The book of Genesis is a book of origins; it’s the book of beginnings. That’s actually what “genesis” means. It is an amazing revelation by God, written by the pen of Moses. And in this book of Genesis, in particular the first 11 chapters, we have a critical revelation of the origin of all things that constitute a full world view.

There is here the universe in its origin, the origin of time, action, space, matter. There is the origin of the solar system. There is the origin of the atmosphere, the origin of the hydrosphere. There is the origin of all life. There is the origin of mankind. There is the origin of marriage. There is the origin of the family. There is the origin of sin, and the origin of guilt, and the origin of redemption, and the origin of forgiveness. There is the origin of culture and civilization and animal husbandry and metallurgy and other enterprises, the origin of poetry, the origin of music. Today we will see the  origin of nations and the origin of languages. And all of that runs up through  chapter 11.

 ¹ This is the account of the families of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah. Many children were born to them after the great flood. Genesis 10:1 (NLT)

This chapter is known as “The Table of Nations” and is unique in the annals of ancient history. The purpose of the chapter is given at the beginning (v. 1) and the end (v. 32): to explain how the earth was repopulated after the Flood by the descendants of the three sons of Noah.

³² These are the clans that descended from Noah’s sons, arranged by nation according to their lines of descent. All the nations of the earth descended from these clans after the great flood. Genesis 10:32 (NLT)

Historical and genealogical records verify this account as well. “In Greek writings Japetus (Iapetos) is understood to be the “father of the human race.”

“Man does what he can, God does what He will.” Few chapters in the Bible illustrate this truth better than Genesis 11. When you read the narrative about Babel our immediate impression is that God is at work in His world and is accomplishing His purposes in spite of the plans and projects of sinful people.

In the Account of the Tower of Babel We See…

1. Defiance to God

¹ At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words.

 *Here’s an interesting fact: science has now caught up with what the Bible has always said.    Archeology Magazine”, says by the 19th century, linguists knew that all modern languages descended from a single tongue called Proto-Indo-European or PIE. It was spoken by a people who lived from roughly 4500 to 2500 BC and left no written texts.”   “Historical Linguists” have done the work to figure this out.

 ² As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.  ³ They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.” Genesis 11:1-4(NLT)

 Now, here comes the plan – three-phase plan: a city, a tower, and a name. A city, a tower, and a name. First of all, they said, “Let’s build a city.” That’s their social goal. Their social goal. The tower had to do with their religious goal, and the name had to do with their psychological goal. “Let’s build for ourselves a city” – not for God, not for the glory of God, not for the honor of God, but for ourselves. This is the first city of man, if you will, after the flood. The city by man, of man, for man, without God.

The power of evil is greater when it’s concentrated. The power of evil is greater when it’s unhindered and unrestrained and there’s no checks and balances. You get a group of people together in one place like that, and evil abounds. That’s why people move to the suburbs, even in modern times, to escape the overwhelming force of evil that occurs in many cities.

Secondly, they wanted to build a tower. This is really the most curious part of this. What’s the point of a tower? I mean if you were going to build a tower for the purpose of, say, looking out over the countryside to see your enemies; that would be one thing, but there weren’t any enemies; you just had one group of people. I can understand a tower if you were afraid you were going to be attacked, but there wasn’t anybody to attack essentially. What’s the tower about?

As we look we will notice that it says, “‘Let us build a tower whose top” – and “will reach” is in italics in the NAS, which means it’s added to try to help you to clarify things; if you just take it out – “whose top into heaven” – whose top connects to heaven. I think there’s no other way to understand this than this was their supposed connection to the gods, which indicates that they had already begun to worship false gods. Not surprising. Satan disguises himself as a angel of light, and his ministers are disguised as angels of light. False religion is his business. It didn’t take long for him to develop in them a false religion to take the place of the worship of the true and living God, and they connected that false religion to the heavens.

A few verses that we didn’t cover but are foundational to this story are the iconic leader, Nimrod and the infamous city they were building Babylon:

⁹ Since he was the greatest hunter in the world,^[b] his name became proverbial. People would say, “This man is like Nimrod, the greatest hunter in the world.” ¹⁰ He built his kingdom in the land of Babylonia…   Genesis 10:9-10

Babylon is important here and the rest of the Bible.  Why? The Bible traces all false religions back to – Babylon. Babylon  is mentioned in Revelation 17 -Revelation 18.

Revelation 17-18 “Babylon has fallen”

For all the nations have drunk from the wine of the passion of her [sexual] immorality, and the kings and political leaders of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth and economic power of her sensuous luxury.” Revelation 18:3 AMP

 Babylon is not just a place, but it’s a demonic spirit that works in a place and doesn’t limit itself to that place.So in the days of Genesis, the spirit of Babylon was at work in Shinar. Sometime later, the spirit of Babylon was, literally, at work in the city of Babylon. As we learned in the book of Daniel, the Babylonians invade Jerusalem, they lay siege to the temple, they take Daniel and his friend’s POW and they do what the spirit of Babylon tries to do in every age, close the church, castrate the men, brainwash the children and then enforce demonic spirituality and worship of a false God, usually, in a political position of power. That’s exactly what happened in the days of Daniel and it’s what happens in every day when the spirit of Babylon shows up.

 The third element – the first one was social, a city; the second one was religious, a tower – the third one was psychological, they wanted to – “‘make for ourselves a name.’” This indicates their pride, their self-will, their ugly rebellion. They didn’t want to make for God a name; they had turned their back on Him. This is their great ambition. This is, “Come, let us!”

And as we will see, God steps in and says, “No, come, let Us,” and reverses it.

2. A Decision by God

⁵ But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.
⁶ “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Genesis 11:5-6 (NLT)

Why is this a problem? Because nobody’s going to stop them.  Part of the freedoms that we enjoy right now today, in America, are due to the fact that when Hitler or other crazy leaders wanted to rule the world, somebody stopped them!  But if it was one people and one world and one leader, nobody could stop him. That’s not helpful. God gives a checks and balances system in the world, even on a national scale, is part of a grace – a common grace that God has given to restrain unilateral evil. And since you had an evil world, they would choose an evil leader, be dominated by an evil leader, and there would be absolutely nothing to stop that wickedness.

World unity is a curse. One world ruler would be a disaster. One people only escalates the unified, intrepid force of evil. And God knows that, and so does Satan. And Satan is moving this world back to a one world – one world, one religion, with one ruler who is identified in the Bible as Antichrist.

When sinners get concentrated under one power in one place, wickedness abounds. The greatest amount of crime and wickedness in the world occurs – where, in the countryside? where? – in the cities. And the bigger the city, the worse it is.

You may have noticed a big push towards globalism.

Globalist: “if we had one global currency, if we had one global language, if we all just came together, we could solve all the problems on the earth.” And it’s really interesting that this globalistic experiment has been tried and failed

Because if power is centralized, if someone is in control, then you know for a fact that Satan will try and get the antichrist to be in the seat of power and authority. Until Christ comes, there is no one fit to rule and reign over all.

We even have the World Health Organization, World Economic Forum with doctors, billionaires and policy makers who weren’t voted for, trying to overrun government policy using the tech platforms to communicate to push people to think globally, not nationally. And ultimately, what we’re setting in place is a new reality.

If one person can control all internet access, if one person can control all economic transfer regardless of nation, if one person can control a virtual reality existence, that lot of power for a human being. And unless your name is Jesus, you’re probably going to abuse it.

Is God a globalist? No, He created Nations and in my opinion favors Nationalism over Globalism.

“Nationalism can take a nefarious turn because if we lose sight of the kingdom of God over the nation, then all of a sudden politics becomes religion. Campaigning becomes evangelism. Political rallies become worship events and candidates become saviors.”

3. Dispersion by God

⁷ Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.” ⁸ In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city.  ⁹ That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world. Genesis 11:7-9 (NLT)

Even after the flood we still have sinful people.  The difference is rather than being flooded, they are scattered. And this is God’s love and grace, because when evil people are together, they’re going to just multiply their evil, so God scatters them

Jesus’ own mother, Mary, would use this term, scattered. When she was told that she would give birth to the Savior, that the promise through Eve and Seth and, ultimately, Abraham to the nations that she would give birth to the Savior of the world, she sings a song. She’s filled with the Spirit and she responds in song. And she says in Luke 1:51 that, “He has scattered the proud.” I wonder if she was thinking of this moments.

Here’s one last interesting concept.  It says that “God scattered” the people but it doesn’t say how.

What’s interesting is that there are this structure that they started building in Babylon called a Ziggarat are build all over the world in China, Inda, South America, Central America, Egypt, and more.

There are many similarities to these cultures with their building knowledge.

For instance, “Ancient metal clamps discovered on megaliths, temples, and other prehistoric monuments worldwide are one of the greatest unsolved ancient mysteries of all time. Why would the builders use or need a small metal clamp to hold large stone blocks in place? How did this technology spread to ancient Egypt, Pre-Columbian Peru, and Cambodia thousands of years ago? These countries are separated by thousands of miles. Who taught our ancestors how to use this technology?

“The use of metal clamps in T-Grooves has been discovered in Tiahuanaco, Ollantaytambo, Koricancha, and the site of Yuroc Rumi, Vilcabamba. These clamps were also used on the Parthenon, on buildings in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Cambodia.”

Some scientists have suggested the clamps were for ceremonial use. Other researchers point out that ancient metal clamps served for keeping the blocks together, so they would harden out in the right position. Several imprints show that metal clamps intended to join huge blocks of stone that our modern machines cannot lift.   Where did they all get this same knowledge?

Many who can’t explain all the similarities in these ancient cultures think, Aliens.

There’s a show called “Ancient Aliens” which has 13 seasons on the History Channel.

There’s also a new show called, Ancient Apocalypse on NetFlix.

Here’s how one critic describes the author,

“Graham Hancock speculates that an advanced civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm, but that its survivors passed on their knowledge to hunter-gatherers, giving rise to the earliest known civilizations of ancient Egypt,  Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica.”

To me that sounds a lot like what the bible says.  For having this view Graham’s called a “pseudo scientist” or a “conspiracy theorist.”

Which takes more faith? That God scattered the people who had the same knowledge in building or that aliens somehow came down and taught each of these dozen ancient empires the same technology? And why?

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For more on these topics see:  https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/90-267/judgment-of-the-rebellion-at-babel-part-1

and…

Genesis #9 – What Does the Bible Say About Globalism?