Abc - The Building Blocks Of Faith- Confusion Series

Today we continue our series entitled, The ABC’s of faith. The larger idea is based on the idea that we learn over time through an exploration process of success and failure. Everything we come to know and understand is built over time on the foundation of trial and error.

We learned last week, the wooden blocks we have all played with were an idea in 1594, a practical concept 100 years after that, and only then it would take another 175 years to be mass practiced and produced as the blocks we know and love from Brooklyn, New York.

Last week,we talked about corruption of humanity and this week we continue with our “C” alliteration by building on the ideas creation, corruption, catastrophe by talking about the idea of confusion as part of our Christian witness. These are the building blocks (or the major aspects) of Christian identity that help us to withstand the storms of life. So after hearing today’s scripture, did you ask yourself”

Was God afraid of man’s capability? Why?

Sadly Noah’s descendants also did not serve and obey the Lord. Humanity, yet again, rebelled against God. Instead of spreading around the earth as the Lord had commanded, they gathered in one place to build a city and tower.

Let’s dig a little in a little deeper to today’s scripture?

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Babylon’s trust was not in the Lord but in their own ability to rise above the rest of humanity. A city, in those days, was a group of buildings with a protective wall around it to protect those inside from the lawlessness of the world outside. The tower in the sky is a symbol of power but not of reliance on God. Babylon was a false Garden of Eden based on their own knowledge and culture instead of God's. The tower would radiate to the lawlessworld a strength and wisdom of those within the walls.

So what’s the problem? After all, shouldn’t we all stand on our own two feet, lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. Is it really so wrong to brag or make others feel less than so we are secure? Back in 1989, there was a professional tennis player with a reputation of being a fierce competitor. Andre Aggassi who would claim “image is everything.” Like every instagram and Tick Toc influencer of this age, “image” is just another word for worshiping oneself.

In the case of the tower of Babel, it was an attempt to worship its own cultural strengths over that of those who rely on God.

The people of Babylon wanted to make a name for themselves and make themselves great, in disobedience to the commands of God. Through their own might, they attempted to become powerful.

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord 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. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

How serious was the offense? God came down.

Before I go on with the offense, I’d like to address the word “us” in verse seven. “Let us go down.” Often Kings would refer to themselves in this way. The Hebrew word for God (Elohim) is plural. A scholarly understanding is God is speaking to the heavenly court of angels or the more plausible is God is tipping his hand to the mystery of the trinity - God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit all in one essence.

So what was the offense(s) that God came to correct? I'm so glad you asked.

The creation of a city and then the building of a tower was a direct defiance of God’s command when he told them to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” By building a city and a tower they were defying God. They no longer wanted to go out and subdue the earth. They wanted to create their own Garden of Eden.

The tower within represented a change in their relationship with God. An relationship built on an erroneous set of beliefs that:

God was not able to move from the spiritual to the physical (present everywhere)