Ancient Babylon was Amalgamated with Christianity

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Following the Noahic flood, the city of Babylon was founded as an expression of rebellion against God's sovereign authority, and of His laws governing human relationships. John sees and hears the doom in Revelation 14:8 which is proclaimed against that city: "Babylon the Great is going to fall." This takes place in time at the end of the tribulation period. The reason that Babylon the Great is going to fall is because it created a false religious system and caused all the nations of the world to drink passionately of that system which was basically a system of immorality of various kinds. It was a system of sensuality, and a system that purported to worship God, and in fact, was a system that was worshiping Satan.

Babylon and Nimrod

These people performed the first post-flood effort at internationalism in place of God's purpose of nationalism. Of course, you see that we've come the whole circle now, and we how the United States is in the forefront of rapidly bringing the world together into an international global unity. This is the very thing that Nimrod tried to do, for which God brought destruction upon that whole system.

The Tower of Babel

Nimrod's Babylonian religion excluded, therefore, everything that dealt with the true God and with the laws of that Creator God. Babylon's religion was centered on indulging the lusts of the sin nature that are found in man. So, very quickly, with the Tower of Babel, and with Nimrod's leadership, the world was again very rapidly heading for the social jungle that had existed before the flood.

The Masters of Wisdom

The Sun-God

So, the doctrines and the religious practices of the religion of Babylon were practiced wherever people had drifted off from the Tower of Babel. The religion of Babylon centered eventually upon a goddess mother and her deity child son. Very quickly, a series of doctrines were put together under Nimrod's religion, and, in time, these doctrines were mixed with biblical Christianity, and became what today we know as the Roman Catholic Church.

When Babylon was conquered by the Medo-Persian rulers, the kingdom of Babylon fell to their power, and also the religion. The Medo-Persian rulers expelled the priests of Babylon so that the priests had to move to new headquarters, which was to the city of Pergamum in Asia Minor. In the early part of the book of the Revelation, the city of Pergamum is addressed as "the throne of Satan." The religion of Babylon had to go underground, in time, because it became so gross and so obscene and so vile that believers rose up against it. In fact, they executed Nimrod. So, to escape the wrath of the people, the religion went underground and became a secret religion, or, as it was called, the "Babylon Mystery religion," and its doctrines were revealed only to those who were chosen to be part of the religious system.

Upon the violent death of Nimrod, his wife, Semiramis, proceeded to make him a full God. Of course, the ancient world all knew the promise which had been made to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 – that there would come a Man, a Deity, a God-man, sent by God to have a confrontation with Satan, and that He would deliver to Satan a mortal blow to his head while Satan would bruise this Savior's heel. All the ancient world knew about a coming Savior of mankind from the Genesis 3:15 promise. This Savior was referred to in Babylon by the term "Zero-ashta." Zero-ashta means "seed of the woman," and it was symbolized by a circle which stood for both the seed and the god of the seed, which was the sun up in the sky. The circle in ancient religions was very important. It was predominant. It was constantly to be found in various forms, and it always stood ultimately for the God of the sun up in the sky. The ancient world was aware that this deliverer, when he came, would remove the curse of sin from the world.

The basic revelation about bruising the serpent's head, is, interestingly enough, found in all the mythologies of all the nations. Satan always distorts God's truth. And if you're just one of these ordinary, sweet Christian folks that floats around in the Christian community, and you who have never been taught basic doctrine, you're going to eat up all of the misconceptions of the society in which you live. Only those who are versed in the Word of God will understand how Satan takes a truth and gives it a twist and a distortion, and makes it come out something totally different from what God meant. This revelation, though, about bruising of the serpent's head, is found in all the mythologies. They have a god who slays a serpent, representing evil. This serpent-destroying god is also represented as enduring suffering in the process, and it ends in his death.

Achilles

Now, where would a story like that come from? Was it just made up? No, it has a connection with Genesis 3:15. The perversion of Babylon of the truth of God is astounding when you start tracing back the pieces. This goddess' sons was invulnerable, except on the heel, and that caused his death. The same thing would be true of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the death of Nimrod, the apostate, was portrayed as the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, and his wife Semiramis said that he was the promised savior. And the implication was made that Nimrod had done this voluntarily in order to be that savior.

Well, the truth of the matter is that we have some records from ancient history that suggest to us that Nimrod's death was probably engineered by Noah's son, Shem, who was still alive at the time, and who mounted a great revival toward the true God. The tradition that comes down is that after Shem executed Nimrod, he cut him up in pieces, and sent parts of him off (as was done in the ancient world) to major cities as an example of what would happen to those who were the enemies of God.

The Babylonian religious system then went secret after this execution of Nimrod, and it was a system which contained a great deal of demon power; of magic; and, of rituals which were designed to excite the emotions and the senses. This is very much like the charismatic movement today. It is designed to appeal to all that is sensual in man. The very church service of a charismatic church today is to appeal to your emotional, sensual facets in order to cause you to think that you have had some kind of a real association with God.

The beliefs were secret, and at some point in their ritual, they even had Nimrod come back to life. They had the old magic tricks of having the demon speak, and having the appearance of Nimrod, and they actually believed that he had been resurrected.

Semiramis also claimed then to have a son that was born without a human father, so that she could claim that Nimrod had been reincarnated. So, was born the mother goddess-child cult. In time, however, the mother herself became as much an object of worship as the infant son. This may not have been the original plan. The mother was more like a pedestal holding the sun, but in time, the mother herself was given that honor.

There was something amazing at the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship conference at Urbana, Illinois, which is which is held for college students who are interested in mission ministry. Of all things, one of the seminars, unbelievably, at the Fellowship of InterVarsity was a Roman Catholic father who was being interviewed and running a seminar on the Association of Catholicism in World Missions. One of the things he discussed was praying to Mary, and his argument was: "You ask other people to pray for you, don't you? Well, why do you object to our asking Mary to pray for us?" You ex-Catholics know that little jingle, "Mother of God, pray for us now, and in the day of our death."

Well, in some points, he has merit, because there are a lot of dead Christians around that we do ask to pray for us, and that doesn't help us much. But to talk about praying to somebody who's dead, a human being, and that the subtle little implication is what? "Mary is different. Mary is up there listening. Mary is a goddess figure in heaven with the Roman Catholic Church. She's a co-Mediatrix with Christ. So, the mother became a goddess in her own right, and history tells us that Semiramis was a very beautiful woman, and she was the original pagan goddess which represented female beauty: the Aphrodite in Greece; and, the Venus in Rome. And art and sculpture take great care to when they portray her, to portray her as a very beautiful woman, as she holds the child God. In time, the mother who bore the Son became more adored than the Son Himself, and the mother was soon raised to death along with the Son, and became the object of worship. And she was viewed as the one who had also bruised Satan's head.

The Tower of Babel is reported to have had three images of the great gods of Babylon on it. One of them was a woman grasping the serpent's head, clearly portraying Semiramis as one of the gods of the Babylon system. Diana, among the Greeks represented the same Babylon goddess, and she is pictured as holding a headless snake in her hand.

In time, the birth of Semiramis' was declared to be a miraculous birth, and Semiramis was called "alma mater." The word "Alma" comes from the Hebrew, and it means "virgin." So, "alma mater" means "virgin mother." And Semiramis was referred to as the alma mater. The birth of the true Savior was to be miraculous. That was well known from Old Testament Scriptures. And all over the ancient world, where no biblical Scripture was to be found, we have found this worship of the "alma mater." And that's what's so amazing.

Jesuit priests would come into areas that no Western civilization had ever touched, and no Bible had ever been brought to. And, lo and behold, they found the same system of worship of a mother goddess as they themselves practiced with Mary. How did they get it? They all got it from Babylon. That is the point of the revelation of Scripture on that. All over the world, this goddess is being worshiped. Even the Jews could not avoid this. Jeremiah 44:17-25 refer to the Queen of Heaven, which they were worshiping, and to whom they were devoting themselves. They actually identified this mother as the Holy Spirit. That was the role she had in the false trinity of Babylon.

So, this mother goddess assured her worshipers of salvation. She was a very attractive religion because you didn't have to do what was right. This religion was based upon indulging all of the desires of the sin nature. This is why Jeremiah grieved over the fact that the nations of the world, as Revelation points out, literally drank deep of this religious system, and they became drunk upon the wine of this false religion – this central phallic religion.

In Jeremiah 44:15, Jeremiah says, "Then all the men who were aware that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by as a large assembly, including all the people who are living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, responded to Jeremiah saying." Jeremiah had rebuked them for worshiping Semiramis and Tammuz, and these ancient gods from Babylon, and here was their response.

Verse 1: "As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we're 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." Guess, what the Roman Catholics today call Mary? Yes, they call her "alma mater." Yes. They call her "Queen of Heaven." Do you see the connection? This was Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod that they were referring to, and they were worshiping her. These men were saying, "Yes, our wives do worship Semiramis, and we're going to keep worshiping her." Why would they do that? "Pouring out libations 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. Why should we do this? For then we had plenty of food, and we're well off, and saw no misfortune."

Now, there's an interesting conclusion. Did they listen to the Word of God about this false religion? No. Like charismatics today, experience determines truth: While we worship the mother, the queen of heaven, the mother deity, we've got plenty of food and plenty of money in our pockets. We're prospered." Do you see the doctrinal principle? It is Satan who is in the business of making people wealthy. It is Satan who is in the business of deceiving you with personal prosperity. Unless you have enough biblical orientation to know that that prosperity is nothing, and is not going to carry you any place in life or in eternity, you will be trapped in the thinking that you have the favor of God upon you.

Yes, God does bless you and God does prosper. But He blesses and prospers so that you may do his work. Satan blesses and prospers so that you may promote his false religious ideas and his system. These Jews made a very serious mistake, not judging the religion by Scripture, but judging it instead by their experience.

The visual portrayals of the virgin mother goddess were very interesting. Historically, artists always present her as blue-eyed and with blond hair. This is precisely the representation that is found in all of the ancient Babylonian portrayals. The artists in later times did not change this. They did not portray a Jewish woman with dark hair and dark eyes. Always the artists went for the blue-eyed blond as a portrayal of the virgin mother goddess. Why? Because that's the way Semiramis was. That was her appearance, and it was carried on down.

They frequently also added signs of her deity. For example, the circle (the halo) is placed either around the head, or the circle around in back of the head, in order to portray the role of deity. You've seen the portraits of artists through the centuries who put these round golden circles behind certain heads. What do you think they stand for? It's more than just that these are holy people. These are agents of the sun up in the sky. They're the agents of that religious system. The circle is always present, and it is always important.

The Ancient Babylon Religion was Amalgamated with Christianity

So, the deity of the son was made to stand or fall on the deity of the mother who bore him. He was God, not because of something in His own right, but because of the mother who bore him. Thus in Roman Catholicism, Mary has the immaculate conception. She is declared to have been conceived by her parents without a sin nature. Thus, she could bear a Son who was sinless. All the names and the qualities of the Queen of Heaven from Babylon are now attributed by the Roman Catholic Church to Mary. And they venerate Mary now as the same goddess mother.

Madonna

The result of all this was that there evolved a system of religion within Christianity that had nothing to do whatsoever with biblical Christianity. Some of these practices are with us to this day – practices that we don't even give a second thought to, whose origins go all the way back with subtle meanings that are dishonoring to God, and they go back to Babylon and Nimrod. This is why, here in Revelation 14:8, God says, "Babylon is going to fall." God is going to crush her.

Christmas

So, you didn't go out in the fields with your flocks in December because it was simply too cold to do this. They wouldn't have done this actually beyond the month of October. That's the latest extreme in which they would have been out in the field. So, we may suspect that Jesus was born probably in September, or somewhere in that vicinity rather than in December.

The taxing census by the Roman government would also have been a very great hardship on people if they had decided to run it in the wintertime. These people had to travel by walking or by riding animals, and to send them on these long journeys for taxation census in the wintertime would be horrendous, and a lot of people simply would not have come.

So, the Christmas Day observance in church history connected to December 25th is something that was settled and decided at some point in time. Well, it was decided by the Roman Catholic Church in the 4th century. December 25th was selected by the Roman Catholic Church because by that time, it had become well-amalgamated with Satan's Babylonian religious system. And the Babylonians had quite a festival on that day. Long before the era of Christianity, the religion of Babylon celebrated the birth of Tammuz, the son of Semiramis, the Queen of Heaven. They celebrated that on December 25th. So, Christmas Day originally was a major pagan festival. Some Christians will not celebrate the birth of Christ on this day, and they won't have Christmas trees, and they won't send presents. Everybody has to make his own decision as to what you want to do about that. All we're doing is telling you that the religious system of Nimrod has had its influence upon the most influential religious system today, which is the Roman Catholic Church, and that you have to understand that it is not strictly proper even to call Catholicism a Christian religion. It is dressed-up Nimrod paganism.

Yuletide

Now, the sun was the chief object of worship in Babylon because it was viewed as God incarnate. Therefore, December 25th was celebrated. It is the winter solstice. It is the time when the days have reached their shortest period. And in ancient Babylon, this was considered that their god was dying. The sun-god was dying, and he was gradually getting weaker. The days were getting shorter, and the pagans would therefore build fires which were called bonfires, because the word "bon" means "good" fire. The reason they built those fires at night was to help their god, the sun, illuminate, and to help him conserve his strength. Well, they celebrated December 25th as the feast of Satan, when the sun would begin to revive. They were all happy to celebrate December 25th as the day when their sun-god would no longer be dying, but would now start to be revived.

The day was characterized by drunken revelry, and by the wassailing bowls such as you hear of in England. The wassailing bowl is simply a bowl of alcoholic beverages that you can come in to enjoy to celebrate that the sun isn't dying after all. They would light candles on the altar of Tammuz to do him honor. And in recognition of his resurrection and reviving coming back to life, they had a tree called the Tammuz tree, and it was in Babylon. In fact, in some mythology, it was said to have been changed into a tree, and in that state, the mother of the sun-god has brought forth her son. The point of this was simply that the mother was the tree, and the child was the branch.

The Yule Log

This custom of the death of the apostate Nimrod was symbolized also by a tree which would have its branches stripped and cut down to a stump. The tree also sometimes had the serpent symbolized, coming around it, which was another symbol of Satan. So, this new tree that they would have as what we call a Christmas tree, was the reincarnation of Satan's man Tammuz.

Mistletoe

Now, if you've ever kissed under a mistletoe, you perhaps have felt that it was a heavenly experience. In that respect, perhaps you have found that indeed heaven and earth have been brought together in some dramatic way. But the mistletoe, again, is an imitation of a biblical principles.

For example, in Psalm 85:10-11, the psalmist says, "Loving kindness and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven." Do you see the connection? It is an earthly tree bearing a heavenly branch. Truth springs from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven, so that righteousness and peace have kissed each other. So, the mistletoe was the sign of reconciliation between God and man. But it was a reconciliation on the basis of a totally false concept.

The Boar's Head

Hot-Cross Buns

So, where does all this leave us? We are in a world today that is rapidly moving away from biblical Christianity on every score. In prominence, everywhere we look, the Roman Catholic Pope is being highly esteemed, being welcomed to all the nations of the world. He is viewed as speaking for biblical Christianity, and he is the last man on earth qualified to do that. We are so far detached now from the Word of God that it is not likely that the United States will ever be able to find its way back to its spiritual heritage. And what do we have being offered in this place? We have a religious system which is a hybrid between biblical Christianity and Nimrod's, ancient, pagan, sensual, sexual, phallic-cults religion.

Can you imagine? Can you get some sense of feeling why it is that God looks upon that with such loathing? Why does He say that when His wrath is finally expressed, there is not going to be any mercy? He is going to destroy the system of man's religion and all those who participate in it. It is important to realize that when God finally has run His period of grace and toleration in our lives, He acts with definitive strength. The people before the flood didn't think that it would ever happen. The people before the flood didn't think that their lives were in jeopardy if they chose to ignore the warnings of Noah.

You and I, who know the Word of God, have upon us the obligation to have the perception to see that our society has lost its way; that we do not know where we're going; that we're misguiding our young people; and, that we have problems that nobody can fix. At least, we used to think that we could look to the government to fix things. Now, people don't even want to run for public office. Men who are in Congress now are leaving it. They're not going to run again. They're now convinced that the system is so far departed from every conceivable concept of decency and morality that they, even good men, cannot accomplish something for a society.

That all comes together to alert us to the fact that Jesus is coming again. And it's very soon, and our time is short. And the religion that is so easy for us to see. We, who know a little bit of Scripture, can look at this, and are astounded that people are carried away with New Age religion. We see its connection back to Babylon. We see that it is simply a goddess who is being worshiped. And what is the movement of the feminazis today? The whole feminazi movement is to exalt woman as a goddess. And what is that based upon? It's based upon violating every biblical principle. The Word of God is going to be victorious. We are not going to win out over the principles of what God has ordained. The wise Christians today, believe me, will take stock of himself; of his time; of his treasures; and, of his talents, and will make his plans accordingly.

The time will probably come. Some Christians in our Christian community are alert to the fact of how bad things have become within the moral climate of this nation, and how society is coming apart. It's hard to feel comfortable to leave your house. Yesterday, one of our academy parents, one of our strong supporters, was planning a trip to relatives at a distance. They gathered presents and brought things together for a happy occasion with them, only to come home and find their house robbed and cleaned out, along with two others on the block. How can these things happen? How can we be in such desperate status that you wonder, "Should I leave my house? Can I even walk out?

It is hard for me to believe that back in the 1950s, when I first came to Berean church, it must have been a period of like ten years before we ever locked the door on our house. I shudder when I look back on that now. I mean, we used to drive off to Dallas, and we'd drive off here, and we'd be gone day and night, and we never locked the house. We never locked the church building. We didn't have to. What was to be hazarded? Now you can't even come to church without locking your car because the thieves are around. How can this be?

It is because of Nimrod. It's because of his religious system. It's because the system is based upon indulging the lust patterns of the sin nature. We Christians may indeed have some suffering. Some of our Christian friends think it's going to be part of the tribulation. They're wrong about that. But we are going to come into suffering, and we must not be discouraged. When Satan throws a barrier in our way, we stand back, and we analyze. We say, "Now what, Lord?" And we wait upon Him. And I guarantee you that He will open the doors and He'll unravel the problem.

However, if you are driven to your knees, that is a good position. Your grief and your problems have driven you to your knees. That's a very good position to be in from which to make your recovery, because maybe you'll be driven more seriously to prayer. We are under the curse of Nimrod's Babylonian religion, and how much in detail, we will show you next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1992

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