Henry G. Ruark - "Power, Pride, and Peril" (July 25, 1965)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Our text is the fourth verse of the 11th chapter | 0:12 |
of the Book of Genesis. | 0:17 | |
"Then they said, 'Come, let us build us ourselves | 0:21 | |
a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, | 0:26 | |
and let us make a name for ourselves | 0:32 | |
lest we be scattered abroad | 0:36 | |
upon the face of the whole earth.'" | 0:39 | |
This story of the Tower of Babel | 0:45 | |
may seem only an simple and artless tale | 0:49 | |
out of a primitive past, | 0:56 | |
but it is, in fact, | 1:00 | |
a profound analysis of man's nature and destiny. | 1:02 | |
We speak often of the progress of civilization | 1:10 | |
as if only time were needed | 1:15 | |
for us to make of this an ideal world. | 1:18 | |
But this ancient story does not speak so, | 1:24 | |
rather there is in it a strange and ominous note. | 1:29 | |
It seems to warn that the more civilized man becomes, | 1:36 | |
the more progress he makes, and the more power he has, | 1:42 | |
the greater the peril in which he stands. | 1:48 | |
This is so because whatever external structures | 1:54 | |
he may contrive, | 1:58 | |
man remains man. | 2:01 | |
And being what he is, | 2:08 | |
his achievements encourage in him | 2:11 | |
a false pride and sense of power. | 2:14 | |
As Charles Kraft put it, | 2:19 | |
"Men no longer say, 'See what God has done for us,' | 2:22 | |
but, 'See what we have achieved for ourselves.'" | 2:29 | |
His pride grows with his power, | 2:36 | |
until he presumes to storm the gate of heaven | 2:41 | |
and become the master of his own destiny. | 2:46 | |
God commanded men to subdue the earth | 2:52 | |
and intended that they should do this as his servants, | 2:55 | |
and in his name. | 2:59 | |
But now man proposes to do this | 3:03 | |
for his own purposes and glory. | 3:07 | |
So they set about to build a tower | 3:12 | |
whose top would reach into heaven saying, | 3:16 | |
"Let us make a name for ourselves." | 3:21 | |
When this happens, we begin to hear between the lines | 3:29 | |
something like laughter from far above. | 3:35 | |
For from the real heaven where God dwells, | 3:41 | |
this tower which men built is so tiny and insignificant | 3:46 | |
that God has to come down to see it. | 3:53 | |
The words of the psalmist fit here, | 4:00 | |
"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. | 4:02 | |
The Lord shall have them in derision." | 4:08 | |
Even before this, men had had a premonition of the judgment | 4:14 | |
that was to come upon them. | 4:18 | |
They wanted to build a tower to make a name for themselves. | 4:21 | |
They said, "Lest we be scattered abroad | 4:26 | |
upon the face of the whole earth." | 4:30 | |
Before this, the whole earth had one language. | 4:35 | |
The phrase reminds us of the harmony | 4:41 | |
at the dawn of creation | 4:44 | |
when the morning stars sang together, | 4:46 | |
and all the sons of God shouted for joy. | 4:50 | |
The original language | 4:56 | |
was the language of praise to their Maker, | 4:57 | |
and this was what bound them together. | 5:01 | |
But now when they had dismissed God | 5:05 | |
and would enthrone themselves, | 5:10 | |
there came upon them a confusion of tongue | 5:14 | |
so that they no longer understood each other. | 5:16 | |
And this was symbol of the fact | 5:24 | |
that their world was going to pieces. | 5:27 | |
But this was no arbitrary find. | 5:34 | |
No, it was part of the nature of things. | 5:38 | |
When men get rid of God, they lose their center. | 5:44 | |
If a wheel is off center, | 5:51 | |
it will fly to pieces. | 5:53 | |
And the faster it goes, | 5:55 | |
the more swiftly it will disintegrate. | 5:57 | |
So when man's heart is not fixed | 6:01 | |
on it true center, the Creator, | 6:04 | |
men are scattered and alienated one from another. | 6:09 | |
We sometimes say of ourselves and other people, | 6:15 | |
"We just don't speak the same language." | 6:20 | |
By that we do not mean that one speaks English | 6:25 | |
and the other Chinese. | 6:30 | |
Rather, the same words do not mean the same thing to us. | 6:33 | |
There is no basis of understanding between them and us | 6:41 | |
and so no common ground on which we can meet, | 6:45 | |
no ground upon which we can build | 6:51 | |
a truly human life together. | 6:54 | |
Do we not see this now, | 6:58 | |
when one part of the world means one thing | 7:01 | |
by the word democracy, | 7:04 | |
and another part means something quite different? | 7:07 | |
When humanity loses its center in its Creator, | 7:12 | |
centrifugal forces begin to work, to operate, | 7:17 | |
and thrust them apart from each other. | 7:21 | |
Jacob Burckhardt said of Napoleon | 7:29 | |
that he was the personification of the absence of guarantee. | 7:32 | |
That is to say he had no ultimate loyalty beyond himself, | 7:40 | |
no central conviction that he would not violate. | 7:48 | |
So he could not be depended on. | 7:55 | |
A treaty for him was simply something to use | 7:57 | |
for his own advantage, | 8:01 | |
or to tear it up if it did not serve his interests. | 8:04 | |
And Helmut Thielicke, a German scholar and preacher, | 8:10 | |
says that the real cause of the disaster of Germany | 8:14 | |
in the 1930s and 40s was | 8:18 | |
that Adolf Hitler was the same kind of man. | 8:21 | |
Do we not see this closer at home? | 8:28 | |
During my boyhood, | 8:33 | |
I often heard it said of my grandfather who was a merchant, | 8:35 | |
that his word was his bond. | 8:41 | |
That is, he could be counted on to fulfill his obligations | 8:46 | |
regardless of legal loopholes, | 8:52 | |
or loss to himself, | 8:55 | |
because he had within him a sense of honor | 8:57 | |
that he would not violate. | 9:02 | |
Is this not the real cause of corruption | 9:06 | |
in commerce or government? | 9:09 | |
That some men are governed not by honor, | 9:12 | |
but by their own financial or political advantage. | 9:16 | |
Or to put it positively, | 9:22 | |
why do so many marriages endure | 9:25 | |
in these days of easy divorce? | 9:29 | |
It is not because of an accidental compatibility | 9:34 | |
that makes them happy and joyful all the time together. | 9:39 | |
Rather it is because a man and a woman | 9:46 | |
have committed themselves to each other with a dedication | 9:49 | |
that no dysplasia or difficulty could bring them to deny. | 9:57 | |
Does not this ancient tale describe | 10:06 | |
what is actually happening in our world? | 10:08 | |
Man stands now at the pinnacle of his power. | 10:14 | |
In the physical sense, | 10:18 | |
he is really reaching into the heavens. | 10:19 | |
He has developed the tools, not only to subdue this earth, | 10:24 | |
but perhaps to explore and exploit other worlds as well. | 10:29 | |
He has discovered means of communication | 10:37 | |
which we're hardly dreamt of a half century ago, | 10:40 | |
so that what happens this morning | 10:44 | |
in the far corners of the earth, | 10:46 | |
we can hear and see tonight. | 10:49 | |
Yet spiritually, the a world is not drawn closer together, | 10:54 | |
but thrust further and further apart. | 10:59 | |
Thus in the very moment | 11:04 | |
when mankind has achieved such astonishing things, | 11:07 | |
men are lost in confusion and filled with fear. | 11:13 | |
It is the fear of man himself. | 11:22 | |
That being what he is, | 11:26 | |
he may use this incredible power to destroy mankind | 11:29 | |
from the face of the earth. | 11:36 | |
The danger is not in the power. | 11:41 | |
As Frank Laubach has pointed out, | 11:45 | |
"A nuclear bomb can neither make itself nor explode itself, | 11:48 | |
the danger is in the mind and heart of man." | 11:57 | |
Is there then any answer to our human plight? | 12:08 | |
Turn to the opening verses of the next chapter of Genesis. | 12:15 | |
There we are told that the Lord said to Abram, | 12:23 | |
"Go out from your country to the land that I will show you, | 12:28 | |
and I will bless you and make your name great." | 12:35 | |
This is history. | 12:44 | |
The name Babel probably comes from the fact | 12:47 | |
that the tower was built in a land once called Babylon. | 12:50 | |
The truth is that no single name | 12:58 | |
of those who built that tower now is known. | 13:01 | |
And Babylon has long since been a vanished empire | 13:07 | |
with only archeological remains to witness the fact | 13:12 | |
that it once existed. | 13:18 | |
But the name Abraham is today familiar | 13:22 | |
in millions of households. | 13:27 | |
It is so significant in human history | 13:32 | |
and in present human thought | 13:36 | |
that the secular magazine "Life" | 13:40 | |
devoted a major section of a special issue last December | 13:42 | |
to telling his story and discussing what it means to mankind | 13:48 | |
in the modern world. | 13:55 | |
This is not because Abraham was such a good or great man. | 13:59 | |
The clue is rather in the fact that Paul noted, | 14:06 | |
"Abraham believed God, | 14:12 | |
and it was reckoned to him for righteousness." | 14:16 | |
That is to say, | 14:23 | |
it was nothing special about the man himself. | 14:24 | |
The Bible is the most realistic book in the world. | 14:29 | |
And I would say this is true in comparison | 14:37 | |
with all of the realism in novels | 14:39 | |
that we have had in recent years. | 14:42 | |
The Bible portrays human nature as it is. | 14:46 | |
So it describes Abraham as a primitive sheepherder, | 14:50 | |
and tells of some things he did | 14:56 | |
which seem to us quite contemptible. | 14:59 | |
But for all his faults, | 15:06 | |
it is recorded of him that he trusted God | 15:09 | |
and in the crucial choices of his life | 15:15 | |
tried to obey God's commands. | 15:19 | |
Abraham did not make a name for himself. | 15:25 | |
It was not his own achievement, | 15:29 | |
but something given him by another. | 15:31 | |
It was because of his faith | 15:38 | |
that God made his name great. | 15:41 | |
In his book on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, | 15:49 | |
David Stick tells of an interesting phenomenon. | 15:54 | |
Records show that over the years, | 15:59 | |
the inlets along the banks are constantly shifting, | 16:03 | |
sometimes closing and reopening | 16:08 | |
or sometimes being replaced by other inlets elsewhere. | 16:11 | |
But through all these changes, | 16:17 | |
there is an almost imperceptible but steady movement | 16:21 | |
of the inlets to the south. | 16:27 | |
This is because the prevailing currents | 16:33 | |
of the ocean at that point, | 16:37 | |
deposit sand on the northern banks of the inlets, | 16:40 | |
while the vast volume of water flowing down from the uplands | 16:45 | |
into the sounds and seeking outlet | 16:50 | |
tend to cut away the Southern shore. | 16:55 | |
Along the coast, when one buys waterfront property, | 17:01 | |
the line is defined at the water's edge. | 17:07 | |
Thus, if one invest in land | 17:14 | |
on the southern side of an inlet, | 17:17 | |
his property will be slowly eaten away. | 17:21 | |
But if he buys on the northern shore, | 17:27 | |
his property will steadily appreciate | 17:31 | |
in extent and value. | 17:35 | |
Our story out of Genesis reminds us | 17:41 | |
that there is a current in history | 17:44 | |
which can best be described as the will of God. | 17:48 | |
Indeed, I know no other way to describe it. | 17:55 | |
This will is not always easily discernible, | 18:01 | |
and often it seems to be thwarted or even non-existent. | 18:06 | |
But when men stand against it, | 18:14 | |
they are swept away like the sands | 18:17 | |
that are washed into the sea. | 18:22 | |
If, though, they discern this movement in history | 18:27 | |
and seek to align themselves with it, | 18:33 | |
human life prospers | 18:39 | |
in the deepest and finest and most enduring sense. | 18:42 | |
This is something I think of what Paul meant when he said | 18:50 | |
that Abraham believed God, | 18:55 | |
and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. | 19:00 | |
And this is the only true greatness | 19:07 | |
that is possible to us men | 19:11 | |
who are of the earth. | 19:16 | |
O Almighty God, | 19:30 | |
who has created and has governed the world | 19:32 | |
and they that dwell therein, | 19:38 | |
grant that what we have said with our lips, | 19:42 | |
we may believe in our hearts, | 19:47 | |
and what we believe in our hearts, | 19:51 | |
we may practice in our lives | 19:54 | |
through the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 19:58 | |
Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly | 20:04 | |
above all that we ask or think, | 20:08 | |
according to the power that worketh in us, | 20:12 | |
unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus | 20:16 | |
throughout all ages, | 20:22 | |
world without end. | 20:25 |