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account. Few have really under–
stood its import!
Why did God object to the
people having one language? And
why d id He not want them to be
"one"-that is, united?
God well understood the almost
unlimited capacity of the human
mind that He himself had created!
God in heaven knew that, if rebel–
l ious human bei ngs r ema ined
united, speaking one language, they
would pool their mental and physi–
cal resources- for
DESTRUCTJ VE
purposes!
It
was not that God objects to
man's having one language. He
knew, however, that
man would,
by
his accumulated knowledge, utterly
destroy the whole world and all
life- if He did not intervene- and
quickly!
So, mercifully, Almighty God in
heaven divinely intervened in the
affairs of manki nd on this earth!
It
became necessary for God to step
in and
confound
or
confuse
man's
language so that the different fami–
lies {which were later to become
tribes and natiens) would become
hopelessly
confused
and
divided
among t hemselves. As a conse–
quence, they would not, then, be
able to combine their scientific and
technological knowledge.
Had the C reator not intervened
and confounded man's language at
the Tower of Babel, men would
have raced along in the acquisit ion
of scientific knowledge. Mankind
would undoubtedly have advanced
in scient i fic a nd tec hno logical
knowledge to such a degree that
the nations would have discovered
how to use the atom before the
time of Christ.
God Almighty had ordained
cen turies before the even ts a t
Babel-in fact at the beginning of
the human race-that He would
let man follow his own codes of
ethics, devise h is own human pol–
itics and governments, establish
his own forms of rel igion and in
general, go his own way for 6,000
years. After wh ich, God would
send J esus Christ to this earth to
rescue manki nd from the brink of
world suicide and show man bow
to live a life of happiness, of
accomplis hmen t , of peace a nd
prosperity.
That divine act put an end to
8
mankind's
"one"
language after the
Flood. Man's unified efforts to
build the Tower of Babel was the
signal for Almighty God to inter–
vene and separate races and fami–
lies by giving each race and family
tbe la nguage that the Creator
wanted that particu\ar people to
speak.
The races and nations have
remained divided linguistically
ever since!
Now see
how
mankind began, in
the latter part of the 19th cent ury,
to try to undo God's work of con–
founding the language at Babel.
Esperanto
and Other
World Languages
Johann Martín Schleyer, a German
Roman Catho lic clergyman and
linguistic scholar, invented a uni–
versal language, called
Volapük.
He publisbed
Volapük
in 1880.
This world language was based
" partly on Eng lish," but alas, it had
inconsistencies and weaknesses and
so its adherents gave it up as a bad
language. It was rejected.
In 1887, a Russian J ew, Lazarus
Ludwig Zamenhof (Dr. Esperanto)
published bis now-famous work,
Esperanto.
T his artificially created
language was a mixture of Cont i–
nental Eu ropean languages- in–
cluded strong elements of Latín,
Ital ian, French, German, English,
Slavic; it has been referred to as
"bad
1
talian."
The Third Assembly o f the
League of Nations, in 1922, even
went so far as to endorse Esperan–
to.
During Wor ld Wars 1 and Il ,
Esperanto was used for política!
propaganda and underground activ–
ities.
lt
W;!S
employed by the Red
Cross and in the prisoner-of-war
camps.
But Esperanto has not proven to
be the language that the world was
look ing for. O thers have been
devised and failed.
Sorne bave advocated taking a
living language such as English,
French, Span ish, German or Rus–
sian and making that into an inter–
national language.
This would never work! Nation–
alistic jealousies and r ivalríes would
doom such an attempt to utter fai l–
ure.
But, believe it or not , a world
language-a universal tongue- is
coming, a nd soon er tha n t h e
nations imagine!
God Uses Different Languages
lt
is common knowledge that the
Scriptures were first inspired in the
Hebrew
language, with a few frag–
mentary portions being written in
Aramaic.
Though the Hebrew language is
expressive in many respects, yet it
has a limited native vocabulary in
contrast to the majar languages
today.
lt
was not the tongue that
Almighty God used as the too!
through which He would reveal to
mankind the mystery of the King–
dom of God, the Cospel or· Good
News of His soon·-coming King–
dom!
Greek
became the New Testa–
ment language God chose through
which H e revealed tbe Good News
of His Kingdom to the world.
God had allowed Alexander the
Great to spread tbe Greek language
and c u lture over mucb of the
known wor ld in tbe centuries
immediately preceding tbe birth of
J esus Christ. Greek had taken deep
root by the t ime of Cbrist and the
apostles. T he New Testament was
not only written in Greek, but
much of tbe preacbing of the apos–
tles, especially Paul, was done in
that language.
But the Greek language over the
centuries ceased to be a universal
language among literate peoples.
God Chose to Speak Through
Engllsh Today!
Strange as it may at first seem,
Almighty God rai sed up th e
English
language as H is chief
instrument through w hich He
would publish a nd proclaim the
Good News of His soon-coming
Kingdom to much of t be world- at
the close of this age! He is, of
course, using French, G erma n,
Spanisb, Dutch and Norwegian to
meet special needs.
But why primarily English?
Sorne years ago an expressive
writer put it in these vivid terms:
"Eng lish is currently the world's
most irresistible language ... flexi–
ble, expressive and relatively sim–
ple, Eng lish is circling the planet at
a phenomenal rate.
"Spoken as ... a second la n–
guage by hundreds of millions....
The PLAIN TRUTH