The Tower Of Babel And The Folly Of Do It Yourself Religion (Genesis 11:1-9)
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The Tower of Babel is a major transition in the Book of Genesis. And this major transition is a story that is a major punch in the throat to the reader. Like the rest of the messages from Genesis, there is an explanation of why things are the way that they are. It answers the question that should be asked anyone who disbelieves the Scriptures, “How would people, so intellectually superior to other creatures, have so many languages? How would they move across the Earth and have so many languages?” The reason for many languages is found here, but the story goes much, much deeper than that.
The Tower of Babel reaches deep within our souls and reveals the great folly of our pride and smashes the very thought of getting to God on our own. And that will be what we discuss today.
There were structures that are called Ziggurats that blotted the landscape. Dr. David Rohl is an Egyptologist who argues that this is a tower built in Southern Mesopotamia called “Eridu”. The place where it was constructed was called “Nun.ki” or “The Mighty Place”. It was a tower temple that was never completed and was what is believed to be the first of the Ziggurats.
Ziggurats were thought to be a place for the “gods” to reside. Therefore, a person could build a Ziggurat and have a way to get to God. And when they built this structure, they attempted to build it into the heavens so that they could get to God.
God meets the arrogance and folly of DIY religion with wrath and justice.
And here is where this story punches moderns in the stomach. We are a nation of people who are attempting to get to God on our own and make a name for ourselves.
Ask a random person why they think God will let them enter heaven and they will list off for you how good they are. They have done incredible things. They have built their own tire to God with bricks of their own making, and they expect Him to accept it all. And we are so very arrogant in our day that we honestly think that we are different from those who went before us. We think that we are superior to those who made their own bricks to get to God.
We mix and match religious practices that attempt to get to God in their own way and think that, not only will we get there, but God will be pleased with us when we do.
We look at the work that we do with our own hands and think that this will justify us before God. We think that we will get to God by serving others and brick by brick climb the stairway to Heaven without God’s help. We might even work in a field that is honored by people in our society today and think that we will have garnered favor with the Almighty because of how good we are. And we are so pompous that we really think God will accept our efforts, our very own climbing to Him.
Well, what we will see today is that God meets the arrogance and folly of DIY religion with wrath and justice.
After the flood, it seems that the people of the Earth were doing exactly what God had commanded them to do. They were multiplying and filling the Earth. And as they filled the Earth a good number of people made it to a plain in “Shinar and settled there” (Genesis 11:2 ESV). And it seems that this is where things started going a bit awry.
It is here that Nimrod, who was discussed in our last message on Genesis, ruled.
“Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. 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, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” (Genesis 10:8-10 ESV)
And here, the mighty man Nimrod founded a city that would attempt to make a “tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:3 ESV)
Filling the whole Earth and subduing the whole Earth was something they were supposed to do. Living their lives for Him and worshiping Him were things they were supposed to do. Getting to God by their own efforts was not what they were supposed to be doing.
God meets the arrogance and folly of DIY religion with wrath and justice.
The Arrogance And Folly Of Raising Yourself Up (Genesis 11:3-4)
The people of the city decided that they would build a city for themselves and a “tower with its top in the heavens” (Genesis 11:4 ESV). Ziggurats were temples, and this was one of them. The top was the place to meet with whatever deity the place was made to worship and the stairs to the top was a way for the people to get to God. So, these people were attempting to raise their selves up to God. They would attempt to make this tower go all the way to where they believed God to be and they would “make a name for” their selves (Genesis 11:4 ESV).
Another thing should be noted here. They depended only on their self. They sought no outside help. They sought no outside counsel. In fact, they rebelled against God and rather than filling the Earth located their selves in a city and built this tower. They were making a name for their selves and trying their best to be like God. They would make their own rules. They would do their own thing. And they would lift their selves up to the heavens. They made their own plans. They made their own bricks. And they would rise their selves up.
People work hard to achieve while living in rebellion against God and His ways. And culture after culture has worked to remove God from the life of society and attempted to make a name for their selves and build a Utopia of their very own. That ideology was called Communism and country after country fell within the lifetimes of some people reading this text. But this building is not just something that is societal, it is something that individuals do as well.
Ask a person if they are good and they will likely tell you all the reasons they believe themselves to be good.
Ask a person if they will be allowed to enter Heaven when they die and they will likely tell you all the good things they’ve done and how wonderful they have lived their lives.
Think through every religion but Christianity and you’ll find this similarity. They are an attempt to work our way to God.
The bricks we use today are not made from the dirt, but from things we perceive bring us closer and closer to God. For some the bricks we pile up are how much we help other people. Some of us have piled up brick after brick of kindness in our attempt to reach Heaven. Some of us have piled up brick after brick of hardships, thinking that we have had incredible difficulties in the here and now so these bricks will surely carry us to Heaven. Some of us have the audacity to think that our political engagement are the bricks that will bring us to Heaven.
And Christians are often influenced by this way of thinking. Think about it. How many books have you seen in Christian book stores that are titled “5 Steps To A Better Life” or “10 Things To Become A Better You”. These self-help titles generally have little mention of God in them and are all about how you can make yourself a better person apart from the work of God. They are bricks of self-improvement and self-righteousness dressed up as Christian bricks to build your very own tower to Heaven. They are attempts to raise yourself up.
All of it is arrogant. All of it is an attempt to raise yourself up. We may not be making physical bricks, but we sure are attempting to make our own towers to Heaven.
God Is Not Impressed With Your Self-Righteous Work (Genesis 11:5)
Verse 5 should make you chuckle. Or at least shake your head at the ironic statement found in it.
“And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.” (Genesis 11:5 ESV)
These people had put together their best efforts to raise themselves up to God, to create this tower to Heaven and become like God and God had to come down to take a look at it.
We all know from the rest of Scripture that God can see all things. And this story is not denying that one bit. But the point is made rather ironically that this tower was very far from reaching God. In fact, God came down to give it a look and mock their best efforts.
God is not impressed with even the best of our works.
I would argue that the first ziggurat was a marvel of human ingenuity. These ancient people were making bricks and piling them high in a way very unlike what had been done previously. And this method would be mimicked throughout the world as these ziggurats would one day dot the landscape of the ancient world. But even that was not enough to impress God. And because these people were doing this pridefully and rebelliously on their own, God mocked their attempt.
When societies and countries attempt to build a culture that excludes the Lord and His principles, He is not impressed. We have seen the destruction of Atheistic civilizations in the past and I am sure that will continue. I would argue that we are seeing much of it in our own society. And if that continues, God will not be impressed and will mock and bring judgment.
But again, when we begin to look at our own personal works we see the same thing.
We cannot work our way to God. We cannot create for ourselves a stairway to God made from the bricks of personal achievement. We have rebelled against God. Adam, our representative head, sinned and now we are born sinners in rebellion against God and polluted. We are so polluted that even the good things we do are stained with the taint of sin.
As the prophet Isaiah lamented,
“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6 ESV)
We are polluted with sin. We are like a rusty metal cup in which everything, even the best of works that come out of us are polluted with the taste of rust. And God is not impressed.
God Will Not Always Allow You To Live In Rebellion (Genesis 11:6-9)
God had enough. This rebellion would now come to an end and this tower project would now be ended. A side note about Eridu, the location of the first ziggurat and likely the site of the Tower of Babel, it was never finished. And God would supernaturally intervene to bring this rebellion to an end and scatter the people.
And here we see another divine deliberation concerning what would now take place. God speaks to Himself within the Godhead much like at the creation of man and says,
“And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11:6-7 ESV)
The judgment was decisive. God would confuse their language and make it impossible for them to work together. And the people would now be forced to do the very thing they built their city and tower to keep from having to do, and that is to disperse.
God will not always allow societies to live in rebellion. He will not always allow people to live in rebellion.
“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me,
“You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 2:1-12 ESV)
Christ is King and He will reign forever and ever. And this event at the Tower of Babel stands as a warning that God will not always allow people to rebel against Him. Kings and princes, presidents, congressman, governors, and mayors will face the wrath of Almighty God for their leading countries in rebellion against Him.
But this is also a personal warning to you.
Your righteousness will never be enough. You can never be good enough to reach God. You cannot suffer enough hardship in this life to earn God’s favor. And you cannot ease enough suffering in this life to make it on your own goodness. Your best efforts are but filthy rags before God and there is a judgment coming.
And the truth that we see here is that God will not always allow you to live in rebellion against Him.
God Is Again Gathering Together A People For Himself (Acts 2)
I want to skip ahead many years to the Book of Acts. Jesus has already come. He has recently died on the cross and risen from the grave. And there are many people from all over the world who speak different languages gathered together to celebrate the giving of the Law in a celebration called Pentecost. In a rather shocking turn of events, God gave the disciples of Jesus the ability to speak in different languages.
At Babel God supernaturally confused languages so that the people could not communicate with each other. Here God supernaturally gave the disciples the ability to communicate with people who did not speak their language (Acts 2:1-13). The crowd noticed that they were able to speak to people in all these different languages. And the event is so extraordinary they know that something strange has to be going on, so some people mockingly suggest that the disciples are drunk.
But that is not at all what is going on. Being drunk does not enable people to be multilingual. And God intervened with language to deliver a message.
So, what was the message that God had His people deliver to those at Pentecost?
“”Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know– this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”‘
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:22-41 ESV)
What was the message?
The message was of Christ’s death and His resurrection.
The message was of salvation from sin.
The message was of Christ’s ruling and reigning and of the Judgment to come.
The message was the gospel.
God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among people to accomplish the salvation of sinners through His perfect life, sacrificial death, and resurrection. It was the message that, rather than telling us to raise ourselves up, God came down to us. God the Son took on human flesh, came down to us, accomplished our salvation, and now calls us to turn from ruling our own lives and trust in Him.
And so we see that God scattered the people at Babel, but God is building His church today of people from every tribe, nation, and tongue by the preaching of the Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit.
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”” (Revelation 7:9-10 ESV)
Conclusion
We are sinful human beings incredibly bent toward pride and attempted self-righteousness. But God is not impressed with those efforts and the Tower of Babel places that front and center. But God did not leave us in that position. He sent us a Savior, His very own Son. God the Son came down to us to redeem us from sin. God came down to bring us to Himself, and that is the glorious message that we live in and proclaim. We can’t get to God on our own, but He came to us.
R. Dwain Minor