Incident of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-8)
Intro
1. Origin (Cause, Motivation), Process, Results – Fruit
This led to the result of the Tower of Babel
Main
1. Satan (Tempt)
How does Satan tempt people?
1) Gen. 3:4-5
God said you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but Satan breaks that standard, how? Through temptation. God tells you not to eat of it, but Satan tempts you, saying, “If you eat of it, you can be like God.” Satan tempts us to go away from the Word of God, saying, “You can be like God.” That’s how he tempts us, and because we were tempted, our eyes changed. If Satan seizes your thoughts, everything you see is different. How do you change? They saw the fruit as being good and pleasing to the eye and for gaining wisdom, so they changed.
Standard- God’s Word
If you don’t have the Word, you’re already seized and you don’t know it because you think it looks good, it seems like you can do it, you think it’ll work out if you get married to someone, but if you’re seized, even if you think those thoughts are good, it’s wrong. When I look at that, I need to see, but if you’re apart from the Word of God, you live a difficult life. The reason we record and write notes is so that we can have it continuously, focusing on the Word God desires for us. It’s true that Satan tempts us, and he uses God’s word as the standard. So, if you want to live the path of God, apart from Satan’s temptations, hold onto the Word and meditate on it.
Meditation
There’s a special word the Holy Spirit gives to you, If you continue to think about this Word after worship, throughout the rest of the week, it becomes applied to your life. What happens if you don’t do this? Then you’ll constantly be thinking about your worries, about your problems, and as you continue to think about that, it goes deeper, and the deeper it goes, you become seized by Satan. Human brains have no choice but to think about something. We need to think about God’s Word, so when you can’t see God’s Word, you need to think about it all the time, and that Word is the Word of creation, it has the power to change nothing into something, do you understand? That’s why we have meditation.
You must ask questions to God, and if there is a God, He will answer; if there isn’t, He won’t answer. It’s so simple, right?
Cow
Cows keep grinding their cud, they can’t just swallow the grass, they need to grind it, and then it becomes smaller. Then when it’s ground, it goes into the stomach. If you just listen to the Word of God, it seems very hard, there are people who’ve heard the Word of God for 20 years but nothing has happened because it just remains in their heads, and that’s why they know a lot but nothing influences them. Because nothing influences them, they’re not getting enough nutrients, so they’re wavering and shaking. They live their lives without strength. They hear words from someone and fall down and stumble, and even if they have a small problem, they stumble and fall because of it. You need to chew the food so it becomes nutrients for your body, but you just listen to the word, so they know a lot but have no power or strength. For these people, once they grow up, they have no choice but to do drugs because they need drugs.
Why do people do drugs? Is it just a hobby? Why do people drink? They drink because it helps them, it means they have no strength. They need strength from drugs or alcohol to barely live their lives because they don’t have the Word; do you understand? You heard a lot of the Word, but because they said, “It’s okay to just listen,” you’ve heard a lot, but you’ve never thought about the Word because you think about other things. It’s the same as learning something at school from a teacher and then going home and applying it yourself. The teacher can explain very well but if it’s not yours, it’s not yours. If you heard it, you have to digest it and make it yours, do you understand? That’s what we call meditation. Those who are blessed will meditate on the Law day and night.
Don’t ask for blessings, but the ones who are blessed will do this, then their lives will be prosperous. The more you do this, the more you will bear fruits according to His time. Meditation at a quiet time, as you do deep breathing, then for people who have mental problems, they will be quickly restored and healed. They will have good and fast effects. People who aren’t able to concentrate on their studies will be able to concentrate. This Word has the power of creation. You hold onto the Word as you pray and this is when the Word is relayed to your family, your future, and your school and your past. The Word goes into your past, present, and future and lays a strong foundation. That’s what’s important because God is the Word, and because God is the Creator, when He said, “Let there be something,” that came to be. When you receive the Word correctly and meditate on it, it leads to re-creation. Even people who are addicted to drugs will be re-created. Even people who are homeless, once they have the Word, they are re-created. All of the sufferings the remnants are not able to talk about, they will change by God. Even the students who lose power because of their parents, God will change that, too, why? Because He works with the power of Creation.
Are any of you worried about your parents? Your parents are your parents; you are yourselves. Your parents have their own situation in life, and you have your own lives. Why do you make the problems of your parents your problems? When God created you, He didn’t create you to worry about your parents’ problems. Your parents are doing everything before God, and you do your things before God. When I hold onto the Word and am victorious, that influence goes to your parents.
Why do you hold onto the things of the world and worry? It’s nothing you can solve. If you hold onto the Word and receive strength, you’re able to give this influence. So, even now, change your thoughts. Through the Word, God is re-creating you.
There are times my phone isn’t properly functioning, then I restart it, and it becomes new. You can’t do anything with your own strength and power, so reset yourself with God’s Word. If you think you can make it on your own, that’s the incident of the Tower of Babel and you’ll be dragged, so instead, reset yourself with God’s Word. Do you understand?
God is a good God, once the Word goes into you, there will surely be a result. For you, there are things that work out and things that don’t work out, but the Word is sure, it is scientific, but you need to have this time of meditation on the Word. Do you know meditation? “Why did You give me this Word?” You continue to ask that, then God will work with the Holy Spirit. Then, this will continue to go into your life as nutrients, but what happens if you don’t do this? It leads to mental problems, depression, and you’re so full of anger that you’re not able to endure anything, even the small things because you have no strength. If you have strength, you’re able to endure, but because you don’t, you get angry. You glare at people, you mutter things under your breath, you need to express it somehow, but once it becomes extreme, you can hit people passing by, and that’s how things arise, do you understand?
2) Gen. 6:4-5
Physical
Satan makes people only think about physical things. Our spirit needs to be nourished with the Word of God, but Satan tempts us so we only know about our flesh, about eating, drinking, playing, and having kids. It’s the mortal flesh, it’s all the same. I’m not saying it’s bad, but we’re completely blind to the Word of God. Meditating on the Word of God must be joyful to us, but we find joy in playing, and that’s what we mean by the “flesh.” You have no spiritual strength, and when you face a circumstance, you crumble. God said He regretted making humans. God saw this and said it was wicked.
Wicked
Why? Because they were only concerned with the flesh, not the Word of God, so that’s wicked. If you’re consumed by studying, you only worry about the flesh and you’ll end up failing. Your inner self is destroyed. The outer self may be destroyed, but the inner self is destroyed first, and there’s no happiness. Everything becomes a burden to them. Holding onto the Word, you live your physical life. Hold onto the mission of building the ark as you live your mortal life. This is the only thing you learn in school. America is so developed in how to play in a classy and fun and happy way, America is so developed in how you can play starting with Friday night, and how easily you can access drugs. If you don’t have the spiritual word, you have no choice but to fall into physical things and die. That’s America. It looks good, it looks very strong, but if you don’t have the spiritual things, you’ll fall into the good things and die. All the deaths are happening on the streets and on the news.
3) Gen. 11:1-9
The builders of the Tower of Babel had a motive, Gen. 11:4.
City, Tower
They wanted to live together. God said to fill the earth but they said, “Let’s build a city for ourselves.” God said to scatter, but they said, “Let’s see if we’ll scatter or not.” God said, “You will surely die,” but they said, “Let’s really see for ourselves,” holding onto thoughts of democracy. “Let’s build a tower, we can reach the heavens where God is.” They said, “Let’s not scatter.” In other words, “Let’s see if God can really do this to us.
(Cause) – Me, Us
“We don’t need anything else except success. If there are disasters, we can succeed and just make a name for ourselves.” God said, “You really think so?” then He scattered them, how? At that time, there was only one language with which they could communicate with one another, and they got confused so they had no choice but to scatter. In the opposite way, if you share the gospel, they’re able to understand. But because the people were challenging God, He confused their language and broke down the Tower of Babel and scattered them.
Even if you do all these things, if God doesn’t work, it won’t work out. If you’re in a place God desires, doing the work God desires, then God will do it. So don’t waste your energy, time, and money on useless things, but be in the place God desires for you to be, doing the thing God desires for you to do. America is such a superpower nation, challenging God with its science. Now, AI is everywhere.
Artificial Intelligence
Samsung phones have a personal translator into 14 languages. When you ask something, the AI responds. Then, why would people think that they need God? “Look how great and powerful people are,” but for us, we can share the gospel through AI. If we were to make a Tower of Babel to reveal God’s things, that would be great, but we try to reveal our things and the Tower of Babel collapses. The president came out and said, “Let’s make America great again,” but God doesn’t like that. Why does America need to be great? God strengthened Rome, and there has to be a strong Christian; in this powerful land of America, there needs to be a president who says, “We will use this gospel to share the gospel,” then God will give this president the power to accomplish what must be done. Through that powerful nation, God’s power will be revealed to the 237 nations, and that is Joseph, the governor, and the king. Hold onto the covenant and become a politician that way. Such people must succeed a lot. With this rightful cause and process, it will lead to the rightful results.
The devil was an angel in charge of music. Before he was corrupted as the devil, he was an angel of praise, so he had a very melodious voice, but as he rebelled against God, he became corrupted. What does Satan do now? He can only praise or sing, so Satan moves the entire world through music. If these singers possessed by the devil go up on stage, people in the crowd end up fainting, what is this? This is actually the work of the devil because the works of the devil go into these kids through their emotions and feelings. They try to seek after the feelings because if they don’t have it, they’re unsatisfied, and that’s how the devil is working. So, for people who are addicted to drugs, they chase after the feeling of ecstasy when they do drugs the first time, but the second time they do it, it doesn’t come again so they have to increase the dose and have the feeling again. Even food, it seems delicious the first time around, but the same thing again the second day doesn’t taste the same. That’s how humans are, it’s unending, and the devil uses music to attack our emotions and feelings.
You need to be careful about the music you listen to because the spiritual state of these musicians go through the music and influence your feelings. We have praise at church to glorify God, but the spiritual state of the people singing influences the emotions and feelings of the people in the congregation, so they’re influenced spiritually, they can receive strength through praise. So, the skill of the praise is not what’s important, it’s the spiritual state and what influence is relayed to the people. In order to do that, the singers need to have spiritual sensitivity and strength. Is it just about music? It’s about the work in your field.
And that’s when other people go to life, many people come to life. If you have the spiritual strength, then all your business relationships will come to life. This is very important. If you don’t have this, no matter how skillful you are, it’s all in vain, and that’s what we call the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is bound to crumble. All things raised by human diligence are bound to crumble. To not let this crumble, where must you align? You study, work, and praise in order to glorify God.
Let’s say you’re singing and you enjoy the emotions that arise from that. People try to comfort themselves with sad songs, and there are other people who try to change themselves into a lively person by listening to lively songs, and that’s why they end up crumbling. You need to glorify God but instead you sing to fill up your emotions, and Satan uses these singers to influence others to have no choice but to do drugs. It’s the same for pastors.
Celebrities may receive a lot of applause on stage, but that’s another form of drugs. They think they’re great and powerful as people applaud them, but off-stage? They continue to go up on stage to receive applause and praise, but once they receive a hate comment online, they kill themselves. People do drugs to make music to get praise and applause. So, these celebrities do plastic surgery, and when they meet their celebrity friends, they compare themselves and have to redo plastic surgery. They do plastic surgery, they think they’re pretty, but then it doesn’t work out so they do it again.
Will this lead to normality as you do this? You’re trying to chase after completeness and perfectness, they could just do it in a subtle way, but they redo plastic surgery so many times, but they have no sense of self-worth. A long time ago, I’d be impressed by handsome people, my younger brother is handsome, “Oh, we’re from the same family, why don’t I look like that?” actually it doesn’t matter anymore, I’m myself. Do you have a problem with that? There’s no problem, right? Why is it a problem? Be confident with your face, then become a celebrity. Even if you have a very pretty face that won’t last long, you need skill with God’s power. If you were to do plastic surgery, you’ll do it a certain extent and shine even more, do you understand?
What is Satan’s method of taking control of everybody?
Method
People gather, alumni gather together to make a name for their school, sports fans gather together and cheer, and even in the UK, because soccer is so popular, accidents arise when fans fight. If you’re caught within that, that is when you will fall. “Our family,” is “our family” first, or is God first? Americans say family first, but Koreans say church is first, but that’s why American families are crumbling. God and worship must be first, that’s when your family comes to life. That’s why they continue to face family problems. Family is not first, but worship is first. If this American ideology isn’t changed, then the family will continue to face problems.
What do you think? Is your family first or is church first? Which one is first for you? Church? If your family is crumbling, is it ok for you to constantly be at church? Why is church first? It is because worship is first. Why do you come to church? In order to give worship. If there’s a family problem, you don’t come to church, right? That’s humanism, you try to solve it with your own strength. What is God saying through worship? How is God going to work through worship? Without this priority, you will continue to be dragged around by Satan, but then your family will come to life. It’s a strange ideology, right?
Shall we talk about the Bible? In Genesis, was the family prioritized or was it the church? When did Adam worship? You don’t know what worship is, and you have no assurance. What is worship? In the Garden of Eden, they were walking with God, following the Word and His covenant, and that’s when God made the family. God took out Adam’s rib and formed a family. Why did the family crumble? They lost hold of worship. Adam and Eve had no choice but to crumble because they lost hold of the Word, and the family crumbled too. Cain killed his younger brother, not for any reason, but it was because of the church.
You need to think of this very carefully. Is worship first or your business. Where does it say in the Bible? Give the evidence. Don’t raise your hands, just say it. They ran their business in the Garden of Eden and their business was taking place in Gen. 2:1-18, but because worship crumbled, they crumbled. Worship ended with God, their spiritual state ended, so their business crumbled. That’s what led to family problems and future generation problems.
What’s first? I’m not talking about coming to church and doing chores; it’s about worship. David said, “I want to dwell in the house of the LORD forever,” then what happened? He was a king but he was a king for God. Is it better for you to be a king, or for God to use you as king? The second one. David is the king but that’s just the outer shell; it was actually God Who was King, but if you become like Saul and become your own kings, it leads to the events of the Tower of Babel. We are students, studying with the Lord as master, then God will start to work upon your studies.
As you work and run your business, does it belong to God or is it yours? Make it so that God is your Master, right? Then through you, the elements of power and wisdom will be revealed, do you understand? This is how you can overturn the event of the Tower of Babel. You need to constantly be meditating on this. Family is not first, but it is the church and worship. Your business is not first; it is church and worship; your studies are not first; it is church and worship. Once this priority is broken down, that leads to the incident of the Tower of Babel.
I hope you’re able to challenge. At first, you might shake and waver, and a remnant didn’t come today, so I told him, “You need to come to give worship and receive strength. Give proper worship, then study. Give proper worship and then run your business. This is how God works, but because you use your own, you continue to lose your own strength. But right now, other things seem to be more beneficial, pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom, but that’s something I went through a long time, and I’ve done all of that, but I stand as a witness, so don’t do useless things, but do things properly. You don’t have time to study because you must come to worship. The studies need to come through worship and they have to come in prayer. Then God will give you the wisdom to study, and that’s the mystery of not being dragged by your studies.
If this isn’t your habit right now, then when you face a problem in the future, you will be busy, so God may give them vessels but that’s not what David did. Through proper worship, Gold entrusted him with great things, even as a king, he was given grace to be king. “Oh, because of this, I’m going to be last place,” then be last place, but God won’t leave you be. “If I perish, I perish,” but God won’t let you. If you get a disease, say, “I’ll die,” but you suffer mentally. Be within God’s Word and grace; if you die, you die. I will leave this world doing world evangelization? Then God said it would work. Instead, do the normal and proper things. If you don’t have normal things, you have no choice but to d Then, you have no choice but to stepped on by nonbelievers. Just do it normally and properly.
Do the Three-Day Weekend properly, receive grace on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and do the studies aligned with this. Don’t try other ways or paths, but with God’s grace and blessings, do this. Otherwise, you won’t be able to do anything great. Do as Joseph, David, Daniel did. “If I fail, I fail.” Satan says, “How could you fail? You’ll end up being last,” God gives you wisdom. God also knows if you’re borderline or all into one thing. The church officers don’t have this in their hearts, they try to manipulate their own thoughts, … they will just live up to that level. You need to have remnants with strong faith. You need to be strong and courageous in this. You need to develop the strength when you’re going to school. But because you don’t have the strength, you end up resorting to drugs and killing others, but it’s actually because you’re weak. I hope you are victorious.
Prayer
Let us pray together, holding onto the Word we have received.