A collector friend of mine recently gave me an old children’s Bible coloring book from the ’60s that included a page depicting two men on camels coming down a hillside as two other men, dressed only in cloth sashes around their waists, toiled away at a smoking cauldron that was lit by a wood fire and being stirred with a long pole.

The caption read, “The descendants of Noah, speaking one language, started to build a tower that would reach to heaven. God, realizing their unholy aim, was displeased. God punished the people by confusing their language. Not speaking the same language, they could not agree on how to finish the tower to heaven. And the Tower of Babel was never completed!”

Looking at this, I was reminded of an old study I have from Jordan on the same subject. Here’s an outtake from it:

“Isn’t it interesting that when God judged these people all He did was change their language? You know, it doesn’t take much for God to fix your little red wagon. Sure doesn’t.

“I mean, you can just see these guys walking across the field one morning—they’re going to go up the Tower and work on the thing.

“By the way, they didn’t take stone; they had brick. They took God-given material and changed it, substituting human, man-made material. They had slime for mortar, it says.

“If you’re a brick mason, you know slime is muddy. You know what they call mortar in the brick-mason trade? They call it mud. That’s what they call mortar today.

“What they did is they went and got the man-made substitute counterfeit for the God-given material and they built their religion on that. Now, when God wanted to fix all that, all He did was come by and do a little simple thing—change their language.

“That must have been a hoot to watch that! Imagine, they go out one morning carrying their lunch pails and they go over to the slime pit and make some slime, and bake some bricks and they’re working together like good buddies.

“They take their load of bricks they’re going to send up the conveyor belt and the guy at the top yells down, ‘Send up some bricks!’ so they send the bricks up and the guy down at the bottom, after he gets the load of bricks up there, looks up and yells, ‘Did I send enough?’ and the guy up top says, ‘What do you want me to drop it on your head for?!’

“Can you see that would have caused a bit of contention? And all of sudden, the guy at the bottom yells, ‘I said, Do you want some more?!’ and the guy at the top says ‘Aah-bi-dee-buh-dah!’

“All of sudden they can’t talk to each other! And there was MASS confusion, and so God divides them up and they seek out those whom they can communicate with alike that happen to be of their same nation and family.

“I say all that to say, God’s purpose always comes through on the money! When you trust God’s Word, folks, you’re trusting what works! When you rebel against God’s Word and do like old Nimrod—gonna have it your way, do it your way—it’ll never get there.

“Let me say something to you, you can go to church, and you can build your sacrifice and you can offer the works of your hands, and you’ll never reach heaven. Never have your sins forgiven. Never have everlasting life. You’ll only have that through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You trust Him and God gives it to you as a free gift!”