OK MOVE ‘EM OUT

March 30, 2023

Reading: Genesis 11: 1-9

Focus:  Genesis 11:8 – So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

Father God. Thank You for another day. Help us to listen for Your call. Help us to be willing to use our talents for You. Help us to be aware when You are pointing us in the direction You want us to follow. In Jesus Name. Amen

The population of the earth was growing.  People began to move as the population grew.  Since there were only eight people to begin with it makes sense that there was only one language.  The people congregated between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.  They built a city on the plain of Shinar. Between two rivers, the land had to be lush and fertile.  The perfect place to put down roots and stay a while. The Bible tells us that they decided to make a name for themselves and began to build a city with a tower that reached to the heavens.  A skyscraper.  The Lord came down to see what the people were building and saw that together they could accomplish anything that they wanted as long as they all spoke the same language.

God wanted the earth populated not stagnating in one place.   So, He gave them different languages.  That way they would be forced to separate and move away to other places with others who spoke the same language.  The building stopped and the people scattered just as God had wanted them to do. The tower was called the tower of Babel.  The name has stuck.  The city eventually became known as Babylon.

Can you imagine?  One minute you are talking to your best friend, and the next he’s looking at you like you’ve lost your mind.  He tries to ask you what you said and you can’t understand what he’s saying either.  I have no idea how many languages came into being that day but it was enough for the people to leave that city and scatter across the earth as God intended.  God had to make them want to leave the plain of Shinar.  

This dispersion of the people from Babel parallels the dispersion of the apostles and all people who had been in the Upper Room at Pentecost.  They began there in Jerusalem.  From there they spread out to the known world and beyond.  The Bible does not tell us where all of the apostles went.  We know about Paul’s journeys and John and Peter’s journeys.  There is another apostle whose journey took him to a road leading out of Judah where he met with an Ethiopian (Act 8:26-40).  The man was sitting in his chariot reading a scroll that contained the book of Isaiah.  It puzzled him. Phillip was told by an angel of the Lord to go near the chariot and stay there. 

Now this Ethiopian man was not any ordinary man.  He was the Head Treasurer of the Queen of the Ethiopians.  The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was costly and a large item.  He could have been a convert to Judaism and had purchased it for his synagogue in Ethiopia or it could have been a purchase for his own library.  Phillip heard the man reading the prophecies about Jesus’ death.  Phillip asked if understood what he was reading.  The man asked, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?”  Phillip jumped right in and told him all about Jesus, His life, His death and His resurrection.  The man believed and was baptized right there in the pool at the oasis where he had stopped.  Then, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Phillip away and the Ethiopian continued his journey home, rejoicing that the Messiah was now a part of his life. Phillip followed the leading of the Lord, which led to a new believer who went home to spread the Gospel to his people.

Sometimes God has to convince us to do what He wants us to do.  He moves us out of our comfort zone. Many years ago, my husband and I made our home in Texas. Then Stan felt a call to go to college to study for the ministry.  We were content with where we were.  We didn’t know if this was God or what. We didn’t even know if we could afford it. So, we asked our families to pray with us and we took a page out of the book of Judges, chapter 6, and we asked God for a very specific event to confirm this was from Him.  One evening, Stan’s stepbrother, a new Christian, called to tell us he was praying for us.  God answered us exactly as we asked! That someone unexpected would call us to tell us they had been praying for us.  We packed up and moved out of state for Stan to go to a Nazarene college in Oklahoma. 

I find it surprising, even in my own life, that God has to poke us in the back and tell us to get moving or go to school or sit down at the computer and write or whatever He wants us to do.  We all want to stay in our comfort zone, where we are safe and don’t rock the boat.  But we should be listening for Him and to Him.  His is not a loud, knock you over kind of voice.  It is a still small voice that comes sometimes in the middle of the night. 

While we lived in Oklahoma, I was awakened from a sound sleep with a very strong urge to pray for my eldest cousin and his wife.  I didn’t want to get up.  It was cold and I was warm in my bed.  Again, the urge hit me.  I got up and went into the living room and prayed for them.  I don’t know how long but, eventually, the need to pray was gone.  I didn’t know why until several days later.  My cousin called and said their house had caught fire.  It was the night I HAD to pray.  He said they had been asleep and if they hadn’t awakened when they did, they might have died.  I have tried, since then, to always pay attention to that nudge from the Spirit.  You never know just how much your obedience can change things in someone else’s life or in your own, for that matter.

Think about it.  Has God ever tried to get you do something that you are little uncomfortable about.  Like standing in front of a room full of people to share His word.  Stand in church and sing in worship.  Teach a Sunday School class or Bible study group, witness to your neighbors or even write a blog.  There are so many things we can do as Christians if we just move out of our comfort zones when God is asking us to work for Him.  You don’t have to be a preacher in a church or a missionary in another country.  You can do God’s work anywhere at any time with any talent you have. 

My mother, without saying a word, let it be known to her co-workers that she was a Christian.  She lived her testimony.  My dad, on the other hand, never had a conversation with anyone that didn’t turn into an opportunity to witness about Jesus.  My husband has a servant’s heart.  He is always willing to work in the background at church to make sure things that need to be done, get done.  Each one of us has a part in the Body of Christ.  Some are the mouth, to speak and teach, others are the hands that write and help others, and still others are prayer warriors.  Each one of us has talents that the Lord can use if we just let him.  He won’t have you do something that you don’t have the talent for. 

The apostle Paul was a devout Jew.  He was a Jew’s Jew.  He not only followed God’s law but he also followed the 900 or so, man-made rules on how to follow God’s law.  But he would not accept Jesus as the Messiah.  He was like most people in Jesus’ day.  The Messiah they were looking for was a political or military one not a spiritual one.  Saul had seen Jesus before the road to Damascus. He had probably even heard Him teaching around Jerusalem.  He had seen Jesus tried, convicted and sentenced to death.  He had seen the disciples preaching about Jesus.  Saul was a devout Jew and as far as he was concerned, Jesus was not. Saul even held the cloaks of the men who stoned Stephen to death in the sixth chapter of Acts.  But God had plans for Saul.

One day, as Saul was on a mission for the high priest, Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus.  “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4b).  Saul replied, “Who are you, Lord?” (Acts 9:5) He instinctively knew Who was speaking to him.  Jesus got his attention immediately.  Jesus said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”  Saul was the only one who could hear Jesus’ words.  When Saul stood to follow Jesus’s instructions, he opened his eyes and was blind. 

He was led into Damascus, to the house where he was to stay.  Saul sat there, blind, for 3 days, praying and fasting.  Until a man named Ananias was directed by Jesus to go to him and lay hands on him. Ananias did not want to go to Saul.  He knew Saul’s reputation for persecuting believers.  But the Lord told him to go and he obeyed.  He went to Saul.  His sight was restored, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and was baptized.  Saul, a man who refused to recognize the Messiah, was met by the Messiah and became Paul who was sent out to the world to preach the Gospel of the Messiah.

Don’t be satisfied with what you are doing.  Ask the Lord if there is anything else that He may want you to do.  He won’t give you something that you don’t have a talent for.  Or He may help you discover a talent that you didn’t even know you had.  Be a willing vessel for God.  Get up out of your comfort zone. 

Are still in your comfort zone?

Father, thank You for moving me out of my comfort zone.  Help me to be bold about my faith.  Help me to tell others about You and what Jesus Christ has done in my life.  Help me to praise Your name in all things.  In Jesus Name. Amen.

Food for Thought

1. Why do you think God wanted people scattered all over the earth?
2. Have you ever been in a situation where everyone spoke the same language, except you?  How did that make you feel?
3. Has God ever prompted you to move out of your comfort zone to do something for Him?
4. Did He have to keep asking you or did you follow His leading?
5. If God called you to serve in another country and culture, would you do it?