Unholy Birthday

As we walk through our spiritual journeys, we are typically confronted with beliefs and customs we had held that are then revealed as outside of scripture and true biblical faith. Unfortunately so many of these tend to be beliefs and customs that we have held since childhood... and typically those which are embedded in our culture. This blog is not the place to cover them all so I'll skip to the latest I've learned about... birthdays.

Just like so many of the traditions and festivities that we take for granted, birthdays and the birthday party have a source... a beginning. It and the accoutrements that go with it, all have meaning. Quick question before we get too far... if we learn that those beginnings and original meanings are anti-God, would we be willing to abandon them?

The birthday celebration can trace its origins to pagan worship of the Greek goddess Artemis. In ancient Greece, worshippers would bake a cake, place lit candles on it and set it at the feet of her idol. Even singing "Happy Birthday", blowing out the candles, making a wish, and playing games such as "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" have their source in the pagan customs of warding off evil spirits, fortune-telling and magical powers.

There are two hurdles to adopting the proper response to all of this. The first is believing the facts. Is the birthday celebration really pagan... come on! Well that one is solved simply enough. Look up books such as "The Lore of Birthdays", "World Book Encyclopedia" or Google "historical roots of birthday" etc.

The second hurdle is perhaps the highest and that is coming to grip with the fact that the origins of a practice or belief is important even if we've "changed" the practices meaning in our minds. Imagine... would any of you throw a party where each child salutes their friends with the Nazi salute and says "Heil Hitler" and then eats desserts decorated with swastikas? Why not? Well what if you convinced yourself that the salute was to symbolize strong growth and forward progression of that persons life? What if you changed the phrase "Heil Hitler" to mean, "Be in Good Health" and what if the swastikas mean for you a full life encompassing all four directions... or something like that. Would altering those offensive symbolisms make them any more palatable? Of course not. They are still rooted in the evil slaughter of millions of people in the greatest act of genocide in the last century. Likewise God is not going to overlook the true meaning of birthdays and their pagan meanings just because we choose to alter those meanings. Every time we light birthday candles, we are mirroring the pagan worship of a false goddess.

Sure it will be tough to tell our children that they cannot have any more birthday parties. It may be a little awkward to tell your friends that you don't want a fuss made over your upcoming 40th but isn't it better to offend our family and friends than to offend the One who hold the keys to hell and death?

Shalom

Prince of the Power of the Air

Most of us are familiar with Ephesians 2:2-3, which says "in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, ³among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."

We've often heard that phrase "Prince of the power of the air" used to describe how satan is in control of the airwaves... media and the like. Perhaps a Greek scholar can offer some insight into those few words but that particular definition seems like a convenient conjecture.

That being said, satan does seem to have an almost iron grip on the media and popular culture. Even if the verse in Ephesians had read, "Prince of the power of the worms" it would not take away from the clear reality that satan and Hollywood are bedfellow.

So... my question is... are we giving place to this prince in our homes? Are we in any way conducting ourselves in the lusts of our flesh and mind... behaving like children of wrath?

This post came about as a result of some commercials that kept popping up on my wife's computer as she was trying to catch up on some middle east headline news. All of them were for upcoming movies and all of them had occult themes. 

We know that in the end times... err... I mean NOW, that the enemy will pour it on and draw people's heart away from the living God but how are those of us who are supposed to know better, responding to it? Are we keeping these things out of our home or are we allowing the world's pressure to shift our God inspired morals?

I was at a large inner-city church years ago to watch a public presentation of a move called "Time Changer". In the movie, a bible professor from 1890 travels forward in time to 2002 and gets a first hand taste of our "modern" world. The professor goes to a movie with a local church group but rushes out during the movie to demand that the movie be stopped. He was in a complete panic, leaving many in our audience thinking that perhaps there was a fire. When other characters ask the professor why the movie needed to be stopped, he explains that a character in the movie he was just watching took the Lord's name in vain. Many people in the church group I was in started to laugh... as did I. I then (and I hope all the others who laughed) was hit with heavy conviction over having considered a blasphemous word as such a light offence, not worthy of the reaction the professor showed. That lesson has stuck with me all these years later and I use it as a check to see if my morals are slipping. 

Would this professor, or better yet our Messiah, tell us to "stop the movie" if he were sitting beside us, watching what we watch? Will we have to give answer at the judgment seat to having let the prince of the power of the air into our homes and minds? 

It is time to cut ties with the world. I enjoy entertainment as much as anyone (used to be an avid movie buff) but it is simply getting too hard to find anything the world offers up as entertainment, even family entertainment that does not contain something that is an affront to God. Let us send the prince of the power of the air packing!

Blessings.