The Towering God and the Babbling People

Human Need: People are tired of “just surviving”; they want to live. You have worked and strived for that ever elusive “success” and “life-style” that the world says you must have “to be somebody.” Perhaps your plans have failed, and you wonder, “Why keep trying?”

What is God’s will for your life? Do you think that you must be “somebody” to know God and have peace? Or do you think that God is mean and is withholding good from you and you’re going to do everything in your power to get what God is keeping from you?

Textual Idea: God overthrew the Tower-builders’ plans to ascent to heaven and displace God.

Thesis: The Sovereign Lord overrules the puny acts and plans of man.

Interrogative: How does the Sovereign Lord rule over the acts of man?

The Bible teaches three doctrines about the Sovereignty of God to show how God rules over the acts of men.

An Omnipresent God See Man’s Rebellion

A. Exegesis, vv. 1-2, 4d

1. God had commanded Noah to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, 9:7.
2. Man disobeyed God and did the opposite–they congregated in one place, vv. 2 & 4.
3. “But the Lord came down to see,” v. 5, to see man’s rebellion.

B. Illustration–>Psalm 139:5-16. Corrie Ten Boom said: “No pit is so deep that God is not deeper still.”

C. Application

1. God is omnipresent: He is everywhere simultaneously.
2. Nothing is hidden from God.
3. Just as God commanded Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply, Christ commanded us to go and make disciples.

An Omniscient God Suppresses Man’s Plans

A. Exegesis, vv. 4-5

1. The Aspiring Plans of Man
   • a. “Let’s make bricks”
   • b. “Let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens.”
2. “But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,” v. 5.
   • a. The Omniscient Lord knows all things.
   • b. The Lord can see past, present, and future consequences, v. 6.
     • 1) The past testifies that man’s heart is bent toward evil.
     • 2) The present testifies that man’s plans unchecked can get out of control.
     • 3) The future testifies that man’s evil intensions can wreak horrific evil beyond the imagination.

B. Illustration

Ultrasound technology, which enables parents to see their developing unborn children, is the rage among the child-bearing generation. Parents are able to know, long before the actual birth of their child, whether their child is a boy or girl, and physicians can know much about the unborn child’s health condition.

Does it, therefore, seem unreasonable that God knows all about us, even before we know it ourselves?

C. Application

1. God is omniscient: He knows all things.
2. God is able to know what is best for us.
3. Read Jeremiah 10:23. Just as it was sinful for these men to plan their life apart from God, so it is sinful to live our lives thinking in terms of “my time, my money, my life.”

An Omnipotent God Squelches Man’s Arrogance

A. Exegesis, vv. 4-9

1. Definition of arrogance = “a feeling or an impression of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or presumptuous claims.”
2. Man’s arrogance wants “to make a name for” himself, and not for God. Read Isaiah 14:13-15. For example:
   • a. worry & anxiety
   • b. complaining & cutting down others’ efforts
   • c. being a Lone Ranger and not making disciples
3. “But the Lord came down to see the city and tower that the men were building,” v. 5.
   • a. Irony–The Lord had to come down low to see the puny things man does.
   • b. It is a small thing for the Omnipotent Lord to scatter the accomplishments of man, v. 8. For example, natural disasters and bad health.

B. Illustration

God has a way of turning the tables on evil. The French philosopher Voltaire predicted that Christianity would be swept from existence within 100 years. Yet just 50 years after he died in 1779, the German Bible Society had occupied Voltaire’s house and was using his printing press to produce stacks of Bibles.

During World War II, Adolf Hitler erected a massive stone structure in Monte Carlo. It was to be a radio station from which to broadcast Nazi propaganda into North Africa. Today from that very building, Trans World Radio beams the gospel of Christ’s redeeming love all across Europe and into Russia and Africa.

Could these ironies of history be whispers of the last word Christ will have at the end of this age?

C. Application

1. God is omnipotent: He is all powerful.
2. God is able to accomplish His will, despite the efforts of arrogant man.
3. Just as it was sinful for these arrogant men to try to supplant God, so it is sinful for us to do the work of ministry without prayer, without making disciples, and without involving others.

Conclusion

The Sovereign Lord overrules the puny acts and plans of man.

The Good News is that God desires for each of you a life blessed by God’s presence, His power, and His knowledge. We do not have to bear the cares and worries of this world; He will do that. But we must repent of our rebellion, our selfish plans, and our arrogance.

The Good News is Ephesians 3:20-21.

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