Anyone can discover the truth about the pagan origins of Christmas, simply by looking up the word, along with all its accouterments and symbols in the major encyclopedias and history books. With the development of the Internet, it is even easier for those who possess PCs, and have access to the Worldwide Web. However, very few ever bother to do so. What about you? Have you ever really wondered about some of the customs we take casually for granted? Ever wanted to know the real TRUTH about the symbolism of “the mass of Christ,” or “Christmas”?

From time to time, I will see an article entitled “Put Christ back in Christmas,” or words to that effect. But it is impossible to “put Christ back in Christmas,” since He was never in Christmas in the first place! None of the apostles of Christ ever heard of the term; not one of them ever celebrated Christ’s birthday. The words Christmas, holly wreath, mistletoe, Rudolph, Santa Claus and Christmas tree do not appear anywhere in the Bible.

The early true church never heard of Christmas. Centuries passed before the large, apostate church ever so gradually began adapting purely pagan practices and mythology to a time they originally called “the epiphany” (relating to Christ’s baptism, which they erroneously believed occurred early in January). Later, some writers began urging a celebration at the same time as the pagan winter solstice observances. This was done for the simple reason that so many pagans were already accustomed to “joyous,” sometimes “riotous” orgies of feasting at the time of the winter solstice.

Each year, articles appear in thousands of publications at Christmas time, cheerfully admitting that the true origins of the celebration are wholly pagan, not Christian. Such articles admit that Christ was probably born several months earlier than December 25^th; admit the pagan origin of the Christmas tree, “Santa Claus,” mistletoe, holly wreaths, yule logs, and the exchanging of gifts.

But most then go on to explain that the so-called “Christian” celebration “replaced” the pagan celebrations, and are therefore perfectly acceptable customs for Christians. Is this true? Does it make any difference to God? Why did not the apostles of Christ celebrate Christmas, instead of doggedly clinging to the Passover? Why did not the early church, for many, many centuries, not celebrate it? Why was it banned in early colonial America?

Did you ever really wonder WHY we do the things we do? WHY do we just take for granted such things as Hallowe’en, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Groundhog’s Day and April Fool’s Day? How many have ever really researched the origins of these and other practices, and pondered whether they are Christian or pagan?

You and I were born into a “ready-made” world. We had no part in customizing it to suit our own tastes—there it was, laid out for us, replete with holidays and customs we were taught as children (most of us). What was YOUR childhood response when you discovered there is no Santa Claus? Or did you cling to the myth of “Santa,” without thinking your parents had fibbed to you? Years ago, I heard of one young lad who, upon finding out there was no Santa Claus, said, “Well, maybe I had better look into this Jesus Christ business, too!”

I certainly never did look up any information about Christmas until I was well into my twenties, and already married. I did so, not so much to prove it was alright to celebrate Christmas, but to try to determine if my father who claimed it was pagan, and preached vigorously against it was right or wrong. That left me the “odd man out” in my neighborhood and in my school when it came time for carol singing and tree decorating. How desperately I wanted to conform to all that was in place around me. Christmas looked like so much FUN, after all.

As a boy, I deeply envied my neighborhood friends and school chums. They all gaily entered into the “Christmas spirit.” My parents didn’t observe Christmas. I never remember a time when we had a Christmas tree, or when any members of our family exchanged presents, or sang Christmas carols. My father, who was a preacher, claimed he had found historical and biblical proof that the whole thing was “pagan to the core,” as he invariably put it.

Therefore, from a family perspective, I dreaded Christmas.

But in school, and among my friends along the block, I loved it. I so wanted to be a part of it; to share in the “Yuletide,” and, especially, to find my stocking filled with wonderful goodies, or to mimic the scenes of kids around the Christmas tree, joyfully opening up gaily-colored boxes, or spending the first few hours on their new bicycles, or in their little red wagons.

To a limited extent, my mother allowed me to participate. We would draw each other’s names out of a box in our grade school classrooms, and each pupil was encouraged to buy a gift for the one whose name was drawn. But this was during the Great Depression, and folks didn’t have much money. Ten cents was a lot to spend on a gift. Keen frustrations occurred, when my Mom would take me down to the five and dime, and help me buy a tiny vial of perfume for a nickel, and wrap it up to give to the girl whose name I had drawn; all apprehensive, excited, expectant about what I would find on my desk when we had our classroom “Christmas party,” only to discover a tiny handkerchief—well, that was disappointment in capital letters!

I used to “play Christmas” out of sight of my parents, in our garage. But I couldn’t play my game until AFTER Christmas, because only then could I sneak out into the neighborhood, retrieve a little tree someone had thrown away, delighted to find a few scraps of tinsel still on it, and spirit it away, and into our garage. I would find brightly-colored wrappings people had discarded, take them out of the garbage cans, and then wrap them around little blocks of wood, like chunks of 2×4’s we sometimes used for kindling. Then, I would arrange them under my pitiful little tree, and pretend they were gifts!

My pretended Christmas was even more frustrating than exchanging gifts in class! For one thing, it was all out of sync, and for another, I was terrified I would be caught.

I learned to lie about Christmas. When the kids would be out riding their new bikes, or waltzing by on a pair or roller skates, or pulling one another in their new red wagon, and asked me, “Teddy, what did you get for Christmas?” I would tell them socks, or underwear. After all, who was going to check up—and how could they prove it one way or another?

Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand, before you read the rest of this book, that I desperately wanted to conform to the world around me. I deeply resented the fact that my parents didn’t “keep Christmas.” Later, as a man, I would have dearly loved to be able to justify Christmas from the Bible—not only justify keeping it, but being able to PROVE that I should! If I could do that—if I could prove that Christ was really born on the 25^th of December, and that He wants me to celebrate His birthday by making out a Christmas shopping list, and entering into the “Christmas spirit,” then I assure you I would have the most beautiful tree in the neighborhood; would have my shrubs and roof all lit up, and would sneak down and fill my grandkids stockings with goodies, and blame it all on Santa Claus.

But, alas. I looked into the history books and encyclopedias—and the Bible.

I was as astonished at what I found—as you will be!

The Origin Of The Holiday

December 25^th was not the birthday of Christ. It was not until the fourth century, about twice as long a period of time as the United States has been a nation, that the apostate church adapted the pagan rituals and symbols to professing Christianity, thus beginning to recognize such customs as cutting down trees and bringing them indoors to decorate with orbs and bulbs.

The Encyclopedia Britannica admits, “…before the 5^th century there was no general consensus of opinion as to when it [the Epiphany] should come in the calendar, whether on the 6^th of January, or the 25^th of March, or the 25^th of December” (ibid. Vol. IV p. 293).

Origen, one of the so-called “church fathers” (known as the “ante-Nicene fathers” to scholars, meaning those writers of nominal Christian thought who lived prior to the Nicene Council, in 325 AD), repudiated the very idea of “keeping the birthday of Christ as if He were a King Pharaoh.” Apparently, the very first mention of the idea of attaching December 25^th to the birth of Christ came in about 354 AD, more than three hundred and twenty years after Christ sent the Holy Spirit to build His true church, from the pen of a LATIN chronographer. Translated into English, it read, “Year 1 after Christ, in the coinsulate of Caesar and Paulus, the Lord Jesus Christ was born on the 25^th of December, a Friday and 15^th day of the new moon.” Long before, however, Clement of Alexandria, another of the so-called “ante-Nicene fathers,” condemned such speculation as mere superstitions. Clement, in issuing a scathing denunciation of such writings, added that some chronologists alleged Christ to have been born on the 20^th of May; others said on the 19^th or 20^th of April, and Clement himself argued it had probably occurred on the 17^th of November, 3 BC. At least, he was a bit closer in his guesswork than those he dismissed.

The same Latin (Roman Catholic) chronologist, along with others, began arguing that the date should be fixed on the same day observed by the Mithraic Priests [a pagan order held in awe and reverence by superstitious adherents], who termed December 25^th, Natalis invicti solis, or “birthday of the invincible [unconquerable] sun.”

But the nominal Christians in Syria and Armenia scornfully accused the Romans of sun worship and blatant idolatry, contending that December 25^th may well have been an invention of the disciples of Cerinthus to commemorate the “natural” birth of Jesus. Cerinthus may have been a contemporary of the apostle John during his last years, and was an advocate of a blend of gnosticism and Judaism; holding the strange notion that Jesus Christ was the “natural” son of Joseph and Mary, and that the “Christ” descended upon Him at His baptism, but left Him again prior to His death. He also taught that the resurrection was yet future; that Jesus was still dead during his time. Therefore, his suppositions about the birth of Christ were rejected by the “ante-Nicene fathers,” such as Irinaeus, Polycarp, and Eusebius.

The Britannica, Eleventh Edition, states, “In Britain the 25^th of December was a festival long before the conversion to Christianity [and therefore a pagan festival], quoting Bede, who said the pagans called it “the mother’s night.” This may be very significant indeed, as will be seen later. The Puritans in England, as late as 1644, by an act of Parliament, declared “Christmas” on December 25^th to be an “heathen festival,” and to show their contempt, ordered people to fast on that day. Their descendants outlawed any celebration of the pagan December 25^th in New England up until only about 22 years before my father, Herbert W. Armstrong, was born, in 1892!

Actually, following their custom of superimposing “Christian” observances upon purely pagan, heathen celebrations, the apostate church eventually established December 25^th as the birthday of Jesus Christ in order to make it easy for hundreds of thousands of Teutons and others, who were accustomed to feasting on that day in commemoration of “the Saturnalia,” or the “birthday of the invincible sun,” to embrace nominal Christianity.

The encyclopedias and history books are replete with information about the pagan origin of Christmas. Even the Bible encyclopedias admits the truth. An outstanding example is from the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge which admits, “How much the date of the festival depended upon the pagan Brumalia (December 25^th) following the Saturnalia (December 17th-24th), and celebrating the shortest day of the year and the `new sun’…cannot be accurately determined. The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence…The pagan festival with its riot and merrymaking was so popular that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with little change in spirit and in manner. Christian preachers in the west and the near east protested against the unseemly frivolity with which Christ’s birthday was celebrated, while Christians of Mesopotamia accused their western brethren of idolatry and sun worship for adopting as Christian this pagan festival” (ibid. Article: “Christmas”).

Don’t assume that all these pagan sun-worshiping customs are only ancient practices of those long since dead. Believe it or not, there are “Saturnalians” and dozens of small sects of Satanism and witchcraft practicing in the United States and other “Christian” countries TODAY!

The Internet contains weird pages of material about HOW TO CELEBRATE THE SATURNALIA! At least, Satanists and sun worshipers know the true meaning of the season!

Was The Birth Of Jesus Christ The “First Noel”?

The “first noel” is a common phrase. Not only is it one of the dozens of best-known Christmas carols, it may be found on cups and glasses, on orbs and bulbs, on gaily-colored wrapping paper, and practically everywhere, including huge letters set up on brightly-lit neighborhood lawns.

The words of the famous song are well-known: “The first noel, the angels did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay,” etc. Thus, a purely pagan phrase is adapted to the annunciation of the birth of Christ by the angels. Millions casually assume that the “first Noel” simply means “the first Christmas.” Not so.

The word has a Celtic origin, and comes from two words among the ancient region of Gaul (modern day northern France and Brittany), novo Hel. Novo means “new” and Hel means “sun.” You will recognize both ancient words in our English words “novice,” and “heliograph.” It meant “new sun”, or the winter solstice, and marked the first day of the year when the days began lengthening.

The holiday is actually nothing more than the ancient “Saturnalia,” celebrated among different pagan, heathen peoples in different lands by amazingly similar customs and nonsensical beliefs. SUN worship was virtually universal among all savage, heathen tribes, clans, and nations.

Truth be told, the celebration of the birth of Christ has occurred in every month of the year among different peoples at different times. For a period of centuries, it was celebrated in January. To this day, a common expression is “the twelve days of Christmas,” which refer to the signs of the Zodiac, and pagan, agrarian rituals. In other words, as pagans prayed to the sun god, they celebrated the signs of the seasons; appealing to the solis invictus, or the invincible sun, to “begin his journey back to the northern latitudes,” lengthening the days, warming the earth, melting the ice and snow of winter, and bringing once again the springing forth of new life.

By taking such “quaint” beliefs, and adapting them to nominal “Christian” beliefs, the universal church was able to “convert” countless hundreds of thousands of savage peoples in dozens of countries all over the world. As one book, The Origins of Christmas, states, “Across Europe, Roman, German or Celtic festivals marked the beginning of winter. Christianity originated and expanded in the ancient world by promising a new life, and by announcing a new light to the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Little by little, a calendar of religious festivals was established from the forth century, replacing ancient rituals and pagan celebrations.”

But the ancient rituals and pagan celebrations, with all their accompanying symbolism and enactments were by no means replaced with anything that was “Christian.” One may claim a pig is a duck hundreds of times, but the pig is a pig, nevertheless.

Christ Was Not Born In The Winter

Christ was not born on or anywhere near the 25^th of December. The Bible says, “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night [Note carefully! The sheep were gathered into sheep cotes much earlier; no sheep were still “abiding in the field” this late in the year. But in September or early November, such a scene could have obtained. There is ample proof for this].”

There is virtual unanimity among some of the most well-known commentators on this point: Barnes, Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings, who wrote Jewish Antiquities all agree that December 25^th could not have been Christ’s date of birth. Joseph Mede, following a long dissertation on the subject, says, “At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for women with child and children, to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be born in the depth of winter. Again, at the time of Christ’s birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the gospel, “Pray that your flight be not in the winter,” if the winter was so bad a time to flee in, and women and children to travel in.

Here is what Christ Himself said: “Then [when the Abomination of Desolation is in place] let them which be in Judaea [the very place of Christ’s birth] flee into the mountains:

“Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

“Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

“And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

“But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day:

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:16-21).

Notice how Jesus Christ singled out pregnant women, or nursing mothers, saying they should PRAY that they should not have to flee their homes into the countryside, and into the mountainous country of Judaea in the winter! Further, it was not the practice of the Roman government to force their subject peoples into arduous, even perilous, travel in the middle of winter. Their object was census-taking for taxation purposes, not to create popular rebellion. Therefore, they would have chosen the season of the year when it was the easiest time for travel, not the most difficult.

Now, continuing with the account of the annunciation of Christ’s birth:

“And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

“And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men [actually, the verse reads, in the original, `Peace on earth among men of good will’].

“And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

“And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger” (Luke 2:7-16).

However, one may see the shepherds AND the wise men, or the “Magi” (Persian followers of the “Magus,” and believers, perhaps, in Zoroaster, who were forced to acknowledge the King of kings and Lord of lords) standing about the manger in many, many pictures, movies, books, and of course, in decorations on millions of lawns.

But the Magi did not arrive in Bethlehem until after a journey of many, many MONTHS, perhaps a YEAR after the birth of Christ. Historical facts mean nothing to those who blindly adopt “custom,” however.

Study carefully the 2^nd chapter of Matthew. Herod would not have risked killing all the little boys from two years old and younger if he had known the Christ child was a mere week or two old! He ordered the murder of all those from two years and younger because he had carefully interrogated the wise men about the time the star had appeared. Notice the account, how the Magi had “…come into the HOUSE [not a manger], [where] they saw the young child [not here called a baby, or an infant] with Mary His mother…” (Matthew 2:16).

This is simply another example of the ignorance of millions, who, though they believe they are celebrating a “Christian” custom, have not bothered to so much as read the Bible account carefully.

What Is The Origin Of The Christmas Tree?

Tree worship is virtually universal among heathen peoples. To this day, there are those who believe trees have a spirit; those who will “apologize to the spirit of the tree” before cutting it down.

From the earliest times, since trees come in so many thousands of varieties, and are so useful to man, ancient mankind ascribed any number of god-like qualities to trees. Trees produce many hundreds of varieties of foods for man, from nuts to bananas; from fruits to bark used as spices, as in the case of the cinnamon tree. The ubiquitous palm trees of the tropics and Middle East have been used for rafts, canoes, building homes, thatching roofs, producing clothing, and for dozens of kinds of foods, from coconuts to dates.

But it was not only the most “primitive” peoples who worshiped trees. Even such notable Greek philosophers a Plato and Aristotle taught that trees possessed reason, just as humans do; believed trees had “feelings.” Ancient Egyptians held to the superstition that the life of a human being and the life of a tree were somehow connected; that the fate of one was identical to the fate of another. In the famous Egyptian fable called “the tale of two brothers,” dating from perhaps 1,000 B.C., one of the brothers allegedly “leaves his heart on the top of the flower of an acacia tree,” but then falls down dead when the tree is cut down.

There is a “black arts” connection here. As in voodoo, wherein people believe a human being can be cursed with sickness, wounds, or even killed by sticking pins in a doll-like caricature of the victim, many believed that a person’s life was inextricably intertwined with the life of a tree. By depositing fingernail clippings, human hair, or some article that had been in close contact with the man, pagans believed they were putting themselves into close “personal” contact with the tree. Then, if certain boughs were cut off, and investigated, and it appeared that a blight was affecting the tree, the man drew conclusions from this—believing he would be stricken with a disease, or die.

Encyclopedias are replete with pagan concepts of tree worship. Customs in dozens of countries all over the world show that it was common belief that humans and trees had some common bond; some spiritual interconnection. Some believed it was possible to transfer disease from a sick person to a tree. Thus, they would place bits of hair, items of clothing, or some personal item from the sick person; even fingernail clippings, into a niche or hole bored into the tree. The Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition, states that some sick persons would be passed through the aperture resulting from splitting a tree, and then, if the tree survived, the patient would surely recover. In India, the Korwas hung rags on trees which formed the shrines of their various village gods. Even in early America, in Nebraska, some believed that hanging of objects on the branches of trees propitiated supernatural beings, or could give them such blessings as good hunting and good weather.

The universality of tree worship was also observed by the well-traveled Charles Darwin, the “father of evolution,” who wrote of a tree he saw in South America festooned with various offerings, including rags, meat, and even cigars! Not only were libations made to this tree, but horses were sacrificed to it.

From the most ancient times, the Bible records how the pagan nations inhabiting Palestine in the time of Joshua and the Israelitish occupation worshiped in “groves.” Wooded copses atop hills were used as pagan shrines. Sometimes, amidst the groves, the tops and branches were lopped off a standing tree, which was then carved to represent a phallic symbol, or carved with the face of a “god.” Notice one outstanding example:

“And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

“And they set them up images and groves [groves of trees] in every high hill, and under every green tree:

“And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger” (2 Kings 17:9-11). God commanded them—as He commands us today—”LEARN NOT THE WAY of the heathen!” We are commanded of God NOT to adopt the customs; the “way” of worship of the demented, savage, ignorant minds of heathen peoples, thinking them “quaint” or “cute,” and then pretending they are “Christian.”

God said, “And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them” (2 Kings 17:15).

If pagan Amorites, Amalakites, Babylonians, Druids, Teutons, Celts, Greeks, Egyptians or Romans could come back to life today, they would immediately recognize many of the customs practiced by professing “Christians.”

But where did the concept of cutting down millions of little firs, spruce, or balsams come from? Most authorities agree it stems from the fable of “St. Boniface” (meaning “pretty face”), who supposedly cut down the “great oak of Jupiter,” a tree worshiped by pagan Teutons at Geismar in Hesse, Germany. As the story goes, Boniface, who is also identified as an early English missionary, named “Winfred”, came upon a group of heathens who were worshiping at their huge, spreading oak, the “sacred oak of Jupiter.” Poor little Prince Asulf was about to be sacrificed to “Jupiter,” it seems, until Boniface and his armed men stopped the impending sacrifice and rescued Asulf. Then, Boniface ordered the tree cut down. The legend varies; one version claiming he then planted an evergreen in its place, and another claiming he told the pagans in the next day or so that, by a divine miracle, a little fir tree had “sprung up in its place,” and that the new little tree was the “tree of life,” and represented “Christ.”

Quaint. Always accommodating, the apostate church and churchmen allowed heathens to cling to their symbols of worship, while merely calling them by a different name.

One version of the story says Boniface had a church built in honor of “St. Peter” from the felled oak. Some oak tree!

Today, some utterly ignorant “Christian” people will utter the bovine nonsense that the “evergreen is a symbol of everlasting life”!

But there is an even older version of the story, in which Nimrod, the first organizer of cities and city-states (Genesis 10:8-12), who was also identified with Tammuz, or the sun god, was depicted by a sacred tree, which was cut down, only to find that a young green tree had sprung up from the trunk overnight, thus representing the “rebirth” of Nimrod, or the sun god.

The early pagan Scandinavians were tree worshipers, and it was only natural that their “Brumalias” or the winter festival of Saturnalia should feature the holly tree and the fir tree, whose wreaths and branches were brought indoors. The Romans exchanged green tree branches on the “calends,” or the 1^st of January, as good luck symbols.

Today, tens of millions of beautiful trees, which COULD become huge, mature Douglas firs, spruce, balsams, or other kinds of conifers, and which COULD be used to build millions of homes, or produce resins, paper, and dozens of useful products, are instead cut down, then shipped via truck and rail to distribution points, then stood up, to have a base nailed to them, and sold to “Christians” to take indoors and decorate with orbs and bulbs.

As the tree withers and dies, it becomes a fire hazard. Each year, children and families die as a result of faulty wiring on Christmas tree lights.

Does God say anything about the Christmas tree? Notice, “Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

“Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

“For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.

“They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not” (Jeremiah 10:1-4). When God says LEARN NOT the “way of the heathen,” He means exactly what He says. Notice further, “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;

“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.

“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 [this was done in groves of trees, or asherah, just as the worshipers of Jupiter were doing in Germany].

“What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deuteronomy 12:29-32). Many will argue that Christmas and other pagan festivals are “extra-Biblical”; that, while they are not enjoined by scripture, are nevertheless harmless inventions of sincere Christians in worship of God and Christ. But God thunders at rebellious mankind, “Thou shalt not add thereto” in methods of worship!

Plainly, God commanded His people NOT TO COPY the modes of heathen worship of the degenerate pagan nations of the world; not to adapt their ceremonies, symbols, and rituals, and call them by a different name. Yet, in direct, flagrant disobedience to this divine command, tens of millions indulge in customs which would be readily recognized by pagan sun-worshipers.

Today, the entire TIME of late autumn until mid-winter is celebrated. The day or so after Hallowe’en (itself a totally demonic, satanic, pagan celebration), millions of commercial establishments drag out their Christmas decorations, and put them in their shops and display windows. God commanded, “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

“Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer [one who claims to be able to communicate with the dead],

“For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD…” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

“`Tis the season to be jolly! Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la! Deck the halls with boughs of Holly!”—a familiar refrain. The “Christmas season” is exactly the same thing as “observing times”; observing the winter solstice, just as pagan sun-worshipers did.

The “holiday season,” or “yuletide,” or the “twelve days of Christmas” are commonly used to connote the “Christmas” holiday, or the “Christmas season.”

Where Did We Get The Yule Log?

What in the world is “yuletide”? What is a “yule log,” and where did it come from? Like so many of our “modern” customs, the yule log is also buried in the most ancient myths and superstitions. A Nordic word for the winter solstice was geol, the “g” being pronounced like our “y,” thus: “yeol” or “yool.” The Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, states that the term has come to mean “the season of Christmas.” Further, it says, “This word is chiefly used alone as an archaism or in poetry or poetical language, but is more common in combination, as in `yuletide,’ `yule-log,’ & etc….it was the name of two months of the year, December and January, the one the `former yule’ (se aerra geola) and the other the `after yule’ as coming before and after the winter solstice. According to A. Fick [its] proper meaning is noise, clamour, the season being one of rejoicing at the turning of the year among Scandinavian peoples before Christian times” (ibid. Vol 28, p. 946).

Writing of both the Christmas tree and the yule log, Hislop says, “The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in pagan Rome and pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm tree; in Rome it was the fir;

“The palm tree denoting the pagan messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the sun-god and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was the tree, the son must have been recognized as the `man the branch.’ And this entirely accounts for the putting of the yule log into the fire on Christmas eve, and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next morning…but why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a log? …Now the yule log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas tree is Nimrod redivivus—the slain god come to life again” (The Two Babylons, Hislop, p. 87, 98).

Satan paved the way toward the Madonna and child with many false, counterfeit representations, including Isis and Osirus, which are the Egyptian versions of the Babylonian Nimrod and Semiramus.

Thus, it was no great leap of imagination for pagans to embrace the worship, NOT of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world; as the RULER, who will return to this earth to rule it with a rod of iron, but as a “little babe in his mother’s arms”; worship symbols of “madonna and child.” After all, they had done so for thousands of years! But God’s Word does NOT portray Jesus Christ as being overshadowed by His mother, and does NOT urge WORSHIP toward the “queen of heaven,” which was the role of Semiramus, the mother-wife of Nimrod!

Christmas Dinners—Boar’s Heads, Geese and Turkeys

Obviously, every pagan festival centered around food and drink—especially drink. Today, tens of millions of people all over the western world of professing Christianity revel in “office parties” at Christmas time; in neighborhood parties, and in many kinds of Christmas-oriented celebrations, from school plays to huge concerts.

The “Tom and Jerry” bowl is a carry-over from the “Wassail” bowl of ancient times. Bacchanalian orgies featured sumptuous banquets and wine. It was the sport of kings and nobles to hunt boar throughout Europe and the Balkans. But the boar represented more than wild game, at a king’s table. Pagan mythology says “Adonis” was killed by an attack of a wild boar. Therefore, boars were sacrificed to Adonis in many countries. How the boar’s head came to “grace” many a medieval (and modern) English table is another of those mystical, pagan stories of pure myth. Hislop says, “According to one version of the story of the death of Adonis, or Tammuz [the sun god], it was, as we have seen, in consequence of a wound from the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian Attes, the beloved of Cybele, whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have perished in like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore Diana, who though commonly represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the great mother of the gods, has frequently the boar’s head as her accompaniment [in pagan statuary, icons, medals, etc.], in token not of any mere success in the chase, but of her triumph over the grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she occupied so conspicuous a place…in memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the offended goddess” (Ibid. P. 100).

The same authority describes how the Saxons in Europe (sons of “Saac,” or “Saccae,” the sons of Isaac, and thus part of the so-called “Lost Ten Tribes”) offered a boar in sacrifice “on Christmas day” to Venus for the “loss of her beloved Adonis.”

Hislop wrote, “In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the great article at the feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of Martial: `That boar will make you a good Saturnalia.’ Hence the boar’s head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas dinner, when the reason of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the `Christmas goose’ and the `yule cakes’ were essential articles in the worship of the Babylonian messiah, as that worship was practiced both in Egypt and at Rome” (ibid. P. 101).

Hislop includes two pictures; one features an Egyptian hieroglyph of the Egyptian god “Seb,” with his symbol the goose on his head; the other shows a Roman sacrificial goose, bound, and placed on a stand, its head drooping down in death.

Once the apostate church had established December 25^th as the birthday of Christ, it was a simple matter to count backward 9 months, and establish the festival called “Lady Day,” on the 25^th of March. “Lady Day.” Was it mere coincidence that March 25^th was a pagan celebration in Rome in honor of the Babylonian messiah, and his alleged miraculous conception in “Cybele,” the “mother of god,” or the “mother of the messiah?”

Of course, the pagan festivals all featured sumptuous feasting (the meaning of “festival”), so it was natural that those animals upon which they feasted carried symbolic meaning. In the United States, the turkey came to be the centerpiece of “Thanksgiving” because of the gifts of Indians to the Puritans, and because of the harvest of wild game such as the turkey, which was easier to kill once the leaves had dropped in late November. However, the turkey has no mystic symbolism whatsoever, and Thanksgiving is purely a national celebration in honor of God’s blessings, and is utterly devoid of any pagan trappings or rituals.

“Here We Go `A-Wassailing'”

One of the familiar “Christmas carols” is “Wassailing.” To most, it is merely some ancient word they assume came from England or somewhere—perhaps Germany—they don’t really know, which means, “Here we go, singing carols in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve.”

But the old English word meant “Be whole,” or “Be well.”

Allegedly, the custom of “wassailing” began with “…the reception of King Vortigern by Hengist, when Rowena `came into the king’s presence, with a cup of gold filled with wine in the hand, and making a low reverence to the king said, Waes hael hlaford Cyning, which means `Be of health, Lord King.’ In a collection of ordinances for the regulations of the royal household in Henry VII’s reign, the steward on the Twelfth Night [of the `Twelve nights of Christmas’] was to cry `wassail’ three times on entering with the bowl, the royal chaplain responded with a song. Wassailing was as much a custom in the monasteries as in laymen’s houses, the bowl being known as poculum Caritalis. What is popularly known as wassailing was the custom of trimming with ribbons and sprigs of rosemary a bowl which was carried round the streets by young girls singing carols at Christmas and the New Year. This ancient custom still survives here and there, especially in Yorkshire, where the bowl is known as `the vessel cup,’ and is made of holly and evergreens, inside which are placed one or two dolls trimmed with ribbons. The cup is borne on a stick by children who go from house to house singing Christmas carols. In Devonshire and elsewhere it was the custom to wassail the orchards [trees again!] on Christmas and New Year’s eve. Pitchers of ale or cider were poured over the roots of the trees to the accompaniment of a rhyming toast to their healths” (Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, vol. 28, p. 361). One will recognize the English word “hale,” as in “hale and hearty,” in the word “wasshail,” or “wassheil.”

Thus various “quaint” superstitions were added to the custom of “wassailing.” In Germany, the gamekeeper, once his hunter has killed a stag, breaks off a twig of evergreen, dips it into the blood of the animal, and then presents it with a “toast,” pronouncing similar words, “Wass-heil!” The sprig of bloody evergreen then is worn in the successful hunter’s hat band.

Here is a list of sometimes idiotic superstitions as practiced today from countries around the world during the middle of winter, about Christmas and New Years. As the Back to Christmas Chroniclesgaily admits, “Midwinter has always been a time when spirits and monsters were on the prowl. It is also a time that looks forward to the coming of Spring, hence a good time for fortune-telling and weather forecasting.” Then, the following list is included:

1) At midnight on Christmas Eve, all water turns to wine; cattle kneel facing the East; horses kneel and blow as if to warm the manger; animals can speak, though it’s bad luck to hear them; [how cute—that way no one will be sure to destroy the myth by listening in!] bees hum the hundredth psalm.

2) In Ireland, it is believed that the gates of heaven open at midnight on Christmas Eve. During this brief period, those who die get to go straight to heaven, instead of having to wait on purgatory—where is Dr. Kevorkian? Sounds like he could be very busy in Ireland on Christmas Eve.

3) A child who is born on Christmas Eve is considered very lucky in many countries; however, in Greece, he is considered to be like an evil demon, and in Poland he may turn out to be a werewolf, according to pagan superstition.

4) Some idiotic people once conjured up the notion that each of the twelve days of Christmas indicates what the weather will be on the ensuing twelve months. Pretty stupid in the tropics, or anywhere else, for that matter.

5) In Germany, time was when unwed girls would sit in a circle, blindfold a goose, and the first girl the goose blundered into would be sure to marry within the year.

6) In northern Europe, it was considered bad luck to let the fire go out in the house during Christmas season—the yule log was a feature of such fires.

7) Another “quaint” custom was to see which spouse brought a holly wreath into the house first; if the husband, he would rule the house for the next year; if the wife, she would do so. This may have resulted in a mad scramble for holly.

8) In Greece, it was believed you should burn your old shoes in the fire during the Christmas season to avoid bad luck in the coming year.

9) Some believed one should never allow to fall, drop, or throw away the evergreen decorations once set up in the home. Instead, they should either be burnt, or “fed to your cow.” Personally, I have never seen a cow eat a fir tree, and holly is rather prickly.

10) It is said that in Hertfordshire, England, the harvest is predetermined by sticking a plum cake on a cow’s horn, then throwing cider into her face. If the cake falls forward, it will be a good harvest, if backward, a bad one.

11) In Sweden, Christmas Eve bodes evil. It is believed “trolls” roam the countryside during the night hours, and that one should remain indoors.

There are dozens more such idiotic and silly customs—so many space would not permit them to be catalogued. Many revolved around eating mince pie for luck, and of course, there is always the ancient Druidic belief that the parasite “mistletoe” is an aphrodisiac, since it’s waxen-white berries are present in the winter. Thus, mistletoe is hung over doorways and upon light fixtures and from the ceilings, so that, if one encounters one’s neighbor’s wife “under the mistletoe,” it is mandatory to kiss. There is no record of how many fights, arguments, or even divorces have resulted from this practice.

Like the ignorant heathen of the past, modern professing “Christians” cheerfully indulge in such silly customs, believing them harmless and “quaint.”

When Was Jesus Christ Really Born?

Since Jesus Christ was not born anywhere near December 25^th, when was He really born? And, if we can determine the date with any reasonable degree of accuracy, are we to “observe His birthday”?

Believe it or not, there are biblical clues concerning the true date of Jesus Christ’s birth. However, it is obvious the writers of the gospels did not think it important to include the exact date, speaking only of the events surrounding His birth, or events when he was 12 years of age, answering the learned doctors in the Temple, or when He began His ministry, being “about thirty.” The Bible nowhere enjoins upon Christians to observe the birthday of Jesus Christ, or the birthday of any other famous biblical person, whether Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, or the apostle Paul!

Satan the devil is the great counterfeiter. He is the arch deceiver, who will go to any lengths to deceive and mislead God’s people. He knows the old adage, “a miss is as good as a mile.” Actually the word for “sin” means “to miss the mark.” Just one tiny slash of a knife across the “smile” of the Mona Lisa would be enough to destroy the painting, just as only a “little” poison in an otherwise good meal can kill you. If people “miss the mark” in observing purely pagan customs, with pagan, mystical symbols all about, but call it “Christian,” the devil is satisfied, for he has duped the people into committing SIN against God; “missing the mark” of the pure worship of the Creator of all things by doing the opposite of what He has commanded, “Learn NOT the way of the heathen.”

For decades, I knew that Satan had obfuscated, or concealed the real truth about the Passover by the pagan substitution of “Easter,” or Ishtar, a celebration of fecundity, procreation, and new life. I knew that eggs and rabbits symbolize fertility, and have nothing to do with Christ’s resurrection. Hallowe’en is blatantly pagan, but is a HARVEST celebration of sorts, featuring corn stalks, squashes and pumpkins, along with all the demonic symbolism, and obfuscates God’s true fall harvest festival, the “Feast of Tabernacles,” which always falls on the 15^th day of the 7^th month of God’s sacred calendar.

But what does “Christmas” obscure?

What is hiding behind it? Is there something we would be better off if we knew about the latter part of December? Originally, there were those who celebrated December 25^th as “St. Michaelmas” day, claiming it was the day of the annunciation to Mary by the archangel, and therefore was CONCEPTION day; the day God “became flesh.” Was it?

There are some important clues we should understand. They begin with the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, who was Jesus’ second cousin, and the “voice in the wilderness” who was to announce the coming of the Messiah.

Notice what the Bible says about this great event: “”There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

“And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

“And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.

“And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course,

“According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.

“And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense.

“And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

“And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.

“But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

“And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.

“For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.

“And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.

“And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

“And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.

“And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings.

“And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.

“And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple.

“And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless.

“And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house” (Luke 1:5-23).

Zacharias served during the “course of Abia,” or the EIGHTH of the priestly courses (meaning their assigned times of service) in the Temple (see 1 Chronicles 24:10). This took place twice each year. Each time of service, or “course” changed each week, commencing on the Sabbath. The reckoning commenced on the 22^nd day of Tisri or Tehanim, which was the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the “Last Great Day.”

Remember that the courses served together at the three great feasts. The dates for the twice-yearly ministrations of Abia fall on the 12^thto the 18^th of Chisleu (our December 6^th to the 12^th), and from the 12^th to the 18^th of Sivan, or our June 13^th to the 19^th.

Therefore, the announcement about the CONCEPTION OF JOHN occurred somewhere between our June 13^th to the 19^th in 5 BC!

Old Zacharias’ course ended on the Sabbath, our June 20^th, which would have been a Sabbath. Therefore, he could not have journeyed to his home on that day, but would have left on the 21^st, our Sunday. He lived “in the hill country of Judaea,” about 30 miles away. Easily, this was a two day journey for an elderly man, putting him home late on the 22^nd of Sivan, or our June 23^rd. Therefore, the miraculous conception of John HAD TO TAKE PLACE somewhere on June 23^rd or 24^th of 5 BC!

To this day in England, the “Day of the Nativity of John the Baptist” is June 24^th! In reality, it is not the date of his BIRTH, but the date of his conception!

Elizabeth and Mary were first cousins. Therefore, John the Baptist and Jesus were second cousins. John was conceived on the 7th of Nisan, corresponding to our June 23rd or 24th, in 5 BC.

Six months later, on the first day of the Jewish month Tebeth, which corresponds to our December 25th, 5 BC, Jesus Christ was begotten. Nine months later, when the shepherds were still “abiding in the fields by night,” Christ was born in Bethlehem on our September 29th, which fell on the FIRST DAY OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES!”

Bullinger’s Companion Bible says, “The fact of the birth of our Lord having been revealed to the shepherds by the Archangel Michael on the 15^th of Tisri, corresponding to September 29^th, 4 BC—the FIRST DAY OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES—must have been known to believers in the Apostolic age. But the `mystery of iniquity’ which was already working in Paul’s day (2 Thessalonians 2:7) quickly enshrouded this and the other great fact of the day of the Lord’s `begetting’ on the first day of the Jewish month Tebeth, corresponding to December 25^th, 5 BC, as well as other events connected with His sojourn on earth, in a rising mist of obscurity in which they have ever since been lost.

“The earliest allusion to December 25^th as the date for the Nativity is found in the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, about the beginning of the Third Century AD.

“That `Christmas’ was a pagan festival long before the time of our Lord is beyond doubt. In Egypt, Horus, the son of Isis (queen of heaven), was born about the time of the winter solstice. By the time of the early part of the fourth century AD, the real reason for observing Christmas as the date for the miraculous `begetting’ of Matthew 1:18 and `the Word becoming flesh’ of John 1:14 had been lost sight of…If, however, we realize that the centre of gravity, so to speak, of what we call the Incarnation is the Incarnation itself—the wondrous fact of the Divine `begetting’ when `the Word became flesh‘—and that this is to be associated with December 25<sup>th</sup>, instead of March—as for 1,600 years Christendom has been led to believe—then `Christmas’ will be seen in quite another light…”

“The announcement to the shepherds by the Archangel Michael marked the birth of our Lord. John 1:14 is read as though `the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us’ were one and the same thing, whereas, they are two clauses. The paragraph should read thus: `And the Word became flesh; [Gr. Ho logos sarx egeneto.] `And tabernacled with [or among] us,’ [Gr. Kai eskenosen en hemin].

“The word tabernacled here [preserved in the RV margin] receives beautiful significance from the knowledge that the `Lord of glory’ was `found in fashion as a man,’ and thus tabernacling in human flesh. And in turn it shows in equally beautiful significance that our Lord was born on the FIRST DAY OF THE GREAT JEWISH FEAST OF TABERNACLES, vis. The 15^th of Tisri, corresponding to September 29^th, 4 BC [modern reckoning].

“The circumcision of our Lord took place therefore on the eighthday, the last day of the Feast, `The Great Day of the Feast’ of John 7:37″ (ibid. Appendix 179, emphasis mine).

Christ is the central figure of all the annual Sabbaths, or Feasts, of God. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the “living Bread” depicted by the unleavened bread of the “Days of Unleavened Bread” following the Passover. He is the FIRST of the “firstfruits” depicted by the “Feast of Sabbaths,” or the “Feast of the Firstfruits,” which was celebrated by counting until the 50^th [the word “Pentecost” is Greek for “fiftieth”] day following the wave sheaf offering during the Days of Unleavened Bread. He is the soon-coming King of kings and Lord of lords, whose arrival is heralded by the blowing of the great trumpet of the archangel on the “Feast of Trumpets.” He is our “Atonement” pictured by the fast day of Atonement.

The feast of temporary booths, or kiosks, or shanties, or huts, or “tabernacles,” portrays our total transitory nature; our impermanence on this earth during our short physical life span.

In a shadowy type, it also looks forward to our eventual inheritance of our permanent, spirit body, when we inherit the Kingdom of God.

Notice, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood [this means you and me, in our physical bodies] cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

“Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep [die: the Bible continually uses profound “sleep” as a type of death], but we shall all be changed,

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:50-53).

Read the entire 15^th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Paul explains how the physical body is to decay, but that, in the resurrection, a new spirit body is given to the dead in Christ, or the living in Christ, who are changed, in a “twinkling of an eye.”

Notice, “But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

“Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened [made alive], except it die:

“And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:

“But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

“All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.

“There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

“There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

“It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:35-44).

You and I reside in a physical body. We may lose a leg, or an arm, or an eye, and we are still here. Our volition; our psyche; our personality; our conscience and will power reside in the frontal lobes of our brain, not in our kneecap or our elbow.

God’s Holy Spirit enters into our MIND, changing our mind from carnal to spiritual—it does not enter into our kneecap or our elbow.

When God begets us with His Spirit, we become one more of His spiritual children—He is our FATHER, not merely in an intellectual sense, or as a “spiritual title,” but in a very REAL sense! Notice how Paul puts it, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption [the Greek word means more than legal adoption. [It connotes “sonship”], whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:14-17).

God’s Word says “there is a spirit in man.” Most people falsely call it the “soul,” believing in the pagan doctrine of the “immortality of the soul.”

But the human spirit has no consciousness apart from the physical life sustained by the bloodstream. It is said to be deeply ASLEEP when the body dies. Notice how Paul said this several times: “…And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

“Then they also which are fallen asleep [meaning, “are dead”]in Christ are perished.

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:17-20).

The human spirit, together with God’s Holy Spirit, becomes a new, never-before, unique SPIRIT BEING; a new spiritual creation!

You Are Unique

There is no one else quite like you. You are unique. Your fingerprints are different from anyone else among the more than five billion living humans. Your DNA is unique. The “pattern” that was imparted to the fertile egg in your mother’s body by your father made you what you are.

In a tiny, microscopic beginning, YOU became you. It happened in only a moment of time, yet, all that you were to become—your unique fingerprints; color and texture of hair; color of eyes; skin color and texture; musculature and physical stature—everything about you, including inherited proclivities such as music or athletic prowess, began at the moment of conception. At that moment, YOU became you. You WERE, from that moment. Yet, you were smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

Millions take human procreation; life itself, for granted. But human life, and the awesome law of “biogenesis,” that kind reproduces after kind, is a miracle.

The Bible uses begettal (conception) and birth as analogies to help us understand spiritual begettal and rebirth. Almost intuitively, societies all over the world, from the most primitive to the most developed, believe that there is something “spiritual” about human life—that there is life after death in some form. Few seem willing to accept the plain truth about the next life from He who conquered death in human flesh: Jesus Christ.

He said to Nicodemus: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:5-8). Nicodemus knew Christ used a term for birth which was exactly the same term one would use in describing human or animal birth. This is why He retorted, “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (John 3:4). Nicodemus was not attempting bawdy humor. He knew Christ spoke of actual BIRTH, not some emotional human experience, and the proof is in what he asked.

Christ then stated a simple fact. That which is born of flesh IS FLESH. But that which is born of the Spirit IS SPIRIT. Simple, and yet millions refuse to believe or accept it, and prefer to twist this plain statement into a pretzel-like shape of confused contortion, and believe that being “born again” is an emotional experience—or “speaking in tongues.”

The Greek word John used is gennao. In the Greek, the entire process of conception, fetal development and parturition, or birth, is encompassed in that one word. Just as you and I were BEGOTTEN at the moment in time when our father’s sperm impregnated our mother’s fertile egg, so we can become BEGOTTEN CHILDREN OF GOD at the moment when God’s Holy Spirit comes into our mind, to join with our human spirit, and form a “new creature” in Christ!

The Inspiring Truth About “Tabernacles”

It is because Satan has obfuscated the fabulous truths contained in the types presented to us in God’s annual Sabbaths that millions are confused and deceived.

Paul knew he was dwelling in a “temporary tabernacle”; his body—and he knew that at his death, the body would be laid down in the grave, but that the new spiritual creation; the “new creature in Christ” would merely be “asleep,” and would be resurrected at the second coming of Christ.

He wrote, ” For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

“But we have this treasure [this priceless knowledge of salvation and God’s plan] in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:6, 7). Paul knew our bodies are like clay bowls, or urns. They are merely temporary, fragile, earthen vessels, which contain something very precious.

He said, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish [the aging process, and eventual death], yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment [in comparison, our fleshly lives are but a brief span], worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). How true. We cannot see, taste, smell, hear or feel spirit. We know physical things by the physical senses, but we can only understand spiritual things by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. Our bodies are “temporal,” meaning transitory, temporary. But the spiritual life which can be begotten within us is PERMANENT—eternal.

Paul wrote, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

“If so be that being clothed [with a spirit body; with eternal life!] we shall not be found naked.

“For we that are in this tabernacle [we “new creatures in Christ” who live temporarily in a human, physical body] do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4).

Can anything be plainer?

The beautiful type of dwelling in “tabernacles” or “booths” during the Feast of Tabernacles in the Autumn impresses upon us the TEMPORALITY of this human life; the impermanence of our physical bodies, and the yearning for life after death; eternal life with Christ in His kingdom. Notice further, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Being “in Christ” means to be converted, baptized, and to receive God’s Holy Spirit. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Romans 8:9).

These words are not so much spiritual “salt and pepper” sanctimonious-sounding phrases to be quickly read or intoned in a sermon, with almost no meaning. Paul meant that, once we have been begotten of God’s Holy Spirit, our very lives are no longer constituted only in the flesh; a physical, temporary, metabolic organism dependent upon food, water and air for daily survival, but constituted IN SPIRIT, because a new spiritual CREATION has been begotten within us. If you are a repentant, converted, baptized person who has had hands laid on for the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit, you are a “new creation” inside a temporary physical body.

One may say, “I lost my leg in the war,” but the PERSON is still there; the personality, the character, the memory, the will power, the decision-making ability, the conscience — all are intact. Carried to its bizarre extreme, even a blind, armless, legless human being is alive, so long as the human intelligence survives in the brain.

Paul wrote, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit [each of us possesses a human spirit in the frontal lobes of our brain] , that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16).

When you were born, you had the physical characteristics of both parents. This became more obvious as you matured. When God gives us of His Holy Spirit, which begets us as His children, He imparts to us a bit of His own nature: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:4).

As I partook of the nature of my human, physical father, Herbert W. Armstrong, and possess many of his personality traits and characteristics, so we partake of the nature of our Divine Heavenly Father in the “inner man,” or the “new creature in Christ.”

Notice how the apostle Peter reminded Christians about this temporary “tabernacle” in which we live: “Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.

“Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle [meaning as long as he was living physically within his body], to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;

“Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me” (2 Peter 1:12-14). Jesus had told Peter that the time would come when he would be martyred. Peter knew that time was drawing near. With the powerful HOPE the knowledge of God engendered, Peter knew that HIS LIFE was constituted in the “new creature in Christ”; a SPIRITUAL life which was only dwelling temporarily in a human, physical body.

Such faith inspires courage and confidence. Peter could face martyrdom with stolid determination, knowing what lay beyond. He wrote, “Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance” (Verse 15).

How plain! Peter spoke of his physical body as a temporary dwelling place; a “tabernacle,” which was subject to death.

The profound and moving truth about Christ’s begettal and birth has been buried beneath a jangled, confusing, convoluted, avalanche of pagan myth and superstition! Christmas obscures the TRUE time of Christ’s birth, which was on the FIRST DAY OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES!

Tabernacles pictures the beautiful truths you have just read; that we are only temporarily dwelling in human, physical bodies, but that a new creation; a never-before, never-to-be-again, once only, UNIQUE spiritual creature in Christ, possessing the Divine Nature, is to be born into God’s Kingdom.

Christ came to this earth to “tabernacle” in human flesh! That is the very meaning of the word of John 1:14, “…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] among us….”

His temporary sojourn among the creatures of His own design and creation was for many and profound reasons. He came to live a perfect life in the flesh through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, thus becoming a flawless, unblemished sacrifice for sin. He came to call, teach, and commission His disciples, thus building His church. He came to deliver the good news (the gospel) of the coming Kingdom of God; the world-ruling GOVERNMENT of God which will rule all nations with a rod of iron for 1,000 years (Rev. 2:26; 3:21; 20:4). He came to DISqualify Satan, the “lord of the dead,” and to qualify as King of kings and Lord of lords. He came to die for the sins of all mankind, and to be resurrected from the dead, to ascend to His Father, having condemned sin in the flesh. He came to qualify as our DAILY HIGH PRIEST, as the entire book of Hebrews expounds.

How FABULOUS are these TRUTHS of God, when compared to “Santa Claus” allegedly coming down chimneys, holly wreaths, mistletoe, Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, the yule log, and orbs and bulbs on trees, symbolizing fertility and the pagan worship of the sun!

Of course, IF THERE IS NO GOD, none of this makes any difference.

But GOD DOES EXIST, and He thunders at rebellious mankind, “LEARN NOT THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN!”

Millions will rationalize their continued observance of heathen customs, finding comfort in the fact that “everyone else is doing it.” But God says, to those who live amid “spiritual Babylon,” “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

“For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities” (Revelation 18:4).

Will YOU be one who will surrender your will to God, and come out of Babylon, and into the glorious light of God’s truth? o

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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

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Are you a slave to custom? Do you blindly accept whatever “society” imposes upon you, blissfully ignorant of the origin and meaning of commonly observed customs?

Each October, like so many dupes or slaves, hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers and clerks labor to install their usual “Halloween decorations” each October. Each autumn, thousands of markets, drugstores, department stores and millions of houses and lawns become scenes of “jack-o’-lanterns,” witches, broomsticks, black cats, leering skeletons, weird, bleeding skulls, knives, daggers, spears and swords, bloody masks, fake spider webs and other symbols of the devil and his demons, and macabre death.

Millions of yards of black and orange crepe paper is strung up on walls and ceilings. Replicas of corpses hanging from a gibbet dangled from chandeliers. Leering death’s heads and grinning skeletons festooned displays of masks and costumes.

In my neighborhood, people take a sheet, wind it around a fence post, or hang it in a tree, or drape it over a shrub, and pretend it is a ghost. Some merely place some pumpkins on their porches. Millions of pumpkins are destroyed, as vast numbers in third world countries starve, so neighborhoods can be in the spirit of Hallowe’en.

Why? What’s it all about? Where did we get it? Should a Christian be observing such customs?

A “Ready Made World”

You were born into a “ready-made” world. You had no say-so in the customs, traditions, annual holidays and celebrations which are faithfully and continually marked on the yearly calendar. From your earliest childhood, your parents repeated the myths, lies, superstitions and silly folly they, themselves, had been taught as children.

The “tooth fairy” will deposit money under your pillow if, when you lose a baby tooth, you sleep on it. The “Easter bunny” will lay candied eggs in your nest if you are good, or a licorice whip if you are bad. “Santa” will squirm down the chimney (even if it is a tiny stove pipe!), and leave you some goodies from his bag of toys. And “bobbing for apples” and playing “trick or treat” on neighborhood families is such fun! Hunting for “Ishtar” (pronounced “Easter” today) eggs, which are nothing less than symbols of sex and fertility, is fun and exciting for children. Pretending to be a ghost or demon is very attractive to imaginative little children.

Thus is it that, as the generations pass, millions of little children are gradually introduced to the myths, superstitions, lies, fairy tales and demonic observances of their parents and preceding generations.

Does God approve of such man-made holidays? Churches conduct Hallowe’en parties; freely sanction revelry on October 31^st. And why not, since the Roman Catholic Church adapted the pagan customs to its “All Saints’ Day,” or the “Evening of All Hallows?”

You did not invent “Hallowe’en.” You did not invent “Easter” (wich is a celebration of Ishtar of ancient Babylon and Oestara of the Nordics, and nothing short of sun worship) with its bunnies and eggs. You did not “invent” Christmas and its myths. They were just “there,” waiting for you to be introduced to them as wide-eyed little children; to be inculcated into your mind and memory by yearly repetition; by school classrooms, family gatherings, and church services.

Little did you know that a very ancient, apostate church followed the practice of adopting pagan ceremonies, then “adapting” them to “Christian” customs. Thus, even though Christ was actually resurrected on a late Sabbath afternoon, and put to death on a Wednesday afternoon, the “Good Friday/Easter Sunday Morning” tradition was imposed. Christ was most likely born in September, on the first day of the “Feast of Tabernacles,” but since the pagan sun worshipers appealed to Solis Invictus their “invincible sun” god to begin his northern journey once again at the winter solstice on December 25^th, the “Mass of Christ” was imposed, instead.

Ancient pagan Druidic superstitions about death, Satan, Samhain, wandering souls, weird demons and headless “Jacks,” Jicks, or Jokers (symbols of Satan), black cats, witches, goblins, ghouls, ghosts, poltergeists, trolls, mummies, and other symbols of death and Satanism have been superposed over “The Evening of `All Hallows,'” or “All Saints,” which is therefore dubbed, “Hallowed Evening,” or, for short, “Hallowe’en.”

Should God-fearing Christians be found observing celebrations of the devil and witchcraft?

“The Day When Columbus Discovered America”

I shall never forget the Halloween night when I attempted to find out whether the marauding little band of “trick or treaters” who came to my doorstep had the slightest inkling of what they were about. My wife and I, in self defense (for we didn’t want the “tricks” and so, out of fear, as in a protection racket, we had to pay the blackmail to avoid our windows and screens being soaped, our trees “papered” or our dog strangled) decided to buy a box of apples. Not candy, or junk food, but healthful apples. We didn’t know, then, that apples became one of the most suspicious and dangerous of all “treats,” since evil, perverted persons began delighting in placing needles or razor blades in them.

A large band of giggling “monsters” came to our door. When I opened the door, it was to see a group which looked like they included a member of the Ku Klux Klan in a hooded sheet, a grotesque little monster in a Nixon mask, some skeletons, ghouls, witches, and death’s heads.

There was much giggling and shuffling of feet as they all chimed, “Trick or Treat!!”

I said, “I’ve got something for each one of you — but first, you have to tell me what is the real meaning of Hallowe’en!” More giggling. The masks look at each other without changing expression.

“Come on,” I prompted, “Surely you know why you’re out dressed like demons and goblins, going to people’s houses and demanding food or candy?”

Some said “I don’t know.” Taken aback, they didn’t know what to say! Obviously, they were completely ignorant of the meaning of the night; didn’t know WHY they were doing what they were doing. They were just “having fun!”

Eventually, a little boy in the back of the group piped up, “I know! It’s the day when Columbus discovered America!”

Obviously, he had heard somewhere of “Columbus’ day,” and, not knowing when it fell on the calendar, improvised. I chuckled, and then, in a very brief thumbnail sketch, told them, “No, this is the evening before `all saints’ day’ of the Roman Catholic Church. You see, they assigned one day of the calendar to each one of their `saints,’ and when they had more saints than three hundred and sixty-five, they simply lumped them all together on November 1^st, and called it `All Saints’ Day.’ They chose November 1<sup>st</sup>, because this was the day celebrated by the pagan Druids of Ireland, who believe that `Samhain,’ the lord of the dead — who is like Satan, the devil — would consign the souls of their departed loved ones to the bodies of animals, and they sought a lighter sentence. To do this, they would placate the evil spirits by offerings of food, or even by sacrificing cats. They put jack o’ lanterns in their windows to frighten away evil spirits, and lit bonfires, and had all sorts of superstitions associated with that night — especially their belief that witches and demons were abroad. It’s called `Hallowe’en’ because it merely means `hallowed evening,’ or the evening of `All Hallows.'”

The grotesque masks simply leered at me. They then leered at each other. More embarrassed shuffling of feet and some giggles. I then handed each of them an apple — I know that must have been a really “yucky” kind of treat to them; they would far more have preferred a big fat Baby Ruth candy bar, and they fled.

A couple of station wagons with mothers anxiously awaiting them with the motors running then received the little horde, and off they went to the next neighbor’s driveway. Could it have been that, with my brief speech, I was more frightening to the little children than they were to me?

Why would I do such a thing? After all, as a little boy, I had delighted in Halloween. My parents didn’t believe in it, and told me I should not participate, and told me exactly why I should not, but, to a little kid of about 8 or 10, such lectures are to be shrugged off. There is something much too exciting about wearing a mask. And them, there is all that free candy!

Wanting to conform, and do the things everyone else is doing is a very powerful force.

Have You Ever Wondered About Hallowe’en?

If you ever decided to look up the origins of Hallowe’en in encyclopedias and the history books, here is what you would find in the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica: “HALLOWE’EN, or All Hallows Eve, the name given to the 31^st of October as the vigil of Hallowmas or All Saints’ Day. Though now known as little else but the eve of the Christian festival, Hallowe’en and its formerly attendant ceremonies long antedate Christianity. The two chief characteristics of ancient Hallowe’en were the lighting of bonfires and the belief that of all nights in the year this is the one during wich ghosts and witches are most likely to wander abroad. Now on or about the first of November the Druids held their great autumn festival and lighted fires in honour of the sun god in thanksgiving for the harvest. Further, it was a Druidic belief that on the eve of this festival, Saman [Samhain, or Satan the devil], lord of death, called together the wicked souls that within the past twelve months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals.

“Thus it is clear that the main celebrations of Hallowe’en were purely Druidical, and this is further proved by the fact that in parts of Ireland the 31^st of October was, and even still is, known as Oidhche Shamhna, “Vigil of Saman.” On the Druidic ceremonies were grafted some of the characteristics of the Roman festival in honour of Pomona held about the first of November, in which nuts and apples, as representing the winter store of fruits, played an important part. Thus the roasting of nuts and the sport known as `apple ducking’ — attempting to seize with the teeth an apple floating in a tub of water — were once the universal occupation of the young folk in medieval England on the 31^st of October. The custom of lighting Hallowe’en fires survived until recent years in the highlands of Scotland and Wales. In the dying embers it was usual to place as many small stones as there were persons around, and next morning a search was made. If any of the pebbles were displaced it was regarded as certain that the person represented would die within the twelve months” (Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Vol. XII, p. 857,858, emphasis mine).

There is a vast amount of literature available to prove the absolutely PAGAN origins of the customs surrounding “Hallowe’en.”

It is fascinating that the term “Shaman” was used to indicate a communicator with spirits in cultures all over the earth; from the vast Siberian forests to the North American plains, where many of the “Indian” tribes referred to their “medicine man” as the “Shaman.”

Ralph Linton, in his book, “Halloween Through Twenty Centuries,” wrote, “The American celebration rests upon Scottish and Irish folk customs which can be traced in direct line from pre-Christian times. Although Halloween has become a night of rollicking fun, superstitious spells, and eerie games which people take only half seriously, its beginnings were quite otherwise. The earliest Halloween celebrations were held by the Druids in honor of Samhain, lord of the dead, whose festival fell on November 1^st.”

Another author, Ruth Kelley, in her book “The Book of Halloween,” wrote that the Druids believed souls “….passed from one body to another at death…they believed that on the last night of the old year (October 31^st) the lord of the dead gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals, to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentence by gifts and prayers.”

The Druids, like many a religious leader today, managed to concoct a doctrine which repulsed and frightened their adherents about the fate of loved ones; a doctrine which inevitably caused an outpouring of “gifts” into the coffers of the priests, the Druids.

One is forcibly reminded of the beliefs commonplace among modern nominal “Christians” that gifts to their church help to alleviate protracted suffering or interminable anxiety as the souls of their dear departed allegedly progress through various stages of spiritual purgation.

“Let’s Have Ourselves An Orgy”

As I was writing this article, I heard the announcer on television say a segment of their program would be “how to protect your children on Halloween.” There was not the slightest hint that children should not be participating in such a Satanic ritual, but, instead, cautions for parents because of many potential dangers.

The dangers are many. After all, modern-day Satanists and self-professed witches and believers in “wicca” regard the evening of October 31^st as their “Samhain,” or “New Year’s. It is a very important date for Satanists. Kidnaping and ritual murders are not unknown in our lands; the ritual slaughter of animals and evisceration is also not unknown. In past decades, children have been horribly injured, and some have died, as a result of needles and razor blades in apples, drops of LSD on candy, poisons, such as strychnine, arsenic, and acid have been injected into the goodies children collect and eat.

Parents, regardless of the utterly pagan origins of the practice, allow their children to enact the ancient rituals, pretending to be demons; agents of Samhain, demanding gifts and “treats” in exchange, in the modern version, for protection from harm to persons or property.

Neighborhoods in thousands of cities and towns are the scene, not just on the “Eve of All Hallows,” but for two or three nights in a row of automobiles crowded with children as their mothers shepherd them about, hoping to load their big shopping bags with all kinds of goodies which they haven’t earned, don’t deserve and shouldn’t eat, and which will, aside from the pimples, bad teeth, and assorted diseases they might cause, quite possibly kill them.

The murderers of dozens, who placed deadly poisons in various consumer products are still “out there,” never having been found. The American bottling and packaging industries have had to spend billions of dollars to invent tamper-proof packaging on practically everything consumers eat or drink because of such evil, depraved, vicious killers. Why send one’s children out among them?

But like a cold front from Canada, inevitable, inexorable, the spirit of conformity demands, “Do it!” The spirit of docile following of the masses cries, “Be `in,’ take part, celebrate!” Dutifully, millions of parents say “Yes lord” to Samhain, who is Satan, and cheerfully indulge themselves in his ready-made celebrations. It all seems so “harmless,” somehow — just “innocent fun,” like going to see “The Exorcist,” or some other demonic horror movie. Where’s the harm? At least, this is the way God-rejecting, carnal-minded people reason.

Time was when Hallowe’en was viewed as “for the children.” Most adults only performed the rite of handing out the “treats” to avoid the “tricks” of having their outhouses turned over, their cattle run off, or tied to the front door knob, their cats strangled, their trees papered, or their windows soaped. Not any more. Now, Hallowe’en is orgy time. Now, millions of adults seize upon Hallowe’en as an excuse to act out every ghoulish fantasy ever imagined. Dressing up in the weirdest, most threatening or horrendous garb they can find or manufacture; mummies, ghosts, goblins, sado-masochists, murderers, demons, devils, cats, witches or skeletons, they booze, pop drugs, and cavort to heavy metal in a wild orgiastic abandon called a “Hallowe’en party.”

In tens of thousands of bars, lounges, clubs and private homes, orgies reminiscent of the Bacchanalian orgies of ancient Rome are conducted.

Today, with the influence of all the “splatter movies,” the costumes are increasingly bizarre. Many feature blood and dismemberment, and, inevitably, one will see a weirdo wrapped in bandages which conceal his head, carrying a lighted “jack-o’-lanterns” instead, as he masquerades of the headless “Jack,” “Jick,” or “Joker,” the capricious, wanton trickster who in turn is a type of Satan.

Why do people do it?

Because it’s “FUN”, they say!

“So What? What Difference Does It Make?”

Of course, all of this makes no difference whatsoever if there IS NO GOD! Are you willing to bet your eternal life there is not? God’s existence can be PROVED, and proved scientifically! For many years, I taught college classes on the proofs of God from paleontology, geology, biology, archaeology, and the Bible. In those classes, students were taught the scientific PROOFS of the existence of the Creator; proofs which can be seen every day by any one of us.

If you have not yet written for it, send immediately for my brochure, EVOLUTION — A WHALE of a Tale, which shows how symbiosis demolishes the theory of evolution.

The Bible is the word of our Creator, Who gives us every breath of air we breathe, and Who has the power to either save us or condemn us to eternal destruction in Gehenna fire.

God thunders at His people, “LEARN NOT THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN!” (Jeremiah 10:2). When God called His people out of Egypt, which is a type of Sin; Pharoah being a type of Satan, He said, “When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

“Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits [demons], or a wizard, or a necromancer [one who claims to communicate with the dead].

“For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

“Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:9-13).

Millions are completely IGNORANT of just WHO it was who issued this command.

Believe it or not, it was the member of the divine Godhead, called “Elohim” in Genesis who became Jesus Christ of your New Testament!

Notice the proof! “In the beginning was the Word [Greek: Logos, meaning Spokesman”], and the Word was with God [Theos, the Greek equivalent of Elohim, meaning more than One] and the Word was God.

“The same was in the beginning with God.

“All things were made by him [He was the CREATOR of Genesis!]; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

“The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

“He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

“He came unto his own [the Jews], and his own received him not.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).

There is no possibility of misunderstanding or misinterpreting these verses of your Bible! Jesus Christ of Nazareth was the GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT! He said to the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58).

Most churches will not accept this truth, and therefore stand condemned of God! Why? Because they know it leaves in a shambles their commonly assumed doctrines that God’s laws are “done away”! Faced with the incontrovertible truth that the One who wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger is Jesus Christ of the New Testament; that the One who called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the One who said “Let there be light” is Jesus Christ, they quickly hide behind their traditions, and refuse to admit the truth.

The same Person of Elohim says, “Let US make man in OUR image, and after OUR likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

He says, “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6). Your Bible says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Now, knowing that it was the Divine Member of Elohim, JESUS CHRIST, who spoke to the fathers, notice! “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;

“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 [God’s people are NOT TO FOLLOW PAGAN CUSTOMS!].

“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.

“What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deuteronomy 12:29-32).

Any person deciding to delve into the “black arts” and become a “witch” was to be put to death in ancient Israel, ruled by the Member of Elohim Who became Christ: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18).

YOU DECIDE!

Are you a part of this present society; conforming, going along with its ways? As stated earlier, if there is no God, then none of this makes any difference. But since GOD DOES EXIST, and since Jesus Christ is soon coming to JUDGE this world, and rule it with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:26; 3:21; 20:4), it behooves each person to CHOOSE!

God (the One who became Christ) said, “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

“In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

“But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

“I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

“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” (Deuteronomy 30: 15-19).

Witchcraft, Wizardry, And The “Harry Potter” Books

Today, a female British author, J.K. Rowling, is filthy rich. The term is an accurate assessment for her new-found wealth, for she obtained it by writing a series of books about a little boy who spent the first 20 years of his life sleeping under the stairs in a house where he is hated by his parents. His parents are killed by an evil “Voldemort,” and Harry escapes with but a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, and then discovers that he has mysterious powers.

Critics joyously acclaim the books, saying that the Harry Potter books are the “first books that a child reads `just for the fun of it,’ and therefore the books are hailed as a wonderful incentive for the age group of from 9 to 12 to learn to read!

The first book is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; No. 2 is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; No. 3 is about the Prisoner of Askaban, and number 4 is about the Goblet of Fire. Children can buy “Harry Potter related products available just in time for Halloween” according to one major web site, which lists “Kids Wizard Hat in Black and Gold; a “Crimson Wizard Children’s Costume,” and a “Small Miracles Iridescent Star Want.”

Thus, literally millions of our youth are taught that wizardry, “magic,” witchcraft, and all assorted forms of demonism and Satanism are “fun,” and exciting! In her fourth book, the author writes about Harry’s vision in which his scar burns, and how he returns to the “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” The book says that “happily, the prospect of attending the season’s premier sporting event, the Quidditch World Cup, is enough to make Harry momentarily forget that `Lord Voldemort’ and his sinister familiars — the `Death Eaters,’ — are out for murder.”

Such books were being snapped up faster than cabbage-patch dolls, beany babies, or the “Pokeman” toys! Again, it shows the alacrity with which unthinking human beings flock to the siren song of Satan; how eagerly they wish to look into the bizarre, the mysterious, the demonic occult.

Books about Jesus Christ or God would not even begin to compete with books about witches, demons and “death eaters.”

If such materials were to have been produced during God’s rulership over Israel through Moses and Aaron, or during the period of the Judges or any of the very few righteous kings, the producers of such trash would have been stoned to death. Today, they become multi-millionaires!

God sets before every individual TWO OPPOSITES: The WAY of life, good health, peace of mind, prosperity, happy marriages, obedient children — the way to everything we want, or the WAY which leads to rebellious children, broken marriages, disease, drug addition, crime, violence, insanity and DEATH!

Millions unconsciously CHOOSE the wrong way!

God commands us, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformedby the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1,2). Peter said, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). To be converted means to become CHANGED. It means “turning around and going the other way.” Any old dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a lively one to swim upstream, battling rapids and falls!

Christ said it is the BROAD way; the dazzling, lighted, glitzy, attractive, wide, wide way of the world that leads to DEATH, but the narrow, rocky, difficult way which leads to LIFE, and “few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13,14).

Christ inspired John to write, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

“And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you (John 15:18-20).

Hallowe’en, like pagan Easter (Ishtar, with a silent “h,” pronounced “Easter”) and Christmas, are all PAGAN TO THE CORE! They CONCEAL God’s true annual Holy Days, which reveal His great PLAN year by year. Christmas, with its pagan tree, bulbs and orbs, and mythical “Old Saint Nick” is laden with pagan symbolism. Just as Hallowe’en is replete with pagan symbols, yet masquerading as a “Christian” holiday, Easter, with its symbols of sex and fertility; rabbits, eggs, and rituals of Spring, with “hot cross buns” in honor of Horus, also masquerades as the resurrection of Christ.

But our God thunders at us, “LEARN NOT THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN!”

He leaves the choice with us. Which way will you choose?

To learn about the true annual Holy Days of God, and how they reveal His great PLAN for you and your loved ones, call (903) 561-7070 or write to Box 747, Flint, Texas, 75762 for your free copy of HOW SEASONAL HOLY DAYS REVEAL GOD’S PLAN. 

You may copy and distribute this information only to friends and family without changes, without charge and with full credit given to the author and publisher. You may not publish it for general audiences.

This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

The activities of the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association are paid for by tithes, offerings and donations freely given by Christians and co-workers who are dedicated to preaching the gospel according to Jesus Christ.

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Did God command His people to keep His feasts, only to later decide to “do away” with them? Did Christ’s atoning death “do away” with the annual Sabbaths? Did Christ come to ABOLISH these so-called “Jewish” Feasts?

If so, then WHY will He FORCE all nations to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in the millennium? You will be astonished at the TRUTH about God’s seasonal holy days, and the marvelous HUMAN POTENTIAL revealed in their rich spiritual meaning!

Why have you never heard the Sunday-observing preachers explain the beautiful Christ-centered pictures, types and shadows contained in God’s seven annual holy days? WHY does your Bible say Christ will command even present-day ISLAMIC nations, such as Egypt, to begin to keep the Feast of Tabernacles during His millennial reign?

WHY will Jesus Christ ENFORCE His weekly Sabbath days and His annual Sabbaths upon ALL NATIONS during His one thousand-year reign on this earth? Since Christ will FORCE all nations to keep His feast during the millennium, WHY do people assume all of God’s annual holy days are “done away” today? If they are “done away” why will Christ force you, and every other human being to KEEP them when He rules this earth?

Your Bible says, “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.

“And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.

“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh” (Isaiah 66:22-24).

This is describing the horrible punishment for rebellious, unrepentant sinners. Sin is the transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4), and the wages of sin is death in Gehenna fire (Romans 6:23). Survivors of the Tribulation and Day of the Lord will see the decaying bodies and ashes that were once living human beings as a witness and warning to those who would rebel against God’s laws. Describing this same period the final chapter of the Old Testament says, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

“And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 4:1-3).

The “worm doth not die” because the larval stage of the fly does not die, but turns into another fly! This is describing rotting human flesh, fly-blown and teeming with maggots, being burned.

And the time setting? It is inescapable! This is another description of the horrendous events to occur just before and at the time of the second coming of Christ; the “Day of the Lord,” and the beginning of Christ’s RULE over this earth!

Notice the proof: “But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4).

HOW will He do this? What will be the method He will use to “slay the wicked”? Notice, “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Revelation 19:20).

Jesus Christ of Nazareth is coming again. He is coming to RULE this rotten, God-defying, sin-sick, decadent world with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:27). One of the first laws Christ will enforce upon all nations is His command that they must OBSERVE HIS FEAST OF TABERNACLES!

But WHY?

For the simple reason that God’s seven annual feasts, or holy days, picture the entire PURPOSE for human life! They picture, in moving, beautiful, rich types and shadows, the plan of salvation; the progressive fulfillment of all prophecy; how the saints of this time are but the “first fruits” of the great latter-day time of judgment; the second coming of Christ; the banishment of Satan; the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, and the great general resurrection of the “rest of the dead” (Revelation 20:5) to take place AFTER the millennium.

By understanding the types and shadows implicit in each of the annual Sabbaths, or holy days, one comes to understand the very PURPOSE OF ONE’S OWN LIFE! It is awesome! It is mind-boggling! It is GLORIOUS beyond your wildest imagination! Your fantastic human potential is so breathtaking you will not want to believe it at first. Yet, it is TRUE, as you will see amply proved in these pages!

At creation, the Divine Member of Elohim who brought the entire universe, the solar system, this earth and all life upon it into existence, gave command after command. He compacted pure ENERGY into MATTER. Matter is but energy, arranged in almost limitless law-abiding forms.

After the first six days of the REcreation of this earth (from an earlier creation, perhaps billions of years in the past, which had been destroyed by Satan), the one who had caused the dry land to appear; who had said “Let there be light,” and who had said “Let US make man in OUR image,” continued His creation process by RESTING! He had finished the WORK of creation, but He had not finished creating!

As the sixth day waned, and the earth turned on its axis, bringing sunset once more to the Mideast, Elohim RESTED from all His works! Your Bible says, “And God [Elohim. A plural word, meaning more than one] saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 1:31; 2:1-3).

Jesus Christ proclaimed, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

“Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27, 28). The Sabbath was something which was MADE. It was made when MAN was made. It was made for MAN, and not “for the Jews”! There was no person called a “Jew” (from “Judah,” who was one of the sons of Jacob, or Israel) on the earth until thousands of years later!

The Sabbath was made when MAN was made, and it was made by its MAKER, who is, believe it or not, the same personage of the Godhead who “emptied Himself” and “became of no repute,” and was born of the virgin Mary!

Notice that Jesus Christ said He is LORD of the SABBATH day, and not Lord of “Sunday”! The true “Lord’s Day” is THE SABBATH; the day of which Jesus is LORD!

In His pre-human state, as a member of the divine family we call “God,” the one who became Christ wrote with His own finger on two tables of stone the Ten Commandments. He wrote, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

“Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11).

He commanded Israel to REMEMBER the Sabbath because it was created at creation! Christ of the New Testament is the CREATOR of the Old Testament! Your Bible plainly says so! Notice it, “John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word [Greek: Logos, meaning “Spokesman”], and the Word was with God [Greek: Theos a plural, synonymous with Elohimin the Hebrew], and the Word was God.

“The same was in the beginning with God.

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not…He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

“He came unto his own [the Jews], and his own received him not.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

“Which were born [Greek: gennao, meaning “begotten”], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt [Greek: “tabernacled”] among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-14).

Can anything be plainer? The one who said “Let there be light;” who said, “Let the dry land appear;” the one who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and said “I AM”; The one who parted the Red Sea; the one who wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger in stone IS THE SAME PERSON WHO WAS BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY!

Do you doubt this? No sane person can! Unless we are to rip John 1 out of our Bibles, the plain truth is that Jesus Christ, in His pre-human state, was the divine SPOKESMAN of the God family called Elohim. Elohim is a PLURAL word! This is why God (Elohim) said, “Let US make man in OUR image” (Genesis 1:26).

Do you require further proof? Then notice what Jesus said to the doubting Pharisees who challenged Him! “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

“Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:56-58). The false prophets of this world WILL NOT accept these divinely inspired words! They WILL NOT admit that Jesus Christ is the GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT!

WHY?

Because if they admit that the one who wrote the Ten Commandments is the SAME personage of the Godhead who came in the flesh as Jesus Christ, they condemn themselves for refusing to observe God’s wonderful, righteous laws! They know that if they admitted the truth about John 1 they would be condemned of God for refusing to keep the holy Sabbath days and God’s annual Sabbaths!

Yet, the first great edict which the conquering, returning Christ will issue to the nations is to command them to come up to Jerusalem to KEEP THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES!

Read it in your own Bible: “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.

“And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

“And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

“This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zechariah 14:16-19). No matter who you are; no matter your racial, political or religious background, you WILL be keeping God’s Sabbath days, and you WILL be keeping His annual Sabbaths when God sets up His kingdom on this earth!

In that day, there will be no Muslims, Shintoists, Animists, Buddhists, Confucianists, Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, or Satanists! Instead, there will be ONE GREAT WORLD RELIGION; the TRUE religion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth! All nations will be required to keep the LAWS OF GOD!

IF they are still alive then (which is very much in doubt), such dictators as Maomar Kadaffi, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro and Slobodan Milosevich WILL BE KEEPING THE SABBATH AND THE HOLY DAYS!

You Live In A World Steeped In Paganism

This world is fascinated with paganism. If it is “pagan splendor,” people want to know about it. When one visits ancient sites, such as the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon at “San Juan de Teotihuacan” near Mexico City, for example, it is to be told about the human sacrifices of the Aztecs; about their calendar and their way of life. But especially about their religious superstitions. Man’s fascination with spiritual ritual is endless. Isn’t it strange that man’s fascination with the mythological seemingly deliberately overlooks the rich typology seen in God’s annual Sabbaths given to ancient Israel?

Historians know much about ancient, bygone civilizations from religious artifacts. As God charged, these nations, who worshipped false, nonexistent “gods” NEVER CHANGED those gods down through centuries and centuries of mythological, superstitious religious practice. Countless tens of thousands of helpless human beings have been slain as a sacrifice to a completely fictitious “god” who “demanded” such of his or her worshipers. Pagans have clung tenaciously to utterly false gods for thousands of years. Has China departed from Buddhism? India from Hinduism? Loyaltyseems common among pagan religions.

Yet, God’s own people have turned away from the one true God, away from the beautiful, detailed, seasonally-revealed picture of His plan for the human family, embracing purely pagan myths, instead! Do you doubt this? What are some of the pagan myths gleefully accepted by modern, space-age “Christian” societies?

Annual “Holidays” of this “Christian” Civilization: What Do They Picture?

Which is the chief “Christian” holiday? Why, “Christmas,” of course. Christmas means, simply, the “Mass of Christ.” The Catholic Encyclopedia admits, “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church” (Vol. III, p. 724), and explains, “The well-known solar feast, however, of natalis invicti, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date” (ibid., p. 727, emphasis mine).

History documents that the Roman Catholic Church did not settle upon the final date for the “Mass of Christ” as Christ’s birthday until perhaps five centuries after Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Christmas is connected with purely pagan ceremonies: sun worship, ancient Roman festivals, and even more ancient Babylonian mysteries. You will find that holly wreaths, mistletoe, bulbs and orbs, trees, “Old St. Nick,” and many other trappings of Christmas are utterly pagan in origin!

Yet, for all its paganism, Christmas is eagerly embraced by countless millions in the professing Christian world as the birthday of Christ; a time to exchange gifts, have family reunions, enjoy roast turkey or goose; a time replete with its own nostalgic music, feelings of good will, and hospitality. For an in-depth study about the purely PAGAN origin of “Christmas” be sure to call (903) 561-7070 immediately, or write to the address listed in this booklet for your free copy of “Facts You Should Know About CHRISTMAS!”

Pagan feasts revolved around the seasons because Satan the devil has counterfeits he has foisted on the world to deceive.They were based upon celestial observations, the summer and winter solstices, the vernal equinox. Most pagan holidays were essentially harvest festivals. Pagans prayed to their “invincible sun” (invictus solis) in the depths of winter to begin “his” journey further north once again, putting an end to winter, and bringing the springtime, and new growth.

The springtime festival of Ishtar, the pagan goddess of sex and fecundity of the ancient Babylonians (pronounced “Easter,” with a long “ee” sound on the “I” and a silent “h”) was in thanksgiving for the advent of the spring, the end of winter, and new life. It was celebrated with a plethora of mythological ritual: rabbits, for their rapid procreation; eggs, as the source of life and the pagan concept of the beginning of creation; the bous, or symbol of Tammuz (Nimrod), represented by the Ox, and cakes to Semiramis, Nimrod’s mother-wife, and high priestess of the Babylonian mystery religion, as the “queen of heaven.” Such cakes, called boun, or bous, featured a cross, as a solar symbol, and were baked in honor of Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, and are seen today at “Easter” (Ishtar) time as “hot cross buns.”

What did you learn, as a child, about your purpose for being here, the plan of salvation, from “Easter”?

Your parents probably told you it was about the resurrection of Christ. Perhaps you went to a sunrise service, faced the rising sun as a minister chanted or prayed. Then there was the excitement of wonderful new clothes—yellows, greens, and whites, the colors of springtime—white patent-leather shoes for little girls; “Easter” (Ishtar) bonnets, parades, and, of special excitement to little children, “Easter egg” hunts! Cuddly little bunnies and eggs. How cute. How wondrous. How nostalgic. But what do the children who gleefully engage in the annual White House “Easter egg hunt” learn about the PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE?

But not one child in a million was taught that the rabbits and eggs were sex symbols; that sunrise services were conducted in sun worship; that “Easter” means Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, the pagan goddess of sex and fertility.

Consider next the frivolous, capricious, demoniacal trappings of “Halloween.” What is Halloween? Even the spelling has been altered, as the passing years and obfuscating tradition contrive to obscure the true, pagan symbolism of this most transparent of all the pagan harvest festivals.

Originally, the phrase “All Saint’s Day” became called the “Evening of All Hallows” or “Hallowed Evening.” Eventually it was shortened to “Hallowe’en.” Were you taught this as a child? Catholics often celebrate the day of their favorite saint, perhaps the “saint” after which they were named. When the calendar was filled with 365 names, a convenient date was chosen, our November 1st, as a day for “All Saints.” Many Central and South American countries feature towns and villages named Todos los Santos, meaning, “All Saints.”

However, Halloween is not an invention of the Catholic Church, but an adaptation of an ancient, pagan festival. “Though now known as little else but the eve of the Christian festival, Hallowe’en and its formerly attendant ceremonies long antedate Christianity” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Vol. XII, p. 857). History proves most of the superstitions connected with Halloween, including “apple dunking,” and the like, are purely Druidic, from the pagan priests of pre-Christian Ireland.

The pagan Greeks and Romans celebrated a fall harvestfestival in honor of their goddess “Pomona,” which featured apples and nuts. Since the Druids believed “Saman,” or Samhain, or Shaman, the “lord of the dead” (Satan), consigned the departed souls of people to the bodies of animals as punishment for wickedness, it was natural for them, in their darkened, pagan superstitions, to imagine it necessary to attempt to placate Saman with offerings, and to attempt to frighten away wicked spirits with “Jack o’ lanterns.”

Halloween features symbols of witchcraft, demonism, and death. What does it teach little children? The common practice of “trick or treating” is nothing more than children playing the part of Saman and his demons, approaching homes, demanding an “offering” of candies and the like in return for refraining from vandalizing the house!

Today, people festoon their houses and yards with “ghost decoys,” in blissful ignorance. Are they attempting to attract “ghosts,” or demons? Naturally, were you to make such a suggestion, a neighbor who has festooned his yard with jack o’ lanterns, witches, black cats and plastic ghosts would look at you in utter amazement, and wonder if you had gone crazy.

It would not seem “crazy” to the neighbor to decorate his home and yard with symbols of Satan, demons, and death.

Do modern space-age Americans, Canadians, Britons and many other nations actually “believe” they are frightening away evil spirits by pieces of white plastic hung in trees, or orange leaf bags with hideous faces, “jack o’ lanterns,” placed on their lawns? Of course not. They are “innocently” mimicking pagans, entering into the “spirit of Halloween,” perhaps vying with the neighbors for decorations about the house.

Perhaps you have not realized Halloween is the most important annual festival to Satanists. You will be astounded at the rank paganism associated with this fall harvest festival!

These three—Christmas, Easter, and Halloween—are probably the most important among “Christian” holidays. Then there is “Valentine’s Day,” also rooted in paganism, with connections to Nimrod; and other days, like “New Year’s” day, in the middle of a dead winter; “Groundhog Day,” and many, many more. Among them all, “Thanksgiving” and the 4^th of July stand out as celebrations one may safely assume God endorses.

For Americans to gather around a bounteous table, giving thanks to God in commemoration of the early Pilgrim’s practice of doing so is surely a wonderful thing to do, and has no pagan connotations, and “Independence Day,” or the 4^th of July is certainly not condemned of God.

But why, in all your church-going and religious experience, have you never been told about the rich, CHRIST-centered, NEW Testament meanings of God’s annual Sabbaths given to Israel and Judah? Look at the emphasis on Christ in the Passover.

The Passover and the Exodus— Pictures of Christ

When God called His nation out of slavery under Moses, it was for the express purpose of “sacrificing the `Passover'” (Exodus 3:18; 5:1-3; Exodus 12).

Egypt is a type of sin. As ancient Israel was living as captive slaves in Egypt, so each one of us has lived as a slave to our appetites; to this world, with its false, vanity-ridden, materialistic values; held captive by the sway of Satan, who is the present world ruler (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; Revelation 12:9).

Pharaoh is a type of Satan. Moses appears in two distinct shadowy roles: (1) as a type of God the Father, calling His people out of sin, breaking the grip of Satan, and granting repentance. Also, Moses typified the Father in giving the lawof God from Mount Sinai. (2) As a type of Jesus Christ: as the shepherd of God’s people, leading them from Egypt; as the advocate for the people before Pharaoh (Satan); and as a “redeemer,” conveying them out of slavery, toward freedom.

Moses and Aaron are also seen as shadowy types of the future “two witnesses” of Revelation 11. Continually, Moses and Aaron went before Pharaoh (type of Satan), performing miracles (see Revelation 11:4-6). Pharaoh’s two magicians, Jannes and Jambres (types of the “beast and the false prophet” of prophecy [Revelation 19:19-20]), empowered by Satan and his demons, counterfeited the miracles until the plague of the lice, when they were forced to admit, “This is the finger of God.”

The perfect, helpless little sacrificial lamb is a type of Jesus Christ (Isaiah 53:7). The shed blood of the lamb on the lintels and door posts of the Israelites’ houses is a symbol of Christ’s shed blood atoning for our sins, causing the penalty of death (Romans 6:23) to pass over those who call upon Christ for forgiveness.

The death angel symbolizes God’s judgments against unrepentant sinners who will not obey God (Ezekiel 9:2-11; Revelation 14:17-20). The “firstborn” are to be sanctified to God. Instead, the Egyptian firstborn, and everyone else, was lost in the most repugnant idolatrous paganism. God reaped a bitter harvest of the firstborn of Egypt as a terrible penalty for sin, but spared Israel as the “firstfruits” unto God from the earth, His own chosen people, protected under the symbol of the blood of Christ.

Once God had broken the hold of Pharaoh over the Israelites, they were hastily thrust out of Goshen. In like fashion, when one repents, receives baptism and God’s Holy Spirit, former friends—sometimes even beloved family members—have no further use for a person whose new understanding makes them uncomfortable. Instead, they attempt to dissuade such a repentant sinner from accepting God’s truth, talk them out of it, make them feel “out of step” with the rest of society.

When Israel was hemmed in by the wilderness, facing the Red Sea on one hand, Pharaoh’s army pursuing to the rear, and steep mountains on both sides, it typifies the newly-repentant sinner contemplating baptism, as a symbol of the burial of the old man; the washing away of sin in the waters; the resurrection of the “new man,” or the “new creature in Christ,” to live a new and different life, free from sin.

Satan and his minions do not give up easily. As Pharaoh’s armies pursued Israel, so do former friends, habits, appetites, moods and attitudes attempt to overtake the repenting sinner.

Moses had to say, “Stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Eternal!” at the Red Sea.

By a stupendous miracle, Israel walked through the Red Sea bed dry shod! When Pharaoh and his army assayed to follow, they were drowned. Paul wrote, “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers passed through the sea; and were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat [manna]; and did all drink the same spiritual drink [water, brought forth from the rock miraculously. Christ is the rock; the water is a symbol of God’s Holy Spirit]: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

When Israel passed through the Red Sea, a Christ-centered, New Testament type, or picture, of God’s plan of redemption and salvation took place. Notice how Paul mentioned their miraculous sustenance on manna, which God sent down from heaven.

The Israelites were commanded to eat the Passover with “unleavened bread,” called the “bread of haste,” bread which was flat, plain—not light and fluffy, puffed up. Immediately following the Passover were the Days of Unleavened Bread.

God commanded them, “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s Passover.

“And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Eternal: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread” (Leviticus 23:5, 6).

Leaven, as an agent which spreads throughout moist dough, and which causes bread or cakes to rise when baked, lending a light, airy texture, was pointed out as a type of sin. Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matthew 16:5-12).

Unleavened bread, on the other hand, pictured sinlessness; humility, an absence of vanity, pride, and sin. Christ said, “I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

“This [pointing to Himself] is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:48-51).

Do not all Christian-professing churches believe in Christ as Savior? Then why do they never teach the rich meaning of God’s annual holy days—the plan of redemption and salvation centering around Christ and His sacrifice as pictured in each of God’s annual Sabbaths? 

Can anything be more New Testament oriented than the meaning of the Days of Unleavened Bread?

There is an incontrovertible anti-Judeo BIAS among professing Christianity! From the earliest moments in the first century, when many Gentiles—Greeks, Romans, and others—were being converted, when the church wrestled with the problem of circumcision (Acts 15), a gradually increasing anti-Jewish bias began to emerge.

This rejection of all things Jewish took quantum leaps over the passing centuries. Though Christ Himself was Jewish, and though the apostles and the vast majority of the early church were Jewish, the Gentile leaders of the apostatechurch of the second and third centuries threw out the baby with the bath water: rejected God’s Sabbath day; rejected God’s annual Sabbaths; changed the date for the observance of the Passover, and called it Ishtar (Easter), instead; embraced the purely pagan festivals of Roman idolatry, such as Christmas, and effectively stamped out all knowledge of God’s holy days.

Finally, during the days of Constantine, who had “converted” from sun worship to apostate “Christianity,” the then visiblechurch (God’s true church had been forced “underground” by horrible persecutions) issued a decree that Christians were not to be found “Judaizing” by observing the Passover on the 14th of Abib, but were ordered to observe Easter, instead!

Is there anything “Jewish” about the CHRIST-centered meaning of the Days of Unleavened Bread? No, nothing. Yet, you have not heard sermons preached in the Sunday-observing churches explaining the rich types and shadows of God’s holy days as they pertain to repentance, baptism, the receiving of God’s Spirit, the second coming of Christ to set up His Kingdom, the binding of Satan, and the final great resurrection.

Today, the Christian-professing world is lost in a sea of ignorance about God’s plan! Embracing the pagan doctrines of the “immortality of the soul,” and “going to heaven when you die,” they fail to understand the plan of God as revealed in the progression of the seasons—fail to understand the truth about God’s mercy upon the darkened races of Gentile nations who have never heard the Gospel.

More Bible Types Revealed

The next holy day following the Days of Unleavened Bread is the “Feast of Sabbaths,” or the “Feast of Firstfruits,” which became named “Pentecost,” meaning “fiftieth,” by the Greek speaking world.

Why “fiftieth”?

Because the high priest was to cut the very first sheaf of grain on the weekly Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread. This meaningful ceremony pictured the first of the firstfruits; the very first sheaf of the springtime barley harvest.

It pictures the RISEN CHRIST, now “cut off” from the world, ascending to the Father in heaven. The ceremony became known as the “wave sheaf” offering, since the priest would select a sheaf of the grain, harvest it, and then wave it toward heaven in thanksgiving to God.

God said, “And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven sabbaths shall be complete:

“Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days…” (Leviticus 23:15, 16).

Christ ascended to His Father on a Sunday, after being resurrected late Sabbath afternoon. The wave sheaf pictures CHRIST, as the FIRST of the “firstfruits” of God’s righteous harvest of the earth.

The number seven pictures perfection. Seven times seven symbolizes complete perfection. Built around the land sabbaths and the year of release was the Jubilee. This shadowy type of the Kingdom of God is found in the seven sabbaths (49 days) which were to be reckoned until thefiftieth day (Jubilee), which was the Feast of “Sabbaths,” or “Firstfruits.”

The firstfruits pictures God’s righteous harvest from among mankind from the time of Christ until the Millennium and the Great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:1-5; 11-15).

Is anything more richly rewarding to a farmer than seeing the fruits of his labor coming from his land, the early grain harvest of abundant food—giving thanks to God for rain in due season, for the new wealth coming forth from the soil?

God’s springtime holy days picture repentance, acceptance of Christ’s shed blood, allowing Christ to dwell within us through His Spirit (by eating unleavened bread for seven days), and shows us that we are part of an early harvest, a “firstfruits” unto God (James 1:18). It also shows us that God is not trying to save the whole world now, that there is to come a later, fall harvest unto God.

This is a vitally important point, for the vast majority of professing Christians simply do not understand the schedule of events in God’s plan. If they knew the beauty of His plan as revealed seasonally through His annual Sabbaths, they would never suppose most of the world is lost forever, never believe that God could be so cruel as to punish, in a blazing hell fire, little oriental infants who have never so much as heard the name of Christ.

Ample biblical proof exists to demonstrate that Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, not only kept God’s annual Sabbaths, but taught Gentile converts to do so.

He wrote to the Corinthians, “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

“Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened [a clear contradiction of terms, unless he plainly means they were observing the Days of Unleavened Bread, for he had just told them they were “leavened,” meaning they were guilty of sins which needed to be purged, or expunged. When he said “as ye are unleavened,” it can only mean that they received this missive during the Festival of Unleavened Bread, that they were keeping it!]. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us:

“THEREFORE LET US KEEP THE FEAST, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

Can anything be plainer?

Paul instructed these Gentile Christians in the large Gentilecity of Corinth to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread! 

Not only did the Feast of Sabbaths picture the risen Christ, and the firstfruits unto God, it also foreshadowed the momentous events on the Day of Pentecost, explained in Acts, the second chapter.

How appropriate that the Feast of “Firstfruits” unto God should fall on the very day God sent His Holy Spirit to this earth, as Christ promised! (John 16:7).

Though many Protestants celebrate “Whitsunday,” they do so 50 days after Easter (Ishtar), not 50 days from the weekly Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Many myths and traditions sprang up surrounding “Whitsunday.” The Church of England formerly celebrated three days surrounding it, and in May, 1871, the British government declared “Whitmonday” a legal bank holiday.

Those who keep God’s annual holy days know that Pentecostis the birthday of the church, the Christian festival in commemoration of the great events on that original Pentecost when the Holy Spirit, with a loud, roaring sound like a rushing wind, filled all the room where the apostles and others were assembled, when the apostles appeared to have flaming crowns of fire atop their heads.

Nearly 30 years following Christ’s resurrection, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, wrote to the Gentile church in Corinth, “But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost” (1 Corinthians 16:8).

Trumpets and Atonement

When was the last time you heard a sermon expounding all these rich, detailed types and shadows of Christ, of salvation, as revealed through God’s annual holy days? If you are among the majority, you will probably answer, “Never!”

Yet, all the annual Sabbaths given to Israel convey to our minds part of the detailed tapestry that is God’s great plan of redemption and salvation.

Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost all come in the springtime. Just before the fall comes the Feast of Trumpets. God said, “In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:24).

The trumpet was Israel’s means of communication. Study Numbers 10:1-10 for further details. To assemble the people, trumpets were blown. They were blown as “officers’ call,” just as in the military, to cause this or that tribe to march, or to herald the arrival of special occasions. They were blown as an announcement—to say, in effect, “ATTENTION, everyone!” They were blown as an alarm if an enemy was approaching, and blown on solemn holy days.

In a sense, the trumpet was ancient Israel’s “radio and television,” for it was a means of instant, mass communication.

God’s prophetic messages clearly show that God announceseach great intervention of God by the sound of a trumpet(Revelation 8:6). Christ said, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

“And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another” (Matthew 24:30, 31).

Though this final trumpet blast occurs suddenly, God shows that the process of calling out God’s elect from this earth over many decades is also typified by the blowing of a trumpet!

“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sin,” wrote Isaiah (Isaiah 58:1). Christ said, “And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14), and told His disciples, “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops” (Matthew 10:27).

The primary focus of the Feast of Trumpets is the return of Jesus Christ to this earth. God says, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep [die the first death], but we shall all be changed,

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump[the last of all the trumpets listed in Revelation, the same trumpet call to which Christ referred]: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).

Today, God sends out His announcement of Christ’s coming Kingdom through His church, through the preaching of the Gospel, through proclaiming the sins of our peoples, through witnessing, warning, forth-telling, inviting people to repent!

But the time is coming when God will no longer speak through human voices, but will cause mighty angels to blow on ear-splitting trumpets! Then, the whole world will hear! The final trumpet blast heralds Christ’s second coming as KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS to rule this earth with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:26; 3:21; 19:11-16).

The emphasis on the Feast of Trumpets is mostly prophetic! It focuses mainly on Christ’s coming and the resurrection, but also foreshadows the announcement God is sending to mankind through His church, through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ as a witness and a warning!

Then comes the only commanded fast day of the year, the solemn Day of Atonement.

God said, “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation [a commanded assembly] unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls [lives]…” (Leviticus 23:27).

In a solemn ceremony on this day of fasting, when God commanded Israel not to eat or drink from sundown of the previous day until sundown on Atonement, the high priest enacts a fascinating, meaning-laden ritual. Study Leviticus the 16th chapter to understand all the types.

Two goats were to be presented. One was “for the Eternal,” and the other an Azazel, erroneously called a “scapegoat.” The Azazel goat was to have all the sins of Israel symbolically placed upon its head, and then was to be led in the hands of a “fit man” who would not allow the goat to turn back into the distant wilderness, where it would be released.

One goat was sacrificed, symbolizing an atonement for sin, a shadow of Christ’s impending sacrifice. The other was to be allowed to wander in the wilderness, bearing, figuratively, the sins of Israel upon it (Leviticus 16:21).

Only once in the year was Aaron, or the high priests to follow through the centuries, to enter into the “Holy of Holies” in the tabernacle (later, the temple). The ninth chapter of Hebrews explains the deep meaning of this ritual. Paul wrote, in part, “But into the second [the Holy of Holies] went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:

“The Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holiest [type of heaven, and God’s presence] of all was not yet made manifest, while as yet the first tabernacle was yet standing…But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us…” (Hebrews 9:7-12).

The sacrifice on the Day of Atonement was extremely elaborate. The priest had to carefully wash and dress, had to sacrifice an animal for his own sins, had to sprinkle blood upon the book and the people (Hebrews 9:19).

In this elaborate ritual, accomplished on a day of fasting, one sees the terrible consequences of sin. God has decreed that the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). Yet, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, as the “Lamb of God” to die for the sins of you and me, for all mankind—to atone for sin so that those who call upon Christ are symbolically covered by His shed blood, their sins forgiven.

To be sure, the ancient ceremony of Atonement was a bloody one. Now, see the whole picture: The high priest was a type of Christ, entering “through the veil” that separated the outer holy place from the “Holy of Holies,” a type of heaven itself. The veil in the temple split when the miraculous earthquake struck at the moment of Christ’s death, signifying that Christ’s death had made it possible for mankind to have direct access to God the Father through Christ!

The Azazel goat is not a type of Christ, but a type of Satan! Notice: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit [the abyss: see Jude 13] and a great chain in his hand.

“And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years” (Revelation 20:1, 2). This angel was pictured by the “fit man” selected to take the goat over whose head the sins of Israel were confessed into a trackless wilderness, and there release it, alive.

Thus, God shows we have all had a partner in sin! This goat is not a “scapegoat,” for God places guilt where guilt squarely belongs! The Hebrew word Azazel comes from a word meaning “fierce, mighty, rough, or strong,” such as “rough goat.” It means, literally, “the rough goat that is sent out.”

Thus, the detailed ceremony of the Day of Atonement shows the necessity for Christ’s sacrifice to atone for sins; shows how His death opened the way into God’s presence in heaven itself; shows how Satan will finally be bound, unable to deceive the nations any more.

Paul wrote, “Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.

“And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

“It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

“For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures [types, pictures] of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

“Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year [on the Day of Atonement!] with blood of others…but now once in the end of the world [age] hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:21-28).

Do you see how these rich New Testament truths were pictured so ceremoniously, so richly, and in such detail, by the accompanying rituals of the annual holy days?

WHY, then, do the churches utterly ignore these annual Sabbaths? Why have you not heard the Christ-centered, NewTestament meaning of God’s annual holy days?

Now for one of the richest of all—the fabulous fall harvest festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, followed by the “Last Great Day.”

The Feast of Ingathering

At the time of the great fall harvest season, God set His “Feast of Tabernacles.” The word “tabernacle” merely means “booth,” or “kiosk,” a temporary domicile. God said, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

“Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord.

“On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein…Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.

“And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.

“And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

“Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:

“That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

“And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:33-35, 39-44).

Notice that the Feast of Tabernacles, or little “booths,” was coincident with the time of the gathering in of the fruit of the land—a festival which emphasized the harvest.

Notice also that God said the purpose for their dwelling in these little tabernacles or temporary domiciles for seven days was so that they would remember that God “made the children of Israel to dwell in booths….”

All you really learn from this scripture, standing by itself, is that God said they were to “dwell in booths” so they would remember that God made them to “dwell in booths.”

It is only when one looks at all other relevant scriptures concerning the meaning of dwelling in temporary domiciles; only when one considers the Feast of Tabernacles in light of its logical seasonal progression, viewing it from the perspective of all the other annual Sabbaths, that the rich, detailed, inspiring picture of the meaning of the festival of temporary booths, or tabernacles, becomes clear.

God reveals that He has placed within each human being the “spirit in man,” or the human spirit, which, while it has no separate consciousness or intelligence apart from the brain, it is nevertheless spiritual.

Paul wrote, “The spirit itself [God’s Holy Spirit] beareth witness with OUR SPIRIT that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). All of us are endowed with the human spirit. This entire eighth chapter of the book of Romans says a great deal about how God’s Holy Spirit is to dwell inside our mortal bodies.

Jesus said we are not to fear man, who after he has destroyed the body, cannot destroy the “soul.”

The traditional concept of the “immortality of the soul” misses the mark by a wide margin. There is no separate, intelligent, feeling, living “soul” which departs the body at death.

That there is something which is spiritual in connection with the human brain which man cannot destroy is obvious from Christ’s words. Christ said, “…fear not them which kill the body [Greek: soma] but are not able to kill the soul [Greek: psuche]: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matthew 10:28). Notwithstanding the fact that the traditional concept of the “immortal soul” is erroneous, it is clear from Jesus’ words that there IS something spiritual in connection with the human mind which man simply cannot destroy.

That is why the Bible speaks of a complete conversion by the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit.

Paul put it this way, “…put off concerning the former conversation [conduct] the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Few have understood that God is begetting children, that a new spiritual life is engendered within each human being who repents and receives God’s Spirit. Plainly, it is “created.” Conversion—receiving the begettal of the Holy Spirit—is not merely a change in attitude or outlook; not merely “turning over a new leaf,” or making minor adjustments in life style. It is the creation of a new creaturein Christ!

He wrote to the Colossians, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;

“And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him…” (Colossians 3:9, 10).

Paul also wrote, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The word for “creature” is used for “creation” in many instances.

To be sure, there IS something “spiritual” about each human mind.

Almighty God is reproducing after His own kind. Creation was not completed in the Garden of Eden—only begun, in physical prototype.

God is the author of all life, Creator, and Life Giver. God has created the process of reproduction in all species of life, and is the Inventor and Designer of human procreation.

You will come to understand the beautiful analogy of human reproduction; where you came from; the miracle of human birth as it portrays the spiritual begettal, and ultimate spiritual rebirth into the very family of God.

What has this to do with the Feast of Tabernacles? Everything!

As Christ showed, though man can destroy this mortal, temporary body, he cannot destroy the real you!

Notice how the apostle Paul expounded this beautiful concept: “…we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

“But we have this treasure [and it is real treasure, the priceless truth of eternal life and the Holy Spirit of God now creating in us a NEW SPIRIT BEING; a “New Creature in Christ”] in earthen vessels [our physical bodies], that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:6, 7).

Paul went on to explain, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish [the aging process, and the ultimate fate awaiting every human being, death] yet the inward man [the new “creature in Christ”] is renewed day by day.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

“While we look not of the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; [like a temporary domicile, or “booth” made of branches, leaves and other materials, which will soon perish] but the things which are not seen are eternal.

“For we know that if our earthly house of this TABERNACLE were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

“If so be that being found clothed we shall not be found naked.

“For we that are in this tabernacle [the new creature in Christ, dwelling temporarily in these physical bodies] do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality [this human body, this temporary existence] might be swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18; 5:1-4).

What a beautiful analogy. Notice how many times our physical bodies are likened to a “tabernacle,” or a little booth, a temporary dwelling place. Study the entire 15^thchapter of 1 Corinthians, and see how Paul showed we are to be CHANGED; to become GLORIFIED; to become a SPIRIT BEING; a member of God’s own great, expanding family, of which Jesus Christ is the Elder Brother; the first-born among many brethren. 

The apostle Peter put it this way: “Yea, I think it meet [fitting], as long as I am in this tabernacle [Peter, the “new man in Christ” living in his human, physical body], to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;

“knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, [knowing his death was approaching!] even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me” (2 Peter 1:13, 14).

Can anything be plainer?

The apostle Paul plainly wrote, “There are also celestial [heavenly] bodies, and bodies terrestrial [earthly, of the flesh]: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another…so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body…as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

“And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:40-49).

This human, physical body in which we dwell is only a temporary “tabernacle.”

While it is a little bizarre to contemplate, what of someone who has lost a limb? That individual, with all his or her character traits, personality, knowledge and intelligence is still there! As horrifying as it is to contemplate, there are those who have lost all four limbs. Yet, they are still there; the person is still alive, though missing limbs.

You see, your personality, your innermost being, where your decision making powers reside, where your deepest and innermost thoughts dwell, where your moral character lies, is in your mind!

God’s Holy Spirit does not come into our elbow, or our big toe, or our femur or clavicle. God’s Holy Spirit comes into, and unites with the human spirit that dwells in our minds!

It took living cells to beget you, cause you to be born as a unique, once only, individual human being.

By the uniting of your father’s life with your mother’s life, YOU became to be.

In the same fashion, by Almighty God placing His life-giving Spirit within a human mind, uniting it with the “human spirit” to become a “new creature in Christ,” He reproduces His “children” after HIS, God’s, kind!

Look how plainly Paul puts this beautiful truth: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption [sonship!], whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ…” (Romans 8:14-16).

You were the child of your parents. You are like them in many ways, for you came from them. What was, or is, your relationship with them? Why, you are LIKE them; you are members of their family! My elder brother, Richard David, was an Armstrong. He was killed in an automobile accident in 1958. He was my brother. We both had the same father. I can never BECOME my father, for he was unique, and was the one who brought me into being by imparting his life to my mother; the two of them producing me. What was (am) I? Why, an Armstrong, of course. A member of their family! God’s FAMILY names, revealed to us through the Hebrew and Greek, are Elohim and Theos, respectively. Both are plural names, meaning more than one. However, we shall eventually be given a NEW name, and the secret name of divine Elohim will be revealed (Revelation 2:17; 19:12)

It is no mere accident that the analogy of family relationships occurs in the Word of God. It is not some theologians’ ideas, but God’s own revelation to us that He is our “Father,” while Christ is the firstborn Son, and we can become the “children of God.” In shadowy type, the invisible church, which is called a spiritual organism, is seen as “Jerusalem above, the mother of us all.” We are referred to in the Word of God as “brothers and sisters in Christ.”

When you were born of your parents, what did you become? Why, you became you, with your parents last name, and many of their own likenesses and characteristics.

And when you are finally born of God, when this temporary domicile that is your human body is of no further use, and has been completely changed by the resurrection from the dead or instantaneous change at Christ’s return (1 Corinthians 15:50-52), what will you become?

You already read it: “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly!” (1 Corinthians 15:49).

The word “image” in the Greek is rendered substance in the Ivan Panin Greek Numerics Text, and can be so rendered. As you and I presently consist of physical flesh—our substance is earthly, from the ground—so God’s Word says the spiritual creature, called the “new creature in Christ,” is to become spirit. John wrote, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

More Beautiful Types and Shadows

Remember the many shadowy types and analogies we learned concerning the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread? With the Passover, Almighty God brought His people, Israel, out of the slavery of pagan Egypt, and into a wilderness, where that older generation wandered for 40 years (a number which connotes trial, or testing).

But did you know that that entire older generation, save the family of Caleb, died in the wilderness, including Moses?

Look at the obvious analogy: Forming in the bodies of this older generation during the time of their trial and testing in the wilderness were new human beings who had never known Egypt! During those 40 years, a whole new generation of Israelites was born.

It was this new generation which crossed the River Jordan, which is a shadowy type of the transition from physical to spiritual, into the promised land.

Their leader? It was Joshua, which is the Hebrew form of the Greek word for Jesus!

Just as Joshua (Hebrew word for “Jesus”) led the NEW generation of Israelites into the promised land (a type of the Kingdom of God), so Jesus Christ will lead NEW spiritual generation of NEW “creatures in Christ” into His kingdom!

Even as God is begetting His own children within the human physical bodies (temporary tabernacles) of a present-day generation, so those “new creatures in Christ” will emerge as a completely new, never-before, unique spirit being in the Kingdom of God!

These human, temporal, physical bodies, with all their diseases, debilities, deformities, aches and pains—these fleshly bodies, which are growing older every day and will only ultimately return to the soil of this earth from which they came, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God!

Paul said, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

“Behold I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:50-53).

Now consider another beautiful type: When the member of the Godhead who became Jesus Christ “emptied Himself” of His divine, powerful, spiritual form and “…took on Him the seed of Abraham,” (Hebrews 2:16) He was God, temporarily “tabernacling” in the human flesh! Thus, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the first begotten of Almighty God among all humankind lived a life of 33 1/2 years as “God in the flesh,” tabernacling in a human, physical body which was later on changed to spirit!

After Christ’s resurrection, He was able to appear and disappear at will. He would appear in a room where His frightened disciples were gathered, literally materializing through a stone wall! Yet, this resurrected, spiritual body still bore the wounds and scars inflicted by His torture and crucifixion, for He forced doubting Thomas to actually put his hand into the spear wound, and his finger into the wounds in His wrists.

Christ had the power to materialize in His previous human form, yet was once again very God, and ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven, to await His return to this earth as the conquering King of kings and Lord of lords.

When was the last time you went to a church service where the minister expounded and explained all of these many wondrous Christ centered New Testament truths concerning God’s plan of redemption, and salvation?

The Last Great Day

Immediately following the Feast of Tabernacles comes the “Last Great Day” (Leviticus 23:36). This is the seventh annual holy day in God’s seasonal plan, and falls on the 22nd day of the seventh month.

It is followed by late autumn, and the winter, when all deciduous trees; the grasses, shrubs, flowers and grasses become dormant, and there are no annual holy days or festivals of any kind in God’s beautiful plan of salvation until the early spring, and the Passover.

Now, review what we have learned. The Passover primarily focuses on Christ and His sacrifice for sin. The Days of Unleavened Bread focus on Christ coming to live within each newly repentant Christian, thus driving sin out. The Feast of the Firstfruits, or Pentecost shows us that God is calling only a comparative few at this time, that God has never attempted to “save the world” in the past; that He did not attempt to “save the world” during the time of Christ, that He is not attempting to save the world now! Rather, it emphasizes that God is calling only a “kind of firstfruits of His creatures” in this dispensation, and shows that the great latter, fall harvest of human lives is to come during the millennium, and even afterward.

The New Testament observance of Pentecost portrays Christ sending the “other Comforter” to be available to human beings for the first time.

The Feast of Trumpets pictures not only the announcements of Almighty God from the time of Christ until the time of the end by the preaching of the Gospel, but God’s own righteous angels, sounding the alarming trumpets leading up to the last plagues and the final great trump, announcing the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The Day of Atonement, the only FAST day (Acts 27:9; Lev. 23:32) among the seven holy days, depicts the whole world finally AT ONE with God through the atoning work of Christ; Satan banished, unable to deceive the nations any further.

The Feast of Tabernacles not only portrays all the beautiful types of our temporary dwelling places in these human physical bodies, but presages the Kingdom of God, and the millennial reign of Jesus Christ over all this earth.

The Feast of Tabernacles acknowledges that we are living, as human beings, in but a temporary dwelling place, but it looks ahead to the PERMANENT dwelling place in God’s Kingdom! Jesus Christ said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” which can also be rendered “positions of responsibility,” or “offices.”

So, in addition to acknowledging our temporality, the Feast of Tabernacles also is a foretaste of the very Kingdom of God, the millennial reign of Christ.

Remember, the first resurrection of all of the “dead in Christ” occurs at the last trump, at the exact moment of Christ’s second coming (1 Corinthians 15:50-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Matthew 24:31).

Now, notice: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls [Greek psuche, meaning spirits, or lives] of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4).

Christ promised, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations … To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Revelation 2:26; 3:21).

Therefore, the “firstfruits unto the Lamb” as pictured by the Feast of Firstfruits or Pentecost, will “live and rule over the nations with Christ” for one thousand years, which is foreshadowed, in part, by the Feast of Tabernacles!

Now, what remains to be done to accomplish God’s great plan for the redemption and salvation of the vast majority of the human race?

God’s Word answers: “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished!” (Revelation 20:5).

Jesus plainly said there is a resurrection unto life and a resurrection unto “judgment.”

But judgment is not sentencing! The “rest of the dead” includes the entirety of the human race who are not among the “dead in Christ.”

And who does this include? It includes the vast majority of all human beings who have ever lived and died from Adam until the present! It includes the hundreds of millions of China, India, many other Asian nations such as Japan, Bangladesh, Korea, Taiwan, etc. It includes the vast multitudes of the world where paganism, animism, heathenism and idolatry—yes, and “professing” Christianity has been living in deception! (Revelation 12:9).

This last, great resurrection brings perhaps more than six billion people out of their graves!

It is a staggering, stupendous event!

All of these virtually countless human beings of so many races and nations will be resurrected at the end of the millennial reign of Christ, and will be given a glorious opportunity for salvation, at last!

This is what is pictured by the “Last Great Day.” It logically follows immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles, which foreshadows, in many ways, the Kingdom of God.

And what comes immediately after Christ’s millennial reign?

Read it, in the 20th chapter of Revelation: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11-15).

These “books” which are opened mean nothing more than biblos, the Greek word for “book,” or “books.” It is only when the word “holy” is placed with the word “book” that it connotes the Bible. These “books” which are open, out of which these billions of human beings are to be judged are nothing more than the books of the Bible, the same books which are judging the Church of God today. God’s Word plainly states that the church is being judged now. Since God is consistent, and says He “changes not,” and the Bible says Jesus Christ is “the same, yesterday, today and forever,” we know that God’s master plan for salvation will not change.

This vast multitude from all of the human family will receive a one hundred year lifespan (Isaiah 65:20-25), during which they will experience the incredible blessings and benefits of living on an earth which has been under God’s own divine rulership for one thousand years!

It is then, in that climate and at that time, that these countless millions of Asians, Africans, and so many more will finally be given a thorough education in God’s marvelous truth, and will be required to choose whether to obey God, repent of their sins and receive God’s Holy Spirit, or to rebel and force Almighty God to destroy them.

Jesus Christ gave us a shadowy type of the meaning of this Last Great Day from His inspiring invitation to repentance made on that very day during His earthly ministry.

“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

“He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37, 38).

Notice how Jesus made it clear that “any man” was being invited to come to Christ! Surely, this open invitation to all, including Gentiles presaged the meaning of this Last Great Day.

The Last Great Day typifies the “Great White Throne Judgment” of the 20th chapter of Revelation.

This final annual holy day signifies the completion of God’s plan, the last great general resurrection and the final destruction of the incorrigibly wicked, and leads directly from the Great White Throne Judgment in Revelation 20 to the “new heavens and new earth” of the last two chapters of your Bible.

Thus, when one comes to understand the beautiful types and pictures portrayed by the seasonal holy days of God, one comes to understand the WHOLE PLAN OF GOD!

There is NO ROOM in this beautiful plan for the pagan holidays of this world, nor for the pagan doctrines of the “immortality of the soul” or an “ever-burning hell.”

Once again I must ask, WHY have you not heard? Why have not the Sunday-observing churches preached the beautiful truths about God’s plan of redemption and salvation by informing and educating their congregations of these rich shadows and types revealed through God’s annual Sabbaths?

Why on the one hand should there be such a fascination with rank paganism, as seen in Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, and an anti-Hebrew prejudice against the beautiful and merciful truths revealed in God’s seasonal plan?

The plain truth is, Almighty God commanded His annual Sabbaths to be observed down through all living generations of His people. Jesus Christ and the apostles kept these days. The apostle Paul—an apostle to the Gentiles—urged Gentile churches throughout the Greek and Roman world to observe these annual holy days! It took the large, visible apostate church many centuries to stamp out the observance of God’s Passover on the 14th of Abib, to eradicate any remaining knowledge concerning the rich meanings conveyed to the human mind through all seven of God’s annual Sabbaths.

Today, professing Christendom is locked into an annual ritual of pagan mythology, all the while thinking it is celebrating Christ’s birthday or His resurrection, or “All Saints Day,” yet doing so amid the symbols and accouterments of rank heathenism, Satanism, Babylonian mysteries, and caricatures of death.

One final question: Will you be keeping God’s Feast of Tabernacles after the second coming of Christ? For your answer, turn to and read Zechariah 14:16-19: “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

“And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

“And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

“This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”

There can be no mistake as to the time setting of this beautiful chapter. It is when the returning, conquering Christ fights against the nations resisting Him, and when His feet shall stand “…in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east…” and when “…living waters shall go out from Jerusalem … and the Eternal shall be King over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and His name One” (Zechariah 14:3-9).

One thing is sure. Every living human being of whatever religion, nationality, race or creed will be absolutely forced to observe God’s annual Feast of Tabernacles shortly after the arrival of Jesus Christ on this earth!

Those who are rebellious against God, those who adamantly refuse to obey Almighty God now, will no doubt be absent at this time, for they will very likely be among the stiff-necked, antagonistic, rebellious human beings who will resist God’s truth and will suffer the terrible consequences of the tribulation and the Day of the Lord.

When Jesus Christ is King over all this earth, the time of gentle, merciful invitation is past! Then, He will command and all will obey! May God grant you the spirit of repentance, the spirit of surrender to God, and lead you into His truth and an humble acceptance of His will in your life.

Now, you KNOW. Now, you should make plans immediately to attend with the nearest group to your home on God’s annual holy days, to hear these, and other inspiring, encouraging truths expounded! You should begin planning NOW to set aside so you can COME TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES this year! Write or call to obtain information on where the Feast site nearest your home is located, and determine to BE there! After all, since Christ will ENFORCE Feast attendance in His kingdom, why not get in the habit NOW?

You may copy and distribute this information only to friends and family without changes, without charge and with full credit given to the author and publisher. You may not publish it for general audiences.

This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

The activities of the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association are paid for by tithes, offerings and donations freely given by Christians and co-workers who are dedicated to preaching the gospel according to Jesus Christ.

The post How Seasonal Holy Days Reveal God’s Plan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

You were born into a “ready-made” world. You had no voice in how it is structured; its customs, traditions, religions, or politics. It took you about two years to learn the language of your parents; about six years to learn your own indigenous alphabet; about seven or eight years to learn to read simple sentences, and to begin to write.

However, from your earliest years, long before you learned to read or write; long before you learned what “research” or “study” was, you heard about the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and watched, no doubt, hundreds of cartoons and kiddy shows on television. From your earliest years on this earth, your parents were inculcating into your mind the traditions, customs, fables, superstitions and assumptions of their own upbringing.

The point is, you first learned of “Easter,” or other religious customs through your parents or guardians. You did not research history, carefully weigh the facts, and make a reasoned decision to observe “Easter.”

Millions of adults in the western world of professing Christianity have memories of those sleepy mornings when, all excited to be dragged from bed at perhaps 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., they were dressed in frilly little frocks or a new little boy’s suit, complete with clip-on bow tie; white patent-leather shoes, greens and yellows—the colors of spring—and trundled off in the family car to an open air coliseum, or perhaps to a hilltop, to join with hundreds or thousands of others in an “Easter Sunrise Service.”

You didn’t know what “Easter” was. Only that it sounded a little like a point on the compass. Of course, the sun rose in the East. Maybe that was it? Or was it merely the opposite of “Wester”? Most likely, if you are like millions of others, you never became curious enough to go to a major encyclopedia and look up the term. We tend to take our environment for granted.

Have you ever looked into the history and origins of Easter?

Naturally, like Christmas, it comes to all of Protestantism from the Roman Catholic Church. However, the universal church got it from much, much more ancient sources.

Here is what the vaunted Catholic Encyclopedia has to say about Easter: “The English term, according to the Ven. Bede (De temporum ratione, I, v) relates to Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring…that the Apostolic fathers [the apostles of Christ] do not mention it and that we first hear of it principally through the controversy of the Quartodecimans are purely accidental” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, p. 224).

A “Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring”? Well, yes, but much, much more than merely a pagan goddess of the rising light of day and spring. She was, in the demented minds of superstitious pagans, a goddess of sex and fertility; of fecundity and procreativity. Her symbols were, most importantly, the egg, and, secondarily, the rabbit. Of course, rabbits don’t lay eggs, but many a child does not learn this until a later age.

Bunnies are cuddly to little children. So are tiny chickens, and gaily-colored eggs. Concerning Easter eggs, the Catholic Encyclopedia somewhat reluctantly admits, “The custom may have its origin in paganism, for a great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring [and therefore directly related to SUN-worship], gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring…the Easter rabbit lays the eggs, for which reason they are hidden in a nest or in the garden. The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility…In France, handball playing was one of the Easter amusements, found also in Germany…The ball may represent the sun, which is believed to take three leaps in rising on Easter morning” (ibid. p. 227).

Dozens of “quaint” customs derived from ancient superstitions and myths. Most revolved around cupidity, and had suggestive fertility rites obvious in their execution. The same source admits, “On Easter Monday the women had a right to strike their husbands. On Tuesday the men struck their wives, as in December the servants scolded their masters…In the northern parts of England the men parade the streets on Easter Sunday and claim the privilege of lifting every woman three times from the ground, receiving in payment a kiss or a silver sixpence. In Neumark (Germany) on Easter day the men servants whip the maidservants with switches; on Monday the maids whip the men. They secure their release with Easter eggs. These customs are probably of pre-Christian origin.” (Ibid. p. 227).

These, and many other rituals, were pagan fertility rites, derived from worship of the sun. For example, the same source says, “The Easter Fire is lit on the top of mountains (Easter Mountain, Osterberg) and must be kindled from new fire, drawn from wood by friction; this is a custom of pagan origin in vogue all over Europe, signifying the victory of spring over winter…the church adopted the observance into the Easter ceremonies, referring it to the fiery column in the desert and to the resurrection of Christ” (Ibid. p. 227, emphasis mine).

Note that admission carefully, for it lies at the very heart of the matter.

Now, notice the origin of the name “Easter.” Hislop says, “It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar” (The Two Babylons, Hislop, p. 103).

The “h” was silent, just as in the Assyrian “Astarte,” where the last two letters were also silent, giving the identical pronunciation used today, “Easter.”

Of course, as millions know and also observe, “Easter” is preceded by forty days of “Lent.” But where did “Lent” come from?” Is it the past tense of “to lend”? Is it something found in one’s navel? It certainly is not found in the Bible!

Let Hislop answer: “The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, `in the spring of the year,’ is still observed by the Yezidis or pagan devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians. Such a Lent of forty days was held in the spring by the pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in Humboldt [Mexican Researches, v. i. P. 404] where he gives account of Mexican observances: `Three days after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honor of the sun.’ Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians.This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god” (ibid. p. 105).

There is no part of “Easter” which is not rooted in rank paganism. “But we don’t do it with those pagan meanings in mind,” one might protest. Naturally! That is the whole point! It is the disguise, the deception, the counterfeit which Satan uses to delude and deceive, not a direct admission of the truth.

As Hislop says, “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” (Ibid. p. 105).

What does God Almighty say about His people “adapting” pagan rituals and ceremonies into their worship toward the true God? “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;

“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.

“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.

“What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deuteronomy 12:29-32).

When Israel was gradually expanding from a family into a nation while in slavery in Egypt, the people were surrounded by most vile and degrading paganism. The sun, moon and stars were worshipped, as was the Nile River, and dozens of assorted forms of life from crocodiles to scarabs. As a display of God’s wrath, God struck at the “gods” of Egypt with plagues. Not only was this intended to break the back of the world’s greatest power at that time, thus forcing the Pharaoh to release his slaves, but it was also to demonstrate God’s great superiority over the pagan gods of Egypt.

When Israel was brought out of Egypt, God knew they would encounter many heathen, pagan, sun-worshipping nations such as the Hivites, Amalakites, Jebusites, Edomites, Philistines, Perizzites, and many others. All of them practiced the abominable rites of fertility; sun worship! Human sacrifice was not uncommon, as among the Aztecs in ancient Mexico.

Because they were “amazed” at the progression of the seasons; because they believed their antics and sacrifices caused the “sun god” to begin his journey once more into the temperate zones, thus “conquering” winter and causing the life-sustaining crops to grow once again, they observed the movements of the moon and planets; observed “times” and seasons.

But God warned them, “When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

“Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer [one who supposedly foretells the future by communicating with the dead].

“For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

“Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.

“For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do” (Deuteronomy 18:9-14).

Easter, or “Ishtar,” is always observed in the spring, and is replete with fertility symbols! It is nothing less than a carry-over from pagan Babylonian, Greek and Roman sun worship! Its symbols are NOT sanctioned by Jesus Christ or God the Father, but, instead, are CONDEMNED in the Bible!

Where Did We Get “Hot Cross Buns”?

Parades down Fifth Avenue; an Easter-egg hunt on the White House lawn; sunrise services; the colors of springtime, and the pleasant aroma of “hot cross buns” drifting into the street from restaurants and bakeries—a nostalgic time of the memories of springtime, all buried in the remote past; with no knowledge of the utterly pagan origins. Such is the “Easter” of today.

“In Your Easter Bonnet, with all the frills upon it,” can be heard as children hide “Easter Eggs” around the lawn, busily eating little chocolate bunnies.

It all seems so “innocent,” somehow; so “family” oriented.

Is there a pagan origin of something so innocent-appearing as a “hot cross bun?”

Hislop says, “The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean [Babylonian] rites just as they do now. The `buns’ known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens—that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. `One species of sacred bread,’ says Bryant, `which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” (Hislops The Two Babylons p. 108).

The origin of the English word is Nordic, and was Bous. It stood for “Horus” and “Taurus,” or the Bull, and ultimately derived from Nimrod. Even today, millions of farmers call their cows, “boss,” or “bossy,” completely unaware of the origin of the custom. The bous or the boun was baked as quite a family affair. Notice what Jeremiah, God’s prophet, said about it: “Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

“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.

“Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

“Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched” (Jeremiah 7:17-20).

God thunders at rebellious mankind, “Learn not the way of the heathen!” (Jeremiah 10:2). The “hot cross buns” are Satan’s substitute for the unleavened bread to be eaten during the Days of Unleavened Bread. The “cross” or the “X” is an ancient symbol for the “solar wheel” and is a symbol of the sun, and the non-existent “queen of heaven,” or Semiramus, the mother-wife of Nimrod. Together, the two of them ushered in the ancient “Babylonish MYSTERY” religion; made the deity into a “MYSTERY” to be worshipped by whimsical pagan rites.

Now, notice the biblical reference to sunrise services: “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” [Nimrod; the sun god].

“Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

“And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.” The sun is in the east at its RISING! This is nothing less than a “SUNRISE” service—sun worship at the dawning of the sun!

“Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger…Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them” (Ezekiel 8:13-18).

This is the only place in the Bible where men are described as turning their backs on God’s temple, facing the SUN at its rising, and worshipping the sun!

Any pagan Babylonian who might be brought back to life today would instantly recognize the significance of an “Easter sunrise service.”

How The Apostate Church Forced Christians To Abandon The Lord’s Supper On The Fourteenth Of Abib

The Apostles continued to observe the symbols of Christ’s broken body and shed blood on the fourteenth of Abib, or Nisan, as the first Hebrew month came to be called following the Babylonian Captivity. The word “Easter” appears nowhere in the Bible in any of its earliest manuscripts. However, hypocritical, lying copyists deliberately changed the Greek word for “Passover,” which is Pasch, from Pesach in the Hebrew. The Spanish word, taken from Latin, is Pascua.

Notice an example of deliberate tampering with the Holy Word of God found in Acts 12:4. I will include the verses around it for the setting: ” Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.

“And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.

” And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)

“And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people” (Acts 12:1-4). This deliberate insertion into the King James Translation of the Bible is utterly fraudulent, and those who collaborated in its insertion knew it was. The Diaglott, which is a transliteration directly from the original Greek, says, “…and having seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four quarternions of soldiers to guard him, intending after the PASSOVER to lead him out to the people.”

Here is the New International version of the same verse: “After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.”

The New Revised Standard has it: “When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover.”

Here is each word from the fourth verse in Greek, with the accompanying number from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Notice carefully the word Pascha for “Passover”: “. . . piazo:G4084 . . tithemi:G5087 . . phulake:G5438 . . paradidomi:G3860 . . tessares:G5064 . . tetradion:G5069 . . stratiotes:G4757 . . phulasso:G5442 . . bouleuo:G1011 . . meta:G3326 . . pascha:G3957 . . anago:G321 . . laos:G2992.”

Now, notice the definition of the word from Strongs G3957: “3957. pascha, pas’-khah; of Chald. or. [comp. H6453]; the Passover.”

Now, notice the marginal notes from Dr. Bullinger’s Companion Bible: “Gr. To Pascha, the Passover. Easter is a heathen term, derived from the Saxon goddess Eastre, the same as Astarte, the Syrian Venus, called Ashtoreth in the O.T.”

God’s word pronounces a CURSE on anyone who would do violence to it; who would assay to either insert words into it, or take words from it (Revelation 22:19). Those who conspired to deliberately insert a purely PAGAN word into the inspired text shall bear their own guilt.

Such a deliberate insertion serves to highlight the lengths to which the apostate church went to ENFORCE “Easter” upon professing Christians. However, the enforcement took many centuries! From the earliest writings of the “ante-Nicene Fathers” as they are blasphemously called (Christ commanded, “Call no man your father on Earth” [Matthew 23:9], obviously referring to a spiritual title, rather than referring to one’s own flesh and blood father), it is obvious that the church Jesus Christ founded continued to observe the Lord’s Supper on the fourteenth of Nisan.

The Catholic Encyclopedia admits: “The dioceses of all Asia, as from an older tradition [note that carefully!], held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch, contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be” (ibid. Volume V, p. 228).

But there was never any “fast” prescribed by Christ. The ONLY commanded fast in the Bible is that of the “Day of Atonement” (Leviticus 23:27; Acts 27:9). The writer of the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia obfuscates the important point; i.e., that the early Christians clung to the FOURTEENTH OF NISAN for the Lord’s Supper (commonly called “The Passover”) by writing about a “fast” which may or may not have been at issue. Any such fast was mere human tradition, and not a biblical command. Of course, the Catholic writers are attempting to build a case for “Lent,” which is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

Now, notice this blatant admission: “Further, Irenaeus states that St. Polycarp, who, like the other Asiatics [meaning all those in Asia Minor and Palestine], kept Easter [a deliberate insertion! Polycarp had never heard the term, except as Astarte, and would have studiously avoided it! The Catholic writer deliberately refers to Pascha the Passover, as “Easter”] ON THE FOURTEENTH DAY OF THE MONTH, whatever day of the week that might be, following therein the tradition which he claimed to have derived from St. John the Apostle, came to Rome c. 150 about this very question, but COULD NOT BE PERSUADED BY POPE ANICETUS TO RELINQUISH HIS QUARTODECIMAN [fourteenth] OBSERVANCE” (ibid. p. 228 emphasis mine).

Later, under the article “Easter,” the same writer, reporting on the infamous “Council of Nicaea,” which took place in 325 AD, said, “…we may safely infer from scattered notices that the council ruled: (1) that Easter must be celebrated by all throughout the world on the same Sunday; (2) that this Sunday must follow the fourteenth day of the paschal moon; (3) that that moon was to be accounted the paschal moon whose fourteenth day followed the spring equinox…this ruling of the Council of Nicaea did not remove all difficulties nor at once win universal acceptance amongst the Syrians…the Roman missionaries coming to England in the time of St. Gregory the Great found the British Christians, the representatives of that Christianity which had been introduced into Britain during the period of the Roman occupation [hence, during the days of the apostle Paul and other apostles!], still adhering to an ancient system of Easter-computation which Rome itself had put aside” (ibid. p. 229).

Again, the term “Easter” is deliberately injected into the article. However, the apostles never heard of the word, except in its ancient application to Ashtoreth, or Astarte, the “Venus” of pagans, and would have been outraged to have heard anyone attach such a despicable name to the somber and holy observance of the Lord’s Supper!

The Catholic writer then admits to many points of “obscurity” in the historical records of the controversy which finally led to the Council of Nicaea attempting to FORCE Christians to discontinue observing the Passover on the fourteenth, as Christ had commanded. He says, “There is, for example, the perplexing doubt whether the crucifixion [sic] of Christ took place on the fourteenth or fifteenth of Nisan. The Synoptists seem to favour the latter, St. John the former date.”

But the Synoptists (Matthew, Mark and Luke) did not “favor” the fifteenth at all, and it is because of John’s important statement that the Sabbath which fell on the day following the death of Christ was “an HIGH day,” i.e., the first Day of Unleavened Bread, that it had to be admitted that the death of Christ took place on the fourteenth!

So it was that the stage was set for the monstrous persecutions which followed. For literally centuries, God’s people continued to observe the Lord’s Supper on the beginning of the fourteenth of Nisan, just as Christ had set the example. They were labeled “fourteenthers,” (Quartodecimans) as a derisive term, and were mercilessly hunted down and slaughtered.

Halley’s Bible Handbook says, under the article “Forerunners of the Reformation,” “Albigenses or Carthari in southern France, northern Spain and northern Italy, preached against the immoralities of the priesthood, pilgrimages, worship of saints and images, completely rejected the clergy and its claims; criticized church conditions; opposed the claims of the Church of Rome; made great use of the Scriptures; lived self denying lives and had great zeal for moral purity. By 1167 they embraced possibly a majority of the population of South France; by 1200 very numerous in Northern Italy. In 1208 a crusade was ordered by Pope Innocent III; a bloody war of extermination followed, scarcely paralleled in history; town after town was put to the sword and the inhabitants murdered without distinction of age or sex; in 1229 the Inquisition was established and within a hundred years the Albigenses were utterly rooted out.” The histories show that the “Carthari” (meaning “Puritans” or “pure ones”) were also influenced by the Bogomils in Bulgaria.

History shows that many thousands of believing Christians throughout Europe and the British Isles clung to the fourteenth of Nisan as the true date for the observance of the Lord’s Supper; that it required many hundreds of years for this practice to be stamped out. Even today, remnants of the “Waldenses” exist in Italy, and are the largest Protestant group in that country. Their name is variously determined as coming from Peter Waldo, or their habit of dwelling in the valleys of remote alpine regions in northern Italy, Switzerland, and France. Halley’s Bible Handbook says, “Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, South France (1176), gave his property to the poor and went about preaching; opposed clerical usurpation and profligacy; denied the exclusive right of the clergy to teach the Gospel, rejected masses, prayers for the dead and purgatory; taught the Bible as the sole rule of belief and life; their preaching kindled a great desire among the people to read the Bible. They were gradually repressed by the Inquisition except in the Alpine Valleys southwest of Turin where they still are found, the only medieval sect still surviving, a story of heroic endurance of persecutions. Now the leading Protestant body in Italy” (P. 785). The Bogomils, Albigensians, Petrobrusians, Arnoldists, Vaudois, and a large number of other sects, mostly named by their enemies, and mostly termed “heretics,” included many who were “Sabbatarians,” and who kept God’s annual Sabbaths as well.

This was why the “Quartodeciman controversy” raged for so many centuries, as many continued to observe the symbols of Christ’s broken body and shed blood on the fourteenth of Nisan, as Christ Himself had commanded.

By no stretch of the imagination did the apostles of Christ ever celebrate “Easter” (Ishtar), or urge it upon others!

Why Do Christian Ministers Refuse to Teach the Rich Meaning of God’s Seven Annual Holy Days?

Today, millions of professing Christians receive “communion” each morning, or each week. On the other hand, thousands of sincere believers in Jesus Christ observe the “Lord’s Supper” each year, which many commonly call “the Passover.” Should Christians observe “communion” every Sunday morning, or should they heed Christ’s instruction, “This DO as I have done unto you,” when He had washed the disciple’s feet, then offered them a piece of broken unleavened bread and a sip of wine?

WHY do millions ignore the rich meaning of the seven annual holy days of God, called the “feast” days? Each one is CHRIST centered; contains many types, shadows, and analogies to Jesus Christ. Christ is pictured as the lamb which was slain for the Passover; is pictured as the “bread which came down from heaven” in the eating of unleavened bread; is pictured as the FIRST of the “firstfruits” in the Feast of Firstfruits, or “Feast of Sabbaths,” which is now called “Pentecost.” It was Christ who sent the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, and it was Christ who was depicted by the “wave sheaf offering” during the weekly Sabbath of the Days of Unleavened Bread, exactly 50 days before Pentecost. “Pentecost” means “fiftieth,” and has become attached to the “Feast of Sabbaths,” or weeks, merely because the Israelites were told to count seven weeks, so as to arrive at the “morrow after the seventh Sabbath” and so determine the day on which the “Feast of Sabbaths” (Pentecost) fell.

Christ is the central figure of the “Feast of Trumpets,” which heralds His prophesied return to this earth. He is the atoning sacrifice pictured on the Day of Atonement. Christ “tabernacled” in human flesh for 33 and one-half years, and is a prominent type in the “Feast of Tabernacles.” He is the great JUDGE who will reign during the “Last Great Day,” which pictures the judgment day; the second resurrection, following the millennial reign of Christ over the earth for 1,000 years.

Since Jesus Christ of the NEW Testament is the central figure in ALL the annual Sabbaths given to Israel, WHY do so many thousands of “mainstream” professing Christian ministers UTTERLY IGNORE God’s holy days?

WHY HAVEN’T YOU HEARD the rich, CHRIST-centered types associated with the annual holy days?

Think about it. A pastor of a Sunday-observing church might tell his congregation, “I am going to deliver a seven part sermon for the next seven weeks, featuring all the types and shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ which are found in the annual holy days given to Israel.” If he did so, such a pastor would be wise to add, “We will leave aside, for the next seven weeks, whether observing such annual holy days is incumbent upon Christians today. Instead, we will investigate each Feast day on its own merits; learning how each one pictured the plan of God; the coming of the Savior; His death, burial, and resurrection, and His promised return to this earth.”

I dare say any such pastor would find his audience growing week by week; would find his parishioners hanging on every word! The trouble is, he would also very quickly find his parishioners beginning to ask him WHY THEY DO NOT KEEP those holy days!

You have not heard such sermons in your religious upbringing. WHY?

There is no Old Testament holy day more replete with types of Christ; of God the Father; of His plan for human kind than the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread!

Sadly, to many a professing Christian minister, it would be RANK HERESY to return to the teaching of Christ himself! Church TRADITION is more important to most!

Now, notice the rich, Christ-centered shadows and types contained in that first Passover so long ago in Egypt.

The First Passover In History — Utterly Unique!

The first Passover was an utterly unique occasion in all history. It was a once only occurrence; a time of great and punishing miracles from God against Egypt; a time of suffering and death; a time of great escape for God’s people.

For centuries, Israel had been a nation of slaves. Knowledge of annual seasons, the weekly cycle, the seventh day Sabbath had become lost in an avalanche of pagan superstition and idolatry. The Israelites in Egypt were completely ignorant of God’s sacred calendar. It was not until the events preceding the first Passover that God revealed to Moses and Aaron which month was the first month of the Sacred Calendar. It was then that God began to reveal His annual holy days and their deep significance, as well as the weekly Sabbath, to Israel.

Notice, “And the Eternal spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” God called the name of the first month “the month of green ears.” Its name was Abib (Exodus 13:4) and was later called Nisan (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7).

This marked the beginning of the sacred year of the Hebrew calendar, commencing with the month of the spring barley harvest, hence, the “month of green ears.”

God’s time had come to save His people from slavery; to establish the Israelites as His own chosen nation; to place His name among them. He caused them to endure a time of trial and testing for forty years in the wilderness of Sinai. The older generation FAILED that forty years of testing and trial. Their constant carping, griping, complaining (called “murmuring” in the Bible) resulted in their deaths in the land. Even Moses died in the wilderness, though he was allowed to see the promised land from a distance. Eventually, God caused the progeny of the Israelites to inherit the promised land of Palestine.

This has great spiritual significance, not only for the Days of Unleavened Bread and that original Passover, but for the entire plan of God, with special significance at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. Just as a “new creature in Christ” is begotten in each person at the time of baptism and the laying on of hands (2 Corinthians 5:17), so a “new creature” was begotten in the womb of each Israelitish mother WHILE SHE WAS IN THE WILDERNESS. The land of Egypt was a type of this evil world, in which we live, often as “slaves” to our own carnal natures; to our ethnic, cultural, historical, linguistic, educational, political and social backgrounds. We are a PART of our “ready-made” society, having been brought up in it.

The older generation which perished in the wilderness is a type of our “old man” (Ephesians 4:22), which is to perish in the baptismal pool, which typifies the death and burial of the old self. The younger generation, which never knew Egypt, but which were born in the wilderness, pictures the “new creature in Christ” begotten within each of us as we come up out of the waters of baptism, and have hands laid on us for the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit.

God BEGETS us with His Spirit, making us HIS CHILDREN. At that moment, a “new creature in Christ” is begun! That new spiritual creature will inherit eternity, while the old physical body will perish, or be instantaneously changed at the time of Christ’s return (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).

There are many rich spiritual types connected with the Passover in Egypt. Notice more of them:

The Israelites were instructed to single out an unblemished lamb or kid (Exodus 12:3-5) from their flocks, keeping it “…until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening” (Exodus 12:6). Is anything more helpless than a tiny newborn lamb? When I was a boy, a neighborhood friend had a lamb he fed with a baby bottle, holding it in his arms. The innocent, perfectly shaped, unblemished lamb was a type of Jesus Christ. At the baptism of Jesus, John said “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Christ is called the “Lamb” repeatedly in the book of Revelation (see Revelation 14:1, 4, 10; 17:14; 19:7, 9; 21:9).

God instructed them, “And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

“Eat not of it raw, nor sodden [boiled] at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.

“And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire” (Exodus 12:6-10).

Obviously, since they were to eat the flesh “in that night” (that is, the night following the slaying of the lamb “in the evening”) the lamb had to be killed a sufficient period of time prior to its actual eating to allow for its preparation according to God’s explicit instructions.

God told Moses and Aaron to instruct the Israelites that this unusual meal was to be eaten as if in great haste, with trepidation, as if poised for immediate flight!

It was the usual practice to allow an animal to hang in a cool place after being slaughtered; the aging and then the butchering of the meat perhaps coming several days or even a week or more later depending upon the climate.

Thus, the eating of this lamb (or kid of the goats) within only hours of its slaughter, was obviously a very hasty meal; something unusual, symbolizing a meal eaten during a time of emergency.

The Israelites were told “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hands; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Eternal’s Passover.

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment; I am the Eternal.

“And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will PASS OVER you, and the plagues shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:11-13).

The girding of the loins was accomplished by tucking the skirt-like apparel worn during that day into a leathern girdle, or thick belt. It was always done just prior to running, or walking rapidly. It was an unusual command to eat the meal with their shoes on their feet, for shoes were not generally worn indoors. Such a custom prevails to this day in Middle Eastern and Oriental countries. Footwear was worn out of doors, but, upon entering a dwelling, was left outside, or in a foyer. As is evidenced in the later custom of foot washing (in connection with the celebration of Jesus Christ of His last supper) servants would provide water and wash the feet of important guests, who would then slip their feet into slippers or sandals, or perhaps go barefoot on the skins or carpet on the floor of the domicile.

A staff, cane, or walking stick would normally be left near the door, or perhaps in the foyer. However, they were explicitly commanded to eat this meal one-handed, with their walking staffs in their hands, as a symbol of great haste!

Consider all the elements of this meal: It was to be eaten very soon after the slaughter of the animal (extremely unusual); their canes or walking sticks in their hands (very unusual); they were not to take time to visit, enjoy a drawn-out meal like a family occasion, but were to eat the food quickly, all which showed an extremely hastily-eaten meal done as if in trepidation, prior to immediate flight!

As will be seen later, the chronological events leading up to and concluding in the famous “last supper” of the Lord Jesus Christ are positively established. There is no question whatever concerning the time of the Lord’s Supper’; its relationship to the Passover, and the time when the paschal lambs were slaughtered.

However, because some have assumed the Israelites did not exit Egypt on the same night of the eating of the paschal meal; after the passing over of the death angel; because it is further assumed that the Israelites spent the entirety of the following day spoiling the Egyptians, and that the Exodus commenced the following night, many have become confused about when the Exodus occurred, and when the paschal meal took place.

For example, those who knew they were partaking of the New Testament symbols of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ (unleavened bread and wine) coincident with the ancient Passover supper began to believe there were eightdays of unleavened bread, not seven! Their confusion stems from their assumption that the New Testament observance of Christ, His famous last supper, coincided exactly with the ancient Egyptian paschal meal! But, as you shall see clearly, it did not!

Following this assumption, many have partaken of the symbols of unleavened bread and wine on the Passover (Lord’s supper), and then wondered about the custom of eating leavened foods during the following daylight portion of the fourteenth of Nisan, prior to insuring all leavening is out of their homes by sunset prior to the fifteenth. Having once eaten unleavened bread in connection with the ceremonies commemorating Christ’s death, they feel strange eating anything leavened on the following daylight part of the fourteenth of Nisan – prior to the actual beginning of the SEVEN days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

But God said “seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread!” He said “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, UNTIL the one and twentieth day of the month at even!” (Exodus 12:18). Obviously, if you count inclusively (commencing with the fourteenth day—meaning at its beginning) you are dealing with eight days!

But if you are commencing the eating of unleavened bread “at even” on the fourteenth, meaning just before the going down of the sun; meaning that your meal, while it may have commenced just barely before sunset, continues on into the night time hours, or the BEGINNING of the fifteenth, then there is no problem whatever! You have SEVEN full days and perhaps a couple of hours—not eight days.

The problem for many sincere persons was in their misunderstanding of the truly New Testament character of Christ’s famous last supper!

That there are only seven days of unleavened bread is perfectly clear. (Exodus 12:15, 19).

That the ancient Israelites were to eat the paschal lamb and the unleavened bread “IN THAT NIGHT” (Exodus 12:8), meaning on the beginning of the fifteenth is also clear! To understand the sequence of events on the very first Passover, one has but to read the scriptures carefully, comparing all relevant scriptures, and avoid erroneous assumptions. Now, from the pages of your Bible, let’s see what happened during that first Passover; let’s come to understand WHEN the exodus occurred!

“Between The Two Evenings”

God instructed the Israelites, “And ye shall keep it [the paschal lamb] up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening… and they shall eat the flesh in that night…” (Exodus 6-8).

Wide differences of opinion have obtained resulting from the use of the Hebrew expression “in the evening” which, technically, means “between the two evenings.” Some, including Lightfoot, took the expression to mean after the going down of the sun, but prior to full dark. If they were in error, they had thus placed the slaying of the paschal lamb and the eating of the Passover meal at the close of the thirteenth, and at the beginning of the fourteenth! Remember, God begins the days with sunset. Thus, if they were to kill the paschal lamb on the fourteenth “between the two evenings,” and IF “between the two evenings” meant after sunset but prior to full dark, then the paschal lamb would have been eaten in the late evening after the thirteenth, just after the beginning of the fourteenth!

Speaking of the precise meaning of the phrase “between the two evenings,” Kitto’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Literaturesays “Tradition… interprets the phrase between the two evenings to mean from afternoon to the disappearing of the sun, the first evening being from the time when the sun begins to decline from its vertical or noontime point toward the west; and the second from its going down and vanishing out of sight which is the reason why the daily sacrifice might be killed at 12:30 p.m. on a Friday (Mishna, Pesachim, v. 1; Maimonides, Hilchoth, Korban, Pesach., 1.4). But as the paschal lamb was slain after the daily sacrifice, it generally took place from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. We should have deemed it superfluous to add, that such faithful followers of Jewish tradition as Sandia, Rashi, Kimchi, Ralbag, etc., espoused this definition of the ancient Jewish canons, were it not for the assertion which is made in some of the best Christian commentaries and which is repeated in the excellent article Passover in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, that `Jarchi and Kimchi hold that the two evenings were the time immediately before and immediately after sunset so that the point of time at which the sun sets divides them.’ Now Rashi most distinctively declares, `From the sixth hour (12 o’clock) and upwards is called between the two evenings because the sun begins to set for the evening. Hence, it appears to me that the phrase between the two evenings denotes the hours between the evening of the day and the evening of the night. The evening of the day is from the beginning of the seventh hour (immediately after noontime), when the evening shadows begin to lengthen, whilst the evening of the night is the beginning of the night’ (Commentary on Exodus 12:6). Kimchi says almost literally the same thing: `Between the two evenings is from the time when the sun begins to incline towards the west, which is from the sixth hour (12 o’clock) and upwards. It is called between the two evenings because there are two evenings, for from the time that the sun begins to decline is one evening, and the other evening is after the sun has gone down, and it is the space between which is meant by between the two evenings’ (Lexicon s. v.)…

“Eustathius, in a note on the seventeenth book of the Odyssey, shows that the Greeks too held that there were two evenings, one which they called the latter evening at the close of the day; and the other the former evening, which commenced immediately after noon” (Vid. Bochart Hierozoic, Part I, lib. ii. cap. I, oper., tom. ii. p.559, edit. 1712).

The term “evening” merely means “leveling.” Because of popular use, many people say “good evening” when encountering friends in the very early part of the night, or the very late part of the afternoon. But popular usage of English terms does not indicate the true meaning of Hebrew terms which were extant thousands of years before the English language came into existence. The term “between the two evenings” actually meant any time from the zenith, or the “leveling” of the sun at its highest point, as it began its decline, until the moment of the “going away of the sun,” or sunset. This is why the sacrificial lambs were sacrificed from about 2:30 p.m. onward, on the 14^th of Nisan.

But we need not speculate about language or custom, for there is irrefutable internal biblical proof about what time of day is meant by the phrase “between the two evenings,” translated “in the evening” in Exodus 12:6.

God said, “…and they shall eat the flesh in that night” (Exodus 12:8) proving that the killing of the lamb (or kid) took place a few hours prior to the going down of the sun. The paschal meal was concluded in the early hours of the fifteenth of Nisan (within only a few hours after sunset). “SEVEN DAYS shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day shall ye put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day [obviously counting inclusively; seven days in all], that soul shall be cut off from Israel” (Exodus 12:15). To embrace only seven days, the Days of Unleavened Bread HAD TO BEGIN ON THE FIFTEENTH, and the process of putting leavening out of their houses had to be completed ON THE FOURTEENTH, prior to the preparation for the paschal meal.

Otherwise, if the original Passover had taken place just after the thirteenth, just at the beginning of the fourteenth, you have EIGHT DAYS of Unleavened Bread!

But the Bible says there were to be only SEVEN DAYS of Unleavened Bread!

Notice further proof: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month AT EVEN, he shall eat unleavened bread, UNTIL the one and twentieth day of the month at even.” If you begin counting WITH the fourteenth or at the end of the thirteenth, including the whole day, you would have eight days, not seven. It follows that the expression “on the fourteenth day of the month at even” means AT THE END OF THE FOURTEENTH, just as the fifteenth is about to BEGIN, or there would be EIGHT days of Unleavened Bread.

The first Day of Unleavened Bread is the FIFTEENTH, not the fourteenth. But the paschal meal was to be in preparation, including the putting away of leavening, and the killing of the lamb (or kid) very late on the fourteenth! Therefore, the Israelite’s homes would be unleavened for a full SEVEN DAYS, plus only a few hours, late on the fourteenth, prior to the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is the PURPOSE of the “preparation” day. Remember that phrase! Christ was on the stake until mid afternoon of the fourteenth of Nisan, and died at the precise moment when the high priest slew the first of the Pashal lambs! They HASTED to bury Him! Why? “The Jews therefore, BECAUSE IT WAS THE PREPARATION, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross [Greek: stauros, meaning upright pale, or stake, often translated “tree”] on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an HIGH day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” (John 19:31). An “high day Sabbath” was an annual holy day! The holy day which came immediately after Christ’s death was the FIRST DAY OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, the 15^th of Nisan!

Notice further, “There [in the new tomb at the foot of Golgotha] laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jew’s PREPARATION day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand” (John 19:42).

Millions of sincere, church-going, professing Christians know NOTHING about this scripture; do not know anything about the true events of the week in which Christ died. If they did, they would know that Christ was put to death on a WEDNESDAY; that he was entombed on that late WEDNESDAY afternoon; that He was in the tomb exactly 72 hours; three days and three nights, just as He said, and that He was resurrected late on a Sabbath afternoon!

Notice! “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Notice also that this would be the ONLY PERENNIAL SIGN Christ would leave the world as to His true Messiahship! He said, “But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas” (Matthew 12:39), and then said He would be exactly THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS in the “heart of the earth,” or the tomb!

Now, COUNT! From “Good Friday” sunset to Sabbath sunset is one night and one day. From sunset Sabbath to Sunday sunset is two nights and two days. From Sunday sunset to Monday sunset is three nights and three days!

Some, trying to ARGUE around the truth of God, have tried to insist that Christ only meant PART of a day or PART of a night! But this is nonsense, and the fact that He specifically said “DAY” AND ADDED “NIGHT” proves He was speaking of our normal 24-hour period of a day and a night!

Some try to argue that Jesus used a “Greek idiom” when He said three days and three nights. But He referred to the “sign of the prophet Jonas,” and the book of Jonah was written in Hebrew, not in Greek! Men will do anything to avoid obeying the plain commandments of God, in order to cling their to own human-devised traditions!

The “Good Friday” Easter Sunday morning tradition is utterly false! Christ was not entombed on a Friday, but the previous Wednesday, prior to the HIGH day Sabbath, which fell on Thursday. Then came the preparation for the weekly Sabbath, Friday, and then the regular weekly Sabbath when, EXACTLY three days and three nights after His death, Christ was resurrected.

Now, back to the meaning of the term, “between the two evenings” during that very first Passover in all history:

God said, “SEVEN DAYS shall there be no leaven found in your houses” (Exodus 6:19).

Notice further proof: “Observe the month of Abib [green ears], and keep the Passover unto the Eternal thy God: for in the month Abib the Eternal thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt BY NIGHT. Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Eternal shall choose to place His name there.

“Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; SEVEN DAYS shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt IN HASTE:… and there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there anything of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day AT EVEN remain all night until the morning” (Deuteronomy 16:1-4).

Here is further proof that the sacrificing of the lamb was LATE ON THE FOURTEENTH, just before the going down of the sun beginning the fifteenth—which was the first day of seven days of unleavened bread.

Notice the Bible usage of the term “day” in relation to the phrase “at even.”

“And ON THE DAY that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony: and AT EVEN there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire UNTIL THE MORNING.

“So it was always: the cloud covered it BY DAY, and the appearance of fire by night” (Numbers 9:15, 16).

When Was The Exodus?

We know without a shadow of a doubt that the Israelites exited their houses in Goshen to journey from Rameses to Succoth (Numbers 33:4, 5) BY NIGHT!

Remember, God begins the days at sunset. Thus, the nighttime portion of a day is the first part of the day, commencing the previous sunset. Now, on what day of the month of Abib did the Israelites depart Rameses?

“And they departed from Rameses in the first month (Abib), on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow AFTER THE PASSOVER the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians” (Numbers 33:3).

Thus, it is clear they went out of Egypt ON THE FIFTEENTH, and AT NIGHT! That means they exited Egypt sometime during the nighttime hours of the fifteenth of Abib, “on the morrow” following the passing over of the death angel!

Remember the original Passover instructions: “And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening [of the fourteenth!]. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

“And they shall eat the flesh in that night [AFTER sundown, during the dark hours of the late evening, following the sacrificing, or killing of the lamb `at even’ meaning late on the fourteenth], roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

“Eat not of it raw, nor sodden [boiled] at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.

“And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

“And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hands; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Eternal’s Passover” (Exodus 12:6-11).

To kill, prepare, and eat a hasty dinner of roast lamb would require at least a few hours. It would be difficult for hundreds of thousands to do so in less time, especially when the killing of the paschal lamb involved some degree of ceremony, such as selecting a killing ground, carefully gathering the spilled blood in basins, going through the ritual of dipping branches of hyssop into the basin, carefully painting the door posts and lintels with the blood.

The animals were only to be “field dressed,” not completely butchered; notice that they were to be roast with “the head and the purtenance thereof” meaning that the animals were not to have been carefully quartered, or butchered in any fashion, but roasted whole.

Since the killing was to take place “in the evening” or the waning hours of the afternoon, and the roasting to begin soon thereafter, it would have been but a matter of a couple of hours or so after starting the roasting fires that the animals would have been ready for hasty consumption.

God intended that the Israelites eat as if in a great emergency! They were to eat (in the case of males who carried walking staffs) with their shoes on their feet, their skirts tucked into their leathern girdles as if ready for instant flight, and to eat one-handed, with their staff in their hand, and partaking of the roast meat with the other hand! They were to eat it in trepidation, in fear, and in great haste!

Notice further, “And it came to pass, that at midnight (on the FIFTEENTH!) the Eternal smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

“And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

“And he called for Moses and Aaron by night (note! The death angel had already passed! Now, even though Moses and Aaron had been included in the command that they were not to go out of their doors until `the morning’ following the passing of the death angel to insure they were not themselves slain, Pharaoh calls for these two leaders, as representatives of all the people. They obeyed, for the danger was now passed-over! They exited their homes, and went to Pharaoh’s palace!) and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Eternal as you have said.

“Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone, and bless me also.

“And the Egyptians were URGENT upon the people, that they might send them out of the land IN HASTE; for they said, We all be dead men.

“And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

“And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed [had borrowed; see Exodus 3:21-22; 11:2] of the Egyptians’ jewels of silver, and jewels of gold and raiment;

“And the Eternal gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they lent [gladly gave] unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.

“And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.

“And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.

“And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were THRUST OUT of Egypt, and COULD NOT TARRY, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual! (Exodus 12:29-39).

This was the logical consequence of a meal eaten as if poised for instant flight! For, within a few hours after midnight, they were IN GREAT FLIGHT! Notice the words of the Holy Scriptures! The Egyptians were “urgent” upon them. They were “thrust out.” “Neither could they tarry.” “They had prepared themselves no victuals.” They were to eat “in haste.”

God did not intend that the Israelites “playact” in preparing an extremely hasty meal, eating it with their loins girded as if in preparation for instant flight; virtually eating it with one hand, while the other clutched a walking stick or cane; eating it in trepidation and fear as if they were to leave at any moment—and doing all of this in vain, knowing full well they were going to spend the entire daylight period of the following day, more than twelve long hours, in “spoiling” the Egyptians!

No, the language used in scripture such as being “thrust out,” and the Egyptians being “urgent” upon them to leave PROVES, conclusively, that the Israelites left Rameses during the early pre-dawn hours of the nighttime on the fifteenth of Abib!

Obviously, the command not to exit their doorways “until the morning” was lifted after the death angel had passed! The plague was now over. Moses and Aaron, as a type of the whole nation of Israel, were hastily summoned to Pharaoh’s palace. Though they were indoors, in their own respective homes, having eaten of the paschal lamb as had all the others, with the blood clearly sprinkled on the door posts and lintels of their houses, it was now perfectly safe to exit their homes, since the death angel had now passed over and was gone from the land!

Notice the language of Numbers 16:1: “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the Eternal thy God; for in the month of Abib the Eternal thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.”

With the systematic organization of the tribes according to various elders (Exodus 6:9-27); with repeated announcements that at any moment Pharaoh was going to let them go into the wilderness; expecting such a decree to be issued from moment to moment for the better part of a week, surely rapid communication through the elders to the lowliest individual could be accomplished in a matter of very few minutes, at the most, perhaps an hour or so!

The New Testament Passover

Just as the first Passover was unique in all history, so was the “Last Supper” of Jesus Christ a completely unique occasion. The histories refer to the original Passover as the “pre-exilic” Passover, since there were marked differences in the manner in which the Passover was observed following the Israelite’s expulsion from Egypt, and then slight differences again once they had reached the promised land, and a temple had been built.

From His earliest boyhood, it is obvious Jesus Christ observed the Passover with His parents. Notice the account according to Luke: “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.

“And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.

“And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it” (Luke 2:41-43). Then follows the account of how, as a boy, Jesus was confounding the learned elders in the temple; how he said to His parents He needed to “be about His father’s business.”

The most complete account of the events of Christ’s final Passover on earth—the Passover He MISSED, because HE WAS the Passover sacrifice that year—is found in John’s 13^th chapter. Here are major portions: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” Notice this supper of which we are to read took place BEFORE the Feast of the Passover, which was on the fifteenth of Nisan!

Also, notice that Jesus KNEW it was the time of His impending death; KNEW He would soon “depart out of this world unto the Father.” Some years ago, another of the tiresome, perverted, ridiculous “Jesus” movies was produced which pictured Jesus Christ as a disturbed young man, searching for His identity! According to the perverted story, He was constantly wrestling with inner conflicts; did not know His true place in life! But God’s word is clear that Christ KNEW of His pre-existent state with His Father! He said to the Jews, “…before Abraham was I AM!”

“And supper being ended [“during supper” according to all other translations; the Ivan Panin; Schofield, RSV, Critical Commentary, etc.], the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him;

“Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God;

“He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.

“After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

“Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?

“Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.

“Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.

“Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

“Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.

“For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.

“So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

“Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.

“If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.

“For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you” (John 13:1-15). Jesus did not say that Peter should wash the other’s feet, or that Peter should wash one person’s feet as in a pompous ceremony! No, he said they should WASH ONE ANOTHER’S feet!

Now, WHEN?

The disciples did not immediately turn around and begin to wash one another’s feet that same night! No, Christ had set them an example that, when the next Passover season arrived, they were to emulate what He had done! He had set them an EXAMPLE, and commanded them to DO as he had done unto them!

Notice further, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.

“If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:16, 17). Do you know of any churches who practice the Christ-ordered custom of foot washing when the time of the Lord’s supper arrives? I do. There are several; all of them Sabbath-keeping churches who believe in God’s word; His laws; the annual Sabbaths and Holy Days, and who believe Christ meant it when he said, “This DO as I have done unto you.”

The very first opportunity Christ’s disciples would have had to imitate Christ in the foot washing ceremony would have been the following year!

Now, notice what else transpired at that last supper: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26). It is immediately obvious that Christ was indicating that the bread was symbolic of His body. Misguided men have tried to infer from this very obvious example some “mystery” (as God’s prophets warned they would _ turning the truth into a “mystery” religion!) wherein the bread actually became the body of Christ! The doctrine of “transubstantiation” is utterly false!

“And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;

“For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

“But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.

“And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives” (Matthew 26:26-30).

Never before in history had such a thing occurred. In this entirely NEW and UNIQUE supper, Jesus Christ pointed to the unleavened bread as symbolic of His body, which was to be “broken” (no bones were broken; He was severely beaten, with deep lashes, and a spear wound) and the wine, as a symbol of His blood, which would be shed for the sins of all mankind.

This supper occurred approximately 17 to 24 hours BEFORE the killing of the Passover lambs!

Now, let’s trace the activities of Jesus Christ during the final six days prior to the Passover.

You read of Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem commencing with Luke 19:1-28, where He met Zacchaeus, told him He would stay with him that night. and delivered the parable of the pounds (Luke 19:1-10). We read, “And when He had thus spoken [the parable of the pounds] He went before, ascending up to Jerusalem” (Luke 19:28). At this point, it is necessary to shift to Matthew’s account (Matthew 21:1-7) and read of Jesus’ instructions to His disciples concerning the colt He would ride in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. All these events took place on the sixth day before the Passover, which would have been the ninth day of Nisan, corresponding to our Thursday sunset to Friday sunset.

After His cleansing of the temple (Matthew 21:12-16) He returns to Bethany that night (Matthew 21:17; John 12:1).

“Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead” (John 12:1). The following day, Jesus spent the Sabbath in Bethany, and after sunset that evening (which would have been our Friday sunset, the fifth day before the Passover, which would have been the tenth day of Nisan), the first of three suppers occurred, very likely at the house of Lazarus. On this occasion, we read (John 12:2-8) of how Mary anointed His feet.

On the next day, Jesus starts from Bethany toward Jerusalem, is met by a large multitude, weeps over the city, and enters the temple. (See Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; John 12:12-19.)

All of these events took place on the fourth day before the Passover, the eleventh of Nisan, corresponding to our Saturday sunset to Sunday sunset.

The following morning, the third day before the Passover, the twelfth of Nisan, corresponding to our Sunday sunset to Monday sunset, Jesus returned to Jerusalem, cursed the fig tree as an example to the disciples of the penalties for the lack of bearing fruit (Matthew 21:18-22) and enters the temple.

“And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves; and would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And He taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, my house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? But ye have made it a den of thieves.”

This so outraged the priests and the scribes that they “…sought how they might destroy Him: for they feared Him, because all the people was astonished at His doctrine.

“And when even was come, He went out of the city” (Mark 11:12-19).

Probably, Jesus returned to Bethany after departing Jerusalem on this occasion.

The next day was the second day before the Passover, the thirteenth of Nisan, corresponding to our Monday sunset to Tuesday sunset.

“And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.

“And Peter calling to remembrance saying unto Him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.

“And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

“For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

“Therefore I say unto you, What things so ever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

“But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

“And they come again to Jerusalem: and as He was walking in the temple, there come to Him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders” (Mark 11:20-27).

See also Matthew 21:23-29 and Luke 20, the entire chapter, and Luke 21:4-38 for additional details of this second day before the Passover.

It is during this day that Jesus delivers His two great prophecies, commencing with the first, in the temple (Luke 21:5-36) and continuing with His second great “Olivet Prophecy” delivered on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24:1-51).

We are clearly told “And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these “sayings [the Olivet Prophecy and His warnings of Matthew 25] He said unto His disciples, Ye know that after two days is [the feast of] the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified” (Matthew 26:1, 2).

The events of this one day fill many pages, including the 26th and 27th chapters of Matthew, the 14th and 15th chapters of Mark, and Luke 22 and 23, together with John 13 through the 19th chapter.

We begin with the account of Judas’ betrayal and the preparation for the last supper.

“Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priest, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him” (Matthew 26:14-16).

Mark’s account (Mark 14:10, 11) is almost identical. At this point, it is necessary to remember that by the time of Jesus Christ the custom of searching through Jewish homes for the slightest bit of leavening “in preparation” for the Passover which commenced on the fourteenth of Nisan, became to be called, in common usage, “the first of the unleavened,” even though it was not in fact one of the SEVEN Days of Unleavened Bread. Since it was the day of the search for leaven, and the putting out of leavening from each home, it came to be referred to as the “first of the unleavened.” Also, the term “Passover” had developed into far broader usage than its original implications.

As you have seen, the original “Passover” was a unique historical EVENT. It was the “passing over” of the Israelites by the death angel who slew the first born of Pharaoh.

However, the term became attached to the ceremony itself, including the killing of the lamb.

Eventually, it became attached to the entire season, embodying the preliminary search for leavening, the putting of leavening out of one’s home, the paschal supper, or pesach, and all seven days of unleavened bread.

This is indicated in Luke’s account of Judas’ betrayal. “Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is CALLED the Passover” (Luke 22:1). In spite of the fact that the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover were two distinct occasions, general collective language had long since come in usage.

The apostle John’s lengthy account of Jesus’ famous last supper is unique among the four gospels.

You may read the parallel accounts in Matthew 26:26-29 and Mark 14:22-25.

For a thorough understanding of the events during the entire “preparation day,” the fourteenth of Nisan, or the day before the Passover, look up and read the following scriptures:

Events During the Last Day Before the Passover Nisan 14th-“The Preparation Day” (John 19:31) The Day of Jesus’ Death

(Corresponds to our Tuesday sunset to Wednesday sunset)*

Judas’ plot to betray Christ:
Matthew 26:14-16, Mark 14:10, 11, Luke 22:1-6

“Preparation” for Last Supper:
Matthew 26:17-19, Mark 14:12-16, Luke 22:7-13

“The even was come”; plot for betrayal:
Matthew 26:20, Mark 14:17

The last supper; foot washing:
John 13:1-20

Announcement of betrayal:
Matthew 26:21-25, Mark 14:18-21, John 13:21-30

Supper eaten; “New Covenant” proposed: bread and wine instituted:
Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:14-23

First prophecy of Peter’s denials:
John 13:31-38

Strife over greatest:
Luke 22:24-30

Second prophecy of Peter’s denials:
Luke 22:31-34

They go to Gethsemane:
Matthew 26:30-35, Mark 14:26-29, Luke 22:39, John 18:1

Third prophecy of Peter’s denials:
Mark 14:30-31

Agony in garden:
Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:40-46

Christ arrested:
Matthew 26:47-56, Mark 14:43-50, Luke 22:47-54, John 18:2-11

Lazarus escapes:
Mark 14:51, 52

Trials – all through Tuesday night:
Matthew 26:57; 27:31, Mark 14:53; 15:19, Luke 22:54; 23:25, John 18:12; 19:13

“Sixth hour” (our Tuesday midnight) Pilate’s speech: “Behold your king.”
John 19:14, 15

Christ led away to be killed:
Matthew 27:31-34, Mark 15:20-23, Luke 23:26-31, John 19:16, 17

Discussion with Pilate about inscriptions:
John 19:19-22

Dividing of garments:
Matthew 27:35-37, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, John 19:23-34

“It was the third hour and they crucified Him” (Our 9:00 a.m. Wednesday)
Mark 15:25, 26

“The sixth hour” (our Wednesday noon) and darkness:
Matthew 27:45-49, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44, 45

“The ninth hour” (our Wednesday 3:00 p.m.) Christ cries out, dies on stake.
Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:34-37, Luke 23:46, John 19:28-30

Many subsequent events:
Matthew 27:51-56, Mark 15:38-41, Luke 23:47-49, John 19:31-37

Christ buried IN HASTE, BEFORE SUNSET (our Wednesday about 6:00 p.m.) BEFORE THE “HIGH DAY” (The first day of unleavened bread, an annual Sabbath); our Wednesday sunset:
Matthew 27:57-66, Mark 15:42-47, Luke 23:50-56, John 19:31-42

*After Bullinger’s Companion Bible, Ap.156, 157, 158.

Now, review what you have learned. As is clear from the Bible, they were making haste to complete the burial of Jesus Christ prior to the beginning of the “high day” Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread! (John 18:31). This annual Sabbath, the first day of Unleavened Bread, fell on the fifteenth day of Nisan, and corresponded to our Wednesday sunset to Thursday sunset.

This was the first night and the first day during which Jesus lay in the tomb!

There is every reason to believe that the Passover lambs were being sacrificed at the very moment Christ died! Since Christ IS “our Passover who was sacrificed for us,” and knowing the manner in which God always does things ON TIME, it completes the perfect typical picture; Christ, uttering His last words just as the High Priest slays the first of the Paschal lambs!

Dr. Bullinger’s Companion Bible says, “It follows, therefore, that the Lord being crucified on `the preparation day’ could not have eaten of the Passover lamb, which was not slain until the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan (i.e., afternoon). On that day the daily sacrifice was killed at the sixth hour (noon) and offered until about the seventh hour (1:00 p.m.). The killing of the Passover lambs began directly afterwards. Thus it is clear, that if the killing of the Passover lambs did not commence until about four hours after our Lord had been hanging upon the cross (sic), and would not have been concluded at the ninth hour (3:00 p.m.) when He `gave up the ghost’ (i.e., expired); no `Passover lamb’ could have been eaten at the `last supper’ on the previous evening.”

It is an irrefutable FACT of scripture that the “high day” of John 19:31 was the FIRST DAY OF THE FEAST! That day HAD to fall on the fifteenth of Nisan, according to the scriptures!

The second day of the feast, the sixteenth day of Nisan, corresponding to our Thursday sunset to Friday sunset was the second night and second day in the tomb. The third day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was the weekly Sabbath, the seventeenth day of Nisan, corresponding exactly to our Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, and represents the third night and third day in the tomb!

Since Christ was buried very late on that Wednesday afternoon, exactly three nights and three days later would bring us to very late on the afternoon of the weekly Sabbath or “the third day” of Matthew 16:21, and succeeding verses.

The following morning, according to the scriptures, the women came to the sepulchre “while it was yet dark,” and “…as it BEGAN to dawn toward the first of the week” (Matthew 28:1), and found Jesus was already gone.

Notice! “On the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

“Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.

“Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.

“So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.

“And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.

“Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,

“And the napkin, that was about His head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

“Then went in also the other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.

“For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.

“Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

“But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

“And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

“And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.

“And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.

“Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.

“Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:1-17).

Luke’s account says, “Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.

“And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

“And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

“And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they saith unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

“He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee,

“Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

“And they remembered His words,

“And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest” (Luke 24:1-9).

Again, you see that while it was yet dark on Sunday morning Jesus Christ was already risen! He did NOT rise on “Easter” Sunday morning; it was not yet sunrise, but still quite dark, and the tomb was empty!

Notice Matthew’s account: “In the end of the Sabbath [the word for Sabbath is Sabbaton, with a plural ending, and should better be rendered “Sabbaths,” to include both the high day Sabbath, the fifteenth of Nisan, or the first Day of Unleavened Bread and the weekly Sabbath which fell two days later!], as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

“And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

“His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.

“And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

“And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

“He is not here: for He is risen [this is past tense: He had already been resurrected many hours earlier], as He said [and what He SAID was that He would be three days and three nights in the tomb!], Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

“And go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you.

“And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring His disciples word” (Matthew 28:1-8).

The angel said “He is not here, for He IS RISEN!” That was a past act, an accomplished fact, something which had already happened! Of course! He had actually risen from His tomb in the very late afternoon of the previous day, “as He said!” (verse 6).

The “Easter sunrise” tradition is wholly false! It is PAGAN to the core; a carry-over from ancient sun-worship, deliberately superimposed over the real TRUTH of God about Christ’s last days as a human being; obfuscating the ONLY SIGN He said He would leave succeeding generations—that sign being the length of time He would be in the tomb! By rejecting that SIGN, they reject the REAL Jesus Christ!

Jesus Christ IS The Passover!

Christ has become the Passover. He IS the Passover. Therefore, when we partake of the symbols He instituted of His broken body and shed blood, we are not keeping the Old Covenant Passover. We are IMBIBING OF THE SYMBOLS OF CHRIST’S DEATH! Paul wrote, “Purge out therefore the old leaven [spiritually], that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened [physically]. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us:

“Therefore let us keep the feast [of Unleavened Bread!], not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:7, 8).

This powerful statement was written to the GENTILE church in Corinth, approximately THIRTY YEARS after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ! These were not “Jews.” Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, not the Jews! Unless this passage was read DURING THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, it is in direct contradiction within its own words! He could not have chided them so vigorously about being “puffed up” spiritually (1 Corinthians 4:6, 18, 19; 5:2) and then said “as ye are unleavened,” unless he had meant they were observing the Days of Unleavened Bread! He was urging them to become unleavened spiritually, just as they HAD already become unleavened physically!

God commanded Israel to eat unleavened bread for the seven days of the feast. There is rich, CHRIST-centered meaning in doing so. Notice! “Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I AM THE LIVING BREAD which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world… Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day [this is obvious symbolism], For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him” (John 6:44-58).

This was such a “hard saying” that many of His disciples LEFT Christ!

They had never heard such language! They were offended! Christ turned to Peter and asked if he would leave also. Peter said “Lord to whom shall we go? THOU hast the words of eternal life!” (John 6:68).

When Christ indicated that the bread and the wine were symbolic of His body and blood, He initiated a ceremony absolutely UNIQUE in all history! His “Last supper” with His disciples was NOT the Jewish Passover, as you have seen proved, but a completely UNIQUE occasion; a NEW Testament ceremony, instituted by Christ Himself! In includes the foot-washing ceremony, together with the partaking of the deeply symbolic bread and wine.

When we partake of this completely NEW TESTAMENT ceremony we do not look back in history beyond the time of Christ. We look to the time of HIS DEATH—NOT to the ancient exodus and the captivity in Egypt, except as interesting history and background.

Jesus Christ instituted a NEW TESTAMENT CEREMONY! He had that right! He had that authority! He said, “This DO as I have done unto you!”

Paul told the Gentile Corinthians, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread:

“And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

“After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till He come.

“Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

“But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.

“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:23-30). The term “unworthily” does not refer to the character of present spiritual condition of penitent believers who partake of the bread and wine. Instead, it refers to the abominable disgraces being committed by some in Corinth, who were turning the “Lord’s supper” into a Baccanalian orgy of sorts; stuffing themselves with food, and even drinking enough to become drunk! Paul wrote, “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

“When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.

“For in eating every one taketh before other [on a “first come, first served” basis, some were gluttons, leaving no food for late comers]his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.

“What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not” (1 Corinthians 11:19-22). This was what Paul meant by partaking of the Lord’s supper “unworthily.” It had nothing to do with whether or not we, as Christians, feel “worthy” to partake of such solemn and meaningful symbols, for not one of us could ever become “worthy” of a single drop of Christ’s shed blood on our own strength.

God’s church has known from the first century that these symbols of His broken body and shed blood are to be received at precisely the same time Jesus Christ instituted them—on the BEGINNING of the fourteenth of Nisan!

Following Christ’s example and commands, God’s church gathers together on the beginning of the fourteenth of Nisan, after the sun has set and the thirteenth day is over, in a solemn service traditionally (and erroneously) called “The Passover.” The term, while a misnomer, has been carried over through the years. Actually, it is NOT “the Passover,” since Christ HAS BECOME our “Passover” which has been sacrificed for us!

Every True Christian Will Observe The Lord’s Supper

Surely there is no ceremony during the course of the year that is any more important than the LORD’S SUPPER! It is that one annual festival which symbolizes, more than any other, the very WAY TO SALVATION! Without the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ; without our deepest repentance, and the humble, grateful acceptance of Christ’s shed blood to atone for our own sins, we cannot be saved!

By our reaffirmation each year of our acceptance of His broken body and shed blood, we continually reconfirm our faith in Jesus Christ, and in Him ALONE, for salvation! If you truly expect to enter into the soon-coming, glorious kingdom of Almighty God; if you hope to be one of those who will live and reign with Christ for one thousand years on this earth (Revelation 20:4; 5:10) then you need to KEEP THE LORD’S SUPPER year by year.

We have a MERCIFUL God! He says, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:13). This year, and every year of your remaining sojurn on this earth in this human flesh, you need to partake of the symbols of the body and blood of your Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is your soon-coming KING!

For information about “Passover” (Lord’s Supper) services this year with others of God’s people, either in one of our chartered churches, or unchartered fellowship groups, call or write to us about the services closest to your home.

For those who cannot meet with other brethren because of health or distance, we can provide you with instructions on how to keep the Passover in your own home. For those hosted fellowship groups who do not have a minister present, please ask for a videotape of the Passover services.

May God inspire you to submit to Him in humble obedience and deep gratitude as you partake of the symbols of your Savior’s sacrifice each year!

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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

The activities of the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association are paid for by tithes, offerings and donations freely given by Christians and co-workers who are dedicated to preaching the gospel according to Jesus Christ.

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