Keys to the Flying Car

Nothing is impossible if we put our minds to it. That’s been our problem all along. 

Genesis 6:9-11:32; Isaiah 54:1-55:5; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 5:1-7:22; Hebrews 8:8-12

Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: Keys to the Flying Car

 

 

Today I watched the demonstration of a flying automobile, and I wondered whether we have at last attained the status of our ancestors at Babel.

There is nothing inherently evil about the flying Tesla Roadster, and there was nothing inherently evil about the Tower of Babel either. Human beings created in the image of God built both. The Almighty made us with remarkable qualities so that we could exercise dominion over this planet and perhaps extend our sphere of dominion beyond earth when he is satisfied that we can do so responsibly. That’s the issue. Our tendency thus far has been to use our astonishing inventions both for good and for evil.

The question is not whether we should create something, but what the intentions of our hearts are as we are creating it, and what those intentions become once what we have envisioned becomes reality. That’s why God looked down from heaven to see what our ancestors building that tower in the land of Shinar were doing. He announced his verdict when he had seen enough to assess their intentions:

And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

Genesis 11:6-8 ESV

In the four thousand years since that event, we humans remain capable of anything. Nothing is impossible for us if we put our minds to it. But that’s the problem: our minds work according to how our hearts are inclined. That inclination tends to be just as much for evil as for good. In fact, the degree of good or evil depends on how connected we are, or wish to be, with our Creator.

Connection with our Creator should be at the top of our priority list. It usually isn’t, even in the saintliest of people. We would rather indulge in creations of our own that stroke our egos and whet our desires. That’s why we run ahead of the Creator, grasping for innovations, solutions, and knowledge that he is probably planning to give us once we are ready to receive them. It’s our haste to have it all now, on our schedule, that gets us into trouble.

That’s why God had to reset the world in the days of Noah and restart human society with Noah and his family. He had to do it again at Babel, scattering abroad all those multitudes who either refused to remain within the boundaries he had established, or followed the crowd because it seemed the right thing to do.

It’s not that God had left them without instructions. The basic instructions on how to live in peace with God, with each other, and with creation were all included in what God said to Noah and his sons as they left the Ark. Those instructions built on what he had said to Adam and Eve about 1,600 years earlier. Those centuries of human experience, including the great restart of the Flood, gave Noah’s family the capacity to receive the additional specifications, or commandments, on how to live. At Babel, however, humanity proved it was not ready to live under even those basic instructions. That’s why God opted to separate a segment of humanity that would listen and obey.

Today we know that segment of humanity as the seed of Abraham, or Israel. About two thousand years after the Tower of Babel, and after God called Abraham to establish the Covenant nation of Israel, Messiah Yeshua further refined and expanded the Creator’s instructions during his famous Sermon on the Mount. As his Heavenly Father had done with Noah, Yeshua delivered commands, instructions, and assurances to those who drew near.

God promised Noah that he would never again strike down every living creature as he had done in the Flood, and called as witnesses both the earth, with its seasons, and the heavens, with day and night and with the rainbow as the sign of his covenant. Yeshua called on those same witnesses as he placed his ministry in context:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

Matthew 5:17-18 ESV

The Law, or Torah, is the mechanism of the covenants God has made with the heavens, the earth, and mankind. The great restarts in the days of Noah and the time of Yeshua point toward a further restart when Messiah comes in power and great glory to rule in person.

The Bible gives us pictures of what life will be like in that great Messianic age, but it also leaves us many unanswered questions. Thanks to the promise of resurrection, we’ll be able to compare notes with those who have come before us, and thanks to the terms of the New Covenant, we will all know the Lord. Hopefully that means we’ll qualify for something far better than keys to a flying car.

Cover image generated by Grok, created by xAI..

Music: “Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.

This meditation was inspired in part by The Echoes Bible, vol. I, Genesis & Matthew. The Echoes Bible is available at https://www.echoesbible.com/.