Genesis 11:8 – So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Genesis 11:9 – Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Hey all, continuing to look at Babel today. Babel actually means “the gate of God”, yet it came to mean “confusion”, and that is how it is remembered… after God came down and confused the tongues and scattered the nations there. Its funny how in the Old Testament we read of Babel and then Babylon, and then it appears to have disappeared today. It all seems long gone, yet then bobs up majorly in Revelation! God sees things very clearly, but we trapped in time and the limitations of our mind and understanding… we don’t know anything. In Genesis we read of Babel, and it’s a story of waste, futility, incompletion and confusion… but in Genesis we also see the story of Jacob’s ladder. In both stories heaven was the goal… yet one (Babel) was man’s way to heaven, and the other (Jacob’s ladder) was God’s way to heaven. One was man’s effort, another was seen in a dream as Jacob lay helpless and viewed what God had provided and done. I don’t recall being present when Jesus died on the cross, because I wasn’t, I don’t recall being present when man sinned, and when God even before it happened had planned out the way of salvation through himself entering his creation as a man and dying for our sins in order to redeem us from the curse of sin and death. Because I wasn’t, that’s what Jacob’s dream shows, God did it all while mankind was asleep in sin, while man was helpless, hopeless, and done and dusted. Babel was of man, but Jacob’s ladder was of God. One didn’t make it to heaven, one did. The story of Babel is in Genesis 11, the story of Jacob’s ladder is in Genesis 28.

Confusion happens when man tries to do what they did at Babel. And as they did then, and why the Bible records it… is because as they did, so man does today. Nothing has changed. It’s all new faces, new packaging of the same old evils. The same old disobedience, the same old thing man does again and again. There are so many religions in the world today, but they are all confusion, and although it’s all hard to pin down, God identifies it all and lays it all bare in scripture, summing up man’s religion originating at Babel till today, as Mystery Babylon. She is a great whore, and it might seem like harsh language to us sanitized enlightened individuals, but false religion is a whore, because she has many lovers, she suckles many young, many lay with her, many fornicate with her, many are taken down to hell by her. She is the strange woman of Proverbs, it is no wonder in 1 John, we are warned not to be enticed, not to be seduce by lies, no matter how good they look. Looks and feelings are dangerous, but God’s word is sure, a rock, a foundation that cannot be moved or shaken.

New Jesus’, new spirits, new gospels, new words, new songs, new doctrines… are all part of Satan leading us away from truth and into idolatry. Because any God that is not the God as defined by his word, is an idol. God is who he says he is in his word. His word defines him, and he is a man of his word perfectly, in him is no variance. So what he says is who he is. His word is perfectly consistent with his character, that’s why you can read the entire Bible and it be relevant to you, because he says I am the Lord and I change not. That’s why the end of 1 John says “this is the true God and eternal life” and “little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen”. You have to guard your faith, protect it, stand for it, you have to take ownership of and keep God’s word, not just as in obey it, but as in hanging on to that same old truth that was preached hundreds and thousands of years ago, but which Satan attempts to snatch from you today from right under your nose. And take it he will try, just ask Naboth, who had a vineyard given to him by his father, but Ahab wanted it, first by trade, secondly by force through Jezebel. Watch out for Jezebel, she’s still going today… she’s that false spirit in the false Bible, or that false Jesus promulgated by that false teacher. She’s full of lies and harlotry, and many feed at her table, many are on her side… you have to keep your vineyard at all costs… otherwise you’ll have nothing for yourself or to give your kids. That’s why God’s laws were so in the Bible, and so important regarding land ownership and inheritance, God gives us things, and he wants us to keep them, not sell them out when someone comes wanting what God has entrusted you. And there is nothing greater that God has entrusted you with than his word, and the message in the word of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the truth of who he is and what he has done. Hang on to it with your life.

Satan was behind Babel, and Satan is ultimately behind all false religion. He is the father of lies. Babel was the origin of false religion, and all the people took it to their nations when they were scattered. The religions took different forms, and names, but they can all be reduced down to nothing… all the different religions of the world comprise mystery Babylon. Just as Proverbs says “her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them”. You get sucked into her web, and you’ll be in a labyrinth of lies, never arriving at any truth or going anywhere. It’s a mystery to those in it, but she’s laid bare in God’s word. We can know truth… in fact that’s why the Bible was provided for us by God, so we can know it, and the truth is what we can know and be set free by. Knowing truth frees you from all the entanglements and lies and deception and distraction and snare of the devil. Remember, we are in his playground, he is bruised and sentenced, but he is still the god of this world, it’s his kingdom, Jesus hasn’t possessed it yet and ruled and reigned. Satan is an adversary, a lion, a dragon, a serpent for a reason, that’s why we need to fight him just as Michael the archangel did, fight him on the basis of Jesus Christ… the Lord rebuke thee.

This world’s kingdom is Babylon, comprising a social, political, and economic system, and it also has it’s religion. It’s mankind’s full package, but Satan got the mastery of it, and is behind it. This world is on the way out, it’s going down… it’s evil, it’s corrupt, it consists of lust and lies and pride. At Babel, we see that they had a city and a religion, and in Revelation both are dealt with finally, fully and forever. They pervade so much of human history from Genesis to Revelation, but finally they get what’s coming to them. We are born into the web, but Jesus knows his own, he knows who he has chosen, who he has called, and just like Moses drawn out of water, so Jesus draws us right out of this world. He’s bought us out with his blood, he has power to redeem us, and he will redeem whomsoever will from the the house of bondage here on earth. Bondage to lies, darkness, waste, death, sin, curse, hell. True Christianity, true salvation, is easily distinguishable from false religion. False religion is birthed out of disobedience to God’s word, but true religion is birthed out of hearing and believing God’s word. One had a man for a ruler, who was a mighty hunter, but the other was God, Jesus Christ both perfectly and fully God and man, who was a shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. One has an endpoint and final judgement and whose endpoint is death, but one is eternal life and a city that lasts forever.

It seems ironic that something that started out as the gate of God ended in confusion. It fell so staggeringly short of it’s goal. Typical man, that’s why you need to make sure what you’ve got is of God, not a work of man. Man fails every time, that’s why Jesus didn’t commit himself to man, because he knew what was in man. But how typical of so much of Christianity even today. Churches, pastors, teachers, books, helps, people… it’s all supposed to be a gate to God… they promise so much… but all they give, and offer, and the endpoint is confusion. You tangle with Babel religion, you will never get to heaven. Instead you’ll be further than when you started, instead you’ll be living a life diametrically opposed to God. God never honors disobedience, these men at Babel were in complete opposition to God’s command to spread out and replenish the earth. These guys were following Nimrod, but they were following the wrong guy, he was mighty, he was great, but he was a hunter… he didn’t love them, rather he USED them. False religion uses you, Satan USES you. It was disobedience back then, and it’s disobedience now… and always confusion. You see, true Biblical faith is an action, it is hearing and doing the word of God. These guys at Babel knew what God said, but they went against it. Babel was all about themselves, their ideas, their ways, their means. And today there is confusion at the gate of God, because people go to churches, listen to sermons, do whatever, listen to songs, do the dancing, but God is not in it, it is confusion, they never know God, they never have truth for themselves. They are taken captive by the devil, because they are playing the devil’s game, and the devil always wins his own game, because he’s rigged it against mankind. He’s a cheat, he doesn’t play fair, why gamble with him?

There was confusion at the gate of God. It actually was never God’s gate, because it was a gate birthed in disobedience, it was all so wrong. Nimrod wasn’t a good man, they were following the wrong guy. The religion was fraudulent, it was based on man’s efforts and intentions, they had the wrong religion. But it was a great work, they were making some real progress, enough to be worthy of scattering. And so false teachers and false Christs arise and deceive many. There was pretty great stuff going on at Babel, but all along they were in violation of God’s word. They didn’t even want God, they wanted heaven, but not the God of creation. Many people want heaven, they want good, but they don’t want the God whom it all comes by and originates from. They want get there their own way, none of this repentance of sin stuff! They built, but they with all their building could never, and would never build a house that would make it, not nearly. Meanwhile Jacob would dream a dream of a ladder already set up from heaven to earth, a ladder upon which God stands as the gatekeeper, and a ladder in which man is beckoned to heaven. Jesus is that ladder, you will “climb” to heaven on the basis of who he is and what he’s done. And in fact there is no work required, because he did the work, alone, on the cross, and it. is. finished. Satan’s defeated, there’s no need for all this Babel confusion. You can spend your whole life like the man at Bethesda, 38 years waiting for the moving of the water, waiting for someone to take him there… but noone ever did. You have to just believe on the Jesus Christ, looking anywhere else will never get it done. Just accept the truth, it’s actually the stupid truth you always knew, the one you always reject because it doesn’t quite please you. You want something more mighty, something… anything other than the simple truth, the faith once delivered unto the saints. There was confusion in Babel at the gate of God, because it quite simply wasn’t what it claimed to be… it was confusion. But there is no confusion in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 2:6 – Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

1 Peter 2:7 -Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,

1 Peter 2:8 -And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

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