The Tower of Babel was a symptom of a greater problem. (Genesis 6-11, Moses 8)

6:3

“And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” The Spirit is meant to influence us. It is meant to work upon us to help us choose the right. However, there is a limit to how long God’s Spirit will continue to press people towards repentance when they harden themselves. Clearly, this was a time when the people we’re being wicked. They were rejecting The Spirit’s purposes of teaching, warning, inviting repentance. God doesn’t ever stop loving us - but he will stop forcing light upon those who refuse it.

God is giving the people a chance to repent. 120 years specifically. That is a long time and plenty of notice. It was basically a countdown to the flood. The world at this time was filled with violence, wickedness and people were no longer responsive to God. There comes a point where continued rebellion results in loss of spiritual protection. Basically, God is honoring our agency in a way by withdrawing the Spirit.

6:5

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Wickedness can be so much a part of our being that our minds can only ponder things that are wicked. We can’t imagine righteous thoughts. In any time of idleness or contemplation is filled with wicked imagination. We have sexual fantasies or plot revenge or invent ways of getting ahead by taking advantage of others. We imagine ways to lie and deceive. We concentrate how to benefit ourselves at the cost of everyone else. We imagine ways of skirting responsibility that we should embrace. In a heart and mind such as this, there is no place for humility, repentance or submission.

6:11-13

“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” If the world is filled with violence, it can only be through humans. Only those with true agency with its ability to act can go against the will of God. God can’t corrupt us. The world by itself cannot corrupt us. Even Satan himself cannot corrupt us. It can only be that “all flesh had corrupted his way.”

It is obvious to me why there was a flood. As we learn in the manual, Elder Neal A. Maxwell explained that at the time of the Flood, “corruption had reached an agency-destroying point that spirits could not, in justice, be sent here.” If every parent is going to raise their children in wickedness, agency is truly destroyed. Imagine that every parent is a Taliban terrorist who teaches each child from birth to hate America. That child has little chance to not hate. His agency is removed to a degree. If God knows that every innocent baby will be raised in intense wickedness, God is merciful enough for us to do something different. In this case, it was a flood. God needed to start over.

11:4

This is the time of the Tower of Babel. “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.” Let us remember that God had said to scatter several key moments before this time. Originally with Adam and Eve but also after the flood. They were meant to “replenish the earth.” They didn’t want to do that. They wanted to NOT be scattered.

They were expressly resisting something that God had just told them to do. Instead, they wanted to centralize power. They wanted to “build us a city.” It could have made a lot of sense to their minds that they should stick together. But it isn’t what God had commanded them to do through a prophet.

The big problem with what they were doing was that they were attempting to reach heaven in their own way. It wasn’t about discovering God’s will and submitting to Him. It was about coming up with their own system. It reminds me of Cain and Abel and Cain wanting to offer sacrifices that worked for him rather than what the Lord had asked for. They were creating their own system for accessing heaven. They were relying on their own actions rather than God’s mercy and through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

They wanted to make themselves a name. They wanted to be known. They wanted the glory of the world. They wanted the world to see their great accomplishment and ingenuity. Rather than being known as children of God, they wanted to be known as those awesome tower builders.

I cannot help but think about how this relates to me personally. How am I getting to heaven? Is it through my awesome spiritual accomplishments? Am I doing good for the prestige of it with my neighbors and friends? What are my motivations for being Godlike? Am I relying on my faithfulness and righteousness to get into heaven? Or, am I correctly relying on Jesus and his merits? Am I humble and completely submissive or am I attempting to make a name for myself so that God lets me into heaven? Sometimes, I think we all are a lot like the people at the Tower of Babel.

11:6

“And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” The people were unified and powerful. They were doing something amazing in building the Tower of Babel. They had invented new technology in the oven-fired bricks and special mortar. Their technological advances had given them the confidence and ability to build what they hadn’t been able to before. They were on the verge of becoming a great and powerful and ingenious people.

So what’s wrong with that? I think if people become to powerful, especially in their own mind, they lose the need for God. This is a problem. If they forget that they rely on God, it’s easy to forget Him and, instead, focus on ourselves and what we have the power to do.

Can you see how this is exactly what is happening now in our day. We are not restrained in what we are able to do. We are now launching rockets and landing them on a dime. We are curing disease. We invented a new MRNA vaccine in a shorter time than ever before. We are seeing further into the universe than ever before. We are talking about populating Mars.

I think the biggest thing that our human brains have come up with in a long time is AI. We are going to be able to solve most problems with it - whether they are scientific or social or medical, etc. We will begin to rely on it. We will ask it for wisdom and guidance. It will prepare our lessons and talks. It will do our scripture study. I don’t think we’re far from implanting these devices in our bodies that will give us the knowledge of all humans combined! We already have it in the palm of our hands! Truly, we’re on the precipice of being able to have “nothing restrained from us, which we have imagined to do.” Incredibly, technology is about to become our last great idol and worldly God.

Just as with the Tower of Babel, God will not allow us to get to this point. He doesn’t want us to have nothing restrained from us. He doesn’t want us to be able to do all that we have imaged to do.  He’ll end things before this happens. If we get powerful but that power isn’t tied to righteousness, our ability to magnify error becomes limitless! God will intervene to restrain the spread of systematic corruption.

Moses

8:14

“And the Lord said unto Noah: The daughters of thy sons have sold themselves; for behold mine anger is kindled against the sons of men, for they will not hearken to my voice.” This isn’t the daughters selling themselves for literal money necessarily. This is more about abandoning covenants for worldly purposes. Those purposes may be prestige or power or influence or respect or acceptance, and yes money. They are trading spiritual inheritance for worldly advantage. It may be that they were giving up their moral agency to a corrupt culture.

Instead of blaming them or pitying them, we ought to consider how we do the same. What do we give up for worldly advantage?

8:21

This verse is a great example of how society convinces itself that everything is fine while it’s spiritually collapsing. It demonstrates our natural tendency to rationalize away our bad choices. “And also, after that they had heard him, they came up before him, saying: Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men? And are we not eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage? And our wives bear unto us children, and the same are mighty men, which are like unto men of old, men of great renown. And they hearkened not unto the words of Noah.”

They first point to their identity as justification that they are fine - stating that they are the “sons of God." Perhaps there are members of the church that use this same justification. “We are members of the church so we are righteous.” Identity doesn’t equal righteousness. Choices do.

Next, they point to the fact that they are living normal lives of “eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage.” How could they be doing bad things when their lives are prosperous. They are believing that God must be okay with what they are doing otherwise they wouldn’t be experiencing such good lives. They are associating prosperity with righteousness. Prosperity can mask wickedness and can cause someone to be spiritually damned because they don’t perceive their problems. They aren’t seeing the consequences of their sins so they must not be sinning.

Finally, because their children are mighty and successful, there must be divine approval. They forget that greatness in human eyes doesn’t mean greatness in God’s eyes. They are fixated on their children’s strength, fame, power, and legacy - suggesting that because they are “men of great renown” means that they are righteous. Their success is camouflaging their unrighteousness. That camouflage can be very insidious in that it can prevent sinners from repenting.

8:22

This verse builds on the one in Genesis a little. "And God saw that the wickedness of men had become great in the earth; and every man was lifted up in the imagination of the thoughts of his heart, being only evil continually.” The additional point here is about the men were “lifted up in the imagination of the thoughts of his heart.” This was about pride. They were self-justifying and even self-exalting. Instead of looking upward towards God, they were looking inward - raising themselves to be their moral authority.

They weren’t just reacting in sinful ways, they were actually imagining wicked acts. They were planning to do wrong. Their evil was continual. There were no breaks. There were no brakes. There was no repentance interrupting the cycle. This wasn’t like the Nephites where they would get wicked and repent then get wicked and repent. This was just continual progressive wickedness. Their evil was self-sustaining.

They were on a staged decent. Clearly, wickedness had spread. Pride had replaced humility. In their imagination, they had glorified corruption. Repentance had disappeared. Thinking about imagination glorifying corruption, I can’t help but think about how some people are attempting to normalize and even celebrate wicked acts. Consider how castrating young men or doing unnecessary mastectomies is renamed “gender affirming care.” Abortions are renamed “reproductive health.” This is intention and diabolical. These inaccurate euphemisms come from the wicked imaginations of those who are attempting to twist right and wrong and make horrible actions palatable.

When we are prideful and look to ourselves for truth, we can get off track really easily. Within a generation an entire nation can be pulled off track. I think, as we are in the last days, that we will see a gradual decline into this type of wickedness. We will experience the same kind of corruption that Noah saw. Instead of a flood, God will use fire this time to cleanse the earth. Fortunately, it will not be that God intends to “destroy all flesh from off the earth.” Many righteous will be spared at his second coming.