I work as a teacher aide. Some of the children I work with are in kindergarten. I was working in my small group, and they noticed that some new decorations had gone up. There was a large chick coming out of an egg hanging on the door, and around the school were other eggs, in pastel colors and with some rabbits too. One girl asked about it and I said it’s Easter decorations.
That got them talking about Easter and of course Easter egg hunts. Easter egg hunts are huge for kids. They burbled and chatted.
EPrata photo, Recreation Department Easter Egg Hunt, years ago
When’s Easter anyway? asked a girl. April! answered a boy. Another child asked “What is Easter about?” They all explained; “It’s when you hide eggs with candy in them and hunt for them all around”. I followed up. But what else is Easter for? Again they explained that the “Easter Bunny comes and you find candy and eggs in a basket”. Anything else? One girl explained, “When you go to church…” Yes, yes? I eagerly leaned forward. “…and you hunt for eggs and find candy.” But isn’t it about Jesus? The girl said, “Of course. He lays out the eggs.”
The most beautifully decorated egg pales in comparison to the beauty of Jesus
It’s charming and sad all at once. Seeing the world through a child’s eyes is always funny and they say unexpected things but they also have more truth in them than we like to think. Kid life is all about getting to the next candy bonanza. To them, Easter is just another fairy tale that has fantastical, magical creatures like a rabbit that delivers candy and eggs in a basket filled with fake grass.
It’s one reason not to depend on a child’s assertion that he or she has ‘accepted Jesus into their heart’ because to become a true believer one must understand sin, our position before Christ, His anger over it, and repentance. This isn’t possible with kids who still believe the tooth fairy flies in to your bedroom and takes the tooth from under your pillow. They still believe in Santa.
I never liked Easter Egg hunts. This was because I never found any eggs. Even as a kid I didn’t enjoy competitions, I was slow and ungainly, I didn’t quite understand the point, and there were always lots of bullies intent in shoving you down to get that egg first. I left a grass-stained mess with bruises, hurt feelings and an empty basket.
I did enjoy the wonderful Easter baskets my parents left by the fireplace. They always held crinkly grass, chocolate, and pretty little jelly beans and more. They were always both artful and bountiful.
I enjoyed dyeing the eggs too, a lot. There was always a new dress to wear, with hat and gloves, for Easter. It was one time per year (of the two) we attended a church. The point of the day was the dinner afterwards.
Me, all dolled up for Easter
Yes, it’s all about Jesus. The crinkly grass, baskets, egg hunts, dyed eggs, ham dinners, and Easter outfits aside, the power of the resurrection is a wondrous event to contemplate. We take a special day to praise our Father for His power and His love in resurrecting His son.
I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:17b-18)
So…hunt for eggs if you must. But look for Christ.
Yesterday I wrote about a so-called conservative so-called pastor collecting a very large salary. No, it’s not Joel Osteen. No, it’s not Joyce Meyer, though those two are so-called and are definitely collecting a large salary. Who I wrote about was Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham, whose nearly a million dollar salary from combined corporations Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse was raising eyebrows even among secular CEOs.
Today then, it seems fitting to follow that up with a post about excessive money-grubbing from excessively greedy pastors. But it’s really a post about how a pagan is showing us up.
John Oliver is a comedian.You will know him from Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central show “The Daily Show” in past years. He’s British, he’s pagan, and he’s finally had enough of the in-your-face money grubbing televangelists begging for money from gullible people.
A few days ago, Oliver performed a sketch on his show “Last Week Tonight” regarding how some televangelists are blatant about seeking money for money’s sake from people who watch their show- AND call their organization a church. The following article is from Addicting Info. The sketch is still having its effect.
It could be the end of the line for televangelists who fleece their own flocks to make themselves wealthy, and it’s all thanks to John Oliver. Last Sunday, Oliver spent 20 minutes eviscerating prosperity gospel televangelists who advocate a sort of trickle-down policy when it comes to donations. According to preachers like Creflo Dollar, the more money people donate so that he can be wealthy and own mansions and private jets, the more likely it is that God will favor them and make them prosper in return.
“They preach something called the prosperity gospel which argues that wealth is a sign of God’s favor and donations will result in wealth coming back to you,” Oliver explained the scam.
“That idea sometimes takes the form of seed faith – the notion that donations are seeds that you will one day get to harvest. The argument is ‘sow your money into the ground, you will reap returns multiple times over,’ except as an investment you’d be better off burying your money in the actual ground because at least that way there’s a chance your dog may dig it up and give it back to you one day.”
The scam has resulted in a transfer of millions upon millions of dollars from church-goers who are already struggling while their pastor gets to live a wealthy lifestyle completely funded by the congregation. For years, televangelists have gotten away with this by taking advantage of the tax system by declaring their operations as religious organizations. Current tax law allows churches to be tax-exempt and the IRS largely fails to investigate to make sure that churches are churches and not scams by so-called “pastors” designed to make themselves rich. But all of that could now change. According to a new report by CBS, the IRS is under a lot of pressure to tax televangelists in light of John Oliver’s exposure of the corrupt practice of prosperity gospel.
Someone was brave enough to call it what it is…what we all understand and know that it is: a scam.
Now, this behavior is certainly nothing new. Simon the Magician tried to buy the Holy Spirit for this very purpose.
Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. (Acts 8:17-21)
His heart was not right before God. Why?
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24)
The motivation of a false Christian is money. It is one way to tell if someone is false. Not the fact they have money, it’s their love of it that is the telling indicator. Many verse speak to this.
[ Qualifications for Overseers ] The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money... (1 Timothy 3:1-3)
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:10)
Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless–not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. (Titus 1:7)
Paul prophesied that in the time of the end (the time between Jesus’ ascension and His return) some within the church will be false and godless and because of this, times will be difficult he said to avoid these people. Some few of the behaviors these godless ones will exhibit are listed, and ‘loving money’ is one of the traits.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, (2 Timothy 3:2)
So if all this is laid out in the Bible for us to see clearly, and if it is even prophesied to Christians as a certainty, why is so much of the general Christian population either so undiscerning as not to notice or so cowardly so as not to stand up?
Why does it take a pagan to point this out?
Not that many Christians haven’t been doing their part to sound the alarm. Many have. Even many leaders with a platform almost as influential as Oliver’s have done tremendous works in the name of Jesus to combat the dangerous doctrines and those who bring them.
But too many others don’t wish to “name names”, “make waves”, or “play hardball.” Church discipline has gone by the wayside, or else turned into something the Pharisees would have approved of. (John 9:22)
So how is the Christian to do his or her part to combat creeping prosperity Gospel into their own church? Yes, you. It is up to each individual Christian to do their part with the amount of discernment they have cultivated in and by the Spirit. Though discernment is a spiritual gift given to some, all Christians can and should cultivate a red flag alert by studying the Bible and prayer and constant confession and obedience to Jesus and His commands. Here is John MacArthur in a 2-minute clip explaining “Every Believer’s Responsibility.” (Though the clip looks dead, it isn’t)
It isn’t easy. As MacArthur ended the clip, he said to go to the pastor or leader lovingly, privately, but to do it. Sometimes, often times, as a matter of fact in my experience, the reactions are not of love returned. You might get a “reputation”. You might be asked to leave the church a la Pharisee-style. you might be gossiped about. You might be ignored. You might be patronized like a little girl with a pat on the head and an admonition not to take it all so seriously. In rare, beautiful cases, you might be listened to and the pastor or leader might actually go back and check through his Bible and see that you’re right. The latter case is rare.
So why go through all that if there is a good chance your message won’t be listened to? For 4 reasons. This list is certainly not exhaustive.
First, your message might be listened to. You never know. The goal of correcting someone’s doctrine is restoration, love, and drawing them back into the fold. The Spirit might graciously draw that person back through your conversation, especially if you stick to the Word.
Secondly, though we do it out of love and concern for the person teaching or preaching the error, ultimately we have an audience of One. Jesus is the Head of the church and has charged us to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8) and to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). We take witnessing seriously. We take discipling seriously. We don’t walk away when a disciple of Jesus Christ begins to wander, or who brings in false doctrine that makes others stumble.
Third, pointing these things out helps to uncover who is true and who is false. A true disciple of Jesus Christ will hear you out and maybe they will become angry. But afterward they will calm down and the message will begin to work in them and they will come back to you in humility to apologize, and to learn more. A false witness of Jesus Christ will perhaps ignore, become dismissive, be angry…but if there is no effect then or later it is a sign that the Spirit perhaps is not in them and it is their flesh doing the driving.
Last, we check against scripture then point out the error so a pagan doesn’t have to.
I work as a teacher aide in a kindergarten. I was working in my small group, and they noticed that some new decorations had gone up. In the room I share there was a large chick coming out of an egg hanging on the door, and around the room were other eggs, in pastel colors and with some rabbits too. One girl asked about it and I said it’s Easter decorations.
That got them talking about Easter and of course Easter egg hunts. They burbled and chatted.
Not my kids in kindergarten. This is an old picture I had taken
When’s Easter anyway? asked a girl. April 5th! answered a boy. I asked “What is Easter about?” They all explained “It’s when you hide eggs with candy in them and hunt for them all around”. But what else is Easter for? Again they explained that the “Easter Bunny comes and you find candy and eggs in a basket”. Anything else? One girl explained, “When you go to church…” Yes, yes? I eagerly leaned forward. “…and you hunt for eggs and find candy.” But isn’t it about Jesus? The girl said, “Of course. He lays out the eggs.”
The most beautifully decorated egg pales in comparison to the beauty of Jesus
It’s charming and sad all at once. Seeing the world through a child’s eyes is always funny and they say unexpected things but they also have more truth in them than we like to think. To a kid life is all about getting to the next candy bonanza. To them, Easter is just another fairy tale that has fantastical, magical creatures like a rabbit that delivers candy and eggs in a basket filled with fake grass. Jesus doesn’t figure into it at all or if He does it’s messed up. We certainly give out mixed messages.
In his sermon, “The Power of the Resurrection“, John MacArthur preached about the pagan mixture of Easter myths with the wonder and eternal glory of the Resurrection. He gave a good overview of the pagan origins of secular Easter celebrations and then he said,
While we laugh at that, we aren’t laughing at the resurrection. We’re laughing at the silliness of the world. But it really isn’t funny, because it’s another one of Satan’s efforts to muddle the issue. If I just do one thing this morning, I’d like to separate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the stupidity of Easter.
I never liked Easter Egg hunts. This was because I never found any eggs. Even as a kid I didn’t enjoy competitions, I was slow and ungainly, I didn’t quite understand the point, and there were always lots of bullies intent in shoving you down to get that egg first. I left a grass-stained mess with bruises, hurt feelings and an empty basket.
In fact, the term Easter is not a Christian term at all. It is the name of the ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess of light, Estre, and you might be interested to know that Easter celebrations predate Christianity. ~MacArthur
I did enjoy the wonderful Easter baskets my parents left by the fireplace. They always held crinkly grass, chocolate, and pretty little jelly beans and more. They were always both artful and bountiful.
The egg is both, in ancient times, a symbol of fertility and a symbol of the sun because, of course, of the color of the yolk; and so eggs were used in ancient fertility rites as symbols offered to the gods and goddesses, and they were used in worship of the sun as sort of small emblems of the sun. ~MacArthur
I enjoyed dyeing the eggs too, a lot. There was always a new dress to wear, with hat and gloves, for Easter. It was the one time per year (maybe two) we attended a church. The point of the day was the dinner afterwards.
I wondered this week how the rabbits got into the scene…since rabbits really have nothing to do with eggs…and so I checked out some resources, and I found that in ancient Egypt, the rabbit is the symbol of birth, for obvious reasons if you’ve ever had rabbits…and the Egyptians used the rabbit as a symbol of birth, and also other ancient people considered rabbits the symbol of the moon; and since rabbits in Egyptian society were symbols of fertility and birth, and they were connected with spring when things came alive. ~MacArthur
Me, all dolled up for Easter
Yes, Easter the holiday has a mix of pagan rituals and myths. I am not a huge fan of churches holding Easter Egg Hunts. I’m not a fan of trunk or treat at Halloween either. However, the outreach possibilities at both holiday times are tremendous. Ministering to our neighbors with love,service, tracts, bibles, conversation, is a wonderful way to bring the Gospel to the world. So usually I leave it to Christian liberty and don’t stress about differing views.
Should Christian parents allow their children to participate in traditional activities that refer to the Easter Bunny? This is a question both parents and church leaders struggle with. There is nothing essentially evil about the Easter Bunny, unless it is used to promote the goddess of spring or fertility rites. What is important is our focus. If our focus is on Christ and not the Easter Bunny, our children will understand that, like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny is merely a symbol. As with Christmas, Easter should be a time to reflect upon and celebrate the incarnation, the resurrection and the risen Christ.
Yes, it’s all about Jesus. The crinkly grass, baskets, egg hunts, dyed eggs, ham dinners, and Easter outfits aside, the power of the resurrection is a wondrous event to contemplate. We take a special day to praise our Father for His power and His love in resurrecting His son.
So it is from the resurrection to the close of the New Testament, the theme is always that He rose from the dead. We must not be fooled by Satan’s efforts to hide the resurrection in the foolishness of the world… ~MacArthur
I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:17b-18)
So…hunt for eggs if you must. But look for Christ.
Joel Osteen, America’s most famous false prophet, has a new book out. As most of his books do, it features a smiling Joel on the front.
The blurb reads, “Broken into thirty-one parts, this book will help readers reach the truth of God’s word, and how speaking God’s promises can bring about His blessings.”
Joel says that “declaring it” will bring it.
Joel says he wrote the book because, “I think its principles that help you to have a good self-image and feel right about yourself,”
Joel writes that we should speak and declare these things because God has “explosive blessings coming your way. I will increase you beyond your salary.” (pp3-4). That is a direct quote.
In Day Two’s declaration there are 55 words. I, me, or my is referred to 9 times. God is referred to 5 times. Part of it states, “I will give birth to every promise God put in my heart and I will become everything God created me to be.”
On another day’s declaration, we read, “This is my time! This is my moment! I receive it today! This is my declaration.”
Wow, that is some power. Kind of like another guy I know who declared stuff. That guy has some stiff competition now in Mr Osteen. That guy ought to watch out! The original declarer, you know, GOD, said,
“I have declared the former things from the beginning; They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.” (Isaiah 48:3).
If we can declare all these things into being, what do we need God for? Oh, wait…
the-end-time.org 