OUR HEAVENLY FATHER KNOWS BEST
June 4, 2006 - PENTECOST - Genesis 11:1-9
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Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
Not too long ago there was a radio program in which the host would come out and say, "What do ya’ know?" The crowd always had the same response when he would say, "What do ya’ know?" The crowd would always answer all together in one voice, "Not much – and you?" It is kind of a humorous response, but also a true response, isn’t it? Sometimes people might ask us, "What do we know?" We could easily say, "Not much – and you?"
It can certainly seem that way whenever some of our plans fall through. There are times when we look to the future and think we have everything in control. Then things don’t work out at all as we thought or as we wanted. We are saying that we don’t know too much. We can’t always carry out the plans that we want to do. That is really what our text tells us this morning. Rather than being frustrated or upset with those things that seem to fall through no matter how often we try to accomplish what we want, no matter how hard we try, we are reminded today that our heavenly Father knows best. As believers, we are comforted in knowing that fact. As believers knowing that our heavenly Father knows best is an encouragement for us. As believers, we can rejoice in knowing that fact. It is as Isaiah proclaims: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9). God’s ways and God’s thoughts are much higher than ours. It is a great comfort even here as God shows his way is best.
OUR HEAVENLY FATHER KNOWS BEST
I. Life is not always as man plans,
II. But life is always as God wills.
I. LIFE IS NOT ALWAYS AS MAN PLANS
A brief history to get us up to chapter 11 of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we realize that we are at the very beginning of the world or close to it. If we open up our Bibles and read from the beginning, we learn that in six days God created the heavens and the earth. He looked at it and saw that it was very good, a perfect place. But we also know that as we continue reading that Adam and Eve with their free will decided to sin. What follows then is disaster upon disaster. Cain kills Abel, their children. There is murder, evil, wickedness and sin. Evil becomes so bad that a flood destroyed the world. Only eight people are saved. We notice God still saves mankind, and we notice that here he didn’t destroy mankind, but he saved them. The eight people were Noah and his sons, one family. Of course one family for a few generations, they will have everything in common including having the same language. Some say our text took place about 100 years after Noah and the flood. It could have been longer or shorter as we really do not have an exact time frame given to us.
In either case what are we told? "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech." We are not told what language or speech it was. Maybe it is a lost language that we don’t have around today. The people had this language in common. Sadly, because they had that in common, they did not use it for good. They used it to be disobedient to God’s commands. "As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there." The original says that they moved from the east or to the east. It makes little difference. What happens is they found a nice place in a valley and settled there. That was against what God wanted. Remember, after the flood, God said, "Be fruitful, and increase in number; multiply on the earth." Here as one group mankind is going to one place to settle down. They even say, "We will not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." They agreed on that. God told them to fill the ends of the earth, but they were not going to do that.
If that wasn’t bad enough, they made plans to make sure that they would be in this place for a long time. "They said to each other, ’Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’" Their plans were to stay there. They weren’t using something that was there. They made bricks. Note that these people were not cavemen or senseless brutes like some might think. No, they knew how to make bricks and to make something sturdy. It says, "They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar."
After they made the bricks, then they said, "Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens. They were trying to reach God himself and build a monument to themselves. That is their intent. It finally comes out, "Let us build tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves. They made the bricks, not to God’s glory. They put them to together and built the city and the tower with tar instead of mortar, not for God’s glory but for their own name. They said, "Let everyone see this tower. Maybe everyone may worship us rather than God." That was their plan. They wanted what they wanted. They said, "Let us do it." They didn’t say, "Let God do it." So they exchanged what God wanted for what they wanted done. Sadly, we think they would have learned the lesson to guard against evil from the examples since the creation of the world. Now a few generations after the flood one sees how wicked man can become, how evil is his heart.
We always need reminders, don’t we? We always need examples like this to remind us that we are not much different. We don’t have to look too far around in our society to see monuments that mankind has built for his own glory. The wonders of the world are often just things man has created. Our society builds stadiums and arenas for the sports teams. They name them after the people who sponsored them who are mass merchandisers. We build for ourselves our own monuments. We exchange what God wants for us for what we want for ourselves. We do know how we are sometimes upset and frustrated, sometimes even disappointed and depressed, because our plans don’t work out. We don’t get what we want. That is our sinful nature, still alive and well. What does Paul tell us in Romans? "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised" (Romans 1:25). We know how that can easily happen to us.
Sometimes we get so focused on what we want and forget about what God wants. Sometimes our own selfish wants and desires become the driving force in our life. We just think we need that new car or truck or tractor or new house, whatever it might be. We exchange God’s glory for the glory of something that is made and created. Then we are reminded that our heavenly Father always knows best. Sometimes that is a hard lesson for us to learn, or sometimes it is a hard lesson for us to remember. Our heavenly Father knows best. Yes, some of our plans do fall flat on their face. The Lord reminds us he always knows best. Listen to this from Psalm 127: "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat--for he grants sleep to those he loves" (Psalm 127:1,2). God provides for us. We picture the Old Testament towns that were of good size and had a wall around them. It made no difference though that the guard got up early and watched. If God were not with that city, it would be destroyed. The children of Israel going into the Promised Land, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down; because God was with them. That was what God planned, not according to men’s plans.
Let us face it. When we are honest with ourselves, we realize from this moment to the next the future is unknown. The blessing that we have is that the future is certain. For many in this world are scared of what might come next, because the future is uncertain for them. As believers we realize our heavenly Father knows best. But still, no matter how much we try or prepare, the future is unknown. We don’t know what is going to happen from day to day, month to month, or year to year. Our society always tries to build on our fears. We don’t know what is going to happen next with the economy, with prices, with crops or the weather. This past week we had a couple of inches of rain, and no weatherman predicted that, but it came. God’s will was done. So the Lord reminds us to not get too caught up in this world as so dependent on how we plan the future according to what we think. Then we are not planning the future correctly. We aren’t putting enough aside ore preparing enough for ourselves that we aren’t doing what we ought to be doing. Planning is a good thing, but also with God in mind. Here is what James says: "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ’If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’ " (James 4:14,15). That is a good thing to remind us. Maybe in our day and age we may have forgotten that from time to time. It is good to remind ourselves: "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." Tomorrow, our life could vanish. The Lord is not scaring us there. He is just saying that all the stuff we do in this life, for this life, and for our future isn’t important as eternal life and the future that lies ahead.
Then he says to us our heavenly Father knows best. Life is not always what we plan; but thankfully, life is always as God wills.
II. LIFE IS ALWAYS AS GOD WILLS
We have these people rebelling with their words saying, "We don’t want to be scattered over the ends of the earth." Also with their actions when they settled in Shinar and building a tower that reaches to the heavens saying they will make a name for themselves. Our text continues: "But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building." But they were not alone and God had not forgotten them. God did not let them alone to their own devices, just as he doesn’t leave us to our own devices today. "Then 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.’" If they have become so wicked in such a short time with one language, it will not get better. If mankind were left to itself in the very beginning of time, it never would get better. God promised a Savior.
God intervenes. He says: "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." God is a triune God who reminds us as he hopefully reminded these people of creation and the words there when he said, "Come, let us make man in our own image." God is a God of grace and mercy and here when Moses uses that word: The LORD Jehovah, the Lord God Almighty, it is as God who is filled with free and faithful grace. The LORD is not a vengeful God but a loving God. Some describe this event as vengeance and judgment, but it is also really God’s love for his creation.
"So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, so they stopped building the city." He didn’t destroy them, but he scattered them just like he wanted, scattered them to the ends of the earth with different languages. Here is a play on language in verse 9: "That is why it was called Babel--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world." The Hebrew word for "confused" is Balel (baa-lell). So it was called Babel (Baa-bell). They would hear and listen and realize Babel (Baa-bell)--"our language has been confused (baa-lell)." So today when people think of all these languages as a monument to the ingenuity of mankind. It is not. All the languages the world has today are a monument to mankind’s sinfulness, pure and simple. God confused the language.
Again, we are told the same words at the end: "From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth." They would fill the whole earth. God’s plans and God’s will would make sure that his way would get done.
Is that such a bad thing? It is not, for we realize the hand of God in our lives is a great and precious thing. Yet, there are many who try to throw off the idea that God has any control in life. There are those all around us who have the philosophy that mankind is the master of the destiny of his own fate. If he doesn’t do the right things at the right times, he is going to blow himself up and destroy the world. All these dire things are going to happen. These things could happen, but probably will not. That is not God’s will for this planet. With the threat of epidemics all around we are reminded of epidemic scares from a few years ago. There was the e-boli virus and SARS, but where are they now? That is not God’s will of some of those things. It is man’s plans of fear. Because they want to make a name for themselves just like these people. So they have no use or time for the fact that God has control in this life. It is not that he controls us like puppets, but he has control because he wants the best interest of mankind. Listen to Jeremiah: "’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ’plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’" (Jeremiah 29:11). He has given us eternal life. Those are the most precious things that await us, the greatest hope and future for any person. Most importantly, it is the greatest blessing for you, for me, for a believer everywhere.
Is our future unknown? Our future may not be as we plan, but as God wills. Our future is certain. The future is the fact that God has sent his Son to die in our place. Yes, we are like these people and would love to build a monument to ourselves so that people will remember our name. All of us feel good when people praise us and raise us up and say, "Look at all the great things you have done. What a good person you are." The reality is we are still simply, sinful human beings. Paul says we are the "worst of sinners." The reality is God knows that truth. Rather than destroying us or casting us away, he saves us. Our heavenly Father sends his Son to take our place, and our sins are forgiven. That is his will for our life. We probably would have planned salvation a lot differently. In Corinthians we are told that people look at God’s salvation as foolishness because it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t, because we don’t deserve eternity. We can’t earn it or buy it, but it is merely given to us by God’s great love. In Ecclesiastes: "I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him" (Ecclesiastes 3:14). God’s will is perfect and complete. He does it so that we will worship (revere) him, so we gather together to worship God.
We live our lives in worship to God. Sure, we are disappointed and frustrated and upset sometimes when all the things that we plan fall through. But we are reminded our heavenly Father knows best. God’s will is always done. So our worship then isn’t just a little bit of time here on Sunday or a little bit of time we spend reading our Meditations or saying our prayers or reading our Bible. Our whole life is a life of worship. We live our lives with the true reality that we know a lot. We know God is control. What do ya’ know? We know much that God loves us and cares for us. Then we can live our life in this terror-filled world with boldness and confidence. Paul says in Corinthians: "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). Isn’t that what God was showing these people here? Don’t do everything (or anything) for your own glory. Don’t build a great big tower to make your name. Don’t disobey God, but consider what God wants done and do it for his glory whether it is eating or drinking or whatever we do, it is all to be for God’s glory. There is great reward in understanding that precious message of salvation.
So what do ya’ know? We could say, "Not much" when it comes to the things of this world. But what do we know? We know much when it comes to the things of eternity. Yes, we realize that life here is not always as we plan, desire, want; but life here is always what God wills. All things work for the good of the believers. Proverbs tells us: "Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails" (Proverbs 19:21). We have plans for all kinds of things. Everyday we plan our meals and what to wear, etc. Every month there are more plans. Every year adds even more plans. These many plans happen when they agree with God’s will. Our heavenly Father knows best for the world. Our heavenly Father knows exactly what is best for each of us as individual believers. We can rejoice that even though life is not always as we plan life is always as God wills. Amen. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
Sunday radio broadcast @ 9:05am on KQNK 106.7FM or 1530AM + www.kqnk.com
PENTECOST readings: EZEKIEL 37:1-14; ACTS 1:1-21; JOHN 14:25-27
