Genesis 11: To Every Nation, Tongue and Tribe

Welcome back, friends. It's good to be with you. It's a great joy and a privilege to be a part of this missionary conference. My name is Michael Morales, and I'm professor of biblical studies at Greenville Seminary. And I want to look with you at Genesis chapter 11. You would turn there, I'll read, and then I'll open us up in prayer.

So Genesis 11, verses 1 through 9, the famous Tower of Babel story. Now, the whole earth had one language and one speech. 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 said to one another, come let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They had brick for stone, 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 abroad over the face of the whole earth." But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Indeed, the people are one and they all have one language. And this is what they begin to do.

Now, nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech." So, the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

Therefore, its name is called Babel or Babylon because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there, the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. Let us pray. Our great and glorious and majestic God, our heavenly Father, we praise and adore you. You are the fountain of life. From you, every good and perfect gift descends, especially your eternal beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, And in and through him, the Holy Spirit.

Lord, we thank you that you so loved the world. You did not spare your Son, but freely gave him up for us all. And we thank you that your Spirit opened our eyes to the beauty and the majesty of Christ and to his blessed work of atonement for our sakes and for the sake of the nations.

And we pray that that same Holy Spirit would make us his instruments and vessels, that we might proclaim the excellencies of Christ and his salvation, the glory of the Triune God, to all the ends of the earth. We confess, Lord, that we are weak, our hearts are prone to stray, the flesh is heavy within us. And so we ask that you would grant us much of your spirit that by him we might not only understand your word, but that our hearts would be warmed and that we too would be compelled by the love of Christ. We are empty, but you are full, And we pray that you would meet our needs this hour. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, I wanted to talk with you about Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel story, for a very particular reason. In terms of giving a biblical theology of missions, one logical starting place would be the opening chapters of Genesis, and I'll touch on that in a moment.

But this is a really helpful place here, Genesis 11, and I'd like to make an assertion to you and then try to back that up in the rest of our time together, and that is this. The crisis of the biblical story, the great dilemma that the history of redemption is seeking to overcome, is precisely what we see in Genesis 11.

The judgment of God that creates the nations who are scattered away from his presence, without God and without hope in this world. Now certainly we can back up a few steps theologically and speak of the great crisis as the fall of Adam. That is, we confess, that is what brought sin and death into the world, and we know that everyone born of Adam has a sinful nature. All of that is true. And there are portions of scripture that portray salvation as a reversal of the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So not denying that in any sense, but part of what I am saying is that the fruit of Adam's fall.

The picture we get of the world as it is in darkness and under the judgment of God is given to us precisely here in Genesis 11. So that Genesis 11 will become the portrait of a world lost without God, and often, as I will hope to show you, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the redemption that's found in the Messiah, will be portrayed as a reversal. of the Tower of Babel. Now praise God that we know it's not merely a reversal of the Tower of Babel, but that includes the original failure of the first man, Adam. And what we have here in the Tower of Babel is the world united, and we'll fill in some of the details here about 10 minutes from now. But the world is united, and they set out on this city building project with a tower whose summit or whose head breached.

And the tower reaches into the heavens. There are a variety of ways to understand what's going on here. One thing that we can say is that it's an act of colossal pride and arrogance, hubris. And from this soil of pride spring three flowers. And one of those is man's desire for glory that is due God alone. That really is the central motivation that we see. We see there in verse 4.

Why do they want to build a city and a ziggurat whose summit breaches into the heavens? Let us make a name for ourselves. Now we will have a little Hebrew quiz at the end of my talk. It's going to be very simple. I'll hold your hand through it. This is the first piece of information to note is that the word for name in Hebrew is the word Shem.

And in many ways, these little nine. Verses support the idea through plays on words, similarly sounding words, that name is of central significance. This is their central motivation. And so if you have a literal translation, you might notice that the word there is everywhere throughout this text. So, for example, verse 8. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there.

Therefore, its name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the language. And the word there in Hebrew is Shem. And so that's just one example. There are many other words that play off of this idea of these builders wanting to make a name for themselves. To make a name for oneself in the ancient world, just as it is in our own day, is a humanistic attempt at immortality. We often, you know, may donate money to have our name on a plaque on a building or something like that. But it's some way that we know after we're gone, our name. Our name will not be forgotten. And in the ancient world, there are many ways to make a name for oneself like in achieving battle glory, bearing kids, but also with great building projects. Gilgamesh, if you've read that story, that ancient story, is all about Gilgamesh is denied immortality from the gods.

And so the way he preserves his name is through the great building projects that he conducts. In fact, the story begins by saying, Look at all of these magnificent buildings that Gilgamesh created. And this is what fallen man wants to do. A second motivation, again, that flows out of pride is this desire for permanence and stability. They say, Lest we be scattered abroad, knowing full well that this was the will of God, to fill the earth with the images of God, to proclaim his praises. And yet, rather than doing that, they huddle together. They huddle together for this city building project. They don't want to wander. They want stability. Now, these things, these motivations, there is a way, as God's children, to have these motivations when they're in their proper context and perspective as children of God.

And we'll see that in a moment. But a third motivation for these builders is that they want protection. They want power. This is the idea of this. tower breaching the heavens. If you recall the flood narrative, God gave his people the sign of the rainbow. likely that was to remind not only himself of his promises, but to remind his people that he had promised never again to destroy the world with a flood. And if you read carefully the way the flood takes place, the rakia, the firmament, essentially gives way and the waters beneath collapse. With the waters above, you essentially have day two of creation unraveling. And one of the ways God assures humanity that that's not going to happen is we see this rainbow that perfectly undergirds the firmament.

But God also says that he won't destroy them. Likely, this is meant to be seen as something of a boundary treaty. We have an example of that with Laban and Jacob, where they make a treaty, I will not cross. This barrier to harm you and vice versa, and they eat a meal. God is, in a sense, saying that he is going to restrict his intense, what we would call Shekinah, or his dwelling presence to the heavens for now. And man's place is the earth below.

Here we have a very deliberate breaching of the heavens, trying to access the power of heaven. This is what we would call occult power. They want protection. In fact, the word battle. Babylon in Babylonian means gate of heaven. This was the very reason why they created Ziggurat. so the gods can come down and have communion with them and they can ascend, to the gods and, tap into this divine power for the sake of protecting oneself. And we get this picture, then, of humanity in utter arrogance and defiance of God.

I mentioned that this is the great dilemma, the great crisis. God's judgment on humanity at this point, for which the rest of the biblical story is a response. And it's good to even think about the question. We know what comes in chapter 12. God's going to call Abram, give him all of these promises. And this is where we might say the history of redemption really begins in earnest through the calling out of Abraham.

Why don't we get Genesis 12 in Genesis 4? Again, the big crisis we know is the fall. The fall of man in Adam, the fall of humanity. And yet, history goes on. And that's really what I want to touch on is chapters 2 through 11.

What's going on there? What are we to understand? What's the takeaway? Humanity has already fallen. We need a savior. Why can't we have Abraham called out in Genesis 4 and begin with the history of redemption? Well, one of the reasons, again, is that this is the full flowering of the fall of man. This is what humanity looks like left to themselves. It leads to the great judgment of God being scattered from the face of God. And yet, there are many parallels between chapter 11 and those early chapters of Genesis to show that we're supposed to look at this section of Scripture as one block. In fact, I would put a title over Genesis 2 through 11, something like nations under judgment scattered from the face of God.

They are divided from God. And divided from God. And divided from each other spread throughout the earth. And we find the beginnings, we find anticipations of Genesis 11 already back with the children of Adam and Eve. And so, if you look at chapter 4 with me, I won't take the time to go through the story of Cain and Abel. I trust we're familiar with it. But remember that in jealousy over his brother whom God favored and likely became the new firstborn, Cain determined to slay his brother so that suddenly he is... firstborn once again without a rival. And the Lord approaches him in chapter 4 verse 10 and says, What have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth. Let me just pause there. Vagabond, I love my translation, but that is an older, English word. Most of us understand that vagabond means wanderer. And here's your second Hebrew word. In Hebrew, the word wanderer is nod, N-O-D.

That's the word used here. God has cursed Cain to be a wanderer. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a wanderer you shall be on the earth. And Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Surely you have driven me out this day. From the face of the ground, I shall be driven from your face. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me. So the Lord gives him a sign and a promise. But these mean nothing to Cain. And so how does he respond to the judgment of God?

Verse 16. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. So there's your first Hebrew popcorn. What does Nod mean? It means wanderer. This is such a profound, even philosophical statement.

Man separated from God by sin is always in the land of wandering. He has lost his north star. Wherever he builds his city, he is lost. There is no compass, either inwardly, spiritually, theologically, or even in a sense, geographically.

Verse 17. He knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. Now, Enoch's name basically means dedication. It's a name often used for dedicating buildings and cities. And we find he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. And we think together very carefully, we'll find the same three motivations of pride that pervade Cain's heart and Cain's city-building project as we find later on in Enoch's life. In more detail in chapter 11.

Immortality, seeking glory. Well, he not only builds a city, one way to make a name for yourself, but he also has children and names the city after his son. He wants permanence. God says you are judged to be a wanderer, and so he, in the land of wandering, builds a city.

And he also wants protection. This is what he explicitly cries out to the Lord is a great concern. Anyone who finds me will kill me. God says, well, I'll give you a mark. And again, that's not enough. And historically, sociologically, this really rings true that cities came together, which always have a wall and some sort of religion that is seeking protection and divine power for the sake of protection. So all three motivations are there. And there's also a little hint of a similarity between Cain's city. And this Babylonian city we read about in Genesis 11. It doesn't come out in the English, but in verse 17, where it says he built a city, that verb is actually a participle.

He was building a city. And we assume by context that it was complete, but just the language that's used reminds us of what we're going to find in Genesis 11, a city that was actually not ever complete. Another way to translate, that same syntax and form of the word would be that he became a city builder.

And that's something we see throughout the pages of Scripture that those who reject God build cities, while those who turn to God in humility by the work of his Holy Spirit are essentially sojourners waiting upon God to restore that city that he once took away, the city called Eden. And so, it's not by accident that our Bibles end with the city of God descending out of heaven to become the new Jerusalem. The author of Hebrews chapter 11 talks about everyone from Abel to Abraham waiting for that city whose builder and maker is God. Whereas the goal of those who reject God is to get all the benefits of God through technology apart from submission to God.

There's a group of scientists I read about, some maybe 16, 17 years ago in Time Magazine. And their great goal was to overcome death. And I remember one of the quotes from one of these doctors that said, the idea that death is inevitable, or we might say that it's a judgment of God for the wages of sin is death, said it's ludicrous.

A human being is like a car. When it breaks, you fix it. And each one of these doctors were well convinced that they would solve, this problem of death before any one of them died. I would love to find that issue and see how many are still around. But that idea, through technology, we don't need God. I didn't bring it up, but in Genesis 11, it talks about having bricks for mortar. This was new technology. Suddenly we can create these cities and have all that we need. We don't need to submit to God. And so what we find is that Genesis 11 is Cain's city writ law.

The family of Cain has become representative of all the world. And God, as we know, comes down in judgment and scatters them into nations by dividing them up into tongues. And I'll come back to that point in a moment. But let me make a second assertion. So the first one, again, is that Genesis 11, God's judgment on the nations, is the crisis, the great dilemma that the history of redemption begins with. Beginning in the very next chapter with the calling of Abram, is seeking to reverse and overcome. There's a real sense that Genesis 12 through Revelation 22 is God's methodical, ordained plan to reverse the crisis that we see, if you like, in chapters 2 through 11 as a block. Now the second assertion that I want to make is that the kingdom of God spreads, or if we like, missions spreads through kingship.

We would really have to take time to go back to Genesis 1 and 2 and look at Adam's call. But I trust that we're familiar with God's command not only to be fruitful and multiply, but to rule and subdue. Adam was not to be a king himself, but a vice-regent. That is, he was to be the representative of God on earth, the second in command, as it were. And he was as he was, he ruled and subdued and through his family line and through his labors of six days and worshiping and resting and gathering all the fruits of his labors on the seventh day and praise to God, he was to spread the kingdom of God throughout the ends of the earth.

There is no blessing that anyone ever enjoys apart from kingship, apart from the kingship of the Lord as mediated Through his human king. Adam, we understand, failed. And part of what we are to grasp, part of the message of Genesis in chapters 2 through 11 is not just well look at what sin has done as sin spreads, but we are supposed to understand how terrible, how dark the earth had become under failed human kingship. So if we follow Cain's line a little bit longer, still in chapter 4 then, and look at verse 2, verse 23, we get this descendant of Cain called Lamech.

And he says to his wife Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.

The arrogance, the pride that gets filtered out in violence. we will see that that violence accumulates to such a degree and the immorality and the darkness of human existence that God later, a few chapters later, will decide to destroy the world through floodwaters. But Lamech represents Cain's leadership and how it has devolved into a wicked and violent pursuit. In fact, in the Hebrew, his name is not Lamech, but Lemech. And this is almost surely a word play called an anagram for Melech. You can see how those sound similar, Lamech, Melech. It's basically taking the same consonants and jumbling them. The word Melech in Hebrew, oh, you get three Hebrew words. That's not bad. I think we might stop at that. Melech is the word for king.

So here we have this perverse, this jumbled up kingship that expresses itself in great violence. And we find the same, the same paradigm, the same dynamic in chapter 11. So again, when we read chapter 11, it just sounds sort of ad hoc. All of humanity is, they're united somehow and they decide to do this building project. Well, the actual storyline is a little bit darker if we back up a chapter. Chapter 10, we read in verse eight, Cush begot Nimrod.

He began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel." And it continues. He has built other cities as a part of his empire, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. And so historically, most interpreters throughout the history of interpreting the book of Genesis have understood that what we see in Genesis 11 is actually a vicious, oppressive regime.

Not unlike what we'll find later in Egypt. Remember those two different gestures, city builders are those who reject God, whereas sojourners are those who submit to God. We will find that the Israelites are conscripted by Pharaoh, enslaved to do what? To build storage cities. it's it's a It's a very telling sign of how deeply troubled the life of the Israelites were like. We find with Abraham, something that should remind us of Genesis 5.

Abraham is brought into the land, he builds an altar, calls on the name of the Lord. That's what the sojourners do. An act of worship versus city building. And so Genesis 11 is not just giving us an endeavor, an enterprise of fallen man, but it is giving us the fruit of wicked kingship.

Kingship is what God has ordained to bring blessing into the world. But when the great king tried to usurp God by transgressing his command, and it led to his descendants having sinful natures, bent on rebelling against God, this is what human kingship does. And God in his mercy comes in judgment and he divides these people by changing their tongues. I think we're not given this detail in the mystery of the economic, actions of the Trinity. It seems that this would be a work of the Holy Spirit in judgment. At the very least, as Chad already reminded us earlier today, it will be a work of the Holy Spirit to reverse this judgment of God in due course. Now, before moving on, then we have Genesis 2 through 11. This is the great crisis that the gospel and that missions is seeking to overcome as it has its final, picture its final appearance there in Genesis 11.

And that that is the result of perverse fallen kingship. This will enable us to know what to expect of how God is going to bring this to a resolution. But even before coming to Genesis 12, it's good to reflect a moment on this question. Which was worse, God's judgment through the flood or God's judgment here in Genesis 11?

And of course, this is somewhat of a trick question. That means there's no wrong answer, but there's not really a right answer either. But let's put it this way. Let's say I could bring you into that DeLorean and you got to pick one of two destinations, not back to the future, but back to the past. And you could either get driven to the flood generation of Noah, or you could get driven to the Tower of Babel, judgment of God. I think most of us would choose Genesis 11 because you get to live. And as some wise person said, "When I breathe, I hope." So that's good.

But this question from a different angle, we might be able to see how much worse the judgment of God was in Genesis 11. And so those sociologists who take the time to look at statistics and things, think about the amount of people destroyed in Noah's generation. And it's sort of anyone's guess, but I don't think we have any idea that at this point in history, the earth has been filled. And so, whether it's just the ancient near eastern world, whatever number you want to say, 600,000, 6 million, whatever it is, hails in comparison by far with the deeply pervasive effects of God's judgment in Genesis 11. Because what happens as soon as people separate into different by different tongues, into different geographical areas, that create different cultures, different music, different ways of thinking, in a world where there is scarcity.

Suddenly we've just initiated wars and rumors of wars. And we can look through many classics of literature that teach that a king's almost number one job is to always be studying war. And so what these scientists, scientists do is they try to come up with some sort of figure to account for all of the deaths endured in war, just in this country, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War. But think about World War I, World War II. Think about all of the wars across the globe and the battles. Also think about the atrocities that happened in war, the things that happened to women and children. All of this upheaval and gasping of suffering is part of God's judgment on man, the wrath of God being revealed against man.

And so, whatever number we come up with was the death toll for the flood, it is a feather on the other side of the scale of the weight of human suffering, man's inhumanity to man that takes place through wars and the rumors of wars.

So it was a devastating judgment, and it's part of what's already been expressed even today in a variety of the talks. To spread God's kingdom is often going to involve danger and even the forsaking of one's life, literally. And that is because it is light shining into darkness. It is blessing entering into a place of curse.

And although Satan cannot do anything to withhold those that God saves, the word of God is not bound. Jesus has bound the strong man and is able to plunder his house. Nevertheless, it often comes with great pain, great agony, great tears, great sadness because of this world under evil human kingship.

Now then, let's look at Genesis 12, the calling of Abram. And yes, I know that chapter 12 follows chapter 11, but how can we deepen our understanding of cause and effect or of how Abram's call follows after God's judgment of the Tower of Babel generation? And one way to do that is to look at what comes between the Tower of Babel story and the calling of Abram. Here comes your second Hebrew quiz, verse 10 of chapter 11.

this is the genealogy of Shem. Shem's name means, when I say name, thank you, name. So here we have the key word is connecting Genesis 11, and as we'll see with Genesis 12, we get the genealogy, we get this little chain link of a man whose name means name, and one of his descendants is going to be Abram, chapter 12, whom God says, to whom God says, get out of your country, from your family, from your father's house to a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great. Now, yes, he does this ultimately through the seed of Abraham, who we read about in Philippians 2, is given the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every tongue shall confess, every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. They shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But nevertheless, Abram inherits a pretty significant name himself. And this is a reminder of what I said earlier, that a lot of these motivations, God is freely willing to meet these needs, for these needs to have substance, to have purpose in life, to have protection, to have permanence, but in his way. So we find that Isaac in many ways represents the idea of permanence.

He's the one patriarch that never leaves the land of Canaan. The experts in that area say that it was one of the rules in the ancient world of claiming land. Your descendant needed to not leave it. And then Jacob, we find in his life, Genesis 28, while he's still a rascal, had just duped his father. And even though Esau certainly did not did did not seek to please God and the Bible faults him for thinking so little, of his birthright. Nevertheless, Jacob was not exactly loving his brother when he said, well, I'll feed you if you sell me that birthright. So he was a rascal at this time, and yet, what do we find in Genesis 28? We find language very similar to Genesis 11. He sees a stairway whose head, whose summit, reaches the heavens.

He sees the reality of what these builders were trying to construct through technology with the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And he actually says, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the gate of heaven. That is the Hebrew explanation for the name Babylon. And so we find that God is freely able, freely willing to give his people the desires of their hearts, although we know that in this life it's a taste, and we're waiting for the New Jerusalem, where we will be planted and never plucked where we will have eternal life before the face of our loving savior. But nevertheless, we already begin to see that God is going to reverse and overturn his judgment on the nations, and that comes out especially in verse three.

"I will bless those who bless you, I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." The other side of Abram's life, in chapter 22, when he was willing to offer up Isaac, I think it's verse 18, God says something similar, because you've obeyed my voice. There he says, all the nations of the earth will be blessed, not in you, but in your seed.

And now while in a general sense we can say that the seed of Abraham represents Israel, it ultimately has respect of one singular Israelite, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul is not engaging in sketchy exegesis when he says the seed is singular. We actually find that in the Old Testament itself. In fact, let me give you one example.

One of my favorite psalms, Psalm 72, which is a psalm all about the messianic reign, the very opposite of the kind of world created in Genesis 11. There's going to be righteousness and justice established. There's going to be bounty for all the people to have more than enough to meet their needs. And of this Messiah, we read Psalm 72 verse 17. His name shall endure forever.

His name shall continue as long as the sun. And catch this echo of the Abrahamic promise. And I'm going to change my translation. Peoples shall be blessed in him. All nations shall call him blessed. The blessings of God flow through kingship. And when this Messiah is established, it's a psalm of Solomon. I take this with a very small minority that I believe it's actually David writing this for Solomon. He's writing this about the messianic son. When the Messiah arrives, whose name is blessed forever.

All who hope in him will have eternal life. The nations will call him blessed and be blessed in him. This is not merely a New Testament agenda. This is what the Bible teaches from Genesis onward, that when God raises up and exalts the Messiah, the nations will look to him and be blessed.

Now, there are a variety of passages that show us the reversal of the Tower of Babel as the great picture of salvation, and I want to take you to one of those that is in many ways the most obvious. This is Isaiah chapter 2, and you can see for yourself how clearly it gives us almost an iconic portrait of the reversal of Babel, Isaiah chapter 2.

the word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Yahweh shall be established, same language, Rosh in Hebrew, the summit, the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills. All nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, what, come let us make a name for ourselves? No.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways. We shall walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the Torah and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. This is a clear reversal. Rather than nations being scattered from a ziggurat city, they're being regathered to Mount Zion to declare the praises of the Lord in ways that we wouldn't have time to go. If you know the book of Isaiah, this path leads through the bloody footsteps of the suffering servant. But we don't stop there. Look at verse 4.

Remember what are the devastating effects of God's judgment in Genesis 11? Wars and rumors of war, hostility between nations. That makes verse 4 so beautiful. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. For anyone who has loved ones, parents, brothers, sons, daughters in the military, I needn't tell you how precious this promise of God is. All hostility put to rest as the kingdom of God spreads as the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ reaches every nation, tongue, and tribe. You know, even in a time of peace, nations do not discard their weapons. In fact, many of them are building up their munitions during times of peace for the very reason that it can make peace last longer if you have a proper military.

But here, none of these things will be necessary. There'll be objects in museums. And in fact, there is just so much produce. The earth is so fertile that rather than putting them in museums, we're going to use them as implements of harvest. It is one of the glorious pictures of salvation. And again, it's a reversal of Babel. No more war. There are other examples we could look at, like Zechariah 14, where the nation streamed to Zion, specifically in celebration of the Feast of Booths. Feast of Booths being the last feast of Israel in the fall. And already in the Bible takes on a spiritual significance as we bring in the last of the harvest. It's a picture of Israel fulfilling its vocation and bringing in the nations.

And this again is what missions aims to do. It's this glorious picture set before us that no human agency can do. You may be familiar, Isaiah 2 is actually in a plaque for the United Nations. I forget what part of the building.

Well, that's, of course, a mockery. It's a wonderful dream. It's a wonderful vision, but the United Nations will never fulfill this vision. God will use humble, broken people. He delights to show his power and his glory and his wisdom through the foolishness of this age, through the weak among us. And this is what God is doing through those nameless ones that are in places we can't even name, being spent for the cause of Christ. We get a glimpse of this picture beautifully in every local church.

I came from South Florida, and we perhaps have more diversity there than we do in some other parts of the country. but in many churches given the way that it's so easy to travel and just the movement of people in our era, we can see in every local church nations praising God. I have a friend who is a Jewish believer, and whenever I get discouraged, I just talk with him. He teaches the Word of God in Israel, and he will tell me about Jewish people and Palestinians arm in arm, calling each other brother, praising God in Christ together. This is the power of the Holy Spirit that Chad was talking about earlier today. And it cannot be fabricated by anything in this world. And this is one of the reasons why technology cannot be the answer, certainly on its own in rebellion against God.

It takes a work of the Spirit. And wherever we see this among God's people, representatives from across the nations, loving each other, seeing each other truly as family, we are seeing the power of God like nowhere else. And this, again, to piggyback on something that Chad said earlier, there is no technique that can work this out. It's a movement of the Spirit of God through what we call the simple means of grace, preaching the excellencies of Christ, showing the glories of Christ to this world.

Who would have thought that this Messiah who is going to bring the world under subjection, whose every knee will bow to, who is going to gather the nations to himself, would come as a lowly, unattractive, humble servant And being found in likeness as a man, he humbled himself further. He became a slave, obedient even to the death of the cross. That this glorious, matchless, eternal Son would become the man of sorrows, the wrath-bearing lamb of God, to submit himself to the fury of God's wrath for the sins I've done, for the sins that you've committed, so that his righteousness can be given to us by faith as a free gift.

Who would have thought that he would come as an elder brother, not ashamed to be associated with us. Friends, he rose on the third day. He ascended on high and is exalted to the highest place at the right hand of God where he reigns.

And he reigns with a purpose to undo the wicked fallen kingship that we see in Genesis 11. To gather all the people of God from among the nations under his scepter that they might know the eternal love of God to be swept into the eternal household and that love shared among the persons of the Trinity. And as we discussed the processions earlier today, how the Father sends the Son and then the Father through and with the Son sends the Spirit and how in John 20, this triune God through the Son and by the Spirit then has one more procession. He sends the church.

He sends the apostles to go gather all the nations back to himself. Well, Chad took us there already, but, well, he mentioned it. I want to look at it a bit more deliberately in the time that we have left. Acts chapter 2. This is one of the great places where, like Isaiah 2, we see that the gospel looks like a reversal of Babel. Now, Luke also gives us at the end of his gospel a reversal of the fall of of Adam, where Jesus is the risen Jesus is among his disciples, and we get all the language of take and eat and eyes being open, but in this case it's the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, and they recognize the Redeemer through the gift of the Lord's Supper. But here in Acts chapter 2, I'll just begin reading, and you can catch all of the echoes.

Acts chapter 2, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. That's unusual language, and it goes right back to Genesis 11. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven. Let's get some water here.

There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues. Now, if we ask our children in Sunday school, what story is about divided tongues? Unless we're avoiding the Old Testament, they would say the Tower of Babel. Here we have divided tongues. Their tongues of fire once sat upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. This is such beautiful and profound irony. That's what happened in Genesis 11. They began to speak in other tongues. But in this case, it's a reversal of the confusion.

So they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. and they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. Luke wants to underscore that point. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and they were confused.

I mentioned that Babel is actually Babylon. There's actually a play on that, and the reason why we translate it Babel is because it's using a word for confusion, saying that's why it's called not Babylon, but confusion. They sound similarly in the Hebrew, but this idea that they're confused is taking us back to Genesis 11.

But there, in Genesis 11, they're confused because they're being judged by God and separated. Now they're confused because they're so used to life in this old age of separation and hostility between the nations. They're confused about this newfound unity in the Holy Spirit because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

And Luke goes out of his way again to list these languages in verse 9. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya, adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them speaking, what?

Let us make a name for ourselves, heaven forbid. We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. This is what language is for, and this is why the Holy Spirit is bringing the Word of God into every language, every tongue.

I can't help but offer this aside. In Ezekiel 47, you remember that river that comes out of the temple, and you have this Edenic scene. You have the trees of life, and we're told that the leaves of those trees are for healing. Now, that's a very odd word in the Hebrew, and so you have these ancient rabbinical debates. What does this mean? What's the derivation? Is it actually from the Greek?