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The Lunar Eclipse, the Winter Solstice, and the Meaning of Christmas

Apparently various pagan groups make a lot out of the coincidence of the lunar eclipse with the Winter Solstice. A High Priestess of something or other calls it the "transformation of darkness into light." Well, yeah, it's the shortest darkest day of the year, right before the days start lengthening -- in the northern hemisphere anyway -- so the symbolism is pretty straightforward.

This time of year the question of the pagan underpinnings of Christmas also comes up. "The traditions of men make the traditions of God of none effect," is how some think of it. But is that really what happens at Christmas? The Pharisaical traditions made the traditions of God of none effect, but does replacing a pagan holiday with the truths of Christ do that? Seems to me it's the other way around, more like Christ overcoming the world.

I do have to acknowledge that I too went through a period of being overly impressed with the fact that our Christian holidays were originally pagan and ambivalent about whether to celebrate them or not. I never went wholly against celebrating them, I was simply unresolved about the whole thing and it made it difficult to enjoy the holiday. But now I'm all for celebrating. Here's how I think of it now:

First I'd make that point again: The Pharisees replaced God's Law with their own laws but taking over a pagan holiday for the celebration of Christ does the reverse, replacing paganism with God's truth. Second, God looks at the heart: And what does he see in most hearts at Christmas time? Well, I'll grant that in MOST hearts he isn't seeing the celebration of Jesus Christ except in the most superficial way as Christmas carols are in the air and manger scenes are on display. But He ISN'T seeing Tammuz worship either. Except maybe in those overtly pagan celebrations that the season draws out as well.

Most of us in the West, even unbelievers, view Christmas as a time of special beauty with a magical feeling -- no, not pagan Magick, just a magical feeling, a glittering shining time of prettiness, presents, sparkling things, festive foods, parties, visitors, family, even the good will that is so lavishly declared and wished, yes it is there too. This feeling is there even if you have no clue to the reason for it, and many have none. I think this glittering festivity manages to evoke something like a yearning for heaven. I think that's how I felt it as a child before I was a Christian.

Yes, I know Christmas gets awfully commercialized, and I know lots of people get depressed at this time of year too and feel lonely and left out, and all that is sad, but this is a fallen world so what else is new? Christians should, and many do, try to include those without family at this time and this is when the Christian community goes all out to feed the homeless and make sure they get in on the celebrations.

And Yes, I know Christmas was originally pagan, but what it is now is something else. It's become HIS, it's become OURS. It is no longer Tammuz's birthday, it is no longer Saturnalia, not even a smidgen!

No, it isn't the Lord's birthday either of course: Shepherds don't watch their flocks outside by night in winter. But nevertheless Christians DO make it a Christian holiday, a celebration of HIM. YES THEY DO!

Some find Christian symbolism even in the Christmas tree -- symbolism of the Tree of Life which the death of Christ has made available to us, even a symbolism of the blossoming, the leafing out, the fruiting of the Cross of Christ itself, like the blossoming of Aaron's rod. The story of the birth of Christ in Matthew and Luke establishes the theme of the holiday and unbelievers may also hear that story at this time of year. The manger scenes illustrate it. The Christmas carols raise our thought to Him. We celebrate Him, we adore Him, we worship HIM.

NOT TAMMUZ!!!!

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

NOT TAMMUZ!!!!

THIS WORLD BELONGS TO JESUS CHRIST. HE NOW OWNS IT. HE EARNED IT. THE DEVIL NO LONGER OWNS IT.

Re 11:15 THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD ARE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD, AND OF HIS CHRIST; AND HE SHALL REIGN FOR EVER AND EVER . . .

EVER SINCE THE CROSS!!!! Not fully until He comes again, but nevertheless it is already fact -- HE REIGNS NOW! Tammuz's birthday now bows to Christ, all the pagan holidays bow to Christ.

So let the pagans dance and howl at the Blood Moon if they want. Their time is short. The Blood Moon also belongs to the Lord Jesus, and it's probably going to be a Blood Moon shortly following a total Solar Eclipse that will herald His return to reclaim this planet.

HE EVEN OWNS THE COMMERCIAL WORLD:

Blood Moon / Lunar Eclipse Tonight

So I wasn't much paying attention and here came a pretty dramatic Blood Moon event and took me by surprise. I'd seen headlines about an upcoming eclipse but they aren't terribly rare and I didn't pay much attention.

Then I was checking the local weather and saw this link on it:

For 72 minutes of eerie totality, an amber light will play across the snows of North America, throwing landscapes into an unusual state of ruddy shadow.

The eclipse begins on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST (Monday, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST).

...If you're planning to dash out for only one quick look it is December, after all ­ choose this moment: 3:17 am EST (17 minutes past midnight PST). That's when the Moon will be in deepest shadow, displaying the most fantastic shades of coppery red.

Total lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice, how dramatic can you get? The last one on the same date was in 1638. And we in the western hemisphere get the most drama out of this one.

On the same page is a picture of a big red moon. That sort of startled me. Supposedly I know that a lunar eclipse creates a red moon, known also as a "blood moon" and that that is probably what the Biblical passages are referring to that talk about the moon turning to Blood before the Day of the Lord, but I wasn't expecting it nevertheless.

Here's an animation of the expected event.

I was first made aware of the significance of the Blood Moon with reference to the Day of the Lord through the interesting presentation, The Star of Bethlehem, but most of that focuses on the birth of Jesus.

There's probably way too much cloud cover in my area to see any of tonight's eclipse, but maybe the clouds will thin a bit and some of the red glow will come through. I'll go out and see what can be seen outside my door anyway. It may be too cold to walk around the apartment building for a fuller view of the sky.

Joel 2:31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Acts 2:20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:

Revelation 6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

===============

Well, I did go out and look at the moon. Turns out we had a glitteringly clear night for viewing. Saw it in various stages. A bit disappointing. Really too far away, too small to appreciate it. A telescope would have helped a great deal. Yes it did turn orangeish at its fullest but very dark. Oh well, at least I saw it.

And Earthquakes in Divers Places

Kind of interesting:

Earthquakes dog Clinton on overseas trips

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Matthew Lee, Associated Press – 12 mins ago
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand –

What is it about Hillary Rodham Clinton and earthquakes? Seems the secretary of state rarely takes an overseas trip that is not in some way affected by a temblor. Clinton and her staff were jolted from sleep in their hotel rooms in New Zealand early Saturday by a strong aftershock from a 7-magnitude quake that struck in September. It was the second aftershock since she arrived here Friday.

Three days earlier, she may not have felt the earth move under her feet, but a 6.0-magnitude quake rattled villages in Papua New Guinea as she was wrapping up a visit there.

Those seismic events were at least the third, fourth and fifth to have hit countries while Clinton was visiting. On her first trip abroad as America's top diplomat in February 2009, Clinton was shaken awake by a minor quake in Japan. Four months later, she felt a 5.0 quake in Honduras. Then, in October 2009, tremors struck Pakistan while Clinton was there.

And those are just the ones she's been present for.

Days before Clinton was to visit Chile in March of this year, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake caused severe damage in the South American country, forcing her to cancel plans to spend a night in Santiago. But she still made a brief stop in Chile to get a look at relief efforts, much as she did in January after Haiti was devastated by a powerful quake.

Of course, the reason Clinton was in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand this week and travels to Australia on Saturday is the Haiti quake. She was in Hawaii en route to the three countries when Haiti was struck on Jan. 12, causing her to return to Washington to oversee U.S. relief efforts.

Caught my attention so I prayed about it for a few minutes. It's hard to know for sure if an impression comes from God or not in such a brief prayer time of course, but what occurred to me as I prayed was that we wouldn't have known about all these various earthquakes if they hadn't occurred in conjunction with Hillary's travels, which caught the eye of a reporter who then posted on the odd coincidence at Yahoo.

There being so many of them does bring to mind Jesus' reference to earthquakes as one of the signs that the very end is very near, a warning that three of the four gospels reported, suggesting its special importance:

Mt 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

Mr 13:8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

Lu 21:11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

Something to consider.

The Raelian Cult part of the plot to Discredit the Bible and Lead those who reject God into Demon Worship in the Last Days

Since I just made a comment at the evolution blog about Scott Johnson's confusion of the scientific idea of Intelligent Design with the occultic idea that an alien race from another planet were the designers of life on Earth, I thought I should go and listen to his earlier talks on this subject which I hadn't heard before. So here's one of them, The “Ancient Astronaut” Lie: The Shocking Origin of the “Intelligent Design” Theory from December 2007.

It's quite an interesting talk and fits right into my end times blog. This is his coverage of the doctrine of the Raelian cult, about which I've known a little, but this information is good to have. They are very much a typical cult, and this particular talk brings out the commonalities of these cults in what seems to me to be an even more pointed way than I was already aware of.

That is, these cults ALWAYS attack, what? the BIBLE! They ALL have a fascination with Jesus Christ and put out a great deal of energy denying what the Bible says about Him and giving their own version of who he is and what his mission was. You can bet they take pains to insist it had nothing to do with saving humanity from sin by dying for us. No, that, along with everything else we learn from the Bible, is just some way we "misunderstood" the truth about him, OR it's the result of a "mistranslation" of the Bible. Both are common ways the Biblical revelation is debunked these days, by the cults, by "science" and increasingly from many other directions in these last days.

Anyway, the Raelian cult is very much like all the others. Someone was "chosen" to be the recipient of a revelation from "celestial beings" of one sort or another -- all demons under various guises. Sometimes the chosen one is actively possessed by the being/demon, sometimes spoken to -- usually dictated to, some bombastic lying message being imparted as if it were revealed truth from a much higher place. There's always a religious teaching that contradicts the Bible and substitutes some other way of understanding it. The cult of Urantia which got started in the early part of the 20th century, has this pattern. So does A Course in Miracles which captivated Oprah Winfrey. The Seth Books are also similar, although in this case there's more of an occultic general spiritual teaching. But it includes the idea of "Christ Consciousness" which in itself denies the truth about Jesus Christ.

The older cults have the same pattern. Mormonism was created the same way, through a visitation of a chosen one, Joseph Smith in this case, by, in his case supposedly an angel, called Moroni, who revealed to him that Christianity has everything all wrong and gave Smith the Book of Mormon. Islam too is the same sort of cult, having been inaugurated by the visitation of Mohammed by what he believed was the angel Gabriel, who supposedly came to correct Christian misunderstandings and give a revelation that was to transcend the Bible. It's perhaps worth mentioning that one of Mohammed's relatives thought he was demon-possessed, an astute observation I'd say.

Now the Raelian revelation, also given to a chosen one, Rael, by in this case a supposed alien from another planet, goes on at length about the supposed errors in the Bible and gives a very detailed reinterpretation of a great deal of it. It's very much worth listening to this to get a sense of how the disinformation of these cults operates. Apparently this is a video that is viewable at the Raelian website, though we only hear it as Johnson goes through it.

Of course all this is going to come together when the End Times start rolling in earnest, and all the similarities are only going to convince those who reject the true God that it must be the truth and they will fall for it and be destroyed by it. Unless they wake up in time!

As for Scott Johnson's confusion of the Ancient Astronaut doctrine with the scientific version of "intelligent design", as his own title to his talk clearly says, yes, he certainly does confuse these. Because the Raelians use the term to describe their demon-originated doctrine of how visitors from space are the creators of life on earth, Johnson jumps to the false conclusion that this is the "origin" of the concept. Well, I don't know who used the term first but it doesn't matter, it's a mistake to confuse them -- although it probably serves the purposes of those demonic entities to do so. There is quite definitely a scientific theory called Intelligent Design that has a scientific basis and has absolutely nothing to do with the vaporings of demons. [Here's Wikipedia on Intelligent Design, and Wikipedia on Michael Behe, intelligent design theorist.]

A False Rapture scenario?

Listening to Scott Johnson's latest (10-17-10) tonight, just the first two parts. Recent UFO sightings. New York, but also China where it is claimed that a huge UFO hovered over a small Chinese town which then completely disappeared.

I haven't checked it out, but it doesn't hit me as unlikely. Still, of course it helps to have some documentation. Maybe I'll dig some up eventually.

But it sounds to me like it could be a practice run for a fake Rapture.

Mullings on the Rapture

I'm still not completely convinced that there is to be a two-stage Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the first stage being a rapture of the church before some of the end times events -- whether before the great tribulation or in the middle of it or whatever.

So far I have at least become convinced that much of the reasoning AROUND the Rapture claims IS true, however. That is, I do believe there is yet to come a seven-year period that will fulfill the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel. I'm pretty convinced that in the middle of that "week" there will be the appearance of something called the "abomination of desolation" and that the great tribulation will immediately follow that. I believe also that there will be a restored temple in Jerusalem in which this event will occur. So I reject most of the thinking that comes from the ANTI-Rapturists.

But none of this proves whether there is to be a Rapture previous to any of these things. These things could all be true, as I MOSTLY believe they are, and the Rapture occur when Jesus returns for the final time.

It could occur that way, but there are still some scriptural indications that a pre-trib Rapture -- or pre-wrath Rapture, or pre-Second Coming Rapture --- COULD occur. I'm not completely convinced one way or the other yet.

Logical (not scriptural) considerations are:

FOR THE RAPTURE: The full flowering of evil on earth, which is what the last days are going to be all about, would be interfered with by the presence of God's people who pray against it and preach against it. This evil will certainly center on the Antichrist, and in all kinds of signs and wonders, including very likely "alien" (demonic) UFO "visitors" to the planet. Demons manifesting, supernatural powers being exhibited.

AGAINST THE RAPTURE: On the other hand, there would be no hope at all for people to be saved during such a period of time if there WEREN'T God's people around to preach to them and show the true nature of all the evil going on and lead them to Christ, people of true and deep faith who trust in God's providence and protection against the greatest manifestation of evil and eventually tremendous suffering ever seen on earth.

This could be an argument for a "mid-trib" Rapture scenario, the first half of the 70th week being a time of manifested signs and wonders against which God's people stand and millions are saved, and the last half being the outpouring of God's wrath, before which the Rapture comes and removes all believers. COULD be. I'm just mulling things.