Babel: Out of Order, God Brings Chaos
Genesis
11 is a very interesting chapter. Of
course, it begins with the story of Babel.
I think this story is really neat.
At a passing glance, God intentionally seems to be coming among mankind
to cause mischief and disorder.
Indeed,
here is the God of creation. Here is the
God who created an ordered universe and put everything in its place. While our universe at first seems like a
chaotic and disorganized place with rogue comets, asteroid belts that sent out
potential meteors, and devastating explosions from pulsars and supernovas, the
truth is that everything follows the rules that God has set in place to govern
them. Our universe, as chaotic as it may
seem in the small picture, is really a highly organized place.
So
why on earth does this grand God of order come down and mess with humanity –
scattering them to the ends of the earth and making it so that they cannot talk
to one another? It is actually for our
own protection. God Himself says when
they world can communicate with each other then we’ll think nothing is
impossible. In fact, the Bible actually says
that not only will we think nothing is impossible but we’ll actually discover
that nothing is impossible for us!
What
happens to people who think they can do anything? They no longer believe they need God. When people are convinced of their own superiority,
they are no longer humble and no longer capable of desiring a relationship with
God. So this great God of order comes
among humanity for our own protection.
God
isn’t going against His capacity of love, generosity, caring, protection,
etc. But I do find it wonderful to know
that God can understand the difference between order and chaos and use both in
His great love for humankind. Perhaps
this is a warning we should hear today.
As the global world shrinks, we must be careful to remember that we are
not God and we are truly not capable of doing everything righteously – even if
we can do everything. Being convinced of
our unlimited potential actually leads us to a place that is not good for us to
dwell.
Terah, Out of Ur
Also,
in order to set up Abraham’s call, notice that at the end of Genesis 11 Terah
is called out of Ur to go to Canaan. We
hear about Abraham leaving Ur, but truthfully it is Terah who is called to take
his family out of Ur and go to Canaan.
Unfortunately for Terah, he stops at Haran.
If
Terah had completed his quest, we could be talking about Terah as the father of
the Jews. But no, Terah gets distracted
in Haran. How often does that happen in
ministry? God calls us and along the way
we settle for “good enough,” “far enough,” on “spiritual enough.” Terah spiritually settled. Instead we call Abraham
the father of the Hebrew people. From
our perspective … lesson learned, hopefully.
Abraham: A Man of God
Now
we turn to Abraham’s story. First and
foremost, he obeyed. He went the whole
way to Canaan. He followed God. When he got there, he recognized that God
lived up to His promise. He got there
safely and found good land to dwell in. Good
land, I suppose, until the famine.
{I know he is called
Abram here, but I find that switching names just confuses people. For the sake of ease, I’ll continue to call
him Abraham.}
Abraham
takes his wife to Pharaoh’s land. I do
find it absolutely interesting that Abraham left the Promised Land. Granted, I know that he was fleeing a
famine. And God could have told him to
go. But if we look at the story for what
it says, it seems to me to be a story of disobedience. God told Abraham to go to Canaan, and Abraham
appears to leave on his own. Could this
indicate a lack of absolute trust in Abraham?
I’m certainly not judging Abraham, because the Lord knows that I am not
without my moments of lacking trust.
If
we look at what happens, it still seems to be a story of disobedience. Abraham outright lies and deceives. He’s clearly not following God’s directions,
because God would not tell Abraham to lie about his relationship with
Sarah. If Abraham was following God’s
direction, it would also mean that God set Pharaoh up just to punish him, and
that doesn’t fit God’s character as well.
In
the end, I have to see this as a disobedience story. Abraham goes to where he thinks he can find
food – leaving the land to which God called him. Abraham lies and deceives. Pharaoh gets caught up in Abraham’s lie. Think about it. Abraham’s lie costs Pharaoh some property as
well as the punishment that God handed out to him. I don’t care that Pharaoh wasn’t a
God-fearing man … those who follow God should never willingly accept when
anyone is taken advantage.
I
think there is some truth to seeing this story this way. Sometimes there are innocents that get
wrapped up in our lies – our sin.
Sometimes there is a cost to those innocents. It is tragic, but true. Perhaps we should indeed spend more time
looking at the “logs in our own eye” as Jesus speaks about our sin.
Hope
you have had some inspiring thoughts today as you read God’s word. <><
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