SHATTERED AND SCATTERED

SHATTERED AND SCATTERED

The other day, God added a new scripture to the ones I pray every day. Romans 16:20: “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” When I looked up the word “bruise,” in the original Greek, I found that it meant to “utterly crush, to break into pieces, to shiver.” Then I looked up “shiver” in the dictionary: As a noun, it is “a small piece or fragment into which a thing breaks by any sudden violence.” As a verb: “to break into many small pieces or splinters; to shatter; to dash to pieces by a blow.” Then the definition goes on to say, “Shiver my timbers’ is a mild form of oath formerly used by sailors.” I just love that. So, God shatters Satan under our feet and dashes him to pieces by a blow. That’s what happened to Nimrod and his followers at the tower of Babel.

Nimrod thought he could do better than our God. God wanted the people to spread His ways throughout the earth, but Nimrod wanted to consolidate his own kingdom, and he began to build a city. Genesis 11 has the story.

“And they said, ‘Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.  And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded” (vv.4-5)

“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city [stopped the building of the city].”

“Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (vv.4-5, 7-9).

In Romans, we see that God shatters, and here in Genesis, we see that God also scatters. We see this scattering in 2 Kings 7 as well. The Syrians surrounded Samaria and cut off their food supply. All businesses were suffering, the people were suffering, and people and animals were dying in this attack. But God did an amazing thing with the four lepers who sat outside the city wall. They were the least likely to impact the situation positively, but with God they were mighty.

“And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? 

“And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there.

“For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, ‘Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.’ 

“Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life” (2 Kings 7:3, 5-7).

Needless to say, good things came back to the city.

We can see from the Bible that God is on our side always. We can pray Romans 16:20 for the crushing of evil under our feet and the shattering of demonic attacks. We can pray that God put the confusion of Babel on those who would consolidate against us. We may think we sit on the outside of the city like the lepers, outside of politics, outside of effectiveness, but we still have more power than we think we do. The lepers weren’t pretty to look at, but they had one thing we all have, and that is courage. They did one small brave act; they got up off their butts and took a few steps. God did the rest for them, and He will do it for us.

Let’s pray and believe that our God will shatter and scatter, and let’s be brave enough to do our part as well.

Love, Carolyn