======================================================================== NIMROD THE REBELLIOUS PANTHER by Noel Smith ======================================================================== A biographical work capturing the personality, generosity, and insights of Noel Smith, a man of unusual talent who lived 73 years with the ability to enjoy simple wonders while possessing complex understanding. Chapters: 15 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.3-Copright Status 2. 00.4-Preface 3. 01-CHAPTER ONE - NIMROD - THE REBELLIOUS PANTHER 4. 02-CHAPTER TWO - THE WATERS GO, . . . 5. 03-CHAPTER THREE - INTERLUDE - Gen_3:15 6. 04-CHAPTER FOUR - BATTLE OF THE TITANS 7. 05-CHAPTER FIVE - THE TOWER OF BABEL 8. 06-CHAPTER SIX - THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TOWER . . . 9. 07-CHAPTER SEVEN - THE DEATH OF NIMROD 10. 08-CHAPTER EIGHT - THE RISE OF IDOLATRY 11. 09-CHAPTER NINE - A VIOLENT DEATH 12. 10-CHAPTER TEN - THE BABYLONIAN RIVER 13. 11-CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE WOMAN 14. 12-CHAPTER TWELVE - BABYLON WILL BE REBUILT 15. 13-CHAPTER THIRTEEN - CONCLUSION: GREAT BABYLON ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.3-COPRIGHT STATUS ======================================================================== Copyright Status ~ out-of-print and in the public domain ~ No Evidence of a Current Copyright for the Printed Book Found During online Internet searches of the Library of Congress database in Washington D.C., performed on 12-10-2005, no evidence of a current copyright was found for this publication. A review of both the Rutgers University and Stanford University copyright renewal databases on March 3, 2010 found no evidence of a current copyright. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 00.4-PREFACE ======================================================================== PREFACE Noel Smith was a man of unusual talent. His insight into the most complex of situations has seldom been matched. Yet he was a man who could not only enjoy, - but also share his enjoyment of the simple wonders life has to offer. He lived 73 years. I knew him for a few of those years. I never saw a day pass that he didn’t live to its fullest. Mr. Smith was a man of generosity and compassion. Heaven will only reveal the numbers of young people who were helped through college and the number of preachers and missionaries who were helped through deep water by his spirit of sharing. He loved people. He especially loved babies and children. And, he possessed a sincere humility that was slightly embarrassed at compliments. We are happy to be able to share with Noel Smith’s friends - and with those who never knew him - this book which he always intended to publish. It is, perhaps, the best discussion of the man, Nimrod, ever compiled. Dick Barnard ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01-CHAPTER ONE - NIMROD - THE REBELLIOUS PANTHER ======================================================================== CHAPTER ONE - NIMROD - THE REBELLIOUS PANTHER WHO WAS NIMROD? WHAT DID HE DO? WHY DID HE DO IT? WHAT WERE THE CONSEQUENCES TO THE WORLD? WHAT WILL BE THE CLIMAX? In these articles I try to lift these questions from the heavy lengthy writings of the great authorities and organize them into a connected story in language plain enough for almost anybody to understand. I make no pretense of being a scholar. I have never mastered a foreign language, of which I am not proud but sincerely regret. Having quit school in the eighth grade to go to work, I have always had to employ the hunt-and-peck system in my studies as in my typing. But, if I may say so, I have always read and studied. And always with humility and profound reverence for the great scholars and writers, whose finished products are available to me at so small a cost. And I shall ever be grateful to GOD for having in some way shown me, long years ago, that the greatest and most authoritative works seldom cost more, if any, than the inferior ones. On any subject in which I have been interested I have always tried to find the greatest works. For my interest in Nimrod I am chiefly indebted to the clear, beautiful, fascinating pages of Professor George Rawlinson.1 Until I began devouring these pages Nimrod was little more to me than one of the vague names in the tenth chapter of Genesis. But before I left the stimulating company of Professor Rawlinson I was convinced, although he does not say so, that Nimrod was one of the mightiest characters ever to live on earth. I am inclined to believe, everything taken into account, that Nimrod was the very greatest wicked man that has ever lived - or ever will live until the rise of Antichrist, whose wonderful prototype Nimrod was. When I had finished Rawlinson I went back and read again the splendid pages of Seiss.2 Then I got Rostovtzeff.3 Olmstead,4 Finegan,5 Jastrow,6 Brezsted,7 and others. But after Rawlinson, Alexander Hislop has been my lead dog. 8 The closely knit, painstaking pages of Dr. Hislop led me along Nimrod’s trail as it wound through the labyrinth of Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian idolatry; then on to Greece and Rome and, finally, straight up the steps and through the great doors of St. Peter’s. As will come out later in articles, I do not follow Dr. Hislop all the way beyond St. Peter’s. I believe the Roman Catholic church is one of the brood of Babylonian Harlots, but I do not believe she is the Mother of the brood. I believe she is a harlot, not THE harlot.9 And of course I have consulted the Bible dictionaries, the best of the commentaries, works on Genesis and the encyclopedia. To all of this I have added what knowledge I have picked up along the way regarding the essence, philosophy and ultimate objective of rebellion against GOD, a rebellion whose varieties of manifestation can be gathered into the one term - World System. We shall begin with the Book of Genesis, Genesis 10:8-12 . "And Cush beget Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city." Some of the reference works, as askance of the trustworthiness of the Scriptures as a Tennessee mule of a hole in a wooden bridge, will tell you that Nimrod is a "legendary" character of which we have no record except a "few brief passages" in Genesis. That is not true. But if our knowledge of Nimrod were confined to the book of Genesis it would, assuming that we properly interpreted the Genesis record and correctly appraised the consequences, be very considerable. Let’s look at it. Nimrod. The name means to separate. "We will separate." It means a rebel. "We will rebel." It means a leopard. (Nimrod; from Nimr, a "leopard," and rada or rad "to subdue." - Hislop.) It also means the hunter - not hunter, but THE hunter. (Nin Rod - Ninus the hunter.) A leopard is a panther. And so my title for this series of articles is not a fanciful title but a title based on etymological authority. And what did this Rebellious Panther do? He founded the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar - the Chaldean world. And what else? We believe that he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah. And so this Panther is the founder of four cities in the Chaldean world, and he is the founder of four cities in the Assyrian world. And two of these cities became the greatest of the ancient world - Babylon and Nineveh. Babylon alone would have perpetuated Nimrod’s name as one of the foremost known to men. Babylon is arched across civilization; one end resting in Genesis, where it begins; the other end in Revelation, where it is destroyed. All through the Bible the name Babylon flares up at short intervals like mad flames from wet, smoldering fires. Six of the longest chapters in the Bible are wholly concerned with Babylon: two in Isaiah, two in Jeremiah and two in Revelation. Her gold, her wine, her naked flesh, her precious stones and pearls and her siren voice have brought multitudes and nations and tongues into her bondage. All the nations and peoples of the world have and are drinking of her cup of abominations. But Nimrod was not only the founder of Babylon and Nineveh: He was the founder of the Babylonian-Assyrian civilization. This means that Nimrod was the founder and father of the civilization of the world. Personal characters, as Lange says, form the basis of the human world. And behind those personal characters there is always one predominant personal character. Civilization is not rooted in thoughts or ideas; it is rooted in acts and experiences. Behind Unitarianism are the act and experience of Cain. Nimrod, to repeat, was the founder of the Babylonian-Assyrian civilization. And we know that Chaldea is the mother of all civilization. Says Professor Rawlinson: "Chaldea stands forth as the great parent and original adventress of Asiatic civilizations, without any rival that can reasonably dispute her claims." The moral and religious ideas of the world originated in the land which Nimrod conquered and governed. (Of course I am not speaking of Christianity, which is not of the world.) Arithmetic and astrology came from the Chaldeans to the Egyptians, thence to the Greeks. It was from Nimrod’s land that Greece got her architecture, her sculpture, her science, her philosophy and her mathematical knowledge. Rome got what she had from the Greeks. Nimrod gave to that wonderful land, Chaldea, her very name. Chaldea got her name from the Moon-God. They were "Moon-worshippers." And who was the Moon-God? The Moon-God was the eldest son of Bel-Nimrod. And who was Bel-Nimrod? He was the god of the chase. He was "the mighty hunter." Nimrod led the first open rebellion against GOD. He was the first conqueror, the first tyrant, the first dictator. The first monarch’s crown ever worn on earth was worn by Nimrod. He was the first to be defied, thereby becoming the father of idolatry. His wife was the first "Queen of Heaven." She is the grand original of the Madonna. and Nimrod (occupying the position of what is known in idolatry as husband-child) is the grand original of the Madonna’s child. Nimrod is the great original of Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Frederick the Great. All of these were "hunters," and mighty hunters. Each and all hunted for territory, power and the souls of men. But none of them was THE "mighty hunter." That title belongs to Nimrod and to him alone. Curiously enough, history has never bestowed that title on another. And Nimrod is much more than all of that: He is the great prototype of Antichrist. Should Antichrist appear today, he would not speak of Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon; he would speak of Nimrod. After four thousand years the name of Nimrod broods over that vast expanse of sands and ruins where once stood the mighty Babylonian-Assyrian empires. "Wherever a mound of ashes is to be seen in Babylonia," says Professor Rawlinson, "or in the adjoining countries, the local traditions attach to it the name of Nimrod." The Middle East is coming back to life. After two thousand years of waste, ruins and neglect the Star of David is unfurled over Palestine. All the eyes of the world are on Iran - old Persia. There are stirrings in Nimrod’s land. It is coming back to life. All that Nimrod attempted will be achieved, by a greater than he, in the days ahead. Having successfully ridden out the judgment of the coordinated, unified, concentrated wrath of sky and earth and sea, in those watery sepulcher more than 3 million human beings perished10 "unhonored, unwept, unmourned, unknelled and unsung," the battered, weary, lonely Ark of Noah finally came to rest upon the mountain range of Ararat, in the middle of the earth near what is now the frontier of Soviet Armenia, 500 miles from where Noah built it, on the day that CHRIST rose from the dead.11 The oceans waited 3,800 years before they were burdened with another craft the size of Noah’s. The Ark was 562 1/2 feet long, 39 1/2 feet wide, 56 feet, 3 inches high.12 Its capacity was 3 million 750 thousand cubic feet - the capacity of a modern freight train 13 1/2 miles long. Noah was a week loading the cargo. Meantime, GOD Himself had been the first to enter the Ark and the last to leave. ". . .Come thou and all thy house into the ark" (Genesis 7:1). "Go forth of the ark . . ." (Genesis 8:16). "The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth king for ever" (Psalms 29:10). They were in the Ark 365 days.13 The fact that GOD Himself, in some wonderful manifestation, was in the Ark with Noah should tend to console those troubled souls who still lose sleep over the question of the adequacy of Noah’s lighting system. "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." GOD made the light to shine in Goshen when all Egypt was dark, and dreadfully dark. A pillar of Divine fire cut a pathway through the wilderness nights. Did the Light which shone in the Tabernacle and filled the Temple shine in the Ark as it plowed its weird way through crashing thunder, quaking earth, churning waves, screaming beasts and groaning humanity? Did GOD talk with Noah in the deep solitude of those days as He talked with Moses at the dead-end of the desert? When the judgment waves gathered their strength, lifted and hurled themselves against the Ark in furious, determined succession, did Noah hear a strange voice, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed"? We are not told. And we are told nothing of the death-struggles; nothing of the sobbing cries of despair; nothing of the frantic agonies of husband and wife; nothing of the tear-stained face and aching, trembling arms holding the child above the waters and, finally, being forced to surrender it; nothing of the awful appeal of despair congealed in the old man’s face as he watched his boy go down for the last time; nothing of erstwhile careless young men suddenly becoming mature, sober-minded and heroic, and the tragedy of their futile efforts to save their parents; nothing of the prayers and intercessions and promises struggling to assuage and hold back the wrath of sky and earth; nothing of roaring beast, screaming fowl and excited serpent told nothing of the last faint note of human plea pebbling over the surface of the waters and, finally, fading into the vast and grim silence of universal and total extinction. And we are told nothing of the aches and groans and sobs of GOD, echoes of which we hear even to this day in strange, mysterious and moving form: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!... O Absalom, my son, my son!" The Bible, like quiet and reverent hands drawing the sheet over the form of the dead, draws a veil of silence over the details of the Flood. GOD, if I may reverently say so, had done all that He could do to prevent it. Why would GOD blot out a world? Not nearly so difficult as, Why would a world reduce GOD’s back to a bloody mass, pull His beard out by the roots, spit in His face, press a crown of thorns into His brow, drag Him to a hill, spike Him to a Roman stake and leave Him there to writhe in fevered swelling pain and agonizing death? Half a hundred years ago Walter Rauschenbush tried to describe in the Sunday School Times (July 6, 1901) the profound loneliness of Noah and his family as they stepped from the shelter of the Ark and set foot once more on the judgment-swept earth. "The flanks of the earth were sodden and scarred. The valleys where they had often seen the smoke of human habitations rising, were silent and lifeless. Before them lay the world, vast and unexplored, with a thousand lurking terrors, real and imaginary. There were trackless forests, with rushing rivers that swept from the unknown into the unknown. There were swamps that sent up an evil breath at night which smote men and laid them low, and against which no strength of arm prevailed. There were deserts whose scattered springs and oases had not yet been found and connected in caravan routes. Nature is stern enough today, but it was actually far fiercer then. "But added to the real physical dangers was the terror of super-natural mystery that pervaded nature." We know two things that Noah did do: he "builded an altar unto the Lord" - and got drunk. The former recognized the grace of GOD; the latter was unable to nullify it. Regardless of Noah’s failings, and the failings of all others, the rainbow, gowned in all seven colors, is arched across the frightened sky and now Divinely invested with the character of a sign: ". . .neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." Those first days in the shadow of the stranded ark, as deserted as a shaggy worn-out truck horse in a November stubblefield, were heavy with anxiety and fear. The smallest forms assumed formidable shape. A stray wind caught in a bough or crevice, like a broken-winged bird, sighed like a soul in distress. The rivers, like soldiers returned from the field of battle, were unable to calm and adjust themselves. The foliage was unkempt and ashamed. The clear, brilliant stars of the Mesopotamian world were as austere and formal as angels in Sodom. The nights were restless and seemed to have been forgotten by dawn. All through them there was subdued talking and moving about. The roar of the lion rolled over the graveyard stillness of the depopulated world and growled on out to nobody knew where. The scream of another cat sounded like a maniac screaming from hades. Despite the rainbow, they could not forget that the heavens had revealed man’s iniquity and the earth had risen up against him. But one thing we are forced to say of man: he can eventually adjust himself to any situation this side of a hopeless hell. On the ancient battlefield he used a red-hot iron for an antiseptic. He has climbed on a naked kitchen table, in the smoky light of a kerosene lamp, permitted the "surgeon" to rope him hard and fast and use the saw and knife until he, the "surgeon," was worn out. Destroy his cities, burn down his homes and salt his fields - and in two weeks man will have adjusted himself: with a dog by his side he will start all over again. They found more and more to do. More and more grass was growing; the foliage had got the tangles and mud out of their hair; flowers were appearing; and one day a new cry was heard - the cry of a baby. And pups and kittens began to appear; and one morning there was a new calf; and the hens began to set. Babies and pups and kittens, calves loping about with their tails rolled over their backs, red-combed crackling hens and droning bees throw about as much light on the world as theology. And so the days and weeks and months were speeded up. They now began courting and marrying and quarreling - and talking about the "good old days." Not even a clap of thunder now disturbs them. Everything was getting back to Normal - except the lions and panthers and tigers were breeding at an alarming rate, and they all instinctively remained close by. 1 Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies (Dodd, Mead). 2 J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse (Zondervan Publishing House). 3 M. Rostovtzeff, A History of the Ancient World (Oxford). 4 A.T. Olmstead, History of Assyria (Scribner’s). 5 Jack Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past (Princeton University Press). 6 Morris Jastrow, Jr., The Civilization of Assyria and Babylonia (Lippincott). 7 James Henry Breasted, A History of the Ancient Egyptians (Scribner’s). 8 Rev. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons (Loizeaux Brothers). 9 This will be elaborated when I attempt an exposition of the 17th and 18th chapters of the book of Revelation. - N.S. 10 "There were ten generations from Adam to Noah inclusive. We cannot tell what the rate of increase was. But, supposing each couple to have ten children, and therefore the common ratio to be five, the whole number of births would be about five millions, and the population in the time of Noah less than four millions" (James G. Murphy, Commentary on the Book of Genesis, p. 193 - Estes and Lauriat, Boston, 1873). 11 The day is according to George Williams. The Student’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Thynne and Company, London, 1932). 12 Some make it a few feet smaller. 13 Some add ten days more. ~ end of chapter 1 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 02-CHAPTER TWO - THE WATERS GO, . . . ======================================================================== CHAPTER TWO - THE WATERS GO, AND THE HUNTER COMES We are today dealing with the period lying between the beaching of Noah’s Ark and the building of the Tower of Babel, inclusive. It was one of the most decisive periods of history. It was the womb of the post-deluvian world. The character of the world’s religion, politics and economics was decided here. (As I have before remarked in these articles, I do not of course include the true religion in the world’s religions). How long was this period and how many people were involved? If everybody would leave everything alone, we would have no trouble answering these questions. All we would have to do would be to turn to Archbishop Ussher’s Annals of the Old and New Testament; there we would find that the world was created Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. - whether in the morning or afternoon we are not told - that Adam and Eve were created on Friday, October 28; that the Flood occurred in the year 2348, and that the Tower of Babel was built 2247. That of course simplifies everything and makes it easy. You subtract 2247 from 2348; that gives you 101 years between the Flood and the building of the Tower. As to the number of people involved, that too is not so complicated. You set your wife, who is uncommonly good on genealogies and their related questions, to the task of ascertaining the approximate number of people which would, in those days develop from four original families in 100 years; you take her results and check them with three or four (other) authorities; you then put them all together and shake them up to try to separate as much wheat from as much chaff as possible, and you then divide the result of that by 2 for human fudging and failings. And so - after a night’s sleep on it, you decide that you wouldn’t be forced to snicker in the presence of your cautions, conservative brethren if you should say that the number was in the neighborhood of 2500. But everybody won’t leave everything alone. Nobody will leave anything alone. Hales also has a chronological system. And his system also rests on AUTHORITY. Ussher’s and Hales’ are pretty much alike - except they differ about 1000 years. Several things could happen in 1000 years. And there are many others, all alike except they all differ. Our question is narrowed to the number of years lying between the Flood and the Tower. Fortunately, we don’t have to concern ourselves with the dates of the Creation or even the Flood. We shall turn from the AUTHORITIES to Peleg. We are told about him in the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis. To help answer our question, Peleg gives us a sound leg to stand on. "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg . . ." (Genesis 10:25). After the Flood how many years rolled by before Peleg was born"? We shall find the answer in the eleventh chapter. "Shem... begat Arphaxad two years after the flood" (Genesis 11:10). Now the wheels are beginning to take hold; we are getting on some solid ground. Two years after the Flood a child named Arphaxad was born to the wife of Shem. And we go on: Arphaxad lived 35 years and begat Salah. That gives us 37 years after the Flood. And Salah lived 30 years and begat Eber. That gives us 67 years. And Eber lived 34 years and begat Peleg. That gives us 101 years after the Flood. And so Peleg was born 101 years after the Flood. And Peleg lived 30 years and begat a child named Reu (Genesis 11:18). After the birth of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years that we know about (Genesis 11:19). And so we know that Peleg lived 239 years. Add that to the 101 years between the Flood and his birth and we have 340 years between the Flood and our last glimpse of Peleg. Here is why Peleg throws so much light on the answer to our question. We read: " . . . for in his days was the earth divided . . ." (Genesis 10:25). What does "was the earth divided" mean? (Peleg, by the way, means division.) Here the AUTHORITIES again go for their bats and hatchets, bless them. Some say it means a division between the Abrahamic and Arabian lines. Some say it simply means the division of the EARLIER POPULATION. (A division into what?) One says that it means that an earthquake took place and divided the earth up into its present geographical shape. (At least his division is easy to keep separate from the others; it stands out where we can see it.) Keil says that it was a division which took place in consequence of the building of the Tower of Babel. If we ignore the chapter division in Genesis (chapter 11) and read from Peleg (in the 10th chapter) straight on through the eleventh chapter, where the building of the Tower, the confusion of tongues and the "scattering" take place, I think we will agree that logic and common sense are with Keil. There is also Scripture for it. In Psalms 55:9 the same Hebrew word for DIVIDE appears, and in connection with a division of tongues. "DESTROY, O LORD, AND DIVIDE THEIR TONGUES . . ." The DIVISION was the division of the people into nations following the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel That division took place "in the days" of Peleg. Here again the AUTHORITIES have their eyes on us. Some of them say "the days" refer to the days of his birth. But with all due respect for them (and frankly, nobody has more), I respectfully suggest that when you refer to "the days" of a man you do not refer to his diaper-and-rompers period, but to the days of his maturity, influence, achievements and accomplishments. But we have got to bring this thing to some kind of conclusion. Already we wish we had listened to the old woman who said that the King James Version of the Bible, including Ussher’s chronology, was good enough for Paul and Silas and it was good enough for her. And I knew of one Louisville theological student who never had any trouble with chronology: he used the Black Draught Almanac. We will give and take, and strike a bargain. From the Flood to the last we see of Peleg, we have 340 years. We will give the AUTHORITIES 140 years of that just to show them that we are not as cantankerous as we have seemed to be. We will say that the period we are studying - from the Flood to the building of the Tower of Babel, inclusive - covers a flat 200 years. We will say that we are dealing with 5000 people. Enormous movements and developments can take place in 200 years, especially when you remember that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock only 331 years ago, and that the Constitution of the United States is only 162 years old. Neither Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Cromwell or George Washington lived 100 years. And our own eyes have seen one world order exhaust itself and another rise. The Kaiser, Lenin, Stalin, Tojo, Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt have all lived and died (all except Stalin) before our own eyes. Our own eyes have seen two world wars, and they are now witnessing a third. And none of us is 100 years old - although some of us have lived 500! THE MIGHTY HUNTER When you reflect that in India today, despite its heavy populated communities with modern weapons of defense, tigers every year kill 1000 people and 32,000 head of cattle, and a single man-eating tiger frequently causes temporary abandonment of an entire district, you will have little difficulty appreciating what a fearful, life-and-death problem the rapid breeding and spreading of wild beasts presented to the sparsely populated world within even a few years after the Flood. 1 A lioness, whose gestation period is five months, has an annual brood of from two to four cubs, and she nourishes them but a year. And she goes on living, on an average, for 22 years. (In 1760 a lion died in the Tower of London which had lived in captivity for 70 years.) A leopard has from two to four kittens every year. The tiger, which reaches a length of 11 feet, including tail, never permits the lion and leopard to outdo him in producing offspring. Beside the lion, leopard and tiger there were other wild beasts: Hyena, lynx, wild cat, wolf, jackal, wild boar, buffalo, stag, gazelle, jerboa, hare, badger and porcupine. 2 Within, say, 10 years those comparatively few families were surrounded by a jungle of wild beasts. The lion, in some instances measuring 10 feet from nose to tip of tail, was the fierce master of the sandy plains, rocky places, thorn thickets and the tall grasses and weeds along the streams. And he was not afraid of the open places and broad daylight. It was a fearful sight - the powerful leap of concentrated savagery upon an unsuspecting stag, its being crushed down by the weight of the attack, the hellish furious mauling and biting of the head, the breaking of the neck by a wrench, the tearing open of the veins and arteries! No wonder the Arabs still tremble at the lion’s approach and quickly offer to him the choicest of their flocks and herds. The wooded and rocky regions were converted into realms of quick death by the leopard; and the noiseless, stealthy tiger was waiting in the thick brushwood and jungles. And it isn’t the merriest of feeling for a man, however brave he may be, to be forced to contemplate meeting up with a wild full buffalo or wild boar, on the shortest of journeys. The problem of wild beasts had ceased to be just one of the problems the early world faced: it had come to the place where it must be decided whether man or beast was to survive. And now, against this background, go back again to the tenth chapter of Genesis and read the familiar, but ordinarily vague, words: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord" (Genesis 10:8-9). Through four words of that first sentence - "he began to be" - we get a key-hole view of the rising, predominant personality of Nimrod, with all its aggressive independence, initiative, courage, defiance, and daring. He doesn’t become a hero at one jump; it is a gradual process. And here you have one of the profoundest mysteries of life: the rise of one man, and often as not, the most unpromising, above all the others, and the master of all the others. Nimrod has the same background as the others, the same environment, eats the same kind of food, has the same associates; yet, he begins to be a mighty one. . . You say that Nimrod was Satan’s man. That is true; but what led him to become Satan’s man? And Satan had other men; nearly all of them were Satan’s men, as we shall see next week. How do you explain Nimrod’s becoming the chief of them all? Nimrod had the restless, reflective mind, the brooding spirit, the great ambition. And all the aches and sorrow and loneliness and disappointment that go with them. There were times - and many times - when he was afraid, when he was a coward, when he was defeated. But, unlike the others, Nimrod’s iron will, like the trainer of jungle beasts, becomes the master of all his defects. Nimrod will fight with his aches, will fight with his loneliness, will fight with his fears and cowardice, will fight with his disappointments. How do you explain that? If you could do it, without generalizing, you could write a best-seller, become rich - and probably divorced. The chances are, nine to one, that Nimrod’s rise to greatness, humanly speaking, was started by some purely accidental, trivial thing. Was he accidentally in the right place at the right time, and did he accidentally articulate the thoughts and wishes of the others? Did they all applaud, and did that applause arouse some latent force in his personality? Did he accidentally kill a beast? Or, did some friend, with intelligent sympathy and admiration, drop into his ear the right phrase at the right time? You need not write me that there is in this world no such thing as ’accident’. I know that. I merely use it as a convenient vehicle to convey an idea. I know that, after all, Nimrod may have deliberately and intelligently planned everyone of the ’accidents’, as Winston Churchill plans many of his ’stammers’. But what makes them do it? On the bad side, what makes the Nimrods, Alexanders, Caesars, Napoleons and Hitlers; on the good side, what makes the Pauls, Augustines, Calvins, Wesleys, Finneys, and Moodys? You say, Satan makes the first; GOD makes the latter. But what causes Satan’s men to be Satan’s men, and what causes GOD’s men to be GOD’s men: what determines the choice in either case? We will leave all of that for the young theologians and philosophers to chew on. I merely raise the questions to cut some of the current big crop of infallibles down to size. The need and the man meet: the world is full of wild beasts - and the world has Nimrod. Nimrod’s bravery has gradually gathered about him a small army of hunters. Led by Nimrod, they deliberately search for the strongest and fiercest beasts that walk. They especially search for the lion and wild bull. Nimrod will corner a wild bull, spar with him, suddenly seize him by an ear and a leg, and break the leg. He will walk up, with bow and arrow, to within ten feet of a lion and slay it. At other times he will kill the furious beast with a spear, as it springs. He fights lions with short sword in hand-to-claw combat. At the head of his band, he hunts wild animals, in boats. 3 Nimrod and his men, in that early world, occupied a position somewhere between King Arthur and his Knights and Jesse James and his Band. Nimrod’s was the greatest name on earth. (Assyria means the land of Ninus (Nimrod) the hunter.) And it has remained one of the greatest - if not THE greatest, on the wicked side. In the days of Moses, more than 800 years later, if a person or thing was MIGHTY, it was like Nimrod, the mighty hunter. The name of no hunter has ever risen as high as Nimrod’s. Last November 25 (1951) the Chicago Tribune had this head-line on its front page; OSCAR GIVES THE BIRD TO 198 NIMRODS Oscar was a stuffed pheasant at Maroa, Illinois. Its owner, a farmer and amateur taxidermist, had put Oscar in his fenced bean field, 100 feet from the paved road. Two hundred hunters (it was the opening day of the hunting season), without asking the owner’s permission, when they saw Oscar, and thinking him to be a live bird, brought their cars to screeching stops, got out, and fired away. Why did the Tribune head-line writer refer to those hunters as NIMRODS? Why didn’t he refer to them as Tiglath Pilesers (old Tiglath claimed to have killed 800 lions)? Why didn’t he refer to them as Teddy Roosevelts (Teddy was a great hunter, according to Teddy, the greatest that ever lived)? Why, after these thousands of years, does the name of Nimrod brood, even there in Tribune Tower, on Michigan Avenue, as the greatest name ever associated with hunting? There is in this world no such thing as an ACCIDENT. 1 "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered" (Genesis 9:2). That is, the dread of man shall be upon every beast, etc. Man is to be master. There may be deeper meaning in this "the fear of you" than we have ordinarily considered. Suppose all the beasts, including serpents, should attack man on sight? - N.S 2 These are mentioned by Rawlinson as being indigenous in Babylonia. George Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, v. I, p. 39. (Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1870). 3 These are deductions from the hunting-scene figures which are to be found in nearly all the works on the Babylonian-Assyrian world. ~ end of chapter 2 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 03-CHAPTER THREE - INTERLUDE - GEN_3:15 ======================================================================== CHAPTER THREE - INTERLUDE -Genesis 3:15 Today we turn off the main highway of Nimrod long enough to consider, for background, one of the most wonderful statements ever to fall upon the ears of man: the words of Genesis 3:15. Here they are: "And I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Those that know tell us that the word "bruise" means to "lie in wait for." GOD spoke these words to the serpent, through which the Devil had accomplished the Fall, in the Garden of Eden, in the presence of Adam and Eve. An examination of most of the commentaries will disclose that this verse has not received the exhaustive treatment it should have received. When you get to Genesis 3:15, most of the brethren are napping, delivering a "devotional," or gone to lunch. And so, for the most part, we shall have to move on our own and do the best we can. Like every other verse of Scripture, the verse must be considered in its context. Adam was the federal head of the human race, and when he went down in sin he carried the human race with him. It is a universal thing. The penalty of sin was death and still is, and always will be. Against that background of the universal race struggling under universal death, GOD gives the promise of Genesis 3:15. (1) The serpent would procreate a race (the words, of course, are addressed to Satan through the serpent, as our Lord addressed Satan through Simon Peter). (2) The woman would procreate a race. (3) There would be eternal enmity between the two races, United Nations or no United Nations, World Council of Churches or no World Council of Churches. (4) The seed of the serpent would ’lie in wait for’ the seed of the woman, and the serpent’s seed would bruise the heel of the woman’s seed - extremely painful, but not fatal. (5) The seed of the woman would ’lie in wait for’ the seed of the serpent; and He would seize him and crush his head. When your head is crushed, it’s all over as far as this world is concerned. The "seed" of the woman would be a man. " . . . thou shalt bruise HIS (caps mine) heel." The man would be a supernatural man; He would be the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man. That means a miracle. That means a virgin birth. That man would be the World Deliverer. He would be the one, and only, universal character. He would be the very greatest character the world ever saw, so truly great that but one term could begin to describe Him: WONDERFUL. ("Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, WHICH IS CHRIST" - Galatians 3:16, Caps mine.) Here is a world idea. There is an abundance of evidence from which to deduce the proposition that Adam and Eve understood the import of these words as fully as any commentator or theologian that ever lived. As a matter of fact, the general knowledge in the Garden of Eden was just about as superior as the general knowledge in our modern theological schools. Adam could learn about as much from his conversation with GOD as a young theologue can learn from his conversations with his professor. One piece of evidence that Adam and Eve fully understood the import of these words, and a convincing piece, is the 20th verse of that same chapter: "And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living." The verse must be considered in its context - the sentence of death, and the promise in the 15th verse. The promise was, to go back a few steps, that the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man, would crush the serpent’s head. Eve means "life." When Adam called her Life, he was thinking of her in the profound sense of her being the mother of the World Deliverer. This world idea, originating in the Garden of Eden, was handed down from generation to generation. It was the greatest idea floating over the hopelessly corrupt antediluvian world. It was the chief topic of conversation in the Ark. It was the chief topic of conversation when those families came out of the Ark. The British have never become half so excited over the approaching birth of an heir apparent to the Throne, and Americans have never been half so excited over an approaching Presidential election. This idea spread all over the world. Traces of it are found everywhere. 1 The whole ancient world believed that a grand Deliverer would come into the world and crush the serpent’s head. The next thing in importance to the World deliverer, obviously, is the family of the woman who would be His mother. That family would be the most famous family of history, and the woman would be the most famous mother and wife ever to live. The Deliverer - His mother - Her husband (but not the Deliverer’s father). What a family that would be! Things brings us to Shem, the eldest son of Noah. In the first place Shem means "name" or "renown." What was Noah’s prophecy concerning Shem? ". . . Blessed be the Lord God of Shem . . ." "God . . . shall dwell in the tents of Shem . . ." (Genesis 9:26-27). Shem was a renowned name. Shem was associated with the world idea. The World Deliverer would come of the lineage of Shem: He might even be born in Shem’s day; Shem’s wife might be His mother. Who knew? And what was Noah’s prophecy concerning Nimrod’s family? " . . . Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Since this is our day of interludes and digressions, I want us to stop here long enough to get one thing straight. Noah had no authority to pronounce a blessing upon Shem or a curse upon Canaan. That prerogative belonged to GOD alone. Here Noah is not a judge; he is a Divinely inspired prophet. The HOLY SPIRIT, knowing the true character of Shem, and knowing the true character of the Hamites, inspired Noah to prophecy their history before they made it. Foreknowledge does not determine character and acts. This same thing is true, with reference to Judas Iscariot. Judas did not become the man he became because the Bible prophets prophecied it; the prophets wrote his history, by inspiration of the HOLY SPIRIT, because they knew what it would be - despite three years of effort by the LORD JESUS CHRIST to influence Judas to change his course. GOD never has been, is not today, never will be, the Author of evil. "In Him there is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5) When GOD says "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isaiah 55:1) - when GOD says that, I have no more sense than to believe that He means every word of it, and that that universal invitation includes every Hamite and every Judas Iscariot on earth! It is easier for me to believe that a theologian can be mistaken in his deductions from the doctrine of GOD’s sovereignty, in which I believe with all my heart, than to believe that GOD was holding something back when He put these words into the mouth of His prophet Isaiah. I don’t believe in the crazy doctrine, You can and you can’t, you shall and you shan’t, you will and you won’t and you’ll be damned if you don’t. The fact that Shem was a name of renown did not necessarily mean that Ham had to be a name of rebellion. The fact that GOD loved Shem and would honor him, did not necessarily mean that GOD hated Ham and would dishonor him. The Hamites were not poor little underprivileged orphans, "more sinned against than sinning," as a lot of sentimental, juicy, Grand Ole Opry heads would have it. If I had the space I could produce here evidence which would show that the Hamites were a crowd of rascals from the time they wore knee breeches. Ham, Nimrod’s grandpa, was a carnal, lustful, smart-alecky, wisecracking, unprincipled rogue who had no regard for GOD or anybody else. He hee-hawed all over the country about how Noah had got gloriously drunk, and how his drunken conduct was something the smart fellows should have seen. Old Cush, Nimrod’s daddy, was one of the arch scoundrels of the ancient world. If Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky and Joe Stalin had been back there, Cush would have taken them and organized a "Doctor’s Club." The old reprobate was the great original prophet of idolatry. His name means "Confounder." "Chaos" means Cush. (When I was a boy back in the Tennessee hills, we used to take biscuits and crumble them up in a cup of coffee. We called the concoction Cush. Interestingly enough, as I now look back, the stuff was "chaos," and it, also, was "confusion." If you don’t believe it, try it. And we had the coffee grounds mixed in too. We had several interesting "mixtures" in those days.) Nimrod, like the son of a Kentucky fuedist, was brought up from his cradle to hate the very mention of Shem. Nimrod knew all about the promise of Genesis 3:15 : He knew the significance of Shem’s name. As a boy he had hated and fought Shem’s boys, even as Gentile boys today will hate and fight Jewish boys. "You are a sheeny. You are a Christ-killer." Old Cush was determined that his Nimrod would out-Shem every Shem the world ever heard of. Nimrod was determined that his daddy would not be disappointed. What a glorious day it is! The whole world is talking about Nimrod, the son of Cush. He has become the mightiest hunter ever known. He has become the mightiest hero on earth. "I knew my Nimrod would show the Shemites what a son of Cush could do, Noah’s prophecy or no Noah’s prophecy. Look at my Nimrod; Look at his spear, his bow, his arrows, his skins of lion and tiger and bull. Look at the meek Shemites hanging around their tents like a little Willie hanging to his mammy’s apron strings." Nimrod will not only route the Shemites; he himself will fulfill Genesis 3:15. Nimrod will be the World Deliver - A counterfeit deliverer. Old Cush will be the daddy, and Nimrod’s wife, biological order to the contrary notwithstanding will be the virgin mother. Cush, Nimrod, and Mrs. Nimrod will be the names on earth. After it gets going good, old Cush will be a legend; Nimrod and his wife will handle everything by themselves; and when Nimrod kicks the bucket, Mrs. Nimrod will outdo them both. 1 "There is hardly a people or kindred on earth in whose mythology it is not shadowed forth. The Greeks represented their great god Apollo as slaying the serpent Pytho, and Hercules as strangling serpents while yet in his cradle. In Egypt, in India, in Scandinavia, in Mexico, we find clear allusions to the same great truth. ’The evil genius,’ says Wilkinson, ’of the adversaries of the Egyptian god Horus is frequently figured under the form of a snake, whose head he is piercing with a spear. The same fable occurs in the religion of India, where the malignant serpent Calyia is slain by Vishnu, in his avatar of Chrishma; and the Scandinavian deity Thor was said to have bruised the head of the great serpent with his mace. The origin of this may be readily traced to the Bible.’" - Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 60 (Loizeaux Brothers, New York, 1948). ~ end of chapter 3 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 04-CHAPTER FOUR - BATTLE OF THE TITANS ======================================================================== CHAPTER FOUR - BATTLE OF THE TITANS Nimrod was "a mighty hunter" of wild beasts, and he was "a mighty hunter" of men. His name itself has this two-fold meaning 1 Nimrod, as I pointed out last week, had been brought up from his cradle to hate Shem, and to equally hate the GOD of Shem. And in the exact proportion as he hated Shem and Shem’s GOD, Nimrod was determined that he himself would be the great one prophesied in Genesis 3:15. "Mighty hunter (whether of men or beasts) before the Lord,’ to express his notoriety for boldness and wickedness, as something ever before the divine presence; so bad, that GOD could not take his eyes from it. Compare with Genesis 6:11, the whole earth corrupt." - Taylor Lewis (Comment on Genesis 10:9, Lange’s Commentary, Vol. I, p. 345). "As the grandson of Ham, Nimrod inherited the hatred of the family; and in him the mighty hunter, the fierceness of the tribe, found its proper expression." - Pressel (in Schaff-Herzog, 4 vol. edition, Funk & Wagnalls Company: New York, 1891). "The Bible says that Nimrod was ’a mighty hunter before the Lord.’ The Targum of Jonathan interprets this to mean that he was ’a mighty rebel before the LORD, the mightiest rebel before the LORD that ever was in Earth’." - J.A. Seiss (The Apocalypse, p. 389. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan). As the hunter of wild beasts Nimrod has become the greatest man on earth. He has organized an army. Being a hero, "the people" are with him. "The people" have always been against GOD; they have always followed any man who would lead a rebellion against GOD and His CHRIST and His Book. "The people" demanded that Aaron "Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him" (Exodus 32:1). "The people" repudiated the reign of GOD Almighty over them and demanded that Saul be crowned in His stead. "The people" stoned and murdered all the prophets from Abel to CHRIST. "The people" preferred a confessed murderer to the Son of GOD. - "The people" made the New Deal that Roosevelt made. - "The people" have chosen the United Nations to rule this country instead of the Congress of the United States - "The people" have demanded that the law of the United Nations supercede the law of the Constitution of the United States. Whenever righteousness and unrighteousness meet, "The people" sustain unrighteousness. When Anti-christ appears "The people" will fall down and worship him as the Grand Deliverer promised in Genesis 3:15. Yes, Nimrod has "The people" with him. He has a majority vote. And Nimrod, like Napoleon, already feels that he is not like other men, "I am not a man like other men; the laws of morality and decorum could not be intended to apply to me." 2 What a speech Nimrod is making! "I believe in freedom. I believe in progress. I believe in having a little Heaven down here in this earth, and not having to wait to have it in some ’Sweet By and By.’ I don’t think it’s a sin to investigate, to reason, to live like an intelligent man instead of living like a serf and slave. "You are a happy people. You are a prosperous people. You are a courageous people. The Shemites would have you believe that your prosperity and happiness are due to a GOD whom nobody has ever heard or seen. I reject this stupid Shemite doctrine. I tell you that your progress is due to your own brawn and muscle, to your own sweaty brows and aching backs. I tell you that you are happy, not because some GOD up there in the sky is ’smiling’ upon you, but because you have got sense enough to know how to live. Let the Shemites, like a gang of serfs and slaves, go on talking about living by ’faith’, I tell you, you go on living by sight. "What has this Shemite GOD ever done for you? I’ll tell you what He’s done: He has drowned the whole world, and to make it even worse, Shem and his crowd tell you that He drowned the world because He couldn’t do any better with what He had created. I could do a better job than that myself. "And who is this Shemite GOD’s ’great man of faith?’" He is my old great-granddaddy, Noah. Old Noah hadn’t hit the ground until he got so drunk that he thought the ark was a field mouse. "And I’ll tell you another thing: this GOD of Shem is going to drown the world again if He can. You have known me all my days. My love for you and my toils and labors in your behalf have long since become a household proverb. I slaughtered the wild beasts, and I made it possible for you and your children to live in security, comfort, and peace. "And now I tell you, you follow me. We’ll build a civilization. We’ll build a tower such as the world never dreamed of. Let Shem and his crowd have their bloody GOD, I defy Him. I hate Him." 3 Those who saw Adolf Hitler, with just such oratory, turn the most scientifically advanced nation of the modern world against GOD and everything associated with His name, should not be surprised to learn that such talk as that by Nimrod turned the ancient world against GOD. The rebellion is now on full steam. He means business, and "The people" are cheering the very mention of his name. Shem, and his followers, like the Jews in Hitler Germany, are marked. It was the first open rebellion against GOD since the world began. Before the Flood there was no open rebellion against GOD, and no idolatry. The great sin of the antediluvian days was, mostly, negative. That world rotted because it lacked moral salt. Its sins were the sins of the slums. The backwaters of corruption were the inevitable result of the flood of vice produced by Cain’s denial of holiness, sin and redemption. And Cain was the founder of that civilization. He was the founder of Unitarianism. But here, with Nimrod, we have a deliberate, premeditated, organized rebellion against GOD. Nimrod’s rebellion was the greatest rebellion the world has ever known, or ever will know until Antichrist, whose prototype Nimrod was, organizes his forces against GOD and determines to succeed where Nimrod failed. And it is so recognized by the great authorities who have investigated it. To digress for a moment, we know that mythology is based on historical fact. The myth, of course, is not fact; but it originated in fact. All the great myths are traced back to some historical fact or circumstance. This accounts for the fact that the intellectual toil of some of the greatest scholars has produced a vast literature on Mythology. What tremendous fact gave birth to the myth? Not the myth, but the historical fact behind it - that’s the important question. And now, when a thing is so great that no other term will describe it, what do you call it? You call it "titanic." You all remember - at least you older ones - that great and mighty ocean liner, The Titanic, which went to the bottom of the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. "It couldn’t sink." What would be one of the greatest battles the world ever heard of? It would be a battle between "titans." And there is such a battle described in mythology. It is called the "Establishment of the Regime of Zeus; the Titans." (Zeus was the greatest of the Olympian gods, father of gods and men, a son of Cronus, or Saturn, and of Rhea.) Here is the myth: 4 "Many children were born to Zeus and Hera, and they were the first to be properly called gods. They established themselves on Mount Olympus, which stood directly opposite Mound Othyrys, the seat of the Titans, who, being the older race (with the exception of Mnemosyne, Themis, and Prometheus), quite naturally regarded Zeus and his family as upstarts and usurpers. Bitter rivalry and strife arose between the two settlements, and for ten years they fought with no decisive results. A peace-parley held at the end of this period seemed only to add heat to the conflict, so that at length Zeus freed the three hundred-handed giants whom Kronos had left bound deep down within the earth, and enlisted them in his ranks, deciding now to reveal his full strength and to bring the tedious strife to a sudden end, with their many hands the giants hurled huge rocks at the foe until the sky was darkened, while Zeus cast thunderbolt after thunderbolt with their long tongues of flame. "By this deadly assault the Titans were overwhelmed and driven into the depths of the earth. Down, down they went, a journey of giants, until they were as far from the plains of earth are beneath Heaven. There a brazen wall with brazen gates was built about them, and the three giants were placed on guard to prevent them from escaping." What tremendous historical fact gave birth to this famous myth? Professor Taylor Lewis was known, for a long time, as one of the ablest and most learned classical scholars of America. Here is what Professor Lewis said about the origin of this myth: "The more carefully the peculiar language of this Babel history is considered, and especially its Heaven-defying look, the more probable will appear the view supported by Bryant, which regards it as the origin of the heathen fable of the war of the giants against the gods. The war of the Titans was probably the same, though it appears as a duplicate of the event in Greek mythology." Who was Zeus, on Mount Olympus, hurling thunderbolt after thunderbolt, with tongues of fire (lightning), at the giants below? He was the GOD of Shem. Who were the giants "hurling huge rocks at the foe until the sky was darkened"? They were Nimrod and his crowd. Who were the "Titans," who "were overwhelmed and driven into the depths of the earth"? They were Nimrod and his followers. And all of this is corroborated by Dante, and Milton, and Burns. In Dante’s "The Divine Comedy" (Canto XXXI) Nimrod is one of the great ones in hell. After a description, there follows this line: 5 "Nimrod is this, Through whose ill counsel in the world no more One tongue prevails." And if you would read Milton again, you would come across these lines: "Of proud, ambitious heart, who not content With fair equality, fraternal state, Will arrogate dominion undeserved Over his brethren, and quite dispossess Concord and law of Nature from the Earth Hunting (and men, not beasts, shall be his game) With war and hostile snare such as refuse Subjection to his empire tyrannous. A mighty Hunter thence he shall be styled Before the Lord, as in despite of Heaven. Or from Heaven claiming second sovereignty And from rebellion shall derive his name, Though of rebellion others he accuse, He, with a crew, whom like ambition joins With him or under him tyrannize, Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find The Plain, wherein a black bituminous gorge Boils out from under ground, the mouth of Hell." And Burns correctly appraised Nimrod’s character. 6 "Sir Reynard daily heard debates Of Princes’; Kings’, and Nations’ fates, With many rueful, bloody stories Of Tyrants, Jacobites, and Tories: From liberty how angels fell, That now are galley-slaves in hell; How Nimrod first the grade began Of binding Slavery’s chains on man." 1 "He was known as ’the mighty hunter before the Lord’ - an expression which had probably a double meaning, implying at once skill and bravery in the pursuit and destruction of wild beasts, and also a genius for war and success in his aggressions upon men." - George Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, pp. 153-4 (Dodd, Mead & Company, New York.) 2 Napoleon. Quoted by Lord Roseberry (Napoleon, the Last Phase, p. 249. Arthur L. Humphreys: London, 1900). 3 "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 that they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured their 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. He also said he would be revenged on GOD, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on GOD for destroying their forefathers!" -Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews). 4 In Lange’s Commentary on Genesis, p. 359, note. 5Paradise Lost, Book XII. 6 "On Glenriddell’s Fox Breaking His Chain." ~ end of chapter 4 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 05-CHAPTER FIVE - THE TOWER OF BABEL ======================================================================== CHAPTER FIVE - THE TOWER OF BABEL "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. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord 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. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 11:1-9). Following the beaching of the Ark the mightiest human factor on earth, as we have already seen, was Nimrod. He early "began to be a mighty one in the earth." As "the mighty hunter" he became a hero. So far as "The people" were concerned, Nimrod was their deliverer. "The people" repudiated the historical form of their true unity, which was the religion of Shem. The "whole earth" has become "of one language, and of one speech." In considering this verse we have always placed the emphasis on the form rather than the substance. Both are here; but the substance is far more important than the form. The whole earth has become one in thought and counsel. The whole earth has become united around one set of ideas - the ideas of the Rebellious Panther - Nimrod. They have got tired of the mountainous country. They have pulled up stakes and set out for a milder climate, for some place where the maximum of production can be realized with the minimum of labor. How many times they put down and pulled up stakes we are not told. "And it came to pass, as they journeyed (put down and pulled up stakes) from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there." (Genesis 11:2) This is the place! Eureka! It was a plain in the land of Shinar, which became the site of Babylon, "the golden city." Old Herodotus said that the grain in that plain yielded from two hundred to three hundredfold. We know what it was in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. With a little irrigation Shinar will produce today what she produced in the ancient world - and more. "There can be no doubt that the next generation will see the civilization of the West repossess itself of the fertile plains in which it was born and nursed. Irrigated and tilled, she would again become as prolific as of old and would make her capital such a Babylon as the world has not yet seen." 1 "They" journeyed; "they" found; "they" dwelt; "they" said one to another: "they" had brick; slime had "they"; "they" said - seven of those restless, arrogant, progressive, unified "theys" in four short verses. "And they said one to another, Go to (come on, give way now), let us make brick and burn them thoroughly." They are animated, enthusiastic, united, all for one and one for all. And they mean to do the job right. They will not be satisfied to harden the bricks in the sun, which would be the most natural thing in Shinar: they are going to burn them. They will build with skill and pride. They have built dwellings. They are spreading out. Shinar’s plain is doing more than its part to justify the faith of its new arrivals. Atheism, unity, wine, rich food, dancing, music, the clearest skies and most brilliant stars ever seen by man, dancing, naked flesh - Eureka! "And they said, Go to (come on, give way now), let us build us a CITY and a TOWER, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a NAME (a shem). . ." (Genesis 11:4) (Capitals, of course, mine.) They have had phenomenal success in building their dwellings; they will now build a city such as Cain never heard of, and they will build a tower about which the world will talk to its last fiery day. How long it took them to build the city and tower, we are not told. The unity, enthusiasm, smiling climate and abundant supply of bitumen would cut the time to a minimum. The Tower of Babel is commonly identified with the ruins called BIRS-NIMRUD, about six miles to the southwest of the site of ancient Babylon. Even though the ruins of BIRS-NIMRUD be not those of the original tower, two important things about it are definitely true: 1. The ruins are associated with Nimrod - BIRS-NIMRUD. 2. It could not have been, as archeologists have shown, built but a few centuries after the original tower, and therefore was copied from the original. Here is a part of what Professor George Rawlinson says about BIRS-NIMRUD in "Smith’s Dictionary": "Birs-Nimrud faced north-east, and formed a sort of oblique pyramid, built in six receding stages. The platform on which these stages rested was of crude; the stages themselves of burnt brick, painted in different colors in honor of gods or planets each stage as it was placed on the other, receding, so as to be considerably nearer the back of the building, or the south-west.’ - "The first stage, painted black in honor of Saturn, was a square of two hundred and seventy-two feet, and twenty-six feet high; - the second stage, orange colored, in honor of Jupiter, was a square of two hundred and thirty feet, and twenty-six feet high; - the third stage, bright red, in honor of Mars, was a square of one hundred and eighty feet, and also twenty-six feet high; - the fourth stage, golden, for the sun, was one hundred and forty-six feet square and fifteen feet high; - the fifth stage, dark blue, for Mercury, was sixty-two feet square, and fifteen feet high; - and the sixth stage, silver, for the moon, was twenty feet square, and fifteen high. The whole was surmounted by a chapel, which must have nearly covered the whole top. The whole height, as already stated, was one hundred and fifty-three feet; or about one-third that of the great pyramid of Egypt (also built by Hamites - N.S.), which measures four hundred and eighty feet. It is also interesting to notice, how exactly what we know of early Babylonian architecture tallies with what we read in the Scriptures ’Let us make brick and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime (or rather, bitumen) had they for mortar.’ The small burnt bricks laid in bitumen, are still there; not only in the tower, but in still existing ruins of the ancient palace of Babel, which was coeval with the building of the city itself." 2 "And they said, Go to (come on, give way now) let us build . . ." "And the Lord said . . . Go to (come on, give way now), let us go down . . ." And here you have one of the greatest battles that ever took place since the world began. As I pointed out last week, this battle between GOD and Nimrod was the origin of the famous myth of the battle between Zeus and the titans. Everything that was done there on the plain of Shinar was done in deliberate defiance of GOD. Every stage of that huge tower mocked and challenged and defied GOD. The shouts of defiance are echoed in the Second Psalm: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us." (Psalms 2:2-3) What happened there is echoed in the words of Sennacherib (the Assyrian) to Hezekiah (GOD’s servant): "Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my father utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand?" (2 Chronicles 32:14). It is probable that through Nebuchadnezzar’s lips we hear almost the very words of Nimrod: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" (Daniel 4:30). And then - GOD decided to ’come down.’ In what way did He come down? He ’came down’ in judgment. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure" (Psalms 2:4-5). "The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen (nations) to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect" (Psalms 33:10). The old traditions say that the thunders roared above the tower, and the lightnings flashed. Nimrod answered by shooting arrows into the heavens. ". . . dire was the noise. Of conflict; overhead dismal hiss, Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew, And, flying, vaulted either host with fire." There is considerable evidence that the Divine "vexing" went on for days. Then the Almighty decided to bring it to an end. There was a mighty roll of thunder, and a mighty crash of a sheet of flame. The tower came down. Their unity was broken. Their speech was confounded. They were scattered over the earth. 3 There would be no more unity of speech until Pentecost. And that would be a Divine unity. (Another article will deal with the philosophy of what we have been considering here today, and the hellish world-wide efforts now being made to organize the whole world into a modern Babylon of one culture, one religion and one army. The United Nations has a tower - one of the most imposing on earth - hates GOD, has a culture which it is preparing to teach in American schools at our expense, and is now engaged in organizing an army. It is Nimrod come to town again. It is preparing the way for the coming of the final King of Babylon - Antichrist. It all means, not peace, but slavery, violence, tyranny, suffering, bloodshed. And don’t forget, "The people" are creating it. - N.S.) 1 Parrot, History of Art in Chaldea, Quoted by Keith L. Brooks in his recent splendid volume Prophetic Questions Answered (Van Kampen Press, Wheaton, Ill., 165 pp., indexed). 2 Because my old set of Smith’s Dictionary is in small print, I have here copied Edersheim, whose source, as already stated, is Professor Rawlinson’s article in Smith’s Dictionary, Bible History - Old Testament, by Alfred Edersheim, Volumes 14 - in one volume - pp. 62-3: Reprinted by Wm. B. Eerdmans Co., Grand Rapids, 1949). 3 Nimrod, as we shall later see, remained and continued to build Babylon, and went on to build one of the greatest empires of history and become master of the world. ~ end of chapter 5 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 06-CHAPTER SIX - THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TOWER . . . ======================================================================== CHAPTER SIX - THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TOWER OF BABEL (Philosophy as used here means the principles underlying a thing; the principles which explain a thing.) The oak is the development of the acorn. The oak, in its fullest and completest form, is the acorn at the climax of its possibilities. The acorn, if it could speak, there atop the mightiest oak defying all the storms that blow, could say: "This is I myself." An oak - the mightiest oak on earth - is an acorn; it is an acorn having reached the climax of its possibilities. The world today is Nimrod’s Babel at, almost, its highest possibilities. It is not yet complete; there are a few more stages of development. Every principle operating in the world today was wrapped up in Nimrod’s Babel. If you can discover and understand the principles underlying the building of the Tower of Babel, you will have a deeper, more matured, comprehensive understanding of the nature of manifestations and ultimate climax of this present world system than any Columbia University philosopher that ever lived. This word "unity" is one of the profoundest words in any language. It means the state of being one. It means concord, accord, harmony. It means a whole. It means continuity without deviation or change. What has man been striving for, in every history that has ever been written of him, since we first heard of him? He has been striving for unity - for unity of personality, for harmony with his environment, for continuity. And he has never found it. Inwardly he is a volcano of conflicts, suppressions, seething passions; knowing not whither he has come, or why he is here, or whither he is to go. He hates himself, is constantly at war with his environment, regards the beasts as more blessed than he. The only thing that keeps the majority of men from taking a pistol and blowing their brains out is their cowardice. They are afraid to do it. Man hates to live, and he is afraid to die. Why? Because he has no unity. He is a square peg in a round hole. And right here, incidentally, the fact that man never has found unity except in the surrender of his will to GOD’s will, is one of the very greatest and most convincing arguments that I know for the existence of the GOD of the Bible, for the absolute truthfulness of the Genesis account of man’s origin, and for the absolute trustworthiness of the New Testament’s account of the Person and work of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. Man united to GOD is a sublime mystery; man apart from GOD, as all the history that has been written of him proves, is a cheap and vulgar puzzle. When Adam was created he was united to GOD. He had perfect unity. There was perfect harmony - harmony within himself, and harmony with his environment. There wasn’t a question-mark within or without. That wonderful term, "continuity," was in the very nature of things. And that was Heaven; for the central fact of Heaven is harmony; everything is in harmony with everything else, and there is unbroken continuity. In the nature of the case, that unity was grounded in Adam’s faith. The philosopher has never lived who could provide another ground for the unity of man with GOD except pure, naked faith. That unity was broken. It was broken because the only thing that united Adam to GOD was broken - Adam’s faith. Discord, misery, unhappiness; or, to gather them all into one term, "disunity," was the natural inevitable result. Disunity will assume one of three forms: 1. Fear and loneliness. 2. Indifference. 3. Open rebellion. These three forms of disunity, interestingly enough are represented and symbolized by three great characters in the Book of Genesis. The first is represented by Adam. "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I WAS AFRAID." (Genesis 3:10) The second is represented by Cain. "Am I my brother’s keeper?" (Genesis 4:9) The third is represented by Nimrod. His very name, as we have already seen, means rebel. He was "the mighty" rebel. With these chunky observations, thrown out almost at random, we shall return to the Tower of Babel, try to discover and understand the fundamental principles underlying it, try to see how those principles are at work today, and try to see what the climax will be. The Tower of Babel was a symbol of a world unity, a world monarchy, a world government, a world state. The Tower was a monument to that which had already taken place. We are impressed with the Tower, we should be impressed with the forces and principles which erected it. 1. The Tower of Babel was a symbol of deliberate, premeditated, intelligent rebellion against GOD. The religion of Shem was the real connecting link between GOD and man. Shem was repudiated. " . . .let us make us a name (shem)." They repudiated GOD’s Shem and made them one of their own. In the very nature of things - if I may use this convenient term again - in the exact proportion as they loved their "shem" they hated GOD’s Shem. The Tower of Babel was erected upon the foundation of rebellion and hatred. 2. The Tower of Babel was the outward unity of inward fears, loneliness, frustrations, rebellion and hatred. The Tower of Babel was the outward unity of internal disunity. The Tower of Babel was like an American night club. There is perfect unity. They all are in agreement. They all drink, and gamble, and dance, and laugh, and giggle, and hug, and kiss, and make dates. There is perfect unity. But it is the unity of rebellion against GOD, rebellion against the Church, rebellion against the marriage vows, rebellion against chastity, rebellion against parental authority, rebellion against the idea of hell - rebellion against everything associated with the Name of GOD! It is the outward unity of inward lust and rebellion. In short, a night club is a rebellious "babble." (We got the word from Babel.) 3. The Tower of Babel was a symbol of violence, despotism and tyranny. Nimrod, the man behind it all, was one of the most violent, despotic, tyrannical men that ever lived. As I have already pointed out, reputable scholars associate the "Battle of the Titans" with the erection of the Tower of Babel. Violence is involved in leading the world away from the religion of Shem. Despotism and tyranny are involved in the demand that everybody shall unite, that everybody shall conform, that all individuality shall be sacrificed on the hard, merciless altar of the World State. There is no room for individual conscience, no place for individual convictions. The individual must exist for the state. 4. What can hold all of that together? Nothing on this earth but sheer force and violence. How did Alexander unite the world? By violence and bloodshed. How did Caesar unite it? By violence and bloodshed. How did Napoleon unite nations? By violence and bloodshed. How did Bismarck unite the Prussian states? By violence and bloodshed. How has Stalin united the Soviet states? By violence and bloodshed. How does Stalin keep them united? By violence, bloodshed, despotism and tyranny. The most violent, despotic, cold-blooded, murderous institution on the face of this earth is the World State. Nimrod’s World State has today reached a higher state of development and realization than ever before in the world’s history. Today we have, in fact, the United Nations. The United Nations has a Tower - the most imposing on earth. In it and around it there is the babble of foreign tongues. Let’s take a look at the United Nations. In the first place, there is no place in the United Nations for GOD, none for JESUS CHRIST, none for the Bible, none for prayer. In the second place, the United Nations organization is based on the Atlantic Charter. The chief man behind the Atlantic Charter was Franklin D. Roosevelt. The record shows that the only promise Mr. Roosevelt ever kept to the American people was the promise to deluge the country with beer and whisky. Roosevelt was the prophet of the New Deal. Roosevelt did all that he could do to destroy the Supreme Court of the United States. Roosevelt sold our Chinese ally down the river to Stalin. Roosevelt refused to allow the American Armies to go to Berlin, and he permitted the Red armies to go there. Mrs. Roosevelt, the Mother Superior of the United Nations, says that the story of Adam and Eve is fiction. She says that she doesn’t know whether she believes in a life beyond the grave. In the third place, one of the chief architects of the United Nations was Alger Hiss, now in the penitentiary for betraying his country. In the fourth place, the most powerful member of the United Nations, everything considered, is Communist Russia. In the fifth place, it has already cost the American taxpayers more than 43 billion dollars to erect the United Nations. In the sixth place, American boys are being slaughtered in Korea because the United States cannot afford to "embarrass" the United Nations by giving an American general an order to make an all-out attack against the Chinese Reds. In the seventh place; the United Nations is preparing to herd up this whole generation of American boys and send them all over the world to fill up bloody sinkholes. In the eighth place, if the United Nations can’t stop a war in Korea, nobody with any sense believes that they can ever stop one anywhere else. In order to succeed the United Nations must have three things: a world culture, a world religion, and a world army. All three are in the making. One of the most important departments of the United Nations is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This organization has the authority of the United Nations to bring education, culture, religion and science into conformity with the World State. Involved in this organization are the radio, television, newspapers, magazines, textbooks - all the media of communication. This organization will write the textbooks, will prepare radio and television programs, will create a religion. And who is the Director General of this powerful organization - one of the most powerful ever erected on this earth? He is Julian Huxley. And who is Julian Huxley? He is a sneering infidel. He says that it is impossible for him, and those who think like him, to believe in a personal GOD. He denies that there ever was any such thing as a revelation of GOD to man. This is the man who heads the United Nations’ organizations which is planning the education and religion of the whole world, including the United States. Mr. Huxley has outlined in a book just what kind of culture is being planned for the whole world, including the United States. That book is entitled; "Unesco: Its Purpose and its Philosophy." If you think I have overstated the aims and purposes of Huxley’s organization, here are his own words: Unesco - The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - is by its title committed to two sets of aims. In the first place, it is international, and must serve the ends and objects of the United Nations, which in the long perspective are world ends, ends for humanity as a whole. And secondly it must foster and promote all aspects of education, science, and culture, in the widest sense of those words. [p. 5]. Julian Huxley and his fellow atheists are, first of all, going to work on the minds of men. Like Nimrod, they are going to change those minds. When they are through, there won’t be but one mind - the world mind. What is going to be the basis of this world culture? It is going to be Evolution. I have this book here before me as I write. I have underscored in red the words EVOLUTION as it appears from page 8 to page 17, inclusive; that’s 10 pages. How many times does this brute word appear in these 10 pages? It appears 41 times. And to be sure that nobody misunderstands, here is what Huxley says about the basis of the culture of this United Nations’ World State: "Thus the general philosophy of Unesco should, it seems, be a scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background (p. 8). The philosophy of Evolution means the "survival of the fit." And that’s exactly what Julian Huxley, in cold-blooded scientific terms, says its going to mean. What kind of religion is Julian Huxley and his fellow atheists going to fasten on the peoples of the world? He leaves no doubt about that. Here are his own words: "Thus the general philosophy of Unesco should, it seems, be a scientific world humanism. . ." (p. 8). That’s the religion: Scientific Humanism. That makes man the center of the universe. All things revolve around man. You no longer have a revealed religion; you have "values!" There is no personal GOD, no holiness, no sin; thus no NEED of a Saviour, no NEED of a Calvary’s Cross, no NEED of a Resurrection. The Bible like all other "sacred books," contains some "values"; therefore it is useful, but useful only as it provides these "values" for man’s "development." And now don’t forget this: All the power of the United Nations is behind this blatant infidel and his World State philosophy, religion and education. The 43 billion dollars of the American taxpayers is behind it. Most of the members of Congress are behind it. Most of the educators and "leaders" of religion are behind it. These people, in the first place, are RESPONSIBLE to the United Nations. For 35 years - in churches, in schools, in colleges, in universities, in civic clubs - we have heard nothing but a United Nations. We now have it. I have a righteous hatred of Nimrod and his Babylon, but no more than I have for the Julian Huxleys and their United Nation: And we may as well be plain and understand one another: I don’t want the friendship of any politician, educator or preacher who knowing the real nature of the United Nations, will go on supporting it. I will not have fellowship with any man or woman regardless of who they are, who will support, in any form, cold-blooded, anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-American World State such as the United Nations. Would a real America have fellowship with Benedict Arnold? Benedict Arnold never was as guilty of treachery as this United Nations’ crowd. That World State in New York, like the one on the ancient plains of Shinar, is now, and will more and more become, an institution of violence, depotism and tyranny. The written Constitution of the United States must go. Already a California court has ruled that the law of the United Nation supercedes the law of the Constitution of the United States. With the Constitution go the Bill of Rights and all those liberties dear to the hearts of Americans, liberties which were wrested from tyrants at the point of the sword. There can never be a World State as long as the written Constitution of the United States remains valid. An effort is now being made, and will become more savage, to crush all individuality. Uniformity demands conformity. Christians will die before they will surrender their faith in a risen CHRIST to Julian Huxley’s Scientific Humanism. The United Nations will bring more pressure on the radio chains to keep true ministers of the Gospel off the air. They want the Sockmans. They want the Fatherhood-of-God-and-Brotherhood-of-Man preachers. The don’t object to Roman Catholics. All of those preach a religion which conforms to the United Nations philosophy. This means strife, the breaking up of communities, the breaking up of some churches and, in many cases, the breaking up of families. Thousands will never permit their children to be poisoned with Huxley’s teachings. This means more enmities, more strife, more breakups. This means that children will be turned against parents, school authorities turned against preachers, preachers at war with school authorities. And this will mean the employment of sheer, brutal force. The United Nations’ police force will attempt to blackjack men and women into conformity. It means that this same police force will not tolerate anything which is inimical to the progress of the World State. You say that I am guilty of using extravagant, irresponsible language? You heard what the California court said, didn’t you? The United Nations already has its tower on American soil, doesn’t it? The Congress of the United States is already placing the interest of the United Nations above the interest of the flesh and blood and bones of your boys in Korea, isn’t it? The Congress of the United States approved the 43 billion dollars in credits to establish the United Nations, and to set up Julian Huxley’s department, didn’t it? If all this has already happened, how long will it be before the police force of this country will be part of an International Police Force? Violence, depotism and tyranny will increase. Wars will increase. There will be political and social upheavals which will reverberate to the ends of the earth. There will be inflation, famine, unemployment, every conceivable form of vice. And what will the United Nations be doing all the time? Just what it is doing today - talking, debating, while men are starving, fighting and dying. There will rise a spontaneous demand for the elimination of debates, for the elimination of "talking." "We want action. We are sick of debates. We are sick of your impotent parliament. We want a man with the authority and the ability to act." That man will be on the scene. I shouldn’t be surprised if he won’t be in one of the Balkan states: Meantime, his name will already be known, and his voice familiar. He will be the greatest statesman the world ever produced, the greatest orator, the greatest military genius. He will be a composite of all the Nimrods, Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons. He will be the man the world is now crying for - the Devil’s man, the ANTICHRIST. And when he takes over, there "shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." (Matthew 24:21). If there were not a line of prophecy in the Bible any student of international affairs, it seems to me, could see that the rise of Anti-christ will be the inevitable, logical outcome of this World State. In view of all this, how significant are those words in the twelfth chapter of Romans: " . . . be not conformed to this world . . ." (Romans 12:2) There are dark and dreadful days ahead. The world’s education will be against us, as it always has been against CHRIST. The world’s science will be against us, as it always has been against CHRIST. The world’s politics and religion will be against us: they murdered our CHRIST, and we can expect no better treatment. The "good" people will all be against us: they don’t want to "get mixed up in this." The majority will be against us: it was against GOD on the plains of Shinar. But GOD will be for us. JESUS CHRIST will be for us. The HOLY SPIRIT will be for us. The Bible will stand by us. The angels will not be indifferent. A "great cloud of witnesses" will surround us. We will never bow down! We will never conform! ~ end of chapter 6 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 07-CHAPTER SEVEN - THE DEATH OF NIMROD ======================================================================== CHAPTER SEVEN - THE DEATH OF NIMROD The wrath of GOD prevented Nimrod from completing the Tower of Babel; and following the confusion of tongues, the people were scattered over the earth. But Nimrod was neither conquered nor destroyed. Fiercer than ever, he enlarged and strengthened his army, beat down all opposition, organized the Babylonian-Assyrian empire, and enthroned himself as the master of the world. He was the first world dictator. 1 To get some idea of the swiftness and extent of his conquests, let us go back and read again those familiar but little appreciated verses: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city" (Genesis 10:8-12). There is incredible rapidity of movement and conquest in those marching sentences and, if your ear is not dull, you can hear the roar of violence. Notice the statement: " . . . the beginning of his kingdom . . ." (Suppose the radio should announce that the man who founded the Babylonian-Assyrian Empire - which of course included two of the greatest cities of the ancient world - would land in New York next week?) Nimrod was a Negro? 2 Nimrod, of course, was a Cushite. Cush means ’sunburnt’. The Greeks and Romans spoke of the Cushites as Ethiopians. Ethiopia means "the land of the sunburnt.’" "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" (Jeremiah 13:23) - where Ethiopian is the same as ’Cushite.’ Osiris, the greatest of the Egyptian gods, has been identified with Nimrod. If you will look up Osiris in that great work of Mythology, "Mythology of all Races," you will find (in Vol. 12, p. 92) a figure of Osiris showing him as the black god. 3 In Dr. Hislop’s great work, already referred to in these articles, will be found another figure of Osiris. In this figure Osiris is a heavy Negro with thick lips. 4 What is the most familiar image of the Devil? It is the image of a man, with horns, hoofs and forked tail. What is the color of the image? It is black. And this image didn’t "just happen." In this world there is no such thing as chance or accident. In this world nothing "just happens." Behind that image is a grand original. The grand original, as investigations have proved, was none other than the black Nimrod. We have already seen considerable of the character of this mighty Negro as he pushed his conquests across that ancient world. I think we can see considerable more if we will examine the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah. In that chapter we have a truly wonderful description of the last king of (rebuilt) Babylon, which is none other than Antichrist. Just as many waters come together in Niagara Falls, so do many tyrants come together in the world’s last tyrant. One of the greatest, if not THE greatest of those tyrants is Nimrod, the last Babylonian king’s prototype. I think we can get more than a glimpse of the character of Nimrod, especially his pride, by reading between Isaiah’s lines: "The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee" (Isaiah 14:5-11). Herod was the culmination of the materialism of Esau. The last king of Babylon will be the culmination of the pride and violence of its first king. We now come to two important questions: 1. What was Shem doing all the time that Nimrod was defying GOD and enslaving the world? 2. When, where and how did Nimrod die? Shem of course was Noah’s eldest son. Shem means ’name’. Of Shem, Noah prophesied: "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant" (Genesis 9:26-27). Shem lived 600 years. Abraham was 58 years old when Noah died, and Jacob was 48 years old when Shem died - which means that Shem outlived Abraham! Did there ever live on earth a man who saw so much, who suffered so much, who wondered so much, into whose soul vast loneliness sank so deeply? Shem saw corruption, filth and shame rise and sweep over that antediluvian world until not even GOD Almighty could save it; he saw the foul backwaters push themselves right up to the Ark. Shem saw sky and earth unite their awful strengths and devour every living thing. Shem stepped from the ark and looked out upon a world lying under a shroud. Shem saw Nimrod organize the human race and lead it in open rebellion against GOD - before the Ark had dried! Shem saw Nimrod push his conquests over the earth, enslave the earth’s inhabitants and set himself up as GOD. Shem saw Noah die, saw Abraham born, saw Abraham journey in his quest of the city which hath the foundations, saw Esau and Jacob born, saw Sarah die, saw Abraham die! What a biography Shem could write! What was Shem doing all the time that Nimrod was defying GOD and organizing the world against Him? We cannot assume that a man of Shem’s stature and influence was passive during all those violent years. Shem was GOD’s great witness on earth. Are we to assume that Shem was passive and silent - when Noah was active, and Job, and Abraham, and all the others? 5 When, where and how did Nimrod die? It is certain that he died. It is equally certain that his death was one of the greatest events of that world. We still talk and preach and write about Alexander’s death at Babylon. We still talk and preach and write about how Caesar died, with 23 stabs in his body, at the base of the statue of his great enemy, Pompey, on the ides of March. And we are still moralizing Napoleon’s death in a cow-barn on Helena’s isolated and lonely rock. And are we to believe that the death of the founder of monarchy, the founder of idolatry, the first dictator and prototype of Anti-christ - are we to dismiss the question of his death as that of no moment? As dear old Dr. Haldeman used to say, I trow not. For many reasons, the Bible is not concerned with the death of Nimrod. Following the confusion of tongues at Babel, the Bible is more concerned with how Abraham lived than how Nimrod died. The Bible is concerned with life and progress, not with death and retrogression. GOD is the GOD of the living, not the GOD of the dead. The Bible looks forward, not backward. An investigation into the death of Nimrod is the task of scholars. I am not a scholar. As I said at the beginning of these articles, my purpose has been that of digging into the works of the great authorities for facts of Nimrod and organizing them into a connected story in language plain enough for most people to understand. I use the hunt-and-peck system; but I do hunt, and I do peck. The greatest work on the death of Nimrod that I know anything about is Dr. Hislop’s "The Two Babylons." I am here going to tell you what conclusions his profound and tedious investigations led him to. And before beginning, I will say that I have done considerable checking on Dr. Hislop’s propositions, and I have yet to find a place where he has substituted fancy for fact. Hislop substantiates his conclusions as to Nimrod’s death - as he does all his other conclusions - with page after page of close, technical authority. He always speaks with fact, not with fancy. Here I shall tell how he says Nimrod died, and then I shall tell how he arrived at the conclusion. No, Shem was not inactive. He mourned and lamented the apostasy of Nimrod. But he did more: he preached against Nimrod, aroused a multitude against him, and finally became more powerful in Egypt than Nimrod. And when Shem came into power, he made a terrible example of the black apostate. Shem had Nimrod’s body cut to pieces, and had the pieces sent out over the world as a grim warning to those who would defy the GOD of Heaven. Nimrod’s death was one of the most violent ever suffered by man. In the nineteenth chapter of Judges we read that a Levite took a knife and cut the body of his concubine into twelve pieces, and sent the parts into all the coasts of Israel. Nothing like it had been "done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt." (Judges 19:30)Where did that Levite get that idea of cutting a body to pieces and sending its parts throughout the land? That idea had come down to him through the patriarchs. And they had got it from the case of Shem and Nimrod. And how does Hislop reach his conclusion? Osiris, as has already been pointed out, has been unquestionably identified with Nimrod. Osiris died a violent death, so violent that nothing like it was ever heard of in Egypt. His body was cut to pieces, and the pieces were scattered throughout the world. Shem is identified with Typho, who was "The Evil One" who had such influence over the "conspirators" as to be able to put to death so great a god as Osiris, and cut his body to pieces. Shem is also identified with the primitive Hercules, "who overcame the Giants by ’the power of GOD’." If anybody thinks that all this is pure fancy and imagination, it is because he has never made a serious study of mythology, one of the most fascinating and profitable of all studies. In the first place, we know that behind all gods and images, there is the grand original. We know, for example, that Nimrod’s wife was the first "Queen of Heaven." We know that she and Nimrod were the grand original of the Madonna and Child. To reiterate, things don’t "just happen." And now, on this question of Shem being identified with the ’primitive’ Hercules. If you will go to that great work already mentioned, "Mythology of All Races," you will find this: Lucian (second century A.D.) describes a Ghoulish god Ogmios, represented as an old man, bald-headed and with wrinkled and sunburnt skin, yet possessing the attributes of Hercules - the lion’s skin, the club, the bow, and a sheath hung from his shoulder. He draws a multitude by beautiful chains of gold and amber attached to their ears, and they follow him with joy. The other end of the chains is fixed to his tongue, and he turns to his captives a smiling countenance. A Gaul explained that the native god of eloquence was regarded as Hercules, because he had accomplished his feats through eloquence; he was old, for speech shows itself best in old age; the chains indicated the bond between the orator’s tongue and the ears of the enraptured listeners. Here is an OLD man. He is BALD-HEADED, WRINKLED, SUNBURNT. He draws a multitude. How does he draw them? Not by an army, but by the words of his mouth. Now of course this by itself proves nothing about Shem, the oldest man on earth, drawing a multitude by the words of his mouth. But you have a clue here. Who is the old man? What is the burden of his mouth that he draws such a multitude? Get Dr. Hislop’s "The Two Babylons" and read for yourself. 1 "and they left off to build the city" (Genesis 11:8), as is generally conceded, does not exclude the idea that the Babylonians who remained behind kept on building Babel. - N.S. 2 For the benefit of the rabble-rouser, Nero, Judas Iscariot, Karl Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Mussolini, Hitler and Al Capone were all white, as is Joe Stalin. The one man who helped JESUS CHRIST bear His cross was a Negro. 3Mythology of All Races, Louis Herbert Gray, Editor (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1918). 4 Alexander Hislop. The Two Babylons (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1948). 5 "Men like Noah and Shem were granted great length of life that, being historic personages and survivors of the Flood, they might by their very presence as well as by their testimony offer warning to their godless successors. For Luther no doubt, argues correctly when he deduces from the activity of the godless in their ungodly projects, that the true children of GOD will on their part also have proved themselves active in upholding righteousness and in directing the Old Testament church." - H.C. Leupold, D.C. Exposition of Genesis, Vol. I, p. 395, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1950). ~ end of chapter 7 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 08-CHAPTER EIGHT - THE RISE OF IDOLATRY ======================================================================== CHAPTER EIGHT - THE RISE OF IDOLATRY For these thousands of years, idol worship has been as universal as murder and death. Idol worship was universal in David’s day. "For all the gods of the nations are idols..." (Psalms 96:5). The Apostle Paul wrote that the whole ancient world "changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things" (Romans 1:23). He tells the Corinthian Christians that before they were regenerated, they were "carried away unto . . . dumb idols" (1 Corinthians 12:2). In Athens, the same apostle’s "spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry" (Acts 17:16) - a city full of idols! Greece had an altar erected to every god known to man. One of the most famous buildings in Rome was the Pantheon, which is still standing. The building is of elaborate brick construction, and its dome is 144 feet in diameter. When Hadrian rebuilt it (110-125), he covered the dome with gilt bronze tiles, and the trusses and girders of the portico roof were of bronze. The Pantheon was the house of all the gods. In the Dark Ages, the golden age of Roman Catholicism, the Roman Catholic churches were so filled with idols that the invading Arab, once he paused at the door and looked inside, fled in terror as if fleeing from a house of demons. The Roman church was the official church of the Dark Ages, and the Dark Ages lasted a thousand years. Idolatry is universal today. In all Roman Catholic lands idolatry is practiced. In the vast Saint Peter’s in Rome, there are chapels and churches especially devoted to the worship of the virgin, and her images are covered with gold and silver tributes. Mary is worshipped by the Roman Catholics as the "queen of Heaven." The pope has composed an official prayer to her. Here is the way it begins: "Enraptured by the splendor of your heavenly beauty and impelled by the anxieties of the world, we cast ourselves into your arms, O immaculate mother of JESUS and our mother Mary, confident of finding in your most loving heart appeasement of our ardent desires, and a safe harbor from the tempests which beset us on every side." Bones and images are the foundation of Roman Catholicism. The United States, in many decisive respects, is the most powerful Roman Catholic country in the world. There are 400 million Roman Catholics in the world. There are 127 million Greek Orthodox Catholics. There are 220 million Mohammedans who don’t worship idols, but do practically worship Mahomet. There are more than 1 billion belonging to other idol worshipping religions. That makes 1 billion, 747 million of the world’s 2 billion inhabitants. How many Protestants are there in the world? There are 135 million. And this 135 million includes the Baptists, even though Bible-believing Baptists are certainly not Protestants! - all the "baptized" infants, all the Adventist bodies, the Churches of the New Jerusalem, all those on the chain gang, all those in the penitentiary, all those waiting to be hung, the Latter Day Saints, the Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists, all the Unitarians, all the Christian Scientists, and the General Six Principles Baptists. Idol worship was universal in the ancient world. It was universal in the Graeco-Roman world. It was universal in the Middle Ages. It is universal today. When compared to the idol worshippers, there isn’t a handful of true worshippers. There never has been. When and where did idol worship originate? It is a singular fact that it did not originate in the antediluvian world. Before the flood you find neither organized rebellion against GOD or idol worship. The basic sin of that world was negative. Cain, its head, rejected the GOD of holiness. He rejected the fact of sin and logically, he rejected the necessity for an atonement for sin. Cain was a Unitarian. He believed in and accepted a GOD of nature and of love. He was the founder and original leader of the Universal - Fatherhood-of-God - and Universal - Brotherhood-of-Man cult. Cain was too refined to slay a lamb, but he was not to refined to murder his brother. The antediluvian world was without moral salt. It rotted. But we find idol worship in the days of Job: "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: This also was an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above" (Job 31:26-28). Idol worship existed in the time of Abraham, for the archaeologists have dug up the city of Ur, whose worship was that of the Moon god. Idol worship originated somewhere between Noah (after the flood) and Job and Abraham. Idol worship originated in the Chaldean world. It originated in the Babylonian-Assyrian world. There is conclusive evidence that idol worship did not come into the world gradually, in progressive stages. Idol worship came into the world suddenly, and it comes into the world full-grown. Idol worship came into the world like man. There is no evidence that man came into the world gradually, by progressive stages. All the real evidence is that man came into the world suddenly, and that he came here full-grown. There is not in all the archives of this world a record of one single instance of the transmutation of species. Man has always been man, and hog has always been hog. Although he doesn’t know it, and is not particularly interested, the billygoat never has been anything but a billygoat. The record shows that he was a full-grown billygoat to begin with. If he were ever going to develop into anything besides a billygoat, at least his tail would have changed during 6000 years. But his tail still points toward the North star - as it was pointing when he hit here. And sin didn’t appear in the world gradually, by progressive stages. Sin came into the world suddenly, and it came here full-grown. Suddenly, with no warning at all, man is changed from a lord flashing the blinding splendor and majesty of his CREATOR, to a cringing slave and coward hiding out in the bushes. And suddenly, with no warning at all, the second man ever born into the world is murdered by the first man that was ever born. - Man, full-grown, came into the world suddenly, at a definite time, at a definite place. - Sin, full-grown, came into the world suddenly, at a definite time, at a definite place. - Idolatry, full-grown, came into the world suddenly, at a definite time, at a definite place. The human race is scattered all over the world. It is black, brown, white, red, light tan, yellow, and high yellow. It is fat, thin, tall, short, lank, squatty, erudite and ignorant. A part of it eats red hog, a part of it eats greasy sheep, a part of it eats greens; the larger part eats whatever is handy, if anything. But the widely scattered human race, with all its diversity of language and custom, is a unity. All the evidence is that the human race descended from one pair, and they constitute one species. The Scriptures everywhere teach that mankind descended from one pair - in the Garden of Eden, in the Middle East. The historical evidence says the same thing. Comparative philology points to a common origin of languages. To quote E.H. Bancroft: "All races are fruitful one with another. The normal temperature of the body is the same. The mean frequency of the pulse is the same. There is liability to the same diseases. "These facts are not true of other animals; and again, human blood can be distinguished by the microscope from that of any other animal." And so it is with idolatry. Underneath the superficial differences of idol worship there are fundamental similarities. There is a oneness of character. As with the human race, there is conclusive evidence that idol worship originated suddenly, full-grown, at a definite time, in a definite place and - with a definite objective. What is an idol? An idol is an image. What is an image? An image is an imitation or likeness of a person or a thing. Idol worship is the worship of the image of a person or a thing. We can be more definite still: idol worship is the worship of the image of an ultimate person. Behind the image, there is the person. It might be objected that this is not true, for example, of the image of the serpent - that behind the image of the serpent there is no ultimate person; that the image of the serpent is a symbol of wisdom. This appears to be true on the surface; but when you follow the trail of serpent worship to its origin, you will find yourself standing before a person. The serpent is associated with fire worship. The god Phoroneus was the "inventor of fire." Behind the mythical Phoroneus there is a person - a man. I think the evidence that the tedious toil of the patient, persistent scholars have dug up will sustain this proposition: As you journey back to the origin of idol worship, the great river of diversification becomes increasingly narrower; and when you finally come to its origin, you find yourself standing before a person. You will find yourself standing before a person in the Babylonian-Assyrian world - which has always been considered one world. Who is the greatest god of the ancient world? Who is the greatest goddess of the ancient world? The greatest god is Tammuz. Tammuz means ’the son of life’. He was worshipped throughout Babylon, in Assyria, Phoenicia, Palestine. In Plato’s day Tammuz was regarded as identical with Osiris. Tummuz has been identified with Adonis. Tammuz was the king of the nether world. He was god of the pasture, the patron of flocks and their keepers, and was himself shepherd - of course, the chief shepherd. He died annually and returned to life with each recurring year. Tammuz met a violent death. The women of Egypt wept for him as Osiris. The Phoenician women wept for him as Tammuz. The Jewish women wept for him as Tammuz. "He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see great abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz" (Ezekiel 8:13-14). In Greece and Rome the women lamented Tammuz as Bacchus. We are told that the most beautiful love story of Babylon was that of the grief of Ishtar for the death of her lover Tammuz. Here is a part of Ishtar’s lamentation: "Thou art my king. Thou wast cruelly taken away, The shining sceptre was taken from thy hand. Lift up thy hand which was beaten down. Without Tammuz the earth ceases to be." And Ishta groaned, "Alas, in his youth he sleeps Among the flowers of the garden; he is deserted. The hero, my Dumu-zi, among the flowers of the garden he sleeps, Among the flowers of the garden he is abandoned. Among the mulberry-trees he sleeps. We are steeped in woe for his sake." I pause to emphasize that Tammuz was KING. He had THE SHINING SCEPTRE. He was CRUELLY (violently) TAKEN AWAY. WITHOUT TAMMUZ THE EARTH CEASES TO BE. Which means that Tammuz was the very greatest character of the Babylonian world. You would naturally expect that the wife of Tammuz would be the very greatest woman of the Babylonian world. She was. She was the original Ishtar, who has just been lamenting him. The power and lasting fame of Ishtar is evidenced by the fact that this week the whole Christian world is paying tribute to her: Ishtar means Easter. We didn’t get Easter from the New Testament; we got it from the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Ishtar was the virgin mother-goddess. She was always associated with the planet Venus. Ishtar is Venus. In the Pantheon in Rome, Ishtar retained her independent position; she was the mother of them all - the VIRGIN mother. In her great book, "Nebuchadnezzar," Mme. G.R. Tabouis devotes an entire chapter to Ishtar. She describes the Feast of Ishtar. "On this evening of the sixteenth of the month of Ab, Babylon was holding the Feast of Ishtar, the patron goddess of childbirth, war, the rebirth of nature, and, above all, the secret orgies of love." In her temple there was drunkenness and monstrous lust. There were the bands of "sacred harlots. "There was the "sacred prostitution." All of that before the image of the "virgin mother"! Tammuz - "the king with the shining sceptre," without whom "the earth ceases to be"! Ishtar, his wife - the "virgin mother" of all the goddesses, the "Queen of Heaven"! Who was the grand original of Tammuz? There isn’t but one man in the Babylonian-Assyrian world who can qualify NIMROD. Who was the grand original of Ishtar? There isn’t but one woman in the Babylonian-Assyrian world who can qualify NIMROD’S WIFE. Nimrod is the father of the gods. Nimrod’s wife is the mother of the gods. As to Nimrod, being the father of the gods, listen to no less an authority than George Rawlinson: "Bil-Nipru is probably the Biblical Nimrod, the original founder of the monarchy, the ’mighty hunter’ and conqueror. At the same time, however, that he is this hero deified, he represents also, as the second god of the first Triad, the classical Jupiter. He is ’the supreme,’ ’the father of the gods,’ ’the procreator,’ ’the Lord,’ par excellence, "the king of all the spirits,’ ’the Lord of the world,’ and again, ’the lord of all the countries’," Ancient Monarchies, Vol. 1, p. 118). As to Nimrod’s wife, hear Rawlinson on the following two pages of the same volume: "Bettis, the wife of Bel-Nimrod, presents a strong contrast to Anata, the wife of Ana. She is far more than the mere female power of Bel-Nimrod, being in fact a separate and very important deity. Her common title is ’the Great Goddess,’ In Chaldea her name was Mulita or Enuta - both words signifying ’the Lady’; In Assyria she was Bilta or Bilta-Nipruta, the feminine forms of Bil and Bilu-Nipru. Her favorite title was ’the Mother of the Gods,’ or ’the Mother of the Great Gods’; whence it is tolerably clear that she was the ’Dea Syria’ worshipped at Hierapolis under the Arian appellation of Mabog. Though commonly represented as the wife of Bel, Nimrod and mother of his son Nin or Ninip, she is also called ’the wife of Nin,’ and in one place ’the wife of Asshur.’ Her other titles are ’the lady of Bit-Ana,’ ’the lady of Nipur’ ’the Queen of the land’ or of the lands,’ ’the great lady,’ ’the goddess of war and battle,’ and ’the queen of fecundity’. She seems thus to have united the attributes of the Juno, the Ceres or Demeter, the Bellona, and even the Diana of the classical nations; for she was at once the queen of Heaven, the goddess who makes the earth fertile, the goddess of war and battle, and the goddess of hunting. In these latter capacities she appears, however, to HAVE BEEN GRADUALLY SUPERCEDED BY ISHTAR, who sometimes even appropriates her higher and more distinctive appellations." (Capitals mine.) Nimrod the father of idolatry. Nimrod’s wife the mother of idolatry. And there is nothing so very strange about this, once you read Nimrod’s record in Genesis 10:8-11! As I emphasized at the beginning of these articles, Nimrod was the founder of the whole Babylonian-Assyrian world - from whence Greece, Rome, and the modern world got all their basic ideas. Nimrod was the greatest wicked man that ever lived, the first to lead an organized rebellion against his Creator. His wife was the greatest wicked woman that ever lived - the grand original of Ishtar and Semiramis and Bettis. But all this leaves unanswered the question as to the circumstances in which idol worship rose and its great objective. ~ end of chapter 8 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 09-CHAPTER NINE - A VIOLENT DEATH ======================================================================== CHAPTER NINE - A VIOLENT DEATH All along I have tried to give everybody credit; and especially have I tried to give due credit to Alexander Hislop ("The Two Babylons"). Of course, I haven’t leaned on him altogether; but he has served as a faithful guide. But I have to leave him at Saint Peter’s; I do not believe that the Vatican answers to the demand of the universality of the seventeenth chapter of Revelation. I shall give my reasons in one of the two or three concluding articles of the series. In this article today I am especially indebted to Hislop’s early pages for the basic ideas expressed here. Nimrod was the founder and guiding genius of the Babylonian-Assyrian world. He led the first organized rebellion against GOD. And Nimrod - died. How did Nimrod die? If the question can be answered, how do we arrive at the answer? I have stated that in Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia and Palestine, Nimrod was worshipped as Tammuz, and that in Egypt he was worshipped as Osiris. Now here is the question you are naturally asking: Just how is Nimrod identified with the Egyptian god Osiris? Nimrod was a Hamite - the grandson of Ham, the son of Cush. Nimrod was a Negro. Hislop cites Plutarch for authority that in Egypt there was a tradition that Osiris was black. And he goes on to say that in Egypt where the general complexion was dusky, it must have implied something more than ordinary darkness when Osiris was considered as the ’black’ god. There is additional evidence that Osiris was a Negro. Hislop reproduces from Wilkinson a figure of Osiris. The features of this figure, as those who have seen it know, are those of a Negro. The head and mouth are those of a Negro, and plainly so. And this Negro is clothed in leopard skin. "Nimr-rod: from Nimir, a leopard, and rada or rad, to subdue." Nimrod means "the subduer of the Leopard." Some will remember that in the first article I cited authority for the title of these articles: Nimrod - The Rebellious Panther (leopard). This is by no means all the authoritative evidence which links Osiris and Nimrod; I cite it as an illustration of how we arrive at the answer to the question. In Egypt Nimrod is Osiris. In Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia and Palestine, Nimrod is Tammuz. Nimrod was also worshipped as Bacchus. Nimrod was worshipped as Adonis. And now, what fundamental thing do Osiris, Tammuz, Bacchus and Adonis have in common? (To mention but four) First, they all died a violent death. Osiris’ body was cut to pieces and its parts scattered throughout the country. In the last article I quoted a part of Ishtar’s lamentation for Tammuz: "Thou wast cruelly (violently) taken away." The symbol of Bacchus was the "spotted fawn." The devotees of Bacchus tore an image of a spotted fawn to pieces as a symbol of how Bacchus died. Adonis was the famous Huntsman, for whose death Venus made bitter lamentations. The violent death of a person of vast power and influence! Followed - in Babylon, in Assyria in Phoenicia, in Palestine - by bitter weeping and lamentations! You can’t take all that for granted. Behind all of that there is a fact of vast consequences. Nimrod died a violent death. Nimrod came to an untimely death. What was responsible for the violent, untimely death of this mighty wicked man? What were the immediate results? To take the first step toward the answer, let us turn to SHEM. In that ancient world the name of Shem, the first son of Noah, was as mighty on the good side as Nimrod’s was on the wicked side. Shem lived 502 years after the flood (Genesis 11:10-11). Shem saw the flood, came through the flood, stepped from the ark into a de-populated world, saw the rise and career of Nimrod, saw the death of Nimrod: what a book Shem could write! What a relief it must have been to his lonely soul when he finally reached the shore where the hailstones and fireshowers never beat! Before the flood, through the flood, and 502 years beyond it! The name of Shem was a mighty name. I have only to remind you that Shem is Sem, from whom descended the Semites. The black-haired, long-bearded Semites soon predominated over the Sumerians, the earliest of the Babylonian peoples. The Semites are found on the northern Babylonian scene as early as 3800 B.C., and it is known that they were the predominant people as early as 2500 B.C., and perhaps earlier. Who were the two great peoples? The Hamites and the Semites. Who was head of the Hamites? Nimrod. Who was head of the Semites? Shem. Sem (I shall thus refer to him to the end) received a distinct blessing from Noah, who spoke as a prophet. "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem . . ." Sem means ’name’. Sem was a mark of greatness. This, Nimrod and his crowd knew at Babel " . . . let us make US a name" (a Sem). What is the name of the most fabulous woman of that world? It is Semiramis, of whom Nimrod’s wife was the grand original. Indeed, Semiramis is said to have been the name of Nimrod’s wife. "Let us make us a Sem." Semiramis. They all knew and understood that Sem was a great and lofty name. They all understood that Sem was a name associated with the true worship of the one and only GOD. When they took that name to themselves and perverted it, they knew what they were doing. - just as the atheistic, cold-blooded Communists know what they are doing in this country when they take to themselves the name of Abraham Lincoln. It’s an old game. Sem knew all about the promise given to Adam and Eve, the promise of the Deliverer. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman; and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). Sem understood this promise. Nimrod knew all about this promise, and he understood its implications. There is an abundance of evidence that the whole ancient world understood it. Which is nothing to be wondered at, if Adam and Eve understood it; and if it was handed down from father to son, as it certainly was. Nimrod knew Sem. Sem knew Nimrod. Nimrod knew what he (Nimrod) was doing, and Sem knew what Nimrod was doing. What was Sem doing all the time that Nimrod was conquering the earth and leading its inhabitants to rebel against GOD? You don’t think that a man with the name, power and influence of Sem was doing nothing, do you? GOD has never left Himself without a great and powerful witness. We know how actively Noah, Abraham and Job witnessed to GOD in that ancient time. Should we conclude that Sem did less? Isn’t the fact that the Semites soon became the predominating people of the Babylonian world, a testimony to the activity, power and influence of their head? What is more logical and reasonable than to affirm that all through his mighty and wicked career, Nimrod had a great and resourceful opponent in Sem? Nimrod established a monarchy, organized empires, organized the people around him as the center. Are we to conclude that Sem had less sense, less energy and less courage than Nimrod had (although Sem’s weapons were spiritual!) Has there ever been an age when GOD did not "lift up a standard" against the Devil? GOD is not less active than the Devil. Abel was not less active than Cain - to go back to the very beginning. For the technical evidence that has been cited to the effect that Sem ultimately prevailed over Nimrod, and that Nimrod was judicially put to death, I return to Hislop. We have seen that Osiris and Tammuz came to violent deaths. Concerning the death of Tammuz, Hislop quotes Maimonides: "When the false prophet (note "false prophet") named Thammuz preached to a certain king that he should worship the seven stars and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, that king ordered him to be put to a terrible death. On the night of his death all the images assembled from the ends of the earth into the temple of Babylon, to the great golden image of the Sun, which was suspended between Heaven and earth. That image prostrated itself in the midst of the temple, and so did all the images around it, while it related to them all that had happened to Thammuz. The images wept and lamented all the night long, and then in the morning they flew away, each to his own temple again, to the ends of the earth. And hence arose the custom every year, on the first day of the month Thammuz, to mourn and weep for Thammuz." In that legend three significant facts stand out: Tammuz (of course also Thammuz) was (1) a "false prophet," and (2) he was put to a terrible death by (3) "a certain king." Which means that a ringleader of apostasy was judicially put to death. Hislop cites a second piece of evidence. There was Hercules. The most primitive Hercules was known in Egypt as having, "by the power of the gods" fought against and overcome "the Giants." Who are "the Giants"? In the fifth article of this series, I quoted no less an authority than Professor Thayler Lewis as saying that it was probable that what took place at the Tower of Babel was the foundation of the famous myths of the war of the Titans and the war of the Giants, and that they were one and the same. Here is what Professor Thayler, who was known as one of the ablest and most learned classical scholars of America, said: "The more carefully the peculiar language of this Babel history is considered, and especially its Heaven-defying look, the more probable will appear the view, supported by Bryant, which regards it as the origin of the heathen fable of the war of the giants against the gods. The war of the Titans was probably the same, though it appeared as a duplicate of the event in Greek mythology." That is pretty good evidence as to the origin of the Giants and the Titans. If "the Giants" and "the Titans" were Nimrod and his followers, who was most likely the Hercules who "by the power of the gods" fought against and overcame "the Giants"? In view of what has already been cited as to the name, the influence and power of Sem, who but he? And here I want to quote a passage from Hislop: "If ’Sem’ then, was the primitive Hercules, who overcame the Giants, and that not by mere physical force, but by ’the power of God,’ or the influence of the HOLY SPIRIT, that entirely agrees with his character; and more than that, it remarkably agrees with the Egyptian account of the death of Osiris. The Egyptians say, that the grand enemy of their god overcame him, not by open violence, but that, having entered into a ’conspiracy’ with seventy-two of the leading men of Egypt, he got him into his power, put him to death, and then cut his dead body into pieces, and sent the different parts to so many different cities throughout the country. The real meaning of this statement will appear, if we glance at the judicial institutions of Egypt. Seventy-two was just the number of judges, both civil and sacred, who, according to Egyptian law, was required to determine what was to be the punishment of one guilty of so high an offense as that of Osiris, supposing this to have become a matter of judicial inquiry. In determining such a case, there were necessarily two tribunals concerned. First, there were the ordinary judges, who had the power of life and death, and who amounted to thirty; then there was, over and above, a tribunal consisting of forty-two judges, who, if Osiris was condemned to die, had to determine whether his body should be buried or no, for, before burial, every one after death had to pass the ordeal of this tribunal. As burial was refused him, both tribunals would necessarily be concerned; and thus there would be exactly seventy-two persons under Typho the president, to condemn Osiris to die and to be cut in pieces. What, then, does the statement amount to, in regard to the conspiracy, but just to this, that the great opponent of the idolatrous system which Osiris introduced, had so convinced these judges of the enormity of the offense which he had committed, that they gave up the offender to an awful death, and to ignominy after it, as a terror to any who might afterwards tread in his steps. The cutting of the dead body in pieces, and sending the dismembered parts among the different cities, is paralleled, and its object explained, by what we read in the Bible of the cutting of the dead body of the Levite’s concubine in pieces (Judges 19:29), and sending one of the parts to each of the twelve tribes of Israel; and the similar step taken by Saul, when he hewed the two yoke of oxen asunder, and sent them throughout all the coasts of his kingdom (1 Samuel 11:7). It is admitted by commentators that both the Levite and Saul acted on a patriarchal custom, according to which summary vengeance would be dealt to those who failed to come to the gathering that in this solemn way was summoned. This was declared in so many words by Saul, when the parts of the slaughtered oxen were sent among the tribes:, ’Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.’ (1 Samuel 11:7) In like manner, when the dismembered parts of Osiris were sent among the cities by the seventy-two ’conspirators’ - in other words, by the supreme judges of Egypt, it was equivalent to a solemn declaration in their name that ’whosoever should do as Osiris had done, so should it be done to him; so should he also be cut to pieces.’" After I had finished copying the above passage, it occurred to me for the first time that there might be some connection between the manner of Nimrod’s death and that of the death of the prophets of Baal. The grand original of Baal was Nimrod. "And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there" (1 Kings 18:40). Certainly Elijah had learned somewhere that death by the sword was the penalty to be visited upon the apostates who were turning the people from GOD to the Devil. Nimrod died - but his influence did not die. It is more powerful in the world today than it ever has been, and it is heading for a great climax. ~ end of chapter 9 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 10-CHAPTER TEN - THE BABYLONIAN RIVER ======================================================================== CHAPTER TEN - THE BABYLONIAN RIVER The Mississippi river is one of the greatest rivers in the world. It is 2,350 miles long. It is the "main stem" of a vast system that drains an area of 1,244,000 square miles. The Mississippi is a part of the life of two provinces of Canada and 31 states. The Mississippi draws to itself rivers from east and west: from the east, the St. Croix, the Chippewa, the Wisconsin, the Rock, the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, the Ohio, the Yazoo, and the Big Black; from the west, the Minnesota, the Iowa with the Cedar, the Skunk, the Des Moines, the Missouri, the St. Francis, the White, the Arkansas, and the Red. The Mississippi becomes muddy and turbulent when it swallows up the muddy Missouri. Something definitely happened there above St. Louis. It changed the whole character of the Mississippi. The Missouri is called the Mighty Mo. It is angry, muddy, rebellious. For 200 years we have been wrestling with the Mississippi river in an effort to restrain it from devouring lives and property. It has always devoured and destroyed. To appease its anger and gratify its demoniacal whims, the Mississippi has often, without warning, cut itself a new channel. The French built a levee at New Orleans in 1717. Since then an almost continuous line of levees have been built from New Orleans to Memphis. But this made the muddy river angrier than ever; and in 1927 his pent up wrath broke out into a flood of national disaster. We now think that we have the Mississippi under control. But he knows that an earthquake at the right place at the right time, will show the world whether or not he is under control. The Mississippi will have its muddy turbulent, destructive climax. It knows that floods and earthquakes in divers places will someday unite their hellish strength and destructive powers with his. In that day, his beastly mouth will be a thing of great wonder. The seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation are two of the greatest chapters in the Bible. They are not two chapters, but one chapter. They are climacteric chapters. They are the mouth of the great Babylonian river of religion, politics, and commerce. Having its source in the Garden of Eden, this river gathered to itself at ancient Babylon the foul, muddy waters of Nimrod’s organized rebellion against GOD. For these hundreds of years it has gathered to itself tributaries from all lands and tongues. Roman Catholicism flows into it. Corrupt Protestantism flows into it. All the cults flow into it. All the "Father Divines" and "Prophet Joneses" flow into it. All the streams of Machiavellian politics enter into it. All the streams of heartless, soulless commerce enter into it. The seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation are the mouth of the great Babylonian river. It is the Mystery river, the Whore river. This river has always devoured and destroyed. For these centuries continuous efforts have been made to restrain it. Abraham, Moses and the prophets built levees to control it. The Apostolic Church, the Reformation, the revivals under the Wesleys, the Great Awakening, the great modern revivals, the foreign mission enterprise, the American Bible Society, the tract societies, the thousands of local churches - Despite it all, this Babylonian river, aided by war and famine and fear, is today devouring the earth. Today it is wider, deeper, angrier, more mysterious and more vicious than ever before. It is approaching its great and vast and awful climax described in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation. This is a Babylonian river, not a Roman river. This is a universal stream, not a Roman stream; Rome is a tributary, not the main stream. The whole world is involved, not just the Roman world. The Harlot is the universal Babylonian harlot, not her Roman Catholic daughter - whose influence is not universal, but confined to 400 million people. The "great city" of the Harlot is the universal (rebuilt) city of Babylon, not the Catholic city of Rome. Why is it that we have had, and are now having so many awkward, conflicting interpretations of these two chapters? As an example, listen to the words of that remarkable expositor and orator, J.A. Seiss, on the thirteenth chapter of Revelation: "Who and what is this Beast (in Rev. 13), with two horns like a lamb; Carrying it to the leading commentators for solution, very confused and contradictory are the answers given. Out of some forty whom I could name, one-half say this Beast is the Pope, or the papacy, or the papal kingdom, or the Roman clergy, or the spiritual Roman Empire, or the various orders under the papacy; whilst no one of them is able to define just exactly what he does mean; for the theory falls so short of the record that it is continually breaking down in the hands of its defenders. The other half give nearly as many different applications as there are writers. Sir Isaac Newton thinks the Greek Church is that beast. Galloway thinks the French Republic is intended. Fysh thinks it means the Jesuits. Mulerius thinks it refers to the Roman theologians. Hengstenberg thinks it means the earthy carnal wisdom, including the heathen philosophies, false doctrines, and the like. Waller says it is ’the evil which arises in the Church of CHRIST.’ Stuart says it is the heathen priesthood. A nameless writer maintains that it is none other than the principles of the inductive philosophy, the mechanical arts, the mechanical forces. Gebhardt holds that witchcraft and soothsaying, the heathen religion as divination and magic, is meant. Whilst a large number of writers interpret both these Beasts, as well as the image which the second causes to be made of the first, as really one and the same thing, denoting only different aspects of the Romish Church, or the papal system." We have all this trouble with these chapters because men try to make of Rome the main stream instead of a tributary. They regard the mouth of these two chapters as the mouth of Rome instead of Babylon. You simply cannot localize the thirteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation. The language will not permit you to do it. I think one of the chief reasons why some expositors have such a limited interpretation to these two chapters, especially the seventeenth, is because of the limited interpretation they give to Daniel’s prophecy of the fourth Beast (kingdom). Here are Daniel’s familiar words: "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter’s clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." (Daniel 2:40-44) Some expositors limit this prophecy to the Roman Empire. When you ask them at what stage of the empire’s history they mean when they say the Roman Empire, they generally - and not very positively - say that as the empire was in the days of Trajan. Why the empire of Trajan? Why not that of an earlier stage? or later? They say that Daniel’s prophecy, that the fourth Beast will ultimately be organized into a ten-fold kingdom, peremptorily implies that the Roman empire as it existed under the Caesars will be revived and organized into that ten-fold form. They say that in Revelation 13 we have a further prophecy of the revival of the Roman Empire. "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast" (Revelation 13:3). That beast is not a man, but a state, so they say. To be sure, it is pretty vague; but anyhow, so we are told, this resurrection means the resurrection of the Roman Empire, not the resurrection of a man. With all this emphasis on the Roman Empire, anybody can see with what prejudices and preconceived notions such expositors will come into the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation. Anybody can easily see how these expositors, when they come to these chapters, will be unable to see anything but the Roman Catholic church and the city of Rome. That is the reason why out in California a good man is still chasing Benito Mussolini, although the scoundrel was hung up dead by his heels to a steel girder of an unfinished filling station in Milan. This interesting man practically says that unless he can get Mussolini back to life, Daniel’s fourth Beast is going to be without a head. As a matter of fact, this California expositor has already got Mussolini back to life; to hear him tell it, the bull-necked Italian is already in South America. In just what form, the brother is not too positive; probably in the form of some kind of modern gas. And they say that Bible expositors are dull! Now I am convinced beyond any doubt that Daniel’s fourth Beast BEGAN with the Roman Empire. I am further convinced that the Roman Empire minutely fulfilled Daniel’s prophecies of this Beast clear down to the division - symbolized by the two legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s image - between east and west. But from there on, my mind is impressed with universality. I believe all of Daniel’s prophecies will be fulfilled, and in detail. I believe that when the LORD comes to establish His own kingdom, the world will be politically organized, as Daniel says it will. But I do wonder if this fourth Beast of Daniel is necessarily limited to the Roman Empire. I know of no sound reason to believe that the Roman Empire must be "revived" before these prophecies can be completely fulfilled. In the first place, it is well to remember the simple fact that Daniel did not call this fourth Beast the Roman Empire; he called it the fourth Beast. In the second place, the whole western world is a part of this fourth Beast. This Beast has never yet died, and you can’t resurrect something that hasn’t died. From where did we get our classics? From where did we get our basic ideas? We got them from Rome. (Rome got them from Greece, and Greece got them from Babylon.) If you should delete from our law books all Latin phrases, you couldn’t try a bootlegger before a magistrate in the Georgia hills. In the third place, this fourth Beast, it is true, is symbolized by iron. But in the context literal iron is incidental; it is the iron of totalitarianism that is emphasized. In the fourth place, this fourth Beast is not only symbolized by iron, it is also symbolized by clay. Clay is not much of a symbol of the empire of the Caesars - even in the days of Trajan. In the fifth place, clay is a symbol of democracy. Democracy doesn’t very well fit as a symbol of the empire of the Caesars even in the days of Trajan. In the sixth place, the language of this fourth Beast (as in the two chapters of Revelation) is universal and cannot be confined to the Roman Empire: (a) Iron and clay (totalitarianism and democracy) are not confined to the territory of the ancient Roman Empire; they are universal. All over the world iron is crushing to pieces, and clay is breaking to pieces. Was Rome ever the totalitarian power that Soviet Russia is? (b) " . . . they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men . . ." (Daniel 2:43) That is certainly universal. (c) "they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." (Daniel 2:43) You will have a job on your hands if you try to confine such a universal idea as that to the territory of the ancient Roman Empire. Nebuchadnezzar’s image begins with Babylon; it includes Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. But I raise the question of whether Rome (the fourth Beast) is necessarily limited to the territory of ancient Rome. I should say in this connection that I believe that there are going to be three great confederations of nations in the last days of this age. I think one of them will include most of the states of the ancient Roman Empire; but I know of no reason for excluding from that confederation other states, including the naive United States. I believe there is going to be a mighty confederation headed up by Soviet Russia, which will include, before it is all over, all of Germany. I believe there will be an Asiatic confederation. But I believe there is going to be, ultimately one world, with one master, with one city - BABYLON. A greater than Nimrod is coming to town, and he is going to build a greater Babylon than Nimrod built, and he is going to become master of a greater area than Nimrod’s Babylonian-Assyrian world. ~ end of chapter 10 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 11-CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE WOMAN ======================================================================== CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE WOMAN As I stated, in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation, the turbulent Babylonian river of religion, politics and commerce comes to its vast climax. It is such a climax that when the inspired pen of the aged John recorded it as prophecy, he "wondered with great admiration." (Revelation 17:6) In those two chapters, as I have stated before, two statements particularly have disturbed my thought: the woman sitting upon the scarlet colored beast, and the mystery. I never have been able to take either or both for granted. What lies behind them? What is the philosophy of them? Why are they always together? Why is the woman the symbol of "that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth"? (Revelation 17:18) Today I shall confine myself to the woman; next week, I shall discuss the mystery. I am not here today to argue the question, nor to explain it, nor to apologize for it. I am here today to say that woman always has been, is today, always will be the most powerful force on this earth, for good or evil. Her powers are more mysterious than sunlight, her charms more alluring than Arabia’s perfumes, her voice more persuasive than the strains of a great music, her presence more desired than shade and water in the desert. Go back to that far Eden time. The voice of the CREATOR falls upon the ear of Adam, and he rises with a dignity, a majesty, a splendor, a shining glory and intelligence that Gabriel in flight never knew. Clothed in light, the currents of immortality flow through his veins, and his lungs breathe the pure life of spotless holiness. The infinite CREATOR has breathed into him His own infinite likeness. But even so, Adam is a lonely man. GOD Himself says so. He is incomplete. And what a phrase, in the circumstances, that is. "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18) - ALONE in Eden? ALONE although in full fellowship with GOD? ALONE although the lord of all the earth? "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him." (Genesis 2:18) And she came forth, not from his head - as the old fellows used to say - not from his feet; she came forth from his side. She emerged bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, love of his love. I digress for a moment. Let men ridicule as they will, I don’t hesitate to affirm that the personality of Satan is as basic to the Christian system of truth as the personality of the SON of GOD. I don’t hesitate to affirm that Satan, while not omnipotent, nor omnipresent, nor omniscient, is the most powerful being in the universe of GOD with the exception of the Triune GOD. Consider the question in the light of CHRIST. In the wilderness our LORD’s temptation was subjective or objective; if subjective, He had sin within Himself, and He is not a SAVIOUR. Apart from the personality of Satan, the entrance of sin into the world makes no sense. The materialists are right. In the materialistic system there is no place for sin (or morals) to enter. Without sin, there never was any reason for the Incarnation, nor for Calvary, nor for the Open Tomb to vindicate the Incarnation and Calvary. If the third chapter of Genesis is fable, then the logic is on the side of the materialists and the Modernists when they reject the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection; there never was any premise of them. I don’t claim to be a scholar. I never have. But I have enough sense to know that the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are the three most tremendous facts of history. And I have enough sense to know that behind them there must be, on the bad side, an equally tremendous fact of all the literature I have read, I have never found that fact except in the third chapter of Genesis. So far as I have the capacity to evaluate and appraise, I say that the third chapter of Genesis is the premise of the whole Christian system of truth. If that chapter falls, the whole system falls with it. And to reject the personality of Satan, is to make fable of the third chapter of Genesis. To reject the personality of Satan is, logically, to reject the deity of CHRIST. And this is exactly what such men will, ultimately, do. This is what the materialists and Modernists have done. And the logic, as I have already said, is on their side. And now back to woman. If Satan when "going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it" (Job 1:7) took note of Job, you can be sure that he took note of the creation of Adam. And if you know anything about the penetrating, analytical, philosophical mind of that wonderful person, you can be equally sure that these words "it is not good that the man should be alone," (Genesis 2:18) reverberated in clear accents to the remotest depths of Satan’s being. "Ah, alone." What a word is that - alone! And Satan was looking on when woman emerged. Lucifer had the capacities to understand and appreciate what had happened when Eve in all her mysterious glory and appeal stood beside Adam. He himself was the "son of the morning." (Isaiah 14:12) He was in Eden before Adam came forth, and he had "walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire." (Ezekiel 28:14) He would, long ages afterward, create a Tyre and make Jerusalem yield to it as "the gates of the people." (Ezekiel 26:2) I don’t for a moment doubt that Satan pondered with a great wonder all he saw on those sublime days. And I don’t for a moment doubt that his philosophical mind analyzed and appraised and evaluated it all as the first step in wrecking it all. Not good to be alone. The woman. He wasn’t long in coming to the conclusion that if he could get the woman, he would get the man. He knew that the man would follow the woman. He knew that the man would rather be on the outside of Eden with the woman than be on the inside without her. He knew that the man would rather dwell among the thorns with her than dwell in Paradise without her. Satan was right. Man did follow the woman. He always has followed her. He follows her today. He will follow her to the end of the trail; and there at her bier he will grieve himself into eternal sleep. Neither theologians, philosophers or scientists are able to explain the power woman has over man. It is one of the sublime mysteries of life. You take from the great music all the notes inspired by woman, and you will have nothing left but the tinkling cymbal and sounding brass of technique. All the soul and spirit will be gone. Take from literature all the Sarah’s, and Rebeccas, and Esthers, and Ruths, and Hannahs, and Marys, and Cordelias, and Guineveres, and Anna Belle Lees, and Helens. You would take away all its sweetness. Man himself cannot explain to you why it is that he loves one woman above all other woman; why that one woman is the light and soul and music of his life. She may be young, she may be old and thin, she may be in health, she may be an invalid, she may have money, she may not have enough money to buy her a wedding dress, she may be "suited" for him, she may not be "suited" for him, with her he may have to toil and labor, without her he might live in ease - No matter; in some wonderful mysterious way her spirit and face and voice have made him her prisoner, and he never wishes to be free. He may be a philosopher, and she may be simple; no matter, she to him is dearer than all philosophy. What is so strange in this world is that a man, otherwise resourceful, proud and independent, will become as a dependent child before a woman he deeply loves. The sun may shine ever so brightly and the birds may sing ever so beautifully; but if she withholds from him her smile and her voice, the world to him is a dark and dreary place. And if she will smile, if she will speak, all is well - thunder and hail storm and cold are but a fitting background and frame for her bright face. When is a man ever so dependent, ever so humble, ever so sincere, ever so yielding, ever so persistent as when he is trying to regain from her the smile and favor he has lost? He would crawl across a frozen mountain to regain it. No need to tell him that the world is full of women thousands of them more beautiful, more gifted, richer than she. Not to him. In all the world there isn’t but one - and she’s the one. Let theologians and philosophers and scientists explain that. I wish I had a record of the great and successful efforts in oratory, whether sacred or secular, women have inspired. In many cases the woman did not know she was doing it. Behind the most powerful and convincing discourses there has been a smile on a woman’s face. That smile did more than all the elocutionists ever did or ever could do. That smile did what no teacher ever did or ever could do. Let theologians and philosophers and scientists explain that. And let them explain this: At breakfast a man has a fuss with his wife. In the circumstances it is trivial. But his whole day is ruined. He goes down the street hoping that an automobile will hit him and send him to he hospital. He knows that she will be telephoned and that she will hurry there. He will hear her voice and feel the press of her hand. That will heal the pain. But being unable to get hit by an automobile without being guilty of a criminal act of willful negligence, he spends a large part of the day trying to figure out a way to get back in good graces with his wife without going back and confessing to her that he lost his temper. Loving her though he does, that’s hard on him. At last he has it. He telephones the Johnsons and tells them that he will pick them up at six for dinner at the hotel. He then calls his wife. He is in a great hurry. He just phoned to tell her that the Johnsons are going with them to dinner, and that he will be by after her at 6:15. He then hangs up the telephone in a hurry and leaves the office, so that he won’t be there when she calls back for further explanation and details. At 6:15 he is at the house with the Johnsons. She is all dressed, and smiling. It will cost him $10, in addition to the day’s misery. But it is money well spent. And so at ten o’clock they are back at home. The fuss has been forgotten. She is smiling. All is well again. He guesses that next time he will be more careful at breakfast - since anything can happen before ten o’clock in the morning, or after three o’clock in the afternoon. Yes, let the wise men explain all of that. The Bible certainly does exalt woman as no book on earth ever exalted her. It exalts her when it says that Adam himself was alone without her. It exalts her in the remarkable details it reveals of Sarah, Rebecca, and all the others I have already mentioned. The Bible places Rahab in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, while Solomon is kept out. The Bible says that a man should love his wife as CHRIST loved the church and gave Himself for it. Turn to that glorious chapter of Revelation, the twenty-first. There, descending from the purified heavens is a city, the composite of all the glories of all the temples, including Solomon’s and Ezekiel’s - multiplied a thousandfold. And when the inspired pen would convey to you something of that city’s jeweled light and glory, what does it tell you? It says to you that that city is "as a bride adorned for her husband." (Revelation 21:2) They shouldn’t forget that when they are talking and writing of the curse that woman has brought upon the earth. They should remember that John did not say that the New Jerusalem descending from Heaven was as Adam in all his Edenic glory; he said that it was like a bride. And on the bad side, behind the world’s sin and crime you find woman. Sin entered the world through her. Idolatry (as I shall show next week) began with her. Nebuchadnezzar went to Ishtar’s temple and worshipped her. Philosophers, scientists, statesmen, and soldiers have worshiped, and do worship, some woman. Four hundred million Roman Catholics practically worship the "Queen of Heaven," - which is not Mary, but Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod. The woman of Hollywood have done more to mould American life than all the other women of America. They have made divorce fashionable and adultery respectable. Woman is the heart and soul and spirit of the colossal advertising business. Whether you advertise a quart of whiskey, a glass of beer, an aspirin tablet or a cake of soap, you always do it against the background of a woman with alluring charms. Woman is the heart of the world’s commerce. Men want to make money to spend on woman. Take from world commerce the inspiration of woman, and you would have little left. Woman is in the background of nearly all the cults. Woman has established the greatest of them; in cults such as "Father Divine," woman furnishes the incentive. Where would the Mormons be without women? Woman is the heart of the world, good and bad, She is the heart of music, of drama, of literature, of religion, of politics: of commerce. She always has been. When Samson measured his strength against woman’s smile, Samson’s strength yielded. That was symbolic. The woman’s smile, not Samson’s strength, was decisive. It would seem that it is not too much to say that the world is at the mercy of a woman’s face and smile. The voice of a woman, not the hydrogen bomb, will be decisive. And now, to come back to Satan. If Satan was shrewd enough to wreck Eden and the world through woman, isn’t it the most reasonable and logical thing to assume that when this same Satan wishes to pervert the true religion with a counterfeit religion; when he wishes to substitute true worship with idolatrous worship, that he would do it through woman? Knowing, as he surely did and does know, that the whole world would expect the "seed of the woman" to ultimately bruise the serpent’s head, isn’t it reasonable to suppose that Satan would raise up his own woman and his own seed? If Satan began with woman, isn’t it reasonable to suppose that he would continue through woman? If Satan can use Cleopatra to lure men like Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony to the Nile, isn’t it reasonable to suppose that he would use woman to turn men from GOD? Knowing that Mother is the dearest word ever to fall upon the ears of the lonely sons and daughters of men, isn’t it the most logical and natural thing that Satan would make them believe that a "Queen Mother" was in the heavens above them all, remembering them with all the understanding, sympathetic love of their childhood days? In view of all this, why should it ever sound strange when one points out that the evidence points to Nimrod’s wife as the mother of the world’s idolatry, and that she is the grand original of the harlot of Revelation 17? Why should it sound strange that the evidence points to Nimrod and his wife as the original mother and child of the Madonna? More of this later when I discuss the mystery. ~ end of chapter 11 *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 12-CHAPTER TWELVE - BABYLON WILL BE REBUILT ======================================================================== CHAPTER TWELVE - BABYLON WILL BE REBUILT In these articles I have been dealing with mountain ranges, rivers, and highways. I have had neither the time nor the inclination to trace every footprint in the mountains, to explain every current of the rivers, to account for every side road leading from the highways. I may attempt some of that later on in a book. I have been dealing with the things that are clear (at least they seem so to me); and when I have finished with that, it is generally time to go to bed. Before I start here today, I want to thank Tribune readers all over this country, and in other countries, for all the encouragement they have given me in this series. I never dreamed they would be so interested. When I started out I thought I could get through with Nimrod in a half dozen articles; but here today is the fifteenth. And it may require one other. You have been wonderfully patient with me. History is personal. It originates in a person. It culminates in a person. The spiritual conceptions of Jacob culminated in the person of CHRIST. The materialism of Esau culminated in Herod who tried to murder CHRIST. Deliberate, premeditated, organized rebellion against GOD originated with Nimrod in Babylon. Nimrod was the antithesis of Abraham, and later on, Babylon was the antithesis of Jerusalem. The absolute monarchy and tyranny of Nimrod over the peoples of the Babylonian-Assyrian world will culminate in the absolute rule of Antichrist over all the peoples of the earth, including the United States. Antichrist will be Satan incarnate. Antichrist will be the "king of Babylon." ". . . thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon. . ." (Isaiah 14:4). (The context clearly shows that the "king of Babylon" is ruling in the last days, not in the ancient days.) The Babylon of Antichrist will be a universal city. It will be MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH; It will be the great universal whore. "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18). It will be the most wonderful city of wickedness the world ever saw. It will be the climax of the religious, political and commercial wickedness of the earth. Its authority will be universal. Its destruction is described in great detail in Revelation 18. This means of course that Babylon is going to be rebuilt. The rebuilt city will not be called Babylon; it will be called Babylon the Great. Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was cheap compared to what Babylon the Great will be. Antichrist ruling the world from Babylon the Great will be the culmination of Nimrod, the first king of Babylon, ruling the earth from the original Babylon. "As it was, so shall it be." First of all, there are the objections of those who contend that it is fanaticism to talk about Babylon being rebuilt. (Of course it is not fanaticism to contend that Rome measures up to the universality of the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation; that is sound exposition.) What are these objections? 1. They say that the Bible clearly prophesies that the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar was to be completely destroyed and never to rise again. They cite as proof the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah 13:19-22 : "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when GOD overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged." 2. They say that in addition to these plain scriptures, there is another absolute proof that it is downright silly to talk about Babylon being rebuilt; namely this: The eighteenth chapter of Revelation calls for a sea near the Babylon of that chapter. "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea . . ." (Revelation 18:21). They say that this is conclusive proof in that chapter, because Rome has more water as well as more idols. 3. They say that there is no logical reason why Babylon should ever be rebuilt. They say that rebuilt Babylon has no philosophy, doesn’t make sense. They say that people talking about a rebuilt Babylon should throw away their typewriters and start out for the North Pole - and get shot on the way. "We are not divided; all one body we." As to OBJECTION 1. Those years in Isaiah say plainly that Babylon will be destroyed as when GOD "overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." I take it that any serious student of the Bible knows that Bible prophecy is definite. All the prophesies concerning the birth, life and resurrection of CHRIST were definite, even to the prophecy that not a bone of Him would be broken. When Isaiah says that Babylon will be destroyed as when GOD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, every Bible student must know that that means sudden and complete destruction (such as occurs in Revelation 18 - ". . . for in one hour is she made desolate"). Every student of history must know that ancient Babylon never was suddenly destroyed. When Cyrus captured Babylon on the night of Belshazzar’s famous feast, about 540 B.C., the city was not destroyed. As a matter of plain historical fact, most of the Babylonians did not know for days after that anything had happened. Babylon never has been destroyed as Isaiah says it will be destroyed. In the Persian world Babylon became a provincial city. In the empire of Alexander the Great Babylon was still a city - the city where that remarkable man died. In A.D. 66 there was a Christian church at Babylon. At the end of the fifth century the Jews issued the "Babylonian Talmud" at Babylon. At that time there were several universities at Babylon. In the tenth century we find Babylon still in existence. And in addition to all of that, there is there today the city of Hilla (or Hillah). This city has a population of 51,361. It is the capital of Hilla province. This city is almost wholly built of the very bricks which came out of the walls and buildings of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. (It is odd that so many of these dear brethren who talk about how they sat amidst ’the ruins of Babylon and read Isaiah’s prophecies’, and found them literally fulfilled not a snake or a bat for miles - it is odd that they never stumbled on a city of 51,000 people. Of course there are hundreds of square miles of ruins in the Babylonian-Assyrian world. You can sit down in a good many places in an area that size.) (You can always find what you are looking for.) Babylon never has been suddenly destroyed; it deteriorated. Of course the prophesies have been partially fulfilled. There is a great difference between ancient Babylon and Hillah. Joel’s prophecy of Pentecost was partially fulfilled in Jerusalem. But Joel says there is to be a greater Pentecost than Peter saw. Bible prophecy is not fulfilled until it is completely fulfilled. OBJECTION 2. The Babylon of the eighteenth chapter of Revelation calls for a sea. This rules out a rebuilt Babylon on the site of ancient Babylon. You don’t have any sea. That should settle it. (Of course Rome is 16 miles from the sea.) "Prophecy Monthly" (April, 1952) cited some remarkable words by Brig. Gen. F.D. Frost, which the general had written for another magazine. With due credit to the general and "Prophecy Monthly," here are the words: "A great hollow in the desert (of Iraq) is being prepared to take the flood waters of the Euphrates which will be preserved by a large dam instead of being allowed to flow back into the river down stream. This inland sea will be about 100 miles long. "It may become the greatest seaplane port in the world, when the new Babylon will be built on the shores of this inland sea." And hasn’t Houston, Texas brought the sea up to its door, until Houston is the second (I believe) seaport in the United States. (And in the Bible isn’t even Galilee called a sea?) There will be a plenty of water; Rome and the Holy Papa don’t have it all. OBJECTION 3. They say the talk about Babylon being rebuilt doesn’t make any sense to anybody who has any sense. Let’s see. Sometime ago Dr. Wilbur M. Smith in a splendid article in Moody Monthly quoted a passage on Babylon from Arnold Toynbee’s "Civilization on Trial." Mr. Toynbee, as most of you know, is generally regarded as one of the foremost contemporary philosophers of history. I got Mr. Toynbee’s volume and turned to the page cited by Mr. Smith, I found that Mr. Smith, as is generally true of him, had accurately quoted Mr. Toynbee. I wrote to Mr. Toynbee’s publishers, the Oxford Press, and asked their permission to quote this passage, along with a passage on the page preceding that referred to by Mr. Smith. The publishers generously granted me the permission. Here are Mr. Toynbee’s words as they appear in his volume "Civilization on Trial" (Oxford University Press), pp. 92-93: "In the air age the locus of the centre of gravity of human affairs may be determined not by physical but by human geography: not by the layout of oceans and seas, steppes and deserts, rivers and mountain-ranges, passes and straits, but by the distribution of human numbers, energy ability, skill, and character. And, among these human factors, the weight of numbers may eventually come to count for more than its influence in the past. The separate civilizations of the pre daGaman age were created and enjoyed, as we have observed, by a tiny sophisticated ruling minority perched on the back of a Neolithic peasantry, as Sinbad the Sailor was ridden by the Old Man of the Sea. This Neolithic peasantry is the last and mightiest sleeper, before herself, whom the West was waked. "The rousing of this passably industrious mass of humanity has been a slow business. Athens and Florence each flashed her brief candle in the sleeper’s drowsy eyes, but each time he just turned onto his side and sank to sleep again. It was left for modern England to urbanize the peasantry with sufficient energy on a large enough scale to set the movement traveling round the circumference of the Earth. The peasant has not taken this awakening kindly. Even in the Americas he has contrived to remain much as he was in Mexico and the Andean Republics, and he has struck new roots on virgin soil in the Province of Quebec. "Yet the process of his awakening has been gathering momentum; the French Revolution carried it on to the Continent; the Russian Revolution has propagated it from coast to coast; and, though today there are still some fifteen hundred million not yet awakened peasants - about three-quarters of the living generation of mankind - in India, China, Indo-China, Indonesia, Dar-al-Islam, and Eastern Europe, their awakening is now only a matter of time, and, when it has been accomplished, numbers will begin to tell. "Their gravitational pull may then draw the centre-point of human affairs away from Ultima Thule among the Isles of the Sea to some locus approximately equidistant from the western pole of the world’s population in Europe and North America and its eastern pole in China and India, and this would indicate a site in the neighborhood of Babylon, on the ancient portage across the isthmus between the Continent and its peninsulas of Arabia and Africa. The centre might even travel farther into the interior of the Continent to some locus between China and Russia (the two historic tamers of the Eurasian Nomads), and that would indicate a site in the neighborhood of Babur’s Farghana, in the familiar Transoxanian meeting-place and debating ground of the religions and philosophies of India, China, Iran, Syria, and Greece." And so The prophecies of Isaiah (and Jeremiah) call for a rebuilt Babylon. The universality of the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation call for a city that the world never has had, does not now have. The gravitational pull of the modern (wicked) world is toward a new center. That center seems to "indicate a site in the neighborhood of Babylon." And, finally, why should anyone think it strange that Babylon will be rebuilt? Hasn’t the whole Middle East come alive? Hasn’t Jerusalem, after 2,000 years of desolation, again become one of the most important capitals of the world (and will become the most important land on earth)? Hasn’t Persia (Iran) come back to life? Hasn’t Iraq (Babylon) already come back to life? Aren’t there mighty stirrings in Egypt? Isn’t the Middle East today the very center of the life of the world? Why should it seem strange that the Middle East will once again have a center such as it had in the ancient world? And since the world has already become a One World, why should it seem strange that this One World must have a One World capital? Why should it seem strange that this One World would want to bring all its religion, science, politics, commerce, licensed adultery, Spiritism, Unitarianism and theism into one great world capital? Hollywood has only a part of it. Radio City has only a part. The United Nations is amateurish. The One World needs its own city, with its own king, with its own godlessness. That city will rise up from the ruins of ancient Babylon. It will be Great Babylon. It will be the great whore. It will be the city which "reigneth over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18) (including the United States). It will be the Devil’s city. ~ end of chapter 12 ~ *** ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 13-CHAPTER THIRTEEN - CONCLUSION: GREAT BABYLON ======================================================================== CHAPTER THIRTEEN - CONCLUSION: GREAT BABYLON Babylon rises from the anarchy and distress and restlessness of Nimrod’s world. It is mentioned 297 times in the Bible - more than any other city except Jerusalem. Babylon is the theme of six long chapters in the Bible: Jeremiah 50-51; Isaiah 13-14 and Revelation 17-18. In Genesis Babylon’s tower is reaching into the heavens; in Revelation the destruction of Babylon reverberates to the ends of the earth. The world’s government, politics, religion, commerce, and idolatry originated in Babylon; they reach their climax in, and are destroyed with, Babylon. Babylon’s first king, Nimrod, hated GOD, ruled the earth in tyranny, and was destroyed. Babylon’s last king, Antichrist, will hate GOD, will rule the earth in tyranny, and will be destroyed. Look at the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar. Sir H. Rawlinson, no mean authority on Babylonian-Assyrian matters, said that Babylon was the site of the Garden of Eden (where Satan got his foothold in this earth). Ge. Rawlinson ("Five Great Monarchies") said that Babylon was probably the largest and most magnificent city of the ancient world. Babylon made a profound impression on Daniel. To Daniel, Babylon was "a tree in the midst of the earth" (Daniel 4:10) (it was the center of wickedness - as it will again be). The height was great. The leaves were fair. The fruit was much. The sight of it reached to the end of the earth. (Daniel 4.) Babylon was a universal city. In those days Babylon occupied an area of 200 square miles - more than twice the area of London, which occupies but 94.279 square miles. The city was built on both sides of the Euphrates river, in the form of a square. It was enclosed with a double row of high walls. The walls were 335 feet high. On those walls were 250 towers, and between the towers a four-horse chariot could turn. The walls were built of bricks. There were 100 gates, all of them brass. A moveable drawbridge, 30 feet high, supported on stone piers, spanned the Euphrates, and joined the two parts of the city together. At either end of the bridge was a palace. Nebuchadnezzar’s palace was on the east bank of the river. The palace was surrounded by three walls, the outmost wall being seven miles in circuit. The inner walls of the palace were decorated with hunting scenes. There were two gates of brass so heavy that they had to be opened and shut by machine. The hanging gardens remain to this day one of the wonders of the world. Nebuchadnezzar built them as a token of his love for his Persian wife. They were in the precincts of the palace. They were on top of a series of arches 75 feet high, and built in the form of a square. They were watered by water raised from the Euphrates with a screw. The temple of Belus was 606 feet high, and rested on a platform 200 yards each way. At the top was a shrine of the god. The shrine was occupied by three colossal images of gold. Before the image of Beltus were two golden lions. Near them were two enormous serpents of silver. There was a golden table 40 feet long and 15 feet broad. There was in Babylon an obelisk of gold, 90 feet high and nine feet broad. There was a reservoir 140 miles in circumference, and 180 feet deep. Babylon was a naval power, a military power, a manufacturing center, a city of commerce and trade. It was a city of wisdom and knowledge, a city of idolatry and magic. It was the city of the great eagle, the head of gold, the lion with eagle’s wings. Grand and stately, Babylon was the golden city in the land of Shinar. What is the philosophy of Babylon? Why is Babylon the mightiest wicked name of all history? Why does the Bible give it so much space? Why is it so central? Why is it so permanent? Why is it that this name will not die? There is something deep and profound about Babylon. What is it? You will never understand Babylon until you concede and appreciate and understand the personality and character of Satan. Before he was cast out of the presence of GOD, this person, perfect in wisdom and beauty, walked up and down in the midst of the stones of celestial fire. He was the prince of indestructible glory, and he lived in the midst of music. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:12-14). Come to Babylon. This "Lady of the kingdoms" was built for you. Here within her great walls you find sympathy and companionship. There is commerce and trade and wisdom. Your genius can be employed in something better than trying to find a GOD who doesn’t exist. When you have finished with business, there is the Babylonian twilight. Slender, sensuous, jeweled arms will be extended to you. There is perfume and purple and gold and scarlet. There is dancing and music. Here in Babylon you will find the "Queen of Heaven." She has the mother heart. She gathers into herself all the tender love and understanding and sympathy your mother had for you when she gathered you as a child into arms and lullabyed all the chill and fear out of your life. What an appeal to the withering hearts and spirits of the lonely sons and daughters of parents who themselves had been driven from a garden into a night of fear and pain - a night in which they saw one son murdered by their other; and then all their descendants but one family were drowned in the flood. The Devil knows how to appeal to loneliness and emptiness and pain and fear. Babylon was (and is) the Devil’s answer to an empty, lonely world. Babylon is Satan’s attempt to establish his own center in the earth as against GOD’s center - Jerusalem. The battle is for the earth. The Incarnation took place on earth. The Cross was erected on earth. Satan would make Babylon, not Jerusalem, the gravitational point. It all makes a great deal of sense. The periphery will be what the center is. Thus the age-old conflict between Jerusalem and Babylon. Since all history, good and bad, originates in persons and culminates in persons, we should not be surprised when the Bible tells us that the wickedness of this earth will culminate in the person of Antichrist ultimately reigning in Babylon, and that the good of this earth will culminate in the Person of Messiah reigning in Jerusalem (after Antichrist and his world have been destroyed). First, there are Antichrist and his Great Babylon. Last week I discussed the rebuilding of Babylon. Isaiah (chapters 13-14), Jeremiah (chapters 50-51) and John (Revelation 17-18) unite in giving us a detailed picture of that great city. It will be the greatest wicked city the world ever saw. "I will be like the most High." The Most High promised (in Genesis 3:15) a supernatural Deliverer. The Most High has a Messiah. The Most High has miracles and a Resurrection. The Most High has a center on earth - Jerusalem. "I will be like the most High." As true today as when he fell from among the stars. Babylon is Lucifer’s false and wicked refuge for the loneliness of mankind. In that far ancient time men were lonely, as they are today. They were profoundly conscious that something had happened, that they had been cut off from GOD. In their restlessness they crowded together. They yearned, as they do today, for something to fill up the emptiness and aimlessness of their weary lives. And they were afraid. A whole world had disappeared in a watery sepulcher, "unwept, unmourned and unknelled." "We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest, and rest can never find; Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife." Men and women didn’t originally go to the night clubs of Paris because they were necessarily wicked; they went there to try to find faces and voices and forms of music to fill up their empty, lonely lives. Babylon is the Devil’s answer to the loneliness of mankind. And none knows more of the hell of isolation and loneliness than he. None knows better how to appeal to the loneliness of mankind than he. Why continue in your misery? Why go on trying to find and know and worship and serve a GOD who drowned all your fathers? If there were a GOD, do you think He would be so cruel as to permit isolation and loneliness to wither your spirit? Why continue the tormenting suffering? How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously. "Babylon, that mighty city! ...The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble. And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. . . . that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! ...What city is like unto this great city! ...Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness!" (Revelation 18). Throughout the Bible the king of Babylon is presented to us in type, shadow and symbol. He is foreshadowed by Nimrod, the first king of Babylon. He is the "Assyrian." He is the "nail [that is fastened] in a sure place." He is the ultimate fool who "hath said in his heart, There is no God." Isaiah gives us a graphic description of him in chapter 14, Isaiah 14:1-20 : "For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou was made to serve. That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, everyone in his own house. But thou are cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned." I want to emphasize that those words were addressed to the king of Babylon, all of them. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north" All of that is addressed the king of Babylon - who is Satan incarnate. That king and that city will be the climax of the Devil’s One World. The Bible also tells us in great detail about Messiah and His city. You will find a detailed description in Ezekiel, chapters 40-48. First of all, they tell us that those chapters are figurative. How can we know whether they are figurative or whether they are to be taken literally. In the first place, they make no sense when taken figuratively. In the second place, the description GOD gave Noah of the Ark was to be taken literally. In the third place, the description that GOD gave Moses of the Tabernacle was to be taken literally. The description in these chapters of Ezekiel make as much sense as the description of the Ark given to Noah, as much sense as the description of the Tabernacle given to Moses. Why literalize the ark and spiritualize these chapters in Ezekiel? Why literalize the Tabernacle and spiritualize these chapters in Ezekiel? When Ezekiel speaks of a column 120 feet high, he very definitely does not mean a 120 feet of "heavenly principle" suspended over the earth during the Millennium. To me a 120 feet of literal column makes more sense than 120 feet of "heavenly principle." And they say that Bible expositors are dull! There is Messiah’s land. It will include all the territory from the Nile on the south to the Euphrates on the north, and all the land from the blue Mediterranean on the east to the Persian Gulf on the west. The city will be 144 square miles. There will be 3,600 square miles of suburbs. Messiah’s palace will be a mile each way. At the East Gate there will be columns 120 feet high. Messiah, with the marks of His Cross in the palms of His hands, in His side and in His feet, will enter through the East Gate. "And I heard him speaking to me out of the house; and the man stood by me. And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever . . ." (Ezekiel 43:6-7). They say this doesn’t make sense. It makes as much sense as Deity wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on a bed of straw, doesn’t it? If it makes sense for GOD to come to Bethlehem in the form of man, why doesn’t it make sense for GOD in Messiah come to Jerusalem? Some of the commentators are the dear fellows who don’t make sense. I can understand the Bible better than I can understand a lot of commentaries on the Bible. In the very center of Messiah’s city - which will be the very geographical center of the earth (as Jerusalem always has been) there will be an altar. It will be 24 x 24 feet, 14 feet high, resting upon a base 28 x 28 feet. This altar, erected in the geographical center of the earth during the Millennium, with the smoke of sacrifice spiraling toward the purified heavens, has perhaps been to Bible students the most puzzling thing in the whole Word of GOD. They simply cannot understand it. With sincere humility, and with respect for the speculations and conclusions of good men let us consider it. The altar is there. No doubt about that. Every truth in the Bible rests upon a solid philosophic foundation. There is no doubt about that. There must be sound philosophic reasons for this altar. The sacrifices offered in the Millennium differ fundamentally from those offered by Moses. There is no High Priest here. There is no Holy of Holies here. There is no Great Day of Atonement here. The offerings here are memorial offerings. They do not anticipate; they look back. They are a constant reminder of something that happened long before. These memorial offerings are not alone for Jews; they are also for the Gentiles (as are all the glories of the Millennium) who come into that city (As the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon’s city) to see that city and its King. That altar will remind the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, that something happened in the long ago. That altar will constantly remind those reigning with CHRIST (the Church) that something happened long ago. That altar, of course, will be a constant reminder of the Cross. It will be a constant reminder that all the glory and health and peace and happiness of the Millennium came out of the Cross of Messiah. Why, after all, should this sound so strange? What is the Cross? First of all, the Cross is the proof of GOD’s love for us. Apart from the Cross, there is not now, nor ever has there been, any convincing proof that GOD loves men. Nature does not prove it. The Cross is the physical proof of GOD’s love. "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us." There is no inspiration, no healing, no warmth, no hope in abstract love; only in the love that is demonstrated. And just here is the fatal weakness of Modernism. It is always talking about love, but it repudiates the only demonstration the world ever had of GOD’s love. In the second place, the Cross is the source of all our healing, our peace, our blessed fellowships, our inspiration and hope to go on living in the world. Bethlehem with all its sweet simplicity and charm, is not that source. The gentle slopes of Mount Olivet are not that source. The Temple with all its majesty and splendor, is not that source. The turquoise-tinted waters of Galilee are not that source. Let me attempt to gather the central truth of this Altar in my own personal experience, if I may be pardoned for doing so. Today I have hundreds of friends in this country and in foreign countries. I have seen hundreds of souls saved in my meetings. There are faces dearer to me than star or dawn. I know voices more inspiring than the notes of any great music. I am no longer afraid of GOD - as I once was - but know Him as my FATHER. The personality of CHRIST answers to all the yearning of my spirit. I am not afraid to live. I am not afraid to die - as I once was. I have the hope of seeing once again faces I long since saw go down into the grave, and of hearing once again voices that have long been silent. Despite the pain and loneliness and toil of the long journey, I believe it will end at the River of Water of Life. I believe there is continuity of all that is good and pure, and I believe there will be climax. From whence have I gotten all this? What is the source of all this health and hope and fellowship and joy? I never got it from Bethlehem, nor from Mount Olivet, nor from the Temple, nor from Galilee. I never got it when listening to a great music, nor when listening to a great oration. I never got it when studying in school. I never got it in my home. I never got it from my friends. I got it all at Golgotha. It was there, as I so well remember, that the haunting fears of my life departed. It was there that my burden, long borne, rolled from my weary heart. It was there that GOD ceased to be a terror to me. It was there that I was made conscious that I, even I, was the object of His compassion and His tender love and care. It was not the blue waters of Galilee, but the scarlet streams of His own royal blood that washed my guilt and shame away. If I may say so, I don’t think that in the Millennium - and in the new Heaven and the new earth - that Gabriel, bright and shining and splendid as he is, will ever stir me to worship and praise as will the Altar in the center of the earth - reminding me that all that I am seeing and hearing originated in Messiah’s Cross. I don’t think I shall ever grow tired of seeing the smoke ascend from the Altar. I don’t think that I shall ever become tired of seeing the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet. Even in the Millennium love, not glory, is the greatest thing in the world. It must be a demonstrated love. The physical Altar in the very center of the earth will be a constant reminder that the love we shall be talking about was demonstrated. I think the Altar in Messiah’s city and land makes a good deal of sense. And so I am no pessimist. We have, it is true, Babylon and her king. But we also have Jerusalem and her King. We have the Harlot on the Beast and we have - Messiah’s Altar in the center of the earth. ~ end of book ~ ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/smith-noel-nimrod-the-rebellious-panther/ ========================================================================