Rise And Fall Series

INTRODUCTION

• Tomorrow will be a time of celebration in the United States oF America!

• We will be celebrating the 246th anniversary of the birth of our nation!

• A great deal of sacrifice has been given and bloodshed over the idea of having a Republic like ours.

• We enjoy the freedom and prosperity that very few nations in history have enjoyed.

• With great freedom comes great responsibility.

• Our Founding Fathers understood this concept and knew that this great nation would eventually fall like all others before without a solid foundation.

• When our nation was founded, it was built on something new, a foundation of Christian principles.

• The nation's founders were imperfect at best, but they had a perfect idea when they decided to fight for the nation.

• The founders knew that if the nation was not built on the foundation of Jesus, it would falter.

• Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, said:

Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. (Charles Carroll. November 4, 1800)

(Source: Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475. In a letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry on November 4, 1800.)

• Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, said:

[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. (Samuel Adams, 1749)

(Source: William V. Wells, The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1865), Vol. I, p. 22, quoting from a political essay by Samuel Adams published in The Public Advertiser, 1749.)

• John Adams, Second President of the United States and signer of the Declaration of Independence, stated:

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams, October 11, 1798)

(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)

• I can ride all day on this train.

• As a nation, we have been drifting far from the foundation the nation was built upon.

• We have elected leaders who have no soul and whose only ambition in life is power.

• We have political parties, as Washington predicted would happen, that are self-serving, with the goal to hold on to power over doing what is right before God and best for the nation, even when it is not popular.

• Many are seeking to build a utopia, which on the surface seems fine; however, they are seeking to do it without God.

• I could spend all our time this morning talking about the specific ways we have drifted from God; from abortion to redefining marriage; instead, I want us to consider an example from the Old Testament that gives us a shot across the bow, a warning, an example of what happens when we seek to leave God out of the picture.

• Today's message looks at the rise and fall of the Tower of Babel.

• This story contains themes relevant to our day, showing us the futile end of humanity's best efforts to claim independence from God.

• Let's turn to Genesis 11:1-9 Our primary focus will be on verse 4 today.

Genesis 11:1–9 (NET 2nd ed.)

1 The whole earth had a common language and a common vocabulary.

2 When the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar.)

4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.”

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the people had started building.

6 And the LORD said, “If as one people all sharing a common language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be beyond them.

7 Come, let’s go down and confuse their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.”