18 Necessity of the Abrahamic Covenant- Nimrod's Cult

This world is really a mess, isn't it? We wonder why God allows it to continue so. As we look into what He has revealed to us, it starts to make sense that God uses human history to teach both mankind and angels what He is like.

Knowing God is not merely an academic exercise but it must be experienced by our senses and internalized into our souls. Due to our sinful nature, our senses cannot rightly understand His goodness. We must be taught that God is good all of the time. This idea does not merely describe Him as benevolent and loving and kind. His goodness also includes His justice. 

An unrighteous judge does not punish fairly, but a good and just judge is one who brings to light the evil intent of the heart and prescribes punishment without respect of persons. A good judge is one who is able to rightly show the contrasts between good and evil, right and wrong, life and death. 

At the very beginning of creation we see that creatures with free will must internalize these distinctions. This gift of free will means that we may sovereignly choose to trust in God's perfect goodness or to trust in ourselves. If we choose our self-proclaimed goodness above God's, we are following Lucifer's error of declaring, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." (Isaiah 14:14). 

Every choice has a consequence and to those who are given much, much is required. For angels created in the likeness of God, the consequences of their choices have no opportunity for redemption. Choosing against God, their fate is sealed for that Lake of Fire prepared for them from the beginning of creation. (Matthew 25:41)

Yet for man who is created as a living soul in both the image and the likeness of God, the opportunity for redemption exists at great cost to God Himself. (Romans 8:32) Rejecting that redemption carries with it an even more severe and eternal cost. For man's bold rejection carries with it the same fate as that reserved for the angels. (Revelation 20:10)

In addition to the gnashing of teeth in those eternal torments, there is that everlasting infection of both mind and soul. The Lord describes it as an undying worm, (Mark 9:44-48) a parasite that produces an incurable and everlasting fever. This as a consequence of rejecting the Divine light and love that God provides.

God has no desire for you and I to suffer such torments. (2 Peter 3:9) He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ezekiel 33:11) Instead, He desires that none should perish but that all would come to repentance and know everlasting life instead of everlasting torments. This battle for your soul is evidence that your sovereign choice remains. The Spirit of God pleads with you and I to turn to God from idols.

This battle for men's souls began with God's declaration in Genesis 3:15 that He would send the 'seed of the woman' to restore the order that was lost in Eden. This expectation of God's man was accompanied by the expectation that this 'seed of the woman' would be wounded on earth. Yet that same man would one day destroy the seed of the serpent by crushing its head.

We have seen Satan's desperate attempt to prevent this by corrupting the seed of the woman. God countered this with a flood to destroy all but Noah and his family through whom the seed of the woman was preserved. 

Since Satan had to guess the bloodline through whom the seed of the woman would come, his strategy was to corrupt the genetics of mankind. The flood foiled his evil intent, so that now he needs to find a man that he could corrupt into becoming the 'seed of the serpent'.

Nimrod, Ruler of Bab El

Satan belongs to the angelic realm, he cannot retain his dominion on the earth apart from having men on the earth through whom he can rule. So it was that after the flood, a new attempt at corrupting mankind was made through a man named Nimrod,

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a mythical story of a tyrannical king who is ⅔ god and ⅓ man. Gilgamesh was said to have reigned in ancient Sumeria or Mesopotamia. He is described as a creature 18 feet tall, skilled in war, a hunter of men. Many scholars have concluded that this character is based on the real figure that the Holy Spirit identifies as Nimrod. 

In Genesis 10:8-10 we learn that Nimrod ‘began to be a mighty one in the earth'. How did he come to be a mighty one? Here we must take care not to delve too deeply into the 'depths of Satan' lest we become like those in the church at Thyatira who strayed into idolatrous practices (Revelation 2:24). 

However, the Hebrew word translated ‘began’ can mean to profane oneself sexually. It suggests that Nimrod was the first to give himself over to Satan through perverse sexual rituals in exchange for becoming a mighty one in the earth. 

Nimrod is described as a mighty hunter. These words describe one who is a predator, a tyrant, a hunter of men's souls. Like his master, Lucifer, Nimrod hunts through stealth and deceit.

The first-century historian Josephus makes the following statement concerning Nimrod: 
“He persuaded them to attribute their prosperity not to God but to their own valor, and little by little transformed the state of affairs into tyranny, holding that the only way to detach men from the fear of God was by making them continuously dependent upon his power. He threatened to have his revenge on God if He wished to inundate the earth again; for he would build a tower higher than the water could reach and avenge the destruction of their forefathers.”

In our present world system predators seem to abound. Among the worst of these we discover that at some point their minds and bodies had been afflicted with demonic abuse. They are trained from their infancy to be wholly given over to Satanic influences. 

Some of these individuals are loners, but many find themselves in a fraternity of evil that gives them a sense of being valued when they perform their perversions. Many such souls rise to places of prominence in politics or entertainment. This helps to explain much of the demonic perversions that have infected our society through the arts and educational systems.

Nimrod's pre eminence led him to establish religious practices that manipulated mankind into believing this perversion of God's order was normal. Adam's sin in Eden not only forfeited his dominion to Lucifer, but it also severed the connection between the earthly and angelic realms. This new religious system promoted the re-establishment of that connection without first connecting to Jehovah God.

Nimrod's goal it seems, was to build a tower to reach into the heavens and serve as a portal for men to once again interact with the unseen realm. It was Satan's desire to use Nimrod through whom he could rule the earth by means of a one world government. This project became known in the Assyrian language as 'Bab El' or gate of the gods. In Hebrew it means 'confusion through mixing'

Douglas Hamp comments on the Tower of Babel in this way:

“Historically, archaeology and multiple texts agree that the Tower was built. Since that time, Satan has continued to partner with mankind to build mechanisms to bridge the dimensions and to ultimately open the Abyss.” 

Hamp, Douglas. Corrupting the Image 2: Hybrids, Hades, and the Mt Hermon Connection (p. 168).

Thus, Nimrod was seeking to build a city and a system that was impervious to God’s judgment and intervention. Nimrod sought to build a new world order, or a one-world system of politics, economics, and religion that excluded a knowledge of the true God. What emerged from this is what the Holy Spirit describes as 'Babylon, the mother of harlots' (Revelation 17:5)

God's Counter to Confusion

God intervened at Babel because "now nothing will be restrained from them, (mankind) which they have imagined to do" (Genesis 11:6). Mankind united under the tyranny of fallen angels would have no limit to the perversions that would infect God's creation. 

So, the Godhead intervened to confuse their language and disperse them across the earth. In this way God created sovereign nation states suspicious of one another. 

Each nation that developed from this would be protective of their boundaries that God established for them. (Acts 17:26) Their governments would serve to act as a restraint on evil both within their borders and against those who would threaten their borders. (Romans 13:1-7) 

However, each group carried with them their universal desire to mix with the unseen realm apart from the one true God. This is the source from which every form of idol worship is birthed. The various pantheon of gods from ancient cultures attest to the wide spread practices that began in Babylon with Nimrod and his mother-child cult worship.

Out of this confusion, God choose His own man through whom the promised seed of the woman would come. God revealed Himself to a man steeped in the practices of idolatry, including human sacrifice. 

That man was Abram of Ur of the Chaldees.

smc