One of the Bible’s most familiar stories is the confusion of the languages at the Tower of Babel. You can read all about it in Genesis 11:1-8. This tiny narrative is sandwiched between the Flood and the calling of Abraham, and its presence haunts us with two questions.
Why were they trying to build the tower in the first place?
What was God doing by injecting confusion to scatter mankind?
Babel represents rebellion because they were refusing to spread throughout the earth as God had commanded, and were building a city to make a name for themselves rather than worship God (v. 4).
God’s motives are just as transparent. He graciously and lovingly confused the languages because the collective imagination of mankind is not only infinitely creative, but fiendishly malignant (v. 6): “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”
Thus begins a theme that continues throughout the Bible, ending with the destruction of “Babylon the Great” in the Bible’s final chapters. It was Babylon which enslaved God’s people after they had been freed from the Egyptians. It was that same Babylon which represented all nations as the head of Daniel’s statue (Daniel 2) which is crushed by “the stone cut out without hands,” the coming Messiah.
It is no accident that the fall of Babylon the Great is depicted in terms of merchants and kings bemoaning the loss of their financial empire (Revelation 18:9-19), all of which was built upon idolatry (v. 2), and from which God’s people are to separate themselves (v. 4).
Babylon the Great is not a literal, single city, but, like the Daniel 2 vision, represents all nations (Revelation 16:19; 18:3), mankind as a unified rebellion against God.
Now, it’s no sin to buy things made in other nations, and in fact, international trade is assumed, even in Scripture. Caravans regularly passed through Israel and Solomon’s trading fleet was legendary.
The issue is not even about money, but rather that “collective imagination” which eventually conspires against God and the spirit of the age of which the Apostle warns us in Romans 12 and Ephesians 2.
The Lord created racial diversity and differences among the nations for His own reasons, foremost to create a context for all nations to find Him (Acts 17:26, 27). In contrast, mankind rebels. Psalm 2
“Globalism” is the popular term for erasing borders and national identity, and establishing a universal culture/government with a universal currency and economy. Such idealism is just as appealing to moderns as it was for early mankind in Genesis 11.
But the Lord knows human nature better than we do. And Scripture teaches that these will be the goals of the Antichrist himself, whenever he appears. Let’s not be naive as we elect leaders.
“The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. . . And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.”
Revelation 13:5–8