A Tower of Pride and a Terrifying Price

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Last week we covered the rest of Genesis 9 and saw how sin survived the flood because humanity survived the flood. We saw how Noah had 3 sons and how God, through Noah, pronounced a blessing on 2 of them and a curse on one of them. From these 3 sons, the rest of the world was populated and we see this take place in Genesis 10 as verse 32 tells us this

Genesis 10:32 CSB

32 These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their family records, in their nations. The nations on earth spread out from these after the flood.

What we find in chapter 10 is a “Table of Nations” as we see where these individuals began to migrate to and settle around. What was God’s command to Adam and again His command to Noah?

Be fruitful and multiply - fill the earth!

Genesis 1:28 CSB

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

Genesis 9:1 CSB

1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

This is what happens in Genesis 10 as we see generation after generation as these offspring spread out throughout the earth. Again, God is working in all of this for His perfect purpose - we remember back in chapter 3 as God promised that the deliverer would come through the seed of the woman and what do we see here? That seed continuing onward. Eventually we’ll get to people like Abraham who came from the line of Shem and onward back through Seth and Adam. If you are in Christ tonight, you too are apart of this glorious promise as we read in Romans that we are grafted into this tree. As one pastor put it, “In Christ, the people of God are no longer made up of just ethnic Jews.” God’s promise in chapter 12 will be to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham and Abraham’s offspring. This is God’s purpose - to bless the people’s of the earth and we know that this ultimately comes through the life and death of Jesus Christ.

We’re looking in chapter 10 and although there’s lots of names and details and places and conflicts, we see good news as mankind is spreading out as God called them to do. They are multiplying as God commanded them to do. But as we know, things don’t always stay the way that they should. Just as sin survived the flood, sin continues to survive and thrive today. As we go to chapter 11, we’re going to see one of the most wellknown problems that sin causes and that is the sin of pride. Let’s see this Tower of Pride in Genesis 11:1-9.

Genesis 11:1–9 CSB

1 The whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. 2 As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make oven-fired bricks.” (They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.) 4 And they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.” 5 Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building. 6 The Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore it is called Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth.

Man’s Arrogance (1-4)

What we’re going to see in the verses that follow are people taking God’s good graces and using them for the wrong end. Before the flood we saw how Cain’s offspring were city builders and had technological breakthroughs. Technology isn’t always a bad thing! Building things isn’t always a bad thing! How has technology positively impacted our world? Negatively?

Positively - Social Media allowed us to livestream our services during COVID in a way that we couldn’t do just a generation ago

Health care has improved dramatically in recent generations! As a T1D, I would’ve been dead a long time ago had I been born a century earlier

Travel - we can travel virtually anywhere around the world in a day or two, something that would’ve taken previous generations months if not longer to do

Negatively:

Lots of distractions, frustrations, and communication problems. More anxiety, jealousy, and other interpersonal problems than in previous generations

We find problems whenever we try to “play God” and this is what got these people in trouble in Babylon and it continues to get people in trouble today!

The last few months, we’ve been studying through Daniel during Sunday mornings and we’ve learned a lot about Babylon. It’s power. It’s kings. It’s gods. Ultimately, in the Bible we see that Babylon often stands as the opposition to God. How these people rebel against God and are enemies of God’s people. How Babylon boasts in self - do you remember what Nebuchadnezzar said in Daniel 4:30?

Daniel 4:30 CSB

30 the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built to be a royal residence by my vast power and for my majestic glory?”

Do you see the king’s pride? God had handed Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. God is the one with the power and God had used Babylon for a season to bring about judgment on His covenantal people because the Israelites failed to worship Him as they should have. Babylon infected many of the Jews who went there in exile. They grew comfortable in Babylon. They enjoyed the pleasures of Babylon. There was much confusion in Babylon. Much division in Babylon. Much self worship in Babylon. In what ways do we see parallels between our nation and Babylon as described in the Bible?

A place of confusion

Division

A place that opposes God’s Word, especially regarding gender, the sacredness of life, and the purpose of life

God made a command as we just saw earlier to go forth and multiply throughout the earth, yet here we see that people gathered together and made a city for themselves. God had blessed them, He had provided for them, and what was their goal? To use God’s provision to make a name for themselves. Their focus was their own fame. Their own comforts. The problem in Babylon is two fold - God gave them commands to spread out and they wanted to stay together… the problem is partly what they are doing, but mostly why they are doing what they are doing! They aren’t erecting this tower for the glory of God but for themselves. Their motivation is not praise but pride. Do you see the arrogance here?

Colossians 3:17 CSB

17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Are we any different today?

Absolutely not!

What problems does pride present in our lives?

Thinking that we are truly independent and don’t need God

Self-Provision. Just like Adam and Eve thought that they could become like God by eating a fruit in chapter 3, in chapter 11 humanity tries to become like God by making bricks that provide protection. Pride still says that we can provide what we need ourselves.

Self-Promotion. They wanted to make a name for themselves. Pride still promotes self as people strive for likes, followers, and clicks and judge their success by the size of their following or the digits associated with their account.

Self-Protection

They didn’t want to be scattered… so they became self-centered

It’s all about self!

Man arrogantly believed he could reach God’s status by working hard - this is one of the biggest pitfalls with false religion. These tower builders are broken people. Many people try to build different towers today to reach Godlike status, but they too will fail.

God’s Awareness (5-9)

They continue to build, but in verse 5 we see a shift in the text as we move from Babylon to heaven as the Lord looks down on this tower. This is satire. This is ironic. This is humorous! As one commentator put it, “This tower was so microscopic that the all=seeing omnipotent God had to come down to see it.”

Psalm 2:4 CSB

4 The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord ridicules them.

Mankind tried to reach God, and it is as if God had to get down on his hands and knees and lower His head just to see this tiny tower. So much for their efforts! Friends, nothing catches our God by surprise. He is the uncreated One. He is the OMNI-God. All knowing. All powerful. All present. He sustains all things. He knows all things. He has a plan for all things. God is aware of what is taking place. This doesn’t catch Him off guard… but it does grieve His heart. It grieves God’s heart when those made in His image reject Him. It grieves God whenever His people choose sinful pride instead of singing His praises. Let’s look at what God does - what has taken place will lead to greater problems (v. 6). They wanted this tower to reach heaven. That was their goal. Their goal, like the serpent in the Garden, was to overthrow God. This is what pride does - it removes God from His rightful throne in our heart and inserts ourselves on that throne that we are not qualified to sit upon. God was not threatened by their pride or their power. He recognizes their pride - not to say that He didn’t know, He did, but we see that their pride was so great that something had to happen and that “something” was a divine scattering.

What must be the center of human community?

Jesus Christ! See the book of Acts

Whenever we get this foundation piece incorrect, our community is built on the wrong thing and consequences will follow. God scatters them. He kicks them out. Like Eden, God’s action is motivated by grace. Had God kept Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and they had lived with the Tree of Life - regardless of modern takes on what that tree was - Earth would have turned into hell on earth as it would have been permanent separation from God as Adam and Eve and their offspring would have lived forever in sin with no death, separated from God. It was God’s grace that kicked them out of the Garden. Yes, it was also His just punishment, but it was also grace so that they would die and through death be with Him again.

Heaven is not grasped by ambition, it is God’s gift of grace.

Notice, God doesn’t send a flood whenever the people disobeyed and gave into pride. He is faithful to His covenant! Instead He sends them out like a flood. They were scattered throughout the earth and filled it, just like God commanded them to do in the first place. Wouldn’t it have been easier for them to just go straight to the ends of the earth without building the tower? It would have been! But even with humanity rebelling against God, God’s plan will come to pass. So it was then and so it is today. God is aware of what is going on. He see’s the evil and wickedness throughout our world. It might seem like pride is going to win, but it can’t. God’s plan will come to pass. God still destroys fortresses of sin and one day we know that He will send His Son a second time to do away with sin once and for all. God is aware.

Gospel Acceptance

Not only is God aware in that He recognizes and responds to human pride with judgment… but we see most importantly that God reverses human pride.

Pentecost is the reversal of Babel as God reverses the scattering and language confusion. Consider Pentecost. People from all nations coming to Jerusalem (not away from Babylon) and understanding one another as if they were speaking the same language (instead of knowing the same language and not understanding one another) and providing clarity regarding their mission instead of confusion. In Genesis 11 man wants to make a name for itself… in Acts 2, man wants to point others to the only name that can save, Jesus Christ! Babel points us to Pentecost. As Baptists at times we fail to talk about the miracle of Pentecost and shame on us for that. This is the birth of the early church as God provides a miracle so that His Gospel would go forth not only in Jerusalem, but eventually out of Jerusalem and into Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We see God’s provision and we see mankind proclaiming the Gospel in the book of Acts! God gets the last word as His people take the Gospel to the ends of the world. This helps point us to the Gospel.

How does the Gospel destroy our Pride?

The Gospel challenges our pride that says, “I don’t need Jesus!”

The Gospel shares with us that regardless of how high we build our tower (regardless of our works), we cannot save ourselves and reach heaven

Even if we piled our good works as high as they’d go, they wouldn’t be high enough… this is why it is good news that God doesn’t require us to make a way to Him - He has provided a way. Instead of mankind building a tower to climb to God, God descended from heaven to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

John 1:14 CSB

14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This isn’t where the story stops with Jesus simply coming to the earth - that isn’t where Babel stopped. The problem was more than the height, it was a problem of the heart. Jesus doesn’t just come to change our situation, He comes to change our status.

Galatians 4:4–5 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

We must stop chasing a name for ourselves and find our identity in the Name above all names! God is always working to offer grace!

As Daniel has been telling us, every earthly kingdom will one day fall… but Christ’s Kingdom will stand tall. Genesis 11 serves as a passage that gives us hope that He truly is in control. He has all power. We cannot save ourselves, but our God did for us what we could not do ourselves, He came down to seek and save the lost. To build this tower of pride carries with it a terrifying price - we must turn from pride and instead praise our God for who He is and what He has done! Don’t trust in self. Don’t trust in society. Trust alone in your Savior!