THE TOWER OF BABEL
Genesis 11:1-9, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."
People who love the Bible can’t help but love the parables and stories that the Bible contains. We began hearing these stories when we were very young if we were raised in the church. Even those who weren’t raised in church as a child can remember hearing some of the stories from the Bible. At first we just thought that they were good stories. As we grew older they became stories that moved us mentally, spiritually and emotionally. The more mature we grow in our thinking we realized that there was much more to the parables of the Bible than we had thought. Those parables became stories that revealed the truth of God concerning God, concerning us, concerning our world.
Whether they are just stories that Jesus told, born of His imagination, or stories of real events is a matter of question for some people. I am certain that in the mind of God, every one of Jesus’ parables could easily be based upon real events. After all He is eternal God and He is omniscient, living in the past, present and future all at the same time. No matter whether you belief that the parables are based on real events or not, no one can deny that the parables Jesus told have a way of reaching down into the very heart of the matter and teaching us some valuable lessons.
There are a lot of people, some much more educated than I, who claim that most of the first 10 or 11 chapters of Genesis is nothing more than a string of parables. I don’t think that any of us should subscribe to this school of thought. Here’s why.
If we say that the events of the Creation, and Noah’s flood, and the first murder where Cain killed Abel and become the first murderer in History, are nothing more than stories, where does that leave us? Where do we stop saying it’s a parable, “a made up story”, and where then does the real truth begin? I am fully persuaded that every word in the Bible is absolutely true. I don’t believe that Jesus ever “made up” a story to make a point. I believe that He used real events, taken from the lives of real people, existing before, during or after His earthly ministry, and used those real events to make His point.
One of the stories found in Genesis Chapter 11 is the story of the Tower of Babel. Some people believe that it is only a myth, a legend, or a cute story; God’s way of explaining the differences in nations, peoples and languages. Others believe that the Tower of Babel really existed and that every event described happened exactly that the Bible says. Of course we are a part of the second group who believe it to be the truth.
The story of the Tower of Babel begins with man’s pride rising in his own heart as he begins to say to himself, "Let us make a name for ourselves! Let us build a city, and a tower, and let’s make it a tower so tall that everyone will be able to see it. As our city becomes famous on account of our tower, our name will be known everywhere. Let’s make a name for ourselves!"
What’s wrong with building a tower? Is there something wrong with man’s power of creativity? Of course there is nothing wrong with creativity. God is the great Creator of all things. Since we are made in the image God and we have been given His likeness, then it is only natural that we should have an urge to create, to build and change our environment.
Another question might be, “What’s wrong with building a tall tower, even the tallest tower in the world?" Is there something wrong with the pursuit of excellence? The pursuit of excellence is also a part of our nature. After all, we have been instructed by God’s Word in Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." How could we ever fulfill that scripture in our lives if we are not constantly in the pursuit of excellence in both the natural and the spiritual realms? We need a lot more people to pursue excellence in their lives. I belief that if we settle for mediocrity, we are sinning against God’s commandment to seek after perfection in Him.
The Tower of Babel was built by men who were seeking to build a new civilization on the Plains of Shinar. In fact, that’s just what they did. That area is now a part of Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan and number of other Middle Eastern nations. The men working on the Tower of Babel were building a city that would reach to the sky and that would be the envy of the whole world.
So what’s wrong with building a city, and a civilization? Would mankind have been better off if we had never built cities, universities, and manufacturing facilities? Would we be more holy if we lived in caves and still walked or rode horses?
God told mankind, through Adam and Eve, in Genesis 1:28, "… Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." He also saw that everything that He had created was good and everything was created to reproduce, grow and multiply and fill the earth.
So there can be nothing wrong with building a city, or a civilization, and making the world around us a more hospitable place to live
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Since all of this is good and acceptable, what did God see was the problem with building a city and a tower in the days of the Tower of Babel? What is wrong with the people of the Plain of Shinar making a name for themselves?
The problem was, and still is, that they weren’t just making a name for themselves, they were actually saying that they rejected the name, or identity, that God had given them.
God called us his creation. He is Lord and He is the Giver of Life. We come from him, we belong to him, and we can only experience the best of life in Him. Because we come from him and belong to him, then only by being in Him, can we be blessed and escape the curse of sin.
But man doesn’t like the name God has given to him. Man rebels against the nature that God has given to us. We don’t want to be his obedient servant of love? The very thought of having to answer to Almighty God makes people rise up in rebellion. We want to rule ourselves, not some invisible God somewhere. So, we change our identity and begin to make a name for ourselves. We are convinced in our own heart and mind that the name, or the nature, that we give ourselves will be a better name than the one God gives us. We are even convinced, deceived by our own desire and by the spiritual blindness that reigns as a result of sin, that our power to make up our own mind, without interference from God, will make us better than God could make us. Isn’t that the way that mankind, in general, thinks?
Where does the fight for superiority end? Does it end with making a new name for ourselves that we think is better than the name, or nature, that God gave to us? The fact is that mankind will never be satisfied until he feels that he is superior not only to God, but to every other man on the earth.
Dictators, Kings and Presidents come to power because of this kind of thinking. They want to be better than, superior over, and in command of everyone else. Their way is the only way and they intend to have it their way.
Have you ever seen toddlers exert their authority over the other children? Have you ever seen the power struggle within the corporate world or within the church? Nearly everyone on the face of planet Earth is trying his best to make a name for himself!
What about the commercial that one fast food chain used for a while that said, “Have It Your Way!” The business world knows that we are constantly striving to “be in control”. We want to be the masters of our own destiny. That’s why they appeal to that nature to sell their products and it works very well.
One way that we attempt to make ourselves superior is by using racial discrimination. In Professional boxing, they are always looking for what is called "the great white hope". What is that? It would be a superior white boxer who can end domination of the "sport" by African-American boxers.
All races attempt to make a name for themselves through pretending to have racial superiority.
Wherever black people have assumed power in the African countries they have treated brown people savagely. And if you want to really make someone mad, just make the mistake of calling a Korean a Japanese. You will be lucky if he doesn’t pull out a ninja sword against you.
Another way that we try to make a name for ourselves is by lifting up our ethnic background.
One professor made this observation: He said that while he was studying in Britain after World War II had ended, he noticed that war films appeared on TV every week. These weren’t Hollywood movies, but actual filmed footage of World War II. The films covered the Battle of Britain, Rommel’s Afrika Corp in North Africa, submarine warfare in the North Atlantic, and so on. The professor left Britain for a while then when he returned to Britain in the mid-80s he saw the same films on TV. He thought to himself, “this must be unhealthy, and it must surely give rise to hatred of the Germans.” But he kept noticing that the British appeared to like the Germans more than they did the French. France had been their allies through two World Wars. Why would the British people look down on the French? It was explained to him by one of his elderly British associates this way. "It’s not difficult to understand why we like the Germans but not the French. The British and the Germans are descended from the same Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic stock. We, and they, constitute the master race of all people. But the French are Latins, and that makes them inferior." There is no end to the ways we can make a name for ourselves.
Another way that we attempt to make a name for ourselves is through social classes.
It isn’t hard to see this in action. The social elite have always tended to “turn up their nose” and “look down” on those who are less fortunate. How many of you have heard of the saying, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”? I’m sure you have. That phrase describes the age-old struggle of one man to gain superiority over his fellowman through wealth and the power that it can buy. We, in America, often describe it in this fashion in the workplace. We have the “White collar”, the “Blue Collar” and the “Brown Collar” workers. Classes in society are one way that we make a name for ourselves.
Language is another way that we make a "name" for ourselves. Sometimes we praise those who are multi-linguists, speaking several languages. They are sought after for many important jobs in government and the military. Yet most of the time anyone speaking around us in another language triggers suspicion and even hostility.
Just think about it! How many times have you walked into a shop where someone is there speaking a foreign language? Do you think to yourself, or have you heard someone say, “I wonder if they are making fun of me?” I wonder what they are saying and laughing about? Then we wonder if they are thinking the same thing as they listen to us? Are we making fun of them? Someone almost always says, “ I wish they would speak English or go back where they came from.”
Looking back at the Tower of Babel, we can see that man still has the same attitude that those builders of the tower had. We think that we have accomplished some great, magnificent, impossible thing, but God looks at it as nothing.
When we have finished building that tower so tall that it reaches to the heavens, God looks down and sees it as almost meaningless! Our tallest tower, as high as the heavens, makes us full of pride as though we have really accomplished something. But our tall tower is such a small thing to God. He doesn’t sing our praises or tell us what a good job we have done. It’s as though God just ignores us. Genesis tells us that God had to "go down" to see the tower. It’s almost as if he has to leave his Heavenly throne and get down on his hands and knees with his magnifying glass in order to see the puny thing we have built.
The ways that we try to make a name for ourselves, through racial superiority; ethnic advantages; and the social classes are so puny that God has to get down on his hands and knees to see them.
None of those things matter to God because according to Acts 10:34, "…Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:"
God doesn’t see the difference but we think that we have achieved what we set out to do: we have made a name for ourselves. But we soon discover that others have made a name for themselves too. They go about bragging of their superiority ignoring us, and sooner or later, the fight is on to determine who is better.
There are consequences to pride and rebellion and attempting to make a name for ourselves. Look at what happened at the Tower of Babel.
They were "scattered over the face of the earth"; there was no unity any more. There were crowds of people everywhere, but no unity. They could no longer feel like they were all a part of the same neighborhood, the same people, or the same purpose.
The second consequence of making a name for ourselves is that we do not understand each other. We talk, we listen, and we even claim to hear. But we don’t understand each other. We know the meaning of what we want to say but we don’t always know the meaning of what we hear. We think that we understand others even but we also insist that they don’t understand us. Everyone claims to understand but not to be understood.
Our attempt at communicating with one another has become nothing more than babble. The builders of the tower of Babel could only babble. They could hear, they could probably even pick out words to understand when others spoke, but they couldn’t make sense of them. Confusion reigned and so the work had to cease.
What does mankind try to do to make his babbling clearer? Many solutions are proposed, and nearly all of them are one form or another of social engineering. Let me explain what I mean.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung are only a few men who insisted that people appear to understand much more quickly when threatened with torture. Their ability to understand seems to be much more quickly accomplished when a gun is held to people’s heads. Their method of social engineering to make people understand has led to the deaths of untold millions of people; and we still don’t understand their way of thinking fully.
The Ba’hai religion and the New Age Movement are teaching and preaching that we need a one-world government. Why do they think that one-world-government is going to solve what a number of governments on a smaller scale have never been able to solve?
The only genuine solution is the one that is shown to us in Genesis 12. It begins with the calling of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah are promised that through them all the families of the earth will be blessed. Through Abraham’s and Sarah’s lineage there will come someone, who doesn’t have to make a name for himself. Instead he will honor the name which his Father has given him; someone who knows that he is the Son of God; Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus is our Lord and he is able to turn us away from our sin and rebellion.
On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost was poured out and the 120 in the Upper Room began to speak with other tongues, Luke tells us that there were crowds of people in Jerusalem who had come from many lands. They heard the apostles declare the gospel and they heard it in their own language.
As the apostles spoke and the gospel was declared, hearers understood "the wonderful works of God”. Speaking in the unknown tongues of angels on the Day of Pentecost was God’s way of reversing what happened at the Tower of Babel.
In Jesus Christ alone, and through the power of his Spirit alone, people find that they don’t have to make a name for themselves. Now we can glorify God once again and be proud of the name that God has given to us.
There is another important point made in the story of the Tower of Babel that we must need to see. The literal meaning of the word "Babel" is "gate of God". The Tower of Babel was man’s greatest defiance, up to that time, against God’s authority. Mankind intended to make his own “gate” into the realms of Heaven.
At the cross, man showed his greatest defiance against God’s authority once again. It was at the cross that God met our greatest defiance and, by his grace, made it the gate where we can have access to him.
At the cross, the Gate of God, we are made into a new creation where we can once again hear each other as never before, understand each other, cherish each other, find togetherness and unity with each other -- and all of this because we are no longer desperate to make a name for ourselves. We want only to be named “Child of God” and heir to the Kingdom of God.
Mankind, in his pride, attempted to make himself better than God at the Tower of Babel. God, in his infinite love and mercy for fallen man, gave us the way back to Him, so that we could serve Him with a heart of love, just like He intended at the Creation.
What about you? Are you trying to make a name for yourself or leave your mark on the world? Jesus has given you a name. He has named you His own brother and sister. He has named you Heir and Joint-heir with Him. He has given you a new heart, a new mind, and a new nature. What other name do we need than Jesus?
