Celebrating the Mass

At this season of the year I am constantly bombarded by unsuspecting people with "Merry Christmas." I say unsuspecting because: (1) they do not suspect that any sensible person would refuse to celebrate the mass; (2) they do not suspect anything to be wrong with the mass: (3) if they are aware of the origin, they do not suspect that it is so very wrong to celebrate just one mass a year, especially since the name of Christ is attached it cannot be too wrong.

 I would like to set forth three (3) points: The pure idolatry and blasphemy of the Roman Mass: The origin of that mass; and some of the many ramifications of the celebration of the mass. Is it really wrong? Should we contend against it as Jude 4 commands or is this just a tempest in a teapot, that amounts to nothing as to whether we do, or do not celebrate the mass?

 I am of the strong conviction that a nation wholly given to idolatry is one of the main causes of the trouble and perplexity in our nation. "Nonsense," is what I hear, that such a little innocent thing as celebrating the mass could be the cause of such trouble. But the prophet Amos sets the record straight for us. "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" Amos 3:6

 What then is the origin and implications of the mass? First -- the mass can be traced back into the Chaldean mysteries which go back to Semiramis and Nimrod in Babylon. Semiramis lived only a few centuries after the flood. She was worshipped as "Rhea,'' the great mother of the gods. She was the goddess of growth of natural things in Greek mythology. She was called Cybele in Phrygia and Magna Mater (great mother) in Rome. Semiramis lived while Shem was still alive, 502 years after the flood (Hebrew chronology B.C. 1846). Ninus (Nimrod) was her husband. Abraham was born B.C. 1996, about 9 years before the end of the reign of Ninus, or Nimrod.

 In the Old Testament Babylon was clearly seen as being founded and built by Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, (Genesis 10:8-10; 11:1-9) and can be traced through the events of Israel. In the New Testament Babylon is spoken of as "MYSTERY BABYLON" (Rev. 17:5). Revelation 17:1-18 gives us the unveiling of much of the mystery. It is clear that Mystery Babylon is Catholicity (Universalism). In 1825 Pope Leo XII struck a medal, bearing on the one side his own image, on the other side that of the church of Rome symbolized as a woman. The woman held in her left hand a cross (the symbol of Tammuz) and in her right hand a cup with the legend around her 'Sedet Super Universum' (the whole world her seat): It is a fact that popery is nothing more than baptized paganism. I hope that God will enable me to make manifest that the paganism which Rome has baptized, is in all its essential elements, the very paganism which prevailed in the ancient literal Babylon when Jehovah opened before Cyrus the two-leafed gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron; when he conquered Babylon and assisted Israel. John sees the Apostate church with the name "BABYLON THE GREAT" written upon her forehead (Rev. 17:5).

 How were these mysteries of Babylon to be carried out? The object was to bind all mankind in blind and absolute submission to a hierarchy entirely dependent on the sovereigns of Babylon. It should be done in stealth and secret. In carrying out of this evil scheme all knowledge, sacred and profane, came to be monopolized by the priesthood.

 The origin of the mass is from old Babylon paganism. The sacrifice the mass is from the "unbloody sacrifice" of Venus. Tacitus, the historian, says, "No blood was allowed to be offered on the altars of the erotic Venus. Its victims were used for the purpose of the 'haruspex' but the altars were required to be kept pure from blood". The haruspex (inspector of entrails) was any of a class of lesser priests and soothsayers, in ancient Rome, who professed to foretell the future by interpreting the entrails of the victim. Tacitus further states, the haruspex of the temple of Venus was brought from Cilicia. Tarus, the capital city of Cilicia, was built by Senachrib the Assyrian King, in express imitation of Babylon.

 Now, the goddess Queen of Chaldea differs from her son, who was worshipped in her arms. He was represented as delighting in blood. She, as the mother of Grace and Mercy, as the celestial "dove", as the Hope of the world, was averse from blood and was represented in a benign and gentle character. According, in Babylon she bore the name of "Mylitta" a "the mediatrix." Rome has bestowed the character of the "Mediatrix" on Mary. I Timothy 2:5 says, "For there is one God (not many), and one mediator (not mediatrix) between God and Men, the MAN CHRIST JESUS (not the woman Mary)."

 The queen was also called Aphrodite. She was supposed to have been born from the sea (mainly because Nimrod was a descendant of Ham who came through the flood with Noah). Aphrodite was the goddess of love, "the wrath subdoer" (Greek myth). In Rome she was called "Bona Dea", The Good Goddess, this is why Mary is prayed to as "Holy Mary, Mother of God."

 Now we can see how and why Rome represents Christ, the meek and lowly lamb of God who never breaks the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax, the one full of grace and truth (Isaiah 42:1-4; John 1:14-17), as a stern and hard judge before whom sinners might grovel in the dust and still might never be sure of being heard. While at the same time Mary is put in the most winning and engaging light. Ligvori (1696-1787) tells his readers that sinners that venture to come directly to Christ may come with dread and apprehension of His wrath. Let him only employ the mediation of the virgin with her son. She has only to show the son "the breast that gave him suck" and his wrath will be immediately appeased. Certainly that could not come from Luke 11:27 and 28.

 Hindu mythology has the god Siva and his wife Kali. When that god appeared as a little child we have an exact parallel. "Siva," says the Lainga Puran, "appeared as an infant in a cemetery, surrounded by ghosts, and on beholding him, Kali (his wife) took him up, and, caressing him, gave him her breast. He sucked the nectareous fluid; but becoming ANGRY, in order to divert and PACIFY him, Kali clasping him to her bosom, danced with her attendant goblins and demons amongst the dead, until he was pleased and delighted." The son was the reincarnation of the husband.

 All these pagan myth's are woven into the apostate Roman system called the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which is mystery Babylon. The pagan rite of a bloodless sacrifice was brought into the Roman church, the great whore and mother of harlots. In the fourth century when the Queen of Heaven, under the name of Mary, was beginning to be worshipped in the Christian church (so-called) the unbloody sacrifice was then introduced. Epiphanius states the practice of offering and eating it began among the women of Arabia. The shape of the unbloody sacrifice indicated its origin -- a small round wafer. In Egypt the small thin round disk symbolized the sun. When Osiris, the son god, became incarnate (or reincarnate, as the case is with pagan mythology) and was born, it was not merely to give his life as a sacrifice for men, but that he might also be life and nourishment of men's souls. The sacrament or round wafer; the round disk of the sun god, the symbol of Baal; the Mass -- means dismissal, hence the dismissal of sins through the unbloody sacrifice of the queen of heaven which jumps into the face of Hebrews 9:13-15, 22.

 The blasphemy of the celebration of the mass is that men can have their sins dismissed or pardoned with a bloodless sacrifice, which is directly contrary to scripture. Roman Litany address the wafer, in the celebration of the mass, "Bread-corn of the elect, have mercy upon us" Those receiving the sacrament should be fasting from midnight to the mass, just as was enforced in the old worship of the Babylonian divinity.

 Although the god whom Isis or Ceres brought forth, and who was offered to her under the symbol of the wafer or thin round cake, as "the bread of life," was in reality the fierce, scorching Sun, or terrible Moloch, yet in that offering all his terrors was veiled, and everything repulsive was cast into the shade. In the appointed symbol he is offered up to the benignant Mother, who tempers judgment with mercy, and to whom all spiritual blessings are ultimately referred; and blessed by that mother, he is given back to be feasted upon, as the staff of life, as the nourishment of her worshippers souls. Thus the Mother was held up as the favorite divinity. And thus, also, does the Madonna of Rome entirely eclipse her son as the "Mother of grace and mercy"

 To a Christian the characters I.H.S., on the wafer, are represented as signifying, "lesus Hominum Salvator", "Jesus the Saviour of men". To the pagans in Rome it means: "Isis, Horus, Seb", that is, "The Mother, the Child, (reincarnated) and the Father (or husband who dies) of the gods", in other words, "The Egyptian Trinity". When the women of Arabia began to adopt this wafer and offer the "unbloody sacrifice" all genuine Christians saw at once the real character of their sacrifice. They were treated as heretics. But Rome saw that the heresy might be turned to account; and therefore the practice of offering and eating this "unbloody sacrifice" was patronized by the Papacy; and now, throughout the whole bounds of the Romish communion, it has superseded the simple, but most precious ordinance, of the Supper instituted by our Lord Himself.

 In the celebration of the mass the priests are supposed to be invested with the miraculous power to transform a piece of bread into the very body of Christ, as well the wine into His blood. Transubstantiation is the changing of one substance into another; hence the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, but that is the unbloody sacrifice of the sun goddess and not the Lord's supper. It is not the crucifying of Christ afresh, but the unbloody sacrifice that is implied in the mass that dismisses a man's sins, that is blasphemy. The papacy teaches that after consecration "the body and blood as well as the soul of divinity of the Lord Himself are present in "the Eucharist"

 It does not trouble me so much that the religious orders of the world, who are the harlot daughters of Rome known as protestant denominations, celebrate the Xmass but it troubles me greatly that the Lord's churches, "the Israel of God." (Gal. 6:16), take part in this idolatry. In this present time they celebrate the blasphemous mass and see nothing wrong with it. It is sad that I can read in the secular newspapers and periodicals more truth about the pagan origin of the mass than is preached in most Baptist pulpits. It is argued that "we do not have a tree (the image of Baal) in the church house or exchange gifts, or have Santa Claus come in and deceive children," but most Baptist churches have their cantatas of the mass. Most "so-called" Baptists have all the trappings of the mass in their homes like the tree and mistletoe which are described in Jeremiah 10:1-8; all the glitter of pagan symbolical colors, etc.; the lights on the roof which are spoken of in Zephaniah 1:5 and how they swear by the Lord and by Malcham. They seem to be able to justify paganism and demon worship in their homes, and yet if a member gets drunk or commits adultery in the home charges are brought up before the church and that member is withdrawn from, as well he should be. The sad thing is that the Scriptures put as much, or more, emphasis on idolatry as it does on sins of the flesh. We are told to flee from idolatry. We read this in I Corinthians 10:7, 14. 1 John 5:21 tells us, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols". Note also Ephesians 5:1-5. Paul tells us what the works of the flesh are and then tells us that they which DO (not have DONE, but DO) practice such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21), that is the gospel church kingdom here and now.

 The true Church of Christ is not to keep company with a brother if he be a fornicator, covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, and they are not to eat with such, that is, they are not to eat the Lord's Supper with them. They are to be put from the body (I Cor. 5:11-13). That wicked person, Paul says, is to be put away from among the body (local). "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." I Corinthians 6:9-10.

 It is a fact that the Lord's churches have no right to sit and eat at the Lord's Table until these wicked individuals are dealt with and excluded from the rights and privileges of the local church. It is also a fact that when the Lord's churches presume to do so, that they sit alone at that table. Our Lord is not present at that feast of bread and wine that represents His body, which was broken, and His blood that was shed for the elect seed in securing their eternal salvation. Many of the Lord's true churches have not had the Lord present in their communion services for years because of no discipline in the church, note I Corinthians 10: 16-21. Paul makes it clear that "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils (demons): ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils." (verse 21) Oh, Yes, many churches go right on as though all is well and perform their little ceremony. Most churches just once or twice a year. But it is not the Lord's table because He is not present at that table. How do we know that? Note I Corinthians 11:18-20. Verse 20 says, "this is not to eat the Lord's supper" but the marginal reference says, "ye CANNOT eat the Lord's supper." Oh you may eat the bread and drink the wine, but you have not eaten the Lord's Supper because you ate it without Him. It was the church's supper, not His.

 Why is this supper kept so seldom? Because we have left our "first love." The scriptural precedent is when the church assembled on the first day of the week, to worship in spirit and truth, they, in the evening service on Saturday (the beginning of the Lord's Day) examined themselves and came to the Lord's table and He was present with them. "Oh, (some will say) it will become a boring routine to keep the feast each first day" On the contrary, can any supper where our precious Lord is present become a meaningless ritual? A boring routine? A burden to the members of His body? I think not. The primitive church did not think so, for they kept it each and every Lord's Day. One thing is for sure, church discipline must be kept in order to keep the feast. I Corinthians 14:40, "Let all things be done decently and in order." The Lord has an order that the church is to go by if we are to keep house for Him.

 The fact of the matter is: the once a year keeping of the Lord's Supper has become a meaningless ritual. Both discipline and restoration are neglected, and that ritual is nothing more than an emotional ceremony without the Lord ever being present. Oh that God's people would repent and do the first works. We should see the visitation of God upon His churches and possible our nation delivered from its judgments.

 What is truly amazing to me is that the Lord's true churches will not receive alien immersion because it is not John's baptism, its origin is from apostate Rome, and they should not. Yet, Baptist churches will ignore IDOLATRY in its most blatant form. Its members will celebrate the mass, which is pure idolatry and has the same origin as apostate baptism. Some will try to justify it by saying the same as I see on bumper stickers and bill boards, etc., "Keep Christ in Christmas" or "Put Christ Back into Christmas." The fact is the Christ of God has never been in that which is a pagan feast of an "unbloody sacrifice," nor can you put Christ into it, or anywhere else for that matter. There was a king once who thought he had power to release, or put to death, the very Son of God, but our Lord made it clear that he had no power but that which had been given him from above. Our Lord will have nothing to do with that which is an abomination in His sight.

 The scriptures no where tell us to commemorate Christ's birthday. Why? Because Christ has no birthday. He is eternal with the Father, has always existed with the Father, and hence is without beginning or ending of days. The Christ of Christmas is anti-christ. Rome does not believe in the virgin birth. They do not believe in the incarnation, but in reincarnation. That the husband of the queen of heaven, after having died a violent death, was reincarnated as the sun god. How can I, knowing what I know about the "mass," have a "Merry Christmass?" How can any true believer, who desires to be obedient unto their Lord? Some only call Him Master and Lord, but DO NOT the things He says, as in Luke 6:46.

 Perhaps the greatest blasphemy of all is that the "unbloody sacrifice" of the mass is celebrated over and over In order to dismiss men from their sin, when in reality the Lord's Table is "kept" as it was delivered to the church (I Cor. 11:1) In remembrance of that one complete and satisfactory sacrifice of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, when He offered Himself to God. (Eph. 5:2, Heb.7:27; 10:10; 9:14; Christ never offered Himself to sinners, in the entire volume of scriptures (nor did He offer Himself to Satan as some advocate). The apostle laid great import on "once" and "one," Christ offered Himself once a bloody sacrifice, Why? because "without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9:22) "Now where remission of these is (sins and iniquities), there is no more offering for sin" (Heb. 10:17-18). "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Heb.9:14; "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many (Not all of Adams race, but many) Heb. 9:28; "By the which will (will of God) we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (or once for ever)" Hedb. 10:10; "For by one offering He (Christ) hath perfected forever them that are sanctified" Heb. 10:14.

 The unbloody sacrifice of the mass is a blatant and bold denial of that one offering of Christ, and that which was accomplished by His death, and advocates the blasphemy of the "universal atonement" doctrine. The basis of "universal atonement" is that Christ did not secure the redemption of any man in particular but only made salvation possible, or probable, for any, or all, men who will cooperate with God. The "bloodless sacrifice" of the mass is that any man can have his sins dismissed by the priest through the celebration of the mass, which is called a "sacrament" (meaning sacramentum, sum deposited by two parties in a sacred place), literally meaning -- salvation is accomplished by the help and cooperation on the part of the sinner. This doctrine has come from Egypt, "self-procreation" known as "free willism" in our day. The "mass" is a denial of the prophecies of redemption truths, as in Isaiah 53:10-12, by insisting on an unbloody sacrifice. First it is a denial that the Lord God was pleased to bruise Him, by insisting on an unbloody sacrifice; second, that His soul was made an offering for the sin of His seed (or the elect), by denying that God has an elect seed; third, that the pleasure of the Lord prospered in His hand (for, indeed, Christ is a failure if He did not secure the eternal redemption of those for whom He died); fourth, that His days are prolonged. How? By His rising again for the justification of His elect (Romans 4:24-25), which is denied in the mass; fifth, that the travail of His soul was a satisfaction to God, because an unbloody sacrifice must continue to be offered to set men free from their sin; sixth, that by Christ, "the righteous servant," infinite knowledge did in fact justify many (the many being those that He in vicarious substitution bear their iniquities); seventh, that He divided a portion with the great, and the spoil with the strong (the spoil here refers to the property, territory, etc. taken in battle by the conqueror). The celebration of the "mass" implies that Christ in His atoning death, burial, and resurrection conquered nothing at all. "Because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." God, the Father, divided Christ His share that had been agreed to in covenant arrangement, before the foundation of the world, with the great (or with great abundance) and the spoil with the strong (substantial,, real, actual, true not imaginary). The property and territory which was the spoil of the conquering Christ were none other than the elect as John 6:37-40 tells us. Those that were given to Christ before the foundation of the world will come to Christ. There is no possibility of failure. The celebration of the mass is a flat denial of these great truths.

 Yes, dear reader, I am aware that "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) I know that God in His Sovereignty had a purpose, in Babylon and mystery Babylon as well. I am also aware that God's people are exhorted to come out of her. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? and the church IS the temple of God.(II Cor. 6:14-18). I am also aware that, "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." (Luke 16:15). We are not to lust after evil things as Israel of old did, nor be idolators we are told in I Corinthians 10:6,7. Are you aware that the scriptures exhort and admonish God's people not to be plastic (easily formed)? "Be not conformed to this world" but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind," Romans 12:2. I hope your minds have been renewed.

 Tonight, as I finish my remarks on the pagan festival, it is "Christmas Eve" At midnight the pope of Rome will celebrate the mass for Christ in Saint Peter's Basilica (Saint Peter's kingdom). The mass is blasphemy when said for any person. To pretend to dismiss men's sins by an "unbloody sacrifice" is anti-Christ doctrine. This particular mass is the height of blasphemy for it is celebrated for Christ who is holy, harmless, and separate from sinners (Hebrews 7:26). Rome does not believe in the incarnation of Christ (unborn deity incarnate in human flesh) for they accuse Him of sin and dismiss that sin by the mass. If you, as a professing believer, took part in celebrating the mass, I thought you should know just what you have taken part of. You can find these facts, and many more, in "The Two Babylons" by Alexander Hislop, "The World Book Encyclopedia" and some are right from "Webster's Dictionary." May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.