Thy Kingdom Come

A City, a Tower, and a Name

(Genesis 11:1-9, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, September 7, 2014)

[11:1] Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. [2] And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. [3] And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. [4] Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

In 1806 several students at a remote New England college took shelter in a thunderstorm by a nearby haystack. Remembered today with this brief text from one of Jesus' parables, “The field is the world,” four of these five young men committed themselves to go to far-off lands to bring the message of Jesus Christ to people of strange customs and foreign tongues. This haystack prayer meeting was the beginning of the American Foreign Missionary movement.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is God's appointed means to bring the world together in a common purpose. That vision for unity is God-inspired, God-directed, and God-empowered. It is all for His glory and it cannot fail. It should be obvious that none of these things can be said for other plans for worldwide unity. God gives us the tower of Babel episode as a case in point. Here people were working together to build their own city. They wanted to solve the problem of the divide between heaven and earth with their own tower. They were inspired by a thirst for their own glory. They saw this endeavor as a way to stay together. Their desires had all the elements of a man-made utopian enterprise. What would be the Lord's assessment of their cooperation?

[5] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. [6] And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. [7] Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” [8] So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. [9] Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

God came down. He saw. He spoke in the heavenly council. He noted the potential in their concerted efforts. Then He put it all to a stop. Confusion was His gift to the world on that occasion. The people groups of the earth were dispersed. They would not find it so easy to work together on their own plans to unite heaven and earth. They would have to wait for the beginning of a new unifying moment in the history of the world. That unifying moment came with the preaching of Christ, and it was accompanied by the reverse-Babel sign of Pentecost tongues.

Put the Word to Work: The good plans of the Lord are far better than the united efforts of a worldwide rebellion against the Almighty. We should not imagine that peace and prosperity will come from a human endeavor that we all agree to. Our idea of the perfect community must come from the Word of the Lord. It must be centered in the living Christ who died for our sins. This is what we pray for and work toward. This is what we build with treasures old and new. In the strong Name of Jesus, the Lord is building a new Jerusalem that will endure forever.

Memory Verse from the Songs of Ascents—Psalm 122:6-7 – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!”

Gospel Reading—Matthew 13:51-52 – New and old treasures