Babel, AI, and the Antichrist

We all know the events that transpired in Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel. This event occurred shortly after Noah and his family disembarked the Ark and were told to “be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth”. Eventually, Shem and his family settled in the middle/eastern portions of the world and became the Middle Eastern/Near East people groups. Ham and his family went south and filled the continent we know as Africa. And Japheth went north and west to settle in the lands we know as Europe.
But before any of this occurred, there was a short-lived rebellion against God. Led by a powerful leader named Nimrod (meaning “Rebel”), the people chose to defy God’s command and, instead, sought to “make a name for themselves” and build a temple “whose top could reach the heavens” (a metaphor for divine status). Their success garnered the Holy Trinity’s attention, and the Lord decided to go down and see what was going on. Alarmed by their progress, God intervened, confused their languages, and scattered them across the earth, lest “anything they propose to do be withheld from them”. God recognized that He had created human beings with near unlimited capability, and that His creation had chosen to use it for evil.
What Nimrod built that day was the foundation for a city named Babylon (which translates to “Confusion”). But more importantly, Nimrod laid the foundation for a kingdom that would defy God upon the earth. Babel represents the anti-God voice of defiance from those who reject God and His commands. It represents the unholy institutions that are erected for the sol purpose of making a name for mankind, building for humanity a kingdom who “top can reach the heavens”, and resisting God’s work on the earth; and for several millennia, God’s work to separate the people of the world through language barriers and geographic isolation has worked.
Now, let’s fast forward nearly 4,500 years to our modern day. Even though people have been separated for centuries, efforts have been made to bring humanity back together. A “Babel 2.0” is emerging through the pervasive English language, financial markets, and globalization; and perhaps the most sinister example of this is the binary code, used in computer systems, that has now reached a point where fears of human annihilation are being sounded through the threats of AI technology.
Indeed, the world does speak one language again. The people of the earth have come together and realigned themselves against God. They are building unholy institutions, alliances, and agencies bent on tapping the nearly unlimited capability of the human mind. In short, humanity has reconvened in Genesis 11.
Now, I’m no pessimist, nor am I a fearmonger. I am a Bible-believing saint of the most Holy God. You are too. So, fear is not how we are to respond to all of this. No, you and I were told beforehand that this would happen, that a new “Nimrod” would emerge in the figure of the Antichrist, that the world would consolidate its financial markets, religious beliefs, and governmental structure into one anti-God institution, and that the world would do it all for its own glory.
Because we know this to be true, we can have confidence that the Holy Trinity of God sees the activity of mankind from heaven and intends to return to earth one final time to put it all to rest – just like He did in Genesis 11. In fact, we have the knowledge that the world is doing all this according to the perfect, permissive will of God; and that they are oblivious to it. This fact mankind is doing all this to their own demise might be the biggest hat trick in the entirety of human history. It’s certainly the height of Divine irony.

- Bro. Ben Lownsdale