Babel: A Monument to Human Pride and a Memorial to Divine Judgment

Genesis: Paradise Lost, Hope Regained  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Intro

In the early 1990s, the Arizona Republic ran a story on a man named Gordon Hall. He had become so wealthy that he had purchased the 52,000 square foot mansion built by an oil tycoon named Walker McCune. Now the home belonged to Gordon. There’s a picture of it on your screen. It more like a fortress or a castle than a home. From the roof of his house he can see the lights of the nearby Arizona city, and the article says that Gordon Hall sees himself as a guide to help make the rest of his city wealthy.
This makes sense, too, because Gordon Hall at the age of 32 had become a multi-millionaire. In fact, he was worth more than $100 million. And to whom does he credit his success? He credits God with his success - well, not the God of the Bible or any other religion, but the “god” named Gordon Hall. That’s right, Gordon Hall saw himself as a god.
This is how he described his success: “We have always existed as intelligences, as spirits. We are down here to gain a body. As man is now, God once was. And as God is now, man can become. If you believe, then your genetic makeup is to become a god. And I believe it. That is why,” he says, “I believe I can do anything. My genetic makeup is to be a god. My God in heaven creates worlds and universes. I believe I can do anything, too.” [quoted in Hughes, Beginning & Blessing, p167]
This problem is as old as the human race - thinking that ultimately we are responsible for our own success and wealth. Like Nebuchadnezzar, who strolled across the roof of his palace and looked out at the mighty city of Babylon and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). Or like Adam and Eve who were promised that they could be “like God” - even though they were already as much like God as a created being could be, because they were made in His image.
This is the perennial human problem of sin - not content with being made in His image, we want to make Him into ours; not happy with glorifying Him, but wanting instead to glorify ourselves; not satisfied merely to serve God, we want to be Him. And sometimes, like in our passage in Genesis 11, it has disastrous consequences. Normally God sits back patiently as we go about acting like little gods, but there are times when in His infinite wisdom God decides to act, to put us in our place, not merely for His own glory but also and perhaps mainly for our good. Because our desire to not serve God but be God will destroy ourselves and those around us if, in love, God does not check us.
What does God think of our attempts to find significance apart from Him? What is His assessment of our attempts to move beyond serving God to trying to be Him? This passage shows us. Will you notice with me three things about this passage?

Scene #1: Fallen humanity’s desperate search for significance (vv. 1-4)

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar l and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Notice with me the first couple of things we’re told here as the author sets the stage for this story.
Now the first thing we’re told is that the whole world had one language. I take “the whole world” to mean just that - the whole world. This passage, I believe, describes an endeavor that at this point in history, the entire world is engaged. Every person who was able was there. Not only are they all there. They all speak one language.
Second, we’re told that this mass of humanity who all speak the same language are journeying east. Now that language factor, all speaking one language, is, on the face of it, a good thing. Or at least it would seem to be. But there are at least two clues that tell us that this mass of humanity united as one people with one language is not going to be quite as good as it could be. The first thing is that we’re told they journeyed east. Now that might not sound like a bad thing, but the thing is, in Genesis, traveling eastward is associated with human wickedness. When Cain was driven eastward after he killed Cain, he said he was being driven from the presence of the Lord. When Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden, they were driven out. When Abraham and Lot separated, Lot went east, toward Sodom and Gomorrah. Later, the Babylonian empire sets itself up in the east, and Babylon in the Bible is the epitome of human rebellion against God.
If the garden is associated with GOd’s presence and the garden is in the west, now as the people move east, the author is trying to tell us that these people are moving away from fellowship with God. [Sailhamer, The Pentateuch As Narrative, p134] Moving eastward means they are striking out on their own and trying to find happiness and blessing apart from the God of blessing. And if they’re moving away from relationship with God, then their unity might just be something dangerous, rather than something good - something self-destructive rather than upbuilding.
The second bad sign, so to speak, is that they settled. Verse two says, “It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there” (Gen. 11:2 NASB). Now why is that a problem? Well, think about to Genesis 1. God says “Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness.” And then He gave them a task, Gen. 1:28: “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it...” (NASB). It was God’s will and desire for His image-bearers to populate the earth to its furthest reaches, so that the earth created by God might be populated with men and women and children made in the image of God who would be worshipers of God. So for them to settle in Shinar, or anywhere, for that matter, is a direct act of disobedience. God willed and commanded them to multiply and scatter, to fan out, to populate and fill the earth. So not only does it seem that they’re move away from fellowship with God; whatever it is that’s in their heart to do, doesn’t appear to be something that includes God, and that always is disastrous.
Speaking of their plans, that’s where we’re led next. Verse 3 gives us a picture of their scheme. “They said to one another” - the picture “they said to one another” is one of human beings excitedly chattering to each other about what they’re planning. It’s “buzz” - what’s the buzz about? “Come let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used bricks for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heavens, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:2-4 NASB).
This tower mentioned here is probably what was known in ancient times as the ziggurat.There’s an image on your screen of what it likely looked like. It was a common but massive structure sort of like a pyramid but instead of a steady angle it increased in height by stair steps. Their goal here, when we understand it rightly, is nothing short of idolatry. They want to build a tower, in their words, “whose top will reach into the heavens.” This is different from engineers building a skyscraper. The phrase “into the heavens” is deliberate. The “heavens”, in the Bible, almost always refers to the special dwelling place of God.

Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as You swore to our fathers.’

But our God is in the heavens;

He does whatever He pleases.

​
That is His place, not ours. This is an attempt at self-deification. Not content to be creatures of God, we want to be the Creator. Not content with the good earth God has given us, we want to scale the walls of heaven and take what seems to us to be our rightful place, the throne of God Himself. This is the essence of all sin. Regardless of what the sin is, or how big or little it may seem to us, all sin is idolatry, all sin is self-deification because when we sin we are saying that we have the right knowledge of good and evil, we are saying that we know what is best for us, we are saying that we have the right to draw up the rules, we become the lawmakers.
And we see this even more clearly in the motive of these people for building this tower. “Let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4b). What does that mean, to make a name for yourself? We use that expression today. It means much the same today as it did then. in the Bible a person’s name is synonymous their reputation, their fame - what they’ve achieved, the greatness of their character. In our day we might say they wanted to make something of themselves. Clearly God doesn’t like this. Why not? What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with making something of ourselves? Didn’t God make us and wire us to do great things?
Ill. I’ll give you an illustration from my own life. Pastors face a lot temptations to make a name for themselves, too. The very nature of our job - we are men who are up in front of people, teaching and preaching, supposedly speaking for God. We’ve been called to oversee and lead His church. People come to us for advise and to have their questions answered. As you get older and more experienced, you start getting nominated to serve in state or maybe even national convention leadership positions. Maybe you write a book at some point.
Ill2. These are all good things, but as with everything, the motive is what matters.

Let our praise be in God and not of ourselves, for God hates those who praise themselves. Let the testimony of our good deeds be given by others, just as it was given to our fathers, the righteous ones. Arrogance and stubbornness and audacity to those who are cursed by God; gentleness and humility and meekness with those who are blessed by God.

Ill3. Am I doing what I’m doing right now from this pulpit in order to make myself look great? Am I doing this to magnify me? Or am I doing it do magnify God? Do I want to make a name for myself or spread the knowledge of the name and fame and character of God?
These people wanted to make a name for themselves, when all along we have been made in God’s image, created to show the world the greatness of God’s name. In the very next chapter of Genesis, when God calls Abraham to Himself to create through Him the nation who is bless all other nations, He says,
Our calling is to live to make God famous, to make a name for Him, and to wait for Him, in His time, and His way, to make a name for us.

1 Now the LORD said to Abram,

“Go forth from your country,

And from your relatives

And from your father’s house,

To the land which I will show you;

2 And I will make you a great nation,

And I will bless you,

And make your name great;

And so cyou shall be a blessing;

3 And I will bless those who bless you,

And the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Scene #2: The Lord’s accurate assessment (vv. 5-7)

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

What is a sure way to make human progress turn out disastrously? There are two ingredients in this recipe for disaster, which we see when we look at the Lord’s accurate assessment of their plan.

Two ingredients in a recipe for disaster

1. The first ingredient in the recipe for disaster is that they suffer from delusions of grandeur. They think they’re more than they are. Verse 5 says the Lord came down from heaven to see the tower.

The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built

Why does verse 5 say that the Lord had to come down to see the tower? Here’s how not to understand that verse. It doesn’t mean that God couldn’t see it from heaven. The clouds weren’t in his way. Nothing was obstructing His view. The writer puts it this way to make a point: the tower that these people think will reach to the heavens, the massive structure that by which they think they’ll scale the gates of heaven, is actually so small, from the Lord’s perspective, that He has to come down, so to speak, just to see it.
Ill. All of us have been teenagers at one point, a few of us here this morning still are. When I was 17, I had a plan. I had this tiny little Mitsubishi truck. It was a white, 1990 model Mitsubishi Mighty Max. It was smaller than our minivan. It was the compact car of trucks. There was no extended or third or fourth doors. Straight drive. No air conditioning, no power anything, not even power steering. But it was mine and that was all that mattered.
Ill. Now my 17th birthday was coming up and I always got money from my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. And I decided to buy a sound system for my tiny little truck. I don’t mean a stereo. I mean a speaker system, the kind that would shatter these windows. I bought it for like $200 (still can’t believe I spent my money that way). But it just wasn’t going to work for my truck. The main reason was there was no room in the truck for these giant speakers. Once I got them in place and all the wiring was right, it took up so much space behind the seat that I had to slide the seat up to the steering wheel as far as it would go. And it’s not like there was a lot of room to begin with! So here I am, with these booming speakers, but every time I drive I practically wound up with collapsed lungs.
Ill. So I got rid of them. I don’t even remember now, 23 years later, what I did with them. Did I sell them? Did I give them to a friend? Who knows? What I do know is that I looked like a fool. I was a fool. At least now at the age of 40 God gives me the grace to see that I was a fool.
These people think they’re engaging in the most important work humanity can be engaged in. They think they’re going to master their environment and even master God. But they’re fools, and they couldn’t see it. They suffer delusions of grandeur.
2. The second ingredient in this recipe for disaster is a false unity. Now what do I mean by false unity? Isn’t this true unity, in fact? One people speaking the same language? It would seem that way. It certainly seems that way to the world around us. The United Nations, the European Union, talk of having one form of global currency, one global community - that’s not far from what these people are doing here. It’s a false unity, though, and here’s why: It’s a false unity because God has no part in it. You see, unity is only true unity when we are united around our Creator. When our love for Him, our affection for Him, our obedience to Him, our worship of Him - when these things are shared, really shared, by people, that’s real unity and it’s a beautiful thing to behold. That’s what we’re called to try and achieve here. There is no unity except a unity that is grounded in the God who made us and who is the center of our lives.
Now, I don’t know what you think of what happened in Washington this past Wednesday. Some of you asked me on Wednesday what I thought of it and I really didn’t say. Sometime’s it’s best to wait, to say nothing for awhile, to watch it play out and pray about it and think biblically about it. But now I’m going to tell you what I think. You’re free to agree or disagree with me. If you disagree with me, I’ll still be your pastor and I’ll still love you and I hope you’ll love me. And I don’t want to get into whether the election was rigged or any of that stuff. I don’t want to get into comparing the Antifa protests with what happened in DC. All those things should be talked about but now’s not the place. But here’s what I do want to say.
But what I will say, is that God wasn’t in what happened on Wednesday. He wasn’t a part of that. He wasn’t the author of that nor did He lead them to do that. Now some of you won’t agree with me, so let me tell you why I say that. We are Christians before we are anything else. We want to think biblically about everything. We want to think biblically about what happened Wednesday too.
How do I know that? Their unity on Wednesday was a false unity. A unity without God at the center. When Jesus and His disciples had been traveling to Jerusalem and the Samaritans rejected them, James and John said “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54 NASB). Luke simply says Jesus rebuked them. Later, when the men came to arrest Jesus the night he was betrayed, Peter said, in typical Peter fashion, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” (Luke 22:49 NASB). Jesus’ response? “Stop! No more of this.”
Now here’s what we’re supposed to take away from that. When you go about God’s work, you do it God’s way. Those people on Wednesday thought they were going about God’s work. One guy being interviewed said “We know God’s at the helm, but He does His part and we do our part.” I don’t think you can look at what happened Wednesday and say with a straight face that what happened is something Jesus would be pleased with. I think Jesus would say what He said to Peter: “Stop! No more of this!” What happened Wednesday - setting bombs in place and busting windows and breaking down doors and intimidating Capitol Police and invading the US Capitol and the Senate chamber and even going into lawmakers offices — there’s nothing Christian about that.
Their false unity here and their delusions of grandeur are recipes for disaster. The Lord graciously intervenes to stop it. The Lord in verses six and seven says:

The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have athe same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

What kind of power does the human race have if they all come together as one people with one language with one common purpose? Apparently a lot. “Nothing will be impossible for them.” Now this could be misunderstood here. God is not against human progress. He’s for it. He created us and said “Rule over creation and everything in it”, meaning cultivate the earth and use its resources and your intellect and your skill to solve problems, build bridges, design airplanes and ships, make good and nutritious food, develop medicines, make vaccines to end pandemics - all of these things are good things that we should be grateful for, and every time we see them done, we are witnessing humanity imperfectly and awkardly but nonetheless really obeying the mandate to rule over creation.
So then, why does God seem to view their unity as a threat - not to Himself, but to them? To us? Well, it’s because we are fallen. In Genesis 1 God gave us the mandate to fill the earth and rule over it, and do it all for God’s glory and for the good of others.
But then came Genesis 2 and 3. We can’t skip those verses because they talk about sin and temptation and death. We need to understand them because therein we learn to understand ourselves and the world around us. Why do we so often use what God has given us wrongly, in a way that harms us and others rather than builds them up? The answer, from Genesis 3, is that sin entered into the picture and poisoned everything. Now we use technology not only for good but evil. Now we harness the earth’s resources not only for good also for wickedness. Now, when we come together as one people with one language united in one purpose, we have tremendous power to do not only great good but incredible evil. We end up destroying ourselves.
Have you considered that what you think you need, might just be the very thing that will be your undoing? Our Creator, who made us and therefore knows what we need and don’t need - sometimes He withholds things from us, good things that we want and think we need, because only He truly knows what it would do to us.
That’s what we see in these next verses.

Scene #3: The Lord’s gracious intervention (vv. 8-9)

8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel z—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Now this is something you can’t see in the English but there’s actually a reversal going on here. When the Lord announces His plans to intervene and stop them from building this idolatrous tower, two things are happening.
Number one, the wording mimics what the people are saying. If you write in your Bibles, you’ll want to underline this. And if you don’t have your Bible open you need to. The people said “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” Then they say, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and let us make for ourselves a name.” Twice they say, “Come, let us...” Then the Lord says in verse 7, “Come, let us go down and there confuse their language” (Gen. 11:7 NASB). It’s almost as though the Lord is mocking them - not in an arrogant sort of way, but in a way that reflects God’s complete lack of intimidation and His complete power over them. It shows His complete and utter knowledge of us, down to the very words we choose to use and the way in which we choose to use them.

The LORD nullifies the counsel of the nations;

He frustrates the plans of the peoples.

11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever,

The plans of His heart from generation to generation.

And it shows that He is never intimidated by us, He is never worried about our plans interfering with His or thwarting His will.
The second thing we see here in the Lord’s intervention is that His intervention is a reversal of their actions. Even the choice of words, even how those words are pronounced, shows this. Here’s what I mean.
Divine reversals
God: “Let us confuse their language”
Hebrew: nabela (N - B - L)
Men: “Let us make bricks”
Hebrew labena (L - B - N)
“Let us confuse their language” - in Hebrew those five words are actually just one word and it’s pronounced like this: nabe’la. Note the consonants. N-B-L. Pay attention to that order, because it is the exact opposite of what He is judging them for.
“let us make bricks”. That word is pronounced lebe’na. Look at those consonants. L-B-N. In other words, God’s declaration to judge the human race reverses their decision to make bricks and build a building with its top in the heavens.
And the result is found in verses 8-9:
​

So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called aBabel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

Remember their fear, their anxiety that drove them to do this? “Lest we be scattered across the face of the earth.” Being scattered means, in their eyes, fading into oblivion, into being unknown and unappreciated, no legacy, no meaning to their lives. It’s insignificance we fear the most, isn’t it?
But they couldn’t have been more wrong. Because God had made them to populate the earth. That was their purpose, their God-given destiny. But like Adam before them and all of us after them, we think, wrongly, that we know what is best for us. Fulfillment is found in obedience; freedom is found in obedience; significance and meaning and legacy, all of that is found simply by loving Jesus and doing His will.
And so, graciously and lovingly but firmly, God forces them to do what He would have preferred they do willingly. If they won’t fill the earth and populate it, He will give them a nudge. He confuses their language. We don’t know how this happened exactly or what it looked like when they suddenly couldn’t understand each other. The point, though, is that unity depends on mutual understanding; mutual understanding depends on effective communication; and effective communication relies upon a shared language.
Verses 8-9 says “They stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them...” (Gen. 11:8b-9a NASB). “Babel” which is Hebrew sounds like the word for “confused” in Hebrew. It also sounds a whole like the Hebrew word for “fool”.
What’s the point? They set out to make name for themselves. Instead of going down in history with a legacy of architectural genius or engineering marvels or technological prowess, today they are known to history as confused fools who tried to invert heaven and earth and take God’s place. For thousands of years they have been known for this. So enduring is their legacy that it has survived even into the English language in 2021. What do we mean when we say someone is “babbling”? We mean they’re speaking incoherently, foolishly, confusedly. They did make a name for themselves. Just not the name they wanted.
It would be far better for them and for us if we focused not only making a name for themselves but on spreading the fame of God’s name among those who don’t know Him. There is so much more freedom and meaning and significance here than there is in living for your own glory!

Conclusion and call for response

Ill. Pastor Tony Evans tells what he says is a true story about Mohammad Ali. Mohammad Ali gets on a plane to go somewhere, right? And of course he’s seated in first class because he’s Mohammad Ali. He’s an important person. If you’ve flown before you know that there’s a lot going when people are boarding the plane and you’re getting ready to take off. One of the things that has to happen before the plane can move is that every passenger has to wear their seatbelt.
Ill. Mohammad Ali decides he’s not going to wear his seat belt so when the flight attendant asks everyone to put theirs on, he doesn’t do it. The flight attendant comes by and notices he’s not wearing it, and she knows who he is, but that doesn’t matter, rules are rules. She says, “I’m sorry, Mr. Ali, but you’re going to have to buckle your seat belt.” She walks away to do something else and comes back and notices he still doesn’t have his seat belt on. The plane is ready to go; luggage is stowed, the doors are shut, the captain has received permission to push back from the gate and taxi to the runway, but they can’t, because Mohammad Ali is the last person who hasn’t yet put on his seat belt.
Ill. Finally she’s had enough and she says, “Mr. Ali, we can’t move until you buckle your seat belt.” He says, “I don’t need to buckle my seatbelt.” She glares at him and says, “What do you mean you don’t need to buckle your seatbelt? Everybody has to buckle their seatbelt. His sarcastic reply is, “Well, Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” The flight attendant, angry now, looks him square in the eye and says, “Superman don’t need no airplane, either.”
Tony Evans writes, “A man has got to know his limits. Autonomous man, man who believes he can live without God, make it without God, do science apart from God, or create apart from God will be rudely awakened.” [Evans, pp. 120-21]
Thousands of years later, this traversing of space between earth and heaven would be attempted again. This time it was different. It wasn’t just an attempt. It was successful. And it wasn’t a mob of egotistical human beings bent on achieving fame and reputation. It was the Son of God Himself.
Church, this is a beautiful thing. What the early Babylonians were attempt was in the end impossible, because man can never make it to God on his own, no matter how high a tower we build. But there is one who can bridge that gap. The Son of God, who has a legitimate claim to all fame and all glory, left his fame and glory behind to come to earth as a human being, to save human beings who were seeking fame and glory that wasn’t theirs. He came from earth to heaven to save prideful men and women like you and I who were bent on trying to reach heaven on our own.
Because man doesn’t make it to heaven by man’s efforts; man makes it to heaven only if God comes down as a man to get us and takes us back with Him. Jesus suffered and died on the cross in our place, as our substitute, bearing our sins and the wrath of God for our sins, He pays the debt fully, He says “It is finished!”, and then He rises 72 hours later in glory and power and victory and ascends into heaven, and by this He opens the doorway to heaven and God’s presence wide for us to enter.
Church, and those of you on Facebook, have you trusted in this One who traversed heaven and earth for you? Have you come to the place in your life, “I know I can’t be good enough on my own; I trust in you, Jesus, that your death on the cross is sufficient to atone for my sins; henceforth I rely not upon my own goodness to make me right with God, but on Christ’s righteousness alone.”
Maybe for some of you it’s a time to finally, really commit your lives to Christ. Maybe it’s time for your to recommit your to Christ. Whether that means finally joining our church, or being baptized for the first time, Jesus means for us not to hide behind the pews but to let the world know, “I belong to Jesus. I’m not perfect, but He’s accepted me for better or for worse. And for better or for worse, I want to live my life for Him.”
Don’t miss the opportunity to respond. You can do that where you sit; you can come down front and pray with me or pray alone. The important thing is not where or how; the important thing is that you respond to what God has shown you this morning.
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