A Pictorial Illustration to the Mystery

A Pictorial Illustration to the Mystery of Babylon

"And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee...” Revelation 17:1-5

On the Island of Patmos, God shows the Apostle John the true identity of the Church that will be ruling the world at His Second Coming. In scripture a woman is used symbolically to depict the church, and the faithful church of saints is described as the bride of Christ.

There is an amazing accuracy of the vision John received centuries before it would all be become a reality. John's attention is drawn to the inscription boldly emblazoned upon the woman's forehead: "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" (Revelation 17:5).

I personally love Roman Catholics for I myself was born and raised in Roman Catholic and completely understand the deep devotion and good works each and every catholic share with the Church. My intentions are not to bash or to disparage Roman Catholics but to inform each one to examine with Holy Scripture the doctrines and practices of Romanism. Let us now venture into the Roman Catholic Church and explore her identity.

During the last days the Word of God depicts a church described as a woman riding a beast representing a global empire. This woman is described with an ambiguous name that is revealed throughout history. Mystery Babylon is a key phrase used to identify this church. The worship of the Babylonian Goddess Semiramis and her Son Tammuz was prominent throughout the ancient world. In Egypt, she was known as the "QUEEN OF HEAVEN" she was the greatest and most worshiped of all the divinities. During and after Egyptian bondage, the Israelites repeatedly departed from the one true God and worshiped this pagan mother. Under the name, "MOTHER OF THE GODS," the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of universal worship. The mother of the gods was worshiped by the Persians, the Syrians and by all the kings of Europe and Asia. In Britain, the Druid priests worshiped the Virgo-Patitura as the "MOTHER OF GOD."

TITLE OF SEMIRAMIS

	GREEK	ROMAN
Goddess of Love	APHRODITE	VENUS
Goddess of Hunting & Childbirth	ARTEMIS	DIANA
Goddess of Crafts, War & Wisdom	ATHENA	MINERVA
Goddess of Growing Things	DEMETER	CERES
Symbol of the Fertile Earth	GAEA	TERRA
Protector of Marriage & Women, the Sister & Wife of Zeus in Greece, the Wife of Jupiter in Rome	HERA	JUNO
Goddess of the Hearth	HESTIA	VESTA
Wife and Sister of Kronos	RHEA	OPS

The Apostle John called it a mystery since the worship of Mary and the god-incarnate Jesus originated with the pagan worship of Semiramis and her god-incarnate son. Numerous Babylonian monuments depict the goddess-mother Semiramis with her son in arms. The image of the mother and child was so firmly entrenched in the pagan mind that when the Roman Catholic Church appeared on the scene these pagan statues and paintings were merely renamed and worshiped as the Virgin Mary and her god-incarnate son Jesus. Mary was then crowned as the Queen of Heaven and worshiped.

The Sign of the Cross

The Cross was an instrument of torture and sacrifice in the shape of a T, representing a sacrifice being offered to the Babylonian Sun God Tammuz. Prior to the crucifixion of Christ, Alexander the Great crucified 2,000 Tyrians on crosses to celebrate his victory. That which is now called the Christian cross was originally no christian emblem at all, but was the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians.

Jesus sacrifice on the cross was far more agonizing that anything most of us will ever imagine. In Roman doctrine Christ is being offered during the Mass Celebration. The Roman church declares the mass to be a sacrament (sacrifice) in which Jesus is physically sacrificed each time as the wafer and wine actually are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus which are then consumed by the officiating priest.

The mystic Tau, as the symbol of the great divinity, was called "the sign of life"; it was used as an amulet over the heart; it was marked on the official garments of the priests, as on the official garments of the priests of Rome; it was borne by kings in their hand, as a token of their dignity or divinely-conferred authority. The Vestal virgins of Pagan Rome wore it suspended from their necklaces, as the nuns do now.

The Ankh represents the genitals of both sexes. The cross itself is a primitive form of the phallus, and the loop that of the womb. Again, we continue the symbol of the cross as the giver of life. Yes...even prior to this time was the cross a symbol of the phallus or fertility. This is not the only thing that the phallus has symbolized over the many centuries within and without the pagan world. It has also been used as a symbol of strength.

THE CENTRE of the seal is the ankh or Crux Ansata, an ancient Egyptian symbol of resurrection. It is composed of the Tau or T shaped cross surmounted by a small circle and is often seen in Egyptian statuary and in wall and tomb paintings where it is depicted as being held in the hand. The Tau symbolises matter or the world of form; the small circle above it represents spirit or life. With the circle marking the position of the head, it represents the mystic cube unfolded to form the Latin cross, symbol of spirit descended into matter and crucified thereon, but risen from death and resting triumphant on the arms of the conquered slayer. So it may be said that the figure of the interlaced triangles enclosing the ankh represents the human triumphant and the divine triumphant in the human. As the cross of life, the ankh then becomes a symbol of resurrection and immortality.

Yet the cross itself is the oldest of phallic emblems, and the lozenge-shaped windows of cathedrals are proof that the yonic symbols have survived the destructions of the pagan Mysteries. The very structure of the church itself is permeated with (sexual symbolism) phallicism. Remove from the Roman Catholic Church all emblems of Priapic origin and nothing is left.

Above is a Persian triple-horned headpiece depicted on gate A in the citadel of King Sargon II (721-705 B.C.), in Khorsabad (Iraq). This may well be the origin of the triple-tiered papal tiara as claimed by the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Seven triple tiaras in the display case of the Papal Sacristy of the Sistine Chapel (room of the Copricapi). From left to right they are:

1922 tiara of Pius XI.

1903 tiara of Leo XIII.

1887 neo-gothic tiara of Leo XIII.

1871 tiara of Pius IX.

1834 tiara of Gregory XVI.

1805 tiara of Pius VII.

1820 cloth tiara of Pius VII.

The Blessed Eucharist as a Sacrament

Mithraism was popular in the Roman Empire with many Emperors following and not just the populace. It had seven sacraments, the same as the Catholic Church, baptism, and communion with bread and water. The Eucharist hosts were signed with a cross, an ancient phallic symbol which originated in Egypt and the Egyptian cross (the ankh) still shows the original form which included the female symbol.

Such rites were known in Rome as evidenced from Cicero’s rhetorical question about the corn of Ceres and the wine of Bacchus. In Mithraism, a sacred meal of bread and wine was celebrated. Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of a sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages and amongst all peoples, says The Catholic Encyclopedia. (Volume 10, p.404 article on Mithraism.)

After the (Host) bread is changed into Christ by the priest it is then placed on a monstrance in the center of a sun burst design. Before the monstrance Catholic will bow and worship the little wafer as God! The Catholic Encyclopedia says: “In the absence of Scriptural proof, the Church finds a warrant for, and a propriety in, rendering Divine worship to the Blessed Sacrament in the most ancient and constant tradition…” ( vol 5 p 581, Eucharist)

In Egypt a cake was consecrated by a priest and was supposed to become the flesh of Osiris. This was then eaten and wine was taken as part of a rite. Even in Mexico and Central America among those who had never heard of Christ, the belief in eating of a god was found. Since, heathen priests ate a portion of all sacrifices, in cases of human sacrifices, priests of Baal were required to eat human flesh. Thus “Cahna-Bal” is the priest of Baal providing us for our modern word for “cannibal.”

During Mass, members of the Roman Catholic Church who are in good standing may come forward and kneel before a priest who places a piece of bread in their mouths which has become a “Christ.” This piece of bread is called the “host’, from a Latin originally meaning “victim” or “sacrifice.” The Catholic Encyclopedia says that the host “has been the object of a great many miracles” including the bread being turned to stone and host which bled and continued to bleed. (Vol 7, p 489 art. Host)

The initials I. H. S. represent the Egyptian trinity of “Isis, Horus, Seb," that is, the Mother, the Child, and the Father of the gods.

The thin round wafer whose roundness is so important as an element in the Romish Mystery, is only another symbol to Baal, or the sun. We know that cakes were used in the ancient mysteries of Egypt. In 1854 an ancient temple was discovered in Egypt with inscriptions that show little round cakes on the alter.

In the great temple of Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the Babylonians. In the temple of Cuzco, in Peru, the disk of the sun was fixed up in flaming gold upon the wall that all who entered might bow down before it. The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshipers; and in their worship they adored an image of the sun in the form of a disk at the top of a long pole.

In the worship of Baal, as practiced by the idolatrous Israelites in the days of their apostasy, the worship of the sun's image was equally observed; and it is striking to find that the image of the sun, which apostate Israel worshiped, was erected above the altar.

Dagon the Fish-God

Dagon, the fish-god, represented that deity as a manifestation of the same patriarch who had lived so long in the waters of the deluge. As the Pope bears the key of Janus, so he wears the mitre of Dagon. The excavations of Nineveh have put this beyond all possibility of doubt. The Papal mitre is entirely different from the mitre of Aaron and the Jewish high priests.

That mitre was a turban. The two-horned mitre, which the Pope wears, when he sits on the high altar at Rome and receives the adoration of the Cardinals, is the very mitre worn by Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians. There were two ways in which Dagon was anciently represented. The one was when he was depicted as half-man half-fish; the upper part being entirely human, the under part ending in the tail of a fish. The other was, when, to use the words of Layard, "the head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, while its scaly, fan-like tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed." Of Dagon in this form Layard gives a representation in his last work; and no one who examines his mitre, and compares it with the Pope's as given in Elliot's Horoe, can doubt for a moment that from that, and no other source, has the pontifical mitre been derived. The gaping jaws of the fish surmounting the head of the man at Nineveh are the unmistakable counterpart of the horns of the Pope's mitre at Rome.

A woman (church) dressed in scarlet and purple

Rev 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.

Here you see the Pope wearing purple and an Archbishop wearing reddish-purple.Pope John Paul II celebrated mass in the Basilica of the Resurrection in Jerusalem on Sunday, March 26th 2000, dressed in a purple Lenten robe and a miter trimmed with scarlet red.

Janus & Jani

The Roman god of doorways and archways, after whom the month of January is named. Janus was represented by a double-faced head, and he was represented in art either with or without a beard. Occasionally he was depicted as four-faced--as the spirit of the four-way arch.

Janus was believed to have conquered the adversaries of the gods, the god-man. In consequence of his assumed character and exploits, Janus was invested with high powers, made the keeper of the gates of heaven, and arbiter of men's eternal destinies. Of this Janus, this Babylonian "man," the Pope, as we have seen, is the legitimate representative; his key, therefore, he bears, with that of Cybele, his mother-wife and to all his blasphemous pretensions he at this hour lays claim.

The very fact, then, that the Pope founds his claim to universal homage on the possession of the keys of heaven, and that in a sense which empowers him, in defiance of every principle of Christianity, to open and shut the gates of glory, according to his mere sovereign will and pleasure, is a striking and additional proof that he is that head of the beast from the sea, whose number, as identified with Janus, is the number of a man, and amounts exactly to 666.

The Cup of Doctrinal Fornication made of gold

"making all nations DRUNK with the wine of her fornication" (Rev 17:4) In leading proof of the Babylonian character of the Papal Church the first point to which I solicit the reader's attention, is the character of MYSTERY which attaches alike to the modern Roman and the ancient Babylonian systems. The gigantic system of moral corruption and idolatry described in this passage under the emblem of a woman with a "GOLDEN CUP IN HER HAND"

Five hundred diamonds encrust this golden chalice, first used by Pope Pius IX on December 8th, 1854, at the Mass proclaiming the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Pope Francis now urges all religions to unite

She has practiced fornication making all nations drunk with the wine of her fornication. (Rev 17:4) Roman Catholicism has become the ecumenical leader in a move to unite not only the separated brethren of Protestantism but all of the world’s religions in a new world church.

While the Pope’s embrace of all religions’ shocks conservative Catholics, it is actually consistent with history. From the very beginning under Constantine, when the statues of Isis and Horus were renamed Mary and Jesus, and Pope Leo I (440-61) boasted that St. Peter and St. Paul had replaced Romulus and Remus as Rome’s protecting patrons.

Such praise of Hinduism by the leader of world Christendom seems inconceivable. Yet such tolerant acceptance of all religions is exactly what will be required to unite mankind under Antichrist. We cannot stop the ecumenical movement, but we must rescue as many individuals as possible before it is too late. The Pope has repeatedly made his intentions clear. Speaking in Geneva, Switzerland to leaders of the World Council of Churches representing 400 million Protestants worldwide, John Paul II declared, From the beginning of my ministry as bishop of Rome, I have insisted that the engagement of the Catholic Church in the ecumenical movement is irreversible.

The Pope also makes it clear that there can never be any "compromise on the issue of papal authority." Yet this fact seems not to deter Protestant participation in the Pope's ecumenical movement. Nor has it diminished the praise heaped upon him, even by prominent Evangelicals, for his "spiritual and moral leadership."

John Paul II continues to openly promote New Age pantheistic ideas. Although the New Age movement has been thoroughly exposed by a number of writers, its basic tenets continue to gain an ever wider acceptance, even among evangelicals, and will play an important role for Antichrist. As early as 1961, James I. McCord, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, urged Christians to accept as a gift from God the New Age, with its accompanying syncretization of Christianity and other religions. McCord was pleased to note that "Our most widely read historian, Arnold Toynbee, is an apostle of an amalgam of Christianity and Mahayanian Buddhism."

In the fall of 1988, I worshipped God in a Buddhist temple. As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground.... I will not make any further attempt to convert the Buddhist, the Jew, the Hindu or the Moslem. I am content to learn from them and to walk with them side by side toward the God who lives, I believe, beyond the images that bind and blind us.

"His Holiness" the Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism has long been the Pope and has been well received by Roman Catholic leaders around the world.

In 1979, at the start of his first U.S. tour, the Tibetan God-king-in-exile was feted at Roman Catholicism's New York City landmark, St. Patrick's Cathedral, where he participated in a prayer service described by Time's an extraordinary interreligious festival. New York's Terence Cardinal Cooke was the host. The Dalai Lama, who declared that all the world's major religions are basically the same and was given a standing ovation by the overflow crowd of nearly 5,000. Said Cardinal Cooke, who shared his sanctuary with a rabbi and a Protestant minister as well as his Buddhist guest. This is one of the dramatic movements of the Spirit in our time, we make each other welcome in our churches, temples and synagogues.

Most astonishing and alarming is the fact that (with few exceptions) evangelical leaders and even the major cult watchers refuse to acknowledge this major deviation of Roman Catholicism and Biblical Christianity. The teachings of Roman Catholicism rejects salvation by faith and preaches a false gospel of works that cannot save. Salvation is not in Christ but in the Church through submission to its edicts and sacraments. There basic catechism of doctrine calls the sacraments the chief means of our salvation. But yet we have major Evangelical Christian leaders stating:

Robert Schuller – “It’s time for Protestants to go to the shepherd, the Pope and say, ‘What do we have to do to come home?’

Paul Crouch, president of TBN – “I’m eradicating the word ‘Protestant’ . . . out of my vocabulary . . . [it’s] time for Catholics and non-Catholics to come together as one in the Spirit and one in the Lord.”

Pat Robertson – “My meeting with his holiness Pope John Paul II was very warm and through a personal letter to the Pontiff I pledged to work for Christian unity between Evangelicals and Catholics.”

Chuck Colson, president of Prison Fellowship and co-author of ECT – “We evangelicals and Catholics have differences, but on the ancient creeds and the core beliefs of Christianity we stand together.”

Jack Van Impe – “Pope John Paul II is a strong defender of the faith.”

Billy Graham – “I have found that my beliefs are essentially the same as those of orthodox Roman Catholics.”Billy Graham praised Pope John Paul II as a preacher of the true gospel and for “his strong Catholic faith,” hailing him as “the greatest moral and spiritual leader of the last 100 years.”“I don’t know anyone else that I could put as high as he is. He’s traveled the whole world . . . spreading the Catholic faith. . . . He and I agree on almost everything.”

The evangelical church today is being seduced as never in its history, "...the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." (Rev. 17:1, 2) It faces a danger so grave that, it must be addressed again with new insight and vigor. If evangelicals succumb to the seduction, as they increasingly are doing, then their gospel witness will be submerged in confusion and could eventually be lost and a tragic and new dimension to the apostasy from which the church and the world will never recover.

To deny the historical evidence and practices of Romanism is to repudiate the Reformation and mock the millions of martyrs who died at Rome's hands, as though they gave their lives in vain. Were Luther, Calvin and the other Reformers alive today, they would denounce Roman Catholicism as the largest and most dangerous counterfeit Christian Church on earth! Who continues to deceive millions of devoted people to have faith in a system that claims to be Christian but observes a secret knowledge that very few are able to distinguish.

One major deviation by Catholicism from Biblical Christianity goes to the heart of the faith to salvation itself and thus affects the eternal destiny of those who are deceived thereby. Roman Catholicism rejects salvation by faith and preaches a false gospel of works that cannot save. Salvation is not in Christ but in the Church through submission to its edicts and sacraments. The Basic Catechism of Christian Doctrine calls the sacraments "the chief means of our salvation."

The first of the seven sacraments is baptism, which is performed upon 98 percent of Catholics as infants. It is declared in Canon 849 to be the means "by which men and women are freed from their sins, are reborn as children of God...." The Basic Catechism declares that baptism is necessary for salvation cleanses us from original sin which makes us Christians.

Another sacrament is the Mass, which the Catechism declares to be one and the same Sacrifice with that of the Cross inasmuch as Christ...continues to offer himself...on the altar through the ministry of his priests. Canon 904 states that "the work of redemption is continually accomplished in the mystery of the Eucharistic Sacrifice," thus denying Christ's triumphant "It is finished!"

Let me remind you of Hugh Latimer's last words, spoken through the flames to his companion who was bound to the same stake "Be of good courage, master Ridley...for we shall by God's grace this day light such a `candle' in England as I pray shall never go out!" Tragically, the candle lit by hundreds of thousands of faithful martyrs burned at the stake, if not already out, is barely flickering and in danger of being snuffed completely. Paul Crouch, head of the largest Christian TV worldwide

network, demeans the martyrs by calling the issues they died for mere semantics; and he makes a mockery of the Reformers by declaring orthodox the heresies that sparked the Reformation.

May God have mercy on all of us... peace!