In the past few weeks our daily readings have taken us through the latter portion of 2 Chronicles, where is recorded the reigns of Manasseh and Jehoiakim under which the Kingdom of Judah sank to the lowest ebb in its history. These two kings, besides a number of earlier ones, forsook the true worship of Yahweh and turned to worship Baal and all the Host of Heaven (2 Chron. 33. 3). It was because of this that Judah was subdued by Nebuchadnezzar in Jehoiakim’s reign and finally overthrown in the reign of Zedekiah (2 Kings 24. 3-5; 21. 11-13; Jer. 15. 4).
We may well ask ourselves why it was that the Children of Israel turned aside from their God to worship the gods of the surrounding nations. It is an established fact that from the very beginning man has rebelled against God and has endeavoured to follow “that which was right in his own eyes”. In Genesis 6. 5, we read that even at this early date the wickedness of man was great and that his whole imaginations, purposes and desires were evil continually.
It did not take many years after the flood before men again departed from the true worship of Yahweh to follow after the imaginations of their own hearts. Under the leadership of Nimrod, who was the first king on the earth (Gen. 10. 8), the people aspired to build a tower the top of which would reach to heaven, but God intervened and confused their language and scattered them. As a consequence the place was called Babel or Babylon, which means confusion.
During his lifetime Nimrod built up a worship of himself, which was carried on after his death. His wife, Semiramus, played the harlot after his death and, when she was found to be with child, feared the wrath of the people who still worshipped her husband. Hence she proclaimed that her child was the reincarnation of Nimrod.
In these years just after the flood the people would no doubt, have remembered the promise made to Eve, that she would bear a seed who would kill the seed of the serpent, but in so doing would himself be killed. Semiramus proclaimed that the child she would bear would be this promised seed.
Her child was called Zoroaster, which literally means “Seed of the Woman”, and as such he was worshipped by the people of that time. He was hailed as the reincarnation of his father Nimrod. But these two were allegedly one, having been conceived, supposedly, by the flame (or Sun) which dwelt in Semiramus, thus making her the third person of this ancient trinity. This, then, is the inception of the present-day “holy trinity”. This son, who was proclaimed as the “redeemer of mankind”, was conceived at the time of year we now know as Easter and was born on 25th December (Christmas Day), and along with his mother they have their modern-day counterpart in the form of the Madonna and Child.
When looking through the history of the Children of Israel we find on numerous occasions where they have turned to these gods which the surrounding nations worshipped. When Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Law, the people asked Aaron to make a god for them and he made two golden calves from the gold ear rings which they brought from Egypt. The children of Israel burnt offerings and worshipped these gods as the ones which brought them up out of the land of Egypt, thus incurring the wrath of Yahweh. Under the reign of Jeroboam the ten tribes of Israel carried on this same practice. Jeroboam made two golden calves and placed one in Bethel and the other in Dan. He set up priests who were not Levites and ordained a feast in the eighth month to these gods (1 Kings 12. 28-33). This idolatrous worship was perpetrated throughout the existence of the Kingdom of Israel until finally it was taken by the Assyrians as a punishment for their sins (2 Kings 18. 9-12).
This idolatry also spread to the Kingdom of Judah and we read of the people worshipping the Queen of Heaven and causing their children to pass through the fires as a sacrifice to Moloch (Jer. 32. 35). Although there were kings in Judah such as Josiah and Hezekiah, who tried their utmost to restore true worship and caused the people to carry out the ordinances of the Law of Moses, they did not give up their idolatrous practices altogether. They observed the Law of Moses only because they were forced to by the decree of the King, but secretly they worshipped their favourite pagan deities. In 2 Kings 23 we read of the thorough steps Josiah took to stamp out this worship, but we read in Jeremiah 7. 18 and 19. 13 that the people of Judah still continued to worship the Queen of Heaven.
After Nebuchadnezzar had captured Judah, his captain, Nebuchadnezzar, left some of the poor people in the land and took the rest captive to Babylon. Contrary to the words of the prophet Jeremiah, this remnant decided to go to Egypt, where they continued to worship the Queen of Heaven. Jeremiah rebuked them for this and they replied that since they had ceased burning incense and pouring out drink offerings to her misfortune had befallen them (Jer. 44. 17-19).
In the days of the Apostle Paul we learn that the Queen of Heaven was still worshipped. She was known as Diana to the Ephesians (Acts 19. 24-28, 35) and as the Goddess Artemis or Despoina to the Greeks. Despoina is the Greek for Domina, which means “The Lady”, which was the peculiar title given to the ancient Babylonian goddess, Rhea. From the word Domina we get Madonna, who is known today as “Mary, the immaculate virgin”.
So the ancient Queen of Heaven, who originally was Semiramis the wife of Nimrod, is worshipped today as Mary, the mother of God, and that the ancient form of pagan idolatry is still practised by the Roman Catholic Church under the name of Christianity.
You may well ask what all this has got to do with us, who have been called out from Gentile darkness into the glorious light of the Gospel and are God’s chosen people. My reply is that this has a lot to do with us. We do not bow down and worship idols made of wood and stone, but there is a more insidious type of idol worship to which we are all prone to stoop at some time or other. That to which I refer may be termed internal idolatry, which is an inordinate love of the creatures, riches, honours and the pleasures of this life (Eph. 5. 5; Col. 3. 5).
Israel in the past were God’s chosen people, yet they rejected Him and turned to the gods of the surrounding nations. We profess to be the spiritual seed of Israel and therefore God’s chosen people, and we must be on our guard at all times not to forsake Him, to do and strive after the things which we see the people around us doing.
In Exodus 20. 3-6 and 22-23 the first two of the ten commandments are recorded which expressly prohibited the Israelites from making any graven images of any sort, or to bow down and worship them, for Yahweh was their God and they were to have no other. But Israel quickly forgot these commandments, as we have seen. In Matthew, chapters 5 and 6, Jesus gives certain commandments and instructs us how to conduct our lives in certain aspects. In the 6th chapter we are exhorted not to follow slavishly after material possessions, wealth or position, but rather to lay up for ourselves treasure in heaven, for where our treasure is there will our hearts be also. “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6. 24). James also tells us (ch. 4. 4) that friendship with the world is enmity with God.
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul explains that Jewish history is recorded for our example that we should study it and find where they failed so that we ourselves may be able to avoid their mistakes.
From events that have transpired in the last few weeks we must surely realise that the time is fast approaching when Jesus Christ will again be in the earth to reestablish the Kingdom of God, when the ancient pagan system styled in Revelation as “Mystery, Babylon the Great” will be destroyed completely (Jer. 51. 55; Rev. 17 and 18). As we see this time approaching we must take heed of Paul’s advice, “Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10. 12), and also, “Not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more as ye see the day approaching” (Heb. 10. 25).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One