3rd Compass -> Group News and Articles -> Have you been raising glasses to Tradition?

Have you been raising glasses to Tradition?
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Minister Ty Alexander
(Ty)
  12/31/2023
Updated 12/31/2024


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 could muster enough warmth to melt it.

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, nonreligious Jews. For many Jews, these religious holidays are times to look for the 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, tangible 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. These are the ways of life that the so-called “learned,” “infallible,” and “authoritative” teach the people. For the Jews, they fail in the Old Law, what they call the Torah, and do not realize how it is impossible to live by now (see God's Offering for All In Judaism for more). So think further, why should so many Jews see real working of blessing and cleansing after Yom Kippur petitions if God did not truly act to clean up real sin? 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 in prayers for forgiveness? 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 so sorrowful 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. I’ve shared many testimonies of this (see Topics for more). 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 make 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.

It was for no superficial reasons that Christ told a man He healed, "You were made well. Stop sinning so that nothing worse happens to you" (John 5:14). So remember that nearly all the bad things that happen to you and everyone else is because of the working of real sin, the breaking of God's actual laws for mankind, not the breaking of what people may think are God's laws and commands. God certainly can and does give real healing and renewal from afflictions caused by sins, but remember Christ's statement, too, Stop sinning, otherwise healing and renewal will always be temporary if you keep living in the same ways that have you sin.

Unfortunately, most people go to the very same teachers and preachers that don't truly know right and wrong, and often follow advice that keeps them in sin. This is so commonplace because believing communities, no matter which sect or faith, are so saturated with false teachings after thousands of years of living by them. This is why the world keeps in its decline, no matter who they follow, and you see more and more afflictions and health issues among the people.

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, so it is more important for a mature person of God to recognize what really is bad or not in their spiritual lives (see Song Ratings and Warnings for more about good and bad music).

Like with Christmas, Traditions! are sacred to the people, no matter for what holiday or culture. They identify so much with traditions that getting rid of them is like suicide, absolutely unthinkable, but it is bad tradition and teaching 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 semi-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:
Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot and old times gone?

For old times sake, my dear, for old times sake.
We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, For old times sake.
It is for “Old Times sake” or what can be thought of as the peoples’ Traditions, or how they live their lives, that they are raising glasses to and wishing for another year of, even though many of those traditions and beliefs really hurt them. And so, it goes to back to why New Year’s resolutions, yearly Yom Kippur cleansing, and occasional prayers of repentance only go so far and have temporary effect. How can people expect lasting change, renewal, and blessings when their morals and lifestyles remain the same and are the reasons they sin and need divine help to fix, again and again? 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 is related to not going far enough to follow God so that they remain in sin (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 remains stuck 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 is dying, because God’s patience, too, has an end. This cycle of temporary repentance among lives of sin cannot persist in a truly Golden Age for mankind. All the world’s so-called “infallible” and “righteous” teaching that is supposed to keep people from sin, actually does the opposite, so that God must always judge it and bring its consequences on the people.

A big point I made in my discussion of fluoride and trusting Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other conspiracists is that it isn’t the fluoride in our water that is the problem for people. It’s the sins they live in. That’s what is generating more and more health problems for our children, family, and communities, because I can guarantee, even if you lived all your life in an area that has superhigh levels of fluoride, you and your family won’t have problems from it if you all live right by God. His blessings of protection are far more powerful than environmental factors. (However, God can have other reasons to let troubles into your lives that don't have to do with sin, such as for testing and spiritual maturing)

But if you live in sin, even if you refuse to believe you do, then God’s laws will still affect you and your loved ones, bringing the bad effects of sin on you all – judgment or curses, which may come from excess fluoride exposure or any other environmental or situational hazard. Living in sin will always hurt you and your loved ones. I made it clear your children and loved ones are impacted by your sin in the Practical Romance discussion. It is no joke (learn more about Generational Curses here...).

But getting Virtue, Faith, Hope, and Love right will keep you from sin and let you get God’s blessings instead of the inevitable consequences of sin. Donald Trump is reentering the White House in 2025, and he and his supporters think he can usher in a Golden Age for America, and surely, no Golden Age will have all the horrible things and suffering we see in the world now. But how do you think a Golden Age can exist with all the same sin people are doing now? Trump and his loyalists certainly won't be able to change the peoples' sins when they live in and teach them as well.

A Golden Age simply can’t exist that way, just like none of us can avoid the consequences of God’s laws, so given all this, will you support what is right and truly from God? Or will you keep on listening to and following those popular but seriously flawed and mistaken leaders and teachers? Will you keep raising glasses to your own community’s traditions and “old times”?





References
[1.1] “Auld Lang Syne”. Wikipedia. Retrieved 2023 Dec. 31.

[1.2] "The world's population was up 75 million this year, will stand at 8 billion on Jan. 1". Associated Press, NPR (Natinal Public Radio). 2023 Dec. 29. Retrieved 2023 Dec. 31.
<https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/12/28/npr-the-worlds-population-was-up-75-million-this-year-will-stand-at-8-billion-on-jan?utm_campaign=20231229_AM_Edition_Newsletter>



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