I want you to turn to Genesis the 11th chapter, verses 1 through 9, and we are going to develop this theme throughout this sermon. But in Genesis 11 we find a very significant stage in the development of what God calls "Babylon." It says,
God felt so strongly about this brief nine page reporting of something that was occurring there that He directly, along with His Son, intervened to slow down its development. Now I say slow down because it is very evident from the book of Revelation and other places in the Bible as well, that He did not stop it entirely, but He did slow it down so that now we see in the 20th century that elements of it have continued to develop over the years regardless of what God did at that time.
But it was a serious thing to Him. A serious enough thing that He not only slowed it down, He scattered them. That gives you some indication. Here we are scattered, and when God scatters, it is a pretty good indication that He is highly displeased and there are some very serious sins involved as well. Now it says here that their reason for doing this was to make a name for themselves and not be spread abroad. They wanted to remain unified, they wanted to stay where they were.
As we heard yesterday from Harold [Way's] sermon that God does not destroy things that are good, but He is going to destroy Babylon. And here He intervened strongly enough to stop what they were doing for a goodly period of time, but it continued to develop. So we are looking at something here that is beginning to show all the elements of something that would be disastrous to God's purpose if it is allowed to continue.
Now, a name indicates distinctiveness and it can also indicate preeminence. Each and every one of you for the most part have different names. I do not know how many men I have run into here who have the name John. But our last names are different and we are distinctive from one another because there is a name that is different. And so our mail does not get the least mixed up because there is a distinctiveness here. So these people wanted a name, they wanted to be distinctive from something else.
This project was done in rebellion because they knew that they were supposed to scatter abroad. Their cry was, "Lest we be scattered abroad." They did not want to be scattered abroad. They wanted to unify because they were, by and large, of common minds and they did not want to get separated because many people make for strength.
We know the story of course, that Nimrod was really at the base, or the foundation or the head, however you want to look at this, and he was a mighty hunter against the Lord. He rallied the people around him because apparently there were certain dangers, physical dangers, involved in being scattered abroad. At least the story goes that he was going to protect them from the wild animals that were out there and that was part of his way of selling the idea, the concept. But this concentration of people, of a heavy population, he was going to use to be a despot against them and he would use them, really, as his means of increasing his power. So we can see that this project was done in rebellion because they knew that they were to spread abroad and fill the earth.
Now, there is more here than meets the eye at first glance because contained here is the lurking desire for empire and self-aggrandizement in the design of the leaders for themselves and slavery for the unnumbered people who are being used at this point. Now, these people had one purpose and they understood each other's minds. This was a major step in the building of something that could quickly become an incredibly evil system. And that is why God stepped in while it was yet small in order to forestall what we are seeing taking place in our day.
Here in Genesis 11:9, they were concentrating ambition and power by which they could bring about, even by God's admission, whatever they could think. We can really let our minds run on that … . . .
From this we are going to branch off into two characteristics, two applications of that. The first one we have already gone into it a bit: In works they will deny Him. Because they do not believe Him, they will be disobedient. The second of those two is shown to us in Genesis 11. Before we even get out of the first eleven chapters where God is laying foundations, we find the second characteristic that grows out of the major one, and that major one is that they simply do not believe.
Here is a microcosm of how the world, as it was established by men in opposition to God, came to be the way it is. This chapter is inserted so that we will understand clearly that the world is in confusion. Not only is it disobedient, but to add calamity to things, it is also in confusion. When disbelief enters, disobedience and confusion are the fruits.
The world is in disbelief of God, and therefore it is in confusion. Here are two characteristics by which we can judge the questions posed at the beginning of this sermon. Let us briefly apply these two principles to those churches claiming to be Christian, but which we understand as being churches of this world: (1) Do they obey God? (2) Are they in confusion?
Turn to Genesis once again. The solution they have come up with is one that is as old as the hills, we might say. It is as old as just a few hundred years after the Flood when Nimrod began to do much the same thing. His excuse was because there were wild animals out there. The Bible uses wild animals as a symbol for wild men. There are people who are beasts. There is one who is coming who is going to be The Beast.
So they decided to gather everybody together under one government. And so we find,
