Looking up information online the other night about the Tower of Babel, I came across this great insight from Jewish historian Josephus:

“Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power…”

This explains how a lot of unsaved people stay happily deceived, thinking themselves so marvelous because they act with courage and purpose.

It’s like the famous old quote from Alabama fundamentalist preacher Bob Jones Sr.: “The religions of the world say ‘do and live.’ The religion of the Bible says, ‘live and do.’ ”

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I can’t tell you how many people I came across in my seven years in New York City who thought author Karen Armstrong really had the right idea about faith and the human relationship with God.

She is like some sort of Krishnamurti guru for the “well-read intellectuals” who classify themselves as Christians—usually simply because that’s how they were raised—but do not subscribe to the Bible or Jesus Christ as their only means for acceptance by God.

So, look at just how easily Armstrong puts forth Satan’s biggest lies:

“Human beings must save themselves without spiritual aid,” Armstrong writes in her 2001 glowing biography of Siddhatta Gotama Buddha. In another “gem of wisdom,” she emphasizes, “Buddhists must motivate themselves and rely on their own efforts, not on a charismatic leader.”

Of course, this is the same “works program” that permeates all the world’s religions. Armstrong consistently throws out the old, “Gaining God’s approval is based on your performance,” and that’s exactly why so many intellectual-types go for her particular system.

They like thinking it’s all about their big brains, personal discipline, high ethical standards, heart for the downtrodden, on and on.

In the 2001 book, “His Holiness The Dalai Lama; In My Own Words,” the Dalai Lama assures, “Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much. Whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life.”

He further states, “It is not sufficient for religious people to be involved with prayer. Rather, they are morally obliged to contribute all they can to solving the world’s problems.”

This must be where this current rash of celebrities, such as Brad Pitt, Bono, Oprah, Susan Sarandon, etc., are getting their impetus to rush over to Africa and make a big stink about how hardly nobody else, including our government, seems to care what’s going on over there.

You just wonder why the Dalai Lama is allowing all these Richard Gere-type do-gooders to waste bundles of money on bringing him to the U.S. all the time to hang out with the Hollywood stars at elaborate fund-raisers, sleeping and dining in the poshest places.

In the Bible, God gives the complete opposite information from the Dalai Lama, making it abundantly clear His justice only responds with greater wrath to man’s attempts to make himself righteous on his own.

“You just dig the whole deeper,” confirms my pastor, Richard Jordan. “All the excuse elements, and the excuse procedures that man comes up with—‘Well, look at what good I’ve done for others’—the wrath of the justice of God just responds with greater wrath those who try to justify themselves on their own.

“Paul tells us God ‘will render to every man according to his deeds.’ Folks, the principle of God's dealings with men is simple: He's going to give you what you deserve. That's what justice is! And God is only going to give eternal life to the man who has absolute perfect righteousness.”

Romans 2:8, for another instance, has Paul warning that for those who do not obey the truth of God’s Book, there’s only “tribulation and anguish, upon every soul.”

Jordan says, “Pain, fear and punishment. That doesn't sound too good. That word ‘anguish’ means the crushing of your body.

“The issue is having the justice of God satisfied with me and declare me to be righteous by my faith in Him alone. It’s me standing as a sinner before the justice of Almighty God and His justice saying, ‘You're righteous. You have absolute perfect righteousness.’

“When the verse says, ‘being justified freely by His grace,’ God makes me as qualified for the blessings as Jesus Christ, because that's my righteousness in Him.

“Then you don't need your own righteousness, do you? You need God's righteousness. God’s done everything and you’ve got to get a hold of that. It’s free.”

“Folks, if God did it all then there's no way I can have any confidence in my flesh or in my performance. My confidence is all in what God did. What you learn is that you didn't do it, you didn't deserve it, and you can't have any confidence in your own ability to stand before God. Your confidence has to all be in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Grace simply means ‘by God's special favor; by His delight. God delights in doing this through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus; through Christ paying the price to set you free of your debt.

“There isn't anybody's works that ever justified him, now or in Old Testament days. Paul says Calvary is how it is that God could save those men back over there—on that forbearance system of responding to His Word in faith.

“Faith has always been the issue with God. Faith isn't doing anything; it's resting in what God did for you.

“Paul says, ‘We have peace by whom we also have access into this grace wherein we stand.’ He says, ‘Man, we're absolutely secure! Nothing ever bars your access to God. You never lose that fellowship that He's called you into through the gospel.’

“We know something that gives us the capacity to know that, not only is our eternity secure, our present is too. We know that the justice of God is for us.

“And the justice of God is free to take the problems of this life—the difficult situations, the troubles—and use them in a positive manner for our good.

“The law (of the Old Testament program) says, ‘You want my blessing, then you keep my commandment. You don't keep the commandment, you're going to get a curse.’ It says, ‘You do what I tell you to do—you perform up to my expectation and requirement—and I'll give you the blessing. You fail to meet my expectation, and you're simply going to get my anger and my judgment.’

“Grace, on the other hand, says, ‘Here’s the blessing, the free gift; take it!’ It’s unconditional total acceptance!

“You know how you’ll produce fruit in your life that God will accept? It's not by going back under the (Jewish) law system. It's to live under grace.

“When you walk in the flesh, you walk under the law. Most people think walking under the flesh is adultery, fornication, drunkenness, all that. But that isn't all it is. You can walk in flesh through legalism. Did you know religion is designed for the satisfaction of the lust of the flesh?

As Paul admonishes the “foolish Galatians” bewitched away from this very truth, “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain?”

Very interestingly, we learn from Paul that the reason the Galatians left grace for the old performance-based law system was out of “a desire to make a fair shew in the flesh.”

Paul’s referring to the religious-types anxious to make an impressive show: “The issue there is religious performance so that they can make a show and people can be lifted up and glorified in their flesh,” explains Jordan.

Isn’t this exactly what do-gooders like Oprah and Bono are up to? They make sure there’s either a screaming audience cheering on their Good Samaritanship or that they can express their concerns inside the White House or on the Today show, etc.

Jordan says, “When Adam and Eve took of that Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. . . well, that old sin nature has a part of it that goes toward human evil—bad things, lasciviousness—but there's also the side of it that goes toward aestheticism, or good.

“When God said ‘the knowledge of good and evil,’ He isn’t talking about God's goodness and Satan's evil; He’s talking about all of the good things you can do are things God won't accept. Paul says, ‘All our righteousness is as filthy rags.’ God won't accept any of it.

“People have a nature within them that when they see these bad things they've done, these overt things—maybe it's a sin of the spirit, an attitude, or a sin of flesh—their old sin nature says, ‘Clean up! Do what's right!’ So what do they do? They put those things off and they have Christmastime.

“You do good and then feel good about doing it: ‘It’s so wonderful to help others.’ And you know what—that's just flesh. That's taking the law, and trying to serve God and please God and stop sin in your life on the performance of what you can do.

“Paul says, ‘No, that’s never the way you'll have victory.’ You have it by realizing God gave you the whole thing to start with by His grace, and you walk consistent with what the Spirit of God can do in your life.

“In your relationships as a Believer, you can never function successfully on the principle of expectation and performance in order to gain God’s reward and blessing.”