News Letter 5848-040
16th day of the 9th month?5848 years after the creation of Adam
The 9th Month in the Third year of the third Sabbatical Cycle
The Third Sabbatical Cycle of the 119th Jubilee Cycle
The Sabbatical Cycle of Earthquakes Famines, and Pestilences
This is also the end of the Thirty-Sixth week of this the Third Tithe Year for the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow?Deuteronomy 26:12
We are now just 4 years & 3 months from the Sabbatical year in 2016

December 1, 2012

Shabbat Shalom Brethren,

Last week’s News Letter on Chanukah brought out a number of responses. One fella even had the gall to write and tell me to take my wife out and stone her, because she still keeps Xmas.

I get all kinds of emails from so called brethren each week. And it scares me that they think they are following Yehovah, just based on the words they use.

2Ti 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

The word empathy does not appear in the Bible, but the Scriptures do refer indirectly to the characteristic or quality of demonstrating empathy, which is defined as “the capability to share another’s emotions and feelings.” The apostle Peter counseled us to have “compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous . . .” 1 Peter 3:8

The apostle Paul recommended similar sentiments when he told us to “rejoice with those rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). ??There is an important distinction between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is the capacity to feel deeply for someone despite the fact you do not share the same experience. Sympathy is the capacity to feel deeply for someone because you do, in fact, share the experience. Compassion, sympathy and empathy all have to do with passion (feeling) for another person because you identify with his or her suffering. True empathy adds the expression of those feelings. ??It was the apostle John who said, “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of Yehovah abide in him?” (1 John 3:17) We know that we are commanded to love our neighbor and to have intense love for one another (Matthew 22:39; 1 Peter 4:8). Though we are aware of this and intend to love one another, we often overlook opportunities to relieve others’ pain. That could be because we are not aware of others’ needs. Empathy is the key that can unlock the door to our kindness and compassion.

Is this trait found in you concerning those amongst us who have unbelieving spouses and children? Do you consider the torment we are in knowing the time is quickly coming to a close and that our very own family members do not and will not keep the Torah?

To tell someone with an unbelieving spouse to take them out and stone them is so callous and shows they do not understand what Yehshua meant when

He said No One can come to me except the Father Draw them. No one can come unless the Father calls them. No one!!!

Those of us with unconverted mates understand this and although we do not like it, We do accept it. It is very humbling to be in this position. Do not become so proud because your mate and your family is walking this walk with you. Pride goes before a fall.

Even though I wrote this person and let them know exactly what I thought of their email, I never did get an apology.

Brethren show some empathy for your other brethren who come to Sabbath each week alone with out other family members. Know they are hurting each week and will never say anything. Be empathetic.

We are now into December 1, 2012. On Dec 21, 2012 according to the Mayan Calendar the world is going to end. Are you ready?

I have been listening to the letters some one at NASA is receiving about what to do. Some people are planning on putting their pets down so they will not have to endure Armageddon. Others, and yes this is real are considering the slaughter of their own little ones again so they will not have to go through these terrible days.

Many of the Christians who do not know their bibles are expecting the Jews to be punished for 3 ½ years while they, the Christians, get raptured.

If you do not keep the Sabbath, then you will not understand the 7000 year plan of Yehovah. If you do not keep the Holy Days as they are written in Lev 23 then you also will not understand the plan of Yehovah and His schedule. Many of you write to tell me you do, but by your own words you do not. You have to keep the Holy Days. And if you do not keep the Sabbatical years, again you will not and cannot understand the timing of Yehovah’s plan of Salvation. And no you are not saved just because you can call upon Jesus and say he is the messiah.

There are also people who are going to some mountain in France in order to meet the Aliens that are coming on December 21 to rescue those who show up there.

I plan to be here Dec 22 and onward to continue to share the deep and rich meaning of understanding the Sabbatical years and how they reveal the timing of Yehovah’s redemption. Those of you who also understand this need to keep teaching others that there is hope before they do something terrible to their own families.

In response to those who wrote and are still defiantly going to keep Chanukah this year, and dared me to prove to you why it was wrong to keep, I say this.

“You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yehovah your God which I command you.” Deuteronomy 4:2
“…if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Messiah.” Galatians 1:9-10?

“For if he who comes preaches another Yehshua whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it!” 2 Corinthians 11:4 [I.e. don’t tolerate heresy]

“Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.” Deuteronomy 12:32

“Every word of Elohim is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.” Proverbs 30:5-6

By keeping Chanukah or Purim you are adding to the Torah. By keeping Christmas or Easter or Halloween you are adding other religious days and substituting these others days and saying that they are OK because we do it to God.

The Festival of lights was an ancient festival kept during the winter solstice. It was celebrated by the lighting of the Yule Log, by jumping through the fire, which symbolized the passing through the fire when the children were placed alive into the glowing red-hot hands of the statute Molech where they were burnt alive on Dec 25.

Both Israel and Judah took part in this abortion type sacrifice. Both. Today this is called the festival of lights in Hindu and Chanukah in Judaism and Christmas in Christianity. Do not believe me; but prove it to yourselves and read Two Babylons by Alexander Hisop. It is free online.

Here are a few scriptures for you to also think on as you get into the Christmas spirit. Yes this too is a demonic spirit. Do not worship Yehovah the way the heathen do. Do not add to His Torah the pagan child sacrifice traditions from long ago and call them good. When you read this remember that each of the men that are writing this was hundreds of years before the birth of Yehshua. The Christmas tree and the lighting of candles and fires or Chanukiahs was started thousands of years before in the days of Nimrod.
Don’t do as the heathen do.

Ezekiel 20:30 Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations?

Ezekiel 20:31 For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will not be enquired of by you.

Ezekiel 20:32 And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.

Ezekiel 20:33 [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you:

Ezekiel 20:34 And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.

Ezekiel 20:35 And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.

Matthew 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

2 Kings 16:3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.

2 Kings 16:4 And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

The words “every green tree” refer to a specifically selected lush green tree (evergreen) for the purpose of appeasing gods. Where gifts are placed at the foot of the tree which is usually decorated. This is a reference to the pagan ritual of what we now call the Christmas tree, where gifts are offered even to this day.

2 Kings 17:10 And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:

2 Kings 17:11 And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as [did] the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:

2 Kings 17:12 For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.

2 Kings 17:13 Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, [and by] all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments [and] my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.

2 Kings 17:14 Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.

2 Kings 17:15 And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that [were] round about them, [concerning] whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.

2 Kings 17:16 And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, [even] two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

2 Kings 17:17 And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

2 Kings 17:18 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

2 Kings 21:2 And he did [that which was] evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

2 Kings 21:3 For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

2 Chronicles 28:2 For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim.

2 Chronicles 28:3 Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.

2 Chronicles 28:4 He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

Jeremiah 10:1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

Jeremiah 10:2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

Jeremiah 10:3 For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

Jeremiah 10:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

Deuteronomy 12:2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

Deuteronomy 12:3 And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

Deuteronomy 12:4 Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.

1 Kings 14:22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.

1 Kings 14:23 For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

1 Kings 14:24 And there were also sodomites in the land: [and] they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

Isaiah 57:4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, [and] draw out the tongue? [are] ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,
Isaiah 57:5 Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
Isaiah 57:6 Among the smooth [stones] of the stream [is] thy portion; they, they [are] thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?
Isaiah 57:7 Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.
Isaiah 57:8 Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered [thyself to another] than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee [a covenant] with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest [it].

Jeremiah 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that [it is] an evil [thing] and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear [is] not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
Jeremiah 2:20 For of old time I have broken thy yoke, [and] burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.
Jeremiah 2:21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?
Jeremiah 2:22 For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, [yet] thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.

Jeremiah 3:4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou [art] the guide of my youth?
Jeremiah 3:5 Will he reserve [his anger] for ever? will he keep [it] to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.
Jeremiah 3:6 The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen [that] which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.

Jeremiah 3:13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.

If you have gotten this far it is now time once again for you to go and learn the truth about Christmas. It is worse than the time when you learned that Santa was not real. Far worse. Once you do then you too can share what your about to read with others. They will not want to listen to you and they will want to keep to their traditions, much like those who now keep Chanukah instead of Christmas. Different symbols but the same god, Satan.

No I do not make many friends doing this. But I have to tell you none the less. Then you can decide what you are going to do after.

Please go and read one of the first things I learned as I began this walk way back in 1983.

Are you Worshipping Moelch or Just keeping Christmas.

I have written this for the benefit of all those men and women willing to listen and change. This stuff I learned when I was just coming into the truth. It had a very significant impact in my life, which you can read about in Living With An Unconverted Mate and I am very grateful for having learned this back in 1983.

I had just finished 6 months of intense bible study then. I would have to start obeying Yahweh’s word if I couldn’t show the Bible to be in error, due to my conscience. I never really had a chance. I was wrong from the get go. The more I learn as I continue to study, the more clearly I can see how far from the truth our society has gone.

Indeed Satan has truely decieved the whole world. If you believe this statement to be true, then you must consider how you too, may have been decieved as well. I pray Yahweh will open your minds to see those truths written here on this web site.

Duet. 12:1-4, 29-32 (NAB) ” (1)These are the statutes and decrees which you must be careful to observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to occupy, as long as you live on its soil. (2)Destroy without fail every place on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every leafy tree where the nations you are to dispossess worship their gods. (3)Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, destroy by fire their sacred poles, and stamp out the remembrance of them in any such place. (4)That is not how you are to worship the Lord your God.”
(29)When the Lord, your God, removes the nations from your way as you advance to dispossess them, be on your guard! Otherwise, once they have been wiped out before you and you have replaced them and are settled in their land, (30)you will be lured into following them. Do not inquire regarding their gods, ‘How did these nations worship their gods? I, too, would do the same .’ (31)You shall not thus worship the Lord your God, because they offered to their gods every abomination that the Lord detests, even burning their sons and daughters to their gods.”
Lev. 18:21,(NAB) “You shall not offer any of your offspring to be immolated to Molech, thus profaning the name of the Lord you God.” In the King James it says to pass through the fire to Molech.

Lev. 18:1-5,(NAB) ” The Lord said to Moses, (2)’Speak to the Israelites and tell them: I, the Lord am your God. (3) You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you once lived, nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you; do not conform to their customs. (4)My decrees you shall carry out and my statutes you shall take care to follow. I, the Lord, am your God. (5)Keep, then, my statutes and decrees, for the man who carries them out will find life through them. I am the Lord you God.

Lev.18:24-30 (NAB) ” Do not defile yourselves by any of these things by which the nations whom I am driving out of your way have defiled themselves. (25) Because their land has become defiled, I am punishing it for its wickedness, by making it vomit out its inhabitants. (26) You, however, whether natives or resident aliens, must keep my statutes and decrees forbidding all such abominations (27) by which the previous inhabitants defiled the land; (28) otherwise the land will vomit you out also for having defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations before you. (29) Everyone who does these abominations shall be cut off from among his people. (30) Heed my charge, then, not to defile yourselves by observing the abominable customs that have been observed before you. I, the Lord , am your God.”

From the Zondervan Bible Dict. Moloch, Molech, Muluk, Malik, Chemosh, Milcom (1 Kings 11:5), Malcam (Zeph 1:5) are all variants of Hebrew words meaning “the reigning one”. A heathen god worshiped especially by the Ammorites with gruesome orgies in which little ones were sacrificed. At least in some places an image of the god was heated and the bodies of the children who had just been slain were placed in the arms.

Note ” the statue was made from bronze or iron with a hollowed out human body and the head of a calf. Fire was heated in the statute till a red glow came from the statute then the child was placed on the outstretched arms as a sacrificial offering.

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molech?- Ba’al?Moloch the God Ba’al, the Sacred Bull, was widely worshipped in the ancient Near East and wherever Punic culture extended. Baal Moloch was conceived under the form of a calf or an ox or depicted as a man with the head of a bull. [citation needed]

Hadad, Baal or simply the King identified the god within his cult. The name Moloch is not the name he was known by among his worshippers, but a Hebrew translation. The written form Moloch (in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament), or Molech (Hebrew), is no different than the word Melech or king, transformed by interposing the vowels of bosheth or ’shameful thing’.[citation needed]

He is sometimes also called Milcom in the Old Testament (1 Kings 11:5, 1 Kings 11:33, 2 Kings 23:13 and Zephaniah 1:5)

Forms and grammar?The Hebrew letters ??? (mlk) usually stands for melek ‘king’ (Proto-Northwest Semitic malku) but when vocalized as m?lek in Masoretic Hebrew text, they have been traditionally understood as a proper name ????? (molokh) (Proto-Northwest Semitic Mulku) in the corresponding Greek renderings in the Septuagint translation, in Aquila, and in the Greek Targum. The form usually appears in the compound lmlk. The Hebrew preposition l- means ‘to’, but it can often mean ‘for’ or ‘as a(n)’. Accordingly one can translate lmlk as “to Moloch” or “for Moloch” or “as a Moloch”, or “to the Moloch” or “for the Moloch” or “as the Moloch”, whatever a “Moloch” or “the Moloch” might be. We also once find hmlk ‘the Moloch’ standing by itself.

Because there is no difference between mlk ‘king’ and mlk ‘moloch’ in unpointed text, interpreters sometimes suggest molek should be understood in certain places where the Masoretic text is vocalized as melek, and vice versa.

Moloch has been traditionally interpreted as the name of a god, possibly a god titled the king, but purposely misvocalized as Molek instead of Melek using the vowels of Hebrew bosheth ’shame’.

Moloch appears in the Hebrew of 1 Kings 11.7 (on Solomon’s religious failings):
Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and lmlk, the abomination of the Sons of Ammon.

But in other passages the god of the Ammonites is named Milcom, not Moloch (see 1 Kings 11.33; Zephaniah 1.5). The Septuagint reads Milcom in 1 Kings 11.7 instead of Moloch which suggests a scribal error in the Hebrew. Many English translations accordingly follow the non-Hebrew versions at this point and render Milcom.

(The form mlkm can also mean ‘their king’ as well as Milcom and therefore one cannot always be sure in some other passages whether the King of Ammon is intended or the god Milcom.) It has also been suggested that the Ba‘al of Tyre, Melqart ‘king of the city’ (who was probably the Ba‘al whose worship was furthered by Ahab and his house) was this supposed god Moloch and that Melqart/Moloch was also Milcom the god of the Ammonites and identical with other gods whose names contain mlk. But nothing particularly suggests these identifications other than mlk in the various names.

Amos 5.27 reads in close translation:
But you shall carry Sikkut your king,?and Kiyyun, your images, the star-symbol of your god?which you made for yourself.?The Septuagint renders ‘your king’ as Moloch, perhaps from a scribal error, whence the verse appears in Acts 7.43:

You have lifted up the shrine of Molech?and the star of your god Rephan,?the idols you made to worship.?Accordingly this association of Moloch with these other gods is probably spurious.

All other references to Moloch use mlk only in the context of “passing children through fire lmlk”, whatever is meant by lmlk, whether it means “to Moloch” or means something else. It has traditionally been understood to mean burning children alive to the god Moloch. But some have suggested a rite of purification by fire instead, though perhaps a dangerous one. References to passing through fire without mentioning mlk appear in Deuteronomy 12.31, 18.10–13; 2 Kings 21.6; Ezekiel 20.26,31; 23.37. So the existence of this practice is well documented. For a comparable practice of rendering infants immortal by passing them through the fire, indirectly attested in early Greek myth, see the entries for Thetis and also the myth of Demeter as the nurse of Demophon.

Biblical texts?The pertinent Biblical texts follow in very literal translation. The word here translated literally as ’seed’ very often means offspring. The forms containing mlk have been left untranslated. The reader may substitute either “to Moloch” or “as a molk”.
Leviticus 18.21

And you shall not let any of your seed pass through Mo’lech, neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 20.2–5:
Again, you shall say to the Sons of Israel: Whoever he be of the Sons of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that gives any of his seed Mo’lech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people; because he has given of his seed Mo’lech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he gives of his seed Mo’lech, and do not kill him, then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go astray after him, whoring after Mo’lech from among the people.

2 Kings 23.10 (on King Josiah’s reform):
And he defiled the Tophet, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire Mo’lech.

Jeremiah 32.35:
And they built the high places of the Ba‘al, which are in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire Mo’lech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
Moloch has also been referred to simply as a rebel angel.

Traditional accounts and theories?The 12th century rabbi Rashi, commenting on Jeremiah 7.31 stated:
Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved.

A different rabbinical tradition says that the idol was hollow and was divided into seven compartments, in one of which they put flour, in the second turtle-doves, in the third a ewe, in the fourth a ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the seventh a child, which were all burnt together by heating the statue inside.

Later commentators have compared these accounts with similar ones from Greek and Latin sources speaking of the offering of children by fire as sacrifices in the Punic city of Carthage, which was a Phoenician colony. Cleitarchus, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch all mention burning of children as an offering to Cronus or Saturn, that is to Ba‘al Hammon, the chief god of Carthage. Issues and practices relating to Moloch and child sacrifice may also have been overemphasized for effect. After the Romans finally defeated Carthage and totally destroyed the city, they engaged in post-war propaganda to make their arch enemies seem cruel and less civilised.

Paul G. Mosca in his thesis (described below) translates Cleitarchus’ paraphrase of a scholia to Plato’s Republic as:

There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ’sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing.

Diodorus Siculus (20.14) wrote:
There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.

Diodorus also relates relatives were forbidden to weep and that when Agathocles defeated Carthage, the Carthaginian nobles believed they had displeased the gods by substituting low-born children for their own children. They attempted to make amends by sacrificing 200 children at once, children of the best families, and in their enthusiasm actually sacrificed 300 children.

Plutarch wrote in De Superstitiones 171:
… the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.

Lev.20:1-5 (NAB) The Lord said to Moses, (2) “Tell the Israelites : Anyone, whether an Israelite or an alien residing in Israel, who gives any of his offspring too Molech shall be put to death. Let his fellow citizens stone him. (3) I myself will turn against such a man and cut him off from the body of his people; for in giving his offspring to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. (4) Even if his fellow citizens connive at such a man’s crime of giving his offspring to Molech, and fail to put him to death, (5) I myself will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who join him in this wanton worship of Molech.”

Yahweh didn’t want Israel to begin to look on Him like Molech.

As incredible as it may sound in Psalm 106:34-28 it tells us that Israel did get involved in this worship. (34)They did not exterminate the peoples, as the Lord had commanded them, (35)But mingled with the nations and learned their works. (36)They served their idols, which became a snare for them. (37)They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, (38)And they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, desecrating the land with bloodshed;

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the primitive title of this god was very probably Melech, ‘King”, the consonants came to be combined through derision with the vowels of the word BOSETH, “shame”. Or king of shame

Speaking of the Phoenicians the catholic encyclopedia says “They deified the sun and the moon which they considered the great forces that create and destroy, and called them Baal, and Astaroth. Each city had its divine pair: at Sidon it was Baal Sidon (the sun) and Astarte (the moon); at Gebel , Baal Tummuz and Baaleth; at Carthage, Baal Hamon and Tanith. But the same god changed his name accordingly as he was conceived creator or destroyer; thus Baal as destroyer was worshipped at Cartage under the name of Moloch….As creators they were honored with orgies and tumultuous feast; as destroyers by human victims. Baal Moloch was figured at Carthage as a bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. To appease him children were laid in his arms , and fell at once into a pit of fire. ”

In Ezek 23:39 (NAB) Yahweh says ” On the very day they slew their children for their idols they entered my sanctuary to desecrate it.” The Israelite’s had mixed Yahweh’s worship with the worship of Moloch just as he had said not to.

In Jeremiah 19:1-15 (NIV) Thus said the Lord, “Go, buy a potter’s earthen flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priest, (2) and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate , and proclaim there the words that I tell you. (3) You shall say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon this place that the ears of every one who hears of it will tingle. (4) Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, (5) and have built the high places of Ba’al to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Ba’al, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind; (6) therefore , behold, days are coming, says the Lord , when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnon, but the valley Slaughter. (7) And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. (8) And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at ; every one who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. (9) And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’?(10) Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you, (11) and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potters vessel, so that it can never be mended. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. (12) Thus will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. (13) The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah – all the house upon whose roofs incense has been burned to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been pored out to other gods – shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.”?(14)Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy , and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house, and said to all the people: (15) “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.”

Topheth in Strongs concordance is #8612 taken from #8611 to mean a smiting or contempt. Tophteh #8613 is from #8612 meaning a place of cremation. And #8611 is taken from #8608 taphaph meaning to play on the drum the tambourine ; play with timbrels.

Note it says that the drums were played to drown out the screams of the children.

From the Catholic encyclopedia Topheth was the place where Judas Iscariot hung himself and his body fell and burst open on the rocks below. The field of blood (Haceldama).

From the Chamber Encyclopedia under Molech ‘ … it is clear that in Palestine and Syria from at least the 18th century BC infants about 8 days old were sacrificed and buried in womb shape jars, possibly in connection with fertility rites. In the king cult the king was regarded as the son embodiment of god & the Hebrew phrase “to the molech” may have meant for the sake of the life of the king. ‘ Remember we said earlier Melek = king of nether world.

Jeremiah (NIV)7: 30-31 For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight , says the Lord; they have set their abomination in the house which is called by my name, to defile it (31) And they have built the high place of Topheth which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command nor did it come into my mind.

Jeremiah (NIV) 8:1-2 At that time, say the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priest, the bones of the prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; (2) and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshipped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground.

Note: They are worshiping the sun god Ba’al Moloch and the moon god Astarte. That’s why Yahweh spreads them out before their god as dung.

Jeremiah (NIV)32:28,30-35…Behold I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar King of Babylon and he shall take it. (30) For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth; the sons of Israel have done nothing but provoke me to anger by the works of their hands, says the Lord. (31) This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from the day it was built to this day, so that I will remove it from my sight (32) because of all the evil the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah which they did to provoke me to anger – their kings and their princes, their priest and their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (33) They have turned to me their back and not their face; and though I have taught them persistently they have not listened to receive instruction. (34) They have set up their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. (35) They built the high places of Ba’al in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them , nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

So in the early 600’s BC in Jeremiah’s time this was the official religion and it included child sacrifices.!!

But even in King Solomon’s day it was going on. 1 Kings 11:1-13 (NKJV) But King Solomon loved many foreign woman, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites- (2) from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not intermarry with them , nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. (3) And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.?(4)For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. (5) For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. (6) Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David.

[Notes He partially followed Yahweh and partially followed other gods . Mixing Yahweh’s religion with foriegn gods.]

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, (Mount of Olives and Mount of Corruption, 2 Kings 23:13) and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. (8) And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, (10) and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded. (11) therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. (12) Nevertheless I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. (13) However I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.

Note. Solomon’s weakness greatly encouraged this worship, and for this reason Yahweh stripped the dynasty from him. Because the wives were sacrificing children.

2 Kings 16:1-4 (NKJV) In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jothan, king of Judah began to reign. (2) Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. (3) But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel. (4) And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree.

2 Chronicles 28:3 (NKJV) He burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

2 Chronicles 33:1-9 (NKJV) Manassah was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem. (2) But he did evil in the sight of the Lord , according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. (3) For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; [My notes Hezekiah was Ahaz’s son.] he raised up altars for the Ba’als, and made wooden images; and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. [Chambers Encyclopedia melech was often used as divine name for heavenly king.] (4) He also built altars in the house of the Lord of which the Lord had said “In Jerusalem shall My name be forever”. (5) And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. (6) Also he caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the son of Hinnom; he practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft and sorcery. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. (7) he even set a carved image , the idol which he had made , in the house of God, ……..(9) So Manassah seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. [Read on to see how Manassah repented.]

In 2 Kings 23: 1-28 we read how Josiah destroyed all the altars and poles and shrines. It is a good read but I want to point out the following scriptures. (5)Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem and those who burned incense to Ba’al , to the sun, to the moon , to the constellations, and to the host of heaven. (10) And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech. (11) then he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord,….and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

And again in the book of Acts, Stephen just before he is martyred says in Acts 7:42-43 Then God turned and gave them over to worship the whole host of heaven, as it is written in the prophets; …..(43) You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, images which you made to worship;.. Stephen is quoting Amos 5:25-27 where he says in verse (26) You also carried Sikkuth (Moloch) your king and Chiun your idols, the star of your idols which you made for yourselves.

It says in Amos 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
Why does God hate our feast days? We know how much he hates Molech and Astarte , but we don’t worship them. Or Do we??? DO YOU?

In Ezekiel 20: 18-21 “But I said to the children in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor observe their judgements, nor defile yourselves with their idols. (19) ‘I am the Lord your God: Walk in My statutes, keep My judgements, and do them; (20) HALLOW My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. (26) ‘and I pronounced them unclean because of their ritual gifts, in that they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate and that they might know that I am the Lord. (31) “For when you offer your gifts and make your sons pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols, even to this day….

That day was in Ezekiel’s day, but as Revelation 2:14 points out it was still going on in the 90’s AD. (14) But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balaak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. (15) Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolatiams which thing I hate,

The Catholic Encyclopedia on Nicolatians reveal very little other than to say, ” based on the identical meaning of the names to the Bileamites or Balaamites (Rev 2:14) who are mentioned just before them as professing the same doctrines.

The Catholic Encyclopedia under Moloch it says,” The offerings by fire , the probable identity of Moloch with Baal, and the fact that in Assyria and Babylonia Malik, and at Palmyra Malach-bel, were sun-gods, have suggested to many that Moloch was a fire or sun-god.

The following article traces Moloch back to Nimrod and also shows how he was connected to the roman Mithra and Saturnalia.

Bible Prophecy ResearchTitle: Moloch Submitted by: owner-bpr@philogos.org (Ronni)Date: August, 1999URL: http://philogos.org/bpr/files/m009.htm Moloch

(Amos 5:25-26) “Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? {26} But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.” (Acts 7:43) “Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.”

Moloch (or Molech) Moloch was the Old Testament deity of the Ammonites. The Israelites later fell into idolatrous worship of this pagan god: (Judg 10:6) “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.”

(1 Ki 11:5-6) “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom [Moloch] the abomination of the Ammonites. {6} And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.” Moloch was “honored by the sacrifice of children, in which they were caused to pass through or into the fire.

Palestinian excavations have uncovered evidences of infant skeletons in burial places around heathen shrines. Ammonites revered Molech as a protecting father…No form of ancient Semitic idolatry was more abhorrent than Molech worship.”[1] From Milton’s Paradise Lost: “First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fireTo his grim idol.” Exactly how human sacrifices were made is uncertain, but some rabbinic writers suggest that Moloch was worshipped in the form of a hollow brass statue in the shape of a human but with a head of an ox. The children were placed inside the statue which was then heated from below. The cries of the victims were drowned out by the beating of drums. One ancient description of Moloch reads: “Unlike the houses of the other idols, that of Moloch was set outside the city. It was gigantic in form and had the head of what appeared to be an ox, the hands stretched out as if to receive something, the body was hollow inside. Before the idol, there were seven temples, the first six of which were employed for the sacrifice of various fowl and animals, the seventh reserved for a human sacrifice.” [2] Diodorus has a slightly different description of the ritualistic sacrifices offered to Moloch: “First, the devotee would kiss the image of Moloch. He would then make a fire under the idol, which would quickly cause the hands of the statue to become red-hot. A victim would then be placed in the hands to suffer an agonizing death. His cries would be muffed by the drums. While this was taking place, the prophets would dance around an altar, with violent gesticulations, and, having excited themselves to a pitch of frenzy by it, as well as by their fearful vociferations they began to cut their bodies with knives and lancets. In this unnatural state they began to prophesy, or rather rave, as if possessed by some invisible power.”

[3] “The etymology of the term ‘Molech’ is interesting. Scholars suggest that it is a deliberate misvocalization of the Hebrew word for king or for the related participle (molek), ‘ruler.’ They propose that the consonants for the Hebrew word for king (mlk) were combined with the vowels from the word for shame (boshet) [king of shame]. Thus, this title was a divine epithet expressing contempt for the pagan god.”

[4] This has lead many to believe that the word “Moloch” is not a proper name at all. An article by Moshe Weinfeld in the Encyclopedia Judaica has an opposing viewpoint on the ritualistic worship and identity of Moloch: “The testimonies of the Pentateuch, which seem to be the most ancient and therefore the most reliable ones, should be divided, according to the formulation of the law, into two groups: the laws of the Holiness Code which speak about giving or passing children (lit. seed) to Moloch (Lev. 18:21; 20:2, 3, 4) and the law in Deuteronomy which speaks of ‘passing [one’s] son or daughter through fire’ (18:10). The author of the Book of Kings, who was influenced ideologically and stylistically by Deuteronomy, speaks about ‘passing [one’s] son and daughter through fire’ (II Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6). II Kings 23:10 speaks about ‘passing [one’s] son or daughter through fire to Moloch,’ which actually constitutes a conflation of the formula in Leviticus with that of Deuteronomy. In all these sources there is no mention of ‘burning’ or ’sacrificing’ (slaughtering) children to Moloch. These latter terms are found, on the other hand, in the prophetic sources: Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; Ezekiel 16:21; 20:31; 23:37, 39; and one may add here Isaiah 57:5; and Psalms 106:37-38. The difference in the presentation of the Moloch worship in the legal-historical and in the prophetic sources is significant. A legislator has to be precise in his formulation and therefore his description is more trustworthy than that of the prophet or preacher who tends to exaggerate. At any rate, the fact that the legal-historical, in contrast to the prophetic poetic, sources do not mention real burning should serve as a warning against a hasty identification of Moloch with human sacrifice.

[5] Weinfeld elsewhere suggests that the cult of Moloch was directed towards a pagan deity, Baal-Hadad (under the title of “king”) which never directly involved sacrificial burning of children. The Anchor Bible Dictionary mentions Weinfeld’s theory in its discourse on Moloch by concluding: “Although many scholars are sympathetic with Weinfeld’s qualms about the historical value of the prophetic and hagiographic references, most concur that he has overstated his case regarding the legal material, especially.”

[6] Weinfeld argues that the verbs (”to give” or “to cause to pass over or through”) in the legal texts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy do not indicate “sacrifice” or “burning,” whereas the editors of the Anchor Bible Dictionary point out that the usage of those same verbs in Num 31:23 certainly do indicate “burning in the fire.” Continuing the argument on whether the children were actually burnt in sacrifice to Moloch, Alfred Edersheim, who believes that Moloch was really just another form of Baal and must be differentiated as well from Molech, Milcom, etc.

[7], writes: “When in 2 Kings we read that he ‘made his son pass through the fire,’ this may be either a technical expression, or it may refer to one of the original ideas or purposes of these sacrifices: that of lustration by fire. And possibly the practice may not always have been the same, and hence the original expression retained. But from the parallel passage in Chronicles there cannot be a doubt that, in this instance, as in those afterwards recorded, the unhappy victim was literally burnt. That those ‘passed through the fire’ were really burnt, appears from a comparison of Jeremiah 32:35 with 7:31, and of Ezekiel 16:21 with 23:37. On the question whether the children were only passed through the fire or burnt in it the Rabbis have expressed different opinions. In Yalkut on Jeremiah 7:31, (ii. p. 61. col. d.) we have a realistic description of the brass figure of Moloch, hollow and filled with fire, with an ox’s head and human arms into which the children were laid. This seems to agree with the account of the Carthagenian rite (Diodor. Sic. 20. 14, see above and below). Into the large literature on the subject this is not the place to enter. To the present writer it has often seemed more learned than clear. For our purpose it is more important to notice that, according to Psalm 106:37, Ezekiel 16:20, the victims seem to have been first slain and then burnt. It would thus be a terrible counterpart of the Old Test. Josephus (Ant. ix. 12, 1) also states that Ahaz had actually burnt his son.”

[8] Moloch identified with the Roman Saturn (the Greek Kronos) (Exo 32:4-5) “And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. {5} And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” “The worship of the golden calf was star worship; it was the solar bull, the constellation Taurus, in which the sun was at the time of the spring equinox, that was thus represented. The golden calf was therefore analogous to the familiar symbol of the Mithraic cult, the bull slain by Mithra … if indeed the latter did not take its origin from this apostasy of Israel.” (”Mithra was originally a Persian deity considered to be the mediator between mankind and Ahura Mazda, god of light. This god overcame evil and brought life, both animal and vegetable, to humankind. Statues of Mithra characteristically show him holding a bull by the nostrils while plunging a knife into its neck. The Romans identified Mithra with the sun god. December 25 was celebrated as his birthday…Since Mithraism belongs to the general category known as Mystery Religions, our knowledge of its specific doctrines and rituals is very limited. Only devotees of the religion were allowed to witness its rituals or have access to its sacred doctrines. Most of our knowledge, therefore, consists of inferences drawn from artifacts and places of worship discovered by archaeologists.”

[9]) “And Moloch the king, the idol of the Ammonites and Phoenicians, was intimately connected both with the solar bull and the planet Saturn. According to the rabbins, his statue was of brass, with a human body but the head of an ox. On the Carthaginian worship of Moloch or Saturn, Diodorus (book xx, chapter i) writes: ‘Among the Carthaginians there was a brazen statue of Saturn putting forth the palms of his hands bending in such a manner toward the earth, as that the boy who was laid upon them, in order to be sacrificed, should slip off, and so fall down headlong into a deep fiery furnace. Hence it is probable that Euripides took what he fabulously relates concerning the sacrifice in Taurus, where he introduces Iphigenia asking Orestes this question: ‘But what sepulchre will me dead receive, shall the gulf of sacred fire me have?’ The ancient fable likewise that is common among all the Grecians, that Saturn devoured his own children, seems to be confirmed by this law among the Carthaginians.’ “The parallelism of the text therefore is very complete. The Israelites professed to be carrying the tabernacle of Yahweh upon which rested the Shekinah glory; but in spirit they were carrying the tabernacle of the cruelest and most malignant of all the deities of the heathen, and the light in which they were rejoicing was the star of the planet assigned to that deity. “Moloch then was the sun as king, and especially the sun as he entered upon what might be considered his peculiar kingdom, the zodiac from Taurus to Serpens and Scorpio, the period of the six summer months. The connection of the sun with Saturn may seem to us somewhat forced, but we have the most direct testimony that such a connection was believed in by the Babylonians. In Thompson’s Reports, obverse of No. 176 reads: ‘When the sun stands in the place of the moon, the king of the land will be secure on his throne. When the sun stands above or below the moon, the foundation of the throne will be secure.’ “The ’sun’ in this inscription clearly cannot be the actual sun, and it is explained on the reverse as being ‘the star of the sun,’ the planet Saturn. No. 176 rev. reads: ‘Last night Saturn drew near to the moon. Saturn is the star of the sun. This is the interpretation: it is lucky for the king. The sun is the king’s star.’ “The connection between the sun and Saturn probably arose from both being taken as symbols of Time. The return of the sun to the beginning of the zodiac marked the completion of the year. Saturn, the slowest moving of all the heavenly bodies, accomplished its revolution through the signs of the zodiac in about 30 years, a complete generation of men. Saturn therefore was in a peculiar sense the symbol of Time [Kronos], and because of Time, of Destiny.”

[10] “The name Kronos, as the classical reader is well aware, is applied to Saturn as the ‘Father of the gods.’”

[11] Tertullian (c. A.D. 160-225)THE APOLOGY Chapter IX. “That I may refute more thoroughly these charges, I will show that in part openly, in part secretly, practices prevail among you which have led you perhaps to credit similar things about us. Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as lately as the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed to public gaze the priests suspended on the sacred trees overshadowing their temple–so many crosses on which the punishment which justice craved overtook their crimes, as the soldiers of our country still can testify who did that very work for that proconsul. And even now that sacred crime still continues to be done in secret. It is not only Christians, you see, who despise you; for all that you do there is neither any crime thoroughly and abidingly eradicated, nor does any of your gods reform his ways. When Saturn did not spare his own children, he was not likely to spare the children of others; whom indeed the very parents themselves were in the habit of offering, gladly responding to the call which was made on them, and keeping the little ones pleased on the occasion, that they might not die in tears.” Moloch identified with Nimrod, Kronos and the Great Red Dragon From The Two Babylons: “It will be observed, however, that the Great Red Dragon, or Great Fiery Serpent, is represented as standing before the Woman with the crown of twelve stars, that is, the true Church of God, ‘To devour her child as soon as it should be born.’ Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod, as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child- devourer. Though, at his first deification, he was set up himself as Ninus, or the child, yet, as the first of mankind that was deified, he was, of course, the actual father of all the Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards universally regarded. “As the Father of the gods, he was, as we have seen, called Kronos; and every one knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, he devoured his sons as soon as they were born.’ Such is the analogy between type and antitype. This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or ‘The Horned One,’ it just refers to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. ‘The Phenicians,’ says Eusebius, ‘every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn, and the Rhodians also often did the same.’ Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians, on one occasion, when besieged by the Sicilians, and sore pressed, in order to rectify, as they supposed, their error in having somewhat departed from the ancient custom of Carthage, in this respect, hastily ‘chose out two hundred of the noblest of their children, and publicly sacrificed them’ to this god. There is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our own land in the times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made ‘their children pass through the fire to Moloch,’ and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah 32:35, compared with Jeremiah 19:5, we find that these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited passage proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When ‘the fruit of the body’ was thus offered, it was ‘for the sin of the soul.’ And it was a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering (Num 18:9,10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that ‘Cahna-Bal,’ the ‘Priest of Baal,’ is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer of human flesh.”

[12] Traces of Moloch… in Festivals “‘On that great festival of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,’ says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a particular festival which she had witnessed, ‘it is the custom, at sunset on that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ ‘Here,’ adds the authoress, ‘was the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.’”

[13] Traces of Moloch… in the Holocaust “…the word ‘holocaust,’ comes from a third century Greek word ‘Holokaustos,’ referring to ‘the burnt sacrificial offering of the Jews dedicated exclusively to God.’ The Holocaust was Hitler’s fiery offering of human sacrifice to Satan, just as in the days of the heathen Amorite god, Moloch. The bloodlust of the coming Anti-christ will continue in the tradition set by Hitler making Hitler’s incredible hate seem moderate in comparison.”

[14] Traces of Moloch… in modern society “In the ancient rite, the child was sacrificed in the hopes that Molech would bless the family with a good harvest, victory in battle, or financial gain. In the modern ‘rite’ of abortion, women sacrifice their children for their careers, social acceptability, or selfish personal needs.”

[16] As was previously noted, Moloch is identified with the Roman Saturn and his Greek equivalent Kronos: “Levine calls Saturn ‘the star of final authority,’ a title which has in it the element of time and the end of an age.”
References 1. The New Unger’s Talking Bible Dictionary, Parson’s Technology, (c)1998 2. “Moloch,” 3. Ibid. 4. Holman Bible Dictionary, Holman Bible Publishers, (c)1991. 5. “Cult of Moloch,” The Encyclopedia Judaica, CD-Rom Version, Judaica Multimedia, (c)1997. 6. “Moloch,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4, p 896. 7. “Milcom, Malcom, or Molech, was the principal deity of the Ammonites, but must be distinguished from Moloch, whose terrible rites were only introduced at a later period (2 Kings 16:3).” Edersheim, Alfred, Bible History, Old Testament, Chapter 9, 8. Edersheim, Alfred. Bible History, Old Testament, Vol. VII, Chapter 7; 9. Holman Bible Dictionary, Holman Bible Publishers, (c)1991. 10. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Parson’s Technology, electronic edition, (c)1998 11. The Two Babylons, “The Child in Assyria,” . 12. Hislop, Alexander, The Two Babylons, 13. The Two Babylons, “The Nativity of St. John,” . 14. Watch Unto Prayer Website, .; quoting Bob Rosio, Hitler & The New Age, Huntington House, 1993, p. 50. 15. “Abortion and the Bible,” Jack R. Voltz, http://www.ovnet.com/~voltz/prolife/bible.htm 16. “Cosmic Christmas,” Watch Unto Prayer website,., quoting Rick Levine, The Gift Of The Magi: Christmas For A New Millennium, Spellbound books, 1997, pp. 3-5, 7, 11-13. 17. Ibid.

In the preceding article is small piece about the Mithra religion as practiced by the Romans. Read the following article please.

Mithra
First appears as an Aryan sun-god in Sanskrit and Persian literature circa 1400 BCE. The cult was introduced into the Roman empire in the 1st century BCE.?Mithra was:?· born of a virgin in a stable on the winter solstice–frequently December 25 in the Julian calendar (the emperor Aurelian declared December 25 to be the official birthday of Mithra, circa 270 CE)–attended by shepherds who brought gifts;?· worshiped on Sundays;?· shown with a nimbus, or halo, around his head;?· said to take a last supper with his followers when he returned to his father;?· believed not to have died, but to have ascended to heaven, whence it was believed he would return at the end of time to raise the dead in a physical resurrection for a final judgement, sending the good to heaven and the wicked to hell, after the world had been destroyed by fire;?· to grant his followers immortal life following baptism.?Followers of Mithra:?· followed a leader called a ‘papa’ (pope), who ruled from the Vatican hill in Rome;?· celebrated the atoning death of a savior who has resurrected on a Sunday;?· celebrated sacramenta (a consecrated meal of bread and wine), termed a Myazda (corresponding exactly to the Catholic Missa (mass), using chanting, bells, candles, incense, and holy water, in remembrance of the last supper of Mithra).

The emperor Constantine was a follower of Mithra until he declared December 25 the official birthday of Jesus in 313 CE and adopted the cult of Christianity as the state religion.?Basic sources for the study of Mithraism:?Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (1903)?M. J. Vermaseren, Mithras, the Secret God (1963)?David Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries (1989)
Copyright © Atheist Community of Austin 1997-1998. All rights reserved?http://atheist-community.org/mithra.htm

And from Cosmic Christmas Birth of the Sun-god we read the following
In the various pagan religions of remote antiquity, December was the celebration of the Winter Solstice. Alexander Hislop disclosed the true meaning of the festival of the Winter Solstice in his classic work, The Two Babylons:

“This festival has been commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is indubitable evidence that the festival in question had a much higher influence than this–that it commemorated not merely the figurative birthday of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day of the grand Deliverer…the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity.”

1.?The Sun-god Osiris and his consort, Isis, together with Re-Atum, the “Father of the Gods,” were regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the supreme rulers of a Golden Age of plenty called Zep Tepi or the “First Time.” Their kingdom ended abruptly when Osiris was murdered by his evil brother, Seth or Typhon. The childless Isis searched for the dismembered body of Osiris, which she then reassembled and resuscitated long enough to conceive a son named Horus. Horus was believed to be the reincarnation of Osiris, and the new husband of Isis, whose destiny it was to repossess the Kingdom of Osiris from the control of Seth.?The myth of Horus is, of course, a perversion of the Genesis account of God’s judgment of Nimrod and the Babylonian religious system from which Egyptian mystery religions derived. This fable, which forms the basis of Freemasonry and other occult belief systems, is currently experiencing a revival through entertainment, literature, education, and religious traditions. Today, the theme of Horus may be found as the basis of the popular Hollywood production, Lion King. Through many points of entry, the pagan alternative to Jesus Christ is subtly being introduced to the world, and also to the Church, as mankind is subconsciously undergoing preparation for a universal return to the ancient practice of Sun worship.?In The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop noted the purity of the early church as regards the adoption of pagan traditions prior to the Roman Catholic apostasy:?“…within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and…not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it the name of Christ.”

2.?In pagan Rome, the celebration of the Winter Solstice began on December 17 with the feast of Saturn — also called the Saturnalia. Through December 23rd, the Roman world engaged in merrymaking and the exchanging of gifts in honor of Saturn, the god of sowing and husbandry and, according to a Rosicrucian source, to commemorate a future Golden Age of Saturn:?“Here is the general reformation of the world announced in the Rosicrucian manifestos described as a world reformation… Whilst involving definite reforms in education, church, and law, this general reformation has millenarian overtones; it will bring the world back to the state in which Adam found it, which was also Saturn’s golden age. So, in the Confessio, the second Rosicrucian manifesto, the general reformation is said to presage ‘a great influx of truth and light’ such as surrounded Adam in Paradise, and which God will allow before the end of the world…this millennium, this return to the golden age of Adam and Saturn, is said to be assisted by ‘the high society of the Rosicrucians.’”

3.?Following the Roman commemoration of the Golden Age of Saturn began the celebration of the birthday of the Grand Deliverer, who was known as Mithra in Rome, Horus in Egypt, Tammuz in Babylon and various appellations in other ancient mythologies:?“In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ‘about the time of the winter solstice.’ The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves – Yule day – proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. ‘Yule’ is the Chaldee name for an ‘infant’ or ‘little child’ and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, ‘Yule-day,’ or the ‘Child’s day,’ and the night which preceded it, ‘Mother-night,’ long before they came into contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. Far and wide in the realms of paganism was this birth-day observed.”

4.?Not only were the Sun-God and his mother universally worshipped at this time, but common customs symbolizing his reincarnation were derived from the very prophecies that applied to Jesus Christ:?“The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt it was the palm tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognized as ‘Man the Branch.’ And this entirely accounts for putting the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas Eve and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, ‘The seed of the woman,’ …he has to enter the fire on ‘Mother night,’ that he may be born the next day out of it, as the ‘Branch of God,’ or the Tree that brings divine gifts to men.”

5.?The tradition of the Christmas tree symbolically portrayed the death and reincarnation of Osiris in his son, Horus:?“…the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god (after that god had been cut in pieces…on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers.) Now the great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a huge tree, stripped of all his branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great Serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself around the dead stock…and lo, at its side sprouts a young tree – a tree of an entirely different kind, that is never to be cut down by a hostile power -…and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, how that after having fallen before his enemies, he has risen triumphant over them all. Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed in Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth was held at the Natalis invicti solis, ‘The birthday of the unconquered Sun.”

6.?The feast of Christmas is, in allegorical form, the pagan celebration of the Serpent’s eventual triumph over the very God who cut down the tower of Babel (symbolized by a tree). By reviving and restoring the mystery religions as they were practiced in ancient cultures, Horus became the Egyptian savior and virtual counterpart of Jesus Christ. In her Theosophical Glossary, H.P. Blavatsky thus describes Horus:?“Horus (Eg.). The last in the line of divine Sovereigns in Egypt, said to be the son of Osiris and Isis. He is the great god ‘loved of Heaven,’ the ‘’beloved of the Sun, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator of the world.’ At the time of the Winter Solstice (our Christmas), his image in the form of a small newly-born infant, was brought out from the sanctuary for the adoration of the worshipping crowds…”
7.?In the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine assigned December 25, the birthday of the Roman Sun-God Mithra, to Jesus Christ, thereby placing the true Savior among the pantheon of Roman gods. Drawing Christians into the pagan celebrations of Rome procured the religious unity needed for the success of the Holy Roman Empire, which dominated the world for 1200 years. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformers discontinued the celebration of Christmas by reason of its pagan character. The Puritans who controlled the English Parliament in 1644 declared that no observation of Christmas was permitted, calling it “The Profane Man’s Ranting Day.” C. H. Spurgeon proclaimed as late as 1871: “We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly, we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas.” In 1983, USA Today recalled the Protestant scorn for Christmas:?“A broad element of English Christianity still considered Christmas celebration a pagan blasphemy. The Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Calvinists and other denominations brought this opposition to early New England and strong opposition to the holiday lasted in America until the middle of the 18th century.”

8.?It was inevitable, however, that the nineteenth century social and spiritual revolutions in England and America would eventuate in a mass departure from Puritanism. The author of Man, Myth And Magic jubilantly records the modern return to pagan tradition:?“In Britain…social conditions were laying the foundations for a glorious revival of the Christmas spirit, as a reaction to the wretchedness and drab poverty that was a byproduct of the Victorian age…As early as 1841, Punch [a British periodical] suggested that the Christmas season should be a time for helping the poor and hungry, a sentiment that was given tremendous impetus by Charles Dickens in his Christmas Carol two years later.”

9.?In America, founding members of the New York Historical Society revived the Christmas tradition in the early 1800s and in 1836 the state of Alabama declared it a legal holiday. No doubt many of a Puritan mindset who strove to stem the tide of apostasy recalled the words of Tertullian, who lamented the identical compromise of Christians as early as 230 B.C.?“By us…who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”

10.?In his book, Too Long In The Sun, Richard Rives draws an appropriate parallel to the circumstances in Exodus 32, a Biblical precedent which provoked God nearly to the point of destroying the nation of Israel for their sin of blending pagan worship with His own:?“…the golden calf was built and the celebration declared a ‘feast to the Lord.’…The people had declared a celebration to honor God that he did not recognize as being in his honor.”

11.?Rives’ assertion is validated by evidence that the golden calf was an Egyptian idol of sun-worship, Hat-hor being the womb of Isis, the mother/wife of Horus:?“Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of Egypt, were representatives of sun worship. Their worship was just one stage in the long Egyptian history of solar veneration. The golden calf at Mount Sinai is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the feast proclaimed was related to sun worship. The event at Mount Sinai was just one episode in the Satanic apostasy which began at the tower of Babel. The celebration of December 25th, originally proclaimed in honor of the birth of the sun god Mithra, can only be one of the final events in the long continuing saga of Satanic sun worship.”
12.?This identical form of worship is found among God’s people again in I Kings 12, which records the Israel’s apostasy under the reign of Jeroboam, who devised a feast “like unto” the true feast in Judah:?26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: If this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.?27 Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.?28 And he set one in Bethel, and the other in Dan.?29 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan…?32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.?33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.”?The Matthew Henry Commentary notes the good intentions which attended Jeroboam’s compromise:?“Thus Jeroboam made Israel to sin, and introduced idolatry, which continued in the kingdom of Israel till the Assyrian captivity. Though it is probable he meant this worship for Jehovah the God of Israel, it was directly contrary to the Divine law, and dishonorable to the Divine majesty, to be thus represented. the people might be less shocked at worshipping the God of Israel under a similitude, than if they had once been invited to worship Baal, but it made way for that idolatry.”

13.?History demonstrates that the point of departure for every major apostasy in Israel and Christendom was subtly commingling worship of the true God with worship of the Sun-god. The return of the Israelites to sun-worship in the wilderness was indicative of an inward return to Egypt which led to their eventual judgment. The establishment of sun-worship by King Jeroboam marked the division of the kingdom and the beginning of Israel’s apostasy, which culminated in the Assyrian captivity.?Likewise, the 4th century compromise of Christianity with the pagan religions of Rome coincides with the institution of the feast of Christmas. Finally, the 19th century departure from the Puritan faith leading to the present apostasy occurred around the time of the re-establishment of Christmas as a Christian holiday. The clear testimony of history makes it difficult to resist the suspicion that the kick-off for Bimillennial celebrations in 1999 is, for reasons occult and conspiratorial, scheduled for the season of Christmas — the birth of the Sun-god.?From Cosmic Christmas Birth of the Sun-god?Http://watch.pair.com//cosmic.html
And from the Origins of Christmas and Easter by the Christian Churches of God at WWW.LOGON.ORG article # 235 I quote the following

The Sun god?25 December was also associated with Mithras, as he was Sun god.?The Catholic liturgist Mario Righetti (in addition to Duchesne and also Cullman) held that:?After the peace of the Church of Rome, to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the temporal birth of Christ, to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honour of the “Invincible Sun” Mithras, the conqueror of darkness (fn 74, II, p. 67 quote also in Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday, Pontifical Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1977, p. 260).?Thus, Mithras was the god of the festival of the solstice on 25 December which followed immediately on from the Saturnalia. With this deity, we see Sunday worship emerge in Rome.?The dedications to Mithra was as Soli invicto Mithrae or the Invincible Sun – the Unconquered Sun as Frazer terms it (p. 304). It was also related to him as Sol Invictus Elagabal in the public form of the religion.?The term Father was a rank held by the priests of Mithra. The term is forbidden to Christians (Mat. 23:9). It entered Christianity with the Mystery cults.
The gospels say nothing as to the day of Christ’s birth and the early Church did not celebrate it.?The custom of celebrating Christ’s birth began in Egypt, being derived from the Mother goddess cult there, and the Christians there celebrated it on 6 January. By the fourth century it had become generally established in the East (Frazer, v, p. 304). The western church had never recognised 6 January as the true date and, in time, its decision was accepted by the eastern church. At Antioch this change was not introduced until about 375 CE (Frazer, ibid.).?The origin of the practice is plainly recorded by the Syrian Christians as we see from Frazer quoting also Credner and Momsen and also Usener (v, pp. 304-305).?The reason why the fathers transferred the celebration of the sixth of January to the twenty fifth of December was this. It was a custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on the sixth of January. Accordingly, along with this custom, the practice has prevailed of kindling fires till the sixth.?Thus, the Saturnalia led up to the solstice when presents were given to children from 23 December or now Christmas eve on 24 December in the Gregorian calendar. The rites of the solstice then took over from the original Saturnalia but the period then became lengthened from three to seven days to which was added the twelve days.?When we count five days from 25 December we come to 31 December from which some of the Celts and Germans begin the count. The addition of St Stephen’s Day (or Boxing Day) brings the five day period from 27 December in line to 1 January.?The pagan origin of Christmas is also evident in Augustine when he exhorts his brethren not to celebrate this solemn day like the heathen on account of the Sun but on account of him who made the Sun (Augustine Serm., cxc, 1; in Migne Patriologia Latina, xxxviii, 1007). Leo called the Great likewise rebuked the pestilent belief that Christmas was solemnised because of the birth of the new Sun, and not because of the nativity of Christ (Frazer, ibid.; cf. Leo the Great Serm., xxii (al xxi) 6 and Migne, liv, 198).?However, by then, it was a hopeless cause. The entire system was endemic to Christianity and the Mother goddess cult was entrenched.?Frazer says:?Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the twenty-fifth of December in order to transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called the Sun of Righteousness (p. 305).

Epilogue?In this way, the faith of Messiah was subverted by worldly secular priests who accommodated the faith to the religions of ancient Rome and the Sun-worshipping Mystery cults. This perversion of the faith started with the basic festivals which replaced the festivals of the Bible with those of the Sun-worshippers. They introduced Christmas and Easter and then Sunday worship which replaced the fourth commandment regarding the Sabbath. They invented the myth of the perpetual virginity of a woman they called Mary, rather than Mariam, to disguise the fact that they had murdered her sons and their descendants, the brothers and nephews of the Messiah of the World, the Son of God who came to teach them the truth and save them from themselves (see the paper The Virgin Mariam and the Family of Jesus Christ (No. 232) The Christmas symbolism involves this Virgin bringing forth an infant from a cave year after year as the eternal Sun comes forth in its infancy at the solstice.?The symbolism conveyed by the true feasts of God contained in the Bible is deliberately obscured so that no growth in the faith and in the knowledge of the one true God is possible.?The ignorant teach their children lies in the misguided belief that somehow that will make them happy. The society reduces its people to idolaters on the basis of commercialism and greed following practices steeped in paganism and false religious practice. Keeping Christmas and Easter is a direct involvement in the Sun-worshipping and Mystery cults and is a direct breach of the first and fourth commandments among others.?Christ called them hypocrites and quoted God speaking through the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 29:13):?This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men (Mat. 15:8-9; Mk. 7:6-7).?God has given His laws through His servants the prophets. Soon, the Messiah will return to enforce those laws and that system.

Christian Churches of God?PO Box 369 Woden, ACT 2606 Australia?PO Box 45 Rockton Ontario LOR 1XO Canada?E-mail: secretary@ccg.org
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That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.

This religion which started with Nimrod is still here today. And so that the reader understands. Nimrod was killed by Shem for going against Yahweh. And his body torn apart and sent to the rest of Nimrods followers as a warning. Semaramis, Nimrods wife fled for her life and then some how became pregnant and gave birth to Horus Who was born Dec. 25. Horus was the reincarnated Nimrod and grew up to marry his own mother. And because Semaramis was a virgin [remember she was married to Nimrod a sex maniac] the reader can see many similarities with today’s christmas story .

It is no wonder that many today say they know about christmas, and it’s traditions, but “It’s for the children” and little wonder why that is, after all they were the objects of Molochs sacrifices.
And strange how Stephen was martyred for speaking up against this worship of Moloch that Judah was keeping at that time, and now he is the patron Saint for boxing day.

(Also take note- cannibals -preist of baal, Meat offered to sacrifices, was the children)
Duet 12:29-32 ……do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘ How did these nations serve their gods?- that I also may do likewise.’ (31) You shall not do so to the Lord you God; for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. (32) Everything that I command you , you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from it.

BAAL WORSHIP-AMONG THE ISRAELITES?Nothing could be more fatal to a spiritual faith than this sensual religion. In fact, no sooner than the Israelites, coming forth from the wilderness, been brought into contact with the Baal-worshippers, than they were, through the guile of the Madianites, and the attractions of the licentious worship offered to the Moabitish deity (probably Chamos), easily seduced from their allegiance to Yahweh (Num., xxv, 1-9). Henceforth the name of Beelphegor remained like a dark spot on the early history of Israel {Os., ix, 10; Ps. ev (In the Hebr. cvi), 28}. The terrible punishment inflicted upon the guilty sobered for awhile the minds of the Hebrews. How long the impression lasted we are hardly able to tell; but this we know, that when they had settled in the Promised Land, the Israelites, again forsaking the law, paid their homage to the deities of their Chanaanite neighours (Judges, ii, 11, 13 etc.). Even the best families could not, or did not dare, resist the seduction, Gedon’s father, for instant, albeit his faith in his Baal seems to have been somewhat lukewarm (Judges, vi, 31), had erected an idolatrous altar in Ephra (Judges, vi, 25). “And the Lord, being angry against Israel, delivered them into the hands of their enemies that dwelt round about.” Mesopotamians, Madianites, Amalecites, Ammonites, and, above all, Philistines.

In Noah’s and Abraham’s and Moses day , Solomon’s, Elijah’s, Jeremiah’s, Christ’s and Stephen’s Day until this very day in 2002 the worship of Nimrod has taken place in various forms under various deceptive names.

The worship of Molech, which our society does by keeping Christmas and the worship of Ashteroth, which our society does by keeping Easter are no where found in the scriptures to be Holy Convocations. They are found to be abhorid by Yahweh. He has given us Holy Days to keep as found in Leveticus 23. Now that you know the truth about the origens of the pagan practices being kept all around you, what will you do? Will you worship Yahweh and obey Him, or continue to blindly follow the decieved of the world?

Triennial Torah Cycle

We continue this weekend with our regular Triennial Torah Reading

Num 30       Micah 4-7       Eccl 11-12        1 Cor. 11

Vows Are to Be Kept (Numbers 30)

Vows and sworn oaths were not to be entered into lightly. They were to be kept. But there were certain circumstances in which they could be overruled. In ancient Israel, an unmarried woman was under the protection and supervision of her father. If she entered into some agreement or vow, this might have put her father, the one responsible for her, under an obligation that he was either unable or unwilling to fulfill. So it was up to him whether or not to overrule her or allow her vow to stand. The same law applied to married women, except that the one who decided whether or not to allow the agreement to stand was, of course, the husband. If the wife was already bound by some prior vow at the time of marriage, her new husband had the opportunity to overrule it as soon as he became aware of it. But if he let it stand beyond that, it would remain in force. In the case of a widow or divorced woman, her vow would automatically stand as it could not obligate a husband or father.

In the New Testament dispensation we make a vow or covenant with Christ. The Father calls and grants us repentance and faith. We agree to bury the old man of sin. God gives us His Spirit and we are no longer our own. Ours is an eternal vow or covenant. And, just as in the Old Testament, it is not to be entered into by the immature. Just the same, marriage is a solemn vow made to God and spouse. But as for swearing oaths in general, Christ has instructed that we not do so (Matthew 5:33-37). Rather, just giving our word should be enough and should serve just as well.

Micah 4-7

The Reign of the Messiah; Judgment on Israel’s Enemies (Micah 4-5)

It is not clear when the rest of the prophecies of Micah were delivered. It is possible that chapters 4-7 were delivered before or during Sennacherib’s invasion. However, there is reason to believe they were given later, as we’ll see. We do know from Micah 1:1 that they were given prior to Hezekiah’s death—but this did not come until 15 years after Sennacherib’s invasion. Therefore, we have a fairly broad time span here.

Micah 4 begins with essentially the same words recorded in Isaiah 2:1-4 about Christ’s millennial reign to come in the last days. But Micah adds some other important details.

First of all, he adds that “everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4). This shows that everyone will have personal property and be able to enjoy the fruit of their own labor. It also shows that there will be no reason to fear crime or assault. For, as God says in Isaiah 11:9, people will not be permitted to harm each other in the world under Christ’s reign. Indeed, as more and more people are converted to God’s ways, fewer and fewer will even seek the harm of others—until it becomes a rarity. Indeed, the peace and harmony that will prevail is presented in Zechariah 3:10, where we are told that “everyone will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree.” This tells us that while we are to enjoy our property and the fruit of our labors, these blessings are also to be shared with others.

Micah goes on to say that this time of peace and great blessing will begin with a regathering of God’s afflicted people and a restoration of Israel’s former dominion (Micah 4:6-8).

Verses 9-10, while perhaps referring to Judah’s anguish at the time of Sennacherib’s invasion in 701 B.C., could well refer to a later time. As already mentioned, the next year following the invasion, in 700, Sennacherib actually managed to regather his strength and put down Merodach-Baladan of Babylon once and for all—with Sennacherib placing his son on Babylon’s throne. This could have caused cries of anguish from the Jews. In 695, however, Sennacherib attempted a naval invasion of Elam, which failed. The Elamites attacked Assyrian-controlled Babylon and took Sennacherib’s son prisoner. Babylon was thus returned to native Chaldean rule. A major battle between Assyria and the Elamites in 692 ended in a stalemate. But in 689, Sennacherib sacked the city of Babylon, reasserting Assyrian rule over the area. This may have greatly upset the Jews, who perhaps still pinned their hopes on Babylon to overthrow the Assyrians.

Look again at verses 9-10 from this perspective. God basically says to the people of Jerusalem: What are you crying about? You’ve still got your king and leaders. So why do you act like you’re in agony? Well, guess what? You are going to be in agony. You’re going to be taken away by the very ones in whom you’ve hoped—the Babylonians—to Babylon. But God promises to deliver them from there. While this probably referred to the ancient Babylonian captivity of Judah, it seems also to refer to the end time, considering verses 11-13. In these verses, it appears that Judah is used to beat down nations that come against Jerusalem. This could be a reference to the Israelis’ military power since the state of Israel was formed. However, it seems more likely to refer to Judah’s participation in battle in events surrounding Christ’s return (see Zechariah 12:6; 14:14).

Then again, “daughter of Zion” in verse 13 could perhaps be taken spiritually—as a reference to the glorified Church of God at Christ’s return. “I will make your horn [i.e., might] iron” and “You shall beat in pieces many peoples” (verse 13) could tie in with Christ’s promise to the Church: “And he who overcomes and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—’He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels'” (Revelation 2:26-27).

Micah 5:1 has been interpreted in various ways. It is not clear if the “daughter of troops” refers to the Jews or the invaders. The “He” who lays siege appears to be the Lord (compare 4:13), though that is not certain. The striking of the judge of Israel has been seen by some as the treatment of Zedekiah at Jerusalem’s overthrow by the Babylonians. However, others see it as a reference to the striking of the supreme Judge of Israel, Jesus Christ, by His enemies (compare Mark 15:19). In the end, Christ will triumph.

Verse 2 of Micah 5 refers to Bethlehem Ephrathah. Ephrath was the ancient name of Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19). The verse refers, of course, to the birth of Jesus in that town (see Matthew 2:4-6; John 7:42). Interestingly, Bethlehem means “House of Bread,” and Jesus would come as the true bread of life on which we must be sustained to have eternal life (see John 6). It should be pointed out that this verse states that Jesus is “from everlasting”—that is, eternity past, meaning He is without beginning (compare Hebrews 7:3; see our booklet Who Is God?).

Verse 3 of Micah 5 says that Jesus will give up the Jews “until the time that she who is in labor has given birth.” Together with verses 4 and 5, it seems clear that this is not a reference to Judah giving birth to the Messiah—since Judah was still given up to enemies at that time and even after. Rather, she who is in labor is likely the spiritual Zion, who gives birth to a “nation born at once” (compare Isaiah 66:8)—that is, the glorification of those of God’s Church (His spiritual nation) at Christ’s return.

Consider, then, the remainder of Micah 5:3: “Then the remnant of His brethren [or, more likely, the remnant of Israel who are His brethren] shall return to the children of Israel. “Jesus’ brethren—the members of God’s Church—are the remnant of Israel, the elect according to grace (see Romans 11:5). The glorified members of the Church will be caught up to meet Jesus in the air. Afterward, Jesus and His brethren “shall return to the children of Israel”—that is, to lead and govern the returning Israelite exiles. Jesus then feeds His flock, not as He came the first time, in the flesh, but in divine power and majesty—bringing truth and peace to the ends of the earth (Micah 5:4-5).

The time designated as “when the Assyrian comes into our land” (verse 5) is not clear. It seems to be an end time prophecy. Perhaps the seven shepherds and eight princes refer to leaders of a Jewish or Israelite resistance of the last days—who help other forces bring about the destruction of Europe just prior to Christ’s return. It is also possible that this is a reference to events that have already occurred in our time—the utter devastation of Germany in World War II—that is, if verses 5-6 correspond to the time of verses 7-9.

Verses 7-9 refer to the great military strength of Jacob (the nations of modern Israel) in the end time. This appears to refer primarily to British and American military strength in its heyday. This period of strength is seen coming before Jacob’s military power is at last cut off during the coming Great Tribulation (compare verses 10-14). In that awful tribulation, which is yet to come, Israel’s cities will be destroyed (verse 14; compare Ezekiel 6:6). But in the end, God will execute vengeance on the nations (Micah 5:15).

God’s Complaint Against Israel; Future Pardon (Micah 6-7)

Chapters 6 and 7 appear to be directed primarily to Israel rather than Judah—although this could have included Judah. It is not clear when this prophecy was delivered. Based on the time span of Micah’s ministry (see Micah 1:1), it is possible that it was actually given prior to Israel’s first deportation or second deportation—and yet appended to the end of his book. However, it is also possible that it was given late in Hezekiah’s reign. If the latter is true, the message would seem almost exclusively for the end time, since Israel would have already gone into captivity (yet with perhaps some application to ancient Judah, as mentioned). Of course, even if the prophecy was given before Israel’s captivity, it would still clearly apply to the end time as well, based on the details in the latter half of chapter 7.

Chapter 6 “is in the familiar form of a lawsuit which God brings against Israel” (Lawrence Richards, The Bible Reader’s Companion, note on chap. 6). God calls the “mountains” and “hills” as witnesses (verses 1-2). While perhaps a literal reference to the land, which existed when the covenant with Israel was first made, it is just as likely that “mountains” and “hills” refers to great nations and smaller nations, as is often the case in biblical prophecy.

Actually, God makes the point that the Israelites act as if they have a case against Him. But He is clearly innocent of all charges. Just the opposite, God has repeatedly worked to save and help Israel. As an example, Balaam caused much grief to the Israelites by leading them into idolatry—but when used by Balak in an attempt to curse Israel, Balaam uttered many blessings and demonstrated God’s love and protection for His people (verse 5; Numbers 22:2-24:25).

Micah 6:6-8 offers one of the clearest statements of a theme scattered throughout many other places in the Old Testament, as well as the New, which places the sacrificial system in its proper perspective (see 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalm 51:16-17; Hosea 6:6). God did not want sacrifices just for the sake of sacrifices. And He certainly did not want the abhorrent sacrifice of children at all—though many societies of that day thought this a legitimate sacrifice, including, at times, the Israelites.

God’s real goal for mankind was and is to produce righteous character. God defines true goodness, which is what He says here that He really requires of us. It is, first of all, to “do justly”—that is, to live righteously (according to God’s commandments, Psalm 119:172) and to judge and deal fairly. It also includes loving mercy—having a thankful heart for God’s mercy and a compassionate heart that shows mercy to others, expressing itself in a willingness to help others in need. And finally, it means to walk humbly with God, trusting Him for guidance and direction. Christ called these things the “weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). Justice corresponds to living justly and judging with righteous judgment. And walking humbly with God is synonymous with walking by faith—humble and trusting, as a little child.

Micah 6:16 refers to the wickedness of Omri and especially his son Ahab, who were the first kings of Israel to bring Baal worship into prominence. Of Omri the Bible states, “Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:25). He founded the city of Samaria (1 Kings 16:24), which was virtually synonymous with idolatry. Israel is shown to be following Omri and Ahab’s evil ways. Again, this could refer to ancient Israel. But it also applies to the nations of modern Israel, as widespread false Christianity is really a modified form of ancient Baal worship. The name Baal means “Lord.” Many today worship a “Lord” they believe to be the true God—yet they are sadly deceived.

As Micah 7 opens, Micah is dismayed at the lack of righteous fruit in the society. In verse 3, he mentions a corrupt prince. This seems to be part of an end-time prophecy, and perhaps just means that all of Israel’s leaders in the last days are corrupt. However, if this prophecy were given late in Hezekiah’s reign, it could perhaps have applied to Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh—who would eventually prove to be Judah’s most wicked ruler. Manasseh was coregent with Hezekiah in Judah from around 697-686 B.C.—just over a decade.

Regarding verses 5-6, Christ actually explained the meaning. Jesus often quoted the prophets when preaching—the very ones He originally inspired. And such was the case when He stated that He came not to bring peace, but a sword—referring to the fact that those who chose His way would often be greatly opposed and even betrayed by close friends and family members. He quoted Micah 7:6 in this context (see Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 12:49-53).

Verses 7-9 of Micah 7 should be of great comfort to us. Micah appears to be describing his own predicament and hope—but the same kinds of situations affect every Christian. Moreover, his words express the hope of Israel as well. Often God will allow us to experience consequences because of our sins. But upon our repentance He does forgive us—and He will ultimately save us. “She who is my enemy” (verse 10) is probably a reference to the false Christianity that has prevailed since the second century and is to dominate the world in the end time—referred to in Revelation 17 as “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.” She—that is, this evil system—will ultimately be destroyed, God promises. Of course, a forerunner of this system existed in Micah’s own day even in Israel and Judah—as Canaanite paganism, rooted in Babylon, was in many aspects nefariously blended with God’s true form of worship.

In Micah 7:12, “From Assyria and the fortified cities, from the fortress to the River” could perhaps be translated “From Assyria and the cities of Egypt, from Egypt to the River [Euphrates]” (see NKJV margin). This would parallel other verses that show the Israelites of the end time returning from both Assyria and Egypt in a great second Exodus (e.g., Isaiah 11:11). The territory of the northern kingdom will again be inhabited by the Israelites (Micah 7:14).

The second Exodus will be accompanied by great miracles, as the original Exodus was (verse 15). All nations will see and fear (verses 16-17). But the greatest testimony of the events is the measureless mercy of God—who will pardon Israel’s sins upon their repentance despite all the injustice and evil they have committed against Him (verses 18-20).

This evokes the remark of “Who is a God like You…?” in verse 18, similar to the words in Exodus 15:11, “Who is like You, O Eternal…?”—which were part of the song that the Israelites sang to God when He delivered them from Pharaoh at the Red Sea. The statement in Micah provides an interesting play on words because the name Micah means, “Who Is Like the Eternal?” Micah himself stood in awe of the incredible mercy of God.

Interestingly, the Jews have a traditional practice called Tashlich, meaning, “You will cast,” taken from the Hebrew words of Micah 7:19. For most this is done on the Feast of Trumpets, although some do it on the Day of Atonement, which seems more fitting. It involves throwing lint and bread crumbs from one’s pocket—or casting a stone—into a body of water. The concept is that in the same way, God will cast their sins away. Amazingly, it is in the ultimate fulfillment of the fall Holy Days that most of the Jewish people will at last find the redemption these customs portray.

But for all those whom God is calling in this age, redemption is available now. Consider the imagery of a stone sinking to the bottom of the ocean—never to be seen or heard from again. This is what God says is done with our sins. How grateful we should all be for His unbounded grace and mercy. What a truly wonderful God we serve.

Ecclesiastes 11-12

Solomon presses the rich to do good to others. Give freely, though it may seem thrown away and lost. Give to many. Excuse not thyself with the good thou hast done, from the good thou hast further to do. It is not lost, but well laid out. We have reason to expect evil, for we are born to trouble; it is wisdom to do good in the day of prosperity. Riches cannot profit us, if we do not benefit others. Every man must labour to be a blessing to that place where the providence of God casts him. Wherever we are, we may find good work to do, if we have but hearts to do it. If we magnify every little difficulty, start objections, and fancy hardships, we shall never go on, much less go through with our work. Winds and clouds of tribulation are, in God’s hands, designed to try us. God’s work shall agree with his word, whether we see it or not. And we may well trust God to provide for us, without our anxious, disquieting cares. Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season, in God’s time, you shall reap, Galatians 6:9.

Life is sweet to bad men, because they have their portion in this life; it is sweet to good men, because it is the time of preparation for a better; it is sweet to all. Here is a caution to think of death, even when life is most sweet. Solomon makes an effecting address to young persons. They would desire opportunity to pursue every pleasure. Then follow your desires, but be assured that God will call you into judgment. How many give loose to every appetite, and rush into every vicious pleasure!

But God registers every one of their sinful thoughts and desires, their idle words and wicked words. If they would avoid remorse and terror, if they would have hope and comfort on a dying bed, if they would escape misery here and hereafter, let them remember the vanity of youthful pleasures. That Solomon means to condemn the pleasures of sin is evident. His object is to draw the young to purer and more lasting joys. This is not the language of one grudging youthful pleasures, because he can no longer partake of them; but of one who has, by a miracle of mercy, been brought back in safety. He would persuade the young from trying a course whence so few return. If the young would live a life of true happiness, if they would secure happiness hereafter, let them remember their Creator in the days of their youth.

We should remember our sins against our Creator, repent, and seek forgiveness. We should remember our duties, and set about them, looking to him for grace and strength. This should be done early, while the body is strong, and the spirits active. When a man has the pain of reviewing a misspent life, his not having given up sin and worldly vanities till he is forced to say, I have no pleasure in them, renders his sincerity very questionable. Then follows a figurative description of old age and its infirmities, which has some difficulties; but the meaning is plain, to show how uncomfortable, generally, the days of old age are. As the four verses, 2-5, are a figurative description of the infirmities that usually accompany old age, verse 6 notices the circumstances which take place in the hour of death. If sin had not entered into the world, these infirmities would not have been known. Surely then the aged should reflect on the evil of sin.

Solomon repeats his text, VANITY OF VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY. These are the words of one that could speak by dear-bought experience of the vanity of the world, which can do nothing to ease men of the burden of sin. As he considered the worth of souls, he gave good heed to what he spake and wrote; words of truth will always be acceptable words. The truths of God are as goads to such as are dull and draw back, and nails to such as are wandering and draw aside; means to establish the heart, that we may never sit loose to our duty, nor be taken from it. The Shepherd of Israel is the Giver of inspired wisdom.

Teachers and guides all receive their communications from him. The title is applied in Scripture to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The prophets sought diligently, what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. To write many books was not suited to the shortness of human life, and would be weariness to the writer, and to the reader; and then was much more so to both than it is now. All things would be vanity and vexation, except they led to this conclusion, That to fear God, and keep his commandments, is the whole of man. The fear of God includes in it all the affections of the soul towards him, which are produced by the Holy Spirit. There may be terror where there is no love, nay, where there is hatred. But this is different from the gracious fear of God, as the feelings of an affectionate child.

The fear of God, is often put for the whole of true religion in the heart, and includes its practical results in the life. Let us attend to the one thing needful, and now come to him as a merciful Saviour, who will soon come as an almighty Judge, when he will bring to light the things of darkness, and manifest the counsels of all hearts. Why does God record in his word, that ALL IS VANITY, but to keep us from deceiving ourselves to our ruin? He makes our duty to be our interest. May it be graven in all our hearts. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is all that concerns man.

1 Corinthians 11

The apostle, after an exhortation to follow him, (1) corrects some abuses. (2-16) Also contentions, divisions, and disorderly celebrations of the Lord’s supper. (17-22) He reminds them of the nature and design of its institution. (23-26) And directs how to attend upon it in a due manner. (27-34)

The first verse of this chapter seems properly to be the close to the last. The apostle not only preached such doctrine as they ought to believe, but led such a life as they ought to live. Yet Christ being our perfect example, the actions and conduct of men, as related in the Scriptures, should be followed only so far as they are like to his.

Here begin particulars respecting the public assemblies, 1 Corinthians 14. In the abundance of spiritual gifts bestowed on the Corinthians, some abuses had crept in; but as Christ did the will, and sought the honour of God, so the Christian should avow his subjection to Christ, doing his will and seeking his glory. We should, even in our dress and habit, avoid every thing that may dishonour Christ. the man and the woman were made for one another. They were to be mutual comforts and blessings, not one a slave, and the other a tyrant. God has so settled matters, both in the kingdom of providence and that of grace, that the authority and subjection of each party should be for mutual help and benefit. It was the common usage of the churches, for women to appear in public assemblies, and join in public worship, veiled; and it was right that they should do so. The Christian religion sanctions national customs wherever these are not against the great principles of truth and holiness; affected singularities receive no countenance from any thing in the Bible.

The apostle rebukes the disorders in their partaking of the Lord’s supper. The ordinances of Christ, if they do not make us better, will be apt to make us worse. If the use of them does not mend, it will harden. Upon coming together, they fell into divisions, schisms. Christians may separate from each other’s communion, yet be charitable one towards another; they may continue in the same communion, yet be uncharitable. This last is schism, rather than the former. There is a careless and irregular eating of the Lord’s supper, which adds to guilt.

Many rich Corinthians seem to have acted very wrong at the Lord’s table, or at the love-feasts, which took place at the same time as the supper. The rich despised the poor, and ate and drank up the provisions they brought, before the poor were allowed to partake; thus some wanted, while others had more than enough. What should have been a bond of mutual love and affection, was made an instrument of discord and disunion. We should be careful that nothing in our behaviour at the Lord’s table, appears to make light of that sacred institution. The Lord’s supper is not now made an occasion for gluttony or revelling, but is it not often made the support of self-righteous pride, or a cloak for hypocrisy? Let us never rest in the outward forms of worship; but look to our hearts.

The apostle describes the sacred ordinance, of which he had the knowledge by revelation from Christ. As to the visible signs, these are the bread and wine. What is eaten is called bread, though at the same time it is said to be the body of the Lord, plainly showing that the apostle did not mean that the bread was changed into flesh. St. Matthew tells us, our Lord bid them all drink of the cup, Matthew 26:27, as if he would, by this expression, provide against any believer being deprived of the cup. The things signified by these outward signs, are Christ’s body and blood, his body broken, his blood shed, together with all the benefits which flow from his death and sacrifice. Our Saviour’s actions were, taking the bread and cup, giving thanks, breaking the bread, and giving both the one and the other. The actions of the communicants were, to take the bread and eat, to take the cup and drink, and to do both in remembrance of Christ. But the outward acts are not the whole, or the principal part, of what is to be done at this holy ordinance. Those who partake of it, are to take him as their Lord and Life, yield themselves up to him, and live upon him. Here is an account of the ends of this ordinance. It is to be done in remembrance of Christ, to keep fresh in our minds his dying for us, as well as to remember Christ pleading for us, in virtue of his death, at God’s right hand. It is not merely in remembrance of Christ, of what he has done and suffered; but to celebrate his grace in our redemption. We declare his death to be our life, the spring of all our comforts and hopes. And we glory in such a declaration; we show forth his death, and plead it as our accepted sacrifice and ransom. The Lord’s supper is not an ordinance to be observed merely for a time, but to be continued. The apostle lays before the Corinthians the danger of receiving it with an unsuitable temper of mind; or keeping up the covenant with sin and death, while professing to renew and confirm the covenant with God. No doubt such incur great guilt, and so render themselves liable to spiritual judgements. But fearful believers should not be discouraged from attending at this holy ordinance. The Holy Spirit never caused this scripture to be written to deter serious Christians from their duty, though the devil has often made this use of it. The apostle was addressing Christians, and warning them to beware of the temporal judgements with which God chastised his offending servants. And in the midst of judgement, God remembers mercy: he many times punishes those whom he loves. It is better to bear trouble in this world, than to be miserable for ever. The apostle points our the duty of those who come to the Lord’s table. Self-examination is necessary to right attendance at this holy ordinance. If we would thoroughly search ourselves, to condemn and set right what we find wrong, we should stop Divine judgements. The apostle closes all with a caution against the irregularities of which the Corinthians were guilty at the Lord’s table. Let all look to it, that they do not come together to God’s worship, so as to provoke him, and bring down vengeance on themselves.