 Tonight I'll be teaching out of Genesis chapter 11. If you guys open your Bibles, go to Genesis chapter 11. I'll be looking at verses 1 through 9. The message tonight, I've entitled the message towers that crumble. Towers that crumble. This is one of the passages, portions in Scripture that you find in children's books, and I don't think they do justice sometimes. Obviously, they don't want to be too descriptive, but we're going to get the raw deal here tonight. Genesis chapter 11. Let's read. Now the whole earth had one language and one speech, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plane in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, Indeed, the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now, nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they seized building the city. Therefore, its name is called Babel because the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. You know, we live in a world of selfies, overnight YouTube sensations, reality television, television competitions that lead to millions of dollars and signing contracts. Making a name for ourselves seems to be normal, right? It seems to be the norm. Everybody's doing it. Well, self-promotion in the entertainment industry is a big deal. Self-promotion in a variety of ways, especially when it comes to social media, there's what we call personal branding. Personal branding is a huge, huge thing in the social media world. It's the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Now, the actual term and the definition of that is, that is this is basically the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about you. It's all about you, right? Why? Why is this happening? Here's the reason why. It's because people want to be remembered. In fact, I was listening to the news at one time, and in the Dallas Daily News, there was this 26-year-old stewardess that lost her job for posing nude in Playboy. Now, the tragedy wasn't that she lost her job. It was the reason why she posed in that magazine. You see, she had issues with her lungs and she was going in for a procedure that they told her that it was not gonna come out well. And so her reason for doing what she did was so that the whole world will remember her. You know, it's isn't it interesting how people do things like this just to be remembered. There's something about walking across the stage of life only once, knowing that you will never walk through that stage again because we all have one shot to live this life, don't we? And there are people out there that do some crazy things that try to stamp their name in this world because they know that they're only living once. It's kind of like that YOLO, correct? YOLO? You only live once. That was a big deal probably a few years ago among a lot of young people, right? You see the hashtag YOLO, right? It's not as big anymore. It was big when it came out. But people still have that understanding that you only live once, so why not do it? And this becomes this self-promotion and self-exaltation and the world is filled with people who desperately wish to be remembered. And the interesting thing is that all of us in here are inclined to build a monument about ourselves so that we can be remembered as well. Well, the story that we're gonna be looking at tonight, this story is all about self-promotion. That's what this is all about. And not only that, but there are two attitudes that we're gonna be looking at in here that God hates pride and rebellion. Two attitudes that are clearly speaking in this story in these first nine verses really that we see these men that were doing something interesting here. It's gonna be a fight between man versus God that man goes against God. But guess what, man loses because God wins. But listen, God always wins. Nobody can ever, ever go against God, right? I mean, Jonah lost, right? God won. And so if you're here today and you're not a Christian and you've been playing the game or you're just kind of saying, I'm just gonna live the way I want to, whatever, you know, I'm gonna outsmart God. Listen, you are going to lose at the end of the day. God's gonna win. And that is a case in here in this story that God here noticed what was going on and God just basically threw a wrench in their plans that you're gonna see here in a moment. It's interesting that as we get into this study here in chapter 11, the flood in Genesis, you would think that, but it didn't, did not detour man's sinfulness for long. You remember back in Genesis chapter six, verse five, God said there, and I paraphrase, that the heart of man was wicked continuously. It was just one of those things that man became so corrupt that God from heaven said, you know what, I need to wipe them out. You know, you wonder how bad it was in the days of Noah for God to judge mankind during that time. Because if you look at our world today, right, you think, man, our world's very wicked right now. Our world is spewing out wickedness and you're like, where is God? How come God is not saying, okay, it's time now for me to, you know, he's not doing that. Now, I'm glad he's not because I have unsaved family members and friends that don't know Jesus. And perhaps you're not a Christian here tonight. Listen, you're in a period of grace, so you don't want God to do that. But it's interesting because in the book of Genesis chapter six, God said man's heart was inclined to wickedness. It was a daily thing. This was kind of like their character. So God says, I need to judge them for that. And you know what happened to flood, right? It rained and it never rained before and it just rained, came down and it came down raining for many, many days. And then it was flooded. The world flooded. It was a global flood. It wasn't just a localized flood. It was a global flood because some people will say skeptics will say, well, your God in the Old Testament says that he would never flood the earth again. Well, why is there floods today? We look at Houston, unfortunately, today. Well, God never said that he wasn't going to allow localized flooding. He says globally. And every time you see that rainbow, that reminds you and me of the promise that God made that he will never, ever flood the earth globally. And so the flood, which was judgment upon mankind, didn't do much to mankind as you're going to see here in this story. Fresh out of the boat and these men begin to build something against God. Let's look at this here. Lowness, verse one, the whole earth had one language and one speech. This indicates that not only was the language the same, but no dialects had developed. And just to kind of give you a quick history about what went on here, as I was mentioning earlier, after the flood in Genesis chapter six, Genesis chapter seven and eight, no one in his family came out of the ark. They came out of the ark as a family and they came out of the, they were up in the mountains of Ararat. That's where the ark rested. And they came out of this ark to start a new life in a strange world. Could you imagine if you were that family, that God said, okay, you are the designated family now to populate the rest of the world. Nobody's around here now, just you guys. That would be kind of weird, wouldn't it be? I mean, as a dad, as a mom, you're coming out with your kids, you're like, hello, hello, hello? Where is everybody at? Where are the ones? And so that was their job and so that happened and they're coming out there and as you get into chapter 10 of Genesis, they call that the table of nations, the establishment of all the nations, right? And we see there that we're introduced to a man by the name of Nimrod. Anybody here by the name of Nimrod? Okay, Nimrod is like one of those names like Jezebel. You don't name your kids Jezebel, Nimrod, Judas, right? You don't name your kids that. Now, if anybody's on social media by the name of Nimrod, they're Nimrods. I like that, that sounded pretty cool, right? Don't be a Nimrod. But you're not gonna find those names in today's world and maybe for people joking around, but Nimrod was introduced to us in Genesis chapter 10 and this guy is very significant because God gives him some time in that chapter and he describes him in chapter 10 verses eight through 11, he describes him as this aggressive kind of wild man. A man who was a builder and not only that, but he was against God. And so it appears, as most scholars believe in Genesis chapter 11, that what happened in these first nine verses of chapter 11 was initiated by Nimrod because it has the tower of Babel, the name Babel as you see in chapter 10. And so he became this dominant figure in chapter 10 and the dominant theme in the tower of Babel story is that these settlers wanted to make a name for themselves, but in line with their rebellious leader, Nimrod, they're doing it in defiance of God. So up to this point, there was a time when humanity spoke one language instead of many, like there are on earth today. And this is where we pick up. The whole earth had one language, one speech and notice in verse two, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plane in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there. The word journeyed literally means to pull up stakes. They were moving along. It was like urban life here was not something favorable in light of the book of Genesis because as you see, even way back Cain, Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch. God had said that he should live as a bag of on a wanderer and he didn't care for that, so he went against God. And then Nimrod and the descendants of Ham came out of Noah seemed to be empire builders and that's what we get here. And so as an aggressive leader, he was most likely the one pushing for this. And here in Shinar, he begins to build this tower in this city called Babel. Now, why is this a big deal? I mean, you may look at this story and you're like, okay, Robert, this is cool and all, but why would God get mad at these guys building a tower? Why would God be against building a city? I think that's kind of cool. No, there's a problem with that. And we have to go back to Genesis and I want you guys to go there with me. Genesis chapter nine, verse one, here is the problem. This is where God said, uh-uh, you're not doing this. Notice in verse one of chapter nine of Genesis, it says, so God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and what? Fill the earth, not congregate in one city. It's interesting that you see these guys here as they're doing this here and God reiterates himself in Genesis chapter nine, verse seven again, that man was to go forth throughout all the earth and this was the expressed will of God. That's what we have a problem here. So what they decided to do is to team up and begin to build this tower and this city and they went to a place called Shinar. Now this term was used also of Babylon. Now, where's Babylon today? It's modern day Iraq. And so we see that they're heading in that direction. They stopped there and they're settling in this valley of Shinar. This was an act of disobedience, an act of disobedience. Babel was Nimrod's project. And so we come to this place here in chapter 11, verse two, that they came to pass when they journeyed from the Easts that they found this plane in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there. Now the plane where they were most likely was between the rivers of Tigris River and the Euphrates River, so it was in that region. We really don't know, but notice what happens. Here's where man moves forward with a plan and in verse three he says, then they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly that they had the bricks for stone and they had asphalt for mortar. They said to one another, did you see something there? Where is, and they sought the Lord and they looked up to the heavens and said, Lord, do you want us to? Notice it says they said to one another, listen, it's very scary when you begin to kind of plan your own schemes apart from God. When you as a Christian begin to kind of discuss something that you wanna do that is big without including God in your life, without including God and saying, God, is this what you want me to do? It is very, very hard for me as a Christian to move forward or to jump into new things without inquiring of the Lord, without saying Lord, is this what you wanna do? I mean, we all can, I'm sure we all have done that before and I'm sure you could probably testify that it probably wasn't a good thing, but when we bring our plans to God, God honors them and God knows whether they should go forward or not and God knows better than we know, right? And so these guys said to one another, it's like, hey guys, so what do you guys wanna do? Well, let's do this, let's go check it out. Where's God in the equation here? Where's, you guys are not praying about this, but notice what happens. They said to one another, they didn't see God's guidance and they said basically, come, let us make bricks. And he says, and bake them thoroughly. As they come together as a team, this illustrates the hunger of humanity to huddle together for companionship. There's that hunger for companionship. And they were basically not ready to successfully live in cities. That was not God's plan for them. The Lord did not say to them in Genesis chapter nine, verse one, I want you to go throughout the land, throughout the earth and build cities and congregate in the cities. He says, just go and spread out. They were not ready to live in cities, but they wanted to do their own thing apart from God. You know, three times the phrase, let us is seen in this chapter nine verses. Let us, let us, let us. And so this is showing them that they're basically self-centered. They're all about themselves and they wanna make bricks. This shows their engineering capabilities. This is kinda cool. These guys were smart. These guys were pretty good engineers. And using big bricks and asphalt from order made this tower strong and waterproof. Now that's interesting. And I'll tell you why it's interesting. Noah used the same material in waterproofing the Ark. If you go down in Exodus, we see that Moses' mom used the same material to waterproof that little basket. Remember that little basket where he was put in as he was going down that river? So water wouldn't get in it. Why is this an interesting thing here? The reason why this is interesting is because God made a promise that he would never flood the earth. Remember that? Well, these guys did not believe in the promises of God. They were waterproofing their tower because they're thinking, we're gonna get rain. We're gonna get flooded. Let's prepare for it. I find that very interesting how wicked these guys are as they're doing these things. And we see that God made that promise. They rejected that promise. And what this also shows, guys, it shows that God did not create man as a dummy. In spite of their wickedness here, we see that God did not create man to be this ignorant, savage, cave-dweller, grunting kind of person like the National Geographic portrays man to be. You know what I'm saying? The world portrays mankind as this animal grunting, right? God did not create us that way. So if you have those magazines, throw them away because it doesn't speak the truth. That's what evolution has to do to make their millions and millions of years applicable. But man was created as an intelligent being and also God gave man these talents, these God-giving talents to use. You know, I did this research and I was looking at, okay, who have been the best engineers of all time? And I Googled it, right? Because we all do that, right? So we Google it, best engineer of all time. And this man came up by the name of Fazlur Rahman Khan, 1929, he was born, died in 1982. He's been given the title of the father of the modern skyscraper. The father of the modern skyscraper. And the cool thing about this, with his design is he came up with this tube-like design that has been used in the structures that we know today as these huge skyscrapers because what it does is this tube kind of design in making these, building these huge skyscrapers is that it keeps it stable and very solid. And so he's been given that title, that name, because he's been one of the all-time greatest engineers. That, my friend, is a God-given talent. Evolution did not create that. God made us very smart. Listen, all of you in here are smart. Every one of you, every person in here has a God-given talent. You have your spiritual gifts, but then you also have some God-given talents, some natural talents that God has given you. And so these guys, especially when you look at these engineers of our time, they were given this God-given talent to create these things. And so the guys here in chapter 11 had this God-given talent to build this tower. It was incredible. I mean, could you imagine looking at Adam, remember God gave Adam the ability to name all the animals? All your elephants, hippopotamuses and lions, he came up with those names. I mean, what a brain, right? What a mind that God gave Adam to do that. And then to manage the garden. He was the first manager in history. He was a very first manager and he had this massive garden and he blew it. He blew it. We see here that this is something that these guys were doing and they had this incredible God-given talent. These guys were amazing engineers. They were able to build this tower. Today we have materials to do things like this. These guys use brick and asphalt. I mean, I have a hard time building Legos with my son. And yet to think about me being a person who can build something like that is overwhelming to me. And so people at Shinar here are great builders. But their problem was that they are not interested in God at all. They are interested in exalting themselves and protecting themselves. That's what they're interested in. This tower is a symbol or a means for them to assert their greatness and who they are. There's one person in quote and I quote them and he said this, wherever God is disposed, hold on, wherever God is disposed, this is wrong, hold on. I'm gonna skip that quote. Do you have it up there? Deposed, I don't think that's right. Is that right? Deposed, that's not a word, right? It's disposed, right? Okay, you read it. I'm kind of lost here. Let's go to the next slide. This is what I'm trying to get. This is what happens when I forget to read some of these words. There is no replacement of God at all. You can't replace God. You know, I think a lot of you guys probably, before you became a Christian, try to replace God with relationships, with money, drugs, whatever. But it didn't work, right? And so these guys think that they can replace God and team up by themselves to build this tower and you're gonna see here that it's not gonna work. If God is not the center, then you will have no center. You will have no center. And this is demonstrated when Adam and Eve were driven from the garden. God was the center and when they were driven, they had no center. You know, when you see Noah, Noah accepted God when he built the ark. He accepted God. Basically, God was the center of his world and he survived. And not only that, but it wasn't the work of Noah's hands in building the ark that kept Noah afloat in the flood. It was God who gave him that ark. And so we see here that these guys were replacing God. We're doing their own thing. And so verse four reveals their motives. Notice, verse four, they said, again, come, let us build ourselves a city, a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. They were afraid. They were afraid to be scattered because they knew the commandment of God. They're saying, let's make a better world. Let's just make a better world. It sounded very attractive, but there was one major problem. God was not in the equation. When man can do it by himself, he doesn't need a savior. When somebody says, I can do this on my own, they're saying, I don't need a savior. This is air against and open rebellion against God. And that's exactly what's happening here. They wanted the good life, but on their own terms and in their own way without submitting to God. This pretty much describes the unsaved person because the unsaved person doesn't want God. They don't want God to rule over them. They don't want to submit to God. And so they're going to do it their way. They're going to live their lives the way they want to live their lives. To this day, mankind still has the desire to make much of themselves instead of honoring God. That happens today. So this is like a long time ago, chapter 11. And as we fast forward to our time, you see that there's nothing new under the sun. Listen, if social media was going on in chapter 11 of Genesis, it would have been used as well, but they're using something different. And so the devil uses the same old tricks over and over. He doesn't, he's not creative. He just knows how to package it differently. You know what I'm saying? And so this is what we see here. And notice what are they doing? Notice that they want to build to the top, top in the heavens. Now this is very interesting. Now this is not heaven where God dwells. This is the atmosphere. And what we see here that some commentators believe that this had religious significance. It had a religious significance. The tower was an observation point of the heavens. Now archeologists have uncovered in this region a number of ziggurats, not cigarettes, ziggurats. And these are religious towers made of dried brick and mortar. These may be molded after the origin of this tower of Babel. And what we know is that astrology originated in Babylon. So this tower may have been designed so that the top contained a representation of the heavens, the signs of the zodiac on it. You know, it's interesting that planets and stars were believed to be moved and influenced by spirits and therefore were believed to control heavenly destiny. And so this here is perhaps what went on, why they wanted to build this tower. They wanted to have a form of worship. And as they went up to the heavens in the atmosphere, it was more of a religious building intended to expose this heavens and to be basically almost like their own God. And so this here would be considered what I would call godless religion. It was a godless religion. What is that? Well, godless religion is based on three things. One, it is based on the works of man, human works. And it is based on empowered by rebellion. I'm sure that's what they do. Godless religion is empowered by rebellion and it leaves people hopeless. So it's based on three things, empowered by rebellion, based on human works and at least people hopeless. That's a godless religion. And that's what we see here. We see that these guys are making a name for themselves. It was godless and nothing to do with God at all. And so he says in verse four here, he says, we're gonna make this tower and make a name for ourselves. They were afraid of being scattered. From that day on, this has been the motto of humanity. Let's make a name for ourselves. Like I said, it still happens to this day. It reveals one of the basic philosophies of humanism. What is that? It is this, glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things. That's humanism. That is the central thought of humanism, glory to mankind. And we see this, this is happening here. One of my commentators said this, or commentaries said this and I wanna quote, the fact that this was a religious tower and yet built to make a name for man reveals the master motive behind religion. It is a means by which man attempts to share the glory of God. End quote. So this is basically what was happening here. And you know what else is fascinating from this story right here, early on in the creation of mankind is that this was the beginning of the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of antichrist. It's interesting because the spirit of antichrist is an attitude that opposes God, making a name for themselves, establishing their own will and defiance of God. Let me give you a scripture verse, 2 Thessalonians chapter two, verse four, the actual antichrist. Listen to what he says. It says about him, he says who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he sits as God, the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. A lot of people think they're gods today, right? That they're divine in some way. They have supernatural powers. And so the spirit of antichrist was already happening way back in Genesis chapter 11 and it will ultimately come to its final destination embodied in one man that we call the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition or AKA the antichrists, who is going to be so against God, who's gonna oppose God, who's gonna kill God's people and then claim himself to be God. He's gonna make a name for himself. And if you remember in Revelation chapter 13, he has a sidekick, the false prophet, right? This religious leader who erects an image, right? So here he's making a name for himself. And so he's helping the antichrist basically self promote. So we see this happening way back in Genesis chapter 11. It was nothing new as what we're gonna see in our day and age. And as I believe we're gonna be raptured before all that stuff happens. But we see here that even in the beginning, Satan through his false promise of man that he would be God was attempting to fulfill it through the tower of Babel and it didn't work. Because you remember what he said to Eve, right? If you eat of this fruit, you will be like, what? My God, you will know good and evil. But I mean, and she's like, oh, this is cool. Let me try that. And then she got judged for that. So we see here that they're making a name for themselves. And notice in verses five through nine, we see here that the Lord throws a wrench in their plans. Verse five, he says this, but the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. When it says that he came down to see it, in other words, God is investigating what's going on. He's investigating. And what you see here, when it says that the Lord came down to see, when I read that verse, I'm thinking, you know what? You can't hide what you're doing from God. You can't. There are people today that try to hide from God. You can't do it. You can close the door in your room and do your thing, but you can't hide from God. God, I mean, everyone is exposed, it says. The Bible makes it clear in Hebrews 4.13. Listen to this. There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. We must give account. Now, people may get away with things, but they're gonna have to give account. So people today that do things that are evil and get away with it and accomplish their evil deed, they're not gonna get away with it. You know, in Barcelona, what happened there? You know, what's interesting is that, and you probably already know about this, the bomb that blew up at this house, that blew up the Imam, the mastermind behind these kids, that he brainwashed them and all of that. Well, you know, he was killed with this bomb that blew up, that just exploded in his house. And what they're finding out is, is that they had all these explosives and they were putting together something bigger to do. In other words, they were probably going to set up, set bombs throughout Barcelona, throughout different places, to blow up people in different spots. And guess what, it backfired them and they blew up themselves, at least the Imam and some other kid, I believe it was. And so, out of desperation, these young guys took this van and just decided to just go and plow through people. It's sad what happened there, but could you imagine if they were able to accomplish what they were doing behind the scenes? Could have been worse. I mean, it was bad enough, but you see, no one can hide from God and no one will get away with things like that. Those kids, unfortunately, are being judged. If they never came to Christ, those kids are being judged by God. You won't get away with it. And so, these guys in chapter 11, it says that the Lord came down to see, to investigate. It wasn't that God was like, oh, wait a minute, what's going on over there? It was, wait a minute, no, it wasn't like that. This is a term that is used, it's a human characteristic given of God for us to relate to what was going on. God already saw it. He already saw it. But this term is given to us so that we understand that God says, you know what, nothing can be hidden from me. And so, he comes down, as it says again, this human characteristic of God. You know, we see the same human characteristics given to God in the Garden of Eden when it says that the Lord was walking. Remember that? Well that's where Mormons get their theology. They got evolved into a man. In other words, God came and he was a man and then he evolved into deity. And so, they used Genesis chapter one as their claim that, see, God was a man. No, it's a human characteristic given to us for us as we read so we understand that God was coming to Adam. He was gonna, he caught him, he found him, basically is what it's saying. And so, here we see that the Lord comes down to see. Just don't forget that, that you cannot hide from him. You cannot hide what you do behind closed doors. You know, remember Hagar? You know, Hagar was mistreated by Sarah. She was basically pushed out into the wilderness with her son bummed out, right? And the Lord heard her cry. And this is what she said. She says, then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her and she says, you are the God who sees. You are the God who sees. God sees it all. And God sees those that are suffering right now in Houston. God sees it. And God sees what's happening here. But what's happening here is not good. And he's going to stop it right here. The completion of this city would in no way threaten obviously the rule of God because he's sovereign. But obviously it is violating the command of God to disperse and feel the earth. That's what did not sit well with God. It was that they were totally rebelling against his command. So notice in verse six, God comes to the conclusion he admits something interesting about man. He says, indeed the people are one and they have one language and this is what they begin to do now. He says now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. What does he mean by that? What he means is that man can do anything they set their minds to do. In other words, he's looking at them and he's saying, okay, so from now on it's obviously that they're able to do this. So if I allow this to happen and say, oh well, well, I'll just let it go this time then what they're gonna do next is gonna be worse because if they can set their minds to build a tower against God then what are they gonna do next, right? So if they can do that here, God is saying then anything they propose to do will not be impossible for them. So therefore I'm gonna stop it. They have to be stopped right here. And I was thinking about this and I was looking at this and I'm like, you know what, this is interesting. This was all about self-promoting themselves. It was all about their goals, their dreams. It was all about them, them, them. And I'm thinking Christianity is not about self-promotion. It is not. We have today, unfortunately today, we have celebrities within the church, right? Christian celebrities, right? They're celebrity pastors today. Listen, Christianity is not about self-promotion at all. And we have to be very careful when we see things like this because God is not like Aladdin's genie to help us reach our goals, our dreams. We have to submit to God's will first. It's not telling God, Lord, this is what I wanna do. So therefore make it happen, right? You know, when Saul got saved who became Paul the apostle in Acts chapter nine, the first thing that he said, Lord is this, you know, is it you Lord and all of that? But then Paul said something very, very awesome and I repeat this a lot in my prayers. I copy him. He said this to God. He says, Lord, what do you want me to do? He didn't say, Lord, this is what I want to do. So how are you gonna accomplish it? Paul said, Lord, how are you, or what do you want me to do? That is where I look at it as far as Christianity. That's what Christianity is all about. It's about what does God wanna do? What does he wanna do in my life? Yeah, we have goals and we have talents and whatnot, but ultimately at the end of the day, we have to know what do you wanna do, Lord? And this is what these guys are not doing. They're not saying, this is what we wanna do, Lord, do you approve? It was more like, this is what we're gonna do. And so we see very clearly here that it's not about me, Christianity. It's not about anyone else, but it's about Christ. It's about him. And John was right when he said in John chapter three, verse 30, he says that he must increase. I must decrease. That's what John said. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. They're like, John, there's people coming to Jesus and this and that, he says, no, no, no, no, you guys get it wrong here. This is not about who's better than the other. I must decrease. I want Jesus to increase. If we can get that down, then you won't have any problems with self promotion because you're always gonna put Christ first. As Jesus said, if you lift me up, I will draw him into myself. So it's promoting Christ, it's promoting him. It's making his name great. You know what's interesting is that after this chapter, chapter 11, if you go in chapter 12, God, since he judged these guys, then God chose Abraham to represent him. You know what God said to Abraham? He said this, Abraham, I'm gonna make your name great. I'm gonna make your great nation. You see, who was doing the promotion there? It was God. It wasn't Abraham. If anything is gonna happen when it comes to self promotion, let him do it, not yourself. So I find that very interesting that it was God who says, hey, I just took care of these babbles, these Nimrods, right? So Abraham, I'm gonna make your name great because I'm gonna do it the right way. That's awesome, I want that, right? So here they are and God says, let us come down. In other words, we have to go there and do something about it. Now you're wondering like, wait a minute, let us come down. Who's he talking to? Well, here's a subtle reference to the Trinity. Now you see that in Genesis chapter one, it says, let us make man in our image. And so here's we see God the Father, God the Son, as they're in relationship, even before Jesus came to this earth. And so we see this communication here and he says, we're coming down. And I like this because God's come, let us, counters, mans, come, let us. And so we see that in verses three and four, God now counters with come, let us go down. And what is he gonna do? Let us confuse their language. Don't tell me God does not have a sense of humor. Seriously. We're all speaking English here. Imagine if God said, everyone here is going to speak a different language. How can we work together? How can you understand me? How can you understand each other when you say, hey, greet each other? I got a lot. What do you say, you know? God has a sense of humor. He could have done something else. He could have just went, blop, like my two-year-old does. When I build something, he goes, he does that. Like really son, I'm trying to build something here. Give me some credit. He doesn't care. God could have done the same thing that my two-year-old does to me. He could have said, you know what, guys? Stop it. And he would have just crushed that tower. Instead he says, I'm gonna have a little fun here. Let's just, I'm gonna confuse their language because they were all with one language, one speech. And so now he says, I'm gonna confuse their language. They couldn't work together anymore and now they have a problem. You know, when the United Nations get together for a meeting, I don't know if you've noticed, they all wear these little headsets because they all don't speak the same language. So they all hear in their little earphones, these little like old little looking walkmans, you know, those little radios, they put them on so they can all understand each other. You take those off, they're gonna like, what do you say, you know? And so here, he confuses their language. And in verse eight, God says basically that if you don't do what I commanded you to do, then I will do it for you. Scram, go, get out of here now. Now you have no choice. You can't work with each other. Your boss cannot communicate to you. You cannot communicate to your boss. And basically God got his way, God won. Proverbs says this in Proverbs 21 30, there is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel against the Lord. Psalm 24, when the Psalmist is speaking about how nations go against God, this is God's attitude in heaven. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord scoffs at them and goes, ha, ha, really? You guys really wanna go against me? Really? Iran and North Korea, ha, ha, really? Come on, God laughs and says he scoffs at them. So Proverbs 19 21, many are the plans in a man's heart but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand. Don't we have a lot of plans in our hearts, right? They're good things. Don't get me wrong, it's good to plan. The Bible makes it clear that planning is a good thing. But always bring it to God. Bring him into your planning. Say, Lord, is this what you wanna do? Is this how you wanna do it? And notice in verse nine as we close here, he says very clearly that therefore its name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. So they were forced to do it. The Hebrew word balal meaning to jumble or to confuse. From these languages came a variety of nationalities and people that were married within their own language base. Modern linguists know that man did not invent language. They know that. And the only way they can explain it apart from God is to say that it was part of a unique evolutionary process. And so modern linguists will bring this out and even some of our modern linguists believe that all languages come from one original language. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's right here, Genesis 11. You don't have to go far. Just go to Genesis 11 and say, oh, this is where it came. Oh, this is where it started. You know, today here's some fun facts for you. Today there are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. Did you know that? And the most spoken language in the world. Do you know what that one is? Chinese. 1.2 billion native speakers, roughly a billion of whom speak Mandarin. That is the most spoken language in this world. In fact, Mandarin is already the most widely spoken language throughout the entire world. You know what the second most spoken language in the world is? You're gonna be shocked. Yes, Spanish. See, 399 million. And you know what was the third one? English. 333 million. You know, there's one word that I think is a universal word that you can say this word anywhere you go and they'll understand you. Doesn't matter where you're at. The word is Coca-Cola. You're like, he's gonna go deep here. Let me close with a story. In 1888, there was this atheist by the name of George Walser. He founded a city and he named it Liberal. And it was in the Barton County, Missouri. And he named the city after the Liberal League in Lamar, Missouri, to which, of course, he belonged to. Now, Liberal Montana or Missouri, rather, was a city that was to be without churches, saloons, and instead it offered experimental programs such as the Liberal Sunday Morning Instruction for Children and Intellectual Lectures for Adults on Sunday Evenings. Although the town still exists today, there's about almost 800 people living in there. The city is not the same as it was back in 1895. In fact, it didn't make it because it got so bad in there because they pushed no God in that city. This guy wanted Christians away from here. But, see, Christians began to evangelize them and sent missionaries to that city and they were building churches in the city. And they were trying to be pushed out. We don't want Christians here. We don't want your God here. But that city didn't make it because thieves were there and it was a lot of debauchery. I mean, the city did not make it. And so what happened then was, as Christians overtook that city, it said that the one who founded the city actually came to Christ. And you could find this on Wikipedia actually if you want to look at that. But this city here, it's interesting because Walter Walzer did not want God in that city and he went against it to build his own tower, if you will. Listen, that tower crumbled. It didn't make it. And the cool thing is that he came to Christ. In fact, he wrote a book called The Teachings of Jesus. And so man goes against God, God wins. And praise God that he got saved. Now, here's why I brought this story because Walter was building on something, his life on something that was not going to make it and eventually crumbled. And so my question to you is this, are you building your life on the work of your own hands? Are you trying to find significance and security outside of Jesus Christ? What are you building your life on? Is it Jesus Christ's? Or is it self-promotion? Is it by your own accomplishments? The Bible says that God is a strong tower and the righteous run to him and are what? Are saved. He is the tower that you should be building your life on. And so if you're here tonight and you're saying to yourself, my life has been all about me. I don't know Jesus. I don't care about Jesus. It's been me building my own tower. Listen, you just saw an example in Genesis 11 that that kind of tower crumbles and perhaps your tower is crumbling. Tonight, you can get right with God by starting to build on the right thing. That's Christ himself.