Page 272 - Foundations

Romans 1:18-25
For God's [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative.
For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness,
because God [Himself] has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible
nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly
discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without
excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], [Psalms 19:1-4.] Because when they knew
and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But
instead they became futile and godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and
stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools
[professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves]. And by them the glory and majesty and
excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal
man and birds and beasts and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts
to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the
degrading power of sin], because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served
the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever!
[Amplified Bible]

Many of the images found in the Zodiac were corrupted into objects of worship. Did not the Israelites
elicit the wrath of God as hey formed the image of a golden calf in the wilderness, an act repeated
some centuries later when Jeroboam constructed graven images of a golden calf at Dan and Bethel?
How many nations have worshiped images of the dragon, another symbol found among the
constellations? Yet the most insidious and intractable corruptions are those that relate to the mother
and child pictured in Virgo, and in Coma. The virgin that gives birth has been repeatedly corrupted,
beginning with Semiramis and Tammuz, and spreading through all the nations. It is observed most
profoundly today in the idolatrous Roman Catholic veneration of Mary as the queen of heaven. Do
not be deceived, brothers and sisters. Nowhere in the Bible do we find any justification for Mary
worship. When some foolish woman among the multitudes who thronged the Son of God first
proposed that Mary be venerated, Yahshua cut short such a suggestion, exposing it to be contrary to
the will of God.

Luke 11:27-28
One of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore
You, and the breasts at which You nursed.” But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear
the word of God, and observe it.”

It is little wonder that John was astonished when he was shown a vision of the Great Harlot of
Babylon, the corrupt church that would arise to replace apostolic Christianity. It must have come as
a shock and tremendous grief to see Babylon overtake and supplant a pure devotion to Christ.