Hello readers, Easter has begun today. I would like to write a blog to thank my readers for reading. I appreciate anyone and everyone who reads. I hope this blog has been a help, a blessing, and a signpost pointing to Jesus Christ for you. That’s what it’s about. It’s designed to build your faith in the word of God, in the sufficiency and relevance of scripture for salvation and every facet of life today. So today’s blog is called the “message of Easter”. Hopefully you realize what the Easter message really is.

So this is a special time of year. I’ve been busy with work of late, so it’s a great break for me to have a long weekend! But it’s a time where people remember the death of Jesus. Sure, if you look at the roots of the holiday, even if you look at the name “Easter”… derived from worship to the goddess “Ishtar”. Yes, you can say don’t bother with it.

But Easter, this time of year, can be what you make it. You can use this time to truly remember the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I thought I’d look at the word “Easter” in the Bible. For the word “Easter” appears once in the King James Bible. Just once! If your Bible doesn’t have “Easter” but changed to Passover… you’ve got a wrong Bible. Easter and Passover are NOT the same.

Easter is a pagan celebration, but Passover was the celebration of God’s deliverance with the blood of the lamb out of Egypt. This is an extremely significant difference, and also significant when you see how new Bibles changed the word out, just like people changed out the Lord Jesus Christ for a false Christ.. but we’ll touch on this again further on… but if you have a Bible with Passover, wake up.

So here we go…

Acts 12:1 – Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.

Acts 12:2 – And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.

Acts 12:3 – And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)

Acts 12:4 – And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

You can go on and read the rest, but it’s primarily the story about Peter being imprisoned and the miraculous deliverance God gave him. It’s jam packed with truth as is the entire Bible. But I was thinking about the irony of this one mention, for its mentioned in a story where Herod (wicked leader and bad guy) has killed James… and because everyone’s happy about it, he further takes Peter, and imprisons him, meaning to kill him .

Everyone’s happy about it. James’ death pleased the Jews. Just think about this. In today’s society we see so many utter hypocrisies, for instance, look at the moral and logical consistency when the same person that wants guns banned to supposedly save lives also is a staunch advocate for abortion. See how ironic that is.

These Jews are a religious crowd, if they’re so religious they shouldn’t be happy to see unjust murder? It’s amazing how religious and self righteous people act and think. So this Easter, see if you are living in utter hypocrisy, see if your life and words and thoughts and beliefs are in gross contradiction of themselves. It’s amazing how your rejection of Christ will cause you to be so utterly stupid and contradicted in your thinking and reasoning in life.

If you’re truly religious, you wouldn’t be elated at seeing someone wrongly killed. Just translate that moral and logical inconsistency to every sphere of your life… if you are against the truth of God,s word, as these guys were… those inconsistencies and hypocrisies will be everywhere. The only righteousness and justification comes from Christ, for he is the only one “RIGHT”.

Many people will celebrate Jesus, or should I say “Jesus”, in many ways over this time, but for many, their celebration really is meaningless. What matters is what’s real. You can go emotional, you could watch a movie and think poor bloke what he went through. You can do whatever. Feelings can’t take you to Christ. Emotions can’t. Lies cant. Only the gospel of truth, and faith in God’s word through the power and grace and illumination of the Holy Spirit can take you to Christ.

So you may celebrate and enjoy the time for whatever reason… but it’s meaningless if you live a life persecuting the word of God, just as Herod and the Jews were. People celebrate Christmas as well, but they’re lost, they’re unrepentant, they’re in error, they’re unsaved. You’re forgetting, Israel had a lot of religion going on through it’s history, but most of the time it was a joke, they had their feasts and celebrations and traditions and observances… but it was just dead show.

They’d honour their prophets… the people they’d put in the ground. That’s a thing I’ve seen recently, where Jesus in Matthew 23 talked about how they garnished the sepulchers of the prophets. You may call yourself a Christian, but if Paul or John the Baptist or Elijah was here… odds are you’d HATE them. We honour our fallen soldiers who died for our country, but those men would be appalled by our society today. It’s so easy to pay lip service to people who aren’t around to rebuke you and reject your rubbish. So when you call yourself a Christian and give empty honor and dues to these men who are heroes of the faith… really you’re just living in a fake reality.

We are in a time in our society (again), where people hate real Christians. The persecution is great in many countries, but in countries like mine, Australia, the persecution isn’t that bad yet. Persecution can take different forms, from outright killing to changing laws and silencing people in different ways. But this is a generation, a people wise in their own eyes, a generation that won’t be told.

Herod murders James, and guess what, it makes the Jews happy. Nothing makes not just this world happy, but also compromising Christians happy, is to see what they think is the demise of the true church of God. When true Christians struggle or fall on hard times or whatever… that makes the fakes who have got life by the tail (so they think) feel justified. Think of how justified Job’s friends felt. Coming to see him with their lives in order, their wisdom and philosophy seemingly justified and intact. They feel superior to Job and speak down to him. But they were lost.

People are a lot more anti truth than you think. They hate truth enough to murder over it. People that preach tolerance, acceptance, inclusion…. see how tolerant and accepting and inclusive they are towards the born again child of God who preaches God’s word. Yeah, hardly. Telling people the truth of God’s word is labelled hate speech, divisive and you’re dangerous if you believe it. Hey, if they crucified Jesus Christ… they’ll come for you as well… if you follow him.

What Herod did here was wicked in slaying an innocent man. But think all the way back to Genesis 4, and Cain killed Abel, all because Abel was righteous and he was evil. If you are opposing truth in your life, can you see it’s not the truth that’s the problem, it’s you that’s the problem? Was Abel truly to blame? No. Abel just did and said what was right… and that made Cain mad enough to murder him. And feel nothing for what he did.

We live in such a victim laden society today. Everyone’s a victim. But look at Jesus Christ, if anyone was a victim, he was. He was treated terribly his whole ministry, and he was the only person who never did wrong. There never was a just cause against him, yet the Bible says he endured such a contradiction of sinners against himself. What does that mean? Well here are these jealous, envious, bitter, lying, murderous, spiritually dead Jews accusing him, the Son of God, sent to seek and save the lost… they’re accusing him of blasphemy, of having a devil, of breaking the law, of starting an insurrection, of lying and misleading the people. They made him the bad guy, but they were the bad guys. Nothing’s changed.

If you want to rise out of being a victim, look at Jesus Christ, who not just rose above it, but rose from the dead. Being a victim or hating God or hating the truth, and it all goes together… that’s death. But you can have life. I recently did a blog on Joseph, if anyone could’ve played victim and lived a poor me life and justified his actions based on what others had done to him… he could’ve. But he didn’t. Because he had the grace of God to deal with it. That grace is extended to you today, don’t fail of the grace of God.

Sadly we see a world and many churches today who are hostile and opposed to the truth just as Herod and the Jews were. See, you generally get the leaders that just reflect the society of that day. Our ungodly leaders are a result of us, both as Christians without salt and light, and our society that has not liked to retain God in its knowledge.

So with all that said, Easter is a time not to pat ourselves on the backs, for Jesus Christ had to die, and endure the death he did… because we were that bad. See, Jesus had died for the sins of the world, and people would rather celebrate Easter. Israel would go after the gods of the Canaanites, quickly departing from the tried, tested and proven God who had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. When you think of the word Easter, just think of how bad we are. We reduce God to rabbits and chocolates and self indulgence and gifts for our holidays, and paint it, just like Jezebel painted herself to try and fool Jehu… we paint it with a bit of religion to make it fine.

Yes, we’re that bad, we would rather a lie over truth, we’d rather the devil over Jesus Christ just like those choose murderer and thief and rebel Barabbas over their Saviour. Salvation is offered like the birthright and blessing to Esau… and you’d rather a bowl of food over it. That’s how little we set who God is and what he’s done for us at. That’s what we think of his longsuffering, grace, love and mercy. If we were good, and fine, and capable of saving ourselves… his death was for nothing. He didn’t need to die if there was some redemptive element to us. And it wasn’t for nothing. But our only mention of Easter is tied with the rejection of truth, the persecution of truth, and the wickedness of the leadership and the people alike, including and particularly the religious ones.

I said I’d go back to the Easter versus Passover thing. Well Passover had already been and gone, for the Bible tells us that these were the days of unleavened bread. If you know anything about the order of the feasts in the Old Testament, you’ll know Passover was first, and then after that the feast of unleavened bread. If you have a Bible that has attempted to correct what was already true, and made it a lie, you’ve been corrected into error. That’s what Satan does. He corrected Eve about what God said, meant and who God was. And it got Adam and Eve… and all of humanity… into a whole boatload of trouble.

But it’s significant they changed it, for what we see today is the fusion of Christianity and worldly religions. It’s in the churches today. Mixing light and darkness, truth and lie, Jesus and the other deities and beliefs. You’ve got a corrupted Christianity in that case, and you’ve got a corrupted Bible. How can you have a corrupted Bible and not have a corrupt image of Christ? If faith is based on God’s word (and it is, or should be), how can a corrupt word not produce a corrupt faith?

And that’s what Herod and the Jews were. They’re in a religious time of year, they’ve got their Jewish feasts and their pagan feasts going on, and they’re mortal enemies of the cross of Christ, they HATE those who believe in God’s word. They’ve killed one, and they’re going to do another. Today, the message of Easter is don’t let this be just an empty religious pile of garbage while you are an active opponent of truth, of Christ, in your real day to day thinking and doing.

It’s possible to go to church today, to think about Jesus Christ, or whatever… and you leave just a big a enemy of the cross as you’ve always been. It’s possible to pay empty homage to Christ. Think of how empty their religious feasts were… they crucified Christ at the time of Passover. They’re getting religious and holy with murder on their minds and in their hearts. Think of how bad that is.

And here they are in Acts 12, they’ve celebrated Passover, and now are the days of unleavened bread… this is a religious time of year, they’re fusing their feasts with pagan celebrations here… this is a religious, remembrance, celebratory time… and they’re in the process of intensely persecuting the truth, God’s word, and those few who were actually holding to it.

This isn’t a time to pat yourself on the back, it’s a time for introspection, blaming others and justifying and excusing yourself is not the way out your mire. It’s time to look at ourselves, we ourselves are the enemies of the truth, enemies of the cross, we are the people that required Jesus Christ to be crucified… because we are that bad. We couldn’t pay our sin debt, it took the only sinless blood in existence to be shed by evil men to atone for your sin.

And at this time of Easter, they’re gonna do away with Peter, but by the end of this chapter Peter is out and free. We can be out and free from a life of sin, from imprisonment to sin and lies and the devil… through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because ultimately, without the resurrection our hope would be in vain. We don’t believe in a prophet in a tomb somewhere, we believe in the risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He’s not found in a tomb. Run that through your head a couple times. He’s not found in a tomb. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… he is the God of the living, because death has no hold on him.

That’s a lively hope people. Resurrection is one of the most massive things that separates Jesus Christ from everything and everyone else in the world. The resurrection proves his utter supremacy and the acceptance of his sacrifice by God. Herod thought he could off Peter, they thought they could off Christ… but they couldn’t beat either of them.

So what is the message of Easter? It’s that we’re wicked, we go astray. Psalm 58:3 – The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. That’s all of us. Salvation is required for each one of us… why? Because we are wicked. We can do religious, we can celebrate and remember, we can get holy and spiritual… and yet we do it all while opposing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is a distinction between the Passover lamb and Easter. There is a distinction between the real Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible and this false Jesus that many people will be paying empty tribute  to today. I was thinking the other day, there is no lie in Jesus Christ. Jesus said Satan has no truth in him, and that he hath nothing in me. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Have you been personally convinced that there is not ONE SINGLE area where God is not right or untrue? The thing is, we live like God isn’t right on certain issues or on one point. But the truth is, God’s not wrong or a liar or unclean or insufficient in ANY one area. Until you get that settled, you’ll never go anywhere in your Christian walk.

Many people claim a Jesus and a Christianity, yet don’t believe in creation or some other fundamental doctrine of the Bible. See, they don’t think he’s right and true in “that” area. The devil is in the detail, he was in Genesis 3, and it’s no different today. If God is not right in Genesis 1, nor is he right in John 3:16. But most people don’t have the God with no darkness or variableness in him.

They’ve got an “Easter” Jesus, not the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the true God of the Bible. You don’t mind your Easter Jesus, but you do mind the true Lord Jesus. Elijah contested the prophets of Baal over whether Baal or the Lord was God. Baal was a substitute God, the very name Baal means “Lord”. The true God has power, and there still is power in the old Bible and the old truths and the old gospel.

So today, this Easter, I hope you do have a great weekend or time with your family or whatever, just a time of rest. This world has no problem with Ishtar… but they do have a problem with the true Lord Jesus Christ. He is God. He is the one with power to save you and give you life and life more abundantly. He is the wine, he is the water, he is the bread, he is the way, he is the truth, he is the life. Consider the message of Easter, we are sinners, we are wicked, but he’s the Saviour, stop opposing truth, stop mixing truth and lie, stop rejecting the gospel, because Jesus Christ has won the battle, it is finished he said on the cross. Believe in him, believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and he will save you today.

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