God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He changes not, and commands the same holiness among His people today (1 Peter 1:15-16). As He admonished Israel in the past, He admonishes the church today saying, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18).

In the early years of the church, when the gospel first began to be preached among the Gentiles, many of them “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). However, there was still concern that some would relapse again into idolatry so Paul found it necessary to remind the Corinthians that they should “flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14), for they “were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led” (1 Corinthians 12:2). James also wrote letters to instruct them, “which from among the Gentiles are turned to God … that they abstain from pollutions of idols” (Acts 15:19-20). As well, it was essential for John to remind the disciples, “children, keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21).

Seeing that “idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood … neither can see, nor hear, nor walk” (Revelation 9:20), why should we invoke such vanities? Or bless them? Or turn to them in prayer (or for that matter, someone whom they are alleged to represent), seeing there is only “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5), who is seated “at the right hand of God” (Romans 8:34), and is there to make “intercession for us”.

The veneration of images, idols and other religious relics is a heathen custom clearly forbidden in the Word of God, and clearly outlined in the first two of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:4-6). For three centuries after Christ ascended into heaven, the early Church chose martyrdom rather than participate in any form of idolatry. However, when Christianity became the state religion under Constantine, the church began to compromise The Faith, and the same abominations that infected Israel slowly began to infiltrate the communion of the church.

There is an old saying, “as goes Israel, so goes the church”, nevertheless, the ways of the heathen were to be purged like leaven from a loaf of bread. Israel was told to destroy their idols and their altars and their temples (Numbers 33:52, Deuteronomy 7:1-6), however, with the legalization of Christianity, heathen temples became “Christian” cathedrals, ceremonies were purified by the incantation of the priests, and the idols of paganism began to be venerated under the guise of the saints. In a word,

“Paganism survived...by an often indulgent Church. An intimate and trustful worship of saints replaced the cult of pagan gods...Statues of Isis and Horus were renamed Mary and Jesus...incense, processions, vestments, hymns which had pleased the people in older cults were domesticated and cleansed in the ritual of the Church ... the world converted Christianity.” (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Simon and Schuster, 1950)

Rather than calling believers out of the darkness to follow Christ, the church chose to enjoin pagan culture to the assembly of the saints. As culture kept advancing and intellectual progress went on, the crafts and arts arose; departments arose, each needing a god. These corruptions were maintained in the first place by the power of tradition, and were especially defended by the rich and powerful clergy. Andrew Lang in his classic, “The Making of Religion” stated,

“'God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.' Man also is a spirit, and, as such, is in the hands of a God not to be propitiated by man's sacrifice or monk's ritual. We know how this doctrine was again disturbed by the Animism, in effect, and by the sacrifice and ritual of the Mediaeval Church. Too eager 'to be all things to all men,' the august and beneficent Mother of Christendom readmitted the earlier Animism in new forms of saint-worship, pilgrimage, and popular ceremonial---things apart from, but commonly supposed to be substitutes for, righteousness of life and the selflessness enjoined in savage mysteries. For the softness, no less than for the hardness of men's hearts, these things were ordained: such as masses for the beloved dead.” (The Making of Religion, p. 377, 2007)

Little had changed among the Gentiles but the names of the gods they worshiped. Peter and Paul displaced Romulus and Remus as the new founding fathers of Rome. Instead of the twelve gods of ancient Rome, there were the cults of the twelve apostles, whose relics could cure diseases, control the weather, and inflict harm on those who opposed them. Instead of the cult of Diana, Queen of Heaven, there was the cult of Mary, Queen of Heaven. Instead of the gods Isis and Horus, the idols of the Madonna with child could now be venerated as Mary and the baby Jesus.

We must remember that idolatry was an extension of astrology and one of the customs of the Gentile nations was to make idols of “the signs of heaven” (Jeremiah 10:2-5, 14). Pagan idols were originally the personifications of the host of heaven, or as Stephen would say, “figures which ye made to worship them” (Acts 7:42-43).

The “mother and child” cult is one example of idolatry that originated back at Babel. This image was first fashion in the heavens, and then idols were made to worship them. In Babylon, the Madonna with Child was worshipped as Semiramis and Tammuz.

“From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris [Horus]. In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter, the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast; or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms; and even in Tibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being represented with a child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist had been employed to set her up.” (The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop, p. 20, 1959)

When Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Egypt, he sent his servants to do a thorough study of the Great Pyramid and several of the temples. One extremely interesting item was a detailed map of the heavens from the Temple of Hathor at Denderah, showing the constellations as they were anciently. Napoleon had his artists carefully copy all of the figures in detail, resulting in several huge volumes of drawings.

Bullinger, who put much effort into studying the constellations stated, “The Zodiac in the Temple of Denderah, in Egypt, going back at least 2000 years BC … has the figure of a woman and child … The ancient Egyptian name for this constellation was Shes-nu, the desired son! … We thus have before us the exact representations of one of these star-pictures at least 4,000 years old.” (The Witness of the Stars, By E. W. Bullinger, 1893)

At the bottom of the next page we have an illustration of the zodiac at Denderah where the mother and child are pictured. Above that we have a side-by-side comparison of the constellation and the image on the Denderah zodiac. As in Egypt and other cultures around the world, “Isis … is often figured holding the infant deity Horus” (Rolleston, Frances, Mazzaroth; or the Constellations, London: Rivingtons, 1862, updated in 1875, Book I, p. 17).

Included in this massive collection of artifacts are hundreds of idols that represent their gods. There are rain gods, maize gods, fertility gods, frog gods, war gods, bat gods, jaguar gods, and various astral deities of the sun, moon, planets and the stars. Within that collection were idols that bore a remarkable resemblance to the “Madonna and Child” shown above. These are clear representations of the ancient religion of Babel that spread throughout the whole earth corrupting the nations. Unfortunately, in the third and fourth centuries, Christianity adopted this same pagan religion, just like Israel.

What ever happen to the Lord's admonition to “abstain from pollutions of idols” (Acts 15:19-20)? to “flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14)? to “keep yourself from idols” (1 John 5:21)? Paul asked the believers at Corinth who were in danger of slipping back into idolatry, “what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16). However, from generation to generation, the list of saintly intercessors grew and grew and a thousand new gods, so it seemed, were added to the Christian pantheon.

Gordon J. Laing testifies that the founders of the Catholic Church-State,

“were keenly interested in winning the pagans to the faith, and they succeeded. But undoubtedly one element in their success was the inclusion in their system of the doctrine of the veneration of Saints. They seem to have felt that in order to make any headway at all, it was necessary for them to match the swarms of spirits available for the pagans with a multitude of wonder-working Saints and Martyrs. How far they were prepared to go is indicated by their favorable attitude toward the pagan veneration of Virgil that amounted almost to deification…. The Saints succeeded to the worship of the dead just as they had succeeded to the cult of the departmental deities and to the little gods of the Roman household…. Reports of miracles wrought by human beings were common among the ancient Romans and were accepted by the great mass of people without question…. The [Roman] Christians adapted themselves to the pagan attitude. They matched the miracle-workers of the pagans with the wonder-working Saints; and with their success the number of miracles increased. The sanctity of relics, well established as it has been among the pagans, acquired far greater vogue in [medieval] Christian times and was given a degree of emphasis that it had never had before…. Like the deified heroes and emperors of pagan times, the Saints were honored with altars, sacred edifices, incense, lights, hymns, ex-voto offerings, festivals with illuminations and high hilarity, prayers, and invocations. They became intermediate divinities….” (Gordon J. Laing, Survivals of Roman Religion, pp. 8-9, 83, 120-121, 1931).

How often the church was admonished to watch and be sober. Giving idols names of saints under the pretense of piety could never please the Lord. “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). But somewhere along the way they forgot Paul's admonition to “turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein” (Acts 14:15), and the Church fell into a deep slumber plunging humanity into the “Dark Ages”. This could not be more evident without a brief review of the ancient worship of the sun.

Every kindred, tribe and nation around the globe, above all their deities, gave special reverence to the great sun god. Among the Egyptians he was revered as Ra. Throughout the Roman Empire the sun was worshipped as Mithra. In ancient Greece the deities of the sun were Helios and Apollo. The Phœnicians worshipped the sun as Baal, and the Ammonites worshipped the sun as Molech or Milcom. Among the ancient Babylonians he was worshipped as Shamash. The Mayans also worshipped the sun, and the Aztecs called him Huitzilopotchli.

This corrupt religion was originally cultivated in the ancient land of Babel and spread out from there. Numerous steles are found in that region depicting this pagan deity.

In “Prescott's Mexico”, he provides his readers with a woodcut of “The Temple of the Sun” (Volume I, p. 447, 1898). The image on the wall is typical of a “monstrance” that is used in the Roman Catholic Church to hold a piece of bread they call the “Eucharist” or the “host”. The baker first fashions the bread into little round wafers, then the Roman priest pronounces his incantation over the bread and wine making them “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1374).

Each wafer is now believed to be Jesus Christ and the communicant is encouraged to bow down and worship the image of the Eucharist. Certainly, anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear can recognize that this is nothing more than the old Babylonish religion dressed up in Christian garb.

“they witnessed a religious rite which reminded them of Christian communion. On these occasions, an image of the tutelary deity of the Aztecs was made of the flour of maize, mixed with blood, and after consecration by the priests, was distributed among the people, who, as they ate it, “showed signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring it was the flesh of the diety!” How could the Roman Catholic fail to recognize the awful ceremony of the Eucharist?” (Prescott's Mexico, Volume II, p. 389, 1898)

For some, the various “emblems of Christianity” “proved, in their eyes, that Christianity had been preached at some earlier date among the natives.” And, “In their perplexity, they looked on the whole as the delusion of the Devil, who counterfeited the rites of Christianity and the traditions of the chosen people, that he might allure his wretched victims to their own destruction.”(Prescott's Mexico, Volume II, p. 392, 1898)

But what could we say of pagan cultures before the Christian era, who practiced similar rituals, like that found in the Egyptian and Greek mysteries? The Aztecs could never have copied this from the church because they never heard of Christ or His doctrines before the arrival of Europeans. Where then did they get it? More to the point, where did the Catholic Church get it? For the ritual of the “Mass” is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

There are millions of monstrances in Catholic cathedrals around the world, and many of them are set up where the Eucharist can be perpetually worshipped and adored. It cannot be denied that they are the clear image of the pagan sun god, worshipped by the heathen around the world.

At Babel, their cardinal doctrine was that they “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). Anything made with the hands of men is most certainly part of God's creation. When mankind fashions anything with his hands and declares “these be thy gods” (Exodus 32:4), they are committing the same sacrilege that Israel did when they worshipped the golden calve.

The Lord Jesus Christ created the wheat, from which bread is made, on the third day of Creation (Genesis 1:9-13). To fashion anything from wheat and worship it as god breaks the first and second commandment (Exodus 20:1-7) of God's moral Law. Committing such idolatry is to fall back into the old Babylonish religion of worshiping the creation rather than the Creator.

As well, many Catholics believe that they need to go to the “Mass” to receive Jesus, however, the Scriptures clearly teach that the Spirit of Christ abides in every believer (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, Romans 8:9) and He promises to be with them forever (John 14:16, Hebrews 13:5).

Furthermore, when Jesus, “took the cup … saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the New Testament” (Matthew 26:27-28), it was obvious that He was speaking figuratively, for in the next verse He says, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine” (Matthew 26:29). The Word of God also clearly forbids believers to drink any form of blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11-14, Acts 15:20). To drink the blood of sacrifices is a pagan practice, and when it involves humans it is commonly known as cannibalism. The blood of God's sacrifices was to be sprinkled on the altar, and then poured at the foot of it (Leviticus 4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34). Never were they to be drunk.

After Christ died for our sins and rose again, He ascended into heaven and was set down on the right hand of God (Mark 16:19, Acts 1:11, 1 Peter 3:22, Hebrews 12:2), “till his enemies be made his footstool” (Hebrews 1:13, 10:13, 1 Corinthians 15:25, Luke 20:42-43). It is clear that He does not come back daily to be sacrificed again and again on Roman altars. That Jesus sat down indicated His work of redemption was finished. One future day He promised to return to put down all evil and to reign from the throne of David. At that time every eye shall see Him (Mark 14:62, Matthew 24:27, 26:64, Revelation 1:7).

Christ's sacrifice is “finished” (John 19:30), therefore there is “no more offering for sin” (Hebrews 10:18), for “we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). The “Sacrifice of the Mass”, is totally contrary to the Scriptures. Roman priests claim to have the power to call Jesus down from heaven where he is sacrificed on Roman altars again and again, denying the sufficiency of His finished sacrifice. However, Jesus, “after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12).

God judged Israel when she refused to repent of her idolatry. What do you suppose will be the end of the church in these latter days? Under Constantine the church married the world thus enjoining paganism and Christianity. This unholy union was unspeakable in the days of the apostles. When the Lycaonians thought to mix the gospel with their pagan worship, Paul and Barnabas “rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein” (Acts 14:14-15).

However, many throughout history, when they saw that the State Church would not turn from their vanities, saw no other course than to separate in obedience to the Lord's command (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). They began new fellowships that were subsequently condemned and persecuted by that same Church.

These churches were generally called “Protestant”, because of their protest against the idolatry in the Catholic Church. However, under the ecumenical spirit of the age, there is no longer a protest against the hidden things of darkness. In fact, if you would seek to obey the Lord's command to “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3), today you will find yourself up against a great wall of opposition, not against the humanists and atheists of this world, but against “churchgoers” from every creed.

Strangely enough, those who once thought it necessary to separate (Romans 16:17-20) from the Church of Rome for theological reasons are now coming full circle, and through the ecumenical spirit of the age, are coming back into the Roman fold.

As man began to drift away from the Word of God, paganism ever so subtly began to seep into the church. The only remedy was to repent and turn back to the Word of God and carefully adhere to His commands. But seeing that the church hierarchy was unwilling to reform, many believers were left with no option but to come out of her lest they be partaker of her evil deeds.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18).