Nimrod and the Building of Babel - Sermon Notes | Bible Baptist Church of Ballincollig

I. Introduction and Background

A. We Begin Genesis 11

We are on our way to Abraham
Genesis means “book of beginnings”
Myths of gods in the stars come from ALL nations — Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Babylonian, Celtic
Mankind has always been attempting to rise up
This is the desire of Lucifer himself:

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” - Isaiah 14:13,14

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” - 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4

Nimrod acts on the heart’s darkest desires
We go back to chapter 10 to learn about Nimrod before we see what he built

II. Message

A. Nimrod — the Grandson of Ham

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah; Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.” - Genesis 10:1

“And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.” - Genesis 10:6

Four sons of Ham:

Cush — Ethiopia
Mizraim — Egypt
Phut — Libya
Canaan — Palestine; the cursed people; the Sodomites, Amorites, and Jebusites; later conquered by Joshua

Cush’s descendants:

“And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.” - Genesis 10:7

Sheba — the Queen of Sheba came from this line
Dedan — traders and merchants

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.” - Genesis 10:8

Who was Nimrod?

“He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah” - Genesis 10:9-12

All this began approximately 100 years after the flood
His name means REBEL
God calls him a “mighty one” — he was extraordinary in power and ability
Historical mythology confirms his existence across cultures
He was a hunter of MEN, not deer — a murderous rebel living in open defiance against God
He rebelled against God’s plan that mankind should scatter and fill the earth
He organized all the people into one massive community
He was a very well-known and feared man

He built FOUR empires:

Babel — the first world empire; later became Babylon
Erech / Uruk — lasted 1,000+ years; the earliest known writing comes from here; ziggurat temples; now buried under the sand of Iraq
Accadia — founded by Sargon, probably Nimrod himself; spread north into Turkey and Syria; destroyed after 180 years
Calneh — a vast empire; still covered in ruins and sand

From these examples came Nineveh, later Babylon, and eventually the empires of Greece and Rome.

B. The Defiance of Mankind (Genesis 11)

“And the whole earth was of one language, and of 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 throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” - Genesis 11:1-4

The realities right after the flood:

All speaking the same language — they got this from Noah; it was the language before the flood
All knew about God — it was only 100 years since the flood; all had been taught; all knew who God was
Were all supposed to scatter — this was God’s will

“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us” - Acts 17:26,27

But they did their own thing:

They moved southward to the plain of Shinar — the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers
This is the area where Babylon and Ur would later become great cities
God would later call Abraham OUT of this very area
Very quickly they began to romanticize the pre-flood gods — just like Lot’s wife, just like the children of Israel longing for Egypt

C. What Does Nimrod Have to Do with It?

One Empire:

Somebody said “let us build”
I believe it was Nimrod
He personally built the city of Babel
He is the great father of all empire builders

One Leader:

Everyone loves and follows and admires this kind of man
He got all the people to agree to defy God’s will
Like Chancellor Hitler restoring Germany — the people followed a charismatic, powerful leader
He is a picture of the Antichrist who will one day turn the entire world against God
Nimrod was uniting the world against God — Genesis 11
The spirit of antichrist is already throughout the world

“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” - 1 John 4:3

He sought consensus, not force
The people came with him willingly, driven by bitterness against God

One Goal:

Build a city and a power base — one world government with Babel as its head
Nimrod sought to build the greatest empire in history
People always want to be first — to reach the moon, to discover new lands (Portuguese, Spanish), to invent things (Biro, Xerox)
Nimrod built his empire in defiance of God
God’s answer to Nimrod? — a barren old man named Abraham
Nimrod sought to live without God — not atheism but God-rejection
He didn’t want to scatter and farm under God’s rule
The biggest cities today are the centers of murder, poverty, sickness, depression, and suicides
So Nimrod built a great city with a massive temple tower at its heart

One Religion:

Build a name, a reputation, a monument to MAN and not to God
Create a new religion in which man ascends to the level of the gods
A central massive tower — a Ziggurat, a Pyramid
Nimrod needed religious motivation to overcome God’s command to scatter
He wanted the tower to “reach all the way to heaven” — where God was, where Thor, Zeus, Wodan, and Marduk had visited before the flood
The gods of every ancient culture are the pre-flood beings who walked among men

Monument to Mankind:

Babel was a monument to man
Honour man’s greatest accomplishments
Designed to withstand any judgment — to show that man could not be stopped
The first ziggurat after the flood — rebuilt bigger than anything before the flood
Massive and visible for miles in every direction

All of the world’s religions are built on the worship of idol beings — the gods from the stars. The Antichrist himself will appear from the stars during the Tribulation. The Bible traces all false religion back to Babylon.

The study of the zodiac originated in Babylon:

Turn to any book on astrology and you will find that it was the Chaldeans — another name for the inhabitants of Babylon — who first developed the zodiac by dividing the sky into sections
The pyramids of Egypt were constructed with specific mathematical relationships to the stars
The Sphinx has astrological significance — the head of a woman (Virgo, the virgin) and the body of a lion (Leo); Virgo is the first sign of the zodiac, Leo the last; the Sphinx (“joining” in Greek) marks the meeting point
By the time the Jews left Egypt for Canaan, astrology had infected the entire population — hence the strictest warnings in the Bible against it (Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18)
Still later, astrology entered the religious life of Rome

Noah is alive through all of this — which must have been very grieving to him.

D. God Steps In

God actually took on human form — the Angel of the Lord!

“And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.” - Genesis 11:5

He walked among all the people and heard everything they said and planned to do
That is called respect — God did not simply crush them; He came down, observed, and then responded
Just as God could have crushed all of Egyptian power in an instant, instead He told Moses to walk up to Pharaoh and let Pharaoh hear God’s request — “Let my people go” — and then let Pharaoh decide
God verified just where all this was heading

“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.” - Genesis 11:6

This city and tower is only the BEGINNING of something very wrong!
Mankind is able to build and accomplish incredible things:
- 4 men and their wives built a huge ark in less than 100 years
- The Pyramids of Egypt
- Reading and writing in 15 languages
- Rockets to the Moon — several probes have reached Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto
- A dozen spacecraft have landed on Mars and a couple are still driving around on the surface 10 years after landing!
And God knows that mankind will accomplish its own ruin ONCE AGAIN!

“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” - Genesis 6:5

Mankind before the flood was destroying itself and would have ended entirely on its own in 120 years
God called one man and his family to survive the coming judgment through an Ark
Now God cannot flood the earth again — He will have to stop them from being able to create their own ruin again!
Think A.I.

E. Confounded Their Language

“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” - Genesis 11:7

“So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.” - Genesis 11:8

“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 11:9

GOD interfered in man’s journey to the gods — for their good!
He made it hard for mankind to work together
It is already hard enough to understand each other when we all speak one language
Now people would have to work through a wide range of word meanings, tone-meanings, inflections, rolling r’s, guttural sounds, and more!

This was miraculous:

Language is already super complex
Mankind speaks and understands WORDS — not grunts
That makes us VERY different from animals and plants
And in an instant, several dozen new languages are planted in the minds of groups of people gathered around the tower being built
And what a change it caused!

An Example of the Confusion:

Imagine: the jumbled words from Genesis 11:1-6 all scrambled together — completely incomprehensible
And then: “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech…” — perfectly clear
Remember this next time YOUR plans fall apart
If every time you attempted something it always turned out perfectly, you would wonder why
Usually we need to see failure so we can see what has to be worked on and improved
That is why the idea that “everyone gets a trophy” is so evil — kids need to FAIL, and be SECOND PLACE, and even LAST PLACE if they are ever going to grow and learn

Scattered them:

Now Japheth and all his people with similar languages head out — east and west into Europe
Ham heads south into Africa
Shem heads south and northeast into the Middle East
Languages change and develop
But they all had a miraculous start — just like LIFE itself did
And it was recorded for us, and it pinpoints the exact time when all the languages split up
And I believe it!

F. The Journey to Abraham Begins (Genesis 11:10-25)

God ignores Japheth and Ham and focuses on Shem and his descendants

“These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:10,11

“And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:12,13

“And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:14,15

“And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:16,17

“And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:18,19

“And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug: And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:20,21

“And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:22,23

“And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.” - Genesis 11:24,25

Here is the line:

There were many other sons and daughters born — loads of them — filling up the world
But these are important, because they are a line of faithful, godly, God-fearing, and trusting men and their families
God would lead this line to Abraham, and ultimately to King David, and finally to the Messiah, Jesus the Christ!

The line: Shem — Arphaxad — Salah — Eber — Peleg — Reu — Serug — Nahor — Terah

G. Now It Is Abraham’s Time (Genesis 11:26-32)

Terah has three sons:

“And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” - Genesis 11:26

His name at first was Abram:

“A father of children” — not that great of a name
But God was about to change that!

Notice Lot:

“Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.” - Genesis 11:27

Lot is a nephew of Abram

Abram is born in Nimrod’s realm — Ur:

“And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.” - Genesis 11:28

Marries Sarai:

“And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no child.” - Genesis 11:29,30

Sarai means “Noble woman”

All of Abram’s family get OUT of Ur:

“And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.” - Genesis 11:31

“And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.” - Genesis 11:32

That was probably a good thing — separating from the false religion and wickedness of that culture
But Abram was just following his father’s decisions
Abram needed to personally know God’s will himself
Abram needed to know the God of Noah and Shem himself
He needed to trust Him and obey Him, by believing Him and following His words!
And that is what chapter 12 is about

III. Important Truths to Learn and Remember

A. Satan Sought to Interfere with God’s Plan for a Messiah

He tried to force God’s hand — either destroy the nations before Messiah could come, or make it so Messiah could not come at all!
One “course” — their own course — Isaiah 53

B. All Kingdoms Are Under Satan’s Dominion Right Now

See Luke chapter 4 verse 6
This tower was to be a temple, a pyramid
This was going to be the beginning of the center of conflict against God’s people throughout all of history
Babylon is the first empire, it will be the fourth, and it will be the final empire of history — Jeremiah chapter 5, verse 15
This place of accomplishment will become the center of confusion first, after God is through with it — but it will be rebuilt again and again
And it will be the final world’s financial and government center during the Tribulation — it will be called Babylon the Great
It will be a religious center throughout all of history, always causing all religions to draw upon its Satanic roots

C. Man-Made Versus God-Made

Look at Genesis 11:4 — the people say “let us make us a name”
Compare that with God, who says “I will make your name great” — Genesis 12:2
This city and tower will show off a life of effort and hard work
Thankfully, everything that was condemned and ruined at Babylon was undone at Pentecost
Ultimately, Babylon will be destroyed — Revelation chapters 17 and 18
And Babel will be replaced by the New Jerusalem — Revelation chapter 21 — a city built by God and not by man
The story arc from Babel in Genesis 11 to Babylon’s fall in Revelation 18 is one of the greatest narrative threads in all of human history recorded in the complete Bible

D. Nimrod Is in All of Us

It is our nature — our old nature, what the Bible calls “the flesh”
Christ Jesus delivered us from Satan’s kingdom

“Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” - Colossians 1:13

“And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.” - Revelation 16:10

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” - Revelation 22

“Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” - John 12:31

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” - Romans 12:1,2

Remember the Titanic!

Mankind’s greatest achievement — unsinkable!
But God had other plans
Pride goes before destruction

IV. How Did Moses Know All This?

Very advanced revelation to an ancient Hebrew man — don’t you think?
Inspiration of the Holy Spirit — the author of truth

“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me” - John 15:26

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” - 2 Timothy 3:16