BASIC BIBLE STORIES
The Tower of Babel
(Genesis 11:1 – 11:9)
What can we learn from the story of the Tower of Babel?
1. Man NATURALLY disobeys God
Genesis 8:21 says, “…the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.”
Psalm 51:5 says, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”
These verses and more speak of the truth of God’s Word demonstrated by mankind’s continued disobedience to God. In Genesis 9:1, Noah and his sons were told to fill the earth. Two chapters later, we read of men deciding to STAY in ONE location, in complete DEFIANCE of God’s command. Not very long after the Flood, people had forgotten that God hates sin, and that God judges sin. This did NOT deter them then, and it doesn’t deter us now. Today it is the same—we can try to clean ourselves up with morality, but we are ALL naturally inclined, polarized to SIN. Unless God moves in us, unless one has been changed by the transformation of the Gospel, no one will naturally choose GOD.
2. God has the RIGHT to punish us
In an earlier message, we had a look at Creation in Genesis 1. Since God CREATED ALL things, and since that is GOD’s record of the events at the beginning, we must agree that GOD owns EVERYTHING and has the right to do what He wants with it. Now that may sound scary if you are prone to sin, and it IS scary if God were inclined to EVIL, but GOD is NOT evil, nor is He inclined to it. The Bible tells us that God is GOOD, He is MERCIFUL, and He is GRACIOUS, which means that he is NATURALLY benevolent and NOT capricious. However, we must understand that along with being benevolent, God is a JUST, FAIR, and HOLY God not to be played with. Therefore, in response to sin, to be JUST and FAIR, and uphold His HOLY name, God must punish sin. This is why there was a Flood before, and why there will be another judgment in the future.
3. There is NOTHING God cannot do
Genesis 11:9 says, “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth.”
Quite simply, God changed the languages of the people! He did what had not been done. The Bible says in verse 11:1 that the whole earth was one language and one speech. After some years, man still spoke one language. God changed all of that. A process that may have taken tens if not hundreds of years was accomplished by God in a moment.
4. God will accomplish His WILL
Genesis 9:1 says, “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
And again in verse 7, “And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”
However, we read in 11:8 “So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.”
Although chapter 11 recounts the “will of man,” at the Tower of Babel, it fell before the “will of God.” God said replenish the earth, and that is exactly what happened. Whether by mankind’s choice or through God’s providential working, it did happen. It is the same today. God has declared to us the present and the future, and it is happening and shall come to pass, with or without our approval as humans. God will directly or providentially accomplish His will.
5. Confounding the languages was an act of MERCY from God
Question, consider “country folk” and “city folk” for a moment. Country folk tend to be stereotyped as innocent in their thinking, naive, and to some extent more God-fearing. Contrast them with city folk, and you can see quite a difference in thinking and behavior. Country folk tend to be more relaxed while city folk tend to be more uptight and stressed. Country folk do not understand the evils of the city, while city folk often do all manner of evil. When people are confined to a city, the evil imaginations are multiplied. People in less sparse surroundings such as the countryside seem to have less concentration of evil imaginations. The imaginations are still there no doubt, but they are not as collected as those in the city.
A second point, is that when more people are together, there is more money to be made, more power to be gotten, and more false teaching to be believed by more people. Thus, God confounding the languages at Babel was an act of mercy in order to retard the immediate development of wickedness en masse at such an early stage. Later in Genesis, we will cover Sodom and Gomorrah. Still in Genesis, not long after the Flood, we read of such wicked cities. How much more if the Lord had allowed man to begin city life at such an early stage? One lesson to learn—where people are concentrated in large groups, there will be greater variety and concentrations of evil present.
6. God sent His only begotten Son to take our PUNISHMENT
As we have already established, mankind is naturally sinful and therefore duly to be punished at some point in the future because of the Holy, Just, and Fair nature of God. It is a guarantee—as we have also seen that God will accomplish His will. However, God is benevolent so He made a way for us to ESCAPE future judgment. He sent His only begotten Son to take that judgment or punishment in our place:
Isaiah 53:5-6 says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
God in His MERCY and GRACE sent His Son to SAVE us!
7. We can RECEIVE this gift by faith if we will BELIEVE and TURN to Christ
Just as God prepared an ark before impending judgment at the Flood, so too He has sent His Son to SAVE us from certain death (spiritual death—eternal separation from God in the lake of fire). God’s message then was, “Judgment is coming! There is salvation in the ark!” God’s message today is: “Judgment is coming! There is salvation in Christ!” How do we receive this salvation? By looking to Jesus Christ as our only HOPE of safety from the coming judgment. Trust Jesus Christ, the Son of God—God in the flesh, as the one who gave His life on the cross for yours, and who rose again to give you eternal spiritual life...
1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."
1 Peter 3:18, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit".
Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
So, from this old Bible story, we can see at least seven lessons that can help us rethink this example given for us. What is our response to it?
