Bible Passage: Genesis 11:1-9
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: June 8, 2025

Bulletin June 8, 2025

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

When God created the first two human beings, he did something remarkable with them.  He talked with them.  This presupposes there was a common language spoken by God and Adam and Eve.  Both God and Adam and Eve knew the same vocabulary and the same grammar rules. What language did they speak in the Garden of Eden?  No idea.   Fast forward to today.  Linguists tell us there are now over 7000 languages on the earth!  Now, certain languages are similar and certain commonalities can be found.  For example, Spanish, French, and Italian are all from the same “language family.”  They are the “Romance languages,” descended from Latin.  Some estimate that there are over 400 of these “language families.”

So at this point, maybe you are asking yourself, “So how did we go from one language to over 7000?”  Welcome to Genesis 11!  It is the story of man’s pride and the Lord’s judgment.  It is the story of the origin of nations.  It is the story of the origin of different languages.  It is, sadly, the story of humanity Confused and Scattered.

Our text takes place four generations after the Great Flood at the time of Noah.  During these four generations, the growing number of people on the earth moved in an eastward drift until they came to a nice, open plain in Shinar.  Here they stop and propose an idea.  Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly (v. 3).  They had a plan for the bricks. 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. (v. 4)  They were going to use a new advancement in engineering.  Mud bricks fired in a furnace.  More uniform and stronger than rough stone.  It would allow them to build higher than ever before!

Now, when I was a kid and first learned this story, I imagined that they were proposing to build a tower into heaven, a tower where the elevator on the top floor opened into the lobby of  heaven.  That wasn’t their plan.  Here was the problem with their little plan.  After the Flood, the Lord God had told the people to spread out on the earth and fill it.  Now the people were saying in essence, “Let’s not!  Let’s stop right here!  We’ll build a city!  It can have a huge tower so we always can rally back to this place!”  Their plan was DEFIANCE of the Lord!

The LORD came down to see the city. (v. 5)  The LORD squinted to see man’s puny city.  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. (v. 6)  These words, too, are often misunderstood.  It sounds like God feels threatened by humanity.  He’s worried they will become too powerful.  That’s not what God is saying.  He’s saying if they build this city and tower, they are going to think they can do anything.  They are going to have even bigger bad ideas!

Any first-year teacher knows that you must break up certain alliances.  If you have all the naughty boys sitting in one corner of the room, you know that all kinds of bad ideas are going to be hatched from that corner.  Easy solution.  You break it up.  You “scatter” them in the classroom.  The Lord does the same.  To scatter them, he confuses their languages.  They could no longer work together.  Last weekend we helped our daughter and son-in-law move.  The family in the unit right next to them was also moving out.  They were Russian and spoke almost no English.  At the end, I offered the one man an extra box that we had.  He shook his head at me.  He couldn’t understand me.  We couldn’t even exchange a box!  Can you imagine trying to build a city together if you can’t communicate?  The work stopped.  The different groups moved on from the plain of Shinar.  Their folly forever known to the ages as “The Tower of Babel.”

Is there no good news for us in this text today?  There is a detail in this story we will miss if we are not careful.  And that is the name of God in the text.  Five times in this story he is called the LORD.  That is his Savior name in the Old Testament!  It is a name that emphasizes his faithful love.  The LORD confuses and scatters because he finally wants to save men!  He does not want us to succeed in our wild rebellion and go to hell.  He doesn’t want us to rally around a tower in Shinar, he wants all nations to rally around a cross and an empty tomb outside of Jerusalem!

And that is what today is all about.  On Pentecost, the LORD poured out the Holy Spirit on those first disciples so that they proclaimed the good news about Jesus in those different languages to the people in Jerusalem.  He equips the Church so she can make disciples of the confused and scattered nations!  Every confused and scattered nation has sin, so every confused and scattered nation needs just one thing, the forgiveness of sins that comes only in Christ crucified and risen!

Jesus Christ becomes the great “Rallying-point” of confused and scattered humanity!  Already in ancient times, the prophet Isaiah spoke in such terms.  In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. (Isaiah 11:10)  Jesus Christ is like a big flag unfurled on a mountain that the nations see and run to!  In Jesus, people of all nations come together in this one, big beautiful Church.  Paul wrote to the Ephesians, who were having some issues seeing the blessing of an ethnically blended Church:  There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)  And let us remember the final goal of the faithful love of the LORD.  It is that memorable scene from Revelation 7.  The story of Babel is finally and eternally undone in front of the Lamb in heaven. John writes:  After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb…and they cried out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb! (Revelation 7:9-10)  What language will it be?  Will it matter?

Amen.