ONLY eight persons survived the flood. These were carried over from the old world which had perished. This foreshadowed that the world then beginning is also to pass away, and that from this world shall many people be carried over to the new world, which shall then be established with the great Deliverer in charge; and these shall learn of him the way to eternal life. Noah and his family were living examples of God's power to save those who trust in him. Noah loved God and was faithful to him; and by the experience of the flood God was teaching his intelligent creatures that the wicked shall not flourish for ever but that they shall perish in his own due time, and that only the faithful will be blessed with life everlasting. This rule is stated by the prophet thus: "The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy." — Psalm 145: 20.

After the flood God began anew the work of populating the earth which he had created for man. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. . . . And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein." — Genesis 9:1, 7.

For 350 years after the flood Noah lived on the earth, and his children and grandchildren increased. Because

Noah loved and served God he would of course teach his children to love and serve the Lord as the only true and living God. Satan was responsible for the deflection of the sons of God who had left their first estate, violating the law of the Lord, and brought his indignation down upon them. Now he saw and realized what his wicked course had brought forth. After Satan had seen all the wicked ones of earth destroyed, and all of the angels who had left their first estate placed in prison, this should have been sufficient to teach him that he could not successfully fight against God. But he did not learn his lesson. Egotistical and arrogant he pursued his wicked course. While Noah was on the earth teaching his children and grandchildren to love and serve God, Satan made but little progress in seducing mankind.

Then Nimrod came upon the scene and became a mighty hunter of wild beasts. And now the Devil influenced the people to worship Nimrod. With Satan it was anything to turn the minds of the people away from the Lord Jehovah. Being a powerful spirit being Satan exercised his power by influencing the thoughts of men, by injecting into their minds evil thoughts. And this he did that he might again get complete control of the human race and turn them away from God.

It appears from the record that Satan's next attempt was to organize the people into one compact body or government, that he might with greater ease control and direct all the people according to his own selfish ways. The Scriptural record upon this point reads: "And the whole earth was of one language, and 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 us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." — Genesis 11: 1-4.

This was the first attempt after the flood on the part of the Devil to organize the people into a government or world power. A city is a symbolic expression referring to a government; and on the occasion above mentioned Satan induced the people to conclude that now they must build a city and a tower. They proceeded to do so. The Tower of Babel builded by the people at the instance of Satan was the Devil's defiance of Almighty God. Clearly this was his method of planting in the minds of the people the thought that they did not need God but that by their own efforts they could provide for their own kind of worship and their own uplift, and could save themselves when it was necessary — another wily scheme to turn them away from the true God. The Devil has not changed his methods even to the present time.

The building of the Tower of Babel by the people finds a parallel in the course pursued by the Evolutionists and Modernists. They say: "We do not need God, nor do we need a Savior. We do not need the Bible. Our wisdom exceeds the wisdom of all men of the past. We worship power and our own ability to accomplish our uplift." Thus the Devil, using the savants and self-constituted wise men, turns multitudes of people away from the true and living God.

From that time until now Satan has pursued a

similar policy of organizing the peoples of earth into world powers and through the instrumentality of a few men controlling the masses. He has succeeded in steeping them in ignorance of God's great plan of salvation and turning them away from the path that leads to life. He has implanted in the minds of the governing factors of the world powers greed and selfishness, enforced by the strong arm of the military, and frightened the people by the use of a false religious system to yield to the wicked influence of the governing factors.

God permitted the people of the plains of Shinar to go to the full limit of their folly. They were building this tower that they might make for themselves a name, which the Devil had induced them to believe would safeguard them from being scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Of course he would expect to hold them in the vicinity of the tower and the city, and to cause it to be a mecca or place of worship to which all the peoples of earth would look for instruction; and thus he would control them. He had almost succeeded now in turning the minds of the people away from God that they would no longer trust him. Satan no doubt thought that again he had won the victory over God and that now he would hold the people in subjection to himself and have their worship.

Then the Lord Jehovah took action for the benefit of mankind. Seeing Satan again turning the minds of the people away from him the Lord knew that they would completely fall under the hands of the adversary; and now he would give them a lesson to teach them that Satan was not the true God but that the Lord alone could help them. Here the record is that God came

down to see their organization and their power; and then, for the people's good he changed their language. It will he noticed in the Hebrew (Genesis 11: 1) that the people all had one lip. Their lip must have been shaped in the same general manner and they all spoke one kind of words.

The Lord, by the action which he now took, sought to teach man a lesson. "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: 5-9.

By this experience some of the people might begin to have thought that there is a great God who is above all and who is all-powerful. But would the people ever learn that they could not trust the Devil? Would they ever learn that the great Jehovah God alone can give everlasting blessings? Let us follow the history of the race and see.