Series: God and the Nations

The Promised Blessing for the Nations

Genesis 12.3

 

From Babel to Abram: The Judgement and Mercy of God

The first section of Genesis, chapters 1-11, chronicle the effects of the fall and culminates in the account of the Tower of Babel. Babel was the beginning of the various nations of the world, whom God scattered because of their proud rebellion. So the nations of the world began as the result of God’s judgment. God was not going to allow the pride and rebellion of men in alienation from Him to set the agenda and determine the climate of the world. God had another purpose for the world and this necessitated that Babel should fail.

But God’s purpose would not fail, and this purpose begins immediately after the account of Babel with the call of Abram. The call of Abram is really the beginning of God’s purpose, which includes a promise of blessing for all the nations, even those very nations God had judged at Babel. So we also begin to see the mercy of God against the backdrop of human failure. God’s dealings with the nations of the world will include both judgment and mercy. “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off” (Romans 11:22). Aspects of God’s nature are being revealed. We learn that there are some things that God will not tolerate. And it is never wise for men to oppose the will of God and test the Divine patience. Eventually God’s patience runs out. But God mixes wrath with mercy. The men at Babel were not destroyed, though their plans were frustrated. God has continued to strive with the nations, not because the nations deserve anything from God, but because it is God’s nature to be benevolent toward men and because God has a greater purpose that He is working out in the midst of the nations.

The nations exist because of God’s will, not because of their own power or ingenuity. Most of the nations of the world fail to acknowledge this fact and in their pride think that their own efforts have made their existence possible. God may allow the nations to grow and prosper for a time, as it pleases Him, but He also judges and removes nations from the face of the earth, as illustrated by what happened at Babel. But ultimately, God has goodwill towards the nations and has a plan for blessing them.

The Life of Faith: Living in Opposition to the World

It is important to see the call of Abram and all of the events of his life against the dark backdrop of world history up to that point in time. Babel is intentionally contrasted with Abram in the Genesis narrative. It is as if the Scripture is asking “is there another way to live other than the way of the men at Babel?” And then Abram comes as the answer to that question. Abram represents the life of faith. He is the archetypal faithful man just as the men at Babel were the archetypal men of the world. Babel represents worldliness that is lived in alienation from God and in opposition to the will of God. This is something that God curses and judges. Abram represents a life lived in faith and in submission and obedience to the will of God. Abram even becomes the conduit through which God’s plan of blessing will be accomplished on the earth.

Abram will become the Father of the Faithful. Those who please God and who have a relationship with God must become like Abram and must share Abram’s faith. “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:16-17).

Faith is not merely intellectual but represents an entire lifestyle and an orientation toward God. Faith is a life that is turned toward God and reconciled to His will. As Abram’s life unfolds we see that God is the driving force and the main factor for everything in Abram’s life. Abram’s move out of his own father’s household and away from the city of Ur is mandated by the call of God. Abram’s life in the land of Canaan is guided by God and His promise.

There is nothing normal or natural about Abram’s life. Abram is different from everyone else around him at that time and he stands out in the history of the world. There is no way to explain Abram’s life apart from the call of God. Secular historians have studied the ancient civilizations of the world in what we now call the Ancient Near East, which is where Abram lived. Abram’s life, especially his relationship with God, differs drastically from the way the ancient people viewed life and the Divine. The ancient people of the world were worshippers of nature: the sun, moon, stars, and the earth itself. The idea of a God who was personal, who would speak to man, care for man, and actually bind Himself to a man in a covenant, was something completely new and different. While all the other nations had turned away from the Creator and worshiped the creation, Abram began a life in the presence of the one, true, living God.

The Call of Abram

 

The Necessity of Separation

Sumer was one of the great civilizations of the ancient world. In fact, it was one of the first great civilizations of recorded history. Ancient Sumer was located in what is called the Fertile Crescent, or Mesopotamia, also known as the Cradle of Civilization. Sumer is famous today for being the earliest civilization to have a written alphabet. Ur was one of the cities created by the rise of this civilization. The city of Ur was famous for its Ziggurat, which was a tall tower built for pagan worship and may have been a copy of the tower of Babel itself. This city was one of the great urban centers of the ancient world and this is where Abram was living. Abram was called to leave Ur and go to Canaan. This would mean that Abram was leaving civilization to go out into what was mostly a wilderness by comparison.

Why would God have Abram leave Ur? Was God not interested in Abram having an influence on such a great civilization? Understanding God’s call for Abram to leave Ur is to understand one of the great principles of Scripture: holiness. Holiness means separation. Abram was to be separate from all the other nations because of his association with the living God. God is holy and so Abraham was to be holy. Abram’s life would be different from every other life because Abram’s God was different from all the false gods worshiped by the nations. This same principle is applied to the people of God today. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:9-11).

Rather than having Abram live in an existing nation, God was going to give Abram his own land and then build a nation from Abram. If Abram had stayed in Ur it would have been easier for him to be influenced by the culture of that nation rather than taking all of his directions from God. God was going to be the shaping influence of Abram’s life rather than the surrounding culture or civilization which did not know the living God.

 

The God of Abraham

God was going to reveal Himself to the world through His covenant with Abram. The true, living God would be forever known as the God of Abraham. God was going to bind Himself to a single man and his descendants.Everything that God was going to do in the world would be done through Abram and Abram’s family. Abram was a kind of conduit for God to reveal Himself to the rest of the nations of the world. The revelation of God would happen within human history. Abraham was a real person. The true God would not be revealed through mythology but through history. This is the real God we are coming to know through Abraham, not some projection of human thought and desire or the pagan deification of some aspect of nature.

We would expect the true God to reveal Himself in real and concrete ways. Furthermore, we would expect the revelation of the one, true God to be something unique. If God had not revealed Himself in a unique way, then there would be no way to distinguish the true God from all of the false gods of the nations. God will not allow Himself to be confused with the idols of the nations or with some aspect of the natural world. “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens” (Psalm 96:5).

One of the great and unique revelations in the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament, is the fact that there is one, true God. Monotheism was something unique to Abraham and his descendants. All of the other nations worshiped many different deities, one of which they would often adopt as their patron deity. But Abram did not decide to adopt God. God decided to adopt Abram. Everything about the calling of Abram is unique in world history. No other God revealed Himself in this way and no other nation even claimed to worship the one, true God.

We begin to understand that the religious pluralism of our time is nothing new to the world. They world has always believed in a multiplicity of gods and a multiplicity of religious faiths and ways to worship. The idea that there is only one, true God that all people must worship and obey is a unique revelation of the Hebrew Scriptures. We can expect this to always be a controversial idea that makes the world nervous.

 

The Nature of a Divine Promise

 

Divine Initiative

There is no indication that Abram knew the true God or that he was even seeking to know the true God. Abram probably worshiped the gods of Ur, which were the sun, moon, and stars. God Himself sought Abram and initiated this relationship. In this way God was setting a precedence and teaching us something about His Kingdom. The initiative is with God. God is the great seeker of man. Man does not seek after God. We are quite satisfied with our idols. It was God who made the promise to Abram. In other words, we do not see Abram asking for anything or trying to make a deal with God. Instead of Abram doing something for God, God wants to do something for Abram.

God does not need our service or favors, like the idols of the nations. God is always giving to us, not because we deserve it, but because of who God is. We cannot obligate God. But God gives to humanity and it is only because God wants to do so. If God did not want to reveal Himself or do anything for us, then there is nothing that could be done to find God or move Him to act against His will.

No nation or individual can claim to have ownership of God as if God answers to us. God cannot be manipulated like a genie in a lamp. “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25).

 

Divine Grace

Abram is called by grace. This is God’s free and unmerited favor at work in Abram’s life. Abram was not some kind of special man who deserved to be called by God. In fact, we know nothing at all about Abram and his life and character before God called him, and that is intentional. The point here is God’s gracious call of Abram, not Abram’s character. The call of Abram was based entirely on God’s grace. The rest of Abram’s life was his response to the grace of God. God’s grace shaped Abram’s life. Abram’s life did not influence God’s choice of him. When we see the obedience of Abram to God’s calling we see how the grace of God changed Abram and made him into the faithful man that he was to become. Abram’s life was lived in conformity to God’s gracious calling. When God gave Abram a commandment, Abram immediately obeyed. But this obedience must be seen in the context of God’s gracious calling of Abram and not just as Abram’s moral superiority.

God was showing how He was going to interact with humanity. God’s relationship with the nations was going to be based on His grace, not on the moral development of the nations. The fact that the nations had already rebelled against God and had chosen to worship other gods underscores the grace of God. Man’s universal sinfulness and alienation from God meant that the only hope for the human race was the grace of God. Man could not work his way back to God and had no interest in doing so anyway. God had to freely choose to reach down to us and bring us up to Himself. He began to do that in His gracious call of Abram. Abram is a picture of God’s grace to the rest of humanity. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

 

Divine Power

The promise that God gave Abram depended completely on God for the fulfillment. Only God’s power could bring about what God promised. This fact will be made clear as Abram’s life unfolds. Abram and his wife Sarai would be the parents of many nations. Yet, they were childless. And they continue to age without having children. But the promise of God stands. They decide to take matters into their own hands, and Ishmael is born. But Ishmael was not the child of promise. Only God could bring about the birth of the child through whom the promise would be fulfilled. Everything rested on God. There was nothing for Abram to do except believe the promise and wait for God to fulfill it in His time and in His way. This is the nature of faith. Instead of grasping and struggling to make its own way in the world, faith waits patiently on the power of God. “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:31-33).

The nations at Babel were the antithesis of faith. Abram illustrates another way to live. Rather than grasping and struggling and taking matters into his own hands, Abram was to wait on the Lord and rest in the promise and the power of God. The nations of the world do not live by faith in God. The world grasps and struggles and works to get what it wants. But Abram and his children live by trusting God for everything and being willing to receive from His hands rather than striving to grasp everything for themselves. So we see there is a radical difference between the children of Abraham and the children of this world. And living by faith is not just intellectual, but is a whole new way of life in the world that is oriented toward God and dependent on His promises and His power to keep His promises.

 

The Nature of a Divine Blessing

 

Being in Agreement with God

Most of us probably have a rather shallow understanding of what it means to be blessed by God. Blessing is a religious word that we use in many ways. We pray for our Church services to be “blessed” perhaps without really knowing what we mean by that request. We also ask God to bless our food before we eat. What are we really asking for when we ask God to bless us? Perhaps it is just a general request for well-being or for whatever we are doing to be good and profitable. There is nothing wrong with asking for blessings. But God’s promise of blessing for the world through Abraham is something much deeper and much better than what we typically pray for.

For Abram, the blessing of God included God’s protection and presence. God was with Abram when he became a stranger in the land of Canaan. God guided Abram, leading him in the way that was most beneficial for him. And Abram became rich because God blessed Him. God’s favor was upon Abram.

And we must see this favor in contrast with God’s judgment on Babel. Babel was cursed, not blessed. God opposed Babel, but He blessed Abram. And God promised to bless the rest of the nations, the very ones He cursed at Babel, with the same kind of blessing that He gave to Abram. Instead of being God’s enemies, which would bring the opposition and curse of God, God would reconcile the world to Himself and bring us into agreement with Him. The Apostles connected the blessing promised to Abraham with the Gospel. As Peter preached to the Jews: “You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (Acts 3:25-26 ESV).

That is the blessing of Abraham that would come through him to the nations. God would bless the world by putting away the enmity between Himself and sinful, alienated men. God would bless the world with salvation, reconciliation, and the forgiveness of sins. There would be harmony with God, for all those who would accept this offer of peace and blessing. Others could enjoy the same blessed relationship with God that Abram had.

 

Being a Part of God’s Purpose

Rather than doing his own thing and having his own agenda, like those at Babel, Abram was called to be a part of what God was doing in the world. Abram, though once an Outsider himself, became an Insider with God. Abram was right in the middle of God’s will instead of working against the will of God like the rest of the world. Abram would become an instrument in the hands of God to accomplish God’s purpose on earth. Abram would be more than a spectator. He would participate in what God is doing in the world.

God had His own purpose for the world and He was calling men into it, starting with Abram, rather than endorsing what men wanted to do. God could have deserted the human race completely and excluded all of us, rejecting and ignoring us forever. But that would not be God’s will. God did not desert the world of men. But neither did God endorse what sinful, alienated men wanted to do on their own. God judged Babel and then called Abram.

The primary revelation in Scripture is the will and purpose of God and the fact that God is calling us to be a part of what He is doing. God never promised to bless what men want to do. In fact, what sinful men want must be cursed by God. But there is the promise of blessing for those who will submit to the will of God and be a part of what He is doing. To be blessed is to be in the stream of God’s will, flowing with the current of His eternal purpose. In the letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul connected Divine blessing with the Divine purpose and its fulfillment in Christ:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:3-10 ESV).

God had already designed a plan for the world before the foundation of the earth. In the call of Abram, we are simply seeing the beginning of this purpose on the earth and within human history. The Scriptures will then show the unfolding of God’s plan. This purpose is the theme of the Bible. It all started with Abram and continues to this day. No one has to be excluded from this purpose because the blessing of God was promised to the whole world. The only ones who are excluded are those who exclude themselves by rejecting the knowledge of God.

 

Being a Blessing to the World

Abram would be used by God to bring this blessing to the world. So in a sense Abram himself would be a blessing as well as the conduit for the blessing. Abram was a willing participant in God’s purpose of blessing the world. Becoming involved in God’s purpose is what gave significance to Abram’s life and turned it into a blessing. We should all be thankful for Abram’s willingness to be used by God. God always uses people to accomplish His purpose in the world. Consider how impoverished the world would be without an Abraham. There would be other personalities through whom God would work to advance His purpose on earth. But Abram was the beginning of it all.

The mega-narrative of the Bible is God’s purpose of redemption. Within that over-arching story are many smaller stories, or episodes, that advance the plot of God’s purpose. In other words, every person who has a part in God’s purpose contributes a little piece to the grand scheme. At the end of all things there will be a grand, beautiful mosaic or tapestry of various strands and colors that combine to form the purpose of God’s blessing for the world.

All believers in Christ today are part of that purpose that began with Abram! We are all conduits for God to continue to bless the world today, just as Abram was God’s conduit at the beginning of this purpose. The very presence of God’s people is a blessing to a world that would be quite dark and corrupt otherwise. This is why Jesus told His disciples:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16 ESV).

 

The Seed of Abraham

One Seed, not Many Seeds

The most critical aspect of this promise to Abram was that the blessing for the world would come through his “seed” or offspring. Remember that this was promised to an old man who had a barren wife! Abraham and Sarah would decide to use Hagar to produce an heir for Abraham and Ishmael was born as the result. But God said he was not the child who would fulfill the promise. Ishmael was the seed of Abraham. But he did not fulfill the promise of God. Ishmael was born according to the flesh. There was nothing unusual or supernatural about Ishmael’s conception and birth. God was going to fulfill this promise in His time and in His way.

Later God visited Abraham and Sarah and promised that in their old age they would have a child. Then Isaac was conceived and God identified Isaac as the child of the promise. Officially, it was Isaac who was the Seed of Abraham. But the promise was not fulfilled even in Isaac. The promise was that Abraham would have many descendants, as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. From Abraham came the people of Israel. Was that the fulfillment of the promise? It was certainly part of the promise that Abraham would give birth to a nation of people. But even the existence of the Jewish people did not fulfill the promise God gave to Abram.

The Apostle Paul explains the promise of God to Abram and its ultimate fulfillment in Christ: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16 ESV). In other words, the word “seed” is singular, not in the plural. The promise would be fulfilled by a single descendant, not by many descendants. This might seem like a minor detail. But Paul says it Jesus who is the fulfillment of the promise to Abram. Jesus is the seed of Abraham. The blessing God promised to the nations was the coming of the Christ.

 

The Promise is the Gospel

The promise God made to Abram was a piece of good news for the world, especially in light of what had happened previously at Babel. That God would even want to bless the world that had rebelled against Him is itself a revelation of God’s goodness. The good news God gave to Abram is that God would not desert the world but would bless it. This promise to Abram was the first instance of the preaching of the Gospel, and God Himself was the preacher. “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Galatians 3:8 ESV). The Gospel is the Promise and the Promise is the Gospel. This good news was something that God had committed Himself to do and to accomplish. The Gospel is the good news about a Divine action and accomplishment. It started with Abram and was completed in Christ. This is the message that will justify us if we believe it, just as Abraham was justified by his faith in the promise of God. Abram was not justified by works, but through faith in the Gospel God had preached to him.

At a later time, God would give the Law to the people of Israel. But the giving of that Law in no way obviated the original promise. It only added to the Promise until the time came for it to be fulfilled. This is a significant part of Paul’s exposition of the Gospel.

“This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made” (Gal. 3.17-19).

The Covenant of Law was added to the Covenant of the Promise. But the Promise was the original covenant and was fulfilled in the New Covenant God established in Christ. God never changed the purpose that He revealed to Abram.

 

Gentile Inclusion and a Worldwide Mission

The scope of the promise God gave to Abram is staggering: it is for the whole world. While the promise would be fulfilled through Abram and his family, it was not just for Abram’s family to enjoy the blessing. The Promise was not that God would only bless the Jewish nation but that God would bless all the nations through the Jewish nation through whom the Christ would come into the world. During the time of preparation for the coming of Christ, it did seem like God let the nations go their own way. He worked almost exclusively with the Jews. No one can deny the special place the people of Israel have in God’s purpose. But it would have been too small for God to only bless the Jews. God is the God of the whole earth and all the peoples of the world belong to Him and have always been in His mind.

The Gospel is first for the Jew and then for the Gentile. This was the intention of the promise to Abram. The early Church learned, after some Divine guidance, that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles. Jesus commanded the Apostles to go to the whole world with the message because that was the original design. Before he was called, Abram himself had been a Gentile – an Outsider who was alienated from the Covenant of God. But God made Abram an Insider so that all the Outsiders in the world might have hope.

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:11-13 ESV).

Special Message on Prayer

The Neglected Power of Prayer

(Mark 9.29)

Introduction

What is evil and where does it come from? It is not just a novel question. It is real life. In reality there are evil forces at work in the world that seem to come out every day just to threaten our peace and sanity. We might be entertained by evil on television or at the movie theater, but when evil rears its ugly head in real life the situation is much more serious. Sometimes all we can do is stand and watch helplessly while evil forces have their way, cutting a swath of destruction and sorrow in our lives.

The Bible addresses the issue of evil and gives us some answers, but not always in a way that fits our preconceived categories. It turns out that evil is much stranger and even more disturbing than we expected. The Bible often makes things even more complicated and uncomfortable because it is telling us the way things really are rather than simply supporting our bias.

For example, Jesus often encountered people who had been possessed by demons, or evil spirits. A possession means that the demon, or perhaps even a group of demons, has taken complete control of an individual. The Bible teaches us that there is a spiritual world. This world is filled with personalities, some of which are evil or hostile to both God and men. This is one of the reasons why the Bible forbids any kind of contact with the spiritual world through magic or witchcraft. It is like opening your front door to the spiritual world. And you do not know what might come in!

This is a frightening possibility that many modern people do not want to consider. We now have a scientific view which regards such things a demonic possession as ancient superstition. That is, this is how the Western world thinks. But there are still many people in the world who believe in evil spirits. Even in the West there has been a sort of revival of interest in spiritual things. This has included a renewed interest in the old paganism and the occult. It is naively believed that anything spiritual must be good. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Let’s avoid the extremes of a scientific naturalism that writes off the spiritual world and a naive spiritualism that simply opens the door to anything that might be out there. 

There is no reason to disbelieve in the possibility of demonic possession today. But neither should we think that evil will manifest itself in the same ways in every time and place. Evil spirits can be at work under our very noses in subtle and deceptive ways. Though we may never have to deal directly with someone who is demon possessed, we should not be ignorant about evil and how it operates all around us. Perhaps the danger in our time is becoming lax and almost blind to the workings of evil powers. We are in a fight against evil forces. We need weapons for this battle or we will be impotent. One of the main weapons we have in this fight against evil is prayer. We dare not neglect it.

The Reality of Evil

We cannot afford to be simplistic or naive about the presence and power of evil in this world. The ancient Greeks had a myth about how evil entered the world. There was a woman named Pandora who opened a box she was not supposed to open and this unleashed all of the evil and sorrow in the world. Sometimes those ancient myths transmit truth in surprising ways. Actually, evil did enter the world through a woman who did something forbidden, and who then was followed in the same folly by her willing husband. Adam and Eve’s sin opened the door to evil. And evil has come into our world. Evil was not native to this world because God made everything good. God is not the author of evil. Evil exists wherever there is rebellion and opposition to the will of God.

The fact that there is evil in the world means that not everything is in harmony with the will of God. Ultimately, the will of God is going to be done, on earth as in heaven. But now we live in an evil Age. Something is seriously wrong with this world and with the human race. It is almost like there is something out to get us. Something is hunting us. We can’t seem to escape it no matter what we do to hide or protect ourselves. The world is a dangerous, evil place.

When we read accounts in Scripture about evil spirits that take possession of people, even of a child, we are reminded that no one is safe from the presence of evil in this world. We know and recognize evil when we see it. It is serious business. True evil is almost too terrible to look at and we have to look away. It becomes especially difficult when we see something evil happen to a child. It is easy to read over the details of stories in the Bible. But what if this boy possessed by an evil spirit was your son? Your grandson? Your nephew? We tend to be a little insensitive to evil until it touches us personally. Then evil is no longer an abstract idea. It is real. And it hurts.

Evil is anything that is hostile to and destructive of human life as God intended it. God did not make the human body as a habitation for evil spirits. God did not make us so that cancer could eat away our bodies. The sensation of pain is not itself evil. But when there is enduring, unreasonable, pointless pain we call that something evil. Perhaps the most troubling part of this kind of evil is its seeming randomness. Why did this boy have a demon? Why do people suffer things like cancer or mental illnesses? We always seek answers for these random evils.

Why is there evil? Science seeks answers that are physical and material. And no one is against trying to understand the natural world. But when it comes to understanding evil, the Bible gives us a transcendent or spiritual view that is more complex than the natural and the material. This world we can see and touch is not the only reality. If we think or believe that it is then we will have a simplistic, one-dimensional view of evil. There will be things we cannot explain. Contrary to the belief of many modern people, science cannot explain everything. Actually, true scientists know there are still many mysteries in the world and humility is always the best attitude to have, especially when encountering the powers of evil.

The Power of Evil

Humility is exactly what the disciples learned in their encounter with this demon-possessed boy. When Jesus encountered demons there was no contest. The demons always submitted to Jesus, even begging him for mercy! But in this encounter, Jesus was not there. The disciples were on their own, and in this case, they failed. Perhaps they tried everything they knew to do. Perhaps they commanded the demon to come out of the boy. But they had no authority over this evil. In the same way, we often find ourselves helpless in the face of evil powers. We can relate to the disciples and their failure to cast out the demon! Have you ever felt this helpless? Have you ever faced some kind of evil and immediately knew that you were over-matched? That is a terrible feeling! Especially if you are a disciple of Jesus. We feel that because we are Christians we ought to have all the answers. We ought to be able to say the right words and the evil spirits should go away. But sometimes they don’t go away.

If we find ourselves over-matched by some evil power, the thing to do is face the facts and admit that we don’t have authority over that thing. There is no use in pretending to have power we don’t have or just talking big. Messing around with powers greater than ourselves can get us in trouble. Just ask the seven sons of Sceva (See Acts 19.13-16). I know we feel that, because we are Christians, we ought to be able to handle anything. And if we feel we can’t handle it then we feel that we have failed as Christians and that perhaps we just don’t have enough faith. But remember that FAITH is the key ingredient. Faith means that we are depending on another Power, not that we are equal to every situation on our own. By ourselves we ARE weak. With the Lord we are strong. That was certainly the case with the disciples. When Jesus was there the disciples were always coming out on top because they were with Jesus.

When we are going out on our own, we may lack the wisdom to understand the real issue. I once heard that anyone with a relatively high intelligence can graduate from medical school. But the hardest thing to do, and the most challenging thing to teach to medical students, is how to make a proper diagnosis.

This is true in all areas of life, including spiritual and moral life. Unless we can know the real sickness we can never find a cure. I am afraid that there is much time and effort wasted on trying to fix problems that are not the real problems. We treat the symptoms rather than the disease. And religious people are just as guilty of this as anyone else. Our intentions are good. We want to help. But unless the demon is cast out the problem will continue. Sometimes we just don’t go deep enough to understand what is really going on. We are shallow and stay on the surface of things. But if we do lack wisdom we should pray and ask God to give us the wisdom we need to do His work (James 1.5).

Trouble is, even if we know the real issue, we may still lack the power to bring about a change. Every day we encounter evils that we cannot change. It is a terrible feeling to stand by and watch while evil seems to have its way. What do you do when you have done everything you know to do and there is no victory? It is easy to get discouraged.

Fighting the Power of Evil

We sometimes feel like giving up the fight against evil. It seems like we can’t win. We have tried to cast out the demon and we could not. So why keep trying? Perhaps the disciples were never really meant to cast out the demon in this boy. Maybe there are some evils we are simply not meant to change. If we try to change these things we will just end up frustrated and disillusioned. Maybe it is even the will of God that certain evils exist in the world. Maybe God wanted that boy to have a demon for some reason. Doesn’t God use even evil for His own purposes? So if we can’t change something, maybe we should just accept it as the will of God. If we are not careful we can end up affirming another version of the old pagan belief in fate. All the bad things that happen to people must just be fate. And you can’t fight against fate. You just have to accept your fate, no matter how unjust it may be. But that is superstition, not Biblical faith in God.

Jesus taught us to pray “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The implication is that the will of God is not always done on earth. That is why there is evil in the world. The question is what does God want done about it? Why doesn’t God intervene directly and just rip the evil out of the world? It is not a question of His ability. Nothing is too hard for the Lord.

But this question about evil has been a source of doubt in the minds of many people. The skeptical philosopher David Hume has probably inspired many generations of atheists and agnostics by his famous statement that if God were all-powerful, yet did nothing about evil, then He is not good. And if He is good, but does nothing about evil, then He is not all-powerful.

Something that skeptics often do not consider in this argument is human agency. That is, what part does God want people to play in fighting against evil? Is it possible that God allows evil to exist because He is expecting us to fight against it and to actually be successful? While God does intervene in human affairs, the Bible is filled with examples of people who were called by God to do a work, which usually involved some kind of fight against some evil. God makes a habit of using people to fight evil in the world.

Sometimes God seems rather hard and callous about how difficult the fight actually is and what kind of sacrifice and pain will be necessary if evil is to be defeated. He let His Son die on a cross while all the forces of darkness looked on and mocked. Maybe we are just soft and expect an easy time of it and so we give up too soon and too easily.

Maybe we expect God to do His own work while we sit by idly and passively in the work. What does it really mean to be the servants of God if there is nothing for us to do? The goal is for us to join God in His work. That was why the disciples were following Jesus around. They were in training to do what Jesus was doing, to carry on the work. Jesus was not always going to be with them. He was going back to heaven, but His work on earth was going to continue in the Church, which is His body. And a body is made for getting things done. If the Church can’t do the work of Jesus in the world, then it has not claim on being His body.

The Church is not just a social club or a spiritual support group. The Church is supposed to be something more like an army going out to war. That being said, an army does need to be properly equipped with the most powerful weapons it can get if it hopes to win. There was a weapon the disciples did not have when they encountered this demon. Their failure may give us a clue about the reason for our own failure in the fight against evil.

The Source of Our Failures

When Jesus finally arrived on the scene He knew why the disciples had failed. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” The disciples knew about prayer and fasting. Those were not unfamiliar concepts. In this case they had failed to apply what they already knew. This can describe much of our failures too.

It is not a problem of ignorance. It is a problem of application or of practice. We know what to do. We just don’t actually DO it! Christianity is not just about having great ideas. Christianity is also about doing something. It is not just about talk. It is about power.

Satan is a Power in this world. He rules a kingdom of darkness. He is the god of this world. Satan has authority to do certain things and the only way to fight against him is to have some power ourselves. Where is our source of power for fighting evil? “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

The problem here is that this seems like doing nearly nothing. Sometimes prayer is what we do only when we think nothing else that we can do will work. Prayer has become a last, desperate resort we pull out in a moment of despair. There is nothing wrong with praying desperate prayers. But there are times when prayer is not the LAST thing we can do, it is the ONLY thing we can do. Prayer is doing something! In fact, to do something WITHOUT prayer may be the most powerless activity we can engage in. But we almost feel guilty about JUST praying. It seems like resignation, passivity, or accepting the inevitable victory of evil.

Why do we often neglect the power of prayer? Maybe we think God is not really interested in what we are praying for. But if we know God we ought to know something about what God wants. If we pray according to His will, we know He hears us. Perhaps we are not patient enough to keep praying for something. We give up far too easily, before the evil is dislodged. Jesus taught us to pray without giving up, always counting on the goodness of God. It is not that we have to get God’s attention with many or flowery words. We don’t know God’s timing and we need to keep praying until we see Him work.

But prayer is hard work. There is such a thing as struggling or wrestling in prayer, like Jacob refusing to let go of that mysterious man until he gave him a blessing. We prefer a shortcut, perhaps a formula. But prayer is not like saying the magic words. We might be tempted to think there is some special kind of prayer for casting out demons. What kind of prayer will do that? But that is the wrong question. The question is not “what kind of prayer will cast out demons?” but is actually “what kind of people pray the kind of prayers that can cast out the demons?” It is not about the kind of prayer, but about the kind of person who is praying. When Jesus prayed, He was heard. So how can we be more like Jesus, and as a result, pray the kind of prayers that are heard by the Father? Jesus was in total submission to the will of God. This is why He always knew what the Father wanted Him to do. And that is why Jesus never failed to do the will of God. The power is given to someone who is completely devoted to doing what God wants done. God does not underwrite our agendas.

We must be about our Father’s business, which means any kind of selfishness has to be put to death. We take up our cross to follow Jesus. This is why fasting is mentioned here along with prayer. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” Fasting means self-denial. We put aside our own needs and desires in order to serve another agenda. Then the power flows. When we are empty then we can be filled. Prayer is only effectual through humility. The secret power of prayer is found in our dependence on the power of God.

Conclusion

The kind of prayer Jesus is talking about is not something we can do by simply scheduling a prayer meeting, praying longer prayers, using special words, or working up some emotional state. Any kind of programming, organizing, systematizing, or categorizing, all of which Western Christians love to do, will kill the power of prayer. Prayer is never meant to be something that we can capitalize on for our own purposes. We can’t package this and sell a book or build a Church on it. We are not in control. The disciples quickly found out as they encountered this demon that they were not in control of this situation. We pray when we realize there is something too powerful for us to handle on our own. It would actually be a good thing for the Church today to encounter more demons! We think we can engineer the Church and the Kingdom of God. If we have the right programs, the right cultural approach, a good band, and a nice building we can be successful. All we have to do is look around at all the demons running loose in our culture and we can see that we do not have things under control. The helplessness of these disciples in dealing with this demon is a good illustration of the Church today, at least in the Western world. We seem to be over-matched.

The Church has been unable to keep Western culture from becoming more and more secular. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

The Church has tried to have an influence on the political system, only to lose on more and more key issues. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

The Church has tried to bring people to Christ and turn them away from the power of darkness, only to see people all around us in the grip of sin and destroying themselves in various ways. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

We have even tried to reform the Church herself and bring her back to a point of revival and deliver Her from the grip of sin, apathy, compromise, and division. Instead we have seen religious corruption grow and the spread of false teaching along with a renewed institutionalism and sectarianism. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

We may play the numbers game and think that we have too small a number on our side to really make a difference against evil today. We seem to be outnumbered. But that has always been the case for the people of God. God has never needed numbers to win a great victory. The difference has always been the power of God. And that power exercises itself through the prayers of God’s people.

The powerlessness of the Church may be the result of Her prayerlessness. After everything we have tried to do in the fight against evil has failed, maybe we will finally listen to the words of Jesus. “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

He said He would never leave us or forsake us. He is always with us, just a prayer away. All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. And He is our great High Priest who intercedes for us, bringing our prayers before the Throne of God. We are never alone. We are never powerless, if we will only pray.

God and the Nations (Part 2)

Babel: The Rebellion of the Nations

Genesis 11.1-9

Babel is the end of a section of Genesis that illustrates the effects of the fall. We immediately see the degeneration of the human race. Even in the very first family there is the terrible tragedy of a brother murdering his own brother. Eventually the world became so violent that God was grieved he had created man and decided to send the flood upon the earth in the days of Noah. The human family was allowed to survive through Noah and his sons, but the sinful tendencies are still evident in the lewd behavior of Ham toward his father. As the human race begins to flourish again on the earth we then come to the scene at Babel. Genesis is a book of beginnings. Here we see the origin of all the different nations of the world. But the beginning of the nations is not a good one. And what happened at Babel still describes the state of the nations.

Babel becomes a kind of Biblical symbol for rebellion and opposition to God. The result of the rebellion is confusion and division. God Himself introduced this state of confusion among the nations of the world, which continues to this very day and is one of the major lessons of human history. Babel is the source of all of the strife, competition, and conflict among the nations of the world. The wicked project at Babel represents worldliness or the world of men in alienation from God. This is the City of Man which has continued to be reconstructed wherever men have come together to create human society and civilization. There is also a pagan, idolatrous, religious element in Babel. Many scholars think the tower was actually a place of worshiping the sun, moon, and stars. So Babel also represents all false religion. When we think of Babel we are reminded of this crucial admonition in Scripture:

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17 ESV)

There is an alternative to the World Order. There is the Kingdom of God. Immediately following the story of Babel is the call of Abram and the beginning of all of God’s plans for the salvation of the nations. It is no accident that the call of Abram comes right after the account of Babel. The passage clearly shows a contrast between the plans and actions of men and the will of God. Babel shows how God is managing the world according to His own purpose. There is hope for the world but never in the progress of mankind, which would only make another Babel.

Babel is not just a history lesson, although it really happened. The Bible is not just interested in history for information but for theological principles. Babel is teaching us something about the nature of human history and God’s dealings with the human race. On one hand we are warned by Babel not to rebel against God. On the other hand, we are encouraged by Babel that the history of the world is managed by a purposeful God who will not desert the human race completely.

The nations of the world have been characterized by alienation from God. Babel provides a good model for this condition so that we can recognize it in the world today. The basic nature of the world has not changed. Human nature has not changed and neither has the human condition, in spite of what the pride of modern man might claim to have accomplished for the progress of the human race. (We should not think that any particular nation is somehow a shining exception to the principle illustrated by Babel. The Bible does not encourage nationalism.)

In this lesson we will consider the account of Babel for what it teaches us about man and for what it also teaches us about God. This will provide some foundational thoughts for the rest of this series about God and the nations.

The world is in rebellion against God because of man’s sinful pride. This pride is the direct result of man’s alienation from God, which also results in a false view of the purpose of human life. Prideful man believes that he lives to accomplish his own goals and to create his own destiny. There is a great desire in the world to remove any obstacles that seem to be in the way of mankind’s development and his self-made plans for the future.

The account of Babel shows us something about the greatness of God and His ability to deal with mankind. God’s greatness can never be successfully challenged by rebellious man. The story of Babel shows us a God who is not distant or passive but is present and actively involved in the affairs of human history. However, God’s involvement is often seen in His opposition and His judgement of mankind’s plans and the prideful, rebellious actions of the nations.

Babel was a significant and formative event in the history and development of human society and is crucial to our understanding of the world today. Babel is like a spirit or a principle that pervades human life and society. The spirit or principle of Babel has been expressed in all of the great civilizations of human history. Babel is a model for understanding the world.

Babel Teaches Us About Mankind

 

A Warped View of Life

We are seeing at Babel the effects of sin. Sin is the underlying cause of all of mankind’s troubles. But there are many effects of sin. Sometimes it is easier to focus on the effects and to ignore the cause. The Bible is always trying to help us see what is underneath of human life. The Bible never operates on the surface of things. Beneath the surface of human life is alienation. This is how the Apostle Paul described the state of the world apart from God:

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (Ephesians 4:17-19 ESV)

Our most important relationship is with God. But alienation pervades human life. When we are alienated from God we are also alienated from ourselves. In knowing God, I know myself. But when I am alienated from God I am also ignorant of my true self. I don’t really know who I am or why I am living on the earth. Life becomes a great mystery that becomes impossible to solve. Most people spend their lives running here and there without knowing why they are doing the things they do. Asking questions about the meaning of life is actually something most people avoid because these issues could possibly lead someone to think about God, which is the very thing most people are trying to avoid.

Ironically, mankind is hostile to the very thing that could solve the mystery of life. Sin brought a double curse: we are sick and we are also hostile to the Cure. It is vital to see that no cure for humanity’s ailments will come apart from God, yet the knowledge of God is the very thing that humanity seeks to avoid and even to suppress. The people of this world live as if God does not exist:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one (Psalm 14.1-3; 53.1-3; Rom. 3.10-12)

The book of Genesis is tracing the sources of human life, like a family history or a genealogy. Why are things the way they are? Genesis addresses this question. Human life is warped because mankind has been diverted from his original purpose. This is what was revealed about the creation of man by God:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28 ESV)

The original purpose of mankind was to be the image of God on earth. This image has been warped by sin. The image of God has to do with man having dominion over the world God created, along with the faculties to rule this creation. But man was to rule it for God, as God’s steward or viceroy. Image can refer to a representation. Man was to be the representation of God on earth. The earth was given to man to inhabit and to rule. That is his domain, his dominion. God lives in heaven. But God is the ultimate owner of the earth and mankind is accountable to God. We must report to God, just as an employee must make a report of his work to the manager, or a tenant must submit to the will of his landlord.

But sin interrupted this relationship between God and man. Man refused to submit to God and has sought to take control. This rebellion did not completely erase the image of God from man. The image has been distorted and misdirected. Instead of serving God, man seeks his own agenda and is thereby misusing the faculties and resources God has given. The higher the creature the more dangerous the fall of that creature. Monkeys do not build towers or bombs. But sinful men use their capabilities for purposes that God did not intend or command. Babel was not God’s project.

Independence from God

We were not created to be independent from God. Man was created for Divine fellowship or partnership. We were to be with God and work with God. But sin means we want to be our own Master. Behind every transgression is the desire for independence and for control. The actual transgression is of less importance than the attitude or the reason behind it. Every sin is like a little, cosmic rebellion. It is the spread of that great, cosmic, ancient rebellion and fall of Satan. The English poet John Milton said that every soul in Hell has basically said that it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in heaven. That is, mankind prefers to have his own way rather than submit to God. In refusing to submit to God and wanting to be his own master, man simply becomes enslaved to his own passions. “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8.34). Mankind has exchanged Masters. By choosing not to serve God we have become slaves to our own corrupt appetites.

Anything that is not done in submission to God’s will becomes warped. Nothing is good or bad in itself. The world God created was good. And there are all kinds of things we can do that are completely within the will of God. Even those human desires that we might think to be base can often be traced back to a perfectly legitimate desire that God put there. Whatever God put there He also meant to provide for its satisfaction. But we sin when we seek to fulfill our desires without God. When God’s hands are off the reins, human life goes astray. The only legitimate activities in life are those things that seek God as the ultimate end. Any activity of man that is not done for the glory of God will ultimately be done in vain. All the Towers of Babel that we build must fall in the end.

The people who began to build the Tower of Babel never considered the will of God or asked God if they could act in this way. God was simply ignored. The people may have not even believed in the existence of God, choosing to worship the elements of creation instead. The main consideration at Babel was man and his will, not God and God’s will. Man desires to chart his own course in the world and determine his own destiny.  This is nothing but evil pride. Making plans for the future does not seem to be evil. But when this is done without God in mind it becomes sin. Consider this exhortation and warning from James, which was given to professing Christians:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil (James 4:13-16 ESV)

At first, this planning for the future may not seem like such a bad thing. In fact, many people, including Christians, argue that God has given man free will and the ability to make his own decisions. It is difficult to read the story of Babel and conclude that mankind is free to do anything it wants to do. If God was unable or unwilling to overrule the will of man, then history would look very different. The burden of teaching in Scripture is on the sovereignty God, not the free will of man. It has been said that “man proposes but God disposes.” Men have choices to make, either to submit to God or to rebel, but there is no indication in Scripture that men are free to get their way when they decide to oppose the will of God.

Another Agenda

What was the reason for the agenda at Babel? Why was the project started? I do not think that this was an artistic project. There was a very practical reason for building this city and the tower. A city is a way of organizing and obtaining a collective advantage. There is safety and power in numbers and organization. One of the highest values in the world is security. Man always feels exposed and unsafe in the world and society tries to mitigate this feeling. One aspect of God’s curse was the fact that the creation would no longer provide for mankind willingly but would produce thorns and thistles that would frustrate man’s efforts to live and to thrive in the world. We are always fighting the elements and we do not have perfect dominion over the created world. Man seeks an organization or a mechanism by which to combat the elements. We come together in order to mitigate the risk and the hardship of life in a fallen world. Man applies his power of reasoning, a God-given faculty, and utilizes technology in order to do this, which was also evident in the building of Babel.

But this desire for security and to master the environment does not seem to be inherently wicked. In fact, God commanded mankind to subdue the creation and rule over it. But at Babel we see men taking matters into their own hands and pursuing security and dominion apart from trust in and submission to the Lord God. We are supposed to rely on the Lord for what we need and we are to go to Him for safety and security in times of distress and danger. We are to seek the Kingdom of God before everything else, and then everything else will be provided. Rather than trusting God the world takes matters into its own hands. Jesus told His disciples they are not to be like the pagan unbelievers of the world:

do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:31-33 ESV)

But even the pursuit of security is not an end of itself. Why do we want to have security? What would we do if we did not have to worry about the elements or be concerned about our basic needs? What would we then be free to pursue? Once we managed to build a Utopia, what would we do with it? Apart from God mankind has no higher goal than the freedom to pursue the gratification of its own desires. In other words, the main goal of society becomes the pursuit of pleasure. And it is the pursuit of pleasure apart from God, or the pursuit of pleasure as an end of itself, which is always warped and leaves us empty and frustrated.

God raised up Solomon and gave him a certain kind of earthly wisdom in order to demonstrate the futility of earthly things. Here is what Solomon observed about life in the world:

           

And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 ESV)

Even if we are able to enjoy all the pleasures of the world, as King Solomon did, we will end up with nothing but dust in the wind. Even if we got everything we wanted in this life, there is still the reality of death that continues to frustrate our plans. There has to be more to human life than the pursuit of earthly pleasures.

What was happening at Babel is still happening in the world today. The men of the world are desperately trying to remove all of the obstacles that get in the way of their plans and their ability to secure or determine their own future. The major obstacle that must be removed if man is going to have his own way is the knowledge of God. If there is a God in Heaven, then His will may conflict with the plans of men and this could ruin everything that man plans to do! What will men do if God gets in their way? The Apostle Paul assessed the history of the nations and concluded that these had all sought to suppress the knowledge of the true God and so they exchanged the worship of the Creator for the things of creation. The moral state of the nations can be attributed to the fact that

although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:21-25 ESV)

It seems to make more sense to simply submit to God, but this is not the way mankind has chosen. We are rebels. Mankind originally knew about the one, true God. But to worship this God meant obedience and submission. Man preferred rebellion. The dominant quality of the world is rebellion against God. God is a threat to projects like Babel. And so the Psalmist prophesied correctly that “the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us” (Psalm 2:2-3 ESV). Ever since Babel mankind has continued to rage against God.

Babel Teaches Us About God

 

The Greatness of God

There is something very close to sarcasm and even humor in the story of Babel: God had to come down to see this tower that the men were building! Now why would God have to actually come down to see this thing? The great Tower of Babel was so small to God that He could not even see it unless He came down out of Heaven! This kind of language about God is called an anthropomorphism. It is a way of talking about God in human terms to help us understand something.

In this case the thing we are understand is the greatness of God compared to the true smallness of what they were doing at Babel, though it probably did not look small to the men who were building it. The greatness of God is being contrasted with the relative smallness of the project at Babel. What seems large to mankind is not large to God. We should not be unduly impressed with the things men can do, including our own personal projects or abilities. We need to consider the greatness of God. Only then will our perspective be brought into proper focus. If we get up high enough our perspective is altered, like the view from an airplane or the top of a high mountain. From God’s vantage point, the Tower of Babel looked small. “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers” (Isaiah 40:22 ESV).

God’s perspective is from Heaven. Scripture teaches us to think about God in a certain way. He is our Father IN HEAVEN. He is above us or far superior to us. He is a much higher being than we are. God is not like us but is separate from us and also from the world itself. He is transcendent. The Bible does not teach pantheism, or the idea that everything is God, which would significantly lower God’s person relative to us and to the world. God is higher than the world and He is certainly not a man. God is infinitely more powerful than all of the combined strength of the human race upon the earth. There is really no comparison between God and men and it is foolish for men to challenge God like they did at Babel. God has no true competition, not even in Satan, not to mention in mortal men. We have to look up to God because He is so much greater than we are. And He has to look down on us, His mercy and compassion being the only reason for Him doing so at all.

The Bible divides reality between two realms: heaven and earth. The earth is the domain of men. Heaven is the domain of God. “The heavens are the LORD's heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man” (Psalm 115:16 ESV). And God is always on His throne in heaven. Men like Isaiah, Daniel, and John the Apostle all saw into heaven and the first thing that met their eyes was the throne of God. Heaven is the control-room for earth. God is always on His throne and nothing is out of His control. The men at Babel thought they were in control. But they were seriously mistaken. Men today still ignore God and believe that they are free to do what they want. But God is in heaven. He is still looking down on the nations of the world and all their plans. God has His own plans for the world that do not coincide with the plans of the nations. Is there any real question about whose will is going to prevail in the end?

Like the men at Babel, men today do not acknowledge the greatness of God. God is not feared or obeyed. “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes” (Psalm 36.1). If people were more aware of God their behavior would be different. When we are in the presence of someone who is greater than we are, or someone who might even make us afraid, our behavior is modified. We talk with more respect. We mind our manners. But wicked people have no fear of God and that is why they feel that they are free to rebel against God. Perhaps they think that God is not really there. Many people feel that God is too kind or patient to do anything in response to their sin.  Babel should teach us that God is not neutral or impotent when it comes to responding to human sin and rebellion. To test the Lord by sinning willfully and then presuming on His kindness or patience is a very risky business, to say the least! There may be some intellectual atheists out there who have philosophical objections or questions about God. But there are many more practical atheists. The practical atheists are denying or ignoring God by their actions and their lifestyles, just like the people at Babel.

We need God to exist, but men tend to believe they are self-sufficient. The world fails to acknowledge God as the source of everything. One of the greatest sins of the human race is ingratitude. Thanksgiving is not just something to pray at dinner or to have during the holidays each year. True gratitude is a humble dependence on God each and every day, and is based on an acknowledgment of His greatness. This dependence on God glorifies God because it means we are aligning ourselves with who God is rather than competing with God. The men at Babel were trying to be great themselves instead of glorifying God.

The Nearness of God

The building of Babel did not go unnoticed. One of the great doctrines of the Bible is the omniscience and omnipresence of God. No one can escape the gaze of the Heavenly Watcher. We should not think of heaven or the presence of God as being far away from the earth and the world of men. The idea of a distant, disinterested God who is not involved in the world or in human affairs is completely foreign to the Bible. This nearness of God is the argument the Apostle Paul used when speaking to the pagan philosophers in Athens:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we are indeed his offspring” (Acts 17:24-28 ESV)

But it has always been the desire of men to escape the gaze of the Heavenly Watcher, to hide from God, like Adam and Eve in Eden, or like Jonah running away from his calling. Since God is spirit and is not visible to the physical eyes of men, this does not seem like a very difficult thing to do. Does a Supreme Being even exist? If He does, then can He see me? Does He know me? Does He even care about what I do? Even if men accept the possibility that God exists, does it logically follow that God is anywhere near the world of men?

Maybe God is something like an absentee landlord. Perhaps He simply made the world, wound it up like a giant clock, and then left to do something else up in heaven while the world runs on its own. So much of man’s thoughts about God have been more in the vein of God’s absence and irrelevance to human life rather than a full-blown atheism. An absent God is convenient to our plans.

But the Bible reminds mankind that God can always see. The Psalmist might have been talking to the men at Babel when he said to

Understand, O dullest of the people! Fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke? He who teaches man knowledge—the LORD—knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath (Psalm 94:8-11 ESV)

At times, when we are left weak and defenseless against the cruel forces of the natural world, we may wish there were a higher power who could sweep in and save us. But most of the time men are content to be free from the presence of God and therefore free to pursue their own plans. The people at Babel did not expect or want God around, but He came anyway, and He cancelled their plans.

The story of Babel shows us that God is not limited to His heavenly abode but has access to the world of men, though this ability to access both realms is not shared by human beings. We are physical beings who occupy one space at a time. But God fills heaven and earth and has no corporeal limitations. Augustine attempted to illustrate the omnipresence of God with the image of a sponge floating in the ocean. While the ocean is obviously immeasurable vast in comparison to the sponge, the ocean’s liquid form is able to interpenetrate the sponge and fill it. In the same way, God fills the universe while also being infinitely beyond the universe.

And so God was there at Babel in some sense, though the people did not perceive His presence and would probably not have welcomed God’s inspection of their project. The nearness of God is always a reality. It is our perception of this reality that is lacking, especially if we have moral reasons for our incredulity.

The Opposition of God

God did not come down to support the workers at Babel. He came down to oppose what the men were doing. God set Himself against these men and the city they were building. The presence of God was not manifested in a fiery judgement. No one was killed at Babel. The people at Babel did not perceive God’s presence, but they did feel the effects of His displeasure.

Even if there was no death and destruction at Babel, the presence of God was there to judge the people. God judged them by opposing their rebellious project. God has introduced into human society a principle of confusion and disunity among the people of the world so that it becomes impossible for them to reach their goals. God has come out in opposition to the agenda of people who are alienated from Him and unwilling to acknowledge Him. That is the enduring lesson of Babel. “The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth” (Psalm 34:16 ESV).

The reason God opposed Babel is because He had his own plans for the world and these plans would grow best in the soil that God was preparing. Who knows what kind of environment would have been created in the world if Babel was allowed to continue and to be a success? When a gardener prepares to plant his plants he must first prepared the soil and clear it of anything that would be a detriment to what he wants to grow. God was going to grow His Kingdom in the world and this meant that the project at Babel had to be uprooted. Babel was abandoned at that time and place, though other versions of Babel would be attempted. But only what God builds will be allowed to stand. When Daniel interpreted the dream of Nebuchadnezzar that he had dreamed concerning that golden image, Daniel stated that

the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure (Daniel 2:44-45 ESV)

And so shall the Kingdom of God continue to grow in the earth. Every other kingdom, all the great projects of human history, will become like dust blown away in the winds of time. Only the City that God is building will stand.