Many pagan festivals, including Christmas (Saturnalia), Easter (the festival of Ishtar), Halloween, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and worship on the day of the Sun, were observed throughout the Roman Empire long before Christ’s First Coming. The apostate false church simply adopted them into practice, and enforced them on all citizens in the empire through the vehicle of the civil government. The most obvious ways that the little horn has “thought” to change—and counterfeit—God’s holy times and laws has been by replacing His Sabbath with the pagan SUN’S DAY, thus altering His fourth great law (many speak of Sunday as their “sabbath”)—and by replacing His annual Holy Days with numerous pagan holidays practiced for centuries by the Romans and Greeks. But there are other ways that the “little horn” has changed God’s way of marking time. It starts the year in the dead of winter, while God starts His year in the spring, when nature is springing to life. The “woman” begins her days in the middle of the night, while God marks days from sunset to sunset. The Roman church begins the workweek on the second day, Monday, while God begins the weekly work cycle on the first day of the week, Sunday. Pagan Rome has devised an unnatural calendar based solely on the sun, thus having varying lengths for its months, while God bases His calendar on the moon and starts months with each new moon. God’s sacred calendar—generally referred to as the Hebrew calendar—has never been recognized by religionists, scientists, historians and educators as the way God intended to mark and measure time. The Jews did not invent this calendar or contrive it from imagination. Its principles go back to the first chapter of the Bible, where the sun and the moon were appointed “…for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Gen. 1:14). No other calendar harmonizes the solar and lunar cycles. Only the Hebrew calendar sanctioned by God does this! The whole world has been deceived into accepting these and other “changes” and been led away from the plain, clear commands of God’s Word. Billions have carelessly remained ignorant of God’s instructions, content to believe heathen customs, practices, days and times that have been spoon-fed to them. .
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 16:14:05 +0000