The Rebellion of the Nations
Introduction
Did your parents ever tell you as they were about to spank you, this is gonna hurt you more than it will hurt me! I don’t know if that was true for me.
Have you ever thought about how much you learn by teaching? Whether you’re a manager, a vocational teacher, a parent, we learn as we teach. At least we do, if we’re worth our salt.
One lesson I have learned as a youth pastor and a father is how holding the line on the boundaries is not easy. Letting the people who don’t know any better have their way is the easy way out. I have learned that if I love my kids, I will get off my rear end and discipline them. I will enforce the rules in our home. And to do otherwise, is selfish.
We will understand how this story reveals the petulant rebellion of man, and God’s response of loving mercy.
God established nations for humanity to seek Him.
What is happening in this story that Moses wants to tell us? What is the conflict? Well, in chapter 9, God tells Noah and his sons, and therefore, his descendants to do something. It is the same job he gave to Adam and Eve. They are to fill the earth.
So what do the people in Genesis 11 do instead? They stay together. They begin building a city and tower on the plain of Shinar. They are not expanding but fortifying themselves together in one place. They remain unified as one group of people. Now what would have happened if they had done as God had said and spread out? I want to answer that question but to make sure we really understand what the answer means, I want to go to Acts.
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; Ac 17:26-27
This passage is actually a kind of shortcut to understanding Genesis 11 and what is really going on here. We'll refer back to it again and again.
But this is what would have happened had they obeyed God because this is what happened when God handcuffed them and graciously pressed them to do what He had intended. Look at verse 26:
"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,"
They go from one blood (Noah) into separate nations. Separate people groups. Now, it is important to understand one thing, and I think maybe we get this on some level at least. Nations or the Greek word, ethnos, as it was originally written in the New Testament is not a reference to political states. It is a reference to people groups which form in geographic locations. When Jesus speaks of proclaiming the Gospel, baptizing, and discipling the nations, he is not talking about going specifically to the offices of government officials and leaders, trying to make nations into Christian nations.
Jesus is talking about going to every people group or what, normally, at one point, were TRIBES and proclaiming the Gospel, seeking to make disciples of Jesus there, and baptizing them.
So Paul tells the people of Athens God is the one who established the nations. It was his plan for there to be separate distinct people groups, with different languages, cultures, industries, colors of skin, all of it! It is a part of God's beautiful and eminently wise plan.
This understanding sheds more light on Revelation 5:9. Though God Himself scattered the nations, He is bringing them back together in His own people, from all tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations.
1. The distinctions of people groups are good things.
2. We should celebrate the uniqueness of our own people groups, and appreciate the uniqueness of other people groups as well.
And when we look at the summary of what happened following these events at Babel, we see God doing exactly what Paul said, though we do not see God's hand explicitly in the text itself.
The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Ge 10:2
From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations. Ge 10:5
The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Ge 10:6
These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations. Ge 10:20
And children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder. Ge 10:21
These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, according to their nations. Ge 10:31
As the generations unfolded, and children had children who had children, they spread out to different lands, languages developed, and people groups formed. This is how the people groups we have today came to be. And this dividing and creation of new cultures is good! This is what God intended.
Yes, God will make one people of all these people groups, but they will not be homogenized into one singular culture. The tapestry of language differences and cultural differences is something GOOD that God planned for. We should enjoy them and not despise them.
As these nations unfolded, what exactly was God doing? What would He do as the people scattered and separated out into the individual people groups? What is His end goal with the nations?
God desires a covenant relationship with us.
Let us look at Genesis 9.
So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.Ge 9:1.
And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, Ge 9:9
Why does God want Noah and his sons to obey him in filling the earth? Because those are His ways of blessing us and knowing us. God wants His people that KNOW Him and walk with Him to expand and flourish. He wants to bless them and use them.
We refer back to our key in Acts, helping us to understand Genesis 11.
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; Ac 17:26-27
Why did God "arbitrarily" command for Noah and his descendants to fill the earth? Because that was His plan for people to seek Him. He knows best. He wants to bless us, for us to experience full life. God wants you to flourish. He wants the BEST. And as Paul says, He is not far from each one of us.
All it takes is repentance and dependence upon Him.
We can get caught up in all the questions, demanding to know the rationale behind God's rules. Why can't these people be "happy?" Why can't we just "love" one another the way that we want? Why can't I just be who I truly am?
Job asked similar questions. In fact, questions that are quite common today. "How can you let this happen?" "Why do good people experience such pain?" "Why do evil people get away with their horrible abuse?"
These are good questions and there is a lot of good that can be done in asking and talking about them. But God's answer is not a giant flow chart in the sky, justifying His decision-making process.
His answer is a whirlwind. A minuscule demonstration of His raw power. His answer is to show Job who. He. is.
God is not like us. Do God's thoughts even work the same way? Does He have grey matter with electromagnetic pulses and neurons firing? Are there synapses in some giant brain somewhere making connections so God can think?
No. He is God. And what He wants us to know is this: He is in control. He is working all things together for a good that is way fuller and deeper and richer than the goods that we naturally long for. And last but not least, He is at hand. He wants to know us. And He is right there.
Will you turn to Him? Yes, following Jesus does come with a lot of implications. God does and will ask things of you. But the reason is because He wants You for His glory.
So now that we understand that God's command to fill the earth was an offer to enter into a relationship with Him, let us drill down on how the people responded.
Humans rebel by rejecting His covenant and competing with Him.
And how do the people respond to God's invitation to know Him?
Let's reorient ourselves in the text.
I can imagine someone who reads this text thinking, now, I get that they did not obey God's command, but how is this rebellious? Are they not allowed to just do their own thing? Is God not big enough to allow others to build something separate from Him? Why does it bother Him if something is not done His way and done for Him?
I think we find an answer to that in the text.
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And 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. Ge 11:5–6
This is not words of insecurity, but of compassion and care. He knows what will happen if they continue down this path because it has already happened.
We have seen a city built by humans without God before. Do you remember the last time that cities were mentioned by Moses in this book? It was Cain.
And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. Ge 4:17
And what happens from there? The descendants of Cain progress in their wickedness. We have seen the downward spiral of destruction, corruption, and degeneracy. They become animals as they treat others like animals. They become perverse and sexually deviant. It is so repugnant to God that He destroys the world in the flood. All of that started in a city made by a man who went out from the presence of the Lord.
This is where rebellion against God always ends. And humanity keeps doing the same thing over and over and over. What we have to see is that this is what we do. Listen to what they said:
3 Then 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. 4 And 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.” Ge 11:3–4
The motivation of humanity in Genesis 3 was to usurp God’s role. To pursue wisdom outside of God’s. To trust in another source of true goodness than God. And a different purpose, their own glory. Not God's. The same thing was true in Genesis 4, and now in Genesis 11.
You see when you try to build anything without God, something is taking His place. Whether it is self, another person, another goal, another desire, whatever the case is, something is taking God's place.
Neutrality is a myth. Either you are building God's kingdom, or someone else's. Either your city is God's or it is someone else's. Either you are making God's name great, or you are making your own great. Everything we build without God’s help, and everything we build for any reason that is not God is competing with Him.
And finally, either you are thriving, building God’s kingdom and living for Him, or you’re heading for self-destruction. There are only two ways this all ends. Either life or death.
God saw that with the people on the plain of Shinar. So God did something.
In mercy, God intervenes to save humanity from itself.
There is an interesting literary irony we find in Genesis 11. Look in verse 3.
Come, let us - vs. 3
Come, let us - vs. 4
Come, let us - vs. 7
God is mocking the confidence that the people have in their working together. It’s like when children make a plan together to build a fort in the woods. What we see is the futility of their efforts.
Another irony we find is the near homophones in this narrative. The word that is translated “make bricks" is similar to the Hebrew word for "folly," and similar to the word for "confuse" that God uses in verse 7. What we see in the people of Babel is unwitting foolishness. They have no idea how badly wrong they are, and they trust in the wrong things. They trust in their own efforts. They trust in bricks and asphalt, thinking they can secure themselves and prosper because they can build a city.
In Babel, we see ourselves. We see our own efforts to make a life. We see our misguided trust in our jobs to make money, and our 401K’s and IRA’s to build a retirement account. We trust in the approval of others to make us feel good. We trust in alcohol, narcotics, depressants and antidepressants. We trust even in family and our children to give us what we need.
Sometimes we trust in a safe and comfortable life to protect us from the risks of living by faith. We disobey God in our finances, material possessions, thoughts, words, ethics, because we are terrified of what we might lose if we obey Him.
Some of us might trust in our own anger and bitterness to fulfill some need to feel vindicated. Some of us might trust in our sexual lust to satisfy our desires.
You see, we build little Babels in our lives all the time. And whether we realize it or not, like the early Babylonians, we are confused. The word Babel/Babylon is similar to the Hebrew word for “confused.”
Conclusion
To lean back into the parent dynamic… Have you ever been the one working on something while the other parent is responsible for the children, and via conspicuous noises you realize you need to intervene? For my movie people, I think about when Mr. Incredible is at the table with his family, and Mrs. Incredible is struggling with the children and she says, “Bob, I need you to intervene.”
He says, “You want me to intervene? Ok. I’m intervening!”
Is it ever convenient to intervene as a parent? No! When we do it well, we do it because we love our families.
And God, in His love. Comes down. Aren’t you so glad that He does that?
We praise God because He comes down. He came down ultimately at the cross. He intervened to pay for our rebellion in sending His Son, Jesus Christ.
My call to everyone today is really the same. Repent of your Babylon. Today, this message may be God “intervening and confusing your language” to keep you from continuing down a path of pain and destruction.
Whether you have been a follower of Jesus for some time, or you are new to this, leave the bricks and asphalt behind, obey God. Trust in the God Who came down, and follow Christ.
Discussion Questions
Did your parents ever tell you as they were about to spank you, this is gonna hurt you more than it will hurt me! I don’t know if that was true for me.
Have you ever thought about how much you learn by teaching? Whether you’re a manager, a vocational teacher, a parent, we learn as we teach. At least we do, if we’re worth our salt.
One lesson I have learned as a youth pastor and a father is how holding the line on the boundaries is not easy. Letting the people who don’t know any better have their way is the easy way out. I have learned that if I love my kids, I will get off my rear end and discipline them. I will enforce the rules in our home. And to do otherwise, is selfish.
We will understand how this story reveals the petulant rebellion of man, and God’s response of loving mercy.
God established nations for humanity to seek Him.
What is happening in this story that Moses wants to tell us? What is the conflict? Well, in chapter 9, God tells Noah and his sons, and therefore, his descendants to do something. It is the same job he gave to Adam and Eve. They are to fill the earth.
So what do the people in Genesis 11 do instead? They stay together. They begin building a city and tower on the plain of Shinar. They are not expanding but fortifying themselves together in one place. They remain unified as one group of people. Now what would have happened if they had done as God had said and spread out? I want to answer that question but to make sure we really understand what the answer means, I want to go to Acts.
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; Ac 17:26-27
This passage is actually a kind of shortcut to understanding Genesis 11 and what is really going on here. We'll refer back to it again and again.
But this is what would have happened had they obeyed God because this is what happened when God handcuffed them and graciously pressed them to do what He had intended. Look at verse 26:
"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,"
They go from one blood (Noah) into separate nations. Separate people groups. Now, it is important to understand one thing, and I think maybe we get this on some level at least. Nations or the Greek word, ethnos, as it was originally written in the New Testament is not a reference to political states. It is a reference to people groups which form in geographic locations. When Jesus speaks of proclaiming the Gospel, baptizing, and discipling the nations, he is not talking about going specifically to the offices of government officials and leaders, trying to make nations into Christian nations.
Jesus is talking about going to every people group or what, normally, at one point, were TRIBES and proclaiming the Gospel, seeking to make disciples of Jesus there, and baptizing them.
So Paul tells the people of Athens God is the one who established the nations. It was his plan for there to be separate distinct people groups, with different languages, cultures, industries, colors of skin, all of it! It is a part of God's beautiful and eminently wise plan.
This understanding sheds more light on Revelation 5:9. Though God Himself scattered the nations, He is bringing them back together in His own people, from all tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations.
1. The distinctions of people groups are good things.
2. We should celebrate the uniqueness of our own people groups, and appreciate the uniqueness of other people groups as well.
And when we look at the summary of what happened following these events at Babel, we see God doing exactly what Paul said, though we do not see God's hand explicitly in the text itself.
The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Ge 10:2
From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations. Ge 10:5
The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Ge 10:6
These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations. Ge 10:20
And children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder. Ge 10:21
These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, according to their nations. Ge 10:31
As the generations unfolded, and children had children who had children, they spread out to different lands, languages developed, and people groups formed. This is how the people groups we have today came to be. And this dividing and creation of new cultures is good! This is what God intended.
Yes, God will make one people of all these people groups, but they will not be homogenized into one singular culture. The tapestry of language differences and cultural differences is something GOOD that God planned for. We should enjoy them and not despise them.
As these nations unfolded, what exactly was God doing? What would He do as the people scattered and separated out into the individual people groups? What is His end goal with the nations?
God desires a covenant relationship with us.
Let us look at Genesis 9.
So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.Ge 9:1.
And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, Ge 9:9
Why does God want Noah and his sons to obey him in filling the earth? Because those are His ways of blessing us and knowing us. God wants His people that KNOW Him and walk with Him to expand and flourish. He wants to bless them and use them.
We refer back to our key in Acts, helping us to understand Genesis 11.
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; Ac 17:26-27
Why did God "arbitrarily" command for Noah and his descendants to fill the earth? Because that was His plan for people to seek Him. He knows best. He wants to bless us, for us to experience full life. God wants you to flourish. He wants the BEST. And as Paul says, He is not far from each one of us.
All it takes is repentance and dependence upon Him.
We can get caught up in all the questions, demanding to know the rationale behind God's rules. Why can't these people be "happy?" Why can't we just "love" one another the way that we want? Why can't I just be who I truly am?
Job asked similar questions. In fact, questions that are quite common today. "How can you let this happen?" "Why do good people experience such pain?" "Why do evil people get away with their horrible abuse?"
These are good questions and there is a lot of good that can be done in asking and talking about them. But God's answer is not a giant flow chart in the sky, justifying His decision-making process.
His answer is a whirlwind. A minuscule demonstration of His raw power. His answer is to show Job who. He. is.
God is not like us. Do God's thoughts even work the same way? Does He have grey matter with electromagnetic pulses and neurons firing? Are there synapses in some giant brain somewhere making connections so God can think?
No. He is God. And what He wants us to know is this: He is in control. He is working all things together for a good that is way fuller and deeper and richer than the goods that we naturally long for. And last but not least, He is at hand. He wants to know us. And He is right there.
Will you turn to Him? Yes, following Jesus does come with a lot of implications. God does and will ask things of you. But the reason is because He wants You for His glory.
So now that we understand that God's command to fill the earth was an offer to enter into a relationship with Him, let us drill down on how the people responded.
Humans rebel by rejecting His covenant and competing with Him.
And how do the people respond to God's invitation to know Him?
Let's reorient ourselves in the text.
I can imagine someone who reads this text thinking, now, I get that they did not obey God's command, but how is this rebellious? Are they not allowed to just do their own thing? Is God not big enough to allow others to build something separate from Him? Why does it bother Him if something is not done His way and done for Him?
I think we find an answer to that in the text.
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And 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. Ge 11:5–6
This is not words of insecurity, but of compassion and care. He knows what will happen if they continue down this path because it has already happened.
We have seen a city built by humans without God before. Do you remember the last time that cities were mentioned by Moses in this book? It was Cain.
And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. Ge 4:17
And what happens from there? The descendants of Cain progress in their wickedness. We have seen the downward spiral of destruction, corruption, and degeneracy. They become animals as they treat others like animals. They become perverse and sexually deviant. It is so repugnant to God that He destroys the world in the flood. All of that started in a city made by a man who went out from the presence of the Lord.
This is where rebellion against God always ends. And humanity keeps doing the same thing over and over and over. What we have to see is that this is what we do. Listen to what they said:
3 Then 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. 4 And 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.” Ge 11:3–4
The motivation of humanity in Genesis 3 was to usurp God’s role. To pursue wisdom outside of God’s. To trust in another source of true goodness than God. And a different purpose, their own glory. Not God's. The same thing was true in Genesis 4, and now in Genesis 11.
You see when you try to build anything without God, something is taking His place. Whether it is self, another person, another goal, another desire, whatever the case is, something is taking God's place.
Neutrality is a myth. Either you are building God's kingdom, or someone else's. Either your city is God's or it is someone else's. Either you are making God's name great, or you are making your own great. Everything we build without God’s help, and everything we build for any reason that is not God is competing with Him.
And finally, either you are thriving, building God’s kingdom and living for Him, or you’re heading for self-destruction. There are only two ways this all ends. Either life or death.
God saw that with the people on the plain of Shinar. So God did something.
In mercy, God intervenes to save humanity from itself.
There is an interesting literary irony we find in Genesis 11. Look in verse 3.
Come, let us - vs. 3
Come, let us - vs. 4
Come, let us - vs. 7
God is mocking the confidence that the people have in their working together. It’s like when children make a plan together to build a fort in the woods. What we see is the futility of their efforts.
Another irony we find is the near homophones in this narrative. The word that is translated “make bricks" is similar to the Hebrew word for "folly," and similar to the word for "confuse" that God uses in verse 7. What we see in the people of Babel is unwitting foolishness. They have no idea how badly wrong they are, and they trust in the wrong things. They trust in their own efforts. They trust in bricks and asphalt, thinking they can secure themselves and prosper because they can build a city.
In Babel, we see ourselves. We see our own efforts to make a life. We see our misguided trust in our jobs to make money, and our 401K’s and IRA’s to build a retirement account. We trust in the approval of others to make us feel good. We trust in alcohol, narcotics, depressants and antidepressants. We trust even in family and our children to give us what we need.
Sometimes we trust in a safe and comfortable life to protect us from the risks of living by faith. We disobey God in our finances, material possessions, thoughts, words, ethics, because we are terrified of what we might lose if we obey Him.
Some of us might trust in our own anger and bitterness to fulfill some need to feel vindicated. Some of us might trust in our sexual lust to satisfy our desires.
You see, we build little Babels in our lives all the time. And whether we realize it or not, like the early Babylonians, we are confused. The word Babel/Babylon is similar to the Hebrew word for “confused.”
Conclusion
To lean back into the parent dynamic… Have you ever been the one working on something while the other parent is responsible for the children, and via conspicuous noises you realize you need to intervene? For my movie people, I think about when Mr. Incredible is at the table with his family, and Mrs. Incredible is struggling with the children and she says, “Bob, I need you to intervene.”
He says, “You want me to intervene? Ok. I’m intervening!”
Is it ever convenient to intervene as a parent? No! When we do it well, we do it because we love our families.
And God, in His love. Comes down. Aren’t you so glad that He does that?
We praise God because He comes down. He came down ultimately at the cross. He intervened to pay for our rebellion in sending His Son, Jesus Christ.
My call to everyone today is really the same. Repent of your Babylon. Today, this message may be God “intervening and confusing your language” to keep you from continuing down a path of pain and destruction.
Whether you have been a follower of Jesus for some time, or you are new to this, leave the bricks and asphalt behind, obey God. Trust in the God Who came down, and follow Christ.
Discussion Questions
- What has teaching and leading others taught you about God’s loving care for you?
- What are the obstacles, internal or external, for us to rightly celebrate the distinctiveness of our people groups, and appreciate that of others?
- How can overcome these? What Christian principles help us to do this?
- In giving the Gospel to others, how do we handle questions like, “Why is God so arbitrary and controlling in His commandments?”
- Helpful hint: How can we incorporate a full understanding of His pursuit of covenant relationship with us into our response?
- Explain how some common temptations today actually lead to a dangerous downward spiral of self-destruction, like the pattern of competition with God that we see in Genesis.
- Can you remember any times in your life where God “confounded” your plans in His mercy?
Posted in Sermon Manuscript
Posted in Babel, Genesis, Old Testament, Rebellion, Sin, History, Nations, Languages, Sovereignty, Pride
Posted in Babel, Genesis, Old Testament, Rebellion, Sin, History, Nations, Languages, Sovereignty, Pride
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