BUILDING INTO HEAVEN IN DISOBEDIENCE – THE TOWER OF BABEL - GENESIS 11
VERSES 1 - 2: DISOBEDIENCE TO GOD’S COMMAND TO EXPAND
Devastation had come on the earth because of sin but the old fallen and corrupt human nature will never learn the things of God. Noah’s descendants spread out after the flood, but how far did they spread? How far were they supposed to spread? {{Genesis 9:7 “As for you, be fruitful and multiply. Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”}} The limits of civilization were still confined and the spread was slow.
I don’t think expansion had gone too far. Here they are progressing eastward for some time after the flood. Turkey to Iraq may have been the limits of civilisation it seems, but it was probably very much smaller. All was fairly localised. The ethnic divisions of Genesis 10 seem to be a wider but latter range of settlement. The one language was obviously the way God had meant things to progress – but progression had taken a sad turn. The plain of Shinar was the place to be! “the same language and the same words”. (Literally, “of one lip, and of words one”: that is, both the pronunciation and the vocabulary were identical. As their speech was as one, so too their disobedience and rebellion. God told them to spread and populate the earth but they wanted to remain in a confined area.
{{Genesis 11:1:2 “Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words, and it came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.”}}
The cynics come along saying this was a childish way to try to explain why there are languages on the earth. Adam was a childish way to explain the origins of man. No matter what aspect of God’s creation is considered, Satan always has his decoys and his opposites. There is not one institution of God that is left untouched by the corrupting hand of Satan. The universe becomes the big bang; Creation of man becomes evolution; Pure marriage becomes homosexual corrupt “marriage”; Obedience to God’s rule becomes disobedience; what God declared as good in creation has become what Satan can make bad.
VERSES 3 - 4: WHEN GOD IS ABANDONED HUMANISM REPLACES IT
{{Genesis 11:3:4 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly,” and they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar, and they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”}}
Absolute disobedience! God said to spread out but they refused, and wanted to centralise their development so they would NOT spread out. To do that they would have to construct some great monument, some rallying point, some object that would mark them out forever.
These two verses represent the pinnacle of human ambition. Note what they said:
Let us – city
Let us – bricks
Let us – tower
“Let us”. Three times they said that. It was human determination and nowhere was God considered in any of it. God is very patient you know. Mankind was so corrupted He had to destroy them utterly in the flood but two or three hundred years after the flood they were nor much better. He took Israel up and had to use the Assyrians and Babylonians to destroy even that; later on, the Romans. God is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to a knowledge of the truth. Man is so reprobate he can not seek God but spirals downwards constantly. God reaches out to people and the Holy Spirit will bring awareness and conviction but the human being shuts out the working of God.
The plain of Shinar was the expression of humanism where God is displaced by man who is total master of his own destiny. They were cosy in this world that was all man centred. Man, independent of God, is man adrift without absolutes or rule or intelligence. The highest peak (so far) of evolution he thinks, but he is so wrong. Look at the nations of the world today. Are they improving? Take away some of the brilliant inventions and look just at human nature. Are human beings improving?
Any honest person will look at the world today that follows a path to its own misery with the most stupid decisions being taken by governments chasing after myths and fabrications and a coming world socialism. The WEF and the UN and the WHO want to bring all men into one, just like the aim of these people long ago that they might coerce into one and stay there. That was based on humanism and humanism controls it all today.
Those on the plain of Shinar had not obeyed God’s command to expand or to utilise the abilities God had supplied. Do we use the abilities God has given, even in part? It must have a personal application. In verse 4 further reasons are given for their decisions. Their stated aims were clear.
Top to the heavens
Make for ourselves a name
Live in disobedience
This was man’s religion on his own terms. He will establish his own form of worship and his own worship centre, triumphs to the human mind. Of course, God is excluded. The post-diluvians knew what God had commanded and that is why they said this, “lest we be scattered abroad,” and that was nothing but defiance.
VERSE 5: THE BUILDERS AND PEOPLE FAILED THE INSPECTION!
{{Genesis 11:5 “And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”}}
God was aware of all that was happening. He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. The skeptics who love to think they have found contradictions in the bible, try to claim that if God was God, He would have been aware of what was happening so He would not have “come down” to look at it. The Lord knew perfectly well, but this account is written by God for men, and in terms men would understand readily. Bishop Ellicott says it this way –[["The narrative is given in that simple anthropological manner usual in the Book of Genesis."]] In other words, “God reviewed what man had done”. (The Lord knew all about the Samaritan woman before she had arrived).
We will look at this “tower”. “whose top will reach into heaven,” . . . . The following is recorded by Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges – [[Probably the words are intended quite literally to suggest the endeavour to “reach unto” Heaven, which was regarded as a solid vault. As the highest stage in an Assyrian or Babylonian pyramid, Ziggurat, was surmounted by a shrine of the deity, there is perhaps more meaning and less fancifulness in these words than has often been suspected.
The famous tower at Borsippa, on the left bank of the Euphrates, whose ruins now go by the name of Birs Nimrud, was a temple dedicated to Bel-Nebo, and rose in seven tiers or stages, representing the seven planets. This building, having fallen into ruins, was restored by Nebuchadnezzar. A similar building, E-sagil, dedicated to Bel Merodach, the patron god of the city, must have been one of the most enormous structures of ancient Babylon. The fame of temple towers or pyramids, Ziggurats, of this description was doubtless widely current throughout Western Asia, and may have given rise to strange legends concerning their erection in primitive times.]] (end of quote).
VERSES 6 - 7: WORLD SOCIALISM AND THE FRUIT OF HUMANISM
{{Genesis 11:6-7 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language, and this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”}}
Now we have God’s verdict. Assessment precedes verdict and the judgement for them was overwhelming. There was not one commendable thing. For his sin of murder Cain entered banishment. For the sin of defiance and rebellion, the people of the plain were sent confusion in language and that drove them away and they were dispersed all over.
What those builders were proposing is that evil will be accumulated and centralised. It is what might be called “a nest of evil” or “inhabitants of the devil’s den”. There is nothing that spreads as rapidly as evil. I remember in a bible study I was taking 50 years ago and we were speaking about the evil of leaven. Evil permeated and spreads and can do that very swiftly. An example came up I have never forgotten. When a bad apple is put into a case of good apples it quickly sends the good apples bad, but when a good apple is put into a case of bad apples, it becomes corrupted and is defeated. Wickedness spreads with no limit to it except the Holy Spirit. Can you possibly imagine what the Tribulation will be like when the Church is removed, and the Holy Spirit with the Church. God’s intervention was necessary on the plain of Shinar or man would have become so bad.
We are in those days of man in defiance of God, building his own towers spreading towards heaven with his own misplaced corruption. There is a new religion that has humanism at its core. Allied to evolution. It is the green movement under hundreds of conservation banners. It is the dominant move in the world today and has given impetus to climate change nonsense under world socialism. Socialism is building its own ziggurat today but God will savagely dislodge it in one judgement after another as the seals, the trumpets and the bowls play out their hand (Revelation). At the top of the ziggurat sits the WEF. With misplaced priorities the lifestyle of people will grow worse, the prophetic aspects of the New Testament will come into play, all because God has been replaced by Man’s tower to the heavens. However God will intervene as in Babel’s day.
You will notice in verse 7 the word “Us” is used and for a good explanation of the ”Us” check out this explanation - https://biblehub.com/commentaries/genesis/1-26.htm
Verses 8 - 9: GOD CONFUSED THOSE AT BABEL AND SCATTERED THEM
{{Genesis 11:8-9 “So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth and they stopped building the city. Gen 11:9 Therefore its name was called Babel, 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.”}}
Judgement separated them into language groups that dispersed and spread all over, the way God told them to do after exiting the Ark. There are times God must intervene in order to stop the progression of sin and its concentration. Right now we are in the days of grace as we head rapidly to the end of the Church age which ends at the Rapture. Mankind’s gross wickedness is seen today everywhere but the severe wrath of God will fall on the towers of mankind’s sinful constructions and they will cry out in the Tribulation – {{Revelation 6:15-16 “The kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.”}}
The meaning of the word “Babel” is confusion. The language was confused. We must seriously consider these verses that are important but time will not permit a proper examination – {{Genesis 10:8-10 Now Cush became the father of Nimrod. He became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD, therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar.”}} Nimrod was a mighty hunter but he hunted for the souls of men. He was so wicked, married to Semiramus who was also his mother, and the founder of evil Babylon and the Babylonian system that infiltrated the whole world with its corruption and evil. It has created an enormous evil in the Church, which progressed in the time of Constantine the Great. Revelation chapter 17 details the destruction of religious Babylon and chapter 18, the destruction of Commercial Babylon.
WHAT APPLICATIONS ARE THERE FOR US?
[A]. DEALING WITH HUMANISM
Humanism results in confusion – look at Governments and their policies to see that. It is man lost in this world and lost in the darkened state of his mind. Decisions that result are unbalanced, knee jerked and walk over God’s justice. It is seen in governments, education, values, moral values, and speculations, which are exposed by the current world financial situation, energy crisis and climate change. The exclusion of God, and God’s absolute rules, is why men adopt doctrine of demons such as homosexuality, gender distortion and evolution. Man is king of his own world but he can’t run his world! He sets up in opposition to God but must bow one day to God. I believe most people right now have some concern about the future and the incompetence of western governments. Christians realise it, but know God’s hand holds it all for them.
HOW DO WE LIVE IN A WORLD LIKE THAT?
[1]. We must know that the world will have this philosophy.
Its values are twisted, perverted and irrational. Wickedness increases rapidly but we have been warned about this in the last days. What does God say of man’s “independent ziggurat mentality”?
{{1Corinthians 3:19-20 The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God, for it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise that they are useless,”}}
{{Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”}}
We must be wise with biblical wisdom, not with the foolish wisdom of the world. Let the word of God control you fully.
[2]. Our citizenship is in heaven and that is our occupation for stability.
{{Philippians 3:20-21 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”}}
We can’t have our love in this world and not in heaven, and be a faithful follower of the Lord. A double minded man is useless for God and lives a self-centred life.
[3]. Keep pressing towards the goal.
{{Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”}}
When Jesus said once, “let/allow the dead bury their own dead,” what He inferred was that we allow the desire of those who want to erect their own towers and ziggurats to do so, but we are to have no part of that. Our working is for the excellence of Christ; He is our goal and we do all for Him.
[B]. THE MATTER OF ASSOCIATIONS
The following quote comes from a Commentator I found years ago, I found a wonderful help – C H Macintosh:- [[“In looking down along the stream of human history we may easily perceive a marked tendency to confederacy or association. Man seeks for his own part, to compass his great ends, in this way. Whether it be in the field of philanthropy, religion or politics, nothing can be done without an association of men regularly organised. It is well to see this principle; well to mark its incipient working, to see the earliest model which the inspired Bible gives of a human association, as seen on the plain of Shinar, in its design, its object and its overthrow. If we look around us at the present world, we see the whole scene filled with associations, and they are as numerous as the purposes of the human heart. However as faith judges this event, there is one grand defect, namely God is shut out; and to attempt to exalt man without God is to exalt him to a dizzy height, only that he may be dashed own into hopeless confusion and irretrievable ruin.
The Christian should know only one association that is paramount and that is the church of the living God incorporated by the Holy Ghost who came down from heaven as the witness of Christ’s glorification, to baptise believers into one body and constitute them God’s dwelling place. Babylon is the very opposite of this in every particular.”}} (end of quote).
[C]. TWO NEW TESTAMENT TOWERS
Perhaps there were two individuals in the New Testament who wanted to make a name for themselves, the first being the rich fool in the parable, and Herod in his splendour. Actually that was a trait with all Herods.
[D]. TOWERS IN THE CHURCH –
Are churches trying to make a name for themselves in the world, no more than human ambition and desire? What are God’s requirements, His desire and leading for us? Great church ziggurats glorifying man don’t glorify God. We need to be humble in construction, living sacrifices for the Master, esteeming others before ourselves, and just faithful sheep. {{Hebrews 10:24 “and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,”}}
(E). SERVING ONE ANOTHER NOT THE CAUSES OF HUMANISM
{{1Peter 4:9-11 “Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God. Whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”}}
These are the days of Babel (confusion) where men make names for themselves; who are making wrong decisions and creating confusion and strife as we see in Oil supply, Islam, Financial incompetence, Scandals in Government, Leadership problems, Corruption, Ineptitude, Uncertainty . . . . However remember this – we are in the days Paul describes below, but let men build their own ziggurats. It’s NOT for you, Christian!
{{2Timothy 3:1-5 “Realise this, that in the last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (and) holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these.”}}
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
