I've gotten a lot of feedback on this topic from my videos on social media, and I thought that it couldn't hurt to go in depth with connecting the dots!
To start off, I want to make it undeniable that my purpose in writing this is to obey the Lord's calling of me to speak out on topics that He would speak out on as well. This is not to offend anyone, or condemn anyone at all. I don't condemn anyone who celebrated Easter in the past or present. My goal is to simply bring light to an incredibly dark ritual that is the true meaning of Easter, and to show you that the correct holiday to celebrate is actually Passover.
Mankind is evil in nature.
Since the beginning of time, man has chosen to turn from God and run to idol/demon worship. Man did & continues to do this, because their emotions get the best of them, and we all do it. When we sin, and we ALL sin, we expect something GOOD to happen. We sin out of a heart expecting fulfillment, whether it's emotional, physical, spiritual... you name it. That is what Christians and non-believers are doing today with Easter; they are letting their feelings get the best of them, and turning a blind eye to the truth because of comfortable fulfillment in the trends of this culture.
Little do many know, but it is actually a sin to follow your feelings/heart to pursue fulfillment.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Proverbs 3:5-7
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
Luke 12:34
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Psalm 73:26
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Luke 21:34
“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.
These are only some verses out of many that prove what I am saying. What is incredibly concerning is how many comments I got basically saying "I know in my heart that I am not celebrating ISHTAR... yada yada yada".
I'm sorry folks, but you are. It's just like buying a pentagram necklace from the store because "In your heart, you just have the pentagram necklace because it's pretty".
Who is Ishtar, & why does she have so many names?
Ishtar is considered the "Queen of Heaven" by the Mesopotamia.
Ishtar claimed that she was immaculately conceived. She taught that the moon was a goddess that went through a 28 day cycle and ovulated when full and that she had come down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates River at sunrise at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox, on a Sunday. She became known as "Ishtar" which is pronounced "Ish-tar" referred to as Ashtoreth in scripture, and her moon egg became known as "Ishtar's" egg." One of her titles was the Queen of Heaven, and two of her fertility symbols were the rabbit and the egg.
She also proclaimed a forty day period of time of sorrow for each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz.
Tammuz is actually referenced by name in Ezekiel,
Ezekiel 8:14- "So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD's house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz."
During this time, no meat was to be eaten - this is what became known as Lent" in Roman Catholic church.
The original pagan festival of "Easter" or Ashtarte, was a sex orgy that celebrated the return of life via the fertility of Ishtar's conception of Tammuz. Worshipers of the Babylonian religion, which would later be referred to as the Romans, celebrated the conception of Tammuz on the first Sunday after the Full Moon that followed the Spring Equinox.
They celebrated it by baking cakes to Ishtar, getting drunk, engaging in sex orgies and prostitution in the temple of Ishtar. Women were required to celebrate the conception of Tammuz by lying down in the temple and having sex with whoever entered. The man was required to leave her money. Babies were sacrificed in the honor of these pagan gods and their blood was consumed by the worshipers.
The priest of Easter would sacrifice infants (human babies) and take the eggs of Easter/Ishtar, as symbols of fertility, and dye them in the blood of the sacrificed infants (human babies). The Easter eggs would hatch on December 25th (nine months later), the same day her son Tammuz the reincarnate sun-god would be born.
This is where the practice of coloring "easter eggs" came from. Many babies would be born around Dec 25 from the sex orgies that began on the feast of Ishtar in the Spring and many of these babies would be sacrificed the following Easter/Ishtar feast .
Eostre-
So, as we know, many different cultures have assumed many names for different *little g* gods, and Easter is one of these names. This specific name for Ishtar comes from Wiccan tradition in the Angelo-Saxon faith, which is set in Scandinavia & Germany.
Now, this is where many people debate that the celebration of Easter truly originated from, but this is literally impossible, because Ishtar worship dates back into the Old Testament before Christ, and the Wiccan religion began in the early 20th century (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wicca).
This Ostara festival came FAR after Ashtarte. Notice how the names all sound very similar too.
Semiramis-
Semiramis is another name for Ishtar. I believe this is one of the first names recorded for this *little g* goddess, and it since was hyphenated for new cultures to make their own. Semiramis is actually considered to be the wife of Nimrod according to many legends in different cultures.
But with in-depth research, I have officially discovered the first official name of Ishtar, that is supported VARIOUS times in the Bible.
Ashtaroth-
Ashtaroth is the Canaanite goddess. Her name is very similar in the vocalization of the Hebrew word boshet ("shame"), and is what I believe to be where the festival Ashtarte (AKA Easter), truly stemmed from.
Ashtaroth is the preeminent goddess in the Bible, and her name is a generic term for goddesses, used together with Baal as a collective term for illicit worship.
Judges 10:6
The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook the Lord and did not serve him.
1 Kings 11:33
Because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did.
Judges 2:13
They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.
In Israel, her worship is associated with the Sidonians, but Solomon in his later years went after "Ashtaroth, goddess of the Sidonians" in the Bible book of 1 Kings, and Josiah destroyed the cult places which Solomon had built on the "Mount of Olives" for Ashtaroth, the abomination of the Sidonians".
Ashtaroth (Greek Astarté) is known from the Ugaritic (which are the Amorites, the descendants of Caanan) texts, her role is overshadowed by that of her alter ego, the goddess Anath.
Both Ashtaroth and Anath are the sisters and consorts of Baal and share the dual character of goddesses of love and of war, hence why Ashtaroth is described as plural (they/them).
According to Ugaritic (Amorite/Caanonite) texts, Anath & Ashtaroth are the same *little g* god. It seems therefore that Anath and Ashtoreth are different aspects of the same goddess. Like a nickname that you give someone for something they do.
Ashtaroth is a fierce warrior goddess and the goddess of fertility. Like her Akkadian (the language of Mesopotamia in Genesis) counterpart Ištar (ISHTAR), she is an astral deity and is associated with the evening star (fallen angels are associated with the description of stars).
Since Ashtaroth as warrior goddess carries the full title ʿAštart-šem-Baʿal both in Ugarit (Amorite/Caananite) and has been translated as the root words "sparkle" and "splendor," (More star/fallen angel symbolism).
As the goddess of reproduction, she played a large role in the cult at Ugarit, and appears often in ritual texts and sacrificial lists. From Egypt there is the Astarte papyrus, an Egyptian recounting of the Canaanite myth of the revolt of the sea, in which Astarte is given as bride to the sea god Yamm (Nimrod), who is ultimately defeated. In the Baal cycle from Ugarit, Astarte appears as the ally of Baal in his defeat of Yamm.
The so-called Astarte Plaques, clay figurines of a mother goddess generally associated with the fertility cults, may be another representation of the goddess. She is most associated with the "Queen of Heaven," for whom the women of Judah kneaded cakes and burned incense in order to assure fertility.
Conclusion
No matter what the circumstance is, celebrating Easter is not of God. And regardless of His greatness in being "more important", it is up to us to obey His commandments. Christianity has assimilated to Gentile culture, whether you like it or not, and will never change unless more people like me are willing to stand up and say enough is enough.
One thing to note as well, is that Easter is not the only pagan holiday that many Christians blindly partake in... It's essentially every single holiday that pop-culture observes.
I hope that this written out description of what Easter truly represents finds you well, and that it can possibly fuel your arguments in why Christians should step away!
Love you guys, God bless!