As the Easter season approaches it causes us to pause and consider the grandeur of it all. At the same time we need to be aware of what “Easter” isn’t.
The Bible tells us that in eons past God created a beautiful and powerful being named Lucifer, son of the morning. But Lucifer had a major problem. His beauty and power were so profound that he thought he should be equal to the One that created him. Because of his pride God had no choice but to cast Lucifer out of heaven. Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan, the Devil, that old serpent, the father of lies, the great deceiver, among several other less than noble names.
Then when God created Adam and Eve in His own image and placed them in the Garden of Eden the great deceiver presented himself to Eve disguised as a “helper” to assist her in being like God. Eve fell for his subtlety and this original sin in the Garden of Eden of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil caused God to curse both Satan and all the earth.
Because of this original sin on earth God informed Satan that the day would come when he would be destroyed by a descendant of Eve, or the “Seed of the woman.”
So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed…all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall crush His heel.” Genesis 3:14-15
Satan knew that God’s word was immutable so as the great deceiver he conjured up his own plan that would be an imitation to God’s plan in an attempt to deceive the world into believing a lie about the “Seed of the woman.” Inasmuch as Satan knew that he was destined for destruction, he wanted to take as many with him as possible.
Fast forward to after the flood and consider Noah’s descendants. Noah had three sons, one of whose name was Ham. Ham in turn had four sons, one of whose name was Cush, and Cush in turn had several sons, one of whose name was Nimrod.
“Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth…and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel…from that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh…” Genesis 10:8-11
History reveals that Nimrod was a very powerful military, political, and religious leader. The very name Nimrod means rebel. As mentioned in the Bible the beginning of his government began in ancient Babylon, the present day Iraq. His objective was to establish a worldwide false religion without the counsel of God almighty.
And they said, “Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves…” Genesis 11:4
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built…so the LORD scattered them abroad from there…and they ceased building the city. Genesis 11:5-8
Nimrod had become very powerful in the eyes of the people. He married his father’s wife whose name was Semiramis and she became a powerful queen of ancient Babylon. In Assyria and Nineveh she was called Ishtar. Later she would become known as Ashteroth by the Israelites. She became the high priestess of an idolatrous religious system and was recognized as “the queen of heaven.”
Satan remembered the curse that God pronounced on him back in Genesis regarding the Seed of the woman and he began to reveal his counterfeit plan.
The “queen of heaven,” i.e. Semiramis bore a son named Tammuz, or Baal, who she said was miraculously conceived by a sunbeam. Legend states that Tammuz was killed by a wild boar. Then after 40 days of weeping and mourning he was raised from the dead and his resurrection was celebrated with the feast of Ishtar where people exchanged Ishtar eggs.
Does the Bible point out such flagrantly false religious traditions? Are there any warnings about Tammuz, the queen of heaven, or Ashteroth contained in the Bible?
Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you return to the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the LORD, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.”
I Samuel 7:3
“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her…”The women also said, “and when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offering to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ permission?” Jeremiah 44:16-19
Then He said to me, (Ezekiel) “Son of man, have you seen what the elders …of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols?”…So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. Ezekiel 8:12-14
“Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.” Ezekiel 8:18
So the “seed of the woman” in Satan’s plan was Tammuz, the son of the pagan queen of heaven and her husband Nimrod. The Biblical “Seed of the woman” is Christ, the Son of the virgin lass named Mary. We need to be sure that we recognize and worship the Truth.