Tower of Babel

Today's post will be short and sweet!  Today we will finish up what we covered on Monday night - the Tower of Babel.

This story is quite fascinating for a couple of reasons.  One, it is only nine verses long!  Two, it shows that even after the flood - men were still inherently sinful.  And Three, God's response to the people.

The first thing that we will look at is the fact that God told Noah, and by extension, everyone to spread out and fill the earth.  (Genesis 9:1)  It was God's plan to have people spread out across the world.

The response was the complete opposite!  In verses 1 and 2 of Chapter 11 we see that people started moving east.  As they did, they were all speaking the same language.  This is kind of a no brainer, since all men on the earth were now descendants of Noah and his family!  So as they were migrating eastward, they found a nice piece of real estate and decided to all camp out there.

In the next two verses, we see both their intelligence and their hardheartedness.

We don't know if they invented the brick or not, but the point is that they were very smart.  They began this task and we see that while they were very smart, they were also very hardhearted.  In verse four their response was directed towards God as they didn't want to be scattered all over the world!

An interesting thing happened in verses 5 and 6, we see that even God was impressed with what they were building!!!  Now this tells us that this wasn't some deer stand, or Lego set plaything that these people were building!  No! God saw fit to stop things before they got even worse.

I'm sure that God wasn't scared or fearful of man, but it is interesting to note that God made mention that if He didn't confuse their languages that NOTHING would be impossible for them!  An interesting thought.

Well, we see yet another example of the Trinity in verse 7 as God says, "Let US go down..." 

The rest of the story unfolds and God confuses their languages and they disperse and fill the earth the way God originally intended them to do!

The main point that I would like you to take out of this story and apply to your life is this - Don't think you can either run from God, or outsmart him!  That's what these people tried to do!  Was God going to bless them?  Of course not!  He confused their languages and forced them to split up.

So how does this apply to our lives?  As you are doing your Bible Studies, as you come to youth group on Monday nights, as you follow along on this blog, God is going to show you things that He wants you to do (or to quit doing!).  What is your response going to be?  Will you obey Him?  Or will you out of pride disobey and do whatever you want to do?

We look back on these Old Testament stories and think, "Why were the people such idiots???"  I mean, they were just saved from a catastrophic world wide flood, and now they were going to take on the Creator - AGAIN?  

We look at that as being extremely foolish - and it was!  But we do the same exact things in our lives don't we?  God either disciplines us, or frees us from some bondage and we are amazed at Him.  We think, "Man, I don't want to EVER do that again!".  Then, just a few days, or weeks later we find ourselves back in the same situations!  It goes back to the study we did on the fall.  Which nature are you listening to the most?  The new Godly nature, or the old sinful nature that are BOTH inside your mortal bodies?

I pray that you will be able to listen to the Holy Spirit as He guides and directs you this week!  Don't give in to the sin nature, because God has AMAZING things in store for us if we listen to His leading.  We know that He has a plan and purpose for our lives - let's start living ours like we TRULY believe that!

God bless,

Chris