Intermediate Level, Block 2—Babel and Good Land
Week 12
The Building of the Tower—A Name for Themselves
Point to Emphasize: Our goal is to follow God.
Reference Reading: Genesis 11:1-9
Memory Verse: That with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:6)
Story Sample
Originally, the whole earth had one language—everyone spoke the same way. This was because God wants His people to be one. He wants us all to have the same one goal: to follow Him. God created man to express Him and represent Him, and He wants His people to worship Him.
Noah and his family were one, they had one goal in following God. That saved them. But many years later, the people on the earth were not interested in following God any more. Instead, they came together in the land of Shinar and decided to build a city and a tower for themselves. They wanted this tower to be so high that it would reach the heavens, as high as God. They wanted to make a name for themselves.
Maybe we don’t think it sounds like a big deal to build this kind of tower, but actually, it was very wrong of them. Why did they want to build this high tower? What did they have in mind? Actually, they were building the tower to make a name for themselves instead of worshipping God’s name. Building this tower showed that they only cared for themselves and what they could do all by themselves without God. How terrible! God had a wonderful plan for man, but man was not interested in God at all—man was only interested in himself.
When I was young, I really liked to tell jokes. I liked people to think I was really funny. Sometimes the children’s meeting teacher would say something that reminded me of a joke I wanted to tell. I would get so excited to tell it! I couldn’t wait to show how funny I was. But the teacher had a different goal. She wanted to teach her lesson. When I interrupted to tell my joke, it turned all the attention to me instead of God. [Storyteller, insert your own story.] This is a little bit like the people at the Tower of Babel. They wanted to get all the attention for themselves—and they didn’t give any to God.
This was a big disappointment to God, so He decided to limit man so that he couldn’t do anything worse. God confounded their language to limit man. Originally, everyone had spoken the same language, but God made it so that everyone spoke different languages. They could not build up anything for themselves anymore, because they couldn’t even talk to or understand each other. They were scattered and confused and began to divide into different groups.
Today we don’t want to make the same mistake and become divided. We are God’s people and we want to have one goal—following God and giving Him the glory. We want to speak the same thing about God according to His Word.