{"id":3737,"date":"2019-03-09T20:29:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T01:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/?p=3737"},"modified":"2019-03-09T20:29:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T01:29:58","slug":"q-were-hearing-a-lot-on-the-news-these-days-about-mardi-gras-and-lent-enjoying-earthly-pleasures-before-a-season-of-denying-the-flesh-should-christians-celebrate-le","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/q-were-hearing-a-lot-on-the-news-these-days-about-mardi-gras-and-lent-enjoying-earthly-pleasures-before-a-season-of-denying-the-flesh-should-christians-celebrate-le\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: We\u2019re hearing a lot on the news, these days, about ‘Mardi Gras’ and LENT … enjoying earthly pleasures, before a season of denying the\u00a0flesh! Should Christians celebrate \u2018LENT?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A:<\/strong>\u00a0Many noted theologians and scholars, have been saying, for years, that the culture, has influenced the church; and that is why, we’re constantly hearing elements of the culture, associated with Christianity. [Note: Permit me to go on record as saying, I’m very much aware that some of my ministry colleagues teach this subject matter from the standpoint of it being a 40-day period of fasting and prayer before Easter.]
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[However, when it comes to Lent] The sad state-of-mind, centers around all the misguided people who take the approach, that Lent is coming, and I need to indulge my flesh in all the pleasures of life, before I have to give it up for 40 days. Thus, we arrive for many, at the door called, Mardi Gras, where, in the streets of New Orleans, the day after, you\u2019d find paved-asphalt riddled with blood splotches, broken bottles, cigarette butts laced with other drugs, used condoms, vomit, etc., and the list can go on-and-on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For this group, the concentration isn\u2019t on the coming celebration of Easter; it\u2019s totally on satisfying my carnal desires, before \u2018Lent,\u2019 because, I\u2019m going to have to be spiritual for a little while, before resuming, all the pleasures that life has to offer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Word of God calls them, \u2018spiritually blinded,\u2019 because they never spend quality time in the Bible, getting to know and developing a relationship, with the God of the Bible. Because, if they did, they would discover that Lent did not come from the Bible. Nowhere in sacred Scripture, did Jesus ever mention it, nor will you find where the Apostles or early church fathers celebrated it, as a time or celebration before the resurrection of Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, if you\u2019re a serious student of sacred Scripture, and enjoy plowing through a little church history on the origin of celebrations that have found their way into Christ\u2019s church, then you\u2019d soon discover that in ancient paganism, it was believed that Tammuz (or Baal) was killed by a wild boar. And afterwards, his mother Semiramis, known as the high priestess of Babylonian paganism, mourned and cried for her son for 40 days: afterwards, he arose from the dead. Therefore, the 40-day concept of mourning and going without food and fasting, has absolutely nothing to do with Christ\u2019s resurrection, but was imposed upon Christianity from the religions of Babylon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, Tammuz is only mentioned once in the Bible, in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet describes a vision he had, saying the Lord \u201cbrought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz.\u201d Here, we see where God [Himself] calls the practice of \u201cweeping for Tammuz\u201d a despicable thing, happening at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to encourage you to do the historical research on \u2018mystery Babylon,\u2019 and you\u2019d discover that Semiramis conceived her son [Tammuz] by being implanted through a sunbeam \u2013 attempting to draw the parallel of the virgin birth of our Lord \u2013 conceiving a son without a human father. Also, you will discover that Lent came out of the Roman Catholic System, and was superimposed on Christianity. This is where you will find the \u2018mother\/child\u2019 idolatrous doctrine called the \u201cQueen of Heaven,\u201d that\u2019s found in the Bible twice in the Book of Jeremiah 7:18, and 44:17-25. The first Queen of Heaven was Semiramis, the high priestess of Babylonian cults.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A:\u00a0Many noted theologians and scholars, have been saying, for years, that the culture, has influenced the church; and that is why, we’re constantly hearing elements of the culture, associated with Christianity. [Note: Permit me to go on record as saying, I’m very much aware that some of my ministry colleagues teach this subject matter from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bibleqa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}