Page 45 - BV7
P. 45
It is the identical thing millions are doing every Easter Sunday morning -- the sunrise serv-
ice -- standing with their faces toward the east, as the sun is rising, in a service of worship which
honors the sun god and his mythical idolatrous consort, goddess Easter. Yes, deceived into believ-
ing this is Christian, millions practice every Easter the identical form of the ancient sun worship of
the sun god Baal! Throughout the Bible this is revealed as the most abominable of all idolatry in
the sight of the Eternal Creator!
How Easter Crept Into the Church
Such is the origin and early history of Easter.
How, then, was this pagan festival injected into professing Christian religion, as a substi-
tute for an ordinance of God?
Before revealing briefly the astonishing account of this great deception, two facts must be
firmly fixed in mind.
First, Jesus and the apostles foretold, not a universal, widespread popular growth of the
true New Testament Church, but a falling away from the truth on the part of the great majority.
Prophesying a popular, universal falling away from the faith once delivered, to the Thessalonians
Paul stated, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work," only some 20 years after the Church be-
gan! He referred to the very "Chaldean Mysteries," of which Easter and Christmas were the two
chief festivals!
Second, although Jesus said the gates of hell would never prevail against His church, yet it
is prophesied in the New Testament to be the "little flock" never as a great, large, popular univer-
sal church (Luke 12:32).
This is the very fact the world does not realize today!
TWO Churches -- One False, One True
In New Testament prophecy two churches are described.
One, the great and powerful and universal church, a part of the world, actually ruling in its
politics over many nations, and united with the "Holy Roman Empire," is brought to a concrete fo-
cus in Revelation 17.
This church is pictured with great pomp, ritual and display, decked in purple, scarlet and
gold -- proud, worldly, boastful. She is pictured as a universal deceiver -- all the Western nations
spiritually drunk with her false doctrines, their spiritual perception so blurred by her paganized
teachings and practices they are unable to clearly distinguish truth! She boasts she is the true
Church, yet she is drunken with the blood of the saints she has caused to be martyred!
But how could she have deceived the whole world, as foretold in God's Word? Surely, the
Protestant world isn't deceived!
45