I pray each of you have had a wonderful Sabbath! I am writing to you as I prepare to make a quick trip to Croatia. In fact by the time most of you read this I will be somewhere over the Atlantic. Please keep me in your prayers…I believe I have Internet where I am staying and so I will still be writing so please keep reading!

Some points from the reading that caught my attention:

Meat eating doesn’t begin until after the flood, this should maybe tell us something about meat eating…though it is not a sin to eat meat, it was not one of God’s original plans and did not come into being until it was absolutely necessary due to sin.

We discover the God’s intended meaning for the rainbow in today’s reading,

“I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.  It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (9:11-15)

This is what God thinks of when He sees the rainbow.

In chapter 11 we read of the root of sin…SELF…

“They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (11:4)

Then The Lord comes down from heaven and does something VERY gracious!

He confuses the languages of humanity!

Why is this gracious?

“The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” (11:6)

God wasn’t worried about the good things they could do as one people with one language. God knew that if “nothing would be impossible for humanity” we’d ultimately destroy each other and our own selves with the “anything” that would lead to evil.

So God confusing the languages protected us from ourselves.

What seems harsh is actually an act of grace!

All our physical roots are in Babel (11:9), unfortunately the roots of Babel’s sin is in all of us as well. So I thank God by my language that may be different from yours, I am reminded of God doing anything necessary to try and save me and you from our own sin.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Joshua 11-15