Nimrod, The architect of the Tower of Babel - 2188 B.C.

The Tower of Babel was built in the city of Babylon, Capitol of the ancient Babylonian Empire, one hour south of Baghdad in Iraq. ... Genesis 11:4 "Let's build a great city with a tower that reaches to the skies, a monument to our greatness! This will bring us together and keep us from scattering all over the world."

" Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water."

The Greek historian Herodotus, the 'Father of History,' visited the Tower between 484 - 424 BC. and said "It has a solid central tower, one furlong square, with a second erected on top of it and then a third, and so on up to eight. All eight towers can be climbed by a spiral way running around the outside, and about halfway up there are seats for those who make the journey to rest on."

The Tower of Babel, discovered in 1876, was originally 300 feet high and 300 feet square with 8 stories or platforms. (the ruins are only 150 feet high) The tower was finished but the city was not. ... An ancient Babylonian tablet reads "The buiding of this illustrious tower offended the gods and they threw down what was built. They scattered them abroad and made strange their speech" The tower was rebuilt in 605 B.C. by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar who inscribed these words ,"I have completed its magnificence with silver, gold, other metals, stone, enameled bricks, fir and pine. The first which is the house of the earth's base, the most ancient monument of Babylon; I built and finished it. I have highly exalted its head with bricks covered with copper. .... Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site nor did I take away the foundation. In a fortunate month, in an auspicious day, I undertook to build porticoes around the crude brick masses, and the casing of burnt bricks. I adapted the circuits, I put the inscription of my name in the Kitir of the portico. I set my hand to finish it. And to exalt its head. As it had been in ancient days, so I exalted its summit."

Nimrod, from the Hebrew "marad" or "we will rebel," was the son of Cush and a mighty hunter before the Lord born in Ethiopia - Genesis 10:9.. Nimrod established the first Kingdom in Babylon and later extended it to Nineveh in Assyria. He also established the first Universal false religion "before the Lord" or openly in the presence of God and defied God to send another Flood.

The wild beasts of the forest multiplying more rapidly than the human race, committed great depredations on the scattered and straggling populations of the earth, and inspired great terror into the minds of men. The danger arising to the lives of men from such a source as this, when population is scanty, is implied in the reason given by God Himself for not driving out the doomed Canaanites before Israel at once, though the measure of their iniquity was full (Exo 23:29,30): "I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased."

Nimrod, therefore, in hunting down the wild beasts of the field gained for himself the character of a pre-eminent benefactor of his race. By this means was his power acquired, when he first began to be mighty upon the earth; and in the same way was that power consolidated. As the first great city-builder after the flood, by gathering men together in masses, and surrounding them with walls, he enabled them to pass their days in security, free from the alarms to which they had been exposed in their scattered life, when no one could tell but that at any moment he might be called to engage in deadly conflict with prowling wild beasts, in defense of his own life and of those who were dear to him. Within the battlements of a fortified city no such danger from savage animals was to be dreaded; and for the security afforded in this way, men no doubt looked upon themselves as greatly indebted to Nimrod. No wonder, therefore, that the name of the "mighty hunter", who was at the same time the prototype of "the god of fortifications," should have become a name of renown. Had Nimrod gained renown only thus, it had been well. But not content with delivering men from the fear of wild beasts, he set to work also to emancipate them from that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, and in which alone true happiness can be found. For this very thing, he seems to have gained, as one of the titles by which men delighted to honor him, the title of the "Emancipator," or "Deliverer."

Nimrod led men to believe that a real spiritual change of heart was unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful, they could be regenerated by mere external means. Looking at the subject in the light of the Bacchanalian orgies, it is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment, and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of the wrath of a holy God. In his various expeditions he was always accompanied by troops of women; and by music and song, and games and revelries, and everything that could please the natural heart, he commended himself to the good graces of mankind.

Nimrod, led men away from the patriarchal faith, and delivered their minds from that awe of God and fear of the judgments of heaven while yet the memory of the flood was recent. And according to all the principles of depraved human nature, this too, no doubt, was one grand element in his fame; for men will readily rally around any one who can give the least appearance of plausibility to any doctrine which will teach that they can be assured of happiness and heaven at last, though their hearts and natures are unchanged, and though they live without God in the world.

This spirit of Apostacy and Worldly pleasure, having subdued Europe, has invaded the U.S.

 

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