BABEL AND BEGETTAL

Genesis 11

Victor M. Eskew

 

I.           TITLE OF GENESIS 11

 

A.   Babel and Begettal

B.    A City and A Father

C.   Confusion and Chronology

D.   Humanism vs Heaven

E.    A Tower and Terah

F.     Scattered

G.   A Problem and A Patriarch

 

II.         KEY VERSE OF GENESIS 11:  Genesis 11:8

 

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth:  and they left off to build the city.

 

III.       OUTLINE OF GENESIS 11

 

i.               THE MAKING OF A TOWER (Gen. 11:1-9)

ii.              THE MEN FROM SHEM (Gen. 11:10-26)

iii.            THE MOVE TO HARAN (Gen. 11:27-32)

 

IV.        LESSONS FROM GENESIS 11

 

A.   A common purpose unites men, even if that purpose is evil (Gen. 11:4)

 

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.

 

B.    Man’s imaginations often conflict with the will of God (Gen. 11:4)

1.     God’s command to Noah (Gen. 9:1)

 

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

 

2.     The purpose in building the city and tower was to keep them from being spread abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

 

C.   God sees all of man’s doing (Gen. 11:5).

 

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

 

1.     Proverbs 15:3

 

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

2.     Hebrews 4:13

 

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight:  but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

 

D.   God not only sees man’s actions, but He knows what is in his heart (Gen. 11:6).

 

And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

 

1.     I Samuel 16:7

 

But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him:  for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart.

 

2.     Psalm 44:21

 

Shall not God search this out?  For he knoweth the secrets of the heart.

 

E.    God can always thwart the evil plans of man (Gen. 11:7-8).

 

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, and they may not understand one another’s speech.  So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth:  and they left off to build the city.

 

F.     The years of man’s longevity decreased after the flood (Gen. 11:10-32).  Some believe that the changed environment and the increase of sin were the two major contributing factors.

 

G.   Families of long ago experienced some of the same losses families suffer today (Gen. 11:28).

 

And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

 

1.     Terah lost a son to death.

2.     Haran was Lot’s father (Gen. 11:27).  Thus, Lot lost his father.

3.     Terah, the grandfather of Lot, seems to have taken responsibility for Lot (Gen. 11:31).

 

H.   We are introduced to other family struggles as well.

1.     “But Sarah was barren; she had no child (Gen. 11:30).

2.     Moving from one place to another – displacement (Gen. 11:31).

 

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to go unto the land of Canaan:  and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.