Gesture of Defiance

Joseph Herrin (04-05-2016)

I had not anticipated writing a post on the subject of the Palmyra Arch from the Temple of Bel, but continued correspondence and additional information has led me to do so. For those not already familiar with this “news” story, it was reported last year that the terrorist group ISIS had blown up a number of ancient historic sites in Palmyra, a city located in Syria. One of the historic ruins ISIS reportedly blew up was the Temple of Bel. All that remains standing of the former ruins is an arch that stood at the entrance to the temple.

Palmyra Arch

In recent days it has been announced that replica, full-size, arches are being constructed and will be erected first in London and New York City. This project is apparently headed up by the Institute For Digital Archaeology, a joint venture between Harvard University, the University of Oxford (UK), and Dubai's Museum of the Future. It is being promoted by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The plan is to showcase these arches in two of the Western world’s leading cities in conjunction with UNESCO’s World Heritage Week which is held at the end of April.

The arches are being created in China on the world’s largest 3-D printer. A NY Post article dated December 29, 2015 stated that the plan is to create thousands of more arches to be displayed in cities around the world. Chances are an Arch of the Temple of Bel is coming to a city near you. The arch stands 48 feet tall and 23 feet wide.

The reason I placed the word “news” in quotes in the opening paragraph of this writing is that the news is largely manufactured today. When one considers that ISIS was created by the CIA and other groups that work with them, that ISIS is equipped with American weaponry and supplied with vehicles purchased by the American State Department, and ISIS takes its directions from its Western  benefactors who support it financially, it is not credible to believe that Palmyra was targeted randomly by a grass roots terrorist organization. I believe there was a preconceived plan to erect replicas of the Arch of the Temple of Bel in cities all across the world and the powers-that-be merely sought some pretext to do so. Consequently, they instructed ISIS to blow up the Palmyra Temple of Bel in order to sell their plan to people all across the globe.

Many cities would find their citizens objecting to having a replica arch from a temple of Bel erected in their environs apart from some back story to sell the act. It would be a hard sell in America where a majority of people self-identify as Christians. It is well known that the Old Testament of the Bible condemned Bel/Baal worship. By characterizing the erection of these arches as “a gesture of defiance” against the bigoted cultural destruction carried out by Islamic Extremists, those who oppose Islamic Extremism can be brought to rally behind this exhibit, even those who identify as Christians.

Why would the global powers-that-be wish to carry out this plan? As I have recently pointed out in the book Lunacy and The Age of Deception, Satan grants power and wealth to whomever he desires. He is “the god of this world” (II Corinthians 4:4). Even as Satan showed the Son of God the glory of all the kingdoms of this world, and promised to give them all into his hands if He would bow down and worship him, this modus operandi has always been Satan’s method of recruitment. Those who hold the reins of the international banks and global corporations, and who control the governments of this fallen world system, are those who are willing to sell their souls to the devil. They remain kings and princes in this world as long as they do Satan’s bidding.

One thing many conspiracy theorists and alternative historians fail to do is to look beyond the human element to see that there are principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of wickedness in high places which rule over men. The plan to erect symbolic ruins from a Temple of Bel in cities all across the world is ultimately a scheme of the fallen angel who is known as Satan. This act is quite accurately described in the media as a “gesture of defiance,” but the gesture is not aimed at a terrorist organization. It is aimed at Yahweh, and His Son Yahshua. Satan is shaking his fist at the omnipotent One who cast him out of heaven, and he is inducing men and women to embrace a form of idolatry that Yahweh has condemned.

A continuing animosity between the servants of Baal and the servants of Yahweh is revealed throughout the Old Testament of the Bible. Jezebel, the epitome of an enemy of Yahweh and an oppressor of the righteous, was a worshiper of Bel/Baal. The word “Bel” is even a part of her name in the same way that Yah was part of the name of many of Yahweh’s servants (Yah-shua, Jeremi-Yah, Isai-Yah, Hezeki-Yah, Nehemi-Yah, Obadi-Yah, etc.). The father of Jezebel was Eth-baal, king of the Sidonians. There was no one so loathed by Yahweh as Jezebel, so that the judgment He pronounced on her was that the dogs would eat her flesh and she would become as dung upon the face of the earth so than no one could afterwards say, “Here lies Jezebel.”

Gideon was called Jerub-Baal after he was called of God and he tore down the altar erected to Baal. One of the godliest men to rule over Judah was King Hezekiah. He too tore down the altars of Baal and killed the priests of Baal, receiving a good name before his Creator. In contrast, his son Manasseh re-built the altars of Baal and did great evil.

II Kings 21:1-9
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hephzibah. He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel. For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshiped all the host of the sky, and served them. He built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which Yahweh said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” He built altars for all the host of the sky in the two courts of the house of Yahweh. He made his son to pass through the fire, and practiced sorcery, and used enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he worked much evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger. He set the engraved image of Asherah, that he had made, in the house of which Yahweh said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever; neither will I cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.” But they didn't listen: and Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than did the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel.

Do you think it is a small thing to erect images to Baal in all the cities of this world? Satan knows what he is doing. It is truly a “gesture of defiance.”

In article after article posted in the mainstream media, the re-creation of these arches is described as an act of “defiance.”

Bear in mind that the global media is wholly under the control of the servants of Satan. In one sense, it is a manifestation of great cunning to depict this matter as a reaction to jihadists and Muslim extremists. Despite the fact that this rationale is a deception for ISIS is not a home grown Muslim movement, it is a very clever ruse. Yet the deeper deception is that the erection of these arches are not intended as a gesture of defiance against ISIS. There is no ISIS. Take away Western funding, arms, and support and ISIS would collapse in short order, and no one would be left to identify themselves as ISIS. The real gesture of defiance is against Yahweh, against His Son Yahshua, and against those who are disciples of Christ. This is all brought to you by the global elite, the servants of Satan. They are doing the bidding of the god of this world.

One thing I have commented on to others is that as egregious as these acts are, it is only due to spiritual blindness and deception that Christians assume that what is occurring is anything new. Earlier today I wrote the following to a brother whom I was corresponding with on this subject.
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Certainly there is much that could be said about this event. Following are some points to consider. The church has been merging the worship of Baal and Ishtar with that of Yahweh and His Son for many centuries. The church's highest holy day is Easter, named after the fertility goddess of the same name, also known as Ishtar, Isis, Astarte, and Ashtoreth (among other names). These same churches traditionally have an o-bel- isk erected atop the entrance to their buildings. They call them steeples, but as there is no mention of any such type of structure acknowledged by Christ, His disciples, or the early church, one needs to look to pagan religion to learn of its true origin. I have written of the obelisk/steeple on numerous occasions. The word obelisk means "shaft of Bel/Baal."

http://parablesblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/illusion-and-reality.html

The Lateran Obelisk Erected Outside the Mother Church of Rome

Church Steeples

Judges 2:11-13
Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baals, and they forsook Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked Yahweh to anger. So they forsook Yahweh and served Baal and the Ashtoreth (Ishtar/Astarte/Easter).

Observing these things, we see that the church today serves Baal and Ashtoreth just as the Israelites did in the land of Canaan. Although many do so unwittingly, all who do so are practicing profane rites. They are mixing the worship of Yahweh and His Son with that of Baal and Ashtoreth. Doing so always led to judgment upon the people of God, and it cannot fail to do so today.

Consider also that the word Baal is not actually a name. It is a descriptive word meaning "Lord" or "Master." There were many Baals worshiped by the ancient people of the world. Today the majority of people who profess to be Christians have forgotten the name of their God. They call Him "Lord," or "Lord God." These are not names. They are descriptive titles, being the perfect equivalent of the ancient word "Baal." Thus the majority of people who go to churches with obelisks erected upon them, worship a deity they call "Lord" which is the English counterpart of the Hebrew word Baal. I have no complaint about using the English word “Lord” as a reference to Yahweh and His Son, but those who do not name Yahweh, referring to Him only by titles such as Lord, could be mistaken for Baal worshipers. The name Yahweh was recorded at the leading of the Holy Spirit nearly 7,000 times in the Old Testament, but it has been expunged from the majority of popular English Bibles. (See the writing The Usage of Divine Names.)

Understanding these things, it should not be perceived as anything new or unusually profane for some group to display the arch from the Temple of Baal in Palmyra in London and New York. Christians have been constructing obelisks upon their buildings for more than a millennia, and they observe an annual holy day named after a fertility goddess.

Added to this, Baal was a solar deity, represented by the Sun. Two typical ways of expressing the solar deity in artwork was to either draw a nimbus (halo) around the head, or to depict the being with out-raying points around the head.

Stele of Sol Invictus

Does this representation of the Roman Sun god look familiar? New York City already has a shrine to the Sun god Baal. It is erected in New York Harbor. It was a gift of French Freemasons erected in 1886. It is bad enough that non-Christians and Freemasons fill the world with these idolatrous images. What is worse is that Christendom has been propagating similar images for centuries as she has depicted Christ, His parents, and a pantheon of saints with the nimbus around their heads.

This practice also hearkens back to the worship of the Sun god Baal and his consorts. The Roman god Apollo was considered a solar deity and eventually merged with Sol Invictus. Apollo was a Roman version of Baal.

This image looks a lot like ancient Christian depictions of the saints, but it is in fact an image of Apollo. George Clarke, author of Pompeii, writes: "This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be 'the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods. It belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors, with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under this respectable patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, into the use of the [Catholic] Church."
[End Excerpt]

In the writing titled Illusion and Reality I wrote the following:

I John 5:19
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

We live in a time when Christianity observes two pagan holidays, Christmas and Easter, as their most sacred events of the year. It would require only a minimal effort on the part of the believer to discover the true origins of these observances. Christmas is nothing more than the Roman Saturnalia repackaged for Christian consumption, and Easter still bears the name of the pagan goddess it honored in its origination. The name Easter is a form of the Germanic Eostre, the Babylonian Ishtar, the Aramean Astarte, and the Canaanite Ashtoreth who is named as one of the false deities worshiped by pagan cultures in the Old Testament, and which the Israelites so often embraced at the displeasure of Yahweh.

I Kings 11:5
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians...

The Israelites served Baal and Ashtoreth. Today the churches have an obelisk atop the building, denoting Baal worship, and their most holy day of the year is Easter, which is synonymous with Ashtoreth. Nothing has changed. Satan is the great deceiver who deceives the whole world.

Brothers and sisters, nothing in this world is as it seems. We live in a world of falsehood, lies, and deception. These things are not the exception, they are the rule. How many churches today have a steeple atop the place where they meet? How many churches observe Easter, mixing the profane symbols and rites of the fertility goddess (Easter eggs, colored grass, flowers, bunny rabbits) with the holy sacrifice, death, and resurrection of Christ? How many Christians serve the traditional Easter ham, an animal that was loathsome to the Jews and declared unclean by Yahweh? How does the meat of a pig symbolize the pure and spotless Son of God? Yahshua was crucified at Passover, fulfilling the symbolism of the Passover Lamb. Yahshua is the Lamb of God, not the ham of the goddess.

The origin of the Easter ham is not difficult to discover. The son of Ashtoreth was Tammuz. From ancient times his devotees taught that he was slain while hunting a wild boar. The razor sharp tusk of the boar cut into the leg of Tammuz and he bled to death.

Tammuz Dying - Note Gash on Thigh

Tammuz was considered a god, and was worshiped by the Canaanite people among whom the Israelites dwelt. They adopted the worship of Tammuz, and of his mother whom they called “the queen of heaven.”

Jeremiah 7:18
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven...

It is not coincidental that the Roman Catholics refer to Mary, the mother of Christ, by the same phrase. They have attributed to Mary the same worship and veneration which idolaters have from ancient times accorded to Ashtoreth, the queen of heaven. To commemorate Tammuz’s death each year the ancient Canaanites would mourn for forty days. This is where the Roman Catholic observance of Lent arises. On Ash Wednesday ash is applied to the forehead of the worshipers in the emblem of the Tau, the first letter of the name Tammuz, and his ancient symbol. For the next forty days Catholics fast from certain pleasures as a sign of mourning, culminating on Easter morning when Tammuz was reported to be reborn.

Ezekiel 8:14-16
Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of Yahweh’s house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these." Then He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun.

Brothers and sisters, even the church has not escaped the deceptions of Satan, the most cunning of all created beings. He has filled the world with lies. The church itself is walking in an illusory world where the holy and profane are vilely mixed together without knowledge or understanding. Only a few perceive the profaning work of an enemy who has sown tares among the wheat and filled the churches with doctrines of demons and many idolatrous practices.
[End Excerpt]

How many Christians this past week attended “Easter Sunday” services? Perhaps you did yourself. Do you realize that Passover week runs from April 22nd to April 30th? Easter was observed a full month before Passover, so what were people actually observing? As one reader wrote, “How can people be celebrating the resurrection of Christ a full month before He was crucified?”

Let me ask you to consider what is worse. Is it more wicked for a secular people living materially focused lives to erect an arch modeled after a Temple of Bel in their cities, or is it more wicked for Christians, those who are partakers of the Holy Spirit and who are entrusted with the holy Scriptures, to attend services named after a pagan goddess of fertility, complete with symbols and rites of great antiquity which find their origins in idolatrous worship? Easter eggs, Easter lilies, bunnies, bright flowers and colored grass, sunrise services, Easter ham, and much more, have nothing to do with Yahshua, the Passover Lamb of God. Neither do buildings with o-bel-isks erected atop them.

The son of God stated the following:

Luke 12:47-48
“And that servant who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”

The apostle Peter wrote:

I Peter 4:17-18
For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

Is it a serious thing to erect arches of the Temple of Bel in cities across this world? Absolutely. This work is being done as a gesture of defiance toward Yahweh and His Son. Will these acts result in divine judgment? I have no doubt they will. Yet, the question most Christians are not considering is “What about the symbols of Baal and Ashtoreth that are in their homes and their churches? What about their own participation in acts of unrighteousness which Yahweh deplores?” For many believers the sin lies much closer to home than London and New York City.

Selah! (Pause and consider.)

Note: In a previous post I had stated that the arch was to be "projected" in Times Square, not erected. This was misreported on some sites I visited, but further investigation revealed that full scale models of the arch are to be erected.

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Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063