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The Roman Catholic Church, No. 1
RV12-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1993)
We're going to look at Revelation 2:12-17 as we study the letter to Pergamum. I'm always amazed on how people are able to be diverted
from realities in their spiritual lives to secondary things. People are able to be in a position where they're in the place of blessing,
and where they're in a place of spiritual prosperity, and to blow the whole thing. It is fantastic how absolutely dull the human mind
can be relative to what is fake; what is sinful; or, what is evil in spiritual things, and simply to succumb to the thing.
I've known a lady for many years. She was a lady who had background educationally in fundamental institutions. Over the years, she signaled
some of this incapacity to realize when she was in a good thing. She started out in the ministry of Berean Memorial church, and she gradually
drifted off into a context of the Bible churches. Then after a while, she drifted off into attending a denominational church in the city,
which was in the liberal category, and then in time went from that to the charismatic movement.
That's one of those things where people just sort of slip from one to the other. I thought it was interesting how she was able to constantly
be taking steps downward, going very easily from liberalism into the charismatic movement, because once she had left the anchor points of
doctrine, then she had exposed herself to the only frame of reference she could have, which was emotions. Liberalism had very little doctrine.
It had some emotions, and after a while, it did not have enough. So the charismatic movement fulfilled this. Well, this week I found that the
next step has been taken. Emotions finally had run their course, and that's not enough. Then you need a better souped-up position. Now this
lady is full-blown into Roman Catholicism.
Now, how's that for a downward course – from biblical orientation instruction down to Catholicism? How far down she has come is what
I hope you are beginning to grasp as we are studying the letter to Pergamum. It describes an era in church history when the church, still
true to the Word of God, was now removed from the pressures of persecution. Once it was removed from the pressures of persecution, while the
Lord could commend them for their stand for the truth, they had a willingness to compromise.
As we shall see, there was one man named Antipas who obviously was recorded in
Scripture for his noble stand for the truth at great personal suffering. Yet at the same time, there was already in this church (representing
what was to come in an era of church history) the willingness to compromise with the establishment of government; with the establishment of
evil; and, with the establishment of our society, which is based upon Satan's viewpoint. There was a willingness to compromise with the human
viewpoint of the society of their day which was already evident in the Pergamum church.
Well, as you know, the city of Pergamum was the third city which the Lord addressed in this series of letters, a city in Asia Minor.
It represents the period in church history where Christianity is no longer under persecution from the Roman government. This was about
the year 312 through 600. But there is at the same time a gradual accommodating to the system of paganism. That's what the letter to
Pergamum should teach us: what happens when you compromise with religion; and, what happens when you compromise with that which is
contrary to the Word of God. It all begins in a little way. It all begins in a small way. You don't just jump into a compromise of a
major nature overnight. You start in a small way, and you gradually get acclimated. It's the old story of the frog who is put in a pot
of water on the stove. Because he is a cold blooded animal, he adjusts to whatever his surroundings are. So if the water is cool, that's
what his temperature adjusts to. You turn the fire on, and it gradually heats up, and he gradually heats up. It continues to heat up,
and he continues heats to up, and he just sits there. Nothing happens. It's all so gradual. He doesn't know a change is taking place.
Finally, at a certain point, he wakes up dead because he's been boiled alive.
That's how the compromise with evil progresses. It was happening in Pergamum. The city itself, the Bible tells us, was the headquarters
of Satan's false religious system which had begun in Babylon, and had now transferred its operation to the city of Pergamum. This was
Satan's throne and Satan's headquarters. Paganism of the mystery religions quickly sought to adapt itself. Once the pressure was off,
paganism saw that its future lay with Christianity, now that it was under the favor of the emperors. So paganism quickly sought to adapt
itself to Christianity. Christianity, unfortunately, under its leadership, gradually was willing to absorb the elements of paganism, so
that very quickly Christianity could dominate the world scene, which it did. But unfortunately, it had absorbed (in the process) Satan's
Babylonian mystery cult system of doctrine and practices, so that what resulted was a combination that was so loathsome that it causes
Almighty God to vomit when he looks at it.
The Roman Catholic Church
We know it today as the Roman Catholic Church. It is neither Christian nor really fully pagan. It is an amalgam of the two. The pagans,
under this religious system from Babylon, worshiped the sun in the sky as the supreme god, complete with rituals, doctrines, and holy
days. The Babylonian system of religion that Nimrod invented to counter the truth of God after the flood had its holy days; it had its
rituals; and, it had its doctrines. It was a full-blown religious system. After it was driven underground by the rising of forces of
righteousness, which ended up in Nimrod's death, it became a secret organization. That's where the word "mystery" comes in. It was now
"mystery" Babylon. Only those initiated into its cult could understand what all of these things meant, and what the secret meant. It was
a secret organization.
The human incarnation of the sun in the sky, which was worshiped, was a child which was born to the mother, and a child which was a
reincarnation of her executed husband, Nimrod, who was the founder of the cult. The Roman Catholic Church evolved out of the amalgamation
of biblical Christianity and this set-up of Babylonian paganism. It is a product that God does not appreciate. He despises it. He calls
it a harlot. In Scripture, He refers to it as Babylon the mother of harlot. What He is referring to is the Roman Catholic Church as it
will have its worldwide expression in the tribulation period.
The Sign of the Cross
We've been looking at the practices of Mystery Babylon, so let's add to that. We've already looked at several of the practices, and you
have been amazed to discover how much that is in church practice today is pure paganism. It is purely reabsorbed from the cult of the
Babylonian system. One of the practices which was absorbed from Mystery Babylon was the making of the sign of the cross. This is a
well-known act which is frequently performed by Roman Catholics. It is viewed as the supreme charm to ward off evil. It is a magic wand.
There is nothing that will take care of a werewolf like holding out a cross in front of him. There is nothing that makes Dracula go ... up
his blood veins like holding a cross out to him. All of that foolishness is directly attributable to the idea that there is something
magical in the cross.
Well, the cross, as an object of extreme veneration, if not outright worship, is very common among Roman Catholics. However, the same
custom has been absorbed through Catholicism into Protestant denominations. It is not uncommon to stand in certain denominational church
services, and to see the pastor end up a service by making the sign of the cross, or to pronounce a benediction, usually, and to say a
benediction in the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Spirit, or to pronounce a scriptural benediction from
the Psalms that's a threefold benediction, and to make a cross at the point of each statement.
The cross is a prominent feature in Satan's Babylonian mystery religions. However, it had a different meaning. Tammuz, as we have learned,
was the Assyrian name of the founder of the Babylonian mystery cult. And the sign of the cross was the "T" in his name. It was signifying
the tau. The priest made the sign of this cross in commemoration and in honor of Tammuz. So every time the sign of the cross was made, it
was a mark of respect for this false god who represented the sun. Remember that Tammuz was the human incarnation of the sun-god, and that
the sign of the cross was simply worshiping the sun which represented Satan through his human incarnation. Consequently, the circle was very,
very important as a symbol in paganism. The circle was marked on the forehead of the devotees of the mystery cult before they were initiated
through water baptism. The circle was marked upon their forehead before they were baptized.
They joined the circle to the sign of the cross in symbols that they would form. They would have the cross of Tammuz, and then they would
join, on the top of that sign of the cross, this circle for the sun-god. Very frequently you would see it in a tear-shaped form, which was
common in Egyptian pictures. If you look at pictures of the drawings on the tombs; the hieroglyphics; and one thing or another, you'll see
this sign. The tear-shaped circle at the top is still the sun. Then there is the sign of the cross representing Tammuz. The whole thing is
called the sign of life. Very frequently you'll see an Egyptian priest holding this sign of life in his hand. He'll be walking
around with it. It will be on his garments. It'll be decorated on his clothes in one way or another. It was worn often as a charm over the
heart. It was dangled on something. Does it make you creepy when you see somebody walking around with a cross hanging around his neck? It
should, because it's "Hail Tammuz." That's what the custom really means. That's what it really comes from. It was woven into their garments,
particularly of the priests, and carried in the hand as a sign of priestly authority.
The vestal virgins of the Roman temples wore it in necklaces, just as Roman Catholic nuns do today, and other religious people. The cross
everywhere was found in paganism as a sign of Tammuz and the incarnation of the sun representing Satan. It was worn on headbands. Frequently,
they find headbands where this sign of life has been woven.
If you were really going to make a sign that represented Jesus Christ, the cross in the form of "X" would more truly represent Jesus Christ,
because that is the first of the Greek word for "christos." This X (the "chi" of the Greek language) would more fittingly be the sign of the
cross, rather than the sign "T" that represents the letter "T" for Tammuz.
Religious Orders
One of the things that Roman Catholicism picked up from the pagan system was a system of religious orders. You may search through the Word
of God, and you will find no such things as monasteries and convents and nuns and monks. As a matter of fact, when you come into the New
Testament, you find no such thing as a special order of priests. In the Old Testament, you had the order of the Aaronic priesthood. In the
New Testament, you find no such special order of priests separate from the people. You do find a priesthood in the New Testament, but it's
after the order of Melchizedek. It is the priesthood of Christ, and every believer is part of that priesthood.
This is a vivid contrast with what we see today in Roman Catholicism. It is a vivid contrast with biblical Christianity and its concept of
a pastor-teacher as the leader in a local church ministry. This in contrast to what the Roman Catholic Church has produced in the way of
its priesthood. The Biblical pastor-teacher is to feed the flock the Word of God. He is to teach doctrine. The Roman Catholic priest is told
to feed his congregation the words of a human hierarchy, and actually to discourage independent study of the Word of God.
The Roman Catholics in our day are making a lot more noise and giving a lot more verbal loyalty to the idea of studying the Bible, and even
running Bible classes. But when I was a teenager, it was clearly understood by my contemporary teenage friends that they were not to study
the Bible, and that reading the Bible was a source of confusion for them, and would lead them into error. If they had anything that they
needed to know about religious things, they should ask the priest. That obviously is a system of priesthood (an intermediary between us and
God) that is completely alien to New Testament Christianity. Yet that is Roman Catholicism today. It's a hierarchy, and the priests are in
control.
The Mass
The pastor-teacher ministers on the basis of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ has made once for all as the Lamb of God for the sins of the
world. But the Roman Catholic priest sacrifices on the basis of an un-bloody sacrifice called the mass, where he sacrifices Christ anew
again and again. The Bible condemns sacrificing Christ anew. The Roman Catholic Church has no problem with what they call the sacrament
of the mass and sacrificing Christ again. Where did all this come from? This is a fantastic contrast to what you read in the Bible.
Well, it all came again from the Babylonian mystery cult because part of the system of Nimrod and Semiramis was to offer what they called
an un-bloody sacrifice. They in fact had the sacrifice of the mass. The priests of the ancient cults taught people that they had the true
propitiatory sacrifice for the sins not only of the living, but also of the dead. The Roman Catholic Church absorbed the ungodly practice
of an un-bloody sacrifice, which is what the mass is, directly from paganism.
Consider Martin Luther. Remember that at the time of his ordination as an Augustinian monk, he was given the authority to make sacrifices
in behalf of the salvation of the living and the dead, now as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. After he became a Christian, he used to
say, "I think back upon that occasion and I wonder that the earth did not open up and swallow both me and the priest who was conferring
this authority upon me." It was such a blasphemous statement – such a blasphemous and pagan mystic notion. Many times, Luther would
look back with fear as he would think of what he was a part of.
Priestly Celibacy
The system of the un-bloody sacrifice, in the Babylonian priesthood, was originally a sacrifice to Semiramis, the original Babylonian queen
of heaven. Semiramis was the epitome, as we have already learned, of immorality. Her worship included the grossest kind of immorality and
pollution. Yet on the pretense of sanctity (because you always put on a front), though Semiramis personally was a vile and evil woman, and
though her secret worship practices were a gross immorality, yet the system presented externally an image of propriety. For that reason,
Semiramis determined that her priests must not be married. She instituted priestly celibacy. All this was based upon the principle that if a
priest did not get married, he would be a more holy kind of person. It would be conducive to exceptional holiness. The Roman Catholic Church
came along, and in a few centuries, it very quickly absorbed the practice of celibacy for its clergy. This, of course, is one of the marks
of the apostasy of the Roman Catholic Church.
God the Holy Spirit, in preparing us to spot that mark, led the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 to make this statement: "Now the Spirit
(God the Holy Spirit) speaks expressly that in the latter times (in the days in the near preceding of the Lord's return to earth), some
shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience
seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods (like meat on Friday) which God has created to be
received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." That particular passage, describing marks of apostasy, on several
accounts, describes very aptly the mongrel system that evolved out of the combination of biblical Christianity and Babylonian paganism,
the Roman Catholic Church. The principle of celibacy was incorporated from heathenism in order to promote a greater godliness.
What has been the result of this? Well, I can't go into detail, but I can tell you this. Celibacy has been inflicted upon the priesthood,
and this has been worldwide – the principle went everywhere, not just into Catholicism. Whenever the principle of celibacy was
imposed upon a priesthood, history has demonstrated that it resulted in extreme sexual immorality, both mentally and overtly. This perhaps
was exactly Satan's purpose in instituting it to begin with. This may have been what he wanted – to get the religious leadership to
be the most immoral of all.
In the early days of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Paul wanted to close down the houses of prostitution in Rome. He considered
Rome to be God's holy city, and he considered houses of prostitution out of keeping with that holy city. So he proceeded to close them down,
because he had the authority and the power then to do so. The Roman Senate, however, appealed to him not to do so. Do you know why? They
appealed to him not to close the houses of prostitution on the ground that it was those houses being open which alone preserved their
priests from seducing their wives and daughters. They told the pope that if he closed the houses of prostitution, it will be a threat to our
wives and our daughters. This was an interesting historical record that we have as to where celibacy led. It was almost obviously predictable.
Receiving the Tonsure
One of the distinguishing marks of the Babylonian priesthood (a very critical mark) was on the top of the head of a Babylonian priest.
Usually there is hair all over the head. When he was inaugurated into his priesthood, he would have the top of his head shaved. He would be
shorn. He would have hair growing all around, but right in the middle there was a round circle cut and cleanly shaved, shorn, and kept cut.
This practice of making a round circle, shaving off a round circle of hair on the top of the head, spread everywhere among the pagan priests
of the ancient world. You found it in Egypt; you found it in Rome; you found it in India; you found it in China; and, you found it everywhere,
because it all streamed out from Babylon. The priests of Semiramis not only were not to marry, but they were to have upon them a mark of
subjection to the religious system, and that was a bald spot on the top of the head where the hair had been shaven.
Gautama Buddha followed this practice when he was beginning his system of religious meditation and developing a following. Buddha claimed
that he had a divine command to identify himself in submission to the supreme being by shaving the top of his head. That was 540 years
before Christ came on the scene. Everywhere, this practice marked a priest's submission.
For this reason, when we came to the book of Leviticus giving guidelines to the Mosaic priesthood, one of the things that God made very
clear to the priests of Moses was that they were not to do this. This was a pagan practice. It was an expression of worship of Satan.
The Mosaic Aaronic priests were never to do this. Leviticus 21:5 therefore says, "They shall not make baldness upon their head, and
neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard nor make cuttings in their flesh," and so on. All of these things here in this
particular place were connoted with a reaction when somebody died, which was another time that they would shave hair off the head as an
expression of religious devotion.
The Roman Catholic priests followed this same procedure at their ordination. It's called "receiving the tonsure." And what do you think this
symbolized? Well, back in Babylon, it symbolized, again, our old friend the sun. That circle always signified the deity who happened to be
Satan. The Roman Catholic system came along, and priests everywhere did this. It was very natural that if a man was going to be a priest in
the Roman Catholic system, and a pagan was going to feel comfortable in the system, his priest should have this identifying mark with which
the pagans were well-acquainted. One of the reasons they did this, in addition to honoring the sun, is that it symbolized for them the fact
that when Nimrod had been executed by the forces of righteousness, they followed the ancient custom of cutting them up into pieces and
sending them around the country as a warning to what was happening. This cutting of the hair was a sign of personal mutilation in memory of
what had happened to Nimrod. There obviously is no biblical basis for such a practice. It is purely satanic. But the Roman church does it to
this day. So the next time you see a priest or a monk, and you see the top of his head shorn in this fashion, take note. Here is a man who is
honoring his majesty the devil by worshiping the sun through the incarnation of Tammuz.
Among the Babylonians, we have already learned that the word "zero" was signified by the circle, which also meant seed, in reference to
the woman who would fulfill the Genesis 3:15 promise. The seed among the Babylonians signified the sun deity. When they spoke of the seed,
this is what they meant. So the shape of the sun (a circle) was used on the top of the head as an emblem of subjection to the sun-god.
It was also an emblem that they viewed as Tammuz reincarnated after his destruction. They commemorated his mutilation with the circle,
but because it also represented the seed, they commemorated his reincarnation and his rebirth. Bacchus, who was the Roman form of Tammuz
(the Roman name for Tammuz), wore the circular tonsure to mark him as the sun-god, the incarnate deliverer of mankind. In pagan lands,
when they were mourning, they would use this method of cutting a circle on the top of their head, and the Roman Pope, to this day, wears
the tonsure, and it marks his relationship to Satan, not to Christ. Usually it's covered by a little skullcap. So the next time you see a
priest or a monk, ask him to take off his skullcap, and ask him if you can look on the top of his head. You will see this very picture of
the sun smiling up at you.
Secular People
As you know, the Roman Catholic Church today, with its religious orders, is served by an army of monks and nuns in addition to its priests,
which are called secular people. Nimrod's Babylonian system also had an abundance of similar religious orders. Monks and nuns are found
throughout pagan religions. I don't have to explain that to you. You've seen this on television. You've seen this in newsreels. You've seen
all over the world, if you've ever traveled – that there are monasteries and there are monks. When I was in China, there were monks
everywhere, and of all kinds. I visited monasteries, and they went through the same rituals of saying their prayers. They did it by the same
rote system. They even improved on it sometimes with prayer wheels. They had their gods in the form of images and idols.
On one occasion in Peking, another officer and I were touring the city, and we happened to have a particularly influential guide. His name was
Buddha. We took our jeep, and he hopped in, and Buddha guided us around. He was so famous, his picture was on Life magazine. When I got to the
states, there he was, featured on the cover of Life magazine. Underneath the picture, it said, "Buddha, number one rickshaw boy of Peking."
One of the places he took us to was to a Lama temple with the priests with their saffron-colored robes, and they were all out in the prayer house
when we arrived, and Buddha went and talked to somebody. A Chinese man came out, and he hustled as to the inside of a building, and he opened
the door. They had a long stairway up to the top, and he motioned to us to go. But before he motioned, he put his hand out for money. We gave
him something, and then he rushed us up the stairs, and we were wondering, you know, what's all this – a hush-hush hustling like this?
And there they had their gods, but they were all under cover. It was a section of gods that they worship with the gods of evil. He walked up
and through the cover off so that we could look at gods of evil, which were so evil in their postures, and in their performance, and in their
configuration that they were covered. But this was an order of monks. Whatever else they were doing, they were worshiping some supreme being.
Where did they get it? They didn't get that in China from Christianity. They got it directly from the Babylonian system.
In Scandinavia, there were the priestesses of Freyja as perpetual virgins to watch the sacred fires. They were nuns. In Athens, there were
the religious virgins which were maintained at public expense. They were nuns. In Rome, there were the vestal virgins who reigned in service
to the gods. They were nuns. In Peru, the virgins of the sun, living in convents, watched over sacred fires. Women would come into these
convents, and they would spend their whole lives. Once they came in, they were committed to perpetual virginity in devotion to the god. Usually,
in pagan systems, if that was violated, in Peru particularly, the punishment was to be for the woman to be buried alive. She broke her vows.
The Roman Catholic system just drank up this practice. The Roman Catholic system came up to the cup of abomination which was held out in the
hand of Babylon, and she drank deeply of it. Out of that came the system of nuns and monks that the Romans Catholic Church has to this day.
Jeremiah puts it this way in Jeremiah 51:7: "Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth drunk. The nations have
drunk of her wine. Therefore, the nations are mad." Did you notice that? Having drunk of the viewpoint and doctrine of paganism, the nations
of the world have gone mad. The lady that I told you about at the beginning of the service, who has gone from understanding of the Word of God
to this kind of paganistic darkness in the Roman Catholic system has gone mad. That's what has happened to her – spiritual madness.
Revelation 17:4-5 then ties Jeremiah's statement in to the end times: "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and bedecked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon
her forehead a name was written, "Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." The Roman Catholic Church
has drunk to the fill in this respect in its nunneries and in its convents.
So I don't know how you feel, but when I see a nun, I recoil in horror from the fact that I see a person who may be sincere and innocent enough,
but who is an agent representing Satan's finest system. When I see that cross dangling around her neck, I recoil with horror. When I see a monk
in his religious garb, I recoil with horror because that's coming close to a contact with the world of Satan in a very definitive form. Yet,
it's a religious expression.
Here is Babylon expressed through winsome men and women filled with human good, often sacrificing themselves for other people, and yet
representing a system that came out of the hellish mind of Satan through the Babylonian mystery cults, and absorbed into this mongrel system of
the Roman church. That's what the letter to Pergamum is all about. It is trying to warn the people of God where they're going to go when they
start accommodating themselves to that which is contrary to the Word of God, and when they start accommodating themselves to civil authorities
which are pagan in their viewpoint.
The Mass
Every Sunday, a true and serious Roman Catholic will see to it that he goes to what is called the mass. The mass is a very important element
in his religious system. It is called a sacrament. You should not call the ordinances of the Lord's Supper and water baptism sacraments, because
the word sacrament means "a means of grace." In other words, the Roman Catholic system says, "We have certain means by which we give you the
grace of God." You take the Lord supper. That's one of means. You get married. That's one of the means. You confess your sins. That's another
means. You get absolved from sin. That's another means. You have about seven specific sacraments. Water baptism is another means.
The Babylonian mystery religious system had the sacrifice of the mass, this bloodless sacrifice, which we've already referred to. In
this system, there was this worship basically in Babylon of the mother in the mother and child cult. What had happened here, in the
connection with this bloodless sacrifice of the mass, was that the son was viewed as a tyrant. He was viewed as a stern, inexorable
judge who delighted in blood. The son was viewed as being the harsh judge, demanding justice and demanding blood. But the mother was
viewed as being gracious and understanding. In contrast to the son, she would not contend that poor sinners had to grovel in the dust.
She was portrayed as merciful, and as abhorring blood. Therefore she was ready to aid the sinner in escape of judgment. Thus the mother,
Semiramis, became the Mediatrix between the sinner and her son, Tammuz, the sun-god incarnate. The incarnated sun-god was viewed as
harsh and bloody. The mother was viewed as gentle and un-bloody. Thus the pagans proceeded to worship the mother more than the son, and
therefore they created this form of worship of the mass, which was an un-bloody sacrifice because it was reflective of what her attitude
was.
The mystery cult taught that the mother diverts the wrath of the son against evil by showing to him her breasts which nursed him. It's
interesting when we go to the gospels, you almost think that the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing what had come out of Babylon, and knowing
what the church was going to be faced with, used an occasion to point out the very fact that this was a false relationship to His mother,
Mary. Notice in Luke 11:27-28: "And it came to pass as He (Jesus) spoke these things. A certain woman of the company lifted up her voice
and said unto him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts which nursed You.' But he said, 'Yea, rather, blessed are they that
hear the Word of God and keep it.'" In that statement, the Lord Jesus Christ says, "No, there is nothing sacred or magical about the
breasts that nursed Me in My humanity. There is only something powerful in Bible doctrine, and that is the thing which is blessed." This
idea was carried throughout paganism. This was taught everywhere, and that was the basis of the mass as an un-bloody sacrifice because it
was in adoration of this gentle mother.
The approach to the mother goddess to appease was through this bloodless sacrifice of these little cakes. Back in Jeremiah again, the Jews
used to love this system. The Jews just could not keep from contaminating themselves with the Babylonian religious system on all sides.
They loved it. Jeremiah had to strike against them again and again. He says, "You people, you're mad. God is going to destroy you as a
nation if you don't stop this." But they could not turn away from these practices. They loved them. Jeremiah 44:19 gives us a little
enlightenment. It says, "And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven (Semiramis, the mother goddess), and poured out drink offerings
unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drinks offerings unto her, without our husbands?" And it goes on to say how things
were better when we were worshiping the mother queen with the mass, and when we were worshiping her with our little cakes, and our drink
offerings (our wines). Well, this was the custom. This was the way of worship. This is the mass.
Until a few years ago, the mass meant that the Roman Catholic communicant would come; the priests would go through his hocus pocus; he
changed the little wafer into the body of Christ; then the communicant would come up; he would shove it into the mouth; the priests would
turn; he would take the wine; he would convert it into the blood of Christ; and, he would drink it. Now that system has been changed in
the Roman Catholic system. Now the people get the wine, and they get the bread also. They get the full sacrament. In the fourth
century, the Roman Catholic Church officially brought in the abomination of the mass. (They) officially, by ecclesiastical Fiat, brought
it as the central expression of worship.
The Round Wafer
You can't find a whisper of this in Scripture. It's purely of pagan origin. There's no such thing as the mass. One thing that's very
important in the mass of the Roman Catholic Church is that what the priest puts into your mouth is round. The wafer is round. Furthermore,
it has to be round. There is an emphasis that demands a stringency about this. It must not be some other shape. This is called the bread
of life. Why do you think there is this insistence upon the roundness of the wafer in the mass? Where is such a thing recorded in the Lord's
Supper? How could the breaking of the bread that Jesus did at the end of the Passover meal have anything to do with the shape of roundness?
Well, obviously, I think you see the connection. The connection is that, again, the pagans had a round wafer because it symbolized the sun.
That was their chief god. They worshiped Satan. Satan was symbolized by the sun incarnate. And the round wafer is found on all the altars
of paganism. It was their common tie to the Babylonian mystery system. The Jews, in their idolatry, displayed on their altars emblems of
the round disk of the sun.
Fasting
When the good King Josiah, in 2 Chronicles 34:4, began tearing down these objects of worship, it says that one of the things he tore off
of the altars were the images, and the Hebrew says "images of the sun." These people had put upon their altars this round image from the
system about them. The Babylonians required a bloodless worship, and they required it with this round wafer. Incidentally, they required
it following fasting. You could not come to worship with this mass unless you have fasted. Do you know what a Roman Catholic has to do
today? He has to fast from midnight the night before. If he's going to go to mass on Sunday or the next day, he has to start fasting from
midnight. He must eat nothing, and he must drink nothing. I have heard, on occasion, of Roman Catholics who are drinking (like in the
service) saying, "Man, I better get one more. It's five until midnight. After midnight, I can't take another drink. I'm going to mass in
the morning." They were boozed up and drunk pretty well by that time. Where did that come from? Are you beginning to get the feel of the
loathsome horror of this mongrel system of Catholicism interbred with the Roman Catholic system and Babylon?
IHS
I'll tell you something else. If you look on this little round wafer, you would find three letter stamps upon it, which some of you ex-Roman
Catholics will recognize. As a matter of fact, you also see this moving around in Protestant churches embroidered on the pulpit, and one
place and another: "IHS." IHS was on the Babylonian system of their wafers, and this part came from the Egyptian expression of the mystery
cult religion. It stood for Isis, Horeb, and Seb. ISIS was the mother; Horeb was the child; and, Seb was the father of the gods. So you had
the Egyptian version of Satan's false trinity, and it was stamped right there on that little piece of bread – that thin wafer that
they would use in the mass. The Roman Catholic Church took this over, and it took the wafer (the roundness), and it took the letters,
but it changed the meaning. It gave these three letters Latin meaning: "Iesous Hominum Salvator," which means "Jesus Savior of Men." So if
you go to a Roman Catholic Church, you'll get a round wafer shoved into your mouth with Babylonian pagan letters IHS on them. Has something
really changed? Whom are we really worshiping?
The un-bloody sacrifice tradition of worship began with the women of Arabia. This whole mass began with the women of Arabia, and biblical
believers everywhere immediately condemned it as a vile practice which was exalting paganism and exalting the sun-god. But the Roman papacy
saw it as another way of absorbing paganism, so it condoned and adopted the mass.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1977
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