Last week, we talked about the tower of Babel which is located 30 miles from the modern city of Baghdad in Iraq. We destroyed the tower with cruise missiles when we attacked Iraq because we thought that the tower contained Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Now, we know that chemical weapons, at least, were shipped to Syria because Assad used it on his own people even though he was winning the civil war which had already 100,000 civilian casualties. Assad used chemical weapons on his own people to give us an excuse to do a limited missile strike. Sure. Maybe the rebels used government military uniforms and used chemical weapons on the civilians. That makes more sense. Assad had nothing to gain while the rebels had everything to gain from the use of chemical weapons on civilians.

The descendants of Noah were the only humans in the world who survived the great flood sent by God, my God, the God of Moses and Israel, who sent His only and beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Who became man through the Blessed Virgin Mary, to redeem mankind from the consequences of sin so that we may have eternal life with Them in paradise, to destroy all humans on earth because He was greatly displeased with humans who had been corrupted by sin and the devil, built a tower that would reach to the heavens. Why did they do this? Because they thought that the tower would let them set foot in heaven, and once they set foot in heaven, they would become gods. Noah’s descendants were filled with pride and arrogance. God saved Noah and his family from the great flood but his descendants, whom, instead of being humble and glorifying the one true God were so full of pride and arrogance that they thought they could become gods!

God, of course, saw through their hearts, and saw this as pure arrogance. He put an end to the people’s delusions of being powerful and important like gods. So, God made the people speak many different languages so they could not work together on building the tower. Then, He scattered the people around the world and the tower and the city was abandoned.

We may be tempted to think we no longer need to trust and obey God. We may believe our learning, sophistication and technology are all we need to be self-sufficient and guarantee our security. When Wall Street created the new mortgage schemes that created the real estate bubble that burst in 2008 dragging down the American economy and the whole world economy with it, the investment bankers with their MBA’s, PHD’s in math & rocket science, from the so called best colleges in America, thought that they were gods, because they were making tons of money. Did human arrogance turn into a new Babel?

When you borrowed money to buy ten houses thinking you can sell them after several months and pocket a million dollar profit, weren’t you thinking that you were self-sufficient, arrogant and proud, and that your decision to invest in 10 houses would guarantee your security? Did you not think that you did not have to trust and obey God anymore? But what has happened to your ten houses? They all got foreclosed and the 2nd trust deed holders are chasing after you. Like Babel, you ended up ruining yourself. You can still file a bankruptcy to get rid of your debt and make a fresh start right now. But you need to trust and obey God so that you can build your financial future on a solid foundation.

In addition, you probably learned the hard way that just because you have the ability to borrow money doesn’t mean you should borrow money. And, that your house is not an ATM machine. Your house is shelter for you and your family. Just because it has equity, doesn’t mean you should borrow out the equity and spend it, even though interest rates are low.