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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Here's what you should know about Nimrod. He was the first ruler of Babel or Babylon, and he also was the ruler of Nineveh, the city that he built in Assyria. He was the head of both of those.
Now, why is this important? Because who are the two peoples that will exile the Jews from their land? Assyria and Babylon. And Nimrod becomes the ancient arch enemy of the soon-to-come Jewish people. So, in 722 BC, the Assyrians will come in and take the ten northern tribes away to Assyria. In 605 and 586 BC, the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar will come in and take the two southern tribes and take them into Babylon.
And all of the tribes together will be assumed under Babylon, both started by Nimrod. If I had the time, and I was thinking of doing it, but I'm always ambitious when it comes to my time and how much I can actually give out in this length of time, I'd love to tell you the story, and perhaps I will as we go on in Genesis, about the wife of Nimrod, whom we know from historical records, was Semiramis. And she had a child named Tammuz, who is mentioned in the Bible, Ezekiel chapter 8. In fact, some Hebrew Jewish women go mourning after Tammuz because of a pagan story. It was believed, and I'm just touching, don't worry, I'm not going to get into it and explain too much, but Tammuz was said to be the child of Semiramis by a virgin birth. And his birth is celebrated on December 25th, and was celebrated by the use of an evergreen tree, the giving of gifts, and it was also said that he rose from the dead. Now all of this is a satanic plot, and I will unravel it more as we go on, I just don't have the time to digress. But he was believed to have a miraculous resurrection, that's why they placed the yule log, the yule log, which means the infant log in Chaldean or Babylonian language, and they would burn it, and then in the morning miraculously a tree, which represents resurrected life, would be there. And it was celebrated in the springtime of the year too, under the feast of Oshtart, Babylonia named Oshtart, which got changed later on to Easter. And because the egg was the symbol of fertility, and the bunny rabbit the symbol of fertility, all of those ancient symbols find their place in ancient Babylon with the worship of the boy Tammuz, the son of Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod.
I'll go more into depth later on and unravel it for you, perhaps in the Christmas season, especially as people get all hung up about Christmas trees, and should you have them or should you not. So I'll do that later, we just don't have the time tonight. Isn't that fun how I bait you like that? And resin, verse 12, between Nineveh and Cala, that is the principal city, Mizraim begot Ludim, Anamim, Leibabim, and Nephiutim, Im, Im, Im. Verse 14, notice, sorry. Patrusim, kasluhim, that's the Hebrew pronunciation, the Im, and I told you I wouldn't do that.
I find myself doing it. From whom came the Philistines and Kaphtorim. Canaan begot Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth. The Jebusite, Amorite, Gergashite, all those were tribes of Canaan, eventually, by that name. Hivite, Arkite, and the Sinai.
The Arvadite, Zemarite, Hamathite, don't forget to turn out the light. Afterward, the families of the Canaanites were dispersed, and the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza, so I hope that helps. As you go down towards Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, that's down in the lower desert parts of that land as far as LaShaw. These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, and in their nations. Now we come finally to the offspring of Shem, and the rest of the book of Genesis will focus upon the lineage of the sons of Shem. The other two lines, though they go on, will be discarded as far as Biblical history.
Why? Because we want to find out about Genesis 3.15, the offspring of the woman who will come and destroy the authority of Satan as promised there. We want to find out about the Deliverer. We want to find out, therefore, about Abraham, because he comes from that line, and will follow that line throughout the book of Genesis. And children, verse 21, were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder. The sons of Shem were Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, that's that name that you want to stay away from for your boy, Lud, Aram, the sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gethur, and Mash.
Mash would probably be a better pronunciation. Okay, a couple of interesting things in those verses. First of all, Eber. Eber, most ethnologists will tell you, is the beginning of the Heberu people. In Hebrew, the root Eber comes from.
That's the original pronunciation, the Eberu people, or the Hebrew people, come from Eber. And those who settled after him. So that's the sons of Eber. And then you'll notice in verse 22, the sons of Shem were Elam. Now in chapter 13, the Elamites from Elam are going to invade the land of Canaan when Abraham is there. Abraham is going to be there with his nephew Lot, and there's going to be five kings, one under the heading of Kedorlaomer. He's the king. Kedorlaomer, the Elamite king, will come in and invade the land.
And so already by that time we have this tribal group outside of that land trying to get in. Ashur, which is the ancient name for Assyria, Arphaxad, Lud, which is Lydia or Anatolia, western Asia minor. Aram, you see the word Aram in verse 22. Aram is ancient Syria.
Okay, now just follow me carefully. I know we're going through a lot of names and facts, but Aram is ancient Syria. And in the New International Version and other more modern versions, they don't even use the word Syrian in the Old Testament, but Aramean. Now Aram, whose capital is Damascus of Syria, Aram will develop a language that is one of the three biblical languages. You have Hebrew in the Old Testament, you have Aramaic in the Old Testament book of Daniel, and you have Greek. So that middle language Aramaic comes from Aram and the offspring of Aram. The Aramaic language is what Daniel spoke in Babylon. By the way, the Aramaic language is what probably Jesus and his disciples spoke in the New Testament. Because when they came back, that is the Jews, from captivity in Babylon, they spoke Chaldean or Aramaic. That was the language of the captivity.
It became the language of the land, even though Greece became the lingua franca after it took over after Alexander the Great's conquest. But in that land, and even among the Jewish people, Aramaic was spoken. This is why Mel Gibson, when he made the movie The Passion of the Christ, decided to resurrect, and it was a huge task, what is considered now a dead language. Who speaks Aramaic?
Nobody. You have to go back to the text and figure out the pronunciation and then teach that to the cast and crew members, and he did. They resurrected Aramaic, and that's why The Passion of the Christ, the whole film, is, well, most of it, not all of it, some of it is in Latin, Roman, etc., but it's principally in Aramaic. Jesus is speaking Aramaic in that movie because of Aram. So I'm throwing these out because this is where the roots of all this are, and it's fascinating.
At least, I find it fascinating. Verse 23, the sons of Aram were Uz. Ooh, that's an important name, isn't it? Who comes from Uz? Job came from Uz.
And Uz is the area of northern Arabia, or today, a part of Jordan, where Jordan abuts that land out in the desert, where you have some fertile springs of water that cultivate livestock and sustain life. Arphaxad begot Salah. Salah begot Eber. To Eber were born two sons. The name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan begot Almadad, Shelef, Hazarmavef.
I should have probably tried these out before tonight. Jerah, Hadaram, Uzal, Diklah, Obol, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and the rest of the gang. Verse 30, and their dwelling place was from Misha as you go towards Shaphar, the mountains of the east. These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, their lands, according to their nations. These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations in their nations, and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood. So, after the flood, this is after the flood, and after the flood, there's a new social order. God establishes human government, chapter 9, with the caveat of capital punishment, again chapter 9. New social order.
Also, there's a new physical order. That canopy, that shroud, that vapor blanket, it's disseminated from around the earth. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, understanding Genesis is critical to understanding the rest of Scripture, and in his book, You Can Understand the Book of Genesis, Skip Heitzig helps you discover the meaning and message of this foundational book. Embark on an epic journey to where it all began, so you can understand the amazing story of God's love and our redemption in Christ. You Can Understand the Book of Genesis is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Now the lifespan of mankind is greatly reduced from 7, 8, 900 years to, you'll see, 120 years, etc. It's greatly reduced after the flood.
And probably because of that, the atmospheric pressure is cut in half. You know, people wonder about the dinosaurs. We discussed them briefly, but they obviously couldn't fit on any ark, and it'd be dangerous to have them on an ark. And they died in the flood, and the fossil evidence today reminds us of the universal flood.
But what about pterodactyls? They can fly. Well, they may have survived the flood, but after the flood, with the atmospheric pressure changed dramatically, they couldn't handle it. They also died.
So either they died from the deluge of water in the sky or the change of atmospheric pressure. Nonetheless, it's a new order, socially and physically. Seventy nations. Seventy nations sent out, if I can use that term, by God, to re-people, repopulate the earth. Now I'll tell you where my mind goes.
Here's God sending out 70 to repopulate. And my mind goes to Luke's gospel. I believe it's chapter 10.
It might not be where Jesus sends out 70 disciples around the area to represent the new order spiritually and to evangelize the Galilee of the Gentiles, to represent God among the nations who had settled in the area. Chapter 11. Let's see how we do, how far we go, at least part of it. Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. That comes in handy. Mutual communication is essential for everything. But mankind is still mankind.
They can get together, they can decide on certain things, they can form policies, and they can even form a plan against God, which they do. It is sort of like history repeating itself. What happened in the garden happens after the flood now. It came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar.
This is Iraq, modern day Iraq, the Mesopotamian River Valley. And they dwelt there. And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly. And they had bricks for stone, so adobe bricks.
And they had asphalt for mortar, and I've been to Babylon, and I've seen the asphalt and the asphalt pits from ancient times. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, indeed, the people are one, and they all have one language. And this is what they begin to do, now nothing that they propose will be withheld from them. God told them to fill the earth.
God sent them out to populate the earth. Now we have, it would seem, a defiance, a coalescing, not a spreading, but a coalescing. Let's gather together.
Let's not spread out so much. Let's build a city, and we'll build a tower that can reach all the way up into heaven, all the way up to God. It's not that building a city is wrong or living in a city is wrong.
That's not the issue. After all, God, in the Old Testament, will choose a city of the Jebusites to house His name forever. And what is that city? Jerusalem, the holy city. In fact, that name becomes the name of the ultimate city called what? New Jerusalem.
After the present heaven and earth are destroyed, John looks up and sees a city coming out of heaven called New Jerusalem. It's not that God is down on city living or city folk or building a town. It's building a town, building a city by man, for man, excluded from God to elevate their own pride and wit and strength. It's a defiance of God.
Now there's lots of archaeological discoveries that have found these towers, seven leveled towers made out of mud bricks called ziggurats. It was used to worship the zodiac, and they would climb up the steps of these seven tiers, and up at the top was thought to be a chamber that housed the presence of the God they worshiped. They looked to the stars for direction, and they worshiped the stars of heaven. Instead of looking to God, instead of trusting God for the future, let's read our own future and get our own direction from the zodiac and assign meaning to the stars rather than the God who made the heavens and the earth.
This really is the beginning of false religion as well as secular humanism. Now they'll divide, and one will be varied from the other, but both of these begin here. Mankind congregating together in a city answers they thought their need for companionship. How do we need to be with each other? It can be lonely out here in the woods and out here in the country. Let's get together. But did you know that cities are some of the loneliest places in the world? There's millions of people who don't look at each other, talk to each other, know each other.
It can be very lonely and isolating. They said, let's build a city and a tower that goes all the way up to heaven, but notice verse 5. The Lord came down to see the city.
Boy, it didn't reach that far, did it? It was so low and so insignificant, God had to stoop to see it. And then verse 7, let us go down, let us, there's the Trinity again, go down and confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth and they ceased building the city. Therefore, its name is called Babel, Babel, gateway to God, or in Hebrew, confusion, because the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. A common language is a blessing. If you've ever been in a foreign country and nobody knows English and you don't know one lick of their language, it's hard. Now, according to the latest count, there are 6,800 main languages on earth today. That's not counting all the dialects. You can be in India and there's hundreds of dialects and one can't communicate to the other. The dialect is so different, even though the root language is the same, their dialects vary and they can't understand each other. But 6,800 main languages.
So today, we know that confusion. Go to the United Nations. There's rooms in the United Nations that have headphones and translators because we need to commonize the communication because we can't make any plans or do anything unless we can communicate. A few years ago, I had the privilege of going down to Puerto Rico for a Billy Graham crusade called Global Outreach or Mission, Global Mission. Where 185 nations were reached simultaneously with 3,000 different sites set up, tents, churches, auditoriums.
Out in the field, a little computer that would broadcast a signal and show a picture and it was translated simultaneously into all those languages from Puerto Rico. So I thought of Babel and the confusion and how the technology now allows us to get the message of grace and make it common and send it out and sort of reverse this whole curse. So, verse 10, this is the genealogy of Shem. Shem was 100 years old, begot Arphaxad. Two years after the flood, after he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years, begot sons and daughters and Arphaxad lived 35 years, begot Salah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and he begot sons and daughters. And the list goes on and on. Some of the names we've already mentioned. It is basically the lineage of Shem retold after the flood to lead us to one particular family.
So I'll get to the family and we'll be able to close the evening. Verse 23, after he begot, oh verse 20, Ryu lived 32 years and begot Sarag. After he begot Sarag, Ryu lived 207 years, begot sons and daughters. Sarag lived 30 years, begot Nahor. And after he begot Nahor, Sarag lived 200 years and begot sons and daughters.
Now watch this because they all live in the same Nahorhood because of this. Nahor lived 29 years and begot Terah. After he begot Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and begot sons and daughters. And Terah lived 70 years and begot Abram, Nahor and Haran. This is the genealogy of Terah.
Now Abraham comes into focus and his offspring all the way to the end of the book with Joseph. Begot Abram, Nahor, Haran. Haran begot Lot. Haran died before his father Terah in his native land in Ur of the Chaldees. And then Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai. The name of Nahor's wife, Milcah. The daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, the father of Iscah. Sarai was barren.
She had no child. Then Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot. And the son of Haran, his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife. And they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go to the land of Canaan. And they came to Haran and dwelt there. So the days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran. We'll find out next time a little more about where they came from.
And we'll take it up in chapter 12 but we'll dip back just slightly in chapter 11 to tie some loose ends. Because what you need to know is this. Abram, Father Abraham, was initially a pagan worshiper. And I'll cite some sources from history as well as from the Bible that talk about his father and his father-in-law.
And how they manufactured idols and worshiped idols. But God got a hold of this man. And through getting a hold of this man will reach out to the whole world through the Jewish nation, through the Messiah, and through the salvation that comes through Christ. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will take you back to where it all began so you can understand all of God's word more clearly.
Pastor Skip's book, You Can Understand the Book of Genesis, is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copies when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
