To understand how very much opposed Yahweh is to any admixture of the holy and the profane we can look at a series of laws that He delivered to His chosen people through His servant Moses. Remember that all of the laws of the Old Testament serve as types and shadows of spiritual principles and serve as instructional tools for the saints in Christ.
Deuteronomy 22:9-11
“You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.”
What is the message here for the Christian in this present age? God detests mixture. The specific type of mixture that He detests is righteousness and sin, the holy and the profane, light and darkness, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the works of the flesh. These things are shown forth in the specific laws given. For example, the priests were directed to wear linen, and to wear no wool when ministering unto God. The reason given is that wool makes men sweat while linen does not. Sweat speaks of the works of man being offered to God. Such an offering is despised by Yahweh even as He had no regard for the offering of Cain which arose from the ground from which man’s flesh was formed. Yahweh will only regard that which is initiated and performed in the power of the Holy Spirit.
If Yahweh has made such a point of differentiating between the holy and the profane, then it is vain for a Christian to reason that Yahweh does not care if they are mixing symbols of pagan rites and idolatrous worship with the worship of Christ Jesus, Yahshua the Messiah. Yahweh does care. And furthermore, Satan is using what is done in ignorance by the children of Yahweh as an act of rebellious offense which he casts back into the face of God.
It is a simple matter to demonstrate Satan’s deceit in leading the saints to mix the holy and profane together. One need look no further than the name of the celebration which is called Easter. The name Easter never appears in Scripture, other than one occasion in the King James Version of the Bible. This is as follows:
Acts 12:4
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
KJV
The KJV translators did a disservice to the church by rendering this passage in this manner, for the word being translated is “pascha,” the Greek form of the word “Passover.” This grievous error was corrected in later Bible translations, including the New KJV.
Acts 12:4
So when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover.
NKJV
We see in this how far the influence of Satan extends. When he is able to get Bible translators to replace the name of one of God’s appointed feasts with the name of a pagan festival. These two observances are far from being equal. Passover was initiated at the leading of Yahweh and its observance communicated to Moses. Easter is a veneration of a fertility goddess that was initiated by Satan and delivered to sinful men.
The very word Easter, that the church has written on the calendar of her annual observances is the name of a goddess of fertility. According to the wikipedia website, the English name of the goddess was arrived at as follows:
The English name, "Easter," and the German, "Ostern," derive from the name of a putative Anglo-Saxon Goddess of the Dawn (thus, of spring, as the dawn of the year) — called Ēaster, Ēastre, and Ēostre in various dialects of Old English and Ostara in German.
The worship of the fertility goddess who is remembered at Easter goes much further back, however. The mystery religions had their foundations in Babylon. The Bible records the following:
Genesis 10:1-12
Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood... The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a great one on the earth. He was a great hunter in the face of Yahweh; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a great hunter in the face of Yahweh." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.
The mystery religions can be traced back to Nimrod. Nimrod’s father Cush married a woman named Semiramis. Semiramis gave birth to Nimrod and, when Cush died, Nimrod married his mother. Thus Semiramis was both the mother and the wife of Nimrod. It is apparent from Scripture that the genealogy of this family was under a curse. Nimrod’s grandfather was Ham, the son of Noah. It was Ham who acted wickedly in exposing the nakedness of his father Noah when Noah had gotten drunk with wine and passed out in his tent. Ham acted rebelliously toward his father, in contrast to his two brothers Shem and Japheth who covered their father’s nakedness and would not look upon him. When Noah learned what Ham had done he cursed both Ham and his offspring.
It seems apparent that the sins of the father (Ham) were passed on to the sons, for wickedness continued in this bloodline. This wickedness was manifested in Cush who is attributed with the establishment of a system of rebellious idolatry that was continued in his wife Semiramis and his son Nimrod. This idolatry became heinous, being associated with all that is profane and with many immoral sexual rites including orgies and prostitution.
Alexander Hislop, in his book “The Two Babylons,” does a remarkable job of documenting and bringing together many ancient sources that reveal the history of this wicked family and the founding of the ancient mystery religions. According to Hislop, the profane practices of Nimrod and his tyranny over many people increased until Shem, the son of Noah rose up against this “great one” and made war with him. Shem having defeated Nimrod then cut his body into pieces and sent it throughout the land as a warning to all who should openly partake of the profane idolatry of Nimrod.
Out of fear of punishment, those who continued in idolatry were forced to practice their rites in secret, and the most vile parts of their practices were known only to those who had passed through the rites of initiation and been admitted into the deeper teachings and practices reserved for those whose loyalty had been proven. This is the origin of the “Mystery Religions” that have their source in ancient Babylon. One had to be initiated and pass through degrees to be admitted into the mysteries, and those who were outside, or whose loyalty had not yet been proven, were restricted from the true knowledge of the mystery religion. That which had once been practiced openly under the reign of Nimrod, was forced into secrecy when Shem slew Nimrod.
This same pattern of initiation, terrifying oaths against disclosure, and the cloaking of truth to those whose loyalty is not yet proven is observed in Freemasonry, which itself is merely one of the latest incarnations of the idolatrous practices of ancient Babylon.
We also see another pattern here. Shem, the son of Noah, became father of the Shemites, or the Semitic people. It was from this family that Abraham and his descendants arose. Why did God choose a people from among the descendants of Shem to be His chosen people in the earth? Certainly Shem’s actions in standing against idolatry and removing the wicked practices from the land had great bearing in Yahweh’s choice.
Idolatrous worship of Semiramis and Tammuz spread from Babylon
After Nimrod was killed by Shem the mystery religions teach that he ascended into the heavens and became the Sun god. Semiramis is herself associated as the Moon goddess. Semiramis continued to be sexually active, and when she became pregnant she claimed to have conceived without intercourse. Satan, as the great deceiver, sought to bring forth a false belief in a counterfeit virgin birth that was sufficiently corrupted to suit his ends. Semiramis gave birth to a son named Tammuz, and it was declared that Tammuz was the reincarnation of Nimrod.
In this we see attributes of Yahweh’s plan of salvation. There is a child born of a virgin, supposedly the offspring of deity, yet a clear departure from Scripture is that the mother assumes a more prominent role than the son. This emphasis on the mother is continued to this day through the Catholic Church which teaches things about the mother of Yahshua that are nowhere found in Scripture, but which do find agreement with the Babylonian mystery religions. When God confused the languages of the people at Babylon and scattered mankind throughout the earth, its idolatrous religion centered around the trinity of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz was already pervasive and it was carried throughout the world where the main characters took on many different names while maintaining much of the central element of the original mystery religion.
Alexander Hislop writes:
The Babylonians in their popular religion supremely worshiped a goddess mother and a son who was represented in pictures and images as an infant or a child in his mother’s arms. From Babylon this worship of mother and child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the mother and child were worshiped under the names Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; in Asia as Cybele and Deoius; in pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer “Jupiter the boy”; in Greece as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms, and even in Thibet, in China and Japan...
Other manifestations of these same characters are seen as Aphrodite/Cupid and Ashtoreth/Orion. Some of these characters are mentioned in the Bible.
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.
Worshiping the Sun (Nimrod) and worshiping Tammuz were abominable acts in the sight of God. Yahweh judged the people for this idolatry. The church is in great peril of not recognizing the consequences of embracing similar rites and symbols today. It was an offense to Yahweh that these pagan rites were being conducted in the temple of God. Today the saints are the temple of Yahweh, and Yahweh is equally offended when abominable practices are observed by those who constitute this living temple of the Holy Spirit.
I Kings 11:4-6
When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to Yawheh his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians... Solomon did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and did not follow Yahweh fully, as David his father had done.
How did the high places become established in Israel? We read that Solomon’s heart was turned aside by his wives whom he loved. These wives were idolaters, many of them foreigners, and they wanted to continue to worship the gods and goddesses they had known from childhood. Their rites and symbols to them were just as dear as the rites and symbols of Christmas and Easter are to many Christians today. Solomon acquiesced to the pressure of his wives’ desires and built high places of worship for them.
Lest we condemn Solomon out of hand, the Christian should consider that the same pressure is exerted upon the saint today to maintain the celebration of pagan festivals. Our children and spouses may love the traditions that they have grown up with, and they may express their desires very passionately to maintain an observance of the things they love. How many saints are willing to stand fast and choose a course other than the one Solomon chose? When Yahweh reveals the truth of these practices and makes His will known, then the Christian is brought to the test. Do they love Yahweh more than all others? Will they choose obedience to God over satisfying the desires, and even demands of their family?
Luke 14:26-27
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
Christianity as is practiced widely today costs individuals very little. The reason is that there is so much compromise. The church has embraced the world, and has even adopted the practices of pagan religions. True Christianity, however, is very costly. As the Scriptures declare:
II Timothy 3:12
Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Yahshua will suffer persecution.
The reason there is so little persecution and so little cost to being a professing Christian today is that men and women are not living godly lives. They have not come out of the world and out of Babylon. Solomon found it easy to get along with the members of his family if he accepted their idolatry. Even so, the world has no problem accepting Christians who will accept their values and practices. But should a Christian begin to differentiate between the holy and profane, then he or she will know the disapproval of those who have embraced that which is not holy.
Sacred Egg of Heliopolis
Mystic Egg of Astarte (Ishtar Egg)
This same goddess Ashtoreth, for whom Solomon built a high place, is also called Ishtar, from which we get our word Easter. The church also has a high place erected to her. Every year the church celebrates a holy day that bears the name of the pagan goddess of fertility whose original was Semiramis, and who is known by a profusion of names throughout the various cultures of the world. Heliopolis is a city of Egypt where Semiramis was known by the name Isis. As mentioned, Semiramis was a moon goddess, and therefore we see an image of the moon atop her sacred egg.
The mystery religions teach that Semiramis was herself immaculately conceived and was lowered from the heavens to the earth in a giant egg. This egg came to rest in the waters of the Euphrates river. Eggs are also symbols of fertility, and as Semiramis was also a fertility goddess the symbol of the egg became thoroughly associated with her worship. Those who knew Semiramis under the name of Ishtar spoke of Ishtar’s egg, from which we get our current Easter egg.
Egg Roll on White House Lawn, Easter 2006
The above picture was taken in April 2006 during the annual White House Easter celebration. An egg roll has been held on the South Lawn since 1878. There was some controversy on this particular year as 200 gay and lesbian families planned to attend this event. Some saw this as an attack on Christian values, not understanding the true origins of the Easter celebration.
In the presentation “Freemasonry, the Spirit of Babylon” it was demonstrated that America serves as the seat of Babylon at this time, even occupying the country of Iraq in which the ancient city of Babylon was located. It should give Christians something to consider when they realize that the United States government has banned all Christian symbols from government spaces, even to the recent order to remove the ten commandments from all courthouses, yet this same government has no complaint about the annual observance of an Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn. Why is this? It is because Easter Eggs have no association with Christianity. They are clearly pagan in their origin and can be traced directly back to Babylon.
When one looks into the sexually immoral practices of the worship of the fertility goddess, it is actually more appropriate that gay and lesbian couples attend this event than that Christians attend.
Another tradition of Easter that is clearly pagan is that of hot cross buns. These buns were initially made in memory of Tammuz, the son of Semiramis, who suffered an early death from being injured by the tusk of a boar. There were forty days of weeping for Tammuz leading up to the Ishtar celebration, which now finds its correspondence in the Catholic Church’s forty days of Lent, which is a time of mourning.
The women involved with the mystery religions would bake buns for Tammuz (originally called bouns). These were either marked with the sign of a horn, or possibly a tusk, or with the letter T for Tammuz. The sign of the cross, where a Catholic uses his fingers and marks the sign of the cross on their chest can also be traced back to the worship of Tammuz.
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; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me.”
Even if done in ignorance, is it not an offense to Yahweh to carry on traditions that are steeped in idolatrous worship and profane practices? We read in Ezekiel that the women of Israel were weeping for Tammuz. The Israelites also offered oblations to the Queen of Heaven (Semiramis) and her son Tammuz, as is seen in the above verse from Jeremiah, and elsewhere.
Jeremiah 44:16-19
"As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahweh, we are not going to listen to you! But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine. And," said the women,"when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?"
The pagan traditions of the mystery religions have even been passed down to our children as the sing the little song that speaks of hot cross buns.
Hot cross buns
Hot cross buns
One a penny
Two a penny
Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters
Give them to your sons
One a penny
Two a penny
Hot cross buns
What does this mean “if you have no daughters, give them to your sons?” Remember, this was the celebration of the goddess of fertility and her son. By offering oblations of liquid and foods to Semiramis and Tammuz the people were asking for the gift of fertility. This fertility was petitioned from the goddess by offering drinks and cakes in order that their crops, livestock, and their own families might be blessed with abundance. Many a tradition that seems innocent today has found its origin in practices that are detestable to Yahweh.
An Offering Left for Santa on Christmas Eve
Some of these rites find their correspondence both at Easter and Christmas, for both celebrations were centered around the same gods and goddesses. Even as hot cross buns were baked at Easter, we see cookies and milk being left out for Santa Claus at Christmas. This is simply another form of the votive offering to incur the favor of the god or goddess being figured. It is no coincidence that Santa is depicted as flying in the heavens and descending to earth, for this same imagery evokes the worship of the deities of the heavens, even the Sun and the Moon, whose favor was being enjoined by leaving out an offering for them.
Christmas and Easter
Ham/Boar’s Head
As mentioned previously, Tammuz is regarded as having been killed by the tusk of a boar. It is for this reason that eating boar is a tradition associated with these pagan celebrations. Although there are relatively few who eat the actual boar’s head in America today, the traditional meat served at both Christmas and Easter is ham. If one were truly celebrating the Jewish Messiah on these dates, then there would be no reason to eat ham. In fact, swine flesh is considered unclean by the Jews, and was forbidden to be eaten in the law of Moses. Swine are always associated with that which is unrighteous and unholy. Thus we find Yahshua declaring the following:
Matthew 7:6
"Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine...”
The words holy and pearls are contrasted with the words dogs and swine. The Scriptures teach that Yahshua was the Lamb of God, and it was at Passover that He was slain. The Jews were instructed to take a lamb or a goat and eat it at Passover. There was never any association with eating ham. Clearly, the pagan practice has once more superseded the Divine and holy ordinance of Yahweh.
Ham is appropriate for these festivals, however, for in God’s sight they stand as that which is unclean and unholy in His sight.
U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree
One of the most widespread symbols and rites of Christmas is the Christmas Tree, and the decorating of it. How many Christian homes make this a prominent feature of their household during the days and weeks leading up to Christmas? Yet what is the actual origin of this symbol? Once more we can find it being featured prominently in the ancient mystery religions.
The Christmas Tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm tree denoting the Pagan Messiah as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis (another name for Nimrod), the Sun God... was mystically said to have been changed into a tree and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son... And this entirely accounts for the putting of the Yule Log in the fire on Christmas Eve, and the appearance of the Christmas Tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta “The seed of the woman,” which name also signified Ignigena, or “born of the fire,” he has to enter the fire on “Mother Night” that he may be born the next day out of it, as the “Branch of God,” or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men...
Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the Sun god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas Tree is Nimrod redivivus - the slain god come to life again.
[source: Alexander Hislop, “The Two Babylons”]
This is where the practice of placing the Christmas presents under the Christmas Tree originated. It is a symbol of this false pagan god bringing divine gifts to men. Prometheus under the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is another symbol of the same thing. Prometheus is merely another name for Satan. This is also why it is very common to place a lighted star atop the Christmas Tree. The star is a symbol of Satan.
Again, we should wonder why the government has no aversion to prominently placing Christmas Trees on government property when all overt symbols of Christianity have been removed. The reason is that there is no real association between the Christmas tree and Jesus Christ, Yahshua the Messiah. Yet, should a Christian be enraged at this discrimination, let them consider that there is no admonition in the Bible to commemorate the birth of Christ. Neither is there any mention of the apostles or early church observing such a holiday. Nor is it true that the Son of God was even born at this time of year.
Everything about this celebration was originally pagan, and focused upon the worship of the Sun. Why then bring in elements relating to Christianity when they merely serve to perpetuate the observance of a corrupt pagan festival? Again, God desires that we make a distinction between the holy and the profane and that we not bring together a mixture of that which is righteous and unrighteous.
Sol Invictus/Saturnalia
How did we arrive at the date that Christmas and Easter are observed upon. They are directly related to the worship of the heavenly bodies, particularly the Sun. The following is an entry from the Internet site wikipedia on the topic of Sol Invictus.
Sol Invictus was a religious title applied to at least three distinct divinities during the later Roman Empire: El Gabal, Mithras, and Sol.
The Romans held a festival on December 25 called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, "the birthday of the unconquered sun." The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the patron god of Emperor Aurelian (270-274); and Mithras.
Emperor Elagabalus (218-222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.
December 25 was also considered to be the date of the winter solstice, which the Romans called bruma. It was therefore the day the Sun proved itself to be "unconquered" despite the shortening of daylight hours. (When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 45 BC, December 25 was approximately the date of the solstice. In modern times, the solstice falls on December 21 or 22.)
The Sol Invictus festival has a "strong claim on the responsibility" for the date of Christmas, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars (both of which follow the cycle of the sun and the seasons). Instead, the date for Easter is determined on a lunisolar calendar... The rule has since the Middle Ages been phrased as “Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox.”
Note that the determination of the date for Easter is based upon the heavenly bodies that are worshiped in the Mystery Religions, the Sun and the Moon. Both of these heavenly deities are honored in this fertility celebration, therefore the date is always on a Sunday, a day set aside in honor of the Sun god, and it is the first Sunday after a full moon, picturing the Moon goddess in her greatest glory. There are other symbolic reasons relating to fertility that are also pictured in these events, the full moon being associated with female ovulation, and these are all taken into consideration in establishing the date for the celebration called Easter.
It should be noted that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Yahshua the Messiah, which the church claims to be commemorating on this date, is not determined by the same method and Passover and Easter rarely fall on the same date. Passover, the day on which Christ was crucified, was determined as follows:
Exodus 12:1-6
Now Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers' households, a lamb for each household... Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.’”
The month referenced is the Hebrew month Nisan. Because the Hebrew calendar and the Roman calendar are different in months and days, the celebrations of the Pagan Easter and the Jewish Passover are always in flux from one another. For example, this coming year (2008) Easter is set to be observed on March 23rd while Passover is observed April 19th. This is a discrepancy of nearly a month, and it reveals that what is actually being observed by the church is not the crucifixion of the Son of God, but the pagan fertility festival.
A very interesting insight can be gained as we once more look at the examples found in Scripture. As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the Sun.” Even as the church has forgotten the feast days established by Yahweh and has replaced them with celebrations of their own devising, so too did the same thing occur in ancient Israel. Due to Solomon’s sin of leading the people into idolatry, Yahweh determined that ten tribes should be taken away from his descendants and given to another. This other person was Jeroboam.
Jeroboam, although informed by Yahweh’s prophet that God was giving him ten tribes, and that he and his descendants would continue to rule over God’s people as long as they remained faithful to Him, immediately departed from Yahweh and established idols in the land. Jeroboam did this because he feared that if the ten tribes of Israel that he was ruling over continued to go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast days of Yahweh that they would eventually be drawn back and want to rejoin Judah and Jerusalem. Therefore Jeroboam set up altars at either end of his kingdom, at Dan and at Bethel. He then instructed the people to worship god there, and he set up false gods in the image of calves. He also instituted holy days that were similar to Yahweh’s feast days, though not the same.
I Kings 12:26-33
26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, "Now the kingdom will return to the house of David...
28 So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt."
29 And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
30 Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan.
31 And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi.
32 And Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
33 Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel, and went up to the altar to burn incense.
This is a most telling passage of scripture. King Jeroboam was entrusted with shepherding Yahweh’s people. He was given ten tribes of Israel yet, because he was afraid that he would not be able to keep their hearts and their loyalty, he established the worship of false idols to keep their hearts turned closer to home, and ultimately keeping the people from worshiping Yahweh in His temple.
We are further told that Jeroboam set-up one of these idols in Bethel whose name means “house of God.” The church has also set-up its idols in the house of God to keep people’s loyalties firmly associated with the church, even when the end effect is to draw people away from a pure worship of Yahweh. The church has been more worried about losing its role as a shepherd of the people of God than it has been concerned about these same people actually worshiping Yahweh in spirit and in truth.
The Catholic Church originally adopted pagan observances because they wanted all the people of the Roman Empire to fall into their embrace. They knew the people would be unwilling to give up the festivals and rites and symbols that were dear to them, even as Solomon’s many wives wanted to keep the rites and worship practices that they had grown up with. Therefore they kept the pagan celebrations and merely sought to syncretize them. They came up with alternate meanings for the symbols and rituals being practiced, yet in truth they departed from the will of Yahweh and the word of God and set up dates and observances of their own devising.
We just read that Jeroboam established feast days “which he devised in his own heart” to be a substitute for the feast days in Jerusalem. The Christian church has done the same, and she even calls one of the feast days by the name of the pagan goddess to whom it originally belonged. This is a manifestation of the spirit of Babylon whose name means “confusion.” The church has entered into great confusion as she has mixed the holy and the profane together.
What will the saint do who comes to understand the horrendous deception that Satan has foisted upon the people of Yahweh? Each Christian who receives the truth will be faced with the same pressures that confronted Solomon and Jeroboam. Will the saint of God choose their loved ones, or their own soul’s desires over the will of Yahweh. If so, then they must be warned of the words of Christ:
Luke 14:26-27
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
There is a cost to discipleship. There is an even greater cost to be borne by those who refuse to take up their cross. Among the judgments of Yahweh upon those who refuse to follow where He leads, and He is leading men out of Babylon, they will be given over to confusion.
II Thessalonians 2:10-12
Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who obeyed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Revelation 18:4-5
I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”
Revelation 18:1-8
After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality." I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her. To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, "I SIT AS A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW, and will never see mourning.' For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.
The church of this hour says that she is a queen, being betrothed to the King of Kings. She says she is not a widow, that God will never abandon her. Yet God has testified that judgment must begin at the house of God. A church that has embraced all the vile practices and pursuits of the world will be spued out of the mouth of Christ.
It is true that the Roman Catholic church is Babylon, but Babylon has many daughters. If you are celebrating Christmas or Easter you are a daughter of Babylon.
Zechariah 2:7
“Come, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.”
A day of great trouble is coming to the earth. In that day God has testified that He will hide His face from all idolaters. He will judge His ministers who have not taught the people the difference between the holy and the profane. Those who refuse to come out of Babylon, with all of its trappings, its mystery religions, its symbols and rites, will be partakers of the plagues which will be poured out. The call of the Holy Spirit is “Come out of her My people!”
I would like to end this message on a positive note. There was a king of Israel who fully removed all symbols of idolatry from the land. When all the other kings had passed over the high places, he alone tore them all down. As revered as Solomon was to the people, Josiah did not fall short of tearing down the high places he erected to pagan deities. Josiah also tore down the high places erected by Jeroboam. And because Josiah was zealous to remove ALL idolatry from the land God promised him that he would not see all the judgment and trouble that He would bring upon the land.
We are in the midst of Babylon. Great judgment is at the door. There is only one hope of being hidden in a place of safety when the wrath of God is poured forth in full strength upon a perverse and idolatrous generation. We must humble ourselves before Yahweh and pursue righteousness and holiness. We must come out of Babylon.
Zephaniah 2:3
Seek Yahweh, all you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of Yahweh’s anger.
Revelation 3:10
"Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.”
Parables Blog: www.parablesblog.blogspot.com
Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063
No comments:
Post a Comment