FEW stop to think about it, but when you do, could anything be wrapped in more mystery than this world's civilization? How do you explain the astonishing paradox, a world of human minds that can send astronauts to the moon and back, produce the marvels of science and technology, transplant human hearts - yet cannot solve simple human problems of family life and group relationships, or peace between nations?
The developed nations have made awesome progress. They have produced a highly mechanized world providing every luxury, modern convenience and means of pleasure. Yet they are cursed with crime, violence, injustice, sickness and disease, broken homes and families. At the same time more than one-half the world is living in illiteracy, abject poverty, filth and squalor. Violence and destruction are rapidly multiplying. Many ask, "Why, if God exists, does He allow so much violence and human suffering?"
We were born into this 20th-century world as it is. We take it for granted. But we can't explain it. It's like viewing a movie at a point already near the end. We see what is occurring at that point, but, not having seen it from the beginning and not knowing how events developed to the point of viewing, we simply cannot understand what we are seeing. A fiction writer wrote about a time machine that could transport one back to some time in history. If we had such a time machine, we should now transport ourselves backward 6,000 years where we could actually see what was transpiring in that original Garden of Eden, at the foundation of the world. That's where this civilization started. Then we may better understand why there is now talk of the imminent end of the world.
How did our civilization develop to our 20th-century state? What a mystery that is to thinking people! Of course most are not thinking people and never ask themselves that question. But if one does, he finds the question enveloped in mystery. So let us understand.
It has already been explained in this volume how God created man for the supreme purpose of reproducing himself. But this supreme purpose necessitated the creation in us with our own consent, diligence, effort and joy, the supreme spiritual character of God. But in so doing, why did God place man on the earth? Why this particular planet?
The Unfinished Earth
God placed man here to restore the government of God to the earth. [Heylel], mistranslated in Isaiah 14:12 as Lucifer (see note-2, in Ch 2), and his angels had been placed here originally. God had put them here on an unfinished earth. God intended for the angels to develop the surface of the earth, to beautify and improve it. For this purpose He gave them His government to regulate their conduct and performance together in so doing.
But [Heylel], on the throne to administer the government in cooperation and harmony for their world, rebelled. He turned cooperation and harmonious activity into competition, evil, rebellion and destruction. Light on earth was turned to darkness. Wasteness, decay and ruin came to the surface of the earth.
Then is six days (Ps. 104:30) God sent forth His Spirit and renewed the face of the earth preparing it for man. And God placed man here to do that which sinning angels had not done.
Man was to finish the beautification of the earth. God is not the author of confusion, ugliness or decay, but of beauty, perfection, character, the best in quality.
Look at the description of God's heaven - the seat of God's throne - where, we might say, God lives as described in the fourth chapter of Revelation. God sits on a throne surrounded by brilliant splendor, quality and beauty and character. More dazzlingly and gloriously beautiful than anything human eyes have ever seen.
God intended man to work this earth, improve it, beautify it, give it glorious character - and in so doing to build into his own life the "beauty of holiness" (I Chron. 16:29). God never intended humans to live in poverty, filth and squalor or ugliness. Man should have beautified the earth, and developed godly character in so doing. His civilization should have been a "heaven on earth."
What Man Has Done
But what has man done on the earth where God placed him? Man has made ugly, polluted, defiled, profaned most everything his hands have touched. He has polluted the air, befouled the water in the rivers, lakes and seas. He has deteriorated the land, denuded the forests, thus altering rainfall and causing the expansion of deserts. He has worn out the soil by neglecting to give it its Sabbaths of rest every seven years (Lev. 25-26). Man has built cities and allowed them to deteriorate into slums, filth and squalor.
All because the very first human rejected and turned from God, relying solely on himself - and all Adam's children have done likewise.
Thus man has built a man-made and Satan-influenced civilization. Man not only has ruined the earth he should have developed and improved, he has destroyed his own health by wrong living, and degraded and perverted his own spiritual character. Now, at last, as we near the end of the 6,000 years God has allowed him this free rein, man has created the Frankenstein of weapons of mass destruction that can destroy all mankind utterly - unless a merciful God intervenes to save us from ourselves.
A Modest Foretaste
We now live in the era biblical prophecy calls "the last days" (2 Tim 3:1; 2 Pet 3:3) - the last generation before the coming of Christ to rule and accomplish on earth what mankind should have done. In these last days, according to biblical prophecy, knowledge, spiritual as well as material, would increase (Dan 12:4). The true Church of God was to be set back on the track, restoring the glorious knowledge of the faith once delivered to the saints in the days of the original apostles (Mark 9:12).
Jesus Christ, through His Church, built three colleges - two in the United States and one in England. The three campuses, in material beauty, have mutually excelled each other, as a high character physical setting for the development of God's righteous character in students. The beauty of godly character in these students has excelled the physical beauty of the campuses. A royal Queen on a recent six-day visit to the headquarters campus in Pasadena, California, on touring the campus, exclaimed, "I have just been in heaven."
Three times this campus has won the award of being the most beautiful, best landscaped, and best maintained campus in the United States. These campuses are an example of what mankind should have done, and a modest foretaste of the beauty that will blossom forth over the whole earth after Christ and His saints in His Kingdom are ruling the earth in the wonderful world tomorrow.
Deteriorated, former millionaire mansions have been restored. An area behind them that had deteriorated into a Pasadena slum area has been cleaned out, and been built into the most beautiful area in Pasadena.
What If Adam Had Taken the Tree of Life?
How did this material and human character degradation start?
Had Adam taken of the proffered tree of life the whole course of civilization would have been entirely different. Peace, happiness, joy, health and abundance would have spread over the earth.
But what did result?
Adam took the prerogative to choose and determine for himself the knowledge of good as well as evil. But the good was only human good, no higher than the carnal human level of the human spirit within him. He rejected reliance on God and relied on himself for knowledge, ability and power - all limited to the fleshly human plane, deceived and led by the perverted Satan.
Had he taken of the tree of life, he himself undoubtedly would have succeeded Satan on the throne of the earth, restoring the government of God, empowered, influenced and led by the Eternal God. But he allowed Satan's influence to enter within his mind. He was, as it were, kidnapped and held captive by Satan.
Thus the first created human disbelieved God, disobeyed God, chose to go HIS OWN WAY, do his own thing. Adam did it willingly, but not apparently willfully or with malicious intent.
Willingly, Adam was led into captivity by Satan. He had willingly gone along with Satan, the arch-kidnapper of all time.
A World Held Captive
Adam had been created with the potential to be born a son of GOD. Even though not as yet even a begotten son of the GOD FAMILY, he had been created as potentially just that. Once he succumbed to Satan's WAY of choosing to "do his own thing," in rebellion against a deliberate command of God, he became spiritually the property of Satan. He actually had succumbed to the GOVERNMENT of Satan, choosing the LAW of that government - the law of vanity, self-centeredness - leading automatically into attitudes of self-glory, coveting, competition, desire to GET rather than God's way of GIVE.
All humanity came out of Adam and Eve. The present world was FOUNDED in them. The WORLD has ever since been HELD CAPTIVE! The world had thus chosen THE WAY of the kidnapper, rather than of the potential Parent!
But God the Father was to pay the ransom price and even yet bring His potential spiritual children back to Him (John 3:16). But God did not choose to redeem, correct and restore humanity to Him at that time.
At the Foundation of the World
Upon Adam's sin, God closed off the tree of life to the world as a whole until the second Adam, Jesus Christ, shall have deposed Satan and taken over the throne of the earth.
There cannot be a law without a penalty. The penalty of human sin is DEATH. The day Adam sinned, he became dead in trespasses and sins (Gen 2:17; Eph. 2:1). He became cut off from the source of eternal life and would have no opportunity for eternal life unless that penalty for his sin were paid for him.
The penalty of death had passed on Adam and all his children because all have sinned (Rom 5:12). That penalty had to be paid. There was no escaping it. Satan must have gloated, believing he had totally defeated God's purpose of restoring God's government and unseating Satan on earth's throne. Truly all Adam's children would come under the penalty of death, for all would sin.
But what even Satan probably did not realize, God's plan was yet to save humanity, and remove Satan from earth's throne.
At this very foundation of the world, it was determined that Jesus Christ, as the "Lamb of God," should be slain in payment of the penalty for all human sin (Rev. 13:8), which substitute sacrifice is effective only upon repentance and faith. It was also determined by God at that time that all Adam's children should die, but after dying be resurrected to judgment (Heb. 9:27). But as in Adam all must die, so in Christ the same ALL shall be made alive by a resurrection from the dead to be judged (I Cor. 15:22).
But still, none could ever be born of God until God's holy and perfect spiritual character had been instilled within, by individual choice and proof by performance.
God set apart a period of time to complete his original SUPREME PURPOSE of reproducing himself through man. It was a masterminded MASTER PLAN for working out the PURPOSE here below.
For almost 6,000 years a civilization has developed, which we call the world. But it has been a world held captive. It has become SATAN'S WORLD though millions have been deceived into believing it is God's world. To this day Satan is still on that throne.
Meanwhile Satan has worked IN all humans. He has injected into the world enormous EVILS.
But how has Satan injected those evils into the minds of all humans, even of the most scholarly and advanced in education, science, government and areas of awesome human accomplishment? Even that question is a mystery understood by almost no one.
Satan - the Master Broadcaster
In Ephesians 2:2, Satan is called the prince of the power of the air, working in - inside the minds of - people. I could never have understood this until: 1) I had understood how radio and television sounds and pictures are transmitted through the air; and 2) I had learned the truth about the human spirit in the human brain. If your radio is set on the proper radio wavelength, or television set is tuned to the proper channel, the broadcaster's message comes through clearly. Satan as prince of the power of the air broadcasts - not in words, sounds or pictures, but in attitudes, moods, impulses.
For example, we read in Ezra 1:1, when King Cyrus of Persia issued a proclamation to send a colony of Jews back to Jerusalem to build the second Temple, he was moved to do so because God stirred up his human spirit - in other words, put the suggestion and impulse in his mind, and the king acted on it. In the same manner Satan moves on the human spirit within people to move them in attitudes of envy, jealousy, resentment, impatience, anger, bitterness and strife. People have no realization of the tremendous power of Satan. The human spirit within each human almost automatically tunes in to Satan's wavelength, though each human has the freedom of choice to resist it. It seems as if Satan has surcharged the air over the entire earth with his attitude of self-centeredness and vanity and humans unwittingly have picked it up and spread it through various publishing and broadcasting media channels corrupting the mind of all mankind.
And so a world - a civilization - developed from the original Adam and Eve. When God shut off the tree of life, that act marked the foundation of today's world. It was founded on rejection of God, on disobedience to God's law, which defines God's way of life. And all the evils, sorrows, pain and suffering, in 6,000 years of human civilization, have resulted.
In God's master plan for accomplishing His tremendous purpose, He has allotted the first 6000 years to allow Satan to remain on earth's throne, and for humanity to learn, by their own choice, the bitter lesson, through experience, that Satan's way of self-centeredness in opposition to God's law leads only to pain, suffering, anguish and death.
The whole world of humankind has been deceived into preferring this "getting," self-centered way of life.
At this point, remember, the world had never known of the existence of God the Father until Jesus came and revealed the Father (Matt. 11:27).
The world, from its foundation, was cut off from God the Father. Jesus came to reconcile repentant believers to the Father (Rom. 5:10).
The Beginning of Civilization
But notice briefly how human civilization developed.
God created the first humans, perfect specimens physically and mentally. Physically this perfectly created pair had no chronic ailments or tendencies toward diseases or illnesses. That is testified in part by the fact that Adam lived to be 930 years old. And for nearly 2,000 years the human life span from Adam to Noah averaged close to 900 years.
Think of it! The first man lived nearly one sixth of all the time from human creation until now!
Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. When they were grown, perhaps still in their teens, Cain became envious and hostile against his brother Abel. Even though by the closing off of the tree of life they were cut off from God the Father, the "Word" (the "Lord" or the "Eternal" in English) spoke to Cain and warned him. But Cain was being led by Satan. This prince of the power of the air stirred Cain to an attitude of envy, jealousy, resentment, anger and hostility. Cain slew his younger brother, and when the Eternal asked him about his brother, he lied to God about it. The very first human ever born was moved by Satan to become a murderer and a liar.
God sentenced him to become a vagabond and a fugitive.
But even though the human family had rejected God, chosen to rely on self even as swayed by Satan, the human mind was capable of working with material substance. In a few generations a son of Cain was making harps and organs and musical instruments (Gen. 4:21) and another, an artificer (crafty, skilled inventor and fabricator) in brass and iron.
Mankind was making progress in material development even though growing further from God spiritually. But remember at this point, that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it" (Ps. 127:1). Also in Matthew 7:24-27, a house built on a faulty foundation is bound to fall. Civilization as we know it was built, not on the foundation of God and His direction, but on man's self-reliance under the deception and sway of Satan.
The Bible tells us little of human development prior to Noah, but after 1,500 to 1,600 years human civilization had become so evil that only one man, Noah, remained righteous. There was a population explosion, but humanity had turned to evil continually. After 100 years of warning by Noah (Gen. 6:3,13; Heb. 11:7), God sent the Flood to drown all living except Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives - eight people.
The Extent of Evil
Notice to what extent humanity had been turned by Satan to evil. In Genesis 6:5,
"God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."The earth was filled with violence. Man's thoughts, contemplations and plans were continually on self-centered, lustful and evil objectives.
This violence had become so universal that God determined to spare humanity from suffering longer in mounting misery and anguish.
God took away their miserable lives, by the earthwide Flood, to be resurrected in the next second of their consciousness in the "Great White Throne" resurrection (Rev. 20:11-12). They will be brought back to life in a time when Christ is ruling the earth in righteousness, peace and happiness. Satan will be gone. Their minds then will be opened to God's TRUTH, and eternal salvation will be opened to them.
But God intended to preserve human life - to give humanity a new and fresh start.
God found only one man, of all the millions, who was walking with God. Two can't walk together except they be agreed. Noah alone agreed with God and God's way of life. God used Noah as a preacher of righteousness (II Pet. 2:5). For 100 years Noah warned the unheeding world. He was 600 years old when the flood came upon the earth.
Noah, was "perfect" in his generations. That is, his heredity, ancestry (Gen. 6:9).
Proof of this lies in the meaning of the Hebrew word translated "perfect." It may refer either to spiritual character (Gen. 17:1) or to physical characteristics (Lev. 22:21). Therefore Genesis 6:9 allows the translation that Noah was either "blameless" or "without blemish" in his descent or family lineage. The context (Gen. 6:2) clearly indicates the latter is the intended meaning of "perfect." So a good rendering of Genesis 6:9 is that Noah was the only "just" man (in spiritual character), and also "genetically undefiled" (unmixed or pure in his genetic heritage) among his contemporaries who apparently married daughters of Cain's corrupted line (ver 2,4).
End of the Antediluvian World
The subject matter of the chapter is the generations ancestry of Noah. Exceeding wickedness had developed through those generations, by Noah's generation reaching a climactic crisis that ended that world.
What was this universal evil and corruption? Jesus described that universal, corrupt evil as "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" (Matt. 24:38). Eating food and drinking is not evil. Marrying is not evil in itself. There had to be wrong use and excess in eating, drinking and marrying - the evil was in the manner, and in the extent of eating, drinking and marrying.
It could only be eating improper food, drinking excessively of alcoholic drinks, revelings (Gal. 5:21), rioting, violence. Marrying, to be evil, had to be as in Genesis 6:2, when men "took them wives of all which they chose." There was interracial marriage - so exceedingly universal that Noah, only, among men, was undefiled or perfect in his generations - his ancestry.
It is amply evident that by the time of Noah there were at least the three primary or major racial strains on earth, the white, yellow and black, and in addition interracial marriage produced many racial mixtures much as we have in today's world.
God does not reveal the precise origin of the different races. But an understanding of genetics makes it a fair conjecture that Adam and mother Eve either carried genes for the yellow and black as well as white ethnic or racial strains or mututations occured, so that some of the children of Adam and Eve gave rise to black, yellow, as well as white (see Note-1).
The one man through whom God chose to PRESERVE the human race alive after the Flood was perfect in his generations - all his ancestry back to Adam was from the line of Seth who were called the sons of God (Gen 4:25-26; 5:1-32). But many married into Cain's line, including apparently two of Noah's sons, Ham and Japheth, from whom sprung the black and oriental races (Gen 6:2-4).
If you are a livestock breeder, planning to enter your prize animals in a livestock show - perhaps at a state or county fair - you would [in the past] be sure to enter only thoroughbred or pedigreed stock! Mixing the breeds alters the inheritable quality and creates unstable characteristics.
God originally set the bounds of national borders, intending nations to be SEPARATED to prevent interracial marriage. Notice,
"When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance [speaking of land or geographical boundaries], when He separated, [notice - He separated] the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people..." (Gen. 10:1-5; Deut. 32:8).
But people wanted to intermarry as it pleased them - thinking they would become only ONE RACE! That desire seems still inherent in human nature today!
Noah was of perfect lineage in his generations. His wife and three sons were of the same white strain. Shem married within the same lineage, but Japheth evidently had married a woman of yellow descent, and Ham a black. That is how God chose to preserve the primary races through the catastrophe of the Flood.
We know little more than stated above about civilized development prior to the Flood.
Mankind should have learned its lesson by the Flood, but man cut off from God, and swayed by Satan had not, and has not to this present day. But once again, "as it was in the days of Noah," Jesus said in a prophecy, there is a population explosion, and evils are multiplying. This time worldwide nuclear war will threaten to erase all humanity from the earth. But, for the sake of the "elect" of God's true Church (Matt. 24:21-22), God will cut the destruction short - and this time send Jesus Christ as King of kings to replace Satan and sit on earth's throne.
Origin of Cities
It was only the second generation after the Flood until a man named Nimrod organized people into cities. First was the tower of Babel and the city of Babylon. Then Nineveh and other cities, which became city-states (Gen 10 & 11).
God had set the bounds of the nations, intending geographical separation of the nations. At this point I quote from Satan's Great Deception, a thesis by Dr. C. Paul Meredith (pages 14-16):
Everyone on earth after the Flood knew of God and why He had drowned the wicked. They feared to do evil - at first....Men lived...without cities and without laws, and all speaking one language....
This group, composed of the only people on the earth (for the others had all been destroyed by the great Flood), began migrating from the mountains of Ararat (Gen. 8:4) where the ark had landed:
"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there" (Gen. 11:1-2).These people, now known as Sumerians (Miller's Ancient History in Bible Light, page 51), pushing through the mountains of the east, came upon a prodigiously fertile plain built up by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. This land of Shinar is now known as ancient Babylonia (J.H. Breasted's Ancient Times, page 107). Here was a land that would produce all they desired in abundance....These people, like Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and brought trouble upon themselves. The land was productive, but the wild animals were multiplying faster than the people due to the destruction of the former civilization by the great Flood. Because of their primitive weapons, there was a great danger to life and possessions (Ex. 23:28-29). What could be done about it?
Nimrod, the son of Cush, was a large, powerfully built black who developed into a great hunter. It was he who gathered the people together and organized them to fight the wild ferocious beasts. "He was a mighty hunter before the Lord" (Gen. 10:8-9). In other words, the name of Nimrod was known everywhere for his might. He emancipated the people of the earth after the Flood from their fear of the wild animals. His prestige grew. He became the leader in worldly affairs. He was ambitious.
First City - Babylon
There was a better way to protect the people from the wild animals that roamed the earth than by constantly fighting them. Nimrod built a city of houses and surrounded this city with a high wall and gathered the people therein. Thus the people were protected and Nimrod was able to rule over them. This arrangement was agreeable to the people for "They said...let us build us a city and...make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad" (Gen. 11:4).The people not only protected themselves from the wild animals by building a walled city but also established authority of their own - "let us make us a name." This was to be a central place of mankind's authority - the necessity of their obedience to God was not going to be recognized! Nimrod was their leader. Also they built a tower whose top was to "reach unto heaven." With a tower this high they could do as they wished - disobey God and still be safe from his punishment which had drowned the inhabitants of the earth before. This was mankind's first act of open rebellion against God after the Flood - they thought they had placed themselves out of God's reach if they wished to disobey him. They, like Satan, thought that if they could "ascend above the heights of the clouds," they could "be like the most High" (Isa. 14:14). Cush, Nimrod's father, also had much to do with the building of this tower and city (The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop, page 26).
These people were not only of one language, they were of three races or families - white, yellow and black. Just as God had created the genes for many varieties in the many species of flowers and of animals - for example, many varieties and colors of roses - for greater beauty, so God created the three races and colors of human skin.
God had set the bounds of the races, providing for geographical segregation, in peace and harmony but without discrimination. But the people wanted to be of one amalgamated people. One purpose for the tower of Babel was to unite them, and to prevent them from being scattered in geographical segregation.
They built the tower, "lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" in geographical segregation (Gen. 11:4). But God looked upon their building of the tower and 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" (Gen. 11:6).
What has mankind "imagined to do"? By this twentieth century man has gone into outer space, flown to the moon and back, invented and produced the most intricate machines, computerized instruments, transplanted hearts, and even attempted to produce life from dead matter. The human mind's capacity for material accomplishment seems unlimited. But his problems are not material, but spiritual. And before them he is still helpless without God.
So God confounded their languages and "scattered them abroad...upon the face of all the earth" (Gen. 11:8).
Continuing from C. Paul Meredith's thesis, now out of print (pages 16-17, 25-29):
Then it was that Nimrod "began to be a mighty one" and a "mighty hunter before the Lord" [Gen. 10:8-9] in a ruling sense (the Hebrew word for "mighty" is "gibbor," which means "tyrant," Strong's Concordance of the Bible). Nimrod became a tyrant over the people. He made the laws. Not only that but he was "mighty...before" the Eternal. (The Hebrew word "paniym" translated "before" here, should be translated "against" - Strong's Concordance of the Bible.) The Bible says Nimrod was against God!...Nimrod kept growing in power but the inborn desire of the people to worship must be satisfied. Nimrod and his followers had turned against the true God. They wanted to glorify God in their own way! They "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like...creeping things" (Romans 1:23) - the snake, and other things God had created. (They should have worshipped God in spirit and in truth and not through idols - John 4:24 and Ex. 20:4-5.) With the civil power he wielded, Nimrod set himself up as the priest of the things worshipped by the people, to obtain a still stronger hold on them and gradually put himself in place of the true God....
[But] Noah, the preacher of righteousness (II Pet. 2:5) did stand fast and gained a staunch supporter in his son Shem. While Nimrod was expanding his kingdom so rapidly there was opposition to Shem, the representative of Noah....Nimrod became the representative for the forces of evil in opposing Shem....
Shem, a very eloquent person, is said to have obtained the aid of a group of Egyptians who overcame Nimrod. The death of Nimrod seemingly halted the counterfeit pagan worship which he started.
Semiramis...
[If] Nimrod had been a man of unbounded ambition, the ambition of...Semiramis - the future "Queen of Heaven" (Jer. 7:18) - exceeded even his. Nimrod...had become the greatest and most powerful figure in the world. He was dead. She clearly saw that if she were to...have the great position and power...of the most powerful man on earth, something must be done to assure...her power.Nimrod's kingdom, which consisted of most of the populated world of that time, had fallen to her. Much of Nimrod's power had come from his setting himself up as the human representative of the Sun-God. She must retain this world rule by any and all means. The religious control which had given so much power to [Nimrod] must be used by her also if she were to retain the maximum hold on her subjects.... In life [Nimrod] had been honored as a hero; in death she will have him worshipped as a god....
Semiramis was actually the founder of much of the world's pagan religions, worshipping false gods. Even such so-called Christian observances as Christmas, New Year's and Easter emerged from the false religious system she developed. For details of this the reader is referred to The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop.
Today, the English language is fast becoming the chief international language. Men are entering mixed marriages, and starting to get back to one worldwide language and attempting to form one world government.
Present Evil World Develops
The only survivors of the great Flood on earth consisted of the one family, that of Noah. It consisted of Noah, his wife, their three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives. The whole human population came from that one family.
The Bible speaks of three worlds - the world that then was being overflowed with water, this present evil world, and the world to come (II Pet. 3:6; Gal. 1:4; Heb. 2:5).
As the flood waters evaporated there was only the one family of Noah on the whole earth. But Shem, who was white and married to a white woman, started his own family. Ham, married to a black woman, had black children and began his own family. Japheth, married to a yellow woman, started his own family, which were of yellow extraction. The early history recorded in the Bible speaks of "families," rather than "races."
At the incident of the tower of Babel, God scattered the people abroad as He originally commanded (Gen 10:32) by dividing the languages of the people so that they were able to communicate each family only in their new and different language.
And so as time passed, the families grew, each family speaking its own language in its own local geographical area.
Nimrod built a number of cities - Babylon, Erech, Accad, Calneh, Nineveh, etc. There developed city-states, each with its own local government. As time passed, nations arose with national governments. Among these were Babylon (which became known as Chaldea), Egypt, Assyria. The religion started by Semiramis was carried into the different nations in the language of each. Semiramis and Nimrod were also identified with the names Isis and Osiris in Egypt. Each nation had its own names for its gods. But the whole labyrinth of pagan religions developed from that which originated with Semiramis.
As the generations of humanity continued, this world's civilization developed. It started with a government system started by Nimrod, through a religious system that stemmed from Nimrod and Semiramis. The modern system of academic education was started by Plato, taught by Socrates. Systems of commerce, industry, finance and banking developed - but none of these Satan-influenced and humanly devised systems originated with God. All laws were made by humans - either decrees by kings and despots, or human lawmaking groups, such as city councils, state legislatures, national congresses, parliaments, diets, or whatever. Social customs developed and all facets of civilization up to the chaotic present.
In such a world God called out a special nation of his own, not a favorite nation for special favors, but a nation chosen for a special purpose that that nation failed to perform.
After the Flood profane history implies that Shem continued more or less in the knowledge and way of God. Apparently God's priesthood passed from Noah to Shem, as Noah said,
"Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem... And may He dwell in the tents of Shem" (Gen 9:26-27).Shem lived 10 generations down into Abraham and Isaac's time, a time when apparently almost no one really walked with God until God called Abraham (Gen 11:10-11). To Abraham, God made all the promises on which ultimate human salvation depends, as well as the material and economic prosperity that has come to the United States and the British.
Summation of Human Civilization
Humanity was created on earth for a glorious and wonderful purpose. God was reproducing himself. Stated another way, God's purpose was to create humanity to become supremely happy and joyful in peace and perfect comfort, to become productive, creative, joyfully successful with eternal life.
This meant the supreme perfect spiritual character of God - perfect utopia. This purpose shall be accomplished.
But to accomplish it, humanity must make its own decision. The former cherub [Heylel] had chosen a course of action and thinking that led in the diametrically opposite direction, the first man had to choose either to accept and live the way of God's purpose, or Satan's way of self-determination and self-reliance in the opposite direction. The first man Adam chose to take and decide for himself the knowledge of what is good and evil. He started his human family relying on self for good on the human level, mixed with evil, and relying on human self not only for knowledge of the way, but for the solution of all problems that might arise. He rejected spiritual knowledge from God and reliance on God for power to live the way of utopia.
Man built his world on self-sufficiency without God.
God set in motion a master plan for accomplishment of His purpose, consisting of a duration of seven thousand years. Satan was allowed to remain on earth's throne for the first six thousand years. God purposed that man must learn his lesson, and come voluntarily to accept God's way and character.
For nearly six thousand years mankind has been writing that lesson. But even at this late hour he has not yet learned it. He has not yet given up on his own self-centered way and come to accept God's way to his ultimate happiness. God is letting the law of cause and effect take full toll. Man's society, deceived and misled by Satan, has not even yet brought man to admit failure of his course of self-sufficiency.
Today man's world is reeling on its last legs. Wars, violence, destruction, terrorism engulf the entire world. Half the world exists in ignorance, illiteracy, poverty, living in filth and squalor. The developed half is sick with ill health, disease, mental stress, fear, frustration, wracked with crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, perverted and misused sex, broken homes, hopelessness in frustration.
Mankind is nearing the end of his rope. But even now, God will not intervene to save this defiant humanity from itself until man is finally brought to the point where if God delayed longer in intervention, man would annihilate himself. God will not intervene and usher in the next world under the kingdom of God until the remnant of mankind has been brought to fully realize human inability to solve its problems or bring worldwide peace in happiness and joy. Man must be brought to realize his helplessness and futility without God.
At last the weapons of mass destruction have been invented and produced that can erase all life from this planet earth. In these last days of mankind's last gasping of breath, Jesus foretold how it would all end. He said,
"many shall come in my name...and shall deceive many...And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars... nation shall rise against nation...there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places...many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many...And because iniquity (lawlessness) shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold..."(Matt. 24:3-12).After Jesus' gospel had been suppressed, replaced with a false gospel of men about a different Jesus, He said,
"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end [of this world] come" (Matt 24:14).
This gospel is now being preached into every nation. During the last 50 years of its proclamation, nuclear energy has developed with capacity for the first time in history to destroy every human alive on earth. Next, Jesus foretold the great tribulation - a time of trouble so great that, unless God does intervene, no human being would be saved alive. But, for the sake of his Church, his elect (verse 22), God will intervene supernaturally before total destruction of humanity. Mankind will be brought to acknowledge human insufficiency without God. Immediately after, Christ will come in the clouds in supreme power and glory to unseat Satan, and start God's own new civilization toward utopia (Matt. 24:21-22, 31-46).
These are the very last days of Satan's evil world. God's utopian civilization will be started with the present generation!
© Copyright: 10/6/95-2003 Serf Publishing, Inc.