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Month 9:27, Week 4:5 (Chamashee/Teruah), Year 5935:256 AM
Gregorian Calendar: Thursday 22 December 2011
Glitter, Glitter
Which Elohim Will You Honour?

    The winter solstice has come and gone while religious and irreligious (so they think) people everywhere welcome the pagan winter deities with such man-made light-festivals as Advent (counting the days to Christmas), Christmas (Saturn's = Satan's Day of Worship and the birthday of the first antichrist, Nimrod/Tammuz), Boxing Day (the poor man's Christmas), Hanukkah (a repeat Sukkot that mutated into a nationalistic monster, spiced with myths, that became the Jewish Christmas along with the Hanukkah bush and St.Harry, the Jewish Santa) and Kwanzaa (the Afro-American secular Christmas with animism added for flavour).

    If entertainment is the devil's substitute for simcha (joy), then glitter is the devil's substitute for the light of emet (truth). Both pale into insignificance when compared against the real thing.

    Whether it be the lights and tinsel on Christmas trees and Hanukkah bushes, or the artificial light of the 9-armed Hanukkah candlearbre (the number of judgment and the end of man, incidentally), it's all fake. Not that there is anything wrong with outward observances or even a little decoration that's not overdone - the problem is when the outer does not match the inner, whether in terms of false human behaviour pretending to be good when inside it's rotten, or religious observance prending to be bright, clean and holy when inside what is actually being celebrated is something dark, dirty and profane.

    Let me illustrate. I am sure that you, like me, have been attracted to glittering, shimmering objects as well as surfaces like dewdrops, sunslight on water, chrome surfaces or polished silver. Personally I love the simmering sunlight on water, especially as the sun is setting or rising. Small children love shiny objects - give them a choice between a common, worthless shiny brass metal coin and a solid piece of gold covered with dirt and they will pick the glittering object each time. When Eve was presented the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil it was her eye that was attracted to it - she saw that it was desirable. Glitter seems to have a way of sparking desire off inside us.

    Only the other day someone expressed regret that we did not have a 'glittery' festival with lots of lights like Christmas and proposed that we make one up of our own. It called to mind the days we celebrated Hanukkah and how, one year, I made the disasterous mistake of 'adding some glitter' that included tinsel, lots and lots of candles, and present-giving. The children loved it and to this day remember with delight the fact that on each day of Hanukkah they got a new present. What they remember chiefly about those days was all the lights we burned and the presents, much as children remember Christmas.

    It didn't take us long to realise what we were doing. At first all I realised was that we were being lured back by the pagan practices of the the Saturnalia and Brumalia (the earlier Roman version of 'Christmas') but it took me a while longer to realise that Hanukkah and Christmas had similar spirits that tied up to a mutually common pagan past. In Yahweh's holistic, echadic universe, the external things we do are supposed to reflect inner emet or truth. The outer is supposed to enhance, for the benefit of the outer man, what which is inner. And when it comes to religious observances, we are only allowed to do what Yahweh commands. It's him we are supposed to be pleasing and honouring, after all, and not exalting ourselves.

    Why do women wear jewelry? And when does it work? Beautiful women, it has to be admitted, are enhanced by jewelry because each reflects the beauty of the other. When physically unattractive women wear beautiful jewelry, what happens? Their unattractiveness is enhanced by the beauty of the jewelry! Old women who wear a lot of jewelry just look decrepid against the lustre of the jewels. This disjunction is obvious and distasteful.

    Now please don't understand me. I am not comparing 'beautiful' with 'unattractice' women, or approving of jewelry, because in Messiah we are to look for the beauty within:

      "Do not let your adornment be [1] outward -- arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel -- rather let it be the hidden person of the lev (heart), with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of Elohim (God)" (1 Peter 3:2-4, NKJV).

    I am simply making an observation so as to convey an emet (truth), namely, that if the inner and outer don't match, what you end up with is a contradiction and disharmony - in short, a monstrosity.

    You see, we are all 'female' in the sense that we are all - men and women alike - the allegorical 'Bride of Messiah'. When beauty shines from within, then it doesn't matter whether you are physically 'beautiful' or 'handsome' on the outside because the inner beauty - which comes from the purity, set-apartness, emet (truth) and ahavah (love) of the Messiah within each soul - shines through the outer and transforms it. Our 'jewels' are not our beads and baubles but our behaviour, just as the jewels of Yahweh's celebratory emet (truth) is what we do in our observances of His true moedim or festivals. We don't have Christmas trees, Hanukkah bushes, 9-armed candlearbras and all the other junk that the pagans have added to their festivals to make the lies they represent more appealing to the outer eye because we don't need them! If our levim (hearts) are full of the pure simcha (joy) that comes as a result of walking in all emet (truth) and in divine tavnith (pattern), then the observances Yahweh has commanded us will always be enough and satisfying.

    The pagan winter festivals, onto which have been added Christian, Jewish and Shamanist African veneers, are devilish revelries in honour of Satan; and the outer - for all its glitter does not mesh with the inner. The fact that stories have been added - the birth of Christ or the Hasmonean revolt against the Torah-hating Ptolemies - does not alter the historical truths added of these festivals - it actually corrupts and profanes sacred memories, made worse by the fact that Yahweh has not even commanded us to celebrate these things in His Name or His Father's.

    I shall not be inventing a glittery festival for my family for the pure and simple reason that Yahweh has already given families all they need in His moedim or appointments. Though I tolerate birthdays within limits, and stripped of their pagan embellishments, I realise they are 'borderline' and can easily go the way of Christmas and other pagan observances that honour people instead of all the glory going to Yahweh. Sooner or latter the extra 'glittery' observances, which appeal to the flesh, soon take on a life of their own that overshadow Yahweh's true observances. When we as a family observed Hanukkah it rapidly became our favourite festival, mine included, in the same way that I noticed how minor scriptures such as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha became the major interest of some believers who then progressively lost interest in the Bible because these texts contains errors. That is one reason we eventually all but removed our 'secondary canon' - not because these writings were not useful but because of the temptation to neglect the main witness. Other Messianics have gone the other way and have started adding to the Protestant canon such books as Jasher (Yasher/Yahsher) and Enoch, which are not pure, not to mention lots of additional festivals of the anti-Messiah apostate Jews. One messianic ministry has even added the Book of Mormon!

    Yahweh knows fallen human, Adamic, carnal nature too well and its tendency to add and embellish the simple things with He has given and which He says are sufficient. It's not long before a prideful élitist spirit starts entering congregations when they compare all the 'extra things' they have with others that are 'missing'. Though I am not a Protestant, I firmly believe the Protestant canon of scripture was given providentally by Yahweh to ensure that believers have the basic emet (truth). And fascinated though we have been over the years in many of the 'outside writings', including our own collection of revelations, The Olive Branch, I remain yet to be convinced that we cannot do without them to come to the fullness.

    When trial and tribulation come, and our mettle is tested, we soon become minimalists when it comes to outer things, as we learn to discern that what's actually important is what Yah'shua (Jesus) has planted within. The end-time remnant needs to be spiritually 'mobile' and will not be cumbered with all the extra baggage of which the pagan winter festivals are a perfect illustration.

    I am really looking forward to 25 December this year for the first time in my life and do you want to know why? And it's not because it's Christmas - I shall be avoiding that like the plague. It is because it is my Heavenly Father's monthly day, the New Moon, the festival of Rosh Chodesh. There will be no glitter in our assembly except perhaps a seven-armed menorah to remind us of the completeness which is Yahweh's Derech (Way) and no other symbols except the Cross on our pulpit to remind us what every day is all about - the two chief symbols of Messianic Israelism. And I will be reminding myself and those others assembled with me that what matters is the inner beauty of emet (truth) reflected in deeds of ahavah (love) in divine tavnith (pattern):

      "Yahweh of hosts will be for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of His people" (Isa.28:5, NKJV).

    Who needs glitter of any sort when you have El Elyon, the Most High, burning in your heart? And who wants to profane the sacred with false, revolting festivals that glorify Satan? My children will still hear of the birth of Messiah - in the proper season of Aviv - and they will still be taught about the historical persecutions of Yahweh's people by the likes of Antiochus Epiphanes, and they will learn valuable lessons from both. But we'll not be observing Christmas or Hanukkah and we'll not be inventing our own celebrations just for the carnal pleasure of a bit of glitter.

    May you have shalom (peace) as we anticipate with simcha (joy) the next sabbath and Rosh Chodesh!

    Endnotes

    [1] The New King James Version (NKJV) adds the word "merely" here (the KJV does not add it), implying that jewelry is OK provided inner beauty is the main thing. But the word is absent in the original, meaning that it's not OK at all. The New International Version (NIV) is truer to the original sense: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes" (1 Peter 3:2-3, NIV) - in other words, avoid these things because they are vain, and instead keep it simple! Though the Amish are a bit too bland and colourless for my liking, they do at least have the right idea.

    Acknowledgements

    [1] Kit, The Psychology of Glitter: Women and Jewely?


    Comments from Readers

    "I think each of Yahweh's moedim are like the tabernacle described in Scripture. From the outside, the tabernacle did not look impressive or attractive - if anything it may have seemed a but dowdy or unattractive - and only those who entered into the tabernacle ever saw its beauty and splendour! In the same way, Father Yah's moedim (and truth) may not seem 'glitsy', attractive or impressive to those looking from the outside, and only those who will truly enter into them through the Ruach (Spirit) will ever see their beauty and splendour. (And how wonderful it is when Elohim grants and enables us by His grace to do that!) I think in that sense they reflect the true Yah'shua, who like it says in Isaiah, had no outward beauty to attract people to Him, and whose words and truth (for all who have not entered into them) are not only not attractive, but even offensive...and where we can only see His beauty and majesty (and that of His words and truth) when we enter into and abide in Him and them. Something I think we may need to remember when the world would like to give us 'glitsy' counterfeits of Yah'shua and the gospel!" (DP, South Africa, 22 December 2011)

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    This page was created on 22 December 2011
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