So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land.
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South. Genesis 12:4-9
#churchleadership #faith #jesus #Messiah #salvation #SignsOfTheTimes #Babel #lessonslearned
https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/hebrew-prophets/babel-lessons-learnt/
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South. Genesis 12:4-9
#churchleadership #faith #jesus #Messiah #salvation #SignsOfTheTimes #Babel #lessonslearned
https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/hebrew-prophets/babel-lessons-learnt/
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LearningTranscript
00:00Okay, so let's, without the sort of background, let's go and look at the text again.
00:05A number of things we learned from this. First of all, it says that the whole earth had one
00:10language and one speech. And they came to pass, they dwelt in the plains in the land of Shinar,
00:20and they dwelt there. We already talked about the land of Shinar. Interesting they had one
00:25language, so they were one people together. Come on to that in a moment. And they built themselves
00:32a city. And they said, let us make bricks and bake them together thoroughly. They had brick for stone
00:37and they had asphalt for mortar. They said, come let us build ourselves a city, a tower whose top
00:45is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of
00:50the
00:50whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had
00:55built,
00:55and the Lord said, indeed, the people are one. They have one language. This is what they begin
01:00to do. Now, nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down there
01:05and confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord
01:10scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
01:15Therefore, its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth,
01:19earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
01:25Now, remember, after the flood, the Lord had given the commandment of the survivors to go out of the
01:29ark, to multiply, to establish some kind of a governmental system, and to spread out across the earth,
01:36not to remain in one place. Now, here we see that the people had remained in one place.
01:41They had a united language, one language, one speech. The question is, what language were they
01:48speaking? I think they must have been speaking some kind of Hebrew, because all of the names which
01:56you have in the pre-flood time have some meaning in the Hebrew language. In fact, Babel has some
02:02meaning in the Hebrew language. Names like Adam means human being, man. Methuselah means when he has died,
02:09it shall be sent. Noah means rest. All these names are Hebrew words which mean something. So it seemed
02:16pretty logical to me that there was some connection between the language which they spoke and the Hebrew
02:20language in which the accounts of the pre-flood time were written. And we see that they had one
02:28language, they were one people, they were one together. They weren't obeying God's command to go
02:34out over all the earth, and they were building a tower for the praise of themselves.
02:41And then God intervenes and he scatters them and divides them into the world. They ceased building
02:48the city. Interesting thing about the language, Babel, as I've said, is associated with the Hebrew word
02:55Balal, which means to confuse or to jumble, the confusion of speech in this case. It's also in the
03:03ancient Akkadian language, which is the language people spoke in that region, Bab Elim, which means
03:09gate of the gods. So you've got two possible meanings of this word for the name of the town. Either
03:15it means
03:15confusion, negative, or it means gate of the gods, positive. So it's the way in which you come into
03:24contact with the gods through going through Babel.
03:29And you've got texts, this is cuneiform texts, which are written with this language, which contain
03:37these words. And this is actually the earliest written form. You can't read it because if you get
03:44close to it, clever people have managed to decode it and work out what it means. But you've actually
03:48got words on here. We've got pictures on here which represent words, which is the earliest form
03:53of writing, which we have still in extent today.
04:01Okay, going back to the text here. So they come to Shinar, come to this area between the Tigris and
04:09Euphrates River. And they stay there and they begin to build. And you can see here you've got the beginning
04:16of technology. They build with bricks made for permanent building. It says also they burn them
04:23thoroughly. And so these bricks were very hard and very durable. I'm told actually that they found,
04:29archaeologists found in this area, ancient bricks which are very hard and very durable. So they managed
04:34to make some very strong bricks. Also they used something which is described in the scriptures as
04:41bitumen or asphalt. Hebrew word is chimar. And no one's totally sure what it was. It may have been some
04:49kind of oil-based substance, which would have been abundant in the area of Babylon. It's also abundant in
04:56the Vale of Siddim, which is in the Dead Sea area. But somehow they managed to get this together to
05:01make these very strong bricks. So you've got the beginning of technology. As they build this,
05:06they begin to build a very high tower, a high place. A high place where they can worship false gods.
05:14Even say that this tower is going to be lifted up to the heavens.
05:19Some idea of trying to usurp even the place of God. Some people have suggested maybe they wanted to
05:24build a high tower so that if there was a flood they could go up on it. I'm not sure
05:28whether that's
05:28true or whether it was just to be a high place to worship their gods on. And in the Bible
05:35you have
05:35a lot of examples in the Old Testament of the Hebrews worshipping in the high places which God didn't
05:40approve of and offering sacrifices to wrong gods. And there's a point even about having high places,
05:47having cathedrals with big towers and having mosques with minarets. Somehow lifting up a high tower is
05:53somehow getting you closer to God. Not necessarily the place you can find God wherever you are.
05:58You can find God on the London underground if you like. But wherever you are, God is available
06:02and you don't have to get to a high place to get him. But there's this sort of instinct in
06:07human
06:07beings that somehow if you can build up you can find some high place you can get nearer to God
06:11or
06:11the gods as you imagine it to be. It also says we want to make a name for ourselves. So
06:18behind the spirit of
06:19this endeavour there is a kind of self-glory. It's not going to be for God. It's going to be
06:26for the
06:26glory of self, the glory of man. And you can see also in our high buildings, perhaps even in the
06:32skyscrapers as I put in my pamphlet, The Last Light for the Last Days, about the towers falling.
06:37There's a kind of exhortation as we build these huge tower buildings in the middle of cities and
06:42we think that that is such a symbol of power and wealth and a symbol of the development of our
06:48society. Make a name for ourselves, not for God. Lest we be scattered across the earth. So they don't
06:54want to be scattered, they want to stay where they are. And God did want them to scatter. And we
07:00see
07:00then that the Lord comes down and he is trying to do something to remove this, to change it.
07:06Behind it you can see there's a kind of human potential movement, what humans can do.
07:10The very interesting phrase which it uses here, as the Lord says, nothing they propose to do
07:16will be withheld from them. So God says now they're beginning to do this, they're beginning
07:22to develop technology, they're going to build this high building. If they carry on like this,
07:28then nothing they propose to do is going to be withheld from them. They're going to develop
07:32a technological system, a power system, a religious system, which will leave me out of the picture,
07:37leave God out of the picture. And behind it there'll be human skill, also be the power of
07:43the evil one who'll be manipulating them into doing this. And they'll be united in some kind
07:49of a rebellion against God. Remember that Nimrod, his name actually is derived from a Hebrew word,
07:54marad, which means to rebel. So there's a kind of rebellious spirit behind it against the authority
08:00of God. And it's going to result in something evil, so God says, I'm going to scatter them
08:04around the world. You're going to divide their languages so they can't understand each other,
08:08so they can't unite against God. And he's going to prevent the development of the kind of technology
08:17which we see now being unleashed in our society. And one of the interesting things, if you put that
08:23phrase, nothing they propose to do will be withheld from them. One of the things you see which is
08:27remarkable about our time is in the development of technology, in one sense nothing that they propose
08:33to do is being withheld from them. There's an almost unlimited expansion of technology, of knowledge,
08:39which is coming about through the systems which we've developed in our time.
08:45So if you look at this subject, you could say, well at the beginning of civilization people
08:49set about building a great tower. And in one way you could say the Tower of Babel was the mega
08:55project
08:55of its day. A structure built with human ingenuity and developing technology, but leaving God out of the
09:01picture. It was built to make a name for ourselves, built to feed into human pride.
09:07And it was going to become the launch pad for human self-exaltation, rebellion against God,
09:13and every false religious system on the earth. So God decided that people are going to continue in unity,
09:21nothing they propose to do will be withheld from them. So what did he do? He then divided them up,
09:26divided their languages. So there was a supernatural act in which God then comes down and
09:31people suddenly find themselves starting off speaking one language, I said probably Hebrew,
09:37and suddenly they're speaking a totally different language. And they all are divided up into different
09:43groups which can speak different languages, but they can't communicate with each other.
09:48And so they leave off building the tower, and they become scattered around the earth.
09:55I think this has an interesting connection to our time. In many ways we see a modern Babel being
10:02constructed with an explosion of knowledge, as prophesied in the book of Daniel, chapter 12,
10:09verse 4, where it says at the time of the end, many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall
10:14increase.
10:16Travelling, going to and fro, the Hebrew actually does imply travelling from one place to another.
10:21What do you see in our time? Huge explosion in travel. You know, if you lived 200 years ago,
10:29the fastest you could go anywhere in the world was the speed of a horse.
10:33If you wanted to send a message to anybody in another part of the world, the fastest you could do
10:38was to give it to somebody to carry at the speed of a horse from one place to another.
10:43Today, you can travel right around the world in 24 hours by plane. You can travel across most
10:49countries in about 24 hours by car or by train. If you want to send a message to somebody, you
10:54can
10:54do it instantly by email or by technology. See the incredible speed in which technology has built up
11:01and has transformed the whole world in which we live. So you have a kind of united world.
11:06You know, many years ago, most people didn't move from the place they were born into.
11:12I remember once we stayed in the cottage in Cornwall and we got talking to the old lady who'd lived
11:16there all her life.
11:18And we asked her about her life. She said, all right, I never leave this old pass.
11:24I said, I once went to Plymouth and I didn't like it, but I never went there again.
11:29So that's just a few miles away.
11:32But you laugh. That was how most people lived.
11:35Now we've got people traveling all over the world.
11:37We've got people living in this country and many of you who've come from different parts of the world now
11:41living in this part of the world.
11:43And it's an amazing kind of coming together, a kind of jumbling up of society.
11:50And perhaps we sort of take it for granted. But, you know, 200 years ago, all these things would be
11:55totally unthinkable.
11:56You go to that village or go to even to London and all the people will be pretty much the
12:01same people.
12:02They wouldn't have traveled very far in their lives unless they were merchants or in the army.
12:06And today we have this world in which I guess most of us have been to a foreign country.
12:13Many have been to many foreign countries and many of us have come from other countries.
12:16And we have this world in which we have this huge increase in travel.
12:19And what about knowledge? You've got a massive increase in knowledge, which is happening exponentially as we develop new technologies
12:28of computers and Internet and all these kind of things which were totally unknown.
12:33Even in my youth, they were pretty well unknown.
12:35And now you have them. Everybody knows them. Everybody has a mobile phone and everybody has this communication.
12:41And you can send messages to people all over the world.
12:43You can communicate, get news from the other side of the world instantly.
12:48And we have this amazing society which has been built up.
12:53And it's developing all the time. Nothing they propose to do will be impossible to them.
12:59Again, one of the things I put in my magazine, tech experts are talking about developing something called singularity, a
13:05point in the future where technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, leading to the fundamental transformation of human civilization.
13:13This event is often linked to the creation of super intelligent artificial intelligence that can improve itself and recreate itself
13:20as an exponential rate.
13:22The fear is that this development could unleash forces that will lead to our destruction and enslavement to a kind
13:28of technological dictatorship.
13:31Can you see that that's possible?
13:33Can you see that that's possible? It's happening.
13:36And one of the things you also see is that this system has left God, the true God, out altogether.
13:43You can see that in many ways our society today is at war with God, the true God, got all
13:50manner of substitutes.
13:52But wherever you look in the world, including our part of the world, biblical Christianity, biblical concepts are becoming more
14:00and more suppressed, underground, and even fought against by the system.
14:05You go to other parts like China, go to other parts like China, and they're actively persecuted, go to the
14:10Middle East, to the Muslim countries, you'll find that it's suppressed, and there is a war against the true God,
14:15which is taking place.
14:17You've got all kinds of influences like humanism, multi-faith, Darwinism, Marxism, the whole diversity agenda, Islamism, false forms of
14:29multi-faith religion,
14:31all kinds of forces which are taking over the institutions of our society, and you've got antichrist forces taking over
14:39all the institutions, whether it's the education, the media, entertainment, government, judiciary, and law enforcement.
14:48A lot of fuss this week about the BBC, BBC being biased.
14:55I think the BBC is totally biased on so many issues, and it's taken over by forces which are antichristian.
15:02You know, I went to university and I spent most of my professional life as a teacher in the education
15:09system,
15:10and I saw the education system being increasingly taken over by antichristian forces until what it is now.
15:16Basically, it's an indoctrination process against God and the Bible, and in favour of forces which are totally antichristian.
15:26And we see that God, the true concept of God as the creator, the redeemer, the judge, being denied, and
15:34the place of the gospel being pushed out.
15:37So this is basically the spirit which is behind the Tower of Babel, and it's being reproduced in our time.
15:46And you have this scattering which took place as a result of God intervening.
15:51Now, I wonder whether there's going to come a scattering again in our time.
15:56In fact, one of the things I put in my article was that we've got two possibilities.
15:59That it all does come together in this antichrist system in which he sets up the mark of the beast
16:04and all that stuff.
16:05Or it all falls apart into total chaos.
16:08Both of those are possibilities, and I'm not a prophet, so I'm not going to say which one's going to
16:11happen.
16:12I think that the, yeah, definitely from the Bible, the antichrist system will come into pass.
16:17But you can see the process being put in that direction right now.
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