Dr. Michael Yusef with powerful reminders to begin this episode of Leading the Way. Only those who submit to Jesus Christ will see that this curse of sin is lifted out of them. Only those who submit to Jesus Christ will see the curse removed from them. Only those who come to Christ will see the curse of sin has been cast away forever. Only those who come to Christ will see the curse of sin has been healed.
Only those who come to Christ will see the consequences of all of sin have been forgiven. Stories in the Bible often become just that, stories. But today, see how the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11 overflows with truth about sin and life in 2024. Next on Leading the Way, Dr. Michael Yusef continues his series of messages, appropriately called Our God Always Wins.
Listen along with me as Dr. Yusef begins. Now the story of the confusing of the language and the tongues of the Babylonians is really well known to most people. But what is less familiar, what is less known, what is less understood is the very heart of that rebellion that motivated them to construct this building, this tower in ancient Babel.
Here's a background to it, so you can follow with me. After the flood, Noah and his family came out of the ark and he had three children, Shem, Ham and Japheth. And the Lord said to them, spread throughout the earth and multiply. That's in Genesis chapter 9. But there is in Genesis chapter 9 also a very disturbing story, very disturbing story where Noah got drunk after the harvesting of the first vineyard after the flood. Ham, his son, exposed his father's sin and ridiculed his father.
As a result, Noah cursed Ham's son Canaan from which we get the Canaanites. Please be careful. I'm just going to stop here for a moment. To parents, please be very careful what you say to your children.
Choose your words very carefully. Always bless them. Even when you are rebuking them, bless them and not curse them. On the other hand, Shem, the son who honored his father, God honored him and his descendant was Abraham. Ham was cursed and his descendants were cursed.
The Canaanites who were constantly like sand in the eyes of God's people, the Israelites. One of Ham's descendants, a fourth generation from him, a mighty warrior by the name of Nemrod. By the way, when the Bible said he was a mighty warrior, it doesn't mean like rainbow and, you know, strong guy, mighty in battle.
No, no, no. He wasn't a military man, but he's a founder of a state. That's what's called a warrior. He was a proud man.
He was an independent king. He devoted his life to the building of a civilization that is opposed to God and to his will and to his word. And that is why Nemrod's decision to build a tower or a structure was a natural step in the progression of sin. The first stage we see in the scripture is that of Adam and Eve, who disobeyed God when he said, eat from all of these trees except for this one. The devil came, tempted them, and they broke the command of God, the word of God. And so they were kicked out of the garden. But when they got kicked out of the garden, they didn't go too far away.
They stayed very close to the garden. In other words, they stayed close to the presence of God. But the next stage was Cain, when he was tempted by the devil to worship God his way, not God's way, and killed his brother Abel.
And he ended up being a wanderer all over the face of the earth. But the third stage is inevitable, is inevitable. The third stage in that progression of sin is Nemrod establishing a whole civilization in opposition to God. Not just without God, but in opposition to God. Sin always progresses into darker and deeper place.
Please don't miss what I'm going to tell you. It is that sin of refusing God's authority that brought about every heartache, every pain, every suffering that you see all around you. Every heartache, every pain, every suffering that you see around you is the result of that original sin.
And that is why Jesus came from heaven. Jesus came from heaven to take away the curse upon himself of everyone who would repent and turn to him. And that is why those who reject Jesus' sacrifice on the cross to be for them, they choose, they choose to live and die under that curse, that original curse. Only those who submit to Jesus Christ will see that this curse of sin is lifted out of them. Only those who submit to Jesus Christ will see the curse removed from them. Only those who come to Christ will see the curse of sin has been cast away forever. Only those who come to Christ will see the curse of sin has been healed. Only those who come to Christ will see the consequences of all of sin have been forgiven.
And as a result, for us who know and love Jesus, our joy and peace here and now and for all of eternity comes from knowing that we are totally forgiven. Now, today, the mindset of those who choose to live under the curse of that original sin, listen to me, the mindset is this, we don't need God, we have science. We don't need God, we have artificial intelligence. We don't need God, we have supercomputers.
We don't need God, we can save ourselves. Please think, think, think long and hard with me, please, about this prevailing attitude. Give us enough money and time, we'll accomplish anything. Give us enough research and technology, and we can conquer anything. And then comes a teeny weeny, teeny weeny, teeny weeny virus that you can't even see under a giant microscope called corona, and it shut the whole world down. Nemrod's action is a reflection of this modern attitude.
Nothing new under the sun, right? Nemrod met a God of his own ambitions and pride. Ah, but soon he discovered that God cannot be defied, he cannot defy God. Our God always what?
Jesus. Nemrod wanted to build a civilization like the folks at the World Economic Forum have been trying to do and bring the whole world under one world government. But the whole purpose is they want to make God to be obsolete. That's what they want, God to be obsolete, and we take his place. And from that time on Babylon or the Tower of Babel had become to represent all kinds of rebellion against the one holy God and his word. And that is why the book of Revelation talks about the mystery of Babylon.
You know book of Revelation is revealed, right? So it reveals to us was known back then as a mystery of Babylon. What is that mystery of Babylon?
Listen to me very carefully please. Is that God destroys any civilization, any culture that rebels against him. That's the mystery of Babylon. Our God always what?
Let's look at this event in details, okay? Because you have to understand it in context. First of all, the word Babel is an Akkadian word. It's spelled A-K-K-A-D-I-N, Akkadian. It's an Akkadian word means gateway to God or gateway to heaven. And the tower that Nimrod built was Zegarat.
What is that? You ask. It's a type of religious structure that later became very common in ancient Mesopotamia. Like the pyramids of Egypt, I'm going to come to those in a minute. Big question is this. Why did Babylon come to occupy such a major significance in the Bible?
Why? Why did occupy major significance? Because Babylon became a symbol of independence from God. It became a symbol of independence from God. But there's more than that.
It came to represent enmity with God. I shared with you in the first message when God said to the descendants of Noah, scatter, multiply, fill the earth. Nimrod said, no.
No. We have a better plan. We're going to build ourselves a city and we're going to connect us that city, that tower, that structure is going to connect us with the universe. It's going to connect us with the starry hosts. Now don't miss this.
Please don't miss this. This statement is the first well organized human opposition to God. The Babylonian vision is to have a culture and to have a civilization with humanity in charge, not God. Not God.
I'm going to give you three things and I hope you'll write them down. Three things regarding the Tower of Babel. First of all, it was a vision for a city without God. Secondly, they were on a mission to steal the glory of God. And thirdly, they ultimately wanted to worship the self instead of God.
Let's look at these very, very quickly. First, this is the first organized formal rejection of God. Nimrod, Satan-like, listen carefully, Satan-like, he wanted a great empire with his own religious system. Not God's.
Why? Because he wanted to make God totally unnecessary. God is totally unnecessary. When people reject the one true God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, knowingly or knowingly they are embracing false gods. Revelation 17 depicts Babylon as a woman with mysterious title. Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, and the abomination of the earth. The mystery of Babylon very simply is this.
The refusal of any institution, of any society, of any government, of any business, and of any denomination to submit to the authority of God and the word of God. The second thing I want to show you is that they were on a mission to steal the glory of God. When Nimrod and the Babylonians said, let's build a tower that reaches to the heavens, they were not, they were not, they were not, say that with me, they were not actually thinking of a physical tower, a physical height in which they'll be able to touch the sky. They were not that stupid. If they really want to do this and build something tall to reach the sky, like our skyscrapers, they should have gone up to the mountains.
At least gives them a leg up, right? They were down in the valley in Shinar, I mean that is about sea level, about sea level. No, it was nothing to do about reaching out and touching someone. When the Bible talks about reach the heavens is a figure of speech. The implication is that the roof of that building is dedicated to the worship of the zodiac, the heavenly bodies, the stars. It was from Babylon that astrology, which is the belief that the stars and the planets influence human affairs, this diabolical thinking passed from Babylon to the rest of the world. The reason astrology is an abhorrent to God is because they are worshiping the stars, which is disguised in a form of worshiping demons. Whenever and whoever worship creation, knowingly or knowingly are worshiping demons.
Oh, beloved, listen to me. That is Satan modus operandi. When Lucifer wanted to be worshiped instead of God and God kicked him out of heaven from that moment on, from that time, he has been doing everything.
He was trying everything. He's doing all that he could to get people's eyes off the God of heaven, the creator of the stars and the creator of the universe to take their eyes off the one true God and unto himself, even if he is disguised. No wonder the Bible said that he appears as an angel of light. Did you know, for example, that the pyramids of Egypt, I've been there a few times, the pyramids of Egypt are constructed in relationship to the stars. As a matter of fact, the Sphinx itself, the head of a woman symbolizes Virgo and the body of a lion symbolizing Leo. Virgo is the first sign in the Zodiac.
Leo is the last. In fact, the term Sphinx means joining, meaning the joining of the two points of the Zodiac. After 400 years of God's people being in slavery of Egypt, 400 years, when they came out of there, I was going to say knee deep, they were deep into their eyeballs in the stuff, in the worshiping of the Zodiac. And that is why in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy, God over and over and over again, sometimes you think, God you're so patient, not to worship the stars, not to worship the heavenly host, not to worship the occult, don't get into astrology when you go to Canaan.
Why? Because it is a disguised worship of demons. And that is why Babylon is a symbol of stealing of the glory of God.
Not that anybody can, but the attempt. Worshipping or following the stars is an attempt to rob God who is the creator of the stars, of his splendor, and handing it over to the devil. It's a rejection of the truth and bracing falsehood. Babylon vision was a city without God, utopia without God. Babylon mission was to steal the glory of God. Thirdly, Babylonians thought about self-worship. That's all they were about. Question, what motivated them to build such a structure? Here's what they said.
I didn't say that, they said that. We're going to make a name for ourselves. It was for the glory of us. Please don't miss this, please don't miss this.
Don't miss what I'm going to tell you. Self-preservation, self-preservation is a gift from God. Did you know that? Did you know that fear is a gift from God? And God gives us those gifts for survival, but leave it to the devil.
He takes every gift that God gives us and he perverts it. The gift of fearing God, he makes it fear people, fear things, fear life. The gift of self-preservation, he turns it into idol worship, idol worship. Satan turns the gift of preservation and survival into self-worship, self-worship.
In education, the buzzwords are self-worth, self-esteem. As a matter of fact, you take the prefect self and you just fill in the space. That powerful God of self knows no limits. This powerful God of self has no boundaries. This powerful God of self invades every territory, including some churches.
Beloved, listen to me. God allows no one to steal his glory. God does not have any rivals or equals. God does not accommodate to idols. God does not negotiate with false gods. And that is why we see in the end of the book of Revelation that mighty Babylon is destroyed. Anyone in opposition to God will be destroyed.
Are God always what? And that is why we read in Genesis 11, 7. God said, let's go down. As if God really doesn't need to come down.
But that's the language and help human being to understand. God said, let's go down and confuse the language. Listen, the assembly and the council of men gathered and they made a decision. We're going to go up our way. God says, I'm going to come down. When the council of men decided they're going to go up, the council of the Holy Trinity in heaven also convened. And we said, we'll go down and bring judgment. Oh, beloved, listen to me.
I'm about to finish. The council of God always, always, always prevail. Give God the glory. Give God the glory. The apostle Paul said in Ephesians 1 11, God accomplishes all things.
How many? According to the council of his will. Praise God. God ultimately came down not to condemn us, but to give us the opportunity to be redeemed for every repentant sinner to be redeemed. He came down in order that he may give us the opportunity for everyone who received Jesus Christ as their only savior.
Those who have received Jesus' death on the cross to be for them, they'll be eternally saved. God came down in Christ to offer us a way of salvation. God came down to lift up the curse from everyone who put his trust in him. God came down to deliver us from hell for every repentant sinner. God came down to pay the wages and the consequences of every repentant sinner.
God came down to lift up the curse of that original sin from the life of every repentant sinner anywhere in the world. And that is why only Jesus could say that. There is no founder of another religion.
There is no religious system. There is no religious leader who could ever say this. Only Christ could say this. Come unto me all who are thirsty and I'll give you the water of life. Come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest.
Have you been redeemed, eternally saved by Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection as payment for your sins? If that thought is new to you and you'd like to know more, please reach out to a Leading the Way pastor or a counselor. You can have that conversation. You can ask tough questions.
You can address all of your doubts. Start by going to ltw.org slash Jesus. ltw.org slash Jesus. As we enter into the December gift challenge, I want to thank God publicly and thank you, the partners in the gospel, for all that you have done during 2024 and all that you're going to do in the future.
Because God opened doors, I never dreamed that he would open. We have reached the unreached. We have seen so many lives saved.
We've seen so many strengthened. So let me invite you to join us in this great opportunity of the December gift challenge. And in the eternal future of those in your neighborhood and neighborhoods like it around the world. Will you join Dr. Yusef in leading the way on the front lines of worldwide ministry? Learn more at ltw.org. Or you could always get connected with a Leading the Way team member by calling 866-626-4356.
Do it now. Learn more and stand with Dr. Yusef when you call 866-626-4356. Or online, ltw.org. That's ltw.org. Or write to us at Leading the Way, Post Office Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. That's Post Office Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef, passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth around the world. Learn more at ltw.org.
