SECOND QUARTER 2022
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #5
APRIL 30, 2022
“ALL NATIONS AND BABEL”

 

"Therefore, its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth" (Genesis 11:9, NKJV).

Do you ever wonder where your ancestors came from? Have you ever taken a DNA test to help answer that question? I did, and I must confess that a few times I have gotten lost for hours while exploring my family tree on 23andme.

That curiosity is shared by millions who have done the same thing. How interesting it would be if only we could learn the stories of our great, great grandparents and discover the connections that make up the story of our human family!

Unfortunately, modern DNA can only help us so much. We might uncover names, birthdates, and places, but beyond that we generally know very little about the generations that preceded us.

A few years ago, I came across an intriguing book written by an Englishman who researched ancient British kings going back to the time of Noah. A comparative analysis of the six separate records he discovered reveal corresponding name matches across the chronological records all the way back to Japheth, "the elder" of the sons of Noah. If nothing else, these records corroborate the biblical account.

Yet the Lord in His mercy has opened before us a vast resource of knowledge as to the ancestry of our human race. The Bible reveals that we are all related, and more recently, we are all descendants of one or more of the three sons of Noah.

Consider that there was likely no written language until the confusion of tongues at Babel. This rendered shorthand, pictorial communication an immediate necessity.

Consider how the oral history of our world was likely delivered from Adam to Lamech, the father of Noah, who could have related this history to Abram, who was 58 years old when Noah died. That means Abram may have heard the story of creation, an event some 2,000 years prior, fourth hand. From Abraham the oral history continued another 400+ years through Jacob, Levi, and Amram to Moses, the first Bible writer. And to Moses was committed the task of writing the book of Genesis while working as a shepherd in the land of Midian.

The genealogical records found in Genesis reveal the fascinating history of the families of the earth. No other book in the world contains such insights. And while various cultures contain stories that echo the Bible account, Genesis stands without peer as the great standard of truth by which all other histories must be measured.

Beyond that, Genesis reveals how there have ever been two groups living on earth. The first group is by far the largest, consisting of those who are seeking after the perishable things of this world. The second group is called "the remnant" and in every age has embraced the dispensation of righteousness and life. Noah and his family were of this latter group.

"But as surely as Christ was slain from the foundation of the world, He was raised from the dead from the foundation of the world; for He saves men by His life. Therefore the "Christian dispensation" began for man as soon, at least, as the fall. There are indeed, two dispensations, a dispensation of sin and death, and a dispensation of righteousness and life, but these two dispensations have run parallel from the fall. God deals with men as individuals, and not as nations, nor according to the century in which they live. No matter what the period of the world's history, a man can at any time pass from the old dispensation into the new. It is when men know Christ after the Spirit, that "old things are passed away," and "all things are become new;" but Moses "endured, as seeing Him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27), and therefore Moses was in the new dispensation" {September 7, 1893 EJW, PTUK 356.12}.

What a rich experience it must have been for Moses to commune with God while surrounded by evidences of His creation and the recent flood. For Moses, Genesis was very personal; it was his own family story, and through him, God preserved for us the most ancient and the only inspired record of human history.

Our lesson this week spans the time from Noah's post-flood experience to the Tower of Babel.

Some take offense at the story of Ham and the subsequent curse that fell on Canaan and his posterity. The curse did not come arbitrarily, because "the curse causeless shall not come" (Proverbs 26:2). The story was left on record for a reason. It is a sobering reality that when we choose sin, others are affected. The premier example of this is set forth in the story of Adam. The curse came upon all of us because of his transgression (Romans 5:12). But the curses continued as people ventured farther and farther away from God's ideal for man. The fruit of Ham's transgression was realized in the abominations of the Canaanites as delineated in Leviticus 18 and elsewhere. The curse came not because God imposed it, but because the sins of the father were passed to the son from one generation to the next.

In the years following the flood, it is likely that not only Shem, but also his brothers Ham and Japheth lived for as many as 500 years. This means their influence over subsequent generations would have been marked. They would have lived through the tower of Babel and the destruction of Sodom. Nimrod likely lived 400 or more years through much of that same period.

Like Cain before him, Nimrod was distinguished as a builder of cities, with Babel being first among them all. In every age since the fall of man, Satan has reinvented himself in successive generations. The desire for self-exaltation and self-worship was hardwired into the human race when Adam chose to follow Satan rather than heed God's warning. We would have been without hope had the everlasting covenant of grace not been established at the fall of man. Under this arrangement heaven made a way of escape from Satan's tyrannical control over the human race.

"Some of the descendants of Noah soon began to apostatize. A portion followed the example of Noah and obeyed God's commandments; others were unbelieving and rebellious, and even these did not believe alike in regard to the Flood. Some disbelieved in the existence of God, and in their own minds accounted for the Flood from natural causes" (SR, p. 72).

Satan has covered his tracks well. He has made wrong seem right. By appealing to man's innate desire for self-exaltation, he has induced multitudes to forsake God and follow him. Such was the case with the tower of Babel. In that age Nimrod gained a huge following of people who chose to disbelieve God's promise that He would never send another flood. Instead, they trusted to science and sought to uncover the reason for the flood by building a tower that would ascend into the clouds where they could observe nature's secrets. Further, they thought they could outwit God by surviving a second flood in the upper levels of the tower. This tower would honor the builders who were seeking to "make a name for [them]selves" and the reason was that they did not want to "be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (Genesis 11:4).

The situation was so dire that "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded" (Genesis 11:5). A couple of centuries later He would "come down" again -- this time to carry out judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.

After the flood it was God's purpose that Noah and his descendants would disperse throughout the earth so sin would not spread and multiply by so many people dwelling in one place. Nimrod resisted this admonition in the building of Babel and other cities. Had his purpose been carried out, the earth would in short order have been on the brink of self-destruction once again.

So, the Spirit of Prophecy states that two angels were sent to confuse the language of the people who were building the tower. This brought the construction to a standstill.

The people had no choice but to go their separate ways. Two generations after Nimrod, Peleg was born in the line of Shem, and it was during his lifetime that "the earth was divided" (Genesis 10:25), perhaps as a means of separating the various people groups, thus placing a check on sin. This would also explain the existence of ancient, ziggurat-type temples remain in many parts of the world, as knowledge of the ancient Tower was replicated.

"All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" (1 Corinthians 10:11).

In earth's final hours, Satan makes one last desperate attempt to establish his self-exalting kingdom on earth. It is pictured as "a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication" (Revelation 17:3, 4). She is drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs and she has a name on her forehead: "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth" (Revelation 17:5).

Before the flood God sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness, to warn the world of the coming flood and to come into the ark and be saved. Though "Noah and his family were not alone in fearing and obeying God," (SR, p. 63), we infer that many believers were laid to rest before the flood since only eight entered the ark.

The same disregard of God's law was exhibited by the builders of Babel, and their plans were brought to confusion.

In our day God has committed to His last day church the task of warning the world of soon coming judgments. The modern-day Tower of Babel is well under construction as the gods of science and climate change seek to save the world while ignoring the warning of coming destruction found in God's word. Before Jesus can come, the world must be warned by preachers of righteousness even as in Noah's day.

"The Lord has sent us, by His ambassadors, messages of warning declaring that the end of all things is at hand. Some will listen to these warnings, but by the vast majority they will be disregarded" (IHP, p. 343).

The warning will be two-fold: 1) It will announce the coming judgments of God; 2) It will reveal the true operating principle of the universe -- self-sacrificing love -- which is the opposite of the Babylonian principle of self exaltation.

"All human ambition, all boasting, is to be laid in the dust. Self, sinful self, is to be abased, not exalted" (8T, p. 234). This is painful to the carnal heart. It goes contrary to the ease-loving spirit of Babylon.

What is justification by faith? It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself. When men see their own nothingness, they are prepared to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. (Special Testimonies, Series A, 9:62).

Someday the blinders will be lifted and all will see their nothingness, but for many it will be too late.

"Therefore, I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger" (Isaiah 13:13).

Satan's Babylonian principle is rooted in glory of self. God's work is to lay the glory of man in the dust. And He has called us to proclaim that message with a loud voice, announcing the fall of Babylon and of the Ark of safety into which all who will may flee and be hidden in the day of his fierce anger.

 

~Patti Guthrie