If you have your Bibles today, I would like to ask you in a moment to stand and join with me in the reading of the Word of God together. We are reading from Genesis chapter 11, verse number 1. Genesis chapter 11, verse number 1. Now, if you do not have a Bible, someone nearby will be sharing theirs with you, and that way we can all read together. All right, let us, let our choir that has been working so hard, just remain seated, and now we shall stand and read aloud together, verse by verse, beginning verses 1 through 9 of Genesis 11. All right, beginning in the first word, let us read together. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven. And let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language. And this they began to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth. And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Let us pray together. Our Father, our words are feeble and futile, and empty and impotent and meaningless. But thy word is everything. Add the blessing of God. And the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray, to the truth that we have just read. We know that it's just a little story from the Old Testament, and almost a humorous one at that. But we know that there are some profound truths for people today in 1970. Open thou our minds and hearts, and help us to see, to perceive, and to receive them. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, and be seated, please. I have said to you before that I like humor, and that I think there are some humorous things in the Bible. That Adam's reaction when he first saw Eve would have probably been rather humorous. That what the folks thought when they first crossed the Red Sea and saw the enemies of God up there must have been at least a tongue -in -cheek affair. I think this is sort of humorous. The people were building a very ladder to heaven. The Lord looked down and said, well, what are these folks going to do next? And he decided to go down and confound them, and gave every man a different speech, and they were scattered to the ends of the earth. I think it is at least very, very interesting if you do not find it humorous. I do. I think it is at least interesting if not humorous. Now, the words go to are the old English way of saying, come now. Suggesting a profound bit of forethought before action. Every time something here is profoundly stated, they say in our language, come now. Suggesting a council is called, forethought is given, and a significant decision has been made, and action begins to follow. The story of the building of the Tower of Babel is a most important one, although it may seem only slightly so in the overall scheme of the plan of God. We need to remember the significance of these people and their proximity toward their forefather, Noah. Noah had generations before come from the ark. He had been shut in with God and had learned some tremendous lessons. These people were not just any people. And the profoundness of the story is augmented when one realizes the significance of who these people are. Now they were the direct descendants of Noah. They had only recently, in generations gone by, come from the loins of Ham, Shem, Japheth and their wives, the direct descendants of Noah in the ark. The Bible tells us that they were a nomadic people. They were a wandering, traveling group of people. One day somebody decided, let's settle down. And so on the beautiful and bountiful, productive plains of Shinar, one of the most beautiful places in all the world, they decided that they would settle down and wander no more. Now the Bible tells us that they built a monument, that God was not pleased with that monument. Now that doesn't mean that God is not pleased with monuments. But it does mean that He was not pleased with this monument because they built it to themselves. And it was not a monument builted to God. Then it was built for their own glory. It was not built for the glory of God. And so God came down and scattered them. It was there on the beautiful plains of Shinar that Gaius and Darius were one day to rule. It was there where Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar were to reign. This was a most significant place indeed. Now the Bible tells us that what they began to do displeased God because they were a very particular special people. They were in covenant relationship with God, certainly by oral tradition, by teaching, and by a hundred ways the direction and teaching of God had been passed on from generation to generation. They knew what was entrusted to them. They knew what their holy covenant was. They knew that they were the peculiar people of God. They knew the promises of God. And I cannot help but believe that they certainly knew the word and way and will of God. And what they did was either in direct opposition and rebellion to or ignorance of the revealed will of God. I cannot help but think that it was rebellion. Surely they knew better. But when they sat down and decided to build a building and a city to the glory of themselves as a monument to themselves, they stated their declaration of independence in a four -fold way. Now, the important thing is that these four things that they did and they simply said, let's build a city, let's make a monument to heaven, let's build a way to God, let's popularize ourselves, let's memorialize ourselves, and let's stick together. These four things do not on the surface seem to appear to be the most obnoxious sins that anyone committed in the Bible. And yet God very profoundly came down and destroyed what they were doing and sent them a scattering. The reason is that these special people were supposed to be doing something else and the four things that they did found their rebellious action in the seeds that had been planted in the great heritage that was theirs through their father Noah. The seedbed of each rebellion can be found planted somewhere yonder back in their history. They knew right. They had been taught right. They just did not do right. Once again, their declaration of independence from God and His will, whether obvious and whether ignorant of that will or in opposition to that will, was fourfold. They said, let's build a city, let's make a tower to heaven, let's make a name for ourselves, and let's stick together. Now you say, preacher, what was so wrong with that? Well, let's look at it carefully. First of all, they were saying, let's have preservation. Let's build this great city. We will find preservation in our very togetherness within the walls of this city. Now there are those who think that they built this city as a, this wall city, as a security against another flood. I don't think so. If they were going to do that, they would have built it on the top of a mountain somewhere, not on a great plain. I believe they were building this city as a security for themselves and against the pressures and problems of life. They were obviously empty people and people grasping for security tend to grasp material things. Now their forefather Noah had told them by his very leadership and example that they were to build an altar, but they would build a city. Noah built an altar as soon as he came from the ark, acknowledging that his security was in God. These physical minded people began to build themselves a city without an altar because they had no security at all. Strange to what extent and degree a frustrated man will go to attempting to achieve, to grasp, to hold, to possess, to tangibilize something that he needs to be, to give him security. Without God, a man may go to any measure to possess. I believe that much of the tremendous preoccupation with possessions and materialism in modern -day America is but a sign of the absence of God in the lives of many people. And they are not old. They are not new in this. It is as old as time itself. The early kings used to build images to themselves and pyramids and great monuments to themselves and build their pictures on. So that their memory would live forever. The third Reich, it is said, would last a thousand years. They used to say the sun never set on the British Empire. Men through history without God have given themselves to trying to perpetuate and preserve their own lives and their own selves so that they could find some kind of a cheap inner security because they They did not have God on the inside. The Lord Jesus Christ, our wonderful example, himself was the most misunderstood, impoverished, persecuted person that ever lived. And yet he never owned a thing. His security was in God. I think of the apostle Paul, our example, who was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, persecuted, tried, misunderstood, And yet with a deep inner security that only comes from God. He said proudly, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. It's a pitiful thing to see a man begin to crumble. To see his empire go to pieces. And when a man doesn't have God in his life, he begins to grasp for things physical and material to give him some kind of a security. But when you have God in your life, you do not need to worry about the preservation, the adequacy, the sense of physical security that comes from possessions. Rich or poor, sick or well, loved or rejected, you can still glorify God and honor him and find composure in the midst of adversity because God is yours. I have had in our church in Oklahoma City, my former church, two or three times, Mr. Paul Anderson, the world's strongest man. Paul Anderson is also one of the world's greatest Christians. He owes the all -time weightlifting record of over 6 ,000 pounds. Now, I don't know anything about weights and about the press and all that, but if you'll look it up, you'll find that's the truth. He won it in the Olympics against the Russian, a Russian several years ago. He has lifted on display, public demonstrations, a brand new Chevrolet Impala automobile. I have personally, and so has Brother Fouch and Brother Self and Brother Shade, seen him more than once get under a specially built table and lift 1 ,600, 1 ,600 -pound men at one time with his back. I've seen him take a nail, a six penny nail, two and a half inches long with his bare fist and drive it through two pieces of one inch wood at a time and then just take his hand away and use his hand for the hammer and drive it clear through. But I have heard the strongest man in the world say that without Jesus Christ, I, Paul Anderson, am as weak as a kitty have absolutely nothing. I have no inner security. And I've heard Paul say again and again, if I, the strongest man in the world need Christ in my life, how much more do you need the Lord Jesus as well? These people were frantically building a city, trying to grasp for security in things because they had no security in God, having forgotten the example of Noah to build an altar. Jesus had something like that in mind when he said, he that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. But he that shall keep his life shall lose it. Now they were saying there's something else we want. They wanted preservation and they wanted salvation. The age old manifestation of the need of Satan in which you can almost hear the serpent's hiss in every progressive sin in the Old Testament to exalt thyself is here monument made monument. They were building forever a monument to man's effort to crawl up to God. It is always there behind every sin, behind every problem, the age old temptation of Satan, exalt thyself, exalt thyself. And I'm glad that once and for all, if wise men would but look, they build themselves an eternal monument to the futility of trying to work your way up to God. God looked down at them in pity and said, poor folks, let us go down there and confound them. You see, once again, everything they were doing was in direct opposition of the heritage from Noah passed down to them that they knew to do. The whole point of Noah's ark was God's judgment on wickedness and salvation by the grace of God. I cannot believe that they had not heard it a hundred times again that salvation comes not by God's, by man's goodness for God, but by God's goodness to man. Now there was another need that they were expressing. They had a cry for preservation, a cry for salvation, and a cry for reputation. They were saying, let's be somebody that's never been before. Let's do something that's never been done before. Indeed, Philo Judea said that each one of them wrote his own name in a separate brick that they forever might be made immemorial. Now the problem was not that God would not have us conquered the unconquered, not that he would have not have us build the unbuilded and do the on the impossible and reach the unreachable, but that they were doing it for themselves and not for God, for their glory and not for the Lord's. Once again, God had tried through Noah to properly orient the thinking of all of his descendants. He had left a rainbow. There was an altar, there was the teaching of grace, and there was the rainbow, all given in great Christian tradition to remind them of the way of God. You see, the rainbow was saying this. Our Lord had promised them, every time you see a rainbow, you see me. You remember my faithfulness. You see, the rainbow was given originally to perpetually focus attention upon God. They were focusing attention upon themselves. The point of the city builded toward heaven was exalt thyself. The point of the rainbow passed down by tradition was exalt the Lord. They had made another mistake. The very first commandment says, thou shall have no other gods before me. And it is the first and the greatest commandment that men would love the Lord their God with all their heart. God had told them through tradition through the centuries that life must be centered in on the lordship of God in a man's life and having forgotten that they would make gods of themselves. How beautifully the songwriter has said it. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth shall grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and his grace. Through the years men have attempted to do what is now considered very collegiate and very astute to jettison, to discard the concept of a personal God. It is absolute satanic in modern theology to humanize God and deify man. That's what happened in the garden. That's what happened at Babel and that's what modern liberal theologians are purporting to believe and preach on the American people today. It is a philosophy that says exalt thyself. Down with God, up with man. Now why has God created us and said that we are to worship him? Is our God some kind of an egomaniac that has to be worshipped and must be flattered? Not at all. It is not that he needs it but it is that we need it. That we need it. Now God could surely if he wanted to go by without a special day but we need the Christian Sabbath. We need the special day. He could live forever and not hear our songs of praise but we could not. We need to sing. We need to worship. Could not our Lord if he wanted to work a miracle and pay all the bills and preach the gospel to all men? Certainly. He has commanded the tithe is holy unto the Lord because we need to tithe. And why is it? That so many people in the church who do not tithe have financial problems. And those who honor the Lord with the tithe find that the 90 % goes farther than the 100%. Why is that? Our Lord has said for our good. For us to be properly oriented toward life and toward eternity, toward our fellow man and toward God we need to honor the Lord. Now there was a fourth and last thing that they were saying. And that was a kind of ultimate philosophy that was in a sense a very last resort. Now let's understand. I know that this sermon is a little bit different. Let's try to stay together here. I hope you're with me. everything that they were doing was the wrong way to go about life. And it is exactly the way we go about it. And they knew better as we know better. That's all I'm trying to say to you. The first cry for their of their life was for preservation. With no security in God they would find it in material things. The second was for salvation. Rather than by the grace of God coming down they would work their way up to God. The third thing was for reputation. The age -old satanic influence to exalt thyself rather than realizing that real life is centered about the centrality of exalting the Lord. Now the fourth cry of their of their idiocy was perpetuation. Fraternization. Let us stick together lest we hang separately. We'll hang together. If we're going to live, if we're going to be preserved, we're going to have to hang together or we'll hang alone. Now you will recall that three times our Lord had said to Noah and his descendants, multiply, scatter, replenish the earth, repopulate the earth. Once again they were direct acting in direct opposition to the revealed will of God. And they said, no, let's stick together. Why? I believe this. They had found that in life without God, they had dropped out of God. They had dropped out of materialism. They had tried a life without God and that had failed them. They had tried to find security without God in God in God's possessions and God's blessings and in God's material things and that had failed them. And so finally in one drastic attempt to find an inner peace, they said, let's find security in ourselves. Let's stick together. I believe that it is just like so many today. Many hippies drop out of society. They have left out God. They have turned from materialism. Now they're trying to find security in each other. It is the communal effort. It is the tendency to be together in a group, in a commune, in a small little entity. Around this world today, one of the main forces of communism's thrust says that men and women will stick together. For you see, people without God will go ultimately to this ridiculous extent to try to find security in themselves when they have not found it in the Lord. But God once again was displeased. God had told them to scatter. They had said, no, let us stick together. When Jesus Christ, who said, I am with you to the end of the age, is in the life and the heart of a man, he may be alone, but he does not necessarily have to be lonely. In the very same way, one may be in the midst of a crowd, but you will always be alone until God is there in your life. Now the last word is this. God's cup of divine indignation was filled to overflowing. The straw that was to break the back of divine reservation was now broken and now placed on that point. And our God, who always works out his will, had decided that since in four different ways, these people had discarded the revealed will of God through worship, through exalting the Lord, through the grace of God, and through the spreading of God's word, that they themselves would begin to be scattered by force. God got enough. God said ultimately, all right, if you won't do my will willingly, then I will constrain my will upon you. God can come to that. I remember hearing years ago when General MacArthur was leaving some point in the Orient, he said to Americans, send a thousand missionaries or you'll have to send a hundred thousand soldiers. Well, he was wrong. We didn't send a thousand missionaries. We had to send 500 ,000 soldiers. But one of the things that God allowed that for, I believe, was the distribution of the gospel for far more than a thousand Christian service men scattered around the world. Billy Graham has said that one reason he believes God has allowed this preoccupation with Vietnam to go on is because Vietnam is the gospel breadbasket for all of Asia. And their missionary work is done from that jumping off place as no place in all the Orient. It may well be, but we may be assured our God is working out his plan. You see, God does his way. God has his will. God will ultimately have his purposes fulfilled. Be assured of that. Though they, with all absolute defiance of the will of God, said, we'll do it our way, God ultimately broke their back and constrained them to scatter, and they had to do it God's way. The Bible says something about the tithe is holy unto the Lord. And I have found this. A man may not willingly give the tithe, but you dare not touch what is God's and what is holy. It may be through flat tires or sickness. It may be through reverses of one kind or another. But I believe that God collects his tithe. I believe that with all my life. And I believe something else. God will spread his gospel. This old world in defiance of the will of God will know her King. Antichrist will be defeated. And once again, it is but a skirmish, a symptom of the original and ultimate battle and conflict of which I spoke last Sunday night, that ultimately must resolve whose world is it? Who's going to be God? Is God's will going to be done or is it not going to be done? One day every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess the will of God ultimately is going to be done. God had told them what to do. They had refused to do it. They would leave out the Lord and put themselves first. The absence, the inner absence of security drove them to all kinds of frantic and desperate attempts to find something because they had left out God. And ultimately the Lord drove them and scattered them about the very face of the earth and he did his will and he always does. Now in your life, unless the Lord is first, unless an altar of daily sacrifice to the Lord and daily service to the Lord is builded, unless he is honored, his will done, you can find no sense in life. I've said all of that to say one thing, the Lordship of Christ, the sovereignty of God, the holiness of the Lord over your life willingly is the most important thing in all the world. It's the answer to the secret of life. If you do not know the Lord, let him be first place in your life. If he is yours, honor him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings. May we stand and pray together.