The tower of Babel speaks straight into my own life! How?
There’s nothing more vital than that we `live by faith` (Rom 1:17), and Abram’s story shows us how. Last time we saw how it started: Genesis shows him venturing out from all his security, trusting God for his safety and for his ‘name’ (12:1-2).
But this doesn’t come out of nowhere. God’s designed the Bible brilliantly, and this comes right after the story of the egoists of Babel, building a tower `that reaches the heavens`. (Is this how we get heaven on earth, by carefully building our own towers? Not really…) They’re after two things (see 11:4): first, to `make a name for ourselves`; second, security, `not to be scattered`. (This is instead of spreading out across the post-flood earth as God had commanded (9:1-7); that was risky, with all those wild animals, so instead of putting their trust in His love, they build their own tower just so as not to be `scattered`. Which didn’t work at all (11:7-8); disobeying God doesn’t, it just leaves us more insecure… Genesis makes so much sense when we put it all together!)
So these are the Babel issues, identity and security. And exactly these, identity and security, are what God promises Abram if he lives by faith: `I will make your name great… I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse` (12:2-3).
So here’s the point: where am I seeking my security, and my `name`, recognition, significance, identity, day by day? In somehow idolatrously building my own tower (and God can wait); or letting all that go, and trusting God’s enormous love?
(And a PS: This huge choice, between two systems to live by, runs right through to the other end of the Bible. It’s there at the end of Revelation; there’s Babylon, the godless world system, the `great city`, with its sins now ‘piled up to heaven’, the Great Prostitute (17:1, 18:5,10). In contrast Abram was living for a `city that is to come` (Hebrews 11:8-16, 13:14; Colossians 3:1-3); and sure enough in Rev 21:9 that `Holy City`, the beloved Bride, our true home, reward, and identity, New Jerusalem, comes `down out of heaven`….
So Father who sees my deepest heart: where’s my real loyalty and my security, which of these two fundamental systems am I spending my life and energies by?)
