Contrasting Ancient Israel and the modern day Church.
In the book of Exodus, we read that the children of Israel were with Moses at Mt Sinai. Moses had gone up the mountain alone to see God, while Israel waited on his return. Days had turned to weeks, and after a few weeks, the people began to grow weary. “Surely he is dead”, they reasoned. They eventually grew tired of waiting on Moses, because he had been gone so long, and they had no way to know what had become of him. One thing for sure, they were sooooo not going up that maintain!
They finally went to Aaron and said “Up, and make us gods”! Surely Moses is dead, they reasoned. Aaron straightway told the people to give him all of their jewelry. Aaron took the jewelry and right away began to fashion it after a calf. After its completion, Aaron proclaimed “This is your god that brought you out of Egypt”. They people rejoiced! At this point, back on Mt Sinai, Moses is getting the Torah, (commonly called the 10 Commandments). Outraged by what was going on, God began to tell Moses what the people were doing, and that He was about to wipe everyone out. Things were about to get real right here.
Interestingly, as we read all of these events in our Bibles, a lot goes on unseen. We tend to see Israel as being so quickly to turn their backs on God, when thats totally NOT the case. We look at the creating of the golden calf as a pagan god, when again, if we understood better, we would see that again, this was not the case. At this point, I would like to clarify a few things for you. Lets deal with the golden calf. Of all the things to create as a god, why a calf? Why not a mighty figure of a strong man, like Hercules, or Zeus? A Calf? Thats ridiculous, right? Wrong! Lets look into the Hebrew language for clarity. Ancient Hebrew, or as its better known by, Paleo-Hebrew, is a pictographic language. What do I mean by this? A pictographic language is one that each letter is a picture of a physical image.
Above, we see the “Alef”, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The alef was made to look like the head of an oxen. To the Hebrews, an oxen was a symbol of great strength and leadership, two of the main characteristics of God. They saw YHVH in the characteristics of an oxen, and since none of them had ever seen God, all the had to go off of were the characteristics of the alef, which was a symbol they all could relate to. This is why Aaron fashioned the gold in an image of a calf. It would only make sense to use something everyone could relate to. Now, here is another point, the calf was not to be in place of YHVH, but rather in place of Moses. Moses was their link to YHVH. He was the only one to talk to Him on a regular basis, and without Moses, how could they keep their link to God? The calf was intended to be the link between between Israel and God. Now their connection was re-established. You also have to look at the statement of Aaron, when he told the people that on the next day they would have a feast to YHVH. Aaron did not say the calf, but YHVH. This lets us know that in the mind of him and the people, they still acknowledged YHVH, but the calf was more of a conduit than an actual god.
So, what do we get from this? Their motives are now more understood, yet still NOT acceptable in the eyes of YHVH. He was enraged by this act. But why, they were only trying to keep their link to YHVH, and with no Moses, how could they keep it? The first mistake was that God had told them NOT to fashion any image after Him, not of things in the heavens, the earth or in the sea. Although they had good motives, it still went against what God said. Next, they proclaimed a feast day to YHVH, apart from the ones He instituted. This is wrong because, in doing this, we are now trying to worship Him the way we choose, and not the way He has commanded. One could totally understand why Israel did what they did, but we must realize that God has established what he wants. Our only job is to do what he commanded. Anything apart from that is unacceptable. This is shown in the way they were punished afterwards.
And what about the modern church, how are they contrasted with ancient Israel? A big portion of the modern day church’s theology is based on the observance of days set aside to celebrate YHVH, apart from the times He himself has commanded us. I hate to be the voice of negativity when it comes to our so called holidays, but the fact is, these days are NOT God ordained, and no matter how we try to justify it, we still fall short. Since Christmas is the closest, we will deal with it first. No where in the bible does it show that anyone, from the apostles all the way up to the third century church observe the alleged birthday of Yeshua. For that matter, unless one was to do some serious digging, the bible does not blatantly make it clear as to when the Messiah was born. This is an indication that His birth was not meant to be of any significance to us, yet the modern church has willingly accepted as such. Not only that, but the church has accepted it on the basis of tradition, not fact. Granted, the intentions are very good, much like ancient Israel’s were, but the fact remains, YHVH did not establish this as an acceptable day day of worship.
While digging into the origins of Christmas, you begin to see that there really isn’t anything holy about this day at all. The origins of Christmas date back to a time when Rome was literally ruling the world. We first must realize that it is a well know fact to almost everyone that the birthday of Yeshua was not December 25th, yet accepted by all as an acceptable day to celebrate it. Why this date? What’s so special about it? I’m glad you asked. Pagan Rome observed a festival to Saturnallia (Saturn) between December 17th – 25th. The church of Rome, desperately trying to Christianize Rome took note that this was a huge celebration. The worship of Saturnallia was a huge thing during this time. It was once said that had Christianity been wiped out, the entire world would have went after Saturnallia. Anyway, this was a huge problem to the church so ultimately the idea of trying to merge with them went into play. The people were told that if they became Christian, they could still worship Saturnallia on this day. Ultimately it was agreed, and they accepted Christianity. As a side note, its quite funny how during this time, although Rome was predominantly pagan, the church gladly got them to accept Christianity under the guise that they could retain all of their pagan practices. The church would later become known as the Roman Catholic church. Bear in mind, the term Catholic means “universal”, and thats just what the church was, universal. You could be whatever you wanted, and nothing needed to be changed other than your religious title. Anyway, the icing on the cake was that on the final day of their feast to Saturnallia, the Church of Rome would proclaim this day as the day the Messiah was born. This date was December 25th.
Unknown to many Christians today, most of the “harmless traditions” we have in Christmas stem from the pagan worship of Saturnallia. I could go on and on about that, but I really don't want this to be insanely long. Most of what I am telling you can be found in library books and even online. I would also recommend a book by Yahweh Restoration Ministry called December 25th, Birthday Of The Sun. I would also like to point out that between 1659 and 1681 that Christmas was banned in America by the Puritans, due to its Pagan roots. It is quite interesting how as time goes on, things that were once unacceptable later become acceptable, and as it would happen, became the case for Christmas. I would so love to go into the other paganistic traditions of Christmas, but I would like to think I made my point. I would also highly recommend you looking into the gradual evolution of Santa Claus too. Going back to Israel, their big downfall was trying to worship God apart from how he outlined His worship, and establishing holy days apart from what He already deemed as holy days. This is never acceptable to God because it involves us doing this our way, not His way. Another example of this would be Cain and Able. Both offered a sacrifice to YHVH, but only one was acceptable. One brought a sacrifice according to the will of YHVH, the other brought one according to the will of himself. The modern day church is doing just that, and although the intentions are good, it is still not acceptable because YHVH did not tell us to do such. I wont even speak on how we the modern church totally overlooks and rejects the holy days established by YHVH.
It really makes you wonder, what kind of statement do we make when we refuse to observe days commanded by YHVH, yet insist to observe days that our traditions outline. Amazingly enough, I wouldn't even put the blame on the church for this because it wasn't something that the “Christian Church” came up with, but rather the Roman Catholic Church. The only issue with the church is that they blindly accepted old traditions without ever looking into their origins. Not only that, but when faced with the truth of this, rather than accepting the truth, the church begins to defend the traditions tooth and nail. All in all, based on the outcome of Israel from serving YHVH their own way, can the outcome for the modern day church be any different? One thing for sure, the moment the church begins to accept the truth of His Word, everything changes. Perhaps this is why some refuse to accept truth, the moment you do, things can never be the same
