REVELATION 17 - CLUE (2)
CLUE (2) - “And they who inhabit the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her whoredom”. (Revelation 17:2b, DRCB)
MADONNA WORSHIP
[BABYLONIAN SEMIRAMUS & HER CHILD TAMMUZ IDOL]
MOTHER & CHILD WORSHIP
[BABYLONIAN SEMIRAMIS 'QUEEN OF HEAVEN' IDOLS]
INFANT WORSHIP
[BABYLONIAN INFANT TAMMUZ IDOL]
The following quotes help to illustrate how Vatican Rome [the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church] has managed to spread its 'Babylonian spiritual idolatry' [paganism mixed with 'professed Christianity'], and its "abominable doctrines of errors" to the many nations [kings and kingdoms] on the earth . . .
[BEGIN QUOTE] - Kings have committed spiritual fornication with her [Rome], and their subjects [people of the earth] have drunk deep, dreadfully deep, into the doctrine of her abominable errors. (Clarke) – [END QUOTE] [1]
[BEGIN QUOTE] - Spiritual adultery. The meaning is, that papal Rome, unfaithful to God, and idolatrous and corrupt, had seduced the rulers of the earth, and led them into the same kind of unfaithfulness, idolatry, and corruption. . . . . How true this is in history need not be stated. All the princes and kings of Europe in the dark ages, and for many centuries were, and not a few of them are now, entirely under the influence of papal Rome [the Vatican]. (Barnes) – [END QUOTE] [2]
[BEGIN QUOTE] - and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication; that is, the inhabitants of the Roman empire, or earthly minded men, mere carnal persons [unbelieving persons, non-Christians], have been drawn into idolatrous practices by the allurements of the church of Rome; such as riches, honors, pleasures, lying miracles, and great pretensions to devotion and religion; whereby they have been intoxicated as men with wine, and have been filled with a blind zeal for that church, and the false doctrines and worship of it, and with madness and fury against true professors of religion. (Gill) – [END QUOTE] [3]
APOSTASY MUST BE CALLED WHAT IT IS ... "SPIRITUAL ADULTERY"
- Frances Shaffer
TRUE CHRISTIANITY BECOMES MIXED WITH PAGANISM
Vatican City is the central headquarters of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has been deceiving the entire world ever since the Roman Emperor Constantine issued the ‘Edict of Milan’ in 313 A.D. – It was at that time that Constatine actually transformed true Christianity into pagan Christianity. This is detailed in the following quote…
[BEGIN QUOTE] - For the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman Empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine provided religious toleration with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, effectively lifting the ban on Christianity. Later, in AD 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicea in an attempt to unify Christianity. Constantine envisioned Christianity as a religion that could unite the Roman Empire, which at that time was beginning to fragment and divide. While this may have seemed to be a positive development for the Christian church, the results were anything but positive. Just as Constantine refused to fully embrace the [true] Christian faith but continued many of his pagan beliefs and practices, so the Christian church that Constantine and his successors promoted progressively became a mixture of true Christianity and Roman paganism. [END QUOTE] [4]
Roman paganism still exists in the Roman Catholic Church today and it is not the fault of the Catholic parishioners. – Why? – Because like me, they are being deceived…I was deceived for 42 long years of my life by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.
If YOU who are reading this commentary are a Roman Catholic, I would like to suggest that you open your Catholic Bible, or a King James Bible (it reads about the same in the New Testament) and see if you can find any of the following in your Bible. -- Where do you find any mention of the Roman papacy [the lineage of popes], or the command from Jesus to worship His mother Mary, or the command to pray to His mother Mary, or the command to pray to any saint, or the mention of purgatory, or the mention of seven church sacraments, or even one instance of infant baptism, or the command to confess your sins to a priest, or the command to earn indulgences for purgatory, or statement that Mary is a co-redeemer with Christ and that salvation comes through her, or the assumption of Mary into Heaven, or the perpetual virginity of Mary who had other children besides Jesus, or the command to pray the rosary, or indulge in transubstantiation (the eating of the actual body and drinking of the actual blood of Jesus Christ)? … This is to name just a few doctrines that can’t be found in the New Testament of the Catholic Bible, or any other Bible! — WHY? — Because all of these are ‘false teachings’ of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in Vatican City, and most of them have a ‘pagan origin’ that date back to the days of ancient Babylon.
Transubstantiation
I briefly mentioned the ‘pagan origin’ of “transubstantiation” in my comments on Revelation 17:4. It was practiced in Mithraism, which is also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, which was a Roman mystery religion performed in underground tunnels, and it centered on the worship of the pagan god Mithras. – And there are also written records of transubstantiation being practiced in worship ceremonies as far back as 3100 BC in regard to the Egyptian pagan god Osiris. The following quote reinforces this truth…
[BEGIN QUOTE] In 2003, Bartholomew Brewer, in his “The Mystery of Eucharist”, summarized how "Osiris cakes" became "Jesus wafers" as follows:
“The doctrine of transubstantiation does not date back to the Last Supper as is supposed. Like many of the beliefs and rites of Romanism, transubstantiation was first practiced by pagan religions. In Egypt, priests would consecrate mest cakes which were supposed to become the flesh of Osiris [3100BC]. The idea of transubstantiation was also characteristic of the religion of Mithra [300BC] whose sacraments of cakes and Haoma drink closely parallel the Catholic Eucharistic rite. [In Roman religion], it was a controverted topic for many centuries before officially becoming an article of faith, which means that it is essential to salvation according to the Roman Catholic Church. The idea of a corporal presence was vaguely held by some, such as Ambrose, but it was not until 831AD that Paschasius Radbertus, a Benedictine monk, published a treatise openly advocating the doctrine of transubstantiation. Even then, for almost another four hundred years, theological war was waged over this teaching by bishops and people alike until at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215AD, it was officially defined and canonized as a dogma.” Reference [3] Brewer, Bartholomew F. (2003). “The Mystery of the Eucharist” (Ѻ), MTC.org. [END QUOTE] [5]
Mother Child Worship
Now I will give you the origin of an ancient Babylonian idolatry that is still practiced in the Roman Catholic Church today. . . and that is “mother-child worship”. All Roman Catholics are taught to worship an image, or statue, supposedly representing Mary holding the infant Jesus … little do they know that they are being deceived into worshiping an idol representing Semiramis and her child Tammuz that originated in ancient Babylon.
This form of pagan worship is ‘universal’. -- It can be found in many nations of the world, just under different names for the mother and child.
In Genesis 10:8-10 (KJB) we read…
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. (9) He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. (10) And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel [Babylon], and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
The following quotes detail the pagan origin of this ‘mother-child worship’ which began in ancient Babylon with Nimrod’s wife Semiramis and her child Tammuz.
[BEGIN QUOTE] - In the book The Two Babylons, written in 1853 by a Scottish minister, Alexander Hislop . . . . the author affirms Eusebius’s claims that Semiramis was Nimrod’s wife and elaborates on her rise to power, citing Greek historical records as reference and proof. Hislop asserts that Semiramis was instrumental in Nimrod’s plan to rebel against God, and he speaks of the woman’s unusual ability to manipulate the will of men. Hislop goes on to say that together, Nimrod and Semiramis created a polytheistic [many pagan gods] religious system focused on the stars to lure God’s chosen people away from true worship. Shortly after Nimrod died, Hislop reports that Semiramis earned the title Queen of Heaven—when she claimed that Nimrod was a god and that her newborn son [Tammuz] was Nimrod, reincarnate. “So began the worship of Semiramis and the child-god, and the whole paraphernalia of the Babylonian religious system.” [END QUOTE] [6]
[BEGIN NEW QUOTE] - Semiramis . . . . claimed that Tammuz was the reincarnation of [her husband] Nimrod and was to be the saviour. Semiramis was worshipped as the mother goddess and was known as the ‘Virgin Queen of heaven’. As the languages were confounded (confused / changed) [at the Tower of BABYLON] the names of Nimrod , Semiramis and Tammuz also changed when the people dispersed to new lands.
The mother and child story also dispersed with them. Every civilization seems to have a mother and child worship of some sort, the story would have evolved with slight variations, but all rooted in the story of Semiramis and Tammuz.
All stories usually state the child was conceived miraculously through the mother. Most traditions assert that the mother was a virgin where other traditions do not.
Below are some of the versions of the mother and child [worship] in different civilizations (there are many more):
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THESE ARE SOME OF THE MOTHER AND CHILD IMAGES THAT ARE WORSHIPPED IN DIFFFERENT NATIONS OF THE WORLD …
Gaia and Son Uranus - Greece
Isis and Son Horus - Egypt
Iswara & Son Isi - India
Devaki & Son Krishna - India
Maya & Son Buddah - Nepal (Asia)
Shing Moo & Son Ma Tsoopo- China
Anahita & Son Mithras Receiving Magi Gifts - Persia
Venus & Son Cupid - Rome
Mary & Son Jesus - Rome
Semiramus & Son Tammuz - Ancient Babylon
THIS IS WHERE MOTHER-CHILD WORSHIP BEGAN!
Today, in Papal Italy [Vatican City], as travelers universally admit . . . .all appearance of worshipping the King Eternal and Invisible is almost extinct, while the Mother and the 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 in images as an infant or child in his mother's arms.
(Source: https://www.thejournal.org/studylibrary/two-babylons/mother-child-and-origin-of-child.html )
From the above quotes on “Transubstantiation” and “Mother-Child Worship”, we get just a brief glimpse at the kinds of ‘idolatrous types of worship’ that were allowed to be mixed with true Christianity into a false religion that became known as ‘Roman Catholicism”. – Because of its idolatrous worship practices, it has been revealed to us in Revelation 17:16, that God will allow a ten-nation confederation that supports Antichrist to destroy with fire the central location of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy [Vatican City in Rome] during the ‘middle’ of the Seven Year Tribulation Period! Revived Roman Empire But besides the Vatican mixing ‘idolatrous worship’ practices with true Christianity, there is also another reason why God will destroy Vatican City in Rome. — The Vatican is the Roman Empire in disguise!
Yes, the truth is that all kinds of immorality, wickedness, brutality, murder, religious persecution, etc., that prevailed in society in the ‘Roman Empire’, including its adultery, homosexual practices, idol worship, persecution of true Christians, etc., all mutated into the Roman Catholic Religion. — As a matter of fact, the Vatican ADMITS to using the Roman Empire as their model . . .
[BEGIN QUOTE} - The Vatican (Vaticano), or the Holy See, is the seat of authority of the Roman Catholic Church. But what exactly is the connection between the Roman Empire and the Vatican or the Roman Catholic Church in its entirety? Well, ranging from its language to its structure and, of course, its name, the Roman Catholic Church borrowed many characteristics from the Roman Empire and in some ways kept many aspects of Ancient Rome alive until today.
The Roman Catholic Church is referred to as such because its adherents are in communion with the Pope of Rome, leader of the Catholic Church. Ever since the Christianization of the Roman Empire, in the fourth century AD, the Catholic Church has used the language, terminology and structure of the Roman Empire. The Latin Language was the language of Ancient Rome. The Catholic Church and its leader, based in the city of Rome itself with theologians and bishops spread in other areas then ruled by the Roman Empire, used Latin as their first language of communicating and writing, as the language for issuing documents and, ultimately, as the primary and exclusive language used for prayer. This persevered in Church and Vatican History until the late 20th century when, during Vatican II, the Church officially allowed other languages to be used in liturgy.
The relationship between Ancient Rome and the Holy See is deeper than simply the use of Latin. The City of Rome, the “center of the world”, became the center of Western Christianity. The Roman Empire became the Model for its structure.The Pope, who resides in Rome, is also called the Supreme Pontiff (Pontifex Maximus). This title, which can be found on official Vatican Documents and on Church and Vatican buildings around Rome (often shortened to “Pont. Max.”) was an official title used by the head of the college of priests in Ancient Rome. Even the famous, and of course not-Christian, Julius Caesar held the title of Pontifex Maximus in Rome. You can also notice the similarity of the College of Priests of the Roman Empire and the Vatican’s College of Cardinals who elect the Pope.
The organizational structure of the Church and its base in Città del Vaticano (Vatican City), is also built upon Ancient Roman models. In the Roman Catholic tradition, territorial references are divided into Parishes, Dioceses and Provinces. These divisions and subdivisions of large areas, districts and neighborhoods which are still in use today by the Church, are territorial references used in Ancient Rome for secular purposes. In its early days, the Western Church was seeking growth in a world speaking Latin and very importantly, a world in which the titles of rulers and religious leaders were in Latin. By adopting these titles and structures, Catholic Christianity offered the people of Ancient Rome, people who gave great importance to traditions and history, something to relate to. Roman Catholicism offered them a new faith in familiar terms. [END QUOTE] [[8]
[1] BIBLE HUB, Clarke’s Commentary, Revelation 17:2, Accessed August 15, 2024, Web: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/revelation/17-2 html
[2] BIBLE HUB, Barnes Exposition of the Entire Bible, Revelation 17:2, Accessed August 15, 2024, Web: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/revelation/17-2 html
[3] BIBLE HUB, Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible, Revelation 17:2, Accessed August 15, 2024, Web: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/revelation/17-2 html
[4] GOT QUESTIONS, “What is the origin of the Roman Catholic Church?”, Accessed on August 29, 2024, Web: https://www.gotquestions.org/origin-Catholic-church.html
[5] EOHT INFO.COM., “Transubstantiation”, Accessed on August 29, 2024, Web: https://www.eoht.info/page/Transubstantiation
[6] BIBLE STUDY TOOLS, Griffin, Annette, “What Do We Know About Semiramis, Nimrod’s Wife?”, Accessed on August 29, 2024, Web: https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/who-was-semiramis-the-wife-of-nimrod.html
[7] RESEARCH THE TRUTH.COM, “The Greatest Deception Against Christians – The Mother-Child Story”, Accessed on August 29, 2024, Web: http://www.researchthetruth.com/christian/paganorigins2.html
[8] VATICAN.COM, “The Roman Empire and the Vatican”, Accessed on August 29, 2024, Web:https://vatican.com/The-Roman-Empire-and-the-Vatican/