Tim's reply....
Thank you for taking the time to reach out to me. You have asked some very good questions, and regarding Holy Communion, I do wish that I could answer in brief as they were asked, but the importance of the subject will not permit a short answer.
In Matthew 26:26-28, we read, “And as they were eating, יהושע took bread, and having blessed, broke and gave it to the taught ones and said, ‘Take, eat, this is My body.’ And taking the cup, and giving thanks, He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you.’”
Luke 22:19 records that Yahshua spoke the words “do this in remembrance of Me.”
Although a ritual for doing so was not necessarily commanded, our eating and drinking is done to remember Yahshua and what He has done for us, and what He has done for us was foretold by the prophets. For example, IsaiYah wrote, (Isaiah chapter 53), “For He grew up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or splendour that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should desire Him – despised and rejected by men, a man of pains and knowing sickness. And as one from whom the face is hidden, being despised, and we did not consider Him. Truly, He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains. Yet we reckoned Him stricken, smitten by Elohim, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our crookednesses. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all, like sheep, went astray, each one of us has turned to his own way. And יהוה has laid on Him the crookedness of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, but He did not open His mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, but He did not open His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And as for His generation, who considered that He shall be cut off from the land of the living? For the transgression of My people He was stricken. And He was appointed a grave with the wrong, and with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was deceit in His mouth. But יהוה was pleased to crush Him, He laid sickness on Him, that when He made Himself an offering for guilt, He would see a seed, He would prolong His days and the pleasure of יהוה prosper in His hand. He would see the result of the suffering of His life and be satisfied. Through His knowledge My righteous Servant makes many righteous, and He bears their crookednesses. Therefore I give Him a portion among the great, and He divides the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His being unto death, and He was counted with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
But we must understand that our adversary is a cunning deceiver, and we see he has concocted an ingenious deception with the Eucharist. The sacred act of Holy Communion is, in many cases, a pagan pretext that is ascribed Christianized terms.
The practice of Holy Communion in the New Apostolic Church and other Christian denominations closely resembles the sacred act of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church, in which it is believed that the bread and wine is transubstantiated into the actual body and blood of Christ.
The idea of performing this ritual originates in ancient Babylon where cakes were baked for the “holy mother” Semiramis, the mother of Tammuz. Tammuz was believed to be the Messiah, the fulfillment of the promise that Yah made as recorded in Genesis 3:15 regarding a child who would crush the head of the serpent. Tammuz was worshipped as Baal, which literally means “lord.” As we read in the book of JeremiYah, our Creator detests the practice of baking cakes for the queen of heaven and promises wrath for its participants, with the words (Jer. 7:17-20), “’Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Yehudah and in the streets of Yerushalayim? The children are gathering wood, the fathers are lighting the fire, and the women are kneading their dough, to make cakes for the queen of the heavens, and to pour out drink offerings to other mighty ones, to provoke Me. Is it Me they are provoking?’ declares יהוה. ‘Is it not themselves – unto the shame of their own faces?’ Therefore, thus said the Master יהוה, ‘See, My displeasure and My wrath is poured out on this place, on man and on beast, and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it shall burn and not be quenched.’”
The cakes were made into a round shape resembling the shape of the sun, as Baal was believed to be the body of the reincarnated sun-god, Nimrod.
Also, the blood of Nimrod, it was believed, was life-giving. As the fable goes, when Tammuz was 40 years old, he was killed by a wild bore, and it was widely reported that the blood of Tammuz spilled onto an ever-green tree making it forever green, unchanging with the seasons, which is why we see plenty of references to “green trees” in Scriptures being associated with the worship of Baal. Again the words of Yah as recorded by JermiYah (Jer 3:6) read, “Have you seen what backsliding Yisra’ĕl has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there committed whoring!” The evergreen tree is a reminder of the blood of Tammuz, which, according to Babylonian religion, gives eternal life.
So, we see that the body and blood of “christ” also has significant meaning in the Babylonian religion referred to in Scriptures as the worship of Baal, a religious system that is propagated today within the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant religions. Remnants of this ancient apostasy exist within every religious system that I have studied including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even ancient Native American folk-lore.
Even the day on which Holy Communion is celebrated is “venerable day of the Sun” or “Sunday,” the holy day of the “Sun-god.”
For more information on this topic, might I recommend that you read the following books. They are excellent starting-point resources regarding this material and are well referenced, and the references will also provide additional reading material.
“Smokescreens: Who is the Whore of Revelation?”
“Babylonian Mystery Religion Ancient and Modern”
“The Two Babylons”
“Babylonian Religion”
Please understand that these books do make some incorrect religious assertions based on the biases of their authors but do contain some valuable information regarding the Babylonian religious system, the same system that we are commanded to come out of in Revelation 18:4. The reason that I recommend these books is that they help us understand Baal-worship in its various past and present forms, and it is very helpful, in my opinion, for us to understand this Babylonian system so that we recognize its influence and expose it for the evil that it is.
My conclusion regarding Holy Communion is that the ritual itself has been leavened with paganism within Christianity. Let us rather obey Messiah’s command literally and rather eat and drink in order to remember Yahshua our Messiah sans the ritualistic pagan details.
Please allow me for the sake of time to address the remainder of your questions in brief.
Tithing was given in the form of provisional food for the priesthood, and I do find it ironic that the same Christian churches that stress to their congregants that tithing is “commanded” also completely reject virtually every other commandment of Yah such as observance of the Sabbath and dietary commands.
Regarding being deceived, one of the key ingredients to prevent deception is a circumcised heart, a heart that is softened to the word of Yah and inclined to obey His commands. Studying the Scriptures can soften the heart, and knowledge of what our Creator will ultimately judge us by is recorded in detail in the Scriptures. Therefore, it is important to resist the temptation to interpret Scriptures in favor of humble obedience, in my estimation.
Peace of the Sabbath to you and yours,
Tim
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