The Bible: One Bite at a Time Expository Sermon Series Notes Genesis to the Revelation Sid Galloway © 1999 ..... The Current U.N. Bldg. A False Ekklesia

Tower of Babel The World's First United Nations Bldg.   Genesis 11:1-9 Click here for New World Pyramid

Audio Tapes # 39,    August 13, 2000       (Notes Updated August 12, 2000)

Don't miss the pictures of the zoo days. The Lord willing, Creation Creature Features soon.

Review: (Gen 1-9:17) See the notes on the Web -
Creation - Rebellion - Global Greenhouse Canopy - Violence - Flood - Noah's Ark
     Remember that God's primary punishment in Gen 3, and all throughout History (His Story) is that He withdraws His Hand that holds all things in order. The rebellion of Adam (Gen 3) and the subsequent escalation of "entropy" (disorder, death, & decay - dysfunctional 2nd law of thermodynamics) is the reason for imperfections as well as the selfish competition, violence, pain, suffering, fear, and death we see in the "wild kingdom" now.  *  The second law of thermodynamics was functional before Adam sinned, such as in the process of digestion, chemical processes, etc., but death and disease were not.

Yet God's sovereign mercy and grace always makes a way to fulfill His plan and its promise (Rom 8:28-29)! God will bring out of this dying world, a remnant of followers, by grace alone through faith alone in the person and sufficient work of Messiah, the seed of a woman.

The Text: Genesis 11:1-9

¹Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. ²And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. ³Then they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. ⁴And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." ⁵But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. ⁶And 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. ⁷"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech." ⁸So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. ⁹Therefore 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.

Brief Exposition and Commentary - (Gen 11)

Genesis 11:1-2  "one speech", "settled down"

- Personal History:  Remember that Gen 10 is a generic outline of the history surrounding the tower of Babel.  Chapter 11 is a personal look at how the various languages, families, and nations divided (Peleg).
- Rebellion: They were commanded by God to spread out and populate the whole earth (fruitful and multiply and fill the earth).  Verse 2 highlights the rebellious decision to "settle down" in direct defiance of God.
- Corrupt Socialization:  All the people at this time had the same language and were unified in their efforts.  Mankind did not evolve in his socialization, but devolved and degenerated through immoral and rebellious socialization (corruption and decay).
- Knowledge without Love:  Technological knowledge increased (1 Cor 8:1), but moral use of it in reference to God decreased.  Just as today we are always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth of God (2 Tim 3:    ).  We can go to the moon and have discovered nuclear power.  Big deal.  We're on the edge of blowing ourselves off the face of the earth.
- Luciferic Religion:  They were unified not only in language but also culture, and the heart of every human culture is their spiritual philosophy.  What kind of religion was it?  Ephesians 2 tells us that every religious philosophy that is not submitted to the Word of God is Satanic, even though the followers do not deliberately worship Lucifer.  
- Self-Deification:  The false promise and delusional goal of every manmade religion is "you shall be like God".

Genesis 11:3-4 "Come let us build", "city", "tower", "reach to heaven", "ourselves a name, lest we be scattered"

- Prideful Proclamations: For 6,000 years of human history, man apart from God has proclaimed his humanistic hope to evolve into godhood.  From the Lucifer's fall described in Isa 14 and Eze 28, to the Serpent's sales pitch, to the coming promise of the Anti-Christ, this message is called "THE LIE" in the Bible.  Lucifer fell because of his sinful desire to rise up to the level of the Most High God.  Man's little techno-tower was a silly attempt to puff out their chest like a little two year old who tries to challenges his father's authority.
- Autonomy vs. Humility:  Autonomy means "self-rule", and is the heart of sin.  Teenagers today wear T-shirts that proclaim, "NO FEAR, NO RULES".  Sin sticks its fist in the face of God and refuses to reverently submit to His Lordship.  As with verse 2, here the Lord records more of their heart motive that chose to reject God's command to spread out and fill the earth.
- Own Name: Remember that "Shem" means "name", and Shem as a man had a reputation as a faithful follower of YAHWEH God.  The "name" represents authority either inherent or delegated.  It also is a way for a person to carry the glory (reputation) of the authority above him.  Christians bear the name of their authority, Christ, and a wife takes the name of her head (husband, 1 Cor 11:7), and children carry on the name of their father.  But here the descendants of Nimrod (the "rebel"), reject the name of God and plan to build an independent reputation for their own glory and SELF-esteem.
- Christ-Esteem:  We don't need self-esteem, we are commanded to shift all esteem to the Lord alone.

- United Nations, The Gorbachev Foundation, The European Union, Roman Catholicism . . . . Mystery Babylon . . . Jerusalem

* Today we are witnessing a mirror image of this first effort of man to form a global governance apart from God's Lordship.
* At a recent World Forum meeting, Gorbachev proclaimed to the hundreds of attending world leaders, that the world needs a "new" set of "spiritual values".  
* The internet and computer programs like, The Universal Translator, are returning our world to the pre-babel state.

^{Psalm 2:1} Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?
² The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
³ "Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us."
⁴ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.
⁵ Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure:
⁶ "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion."
⁷ "I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me,
‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.
⁸ Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

Genesis 11:5-9 "Yahweh came down", "merely the beginning", "nothing . . . withheld", "confuse their language", "scattered", "Babel".

- God Intervenes: God will not be mocked, and resists the proud by kicking the feet out from under them (1 Peter 5:5-9).  God's actions are actually mercy and grace by not letting man exponentially escalate his ability to sin through accumulated and cooperative knowledge.  Why did confusing language work to scatter man?  For sinful men, the inability to understand one another easily, leads to irritation, anger, hurt, and division.  The division really was caused by what was in men's hearts.  God's act of confusing the language was merely the pressure that squeezed to the surface the selfish sin that lay in their hearts.  (Mat 15:19).

- Today's Parallels: 

* God will not tolerate modern man's arrogant efforts toward self-deification.
* He will come down and judge man with severe consequences.  
* Israel and its capital, Jerusalem ("the city of peace") are becoming the central focus of the whole world, just as the Scripture prophesied.  This month, the U.S., the U.N., the E.U., Russia, the Pope, and many others began demanding that Jerusalem become a universal city, as a place for all nations and all religions to unite for world peace.  And the Jewish people, the descendants of Shem, are now cooperating with the seed of the mystery of Babylon to reject the authority of YAHWEH God over men and nations.
* God's coming consequences will be the tribulation (Jacob's trouble).

- Shem's Faithful Remnant: Romans 11:25-26

* Pentecost: The ability to communicate across all languages was a pre-taste of what God will do through His 144,000 Jewish prophets during the tribulation, and also the oneness that believers will experience in the new Heaven and the new Earth.
* Israel: The next verses (which we'll study next week) focus in on the line of Shem, through which the Messiah (the seed of a woman) was to come and save a remnant for His Father.

How does all of this apply to: Are you, your family, and your church functioning as a Shem and Japheth's families did? Are your relationships socializing others to become disciplined disciples or dysfunctionally dishonoring rebels like Ham, Canaan, and Nimrod? 

* Yourself?

* Your Family?

* Your Church?
 Do you genuinely L.E.A.D. your sheep toward restoration and maturity in Christ?

Use the following chart to examine yourself, and change by putting off habit patterns of attitude, behavior, & countenance.