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It is a melancholy fact that the evil of our nature tends continually to increase, and assume a sad variety of forms. As men abide under the power of evil they wax worse and worse. We have an instance of this downward tendency in the builders of Babel. Since the flood the course of sin may be thus traced;

1. In the form of sensual indulgence. The type was drunkenness, of which Noah has given a sad example.

2. Disregard of parental authority. Ham.

3. In the form of ambition. Builders of Babel.

I. LOVE OF GLORY. They would indulge the passion for fame at all costs.

1. The boldest schemes of ambition are generally the work of a few.

2. Such ambition involves the slavery of the many.

II. FALSE IDEAS OF THE UNITY OF THE RACE.

1. They thought that it was external "City." "Tower."

2. They held that the individual must be sacrificed to the outward grandeur of the State. This is the genius of all Babel-building, to make the city supreme, and to sink the individual. All must be sacrificed to one idea: the nation — State — Constitution. It is not within the province of worldly ambition to recognize the sublime importance of the individual soul. Hence the conflict between the policies of statecraft and the interests of true religion. This exaltation of the State above the individual has —

(1)  A political form;

(2)  an ecclesiastical form.

III. PRESUMING TO PLACE THEMSELVES ABOVE PROVIDENCE.

1. God interferes in all matters which threaten His government.

2. God often interferes effectually by unexpected means. These foolish builders imagined that they were safe in the unity of their speech, yet it was here that they were vanquished.

IV. A PREMATURE ATTEMPT TO REALIZE THAT BETTER TIME COMING FOR HUMANITY.

(T. H. Leale.)

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KJV: 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.

WEB: They said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."