Unity and Dependence: Lessons from Babel and Pentecost

The story of Babel is a cautionary tale about the dangers of human pride and the illusion of self-sufficiency. It illustrates how human efforts to organize life apart from God inevitably lead to confusion and division. Despite humanity's remarkable achievements and discoveries, the fundamental problem remains: we cannot find true peace and unity without God. [00:00:10]

The builders of Babel sought to create a city and a tower that would reach the heavens, symbolizing humanity's pride and ambition to establish a name for themselves apart from God. This endeavor was marked by a desire for unity and security, yet it was fundamentally flawed because it excluded God from the equation. [00:00:10]

The scattering of the people and the confusion of languages at Babel serve as a divine intervention to remind us of our dependence on God and the futility of our plans without Him. God's intervention at Babel, by confusing languages and scattering people, serves as a reminder that He will not allow humanity to succeed in its rebellion against Him. [00:00:10]

In contrast, the account of Pentecost in Acts 2 offers a vision of true unity and reconciliation. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit and the message of the Gospel that people from diverse backgrounds can come together in genuine harmony. This unity is not based on human effort but on the shared recognition of our need for salvation and the transformative work of Christ. [00:00:10]

The ultimate lesson of Babel is the necessity of living under God's blessing. Our plans and efforts must be centered on God, for only then can we experience true peace, fulfillment, and the assurance of His presence in our lives. [00:00:10]

The Bible far from being remote from life is the only book that rarely does deal with life as it is the only book which gives us anything approximating an adequate answer to the various questions that we all feel must of necessity be faced at a time like this present. [00:01:20]

The essence of wisdom is to discover the cause and whether we like it or not the Bible always emphasizes that and we've been looking at it we have seen that God Made Men perfect put him in Paradise well why have things gone wrong well the Bible tells us in Chapter 3 of This Book of gen es it was Men Who rebelled against God. [00:03:10]

The world goes on repeating itself it never does anything new it's an amazing thing it's an astounding thing you read the Old Testament and you'll find it's just that a repetition all along and the world is still doing it we have seen each time we've considered any one of these chapters and have taken it in detail we have seen without exception that we've just been looking at the modern world. [00:06:22]

The theme of The Bible I would remind you again is this God working out his Plan of Salvation God doing that thing which he promised there in the Garden of Eden he says he's going to set enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent it's going to be a Warfare without intermission a ter war and it's going to culminate in this that the seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpent's head. [00:07:07]

The whole essence of the tragedy of men now I mean this listen to what we are told we are told that they said one to another go to let us make brick and burn them thly and they had brick for stone and slime had they for Mortar incidentally those details are very interesting from the standpoint of geology from the standpoint of the difference between Palestine and Egypt on the one hand and this land of Shiner as it's called on the other hand where you have stones in one type of land and where you haven't in another and so you have to make bricks. [00:14:46]

The history of humanity is the history of the struggle between two cities the city of God and if you like the city of man now this is something that goes back to the right right to the very beginning the first person to build a city was none other than Cain the son of Adam and Eve who murdered his own brother Abel he was the first man to build a city so that the message at this point is that cities and civilization which is nothing but the city idea exaggerated and magnified is man's way of displaying his enmity against God. [00:21:39]

The great lesson of this 11th chapter of Genesis the Tower of Babel is just this that man in sin is a fool he thinks he can defy this almighty God he lays his plans without remembering him he turns back upon him he carries on he begins to build the Tower goes up Suddenly God comes down and it's all destroyed my dear friend this is true I say not only of Nations it's true of the individual what's your view of life tonight we're all expert planners aren't we these were planners they drew the specifications of the city they've got it all worked out we all do that in life don't we you've got your plan haven't you you've mapped out your future life and career you know what you want to do where does God come in is the plan made under God or is it made apart from God. [00:43:48]