The Tower of Babel vs The United States
Genesis 11
In Genesis 11, the whole world was united in a common language against God. They wanted to make a name for themselves, so they tried to build a tower to the heavens. God confused their languages and spread them out over the face of the entire earth.
Genesis 11:4 – Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
Analysis – When the people were united against God, God said that there would be nothing that the people could not accomplish. But the problem was that the people were seeking their own glory. They wanted to make a name for themselves, rather than to praise the Name that is above all names. They were proud and godless. I think God divided them and confused them for the purpose of humbling them, so that they might cry out to Him. I think that the United States could learn a huge lesson from this story. People are so patriotic and committed to making a name for themselves. We are proud to be American. We are proud to bear that name. But, ultimately, our citizenship is in Heaven. God is not an American. Jesus did not come to establish the idea of the United States. People look at this country and think, "What a great country!" Probably, people looked at the Tower of Babel and thought, "What a great tower! Look at what we have done!" But since it was not done for the glory of God, God was against it all. If, as a nation, we do not make it our primary and central focus to glorify the Name of God, then sooner or later, God will pour out His wrath. We should commit ourselves completely to the Kingdom of God. Nations rise and nations fall; but the word of the Lord will last forever.
Genesis 11
In Genesis 11, the whole world was united in a common language against God. They wanted to make a name for themselves, so they tried to build a tower to the heavens. God confused their languages and spread them out over the face of the entire earth.
Genesis 11:4 – Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
Analysis – When the people were united against God, God said that there would be nothing that the people could not accomplish. But the problem was that the people were seeking their own glory. They wanted to make a name for themselves, rather than to praise the Name that is above all names. They were proud and godless. I think God divided them and confused them for the purpose of humbling them, so that they might cry out to Him. I think that the United States could learn a huge lesson from this story. People are so patriotic and committed to making a name for themselves. We are proud to be American. We are proud to bear that name. But, ultimately, our citizenship is in Heaven. God is not an American. Jesus did not come to establish the idea of the United States. People look at this country and think, "What a great country!" Probably, people looked at the Tower of Babel and thought, "What a great tower! Look at what we have done!" But since it was not done for the glory of God, God was against it all. If, as a nation, we do not make it our primary and central focus to glorify the Name of God, then sooner or later, God will pour out His wrath. We should commit ourselves completely to the Kingdom of God. Nations rise and nations fall; but the word of the Lord will last forever.
posted by Dan | 9:01 PM
4 Comments:
Hi Dan,
I read the last two postings. The problem with a theocracy is that the theo (God Himself) is not here to run it yet. That would mean that men would be exercising 'His authority' on 'His behalf'.
It doesn't take much knowledge of history to know that whenever this has happened, and religious people controled their government in the name of their God, it always, always, always leads to terrible abuse. The only way to avoid this is when they King Himself comes, and rules Himself Himself, without mediators of that nature.
I think what Pat means by 'short of that' is that Christ has not yet come. Since He hasn't, we cannot presume to 'rule' in His stead -- we have to try something else. And the Republican concept of government is the best we've found.
I don't always agree with Pat, but in this I think I would.
Remember that in the end times, one will come who sits as God in the temple of God to rule as God. The really scary part is that a lot of well-meaning people probably helped put him there. And of course, that's could be the subject of much more thought.
Loren,
Thanks for reading my blog!
First of all, I have to admit that I need to get much more educated about the End Times than what I am. I have read the Bible in its entirity, but it has been several years since I have given a lot of thought and prayer to intensive study of the End Times.
This does get complicated, because we can talk in the theoretical, and we need to base all our practical decisions based on faith in God's word. Having said that, God does have a Sovereign plan. We both know that the whole world, save for the faithful, will sell out to the anti-Christ, and there will be an unholy trinity that people will bow down to and worship. He will rule the world for a while.
Having said that, there is still an ideal for which we must fight. In the short term, we will not be victorious. In the long term, we will be victorious, if we remain faithful to Christ. Then, in the end, we will rule with Christ.
God is here in the form of His Holy Spirit, who is real and not counterfeit. Every decision that we make should be to honor the Holy Spirit. Therefore, every political decision we make should be made to honor the Holy Spirit. Also, God entrusts His authority to the humble and meek. We are to contend for the faith, and fight for justice.
Fighting for justice, if there was a government that called itself a theocracy, but clearly was not a theocracy (and this will be clear to believers who maintain a close walk with God), then justice will demand that we resist such a government.
Right now, we have a government that is secular. Therefore, as a matter of public policy and precedent, unjust decisions are being made. You point out that injustice done in history by the so-called theocratic governments. Well, there is just as much injustice being done by the openly secular governments. For example, the slaughter of innocent babies is legal in this country! We should resist that!
Democracy is not biblical. The idea of a republic is also not biblical. But that does not mean that we should not throw in the towel when it comes to politics. There is an ideal for which we must fight.
Call it what you will, but we must be under God. If we do not base our laws and policies on the Word of God, then we are on sinking sand. Statesmen should honor God in their every decision. We should all do our part to make that happen.
At the very least, this means that we should not endorse a political candidate who believes in the so-called woman's right to choose (to murder her unborn baby).
By standing up for justice and goodness, and by demanding that politicians honor God, we speed the coming of the Lord. (2 Peter 3:12)
God bless you and keep you brother. May God give us the wisdom, faith, and grace to honor Him through these times.
Dan,
I hear what you're saying in the above comment. I would wish that all of us all the time would be in complete submission to the Holy Spirit. The obvious question: what happens when two people that claim to be in complete submission to the Holy Spirit propose alternate courses of action for the government to take? This is hardly theoretical case; it happens all the time in churches. Case in point, right now our church is doing a study on sexual purity. As a youth worker and somebody who has struggled in this area since I was a youth, I STRONGLY believe that this is a topic we should be talking to the kids about. The leadership, up to and including the head pastor, disagrees. I think all parties involved have good Biblical basis for their stance and would say that they feel no conviction of sin from the Holy Spirit for their choice. Conundrum.
And remember, governments just don’t decided moral issues, there is a lot of ordinary administrative questions involved. How would a theocracy decide how much aid to give to Pakistan and how much to use in our own disaster recovery? How much money should NASA receive this year vs infrastructure developments? Should we push to get Puerto Rico into the Union or not? What is a fair tax structure?
All of these questions are not specifically addressed in the Bible and would rely 100% on active revelation from God. The question the Loren posits: who claims to speak for God? Is there one single person that we can trust to act purely as that conduit or are we as individuals each our own channel for his Spirit? I don’t have time at work right now (on lunch break) to really think this through but I don’t see on obvious way that we can claim to have God as the head of our government and yet insure that we are always, as a nation, acting out his will.
I think this is what Loren is really getting at when he brings in historical evidence. I think we would all agree that the church, acting in the name of God, has done and continues to do some very un-Godly things; this is pretty good evidence that they have not always been acting in God’s will. What makes us think that we, as a collection of people who call ourselves Christians could do any better? Or to put it differently, just by putting the “theocracy” label on a government does not ensure that said government will be acting in the will of God, even if it desires to. Until Christ returns and definitively establishes rule (remember, the spiritual war continues on around us, Christ has not won yet) it will be hard to determine God’s will in all situations. The very fact that many Christians go through a change in beliefs (yourself being a great example) shows that even though we all desire to be lead by the Holy Spirit, none of us has achieved a state where we can be spiritually confident in all the choices we make. All of us can look back at a time in our lives and say, “I thought I was doing God’s will at that time but I can see clearly now I was missing the boat.” (Thankfully, there is grace.) Until we can achieve a state of full submission to the Holy Spirit AND know that we have achieved that state, I don’t think any of us can have a definitive claim on speaking for God.
Trevor,
I appreciate your concern. It is a crucial concern, and deserves much thought and prayer. In fact, it is because of concerns like these, that we absolutely need God - and not the foolishness and sinfulness of the masses. The biggest argument against theocracy is that man is sinful. But that is exactly my biggest argument for theocracy and against democracy. Since man is so sinful, he is not worthy of trust. So, why are we putting our trust in man?
Some trust in horses; some trust in chariots. Some trust in money, and some trust in the masses. Some trust in themselves. But we will trust in the Name of our God.
What we need is wisdom, faith, courage, discernment, and a real and authentic relationship with God. We need to really be hearing from God. If we are truly serving the living God, then we hear Him speak to us all the time. If we are serving a dead religion - a bunch of rules and principles - then we are not truly hearing from God. If you want to hear from God, ask. If you lack wisdom, ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown here and there by the wind.
Let me take your example about discussing sexual purity with the youth in your church. God has a definate absolute will. He is not in conflict with Himself. However, it sometimes seems so, because He is so intense, and He loves mercy and He loves justice. But, He does not contradict Himself.
People are complicated. But God has commanded us in Deuteronomy 6 to teach the children all the commandments of God. This command is given to parents - so working with parents is crucial. As a general rule of thumb, I am convinced that teenagers need to hear "the sex talk," and they need to hear it pretty often. The Bible says to impress them (the commandements) on your children. So, it seems to me that your church leadership is lacking in some wisdom here. But, this is a complicated issue that I do not know much about (since, all I know is what you have told me).
Walking by faith does mean that there will be times (often in this culture) where you are going to take a hard stand for what is right. When you do this, you will basically be telling people that they are wrong. We must be careful when we do this. But we also must have the wisdom and faith and courage to take such a stand when we are in the right. That is what Christian leadership is really all about. People, who always try to dance, and who refuse to move forward with the vision because they are waiting around for everyone to agree with the vision, are giving in to the idolatry of pleasing man above God.
For any authentic man of God, there comes a time when you experience a crisis of faith. During that time, you have to pray. You should get wise council. Fasting is a good idea. Worship. Call on the Name of the Lord. And then, as you are led of the LORD, crucify your flesh and take a stand. This requires courage. And when you do, you had better be right. But if you never take a stance for fear that you might be wrong, then you are living in fear and unbelief and idolatry.
Of course, if a hedonist ever reads this, he is reading someone else's mail. It is a very scary thing, when the godless start doing this type of thing in the name of God. But we, who have the spirit of God, can discern it and confront it.
Of course, just to make this whole concept even more complicated, we can look to Acts 15:36-41. This is where Paul and Barnabas had their disagreement about John Mark. Observe verse 39, "They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company." This was a big deal! Here I think you see two men, both under God, both being used by God mightily, both filled with the Holy Spirit, sharply disagreeing with each other. Paul wanted to guard the quality of the ministry, and he wanted to send a clear message to John Mark that the thing he had done previously (deserting them) was really REALLY bad. He did not want to have a half-hearted guy tagging along. Barnabas, on the other hand, believed strongly that God could use John Mark. He wanted to give him a second chance. He believed that God was not through with the brother, and he was willing to take a risk on him. I believe that both Paul and Barbabas were right, and that through their disagreement, God was glorified and John Mark was impacted. As we know, John Mark went on to write the book of Mark.
In Matthew 18, after Jesus taught us how to treat a believer who sins, he went on to say, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." See, when God's people come together, with all of our disagreements and sins, and we decide that as covenant children of God, we are going to worship and we are going to live in fellowship with each other, one thing you can count on is conflict. As we work through those real conflicts with real people in Christ's name according to the teaching of Matthew 18, God is glorified. That is where real church happens. It often doesn't really happen on Sunday morning when we all put on plastic smiles and say, "Good to see you brother." But when there is real problems and conflict that believers work through together by God's grace, in the midst of the suffering and trial and pain, that is where God is truly glorified.
How does this relate to politics? Well, we need to put no confidence in the flesh, but in everything we need God's grace to see us through. We need wisdom. We need God to speak to us. And we need to stand up boldly and courageously for Jesus in the political arena.
The other option: Don't do anything. Let the secular forces of darkness run the show. Leave everything to Hillary Clinton and the rest of the politicians. This is obviously not a legitimate option for anyone who fears God.
I am open to any ideas you might have.
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