it goes
around the sun. There is calculation, there is
order to the things of God. There are times and seasons.
to God's plans and his work. Look at the planets. They all
have an order. They all revolve around the sun. There's no chaos. Look at his style of worship. the Old Testament how detailed
it was that he desired to be worshipped in a specific manner. Every detail in the building
of the temple, every colour that he chose, every skin You think
of the oil that was to be used for the burning of the lamp. It was to be a specific oil,
ground with specific spices. No other oil was to be made to
represent or smell like that oil. There was precision in the
building of the temple and in the building of the ark. There
was precision. and detail in the garments of
the high priest. Right down to the colours and
the bells and the fabric that was to be used in his clothing. And the stones. The detail in
his worship. They were to wash. The detail
in his sacrifice. They were not allowed just to
sacrifice any animal. It had to be specific animals
for specific sins and times of year. Everything is precise. There is no confusion. Families were to be the Levites
and the priests. Even when they camped around
the tabernacle it was to be done in order. The tribes were to
camp in specific areas of the camp around the tabernacle with
the tabernacle right in the middle. There was order to the worship
of God and the people of God. His word. There is order. His truth. His law. of the Old Testament
law. The detail that the Lord puts
there. Ten commandments even. Everything that God has done
and said there is no confusion. It is detailed and precise and
timely and in order. In the New Testament it says
that everything must be done decently and in order and because of the pride of man
the Lord came and brought about confusion but even in that confusion
there was an order. Specific language groups stayed
together and spread out over the whole earth fulfilling the
Lord's command to go into all the world and to subdue it. And so the language that Babylon
was a judgment for the pride of man to bring the plans of
man to nothing. But what took place on the day
of Pentecost was a reversal of that judgment. What took place
on the day of Pentecost was a blessing rather than a curse. Those language barriers that
divided the nations were removed and the Lord gave the ability
to speak in other languages. Pentecost was 50 days after the
Jewish Passover, 10 days after the Lord Jesus Christ had ascended
up into heaven. And if you remember the words
that he said, tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until you are
endued with power from on high. And then they were to go into
all the world and to preach the gospel. The Holy Spirit was promised
to them And on the day of Pentecost, he was given. And suddenly in
Acts chapter 2, what we read together. And when the day of
Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord and
in one place. And suddenly there came a sound
from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. And it filled the house
where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as of fire. and it sat upon each of them
and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak
with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. As the apostles
were there waiting for the appearing of the Holy Spirit as they were
there in prayer the Holy Spirit descended upon them and they
were given the ability to speak in other tongues as the Spirit
gave them utterance. It was not their choice to decide
which language that they were going to speak. It was God gifting
his apostles to be able to speak in a language that they had never
known or learnt before. In order to preach the gospel
in order that the gospel may advance into all the nations. They were given a miraculous
gift to be able to speak in foreign languages. Languages that could
be understood by other people. Languages that other people spoke
and that could be understood by them. As Babylon, as in the
days of Babel, there was that spreading out in that day of Pentecost there
was a gathering in. And we know that these were specific
languages that could be understood because there are I think 17
different people groups that are mentioned here in the book
of Acts chapter 2. And they reason among themselves,
they say how is it that every man can understand in our own
language wherein we were born? And so it's not just a general
language. If you go to some of these countries,
for instance, when we're in Kenya, you have the language of Swahili,
which is a general language for the population. But then you
have tribal languages, which are within that main language
group. And those are the languages that
are preferred to be spoken by the people. the language that
they were born with, the one that they speak at home. And
that's what the question was. How can we understand in the
language that we have been born? So it was a supernatural gift
given to the apostles to speak in languages that they had not
known before to enable other people to be able to understand
the wonderful works of God. It was not so that the apostles
would become proud, look at me I'm speaking in tongues, look
at me I'm speaking in another language. The motive for this
gift was the edification of the people of God and the advancement
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else was for the good of the gospel. They were told go into all the
world at that time it was a multicultural How many people came to Jerusalem
for Pentecost? Thousands and thousands of people.
3,000 people were saved in one day. Multiple languages. And as the gospel was to now
go into all the world, that gift had to be given to enable them
to take that message to people of other languages. But not only was it that gift,
it was also a sign from God, a fulfilment of prophecy that
God had promised in the book of Joel that he would pour out
his spirit upon his people. Peter, in response to the mocking, reminds them of the word of God.
Remember that Jesus said that there will be mockers. in the
last time. Jesus said that there was that
unforgivable sin which was to sin against the Holy Spirit and
to declare that the work of God is the work of Satan. And this
is what some of the Jews were saying at that time. these weren't
filled with the Holy Spirit but they were drunk and that they
were accounting that this gift was not the work of God but the
work of alcohol. At Peter pointing them to the
scriptures he lifted up his voice and said ye men of Judea and
all ye that dwell in Jerusalem be this known unto you and hearken
unto my words for these are not drunken as you suppose seeing
it is but the third hour of the day but that which was spoken
by the prophet Joel and it shall come to pass in the last days
saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young
men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. And so this gift of the Holy
Spirit was given to the Church in fulfilment of prophecy and
for the advancement of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
gift is specifically given to three types of people. Remember Jesus said, begin at
Jerusalem, going to Samaria and enter the uttermost parts of
the end of the world. The Samaritans received the same
blessing. The Holy Spirit, the ability
to speak in other languages, As Peter is sent to Cornelius,
the Gentiles also receive the same gift in Acts chapter 10. And while Peter yet spoke these
words the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word and
they of the circumcision which believed were astonished as many
as came with Peter because that on the Gentiles also was poured
out the gift of the Holy Ghost for they heard them speak with
tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter can any man
forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received
the Holy Ghost as well as we. he commanded them to be baptised
in the name of the Lord and they prayed with them they prayed
then prayed they him to tarry certain days. And so this gift
of the Holy Spirit was given specifically in order just as
the Lord Jesus Christ has said so it now brought together this
church, this one church of the Lord Jesus Christ all had been
received in in the same way. All were now level as in as in
Babel there was that scattering and that separation. Now Jew,
Sumerian and also Gentile are gathered in to the same church,
the same body of the Lord Jesus Christ and gifted in exactly
the same way. that Christ is building his church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. As Babel was being built by rebellious
man, Christ is building his church. It says go and let us build us
a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven and let
us make a name that should be scattered abroad upon the face
of the earth. So Christ he is building his
church and his church will reach heaven. As Babel failed, Christ
will not fail. As they said in their pride,
let us make a name for ourselves. There is a name above every name,
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to him every knee will bow. There will be no pride before
the Lord Jesus Christ. But again, with the early church,
the same thing happened. God said to them, go into all
the world and to preach the gospel. They were now gifted with the
ability to do miracles, the ability to speak in other languages,
and yet they stayed. And it wasn't until the persecution
came that the church was scattered. That God used the persecution
as a cane to drive out the church from staying together. The gospel
needed to get to all the nations. They had the ability, but they
needed that push to push them through. And often that's the
same with us, isn't it? We know what we should be doing.
but we don't want to do it. We have the evidence, they had the evidence
of the spirit, they had the evidence of the gifts but they didn't
want to push forward with the gospel until the Lord came with
a whip and dealt with them harshly that they went from house to
house preaching the gospel. They were told to go and so they
went. and they went with the gift of
the Holy Spirit. Every Christian has the gift
of the Holy Spirit. If you don't have the Holy Spirit
of God you do not belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the
Holy Spirit that causes somebody to be born again. It's the Holy
Spirit who gives somebody repentance and faith and trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's the Holy Spirit who gives
someone that desire and motivation to walk out the Christian life.
It's the Holy Spirit who illuminates the world and gives a hunger
for the things of God. It's the Holy Spirit who gives
a hatred for sin and a love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet our flesh wants, as it were,
to go back to Babylon. Christ is building an invisible
temple made with the people of God, his church. They are strangers
and pilgrims on the earth. They are wandering through and
their home is heaven. Yet our flesh wants to be like
Babel, wants to be like the people of Babel. It wants to dwell here. It wants to do its own thing,
to make a name for itself, to be noticed, to be associated
with something. And wants to walk in rebellion
against God. And so there is the battle that there is between
the flesh and the spirit. Our spirit wants to follow Christ. Our spirit is happy to walk this
narrow way that leads to life. Just as Abraham's strangers and
pilgrims yet our flesh wants to establish something. We walk by faith and not by sight. Our flesh wants sight. It wants feelings. It wants emotion. It wants something to touch and
to experience. And that's where the problem
comes in the churches. People want something they can
see. Every church has local church
has something by which they are regulated by. The regulating
principle is the scripture. Everything that takes place within
a church should be brought to what does the scripture say.
It should not be regulated by our emotion Well, I feel that
this is the right thing to do. I feel that I should be doing
this. There was once of William Booth. William Booth was preaching to
a big crowd of people. His wife stood up and said, the
Holy Spirit has told me that I'm to preach. And he said, oh,
OK. And he allowed her to get up
and preach to a mixed audience. Was that the Holy Spirit? Would
the Holy Spirit of God go against his own word and allow a woman
to preach in a public assembly to a mixed congregation when
the scripture tells us that women are not to take positions of
authority within the church, that women are not to preach
or have authority over men? No. The scripture tells us that
we are to test the spirits to see whether they be of God or
not and if somebody comes up and says well the Holy Spirit
has told me that I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that
and then you're to get to the scriptures and say is that truly
the Holy Spirit or not? Have you made it up in your own
mind? Is it an emotion or is it the
true promptings of the Spirit of God? Somebody turned up at
Spurgeon's chapel and said, the Holy Spirit has told me that
I'm meant to be preaching tonight. And Spurgeon said, well, he hasn't
told me. You see the confusion that these
things bring when you have no boundary or governance for the
prompting of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God himself. He's not an unrestrained force
to allow people to do whatever they want to do. He works in
accordance with the Word of God and he always elevates the Lord
Jesus Christ. He does not speak of himself
but he speaks of Christ. And you'll find that if you go
to churches where the emphasis is on the Holy Spirit, they do
not mention the Lord Jesus. It is all about the Holy Spirit
of God. I have been in many churches
that claim to be spirit-filled churches. I've seen people speaking
in what they call tongues. which is an unknown language
done by an unrestrained moving of the mind which we would call
babbling means nothing. I've been in churches
where everybody in the whole church has been slain by the
Holy Spirit and is on the floor I'm the only person sitting there
apart from a few children running about and it's utter foolishness. The Holy Spirit of God does not
bring confusion because he is God and God is a God of order. God is a God of not of confusion. And he says in the scriptures
that everything must be done decently in order and the way
that we worship God must be shaped by the scriptures and who God
is. The reason why our worship is
so simple is because it comes from the early church. The early
church got their simplicity from the synagogues. In the synagogues
they read the Old Testament. and they prayed. They expounded
what was read and they sang the psalms was simplicity. Yet today people don't want simplicity. They don't want the word. They
don't want prayer. They want confusion. They want
an experience for their flesh. You see in churches where there
is no Holy Spirit, they have to create the Holy Spirit. They bring in lights. They dim
the lights. They bring in smoke. They bring
in emotional singing that plays upon the emotions of people. People cry. People fall on the
floor. But it's just emotion. It has
nothing to do with God whatsoever. You can go to a pop concert and
cry. You can go to a pop concert and
fall on the floor. When Michael Jackson used to
do his pop concerts, there were women there that would collapse
and have to be taken out because they were overcome by emotion. Is that the Spirit of God? Is
that the Holy Spirit of God that overcame those women? No, it
is emotion. There is a difference between
emotion and the work of God's Spirit. Emotion doesn't last. Emotion has to be topped up time
and time again. But the true work of the Spirit
of God, a true blessing of the Spirit of God is eternal. It doesn't fade. It doesn't change. And you find that these people
who are focused on the Holy Spirit, focused on experience, focused on things for the flesh,
they need more and more and more. The scripture tells us to seek after the greatest gifts. The gift of the Spirit of God.
His main gifting or blessing is holiness. Holiness is what the people of
God should be striving after, not speaking gobbledygook. If you're to crave after a gift,
The gifting that you should be given or should be asking for
is a gift that is to be used for the edification of the body
of Christ, the church of God. The gift of tongues was given
to edify the people of God, not the speaker. The gift of tongues
was given for the advancement of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Holiness draws people to God,
to Christ. Every gift that the people of
God are given by the Holy Spirit is not for self-elevation. but for the whole body. We are not to be ignorant of
the gifts as the apostle tells us but all of the gifts that
are given are to be used for the edification of the body of
the Lord Jesus Christ for the church for building each other
up rather than pulling each other down. You will hear. Do you have
the gift of tongues? then you don't have the Holy
Spirit. If you don't have the Holy Spirit
of God you do not belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Every child
of God has been given the Holy Spirit. It is him who enables
them to believe. And so those who promote the
speaking of tongues seek to promote individuals rather than the edification
of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Tongues were given for the good of the church and
they were a language that could be understood and the language
that could be translated. If I was to speak in Swahili,
you wouldn't know what I'm saying. It would be totally pointless,
meaningless for me to stand here and to speak in another language.
I would only edify myself and so if I was to speak in Swahili
I would need an interpreter. that's what the apostle tells
us in Corinthians that if someone comes and they speak in another
language they are to have a translator and if there is no translator
then that person is to remain silent. They're not to speak but to remain silent. So the
gift of tongues was to overthrow the judgment that was brought
at at Babel and turn it into a blessing so that God's glorious
gospel could go into the whole world. and people could be saved. And we read in the book of Revelation
that every nation, every tongue, every tribe will be present on
that glorious day. And on that day in heaven, there
will be no more sea. There will be no more barrier.
There will be no more language barrier. All will be singing
the same language. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. May the Lord help us to decipher
What is true? What is false? What is an emotional
response to the preaching or an emotional response to the
music or the environment? And what is the true working
of the Spirit of God in my life or in somebody else's life? A
true work of God brings about holiness and God-likeness in
the lives of true believers. May the Lord then bless us with
that true holiness and desire to follow him. Amen. Let us conclude our worship by
singing number 25 from Gadsby's to the tune 132. Number 25. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove,
with thy all-quickening powers, kindle a flame of sacred love
in these cold hearts of ours. Number 25. Thee we'll sing. ? With thy awakening words come
shed a new light ? Dear Lord and Heavenly Father
and Holy Spirit, we thank thee Lord for that flowing together. We thank thee Lord for thy prompting
and moving of our minds and we pray that we may come to know
the true power and influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We ask Lord for that ability
to pursue after godliness and holiness We pray Lord for that
manifestation of the true gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives
that we may use them for the edification of the true Church
of God and for the advancement of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We pray that the spirit of Babel may be removed
from us we may be kept from self-elevation and pride and seeking to do our
own things but help us in order to be channeled by thy spirit
by thy word that we may be conformed to the likeness and image of
the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask that thou dismiss us with
thy blessing, bless the brethren as they meet together this evening,
and do, Lord, forgive us, we pray, of our many sins. We acknowledge
that we are not perfect, and we pray that thou make up where
we do fail. Now may the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with the communion
of the Holy Spirit, to be with us each now and forevermore.
Amen. Oh, boy.