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KILL THE EASTER BUNNY The Lord is after your Easter bunny. Will you let him kill it? God wants to bless His people with a deep understanding of His Holy Word. Will we let God show us life through death? In this case by letting the cross of Christ kill our Easter Bunny? For as Hosea 4:6-8 says: "...my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as priests... The more the priests increased, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their Glory for something disgraceful." It has now been several years since God had us start sending out tracts on Easter or First Fruits. They were sent especially to the "priests", but they continue to refuse to change Easter back to First Fruits. They continue to hold onto and defend Easter bunnies, colored eggs and gathering sweets for self. How the church seems to love the "disgraceful" Easter Bunny over the "Glory" of First Fruits. Those who read this tract, let the Holy Spirit move you to call your church to repentance! How many blessings the church is missing because it will not rid itself of earthly traditions. In some cases those churches are being destroyed because the priests are rejecting knowledge and covering over this whole issue with "whitewash", (Ezekiel 13). EASTER IS A SIN BEFORE GOD That cute little bunny is a sin before the eyes of God. That chocolate bunny that grandma brings is an abomination toward God. Hiding Easter eggs is a vile and corrupt tradition in God's mind. For we read of the sin of human traditions and customs in 1 Kings 12. First notice that satan, in order to keep men from worshiping the pure Word of the Lord, will instigate an alternative festival, that is, a different way to worship God. "Jeroboam thought to himself, 'The kingdom will likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.'" 1 Kings 12:26-27 The spiritual lesson in all this is: 1. Satan knows that men might worship God in Truth and Spirit, for Rehoboam of the house of Judah was the only one who remained faithful to the word of the Lord, (1 Kings 12:20). 2. He is fearful that if they do that then they will "kill" him. Satan too is terrified that if we live the Word we will kill him. In order to keep people from worshipping God in the way God intends it to be done satan has instituted new ways of worshiping God that look just as good as God's ways. This is exactly what Jeroboam did. For we can take warning from God by reading, 1 Kings 12:32: "Jeroboam instituted a festival on the fiftieth day of the eight month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar." Just like today, Easter, which the priests support and preach about, looks like the resurrection of Jesus. But it is not the festival of the Lord! Easter with all of it's terminology and doings must be taken out to the city dump and burned. We are after your Easter bunny. We have a holy sword called the Word of God and we will not quit until it is dead. That cute bunny has to go if you are going to be blessed by staying in step with the Holy Spirit. You priests, if you are not going to be false prophets, must repent, and teach and demand what is in accordance with the Word of God. God gave ample warning to Jeroboam, but he refused to repent. God is giving the church ample warning also, and if we do not repent it will be written about us the same thing that was written about Jerohoam and his church: "This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth." 1 Kings 13:34 THE LORD'S PURPOSE The purpose of this tract is to show you the difference between what is "clean" and "unclean". What God desires, what man has brought about and what the church has supported because they keep refusing the Holy Spirit. The Lord's purpose is to increase your joy in the Lord that comes from the Holy Spirit. Let the priests of God repent, with great zeal, of the "violence" they have done to God's Word by accepting the customs of the world. And even justifying pagan holidays with God's Holy Word. "Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach there is no difference between the unclean and the clean..." Ezekiel 22:26 FIRST FRUITS The following is a section from Zola Levitt's book, The Seven Feasts of Israel. Most of you know Zola is a Jew who loves our Lord. Of course Jesus was and is his Lord first, (Romans 1:16). We do well to ask the Holy Spirit to make alive in our hearts his teaching about the Word. "The third feast is held on the Sunday following Unleavened Bread: 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give to you and your reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the Lord so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is the wave it on the day after the Sabbath.' Leviticus 23:10-11 God wanted a special feast during which the Israelites would acknowledge the fertility of the fine land He gave them. They were to bring the early crops of their spring planting, (First Fruits), to the priest at the Temple to the be waved before the Lord on their behalf. This was to be done "on the day after the Sabbath", or Sunday. Since the feast of Unleavened Bread was seven days long, one of those days would be Sunday and that Sunday would be the First Fruits each year. We have come to call this "Easter" after the Babylonian goddess, Ishtar, the pagan goddess of fertility. We even continue to worship the objects of fertility: the rabbit, the egg, new costumes, etc. But the celebration was to be over God's replanting of the earth in the spring. We miss a very important biblical truth by not using the term "First Fruits" as the name of this feast, because "first" implies a second, a third, and so on, and that is the real meaning of the feast. We do not merely celebrate the resurrection of the Lord on First Fruits, on which it indeed occurred, but more so, the resurrection of the entire Church! We shall all be resurrected and go to heaven, just as the Lord did, 'Every man in his own order'. The apostle Paul presented this brilliantly: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are in Christ at his coming." 1 Corinthians 15:23 Paul makes very clear the real point of the feast. The resurrection of the Lord Himself is happy news indeed, and worthy of a celebration, but we are not so surprised by it. After all, the Lord could raise the dead Himself; He walked on water. He is God's Son. The real miracle is that each of us ordinary, mortal sinners will experience this resurrection! We apparently all have a number and will go in that order. Jesus Christ's number was one; He was the first fruits - the first man permanently resurrected. Your father has a lower number than you, and your grandfather a lower then he, if you were saved in that order. But in any case, we shall all go! Obviously, 'The dead in Christ shall rise first', 1 Thessalonians 4:16- 17, since they have a lower number. How simple it all is if we understand these feasts. Jesus of course, celebrated the Sunday of the week of His crucifixion by rising from the dead. It was not some other day He chose but the very day of First Fruits, of course, just as He performed on Passover and Unleavened Bread, each with the appropriate action. Jesus even presented the His proper First Fruits offering to the Father. Graves were opened and dead people rose and were seen after His resurrection in Jerusalem, (Matthew 27:53). The Lord, not unlike a Jewish planter, gratefully showed the Father the early crops of what will be a magnificent harvest later on." -Zola Levitt YOUR RESPONSE TOWARD GOD When I was a child I played with childish things, (1 Corinthians 13:11). That is, Easter bunnies, eggs, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies and songs about Easter. You know, "here comes Peter cotton tail, hopping down the bunny trail... hippity hop... Easter's on its way." By the way do you see any Apostle's names in that song? Why is it that man always takes the gospel of self-sacrifice and turns ever celebration into a gathering for self? With all the gathering of food, eggs, toys and merriment, one cannot tell Jesus said "deny self" and be a "living sacrifice" unto God! When was the last time you ever saw a "wave offering" at First Fruits time? How many even know what a "wave offering" is and how it points to Jesus Christ. As we grow up in the Lord, we put aside childish things of the past and press on toward maturity in the Lord. We can't help but be blessed! How few teachers offer the flock the greater joy of celebrating First Fruits. Every child in the church should have a rich understanding of what the Feasts of God are, for all the things God point to are "inexpressible joy". Many will say, "What harm does it do to call it Easter and to have Easter bunnies?. We don't do it unto the pagan goddess of fertility, Ishtar. We do it in the name of Jesus". This statement declares to the world our willing rebellion and distaste toward God's Word. The church should be a source of rich knowledge concerning the feasts of God. Instead, ignorance and worldliness rob many of the joy of God's Spirit. Let it be so no more!! Amen! "Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John 5:21 "Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols..." Revelation 2:14 Are we by the preachers of God being duped into eating food sacrificed to idols; Easter baskets, eggs, beans, sugar bunnies, chocolate eggs, etc. The answer is a sad "yes". Let it happen no more! We just killed your Easter bunny with the Word of God, live in the ways of the world no more! SOUND DOCTRINE CHURCH PO BOX 460206 AURORA, COLORADO 80015 PHONE 303-690-0920 M O D E M N U M B E R

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