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MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC Good job getting through that one brother bill you want to open us with the word of prayer MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC 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. 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. 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? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer? Brother Remy, you want to end us with a word of prayer?