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Proverbs 18:10 says this. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they're saved. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that the Lord Jesus Christ is our strong tower, that in his name we are saved. Pray this morning that you would draw us to him to want to run into his shelter. In Jesus name, amen. The First World War. The Great War was a huge disaster really, wasn't it?

A huge surprise. How could such carnage and destruction have arisen in the world? And when it was over, it left people thinking, what can we do about this? You know, how could this possibly have happened? We must ensure this won't happen again.

Of course we thought that good to think that. So the answer came. We'll make the League of Nations, and the League of nations will gather together and they'll prevent another war in this century. We will never have another world war. That will be our protection.

Of course, you don't have to go very far down the road to find the League of Nations. Didn't work, did it? Not many years later, the Second World War came in many ways, overshadowing in our memories the horrors of the First World War.

It broke down. And the reason is that behind war, behind all of these devastations, lies sin and the League of Nations. A good thing. Of course it was. But it didn't deal with the issue of sin, did it?

Couldn't deal with the issue of the human heart. And so it could not be the hope of the world, it could not be the thing that put the end to all wars, because it didn't deal with sin.

Where we are in Genesis is a similar situation in some ways. Chapter 10 follows on from the story of Noah, from the story of the flood. You'll remember as we've travelled through Genesis, that sin has entered the world in chapter three, that it's increased in chapter four. And the world was so bad that God said, we'll send a flood if we just get rid of all the bad people. Will that work?

I mean, sometimes we feel that might be the answer. Might we? If we just get rid of everybody else and just save me goodness. That would help, wouldn't it? Let's get rid of all the bad people, just leave the good ones and the world will be all right.

Well, the flood taught us, no, no, that's not the case because chapter 10 gives us the table of nations. It gives us the descendants of Noah's of children. So Noah's children have more children. And the problem of sin has not been wiped Away from the human heart. It's still there.

And so as we come to the the Tower of Babel, we reach a climax again of the story, a climax of what people do when they put their minds to it. Chapter 12 will introduce Abraham and the individual who will bring the answer to sin, the serpent crusher. But this chapter 11 is the climax, this portion of the scriptures. And so it's very important for us, we're going to find out today, just two things. First, we'll see that there's a corporate idolatry.

And second, we'll see that God judges that corporate idolatry. So let's think about that corporate idolatry first. I want you to look in your bibles at chapter 10 with me and verse 8. We've said already that chapter 10 is the account of Noah's sons and their descendants. And there's one descendant who's very important in this story.

Let me read from verse eight. Cush, who was the eldest son of Ham. Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. That is why it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.

The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Calneh in Shinar. Okay, so we have this fellow Nimrod, one of Noah's grandsons, and he started this big kingdom. And the first places that he built his kingdom, Shinar, the plain of Shinar. Well, we turn back to our passage today, chapter 11. Now, the whole world had one language in common, speech.

As people moved eastward or from the east, they found a plain in Shinar. Oh, we know all about Shinar because we've just read chapter 10. We know that we know the king of that place, don't we? The king of that place is Nimrod. So surely Moses is now going to explain how Nimrod came to build his big city at Shinar and how he ruled it and whatever.

No, he doesn't do anything like that. He just says they said to each other, come, let's make bricks and bakes and etc. Etc. It's quite a surprise actually, isn't it, that we've just read about this guy nimrod in chapter 10. And then we mention the founding of one of those first cities that he was the ruler of.

And Moses neglects to mention it in chapter 11. We know it's his. We've only just read it.

But his name is not mentioned in chapter 11 for a very important Reason.

Because if he was mentioned, then we'd be liable to say, oh, it was Nimrod's fault. He did it. He did it. Instead, we find that everybody was in it together. They spoke as one.

Come, let us make bricks. They say, the people agreed to it. There's no excuse. There's no excuse of saying, well, do you know what? My leader told me to do it.

This is an excuse that goes all the way back to when we're children, isn't it? You must have heard this. You've said this as a child. Why are you jumping on the sofa again? Well, she told me to do it.

Then, of course, as a parent, you say, well, if she told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? Yeah, well, you know, we love to blame other people, don't we? And to excuse ourselves. But none of that. We're not allowed any of that.

They're in this together. The people are in this together building this tower. No excuses, no saying, she made me do it or Nimrod made me do it. It's a corporate idolatry. In this chapter, well, what do they want to do?

Verse 4, they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens. Tower that reaches to the heavens. Literally, its head in the heavens. This is what they want to build. Now, it's possible that this just means a tower in the sky.

You know, the heavens could be the sky or they could be the heavenly realms where God dwells with the angels.

But it would be a bit of a weak point, wouldn't it, just to say, let's build a tower that goes up into the sky. All towers go up into the sky. It's not terribly impressive. What they're really asking for here is that they would have a tower that would have its head where God dwells. That's what they really want.

You know, you remember, they've. The people have been sent from the Garden of Eden out of God's presence. They can't get back into Eden. They're east of Eden.

There's a sword, a flaming sword that guards the way back. But they're thinking, I want to get back. And I'm going to get back by building upwards. We'll come in this together, guys. Let's build a head in the heavens and we'll reach up there.

See, what they're doing is they're crossing God's boundaries. They're crossing boundaries that God has set. We've seen this time and again in these first 11 chapters of Genesis. First of all God said, you can eat from any tree in the garden you remember, but don't eat from the tree that's in the middle. And they said, well, that's not a boundary I'm interested in.

I'm going to eat from a tree in the middle.

Well, another great boundary was broken in chapter six, where the Nephilim, some people called the sons of God, had children with the daughters of. Of women. They weren't supposed to be doing this. They broke God's boundaries. You see, God had made set boundaries.

He made plants and animals. He made day and night. He made men and women. He made all these things in their place, and he made them good. He made work, rest.

But we don't like those boundaries. We've been breaking those as human beings ever since the beginning. Day and night. God, no, I'll invent candles. I can stay up, work and rest.

No, if I work seven days, just think how much more fruitful the ground will be. Or if I don't work at all, think how much fun I'd have, whatever it might be. We've been breaking God's boundaries, and this is no different. They want to make a way back into the Garden of Eden, back into the heavenly realms of God. And that's what they're doing with the tower.

And they say, verse four again, we give us a purpose so that we may make a name for ourselves. So that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole Earth. And wouldn't that be a disaster if we were scattered over the face of the whole Earth? We might accidentally fulfil God's command to fill the earth and subdue it.

Terrible. No, we're going to stay here. We're going to build a name for ourselves. And it's not surprising, actually, that they want to do this, because Ecclesiastes 3 tells us God has set eternity in the hearts of man. Ecclesiastes 3:11.

God has set eternity in the hearts of man. Of course we long to make a name for ourselves. That's what God has made us, to live forever. Of course we have eternity in our hearts, and we long for it. The question here is, how will we go about trying to get it?

And they want to make a name for themselves. They want to live on in their fame, live on in their renown. Isn't that something that we can all resonate with?

This is such a common theme. I don't know if you've ever read Homer's Iliad, one of the first works really in Western literature, and it's such an influential book, and you may know it's about the war in Troy, but it's actually more about Achilles, this fellow called Achilles. And in it he is given a choice. He's given a choice where he can either live a long, quiet life or he can go down in a blaze of glory. Let me read you a portion from it.

He says this. My mother Thetis says that I have two fates that could carry me to the end of death. If I stay here and fight on round the Trojan city, then gone is my homecoming, but my glory will never die. And if I come back to my dear native land, then gone is my great glory. But my life.

But my life will stretch long and the end of death will never overtake me. Quickly, there he goes. Achilles, you have a choice. You can go down in a blaze of glory or have a long, quiet life. What are you going to choose?

It's not a spoiler, I think, to tell you. He chose glory. He chose glory. And it's not a surprise he chose that. It's a theme that resonates, isn't it?

We all want to make glory. We all want a legacy, just like Achilles chose for himself.

The problem is, it doesn't really work, does it? Even if you were Achilles and you got to be in a book that people were still reading 3000 years later, you're still not really living on, are you? It must be cold comfort for him that we can name him here, because he's not really living on, is he? Not really. The glory doesn't work.

There is a name for us. There is a glory that lasts forever, and it's in Christ. You see, actually, Achilles choice here was a false dichotomy. It's not really a choice between live long and quietly or make a glorious name for yourself. There's a secret option number three that's not so secret because it's been declared in the gospel.

Have your name in Christ. Have your name in Christ. Listen to what revelation, chapter 2, verse 16 says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who ever comes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it. You're trying to make a name for yourself.

There's so much of a better name. Christ has a name ready for you. A name that is eternal glory. A name that does involve your eternal life with him. Not just an empty memory in literature, but a real living Eternity with the God who made you.

A return to Eden and better than Eden. This is the name that Christ is ready to give to you. But they want to do it for themselves at the Tower of Babel. They want to build the city of man. They want to do the best by human effort.

And human effort cannot achieve the end they want. Cannot achieve the end they want. The hope of the world cannot be in human effort. It will not work.

They want to build a city for themselves, but Christ is building a city for us again. Revelation 21. Remember the. The city of God comes out of heaven, doesn't it, to earth. The city is there.

God does want us to have these things. He wants us to have a name, he wants us to have a city. He wants us to live in glory, but with him, not from ourselves.

Well, this is what they want and this is how they're going about it. The second thing is how God responds to this. Verse 5. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. Humour of the Bible, right here.

God coming down to see the city. That mighty head in the heavens you've got. It's almost as if he had to say, whereabouts is it? He didn't, because he knows everything. But you know, it's almost that sense, you know, God having to say, where is that?

Oh, I see, you know. Yes, very big, Very good, very good. He comes down to see the city of man and all the works of human hands.

They're trusting in this, but God sees it. I imagine if. I think Noah was probably still alive at this point. We don't know exactly the time frames of everything. Seems likely that Noah would still have been around.

And I just, just wonder what he might have said in this situation, what conversations might have been going on, you know, Noah's grandson, Nimrod, leading this city. And Noah saying, oh, I don't know, is this the best idea? I don't know. I don't know. If he says that, of course I'm making that up.

But if he said no, is this the best idea? Maybe they would say to him, look, Noah, God could have stopped us ages ago. He's obviously not looking, is he? Look at all this. Time has passed.

We're building our towers, we've made our bricks. We're getting along quite well actually, aren't we? God doesn't see. Well, God does see. God does see.

He comes down to look. He sees the works of man. Don't be fooled by God's patience in judgement. You know, they might have said God could have stopped us. He hasn't.

Let's crack on. God is being patient in judgement here, isn't he? How we can be fooled, just like they were. God understands what they're doing. He doesn't just see what they're doing.

He understands the heart behind it, doesn't he? He sees that they're trying to get eternity from their own works and he gives them this gracious judgement, this gracious judgement of scattering languages. Now, if you've taken gcse, French, you probably don't think this is a gracious judgement. I definitely didn't think this was a gracious judgement when I got E for French, which I chose to see as excellent. E for excellent French, gcse.

And, oh, the Tower of Babel, Hyde lurks in the background of my school days. Maybe that is something like that for you. But it is a gracious judgement. Because what they deserved, what they deserved for turning away from God like this was death. Way back in the Garden of Eden, God had said to them, on the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

And death has been hanging over them, deservedly, that whole time. God is being so patient with them. And so he scatters the languages. And by scattering the languages, he shows them that you can't just gang together and reverse the problems of the fall. The human race can't unite itself.

Doesn't mean we don't try. But the answer isn't in human effort to reverse the fall. The fool can only be reversed by the serpent crusher who's been promised in chapter three.

So this is a gracious judgement that teaches people, actually, your hope cannot be in yourself. It drives people to say, my hope has to be in God, because every time we try, it falls apart.

So verse 8. They get the name. They get the name they've been longing for. So the Lord scattered them over the earth. They stopped building the city.

Verse 9. That's why it was called Babel, or in Hebrew. That's why its name was called Babel. So they get the name that they've been wanting all along. We'll make a name for ourselves.

God says, okay, you can have a name for yourself. Here's your name confusion. Don't think that's what they had in mind, is it? It's not what they wanted, you know. That's not the reputation they wanted, is it?

That's not the name. But they got the name. They got the name. They were intending something different. In Babylon, the phrase would have been Bab Eli, which means the Gate of God.

That's what they were intending, Babili. They wanted the gate of God. This city is the gate of God. You know, we are the way to heaven. We're Babylon.

But actually another piece of humour in this. They say, well, it's not Babili, it's Babel, which sounds a bit like Balal, which in Hebrew means confusion. So God's doing a little play on words, saying, you've got the. You've got the name you've been looking for all along. It's just not what you wanted.

We should say before we leave this, that this does not mean that God is against unity. God isn't annoyed that the people are together. He's not annoyed that there's work for peace. He's not annoyed that there's building going on. That's not the problem here.

The issue being dealt with here is that we cannot reverse the fall by human effort. We cannot make a way back into Eden by human effort. The struggles, the sickness, the violence that entered the world then, is a fact of life without Christ. We cannot fix that by human effort as much as we want. We're desperate to see.

God brings unity, doesn't he? In Ephesians 3, he talks about all the nations receiving their name from the Father, from God. And actually the Tower of Babel is reversed, isn't it? In Acts chapter two, at Pentecost, the opposite of Babel happens. The Holy Spirit comes and what's the first thing he does?

Comes down and allows people to speak together. Because now they're doing it in Christ, you know, In Christ, yes, we want unity in Christ. Yes, we want to be able to communicate without confusion. We're going to have peace. It's going to be a beautiful, wonderful thing, as that picture in Acts 2 gives us.

But not without Christ. Not without Christ. God does want our unity brings togetherness in the head. Who is Christ? They had the head of their tower in the heavens.

We have the actual head in the heavens, you know, the anchor of our soul behind the curtain, as Hebrews puts it.

So this leads us with these questions. Genesis 11 leads us really with questions. And the question is, let's think to ourselves, is our hope in man is our hope in human effort?

I think this came home probably to many of us in 2020 with COVID it kind of came, didn't it? And it was a surprise. It was a surprise that we couldn't just fix it. I noticed a sense of surprise. Maybe you did.

I felt like as a world, we were thinking, oh, goodness, I thought we would be able to just sort this out, wouldn't we? You'd think that we could just put a bit of effort in and sort it out. Instead, it surprised us. Were you surprised by Covid?

Because I think that shows us that actually our hope, our hope often is in the works of man, isn't it? What's the answer? Oh, well, let's. Let's hope that we could just make a vaccine and it will all be fine. But it showed us, actually, didn't it?

Show us as a world our strongest tower, our best works were not enough, were they?

Our only tower, our only hope is in God.

Christ is our refuge. He is our serpent crusher. Will be introduced more detail to the plan of Christ in chapter 12 and following. But for now we're to see that the city of man, the human works, cannot answer the problem of sin, cannot bring us back to God. There is a tower.

There is a name for us. It's in Christ Jesus. Let me read that Proverbs 18:10 one more time. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they're saved.

Let's pray.

Father God, we are sorry. When we trust in human effort to fix the problems in our world.

We pray, Lord, that Christ our strong tower, our head who is in heaven, the one who gives us a glorious name, would be the hope of our hearts, Lord, that we would proclaim him as the hope of the world. That as a church here today, we would make Christ known as a strong tower in whom is salvation in Jesus name and for his glory. Amen.