I WONDER - ARE WE KEEPING OURSELVES FROM IDOLS?

1 JOHN 5:21 SAYS: "LITTLE CHILDREN, KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS"

I often wonder how many other IDOLS we have in our homes and lives that we are not even aware of, that are family traditions, or religious traditions and are IDOLS - abominations to God.

In Exodus 20:4, God tells us that, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

Scripture tells us in Deuteronomy 7:26, "Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing."

During morning prayer here at Lake Hamilton Bible Camp Grounds, a visitor remarked that she had been impressed to research the word, "Tammuz," while reading Ezekiel 8:14. In the last part of the verse it says, "...behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."  She found this to be the only recording in the Bible regarding Tammuz and wondered why he was so important that the women of Israel were sitting at the North Gate of the temple, weeping for him!

Her findings caused me also to ponder the question, "Who was Tammuz?" I found that in the Amplified, New American Standard, Living and King James Bibles, it is spelled Tammuz, and that Ferrar Fenton spells it Thamuz. I also noted that I found no comments about Tammuz in any of the references or concordances, except in the Dake Bible, (page 812) and the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, 1970 edition, (page 827). Halley’s Handbook, (page 327), tells us that part of the worship of Tammuz was wild sex orgies held at the temple itself.

I went to Clarke’s Commentary, Volume 4, Pages 443 and 444, where I also found comments coinciding with Dake. I then got out the Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Volume 4, Page 795, and found it similar to the others. I then checked the International Bible Commentary and found three additional secular books listed as references, so, decided to see what the encyclopedias had to say. I found that Funk and Wagnalls, Volume 23, Page 8397, the 1959 edition, had a small paragraph stating Tammuz was from Babylonian mythology. I then got out the Britannica, Volume 21, page 776, 1947 edition, and to my surprise found an entire page on the history of Tammuz, including ten reference books on the subject, Also, my attention was called to the calendar and when I looked I was astonished. On my calendar, July the 5th was set apart as a feast day to this Babylonian God. Worship of Tammuz is traced back to Ur and Umma in the days of Abraham. I found that Tammuz’s mother was known as, and called herself, the Queen of Heaven and Roman Catholicism picked up this abominable name and applied it to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

I found that December the 25th is the day celebrated for Tammuz’s birthday and that Roman Catholicism took this day and called it Jesus’ birthday. I found that Tammuz was called the messiah. All of this was found in secular history about one word, TAMMUZ, found only one time in the Bible, where God is showing Ezekiel the abominations that are in HIS HOUSE.

Have you ever wondered how (they or whoever) knew that December 25th was Jesus’ birthday? Well, I have become serious about it, and to my amazement here are some of my findings.

The word, Christmas, is of Roman Catholic origin, meaning a mass as said for Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ does not need anyone saying a mass for Him.

God tells us through Ezekiel in Chapter 20:39, "Pollute ye My Holy Name no more." The very word Christmas is a pollution of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe Jesus was born on the Day of Atonement, that great day of the Feast of Tabernacles.

Christmas, although it includes the name of Christ, also mentions the "mass." Now the mass, with its rituals, elaborate ceremony, pagan prayers for the dead, etc. is most assuredly a continuation of paganism. Considering then that the name of these pagan rites in the mass is connected with the name of Christ with the word, "Mass," a pagan and heathenistic ritual carried down from Babylon, is but to pollute the holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since Christ was not born on December 25th, how did this particular day become part of the church calendar?  History has the answer.

Nimrod was the third generation from Noah. Noah begat Ham, who begat Cush, who begat Nimrod, and Nimrod was the builder and founder of Babylon. Nimrod’s wife was Semiramis. (He was the king and she was the queen of Babylon). After Nimrod died, she said he was to be worshipped as the sun-god, and she gave birth to an illegitimate son and claimed he was Nimrod, reborn by supernatural conception, who she named Tammuz. She set herself up before the people as "queen of heaven," and Tammuz as a ‘god-child," and December 25th has been worshipped as his birthday ever since. This celebration began hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, the true GOD CHILD. Christmas is a mixture, and a mixture is an abomination to God!!!

(Reprinted from November/December 1987 edition, Voices From His Excellent Glory)

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