Thru the Bible - Sunday Sermon

Steve Schwetz: Picture being in a crowded room where everyone's talking at once, but suddenly, you can't understand a single word. The mouths are moving, the plans are rolling, and the energy is high, and yet nothing connects. Confusion spreads, frustration rises, and what felt unstoppable a moment ago starts to fall apart. That's the scene behind Genesis 11. People gathered to build something impressive, something that would keep them together and make a name for themselves.

But God stepped in, and the story of Babel became the moment the world splintered into languages and nations. Welcome to the Sunday Sermon on Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. In this message, the Greatest Tongues Movement on Record, we'll see why this wasn't just an ancient construction project. It was a turning point that still helps explain the world we live in today and why we still need God to speak clearly to the human heart.

I'm Steve Schwetz, your host, and our message begins in chapter 11 of Genesis. So as you find your place, I want to tell you about something special that we do every May. It's called Letter Month. Now, years ago, Dr. McGee set aside this time to hear directly from you. It's really an invitation to pause and reflect on what God's doing in your life as you study His Word with us.

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Father, thank You for meeting us in Your Word. As we listen, Lord, give us understanding and focus our minds and hearts and help us to respond to what You show us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Our subject this morning is the greatest tongues movement on record. We have come today to the final section of the first major division of the book of Genesis, and actually of the Bible. We're halfway through the Bible chronologically, for you cover in the first 11 chapters 2,000 years plus. How much more? I have no idea, but I'm confident it's a great deal more than any of us or anyone has ever imagined.

There are four great subjects in this first section. There is the creation story, then the fall of man, the story of the flood, and today, the Tower of Babel. I believe that we've come today to the two most important and remarkable chapters in these first 11 chapters of Genesis. Genesis 10 and 11 are far more important than any other section we've had so far. Actually, it's more meaningful to us than the creation story.

Because frankly, we have here our family tree, and the family is much more important than the house they live in. After all, the creation story's about the house we live in, but here we're talking about our family, if you please, the family that we belong to. These two chapters, 10 and 11, contain the genealogy of every nation, tongue, tribe, family, and individual that's on the earth today. Your genealogy begins right here.

There is here a section on ethnology that's of great consequence, for here you have the history of all of the races. It's here that you can begin to understand some of the problems that are in the world today because it gives the story of the sons of Noah: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. It gives here the different racial characteristics that are much stronger than color. Color's just the outward shell, but the psychological makeup of folk.

Paul later on could say, standing yonder on Mars Hill in Athens, speaking to a prejudiced people who called everyone who was not a Greek, called them "barbaroi," barbarians. That's the way they thought of them. But Paul said yonder, "God has made of one blood all nations under heaven to dwell on the earth." Believe me, medicine today has demonstrated that we're all made of one blood.

We have here, as someone has written, we have set before us the principles and judgments upon which the world was founded. That's the thing that makes these two chapters important. Now in this fascinating genealogy of global significance, there are two parenthetical sections. These parenthetical sections are most interesting, if you please, and actually, that's what we're looking at today. We're taking the parenthesis rather than that which is the substance here.

First of all, in chapter 10, it says, "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel." Here is the first king that's mentioned in the Bible: King Nimrod. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel or Babylon and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

So that you have here the mention of Nimrod, the founder of Babel. He is the first world ruler. He's one that is actually a hunter of souls. This is a man that was out looking for followers. Well, let's bring it up to date. He was out getting votes. This is the man that was moving, if you please, to world power. He wanted to rule over all of the peoples of the world after the flood.

His name means rebel, and he certainly is a shadow of the one who is to come that Paul calls the lawless one. He is indeed that one who is a picture, a type, of the Antichrist who is to come. He is an adumbration of Antichrist. That is Nimrod who's mentioned here, and we're told the beginning of his kingdom is Babel. He's the founder of a city, and that's very important.

Now you'll notice when you come to the 11th chapter, there you have the mention of the Tower of Babel. The tower and the city are related. They belong together, and we need to think of them together. Now we're concerned, as you can see this morning, with this parenthetical section. Actually, I'm confident I could put all of you to sleep talking about the genealogies that are given here of the three sons.

But it would be most interesting, and it is very interesting to follow it through. There's some outstanding scholarly books on this that treat of the ethnology of the human family, and it more or less divides into three sections. You have here the beginning of them. You have given here the threefold actually division of the human family. God has permitted all three families to rule this world at one time.

It may interest you to know that it was the sons of Ham who first ruled the world. You have this man here, and Babylon was a Hamitic kingdom. Assyria was a Hamitic kingdom, and so was Egypt at the very beginning. So that the first three great civilizations were Hamitic that have ruled this world. Today, it's been what we call the white man, but he's having his last chance.

God has given him an ample opportunity and he's made a mess of it as you look at the world today. So that we have here something that we're dealing with that which is parenthetical. Now it is a case of the tail wagging the dog today, but I trust you'll bear with us as we're looking here now at the city and we're looking at the tower.

The city here is interesting. This is not actually the beginning of city life. If you go back into the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, you'll find that when Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, that his children began to multiply on the earth. "Cain knew his wife; she conceived and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch."

That is in Genesis 4:17, the beginning of city life. Someone has said that God made the country but man and the devil made the city. Today we're finding that the city is the hotbed of lawlessness. It's today the sin center. It's the place where godlessness begins. Now will you notice that these people that began this city, and God has something to say not only at the beginning, God has something to say at the end.

If you want to know how up-to-date the Bible is, will you listen to what God says at the end of the end of Babylon and the end of the city? I'm reading beginning Revelation 18, verse 9: "And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come."

"Now listen: And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble." You think you're walking down Wilshire Boulevard looking in the windows, don't you?

The end of the city: "And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and the souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing."

That is the picture of the end of the city. We have here the beginning of the city and the end of the city, and John writing in Revelation, this is the picture that we have. Now we come, if you please, to this thing that Nimrod led in. God's command had been to replenish the earth. This is what God had said to them when they left the ark: replenish the earth.

That is, move out over the face of the earth. "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." Now this man Nimrod wanted to found a world empire with himself, of course, as the head.

His ambition was to rule, and if you want to read a very fine book, it's by Hislop, *The Two Babylons*. He tells that which is largely tradition of course, but it's good tradition, of how this ancient city of Babylon is actually the fountainhead of idolatry, and it's also the fountainhead of that which is against God. Every movement against God and every false religion goes back to this city of Babylon that Nimrod founded.

Now in order for this man to carve out a new world empire, to realize his ambition, and to make his dream come true, there were two factors and two features that were absolutely essential. Because the command had been given to scatter over the earth and men were beginning to move out as pioneers and explorers over the face of the earth. Now he wanted to hold them together.

In order to do it, there must be a center of unity. There must be a headquarters. There must be a capital. There must be a place to assemble, a place to look to. Now that was the city of Babel. He built a city, and that city was to become the capital, the very center of the kingdom that he was to found. That is the first thing that is essential, a center of unity.

Then there must be a rallying point. And when I say that, I'm not now talking about that which is geographical, but that which is psychological. There must be a motive or a reason. There must be that which is a spark or an inspiration that draws men together. There must be a song. There must be a battle cry. There must be some impelling and compelling motivation to bring men together.

There must be a monument. Now back here, it was the Tower of Babel, if you please, and it was a defiance and rebellion against God. Let me read: "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 thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar."

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city." Now here is the rallying point. Here is the tower. Here is that inspiration which is going to hold them together: "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." Now here is the great rallying cry of Nimrod: "Let's come together. Let us make us a name for ourselves. And let's get rid of God."

It was absolutely in defiance and in rebellion against Him: "Let us make us a name." It was an appeal to the baser desires of man, and you see it manifests itself today. There are today certain houses, there are certain royal lines. They "make us a name." And there are a lot of Christians today. They want to attach their name to something: "Let us make us a name."

What a rallying point that is, and it appeals to the baser part of man, and they came together around Nimrod to accomplish this unholy purpose. Now let's look at the Tower of Babel because it's been so misunderstood. I want to see first of all what the Tower of Babel was not. What was the Tower of Babel not? Well, first of all, it was not a place for man to go in time of high water.

I can remember as I came along in Sunday school, they gave me little cards, and it showed a tower and the water around it and men up on top of the tower. And the teacher said that they were getting up there so they wouldn't drown. May I say to you, and I want to say it kindly, that's the most asinine interpretation of the Tower of Babel that is imaginable. That's just not the reason it was built.

May I say to you, that tower revealed the arrogant, the defiant, and rebellious attitude of man against God. God said replenish the earth, and man said, "Nothing doing. We're through with You. You sent a flood, You destroyed us, and we have nothing to do with You anymore. And so," they said, "we'll build a tower that'll be our rallying place against You." That was the Tower of Babel.

The second thing is, it was not just a symbol either. It was not non-religious. Today there have been a great many excavations made in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. All up and down that valley, they found what is called a ziggurat. A ziggurat is a great mass of brick, generally solid. It's made sometimes square, most of the times it's round.

And the way that it's built, there's a runway on the outside like a corkscrew. You begin at the bottom and you wind up on top, and on top there is an altar. It's known today that in some of those, human sacrifice was offered. It is certain today that they worshipped the sun up there. Quite interesting that in that land later on there arose a religion that's known as Zoroastrianism, modern Parseeism.

Several years ago I made this statement, was startling for some folk. If I were not a Christian, I would not go into any of the cults, frankly they don't make sense, but Zoroastrianism does. I would become a worshipper of Zoroastrianism if I were not a Christian and wanted a religion. It's the most enlightened one of all. You see, they've just moved one stage away from God.

They made an altar up there and they worshipped the sun. Why? The worship was a worship of light because it was very easy for them to reason. The sun never sent a storm, at least they didn't think so, and God did. "And we won't have anything to do with Him. The clouds and the storms destroyed our ancestors. Now we'll build a tower and we'll worship the sun that will never send a flood upon us."

And they began there to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, and they began to worship these heavenly bodies. That's where they began to go off, for Babylon is the fountainhead of all idolatry. We find that that was the thing that the Tower of Babel therefore was not. It was not a non-religious symbol, and it was not just a place to keep your feet out of the water.

It was actually a rallying place against God, and it was a religion that's being formed now that is idolatry against the living and the true God. Now what is going to be the reaction of God to this? Well, we're given that here in verse 5: "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 begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."

Now the reaction of God is that He must stop this, and He must absolutely break up this effort because He very frankly says that it means that man will turn 100 percent against Him and that it means that He will eventually have to exterminate the human race. Therefore, God moves in in a judgment. He finds now and demonstrates now that man is the same kind of a man that came out of the Garden of Eden.

The same kind of a man that he was before the flood, that he's totally depraved, he has a fallen nature. And now God is able to put before us the reason that He must present to man a Redeemer, that He must now provide a redemption. In Cain and Abel, you see man going off there and it's the mind, the pride of man. The pride of man as he comes bringing the fruit of the ground his own works and he dares offer them to God because he thinks he's good enough.

That's the sin of the mind, a mind totally depraved. Not realizing that he's fallen short of the glory of God. Then at the time of the flood, you see the demonstration in the sin of the flesh, as it's demonstrated, that which is physical. They were giving themselves over that every thought and imagination, and it led to those actions that were actions of the flesh. Man physically, therefore, is totally depraved.

Then at the Tower of Babel, you see that the will of man is depraved. That volitional part of man, that it's impossible. Paul found out even after he was converted, he says, "To will is present with me in my new nature now, but how to perform it I find not." And so man is totally in rebellion against God. Now God cannot ignore this rebellion. If He does, He'll lose the entire human race.

And so God put up a protective barrier. He threw up a wall, if you please. Will you notice it? He says now, "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." Now God puts up a language barrier.

It was a border that he put up that's stronger than a national border or any ocean today. It's that language barrier today where one man cannot communicate with another. The question arises, did this take place gradually? Personally, I think it did. I do not think it was presto, all of a sudden man began to speak in a different tongue. I think it was something that took place over a period of time.

Finally, they gave up in despair. One man says, "I can't understand what the foreman wants me to do. He says certain things to me and I'm just not able to fulfill them because I'm not quite clear what he's saying to me." And you find that that was the thing that eventually caused them to leave off and then to begin to scatter over the earth and do that which God had commanded them to do.

Now the miracle that took place, and it was a miracle, was it a miracle here actually of tongues or of the ears? I want you to notice what He says here: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." Was it in the hearing or in the speaking that the miracle was performed? In other words, were they speaking in tongues or was it the hearing of the ears movement?

I do not know. I do know this, that you have here the record of the way that languages did eventually begin. And you'll find that there is a kinship in all the languages of the world today which has made possible translation. Now today we have a modern city of Babel, and we have today a Tower of Babel. For man today in pride is building his Tower of Babel.

He's trying to reach into heaven and he's doing it without God. And I'm not sure but what God is coming down again in judgment upon man. I'm not sure but what He's looking over this modern Tower of Babel. I'm not sure but what He's already judging us with a United Nations that has left God out. It's supposed to bring peace in the world, and there's never been a moment since World War II that we haven't had boys dying somewhere in the world.

What irony. Isn't it time that America wakes up and realizes we do need God on the scene today? I know this is unpopular because there are so many Christians today that like the new Tower of Babel so much better than the old one because it has more glamour, it is up to date, and it is so modern. Now will you notice: "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."

He scattered man over the earth for his own good. And it revealed to man as today he needs to recognize that man is helpless and he's hopeless today in the clutches of sin. I want to turn to the fourth chapter of Ephesians and let Paul say something here. Will you listen to this in the fourth chapter, verse 17, concerning man as he is today?

"So this I say and solemnly testify in the name of the Lord, that you must no longer live as the heathen or the Gentiles do, in the perverseness, in the folly, and vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility of their minds. Their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. They are alienated from the life of God with no share in it, because of the ignorance, the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness that is deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart, to the insensitiveness of their moral nature. In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling, and reckless, and have abandoned themselves to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity."

May I say that's Paul's picture of man as man is today with his modern Tower of Babel. Now at the Tower of Babel, God leaves the nations for a time. It's beginning at this place that God no longer deals with the nations as such, and you can at this time pinpoint the very time and place where God now moves out and calls a man. And He took that man, and that man was Abraham, and now the Bible marches directly to the cross and to an empty tomb.

The Bible as we have it today ends at the cross and the tomb. But God today is writing the Acts of the Holy Spirit in heaven. It began on the day of Pentecost, and the day of Pentecost is God's answer to the Tower of Babel. And God is saying on the day of Pentecost, God is saying, "I have now come back to the nations. I scattered them for their own good. Now I have a Redeemer to offer to them, and I'll speak to them in their own language."

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven. It wasn't a wind, it was *as* of a rushing mighty wind. It filled all the house where they were sitting. There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, it wasn't fire, and it sat upon each of them. God is speaking through the eye gate and the ear gate on the day of Pentecost.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues. There wasn't an unknown tongue in the crowd there that day as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Because you see on the day of Pentecost was one of the three feast days that Jews came from all over the Roman Empire to Jerusalem to worship.

And they were there from everywhere. And many of those Jews could not understand their own speech, as many of them going back today to that land, they have to learn it because it is not their mother tongue out of that land. And so these that went back in that day could not understand the Hebrew. Now will you notice?

And now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, they were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language. They were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, "Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" So that on the day of Pentecost, God is using this, if you please, to say, "I have come back for you."

He's saying to the Gentiles and to the nations of the world, "I'm speaking again to you. I now have a salvation to offer you. The gospel is for all mankind." And that was the reason for the talking in tongues. That mission has been accomplished. It's no longer necessary. When it breaks out today, it's a manifestation of the flesh, not of the Spirit. I said that at the beginning of the movement here, and it would die down. It's died down. It always will because it's not of the Spirit today.

But in that day they heard them speaking in their own tongues. And the most important thing was that there at the day of Pentecost they were speaking in all the tongues to let God letting you know and let me know that the Gospel is for you and the Gospel is for me today. He's saying, "I've come back for you. I love you, and this is the only way I can get you."

That's what God is saying, and that's what He actually said at the Tower of Babel. "I have to do this for the sake of the generations that are yet coming upon the earth." Now today why don't men come to Christ? Why don't men accept the Gospel? I go back again and then I'm through. Pride today, like Cain. That may be the reason that some of you have not come to Christ. You want to come your own way.

You do not want to acknowledge as Abel did that you're a sinner and that you do need a Savior. You believe that you can perform works. You can do something. You can be a do-gooder and that somehow or another that'll make you acceptable to God. God has already given that as a tremendous lesson that this man filled with pride, Cain, could not be accepted to God. Only the man who brought the little lamb that pointed to Christ was accepted.

Then yonder at the flood, God demonstrated that the flesh can keep you from coming to Him, and the flesh will keep some of you today from coming to Christ. Given over to the sins of the flesh, blind to the need of the person of Christ, deaf to His claims, invitation. How many men this morning and women that are sleeping off today a big bender they were on last night, incapable this morning of hearing the voice of the Son of God calling them to salvation.

And then the will of man will keep you away. I think that's the greatest sin of the hour. Your own little Tower of Babel. Do you have one? Rebellion against God, setting your will over against the will of God. Why, you can even have your little clique, and that's your little Tower of Babel. You can have your little group, and that's your Tower of Babel.

Oh, how many today have their little Tower of Babel, rebellion that's in the human heart, rebellion against God, rebellion against His Word, and you find it even among so-called believers, that little tower of Babel today, rebellion against God. A little boy had been bad at night, and his mama made him sit in the corner. And she heard a disturbance in the next room in the corner.

She said, "Willie, are you sitting down?" He says, "Yes, ma'am. I'm sitting down, but I'm standing up on the inside of me." Oh, how many people today are standing up on the inside of them, rebellion against God. Oh, this morning, to break down your rebellion, to say no longer, "I'll rebel against God." Listen to the Savior. He said it in His day; it's pertinent today: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I receive not honor from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I'm come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."

And he's coming. Antichrist is coming someday. Germany turned its back on Luther's Bible. Germany turned its back on Jesus Christ. And then one day Germany found that they were bowing before a Hitler, and their tongue was black from licking his shoes. They wouldn't have Jesus Christ. "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I'm come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye shall receive."

Listen to Him again: "Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?" Then Simon Peter answered, and thank God for Simon Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." This morning, what's keeping you from Christ? He says you won't come to Me, but if you will come to Me, "him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

Is it another year for you when you have to say as Jeremiah said in 8:20, "The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." The harvest is almost over, almost over. I personally do not believe many more years that a man will stand in this pulpit and be able to ask you to turn to Christ. I don't think so. The harvest is over. The summer is ended, and we are not saved.

But this morning, it's not too late. What's keeping you from Christ today? Right where you're sitting this morning, you can turn to Him. You can accept Him. Something's keeping you from it, and it'll come in one of three categories: your mind, pride today, because when you come to Him, you have to come as a beggar and receive as a gift His salvation.

The sins of the flesh can keep you from Him, or a will today. You may be rallying around some little Tower of Babel worshipping some man, some group. And my friend, if you are, your tongue is black this morning licking shoe leather. When you bow to Him, you don't have to bow to man. Oh, this morning to break down that rebellion and to turn to Him. He's a Savior today.

Steve Schwetz: For information on how you can turn to Him, click "How Can I Know God?" in our app, visit ttb.org, or call 1-800-65-BIBLE. We'd be glad to send you helpful resources by mail. I'm Steve Schwetz, inviting you to join us next Sunday as Dr. McGee continues our journey through God's Word with his never-before-aired message, "The Camels Are Coming," from Genesis 24.

To listen on demand, download our app, or visit ttb.org, or just call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you out, maybe to find a Christian radio station that carries the Sunday Sermon. As we go, I turn to Isaiah 26:3, praying that the Lord would keep you in perfect peace as your mind stays fixed on Him because you trust in Him. Amen.