The following ancient tradition by the Polynesians was reported by English Missionary John Williams (1796-1839) who arrived in Tahiti in autumn of 1817 and was eaten by cannibals in November 1839 in the New Hebrides.
“…the heavens were originally so close to the earth that men could not walk, but were compelled to crawl” under them. “This was found a very serious evil; but at length an individual conceived the sublime idea of elevating the heavens to a more convenient height. For this purpose he put forth his utmost energy, and the first effort raised them to the top of a tender plant called teve, about four feet high. There he deposited them until he was refreshed, when by a second effort he lifted them to the height of a tree called Kauariki, which is as large as the sycamore. By the third attempt he carried them to the summits of the mountains; and after a long interval of repose, and by a most prodigious effort, he elevated them to their present situation.” For this, as a mighty benefactor of mankind, “this individual was deified; and up to the moment that Christianity was embraced, the deluded inhabitants worshipped him as the ‘Elevator of the heavens.” 1
“Now, what could more graphically describe the position of mankind soon after the flood, and the proceedings of Nimrod as Phoroneus, “The Emancipator,” than this Polynesian fable?
“While the awful catastrophe by which God has showed His avenging justice on the sinners of the old world was yet fresh in the minds of men, and so long as Noah, and the upright among his descendants, sought with all earnestness to impress upon all under their control the lessons which that solemn event was so well fitted to teach, “heaven,” that is, God, must have seemed very near to earth. To maintain the union between heaven and earth, and to keep it as close as possible, must have been the grand aim of all who loved God and the best interests of the human race.
“But this implied the restraining and discountenancing of all vice and all those “pleasures of sin,” after which the natural mind, unrenewed and unsanctified, continually pants. This must have been secretly felt by every unholy mind as a state of insufferable bondage. “The carnal mind is enmity against God, ” is “not subject to His law,” neither indeed is “able to be” so. It says to the Almighty, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” So long as the influence of the great father” (Noah) “of the new world was in the ascendant, while his maxims were regarded, and a holy atmosphere surrounded the world, no wonder that those who were alienated from God and godliness, felt heaven and its influence and authority to be intolerably near, and that in such circumstances they “could not walk,” but only “crawl,”– that is, that they had no freedom to “walk after the sight of their own eyes and the imaginations of their own hearts.”
“From this bondage Nimrod emancipated them. By the apostasy he introduced, by the free life he developed among those who rallied around him, and by separating them from the holy influences that had previously less or more controlled them, he helped them to put God and the strict spirituality of His laws at a distance, and thus he became the “Elevator of the heavens,” making men feel and act as if heaven were afar off the earth, and as if either the God of heaven “could not see through the dark cloud,” or did not regard with displeasure the breakers of His laws. Then all such would feel that they could breathe freely, and that now they could walk at liberty. For this, such men could not but regard Nimrod as a high benefactor.
“According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in introducing, men were led to believe that a real spiritual change of heart was unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful, they could be regenerated by mere external means.
“Looking at the subject in the light of the Bacchanalian orgies, which, as the reader has seen, commemorated the history of Nimrod, it is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment, and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of the wrath of a holy God. In his various expeditions he was always accompanied by troops of women; and by music and song, and games and revelries, and everything that could please the natural heart, he commended himself to the good graces of mankind. “2
And so it continues in 2025 because when God confused the languages at Babel after the worldwide flood, the newly created language groups that dispersed around the world took with them the rebellious teaching of Babel and the worship of Nimrod into their new countries; therefore, today the nations are still in bondage to idols and false gods.
Thank you King Jesus for the Gospel that sets men free and brings them into your heavenly kingdom which one day will come to earth when You will reign from Jerusalem bringing justice.
Come Lord Jesus!
Carl. 1.Source: English Missionary John Williams (1796-1839) who arrived in Tahiti in autumn of 1817 and was eaten by cannibals in November 1839 in the New Hebrides. He wrote Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands which you can find on the internet for free.
2. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons (Or, The Papal Worship Proved To Be The Worship of Nimrod), Printed in United States 2013. Hislop (1807-1865) was a Scottish minister.
Psalm 119: 38 