Gen 11:4, And they said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." 
	In this morning’s reading, we have the lineage of Noah, through Shem all the way to Abram. Included with this genealogy is the account of the building of the tower of Babel with the resultant scattering of the people throughout the earth. Man devised a plan to elevate himself into the place that was not his to occupy. "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." Despite man’s best efforts and intention to become as gods and to remain united together with this plan, God put that plot to an end in doing the exact thing that man was trying to avoid. God scattered mankind across the entire earth with the establishment of the various languages, in order to confuse and to separate the people, lest they accomplished that which was not right in the sight of God.
	This is a matter that we each must take unto the Lord. So often, we have our plans, and often it is with our best intentions. We gather ourselves together to accomplish a great work before the Lord and before man, only to see it crumble and dissipate as with smoke in the wind. Man has, as recorded in this early account, been a creature of gathering together others in order to make a task possible, as well as to scatter the blame if things go awry. There is a means that mankind uses to develop the courage to do a task by increasing the number of people involved. It is the pack of dog’s mentality, one urging the others on to do something that an alone individual would not even consider. 
Even with our best of intentions, we are so often caught up in the plotting and the entrapment of our natural man’s desire to become someone great in the estimation of this world. We strive for recognition and for earthly accomplishment. We struggle to show just how wonderfully inventive and resourceful and powerful and worthy we are of this world’s praises and adoration. Rather than focusing on what would please and honor God, we use His name to give our plans and our intentions some kind of spiritual validity and substance.
In this course, we often include and encourage others to join into our endeavors with the same concept that the more people involved, the better the results and the more protected we are from the outcome if things fall apart. We do not want to fail by ourselves. Therefore we comfort ourselves with the idea that there is safety in numbers. 
At the heart of this mentality is the idea that we are seeking our safety and our security in other people rather than in God. It is the warning that God proclaims through the Prophet Isaiah as He speaks against the seeking of refuge in anyone or anything other than Himself. Isa 41:5-7, The coastlands have seen and are afraid; The ends of the earth tremble; They have drawn near and have come. Each one helps his neighbor, And says to his brother, "Be strong!" So the craftsman encourages the smelter, And he who smooths metal with the hammer encourages him who beats the anvil, Saying of the soldering, "It is good"; And he fastens it with nails, That it should not totter. 
There is no safety in the works of man. It will all fall apart and disintegrate when the breath of God blows against it. There is no true reliance that can be placed on the feebleness of men, as each will seek his own way and have to stand alone when put before the judgment seat of the Almighty. We cannot build, with our hands and our thoughts and our imaginations anything that will save us and give us eternal security. All that we devise of ourselves as individuals, as families, as a community, or as a nation of people, no matter how well intentioned, is limited and doomed to rust and decay with the passage of time.      
This is fully reinforced as the Preacher declares so emphatically in recounting all the efforts he undertook in Eccl 2:8-11, Also, I collected for myself silver and gold, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men — many concubines. Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me. And all that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun. 
	Notice the key statement in this passage - I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. This is the core issue in all the efforts of man. It is to meet the craving and the direction of the heart, the innermost desire of man to find satisfaction for his own heart. The problem is that man’s heart after itself will never be satisfied. It will never find fulfillment. It will never do anything of eternal value because it only seeks after itself and its instant gratification. That is why the Preacher ultimately declares all the works of his hands as vanity. It was all worthless and fleeting and profitless. 
	The Psalmist gives an even darker vision of what is conceived in the heart of men. Ps 64:5+6, They hold fast to themselves an evil purpose; They talk of laying snares secretly; They say, "Who can see them?" They devise injustices, saying, "We are ready with a well-conceived plot"; For the inward thought and the heart of a man are deep. There is a darkness that wells up in the heart of man of which even man cannot fully conceive. It continually pushes and prods and instigates within man unto those things that are evil and defiled and putrid. 
	Our Lord Jesus identified and unmasked this inner core of the insidiousness of men as recorded in Matt 15:18-20a. "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. "These are the things which defile the man… 
	There are things in even our hearts of which we are unaware. It is not until those times of stress and strain and the instigation of others that our hearts bubble forth with all sorts of evil intents and devices. We are often completely shocked by the things and the thoughts and the words that we are capable of spreading forth in the heat of our battles and frustrations and scheming desires. When we thought that we were done with our temper tantrums and self-loathing, something happens and the dark cauldron of our heart pours forth even more filth to spoil our self-perceived holiness.
	We should take to heart the wisdom issued as the son is warned against the plotting with those of like-mindedness in Prov 1:11-14, If they say, "Come with us, Let us lie in wait for blood, Let us ambush the innocent without cause; Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, Even whole, as those who go down to the pit; We shall find all kinds of precious wealth, We shall fill our houses with spoil; Throw in your lot with us, We shall all have one purse," 
We must constantly guard ourselves against the every intention of our heart, even when that intention seems to be after something good and true. We must be very careful with any task that we claim as unto the Lord. Just because we may find others who would join us in our plans, does not mean that the task is of God. Our heart is never going to make us do anything that will not, in some manner or means, promote our self-interest. 
This is the reason that we are now, in Christ, given a new heart, one that is after the things and the glory of God. As God promised through the Prophet Ezekiel, Ezek 36:26-28, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. "And you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. 
Only as the heart behind the task is God’s heart, will it hold any sway in being pleasing to God and of eternal value. As the Lord directs us to do something, it will register as good and worthwhile, not because it will promote us, but because it will honor and please Him. We must ever and always take any plan before Him and ask Him to open the door or seal it against even our best of intentions. 
As James tells us in James 4:13-16, Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that." But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 
Everything, every detail, every consideration, every response must always be with the godly heart of “Lord willing”. We should want nothing to do with anything that is not fully in line and corresponding to His will. It must all come under the full authority of God to promote or to deny until He Alone is the focus and the beneficiary of all our endeavors. 
	The Writer to the Hebrews has much to say in this regard and much that we need to take before the Lord in terms of our stubbornness of demanding what we want when we want it. Heb 3:12-19, Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. 
	One of the main means we will have of knowing when we are pleasing to the Lord is that His peace will settle in our hearts. We will have that confident assurance that He is blessed with us and with our actions because He will make Himself known in quietness and in surety in our hearts. It will not be a matter of second guessing and what ifs. Rather, there will be a fulfilled contentment that is established upon us and within us. 
In this light, we then do seek out the companionship and the fellowship of others. We become truly partakers of the union of Christ with one another. We find that we are encouraged and stimulated, not after our wants and our desires and our benefit, but after those things which honor the Lord in honoring others. We become encouraged and an encouragement to others to hold onto the Lord and to bless Him in all that we do. 
The entire focal point of our gathering together is changed from what I can get out of it unto what the Lord will receive as we gather in His name. Heb 10:23-27, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. 
	Let us never be as the people against whom the Prophet Jeremiah had to prophesy in Jer 18:11+12, "So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, 'Thus says the Lord, "Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds."' "But they will say, 'It's hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.' 
	Always let us have our new heart from God at the forefront of all our plans and purposes unto His Glory. Seek after the Lord to work mightily and let us always willingly ask Him to blow against any plans of our conception that are not completely from Him and unto Him. So be it!
	And they said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 96:2-4. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. Amen.