Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “All Nations and Babel”. What marks the people of that time, and all of us ever since, is the word “confusion”. How totally confused are the people on the Plain of Shinar. They are building a structure to the very “gate of God”, the original definition of “Babel” (see “Merriam-Webster” under origin of the word “babel”). As if mankind, in his own strength can rise-up to the level of God. So terribly confused they are. And so, God comes down and does what He will do time and again as recorded in His “Word”. “I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands” (Jeremiah 25:14). Meaning, in this case, He will grant them the confusion that they are. “…God is not the author of confusion but of peace…” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Confusion is uproar, chaos, upheaval, pandemonium. The opposite of peace, which is calmness, harmony, stillness and accord. God gave them what they valued, what they were attempting and what they were… confusion. And their speech reflected that confusion of mind and heart.
Paul tells us in Romans 1: 18, 24,26,28 that when all other avenues fail for us, God will eventually hand us over to the sin we desire. He does not do this happily nor vengefully. He does this for there is no other way. Our God of love will only do this when all other avenues of love to reach us have failed. God is not the author of confusion, fear or condemnation. Confusion, fear and condemnation are inherent in “the sin which so easily ensnares us” (Hebrews 12:1). He would save us from that sin, from that confusion. But alas. He will allow us to have it as the last means to reach us. If we will not value and treasure His expressed love to us, then He has no choice but to show us that love by contrast. By having us experience the opposite of love. And perchance come to see our God as He is, and value love.
The Bible often says God does things when in reality it is we ourselves who do those things as a consequence of God’s actions. For example, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart during the plagues of Egypt. The Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (see Exodus 8:15, 8:32, 9:34);or that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart ((See Exodus 9:12, 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:8); or just that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened (see Exodus 7:22, 8:19, 9:7, 9:35). It isn’t that one of the three variations of this “hardening” is correct and the others are false. It is that God’s actions toward Egypt’s gods and Egypt’s Pharaoh led that potentate to defy God’s solicitation and command. God’s action… man’s response.
Or take the account of King Saul’s death. In 1 Chronicles 10 it says that Saul killed himself… “Therefore, Saul took a sword and fell on it” (1 Chronicles 10:4). Yet later in that same chapter it says God killed him… “But he did not inquire of the Lord; therefore, He killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse” (1 Chronicles 10:14). As above, the action of God towards King Saul to bring Saul to his senses, led Saul to ultimately kill himself.
So, I believe the same reasoning can describe our God of love and the confusion at Babel. God “confused the language of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9). Or did He allow the confusion that was already theirs to manifest itself in their language? God’s actions leading to man’s response. Either way, our God is acting from love, man is responding out of confusion. Just as we have ever since Eden.
God’s desire is not for our confusion. His desire is for us to have the closest of all relationships with Himself. To have the spirit “of power and of love and of a sound mind” (1 Timothy 1:7). But this is only possible as we are united with Him. One with Him. Else we are our own god building our own tower of Babel. Our own confused life-tower of human might, of human will, of human pride. And until we are willing to have God dash our tower to pieces into dust at our feet, we will be confused. Let us come as we are to our God, learn of Him, and allow Him to build our life anew as He would have it. All else is confusion… babel.
With brotherly love,
Jim