The third rebellion in Genesis 11:19, the story of Babel, when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, and when he fixed the borders of the peoples, according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion, but Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob is his allotted heritage. Babel, humanity was divided into nations, he punished humanity, because he wanted them to overspread the earth, God repeats the Edenic mandate after the flood to Noah and his sons, and it’s from his sons that all the nations in Genesis chapter 10.
Instead of overspending the earth, they congregated a place called Babel and they built a tower, to make themselves a great name. So God says, okay, this is like the opposite of what I asked you to do, let me get this straight, we had a fall in Eden, you got expelled from that and that meant death and estrangement from me, your father and your creator. Then we unfortunately had another supernatural rebellion to deal with, Genesis 6:1-5, the result of that was the proliferation of evil and wickedness and depravity among the human population that was so great, that I looked down and I saw that every inclination of the human heart was only evil continually, so I sent a flood, but I saved a remnant out of the flood.
But now, when you guys get out of the ark and you have kids, I show up and I repeat the Edenic mandate, because there is no plan B, we’re sticking with plan A here. I want a family, I want you in my family, I want to return to earth and I want the earth to become Eden, but it has to start right here, you’ve got to be loyal to me. If you believe that I am the Most High, that I am your creator, I am your father, let’s get with the plan here, be my child and be my partner. So what does humanity do? No, we’d like to build a tower. The tower they build was a ziggurat, ziggurats were part of temple complexes, you built a ziggurat to connect heaven and earth and you would meet at that place to offer sacrifice and barter with the god or the gods. A ziggurat, part of a temple complex was something you built to bring the deity to you. God’s like, that’s really not the idea, I don’t come at your beckon call, the God of Israel will not be tamed.
In Acts, in the second half of chapter six, Stephen is arrested, but in chapter seven is his sermon before the high priest and those who are assembled to deal with him. Stephen had been accused about speaking against the temple and against the law and speaking about Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus would destroy the temple and change the customs that Moses had given them. The high priest says, are these things so, and Stephen’s answer is this sermon, as Stephen continues with his sermon and it’s a rehearsal of some very familiar things in Old Testament history, he knows his Old Testament well.
In verse 40, He’s still talking about Moses and Aaron at Sinai, the people speaking to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us, as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what’s become of him, this is when Moses had gone up into the mountain, he’s been missing for forty days. In verse 41, and they made a calf in those days, and they offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. In verses 42, but God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven. Here’s an important phrase, gave them over to worship the host of heaven. You don’t want to be loyal to me, you don’t want me to be your God, I’m going to give you a divorce.
I’m going to disinherit you, and I’m going to cut you off from me. I’m going to disperse you and divide you up geographically, and I’m going to assign each of the nations the sons of God, and they’re going to get assigned to you, and what I want them to do is, I want them to essentially be placeholders. I still love humanity, I don’t want humanity enslaved and destroyed and corrupted and basically ground into dust. I certainly don’t want humans to worship the other gods, because I’m their maker. So what I want is, the nations ruled justly, according to my character and my principles, but I’m done with you. I’m going to judge your wickedness and we’re going to see how that goes. In the meantime, if you’re not willing to be loyal to me, I’m going to create more humans. I’m going to take one guy from Ur, his name is Abram, and his wife is Sarah, and they’re perfect, because they can’t have kids, because I’m going to supernaturally enable them to have a child, so that everybody knows this nation, their descendants exist, because of my power.
So that’s why the rest of the Old Testament is Israel against the nations and God against the other gods, things became adversarial. The Israelites themselves, the people of Yahweh who were specially created after the disinheritance of the nations, God’s own people begin to gravitate toward the worship of these other sons of God, of these other gods of the nations. And Deuteronomy 32 alludes to this, they worshiped demons and not God, gods they had not known, gods that had not been allotted to them.
Instead of overspending the earth, they congregated a place called Babel and they built a tower, to make themselves a great name. So God says, okay, this is like the opposite of what I asked you to do, let me get this straight, we had a fall in Eden, you got expelled from that and that meant death and estrangement from me, your father and your creator. Then we unfortunately had another supernatural rebellion to deal with, Genesis 6:1-5, the result of that was the proliferation of evil and wickedness and depravity among the human population that was so great, that I looked down and I saw that every inclination of the human heart was only evil continually, so I sent a flood, but I saved a remnant out of the flood.
But now, when you guys get out of the ark and you have kids, I show up and I repeat the Edenic mandate, because there is no plan B, we’re sticking with plan A here. I want a family, I want you in my family, I want to return to earth and I want the earth to become Eden, but it has to start right here, you’ve got to be loyal to me. If you believe that I am the Most High, that I am your creator, I am your father, let’s get with the plan here, be my child and be my partner. So what does humanity do? No, we’d like to build a tower. The tower they build was a ziggurat, ziggurats were part of temple complexes, you built a ziggurat to connect heaven and earth and you would meet at that place to offer sacrifice and barter with the god or the gods. A ziggurat, part of a temple complex was something you built to bring the deity to you. God’s like, that’s really not the idea, I don’t come at your beckon call, the God of Israel will not be tamed.
In Acts, in the second half of chapter six, Stephen is arrested, but in chapter seven is his sermon before the high priest and those who are assembled to deal with him. Stephen had been accused about speaking against the temple and against the law and speaking about Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus would destroy the temple and change the customs that Moses had given them. The high priest says, are these things so, and Stephen’s answer is this sermon, as Stephen continues with his sermon and it’s a rehearsal of some very familiar things in Old Testament history, he knows his Old Testament well.
In verse 40, He’s still talking about Moses and Aaron at Sinai, the people speaking to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us, as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what’s become of him, this is when Moses had gone up into the mountain, he’s been missing for forty days. In verse 41, and they made a calf in those days, and they offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. In verses 42, but God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven. Here’s an important phrase, gave them over to worship the host of heaven. You don’t want to be loyal to me, you don’t want me to be your God, I’m going to give you a divorce.
I’m going to disinherit you, and I’m going to cut you off from me. I’m going to disperse you and divide you up geographically, and I’m going to assign each of the nations the sons of God, and they’re going to get assigned to you, and what I want them to do is, I want them to essentially be placeholders. I still love humanity, I don’t want humanity enslaved and destroyed and corrupted and basically ground into dust. I certainly don’t want humans to worship the other gods, because I’m their maker. So what I want is, the nations ruled justly, according to my character and my principles, but I’m done with you. I’m going to judge your wickedness and we’re going to see how that goes. In the meantime, if you’re not willing to be loyal to me, I’m going to create more humans. I’m going to take one guy from Ur, his name is Abram, and his wife is Sarah, and they’re perfect, because they can’t have kids, because I’m going to supernaturally enable them to have a child, so that everybody knows this nation, their descendants exist, because of my power.
So that’s why the rest of the Old Testament is Israel against the nations and God against the other gods, things became adversarial. The Israelites themselves, the people of Yahweh who were specially created after the disinheritance of the nations, God’s own people begin to gravitate toward the worship of these other sons of God, of these other gods of the nations. And Deuteronomy 32 alludes to this, they worshiped demons and not God, gods they had not known, gods that had not been allotted to them.
