Here we see the mercy of God. In this chapter God reasons with a hopeless hardened proud sinner. That is our task, the task of the church. When the world is being populated and on the one side there is the world the descendants of Cain, and on the other among the descendants of Adam and Seth; at that time a public witness begins. The world is small; its population is still sparse, but even now there is a difference between the two lines. What are the two lines doing? What are they saying? How do they show their true character? On the one hand it is: build a city; put all your time and attention into music, and into lifestyle, and in boasting and self-aggrandisement and human advance. And on the other side: thanksgiving to God, everybody joining together in, witness and worship. That marks the two families. It marks the great division in our world today. We are in that line as the people of God. That is why we come out to worship. We cannot say, ‘I worship God at home, I pray privately. Let just half a dozen get together, if they wish, and listen to preaching, and listen to the word of God.’ No, this is part of our commission, we are supposed to be noticeable. This is the public worship of Almighty God, and all the family of Seth came together, and that spoke volumes to the godless.
We are living in an age where something is happening among Bible believers which has never happened before in past history. That this great story which runs right through the Bible, the story of two nations, the story of the unbelievers and the believers, the world and the church, the two being distinct and different and not mixing, except for evangelism and soul winning; this story of separation is now being pushed out, and there are people saying, ‘We need to be culturally relevant. We need to be culturally progressive. We have got to end this distinction between the church and the world. We are going to do worldly things – go to worldly dances, go to worldly films, play worldly style music. We are going to engage in all the same things that the world does as it promotes godlessness, anti-authority, and anti-moral things. We think that puts us on the front line. We have to go to their clubs, do what they do, be similar.’ Some people do it because they want to do it, the world is still in their hearts; others do it as their foolish and misguided strategy to reach the world. But you know, in all the history of the Christian church, nobody before the last twenty, thirty, forty years has ever before dared rubbish the distinction between the church and the world. Surely, these are the last days, and we have to be very careful. We have to be clear that we maintain that distinction.