Title: Genesis 11:1-9 Tower of Babel
Contents
3. Tower of Babel
▨ Genesis 11:1-9 ▧
The confusion of languages occurred at the birth of "Pelek," the fourth generation after the flood (Gen. 10:25). This is 101 years after the Flood, so it is about 1757 after Adam. Babel means “gate of God”, and in Hebrew it is Babylon, and in Babylonian it is “Bab-ili”. Here, Babel means to be crowded, and the word congestion is explained by the word "Bulak", which means to mix.
The descendants of Noah, who were saved from the judgment of the flood, moved to the East and lived in the Plain of Shinar. They had an evil plan to build a high city there and make their name glamorous.
Human beings have always done nothing but evil. They had no intention of trusting and relying on God, but rather built the Tower of Babel as an act of opposing God. Their behavior is almost no different from those of modern people who pursue only their own honor and comfort. They wanted to make a name for themselves and to settle in one place, rebelling against God's command to "fill the earth."
Eventually, God's intervention caused them to confuse their language, and they were scattered all over the land, contrary to what they had planned. Those who reject God's will and trust themselves thoroughly in this way, those days will not be long. (Isa 2:22)
1. It has collapsed because it is a replacement construction.
In verse 3, “they said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and burn them firmly.’ So they replaced stones with bricks, and mud instead of bitumen.”
Bricks instead of stones and bitumen instead of mud, the material is not only poor, but the mental state is already wrong. If the project was planned with great aspirations, it would be necessary to use the best materials, that is, the solid and excellent product, but failed to use a substitute.
These days, believers are also offering an hour of worship on Sundays. It is very worrying that this is thought to be the same delusion as these. God hates lies. In any case, we should try to live the truth and live the truth, without thinking of replacing it.
2. I failed to build it with honor.
Verse 4 says, “We made a name for ourselves by building a city and tower with the top of the tower reaching heaven.” It was the desire to make a name for themselves. Perhaps they had built a tall tower for fear of another terrible flood in the future, and tried to avoid death by taking refuge at the top of the tower in case of emergency. However, God did not allow this, and confused the language and scattered them all over the world.
Humanism that "makes our name" is resonanceism. This is also characteristic of modern people. Modern people try to conquer the sky in this world. They want to conquer land and sea. To eradicate suffering and disease from the earth forever. Thus, man becomes the master of heaven and earth and tries to make a name for himself.
The descendants of Noah started the construction of the larger Shinar Plains on this spiritual basis. This is today's humanistic religion, humanistic culture, humanistic philosophy, and humanistic art. This is a time when you want to believe in yourself and make your own name king for you.
But (Proverbs 28:26), "He who believes in his own heart is a fool."
3. Humans have limits.
God is infinite, but human power is limited. "Herikissinger," who was the special adviser for President Nixon's security affairs, soon made a sense of limit as his political philosophy. Human beings should be able to feel a sense of limit in everything.
The Bible tells us that everything has limits. (Ecclesiastes 1:1-3) “For everything under the heavens there is a season and a time to every purpose, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up” . Therefore, we must know how to feel the limit in everything. Limit consciousness is the boundary line that separates God and humans. To become believers is to stop the Tower of Babel and believe in God with a sense of human limitations. The reason why the Tower of Babel construction failed because it was not clear that there is a limit to human talent.
4. The unity of humans has been broken.
In verse 4, “Let us not be scattered over the face of the earth.” God created mankind and blessed it, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). The mindset of trying to live in one place without having it, and avoiding scattering, was against God's will.
Because God wants many people to occupy a lot of land and live according to His will, the idea of not scattering was greatly wrong. This does not mean that God wants separatism. This is because He created this earth to live while realizing His providence in every nook and cranny.
He wanted to live by understanding the meaning of what He created so that human beings could explore, discover, and live without neglecting any corner of the earth. It can be seen that on this earth, the necessities of life are buried here and there, so that they can dig up and live, and thereby discover hope and talents in humans. God wanted it, but the people at the time forsaken that will and tried to live.
5. He was trying to show off the universalism of humans.
Humans became arrogant because they said that if human power is united, they can reach the top of the sky. But their boasting soon turned out to be folly. Today, the omnipotence of human beings, omnipotence of science, omnipotence of power, and omnipotence of gold are the Tower of Babel that humans build.
To reach the top of the sky is to replace the human position in the place of God. Today, modern people are challenging God by adopting the habit of Babel, which shows off human strength too much. The ancient heroine Nimrud planned this, and [Sarmanpiti], [Genghis Khan], and [Napoleon] tried to do this, but all failed.
No matter how brilliant their plans and projects are, if they do not have the humility to seek God's will and obey it, they will perish. That is why the first peace conference in Babel ended in chaos. Peace is good, unity is good, and unification is good. However, the peace conference apart from God was unbelievable because it was preparing for war under the signboard and promoting division while emphasizing unity. Therefore, human almightyism that departs from God has only death and destruction as a result.
6. The production of unbelief
(Genesis 9:13), "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and this is the proof of my covenant with the world." In other words, it is unbelief in God's covenant that He will not judge this world with a flood. So the work of Babel began.
In modern times, materialism, atheism, false scientism, positivism, pragmatism, naturalism, and secularism are allied with this unbelief trend. Modern philosophy has grown on the basis of the revival of unbelieving literature. In other words, Rametri of the 18th century said that everything that thinks and depends has its origin in the senses. This is equivalent to modern positivist thought. Religion will soon cease to exist. And he said that material would take its place.
Nietzsche said that God is dead.
Modern art was born out of unbelief. As a result, modern people have lost their way out of the trap of pleasure. Most of the young people are crying out for the cancer of this ostentatious art.
Modern politics and economy started from unbelief. As a result, it is crowded with the descendants of the modern Nimrud. The modern church is starting all kinds of unidentified union movements out of unbelief. As a result, the church has become a cemetery where God's death is introduced.
The Alliance of Unbelief It's a mess. This unbelieving collectivism has historically been a hotbed of totalitarianism. It has, in effect, been reduced to a group of antichrist forces.
7. It's that things don't go as planned for humans.
The plan of the people at that time was to build the Tower of Babel high so that it would not be damaged by the flood even if it rained just like the flood in Noah's day.
(Proverbs 16:1) "The competition of the heart belongs to men, but the answer of a word comes from the LORD."
When God created man, he gave him the will to think and decide through Christ. So you can plan and design what you think is best. However, this plan alone is not the end of it all. We should all know that God is working behind all things, so we have to depend on God who rules the work, and we need to ask Him to pray.
Haman, a Jew, said he did not serve him, so he hung Mordecai on a tree, and planned to destroy the Jews. But things turned around and Haman hung on the tree he was trying to run Mordecai on, and all those who tried to kill the Jews were killed by the Jews. (Es 3:15-17)
Not many things go as planned for humans like this. This is because the Lord is in control of human life and death.
8. It is a tower that God did not want.
If the towers built on them are built and maintained for a long time, this tower will become an idol for them. Therefore, the Lord did not want this tower to be solid. Proof of this fact is that among the things that people have seen and heard around recently, it is possible to see people revering stones, houses, and carved wood with maps made by people as cultural assets.
Because God is well aware of the truth about human beings like this, he destroyed them before they became idols. It can also be thought of as love to God. If you worship idols, you will perish, so God showed off His power and demolished the Tower of Babel.
conclusion
There is a saying that the Gongden Tower will collapse. At that time, the Tower of Babel was built with all people's hearts and minds working together, but it was destroyed.
This is because they want to challenge God. Saints, even if the work we are doing is good, if God does not want it, our hope will not come true. We must become wise saints who live according to the will.