As you are well aware, tonight we are going to do the second in a series of the idolatry of Mary worship. Just to begin with, I want to call two portions of Scripture to your attention as a kind of a biblical beginning for what it is that I am going to say. And the first portion of Scripture is one with which we concluded last time from Jeremiah's prophecy. In the prophecy of Jeremiah and chapter 7, we read about the children of Judah as those who gathered wood, verse 18, Jeremiah 7, kindled fire and the women kneed dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven. In the forty-fourth chapter of Jeremiah, this same kind of pagan idolatry is addressed again. Jeremiah 44 verse 17, 'God indicts Judah further for burning sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out libations to her.' This is not new, our forefathers did it, our kings, our princes did it in the cities of Judah, in the streets of Jerusalem. There was widespread worship of this goddess called the Queen of Heaven. It was addressed by the prophet. People were asked to cease doing it. They refused to do that. When trouble came, finally they acquiesced, diminished their attention to the Queen of Heaven. And when the judgment of God fell, they blamed it not on the way they had dealt with God, but on the fact that they had stopped sacrificing to the queen of heaven. They were consumed with the worship of the goddess, and it comes up again in verse 25 of Jeremiah 44, again referring to burning sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven...
