The Tower of Babel was men first organized rebellion against God. Men sinned before, but this was the first-time that men manifested an open rebellion against God. One thing is for us to miss the mark; when we do, is not that we want to miss the mark; is that in our imperfection we are aiming in the right direction, but we just… miss the mark. The other is when we, purposely and intentionally, miss the mark. That is now a rebellion against God; that is now the sin of transgression. You know is wrong, but you do it, not out of your own weakness, but out of your own open disobedience to God. Genesis 11:1-9 tells us

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.

3 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. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (NIV)

The root of all false religion, secret societies and self-centeredness is found in the Tower of Babel. The central idea of building a name for ourselves is at the heart of our rebellion against God. We no longer live to give glory to God; we live to make a name for ourselves. See, Eve was tricked by the devil and she sinned, but that’s not what she wanted to do. Cain killed his brother out of jealousy because God favored Abel offering over his. However, with the Tower of Babel, men decided to organize himself and willingly rebel against God. They refused to obey and trust God, who told Adam and later Noah, to multiply and filled the earth (Genesis 1:28 / Genesis 9:1).

So how this self-centeredness and refusing to live to give glory to God looks like today? Social media! Folks who walk around taking selfies and making worthless videos about what they do. Everybody is now an expert; everybody is now wise in their own opinion. We want to build a name for ourselves; we are hoping to be the creators of the next viral video.

Folks are walking around distracted, they can’t stay away from their phones, they can’t stay away from social media. The devil have them right where he wants them… focusing on themselves! “According to Nick Zagorski (2017), a writer for Psychiatric News, recent studies have shown that social media use is linked to feelings of social isolation, depression, insecurity, jealousy, and poor self-esteem.” ( https://www.ashford.edu/online-degrees/student-lifestyle/causes-of-social-media-addiction-illness ) “One part of being a social media addict is the inability to stop checking social media sites throughout the day. A study on college students showed that 45% admitted to social media use 6-8 hours a day (Wang, Chen, & Liang, 2011). ( https://www.ashford.edu/online-degrees/student-lifestyle/causes-of-social-media-addiction-illness )

Social media is the way folks are building a name for themselves today. This is the new version of the Tower of Babel. In the last days we read of a false prophet who will cause people to worship an image. Revelation 13:15 tells us, “The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.” (NIV) I believe that image will be found through the internet. The devil cannot be in more than two places at the time, but the image will have the ability to know what we are doing in our secret places. How? I believe that through technology he will be able to know what we are doing. So, this is a time to make a change, to be God-centered and not self-centered; to give glory to God and not focus on making a name for ourselves; to give God the inner most part of us… our spirit and to worship him.