Genesis Chapter 11 Verses 1 – 3

• God is already dropping knowledge on us here because His command to Noah and his sons as they departed the ark was to, “Fill the earth,” but the Bible tells us here that just a generation after that primary command, the people were already walking away from the direction of the Lord. They were one people, had not yet dispersing to their own lands and filling the earth as God had commanded, and we will see that they wouldn’t until God stepped in and brought difficulty on their situation…
• And this is interesting, they as well as we, ought to have thought of themselves as God and them being, “us.” Whatever “we” do we do together, speaking and thinking about themselves individually with God…I mean that is what it is to know God and to be known by Him…but notice in verse 3, they speak not to God but to each other, they look not to God but to each other, and they make a plan using the concept of “us” and their “us” does not involve God or God’s Word…you know what’s coming for them? Confusion…division…isolation…It didn’t have to be that way…
• And the spirit of rebellion is SO strong here…they said, “Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly…” All they knew was the ark…all they knew was huts and mud and straw-type roofs…but bricks speak of permanency…the messaging is so strong here…we will permanently defeat God’s power over us and set ourselves up…it’s not going to work…not for them, not for you, and not for this world…
• And what’s more, they planned to cover their brick with what your Bible probably says with “asphalt.” In the Hebrew that word is “chemar” which literally means, “slime,” and so they were building their permanent homes out of fortified brick and covering their brick and mortaring their brick with slime which would make the home…water proof. The rebellion was strong, man…we will protect ourselves against even the remembrance of God’s righteous judgment…

Genesis Chapter 11 Verse 4

• Did you hear that!? It’s like Buddy’s burp in Elf! That is a LOUD statement! Let “us” build a city to honor “ourselves” all the way up to heaven…just like saying, “In Your face God, we have our own name…importance, purpose and place…,” and this we will do in defiance to Your command…, “lest we be scattered and fill the earth.” Look at God’s response.

Genesis Chapter 11 Verses 5 – 7

• Here comes difficulty…here comes confusion…all of their efforts, wasted time…the same situation that is encountered today whenever I venture out against the Word of God, man…and this is HUGE…verse 5 says, “The Lord,” and yet verse 7 says, “Let Us!” Why? Because the Lord is an “Us.” The Bible is FULL of the doctrinal teaching of One God eternally existing in three distinct Persons.

Genesis Chapter 11 Verses 8 – 9

• We know the location of this circumstance was Babel and we know who was in charge there…that is given to us back in Chapter 10 verse 10…and so this powerful rebellion, who was the head of it all? Who was speaking? A son of Ham named Nimrod.
• I mentioned last week, my opinion, my perspective, apart from Jesus Christ, the second most globally and timelessly influential and pivotal man to ever walk the earth was this man Nimrod. Why? Well it’s so very interesting. Jesus brought light. He brought grace and truth. He brought salvation and that is His hinge upon which mankind pivoted. Nimrod works in the darkness. At work today and has been throughout all previous cultures and generations, and yet subtly hidden. He brings, his hinge is rebellion…but slick rebellion. Slimy rebellion. Rebellion that is not fist in face obvious but rather simply a lean towards earth, towards man and away from reliance upon God. Nimrod brings darkness when he is allowed to reign. Deceit and judgment and ultimately his reign can, has and does swallow the souls of men and women in every nation, tongue and time…
• Nimrod literally means, “rebellion” or “rebellious one,” and the Bible tells us in Genesis 10 that he was a “Mighty one ON THE EARTH, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” What did he do after the people were scattered…conquered. He set up his own kingdom…the first kingdom on earth…a kingdom apart from God. He was and is a prototype, a picture of Anti-Christ. He started with Babel which literally means “Heaven’s Gate,” to keep heaven out…and he went on from there to conquer and set up many nations of which some are given to us in Genesis 10.
• So why is he still so relevant today you’re probably thinking…I mean this was Genesis and now he’s dead…true, but here’s the rest of the story…Nimrod married a woman named Semiramis. Some accounts of this historical fact also name Semiramis as the wife of Cush which would either make her his mom…yep, sick…or a wife shared amongst father and son.
• Either way, Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod. Nimrod became like a god to the people, a mighty hunter before the Lord, and in that he amassed great power which was shared with his wife, the Queen of ancient Babylon. Nimrod was eventually killed in battle and Semiramis, fearing that she would lose power, made the ideological proclamation to the people of Babylon that Nimrod has ascended to the sun and therefore his presence still would be real and felt everyday but he is no longer the half man half god Nimrod but now full god and he is called Baal which literally means, “The sun god.”
• She proclaimed that Baal is present on earth and in heaven…in heaven as the sun and on earth as the flame and thus she was creating a mystery religion in which she eventually set herself up as goddess or priestess. She revealed to the people that she herself was immaculately conceived…the daughter of the moon as the moon went through its 28 days cycle and was fertile (ovulated) when full. She claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates at the first full moon after the spring equinox.
• She became known by her goddess name “Ishtar” and the moon became known as “Ishtar’s egg.” Ishtar then conceived, claiming to have been impregnated by the rays of the sun-god Baal and she brought forth a son and named his Tammuz. As Tammuz grew he became especially fond of rabbits and they became sacred in the ancient religion because Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun-god, Baal. Like his father, he became a hunter…

• Tammuz was hunting in the woods and was killed by a wild boar. Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz lay dead for three days and miraculously rose from the dead and was now ascended to his father Baal and that the two of them would be with the worshippers in the sacred candle or flame as father, and son (interesting here because the story goes the Simiramis was weened by doves and therefore they are often pictures as Baal the father, Tammuz the son and Ishtar the dove). Ishtar was now worshipped as the “Mother of God” and the “Queen of Heaven” and the Mystery Queen of Heaven Babylonian religion continued to build.

• It was circulated that when Tammuz was killed by a wild pig some of his blood fell on a stump of an evergreen tree and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight. This made the evergreen tree sacred to them (just like the rabbit) by the blood of Tammuz. Ishtar proclaimed a forty day period of time of sorrow each year for Tammuz (Ezekiel mentions in Ezekiel 8:14) in which no meat was to be eaten and worshippers were to meditate on the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz by making cakes with a “T” on them and by making a sign of a “T” in front of their hearts in an act of worship…
• Every year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a celebration was made. It was Ishtar’s Sunday and was celebrated with the beloved rabbit and with eggs. Pig or ham was also eaten in remembrance of her lost son Tammuz. So very interesting…this “form of religion” fell out of favor when Christianity broke the scene with Constantine around 300 AD but as the worship silenced…the festival, the remembrance somewhat amplified…as Ishtar, Nimrod and Tammuz are still a part of so many world cultures today…as Easter…and all of the sacred elements prevail…
• The truth about Easter is that logistically it has only a familiar link to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter itself can be as much as three weeks away from the Passover because the holiday is always set as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. It’s interesting, Easter is mentioned in the Bible in Acts Chapter 12 verse 4 but it’s translated as “Passover” and it was actually King Herod that was observing the holiday…
• And so we have the ancient origins of the worship of Mother and deity son, forty days of Lent, Easter, Easter eggs, the Easter Bunny, hot cross buns, the Easter ham and even the crossing of the chest we see prevail in religion today…but wait there’s more…Ishtar was said to have been impregnated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox…the ancient beginning of what we call Easter today and if you march 9 months from Easter, what do you arrive upon? You got it…Christmas. Known as Saturnalia in previous cultures, Winter Solstice, Winter Harvest, many names but is indeed a carryover of this Mystery Queen of Babylon Religion.
• How was this holiday celebrated? We have that in the Bible…Jeremiah 10 in speaking about the warring gods says, “Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile; For one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple.” Wow, right? The Yule log…the candles in the windows…you can take almost all of what we love and enjoy today and have redeemed for the name of Jesus and you can trace it right back to this guy…Nimrod….
• Nimrod and Semiramus…also known as Ashteroth and Baal. Zeus and Aphrodite. Jupiter and Diana. Ra and Isis. And you may be concerned a bit tonight. Certainly eyes open to the influence of Nimrod still on the earth but maybe even more, all of this…Mother of God, Son of God, immaculate conception…it all sounds so familiar to what we hold to as our beliefs in Jesus Christ, Immanuel…God with us…God became a man and died for the sins of the world…but the trouble you’re having is that this Nimrod, Simiramis, Mystery Queen of Heaven Babylonian religion…this was way before the Bible! Thousands of years before Jesus…
• A couple things I’ll say to that and then we are through. First, wherever there is real, there will be counterfeit. Think about this. Counterfeit $100 dollar bills are everywhere and are a real threat to our economy. Hitler even had a strategy to introduce enough counterfeit money into the American economy to cripple it…but counterfeit $15 dollar bills…nowhere! Why? Because you don’t produce a counterfeit for something that isn’t real…it poses no threat.

• And finally, Nimrod, Tammuz…they are no counterfeit for God the Father, and Jesus, God the Son. Why? Nimrod hunted men to conquer and overtake them…Yahweh so loved the world that He gave His Son that the world through Him might be saved. Nimrod made a name for himself. God made Himself of no reputation, coming in the form of man that He might make a way for man to be saved. Nimrod, as the story goes, was a man and ascended to some sort of god status. In the beginning God…He always was, no beginning and no end…and God became a man not for status but for salvation of His children. This is like comparing a million dollar bill to a 1 cent dollar bill…this is no counterfeit.

• And Tammuz…as far as we know of him, all he did was hunt and die at the hands of a pig…Jesus walked among men, loved sinners, healed, raised the dead, cast out demons, revealed the character of God being love, grace, truth, justice and mercy and taught beyond the capacitive knowledge and understanding of mankind…Tammuz died for himself, Jesus died for you…there is no comparison there…just a cheap, weak, ineffective attempt by the enemy to undermine what each of us need to come truly come to God…faith. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the truth…choose My way…find true life…”