Archive for the ‘Christian’ Category

Seven Lesser Known Prophecies about Jesus’ Death

Posted: September 28, 2024 in Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, Isaiah, religion, Satan, Sin
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I was thinking about prophecies of Jesus’ death and I wanted to choose a few that aren’t the better known ones and see where the Spirit leads.

  1. Deuteronomy 21:23 and Galatians 3:13 is the first prophecy we’ll look at. I probably wouldn’t have included this ruling about stoning someone who has committed a sin punishable by death and then hanging him on a tree that was handed down to the Jews as a prophecy of Christ’s death except for the fact that the Apostle Paul identified it for us as such in his letter to the Galatians where he said Christ became our curse that we could never be free of otherwise and wore it as His own, therefore taking and displaying our curse as His own before His Father. Deuteronomy 21:23 “his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the LORD your God is giving you [as] an inheritance; for he who is hanged [is] accursed of God. (NKJV) Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed [is] everyone who hangs on a tree”), (NKJV)
  2. Psalm 2:1 and 12 In my opinion, Psalm 2 is this cool, oddball prophecy about the Trinity discussing the folly of man. In verse one they are wondering why we as humans plot against God vainly, or plot without a hope of winning. The subsequent verses go on to talk about kings and rulers taking up arms against the rule of God in a prophecy of the near future, but verse one can be taken as a double entendre because the Jewish leadership, as the unwitting pawns of Satan, intended to quash and quieten this heretic called Jesus of Nazareth once and for all by having him put to death, but their plot was in vain, because they only were fulfilling prophecy that they should have seen was unfolding before their eyes, being the experts on the law that they professed to be. Instead of quieting Him they did the one thing that would carry His voice to the world. Verse twelve continues the pattern of the foolishness of humanity and it’s leaders for even thinking that they could defeat God, ending in a not so subtle warning to them to “shape up”. Psalm 2:1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?…12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (ESV)
  3. Psalm 16:10 and Psalm 49:15 are Psalms about achieving power over the grave, which Our Lord, Jesus Christ did (Psalm 16). By his death and resurrection, He created a pathway for our souls to achieve a similar power over the grave (Psalm 49) when we are snatched up to be with Our Lord. Psalm16:10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. Psalm 49:15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah. (NKJV)
  4. Psalm 118:22-23 talks about the stone which the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. These verses speak volumes about what is pleasing in the eyes of man usually isn’t what is pleasing in the eye of God. Even though Jesus was predicted and prophesied hundreds of year earlier to be our Messiah and to become the king of the Jews and the prophecies were specific to the very day that He would present Himself as the king in Jerusalem. The leadership was caught off guard and rejected Him. Even though we were told through prophecy that he wouldn’t be an eye catcher, people still look toward outward appearances for we are told in the book of I Samuel that was one of the qualities of Saul that attracted the Jews. This prophecy was quoted by Christ about Himself in Matthew 21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’?
    Psalm 118:22-23 The stone [which] the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing; It [is] marvelous in our eyes. (NKJV)
  5. Isaiah 53:6 This verse in this very prophetic chapter in Isaiah wraps the whole purpose of Christ’s death into a very tidy, succinct bundle as to why He had to die for our iniquities and sins. Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (NKJV)
  6. Matthew 26:2 is a prophecy of Christ, by Christ to His disciples in a straight forward matter-of-fact way as a wrap up on His lesson at the Mount of Olives that in a couple of days He is to be crucified. Matthew 26:2 “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” (NKJV)
  7. Luke 18:31-34 Here is another prophecy where Christ outlines the events that are about to take place that will culminate with His death and resurrection to fulfill one major portion of the plan of Our Lord that has been in place ever since sin was first introduced into the world back in Eden.
    Luke 18:31-33 Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. “For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. “They will scourge [Him] and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” (NKJV)

God Bless, Jim

Empty space and galaxy near and far, or how long did it take for our universe to form?

Posted: September 26, 2024 in Christian
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Is space empty? When I went to school many decades ago we were taught that for the most part, space was empty. However in the last few decades the concept of the universe being full of dark matter has been bandied about. Why? There is simply too much stuff going on, energy-wise, in our universe for the viewable and/or measurable amount of matter to have enough mass to be the cause of it all, mathematics and physics have shown.

In fact when they crunch the numbers, it seems they are missing a little matter…more than a little? OK, they are missing some matter…no…even more? Actually, calculations determine they are missing almost 90% of the matter of the universe and they can’t find it, it seems…it apparently is hiding somewhere, so they came up with the tag of ‘dark matter’. One popular example of this concept is something called ‘zero point energy‘ and the consternation the discrepancies in the math cause scientist has been labeled the cosmological constant problem.

We learned all about thermodynamics in school (whether we actually realize it or not). Thermodynamics is the concept that matter gives off heat to the background creating energy in exchange. If there is no potential difference in temperature between an object and the background, there is no heat transference in the form of energy and no work can be performed…in other words, all work results in heat being dissipated, or given off to the surrounding, or background.

The ambient temperature of space is very, very cold while matter that resides within the universe has different levels of heat that they give off to the ’empty’ space background. That cold background temperature is called ‘absolute zero’, somewhere around -460of. That is as measurably cold as you can get…you can’t get any colder. When matter gives off all its heat and it gets as cold as the background, that is called heat death. At this point science tells us that there is no exchange of energy…matter is as dead as it can get…everything we know stops…everything ceases being. Kind of sad to think about, isn’t it?

However, that isn’t the end to the story…remember the dark matter, as they call it? Science has found out that even when the background of space is at absolute zero, there is an unexplainable massive amount of energy stored within that ’empty space’. Science can’t explain where it comes from or even what it is, but they have realized that this zero point energy is a constant source of energy at the sub-atomic level that keeps the electron in their orbits. It appears that this energy somehow keeps replenishing it’s self from outside the universe1. Is it some creepy mojo happening…or does it simply means that the Creator is still at work? I’ll take the latter explanation.

If it weren’t for the zero-point energy replenishment, we or nothing else would be here, for there would be no energy to keep the electrons spinning in their orbits around the nucleus and the atomic structure of life would destroy itself. Empty space?…I don’t think so. It certainly seems to me someone is still holding it all together. Let us look and see if we can get any insights from the scriptures…Colossians 1:16-17 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. (NKJV)

The current theories on the beginning of the universe named “The Big Bang” by the scientific religionists speculate that matter sprang into existence and grew and developed over a few billion years, with matter morphing in to stars and galaxies that grew from infancy to maturity.

I read an article recently that mentioned the Hubble telescope, and it got me thinking about this. There are a few deep space telescopes that can look at very distant objects in our universe, including thousands upon thousands of galaxies of all different sorts. If you look at mature spiral galaxies you notice that despite how far away they are, the arms seem to be extended about the same because of the gravitational and centrifugal effects. What is intriguing about that is because of the limitation of the speed of light, the ones we see far away are snapshots of the galaxy long ago in the past, where the ones relatively close are glimpses of only a few years past. In other words, the light we see from a galaxy far, far away left the galaxy millions of years ago, meaning what we are seeing is a millions of year old snapshot of that particular galaxy. While the photo of the Andromeda galaxy is only a few years old. When you compare the photos of the near and the far galaxies you notice that the spiral arms are extended about the same regardless of distance away from us which means that they also demonstrate about the same amount of maturity as the near galaxies. This intrigues me because using the current theory of the age of the universe according to modern science’s theories, that should not be so…the far distant ones are pictures of spiral galaxies taken eons ago and the arms should be less well developed that the closer ones. In fact there should be many, many examples of infant galaxies and galaxies in various stages of maturity in these photos from the long range telescopes, but there aren’t…so…what does it mean?

What it means to me, is that every single one of the uncountable galaxies all appeared at the same time…It means that they were all created at the same time and the photographic evidence is before us.

God Bless

Jim

1 Quantum Physics experiments by Bohr and others show that we exist in what is referred to as ‘local reality’ and that below a certain ‘smallness’ (time, size, etc) things, as we perceive them, no longer exists. (There have been experiments at the subatomic level that appear to prove this where protons seem to ‘sense’ what is happening to other proton, regardless of location on the earth).

 

The Sevenfold Description of the Holy Spirit

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, Church, GOD, Holy Spirit, Isaiah, Israel, religion
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When I started writing this, I had no idea why the Holy Spirit directed me to write on this subject, but the book of Jonah has taught me not to argue with one of the three most powerful sentient beings ever. Once I got into it, however I quickly discovered the potential hidden gems of this scripture from Isaiah.

Isaiah 11:1-5 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. (NKJV)

Spirit of the Lord is the supernatural power source that creates God’s Thoughts in our hearts.

Spirit of Wisdom is all of God’s supernatural Thoughts themselves.

Spirit of Understanding is God’s personal illumination of those thoughts.

Spirit of Counsel is God’s personal instructions for Godly choices.

Spirit of Strength is God’s supernatural ability to perform those Thoughts in our lives.

Spirit of Knowledge is seeing God’s Thoughts manifested in our life actions.

Fear of the Lord is walking in God’s Love and Truth, fleeing anything that would quench His Spirit.1

What little facts and jewels jump out at me from these verses? Throughout the Old Covenant we find examples of the Holy Spirit working within people, but it seems to always be on a temporary basis. Here in Isaiah though, we find an example, possibly maybe the first mention, of the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit upon a man, which I see as a typological example of an act of the Holy Spirit that began on the Day of Pentecost and which heralded in the future dispensation that we all enjoy called the Church Age. Of course in this example the man happens to be Jesus Christ. We know this is a prophecy of Christ because of several clues, the first of which is one of the known Old Testament titles of Christ in verse one. If we look at verses three through five of Isaiah chapter eleven we have even more insights why this can only be Christ;

Isaiah 11:3-5 His delight [is] in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist. (NKJV)

Jesus is the only human that ever has lived and ever will live that can be called righteous….then we read He will be striking the earth with another characteristic of Christ; the rod of his mouth, which is basically what John saw in Revelation 1: 16 and again in Revelation 19:15. I, of course, wonder when this took place and I believe it was when Christ arose from the water after He was baptized by John. 2

I am sort of a mystic I suppose, for I automatically look for clues and patterns and types in the scriptures and a couple of other things that popped out at me in this passage relate to numerology which many are somewhat familiar with. For an example, many people think seven means something akin to holiness…but it seems to be more along the line of completeness. The number six seems to be a number relating to man and humanity. There are seven Spirits listed here which denotes complete and total spiritualness. If you notice the first Spirit, the Spirit of The Lord, it is a singular Spirit by itself and the other six Spirits are listed in pairs (the number two is considered union or witnessing). If you look at the three pairs you can see Spirits that can be considered qualities of people and are qualities that have been noted as characteristics of individuals throughout the bible. These three pairs added together total six, which is the number of man. The singular Spirit, the one at the top of the list, the Spirit of The Lord, can only be obtained by giving you life to Jesus and allowing Him to come into your life, for the Spirit of The Lord can only come through Christ. If you add the Spirit of The Lord to the other six Spirits you have seven complete Spiritual characteristics of the Holy Spirit that were imparted onto Christ.

If you do allow Christ into your life and allow Him to rule over you, then when you add the singular but most important Spirit of The Lord, which can only come from Him, to the other Spirits that can possibly be obtained by good living and by trying to following the statutes of The Lord, you end up with seven Spirits encompassing you within your life. Which, with Christ in the middle of your life, adds up to the completeness you can only obtain through salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I was going to end it there and call it a day, but I think I need to continue.

Let’s see if we can link this passage in Isaiah with Revelation…primarily, Revelation chapter one verses four and five.

Revelation 1:4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, (NKJV).

What we have here, I believe, is a peek behind the curtain of obscurity to the basic characteristics of the Holy Spirit. The fact that Isaiah mentioned that the Holy Spirit endows these seven Spirits upon Christ and we read in Revelation that there are seven distinct Spirits before the Throne of God tells me that the Holy Spirit is a multifaceted sentient being with seven separate individual Spirits, which, in my mind, reminds me of the description of the multi-faced Cherubim listed in several places within the scriptures. Not only that, but when we read the list of ‘Spirits’ we find the qualities that God fearing (seventh spirit) prophets and men of God throughout the scriptures were said to possess or requested from God, all rolled up into one neat package. When Solomon asked God to give him Wisdom, I didn’t realize the Spirit of Wisdom was one of the descriptions of the Holy Spirit before the Throne of Our Lord and was sent to Solomon…I kind of figured God just flipped a switch in Solomon’s psyche to give him the ability instead of the Holy Spirit sent to indwell him. That being said, when we read of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives…now we know (I should say, now I postulate) that it is the actual Spirits of The Lord, the Holy Spirit in sevenfold that can indwell in us.

God Bless, Jim

1 http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/281/

2 Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22 John 1:32

Can we lose our salvation?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, religion, Salvation, Sin
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I’m not sure.

I was raised in a church that taught (but denied that they taught) you had to basically work your way to Heaven. I haven’t been involved in that congregation for almost three decades, but my siblings still are. As a teen I walked away from God and the Christian religion and practiced paganism for over two decades. I never was fully satisfied with my search for spiritual truth and ultimate peace by alternate means and about ten years ago, after some hardships, I was convinced to give the Christian God another try and as soon as I did, he saved me from the burdens and issues I had drug along with me. So after I gave myself to Him, I realized that I had arrived back full circle to the place I had basically started as a child. Subsequently, I decided that I was going to prove the teachings within the scriptures to myself through prayer and an expositional journey through My Lord’s word.

When I started this process a decade ago, I didn’t believe in the rapture, I didn’t believe in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and I had no idea what religious affiliation my mentor, Chuck Missler was…I went in blind, but open to learning. I quickly found out that Chuck Missler believed in the things I mentioned but he also encouraged disbelief so we would figure it out for ourselves (Acts 17:11) and I appreciated that. I had not encountered a teacher with that attitude before (the church of my youth, if you didn’t walk lockstep with their teaching they would virtually break your bible over their knee and drum you out of the doors, locking them behind you). In the last ten years I have grown to understand more about the scriptures than I ever imagined I would and it is a very enjoyable journey. I now am down with the concept of the rapture as well as the separate destinies of the nation of Israel and the church. I find the scriptures are plain and open for all to see about the teaching of the continued presence of the Holy Spirit within our lives and the existence of spiritual gifts (unlike the legalistic, work based, replacement theology that the church of my youth taught). A few months ago, I really started to grasp and understand the difference between tongues…IE, the tongues of interpretation and the tongues of fire, or prayer language. I have my mind solidly wrapped around the predestination-free will argument that seems to bumfuzzle so many. The rapture of the bride of Christ is there in black and white and in some ways, and buried in the word by patterns and example in many locations of the bible. The book of Revelation can be a little scary, but not in an intimidating way, it is a very forceful and straight blueprint of the past, present and future condition of the church and the nation of Israel laid out in a surprisingly plain way, once we get rid of all the cobwebs of allegorization and fallacy swept out from within our minds. I have also found a home at a small, but swiftly growing, full-gospel congregation near my home and I feel I am on the road to salvation.

What about salvation? Chuck Missler makes it plain that he believes that once you accept Christ and achieve salvation that you are locked into a seat on the glory train…but I’m not so sure…I still think there are some situations, noted in the scriptures, which make it seem you can lose your salvation.

The church of my youth had a roulette wheel, sort of view of salvation…you are saved until you sin, then as soon as you commit a sin, you are condemned to the lake of fire, until you repent, then you are OK…of course until you commit the next sin, then you are destined for hell again…and on, and on, and on. I don’t believe that point of view in the least. I do believe in the assurance of salvation through the mercy and grace that Our Lord assures us of…but the scriptures do indicate that it is not a free ride. The bible definitely teaches we have a personal responsibility of obedience and to produce fruit for the Lord. But what if we don’t? Is it the gallows? I don’t think so, especially if we understand the grace and mercy aspect of the scriptures. No one (except for Christ Jesus Himself) has been, is or will ever be good enough to earn salvation. God and also Christ the Son, in a couple of different places in the scriptures say that no man can snatch Their flock (us) out of Their hands. That is a couple of pretty powerful statements about our security in our salvation. However there are a couple of other places that alludes to the fact that maybe if we really try hard enough, we can slip out of Their grasps.

At this point in my journey I haven’t digested the New Covenant enough to have come to a firm conclusion. I tend to concentrate on sections and themes of the bible related to those sections that are pertinent to the book, or books of the bible I am currently working on in my journey and at the present I am in the minor prophets of the Old Covenent. I feel The Lord is providing me information as I need it and since I was compelled to answer this discussion question, even thought I wanted to stay away and not have anything to do with it, tells me it is His will that I start paying attention to it.

Let’s look at the word salvation. In the Old Testament the word salvation is normally taken from a feminine noun derivative of the base yasha which means to save, be saved, be delivered. In the New Testament, the word seems to consistently be the Greek word; soteria which means he who brings salvation, the hope of future salvation, a deliverer and is apparently the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew yeshuw’ah which means basically the same thing.

OK, let us start with some verses that I believe can cause confusion.

Romans 10:13 says: For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (KJV) I know of some denominations that base their gospel upon this verse. I have to say, in my life I have grown very gun-shy about well-intentioned folks creating doctrine from single sources within the scriptures. I had a close relative that was a prime example of the danger of this for they believed if you are not an active member of the Church of Christ, you are hell-bound and they build this doctrine upon a single source that comes from Romans 16:16 (they handily ignore the name The Way from Acts and the Church of God which is all through I Corinthians…)

What about those that hear the gospel and are drawn to profess and call upon the name of The Lord and feel the Holy Spirit…but then they never turn from their sinful ways…they exhibit no change within their lives. If an ax murderer fell down on his knees and called on the name of The Lord…but he remained an ax murderer…if he only gave credence to the word but never submitted to the Lordship and therefore never started to grow and mature, he never yielded to The Lord…has he still achieved salvation? Also, then what about the apparent ‘unpardonable sin’ of blaspheming the Holy Spirit that we find in Luke?

Christ is pretty clear about what He expects and He says in Matthew 7:21-24 that not all that cry Lord, Lord will receive a ticket on the glory train but those that submit and yield to the Lord’s will.

Matthew 7:21-24 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: (KJV)

I believe the answer is not as simple as calling upon the name of The Lord, but apparently salvation is dependent on those other conditions that Christ outlines. I personally lean (I’m not sure why) toward Chuck Missler’s view and I feel that it is possibly conditional on The Lord’s knowledge of our heart and our giving up of our pride (which in Isaiah is considered the base of all sin) and yielding to the will of Our Lord to achieve salvation…but I am going to have to absorb and digest more of His precious word before it ‘clicks’ with me.

What about Hebrews 6:4-6 For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [him] to an open shame. (KJV)? To take it out of context and to look at it by itself (which unfortunately some churches do) it would seem to create a conundrum. Unless this same viewpoint is clearly covered somewhere else in the scriptures, in my thinking it doesn’t mean what a lot of denominational leaders think it does. So, what does it mean? Was this passage a special judgment reserved for the apostolic Jews? Possibly. We know that God had harsh rules design just for His people that weren’t levied on the Gentiles, such as death penalty for not observing the Sabbath properly, among others. Does it mean something else? I just don’t know…the jury is still out…but now that the ramifications about salvation on my radar I will come to a solid, teachable conclusion within a short time, The Lord willing.

God Bless, Jim

The Birthday of the Church

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, Church, Pentecost, religion
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We, as Christians, all know that the church was established on the Day of Pentecost as we are told in Acts chapter 2. The Day of Pentecost (also known as the Feast of Weeks) is one of seven major feasts of Israel that the Jews celebrate every year and it occurs fifty days after the Sunday that follows the Feast of Passover.

I have often wondered why the birthday of the church on Pentecost (betrothal day of the bride of Christ) is never mentioned, much less celebrated amongst the Christian community? I think it may have to do with the Christian traditions carried down through the centuries from biased roots grown from the early church fathers. Some of Chuck Missler’s recordings touch on this matter in a round about way when his, and other scholars research have shown that the early church did it’s dead level best to separate themselves from anything relating to Israel because of their anti-Semitic view point, blaming the Nation of Israel for the crucifixion of Christ as was evident by the rulings made by the Council of Nice in 325AD1 when they created their own “Passover Day‘, that is calculated as the first Sunday following the first full moon following a pagan holiday in the spring of the year called the Spring Equinox2

When you read about the church’s development in the book of Acts starting with the preachings and teachings of Peter and other disciples and then continuing with the miraculous ministry of Paul and his fabulous interpretations of the gospel of Christ for us through the inspired letters that he wrote, you don’t see any anti-Semitic tendencies coming through. Somehow, though, in the decades that followed, despite the warnings to watch for false apostles, teachers and preachers by Peter, James, John and Paul, Satan was successful in embedding enough false teachers within the church to create small misdirections that grew into the beginning of the allegorization and misinterpretations of God’s word. The apparent influence of Satan, coupled with a sanctioned hatred toward the Jews, caused the early church to eventually chose to distance itself from anything relating to Jewish practices and one of the results was the creation of a resurrection day who’s place on the calendar is determined by counting from the base of a pagan holiday even though, at this point in time, they still called the celebration Passover. We also find that after the papacy firmly established itself politically, as well as religiously, they renamed the day of celebrating the resurrection of Our Lord as Easter, a name that has it’s roots in Babylonian pagan religious fertility festivals celebrating Ishtar (that is where the crazy tradition of an egg laying rabbit came from).

Wow! So even if you searched the internet for the calendar day of Pentecost, the betrothal day of the Bride of Christ, most likely you would find a false day, for Pentecost is a Greek word that means count fifty. We need to know what day they are counting their fifty days from, from a pagan fertility feast called Easter, or are they counting from a full moon, or is it from the Feast of First Fruits, which is the Sunday that follows the Sabbath that follows Passover and is the day that Our Lord, Our Savior met Mary at the tomb after He had arisen.

So why isn’t Pentecost on list of special days of recognition? The other days of recognition, Easter (even though the origins and the name of the holiday is Babylonian), the meaning behind the day still allows us to reflect on the greatest miracle ever performed since the creation of the universe) and Christmas (another one that has scary Babylonian roots) are about Christ our Savior. The day the church was created and Christ’s bride was betrothed is a known traceable day. Why isn’t it recognized? I suspect the reasons have their roots buried in the anti-Semitism of the early church and the fact that we, as the body of Christ hold traditions almost as dear to our hearts as facts. There may be some churches tucked away somewhere that recognize the Day of Pentecost, but I don’t know of any and those Christians I mention it to kind of look at me like “What?…what’s up with this guy?”. I personally try to find when the actual Day of Pentecost is and sing a little happy birthday song to recognize the birth of the vehicle that allows us as Gentile, but more so as sinful humans to prepare and meet Our Lord.

God Bless, Jim

*1 http://www.debate.org.uk/topics/theo/council_nicaea.html

*2 https://www.learnreligions.com/all-about-ostara-the-spring-equinox-2562471

http://antipas.net/pentecost.htm

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