Sometime after the flood, when
the earth began to be populated again, at that time everybody spoke the
same language. All of the people of the earth
descended from those eight who were on the ark. God had destroyed
his earth and everyone that was in it except Noah who found grace. in his eyes and Noah's family.
The people were one big nation. Look at Genesis chapter 11 verse
1, the whole earth was of one language and of 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 go to let us make brick and burn them
throughly. And they had brick for stone
and slime for mortar. And they said, go to, let us
build us a city and a tower whose top may reach into heaven. And let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon
the face of the whole earth. Now, from chapter 10 we have
some insight into this. In chapter 10 we have the genealogy
part of it that connects the days of Noah. It says in verse
1 of chapter 10, these are the generations of the sons of Noah.
And if you follow that genealogy throughout chapter 10, And into
chapter 11, it takes you all the way from Noah to Abram, Abraham. But in chapter 10, we see some
other things here. Look at verse six. We have a
little insight into what took place where we read there in
chapter 11, the sons of Ham, Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut,
and Canaan. And the sons of Cush, Seba, and
Havila, and Sabta, and Ramah, And Saptaka, and the sons of
Ramah, Sheba, and Dedan. And Cushbegat Nimrod. Now, we
say Nimrod, the actual pronunciation of that is Nimrod, if that makes
any difference. We call David David, don't we?
His name was David, with the emphasis on the second syllable. But it just sounds funny, so
we just call him Nimrod. That sounds kind of funny, too.
But either way, he loses either way, doesn't he? But Nimrod. And notice he was of the family
of the sons of Ham. This is the man that God cursed.
He used Noah to curse Ham. And Ham's grandson is Nimrod. And it says that Nimrod, Cush
begat Nimrod, verse eight, and he began to be a mighty one in
the earth. And he was a mighty hunter before
the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as
Nimrod, the mighty hunter, before the Lord and the beginning of
his kingdom was Babel. Ah, that's the city that they
said, let's build us a city so we can make a name for ourselves. So Nimrod was the king of that
city. Whenever anything like this takes place, when a group
of people get together and say, let's be somebody, there's always
an instigator in there. There's always somebody leading
them. And in this case, it was Nimrod.
His name means rebel. Four times, Nimrod is described
here as mighty. And what a reminder here his
story is of what Paul said in first Corinthians, not many mighty
are called. not many mighty. God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty. Nimrod is said four times in
this one passage to be mighty, and God rejected him, and went
and found Abraham, a nobody from nowhere, and said, I'm gonna
bless you. And we'll see that here in this
story. As I said, the genealogy between
chapters 10 and 11 takes us from the day of Noah to the birth
of Abram in 1126. Abram's not identified here as
being anything special, whereas Nimrod was great and mighty. But where it says there in chapter
10, verse nine, it says, he was mighty before the Lord. Don't
make the mistake there of thinking that that means he was mighty
for the Lord. It reminds us of another verse
in Genesis chapter six, verse 11, where it says, the earth
also was corrupt before God. Nimrod was mighty before God. And all this does is remind us
that everything we do, we do before God. We're evil before
God. We worship before God if we worship. The sons of men there in Job,
it says they came into the presence of the Lord. They worship before
the Lord. And that's where we are tonight.
We're always before Him. God saw Nimrod and what he was
up to. And this is written to show us
that in the very face of God, men deny him to his very face
and vaunt themselves. And look at the motive here for
building this tower, for the establishment of this city. They
said we want to build us a city. Why? What for? What do you need
a city for? The Lord said to Noah and to
everybody descended Noah said to his family, and
because God had told him, go into all the earth and multiply
and replenish the earth. And they said, no, we want to
stop here and build something. Why'd they want to do that? Why'd
they want to do that? It says in verse four, they said,
go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach
unto heaven and let us make us a name. We want somebody to know
we were here and we want to be a force to be reckoned with.
We're gonna establish a tower, a stronghold, and a city to make
us a name, lest we'd be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole
earth. Did you know that that's man's
motive? That's the motive particularly of the religion of our day. We see that today, don't we?
Let us make us a name. In third John, verse, 9 of chapter
1, let me read it to you. 3rd John 1.9, I wrote unto the
church, but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among
them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will
remember his deeds, which he doeth, prating against us with
malicious words, and not content therewith, neither doth he himself
receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would. and casteth
them out of the church. This fellow, Diotrephes, was
in the church and he said, I'm gonna surround myself with people
that I like and everybody else can just go somewhere else. And
he rejected John and the gospel. And then John said, after he
said he identified him by name, and he said, beloved, follow
not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth
good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. Demetrius
hath good report of all men. He identifies two men, both with
a name that begins with D. It sounds similar, Diotrephes
and Demetrius. But Diotrephes was of the devil.
And what was his thing? He loved the preeminence. That's
a natural man. That's all of us by nature. We
all have that in us, don't we? We all want to be somebody. But Demetrius, he said, hath
good report of all men, and of the truth itself, yea, and we
also bear record, and you know that our record is true. Diotrephes represents the natural
man. We love to have the preeminence,
because we think we're God. God is preeminent, and so, since
we think we're God, we wanna be preeminent. This is the gainsaying
of Korah. You remember in Numbers 16, we
won't look at that again. We saw that in a recent message.
Korah, and those that pertain unto Korah, in Numbers chapter
16, they came to Moses one day, and they said, Moses, you take
too much on yourself. Almost sound like they were concerned
for Moses, you know, we don't want you to, you know, do too
much. That wasn't what it was though. They said, we just as
spiritual as you are, we can do what you do. We don't need
you to tell us what to do or to lead us. You know the story. Moses said, okay, I'll see you
tomorrow. We'll show up and we'll stand
before God and we'll let God approve or disapprove of who
he will. And of course the Lord opened
up the earth and swallowed up Korah and everybody that was
with him and everything that pertained to them. Because God's
authority's not to be undermined. But that's what we're talking
about. That's where Nimrod was. Let's make a name for ourselves.
Before God he did that, it says. Before God. And he did make a
name for himself, didn't he? And Korah did too. And Diotrephes? He got a name, doesn't he? It's
a name of infamy. He's that one that rebelled.
He's that one that withstood the Apostle John and hated the
authority of God. Everybody knows who these men
are, rebels against God. That's what his name meant, Nimrod,
rebel, rebel, notorious. And that's every one of us by
nature. I want you to notice something else. Look back at
verse three of our text there in Genesis. Chapter 11. And when I talk about religion now,
I'm talking about everybody. Everybody's religious, aren't
they? We're not just making fun of other places that call themselves
church. That's all of us by nature. Everybody's
religious. Everybody's got their way to
please God. by their free will, or their
deeds, or their good works, or whatever you want to call it.
It doesn't matter what you call the denomination or the name
of the church, you can name it whatever you want to, it's free
will. It's God-pleasing, man-centered, man-pleasing God, man doing something
for God, and building himself a name in the process. Exalting
man, making man preeminent. You listen to their message.
If it's not all about man, Everything they say has to do
with man, doesn't it? How can man, you know, what does
man need to do? And how can man be more comfortable?
And how can man prosper in this world? That's all they're talking
about. But notice this now in verse
three, and they said one to another, go to, let's make some brick
and let's burn them thoroughly. Folks are willing to work to
make a name for themselves. Did you know that? Was it Naaman's
servant that said to him, if the prophet had given you some
great thing to do, you'd have gone and done it. You know why?
Because that way he could have made a name. He could say, look
what I did. I was a leper and I did something about it. I won
my battle with cancer. You get the impression that that
expression makes me sick. I mentioned that before. I won
my battle. What an arrogant, humanistic,
godless thing to say. If God wants to kill you, he
don't have to give you cancer to do it. He can send one of
his little germs your way and kill you in a day, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye. And you're gonna talk about,
you have an affliction like that and say, I won that fight with
that disease. We can't even take a breath without
God. Who in the world do we think
we are? Let's make a name. Let's take some brick and build
brick and burn it thoroughly. We'll do a good job. You want to build a religious
empire? Just brag on people and say,
let's build something for God. You know, you can use God's name.
Talk about God. Talk about heaven and Jesus and
all that. Just let somebody get some glory.
And we can build a big old church here and have it full. People
willing to work. as long as they get the glory
out of it. And let's make some brick now, and some mortar. They
had slime for mortar. They said, let us build us a
city and a tower. And they'll gladly do that. But
what's God gonna think of it when you're done? What in the world have you built?
Religion is never still, never satisfied. Look at one of their
bulletins. There's always some kind of an
event going on. You know what the greatest event
is that ever takes place in this world? Somebody stands up and
preaches the gospel. That's the only event I'm interested
in. If somebody's going to do that, tell me when and where.
And if I can, I'll be there. Never steal, though. We need
a bigger building. Somebody told me recently, somebody
here locally, was telling me, we didn't have Half the church
full, but we built a bigger church. Why do you suppose they did that?
To make a name for themselves, that's why they did it. Same
reason Nimrod did it. Exact same reason. Never satisfied, always bigger
and better and more. What for? Ourselves. Let's make
a name for ourselves. And God knew what they were gonna
do before they did it, didn't he? He knows our thoughts. He knows before it's even in
our tongue to say something. He knows what we're going to
say. That's what the scripture says. But he's represented here. He's
pictured here. And there's this kind of language
all through the Old Testament. It speaks of God in the language
of men. He's pictured here. God is as
saying, let's go see what they're up to down there. Let's go see
what they're building. And God comes down and looks
at it and inspects it. You know why it talks that way?
Because everything you do, God's going to take a look at it. God's
going to inspect everything you build, and me too. Are you ready
for that? Am I? If you're building it for
yourself, you know what he's going to do with it? He's going
to do what he did with this one. He's going to put you out of
business. He'll put me out of business if it's for us. That's
what He's going to do. And He may not do it right away.
He lets men go until the psalmist said, David said, how long, Lord,
will you put up with them? Just as long as He wants to.
And He'll say, enough, enough. And then when he puts us out
of business, we're going to sit around like these men did and
be confused and confounded and wonder what in the world happened.
That's what they did. What happened? We were building
us a great tower. And all of a sudden they were confounded.
They didn't even understand one another. And they walked away
and left off building, is what it says there. They left off
building the tower. You know what building God is
pleased with? There's one thing that God If you're gonna be part
of a building, if you're gonna build something, be in on the
building of something, listen to Ephesians 2.19. Paul said
to the Ephesians, now therefore you're no more strangers and
foreigners, but you're fellow citizens with the saints. These
men said, let's build us a city. Let's be citizens of our own
city. And I said, that sounds pretty
good. We'll make a name for ourselves.
I don't want to be a citizen there to you, not of man's building,
not of man's glory, man's will, man's rebellion. But Paul said,
you're fellow citizens with the saints of God. Now that's a privilege
there. And of the household of God and
are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself. being the chief cornerstone in
whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy
temple in the Lord. It's a building that goes all
the way to heaven in a sense, because Christ is the chief cornerstone
of it. In whom ye also are builded together
for inhabitation of God. God lives there in that city.
That's where I want to be. The city of God. That's where
I want to live. I want to be a citizen of that
city where he gets all the glory, where everybody's singing his
praises and his glory. And look what comes of all that
man builds. Verse eight. So the Lord scattered
them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. And
they left off to build the city. Now you notice this, the very
thing that they were working to avoid, they said, let's build
us a city so we won't be scattered. And you know what God did with
them? He scattered them. Did you know that everything
we do by nature, everything this flesh does, is at cross purposes
with what God is doing. Everything it's exactly the opposite
We doing what we do so we won't be scattered and God's will is
that we be scattered It's just the opposite we're working just
just exactly against what God's doing exactly Our thoughts are
not his thoughts our ways are not his ways and so no wonder
our purpose is not his purpose Nimrod was a great and mighty
man and God passed him by. And you know what the next thing
we read in the book of Genesis is? The very next thing we read. We have a little more genealogy
that ties the two, Noah and Abraham together. Look at verse 27 of
chapter 11 now. The very next thing we read after
the story of Nimrod, look at verse 27. These are the generations
of Terah. Terah begat Abram, Nahor and
Haran, and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father
Terah in the land of his nativity in the Ur of the Chaldees. And
Abram and Nahor took them wives. And the name of Abram's wife
was Sarah. It's Sarai right there, you see the pronunciation. And
the name of Nahor's wife, Milca, the daughter of Haran, father
of Milca and the father of Isca. But Sarai, or Sarah, was barren. She had no child. We hear more
about that later in the scripture, don't we? She couldn't have any child,
but that didn't mean she wasn't going to have one. She had the
son of promise by God's grace. And Terah took Abram, his son,
and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law,
his son Abram's wife. And they went forth with them
from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan. And
they came unto Haran and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were 205
years, and Terah died. in Haran. So we have some genealogy there. We have the birth of Abraham. It sounds like a simple story
of a man named Terah and his family moving from one town to
another town. That happens every day, doesn't
it? No big deal. But we have a little bit more
information on what happened there in chapter 12. Look at
verse 1 of chapter 12. Now the Lord had said unto Abram,
here's why they moved, because God had spoken to Abram. Not to Tira, not to anybody else. God spoke to Abram and said,
get out of your country. Ur of the Chaldees in the scripture
is identified as an idolatrous place. And no doubt, there's
no reason whatsoever to believe that Tira and Abraham and his
other son were all idolaters. They were godless rebels too.
They weren't any better. He picked them out because they
were better than Nimrod or any of these other characters. He
didn't pick Abraham out because he saw something in Abraham.
He did it by grace. That's what grace is. Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. He wasn't better than his generation.
And look at what God said to Abraham here. Get out of your
country and from your kindred and from thy father's house unto
a land that I'll show you. Well, boy, it'd be nice if God
would show me before I went. Where am I going to go? You don't
need to know. Just go. Just go. And I will make of thee a what? What did Nimrod want? A city. God rejected him and went and
found Abraham, nobody from nowhere and said, I'm going to make of
you a great nation, a great nation. And I will bless thee and I'll
make your name great. Why did they want to build that
city? To make a name for us. Oh, but God rejected the proud.
God rejected the proud and he lifted up the humble. He lifteth
the beggar from the dunghill. Why? Because he gets the glory
that way. His name gets honored that way. You know what I hate? I hate when people drive like
they own the road. Don't you? I hate that. You know
why I hate that? Because I own the road. What
are you doing driving like you own the road? I own the road.
There's some other things. I got some pet peeves. That's
what we call them. There's some things that I hate.
I hate commercials. I got to have the control in
my hand. Don't you? Because I just hate them. I don't
want to hear it. If I want to buy something, I can decide what
I want to buy without seeing it on my TV. I didn't turn the
TV on to see that. I'll surf between four or five
different channels so I can never see a commercial. I hate commercials.
You know what God hates? A proud look. A proud look. And God doesn't look on the outward
countenance. You don't have to look proud up here for God to
see your proud look. He sees on the heart. He looks
on the heart. He went and found nobody from
nowhere worshiping idols, almost certainly. Sure didn't know anything
about God. And said, get up and get out.
I'm going to make a great nation of you. The mighty hunter Nimrod
who wants to build a great nation? Not going to happen that way.
No. Man's not going to have a name
for himself. Doesn't matter how bad we want it. No matter how
bad this flesh desires it, you're not getting the glory. Is that
all right with you? If that's all right with you,
then God's had mercy on you. You're not getting any glory.
You're not getting glory for making a decision. You're not
getting the glory for any good work. You're not getting any
glory, period. Not any of it. I'm gonna make of you, and I'm
gonna bless you, and you're gonna be a blessing. Oh my. I wanna be a blessing,
don't you? You know how that happens? God
said, I'll make you a blessing. And I'll bless them that bless
you. And I'll curse them that curse you. When you've got God on your side,
you've got God all the way on your side, don't you? And in all, in thee shall all
the families of the earth be blessed. Where's Nimrod now? We're still talking about the
faith of Abraham, aren't we? We're still talking about that. He's the father of all the faithful,
God said. Because that's the way God does
things. Do you see the striking contrast between these two stories? Who was Abram? Nobody. But Big Bad Nimrod, he was ambitious,
wasn't he? And what does his followers say?
Let us build us a city. And God left them confounded
and scattered and went and found Abram. And said, I'll make of
thee a great nation. Why did Nimrod want to build
a city? To make a name for himself. Why did God choose Abram? Turn
to 2 Samuel chapter 7. Let's look at it together. Why does God choose sinners?
Why does he have mercy on people? Why in the world, we asked the
question this morning, why in the world did he pass much of
our family by? And choose us, have mercy on
us. 2 Samuel chapter 7, verse 18. Then went King David in and sat
before the Lord. And he said, isn't this a beautiful
picture? Where did Nimrod do what he did?
Before the Lord. And David went and sat before
the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that thou
hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing
in thy sight, O Lord God, but thou hast spoken also of thy
servant's house for a great while to come. And is this the manner
of man, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto
thee? Have you ever been there? Thank
you just sounds so pathetic, doesn't it? What can you say? You think about what God has
done for you. What can you say? What can I
say? For thou, Lord God, knowest thy
servant. For thy word's sake, and according
to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things,
to make thy servant know them. Wherefore, thou art great, O
Lord God. For there is none like thee,
neither is there any god beside thee, according to all that we
have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth
is like your people? There's your great nation right
there. God's people whom God went to redeem for a people to
himself. Why did God do that? To make
him a name. We do what we do to make us a
name. God does what he does to make himself a name. But everybody
in the whole earth should say God is God alone. And there's nobody like him.
Isn't that what David said? There's nobody like you, God.
That's why he did it, to show that there's nobody like him.
To make him a name and to do for you great things and terrible
for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemest to thee
from Egypt, from the nations and their gods, for thou hast
confirmed to thyself thy people, Israel, to be a people unto thee
forever. And thou, Lord, art become their
God. And now, oh Lord God, the word
that thou has spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his
house, establish it forever and do as thou has said and let what? May God bring us to this place
where we sit before him like David did and say, let thy name
be magnified forever. These idiots, which when I say,
I'm talking about us now, this is us by nature, Nimrod and all
his cronies. They said, let's make us a name.
And David sat here before the Lord and said, look at the nation
you built and let your name be magnified
forever for doing it. saying the Lord of hosts is the
God over Israel. Could you think of a better way
to say this than what David said? This is the grace of God right
here. The Lord of hosts is the God
over Israel. Let the house of thy servant
David be established before thee. There's those words again, before
thee. Nimrod said, I want a city and I'm gonna build me one. and
I'm gonna do it so everybody knows who I am. And God went
and found Abraham. And do you know what Abraham
said? Abraham said, I'm looking for a city that God built. Where'd you get that? Turn to
Hebrews 11. I'm through, but we're gonna be brief tonight.
But look at Hebrews chapter 11, verse eight. Nimrod said, I want a city, I'm
gonna build me a city. Now you listen to what it says
about Abraham. God rejected Nimrod and put him out of business and
left him confused and confounded and scattered all the people
that got together to make a name for themselves and went and found
Abraham. And listen to what Hebrews 11.8
says about Abraham. By faith, Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive
for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out not knowing whether
he went. By faith, he sojourned in the
land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise,
for he looked for a city. That's what Nimrod was looking
for too, wasn't he? And he said, I'm gonna build
me a city. Abraham said, I'm looking for a city which has
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. What are we looking
for, honestly now, before God? It's a question of who's going
to get the glory. And if we're going to build something, we're
going to do it for ourselves. But if God's going to build something,
if we're willing to get in on that, then we'll honor him and
glorify him. Let your name be magnified. I
like what David said, don't you? Let that name be magnified in
all the earth forever because there's nobody like you. May
God have mercy on us. and give us grace and faith to
look for this city that he built and count ourselves as Abraham
did as just sojourners here in this place. We're just passing
through here. We have no continuing city here. Christ is our home. Paul said, I have a desire to
depart and be with Christ, which is far better. That's where we're
at. We're looking for a city. We're
not living where we want to be. We don't, sure enough, want to
build anything. People talk about leaving, you know, some kind
of a, what do they call it? What is it? A legacy in this
world. Let's leave a legacy, you know.
Let's make a name for ourselves. We've got no power to build anything.
We can make all the brick we want to make. And it'll just
be an idol when we're done with it, whatever we build. But thank
God that he's built a city. We're citizens, fellow citizens
with the saints. Is that all right with you? This
is a city not where everybody's making a name for themselves.
We're a bunch of nobodies. We're the ones that followed
David, weren't we? The discouraged and in debt and discontented.
Bunch of nobodies. We're not interested in being
anybody. He gets all the glory. Let's bow in prayer.