Chapter
11 of Genesis begins by telling us, “The
whole world had one language and one common speech. As men moved
eastward, they found a plain in Shinar“.
The famous story of the tower of Babel. Interestingly, the men
decide to make the tower out of baked brick using “tar
for mortar“.
“Then
they said, let’s build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to
the heavens“.
Why would they make a tower in the desert waterproof? Clearly, they
doubted God’s promise not to destroy the earth with water again.
Some believe the tower was a place to study the stars and the occult
practice of astrology. God saw their hearts were in rebellion to Him
and in an act of mercy, understood the need to separate men into
groups to avoid world-wide corruption again. God says, “they
have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be
impossible“.
God understands human nature and sees the tendency of mob mentality.
Have you ever heard of a mob of people celebrating a championship
doing good things? God says to Himself, “Let
us go down and confuse the language so they do not understand one
another“.
then, we are told, “The
Lord scattered them from there over all the earth“.
We need to individually look at the things we do in comparison to
God’s truth, “Everyone else does it”, is not an acceptable
excuse.
The
rest of the chapter gives us the genealogy of the most famous man in
the Old Testament- Abram (Later God changes his name to Abraham). We
are also introduced to his wife Sarai, nephew Lot, and his father
Terah. Through this genealogy we also see that life spans are
becoming much shorter after the flood.
As
the chapter closes, we are told, “Terah
took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his
daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of Abram, and together they set
out… to go to Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled
there“.
Here is the irony in the names mentioned here, Abram mean “father”,
yet his wife was barren. Sarai, means “contentious” (she
must have been pretty with a name like that). Terah means “delay”,
and Haran means “parched”. According to Acts 7:2,
“Abraham…before
he lived in Haran”
was told by God to “leave
your county and your people and go to the land that I will give you“.
So, Abram partially listens to God and he end up in a “parched”
place with “delay” and “contentious”! Tell me
God doesn’t have a sense of humor. But the same thing happens to us
when we only partially follow God. If you are in a parched place,
look to see where you are only partially following God in your life.