How high can we go?

Just read a piece of article today about the world's soon-to-be tallest building! Have read this elsewhere sometime ago but didn't really catch my attention then. After all, there's always a "sky above a sky"!

This time, suddenly it just strikes me about the same thing about the Tower of Babel.

According to the biblical account, Babel was a city that united humanity, all speaking a single language and migrating from the east; it was the home city of the great king Nimrod, and the first city to be built after the Great Flood. The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have "its top in the heavens.

The height of the building in Dubai is going to over 1KM in height! It's the size of 2 Taipei 101 building! Let's look from other sources, how high Tower of Babel might be...

The Book of Jubilees mentions the tower's height as being 5433 cubits and 2 palms, or nearly 2.5 kilometers.

A typical mediaeval account is given by Giovanni Villani (1300): He relates that "it measured eighty miles round, and it was already 4,000 paces high and 1,000 paces thick, and each pace is three of our feet." ^[13]. The 14th century traveler John Mandeville also included an account of the tower, and reported that its height had been 64 furlongs (= 8 miles), according to the local inhabitants.

Nobody knows the exact height of the Tower of Babel but one thing for sure, it's definitely HUGE! It's also known as the tower that unites Mankind!

However, the purpose of the tower was not to praise or worship God, it was more for men to show off their ability. Hence, God confused them by giving each person a different language. That's where the origin of different languages come from.

So, how about the Dubai tower today? Is it not built to show there's no limit on how high one can be? With men trying to break the limits, men tends to forget God. I ponder what will God do this time? Or will God let them built the tallest building in the world? How hard it is for this generation to accept Christ or be humble before God!!

The gospel baton is now passed to the Chinese (according to many). What are we Chinese people doing about it? Do we want other nations to help us carry the baton? Beijing Olympics have proven that Chinese are capable of carrying the Olympic flame, but can we carry the Spiritual Flame? Are we ready or are we still sleeping? People are building high for themselves, are we digging a hole to put our heads in?

Time to Rise Up!
Nowadays, China boasts the largest Christian population in the world, numbering well over 50,000,000. In the past few centuries, droves of Western missionaries have written many glorious pages in the history of world mission not only by their sweat and some even by their blood, laying down their very lives for the sake of spreading the gospel. The 21st century should be the time for Chinese Christians to act.

In Seize the Baton, Rev. Richard Webster, a retired American missionary, exhorted Chinese Christians not to be self-centered, labouring over worldly plans, but to take heed of the Great Commission and seize the "gospel baton" for His glory.

Chinese Christians might be hired late as the workers who were hired at the eleventh hour in the vineyard (Mt. 20:1-16), let us serve faithfully with those who have started first, striving to work to His satisfaction! More