feast: Satan's Pagan Holy Days
Kim Myers
Given 09-Oct-17; Sermon #FT17-05B; 55 minutes
Description: (show)
We must avoid the world's holidays (Satan's counterfeit 'Holy Days') because New Year's, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and birthdays all have pagan origins. The most universal of the counterfeit festivals is New Year's, derived from the Saturnalia sun worship, involving orgies, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, and child sacrifice. The accoutrements surrounding Easter-eggs, rabbits, ham, and hot-cross buns all derive from the Babylonian mystery religion involving Semiramis, Nimrod, and Tammuz. Halloween and the Day of the Dead derive from the Celtic Festival of Samhain, a time the Irish lit bonfires and put on costumes to ward off ghosts. These ancient customs began two generations after Noah and his family left the ark, with Ham's grandson Nimrod. Most thinking people are aware of the pagan origins of these customs, but Satan entices them into accepting them through the appeal of pleasing children and grandchildren with something fun. As God's called out ones, we should not let Satan guilt us into compromise; we should not be afraid of being weirdos and oddballs, swimming upstream against a Satanic culture hurtling toward perdition and disintegration.
Today I am going to be speaking mainly to the teenagers and young adults. All you young guys scattered out there: you young people. The reason is, sooner or later you will move out from under your parents’ roof: sooner hopefully! You will get married and you will have children. You will have jobs and careers, and you will have bosses and fellow employees. You will have friends and acquaintances out of the church, and most of us have family members that are not called or part of the church.
You will add to this when you get married, these factors and people will push you towards Satan’s ‘holy days’ and the world's pagan holidays. That is what happens, brethren.
Today I am going to put a lot of you to sleep. All of you older ones, you have heard all this before, but I want to go over Satan's ‘holy days’ and mankind's pagan holidays. All you older people, like me, try not to fall out of your chairs when you doze off because I do not want any of you to get hurt. I would like to start with the New Year’s celebration. How did this celebration of the New Year started? Why is the beginning of a year placed in the middle of winter? Where did the many customs surrounding its start originate?
New Year’s celebration is one of the oldest and most universal of all the pagan holidays. The customs of celebrating it has remained fairly much unchanged for 4,000 years. It all started in ancient Babylonia or Mesopotamia; I think we are all aware of that. It was a pagan celebration of ancient sun-worship.
The Romans called it Saturnalia in honor of the god Saturn. It was a very popular time of the year. It was a time of reveling, getting drunk, orgies and sex, and finally ending in human sacrifice. It is still the same today except for the human sacrifice; unless they have changed it from when I was twenty-three years old, which incidentally was the last time I celebrated New Year's and all those things that I just mentioned.
I think these are still alive and well. You could also throw in fighting that would break out when someone grabbed your wife or girlfriend at midnight and laid a big and sloppy kiss on her. At least that happened when I was a kid. Let us not forget the car wrecks and drunken driving tickets. And if you got a drunken driving ticket, I guarantee you what next year’s resolution would be: I promise not to get drunk anymore: right?
What does any of this kind of conduct has to do with God? That is the question, brethren. What does it have to do with God? On Facebook, a lot of people put selfies of themselves in New Year's parties. And I am talking about people in the church, brethren! And they are not even shy or ashamed of it. Let us turn to Deuteronomy chapter twelve:
Deuteronomy 12:30-32 Take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.
Clyde Finklea just mentioned that. God does not want us mixed up in the ways of the world.
I am not going to spend a lot of time on any one of these pagan observances. I just want to look at all of them a little bit. Let us talk about Satan's ‘holy day’ Christmas. I am not going to give you all the pagan customs that were celebrated by many different countries, peoples and empires. I think we are well aware of how pagan they are.
I will mention that yule is the Chaldean name for infant or little child; and in ancient Babylon the 25th of December was known as Yule Day or the birth of the promised child day. Please do keep that in mind as we go along. This was the day of the birth of the incarnate sun who appeared as a baby child to redeem a world bound in darkness. It was an essential belief of the Babylonian religious system that the Sun god also known as Baal was the chief god among many gods.
Remember Baal and how many times God talks about Baal in the Bible? Tammuz was also worshipped as the god incarnate or promised baby son of Baal who was to be the savior of the world.
I am not going to go through what all the pagan pieces and parts of Christmas represent such as St. Nicholas or Santa Claus, the yule log, the Christmas wreath nailed to the front door or the flying sled with a bunch of reindeer, one of which had a headlight for a nose and people believe this stuff.
The Christmas tree mentioned in Jeremiah: the decorations for the tree, giving one another gifts; all the food candy, candy canes, pies and cookies and Christmas stockings hanging on the mantle. I think there is a bigger lesson for us as God's people; a much bigger lesson for us to consider: How cunning and devious and how well Satan knows our weaknesses! And Satan knows us better than we do ourselves.
Do you know what Satan uses the most in his counterfeit ‘holy days’? Our children! That is what Satan uses against us: He uses our children.
What are Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and other pagan celebrations all about? It is about our kids: That is what it is about. Whether people go to church or not on these ‘‘holy days’’ or holidays does not matter. Mankind feels guilty if they do not celebrate Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and other pagan ‘holy days’ or holidays with their kids.
My sister is a very good example of this. She is very knowledgeable when it comes to God’s way of life and His laws. My mother was called into God's church eight years after I was called. My mom lived with my sister in the wintertime and with Debbie and me in the summer time. My sister learned a lot from my mom; she is not hostile at all to God's church. In fact, my sister told me more than once that if she would consider going to a church, she would come with us to the Church of the Great God. But she is not called, so she is not going to go anywhere to church.
Over the years, my sister and I have had many discussions about God's laws and about what pagan is or is not. My sister knows that Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and other pagan ‘holy days’ and holidays are wrong: She knows all that.
Just like the whole world, my sister does the exact same thing and tells me that she observes the ‘holy days’ and all these holidays because of her children and grandchildren. That is why she does it every year. In fact she is very big in it and would feel like a loser and very guilty if she would not celebrate all of Satan's counterfeit pagan ‘holy days’ and holidays with her kids and grandkids.
This is exactly what Satan wants from mankind. It is exactly what he wants. Satan is a master of deception and deceit. Satan knows that humans love their children and their grandchildren so much that they will give them anything, even to their harm and detriment.
We do it all the time. We feed our kids candy, ice cream, cookies, soda pops, cake, chips, pies, and French fries, will not we? Any garbage food, any kind of fast food, and any kind of fried food, if that is what they want because we love our kids.
We will supply our children with an iPhone or Android. We will give them cars and car insurance to allow them to drive: Will not we? We will even put down payments on home for the ones who do not have enough money. We will give them money and a place to live, even if they are destroying their lives through drugs and alcoholism. Why do we do this brethren? Because we love our children!
Satan knows how we are. So he attacks us in the church and out of the church, through our children and through the things that we love. That is where he attacks us, brethren. People in the world feel guilty when they do not give their kids and grandkids everything they want and demand—no matter what it teaches them or how it hurts them.
Satan also knows that he can attack God's very elect, His called out ones, you and me, through our children and our mates. Think about this next verse in Proverbs chapter thirteen. The greater church of God, and we all know this, struggles with doing what God tells us to do in this verse. I struggle with it as well. For a lot of God’s people, the next couple of verses are very difficult. I just said that some of God's people have cast these two verses to the curb. Satan is a master when it comes to playing the guilt card on us, and when it comes to our kids and our grandkids; even on us God's elect, brethren.
Proverbs 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.
The whole world fails to do that for the most part. A lot of God's people do not believe this verse and refuse to correct their children with anything more than a tongue lashing. We see this all the time. They do not believe this verse because Satan has mixed them up on what love really is. Love is outgoing concern for others; that is all it is. It is filling a need. It is taken care of them. It is not giving them things that are bad for them and that will harm them. It is not indulging others and our kids and our grandkids by giving them everything that could harm and destroy them: Drugs and alcohol are things that destroy people.
Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him.
A lot of God's people do not believe that foolishness is part of their kids thinking. We think that if we give our kids everything they want and demand all will turn out well; and our children will have good health, no matter what we give them and allow them to eat as parents and grandparents.
They will have good jobs, even though we never demand good grades or taught them to have a work ethic. We believe they will never get into drugs and alcohol, and they will all have very good marriages. Will not they? Give them everything and they will turn out fine! We believe all we have to do is love our kids and love always says yes. Does not it? It always says yes!
Mankind believes this because Satan is the puppet master. He knows he can get to us through the guilt card when it comes to our children. Lots of people know that Christmas is pagan, brethren. Lots of people I have worked with keep Christmas and told me they wish they could be in our church because they hate it. However, they keep Christmas every year.
Lots of people know that Christmas is pagan and a bunch of nonsense. But since Christmas is all about our kids, grandkids, and family, we feel guilty if we do not celebrate Satan's ‘holy days.’ Some people in God's church even feel guilty if they do not attend Christmas parties at work with their fellow employees and bosses. And you know how far the bosses will go?
The last fourteen years the company I worked for had a really good Christmas party. They went all out. They paid for a hotel room; everybody got drunk; on the next day they played drunken golf. It was on a Saturday night, so I did not attend. I would not go! My boss told me that the bosses in Seattle wanted me to come up here and get involved. They even changed the name of the party to “Appreciation Party” so that I would go but I never did. That is how far they would go.
They put pressure on us, brethren, and that is what I am talking about here to our young people. We as God's people know how pagan Christmas is. We need to realize that Satan is a master at deceiving us and the whole world, and he deceives us with his ‘holy days’ celebrations through our kids and our grandkids, our mates, our families, and the guilt card.
Easter is the day that is celebrated by most of modern day Christians also. They use it to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We know that Christ was not resurrected on Sunday. We also know that God commands His first fruits to keep or celebrate the Passover with completely different acts or symbols such as foot washing, wine, bread as opposed to sunrise services, eggs, bunnies, and ham dinner. God has miraculously opened our minds to His truth and His way of worship.
I would like to read you some of the pagan origins of Easter and how all of these pagan ‘holy days’ and celebrations came about. Ishtar was a day in ancient Babylon that commemorated the resurrection of one of their gods that they called Tammuz, who was believed to be the begotten son of the sun God. Nimrod was the grandson of one of Noah's sons named Ham. Ham had a son named Cush who married a woman named Semiramis. Cush and Semiramis had a son they named Nimrod. After Cush’s death, Nimrod married his mother and became a very powerful king. Think about how fast after the Flood Satan went to work to deceive the people and the nations of this world? This is how quick Satan works. Let us turn to Genesis chapter 10.
Genesis 10:8 (Amplified Bible (AMP)) Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth.
Nimrod began to be a mighty man in sin, a murderer of innocent men, a rebel before God. Nimrod was a hunter of men that worked at making men depart from the religion of Shem—God's true religion. Nimrod went to work to get people away from God’s true religion and cleave to his own institutions.
Genesis 10:9-10 (New Kings James Version) He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar [in Babylonia].
Nimrod became a god-man to the people and his mother and wife Semiramis who became the powerful queen of Babylon. Nimrod was eventually killed, and his body was cut in pieces and sent throughout his kingdom. His mother and wife Semiramis, had all of these parts gathered but one part could not be found. The missing part was Nimrod’s reproductive organ.
Semiramis claimed then that Nimrod could not come back to life without it and told the people that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now called Baal, the sun god. This is where Baal worship came from. This is where Baal worship started.
We all know that God warned ancient Israel against Baal worship. That is how quickly it started, right after the Flood. Semiramis also said that Baal would be present on earth in the form of a flame, candle, or lamp when used in worship. A lot of religions of this world, including Catholicism, honor the dead with candles. Think about that. Pagan worship started very soon after the Flood with Noah's great grandson, Nimrod and his mother-wife, Semiramis.
Semiramis was creating at that time the Babylonian mystery religion that the Bible talks about, and Satan was heavily involved in helping her achieve this. Semiramis set herself up as a goddess. Semiramis taught that the moon was also a goddess that went through a twenty eight day cycle and ovulated when the moon was full. This is where the worship of the sun, moon, stars, and heavenly bodies came from.
That is why people worship these things. Semiramis claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon egg and fell into the Euphrates River. People believed that!
This was to have happened at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox. Semiramis became known as Ishtar which is now pronounced Easter. And her mooning egg became known Ishtar’s egg. Did you ever wonder where the Easter egg came from? That is kind of a crazy thing to use in celebrating Christ's resurrection, is not it? But that is where it came from.
It all started about two generations after the Flood, with Nimrod and his mother-wife, Semiramis, with the help from the master deceiver Satan. And it has been alive and well ever since. Think about that. Semiramis became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays from the sun god Baal that caused her to conceive. She named her son Tammuz who loved rabbits. So they became sacred in the Babylonian mystery religion.
Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun god Baal. That is why God mentions Baal so many times in the Old Testament. Tammuz was also a hunter of men like his supposed father Nimrod. He also tried to turn men from the religion of Shem, God's true religion. Tammuz was killed by a wild pig! How about that? Semiramis told the people that Tammuz had ascended to his father Baal and that the two of them would be worshipped in the sacred candle or lamp flame as father and son.
Father, son, and spirit; now we see where the trinity started: right after the Flood. Father, son, and spirit. Satan is a master of deception, brethren. Semiramis told the worshippers of the Baal mystery religion that when Tammuz was killed by the wild pig, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree, and the stump grew magically into a full new tree overnight.
This then made the evergreen tree sacred by the blood of Tammuz. The Christmas tree custom also began right after the Flood. It all started quickly. Satan does not waste time with his plan and deception. Semiramis also proclaimed a forty-day period of time of sorrow each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz.
We now know where Lent came from, which is what the Catholics observe. During this time, no meat was to be eaten. Semiramis taught the people to meditate on the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz, and to make the sign of a “T” on their heart to remember Tammuz when praying. This is where the custom of crossing your heart came from.
They also ate cakes with the “T” on top to honor Tammuz—hot cross buns for Easter. It all started—pagan worship, counterfeit worship, and Satan's worship—pretty close after the Flood. It was Ishtar Sunday or Easter Sunday, and it was celebrated with rabbits and eggs. Semiramis proclaimed that because Tammuz was killed by a pig, that a pig must be eaten on Sunday. The truth is that the forty days of lent, eggs, rabbits, hot cross buns, and ham has everything to do with pagan mystery religion of Babylon.
These are all anti-Christ activities, brethren. Satan is a master deceiver and has filled the lives of well-meaning professing Christians with idolatry. That is what he has done in today's world. I do not think that there is much religion in Christmas, Easter, Halloween, or any of Satan's ‘holy days’. I do not think most people even think about all the nonsense of eggs, rabbits, Santa Clauses, Christmas trees.
Most people observe Satan's ‘holy days’ out of the tradition of wanting to fit in and not to be different or weird to family and friends. I think it is all about the kids and grandkids. But brethren, it is still pagan, and it is still idolatry. My sister and her husband celebrate all of Satan's ‘holy days’ and holidays for their kids and grandkids’ sake. There is no religion in it with them at all. They are not religious people whatsoever.
They do not attend church and never have, except when they were young and made to go there by their parents. But that changes nothing in God's sight. It is still idolatry. It is still an anti-Christ activity, and it is still an abomination to God. Let us look at Deuteronomy chapter seven:
Deuteronomy 7:25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.
God hates paganism and false religion so much that even the gold and silver, and everything else associated with both religions, had to be destroyed because it is all an abomination to God. Gold and silver is just gold and silver, is not it? What is wrong with gold and silver? It was associated with paganism in this case, so it had to be destroyed.
I do not think that we understand just how holy God is, and how He expects us, as His first fruits, to act and have nothing at all to do with the pagan customs of this world. He does not want us involved at all, brethren. As we look at Halloween, let us start with Deuteronomy chapter eighteen:
Deuteronomy 18:10-13 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
God hates the practices of people who consult ghosts or spirits or call up the dead. While some view Halloween as a harmless fun thing, the Bible indicates that the practices associated with it are an abomination to God. But mankind says it is just harmless fun for the kids. It is all for the kids, is not it brethren? It does not hurt anything. You have a pillowcase and go fill it up with candy and have fun guys. Let us turn to Ecclesiastes chapter nine:
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
God’s Word clearly teaches that the dead are conscious of nothing at all; thus there is no way that they can be contacted by the living. The Celtic Irish festival of St. Hammond was observed on October 31st at the end of summer. Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time in the year for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health, and death. It was the only day on which the help of the Devil was invoked for such purposes. Think about Ireland, an Israelitish nation and probably the tribe of Dan. It is the only place in the world where Halloween is actually a national ‘holy day.’ Did you know that? Celebrated with fireworks and where children are released from school.
Do not you think that Satan knows exactly what he is doing when it comes to our children? He does. At this time of the year skeletons, witches, ghosts, spiders, and crows, along with pumpkins, decorate windows and lawns. Parents and children discuss costumes and prepare for their trick or treat parties.
People visit haunted houses and on television there are scary horror movies being shown. There are real practicing witches and warlocks giving interviewed, and they explain the significance and importance of their evil ‘holy day.’ They call Halloween, All Saints’ Day. We all know that.
I am not going to waste any more time on how pagan Halloween is. All of you know that witches, and all the things that are done on Halloween, have nothing at all to do with God and God's way of life. Let us turn to II Corinthians 6.
II Corinthians 6:16-18 (AMP) What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial [the devil]? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God [meaning you and me] and idols? For we are the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. So, come out from among [unbelievers], and separate (sever) yourselves from them, says the Lord, and touch not [any] unclean thing; then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favor, and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
In verse seventeen, God tells us to separate ourselves from this world and from its pagan customs. Brethren, we always have to be on guard against Satan’s deceptions and deceiving ways. Satan knows how much we love our children and grandchildren, and how we want to make them happy. We do and I do too. Satan uses them along with tradition, family, and friends to deceive us and to get us to think that his ‘holy days’ are nothing more than fun and candy presents for our kids.
What is the big deal? That is what we think and that is what the world thinks. What is the big deal anyway? That is what Satan wants us to think, brethren. What is the big deal? No big deal. It is all about our kids and fun. That is what Satan wants us to think. But God tells us to separate ourselves from these pagan activities.
Let us now look at St. Valentine's Day. I would like to ask you a question. Does it matter if God's first fruits celebrate an ancient festival used to worship their pagan gods and promote fertility? Does God really care what we do and what we celebrate? That is something we got to think about.
We already read Deuteronomy 12:30-32 and in those verses God is telling us that the issue is not the worship of other gods; that is not the issue, brethren; but rather a warning not to adopt the customs used to worship or honor their gods. That is what God is saying. People say, “I'm not worshipping pagan gods; in fact, I'm not worshipping anything at all. I'm just having fun with my kids and my family. It's all tradition.” But God says: Do not adopt customs used to worship and honor other gods: That is the lesson for us, brethren.
The fertility celebration Lupercalia is now known as St. Valentine's Day. I will give you a few facts about St. Valentine's Day. The celebration of St. Valentine's Day ranks number one in candy sales with 13 billion USD spent each year. The average consumer spends an average of $116 USD on cards, candy, and gifts. School teachers received the most cards. Guess who is second? Our children! Get them while they are young, right? Does Satan know what he is doing or what? Third are mothers, then wives, and then sweethearts. Get the kids and the women involved and I got you baby! That is how it works.
Satan is so cunning that children, aged six to ten, exchange more than 650 million cards with teachers, classmates, and family members. Think about that! 196 million roses are produced to celebrate St. Valentine's Day. Red roses were the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Jupiter is the goddess of desire, affection, and erotic love.
God does not want his first fruits to be involved in any of these pagan celebrations. I know all you women love flowers and roses. My wife did too. We are supposed to be holy, though, brethren. Most of these pagan celebrations started with Nimrod just two generations after the Flood.
St. Patrick's Day also started in the Israelitish country of Ireland. What do shamrocks, leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, beer, drunkenness, wearing green, and getting pinched for not wearing green have to do with God? What does any of that have to do with God?
St. Patrick's Day is just another pagan celebration, but it is worth noticing that the green or green man was a pagan idol symbolizing regeneration and regrowth relating to the spring equinox again. St. Patrick's Day is also rooted in pagan customs and pagan worship.
The latest craze now in America is being tattooed. That is the latest thing guys! In the Pacific Northwest, where I live, it seems that everybody has at least one tattoo. Even elderly people are tattooed. They are, I see them in the grocery stores and everywhere I go. And tattoos are so attractive, are not they? They look good!
A large number of people in the Northwest have very large tattoos, especially women right across here on their chests and on their very lower backs. So they really look good in bathing suits do not they? It is the entire craze, but what are the roots of tattoos, brethren?
Throughout history, the tattoo is the mark of paganism, demonism, Baal worship (again), Shamanism, mysticism, cannibalism, and just about every other pagan belief celebrated by man. In many cultures the tattooer is also a Shaman, a magic man, a priest, or a priestess. A Shaman is an intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illnesses, foretell the future, and control spiritual forces.
Many times, the Shaman uses the tattoo as a point of contact or inlet into the supernatural or spiritual world. The tattoo is much more than just a body decoration, brethren; it is much more than just a layer of ink cut into the skin.
In every culture and country, including the United States of America, the tattoo remains a vehicle for pagan, spiritual, and religious invocations. Even today, in many countries, including the United States, the tattoo is believed to be a bridge into the supernatural world. And it is the rage, at least where I live.
Psalm 106:35 But they mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works [or their ways] . . .
When I was in Los Angeles growing up as a kid, I rarely saw a tattoo unless it was on a sailor. You rarely saw one! Today, in Portland Oregon, I see more people with tattoos than not, in every age group. And it just does not matter where I go. In Oregon, everybody is tattooed.
Psalm 106:36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them.
Brethren, we cannot have anything to do with any of these pagan customs. We are to be a holy people to God. The problem with us is that we like to do exactly what our forefathers the Israelites did. We worship God with a mixture of true religion and pagan worship because we want to fit in.
We allow our bosses to con us into keeping Christmas parties and things like that. We do not want to be strange or different to our families, friends, and the people we come in contact with. We do not like to be different, brethren. Let us turn to Jeremiah chapter ten. I just want the first sentence here in this verse that says it all. This is what God expects of us.
Jeremiah 10:2 Thus says the LORD: “Do not learn the way of the Gentiles . . .
I think that says it all; very straightforward and easy to understand! And now, last but not least, and this might even offend some of us here: birthdays, which are celebrated by many of God's people. My grandkids get invited to birthdays all the time.
As sure as death and taxes, human beings are all born on a particular day, are not they? We are all born on a day, so we all have birthdays and birth dates. The question remains. Is birthday-keeping innocent fun or does it really matter to God? Do birthdays really matter, brethren? Most people think that death or the day of one's birth is special. I think that both my grandkids and kids are special. I am glad they were born. Celebrating it certainly does seem and feel like the right thing to do, does not it?
Do you know where birthday celebration came from? They came from the pagan practice of astrology. Even to this day, men put their trust in horoscopes instead of God. We had a U.S. President who was big into birthday celebration, Mr. Ronald Reagan.
I would like to go over some of the things we use on our birthdays and why we do them. The candles on the cake are supposed to have magical properties. On birthdays we are supposed to offer prayers and make wishes to be carried to the gods on the flames of the candles. On one's birthday, it was thought that one would be very susceptible to personal spirits, good and evil. So on that day, one should avoid being with enemies and surround oneself with well-wishers.
Thus we say, “Happy birthday and more happy returns!” Do we not? The giving of birthday gifts is a custom associated with the offering of sacrifices to pagan gods on their birthdays. The reason for birthday spanks is to spank away the evil spirits and send them scurrying far away.
All birthday customs are totally pagan and total nonsense: the cake, the candles, the games, pin the tail on the donkey, the presents, the spankings, the blowing out of the candles, the birthday wishes, and all the rest of the birthday party. I think, most of us, if we really took the time to think about birthdays and all other pagan observances, we would come to realize just how pagan they all are.
But I bet that a lot of you did not know this. Brethren, do you know what the holiest day of the year is in the satanic religion, brethren? It is one’s birthday! The satanist argues every man is a god if he chooses to recognize himself as one. More nonsense. The satanist celebrates his own birthday as the most important day of the year because he was born and what is more important than you? Who else do we know that is so full of himself that he, as a created being, thinks that he can overthrow his Creator? Only Satan thinks like that.
Brethren, if you celebrate birthdays, you are not going to like what I am going to say: you may as well celebrate Easter, Christmas, Halloween, and all the other pagan holidays on ‘holy days’ because you do not get to pick and choose.
We may think it does not matter. It does matter to God because it all matters to God, brethren. Let us turn to Romans chapter twelve.
Romans 12:2 (Revised Standard Version (RSV)) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
God wants us, His first fruits, to be different than the rest of the world. Let us turn to the Ephesians chapter four.
Ephesians 4:17-19 (RSV) Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.
Brethren, we need to be so different, so peculiar, so strange, so uncommon, and all that we do and say that the people we come in contact with, when they talk about us, should call us weirdos. They should call us weirdos, brethren; weirdos because we are good employees and good neighbors. We are honest and we do not cheat or take advantage of others. We do not gossip. We stand fast in the faith once delivered.
We are weirdos because we do not celebrate any of Satan's counterfeit pagan ‘holy days’ and holidays. The world needs to see a difference in us, brethren. We are the light of the world. We are all weirdos; I am a weirdo. We are God's weirdos, because we love God. We serve Him! Not the ways of this world and Satan's ways. God wants us to be different, peculiar, uncommon, and weird to the world because we should be, brethren.
John 17:15 (NKJV) I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil [one.]
We live in the world, but we cannot have anything to do with this world. We cannot get mixed up with the world in any way. We must live in this world and work in this world; that is a given. Brethren, we must seem weird and different to the people of the world in a good way by what we do and how we act. Let us turn to Philippians chapter 2.
Philippians 2:15 (AMP) That you may show yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish (faultless, unrebukable) in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation [spiritually perverted and perverse], among whom you are seen as bright lights (stars or beacons shining out clearly) in the [dark] world.
This is what God wants from us; He does not want us mixed up in the world’s celebrations. We must be different, peculiar, and strange. We must guard our minds from the world and its ways, brethren, because Satan is good at what he does.
We must know what the Bible says and what we have been taught. We must not compromise God's true religion with mankind's pagan practices. Think about this, brethren. Only eight people survived the Flood: Noah and his wife, Shem and his wife, Ham and his wife and Japheth and his wife.
What these eight people saw and experienced should have made all of them very thankful, very humble, very spiritually-minded, and very God-centered; they saw so much before and after the Flood. Yet shortly after the Flood Ham’s grandson Nimrod and his mother wife Semiramis fell into complete idolatry and paganism.
How could that happen so quickly? Ham saw everything Noah and Shem saw. Ham had a son named Cush; then Cush had a son named Nimrod. Think about this: in just two generations from the Flood, Cush, and Nimrod, Satan’s hand with the help of Nimrod and his mother wife Semiramis introduced idolatry and paganism back into the world.
Most pagan celebrations that we now celebrate just started two generations after the Flood. How good is Satan? We have to guard ourselves, brethren. This is incredible to me and the proof of how good he is at deceiving mankind if we allow ourselves to get mixed up with the world. You know what God expects from all of us His first fruit? He expects us to be holy.
I Peter 1:15 (New International Version (NIV)) Because it I written, be holy because I am holy.
There is a whole bunch of things, though, that goes along with being holy. And none of them have anything to do with Satan's ‘holy days’ or man's pagan celebrations. Let us look at a few verses that have to do with holiness.
Being holy, brethren, is not some magic thing. Nobody can stand up and make you holy and say, Dr. David Maas, you are holy now! Charles Whitaker, you are holy now! Diane McIver, you are holy now! that is not how holiness comes about. This is how holiness comes about. Let us turn to Ephesians chapter one.
Ephesians 1:4 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC))Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.
Titus 1:8 (King James Version (KJV)) But a lover of hospitality . . .
These are the things that make us holy, brethren. How is that going for us? Are we a lover of hospitality?
Titus 1:8 A lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.
There are many things that go along with becoming holy. It is an action; it is the things we do, brethren. Let us turn to Hebrews chapter three:
Hebrews 3:1-2 (AMPC) So then, brethren, consecrated and set apart for God, who share in the heavenly calling, [thoughtfully and attentively] consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest Whom we confessed [as ours when we embraced the Christian faith]. [See how] faithful He was to Him Who appointed Him [Apostle and High Priest], as Moses was also faithful in the whole house [of God].
We see here that we must also be faithful in all that we do, we cannot mix up God’s true religion with the ways of this world, brethren. We have to be faithful to God in His ways.
Colossians 3:12-13 (KJV) Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
We are all going to be offended sooner later. We have to forgive one another in love and learn to love one another. That is how we become holy.
Colossians 3:14 (KJV) And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
In all our actions, God wants us to be holy, different, and peculiar in all our actions toward mankind and how we act, speak, and treat everyone. God does not want us to conform to the ways of this world.
Brethren, we cannot get mixed up with what the world does or celebrates. All God wants from us is for us to become like Christ, and Christ was holy. To do this, we must yield to God so we can be led by the Holy Spirit. We also have that essence of holiness in us to start with.
We must strive to have good character and we cannot be self-centered. We also must try to have God-centered attitudes to achieve the goal He has for us. Brethren, we must be different or weird to the world and the people around us.