The crusades failed. It failed to unite the east or west.
It failed to beat the Muslims back from controlling the middle east.
It succeeded in creating three knightly orders: The White Knighted Templars (knights of the temple);
The Black Knighted Hospitaliars (Knights of St. John of Jerusalem: created to care for the sickly and wounded);
and the white robed and black cross Teutonic Knights ( exclusively a German order).
These orders swore to obey God by protecting all pilgrims in Crusading States and to wage perpetual war against the Muslims.
But, these order would grow too large and would succomb to the fate of the tower in Babel. Our efforts outside of Christ, do not secure our footing. We must turn to Christ and surrender our efforts no matter how gallant or visibly holy.
Genesis 11:4-9
(ESV)
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a towerC)">(C) with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." 5AndD)">(D) the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7Come,E)">(E) let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech." 8SoF)">(F) the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9Therefore its name was calledG)">(G) Babel, because there the LORD confuseda]">[a] the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
(Message)
6-9 God took one look and said, "One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they'll come up with next—they'll stop at nothing! Come, we'll go down and garble their speech so they won't understand each other." Then God scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city. That's how it came to be called Babel, because there God turned their language into "babble." From there God scattered them all over the world.
