For Those Who Hate the Earth

You fools! The earth is crying out, and you do not listen. You whine about your absentee Father whom you say left you with your Mother but will come see you one day. Your Mother is the one who birthed you from her womb and has nursed you at her breast all the years of your life! The Earth has given everything we need, and yet you want more; you worship the material. You want her very life force, until she is spent. You want to spit upon her, throw waste upon her, cry "boo" at her, but you want a reward from your Father.  You ignore the damage you are doing. You claim your Father doesn't care about your Mother, but how would you know if you have never seen his face? 

Either he is rotten for leaving her and for never bothering to care for you himself but only sending his Firstborn (who has definitely proven to be good, whether his Father is or not) with messages (and how are we to know whether he is ready to reject his Father in that case?). Or else the Father is good and is testing you on what kind of person you are based on how you treat your Mother and her other children. How can one sincerely love a good Father they cannot see (if one believes their Father is good), if they don't even bother to love the one they do see, which is their Mother and the Mother's other children?

"If a man says that he loves God and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who doesn't love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" (I John 4:20).

The first command Elohim gave, if Genesis is to believed, is to take care of the Mother so that she would take care of man (Gen 2:15). 

The end is foretold to come during which wrath is unleashed, and God should "destroy them which destroy the earth" (Rev. 11:18). 

If you believe those books, those words, you better first and foremost ask yourself daily and throughout the day, "Am I taking care of the planet and the plants, creatures, and people on it?" and "Am I loving my neighbor as myself, or am I engaging in acts of hate by endangering—or threatening to endanger—others mentally and or physically and/or destroying or disrespecting their property?"

Then when you find opportunity in acts great or small, what sort of decisions should you make to best ensure you are following those two commandments—proving to love the Unseen (Father) by taking care of the Seen (Mother) and the seen (people, animals, etc.) living beside you (as stretched all around the globe, neighbors near and far)?

The earth's health and the wellbeing of all who live on it should be your primary concern. If you instead support anything that places more burden on the earth, without any remorse or desire to improve, you shall be found guilty if those words are true.

Two Upcoming Posts on Forgiveness

I still have not finished my series on forgiveness, and I really want to do so.  The first post was on the two types/stages of forgiveness, and the second one was on forgiving oneself.  I had intended on making two more posts, and then I stopped blogging here and started blogging at my new blog at truthsearching.com after realizing I was an atheist.  However, the last two installments I had planned to write on forgiveness are important, and I don't want to leave the series undone.  I've thought a lot about it over the past year and a half. 

I have finally decided to still do them using mainly the bible as a source from which to quote, even though I could do it many ways. 

The final two posts will cover:

1. When Forgiveness Runs Out

and

2. Blocking the Vibrations of the Unforgiving

I'm not sure when I will type this out, as I've got some posts already planned for my truthsearching.com that I want to add soon, but if you are stopping by, and these topics interest you, be sure to check back, but first read the first two installments, if you haven't already.

Armstrongism and Eating Out on Sabbath

I came to learn over the past few months that all the churches of God that splintered from Herbert Armstrong's church violate the Sabbath day by eating out.  Some even do their garden work and enter grocery stores on that day, I was shocked to learn during fellowship.  I had come across the knowledge that some pastors in the churches were teaching it was ok to eat out on the Sabbath and to fly on commercial airplanes to get to services, over the last several years, but I thought they were isolated incidents.  I would stop listening to such teachers once I learned that, because what they push the most to everyone to prove they are the true church of God is that they keep the Sabbath.

Once I realized all these people in the United Church of God, which for years I've thought was much better than all the other big groups since they don't have a one-man-on-top heirarchy, were eating out on the holy days together and ordering pizza to be brought after services on the Sabbath, I looked for their teaching on their website, which is found here.

While some of the things in that article are all fine and good, I am going to share the part about eating out on the Sabbath here and then comment.  The parts of that article will be in lavender.

Eating Out on the Sabbath

The question of eating out on the Sabbath sometimes comes up. We have a paper, "Principles of Sabbath Observance, Eating Out on the Sabbath." It is on the Web site at www.ucg.org/papers if you wish to get a copy. It goes through all of the scriptures and all of the principles that have to do with eating out on the Sabbath. The Church has never taught that it was wrong or a violation of the Sabbath to eat in a restaurant on the Sabbath. Clearly Christianity involves an individual choice as to what you do. It is a judgment that individuals have to make.



Paul took certain positions about not eating meat if it made someone stumble. But the act itself of going out to eat is not a matter of sin. It is the view of the Church that it is not a violation of the Scriptures if one chooses to eat out.

Those who object to purchasing a meal on the Sabbath usually base their argument from two principles—causing someone else to work on the Sabbath or exchanging money on the Sabbath. There are two scriptures they use, one in Nehemiah 13, and the other in Amos.
If you look at these two scriptures with this particular paper, I think you will see why the Church teaches what it teaches. The prohibition that you find in both places is against setting up a market on the Sabbath or a Holy Day. The Jews had become a people that made the Sabbath a secular day where it was acceptable to go to a market. The principle expressed in these scriptures is, don't make the Sabbath a market day or a day to do your weekly shopping.

Nehemiah 13 has nothing to do with eating out in a restaurant. After you look at the scriptures on the subject, if you as an individual feel compelled not to eat out at a restaurant on the Sabbath, so be it. No one should look down, no one should criticize, no one should judge.

First of all, it's a big red flag whenever you see that they are upholding a man-made religion, namely Christianity.  I absolutely hate to be associated with that word.  But that is indeed what they are walking, just one of the many variants of a man-led religion.

I agree it's an individual choice, just as it's an individual choice for anything.  The problem is not with an individual's choices.  The problem is with the corporate group UCG claiming it's the true church of God (which it's not, because the true Church is a spiritual entity) and leading thousands of people into Sabbath-breaking, because they are taught that they are walking the right path not by making individual choices, but rather by following UCG's corporate board members' decisions on doctrine.

They teach that eating out on the Sabbath is not a sin, but since it is a sin, they are in huge error.  They are dividing Christ.

"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple" (Romans 16:17-18)

Yes!  They are deceiving the hearts of the simple!  The ones who are being deceived are the ones who have just been brainwashed for years and years and who have lost their nerve to say, "No, uh-huh, that's not what the scriptures teach, and if we're going to use the scriptures to decide, this corporation is lying and leading people astray and profiting from them."

What Paul said about eating meat has nothing to do with eating out on the Sabbath.  It dealt with people offering meat to idols, and the law of Moses forbade Israelites to eat meat that had been offered to idols, but under the new covenant we are to be led spiritually and know that the idols to which meat have been offered are nothing, so it doesn't truly affect the meat (at least Paul didn't believe so, and I don't know what science would actually prove).

Okay, now to the real BIG DEBUNK.  

The author claims that those who "object to purchasing a meal on the Sabbath" use two main scriptures for an argument.  He claims that they are scriptures in Nehemiah and Amos. Well, I'll get to those shortly, but first, let me say, "Uhhhh, NOPE.  Really if you just read the commandment, there is nothing to argue."

So let's do that!  Let's set these abusive "ministers" straight.  And yes, they love to abuse and play mind tricks.  And the worst thing is that those who have been hurt and abused and have become frustrated with this organization and others like it, is that too often they stay in it to be abused more and more!

The commandment in Exodus 20:9-11 makes clear that you shall do no work, nor make your servants work for you.  Check out the Deuteronomy 5 version, too, because it talks about Israel being brought out as servants to Egypt.

So what is it that these people think they're doing when they failed to prepare their meal ahead of time and so sit in a restaurant and hire servants to cook their food and serve/wait on them?  Are they not your servants?  Didn't Salvation say that the Sabbath was made for man?

The argument that those people would choose to work there that day, anyway, because they do not keep the Sabbath, is pathetic.  Is it okay, too, to engage in sex with a whore, because she's going to do that, anyway, if you don't do it with her?  That somehow makes it right?

And suppose that person engaged in a conversation with you and mentioned them going to church the next day, and they invited you.  Suppose they are one of the many who truly keep the first day of the week holy by not eating out in restaurants, shopping, etc.  There flies out any true opportunity for you to properly share the truth!

Another foolish argument I've heard made over the years claims that the commandment says no one within "your gates," and that ancient Israel had to keep that commandment, but since we can't make our whole nation keep the Sabbath, that law doesn't apply to us, and we can have servants work for us in restaurants or at airports and in airplanes.  Hmmm...

Two main points, and I'll move on.  So, suppose an Israelite was on a journey to other lands.  Was he free to break the Sabbath and treat it as an ordinary day when he was elsewhere?  And even if he did live by that carnal mindset, is it any way to live out our walk under the new spiritual covenant where the Nation of God is a spiritual entity not marked by physical borders?  Also again, how did one expect to broaden the borders of God's Kingdom to cover the earth when not setting the right example for others?

Now on to Nehemiah 13 and to Amos, since the author thinks that is where the main argument is.

The author claims the scriptures say that the Sabbath shouldn't be a market day and that one shouldn't do shopping.  And indeed that's so true (even though at least one person in the congregation I attended did shop on the Sabbath and also worked in her garden).

Yes, if you go to Nehemiah 13 and read, Nehemiah claimed that it was an evil thing to profane the Sabbath day by buying and selling (conducting business, marketing).  Let us reason together, shall we?  It's a marketplace.  They were selling and buying produce, wine, grain, fish, and probably all sorts of clothing and dishes and no telling what all. There were probably people selling freshly baked bread and other foods.  Regardless of whether there were tables where people could eat their freshly-made foods (people have done this throughout the ages, not just today), there's no doubt that there was food being sold, because Nehemiah named foods.  Does it matter whether you went to sit at a table provided by that particular merchant or whether you took it home?  Isn't that asinine thinking, that somehow the lack of a table outside the merchant's booth or permanent shop makes it wrong to buy food in the marketplace?

Why didn't Nehemiah just tell the marketers to bring tables for the people to sit so that they could eat their purchased food?  Then it wouldn't be sin!

Seriously, isn't it a problem when people like Fred Coulter, Roy Holladay, and others, just because they're gray and wrinkled, can lead the masses astray, because the people fail to do the thinking and working themselves? 

Why are so many profaning the sabbath?  Why are so many walking their walks according to what some corporate group tells them?  Why are they calling them "Mr." this and "Mr." that if Salvation taught we're all brothers and sisters?  Why are they eating just as poorly as the mainstream and depending just as much on conventional medical care as the mainstream?  Why are the honoring the late self-exalting prideful Herbert Armstrong rather than striving not to live as Armstrong did?  Why are they shutting themselves in some veteran's building or something else for numerous hours at a time to conduct close-minded services on the memorial of creation each week?

Continuing, the UCG author wrote:

We simply ask that individuals keep that as a personal decision and not make efforts to persuade others, because this is a teaching of the Church. We must understand that attempts to persuade others is divisive, and that behavior simply cannot be tolerated in the Church of God. We call that sowing discord.

Yep, you got that right on the "we."  "We call that sowing discord."  It sounds like he's addressing a five-year-old.  "Little Timmy, we call that sowing discord." 

No.  Sowing discord is when you stir up strife among friends or brothers, getting one to be mad at another.  It has absolutely nothing to do with standing up for the truth, opening your mouth and saying, "Hey, this is wrong!"

This is why we are to separate from groups with false teachings and false teachers that teach them, who are deceiving and being deceived.  I could not stay and put up with the ever-mounting feelings of imprisonment, because they are a subtle cult, yet still controlling and abusive.

It's no wonder so many have left those groups and have gone back into the world.  I for one have gone back to living in my own temple reigned over by the loving and wise guidance given by my Creator, and I know many other souls out there doing the same thing. We are scattered!  But we are free, and we are one.  There may be little differences, but we know we are being guided individually, and we don't judge each other, because we all know that is our Creator's job, NOT the job of some corporate entity that sets itself up as the "true church."

They are divisive.  They are the ones who have caused  division.  Armstrong caused division.  There were already people walking the right path, being guided spiritually.  He divided Christ and did many evils.  And the people in those groups are still under that power.

And for anyone who is wondering, no, I didn't "try to convince" anyone.  It was known what I believed, because I failed to take part in their sins.  My example was enough.  But it would be nice, wouldn't it, if they would also not try to persuade people the other way around?  Because that is what they have tried to do, and apparently a lot of people are persuaded.

What about you?  I'll leave you with some more of the article author's very own words:

Ezekiel wrote about the severe consequences when the people defiled God's Sabbaths (Ezekiel:20:11-13). God was very serious about the Sabbath being a test commandment. How we keep God's Sabbath tells God something about how much we really want to be in His family.

Eternal Life: Free for Just Believing? (A Pentecost Message)

My firstborn got out my laptop this morning and was going to pull up the daily devotional for himself and his siblings, which we use from Biblestudyplanet.com.  I skimmed it, as I always do first, because I simply skip some altogether, and I realized the main point was that eternal life is a free gift.  That much is true, but it didn't stop there.  The dad in the story declared that all you must do is believe eternal life is a free gift and accept it. 

Really?  Anyone who simply believes eternal life is a free gift can accept that free gift?  So, regardless of how a person lives his or her life, that person will live on paradise earth with the rest of us forever?!  It wouldn't be a paradise.  What would be the point of creating us with earthly bodies in the first place, when our Creator could have simply cloned himself numerous more times, just as he did with his first son (who also later lived in an earth body to prove himself).  If God could asexually reproduce himself one time, why should we think he couldn't have done it many times over?  He could have!  He can!  But he later came to realize that would be evil, because he realized that some do not desire to live under his authority.  He had created beings rebel.  So that is the reason why we're in earthly bodies in the first place, so we can be given choice.  And if that choice is to live in an evil way toward others, changing that person into a perfect spiritual being is a force to live forever against that person's will.  That person would not want to serve God and so to make that person perfect would be forcefully making that person someone he or she does not want to be.

Those in the Protesting Catholic groups who are part of the horrid Christianity religion (and not all, but most of them) go straight from the meaning of Passover (sacrifice for our sins) to the meaning of Pentecost (receiving the begettal of the God Spirit), totally skipping over the meaning of the feast and holy days between—Unleavened Bread (repenting and ridding one self's life of sin).

Today is Pentecost, and it's an awesome day!  It pictures persons being conceived with the God Spirit, which helps them walk on the right path and comforts them through life's trials.  It also guarantees that those persons will be reborn as spiritual-bodied children of God at the Anointed's return to this planet to set up the Kingdom of God, so long as the begotten child does not abort at some point in this life due to horrid malnutrition (exposure to bad things and lack of exposure to good persons, good writings, etc.) or to extreme injury from which he or she does not attempt to recover (like the death of a child or other loved one, loss of limbs, etc.). 

But the Spirit is only given to those who have demonstrated obedience and the desire to get the needed help to continue (Acts 5:32; 2:38).

You cannot cut out the step between the Passover sacrifice and the Pentecost spiritual gift.  There is a prerequisite before the Spirit-begettal that is the free ticket to eternal life.  You must repent!  

The reason eternal life is "free" is because all have sinned and come short of what Holy Father expects.  Salvation, the Anointed Firstborn (called by most "Jesus Christ" or by some "Yeshua Messiah") showed the expectation.  He's the glory of God, the glory-child.  We've all come short of that.  So the reason eternal life is free is because the two holy ones chose to save us, regardless of our sin, if and only if we repent and live a lifestyle of righteousness.  That means striving to do our best.  That means for men to strive to be like Salvation, and for women that means to strive to be worthy of having been his wife.  In stricter terms, it means we all should try to be a perfect glory-child, knowing we won't reach that perfection in our carnal bodies, but in our hearts that is who we are and so how we strive to get our brains and bodies to work to follow.

Praise our Great Father and our Beloved Lord Salvation for this wonderful holy day and for all it means, but don't forget that the meaning of the Unleavened Bread feast also represents an attitude that should be ongoing in our lives, and the gift of Pentecost is not possible for those who skip the meaning of Unleavened Bread.

On Hanging Sacrifices as Trophies

I'm well-accustomed to the hanging of animal trophies on the walls, because I grew up in an area where a lot of hunting is done.  I come from a hunting family, and I'm married to a hunting husband.  There is nothing wrong with hunting for food.  If we were to need to survive in the wilderness here in the winter, we wouldn't have a chance if we didn't hunt.  We'd need those sacrificial kills if we were going to live. 

However, I've always been a bit disturbed by the hanging of deer heads on the wall.  I'm quite used to it, as I've never lived in a home where it wasn't done.  My daddy has deer heads on the wall, and my husband has them on our wall.  I don't make a big deal out of it and never have, though my husband does know I think it's a little twisted.  I much prefer the Native Americans' way.  They used the hides, the antlers, almost everything, for useful things like clothes and tools. 

When I was still a kid I felt like the deer were staring at me.  I knew they weren't alive, of course, but it was just haunting and sad to me.  And now I wonder what my own children must think about it. What's the point of hanging deer heads on the wall?

I personally do not even understand why people, especially men, target the biggest, most beautiful bucks.  It makes more sense to me to leave them out there for us to behold and for continued good breeding.  Why does it make some people feel good to kill those particular deer, especially when they are not nearly as good-tasting nor as healthful meat as a younger deer is?  I think it's a power thing, like they outdid that deer.  "I overcame you, and now I'm going to boast about it to everyone by hanging you on my wall." 

That is how it seems to me.  Now I may be offending someone here, but this is my fair opinion.  As I said, my husband knows my opinion well, but he doesn't get offended.  We can get along while still disagreeing.  He lets me hang things I want on the wall, too.   

But the last time I meditated on this, while I was sitting eating breakfast one morning and happened to look over at the deer who was staring at me (like he always does; he was a beautiful deer, and I had to help drag him out of the woods), I thought of the people who hang what is supposed to be a portrayal of Christ hanging on a cross, on their walls.

The "crucifixes" have always disturbed me.  I do not know why people would want to focus on Christ's dead body.  He's alive in heaven!  Let's focus on that.

But at that moment during my meditation, I was even more horrified.  It's a sacrifice trophy.

Now I know many who hang these horrid things in their homes or wear them around their necks don't see it that way.  They would protest that they aren't boasting about his death. 

But how does Christ see it, I wonder?  Does he like being reminded as he peers into your home or sees you walking with that necklace, of the horrible way he died, when many of you are crossing yourselves before engaging in a premeditated sin?  It's usually Catholics who sport the crucifixes, whereas the Protesting Catholics prefer sporting crosses without a body.  What does the Lord Salvation think when he sees those grotesque replicas hanging here and there and everywhere by people who use his grace as a license to sin?

Ironically, those are the ones who claim to celebrate his resurrection on a pagan goddesses' feast day, Easter, but they are showing off his death all day, every day.  On the contrary, those who do not celebrate any resurrection day (which was symbolized by the Firstfruits wave offering, which is counted from to celebrate the Feast of Weeks/Pentecost) and who instead observe the commanded Passover feast to remember Christ's death each year do not sport the horrid crucifixes, nor any image that is supposedly an image of Christ. That would break the second commandment, which the church in Rome conveniently deleted and cleverly divided the tenth commandment into two so that they'd still have ten. 

So what is the reason usually given by those who hang crucifixes?  I'm curious to know.  From my earliest days in life I have never understood why anyone would want to show off a representation of Christ's dead body.  Of course, I also do not understand the Christianity practice of believing that the eucharist bread and the wine literally become our Lord's flesh and blood, either, so that they believe they are sacrificing Christ daily, as if the one time he died as our Passover Lamb didn't do the job.  That is disturbing, too, especially regarding those who take it all lightly and go on living a lifestyle of sin (which certainly does not describe many Catholics, for there are many out there who are truly trying to live righteously, albeit ignorantly concerning many things). 

Regardless of a person's reason, one thing is for sure.  Displaying what you call Christ's body dead on your wall or necklace (or whatever else) is a sin, the transgression of the second commandment.  God isn't going to conform to Rome's changing His law, deleting the second commandment.  He will rather judge based on the way He wrote His law.  

To be covered by the Anointed Salvation's sacrifice, you must repent of breaking the second commandment, and all other nine commandments.  Hanging animal trophies is one thing, but hanging a dead "Jesus" up as your Christianity trophy is a sin.  

Contrasting God's Unleavened Bread with Pagan-Catholic Lent

Note:  This is a long post, and the actual contrast of UB with Lent is well into it.

This week "spiritually virgin" Christians—they are those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12)—have been keeping the commanded Passover and Unleavened Bread feasts and holy days.  Meanwhile "spiritually whore" Christians—they are those who testify Jesus is Christ but walk in Babylon rather than keep God's commandments (Revelation 17 & 18)—have been keeping a season of fasting called Lent (simply meaning "spring") that leads up to their holy day Easter.  Many of the protestors of their mother church, the church of Rome who went a-whoring, only keep Easter and so do not know much about Lent. 

The scriptures mention both of these times, in a time long before the birth of Christ, and the scriptures show that the Eternal forbids keeping these pagan holy times.  It makes clear He absolutely hates them.

The prophet Ezekiel was being shown various things that the house of Israel was doing and what the house of Judah was doing.  The Eternal God started off with one thing and then escalated to "greater abominations" and even "greater abominations," worse and worse.

A little over halfway through the chapter, at verse 13 and 14 it explains that the people were doing some abominations greater than the ones listed prior, and this included women weeping for Tammuz.  I'd wager that most who belong to the Catholic Christianity religion and those who are part of the many protesting Catholic Christianity sects (Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc.) do not know who Tammuz was, even though they participate in many of the pagan traditions of worshiping him.  Tammuz was the son of Semiramis (or Asthtoreth/Astarte/Easter, etc.), the ungodly Nimrod's wife.  You can read about Nimrod in Genesis 10:8-10.  He was a mighty ruler who started Babel (Babylon) and other lands.  He was mighty but ungodly, and after his death his wife claimed the son she later birthed was Nimrod reborn, and he was worshiped as the sun god.  That was the beginning of the unholy trinity doctrine that you see in all the pagan religions (like in Egypt with Osiris, Isis, and Horus), including Roman Catholicism (supposedly Father God, Mary the Queen of Heaven, and Jesus).  The protesting Catholics reject worshiping Mary, so their trinity is Father, Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, as if the Spirit of God is its own person!  (This wicked doctrine leaves out any chance for us to also become children of Father God.)

Tammuz supposedly lived for forty years and was killed by a wild boar.  His worshipers kept  a 40-day period of mourning, a day for each year of his life, in his honor, which led up to the day in honor of his whore mother Easter, worshipped as the sex and fertility goddess (think Easter eggs and sex-crazed rabbits).  People celebrate Easter by eating ham in Tammuz's honor, since he was killed by a boar.

Now on to the even greater abomination, in verse 16 we can read about people at the door of God's temple, facing away from the temple, toward the east to worship the sun.  Sound familiar?  What comes right after the weeping of Tammuz (renamed "Lent")?  The feast of Easter.  And what do people do at Easter services?  Many of them hold what they call "sunrise" services.  They face the sun and watch it rise while services are conducted.

If you're thinking, "Oh, big deal.  We are keeping it in Jesus' name."  Well, let's see...

Very next verse, Then he said unto me, Have you seen, oh son of man?  Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here?  for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and lo, they put the branch to their nose (vs. 17).

When the ETERNAL your God shall cut off the nations from before you, where you go to possess them, and you succeed them, and dwell in their land; Take heed to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before you; and that you inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. You shall not do so to the ETERNAL your God: for every abomination to the ETERNAL , which he hates, have they done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: you shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it (Deut. 12:29-32).

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: you cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils (1 Cor. 10:21).  

See also: 1 Kings 18:21 (one of my personal favorites); Matt. 6:24; 2 Cor. 6:15-17

 Yes, those of Judah (Jews) have filled their land with violence even today, but so has the house of Israel, the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, the peoples are who mostly reading this (as per my site statistics that show places all over the world, but by far the most from the modern nations of Israel like the United States, Britain, and Canada).  They're all war-mongers!  They LOVE war!  You tune in to a "christian" radio program like American Family Radio, and they love war.  Same old story with the Catholics and protesting Catholics. All through the ages they are no better than their enemy Muslims.  And YES, they all DO claim to worship exactly the same God.  I've read the Qur'an completely, and their beliefs almost perfectly match Protestants'.  Isn't that interesting?  But it's true.  And they both reject what is written in their holy books.  What other violence?  Abortion.  Most who get abortions in the U.S. state that they are "Christian" in religion.  Same old story as the pagans. Child sacrifice, sacrificing the firstborn.

In the future, if they don't repent, they will also be deceived by the "beast" power.  The coming "Antichrist" and "false prophet" will be from the Christianity religion.  So the ones in the Christianity religion will be the ones supporting these two wicked individuals.  The ones in the Christianity religion will think God's two faithful and true witnesses are the beast and false prophet.  THEY WILL GET IT ALL BACKWARD!  The scriptures warn that God will give them over to strong delusion so that they will believe a lie, because they RECEIVED NOT THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH!  Rather they believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness, which means breaking God's commandments  (See 2 Thess. 2:11-12).

I CAME OUT OF THAT SYSTEM!!  I GREW UP AS A PROTESTANT, BEING THE ONLY ONE FOR MOST OF MY YEARS GROWING UP TO GO TO CHURCH.  I PAID ATTENTION TO WHAT WAS TAUGHT AND QUESTIONED THINGS EVEN THEN.  WHEN I GOT IT FIGURED OUT, THAT THEY WERE LYING, AND THE BIBLE DIDN'T TEACH THOSE THINGS, I GOT OUT!!

Before I reached that point, I'd read some mainstream Christian prophecy books, so I know the basic end time beliefs of theirs, and I've since studied the bible and know what really shall happen, and the overall general teaching they teach is EXACT OPPOSITE of what the scriptures teach.  It's NO WONDER THEY'LL BE DECEIVED!  Now, if they will had been reading their bibles themselves and PROVING whether what they were taught was really true or not, they will not have gotten themselves tangled in the delusion.  You see, they teach that the Antichrist will be Jewish.  Isn't that interesting?  The bible doesn't teach that at all.  They also teach that Christians who follow the Ten Commandments, particularly the fourth commandment that teaches the Sabbath and true annual holy days, are being Jewish.  Of course God's two witnesses will be true Christians.  The false witnesses (beast/antichrist and false prophet) will both come from the false Christianity religion.  They will be Catholic.

Satan is VERY clever indeed.

Now back to what is different from the Heavenly Eternal God's commanded Unleavened Bread feast (Lev. 23:6-8; I Cor. 5:6-8) and the earthly enemy god's deceptive substitute Lent feast...

As the apostle Paul explained to the Corinthians, leaven represents sin, and by ridding our homes of leaven and leavened breads during the feast, we are reminded to examine ourselves, to make sure we are ridding ourselves of the sins in our lives, because Christ is our Passover Lamb sacrificed for us, so that if we repent, we will be covered by his grace.

Lent involves fasting from meat, or as it's evolved, from whatever vices with which a person struggles (food and drug addictions, porn addiction, or whatever).  But afterward people return to whatever it is from which they were abstaining.  It's supposed to be a time of mourning over these sins, but it's more like a, "I'm sorry for being this way, but I'm not sorry in the way that will bring me to true repentance.  I don't want to change.  Feeling sorry is enough."

Not only that, but there are other days that Catholics keep, like Ash Wednesday, Maudy Thursday, Good Friday, Palm Sunday, and Shrove Tuesday.  This last one is also known popularly as Mardis Gras (also "Fat Tuesday").  It's pretty much a sinful festival of lust, gluttony (lots of sugar and meat), drunkenness, revelry....you know, a huge sin fest.  At midnight this sin fest abruptly ends (where it's largely celebrated, like in New Orleans, US and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and Lent begins.  It's meat and sugar from which people abstain during Lent, so they really gorge on it beforehand. 

Since true Christians know when the feast of Unleavened Bread is about to begin, it's common to start using up all the yeast and leavened breads beforehand, since we live in a day where we may keep yeast packets in our cabinets.  Now it's wise to use it up rather than wasting it if you've spent money on this (in ancient Israel, things worked differently, you just had your lump of leavened dough you kept, and you added it to the daily bread and kept a lump back again), but the point I want to make is that we should focus more on the spiritual meaning of the feast and make sure we are properly keeping this feast in its new covenant way.  Let's not let take it to the extreme with the attitude of, "Let's feast greatly on yeasted breads before Unleavened Bread begins, because we won't be able to eat it then." And for all I know, there may be those who are spending the entire week of Unleavened Bread desiring to return back to eating leavened bread.  I actually enjoy how eating our normal breads in an unleavened state sets as a constant reminder of what the feast is really supposed to teach us.

Let's not let our attitudes be like so many of those who follow the pagan Christianity religion, who have made Christ to be their "lord of misrule," who turn his grace into a license to sin and who decide to worship him in whatever way they see fit in their own eyes, who do not question what in the world the word Easter means or what eggs have to do with Christ's resurrection or why the Easter rabbit lays eggs.  I was a child when I questioned these things within myself!  I failed to see what any of that had to do with Christ or what any of the Christmas stuff had to do with Christ.  There were lots of things I just failed to understand, because I used my logic.  I do not understand why or how so many can just go along in life just doing everything the way someone says it should be done, just because everyone is doing it that way, even though it makes absolutely no sense at all.  But it's WRONG, and it's IRRESPONSIBLE, and it's LAZY, and it's COWARDLY. 

I remember in 2004 my husband, firstborn son, and I temporarily lived in Texas.  My husband and his friend walked into a liquor store to buy some beer.  I sat in the vehicle with my son, and I watched as a man walked toward the door and did the trinity crossing ritual across his face and chest, which Catholics do, and then he opened the door.  My mouth must have dropped open.  What that said to me is that it was his belief that drinking alcohol was wrong (or that perhaps only that excess drinking is wrong but that he planned to do that), but if he did the crossing thing before he did it, he'd be pardoned.  I told my husband about it, who spent part of his years growing up in Texas, and he said that it was a common thing with Catholics to do the crossing thing and then do a sin. 

Does grace cover premeditated willful sins?  (See Heb. 10:26)  Sure, a person can repent and then be judged by his lifestyle afterward. But if you live a life of willful sin, I don't care how many times you do that crossing thing or how many beads you touch while you utter hail Mary's or anything else numerous times, it will do you no good.  Those things are utter folly, anyway.  You have turned God's grace into a license to sin (see Jude 4), and you shall NOT RECEIVE ANY GRACE for your sins. 

Many are still ignorant.  There are many still growing up in Catholic or Protesting Catholic churches who are going along with Easter and Lent, because that is what they've been taught.  Some of those children are wise enough to spend time meditating about those things, though, and questioning why none of it makes sense. 

But for those who have already been shown the truth and have been given the opportunity to prove the truth, and you have chosen to not receive the love of the truth, you currently have no grace.  You know better.  It's not that you are ignorant.  You have rejected the truth.  You do not love the truth.  You love lies and liars. 

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will you do in the end thereof? (Jer. 5:31).

See Psa. 52:3; Eze. 13:19; Psa. 62:4; 4:2; Rev. 22:15; Isa. 30:10....and on and on I could list.

Read that Rev. 22:15.  Use your bible.  Almost all who are reading this own one, though they may not read it or study it.  

"Many are called but few are chosen," and "Narrow is the gate into life, but broad is the path to damnation."  This doesn't refer to the ignorant masses who really do not know God's plan of salvation.  This is about the many who have been shown the truth, who do know better, but who reject it!  They are "cowardly," "unbelieving," and "love lies and make lies."  

They are cowardly, because they are too wimpy to stand up to all those who will persecute them for their "strange" beliefs. They are too afraid they may lose their job.  They are afraid they'll lose friends. They are afraid their family members will hate them.  If it's life or death, as it has been many times, they are afraid of dying.

They are unbelieving, because they show with their actions that they refuse to obey.  They don't believe the truth, because they don't like it.  They'd prefer to believe lies.

They love lies and make lies, because that is what they were taught, and that is what they choose to go on teaching to others, because they do not have the love of the truth in them.

Satan has a substitute many of God's holy days!  All his days have long-ago pagan roots.  The church in Rome strayed from the truth and adopted the pagan days and changed the names of some to make them sound Christian.  They plugged in Salvation (Jesus/Yeshua) and Mary for the resurrected sun god and queen of heaven, and they kept all the festival dates so that things would continue on as they had before.  They persecuted Jews and true Christians for keeping the true seventh day as the Sabbath and even murdered them.  They allowed only those who kept Sunday as the sabbath to be able to buy or sell. 

God's holy days are all on different dates. There are just seven feasts and seven holy days, and they reveal the TRUTH, the real God and his real plan of salvation.

Easter and Lent are wicked substitutes for Passover and Unleavened Bread.  You will only find hate language toward the practices now called Easter and Lent in the bible.*  Passover and Unleavened Bread are both commanded feasts of God.  They are statutes that fall under the fourth commandment of the Law of God.  They have not been "done away."  You will find that Christ commanded at this last Passover that we have new symbols for the new covenant Passover, but the Passover is still a commanded feast.  It is commanded to be a night to be "much observed," for that is the night Christ was arrested to be killed, to be taken away to be our Passover Lamb (and not the night afterward as many in the churches of God teach). 

As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, we are to KEEP THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD with sincerity and truth.  

He was the same one who rebuked the Galatians for returning to their pagan feasts (Gal. 4:8-10)

DO NOT BE DECEIVED.  PROVE ALL THINGS.  COME OUT OF BABYLON.  PURIFY YOURSELF TO BE A CHASTE VIRGIN FOR CHRIST'S COMING.  WALK IN GOD'S LAW,  HIS TEN COMMANDMENTS.  DO NOT GIVE HONOR TO THE GREAT WHORE CHURCH OF ROME.  YOU GIVE HONOR TO THE FALSE CHRIST, THE GOD OF THIS WORLD, SATAN, WHEN YOU KEEP SUNDAY, EASTER, LENT, CHRISTMAS, ETC.  YOU GIVE HONOR TO THE GOD OF HEAVEN WHEN YOU KEEP SABBATH, PASSOVER, UNLEAVENED BREAD, TRUMPETS, ETC.

*The translators of the King James bible tried to justify their keeping of Easter by translating the Greek paschal, which is the word for Passover, in Acts 12:4 as Easter.  They shall have to answer to that accordingly.  But don't be deceived.  If you're reading this, you've got the Internet and can go to bible.cc (biblehub.net) to see yourself.  All other translations properly translated it as Passover.  The Jews didn't even keep Easter, so that was a pretty stupid stunt on the part of the KJV translators.  

In the Blink of an Eye... (More Passover Meditation)

...your life can end.  In the blink of an eye, you could die.  It happens all the time.  One moment you're alive, the next moment you're dead.  I even watched my second-born son die before my very eyes eight and a half years ago.  You don't imagine your child dying before you.  One moment he was breathing, the next moment he was white as a sheet, and I couldn't bring him back.  No amount of breathing for him or screaming at him did the trick.

The following is a small portion of my Passover night entry in my prayer journal, the entries of which are to my Eternal Father God and also for my Lord Salvation the Anointed Firstborn:

I also thought about how quickly our lives can end.  I had told the kids that, in the afternoon before this Passover night, because a squirrel had been electrocuted.  That explains why the previous morning or two mornings before, there was a loud boom, followed immediately by the electricity flashing off and back on.  Then later Nathan went to get ice, and he came across that terrible wreck.  Again, it's a reminder that your life could end just that suddenly, or at least be changed drastically in that instant.

I was getting the kids ready for bed at the beginning of the evening of Passover, and my husband (currently agnostic) left to go get ice, just about a ten- to twelve-minute drive from here.  A good while had passed, and he sent me a message to say he was ok, that there had been a wreck.  He had been on his way back, and he'd noticed a pole down and the line across the road.  Then he saw the crashed vehicle.  He was the first on the scene of the accident, quickly followed by a young guy and gal, the latter of which turned out to be a friend of the victim.  My Love and the younger guy searched for the driver.  The one guy looked in the demolished vehicle.  At that time my husband heard the victim.  He was making a horrible "snoring" noise at a quick rate and was totally unresponsive.  Nathan was sure he was witnessing the man dying.  He was lacerated all over, and it appeared by his position that his arm(s) and neck and vertebrae were broken.  He'd been ejected at least ninety feet from the vehicle.  Nathan instructed the younger guy to not attempt to move the victim, and he left to drive down the road to get cell service so that he could call 911.  Before he got in the truck, though, the girl who had stayed at their vehicle asked whether her friend was going to be ok.  He told her he was in trouble and needed immediate help, so she broke down.  When he got back, another couple had stopped who also knew the victim.  A different girl asked my husband whether he was alive, and he could said that he was breathing, but it wasn't good, so then she broke down.

This was all a very traumatic ordeal.  Nathan came home pale and distraught.  Thankfully, though, this story has a good ending.  He found out the next day which hospital the man was in and called to check on him.  The injuries were considered "moderate."  Amazingly his head did not receive any injuries.  The nurse said it was a miracle.  He had a broken vertebrae and something else (I think that one arm was broken) and then cuts all over, none of them major.  He'd only finally come to a few minutes before Nathan called and was informed of where he was and that he'd been in an accident.  His terrible breathing had been as I suspected, due to the traumatic nature of what had happened to him.

His accident was almost certainly due to folly, driving too fast on that potentially very dangerous road.  Thankfully the fellow will live to be given the opportunity to change, to make sure he's driving safely and to urge others to do so.  My husband is also apt to drive too fast much of the time, and this helped him to realize what can happen.  He said he'd resolved to slow down on these roads.

Unfortunately for the aforementioned squirrel whose life ended abruptly by electrocution, he or she will not get a chance to change its ways and not run down the electrical lines anymore.  Sometimes the same goes for people.  Sometimes an act of folly will be the last thing a person does in this life.

There were a couple different things that triggered meditation from these events, one of them being that our Lord's friends must have reacted in much the same way as those frightened girls of the vehicle accident victim, when the Lord's friends heard of his plight and saw him beat and then later staked/nailed to wood to hang.  I could imagine their cries and hysteria, and it caused me to be grieved, too, as if I was really there.

But more so I meditated on the fact that we do not know when our last moment of life in this body will be.  We do not know when we will draw our last breath.  And when we die, do we want to die with hope and expectation or with dread and fear of the second death?  Christ is our Passover Lamb who has made it possible for us to escape the second death!  But it's not a guarantee for all.  That is what links the message of the Passover to the message of Unleavened Bread.  We must repent of our sin—transgression of the Ten Commandments—if we want to be spared the second death in the lake of fire. Christ was sacrificed, but the prerequisite to being begotten by the Royal Sperm—the God Spirit—is repentance!  We must make the choice to obey the Law (Acts 5:32; 2:38), and then we will receive the Helper, which is God's very own spirit DNA.  But we must keep ourselves pure so as not to corrupt the gestation and spontaneously abort, or we will not make it to our birthday at Christ's next coming.

We need to carefully examine ourselves each Passover and Unleavened Bread week and note which areas need work in our lives.  We also need to watch other brethren and spend more time with those who are zealous and strong in their walk and be more cautious about others, because "a little leaven can leaven the whole lump" (1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9).  I've observed very well over the years that you become like the company you keep, so we should be diligent to keep the right company.  I prefer to keep my closest friends as ones who value truth the most, are not lukewarm, who will set a good example for me, and who will reveal my errors (which doesn't always require them saying anything; sometimes it just takes seeing that they're doing it right, and I'm not).   I also want to make sure that I'm a good friend and keeping my friends on the right track.

Younger siblings, by nature, mimic and follow the older ones, regardless of whether the older one(s) are doing what is right or wrong.  Since we are fallen, though, it does not come natural to us to follow our Lord Brother the Righteous Firstborn.  We must make a voluntary choice to do so, and then we must choose wise siblings in the Royal Family to imitate.  When things are working the way they should, you are imitating them, and they are imitating you, and you keep each other on the right path that way.

What about you?  Have you come close to death before or have been close to someone who has unexpectedly died or nearly died?  Did it cause you to re-examine your life?

You do not know when you will die!  You can be healthy and full of life one moment and be out of the game the next.  You can be rich one year and poor the next.  You can walk on two legs one day and be sitting in the hospital with no legs the next.  You could see one hour and be blind the next.  We should be thankful for all that we've got and be diligent to make the best of what we've got when we've got it.  We must repent and stay on the path of righteousness while we can.

In the blink of an eye, your life can end.  Do not wait until it's too late.