Unity is Society's Pagan Religion | Genesis 11:1-9
“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.”
--Proverbs 16:18
Genesis 11 is the bridge and tone shifter for the narrative focus of the entire Old Testament. The focus of God’s word starts with the general history of the world and humankind from Genesis 1-11. Genesis 12 is when God chooses His people, the Jewish people, Israel through the blessing of their father Abraham. A cataclysmic event happens before Genesis 12. God intervenes, He brings His perfect judgement onto the world but the world; His creation, chooses themselves over Him.
- Humans are capable of amazing things. We are creative. We are intelligent. But we still fall short of God’s glory.
“Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.”
--Genesis 11:1-3
Babel is a major city in the land of Shinar. It is ancient Babylon meaning that Babel is an older version of Babylon. The name “Babylon” is the later Greek form of the name “Babel.” Nimrod is leading this nation who have no division because they have one language. They can communicate well and work together to build something awe inspiring because of their common language. Language is vital to culture, a people, and for working together.
Shinar is a flat plain in southern Iraq. Southern Iraq is where Southern Mesopotamia was located and we know that Babylon, Babel, is in Southern Mesopotamia. Shinar does not have many resources for building which is why the bible highlights how they built with clay bricks—the main way Mesopotamian’s built their structures. We have found the ziggurat of Ur which is a Mesopotamian city. The ziggurat of Ur shows us these Sumerian / Babylonian Ziggurats which were built with a pagan temple on top of the tower structure—there would be stairs that help the priest reach the “house” of the Ziggurat which was where they would worship their pagan gods. The tower of Babel is one of these Ziggurats except it is much bigger than the Ziggurat of Ur. The man who excavated many of the ancient Babylonian sites including the foundation / measurements of the tower of Babel is Robert Koldewey.
The Ziggurat of Babel is considered to be the biggest ancient Ziggurat of the ancient world. The Ziggurat of Ur is seventy feet high whereas the Tower of Babel is Three Hundred Feet High. It was massive. It was grand. It was intimidating. It was build in the name of Nimrod, in the name of Babel, as an indication that humanity doesn’t need God.
God created humanity to be social, to be in community, to build community (literally). He made humanity to be in the image of God. This is why we have creativity, ingenuity, and intelligence that animals cannot have—animals can’t build these massive structures and cities but humans can because of this truth. However, humanity has not learned its lesson since the wrathful flood of the world in Genesis 6-9. Noah committed sin, Ham’s lineage was cursed leading to Nimrod who builds the tower of bible in open rebellion to God.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;”
--Genesis 1:26.
However, humanity has not learned its lesson since the wrathful flood of the world in Genesis 6-9. Noah committed sin, Ham’s lineage was cursed leading to Nimrod who builds the tower of bible in open rebellion to God.
“They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, a let us make ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’”
--Genesis 11:4
Heaven: שָׁמַיִם shâmayim dual of an unused singular שָׁמֶה shâmeh; from an unused root meaning to be lofty; the sky.
These people were capable of amazing things; even God says so:
“The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.”
--Genesis 11:6
The problem is they are not building this temple to glorify the one true God of the universe; rather they are building it for their own name, for their own pride, for their fear of being scattered over the earth. They think their pagan temple will save them from God’s judgement and wrath because of their sin and rebellion. They didn’t fear God rather they feared their disunity and separation.
- We are called to be unified under the truth of God; not to be unified for the sake of the world or ourselves.
This tension we found in the fall of the ziggurat of Babylon is still evident in our lives today.
-The religion of global unity and climate action: (Carl Teichrib visits Global Citizenship Youth Conference 2000 in April 4-7 1997).
“Our minds, our consciousness has got to be equal to the task of the future… This is the most important thing I want you to understand today; that a quality future comes from your mind, from your consciousness, from your heart and from your spirit, from your understanding… All around the world there are actions that are not right and we have to learn to judge the right action, and when we have decided in our truth, in our heart, that we known what is right, we need to share that with others.
--Dr. Geraldine Schwartz
“On population, Robert Muller boasted that the United Nations had, as a result of warnings to the world, ‘prevented the birth of 2 billion, 200 million people.’ He also encouraged the Congress to, ‘try and convince your people to reduce the number of children. This is one of the biggest problems we have on this planet.’”
--Carl Teichrib
CERN was created to bring the world together and teach everyone how we came into existence through science. It also strives to progress the world forward through science and technology. It has built a giant machine called the Large Hadron Collider that has found the “God-Particle.” There is a pagan statue outside of CERN—the hindu god: Shiva
“You are made of particles. But when the universe began, no particles had mass; they all sped around at the speed of light. Stars, planets and life could only emerge because particles gained their mass from a fundamental field associated with the Higgs boson. The existence of this mass-giving field was confirmed in 2012, when the Higgs boson particle was discovered at CERN.”
--CERN Website
“This process of 'de-Babelization' is all the more welcome at CERN since the [language] courses are almost completely self financed”
--CERN Article called “Undermining the Tower of Babel.”
“CERN is a global organization served by over 8,000 scientists and by half of the world’s particle physicists representing some 580 universities and 85 nationalities. It has the backing and resources of many nations. It is an organization that makes unmistakably clear that the wound of Babel is being healed. We ought to be made aware of this organization and see in its activities another indication of the imminent rise of the anti-Christian world-power.”
--Joel Minderhound
“As science explains more and more, there is less and less need for religious explanations.”
--Steven Weinberg (Nobel Peace Prize Winner)
The Spirit of Nimrod is alive and well in our world today—there is an entire community of world leaders, scientists, humanists and citizens that are striving to bypass God and make the world in their own image—to indoctrinate the next generation to not believe in the one true God of the Universe rather to believe in science, humanism and themselves over a silly/ mystical God. We are still building our tower of babel today.
“The devil doesn’t sell darkness—he sells fake light that blinds people to the truth.”
--Doreen Virtue
This is why God ALWAYS tells us to worship Him, to serve Him with all our being, to submit ourselves to Him ALL of the time. We must eliminate the pride in our lives that tells us we no longer need God in our lives. We are not called to be citizens of the globe or humanity rather we are called to be citizens of God’s eternal kingdom.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.”
--Proverbs 3:5-6
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple…Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
--Luke 14:26,34-35
- In the end, God’s Will prevails over all of humanity’s sinful pride and lawlessness.
“Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So, the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
--Genesis 11:7-9
This massively impressive ziggurat loomed over humanity and yet God had rule over it. The city was stopped in its construction and some say even the tower itself wasn’t totally finished—others say the tower was finished but laid to ruin since Babel declined in population since it was finished in construction. God confused everyone with different languages.
God judged the world with different language so they could not understand each other and finish their monument to themselves—God reminded the world of who is bigger, who is sovereign over His creation—He humbled them.
The whole account of what happened at Babel with its anti-God dictator, its organized rebellion against God, and its direct distrust of God’s promise was an example that humanity didn’t improve morally or in relation to God since the flood. Time, progress, government, and organization made humanity better off, but not better.
“Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. The king reflected and said, ‘Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?’”
--Daniel 4:29-30
God has made it very clear; the pride of humanity does not last. It leads to destruction, to humility and it is not what God calls us to—God calls us away from pride, to serve God, to serve Christ with our entire lives and to preach the gospel around the world save souls into His eternal kingdom. God is eternal—everything that isn’t of God will die.
As Christians, our legacies isn’t our fame, our money, our jobs, our careers even our families—our legacy is how we were ambassadors for the true gospel of Christ. If we are serving Christ; it will build strongly into our families, we will live humbly, and God will work through us for a greater purpose than anything on this earth. This is why God gave Holy Spirit empowerment to His disciples in the upper room—He judged Babel with confusion in language and He brought His people together for His purpose by giving them languages—so they could go and share the good news of Christ to the world.
“He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’”
--Acts 1:7-8
“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;”
--Colossians 2:6-10
“There is neither in heaven nor earth nor hell anything we need fear when we are once right with God. Settle the centre, and the circumference is secure.”
--Charles Spurgeon
CLICK HERE FOR EXPEDITION BIBLE'S VIDEO ON THE TOWER OF BABEL