Text: Genesis 11:1-9
The whole earth had one language and a single vocabulary. As people traveled in the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there. 3 They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used mud brick instead of stone for building material, and they used tar for mortar. 4 They said, “Come, let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If this is the first thing they are doing as one people, who all have one language, then nothing that they intend to do will be too difficult for them. 7 Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. 9It was named Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Sermon
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid. (John 14:27). Amen.
In honor of last Monday being Memorial Day and June 6 is D Day, I want to share a military story with you. Then I’ll connect it to the Tower of Babel. Back when Jon Stewart was hosting The Daily Show, he insisted that President Harry Truman was a war criminal for ordering atomic bombs to be dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stewart claimed the Japanese civilians had not received any prior warning of the bombing, that the Japanese people were ready to be done with the war and they were ready to surrender. In a brilliant Afterburner video, writer and filmmaker Bill Whittle refuted Stewart’s claims with historical facts.
In his refutation of Stewart’s claims, Whittle held up a photograph of an Office of War Information leaflet. Over 1 million of these leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and thirty-three other Japanese cities on August 1, 1945 – five days before the Hiroshima bombing. The Japanese had built their military installations and war factories in cities among the civilian population. The American military did not want innocent life to be lost. But they needed to destroy the Japanese installations and factories to end the war.
The leaflet warned: “‘Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.’”
The Japanese people were not ready to surrender. It was not in their culture to surrender. They believed their Emperor was a god. So they would die defending their Emperor/god. Whittle explained, “Japanese pilot Mitsuo Fuchida led the air attack against Pearl Harbor. After the war, he told Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay [the B-29 bomber that was used to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima], ‘You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude of that time, how fanatic they were. They’d die for the Emperor. Every man, woman and child would have resisted the invasion with sticks and stones if necessary.’”
Though several hundred thousand Japanese died from the atomic bombs and their fallout, history proves that the use of the atomic bombs saved – at minimum – hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives from continued conventional bombing. If U.S. forces had invaded the island of Japan, then millions more Japanese children to grandmothers would have died holding bamboo spears and wearing explosive backpacks. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers would also have been killed.
Judgment was brought down upon the nation of Japan. Devastation and destruction and the loss of lives were the result of the two atomic bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities. Yet, countless Japanese and American lives were spared because of that difficult decision. Look at the way Japan has flourished since WWII and even become an ally of the U.S. in so many areas.
Now let’s look at the historical facts about the Tower of Babel. After Noah’s family left the ark God commanded them, “Fill the earth!” It was God’s good will that in time the whole earth should be filled with people who would live for his glory so that from east to west his reputation would be magnified as the LORD, the God of the covenant promise, the Savior God.
Moses writes that as the people moved east “they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there.” A well-watered plain would naturally look good to farmers. But they disobeyed God as they stopped their migration and settled down. It didn’t matter to them that God had commanded Noah and his sons, “But you, be fruitful and multiply. Increase abundantly on the earth, and multiply on it” (Genesis 9:7). One hundred years after the Flood, Noah’s descendants answered, “Why should we? It doesn’t get any better than this!”
Their settlement wasn’t a temporary one, either. They planned to stay permanently in the plain of Shinar. Instead of using sun-dried clay, they chose fire-hardened bricks for their building project, with tar for mortar instead of the customary mud.
These were white-collar architects and blue-collar masons – working together to build a monumental and magnificent tower. What’s wrong with that?
The Holy Spirit allowed Moses to record the people’s motivation for their building. They said, “Come, let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” They wanted to make a name for themselves. They weren’t building a monument to the Lord. It was a monument to their egos. They weren’t building the tower to magnify the Lord. They were building it to magnify their ingenuity. They rejected God’s goal for his people of praising God, “Glory to God in the highest!” They turned it around to make this about themselves, “Glory to man in the highest!”
Satan doesn’t have to persuade us to kneel in front of an idol to adore if he can get us to look at ourselves as the idol to be adored.
It doesn’t surprise us that the Lord intervened in judgment to stop the building project. He told us, “I am the Lord; that is my name. I will not give my glory to another” (Isaiah 42:8). Moses tells us that “the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building.” The Lord wasn’t a building inspector who had to come to the building site to check everything out in person. The Holy Spirit is emphasizing that the Lord’s judgment is never impulsive or arbitrary.
If mankind didn’t want to carry out God’s command to fill the earth, he would force them to. The Lord said, “If this is the first thing they are doing as one people, who all have one language, then nothing that they intend to do will be too difficult for them.” Then the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – said, “Come, let us go down there and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand one another’s speech.”
So the Lord made them speak different languages. Before this time, there was only one language. The word Babel sounds like the Hebrew word for “confused.” Since they could no longer understand each other, they could no longer trust one another. Therefore, they could not work together. Their spirit of friendliness and confidence was replaced by ugly suspicion, and they had to stop building their dream home.
God’s judgment a century earlier with the Flood was visible and universal. God’s judgment with the confusion of languages was invisible … but just as universal. God’s divine judgment with the Flood wiped out only a single generation of humanity. Confusing the languages at Babel, however, has bred confusion, suspicion, and hatred in every generation since then.
Judgment was brought down upon humanity with the events at Babel. Devastation and destruction and the loss of lives have been the result of all the mistrust, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, and intolerance that are the bad fruit of Babel.
Yet, think of how the Lord used the atomic bombs to create something wonderful between America and Japan many generations later. The Lord also used the judgment at Babel for the creation of and communication to all nations.
If people would have remained in one place, they would have all looked fairly similar. But the Lord used this event to move people across the globe. As people settled in different places, there was the development of different shaped eyes, various size noses, and a variety of skin tones. There was the development of beautiful spoken languages. The Lord used this for the creation of nations, tribes, peoples, and languages.
Moses, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said this judgment was brought upon Babel by the LORD. When the name of the LORD is in all capital letters, that is our English way of denoting this as the name of Jehovah, the compassionate and gracious God who is slow to anger and abounding in love. The LORD means the God of the covenant promise. The LORD used this judgment to keep his covenant promise of the Savior alive so it could be communicated to all nations, tribes, peoples, and languages (Revelation 9:7).
The events at the Festival of Pentecost are the reversal of the events at Babel. At Babel the LORD confused the languages of people for the creation of all nations. At Pentecost the LORD communicated his gospel message into the language of people from all nations. Jews and proselytes of Judaism from all over the world heard the apostles declaring the wonderful works of God in their own languages.
We still feel the strife and suspicion today caused by God’s judgment several millennia ago at Babel. We live in a time of confusion, mistrust, and anger. We see this in how people of different skin colors, races, and ethnicities mistreat one another. We see this in the violence in our own streets. We see this how our culture can’t even define what a woman is or what do with an unborn infant in the womb.
But we Christians have the only message that can unite all these warring factions. It is the message that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21). Mission work today is no harder – but also no easier – than at the time of Babel or Pentecost. Though there will be many people who don’t want to listen to you talk about Jesus, everyone of them needs to hear you tell them about Jesus.
The little African American girl who doesn’t have a father needs you to tell her about God the Father’s great love for her giving “his only-begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The Latino grandmother who is trying to hold her family together in these difficult economic times needs you to tell her about the God who promises, “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be overwhelmed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you” (Isaiah 41:10). The Anglo father who has lost a child to death in a tragic accident needs you to comfort him reminding him of Jesus’ promise, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid” (John 14:27). The aging grandfather on his deathbed needs you to pray with him to the Good Shepherd, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).
As you look at our world, our nation, our city, our neighborhoods, you can see that we might be ripe for God’s judgment, too. We, like those around us, like to build to our glory and make a name for ourselves. Our LORD (all capital letters) reminds us, “Do not be deceived: I will not be mocked” (Galatians 6:7). The LORD is unwilling to let people wipe their feet on his great good plan for the world.
The LORD is also unwilling to let people perish in the fires of hell. God “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). The Lord used his judgment at Babel for the creation of all nations. The Lord used the fulfillment of his covenant at Pentecost for communication to all nations.
Communicate the LORD’s covenant message to your family, your church family, at WLS, at Shoreland, in our community, in your workplace, and wherever you go. Share this message of Jesus with all nations, tribes, peoples, and languages. Amen.
And this will happen: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Acts 2:21) Amen.