Babel or Pentecost?

In seeking to be “relevant” to and “involved” with a confused generation, the Church is in danger of joining the forces of Babel. In that day men said, “Come, let us make …,” “Come, let us build …,” “Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:3, 4).

Feeling insecure, fearful of another flood, confident that they had within themselves the solution to their problems, the men of Babel started to make a “brave new world.” What was the result? Confusion!

God had given the people of that time a revelation of his love, power, and provision. He had promised that the world would never again be destroyed by a flood. But these men rejected his love, discounted his power, ignored his provision, and disbelieved his promise. And, as always, God had the last word. He brought their plans to nought, confused their tongues, and scattered them over the face of all the earth.

There is grave danger that the Church of our day may be accepting the philosophy of Babel. By failing to fulfill its God-given mission, it is adding to the confusion of the world.

How different was Babel from Pentecost. At Pentecost, a small group of ordinary men, united in faith, hope, and prayer and obedient to the Lord’s command to “wait for the promise of the Father,” were suddenly transformed into flaming evangels, filled with the Holy Spirit, bearing a burning message—God’s message—of redemption for a sinning world.

This event, which some saw as a confusion of tongues and others as an alcoholic binge, was actually God’s empowering of man to preach the Gospel in a needy but hostile world. These men went out, not to reform the world, but to lead individual souls to redemption through faith in Jesus Christ. There was no compromise in their preaching; they knew men were lost sinners who needed to repent and believe in Christ for salvation. At the center of their message was Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who died on the Cross for sinners. This Christ arose from the dead, and the disciples bore witness to his resurrection as something of which they were certain, because they had been with him after it happened.

They showed how the truths to which they bore witness, the Christ whom they preached, were a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, and they repeatedly testified to the accuracy and authority of the Scriptures.

These early witnesses preached that men needed to be saved from their sins. They called for repentance and offered forgiveness in the name of their risen Lord. Their preaching was filled with deep conviction because of their own experience with Jesus Christ. They called men to make a decision, and on one occasion three thousand souls responded. At other times only a few believed, always those ordained of God unto salvation.

Their offer was universal: “And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). It was the offer of an exclusive Christ: “There is salvation in no one else.” It was a Gospel that divided men: some believed it, others rejected it.

These men were fully aware of the wickedness, the injustice, the evils of the social order in which they lived. They knew about the slavery, prostitution, oppression, dishonesty, and other signs of the depravity of man. And they did something about it! They knew that society would never be changed until men’s hearts were changed. They knew they had the only message that could bring about that change, the message of the new birth through faith in the Risen Lord. And they gave their hearts and even their lives to the proclamation of this supernatural message of a supernatural Christ who would change men in a supernatural way.

This was the result of Pentecost. Is the organized church today following the same road? Or is it following the course of Babel?

In our world, all the basest passions of mankind seem to be coming to the fore in an orgy of lewdness, lawlessness, and strife. Many are saying that our society is “sick.” But it is folly to emphasize the “corporate sins of society” without recognizing that it is the sins of individuals that find expression in society. From the desperately wicked hearts of men come “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19). These are the things that defile a man, and they are the things that defile a society.

But what is the organized church doing about this desperate situation? Is it playing the part of the medical quack who offers various nostrums and panaceas, or the medical hack who tries to relieve symptoms without concern for the underlying disease, instead of offering a clear diagnosis and cure based on God’s word? Is it slighting Pentecost, with all its attendant power and blessing, in favor of Babel, with its confusion, frustration, and defeat?

I am greatly concerned about the Church. I am heartsick over a widespread shift in emphasis, a shift from proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the one cure for sin to “involvement” in any and every activity designed for social change, with seemingly little concern for the basic change of heart that is the product of the Gospel.

Has the Church lost faith in the power of the Gospel? Does it think it can redeem society without touching the hearts of individuals? Does it think it can join forces with the world to build a city and make a name while it ignores the biblical truth that believers are strangers and exiles on the earth, looking to “the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10)?

A study of the convocations of most of the major denominations reveals that their main concerns are becoming secular and materialistic rather than spiritual. The Gospel is at best taken for granted and not emphasized, and at worst denied.

Can the situation be reversed? The answer is an emphatic yes. But to do so we must turn away from Babel, with its call to merely human achievement, and turn back to Pentecost, where the power of the God of eternity was manifested in the presence and person of his Spirit. This will happen when men bow their minds, wills, and hearts to him in humble faith and obedience. If they do this, the Church will be revived and will go out into this sinning, lost world with the one and only message that will work—that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3, 4). This message, the Apostle Paul says, is of “first importance”!

Babel or Pentecost—which will the Church choose?

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