Genesis 1:1-3
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light:" and there was light.
Before the world,
there was nothing, but God;
and then by His Word,
the worlds were made.
God spoke;
and the nothing jumped to attention;
that must have been something!
Psalm 33:6
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made;
And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
But the words of the Lord were more than mere words.
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
The world was made not just by words, but by the Word.
Hebrews 11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
What we see is held together by what we don't.
That world that is would not exist without the word of I Am.
Romans 4:17
God gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
Nothing plus God's Word equals everything.
Communication holds things together and a breakdown in communication breaks things down.
Genesis 11:4-9
And they said, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, "Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
The Tower of Babel was under construction until communication broke down; that moment, the tower too broke down and was abandoned. Communication keeps things copacetic. The Word holds things together. If He breaks off communications, the world would break apart: mountains once immovable evaporate and gravity previously fixed floats away.
2 Thessalonians 2:8
The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
The inventions of men fall before a full sentence is said. The sentence is passed by the breath of God. One word from the Lord and the majesty of man falls apart.
And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him
-- Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress
There is nothing new under the sun and the world is no stranger to men uniting together to blatantly disobey God's clear Word. Those who re-inhabited the world post-flood pooled together rather than fan out according to God's command. They, instead, stayed put and began the tireless work of making a name for themselves. Instead of increasing the glory of God, they choose to see if they could increase their own stock. So they worked together to build something spectacular. They set themselves to make a world in their own image, a reality outside of God's, where towers tell the tales of great men doing great things.
And then God changed their language and the entire project was abandoned. The tower was left to the rule of rust and decay and gradually succumb to the inexorable realities of God. It returned to dust, just as those whom He dispersed did. The pride of man was laid low and all because He made it impossible for them to understand each other. They could have taken time to learn each other's languages. All languages have structure which can be taught and caught. But their impatience got the best of them. Revolutionaries don't have time for things like grammar. Studying syntax tends to take the edge off of the urgency. Diagramming sentences has a sobering effect and rioters prefer the wisdom of whiskey to the sobriety of Spanish 101.
Listening to the Cross Politic Daily Newsbrief yesterday (12/9/21), there was a story about a recent blackout of Amazon due to a server going down. It was restored and order was regained, but during the outage, peeps be cray. The same thing happened when a few months ago Facebook and Instagram went out for a few hours. A few hours... All it takes is a small miscommunication and everything can fall apart.
The curse of Babel could be applied easily enough by God to internet systems. If He merely confused their language, imagine how much would/could go down. All the force of those you fear could evaporate in the face of a miscommunication. You may scoff at the fall of Babel, but you may see it again. And you will see just how small our towers are and how great our God is. With the flick of a tongue the whole project can collapse. The programs in which we place our trust rely on the ability to send, receive, understand, and execute commands. Something as simple as an inability to communicate can destroy the greatest achievements of wicked men.
C.S. Lewis employed the same strategy for dealing with and disabling the entire N.I.C.E. The deus ex machina of a simple language barrier can bring the whole thing down.
“Qui Verbum Dei contempserunt, eis auferetur etiam verbum hominis.” -- Merlinus Ambrosius in C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength
(They that have despised the word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.)
Praise God.
Amen and Maranatha!
No comments:
Post a Comment