Chapter 21

Godly Interventions

In the beginning the heavens and earth were created and Satan and his host of angels were given control over the earth. After their failure, man was given dominion over the earth. When God places beings in areas of responsibility, he instructs them, and then basically takes a "hands off" approach. However, he does intervene on rare occasions as circumstances warrant. The first major intervention occurred after Satan and some of his angels rebelled against God, resulting in the earth reaching the conditions described in Genesis 1:2:

And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep... (Genesis 1:2)

This intervention resulted in the recreation of the earth and its creatures. Man was created below the angels but given the potential to individually become equal to the spiritual bodies he was replacing. Many of the rebellious angels were chained up in hell awaiting the judgment. Satan is still around and attempting to scuttle God's six-thousand-year plan for man. Shortly after man was created, God slightly modified His creation by placing an upper limit on the physical life of man in Genesis 6:3:

His days shall be a hundred and twenty years.     (Genesis 6:3)

Another major Godly intervention is documented in Genesis Chapter 11:

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. (Genesis 11:1)

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they began to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. (Genesis 11:4-6)

Why was God concerned? He was very impressed with their tower being built into the heavens at this early stage of their development. If they could accomplish this, they might be able to accomplish anything they imagined. So what? Well, man can imagine some horrible things and the six-thousand-year plan had only recently started. Jesus still had to come to earth as a human and die for our sins. Then approximately two thousand years after His resurrection, He will return to earth and intervene once again to prevent man from destroying himself and the earth:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. (Matthew 24:21-22)

So mankind was far ahead of the six-thousand-year plan at the building of the Tower of Babel. If they could do this they could accomplish anything they desired. For example, what if man had reached a state of development such that he produced nuclear weapons in 1045 instead of 1945. What might have happened? Man would have the means to destroy himself and the earth nine hundred years before God's six-thousand-year plan called for that possibility. Remember that Jesus will return for the elect's sake just in time to prevent this total destruction. The "elect" are the Christians. Man was too far ahead of schedule. Why? Because they all spoke the same language. They did not have the confusion imposed by multiple languages which we have today. What does God do to intervene?

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. (Genesis 11:7)

It was brilliant! Suppose you are in a group of one thousand people who all understand and speak English. Suddenly, eight hundred chosen at random cannot understand or speak English. Perhaps two hundred understand and speak French, another two hundred Spanish, another two hundred German, and another two hundred Japanese. What would be the effect? Instead of having one group of a thousand there would soon be five competing groups of two hundred. Each group would believe they were the only sane group as the others spoke gibberish, or babel. That is exactly what happened:

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 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. (Genesis 11:8-9)

God introduced foreign languages into the world and this worked as a separator which divided mankind into many different, competing groups. It was a case of divide and conquer. Was it successful? Today there remain problems due to language whenever multiple countries work on one project. Anytime translations are required there is a risk of mistranslation. Even if there are no translation errors, the effort requires energy and time which could be applied directly to the project if all spoke one language. Most, if not all, of the translations of the original scriptures into our Bibles of today contain errors! This would not be the case if there had always been one common language throughout the world. With one common world language there would never have been any need to translate the original scriptures as inspired by God, and consequently there would be no translation errors! When will this situation be corrected? When Jesus returns the second time, all will return to a single language:

For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent. (Zephaniah 3:9)

The final predicted Godly intervention will be the Second Coming of Christ. He will return to save the elect from destruction. These are major interventions of God. Of course, on a daily basis God does answer prayers. In a sense, these are interventions also, but on a more personal basis.


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