Genesis 11
Noah’s sons had many children. They all talked the same language. As they walked, they found a great plain and lived there.
God had told Noah and his sons to spread over the world. But those in this plain of Shinar did not want to move, so they said: “Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” ({vi 270-271}Gen. 11:3-4). Perhaps they feared God would send another flood, so they tried to get away from His judgment. Men do the same today, but cannot get away from God.
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower. Then He mixed up their talk so they could not understand. One man might call for mortar, but the other would not know what he said. Another might call for brick, but nobody knew what he wanted. So they could not work. They stopped building, calling it Babel—“confusion”—so the Lord scattered them over the world.
Notice how very easily God can stop those who think they are wise. May we all honor and worship the only true God, and not go against Him.
About two thousand years after the confusion at Babel, the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came into the world to die for sinful men. He was raised again from the dead; and after forty days He went back to Heaven. Ten days later, those who believed in the Lord Jesus were together in one place: suddenly God sent His Holy Spirit from Heaven, and they were able to speak in other languages. There were people from all over the world there, who were all greatly surprised to hear them, by the Holy Spirit, speaking in the native language of each one. They said. How is it? At Babel it was God’s great power that scattered. Now it is God’s great power that makes them all able to understand and hear the good news of Salvation. In Heaven, we shall use only one language. Each will understand the other because up there all will have been born again into one great family. Are you of the family of Heaven?