Whom do you fear?

 

Evil Hearts Fear Men Not God – Gen 10-11

When God made the decision to flood the earth and remove mankind, He noted that although men’s hearts are inclined to evil, He would be gracious and not destroy them again. The rainbow is His sign to men that He is a promise keeper. If only men would see that and remember but *sigh* they do not! And so we find them in the plains of Shinar planning to disobey God’s explicit command to be fruitful, multiply and fill the whole earth. “Come let’s build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let’s make a name for ourselves.” They feared being scattered instead of trusting the Lord. They sought self-protection rather than God’s protection.  Their hearts were self-centered—and today men are the same! God noted that “nothing they plan to do will be beyond them.”

Because they intentionally disobeyed God’s command, He confounded their language and scattered them across the face of the earth. And that, in a nutshell, is the story behind the word “Babel.”

There are some lessons we can glean from this incident. One “they hated moral knowledge, and did not choose to fear the Lord,” [Prov 1] Secondly, just like in the Garden, they heeded the words of our adversary: “you will not die but be like God.” His motive is always to get men to not believe God but to elevate self above God. Fearing the Lord is the beginning of discernment, but fools have despised wisdom and moral instruction.

Proverbs 3:5 reminds us to Trust God! “Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.”

This is a lesson we need to heed. Whom do you fear? Men or God?

Three Extraordinary Women

Moving on from Genesis to Exodus 1 to 3, we meet three extraordinary women; Shiphrah and Puah and the mother of Moses. These heroines lived righteously in an evil and perverse nation ruled by a man “who did not know Joseph” and what he had done to save the nation of Egypt.  Shiphrah and Puah were Hebrew midwives who were ordered by the new Pharaoh to kill all male babies. Courageously they found a way to circumvent that order and save the new infants. They feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them… “because the midwives feared God”  He blessed them with households of their own.  Jochebed, the mother of Moses, saw her beautiful son and made a plan to save him from the Pharaoh’s order. She demonstrated courage, determination, and cleverness to save her son from this evil law of infanticide.  She trusted God to provide for this precious child and so it was that God moved Pharaoh’s daughter to bathe that very morning in the Nile. Hearing an infant’s cry she felt compassion for him; adopted him and named him Moses “because I drew him from the water.”  Her compassion overruled her father’s infanticide law even though she could not foresee God’s plan already being set in motion to redeem the children of Israel from bondage through Moses. These three women were used by God to save an entire nation.

These heroines had no Bible but they had God and they feared God more than this Pharaoh.  This teaches us a principle: no matter what century you live in or where you live, God speaks and reveals Himself to His people.  [Rom 1:20] Secondly, like the disciples in Acts, these three women believed and live by this truth: we must obey God before man. [Acts 5:29]

You may be just one person but God has a plan and a purpose for you to be a real hero/heroine for God. Real people in real circumstances can live a godly life in the midst of an evil and perverse nation. God protects, provides and blesses those who fear Him: “The fear of man is a snare but he whoever trusts in the Lord will be safe.” [Prov 29:25]

• Real people in real circumstances can live a godly life in the midst of an evil and perverse nation. 

QUESTION FOR US TODAY: What is God preparing us to do for Him and His people?