PAGAN EASTER FESTIVALS
“Easter” is the word used in the King James Bible in Acts 12:4. This was un-intended error in translation since paganism had been long embraced before KJV translation was made in 1611. Easter was a pagan festival observed long time ago by the Romans before Jesus Christ came. The right word used in the Greek Bible (Acts 12:4) is “Pascha” which is correctly translated “Passover”. Easter is not a name and a feast which the true and faithful Christians should embrace. Its origin and its name was derived from “Ishtar,” one of the Babylonian titles of an idol goddess, the “Queen of Heaven”, the ''goddess of fertility'' who was Semiramis the wife of Nimrod.
Round cakes imprinted with the sign of a cross (or the letter T for Tammuz) (Hot Cross Buns?) were made at this festival, the sign being in the Babylonian mysteries a sign of life. Easter eggs, which play a great part these days during Easter, were common in all heathen nations. The fable of the egg declares that; “An egg of wondrous size fell from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fish rolled it to the bank where doves settled upon it and hatched it, and out came ‘’Astarte’’ or Ishtar the goddess of Easter” who was reportedly the reincarnation of Semiramis.
(Ref: Dake's Annotated Reference Bible).
Early Hebrew believers remembered and celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at ‘’Passover’’. “But Gentile (that is, Roman) believers at the ‘Council of Nicaea’ (325AD) ruled that it should be celebrated on the first Sun-day after the full moon following the vernal equinox, thus linking it to the pagan festival of Easter.”
Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity in the 4th century A.D made a realistic acceptance of ancient pagan practices, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well-worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel rival resurrected saviours too.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a pole, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras/ Horus/ Tammuz was born on what we now call ‘’Christmas day’’, and his followers celebrated the ‘’spring equinox’’. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.
In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today's ‘’Vatican Hill’’. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan ‘’Spring festival’’.
Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, the Easter celebration was venerated by the Roman Catholic Church, and today many churches including Pentecostals and evangelicals are offering "sunrise services" at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. In 325 AD, Emperor Constantine convened a meeting of Christian leaders to resolve important disputes at the Council of Nicaea. Since the church believed that the resurrection took place on a Sunday, the Council determined that Easter should always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.
“The Christianization of Pagan holidays began about the fourth century A.D. when the Roman Emperor Constantine incorporated the Pagan holidays and festivals into the church ritual… This is the Adversary’s clever deception – Paganism dressed up in Christian clothes! It’s still nothing more than Paganism, but the Christian churches have wholeheartedly embraced this deception.”
–Christmas: Is it “Christian” or Pagan?
Lorraine Day, M.D.
All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies / Rabbits are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns /cakes / chocolates are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol (Jeremiah 7:18), and prophets trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.
‘’The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger’’
Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and entertainment of all sorts of wickedness.
What better way to celebrate, than to bite the head off the bunny goddess, go to a "sunrise service", get yourself a sticky-footed feathery chick and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a cumbersome slice of pagan simnel cake?, eat fat and be filled, go beer party and get drunk in the evening, make new friends, have sex without limitations, discotakes, comedy, karaoke, clubbing and all the wickedness thereof, for a sincere hypocrisy saying ‘’Happy Easter everyone’’! God forbid.
Turn from your wickedness, repent for the crimes you have committed; come out of Babylon or you will perish, saith the spirit of God.
LENT A PAGAN FAST
''Lent'' was a time of penance, of fasting, of abstinence. Folks abstained from all sorts of good stuff including meat. They also gave up eggs and dairy products. So on Tuesday, the day before the start of the Lenten fast, folks cleared out their cupboards of all the foods they could not have for the next 40 days. They cooked them up and ate like pigs and feasted on a festival called ‘’Fat Tuesday or Mardi gras’’ as it is called today in the western culture. In essence they feasted before the fast.
Unlike New Year’s Day, Christmas, Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day and other pagan holidays that are celebrated by the secular, non-religious world, the Lenten season is observed by dedicated religious catholic believers.
From Ash Wednesday to Easter, many solemnly mark their foreheads with ash, “fasting” (or abstaining from certain foods or physical pleasures) for 40 days. This is done to supposedly imitate the Messiah’s 40-day fast in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-2). Some give up smoking. Others give up chewing gum. Still others give up over-eating or cursing. People vow to give up anything, as long as it prepares them for Pagan Easter festival.
People who observe Lent may be religious, dedicated and sincere -- but they are sincerely wrong!
Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 17: But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; 18: That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “the real aim of Lent is, above all else, to prepare men for the celebration of the death and Resurrection of Christ…the better the preparation the more effective the celebration will be. One can effectively relive the mystery only with purified mind and heart. The purpose of Lent is to provide that purification by weaning men from sin and selfishness through self-denial and prayer, by creating in them the desire to do God’s will and to make His kingdom come by making it come first of all in their hearts.”
On the surface, this belief sounds sincere. However, it does not agree with the Bible, YEHOVAH God’s holy Word -- the only source of true spiritual knowledge and understanding (John 17:17); First, understand that the “celebration of the death and Resurrection of Christ” to which the preceding quote refers is so-called “Good Friday” and “Easter Sunday” -- holidays deeply rooted in ancient paganism. They were instituted by mainstream Christianity in order to counterfeit and replace the Passover season.
According to Alexander Hislop wrote in his book, The Two Babylons:
“The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third and fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter…That festival [Passover] was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. Lent was not observed by the first century Church! It was first addressed by the church at Rome during the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, when Emperor Constantine officially recognized that church as the Roman Empire’s state religion. Any other form of Christianity that held to doctrines contrary to the Roman church was considered an enemy of the state."
Today, Lent is used for “fasting from sin and from vice…forsaking sin and sinful ways.” It is a season “for penance, which means sorrow for sin and conversion to God.” This tradition teaches that fasting and employing self-discipline during Lent will give a worshipper the “control over himself that he needs to purify his heart and renew his life.” However, the Bible clearly shows that self-control , temperance; comes from having God’s Holy Spirit working in the life of a converted mind (Galatians 5:16, 17, 22). Fasting -- of and by itself -- cannot produce godly self-control.
Coming from the Anglo-Saxon; Lencten, meaning “spring,” Lent originated in the ancient Babylonian mystery religion. “The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz” (The Two Babylons).
Tammuz was the false Messiah of the Babylonians -- a satanic counterfeit of Jesus the Messiah!; The Feast of Tammuz was usually celebrated in June (also called the “month of Tammuz”). Lent was held 40 days before the feast, “celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing.” This is why Lent means “spring”; it took place from spring to early summer.
The Bible records ancient Judah worshipping this false Messiah: “Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz” (Ezekiel 8:14-15). This was a great abomination in YEHOVAH God’s eyes!
But why did the church at Rome institute such a pagan holiday?
“To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity; now far sunk in idolatry, in this as in so many other things, to shake hands” (The Two Babylons).
The Roman church replaced Passover with Easter, moving the pagan Feast of Tammuz to early spring, “Christianizing” it. Lent moved with it too.
The Early Christians including all the apostles of the lamb continued to celebrate the Passover festivals year after year. The Jews under Judaism celebrated the Passover carnally according to the commandment of Moses where the Passover lamb without blemish was sacrifices and the people ate the unleavened bread, they were commemorating the Exodus where God delivered them from the house of bondage in Egypt with His mighty hand through Moses where the first borns of the Egyptians were killed by the Angel of death in the night. But the early Christians as they celebrated the Passover needed not to sacrifice any lambs because Jesus Christ is our Blameless Passover Lamb (1Corinthians 5:7), who lived a sinless life, crucified, died and resurrected on the third day from the grave. Now He is the hope of our eternity.
The Passover is not just a day of celebration, excitement and entertainment, it’s a day to remember the Passion of Christ, How God so much loved the world and He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). It should be a day of weeping because the Lord died on the cross with great agony where the Righteous Angels were all moved with compassion and couldn’t look at the God of Heaven dying, the sun could not comprehend it, it was moved with tears to the point that it blacked out and its light vanished, gross darkness covered the whole earth, the rocks and the mountains rent apart when they saw their maker being stubbed to death (Matthew 27:44-54); it should be a day of fasting and repenting for our sins before the Lord, and a day of renewing our covenant with the Lord.
Do any of you rejoice when he/she has lost your lovedones? Do you then rejoice because Jesus Christ died for your sins?, Are you trying to mock God? Don’t you know that he suffered death for your sakes? On the cross He cried in great agony to the Father saying; ‘’Father, why have you forsaken me?’’, but full of grace and mercy He replied, ‘’Father, Forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing!’’. For all have sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 2:23), but because of the love of God, The son of God took the form of man that he may die on our behalf, we were all guilty of death, as we know that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), He died on our stead, do we then rejoice because He died or we lament and cry out because we are guilty? Judge for yourselves if you are worthy before God, may God have mercy upon us.
Who is he that dances and celebrates at the death of his friend? If no one; then why do the people make all the dirty jocks and wicked rituals and customs on the day they commemorate the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s only because they are sincerely not celebrating the Passover (The Lord’s Resurrection) but the Pagan Easter Festival worshiping and honoring the queen of heaven, the goddess of fertility. Does His (Jesus’) death mean anything to you or Not? Have you yet accepted Him as your Lord and Saviour? Do you have hope for eternal life? Therefore let’s cast out Babylon and come to God and worship Him in Truth and Spirit.
On the other hand, We should also rejoice greatly before God because the hope of life came to us who were unworthy, the messiah resurrected from the dead, therefore it’s a day of sincere praise and worship before the Lord Jesus Christ in righteousness and a day of Holy communion (Sharing the Lord’s supper).
Conclusion;
Therefore my dear brothers and sisters, understand that both Lent And Easter are real Pagan Babylonian practices or Festivals which were first celebrated in the days of Nimrod the grandson of Noah and son of Cush a son of Ham who was the first world leader that established the kingdom of Babylon, he was an incarnation of the Nephilims/ Anakims, the giants of old, the sons of the fallen Angels who were destroyed in the floods of Noah yet their spirits were not destroyed but remained on earth as evil spirits wondering about looking for where to dwell since their bodies were destroyed. The great hunter Nimrod and his wife Semiramis and their child Tammuz formed a pagan religion and sown it to the whole world throughout all the seven island of the earth and generation after generation each language named these pagan gods (trinities) different names and embraced all their pagan practices. The religion of Nimrod was centered at the worshiping of the fallen angels and of the priests to these religions. The trinity also has its origin there.
Just as we have discussed the Pagan practices and festivals of Easter and Lent above, there are other so many pagan practices today in the world and in the church which focus on the worship of fallen angels and Nimrod; the sun-god and his wife Semiramis; the Queen of heaven. We all know that we have been doing these things because of ignorance reason being that we don’t mind to ask God, not even inquire of them that lived before us, but busy with church schedule, work and chatting with friends on social media. But now Truth has been revealed to you and the decision is in your hands, choose what is right and inherit the kingdom of God, but many prefer to live like the heathens even when they confessed Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5: For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities