TWU Tower Of Babel
The Word Unfolded • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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In today’s episode of The Word Unfolded we will be looking at Genesis 11, a very familiar chapter to many, at least concerning some of the events that take place there.
In Genesis 11:4 we read what caused God to get upset with the people after the flood.
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.”
Now, the issue with this is that God had commanded something completely different to Noah and his family after the flood subsided in Genesis 9:1…
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
Once again, just the second chapter after the flood came to an end, and the first chapter to give us any information about Noah’s descendants lives, we find them ignoring God’s word.
Thankfully, God shows the people mercy and simply confuses their language to cause them to gather with those they understood all over the world.
7 Come, let us go down there and 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.
In Genesis 11, we find two powerful lessons that I want us to consider.
First, God’s plans, will not be thwarted by man. Remember what God told Moses after the people made the golden calf and accredited all God’s miracles to it in Exodus 32:9-10.
9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
God’s plans will not be stopped by man’s unwillingness to keep them. That isn’t to suggest that everything that happens is God’s will, the tower of Babel is a great example of people having free choice. All I’m saying is that God’s plans cannot be thwarted by man’s sinful choices.
The second lesson we learn is that God’s grace and mercy is unmatched. God’s love for man is so powerful, amazing, and longsuffering. Though sinful man does not deserve it (Ephesians 2:8), God continually demonstrates his loving longsuffering for us. I think the apostle Paul sums this love for us up best in his first letter to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:12-15.
12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
The Tower of Babel stands as a powerful lesson on God’s omniscience, to achieve his plans AND his great grace, mercy, and love towards his creation.
