As the New Year approaches, I see flurries of ads for celebrations, merry-making, and beloved renditions of Auld Lang Syne. But what is full of felicitations for most of the world, I feel sadness in the world’s revelry. New Year’s was never an important holiday for me even before I became a minister of Christ. It was simply a reason to go party in my youth, and as I aged, that lifestyle evaporated, like flurries of snow in days before the sun still mustered enough warmth before winter decided to remain.

New Year’s revelry was simply something I grew out of, but when I began a life in ministry, I noted more how people treated it as a time to clean yourself out and somehow magically become renewed in new goals with the new year. New Year’s resolutions they’re often called, and though well intentioned, they often fail to truly transform or renew a person’s life in the long term.

I noticed this mentality is similar to how Judaism treats Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, as a purify yourself day to go with the Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) celebration about a week before. Like secular New Year’s, it’s a time to start fresh and celebrate, even for very unobservant Jews, and look for similarly magical renewal of your life that most of the world looks for on New Year’s.

But what I noted during Yom Kippur was, even though God is gracious to forgive and give real cleansing and blessings for those who pray and ask for it, God does not want temporary repentance. Unfortunately, temporary change is also often why New Year’s resolutions fail. But for Jews, Christians, and the unbelieving alike, temporary repentance or removal of sin from their lives is not the only problem.

Most of them also do not understand that their ways, traditions, and false beliefs also have them living in sin that ultimately brings judgment or curses. Why should so many Jews see real working of blessing and cleansing after Yom Kippur petitions if God did not truly act in it? They call Yom Kippur their most important holiday because they see its real spiritual effects, not because God said it was the most holy holiday.

And why do so many Christians also see God acting in the same ways for their petitions of atonement? If people did not sin and bring bad things upon themselves, nothing would happen on Yom Kippur or after similar prayers for atonement and healing. Year after year, the people go through this need to be atoned and cleansed of sin, yet they hardly change from their ways and traditions that bring the need in the first place.

This is why I feel sadness on the world's New Year’s and Judaism's Rosh Hashana. The consequences of living in dark or false ways and temporary repentance really hurts our communities. The people truly have no idea what their ways and beliefs bring to them, even very educated, long time believers, because the ways of their sect often steer them wrong. And so the people live in traditions and teachings that makes them hardly different than the secular world – they continuously cycle in lives of getting dirty, clean up once in a while, but quickly get dirty again.

And moreover, believing communities are no different than their secular counterparts in their love of good song, like Auld Lang Syne, in which they submerge themselves in lyrics and melodies that fatten the heart and tickle their ears. Music that is rapture and warmth, seemingly good for a pious soul to connect with God, but truly, fattened hearts and soothed ears are not healthy for the person of God. They’re more like the products of addictive narcotics in which people completely lose their sensibilities in, so it is more important for a mature person of God to recognize what really is bad or not (see Song Ratings and Warnings for more about good and bad music).

Like with Christmas, traditions, no matter for what holiday or culture, are sacred to the people. They identify so much with traditions that getting rid of them is like suicide, absolutely unthinkable, but it is bad tradition that have the people in so much trouble with God. This thought was never in the story of Fiddler On The Roof, in which the main character so emphasized outdated and improper Jewish Tradition! that no one could really understand why God was driving out the Jews at the end of the movie.

And like that, the world is drowned in singing of Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve, which is a sorrowful remembrance with the raising of pints of beer and cheer to good old times. Auld Lang Syne means “Old Times Since”^[1.1] or more loosely, “Old Times Gone” or “Old Times Sake.” The first stanza and chorus translate to:

It is for “Old Times sake” or what can be thought of as the peoples’ Traditions, which is how they live their lives, that they are raising glasses to and wishing for another year of, even though they also wish for change and renewal and blessings at the same time. And so they begin another cycle of remain dirty, but for a day, in how they live. If they could only see.

It isn’t for lack of trying to open the eyes of the world. God has tried to make the people see what is wrong with their beliefs and ways. One of those ways was when God showed me how the number 43 related to not going far enough to follow God (see this Update in God's Alarm for details), and recently He gave me more to go with it and the New Years celebrations.

Last week, I noted a news article about the world population saying that at the beginning of the New Year, the worldwide growth rate will be 4.3 births and 2 deaths every second^[1.2]. I noted how the 4.3 here goes with the other 43 guidance God gave, and with what I’ve said here, you probably understand why God would have this pop up now in the global birthrate.

God is saying the world is stuck in that 43 state of not going far enough to make themselves right with God, continually cycling themselves in “Old Times” or “Tradition,” which for believing communities is their ways and doctrine. After all the Lord has given through this ministry to show the truth and bring His people out of sin, everyone is sticking to their own ways.

That is what 4.3 births every second connects to, and so, with 2 deaths every second and knowing that God says the number 2 means love, I also see that God’s love has reached its limit for mankind and so “2” or Love from God will die, as I have been saying for years now, and the world will come to see that God’s patience has limits and the world will enter more judgment that was reserved for the end of the age.

Given all this, will you support what is right and from God? Or will you keep on raising glasses to your community’s traditions and “old times”?