Confusion
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Confusion
Confusion
We are going to talk about confusion today. You've probably already figured that one out, so I haven't confused you yet. I thought it might be an appropriate topic since I'm pretty sure, if I've evaluated the news correctly, that the whole world is confused about life in general. They have the wrong idea completely. From our new president on down, we as a people are loosing respect for one another, there is very little common decency anymore, and the more vulgar the better seems to be the flavor of the day. So today, I want to put confusion where it belongs.
Prayer.
What's Confusion
What's Confusion
Webster says that it's the an act or instance of confusing, or the quality or state of being confused or a a confused mass or mixture. That didn't help much. How about the word confuse:
to bring to ruin
2 a: to make embarrassed: ABASH
b: to disturb in mind or purpose: THROW OFF
3 a: to make indistinct: BLUR
That sounds more promising. When you're confused you apparently loose your direction, you can't think straight. You become lost. Ever felt like you've been that way? Pretty hopeless state of affairs. Are we in a state of confusion as far as this rock we are living on? I think so.
Prayer
Did you know that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the first stated in the Bible to use confusion as a means to accomplish a goal? Uh huh, it's true. They aren't the only ones that used it, but we'll get into that more later.
How many of you remember this clip form the Bible in Living Sound?
Lets's look at in the bible
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
See right here was the beginning of confusion. Up until then, they were pretty much of one mind in what they wanted to do.
Shinar
Shinar
Have you ever wondered where this all took place?
Map Shinar is a a district of Babylonia in what is now southern Iraq. According to Gen. 10:10, the Plain of Shinar included Babel (Babylon). Shinar was later equated with Babylon proper. The people of the area came out of the area of Mt. Ararat, the place where God had the ark land after the flood. Archeology has shown that this land was densely populated in the earliest of historical times.
This is a map of the general area that Noah's son's decedents settled in. Take a look at where Ham's descents chose to settle. Remember Ham's descendent was Cush and his son was Nimrod. Nimrod was the father of the kingdoms of the Shinar plain. Shem's family stayed up the hill country for the most part, my guess is to stay away from the troubling influences of "relatives".
One Language
One Language
The Bible tells us the whole earth had one language. The time span from the day that Noah and his son's step out of the ark to the building of the tower of Babel was 339 years. Some estimations have been done, figuring on a 3.5% growth rate, that the population of the earth at that time must have been right around 920,000 people. That's a lot of people with one language don't you think?
The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 1 1. One Language
Unity of language goes with unity of descent, and a common language does much to promote unity of thought and action. Modern research in comparative grammar has demonstrated conclusively that all known languages are related and that they have descended from one common original.
So it's quite possible that Hebrew or Aramaic is similar to what was spoken before things were changed.
Now if 920,000 people speak one language, big things could happen couldn't they. Just stop and think for a minute what that kind of situation could produce.
The New King James Version Chapter 11
4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
Why do you suppose they were worried? The flood was still in their memory, but the descendents of Ham had lost the love for their Creator. They wanted to forget God's law and His teachings and to get as far away as possible from Shem's clan. That lead them to the plain of Shinar. They had lost their love for God, but the fear and rebellion was still there wasn't it. So the thoughts went out among themselves, "How does one save himself from another flood?"
A Tower
A Tower
Of course we know by way of the Bible where their minds went. A tower, an immense one. The flood had covered the highest mountain they must have reasoned, but had not reached "unto the heavens". So if they built something higher than the mountains they would be safe from whatever God might do. We don't know how tall it really was or where it was exactly located. Some think it was in northern Mesopotamia, others think it was down near Babylon it's self.
But that wasn't their only purpose for this tower though, they wanted to make a name for themselves. According divine purpose, men were to have preserved unity through the bond of true religion, the worship of their Creator. They were supposed to have obtained their strength and purpose for existence in their connection with God. Instead they put their desire for renown, protection, their worship and pride into a tower. A thing of the world. When we attempt to preserve unity of mind, body, purpose and worship by an outward means, it will always fail. It will fail miserably. If God is not at the center of it, it can not stand.
Confusion
Confusion
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
Lord came down to see what was going on. Did the Lord reveal His presence like He did at Sinai? No, it's a human description to let us know that the doings of men are never hidden from God. He is aware of everything we dream of, plan to do and set out to accomplish.
And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
From the time that I was a kid and heard that episode from the Bible and Living Sound, I've thought about what God did here and what it must have been like. At one point you are talking with someone like you always have done and then in an instant you can't understand them anymore. In an instant more than 900,000 thousand people could probably not talk to the person next to them. Does that give a picture in your mind of at least one definition of confusion? Imagine wandering around until you found another person to communicate with, and then another, till you formed a group of like language'd individuals. A unique way to create races and populate the earth don't you think?
Confuse
Confuse
Id look a little closer at the word confuse, confusion or form of it.
New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries: Updated Edition 1101a בָּלַל (balal)
בָּלַל balal (117b); a prim. root; to mingle, mix, confuse, confound:—anointed(1), confuse(1), confused(1), mixed(38), mixes(1).
Earlier I said that God used confusion to accomplish His goal. Who first employed the use of confusion.
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
Satan is the author of confusion. He's the father of lies and the adversary of God. He perfected the use of it heaven before he came to this earth. Before him everything was in harmony.
In the old testament, you can find quit a few places where the Lord uses confusion to either disrupt the enemy like Ex 23:27
“I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
or to chastise His people for their unbelief. Deut 28:20
“The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.
The Bible clearly shows that the Lord as used confusion as a means to an end, but look at this verse. 1 Cor 14:33
For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
If God is not the author of confusion, there has to be another. James 3:16
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
So we should be able to say then that Satan, Lucifer or the devil is the author of confusion. He has employed the use of it from the very beginning.
Now can we attach the same connotation to being confused as is apparent with confusion? If Satan is the author of confusion, can he not also confuse us even as we look for truth? Remember Webster tells us that to confuse is to disturb the mind or purpose and to make indistinct or blur.
These thought on confusion came to me as I have watched events unfold over the last few weeks. Actually it has been longer than just a couple of weeks, but it seems to me that it is even more prominent now than it was.
The lines between truth and fiction are so blurred now, that no one really knows what is truth and what is not. People have always had opinion on one side or the other, but the media has really become a tool of the devil and he's using it with sadistic glee. Social sites like Twitter and Facebook are rife with this opinion and that opinion. If people see it in print, they take it as gospel truth. They never stop to think that it's just one person's opinion.
When I was a kid growing up, I would sit in church and here about the state of the world at the close of earth's history. I would wonder how the world as I knew it could get to such a state, but I don't wonder anymore. I look out the window and I see an earth that is just the same as when I was sixteen. It's the people that are different.
Confusion, searching for truth and knowledge and finding none.
Where can real truth found?
If you spent anytime in this book, you know the answer to that question. Most think that it's an archaic bunch of words, not relevant for our time at all. But it's the only place where you gain an impression of true love and fulfillment for your life. It is only here where we learn of Jesus and the love that can sustain us and our faith for what lays ahead for us and the rest of the world.
We need to look at what's going on around us, not with a since of depression, but with the knowledge that we are living on the edge of eternity. Let us wake up every morning with a smile recommitting ourselves, and building our faith and passing on what we know so that we may be counted worthy to be able to see Jesus on that wonderful day.
And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God;
We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the LORD;
We have waited for Him;
We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”