Tony Evans - When a Nation Forgets God (05/22/2017)
Drawing a parallel to America's Independence Day, this sermon warns that mankind's declaration of independence from God, as seen in the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11, leads to divine confusion of languages, scattering, and ultimate downfall when we try to build our lives, societies, and names apart from His rule.
Independence Day and Rebellion Against God
Every July 4th, there is a fireworks display. There is barbecue. There are reunions, marches, parades, and celebrations because of Independence Day. Independence Day marks that time in 1776 when there was a declaration made by 13 colonies that we would no longer be operating under King George III of England.
We would no longer be subject to the Parliament of Britain, and that kingdom would no longer own or dominate those colonies, establishing then these United States of America. The declaration for independence led to a war when the 13 colonies said, we do not want to be under your authority anymore, England.
England said, yes, you will. It led to the Revolutionary War because rebellion always leads to conflict. And the United States was born out of a battle for independence.
While it may be okay for colonies to rebel from another nation in the name of freedom, it is not okay for mankind to rebel against God in the name of desiring to be independent.
A Declaration of Independence from God
I want to talk to us today about what is happening in our land and what is happening in our life because we have made a declaration of independence from Almighty God. Much of what you are seeing today has been incorrectly diagnosed.
There is political diagnosis, economic diagnosis, social diagnosis. Everybody has an opinion about what is wrong. I just want to give you God's opinion.
Our scripture today is Genesis chapter 11. It is the story of the Tower of Babel. It is where men decided to declare a declaration of independence from Almighty God.
We begin by reading, now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. Everybody was talking the same noise. Everybody was saying the same thing. They were using the same speech. They had a common confession of agreement.
So, the whole earth was on the same page. With this unity, they decided that they would journey east, verse 2 says, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. So, they went east.
Now, you have to understand to go east up until this point in the scripture meant to go away from God. It started with Cain. When Cain rebelled against God, it says, and he went east from Eden.
He wanted to get as far from God as he could get. And he went east. So, let us follow the story now. We have the then-known world on the same page wanting to leave God.
In other words, they wanted to be one nation away from God. Not one nation under God.
Man's Plan Apart from God
So, that is the whole world. The whole world was thinking and feeling and communicating this way. So, they came up with a plan, verse 3.
They said to one another, they said, let us have a meeting. Now that we have established the United Nations of the world, let us have a meeting.
Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly and then use bricks for stone and then use tar for mortar. So, come on. Let us.
You will see in verse 4 the phrase come, let us. Come, let us. In other words, let us come up with our own plan for how the world should work.
Let us come up with our own plan for how life is to be lived, people ought to function, societies ought to be organized. Let us do this.
So, the world in technology, bricks for stones, tar for mortar, we will come up with a construction process for civilization and we do not need God.
Let us go east and do it ourselves. Let us. And while this is nation building right here, it is also true when people build their individual lives and say, I got enough smarts to do this myself.
I am intelligent enough to handle this on my own. I am good enough, brainy enough, brilliant enough, rich enough, connected enough. Let me do this.
This is the whole world thinking this way. They wanted to pursue unity, peace, prosperity apart from God using the technology of the moment.
Three Goals of the Rebellion
They wanted to do three things according to verse 4. Come, let us build for ourselves a city. So the first thing they wanted to do was build a city.
They are in the land of Shinar, but they want to build a city. You and I would call it a capital. That is the centerpiece of the organization of the culture, the capital.
Let us create a Washington, D.C. However, we need some religion to make it look okay. So we need some religion, but we do not want real righteousness, but we want to give the impression that there is a God thing related to this.
So in the city, let us build a tower. Second thing he wants is a tower. You and I would say a steeple, like a steeple on a church.
How do I know this is a religious symbol? Because he says, and let us stretch the tower to the heavens. So we want to build civilization for man, but in the middle of the city, in the middle of the capital city of the world that we are going to build for ourselves, we are going to build ourselves a religious, the Babylonians will call it the ziggurat, a religious tower, and this is going to be a bad boy because this thing is going to go all the way up to heaven.
In other words, it will not be that heaven will come down to us, we are going to go up to it. But we are going to keep God enough in the vicinity through the tower that it will legitimize the city that is operating the society.
So there will be enough God presence to give the impression of God without his reality. Countries operate this way, churches operate this way, families operate this way, and individuals operate this way.
They want to construct their own lives independently of God, but they want his name in the vicinity.
And then, they said, we want to do one other thing. We want to do one other thing. Verse 4 says, we will make for ourselves a name.
Oh, everybody wants a name. Now, why do they want their own name? Because they do not want to be known by God's name.
Remember, they are going east. They do not want to be identified with God, but they want a religious symbol to make it look like they are identified with God, but let us build, we are not building a name for him, we are building a name for us.
You see, they wanted to create their own name because they wanted to be their own authority. And they did not want to have to answer to a higher being.
Well, the only way to not answer to God is to become God. See, there is only one way you do not answer to God and that is you must give yourself a God name.
And so you walk around saying, I know my truth. I am my own standard. So they wanted their own significance. They wanted their own value statement.
They were unwilling to be identified as being overseen, ruled, and regulated by God like Satan. They said, I will establish my own kingdom.
God's Response to the Tower
Ah, verse 5. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. Let us check it out, check it out, check it out.
Now the reason I said check it out three times is because God comes down and when God comes down, the Lord said, behold, there is one people and they all have the same language and this is what they began to do and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
Come let us go down. Check it out, check it out, check it out. Okay, remember, they said, let us build a city, let us build a tower, let us build a name.
God said, let us. Since we are us-ing it, let us us-it. All right? They got together on their plan. Me, Son, Holy Ghost, let us get together on ours.
So why do we not just have our little committee meeting and go down and check this out together. So they came and they checked out the big city and the awesome tower and they saw what man was doing.
Now, they did not check it out because they did not know what man was doing. He is God. They checked it out to handle it.
Okay? He said, now, we got to handle this. We got to do something about this plan.
Stay with me here because I am going somewhere. He said, we got to do something with this plan, with all this technology, all this information, all this college education, you know, these are some smart people.
They built cities now. They built towers now. They got it going on, going on, going on. Let us go check this thing out.
We must address this and why must we address it? One of the most confusing statements in the Bible.
We must address it because he says, if we do not, the end of verse six, and this is what they began to do and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
Now that is a... Think about that statement. This is God talking. He says, if we do not do something, they will be unstoppable.
But wait a minute, why would God say that we would not be able to stop them? Because it says nothing that they plan to do will be stopped.
Freedom, Choice, and Consequences
Let us go back a little bit. When God created man, he said three words that would forever change history. He created man, male and female he created them and then he uttered three words in Genesis chapter one he says, and let them rule.
Three words. In other words, we are going to allow them to choose and we are going to, watch this, give them the freedom of the consequences of their choice.
So we are going to let them rule and we are going to let them determine their decisions and receive the consequences of their choices.
That is why God did not interfere with Adam and Eve eating the fruit because he said let them rule. We are going to give them everybody want to be free.
Everybody want to be freedom. They are celebrating freedom. July 4th. We are going to give them freedom. Let them rule.
So here is how it is going to work. I am going to plant all these trees in the garden, God said. Then he tells Adam, for every tree in the garden you may freely eat.
Freely. First use of the word freedom in the Bible is by God. So freedom is not a man-made concept. It is a God concept.
And God says, every tree in the garden free. You are free to eat it. Except there is one tree in the garden.
Stay with me here. It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is an information tree. This tree has data.
And it just does not have data about good, it has data about bad. Because it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So it has got good stuff in it and bad stuff in it. And that tree do not need it. So here is how freedom works.
There should be maximum freedom and limited regulations. Because there is only one tree you could not do. He did not over-regulate the garden.
Very limited regulations. Massive freedom is your choice. I am going to give you the instruction.
You can enjoy the freedom of my garden, but do not mess with the tree in the middle of the garden.
Now there is this other tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of life, you can eat that, but of the tree of the information tree, of the college tree there, the graduate tree, the PhD tree, that tree.
Do not eat that tree, because if you do, there is going to be a consequence. You are going to die.
But God did not stop them from eating the tree. He just told them about the consequence of eating the tree, but He gave them the freedom to rule.
He says, let them rule. So when God says in verse 6, if we leave them alone, nothing that has been purposed will be stopped, what He means is that their evil will proliferate and become unstoppable because they insist on ruling apart from me.
So in keeping evil from being as evil as it will become, if we do not stop the evil from becoming what evil will be if they all get together and spread evil, then we are going to have to intervene in this situation.
Reason or Revelation?
So here is the question you must face. Individually, as a family, as a church, as a society, will you live by reason or revelation?
Will you live by what God says or what the information tree tells you? Will you live by what everybody else thinks or by what God declares thus saith the Lord?
What will you live by? Because you will bear the consequence of the choice.
And enough of us have been here and lived long enough that we know God is right. We found out after the fact because we made the choice, got the consequence, regret we made the choice because God was right as he always is.
And so they come down. Because here is the principle. Listen to me.
Once you decide to not be ruled by God, you will wind up being ruled by someone who imitates God. Even if that somebody is you.
And once you have somebody imitating God in your life, you have an idol. You do not need a tree to be an idol.
All you need is a brain to be an idol. So they wanted independence.
God's Judgment: Confusion and Scattering
Come, verse 7, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's speech.
Have you been listening to the news about how Congress cannot get together on anything? Have you been listening and hearing how everybody is talking, nobody is making sense, and absolutely nobody has an answer for anything?
Do you get the impression by listening to the news there is a lot of confusion? The problem is we think the confusion has come from the people.
But did you read and confuse their language? I would like to suggest to you that the confusion in Washington D.C., the confusion in churches, the confusion in your family, the confusion in your own psyche is God is confusing you.
So watch this if God is creating the confusion I do not care what other person you go talk to if God is creating a confusion I do not care what party you are a part of if God is creating the confusion I do not care who you elect all he is going to do is confuse the new folk too.
The confusion existed because the independence existed. Confusion exists because independence exists and the more independence you insist on the more confusion you will have.
Verse 8 so the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth and they stopped building the city he stopped it.
It says, he scattered them. Let me tell you why that is an important phrase.
In chapter 9, verse 1, he told them to spread out and fill the earth. Through the three sons of Noah, Shem, Japheth, Ham, he says, I want y'all spread out across the earth.
That is what he told Adam, be fruitful and fill the earth. Fill the earth with what? The image of God.
So I want you to spread out and fill the earth. They said, we do not like that. We are not going to do that.
We are going to go east and we are going to come together and not fill the earth. We are going to come together as this one people in this one place and we are going to do earth from here.
I do not like what God says. So God, you stay there. We are going east. We are going to leave you and we are going to do our thing over there.
God said, wait a minute. I told y'all scatter. God, we told you we are not scattering.
We are not using your name. We are going to build our city. We are going to build our tower.
God said, but I told you scatter. But we are not going to scatter. We got our own name.
We do not need you. We got religion. We will give the impression of you. We are not going to scatter.
God said, okay. Well, we are going to confuse this thing so that nobody will understand what anybody else is talking about unless you are part of their tribe.
Then the tribes will have to gather together with their own people. And according to verse 8, it says, they fulfilled what God said.
Verse 8 said, they wind up doing what God said do, but it was not a pleasant experience.
After they thought they were going somewhere because they refused to do it.
From One Nation Under God to Away from God
We started out with the statement, one nation under God. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
To the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God. You know, liberty and justice for all.
You know, we started out with that. Now we are one nation away from God. Yes, his name gets thrown up.
His rule is rejected. The closing verse, verse 9.
Therefore, the name of the city was called Babel. The name of the place was called Babel because the Lord confused the language of the whole earth.
And from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth. You keep seeing this word, Lord?
If not, the devil made him do it. I do not see the word devil here. It is the Lord.
Why? Because the Lord will not allow men to compete with him. But he will allow you enough success that you think you are.
He will let you get a little high so that you think you are something. You think you are going somewhere.
You think you can be independent. You think you can be on your own.
The Danger of Flying High Without God
In closing, there is a true story. In Texas a few years ago about an airplane that took off by itself from one of these small airports.
It was a little twin engine deal. It just took off. The guy left it in gear or something.
Got out of it. Left it running. And somehow the gear tripped or whatever it was.
And the plane went down and took off. Took off with nobody in control.
Just took off. I mean, it is flying high. It took off independently of anybody controlling what happened.
It was its own plane without a pilot flying high. I mean, he was way up there.
Only one problem. It ran out of gas. And when it ran out of gas, it came crashing down.
My point, you can go high without God at the control of your life. You can build a name for yourself, a career for yourself, money for yourself, cars for yourself, houses for yourself.
You can become super-duper man, super-duper woman. You can get high by yourself.
You can have a person say, I do not need God. Look at what I have done without God. I am in here.
You can do all that without God. You can do that by yourself until you run out of gas.
But there will come that time in your life when you run out of gas and in the midst of your high-flying self, you are going to go...
And all of a sudden, the atheist in you is going to cry out, "Oh God!"