IS THE VIRGIN MARY ALIVE OR DEAD?

Chapter 13

It is interesting that the word “Sacrament,” which is a Roman Catholic term for “a visible, tangible sign through which God approaches us, enters into our lives, and draws us to Himself through his grace....comes from a Latin translation of the Greek ‘mysterion’ or ‘mystery. ’ ” (Basics of the Faith: A Catholic Catechism, p. 151). Three of the seven sacraments, or “mysteries,” are these: infant baptism, which is non-Biblical; the Eucharist Presence of Christ, which is certainly a mystery unlike any other; and the Holy Orders, the priesthood, in which priests are sworn to celibacy as a discipline of the Roman Catholic Church, even though the Bible says: “It is not good that the man should be alone” and “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife , vigilant, sober , of good behavior...Not given to wine .” (Gen. 2:18; I Tim 3:2, 3).

One only needs to look in the newspapers to see the fruit of this “Holy Sacrament,” for they are filled with reports of the lewd and promiscuous practices of celibate priests. Some of the headlines include: “Priests and Pedophelia: A Silence That Needs Breaking”; “Sex abuse cases sap church budget”; “Sex abuse lawsuits”; and “40% of U.S. Roman Catholic Priests Reported To Be Gay.” Not surprising is the fact that homosexual priests are dying from AIDS worldwide. In fact, in the past few years the Roman Catholic Church has spent one billion dollars in out-of- court costs involving the sex affairs of priests.

Did not the prophecy of the Apostle Paul hit the mark when he wrote the following: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” (I Tim. 4:1-3).

With all the sexual exploits of celibate priests coming out in the open, Paul’s words are very apropos: “Speaking lies in hypocrisy [their messages on moral purity, anti-homosexualism, abortion, and taking an oath of celibacy while practicing sexual perversion are certainly ‘lies in hypocrisy’], having their conscience seared with a hot iron [insensitive, scarred, non-functional]. (Verse 2). May we all pray that they repent of such deeds. Also, to add to the testimony that the prophecy of I Timothy 4 applies to the Roman Catholic Church, I, while growing up in our Catholic home, was not allowed to eat meat on Fridays. My mother would serve me fish. Later the Church changed the rule and made it applicable only to Lent. But it still fulfils the prophecy.

Friends, not only had I, as a young Catholic boy, confessed my sins to the priests (many of whom were committing grievous sins), I also had offered prayers to and lit candles for my departed loved ones, prayed to dead saints and the Virgin Mary while kneeling in front of their images, and said, literally, thousands of Hail Marys. As I look back, I see even more Babylonian practices in which I unknowingly participated. For instance, here are a few: my baptism as an infant (because of my family’s belief in original sin); my participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass, which I attended hundreds of times and which is a celebration of the Eucharist (Holy Communion); and my belief in purgatory, a place where I could still be purified from sin even after death. To redeem my past, I feel I need to expose the origin of these other Roman Catholic practices and their pagan roots, as being further identifying characteristics of “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots” and to help others meet God’s approval in the coming contest.

First, let us look at infant baptism. Nowhere in the Bible will you find one instance of the baptism of an infant. But if one believes the Roman Catholic Doctrine of original sin—which means that every person born into this world inherits Adam’s sin, guilt, and condemnation—then should a person die, whether as an infant or not, before baptism, that person would be lost for eternity.

Therefore, Roman Catholicism advocates infant baptism as a means of cleansing, or purifying, that child from original sin. Today, I realize that I had no choice, as is the case with millions of babies, in deciding whether or not to be a Roman Catholic. I became a member of that denomination before I could even speak or think for myself. Had I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior at just a few months of age? Of course not. But the Catholic Church substitutes the church’s faith for that of the child. Furthermore, baptism, which is to be by immersion [the whole body being covered by water (see Matt. 3:16), and never simply by the sprinkling of water on the person’s head], is a public declaration of the baptismal candidate’s acceptance of Christ both as his personal Savior from sin and for His substitutionary death on that person’s behalf. It is a declaration that the “old man (the carnal man)” is being buried in the watery grave, “that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin [which an infant knows nothing about].” (Romans 6:6). So with baptism, it is “a seal of the righteousness of the faith” (Rom. 4:11) which the man has before he is baptized ; for it is said, “He that believeth , and is baptized, shall be saved.” (Mark 16:16). Where faith exists, if it be genuine, it is the evidence of a new heart, of a regenerated nature. (See Gal. 2:20). All these aforementioned things are impossible for a babe.

Friends, this doctrine and discipline of the Roman papacy, as it is with many of its doctrines, was never derived from the Bible. Therefore “regeneration by baptism” —the belief that your sins, including “original sin,” are actually washed away by the water used , and not by your faith in the cleansing blood of Christ that preceded the ceremony —is fundamentally an article of Rome. It is as if baptism, or works, and not faith, justifies or pardons us from sin. In contrast, the Bible says: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood [not baptism, which is the statement a person makes after he has accepted Christ and His atoning sacrifice, and has repented and confessed his sins to His Savior, for it is called ‘the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins’ (Mark 1:4)], we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” (Romans 5:9; see also Romans 3:24, 28; 4:2; 5:1).

By Rome, baptism is pronounced as absolutely necessary for salvation, insomuch that infants dying without it (unless, according to Catholic Doctrine, they have received the baptism of blood, or martyrdom, such as in the case of the babies murdered by King Herod) cannot be admitted to glory; and its virtues are so great, that it is declared in all other cases to “regenerate us by a new spiritual birth, making us children of God.” It is to be “the first door by which we enter the fold of Jesus Christ; therefore the merits of His death are by baptism applied to our souls....to satisfy Divine justice for all demands against us whether for original or actual sin.” (Bishop Hay, Sincere Christianity, pp. 363, 358). This is anti-Scriptural!

What if the child, John the Baptist, had died in his mother’s womb? What would have happened to him? Would he, according to the doctrine of Rome, never be admitted into heaven? Such a belief gives birth to such questions. Friends, as this doctrine never came from the Bible, from what source did it originate?

It came from heathenism—from Babylon! In the Chaldean mysteries, before any instruction could be received, it was required, first of all, that the person to be initiated submit to baptism in token of blind and implicit obedience [such as with a child who has no choice]. Pagans would baptize their children “by sprinkling them with water or by plunging them, as soon as they were born, into lakes or rivers.” (Antiquities, Vol. 1, p. 335).

Second, I want to address the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Eucharist Presence of Christ, and the wafer used in that ceremony. According to Roman Catholic teaching, each Mass is a true sacrifice, in which the risen Christ becomes bodily present, under the appearance of bread and wine, on the altar as a victim who is offered anew by the church to God the Father as expiation for the sins of the people. The Mass is considered to be a renewal, an unbloody sacrifice (or in an unbloody manner), by the mandate of Christ, of the one universally effective sacrifice freely offered by Christ Himself in His crucifixion, for the redemption of the world. How can an unbloody sacrifice redeem anyone from sin when the Bible explicitly states:

“Without shedding of blood [there] is no remission [of sin]” (Heb. 9:22),” and “In whom [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood , the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7)? Yet according to Catholic doctrine, “The Holy Mass is one and the same Sacrifice with that of the Cross, inasmuch as Christ, who offered Himself to His Heavenly Father, continues to offer Himself in an unbloody manner on the altar, through the ministry of the priests.” (A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, p. 47).

The Mass is the means of applying the merits of Calvary which is done over and over again. It is not difficult for one to see that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church contradict the Scriptures when the Bible says, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor...that He should offer Himself often....but now once ...to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” (Heb. 9:24-28). “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” (I Pet. 3:18). Besides, what did Jesus mean when He cried out, “It is finished” (John 19:30) just before he died?

The Mass is a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The priest who performs the Mass, or celebrant, reads or sings in Latin. But the ceremony is translated into various languages, so that all present may understand. The Mass, which includes two basic parts—the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, “re-enacts the greatest event of history and of Christian faith: the paschal mystery—the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ....In the Eucharistic Prayer during which the solemn Consecration of bread and wine takes place....Catholics believe that at this point, by God’s sovereign power and will, the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Jesus Christ .” “This was no symbolic reception,...but was actually eating the body of Christ and drinking His blood even if this body and blood still appears to our senses as bread and wine....Catholic Christians believe that when they receive the bread and wine of the Eucharist, they are actually partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ .” (Basics of the Faith: A Catholic Catechism, pp. 195, 196, 164, 165). Blasphemy! The priest, or the celebrant—the creature—has the audacity to create, as it were the Creator! With all the Masses offered every week throughout the world, are the millions of tiny wafers used simultaneously, the literal body of Christ?

The other day I called a Catholic bookstore to verify what I am telling you, and it so happened that the clerk handed the phone to a priest who was in their store. She felt he could better answer my questions. I asked him if the breaking of the wafer portrayed the breaking of Christ’s body—his sacrifice for us. To this he answered, “Yes.” I then asked him how many times the Eucharist wafer is lifted above the altar. To this he answered, “Twice.” Then he added: “The second time the Host—Christ’s body—and the chalice of His blood are raised, the priest says ‘through Him, with Him, and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory are yours almighty Father, forever and ever!’” I then asked him if the Eucharist bread actually becomes Christ’s body, and the wine his blood? He continued, “The philosophical term used for this is transubstantiation, which means that the substance of the bread and wine becomes the substance of the Godhead, which is Christ.” He then said, “The Lutheran will say that it is bread, but to a Catholic, it is Christ !” “The Mass,” he emphasized, “is a reenactment of what happened 2,000 years ago, and is for us today.” He then asked me if I understood what he had said, to which I answered, “Perfectly!” He responded, “Very good. I have students in my classes who cannot understand what you grasped so quickly.”

From historians we learn that no blood was allowed to be offered on the altars of the Assyrian Venus—the great goddess of Babylon. The very shape of the unbloody sacrifice of Rome may also indicate its origin. The Eucharist wafer, which is broken as was the body of Christ, is a small thin round wafer, and it is on its roundness that the Church of Rome lays so much stress. What could have induced the papacy to insist so much on the roundness of its unbloody sacrifice? Clearly not from the Bible, for there is no reference of a round wafer at the Lord’s supper, but to the contrary, the Lord took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to His disciples saying, “Take, eat; this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.” (1 Cor. 11:24). But if we look at the altars of Egypt, we will find the thin, round cake. The round disk, so frequent in the sacred emblems of Egypt, symbolized the sun, in honor of Osiris, the sun-divinity .

“In Egypt, the disk of the Sun was represented in the temples....In the great temple of Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the Babylonians. In every respect, then, we see how justly Rome bears on its forehead the name, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great.’ It is striking to find that the image of the sun , which apostate Israel worshipped , was also erected above their altars. When the good king Josiah set about the work of reformation, we read that his servants in carrying out the work, proceeded thus: ‘And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence, and the images (margin, sun-images) that were on high above them, he cut down.’ ” [II Chron. 34:4] (The Two Babylons, pp. 162, 163).

The Eucharist is a term of Roman Catholic usage, but we are seeing it employed more and more frequently in some of the Protestant churches today. In fact, when John Paul II came to America, the Protestants flocked to see him, as well as the Catholics. I heard that Protestant ministers, as well as their members, were seen kissing the pope’s ring. Evidently, John Paul’s ecumenical efforts to organize all the churches under his leadership is working! The deadly wound has been healing spectacularly. In fact, it may already have healed completely!

Third, though not a sacrament, as a Roman Catholic I had believed in the doctrine of purgatory . Purgatory, according to the Catholic Church, is a place or state following death in which “God purges or purifies any remaining sin or the effects of sin that prevented the person from entering into full communion with God in heaven.” (Basics of the Faith: A Catholic Catechism, p. 306). This doctrine, which has no foundation in the Bible, I had blindly believed in as a security for salvation. I remember purgatory as “that other place,” other than heaven or hell, where I might end up if I were not good enough. There I would be punished by fire until I was purified from all sin, at which point, I would finally be admitted into heaven.

“The Catholic tradition concerning purgatory includes the notion of purgation from sin by the fire of God’s love and holiness. Fire implies pain, and thus it should not surprise us if purgatory is painful.” (Ibid., p. 307). This is utterly ridiculous! As if God would literally burn people for a while to purify them! But had I not been taught that prayer, good works, and penance do foster God’s work of purification of ourselves, others living on earth, and those in purgatory? “Prayer and sacrifice for each other that we may be freed from sin are among the primary ways that the saints—members of the body of Christ whether on earth, in heaven, or in purgatory—can aid each other.” (Ibid., pp. 307, 308).

Thank God, that today I believe in righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ, and not in righteousness by works, to merit salvation. Not in penances and the “Sacraments” of Rome, but in the mercy and power of God and His grace! “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” (Titus 3:5, 6). Yet, The Thunder of Justice claims that the visionaries at Medjugorje had reported seeing purgatory, and claim “there are many different levels, some close to Heaven and some close to hell.”

They also say: “Mary has recommended praying at least seven each of the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, plus the Apostles’ Creed, for the souls in purgatory and for their intentions. Souls there are waiting for your prayers and sacrifices, Mary has emphasized.” (The Thunder of Justice, pp. 203, 204). Again, friends, it is plain to see that the one promoting this error is not the Virgin Mary, but a demon in disguise!

Chapter 14

In further comparing the similarities between ancient Babylon and the “Babylon” of the New Testament, Hislop next refers to the objects of worship by both Babylon and Rome. He writes: “In those countries of Europe where the Papal system is most completely developed...all appearances of worshipping the King Eternal and Invisible is almost extinct, while the Mother and Child are the grand objects of worship. Exactly so, in this latter respect, also was it in ancient Babylon. The Babylonians, in their popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pictures and images as an infant or child in his mother’s arms. From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names Isis and Osiris [called most frequently Horus]...in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter...the boy; in Greece, as Ceres the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast...and even in Thibet [Tibet], China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself.

“....That son, though represented as a child in his mother’s arms, was a person of great stature and immense bodily powers, as well as most fascinating manners. In Scripture he is referred to (Ezek. 8:14) under the name of Tammuz...‘The Lamented One.’ ” (The Two Babylons, pp. 14, 20, 21). Now let us turn to Ezekiel 8:12-14 and see this information applied to Israel in Scripture: “Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The Lord seeth us not...He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.”

Friends, Ezekiel’s prophetic words have a dual application, and apply not only to what had taken place in God’s sanctuary during ancient times, but also to what will take place in the church at the end of time when “Babylon the Great” will cause “the inhabitants of the earth” to be “made drunk with the wine of her fornication [false doctrines].” (Rev. 17: 5, 2). Since a woman represents a church, then the church here is “the house of Israel,” weeping for the god of Babylon in shameless apostasy; but this sad course is to be repeated again, worldwide, at the end of time. In other words, such blatant idolatry is in the church today in the form of objects of worship—Saints, Baby Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. Had I been praying to Semiramis and Tammuz all those early years of my life? It sickens me today to think that I had been praying to the dead! And what about the reports of the weeping statues of the Virgin Mary? Is Semiramis still “lamenting” for her son Tammuz?

Hislop tells us that “the lamented one,” who was adored as a child, “seems, in point of fact, to have been the husband of Semiramis, whose name Ninus, by which he is commonly known in classical history, literally signified ‘The Son’....Now, this Ninus, or ‘Son,’ borne in the arms of the Babylonian Madonna, is so described as very clearly to identify him with Nimrod....of whom the Scriptural account is, that he first ‘began to be mighty on the earth,’ and that the ‘beginning of his kingdom was Babylon ’ [See Genesis 10:8-10; see margin for verse 10 ].” (Ibid., p. 23).

As to how Nimrod died, Scripture is silent. Hislop continues: “His wife Semiramis, who from an originally humble position, had been raised to share with him the throne of Babylon. What, in this emergency, shall she do? Shall she quietly forego the pomp and pride to which she has been raised? No. Though the death of her husband has given a rude shock to her power, yet her resolution and unbounded ambition were in no wise checked. On the contrary, her ambition took a still higher flight. In life her husband had been honoured as a hero; in death she will have him worshipped as a god, yea, as the woman’s promised seed, ‘Zero-ashta, ’ who was destined to bruise the serpent’s head, and who, in doing so, was to have his own heel bruised.” (Ibid., pp. 58, 59). Utterly amazing! The counterfeit of Genesis 3:15 began in Babylon.

Hislop proceeds to show how this blatant idolatry has spread all over the world. Another feature of these “Mysteries” was magic , which Hislop calls the “twin sister of idolatry .” It was through the magical arts, and their “various tricks” and “strange and amazing objects” that Tammuz, the great god, the central object of their worship, was “revealed to them in the way most fitted to soothe their feelings and engage their blind affections...Tammuz, who had been slain, and for whom such lamentations had been made, was still alive, and encompassed with divine and heavenly glory....Thus the whole system of the secret Mysteries of Babylon was intended to glorify a dead man ; and when once the worship of one dead man was established, the worship of many more was sure to follow .

“....The scheme, thus skillfully formed, took effect. Semiramis gained glory from her dead and deified husband; and in course of time both of them , under the names Rhea and Nin, or ‘Goddess-Mother and Son,’ were worshipped with an enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were everywhere set up and adored....This son, thus worshipped in his mother’s arms, was looked upon as invested with all the attributes, and called by almost all the names of the promised Messiah. As Christ, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, was called Adonai, The Lord, so Tammuz was called Adonis. Under the name of Mithras, he was worshipped as the ‘Mediator.’ As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8:33)....Thus daringly and directly was a mere mortal set up in Babylon [as has been the Virgin Mary in spiritual Babylon] in opposition to the ‘Son of the Blessed.’ ” (Ibid., 67-70, 73, 74).

Friends, can you not plainly see how popery is baptized paganism? Hislop continues: “If the child was to be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the favorite object of worship . To justify this worship, the mother was raised to divinity as well as her son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising of the serpent’s head....The Roman church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman, as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance of all grammar, she renders the Divine denunciation against the serpent thus: ‘She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.’ The same was held by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples [and in the book The Thunder of Justice].

“...As time wore away, and the facts of Semiramis’s history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be miraculous: and therefore she was called ‘Alma Mater’ [explained in Hislop’s footnote, page 76, from its ancient meanings to have the meaning of ‘the Virgin Mother’ ].” (Ibid., 75, 76).

Chapter 15

In Chapter 11 we learned what the seal of God is—the Sabbath. God’s seal is not a visible sign that can be seen by anyone, but only by the angels of Heaven, for it has to do with the moral character of the person and an evidence of whom he serves. Just as the seal of God is written in the foreheads of His true and faithful people, the name “Mystery, Babylon, the Mother of Harlots” is written upon the forehead of the whore, and fittingly, her followers, who are evidenced by whom they serve and worship and who accordingly will receive the mark of the beast in the forehead or in the hand. I will now quote from The Thunder of Justice, page 329, and show you what they teach is the seal of God: “Then as I listened he shouted, ‘Come here, you scourges of the city, and bring your weapons of destruction....He called the man in white with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt and said, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who deplore and disapprove of all the filth practiced in it.’ I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city, and strike. Show neither pity nor mercy; old men, young men, virgins, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’ (Ezekiel 9:1-6).”

Please notice that the writers just quoted Ezekiel 9:1-6. I want you to take your Bible right now and open it to Ezekiel 9 and read verses 1-6. Do you find the word “cross” in any of the verses? The Bible simply mentions to “set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry for all the abominations” (verse 4) and “slay utterly old and young...but come not near any man who has the mark” (verse 6). Do you see the word “cross” in the verses of whatever version of the Bible you are using? Well, why not? Because it is not there! How could anyone put any faith in the advocates of the Marian Movement, when they blatantly add words to the Bible that are not in the original?

The only explanation I can find for their conclusion is a footnote commenting on verse 4 in the New Catholic Version of the Douay-Confraternity Bible. The footnote for the verses referred to above says: “Mark Thau, thau or tau, is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and signifies a sign, or a mark: which is the reason why some translators render this place set a mark, or mark a mark, without specifying what this mark was. But St. Jerome and other interpreters, conclude it was the form of the letter Thau, which in the ancient Hebrew character, was the form of a cross.”

This conclusion is absolutely absurd, for if you research the origin of the word Thau or Tau, and the origin of the cross, you may be astonished at what you will discover! Quoting from Alexander Hislop’s book The Two Babylons once again, we find: “The same sign of the cross that Rome now worships was used in the Babylonian Mysteries, was applied by Paganism to the same magic purposes, was honoured with the same honours. That which is now called the Christian cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians—the true original form of the letter T—the initial of the name of Tammuz—which, in Hebrew, radically the same as ancient Chaldee, is found on coins. That mystic Tau was marked in baptism on the foreheads of those initiated in the Mysteries [Interestingly, Catholic priests make the sign of the cross on the foreheads of infants at baptism], and was used in every variety of way as a most sacred symbol. To identify Tammuz with the sun it was joined sometimes with a circle of the sun; sometimes it was inserted in the circle. Whether the Maltese cross, which the Romish bishops append to their names as a symbol of their episcopal dignity, is the letter T, may be doubtful; but there seems no reason to doubt that the Maltese cross is an express symbol of the sun; for Layard [author of Ninevah and Babylon] found it as a sacred symbol in Ninevah in such a connection as led him to identify it with the sun. The mystic Tau, as a symbol of great divinity, was called ‘the sign of life;’ it was used as an amulet over the heart; it was marked on the official garments of the priests of Rome; it was borne by the kings in their hand, as a token of their dignity or divinely-conferred authority. The Vestal virgins of Pagan Rome wore it suspended from their necklaces, as the nuns do now . The Egyptians did the same, and many of the barbarous nations with whom they had intercourse, as the Egyptian monuments bear witness....It was worshipped in Mexico for ages before the Roman Catholic missionaries set foot there, large stone crosses being erected, probably to the ‘god of rain.’ The cross, thus widely worshipped, or regarded as a sacred emblem, was the equivocal symbol of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah, for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses. This symbol of the Babylonian god is reverenced at this day in all the wide wastes of Tartary, where Buddhism prevails....‘The cross,’ says Colonel Wilford, in Asiatic Researches,....‘is exactly the cross of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers (and fruit also, as I am told), is called the divine tree, the tree of the gods, the tree of life and knowledge , and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed in the terrestrial paradise .’ ” (The Two Babylons, pp. 197-199).

Is there any question as to whether God would place the “T” for Tammuz as a mark or sign on the foreheads of his true and faithful people? “It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal [the god of nature] was the only god. When, therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnated, that implied also that he was an incarnation of the Sun.” (Ibid., p. 96).

Do you remember the words of Elijah when he faced Ahab and the four hundred “prophets of Baal” during the great contest on Mount Carmel: “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? [Elijah was a reformation prophet, a voice of one crying in the wilderness to rebuke sin and press back the tide of evil, and who sought to arouse Israel to repentance and to forgo their worship of idols and return unto the law of the Lord]. And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord [by violating the first and second commandments], and have followed Baalim....And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions ? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him . And the people answered him not a word.” (I Kings 18:17, 18, 21).

The story continues with Elijah slaying all the false prophets of Baal, because they refused to repent of their idolatrous practices and continued to worship the god of the sun—the object of creation, rather than the Creator Himself. The cross, or the “T,” is a sign or mark of the god of nature, Tammuz, or Baal, and therefore, of Satan—the false god who had the true God, Jesus Christ, hung on that pagan cross , or “T”, until he died! How many Christians, by their idolatrous practices of worshipping idols, whether in the form of images or statues, or of the “living dead,” such as in the form of the Virgin Mary or the Saints, are but halting between two opinions?—for they say they love the Lord with all their hearts, yet they worship these very idols which He has expressly forbidden in forceful and explicit terms!

Another modern, pagan practice adopted from the Mysteries is the Zodiac, which the Greeks derived from the Chaldees. And is this abominable sign displayed anywhere in the Catholic system? The solar wheel, or the wheel of the sun (for the system is built around astrology—the study of the sun, moon, planets, and stars to foretell the future—and dates back to the Chaldees and the Babylonians, whose very names came to mean astrologer) can be found not only on Buddhist temples and temples in India, but also on the altars and ceilings in the cathedrals of the Roman Catholic Church—at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, and the monastery of St. Ignatius Loyola in Spain. But, “unquestionably, the largest occult solar wheel on earth is located in the court of St. Peter at the Vatican in Rome . From the air, you can see the wheel within a wheel, with eight spokes, a common symbol of cosmic energy in paganism. Protruding from its center is an obelisk , the ancient symbol of Osiris, the solar phallic god of Egypt.” [Information obtained from the book, The (New, Illustrated) Great Controversy]. It should be noted also, that since astrology and the signs of the Zodiac deal with foretelling your future and whether you will have a “lucky” or “unlucky day” by “observing times,” they are, therefore, classified with those that are witches and have a familiar spirit and are, likewise, an abomination to God. (See Deut. 18:10-12; Lev. 19:26).

Friends, getting back to the seal of God, we obviously can see that it is not a tattoo of the pagan cross which will be engraved on the foreheads of the saints, but the law of God, His very own character, that will rightfully be written in their minds or foreheads. Specifically, it is the Sabbath, the fourth commandment, that is the sign or seal of God [see Eze. 20:12 and compare Romans 4:11 to confirm that “seal” and “sign” are used interchangeably in the Scriptures], because the Sabbath distinguishes them as His true people who worship “Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” (Rev. 14:7). It is the one commandment that distinguishes God as the Creator, the only Being in all the universe who deserves to be worshipped, and His true people who keep the seventh-day Sabbath holy!

Why are billions of people following the traditions of Rome, rather than a “Thus saith the Lord,” anyway? In the book of Deuteronomy we read the following: “That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all...His commandments....And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes .” (Deut. 6:2, 6-8).

One point of interest that I must make is that The Thunder of Justice claims that Christ  gave the following message to Julka, Zagreb, in the former Yugoslavia: “This will be the Little Flock [those who make it through the ‘Great Tribulation’ of the last days] and I shall hover over it. In those days there will be one Shepherd and one Faith, that of the Roman Catholic Church , which I established when I walked visibly on the earth. After the distresses, which I am now permitting to come upon My obstinate people on the earth, there will arise a fair and pure race and the earth will abound with My gifts. My sons and My daughters will keep My Commandments , thus everything will live and grow with My Blessing for thirty years . Later on My people will again tend to evil and to sin. I shall send my messengers, Elijah and Enoch, from heaven to instruct the people in the true faith.” (The Thunder of Justice, p. 354).

Friends, do you see anything wrong in the paragraph above?

First—Did Christ establish the Roman Catholic Church while on earth, or was it the result of apostasy as foretold by the apostle Paul?

Second—The commandments here referred to are not the Ten Commandments as given by God, but the commandments of Rome, with the change of the Sabbath, the fourth commandment, to Sunday, as the third commandment.

Third—Where in the Bible do we read about a thirty-year period at the end of time?

Fourth—This false christ said he will send his messengers, Elijah and Enoch, who, by the way, were two seventh-day Sabbath-keepers , to instruct the people in the Roman Catholic doctrines! Elijah and Enoch, both noted foes of apostasy, would never support the false doctrines of Rome! And, besides, would they not first need to be enlightened in regard to the Sunday-sabbath—“the venerable day of the sun”—set up by the papacy as the new day they would worship God? Elijah would be facing the prophets of Baal all over again! How absurd!!

But not so, if these “messengers” are, in reality, demons! Never forget what I am about to tell you: Satan will always mingle error with truth, because it is like disguising poison with healthy food. The poison then becomes more dangerous than ever before, because the person takes it unawares !

It should be noted, that those destroyed who have not the “mark,” or seal of God (see Ezek. 9:4), are those that have been practicing the abominable idolatries recorded in the preceding chapter, Ezekiel 8. In Ezekiel 8, the prophet records some of the most atrocious practices of the “elders of Judah”—the priests that have offended the true God. Ezekiel sees in the entry, at the gate of the altar (in other words, in the church—a place dedicated to the worship of the true God), images of false gods, and one in particular that arouses His wrath—“the image of jealousy.” (Verse 3). This image, in particular, provokes His high displeasure or “jealousy” because the Babylonian Madonna—the queen of heaven—reveals “the heinous character of that idolatry, to say that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus.” (The Two Babylons, p. 88).

And why is this so? Because the false “Madonna,” in the name of Jesus, God’s Son, is leading multitudes to perdition, when God, at such infinite sacrifice, has ordained that these same misled victims should be won instead to life everlasting through the priceless gift of man’s true Redeemer. What is happening is both sacrilegious and blasphemous! But one only has to notice that it is the idolaters themselves that are the victims of Ezekiel 9—including those of the Marian Movement who have perpetuated this lie that the seal of God is a cross on the forehead! Never forget, dear reader, that it is God’s own image, which man lost in Eden (see Gen 1:26), that He wants to restore in us (see II Peter 1:3, 4) through the agency of the Holy Spirit (see II Cor. 3:18).

Chapter 16

In The Thunder of Justice, these idolaters boldly state that the world is “witnessing the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and true beacon for all Christians.” (The Thunder of Justice, p. 5). But Mary is dead—dead and in the grave! And the people that claim to have seen the Virgin Mary are actually being duped by an evil spirit. And the statues of Mary are nothing more than mere clumps of cement shaped like the Babylonian Madonna from whom she originated.

Strong words, but are they true? Take another look at the picture on the cover of this book, if you doubt my word! No wonder the language used in the Second Commandment prohibiting image worship, which was written with God’s own finger, by the way (see Ex. 31:18), was so strong! No wonder the Pope of Rome, steeped in paganism, removed the Second Commandment from the Ten, for it pronounces judgment from a jealous God not only upon all violators, but also upon their children and their children’s children!

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.” (Ex. 20:4-6). Oh, dear reader, nowhere in the law of God do we find stronger words than these!—“them that hate me”! God is truly offended and rightly called “a jealous God,” Who will also visit the iniquity of their predecessors upon the descendants of these idolaters who continue the pagan practices of their parents, unless they repent!

God, in mercy, may overlook their ignorance and do everything He can to win their hearts; but as they continue to transgress His laws after receiving light on the matter, just how long will God hold back His hand? That no one knows! Hosea 4:6 says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”

I find it immensely interesting that the prophet Jeremiah also had something to say about Israel’s worship of images of false gods, and was quite specific in his address. While dwelling in Egypt as forlorn exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism around them, the Israelites were as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of God to denounce wrath against his own people, if they continued to worship the “queen of heaven,” but his warnings were in vain. “Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee . But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.” (Jer. 44:15-17).

Alexander Hislop, the author of The Two Babylons, remarks: “The worship of the goddess-mother with the child in her arms continued to be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the Gospel had come in power among the mass of people, the worship of this goddess-queen would have been overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of the Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was changed . She was called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshipped with the same idolatrous feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open and avowed Pagans ....It just amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and worthy of Divine honours, His mother, from whom He derived merely His humanity , must be admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all creatures, and be worshipped as a partaker of the Godhead .

The divinity of Christ is made to stand or fall with the divinity of His mother. Such is Popery....This, however, is just the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the great goddess-mother. The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of Babylon. The ‘Queen of Heaven’ in the one system is the same as the ‘Queen of Heaven’ in the other....The Roman and Babylonian Madonnas are the same .” (The Two Babylons, pp. 82, 83, 85). No wonder Alexander Hislop named his book The Two Babylons , for the New Testament Babylon is nothing more than a modernized Old Testament Babylon!

In many cases, only the names have been changed! For example, the statues of the gods from the Pantheon are now found in the Vatican Museum, with the exception of the great statue of Jupiter, which has been modified, retitled, and seated on a throne in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome as St. Peter. Thousands of pilgrims kiss the foot of Jupiter, while thinking it is the statue of Peter.

Hislop brings out yet another remarkable characteristic between the Madonna of Babylon and the Madonna of Rome, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light (the halo) that frequently encompasses their heads, as well as the heads of the Saints and Christ. Where could such a device have originated? Where in the whole compass of Scripture, do we ever read that Christ’s head was surrounded with a disk, or circle of light? What you will never find in the Word of God is found in the artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of Babylon.

The disk or halo, and particularly the circle, “were the well-known symbols of the Sun-divinity , and figured largely in the symbolism of the East. With the circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same was the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle,....in the very same way as the head of The Roman Madonna is at this day surrounded.” (Ibid., p. 87).

Friends, let me now quote the last verses of Ezekiel eight: “Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north [remember, Satan, according to Isaiah 14, wanted to set himself up ‘in the sides of the north’—where God’s throne is in Heaven]; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz . Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these [greater than ‘the image of jealousy’]. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces to the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east ....Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” (Ezek. 8:14-16, 18).

Dear reader, there are two points that can immediately be drawn from these verses, in addition to the many points we have already discussed. First, “Women,” and not one woman, “sat weeping for Tammuz”—the god of Babylon. Do you remember the words on the forehead of the whore of Revelation 17— “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth”? Notice that the “Mother” has “Harlots,” or harlot daughters. Apparently, there are a number of other apostate churches that are following the ways or dogmas of their mother, Rome. Who are these daughters? And second, the “greater abominations” involve sun-worship! Somehow, Babylonian-style sun worship has been set up in the church. Does this have anything to do with the churches in the United States of America? How are they worshipping the sun? Does it have anything to do with Sunday—a day that is worshipped throughout America and the world, but is contrary to the day that the Lord instructed that we worship Him? All these questions will be answered in the next chapter on the “mark of the beast.”

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