The Image of God #11: Building Your Life Without God?
GENESIS SERMON SERIES
I. Human attempt to build life without God
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. (Genesis 11:1)
And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. (Genesis 11:2)
Cush fathered Nimrod; HE was the first on earth to be a mighty man. HE was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. (Genesis 10:8-10)
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.” (Genesis 11:4)
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. (Genesis 11:3)
II. God’s response to human attempt to build life without Him
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 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. (Genesis 11:5-6)
7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 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. (Genesis 11:7-9)
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country [Ur of Chaldeans = Babel] and your kindred and your father's house [that serves other gods] to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you [one without a child and whose wife is barren] a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
