Alright, if you have a marker,
you might want to put that marker back here in Genesis 11. Chapter 10, which is a genealogy
of the sons of Noah. We mostly talked about when I
talked about Ham being cursed of God, being cursed of his father,
disinherited and mentioned some of the things
about those sons, who they represent and so on. But tonight I want
to talk to you about this Tower of Babel. And in these first
nine verses here in Genesis chapter 11, you see here the first efforts,
organized efforts of man. He made efforts on many accounts,
but this is the first organized efforts of man by his works and
his will to reach into heaven itself and claim the blessings
and benefits that God has reserved for his elect. The question was
brought up the other night over where I had supper. One of the
fellows asked me this question. He said, how do you arrive at
these conclusions? back here in Genesis. He said,
well, there's not much detail there. And specifically, he was
asking me about something between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And
I said, well, if you, number one, I said, if you're just reading
this for an historic record, if that's the only reason, if
you're reading this thing like a history book and you just want
to know what happened and move on, then I said, there's nothing
significant that you need to know. But if you read this book
that way, it's not going to be of any spiritual value to you
whatsoever. Scripture is interpreted by Scripture. And the way you have to view
creation is to read the entire Scripture and view that creation. Each time you read it anew, you
have to view it with this added knowledge of the Scripture that
tells you what creation was about. Who created it? It says it was
created for Him and by Him. Well, that throws a whole different
light on it, don't it? If creation was created for Him
and He is the Redeemer, then what relation did creation have
to redemption? You see what I'm saying? It adds
some things that's not mentioned back here in Genesis 1 and 2. Although they may be stated and
implied, And then his second question was this, where's the
relevancy? So what? If something happened
to the world or didn't happen to the world, what value does
that have to a believer? And again, I told him, if you're
reading this thing as an historic record, it'll have no value to
you whatsoever. But if you're trying to learn
something about redemption, and you read it in the light of the
Redeemer and His accomplished work and the purpose of God in
redemption, then it makes all the difference because it's talking
about a ruined man that God restores and gives His name and takes
him into glory. So there's a big difference in
how you read these things. Scripture is interpreted by Scripture. I can't go over here and pull
out a single verse and then try to build a church on it. I have
to read this thing in the light of the whole book, of the whole
testimony. When Paul gathered those Ephesians
elders together with him over there in Acts chapter 20, and
he said, I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel
of God. He didn't do that in the book
of Amos. He did that in Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, all the way through the Old Testament, clear
to Malachi. He told them the whole story. And I'm told that the Holy Spirit
of God that was given to the believer works in him this way. You can find this over in 2 Corinthians
2, toward the end of the chapter. He said, We have received not
the Spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God. And
this Spirit which is of God, He shows us things that the world
cannot see, and the way He does it is by comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. There is a spiritual revelation
of this thing called the gospel. It's a revelation. You're not
going to get in this book with your natural mind and natural
reasoning and understand anything. You're going to get some facts,
You're going to be intrigued by prophecy, you're going to
be intrigued by some of the things that you find out, some of these
events and wars and miracles and all these things, and you're
going to go through there and you're not going to have one
spiritual benefit whatsoever. Our Lord, you'll be religious
when you come out in Revelations, but it won't do you any good.
You'll be lost. He told the Pharisees, He said,
you're ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth. He said, you search this book. You do that. You search
the Scriptures. And they are they which testified
Me. But you will not come to Me that
you might have life. You won't read and find and rejoice
in the testimony of this book. That's what he tells them. And
to study and read this book in any other way or for any other
reason is a whole just a waste of time. and it will result in
misery and heartache. So I pray as we go through these
studies that the Lord will give us both an attitude and spirit
to hear His Word and apply it to our hearts and give us the
gift of revelation and not leave us to our own reason and logic.
Now there are several things I want you to see here tonight
about this tower. This is not a complicated story.
It is very simple. I read it to you. God preserved
the whole thing here and gave it to us in very plain terms
in nine verses of Scripture. But there are several things
here that I want you to see tonight, and I want you to see this, that
this tower was concocted by man, or men. I prefer to say men because
he hints at that here. It said, and they said, let us
build a city. It may have been the concoction
and idea of one man, but they talked among themselves. And
they said, here, don't you think this is what we need to do? You
see anything else that we can do? And they sat down there and
reasoned the thing out, this big caravan of men and women,
and they reasoned this thing out and they all came to an agreement
and they jumped on it. I want you to see this. They
did this without any direction from God whatsoever. He came
to Noah and he said, build an ark. And he gave Noah the exact
design of it. He told him that it was going
to be a wood hewed with an axe. He told him that it was a covenant
ark. He told him detail after detail
after detail about this ark. He didn't tell them diddly squat.
They just come over here and said, we're going to build this
thing. And they all got together and decided to build it. And
they said, look here, we can build us some ovens here and
we can make some brick and there's plenty of slime here, what we
call mortar today. There's plenty of slime here
and we're just going to build this thing. We're going to build this
thing. No direction from God whatsoever. I see in this that
this tower was a religious structure. And as such, reveals the natural
reasoning and logic of fallen men in its building. It's a religious
structure. This structure, it says here,
was to reach into heaven. That was its purpose. The issue
with these people was that they were cursed because of something
their father did. Same issue we've got today. Same
issue. We're cursed in Adam. They was
cursed in Ham and cursed in Adam. This tower was a religious structure,
and when I look at it as such, it reveals the natural reasoning
and logic of fallen men when it comes to religion. It tells
me what my heart as a natural man will come up with. That's
what it tells me. I want you to see this thirdly,
that the tower was built by the works and will of man who believed
they could reach into heaven itself and take for themselves
the blessings of God who reserved them for his own elect. And then,
fourthly, that their goal, which seemed right unto them, and appealed
to all men, and attracted a great multitude of willing participants
who joined in the efforts and began a work that soon surpassed
anything that man had ever seen. All of these things in the building
of the So let's start here. This tower was designed as a
religious structure, a temple, if you will. That's what it's
designed to be. They were going to build a city.
Now, the subject here is the tower, but the tower was to be
in a city. They were going to build a city
to make a name for themselves. And in its midst, they were going
to raise up a tower. Now, if you've done any study
on these ancient cities, Well, let me just give you this. When
the spies of Israel went over into Canaan, what did they say
about them cities? They said they got walled cities
over there that reach up to heaven. They were huge. Those walls of
Nineveh that Jonah came to were 90-some feet tall, wide enough
to run four chariots abreast with a team of horses all at
the same time around the top of the wall. So you can imagine
how thick the bottom was. And their towers went up an additional
90 feet up above the top of the wall. So 180 some feet in the
air, these great towers. Well, this city here that they're
about to build, that tower went up higher than that. They're
going to build a tower of all towers and they're going to put
it right in the midst of this city. It was a religious structure. It was going to have its foundation
on this earth and was going to reach right into heaven itself.
And if it were not so, but I believe it was, I believe
they sold this idea to the whole congregation. I don't think all
of them sat there and came up with this. I think some of them
did and sold the idea. They stood there and said, listen,
listen to Nimrod. Listen to what he come up with.
And they sat there and talked about it. And it was appealing
to them. And it sounded right. Man, this could work. You know,
if we had another flood, that thing's going to be up there.
We'd climb up there and get out of it. And it's tall enough. We can put food and store things
inside of it. We can go up high. Go up, get
out of this world. Go up high, worship God. It appealed
to them. They said, this is a good idea.
Let's do this. Let's do this. And then somehow
in the work was incorporated this feeling of holiness and
togetherness and fellowship. And he stood up there and he
sold this thing to the people. And they rallied together and
they come out there and they work together on this thing.
And just the being together then become a religion of sorts with
them working on this tower. Nobody was coerced into doing
it. They did it according to their own free will, come and
worked on this building. But its intent was to reach into
heaven. And a little later on, God gives
His revelation of a temple, but this one here is not of God's
design. And if I view this tower as a
temple or a place of worship, there are some similarities and
there are some disparities. The similarities are this. This
tower was a place to go to God. That's similar to what the temple
was designed for. The tower was a place of fellowship
where believers could go and be together and encourage one
another in what they believed to be the work of God. The tower
was a place where they could be free from the everyday grind
of life and find something comforting and peaceful to do that made
them feel good inside, and they come work on this tower. And
it was a place where men, they came wanting and hoping to find
God, to come to God, to find answers to their questions and
peace for their troubled soul. They'd come into this place.
It had similarities to the temple. But there was disparities. Number
one, it was of their own invention. God never even hinted to them
about building a tower. When God first began to reveal
to me what worldly religion was all about, this thing just overwhelmed
me. About the religion that He was
saving me out of was their total lack of direction from the Word
of God for what they did. Can you remember that? Reading
the Scriptures and looking in there and seeing these things
and how contrary these things were to what was going on? It
shocked me. It shocked me. Organized denominational
religion is nowhere in this book even hinted at. Not even hinted
at. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram stood
up out there in the wilderness and had the same idea about organizing
these efforts. Moses took too much on himself,
and after all, we just want to help him out, so here's what
we're going to do. We're going to divide the authority of this
thing up, and I'm going to take part of it, and Dathan's going
to take part of it, Abiram's going to take part of it, and
we're going to help old Moses out. Well, Moses said, everybody's
on the Lord's side, line up right here. Everybody's of the same
mind as him, you line up over there. And the Lord will show
us who's right and who's wrong. And God opened up the earth and
took them to hell with their shoes on. Them and their cattle
and their kids and their wagons and everything they owned. Swallowed
them up. You can't find in this Bible
anywhere this organized denominational religion. It's not even hinted
at. This book teaches local assemblies
with pastor-teachers, and the precise and situation calls for
the need of it to appoint deacons. And these deacons are not appointed
as authorities over the pastors, but they're appointed to see
to the everyday affairs of the church so that the pastor is
free to study and pray. Is that what it teaches in the
book of Acts? That's what these deacons are. There's no such
thing as a deacon board in the Word of God that elects preachers
and fires preachers. God sends preachers and He takes
them away. That's the only authority there
is over a preacher. Baptismal sprinkling, sprinkling
of infants, altar calls, coming to the front of the church, deacon
boards, business meetings, voting on things in the church. Where
did all this stuff come from? You can't even find a hint of
it in the scripture nowhere. Every time Israel ever voted
on anything, God cursed them. Look it up. They voted on whether
or not to go into the land. What happened to them? Two million
of them died in the wilderness. Every time they voted, they wanted
to vote on a king. We want Saul. We want a king.
We're going to have us a king. They voted on Saul. That wasn't
God's king. Brought misery to them. Seminaries. They all called them
cemeteries. Christian schools. And the list
just goes on and on and on and on and on. This tower had no
instruction from God to build it whatsoever. It was all of
man's design. Every last piece of it. He sat
over here, he reasoned it out, it sounded logical, they all
put in their two cents worth, they voted on it, they agreed
on it, and they started to work. And there it went. It had nothing
to do with God's purpose and His design. This building was
about man climbing up to heaven. The gospel is about God coming
down. You can't find it. I was talking
to Winston before the service. All of these groves and the high
mountains and these temples and down in the Yucatan where the
Mayans worshipped old Kukulkan, all these false religions all
represented a way for man to climb up to God, always. In God's
temple, He said, He forbid them to put steps on it. He said,
if you put steps on it, the priests are dressed in linen garments.
You're going to see their nakedness when they go up the steps. And
that's where ours is exposed too. That's exactly where ours
is exposed. And they're going up. It's God
coming down. That's what it takes to be saved.
He must come to you. He must come down. He must become
a man. He must keep the law. This tower
was about the glory and accomplishments of the multitude. Redemption
is about the accomplishments of one man, the God-man. This
tower had no lamb. It had no substitute. It had
no sacrifice. This tower had no priesthood.
It had no labor for cleansing, no altar for the burnt offering.
It had nothing to testify of the character of God or of the
character of man, of his need. All it did was testify of man's
glory. And this tower was so impressive, so impressive, people looked
at it. Fella, he reads these old historic
writers. John Gill, I will give him this. He reads Josephus and these ancient
historians, Jewish historians. Josephus is about the only one
I'm familiar with, but he reads several of them, and I don't
know how much credit you can give to their accounts of things,
but they said that this tower at the very top had a beacon,
so it could be seen night or day, it could be seen. And they
built it so tall. It was so tall. Most of the riders,
some of them had it being as much as 12 miles high, which
I just can't hardly imagine that as a builder. And then some of
them had it being a mile high, but I don't believe even one
of those things. I don't believe that thing ever reached that
kind of a height because it would crush the brick at the bottom.
It wouldn't hold that kind of weight. But at any rate, it was
impressive, and it was very high, and it accomplished some good
things, but it was totally empty of the will and ways of God.
The works and will of man is what was preeminent in this tower. It was built high, had this big
beacon on top, and the intent was that it could be seen equally
by all mankind. That was the intent. We're going
to build it high enough so everybody can see. Our doors is open. Everybody can come in. Anybody
wants to, come on. The tower itself became their
God. And their willingness to join
in the work became their salvation. Everything about this tower when
viewed in the light of true worship was a lie and contrary to the
Word of God and the way of grace. And God saw what this tower was
all about. He saw the wicked imagination
of men at work. And what, I want to be careful
with the words I choose here, but what angered God in this
thing was that all these men were one in this foolishness. They were one in this foolishness.
This one idea occupied the mind of every man. Now I'm going to
show you here in a little bit, it still does. It still does. God saw what this tower was all
about and how man was moved by it as one person and He cursed
the work and He gave those who were doing it a confusion of
language. He made it impossible for them
to direct and lead men in this work because they no longer spoke
the same language. God called this place Babel and
upon this foundation the city of Babylon was built. which rose
up into power again in world prominence in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. And it symbolized the same root,
the same ideas, and the same logic as it did when they began
the work of the tower the first time. And in its prominence, God revealed two things. Two
things. Now, the word Babel, is the exact
same word. Look it up. I believe the word
is in Chaldean, but if you look up the word, it's the very same
word for Babel as Babylon. And the very same word for Babylon
is the same word used in Babylonian empire. So whether you're talking
about the tower at the beginning, or the days of Nebuchadnezzar
and Daniel, or the days of Darius and Daniel, or you're talking
about what it stands for in the book of Revelation, it all is
saying the same thing. What this place stood for, it
was a symbol of religion, false religion. And in its prominence,
God revealed two things. He revealed, number one, how
he can take a sinner like old Nebuchadnezzar, who is king in
Babylon, and make him understand himself to be a beast, and then
show him the Lord high and lifted up, who rules even over the ignorance
and darkness of Babylon. And secondly, under his grandson's
reign, Darius the Lord calls Babylon itself to set the children
of Israel free, and God's elect to be set free from Babylon.
Now, in the revelation of Jesus Christ to John, you might want
to turn over there if you want to, to Revelation 17. Now, these
symbols and these things are found all through the book of
Revelation. But in the revelation of Jesus
Christ to John on the Isle of Patmos, He declares in the language
of symbols established throughout the Word of God. He didn't just
pull these symbols out of a dream. These symbols were symbols that
he knew well. He studied. He was a faithful
minister of God. He studied the Old Testament.
He knew what these symbols represented. And these symbols like Babylon
and the great whore and all these things, these are all symbols
well established in the Old Testament. And he knew what they represented.
But in God's revelation to it on the Isle of Patmos, He declares
in this language of symbols that there are two religions on this
earth. Just hold your place there in Revelation. There are two
religions on this earth, works and grace. The free will of man
and the free unmerited favor of God. The religion of man and
the religion of God. You won't find 15 different religions,
you're just going to find two. Read through the New Testament,
all through the epistles, you're just going to find two religions,
works and grace. And these two religions are symbolized
by two women. The first is set forth as a woman
clothed with the sun, her person full of light, nothing hid, nothing
covered. A full revelation. This woman
of light has one purpose, and that is to bring the man-child
into the world. That's her purpose. The purpose
of God's church in this world is to set before men the Lord
Jesus Christ. They had no other purpose. It's
not the purpose of the church to settle disputes between nations. It's not the purpose of the church
to moralize this present world. The purpose of the church is
to set before men the Lord Jesus Christ. That was her one purpose. That's why she was given this
light. That's why she was clothed in this light. And the light
she had was to bring forth Christ in all of His glory. Her whole
existence, her whole purpose in life, bring the Lord Jesus
Christ into this world. The second vision is here in
chapter 17 of the book of Revelations. And it says that she sits upon
many waters. Now, if you read this entire
chapter, you're going to find down there that these many waters
represented peoples, nations, and tongues. It represented all
mankind. It represented a multitude of
people. And she sits on them. She rules
over them. She rules over their hearts.
And it also represents her sitting upon a scarlet beast. And Satan
is the beast she rides on. And the seven heads that it talks
about here in chapter 17, they imply the complete and universal
acceptance of that religion that she represents. Seven is the
number of perfections. It means complete. Complete. And it's talking about the complete
and universal acceptance of his religion. that he carries. And
his ten horns represent power. It represents the power of the
nations who love him, who follow after him, who support his religion
and protect those who preach it. And she's arrayed in purple
and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls
and holds in her hand a golden cup, a chalice, and it's full
of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. She is the
symbol for all worldly religion. From the worst rank idolatry
in the deepest jungle of Africa to some great cathedral on the
corner of some town that we live in. It represents all the religion
of this world. It's represented in this great
hope. And upon her forehead was a name written. You see it down
there in capital letters in your Bible. Mystery. What? Babylon. Babylon. The great mother of harlots and
abominations of the earth. Here is this great tower back
here at its very beginning in organized religion, and it is
the mother of all organized religion from that day forward. Mystery
Babylon. Mystery Babylon, the mother of
harlots and abominations of the earth. This is what that Tower
of Babel was all about. It's about men and women cursed
of God, as was Ham and his son Nimrod, attempting by their works
and will and schemes to bring themselves back into the presence
and blessing of God, to reach into heaven itself and take the
blessings of God's elect. Babel was the beginning of organized
religion and its lies and its lying wonders that draw men into
our evil schemes. It's the religion of the beast,
the religion of the beast that he supports and carries throughout
the world. And all that is accomplished
in the work by those who are sincere and by those who are
not, by those who pretend, by those who are fooled, same thing. All that's accomplished in the
work is called throughout the Word of God an abomination and
a fornication and filthiness. I challenge you, you go through
the Scriptures, it says it every time, doesn't it? But they can
never really achieve their end because God will send them a
confusion of language. The way he puts this in spiritual
language over in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 is this, The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, because
they are foolishness unto him. Now if somebody stood before
you and all of a sudden just started talking gibberish, it
would be foolishness, wouldn't it? Why is he doing that? I stand up here tonight and I'm
preaching along and all of a sudden I just go over into French and
just start talking French or Spanish. You wouldn't have a
clue. What kind of foolishness is this? And out the door you
go. Natural man, when he hears the language of the gospel, it's
foolishness to him. It's not so much that he can't
hear it, although he can't by nature, but it's that he won't
hear it. It don't jive with what seems
logical to him. It don't jive with what seems
reasonable to him. He hears, but he don't hear.
What he hears is foolishness. It's foolish. The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned, spiritually understood. They hear, but they don't understand.
They attempt to direct, but they have no authority. They try to
lead, but at its best, the Lord said, it's the blind leading
the blind, and they both fall in the ditch. It's another language. Sounds
like gibberish to the natural man. Sounds like foolishness.
But to those who are being saved, Paul said it's the power of God
and the wisdom of God. And in this day of scientific
discovery and instant information, it's an insult to a man to tell
him that he shut up to the revelation of God. But that's where you
and I are. We shut up. We can't do anything
apart from a revelation of God. You can't do it. You can't understand
this book. You can't do it. You'll come out there with some
things and go out and tack ten of the 800 commandments of the
Bible, you'll tack ten of them up on a sign out in a parking
lot and trying to fool everybody into believing that you keep
them. You can't keep any of them. It's offensive to a man to say
to him that he shut up to the revelation of God. Nimrod and
his sons, they said, well, yeah, Noah stood up and cursed us,
and maybe he had some right to curse old Ham, but he didn't
have no right to curse me. I'll tell you what we're going
to do, and he sat there and he sold this whole thing to them,
and they said, boy, sounds good. Well, when can we get started?
Well, we'll start today. Start today. Everybody in favor
say aye. Hands went up. Built that tower. That's religion. Any of you that's
been in it ought to know it. It's religion. It's offensive. Tell a man he's shut up. He's
shut up to the revelation of God. This day of self-will and self-promotion
and self-righteousness, it's an offense to say to you, how
can you hear without a preacher? That's offensive, you know that?
What do you mean I can't hear? What do you mean? You mean tell
me I can't read this book and figure it out? That's exactly
what I'm telling you. This book has to be revealed.
Has to be revealed. And I'll tell you this, In the
light of all the seminaries and colleges and all these things
that we have in this country today, he said, how are you going
to preach except you be sent? I don't care how many degrees
you got, how many letters you got after your name. I've got
a man that I've known, oh, maybe 30 years. I haven't kept up with
him too much anymore, but he graduated Temple University.
He's got a string of letters after his name. He has a master's
degree in theology, just letter after letter after letter after
letter. I've never seen a man want to preach so bad in my life
as this man. And God never would open the
door for him, and never has. How shall you preach except you
be sent? You have to be sent. It has to be sent. Many is the
man that has in his heart the desire to preach. I believe it's
in the desire of every man that God brings into his kingdom.
I believe that's the desire of every man that God saves. He'd
love to be able to preach, love to be able to stand up and tell
anybody what God done for him in his heart. But God singles
men out for the work, and He puts them in their places, and
He gives them an understanding of the Scripture, and He gives
them the hearts of the people. Explain that. I can't. I just
know it's so. I just know it's so. We shut up to the absolute sovereignty
of God in salvation. I mean shut up to it. I got nothing I can do. I can't
help you, and you can't help me. God has to do the work. Now, I'll do what God tells me
to do, and I expect you to do what God tells you to do. And
if He does anything, you're going to know in the doing that He
did it all. Isn't that what it says in Ephesians chapter 2?
By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Yeah, but I believed you. Yes,
sir, you sure did. After God moved you. I was willing. Sure you were after He made you
willing. Is everybody in here familiar
with Daniel chapter 4? Turn over to Daniel chapter 4. God said, I'll have mercy on
whom I'll have mercy and whom I will I harden. We'll shut up
to the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. We'll shut
up to a messenger of God. And even if you'll be taught
of God in the seventh heaven like Paul was, you're going to
first be led by the hand to a preacher. We shut up to a new birth. The
Holy Spirit of God must take up a boat in us and create a
new man within us. Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we shut up to a godly submission
to the authority of Christ wherever that authority is found. Paul
told those Thessalonians, he said, I know your election of
God because you become followers. And I tell you this by my own
experience, you become a believer, the first thing you're going
to do is be a follower. You're going to be like a baby
bird with its mouth open waiting for mama to feed it. You're going
to realize your emptiness. Realize that you're cursed of
God. Realize that you can't do anything
for yourself. Realize that all your efforts
amount to nothing. Well, shut up to a godless submission
to the authority of Christ. I tell you this, when a believer
is rebuked, he takes it. He don't like it, but he'll take
it. He'll take it. Paul, the apostle, stood before
Peter. Now, Peter was pastor in Jerusalem. Peter was it. He was, I guess,
if you could put a man and say, this is him, this is the authority,
this is the man, it would have been Peter. Paul stood him to
the face Because he was wrong. And Peter took it. He took it. That's the difference between
a believer and an unbeliever. A believer is one who rebukes
and he takes it. I was talking to Henry one time
about things and I'm looking for some ease and ease wasn't
what I needed. I needed to be told. And he said,
I'll tell you this. He said, we have bitter pills
with the Lord. And he said, I'll give you this
advice. The best thing you can do with a bitter pill is swallow
it quickly. Don't chew on it. Chew on mercies. Don't chew on
rebukes. God rebukes you, just swallow
it. You'll be over it in a minute. Don't chew on it. Don't chew
on it. When a believer is led, he follows.
When he is told the truth, he receives it. I don't care what
it is. I don't care if he is raised in sprinkling babies.
When he hears the truth, he will obey it. This old king of Babylon,
he stood in the palace and he looked out over his kingdom,
over that great kingdom of Babylon, built on the foundations of the
old tower, planted some trees and flowers and vines up that
old tower and called it the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. And he sat
up there in his great palace, way up in the air, and looked
out there through the garden, and looked out over all that
kingdom. And he said, Daniel 4, verse
30, he said, It is not this great Babylon that I have built for
the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for
the honor of my majesty. Ain't that what religious folks
say? That's every man's glory in Babylon.
Verse 31, While the word was yet in the king's mouth, there
fell a voice from heaven saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee
it is spoken, The kingdom is departed from thee. It's not
yours to rule anymore. It's not yours to glory in anymore. It's not yours to benefit from
anymore. It's not yours to control anymore. It's mine, and I'm taking it
away from you. And God told him what would happen
to him. Verse 33, And the same hour was the thing fulfilled
upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from men, and did eat
grass as an oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,
till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers. and his nails
like birds' claws. God took that proud man down,
made him to know himself as a beast before God, a beast who ate what
God allowed him to eat, roamed where God allowed him to roam,
did what God allowed him to do. Subject to live as God purposed
him to live, not by his decision, not by his will, not by his works
and desires, but by the sovereign dictates of a holy God. You are
what you are by the grace of God. He took this man down and
took his kingdom and authority away from him. And he put him
out and he let him know that the only reason he was able to
eat grass was by the grace of God. He was nothing more than
a beast before God. He was a nobody. A nobody. Verse 34, And at the end of the
days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and
my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High. That's how you can tell when
a man's understanding returns to him. That's how you can tell
when the curse has been lifted. He'll reason it out. Come, let
us reason together, saith the Lord. And He's the only one who
can reason with you. But He can reason. And when His
reasoning returned unto Him, He said, I bless the Most High,
and I praise and honor Him that liveth forever, whose dominion
is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation
to generation. He keeps it, He maintains it,
He establishes it, and He gives it to whom He will. Verse 35,
And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed. Here's your
reputation. Nothing. Nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What are
you doing? He's God. When God finds His
man in Babylon, He takes that authority away from him. And
He reveals Himself in His true capacity. He's Lord! Sovereign! Lord! Lord over creation. Lord over purposes and design. Lord over men and women. Lord
over destinies. Lord over salvation. Lord over
providence. He's Lord. That's where things
begin right there. That's where things begin to
turn around. It ain't just coming down an aisle and accepting Jesus,
poor little Jesus, as your personal Savior. It's coming to bow at
the feet of the sovereign King of glory. That's where the thing
starts. Any man God saves out of Babylon,
the first thing he's going to do is set up his kingdom in his
heart. And you're going to bow. That's
how God delivers out of Babylon. He establishes Himself as the
Lord of glory and ourselves as the beast. And whatever authority
I may have, I have at His command and for His glory and not my
own. And no matter how glorious my crown is and how great my
kingdom appears, how exalted my name may be, nothing I can
do can override the kingdom and authority of God in Christ. He
rules. He rules. Salvation of the Lord. That's the story of Babylon.
Babylon represents religion. It represents man's designs and
logic and reason and will, his free will to do this. We're going
to organize it. We're going to do this. This
is what seems right. And he sells it to the crowd.
It's easy to sell. It's easy to sell. The problem
with it is it ain't of God. And I tell you, you find all
through the Scripture, you find Babylon. Babylon come into power. And God used it in the case of
Nebuchadnezzar to reveal His sovereign purpose and His sovereign
design in the deliverance of His people out of Babylon, the
spiritual picture. You go on to His grandson, Darius,
and then you find out in him that God overrides his authority
and winds up causing Babylon to reject all of Israel, delivers
all Israel out of Babylon. And He's going to deliver all
His chosen people coming out. They're not going to stay in
there under that old authority and those old ideas. They're
coming out. They're coming out. And I'll
tell you this, and I'll close. If you read carefully through
the book of Revelations, you're going to find this whole thing
of Babylon coming back into power in the last days. You're going
to find this rise of Babylon coming back into power. And that's
what I see. I see it all around. I see free
will works religion. I see it on every corner. I see
it on every block. I see it in every nation. I see
it universally accepted all around. And God had two witnesses early
there that got killed. You remember that? Put his witnesses
to silence. And his gospel ceased to be preached
just here and there. It was all but dead. But God
raises them two witnesses. He raises them up. And just about
the time Babylon has this worldwide acceptance all around, there's
going to be a revival of the gospel of God's sovereign grace.
And I believe, I was talking to Brother Don this afternoon,
I believe that's what we're seeing right now. I've never seen a
time when the grace of God is being accepted and preached and
delivered throughout the world like it is right now. Do you?
When I first started looking into these things of grace, I
couldn't find anybody preaching grace. I thought I fell into
Shangri-La when I went to 13th Street, Nashville. Look at it
now. Look at it now. It's going into
China and going into Russia and out into the islands and over
in Australia. I mean, I'm just a little peanut
preacher down here in Arkansas and I'm getting letters from
people in Australia, California, Montana, Canada, all over the
place. I'm amazed at how the gospel
is going out. And I tell you this, I believe
we're living in not only the last day, but the last days of
the last days. And I'm seeing an upsurge of
the gospel. And I'm rejoicing in it. I'm
rejoicing in it. Look at this little church. It
was all but dead. Look how the Lord's blessed it.
I tell you, I see a revival. I see the beast going down. I
see Babylon's walls coming down. That's what I see. And I see
the Lord coming back very, very soon.