Passover or easter.

Passover or easter: Or, if you were participating in the program yesterday, you might say “Passover or Ishtar”.

If you put it that way, the answer’s pretty easy, isn’t it? That’s what we’re going to be discussing today, here in God’s kingdom.

As I always do say glory to God. It really is good to be with you today. Praise God! It’s a great day to be in the house of Yahweh God. Hallelujah!

The fallacies of easter

Well, we’ve been talking about the fallacies of easter. As I mentioned in the introduction, today we’re going to be talking about Passover or easter. If you ask most people what they would associate with the words Passover and easter, you’d probably hear something like “Passover is Jewish, easter is Christian”.

However, neither one of those answers would be accurate. Passover is actually Biblical, not Jewish. Yes the Jews celebrate Passover in their own way; but it’s a Biblical memorial, not a Jewish memorial. And of course, that’s according to the Bible itself. On the other hand, easter is not really Christian either unless you consider Christianity as a pagan religion. Easter is a pagan celebration.

Passover is Biblical

So if someone were to ask what’s the difference between Passover and easter, isn’t one Jewish and one Christian? You might reply; well, actually, one is Biblical, the other is pagan.

So where do we find Passover In the Bible? Exodus 12: We all know the story. The Israelites had been under very strict, harsh slavery to the Egyptians and the Pharaoh refused to let them go. We all know the story of Moses, the 10 Commandments, Charlton Heston, and all that. Because of the Pharoah’s refusal to allow Israel to go free from bondage, God sent a series of plagues upon Egypt. We all know about all of that at least conceptually.

God began to prepare for the 10th and final plague, which was, of course, set upon by Pharaoh with the killing of all of the firstborn of all of the people and the animals. We know the story of the blood being smeared onto the doorposts and lintels. And we all know that that was a result of the Passover lamb which had been brought into the home right? The slaughter of the sacrifice. You can find that in Exodus 12:14 and Leviticus 23:4-5.

So we know that as the spirit of death passed over the Israelite’s doorways that they were saved by the blood. And of course, in the same way, when the blood of Yeshua is covering our doorway, we are “saved”.

God instructed Israel to keep the Passover forever. It was not just for that season. It was not just for the “Old Testament”. It was not just until Yeshua came. The scriptures are very clear that Passover is a memorial established unto Yahweh, God for Israel to abide forever.

easter is pagan

However, when you look to easter, or as we discussed yesterday Ishtar, not one time, not one time do we ever see a Biblical instruction to celebrate Ishtar or easter. It’s a human, pagan tradition, wholly and completely contrived by man (and/or the devil).

Some would then ask is it bad or evil to recognize the resurrection of Yeshua? The answer to that is definitely no. However, that’s not what easter or Ishtar is about. If it were, why would we be celebrating with Ishtar eggs, bunnies, and easter baskets?

In Matthew15:3 Yeshua says it very clearly: “Why do you transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” That’s exactly what Ishtar is all about: Transgressing the commandments of God – which is to celebrate Passover.

Exchanging the things of God for pagan traditions of men

Exchanging the Biblical instruction to celebrate Passover in exchange for the celebration of a man-made pagan tradition (easter) is a clear transgression of Scripture. Similar language can be found in Mark 7:13: where Yeshua tells the pharisees that they were making the word of God of no effect through their traditions.

That’s exactly what happens when you celebrate easter and other pagan festivals: You make the word of God to no effect by polluting it with man-made and pagan traditions. We see this same idea of polluting the precepts of God with man’s traditions in Galatians 1:13-14. I mentioned this yesterday. Remember in the book of Galatians Apostle Paul rebukes the traditions of men who are trying to represent and implement their traditions as a commandment of God?

It’s interesting to note that in Galatians it’s a valid principle that Apostle Paul is addressing. However, they are trying to implement a Biblical concept appropriately, errantly. They are trying to say that this particular Biblical instruction is a “requirement” for “salvation” and of course it’s not (at least not in the way they are trying to make it be). And so when you head over to Matthew and Mark, that is very similar to what is being discussed there.

Passover vs easter/ishtar

So when you come to Ishtar or easter, what you have is completely pagan traditions that are dressed up in some sort of a faux Biblical context and then presented as something “Godly”. In Galatians, you have a Biblical concept that is being presented inappropriately. With easter, we have a purely pagan festival name with purely pagan rituals that are trying to be passed off as some sort of a godly exercise.

On the other hand, Passover, as I mentioned before, is a God-ordained memorial to the Messiah, referenced all through the scriptures; not just exodus and not just Matthew. And not only that we have absolutely zero Biblical instruction whatsoever to celebrate easter / Ishtar or the resurrection in any way. Again, not that the resurrection is a bad thing, but we just don’t have an instruction to celebrate it. However, we do have an instruction for Passover to be kept by his people, Israel forever, forever.

So this idea of entering into the things of God is very, very critical, because if you want to align yourself with Heaven, then obviously it’s very, very critical to embrace and enter into the things of God. Now, as you do this, as you enter into the things of God, not only with Passover but with anything, you can anticipate experiencing some pushback from the rest of the world. In many who are not of Israel, the world has built into their DNA a desire to scorn the people and things of God.

The ungodly despise the things of God

The Catholics mercilessly persecuted early Christians, early Believers who kept the Passover. They called them Quartodecimans (Latin for “14thers”) and Judaizers. Why 14thers? Because Passover is to be celebrated on the 14th day of the new Biblical year. So the Catholics persecuted all true Believers who kept the Passover, calling them Quartodecimans and/or Judaizers.

The Passover was so despised by the Catholics that during the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD they established easter to be held on the first sun-day after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox.

There are a lot of words there. The point is that the Council of Nicea, who was pretending to be Christian, pretending to be Biblical; a Council derived of Catholic leadership and civilian government leadership, joined together to create these edicts. They hated anything and everything that had to do with Passover so much that they promoted this pagan holiday called easter saying that it would be celebrated at approximately the same time as Passover.

So from that point forward, the easter date depended on the approximation of March 21st for the vernal equinox. So this gave easter a movable date that would not fall on Passover itself but would be similar to the date of Passover. It would be in the same general time frame. Western churches use the Gregorian calendar. while eastern churches use the Julian calendar so dates for easter are varied. However, Passover is always 14 days into the Biblical new year.

Aligning with God and Heaven

All right, so ishtar/easter is a man-made pagan tradition. Passover has very little in common with easter. As you’re wanting to align with the things of God, as you’re wanting to align with Yahweh, God Himself, you will want to pay close attention to these details.

There’s a good note on our chat room today: “It really doesn’t matter what you think is right. It doesn’t matter what you want to do. If you want to align with the Most High God, then you need to be in step with Him rather than expecting Him to come into alignment with you”.

The more we align with heaven, the more grace you will experience in your life. Grace is the empowering presence of the Most High God. I don’t know about you, but I live for the grace of God. I’m looking so forward to the days when God’s people are released to defeat the devil in that final battle between right and wrong, good and evil.

Passover vs Ishtar / easter is just one element of that victory. For those who align with Heaven. Praise God. Hallelujah!

Well, I pray this has been a blessing for you. The idea of Passover and Ishtar is not a new one, but it’s one that you really need to embrace based upon your convictions, which, of course, as I mentioned, if they’re in line with the things of God, you’ll reject everything that is pagan and embrace everything that is of Yeshua.

Parson Rayphe
God’s Kingdom Realm
GodsKingdomRealm.Com