When I was a teenager one of the most popular songs out there was a classic by that wonderful, very non-Christian rock band Led Zepplin, it was called “Stairway to Heaven”. There have been few songs in history that have been listened to under the fog of marajuana more than this one. Fortunately neither the song or the marajuana had any appeal to me.
I don’t even pretend to understand all the lyrics, but it starts with a woman who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven. It goes on to talk about a choice between two paths and that someday the truth will come to you at last when all are one and one is all. Today’s story is kind of like buying a stairway to heaven, and it’s for all the wrong reasons, and doesn’t end well.
Last week we were introduced to Peleg who lived 209 years, sometime during his life the Tower of Babel incident happened, so for some of his life at least there was one language spoken. People who had dispersed to the east from the area where Noah’s Ark landed, began coming back for some reason, probably because Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan don’t have the kind of good land that is closer to the Mediterranean and the big rivers, and they certainly weren’t depending on God for their prosperity and survival.
So today we’re going to look at the revolt of man at Babel, and God’s response. Let’s start with our friend Nimrod and:
I. The Revolt of Man (vv 1-4)
This begins with:
A. The Centralization in Their Settling (vv 1-2)
God said one thing, man did the opposite. God told the people, “be fruitful and multiply”. He also said, “fill the earth, teem on the earth and multiply in it.” You see God knew what people were like, he said after the flood, “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” He knew that if many people gathered together in one place, not much good would come of it, they would feel more powerful and easily forget their dependence on God to survive and thrive.
God also wanted people to experience all of His creation. Why would He create this whole earth if he didn’t want his people to experience all of it, to glorify himself through it? There may have been some aspect of judgment here too. Remember he dispersed Adam and Eve out of the Garden. We don’t always know the reasons God does what he does, but clearly he didn’t want people to centralize.
The first thing we see is that people started migrating from the east. In the Old Testament, east is not good, it’s always associated with evil. So it’s these darn easterners, just like Toronto who start messing things up. When people started to come to one place trouble began. Does this mean cities are bad, does God hate cities?
Let me just give you a fact. Here in Killarney, approximately 25% of the population goes to church. We can’t assume that they are all true Christians, but they go to church. In most Canadian cities approximately 4% of people go to church. The smaller the population, the more people go to church. Now that doesn’t mean the culture in the church is necessarily healthy and there are many factors here, but just using attendance as a measure we could say that spiritually, from a Christian perspective, cities are less healthy than small towns.
Having said that, we should have incredible influence over the rest of the population in a small town. But when was the last time you saw a lost person come to faith for the first time in this town because of the witness of the church?
Add to this that it is in cities that most of the human icons exist, skyscrapers, big stadiums, all sorts of massive manmade stuff. Most of the sinful activity like prostitution, homosexuality etc is practiced. People who want to do more sinful stuff usually migrate to the city where it’s more easily hidden and accepted.
So I don’t know if God hates cities, but it sure seems like the building of big cities was not in God’s original plan, therefore, they are not working out well for us humans as if we would have followed his way. So the bottom line is that cities are a revolt against God, today, as they were in the days of Genesis, and they are places where God is largely ignored.
Think about it, if you get a lot of people together in one place for an extended period of time, what usually happens? Competition, arguments, ultimately leading to fights, murder, cliques, nothing good for the most part. Pride and the associated desire for power, is the enemy that ultimately crops up when many people get together for long periods of time. It even happens in churches when God is not kept at the center and it becomes man’s church.
Verses 3 and 4 now describe:
B. The Construction of a City and a Tower (vv 3-4)
So the people gather at this plain called Shinar which is the area of Babylon, so they are already settling in a high place. There was no stone in this region so the people show great ingenuity in making bricks out of dirt, water and straw. What is called bitumen that they used for mortar, is actually tar from tar pits, remember this is oil country so these tar pits were all over the place.
God gave humanity the ability to do amazing things, but how much of what we would call progress, has been used to increase God’s Kingdom. This is the whole point here. Amazing computers, quick and easy worldwide travel, huge cities and massive buildings, medical advances, satellites, use of natural resources. Things no person could have imagined 100 years ago, what are they being used for? God wouldn’t have blessed us with these abilities if they could not be used in some way to further His kingdom. But no, we are using them to further our selves and our bank accounts.
Maybe a conservative guess here is that at least 90% of modern technology is being used for economic and military purposes? Almost half of the internet is devoted to pornography. Our technology is being used to store up treasures here on earth. How much of this technology, and the profits from it are being used to end starvation, spread the gospel, reduce crime, improve families, glorify God?
How much did Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys spend on the New Texas Stadium? 1.15 billion dollars. They joke that there is a hole in the top of the stadium so that God can watch his favorite team play, I’m not so sure Mr. Jones doesn’t believe that.
We look at World Vision and organizations like that where 1 dollar a day can feed, school, and provide healthcare for a poor child. I wonder if Mr. Jones has ever thought of feeding over a billion people around the world. I don’t want to pick on him, but this is so representative of our priorities, in terms of what we use God’s gifts for. It’s all based on:
1) Selfish Humanism
Listen to what the people at Babel said to each other. Let us make bricks. Let us build ourselves a city and a tower. Let us make a name for ourselves. Why? So that we don’t get dispersed over the whole earth, as God desires. In essence, Let us try to get God out of the picture.
Let me give you the dictionary definitions of humanism. “A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth. The denial of any power or moral value superior to that of humanity; the rejection of religion in favour of a belief in the advancement of humanity by its own efforts”. Here people are directly revolting against the Lord, just a couple generations after the flood. They hadn’t forgotten the flood, but they may have been taking advantage of the promise that God wouldn’t do it again.
Right from the beginning man wants to exalt himself, to be the center of the universe. But God wants to be the center, and in fact is the only one capable of truly exalting himself.
What are these people trying to accomplish here by building this city? They want security and independence. To not be dispersed. Why do they build the tower? To get praise, they want to make a name for themselves. Security, independence, and praise, are those not the things that most of us strive for? Well, we are going to see that God wasn’t and never will be impressed with those motives.
This is also the beginnings of:
2) Substitute Religion
Do you know what the word Babel means? It means the gate of the gods. Not God, but the gods. They want this tower’s top to be in the heavens, not to be close to God, but to be equal to God. See how this is the basis for the original sin as well. Man wants to create its own gods, be his own god. Why? So that we have the power. God becomes the created thing that can be manipulated rather than us having to surrender to the real God. Do you see how backward and misguided that is!
This tower is what was known as a Ziggurat, there is a picture of what it may have looked like. Carved into the bricks would have been zodiac signs, humanlike figures and animals to represent other gods. This is the beginning of worshipping false gods, which if you really look at it, is just a clever way of worshipping ourselves.
Let’s look at Romans 1 verses 21-31:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
God doesn’t punish us, he gives us up to what we choose. The punishment comes from the natural consequences of choosing our own operating system rather than the one God designed for his creation. If I were to stubbornly choose to continue using DOS rather than Windows XP, my computer is going to be very un-useful and my stubbornness would certainly not be helping me. But at least it’s still made by Microsoft, the designer I guess.
Paul is also implying here that when we choose to disobey in one area, it usually spreads to many others. God is not going to stop us from sinning, we choose as Paul says in Romans, to be slaves of the flesh, or slaves of the Holy Spirit in us. Next time you sin, ask yourself, was there a magical force causing me to do what I did, or did I have to make myself do it?
There’s a question floating around out there, and we need to be sensitive about how we address it, and that is, how are the twin towers in New York similar to the tower of Babel? Well we have to admit that nothing about the World Trade Center was focused on God. In fact it was pretty much the world center of greed. Now people ask, did God raise up or allow some terrorists from the land of Babylon to destroy it? We can’t say he didn’t, it’s not out of his character to do so. Certainly He must have allowed it.
But did you know that the complete collapse of those towers was a miracle. Engineering and physics has determined that there is no way that those planes crashing into those buildings could have brought them all the way down. The official story is that the ignited jet fuel caused the steel girders to melt. Well, I can’t go into to all the details, but my research showed that that is an impossibility, and that there is absolutely no scientific explanation for why those towers fell all the way to the ground.
The world doesn’t want to believe in a God like that, but the Bible tells us different. Even our beloved Jesus, God in the flesh, who loved us so much he went to the cross for us, pulled no punches about the judgment and destruction that was to come. Man is just so arrogant, that we can’t believe a loving God would do that to us precious people. An all powerful God can’t be a jealous God. People are basically good, why would he do that to us?
Folks, you will never hear in the Bible that people are good. To God in His holiness we are a disgusting filth upon His creation, we are wretched fools, adulterous enemies of God. Did you hear what was said about us in that Romans passage? God is the only one who is good, even Jesus deferred his goodness to God the Father. We deserve to be destroyed. God doesn’t love us because we are good, he loves us because He is good. And he is going to destroy those people who do not give their lives to His son. If we do, then physical death is no longer a tragedy. Do we understand that?
Many people died in those terror attacks, and the people left behind experienced great pain, and we were all traumatized. But for true believers their death simply means they are in glory with Jesus. For the rest, they are set for destruction anyway without Christ whether they die today or in 50 years.
That is why the Gospel is so powerful. Why Christmas is the most amazing thing we can ever celebrate. God is willing to save the most wretched of His creation because of His amazing love for the unlovable. That’s you and me folks. Everyone of us is a stench in his nostrils we fall so short of His standards, but his love is so unfathomable that he invites to us live with him in paradise forever.
Are we even willing to have someone we don’t know in our house, never mind an enemy or a “bad” person. Do you see how far our love is from God’s.
But don’t be ashamed that you are wretched in his sight, because that is what makes His salvation and love so amazing. That is what we have lost sight of with our North American cheap Gospel. That’s why Christianity has no power in our culture. Because everybody thinks their good and don’t need to be saved.
That is the love. He gives us a way out. He makes us righteous only if we choose Him. And if we don’t like this fact, and don’t come before our creator with fear and trembling, prepared to give up everything for Him, God help us. .....Now let’s look at:
II. The Response of God (vv 5-9)
Just like today, God had no sympathy for the revolt against Him. So what is the first thing he does.
A. He Confuses Their Language (vv 5-7)
What a delightfully simple trick. He didn’t kill them, destroy what they were building, he just confused them. It’s kind of funny when you think about it. Here are these people thinking they are so powerful, God could have easily overpowered them, but no, can you just see them suddenly looking at each other babbling away, until they just throw up their hands and calmly walk away from the project.
This is one of the funniest parts of the Bible. Verse 5, the Father says “Hey Jesus, Holy Spirit, what do you say we go down there and have a look at this great city.” Do you see the sarcasm? “ooh look what they built.” “Hey I got an idea let’s go down their and confuse their language.” I’m sure the Trinity and the angels were busting a gut.
God didn’t have to come down to see, he didn’t have to use force against force. He just made these arrogant people look like fools. He is going to do the same to all of us who don’t take him seriously.
Boom, the rebellion is snuffed out. Then we see:
B. The Dispersion of the People (vv 8-9)
Now the people couldn’t understand each other, so they decided to disperse around the world.
No. It says the Lord dispersed them because they would not. Now I don’t know how God did this, my guess is He just put it in their minds, like he does later with Abraham. He might have actually picked them up and zapped them to another part of the world. Who knows, but the Bible makes it very clear twice, that it was Him who did it.
If we go to Revelation we see that the New Testament Babylon represents the world system that opposes God, hates Jesus, and appeals to human lust. Nimrod wanted the world to be united as one so he could rule everyone, and Satan has that plan for the new world system in chapters 17 and 18 of Revelation.
Every generation has had its “towers”, and what humanity has not been able achieve by its proud towers, Jesus Christ has achieved by dying on a humiliating cross. Each person must make a choice, to identify with either Babylon or Jerusalem, the worldly prostitute or the heavenly bride.
What do we take away from today, what is our action plan based on this event in the history of God’s people? Maybe no other chapter in the Old Testament is as relevant to us today as this one. We live in a world that is more selfish, more focused on getting rich, creating monuments to ourselves than ever before.
God is giving us a warning based on what happened about 4000 years ago. What do we have in our world? Two-thirds of it is starving, crime has never been higher, there are more ridiculously rich people than ever before, governments are more in debt than anyone can imagine, we have amazing medicine but more people are dying from degenerative diseases than ever before. The vast majority of the population on the earth lives in large cities, and relationships between people and married couples has never been worse.
That’s what human progress has brought. We can gloat about all the amazing physical achievements of the past century, but the truth is that the world is spiritually crippled, and God’s people are largely indistinguishable from anyone else. We have not advanced in any way that God would consider achievement, even Christians are farther away from him and less zealous than ever before.
So what is this chapter telling us to do? I believe it’s telling us, as Jesus did 2000 years later, to be willing to sell everything we have and follow him. Don’t seek to make a name for yourself, don’t seek power, security, and praise through people and the world, and listen to what God instructs us to do.
The command here to Noah and his descendants was to be fruitful and multiply to the ends of the earth. Listen to what Jesus says in John 15 “if a person remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, if not you will be burned in the fire. If you remain in me you will be fruitful showing yourselves to be my disciples to my Father’s glory”.
Then in Matthew Jesus says to go and make disciples of all the nations. Do you see, the command to the church of Jesus Christ is still to be fruitful and multiply, not just by procreating, but by multiplying disciples. You see these were God’s chosen people created in the image of God. He wasn’t just blessing them to procreate all over the place, but to multiply as God’s people throughout the earth, making a great Godly nation. Nothing has changed.
Paul said it many times, do not boast in anything but Christ crucified. Anything you have done that is not in the service of the Lord, that doesn’t glorify Him, is ultimately worthless and will be burned up in the refining fire. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with achieving things, I have myself, but I also realized that they were all empty.
This week, ask yourself, how can I allow God to transform me with His word? One of the answers should be obvious, immerse yourself in the Word. Allow him to transform you into a person who does everything for the glory of God, not man. For us, reading the Bible is the same as the disciples spending everyday traveling and living with him, learning from him. He said follow me, and they dropped everything and went with him for three years.
We can’t physically live with him like that, but imagine if when we accepted the call to follow Him, we spent all day, everyday in His presence through the Word and prayer, and doing the things that that would produce in our lives. That would be the equivalent of what His disciples did. We have a tough time committing 15 minutes a day to being in His presence, letting Him speak to us?
You might say, “I read the Bible sometimes and nothing really happens, I don’t hear him speaking to me, it gets kind of boring and I have so many other things I have to do.” Well I understand that and I wonder how often the disciples were bored, sometimes spending days just walking with Jesus. I’m sure not every moment was an exciting learning experience, or a bunch of miracles. And they didn’t have all the distraction that we have created. But the intent of their hearts was to be with Him every day to not miss anything that might happen, but most of all to be changed by Him.
Have you been changed by Jesus? Does your heart ache for people who are lost? Is it hard for you not to talk about what Jesus has done in your life? Why are we here, why did God disperse us sitting in this room today, to this particular place on earth at this particular time?
So be fruitful and multiply. But let me add a caution, we want to multiply disciples, so make sure that before you go out there procreating yourself, that you’re life is devoted to being a disciple, start with yourself, make it your utmost priority to allow God to make you a fruitful Christian whose main goal in life is to love God and other people. Then do what we are going to see Abraham do. GO. But don’t wait until you are perfect, as soon as you know the Gospel message, you are ready to spread it. You may find that this beyond anything else you can do, will make you a fruitful disciple.
