Genesis 11:1-9--The Tower of Babel

​Genesis 11:1-9 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.11.1-Gen.11.9

The Tower of Babel

11:1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

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While the geographical location isn't extremely important here, you may hear the similarity between the names Babel and Babylon.  Yes, they are related.  We believe the Plains of Shinar lied in current-day Iraq and Babel was near modern-day Baghdad.  What's more important though as I mentioned last time is the people involved--Nimrod and the fact that he acts as a type of antichrist even this early in the Bible.

What was the commandment that God had given to all the people after the Flood?  To be fruitful and multiply and to till the entire earth.  Nimrod instead went back to a place close to where the Garden of Eden would have existed and tried to build a physical kingdom where man could make his own way to God and in doing so to build a monument to himself.  We'll see this happen again in the book of Daniel where the Babylonian king will make a statue of himself that will be on these very same plains and demand that everyone worship the idol and three Hebrew children will refuse to bow down.  Where do you think the idea of worship of the king came from in Babylonian society?  it probably started right here with Nimrod.

Notice how they reason together to use an act of "creation" to make their name great, but more importantly we see that they do this in defiance to the command of God.  Once again we see man wanted to overthrow God's order and His Law--the very little bit of Law that they have at this point, and they still can't and won't keep it because of their sin nature.

God has promised to never again destroy all of humanity because of the sin of mankind, but this high-handed sin of rebellion and this monument to that rebellion could not be allowed to stand.  It is interesting that God comes down to take a look in person.  Clearly He already knew everything He needed to know from His throne in heaven.  He sees all and knows all, but it appears that all three person of the Trinity come down and investigate and come to decision on what kind of judgment should be proclaimed and against who the judgment should be carried out.

Once again the sin of one man and a small group of people has affected all of humanity, because God sees that this sin is infectious and that if He does nothing about it, all of humankind will become infected with this pride--the very sin that lead to the fall of Satan (though we won't read about that event until we get to the major prophets later).

God decides to confuse the languages of the peoples to force them to divide up into their own nations, clans and tribes and for them to form different unique cultures and to make trade and interaction with each other more difficult, because if they are continued to be allowed to work together in defiance to His command then they will become self-reliant for everything.  Is this that different from today with globalism?  Haven't we once again been fighting God's order and been trying to once again become one people group and destroy the distinctions of the nations and borders that God had drawn here?  Are we not also being defiant against God's command to be fruitful and multiply when we refuse to be married to each other and have children, or we want to have the benefits of marriage without the covenant of marriage and the "choice" to kill the baby in the womb so as to have the pleasure without the responsibility?  Are we today that different from the wicked people that Nimrod lead and God stepped down into their world to judge?  Does not God also send us confusion to accomplish His will as we rebel against Him according to Romans chapter 1?  Have we as humans not always wanted to try to be self-reliant and take the place of God in our lives and make our own kingdom and our own way and to build monuments to our own greatness and get the worship for ourselves that only God deserves?

So you see, if we are not careful, we too can be not that different than Nimrod and can be filled with the spirit of antichrist and can be working against the God and be trying to become the savior of ourselves and our own people through our own strength, intelligence and technology.  What judgment is God going to have to send to us to get us back on track to obeying His Word and His plan that He has laid out?  God did have His way and the people dispersed and filled the earth as He had commanded, but it was because of His judgment and not as a result of their obedience.  Imagine how the world would be different today if all men lived in obedience to God and spoke the same language as one another and had been allowed to work together in accomplishing that plan.  How much easier would it be to fulfill the Great Commission if that were the case.  One day we look forward to men from every tribe, tongue and nation worshiping together around the throne and these various languages worshiping together will be a beautiful sound to God.  We will also see a reversal of the Tower of Babel at Pentecost when God took all the peoples of the world and once again began to turn them into one people--the Church--through Christ.  While they did not all speak the same language there, the Holy Spirit worked so that each man understood the gospel in his own language and "unconfused" the languages of the people at that time so that the sees of the gospel could be planted in way where it could be carried to every tribe, tongue and nation.

Let us not let the world use the system of globalism as a cheap substitute for the gospel.  Let us fulfill The Great Commission and in so doing bring all people groups together in a way that restores Gods order under the kingship of Christ and to make them a part of a kingdom that is not of this world, and let us not provoke God and cause Him to have to send us confusion and delusions or judge us in order to cause us to be obedient to His commands.