Do THIS! – Remember Ishtar?

16 04 2022

IMG_4295 c

The most glorious sunrise in 6,000 years of history on earth revealed that the tomb was empty. Jesus was raised from the dead! He is alive! Just hours before his execution He led His last Passover meal with His disciples. There are three keys from that dinner that guide our relationship with Him today.

  1. Jesus said at that moment: “For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.” Luke 22:18 The next meal will be the marriage supper of the Lamb!
  2. Do THIS! – He gave a most significant instruction at that Passover which is minimized by many of today’s Christians. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you: THIS DO in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19 The “THIS” that He was referring to, is the Passover meal which Christians call the Last Supper. It has been shrunk down from a full meal with four meaningful cups, to a thimble of juice and bit of bread. We can all reap the rich importance of Passover, not only the Jews.
  3. The third key is found in the same verse: And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you: this do IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.” Luke 22:19 Somehow, we have managed to replace Jesus in the name of the resurrection celebration with the name of the Babylonian pagan goddess of fertility. Known as “the queen of heaven,” this pagan goddess has been called by various names such as: Ishtar, Astarte, Diana of the Ephesians, and Venus, from which we now have “Easter,” (from Ishtar). This is most unfortunate because most Christians don’t have a clue that our most glorious season does not “remember” Jesus, but rather carries the name of a demonic goddess. I would love to see the church move away from the pagan name and call the glorious morning “Resurrection Day!”

Finally, notice I said these verses guide our “relationship” with Jesus. I am not talking about religious duty, but rather knowing Him as a friend. The Kingdom of God is relational. It is not “what” you know, but “Who” you know. After training His disciples for several years as “disciplined followers,” Jesus promoted them to the highest honor:

“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you FRIENDS, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for seasonal rains.

Les Lawrence, a voice of Christian Zionists,              (Read more)

For further background on our use of pagan god’s names, you may like a post I did twelve years ago, April 15, 2010: The Ban On Baals


Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , ,
Categories : Israel Commentary

Pass – over Easter?

19 04 2019

Passover Lamb

Do Passover and Easter conflict with each other? As a Christian Zionist, this is important to me. There are three reasons they agree and one huge reason they conflict. It’s really not that complicated. The original events commemorated are in total agreement. It is only the later traditions added that confuse the issue.

So let me explain. Have you heard of this saying about the Old and New Testaments? “The Old is in the New revealed and the New is in the Old concealed.” This is a summary of the concept that, as Yehovah God was revealing His purpose, first with Israel and then all the nations, it was a progressive revelation.

Passover, and the other feasts of Yehovah in Leviticus 23, are the pattern for the entire Bible/human history. Before the Messiah came, the possibility of relationship with God was primarily national. After He came it was revealed to be intimately personal. This was not a new plan, but was hidden in the Torah, or Old Testament, all along. Abraham was saved not for who he was, but because he believed God. For example, here is a paragraph I recently wrote for a small group in my home town:

Celebrating the resurrection is certainly Biblical because it is the fulfillment of First Fruits, the third feast of Yehovah on the morning after the Sabbath. See Leviticus 23.  Yeshua (Jesus) is the Passover Lamb. He is also the Unleavened (by sin) Bread, and then the first fruit from the dead. Hallelujah! (FYI – I personally do not use the name “Easter” because it comes from the name of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, goddess of fertility, and thus the rabbits and eggs.)

So, the three feasts of Passover week are fulfilled in Jesus with perfect symmetry. The same is true for Shavuot/Pentecost, and the Fall Feasts. (I gave a ten-minute summary of each Feast in this radio interview. Listen to the first part about Passover.)

The big deal about the clash between Passover and Easter, is certainly not about Scripture, it is about tradition. As I said in the above quote, Easter is a name traced back to the top Babylonian goddess, a pagan deity of fertility that appears by many names throughout history. This was never originally associated with the resurrection of Yeshua. It was later added intentionally to divert from Jesus.

The crazy fact is that even though the name Easter came into use many hundreds of years after Jesus, the name actually appears in the King James Bible in a mega translation error:

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 12:4 KJV

This is terribly unfortunate because virtually all other translations make the correction. The Greek word is “Pesach” which literally means “Passover.” If you look at the preceding verses in the New King James you see a direct reference to Passover (Unleavened Bread) in verse 3.

Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now it was during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover. Acts 12:1-4 NKJV

As for me and my house, we will celebrate two glorious historic days of deliverance this weekend. We will thank our Father God for the fabulous night almost 4,000 years ago that the death Angel passed over every house, which had the blood of a spotless lamb on the doorpost. We will also celebrate and worship the living Lamb of God who died and rose from the dead after three days; whose blood has washed over us who believe, so that we are clean before God. Death has passed over us by the gracious unmerited favor of God over all who believe in Him, who is the Living Passover Lamb.

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY!

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for rain.

Les Lawrence, Voice of Christian Zionists                     (Read more)


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Categories : Israel Commentary

Glorious Resurrection Day, but Please Stop Using the E word.

13 04 2017

Empty-Tomb-Picture-01

HE’S ALIVE! Christians all over the world will celebrate the resurrection of Yeshua/Jesus this Sunday. It is a most glorious worship of the One who conquered death. We cannot overemphasize the magnitude of that event. We should be giddy with joy. Yet I am grieved over an almost universal blind spot in churches this week. Most will use the name of the pagan goddess of  Babylon freely in their services.

We are instructed: In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. 2 Corinthians 13:1 (see also Deuteronomy 19:15 and Matthew 18:16). So what are you going to do from now on after reading the following four separate Scripture witnesses?

Simple Islam – Excerpts from Chapter 11 – Stop Saying the Names of other gods.

Most God-fearing Christians and Jews completely understand and respect the first commandment to have “no other gods” before Yehovah. Yet, in the Western nations, including America, many have opened up their thinking to other gods in the name of tolerance. This makes me want to ask them: “What part of ‘no other gods’ don’t you understand?”

It is only recently that I have found a more specific prohibition on the subject. You may have noticed by now that I am reluctant to say or write the name of the god of Islam. It is because the Bible prohibits it! What if we in America or at least believers were to practice the following four scriptures? Notice how the Holy Spirit progressively adds another component to the prohibition with each verse.

Here is the prohibition.

And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth. (Exodus 23:13).

Then Joshua adds three more conditions.

You shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them; you shall not serve them nor bow down to them, but you shall hold fast to Yehovah your God, as you have done to this day. (Joshua 23:7).

The way a person converts to Islam is by standing in a public place and swearing allegiance three times to the god of Islam and his messenger, Muhammad. The next step is to serve that god and bow down to it. You have seen many examples of Muslims doing that even in public five times a day. I am ashamed to say that in a widely publicized picture, President Obama, who professes Christianity, bowed down 90 degrees from the waist to the King of Saudi Arabia, who is the religious custodian/keeper of Mecca.

The third scripture introduces another aspect, blood, which especially applies to radical Islamists. This blood thirsty death cult delights in the shedding of blood in the name of their god. Hence, we hear the perverse oath proclaimed by every suicide bomber before detonation, that his god is the greatest.

Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god; Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take up their names on my lips. (Psalm 16:4).

Fourth, Hosea adds a final point. Not only will we not speak their names, but eventually their names will not even be remembered.

For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their name no more. (Hosea 2:17).

Psalm 83:4 highlights an amazing contrast: They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”  Satan does not have an original creative thought in his head. He can only twist and pervert what God says or does. So his plan to remove the remembrance of Israel is nothing more than a copycat idea from the truth that the devil and all his false gods face in eternity.

Now therefore, fear Yehovah, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve Yehovah! (Joshua 24:14)

We have already been lulled into complacency by using the name of the top pagan goddess, called Ishtar in Babylon and known by other names in other cultures. Christians use her name in place of Resurrection Day, calling it by her name, Easter, which is a derivative of the Babylonian “queen of heaven”. (More detail at this link) To top off the deception, some King James Bible translations even miss-translate Acts 12:4 using the name of the goddess instead of Passover, which is the real word in the Greek (Pesach). Most translations have corrected this error, but it is still used almost universally by Christians. Is it that important to correct this error? I am convinced that it is critical, along with using God’s personal name, Yehovah. Only Satan and Allah benefit from our ignorance.

(Note: I have used the banned names in my teaching, much as the Bible does. The prohibition regards using other gods’ names in daily life.)

Disclaimer: This is not meant to condemn or to be taken legalistically. I am just sounding a shofar to alert you to these verses. With all the commercial use of the E-word it is very hard to avoid it. It is so ingrained in our culture that it is easy to slip up and say it. My point is that it is time to pivot from our earlier times of ignorance and seek to align our everyday behavior with God’s revealed purpose. Please Stop Using the E word.

Let’s celebrate the resurrection of the Lamb of Yehovah God with all our might! Praise the name of Jesus/Yeshua! HE IS ALIVE!

Les Lawrence, Voice of Christian Zionists             (Read more)

 


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , ,
Categories : Israel Commentary


%d bloggers like this: