A Case Study on Nimrod: When Opposing Big Government Goes Too Far!
By Rev. J. Chace Gordon
Long ago in the early annals of the history of humanity, mankind collectively (with little exception), violated the Divine Laws of God that were imprinted upon his own conscience. For some 1600 years, God put up with this rebellion, but as wickedness increased in the earth so the destruction of His beloved human race became imminent and inevitable. A loving God was forced to take desperate and horrible action: He was forced to destroy a planet to save a man…a man named Noah. The conclusion of a loving and just God was this: if judgment is not carried out swiftly to preserve this one righteous man, Noah, and his family, wickedness will inevitably swallow him up and destroy his family line as well.
So God sends the flood. Cruel judgment? No. Unfathomable mercy and love. But God says to Noah, “I don’t EVER want to have to do this again…so here’s what I want mankind to do: govern YOURSELF in accordance with My laws and keep wickedness in check so I don’t have to destroy the planet like this ever again! I destroyed a planet to save a man, now I give human government the responsibility to save the planet!”
So God instituted human government for the purpose of enforcing Divine Law on a smaller scale. Man was given the responsibility to be self-governing (which he enjoyed), until that self-government became detached from Divine Law.
Within a few hundred years, mankind degenerated towards evil again. A man named Nimrod becomes a prominent character in the human drama. This man was a bold leader and hero of the people, who believed in human liberty and self-government. The problem was, he took his self-governing liberties too far and became proud and rebellious against God. His greatest obstacle was Divine Law itself, so he became an apostate. He turned the hearts of the people from trusting in God to trusting in themselves and ignoring God. He founded the kingdom of Shinar, with four great cities, including the famous city of Babel. He founded the Babylonian cult, which is the first great apostate religion. He built the city of Babel with a great tower, where men practiced idolatry to worship the stars in the heavens. AT LAST! They had created a “god” to worship that would not tell them what to do! Of course, you probably know the rest of the story. The city of Babel was left incomplete. Nimrod’s hedonist, idolatrous followers were scattered having had their languages confused, and “Operation Ignore Divine Law” fails.
Mankind became a scattered group of rebels and idol worshippers. Mankind, as a whole, had forsaken God. So God looks for a righteous man whom He can trust and enter a covenant with to bless. He finds Abram.
God says of Abram in Genesis 18:19:“For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He has spoken of him.”
Like Nimrod, Abram (or Abraham) believed in and was quite capable of self-government. But God saw something more in Abraham. He found a man who practiced self-government in accordance with Divine Law…a man who honored family government, who knew the boundaries of liberty and the key to liberty’s continuance, and a model whom God looked at and said, “I want to build a nation of people just like him!”
A little over 200 years ago, our founding fathers had the same dream. Let’s build a country of people of faith, who govern themselves in accordance with God’s Laws. Let’s write a Constitution based on the principles of Divine (or Natural) Law as we see in the Bible. Let’s create a check-and-balance system of government since we see man is prone to wickedness and shirking Divine Law. The founders saw the importance of limited government; but more importantly, they saw that if they were to truly be ONE NATION UNDER GOD, then they must be governed by a higher standard.
As George Washington declared: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”
John Adams warned Americans as well: “Statesmen…may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired in our people, in a greater measure, than what we have now, they may change their rulers, and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty…We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Today in America, there are candidates running for President that care nothing for liberty…only themselves. There are also candidates who, in the name of liberty, seek to unshackle man from the restraints of Divine Law. There are those who think a strong economy is what makes a nation great…but what really makes a nation great is the character of its people, the strength of its families, the courage of its leaders, and its uncompromising devotion to the laws of God as supreme.
So shall we follow the Abraham model of government or the Nimrod model? If we want Nimrod, then let us throw off all self-constraint in the name of liberty, become lawless and shirk as much government as we can! But if we want the Abraham model, let us not fully dispose of government, but reduce its size and influence by becoming self-governed citizens in accordance with the laws of God. Let us elect a man who honors God first, who understands the importance of family, and who will pass this legacy of obedience and faith in God on to future generations.
There are no Abrahams running for president, but there are arguably a few Nimrods. Choose a candidate who respects Divine Law and who is most capable of leading our nation to prosperity through the time-tested American way: “In GOD we trust!”
