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From Babylon to New Jerusalem

by

A T Jones

Part Three

Education in Babylon

(All the emphasis has been added by the Protestors)


 

Section 3

Babylon was not only the grand center of the world governmentally, but also mentally -- scientifically, educationally and intellectually, There was the great world-university, with King Nebuchadnezzar its grand patron. From the subject kingdoms, Nebuchadnezzar caused to be selected by examination tests, physical and intellectual, the brightest and ablest young men to be educated in the university of Babylon. Daniel 1:3-5. This, of course, was with the design of unifying all the world in all that was Babylon.

 

But this education was only of Babylon -- of the world, and while there was in it considerable that was valuable in the knowledge and proceedings of the practical things of the world, there was also in it that which bent all to superstition, to idolatry, and to Satanic manifestation. There was magic and astrology and sorcery and necromancy and stargazing and monthly prognostication and enchantment and soothsaying: and this all under the profession and claim of science and philosophy. These were the particularly "wise men" to whom all must defer.

But all of it was impotent for good, because there was in it nothing to strengthen character.

What it could produce, and this as its highest product, is told in the story that -- Belshazzar the King made a feast -- a grand banquet -- to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousand. He was the exemplar and set the pace in the drinking.

"And Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was at a Jerusalem. That the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein . . . And the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass and of iron, of wind [wood] and of stone. And in the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick, on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts affrighted him: so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one another. And the king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers . . . and all the king's wise men.

Daniel 5:1-8.

But none of these could tell anything: they were all as dumb as the king himself, on that. At last Daniel was found and brought in. And Daniel readily told him: "I will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation."

But before he said a word in the reading of the writing he recalled to the king some things that the king knew. He told him:

"The Most High God gave to Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from the kingly throne, and was driven from the sons of men. Till he knew that the Most High God ruled in the kingdom of men."

"And thou, his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this. But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of Heaven: And they have brought the vessels of His house before thee, and thou and thy Lords, and thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: then was the part of the hand sent from Him, and this writing was written."

Thus while King Nebuchadnezzar and his son and his son's son, in their pushing and magnifying the education of Babylon, that culminated thus, in all that time, to them themselves, to all that were in Babylon, and to all that was Babylon, there was being given a better education -- the true education.

This better and true education was education in the knowledge of God.

When Daniel and his three brethren were taken to Babylon and put in the university there, they stood true to the knowledge of God. Daniel 1:8- 16. And at the end of the three years' course in the university, the examination proved them to be "ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all the king's realm." Daniel 1:18-20.

But it was these very magicians, enchanters, astrologers, etc. -- the wise men -- who were the teachers of the four young men. Yet on a rigid examination, the young men were found to be "ten times better" than they all. That is, they were ten times better informed than were their Babylonian teachers. And this proves that the education which they had from God, in the word of God and the knowledge of God, was ten times better than the best that Babylon could give.

And that truth is written, to show to all people that ever and forever that the education that is found in the knowledge of God by the word and Spirit of God is ten times better than all that can be found in the education that is of the world.

And this great truth needs to be accepted and held and told and magnified unto and in the Babylon of today, as truly as it was in the Babylon of the day of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar. Today the education of the world is as Babylonish as was that of Babylon itself; though not yet so fully developed.

Today the knowledge of God is not believed to be educational: much less is it believed to be educational above the education of the world. Where the knowledge of God is allowed in education at all, it must always be with, and secondary to, the education of the world. The word of God -- the Bible -- is not believed to be an educational book. Where it is allowed even any place in education, it must be along with and secondary to the educational books of the world.

Of course this is only natural and to be expected in the education conducted by the world itself. But it is equally true in the education that is conducted by the churches: by churches that make strong profession of "The word of God; the whole word of God; and nothing but the word of God!" Heathen and pagan literature is found there having precedence of the word of God in the same language.

There is not a denomination in the world, that gives the Bible any place as really an educational book: much less the supreme place as the one only truly educational book over all and leading all. Yet that is just what the Bible is, and that is its rightful place in education.

It produced the man Christ Jesus in the flesh.

It produced the three individual characters -- Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah -- who in the crisis of their day held the world in its place, "changed the king's word," and established truth forever. Daniel 2:14-18, 28. It produced the character of Daniel who in the several crises of his day held the world in its place and enlightened it forever.

And whenever it can have the like place
it will do the like thing in any day.

And when, in knowing disregard of this education, the young king Belshazzar and his crowd, of the Babylonian education, that same night sunk Babylon and themselves with it, the man Daniel, of the ever true education, stood pre-eminent and perfectly safe amid the crash of that fearful Fall.

And this is what will be in the Babylon of now.

There will be those who giving to the Word and Spirit of God their educational place and power, will have the knowledge of God and the character that this produces. And in the midst of the grand Babylonian banquet and the drinking from the golden cup, these will proclaim the word of God -- "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen."

And when this final Great City Babylon "with violence" shall "be thrown down," to be "found no more at all," these shall stand pre-eminent and perfectly safe amid the crash of that fearful Fall, and shall rise and reign forevermore.

 

oooOooo

On to Part Four


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