Statism And The Tower Of Babel

Tower
Of Babel
Statism

“…and this is only the beginning of what they will do.”

By Ron Smith

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech" (Genesis 11:4-7).

Josephus tells us that the people after the flood were afraid that God would send another flood, so they built this tower as insurance in case Noah had prophesied falsely. They waterproofed it with asphalt (bitumen), and built it high to ascend above the flood. There would be no need to keep God’s covenant through Noah; they could save themselves.
This account is given through the prophet from God’s point of view. “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1 Pet 1:20). Their motive was a distrust of God’s promise through Noah that He would never send another earth destroying flood. This greatly offended God. They sought to displace trust in God with trust in themselves. Instead of a desire to make a name for God, they wanted to make a name for themselves. Instead of obeying God’s command to fill the earth, they joined as one, lest they should “be dispersed over the face of the earth.” They were “one worldists” and they were Statists. By establishing a humanistic State, they could produce a utopia and save themselves. The watchword is “power.” “And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” And “this is only the beginning [the genesis] of what they will do.” What they have done since and what they are doing now is even worse.
This is the human situation; the human condition. This story gives us the pattern of the struggle of history that would follow. It is the City of Man versus the City of God. Every religion except biblical religion ends up looking to the State for security and salvation. Though monarchies are not the only Statist systems, we see it manifested with Israel’s desire for a king. God said to Samuel, “They have not rejected you. They have rejected Me.” They traded their freedom for security. Samuel then goes on to detail how they would have to enslave themselves to the State.
Statism comes in various forms. The extreme right wing wants zero government. They are anarchists. The extreme left-wingers are the Statists like Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators. In the middle are those who look to the original intent of the Constitution and the Law. But Statism is always something the people choose. They chose Hitler; they chose Lenin; they chose Obama. After the liberty brought by the Puritan Oliver Cromwell, they preferred a king. What they got resulted in 28 years of what are called “the killing years” under Charles II and James II. They do this because they believe the State will give them more security than their freedom under God will. But it always ends in the figurative confusion of tongues and a broken tower.
We see Statism manifested in every chapter of the Book of Daniel. In chapter one Daniel makes a decision not to defile himself with the king’s meat. The king’s meat represents the worldly consumption of the humanist/statist idea and worldview. In chapter 2 Daniel interprets the dream of the king about another kingdom that would destroy the kingdoms of this world. Chapter 3 tells of the State command to bow to the image of man that represented the State. Everyone had to conform, just as everyone is expected to conform to today’s political correctness. Notice that the entertainment industry was also involved. It was at the sound of the music that they were to bow. Hollywood is also involved in the support of Statism today.
Chapter four of Daniel tells of the king’s madness and eventual repentance when he acknowledges that God is the real ruler. Only then does his reason and sanity return to him. When “seven times” have come over the rulers of this world, “Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him; All nations shall serve Him” (Psalm 72 NKJV). Each of the following chapters of Daniel deal with the struggle between God’s kingdom and the beastly kingdoms of men. God gives the great hope that His King will eventually rule over all kingdoms.
Augustus Caesar said, “There is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved, but the name Caesar.” Caesar was the State. In the New Testament we see this struggle illustrated with the statement of the rulers of Jerusalem when they said, “We have no king but Caesar” and “Give us Barabbas.” This is seen in John’s vision of a lamb that has two horns and speaks like a dragon. Its function is to make the whole world worship the mental image of the beast (Caesar). Caesar represented the extreme left wing, and Barabbas represented the extreme right wing anarchists. (Barabbas had killed a man in an insurrection.) But even the extreme right-wingers are Statists. They attempt to build their own tower of power. They end up taking over the state they destroy. Lenin and Castro did this.
In the center are those who subscribe to the law. The “tea party” center is obedient to the Constitution. The king of England had broken his contract with the colonies and the duly elected rulers of the colonies had a legal right to do what they did. “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
On the other hand, the French Revolution was illegal. It instituted a reign of terror that was imitated by Russia, Cambodia, Cuba, etc. It was not founded on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Its goal was humanist Statism and Utopia (i.e. change). They each eliminated religion as the opiate of the people. The State became the supreme power (i.e. god). Edmond Burke pointed out that the French revolutionaries could not tell the difference between change and reformation. Change as they practiced it was discontinuity with the past. They even tried a new calendar that dated the French Revolution as year one, and a ten-day week so no one could tell which day was Sabbath. Reformation, on the other hand, builds on the good of the past, is lawful, and reforms what is not lawful.
Statists are humanists who believe in the ability of man to create a Utopia (i.e. a “name for themselves” with a tower of power). The tower builders totally ignored the covenant with Noah. Statists want to separate God and the State because we cannot have two gods. And because the Constitution limits their goals, they reinterpret it. They ignore the original intent of those who wrote it. The Conservatives, on the other hand, seek to conserve the Law.

For the Statist, liberty is not a blessing but the enemy. It is not possible to achieve a Utopia if individuals are free to go their own way… His first duty must be to the State – not family, community, and faith, all of which have the potential of threatening the State.

President Barack Obama made this point when lecturing the Wesleyan University graduating class of 2008 during his campaign: “[O]ur individual salvation depends on collective salvation.”.

Because these Utopian Statists believe they can build a one-wordlist tower that reaches to the heavens, “they need to listen to the voices of condemnation from world capitals… The classroom is turned into propaganda mill rather than a place for education.”
The Statists in America call themselves “Progressives.” They realize that their goals can never be reached in America with the aggressive type of Statism. So they have adopted an evolutionary “soft” approach. They believe they are progressing towards Utopia. But in order to do this, they must progressively chip away at the Constitution. They must control the education system, the entertainment industry, and the media. They must tax and spend. They must take advantage of every crisis they create in order to push through laws that give them more control. Because they must see to it that the people believe the State can save them, they make all kinds of promises in their election campaigns. Power is what they seek; a tower of power that reaches to the heavens and provides health care for all.
Mark Levin points out that Statist “Academics claim to challenge authority but, in truth, preach authoritarianism through various justifications for and approaches to deconstructing the civil society.” This answers to the “soft” and gentle looking lamb with two horns representing both Caesar (statism) and Barabbas (anarchy). They are really two functions of the same Statist beast that speaks like a dragon and says, “Crucify Him.”

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