Satan’s Counterfeit Gospel of Genesis 3:15
Old Testament Core Seminar
Sunday School
March 23rd 2008
Miles Crouse
2 Corinthians 4:3, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost”.
Okay, so man has become exceedingly sinful. And God has judged him for it. Yet all the while God has still had grace on mankind, and He’s still faithful to His promises. But why did we need to go into all that detail about judgment taking on the form of un-creation, and grace taking on the form of re-creation?
A city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.
The introduction of religion to the world.
This is the first false organized religious system
Here is where human race began to worship God's creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:21-25).
Rom 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Rom 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Rom 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Man’s worship of these terrestrial objects also changed into the worship of the life giving cycles of harvest or the worship of fertility.
But why is this important to know?
Babylon is mentioned in
the Bible over 300 times. It is the second most mentioned city in the word of
God. In fact, an underlying theme woven through the Bible is a tale of two
cities: Jerusalem and Babylon. Babylon's history begins with the Tower of Babel
in Genesis chapter 11, and continues throughout history, and it culminates in
(Rev. 14, 17, 18). _files/image001.gif){kind=small}
It represents man's pride and power and rebellion
against God. Babylon is the capitol city of Satan’s religious system. It was
also many believe to be the first counterfeit fulfillment
of Genesis 3:15.
Many today are trying to claim that the God of the Bible His Son’s birth life death and resurrection is just one of many parallel stories told throughout the world today.
How ever much of what passes today as respectable religion is nothing more than the worship of the Devil in the form of a false messiah. The beginning of which started here at Babel with Noah’s Great grandson Nimrod.
The deep symbolism deceives the unsuspecting majority of people and most members of the Church of Rome and men involved in Freemasonry, New Age Mysticism, fortune tellers and many more.
And others would be horrified if they knew the truth about their religious systems. It is the cunning of the Devil that keeps these things hidden from their eyes. As Cor 4:3-4 explains
2 Cor 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2 Cor 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath 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 unto them.
And if it appears strange how anyone can believe that the sun can also be a god, consider the millions that are deceived into believing that a piece of bread or wafer in the shape of the sun becomes the actual body of Jesus Christ in Mass as the Church of Rome preaches.
Babel is the source of how all false religion was born.
Satan counterfeit story was designed to deceive man into worshiping a false god or gods.
Well beside hiding the gospel from men
Why else would he do this?
To destroy God’s Image for one.
Satan hates God and he hates you and me.
Many people believing they where acting in the divine will of there gods have killed men. Wars have been fought and men have died for a lie. And like the story of Cain and Able, Satan’s goal of destroying God’s created image continued.
The false story begins with Noah’s grand son Cush who was eldest son of Ham.
I want to take the liberty here to go outside the Bible here a little bit to explain what according to some archeologist studies suggest happened to Nimrod. According to Alexander Hislop who’s research is currently popular and even accepted to a large degree among modern historians…
Cush and his wife Semiramis begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. Nimrod rises to power and is both feared and worshiped by man. Turning men from the fear of God He gradually changed the government into tyranny, bringing them into a constant dependence on his power… He then according to some historical records found marries his own mother and became a powerful King. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, in lower Mesopotamia in the land of Shinar." Nimrod became a god-man to the people and Semiramis, his wife and mother, became the powerful Queen of ancient Babylon.
Nimrod was eventually killed by an enemy, and his body was cut in pieces and sent to various parts of his kingdom.
Semiramis claimed that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now to be called "Baal", the sun god. Before Nimrod die’s Semiramis is pregnant with his child who she then falsely claims the pregnancy is a result of Baal and she conceived this child miraculously from the sun god’s rays.
The name of the child was Tammuz and given the title Orion which translates "seed of the woman"
From Semiramis and Tammuz came the first mother and child cult.
She was then deified as the mother of god and the Queen of Heaven the goddess Ishtar and was symbolized by the Moon. So began the worship of Semiramis and the child-god, and the Babylonian religious system.
Semiramus claimed Tammuz after forty days of weeping and prayer, the child was miraculously raised from the dead. This rumor spread quickly and added sufficient fuel to propel the religious system throughout the ancient world. This supposedly happened on the feast of the Astoreth or feast to Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of fertility. Thus began the celebration of “Ishtar,” or as we know it, Easter.
Notice how God responds to the building of the tower.
The False Religion Expands
The Bible tells us that at this time there was only one language in the world and that most of the world's population centered in this area and participated in this religion. It was evident to God that all mankind would soon degenerate into a level of evil that would parallel that of the pre-Flood world. For humanity's sake, something had to be done to slow and frustrate this organization of an evil one world, tyrannical government.
God confused their language, so that they could not understand each other (Genesis 11:7). (This is the ultimate source of the world's many languages.) As a result, many people moved away from the area in groups according to their particular new language. Most, if not all, of these people carried their evil Sun-God-based materialistic religion with them into every land. They continued to worship the stars and practice all the other pagan rituals of their religion. Some also continued to build pyramids reminiscent of the Tower of Babel as part of this mystery religion. Today, we can still find remnants of these throughout the world (e.g., Iraq, South America, Central America, Egypt, Burma).
Its current form is mainly a pantheistic, evolutionary humanism promoting a "new world order," featuring a world government and (supposedly) universal prosperity, without God
The Bible says of her, "Babylon... hath been a golden cup in the LORD'S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. (Jeremiah 51:7).
So when god confused the languages this “Babylonian religious system” spread throughout the earth, its name changed, but the worship remained basically the same.
Semiramis became known as "Ishtar" which is pronounced "Easter", and her moon egg became known as "Ishtar's" egg
The system grew in Babylon (modern day Iraq) as the worship of Marduk and Ishtar.
It went into Canaan as the worship of Baal and the Asteroth.
It then went into Syria as the worship of Baal and Astarte.
It found its way into Egypt as the worship of Horace (Ocirus, the sun God), and Ises (the corresponding female deity).
It eventually went into Greece the worship of (Ocirus became Aris) and (Ises became Aphrodite; the goddess of love). Ultimately this religion went into Rome as the worship of Cupid and Venus, the god and goddess of love. Later in the book of Acts 12:4 we see Herod's celebration of pagan Easter. We also see the so called queen of heaven in Acts 19 in the city of the Ephesians who where worshippers of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter.
The Mysteries of Babylon were not only copied (with variations) by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, but they have found their way into the 20th century culture & religion, including Christianity [& Judaism & Cablism].
Just as Babylon has played an important role in past history, by many Babylons rising and falling she is scheduled by God and revealed in prophecy to play a central role in the future. And so in Babel we see another typology in the Old Testament when we come to the last book of the Bible Revelation 14.
Babylon Future
Although the city of Babylon sunk beneath the sands of time during the past seventeen hundred years, it has begun to rise in this century. Babylon becomes a dominant force in the world religiously, commercially, governmentally and militarily for Revelation 17-18 predicts the destruction Babylon. In the final book of the Bible, this woman of wickedness is called "Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth." She is said to be sitting upon "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues"
The sin-cursed world became Satan’s domain He evidently began, through Cain, to erect an enormous world of culture designed to appeal to man’s flesh. Man, apart from God, and would seek by his own power and lust for materialism to find peace and fulfillment.
And still today their remains in man these anti-God evil desires and a political idealism that if man could just be self sufficient live together in harmony with perfect laws and perfect environment, and if he could expand his ideologies in a one world empire there would be peace on earth. Not knowing that this leads to the extermination of the entire race.
Finally, before we conclude we need to think about some application for this. Man, apart from God, will never be able to create a world having perfect peace. One world governments will not lead to peace but to ultimate destruction.
Reformation is not the answer, religion is not the answer, humanism is not the answer, entertainment is not the answer, and education is not the answer. Man has no power within himself to reproduce what he lost in the garden.
Throughout the ages, Satan has attempted to thwart the plan of God. He attacked the line of man in order to prevent the “Seed of the woman” from coming into the world. He knew from Genesis 3:15 that God was going to send “One” who would destroy him forever. Satan was relentless in dedicating himself to keeping this seed from coming.
The ark had only one door. And there was only one way in! and like the ark God has provided only one way to life, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only by personal faith in Him can we escape death.
“Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Jesus says… “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’” “John 14:6
Application
1. What we are struck with here is the real horror of sin. We have all thought far too slightly of sin. We have not considered the complete and utter evilness of our rebellion against God. We dance around it and call it by names that soften the blow of it. But we need to call it what it is: treason!
Think about it. You have the all powerful, all creative, self-sufficient God on the one hand. He designed the whole system. Everything, all the way down to the level of atoms and quarks. And then you have his creatures, completely dependent on him, made from dust, assigned with the task of imaging his moral perfection, beauty, and love; assigned with bringing his justice and rule to the world; created with the purpose of pointing to him;
But instead putting their hand up to him and saying “no thank you. I’m as good as you. I’ll do it my way. I’ll rule my life and the world around me how I please.” Do you realize that when you get up in the morning, and decide to get out of bed, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, and plan your day without any consideration of God’s rule over your life, you are saying “I am like god. I know good and evil.” I’ll feel this morning the way I want to feel. I respond to my parents or my spouse the way I want to respond. I’ll think what I want to think about this church service. I am like god. I know what’s good and what’s evil. God? Who needs Him? I have me!”
Well, we need to remember that we are to be submissive creatures, not pointing-to-ourselves. We were made for Another, to display the glory of Another. And every time we insist on our own autonomy we are committing the same treachery and sedition that we read about today.
Even after the fall into sin, man still bears God's image. So the problem is not that man no longer bears God’s image. The problem is that man bears a perversion of God’s image. He does not fill the earth with God’s righteous glory. He misrepresents, dishonors, lies about, distorts the truth of who God is. Like a carnival mirror, its reflection is twisted and wrong.
Think about what this means: If nothing is more important than God’s glory, then nothingis more evil than trying to deny God the glory that is his. Therefore, nothing is more important than God vindicating his righteous glory by punishing sin and destroying those who mis-bear it.
2. And that leads us to our second point of application. Do you remember what we read when we were looking at 2 Peter? “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people out you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.” Knowing God will hold us accountable for our actions should serve as a motivator toward holiness. And we as a church members need to open up our lives to each other, and be involved in each other’s lives, not to be busy bodies, but in order to help each other fight this nemesis within: sin.
3. But thirdly, no matter how righteous a life we lead relative to some worldly standard, we will never live up to God’s standard of holiness. We are sinners all. Our situation is desperate. Our righteousness is really dirty rags. We all stand in need of Someone else’s righteousness imputed to us. And so our application is this: but your whole and entire confidence in Christ. Believe in Him. Repent of your sins and trust that His death and resurrection are sufficient to atone for your sins and give you eternal life. Let no other trust intrude…throw the whole of yourself on Christ.
4. And lastly we need to follow Christ by hearing and obeying the Word of God. You see, the fall originated in the same place that all sin originates: in ignorance of and confusion about the Word of God. So we need to be blood earnest about learning and internalizing and memorizing the Word of God.
[TAKE QUESTIONS]
[PRAY]