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The Revelation of Jesus Christ
MYSTERY BABYLON It was in the city of Babel. later called Babylon, that all the mystery of religions began-those religions that were destined to cover the earth one thousand years later. Let me give you an outline of what the mystery religions were. This is neces sary if one is to understand how it came to pass that certain forms and ceremonies have been preserved in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in some Protestant churches. The founder of Babel was Nimrod, but the foundress of the mystery religion connected with Babylon was Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod. The central mystery was this: The wife of Nimrod claimed that she gave birth to a child whom she called Tammuz, declaring that her son had no father-that he was conceived by the great spirit above. As we study further, we shall see in this central mystery how the devil has sought to bring to naught all the purposes of God that were going to come to pass through the "seed of the woman" (not the seed of the man) by presenting a counterfeit: Thus the wife of Nimrod presented Tammuz to the people, qlaiming that he had a mother, but that he did not have a human father. The figure that was used in connection with the mystery of Babylon was that of the wife of Nimrod with a crown on her head, with a little baby in her arms-Tammuz. Arch~ologists who have gone to India, to Egypt, to Greece, and to ancient Phc:enicia, have found that a thousand years after Babel was erected this mystery religion had spread all · over that part of the world. Isis and Horus in Egypt, Aphro dite and Eros in Greece, Venus and Cupid in Italy, are some of the designations of this religion adopted by different nations and systems. If you go to any museum, you will find statues that have been dug out of the earth from all these countries, images of a woman with a crown on her head, having a baby in her arms. Connected with this central mystery, there are hundreds of lesser mysteries; for instance, sanctification through purgatory, the use of holy water, the eating of the wafer that was presented to the Queen of the Heavens. If you turn to Jer. 44: 16-22, you will find that this particular mystery, the presentation of the wafer to the Queen of Heaven, had gotten into the nation of Israel in the time of Jeremiah. You
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