. The holidays observed by mainstream Christianity—Easter, Christmas, New Years, Halloween, etc.—are not commanded in the Scriptures. In fact, as is easily proven from history, those very holidays are pagan in origin. Yet, those who observe them claim to be worshiping the true God. They rationalize that He now accepts such worship. But the Scriptures do not support these assertions. God says, “I am the LORD , I change not ” (Mal. 3:6). As we will see, the same pagan holidays that were celebrated by the apostate children of Israel and Judah thousands of years before Christ are the same days apostate Orthodox Christendom hallows today. Yet, God has commanded His people to not learn the way of the heathen: “Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the LORD , ‘Do not learn the way of the heathen [occult practices and the worship of false gods], and do not be terrified at the signs of the heavens [as in astrology and witchcraft]; for the nations are terrified at them’ ” (Jer. 10:1-2). Idol Worship at the Temple: God’s own people repeatedly turned to idolatrous forms of worship. In a vision, God told the prophet Ezekiel, “ ‘Son of man, do you see what they do; even the great abominations which the house of Israel is doing here…?’ And He brought me to the opening of the [temple] court; and I looked, and behold, a hole in the wall…. And I went in and saw. And behold … all the idols of the house of Israel…. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, each man in his room of idols? For they are saying, “The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the earth” ’ ” (Ezek. 8:6-12) . “He also said to me, ‘You shall see greater abominations that they are committing.’ And He brought me to the opening of the gate of the LORD’S house, toward the north. And behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz” (verses 13-14). The son of Nimrod, Tammuz was the ancient false messiah who allegedly died and was resurrected each year. James G. Frazer writes: “Under the names of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis, the peoples of Egypt and Western Asia represented the yearly decay and revival of life, especially of vegetable life, which they personified as a god who annually died and rose again from the dead…. “The worship of Adonis was practiced by the Semitic peoples of Babylon and Syria, and the Greeks borrowed it from them as early as the seventh century before Christ. The true name of the deity was Tammuz…. In the religious literature of Babylonia, Tammuz appears as the youthful spouse or lover of Ishtar [Easter], the great mother goddess, the embodiment of the reproductive energies of [Mother] nature…. [Every] year Tammuz was believed to die, passing away from the cheerful earth to the gloomy subterranean world, and every year his divine mistress journeyed in her quest for him … that the two might return together to the upper world, and that with their return all nature might revive. “Laments for the departed Tammuz are contained in several Babylonian hymns…. His death appears to have been annually mourned, to the shrill music of flutes, by men and women about midsummer in the month named after him, the month Tammuz” (Frazer, The Golden Bough, pp. 378-79; emphasis added). Orthodox Christendom practices a similar ceremony in the spring of the year at Easter time. This ceremony begins on “Good Friday” evening with mourning for the crucified Jesus (as was done for Tammuz) and is continued through Saturday night. In some predominantly Roman Catholic countries, women beat themselves with whips and weep in an attempt to enter into the physical sufferings of Jesus. At the stroke of midnight, beginning Easter Sunday, the mourning is turned to joy with shouts, “He is risen! He is risen!” These familiar Good Friday and Easter rituals are clearly derived from pagan Babylonian practices. In all the ceremonies and sacrifices that God commanded to be performed at the temple, the priests and Levites always faced toward the west, not the east. However, when the apostate Israelites and Jews worshiped the sun god Baal, they worshiped toward the east with their backs to the temple of God. Ezekiel continues: “And He said to me, ‘Have you seen this, O son of man? You shall see greater abominations than these.’ And He brought me into the inner court of the L ORD’S house, and behold, at the opening of the temple of the LORD , between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east . And He said to me, ‘Have you seen, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they do the hateful things which they do here?’ ” (Ezek. 8:15-17). Yet, thousands of years ago, before God brought them into the Promised Land, He warned the Israelites not to follow the customs of the nations around them. “You shall not do according to all that we do here today, each doing whatever is right in his own eyes…. Take heed to yourself that you do not become ensnared by following them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not ask about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods [the customs of the heathen], that I may also do likewise?’ You shall not do so to the LORD your God , for every abomination to the LORD , which He hates, they have done to their gods; even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods. Whatsoever thing that I command you, be careful to do it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it ” (Deut. 12:8, 30-32). God made no exceptions when He commanded Moses to write, “If a prophet rises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder which he foretold to you comes to pass, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them,’ you shall not hearken to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 13:1-3). Both the Old and New Testament Scriptures uphold God’s ban on occult practices, which are named in the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 18:9-14). The Scriptures do not make a distinction between using witchcraft or sorcery to achieve a “good” purpose or an evil purpose. Despite the intention, all such practices are inherently evil because they make an appeal to a forbidden source of power—Satan and the demons. The Church has the obligation to disfellowship those practicing such sins (Matt. 18:15-17). God Hates the Abominable Occult Holidays : God is a jealous God and will not give His glory to any other so-called god, nor to images: “I am the LORD ; that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to graven images” (Isa. 42:8). Therefore, it is impossible to worship God by the means of occult holidays and/or rituals. Yet, Israel and Judah repeatedly went into apostasy wherein they denied the true God and worshiped false gods. As Jeremiah testified, they exchanged God’s seventh-day Sabbath and annual holy days for the practices of the other nations. But God proclaims that He hates those practices: “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them. Nor will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals. Take the noise of your songs away from Me; for I will not hear the melody of your harps.... Have you offered sacrifices and offerings to Me forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? But now you have carried the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves” (Amos 5:21-26). As we saw in Ezekiel, ancient Israel and Judah became so corrupt that they had the gall and hardheartedness to actually worship other gods at the temple of the true God in Jerusalem! Modern Christendom is doing the same today. In the name of Jesus Christ, ministers, priests and popes command the faithful to worship on occult holidays. They teach people to sin against God while claiming that God has sanctioned these abominable iniquities and lies. Yet, these days—Easter, Christmas, Halloween—are the same pagan occult days of worship that ancient Israel and Judah observed when they apostatized from the living God.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 14:09:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015