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Tag Archives: sacrifice
Abraham is Told to Offer His Son Isaac as a Burnt Offering!
Posted by Just Pray NO! in Genesis
abraham, burnt offering, Isaac, Moriah, offering, sacrifice, Shofar
The LORD tested Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. This event is a prophetic picture of the sacrifice of God's Son.
GENESIS CHAPTER 22
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you." Genesis 22:1-2
How much time later is not clearly expressed in the Scriptures. In the previous chapter we are told that Isaac had been weaned. His mother Sarah gave birth to him when she was ninety years old. Isaac may have been 3-5 years old at that time. Genesis 21 also records that Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for a long time.
Some paintings portray Isaac as being just a boy at the time Abraham was called by God to offer up his son as a sacrifice. But this is very unlikely to be true. In one trip, a mere boy would not be able to climb up a mountain carrying a load of wood sufficient to fuel a fire large enough to consume a burnt offering. Abram who had lived in Ur of the Chaldeans for 75 years is recorded to have stayed in the land of the Philistines for a long time. If Abraham only dwelled in the land of the Philistines for 10 years, Isaac would have been at least 13-15 years old.
Sarah who gave birth at ninety, according to Genesis 23:2, was a hundred and twenty-seven years old when she died. Therefore it is possible that Isaac may have been a man in his thirties when he carried the wood for the burnt offering up the mountain. One thing we know for sure, Isaac was definitely not a child.
God told Abraham to take his "only son" Isaac to the region of Moriah. Yet we know that Abraham had another son Ishamael at that time. When Ishmael and Hagar were sent away it was clear that Ishmael was not to be the rightful heir, but it is also clear that Ishmael would remain Abraham's son. God said, "Nevertheless, I will make the slave girl's son into a nation, since he, too, is your offspring" (Genesis 21:13). Ishmael, though loved by Abraham and an offspring from his body, was not the promised heir. Isaac alone was the heir. He was the "only son" of the promise. Father Abraham was told to take his "only son" whom he loved and sacrifice him on a mountain in the region of Moriah.
Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. Genesis 22:3
Abraham lost no time in obeying God's command. Early the very next morning he arose and made the necessary preparations for the trip. There would be little brush at the top of a mountain, so Abraham needed to bring the wood with him. Although he had servants, Abraham cut the wood himself because this was to be a personal act of sacrifice. He took two of his servants along with him and his son on the journey.
On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. Deuteronomy 17:6
Two is the number of witness and testimony. Abraham's servants would serve as witnesses to his faithfulness to obey the LORD.
According to Torah, the burnt offering was an obligation but could also be a voluntary offering. The animal to be offered up was to be a male without defect. When offered by an individual, the person was to lay his hand on the head of the animal as an act of symbolically transferring his sins to the animal. The burnt offering was an offering for atonement.
With one swift cut across the throat, the animal was killed and the blood poured out into a basin. The carcass was flayed and the then the body cut into pieces. The offering was totally consumed by fire and regarded as ascending up to God. The burnt offering represented total submission and commitment to God.
On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." Genesis 22:4-5
It took three days to reach the mountain of sacrifice. Abraham did not lift up his eyes until the third day. During the course of this journey Abraham grieved and was downcast in his spirit knowing that his beloved son was supposed to be sacrificed. Yet, Abraham told his servants that he after Isaac had worshipped and the sacrifice had been offered, that they both would return.
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"
"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Genesis 22:6-7
Abraham did not place the wood for the burnt offering in Isaac's arms, but placed it on his son Isaac's shoulders. As they he walked up the mountain Isaac asked his father, "Where is the lamb?" This is a prophetic picture of God's only Son whom the he dearly loved bearing the cross for our sins.
Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. Genesis 22:8
Abraham declared that God himself will provide (future tense) the lamb that would serve as an atonement offering. Two thousand years later John identifies the promised lamb as God himself.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Genesis 22:9
Abraham who was well over 100 years old could not have forced Isaac to be bound and laid upon the altar. Isaac willingly laid down his life. Even if it meant that he had to die, Isaac submitted his will to the will of his father. This is another powerful prophetic picture of the coming Messiah.
Jesus said in Luke 22:42, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Jesus submitted to the Father's will and humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8b).
Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Genesis 22:10-12
Although it was the angel of the LORD who called out to Abraham from heaven, he said that I know you fear God because you have not withheld your son from "me". It was God who told Abraham to make the sacrifice, yet the angel of the LORD said that you have not withheld your son from me. This is another instance of the appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ as the angel of the LORD.
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided." Genesis 22:13-14
The Book of Hebrews explains the reason that Abraham was able to declare to his two servants who were to wait for him, "We will worship and then we will come back to you":
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. Hebrews 11:17-19
Figuratively speaking, Abraham received Isaac back from the dead. The testing of Abraham and the submission of Isaac is a prophetic picture of the future atoning death and resurrection of the Messiah.
Abraham declared that God himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice. But it was a ram, and not a lamb, that was sacrificed that day it as a burnt offering instead of his son. Abraham called that place, "The LORD Will Provide." There is archaeological evidence to support the notion that the place of the crucifixion of Jesus was at the summit of Mt. Moriah, probably near the present-day Damascus Gate and the Garden Tomb. The crucifixion of Christ on Mt. Moriah fulfilled the promise that "On the mountain of the LORD it (the final sacrifice for sin) will be provided."
The LORD said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites: 'On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the LORD by fire.'" Leviticus 23:23-25
This holiday, The Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah), is popularly known as Rosh Hashanah meaning the "Head of the Year" or Jewish New Year. According to the ceremonial calendar, it is the first day of the seventh month. Although the Jewish exiles returned from Babylon to the Promised Land on the first day of the fifth month (Ezra 7:9), they gathered together on Rosh Hashanah in Jerusalem on the first day of the seventh month (Nehemiah 7:73). At that time they heard the words of the Torah/Law translated and explained to them by Ezra and the Levites. After living for seventy years as an enslaved people, finally Jewish society was to again be governed by the commandments, regulations and ordinances of Mosaic Law. Therefore, the Jewish Civil Calendar commences on the first day the seventh month on the Hebrew Calendar. Much the same way in our culture, though January marks the first month of the year, some businesses and government agencies calculate the fiscal year beginning in April.
The liturgy in synagogues around the world not only includes the reading of the same biblical accounts on each Sabbath, but the same passages are read each year on each of the Festivals of the LORD. On Shavuot (The Feast of Weeks/Day of Firstfruits), the Book of Ruth is read because it concerns the harvest. On Rosh Hashanah, the Binding of Isaac is the Torah passage that is read in every synagogue throughout the world because it concerns a ram's horn: Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns (Genesis 22:13a).
When the shofar sounds in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, it announces the raising of Isaac from the dead (figuratively speaking, Abraham did receive his son back from death). The Babylonian captivity lasted seventy years. The Jews that returned to the Promised Land had been dead as a nation for a lifetime (three score and ten years). When they returned on the Feast of Trumpets, the sound of the shofar blast announced the resurrection of a nation.
At the New Moon festivals and appointed feasts, trumpets were sounded. According to God's command (Numbers 10:2), two silver trumpets were to be fashioned. They were to be used for calling the community together and for announcing that the camps set out.
On the Feast of Trumpets, which occurs on the first day of the seventh month (a New Moon Festival), both silver trumpets are blown which announces that the whole camp gather together in the presence of the LORD and the shofar is blown which is a reminder of the resurrection of the dead.
I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed– in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 1Corinthians 15:50-54
According to the Law of Moses, trumpets are sounded to gather God's people into His presence. They were sounded to announce the setting out of the camps as each of the Israelite tribes followed the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night. Trumpets herald the approaching of a king. They are sounded when a battle is to take place.
According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. 1Thessalonians 4:15-18
At the Feast of Trumpets, God's elect will be translated in the blinking of an eye and gathered into His presence to be forever with the Lord.
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."
Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba. Genesis 22:15-19
Abraham which means "Father of Many" would be the patriarch of numerous natural children through both Ishmael (the Arabic tribes), as well as through Isaac (the tribes of Israel). Abraham is not only the father of many natural children, but also the father of many spiritual children who by faith have undergone the circumcision of their hearts (Romans 4:11-12).
Matthew chapter one and verse one reveals how all nations on earth will be blessed through the offspring of Abraham: This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham. Jesus the Messiah who is the seed of Abraham blesses the elect of God from all nations under the heavens. Born-again believers in Messiah are blessed with forgiveness of sins and eternal life, with love, joy and peace, with grace and mercy, and every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.
The Tower of Babel & the Ancient Babylonian Mystery Religion
altar of sacrifice, babylon in genesis, babylon mystery, genesis 11, mystery religion, religion, sacrifice, theology, tower of babel
Genesis 11:1–9 speaks of the purpose of building the Tower of Babel, man's rebellion against the LORD God and the Ancient Babylonian Mystery Religion.
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:1-4
When the flood waters had receded and the water had dried up from the earth, Noah and his family emerged from the ark along with all of the animals. Noah, a man of righteousness, in obedience had built the ark. When he emerged from the ark, using stones, the first thing Noah built was an altar to the LORD. Noah took some of all the clean animals and clean birds and sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD was pleased by the aroma of the sacrifice and promised to never again destroy all living creatures (Genesis 8:20-21).
If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. Exodus 20:25
The altar of sacrifice was not to be made from hewn or polished stones. The altar was not to be ornate and comprised of dressed stones or made from bricks but made from what God provided naturally. Otherwise, men might attribute the atonement provided on God's altar to the work of their own hands. Bricks are uniform and indistinguishable from one another. Whereas, stones are unique in shape, size and color. Bricks need mortar to hold them together. Stones can be fitted together without mortar. Jerusalem's first and second temple both were built from large stones fitted together without mortar.
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5
As stones of various size and shapes were fitted together to build the temple in Jerusalem, individual believers in Messiah Jesus with their unique looks, personalities and gifts are being built into a spiritual house. We are fitted together without mortar so that we must not only lean upon one another but hold up each other as well.
We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Romans 15:1
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2
The followers of Nimrod, whose name means the "Rebel," or literally, "Let us Rebel," made bricks in order to build a fortified city and a tower to reach to the heavens.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Genesis 1:27-28
As recorded in Genesis chapter one, are the first words God spoke to Adam and Eve. After God blessed them, they were commanded not only to be fruitful but to fill the earth with their offspring. In disobedience to God's command give to Adam and Eve, and later reiterated to Noah and his sons to multiply in number and fill the earth, rebellious men desired to build a city. Their wicked intention was to purposefully disobey God by clustering together in a city and therefore avoid being scattered over the face of the earth. In their pride they declared that they would make a name for themselves by building a tower that reached to the heavens. The Tower of Babel was thought to have been a ziggurat. A ziggurat is a temple used by the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. The word ziggurat comes from an Akkadian word meaning "to build on a raised area or platform." These ancient Mesopotamian temple towers consisted of a lofty pyramidal structure built in successive stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the top.
Around 2100 B.C. king Ur-Nammu built a ziggurat in honor of the god Sin the in the city of Ur. The god Sin is the Akkadian name for the moon god. This temple tower was called Etemennigur which means "House Whose Foundation Creates Terror." Ur is located in southern Iraq. Today, those radicals who worship Allah (the moon god) are often labeled as "terrorists."
The intension concerning the proposed height of the tower of Babel was not to literally reach up to the heavens, but that it should be raised exceedingly high. Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. Like the cities in Canaan, said to be walled up to heaven according to Deuteronomy 1:28, the tower was to be the tallest manmade structure of its day. The purpose of building this tower was to erect a temple to the host of heaven for the worship of the sun, moon and the planets.
And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars – all the heavenly array – do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. Deuteronomy 14:19
The worship of the sun, moon, stars and planets is perhaps the oldest form of idolatry practiced by ancient peoples. Moses sternly warned the Israelites against worshiping the host of heaven as was the religious practice of the surrounding pagan nations.
Titus Flavius Josephus, also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu, was a Jewish historian in the first-century A.D. He witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and recorded the events. His two major works are The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews. The first tells the story of the Jewish revolt against the Romans from A.D. 66 to 70. The second is a history of the world from a Jewish perspective.
In The Antiquities, Josephus mentions that the first human government was built by Nimrod, the mighty hunter. Josephus wrote:
"Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach. And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.
Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than anyone could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water…"
Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. Psalm 146:3
In their own strength and foolish stubbornness of heart, Nimrod's followers were defying the LORD God by building a high waterproof tower. Instead of learning a lesson from the Flood by fearing the LORD and turning from evil, they trusted in the arm of flesh. The purpose of the tower was the worship of the heavenly hosts which is known as "The Babylonian Mystery Religion."
When Nimrod died, the Babylonian mystery religion in which he figured prominently continued on. His wife Queen Semiramis saw to that. Once he was dead, she deified him as the Sun-god. Later, when this adulterous and idolatrous woman gave birth to an illegitimate son, she claimed that this son was Nimrod reborn. Semiramis named her son Damu (from the Sumerian "dam," or blood), which in the later Babylonian language became Dammuzi, in Hebrew Tammuz, and in Greek Adonis.
Semiramis claimed that her son, Tammuz was supernaturally conceived. She declared that she had been visited by the spirit of Nimrod, who left her pregnant with the boy and that he was the promised seed, the "savior" that was promised by God in Genesis 3:15. However, not only was the child worshipped, but his mother was also worshipped as much (or more) than the son. Nimrod was deified as the god of the sun and father of creation, while Semiramis became the goddess of the moon and fertility.
Then He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, 'The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land." And He said to me, "Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing." So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord's house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. Ezekiel 8:12-14
In the old fables of the Mystery cults, their savior Tammuz, was worshipped with various rites at the Spring season. According to the legends, after he was killed by a wild boar, he went into the underworld. But through the weeping of his mother, he mystically revived in the springing forth of the vegetation. Each year a spring festival dramatically represented his supposed "resurrection" from the underworld.
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." Genesis 11:5-7
The LORD God is omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (all present). He did not have to come down to gain information that He did not know. Yahweh came down to reveal His presence and power to mankind. The phrase, "let us go down" is another biblical proof of the triune nature of the Godhead.
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11:8-9
Josephus continues in his commentary:
"When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion…"
As men were scattered over the face of the earth speaking different languages, they continued in their worship of the sun, moon and other heavenly bodies. Therefore, the same mythical gods and goddesses they worshipped were called by different names based upon the language that was spoken. In various cultures Nimrod later became known as Baal, the Great Life Giver, the god of fire, Baalim, Bel, Molech, etc. Baal (sun worship) was the chief male deity of the Canaanites, Zeus the chief deity of the Greeks and Jupiter the chief deity of the Romans.
Semiramis became known as the "Queen of Heaven," and was the prototype from which all other pagan goddesses came. Semiramis is the name of the moon goddess for the Assyrians. Ashtorah is a moon goddess for the Canaanites. Isis is the Egyptian name. Ishtar is the Babylonian name. Artemis was worshipped by the Greeks and known as Diana by the Romans.
Today the ancient Mystery Babylonian religion not only infiltrates into the Eastern mystic religions, but was practiced by apostate Israel and is a major influence in Islam which is the worship of the moon god Allah and in Roman Catholicism which has many elements that symbolize the sun god. The Holy Roman Emperor Constantine rejected the seventh day Sabbath for the venerable day of the sun. The Roman calendar which names its days and many of its months after pagan gods is a solar calendar.
Semiramis and her son were worshipped as "Madonna and child." As the generations passed, they were worshipped under other names in different countries and languages. Many of these are recognizable: Fortuna and Jupiter in Rome; Aphrodite and Adonis in Greece; and Ashtoreth/Astarte and Molech/Baal in Canaan.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5
In his article, "Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces" by Father William G. Most, Father Most declares:
Closely related to the Catholic teaching on Mary's cooperation in the redemption is the teaching that, with through and under her Son, she is Mediatrix of all graces. Since Mary was associated with her Son in acquiring grace for us, she will also share with him in distributing that grace to us. This fits well with the words of the Popes, who call her the administra of grace, meaning that she administers or dispenses it. So Pope Leo XIII, Iucunda semper, said:
"… when He [the Father] has been invoked with excellent prayers, our humble voice turns to Mary; in accordance with no other law than that law of conciliation and petition which was expressed as follows by St. Bernardine of Siena : 'Every grace that is communicated to this world has a threefold course. For by excellent order, it is dispensed from God to Christ, from Christ to the Virgin, from the Virgin to us.'"
In Catholicism, Mary, the Mother of Jesus is known by many titles, including the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, Theotokos (Mother of God) and Our Lady (Notre-Dame in French; Madonna in Italian).
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Luke 1:41-43
After the middle of the fourth century the Roman Catholic Church transformed the "mother of the Lord" into the mother of God, the "humble handmaid of the Lord" into the queen of heaven, the "highly favored" into a dispenser of favors, the "blessed among women" into an intercessor above all women, the redeemed daughter of fallen Adam into a "sinless holy co-redeemer."
There are shrines, feast days, miraculous medals, churches and societies dedicated to Mary, the perpetual virgin. Ten "Hail Marys" are said for every "Our Father" when praying the rosary.
The Catholic doctrine of the "Immaculate Conception" is the belief that Mary was "sinless" from the moment of her conception. If Mary was without sin, then she would not die. Therefore, the doctrine of the "Assumption of Mary" would necessarily follow. Catholic tradition teaches that Mary left this world without dying for God can do what He wills. Then she was simply transferred to eternal glory. Although neither of these two doctrines have any basis in Scripture, they became the foundation which led to the acceptance of Marian Apparitions.
There are claims that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to several visionaries over many years all over the world. These visible sightings are known as Marian Apparitions. Today Catholic pilgrims travel to these places to be strengthened, blessed and healed. Countless pilgrims have journeyed to sites where the Virgin Mary appeared and have been blessed with an abundance of graces in the form of healings, visible miracles and conversions of the heart. At some of the sites there are still regular appearances of Mary.
The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders. 2 Thessalonians 2:9
Elevating the handmaid of the Lord to the title and position of the Mother of God who is the Mediatrix of all Graces is deceiving multiple millions into the worship of Madonna and child. The Marian Apparitions are demonic deceptions.
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. Revelation 17:5
"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits." Revelation 17:9
She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. 1 Peter 5:13
She refers to your sister church. The great city in Mesopotamia was in ruins and ancient Babylon was mostly a desert in the first century. It is generally agreed that "Babylon" in 1 Peter 5:13 is a cipher for the city of Rome. There was a reason for connecting the Babylonian and Roman empires, because the Roman legions like those of Babylon at an earlier time destroyed the temple and Jerusalem.
The topography or terrain that marks the geographical location of the center of the false religion is noted for its seven hills. The Whore of Babylon is a religious system that is characterized as prostituting itself. Spiritual fornication is idol worship. The Empire of the Caesars had its capital in Rome which was built on seven hills and was well-known for its many statues of its Roman gods and goddesses including the Caesars. Julius Caesar as Rome's Pontifex Maximus held supreme religious authority in Rome. He was not only the ruler of the state but the high priest of the pagan Roman religion.
The term "Pontifex Maximus" is applied to the high priest of the Roman Catholic Church today. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition: 'For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise." Not only does the Pope continue under the titles of the Caesars of Rome but claims to be the Vicar of Christ on earth. The Pope claims to be authorized to act as the substitute or agent of Christ on earth.
Jesus himself promised us that He would send the Holy Spirit to act on his behalf and not a fallible man. As Christ Jesus had been the Master, Counselor and Guide to believers, He promised to send the Holy Spirit as His substitute so that He might abide with them forever (John 14:16).
The ancient Babylonian Religion that began at the Tower of Babel will be a vehicle for the Antichrist in these last days. The Ecumenical Movement will fulfill the motto that was adopted at the Ecumenical Assembly held in Amsterdam in 1948 – "ONE WORLD — ONE CHURCH," when the apostate Protestant churches of the world merge with the Roman Catholic Church.
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Book of Hebrews
Feasts & Festivals
Old Testament Study