Why God Stopped The Building Program Gen 11:1-9

Why God Stopped the Building Program

This was my last sermon in Genesis for a while, until I return to chapter 12 in January 2024. Chapter 11 has two parts: the Tower of Babel in the first nine verses, and the genealogy that leads to Abram, who opens chapter 12 and takes the seed of the woman from Genesis 3:15 all the way to Joseph. I read the passage the way I suggest you read your Bible, over and over. Verses 1 through 4 are the words, attitudes, and actions of mankind. Verses 5 through 9 are God’s. Verse 5, where the Lord comes down, is the center of the whole passage.

Someone asked me how Genesis 10 can show the earth scattered while chapter 11 shows everyone still together. Genesis 10 and 11 should be read together, as with chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 10 tells what happened and chapter 11 explains why: God scattered them. And the Tower of Babel reminds us to be the right kind of builders. You may not build a tower, but some are building a family, a career, or a ministry. Psalm 127:1 says, “unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain.” I see two points: how man sins, and how God responds. There are four fatal phrases here.

Four Fatal Phrases

My way is better than yours. Verse 2 says they settled in the land of Shinar. But God had told them to spread out, in Genesis 1:28 to Adam and Eve and in Genesis 9:1 to Noah. They wanted a holy huddle, a fertile plain with mountains nearby, a comfortable place. “Delayed obedience or partial obedience is still disobedience.” We do not know why they thought their way was better, but “God’s way is always better always side with God.”

I don’t need your help. In verses 3 and 4, count the words us and ourselves: let us make bricks, let us build ourselves a city. They never mentioned God or his will. Adam and Eve had their own plan, and so did Cain and the sons of God in Genesis 6. “We’re either building God’s kingdom or our kingdom.” We might try building a life, a legacy, a business, or a family apart from God’s power, and then at the end say, God bless everything I just did. We should seek his face before we begin.

Unity at all cost. Verse 6 says they are one people with one language, and nothing they plan will be impossible. “Do you realize that Unity can be a bad thing?” The world is unified in going its own way. There is a danger of unified apostasy, with ungodly people gathering and more evil being done. Our unity at Community is the gospel: salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, through Christ alone. “Our Unity is based on the truth of God’s word not on our reasoning not on our likes not on our preferences.” Some want us to just go along. Peter says in 1 Peter 4:3-4 that people are surprised when you don’t join them in the same flood of debauchery. Even Christians can want a holy huddle. In Acts 1:8 Jesus said to go into all the world, and in Acts 8:1 persecution scattered the believers throughout Judea and Samaria.

It’s all about my accomplishments. Verse 4: let us make a name for ourselves. They wanted a monument to their own greatness, not to God’s glory. We are a church that is a little over 15 years old and has been in three locations. We are hoping to build on Port Royal, and I ask whether it is so we can have a building and respectability, or because of what God has called us to do. It is about the kingdom, not our legacy or convenience. Parents, are you parenting so other people say, look at them? Your kids are broken, and you are broken, and you need God’s grace.

How God Responds

The Lord sees sin. Verse 5 says the Lord came down. He came to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, to Cain in Genesis 4, and he saw the wickedness in Genesis 6. This is the turning point where “God shows up to confront to speak and to convict.”

The Lord limits sin. In verse 6, if God had not intervened, their unity could have accomplished more evil. His judgment restrained it.

The Lord confuses sinners. In verses 7 and 9 he confuses their language, and the work stopped. Babel became Babylon, the opposite of the New Jerusalem. Even in judgment God brings beauty from it: Revelation 7:9 sees a multitude from every language standing before the throne. Psalm 33:10-11 says the Lord frustrates the plans of the peoples.

The Lord wins. Thomas à Kempis said “man proposes but God disposes.” Proverbs 19:21 says many are the plans in the mind of man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that stands. They had a unity of language, ambition, ingenuity, and a work ethic, and God said no. This passage also helps us pray. When people are rebellious, we can pray, God, intervene, bring confusion, limit sin, and do your will, not man’s.