madu_nn
I think Pastor Okotie is saying some high level of truth, which is not known to many. See below:
Two key figures in the origin of Christmas are Nimrod, a great grandson of Noah, and his mother and wife, Semiramis, also known as Ishtar and Isis. Nimrod, known in Egypt as Osiris, was the founder of the first world empire at Babel, later known as Babylon (Genesis 10:8-12; 11:1-9). From ancient sources such as the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and records unearthed by archeologists from long-ruined Mesopotamian and Egyptian cities, we can reconstruct subsequent events.
After Nimrod's death (c. 2167 BC), Semiramis promoted the belief that he was a god. She claimed that she saw a full-grown evergreen tree spring out of the roots of a dead tree stump, symbolizing the springing forth of new life for Nimrod. On the anniversary of his birth, she said, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts under it. His birthday fell on the winter solstice at the end of December.
A few years later, Semiramis bore a son, Horus or Gilgamesh. She declared that she had been visited by the spirit of Nimrod, who left her pregnant with the boy. Horus, she maintained, was Nimrod reincarnated. With a father, mother, and son deified, a deceptive, perverted trinity was formed.
Semiramis and Horus were worshipped as "Madonna and child." As the generations passed, they were worshipped under other names in different countries and languages. Many of these are recognizable: Fortuna and Jupiter in Rome; Aphrodite and Adonis in Greece; and Ashtoreth/Astarte and Molech/Baal in Canaan.
During the time between Babel and Christ, pagans developed the belief that the days grew shorter in early winter because their sun-god was leaving them. When they saw the length of the day increasing, they celebrated by riotous, unrestrained feasting and orgies. This celebration, known as Saturnalia, was named after Saturn, another name for Nimrod.
Martin G. Collins! Syncretismas!
Lupercus was a hunter of wolves (Latin lupus is "wolf"), associated with the Roman god Faunus, god of agriculture and fertility. Since Rome took its gods from those it conquered, we can trace Faunus to its Greek equivalent, Pan, god of woods, fields, and flocks. The ancients pictured both of these mythological beings as having a human torso, but legs, horns, and ears of goats. This fits nicely with the fact that they sacrificed goats and used thongs from their skin to whip women during this "feast." The Bible often compares God's people to sheep while frequently linking Satan with goats.
Pan can be traced to the Phoenician sun god Baal (also a god of fertility and nature). We can make a strong case that Baal is none other than Nimrod. In Genesis 10:9, Moses describes Nimrod as a "mighty hunter." In the days after the Flood, animals multiplied rapidly and caused fear among the people. Nimrod grew powerful because of his ability to fight the wild animals. Tradition says that he roamed as far as Italy to hunt wolves.
Valentine comes into play here. The word derives from the Latin valens, meaning "strong, powerful, mighty." Our word valiant, "courageous, heroic," also comes from this root. These are apt descriptions of Nimrod. In a sense, he was the peoples' valentine!
Mike Ford, Be My Valentine?
The heart, ubiquitous symbol of Valentine's Day, is actually a symbol for Nimrod. The Romans acquired the heart symbol from the Babylonians, who spoke the Chaldean tongue. In this language, the word for "heart" was bal or bel. Due to its similarity in sound to "Baal," it became an emblem for Nimrod.
Mike Ford, Be My Valentine?
If we got Christmas from the Roman Catholics, and they got it from paganism, where did the pagans get it? Where, when, and what was its real origin?
It is a chief custom of the corrupt system denounced all through Bible prophecies and teachings under the name of Babylon. And it started and originated in the original Babylon of ancient Nimrod! Yes, it stems from roots whose beginning was shortly this side of the Flood!
Nimrod, grandson of Ham, son of Noah, was the real founder of the Babylonish system that has gripped the world ever since—the system of organized competition—of man-ruled governments and empires, based upon the competitive and profit-making economic system. Nimrod built the Tower of Babel, the original Babylon, ancient Nineveh, many other cities. He organized the world's first kingdom. The name Nimrod, in Hebrew, is derived from "Marad," meaning "he rebelled.
"From many ancient writings, considerable is learned of this man, who started the great organized worldly apostasy from God that has dominated this world until now. Nimrod was so evil, it is said he married his own mother, whose name was Semiramis. After Nimrod's untimely death, his so-called mother-wife, Semiramis, propagated the evil doctrine of the survival of Nimrod as a spirit being. She claimed a full-grown evergreen tree sprang overnight from a dead tree stump, which symbolized the springing forth unto new life of the dead Nimrod. On each anniversary of his birth, she claimed, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts upon it. December 25th was the birthday of Nimrod. This is the real origin of the Christmas tree.
Through her scheming and designing, Semiramis became the Babylonian "Queen of Heaven," and Nimrod, under various names, became the "divine son of heaven." Through the generations, in this idolatrous worship, Nimrod became the false Messiah, son of Baal the Sun-god. In this false Babylonish system, the "Mother and Child" (Semiramis and Nimrod reborn), became chief objects of worship. This worship of "Mother and Child" spread over the world. The names varied in different countries and languages. In Egypt, it was Isis and Osiris. In Asia, Cybele and Deoius. In pagan Rome, Fortuna and Jupiterpuer. Even in Greece, China, Japan, Tibet is to be found the counterpart of the Madonna, long before the birth of Christ!
Thus, during the fourth and fifth centuries, when the pagans of the Roman world were "accepting" the new popular "Christianity" by hundreds of thousands, carrying their old pagan customs and beliefs along with them, merely cloaking them with Christian-sounding names, the Madonna and "Mother and Child" idea also became popularized, especially at Christmas time. Every Christmas season you will hear sung and chanted dozens of times the hymn "Silent Night, Holy Night," with its familiar "Mother and Child" theme. We, who have been born in such a Babylonish world, reared and steeped in these things all our lives, have been taught to revere these things as holy and sacred. We never questioned to see where they came from—whether they came from the Bible or from pagan idolatry!
We are shocked to learn the truth—some, unfortunately, take offense at the plain truth! But God commands His faithful ministers, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression" (Isaiah 58:1). Shocking as these facts are, they are the plain facts of history and the Bible!
The real origin of Christmas goes back to the ancient Babylon. It is bound up in the organized apostasy with which Satan has gripped a deceived world these many centuries! In Egypt, it was always believed that the son of Isis (Egyptian name for "Queen of Heaven") was born December 25th. Paganism celebrated this famous birthday over most of the known world for centuries before the birth of Christ.
December 25th is not the birthday of Jesus the true Christ! The apostles and early true Church never celebrated Christ's birthday at any time. There is no command or instruction to celebrate it in the Bible—rather, the celebrating of birthdays is a pagan, not a Christian custom, believe it or not!
Thus the ancient idolatrous "Chaldean Mysteries," founded by this wife of Nimrod, have been handed down through the pagan religions under new Christian-sounding names.
Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
The Plain Truth About Christmas
Genesis 10:8-10 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Nimrod means "let us revolt." In the context of Genesis 10, there is absolutely no mention of animals that he supposedly hunted. The context has to do with the description of character, moral spirituality, and culture. Nimrod was a mighty man, a mighty hunter in terms of men. He was like the Nephilim (see Genesis 6:4). He was a giant of a moral and spiritual nature.
What was Nimrod doing when he was hunting? Nimrod hunted other Nephilim and eliminated them. He got rid of the competition and established a despotic and autocratic system of government. He did that before the Lord. In other words, he did what he did right in front of God. God was aware of what he was doing. The revolt was not hidden.
If a person is standing before another, he can stand before him as a friend, as neutral, or as an enemy. There is already an indication of how Nimrod stood before the Lord, because he is named "he who revolts." He is standing before the Lord as an enemy. He is against God, as chapter 11 shows.
Nimrod founded a city, and he named it Babilu. Not Babel. He called it Babilu, which means "Gate of God." "Babel" is what the Hebrews called it, and thus when Moses, a Hebrew, wrote Genesis, he called it "Babel." Babel is the Hebrew name. It sounds somewhat similar to Babilu, but Babel means "confusion.
"John W. Ritenbaugh, Where Is the Beast? (Part 2)
Genesis 10:8-12 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Notice the word “before” in "He was a might hunter before the LORD." The word literally means "face"—that which is in the front and which appears to another, as in “face to face.” Nimrod was a mighty hunter facing the Lord. The word before literally means "that which turns." It has a wide variety of usages. It can be translated “facing,” “before,” “in front of,” or “against."
”Against” is the correct translation here, according to the context. He was a mighty hunter against the Lord. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord in the sense of fighting against Him. You do not turn your back on your enemy. You face him, and he faces you.
Nimrod was against God; he was facing the Lord in battle, in antagonism rather than in submission. That is shown in the context by his conquests. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel. There is more here than meets the eye. He conquered Babel. He conquered Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. He was bringing what were probably city-states under his control and forming them into one nation. Nowhere did God give the right to dominion over other men by conquering them, and that was what Nimrod did.
The Sperling Translation renders this phrase, "He began to be a despot." He was a despot against God; and he deceived, manipulated, and controlled those he brought under his dominion. Satan and his demons, through Nimrod, conspired against God to bring mankind into one government against God.
God does not destroy things that are good. He does not intervene unless something is evil. This was something evil against God and against God's purpose. That is why He stepped in and confused the languages, because this was something directly against God's purpose, against the timeline that God had worked out in His own mind.
There we have the first example in the Bible of people under the sway of Satan. They were under the sway because they were his children spiritually and because they were antagonistic to God's purpose. They were not submissive to it or obedient to God.
Here we have mankind's first attempt to bring all of mankind under one government. From the very beginning in the book of beginnings, Genesis, God shows that bringing governments together under man is not a part of His purpose. It is antagonistic to God.
John W. Ritenbaugh, What I Believe About Conspiracy Theories
Genesis 10:8-9 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The word "before" could very well be translated "against," meaning "in opposition to." Nimrod was againstGod; he was standing before God—and not in a friendly way!
John W. Ritenbaugh Division, Satan, Humility
Genesis 11:6-9 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
This is the legacy of Nimrod (which means "let us revolt"): a place he called Babilu, called by the Hebrews "Babel." It was a place of revolution. It was the administrative center of his revolution against God, and thus we can see why some interpreters translate that word "before" in Genesis 10:9 as "against." Even though "before" is literally correct, Nimrod was standing before the Lord as an enemy. God's scattering of the builders reveals Nimrod's, and therefore Babylon's, attitude toward God.
From this point Babylon became a worldwide political, military, economic, and religious system bearing the same basic attitudes as its founder. It can be a nation or a system, but its core characteristic that is against the Lord. Babylon became the Bible's code word for what its New Testament writers call "the world." As they used the Greek term cosmos, it is an organized worldwide system opposed to God. Just as surely as Nimrod was opposed to God, Babylon is an organized worldwide system opposed to God. It is a culture that is anti-Christ, anti-God, and it is everywhere!
This is what the context shows in Genesis 11. The people scattered from the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, taking much of the antagonistic-to-God culture with them, and each language group adapted it to some degree to their ethnic traditions. Undoubtedly, each group altered it somewhat, but secular evidence reveals a common strain connecting all civilizations worldwide to the Tigris-Euphrates region. It is the womb of man's civilization.
It took centuries for the people to migrate to and to settle in their new lands, but occur it did. And so the pattern of worldly government after the Flood was established in Genesis 10 and Genesis 11. God even foreshadows in Genesis 6 that it would rise again: "There were giants [Nephilim] on the earth in those days,and also afterward." Nimrod was the greatest of those Nephilim.
Even though this spread worldwide, not everybody migrated. Some people remained in Babylon, and through the centuries, they became the Babylonian nation. The Chaldeans dominated them. Babylon was the name of their capital city. Hammurabi was one of their great early kings, but later, Nebuchadnezzar became Babylon's greatest king. He was given the dream of a great image, and Daniel informed him that he, Nebuchadnezzar, represented the head of gold (Daniel 2:38).
Each of the other portions of that image represented powerful kingdoms that, in terms of time, would follow Babylon in dominating the Western world through the centuries: Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. They did not dominate the entire world—perhaps they could have—but there is no doubt they dominated the part of the world that the Bible is concerned with, the one that the Israelitish descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live in.
But because the head represented Babylon—and the head directs the entire body—the image in Daniel 2 also shows the continuation of the same general Babylonish system right to its end, represented by the feet and the toes. In other words, that image shows that the pattern established under Nimrod continues right down to today.
John W. Ritenbaugh Where Is the Beast? (Part 2)
Genesis 11:6-9 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The people were uniting themselves in disagreement against God, led by the arch-criminal and mastermind of this project, Nimrod. This time, instead of wiping them out in death as He had done through the Flood, God permitted them to live, but He segregated them by confusing their means of communication. In the end, they are separated from one another. All their glorious plans of building a great city and tower had to be abandoned because they could not communicate with each other.
Another tragic resulted from what happened in Genesis 11. All of these people who were scattered over the face of the earth were also separated from the holy line—a family through which God almost exclusively worked, that began with Shem. Actually, the line began after the death of Abel with Seth, the son of Adam, and came down through Enoch to Noah and from Noah to Shem. From Shem the descent finally produced Abraham. After Babel, the scattered people were, in fact, not only separated from that holy line, but also from God's Word, which this family preserved and passed down. This was another tragic result of their sin!
John W. Ritenbaugh, Division, Satan, Humility
Daniel 2:38 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Each of the other portions of this image represent powerful kingdoms that, in terms of time, would follow Babylon in dominating the Western world through the centuries: Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. They did not dominate the entire world—perhaps they could have—but there is no doubt they dominated the part ofthe world that the Bible is concerned with, the one that the Israelitish descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in.
But because the head represents Babylon—and the head directs the entire body—the image in Daniel 2 also shows the continuation of the same general Babylonish system right to the end of the kingdom represented by the feet and the toes. In other words, that image shows that the pattern established under Nimrod continues right on down until today.
John W. Ritenbaugh, Where Is the Beast? (Part 2)
Revelation 13:1-18 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Chapter 13 begins with a very colorful, almost overpowering, vision showing an overview of the political system that Satan works trough.
There is just enough given here to connect this with the Daniel 2 and 7. What arises in Revelation 13 actually has its beginnings long before Jesus Christ, all the way back to Nimrod, showing a definite time progression. This is the system that rears its head at the end time, but the vision is given so that we will understand that this is the system that Satan has always worked through.
John W. Ritenbaugh,
Revelation 10 and the Laodicean Church
As you can see, satan started with Babylon, to Rome and pass it to the world at large.
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