There is hardly any institution that gets better treatment in modern schoolbooks than the United Nations. In its beginning, many rich and famous people like Eleanor Roosevelt made it their cause, as some media figures like Ted Turner do today. Anyone who doubts the importance of uniting the nations as a means of ending war and saving the planet is considered a destructive, backwards agent in society.
Yet the ancient story of the Tower of Babel stands in stark contrast to the popular wisdom of today. The confusion of languages ought to serve as a warning, a proverbial lesson like Sodom and Gomorrah, about the dangers of men getting together as one great, global force. If that were to happen, the Bible warns, men would be able to do whatever was in their heart to do:
And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” 1Genesis 11:6
Once men feared such a day, knowing that power corrupts. As a wise man once said, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”2The entire quote from Lord Acton is, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This was written in reference to Acton’s futile struggle against Rome’s 1870 pronouncement of papal infallibility. Acton concluded his thought to Creighton with the words, “Great men are almost always bad men.” Were the whole earth under one authority, the corruption would be complete, unbearable, and unending. What other power on earth could end it? Would the Creator intervene again to frustrate their efforts, or would He leave men to their own devices this time? This is a chilling thought. It is appealing to some to think that a united mankind would use his combined creative genius for the common good, but history does not support that assumption very well. As Lord Acton also said, “And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”3 Wikipedia article, “John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton”
The simple fact is that the Creator divided man for his own good. Men once respected what was in the Bible and appreciated the distinctions among races and nations, understanding at some deep level that the Creator’s purpose for this age was the Divided Nations, not the United Nations.
Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood… From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations… These were the families of the sons of Noah… and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood. 4Genesis 10:1,5,32
So at that time our Creator segregated men according to their languages, their lands, and the three races of man that sprang from Noah’s sons. He knew this was their best opportunity to live according to their consciences, in places where each person knew who they were among their own people. The massive alienation that characterizes modern society was unknown in the not-too-distant past. Everyone, whether they chose to live by it or not, had a clear standard of right and wrong in the context of their culture. This was the kind intention of their Creator:
He made from one man [Adam] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek their Creator, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 5Acts 17:26-27
Multiculturalism is erasing the boundaries and cultural identities everyone once had. It is really “No Culture” — an increasingly bland and uniform society in which most people are without identity, not knowing who they are or why they are on the earth. The emerging One World Order will attempt through genetic engineering to master life, defeat death, and rewrite the instinctive knowledge that men have lived by for thousands of years. But there is one thing no one will be able to do under that system.
They will not be able to find their Creator.