(Genesis) - Part 12 — Zac Poonen

Noah’s Descendants and the Rise of Nimrod

Again, we were considering the end of Noah's life in our last study, and now this chapter is mostly a record of the descendants of Noah, the record of the generations of Shem, Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and sons who were born to them after the flood.

I just want to mention one or two things in passing. Ham was the cursed one. It says here, the sons of Ham, verse 6, were Cush, Mizraim, and Put and Canaan. Cush refers to Ethiopia, Mizraim to Egypt, and Canaan, we know, was the land of Palestine where the Canaanites lived.

And we don't want to read all these verses where the names of the descendants are given, but we can look at verse 8. Now, Cush became the father of Nimrod. He became a mighty one on the earth. Now, notice, Nimrod was the grandson of Ham, cursed by Noah.

Canaan and his descendants were cursed. And he was a mighty hunter before the Lord or against the Lord. Therefore, it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.

He was the leader of the construction of the Tower of Babel. And in the margin, it says Babylon. And it's important for us to just stop here and consider a little bit about him, because when we speak about Babylon spiritually, the reason why the Book of Revelation calls a certain religious system Babylon is because it had the characteristics of the Old Testament Babylon.

That's the reason. And that's why it's important for us to understand something about Old Testament Babylon, so that we can understand the spiritual system called Babylon today. And in an earlier study from Daniel through to Nehemiah, we considered what that movement from Babylon to Jerusalem consisted of.

But here in this chapter, we are told about the origin of Babylon, the beginning of Babylon. And the man who built Babylon, the original Babylon, first was a man called Nimrod, born born to Cush, who was the son of Ham, of that cursed seed.

And there are three things mentioned in verse three times. It's mentioned in verse eight that he was mighty. Three times that word mighty comes, and that symbolizes the essence of Babylon, human might.

That can be physical might in those days. I think it was physical might, but not only physical might. It is what I would call soul power. Babylon is built by people who are mighty, humanly speaking, if not physically, in their soul.

And just like to understand what soul power means, and I believe that Nimrod had this when it says he was a mighty man, he was a man who had such soul power that he could dominate people, just like physical power.

It's like if you have a mighty giant who can squeeze the life out of a whole lot of pygmies in front of him through his physical power. Something of the equivalent of that is also possible in the soul realm, in the realm of the intellect and personality.

And not everybody has it, just like not everybody has physical power. Some human beings are physically weakling. And just like that, some people don't have soul power. In their soul, they are weakling.

But there are other human beings who are very strong physically, and there are many human beings who have tremendous soul power, the ability to rule and dominate others by the strength of their personality, strong willed and able to dominate and lead others with their human ability.

Hitler was one like that, and many others. Nimrod was the first great leader with human soul power, a mighty man who had a tremendous following. And when you come in Chapter 11 to see how the details are given about the building of Babel, you see how he was able to get the whole world into a project.

You can imagine what a man he was. He was the first great world leader. And we must remember that although Noah had died, his God-fearing son Shem was alive, and Shem was a grand-uncle of Nimrod, and Shem was a God-fearing man.

But Shem couldn't do it. But this man could gather the whole world. Of course, there were not many people interested in following God-fearing Shem. But Nimrod, he could gather the whole world. And it says a mighty hunter before or against the Lord means one who led a spirit of rebellion against God.

And he was a mighty hunter, one who probably not only hunted wild animals, but hunted men. And just like Stalin and others, wiped out anybody who opposed him. The first great dictator and tyrant mentioned in the Bible, Nimrod, a hunter who wiped out all opposition till people were so scared that he was able to be the ruler of the whole world.

And we can say that he is the first clear type of the Antichrist in the Old Testament. Because in the final day, also the word of God says that one will arise in the last days, called the man of sin, who will lead, who will be a world leader in rebellion against God.

And it's going to be exactly the same spirit as it was there in Nimrod, who was called a mighty hunter before the Lord. And there, the beginning of his kingdom, he was the first man mentioned who had a kingdom.

Kingdom means he was a sort of a king. He was a king, in which case he's the first king that we read of in the Bible. And he was a man who turned the world against God. He had a kingdom, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon.

Babylon is the first kingdom mentioned in God's word. And when from the tower of Babel, they were scattered, which we read in chapter 11, it says in verse 11, from that land, he went forth into Assyria.

That is when the people got scattered in Babel, which we'll read in the next chapter. He had to move into Assyria and built Nineveh. He was the one who built the city of Nineveh as well. And I just want to mention something that we know from secular history.

We can't speak of it with the 100 certainty that we can of words of scripture, but it's fairly well documented that Nimrod was the founder of a religious system which involved magic and secret rites, which became the original Babylonian religion, which involved idolatry.

And history tells us that he had a very wicked wife called Semiramis, and that when Nimrod finally died, his wife, who lived a very loose, evil life, had an illegitimate child, and she said that was Nimrod, come back to life again.

That was the first claim to resurrection, long before Jesus rose from the dead. Satan was determined to counterfeit everything. And she knew that people respected Nimrod so much that she was afraid that she would lose her position once Nimrod died.

And so she said, this child is Nimrod, come back to life. And then people began to worship her and her child, Semiramis and the baby Nimrod. And as this, at the time, when people in those days were not scattered all over the earth like today, they were in a fairly closed area, this religion spread.

And as people spread to the various parts of the earth, this religion also spread of worshipping the mother and the child. And of course, after the Roman Catholic system came up, they just changed the names to Mary and Jesus.

So you see, the Jesus that the Roman Catholics worshipped in the arms of Mary is actually Nimrod. It's this Nimrod, and that's the masterpiece of Satan, that he's got a whole lot of Christians thinking they are worshipping Jesus, and he's got them to worship his great leader, Nimrod.

And they used to celebrate the birthday of Nimrod on December the 25th. Because they worshipped the sun, and December 25th was the day when the sun went down to the southern hemisphere. And these folks who lived in Babylon, which is presently known as Iraq, that was the time when the sun would begin its journey back to the northern hemisphere, and that was called the birthday of the sun.

And that also was transferred to the birthday of Jesus. So all this is another Jesus. Another Jesus worshipped by the Roman Catholics and the mother and child. Another Jesus whose birthday is celebrated on December 25th.

And you can see what a fantastically wonderful work Satan has done in fooling multitudes of Christians in celebrating all these things. Another Jesus. If only Christians who celebrate Christmas would realize that they were celebrating the birthday of Nimrod, what a shock they'll get.

When they finally stand before the Lord and discover they were celebrating the birthday of Nimrod and calling it the birthday of Jesus. You know, we are not to be without light in these things. That's why we must say we must stick to scripture.

If you find something in scripture in the New Testament, do it. If we don't find it in the New Testament, things like Christmas, Easter, you do it because some God-fearing person does it. You're bound to go astray because God honors his word, not the word of even a God-fearing man, but his word.

And that's where God tests us to see whether our devotion is to his word or to religious systems. I mention that because it's when we move away from God's word that we can slowly drift into Babylon to a greater or a lesser extent.

And I believe all who celebrate Christmas have got a little bit of Babylon in their religious system. And, of course, the greater parts of Babylon is the whole religious system, which includes priestcraft and rites and rituals and traditions and all types of things which are contrary to God's word.

So that's a serious thing that we mustn't take lightly. Then it goes on to speak about all the others who were the descendants of Ham. Further down in that chapter, the territory we read in verse 19 of the Canaanites and Sodom and Gomorrah, the place that God destroyed, was also the descendants of Ham.

These are the sons of Ham, it says in verse 20, and the first great rebellion against the Lord came through the sons of Ham. Ham was probably offended very greatly because his father rebuked him, and it must have made him very bitter against his father, very bitter against God.

And he must have transmitted that bitterness to his children and to his children's children till his children's children grew up to rebel against God himself. And then we read about Shem, the God-fearing brother of Ham.

He's called the father of all the children of Eber. Now, it's amazing that he's called the father of all the children of Eber because Eber was not actually Shem's direct son. It says in verse 22 that one of Shem's sons was Arphaxad, and verse 24, Arphaxad's son was Shelah, and Shelah's son was Eber.

So Eber was actually the great-grandson of Shem. But Shem is mentioned here as the father of all the children of Eber, probably because it was through Eber that Abraham came, and it was Eber that gave the name Hebrew to Abraham.

Abraham is called Abraham the Hebrew, and Hebrew is from the word Eber, which the Jews, the language the Jews speak today. The Hebrews are descendants of Eber, from which the word Hebrew comes. And that's the reason why Shem is called the father of all the children of Eber.

And it says in verse 25, two sons were born to Eber. The name of the one was Pileg, for in his days the earth was divided. That is the time when the Tower of Babel took place. In his days, in the days when Pileg was alive, the people were divided on the earth across the face of the earth.

And it's interesting to note that because when you read the detailed genealogy in chapter 11, you see something very interesting. We don't have time to look into it, but if you read from verse 11, sorry, from verse 10, chapter 11, verse 10 onward up to verse 17, where all the ages are given, you'll discover one thing, that Pileg was born just 111 years after the flood.

I mean, you can work that out from chapter 11, verse 10 to 17. 111 years after the flood, Pileg was born. And that gives us an indication of how soon after the flood Nimrod rebelled against God. Didn't take a long time, just about one century, a little over a century, and man was again rebelling against God.

It was a very short time. It wasn't a long time before man drifted away from God. Less than 150 years after the flood, Nimrod was able to gather the whole world in rebellion against God. And we read of that in chapter 11.

The Tower of Babel and the Worship of the Sun

Chapter 11, verse 1, the whole earth used the same language and the same words, or as the margin says, just a few sets of words, one language. And it came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Right from the beginning, the significance to their journey east, right from the beginning, man has worshipped the sun, because the sun is the giver of light and warmth. And they journeyed east means they journeyed towards the sun.

They journeyed towards their God. You find even today, a lot of the orthodox Syrian churches, they turn, their buildings are constructed towards the east so that when people stand in the building, they face the east when they pray.

And even in their houses, they turn towards the east when they pray. It's all part of the old Babylonian religion that's come down through 4 ,000 years. They face towards the east and when the Lord, there's something I want you to remember, that when the Lord told Moses to build the tabernacle, he said, put the gate of the tabernacle in the east so that when they go in to the most holy place, their backs will be towards the sun.

In the tabernacle, when they entered it, they were always facing west. You read that in Exodus. And God was determined to turn people away from this business of worshipping the sun. But the Jacobite and other churches have gone back to Babylon, to turning back to the east.

And why? Even Protestants, I remember the Baptist church down here, just a few years ago, they went out to a hill down here to have a sunrise service on Easter morning to worship the sun. On Sunday morning, the sun has risen.

It's the old Babylon just a few years ago down the street. It's widespread, the worship of the sun. They call it sunrise service, that Jesus has risen. What has risen there in the morning? The sun. You trace it back to the old Babylonian religion, it's there.

And they journeyed east and Nimrod was the leader of this worship of the sun. Of course, he was probably claimed to be the incarnation of the sun to get everybody to worship him. He was a mighty man. And they found a plain in the land of Shinar.

Shinar is Babylon. You read about Shinar again in the book of Zechariah. And settled there. And they said one to one another, come, let us make bricks. And you can be sure this was Nimrod's idea. It was man's plan to let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.

And they used brick for stone and they used tar for mortar. And they said, come, let us build for ourselves a city. And a tower whose top will reach into heaven. Probably because they thought just in case there's another flood, we better find some place high enough where we can climb up and live in case there's another flood.

They wouldn't believe that God had said, I will never again send a flood. No, they wouldn't believe that. They wanted to build a tower to take care of themselves. And let's build something high, the top will reach into the heavens.

And let us make for ourselves a name. In the heavens was the God they worshipped, the sun. And they wanted to reach that. And lest we be scattered, let us make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

And I want you to notice three things about Babylon, which are true of Babylon right from the beginning, right through even till today. First of all, Babylon is built according to man's plans, without seeking God's will.

Remember that. When we live our life according to our own self-made plans, without reference to knowing is that God's will or not, that's the beginning of the spirit of Babylon. Come, let us make bricks and let us, verse 4, build a city.

Let us do that. Come, let us do this. Come, let us go and take this job. Come, let us move to this city and live there. Come, let us go and marry this person. It's all the same system that begins with no interest in seeking God's will.

Seeking God’s Will Rather Than Building Babylon

That is the worship of the sun. And you can see that Jesus came and lived exactly the opposite way to all that. He never wanted to do his will in anything. Always saying, Father, is that your will? I have a will of my own, Jesus said.

My will, for example, in Gethsemane, his will was that he didn't want to drink that cup. But he says, not my will. And all through his 33 years, he had his will, but he never did it. He sought the Father's will.

That is what builds Jerusalem. And we mustn't think that Jerusalem is just a system that sings songs about the new and living way and has a particular songbook and has a particular language. That can be the greatest deception of all.

Jerusalem is a gathering of people who have learned to seek the will of God and deny their own will in all the little details of life. That's why I say you can sit in any church building. You can sit in any building and be a part of Babylon.

We have often said that you can sit right here in our midst for 20 years and end up as a good pillar in Babylon. Sure, if you have sought your own way and your own will in your home and in your life, you want to have your own way.

You've never allowed God to break that stubborn self-will of yours. My brothers and sisters, hear it, that you can sit here for 20 years and be a masterpiece in Babylon, a strong pillar of Babylon, finally, because it's got nothing to do with a doctrine.

It's got to do with a certain attitude towards God's will. That's it. And you see that. Come, let us do this. We can do it. Man's plan. And I've seen multitudes of Christians who live like that. In fact, the vast majority of so-called believers, they have no interest in seeking the will of God for their lives.

They want something and they are afraid to ask, is it God's will or not? Which shows that they have such a lust like Balaam, who wanted to go to Moab. And even when God sort of tried to put a hindrance in his way, he still pushed his way and went.

And God said, go, go, go where you like. I won't stop you. And he who started out as a prophet of God ended up as a servant of Satan. And he's not the first. There are many others, it says, who ran after the error of Balaam.

There are many like that who built Babylon. Beware of this spirit, my brothers and sisters, of not wanting God's will in every area of your life. It is in this that we find our flesh is so strong. When I want to do what I want to do, can you say it is an evil thing to build a city?

Were they saying, come, let us all commit adultery with each other? They were not saying that. Were they saying, come, let us kill one another? They were not saying that. They were not doing evil things.

What were they planning? Come, let us build a city. What's wrong with that? Supposing you made a plan one day saying, I want to build a house for myself. What's wrong in that? Nothing wrong in it. But yet it can be the spirit of Nimrod, the spirit of Babylon, if you want to build a house.

Because after all, these people are only building a house, that's all. Can you imagine that Babylon began with people, not with people committing murder and committing adultery. No, it was with just such a simple thing like building something.

And there we need to understand that there are so many things that look so innocent on the outside. You can say there's nothing evil in that. There's nothing wrong in that. Yeah, there's nothing wrong in that.

But underneath it is your desire to seek your own, your own comfort, your own gain, your own profit, your own advancement. And as long as that is your way of thinking, it is a way of thinking which began with Nimrod.

Of course, it began with Cain, but which is manifested in a more collective way in the days of Nimrod. That's seeking one's own advancement and gain and making plans without reference to God's will at all.

Beware of it. That's not Christianity. That's a counterfeit. And that's the counterfeit that Satan has spread all over Christendom today. And that's why we say it's all Babylon. And I've come to see in my brief contact with people who speak of the new and living way that that spirit is found even among those who speak of the new and living way.

And I'm not speaking only about India. I'm speaking about Europe and America and other places too, where people speak about the new and living way and seek their own, seek their own gain and comfort and convenience and their own advancement.

But that's the language of denying yourself. It's one of the greatest deceptions of Satan. It's not a doctrine, brothers and sisters. It is an attitude towards God's will and an attitude towards my own stubborn seeking my own gain and advancement in this world.

And if we are not careful, we'll end up like those people Paul warns Timothy about, who have a form of godliness but don't have the inner power. The power is doing God's will. They don't do that. But a form of godliness, all the language, but underneath it, it's a seeking of convenience.

And I will not seek something which is inconvenient or which is going to disturb my comfort in some way, and I can speak the right language. We have to be very, very careful. And so it says here, they made this plan, and we saw in chapter 10 that it says about Nimrod, he was a mighty man, a mighty man.

A man might, might, might is what's spoken there in chapter 10. We saw that. And that's the other thing about Babylon. It is human power. As I said, human soul power, where one man dominates others. That's another thing I've seen Christendom riddled with.

Human Power, Money, and Control in the Church

People finding out God's will for others, telling people what to do, where to go, controlling them with money. Can you think of any Christian organization in this country which is not controlled by money?

Almost all of them by foreign money. Somebody comes and gives money, and then he has a control on the work. That's why we have to be careful. Might can be with soul power, money power, so many things.

And soul power and money power can never build the kingdom of God. It's very important if we want to build Jerusalem that we don't let people's soul power dominate the church or money power dominate the church.

We know that Western countries, Western Christians have a lot of money. And that's been the tragedy of Indian Christians, that they've sold their souls for money. The solution to that, of course, is not to have no contact with Western Christians.

To be an Indian nationalist is not spirituality. There was a time in my life when I was like that, an Indian nationalist, completely anti-Western. And God showed me that I wasn't spiritual. I was just Indian, not spiritual.

And the Lord showed me he had children everywhere. And if I thought that spirituality was to be against a particular group of people, I was deceiving myself. And I had to cleanse myself from that. But we have to be very careful that we don't let anyone have power over us with money.

And I remember in our contact with these brothers from Europe with whom we have had fellowship, one of the first things I told them when they came here first many, many years ago, as I said, if there's one thing that's ruined God's work in India today, it's Western money.

So my brothers, I said, if you want to have a good fellowship with us, don't send money. And don't support anybody here financially. They're not under obligation to anyone. They're not under obligation to us.

Then we are free. Then nobody can control what we say or do. And we can't control what they say. Then we can have fellowship. But money power and soul power is the thing that very subtly destroys the building of Jerusalem.

And that's the thing we have to fight in the church. And soul power, that's the thing which all of us can have, brothers and sisters. You may say, I'm not a church leader. Do you know you can have soul power over others?

You can have a few younger brothers, perhaps, who look up to you. Or you're a zealous young brother who got a few teenagers to look up to you. Or you can be a sister. And you've got a little group of younger sisters who look up to you.

You're dominating them with your soul power. You're afraid if they're devoted to anybody else, they must be devoted to you. What is that? That's the spirit of Nimrod. That's what I mean. That's Babylon.

That you want them to be under you. You don't have to be a church leader. You can be a 25-year-old young brother or sister and have people under your power. I've seen it. I've seen it. People who want to control teenagers.

Tell them what to do. The spirit of Nimrod in sisters and brothers. Babylon. Babylon. And we had to fight it in the church. And it's a terrific battle. And these can be people who know the doctrine so well and who have so much zeal.

They can be specialists and experts in all these things. But this spirit, this soul power, they don't give people freedom. They want to rule and dominate. Tell people what to do. You must do everything according to the way I say.

That spirit, it's in all of us, my brothers and sisters. It's in our flesh. It's in our flesh. The world is full of stories of mother-in-laws and sons-in-laws and daughters-in-laws. Where does it all come from?

It comes from the spirit of Nimrod. Where a mother does not know how to leave her son alone after his marriage. Or a father doesn't know how to leave his son alone after his marriage. He wants to sit on his head and tell his wife how to take care of the boy.

And how to do this and how to do that. What is that? That's Nimrod all over again. It's all over the world. We just don't know how to leave other people alone. This desire to lord it over others and rule over others and boss them and get them.

And I'd be offended if they don't do it the way I have told them to do it. It is Nimrod. It's Nimrod reproducing himself all over the world again and again and again. And now we proclaim a gospel where we cleanse ourselves from these things.

We are not offended if somebody doesn't do things the way we do it. Or the way we advise them. I've come across lots of cases where I have some brothers ask me for advice. And I've given him advice and I see he doesn't even do it.

And I say praise God. I'm glad he's free from me. I'm glad he doesn't live in such fear of me that he has to do it the way I've told him. And if he's gone and made a mess of his life that's a greater opportunity for me to cleanse myself that I don't sit there become another little Nimrod in my spirit and say there that's that's got him a lesson.

That he didn't listen to me and so he's made a mess of his life. Have you ever felt like that? You told somebody to do something he didn't do it the way you told him. You the great Nimrod. And then you got a little delight in your heart when he got he got his life messed up instead of feeling a bit sad.

My brothers and sisters we've got to cleanse ourselves not only from the filthiness of the flesh but the filthiness of the spirit. This tremendous soul power which I believe all of us have. You can be a teenager and you can boss the other little brothers and sisters you have in your home.

You can see some teenagers are tired in their home. The big brother the big sister bossing all the other ones telling them what to do. It's there you don't have to be a church leader any such thing you can just be a little teenager and that spirit can be there and if only you can get light on it in your young days and cleanse yourself from it and have the spirit of Christ who knew who was lord of all the universe and yet never bossed people around.

I believe he was an elder brother in that house of Joseph and Mary as an example only to serve not to boss the others around. He had four brothers and two sisters at least but he didn't boss any of them.

He had a flesh like ours and I believe this is the area where we all need to cleanse us. Husbands who boss their wives and wives who want to boss and control their husbands in some way or the other. The spirit of Nimrod with the language of Jerusalem in the mouth but the spirit of Babylon in the heart.

Beware of soul power. Beware whenever you have power over another person beware of it. It's a very dangerous thing to have power over another person. You got to live in fear. We got to cleanse ourselves.

A true father, a true mother, a true father-in-law, mother-in-law can only lead by service by example and by service not by bossing and lording. Particularly as the children grow up there is a need for discipline in their younger days but not this Nimrod spirit and you who are older brothers and older sisters I want to warn you cleanse yourself from this Nimrod spirit lest you become a part of Babylon having heard all about Jerusalem in the church for so many years.

Be humble. Take Jesus as your example and when you begin to boss your younger brothers and sisters just ask yourself if Jesus did any such thing and if Jesus didn't do such a thing just imagine whom you're following.

You're following Nimrod then. Your mighty man, mighty hunter who gathered people and everybody would do exactly what he said. We're not talking about the heathen. We're talking about believers now. This is how Babylon is built and if we don't cleanse ourselves from this we shall live in the greatest delusion of all with the language of Jerusalem and the spirit of Babylon.

Yeah there's a great need for that exhortation. Brothers and sisters judge yourself and don't be a busybody in other people's matters. Tremendous need for that because to be a busybody in other people's matters is the spirit of Nimrod and the other thing we see here is not only man's plan, man's power but also it is for man's glory.

Seeking Personal Glory and Recognition

The middle of verse 4 of chapter 11. Let us make a name for ourselves. A name for ourselves. People should know that we are something. You can build a church talking the language of the new and living way with this desire.

Let us make a name in Bangalore or in India or in the world perhaps that we are the church or let us make a name in the church that our home is the ideal home. That people will see our home and talk about it.

The brothers and sisters in the church will say, oh that brother's home. See how he's brought up his children and see how he runs his home and see how he lives with his wife. What is it? It's the same old Nimrod spirit.

Let us make for ourselves a name. Only thing they did it for another purpose, you are doing it for another purpose. But the same spirit, my brothers and sisters, that is an obvious deception. The most subtle deception is when I'm doing spiritual things with this desire, let us make for ourselves a name.

Tell me, aren't you tempted by this in the church? If you say you're not tempted by this, I would only say, I wouldn't say you're a liar. I would say you probably have very little light in your life so far.

We are tempted in this area. Let us make a name before the brothers and sisters. Let us make ourselves a name before the elder brothers. Let us make ourselves a name. This is Babylon. We talk about Babylon and Jerusalem.

Basically, it is this. Let me make myself a name. Do you think it is possible for a brother who speaks the language of the new and living way to try and make for himself a name? Why not? That's why Jesus said the first will be last and the last will be first.

There are going to be some tremendous surprises in the day of judgment when we discover brothers and sisters who spoke and preached about the new and living way ending up as Babylon. What a surprise it would be.

Will it be a surprise to you? I'll tell you, it will not be a surprise to me at all. Because it has become clearer and clearer to me that many who speak the language of the new and living way have not cleansed themselves from the spirit of Babylon.

It is there. Let us make us a name that I am a godly brother or I am a humble brother or my family is an exemplary family or our church is a wonderful church. Let us make ourselves a name. And we have to cleanse ourselves from this because it is in our flesh.