The Overthrow of God

Cody Hale

The Big Story • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

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Transcript

Introduction

There is a desire in the heart of every person to return to the Garden. And, ever since God drove us from Paradise, we’ve been working and scheming to figure out how to get back. We go to war, believing that if we can just conquer one more nation, attain a little more wealth, expand our empire a little bit further that we will know the serenity and prosperity of the Garden. We sell out to politics, convinced that if we can just have the right candidates with the right platforms and the right tax plan that we will be secure and unworried about the future. We join country clubs and buy lake houses and go on beach vacations, hoping to find some escape, some respite, some resemblance of the Garden that we’re longing to return to. That is, we try to satisfy the longings of our hearts to be in the Garden by building man-made imitations.

Babylon is a city in the Bible that symbolizes our attempt to rebuild God’s Garden. It’s an attempt at Utopia where people can enjoy the best of earth with the greatest wealth and the greatest of power and the richest of cultures. That is, Babylon is the case study for how profoundly human beings misunderstand their role in the Big Story. Babylon stands as the clear example of both human capacity and human limitations. It is the proof of what we can do and what we can’t. And so, this morning, we find ourselves at the beginning of Babylon’s manmade Garden, and from the beginning of Babylon, God is calling for us to reflect on what our role in his story is supposed to be.

God’s Word

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How We Try to Become the Main Character (headline):

Would would the world look like if the Serpent were in charge? What would the circumstances be and what would the outcomes be if he were the ruler of the earth? And, the answer is shocking. It would exactly as it does with humans running things. The circumstances would be the same. The outcomes would be the same. God describes it by saying that ‘the wickedness of man is great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’ The Serpent had come to Adam and Eve with a plan to overthrow God, and they, along with their descendants, were advancing his agenda, his devious plan, even if they believed it was their own. Our problem today is the same as it has always been: we misunderstand our role in the story. We want to be the main character. We want to be the center of the universe. I want us to look how we try to become the main character (headline) and overthrow God.

We are “self-promoting.”

v. 2 “They found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.” First, you’ll see that we are “self-promoting”. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, we’re reading about the very first one here. It’s important to remember who Genesis was originally written for. It was originally written for the Hebrews as they trekked across the Sinai desert on their way out of Egypt and into the Promised Land of Canaan. And, Moses, through the Spirit of God, is writing so that they can understand why the situation is as it is. They were coming from a land that spoke a different language than them, a place that was beautiful and powerful and diverse. And, they seemed to always be under threat seeing as how they weren’t any of those things, and Genesis, including chapter 11, was given to them so that they could understand why the situation was as it was and why they shouldn’t be worried about it. Chapter 11 describes a place that would’ve been very similar to Egypt and life with the Pharaoh. In the land of Shinar, which was Mesopotamia and Babylon in antiquity and is Iraq today, they learn about how Babylon was founded. It was begun as a conspiracy against God by people who wanted to go a different way. They decide to unite together to build for themselves a new Garden, a new city, and in the midst of this city would be a tower that would stretch into the heavens. That is, they would take the ingenuity that God had bestowed upon them and the creative ability they had from his image, and they would use the gifts of God as the creation of God to rebel against God.

Building Sand Castles

v. 4b “let us make a name for ourselves” We see this first in the two motives that we’re given for them building this new tower. The first motivation that we see is that they want to make a name for themselves. They want to be remembered in posterity. They want to be somebody. They’ve shown up to Hollywood intent on making a mark. And, already we can see how different the manmade garden is from the real thing. It’s the design of God to spread the Name of God, but these people have no interest in that. They want to build a name for themselves. Moses points out something very specific, too. He says that they built their tower out of bricks not stone. You see, at this time, bricks were the height of human ingenuity. It was a brilliant invention. They could take the clay and the sand that they had around them, and they could bake it and build anything without having to quarry rocks and carry them great distances. But, the only trouble is that they don’t last nearly as long. You can still go to Iraq today and see forms of these buildings, and they don’t stand up to erosion. They’re always being rebuilt. But, buildings made of stone are quite different, aren’t they? You see, man makes bricks, and God makes stone. It’s the difference between what man builds and what God builds. They were building sand castles. They have built a monument to themselves that will declare their greatness to the ages, and the rain will wash it away. When we use the “materials” of “earth” to make a name for ourselves, we’re building “sand castles”. When we settle for sports and scholarships and promotions and plaques and heritage and names on buildings as the markers of our identity and the indicators of our significance, we’re selling out for sand. We’re putting our purpose and our hope into that which the rain will wash away. We’re inheriting the conspiracy of Babel and passing it on to the next generation.

Happiness is Not Found in Your Garden

v. 4c “lest we be dispersed over the whole face of the earth” So, positively, the motivation is that they would make a name for themselves, and then negatively we see that they’re motivated to not be dispersed. Now, what’s significant about that? That sounds harmless enough, right? They want to stay together. They’re buddies, and they’ve already figured out where the Walgreens in and where to find coconut oil at the Piggly Wiggly. The problem is that it’s a direct rejection of the command of God. In the Garden, God blessed them, told them to fill the earth, and then to ‘fill the earth.’ That is, to disperse over the earth and spread his glory. After the flood, God, having saved Noah and his family, gives them the very same mandate a second time, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” And yet, here are the residents of Babel shaking their fists at God telling him, “We have a better plan. We have a better idea.” They didn’t just want to replace God in the Story; they wanted to rewrite the story altogether. They wanted a life of their choosing. They wanted to author their own identity. They wanted to assign their own purpose. Their staying together was really an expression of independence from God and individualistic self-reliance. It’s this very same spirit of Babel that we’re battling today. When we choose our “preferences” over God’s plan, we’re “re-writing” His story. The lie of our age is that if I can make decisions based upon my happiness and my wants and my cravings that I can more fully become who I’m meant to be. I can become more satisfied with my life. I can become more at peace with who I am. Yet, we’ve never lived in a time in which licentiousness was more acceptable, where there was greater freedom to indulge your individualistic desires, and at the very same time our suicide rates have went up more than 15 percent over the last 20 years. It doesn’t work. It’s the lie of Babel that you can find happiness by rewriting God’s story and building your own version of the garden. “Self-promotion” leads to “self-deception”. It’s playing mind-games with yourself to convince yourself that you’re somebody that you’re not so that you never end becoming who you were meant to be.

We are “self-preserving”.

v. 4 “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.” But, we don’t just try to make the story about us through self-promotion but also through self-rescue. We aren’t just self-promoting; we are “self-preserving”. Without the context, you may not realize it, but this is a story about manmade religion contrasted with God-centered worship. is using the word ‘tower’ to describe a Babylon Temple. They would construct these temples called Ziggurats. They look very similar to the Egyptian pyramids that you’ve seen, and they would be layer upon layer as high as they could take it. The idea was that the higher that it went, the closer it was to the gods so that they could come down and prosper them. So, they would build them with these steps on the sides of them so that you literally had a stairway into the heavens. The name ‘Babylon’ means literally ‘the gateway of the gods’. And, what we see in Babel is the desire to overcome the divine-human divide, the separation between the heavens and earth by their own effort and engineering. If they can get to where God is, then, and it’s the Babylonian way, they can overthrow him and kill him and supplant him as the cosmic ruler. They always believed that they were entitled to the heavenly throne. It was their right and ability to make their way to God.

Overthrowing God

And, my goodness, we do, too. That is, they believed, like we do, that we’re entitled to full independent decision making with no accountability. That we’re free to define for ourselves what is moral and what isn’t. The “reality” of God requires a “response”. You either submit to him or seek to overthrow him. The reality of God will not allow for indifference. If there is One that has made us and fed us and sustained us, then the reasonable response is to seek him and submit him and make him known that others might understand their place in his story. But, it was the intention of Babel, and it is the reality for most of us that we seek to overthrow him and supplant him as the center of the universe instead. We don’t like the thought that there is One greater than us, One that we answer too. And, what we see in Babel is the same reality we see in our current society; it’s the same journey that all of us have been on one at one time or another, and in one way or another. Do you see how the Babelites responded to God? The Babelites responded to God with a display of their strength. They responded to God by showing him how strong they were, how able they were, how wise they were. They were going to come to him. And, this is how most people respond to God. As we contemplate the reality of the Almighty, it is a strange tendency of humans to respond to God by flexing and strutting and showing our teeth. Sometimes, in our strength, many are tempted to turn toward atheism. But, in fact, this is the problem of atheism. The father of postmodern philosophy was a guy by the name of Fredrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche famously said that “God is dead.” And, while most people imagine him saying it with his fist raised to heaven in defiance, he was actually saying it as a lament. Having been swept in the contemplation of philosophy and modern science, he was lamenting the loss of a moral center to society. He was grieving that civilization would no longer have God to turn to with their most profound questions and significant losses and hardest days. Essentially, he was lamenting that humans were too weak to thrive well apart from God. And, without realizing it, Nietzshe was in fact acknowledging the very reality that the Bible teaches: We were created for “dependence” upon God. His lament was evidence that the Bible is right when it says that we will lose hope apart from God. When we seek to overthrow God and place ourselves at the center of our universe our souls fracture.

Neitchze lamented “God is dead.”

The “reality” of God requires a “response”. You either submit to him or seek to overthrow him. The reality of God will not allow for indifference. If there is One that has made us and fed us and sustained us, then the reasonable response is to seek him and submit him and make him known that others might understand their place in his story. But, it was the intention of Babel, and it is the reality for most of us that we seek to overthrow him and supplant him as the center of the universe instead. We don’t like the thought that there is One greater than us, One that we answer too. And, what we see in Babel is the same reality we see in our current society; it’s the same journey that all of us have been on one at one time or another, and in one way or another. Do you see how the Babelites responded to God? The Babelites responded to God with a display of their strength. They responded to God by showing him how strong they were, how able they were, how wise they were. They were going to come to him. And, this is how most people respond to God. As we contemplate the reality of the Almighty, it is a strange tendency of humans to respond to God by flexing and strutting and showing our teeth. Sometimes, in our strength, many are tempted to turn toward atheism. But, in fact, this is the problem of atheism. The father of postmodern philosophy was a guy by the name of Fredrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche famously said that “God is dead.” And, while most people imagine him saying it with his fist raised to heaven in defiance, he was actually saying it as a lament. Having been swept in the contemplation of philosophy and modern science, he was lamenting the loss of a moral center to society. He was grieving that civilization would no longer have God to turn to with their most profound questions and significant losses and hardest days. Essentially, he was lamenting that humans were too weak to thrive well apart from God. And, without realizing it, Nietzshe was in fact acknowledging the very reality that the Bible teaches: We were created for “dependence” upon God. His lament was evidence that the Bible is right when it says that we will lose hope apart from God. When we seek to overthrow God and place ourselves at the center of our universe our souls fracture.

Overthrowing God with Godliness

Though I am certain there are some here this morning who are working through the skepticism of Nietzsche and the claims of naturalism, my guess is that there are more of you that tend to show your Babel-ite spirit, to flex your muscle in another way. Rather than rationalize your way out of God as atheist, you’re building a Tower of worship in your life with quiet times and missions and church faithfulness and D-groups. You are working your way to God by your own discipline, your own sacrifice, your own piety. But, there is a way that you can have a quiet time which seeks to overthrow God. There’s a way in which you can do missions which seeks to overthrow God. There’s a way in which you can exhibit many of the characteristics and activities that the Bible describes that amounts to you flexing your muscles in the presence of a holy God. Let me ask you: Are you overthrowing God with exercises of godliness? When the doubts come, when your conscience accuses you, when you wrestle with the wretchedness of your own heart, what comforts you? What do you look to? Do you look to all that you’re doing, or do you look to all that Christ has done? Do you look to your godliness or to Christ’s righteousness? Do you look to your discipline or to Jesus’ grace? To respond to God with a display of your strength is like showing a mountain how insurmountable you are or showing an ocean how immense you are or a hurricane how strong you are. It is to declare to God that you are independent of him. You see, “Self-preservation” leads to “self-destruction.”

We are “self-propelled”.

To respond to God with a display of your strength is like showing a mountain how insurmountable you are or showing an ocean how immense you are or a hurricane how strong you are.

v. 5 “And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower.” And, that’s what brings us to where I want to land and see the fullness of the Gospel this morning. We are self-promoting and self-preserving, and, terrifyingly, we are “self-propelling.” Here’s what I mean. Left alone, this is what people do. This is who we are. We are self-seeking, self-entitled, self-rescuing, self-assured, self-righteous people. We are born with the spirit of Adam, seeking to overthrow God. And, we will keep going, keep building, keep flexing unless God intervenes. We are self-propelled, turning more and more inward as we go. But, oh, how gracious is the intervention of God! Now, there’s a lot of irony, even humor, here. Do you see what it says about God’s response to the Babel-ites Tower? It says, “The LORD came down.” So, the built the biggest, baddest, bestest tower they could build. They were going to climb right up to the throne of God and take off his head. And, God responds with, “Yea, right. How about I just come down there and you give it your best shot? I thought you were going to build a high tower? I’ve got to come all the way down there to even see it.” You see, our best works, our strongest efforts, our wisest ideas can’t even get us close to God. The Tower is proof that the “flood” did not work. The fix couldn’t come from the outside in. You can start over mankind as many times as you want with as few distractions as possible, but we’re self-propelled. We’re headed down the wrong path, we’re headed away from God, and we’re patting ourselves on the back the whole way. The change has to come from the inside. Hold that thought!

the flood did not work

Gracious Judgement

v. 8 “So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth.” So, God judged them, and dispersed them. There worst fears were realized. But, here we see something that we don’t expect: God’s “judgment” is “gracious”. God should have wiped out the earth, He could’ve actually let them come before his throne and crush them, but they lived. God could have left them on their own until they destroyed themselves, but by confusing their languages and dispersing them, He capped sin’s capacity. God could have (should have) taken us out of the “story”, but He kept us on “script”. We had to spread to the ends of the earth if we were to accomplish our purpose, and so God sends us when we weren’t going on our own. We’re still in the story. Grace. Grace. Grace.

Pentecost is Babel Reversed

We’re still in the story, and the Kingdom is still coming. The languages are confused and chaos has overtaken the earth. Washing the earth didn’t fix the earth. Killing mankind didn’t fix mankind. How will this end? Is this the end? But then, y’all, there’s . There’s the New Covenant. Stay with me! And, the promise of the New Covenant is that God will change us from the inside out, rather than the outside in. The Law will be fulfilled. Hearts of stone will be replaced with hearts of flesh. And so, you remember how the Babylonians wanted to put God to death and overtake his throne? You see, God would so love every Babylonian that would repent of their sins that He would volunteer to put himself to death. God the Son paid the penalty for sin, by dying willingly on the cross, a penalty so great that a worldwide flood could pay it in full. He came down to us! We’ve tried and tried to ascend to him, but He instead condescended to us. But, He didn’t stay down. The Son ascended to his rightful place at the right hand of the Father. But, that didn’t mean that God was distant again. It didn’t mean that we were left trying to figure out the Law. In , the Spirit of God came down to us to stay with us. And, He washed us clean; He baptized us. He changes who we are from the inside out that we can be reconciled with God forever. And, do you remember the result? That day, at Pentecost, there were people there to hear the gospel that spoke many different languages, bearing the weight Babel’s curse, and the Spirit of God allowed every person to hear the Good News in their own language. Where the Tower was proof that the flood didn’t reverse the curse, Pentecost is the proof that Jesus did “reverse” the “curse”. And now, the Song of Redemption is more beautiful than even the beginning, as many tribes and tongues and languages from all over the earth are being gathered together to sing praise and glory to the God that intervened. Long live the King!

Questions

What does our tendency toward self-promotion say about our nature?

How are we tempted to build our lives upon sand castles? What are some examples of sand castles that we live for?

How have you been tempted to rewrite God’s story? Do you find yourself believing that if you had greater control over your life that you’d be happier and better off? What does that say about your view of God?

What are common responses to God? How have you responded to God in the past? Do you see ways that the Tower of Babel speaks to those responses?

How do you attempt to overthrow God with godliness?

Why would we describe God’s (painful) judgement as gracious? How was God’s intervention at Babel gracious?

How is Pentecost in the proof of Babel’s reversal? How does that display the gospel?

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