Together We Can Do It! (Not)

If you've read Genesis 11 you know the story of Babel. Basically after the flood, God told the people to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth - God's "Control-Alt-Delete" reset of humanity. But given the fallen nature of humanity, instead of doing God's business, they went about doing their own.

In chapter 11 they decided to settle on a plain, build a tower, "so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

God took a look at the building project and said  "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

It sounds like God was panicking - that the people were going to do a hostile takeover and so God needed to do something quick! Nothing could be further from the truth of course. In reading this what struck me was that God was saying, "if I let them continue down this path they will think they can do anything and not realize how much they need a relationship with Me."

When mankind gets together we convince each other that nothing is impossible for us - that we can create a utopia here on earth and that everyone is okay and good on the inside and that we should just trust each other.

In truth humanity is fallen, our hearts are wicked,  but deceive us into thinking we are okay. It's like a person who has terminal cancer but chalks up the symptoms to indigestion.

It is only by following after God that we find our true purpose and escape from our own endemic evil. That path out of our mess came not with the lifting up of a human-made building but the lifting up of a human being, a perfect human being, on a cross.

Pastor Tom