Episode Details

(0:02) Well, if you want to take your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 11, this will be our (0:07) last sermon in Genesis for a while, but while you're turning there, I'm going to read out (0:13) of Romans chapter 1. (0:18) There's a sense in which, I mean, what the first 11 chapters of the Bible are doing is (0:24) setting us up for everything that happens afterwards. (0:27) It's a history of the world before the story zooms in on the history of one family, the (0:34) family of Abraham. (0:35) And in the book of Romans, what you have in this Paul's explanation of the gospel is he (0:41) spends the first three chapters telling us where the world stands.(0:45) And Genesis 1 through 11 helps us understand how the world got that way. (0:50) And Paul says in Romans 1, 18 through 25, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven (0:55) against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the (1:02) truth. (1:03) For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.(1:08) For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly (1:13) perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. (1:18) So they are without excuse. (1:20) For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they (1:24) became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.(1:28) Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for (1:34) images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (1:39) Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of (1:44) their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and (1:48) worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. (1:52) Amen.(1:53) And that phrase there, verse 24, God gave them up. (1:59) I always find one of the most striking phrases in the Bible. (2:03) And when we, in theology terms, people speak of the, when we're speaking of the wrath (2:10) of God, there's the passive wrath of God and the active wrath of God.(2:14) And the passive wrath of God, to me, is actually the more terrifying, where we make choices (2:19) and God just says, okay, you're going to receive the consequences of those choices. (2:24) And then sometimes we experience the active wrath of God. (2:27) And in Genesis, we've just gone through the flood narrative.(2:29) And that's very much an instance of the active wrath of God. (2:32) He's sending a punishment for sin. (2:36) And here we're going to find God intervene in another, maybe less drastic way, but not (2:42) less far reaching in its consequences when we get to Genesis chapter 11.(2:46) Last week, as we looked at the end of chapter nine into chapter 10, we talked about the (2:50) importance of, or rather the danger, the danger of dishonoring your parents, specifically (2:56) the danger of dishonoring your father, because you cannot honor God whom you have not seen (3:01) if you do not honor your father whom you have seen. (3:05) And I think we see the consequences of not just Ham's dishonoring of his father, but as (3:12) we read this narrative, think about the fact that Noah is still alive when this is happening. (3:17) Noah is still alive all through basically chapter 11.(3:21) He lives into the time of Abraham. (3:25) And it's pretty sad when you think about the flood is in living memory. (3:30) And here's where things are.(3:31) Verses one through four of chapter 11 says, now the whole earth had one language and the (3:37) same words. (3:39) And as people migrated from the East, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and settled (3:44) there. (3:45) And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.(3:49) And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. (3:53) And they said, come, let us build ourselves a ci