Tag: Christianity

Easter

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The word “Easter” is often the first casualty in the war over holiday origins. For nearly 200 years, a “Rogues’ Gallery” of myth-makers—from the sectarian Alexander Hislop to the nationalist Brothers Grimm—has claimed the word is a “baptized” pagan goddess.
👉 The evidence says otherwise.
⭐ 1. The Translation:
When the Gospel reached the English and Germanic tribes, they faced a choice: adopt the Latin Pascha or translate the concept into their own tongue. While the Franks rolled over and became Romanized (giving us the French Pâques), the Saxons stood their ground. They didn’t keep a goddess that didn’t exist; they translated a reality.
* The Event: The Resurrection.
* The Season: The period of the “Rising Sun” or “Early Dawn.”  It was a reference to the season of the year when the dawn started earlier each day.
* The Word: Easter (Old English: Eastron) which comes from the ancient German word for east / dawn, ōstarūn.  It has zero connection to any verifiable pagan German goddess and absolutely nothing to do with Ishtar the Babylonian goddess of war and prostitutes.
⭐ 2. The “Ishtar” Phonetic Trap:
The claim that “Easter” comes from the Babylonian “Ishtar” is a 19th-century fabrication (aka A LIE) by Alexander Hislop (1807-1865) and popularized by the bonafide heretic and cult leader, Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986).

The claim relies on a sketchy phonetic coincidence that ignores 3,000 miles of geography and entirely different language families. It is the historical equivalent of claiming a “Car” is named after a “Cartoon,” or a baseball “bat” is named after a flying mammal.
⭐ 3. The “Goddess” Ghost:
The only historical mention of a goddess named Eostre comes from a single sentence by the monk Bede in 725 AD. Bede was a brilliant scholar, but he was “filling in the gaps” by speculation based on the naming conventions of Julian calendar.
* The Absolute Zero Reality:
There are zero altars, zero inscriptions, and zero mentions of this goddess in any other Germanic territory (Gothic, Norse, or Frankish).
* The Linguistic Proof:
Every Germanic language uses the root Austr- to mean “East” or “Dawn.” The Goths in Eastern Europe were using this root 400 years before Bede was born. It is a compass point, not a cult.
⭐ 4. A Reformation Before the Reformation:
Using the word Easter was the opening salvo in a 1,300-year struggle to worship God in the common tongue. By refusing to use the Latin Pascha, the Saxons asserted that the Resurrection belonged to their language and their identity as believers.
👉 The Verdict:
Those who call Easter “Pagan,”  aren’t debunking a myth; they are repeating propaganda from the lies of Hislop to the dechristianization attempts of the Nazis to the invention of hippie nature paganism that has little resemblance to the actual dark Celtic paganism it claims to follow.

BTW: bunnies and eggs have nothing to do with ancient fertility symbols.  They come from Germanic folk traditions.  The claim  they come from Babylon is just flat out make believe. 

Eggs were forbidden during lent.  Hard boiling them was part of the process to preserve them.  Coloring them was to help in identifying them and as a way to celebrate the end of the fast.  And that ancient statue people claim has “eggs” all over its chest isn’t Ishtar but the unrelated goddess, Artemis of Ephesus.  Those aren’t eggs but bull testes.

The first mention of the The “Easter Hare”  appears in 1682 in a German medical dissertation by Georg Franck von Franckenau. He describes it as a local folk myth. It has no connection to any ancient goddess.

The Neo-pagan claims that eggs and bunnies are their ancient fertility symbols is a modern fabrication.  They took non-religous add-ons and claimed them as their own.  To be clear, modern nature paganism compared to ancient Celtic paganism is a bigger stretch than claiming New Coke tasted exactly the same as Coke Classic. The original “dark” paganism was a world of blood-oaths and sacrifice; the modern version is a romanticized “nature-vibe” built on 19th-century myths.

👉 Easter isn’t a pagan holdout or rebranding. It is a Saxon Declaration of Independence in the fight to worship God in one’s own language and not the language of Rome (Latin).
________________
⭐ Technical Note for the Curious:
The spelling Easterne (as found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and the Old High German Ōstarūn share a plural suffix. This indicates that “Easter” wasn’t a person, but a season of dawns—the time of year when the light finally overtakes the darkness. It is the perfect linguistic match for the Resurrection.

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Islam

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She ain’t wrong.

Wake up, we need a Great Awakening.

Francis Asbury

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As a frail 71-year-old preacher laid on the table behind the pulpit, he preached his last sermon. Too weak to stand, he was carried into the Methodist church in Richmond, Virginia. It was March 24, 1816. Though weakened in health, he spoke for an hour with an unmistakable quiet authority. The congregants were rapt with every word as they perceived the magnitude of the moment. The Prophet of the Long Road was nearing the end of a remarkable journey. 

Fittingly, he preached on Romans 9:28, “For he will finish the work…”

For forty-five years he faithfully ministered in a country not his own. Yet this man sent by John Wesley left family and loved ones in England, never to return again to his homeland. His heart found its resting place in Him. A memorial erected near this Methodist church where the last sermon was preached denotes him as one “whose only home was his saddle, his parish the continent.” This inscription upon a memorial was clearly evident with every step along the long road this faithful circuit rider trekked.

This man was Francis Asbury.

His last journal entry on December 7, 1815 grants us a glimpse into the life of the Father of American Methodism:

“My consolations are great. I live in God from moment to moment.”

The saddle was his home and the continent was his parish simply because he found his greatest satisfaction and source of consolation in Christ during each passing moment. His longevity in God was sustained with a heart utterly dependent upon God’s grace. Though Asbury suffered much to advance God’s kingdom, he faithfully preached Christ until the very end.

Global or United

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Right vs Left

See Ecclesiastes 10:2

Separation? – Templar Mind

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History has a funny way of getting twisted by people who weren’t there to live it. The most dangerous distortions are the ones that have had centuries to fester. So lets take a look at the Danbury Baptists.

Picture Connecticut in October of 1801. The Congregational Church, the old Puritan establishment, is the official religion of the state, and it will remain so until 1818.

If you are a Baptist, a Methodist, or an Episcopalian, you must petition the local justice of the peace for a certificate to worship separately and that justice can refuse you.

Your taxes still flow to the Congregational coffers. You are, in every civic sense that matters, a second-class citizen.

The Danbury Baptist Association, representing twenty-six churches in western Connecticut, is living under this regime, and they’re getting nervous.

They aren’t sitting around worrying that the Church is going to take over the federal government. They are terrified that the government…state and, potentially, federal is going to crush their way of worship.

They needed to know that the heavy hand of the federal magistrate wasn’t coming for their altars.

So they write to President Thomas Jefferson and he writes back on January 1, 1802. He agrees with them and paraphrases the First Amendment, telling them that the American people had declared “that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’” thus building “a wall of separation between Church & State.”

—

Modern secularists love that phrase They’d hang it like a neon sign over every courthouse and school board meeting in America if they could.

But they have the nature of it completely backwards.

Jefferson wasn’t building a prison to keep God out of the public square. He was building a fortress to keep the State out of the sanctuary. It’s a shield for the Church, not a muzzle.

Now, the left will protest that this letter was no private musing, and on that narrow point, they are correct. Jefferson drafted his reply in consultation with two Cabinet members, Attorney General Levi Lincoln and Postmaster General Gideon Granger, and the letter was published in newspapers across the country.

He intended it to be a political statement. Fine. Lets take it as a political statement. What does it actually say? It says that the wall protects the citizen from the government.

Every clause in that letter places the restraint on the magistrate, not on the minister.

—

The First Amendment is a negative right. It doesn’t tell you what you can do; it tells the government what it can’t do. It’s a chain on the wrist of the State.

When the founders wrote those words, they were acknowledging that power seeks to devour, and the conscience must be guarded against the appetite of kings.

By twisting Jefferson’s letter to mean that religious expression must be scrubbed from public life, the modern Left is actually doing the very thing the Danbury Baptists feared…using the state to dictate the terms of our existence.

The Congregational establishment of Connecticut taxed dissenters and denied them full civic standing. Today the mechanism is different, cultural pressure, legal threats, and administrative exclusion…but the coercion is still the same.

—

For those of us walking the narrow path, this goes deeper than constitutional law.

We don’t demand religious liberty just because it’s written on parchment. We demand it because coerced faith is spiritually dead. God is the ultimate author of liberty. Go back to Genesis.

When God placed Adam in the Garden, He placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil right there in the middle. He didn’t put a high-voltage fence around it. He didn’t strip Adam of the ability to rebel.

If God wanted a world of automatons, He would have created robots, not people with the gift of free will and the dignity to choose. As it says in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

A government that tries to force religion… or force the absence of it… is acting against the nature of God Himself.

Any ruler who exceeds his mandate and reaches into the domain of the soul has ceased to govern and begun to tyrannize.

—

The wall exists to ensure that when we say “Yes” to God, it’s our own voice speaking.

It ensures that our worship is an offering and that we come to God as servants…not slaves

We fight for this wall not to hide from the world, but to keep the world from corrupting the sacred space where man meets his Maker.

We must tear down the myth and rebuild the wall as it was intended: a rampart against tyranny, ensuring that the State remains the servant…

and God remains the King.

We Should Make Spiritual Progress

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….. let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).

  The writer (Paul) makes an allusion to the Olympic games.  As those who ran in the Olympic races would throw aside everything that might hinder them in their course, in a similar manner Christians, desiring to go to heaven, must throw aside everything that might hinder them in their Christian race.

  Let us start, run on, and continue running (press on) until we get to the goal.  Some claim one only has to start the race and then it has already been won.  Scripture clearly indicates otherwise; one must constantly continue to exert the effort to become more and more like the Christ in all our ways, thoughts, words, and deeds.

I.   We Think

“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).

A. Many dwell on the negative side. Their pessimism brings disappointment to themselves, discouragement to others, and displeasure to God.

Bad tempered people never seem to learn, and as a result bring troubles upon themselves repeatedly.

Moral uprightness is more important than wealth, and wise action is more important than hasty action.  People are foolish, very foolish, when they blame God for the trouble they brought upon themselves through their own mistakes.

B. We must think positively, crowding out negativism with thoughts of faith, hope, and love (Phil. 4:8).  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 

The object of the apostle is to recommend holiness and righteousness to them in every point of view; and to show that the Gospel of Christ requires all its professors to have the mind that was in Christ, and to walk as he himself also walked. That they were not to attend to one branch of righteousness or virtue only, but to everything by which they might bring honor to God, good to their fellow creatures, and credit to themselves.

John 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 

John 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 

John 15:6  If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 

II.  We See

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”

(Heb. 12:2).

  1. Our world is filled with sin, suffering, and sorrow. Many become bitter because they see only the faults and failures in others.
  2. If we are not making progress then we are regressing.

Hebrews 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; 

 

Bad examples and false teachings have corrupted thousands, and are still making desolation in the world and in the Church.

Be a good example; you can do it!

Charlie Kirk and Freedom

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Very important for us to remember

Jesus Heals

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1:21  And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.

1:22  And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.

    This verse does not start with Mark’s favored word of action because nearly a year in the ministry of Jesus was skipped.  Matthew and Luke deal with that year.  Perhaps Peter skipped it because he felt it could have bogged down the pace of his narrative by having to take time to explain to his readers that the rejection reflects our ability to choose to accept or reject Christ at this point in his account.

    Part of what was happening with the teaching from Jesus was that He was teaching Scripture, not tradition of men; He was teaching them what God said, not what some famous Rabbi of bygone days had said.  The Wesleyan quadrilateral is important but it must never be forgotten that the Scripture part of that is the preeminent portion, yet too many times tradition gets elevated above its proper place.

 

1:23  And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,

1:24  Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

1:25  And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.

1:26  And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.

1:27  And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

1:28  And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.

 

    The whole subject of demonology is a difficult one, but no more so than the problem of the devil.  The devil is an unclean spirit, because he has lost all the purity of his former nature, therefore he acts in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit of God, and by his suggestions defiles the spirits of men.  There are many in our assemblies who quietly attend under merely formal teachers; but if the Lord comes with faithful ministers and holy doctrine then by his convincing spirit, they are ready to say, like this man, What have we to do with thee!   There is potentially a hint of dishonesty in what that demon said in that it probably was well aware of the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and therefore it likely was attempting to cast doubt or deflect Jesus from what it feared Jesus might be about to command to happen.

    No “disorder” could enable a man to know Jesus to be the Holy One of God. He desires to have nothing to do with Jesus, for he despairs of being saved by him, and dreads being destroyed by him.  Consider whose language they speak, who say to the Almighty, “Depart from us”.  This unclean spirit hated and dreaded Christ, because he knew him to be a Holy One; for the carnal mind is enmity against God, especially against his holiness.  People who cannot stand to attend a Bible-believing/Bible-teaching Church here on earth should not expect to be able to tolerate Heaven.

    When Christ by his grace delivers souls out of the hands of Satan, it is not without tumult in the soul; for that spiteful enemy will disquiet those whom he cannot destroy. This put all who saw it to considering, “What is this new doctrine?”  A work as great often is accomplished now, yet men treat it with contempt and neglect.  If this were not so, the conversion of a notorious wicked man to a sober, righteous, and godly life, by the preaching of a crucified Savior, should cause many to ask, “What doctrine is this?”

Charlie Spoke Truth

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The student in the university may be so surrounded by an environment so polluted by the forces of darkness that he or she feels forced to compromise core beliefs in order to thrive or even survive.  It is difficult to shine in an atmosphere heavily polluted by the forces of darkness, especially if the professors happen to be deeply under the sway of those forces.  We are told, by their fruit ye shall know them.  The business person, likewise, is often under immense pressure to compromise ethical and legal standards in order to satisfy the greed and dishonesty of associates or maybe even in an effort to keep the business afloat, “Just this one time…” which is a subtle snare that leads to further compromise.
  Unless the Christ follower is prepared for evil assaults on his mind and heart, he will have great difficulty maintaining a Christian witness of personal holiness.  Our reaction to the sinful world around us, however, must be more than just defensive.  We must be concerned not only for our own purity of mind and heart, but also for the eternal destiny of those who would pollute us. 

–pastorwardclinton