Isaiah 65:2-5 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; 3 A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; 4 Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; 5 Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.
Malachi 3:6 For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Isaiah 1:13-16 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
From the above Scriptures, it quite evident that there are certain things that mankind does that is an abomination to our Heavenly Father and therefore, an abomination to His Son Jesus – Yeshua (Hebrew). It’s also clear that Heavenly Father and Yeshua DO NOT CHANGE! During the time that Heavenly Father gave this message to Isaiah for His people, they had become immersed in their own ideas of worship and idols had become the norm. The Israelites were mixing pagan rituals in their worship of Father God, who in Leviticus 23 (see the link at the end of this paragraph) made it perfectly clear what were to be His appointed feasts and exactly how He wanted them to be observed. His appointed feasts were to be a shadow of His Son’s plan of Salvation. These 7 feasts were to be adhered to and were to be the “ONLY FEASTS” celebrated by His children. Please read the following scriptures: https://jesusamazinggrace.com/2020/12/14/gods-appointed-holy-days-levitcus-23/
The following Scripture tells us exactly how our Heavenly Father feels about His children incorporating the worship of other nations/peoples gods/idols into the worship of Him.
Deuteronomy 12:29-31 When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.31 Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
FAST FORWARD from the Exodus to Now:
Today’s blog is about the “man made celebrations”. I’m going to eventually talk about all of our “so called” Christian holidays…but for now the one I’m going to address is the one that is celebrated from Thanksgiving and on through December…the celebration that is referred to by Christians as Christmas or the Birthday of the Messiah. No where in the Bible does Heavenly Father sanction the observance of these pagan holidays, and instead condemns everything to do with paganism!
In the two thousand years since Jesus – Yeshua – Emmanuel (God with us) came to this earth, has anything really changed? Are we still fully immersed in the ways of the pagans? Are we making excuses to celebrate HIM and HIS HOLINESS by gift wrapping HIM up in “all” of the customs and practices of pagan’s since the time of Nimrod (grandson of Noah)? And are we saying that this is okay with Him because we claim to celebrate these customs and practices in HIS NAME? Does our justification of this make it the right thing to do?
Festival of Saturnia
Is Christmas pagan? Yeshua the Messiah was born nowhere near December 25, but that day is the “birthday” of invictus sol, the “unconquerable sun” god! It was widely observed by the pagan Romans in the centuries before and after Jesus the Messiah as the birthday of “Mithra,” the sun god. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. The festival of Saturnalia was an ancient pagan holiday which honored the Roman God Saturn. This festival took place every year between December 17th and 24th. This was a week of eating, drinking and giving presents during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice.
The Apostles and the early Christians refused to celebrate these festivals that were originally dedicated to these pagan gods and their rituals. Their refusal to bow down and celebrate these Roman gods ultimately caused their deaths. Within a few hundred years, the Roman Catholic Christians embraced this celebration when Pope Julius I chose December 25 as the birth of Christ. The festival was first named the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the 1500’s CE. Their excuse was that because of the long dark days that mark that time of the year, they needed something to celebrate.
There are so many pagan traditions that we have incorporated into our celebration that I would need to write a book, but here are a few and if you key pagan traditions of Christmas into your search, you’ll find many more. The decorating of trees with images representing their gods were done by the Romans and in Roman mythology, holly was the sacred plant of the god Saturn, and to honor him at the Saturnalia festival, the Romans gave each other gifts of holly wreaths. When Christians began to use this time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, they new that they were at risk of being persecuted so to avoid detection, they would place holly wreaths in their houses. As far as passers-by were concerned they were celebrating Saturnalia, not Christmas. The Druids believed that mistletoe could protect against thunder and lightning, so they would cut pieces of it and hand it out to the people. The point I’m making is that the people of Europe celebrated the pagan rituals of the winter solstice and gradually Christians incorporated it into their celebration of the birth of Jesus.
Now you tell me! How do we celebrate the birth of Jesus – Yeshua (Hebrew) when HE is the ALPHA and the OMEGA…the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End? The Creator of everything…how do we pick a day? He’s eternal according to Revelation 1:8 who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. How do we justify choosing any day and in particular a day that had already been chosen to be the celebration day of a pagan entity? The fact is that EVERY DAY belongs to Heavenly Father and Jesus, each day that we breathe is a gift to us from God! Why would we mess up a good thing…the promise of eternal life by choosing to make up our own system of beliefs. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both give us the story of the birth of Christ and they didn’t find it important to name the date.
The pagans of ancient days were followers of many gods and as a Christian, we believe in ONE GOD – ONE CREATOR of the Heavens and the Earth. These pagan celebrations were usually wrought with everything that Heavenly Father holds as abominable, from drunkenness to debauchery (in many homes today, this is still typical of a Christmas celebration). Think of the fact that each year more and more people including atheists and non-Christian religions have embraced this celebration; this alone should make you question the validity of the so called holiday. When you think about the TV programs/movies, the lights on the houses, the stores full of shoppers (also online), the overall festivities, you might say that the world is falling in love with Christmas. The heartbreaking thing is that this doesn’t mean that they’re falling in “LOVE with JESUS- YESHUA our Savior”!
Jesus ~ Amazing Grace! 