Showing posts with label Nimrod. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nimrod. Show all posts

Friday, May 8, 2015

Nimrod and Semiramis

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Nimrod and Semiramis. This follows this post about Islam in the U.K. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Bible Story - Chapter 6

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Nanna says: “Things went well for awhile after the Flood and Noah lived 350 years after he left the Ark with his family. But, Noah died, when he was 950 years old. That’s very, very old isn’t it?”
His son Shem and his wife had many children who were of the white people (Caucasian). They tended to move north, to live in Europe. (1 Chronicles 1:17 1 Chronicles 1:17The sons of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram, and Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech.
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Another son Japheth and his wife also had lots of children and they became the Asian people who moved east to live. (1 Chronicles 1:5 1 Chronicles 1:5The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
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Noah’s third son Ham and his wife had children, who had lovely dark skin and they moved into Africa to live. (1 Chronicles 1:8 1 Chronicles 1:8The sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
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Ham’s grandson was Nimrod, whose name means “he rebelled”.
Nimrod was big, strong and popular with many people, because he was a great hunter, but he did not love God and did not keep God’s laws of how to live. He did many bad things like building idols and getting people to worship his false gods. He broke God’s laws and taught people to do as they pleased and sin against God. (Genesis 10:8-9 Genesis 10:8-9 8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: why it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
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He worshipped Satan instead of the true God, and he called Satan “Merodach”, meaning “Lord” or “Master”. (Jeremiah 50:2 Jeremiah 50:2Declare you among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.
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In the Hebrew language Merodach was called “Baal” or the “Sun God”. Nimrod made the sun god, who wasn’t really a god, the head of all his false idol gods. He deceived many people and led them away from the true God of our Father and His Son.
Nimrod came up with an idea to draw people to him in his kingdom of Shinar. (Genesis 10:9-10 Genesis 10:9-10 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: why it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
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) “Let’s build the highest tower ever, in my city of Babel, reaching up above the clouds, in honour of my god, the sun god!”
So, many people were tricked by Nimrod, and they worked on his evil tower. But God saw what Nimrod was doing and how it was going to lead to more bad things, like before the Flood.
God came down to the Tower of Babel and He mixed up the people’s language from one single language to many different languages. (Genesis 11:1 Genesis 11:1And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
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, Genesis 11:6-7 Genesis 11:6-7 6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
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They couldn’t understand each other and began to argue loudly and get very angry with each other.
Soon they gave up building the Tower of Babel and began to scatter to other lands, with their families. (Genesis 11:8-9 Genesis 11:8-9 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there on the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from there did the LORD scatter them abroad on the face of all the earth.
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If God had not done this, people would have become very evil again, like before the Flood. Because they had one language, they might have easily shared their knowledge to make evil weapons to kill many innocent people.
So, from the Tower of Babel, many languages and nations began to form in the world.
Sadly, many false beliefs, false gods and false religions began to develop, which led people away from the true God. (1 John 4:1 1 John 4:1Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
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Shem and his family followed his father Noah and his mother in loving the true God and living by God’s commandments and right way of life.
After Nimrod died, his mother Semiramis gave birth to a baby boy and she tricked people with her lies, about how her son Nimrod was a god and this baby boy had no human father, but was made alive by the sun god.
This is Nimrod’s son, who is come to restore his father’s kingdom”, she said.
Semiramis, whose other name was Ishtar, came to be known as “the virgin mother” and the “queen of heaven”. (Jeremiah 7:18 Jeremiah 7:18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
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, Jeremiah 44:17-19 Jeremiah 44:17-19 17 But we will certainly do whatever thing goes forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. 18 But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. 19 And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her, without our men?
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, Jeremiah 44:25 Jeremiah 44:25Thus said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; You and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her: you will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.
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) Sunday became her day for worshipping the sun god and it carries that name to this day.
She taught the people false stories, and held evil feast holidays, which later developed into customs that people keep, even today, such as Christmas and Easter, named after the false goddess of Ishtar.
These false holidays were planned by Semiramis and her priests to trick and deceive people away from the true God and God’s “appointed” Holy Days. (Leviticus 23:1-2 Leviticus 23:1-2 1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.
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, Exodus 23:15-16 Exodus 23:15-16 15 You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread: (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it you came out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:) 16 And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you have sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when you have gathered in your labors out of the field.
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Satan has been allowed by God to be the false god of this world, and he was the one who led Nimrod and Semiramis to worship him, as the sun god. (2 Corinthians 4:4 2 Corinthians 4:4In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them.
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Now you can understand how Satan worked through Nimrod and Semiramis to cause people to be deceived and to believe lies (Revelation 12:9 Revelation 12:9And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
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), just as he caused Eve to believe the first lie, and then to lead Adam astray, as well.
Why do you think God has allowed Satan to be in charge of this world, our child?
Is it to test us, to see if we will be strong and faithful in loving our true God? (Deuteronomy 13:3 Deuteronomy 13:3You shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proves you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
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When we are tested and we succeed in doing what is right and not what is wrong, we become stronger in good character, don’t we. We build good habits of choosing what is right, don’t we? (Proverbs 20:11 Proverbs 20:11Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
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, Ecclesiastes 12:14 Ecclesiastes 12:14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
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, Deuteronomy 8:2 Deuteronomy 8:2And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or no.
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, Judges 3:4 Judges 3:4And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.
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By doing what is right, instead of what is wrong, God will give us good success, won’t He? (Joshua 1:8 Joshua 1:8This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.
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God has promised that one day Jesus Christ, his Son, is going to return to this Earth to replace Satan as the ruler of this world. (Jude 14, Revelation 20:4-6 Revelation 20:4-6 4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
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, Daniel 7:18 Daniel 7:18But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.
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, Daniel 7:27 Daniel 7:27And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
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, Zechariah 14)
Won’t that be wonderful in the world tomorrow, when the world will be at peace, and people will love and worship the true God, who is our Father and Jesus Christ His Son. (1 John 5:20 1 John 5:20And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
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, 1 Thessalonians 1:9 1 Thessalonians 1:9For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
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, Jeremiah 10:10 Jeremiah 10:10But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
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Shem and his wife had many children, who loved God and kept God’s laws of how to live.
Grandad says: “Shem’s 7th generation of his great grand children was called Abram.”
Nanna says: “Grandad, let’s save the wonderful story about Abram and his beautiful wife Sarai, for our next Chapter.”
To be continued with Chapter 7…

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Who Started Yuletide Worship?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about ancient paganism. This follows this post about Mary. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Who Started It?





Who started Yuletide worship of Sun, mother and child?

Who Started It?
Source: Scott Brady
She was beautiful, powerful, and devious – a perfect foil for the ancient serpent’s deceptions. Her husband Nimrod had made himself king over the migrants who came into the new land of Sumeria, a very rich alluvial plain in which things grew quickly, but wild beasts also multiplied and became a constant menace. The people had no weapons and they needed protection. Nimrod invited them to live together in one place and built a wall all around it to protect them. (The points expressed about the background to Nimrod and Semiramis are found in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews .)
He became their king, a warrior king who built an army and taught men to make and use weapons, and he led them on profitable hunts to provide meat. Business was good, so he built other cities as populations increased, but he had a problem.
People still worshipped the One true God and looked to Shem, the son of Noah, as the man of God and leader of their faith. Faith was a powerful thing and Nimrod wanted that power, but how would he turn the people’s faith toward himself? His beautiful, scheming wife Semiramis provided the answer. She began to laud her husband Nimrod as their great provider and protector. We don't know exact details, but there are abundant examples in history from which we can draw such conclusions. (Bible verses about Semiramis; Bible Tools.org)
The Devil, that most subtle of deceivers (Genesis:3:1) and god of this world (2 Corinthians:4:4, Ephesians:6:10-12) is most likely the ancient source that inspired them (many people are tempted of themselves (James:1:14). This gave Satan an in and he cunningly inspired them to worship him as the Sun god, the source of knowledge and of life for all things on Earth. He backed up this idea by performing signs and wonders as people were converted to this new faith. It effectively turned people’s hearts to pleasure and to worshipping their god as they pleased. It was heady stuff and men and women of all kinds responded in droves.
It all made Shem very anxious for the people. He was very angry with the man who had brought about this growing apostasy and he acted at once to execute the self-proclaimed king and high priest of the Sun god. Ultimately, he had Nimrod's body cut in pieces to be distributed to the various civic centers as a dire warning of what would happen to others who had been deceived into forsaking the Creator by worshipping idols and demon spirits. (See Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews ).
Semiramis knew better than to openly defy Shem, but developed a mystery religion with herself as high priestess. Her followers used secret signs and symbols so as not to let on. She led them in worship of the god of love and fertility and took many lovers in her conquest of men. She then became pregnant and when she gave birth to Tammuz (meaning ‘son of life’). Semiramis daringly presented him at the Winter solstice as the son of Baal, the long expected Seed of the woman forecast in the Garden of Eden. Most likely everyone on Earth at that time knew the prophecy given to Adam, Eve and the Serpent before they were cast out of Paradise, because Noah and his family spread the gospel after the Flood. Satan used this knowledge to help thwart the coming truth that was to come.
Semiramis also had caused Nimrod to be venerated as a god after his death. She said he was made one with the "Sun in Heaven". She said that her son Tammuz had been supernaturally conceived in her womb by him, thus claiming to be "that" woman. Her child then represented new birth and the possibility of resurrection for all who believed. As the sun regained strength and rose up after the Winter solstice, so would mankind experience rebirth after death. After Tammuz died by being nailed or bound to an evergreen tree, she wailed for him until he was restored to her. Women of many nations thereafter wept for Tammuz, even in Israel. (Ezekiel:8:14) So began the worship of mother and child.
Meanwhile, the men of Babel were busy building a huge tower to reach high into the sky and make them famous and their city the foremost in the world. They planned to stay there in that place and not spread out and replenish and fill the whole earth as God had commanded. The Lord came down to see for Himself what they were up to and saw that they were of one evil mind and working together they would invent and create things far too quickly. People had corrupted themselves before and managed to pollute everything in the old world. They shared only one language, so God miraculously confused their ability to communicate, which forced them to move out in groups, each group bound by a different language and so they went about establishing separate lands of their own.
The small families scattered from Babel and became fully fledged nations, but unfortunately took with them the worship of mother and child as they had learned from Semiramis. Thus began many counterfeit faiths spread around the world and even today cause so much confusion.
Whatever else we might say about the devil, he is industrious and clever in his opposition to God and the only church founded by Jesus Christ. This article simply illustrates some of the basic truths of Revelation 17, especially with regard to mother and child and the whole pantheon of gods and false worship.
Semiramis appears to be the source that started it all in human history, inspired by the devil who backed her up with visions and mirages. It all began more than 2000 years before Jesus Christ was born of Mary and it is no wonder that there are so many pagan parallels with modern Christianity. The counterfeit religion is that of the great deceiver and god of this world who actively blinds mankind to the truth, (2 Corinthians:4:4) but we are not ignorant of his designs (2 Corinthians:2:11). Satan has convinced so many that they are righteous in their false code of beliefs as they worship God.
History says Nimrod was the first mighty one ‘deified’ after the Flood. He was represented by a winged bull and called the ‘father of the gods’. His wife Semiramis became the ‘mother of the gods’ and Queen of heaven. The characteristics of that initial Chaldean mystery religion which she founded were: rejection of our Creator God, denial of His commandments, refusal to acknowledge Him as the source of all life, and a paranoid desire for self-exaltation – the making of God in man’s image! ‘You shall be as gods’ the Serpent told Eve, but in effect he became their god, the one whom they obeyed. (Romans:6:16). Little have men in all history realized that the devil could deceive them into worshipping him and his counterfeit churches.
For more information on what God truly wants us to celebrate, request the free study aids, Holidays or Holy Days: Does it Matter What We Observe? and God's Holy Day Plan: The Promise for all Mankind .



Friday, December 20, 2013

Lessons No One Taught Me About Christmas and the Bible

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the bible's view on Christmas. This follows this post about damage from marijuana. For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.


Lessons No One Taught Me About Christmas and the Bible



We can learn some interesting things from other people or experiences. But the most useful and surprising information only comes from one place: the Bible.

Lessons No One Taught Me About Christmas and the Bible
Source: Photos.com
I was recently indulging in one of my favorite things, walking through a bookshop. I was struck by how many books had titles similar to “Fifty things I learned from my dog” or “Life lessons my mother taught me.” They were typically written by famous celebrities.
I thought a bit about it. I’m obviously no celebrity, but it struck me how (unlike the celebrity authors) I did not learn some critical truths of life decades ago in a family setting, particularly those found in the Bible. I grew up in a typical protestant religion, switching to Roman Catholicism while attending college.  Once visiting a family member, I noticed a stack of religious booklets that asked serious questions about biblical topics that I thought were moot. Questions like what happens when you die, what day should you be worshipping God on, what is the reward of the saved.
I didn’t know who the authors of the booklets were. And I pretty much didn’t care at the time, since the questions all seemed to be those of the “master of the obvious” type. Anyone who went to Sunday school knew those answers.
Or did they?

What I learned about Christmas

One of the profound lessons no one taught me as a youth was that the Christmas season was little more than papered-over paganism. When I first read that, I was shocked and more than a little bit offended. What could be wrong with the happy season of Christmas? Isn't Jesus Christ was supposed to be at the very center of it?
What was truly shocking was this: It wasn’t hard at all to find and read authoritative secular sources that totally confirmed the holiday’s non-biblical, pagan origins! Any competent encyclopedia shows that the Romans celebrated the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. Some 300-plus years after Christ it was adopted and replaced by a totally artificial birthday of sorts set up for Jesus on the 25th. Thing is, Jesus was actually born sometime in the fall. As the popular historian William Manchester wrote of that act, “Christianity was in turn infiltrated, and to a considerable extent subverted, by the paganism it was supposed to destroy” ( A World Lit Only by Fire , page 11).

What I learned about Christianity

Another lesson that no one taught me was what the first century Christians were like. Thy were almost indistinguishable in how they worshiped God and followed the example of Jesus—you basically couldn’t tell them apart—from most of the practices of the ancient Jews of the day. Every Christian I knew went to church on Sunday. But I was stunned to find that there was nowhere in the Bible that changed the day of worship. As both sacred and secular historical sources clearly show, early Christians worshiped God by observing the seventh-day Sabbath! Further, despite concerted efforts to block them (beginning intently during the second century), many Christians openly went to Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath up until the fourth century.

What I learned about my life

Perhaps the deal-buster that represented the major lesson that no one taught me as a youth was this: I wasn’t going to heaven. According to the Bible, I wasn’t going to hell either, at least not in the popular sense of Dante’s Inferno. Either way, I was stunned. I had been authoritatively told that I had been saved and would spend eternity in blissful paradise. So when I was directed by these booklets to read the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, I could scarcely believe it. Paul even asked the question: “How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Corinthians 15:12).
What? What was this rising from the dead bit? Didn’t we all just pop up to heaven? Paul wrote of something much more majestic and exciting, one that I could scarcely believe I was reading: “As we have borne the image of the man of dust [our present physical state], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man [the all-powerful resurrected Jesus]…the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed ” (verses 49, 52, emphasis added).
Reeling from what this might mean, I then read further the unbelievable words of 1 John 3:2: “Beloved, now we are the children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He [Jesus] is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” And what does Jesus look like in His resurrected spiritual form? Read Revelation 1:13-18 for yourself, like I did. You'll see a Being whose “head and His hair were white as snow, and His eyes like a flame or fire…His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength” (verses 14, 16). Do you know anyone who looks like this today? According to the Bible, you will.

You can learn much more from the Bible too

Yes, there was much I was not taught as a youth. And there was much I literally had to “unlearn.” But it didn’t take long to appreciate what exactly was in the Bible and what represented traditions made up and added by men.
There were many more such lessons, but perhaps you’d like to read them for yourself. Want to get serious? Read the free Bible study aid, The Ten Commandments . Ironically, that’s where I started. Then after you’re through with that, try the Bible study aid booklet, Holidays or Holy Days — Does It Matter Which Days We Observe? Your Bible has some surprising things in it. Find out today what they mean for you!