Pagan History of Easter
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And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
Introduction:
In a week we will be celebrating passion week. It is the week that starts Sunday with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It is the week in which he gives what seems to be his final discourses before his arrest, death, burial, and resurrection. It is the same week in which the Passover will be celebrated. Jesus died, and three days later he rises again from the dead.
In our church we call it “Resurrection Sunday” many other churches and the world recognizes it as Easter. But what exactly is Easter and furthermore what does Easter have to do with Jesus? What is the deal with the Easter Bunny? What does the easter bunny have to do with Jesus’ resurrection because there are no scriptural references. Finally, what is the deal with the eggs? Why do we color them, and why do we buy easter baskets, furthermore why do we have easter egg hunts?
I. Mesopotamia History.
a. Well, to find out we need to look around 5,000 BC around Mesopotamia, in particular Nineveh. Yeah, that same city that God sent Jonah to to preach repentance. The same city that repented for a short season and turned around and fell back into sin and was destroyed.
b. The Mesopotamians served many gods. Remember that Abraham himself was from Ur and God called Abraham out from amongst his kindred and from his dwelling place to a place in which he would show Him. Abraham himself probably served many gods, but the ONE TRUE GOD audibly spoke to Abraham and Abraham instantly knew that it was one God. God was not only calling him out from amongst his kindred folk, from the place in which he reside, he was calling Abraham out of idolatry in order to bring mankind back to the worship of the one true God.
c. I taught a series last year about Noah and how Noah was an upright man, the LORD sent the flood because the wickedness of man was great in the earth, yet God saved Noah and his family. Yet, the Bible never mentioned that Noah’s family was upright, his sons (Japheth, Shem, and Ham) his daughter-in-laws, his grandchildren. After the flood, God told Noah and his family “to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” Yet with the replenishing of the earth, sin continued and mankind fell back into the worship of gods and false deities.
d. And the scriptures declare in Deut 32:17:
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God,
to gods they had not known before,
to new gods only recently arrived,
to gods their ancestors had never feared.
2. The Parthenon of gods.
a. Alright so if the scriptures says that they sacrificed unto demons, then the gods that they were worshipping were either actual demons, or the demons influenced them by false doctrine and deceit to take their worship off of the one true God to imaginary gods. Be patient, because I’m building a case here.
b. So in Mesopotamia or Sumeria there were many gods, Tammuz, Sin, Enill, Anu, but there is one goddess that is considered to be one of the oldest known goddess that mankind falsely worshipped by the name of Ishtar.
c. From Sumeria spread poly-theism (what is polytheism? Ans: worship of many gods). And many of these gods were adopted by other cultures, sometimes the images were changed, sometimes the name changed but it was still the same god.
3. The goddess Ishtar.
a. Ishtar was one of the most famous goddesses known to the heathen world.
b. She was the goddess of love, war, and fertility. Underline that last word fertility.
c. The people would worship her by going into her temple and having sex with temple prostitues in exchange for money, for food, or for some other favor. We see the same thing going on in our society today. People having sex, to get position, to gain fame, having sex with people for money, to have their bills payed, to get nice clothes, to get the acting job, to get on the network television stations…..the WORSHIP OF ISHTAR IS ALIVE AND WELL AND THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT ARE HERE IN PRESENT DAY SOCIETY THAT ARE KNOWINGLY DOING IT AND SOME THAT ARE UNKNOWNINGLY DOING IT.
d. Yes Sister, if he require to have sex with you to pay your mortgage, to buy your clothes, to pay for your car…..you are participating in the same rituals that was used to worship the goddess Ishtar.
e. This ritualistic behavior is just scratching the surface of idol worship. There are other things and ways of debauchery that went on in the worship of these false deities.
4. The many names of Ishtar.
a. Again, many regions had many gods but they were all usually the same and or adapted to their own culture. For instance the god Anu who was the chief god of heaven is equal to Zeus in the Greek culture.
b. Ishtar had many names, let me add….these gods are what the Sumerians called the Anunnaki. I want to present a theory. Remember that the sons of God had relation with children of men and they produced offspring that were giants right? Men of renown power, what they call in greek culture demigods. Half human half divine, IF the sons of God are fallen angels and they have relations with humans, then you have an offspring that is half human half spiritual beings. Now when we think of giants, we think of the sons of Anak. But if they had children, it could have been that they had male and female. Hope you’re following me. So if we connect what Deut 32:17 says, what if they were worshipping these half human half demon entities? AHHHHHH. This is a theory, but I believe it is a good theory…..I’m sorry that I’m going so cerebral tonight but I tend to think like this from time to time. Something to research and discuss.
c. So what if one of the Anunnaki (giants) was named Inanna who is also named Ishtar? And Ishtar is associated with some well known names in the Bible such as Ashtroth, Asarte, in the roman culture Venus, in the Greek culture Aphrodite, Aster, Ostara, and in the anglo-saxon culture Eostre.
d. What does that have to do with anything? I don’t have time to tell you the long story so let me give you the short story. Ishtar died and went to a the nether-regions, but she was resurrected and brought back to life around the time of the spring equinox. I said she died and was brought back to life around the time of the spring equinox. Spring was considered a time of new life, the flowers die and come back, animals who have been in hibernation come out of hibernation and start reproducing. So to celebrate this phenomena they came up with a name to celebrate this goddess and the name of the holiday is called “Easter”.
e. So what they would do, is get eggs and paint them bright vivid colors because the eggs represent reproduction and life. Because Ishtar or Eostre or whatever you want to call her IS the goddess of love, war, and fertility. They would present their children with these painted eggs and in another culture they tied on to the tradition a bunny. Because if you known anything about a bunny, you can see one bunny in your neighborhood and then you’ll have 10 of those little jokers running around because they reproduce at a high rate.
5. So now we have implemented pagan practices into the worship and celebration of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection when in all actually, THE BUNNY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JESUS, THE EASTER EGGS AND THE EASTER EGG HUNTS DO NOT CELEBRATE JESUS…..IT CELEBRATES A PAGAN DIETY. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A HUNT WHY WON’T YOU COLOR SOME CROSSES AND HID THOSE, GET RID OF THE EASTER BUNNY,
BECAUSE THE LORD SAID I WILL NOT GIVE MY GLORY TO ANOTHER.
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
Saints of God, there has to be a difference between what is holy and what is profane, a difference between what is clean and unclean.
The problem for many years and centuries is that the church has been plagued with the problem of not influencing the world, but allowing the world to influence us. So in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries what does the church do? They take pagan holidays, and they build on top of those holidays and then call it Christian holidays, but they keep all of the stuff that the pagans do!!!!
That’s like being delivered from witchcraft or satanic worship, but you still keep stuff involving it. NO!!! YOU HAVE TO LET GO OF THAT STUFF…..BECAUSE WHEN YOU ARE IN THE CHURCH GOD CALLS YOU OUT OF THAT STUFF!!! HE CALLS YOU OUT OF THE WORLD!
HE DID NOT CALL US TO ADOPT THE WORLD’S POINT OF VIEW, HE DID NOT CALLS US TO SPEAK LIKE THE WORLD SPEAK OR TO DRESS LIKE THE WORLD DRESS, HE DID NOT CALL US TO TWERK AND DANCE LIKE THE WORLD DANCES. WHEN GOD TRULY SAVES YOU, YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT STUFF!!!
I SAID WHEN GOD REALLY SAVES AND YOUR REALIZE HOW FAR FROM GOD YOU WERE, AND HOW ENTRENCHED IN SIN YOU WERE, AND HOW MISERABLE AND UNDONE YOU WERE, A SINNER ON YOUR WAY TO THE LAKE OF FIRE…..YOU WILL RUN AWAY FROM THE VERY APPEARANCE OF EVIL!!!
JOB WAS AN UPRIGHT MAN AND A MAN THE ESCHEWED EVIL….HE RAN AWAY FROM IT. YOU’LL RUN AWAY FROM THE ALCOHOL, YOU’LL RUN AWAY FROM THE MUSIC THEY USE TO PLAY IN THE CLUB BECAUSE IT REMINDS YOU OF YOUR SINFUL LIFE AND YOU DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO IT!!!
Let me make this point, the way that Satan gets us, is that he presents us with things that same so innocence “it’s okay for you to do this, it won’t hurt for you to do this”. It’s okay for you to have easter egg hunts.
6. When we celebrate next week, it doesn’t have nothing to do with the spring equinox, I can care less about it. You can take your Easter Eggs elsewhere, you can melt all the chocolate easter bunnies, and easter isn’t about waking up and getting an easter basket either. Has nothing to do with that. For the true believer, we celebrate that Jesus died and rose again from the dead. He died and rose again to show those who celebrate this pagan goddess a way out of their demonic darkness. He died and rose again so that your sins can be forgiven you. I’m okay with celebrating the Passover, because Jesus was my passover lamb and the passover pointed to him. So if we going to celebrate anything, yeah….I encourage you to celebrate the passover because when they put the blood on the lintel and the posts it formed a cross because the blood dripped from the top of the lintel to the ground. And because we have believed on Jesus we have passed from death to life, because the LORD said “When I see the blood…..I will pass over.”
7. Don’t let the eggs distract you, don’t let the easter bunny get your mind off what this weekend is suppose to be about. Notice every holiday that has to do with Jesus has some figure or something that tries to detract away from the fact of what Jesus has done for us. Find something better to do than to do a pagan easter egg hunt, find something better to do than to give your child an easter basket, give them a gift and when they ask you why they received you tell them because this day Jesus rose again from the dead! Sit down and have a meal and fellowship with your family and thank the LORD that Jesus rose again…..and celebrate it!
8. We want to go ALL out for Christmas…..don’t get me started on that one either. We want to go in debt, raise Christmas trees, put a thousand gifts under the Christmas tree and our children are ignorant of the fact that Christmas ain’t about the tree, it is not the gift, because the greatest gift was lying in a manger almost 2,000 years ago. We go all out for Christmas, but when it comes to Resurrection Day we want to skimp and treat it like a little special Sunday. It ain’t about your new suit, your new dress. If JESUS HADN’T GOT UP YOU’D STILL BE IN YOUR SINS…..AND YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU CAN’T CELEBRATE? YOU CAN’T CELEBRATE THE FACT THAT ON A THURSDAY…..YEAH I SAID THURSDAY…..THEY CALL IT GOOD FRIDAY….BUT IF YOU UNDERSTOOD SCRIPTURE CORRECTLY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AGAINST THE LAW FOR JESUS TO BE KILLED ON THE PASSOVER. HE WAS KILLED ON THE DAY OF PREPARATION NISAN 14. Well pastor my bible says Friday……it was a misinterpretation. What the writer was really protraying is that Jesus died on a Thursday afternoon, they had to get him off the cross before sunset because when the sunset THEN it was Friday. This is why I have instituted that we have Holy Communion on Thursday….not Friday. I mean we could do it on Friday, but I want to celebrate on the day he died. The Last Supper was issued on what we call Wednesday night but what would have actually been to the Jews Thursday night. Otherwise the scripture and prophecy that Jesus said in Matt 12:40
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.
If Jesus died on a Friday you don’t get three days and three nights. And this is a tool that unbelievers use to get us to doubt the legitimacy of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Then they point to the one scripture that said “it was a Friday” because they incorrectly interpet scripture. Therefore if Jesus died on a Friday, then he lied in Matt 12:40 and if Jesus lied about when he was going to be resurrected he sinned, and if Jesus sinned he was not a perfect sacrifice and we are still in our sins.
So yeah, I cringe when I hear people say he died on a Friday. LIAR.
I cringe when I hear people use the word Easter. Because Easter has NOTHING to do with Jesus!