THE TOWER OF BABEL
Man is a builder. If you give a young child a set of blocks, they will end up stacking them one on top of the other to build a tower. Mankind takes pleasure in his accomplishments and immense pride in the work of his hands and in his inventions. This truth is at the heart of the story of the Tower of Babel. As wise Solomon wrote, “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.”(Ecclesiastes 7:29).
We find the
Bible account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. The story takes place sometime after the
Great Flood of Noah’s day. At that time,
the entire population of the earth spoke the same language. As they grew in number, they journeyed out in
search of a wider land to settle in, one that would accommodate their growing
numbers. That is when “…they found a
plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.”(Genesis 11:2).
One of
mankind’s early inventions was brick and mortar. Can you imagine how revolutionary such an
invention was to these early men. Bricks
were sturdy like stone, but much more portable and offered more
possibilities. Projects that used to
take men years, even lifetimes, to complete could now be accomplished in
months. With enough bricks they could
build great cities, pyramids, and towers;and so, they did. Their ambition was to build a mighty city
with a tall tower so that they could make a name for themselves.“And they
said one to another, Goto, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they
had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.And they said, Goto, 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.” (Genesis 11:3, 4).
Many
scholars believe that Nimrod was the mastermind behind this project, that
Babylon was the city, and the ancient Ziggurat of Etemenankiwas the Tower of
Babel. I am not one to quickly add what
scholars theorize to what the holy scripture clearly records. There is enough information provided to us in
the Bible account to instruct us in righteousness and in truth. These theories may be true, but men have yet
to prove them beyond doubt.
More
important than where they built the Tower of Babel is the motivation for
why they built it. Scripture
reveals that very plainly. We’re told:
1. They wanted a tower that would reach heaven.
2. They wanted to make a name for themselves.
3. They didn’t want to be scattered across the earth.
A
Tower That Would Reach Heaven
Early man
erected many of the ziggurats (step-type pyramids) in ancient Mesopotamia to
honor the gods and goddesses that the people reverenced at the time. Anu, Enki, Marduk, Istar, Samas, and Tammuz
are examples of them. There is no
indication given in the story that the builders intended the Tower of Babel to
honor the true God of Heaven. The story,
instead, reveals a measure of rebellion and disobedience in their actions, as
we shall see. So, it is more likely that
they built the Tower for one of the other gods that they worshipped.
Man seems
to think that he must worship God in a grand structure. This could not be further from the truth,
however. Preaching to a group of
philosophers on Mars’ Hill in the city of Athens, the Apostle Paul said, “God
that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is
worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to
all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of
men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times
before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far
from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as
certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.”
(Acts 17:24-28).At this site where Paul preached to the Athenians there were numerous
temples dedicated to the various gods of Greece. What a powerful message for Paul to deliver
to these confused idolators who did not know who God was! As Isaiah the Prophet wrote, “Thus saith
the LORD, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool: where
is the house that ye build unto Me? and where is the place of My
rest? For all those things hath Mine
hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will
I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My
word.”(Isaiah 66:1, 2).
The plain,
simple truth is that man cannot reach heaven by his own works and
abilities. Such pride is the product of
the forbidden fruit and the temptation that promises, “…ye shall be as
gods.”(Genesis 3:5). By his pride
and misguided ambition Satan fell from being Lucifer, the Day Star, to being
the prince of darkness. Isaiah speaks of
his fall when he writes, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of
the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the
nations! For thou hast said in thine
heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the
sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will
be like the most High. Yet thou
shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.”(Isaiah 14:12-15). This same spirit of pride and rebellion is
the same formula that Satan has sold to mankind. Notice all the “I will” statements in the
passage above. By listening to Satan’s
lies and relying on his own abilities, man’s ego has become as inflated as
Satan’s.
God has already
provided us with a means to reach God.
It is through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and
the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by Me.” (John 14:6). To all those who believe in Him, Christ has become
a stairway to heaven by which we can have access to the Father. Jacob, the grandson of the Jewish patriarch
Abraham, glimpsed this when he dreamed of the ladder that was set up on the
earth and reached to heaven. He saw the
angels of God going up and down this ladder; and when he awoke, he was afraid
and said, “…this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven.”(Genesis 28:17). Jesus spoke
of this stairway when he said to Nathanael, “Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of man.”(John 1:51). It is not through mankind’s technology,
abilities, or will that we can connect with God. It is through faith in Jesus Christ our
Savior – our stairway to heaven. “Neither
is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved.”(Acts 4:12). The Tower was just a counterfeit.
They
Wanted ToMake a Name ForThemselves
Mankind
loves to be known and applauded for his works.
They build great buildings and attach their name by the entrance so that
everyone going in is aware of their achievement. There is no mention of the God Who enabled
them or Who provided the means to build it.
They claim all the glory for themselves saying, “Look at me: look at
what I have done.”
There is
only one name in this world that is worthy of praise, glory, and honor. That is the name of Jesus Christ. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
and every tongue shall confess that He is the King of kings and Lord of
lords. We must check all our pride and
arrogance at the door when we surrender ourselves to God. The works of the flesh include not only our worst
works, but also our best. The
Apostle Paul said that he considered all the things in his past life that he
previously thought of as gain – his pedigree, his education, his social
standing, his personal conduct and zeal – to now be loss for Christ. Writing to the Philippians, he said, “…I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord: for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but dung, that I may win Christ…” (Philippians
3:8). In his former life, while Paul was
persecuting the Christians, rounding them up to have them imprisoned and slain,
he was proud to be making a name for himself, content that he was doing God a
valuable service. We must understand
that God has now circumcised (cut away and discarded)the flesh of our hearts,
and we are now learning to worship Him in the spirit and not in our flesh. Therefore, we place no confidence in the
flesh whatsoever, nor what we can accomplish for God in the flesh (see
Philippians 3:3). If we are only interested
in making a name for ourselves and for our ministries, then we have missed the
point and are heading in the wrong direction.
They
Didn’t Want To Be Scattered Across the Earth
In Genesis
9:1, God explicitly commanded Noah and his descendants to "be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish[fill] the earth". By building a city and a tower with the
intent of staying in one place they were committing an act of rebellion against
the LORD’s direct command. Thay were
placing their own will over the Father’s will and challenging His sovereignty
over their affairs.
Going back
to St. Paul’s sermon on the Acropolis, notice that he said that God “…hath
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
habitation.” God’s intention for man
was to occupy “all the face of the earth”and Hehas determined “the
bounds [boundaries] of their habitation.”God’s purpose for this will
be clearer to us as we proceed a little further in the story.
“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.”(Genesis 11:5-8).
Information,
and communication of that information, is very powerful. We have witnessed the importance of the
battlefield deployment of Starlink and Starshield in the current
Russian/Ukraine War. These technologies
have turned the tide of war and evened the playing field for the Ukrainians who
had the initial disadvantage in this conflict.
These systems provide pinpoint information on the positions of enemy forces,
and give accurate, real-time targeting information to guide drones and missiles
to those positions. The systems can also
provide early warning alerts concerning incoming drones and missile attacks.
Mankind’s
greatest inventions have all been linked to the rapid assimilation of
information. Paper, the printing
press,books, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, world-wide web,
satellites, and artificial intelligence: all of these have furthered the spread
of information across the globe and made it easier to communicate ideas with
one another. Instead of each individual
connectingdirectly to God and then becoming transformed by His Holy Spirit
working in them, they are connecting to social media, the internet, and AI, and
are becoming conformed to a universal social consciousness. The result is very peculiar. Those who are connecting to God become more
connected to one another, and their social interactions with one another become
stronger and more meaningful. On the
other hand, those who are relying on social media and the internet become more
isolated, and their personal interaction with others is weakened.
There is a time coming when mankind will achieve peace on earth, but then sudden destruction will come upon them from on high (see 1 Thessalonians 5:3). There is a time coming when the nations of the world will unite under one banner, but it will be to their own detriment. There is a time coming whenreligious organizations and churches will be united and serve the same purpose, but it will be under a form of godliness that does not possess any spiritual power. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for them(see Matthew 23 and Revelation 17). There is a time coming when all the leaders of the world will give their allegiance to one man, worshipping that man as a god (Revelation 13:8). That man will be the Antichrist and the Beast of Revelation. This is all the work of Satan and his grand scheme to destroy man altogether. His deception will be convincing. He will present himself as an angel of light and will employ signs and wonders to confuse even the elect of God if possible. Though he succeeded in deceiving man in the Garden of Eden, He failed in his attempts to destroy and divert Christ from His purpose and mission. The devildoesn’t seem to understand that his plans are futile, and his time limited. He fails to see that his end has already been written and will all play out according to God’s original plan.
God saw
from the beginning the potential that man possesses. That is why the LORD said, “…and now
nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”
Mankind’s potential can turn for great evil, or it can turn for great
good. Outside of God, it can only turn
toward evil because “The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked: who can know it?”(Jeremiah 17:9).Jesus, the second Adam,
will come and right all that was set wrong in the Garden. The battle that we are facing is not ours,
but God’s; and He has already won the victory!
Though
many of man’s innovations have brought great good to the world and others seem
harmless enough, still many more end up leading us closer to our own
devastation. As scripture says, “Thus
were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own
inventions.”(Psalms 106:39) and “Thus they provoked Him [God] to anger
with their inventions.”(Psalms 106:29).
A unified
humanity acting without moral and divine boundaries is rapidly becoming a
dangerous reality. It is not a
pretty vision. By confusing the language
of early man, God prevented the premature tyranny that would have
developed. “Therefore is the name of
it called Babel [or Babylon, meaning confusion]; 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.” (Genesis 11:9).
What kind
of tower is mankind building today? You
can be sure that Satan is in the background directing the work. True believers are facing some challenging
times to be sure. Persecution and
ostracism will be commonplace, and believers will be hated of all men for
Christ’s sake. It seems that, having not
learned the lessons of the past, man will be doomed to repeat them.
It is
noteworthy that man’s language was confused at the Tower of Babel, but on the
Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on Christ’s early disciples, people
of different nations and languages suddenly understand one another's speech
(Acts 2). It is only through Christ that
true unity can occur.
In
conclusion, let’s consider the words of St. Paul who wrote, “For we are
labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s
building.According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise
masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth
thereupon.For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ.Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest:
for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the
fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.If any man’s work abide
which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.If any man’s work
shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as
by fire.Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for
the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”(1 Corinthians 3:9-17).
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