Mardi Gras
Carnival comes from the root word "carne" which means flesh or meat. During this carnival event the flesh is gaudily attired, overfed, intoxicated, encouraged to lust and satisfy that desire, is displayed through dance, filled with ego sustaining talk and flatteries, pushes to be first, to be noticed, to obtain the best view and enjoy revelry. Pride is a motivating force which causes individuals to pay large fees to be part of the exclusive groups known as the mystic societies.
This carnival precedes "Ash Wednesday" which announces Lent. Lent had its beginning in the Babylonian practice of weeping, fasting and chastising the self during forty days that began three days after the vernal equinox. The Pagans of Mexico maintained this observance to the sun which was revered as a god. The Egyptians held the observance to Adonis, or Osiris, the great mediatorial god.
Lent was an indespensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death of Tammuz and his supposed resurrection. Rome amalgamated the Pagan and Christian through Dionysius the Little.
Rome preceded Lent with revelries of the carnival. In 519 A.D. Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. Dionysius then readjusted the calendar. The difference between the former observation of the Christian Pasch and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome was a lapse of a month. After violence and bloodshed, the Festival of the Caldean goddess came to supercede that which had been used to honor Christ; it was Babylonian in character.
Mardi Gras is ushered in by intensive social events and dances given by the mystical societies. These functions are a status symbol and are highly integrated within the social standing to the communities which observe the festivity.
Unknown to most participants, symbols from the occult are used upon the floats, costumes, masks and other items, all having hidden meaning. Babylon and Egypt had mystical societies in which only the initiated ones understood the symbols and terms. These were known as the Mythric and Elusian Mysteries. The initiated ones were termed illumined ones.
Babylonians wept, fasted and denied themselves during the forty days they honored Tammuz. This god was supposed to be the reincarnation of Nimrod. Tammuz was forty years old when he died and entered the underworld. The lenten season in his behalf was to insure that he would cause the spring season to begin. The Phoenicians and Egyptians also held this practice. The populace grieved with Ishtar or Ashtaroth, the fertility goddess, over Tammuz.
Ezekiel 8:13,14 condemns this practice as part of the spring festival. This pagan event was "Christianized" in the fourth century by mixing the practices and symbolism of each to make it acceptable. The Encyclopedia Britannica verifies this. God had called it a detestable thing.
Innocent people participate in Mardi Gras and Lent because they believe it is part of their scriptural heritage and have never questioned or researched its source. Investigation shows that it is a religious occult practice rather than a scriptural one and that it gives honor to the sun god, Tammuz or Baal.
While Mardi Gras is a recognized holiday in Alabama and Louisiana, and it has the approval of various historic churches, it is of such a foundation and practice that committed Christians should have nothing to do with it.
The French soldiers at Fort Louis de la Louisiane, in Mobile, Alabama, held the first Mardi Gras on this soil in 1703. The Mardi Gras carnival was part of the French and Spanish culture. The French paraded a fat bull down the streets on Shrove Tuesday. The Spanish added the grotesque costuming. In 1830 Michael Kraft, formally from Bristol, Pennsylvania, took cotton brokers on New Year's eve and revelled through Mobile river boats, restaurants, confiscating cow bells, rakes and hoes from the Potridge Hardware Store and going to Mayor John Stocking's house. Here they paraded and serenaded him until they were invited in for breakfast. Thus cow bells became a part of Mardi Gras later. In 1861, due to the war, Mardi Gras was discontinued until 1866 when Joe Cain, a cotton broker and city clerk of Mobile, revived the activities.
Floats came from France and the throws date back to German, Spanish and Italian noblemen who threw coins to the peasants. Today some float participants are so inebriated that they must be tied onto the float for their own safety.
"Take heed ... that thou inquire not after their pagan gods saying: How did these nations serve their gods? Even so will I do likewise. Thou shall not do so unto the Lord thy God. What things soever I command you, observe to do it ..." Deuteronomy 12:30-32
"The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving head to seducing spirits and doctrines of the devil." 1 Timothy 4:1
The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days men would love themselves, be indulgent, greedy and self-seeking. When we participate in activities that encourage such behavior, we are yielding to that which is in opposition to Christ.
The book of Revelation warns that believers are to come out from among Babylonian practices and "Christianized" paganism. Babylon is a world system that will become more evident in religion, finances and politics. It is a Mystery Religion, mother of all harlotry, which prefers honoring someone or something other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.
When Mardi Gras activities are integrated into the social structure of a city, it is very difficult for one who is part of the socially elite to stand against the tide of public opinion in order to choose the way of the Cross instead. But it has been done, and is being done as more believers make a deeper committment than ever before.
"... Come out of her, the Babylon-world system, My people, that ye be not partakers of their sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Revelation 18:4