Chronos

I thought to hit at you as you are celebrating your new year because I have encountered enough warfare from the holiday spirit. You see, early 2015 I thought to briefly expose the celebrations in the season, especially Christmas (The Harvest of Mammon on the blog) demonstrating that even casual observation will show anybody that Christ is not the object of all that debauchery.

I will therefore respond to the battering I have been going through from this spirit to try to expose the folly we expose ourselves to as we celebrate days and years God has not ordered.

Why don’t I celebrate birthdays? Why will I not celebrate new years? Why would I rather endure spiritual battery than keep quiet when wished those holidays?

Show me in the Bible where God ordered those celebrations in His name or otherwise. Second, there are so many calendars. Which one should I celebrate and why? Third, the calendar we now use is clearly heathen. Days and months are dedicated to demons (idols) and emperors. Why should I celebrate them?

Yet there is a Biblical year.

This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. (Exodus 12:2)

But God did not order a celebration even if we were to make the sacred calendar our official one. There are things He ordered us to remember, not necessarily celebrate. In other words even when there was a celebration it was the remembrance that was emphasized.

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:19)

It is not a party He calls us to but a worship relationship with Him. We break His law when we convert what should be a solemn moment into a party where the last thing to expect is heightened spiritual awareness.

And that is why even the Passover has been defiled, not just by being renamed Easter but especially because of all that baggage that has been introduced so that the remembrance is pushed to the periphery, if not out altogether. It has been merged with an idolatrous event dedicated to demons. What with the bunny and eggs and ….?

A year to me is a mark of the passage of time and nothing else. That is unless we will decide to take the sacred calendar and celebrate Biblically sanctioned feasts.

Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty: (Deuteronomy 16:16)

The first is the Passover and it was a whole week with events that reminded Israel of the struggle they had before leaving Egypt and the victory they received. The unleavened bread reminded them of the hurry their deliverance necessitated. The Passover lamb and all the processes involved reminded them of the judgment God passed on Egypt and the sacrifice that ensured that they escape that judgment.

Pentecost or feast of weeks was a thanksgiving season where they were to concentrate on the goodness of the Lord. Again it was dedicated to remind God’s people of the great acts of God through their history, receiving scriptural instruction throughout the whole season. It coincided with the firstfruits or the time they started eating their harvest so that it was a time of great gratitude to God who provided good things for them.

Succoth or feast of tabernacles was the season when they replayed the forty years in the wilderness, again to clearly appreciate and appropriate God’s favor and goodness.

Even Purim that was set up in the time of Esther and Mordecai was to remember the miracle that saved the Jews from certain extermination and not a party for the sake of partying.

Remember also when Ezra’s temple was being opened there was a festival for a long time. Yet do you realize that the whole time there was focus on scriptural instruction and the goodness of God. Remember that even the Psalms of ascents were the ones that were sung as the pilgrims from all over Israel were journeying to Jerusalem for the feasts? It was a spiritual exercise from the start to the end.

A major purpose of those feasts was the object lessons it offered to children as their parents responded to the questions asked concerning those observances.

And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped. (Exodus 12: 26, 27)

And it was the same with the other festivals.

Celebrating things for the sake of a good time is neither Biblical nor Christian. The truth of the matter is that it is antichristian as it serves no Christian purpose however much we want to associate it with God. You see God either institutes it or His enemy institutes it. You can therefore be sure that if your party falls outside the three that are sanctioned by God, you are offering strange a fire in His altar even if you associate Him with it.

On the same line I will want us to look at the year itself. Who says we are in 2016? Whose calendar are we using to associate God with that year? It is the secular year associated with the idols and emperors who made it. What business do I have to align God with it? Who should align with the other? And I will repeat what I have said. It is either instituted by God or He has nothing to do with it. Remember this.

Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: (Isaiah 29:13)

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men … (Mark 7: 7, 8)

Let us not deceive ourselves. God is not bound to your year. He is sovereign and does what pleases Him without needing our assistance. And He operates with those who worship Him in spirit and truth and walk in obedience to His revelation.

Releasing His word to a group (congregation) of a thousand that is a conglomeration of all types of characters is therefore superfluous at the least and presumptuous at the most.

Why do I call this trend a lie? The first reason is that God is personal and deals with people individually. Lumping a thousand people together to release God’s prophecy for the year is (let me not put the word I really wanted to put here)…

But the greatest fallacy of this trend is the fact that sin is rarely if ever preached against. How does God release His goodies to a people who are not connected to His redemptive purpose? How does one word apply equally to a person swimming in willful sin as it applies to someone walking with God? How does the same word apply to the persecuted and the persecutor alike?

Of course we enjoy breakthroughs and favor. But that is consistent with our walk with God and dependent on the season God has placed us in.

But at the worst we are actually pigeon holing God. We want to constrain Him to do only what we have released in His name though it be a creation of our minds. And we do it to keep the money flowing because psyched up people will easily give to continue being more psyched up to the superstar doing the psyching. Sinners who are not challenged about their sinful ways will outgive saints who are troubled by their stench of sin as their sin is being assumed absent by all this preaching about breakthrough and favor.

And like I have asked some people, if 2016 is the year of promotion (or something like that) was there no promotion before then? And will the promotions cease when the year ends?

These preachers are not more than fortune tellers, only that they are using the Bible while the others are reading palms and stars. And their results are not much different because the guesswork will finally come out.

Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. (Isaiah 47:13)

You see if I guessed something on a group of a hundred, I can never score zero, especially if I know something about them. But I will not be accurate on all of them.

Doing the same on a thousand will give better results as more people will receive my ‘prophecy’. But you see that even more will lose out on the same.

Let’s say I ‘prophesy’ promotion in 2016. Anything positive can very easily be connected to my ‘prophecy’.  And there is a whole year for the same to be repeated all over the congregation. And I will of course get all the positive testimonies as the year progresses.

But the reality is that some people will not only be demoted but lose their jobs and stay jobless for the whole year. Some will start business that will crash in the year. Some will have relationships that they had counted on to promote them to marriage break. Some will lose their marriage (since sin that is the cause of most marital conflict is not addressed). In short quite a number will experience the opposite of the word I am preaching.

As a result I may crust the faith of someone through my ‘prophecy’ since it went opposite in his situation.

And I will repeat something I say all the time. Prophecy is either 100% accurate or it is false since God is the source of all true prophecy. In the same way if only one person in my 20 000 congregation received something different from what I prophesied, I have no excuse to argue out the fact that I am a false prophet. And I have no apologies to make for this statement because it is backed by scripture.

I ought to dwell in God’s presence enough to know exactly what He wants me to tell the people He has entrusted to me. Lack of that is the reason pastors are still leading people to celebrate pagan ceremonies in church and live according to pagan days and years.

I use chronos for my days and years. For example, recently I remembered 30 years since God called me and I responded. But I did not hold a celebration because it really is not about me. I prayed with my family thanking God for the far He has taken me since that decision. It is His faithfulness rather my usefulness that was the focus and so it brought out worship instead of pride. Landmark it is, but the landmark is about God and the favor He granted me to know and serve Him.

Do not feel sad, then, if I do not wish (again why wish when I can pray) you happy this or the other. Do not be disappointed when I fail to attend some of your parties because sometimes God refrains me for His own reasons.

I hope I have burst your bubble positively

God bless you