“In the beginning” God created mankind and gave him a purpose to be fruitful, multiply and to subdue the earth, meaning to manage His creation. And since the beginning, man has been trying to thwart that purpose because of sin.

The story of the Tower of Babel is a prime example of how people get caught up in their own glory and defy God, thinking they can disobey Him without consequence.

After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and his family and commanded them:

Gen 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

As the population of the people grew, they began to congregate in one area and lost sight of God’s command to fill the earth.

Gen 11:1-9 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Albert Barnes has a very interesting commentary on this passage:

“The purpose of their hearts is now more fully expressed. “Let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may be in the skies.” A city is a fortified enclosure or keep for defense against the violence of the brute creation. A tower whose top may be in the skies for escape from the possibility of a periodical deluge. This is the language of pride in man, who wishes to know nothing above himself, and to rise beyond the reach of an over-ruling Providence. “And let us make us a name.” A name indicates distinction and pre-eminence. To make us a name, then, is not so much the cry of the multitude as of the few, with Nimrod at their head, who alone could expect what is not common, but distinctive. It is here artfully inserted, however, in the popular exclamation, as the people are prone to imagine the glory even of the despot to be reflected on themselves. This gives the character of a lurking desire for empire and self-aggrandizement to the design of the leaders – a new form of the same selfish spirit which animated the antediluvian men of name Gen 6:4. But despotism for the few or the one, implies slavery and all its unnumbered ills for the many. “Lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole land.” The varied instincts of their common nature here speak forth. The social bond, the tie of kinsmanship, the wish for personal safety, the desire to be independent, perhaps even of God, the thirst for absolute power, all plead for union; but it is union for selfish ends.”

Does that last line not sound like the secular humanism of our own time? Western civilization’s adoption of atheism, Marxism, transgenderism, and abortion has formed a deadly cesspool of sinfulness that cries out for judgement by a Holy God.

Unfortunately, even in America, the brainwashing of citizens through all of our institutions to believe in a man centered utopia that can solve all problems is a picture of another tower being built in which the people say “let’s make a name for ourselves”. Make no mistake, God will not be mocked.

The tower will never get built, because God’s judgement will come…