The Tower Of Babel (MP 18)

Speaking one tongue and working together,
Noah’s seed multiplied and grew much advanced;
By group-think they even wondered whether
Man needed God; alone, he’d be enhanced!
Men made brick and planned a tow’r to reach God,
Thinking, “We don’t need Him!” The fruit of sin—
“Success’ in science; tech-gadgets e’er more odd—
Forbidden lore did Adam bequeath men!
So God confused their language, stopped the work;
They scattered from Babel, founded nations;
But from doubting God group-man did not shirk;
His ego could not bear the deflation!
Modern Man undid some atoms God made;
How long will God let Man His realm invade?

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 11:5-7 (NIV)
“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so that they will not understand each other.’ “

Commentary
The first few generations of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, tended to dwell together, for they spoke the same language. They gathered in a flat land called Shinar, which later became Babylon, and today is Iraq near the capital, Baghdad. As their numbers increased, so did their skills and knowledge. They discovered how to make better brick with which to build instead of animal skins for tents or crude stone. Having inherited the knowledge gained by Adam when he disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden tree, they became reckless in material development to the neglect of wisdom and maturity in the constructive uses of new technology. They built a city before learning to cope with the new problems a city instigates. With their new brick, they egotistically sought to build a tower to heaven and show God what man can do without His aid and counsel. God was not opposed to Man’s science or his progress in new technology. He is opposed to Man’s self pride and ambition to make himself equal to God or his desire to achieve sufficiency within himself by ignoring God. At Babel, He gave each man a different language; what would prove simple to overcome today proved an impossible obstacle then.

This experience at Babel, or Babylon, is indicative of the story of Man and science: Every time a new technology is achieved, its promise of making life easier is countered by the new problems Man faces brought about by the use of the new device. In no other half century in history has this conundrum been more glaringly illustrated than in 1950-2000. Television: We would see news events live while happening; watch movies in the comforts of home; invaluable aid to teachers in educating children; etc. Well, yea, all that, but more, too; pornography in the playroom; costume mishaps at the Super Bowl; profanity in elementary schools; married adults in America down to 52%, and break-up of the family; average time per day viewing TV per person 3.5 hours; etc. God is not opposed to technology; He is opposed to using new inventions without preparing safeguards to suppress the evil that comes with indiscriminate use of technology/

Add the internet and computers; cell phones, Ipods, and Blackberrys; patdowns and body scanners at every airport; and wars all over the planet, while North Korea and Iran develop atom bombs, just because the pressures of war led America to develop and use the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! How long will God allow Man to reverse what He did in putting atoms together with the Big Bang? The Genome Project: Man is trying to create life in a lab, and he’s not using dust of the earth, like God did. The heart of creation is combining atoms of varying weights into various combinations that produce new matter. Man is experimenting with creation, and he is much less prepared or able to cope with the results of what he creates than God was.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)