MUSIC
Good job getting through that one brother bill you want to open us with the word of prayer
MUSIC
I'll say this, I'm sure that the shepherds weren't out at night in the middle of December in the freezing cold someplace.
I understand that, okay? But who in this room that's a Christian celebrates Christmas and that you're thinking of some pagan deities and yuletide and all this other stuff when you're thinking about Christmas?
No, we're thinking about the Savior, aren't we? We're thinking about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And do things get paganized? Do things get secularized? Yeah, Easter gets secularized.
And, you know, we have bunnies and eggs and all this stuff. But it's funny, you know, some of this stuff really isn't as bad as you might think it is.
Now, obviously, we're not going to have the Easter bunny come hopping in during our Easter services here because, you know, obviously, I think that'd be kind of a little bit weird, right?
But I don't, you know, but don't jump off the complete cliff and just say it's no fun is allowed on Easter. Never, you know, to where, you know, candy's bad, it's evil, eggs are wicked.
You know, I mean, the thought of an egg being a picture of new life or life coming from an egg, that's just, it's in all different kinds of cultures around the world.
And, look, and guess what? Spring coming in after a long, hard winter is enjoyable for every culture and probably every religion around the world.
It doesn't necessarily mean that if we are happy that it's Easter and the sun's coming out and staying out longer that we're pagan because we like that or something.
I mean, isn't that a weird thought? People just take these swan dives off of cliffs and make things be something they're not.
Now, I found this article on some social media site. It was probably, I think it was Facebook, but I can't give credit to who posted it because I just copy and pasted it into something.
Because sometimes I'll just be looking for sermon materials and I'll copy and paste something, but I didn't copy and paste who it was from.
So, whoever it was that posted it, you know, good on you. This is a great article or a great post, whoever posted it, and maybe they reposted it from somebody else.
But, I don't know who it was, so if it was some weirdo or something that I don't know about, but I like what they say here in this post.
So, again, I can't give credit to who it is. I'm just going to go through some of this article.
I'm going to read some stuff. I'm going to show you some of the things in Tyndale's New Testament that prove that Easter is not talking about a pagan holiday.
I'm probably going to read a little bit of excerpts out of this book.
And then, at the end, I kind of just want to bring it all home into what really matters here.
What is really the big thing? People will come and make a big deal about things like this, but they're straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel in reality.
So, at the end of the sermon, I'll just tie it all together and talk about that.
I'm probably going to go rumble only for the last few minutes of my sermon, so I just want to kind of give an advanced notice on that.
So, anyway, this article says, Easter, Esterlam, Passover.
Most people do not know anything about those words.
Not long after starting EBC, I don't know what that stands for, I would deliver a Resurrection Sunday sermon, which, in that process, I began to delve into the word Easter.
In my study, I understood the reason for the word Easter and support the use and the meaning thereof.
The problem with most on social media accounts, YouTube, Facebook, etc., and web searchers is that they will run with whatever tickles their ears the most.
As I have already seen numerous shares on Facebook about the origin of Easter and how many are associated with Ishtar, a Mesopotamian goddess,
in reality, Easter and Ishtar are not the same.
With that said, we have seven days within a week that are ascribed to a pagan god.
We also have months and a year, I already kind of mentioned this, that do the same, yet there is no outcry for that.
We daily and monthly think nothing of it, yet for some years, Easter catches fire without any true research of the word alone.
And it says, if Easter is such a pagan feast to the goddess of dawn, and this was widely acknowledged,
why would men who desired to present a faithful English translation of God's word purposely use such words?
The Old English Anglo-Saxon language had several dialect.
Old English Anglo-Saxon is a branch off of German, which German is an Indo-European proto-language.
And in case you don't know this, Anglo-Saxon and German, and we get some words that are inherited from French,
the reason why we have so many words for things is because all this kind of conglomerated into the English language.
And if you look at Old English, it's really hard to even read.
You can pick up some words here and there. I was reading an Old English Bible last night, and I could only make out some words.
It was just really hard to read. So when people say that the King James in Old English, they're just wrong about that.
It's in modern English. So anyway, there's words in German that kind of translate into our language, and it's French and all that.
But anyway, in Old English Anglo-Saxon, they use words to describe the time of the year, just as did the Hebrews and many other cultures.
The Anglo-Saxon calendar months, and I'm not going to read the names because I'm not going to be able to pronounce them,
but they had different words for the months of the year that we do.
And some of them, I mean, they just look like alien words to me, like Greek or something,
but I'm not going to try to pronounce them because it's going to make me sound silly.
I'm already going to try to pronounce some ones that are going to make me sound silly anyway,
so I'm not going to go with these ones.
Anyway, so the months, these months and leap months were gradually replaced by the Julian or Roman calendar months.
So we all go by the Roman calendar months, and that's what we go by today.
We've been going by that our whole time in America.
So when you search through Old English Anglo-Saxon dictionary, you will see many words that use the order of letter as East, E-A-S-T-E.
I will present to you a large list. You can scroll through the reference as well as an online dictionary.
So they kind of put the list of these different words, and I'm not going to try to pronounce them all.
I'm just going to pronounce some of them, okay?
So the E has like a, it has like a little slash over the top of it, so I don't know if you have to pronounce it a certain way.
Does anybody know how that would be pronounced?
Yeah, okay, so that's right, okay.
Because it'll say like the Anglo-Saxon pronunciation of it, and then next to it what it means in our common tongue.
So Easton, or Eastane, from the East, or Easterly.
So Eastan, from the Old Anglo-Saxon, is just Easterly, okay?
And let me just skip through some of these that I can pronounce a little bit better.
Easten, Easten Swanwind.
Easten Swanwind.
That means southeast wind.
Then, let's see, East.
E-A-S-T-E means the East.
Okay, that's not too hard, right?
So these are, again, these are Old English words, so Easterfasten.
Easterfasten.
Easterfast.
Lent, okay?
Easterfjorm.
Feast of Easter.
Easterfjorldag.
The feast of the day of the Passover.
So you see how the word, the form, that word east, it does have a lot of, you know,
it's talking about Easter or Passover, but it's, you know, has that word east in it, so
Easterguuna.
Eastercustom.
Easterlick belonging to Easter.
Paschkol.
So that's Easterlick belonging to Easter.
Paschkol.
So that's like Paschkoland, basically, right?
Eastermonanoa.
Eastermonanoa, Easter month.
So that would be like the month of Easter.
So like, sometimes you would say like Christmas time.
You know, sometimes, to some people, Christmas time would be, what, the whole month of December, right?
Or the Christmas season would be whatever after Thanksgiving day, basically, to the time of the new year, right?
Eastern east would be oriental, I guess.
Eastern symbol, Passover.
Eastern tide, Paschkol season.
Easternum, Passover, I don't know.
So Easterwooka, Easter week.
Eastergarcek, Eastern ocean.
So like, you see how Easter is like the main word, and it's talking about Eastern or, you know, that time of year when maybe the sun lasts a little bit longer.
Here's one, Eastnorwind.
Eastnorwind.
And that means northeast wind.
Eastnorwind.
And Eastor is Easter.
So, I mean, again, I'm belaboring this, but it basically is just, to say that Easter is pagan, it's just a word that the Anglo-Saxons came up with to kind of tell you what time of the year it was.
Because you heard some of those were talking about Easter time and Easter whatever.
Turn to Malachi chapter four real quick. Malachi chapter four.
And the Germans had a word that was similar to this, and maybe I could find it in this book real quick while you're turning there.
Oster?
Oster.
But there was, let's see.
Yeah, so they had one that was similar. Oster, is that what you said?
Yeah, Oster.
Which basically means the same thing.
But that word really does kind of mean like the time of the year when the spring comes in.
So, Malachi chapter four once says,
For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble,
and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts,
that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise.
See how it's spelled there? The Son of righteousness.
Oh, it's calling Jesus a pagan because it's calling him the Son.
No, it's just saying the Son of righteousness is comparing Jesus like the Son when he rises from the dead.
It's comparing him to the Son rising.
So, we looked at that verse this morning when the sun rose, began to rise on the first day of the week.
You know, that's kind of this same thought.
This dawning of the day, this eastern, you know, because where does the sun rise from?
The sun rises from where? The east, right? And it sets in the west.
So, you know, that word is kind of emphasizing the word east or the rising of the sun in the east, right?
So, it says, unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings,
and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall.
So, now turn to Numbers chapter 2, verse 3.
Numbers chapter 2, verse 3.
And it's very interesting here, and obviously there's a ton of verses we could go to,
but I'm not going to do that tonight with this,
but there's a ton of verses to talk about and kind of bring up that Jesus Christ is like the sun.
You know, we revolve, the earth revolves around the sun.
You know, people used to have this geocentric view that everything revolved around the earth,
but mankind is not what's revolved around.
It's the picture of Jesus Christ being the Son of God.
Everything revolves around the sun. Everything's about the Son of God, really.
And so that makes sense to me that we would revolve around the sun instead of the sun revolving around us, right?
So, Numbers chapter 2, verse 3 says,
And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies.
So, which side was the side of Judah on?
What tribe was Jesus from again?
He was from the tribe of Judah.
Do you think it's an accident that he was on that side where the rising of the sun was?
No, I mean, so what I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to show you that that word Easter,
there's a tie together with that word Eastern or Easter,
and it's pretty glaring there when I read you all those old English different topics there,
or those different word meanings there.
But I'll go on with that article.
It says,
Now, as you can see, the word East is associated with many words and also associated with the Passover.
William Tyndale was the first to use the word Passover, and when he translated the New Testament,
he would use the word Esther, E-S-T-E-R.
Also, Esther lamb, E-S-T-E-R, lamb, in place of the Hebrew spring feast of Pasch.
During the time of Tyndale work, Easter had and was used at the feast of the Pasch,
which we all know very much so as the Passover now.
So the word Passover is like the word we use for it now,
but he used the word Pasch or he would use the word Esther lamb.
So, in the 1537 Matthew's Bible, which incorporated Tyndale's work onto the Pentateuch,
or the first five books of Moses, the word used was Passover.
So, but here's the thing.
William Tyndale translated the New Testament in 1534,
and this got published all over the place,
and then the Matthew's Bible got printed,
and it had the whole Old Testament too.
But so, when William Tyndale was done with the New Testament,
then he started working on the Old Testament,
and he nearly completed the Old Testament,
but someone else had to finish it for him because he got burned at the stake.
Because he was a pagan, right?
Because he used the word Easter?
No, that's not why.
It's because he stood for the word of God
and wanted everybody to have the word of God in their own language.
So, but when he came to the Old Testament in the law of Moses,
and that word that he used for, he used Easter every time in the New Testament,
he used the word Passover in the Old Testament.
So, that word Passover was really kind of coined by William Tyndale.
So, essentially, Passover and Easter mean the same thing.
Does that make sense?
So, but you're like, well, why would it stay with the word Easter in that verse?
Well, was it the Passover, or was it past the Passover?
When it said it was the time of unleavened bread, was the Passover already done?
Yeah.
So, sometimes the word Easter is just used to tell you the timing of that feast.
But we as Christians now incorporate that as, you know, we don't keep the feast.
We don't eat a lamb. We don't do that stuff.
So, we just call it Easter because Jesus rose the third day.
And so, East, Eastern, he rose from the dead and shined.
You know, in the morning, on Sunday morning, he rose from the dead.
So, that's what it really is.
It's not some big pagan fest that, you know, that the English came up with,
or that William Tyndale just decided to incorporate in there.
This godly man, yeah, they're just using a pagan festival or a pagan goddess
to use a word for what the Bible, you know, would translate as Passover later on.
So, Passover is the same word, basically, as Easter, is what it really boils down to.
So, let's see. So, in 1539, the Great Bible, they used Passover 14 times,
while Easter, E-S-T-E-R, appears 15 times, all in the New Testament.
The Great Bible translates Acts 12-4 this way.
And when they had caught him, H-Y-M, he put him into prison, P-R-E-S-O-N,
also, and delivered him to quanterions of soldiers, four quanterions of soldiers,
and kept, sorry, it's like spelled weird, until after Esther,
to bring him forth to the people, E-S-T-E-R.
In 1557, version of the Geneva Bible, every place had Passover except Acts 12-4,
where it had Easter, which was identical to how the King James version translated it.
In the 1560 version of the Geneva Bible, which became the most popular of the Geneva Bibles,
the word Easter was completely substituted with Passover on all occasions.
The Geneva Bible of 1560 does not use Easter anywhere.
Acts 12-4 reads, and when he had caught him, he put him in prison,
and delivered him to four quanterions of soldiers to be kept intending after the Passover
to bring him forth to the people.
In the 1568 Bishop's Bible, Easter appears twice in John 11-55 and Acts 12-4.
The Bishop's Bible of the 1568 translate Acts 12-4.
And when he had caught him, he put him in prison
and delivered him to four quanterions of soldiers to be kept intending after Easter
to bring him forth to the people.
So this single occurrence of Easter in the authorized version, which is the King James,
as a translation of the Greek Pascha, Passover, is an interesting reminder of the problems
which have confronted translators of the Holy Scriptures for many centuries.
When the scholars of the Alexandria came to translate the Hebrew into Greek
in the third century BC, they could find in the Greek language
no precise equivalent for the Hebrew Pesach, or Pesach.
However you would say that, P-E-S-A-C-H.
And they decided to adopt the Hebrew word in a Greek form.
When the Bible was first translated into Latin, the same course was followed
and the Greek Pascha was adopted without translation.
Centuries later, when Wycliffe translated the Bible into English from Latin version,
he could find in the English language no satisfactory equivalent.
So he just gave the Latin word in English form, Pasch or Paschae.
P-A-S-K-E.
In the 16th century, the Remes New Testament followed Wycliffe's example,
the Dewey-Remes, but slightly changed the English form to P-A-S-C-H.
None of these actually translated the word.
So what it's saying though is that the Hebrew Old Testament,
that word was transliterated basically or translated directly into the Greek
so that they're the exact same words basically.
So in the New Testament when they tried to translate these words into English,
they first tried to translate them the same way that the Greeks translated from the Hebrew
and used that word Pasch or whatever.
So there's no word for that to them.
So when William Tyndale made up this word or whatever,
or they used the word Easter for it,
that was just them helping them understand in their own language
basically what this is talking about.
So the guy goes on to say,
My word to many of you on social media.
Quit being so gullible to repeat people without diving deep.
There's nothing wrong with the word Easter.
And Easter in Acts 12 four is not referring to a pagan feast
that Herod supposedly was waiting thereafter to kill Peter.
The meaning of the word is in the text itself.
Herod was a reprobate.
So this is my words.
Herod was a reprobate.
So sometime after murdering John the Baptist,
Jesus would even talk to him.
And he definitely wasn't a Christian by any means.
So this wasn't a reason to mess with the Christians.
But what was the real reason why he was keeping Peter in prison?
Because he was trying to do the Jews a favor.
He killed James with a sword,
and he realized that pleased the Jews.
They were happy that he killed a Christian.
And so now he wants to deliver Peter unto them and kill him also.
But he wanted to wait until after Easter,
which is their, you know, their Passover or whatever.
But it says, but there was a time, okay, yeah, so,
but you know what?
There was a time when Herod actually enjoyed the preaching of John the Baptist.
Let's turn to Mark chapter six because, you know,
these people that are Easter is pagan type people.
They'll say that Herod was this pagan, you know, Roman or whatever.
But in reality, he was like kind of the puppet king of the Roman Empire.
So he was King Herod, but he didn't have real power.
The real power, who had the real power?
It was Pontius Pilate was the one that had the real power
during the time of Jesus' execution, right?
But then he said, oh, that's Herod's jurisdiction.
So, you know, they sent him to Herod, but Herod sent him back.
And then they became friends later on.
But at one time, Herod liked John the Baptist
until he started preaching against his wife and him for what they had done.
Look at Mark six verse 17.
It says, for Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John
and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake,
his brother Philip's wife, for he had married her.
For John had said unto Herod,
it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.
Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him,
and would have killed him, but she could not.
For Herod feared John.
So he feared him like he feared his preaching was powerful, right?
Knowing that he was a just man.
And the reason why I believe that Herod became a reprobate after he killed John
is because he knew that John was the right preacher.
He knew he was a good preacher, and he knew he was a just man.
And to murder somebody that you know is good and right and just
and a preacher of the truth,
and just do it anyway,
because some chick danced for you or something,
you know, your own stepdaughter, which is pretty weird anyway.
And it says, and holy, and observed him.
So when the Bible talks about observing people,
it's not just talking about, well, he just watched him.
It does mean that in some ways,
but it's also talking about he's following his preaching.
He's listening to the things.
You know, when it talks about observing the feast,
it's not just saying, hey, they just watched what was happening at the feast.
No, they observed it as in they took part in it.
So he's taking part in the things that John's preaching.
It says he observed him,
and when he heard him, he did many things.
So he's participating, he's following along.
It's like those people that will come to our church
or get attached to New IFP teachings or whatever,
but they don't get saved.
This is what he was doing.
And it says, and heard him gladly.
So he loved the preaching.
There's a lot of people that love the preaching,
but then they just end up not getting saved,
and at some point, they don't get saved,
and they end up becoming reprobates.
And this is what happened with Herod.
But I'm saying this to make this point
that Herod wasn't just some pagan idolater, necessarily.
Yeah, he was wicked.
Yeah, he was a reprobate,
and he didn't come from some Roman pagan background.
He was observing Bible preachers.
He was doing things to make the Jews happy.
It didn't say he was doing things to make the Romans happy.
He was doing things to make the Jews happy.
So he was basically following the Judaism religion,
to a certain extent.
So to say that he was waiting for some Roman feast to get done,
I don't see that that's what's true here.
I just see that he was waiting for,
and I think that it's probably already been proven
seven ways to Sunday already,
that Easter does not mean some pagan deity.
It's not the name of some goddess.
And it's funny, you won't find that in history.
If you look into the pantheons of these different religions,
you're not gonna find Ishtar.
It's just made up.
There's nothing in any library.
There's nothing in antiquity about it.
It's not even real, okay?
That's what's funny,
and then people just take stuff
that they find on the internet,
and they actually think that it's true.
And it's just really bizarre.
I kind of was watching some YouTube videos,
and Robert Breaker comes on.
You know who Robert Breaker is?
He's the ruckmanite that says he's in church,
but he's preaching in front of a camera
where nobody's ever in the audience
amen-ing or anything.
He's just got a whiteboard behind him,
and he just teaches all this weird stuff,
and guess what he's teaching?
Stuff out of this book here.
And he's talking about how Christmas is pagan,
and he's like,
well, it's Easter time again,
and Easter's pagan,
and he just starts going into the teachings of this book
that basically it's just like evil trinity.
Nimrod is the leader of this evil trinity or whatever,
and he's married to some woman named Semiramis,
and then their son is Tammuz.
And Tammuz is in the Bible
as like they're weeping for Tammuz or whatever,
but you're not gonna find that in the Bible.
You're not gonna find that Nimrod is some,
you know, is all the stuff
that there's some mystery of religion of Babylon.
I'm not saying Nimrod was a good guy.
I think he's probably a picture of the Antichrist.
You know, he's a mighty hunter before the Lord or whatever,
but you don't really get much more than that.
So all this other stuff,
it's all extra biblical things that this guy writes,
and, you know, he just wants to tie everything back
to Babylon about, you know,
it's just there's stuff that he says that's not true,
and then guys like Robert Breaker and Rucktards
will get ahold of this stuff,
you know, just like they get ahold of Bigfoot
and the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs and stuff
and teach about that kind of stuff,
and that babies aren't really babies
until they take their first breath,
so abortion's okay.
You know, stuff like that.
You know, just bizarre stuff.
So, and what the real spirit
behind this whole holidays are bad is,
the spirit behind it is there's no church
that's good enough for them, you know?
We had a guy come to our church not too long ago.
He took me to a site after church,
and look, I don't have a problem answering questions,
but the first thing out of his mouth is,
you know, what about Easter, you know?
It's not, you know, what about, you know, salvation?
What do you guys believe about salvation?
What do you guys believe about eternal security?
You know, it's what about Easter, you know?
And so, I knew right away,
and look, I was graceful, I was nice,
I wasn't mean, I wasn't degrading or anything like that,
but like usually that just kind of
puts my radar up a little bit,
but I just try to gracefully just explain to them,
you know, that's not what that word means,
and just try to explain to them that, you know,
I've been there before where people
were trying to jam this stuff
and say that everything's pagan and all this.
I mean, I kind of got into it a little bit
when I first got saved.
My wife is just like, oh no, Christmas is gone, you know?
But I realized that that stuff was just garbage,
but you have guys like Robert Breaker up there
who has no real church,
and he's just, people are just eating this stuff up.
All this, you know, dispensationalism,
love Israel, worship them.
I stand with Israel even though
they're blowing up Palestinians
that are just walking down the street,
well, what's left of the street,
you know, a dirt road or something,
and just blowing them up with drones
when they don't have a weapon in their hand,
they're not doing anything wrong,
just murdering them for no reason.
And people are saying, I stand with Israel?
How can you stand with Israel
when they're doing things like that?
How could you stand with anybody
that did something like that?
It's just wicked, folks, it really is.
And you got guys like this
and churches all around this country
that are teaching all this kind of stuff.
So I wanted to go through some of these.
Now I want you guys to follow along
in your King James Bible.
We're not quite finished yet,
so you thought you were off the hook
and I was finishing up,
but I'm gonna reel it back in,
and then I'm gonna go through some of these verses.
I just wanna prove to you,
because like if you're one of those people
that's like, well, I thought Easter
might be a little bit pagan or whatever.
Well, let's look through some of these verses,
and I'm gonna read the Tyndale version,
but I want you to look at what it says
in your King James.
So look at John chapter two, verse 13.
John chapter two, verse 13.
I'll try to go through these really fast,
try to get us out of here
at a reasonable time here.
Alright, who's there right now?
That's a man.
Bill, start reading.
Okay, stop.
And the Jews Passover was at hand.
Is that what it says in your guys' Bible?
Here's what it says in the Tyndale.
In the Jews, Easter was even at hand.
Pagan.
It means the same thing, right?
It's just basically
the same thing.
Now look at verse 15.
Who's there still?
Bill, read verse 15.
And when he had made a scourge of small fords,
he drove them all out of the temple,
and the sheep, and the oxen,
and poured out the chambers of money
and overthrew the tables.
Wait a second.
Are you sure that's 15?
When he was at Jerusalem,
that's the one I'm looking for.
Oh, I'm sorry, 23.
Since you're yelling at me.
At the Passover, is that what it says?
It says when he was at Jerusalem
at Easter in the feast.
Pagan.
You see what I mean, though?
This is what I'm talking about.
You know that that's not what it's saying.
So what is the Greek word that's here?
It's going to be the
pash, or pashka, or whatever.
It's the same word
that they transliterated from
the Hebrew, or whatever,
and put that word in
the Greek, and then it's translated
into English.
When William Tyndale translated it,
he translated it as Easter.
And it's not after some Greek goddess.
It's the same word
that he actually made up, and when he
translated the Old Testament,
and he used it 22 times
in the books of Moses, he translated it
to Passover. And guess what?
Passover took over as the
main translation. That's what's in every
Bible now. But
it's not pagan, folks. I mean, really,
we can really just kind of go home
and realize that this is, you know,
what people are saying is just garbage.
Let's look at John 6-4. We're not done yet.
John 6-4.
Alright, who's there?
Bill?
In the Passover, a feast of the Jews was nigh.
The Passover feast of the
Jews was nigh.
Here's what it says in the Tyndale.
In Easter, a feast of the Jews was nigh.
Pagan.
Alright, let's go to the
next one.
Alright, let's go to John
1155.
When you're there, guys, raise your hand. Whoever's there
first. Brother Ramon?
Okay, that's good.
And the Jews Easter
was nigh at hand.
Pagan.
Alright, and John
chapter 12 verse 1.
Jesse?
Then Jesus
six days before the Passover
came to Bethlehem.
Okay, that's good.
Then Jesus six days before
Easter.
Pagan.
Starting to kind of get the
Alright, John 13-1.
John 13-1.
It's gonna become a sword drill.
Bill?
Good.
Before the feast of Easter.
Pagan.
You pagan.
Alright, John
chapter 1839.
John 1839.
Jesse?
Good.
And this one says you have a custom that
I should deliver you
one loose at Easter.
And he
definitely was pagan. It was pilot, right?
So
okay, let's go to John
1914. John
1914.
I only have a couple
more of these.
John
CJ.
Okay.
And this one says
it was the Sabbath even
which falleth in the Easter feast.
The pagan
Easter feast, right?
Now go to
1 Corinthians 5-7.
Rem?
Okay, this one says
for Christ our Easter lamb
is offered up for us.
Pagan.
Hebrews 11
28.
Hebrews 11
28.
Siege.
Okay, that's good.
This one says through faith
he ordained the Easter lamb.
So, do you see
what I'm talking about? I mean, I think
it's pretty clear by now
that Easter
does not mean a pagan
goddess, right?
But yet, so I mean,
I just hope that this kind of drilled it
into you. Let's go back to
Acts chapter 12 verse 1.
And I'm just going to read for you
what it says in the
Tyndale in Acts chapter 12
verse 1. You can just follow along.
It says, in that time Herod the king
stretched forth his hands to vex
certain of the congregation
and he killed James the brother of John
with the sword and because
he saw that it pleased the Jews
he proceeded further and took Peter
also were the days
of sweet bread.
What does it say in there?
Does it say the unleavened bread, right?
And when he
had caught him, he put him in prison
and delivered him to four quantarians
of soldiers to be kept intending
after Easter to bring him
forth to the people.
So, again,
so based upon how he
translates in every single verse
and look, that's not even all of them.
That's just some of them. I didn't go to Matthew, Mark
or Luke in any of the other ones
because I just thought that would be way over the top
but
it's translated that way
in other earlier editions
of the English Bible.
And the Greek word
there is the pash
or the, you know, it's talking about
the Passover, okay, the Passover
week. Now,
like I said, we had that visitor and
you know, I was nice
about it but
what does the Bible actually teach
about this?
Look at Romans chapter 14
verse 1, Romans chapter 14
verse 1. How should we
deal with situations like this
where some people are just like, well, I don't want to
celebrate holidays.
And look, I don't have a problem with people who don't want
to celebrate holidays but what I have a problem with
is people that make a
big deal and like I said
strain at a gnat
and they'll swallow a camel.
They'll say
they won't go to a church like this
because we say happy Easter
and they don't even go to
church. Isn't that
straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel?
They'll go and do home church
or not do church at all
and not
go to church instead
because Easter.
And then you find out the
truth, if the guy would have come back to our
church and just learned what
actually is true about it
instead of just blowing
it off and saying, oh, there's another one
to check off the list that I could never go to
because they celebrate Easter.
It's like, look, I don't care if you
call it, you know, the
resurrection Sunday. I'll call
it that. I have no problem. It is
resurrection Sunday. It is, you know, if that's what you
want to call it but to me that's almost a
code word for
I think Easter's pagan.
And I think that that's like in our
in our movement that kind of
you know, we say happy Easter
because
it's kind of like Sibboleth and
Shibboleth or whatever. You know what I mean?
It's like we say
happy Easter and then we're like, and they're like
happy resurrection day, brother.
You know, it's just like then we know, oh, that person
that person thinks Easter's pagan.
You know, and maybe
that's not the case. Maybe you just want to call it that.
And that's fine. Like, I really don't have a
problem with it. I put it in our bulletin for crying out loud.
So, but look at Romans
chapter 14 verse 1. The Bible
says, him that is weak in the
faith, notice it says they're weak
in the faith, receive ye
but not to doubtful
disputations. So, look,
if you're going to get ridiculous
about it, it's a doubtful disputation.
It's not something to
to make a big deal about.
And I'm not going to just, you know,
candy-coat everything
and be just, oh no, we
can't do that because so and so is going to get upset.
And look, we don't have Christmas
trees at our church just because
it's just
it's not because I don't want to offend one person
or something. I just don't think it's necessary
or we don't have Easter egg
hunts and I get why.
It's just not a big deal.
We don't have to do that and I don't want
to intentionally offend people or whatever,
right? And I can see
where someone can say, well,
we're making it into some kind of
you know, some kind of thing
that it shouldn't be. Okay,
I'm with you on that.
But to say that someone
going home after this service
tonight and they go home and they hide
some Easter eggs with their kids
and they have some chocolate bunnies or something
that you're pagan
because you had Easter eggs.
Come off of it. You think that they're going to
go home and bow down to the eggs
and go, mmm,
you know, we went to church all day. We went
souling all day and now we're going to go worship our Easter eggs.
Come on, man. That's just
ridiculous. People aren't doing that.
Who do you know
that actually even secular people
look, I didn't go to church growing up
and I got an Easter basket with toys
and candy and stuff like that in every year.
Nobody told me about Jesus.
But you know what, I mean,
it wasn't like, we didn't
worship Easter bunnies either.
I didn't go, ooh, Easter bunny, please
bring, you know, I didn't believe the Easter
bunny was actually bringing me an Easter basket, okay?
So, I mean,
and look, eggs
are not evil inherently.
I'm sure that most of the world
when they couldn't afford to have
big beefy cows and everything,
the poor people, guess what they probably had?
They had probably chickens.
And that was their main source of protein.
And when the Catholic Church is saying
you can't eat eggs during this time
of year because it's lent, or whatever,
when they run the world,
well, you know, they
colored their eggs so that
they could see which ones need to be eaten first
and after Easter, when they could
eat their eggs again, then they would eat
the ones that had color on them
so they'd know which ones need to be eaten first.
And it kind of became a thing.
It wasn't that they were going, ooh,
worshiping the eggs.
And what's wrong with having a little
bit of fun? And look, if you disagree with me,
that's fine, but I just, I don't see the harm
in it. I really don't. I don't think
it's a big deal.
But, again, that's what I believe.
Look what it says in verse 2.
For one believeth that he may eat
all things, another who is weak
eateth herbs. I like eggs.
But, you know, you can eat herbs if you want.
And the Bible says that
that person is weak.
Right? But I'm not going to
destroy that person just because
that's how they feel, but it does say
that that person is weak in the faith because
they're just, they believe that, right?
Let not him that
eateth despise him that eateth not,
and let not him which eateth not judge
him that eateth, for God hath
received him. Who art thou
that judges another man's servant? To
his own master he standeth
or falleth? Yea, he shall be
holding up, for God is able to make
him stand. One man
esteemeth one day above another. Another
man esteemeth every day alike. Let
every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind. What is this talking about? This is
individual soul liberty.
This is something that you
have the choice of saying, you know what?
I want to celebrate Easter. I want to
make this a special day for the Lord
or whatever. And look, it says
some put a day
above another, some think every day is the
same. You have the right and
the individual belief to be able to do
that. You don't have to,
you don't have to celebrate. You know,
just come to church because it's Sunday.
It doesn't have to be a big deal to you, and whatever.
That's fine. But I just
don't see the harm in lifting
up our Savior in a big
way on a Sunday,
you know, on the same time
period that he would have resurrected from the dead.
And, you know, the time that we
do Easter, how do they
do that? How do they
pick that day? Well,
this is how they
pick the day, you know, because some people
go, well, like, why is Passover a certain day
and Easter
is a different time? And a lot
of people are confused about that. Well, here's what it is.
As to which Sunday in spring
would be set aside to commemorate
the resurrection, a plan
was worked out whereby it would be the
first Sunday after the
full moon that follows the spring
equinox. So the first
full moon is when they would do
what the Passover, right?
And then what follows the
spring equinox, so after
the Passover, it's the first Sunday
after that Passover. I think that's how it works.
As a result, right or wrong,
Easter is observed each year between
March 22 and April
25 by our calendar.
And again, we don't use the
Hebrew calendar, we use the Roman calendar
just the way it is.
But, you know,
it says in verse 6,
He that regardeth the day regardeth it to the Lord,
he that regardeth not the day to the Lord,
he doth not regard it.
He that eateth, eateth to the Lord,
for he that giveth,
for he giveth God thanks,
and he that eateth not to the Lord,
he eateth not and giveth God thanks.
So, skip down to verse 12, it says,
So then every one of us shall give an account,
or give account to himself,
to God. So, you're gonna give an account
for what you do and how you
lead your family and all that stuff, what days
you want to celebrate or whatever.
And that's between you
and God. Okay?
Obviously, sin is sin. Okay?
It's not like,
well, I get to choose what sins I think are
okay to do and not.
That's not what this is talking about. This is just talking about
personal preference on things
that the Bible doesn't necessarily spell out
or command us to do.
Or not command us to do.
You know, when the Bible is silent on a subject,
it's just like
Jesus, you know, like the
angel troubling the water
and everybody trying to jump in
the pool at the same time.
Where does the Bible say that they were supposed to do that?
Where does the Bible
say that they're supposed to take a pitcher
and take out of the water of the pool of
Siloam and dump it on the altar?
But then Jesus still uses that
as a springboard to talk about,
you know, if any of you thirst, come unto
me. You know?
So, just having a
holiday is not wrong.
It's just not.
Okay? And a holiday that
emphasizes Christ
is better, you know,
people are like, well, Mother's
Day is a pagan holiday too.
Because this mother goddess
or whatever, you know, they
sacrificed and whatever. But look,
in reality, Woodrow Wilson is the one that made
Mother's Day a holiday.
Because some lady
pushed for it in 1914 and it became
a law. So you can say, oh yeah,
it was a pagan holiday back then. But in reality,
Mother's Day and
now Hallmark and
all these companies make big money because
you know, Mother's
Day or whatever. And there should be a Mother's Day.
It's fine. But I'm just saying,
you know,
it's just bizarre.
Okay? That people just get so out of
black about some of these things. So,
you know, we, the Bible
says whatsoever is not a faith is sin.
So, look, if you don't want to
celebrate Easter, then don't.
But don't sit there and say it's pagan.
Because that word is not pagan. And look,
I also want to say this.
We believe that the Passover has been
replaced by the Lord's Supper
and we don't keep the Passover
and we call it Easter
or Resurrection Day. We don't
call it the Passover, you know why? Because we don't keep the
Passover anymore. Because Jesus was the
Lamb of God and he died
for us. So wouldn't it be weird for us
to call it the Passover now?
So why would we call it, why wouldn't
we call it Easter?
I just, it's weird. So,
Passover's been
replaced. Just like the Jews. Okay?
And we call it Easter.
Or Resurrection Sunday or whatever you
want to call it. But we don't call it Passover. We don't keep
the Passover. We
we call it
something else. We keep the feast
in a new and living way. We remember
the suffering and death.
And so we do the Lord's
Supper and then we
have Easter Sunday the following Sunday.
And it's a big time
of the year for church. I mean we had a record
you know, a record
of the year attendance this morning.
We had a lot of visitors and a lot of people come to
church on Easter Sunday and I'm glad
for it. So hopefully
some of those people will come back and get plugged into our
church and that's great. So,
you know,
I don't know, I just
I think it's pretty clear that Easter doesn't
mean, you know, I think I proved it
pretty, pretty convincingly
that it's not a
pagan holiday.
So, and
the other
thing is, is that I'm just
kind of sick and tired of this kind of attitude.
Like it's not just, it's not a prevalent
thing in our church, but you know, for someone
to come here and that's what
their main problem is. Like I said,
if you're going to come here and ask, you're going
to just grill me after church
about, you know, it's almost kind
of like a try out. Like
why should I come to this
church? You know, let me
test you on my
gotcha doctrines.
And, you know, people just act like they have
to have this unicorn church
that they, you know, need
needs to be this unicorn church that they come
to and it has to fit every single hobby
horse that they have. You know,
they want to ride their hobby horses into the sunset,
into the perfect church.
Oh, I found it. I found the
perfect church, but you know what I found? When people already
have some preconceived problem
before they ever get here,
that they're going to find something else later
on that they don't like about the church.
So, I would rather
just, just tell them the truth.
You know, of course I'm going to tell them the truth
and tell them what we believe about stuff.
I was nice about it, but, you know,
I even sent a nice text afterwards
that was just like, hey, you know,
maybe you should come and listen to the sermon.
You know, I never
got a response back or whatever,
but that's fine. But,
you know, maybe there were some better questions
that he could have asked me that were a little bit
more important than, do we
celebrate Easter?
And, you know, one of the things that really upset me
yesterday, as
I was studying for all this stuff,
is this message that I saw
from our own government yesterday.
And this message
is, today,
we send a message to all transgender Americans,
you are
loved. You are
heard. You are understood.
You belong.
You are America.
And my entire administration
and I have your back.
Now, therefore, I,
Joseph R. Biden Jr.,
President of the United States of America,
by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States,
do proclaim March 31,
2024
as Transgender
Day of Visibility.
Maybe the question
that he should have asked me is, do you let
faggots inside of this church?
That probably would have been a better
question to ask, don't you think?
You know what? And I don't
see transgenders today.
You know why? Because they're not allowed in our
church because they're a bunch of
fruitcakes and fags and queers.
I don't want them here. You know why we have that
curtain there? A lot of times
just so you don't have to see the freaks that walk
past here.
I don't want them in here.
I don't want to see them out there.
I don't want to see them.
I don't want to have a visibility
day. I want to have an
erasing day.
Like where they're erased out of
existence.
They're like, oh, you're talking about...
No, I'm just saying that the Bible
says that they shouldn't
exist.
Now I'm not talking about people who get forced into
it like these people,
these freaks that are
chopping their own children up
and forcing them to
take part in these surgeries.
That's abuse.
That is wicked.
And the Bible talks about
how Jesus talks about how
some people are
made eunuchs. That's what's
happening right now.
And some people are...
There's no such thing as a
transgender kid. I'm sorry.
No kid thinks about that.
No kid thinks about that unless it's
put in their brain by somebody else.
And he put all kinds of
these little things out for queers
and women's...
I'm gonna make sure women's history is put in here.
What about white boy
history?
Oh yeah,
we're evil devils, that's right.
What about just
men... What about
just Christian men history? What's
wrong with that one? Oh yeah, we're not allowed
to exist.
We're not allowed to have an opinion.
Nobody likes us.
We're the unmentionables.
You mention every single thing else,
every single freak of nature in here.
And you know what? The people... Look,
there's people all over
this city right now holding
church services and holding Easter services
and I guarantee you they're not talking about this right now.
I've had all the nice
fluffy stuff for the rest of the... You guys already
heard all that stuff. Okay?
I tried to teach you the best I could
about, you know, and edify
our church or whatever.
But you know what? The other part
of this message from Joe Biden, our
president, God help us,
is that he said we need
to pass
what's the bill?
It's the...
Goodnight. What's it called?
I forgot what it's called, but it's some
bill where they're
trying to amend
the 1964
Act where, you know,
it's discrimination.
So the Equality Act, that's what it is.
The Equality Act.
And you know who's the spearhead of that?
It's that fag-loving
idiot, Jeff Merkley, that's one of
the representatives over in... I think he's a
senator in Oregon or something. He's either a senator
or a representative.
He's like trying to push that through
like four or five times
over in Oregon.
And he's like,
what are you, a fag lover? What's your problem?
But you know what they want to make it
to do? Well, I can't get up and talk like this.
They want to make it like Canada
where you get thrown in prison
for standing up for churches.
And, you know, there's people that
are just, you know, these churches
are just laying down and letting... I talked
to a Muslim lady for, what,
about 30 minutes today, brother
Bill? You know what she said
to me? And I think this may be
one of the reasons why God just allowed me to have
this conversation. She said,
you Christians let homosexuals
into your church.
I was like, no we don't.
I was like, there's one church
in Vancouver that's not going to let them in.
And this is one of them.
I said, we're not letting them in.
And she was just like, I think she was surprised about a lot
of our answers. You know, she's bringing up
Palestinians like, hey, you know,
we're talking about, you know,
when we started talking about how the Jews were replaced,
she's like, oh, you know, her eyes light up.
We didn't get her converted, but you know,
we planted some good seeds.
But what a shame it is
that Muslims think that Christians
are less honorable than
they are. What a
shame it is that nobody
else is standing up for this truth.
There's a lot of people that are upset
about this. There's a lot of people that saw it on
social media. I didn't see it on social media.
My son-in-law, Dylan,
actually posted it in our
family group. And I looked at it and I was like
triggered really hard.
And then I found out that CJ is
the one that sent it to him.
So CJ, it's CJ's fault that I ruined
Easter tonight. And you know what?
Look,
people need to start asking
better questions when they go to visit
a church. Hey, do you let
convicted
child molesters attend your
church? That's a good question to ask.
Do you let transgenders and fags
and freaks into your church? No,
we don't.
Do you
believe salvation is by faith alone?
Yes, we do. Do you
believe you can lose your salvation? No.
You know what? I was preaching so hard against
Pentecostals this morning. I was like, why am I
preaching so hard against Pentecostals this morning? Because
there's one sitting in the back of our church right there
and I didn't even know it.
I'm like the Holy Spirit just got a hold of me. Why am I
preaching against all these Pentecostals? It's like
you know the guy with the funny jacket or
whatever.
I guess we should have realized he was a Nigerian
false prophet. But he was.
Anyway, brother Bill rebuked him finally
and he left. But he tried to
get him saved first, but you know, it just was a
lost cause. But you're like,
why is he preaching about Pentecostals? It's Easter
Sunday. That's why. I don't know.
So, but
look, you know,
why are you so upset about
a church like this? They need to get on our
side. They need to get on our team.
Instead of bashing our church,
you know, people are, you know, we'll go
out door knocking and brother Alex is like
yeah, somebody said that you're mean or whatever.
Yeah, you know what? I'm not mean enough
apparently. I think I
need to get a little bit more mean.
You know, maybe I just need to get a little bit
more mad because
look, our world's going to hell
in a hand basket and these pastors
out in this area are not standing
up for the truth. They're not being
real. They're not being true. They're letting
these freaks into their church and
they're acting like we're the bad guys. We're the
ones looking like the hate group or whatever.
No, we just hate freaks
and weirdos. We don't
want them around our people. We don't want
them around our children. We don't want them around
our spouses. They're weird.
That
guy with the mini skirt that tries
to come in here? Do you guys
want him sitting in here?
Nobody wants that.
What a weirdo.
He just walks around
like ugh.
He does it on purpose.
Do you think he just walks around in this parking lot just because
why?
Why would he walk around in here?
Because he wants little kids to
see him. You know what? We got
the veil of the temple right there so that
we don't have to.
It serves many purposes.
It's not to keep
it's to keep our eyes away from that kind
of stuff and then from looking in
here and us having to see him.
Because, you know what?
That guy asked the wrong
questions the other day.
Instead of worrying about Easter, why don't you worry about being
in church, buddy? How about that?
How about you just go to church?
You know, how about, hey, how many services
do you have a week, Pastor?
Can I come to all three of them? Yeah, sure.
That's a good question to ask.
Hey, Pastor, can I get, do you guys have a
soul winning program? That's a good question
to ask. But you know what a stupid question
to ask is? It's Easter and pagan
holiday!
That's a stupid question to ask.
It's not the right question!
The right question is,
do you like queers in this church? No!
That's the right question.
Is this a family integrated
church? Yes!
That's a good question to ask.
And if you come to this church,
ask the right questions. And I'm gonna
give you the right answers.
You can go to any church in this place, in this
whole town, and you know what? They're gonna let these
things go on. They're gonna teach false
salvation. They're not gonna, you know,
you're gonna have people believing Calvinism
here, repenting your sins here,
lordship salvation here,
you can lose your salvation over here, and you know
what? The pastor will never say anything to him.
He'll lie to you. He'll lie
and say, oh yeah, oh yeah, repent, it's just
two sides of the same coin. Then they'll go, oh
no, I don't believe that you have to repent of your sins.
They'll go, oh yeah, you do gotta repent of your sins.
You know why they do that?
Because they don't wanna lose the ties.
That's why.
And I've never cared
whether someone leaves or goes
based upon the things that we believe.
I'm gonna preach
what the Bible says
no matter what.
You know what? I gave the truth to that Muslim
and I hope she heard it.
And it's just a shame
to me that my
brothers and sisters supposedly
in Christ
are letting these freak shows in.
That the hospital
just right down the street, there's a Lutheran
church with a bunch of rainbow
painted doors that probably
some Russians keep knocking down. I don't know who's doing it.
It's definitely not us.
Because surely we'd
get caught doing it, so.
Must be Russians.
He's risen.
How's it going Anthony?
Huh?
I mean, seriously,
I was studying for this and I was just like
this is the biggest thing,
this is the biggest question on our mind.
There's so many
more important things
going on. There's so
much more things to worry about
than whether
Easter is pagan.
And I gave him good answers.
As soon as
I told him the truth,
he just turned it off
and wanted to leave.
And it's just like,
I wanted to just try
to make my case, but I thought
afterwards, I was like,
I'm not that hard up. I don't want to have to deal
with somebody just whining
about something all the time.
What about Christmas?
And he did, he brought up Christmas right after that.
And guess what he brought up?
Jeremiah chapter 11.
Guess what he brought up?
That's talking about the Christmas tree.
No, it's not.
I'll preach that sermon later on this year.
Alright, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much
for a great day in
church, Lord, and it's just so
frustrating to see our country just going
to hell like this. I pray, Lord, that you give us grace
and mercy and keep us
protected, Lord, and help us to keep preaching
the truth no matter what happens,
no matter what legislature is passed,
no matter what happens,
Lord, that we would always be loyal to you
no matter what.
And we know that it's not going to get better, it's going
to get worse, but Lord, we'll try to do
better as it gets worse.
And I pray that you just bless us, Lord, we thank you so
much for rising from the dead and
paying for our sins
in this life and
going to hell for three days and three nights, Lord.
You did it all for us so that we could be
eternally saved, and Lord, we're eternally grateful.
And we just ask that you would just give
us grace as we go our separate ways, and
I pray that you just bless each and every single one that's
here tonight, being faithful to
church, and
pray that you just bless the rest of our week.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Page 29 at the cross.
Sing it out loud on the first.
Alas,
and did my
Savior bleed
and did my
sovereign die?
Would
He devote
that sacred head
for such a
worm as I?
At
the cross, at the cross
where I first saw
the light and the burden
of my heart rolled
away.
It was there by
faith I received
my sight, and
now I am happy
all the day.
Was it
for crimes that
I have done?
He groaned
upon the tree.
Amazing
did
He grace
unknown and love
beyond
degree.
At the cross, at the
cross where I first
saw the light and the
burden of my heart
rolled away.
It was there by
faith I received
my sight, and
now I am happy
all the day.
Well, might
the sun in
darkness
hide and shut
His glories in.
When
Christ the
mighty maker
died for man
the creature
sinned.
At the cross, at the
cross where I first
saw the light and the
burden of my heart
rolled away.
It was there
by faith I received
my sight,
and now I am
happy all the day.
But
drops of grief
can
repay the
debt of love
I owe.
Lord,
I give myself
away
tis all that
I can do.
At the cross,
at the cross where
I first saw the light
and the burden of my
heart rolled away.
It was
there by
faith I received
my sight, and now
I am happy
all the day.
And thank you for celebrating
Easter with us this Sunday.
And I hope you enjoyed it. Have a great
and safe week.
Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer?