DEFIANCE

Today is Tuesday.  I just got started reading chapter 11 of Genesis about the tower of Babel and it dawned on me that the people were full of DEFIANCE towards God.  This is what I want to talk about today.  Defiance- pitting ourselves against God.  Openly going against God's will for our lives, God's plan for the ages.  When we choose to live in disobedience, we are defiant against God!  It reads in Genesis 11:4 "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."  Now that last phrase:  "lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."  That was an act of defiance.  In Genesis 9:1, it says:  "And god blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."  To replenish the earth meant to spread abroad throughout it.  But the men of Babel thought to stay together, lest they do what God wanted done.  No where do we see them voicing their defiance towards God, but we do see that their actions were in direct defiance of God's plan to have them replenish the earth.  I never saw that before.  I just thought they were acting in a way that God opposed, but they were doing so knowingly!  Sad to say, we sometimes do the same thing.  We know God wants us to serve Him, and yet our schedules get full.  We know we should witness,  give, spend time with God, etc.; but.... knowing that..... we don't.  But defiance?  Really, we would not defy God's Word... would we?  Well, the answer is not pretty.  Yes, at times we find that our nature is defiant to the very will of God, plan of God, witness of God, etc.  We pet our sins as though they are not really disobedience, just our little failures.  Why we are sinners, right?  We are only human, we are not perfect.  Excuses.  Lord, forgive our defiance.  Let us realize that our knowing disobedience is nothing less than defiance to our God.  Forgive us LORD!  Help us to live with humble hearts striving always to only please our LORD.

Have a blessed day!  Pastor Mike Mutchler