The Two Towers

2/15/26

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Sermon Transcript

Introduction

One thing we can certainly say about the book of Genesis is that it is filled with big events! From the creation of the universe in the first verse, we then see the fall of man, the great flood, the call of Abraham, and the arrival of Israel in Egypt. One big event after another!

I want us to look today at one of those big events from the pages of Genesis. Like the great flood, this event affected the entire world. And like the fall of man, this event is still affecting the entire world today. It is both one of the most important and one of the most unusual events in recorded history.

And what is this great event? It is the Tower of Babel. Please open your Bibles to Genesis 11, and look at the first nine verses.

My sermon title today is “The Two Towers,” and the Tower of Babel is the first of those two towers. And that first tower is a monument - a monument started by man and stopped by God. And, as with any monument, this monument has much to tell us. What can we learn from the Tower of Babel?

The Tower of Babel is a monument to the unity of man.

This first point is likely the one we most closely associate with this tower. The people of Babel were unified. God tells us that in verse 6 - “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language.”

And, on the surface, we might ask - what’s wrong with that? We usually view unity as a very good thing, but that is not always true. Sometimes unity is a very bad thing, and we see an example of that with the Tower of Babel.

But how can we tell? How can we know whether or not our unity is pleasing to God? There is a simple test - are we unified with God or are we unified against God?

Yes, God wants his people to be unified, but the people opposed to God are very often just as unified as we are. While the church is one people with God, the world is often one people against God. And that is nothing new - we see it right here in Genesis 11.

But, wait, some might say. What if everyone in the world was unified against God? Wouldn’t that change God’s mind? After all, if a million people told you were wrong about something, wouldn’t you start thinking they might be right? I mean, how could a million people be wrong? If the numbers are against us, shouldn’t we just join in with the majority?

I have made this next point before, but here it is again - the people of God have been in the majority only twice in human history - right after creation and right after the flood. At all other times, we have been a small minority in this world - what the Bible calls a remnant.

And, so, if we ever find ourselves in the majority, far from being reassuring, that should instead raise the alarm bells. That is what Jesus told us.

Luke 6:26 - Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

When we proclaim the whole counsel of God, we should expect to be very unpopular with the world.

John 15:19 - If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

And Paul tells us what God thinks about all of our polls and all of our votes.

Romans 3:4 - Let God be true though every one were a liar.

What that verse means is that every single person on planet earth could vote against God’s word, and it would not matter in any way. God’s word would still be true, and every single person on earth would be a liar.

That is the difference between living in a kingdom and living in a democracy. Many religious groups function today as a democracy in which truth is determined by popular vote - but the Lord’s church is a kingdom. We don’t have a vote; we have a king.

Now, if we are looking for a perfect example of how mankind can be unified against God, we can find it right here in Genesis 11. These people were one people who spoke one language and who had set out to accomplish one task. But that one task was not what God wanted them to do.

The history of man is all about the efforts of men to group themselves together and organize their lives apart from God. We see that here in Genesis 11, but we also see it even earlier. What is the first thing Cain did after killing his brother and going away from presence of God? He built a city (Genesis 4:17).

Why do people do that? Why do they huddle together away from the presence of God? Why do men seek safety in numbers? Because unity is powerful, and that is true whether the unity is good or bad. Unity is powerful even when people are unified against God. God tells us that right here in verse 6.

And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

So, yes, they were a unified people. And, yes, they were a powerful people. And, yes, they were a people with a plan. But, no, they were not a people pleasing to God. They were a people in rebellion against God.

The Tower of Babel has long since fallen to the ground, but that tower still stands today as a monument to the unity of man.

The Tower of Babel is a monument to the fear of man.

Why did the people decide to build that tower? What was their motivation? The Bible answers that question, and the answer is fear. They were motivated by fear.

Genesis 11:4 - 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.”

The people were fearful of being dispersed, and so they decided to the build this great tower to keep themselves all in one place.

Fear has always been a very common motivator - perhaps the most common motivator. Fear can get us moving when nothing else is able to do so.

Here, the people were afraid of being dispersed over the face of the earth. But what had God commanded them to do? God had commanded them to do just that - to fill the earth.

Genesis 9:1 - “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

The people feared the very thing that God had commanded them to do. They feared that what God wanted would come to pass.

And, of course, it did come to pass. Look at verse 8.

Genesis 11:8 - So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth.

What the people feared in verse 4 is precisely what happened to them in verse 8 - they were dispersed, just as God had commanded.

And that is a lesson that mankind has very frequently learned the hard way - God will always have the final word. Always.

We can run off like Cain and build our own city - but we can’t run forever. And we can all get together and build our own tower - but we can’t build forever. There is a day coming when our building will all come to an end. And on that day we will discover that what seemed so permanent was instead very fleeting.

And, again, that is nothing new - we see that same attitude here in Genesis 11. They thought their great tower would be a permanent solution to the problem they feared - but they had identified the wrong problem, they had experienced the wrong fear, and they had found the wrong solution. And what they feared came to pass - they were dispersed.

The Tower of Babel stands today as a monument to the fear of man.

The Tower of Babel is a monument to the will of man.

We see that in verses 3 and 4 - “Come, let us make bricks…” and “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens…”

Let us make. Let us build. Let us do what we want to do. Let us follow our own will, and not the will of God.

As we saw, God’s will was that they disperse. Their will was just the opposite - they wanted to settle down forever in one place. And, as it so often is, the will of man in Genesis 11 was the exact opposite of the will of God.

And here we see the great choice that stands before all mankind and that has always stood before all mankind - the great road sign with one arrow pointing left and the other arrow pointing right. The great choice that we face everyday - the choice between truth and desire.

Every sin we commit comes down to that single choice - truth or desire. That was true of mankind’s very first sin, when Eve saw “that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6). And that was true of every sin that has followed that first one. They have all followed that same pattern. God said this, but I desire that. Do I choose truth or desire? Here in Genesis 11 the people chose desire. Their will was guided by their own desire rather than by the truth that God had given them.

They made the wrong choice, and the tower they built still stands today as a monument to the will of man.

The Tower of Babel is a monument to the might of man.

We don’t know how tall that tower became before God put an end to its construction, but it must have been impressive given what God said about it in verse 6.

“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.

Nothing will be impossible for them. What we see in that description is the might of man, the power of man, and the ability of man. Those are all gifts from God - gifts that we still enjoy today.

And is there a better time than today to understand what God meant when he said that nothing they proposed to do will be impossible for them? If we want to see examples of the might of man, the power of man, and the ability of man, is there a better time in the history of the world than today?

In about a generation, we have gone from traveling by horse to traveling to the moon. We have gone from writing letters to writing emails. We have gone from oil lamp to atomic power. We have gone from telegraph to cell phone. We have gone from newspapers to the Internet. Just like the people of Genesis 11, we are busy making and we are busy building.

And while those great innovations may have come as a surprise to us, it was no surprise to God. God knows exactly what we are able to do; God knows what we have the power to do; God knows the might of man. God knows these things about us because God created us. God gave us these abilities.

And, yet, God also gave us limitations. We may not always know our limitations or acknowledge them, but God does. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).

The Bible tells us that there is one problem that mankind will never solve on its own despite the ability of man, the power of man, and the might of man. No matter how brilliant we may be or may become, we will never solve the problem of death. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” - and to dust we shall return.

And, yes, I know there are some today who think otherwise. Some today who believe they will finally solve that problem of death - but we know that they will not. How do we know that? We know that because their plans to conquer death will all run head first against the unchanging eternal word of God.

Hebrews 9:27 - And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.

Our life on this earth is limited, and there is nothing mankind can ever do to change that. “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That is what God told Adam in Genesis 3:19.

We will never solve that problem on our own. We will never solve that problem apart from God. We can try with all of our might to make this world a perfect place to live, but this sin-soaked world will never be perfect no matter how hard we try. “Cursed is the ground because of you.” That is what God told Adam in Genesis 3:17.

But the people at Babel rejected all of that. They were trying to dwell forever in their perfect city here on earth. They were seeking permanence and stability. They were building with bricks! And, no doubt, the first thing they built for that tower was a strong foundation so that it could stand forever.

But there is no strong foundation apart from God. There can be no strong foundation on a planet that will one day be destroyed. There is no security in towers that will be burned up. Apart from God, we are all just fools building our houses on sand (Matthew 7:26).

The only firm foundation is the foundation that God provides for his people (2 Timothy 2:19). Everything else is just a man-made tower of Babel. And what man has made will fall. What man has made will burn. What man has made will corrode. Nothing man-made will last.

And the tower of Babel still stands today as a monument to the might of man.

The Tower of Babel is a monument to the pride of man.

We have gone from the will of man to the might of man and now to the pride of man - and isn’t that always the path of man! From my will, to my might, to my pride? That is the same path we see here in Genesis 11.

A common misconception about the Tower of Babel is that the people were trying to build a tower up to Heaven so that that they could reach God. But there is nothing in the text that says that. The word “heaven” or “heavens” in verse 4 just means that they wanted this tower to be a very tall tower.

But why? Why did they want such a tall tower? The Bible answers that question in verse 4.

Genesis 11:4 - 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.”

Let us make a name of ourselves! That is pretty far from the idea that they were building this tall tower so they could somehow be closer to God! They were not building this tower for God; they were building this tower for themselves. That is what verse 4 tells us.

They wanted to make a name for themselves. And how did that work out for them? What was the name of the people? What was the name of their leader? What was the name of their chief architect? What was the name of their construction foreman? We don’t know, and I think that is intentional.

Why intentional? Because if you look at Genesis 10, just about all you see are names. And if you look at the remainder of Genesis 11, just about all you see are names. But how many names do we see in the description of this tower? Not a single one beyond the name of the land where they settled - Shinar - and the name that God gave to their city - Babel. Not a single person who had anything to do with that city or that tower is named in the Bible.

They wanted that tower to make them famous. They wanted their names to be remembered for all time. But that did not happen. Their names are forgotten.

And yet there is someone in the very next chapter of Genesis who is very famous. Someone whose name is still known today by everyone 4000 years after his birth. Someone whose name is great.

Genesis 12:1-2 - Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

Well, what’s the difference? Why were the names of the builders of Babel forgotten while Abraham’s name was not? We just read the answer to that question: God said, I will make your name great! Abraham did not try to make a name for himself. Instead, God made a name for Abraham! That is the difference between Genesis 11 and Genesis 12!

The tower of Babel is a monument to the pride of man. A monument to man’s desire to make a name for himself. They were building that tower, not to reach God, but to rival God. Not to honor God, but to honor themselves.

And the sad truth is that the people in Genesis 11 trying to make a name for themselves already had a name. In fact, the people in Genesis 11 building that tower already had a tower!

Proverbs 18:10 - The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.

They had the name of God, and so they already had a strong tower. But they rejected God. They disobeyed God. They rebelled against God. They rejected the tower of God for their own man-made tower. Why? Because they wanted to make a name for themselves. Because they were filled with pride.

Perhaps they thought that their tower would stand forever - but they were wrong. There is but one eternal kingdom - and it was not built by man (Daniel 2:45). Instead, that one eternal kingdom was established by Christ in Acts 2. The church of Christ is the only eternal kingdom, and it will outlast and crush every man-made kingdom.

The church was established in Acts 2 - and what else happened in Acts 2? What happened is that all of the languages of man finally came back to a single voice! “We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11).

And in that verse we find a beautiful truth about the church - what God dispersed at Babel, God gathered at Pentecost. And in the church we again find one people speaking one language - but we are unified with God rather than against God, and our strong tower comes neither from the mind of man nor the might of man.

My sermon today is entitled The Two Towers, but so far we have looked at only one tower. What is the second tower?

Jesus told us about the second tower in Luke 14.

Luke 14:28-30 - For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

This second tower has something in common with the first tower. Both towers were left unfinished.

The first tower was left unfinished because God stopped it, but the second tower was left unfinished because the builder stopped it. God wanted the first tower to be stopped, but God wants this second tower to be finished.

And what is this second tower? Jesus tells us in the previous verse.

Luke 14:27 - Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

That is the tower we all must build. That is the tower we all must finish. And that tower is following Christ while bearing our own cross. That tower is walking by faith. That tower is to trust and obey.

I know that most of us here today are doing that. I know that most of us here today have already obeyed the gospel of Christ. We have counted the cost, and we are following Christ in faith, trust, and obedience.

But I suspect there are some here today who have not done that and who are not doing that. I suspect there are some here today who have not finished that tower. Some who have not counted the cost.

Why? What is keeping you from completing that tower? What caused you to stop and turn back before it was finished? Why have you not obeyed the gospel? Why have you not been baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins?

Are you thinking about it this morning? There will never be a better opportunity, and there may not ever be another opportunity.

And, yes, we must count the cost before we take up our cross and follow Christ - but there is also a cost for not following Christ. Have you counted the cost?

Or are you making your own plans and building your own towers apart from God? Are you relying on God, or are you relying on yourself? We know that is what the world is doing. We know that is what the world has always been doing. But what are you doing? Are you following the world, or are you following Christ?

Do you want permanence? Do you want security? Do you want a name? God will give you all of that and more when you obey the gospel of Christ. When you arise a new creature from the waters of baptism, God will transfer you to his eternal kingdom, and God will set you on a firm foundation. God will give you a strong tower that will never fall. If that is what you want, please come!