Ep 476 | Something Lost And Where To Find It - Wade Branch 11/6/22

Good morning. Everyone is great to see

everyone who's here. It is a good day.

Good day of worship. It's good to study God's word

and so I'm excited to lead our study this morning.

And if you would like to study with me, we're going to open up

to Genesis chapter 3. And we're going to kind of mole

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

through some of the beginning of Genesis and consider some

themes. And the reason I'm doing this is

because in our afternoon, Sunday worship for a while.

Now, we've been reading through the Old Testament and I've

countless times just been wanting to say way.

Wait, hold up, hold up. Let's let's talk about that for

a minute because we've just ran and read over so much because

we've covered so much ground. And I want to go back now and

pick up some of pick up some details where we studied in

Genesis and my title. I've given today is something

lost and where to find it and choose to introduce a study.

I'm going to focus on the Tower of Babel, but for the Tower of

Babel to make sense, we have to go back to the Garden.

We have to go. Back to when Adam and Eve were

in the garden and what happened there.

So we're going to cover some ground this morning.

I'm going to do my best to keep things moving because when

you're doing a theme to study and you're tracking a lot of

ground, it can go a little fast. So I apologize if that is the

case. Let's get moving in.

Genesis 3:1. So here's the scene is set.

Genesis 3:1

God has created the world as we read in chapters 1 and 2.

And he created man and woman from man, it says, now in

chapter 3 verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning

than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made, and

he said to the woman has God, indeed said You shall not eat of

the of every tree of the garden. So we have the first Temptation

man has ever seen and the world going on here.

The serpent is is And to manipulate this woman and the

woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the

Trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in

the midst of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat

of it, nor shall you? Touch it, lest you die.

Okay, so quickly getting into some themes.

Satan has his way and he starts off by number one.

Trying to get Eve to reconsider and have confusion about

something. That was a very simple command.

Has he really told you that you Eat of every tree of the garden

and and Eve's response. The woman's responses good.

She says we may eat of the fruit of the Trees of the garden.

So there's plenty of trees for us to eat from God hasn't said

from every tree, but the fruit of the tree, which is what it

says in the midst of the garden. God is says, you shall not eat

of it. So, Eve, clarifies know, we can

eat of all these trees, but there's one, we can't.

It's that tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and so Satan's

goal. We're already starting to see

here is To have her, take her eyes off of all the blessings

and all of God's Providence that God has designed to give her and

to get her to focus on that. One thing that God said, don't

do that. Okay, so it's move on.

Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die

for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be

opened and you will be like God knowing Good and Evil.

So Satan tries to undermine the consequences of sin.

This is a second tactic. He says, you're not really gonna

die and maybe he meant that literally physically, she didn't

die, but spiritually. And for that Eternal being

perspective, the curse of sin is going to enter because of this

and man will die, but not in the moment.

He says you're not really gonna die.

He's trying to undermine the consequences of sin and for our

own lives. Satan wants us to do that.

He wants us to See things were perspective.

Like it's not really that bad for God knows that in the day

you eat of it, your eyes will be open and my classroom, that is

one of the things that it's not fear, but if a student starts to

try to undermine your systems and your Authority by saying,

the teacher don't worry about the teacher knows that when this

happens. This is really what's going to

happen and it's not what he wants from you.

So the saying this twisting and turning things in.

He's undermining God's Authority by saying things like old gods

knows this is going to happen. And next he overemphasizes the

gratification of sin he says your eyes are going to be open,

you're going to be like God, that's true.

They're going to have an awareness of what's right and

wrong. He's not lying to them but it's

not the whole truth. They're going to be like God in

the sense that they're going to know good and evil and God wants

them to be at peace right now. He created a garden where there

was no evil And they're going to be introduced to it because of

their own Rebellion. So Satan has several tactics.

He's already using on them here and I think he does the same

thing to us. So when the woman saw that the

tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a

tree desirable to make one wise. She took of the fruit and ate.

So we already see the, the there were the result of Satan's

Temptation. She takes it and eat and eats

it. And my mind when I was studying

this, Is it just it's caught my attention?

What about the other trees? Eve was made by Satan to look at

the world. She was in like, this is all.

She could see. There's one tree.

There was only one tree you need.

And there's only one tree you want.

And God doesn't want you to have it.

He's owned her perspective on something.

That she was supposed to have. And so she saw the world, like

this is this one tree. When, in reality, this was a

lush Garden. God had given them everything

they needed. He'd give them all Providence.

Providing for all the fruits that they would need to survive

by and live by, and be cared with and for But Satan made her

see this seen through this lens. There is one tree in the midst

of a garden that he made her see.

And for you, and I today, the first lesson I take from this is

we must choose joy and contentment in the field of

trees. God has blessed us with There

are things that Satan will try to get into your mind and make

you see things through a terrible perspective.

In reality, we are all cared for in many ways.

If not maybe in your own, maybe physical life, maybe you don't

see all the blessings there. Look here.

Look at everything here, dwell on this because God has given us

a field of trees, a fueled of everything we need.

We have to learn to find joy and contentment in the field of

trees around us and not get locked in on that one.

The Satan is trying to get us focused on.

So here's the five things, Satan undermines a simple

understanding of what's right. He undermines the consequences

of sin. He distracts her and he

undermines the authority of God by speaking on God's behalf.

He utilizes half-truths and you overemphasize the gratification

that sin will bring okay quickly moving on In this verse where

the woman made this mistake, we have the three things, John will

say the lust of the flesh, the pride of life and the lust of

the eyes. She saw the tree was good for

food. Her flesh, wanted it.

She saw there was pleasant to the eyes, the lust of the eyes,

and it was desirable to make one wise the pride of life.

This is from the beginning, John first, John, the letter, the

letter first, John writes from a place of experience, but from a

place of seeing and living only in a world full of the fall and

for of, it's full of its consequences, says this.

And in his letter, John, the Elder says Do not love the world

or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the

love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world,

all that the flesh wants and all those desires of the flesh.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life

is not of the father. But is of the world.

For all that the world has brought offer.

He says in verse 16, and verse 17, he says, and the world is

passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God

abides forever as we consider Eaves and ultimately Adams fall

into sin, And as we consider our own battle with sin, remember

that there is nothing. There is nothing Sinha stock for

us. It's passing away all of it in

its entirety, but Satan got her, got her, and gets us to look at

it in a different way. Like it's everything we could

think about, right in front of us.

She goes on, it goes on to say she also gave to her husband

with her and he ate sent has a powerful corrupting influence on

the people around us. You have influenced careful

where you use it verse 7, then the eyes of both of them were

open. So this is really what I want to

start to emphasize. This is going to make the Tower

of Babel kind of make more sense verse 7.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened like today.

Like the devil said what happened?

And they knew that they They were naked.

And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves

covering the First theme. We see, this is the first sin,

this is Man's first attempt, a man's first Petty, attempt to

cover his sin, and his shame that the fall brought him verse

8 and they heard the sound of the Lord.

God Walking In The Garden in the cool of the day.

This is almost a mockery to us in Bakersfield.

And a lot of the valley, the cool of the day that the garden

was anticipated yet. Yet, they heard the sound of the

Lord God walking through and Adam and his wife hid themselves

from the presence of the Lord among the Trees of the garden.

This didn't happen before. Man In The Garden, dwelled in a

place of security and openness and freeness and

invulnerability. But now they want to hide And

this might not seem like a big deal, but this was not supposed

to happen. This is going to be a sign of an

inward longing, and an inward pain that we are going to fill

throughout human history. He desired to hide from God,

Among the Trees of the garden. So he said, I heard your voice

in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid

myself. I think this is the saddest line

in the whole Bible. Everything from this point

forward is going to be from a place of hope, it will.

And the New Testament says, we consider the Old Testament that

throw the that through patience and comfort of the scriptures.

We might have hope we're going to get there this morning but

this is sad because it's the reversal.

It's when everything was good. It's one man ultimately had

peace with God and he felt good. He was at peace and joyful and

secure and welcome and he had value and Its presence.

And then in this line everything, crumbles everything

falls apart and you feel that today I feel this weight today

to hide and have shame. And God said, who told you that

you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree?

Which I commanded you that you should not eat.

You can see the transition. It's almost like when you talk

to a child who taught you that word who taught you to say that

when they pick something up, they shouldn't have but these

aren't children. These are adults capable of

reasoning. And capable ultimately sin verse

12 in the man, said, the woman who you gave to be with me, she

gave me got cut off down there. She gave me of the tree to eat.

Man's response, he hides and he seeks to cover and he starts to

blame. Shame leads to blame.

We can already see the the terrible influence of sins on

our hearts and on our disposition.

This is a terrible thing that already starts to happen.

The blame game, And so our Story begins in Genesis chapter 3, we

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

lost something. We lost security.

We lost peaceful vulnerability, we traded the True Value.

That God had, we traded that? Adam and Eve traded that.

So now the question is for the rest of the Bible, how will man

fill it? And that's where we're going to

move on to the flood and them in between chapters before between

the Tower of Babel. The flood happens, that man's

sin on the earth gets so bad that God has to clean it up and

start fresh. So man causes a flood on the

Earth and All the world except for except for this small,

family dies, and they're given a fresh start, there's a rainbow

given for God's assurance that he will, never flood the Earth

again and from this small, I believe it's eight people.

The small family, God restarts the world and he gives them an

important command. God tells them in verse 8:15,

the God, spoke to Noah saying, go out of the Ark.

That's important line, go out, don't stay there and let that be

your Hut forever live in the boat.

Go out from the ark you and your wife and your sons and your sons

wives with you, bring out with you.

Every living thing of All Flesh, that is with you birds and

cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the ground that

they may have bound on the earth and be Fruitful.

And multiply on the earth. Verse 9 of chapter 9 goes on to

say an extension of this. So God blessed, Noah and his

sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill

the earth and the fear of you. And the dread of you shall be

upon every beast of the Earth, on every bird of the year, on

all that, move on the earth. And on all the fish of the sea,

they are given into your hand. There's an important connection

between going being fruitful and multiplying and filling the

Earth. And I'm in that process, God

will give God will provide in the process of going and

multiplying and fulfillment. But man's that depends on man's

reception to the call to go. This is a theme throughout the

Bible. So they're told to go to go to

multiply and fill the Earth, and as we're going to say, seeing

the Tower of Babel, this is what they do.

The opposite of And ultimately God wants to do this.

God wants them to do this, in his name, in God's name, for

God's glory and by God's will. So let's see what happens.

Genesis 11:1. Now the whole earth had one

Genesis 11:1

language and one speech it is hard to imagine this but this is

an etymology lesson for the Christian God started everything

with one language. I can't, I can't found the world

where everyone spoke the same language 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, then they

then they said to one another come let us make bricks and bake

them thoroughly. They had bricks 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.

Lest we be scattered? A turd abroad over the face of

the Earth. So first off, bring none.

What's the big deal? They want to build a city.

They can meet our, we're surrounded by these, right?

What's the big deal? And so they want to stay put

they don't want to be scattered, you know.

They probably want to be together as a family.

They probably want to be together.

So their power grows, what's the big deal?

Number one, they wanted to build themselves.

A city number two, they wanted a tower whose top is in the

heavens number three. They want to make a name for

ourselves and number four, they wanted to go against the command

of God to go and fill and be fruitful and multiply The

building ourselves a city is a sign of permanent and security.

They wanted to find a sense of permanence and security and

themselves for themselves. They wanted to build a tower to

the heavens. They wanted to build something

that was permanent and was meaningful.

And they wanted to find a meaning in their own power, and

they wanted to make a name for themselves for their glory, for

their praise, and they want to directly against God's command

to fill the Earth. God always pushes his followers.

To multiply grow and look outward from self.

But man, sinful man always looks inward to bill for his security

and Glory as we consider what makes us sin and what is kind of

at the root of our sins. I think we get a lot of Clues,

both from the garden. And now from the Tower of Babel

of what, where sin comes from and what leads to our own Center

our own hearts and this is part of it.

God tells us that we need to have, God tells us things.

Like having a person over to show hospitality and First Peter

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5, but we tend to do the opposite.

We tend to maybe sit home and watch Netflix.

We were told by God to go out of your way to take an interest in

the well-being of others. Despite a difficult dangerous

road in Luke chapter 10, but we tend to turn a blind eye to the

Luke 10 · chapter mention

need for the easier. More comfortable Road.

God tells us to grow in knowledge and understanding of

his will, but we tend to maybe scroll through social media or

other tools of dissipation, it can be Hobbies, it can be

entertainment. It can be anything that just

tries to fill a void in our minds that should be filled by

something good. God tells us to cross barriers

of torn or difficult relationships with love.

We tend to maintain comfortable separation where we don't suffer

embarrassment or hurt. Go and multiply is a call to go

out from self, but we tend to do the opposite to do everything.

We're told to do everything without complaining in

Philippians to search for and promote positive messages, even

through challenging circumstances.

But we tend to live with cynicism to be cynical to dwell

in on and repeat the obvious negatives.

God tells us to reach for wholesome things to talk about.

Even if it's not that exciting or entertaining to reach for

those things to go out and find those things.

But we tend to gossip and circulate stories that get the

biggest reaction, we tend to not want to go out from ourselves

and find something greater God has to offer to multiply and

fill the Earth. God tells us to draw near to him

and maybe that means carving out quiet, time of prayer and

meditation with our Lord. But we tend to fill our time

with what we think needs to be done.

To maintain the standards that we have arbitrarily set for our

menial things in our lives. Do we carve out time?

I know we have busy schedules, but do we carve out time to draw

near to him? We're told to evaluate our

whole, our hearts and even Consulting with outside sources

of counsel, and godly wisdom to look out for ourselves.

But we resort to the way we've always thought This is a theme

started long ago and God says go.

God says go beyond wherever you are now to.

He who thinks he stands, take heed, lest he fall.

Go God says Wherever you think you are now you need to go from

where you're standing. That was the call to the Old

Testament Patriarchs. Now.

I want to clarify, there is nothing wrong.

And this is the interesting part.

There is nothing wrong with their route desires.

They wanted a city. And when we think City think a

place to belong think security, they wanted at our, they wanted

to do something that mattered that would hold, permanence and

significance. And they wanted to build.

They wanted a name, they want to Greatness.

That's what a name is. They wanted to build greatness

for themselves. There is nothing wrong with

their core desires here. The problem we're going to see

with them is that sin is often the result of seeking to find

something or someone that you lost in God.

Sin is the result of seeing a need in your life that like we

saw in the Garden of Eden, we lost some pretty core needs.

We lost and have a pretty big gap in our life, for some pretty

important things when we seek to find the filler for that void

and places. Other than God, that's where I

think they're issue started. And on top of that, we try to

build a tower, our self to God. We try to replace that Gap with

something and that's more specific in the fact that the

the phrase Babel or when it's pronounced Bob Bell, as I

understand, means a tower to heaven or a gate to God.

They tried and we often try to build a tower to God and replace

a path to God to fulfill things that God is supposed to fulfill.

All the way back to the Eden loss were man.

Tried to cover and fill his Brokenness.

And in the eating Garden, God was our home.

God was the place of home for us.

In fellowship. With him, is where we got our

sense of belonging. For the tower.

We got our significance from doing his will tending.

The garden follow serving him and being Sons and Daughters of

our King. That was our significance.

That was our permanence in the garden.

And for greatness, we had all the greatness we needed it was

supposed to be in God. It was in connection with the

most high creator of the world. Despite our Humanity.

And so first off, it makes sense that we want to belong to a

city, we all need a place of belonging that's why.

Now as we talk through some of this, some of this isn't

necessarily wrong but it shows a core need and of course

searching we have we want acceptance from the right

people, whether it's a school, maybe it's co-workers.

Maybe people aren't even in the church.

We want praise from the right people.

We want praise and acceptance from the right people because we

want to belong, we want security.

And that is kind of evidence in the insurance insurance and

insurance industry. A trillion dollar industry and

that was looking at the end of the insurance industry, you can

literally buy insurance for almost anything.

If you go on a trip, now, this is pretty evident during covid.

A lot of people had travel insurance because covid,

cancelled those you can buy travel insurance, there's a

hurricane on your cruise. You can be insured for that to

insulate yourself from. Any risk you might have you can

buy wedding insurance if all things collapse.

And maybe there is a groomzilla, or bridezilla, you can have

wedding insurance from those, the payments for all those

things you have, you can have insurance for your fantasy

football link. You can have insurance for a

body part if you lose a hand and maybe your hand is valuable to

you at work, you can ensure that you can have a lien insurance

for $118 year. You can have insurance so that

if you are a family member gets abducted by an alien, And you

get five hundred thousand dollars so it's not all that bad

if you get abducted by an alien, if you can prove that you got

eaten by an alien, that's three million dollars.

There's Halloween, haunted house, insurance.

If there's an accident for the haunted house, you're going to

or are setting up, there's Halloween, haunted house,

insurance, you can buy plant Insurance, you could buy home,

theater, Insurance identity, and theft, Insurance, spoiled, Food

Insurance, from a refrigerator going out.

You can buy insurance for your patio furniture.

There's one for you, even if, you know, even if we laugh at

one of those, like that's ridiculous.

There's one on that list for us or somewhere else.

For us, the reason is people want security, we want security,

we don't want to feel that sense of loss that might come to us.

We lost that sense of security and we've been climbing and

clambering to get it back since then we want our lives to matter

that's why they built that Tower and maybe for us that's why we

have career stress for young people.

It is a huge thing to try to pick your career because we want

to do something that matters for older people.

Maybe have a crisis, feel like you haven't done something that

matters. Maybe that's why I've never had

one and I so I can't speak on behalf of this.

Maybe that's where midlife crisis, come in where people

realize they are missing significance and they're about

halfway through. And what do I do with the rest

of this life? We want to have meaningful

accomplishments or work the whole thing with our generation.

I think it's a good thing employers are saying they all

want to make a difference. They all want to do have an

impact and they're kind of annoyed with that because it's

like just do your job. But that's comes from a good

core. Desire to have a valuable life.

We want our lives to matter. We want to be connected to

Greatness, that's why whatever. So whatever.

If someone starts to saying, you know, I met this weekend, that's

why there's 10 people around them telling them, you know, who

I met 10 years ago, five years ago.

That's a good feeling to be connected to Greatness.

I met so-and-so. They signed my ball on my shirt

or my arm. That's why we take pictures with

someone who's famous because we want to be associated with

greatness. There's nothing wrong with the

feeling of belonging security and greatness.

It is all about where we ultimately look for it.

And ultimately we're not going to be fulfilled unless we find

it in the right place. I think we had this longing

inside of us, I felt it a young age in the security of my

parents in the security of my home.

There's a reason that you have a powerful feeling about where you

were. I guess I shouldn't speak for

everyone. At least I have a powerful

feeling of love and longing for my home, it's a place of

security, it's a place of original belonging and ultimate

from your little, it's a sense of ultimate success.

Security and that's why we fear it so greatly when you're a

child of losing it. That thought of, you know, that

every little kid has run through their head of what if my parents

were to die? There's a reason that's a

terrible Gap or that's a terrible feeling to think about

the loss of security. We have a long and maybe later

on to meet a future spouse in a relationship that will share.

And that is a real deep longing. And sometimes, maybe in worship,

if you're sitting in your singing praises, there's just

something that you're longing for Beyond this even when you're

fulfilling the desires in a good way.

It's just not quite enough. We're not quite there yet.

And I feel this especially when I stand on the edge of the ocean

and you're looking out at that vast openness, there's almost a

yearning and a longing for something.

Greater Now, God provides for our needs, and that's good and

to have them in their proper place. but remember that, Even

it went in their proper place. We're still going to have that

longing inside of us. One man said if I have a

yearning that cannot be satisfied by any Earthly thing,

there's only one logical conclusion.

I was made for a world that is not this one.

That's the only logical conclusion.

Another man said, the books are the music in which we thought

the beauty was located. So in life, we're going to see

things that are beautiful and we're going to see little

glimpses of beauty or Pure goodness and enjoyment.

He said wherever that was located will betray us.

If we trust in them, it was not in them.

It only came through them and what came through them was

longing, these things, the beauty, the menier, the memory

of our own past, they've childhood are good images of

what we really desire. But if they are mistaken for the

thing itself, they turn into dumb or voiceless idols.

Breaking the hearts of their worshipers for they are not the

thing itself. They are only the scent of a

flower. We have not found the echo of a

tune. We have not heard news from a

country, we have never yet. Visited another person said

fathers and mothers, husbands wives children, our friends, all

these good things they are but Shadows but the enjoyment of God

is the substance. These are both scattered beans

but God is the sun, these are but streams, but God is the

fountain, these are but drops, but God is the ocean.

The level one of this concept is, we need to be careful not to

fill the needs. We have outside of God's

prescribed order. And level two is God's

Provisions, have some way of satisfying.

Our needs as humans and have a wonderful wonderful place in our

life, but we must remember who the ultimate source of our lungs

is Genesis 11 verse 5, Moving on, but the Lord came down.

Genesis 11:5

So he sees the city, he sees the tower, which the sons of men

have built and it says that he came down.

That's derogatory, that's derogatory language.

Basically, like, got to go down and see what all these little

gerbils are about down. Here.

He comes down to this Tower, those supposed to reach all the

way up to the heavens. And the Lord said, indeed, the

people are one and they have one language, and this is what they

begin to do now. Nothing they propose to do will

be withheld from them. I believe this.

Is maybe from a practical standpoint.

They can do a lot of stuff with this one might and power and

think about it for a minute. If people back then lived

hundreds of years. We think sometimes science talks

about them, like the cavemen or undeveloped.

If you lived for a couple hundred years, maybe they were

smarter than us, their technology might not be all

there but if you live for hundreds of years, you can

develop systems and teach it to the next generation for a lot

longer. Whatever the case is, I believe

also nothing. They propose to do any sinful

way will be with hope with will be withheld from them.

And this is the second important point.

I want to make that sends route is by my will in my strength and

for my glory, when Jesus tries to revolutionize, and fix the

minds of his people in New Testament, he teaches in Matthew

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Chapter 5, The Sermon on the Mount.

That christlikeness begins in the heart.

It all starts there and James chapter 4 verse 2.

James 4:2

It says you lust and do not. Have you murdering covet and

cannot obtain you fight. And you wore, why?

you do not have because you do not ask, you do not ask and you

do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on

your pleasures, send seeks for my will for my name and by my

strength Satan's Anthem in Isaiah chapter 13, when his

Isaiah 13 · chapter mention

condemnation is sent down. It's written.

You have said in your heart, speaking of Satan, I will Ascend

to my into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the

stars of God. I will also sit on the Mount of

the congregation on the farthest sides of the north.

I will Ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like, the most high sins will is by my will in my

strength for my glory. And so this is a good time for a

pride check. How is your heart?

How is my heart? When Jesus was talking, he said,

he saw two men in the temple. Once said, God.

I think you that I'm not like these others and he went his

way, right? He, you know, he was supposed to

be a righteous man, and another man came through and he beat his

breast and said, God be merciful to me a sinner.

Jesus said, that's the man that went away, Justified.

That's the man. He wants to see.

How is your heart? Where do you operate your life?

One of the quickest ways to tell if you're a prideful is if

another person's Pride bothers you one man said, because pride

is by nature, always in competition, with others.

Jealousy is an obvious characteristic of Pride.

How is my heart? What Am I Living For?

Is it God's will God's strength and God's glory?

Verse 7 come, they said let our God said come, let us go down

and there for confuse their language that they may not be

under that. They may not understand one

another's speech. So this is where all of the

world's languages get started. So the Lord scattered them

abroad from there, over the face of all the Earth and they ceased

building the city. Therefore it is called Babel.

So, this is a play on words. Bob, L is gate to God, but the

word Babel, if you move the accents means confusion.

This, therefore, its name is called Babel because they're the

Lord confused. The language of all the Earth,

and from there, the Lord scattered them abroad over all

the face of the Earth. The third and kind of final

lesson here is sin, leaves. Rotting towers of

disappointment. It's interesting.

I would think God would have just absolutely flattened that

Tower but didn't he let it stand?

Now, is that judgment? Or is it Mercy?

I think it's both God's judgment would come down to intervene

when it says they're gonna do whatever they set their mind to.

I have to stop this that's judgment because he pronounces

wrong on what they're doing and stops it but it's also Mercy.

It's Mercy because God came down and rerouted them.

So they can restart Andre set their minds away from this task,

and maybe this Tower could stand as a reminder, A constant

reminder. Of their failures and their

attempts to live further will for their name and for their

Glory. What's so awesome is after this

story. God, disbands them.

They are spread over all the Earth and now we have different

languages. We have people absolutely spread

across the Earth. God begins to make his own

Tower. He current he stops the building

of a tower of man and starts to begin his own Tower through a

man named Abram. And God tells Abraham, I'll give

you a home, it'll be better and more permanent than any home, a

man can build, I'll give you significance, Abram greater than

any Tower. You'll have a role in blessing.

The world for generations to come, I'll make your name great

Abram. I'll tie the greatness of your

name to my name. That is how God Should fill

these voids in our life is a pattern.

And as we read further on toward the end of the Bible, Revelation

in chapter 7 verse 9, we read this after I looked and behold a

great multitude that no one could number from every nation

from all tribes and peoples and languages standing Before the

Throne. And before the lamb, it was a

terrible sight when man was confused and separated and all

their languages were jumbled. But in Revelation, we see a

picture of all these. People from tribes and languages

crying out with a loud voice together in unity salvation

Belongs To Our God, who sits on the throne and to the lamb.

It is a Heavenly reversal of the Babel story that confused and

separated so many people. And we even get a glimpse of

this. In the book of Acts on the day

of Pentecost, they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

We should see a direct reversal here of the Tower of Babel, when

man was trying to build his Tower at got crushed by the

dispersion of languages. When God comes down to earth to

build his kingdom and his tower on the day of Pentecost when

it's set up. All people here and their own

language. It's a reversal of the Tower of

Babel when God builds his Tower in his kingdom.

And so, my question for you, this Tower is being built

regardless. What tower are you building?

Are you doing his will, or your own will?

Do you see what you have as belonging to God or to yourself?

Are you building your kingdom or living out his mission?

Are you involved in the church? There's no way we can be a part

of God's Mission especially when we see that church began and

started on the day of Pentecost, you can't serve God's plan

without being a part of building his Tower.

His mission on the on Earth, is to build a kingdom for eternity.

Not an Earthly Kingdom, but a spiritual Kingdom.

Are you directing all praise back to God?

Are you concerned with keeping it on you?

when I started to have a maybe I want to wake up the beginning of

my day, I go out to work, sometimes I feel that exhaustion

and I feel that you know that where the feeling is that just

kind of like drags you down and what I remember when I tell

myself I have to live today for God's glory.

Okay. The pressure is off of me.

Now, I'm living for God's glory. I have a purpose.

I relinquished pressure, and I direct my efforts toward God for

giving him the glory, and whenever I do that, if I'm a

worker, then I have worked so that God will be glorified so

that I will serve my master my employer or my my students like

I'm serving Christ. Maybe God crushed, one of your

Towers, or stop the building of your Tower.

And you have a tower of disappointment, don't look at

that, like a bad thing that is God's Mercy, Mercy comes through

judgment. Sometimes, this that we will be

rerouted from our own ways to serve him.

God wants to show us that sin, ultimately disappoints and all

the ways that tries to fill us and all the ways we try to be

filled by it. He wants us to know.

That all fulfillment, all satisfaction and all things good

or found in him today. If you haven't started that

walk, if you are searching for that.

You're in the right place. Not because we are special, but

because we have a special word and a special Direction in a

special purpose to serve. God, the ways prescribed we're

told that we hear God's word that produces belief and faith

in him, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God,

we can confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, repent of our

past life and change from building for my will, for my

name, for my glory. And we can be refocused and

redirected on a path that will follow God would be baptized for

the remission of our sins like they were when the early church

was set up and we can be added to the church, you started this

walk and you need help. You need guidance to get back on

the right track. This is a family.

This is a place where God has given us to find a sense of

belonging even though it's not complete and perfect.

Here yet, God wants us to find that here and so we can provide

strength for you as a congregation prayer, whenever

you need, always stand him. Always See.

We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the

Church of Christ at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you

would like any additional information, or you would like

to receive a free Bible correspondence, course by mail.

Please email us at info at her Church of Christ

Bakersfield.com. Our service times are on Sundays

at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.

Please make plans to join us. We would love for you to be our

honored guest.