Abraham was Saved from Idolatry
About 2000 B.C., God called Abraham away from all the idolatry of Babylon. Abram lived in the Ur of the Chaldees. Babylon was also known as the realm of the Chaldeans. Abram was an idolator. He worshipped the images of the gods of his land. God saved him from that idol worship. Listen to Joshua:
Joshua 24:2-3 (NKJV) And Joshua Said To All The People, “Thus Says The Lord God Of Israel: ‘Your Fathers, Including Terah, The Father Of Abraham And The Father Of Nahor, Dwelt On The Other Side Of The River In Old Times; And They Served Other Gods. 3 Then I Took Your Father Abraham From The Other Side Of The River, Led Him Throughout All The Land Of Canaan, And Multiplied His Descendants And Gave Him Isaac.
When God saved Abram from idols, God led him into the Promised Land and gave him the nation of Israel as his descendant. But a thousand years later, in the ninth century B. C., Israel had returned to the same idol worship Abraham had been saved from, under the influence of wicked Jezebel (see 1 Kings 16:30-33). At this time, the cult was worshiped under the name Baal.
By the time of the prophet Jeremiah, the idolatrous worship of Babylon’s religion, Abraham was saved from, permeated the nation of Israel. Please turn with me to Jeremiah 44.
Jeremiah 44: The Queen of Heaven’s
Idolatrous Religion
The words “Queen of Heaven” are found in five verses in the Bible (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17-19, 25).
In Jeremiah, we are introduced to this whole idolatrous form of worship.
Do you know where the Queen of Heaven came from? It came right out of Egyptian idolatry, Isis and Osiris. It has nothing to do with the New Testament at all. And if you have ever heard that Roman Catholics say the Queen of Heaven is Mary and wondered where that came from—look at these words in Ezekiel 8:12-16.
The prophet Ezekiel is taken by God into the temple, the house of God, and he sees that there are idols there, and God is very unhappy. And to see what is offending God so greatly, he’s shown this scene:
There it is, the idolatry of Babel exported to Israel: the worship of the virgin goddess in Jeremiah 44 and the worship of her son as they wept the 40 days awaiting his resurrection in Ezekiel 8.
Semiramis, Lent
& Romanism
Let me give you some interesting details from a book entitled, “The Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop. The worship of Semiramis throughout history has often had these elements:
• Semiramis was called the Queen of Heaven;
• Semiramis was worshipped by the offering of a wafer or cake;
• Semiramis began the practice of 40 days of weeping over Tammuz before the feast of celebrating his resurrection.
• These mystery cults around Semiramis also had purgatory, which they taught, believed, and adhered to.
The worship of Mary as the Queen of Heaven and the 40 days of Lent for her Son has no basis in Scripture but instead developed from the pagan celebration of Semiramis’s mourning for forty days over the death of Tammuz before his alleged resurrection—another of Satan’s mythical counterfeits.
Most of those who call themselves Christians today follow a way of worship that would have offended the apostles and early saints. What do I mean?
The statues of Mary, calling her the Queen of Heaven, the images of Christ and saints, and all of them being revered with candles and incense burning before them are idolatrous.
God, through His Word, calls each of us to always be on guard and to:
BEWARE OF THE NEW PAGANISM IN THE CHURCH
(CLW-17; 110821AM)
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