In his sermon titled 'Mercy & Judgment,' Kyle Nickerson explores the Tower of Babel story from Genesis 11:1-9, emphasizing its significance in the broader biblical context. The narrative begins with humanity speaking a single language and attempting to build a monumental tower to make a name for themselves, defying God's command to spread across the earth. God intervenes by confusing their language, forcing them to scatter. Nickerson elaborates on the dual themes of mercy and judgment, explaining that while God's confusion of language was a judgment, it also served as a merciful act to prevent humanity's further descent into sin. The sermon underscores the idea of God's judgment being imbued with mercy, as seen in the dispersion of people, which ultimately aligns with God's plan for redemption through the lineage of Shem and the eventual emergence of Abraham. The speaker draws parallels to contemporary believers, warning against prioritizing security over submission to God's will. He further highlights the importance of understanding the genealogies surrounding the Babel narrative, emphasizing the role of Shem's lineage in the unfolding story of redemption. The sermon concludes by reflecting on the hope of restoration and unity in heaven, where language barriers will no longer exist.

The scripture reading today will be Genesis 11, verse 1 through 9. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and by tomb and for mortar.

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. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 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. Come, let us go down there and confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth and they left off building the city. 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. Let us pray. Lord we thank you today for your sovereign word, for your food from heaven. I pray Lord that you would that it would go and do its work Lord that it would be seated deep in our hearts Lord and that it would invade the meditations of our mind throughout the day and throughout the week, that it would be unforgettable.

My prayer is the word is proclaimed today, Lord, that it does all that it's intended to do, Lord, and I pray that You would give me the grace, Lord, to deliver, to proclaim, and to not get in the way. We thank You, Lord, for all that You're doing in our midst today and all You're about to do. In the name of Jesus, amen. So I Was very thankful to have Peter in church today to do the Service I told my wife I said I had to do all that last time. Which is great, it's just that when you're not in the rhythm of somebody else's service and liturgy, it gets a little stumbly.

So I'm very thankful for that. Today we are talking about a very familiar narrative probably to many of us the Tower of Babel and Throughout my life growing up especially in my early days of knowing Christ I would read this story and I didn't really get it. I came along to the text and it said, at first I was confused thinking that God was mad at him for building a tall tower because it might get too high and it would compete with the majesty of God, which there's some of that in there. But I thought, well, this is just technological advancement, and he doesn't want to get carried away. I just didn't really understand what his problem was with the tower being built to the heavens, other than They were competing for glory with God, which is a true thing.

They they were for sure and So I looked at this narrative in some kind of isolated text and because it's surrounded by genealogies and one clan and another and so and so had a son and then when he was 35 he had another son We know that those usually the gripping texts of scripture that keep us awake at night so But I've found a lot of meat inside those very texts. In fact, I've found pivot points and gold inside genealogies. And so today, when you look at the Tower of Babel, because God is doing all that, he's he's showing us the descendants of Noah and the descendants of Shem and Ham and Japheth. And then right in the middle of that he breaks into this narrative. And so it's very important to understand this narrative in context or you will miss half of what's going on in here or more.

It's common knowledge. The first 11 chapters of Genesis is where establishes really the rest of what's going on in the Bible. I think it was Francis Schaefer said that if I had two hours with a man I would explain to him creation for an hour and 50 minutes and for the last 10 minutes. I'd lead him to Christ and So I would like for us to rewind the clock just a little so there's really three segments to this this narrative There's before the narrative the narrative and then after the narrative Kind of like a movie Like we saw Star Wars and A New Hope and we all thought, wow, this is an amazing movie. And darkness and bad guys and the rebel forces have to defeat the evil empire and We thought that's the movie and that's where everything starts and for all the guys who read the books, which I didn't We We know that that's not the first episode in the saga.

That's midstream. But it's the most captivating, like this story. You're reading this fantastic story of someone building a building, and the next thing you know, everyone's confused in the languages. And I used to think in this passage, oh, this is just God giving us a little window as to why everybody speaks a different language. He's trying to give us a leg up so that we have a reason to understand why that's true, which He is.

But it's not just a story about how God confuses languages. It's a much bigger story than that So I want to go back a little before the story starts in this narrative and It would help if I had my glasses on. And I would just like to kind of look at a few things. So in verse 1 it says, now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And so when you're reading this narrative you say, well of course, that's what it's about.

But do you really understand what that is saying like I want us to understand the setting Because the Bible in the Old Testament is full of stories This is a story and to get the story you need the setting and to understand the setting you need to know how we got to where we're at. And so God just opens the text because in verse 10, I mean in chapter 10, prior to that, he's naming all the descendants of Noah. And he get down to verse 20 and then a few paragraphs later and a few more paragraphs. He names all those descendants and says, and they're different languages and nations. And we haven't got to this story yet and they've already got different languages and then God says now let me explain what I mean by that And then he gives us this narrative.

So when we think about the whole earth had one language and the same words, these are the things I think about when I see this text. What language was that? What language was that anyways? Does anybody know what language that was? It wasn't Spanish and it's a lovely language.

I know because I speak Spanish and my lovely wife is from Honduras but it wasn't Spanish and it wasn't Hebrew And it wasn't German. You know what language it was? It was Adamic. It was the language of Adam. It was the only language that had ever been spoken.

Just one language. Imagine that? No one said, oh, you can't talk to that guy. No, no, that's right, he speaks Adamic. They had one language.

Speech was easy. There was no confusion due to bad interpretation. There was no need to figure out which text we were going to interpret the Scriptures from. It was smooth sailing. They all spoke Adam's tongue.

In fact, God has to start here because by the time this is written, everybody speaks a different language. And he has to remind them, hey, you know, back then, it wasn't like that. They all spoke one language over the whole earth. And they would have known this through lore, but you know the problem with stories as they get older, you forget. You forget how things were.

And when I think of this story, I think it's amazing because Noah outlives the flood by 350 years. Now, I don't know if God changed his language, but if he didn't, he's speaking the same Adamic tongue right from the beginning. And his son outlives the flood by 500 years. His son dies 30 years before Abraham dies. I mean, these people are in the earth and you can go somewhere and say, see that guy?

He knew Noah. And if you were alive within 350 years of this event, you could go to Noah and say, so you knew Lamech was your dad, Methuselah was your granddad, and They all knew Adam. There was common knowledge, common language. Can you imagine going to Adam and saying, well, first of all, I was telling my wife the other day, could you imagine being Adam? Oh, you're that guy.

Thanks. I really appreciate what you did for us back there in Eden. Can you imagine being Adam? Wow, that would be difficult. But imagine the symmetry that exists in a world like that.

And Noah was the hope of that generation. It says in Genesis 528 that Lamech had a son and he said that this son was born of the cursed earth and that, here I want to read it. That's a bad habit. Let's go to Genesis 5 and 28. It says, When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

Now that was Lamech. That's the father of Noah. Now Lamech lived a long time. Lamech's alive when his son is building a big boat. I mean, we just go through these genealogies, but we don't really give it the thought that it deserves because these people are just like you and I.

These are not just historical figures that make up a nice story that we read to our kids at bedtime. These are real stories about real people that did real things and so you got to think what did they experience in the midst of that? Lamech died five years before the flood, five years. That ark is just about done and you know what? He's probably thinking wow He did it.

I can't believe my son really did it and the Lord Graciously for Noah takes Lamech before the flood Who knows Maybe Lamech became a skeptical old man and thought his son was a nut. I remember when I became a believer, my father didn't think much of it, didn't think I was really, he didn't know what to make of it a lot of things But I'm assuming lambic Understands that this is salvation and he dies five years before the flood That's some perspective that carries on into this segment of text. And you know that this text as far as we know, and I happen to believe this text, occurs about a hundred years after the Flood. Through the lineage there's a son, his name is Peleg, he's born about 90, 101 years after the flood through the line of Shem. Shem had a son two years after the flood.

It gives us these dates and you can just track them. So we're a hundred years out from the flood and it says, let me find that, Peleg. Genesis 10 and 25. To Eber were born two sons. The name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided.

Now, I'm one of those guys who believe that that's the text speaking of the division of the tongues Hence the nations and the earth is divided And that's about a hundred years now. I can't say that dogmatically It could have been a couple hundred years It could have been 300 years if it goes under 350 years Noah is still alive and he sees everything that happens Or at least he hears of it Because hundred years is not a long time not when you live 900 years You know and so back in in Genesis, Chapter five. Lamex prophecy to Noah. It says that it says that Let me see where I am five no ten It says that he'll bring relief It says me this one will bring relief And so I thought about that. I said, what does that mean?

Okay, now we're back into, we live a long time world again. So these guys are living eight, seven, nine hundred years and and Lamech is saying this one will finally bring relief to this curse And I thought about that I said man how many people go to the office every day and it gets old And it gets old and you say well I've been doing this for 30 years I'm glad that's enough of that How would you like to do that for 800 years? And nothing ever changes. The sun comes up at the same time, goes down at the same time. It's harvest time, it's not harvest time.

For a thousand years, These guys lived a long time. Ever seen the movie Groundhog Day? The same thing every day, the same cubicle. They got to deliver the newspapers to the same guy every year for 900 years. Maybe they get arthritis when they've got 700 years clocking and they have to live with that for 200 years before they die.

That's miserable. That's hard. Like he says this and he says You're the one that's going to give us relief from what this curse. I Mean, I think it's like visceral at that point You know we think we've lived a long life when we've taught in fact we were talking about the hope Given to us at the dead at the breakfast table this morning, and I said yeah That's that hope honey that tells us I'm talking to my wife of course That's that hope that that is only going to be relieved when we die That's when we're going to be made perfect. And she's like, yeah, because this is a long life we live, full of frustration.

The creation is given over to frustration, Murphy's law. There's no Murphy. That's God's law. He's the one who's given it over to frustration. He's the one who decide entropy will rule.

And that's what they're living in. And then the flood. And then a hundred years later here we are going in circles. So let's look at the text again. So they spoke One language, the language of Adam, had clear communication, which was a grace, a gift.

Can you imagine living 900 years and not being able to communicate? And they migrated from the east and settled there. So Once again, they were east of Eden. That's a metaphor, that is a moment for us to understand. Yep, just like the garden, they're east of Eden.

They're coming from the east, they're migrating out. These are cursed people. Just because the world has been destroyed, and they're starting all over again, sin is still present. Man is still corrupt in his heart moving forward from the east He's he's suffering under the curse and And we're a hundred years out now and people are forgetting. People are having to be reminded of what God said in the garden.

And not everybody's really caring about it. This is kind of like a family tree when you have your cousins here and you have these other cousins and then you have those cousins. Okay? That's who Ham is. That's who the tribes of Ham are.

Rehearsing the story of Noah and his three sons, Ham is the cursed line coming out of Noah. Well, Noah curses Canaan. And so these are those people who are not listening. They're kind of done with the story. They do their own thing.

It's evident. It's almost like the two worlds we had prior to Prior back with the the line of Seth and the line of Cain you had these two The the godly line of Seth and the the sinful line of Cain always in competition with each other and Now we're back at that place post Noah We have the line of ham as we're going to see and then we have the line of Shem Which is where we're going to get Abraham So the story starts way back here comes through Noah a hundred years later we're back here at the tower of Babel. So in the Noahic covenant God says to multiply and fill the earth, Fill it and that's going to be the problem in the tower scenario. They they forget God they're not concerned with doing what he says they're they're probably thinking just like it says in Peter what flood that's just an old myth we've heard that before the scoffers and mockers that come I would imagine these guys are kind of either done with the story or they don't like it. They don't like the curse.

They don't like the fact that they're 100 years out having to carve their own niche make their own way. They just want a little security like retirement They just want them. They just want to make sure all their ducks in a row. I Stress about things sometimes finances security. I want a nice place.

I don't want to have to be a nomad. I don't want to have I don't want to have to be a nomad for Christ sometimes I don't want to have to venture into things where I have to trust the Lord more. Well that's their whole life their whole life is extending the earth trusting the Lord venturing out Now the Lord promised them in the Novii government that, hey, I'm going to give you all these things to eat and none of the animals are going to harm you. It's going to be okay. You just fill the earth.

You trust the Lord and fill the earth. But instead these people, they come to a nice plane in Shinar and they go, oh this is kind of nice. I don't think I want to fill the earth. I think I want to settle down. And so the players here are, I believe, according to Jewish tradition, is Nimrod.

According to Jewish tradition, He's the one who built the ark. I mean the the tower in Babel so In Genesis chapter 10, in verse 9, actually verse 7, we'll say verse 6, the sons of Ham, Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan, the sons of Cush, Siba, Hivah, Sabta, Rama and Septika. I just quoted those guys to let you know they all come from Ham. The sons of Rama, Sheba, and Deden. Cush fathered Nimrod.

He was the first on the earth to be a mighty man He was a mighty hunter before the Lord and therefore it is said like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord So The name Nimrod means rebellion or we shall rebel and as I said Jewish tradition they believed that he was the one who built the tower. And when it says he's a mighty man, a mighty hunter before the Lord, that mighty man part is more of an archetype for Mesopotamian kingship. So he would be the first king to set up his kingdom. So we're a hundred yards away from the flood and he sets up his kingdom. He says, hey, and you know, it's kind of like everybody looking to Gaston.

Oh, that's the guy that can get it done. That's the man. He's the mighty hunter. I'm just thinking of the song now in in Disney So he says no we're gonna stop we're gonna build a kingdom right here And he rallies people around him and I would think at this time he's probably got not just the descendants of him I'm sure there's descendants of Shem and Jephthah around and he's kind of like the cult leader and you know people Naturally follow the leader and peer pressure causes people to follow even when they think it might not be a good idea So I have a feeling that there's some subsuming going on of authority Where maybe tribes of sham and Jeff know that this is not a good idea, but it's becoming the group think. They're kind of going along with it.

Now, I know this sounds very colloquial. There's probably a lot more landmass that people are filling but generally that's the talk of the town Do you know what's going on in China? And? So he he calls together the troops He says come and let us make brick for stone and burn them thoroughly. Let's do it, right Let's make goods.

You know I was looking up what by Tumen is and by Tumen is basically pitch and I didn't know you could use pitch for mortar but they actually do is actually common in that area Mesopotamia at that time they'd like layers of pitch and hay and they and they press it and it gets really hard and it becomes like a watertight seal for the for the stone so they mean to do a good job they're gonna they're gonna dig their heels in they're gonna get the building code right they're gonna make a strong tower it says let us build our city build ourselves a city in a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over all the face of the whole earth. I thought we were supposed to fill the whole earth lest we be dispersed over the whole earth. Now that that sounds hard, that sounds like he's thumbing God in and he is, But I wonder how much of that we do. I mean, I look at the circumstance and I'm referring to what I said a few minutes ago. I crave security.

It's easier to kind of build my own little thing and be secure rather than to do what I think God wants me to do and have to trust Him. And I think we do this in our hearts. I think sometimes we huddle up, we surround the wagons, and we do what's safe instead of doing what God has called us to do. The second is the hard part. I think when you resist God's will for too long, it becomes apparent in your heart.

My warning is, don't do that. Submit to the Lord and do what he's called you to do whatever that little thing is in your life Don't be tempted to to build your city don't be tempted you know it says it says that don't don't forget the Lord and build your vineyards in your houses the Lord chastens his people to say no don't forget me now that you're all comfortable with your houses in your vineyards. We're kingdom people building his kingdom. We're not building our own kingdom. And so I think we can all be guilty of this sin, not just the wicked evil Nimrod.

He's like that character in the movie that you can say, man, he's really bad. But we have found the enemy and he is us. Because sometimes we are really bad, maybe a lot of times. So verse five says in chapter 11, and the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. And that is really the apex of this story.

That is the center of the story. I said the story had a start here and an end here. This is the center of the story This is the center of the drama man and Wicked tribes coming from the the line of Canaan are doing their thing. I Said I wasn't gonna get into talking about chiasms So a chiasm it shows you it's like a chart You can read these verses and you can start at verse one and it talks about a people with one language and when you get to the other side of the chiastic structure, down in verse nine, they're confused with several languages. So you have two parallels, but they're saying opposite things to show you something in the middle, a contrast, a truth.

And So you have descending parallels that get to the middle. Well, the middle is right here where the Lord came down in Genesis 3 11 through 13 that's where the Lord enters the garden and says well He's walking in the cool of the day and he asks that question. He says, where are you? He comes into the scenario to make an assessment, to make a judgment, because something's going on that's not right, and the Lord comes down to see what's going on in the garden. In Genesis 4, 6 through 10, Cain has just murdered his brother, and the Lord has to come to him and say, Cain, what is that?

What is that blood in the ground? It's screaming because he's confronting Cain with that sin. In Genesis 18, Sodom and Gomorrah, remember when the Lord said, I'm going to go down to the city and see? Now it's not that the Lord needed to see. He already saw a few verses before that.

He says, well we should tell Abraham what we're about to do because he's a righteous man and we're going to make him the father of many nations. So the Lord says, well we're going to go down and see. What that really means is we're going to go make our assessment and make our judgment. 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 be impossible for them and this is where I used to think I didn't really understand that text but This is not talking about their ability technologically. Now I agree they have one language and they can probably do a lot.

Maybe the industrial age is going to come a lot sooner if the Lord leaves them alone. But I really don't think that's what that's talking about. I think he's saying that left to themselves their corruption knows no end. It just knows no end. And what happens when man's corruption grows to the point where it fills the earth?

What did God do already? He had to destroy the world. Or he decided to destroy the world all flesh died saved Noah and so the Lord is not going to let the earth do that again yet an even faster pace because now they're further removed They don't get to talk to Adam anymore. They don't get to have Folklore that tells them about what happened in Eden. So their Acceleration rate of sin and wickedness is going to be much faster It only took them a hundred years to build a city and In these cities these ziggurats are made for false worship.

They're made for idolatry They're made to making a name for themselves And God says no, we're not going to go down that path anymore. I have other plans. I have big plans. So in our little chiasm, we have them building a city. And on the opposite side of that chiasm, we have God who's about to build a kingdom.

You see the opposites? You see the contrast? And you see the change that you see in that chiasm? And so God says, no, no, we're not going to have that. We're going to put an end to your building, to your rebellion.

And then he just has a little monkey wrench he throws in and says, watch this. And changes everything. Says, come let us go down there and confuse their language. So he makes an assessment and evaluation and says, these people, there's nothing they'll stop at. They'll stop at nothing.

So here's the sentence. Here's the judgment. Now this message is called mercy in judgment. So we're looking at the judgment right now. And then we're going to look at the mercy because whenever God judges, it's always in mercy.

There's always mercy in there. When Jesus dies on the cross, that is judgment so that mercy emerges, so that there is mercy for mankind available through the blood of Jesus Christ. He says, come down, let us confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off the building the city. 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 the earth.

The text tells us earlier that the first cities that Nimrod built were Babel, there was three other cities and they were in Shinar. So I'm kind of tying that back together so there's some symmetry there for us. So what was the judgment? The confusion of the languages. Well now they can't accomplish anything.

It said that All those different tribes, if you read through the whole of chapter 10, which is a lot of genealogy, they all had their own language and their own nation. And I thought about that, if you count how many people go in different directions, how many languages is that? Several. Many, many. They can't have a conversation.

It's just much easier to just move on it says they they stopped the building project they didn't do it it's like there's enthusiasm there's crowd enthusiasm and the next thing you know they're going, oh well there's nothing to see here and they all move along. Game over. They can't even communicate with each other. They have to spread out and sit. It's not that they even want to spread out in several directions.

I think Nimrod stayed right where he was because when they couldn't speak to each other, they're figuring out where they're going to go. Nimrod says, well, I'm bigger than you are. I'm staying right here. After all, I'm Gaston. I think everybody else has to go their different ways.

I don't think that there's any competition for the land of Shinar. That's the nice stuff. And what's really neat, though, is, as we'll see, the tribes of Ham, they move to the best property available. They inhabit the Fertile Crescent, right where Israel's going to be. And down into Egypt, where the Nile River is, and where there's fertile land.

They take the best land. And Shem has to move over this way going towards Asia and Jefeth moves north Of course, I'm kind of going backwards because you're all looking at me backwards. So we'll say Shem moves that way Jefeth moves this way and Ham goes this way and says I'll just settle right down here where the best land is. So the curse is that they can no longer speak, they've lost the convenience of such ease of speech And they're forced to move, they're forced to scatter. Okay, that's the judgment.

Now let's see the mercy. So here's the mercy. The Lord confused their languages. The Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. I thought that was the judgment we just talked about.

The judgment was that he confused their languages and dispersed them over all the earth. They were comfortable, they were happy, and the Lord spread them out. You know what the mercy was? That the Lord confused their languages and spread them out over all the earth You say what are you talking about? Well, if he'd let them do what they were going to do, what would have happened?

It would have been there to them to their demise What a blessing that he confused their languages What a blessing is that he dispersed them over all the earth like he told them to in the beginning You know in in Acts when persecution hit the church This was God doing a good work spreading seed throughout all the earth spreading the gospel That persecution which seemed difficult was really God's plan to move the gospel This judgment was really God's mercy To move the peoples of the earth because what he's really saying is look guys I have a kingdom I'm being I'm building and I got things to do and I need all the chess pieces where I need them. And so I'm going to confuse your languages. Now, to the people of Ham, it's a blessing because now they'll sin less. They're going to do less sinning than they would have before. It's the most merciful judgment God could give.

Now there is a final judgment. There is the wrath of God and there's no mercy in there. But up until that point, there are judgments that God brings to mankind that are the most merciful thing he can do So when God judged Adam and Eve in the garden That was the most merciful thing he could do When he cut them out of the garden and put an angel and wouldn't let them come back. That was the most merciful thing he could do. But you know what it felt like when that was happening?

Can you imagine? Can you imagine you're in the garden? And it's unbelievable. And in spite of the fact that God loves you, he says, but now you must leave. Have you ever been at someone's house and they tell you to leave Wow that's hard that's hard and that was the most merciful thing God could do He said if we let them stay they'll eat from the tree of life and then it's over.

They'll be locked in with sin and there'll be no redemption. That was the most merciful thing he could do was to judge them and bring a sentence to them with the hope of redemption in the future. And they go out of the garden thinking, okay, well, the Lord said he's gonna redeem. And a thousand years later, there's no redemption yet. Do you think they're doubting the word of God?

Maybe Adam and Eve aren't, but do you think all these people that are there are doubting the word of God? I would say so. Do you think these people after the flood are doubting God? I would say so. Because we forget and we get further away from the incident.

So God It's a little a little hazier on the flood because everybody dies but Noah But you know, that was the most merciful thing God could do We think God is God says he does not delight in the judgment of the wicked God if if Adam and Eve God could have righteously come to Adam and Eve and says I told you you would die And they're dead Now we all know that that's not God's redemptive plan from before the foundations of the earth. We know that from Titus chapter 1. But if he had not, if he had killed them right then and there he'd be fine He'd be okay. He he would have done justly and right but we would never know him as God the merciful We would only know him. Well, we wouldn't know him but he would be known by the angels as God the just God the holy God the Almighty But he would never be known as God the merciful God the gracious God the loving Redeemer Says in says in Romans chapter 9 15 What if?

In fact, let's turn to there. Romans 9 and 15, it's a verse you all know. It's a verse any Reformed thinker should know. And if you don't, well, you're going to know it today. But I'll bet everybody in here knows it.

Hebrews 9, I mean Romans 9 and 15. Let's kind of take a look at that. Wait a minute. Okay so it says, I'm sorry, we're in Romans 9 and 20, but who are you man? To answer back to God, what will what is molded say to its molder?

Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of it the same lump? One vessel and honorable use and for another vessel for dishonorable use. What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? Why?

Why? Why? That's the next thing In order to make known the riches of His glory for the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory. So what if God, desiring to show his wrath, I'm reading again, and to make known his power has endured, that is put up with, be patient with. Much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory.

So the most merciful thing God could do with Adam and Eve is evict them from the garden. But that means you've got a whole Timeline of humanity that's going to live and come under wrath Because God is going to display his mercy By being patient says in in Acts 17 that what if God put people in nations and places Giving them the opportunity to grope and hopefully find him God has set this up Okay, so he could have destroyed the wicked, but he doesn't He lets them hang around until the time of their sin has accumulated. We see this with the Canaanites. So when he when he the very next set of texts coming out of this verse, let's go to Genesis chapter 11. And we'll kind of go, we'll go into phase three of this this narrative It says and They are the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth, and what's the next thing he does he tells us about the line of Shem And in verse 26, which is the last line of my page, which is great, when Terah had lived 70 years he fathered Abram, Nior, and Haran.

So God doesn't leave the story hanging with judgment, He shows us mercy. He says this is all for a reason. He says so that's what the line of Ham did with the time I gave them. Now I'm going to show you what I'm going to do with the line of Shem to build my kingdom. I'm not building little cities out of bitumen and brick.

I'm building kingdoms made out of living stones. Made out of living stones. So we see in, it says in verse 28, Harand died, let me see, We'll just go to 12 verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing I Will bless those who bless you and?

Him who dishonors you I will curse and in all the family and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed So we have the flood then we have man doing the same thing he was doing before the flood, returning to his own vomit. Rinse and repeat. Basically. He rebels and then God says, now out of that rebellion I'm going to form a great nation and I'm going to start with you. At this point in redemptive history the whole rest of the Old Testament is that story.

That's chapter one of the whole rest of the Old Testament. Abraham is the model, he's the cornerstone of understanding faith and justification. In Romans chapter 4 it was it was a credit under him righteousness. Now here's the great part, Here's the great part I never saw before. Where does he tell Abram to go?

Abraham is in Ur of the Chaldees, somewhere down in the Mesopotamian region, to the western side. And he says, I'm going to take you to the land of Canaan and I'm going to plant you right in the middle of The wicked tribes the cursed tribes of Canaan Now I know what we do as human beings, that's not where we go. We retreat. We circle the wagons. We shelter.

Now I do have an ethic about raising my children or my child. I shelter. And at a certain age, it's time to plant. And God plants us in places where we're going to shine the brightest. In fact Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together he says God has called us to dark places.

Jesus Christ was called where? He's light coming into a dark world. For the light has shone and they rejected the light because they love their darkness. So the amazing irony of this story is those Canaanites that are responsible for the Tower of Babel, that move on up to Mesopotamia to get the best land, are going to be thwarted by God's plan to take Abraham, move him all the way up, and plant him right in the middle and say, now I'm going to build a tower. I'm going to build a strong tower, it says in the Psalms.

And I'm going to use living stones to do it, and I'm going to use Jesus Christ as my cornerstone. I get goosebumps thinking about it. That's just amazing. So we'll go to we'll finish this little narrative. Let's go to 15 Genesis 15, and we'll go to verse 13 in Genesis chapter 15.

It says, Then the Lord said to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterwards They shall come out with great possessions as for you you shall go for your father to your fathers in peace So it's going to be okay with you Abraham You shall be buried in a good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. So I just want to summarize mercy and judgment. So what if God created vessels for wrath and Endured them. Well, this is God doing that, you know what he's demonstrating He's saying well, we're not gonna wipe out the Amorites yet It's not part of the plan and their sin has not built up to the point where I'm going to destroy them.

We're going to wait, I'm going to say it's about 400 years. Your people are going to sojourn down into Egypt, but you, you're going to die here a ripe old age. And then I'm going to take those people and come back and wipe out all these people. I mean I hate to say it, but who gets the last laugh? I don't hate to say it actually.

It's Psalm chapter 2. God laughs from the heavens. Right? That's what it says. So the mercy is in the judgment.

That's where it comes from. When Christ comes to judge, that's where the wicked perish because they know not the Christ and that's where we the elect, Lord willing, receive mercy. All at the same time, in the same strike. That same strike of judgment is the same strike of mercy. And that same destruction of the Babel Tower, that same confusion of the languages is the very, is the start of a process of redemptive history because that's, it's right there that the tribes of Shem Are free to move forward move out so that God can take Abraham and put him right back in and that's what the Bible means When it says that the the gates of hell will not prevail It is an offensive church that we live in, planted in the middle of a dark world, so that we can shine and make His name great in all the earth.

Mercy in judgment. Now at the last day, I will just say this, I don't know about mercy in in in in the pit and in the abyss and in hell, but I know that this process Will end in the conclusion for us in great mercy in heaven and the consummation of all things And I look forward to that and I'm thankful for all these things that God brings this this is Romans 828 All things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. So as we go out and we read the story of the Tower of Babel, it's not just an incident where God, oh that explains everything. Now we know why everyone speaks differently. No, that's mercy.

And then in acts where they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit What's the what's the sign they spoke in other tongues now? There was a read a reconstitution of that symmetry when we get to heaven. We're not going to speak seven languages. We'll probably all speak Spanish. That's what they say anyways.

When we get to heaven there will be symmetry, there will be joy, there will be communication. There won't be frustration if anybody has spent time in a foreign country and you don't know how to speak the language you'll experience frustration and there'll be no frustration in heaven they'll just be complete joy there'll be symmetry once again we'll all speak one language So I thank the Lord for the confusion of the language there because it's what produced all the rest of redemptive history. It closes out the ancient world, it closes out the antediluvian age, and it moves forward. Everybody after that, They don't live 900 years anymore. They're all living shorter lives and we're moving into a new chapter So I thank the Lord for his judgments David says try me judge me test me.

Oh Lord Do some more Do some more judging Lord test me some more. I want to be right. I just did confession and absolution at church about three weeks ago and And it was exciting it was exciting to do that. You know, I was exciting because we get clean It's our corporate confession where we can corporately come together and say, amen. We're clean.

We're clean before the Lord. My husbandman calls me, but I'm filthy. And If I can confess my sins all the faster creating me a clean heart now I can embrace them all the closer I Say Lord test me try me bring on little judgments Because for the people of God those little judgments are hope They're mercy. They're glory. They're amazing and I'm just as human as the rest of you.

Sometimes I hate them and it takes me a little bit of time to see why they're so great And they hurt it's like going to the doctor and having your leg broken again So that he can fix the bone and make it straight So I pray that Somehow somewhere in the Word of God today that we have things to meditate on this week Then we have things that we won't forget that we have things like Mary who laid these things down in her heart So we have meditations we can renew our minds with this this story in the Old Testament There's far more than just a story. It's the story of redemption. It's the story of how God works with His people. Let us pray. Thank you, Lord, for your word, for working in our hearts.

Thank you for providentially guiding our lives because we wouldn't know what to do. We wouldn't know our left from our right. We wouldn't know if we should be in Shiner or Irv the Kalbees or in the land of Canaan. And we're so thankful that you guide us, that you correct us, that you straighten out our paths, that you lower the mountain and fill the valley. We thank you that you have a promise, that we have a hope, that one day we will all speak the same language.

We will all enjoy your light, your love, And know You even as we are known. I pray this week, Lord, that these things would would hang in our meditations, would spur on new meditations, would lead us to texts that relate to these kinds of things. That you use these things providentially Lord to help us, to guide us, to comfort us and to lead us. I thank you so much Lord that you're in charge and that I'm not. I thank you so much that you have the whole earth in the palm of your hand.

I ask you to just to watch, lead, guide, protect, and inspire us this week. In Jesus precious name. Amen.