Adam and Eve’s choice to believe the worst of God led to a civilization stumbling in darkness that became a cesspool of violence. God cleansed the earth with a flood leaving Noah’s family to repopulate the planet. Less than 200 years later, Nimrod led Noah’s descendants into darkness again. Jewish history gives some insight into the world’s system we must overcome.

“Now it was Nimrod who excited them [Noah’s descendants] to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, – a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it [their happiness] to God as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, – seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his [Nimrod’s] power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!  [Works of Josephus Antiquities of the Jews, Volume II, Chapter IV:2, page 79]

Nimrod persuaded many to believe happiness is not dependent on God. The government could solve their problems. Then gradually turned them from the fear of God by making them dependent on his government for survival.

According to Jewish history written by Josephus, Noah and his family stayed on the mountain where the ark rested. Eventually the mountain became too small for the population. Noah and his sons left the mountain to encourage their descendants to follow them, but many were afraid to leave because of the flood that destroyed everyone.

Those who left with Noah and his sons settled in the plains of Shinar, where God commanded them to send out colonies to start new settlements and fill the earth, but they did not obey him. They were doing fine where they were and did not want to leave.

When their population grew and there were a lot of young people, God commanded them again to send out colonies. But they did not trust God. Their concept of God was not the concept we have. A loving savior who died so we can live. Their knowledge of God is someone who made a promise he has yet to fulfill, drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden, making it hard for Adam to provide for his family, and made it painful for women to give birth. Then God spared one family and drowns everyone else in judgment for sin to start over. To them he’s not the God who gives happiness. He’s a God who makes life hard.

God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay they added to this their disobedience to the divine will, the suspicion that they were therefore ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be oppressed. Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. [Works of Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews. Page 79]

Let’s look at the Bibles account

Genesis 11:1-4 NAS95  Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.  (2)  It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.  (3)  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.  (4)  They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Instead of relying on God’s wisdom they believed making a name for themselves by building a city and tower that reached into heaven would keep them from being scattered and free from oppression. Nimrod who convinced them they can create their own happiness is the same man who oppressed them.

Genesis 11:5-6 NAS95 (5) The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. (6)  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. [The Amplified Bible say imagine to do will be impossible.]

God said, if we have a name, a city and are unified by one language we have the power to do anything we can imagine. The reason God destroyed all humanity except Noah’s family is the same reason he could not allow Nimrod and his followers to have that power.

Genesis 6:5 AMP The Lord saw that the wickedness (depravity) of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination or intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.

God destroyed their forefathers because every imagination of their hearts was evil continually, and it produced such violence God washed the violent people from the earth and started over.

Now Noah’s ancestors, who do not obey God, are building a city to be the capital of a one world government based on a rejection of God. Anything they could imagine was within their grasp. Can God just stand by and let evil people have the power to do anything their evil hearts can imagine.

God confused their language to solve the problem created by human disobedience, which scattered them all over the world making unity impossible and that stripped them of the power to do anything they can imagine.

The people who remained abandoned the tower but continued building the city which became Babylon. Nimrod married his mother, Semiramis, and became the first king of Babylon, who eventually became worshipped as a God who would live forever.

Their religion marked the beginning of pagan polytheism in the post-flood world: the worship of many gods. The snake, sun, and fire became their symbols of the pagan god on earth. Human
sacrifice became openly practiced. Even though God wanted His people to spread out, and only serve Him, Nimrod, through this empire and religion of Babylon, began to unite the people – all under his “one-world government.”

As a result, this early Babylonian religion was abhorred by the God-following generations of their era. Noah’s son Shem, decided to put an end to it.  According to tradition, Shem killed Nimrod and sent a piece of his body to all the cities under his rule to prove Nimrod wasn’t a god. 

Semiramis in danger of losing all that she had was pregnant at Nimrod’s death. She twisted a well-known promise God made in the Garden of Eden to her advantage. 

  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
  (the serpent’s) seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou
  shalt bruise his heel.                                          – Gen. 3:15 (KJV)


Semiramis told the people she was pregnant by Nimrod’s holy spirit because he had reincarnated himself in her womb andher unborn son was the promised seed that would remove the curse of sin and death. She became the great mother of a new faith that is depicted in primitive images as a mother holding a young child.

The followers of Babylon’s religion scattered all over the earth altered and adapted their religion but the basic religious system that rejected the God who created them, and its new gods remained under different names. Semiramis, high priestess of the Babylonian religion became Ishtar of Syria, Astarte of Phoenicia, Isis of Egypt, Aphrodite of Greece, and Venus of Rome.

Throughout the Old Testament God’s people said they loved him, but they never put away the idols of Nimrod’s religion. There were exceptions, like Joshua, who told the nation to choose who they wanted to serve, “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”^[1]

In the New Testament Jesus called Nimrod’s religion “the world.” If you worship other gods or even God, who created us, but you reject God’s plans and purposes for our lives, you are the world that must be overcome. Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” John 16:33 NAS95.

After the diaspora, the Jewish leaders did not tolerate graven images of idols. They rioted every time Rome tried to bring one into the city. As God promised through his prophets, he removed idols from the nation, but the idols remained in their hearts.

John 3:1-2 AMP

Now there was a certain man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler (member of the Sanhedrin) among the Jews, who came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi (Teacher), we know [without any doubt] that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs [these wonders, these attesting miracles] that you do unless God is with him.”

The religious leaders knew God sent Jesus. They knew God was with Jesus. When they rejected Jesus, they rejected God just like Nimrod did. The nation never abandoned religion. They got rid of their creator. They were religious leaders following their own desires and they could not manipulate Jesus to use his power to give them what they wanted, so they hated him.

Luke 7:31-32 AMP

To what then shall I compare the people of this generation [who set aside God’s plan], and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, and saying, ‘We played the flute for you [pretending to be at a wedding], and you did not dance; we sang a dirge [pretending to be at a funeral], and you did not weep [so nothing we did appealed to you]. AMP

Who persecuted Jesus? The common people loved him. Their religious leaders wanted him dead.

John 18:19-20 AMP Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in the synagogue and in the temple [area], where all the Jews habitually congregate; and I said nothing in secret.”

Where was Jesus when he spoke to the world? In the synagogues and in the temple area, the place religious people of his day congregated to worship God. The people who know the truth and reject it to follow their own plans instead of God’s constitute THE WORLD we must overcome.

There is nothing that has shaken my faith in God to a greater extent than the hateful way I have been treated in the church. If I had not come to an understanding that there are ungodly sinners in the church and in ministry who worship the way Nimrod did, rejecting God’s way to do it their way, I would have forsaken Christianity a long time ago. God did not hurt me, Nimrod did, the world that is in the church did.  

John 15:18-21 NAS95  “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.  (19)  “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.  (20)  “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.  (21)  “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.

Are there people in the church that know some things about God but do not know his heart, which leads them to do things their way instead of God’s? Yes, and we do not need to worry about them.

1 John 4:4 NAS95 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

Revelation prophesies the end of the world, the God hating religion Semiramis started.

Revelation 17:1-5 NAS95  Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters,  (2)  with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”  (3)  And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.  (4)  The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality,  (5)  and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

When the Bible talks about adultery, sometimes it’s a reference to spiritual adultery. Spiritual adultery is relaying on anyone or anything to provide for us, instead of relying on the God who created us. When Israel went to other nations for help against their enemies, God called them adulterers, prostitutes.

Revelation 18:21 NAS95 Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer.

---

[1] Joshua 25:15 AMP