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Man can not live by bread alone...

Why I No Longer Celebrate the Festival of New Years

12/31/2019

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Things to Study, Test, and Consider-
1. The Roman New Year also originally corresponded with the vernal equinox. The early Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and 304 days, with each new year beginning at the vernal equinox. According to tradition, the calendar was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome, in the eighth century B.C. However, over the centuries, the calendar fell out of sync with the sun, and in 46 B.C. the emperor Julius Caesar decided to solve the problem by consulting with the most prominent astronomers and mathematicians of his time. He introduced the Julian calendar, a solar-based calendar which closely resembles the more modern Gregorian calendar that most countries around the world use today.
'New Year's Day, also simply called New Year or New Year's, is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar.In pre-Christian Rome under the Julian calendar, the day was dedicated to Janus, god of gateways and beginnings, for whom January is also named. As a date in the Gregorian calendar of Christendom, New Year's Day liturgically marked the Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus, which is still observed as such in the Anglican Church and Lutheran Church.[2][3] The Roman Catholic Church celebrates on this day the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.'
-Wikipedia

2. ​Romans would celebrate January 1st by offering sacrifices to Janus in the hope of gaining good fortune for the New Year, decorating their homes with laurel branches and attending raucous parties. This day was seen as setting the stage for the next twelve months, and it was common for friends and neighbors to make a positive start to the year by exchanging well wishes and gifts of figs and honey with one another.
'The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted. During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions. If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor—a place no one wanted to be.'
- History Channel

3. Though early Christians rebelled against this festival, the Roman Catholic church decided to christianize January 1 by declaring it the "Feast of the Circumcision", considered to be the eighth day of Christ's life counting from December 25th and following the Jewish tradition of circumcision eight days after birth on which the child is formally given his or her name. However, most of us are aware that Dec. 25th was not Christ's birthday but rather the birthday of many false gods through the course of time. His birth and circumcision, most scholars conclude, was most likely occurred in the fall time. Feast of the circumcision is still observed by a few groups today, but at large the Catholic church gave up on it gaining ground in the 60s. 
Encyclopaedia Britannica: “By the Roman republican calendar, the year began on March 1; after 153 BC the official date was January 1, and this was confirmed by the Julian calendar (46 BC)…In early medieval times most of Christian Europe regarded March 25 (Annunciation Day) as the beginning of the year, though for Anglo-Saxon England New Year’s Day was Dec. 25.”
4. New Year's is one of the oldest and most universal of all pagan rituals. The custom of celebrating it has remained essentially unchanged for 4,000 years.
"There is scarcely a people, ancient or modern, savage or civilized," writes Theodor H. Gaster, in his definitive book "New Year", "which has not observed it ... in one form or another. Yet no other festival has been celebrated on so many different dates or in so many seemingly different ways." 
In ancient Babylon, New Year's festivals were closely bound to the pagan feast that over time has morphed into the modern day Christmas festival. 
"Mesopotamia," writes Earl W. Count, "is the very ancient Mother of Civilization. Christmas began there, over 4000 years ago, as the festival which renewed the world for another year. The 'twelve days' of Christmas; the bright fires and probably the Yule log; the giving of presents; the carnivals with their floats, their merrymakings and clownings, the mummers who sing and play from house to house; the feastings; the church processions with their lights and song -- all these and more began there centuries before Christ was born. And they celebrated THE ARRIVAL OF A NEW YEAR!" ("4000 Years of Christmas", pp. 20-21.)
The New Catholic Encyclopedia states:  “According to the hypothesis … accepted by most scholars today, the birth of Christ was assigned the date of the winter solstice (December 25 in the Julian [Roman] Calendar, January 6 in the Egyptian), because on this day, as the sun began to return to northern skies, the pagan devotees of Mithra celebrated dies natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of the invincible sun)” (1967, Vol. 3, p. 656).
That is how it began. The celebration of New Year's began in ancient Babylonia in Mesopotamia. It was a pagan custom of ancient sun-worship 2000 years before the birth of Jesus.
It is to be noted that to this day various peoples
will celebrate AKITU FESTIVAL (New Years) by re-enacting the ancient pagan festival known today as "New Years" by wearing costumes and participating in the ancient rituals. 
5. Much of the symbolism associated with New Year’s celebrations today has very definite pagan origins. Kissing at the moment of transition to the next year is rooted in pagan sexual practice and superstition. 
6. 
The name of the month January is derived from the two-faced Roman god with the Latin name of Janus. The ancient Romans had adopted him as their god of time, doorways, new beginnings, coinage, war and peace. The reason he has two faces is because one face looks back into the past, and the other face forward to the future. This is essentially what happens on New Year’s Eve when you countdown to midnight which is the ending of one year, and the beginning of a brand new year filled with new hopes and dreams. A time to put an end to the past year which is now old, and began fresh with a new year.
​
7. Helena Blavatsky (an occultist) had said, “His (Janus) temples were built with four equal sides, with a door and three windows on each side. Mythologists explain it as an emblem of the four seasons of the year, and three months in each season, and in all of the twelve months of the year. During the mysteries of Initiation, however, he became the Day-Sun and the NightSun. Hence he is often represented with the number 300 in one hand, and in the other 65, or the number of days of the Solar year.”
8.    Theodor H. Gaster writes concerning the familiar "New Year's babe":
 "Actually the New Year babe is FAR OLDER than he looks. In ancient Greece, it was customary at the great festival of Dionysus to parade a babe cradled in a winnowing basket. This was taken to symbolize the annual (or periodic) rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility!" (New Year.) Who was this Dionysus? None other than Bacchus -- the god of wine! In his honor the Greeks held a festival called the "Festival of the Wine-Press" at the time which corresponds to our months of January-February! Today more alcoholic beverages are consumed during the "holiday season" than at any other time of the year! New Year's Eve is noted for its licentious, wild, and wanton partying.
9. Jeremiah 10:2-3: “Learn not the way of the heathen…for the customs of the people are vain.”
10. Revelation 18:4 "And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues."
11. Romans 12:2 "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
12.
Exodus 12:1-2 Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month [speaking of Abib or Nisan] shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you."
13. This Pope Gregory, aside from his other faults, was an anti-Semite of the first order. It is an interesting place for this article to be found, but in the U.S. News and World Report, there was an article they ran back in December of 1996 that explains some things about Pope Gregory that I, for one, had never heard.First let me read this sentence: "As Christianity spread, pagan holidays were either incorporated into the Christian calendar or abandoned all together." I read that because I think they are cutting them way too much slack. "Abandoned altogether"? I think they are being very generous. I suspect there were very few pagan holidays that were "abandoned altogether." But according to this article, on New Year's Day, 1577, Pope Gregory decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services. On New Year's Day, 1578, Gregory signed into law a tax, forcing Jews to pay for support of a house of conversion convert Jews Christianity. On New Year's, 1581, Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.
14. Leviticus 18:3 "You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you once lived, nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you; do not conform to their customs."

Yes, we live in this world and the Gregorian year of 2020 is upon us. However, we are not of this world. So, while we acknowledge it's a new year and we function by the modern calendar, we choose not to participate in the rituals or festivities of the day. Just like Daniel and his brothers subject to the land of Babylon, we function by the way of our current captivity. However, under no circumstances do we bow to their idols, or eat of their abominations, or break any of God's laws for the sake of our flesh. If the furnace of fire should soon come, we stand with confidence that there will be another in the fire with us ... our King who conquers our enemies. We believe the return of our the Lion of Judah is soon and swift and may we be seeking Him when He comes for us.  Choose this day.... 
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