"The Journey Back To Babel"

  We read about it in Gen. 11. The peak of man's insolence came at the tower of Babel. When you read it carefully you see man's arrogance and pride making a go of things without God! They wanted a name for themselves, to be somebody's in this world. This tower that will reach upward to heaven will be our rallying point and the center of man's life that will show our self-sufficiency. This marvelous, grand tower would stand above the earth that we can boast in our doings and in all this, it can be done without God!

  With all this, man's ignorance and foolishness gets exposed. It began in a garden where God blessed man, which man gave back to God their treachery by being led into believing we could be as wise as God, not needing God. Eventually the flood dealt with man's sinfulness showing this world that man cannot live without God and man quickly went back to their conceit and pride being daring and self-willed worship on the plains of Shinar. Here they were on this plain where mankind came together united against God. God once again showed that it took one moment of one word spoken from Him to confuse man's language and it stopped man in their tracks! No more center for man, no common cause and now without a home or name. Man scattered! The loss of home and community came through sinful and prideful independence. 

  At the right time in the history of man, God built His center in a man called Jesus Christ. Being lifted up on a cross God was showing that if there was going to be any unity, it would rally around Jesus. Jesus was to unite the fragmented world of the arrogant Jew and rebellious Gentile. On Pentecost, the Lordship of Jesus was made visible (Acts 2) which undid everything that happened at Babel! 

  It didn't take long and this one community of believers that came into existence called the church (there was only one and no such thing as denominations), that rallied around the Lordship of Jesus Christ as the center of their lives and His truth brought them as one, began to fragment. People leading others under this name of Jesus into different beliefs and independence. The grand structures built with man's name on it, glory in man, the apostles and anyone tied to religion. Positive thinking, psychology and ideas of man have become a staple all under the disguise of the name of the Lord. But really the name of man is behind it. We are just smarter about it today...or are we? Slowly but surely, over the last two thousand years as hundreds of hundreds of groups have fragmented with different teachings making man's thoughts their center and traditions made up as their religion. It makes us wonder if once again we have begun the journey back to Babel? I wonder what God is getting ready to do?