Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 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; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:1-9
Do you ever wonder why there are so many different languages in the world? If we all came from Adam and Eve....and then from Noah and his family, how is it that we all speak so many different languages, and we don't understand each other. The answer is that God did that.
A long time ago, when all of mankind still spoke one language, they all got together and created a plan to build a big city, with a big tower that would reach to the heavens. Their plan was to work together as a team to build this tower so they could stand at the top of the tower with pride at their accomplishment. Their plan was to work together for the purpose of pride. As a result, God confused their languages to stop their plans and break down their pride.
God will do this even still today. The Bible says that pride comes before the fall. If we are filled with pride, God will find a way to break us down. The more pride we carry, the more embarrassing it will be when we are cut down. It's not a fun experience as we all know.
Do you know what is awesome, though? When we all decide to work together for something that brings glory to God, God will create ways to help build us up to accomplish that goal. My favorite time that He did this was at Pentecost.
Many people are confused about the events that took place at Pentecost. People have taken the concept of "speaking in tongues" and turned it into something that was not intended by God. Many do not understand how cool the miracle was that God did at Pentecost.
At Pentecost, many hundreds of people gathered together into one place for the purpose of receiving the Holy Spirit that God promised to send after he died. It was awesome. All of these people were gathered in order to learn what they must do to be saved and surrender their life to God. The problem, however, is that they came from all over the world, speaking many different languages, and could not understand each other.
That's when God did something awesome! This time, people were gathered together for the purpose of glorifying God. As a result, God did the exact opposite that he did at the tower of Babel. In this case, God made it so people could speak to each other, and they would understand one another, even though they spoke a different language. If someone spoke in Japanese to someone else who spoke English, he understood the Japanese person in English!! How awesome is that!!!! I would have loved to be there to see that.
Even more interesting is that God only allowed this to happen for the people who were turning their live over to Him. The other people in the area who were not there to be saved just thought the whole crowd was insane, and probably had too much to drink.
So, today, let's make sure that, if we work together with others, that we do it for the purpose of honoring God and not ourselves. If we do it for God, God will bless our efforts, and make us successful!
