I have just finished reading "Bonded or Fused into Oneness" by John Robert Stevens, a latter day apostle. He claims the miracles will flow out of the oneness. In fact the miracles of Pentecost came from the oneness. This is very scriptural and very true. Christ said in John 17 that the world will believe because we are one. So a lot is hanging on our oneness, a oneness that Christianity has yet to achieve. How do we achieve this oneness?
This emphasis on oneness brought to mind a story about a group of people who did achieve a oneness. On the plains or valley of Shinar there was a city built of brick with a migdal-Hebrew for tower- that the peps were building to reach into the heavens. They were wanting to make a name for themselves "lest they become scatter upon the face of the earth". I am sure you know the story by now too. It is the story of Babel. The people had built this tower and God wanted to see it. More importantly to God was the fact that they, the peps of Babel, had reached a oneness that according to God "And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do(Gen.11:6, KJV). Nothing will be restrained from them that they want to do. The citizens of Babylon were one in their desire to make a name for themselves. Whatever they wanted to do they could have done, but it would have all glorified the people of Babylon. It was all about them. God was not being glorified, man was. Man was worshiping the works of his hands and not glorifying God. God came down and confused their language. Man's worship of the works of his own hands has had elements of confusion ever since.
The oneness of Pentecost was exhibited in the oneness of tongues. But I am getting ahead of the real story. The real story is not about tongues or oneness, but about worship. The worship of themselves, brought oneness that God had to confuse, but it did bring oneness. The Lord wants us to be positioned in these days to do mighty exploits (Dan.7:11), but they will be done only out of a oneness and a oneness that was created by our worship of the one true God. "However, worship becomes the principal channel by which oneness of spirit with the Lord really comes about. The quicker we move into this high plane of worship before the Lord, worshiping Him with all of our heart, the sooner we will come as individuals into that oneness with the Lord. Then, and only then, the oneness with one another also becomes a possibility."
(Stevens, John Robert: This Week, Volume X ,1979).
Two other things that I like about this story, (what's not to like?). One is that in the Septuagint the term they used for the instrument of their confusion is "glossan" or tongue. The same term in the Greek that is used at Pentecost, glossinalia. God used the same instrument to demonstrate His oneness that brought the early church's beautiful example of oneness that he used to cause the people of Babel to be scattered over the face of the earth. The very thing they dreaded and feared came upon them. They should have feared and worshiped the Lord.
Christianity today could learn a lesson. As we desperately need to end the confusion of doctrine, and bring the world to Christ. It may all begin with us reaching a new level of worship to God the Father. To make His name great among the nations, in our nation, our town, in our home, in our mouths and upon our tongues.
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