Building New Babels by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 23, 1911

Building New Babels

By C. M. S.

The lesson of the Babel tower has gone unheeded as far as the larger portion of humanity is concerned. That was a human plan for salvation. In smiting the top of that tower and dispersing its builders, God taught the world that human plans for accomplishing a divine purpose are worse than useless.

Every general, when he goes into battle, has his own plan of campaign. The plans of all others must conform to his; they must not be used unless they are a part of his plans. Anything else would bring confusion and disaster, and would not be tolerated for a moment.

All men recognize the wisdom of this arrangement in earthly affairs, and expect to conform to that condition when working for another. In spiritual affairs, however, we find many and great departures from that principle. It certainly is not unreasonable to suppose that the Saviour of the world has his own plan of salvation; yet how many ways have been invented by human beings for obtaining salvation, all of which are worse than useless! If there is a plan of salvation, it is one plan; it is God’s plan, and not men’s. God will save men according to his plan, not theirs. That plan is revealed in God’s Word, and plainly revealed; and, foreseeing that men would invent ways of their own for seeking salvation, Christ declared, “Every plant, which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” All human plans of salvation are such plants. They can accomplish nothing; they will be rooted up; they will carry to ruin those who have trusted in them in preference to the one plan of the Lord himself for saving men.

Men are to-day ignoring the inspired plans of God, and are trusting in their own

in spite of his plain warning: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” Ps. 146: 3. Some have even gone so far as to worship man; to pronounce him his own savior, encouraging him to look within himself for help and strength and salvation. Of this nature, too, are the cults and philosophies that are multiplying so rapidly at the present time. Under the glamour of human “knowledge” and “civilization,” men have gone farther and farther from God, turning to fables, philosophies, and traditions, and trusting in them. Everything that is outside the plan of God will perish. Human plans are outside the plans of God, and will perish when he brings again the harmony that sin has marred.

The antediluvians trusted in themselves rather than in God, and the flood came and swept them all away. The postdiluvians built a tower to save themselves from future floods, forgetting the promise of God that he would not again destroy the earth by a flood. So their Bab-ilu—“gate of heaven”—God turned into Babel—“confusion,” and he scattered to the four corners of the earth those who trusted in that human plan for salvation. The Jews finally came to put their trust in the cold forms of their temple worship. They forsook Him to whom the temple and its services pointed, and crucified him, and then God declared, “Your house is left unto you desolate,” and he rent the temple veil, and permitted heathen hands to destroy the temple in which they trusted.

Now the world is alive with human schemes for men to put their trust in, in preference to the God of our salvation. But they can not bring salvation; for there is no savior in them. They are simply Babels of modern make. We have condemned the heathen for trusting in their idols; but the inhabitants of enlightened and civilized lands are no better than the idol-worshiping heathen if they trust their souls’ eternal welfare to some human scheme, and turn their backs upon the plan of salvation that God himself has devised and guaranteed.

Now, when the world is full of philosophies and substitutes for God’s plan, it is time for us to make known and make prominent God’s purpose and plan. With one great religious denomination, which numbers its adherents at over two hundred millions, denying the Word of God to its members, and with the leaven of the infidelity of Higher Criticism eating like a cancer at the vitals of many of the other denominations, we can not be too earnest or too industrious in proclaiming to the world God’s last message of warning and of mercy. That message sets God before the people as the Bible reveals him, makes known his plan, in which there is assurance of victory and certainty of salvation, as against every plan of the human, every Babel tower of unbelief, in which there is certainty of nothing but disappointment, disaster, and death. The one is a plain message, unadorned, but savoring of life unto life. The other is filled with all the intricacies of the mysteries of iniquity, gaudy with the trappings of ostentatious display, but, like the whitened sepulchers of old, filled with dead men’s bones, and savoring of death unto death.

When the gates of the eternal city are about to swing open for the procession of the redeemed to enter in, it is well for the world that God declares his last message of warning and preparation in no uncertain language. That he has done in the third angel’s message; and with the responsibility for its proclamation we are charged. No such tremendous responsibility was ever placed upon any people in this world, and therefore none were ever so favored. While the people of this world are building Babel towers to be consumed—with their builders—in the fires of the last day, to us is given a message that will save not only those who give it, but those who receive it; in truth, an ark of safety that will save unto life eternal those who accept it. Soon the fires of God will wrap this world in their fierce embrace, and all that is mortal and earthly will be burned to ashes. Human plans will be forgotten, human glory will be seared like a charred leaf, human greed will pitch its hoardings to the moles and the bats, human strifes will vanish in the horror of impending judgment, human towers of hope will be forsaken, for “the great day of their wrath is come; and who is able to stand?”

Thank God, he has made it possible for men to stand even in that time. The way of escape has been provided. Under the shadow of the wing of the Almighty there is safety. It is even the time of trouble that is drawing nigh; but God has promised that his faithful shall be saved out of it. And they will not only be standing loyally for God and his truth in that time, but will be sounding the warning broadcast to a doomed world. That is our work, and whether we are deemed worthy of a place among God’s people on that day will depend upon how faithfully we have performed it.

C. M. S.