Are You Building The Tower Of Babel?

We are meditating on meditation this week.
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Paul tells the Philippian church and to all nations to think of only what is good and he lists eight things. 
Today, we see so many things in the world through the news, the internet, and simply in the world around us. We listen to music, watch serials, and these are the things that keep circling around in our mind. If we are constantly thinking of worldly things, Paul instructs us to think rather of excellent things.

God told Joshua to meditate on the Word of God- the first five books of the Bible- to be successful. In the wars that he fought he was always successful, Joshua was also able to command the sun and the universe to stop. 
Even Isaac, when he meditated on God’s Word, was when Rebecca came into his life and he also became the richest person in that time.

In 1 Timothy 4.12-15, Paul tells Timothy to meditate on the Word and the prophecies spoken over him in order that he becomes a successful minister.

What is meditation? 
In Greek, it is ‘meletao’, meaning to revolve or rotate in the mind. In Hebrew, it is “haga”, which means to ponder and imitate. Biblical meditation includes the mind and the mouth. 
Psalm 1:2 “but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.”

Psalm 2:1 “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?”
A man who meditates on the word of God is blessed. But the world tries to conspire against the children of God, but this will always be in vain because God is with His people.  

Romans 8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Genesis 11:3-6
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 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.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 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.

The people in the world all spoke the same language and when some of them found the place Shinar, they decided to build themselves a city with a tower that can reach heaven. They wanted to do this to make a name for themselves. When God saw this, He saw that in their unity, nothing will be impossible for people to achieve.

In Psalm 1:2 we see a group of people thinking godly thoughts. In Psalm 2:1, we see people that think against God and His people.

God had instructed all people to scatter across the world but these people wanted to do the opposite. Meditating on God’s Word means following His will and commands. You can either follow God’s perfect will or follow the world. There is no in between. Love for God and love for the world doesn’t go together. 

The people in Shinar wanted to build a name for themselves, they were self centric. Such selfish projects are called Babel projects. Seeing this, God changed their language. The people who were working together and speaking with each other suddenly could not understand the other person. The scattering of people to different parts of the world began with this change in language. 

The opposite happened on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2- where all people understood different languages and came together. 
All projects and buildings start with first being imagined. What do we imagine and think about or meditate on? What thoughts cycle in our brain? That is where your life will go. If your thoughts are Babel projects, God will shatter those plans and buildings.

2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Everything that comes up against God is destroyed. If we say “I will”, Jesus says “I AM”. Every proud thought and desire of ours is overcome by who Jesus already is, was, and will be forever.

What do we meditate on? 
Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
Our life is steered by these thoughts in our mind. It creates pathways in our brain and we continue to think about what we meditate on. We should choose to meditate on God’s Word and of things above.