Genesis 11:4-32

Two important pieces of background to keep in mind here are that at this time the entire earth spoke one language. And God had given a command to man after the flood to go forth and multiply and fill the earth.

 

Now notice God’s reaction to the Tower of Babel in verses 5 to 6, “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.”

A more complete picture can be seen in the King James Version of this verse. “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.”

This is an amazing statement! Because all the people spoke one language, they didn’t have the great language barrier.

They could get together and pool their knowledge and resources. They could also share each other’s imaginations, even the most base imaginations. Hear it again, “and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

 

We find here that man still has a fallen nature despite the Flood and that his thoughts and imaginations are only evil. Every sin centred imagination that man was capable of dreaming up could be realised and enacted on.

Of course, leading these imaginations is man’s passion and his pride and his refusal to accept the sovereignty of Almighty God.

Man has only one sovereign, himself. By himself, he’ll decide his road in life and by himself, he’ll set his own destiny.

Man says, “We have no God only the greatness of us ourselves and we can do anything we want.”

At the Tower of Babel, man forms a unity but it’s a unity based on rebellion against God. It’s a unity given over completely to the great human god of “self”.

We’re still living today in the same spiritual environment that brought about the judgment of the flood and the judgment at the Tower of Babel.

The world is drunk with delusion and deception where truth, especially spiritual truth is all but impossible to find.

The Apostle Paul wrote that the time before the “End of Days” would be “perilous” and full of human depravity and lawlessness (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Jesus warned that apostasy or would abound and that the hearts of many would run cold. (Matt. 24:12).  Apostasy is someone who has totally abandoned or rejected their belief in God and in the salvation provided by Christ.

 

Today we regard “self” as good. Self-improvement, self-made, self-love, self-righteousness. “I did it my way” is all regarded today as just the way it’s supposed to be. Today humans are almost totally self-absorbed. We’re mad with selfishness. Observe the conversations at any gathering. How many times is that conversation a contest to be heard and an almost desperation for individuals to tell their particular story?

Today we have staggering statistics of a society absorbed with self. Murder, all manner of crime and violence, family separations, hatred, astounding levels of debt, undisciplined children, a weak justice system and much more, all results of man’s obsession with self and doing it his way. Perhaps the saddest result of man’s selfishness today is demonstrated in the children. Many simply don’t understand right from wrong, good from bad, or the necessity of submitting to authority.

 

This is the story of man right throughout the Bible. God has revealed that He exists and that His purpose for man both as a race and as individuals is perfect and good and only in His purpose can we find our own peace and purpose. Man rejects this revelation that God exists and that He has a purpose for us. In so doing man sets up his own, manmade gods, and his own purpose and blinds himself to any reality outside his own ability to run his own life. Then God, through His Word, untiringly calls man back to Himself and makes a way by which that can happen.

Unfortunately, man loses insight into this picture of God’s purpose because he rejects the complete story God has given to teach man the truth, even as Christians. Oh sure we have our favourite scripture verses and we form opinions based on certain preachers that we take a liking to, but the fact remains that modern man has an appalling lack of understanding of the entire picture that God has clearly given us in the whole counsel of God.

 

In light of the spiritual war against the truth that’s raging all around us, we need to be sure not to lose our minds.

The mind is the “gateway” to your heart, and it’s vital to guard our thinking by immersing ourselves in the truth.

“Not losing your mind” means being grounded in what’s real, and understanding who we are and Who our God is.

Part of the task of “guarding your mind” is being able to discern between good and evil. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil,” says Proverbs 8:13. We must love the truth and hate the lie. So says Psalm 119:163, Zechariah 8:19 and Proverbs 12:22.

It’s the truth that sets people free, but we must discern what is the truth and how easily we become enslaved by deception. Therefore we are instructed: “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” That’s Leviticus 10:10.

Psalm 33:4 says,“ For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.”

These are the concepts that were lacking at the Tower of Babel.

God can’t ignore this rebellion at the Tower of Babel, because it’s a rebellion against Him and it’s a rebellion that has no hope, only death.

Even in his fallen state man is an extremely capable creature. Man can go into outer space and invent the most amazing stuff. After all, he’s made in the image of God.

 

Imagine the damage man could do to himself if we all came together with one goal forced onto us by an all-powerful dictator wanting to be above God.

We saw the results of that same goal when Satan rebelled against God and we’ll see it again soon enough with the rise of the antichrist who’ll achieve the same goal for a short time.

All that’s needed to make this a reality is for the dictator to rule over the minds of man, over the way we think, and to destroy anyone daring to think outside that box.

So, God’s going to put up a barrier.

 

Now notice what He does in verses 7 to 9. “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

Therefore its name is called Babel because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.”

 

This is again the triune Godhead in conversation as we’ve seen before.

Suddenly, abruptly the building project stalls. The carpenters can’t communicate with the plumbers and the electricians can’t communicate with the brickmakers and nobody can communicate with the architects nor can they read their drawings and instructions.

The whole thing’s a disaster with no hope of completion.

Hence the name was given to the project, Babel or Babel, which means confusion. What a sight it must have been.

Now man is scattered over the face of the earth. They were together in their rebellion, but now they can’t understand one another. The language barrier is a very high wall. It’s a wall that separates people, and it is stronger than any national border and any ocean.

Many folks think that languages developed gradually. But God said He confounded their language so that right then, while they were building, they suddenly couldn’t understand each other.

The building project came to a sudden halt, and folk moved away from Babel in every direction.

This is a tremendous thing that took place. It’s a great miracle, a miracle of speaking and a miracle of hearing. They spoke different languages. They could speak to each other but they couldn’t understand what each other was talking about.

So, was this a blessing in disguise, or was it a curse on mankind?

Well, for God’s purposes, it was a blessing. God’s commandment for man to spread throughout the earth and fill it would be fulfilled whether man chose to or not.

For man’s development away from God, it was definitely a judgment.

Down through the centuries, mankind has been kept separate, and it’s been a great hindrance to him.

What’s happening today though, through technological advancement, these walls are being broken down, and very rapidly. We can now see the time approaching when the multiple languages of the world will cease to be a barrier to the coming second Nimrod, the antichrist and his world government.

However, the time’s also upon us where those technologies also work to break down the barriers to the whole world understanding God’s Word and His way of salvation.

Today the Bible’s available in more languages than any other book. It’s still being translated into even more tongues and dialects and is being brought to literally hundreds of tribes throughout the world.

The Gospel is for all mankind and the availability of the Bible is spreading and being accepted even by races that will endure severe punishment for accepting its message. In almost every nation man can listen to God’s message and turn to Him.

The Gospel is for you, whoever you are and whatever tongue you speak. It’s for all the nations of the world.

We’re told in the last book of the Bible that there’ll be gathered into His presence “… a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues …” that’s the Book of Revelation chapter 7 verse9.

 

Now, we come to Genesis chapter 11 and verse 10.

As we arrive at this point we need to stand back a little and see an overview

Chapters we’ve already covered.

This is because we’ve arrived at the place where we are introduced to Noah’s son Shem.

Remember in our introductions we tried to get a birdseye view of what the Bible is all about. What’s the main theme? What’s the point?

We saw that the entire Word of God is about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament looks forward to His coming and the New Testament looks back to when He came.

Along with the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches us why He needed to come and why His sacrifice is vital to man.

We also saw in our introduction to the Book of Genesis that the book has two distinct divisions. There’s a river running through the book if you like and there are 2 banks. On one bank we’re given a summary of the earth and its creation, how man got here, and how man arrived at the state he’s in today, separated from God.

On the other side of the river, everything is more detailed and more specific.

On the first bank, there’s an outline given. Just a rough overview of the earth’s history with most of the details left out. This shows us that the Bible is not about creation and is not intended as an exhaustive study of the origins of the universe. Although in perfect unity with science, it is not a scientific study.

We’re simply told the key points that God is the creator and that He had a wonderful purpose for man but man rebelled against that purpose.

The first 11 chapters of Genesis cover about 2000 years from the Garden of Eden until this point. The entire rest of the book of Genesis covers only 350 years.

So, the first “bank” of Genesis is a very general outline, but now as we step over the river onto the other bank, we’re on a totally different landscape.

The first bank was about scene setting, painting the big picture of the origins of the universe and us.

The bank we’ve now stepped onto begins a line, or a thread of ancestors that’ll run through the entire rest of the Bible.

That line leads us to the Lord Jesus Christ and we’re at the beginning of that line with the revealing of the first ancestor from which that line would come through, Noah’s son Shem and then through Shem’s descendants to Abraham.

From Abraham, who is perhaps the greatest of the patriarchs, comes the nation of Israel and through the nation of Israel comes the Messiah, The Christ, Jesus.

 

As we cross that river and climb the other bank, we climb into Genesis chapter 11 verse 10 and we read, “These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:”

 

Now we continue climbing this bank by learning of the line of Shem and as we’ve already said we’ll follow this line throughout the Old Testament.

Genesis 11 verse 11, “And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

Shem’s genealogy is given in the following verses, up until verses 24 to 25. We’ll not read each of the descendants but we’ll say theat God has been very specific by giving us the exact line.

So we jump to chapter 11 verses 25 to 25 and we read, “And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:

And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.

You see that we are following the line of Terah now. Why Terah? Notice the next verse, verse 26, “And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.”

Now we are going to follow the line of Abram, who later had his name changed by God and whom we know as Abraham.

 

So to say it again because of how important this is, we’re following the line of Shem, and we’re going right through the Bible following this line.

The Word of God will follow this line directly to the Cross of Christ. God has recorded everything up to this point as a preliminary or a stage setting if you like.

God has demonstrated to man that he’s in sin. In the incident of Cain and Abel, we find that Cain would not acknowledge that he was a sinner. He was proud of his sacrifice, a sacrifice made with his own hands, by his own works. In him, we see a demonstration of the pride of life.

At the Flood, we see the sin of the flesh because the people then were given over to the sins of the flesh. They were indulging in violence and their every thought and imagination was evil. They were blind to their need of God. They were deaf to His claim, dead to God, dead in trespasses and sins. God gave them an invitation through Noah. They rejected the invitation and remained in the sins of the flesh.

Then, at the Tower of Babel, we see the sin of the will, rebellion against God.

We all have our own little Tower of Babel which we’ve built. It’s that special place where we rebel against God? It’s natural for human nature to be in rebellion against God because it is our inherited nature of sin.

This is the place where we say, “No God, I can work this out myself. I know what’s best for me. I’ll get my answers and my help quicker, better and more completely by doing it myself. I know you’ve demonstrated Your mercy, Your Grace and Your Power to me many times but I still think I’m better off doing it on my own, thank you.”

Yes, friends, we all build our Tower of Babel in rebellion against God and some of us build it very high and very strong.

Now we follow the line which is going to lead to Christ, here are the generations or the families of Terah.

Starting at Genesis 11 verse 27, “Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.” Sarai would, like Abraham, have her name changed by God to Sarah.

 

The name Haran means delay.

Chapter 11 verse 32,  “And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.”

This bit of history is given to let us know that we’re going to follow Abraham, and his story will begin in the next chapter.

 

In the next chapter, Genesis chapter 12, we’re well and truly implanted on this second bank which we’ll stay on until Chapter 50.

In these first eleven chapters of Genesis, we’ve seen the Creation, the fall of man, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. These are four great events that covered that long span of years.

Now we move to personalities and individuals. Many are great people, and many are not but all are vital pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that will have every single piece perfectly set in its rightful place. The result reveals a wonderful picture of man reunited with God for an eternity, just the way it was designed to be.