Genesis 11 gives an account of humanity gathering in the plain of Shinar to build a city, along with “a tower whose top would reach into heaven.” In these plans was an antichrist system of thought, for it says that their purpose was to “make for ourselves a name” (v. 4). That is the mindset of humanism: man is glorified, and somehow through himself – through education, through effort, through enterprise – man can achieve peace and satisfaction and glory, and yet bypass God Himself.

Notice what The Lord’s response is to the plans of man without Him. “The Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech’” (vv. 6-7).

Once their communication was frustrated, the people’s unity was squashed. Their anti-God goals could not be carried out, and from there scripture says they were scattered over the face of the earth (v. 9). Scattering indicates that their strength diminished because of the lack of unity.

Picture a football team consisting of enormous, talented, all-star players; if they’re not communicating, passes will be missed and hand-offs fumbled and the quarterback sacked. In effect, instead of working tightly together, they’ll be scattered: goals will not be scored and ultimately the game will be lost.

When God goes to war on behalf of His people, confusing and scattering the enemy is an effective tactic for victory.

“Now Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, and the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day against the Philistines and confused them, so that they were routed before Israel” (1 Samuel 7:10). Notice that the burnt offering of God’s prophet and priest Samuel precipitated this. God’s people today function as priests (1 Peter 2:9, Rev. 1:6, and Rev. 5:10), and our sacrifices of prayer and praise today in the same way evoke such a response from God.

David cries out to God when his enemies are pressing in, “Confuse, O Lord, divide their tongues” (Psalm 55:9). In another instance he says, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle . . . Flash forth lightning and scatter [my enemies]; send out Your arrows and confuse them” (Psalm 144:1,6 NASB).

Praying to confuse the power over mindsets

We can pray these verses over the spiritual enemies of God today that seek to steal, devour, and kill. Most people are slaves to cultural and conventional mindsets (especially those who deem themselves open-minded!). God can confuse and divide the tongues of political platforms and social agendas within our education system, government, and media that are really arms of the enemy. It bears mention again that we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, “but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12, NASB).

A weakness of the church has been a lack of unity: division occurs through doctrinal differences, denominations, and personal offenses. Jesus prayed for unity in His high priestly prayer in John 17:21-23. Meanwhile, the strength of the opposition against God’s people is that they’re united, even though they really shouldn’t be.

For example, two groups in the United States which are untouchable as far as speaking anything negative about are Muslims and homosexuals. If you point out some realities of either of these platforms you’ll face a firing squad of angry rhetoric – possibly worse. Yet Islam is completely at odds with Homosexuality. I remember sitting at dinner with a man who’d fled a country in which Islam was the state religion, and he couldn’t get past the shock of seeing gays marching in a “pride” parade. “In my country, we execute these people,” he stated matter-of-factly. Now no Christian I know of in the United States proposes or remotely supports such a terrible thing, and yet every effort by the homosexual platform and its supporters in Hollywood, the media, and the arts and education is made to decry Christianity as “hateful.” In the natural, this makes no sense. But in the spirit, we can see Islam and Homosexuality as two heads of the same beast: the heads hate each other, but they hate the church even more. But if the two heads are confused and divided, imagine the trouble the beast has moving forward!

Likewise, feminism should find Islam particularly contemptible – the regard for females in even the most liberal Islamic countries is abysmal, and a stark contrast to those nations that have a Christian heritage. Yet where does one typically see feminism trying to pick a fight? All through my high school and college years, my feminist teachers and professors openly mocked Christ and His followers – pity they couldn’t take a vacation to the Middle East for a reality check. Yet not one of them ever cited an interaction that Jesus had with a woman in which He could be faulted for slighting or devaluing them. Jesus’ interaction with women was always kind and never condescending – completely countercultural, both in His own world, and the world at large.

I regularly pray that all the plans of our current government that are antichrist in nature are confused and confounded. I do wonder how much my prayers are being answered when I see dubious cabinet members resigning and IRS officials under investigation. But how much of our prayers are being answered that we don’t see? Let’s agree and pray these scriptures out loud!