Reminder: In this series I am reminding readers of basic Biblical Truths about which I have previously written in much greater depth.  In this “Dirty Dozen Reminder” series I provide the basic Truths about 12 deadly weapons in Satan’s armory with which he controls the Catholic/Protestant Church System.  Let us continue this expose’ in which I expose, in miniature form, a dozen of the “truths” upon which he has built the Catholic/Protestant Church System.

(8) EASTER:  Of all of the heathen holidays celebrated by professing Christendom, three stand out above the rest: the Sunday Sabbath, Christmas and Easter.  In reality, Christmas and Easter are conjoined in that they involve a mother and child combination that has been worshiped by billions of salvation seekers over thousands of years.  The child’s Biblical name is Tammuz (Eze. 8:14) who, as the prophet tells us, was the (sun) god of fallen Israel during one of her most sinful periods of apostasy.  This is the same god worshiped and served by the modern church which gathers weekly on his day to pay homage to him in his citadels of sin.  The church also congregates annually in honor of him on his birthday–Dec. 25).  Later in the year they gather to pay homage to his mother (Simiramus) whose name in English is Easter.

In the series titled The Easter Deception (key word–Deception) I go into much Biblical and secular depth in tracing the origin and effects of the celebration which the church borrowed from the world of heathenism–the source of many of her beliefs and customs.  Easter came to be a “Christian” observance during the heyday of the Holy Roman Empire.  The “holy” title was added because the Roman government, headed by Constantine, its supposedly “saved” emperor, provided the muscle to force everyone in the empire to “convert” to Catholicism at the point of a sword.  A number of heathen religions existed within the empire at the time of the mass “conversion.” In order to keep peace within the church, they were allowed to bring with them their religions and gods which were were then incorporated into the church’s catechisms.  These heathen beliefs and gods were given Biblical names in order to be appear legitimate.  This proved not to be a problem because people in the church were denied access to the Holy Scriptures.  Being ignorant of God’s Truth, whatever their leaders told them was assumed to be Scriptural.  When it was no longer possible to hide God’s Truth from the masses due to the invention of the printing press, the church was forced to create its own version of His Word.  This presented no problem in that she simply attached the Lord’s name to it and called it “truth.”  One of her primary doctrines concerned the celebration of Ashtoreth (1 Ki. 11:5,33), the goddess of the ancient Zidonians whose spiritual descendants gave her a variety of names depending on the group involved.  In the Western world she came to be known as Easter.

Historical evidence reveals that worship of the “Goddess of Fertility” was being celebrated by numerous heathen societies hundreds of years before the time of Christ.  Many ancient civilizations annually paid homage to their respective “Queen of Heaven,” which is a perversion of the Lord’s commanded celebration of Passover, which His people continue to observe each year during the Spring solstice.  It was none other than Roman Emperor Constantine who changed the celebration from Passover to Easter and declared that it would always be observed on Sunday, which he called “The venerable day of the sun (god).”  However, for the first 294 years of church history God’s saints observed Passover.  At the Nicean Counsel in 325 A.D. the emperor officially changed God’s commanded observance of the death and resurrection of His Son (Passover) to a heathen celebration in honor of the goddess of fertility whose bastard son (Tammuz, the sun god) visited them each December 25th bearing gifts which he placed beneath a tree standing in their homes.  Nothing has changed.  Religious people continue to bow to the mother and son duo each year on their respective holidays.

Over the centuries the observance of Easter has remained one of professing Christendom’s most popular pagan rituals.  The celebration in honor of the goddess was not restricted to any particular location, nor was she called by a common name.  Anciently, the sex queen was known as Isis (Egypt), Athens (Greece), Minerva (Egypt and Greece), Diana (Ephesus), Cybele (Rome), and Ashtoreth (Palestine).  Today, many worshipers observe Satan’s exaltation of his multi-breasted goddess with the same dedication as did their ancestors.  In our Biblical ignorance, many of us (myself included) attended “sunrise services” on Easter morning instead of observing God’s commanded Passover.  Revelation 12:9 tells us why: “Satan has deceived the whole world.”

Satan’s power over professing Christendom was evidenced when, in 1582, he persuaded the church to add 10 days to the Julian calendar in order to make pagan Easter and Jesus’ resurrection take place on the same day–Sunday, the apostate church’s Sabbath.  “Good Friday” was also concocted in order to placate the church’s numerous Tammuz worshipers who insisted on observing the day of his death.  His miraculous resurrection supposedly took place the following Sunday.  Nothing has changed.  The Counterfeit Church has Jesus dying on late Friday and rising early Sunday–one day and two nights later.  Jesus said 13 times that He would be in the grave THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS.  According to those within professing Christendom, He lied 13 times.  And this is the One Who supposedly saved them?  Question: who worships a lying god?  Answer: the Counterfeit (Catholic/Protestant) Church.

The glorification of Easter and other heathen holidays persists in spite of God’s Words found in Deuteronomy 12:30: “Watch yourself so that you are not deceived into following them (the heathen) ….  Everything they do is an abomination.”  In Colossians 2:8 that same God warns us: “Beware lest any man deceive you through philosophy and vain deception and cause you to follow after the tradition of men and  … the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”  In 1 Corinthians 10:11 He reminds us that those things that were done by the Israelites of old, along with His reaction to them, were recorded “… for our (the church’s) instruction.”  Let us study, believe and obey His Instruction Book while totally rejecting the “rudiments (“truths”) of (church) men.”  L.J.