Green Baggins

Genesis 11:1-9
Some people say that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. If that is true of two countries that both speak English (although our English friends would disagree that we speak English), how much more is confusion possible when there is not a common language. But there was a time when confusion of tongues was nonexistent. “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.”

We have seen last time just how divided the world is by the time Moses writes. There are different nations all over the place. Seventy nations, in fact. Now we come to the explanation of how all that diversity came about. In other words, chapter 11 happened before chapter 10. It is important to ask “Why did Moses write it this way?” The answer is that the ambition of the people of Babel looks pretty stupid after you have read chapter 10.

One interesting fact that we must keep in mind is that Noah is still alive at the time of the tower of Babel. In 10:25, we learn that the division of the world took place in the lifetime of Peleg. Noah outlives Peleg by 40 years, and most likely the tower occurred early in Peleg’s life. Therefore, Noah would have continued to be that preacher of righteousness that he had been before the Flood, preaching to all his grandsons and great-grandsons, etc. One writer estimated that if each family had eight children, assuming about 30 years for the start of each new generation, then there would be 30,000 people at the time of the tower of Babel. Nimrod was also alive at this time, since he founded Babylon, and went off to found Nineveh after the dispersion at Babel. Noah and Nimrod were opponents, then, in this whole affair. This is another example of the combat of the two seeds that we have seen already quite a few times, and will continue to see all through Genesis. Here at the Tower of Babel, we see a very strong statement of the seed of the serpent. Babel’s sin is the sin of Adam, ultimately a sin of idolatry, wanting to take God off His throne, and put ourselves there instead.

Our passage forbids us to try to achieve any kind of world unity that leaves God out of the picture. In Daniel 4:30, Nebuchadnezzar boasts about his power in just this way. This is the kingdom that he built, and that his might and power accomplished. That very day God took away the kingdom from him until he acknowledged that God gave power to rulers on this earth.

Now, there is nothing like this story in any of the stories of the Ancient Near East (ANE). The reason for that is that the ANE thought in quite a different direction than Israel did. People believed that building such buildings as these could get them in touch with the gods. The Babylonian version of this building is called a ziggurat, like the picture given above. A ziggurat is like a pyramid, only it has stairs going around the outside, climbing all the way to the top. It has seven floors, representing the seven planets and the gods that go along with those seven planets. The inside of the ziggurat is not hollow like the pyramids, but is instead filled in with dirt. On the top of the ziggurat is a temple, representing the entrance into heaven itself. It was thought that if a person climbed that ziggurat, he could have an entrance into heaven. Babylonians believed that the gods built such structures, not men. As such, ziggurats were a gateway to the gods. In fact, that is what the name “Babylon” meant in the Babylonian tongue. It is highly ironic that the Babylonians wanted to build something that resulted in having a gateway to heaven (Babel), but all they got was what the name meant in Hebrew: confusion. It was the Hebrew definition of Babel that won out in the end, not the Babylonian.

Babel was a sign of human rebellion. That rebellion showed itself in two ways: by trying to get to heaven in another way than God had commanded, and by misusing God’s good gift of language. Language had been given as a gift to mankind in order that man might communicate with one another, and mankind misused that gift by trying to put one over on God, the giver of the gift.

God had commanded mankind to multiply and to fill the earth. That is something they were not doing. In fact, they fear to do that. In verse 4 we see the real motivation of the builders: “let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” Notice that they do not ask God about this project. They know that it is rebellion against God, and so they attempt this building project on their own. As Psalm 127 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” That is certainly true here. They start without God’s approval, and so they will end without God’s mercy. This provides us with a great contrast: in chapter 12 verse 2, we see God saying to Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Notice that Babel does their thing on its own, whereas for Abraham, God does it. Notice that Babel wants to make its own name, whereas for Abraham God will make his name great. Notice that Babel wants to do this for itself, whereas Abraham is to be a blessing for others. The contrast between Abraham and Babel could not be made any clearer than that.

So the people of Babel make bricks, and they burn the bricks. That means a relatively stable building material. There were no stones in this area of the Middle East, and so one had to use sand, straw and water to make bricks. This is exactly the same kind of bricks that the Israelites had to make later. But in Israel, there were plenty of stones. Stone is a superior building material to brick, because stone is not so brittle. That is the significance of the end of verse 3: they had brick instead of stone (like the Israelites had). They also had bitumen instead of the better binder mortar. They had tar instead of mortar.

In verse 4 we have the motives for what these people are doing, as we said before. They want to build this skyscraper in order that they might have a name for themselves. They want to be remembered for something. Lots of people are like this. The heroes of old, in Genesis 6 were men of renown, literally men of name. Pharaoh wanted to build towers very much like the Babylonians. He made the Israelites build the bricks. He did this because he feared that the Israelites would multiply and overpower the Egyptians. People today build many empires for themselves, whether farming, or industrial, or religious, or any number of areas. People want to be famous. That is what “having a name for themselves” means. These kind of people want to build their empire up to the heavens to defy death and God. They want to be God themselves. “There are many people even today who in imitation of them want to be remembered for such achievements, by building splendid homes, baths, porches and avenues. I mean, if you were to ask each of them why they toil and labor and lay out such great expense to no good purpose, you would heart nothing but these very words. They would be seeking to. Ensure that their memory survives in perpetuity and to have it said that ‘this is the house belonging to so-and-so,’ ‘this is the property of so-and-so.’ This, on the contrary, is worthy not of commemoration but of condemnation.” Chrysostom. You really have to wonder sometimes at the motives of those people who want to build the tallest building in the world. Are they not doing the very same thing, and for the very same reasons? Now, this story is not saying that cities are bad in and of themselves. Indeed, the story is really saying that any empire we would want to build apart from God is doing what the tower builders were doing.

One of the motives here recorded is that they did not want to be scattered. As we have seen, that is resistance to God’s will to multiply and fill the earth. There is a kind of unity that God wills in His Word. That is the unity of Jesus Christ. There is only one way to climb to heaven, and it isn’t by doing it ourselves, but rather riding on the back of Jesus Christ, who has gone through the heavens. That is the only unity that we can have today. We cannot have peace, for instance, through the United Nations. They are trying to build a foundation of peace without having God build the foundation on top of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone of the church.

That is why God laughs and mocks all attempts to climb to heaven on our own. Look at verse 5. God has to come down from heaven even to be able to see this paltry little building that man built (not the gods). God does not come down because He is near-sighted. Rather, it is because He dwells so far off from us that there is no way this puny little building will ever reach Him. Isaiah 40:22 says this: “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” These grasshoppers can try all they want to build a temple. But it will never even begin to approach the grandeur of heaven and earth. Now, God takes this project seriously, even if Moses does not. Moses mocks the Babylonians and their puny efforts. But God is concerned about humanity. He does not want them to achieve complete independence. Understand here that God does not feel threatened by the tower of Babel. God is not at a loss as to how to deal with these people. Rather, God is concerned that the builders will try to achieve everything themselves, such that they forget God entirely. What God did was really an act of grace. People are by definition dependent on God. If they try to throw off that dependency, they will destroy themselves. So God is preventing them from destroying themselves. And so God did something better than to merely knock down the tower, which was one possible response. That would only have been a temporary solution to the problem. Instead, God did something more permanent, though not totally permanent, as we will see. God confused their language. One day, minding his own business (and not God’s), one worker wakes up one morning to find that he is watching a foreign movie with no sub-titles!

What God is saying here is that God is the only one who can determine where the gate to heaven is. That gate is Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” We cannot see God, except through Jesus. We cannot communicate with God or speak God’s language, unless we believe in Jesus Christ. One of the many reasons why Christ came to earth to save sinners is so that these boundaries between nations could be broken down, and a new unity achieved by God. It is called the church. As a down-payment on that complete unity, God gave the Holy Spirit to the church at Pentecost. Pentecost was a reversal of the tower of Babel. Instead of everyone being confused by one another’s foreign language, everyone at Pentecost was able to hear the Gospel in his own language. Jesus had commanded his disciples to scatter over the face of the earth, and bring unity in Jesus Christ through preaching and making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Great Commission spells the end of the tower of Babel syndrome. That is our call. We are to end that tower of Babel syndrome. Zephaniah 3:9-11 says this: “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. “On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain.” We are not build castles in the air, trying to reach heaven. That means we are not to try to build a kingdom here on earth, whether it is by building a farm empire, or building a reputation in some way, or by stealing from others what does not belong to us. If only we would be concerned about God’s name, then we would not be so concerned about our own. The irony is that when we do that, God gives us a new name in heaven, written on a stone, one that shall never be forgotten. We can only get it by belonging to Jesus Christ, and finding our identity there.

Now picture the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. There is only one language in the new Jerusalem. All will speak it. Only then will the effects of Babel be completely reversed. That is what we are waiting for. We must join in the city of God, not the babble of Babel.

Genesis 9:18-29
Some of us might be wondering why I am preaching on this scandalous text. Why not rather skip it, and go on to something less provocative, like the genealogies of chapter ten. The answer is, “Read the rest of the sermon before you make up your mind.” “ALL Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” All Scripture means this Scripture as well. This passage of Scripture is useful for us. If we think that we should ignore it, then we really do not have a high enough view of Scripture. There are many things about this passage that are mysterious. I hope to clear up some of these mysteries without giving offense.

Our passage starts out by making a point about the three sons of Noah. ALL of humanity comes from Noah. This is explicitly stated in verse 19: “the people of the whole earth were dispersed from these.” There is no people group on earth that did not come from Noah and his three sons. This contradicts directly what many people think about humanity. Many people think that not everyone came from Adam and Noah. They deny the unity of the human race. Scripture is very clear about the implications of the unity of the human race. Just as we all sinned in Adam, as Romans 5 says, so also Jesus Christ redeemed a new humanity for Himself. But if humanity is not unified in its origin, then Christ could not have died for the sins of the world. Christ died for people who had sinned in Adam. Christ was a “federal head,” just as Adam was. A federal head means someone that represents other people, much like a representative in our government. The decision a representative makes is the decision that the people who elected the representative make. So also, when Adam sinned, he made that decision for the entire human race. So also, when Christ obeyed, He obeyed for the new human race that is to be found in Christ by faith. If all humanity did not come from one man, then this kind of representation would be impossible. This kind of representation is vital for understanding the incident in Noah’s tent, because Moses is asking this question, “Did sin survive the Flood?” The answer, of course, is “yes.” Therefore, sin will be passed on to all of Noah’s descendents. We all sinned in Adam, and we all sinned in Noah.

Moses asks the question whether Noah is really that man that Lamech hoped he would be. You remember in Genesis 5:29, Lamech says about Noah, “Our of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” Lamech hoped that Noah would be the one to reverse the curse that God had placed on the ground, and on Adam for his sin. Lamech hoped that Noah would be the seed to crush the head of the serpent. This story proves that Noah was not that man, and that another would be needed.

And now we come to the story itself. Now we have to see a few things first before we get to the story. First, Noah is a new Adam. Picture Noah in a brand new creation. He was the progenitor of the entire human race. Adam was tempted by eating, and Noah would be tempted by drinking. Notice the similarity in the two stories of Adam’s fall and Noah’s fall. Both involve a realization of nakedness. Both involve a covering of that nakedness. Both stories have a curse and a blessing attached to it. Both involve a kind of knowledge. The story here is a second Fall story. We must understand that in order to see its significance for us.

It says that Noah became a man of the soil. He was a farmer. Furthermore, he planted a vineyard. After the fruit had matured, Noah made wine from the grapes, and drank too much. We do not know how much he drank, whether he was extremely drunk, or only mildly so. It does not matter much. The point is that Noah drank enough to become sleepy. We know this, because of verse 24, which says that Noah awoke. Wine does tend to make a person sleepy. And in verse 21, we see that Noah was in his own tent, and lay uncovered. We do not know whether Noah intentionally uncovered himself, or whether it was an accident caused by his falling asleep.

Along comes Ham. Perhaps he wanted to talk to his father about something. He might have come upon his father by accident. But it was what he did after he saw his father that was important. The fundamental problem with what Ham did was that he dishonored his father. He disobeyed the fifth commandment, which says “Honor your father and your mother.” He is guilty of not loving his neighbor as himself. For “love covers over a multitude of transgressions.” Instead of covering up his father, or leaving immediately, which would have been less honoring, but at least no one would know about it, Ham does the most dishonoring thing imaginable. He tells the whole world (which at that time consisted of his brothers) about his father’s shame. It is important to realize also that Ham was not a juvenile delinquent at this time. Most likely, he was 80 or 90 years old. Ham knew exactly what he was doing. He deliberately told his brothers about their father, probably with scorn and derision. At this point, Shem and Japheth give each other “the look.” They realized instantly what their brother was up to. They knew that Ham knew what he was doing. Nakedness was a very shameful thing in that culture, as in ours, although that sense of shame seems to be eroding in our culture, given what people wear nowadays. But nakedness was a very shameful thing in that time period.

Shem and Japheth then decide to do the most honorable thing that they could do. They cover their father’s shame. Now, the Hebrew says “Shem and Japheth took the garment.” It was not just any old garment that they took. They took the very garment that had been clothing Noah before, and which Ham had taken out of the tent to show to his brothers. It was that very cloth that Shem and Japheth took to cover their father. Notice how carefully they accomplish this task. They walked backward, with the garment on their shoulders, and their faces were turned away such that they did not see their father’s nakedness. What infinite pains they took to honor their father! They wanted to make sure that there would be no mistakes.

Noah wakes up and somehow finds out about what Ham did to him. Probably his sons told him, or maybe their wives. But he did find out. Probably Ham thought that Noah would not find out. Sin loves the cover of darkness. But ironically, it is Ham’s sin that is uncovered and laid out for all to see. It is Ham’s sin that winds up naked and exposed. Truth always wants to come to the light. Truth has nothing to hide. But sin will be found out, even if it thinks it will not be found out. On judgment day, there will be many people whose sins will be recounted to them, to their utter and eternal shame. They thought that they got away with it. But they did not, because God sees all. Perhaps that is the best answer as to how Noah found out about what Ham had done: God told him.

Noah curses Ham and blesses Shem and Japheth. Three times Noah says, “Let Canaan be their servant.” Now, we must set this passage in its appropriate context. Noah is NOT saying that the Negroid race will be cursed forever, and thus this passage justifies slavery. This passage is not talking about Africans here. This passage is talking about the Canaanites. Notice that Ham is not cursed, but rather Canaan, his youngest son. Because Ham dishonored his father, Ham’s son would receive the consequences. Probably Noah saw already the tendencies in Canaan, his grandson that were so like his father Ham. Like father, like son. Moses is thinking here of the inhabitants of the promised land. Let’s not forget that Moses is writing this to the generation that is about to go into the promised land. So, Moses is here talking about the inhabitants of Canaan, NOT all the descendents of Ham, which would include Africa.

Noah blesses Japheth by using a word play. The word “enlarge” sounds just like the name “Japheth.” Noah blesses here the territory of Japheth. Ultimately, the promise is fulfilled when the Gentiles are brought into the kingdom. Letting Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem is what happened when the Gentiles were brought into the kingdom of God, when Jesus broke down the barrier between the two. There is now therefore, no Jew or Greek, for all are one in Christ Jesus.

Going back to our possible reaction to this story. If we feel uncomfortable about this story, I suggest that we see our discomfort in a new way. If we are embarrassed about the nakedness of Noah, let us remember that without God’s covering us with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we are naked and ashamed. We are in Noah’s position. We next have to realize that Jesus suffered this same shame on the cross. Most pictures we see of Christ on the cross have a loin-cloth for the sake of modesty. Most likely, Jesus was completely naked on the cross. The soldiers divided up Jesus’ clothing amongst themselves. Jesus took wine-vinegar on the cross. Those who were of the seed of the serpent said, “Let God deliver Him, if He delight in Him.” They scorned him, even as Ham scorned his father. But those upon whom God had mercy said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The scene of Noah is replayed at the cross. But it was our nakedness, and our shame, and our sin, that Jesus took upon Himself. Most of us tend to think of the cross as a piece of jewelry. In the first century, if someone were to wear a cross as a piece of jewelry, that would be like someone today wearing a sign that says, “Enron rules.” It is difficult to think of an example today, because our society has lost most of its sense of shame. The call for us to realize our nakedness, and fly to the only person who can clothe us: Jesus. Jesus can clothe us in the righteousness that He earned, taking our sin upon Himself. That makes us right with God. We need that. Without it, we are naked before the wrath of Almighty God. We have only a fearful expectation of judgment. We can only try to hide in the midst of the trees, and say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” but it will do us no good. God’s wrath will find us out. Our sin will be exposed. Are we covered?

For those of us who are covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, there are several implications for our lives that can be gleaned from this text. The first is that the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman exist in us simultaneously. You see, both Ham and Shem came from Noah. They are both present in Noah. So it is with us. Although our sinful nature has received its death blow when we became converted to Jesus, still that seed of the serpent thrashes around in its death throws, trying to make us disobey God’s Word. It is inside us that this battle is raging. What we want is for our sinful nature to be the servant of servants. We want it to cow-tow to the Holy Spirit who resides in us. We want eventually for our sinful nature to be driven out altogether, just as the Israelites were supposed to do to the Canaanites. It is spiritual warfare. This warfare exists. It does not matter how experienced we are in the Christian life, this battle rages on. Indeed, for mature Christians, there is more temptation. It is all too easy to think that we have arrived, that there are no more battles left to fight. Then we let down our guard. Then we fall prey to gossip, or slander, or covetousness, or greed, or any number of things. We can even justify these sins in our own minds by thinking that they are not as bad as the sins of youth, whatever those are. Let us not do that. Let us keep pressing on toward the prize, for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. We have not already attained the prize. We ONLY attain that prize when we are with the Lord.

Let me say just a quick word about alcohol, for it is in the text. The Bible is exceptionally clear about four things having to do with alcohol. The first is that alcohol is not intrinsically evil. Jesus would not have turned water into wine, the Psalms would not say “Wine gladdens the heart of man, and is a gift of God,” and Paul would not have told Timothy to drink some wine for his stomach, if wine were evil in and of itself. The Bible is clear about this. The second thing that is that drunkenness is a sin. It occurs in nearly every one of the lists in the “sin” lists of the NT. Proverbs has much to say about being wary of the wine “biting like a serpent.” Paul says that he will not be mastered by anything. The Bible is very clear about this. The third thing the Bible is very clear about is that it is very easy to abuse this gift from God. Wine is very good at loosing one’s control of oneself. It is very easy to keep on drinking. It is just here that wine can be so dangerous. We have to remember that abusing one of God’s gifts is a double slap in God’s face. Not only are we sinning by losing control of ourselves (and this usually leads to other sins), but we are taking something that God made good and twisting it to our own destruction. That is a slap in God’s face. The fourth thing that the Bible is very clear about is the context of drinking. If one is to drink, one must be aware of the “weaker brother syndrome.” This is what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians, when he is talking about food sacrificed to idols. He says that the food is not intrinsically evil. But if he makes one of his brothers stumble, then he has abused the privilege of Christian freedom. So, Paul says that if by eating he will make his brother stumble, then he will never eat meat again. That was a pretty remarkable statement of Paul’s, considering that all the meat in the marketplace had been sacrificed to an idol. You could not get any other kind of meat. The principle works the same way with alcohol. If we are in the presence of a recovering alcoholic, or in the presence of someone whose conscience tells them they should not drink, or in the presence of someone who thinks that alcohol is intrinsically evil, then we should not drink. However, those of us who think that drinking is intrinsically evil should not judge those who drink in moderation, especially if they are conscientious about how and when they drink. Neither the weaker brother nor the stronger brother should judge the other. Christian love is the rule here.

So, to sum up, we should ask ourselves, “Do we honor our parents?” Do we cover up their faults and blemishes, or do we publish them to the whole world? Or well, maybe, just to the church? Love covers over a multitude of transgressions. Maybe our parents were not the most godly parents on the face of the planet. We are still to put their deeds in the most charitable light that we can. We must honor what they have done right, and forgive them what they have done wrong. Ultimately, that is honoring father and mother. That is being like Shem and Japheth. Let us cover over their sins with a garment of forgiveness, for God has done the same for us.