O you who love the Lord, hate evil! – Psalm 97:10 ~ There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. – Proverbs 14:12
From: The Pagan origins of Ash Wednesday & Lent by Peter Salemi
This ritual of Ash Wednesday and Lent has solidified its place in the Catholic Church and many of the protestant daughters of the Catholic Church like the Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, some Baptists, etc.…This Apostate Church committed fornication with the pagan gods of the people-spiritual adultery. She took up pagan practices and made them her own calling it “Christian.” Incorporated them into her system of religious worship; but are really the Babylonian Mystery Religion and not the religion of Christianity.
In his book The Two Babylon’s, Alexander Hislop discovered this about Lent: “Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess [Ishtar who became eventually Easter the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring]…Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt… This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis [Nimrod or Tammuz] or Osiris, the great mediatorial god….Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the ‘month of Tammuz;’ in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, sometime in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity now far sunk in idolatry in this as in so many other things, to shake hands….” (pp.104-105, emphasis added).
“Christianity DID NOT destroy paganism- it ADOPTED IT.” ~ Will Durant
Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. – Psalm 81:3,4
Obedience is to direct our worship, not whim and sentiment: God’s appointments give a solemnity to rites and times which no ceremonial pomp or hierarchical ordinance could confer. The Jews not only observed the ordained month, but that part of the month which had been divinely set apart. The Lord’s people in the olden time welcomed the times appointed for worship; let us feel the same exultation, and never speak of the Sabbath (Lord’s Day) as though it could be other than a ‘delight’ and ‘honorable.’ Those who plead this passage as an authority for their man-appointed feasts and fasts must be moon-struck. We will keep such feasts as the Lord appoints, but not those which Rome or Canterbury may ordain.
“For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.” It was a precept binding upon all the tribes that a person should be set apart to commemorate the Lord’s mercy, and truly it was but the Lord’s due. He had a right and a claim to such special homage. When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide and other Popish festivals were ever instituted by a divine statute, we will also attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men as to observe the ordinances of the Lord.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
Treasury of David, Psalm 81
“The Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” – Isaiah 52:10
Suggested Further Reading: 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
In the old revivals in America a hundred years ago, commonly called “the great awakening,” there were many strange things, such as continual shrieks and screams, and knockings, and twitchings, under the services. We cannot call that the work of the Spirit. Even the great Whitefield’s revival at Cambuslang, one of the greatest and most remarkable revivals ever known, was attended by some things that we cannot but regard as superstitious wonders. People were so excited, that they did not know what they did. Now, if in any revival you see any of these strange contortions of the body, always distinguish between things that differ. The Holy Spirit’s work is with the mind, not with the body in that way. It is not the will of God that such things should disgrace the proceedings. I believe that such things are the result of Satanic malice. The devil sees that there is a great deal of good doing; “Now,” says he, “I’ll spoil it all. I’ll put my hoof in there and do a world of mischief. There are souls being converted; I will let them get so excited that they will do ludicrous things, and then it will all be brought into contempt.” Now, if you see any of these strange things arising, look out. There is that old Apollyon busy, trying to mar the work. Put such vagaries down as soon as you can, for where the Spirit works, He never works against His own precept, and His precept is, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” It is neither decent nor orderly for people to dance under the sermon, nor howl, nor scream, while the gospel is being preached to them, and therefore it is not the Spirit’s work at all, but mere human excitement.
For meditation: The Holy Spirit produces self-control, not loss of control (1 Corinthians 14:32; Galatians 5:22,23; 2 Timothy 1:7).
Sermon no. 185
28 March (1858)
365 Days with C.H. Spurgeon, Vol. 1. A unique collection of 365 daily readings from sermons preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon from his New Park Street Pulpit.
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