Religion is not of God! In fact,
it is the opinion of this writer that religion is a smokescreen
to blind the unsuspecting from the truth of God. Through Jesus
Christ, God has provided eternal life freely to all who will
trust Him by faith. But many will not believe in Christ because
they are being blinded by religion. The one doing the blinding
is called the god of this world.
“And
even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are
perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded
the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image
of God.” (2 Cor. 4:3-4)
There are hundreds of religions
all over the world. Where did they begin? Let’s take a small
glimpse.
Nimrod: The Tower of Babel
An entire religious system began
with a strange prophecy pronounced upon Ham, one of the sons of
Noah.
The prophecy
itself found its fulfillment in Ham’s Son, Canaan. Much of
Israel’s history involves the interaction of Israel with the
religious practices of the Canaanites. (See “Noah’s
Sin and Prophecy.”)
Look carefully at Ham’s family tree.
“The sons of Ham were Cush,
Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba and
Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of
Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.
Cush became the father of
Nimrod he became a
mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the
LORD; therefore it is said, Like Nimrod a mighty hunter
before the LORD. The beginning of his kingdom was
Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh
and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and
Calah; that is the great city.” (Gen. 10:6-12)
Ham’s firstborn, Cush, had a son
named Nimrod. The name “Nimrod” is taken from the Hebrew verb,
“let us revolt.” Nimrod settled the land of modern Iraq. He was
the founder of Babylon and Nineveh, both sworn enemies of
Israel. He was called “a great hunter before the Lord.” The
Hebrew words “before the Lord” could actually be translated “in
defiance of the Lord.”
The Jewish Talmud called Nimrod
“a hunter of the souls of men.” He was evidently the architect
of the first rebellion against God and the one who began the
first organized religious system.
Religion Begins
“Now the whole earth used the
same language and the same words.” (Gen. 11:1)
Following the flood, the human
race spoke one language. Genesis 11 is a parenthetical section
explaining how and why the nations were divided into different
language groups.
“It came about as they
journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of
Shinar and settled there.” (Gen. 11:2)
Shinar refers to the place of the
beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom.
“The beginning of his kingdom
was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of
Shinar.” (Gen. 10:10)
God had commanded Noah and his
family to “fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1). It was not God’s plan for
the people to come together. Nimrod disobeyed this command and
sought to unite the race in the Tigress-Euphrates Valley near
modern day Baghdad, Iraq. The ‘whole earth’ settled together in
this one area united by their one language.
“They said to one another,
‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’
And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for
mortar.” (Gen. 11:3)
“Let us” places the emphasis upon
man. This surfaces man’s pride, public enemy number one with God
(Prov. 6:16).
The Hebrew word for “tar” is a
word from which the word “bitumen” comes. Where there is
bitumen, there is oil! Brick “for” stone - the word “for” means
in the place of. They used bricks in the place of stone, and
they used tar in the place of mortar.
“They
said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower
whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for
ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over
the face of the whole earth.” (Gen. 11:4)
A tower was a pyramid called a
ziggurat. They are referred to in the Bible as “high places.”
High places are mentioned at least 73 times in the Old Testament
from Leviticus 26:30 to Habakkuk 3:19.
“Heaven” is a word that means
universe. The tower was built in order to reach to the stars,
including the sun and the moon. This was the very beginning of
religion.
Religion is a distortion of God's
design. His universe is designed to reveal to man His power and
His godhead.
“For since the creation of
the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood
through what has been made, so that they are without
excuse.”
(Rom. 1:18-20)
The stars were to tell the glory
of God (Psa. 19:1). The consistent cycles of the sun and the
moon and stars pointed to the cycles of planting, growth, and
harvest of crops and were to be a witness of God’s faithfulness
to man.
“Nevertheless
He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did
good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:17)
The human race began to worship
God's creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:21-25). The
worship of these terrestrial objects changed into the worship of
the life giving cycles of harvest or the worship of fertility.
Romantic history records that
Nimrod created a God named Marduk.
Marduk became the male god of the life cycle that included the
sun and moon. He became the male god of fertility. Ancient
history tells us that Nimrod had a wife named Semiramis. The
Semiramus Hotel located in Egypt today is named after this
woman. Semiramis was associated with the goddess of fertility.
History records that Nimrod and
Semiramis had a son whom Semiramis claimed was virgin-born and
the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.
The name of the child was
Tammuz, the sun god. From Semiramis and Tammuz came the
mother and child cult. The Babylonian religious system was the
worship of a mother and child, supposedly virgin-born. The
picture of the woman holding a child became the symbol of all of
the fertility cults throughout history.
The woman-child pictured together
became the symbol of the worship within the Babylonian religious
system. It is interesting that Tammuz is mentioned in scripture.
“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.” (Eze.
8:12-14)
Semiramus claimed that Tammuz was
gored by a wild boar and killed. After forty days of weeping and
prayer, the child was miraculously raised from the dead. This
rumor spread quickly and added sufficient fuel to propel the
religious system throughout the ancient world. This supposedly
happened on the feast of the Astoreth or feast to Ishtar, the
Babylonian goddess of fertility. Thus began the celebration of
“Ishtar,” or as we know it, Easter. Ever wonder what bunnies and
chickens and hiding “Ishtar” eggs have to do with the
resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Babylon is mentioned in the Bible
over 300 times. It is the most mentioned city in the word of
God. In fact, an underlying theme woven through the Bible is a
tale of two cities: Jerusalem and Babylon. Babylon's history
begins with the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11, continues
throughout history, and it culminates just prior to the
establishment of Jesus Christ’s kingdom upon the earth (Rev.
14).
 It
is a city that represents man's pride and power and rebellion
against God. Babylon is the capitol city of Satan’s religious
system.
The Babylonian system of worship
is mentioned often in the Bible and is called the worship of the
“host of heaven.”
“And beware not to lift up
your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the
stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and
worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God
has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.”
(Deut. 4:19)
“They forsook all the
commandments of the LORD their God and made for themselves
molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah (female
fertility goddess) and worshiped all the host of heaven
and served Baal (the son of the god of thunder and
lightening and rain and thus fertility).” (2 Kings 17:16)
“And those who bow down on
the housetops to the host of heaven.” (Zephaniah
1:5)
“But God turned away and
delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it
is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to Me
that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the
wilderness, was it, O house of Israel? ‘You also took along
the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the
images which you made to worship. I also will remove you
beyond Babylon.’” (Acts 7: 42-43)
The various goddesses of
fertility are called in the Bible “the queen of heaven.”
“The children gather wood,
and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough
to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour
out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me”
(Jer. 7:18).
“But rather we will certainly
carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by
burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring
out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our
forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had
plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. But
since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of
heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have
lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by
famine.” ‘And,’ said the women, ‘when we were burning
sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring
out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that
we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured
out drink offerings to her?” (Jer. 44:17-19)
High Places
Soon replicas of the tower of
Babel sprang up all over the land. They were small symbols for
the worship of the fertility gods and goddesses (the host of
heaven and the queen of heaven). The Canaanites built several in
the land of Canaan.
The idol “Al” supposedly had a
son named “Baal,” (Hebrew, son of Al), the son of thunder and
lightening. And the female counterpart was the Asteroth, or the
Asheroth, or the Asherim (plural). These counterfeit gods became
a continuous source of conflict among the Jews.
“For they also built for
themselves high places and sacred pillars and Asherim on
every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree. There were
also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according
to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD
dispossessed before the sons of Israel.” (1 Kings 14:23-24)
“The sons of Israel did
things secretly which were not right against the LORD their
God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all
their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set for
themselves sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and
under every green tree, and there they burned incense on all
the high places as the nations did which the LORD had
carried away to exile before them; and they did evil things
provoking the LORD.” (2 Kings 17:9-11)
These high places – various sized
pyramids, along with the picture of Semiramus holding her child
Tammuz – were the means of marking religious cults all over the
world.
This was all
inspired, designed, established,
and perpetuated by Satan. The system is called in the Bible
“mystery Babylon” (Rev. 17:5).
God Intervenes
“The LORD came down to see
the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”
(Gen. 11:5)
There never was a time when God
did not know what the people were doing. The picture of Him
coming down and seeing is written for man's benefit.
“The LORD said, ‘Behold, they
are one people, and they all have the same language. And
this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they
purpose to do will be impossible for them.’” (Gen. 11:6)
That which they proposed to do
would be to raise the standard of evil to the highest power.
Their unity would provide a fertile field for the growth and
expansion of their evil desires. It would be extended beyond its
limits. That would lead to the extermination of the entire race.
There remains in man a political
idealism that if we could just live together in harmony with
perfect laws and perfect environment, there would be peace on
earth. But the problem is human depravity, not the government or
the environment.
Man, apart from God, will never
be able to create a world having perfect peace. Notice how God
responds to the building of the tower.
“Come, let Us go down and
there confuse their language, so that they will not
understand one another’s speech.” (Gen. 11:7)
This was an ingenious act on the
part of God. If people cannot understand each other, they will
scatter into smaller communities of similar language. This would
eventually lead to physical boundaries and governments and
armies that would provide a balance of power and protection for
its citizens. This would give the human race the necessary time
and security necessary to consider the grace of God (Acts
17:24-28). This would give man the freedom to consider the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
“So the LORD scattered them
abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they
stopped building the city.” (Gen.11:8)
Internationalism will not lead to
peace but to ultimate destruction. Man will be truly united only
when Jesus Christ is sitting upon His throne.
Therefore its name was called
Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole
earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the
face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11: 9).
“Babel” comes from two Hebrew
words, Ba-el, the gate of God. It is related to the ancient
Aramaic word “balbel,” which means confusion.
Religion Expands
When this “Babylonian religious
system” spread throughout the earth, its name changed, but the
worship remained basically the same. The system grew in Babylon
(modern day Iraq) as the worship of Marduk and Ishtar. It went
into Canaan as the worship of Baal and the Asteroth. It then
went into Syria as the worship of Baal and Astarte. It found
its way into Egypt as the worship of Horace (Ocirus, the sun
God), and Ises (the corresponding female deity).
It eventually went into Greece as
the worship of Aris (Ocirus became Aris) and Aphrodite (Ises
became Aphrodite; the goddess of love). Ultimately this religion
went into Rome as the worship of Cupid and Venus, the god and
goddess of love.
Names changed, but the worship
practices stayed pretty much the same. Religion continued to
surround itself with fertility cults. The ziggurats, the
pyramids in the midst of the city, and the mother-child picture
all stayed pretty much the same. All pointed to the worship of
the host of heaven.
Religion Blends with Christianity
During the Roman Empire, the
emperors slaughtered thousands in the name of religion. One of
the most famous of the early Christians, Tertullian, put it this
way: “If the Tiber floods the city, or the Nile refuses to rise,
or the sky withholds its rains, if there is an earthquake,
famine, or pestilence, at once the cry is raised: ‘Christians to
the lions!’” (Logos Library System)
Christians suffered greatly for
centuries under the emperors of Rome.
“Nero had light blue eyes, thick
neck, protruding stomach, and spindly legs, was a crazed and
cruel emperor, a pleasure-driven man who ruled the world by whim
and fear. He killed hundreds of Christians.
“Domitian likewise slaughtered
Christians. He was a mentally demented man. He enjoyed catching
flies and stabbing them with a pen. He liked to watch
gladiatorial fights between women and dwarfs.
“Then there was Diocletian. The
first of Diocletian’s edicts prohibited all Christian worship
and commanded that churches and Christian books be destroyed.
Two further edicts, required in the eastern provinces, ordered
clergy to be arrested unless they sacrificed to pagan deities.
By 304 this edict was extended to all Christians and was
particularly vicious in Africa.” (The Logos Library System)
A crucial turning point was when
the worship of the queen of heaven blended into the church of
Jesus Christ around 300 A.D. As mentioned, the Babylonian
religious system - the worship of Cupid and Venus, the god and
goddess of love - had become the state religion of Rome. Around
300 A.D., Constantine 1 became Emperor of the Western Roman
Empire. He was the first Roman Emperor to support Christianity.
In the spring of 312, Constantine
began a final bid for supremacy in the West. Campaigning against
his rival, Maxentius, through north and central Italy, he
reached within five miles of Rome on October 27. That night he
had a vision or dream that convinced him that his own destiny
lay with Christianity. The next day he defeated Maxentius’s
superior forces and entered Rome in triumph.
Constantine 1 then became engaged
in a civil war with his brother Licinius who was the emperor of
the Eastern Roman empire (capitol city of Constantinople, modern
day Istanbul). Constantine supposedly had a dream of a cross and
saw the Latin words “hoc signo vines,” “by this sign you
will conquer.” He promised to free the Christians to worship as
they pleased if they would help him defeat his brother.
In February 313, Constantine met
Licinius and soundly defeated him.
Christians had aligned themselves
with Constantine and they won.
The Edict of Milan
The Edict of Milan finally
signaled the end to all persecution. Everyone was to be free to
follow his own conscience. In fact, the Edict proved to be the
death nail of the immortal gods. The church had triumphed!
Or had they?
“Our purpose is to
grant both to the Christians and to all others full authority to
follow whatever worship each person has desired, whereby
whatsoever Divinity dwells in heaven may be benevolent and
propitious to us, and to all who are placed under our authority.
Therefore we thought it salutary and most proper to establish
our purpose that no person whatever should be refused complete
toleration, who has given up his mind either to the cult of the
Christians or to the religion which he personally feels best
suited to himself. It is our pleasure to abolish all conditions
whatever which were embodied in former orders directed to your
office about the Christians, that every one of those who have a
common wish to follow the religion of the Christians may from
this moment freely and unconditionally proceed to observe the
same without any annoyance or disquiet.”
The script goes out of its way to
ensure evenhanded treatment for all: “no diminution must be made
from the honor of any religion. But the strongly pro-Christian
flavor is tasted in the instructions to restore to Christians
all property that had been appropriated during the persecution.
This applied to property belonging to individual Christians as
well as to churches—and without regard for the present owners,
who could apply to the state for compensation.
“In implementing
these rulings, the governor was to give the Christians his ‘most
effective intervention,’ making sure the terms were published to
all. These actions, Constantine and Licinius concluded, would
ensure that ‘the Divine favor toward us, which we have already
experienced in so many affairs, shall continue for all time to
give us prosperity and success, together with happiness for the
state.’” (Quote from the Logos Library System; Persecution of
the Early Church; The Edict of Milan)
The result was a union of the
queen of heaven and Christianity. This ultimately produced what
came to be called “the Universal Church.” We know it as the Holy
Roman Catholic Church. This system ultimately became corrupt
and helped plunge man into the dark ages of cults and
superstition. The church of Rome twisted and distorted the
truth of the gospel of grace. God graciously resurfaced the
gospel through the Reformation in Europe during the sixteen
century.
Many of the traditions of the
“queen of heaven” still touch our lives today. The wedding ring,
the veil, the cake, the music, and the prayers that were
originally said to Zues and Aphrodite have come down to us. The
bunnies and rabbits in the celebration of Easter (Ishtar) are
residue from this sytstem. Many of the “Saint’s Days” that are
celebrated today found their beginning in this system. Christmas
trees and many of the wonderful “Christian traditions” that we
hold today also find their origin in this religious system.
Satan’s Babylonian religious
system is alive and well today! It has morphed into many
different forms but it is still here. That is why it is called
“mystery Babylon.”
I know that we are quick to
think, “I do not worship idols, and especially the god’s of the
Babylonian pantheon.” It is interesting that popular sports
figures of the ancient world were made into gods and
worshipped. In fact, idolatry is the worship of anything that
is placed above God. This is why John said, “Little children,
guard yourselves from idols” (1 Jn. 5:21).
The “hosts of heaven” and the
“queen” are still here. They will continue to be used by the
evil one to blind the minds of those who are perishing. This
Babylonian religious system will remain until Jesus Christ
returns to destroy it (Rev.17:1-3).
Sources
New American Standard Bible
Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost
Logos Christian History Interactive
Encyclopedia Britannica
Bible Knowledge Commentary Old Testament
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