Pentecost Is Babel Reversed!

Pentecost, 6/9/19
Genesis 11:1-9


Pentecost Is Babel Reversed!
I. The Savior-God ended egocentric plans.
II. The Spirit of God enabled worldwide kingdom work.

Have you ever noticed that some things have a way of working out? I’m not saying that every problem in your life does. Some problems linger no matter what we do about them and we learn to accept them as the way it will be until the Lord calls us home to heaven.

But I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are other things that work themselves out even when you least expect them to. You had a heated argument with your daughter. You thought that it might be the last time the two of you ever spoke to each other. But lo and behold, she came to you and apologized for the hurtful things she said, and you apologized for your part in it as well. Things have a way of working out.

It almost seems that, at times, God has a hand in things.

We can’t say how and when with certainty that our God intervenes in the daily matters of your life. He simply promises us in his word that he will be with us and will guide and direct us.

But there have been times in history when we are certain how and when God intervened and caused things to happen as they did.

On this Festival of Pentecost, we have two such events before us. The one we heard in the Second Lesson earlier, the account of the Day of Pentecost from Acts 2. The other is the one before us this morning in Genesis 11, commonly known as the Tower of Babel.

To the casual Bible reader, the two may not seem to have much to do with one another. But if Babel hadn’t occurred, there would have been no need for the Holy Spirit to enable the apostles to speak languages they had never learned before. But Babel did occur. And Pentecost reversed it. Pentecost is Babel reversed. And there’s no doubt that God had a hand in it. Let’s ponder that truth for a while this morning, and see what that might possibly have to do with you and me.

Part I.

Let me ask you something. Is egotism on the rise in our society? In our world? That’s a rather subjective question, isn’t it? You’ll look in vain to find an “ego meter” to measure egotism. And there aren’t any stats to which you can point as proof for your answer. People simply have their opinions. So, do you think people are more self-centered today than they used to be? I’ll let you answer that for yourself.

But realize that egotism is nothing new. It’s almost as old as dirt. It is as old as sin in this world. And it certainly was evident among the people whose words the Holy Spirit recorded for us this morning. It was on display here in the plain of Shinar, which is the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, present day Iraq.

And God took notice. Listen again to the words of our text, “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’”

Whoa! So, the people are a little too self-centered and God reacts by confusing their languages, rendering them unable to understand one another, with the resulting distrust that people of different languages have for one another? Isn’t that a little over the top, God? An over-reaction to what appears to be a rather harmless incident? So, they wanted to build a city and make a great name for themselves. We see egotism like that and worse every day of our lives.

Precisely! And God calls it sin.

What you might not know about this event is what happened in history right before this. It was the worldwide flood in which God saved Noah and his family in the ark. That was God’s way of reversing how wicked the people of the world had become, pressing the reset button on history, if you will. God had commanded Noah and his family to fill the earth. And for a generation or so, things went well. But just a few generations removed from Noah and here’s how egotism once again dominated human hearts and lives. They would not spread out and fill the earth. They determined they were going to stay right here and build the world’s first skyscraper that we know of.

Our text tells us that God came down to see what these people were doing. That’s an anthropomorphism—assigning God human characteristics so that we can better understand the situation. The all-knowing God knew what these people were doing. And what they were doing—attempting to build a great city with a skyscraper at its center—was evidence that they believed Satan’s lie about themselves. It’s the same one he used on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It goes like this: Who does God think he is, trying to tell you what to do, and think and feel? You are the master of your own destiny. You’re responsible to no one but yourself. So, if you want to make a great name for yourself, go for it and tell God to stay out of it.

That egotistical stance gets sinful human beings nowhere but hell, and fast. And the God who loves us with an eternal love can’t stand that thought. So, he came down to lead these people to repentance. He wanted them to realize that this world and their part in it is not the end all and be all. It’s a sinful world inhabited by sinful people who need to realize how they have sinned against the holy God and plead for his mercy. He wants them to trust him for their forgiveness and eternal life. He drove them away from the sinful attitudes and actions. His intent was to drive them to his love and forgiveness.

Pentecost is Babel reversed. The Savior-God ended egocentric plans.

Someone near and dear to me reminds me when I need it, “It isn’t all about you, Joel.” It’s easy for me to think that, at least for the moment, whatever I’m facing is all about me.

How often has your life been all about you? How often are you driven to make a name for yourself, to defend yourself at all costs, to be unwilling to let some things go because you’re right and you know what’s best? Sinful pride is really at the root of every sin. We think we know better than God does so this is what we’re going to do, in spite of what God says. That’s exactly what these people of Babel thought and felt and said. And it’s our sinful problem as well. We have hearts that are stamped by nature with a sinful ego.

But your personal Pentecost has reversed that sinful dilemma. It happened when the Holy Spirit came to you, not with a visible tongue of fire, but with the water and word of your baptism. There he gave you a new heart, a clean heart. Your sinful ego was buried and it was replaced with the Lord Jesus. By faith in Jesus, Jesus now sits on the throne of your heart and leads you to speak and act in ways that are loving towards others and in keeping with his holy will. The Lord Jesus redeemed you so that you could be his own forever and so that you could live right now in ways that show you are his own. He’s ended your egocentric plans and has set you on a course for eternal life with him! Pentecost is Babel reversed!

Part II.

It’s true—this account of what happened at Babel is sobering, if not a little depressing. Look what sinful pride resulted in!

But that’s not the end of the story. Remember what we discussed when we started. Things have a way of working out. They always do when our gracious God is involved.

And that’s what Pentecost is all about.

God’s plan all along was to raise up for himself a people who love him and trust in him for salvation. We call it the Church, and his plans for the Church are revealed on the pages of the Old and New testaments. By the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, he has established the eternal Church which shall never perish. Even Satan cannot cause it to fail. On the Last Day, Jesus will bring every member of his Church with him into glory.

Pentecost was the day on which God began to unleash the power of his Church into all the world. The Spirit-filled apostles began to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. That’s where God had scattered people with their various languages at Babel, and now he would bring the gospel to them in their various languages to the four corners of the earth. That was always his plan for the Church.

God’s plan for you is to bring you into that Church. And by his grace, he already has! By faith in Jesus you are a living, integral part of something eternal. Think about that! It’s the only thing you’re part of in your life now that will go with you beyond this life. How will you continue to live your life in that Church? What great things does God want to accomplish with you and through you?

And what great things does God want to accomplish through us—Resurrection Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio? How will he use you to pass on our Christian faith to the next generation? How will he use you to encourage your fellow members at Resurrection in their walk of faith? How will he use you to support the worldwide kingdom work which began at Pentecost and continues today through our affiliation with the Wisconsin Synod? How will your faith help you work locally and think globally?

Does that sound like way more than you can do? Consider what we stated at the beginning. God has a way of working things out. Look what he did at Babel. Look what he did at Pentecost. Pentecost is Babel reversed. What will he use us to accomplish? What will he use you to accomplish? Ponder the possibilities. And may God pour out his Holy Spirit on us to accomplish them to the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.