Out of the nations, Babel came up. This signifies that out of the denominations, Babylon came out. All the divisions and denominations will consummate in the great Babylon. Babylon is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Babel. If you read the New Testament, you can see that from among the divisions of Christianity, that is, from among all the denominations, Babylon comes out. All the nations in ancient times issued in Babel, and all the denominations in Christianity eventually will consummate in the great Babylon. Once again we see that Genesis is a book of seeds, for here in Genesis 10 we have the seed of Babylon and in Revelation 17 and 18 we have the harvest of Babylon the great.
Babel came out of the nations that were along the line of the curse (10:6, 8). The cursed line was with Ham. Cush, the builder of Babel, was Ham's son, and Nimrod, the son of Cush, became the first king over the kingdom of Babel.
This is a type of Christianity. Christianity is altogether typified by the nations. Out of the nations Babel came out of the cursed line. What was the cause of the curse? Rebellion. Ham was cursed because of his rebellion against God's government. The descendants of Ham, under God's curse because of Ham's rebellion against the divine government, were utilized by Satan to set up his satanic system, Babel. The same is true today. Babylon has been built by Christians who do not care for God's government but for their own kingdom.
In every denomination, including the Roman Catholic Church, there are real, saved Christians. They are God's people belonging to the Lord. But the organization of the denominations in which they are is not of God. The denominational organizations have been utilized by Satan to set up his satanic system to destroy God's economy of the proper church life. All real believers, regardless of where they are, in the denominations or even in the Roman Catholic Church, are saved, but the system, the evil organization, is under God's judgment.
Nimrod was the first king of Babel who, according to history, brought in many idolatrous things (10:10). That idolatrous worship invented a most demonic emblem, the Madonna with her child. According to the book, The Two Babylons, the Madonna was the mother of Nimrod and also his wife. This emblem, invented by the Babylonian worship, spread throughout the earth—to Egypt, India, Greece, pagan Rome, Tibet, China, and Japan. It even has pervaded Roman Catholicism. When the Roman Catholic Church sent missionaries to China a few hundred years ago, those missionaries found the same emblem in the Buddhist idol temples and sent a report about this back to the Vatican. This is documented in The Two Babylons. Before I was saved, I went, as a child, to a Catholic cathedral in China and saw this emblem. In the same period of time, I visited a Chinese Buddhist temple and saw the same picture there. After I was saved, I told people in my preaching that, in some things, Catholicism and Buddhism are of the same source. The same emblem of a mother embracing her child is found in the Catholic cathedrals and in the Buddhist idol temples. This exposes the source of some of the things in today's Catholicism.
As the nations issued in Babel, the denominations eventually will issue in the great Babylon. These are not pleasant words to hear. But do not be troubled. When the nations became Babel, God intervened to call out Abraham. He did something better than what He had done before. The history of Abraham is much better than that of Noah. Who are today's Abraham? The church people. In a sense, we are today's Noah; in another sense, we are today's Abraham. Concerning this evil generation, we are today's Noah and concerning denominational Christianity, we are today's Abraham who has been called out of Babel. We shall see more of Abraham's life in the following messages.